* * * * * +--------------------------------------------------------------+ | transcriber's note: | | | | please note that hyphenation is treated inconsistently | | in the original document. | | | | a number of obvious typographical errors have been corrected | | in this text. for a complete list, please see the bottom of | | this document. | | | | the reader should note that the spelling 'doomsday-book' | | on page duplicates the source image. | | | +--------------------------------------------------------------+ * * * * * liberalism and the social problem by the right honourable winston spencer churchill m.p. second edition hodder and stoughton london mcmix preface these are the principal speeches i have made within the last four years. they have been chosen and collected with the idea of presenting a consistent and simultaneous view of the general field of british politics in an hour of fateful decision. i have exercised full freedom in compression and in verbal correction necessary to make them easier to read. facts and figures have been, where necessary, revised, ephemeral matter eliminated, and epithets here and there reconsidered. but opinions and arguments are unaltered; they are hereby confirmed, and i press them earnestly and insistently upon the public. we approach what is not merely a party crisis but a national climacteric. never did a great people enter upon a period of trial and choice with more sincere and disinterested desire to know the truth and to do justice in their generation. i believe they will succeed. winston s. churchill. eccleston square. _october , ._ contents page preface vii introduction xiii i the record of the government the conciliation of south africa the transvaal constitution the orange free state constitution liberalism and socialism imperial preference--i. imperial preference--ii. the house of lords the dundee election ii social organisation the mines [eight hours] bill unemployment the social field the approaching conflict the anti-sweating bill labour exchanges and unemployment insurance iii the budget the budget resolutions the budget and national insurance land and income taxes in the budget the budget and the lords the spirit of the budget the budget and property the constitutional menace introduction the series of speeches included in this volume ranges, in point of time, from the earlier months of sir henry campbell-bannerman's government to the latest phase in the fortunes of mr. asquith's succeeding ministry, and forms an argumentative defence of the basis of policy common to both administrations. the addresses it contains deal with nearly all the great political topics of the last four years--with free trade, colonial preferences, the south african settlement, the latest and probably the final charter of trade unionism, the miners' bill, the measures for establishing trade boards and labour exchanges, the schemes of compulsory and voluntary assurance, and the budget. they possess the further characteristic of describing and commending these proposals as "interdependent" parts of a large and fruitful plan of liberal statesmanship. of this scheme the budget is at once the foundation and the most powerful and attractive feature. if it prospers, the social policy for which it provides prospers too. if it fails, the policy falls to the ground. the material of these speeches is therefore of great importance to the future of democracy in this country. let me say a word as to their authorship. to a friendly critic they appear to present not only rare and highly trained qualities of statement and persuasion, but a unity and sincerity of thought which give them a place above mere party dialectics. mr. churchill's distinguished service to liberalism has not been long in point of years, but it opened with the first speeches he ever delivered in the house of commons. no competent observers of political activities, and of the characters and temperaments which direct them, can have doubted from the first moment of mr. churchill's appearance on the stage where his moral and intellectual sympathies lay and whither they would lead him. it is a true and, indeed, an obvious comment on his career to say that he began where his father left off--as a democrat and a free trader, and that on these inherited instincts and tendencies he has built what both his friends and his enemies expected him to build. mr. churchill came to liberalism from the same fold as gladstone, and for the same reason--that it presented the one field of work open to a political talent of a high stamp, and to a wide and eager outlook on the future of our social order. liberalism and mr. churchill have both had good reason to congratulate themselves on that choice, and the party which failed to draw him into a disastrous and reactionary change of view has no reason to resent it. before he became a liberal mr. churchill had taken the broad views of the south african problem that his father's later opinions commended to him, and he was properly chosen to expound to the house of commons the plan of self-government that embodied them. if, therefore, the political groundwork of these speeches is sound liberal principle, their meaning and purpose, taken in connection with the budget, and the industrial reforms for which it provides, signify a notable advance into places where the thinkers, the pioneers, the men in the advanced trenches, are accustomed to dwell. let us acknowledge, with a sense of pleasure and relief, that this is new territory. new, that is to say, for this country; not new to the best organisations of industrial society that we know of. new as a clearly seen vision and a connected plan of british, statesmanship; not new as actual experiment in legislation, and as theory held by progressive thinkers of many schools, including some of the fathers of modern liberal doctrine, and most of our economists. what is there in these pages repugnant to writers of the type of john mill, jevons, and marshall? how much of them would even be repelled by cobden? in the main they preach a gospel--that of national "efficiency"--common to all reformers, and accepted by bismarck, the modern archetype of "empire-makers," as necessary to the consolidation of the great german nation. an average australian or canadian statesman would read them through with almost complete approval of every passage, save only their defence of free trade. nay more; the apology for property which they put forward--that it must be "associated in the minds of the mass of the people with ideas of justice and reason"--is that on which the friends of true conservatism build when they think of the evils of modern civilisation and the great and continuous efforts necessary to repair them. who does not conclude, with mr. churchill, that "a more scientific, a more elaborate, a more comprehensive social organisation" is indispensable to our country if it is to continue its march to greatness? back or forward we must go. mr. churchill, indeed, has thought it wise to raise the specific point at which, in the process of seeking a finer use and adaptation of the human material which forms society, the progressive and reforming statesman parts company with the dogmatic socialist. there is no need to labour a distinction which arises from the nature and the activities of the two forces. british liberalism is both a mental habit and a method of politics. through both these characteristics it is bound to criticise a state so long as in any degree it rests on the principles of "penguin island"--"respect for the rich and contempt for the poor," and to modify or repeal the rights of property where they clearly conflict with human rights. but its idealism and its practical responsibilities forbid it to accept the elimination of private enterprise and the assumption by the state of all the instruments of production and distribution. socialism has great power of emotional and even religious appeal, of which it would be wise for liberalism to take account, and it is, on the whole, a beneficent force in society. but as pure dogma it fits the spirit of man no more exactly than the shorter catechism. as mr. churchill well says, both the collectivist and the individualist principles have deep roots in human life, and the statesman can ignore neither. in the main, therefore, these speeches, with all their fresh brilliancy of colouring and treatment, hold up the good old banner of social progress, which we erect against reactionist and revolutionist alike. the "old liberal" will find the case for free trade, for peace, for representative government, stated as powerfully and convincingly as he could wish. their actual newness consists in the fact that not only do they open up to liberalism what it always wants--a wide domain of congenial thought and energy, but they offer it two propositions which it can reject only at its peril. the first is that there can and must be a deep, sharp abridgment of the sphere of industrial life which has been marked out as hopeless, or as an inevitable part of the social system. here the new liberalism parts with _laissez-faire_, and those who defend it. it assumes that the state must take in hand the problems of industrial insecurity and unemployment, and must solve them. the issue is vital. protection has already made its bid. it will assure the workman what is in his mind more than cheap food--namely, secure wages; it affects to give him all his life, or nearly all his life, a market for his labour so wide and so steady that the fear of forced idleness will almost be banished from it. the promise is false. protection by itself has in no country annulled or seriously qualified unemployment. but the need to which it appeals is absolutely real; for the modern state it is a problem of the sphinx, neither to be shirked nor wrongly answered. and the alternative remedy offered in these pages has already, as their author abundantly shows, succeeded even in the very partial forms in which it has been applied. the labour market can be steadied and equalised over a great industrial field. part of its surplus can be provided for. what mr. churchill calls "diseased industries" can be cut off from the main body, or restored to some measure of health. the state can set up a minimum standard of health and wage, below which it will not allow its citizens to sink; it can step in and dispense employment and restorative force under strictly specified conditions, to a small body of more or less "sick" workers; it can supply security for a far greater, less dependent, and more efficient mass of labourers, in recurring crises of accident, sickness, invalidity, and unemployment, and can do so with every hope of enlisting in its service voluntary forces and individual virtues of great value. this is not a problem of "relief," it is a method of humanity, and its aim is not merely to increase the mechanical force of the state, but to raise the average of character, of _morale_, in its citizens. nor do these speeches represent only a batch of platform promises. the great scheme of social betterment preached in these pages is already embodied in half a dozen acts of parliament, with corresponding organisations in the board of trade and elsewhere; and if the budget passes, the crown can be put upon them next year or the year after by measures of insurance against invalidity and unemployment. mr. churchill's second proposition is the correlative of the first. how shall this imposing fabric of industrial security be reared and made safe? the answer is, by modifying, without vitally changing, the basis of taxation. the workman cannot be asked to pay for everything, as under protection he must pay. in any case, he must pay for something. but if he is asked for too much, the sources of physical efficiency are drained, and the main purpose of the new liberalism--the ideal of an educated, hopeful, and vigorous people--is destroyed. now liberalism, in ceasing to rely on indirect taxation as its main source of revenue, has opened up for contribution not merely the superfluities of society, the "accumulations of profit," as mr. churchill calls them, but those special forms of wealth which are "social" in origin, which depend on some monopoly of material agents, on means not of helping the community but of hindering it, not of enriching its powers and resources, but of depleting them for private advantage. in other words, the state in future will increasingly ask the taxpayer not only "what have you got?" but "how did you get it?" no one contends that such an analysis can be perfect; but, on the other hand, can a community desirous of realising what goethe calls "practical christianity," ignore it? and if in this process it enters the sphere of morals, as ruskin long ago urged it to do, as well as the path of economic justice, is the step a wrong one? has it not already been taken not only in this budget, but in its predecessor, in which the prime minister made the memorable distinction between earned and unearned income? those who answer these questions in the liberal sense will find in these speeches a body of vigorous and persuasive reasoning on their side. it is therefore the main purpose of these speeches to show that liberalism has a message of the utmost consequence to our times. they link it afresh with the movement of life, which when it overtakes parties condemns and destroys them. they give it an immediate mission and an outlook on the wider moral domain, which belongs to no single generation. this double character is vital to a party which must not desert the larger ways in which the spirit of man walks, while it quits at its peril the work of practical, everyday service to existing society. a word as to the literary quality of these addresses, widely varied as they are in subject. the summit of a man's powers--his full capacity of reason, comparison, expression--are not usually reached at so early a point in his career as that which mr. churchill has attained. but in directness and clearness of thought, in the power to build up a political theory, and present it as an impressive and convincing argument, in the force of rhetoric and the power of sympathy, readers of these addresses will find few examples of modern english speech-making to compare with them. they revive the almost forgotten art of oratory, and they connect it with ideas born of our age, and springing from its conscience and its practical needs, and, above all, essential to its happiness. h.w. massingham. i the record of the government page the conciliation of south africa (april , ) the transvaal constitution (july , ) the orange free state constitution (december , ) liberalism and socialism (october , ) imperial preference--i. (may , ) imperial preference--ii. (july , ) the house of lords (june , ) the dundee election (may , ) the conciliation of south africa house of commons, _april , _ we have travelled a long way since this parliament assembled, in the discussion of the transvaal and orange river colony constitutions. when the change of government took place mr. lyttelton's constitution was before us. that instrument provided for representative and not responsible government. under that constitution the election would have been held in march of this year, and the assembly would have met in june, if the home government had not changed. but just at the time that the government changed in december two questions arose--the question of whether or not soldiers of the british army in garrison should be allowed to vote; and the question whether it would not be better to have sixty constituencies instead of thirty; and, as both questions involved necessary alterations in the letters patent, the time was ripe, quite apart from any difference which the change of the men at the helm might make, for a reconsideration and review of the whole form of the government which was to be given to the two colonies. the objection that must most readily occur in considering mr. lyttelton's constitution is that it was unworkable. it proposed that there should be from six to nine nominated ministers in an assembly of thirty-five, afterwards to be increased to sixty elective members. the position of a minister is one of considerable difficulty. he often has to defend rather an awkward case. when favourable facts are wanting he has to depend upon the nimbleness of his wits, and, when these fail him, he has to fall back upon the loyalty of his supporters. but no minister can move very far upon his road with satisfaction or success if he has not behind him either a nominated majority or an organised party majority. mr. lyttelton's ministers had neither. they would have been alone, hopelessly outnumbered in an assembly, the greater part of which was avowedly in favour of responsible and not of representative government. these ministers, with one exception, had no previous parliamentary experience and no ascertained parliamentary ability. they would have been forced to carry their bills and their estimates through an assembly in the main opposed to them. all this time, while we should have given to these ministers this serious duty, we should ourselves have had to bear the whole responsibility in this country for everything that was done under their authority; and their authority could only be exerted through an assembly which, as things stood, they could not control. the committee can easily imagine the telegrams and the questions which would have been addressed from downing street and the house of commons to these ministers on native matters, on the question of the administration of the chinese ordinance, on all the numerous intricate questions with which we are at the present moment involved in south africa. and what would have been the position of these ministers, faced with these embarrassments in a hostile assembly in which they had few friends--what possibility would they have had of maintaining themselves in such an assembly? is it not certain that they would have broken down under the strain to which they would have been exposed, that the assembly would have been infuriated, that parties differing from each other on every conceivable question, divided from each other by race and religion and language, would have united in common hatred of the interference of the outside power and the government of bureaucrats. then we should very speedily have got to the bottom of the hill. there would have been a swift transition. the legislative assembly would have converted itself into a constituent assembly, and it would have taken by force all that the government now have it in their power to concede with grace, distinction, and authority. on these grounds his majesty's government came to the conclusion that it would be right to omit the stage of representative government altogether and to go directly to the stage of responsible government. it is the same in politics as it is in war. when one crest line has been left, it is necessary to go to the next. to halt half-way in the valley between is to court swift and certain destruction, and the moment you have abandoned the safe position of a crown colony government, or government with an adequate nominated majority, there is no stopping-place whatever on which you may rest the sole of your foot, until you come to a responsible legislative assembly with an executive obeying that assembly. these arguments convinced his majesty's government that it would be necessary to annul the letters patent issued on march , , and make an end of the lyttelton constitution. that constitution now passes away into the never-never land, into a sort of chilly limbo that is reserved for the disowned or abortive political progeny of many distinguished men. the government, and those who support them, may rejoice that we have been able to take this first most important step in our south african policy with such a very general measure of agreement, with, indeed, a consensus of opinion which almost amounts to unanimity. both races, every party, every class, every section in south africa have agreed in the course which his majesty's government have adopted in abandoning representative government and going at once to responsible government. that is already a very great thing, but it was not always so. those who sat in the last parliament will remember that it was not always so. we remember that lord milner was entirely opposed to granting responsible government. we know that mr. lyttelton wrote pages and pages in the blue book of last year proving how futile and dangerous responsible government would be; and the right hon. member for west birmingham, who took the government decision as a matter of course on the first day of the present session, made a speech last session in which he indicated in terms of great gravity and force, that he thought it was wholly premature to grant responsible government to the transvaal. but all that is abandoned now. i heard the right hon. member for west birmingham, in the name of the party opposite, accept the policy of his majesty's government. i heard the hon. member for blackpool this afternoon say that he hoped that responsible government would be given to the transvaal at the earliest possible moment. in regard to the orange river colony, it is quite true that the official opposition, so far as i gather their view, think that it should be delayed, and should not be given at the same time as to the transvaal; but that is not the view of the right hon. member for west birmingham. speaking in the house of commons on july , , the right hon. gentleman said: "objection has also been taken that the same government which is now being given to the transvaal has not been given to the orange river colony. i think that the experiment might have been far better tried in the orange river colony. it is quite true that in that colony there is an enormous majority of the dutch or boer population. but they have shown by long experience that they are most capable and moderate administrators--under the admirable rule of president brand they set an example to the whole of south africa; and although i think there is some danger in this experiment, it is in the orange river colony that i myself would have been inclined, in the first instance, to take the risk." it is true the right hon. gentleman was speaking of representative government; but it cannot be disputed that if an advance were to be made in associating the people of the conquered colonies with the government of those colonies, the right hon. gentleman thought that it had better be in the orange river colony first. but at any rate now it is incontestable that there is no party in this country or in the transvaal that opposes the grant of responsible government to the transvaal. that is a great advance, and shows that we have been able to take our first step with the approbation of all concerned. but the opposition, having abandoned their resistance to the grant of responsible government, now contend that on no account must the basis of the lyttelton constitution be departed from. i am not convinced by that argument. the government are to pursue a new purpose, but to adhere to the old framework. we are to cut off the head of the lyttelton constitution, but are to preserve the old trunk and graft a new head on it. i do not believe that any government, approaching this question from a new point of view, uncompromised and unfettered, would be bound by the framework and details of the lyttelton constitution. it may be that that constitution contains many excellent principles, but the government have a right to consider things from the beginning, freshly and freely, to make their own plans in accordance with their own ideas, and to present those plans for the acceptance of the house. the noble lord the member for south birmingham spoke of the principle of "one vote, one value," which was embodied in the lyttelton constitution. the principle of "one vote, one value" is in itself an orthodox and unimpeachable principle of democracy. it is a logical, numerical principle. if the attempt be made to discriminate between man and man because one has more children and lives in the country, it would be arguable that we should discriminate because another man has more brains or more money, or lives in the town, or for any other of the many reasons that differentiate one human being from another. the only safe principle, i think, is that for electoral purposes all men are equal, and that voting power, as far as possible, should be evenly distributed among them. in the transvaal the principle of "one vote, one value" can be made operative only upon a basis of voters. in nearly every other country in the world, population is the usual basis of distribution, for population is the same as electorate and electorate the same as population. on both bases the distribution of the constituencies would be the same. there is, for instance, no part of this country which is more married, or more celibate, or more prolific than any other part. it is only in the transvaal, this country of afflicting dualities and of curious contradictions, where everything is twisted, disturbed, and abnormal, that there is a great disparity between the distribution of seats on the basis of voters and on the basis of population. the high price of provisions in the towns restricts the growth of urban population, and the dullness of the country districts appears to be favourable to the growth of large families. it is a scientific and unimpeachable fact that, if you desire to apply the principle of "one vote, one value" to the constitution of the transvaal, that principle can best be attained--i am not sure that it cannot only be attained--on the basis of voters, and that is the basis mr. lyttelton took in the constitution he formed. but mr. lyttelton's plan did not stop there. side by side with this basis of voters, he had an artificial franchise of £ annual value. that is a very much lower qualification in south africa, than it would be in this country, and i do not think that the franchise which mr. lyttelton proposed could be called an undemocratic franchise, albeit that it was an artificial franchise, because it yielded , voters out of a population of , , and that is a much more fertile franchise, even after making allowance for the abnormal conditions of a new country, than we have in this country or than is the case in some american and european states. so that i do not accuse mr. lyttelton of having formulated an undemocratic franchise, but taking these two points together--the unusual basis of distribution with the apparently artificial franchise--acting and reacting, as they must have done, one upon the other--there was sufficient ground to favour the suspicion, at any rate, that something was intended in the nature of a dodge, in the nature of a trick, artificially to depress the balance in one direction and to tilt it in the other. in dealing with nationalities, nothing is more fatal than a dodge. wrongs will be forgiven, sufferings and losses will be forgiven or forgotten, battles will be remembered only as they recall the martial virtues of the combatants; but anything like chicane, anything like a trick, will always rankle. the government are concerned in south africa not only to do what is fair, but to do what south africa will accept as fair. they are concerned not merely to choose a balance which will deal evenly between the races, but one which will secure the acceptance of both races. * * * * * we meet unjust charges in good heart. the permanence and security of british sovereignty in south africa is not a matter of indifference to his majesty's ministers. surely no honourable member believes that we could wish to cheat the british race in the transvaal of any numerical preponderance which may properly belong to them. equally with our political opponents we desire to see the maintenance of british supremacy in south africa. but we seek to secure it by a different method. there is a profound difference between the schools of thought which exist upon south african politics in this house. we think that british authority in south africa has got to stand on two legs. you have laboured for ten years to make it stand on one. we on this side know that if british dominion is to endure in south africa it must endure with the assent of the dutch, as well as of the british. we think that the position of the crown in south africa, and let me add the position of agents and ministers of the crown in south africa, should be just as much above and remote from racial feuds, as the position of the crown in this country is above our party politics. we do not seek to pit one race against the other in the hope of profiting from the quarrel. we hope to build upon the reconciliation and not upon the rivalry of races. we hope that it may be our fortune so to dispose of affairs that these two valiant, strong races may dwell together side by side in peace and amity under the shelter of an equal flag. the transvaal constitution house of commons, _july , _ it is my duty this afternoon, on behalf of the government, to lay before the committee the outline and character of the constitutional settlement which we have in contemplation in regard to the lately annexed colonies in south africa. this is, i suppose, upon the whole, the most considerable business with which this new parliament has had to deal. but although no one will deny its importance, or undervalue the keen emotions and anxieties which it excites on both sides of the house, and the solemn memories which it revives, yet i am persuaded that there is no reason why we should be hotly, sharply, or bitterly divided on the subject; on the contrary, i think its very importance makes it incumbent on all who participate in the discussion--and i will certainly be bound by my own precept--to cultivate and observe a studious avoidance of anything likely to excite the ordinary recriminations and rejoinders of party politics and partisanship. after all, there is no real difference of principle between the two great historic parties on this question. the late government have repeatedly declared that it was their intention at the earliest possible moment--laying great stress upon that phrase--to extend representative and responsible institutions to the new colonies; and before his majesty's present advisers took office the only question in dispute was, when? on the debate on the address, the right hon. member for west birmingham--whose absence to-day and its cause i am quite sure are equally regretted in all parts of the house--spoke on this question with his customary breadth of view and courage of thought. he said: "the responsibility for this decision lies with the government now in power. they have more knowledge than we have; and if they consider it safe to give this large grant, and if they turn out to be right, no one will be better pleased than we. i do not think that, although important, this change should be described as a change in colonial policy, but as continuity of colonial policy." if, then, we are agreed upon the principle, i do not think that serious or vital differences can arise upon the method. because, after all, no one can contend that it is right to extend responsible government, but not right to extend it fairly. no one can contend that it is right to grant the forms of free institutions, and yet to preserve by some device the means of control. and so i should hope that we may proceed in this debate without any acute divergences becoming revealed. i am in a position to-day only to announce the decision to which the government have come with respect to the transvaal. the case of the transvaal is urgent. it is the nerve-centre of south africa. it is the arena in which all questions of south african politics--social, moral, racial, and economic--are fought out; and this new country, so lately reclaimed from the wilderness, with a white population of less than , souls, already reproduces in perfect miniature all those dark, tangled, and conflicting problems usually to be found in populous and old-established european states. the case of the transvaal differs fundamentally from the case of the orange river colony. the latter has been in the past, and will be again in the future, a tranquil agricultural state, pursuing under a wise and tolerant government a happy destiny of its own. all i have to say about the orange river colony this afternoon is this--that there will be no unnecessary delay in the granting of a constitution; and that in the granting of that constitution we shall be animated only by a desire to secure a fair representation of all classes of inhabitants in the country, and to give effective expression to the will of the majority. when we came into office, we found a constitution already prepared for the transvaal by the right hon. member for st. george's, hanover square.[ ] that constitution is no more. i hope the right hon. gentleman will not suspect me of any malevolence towards his offspring. i would have nourished and fostered it with a tender care; but life was already extinct. it had ceased to breathe even before it was born; but i trust the right hon. gentleman will console himself by remembering that there are many possibilities of constitutional settlements lying before him in the future. after all, the abbé sieyès, when the constitution of was broken into pieces, was very little younger than the right hon. gentleman, and he had time to make and survive two new constitutions. frankly, what i may, for brevity's sake, call the lyttelton constitution was utterly unworkable. it surrendered the machinery of power; it preserved the whole burden of responsibility and administration. nine official gentlemen, nearly all without parliamentary experience, and i daresay without parliamentary aptitudes, without the support of that nominated majority which i am quite convinced that the right hon. member for west birmingham had always contemplated in any scheme of representative government, and without the support of an organised party, were to be placed in a chamber of thirty-five elected members who possessed the power of the purse. the boers would either have abstained altogether from participating in that constitution, or they would have gone in only for the purpose of wrecking it. the british party was split into two sections, and one section, the responsibles, made public declarations of their intention to bring about a constitutional deadlock by obstruction and refusing supplies, and all the other apparatus of parliamentary discontent. in fact, the constitution of the right hon. gentleman seemed bound inevitably to conjure up that nightmare of all modern politicians, government resting on consent, and consent not forthcoming. as i told the house in may, his majesty's government thought it their duty to review the whole question. we thought it our duty and our right to start fair, free, and untrammelled, and we have treated the lyttelton constitution as if it had never been. one guiding principle has animated his majesty's government in their policy--to make no difference in this grant of responsible government between boer and briton in south africa. we propose to extend to both races the fullest privileges and rights of british citizenship; and we intend to make no discrimination in the grant of that great boon, between the men who have fought most loyally for us and those who have resisted the british arms with the most desperate courage. by the treaty of vereeniging, in which the peace between the dutch and british races was declared for ever, by article of that treaty the flower of the boer nation and its most renowned leaders recognised the lawful authority of his majesty king edward vii, and henceforth, from that moment, british supremacy in south africa stood on the sure foundations of military honour and warlike achievement. this decision in favour of even-handed dealing arises from no ingratitude on our part towards those who have nobly sustained the british cause in years gone by. it involves no injustice to the british population of the transvaal. we have been careful at each point of this constitutional settlement to secure for the british every advantage that they may justly claim. but the future of south africa, and, i will add, its permanent inclusion in the british empire, demand that the king should be equally sovereign of both races, and that both races should learn to look upon this country as their friend. * * * * * when i last spoke in this house on the question of the south african constitution, i took occasion to affirm the excellence of the general principle, one vote one value. i pointed out that it was a logical and unimpeachable principle to act upon; that the only safe rule for doing justice electorally between man and man was to assume--a large assumption in some cases--that all men are equal and that all discriminations between them are unhealthy and undemocratic. now the principle of one vote one value can be applied and realised in this country, either upon the basis of population, or upon the basis of voters. it makes no difference which is selected; for there is no part of this country which is more married, or more prolific than another, and exactly the same distribution and exactly the same number of members would result whether the voters or the population basis were taken in a redistribution bill. but in south africa the disparity of conditions between the new population and the old makes a very great difference between the urban and the rural populations, and it is undoubtedly true that if it be desired to preserve the principle of one vote one value, it is the voters' basis and not the population basis that must be taken in the transvaal--and that is the basis which his majesty's government have determined to adopt. the right hon. gentleman the member for st. george's, hanover square, had proposed to establish a franchise qualification of £ annual value. that is not nearly such a high property-qualification as it would be in this country. i do not quarrel with the right hon. gentleman's constitution on the ground that his franchise was not perfectly fair, or not a perfectly _bonâ fide_ and generous measure of representation. but it is undoubtedly true that a property-qualification of £ annual value told more severely against the boers than against the british, because living in the towns is so expensive that almost everybody who lives in the towns, and who is not utterly destitute, has a property-qualification of £ annual value. but in the country districts there are numbers of men, very poor but perfectly respectable and worthy citizens--day labourers, farmers' sons, and others--who would not have that qualification, and who consequently would have been excluded by the property-qualification, low as it is having regard to the conditions in south africa. quite apart from south african questions and affairs, his majesty's government profess a strong preference for the principle of manhood suffrage as against any property-qualification, and we have therefore determined that manhood suffrage shall be the basis on which votes are distributed. it is true that in the prolonged negotiations and discussions which have taken place upon this question manhood suffrage has been demanded by one party and the voters' basis by the other, and there has been a tacit, though quite informal agreement that the one principle should balance the other. but that is not the position of his majesty's government in regard to either of these propositions. we defend both on their merits. we defend "one vote, one value," and we defend manhood suffrage, strictly on their merits as just and equitable principles between man and man throughout the transvaal. we have therefore decided that all adult males of twenty-one years of age, who have resided in the transvaal for six months, who do not belong to the british garrison--should be permitted to vote under the secrecy of the ballot for the election of members of parliament. now there is one subject to which i must refer incidentally. the question of female suffrage has been brought to the notice of various members of the government on various occasions and in various ways. we have very carefully considered that matter, and we have come to the conclusion that it would not be right for us to subject a young colony, unable to speak for itself, to the hazards of an experiment which we have not had the gallantry to undergo ourselves; and we shall leave that question to the new legislature to determine. i come now to the question of electoral divisions. there are two alternatives before us on this branch of the subject--equal electoral areas or the old magisterial districts. when i say "old," i mean old in the sense that they are existing magisterial districts. there are arguments for both of these courses. equal electoral areas have the advantage of being symmetrical and are capable of more strict and mathematical distribution. but the boers have expressed a very strong desire to have the old magisterial districts preserved. i think it is rather a sentimental view on their part, because upon the whole i think the wastage of boer votes will, owing to excessive plurality in certain divisions, be slightly greater in the old magisterial districts than in equal electoral areas. the boers have, however, been very anxious that the old areas of their former constitution, of their local life, should be interfered with as little as possible, and that is a matter of serious concern to his majesty's government. further, there is a great saving of precious time and expense in avoiding the extra work of new delimitation which would be necessary if the country were to be cut up into equal mathematical electoral areas. the decision to adopt the old magisterial areas, which divide the transvaal into sixteen electoral divisions, of which the witwatersrand is only one, involves another question. how are you to subdivide these magisterial districts for the purpose of allocating members? some will have two, some three, some a number of members; and on what system will you allocate the members to these divisions? we have considered the question of proportional representation. it is the only perfect way in which minorities of every shade and view and interest can receive effective representation. and lord elgin was careful to instruct the committee as a special point to inquire into the possibility of adopting the system of proportional representation. the committee examined many witnesses, and went most thoroughly into this question. they, however, advise us that there is absolutely no support for such a proposal in the transvaal, and that its adoption--i will not say its imposition--would be unpopular and incomprehensible throughout the country. if a scientific or proportional representation cannot be adopted, then i say unhesitatingly that the next best way of protecting minorities is to go straight for single-member seats. some of us have experience of double-barrelled seats in this country; there used to be several three-barrelled seats. but i am convinced that if either of those two systems had been applied to the electoral divisions of the transvaal, it would only have led to the swamping of one or two local minorities which with single-member divisions would have returned just that very class of moderate, independent, dutch or british members whom we particularly desire to see represented in the new assembly. therefore, with the desire of not extinguishing these local minorities, his majesty's government have decided that single-member constituencies, or man against man, shall be the rule in the transvaal. but i should add that the subdivision of these electoral districts into their respective constituencies will not proceed upon hard mathematical lines, but that they will be grouped together in accordance with the existing field cornetcies of which they are composed, as that will involve as little change as possible in the ideas of the rural population and in the existing boundaries. the committee will realise that this is a question with an elusive climax. it is like going up a mountain. each successive peak appears in turn the summit, and yet there is always another pinnacle beyond. we have now settled that the members are to be allotted to single-member constituencies based on the old magisterial districts according to the adult male residents there. but how are we to apply that principle? how are we to find out how many adult males there are in each of the districts of the country, and so to find the quota of electors or proper number of members for each division? the proverbial three alternatives present themselves. we might take the lyttelton voters' list revised and supplemented. we might make a new voters' list, or we might take the census of . * * * * * lord selborne has pointed out to us that it might take just as long a time to revise the lyttelton voters' list as to make a new voters' list, which would occupy seven months. so that, with the necessary interval for the arrangements for election, ten months would elapse before the transvaal would be able to possess responsible institutions. i think we shall have the assent of all south african parties in our desire to avoid that delay. i am sorry that so much delay has already taken place. it was necessary that the cabinet should secure complete information. but to keep a country seething on the verge of an exciting general election is very prejudicial to trade. it increases agitation and impedes the healthy process of development. we are bound to terminate the uncertainty at the earliest possible moment; and we have therefore determined to adopt the census of . let me ask the committee now to examine the sixteen magisterial districts. i think it is necessary to do so before allocating the members amongst them. in all the discussions in south africa these have been divided into three areas--the witwatersrand, pretoria, and the "rest of the transvaal." pretoria is the metropolis of the transvaal. it has a very independent public opinion of its own; it is strongly british, and it is rapidly increasing. it is believed that pretoria will return three, four, or five members of the responsible party, which is the moderate british party, and is independent of and detached from the progressive association. the "rest of the transvaal" consists of the old constituencies who sent boer members to the old legislature. there will, however, be one or two seats which may be won by progressive or responsible british candidates, but in general "the rest of the country" will return a compact body of members of het volk. having said that, i now come to the rand. we must consider the rand without any bias or prejudice whatever. the rand is not a town or city, but a mining district covering , square miles, whose population of adult males practically balances the whole of the rest of the country. the rand population is not, as some people imagine, a foreign population. the great majority of it is british, and a very large portion of it consists of as good, honest, hard-working men as are to be found in any constituency in this country. but there are also on the rand a considerable proportion of dutch. krugersdorp rural is dutch, and has always been excluded from the rand in the discussions that have taken place in south africa, and included in the "rest of the transvaal." but in addition to that there are the towns of fordsburgh, which is half dutch, and two other suburbs which also have a dutch population; and it is believed that these will afford seats for members of the responsible british party with the support of het volk. i must say further that the british community upon the rand is divided into four main political parties. there is the transvaal progressive association, a great and powerful association which arises out of the mining interest. there is the responsible government association; there is the transvaal political association--a moderate body standing between the responsibles and the progressives--and there are the labour associations, which are numerous. there are three main labour associations, or really four--the independent labour party, the transvaal labour league, the trade and labour council of the witwatersrand, and the trade and labour council of pretoria. why do i bring these facts before the committee? i do so because i feel it necessary to show how impossible it is to try to dismiss the problems of this complicated community with a gesture or to solve their difficulties with a phrase, and how unfair it would be to deprive such a community, in which there are at work all the counter-checks and rival forces that we see here in our own political life, of its proper share of representation. applying the adult male list in the census of to the three areas i have spoken of, i should allot thirty-two members to the rand, six to pretoria, and thirty to the rest of the country; or, if you include krugersdorp rural in the rand, it would read thirty-three to the rand, six to pretoria, and twenty-nine to the rest of the country. arrived at that point, the committee in south africa had good hopes, not merely of arriving at a just settlement, but of arriving at an agreement between all the parties. i am not going to afflict the house with a chronicle of the negotiations which took place. they were fruitless. it is enough to say that there were good hopes that if the progressive complaint, that the adoption of the census of did not allow for the increase in the population which has taken place since the census was taken, could be met, a general agreement could be reached. the boers, whose belief that we were going to treat them fairly and justly has been a pleasant feature in the whole of these negotiations, and will, believe me, be an inestimable factor of value in the future history of south africa--the boers with reluctance and under pressure, but guided by the committee, with whom they were on friendly terms, were willing to agree to a distribution which allotted one more seat to meet this increase of the population in the witwatersrand area, and the proposal then became , , and , or, including krugersdorp rural, , , . the responsible party agreed to that. the progressives hesitated. the great majority of them certainly wished to come in and come to a general agreement on those terms. certain leaders, however, stood out for one or two or three seats more, and, although lord selborne expressed the opinion that the arrangement proposed, namely, , , , excluding krugersdorp rural, was a perfectly fair one to the british vote in the transvaal, those leaders still remained unconvinced and obdurate, and all hopes of a definite agreement fell through. the committee returned to this country, bringing with them the recommendation that the government on their own responsibility should fix the allocation of seats at that very point where the agreement of one party was still preserved and where the agreement of the other was so very nearly won. and that is what we have decided to do. we have decided to allocate thirty-four seats, including krugersdorp rural, to the rand, six to pretoria, and twenty-nine to the rest of the country. lord selborne wishes it to be known that he concurs in this arrangement. now i am quite ready to admit that every constitution ought to rest either upon symmetry or upon acceptance. our transvaal constitution does not rest upon either symmetry or acceptance, but it is very near symmetry and very near acceptance, and in so far as it has departed from symmetry it has moved towards acceptance, and is furthermore sustained throughout by fair dealing, for i am honestly convinced that the addition of an extra member to the witwatersrand areas which has been made is justified by the increase of the population which has taken place since the census. on such a basis as this the transvaal assembly will be created. it will consist of sixty-nine members, who will receive for their services adequate payment. they will be elected for five years. the speaker will vacate his seat after being elected. the reason for that provision is that the majority in this parliament, as in the cape parliament, with which the government is carried on, is likely to be very small, and it would be a great hardship if the party in power were to deprive itself of one of the two or three votes which, when parties are evenly balanced, are necessary for carrying on the government. it would be a great disaster if we had in the transvaal a succession of weak ministries going out upon a single vote, one way or the other. and it is found that when parties have a very small majority and are forced to part with one of their members for the purpose of filling the chair, they do not always select the member who is best suited to that high office, but the member who can best be spared. now let me come to the question of language. under the constitution of the right hon. gentleman the member for st. george's, hanover square, the members of the assembly would have been permitted to speak dutch if they asked permission and obtained permission from the speaker. we are not able to lend ourselves to that condition. we are of opinion that such a discrimination would be invidious. the recognition of their language is precious to a small people. i have never been able to work myself into a passion because there are in parts of south africa dutch people who wish to have dutch teachers to teach dutch children dutch. i have not so poor an opinion of the english language, with its priceless literary treasures and its world-wide business connections, as not to believe that it can safely be exposed to the open competition of a dialect like the _taal_. we believe that the only sure way to preserve in the years that are to come such a language as the _taal_ would be to make it a proscribed language, which would be spoken by the people with deliberation and with malice, as a protest against what they regarded, and would rightly regard, as an act of intolerance. therefore we have decided to follow the cape practice and allow the members of the transvaal parliament to address that assembly indifferently in dutch or english. i shall be asked what will be the result of the arrangement that we have made. i decline to speculate or prophesy on that point. it would be indecent and improper. i cannot even tell in this country at the next election how large the liberal majority will be. still less would i recommend hon. gentlemen here to forecast the results of contests in which they will not be candidates. i cannot tell how the british in the transvaal will vote. there are a great many new questions, social and economic, which are beginning to apply a salutary counter-irritant to old racial sores. the division between the two races, thank god, is not quite so clear-cut as it used to be. but this i know--that as there are undoubtedly more british voters in the transvaal than there are dutch, and as these british voters have not at any point in the constitutional settlement been treated unfairly, it will be easily within their power to obtain a british majority, if they all combine to obtain it. i nourish the hope that the government that will be called into life by these elections will be a coalition government with some moderate leader acceptable to both parties, and a government which embraces in its party members of both races. such a solution would be a godsend to south africa. but whatever may be the outcome, his majesty's government are confident that the ministers who may be summoned, from whatever party they may be drawn, to whatever race they may belong, will in no circumstances fail in their duty to the crown. i should like to say also that this parliament will be of a high representative authority, and it will be the duty of whoever may be called upon to represent colonial business in this house to stand between that parliament and all unjustifiable interference from whatever quarters of the house it may come. i now approach the question of the second chamber. that is not a very attractive subject. we on this side of the house are not particularly enamoured of second chambers, and i do not know that our love for these institutions will grow sweeter as the years pass by. but we have to be governed by colonial practice; and there is no colony in the empire that has not a second chamber. the greater number of these second chambers are nominated; and i think that the quality of nominated second chambers, and their use in practice, have not been found to be inferior to those of the elective bodies. his majesty's government desire to secure, if they can, some special protection for native interests which is not likely to be afforded by any electoral arrangement, i am sorry to say. we are unable however to countenance the creation in a permanent form of a nominated second chamber. but in view of the position of native affairs, in view of the disadvantage of complicating the elections, to which all classes in the transvaal have been so long looking forward, and most particularly because of the extra delays that would be involved in the creation of a new elective body, the cabinet have resolved for this parliament only, and as a purely provisional arrangement, to institute a nominated legislative council of fifteen members. they will be nominated by the crown, that is to say at home, and vacancies, if any, by death or resignation, will be filled by the high commissioner, on the advice of the responsible ministers. during the course of the first parliament in the transvaal arrangements will be completed for the establishment of an elective second chamber, and if necessary further letters patent will be issued to constitute it. under the treaty of vereeniging we undertook that no franchise should be extended to natives before the grant of self-government. i am not going to plunge into the argument as to what word the "native" means, in its legal or technical character, because in regard to such a treaty, upon which we are relying for such grave issues, we must be bound very largely by the interpretation which the other party places upon it; and it is undoubted that the boers would regard it as a breach of that treaty, if the franchise were in the first instance extended to any persons who are not white men. we may regret that decision. we may regret that there is no willingness in the transvaal and orange river colony to make arrangements which have been found not altogether harmful in cape colony. but we are bound by this treaty. meanwhile we make certain reservations. any legislation which imposes disabilities on natives which are not imposed on europeans will be reserved to the secretary of state, and the governor will not give his assent before receiving the secretary of state's decision. legislation that will effect the alienation of native lands will also be reserved. it is customary to make some provision in money for native interests, such as education, by reserving a certain sum for administration by the high commissioner or some other political or imperial official. we propose to reserve swaziland to the direct administration of the high commissioner, with the limiting provision that no settlement he may make is to be less advantageous to the natives than the existing arrangement. on november , , the arrangement for recruiting chinese in china will cease and determine. our consuls will withdraw the powers they have delegated to the mining agents, and i earnestly trust that no british government will ever renew them. a clause in the constitution will provide for the abrogation of the existing chinese labour ordinance after a reasonable interval. i am not yet in a position to say what will be a reasonable interval, but time must be given to the new assembly to take stock of the position and to consider the labour question as a whole. i said just now there would be a clause with regard to differential legislation as between white persons and others, and to this clause will be added the words: "no law will be assented to which sanctions any condition of service or residence of a servile character." we have been invited to use the word "slavery" or the words "semblance of slavery," but such expressions would be needlessly wounding, and the words we have chosen are much more effective, because much more precise and much more restrained, and they point an accurate forefinger at the very evil we desire to prevent. i have now finished laying before the house the constitutional settlement, and i should like to say that our proposals are interdependent. they must be considered as a whole; they must be accepted or rejected as a whole. i say this in no spirit of disrespect to the committee, because evidently it is a matter which the executive government should decide on its own responsibility; and if the policy which we declare were changed, new men would have to be found to carry out another plan. we are prepared to make this settlement in the name of the liberal party. that is sufficient authority for us; but there is a higher authority which we should earnestly desire to obtain. i make no appeal, but i address myself particularly to the right hon. gentlemen who sit opposite, who are long versed in public affairs, and who will not be able all their lives to escape from a heavy south african responsibility. they are the accepted guides of a party which, though in a minority in this house, nevertheless embodies nearly half the nation. i will ask them seriously whether they will not pause before they commit themselves to violent or rash denunciations of this great arrangement. i will ask them, further, whether they cannot join with us to invest the grant of a free constitution to the transvaal with something of a national sanction. with all our majority we can only make it the gift of a party; they can make it the gift of england. and if that were so, i am quite sure that all those inestimable blessings which we confidently hope will flow from this decision, will be gained more surely and much more speedily; and the first real step will have been taken to withdraw south african affairs from the arena of british party politics, in which they have inflicted injury on both political parties and in which they have suffered grievous injury themselves. i ask that that may be considered; but in any case we are prepared to go forward alone, and letters patent will be issued in strict conformity with the settlement i have explained this afternoon if we should continue to enjoy the support of a parliamentary majority. footnotes: [ ] mr. lyttelton had meanwhile been elected for that constituency. the orange free state constitution house of commons, _december , _ letters patent have been issued during the last week conferring a constitution upon the transvaal colony. these instruments have now been for some days at the disposal of the house, and this afternoon affords an occasion for their discussion. other letters patent conferring a constitution upon the orange river colony are in an advanced state of preparation, and i think it would be generally convenient if i were to make a statement as to the character and scope of that constitution. with that view i have, by the direction of the prime minister, placed upon the paper a resolution which i now move, permitting a general discussion upon the constitutional arrangements which we are making both in the transvaal and in the orange river colony. now, sir, by the treaty of vereeniging, great britain promised full self-government to the peoples of the two boer republics which had been conquered and annexed as the result of the war. this intention of giving responsible government did not arise out of the terms of peace, although it is, of course, solemnly expressed in them. it has always been the settled and successful colonial policy of this country during the last fifty years to allow great liberties of self-government to distant communities under the crown, and no responsible statesman, and no british cabinet, so far as i know, ever contemplated any other solution of the south african problem but that of full self-government. the idea which i have seen put forward in some quarters, that, in order to get full satisfaction for the expense and the exertions to which we were put in the war, we are bound to continue governing those peoples according to our pleasure and against their will, and that that is, as it were, an agreeable exercise which is to be some compensation for our labours, is an idea which no doubt finds expression in the columns of certain newspapers, but to which i do not think any serious person ever gave any countenance. no, sir, the ultimate object, namely, the bestowal of full self-government, was not lost sight of even in the height of the war; and as all parties were agreed that some interval for reconstruction must necessarily intervene, the only questions at issue between us have been questions of manner and questions of time. how much difference is there between parties in this house as to time? it is now more than three years since lord milner, speaking in the inter-colonial council, bore emphatic testimony to the faithfulness with which the boers--those who had been fighting against us--had observed their side of the terms of peace. lord milner said: "it is perfectly true that the boer population, the men who signed the terms of peace at vereeniging, have loyally observed those terms and have carried them out faithfully. they profess to-day, and i absolutely believe them, that no idea of an armed rising or unlawful action is in their minds. i may say i am in constant, perhaps i should say frequent communication with the men who in the war fought us so manfully and then made manful terms. we differ on many points, no doubt, and i do not expect them to rejoice with us in what has happened, or to feel affection for a man who, like myself, has been instrumental in bringing about the great change which has come over the constitution of the country. but i firmly believe their word when they come forward and meet us, and, without professing to agree in all respects with the policy of the government, declare that they desire to co-operate in all questions affecting the prosperity of the country and the maintenance of public order. i accept the assurance they give in that respect, and i think it is practically impossible to put your hands on anything done by myself or any member of the government which can be regarded as a manifestation of distrust of the men who have shown themselves, and do show themselves, men of honour. let me say, then, i am perfectly satisfied that so great is the influence of their leaders over the minds of the main section of the boer population that so long as those leaders maintain that attitude a general rising is out of the question." those are the words which lord milner used three years ago, and i think they are words which do justice to the subject and to the speaker. but more than two years have passed since the representations were made to the right hon. gentleman the member for st. george's, hanover square, which induced him to confer a measure of self-government on the transvaal. those representations laid stress on the fact that the desire for self-government was not put forward only by the boers, but that both sections of the community in the transvaal desired to take the control of affairs into their own hands. the right hon. gentleman published a constitution. that constitution conferred very great and wide powers. it conferred upon an overwhelming elected majority the absolute power of the purse and control over legislation. but it has always been my submission to the house that that constitution had about it no element of permanence, that it could not possibly have been maintained as an enduring, or even a workable settlement; and i am bound to say--i do not wish to be controversial this afternoon if i can avoid it--that, when i read the statement that this representative government stage would have been a convenient educative stage in the transition to full self-government, the whole experience of british colonial policy does not justify such an assumption. the system of representative government without responsible ministers, without responsible powers, has led to endless friction and inconvenience wherever and whenever it has been employed. it has failed in canada, it has failed in natal and cape colony. it has been condemned by almost every high colonial authority who has studied this question. i do not think i need quote any more conclusive authority upon that subject than that of lord durham. lord durham, in his celebrated report, says of this particular system: "it is difficult to understand how any english statesmen could have imagined that representative and irresponsible government could be successfully combined. there seems, indeed, to be an idea that the character of representative institutions ought to be thus modified in colonies; that it is an incident of colonial dependence that the officers of government should be nominated by the crown without any reference to the wishes of the community whose interests are entrusted to their keeping. it has never been very clearly explained what are the imperial interests which require this complete nullification of representative government. but if there is such a necessity it is quite clear that a representative government in a colony must be a mockery and a source of confusion, for those who support this system have never yet been able to devise or exhibit in the practical working of colonial government any means for making so complete an abrogation of political influence palatable to the representative body." i contend that the right hon. gentleman's constitution would have broken down in its first session, and that we should have then been forced to concede grudgingly and in a hurry the full measure of responsible government which, with all due formality, and without any precipitancy, the letters patent issued last week have now conferred. but even the right hon. gentleman himself did not intend his constitution to be a permanent settlement. he intended it to be a transition, and a brief transition; and in the correspondence which passed on this subject two or three years is sometimes named as the period for which such a constitution might conveniently have endured--two or three years, of which, let me point out to the house, nearly two years have already gone. seeing how little difference there is between us upon that question, i dispense with further argument as to the grant of a transvaal constitution, as i see the course we have adopted does commend itself to the good sense of all parties in this country and is sustained at almost every point by almost every person conversant with south african affairs. it is said, however, we have heard it often said, "it may be wise to grant responsible government to the transvaal, but it is not wise to give it to the orange river colony. why should you give it to the orange river colony too?" i say, "why not?" let us make it quite clear that the burden of proof always rests with those who deny or restrict the issue of full parliamentary liberties. they have to make their case good from month to month, and from day to day. what are the reasons which have been advanced against the issue of a constitution to the orange river colony? various reasons have been put forward. we have been told, first, that the colony is not ripe for self-government. when you have very small communities of white men in distant and immense territories, and when those communities are emerging from a wild into a more settled condition, then it is very necessary and very desirable that the growth of self-governing institutions should be gradual. but that is not the situation in the orange river colony. the orange free state was the model small republic of the world. the honourable traditions of the free state are not challenged by any who take the trouble to study its history, either in the distant past, or in the years immediately preceding the south african war. the right hon. gentleman the member for west birmingham himself, speaking in this house on december , , used language which, i think, should go far to dissipate the idle fears which we hear expressed in various quarters upon the grant of self-government to the orange river colony: "we do not propose," said the right hon. gentleman, "that the constitution of the orange river colony should necessarily be the same as the constitution of the transvaal colony, either at starting or in the immediate future. it will be dealt with upon its own merits, dealt with separately, and we think it possible"--i ask the house to mark this--"from the circumstances with which every one is familiar, that an earlier beginning to greater political liberty may be made in the orange river colony than in the transvaal. that is due to the fact that the government of the orange river colony previous to the war was by common consent a very good government, and consequently, speaking generally, of course, and not of individuals, we shall find there probably the means to creating a satisfactory administration more quickly than we can do in the case of the transvaal colony." then we have been told that responsible government presupposes party government, and that in the orange river colony there are not the elements of political parties, that there is not that diversity of interests which we see in the transvaal, that there are not the same sharp differences between town and country, or the same astonishing contrasts between wealth and poverty which prevail in the transvaal. and we are told that, in order that responsible government should work properly, and party government should be a success, there must be the essential elements of party conflict. i suppose we are, as a majority in this house, admirers of the party system of government; but i do not think that we should any of us carry our admiration of that system so far as to say that the nation is unfit to enjoy the privilege of managing its own affairs unless it can find some one to quarrel with and plenty of things to quarrel about. then we are told that--"the country is prospering as it is. why change now? the land is tranquil, people are regaining the prosperity which was lost in the war. it is a pity to make a change now; now is not the moment." i admit the premise, but i draw exactly the opposite conclusion. it is just for that reason that we should now step forward and, taking occasion by the hand, make an advance in the system of government. how often in the history of nations has the golden opportunity been allowed to slip away! how often have rulers and governments been forced to make in foul weather the very journey which they have refused to make prosperously in fair weather! then we are told that imperial interests will be endangered by this grant. i do not believe that that is so. the boer mind moves by definite steps from one political conception to another. i believe they have definitely abandoned their old ambition of creating in south africa a united states independent of the british crown, and have accepted that other political ideal which is represented by the dominion of canada and the commonwealth of australia. at any rate, no people have a greater right to claim respect on the ground of their loyal adherence to treaty engagements than the people of the orange river colony; for every one knows that it was with a most faithful adherence to their engagements, with almost quixotic loyalty, that they followed--many of them knowing where their fortune was going to lead them, knowing full well what would be the result of their action--their sister state into the disastrous struggle of the south african war. it is quite true that there is in existence at the present time--and i think lord milner has pointed it out--no bond of love between the men who fought us in that war and this country. i was reading the other day a speech by mr. steyn. mr. steyn is, of course, one of the most clearly avowed opponents of the british power. but mr. steyn is quite clear upon this point. he says there is no bond of love, and it would be untruthful and dishonest on their part to say that such a bond existed. but, he says, there is another bond; there is such a thing as a man's word of honour. "we gave our word of honour at vereeniging, and it is our intention to abide strictly by that." i state my opinion as to the safety of the step we propose to take, but i cannot expect the members opposite to set much store by that, although it is an honest and sincere opinion. but i will quote them an authority which i am sure they will not dismiss without respect. as soon as the right hon. member for west birmingham returned from south africa, while his experiences in that country were fresh in his mind, while he had but newly been conversing with men of all parties there on the spot, the scene of the struggle, he made a speech in this house which really ought not to be overlooked by persons dealing with this question. "great importance," said the right hon. gentleman, "seems to be attached to the view that in the interests of the two colonies it is desirable that a certain time, not a long time in the history of a nation, but still a certain time should elapse before full self-government is accorded. whether a long time will elapse i really cannot say. one thing is clear: if the population of the transvaal and orange river colony, both boer and briton, by a large majority, desire this self-government, even although it might seem to us to be premature, i should think it unwise to refuse it. i do not myself believe there is any such danger connected with imperial interests that we should hesitate to accord it on that ground. the ground on which i should desire that it might be delayed is really the interest of the two colonies themselves, and not any imperial interest." the peace and order of the orange river colony establish this case on its merits. it is a state bound to moderation by the circumstance of its geographical position. in all its history in south africa it has been largely dependent on the goodwill of its neighbours--goodwill and friendly relations maintained with natal and the transvaal, on the one hand, and with the cape colony on the other. it is inconceivable that a state so situated in regard to its railways and its economic position generally should be a disturbing influence from the point of view of the different states of south africa. but there is another fact which justifies this grant, and that is the extraordinary crimelessness in a political sense of the whole of that country. let the house remember that there had been three years' war, of which two years were fierce guerilla fighting, and that on all sides there were to be found desperate men who had been for a long period holding their lives in their hands and engaged on every wild and adventurous foray. peace is agreed on, and what happens? absolute order exists and prevails throughout the whole country from that moment. there has not been a single case of violent crime except, i believe, one murder committed by a lunatic--hardly a case of sedition--and not a single case of prosecution for treason of any kind. i say without hesitation that in order to find a similar instance of swift transition from violent warfare to law-abiding peace you have got to look back to the days when the army of the parliament was reviewed and disbanded at the restoration. i submit to the house that a case for conferring responsible government on the orange river colony is established on its merits. but that is not the whole question before us this afternoon. we have not merely to decide whether we will give a constitution to the orange river colony, but whether, having given a constitution to the transvaal, we will deliberately withhold one from the orange river colony; and that is an argument which multiplies the others which i have used. on what ground could we refuse that equal treatment of the orange river colony? there is only one ground which we could assign for such a refusal, and that is that in the orange river colony there is sure to be a dutch majority. i cannot conceive any more fatal assertion that could be made on the part of the imperial government than that on this specific racial ground they were forced to refuse liberties which otherwise they would concede. i say such a refusal would be an insult to the hundreds and thousands of loyal dutch subjects the king has in all parts of south africa, i say that this invidious treatment of the orange river colony would be the greatest blunder, a fitting pendant to all that long concatenation of fatal mistakes which has marked our policy in south africa for so many years; and i say it would be a breach of the spirit of the terms of peace, because we could not say, "we promised you self-government by the terms of peace, but what we meant by that was that before you were to have self-government, enough persons of british origin should have arrived in the country to make quite sure you would be out-voted." if we were to adopt such a course we should be false to that agreement, which is the great foundation of our policy in south africa. i hope the house will earnestly sustain the importance of that vereeniging agreement. for the first time in many years the two white races dwelling together in south africa have found a common foundation on which they can both build, a foundation much better than boomplaats, or the sand river convention, or the conventions of and , far better than majuba hill or the jameson raid. they have found a foundation which they can both look to without any feeling of shame--on the contrary, with feelings of equal honour, and i trust also with feelings of mutual forgiveness. on those grounds, therefore, we have decided to give to the orange river colony full responsible government. we eschew altogether the idea of treating them differently from the transvaal, or interposing any state of limited self-government between them and the full enjoyment of their right. there is to be a legislature which will consist of two chambers, as in the transvaal. the first chamber will be elected upon a voters' basis and by manhood suffrage. the residential qualification will be the same as in the transvaal, six months. the distribution of seats has been settled by general consent. the committee which we sent to south africa, and which was so very successful in arriving at an adjustment between the parties in the transvaal, has made similar investigations in the orange river colony, and i think we may accept with confidence their recommendation. they recommend that the number of members should be thirty-eight. the old volksraad had sixty members, but it was found to be much too large for the needs of the country, and on several occasions efforts were made to reduce the representation. those efforts were not successful, from the fact, which we can all appreciate, that it is very difficult indeed to get a representative body to pass a self-denying ordinance of that character which involves the extinction of its own members. there will be separate representation of towns in the orange river colony. in the volksraad there was such a representation: there were forty-two rural members and eighteen urban members. out of the thirty-eight we propose that there shall be twenty-seven rural members and eleven urban members; rather less than a third of the representation will be that of the small towns. that is a proportion which is justified by the precedent of the old constitution, and also by the latest census. there will be a second chamber, and, as in the transvaal, it will be nominated, for the first parliament only, by the governor, under instructions from the secretary of state. it is not an hereditary chamber; and it may be, therefore, assumed that the distribution of parties in that chamber will be attended by some measure of impartiality, and that there will be some general attempt to select only those persons who are really fit to exercise the important functions entrusted to them. but even so protected, the government feel that in the ultimate issue in a conflict between the two chambers, the first and representative chamber must prevail. the other body may review and may suspend, but for the case of measures sent up in successive sessions from the representative chamber on which no agreement can be reached, we have introduced the machinery which appears in the constitution of the australian commonwealth, that both chambers shall sit together, debate together, vote together, and the majority shall decide. the whole success of that operation depends upon the numerical proportion observed between the two chambers. in the australian commonwealth the proportion of the first chamber is rather more than two to one; in the transvaal the proportion will be more than four to one, namely, sixty-five to fifteen; and in the orange river colony it will be thirty-eight to eleven. the other provisions of the constitution will mainly follow the lines of the transvaal constitution. the constitution of the orange river colony will become effective as soon as possible; and i should think that the new parliament might assemble in bloemfontein some time during the autumn of next year. when that work has been completed, and the new parliament has assembled, the main direction of south african affairs in these colonies will have passed from our hands. sir, it is the earnest desire of the government to steer colonial affairs out of english party politics, not only in the interest of the proper conduct of those affairs, but in order to clear the arena at home for the introduction of measures which affect the masses of the people. we have tried in south africa to deal fairly between man and man, to adjust conflicting interests and overlapping claims. we have tried so far as possible to effect a broad-bottomed settlement of the question which should command the assent of people even beyond the great party groupings which support us. other liberties besides their own will be enshrined in these new parliaments. the people of south africa, and, in a special measure, the boers, will become the trustees of freedom all over the world. we have tried to act with fairness and good feeling. if by any chance our counsels of reconciliation should come to nothing, if our policy should end in mocking disaster, then the resulting evil would not be confined to south africa. our unfortunate experience would be trumpeted forth all over the world wherever despotism wanted a good argument for bayonets, whenever an arbitrary government wished to deny or curtail the liberties of imprisoned nationalities. but if, on the other hand, as we hope and profoundly believe, better days are in store for south africa, if the words of president brand, "all shall come right," are at length to be fulfilled, and if the near future should unfold to our eves a tranquil, prosperous, consolidated afrikander nation under the protecting ægis of the british crown, then, the good also will not be confined to south africa; then the cause of the poor and the weak all over the world will have been sustained; and everywhere small peoples will get more room to breathe, and everywhere great empires will be encouraged by our example to step forward--and it only needs a step--into the sunshine of a more gentle and a more generous age. liberalism and socialism st. andrew's hall, glasgow, _october , _ (from _the dundee advertiser_, by permission.) the first indispensable condition of democratic progress must be the maintenance of european peace. war is fatal to liberalism. liberalism is the world-wide antagonist of war. we have every reason to congratulate ourselves upon the general aspect of the european situation. the friendship which has grown up between great britain and france is a source of profound satisfaction to every serious and thinking man. the first duty of a nation is to make friends with its nearest neighbour. six years ago france was agitated in the throes of the dreyfus case, and great britain was plunged in the worst and most painful period of the south african war; and both nations--conscious as we are of one another's infirmities--were inclined to express their opinion about the conduct of the other in unmeasured terms, and keen antagonism resulted. what a contrast to-day! ever since the king, whose services in the cause of international peace are regarded with affection in every quarter of his dominions, ever since by an act of prescience and of courage his majesty went to paris, the relations between great britain and france have steadily and progressively improved, and to-day we witness the inspiring spectacle of these two great peoples, the two most genuinely liberal nations in the whole world, locked together in a league of friendship under standards of dispassionate justice and international goodwill. but it is absurd to suppose that the friendship which we have established with france should be in any degree a menace to any other european power, or to the great power of germany. if the prospects on the european continent are bright and tranquil, i think we have reason to feel also contentment at the course of colonial affairs. we have had unusual difficulties in the colonies; but in spite of every effort to excite colonial apprehension for party purposes against a liberal ministry through the instrumentality of a powerful press, the great states of the empire have felt, and with more assurance every day, that a liberal administration in downing street will respect their rights and cherish their interests. but i am drawn to south africa by the memory that to-night, the th of october, is the anniversary of the declaration of war; and i think it is in south africa that we have especial reason to be satisfied with the course which events have taken, since we have been in any degree responsible for their direction. one great advantage we have had--a good foundation to build on. we have had the treaty of vereeniging, by which peace was established between the dutch and british races in south africa upon terms honourable to both. we have had that treaty as our foundation--and what a mercy it is, looking back on the past, to think that the nation followed lord rosebery's advice at chesterfield to terminate the war by a regular peace and a regular settlement, and were not lured away, as lord milner would have advised them, when he said that the war in a certain sense would never be over, into a harsh policy of unconditional surrender and pitiless subjugation. the work of giving these free constitutions to the two colonies in south africa, so lately independent republics, is in harmony with the most sagacious instincts, and the most honoured traditions of the liberal party. but i notice that lord milner, who, as we remember, was once a liberal candidate,--and who now appears before us sometimes in the guise of a silent and suffering public servant, sometimes in the aspect of an active, and even an acrid, political partisan, haranguing his supporters and attacking his majesty's ministers,--lord milner describes all this improving outlook as "the dreary days of reaction." progress and reaction are no doubt relative terms. what one man calls progress another will call reaction. if you have been rapidly descending the road to ruin and you suddenly check yourself, stop, turn back, and retrace your steps, that is reaction, and no doubt your former guide will have every reason to reproach you with inconsistency. and it seems to me not at all unnatural that to one who regards three years' desolating civil war as a period of healthy and inspiring progress, a good deal of what his majesty's government have lately done in south africa must appear very dreary and reactionary indeed. but i would recommend you to leave this disconsolate proconsul alone. i do not agree with him when he says that south africa is passing through a time of trial. south africa is emerging from her time of trial. the darkest period is behind her. brighter prospects lie before her. the improvement upon which we are counting is not the hectic flush of a market boom, but the steady revival and accumulation of agricultural and industrial productiveness. soberly and solemnly men of all parties and of both races in south africa are joining together to revive and to develop the prosperity of their own country. grave difficulties, many dangers, long exertions lie before them; but the star of south africa is already in the ascendant, and i look confidently forward to the time when it will take its place, united, federated, free, beside canada and australia, in the shining constellation of the british empire. when we have dealt with subjects which lie outside our own island, let us concentrate our attention on what lies within it, because the gravest problems lie at home. i shall venture to-night to make a few general observations upon those larger trendings of events which govern the incidents and the accidents of the hour. the fortunes and the interests of liberalism and labour are inseparably interwoven; they rise by the same forces, and in spite of similar obstacles, they face the same enemies, they are affected by the same dangers, and the history of the last thirty years shows quite clearly that their power of influencing public affairs and of commanding national attention fluctuate together. together they are elevated, together they are depressed, and any tory reaction which swept the liberal party out of power would assuredly work at least proportionate havoc in the ranks of labour. that may not be a very palatable truth, but it is a truth none the less. labour! it is a great word. it moves the world, it comprises the millions, it combines many men in many lands in the sympathy of a common burden. who has the right to speak for labour? a good many people arrogate to themselves the right to speak for labour. how many political flibbertigibbets are there not running up and down the land calling themselves the people of great britain, and the social democracy, and the masses of the nation! but i am inclined to think, so far as any body of organised opinion can claim the right to speak for this immense portion of the human race, it is the trade unions that more than any other organisation must be considered the responsible and deputed representatives of labour. they are the most highly organised part of labour; they are the most responsible part; they are from day to day in contact with reality. they are not mere visionaries or dreamers weaving airy utopias out of tobacco smoke. they are not political adventurers who are eager to remodel the world by rule-of-thumb, who are proposing to make the infinite complexities of scientific civilisation and the multitudinous phenomena of great cities conform to a few barbarous formulas which any moderately intelligent parrot could repeat in a fortnight. the fortunes of the trade unions are interwoven with the industries they serve. the more highly organised trade unions are, the more clearly they recognise their responsibilities; the larger their membership, the greater their knowledge, the wider their outlook. of course, trade unions will make mistakes, like everybody else, will do foolish things, and wrong things, and want more than they are likely to get, just like everybody else. but the fact remains that for thirty years trade unions have had a charter from parliament which up to within a few years ago protected their funds, and gave them effective power to conduct a strike; and no one can say that these thirty years were bad years of british industry, that during these thirty years it was impossible to develop great businesses and carry on large manufacturing operations, because, as everybody knows perfectly well, those were good and expanding years of british trade and national enrichment. a few years ago a series of judicial decisions utterly changed the whole character of the law regarding trade unions. it became difficult and obscure. the most skilful lawyers were unable to define it. no counsel knew what advice to tender to those who sought his guidance. meanwhile if, in the conduct of a strike, any act of an agent, however unauthorised, transgressed the shadowy and uncertain border-line between what was legal and what was not, an action for damages might be instituted against the trade union, and if the action was successful, trade union funds, accumulated penny by penny, year by year, with which were inseparably intermingled friendly and benefit moneys, might in a moment have been swept away. that was the state of the law when his majesty's present advisers were returned to power. we have determined to give back that charter to the trade unions. the bill is even now passing through the house of commons. we are often told that there can be no progress for democracy until the liberal party has been destroyed. let us examine that. labour in this country exercises a great influence upon the government. that is not so everywhere. it is not so, for instance, in germany, and yet in germany there is no liberal party worth speaking of. labour there is very highly organised, and the liberal party there has been destroyed. in germany there exists exactly the condition of affairs, in a party sense, that mr. keir hardie and his friends are so anxious to introduce here. a great social democratic party on the one hand, are bluntly and squarely face to face with a capitalist and military confederation on the other. that is the issue, as it presents itself in germany; that is the issue, as i devoutly hope it may never present itself here. and what is the result? in spite of the great numbers of the socialist party in germany, in spite of the high ability of its leaders, it has hardly any influence whatever upon the course of public affairs. it has to submit to food taxes and to conscription; and i observe that herr bebel, the distinguished leader of that party, at mannheim the other day was forced to admit, and admitted with great candour, that there was no other country in europe so effectively organised as germany to put down anything in the nature of a violent socialist movement. that is rather a disquieting result to working men of having destroyed the liberal party. but we are told to wait a bit; the socialist party in germany is only three millions. how many will there be in ten years' time? that is a fair argument. i should like to say this. a great many men can jump four feet, but very few can jump six feet. after a certain distance the difficulty increases progressively. it is so with the horse-power required to drive great ships across the ocean; it is so with the lifting power required to raise balloons in the air. a balloon goes up quite easily for a certain distance, but after a certain distance it refuses to go up any farther, because the air is too rarefied to float it and sustain it. and, therefore, i would say let us examine the concrete facts. in france, before the revolution, property was divided among a very few people. a few thousand nobles and priests and merchants had all the wealth in the country; twenty-five million peasants had nothing. but in modern states, such as we see around us in the world to-day, property is very widely divided. i do not say it is evenly divided. i do not say it is fairly divided, but it is very widely divided. especially is that true in great britain. nowhere else in the world, except, perhaps, in france and the united states, are there such vast numbers of persons who are holders of interest-bearing, profit-bearing, rent-earning property, and the whole tendency of civilisation and of free institutions is to an ever-increasing volume of production and an increasingly wide diffusion of profit. and therein lies the essential stability of modern states. there are millions of persons who would certainly lose by anything like a general overturn, and they are everywhere the strongest and best organised millions. and i have no hesitation in saying that any violent movement would infallibly encounter an overwhelming resistance, and that any movement which was inspired by mere class prejudice, or by a desire to gain a selfish advantage, would encounter from the selfish power of the "haves" an effective resistance which would bring it to sterility and to destruction. and here is the conclusion to which i lead you. something more is needed if we are to get forward. there lies the function of the liberal party. liberalism supplies at once the higher impulse and the practicable path; it appeals to persons by sentiments of generosity and humanity; it proceeds by courses of moderation. by gradual steps, by steady effort from day to day, from year to year, liberalism enlists hundreds of thousands upon the side of progress and popular democratic reform whom militant socialism would drive into violent tory reaction. that is why the tory party hate us. that is why they, too, direct their attacks upon the great organisation of the liberal party, because they know it is through the agency of liberalism that society will be able in the course of time to slide forward, almost painlessly--for the world is changing very fast--on to a more even and a more equal foundation. that is the mission that lies before liberalism. the cause of the liberal party is the cause of the left-out millions; and because we believe that there is in all the world no other instrument of equal potency and efficacy available at the present time for the purposes of social amelioration, we are bound in duty and in honour to guard it from all attacks, whether they arise from violence or from reaction. there is no necessity to-night to plunge into a discussion of the philosophical divergencies between socialism and liberalism. it is not possible to draw a hard-and-fast line between individualism and collectivism. you cannot draw it either in theory or in practice. that is where the socialist makes a mistake. let us not imitate that mistake. no man can be a collectivist alone or an individualist alone. he must be both an individualist and a collectivist. the nature of man is a dual nature. the character of the organisation of human society is dual. man is at once a unique being and a gregarious animal. for some purposes he must be collectivist, for others he is, and he will for all time remain, an individualist. collectively we have an army and a navy and a civil service; collectively we have a post office, and a police, and a government; collectively we light our streets and supply ourselves with water; collectively we indulge increasingly in all the necessities of communication. but we do not make love collectively, and the ladies do not marry us collectively, and we do not eat collectively, and we do not die collectively, and it is not collectively that we face the sorrows and the hopes, the winnings and the losings of this world of accident and storm. no view of society can possibly be complete which does not comprise within its scope both collective organisation and individual incentive. the whole tendency of civilisation is, however, towards the multiplication of the collective functions of society. the ever-growing complications of civilisation create for us new services which have to be undertaken by the state, and create for us an expansion of the existing services. there is a growing feeling, which i entirely share, against allowing those services which are in the nature of monopolies to pass into private hands. there is a pretty steady determination, which i am convinced will become effective in the present parliament, to intercept all future unearned increment which may arise from the increase in the speculative value of the land. there will be an ever-widening area of municipal enterprise. i go farther; i should like to see the state embark on various novel and adventurous experiments, i am delighted to see that mr. burns is now interesting himself in afforestation. i am of opinion that the state should increasingly assume the position of the reserve employer of labour. i am very sorry we have not got the railways of this country in our hands. we may do something better with the canals, and we are all agreed, every one in this hall who belongs to the progressive party, that the state must increasingly and earnestly concern itself with the care of the sick and the aged, and, above all, of the children. i look forward to the universal establishment of minimum standards of life and labour, and their progressive elevation as the increasing energies of production may permit. i do not think that liberalism in any circumstances can cut itself off from this fertile field of social effort, and i would recommend you not to be scared in discussing any of these proposals, just because some old woman comes along and tells you they are socialistic. if you take my advice, you will judge each case on its merits. where you find that state enterprise is likely to be ineffective, then utilise private enterprises, and do not grudge them their profits. the existing organisation of society is driven by one mainspring--competitive selection. it may be a very imperfect organisation of society, but it is all we have got between us and barbarism. it is all we have been able to create through unnumbered centuries of effort and sacrifice. it is the whole treasure which past generations have been able to secure, and which they have been able to bequeath; and great and numerous as are the evils of the existing condition of society in this country, the advantages and achievements of the social system are greater still. moreover, that system is one which offers an almost indefinite capacity for improvement. we may progressively eliminate the evils; we may progressively augment the goods which it contains. i do not want to see impaired the vigour of competition, but we can do much to mitigate the consequences of failure. we want to draw a line below which we will not allow persons to live and labour, yet above which they may compete with all the strength of their manhood. we want to have free competition upwards; we decline to allow free competition to run downwards. we do not want to pull down the structures of science and civilisation: but to spread a net over the abyss; and i am sure that if the vision of a fair utopia which cheers the hearts and lights the imagination of the toiling multitudes, should ever break into reality, it will be by developments through, and modifications in, and by improvements out of, the existing competitive organisation of society; and i believe that liberalism mobilised, and active as it is to-day, will be a principal and indispensable factor in that noble evolution. i have been for nearly six years, in rather a short life, trained as a soldier, and i will use a military metaphor. there is no operation in war more dangerous or more important than the conduct of a rear-guard action and the extrication of a rear-guard from difficult and broken ground. in the long war which humanity wages with the elements of nature the main body of the army has won its victory. it has moved out into the open plain, into a pleasant camping ground by the water springs and in the sunshine, amid fair cities and fertile fields. but the rear-guard is entangled in the defiles, the rear-guard is still struggling in mountainous country, attacked and assailed on every side by the onslaughts of a pitiless enemy. the rear-guard is encumbered with wounded, obstructed by all the broken vehicles that have fallen back from the main line of the march, with all the stragglers and weaklings that have fallen by the way and can struggle forward no farther. it is to the rear-guard of the army that attention should be directed. there is the place for the bravest soldiers and the most trusted generals. it is there that all the resources of military science and its heaviest artillery should be employed to extricate the rear-guard--not to bring the main army back from good positions which it occupies, not to throw away the victory which it has won over the brute forces of nature--but to bring the rear-guard in, to bring them into the level plain, so that they too may dwell in a land of peace and plenty. that is the aim of the liberal party, and if we work together we will do something for its definite accomplishment. imperial preference i imperial conference,[ ] downing street, _may , _ the economic aspect of imperial preference, both from the point of view of trade and of finance, has already been dealt with very fully by the chancellor of the exchequer and the president of the board of trade, and i desire in the few observations with which i shall venture to trespass upon the indulgence of the conference to refer very little to the economic aspect, and rather to examine one or two points about this question of a political, of a parliamentary, and almost of a diplomatic character. i want to consider for a moment what would be the effect of a system of preferences upon the course of parliamentary business. the course of colonial affairs in the house of commons is not always very smooth or very simple, and i am bound to say that, having for eighteen months been responsible for the statements on behalf of this department which are made to the house of commons, i feel that enormous difficulties would be added to the discharge of colonial business in the house of commons, if we were to involve ourselves in a system of reciprocal preferences. every one will agree, from whatever part of the king's dominions he comes, or to whatever party he belongs, that colonial affairs suffer very much when brought into the arena of british party politics. sometimes it is one party and sometimes it is another which is constrained to interfere in the course of purely colonial affairs, and such interferences are nearly always fraught with vexation and inconvenience to the dominions affected. now, the system of imperial preference inevitably brings colonial affairs into the parliamentary and the party arena; and, if i may say so, it brings them into the most unpleasant part of parliamentary and political work--that part which is concerned with raising the taxation for each year. it is very easy to talk about preference in the abstract and in general terms, and very many pleasant things can be said about mutual profits and the good feeling which accrues from commercial intercourse. but in regard to preference, as in regard to all other tariff questions, the discussion cannot possibly be practical, unless the propositions are formulated in precise, exact, and substantial detail. many people will avow themselves in favour of the principle of preference who would recoil when the schedule of taxes was presented to their inspection. i, therefore, leave generalities about preference on one side. i leave also proposals which have been discussed that we should give a preference on existing duties. it is quite clear that no preference given upon existing duties could possibly be complete or satisfactory. it could at the very best only be a beginning, and dr. jameson and dr. smartt, when they urged us with so much force to make a beginning by giving a preference on south african tobacco, have clearly recognised and frankly stated, that that preference would in itself be of small value, but that it would be welcomed by them as conceding "the larger principle." therefore, we are entitled to say, that before us at this conference is not any question of making a small or tentative beginning on this or that particular duty, but we have to make up our minds upon the general principle of the application of a reciprocal preference to the trade relations of the british empire. if that be so, surely the representatives of the self-governing dominions who ask us to embark on such a system, ought to state squarely and abruptly the duties which in their opinion would be necessary to give effect to such a proposal. the question whether raw material is to be taxed is absolutely vital to any consideration of imperial preference. although it is no doubt a very good answer, when the direct question is raised,--what are your notions? to say that the colonies would leave that to the mother country, those who urge upon us a system of reciprocal preference are bound to face the conclusions of their own policy, and are bound to recognise that that request, if it is to be given effect to in any symmetrical, logical, complete, satisfactory, or even fair and just manner, must involve new taxes to us on seven or eight staple articles of consumption in this country. i lay it down, without hesitation, that no fair system of imperial preference can be established which does not include taxes on bread, on meat, on that group of food-stuffs classified under the head of dairy produce, on wool and leather, and on other necessaries of industry. if that be so, seven or eight new taxes would have to be imposed to give effect to this principle you have brought before us. those taxes would have to figure every year in our annual budget. they would have to figure in the budget resolutions of every successive year in the house of commons. there will be two opinions about each of these taxes; there will be those who like them and favour the principle, and who will applaud the policy, and there will be those who dislike them. there will be the powerful interests which will be favoured and the interests which will be hurt by their adoption. so you will have, as each of those taxes comes up for the year, a steady volume of parliamentary criticism directed at it. now that criticism will, i imagine, flow through every channel by which those taxes may be assailed. it will seek to examine the value, necessarily in a canvassing spirit, of the colonial preferences as a return for which these taxes are imposed. it will seek to dwell upon the hardship to the consumers in this country of the taxes themselves. it will stray farther, i think, and it will examine the contributions which the self-governing dominions make to the general cost of imperial defence; and will contrast those contributions with a severe and an almost harsh exactitude with the great charges borne by the mother country. there has just been a debate upon that subject in the house of commons; but the manner in which that question when raised was received by the whole house, ought, i think, to give great satisfaction to the representatives of the self-governing dominions. we then refused to embark upon a policy of casting-up balances as between the colonies and the mother country, and, speaking on behalf of the colonial office, i said that the british empire existed on the principles of a family and not on those of a syndicate. but the introduction of those seven or eight taxes into the budget of every year will force a casting-up of balances every year from a severe financial point of view. it has been said, and will be generally admitted, that there is no such thing in this country as an anti-colonial party. it does not exist. even parties, like the irish party, not reconciled to the british government, who take no part in our public ceremonial, are glad to take opportunities of showing the representatives of the self-governing dominions that they welcome them here, and desire to receive them with warmth and with cordiality. but i cannot conceive any process better calculated to manufacture an anti-colonial party, than this process of subjecting to the scrutiny of the house of commons year by year, through the agency of taxation, the profit and loss account, in its narrow, financial aspect, of the relations of great britain and her dominions and dependencies. then this system of reciprocal preference, at its very outset, must involve conflict with the principle of self-government, which is the root of all our colonial and imperial policy. the whole procedure of our parliament arises primarily from the consideration of finance, and finance is the peg on which nearly all our discussions are hung, and from which many of them arise. that is the historic origin of a great portion of the house of commons procedure, and there is no more deeply rooted maxim than the maxim of "grievances before supply." now, let me suppose a system of preference in operation. when the taxes came up to be voted each year, members would use those occasions for debating colonial questions. i can imagine that they would say: we refuse to vote the preference tax to this or that self-governing dominion, unless or until our views, say, on native policy or some other question of internal importance to the dominion affected have been met and have been accepted. at present, it is open to the colony affected to reply: these matters are matters which concern us; they are within the scope of responsible, self-governing functions, and you are not called upon to interfere. it is open for the dominion concerned to say that. it is also open for the representative of the colonial office in the house of commons to say that, too, on their behalf. but it will no longer be open, i think, for any such defence to be offered when sums of money, or what would be regarded as equivalent to sums of money, have actually to be voted in the house of commons through the agency of these taxes for the purpose of according preference to the different dominions of the crown, and i think members will say, "if you complain of our interference, why do you force us to interfere? you have forced us to consider now whether we will or will not grant a preference to this or that particular dominion for this year. we say we are not prepared to do so unless or until our views upon this or that particular internal question in that dominion have been met and agreed to." i see a fertile, frequent, and almost inexhaustible source of friction and vexation arising from such causes alone. there is a more serious infringement, as it seems to me, upon the principle of self-government. the preferences which have hitherto been accorded to the mother country by the self-governing states of the british empire are free preferences. they are preferences which have been conceded by those states, in their own interests and also in our interests. they are freely given, and, if they gall them, can as freely be withdrawn; but the moment reciprocity is established and an agreement has been entered into to which both sides are parties, the moment the preferences become reciprocal, and there is a british preference against the australian or canadian preferences, they become not free preferences, but what i venture to call locked preferences, and they cannot be removed except by agreement, which is not likely to be swiftly or easily attained. now i must trench for one moment upon the economic aspect. what does preference mean? it can only mean one thing. it can only mean better prices. it can only mean better prices for colonial goods. i assert, without reserve, that preference can only operate through the agency of price. all that we are told about improving and developing the cultivation of tobacco in south africa, and calling great new areas for wheat cultivation into existence in australia, depends upon the stimulation of the production of those commodities, through securing to the producers larger opportunities for profit. i say that unless preference means better prices it will be ineffective in achieving the objects for the sake of which it is urged. but the operation of preference consists, so far as we are concerned, in putting a penal tax upon foreign goods, and the object of putting that penal tax on foreign goods is to enable the colonial supply to rise to the level of the foreign goods plus the tax, and by so conferring upon the colonial producer a greater reward, to stimulate him more abundantly to cater for the supply of this particular market. i say, therefore, without hesitation, that the only manner in which a trade preference can operate is through the agency of price. if preference does not mean better prices it seems to me a great fraud on those who are asked to make sacrifices to obtain it; and by "better" prices i mean higher prices--that is to say, higher prices than the goods are worth, if sold freely in the markets of the world. i am quite ready to admit that the fact that you make a particular branch of trade more profitable, induces more people to engage in that branch of trade. that is what i call stimulating colonial production through the agency of price. i am quite prepared to admit that a very small tax on staple articles would affect prices in a very small manner. reference has been made to the imposition of a shilling duty on corn, and i think it was mr. moor[ ] who said, yesterday, that when the shilling duty was imposed prices fell, and when it was taken off prices rose. that may be quite true. i do not know that it is true, but it may be. the imposition of such a small duty as a shilling on a commodity produced in such vast abundance as wheat, might quite easily be swamped or concealed by the operation of other more powerful factors. a week of unusual sunshine, or a night of late frost, or a ring in the freights, or violent speculation, might easily swamp and cover the operation of such a small duty; but it is the opinion of those whose economic views i share--i cannot put it higher than that--that whatever circumstances may apparently conceal the effect of the duty on prices, the effect is there all the same, and that any duty that is imposed upon a commodity becomes a factor in the price of that commodity. i should have thought that was an almost incontestable proposition. here you have the two different sides of the bargain, the sellers and the buyers, the sellers trying to get all they can, and the buyers trying to give as little as they can. an elaborate process of what is called "the higgling of the market" goes on all over the world between exchanges linked up by telegraph, whose prices vary to a sixteenth and a thirty-second. we are invited to believe that with all that subtle process of calculation made from almost minute to minute throughout the year, the imposition of a duty or demand for £ , , or £ , , for this or that government, placed suddenly upon the commodity in question as a tax, makes no difference whatever to the cost to the consumer; that it is borne either by the buyer or by the seller, or provided in some magical manner. as a matter of fact, the seller endeavours to transmit the burden to the purchaser, and the purchaser places it upon the consumer as opportunity may occur in relation to the general market situation all over the world. that is by way of digression, only to show that we believe that a tax on a commodity is a factor in its price, which i thought was a tolerably simple proposition. what a dangerous thing it will be, year after year, to associate the idea of empire, of our kith and kin beyond the seas, of these great, young, self-governing dominions in which our people at present take so much pride, with an enhancement, however small, in the price of the necessary commodities of the life and the industry of britain! it seems to me that, quite apart from the parliamentary difficulty to which i have referred, which i think would tend to organise and create anti-colonial sentiment, you would, by the imposition of duties upon the necessaries of life and of industry, breed steadily year by year, and accumulate at the end of a decade a deep feeling of sullen hatred of the colonies, and of colonial affairs among those poorer people in this country to whom mr. lloyd george referred so eloquently yesterday, and whose case, when stated, appeals to the sympathy of every one round this table. that would be a great disaster. but there is another point which occurs to me, and which i would submit respectfully to the conference in this connection. great fluctuations occur in the price of all commodities which are subject to climatic influences. we have seen enormous fluctuations in meat and cereals and in food-stuffs generally from time to time in the world's markets. although we buy in the markets of the whole world we observe how much the price of one year varies from that of another year. these fluctuations are due to causes beyond our control. we cannot control the causes which make the earth refuse her fruits at a certain season, nor can we, unfortunately, at present, control the speculation which always arises when an unusual stringency is discovered. compared to these forces, the taxes which you suggest should be imposed upon food and raw materials might, i admit, be small, but they would be the only factor in price which would be absolutely in our control. if, from circumstances which we may easily imagine, any of the great staple articles which were the subject of preference should be driven up in price to an unusual height, there would be a demand--and i think an irresistible demand--in this country that the tax should be removed. the tax would bear all the unpopularity. people would say: "this, at any rate, we can take off, and relieve the burden which is pressing so heavily upon us." but now see the difficulty in which we should then be involved. at present all our taxes are under our own control. an unpopular tax can be removed; if the government will not remove it they can be turned out and another government to remove the tax can be got from the people by election. it can be done at once. the chancellor of the exchequer can come down to the house and the tax can be repealed if there is a sufficiently fierce demand for it. but these food taxes by which you seek to bind the empire together--these curious links of empire which you are asking us to forge laboriously now--would be irremovable, and upon them would descend the whole weight and burden of popular anger in time of suffering. they would be irremovable, because fixed by treaty with self-governing dominions scattered about all over the world, and in return for those duties we should have received concessions in colonial tariffs on the basis of which their industries would have grown up tier upon tier through a long period of time. although, no doubt, another conference hastily assembled might be able to break the shackle which would fasten us--to break that fiscal bond which would join us together and release us from the obligation--that might take a great deal of time. many parliaments and governments would have to be consulted, and all the difficulties of distance would intervene to prevent a speedy relief from that deadlock. if the day comes in this country when you have a stern demand--and an overwhelming demand of a parliament, backed by a vast population suffering acutely from high food-prices--that the taxes should be removed, and on the other hand the minister in charge has to get up and say that he will bring the matter before the next colonial conference two years hence, or that he will address the representatives of the australian or canadian governments through the agency of the colonial office, and that in the meanwhile nothing can be done--when you have produced that situation, then, indeed, you will have exposed the fabric of the british empire to a wrench and a shock which it has never before received, and which any one who cares about it, cannot fail to hope that it may never sustain. such a deadlock could not be relieved merely by goodwill on either side. when you begin to deflect the course of trade, you deflect it in all directions and for all time in both countries which are parties to the bargain. your industries in your respective colonies would have exposed themselves to a more severe competition from british goods in their markets, and would have adjusted themselves on a different basis, in consequence. some colonial producers would have made sacrifices in that respect for the sake of certain advantages which were to be gained by other producers in their country through a favoured entry into our market. that one side of the bargain could be suddenly removed, without inflicting injustice on the other party to the bargain, appears to me an impossibility. i submit that preferences, even if economically desirable, would prove an element of strain and discord in the structure and system of the british empire. why, even in this conference, what has been the one subject on which we have differed sharply? it has been this question of preference. it has been the one apple of discord which has been thrown into the arena of our discussions. it is quite true we meet here with a great fund of goodwill on everybody's part, on the part of the mother country and on the part of the representatives of the self-governing dominions--a great fund of goodwill which has been accumulated over a long period of time when each party to this great confederation has been free to pursue its own line of development unchecked and untrammelled by interference from the other. we have that to start upon, and consequently have been able to discuss in a very frank and friendly manner all sorts of questions. we have witnessed the spectacle of the british minister in charge of the trade of this country defending at length and in detail the fiscal system--the purely domestic, internal fiscal system of this country--from very severe, though perfectly friendly and courteous criticism on the part of the other self-governing communities. if that fund of goodwill to which i have referred had been lacking, if ever a conference had been called together when there was an actual anti-colonial party in existence, when there was really a deep hatred in the minds of a large portion of the people of this country against the colonies and against taxation which was imposed at the request or desire of the colonies, then i think it is quite possible that a conference such as this would not pass off in the smooth and friendly manner in which this has passed off. you would hear recrimination and reproaches exchanged across the table; you would hear assertions made that the representatives of the different states who were parties to the conference were not really representatives of the true opinion of their respective populations, that the trend of opinion in the country which they professed to represent was opposed to their policy and would shortly effect a change in the views which they put forward. you would find all these undemocratic assertions that representatives duly elected do not really speak in the name of their people, and you would, of course, find appeals made over the heads of the respective governments to the party organisations which supported them or opposed them in the respective countries from which they came. that appears to me to open up possibilities of very grave and serious dangers in the structure and fabric of the british empire, from which i think we ought to labour to shield it. my right honourable friend the chancellor of the exchequer has told the conference with perfect truth--in fact it may have been even an under-estimate--that if he were to propose the principle of preference in the present house of commons, it would be rejected by a majority of three to one. but even if the present government could command a majority for the system, they would have no intention whatever of proposing it. it is not because we are not ready to run electoral risks that we decline to be parties to a system of preference; still less is it because the present government is unwilling to make sacrifices, in money or otherwise, in order to weave the empire more closely together. i think a very hopeful deflection has been given to our discussion when it is suggested that we may find a more convenient line of advance by improving communications, rather than by erecting tariffs--by making roads, as it were, across the empire, rather than by building walls. it is because we believe the principle of preference is positively injurious to the british empire, and would create, not union, but discord, that we have resisted the proposal. it has been a source of regret to all of us that on this subject we cannot come to an agreement. a fundamental difference of opinion on economics, no doubt, makes agreement impossible; but although we regret that, i do not doubt that in the future, when imperial unification has been carried to a stage which it has not now reached, and will not, perhaps, in our time attain, people in that more fortunate age will look back to the conference of as a date in the history of the british empire when one grand wrong turn was successfully avoided. footnotes: [ ] the following, among others, were present at the conference: the earl of elgin, secretary of state for the colonies; sir wilfrid laurier, prime minister of canada; sir f.w. borden, minister of militia and defence (canada); mr. l.p. brodeur, minister of marine and fisheries (canada); mr. deakin, prime minister of the commonwealth of australia; sir w. lyne, minister of trade and customs (australia); sir joseph ward, prime minister of new zealand; dr. l.s. jameson, prime minister of cape colony; dr. smartt, commissioner of public works (cape colony); sir robert bond, prime minister of newfoundland; mr. f.r. moor, prime minister of natal; general botha, prime minister of the transvaal; sir j.l. mackay, on behalf of the india office. [ ] the prime minister of natal. imperial preference ii house of commons, _july , _ mr. lyttelton had moved the following vote of censure: "that this house regrets that his majesty's government have declined the invitation unanimously preferred by the prime ministers of the self-governing colonies, to consider favourably any form of colonial preference or any measures for closer commercial union of the empire on a preferential basis." (mr. lyttelton.) this was met on behalf of the government by the following amendment: "to leave out all after the word 'that' and add the words 'in the opinion of this house, the permanent unity of the british empire will not be secured through a system of preferential duties based upon the protective taxation of food.'" (mr. soares) the vote of censure was rejected, and the amendment carried by to . a vote of censure is a very serious thing. when it is moved with great formality on behalf of the official opposition, it is intended always to raise a plain and decisive issue. i must, however, observe that of all the votes of censure which have been proposed in recent times in this house, the one we are now discussing is surely the most curious. the last government was broken up three years ago on this very question of imperial preference. after the government had been broken up, a continuous debate proceeded in the country for two years and a half, and it was terminated by the general election. this parliament is the result of that election, and there is not a single gentleman on this ministerial bench who is not pledged, in the most specific terms, not to grant a preferential tariff to the colonies. now, because we have kept that promise, because we are opposed to preferential tariffs, because we have declined to grant preferential tariffs, and because we have done what all along we declared we were going to do, and were returned to do, we are made the object of this vote of censure. it may be said, "we do not blame you for keeping your promise, but for making the pledge." but what did the leader of the opposition promise? he promised most emphatically before the election that if he were in power as prime minister when this colonial conference took place, he would not grant preference to the colonies. on many occasions the right hon. gentleman said that not one, but two elections would be necessary before he would be entitled to take that tremendous step. i have the right hon. gentleman's words here. speaking at manchester in january , the right hon. gentleman said: "if that scheme were carried out, i do not see that we could be called on to decide the colonial aspect of this question until not only one, but two elections have passed." yet the right hon. gentleman is prepared, i presume, to join in a vote of censure on his majesty's government for not granting that preference which he himself was prohibited from granting by the most precise and particular engagement. is it a vote of censure on the government at all? is it not really a vote of censure on the general election? is it not a cry of petulant vexation at the natural, ordinary, long-expected sequence of events? the right hon. gentleman[ ] who moved the resolution made a very mild and conciliatory speech. but he confined himself to generalities. he avoided anything like a statement of concrete proposals which he thinks the government ought to adopt. those who take part in this controversy nowadays avoid any statement of the concrete proposals that would follow if their view were adopted. we are told what a splendid thing preference is, what noble results it would achieve, what inexpressible happiness and joy it would bring to all parts of the empire and to all parts of the earth, what wealth would be created, how the exchequer would gain, and how the food of the people would cheapen in price. but, though the government is blamed for not acting on these suggestions, we are never told what is the schedule of taxes which it is proposed to introduce to give effect to these splendid and glittering aspirations. it is perfectly impossible to discuss colonial preference apart from the schedule of duties on which it is to be based. it is idle to attempt to discuss it without a definite proposal as to the subjects of taxation and as to the degree to which those different subjects are to be taxed. and the right hon. gentleman the member for west birmingham, when he dealt with this question, felt that in common fairness he must be precise and definite. we know what he proposed in the way of taxation on corn, meat, fruit, and dairy produce. what we want to know is this. is that tariff before us now? do the opposition stand by the right hon. member for west birmingham, or do they abandon him? that is what the house and the government want to know--and that is what the colonies want to know. it is indispensable to the discussion of this question that there should be a clear statement from the leader of the opposition whether or not we are to regard the glasgow preferential tariff of the right hon. member for west birmingham as still current as a practical policy. then the house has been told that the government might have given a preference on dutiable articles. such a preference would introduce into our fiscal system an entirely new, and, as the government think, the wholly vicious feature of discriminating between one class of producers and another. the whole basis of our financial and fiscal policy is, that it draws no distinction whatever between different classes of producers, whether they reside here or abroad, whether they live in foreign countries or in our colonies. i am quite prepared to state that proposition in its simplest form. that is the fundamental principle of our fiscal system, and there is no discrimination. we have but one measure to give to those who trade with us--the just measure of equality, and there can be no better measure than that. we are charged with pedantry in dealing with the colonial conference, through not making some concession upon existing dutiable articles. the colonial representatives, when they asked for a preference on wine and tobacco, did not ask for it because it was of value to them by itself. they knew well that the operation of such a preference must be unfair and unequal. they knew well that canada, which has the most solid claims upon us for a preferential recognition, would receive no benefit from such a preference. but the colonial representatives of south africa asked for a preference on wine and tobacco in order that, as they avowed with candour, we should "concede the principle." that is a perfectly proper proceeding on their part; it is the natural way of advancing the views which they hold, because it would lead up to the larger principle and the larger policy. but the government are opposed in this case to "the larger policy." the government sit now on these benches because they are opposed to it as a government and as a party. it is one of the fundamental conditions of our existence that we are opposed to such a policy. how, then, by any process of argument, can the government be censured for not making an exception which must inevitably have led to and would avowedly have been used for the breaking of the great rule to which they have committed themselves? it is a dangerous thing in this controversy, with the ugly rush of vested interests always lying in the wake of the protectionist movement to be considered, to make even verbal concessions. some time ago i made a speech in which i said that there was no objection to the extension of inter-colonial preference. by this i meant the reduction of duties between colonies which have already a discriminating tariff; and it seemed to me in such a case that there is a net reduction of duty to the good. i do not see any objection to that, because under the most-favoured-nation principle we gain any advantage which is gained by either party to the transaction. in any case, the sums involved in inter-colonial preference at the present time are extremely small, and, however that might be, the matter is one which is wholly outside our control, because we have no authority over the colonies in this respect, and we may just as well look pleasant about it and accord a sympathetic attitude to such a process. yes; but let those who reproach us with pedantry and with not showing a sympathetic desire to meet the colonies listen to this: when such a statement is made by a minister, is it accepted as a desire on the part of the government to extend sympathetic treatment to the colonies? not at all. it is taken as an admission, and used for the purpose of trying to pretend that the government have abandoned the principle of their opposition to the larger question of imperial preference. if, although we think them unsatisfactory, we were, out of complaisance, to accord the small preferences suggested upon dutiable articles, we should be told in a minute that we had given up every logical foothold against preference, and that nothing prevented us imposing a tax on bread and meat except our inability to follow the drift of our own arguments. i have referred to preference, but there is another proposal. the right hon. gentleman the member for st. george's, hanover square, put forward a proposal earlier in the year, and it was renewed in a slightly different form by mr. deakin[ ] at the conference. the proposal was to impose a per cent. _ad valorem_ surtax on all foreign merchandise coming into the ports of the british empire. that is the proposal which has been put forward as the least objectionable form of the preferential proposals, and it has been said of it that it was the least objectionable because it gave no loophole for the corruption which may spring up in the wake of the other proposals. let me ask the house to examine this proposal for a moment. has any serious, civilised government--i ask for information--ever been to the pains and trouble of erecting round their coasts a tariff, with all its complications, with the need of exacting certificates of origin on every class of goods, with the need of demanding strict assessment of all commodities brought to their shores--has any nation ever erected the vast and complicated network which would be involved in such a duty, simply for the paltry purpose of imposing a duty of per cent.? i say there is no argument and no reason for such a course, and the only argument which could justify it is the argument used by dr. smartt at the colonial conference when he said (page of the blue book), "the foreigner pays, and we do not." mr. deakin felt the force of the objection which would be entertained in this country to introducing such a tariff as the right hon. gentleman has proposed, simply for fiscal purposes, and he proceeded to say that great britain, if she was a party to such a bargain, should be permitted to raise the money in her own way, and to contribute her proportion to the common fund. that was a great concession to the self-government of the mother country. there is no doubt a great difference between subventions and preferences. a subvention may be raised by a perfectly orthodox fiscal process. no more money is taken from the taxpayer than is required. the whole yield of the tax by which the subvention may be raised certainly goes to the exchequer, and when the subvention is paid to the foreign or colonial government, it does not go, as a preference would go, to benefit particular interests in the colony, but it goes to the government of the colony for the general purposes of state, and not for private advantage on either side. therefore it seems to me that the method of subvention is on all grounds to be preferred to the method of preference. it is of course necessary, however, in examining a question of subvention to look at it on its merits. this proposal of per cent. put forward by mr. deakin carried the support of the official spokesman of the opposition. let us look at it on its merits. look first at the proportions on which this new fund was to be subscribed. canada was "to dedicate"--that was the expression used by mr. deakin--£ , , new zealand £ , , newfoundland £ , , cape colony £ , , natal £ , , great britain £ , , , and australia--the proposing body--what was she to "dedicate" to this fund? no more than £ , a year, or one forty-fifth part of the contribution which was to be made by this country. and for what object was this fund to be accumulated? it is hard enough for the chancellor of the exchequer to raise the money to carry on so great an establishment as this country is forced necessarily to maintain. but here is a proposal to raise no less than £ , , of extra taxation. for what objects? for objects not specified, for objects not yet discovered, for objects which could not be stated by those who made the proposal. the right hon. gentleman said that there was to be a meeting of the representatives of the different colonies in the different great cities of the empire--one different great city each year for seven years, excluding london, where there was to be no meeting, and they were to search for a method of spending this money. such plans have only to be stated to fall to pieces. the house will see that the real essential fallacy of the protectionist proposal is the idea that taxation is a good thing in itself, that it should be imposed for the fun of the thing, and then, having done it for amusement, we should go round afterwards and look for attractive methods of expenditure in order to give support to the project. these are the actual proposals made to us at the colonial conference. these are the sort of proposals in respect of which we are, forsooth, to be censured because we have not found it possible in the name of the government of this country to give our assent to them. i will submit a proposition to the house as a broad, general rule. i daresay the leader of the opposition may rake up some ingenious, hard case in conflict with it; but as a broad, general rule i believe it will be found true to say that there is no power in a government to impose indirect taxation outside the limits of its territorial sovereignty. although i am quite ready to admit that, by sudden and unexpected alterations of the tariff, temporary advantage might be gained, and some share of the wealth of other people and other countries might be netted for this or that set of traders within your own border, in the long run the whole yield of any tax, export or import, will come home to the people of that country by whom it is imposed. it will come home plus the whole cost of collecting the tax, and plus, further, the inconvenience and burden of the network of taxation which is needed. it will come home to them, if they be consumers, in the quantity, quality, or price of the articles they consume, and, if exporters, in the profit, convenience, or reserve power of the business which they conduct. there is no parity between the sacrifices demanded of the mother country and the proposals of preference made by the various colonies. to them it is merely a fresh application of their existing fiscal system. to us it is a fiscal revolution. to them it is a mere rewriting of their schedules to give an increased measure of protection to their home producers. to us it is a tax on food, and, as i assert again and again, upon raw material, and thus upon all the industries of these islands. if the conference has established one thing clearly it is this, that none of the great self-governing colonies of the british empire are prepared to give us effective access to their own markets in competition with their home producers. that was established with absolute clearness; and even if they were prepared to give us effective access to their home markets, i submit to the house that, having regard to the great preponderance of our foreign trade as against our colonial trade, it would not be worth our while to purchase the concession which they would then offer at the cost of disturbing and dislocating the whole area of our trade. therefore, we propose to adhere, and are prepared if necessary to be censured for adhering to our general financial system, which is governed by the rule that there should be no taxation except for revenue, and based on the commercial principle of the equal treatment of all nations, and the most-favoured-nation treatment from those nations in return. important as are the economical arguments against a preferential policy, they are in my opinion less grave than the political disadvantages. on other occasions i have addressed the house on the grave danger and detriment to the working of our colonial system which must follow the intermingling of the affairs of the british empire in the party politics and financial politics of this country. to establish a preferential system with the colonies involving differential duties upon food is to make the bond of imperial unity dependent year after year upon the weather and the crops. and there is even a more unstable foundation for imperial unity. does it never occur to right hon. gentlemen opposite that this solution which they offer of the problem of imperial unity places the empire not on a national, but on a purely party basis, and upon a basis repudiated by at least half the nation? some day it may be that they will return triumphant from a general election. as party politicians they may rejoice, yet i think a wise statesman would try to win for the british empire, our colonial relations, the same sort of position, high above the struggle of parties, which is now so happily occupied by the crown and the courts of justice, which in less degree, though in an increasing degree, is coming to be occupied by the fighting services. whatever advantages from a party point of view, or from the point of view of gratifying colonial opinion, may be gained by food preferences, they would be very small compared with the enormous boon of keeping the field of colonial politics separate from the social and economic issues on which parties in this country are so fiercely divided. it is possible to take a still wider view of this question. if i quote the right hon. gentleman the member for west birmingham, let me assure the house that i do not do so for the purpose of making any petty charge of inconsistency, but because the words which i am going to read are wise and true words, and stand the test of time. when the right hon. gentleman spoke at manchester in , not in the distant days before the great home rule split, but when he was already a minister in the unionist government, and had been secretary of state for the colonies for nearly two years, he used these words, of the highest wisdom: "anything in the direction of an imperial commercial league would weaken the empire internally and excite the permanent hostility of the whole world. it would check the free imports of the food of the people. it is impracticable; but if it were practicable, and done in the name of the empire, it would make the empire odious to the working people, it would combine the whole world against us, and it would be a cause of irritation and menace. our free commerce makes for the peace of the world." let us then seek to impress year after year upon the british empire an inclusive and not an exclusive character. we who sit on this side of the house, who look forward to larger brotherhoods and more exact standards of social justice, value and cherish the british empire because it represents more than any other similar organisation has ever represented, the peaceful co-operation of all sorts of men in all sorts of countries, and because we think it is, in that respect at least, a model of what we hope the whole world will some day become. the house has to-night a considerable and important opportunity. if in rejecting this vote of censure, which is so ill-conceived and so little deserved, we choose to adopt the amendment, we shall have written upon the records of parliament a profound political truth, which will not, i think, soon be challenged, and which, i believe, will never be overthrown. footnotes: [ ] mr lyttelton. [ ] prime minister of the australian commonwealth. the house of lords house of commons, _june , _ on june , sir henry campbell-bannerman had moved: "that, in order to give effect to the will of the people as expressed by their elected representatives, it is necessary that the power of the other house to alter or reject bills passed by this house should be so restricted by law as to secure that within the limits of a single parliament the final decision of the commons shall prevail." this was carried after three days' debate by to . i will not venture at any length into an abstract constitutional discussion upon this motion, because, after all, we have an extremely practical issue before us. it seems to me that this great question must be looked at from three points of view. there is the issue between the two houses; there is the issue between the two political parties; and then there is the national issue. the quarrel which is now open between the house of lords and the house of commons arises from two events--the general election of , and the rejection of the measures of the new liberal government, culminating in the destruction of the education bill by the house of lords at the end of that year. either of these events is memorable in itself, but placed in juxtaposition and considered together they have a multiplied significance. the general election of was the most vehement expression of public opinion which this generation has known; and that expression of public will was countered in the december of the same year by the most arbitrary and uncompromising assertion of aristocratic privilege upon record. let the house think of it. the process of the election of members of parliament is extremely elaborate. the candidates go about the country for two or three weeks saying all they have to say for themselves in the different constituencies which they are contesting; at the end of that exhaustive discussion there is an elaborate process of voting; the returns are counted with the most scrupulous care; and as the result members, representing , , of voters and many more who take a deep interest in public affairs but have no votes, are returned to the house of commons in the name of the people of great britain and ireland. the new parliament assembles. scarcely any question at the election had been more a test question, so far as the supporters of the government are concerned, than the question of the amendment of the education system of the country. a bill dealing with education is brought forward as the principal measure of the first session of the new parliament. weeks are occupied in its discussion. it represents the fulfilment of the election pledges of every member who supported it. the bill is passed by perhaps the largest majority that ever sent a bill from this house to another place. nor was it a revolutionary bill, to turn the world upside down and inside out; on the contrary, it was a bill which, if vitiated in any respect, was vitiated by the element of compromise. immense concessions were made in it, and rightly, i think, to conscientious and agitated minorities. it was a bill which so moderate and consistent a statesman as the duke of devonshire, of whose ill-health the house learns with grave concern, urged the house of lords to pass into law. sir, the leader of the opposition told us the other day that it was the habit of his majesty's government to introduce bills which they did not mean to pass. no one--not even the right hon. gentleman himself--can say that the government have not earnestly desired to pass the education bill. every concession that could be conceived was made, but to what purpose? after the house of commons had humbled itself before the house of lords, after we had gone to the extreme limit of concession which self-respect, which a proper sense of the dignity of this house, and a due observance of the pledges of the liberal party permitted, the house of lords curtly, bluntly, uncharitably, and harshly flung the bill out in our faces mutilated and destroyed. i do not wish to import an element of heat into this discussion, but i respectfully submit to the conservative party that that act on the part of the house of lords places them in a new position--a new position in the sense that never before had their old position been taken up so nakedly, so brazenly, and so uncompromisingly. it is true that we have an excuse put before us with much suavity of language in these debates--we are told that the house of lords seeks to interpret the will of the people, and it is explained that by "the will of the people," what is meant is the persistent, sub-conscious will, as opposed to any articulate expression of it. the right hon. gentleman who leads the opposition told us that what he meant by the persistent will was the will of the people expressed continuously over a period of thirty years. that is what he called "democracy properly understood." having regard to that part of the question which concerns the issue between the two houses, we repudiate emphatically the claim of the other house to what the french call _faire l'ange_--to "play the angel," to know better than the people themselves what the people want, to have a greater authority to speak in the name of the people than their representatives sent to parliament by the elaborate process i have described. to dispute the authority of a newly elected parliament is something very like an incitement to violence on the part of the other house. the noble lord[ ] laughs; but we are anxious to convince him and his friends that we are in earnest. we go through all the processes which the constitution prescribes, we produce an enormous majority, and we express the opinion of that majority, but still the noble lord and other noble lords, less intelligent, but more remote, tell us that they are not convinced. what steps do they suggest that we should take in order to bring home to them the earnestness of our plea? what steps do they suggest that the people should take in order to assert their wishes? i hold entirely by what i said that to dispute the authority of an elected body fresh from its constituents is a deliberate incitement to the adoption of lawless and unconstitutional methods. the assertion which the house of lords made at the end of last year is an intolerable assertion. i believe the country is altogether unprepared for it; and i wonder it was thought worth while to risk an institution which has lasted so many centuries, in the very skirmish line of party warfare. i am aware there is a special reason for the temerity of the house of lords. it is not a very complimentary reason to the members or the leaders of the late government, but it is argued that the conservative party cannot be worse than they are. no matter what they do, nor how they are hated or reprobated by the country, the conservative party cannot possibly occupy a more humiliating and unpleasant position than they did after the last two years of the late administration. consequently, having reached the low-water mark of political fortune, they think they can afford to be a little reckless, and that at the very worst they will be returned in their present numerical proportions. that is a very natural explanation of their action; but if we for our part were to accept the assertion lately made by the house of lords--an assertion which is the furthest point to which aristocratic privilege has attained in modern times--that assertion itself would become only the starting-point for a whole new series of precedents and of constitutional retrogressions; and worse than that, if by any chance, having raised this issue, we were to be defeated upon it--if having placed this resolution on the records of the house we were to fail to give effect to it, or were to suffer an electoral reverse as the conclusion of it--then good-bye to the power of the house of commons. all that long process of advance in democratic institutions which has accompanied the growth of the power of the house of commons, and which has also been attended by an expansion of the circles of comfort and culture among the people of this country--all that long process which has gone steadily onward for years, and which has almost exclusively occupied the politics of the nineteenth century--will have reached its culmination. it will have come in contact with that barrier of which we have heard so much in this debate. the tide will have turned, and in the recoil of the waters they will gradually leave exposed again, altered no doubt by the conditions of the age, all the old assertions of aristocratic and plutocratic domination which we had fondly hoped had been engulfed for ever. hon. gentlemen opposite would be well advised to treat this resolution seriously. this parliament is still young, but there are some things at which they have laughed which have already become accomplished facts, i could not have during the past eighteen months listened to their taunts about the permanence of chinese labour without reflecting now with satisfaction that chinese labour is going. yes, and other people may follow. we are only at the beginning of this struggle. we are not necessarily committed to every detail of the proposal; we are opening the first lines for a great siege, we have to sap up to the advanced parallels, to establish our batteries, and at no distant date open our bombardment. it may be many months before we shall be able to discern where there is a practicable breach; but the assault will come in due time. the right hon. gentleman opposite[ ] said he welcomed this contest with great confidence. i wonder if the conservative party realise, to use an expressive vulgarism, what they are "letting themselves in for" when this question comes to be fought out on every platform in every constituency in the country? they will not have to defend an ideal second chamber; they will not be able to confine themselves to airy generalities about a bicameral system and its advantages; they will have to defend _this_ second chamber as it is--one-sided, hereditary, unpurged, unrepresentative, irresponsible, absentee. they will have to defend it with all its anomalies, all its absurdities, and all its personal bias--with all its achievements that have darkened the pages of the history of england. and let me say that weighty constitutional authorities have not considered that the policy on which we have embarked in moving this resolution is unreasonable. mr. bagehot says of the house of lords: "it may lose its veto as the crown has lost its veto. if most of its members neglect their duties, if all its members continue to be of one class, and that not quite the best; if its doors are shut against genius that cannot found a family, and ability which has not £ , a year, its power will be less year by year, and at last be gone, as so much kingly power is gone--no one knows how." what is the position of the conservative party when they attempt to defend the house of lords? they are always telling us to imitate the colonies; they are always telling us that we ought to adopt the fiscal systems and other methods employed in the self-governing colonies; but what is their unprejudiced view of the relations which are held between the two chambers under the bicameral system in the colonies and as established by their own australian commonwealth act in the last parliament? by that act they have given power to the lower chamber to over-ride the upper chamber in certain circumstances. the commonwealth act says that when the chambers differ they shall meet together, and that the majority shall decide, measures being taken, however, that the numbers of the upper chamber shall not be such as to swamp the opinion of the lower chamber. imitating them, and following in their footsteps, we have adopted such a plan in the transvaal and orange river colony constitutions. the leader of the opposition asked us yesterday whether the people are not often wrong, and he proceeded characteristically to suggest that he always considered them wrong when they voted against him. i am not prepared to take such a rough-and-ready test of the opinion and of the mental processes of the british democracy as that. i should hesitate to say that when the people pronounce against a particular measure or party they have not pretty good reasons for doing so. i am not at all convinced that in the electors were wrong in saying that the war should be finished--by those who made it. even in the last election i could, i daresay, find some few reasons to justify the decision which the people then took; and if we should be so unfortunate in the future as to lose that measure of public confidence now abundantly given to us, then i shall not be too sure that it will not be our own fault. certain am i that we could not take any step more likely to forfeit the confidence of the people of england, than to continue in office after we have lost the power to pass effective legislation. i will retort the question of the leader of the opposition by another question. has the house of lords ever been right? has it ever been right in any of the great settled controversies which are now beyond the reach of party argument? was it right in delaying catholic emancipation and the removal of jewish disabilities? was it right in driving this country to the verge of revolution in its effort to defeat the passage of reform? was it right in resisting the ballot bill? was it right in the almost innumerable efforts it made to prevent this house dealing with the purity of its own electoral machinery? was it right in endeavouring to prevent the abolition of purchase in the army? was it right in , when it rejected the compensation for disturbance bill? i defy the party opposite to produce a single instance of a settled controversy in which the house of lords was right. [an honourable member: what about home rule?] i expected that interruption. that is not a settled controversy. it is a matter which lies in the future. the cases i have mentioned are cases where we have carried the law into effect and have seen the results, and found that they have been good. let me remind the house that, but for a lucky accident, but for the fact that letters patent can be issued by the crown and do not require the statutory assent of parliament, it would very likely have been impossible for this government to have made the constitutional settlement in the transvaal and in the orange river colony, because the constitutions would probably have been mutilated or cast out by the house of lords, and the executive government would have found itself responsible for carrying out the government of colonies on lines of which it wholly disapproved, and after their own policy had been rejected. i proceed to inquire on what principle the house of lords deals with liberal measures. the right hon. member for dover[ ] by an imaginative effort assures us that they occupy the position of the umpire. are they even a sieve, a strainer, to stop legislation if it should reveal an undue or undesirable degree of radicalism or socialism? are they the complementary critic--the critic who sees all the things which the ordinary man does not see? no one can maintain it. the attitude which the house of lords adopts towards liberal measures is purely tactical. when they returned to their "gilded chamber" after the general election they found on the woolsack and on the treasury bench a lord chancellor and a government with which they were not familiar. when their eyes fell upon those objects, there was a light in them which meant one thing--murder; murder tempered, no doubt, by those prudential considerations which always restrain persons from acts which are contrary to the general feeling of the society in which they live. but their attitude towards the present government has from the beginning been to select the best and most convenient opportunity of humiliating and discrediting them, and finally of banishing them from power. examine, in contrast with that of the education bill, their treatment of the trades disputes bill. lord halsbury described that bill as outrageous and tyrannous, and said it contained a section more disgraceful than any that appeared in any english statute. on what ground then did they pass that bill, if it was not the ground of political opportunism and partisanship? what safeguard can such a second chamber be to the commercial interests of this country? is it not clear that they are prepared to sacrifice, if necessary, what they consider to be the true interests of the country in order to secure an advantage for the political party whose obedient henchmen they are? the trades disputes bill was a very inconvenient measure for the conservative party to leave open, because so long as it was left open a great mass of democratic opinion was directed against them. and so it was passed. on the other hand, the education bill was very inconvenient for the liberal party to leave open, because they are supported by catholics and nonconformists, and to bring in an education bill to satisfy those two extremes is not to solve a problem, but to solve a double acrostic. so that bill was not passed. upon a measure which it would be inconvenient to the liberal party to leave open the house of lords rejected all compromise. upon a measure which it would be inconvenient for the conservative party to leave open, they submitted at once--their action being irrespective of merits in either case. that, i suppose, is what the leader of the opposition called "an averaging machinery." i press these points in order to justify me in making this statement, that the house of lords, as it at present exists and acts, is not a national institution, but a party dodge, an apparatus and instrument at the disposal of one political faction; and it is used in the most unscrupulous manner to injure and humiliate the opposite faction. when conservative members go about the country defending a second chamber, let them remember that this is the kind of second chamber they have to defend, and when they defend the veto let them remember that it is a veto used, not for national purposes, but for the grossest purposes of unscrupulous political partisanship. i have dealt with the issues between houses, and i come to that between parties. great changes in a community are very often unperceived; the focus of reality moves from one institution in the state to another, and almost imperceptibly. sometimes the forms of institutions remain almost the same in all ceremonial aspects, and yet there will be one institution which under pretentious forms is only the husk of reality, and another which under a humble name is in fact the operative pivot of the social system. constitutional writers have much to say about the estates of the realm, and a great deal to say about their relation to each other, and to the sovereign. all that is found to be treated upon at length. but they say very little about the party system. and, after all, the party system is the dominant fact in our experience. nothing is more striking in the last twenty-five years than the growth and expansion of party organisation, and the way in which millions of people and their votes have been woven into its scope. there are two great characteristics about the party institutions of this country: the equipoise between them, and their almost incredible durability. we have only to look at the general elections of and . i do not suppose any circumstances could be more depressing for a political party than the circumstances in which the liberal party fought the election in , except the circumstances in which the conservative party fought the election of . at those two elections, what was the salient fact? the great mass of the voters of each political party stood firm by the standard of their party, and although there was an immense movement of public opinion, that movement was actually effected by the actual transference of a comparatively small number of votes. when parties are thus evenly balanced, to place such a weapon as the house of lords in the hands of one of the parties is to doom the other to destruction. i do not speak only from the party point of view, although it explains the earnestness with which we approach this question. it is a matter of life and death to liberalism and radicalism. it is a question of our life or the abolition of the veto of the house of lords. but look at it from a national point of view. think of its injury to the smooth working of a liberal government. at the present time a liberal government, however powerful, cannot look far ahead, cannot impart design into its operations, because it knows that if at any moment its vigour falls below a certain point another body, over which it has no control, is ready to strike it a blow to its most serious injury. it comes to this, that no matter how great the majority by which a liberal government is supported, it is unable to pass any legislation unless it can procure the agreement of its political opponents. observe the position in which the present executive government is consequently placed. take only the question of passive resistance. the action of the house of lords at the present time forces the executive government to lock up in prison men with whose action they entirely sympathise and whose grievance they have faithfully promised to redress. such a position is intolerable. indeed, i am sure that if right hon. gentlemen opposite would only utilise that valuable gift of putting themselves in imagination in the position of others, they would see that no self-respecting men could continue to occupy such a position except with the object of putting an end to it for ever. much might be said for and against the two-party system. but no one can doubt that it adds to the stability and cohesion of the state. the alternation of parties in power, like the rotation of crops, has beneficial results. each of the two parties has services to render in the development of the national life; and the succession of new and different points of view is a real benefit to the country. a choice between responsible ministries is a great strength to the crown. the advantage of such a system cannot be denied. would not the ending of such a system involve a much greater disturbance than to amend the functions of the house of lords? is there not a much greater cataclysm involved in the breakdown of the constitutional organisation of democracy--for that is the issue which is placed before us--than would be involved in the mere curtailment of the legislative veto which has been given to another place? i ask the house what does such a safeguard as the house of lords mean? is it a safeguard at all? enormous powers are already possessed by the house of commons. it has finance under its control, it has the executive government; the control of foreign affairs and the great patronage of the state are all in the power of the house of commons at the present time. and if you are to proceed on the basis that the people of this country will elect a mad house of commons, and that the mad house of commons will be represented by a mad executive, the house of lords is no guarantee against any excesses which such a house of commons or such an executive might have in contemplation. whatever you may wish or desire, you will be forced to trust the people in all those vital and fundamental elements of government which in every state have always been held to involve the practical stability of the community. is the house of lords even a security for property? why, the greatest weapon which a democracy possesses against property is the power of taxation, and the power of taxation is wholly under the control of this house. if this house chooses, for instance, to suspend payment to the sinking fund, and to utilise the money for any public purpose or for any social purpose, the house of lords could not interfere. if the house of commons chose to double taxation on the wealthy classes, the house of lords could not interfere in any respect. understand i am not advocating these measures; what i am endeavouring to show to the house is that there is no real safeguard in the house of lords even in regard to a movement against property. but surely there are other securities upon which the stability of society depends. in the ever-increasing complexities of social problems, in the restrictions which are imposed from day to day with increasing force on the action of individuals, above all, in the dissemination of property among many classes of the population, lie the real elements of stability on which our modern society depends. there are to-day, unlike in former ages, actually millions of people who possess not merely inert property, but who possess rent-earning, profit-bearing property; and the danger with which we are confronted now is not at all whether we shall go too fast. no, the danger is that about three-fourths of the people of this country should move on in a comfortable manner into an easy life, which, with all its ups and downs, is not uncheered by fortune, while the remainder of the people shall be left to rot and fester in the slums of our cities, or wither in the deserted and abandoned hamlets of our rural districts. that is the danger with which we are confronted at the present moment, and it invests with a deep and real significance the issue which is drawn between the two parties to-night. it is quite true that there are rich members of the liberal party, and there are poor men who are supporters of the conservative party; but in the main the lines of difference between the two parties are social and economic--in the main the lines of difference are increasingly becoming the lines of cleavage between the rich and the poor. let that reflection be with us in the struggle which we are now undertaking, and in which we shall without pause press forward, confident of this, that, if we persevere, we shall wrest from the hands of privilege and wealth the evil, ugly, and sinister weapon of the peers' veto, which they have used so ill so long. footnotes: [ ] lord robert cecil. [ ] mr. balfour. [ ] mr. wyndham. the dundee election kinnaird hall, dundee, _may , _ a new government has come into being under a prime minister who, like his predecessor, is tied to scotland by strong and intimate bonds. give him a fair chance. give the government which he has brought into being the opportunity of handling the great machinery of state. be assured that, if you do, they will employ it for the greatest good of the greatest number. i am well satisfied at what has taken place since i have been in dundee. i see a great concentration of forces throughout the constituency. i see the opportunity of retrieving, and more than retrieving, the injury which has been done to the cause of progress and reform by elections in other parts of our island. ah, but, a very sad thing has happened; an awful thing has happened--the liberal party has gone in for home rule. _the scotsman_ is shocked, _the times_ is speechless, and takes three columns to express its speechlessness; _the spectator_, that staid old weekly, has wobbled back to where it never should have wobbled from; the ulster unionists declare that the government has forfeited all the confidence that they never had in it, and thousands of people who never under any circumstances voted liberal before are saying that under no circumstances will they ever vote liberal again. and i am supposed to be responsible for this revolution in our policy. why, the statements i have made on the irish question are the logical and inevitable consequence of the resolution which was passed by the house of commons, in which every member of the government voted, which was carried by an enormous majority--more than --a month ago[ ]--a resolution which, after explaining the plain and lamentable evils which can be traced to the existing system of government in ireland, affirmed that the remedy for those evils would be found in a representative body with an executive responsible to it, subject to the supreme authority of the imperial parliament. the irish question at the present time occupies a vastly different position to what it did in the year . ever since the attention of parliament has been devoted constantly to ireland, and the attention of parliament, when devoted constantly to one object, is rarely fruitless. the twenty-five years that have passed have seen great changes in ireland. we have seen a great scheme of local government, which lord salisbury said would be more disastrous than home rule itself, actually put into force. we have seen the scheme of land purchase, which in the year did more to injure the home rule bill than anything else, actually carried, not indeed to a complete conclusion, but carried into practical effect by a unionist administration. these are great events; and their consequences, i think, ought to encourage us to move forward, and not to move back. they have produced results in ireland which are beneficent, and the irish question no longer presents itself in the tragic guise of the early eighties. they have produced an effect on great britain too. all over our country people have seen bills which they were told beforehand would be ruinous to the unity and integrity of the united kingdom--land bills and local government bills--passed into law; and so far from the dire consequences which were apprehended from these measures, they have found--you here have found--that great good has resulted from that legislation. many people are encouraged by what has taken place to make a step forward in the future; and i think if we need to look for any further encouragement, we should find it in the great and undisputed triumph which, under the mercy of heaven, has attended our policy in south africa, and has resulted in bringing into the circle of the british empire a strong and martial race, which might easily have been estranged for ever. the irish polity finds its fellow nowhere in the world. it is a government responsible neither to king nor people. it is not a democratic government, nor an autocratic government, nor even an oligarchical government. it is a government hag-ridden by forty-one administrative boards, whose functions overlap one another and sometimes conflict with one another. some are fed with money from the consolidated fund, some are supplied by vote of the house of commons, some are supplied from savings from the irish development grant. some of these boards are under the viceroy, some under the chief secretary, some under treasury control, and some are under no control at all. the administration resulting from that system is costly, inefficient, unhandy beyond all description: a mighty staff of officials and police; a people desperately poor; taxation which rises automatically with every increase in the expenditure of this vast and wealthy island; and a population which dwindles tragically year by year. add to all this a loyalist caste, capable and well-organised, who are taught generation after generation to look for support not to their own countrymen, but to external force derived from across the sea. there exists in effect in ireland at the present time almost exactly the same situation which would have grown up in south africa, if we had not had the wit and the nerve to prevent it. take the whole of this situation as i have described it, thrust it into the arena of british politics to be the centre of contending factions, and the panorama of irish government is complete. with these facts before us, upon the authority of men like lord dunraven, sir joseph west-ridgeway, sir antony macdonnell, lord dudley, and others who have served the crown in ireland--is it wonderful that we should refuse to turn our eyes away from the vision of that other ireland, free to control her own destiny in all that properly concerns herself, free to devote the native genius of her people to the purposes of her own self-culture--the vision of that other ireland which mr. gladstone had reserved as the culminating achievement of his long and glorious career? is it wonderful that we should refuse to turn our eyes away from that? no; i say that the desire and the aim of making a national settlement with ireland on lines which would enable the people of that country to manage their own purely local affairs, is not an aim that can be separated from the general march of the liberal army. if i come forward on your platform here at dundee it is on the clear understanding that i do not preclude myself from trying to reconcile ireland to england on a basis of freedom and justice. i said just now that this was an important election. yes, the effect upon his majesty's government and upon the liberal party for good or ill from this election cannot fail to be far-reaching. there are strong forces against us. do not underrate the growing strength of the tory reaction now in progress in many of the constituencies in england. i say it earnestly to those who are members of the labour party here to-day--do not underrate the storm which is gathering over your heads as well as ours. i am not afraid of the forces which are against us. with your support we shall overwhelm them--with your support we shall bear them down. ah, but we must have that support. it is not the enemy in front that i fear, but the division which too often makes itself manifest in progressive ranks--it is that division, that dispersion of forces, that internecine struggle in the moments of great emergency, in the moments when the issue hangs in the balance--it is that which, i fear, may weaken our efforts and may perhaps deprive us of success otherwise within our grasp. there are cross-currents in this election. you cannot be unconscious of that. they flow this way and that way, and they disturb the clear issue which we should like to establish between the general body of those whose desire it is to move forward, and those who wish to revert to the old and barbarous prejudices and contentions of the past--to the fiscal systems and to the methods of government and administration, and to the jingo foreign policies across the seas, from which we hoped we had shaken ourselves clear. i want to-night to speak about these cross-currents; and let me first say a word about socialism. there are a great many socialists whose characters and whose views i have much respect for--men some of whom i know well, and whose friendship i enjoy. a good many of those gentlemen who have delightful, rosy views of a noble and brilliant future for the world, are so remote from hard facts of daily life and of ordinary politics that i am not very sure that they will bring any useful or effective influence to bear upon the immediate course of events. to the revolutionary socialist, whether dreamer or politician, i do not appeal as the liberal candidate for dundee. i recognise that they are perfectly right in voting against me and voting against the liberals, because liberalism is not socialism, and never will be. there is a great gulf fixed. it is not only a gulf of method, it is a gulf of principle. there are many steps we have to take which our socialist opponents or friends, whichever they like to call themselves, will have to take with us; but there are immense differences of principle and of political philosophy between our views and their views. liberalism has its own history and its own tradition. socialism has its own formulas and aims. socialism seeks to pull down wealth; liberalism seeks to raise up poverty. socialism would destroy private interests; liberalism would preserve private interests in the only way in which they can be safely and justly preserved, namely, by reconciling them with public right. socialism would kill enterprise; liberalism would rescue enterprise from the trammels of privilege and preference. socialism assails the pre-eminence of the individual; liberalism seeks, and shall seek more in the future, to build up a minimum standard for the mass. socialism exalts the rule; liberalism exalts the man. socialism attacks capital; liberalism attacks monopoly. these are the great distinctions which i draw, and which, i think, you will agree i am right in drawing at this election between our respective policies and moods. don't think that liberalism is a faith that is played out; that it is a creed to which there is no expanding future. as long as the world rolls round, liberalism will have its part to play--grand, beneficent, and ameliorating--in relation to men and states. the truth lies in these matters, as it always lies in difficult matters, midway between extreme formulas. it is in the nice adjustment of the respective ideas of collectivism and individualism that the problem of the world and the solution of that problem lie in the years to come. but i have no hesitation in saying that i am on the side of those who think that a greater collective element should be introduced into the state and municipalities. i should like to see the state undertaking new functions, stepping forward into new spheres of activity, particularly in services which are in the nature of monopolies. there i see a wide field for state enterprise. but when we are told to exalt and admire a philosophy which destroys individualism and seeks to replace it absolutely by collectivism, i say that is a monstrous and imbecile conception, which can find no real acceptance in the brains and hearts--and the hearts are as trustworthy as the brains--in the hearts of sensible people. now i pass over the revolutionary socialists, who, i admit, if they feel inclined, are justified in throwing away their votes on saturday next, and i come to the labour and to the trade union element in our midst. there i have one or two words to say of rather a straight character, if you don't object, and which, i hope, will be taken in good part, and will be studied and examined seriously. labour in britain is not socialism. it is quite true that the socialistic element has imposed a complexion on labour, rather against its will, and is now supported in its action by funds almost entirely supplied by trade unions. but trade unions are not socialistic. they are undoubtedly individualist organisations, more in the character of the old guilds, and lean much more in the direction of the culture of the individual than in that of the smooth and bloodless uniformity of the mass. now, the trade unions are the most respectable and the most powerful element in the labour world. they are the social bulwarks of our industrial system. they are the necessary guard-rails of a highly competitive machine, and i have the right, as a member of his majesty's government, to speak with good confidence to trade unionists, because we have done more for trade unionists than any other government that has ever been. how stands the case of the trade unionists? do they really believe, i put this question to them fairly--do they really believe that there is no difference whatever between a tory and a liberal government? do trade unionists desire the downfall of the existing liberal government? would they really like to send a message of encouragement to the house of lords--for that is what it comes to--to reject and mutilate liberal and radical legislation--and labour legislation now before parliament? would they send such a message of encouragement to the house of lords as this--"house of lords, you were right in your estimate of public opinion when you denied the extension of the provision of meals to school children bill to scotland, when you threw out the scottish land valuation bill, when you threw out the scottish small holders bill--when you did all this you were right." do you wish to send that message to the house of lords? but that will be the consequence of every vote subtracted from the liberal majority. why, gentlemen, let me return to the general current of events. what is the government doing at present, and what has it done in its brief existence? within the limits under which it works, and under the present authority of the house of lords, what has it done and what is it doing for trade unionists? it has passed the trades disputes act. the workmen's compensation act has extended the benefits of compensation to six million persons not affected by previous legislation. the qualification of justices of the peace--the citizens' privy councillorship, as i call it--has been reduced so as to make it more easy for persons not possessed of this world's goods to qualify to take their place on the civic bench. you know the land legislation for england, which is designed to secure that the suitable man who wants a small parcel of land to cultivate for his own profit and advantage shall not be prevented from obtaining it by feudal legislation, by old legal formalities or class prejudice. and is the licensing bill not well worth a good blow struck, and struck now, while the iron is hot? then there is the miners' eight hours bill, a measure that has been advocated by the miners for twenty years, and justified by the highest medical testimony on humanitarian and hygienic grounds. it is costing us votes and supporters. it is costing us by-elections, yet it is being driven through. have we not a right to claim the support of the trade unionists who are associated with the miners? don't they feel that this measure is hanging in the balance, not in the house of commons, but in the balance in the house of lords, which attaches to by-elections an importance which, in their arrogant assertion, entitles them to mutilate or reject legislation, even although it comes to them by the majority of a parliament newly elected on a suffrage of six millions. then there is the question of old-age pensions, a question that has been much misused and mishandled in the past. that was a pledge given by our opponents to win the election of , and after the lapse of thirteen years of toil and stress, the liberal party is able to take it up, and will implement it in an effective fashion. now, is there one of all these subjects which does not command the support of trade unionists and responsible labour leaders? the government is fighting for these measures. the government is risking its life and power for these and similar objects. the tory party is opposing it on every point. the tory party is gaining popularity from the resistance of the interests which are affected by the passing of such measures of social reform. the house of lords is the weapon of the tory party. with that weapon they can make a liberal government ridiculous. are the labour leaders, are trade unionists, confronted at this moment with the menace of reaction, deliberately going to throw in their lot with the house of lords? i don't think they will. the record in labour legislation under the existence of the present government is a record which deserves, and will, i believe, command, the support of the great mass of the labouring classes of our country. but i say, in all seriousness, that if the liberal government is on the one hand confronted by the house of lords, fortified by sporadic by-elections, and on the other hand is attacked, abused, derided, by a section of those for whom it is fighting, then that government, whatever its hopes, whatever its energies, whatever its strength, will be weakened, will perhaps succumb, and will be replaced by another government. and by what other government will it be replaced? there can be no other result from such a division of progressive forces than to instal a tory and protectionist government in power. that will not be fatal to us. liberalism will not be killed. liberalism is a quickening spirit--it is immortal. it will live on through all the days, be they good days or be they evil days. no! i believe it will even burn stronger and brighter and more helpful in evil days than in good--just like your harbour-lights, which shine out across the sea, and which on a calm night gleam with soft refulgence, but through the storm flash a message of life to those who toil on the rough waters. but it takes a great party to govern great britain--no clique, no faction, no cabal, can govern the forty millions of people who live in this island. it takes a vast concentration of forces to make a governing instrument. you have now got a radical and democratic governing instrument, and if this administration is broken, that instrument will be shattered. it has been recreated painfully and laboriously after twenty years by courage and fidelity. it has come into being--it is here. it is now at work, and by legislation and by the influence which it can exercise throughout the whole world, it is making even our opponents talk our language, making all parties in the state think of social reform, and concern themselves with social and domestic affairs. beware how you injure that great instrument, as mr. gladstone called it--or weaken it at a moment when the masses of this country have need of it. why, what would happen, if this present government were to perish? on its tomb would be written: "beware of social reform. the labouring classes will not support a government engaged in social reform. every social reform will cost you votes. beware of social reform. 'learn to think imperially.'" an inconclusive verdict from dundee, the home of scottish radicalism--an inconclusive, or, still more, a disastrous verdict--would carry a message of despair to every one in all parts of our island and in our sister island who is working for the essential influences and truths of liberalism and progress. down, down, down would fall the high hopes of the social reformer. the constructive plans now forming in so many brains would melt into air. the old régime would be reinstated, reinstalled. like the bourbons, they will have learned nothing and will have forgotten nothing. we shall step out of the period of adventurous hope in which we have lived for a brief spell; we shall step back to the period of obstinate and prejudiced negations. for ireland--ten years of resolute government; for england--dear food and cheaper gin; and for scotland--the superior wisdom of the house of lords! is that the work you want to do, men of dundee? is that the work to which you will put your precious franchises--your votes, which have been won for you by so much struggle in the past? no; i am confident that this city, which has of its own free will plunged into the very centre of national politics, will grasp the opportunity now presented; that its command will not be back, but forward; that its counsel will be not timidity, but courage, and that it will aim not at dividing, but at rallying the progressive forces, not at dissipating, but at combining the energies of reform. that will be the message which you will send in tones which no man can mistake--so that a keen, strong, northern air shall sweep across our land to nerve and brace the hearts of men, to encourage the weak, to fortify the strong, to uplift the generous, to correct the proud. in time of war, when an action has been joined for a long time, and the lines are locked in fierce conflict, and stragglers are coming in and the wounded drifting away, when the reserves begin to waver here and there, it is on such an occasion that scottish regiments have so often won distinction; it is on these occasions that you have seen some valiant brigade march straight forward into the battle smoke, into the confusion of the field, right into the heart of the fight. that is what you have to do at this moment. "scotland for ever!" now i turn my argument to the other side of the field, to the other quarter, from which we are subject to attack; i turn in my appeal from trade unionists, from the labour men, who ought in all fairness to recognise the work this government is doing and back them in their sore struggle; i turn to the rich and the powerful, to unionist and conservative elements, who, nevertheless, upon free trade, upon temperance, and upon other questions of moral enlightenment, feel a considerable sympathy with the liberal party; i turn to those who say, "we like free trade and we are liberals at heart, but this government is too radical: we don't like its radical measures. why can't they let well alone? what do they mean by introducing all these measures, all these bills, which," so they say, "disturb credit and trade, and interfere with the course of business, and cause so many class-struggles in the country?" i turn to those who complain we are too radical in this and in that, and that we are moving too quickly, and i say to them: "look at this political situation, not as party men, but as britons; look at it in the light of history; look at it in the light of philosophy; and look at it in the light of broad-minded, christian charity." why is it that life and property are more secure in britain than in any other country in the world? why is it that our credit is so high and that our commerce stretches so far? is it because of the repressive laws which we impose? why, gentlemen, there are laws far more severe than any prevailing in this country, or that have prevailed here for many years, now in force in great states in europe, and yet there is no complete security of life and property notwithstanding all these repressive laws. is it because of the house of lords, that life and property are secure? why, orders of aristocracy more powerful, much more homogeneous, of greater privileges, acting with much greater energy than our aristocracy, have been swept away in other countries until not a vestige, or scarce a vestige, of their existence remains. is it because of the british constitution that life and property are secure? why, the british constitution is mainly british common sense. there never were forty millions of people dwelling together who had less of an arbitrary and rigid constitution than we have here. the constitution of france, the constitution of germany, the constitution of the united states are far more rigid, far better fortified against popular movement, than the constitution under which we in these islands have moved steadily forward abreast of the centuries on the whole to a better state than any other country. i will tell those wealthy and powerful people what the secret of the security of life and property in britain is. the security arises from the continuation of that very class-struggle which they lament and of which they complain, which goes on ceaselessly in our country, which goes on tirelessly, with perpetual friction, a struggle between class and class which never sinks into lethargy, and never breaks into violence, but which from year to year makes possible a steady and constant advance. it is on the nature of that class-struggle in britain that the security of life and property is fundamentally reposed. we are always changing; like nature, we change a great deal, although we change very slowly. we are always reaching a higher level after each change, but yet with the harmony of our life unbroken and unimpaired. and i say also to those persons here, to whom i now make my appeal: wealthy men, men of light and leading have never been all on one side in our country. there have always been men of power and position who have sacrificed and exerted themselves in the popular cause; and that is why there is so little class-hatred here, in spite of all the squalor and misery which we see around us. there, gentlemen, lies the true evolution of democracy. that is how we have preserved the golden thread of historical continuity, when so many other nations have lost it for ever. that is the only way in which your island life as you know it, and love it, can be preserved in all its grace and in all its freedom--can be elevated, expanded, and illumined for those who will occupy our places when our share in the world's work is done. and i appeal to the leaders of industry and of learning in this city to range themselves on the side of a policy which will vigilantly seek the welfare of the masses, and which will strictly refuse to profit through their detriment; and, in spite of the violence of extremists, in spite of the harshness of controversy which hard conditions produce, in spite of many forces which may seem to those gentlemen ungrateful, i ask them to pursue and persevere in their crusade--for it is a crusade--of social progress and advance. cologne cathedral took years to build. generations of architects and builders lived and died while the work was in progress. still the work went on. sometimes a generation built wrongly, and the next generation had to unbuild, and the next generation had to build again. still the work went on through all the centuries, till at last there stood forth to the world a mighty monument of beauty and of truth to command the admiration and inspire the reverence of mankind. so let it be with the british commonwealth. let us build wisely, let us build surely, let us build faithfully, let us build, not for the moment, but for future years, seeking to establish here below what we hope to find above--a house of many mansions, where there shall be room for all. the result of the election was declared as follows churchill (liberal) , baxter (conservative) , stuart (socialist) , scrymgeour (prohibitionist) ----- liberal majority , ----- footnotes: [ ] march , . ii social organisation page mines [eight hours] bill (july , ) unemployment (oct. , ) the social field (jan. , ) the approaching conflict (jan. , ) the anti-sweating bill (april , ) labour exchanges and unemployment insurance (may , ) the second reading of the mines [eight hours] bill house of commons, _july , _ whatever arguments may be urged against this measure, no one can say that the government have acted with precipitation in bringing it before the house and the country. it has been debated for twenty years. parliaments, tory and liberal, have affirmed the principle, and i do not suppose there ever was a similar reform put forward in this house upon a greater volume of scientific and accurate information, or after more prolonged, careful, and sustained scrutiny. if the debate on the second reading has thrown very little new light on this question, it is because it has been fully and thoroughly explored on former occasions; and not only has it been fully explored, but it is now illuminated by the admirable report which has been presented by the departmental committee appointed last session. this report, while exciting approval on all sides, gives no complete satisfaction to any. it balances, and weighs, but it does not finally pronounce. it aims less at deciding this controversy, than at defining the limits within which its economic aspect may be said to lie. i think any one who reads the report with attention will feel, after careful study, that the limits of the economic controversy are moderately restricted. we have to consider on the one hand the gross reduction of one-tenth in the hours of labour of underground workmen, taking the average over all classes of men and all sorts of mines. and on the other hand we have as a set-off against that gross reduction certain very important mitigations which are enumerated in the report, to which i shall briefly refer. the first economic question which the house has to settle is, whether these mitigations which are enumerated will have the effect of overtaking the reduction which is to follow the curtailment of hours, or, if not, how far they will fall short in overtaking that reduction. i do not suppose that any hon. gentleman is likely to change his opinion on a question of such complexity at this late stage of the debate, and therefore i shall only refer by name to these mitigations, bearing in mind how important they are. there are those which depend on the arrangements of employers, and those which depend on the volition of the workers. with regard to the employers, there is improved organisation by methods of haulage and winding, and other means specified in the report. there is the more extensive application of coal-cutting machinery, and the sinking of new pits with modern appliances, which is progressing in many parts of the country. there is the system of double and multiple shifts. the extension of the system will not be so difficult as has sometimes been supposed. at the present moment, taking the statistics of , a quarter only of the workers below ground are employed in mines in which there is only one coal-getting shift, and in all the mines in which there are two or more coal-getting shifts the first shift preponderates in number greatly over the second, and, therefore, in applying this system of double or multiple shifts, in so far as it is necessary to apply it, we shall not have to face the difficulty of a complete transformation in the methods of working a great many of the mines, but it will be a mere extension of the system which at present exists over a great portion of the coal-getting area. from the side of labour, the mitigations which may be expected as off-sets to the original reduction are not less important. there is the increased efficiency, of which we have instances actually on record in this report, which has followed from the reduction of hours. there is the power of the worker, if he chooses, to increase his earnings on a short day. there is "absenteeism," which has always been affected by a reduction of hours, and which amounts to . per cent. of the working time of the mines, and there is the margin of stoppages through slack trade and other circumstances, which at present aggregates per cent. of the working time of the mines. taking these last two alone, they aggregate per cent., or considerably more, as a margin, than the reduction of working time which will be caused by the operation of this bill, even when the full operation is reached. first of all then, let the house consider carefully whether from these sources it is possible to overtake the per cent. reduction which, in the first instance, the bill imposes. it is a question nicely balanced; it offers matter for fair argument this way and that, but, taking all the means of mitigation together, not only singly but collectively, it is surely very difficult to believe that masters and men, organised as they are, and working together with good will, and with ample time to accommodate themselves to new arrangements, will not be able from all sources to overtake the comparatively small reduction in hours the bill will effect. i am inclined to an opinion that good use will be made of these margins, but even if we assume, for the sake of the argument, that there will be a net reduction in consequence of the passage of this bill in the output of coal, that reduction must be temporary and transient in its character. for fifty years there have been continuous changes in the conditions of coal-mining in this country. the hours have been reduced, the conditions of boy labour have been restricted, wages have been raised, compensation has been provided, and precautions against accidents have been multiplied. all these changes, the wisdom of which nobody disputes, may from a purely and crudely economic standpoint be said to militate against production. we have heard many prophecies, but what has been the history of the coal trade? there has been a steady, unbroken expansion of output during the last fifty years. in the period of ten years ending in , , , tons were produced; in the next ten years , , ; in the next ten years , , ; in the next ten years , , ; and in the last period of ten years , , --a figure which has been greatly exceeded since. if it be admitted that there may be a certain reduction in output as a consequence of this bill, that reduction must be considered, not by itself, not in isolation, but in relation to the steady and persistent movement of coal production for the last fifty years. to me it seems certain that the small temporary restriction will be lost in the general tendency to expansion, as the eddy is carried forward by the stream and the recoiling wave is lost in the advancing tide. but these arguments would be wholly vitiated if it could be shown that the restriction of hours was so violent in its character, so sudden in its application, so rigid in its methods as, not merely to cause a certain shrinkage in the volume of the output, but to upset the economy of the coal-mining industry. in that case there would be not merely a curtailment which might be mitigated, but we should have injured and possibly disorganised the industry; and it is at this point that it is proper for the house to consider the safeguards introduced by the government into the bill. these safeguards are of the greatest importance. there is the safeguard of overtime. sixty hours a year are permitted. in districts where men work ten days a fortnight, twelve weeks may be one hour longer than the usual time allowed by the bill; and where the days laboured are only four in the week, fifteen weeks of extended time will be possible through the provision of overtime. there are provisions with regard to the labour of certain persons permitted to remain below ground beyond the legal hours for special purposes, and there is a power which relaxes the bill altogether in an emergency which is likely to delay or arrest the general work of the mine, and, of course, in any case where there is accident or danger. finally, if there should be risk of a corner or an unexpected rise in price, the government have power by order in council to suspend the whole operation of the law in order to prevent anything like a serious crisis arising in the coal trade. i cannot bring myself to believe that with all these safeguards it will not be possible for the coal industry, if given time, to accommodate itself to the new conditions. it is only two years ago that i was invited from the benches opposite to contemplate the approaching ruin of the gold mines of the rand through the change introduced in the methods of working. that change has been enforced, with the result that working expenses have been reduced, and the standard of production has increased. in making that transition, if time had not been allowed to tide over the period of change, then, indeed, you might have had that disaster which hon. gentlemen opposite have always been ready to apprehend. but there is here to be a gradual process of adaptation, for which not less than five years is permitted. we are told that positive reasons, and not negative reasons, ought to be given in support of a measure which regulates the hours of adult labour--that you ought to show, not that it will do no harm, but that good will come from it. there are, of course, such reasons in support of this bill, but they are so obvious that they have not been dwelt upon as much as they might have been. the reasons are social reasons. we believe that the well-being of the mining population, numbering some , persons, will be sensibly advanced in respect of health, industrial efficiency, habits of temperance, education, culture, and the general standard of life. we have seen that in the past the shortening of hours has produced beneficial effects in these respects, and we notice that in those parts of the country where the hours of coal-mining are shortest, the university extension lecturers find that the miners take an intelligent interest in their lectures--and it is among the miners of fifeshire that a considerable development in gardening and also of saving to enable them to own their own houses, has followed on a longer period of leisure. but the general march of industrial democracy is not towards inadequate hours of work, but towards sufficient hours of leisure. that is the movement among the working people all over the country. they are not content that their lives should remain mere alternations between bed and the factory. they demand time to look about them, time to see their homes by daylight, to see their children, time to think and read and cultivate their gardens--time, in short, to live. that is very strange, perhaps, but that is the request they have made and are making with increasing force and reason as years pass by. no one is to be pitied for having to work hard, for nature has contrived a special reward for the man who works hard. it gives him an extra relish, which enables him to gather in a brief space from simple pleasures a satisfaction in search of which the social idler wanders vainly through the twenty-four hours. but this reward, so precious in itself, is snatched away from the man who has won it, if the hours of his labour are too long or the conditions of his labour too severe to leave any time for him to enjoy what he has won. professor marshall, in his "principles of economics," says: "the influence which the standard of hours of work exerts on economic activities is partially obscured by the fact that the earnings of a human being are commonly counted gross; no special reckoning being made for his wear-and-tear, of which he is himself rather careless. further, very little account is taken of the evil effects of the overwork of men on the well-being of the next generation.... when the hours and the general conditions of labour are such as to cause great wear-and-tear of body or mind or both, and to lead to a low standard of living; when there has been a want of that leisure, rest, and repose which are among the necessaries for efficiency, then the labour has been extravagant from the point of view of society at large.... and, since material wealth exists for the sake of man, and not man for the sake of material wealth, the replacement of inefficient and stunted human lives by more efficient and fuller lives would be a gain of a higher order than any temporary material loss that might have been occasioned on the way." if it be said that these arguments are general, is it not true that special circumstances differentiate the case of coal-miners from that of many other industries in this country? others have spoken of the heat of the mine, the danger of fire-damp, of the cramped position, of the muscular exertions of the miner, at work in moist galleries perhaps a mile under the ground. i select the single fact of deprivation of natural light. that alone is enough to justify parliament in directing upon the industry of coal-mining a specially severe scrutiny and introducing regulations of a different character from those elsewhere. the hon. member for windsor[ ] who moved the rejection of this bill described it as a reckless and foolhardy experiment. i see the miner emerging from the pit after eight hours' work with the assertion on his lips that he, at any rate, has paid his daily debt to his fellow men. is the house of commons now going to say to him, "you have no right to be here. you have only worked eight hours. your appearance on the surface of the earth after eight hours' work is, to quote the hon. member, 'a reckless and foolhardy experiment'"? i do not wonder at the miners' demand. i cannot find it in my heart to feel the slightest surprise, or indignation, or mental disturbance at it. my capacity for wonder is entirely absorbed, not by the miners' demand, but by the gentleman in the silk hat and white waistcoat who has the composure and the complacency to deny that demand and dispute it with him. the hon. member for dulwich[ ]--himself a convinced protectionist, with a tariff with , articles in its schedules in his coat-tail pocket--has given us a delightful lecture on the importance of cheapness of production. think of the poor consumer! think of the importance to our industries of cheapness of production! we on this side are great admirers of cheapness of production. we have reminded the hon. gentleman of it often; but why should cheapness of production always be achieved at the expense of the human factor? the hon. gentleman spoke with anxiety of the possibility of a rise in miners' wages as a consequence of this bill. has he considered the relation of miners' wages to the selling prices of coal? at the pit's mouth the underground-workers' wages are only per cent. of the selling price of coal. free on board on the tyne, the proportion is only per cent. as coal is sold here in the south of england the proportion of wages is less than one-fifth of the whole price. is it not clear that there are other factors at least which require consideration before you decide to deal with the human factor, which first attracts the attention of the hon. gentleman? what about mining royalties? in all this talk about the importance of cheap coal to our industries and to the poor consumer we have had no mention of mining royalties. no. we never mention that. yet, will the house believe it, it is estimated that mining royalties impose a toll of per cent., calculated on the price of coal at the pit's mouth, or considerably more than half the total diminished production which could result from this humane act of labour legislation. but we are asked: "why stop here? why don't your arguments apply elsewhere?" and we are told of people whose conditions of life are worse than some of those of coal-miners. why stop here? who ever said we would stop here? i welcome and support this measure, not only for its own sake, but much more because it is, i believe, simply the precursor of the general movement which is in progress all over the world, and in other industries besides this, towards reconciling the conditions of labour with the well-ascertained laws of science and health. if we are told that because we support this measure we shall be inflicting an injury or injustice on other classes of the population, i say there is a great solidarity among all classes of manual labourers. i believe that when they consider this matter they will see that all legitimate interests are in harmony, that no one class can obtain permanent advantage by undue strain on another, and that in the end their turn will come for shorter hours, and will come the sooner because they have aided others to obtain that which they desire themselves. when the house is asked to contemplate gloomy pictures of what will follow on this bill, let them recur to the example of parliaments gone by. when the ten hours bill was introduced in , a bill which affected the hours of adult males inferentially, the same lugubrious prophecies were indulged in from both sides of the house. distinguished economists came forward to prove that the whole profit of the textile industry was reaped after the eleventh hour. famous statesmen on both sides spoke strongly against the measure. the parliament, in , was in the same sort of position as we are to-day in this respect, but how differently circumstanced in other respects. that parliament did not enjoy the wide and accurate statistical information in every branch of labour which enables us to-day to move forward with discretion and prudence. they were not able to look to the general evidences of commercial security and expansion on which modern politicians can rely. they could not show, as we can show, overwhelming examples of owlish prophets dazzlingly disproved; they could not point, as we can point, to scores of cases where not only increased efficiency, but a positive increase in output has followed the reduction of the hours of labour. the principle was new, the future was vague. but the parliament of those days did not quail. they trusted to broad, generous instincts of common sense; they drew a good, bold line; and we to-day enjoy in a more gentle, more humane, more skilful, more sober, and more civilised population the blessings which have followed their acts. now it is our turn. let us vote for the second reading of this bill, and in so doing establish a claim upon the respect of parliaments to come, such as we ourselves owe to parliaments of the past.[ ] footnotes: [ ] mr. j.f. mason. [ ] mr. bonar law. [ ] this concluded the debate, and the second reading was carried by to . unemployment kinnaird hall, dundee, _october , _ (from _the times_, by permission.) what is the political situation which unfolds itself to our reflections to-night? i present it to you without misgivings or reserve. for nearly three years a liberal administration, more democratic in its character, more widely selected in its _personnel_, more radical in the general complexion of its policy, than any that has previously been known to british history, has occupied the place of power. during the whole of that period no single serious administrative mistake, either at home or abroad, has embarrassed or discredited the conduct of public affairs. three parliamentary sessions, fruitful beyond precedent in important legislation, have been surmounted with dignity and dispatch. the authority and influence of great britain among foreign powers have been prudently guarded, and are now appreciably augmented, and that authority and influence have been consistently employed, and will be in the future employed, in soothing international rivalries and suspicion, in asserting a proper respect for public law, in preserving a just and harmonious balance amongst great powers, and in forwarding as opportunities have served, whether in the near east or in the congo, causes of a generous and disinterested humanitarianism. the british empire itself has enjoyed under liberal rule a period of prosperous tranquillity, favourable both to development and consolidation; and it is no exaggeration to say that it was never more strong or more peacefully united than at the present moment. the confidence which the whole country, irrespective of party, feels in sir edward grey in the present european crisis, is the measure of our success in foreign affairs. the gathering of the convention of a united south africa is in itself a vindication of colonial policy. each year for which we have been responsible has been marked by some great and beneficent event which has commanded the acquiescence--or at least silenced the dissent--of many of our professed opponents. in the charter of trade unions; in , the conciliation and settlement of south africa; in , the establishment of old-age pensions. these are large matters; they will take their place in the history book; and on them alone, if necessary, i would confidently base the claims of his majesty's government to respect, if not to renown, in future times. but although we do not meet to-night in any atmosphere of crisis, nor in any expectation of a general election, nevertheless i feel, and i dare say you feel too, that we have reached a climacteric in the life of this parliament. the next six months will probably determine the whole remaining fortunes of the government, and decide whether a gradual but progressive decline will slowly carry the administration in the natural course to the grave where so many others are peacefully slumbering, or whether, deriving fresh vigour from its exertions, it will march forward conquering and to conquer. i said a few minutes ago that this session had been marked by a measure of great and cardinal importance. surely no one will deny the magnitude and significance of the step which has been taken in the establishment of a system of old-age pensions. it marks the assertion in our social system of an entirely new principle in regard to poverty, and that principle, once asserted, cannot possibly be confined within its existing limits. old-age pensions will carry us all a very long way. they have opened a door which will not soon or easily be closed. the members of both houses of parliament have been led to the verge of the cruel abyss of poverty, and have been in solemn session assembled to contemplate its depths and its gloom. all alike have come to gaze; none have remained unmoved. there are some distinguished and eminent men, men whose power and experience i cannot impugn, who have started back appalled by what they have seen, and whose only idea is to slam the door on the grim and painful prospect which has been revealed to their eyes. but that is not the only spirit which has been awakened in our country; there are others, not less powerful, and a greater number, who will never allow that door to be closed; they have got their feet in it, they are resolved that it shall be kept open. nay, more, they are prepared to descend into the abyss, and grapple with its evils--as sometimes you see after an explosion at a coal mine a rescue party advancing undaunted into the smoke and steam. now there is the issue on which the future of this parliament hangs--"forward or back?" voices sound loud and conflicting in our ears; the issue, the sharpest and simplest, the most tremendous that can be put to a generation of men--"forward or backward?"--is the issue which confronts us at the present time, and on it the future of the government is staked. there are faint-hearted friends behind; there are loud-voiced foes in front. the brewer's dray has been pulled across the road, and behind it are embattled a formidable confederation of vested interests. a mountainous obstacle of indifference and apathy bars our advance. what is your counsel? forward or back? let it be remembered that aged poverty is not the only evil with which, so far as our means allow, we have to grapple. what is the problem of the hour? it can be comprised in one word--unemployment. after two years of unexampled trade expansion, we have entered upon a period of decline. we are not alone in this. a reaction from overtrading is general all over the world. both germany and the united states are suffering from a similar commercial contraction, and in both countries, in spite of their high and elaborate protective tariffs, a trade set-back has been accompanied by severe industrial dislocation and unemployment. in the united states of america, particularly, i am informed that unemployment has recently been more general than in this country. indeed the financial collapse in the united states last autumn has been the most clearly marked of all the causes to which the present trade depression may be assigned. it is not yet possible to say that the end of that period of depression is in sight; but there are some significant indications which i think justify the hope that it will be less severe and less prolonged than has been known in other trade cycles, or than some people were at first inclined to believe. but the problem of unemployment is not confined to periods of trade depression, and will not be solved by trade revival; and it is to that problem in its larger and more permanent aspects that i desire to draw your attention for a short time to-night. there is no evidence that the population of great britain has increased beyond the means of subsistence. on the contrary, our wealth is increasing faster than our numbers. production is active; industry grows, and grows with astonishing vigour and rapidity. enterprise in this country requires no artificial stimulant; if it errs at all, it is from time to time upon the side of overtrading and overproduction. there is no ground for believing that this country is not capable of supporting an increasing population in a condition of expanding prosperity. it must, however, be remembered that the british people are more than any other people in the world a manufacturing people. it is certain that our population could never have attained its present vast numbers, nor our country have achieved its position in the world, without an altogether unusual reliance upon manufacture as opposed to simple agriculture. the ordinary changes and transitions inseparable from the active life and growth of modern industry, therefore, operate here with greater relative intensity than in other countries. an industrial disturbance is more serious in great britain than in other countries, for it affects a far larger proportion of the people, and in their distresses the urban democracy are not sustained by the same solid backing of country-folk and peasant cultivators that we see in other lands. it has, therefore, become a paramount necessity for us to make scientific provision against the fluctuations and set-backs which are inevitable in world commerce and in national industry. we have lately seen how the backwash of an american monetary disturbance or a crisis in the near east or in the far east, or some other cause influencing world trade, and as independent of our control as are the phases of the moon, may easily have the effect of letting loose upon thousands of humble families and households all the horrors of a state of siege or a warlike blockade. then there are strikes and trade disputes of all kinds which affect vast numbers of people altogether unconcerned in the quarrel. now, i am not going to-night to proclaim the principle of the "right to work." there is not much use in proclaiming a right apart from its enforcement; and when it is enforced there is no need to proclaim it. but what i am here to assert, and to assert most emphatically, is the responsibility of government towards honest and law-abiding citizens; and i am surprised that that responsibility should ever be challenged or denied. when there is a famine in india, when owing to some unusual course of nature the sky refuses its rains and the earth its fruits, relief works are provided in the provinces affected, trains of provisions are poured in from all parts of that great empire, aid and assistance are given to the population involved, not merely to enable them to survive the period of famine, but to resume their occupations at its close. an industrial disturbance in the manufacturing districts and the great cities of this country presents itself to the ordinary artisan in exactly the same way as the failure of crops in a large province in india presents itself to the hindu cultivator. the means by which he lives are suddenly removed, and ruin in a form more or less swift and terrible stares him instantly in the face. that is a contingency which seems to fall within the most primary and fundamental obligations of any organisation of government. i do not know whether in all countries or in all ages that responsibility could be maintained, but i do say that here and now in this wealthy country and in this scientific age it does in my opinion exist, is not discharged, ought to be discharged, and will have to be discharged. the social machinery at the basis of our industrial life is deficient, ill-organised, and incomplete. while large numbers of persons enjoy great wealth, while the mass of the artisan classes are abreast of and in advance of their fellows in other lands, there is a minority, considerable in numbers, whose condition is a disgrace to a scientific and professedly christian civilisation, and constitutes a grave and increasing peril to the state. yes, in this famous land of ours, so often envied by foreigners, where the grace and ease of life have been carried to such perfection, where there is so little class hatred and jealousy, where there is such a wide store of political experience and knowledge, where there are such enormous moral forces available, so much wisdom, so much virtue, so much power, we have not yet succeeded in providing that necessary apparatus of insurance and security, without which our industrial system is not merely incomplete, but actually inhumane. i said that disturbances of our industrial system are often started from outside this country by causes utterly beyond our control. when there is an epidemic of cholera, or typhoid, or diphtheria, a healthy person runs less risk than one whose constitution is prepared to receive the microbes of disease, and even if himself struck down, he stands a far greater chance of making a speedy recovery. the social and industrial conditions in great britain at this present time cannot be described as healthy. i discern in the present industrial system of our country three vicious conditions which make us peculiarly susceptible to any outside disturbance of international trade. first, the lack of any central organisation of industry, or any general and concerted control either of ordinary government work, or of any extraordinary relief works. it would be possible for the board of trade to foretell with a certain amount of accuracy the degree of unemployment likely to be reached in any winter. it ought to be possible for some authority in some government office--which i do not care--to view the whole situation in advance, and within certain limits to exert a powerful influence over the general distribution of government contracts. there is nothing economically unsound in increasing temporarily and artificially the demand for labour during a period of temporary and artificial contraction. there is a plain need of some averaging machinery to regulate and even-up the general course of the labour market, in the same way as the bank of england, by its bank rate, regulates and corrects the flow of business enterprise. when the extent of the depression is foreseen, the extent of the relief should also be determined. there ought to be in permanent existence certain recognised industries of a useful, but uncompetitive character, like, we will say, afforestation, managed by public departments, and capable of being expanded or contracted according to the needs of the labour market, just as easily as you can pull out the stops or work the pedals of an organ. in this way, you would not eliminate unemployment, you certainly would not prevent the creation of unemployables; but you would considerably limit the scale of unemployment, you would reduce the oscillation of the industrial system, you would increase its stability, and by every step that you took in that direction you would free thousands of your fellow-countrymen from undeserved agony and ruin, and a far greater number from the haunting dread of ruin. that is the first point--a gap, a hiatus in our social organisation--to which i direct your attention to-night, and upon which the intelligence of this country ought to be concentrated. the second vicious condition is positive and not negative. i mean the gross, and, i sometimes fear, increasing evil of casual labour. we talk a great deal about the unemployed, but the evil of the _under-employed_ is the tap-root of unemployment. there is a tendency in many trades, almost in all trades, to have a fringe of casual labour on hand, available as a surplus whenever there is a boom, flung back into the pool whenever there is a slump. employers and foremen in many trades are drawn consciously or unconsciously to distribute their work among a larger number of men than they regularly require, because this obviously increases their bargaining power with them, and supplies a convenient reserve for periods of brisk business activity. and what i desire to impress upon you, and through you upon this country, is that the casual unskilled labourer who is habitually under-employed, who is lucky to get three, or at the outside four, days' work in the week, who may often be out of a job for three or four weeks at a time, who in bad times goes under altogether, and who in good times has no hope of security and no incentive to thrift, whose whole life and the lives of his wife and children are embarked in a sort of blind, desperate, fatalistic gamble with circumstances beyond his comprehension or control, that this poor man, this terrible and pathetic figure, is not as a class the result of accident or chance, is not casual because he wishes to be casual, is not casual as the consequence of some temporary disturbance soon put right. no; the casual labourer is here because he is wanted here. he is here in answer to a perfectly well-defined demand. he is here as the result of economic causes which have been too long unregulated. he is not the natural product, he is an article manufactured, called into being, to suit the requirements, in the prime minister's telling phrase, of all industries at particular times and of particular industries at all times. i suppose no department has more means of learning about these things than the board of trade, which is in friendly touch at every stage all over the country both with capital and labour. i publish that fact deliberately. i invite you to consider it, i want it to soak in. it appears to me that measures to check the growth and diminish the quantity of casual labour must be an essential part of any thorough or scientific attempt to deal with unemployment, and i would not proclaim this evil to you without having reason to believe that practicable means exist by which it can be greatly diminished. if the first vicious condition which i have mentioned to you is lack of industrial organisation, if the second is the evil of casual labour, there is a third not less important. i mean the present conditions of boy labour. the whole underside of the labour market is deranged by the competition of boys or young persons who do men's work for boys' wages, and are turned off so soon as they demand men's wages for themselves. that is the evil so far as it affects the men; but how does it affect the boys, the youth of our country, the heirs of all our exertion, the inheritors of that long treasure of history and romance, of science and knowledge--aye, of national glory, for which so many valiant generations have fought and toiled--the youth of britain, how are we treating them in the twentieth century of the christian era? are they not being exploited? are they not being demoralised? are they not being thrown away? whereas the youth of the wealthier class is all kept under strict discipline until eighteen or nineteen, the mass of the nation runs wild after fourteen years of age. no doubt at first employment is easy to obtain. there is a wide and varied field; there are a hundred odd jobs for a lad; but almost every form of employment now open to young persons affords them no opening, is of no use to them whatever when they are grown up, and in a great number of cases the life which they lead is demoralising and harmful. and what is the consequence? the consequence may be measured by this grim fact, that out of the unemployed applying for help under the unemployed workmen act, no less than twenty-eight per cent. are between twenty and thirty years of age, that is to say, men in the first flush of their strength and manhood already hopelessly adrift on the dark and tumultuous ocean of life. upon this subject, i say to you deliberately that no boy or girl ought to be treated merely as cheap labour, that up to eighteen years of age every boy and girl in this country should, as in the old days of apprenticeship, be learning a trade as well as earning a living. all attempts to deal with these and similar evils involve the expenditure of money. it is no use abusing capitalists and rich people. they are neither worse nor better than any one else. they function quite naturally under the conditions in which they find themselves. when the conditions are vicious, the consequence will be evil; when the conditions are reformed, the evil will be abated. nor do i think the wealthy people of great britain would be ungenerous or unwilling to respond to the plain need of this nation for a more complete or elaborate social organisation. they would have a natural objection to having public money wasted or spent on keeping in artificial ease an ever-growing class of wastrels and ne'er-do-weels. no doubt there would also be a selfish element who would sullenly resist anything which touched their pocket. but i believe that if large schemes, properly prepared and scientifically conceived for dealing with the evils i have mentioned were presented, and if it could be shown that our national life would be placed upon a far more stable and secure foundation, i believe that there would be thousands of rich people who would cheerfully make the necessary sacrifices. at any rate, we shall see. the year that lies before us must be a year of important finance. no doubt that finance will be a subject of fierce and protracted discussion; but i shall certainly not exclude from my mind, in weighing the chances of social reform, that strong element of patriotism which is to be found among the more fortunate of our fellow-countrymen, and which has honourably distinguished them from the rich people of other countries i could name. i have been dealing with three, and only three, of the evil causes which principally affect labour conditions in great britain at the present time. do not forget, however, as the prime minister has reminded us, how intimate is the co-relation of all social reforms, how vital it is to national health and security that we should maintain an adequate and independent population upon the land, and how unsatisfactory, in scotland, at any rate, are the present conditions for small holdings. do not forget, either, how fatal to the social, moral, and political progress of british democracy is the curse of intemperance. there is not a man or woman who lifts a voice and exerts an influence in support either of land or of temperance reform, who will not be doing something not only to alleviate the sufferings of the poor, but to stimulate the healthy advance of british prosperity. but see how vast is the range of this question of unemployment with which we are confronted. see now how intricate are its details and its perplexities; how foolish it would be to legislate in panic or haste; how vain it would be to trust to formulas and prejudices; how earnest must be the study; how patient and laborious the preparation; how scientific the spirit, how valiant the action, if that great and hideous evil of insecurity by which our industrial population are harassed is to be effectually diminished in our national life. see now, also, what sort of politicians those are, whichever extreme of politics they may belong to, who tell you that they have an easy, simple, and unfailing remedy for such an evil. what sort of unscrupulous and reckless adventurers they are who tell you that tariff reform, that a trumpery ten per cent. tariff on foreign manufactures, and a tax on wheat would enable them to provide "work for all." i was very glad to see that mr. balfour frankly and honestly dissociated himself, the other night at dumfries, from the impudent political cheap-jacks who are touting the country on behalf of the tory party, by boldly declaring that tariff reform, or "fiscal reform," as he prefers to call it, would be no remedy for unemployment or trade oscillations. now that mr. balfour has made that admission, for which we thank him, and for which we respect him, i will make one in my turn. if tariff reform or protection, or fiscal reform, or whatever you choose to call it, is no remedy for unemployment--and it is pretty clear from the experience of other countries who have adopted it on a large scale that it is not--neither is free trade by itself a remedy for unemployment. the evil lies deeper, the causes are more complex than any within the reach of import duties or of no import duties, and its treatment requires special measures of a social, not less than of an economic character which are going to carry us into altogether new and untrodden fields in british politics. i agree most whole-heartedly with those who say that in attempting to relieve distress or to regulate the general levels of employment, we must be most careful not to facilitate the very disorganisation of industry which causes distress. but i do not agree with those who say that every man must look after himself, and that the intervention by the state in such matters as i have referred to will be fatal to his self-reliance, his foresight, and his thrift. we are told that our non-contributory scheme of old-age pensions, for instance, will be fatal to thrift, and we are warned that the great mass of the working classes will be discouraged thereby from making any effective provision for their old age. but what effective provision have they made against old age in the past? if terror be an incentive to thrift, surely the penalties of the system which we have abandoned ought to have stimulated thrift as much as anything could have been stimulated in this world. the mass of the labouring poor have known that unless they made provision for their old age betimes they would perish miserably in the workhouse. yet they have made no provision; and when i am told that the institution of old-age pensions will prevent the working classes from making provision for their old age, i say that cannot be, for they have never been able to make such provision. and i believe our scheme, so far from preventing thrift, will encourage it to an extent never before known. it is a great mistake to suppose that thrift is caused only by fear; it springs from hope as well as from fear; where there is no hope, be sure there will be no thrift. no one supposes that five shillings a week is a satisfactory provision for old age. no one supposes that seventy is the earliest period in a man's life when his infirmities may overwhelm him. we have not pretended to carry the toiler on to dry land; it is beyond our power. what we have done is to strap a lifebelt around him, whose buoyancy, aiding his own strenuous exertions, ought to enable him to reach the shore. and now i say to you liberals of scotland and dundee two words--"diligence and daring." let that be your motto for the year that is to come. "few," it is written, "and evil are the days of man." soon, very soon, our brief lives will be lived. soon, very soon, we and our affairs will have passed away. uncounted generations will trample heedlessly upon our tombs. what is the use of living, if it be not to strive for noble causes and to make this muddled world a better place for those who will live in it after we are gone? how else can we put ourselves in harmonious relation with the great verities and consolations of the infinite and the eternal? and i avow my faith that we are marching towards better days. humanity will not be cast down. we are going on--swinging bravely forward along the grand high road--and already behind the distant mountains is the promise of the sun. the social field birmingham, _january , _[ ] (from _the times_, by permission.) i am very glad to come here to-night to wish good luck in the new year to the liberals of birmingham. good luck is founded on good pluck, and that is what i think you will not fail in. birmingham liberals have for twenty years been over-weighted by the influence of remarkable men and by the peculiar turn of events. this great city, which used to be the home of militant radicalism, which in former days supplied with driving power the cause of natural representation against hereditary privilege, has been captured by the foe. the banner of the house of lords has been flung out over the sons and grandsons of the men who shook all england in the struggle for the great reform bill; and while old injustice has but been replaced by new, while the miseries and the privations of the poor continue in your streets, while the differences between class and class have been even aggravated in the passage of years, birmingham is held by the enemy and bound to retrogression in its crudest form. but this is no time for despondency. the liberal party must not allow itself to be overawed by the hostile press which is ranged against it. boldly and earnestly occupied, the platform will always beat the press. still less should we allow ourselves to be perturbed by the fortuitous and sporadic results of by-electoral warfare. i suppose i have fought as many by-elections as most people, and i know that all the advantages lie with the attacking force. the contests are complicated by personal and local influences. the discussions turn upon the incidents of current legislation. there are always grievances to be urged against the government of the day. after a great victory, all parties, and particularly the liberals, are prone to a slackening of effort and organisation; after a great defeat all parties, and especially the tories, are spurred to supreme exertions. these factors are common to all by-elections, under all governments; but never, i venture to say, has it been more important to an opposition to gain by-electoral successes than during the present parliament. it is their only possible line of activity. in the house of commons they scarcely show their noses. in divisions they are absent; in debate--well, i do not think we need say much about that; and it is only by a combination of by-electoral incidents properly advertised by the party press on the one hand, and the house of lords' manipulation upon the other, that the conservative party are able to keep their heads above water. and when i speak of the importance to the opposition of by-elections, let me also remind you that never before have by-electoral victories been so important, not only to a great party, but to a great trade. therefore, while i am far from saying that we should be content with recent manifestations of the opinion of the electorate, while i do not at all deny that they involve a sensible reaction of feeling of an unfavourable character, and while i urge the most strenuous exertions upon all concerned in party organisation, i assert that there is no reason, as the history of this country abundantly shows, why a general election, at a well-chosen moment, and upon some clear, broad, simple issue, should not retrieve and restore the whole situation. there could be no question of a government, hitherto undisturbed by internal disagreement and consistently supported in the house of commons by a large, united, and intact majority, being deflected one hair's breadth from its course by the results of by-elections. we have our work to do, and while we have the power to carry it forward, we have no right, even if we had the inclination, to leave it uncompleted. certainly we shall not be so foolish, or play so false to those who have supported us, as to fight on any ground but that of our own choosing, or at any time but that most advantageous to the general interest of the progressive cause. the circumstances of the period are peculiar. the powers of the house of lords to impede, and by impeding to discredit, the house of commons are strangely bestowed, strangely limited, and still more strangely exercised. there are little things which they can maul; there are big things they cannot touch; there are bills which they pass, although they believe them to be wrong; there are bills which they reject, although they know them to be right. the house of lords can prevent the trams running over westminster bridge; but it cannot prevent a declaration of war. it can reject a bill prohibiting foreign workmen being brought in to break a british strike; it cannot amend a bill to give old-age pensions to , people. it can thwart a government in the minute details of its legislation; it cannot touch the whole vast business of finance. it can prevent the abolition of the plural voter; but it could not prevent the abolition of the police. it can refuse a constitution to ireland, but not, luckily, to africa. lord lansdowne, in his leadership of the house of lords during the present parliament, has put forward claims on its behalf far more important and crude than ever were made by the late lord salisbury. no tory leader in modern times has ever taken so high a view of its rights, and at the same time no one has shown a more modest conception of its duties. in destroying the education bill of the house of lords asserted its right to resist the opinion of a majority of members of the house of commons, fresh from election, upon a subject which had been one of the most prominent issues of the election. in rejecting the licensing bill of they have paraded their utter unconcern for the moral welfare of the mass of their fellow-countrymen. there is one feature in the guidance of the house of lords by lord lansdowne which should specially be noticed, and that is the air of solemn humbug with which this ex-whig is always at pains to invest its proceedings. the nonconformist child is forced into the church school in single-school areas in the name of parents' rights and religious equality. the licensing bill is rejected in the highest interests of temperance. professing to be a bulwark of the commercial classes against radical and socialistic legislation, the house of lords passes an old-age pensions bill, which it asserts will be fatal alike to public finance and public thrift, a mines eight hours bill, which it is convinced will cripple british industry, and a trades disputes bill, which it loudly declared tyrannous and immoral. posing as a chamber of review remote from popular passion, far from the swaying influences of the electorate, it nevertheless exhibits a taste for cheap electioneering, a subserviency to caucus direction, and a party spirit upon a level with many of the least reputable elective chambers in the world; and beneath the imposing mask of an assembly of notables backed by the prescription and traditions of centuries we discern the leer of the artful dodger, who has got the straight tip from the party agent. it is not possible for reasonable men to defend such a system or such an institution. counter-checks upon a democratic assembly there may be, perhaps there should be. but those counter-checks should be in the nature of delay, and not in the nature of arrest; they should operate evenly and equally against both political parties, and not against only one of them; and above all they should be counter-checks conceived and employed in the national interest and not in a partisan interest. these abuses and absurdities have now reached a point when it is certain that reform, effective and far-reaching, must be the necessary issue at a general election; and, whatever may be the result of that election, be sure of this, that no liberal government will at any future time assume office without securing guarantees that that reform shall be carried out. there is, however, one reason which would justify a government, circumstanced and supported as we are, in abandoning prematurely the trust confided to us by the country. when a government is impotent, when it is destitute of ideas and devoid of the power to give effect to them, when it is brought to a complete arrest upon the vital and essential lines of its policy, then i entirely agree that the sooner it divests itself of responsibilities which it cannot discharge, the better for the country it governs and the party it represents. no one who looks back over the three busy years of legislation which have just been completed can find any grounds for such a view of our position; and although we have sustained checks and vexations from circumstances beyond our control which have prevented us settling, as we otherwise would have done, the problems of licensing and of education, no lover of progress who compares the statute-book as it stands to-day with its state in , need feel that he has laboured in vain. no one can say that we have been powerless in the past. the trade unionist as he surveys the progress of his organisation, the miner as the cage brings him to the surface of the ground, the aged pensioner when he visits the post office with his cheque-book, the irish catholic whose son sees the ranges of a university career thrown open, the child who is protected in his home and in the street, the peasant who desires to acquire a share of the soil he tills, the youthful offender in the prison, the citizen as he takes his seat on the county bench, the servant who is injured in domestic service, all give the lie to that--all can bear witness to the workings of a tireless social and humanitarian activity, which, directed by knowledge and backed by power, tends steadily to make our country a better place for the many, without at the same time making it a bad place for the few. but, if we have been powerful in the past, shall we then be powerless in the future? let the year that has now opened make its answer to that. we shall see before many months are passed whether his majesty's government, and the house of commons, by which it is supported, do not still possess effective means to carry out their policy, not only upon those important political issues in which we have been for the time being thwarted, but also in that still wider and, in my opinion, more important field of social organisation into which, under the leadership of the prime minister, we shall now proceed to advance. i do not, of course, ignore the fact that the house of lords has the power, though not the constitutional right, to bring the government of the country to a standstill by rejecting the provision which the commons make for the financial service of the year. that is a matter which does not rest with us, it rests with them. if they want a speedy dissolution, they know where to find one. if they really believe, as they so loudly proclaim, that the country will hail them as its saviours, they can put it to the proof. if they are ambitious to play for stakes as high as any second chamber has ever risked, we shall not be wanting. and, for my part, i should be quite content to see the battle joined as speedily as possible upon the plain, simple issue of aristocratic rule against representative government, between the reversion to protection and the maintenance of free trade, between a tax on bread and a tax on--well, never mind. and if they do not choose, or do not dare to use the powers they most injuriously possess, if fear, i say, or tactics, or prudence, or some lingering sense of constitutional decency, restrains them, then for heaven's sake let us hear no more of these taunts, that we, the liberal party, are afraid to go to the country, that we do not possess its confidence, and that we are impotent to give effect to the essential purposes of our policy. subject to such a constitutional outrage as i have indicated, his majesty's government will claim their right and use their power to present the liberal case as a whole to the judgment of the whole body of electors. that case is already largely developed. how utterly have all those predictions been falsified that a liberal government would be incapable of the successful conduct of imperial affairs! whether you look at our position in europe, or at the difficult conduct of indian administration, or the relations which have been preserved, and in some cases restored, with our self-governing colonies, the policy of the government has been attended with so much success that it has not only commanded the approval of impartial persons, but has silenced political criticism itself. it was in south africa that we were most of all opposed and most of all distrusted, and by a singular inversion it is in south africa that the most brilliant and memorable results have been achieved. indeed, i think that the gift of the transvaal and orange river constitutions and the great settlement resulting therefrom will be by itself as a single event sufficient to vindicate in the eyes of future generations the administration of sir henry campbell-bannerman, and to dignify his memory in parliaments and periods which we shall not see. but our work abroad is not yet completed, has not yet come to its full fruition. if we should continue, as i expect we shall, to direct public affairs for the full five years which are the normal and the healthy period of british administrations, we may look for a further advance and improvement in all the great external spheres of imperial policy. we may look in india for a greater sense of confidence and solidarity between the people and the government. we shall salute the sunrise of south africa united under the british crown. and in europe i trust that sir edward grey will have crowned his work at the foreign office by establishing a better and kindlier feeling between the british and the german peoples. that will be the record of policy beyond the seas on which we shall appeal for judgment and for justice. if it be said that, contrary to general expectation, our policy has prospered better abroad than at home, you have not far to look for the reason. abroad we have enjoyed full responsibility, a free hand, and fair-play; at home we have had a divided authority, a fettered hand, and the reverse of fair-play. we have been hampered and we have been harassed. we have done much; we could have done much more. our policy at home is less complete and less matured than it is abroad. but it so happens that many of the most important steps which we should now take, are of such a character that the house of lords will either not be able or will not be anxious to obstruct them, and could not do so except by courting altogether novel dangers. the social field lies open. there is no great country where the organisation of industrial conditions more urgently demands attention. wherever the reformer casts his eyes he is confronted with a mass of largely preventable and even curable suffering. the fortunate people in britain are more happy than any other equally numerous class have been in the whole history of the world. i believe the left-out millions are more miserable. our vanguard enjoys all the delights of all the ages. our rearguard straggles out into conditions which are crueller than barbarism. the unemployed artisan, the casual labourer, and the casual labourer's wife and children, the sweated worker, the infirm worker, the worker's widow, the under-fed child, the untrained, undisciplined, and exploited boy labourer--it is upon these subjects that our minds should dwell in the early days of . the liberal party has always known the joy which comes from serving great causes. it must also cherish the joy which comes from making good arrangements. we shall be all the stronger in the day of battle if we can show that we have neglected no practicable measure by which these evils can be diminished, and can prove by fact and not by words that, while we strive for civil and religious equality, we also labour to build up--so far as social machinery can avail--tolerable basic conditions for our fellow-countrymen. there lies the march, and those who valiantly pursue it need never fear to lose their hold upon the heart of britain. footnotes: [ ] in the interval between this and the preceding speech the house of lords had rejected the licensing bill. the approaching conflict nottingham, _january , _ (from _the manchester guardian_, by permission of the editor.) we are met together at a time when great exertions and a high constancy are required from all who cherish and sustain the liberal cause. difficulties surround us and dangers threaten from this side and from that. you know the position which has been created by the action of the house of lords. two great political parties divide all england between them in their conflicts. now it is discovered that one of these parties possesses an unfair weapon--that one of these parties, after it is beaten at an election, after it is deprived of the support and confidence of the country, after it is destitute of a majority in the representative assembly, when it sits in the shades of opposition without responsibility, or representative authority, under the frown, so to speak, of the constitution, nevertheless possesses a weapon, an instrument, a tool, a utensil--call it what you will--with which it can harass, vex, impede, affront, humiliate, and finally destroy the most serious labours of the other. when it is realised that the party which possesses this prodigious and unfair advantage is in the main the party of the rich against the poor, of the classes and their dependants against the masses, of the lucky, the wealthy, the happy, and the strong against the left-out and the shut-out millions of the weak and poor, you will see how serious the constitutional situation has become. a period of supreme effort lies before you. the election with which this parliament will close, and towards which we are moving, is one which is different in notable features from any other which we have known. looking back over the politics of the last thirty years, we hardly ever see a conservative opposition approaching an election without a programme, on paper at any rate, of social and democratic reform. there was lord beaconsfield with his policy of "health and the laws of health." there was the tory democracy of lord randolph churchill in and , with large, far-reaching plans of liberal and democratic reform, of a generous policy to ireland, of retrenchment and reduction of expenditure upon naval and military armaments--all promises to the people, and for the sake of which he resigned rather than play them false. then you have the elections of and . in each the conservative party, whether in office or opposition, was, under the powerful influence of mr. chamberlain, committed to most extensive social programmes, of what we should call liberal and radical reforms, like the workmen's compensation act and old-age pensions, part of which were carried out by them and part by others. but what social legislation, what plans of reform do the conservative party offer now to the working people of england if they will return them to power? i have studied very carefully the speeches of their leaders--if you can call them leaders--and i have failed to discover a single plan of social reform or reconstruction. upon the grim and sombre problems of the poor law they have no policy whatever. upon unemployment no policy whatever; for the evils of intemperance no policy whatever, except to make sure of the public-house vote; upon the question of the land, monopolised as it is in the hands of so few, denied to so many, no policy whatever; for the distresses of ireland, for the relations between the irish and british peoples, no policy whatever unless it be coercion. in other directions where they have a policy, it is worse than no policy. for scotland the lords' veto, for wales a church repugnant to the conscience of the overwhelming majority of the welsh people, crammed down their throats at their own expense. yet we are told they are confident of victory, they are persuaded that the country has already forgotten the follies and even the crimes of the late administration, and that the general contempt and disgust in which they were dismissed from power has already passed away. they are already busy making their cabinet, who is to be put in and, what is not less important, who is to be put out. lists of selection and lists of proscription are being framed. the two factions into which they are divided, the balfourites and the tariff reformers, are each acutely conscious of one another's infirmities, and, through their respective organs, they have succeeded in proving to their apparent satisfaction what most of us have known, and some of us have said for a long time past, that they are an uncommonly poor lot all round. it would be bad enough if a party so destitute, according to its own statement, of political merit were to return with the intention of doing nothing but repeating and renewing our experiences under mr. balfour's late administration, of dragging through empty sessions, of sneering at every philanthropic enthusiasm, of flinging a sop from time to time to the brewers or the parsons or the landed classes. but those would not be the consequences which would follow from the tory triumph. consequences far more grave, immeasurably more disastrous, would follow. we are not offered an alternative policy of progress, we are not confronted even with a policy of standstill, we are confronted with an organised policy of constructive reaction. we are to march back into those shades from which we had hoped british civilisation and british science had finally emerged. if the conservative party win the election they have made it perfectly clear that it is their intention to impose a complete protective tariff, and to raise the money for ambitious armaments and colonial projects by taxing the poor. they have declared, with a frankness which is, at any rate, remarkable, that they will immediately proceed to put a tax on bread, a tax on meat, a tax on timber, and an innumerable schedule of taxes on all manufactured articles imported into the united kingdom; that is to say, that they will take by all these taxes a large sum of money from the pockets of the wage-earners, by making them pay more for the food they eat, the houses they live in, and the comforts and conveniences which they require in their homes, and that a great part of this large sum of money will be divided between the landlords and the manufacturers in the shape of increased profits; and even that part of it which does reach the exchequer is to be given back to these same classes in the shape of reductions in income-tax and in direct taxation. if you face the policy with which we are now threatened by the conservative party fairly and searchingly, you will see that it is nothing less than a deliberate attempt on the part of important sections of the propertied classes to transfer their existing burdens to the shoulders of the masses of the people, and to gain greater profits for the investment of their capital by charging higher prices. it is very natural that a party nourishing such designs should be apprehensive of criticism and of opposition; but i must say i have never heard of a party which was in such a jumpy, nervous state as our opponents are at this present time. if one is led in the course of a speech, as i sometimes am, to speak a little firmly and bluntly about the conservative tariff reformers, they become almost speechless with indignation. they are always in a state of incipient political apoplexy, while as for the so-called liberal unionists, whenever they are criticised, they never leave off whining and say that it is unchivalrous to attack them while mr. chamberlain is disabled. sorry i am that he is out of the battle, not only on personal, but on public grounds. his fiercest opponents would welcome his re-entry into the political arena, if only for the fact that we should then have a man to deal with, and some one whose statement of the case for his side would be clear and bold, whose speeches would be worth reading and worth answering, instead of the melancholy marionettes whom the wire-pullers of the tariff reform league are accustomed to exhibit on provincial platforms. but i hope you will not let these pretexts or complaints move you or prevent you from calling a spade a spade, a tax a tax, a protective tariff a gigantic dodge to cheat the poor, or the liberal unionist party the most illiberal thing on record. but if the tariff reformers are so touchy and intolerant that they resent the slightest attack or criticism from their opponents as if it were sacrilege, that is nothing to the fury which they exhibit when any of their friends on the conservative side begin to ask a few questions. one would have thought at least that matters of such gravity and such novelty should be considered fairly on their merits. but what does mr. austen chamberlain say? he tells us that no hesitation will be tolerated from unionist members of parliament in regard to any tariff reform proposals which may in a future parliament be submitted--by whoever may be the chancellor of the exchequer. no hesitation will be tolerated. not opposition, not criticism, not dissent, but no hesitation will be tolerated. the members of the unionist party are to go to the next parliament, not as honest gentlemen, free to use their minds and intelligences. they are to go as the pledged, tied-up delegates of a caucus, forced to swallow without hesitation details of a tariff which they have not even seen; denied the right which every self-respecting man should claim, to give their vote on grand and cardinal issues according to their faith and their conscience. and in order that those who would refuse to be bound by these dishonouring conditions may be smelt out and excluded from the house of commons, a secret society of nameless but probably interested busybodies is hard at work in all the dirtiest sewers of political intrigue. but, after all, these methods are an inseparable part of the process of carrying a protectionist tariff. the whole question resolves itself into a matter of "business is business," and the predatory interests which have banded themselves together to finance and organise the tariff campaign cannot be expected to put up with the conscientious scruples and reasonable hesitations of members of parliament. it will be a cash transaction throughout, with large profits and quick delivery. every little would-be monopolist in the country is going to have his own association to run his own particular trade. every constituency will be forced to join in the scramble, and to secure special favours at the expense of the commonwealth for its special branches of industry. all the elections of the future will turn on tariffs. why, you can see the thing beginning already. that egregious tariff commission have been dividing all the loot among themselves before the battle has been won--dividing the lion's skin while the beast lives--and i was reading only the other day that the conservatives of norwood have decided that they could not support their member any longer, because, forsooth, he would not pledge himself to vote for a special tax on foreign imported chairs and window panes. it is the same in every country. such is the great conspiracy with which the british democracy is now confronted--an attempt to place the main burden of taxation upon the shoulders of wage-earners and not on income-drawers, a disastrous blow at the prosperity, the freedom, the flexibility, and the expansive power of british industry, and a deadly injury to the purity of english public life. the conservative party tell us that if they win the victory they will screw a protective tariff on our necks. what do we say? what of the house of lords? we say that if we win, we will smash to pieces the veto of the house of lords. if we should obtain a majority at the next election--and i have good hopes that if we act with wisdom and with union, and, above all, with courage, we shall undoubtedly obtain an effective majority--the prize we shall claim will be a final change in the relations of the two houses of parliament, of such a character as to enable the house of commons to make its will supreme within the lifetime of a single parliament; and except upon that basis, or for the express purpose of effecting that change, we will not accept any responsibility for the conduct of affairs. but there is another issue which must not be overlooked. i mean the social issue. we have taken a great step already. i must say that he is rather a sour kind of man who can find nothing to notice in the old-age pensions act except its little flaws and petty defects. i think you will feel, on the contrary, that the establishment of the pensions system is a marvellous and impressive example of the power which british governments possess. without a hitch, perfectly smoothly, punctual to the minute, regular as clockwork, nearly , aged persons are being paid their pensions every week. that is a wonderful and beneficent achievement, a good job well worth some risk and sweat to finish. nearly eight millions of money are being sent circulating through unusual channels, long frozen by poverty, circulating in the homes of the poor, flowing through the little shops which cater to their needs, cementing again family unions which harsh fate was tearing asunder, uniting the wife to the husband, and the parent to the children. no; in spite of socialistic sneer and tory jeer and glorious beer, and all the rest of it, i say it is a noble and inspiring event, for which this parliament will be justly honoured by generations unborn. i said just now that a tory tariff victory meant marching backwards, but there are some things they cannot undo. we may be driven from power. we may desire to be released from responsibility. much of our work may be cut short, much may be overturned. but there are some things which tory reaction will not dare to touch, and, like the settlement and reconciliation of south africa, so the old-age pensions act will live and grow and ripen as the years roll by, far beyond the reach of party warfare and far above the changing moods of faction. there are many political injustices in this country and many absurd, oppressive, or obsolete practices. but the main aspirations of the british people are at this present time social rather than political. they see around them on every side, and almost every day, spectacles of confusion and misery which they cannot reconcile with any conception of humanity or justice. they see that there are in the modern state a score of misfortunes that can happen to a man without his being in fault in any way, and without his being able to guard against them in any way. they see, on the other hand, the mighty power of science, backed by wealth and power, to introduce order, to provide safeguards, to prevent accidents, or at least to mitigate their consequences. they know that this country is the richest in the world; and in my sincere judgment the british democracy will not give their hearts to any party that is not able and willing to set up that larger, fuller, more elaborate, more thorough social organisation, without which our country and its people will inevitably sink through sorrow to disaster and our name and fame fade upon the pages of history. we have done some of that work, and we are going to do more. in moving forward to this great struggle which is approaching, we are going to carry our social policy along with us. we are not going to fight alone upon the political and constitutional issue, nor alone upon the defence of free trade. we are going, fearless of the consequences, confident of our faith, to place before the nation a wide, comprehensive, interdependent scheme of social organisation--to place it before the people not merely in the speeches or placards of a party programme, but by a massive series of legislative proposals and administrative acts. if we are interrupted or impeded in our march, the nation will know how to deal with those who stand in the path of vital and necessary reforms. and i am confident that in the day of battle the victory will be to the earnest and to the persevering; and then again will be heard the doleful wail of tory rout and ruin, and the loud and resounding acclamations with which the triumphant armies of democracy will march once again into the central place of power. the second reading of the anti-sweating bill[ ] house of commons, _april , _ it is a serious national evil that any class of his majesty's subjects should receive in return for their utmost exertions less than a living wage. it was formerly supposed that the workings of the laws of supply and demand would in the regular and natural course of events, and by a steady progression, eliminate that evil, and achieve adequate minimum standards. modern opinion has found it necessary greatly to refine upon these broad generalisations of the truth, and the first clear division that we make to-day in questions of wages, is that between a healthy and unhealthy condition of bargaining. where, as in the great staple trades of this country, you have powerful organisations on both sides, with responsible leaders able to bind their constituents to their decisions, conjoined with automatic scales, or arbitration or conciliation in case of a deadlock, there you have a healthy condition of bargaining, which increases the competitive power of the industry, which continually weaves more closely together the fortunes of capital and labour, and which enforces a constant progression in the standards of living and of productive power. but where, as in what we call "sweated trades," you have no organisation at all on either side, no parity of bargaining between employers and employed, where the good employer is continually undercut by the bad, and the bad again by the worse; where the worker whose whole livelihood depends on the trade is undercut by the worker to whom it is only a second string; where the feebleness and ignorance of the workers and their isolation from each other render them an easy prey to the tyranny of bad masters, and middlemen one step above them upon the lowest rungs of the ladder, and themselves held in the grip of the same relentless forces--there you have a condition not of progress but of progressive degeneration. and just as in the former case the upward tendency will be constant if it is not interrupted by external power, so in the latter case the demoralisation will continue in a squalid welter for periods which are quite indefinite so far as our brief lives are concerned. we have seen from the investigations of the last twenty years, when the phenomena of sweating have been under close and scientific review, that there is no power of self-cure within the area of the evil. we have seen that while the general advance in the standards of work and wages has on the whole been constant, these morbid and diseased patches, which we call the sweated trades, have not shared in that improvement, but have remained in a state of chronic depression and degeneration. the same shocking facts, in some cases the same pitiful witnesses, were brought before the select committee last year as before lord dunraven's committee in . indeed i am advised that in some respects wages and conditions are worse than they were twenty years ago. nor are these melancholy facts confined to any one country. sweating is not a peculiarity of great britain. practically the same trades experience the same evils in all other industrial countries. france, germany, austria, and america reproduce with great exactness under similar economic conditions the same social evils, and in those countries, as in ours, sweated industries--by which i mean trades where there is no organisation, where wages are exceptionally low, and conditions subversive of physical health and moral welfare--cast dark shadows in what is, upon the whole, the growing and broadening light of civilisation. there is a clear reason for this, which is in itself at once a justification for the special treatment which we propose for these trades, and a means of marking them off more or less definitely from the ordinary trades. in the case of any great staple trade in this country, if the rate of wages became unnaturally low compared to other industries, and the workers could not raise it by any pressure on their part, the new generation at any rate would exercise a preference for better pay and more attractive forms of industry. the gradual correction of depressed conditions over large periods of time is thus possible. but in these sweated industries there is no new generation to come to the rescue. they are recruited from a class rather than from a section of the community. the widow, the women folk of the poorest type of labourer, the broken, the weak, the struggling, the diseased--those are the people who largely depend upon these trades, and they have not the same mobility of choice, exerted, tardily though it be, by a new generation, but which is undoubtedly operative upon the great staple trades of the country. that is an explanation which accounts for the same evils being reproduced under similar conditions in different countries, separated widely from one another and marked by great differences of general conditions. i ask the house to regard these industries as sick and diseased industries. i ask parliament to deal with them exactly in the same mood and temper as we should deal with sick people. it would be cruel to prescribe the same law for the sick as for the sound. it would be absurd to apply to the healthy the restrictions required for the sick. further, these sweated trades are not inanimate abstractions. they are living, almost sentient, things. let the house think of these sweated trades as patients in a hospital ward. each case must be studied and treated entirely by itself. no general rule can be applied. there is no regulation dose which will cure them all. you cannot effect quicker cures by giving larger doses. different medicines, different diets, different operations are required for each; and consideration, encouragement, nursing, personal effort are necessary for all. great flexibility and variety of procedure, and a wide discretionary power, entrusted to earnest and competent people, must characterise any attempt to legislate on this subject. the central principle of this bill is the establishment of trade boards, which will be charged with the duty of fixing a minimum wage. i am very anxious to give these trade boards the utmost possible substance and recognition. they will be formed on the principle of equality of representation for employers and employed, with a skilled official chairman or nucleus. that is the principle i have adopted in the new arbitration court recently established. that is the principle which will govern the system of labour exchanges, shortly to be introduced, and other measures which may come to be associated with labour exchanges, and i think it is an excellent principle. at the same time, do not let us suppose that these trade boards will, in the first instance, be very strong or representative bodies. they are to be formed in trades mainly worked by women, where no organisation has ever yet taken root, where there are as yet no means of finding and focusing an effective trade opinion. where possible, they will be partly elective; in many cases they will, i expect, have to begin by being almost entirely nominated. in some cases it will be upon the official members alone that the main burden will fall. i could not ask the house to confer upon bodies of this nebulous character, not representative, not elective in any democratic sense, responsible not to constituents, nor to a public department, nor to parliament itself in any way, the absolute and final power of enforcing by the whole apparatus of the law any decision, whether wise or foolish, upon wage questions to which they may come by the narrowest majority. the work which we entrust to them wholly and finally is sufficiently difficult and important. we direct them by this bill to prescribe minimum rates of wages. they are to find the minimum rate. for that purpose they are as well qualified as any body that we could devise. in this sphere their jurisdiction will be complete. the board of trade will not retry the question of what is the right minimum rate. another and quite different question will be decided by the board of trade. they will decide whether the minimum rate which has been prescribed by the trade board commands sufficient support in the trade to make its enforcement by inspection and prosecution likely to be effective. that is the division between the responsibility which the trade boards will have and the responsibility which we shall reserve to ourselves. i shall be quite ready in committee to express that intention, which is in the bill, in a simpler and stronger manner, and to make the function of the board of trade a positive and not a negative one, so that when the trade board has fixed the minimum rate of wages it shall, after an interval of six months, acquire the force of law, and shall be enforced by compulsory powers, unless in the meanwhile the board of trade decides or rules otherwise. for my part, i gladly give an assurance that it is our intention to put the compulsory provisions of this bill into full effect upon at least one of the trades in the schedule, at as early a date as possible, in order to bring about the fulfilment of a much-needed and long-overdue experiment. now i come to the probationary period, and i know that there are a great many who have stated that it is mere waste of time. i, on the contrary, have been led to the opinion that it is vital to any practical or effective policy against sweating. it is no use to attempt, in trades as complex and obscure as these with which we are dealing, to substitute outside authority for trade opinion. the only hope lies in the judicious combination of the two, each acting and reacting upon the other. a mere increase of the penal provisions and inspection would be a poor compensation for the active support of a powerful section within the trade itself. it is upon the probationary period that we rely to enable us to rally to the trade board and to its minimum wage the best employers in the trade. in most instances the best employers in the trade are already paying wages equal or superior to the probable minimum which the trade board will establish. the inquiries which i have set on foot in the various trades scheduled have brought to me most satisfactory assurances from nearly all the employers to whom my investigators have addressed themselves. for the enforcement of this act, and for the prevention of evasion and collusion, i rely upon the factory inspectors, who will report anything that has come to their notice on their rounds and who will make themselves a channel for complaints. i rely still more upon the special peripatetic inspectors and investigators who will be appointed under the act by the board of trade, who will have to conduct prosecutions under the act, and who will devote all their time to the purposes of the act. these officers will incidentally clothe the trade boards with real authority, once the rate has been enforced, in that they will be responsible to the trade board, and not to some powerful department of government external to the trade board itself. i rely further upon the support of the members of the trade boards themselves, who will act as watch-dogs and propagandists. i rely upon the driving power of publicity and of public opinion. but most of all i put my faith in the practical effect of a powerful band of employers, perhaps a majority, who, whether from high motives or self-interest, or from a combination of the two--they are not necessarily incompatible ideas--will form a vigilant and instructed police, knowing every turn and twist of the trade, and who will labour constantly to protect themselves from being undercut by the illegal competition of unscrupulous rivals. an investigator in the east end of london writes: "the people who can check evasion are the large firms. their travellers form a magnificent body of inspectors, who ought to see that the act is enforced. the checking of evasion will have to be carried out, not so much by visiting workshops and home-workers as by hearing where cheap, low-class goods are coming into the market, and tracing the goods back to the contractors who made them." there are solid reasons on which we on this side of the house who are free traders rely with confidence, when we associate ourselves with this class of legislation. first of all, we must not imagine that this is the only european country which has taken steps to deal with sweating. the first exhibition of sweated products was held in berlin, and it was from that exhibition that the idea was obtained of holding that most valuable series of exhibitions throughout this country which created the driving power which renders this bill possible. i am advised that german legislation on some of these questions has even anticipated us. in other countries legislation is pending on principles not dissimilar from those which we advocate. in bavaria and baden the latest reports are to the effect that the official government reports of inquiries recommend almost the same and in some cases stronger provisions than those to which we now ask the assent of the house of commons. this may be said in a different form of austria. all this movement which is going on throughout europe, and which is so pregnant with good, will be powerfully stimulated by our action in this country, and that stimulus will not only facilitate our work by removing the argument which causes hon. gentlemen opposite anxiety, but it will also, i think, redound to the credit of this country that it took a leading and prominent position in what is a noble and benignant work. i was delighted to hear the leader of the opposition say, in a concise and cogent sentence, that he could easily conceive many sweated trades in which the wages of the workers could be substantially raised without any other change except a diminution of price. sir, the wages of a sweated worker bear no accurate relation to the ultimate price. sometimes they vary in the same places for the same work done at the same time. and sometimes the worst sweating forms a part of the production of articles of luxury sold at the very highest price. we believe further, however, that decent conditions make for industrial efficiency and increase rather than diminish competitive power. "general low wages," said mill, "never caused any country to undersell its rivals; nor did general high wages ever hinder it." the employers who now pay the best wages in these sweated trades maintain themselves not only against the comparatively small element of foreign competition in these trades, but against what is a far more formidable competition for this purpose--the competition of those employers who habitually undercut them by the worst processes of sweating. i cannot believe that the process of raising the degenerate and parasitical portion of these trades up to the level of the most efficient branches of the trade, if it is conducted by those conversant with the conditions of the trade and interested in it, will necessarily result in an increase of the price of the ultimate product. it may, even as the right hon. gentleman has said, sensibly diminish it through better methods. sir, it is on these grounds, and within these limits, that i ask for a second reading for this bill. the principles and objects are scarcely disputed here. let us go into committee and set to work upon the details, actuated by a single-minded desire to produce a practical result. it is by the evidences of successful experiment that, more than any other way, we shall forward and extend the area of our operations; and in passing this bill the house will not only deal manfully with a grave and piteous social evil, but it will also take another step along that path of social organisation into which we have boldly entered, and upon which the parliaments of this generation, whatever their complexion, will have to march. footnotes: [ ] otherwise called "the trade boards bill." labour exchanges and unemployment insurance house of commons, _may , _ the functions of government in relation to industrial life may be divided into three categories--discipline, organisation, and relief. the control and regulation of industrial conditions by penal and disciplinary powers belong to the home office, the relieving and curative processes are entrusted to the local government board, and the organisation of industry falls to the province of the board of trade. the proposals which i now submit to the house are concerned only with organisation; they can be judged only in relation to that section of the subject; they do not pretend to stretch beyond it, or to include other not less important aspects; and i ask that they shall not be impugned, because, in dealing with the evils which properly fall within that sphere, they do not extend to other evils that lie without it. i ask permission to introduce a bill for the establishment of a national system of labour exchanges. there is high authority for this proposal. the majority and minority representatives of the poor law commission, differing in so much else, are agreed unanimously in its support. "in the forefront of our proposals," says the majority report, "we place labour exchanges." "this national labour exchange," says the minority report, "though in itself no adequate remedy, is the foundation of all our proposals. it is, in our view, an indispensable condition of any real reform." the national conference of trade union delegates, convened by the parliamentary committee of the trade union congress, of march , , resolved unanimously: "that this conference of trade union delegates, representing , , members, approves of the establishment of labour exchanges on a national basis, under the control of the board of trade, provided that the managing board contains at least an equal proportion of employers and representatives of trade unions." the central unemployed body for london, by a resolution in june , declared in favour of a national system of labour exchanges. economists as divergent in opinion as professor ashley, of birmingham, and professor chapman, of manchester, have all approved and urged the project publicly in the strongest terms. several of the principal members of the late government have, either in evidence before the poor law commission or in public speeches, expressed themselves in favour of labour exchanges, and the report of the delegates of the labour party to germany strongly approves of the system which they found there, namely: "the co-ordination and systematic management of public labour exchanges." the british authorities which i have mentioned are reinforced by the example of many foreign countries; and as early as the board of trade, in its reports on agencies and methods of dealing with unemployed in foreign countries, drew attention to the very considerable extension of labour exchanges in the last three years in germany, austria, switzerland, france, and belgium. since then norway has been added to the list. mr. w. bliss, in the bulletin of the _washington bureau of labour_ for may, , in the course of a survey of the whole field of unemployment and of possible remedies, says, "the most important agencies for providing work for the unemployed who are employable, but have no prospect of returning to their former positions, are the public employment bureaux. these are largely developed in a number of european countries, and especially in germany, where they have grown rapidly in the last twenty years, both in numbers and in efficiency." so that the house will see that we have behind us this afternoon not only a practical consensus of opinion among authorities at home in favour of the policy, but the spectacle of its successful practice on an extensive scale, and over a period of years, in the greatest industrial community of the continent, and its extension in various degrees to many other countries. i do not, therefore, propose to occupy the time of the house with any elaborate justification of the merits of the bill. those we may discuss at our leisure later. i confine myself only to a few general observations. two main defects in modern industrial conditions which were emphasised by the royal commission were the lack of mobility of labour and lack of information. with both of these defects the national system of labour exchanges is calculated to deal. modern industry has become national. fresh means of transport knit the country into one, as it was never knit before. labour alone in its search for markets has not profited; the antiquated, wasteful, and demoralising method of personal application--that is to say, the hawking of labour--persists. labour exchanges will give labour for the first time a modernised market. labour exchanges, in the second place, will increase and will organise the mobility of labour. but let me point out that to increase the _mobility_ of labour is not necessarily to increase the _movement_ of labour. labour exchanges will not increase the movement of labour; they will only render that movement, when it has become necessary, more easy, more smooth, more painless, and less wasteful. labour exchanges do not pretend to any large extent to create new employment. their main function will be to organise the existing employment, and by organising the existing employment to reduce the friction and wastage, resulting from changes in employment and the movement of workers, to a minimum. by so doing they will necessarily raise the general economic standard of our industrial life. so far as the second defect, "lack of information," is concerned, a system of labour exchanges promises to be of the highest value. in proportion as they are used, they will give absolutely contemporary information upon the tendencies of the demand for labour, both in quality and in quantity, as between one trade and another, as between one season and another, as between one cycle and another, and as between one part of the country and another. they will tell the worker where to go for employment. they will tell him, what is scarcely less important, where it is useless to go in search of employment. properly co-ordinated and connected with the employment bureaux of the various education authorities, which are now coming into existence in scotland and in england, they will afford an increasing means of guiding the new generation into suitable, promising, and permanent employment, and will divert them from overstocked or declining industries. they will put an end to that portion of unemployment that is merely local or accidental in character. they are the only means of grappling with the evils of casual employment, with all its demoralising consequences. they are capable of aiding the process of dovetailing one seasonal trade into another. a system of labour exchanges, dispensing with the need for wandering in search of work, will make it possible, for the first time, to deal stringently with vagrancy. and, lastly, labour exchanges are indispensable to any system of unemployment insurance, as indeed to any other type of honourable assistance to the unemployed, since they alone can provide an adequate test of the desire for work and of the reality of unemployment. the authority of both reports of the poor law commission may be cited upon these points; and i shall present this bill to the house as an important piece of social and industrial machinery, the need for which has long been apparent, and the want of which has been widely and painfully felt. i said that in the creation of such a system we may profit by the example of germany; we may do more, we may improve upon the example of germany. the german exchanges, though co-ordinated and encouraged to some extent by state and imperial governments, are mainly municipal in their scope. starting here with practically a clear field and with the advantage of the experiment and the experience of other lands to guide us, we may begin upon a higher level and upon a larger scale. there is reason to believe that the utility of a system like labour exchanges, like utility of any other market, increases in proportion to its range and scope. we therefore propose, as a first principle, that our system shall be uniform and national in its character; and here, again, we are supported both by the minority and by the majority reports of the royal commission. a departmental committee at the board of trade has, during the last six months, been working out the scheme in close detail. the whole country will be divided into ten or twelve principal divisions, each with a divisional clearing house, and each under a divisional chief, all co-ordinated with the national clearing house in london. distributed among these divisions in towns of, let us say, , or upwards will be between and first-class labour exchanges; in towns of , to , between and second-class exchanges; and about minor offices, consisting of third-class exchanges, sub-offices, and waiting-rooms, which last will be specially used in connection with dock decasualisation. the control and direction of the whole system will be under the board of trade. but in order to secure absolute impartiality as between the interests of capital and labour, joint advisory committees, to contain in equal numbers representatives of employers and work-people, will be established in the principal centres. thus we shall apply to the local management of labour exchanges the same principle of parity of representation between workmen and employers under impartial guidance and chairmanship, that we have adopted in the administration of the trade boards bill, and that, _mutatis mutandis_, is the governing feature of the courts of arbitration which have recently been set up. if this bill should obtain the assent of parliament without undue delay, i should hope to bring the system into simultaneous operation over the whole country, so far as practicable, in the early months of next year. temporary premises will be procured in all cases in the first instance; but a programme of building has been prepared, which in ten years will by a gradual process enable in all the principal centres these temporary premises to be replaced by permanent buildings. the expense of this system will no doubt be considerable. its ordinary working will not need a sum less than about £ , per year, and during the period when the building is going on the expenditure will rise to about £ , per year. we hope that the labour exchanges will become industrial centres in each town. we hope they will become the labour market. they may, where necessary, provide an office where the trade board, if there is one, will hold its meetings. we desire to co-operate with trade unions on cordial terms, while preserving strict impartiality between capital and labour in disputed matters. it may, for instance, be possible for trade unions to keep their vacant-book in some cases at the exchanges. the structure of those exchanges may in some cases be such as to enable us to have rooms which can be let to trade unions at a rent, for benefit and other meetings, so as to avoid the necessity under which all but the strongest unions lie at the present time of conducting their meetings in licensed premises. the exchanges may, as they develop, afford facilities for washing, clothes-mending, and for non-alcoholic refreshments to persons who are attending them. separate provision will be made for men and for women, and for skilled and for unskilled labour. boy labour will be dealt with in conjunction with the local education authorities; and travelling expenses may be advanced on loan, if the management of the exchange think fit, to persons for whom situations have been found. so much for the policy of labour exchanges. that is a policy complete in itself. it would be considerable if it stood alone; but it does not stand alone. as my right hon. friend the chancellor of the exchequer has announced in his budget speech, the government propose to associate with the policy of labour exchanges a system of unemployment insurance. the house knows that the minority report advocates a system of compulsory labour exchanges, that no person shall engage any man for less than a month except through a labour exchange. that is not the proposal we are making. we are making a proposal of voluntary labour exchanges. i am quite ready to admit that no system of voluntary labour exchanges can deal adequately with the evils and difficulties of casual labour; but there is one conclusive reason against compulsory labour exchanges at the present time. to establish a system of compulsory labour exchanges in order to eliminate casual labour, and so to divide among a certain proportion of workers all available employment, would be absolutely and totally to cast out at the other end a surplus of unemployed: and to do this before preparations have been made for dealing with that surplus, would be to court an administrative breakdown which could not fail to be attended with the gravest possible disaster. until poor law reform has made further progress, to establish a compulsory system of labour exchanges would only increase and not diminish the miseries with which we are seeking to cope. we have, therefore, decided that our system of labour exchanges shall be voluntary in its character. for that very reason there is a great danger, to which i have never shut my eyes, that the highest ranks of labour, skilled workers, members of strong trade unions, would not think it necessary to use the exchanges, but would use the very excellent apparatus which they have established themselves; that therefore this expensive system of exchanges which we are calling into being would come to be used only by the poorest of the workers in the labour market, and, consequently, would gradually relapse and fall back into the purely distress machinery and non-economic machinery from which we are labouring to extricate and separate it. it is for that reason, quite apart from the merits of the scheme of unemployment insurance, that the government are very anxious to associate with their system of labour exchanges a system of unemployed insurance. if labour exchanges depend for their effective initiation and establishment upon unemployment insurance being associated with them, it is equally true to say that no scheme of unemployment insurance can be worked except in conjunction with some apparatus for finding work and testing willingness to work, like labour exchanges. the two systems are complementary; they are man and wife; they mutually support and sustain each other. so i come to unemployment insurance. it is not practicable at the present time to establish a universal system of unemployment insurance. we, therefore, have to choose at the very outset of this subject between insuring some workmen in all trades or all workmen in some. in the first case we should have a voluntary, and in the second a compulsory system. the risk of unemployment varies so much between one man and another owing to relative skill, character, demeanour, and other qualities, that any system of state-aided voluntary insurance is utilised mainly by those most liable to be unemployed, and, consequently, a preponderance of bad risks is established against the insurance office fatal to its financial stability. on the other hand, a compulsory system of insurance, which did not add to the contribution of the worker a substantial contribution from outside, would almost certainly break down, because of the refusal of the higher class of worker to assume, unsupported, a share of the burden of the weaker members of the community. we have decided to adopt the second alternative, and our insurance system will, in consequence, be based upon four main principles. it will involve contributions from workmen and employers; it will receive a substantial subvention from the state; it will be organised by trades; it will be compulsory upon all--employers and employed, skilled and unskilled, unionists and non-unionists alike--within those trades. the hon. member for leicester[ ] with great force showed that to confine a scheme of unemployment insurance merely to trade unionists would be trifling with the subject. it would only be aiding those who have, thank god, been most able to aid themselves, without at the same time assisting those who hitherto, under existing conditions, have not been able to make any effective provision. to what trades ought we, as a beginning, to apply this system of compulsory contributory unemployment insurance? there is a group of trades specially marked out for the operation of such a policy. they are trades in which unemployment is not only high, but chronic, for even in the best of times it persists; in which it is not only high and chronic, but marked by seasonal and cyclical fluctuations, and in which, wherever and howsoever it occurs, it takes the form not of short time or of any of those devices for spreading wages and equalising or averaging risks, but of a total, absolute, periodical discharge of a certain proportion of the workers. the group of trades which we contemplate to be the subject of our scheme are these: house-building, and works of construction, engineering, machine-and tool-making, ship-building and boat-building, making of vehicles, and mill-sawing. that is a very considerable group of industries. they comprise, probably at the present time, ¼ millions of adult males. two and a quarter millions of adult males are, roughly speaking, one-third of the population of these three kingdoms engaged in purely industrial work; that is to say, excluding commercial, professional, agricultural, and domestic occupations. of the remaining two-thirds of the industrial population, nearly one-half are employed in the textile trades, in mining, on the railways, in the merchant marine, and in other trades, which either do not present the same features of unemployment which we see in these precarious trades, or which, by the adoption of short time or other arrangements, avoid the total discharge of a proportion of workmen from time to time. so that this group of trades to which we propose to apply the system of unemployment insurance, roughly speaking, covers very nearly half of the whole field of unemployment; and that half is, on the whole, perhaps the worse half. the financial and actuarial basis of the scheme has been very carefully studied by the light of all available information. the report of the actuarial authorities whom i have consulted leaves me in no doubt that, even after all allowance has been made for the fact that unemployment may be more rife in the less organised and less highly skilled trades than in the trade unions who pay unemployment benefits--which is by no means certain--there is no doubt whatever that a financially sound scheme can be evolved which, in return for moderate contributions, will yield adequate benefits. i do not at this stage propose to offer any figures of contributions or benefits to the house. i confine myself to stating that we propose to aim at a scale of benefits which would be somewhat lower both in amount and in duration of payments, than that which the best-organised trade unions provide for their own members, but which, at the same time, should afford a substantial weekly payment extending over by far the greater part of the average period of unemployment of all unemployed persons in these trades. in order to enable such a scale of benefits to be paid, we should have to raise a total sum of something between d. and d. per week per head, and this sum will be met by contributions, not necessarily equal, from the state, the workman, and the employer. for such sacrifices, which are certainly not extortionate, and which, fairly adjusted, will not hamper industry nor burden labour, nor cause an undue strain on public finance, we believe it possible to relieve a vast portion of our industrial population from a haunting and constant peril which gnaws the very heart of their prosperity and contentment. the house will see the connection of this to the labour exchanges. the machinery of the insurance scheme has been closely studied, and, as at present advised, we should propose to follow the example of germany in respect of insurance cards or books, to which stamps will be affixed week by week. when a worker in an insured trade loses his employment, all he will have to do is to take his card to the labour exchange, which, working in conjunction with the insurance office, will find him a job or pay him his benefit. the relation of the whole scheme of insurance to the present voluntary efforts of trade unions requires, and will receive, the most anxious consideration, and i am in hopes that we shall be able to make proposals which would absolutely safeguard trade unions from the unfair competition of a national insurance fund, and will indeed act as a powerful encouragement to voluntary organisations which are providing unemployed benefit. i have thought it right to submit these not inconsiderable proposals in general outline to the house of commons at this early stage, in order that the proposals for labour exchanges which we are now putting forward may be properly understood, and may not be underrated or misjudged. we cannot bring the system of unemployment insurance before parliament in a legislative form this year for five reasons: we have not now got the time; we have not yet got the money; the finance of such a system has to be adjusted and co-ordinated with the finance of the other insurance schemes upon which the chancellor of the exchequer is engaged; the establishment of a system of labour exchanges is the necessary forerunner and foundation of a system of insurance; and, lastly, no such novel departure as unemployment insurance could possibly be taken without much further consultation and negotiation with the trade unions and employers specially concerned than the conditions of secrecy under which we have been working have yet allowed. this business of conference and consultation of the fullest character will occupy the winter, when the board of trade will confer with all parties affected, so that the greatest measure of agreement may be secured for our proposals when they are next year presented in their final form. it is only necessary for me to add that the pressure and prospect of these heavy duties have required me to make a re-arrangement of the labour department of the board of trade. i propose to divide it into three sections. the first will be concerned with wages questions and trade disputes, with arbitration, conciliation, and with the working of the trade boards bill, should it become law; the second, with statistics, the census of production, special inquiries, and _the labour gazette_; and the third, with labour exchanges and unemployment insurance. one of the functions of the last section will be to act as a kind of intelligence bureau, watching the continual changes of the labour market here and abroad, and suggesting any measure which may be practicable, such as co-ordination and distribution of government contracts and municipal work, so as to act as a counterpoise to the movement of the ordinary labour market, and it will also, we trust, be able to conduct examinations of schemes of public utility, so that such schemes can, if decided upon by the government and the treasury, be set on foot at any time with knowledge and forethought, instead of the haphazard, hand-to-mouth manner with which we try to deal with these emergencies at the present time. such are the proposals which we submit in regard to the organisation section of this problem. i have carefully confined myself to that section. i have not trespassed at all upon the other no less important or scarcely less important branches, and i am quite certain this parliament will gladly devote whatever strength it possesses to attempting to grapple with these hideous problems of social chaos, which are marring the contentment and honour of our country, and which, neglected, may fatally affect its life and its strength. footnotes: [ ] mr. ramsay macdonald. iii the budget the budget resolutions (may , ) the budget and national insurance (may , ) the land and income taxes (july , ) the budget and the lords (july , ) the spirit of the budget (sept. , ) the budget and property (oct. , ) the constitutional menace (oct. , ) the budget resolutions house of commons, _may , _ the leader of the opposition this afternoon told us that we were at the beginning of what would be a very complex and a very protracted discussion. if that discussion continues as it has begun, the government will have no reason to complain of it. we have made extensive and even daring proposals. those proposals have been accepted and, on the whole, even acclaimed by the public at large, and they have not been substantially challenged in this house. the leader of the opposition, it is true, devoted his reasoned and temperate speech to making a careful inquiry into the foundations and the character of certain of the taxes by which my right hon. friend proposes to raise the revenue for the year; and i gathered he accepted, with such reservations as are proper to all engaged in a large discussion, and as are particularly appropriate to a party leader, the general principle of differentiation of taxation in regard to the amount of property, but that he demurred to and condemned differentiation in regard to the character of property. the right hon. gentleman singled out for special censure and animadversion the two sets of taxes in relation to land and to the licensed trade. he used an expression about some of the forms of taxation proposed by the chancellor of the exchequer which was a striking one. he said that they diverged from the principles which have hitherto dominated civilised society. even at the risk of that accusation we on this side of the house have always taken and will always assert an entirely different position in regard to the taxation of land and of liquor licences from that of the taxation of other classes of property. the immemorial custom of nearly every modern state, the mature conclusions of many of the greatest thinkers, have placed the tenure, transfer, and obligations of land in a wholly different category from other classes of property. the mere obvious physical distinction between land, which is a vital necessity of every human being and which at the same time is strictly limited in extent, and other property is in itself sufficient to justify a clear differentiation in its treatment, and in the view taken by the state of the conditions which should govern the tenure of land from that which should regulate traffic in other forms of property. when the right hon. gentleman seeks by comparisons to show that the same reasoning which has been applied to land ought also in logic and by every argument of symmetry to be applied to the unearned increment derived from other processes which are at work in our modern civilisation, he only shows by each example he takes how different are the conditions which attach to the possession of land and speculation in the value of land from those which attach to other forms of business speculation. "if," he inquires, "you tax the unearned increment on land, why don't you tax the unearned increment from a large block of stocks? i buy a piece of land; the value rises; i buy stocks; their value rises." but the operations are entirely dissimilar. in the first speculation the unearned increment derived from land arises from a wholly sterile process, from the mere withholding of a commodity which is needed by the community. in the second case, the investor in a block of shares does not withhold from the community what the community needs. the one operation is in restraint of trade and in conflict with the general interest, and the other is part of a natural and healthy process, by which the economic plant of the world is nourished and from year to year successfully and notably increased. then the right hon. gentleman instanced the case of a new railway and a country district enriched by that railway. the railway, he explained, is built to open up a new district; and the farmers and landowners in that district are endowed with unearned increment in consequence of the building of the railway. but if after a while their business aptitude and industry creates a large carrying trade, then the railway, he contends, gets its unearned increment in its turn. but the right hon. gentleman cannot call the increment unearned which the railway acquires through the regular service of carrying goods, rendering a service on each occasion in proportion to the tonnage of goods it carries, making a profit by an active extension of the scale of its useful business--he cannot surely compare that process with the process of getting rich merely by sitting still. it is clear that the analogy is not true. we are further told that the budget proposals proceed on the assumption that there is a corner in land, and that communities are denied the opportunity of getting the land required, whereas, it is asserted, there is in fact nothing approaching a corner in land. i do not think the leader of the opposition could have chosen a more unfortunate example than glasgow. he said that the demand of that great community for land was for not more than forty acres a year. is that the only demand of the people of glasgow for land? does that really represent the complete economic and natural demand for the amount of land a population of that size requires to live on? i will admit that at present prices it may be all that they can afford to purchase in the course of a year. but there are one hundred and twenty thousand persons in glasgow who are living in one-room tenements; and we are told that the utmost land those people can absorb economically and naturally is forty acres a year. what is the explanation? because the population is congested in the city the price of land is high upon the suburbs, and because the price of land is high upon the suburbs the population must remain congested within the city. that is the position which we are complacently assured is in accordance with the principles which have hitherto dominated civilised society. but when we seek to rectify this system, to break down this unnatural and vicious circle, to interrupt this sequence of unsatisfactory reactions, what happens? we are not confronted with any great argument on behalf of the owner. something else is put forward, and it is always put forward in these cases to shield the actual landowner or the actual capitalist from the logic of the argument or from the force of a parliamentary movement. sometimes it is the widow. but that personality has been used to exhaustion. it would be sweating in the cruellest sense of the word, overtime of the grossest description, to bring the widow out again so soon. she must have a rest for a bit; so instead of the widow we have the market-gardener--the market-gardener liable to be disturbed on the outskirts of great cities, if the population of those cities expands, if the area which they require for their health and daily life should become larger than it is at present. i should like to point out to the committee that the right hon. gentleman, in using this argument about the market-gardener, recognises very clearly--and i think beyond the possibility of a withdrawal--the possibility of these cities expanding and taking up a larger area of ground in consequence of the kind of taxation which my right hon. friend in his land taxes seeks to impose. but let that pass. what is the position disclosed by the argument? on the one hand we have one hundred and twenty thousand persons in glasgow occupying one-room tenements; on the other, the land of scotland. between the two stands the market-gardener, and we are solemnly invited, for the sake of the market-gardener, to keep that great population congested within limits that are unnatural and restricted to an annual supply of land which can bear no relation whatever to their physical, social, and economic needs--and all for the sake of the market-gardener, who can perfectly well move farther out as the city spreads, and who would not really be in the least injured. we take the view that land cannot be regarded as an ordinary commodity, nor are we prepared to place publicans' licences in the same position as ordinary property. a licence is a gift from the state, and the licensed trade is subject to special restrictions and special taxation; this has been recognised by all parties and by all governments. the position in regard to licences, as we know perfectly well, has been sensibly and, indeed, entirely altered in the course of the last few years. we have seen the assertion on the part of the licensed trade of their right to convert their annual tenancy of a licence from what it has been understood to be, to a freehold, and in that position they must face the logical consequences of the arguments they have used and of their action. if there are any hardships to them in the taxation proposed, let the hardships be exposed to parliament and they will be considered in no spirit of prejudice or malice. do not, however, let us have attempts to represent that the tax which involves an increase in the cost of production extinguishes the profits of the industry. it does not necessarily affect the profits of the industry; it is not a deduction from resultant profits; it is an incident in the turnover. if there are hard cases and special instances, we are prepared to meet them with the closest attention and with a desire to avoid severity or anything like the appearance of harsh treatment of individuals. but we decline to regard licences or land on the same footing as ordinary property. licences are not to be regarded as ordinary private property, but as public property which ought never to have been alienated from the state. no one will deny that we are making very considerable proposals to parliament for the finance of the year; but the conservative party have gravely compromised their power of resistance. those who desire to see armaments restricted to the minimum consistent with national security, those who labour to combat the scares of war, and to show how many alarms have no foundation,--those are not ill-situated, if they choose to make criticisms on the scale and scope of the finance required for the year's expenditure. but an opposition that day after day exposes the first lord of the admiralty and the prime minister to a rain of questions and cross-questions, the only object of which, or an important object of which, is to promote a feeling of insecurity, involving demands for new expenditure of an almost indefinite character, those who, like the right hon. member for dover,[ ] hurry to and fro in the land saying--or was it singing?--"we want eight, and we won't wait"--they, at least, are not in the best position to tell the taxpayer to call on some one else. surely a reputation for patriotism would be cheaply gained by clamouring for ships that are not needed, to be paid for with money that is to come from other people. there is another set of arguments to which i should like to refer. we have been long told that this budget would reveal the bankruptcy of free-trade finance, and the leader of the opposition, seeking from time to time for a sound economic foothold in the fiscal quicksands in which he is being engulfed, has endeavoured to rest the sole of his foot on tariff for revenue. the adoption of a policy of tariff reform, we have been told, had become absolutely necessary if the revenue of the country was to be obtained and if a natural expansion were to be imparted to it. but now, if we may judge from the newspapers, one of the complaints made against the free-trade system and the free-trade budget of my right hon. friend is not that the revenue will expand too little, but that there is the possibility that it will expand too much. it is not that we have reached the limits of practicable free-trade taxation, but that the taxation we now ask parliament to assent to, will yield in the second year a much more abundant return than in the first year, and that in subsequent years the yield will increase still further. in the words of _the times_ newspaper: "the chancellor of the exchequer has laid broad and deep the basis of further revenue for future years." those who lately taunted us with being arrested by a dead wall of cobdenite principles are now bewailing that we have opened up broad avenues of financial advance. they came to bewail the deficit of this year: they remained to censure the surplus of next. we may, no doubt, in the future hear arguments of how protection will revive industry and increase employment, as we have heard them in the past; but there is one argument which i should think it unlikely would be effectively used against us in the future, and that is that a free-trade system cannot produce revenue, because one of the criticisms which is emphatically directed against this budget is on account of that very expansiveness of revenue which it was lately declared a free-trade system never could produce. but that is not the only vindication of free-trade finance which is at hand. how have foreign countries stood the late depression in trade? the shortfall of the revenue from the estimates in this country was last year less than two millions, in germany it was eight millions, and in the united states over nineteen millions. let the house see what fair-weather friends these protectionist duties are. in times of depression they shrink. in times of war they may fail utterly. when they are wanted, they dwindle, when they are wanted most urgently, they fade and die away altogether. and what is true of the taxation of manufactured articles as a foundation for any fiscal policy is true still more of the taxation of food, and of no country is it so true as of this island. for if you were ever engaged in a war which rendered the highways of the ocean insecure the rise in prices would be such that all food taxes would have to be swept away at once by any government which desired to use the whole vigour of its people in prosecuting the war. this year, with its trade depression and its excellent maintenance of the revenue, has seen the vindication of free trade as a revenue-producing instrument; next year will see its triumph. i have no apprehensions about the budget which is now before the committee. as mr. gladstone said, in introducing the reform bill of , what is wanted to carry this measure is concentration and concentration only, and what will lose this measure is division and division only. and i venture to think that it will not only be a demonstration of the soundness of the economic fiscal policy we have long followed, but it will also be a demonstration of the fiscal and financial strength of great britain which will not be without its use and value upon the diplomatic and perhaps even upon the naval situation in europe. the right honourable member for east worcestershire[ ] said this budget was the work of several sessions, if not indeed of several parliaments. the statement is exaggerated. the proposals outlined do not in any degree transcend the limits of the practical. a social policy may be very large, but at the same time it may be very simple. all these projects of economic development, of labour exchanges, of insurance for invalidity, and unemployment, which depend on money grants, may require very careful and elaborate administrative adjustment; but so far as parliament is concerned they do not impose difficulties or make demands upon the time of the house in any way comparable to those which are excited by the passage of an education or a licensing bill, and i see no reason whatever why we should not anticipate that in the course of this session and next session we should be able to establish a wide and general system of national insurance, which, more than any other device within the reach of this generation of the workers of our country, will help to hold off from them some of the most fatal and most cruel perils which smash their households and ruin the lives of families and of workmen. on many grounds we may commend this budget to the house. it makes provision for the present. it makes greater provision for the future. indirect taxation reaches the minimum. food taxation reaches the minimum since the south african war. certainly the working classes have no reason to complain. nothing in the budget touches the physical efficiency and energy of labour. nothing in it touches the economy of the cottage home. middle-class people with between £ and £ , a year are not affected in any considerable degree, except by the estate duties, and in that not to a large extent, while in some cases they are distinctly benefited in the general way of taxation. the very rich are not singled out for peculiar, special, or invidious forms of imposition. the chief burden of the increase of taxation is placed upon the main body of the wealthy classes in this country, a class which in number and in wealth is much greater than in any other equal community, if not, indeed, in any other modern state in the whole world; and that is a class which, in opportunities of pleasure, in all the amenities of life, and in freedom from penalties, obligations, and dangers, is more fortunate than any other equally numerous class of citizens in any age or in any country. that class has more to gain than any other class of his majesty's subjects from dwelling amid a healthy and contented people, and in a safely guarded land. i do not agree with the leader of the opposition, that they will meet the charges which are placed upon them for the needs of this year by evasion and fraud, and by cutting down the charities which their good feelings have prompted them to dispense. the man who proposes to meet taxation by cutting down his charities, is not the sort of man who is likely to find any very extensive source of economy in the charities which he has hitherto given. as for evasion, i hope the right hon. gentleman and his supporters underrate the public spirit which animates a proportion at any rate of the class which would be most notably affected by the present taxation. and there is for their consolation one great assurance which is worth much more to them than a few millions, more or less, of taxation. it is this--that we are this year taking all that we are likely to need for the policy which is now placed before the country, and which will absorb the energies of this parliament. and, so far as this parliament is concerned, it is extremely unlikely, in the absence of a national calamity, that any further demand will be made upon them, or that the shifting and vague shadows of another impending budget will darken the prospects of improving trade. when all that may be said on these grounds has been said, we do not attempt to deny that the budget raises some of the fundamental issues which divide the historic parties in british politics. we do not want to embitter those issues, but neither do we wish to conceal them. we know that hon. gentlemen opposite believe that the revenue of the country could be better raised by a protective tariff. we are confident that a free-trade system alone would stand the strain of modern needs and yield the expansive power which is necessary at the present time in the revenue. and our proof shall be the swift accomplishment of the fact. the right hon. gentleman opposite and his friends seek to arrest the tendency to decrease the proportion of indirect to direct taxation which has marked, in unbroken continuity, the course of the last sixty years. we, on the other hand, regard that tendency as of deep-seated social significance, and we are resolved that it shall not be arrested. so far as we are concerned, we are resolved that it shall continue until in the end the entire charge shall be defrayed from the profits of accumulated wealth and by the taxation of those popular indulgences which cannot be said in any way to affect the physical efficiency of labour. the policy of the conservative party is to multiply and extend the volume and variety of taxes upon food and necessaries. they will repose themselves, not only, as we are still forced to do, on tea and sugar, but upon bread and meat--not merely upon luxuries and comforts, but also on articles of prime necessity. our policy is not to increase, but whenever possible to decrease, and ultimately to abolish altogether, taxes on articles of food and the necessaries of life. if there is divergence between us in regard to the methods by which we are to raise our revenue, there is also divergence in regard to the objects on which we are to spend them. we are, on both sides, inclined to agree that we are approaching, if we have not actually entered on, one of the climacterics of our national life. we see new forces at work in the world, and they are not all friendly forces. we see new conditions abroad and around us, and they are not all favourable conditions; and i think there is a great deal to be said for those who on both sides of politics are urging that we should strive for a more earnest, more strenuous, more consciously national life. but there we part, because the conservative party are inclined too much to repose their faith for the future security and pre-eminence of this country upon naval and military preparations, and would sometimes have us believe that you can make this country secure and respected by the mere multiplication of ironclad ships. we shall not exclude that provision, and now indeed ask the committee to enable us to take the steps to secure us that expansion of revenue which will place our financial resources beyond the capacity of any power that we need to take into consideration. but we take a broader view. we are not going to measure the strength of great countries only by their material resources. we think that the supremacy and predominance of our country depend upon the maintenance of the vigour and health of its population, just as its true glory must always be found in the happiness of its cottage homes. we believe that if great britain is to remain great and famous in the world, we cannot allow the present social and industrial disorders, with their profound physical and moral reactions, to continue unchecked. we propose to you a financial scheme, but we also advance a policy of social organisation. it will demand sacrifices from all classes; it will give security to all classes. by its means we shall be able definitely to control some of the most wasteful processes in our social life, and without it our country will remain exposed to vital dangers, against which fleets and armies are of no avail. footnotes: [ ] mr. wyndham. [ ] mr. austen chamberlain. the budget and national insurance the free trade hall, manchester, _may , _ (from _the manchester guardian_, by permission.) considering that you have all been ruined by the budget, i think it very kind of you to receive me so well. when i remember all the injuries you have suffered--how south africa has been lost; how the gold mines have been thrown away; how all the splendid army which mr. brodrick got together has been reduced to a sham; and how, of course, we have got no navy of any kind whatever, not even a fishing smack, for the thirty-five millions a year we give the admiralty; and when i remember that in spite of all these evils the taxes are so oppressive and so cruel that any self-respecting conservative will tell you he cannot afford either to live or die, i think it remarkable that you should be willing to give me such a hearty welcome back to manchester. yes, sir, when i think of the colonies we have lost, of the empire we have alienated, of the food we have left untaxed, and the foreigners we have left unmolested, and the ladies we have left outside, i confess i am astonished to find you so glad to see me here again. it is commonly said that our people are becoming hysterical, and that britain is losing her old deep-seated sagacity for judging men and events. that is not my view. i have been taught that the dock always grows near the nettle. i am inclined to think that in a free community every evil carries with it its own corrective, and so i believe that sensationalism of all kinds is playing itself out, and, overdoing, is itself undone. and the more our scaremongers cry havoc, and panic, and airships, and sea-serpents, and all the other things they see floating around, the greater is the composure and the greater is the contempt with which the mass of the nation receives these revelations, and the more ready they are to devote their mind to the large and serious problems of national and social organisation which press for solution and for action at the present time, and upon which his majesty's government have notable proposals to make. i come to you this afternoon to speak about the political situation and the budget, or rather i come to speak to you about the budget, because the budget is the political situation; and i ask you, as if it were at an election, whether you will support the policy of the budget or not. let us look into it. what is the position in which we find ourselves? after reducing the taxes on coal, on tea, on sugar, and on the smaller class of incomes by nearly £ , , a year, and after paying back £ , , of debt in three years, we find that new circumstances and new needs make it necessary that we should obtain fresh revenue for the service of the state. what are the reasons for this demand? there are three reasons--and only three. old-age pensions, the navy, and the decrease in the revenue derived from alcoholic liquor. from those three causes we require sixteen millions more money this year than we did last year. now who has a right--this is my first question--to reproach us for that? certainly the conservative party have no right. take first the case of old-age pensions. i do not think their record is a very good one on that. they promised old-age pensions to win the general election of . they were in power for ten years and they made no effort to redeem their pledge. again, mr. chamberlain, in , promised old-age pensions as a part of his tariff reform proposal, but the conservative party refused to agree to the inclusion of old-age pensions in that programme and forced that great man in the height of his power and his career to throw out old-age pensions from the tariff reform programme and to write a letter to the newspapers to say that he had done so. we, the liberal party, did not promise old-age pensions at the election of . the subject was scarcely mentioned by any of the candidates who are now your members. certainly it did not occupy at all a prominent position. we did not promise old-age pensions; we gave old-age pensions. when the old-age pensions bill was before the house of commons, what was the attitude of the conservative party? did they do anything to try to reduce or control the expenditure of that great departure? on the contrary. as my right honourable friend the chancellor of the exchequer has told the house of commons, amendments to the old-age pensions bill were moved or received the official support of the whips of the conservative party which would have raised the cost of that scheme to fourteen millions a year. and the liberal government, which was making this great effort, which was doing the work, which was keeping the tory promise, was reproached and was derided for not accepting the proposals which these irresponsible philanthropists, these social reformers on the cheap, these limited-liability politicians, were so ready to move. and lord halsbury, the late lord chancellor, one of the leaders of the conservative party, a man with a powerful influence in their councils, said in a public speech that the old-age pensions as proposed by the government were so paltry as to be almost a mockery. i do not think any fair-minded or impartial man, or any average british jury, surveying the record of the conservative party upon old-age pensions, could come to any other conclusion than that they had used this question for popularity alone; that they never meant to give old-age pensions; that they only meant to get votes by promising to give them; that they would have stopped them being given if they could; that while the bill was on its way they tried to embarrass the government, and to push things to unpractical extremes; and now, even when the pensions have been given, they would not pay for them if they could help it. let me say that i think the conclusion, which i believe any jury would come to, would perhaps be rather harsh upon the conservative party. i believe they meant better than their record; i am willing to admit that. but their record is before us, and it is a bad one, and upon the facts i have no hesitation in saying that it is not open to them to protest--they have not even an inch of foothold to protest--against any expenditure which we may now have to incur in order to defray the consequences of the policy of old-age pensions. so much for the first cause of the increased expenditure. i pass to the navy. the naval estimates have risen by three millions this year. i regret it; but i am prepared to justify it. there will be a further increase next year. i regret it; but within proper limits necessary to secure national safety i shall be prepared to justify it; but i hope you will not expect me to advocate a braggart and sensational policy of expenditure upon armaments. i have always been against that, as my father was before me. in my judgment, a liberal is a man who ought to stand as a restraining force against an extravagant policy. he is a man who ought to keep cool in the presence of jingo clamour. he is a man who believes that confidence between nations begets confidence, and that the spirit of peace and goodwill makes the safety it seeks. and, above all, i think a liberal is a man who should keep a sour look for scaremongers of every kind and of every size, however distinguished, however ridiculous--and sometimes the most distinguished are the most ridiculous--a cold, chilling, sour look for all of them, whether their panic comes from the sea or from the air or from the earth or from the waters under the earth. his majesty's government are resolved that the defensive measures of this country shall be prescribed by the policy of ministers responsible to parliament, and by the calculations, subject to that policy, of the experts on whom those ministers rely, and not by the folly and the clamour of party politicians or sensational journalists. in that determination we as a government are united, and we shall remain united. yet it is clear that the increase in the naval estimates of this year must be followed by another increase in those of next year. that is deplorable. it will impose upon our finances a strain which some other nations would not find it very easy to bear, but which, if the necessity be proved, this country will not be unwilling, and will certainly not be unable to support. well, but what have the conservative party got to say about it? have they any right to complain of the taxes which are necessary for the maintenance of our naval power? do we not see that they are ever exerting themselves to urge still greater expenditure upon the nation? he is a poor sort of fellow, a penny-plain-twopence-coloured kind of patriot who goes about shouting for ships, and then grudges the money necessary to build them. and when mr. balfour tells us that "gigantic sacrifices" are required, and that those gigantic sacrifices "must begin now," and then at the same time objects to the taxes by which the government proposes to raise the money, he puts himself in a very queer position. i have dealt with two of the causes which have led to our demand for further revenue--old-age pensions and the navy. upon neither of them have the conservative party any ground for attacking us. what is the third? ah, gentlemen, i agree that there is one cause of the prospective deficit for which we are budgeting for which the conservative party is in no way responsible. i mean the decline in the consumption of alcoholic liquors. nothing that they have said and nothing that they have done has, in intention or in fact, contributed to the drying up of that source of revenue. on the contrary, by their legislation, by the views they have taken of the rights of the licensed trade, by their resistance to every measure of temperance reform, by their refusal even to discuss in the house of lords the great licensing bill of last year, by their association with the brewers and with the liquor traffic generally, they have done all they could--i do them the justice to admit it--to maintain the customs and excise from alcoholic liquors at the highest level. if the habits of the people, under the influences of a wider culture, of variety, of comfort, of brighter lives, and of new conceptions, have steadily undergone a beneficent elevation and amelioration, it has been in spite of every obstacle that wealth and rank and vested interest could interpose. the money has to be found. there is no party in the state who can censure us because of that. our proposals for enlarging the public revenue are just and fair to all classes. they will not, in spite of all these outcries you hear nowadays, sensibly alter the comfort or status, or even the elegance of any class in our great and varied community. no man, rich or poor, will eat a worse dinner for our taxes. of course, from a narrow, electioneering point of view, there are a great many people--i believe they are wrong--who think we should have done much better if we had put another penny on the income tax instead of increasing the tax upon tobacco. well, i have come here this afternoon to tell you that we think it right that the working classes should be asked to pay a share towards the conduct of a democratic state. and we think that taxes on luxuries, however widely consumed, are a proper channel for such payment to be made. we believe that the working classes are able to pay by that channel, and we believe, further, that they are ready to pay. we do not think that in this old, wise country they would have respected any government which at a time like this had feared to go to them for their share. i have a good confidence that this budget is going to go through. if there are hardships and anomalies in particular cases or particular quarters, we are ready to consider them. they will emerge in the discussions of the house of commons, and we have every desire to consider them and to mitigate them. but we believe in the situation in which we find ourselves in this country, and in the general situation of the world at the present time--that the taxes on incomes over £ , a year, upon estates at death, on motor-cars before they cause death, upon tobacco, upon spirits, upon liquor licences, which really belong to the state, and ought never to have been filched away; and, above all, taxes upon the unearned increment in land are necessary, legitimate, and fair; and that without any evil consequences to the refinement or the richness of our national life, still less any injury to the sources of its economic productivity, they will yield revenue sufficient in this year and in the years to come to meet the growing needs of imperial defence and of social reform. this budget will go through. it will vindicate the power of the house of commons. it will show, what some people were inclined to forget, that in our constitution a government, supported by a house of commons and the elected representatives of the people, has in fact a full control of national affairs, and has the means of giving effect to its intentions, to its policy, and to its pledges in every sphere of public affairs. that is one thing which the passage of this budget will show. let not that be overlooked. but that is not the only thing; the budget will do more than that. it will reveal the financial strength of britain. at a time when every european country is borrowing merely for the needs of ordinary annual expenditure, when all these disturbing naval programmes, which are injuring the peace of the world and the security and progress of civilisation, are being supported by borrowed money; and when the credit of germany has fallen below that of italy, this country, which has necessarily to make the biggest expenditure for naval defence of any country, will be found, under a free trade system and by our proposals, able not only to pay its way, but to pay off the debts of the past--to pay off the debts of our predecessors--even in the worst of times at the rate of something like £ , , a year. i have spoken to you of the causes which in the past have led up to this budget. i have spoken to you of its present justification. what of the future? if i had to sum up the immediate future of democratic politics in a single word i should say "insurance." that is the future--insurance against dangers from abroad. insurance against dangers scarcely less grave and much more near and constant which threaten us here at home in our own island. i had the honour and opportunity a few days ago of explaining to the house of commons our proposals for unemployment insurance. that is a considerable matter. it stands by itself. it is a much simpler question than invalidity insurance; but it is a great matter by itself. indeed, i thought while i was explaining it to the house of commons that i had not made such an important speech since i had the honour of explaining the details of the transvaal constitution. well, what is the proposal? the proposal is that you should make a beginning. we have stood still too long. we should begin forthwith, taking some of the greatest trades of the country in which unemployment is most serious, in which fluctuations are most severe, in which there are no short-time arrangements to mitigate the severity to the individual; and that a system of compulsory contributory insurance, with a large subvention from the state, should be introduced into those great industries. but our proposals go farther than that. the state assistance to unemployment insurance will not be limited to those trades in which it is compulsory. side by side with the compulsory system we shall offer facilities to voluntary insurance schemes in other trades, managed by trade unions or by societies or groups of workmen. moreover, we contemplate that the state insurance office should undertake, if desired, the insurance against unemployment of any individual workman in any trade outside of those for which compulsory powers are required, and should afford to these individuals an equivalent support to that which is given in the trades which are subject to the compulsory system. of course you will understand that the terms, that can be offered under a voluntary or partial system, are not so good as those which can be obtained in the compulsory system of a great trade. where all stand together, it is much better for each. but still it is certain that individuals who take advantage of the insurance policy which will be introduced, and i trust carried through parliament next year, will be able to secure terms which will be much more favourable than any which are open to them by their unaided contributions at the present time, because their contributions will be reinforced by the contributions of the state. further, if our beginning proves a success the attempt and the system will not stop there. it will be extended, and in proportion as experience and experiment justify its extension, in proportion as the people of this country desire its extension, it must eventually cover, in course of years, the whole of our great industrial community. well now, it is said that in adopting the policy of contributory insurance the government have admitted that they were wrong in establishing old-age pensions upon the non-contributory basis. now i do not think that is true. there is no inconsistency or contradiction between a non-contributory system of old-age pensions and a contributory system of insurance against unemployment, sickness, invalidity, and widowhood. the circumstances and conditions are entirely different. the prospect of attaining extreme old age, of living beyond threescore years and ten, which is the allotted span of human life, seems so doubtful and remote to the ordinary man, when in the full strength of manhood, that it has been found in practice almost impossible to secure from any very great number of people the regular sacrifices which are necessary to guard against old age. but unemployment, accident, sickness, and the death of the bread-winner are catastrophes which may reach any household at any moment. those vultures are always hovering around us, and i do not believe there is any sensible, honest man who would not wish to guard himself against them, if it were in his power to make the necessary contribution, and if he were sure--this is a very important point--that he would not by any accident or fraud or muddle be done out of the security he had paid for. and if we choose to adopt one system of state-aid for dealing with one class of need, and quite a different system for dealing with quite a different class of need, it does not lie with any one, least of all does it lie with those who have impartially neglected every problem and every solution, to reproach us with inconsistency. but i go farther. the old-age pensions act, so far from being in conflict with a scheme of contributory insurance, is really its most helpful and potent ally. the fact that at seventy the state pension is assured to all those who need it, makes a tremendous difference to every form of insurance confined to the years before seventy, whether for old age or for invalidity. i asked an eminent actuary the other day to make me some calculations. they are rough, general calculations, and no doubt they might be more exact. but roughly, i believe it to be no exaggeration to say that the rates to cover a man till seventy are in many cases scarcely half what they would be, if they had to cover him till death. do you see what that means? it is a prodigious fact. it is the sort of fact by the discovery of which people make gigantic fortunes; and i suggest to you that we should make this gigantic fortune for john bull. it means that the whole field of insurance has become much more fruitful than it ever was before, that there is a new class of insurance business possible which never was possible before. it means that the whole field of insurance is far more open to the poorest class of people than it was before, and that with a proper system the benefits of the old-age pensions act would not be confined to the actual pensioners who are drawing their money, but would extend forwards in anticipation to all other classes and to all other people, and that so far as five shillings a week is concerned--that is not much unless you have not got it--the actuarial position of every man and woman in this country has been enormously improved by the old-age pensions act. it is of that improvement that we mean to take advantage next year. next year, when free trade will have yielded the necessary funds to the revenue, we mean to move forward into this great new field. but let me say one thing which is of the utmost importance. we must remember that the field of insurance is already largely covered by a great mass of benevolent and friendly societies, just as the field of unemployment insurance is already occupied to some extent by trade unions, and the government would not approve of any development or extension of the policy of insurance which did not do full justice to existing institutions, or which did not safeguard those institutions, to whom we owe so inestimable and incommensurable a debt, or caused any sudden disturbance or any curtailment of their general methods of business. on the contrary, we believe that when our proposals are put in their full detail before the country, they will be found to benefit and encourage and not to injure those agencies which have so long been voluntarily and prosperously at work. the decisive question is this--will the british working classes embrace the opportunities which will shortly be offered to them? they are a new departure; they involve an element of compulsion and of regulation which is unusual in our happy-go-lucky english life. the opportunity may never return. for my own part, i confess to you, my friends in manchester, that i would work for such a policy and would try to carry it through even if it were a little unpopular at first, and would be willing to pay the forfeit of a period of exclusion from power, in order to have carried such a policy through; because i know that there is no other way within the reach of this generation of men and women by which the stream of preventable misery can be cut off. if i had my way i would write the word "insure" over the door of every cottage, and upon the blotting-book of every public man, because i am convinced that by sacrifices which are inconceivably small, which are all within the power of the very poorest man in regular work, families can be secured against catastrophes which otherwise would smash them up for ever. i think it is our duty to use the strength and the resources of the state to arrest the ghastly waste not merely of human happiness but of national health and strength which follows when a working man's home which has taken him years to get together is broken up and scattered through a long spell of unemployment, or when, through the death, the sickness, or the invalidity of the bread-winner, the frail boat in which the fortunes of the family are embarked founders, and the women and children are left to struggle helplessly on the dark waters of a friendless world. i believe it is well within our power now, before this parliament is over, to establish vast and broad throughout the land a mighty system of national insurance which will nourish in its bosom all worthy existing agencies and will embrace in its scope all sorts and conditions of men. i think it is not untrue to say that in these years we are passing through a decisive period in the history of our country. the wonderful century which followed the battle of waterloo and the downfall of the napoleonic domination, which secured to this small island so long and so resplendent a reign, has come to an end. we have arrived at a new time. let us realise it. and with that new time strange methods, huge forces, larger combinations--a titanic world--have sprung up around us. the foundations of our power are changing. to stand still would be to fall; to fall would be to perish. we must go forward. we will go forward. we will go forward into a way of life more earnestly viewed, more scientifically organised, more consciously national than any we have known. thus alone shall we be able to sustain and to renew through the generations which are to come, the fame and the power of the british race. land and income taxes in the budget edinburgh, _july , _ (from _the times_, by permission.) we are often assured by sagacious persons that the civilisation of modern states is largely based upon respect for the rights of private property. if that be true, it is also true that such respect cannot be secured, and ought not, indeed, to be expected, unless property is associated in the minds of the great mass of the people with ideas of justice and of reason. it is, therefore, of the first importance to the country--to any country--that there should be vigilant and persistent efforts to prevent abuses, to distribute the public burdens fairly among all classes, and to establish good laws governing the methods by which wealth may be acquired. the best way to make private property secure and respected is to bring the processes by which it is gained into harmony with the general interests of the public. when and where property is associated with the idea of reward for services rendered, with the idea of recompense for high gifts and special aptitudes displayed or for faithful labour done, then property will be honoured. when it is associated with processes which are beneficial, or which at the worst are not actually injurious to the commonwealth, then property will be unmolested; but when it is associated with ideas of wrong and of unfairness, with processes of restriction and monopoly, and other forms of injury to the community, then i think that you will find that property will be assailed and will be endangered. a year ago i was fighting an election in dundee. in the course of that election i attempted to draw a fundamental distinction between the principles of liberalism and of socialism, and i said "socialism attacks capital; liberalism attacks monopoly." and it is from that fundamental distinction that i come directly to the land proposals of the present budget. it is quite true that the land monopoly is not the only monopoly which exists, but it is by far the greatest of monopolies; it is a perpetual monopoly, and it is the mother of all other forms of monopoly. it is quite true that unearned increments in land are not the only form of unearned or undeserved profit which individuals are able to secure; but it is the principal form of unearned increment, derived from processes, which are not merely not beneficial, but which are positively detrimental to the general public. land, which is a necessity of human existence, which is the original source of all wealth, which is strictly limited in extent, which is fixed in geographical position--land, i say, differs from all other forms of property in these primary and fundamental conditions. nothing is more amusing than to watch the efforts of our monopolist opponents to prove that other forms of property and increment are exactly the same and are similar in all respects to the unearned increment in land. they talk to us of the increased profits of a doctor or a lawyer from the growth of population in the towns in which they live. they talk to us of the profits of a railway through a greater degree of wealth and activity in the districts through which it runs. they tell us of the profits which are derived from a rise in stocks and shares, and even of those which are sometimes derived from the sale of pictures and works of art, and they ask us--as if it were their only complaint--"ought not all these other forms to be taxed too?" but see how misleading and false all these analogies are. the windfalls which people with artistic gifts are able from time to time to derive from the sale of a picture--from a vandyke or a holbein--may here and there be very considerable. but pictures do not get in anybody's way. they do not lay a toll on anybody's labour; they do not touch enterprise and production at any point; they do not affect any of those creative processes upon which the material well-being of millions depends. and if a rise in stocks and shares confers profits on the fortunate holders far beyond what they expected, or, indeed, deserved, nevertheless, that profit has not been reaped by withholding from the community the land which it needs, but, on the contrary, apart from mere gambling, it has been reaped by supplying industry with the capital without which it could not be carried on. if the railway makes greater profits, it is usually because it carries more goods and more passengers. if a doctor or a lawyer enjoys a better practice, it is because the doctor attends more patients and more exacting patients, and because the lawyer pleads more suits in the courts and more important suits. at every stage the doctor or the lawyer is giving service in return for his fees; and if the service is too poor or the fees are too high, other doctors and other lawyers can come freely into competition. there is constant service, there is constant competition; there is no monopoly, there is no injury to the public interest, there is no impediment to the general progress. fancy comparing these healthy processes with the enrichment which comes to the landlord who happens to own a plot of land on the outskirts or at the centre of one of our great cities, who watches the busy population around him making the city larger, richer, more convenient, more famous every day, and all the while sits still and does nothing! roads are made, streets are made, railway services are improved, electric light turns night into day, electric trams glide swiftly to and fro, water is brought from reservoirs a hundred miles off in the mountains--and all the while the landlord sits still. every one of those improvements is effected by the labour and at the cost of other people. many of the most important are effected at the cost of the municipality and of the ratepayers. to not one of those improvements does the land monopolist, as a land monopolist, contribute, and yet by every one of them the value of his land is sensibly enhanced. he renders no service to the community, he contributes nothing to the general welfare, he contributes nothing even to the process from which his own enrichment is derived. if the land were occupied by shops or by dwellings, the municipality at least would secure the rates upon them in aid of the general fund; but the land may be unoccupied, undeveloped, it may be what is called "ripening"--ripening at the expense of the whole city, of the whole country--for the unearned increment of its owner. roads perhaps have to be diverted to avoid this forbidden area. the merchant going to his office, the artisan going to his work, have to make a detour or pay a tram fare to avoid it. the citizens are losing their chance of developing the land, the city is losing its rates, the state is losing its taxes which would have accrued, if the natural development had taken place--and that share has to be replaced at the expense of the other ratepayers and taxpayers; and the nation as a whole is losing in the competition of the world--the hard and growing competition in the world--both in time and money. and all the while the land monopolist has only to sit still and watch complacently his property multiplying in value, sometimes manifold, without either effort or contribution on his part. and that is justice! but let us follow the process a little farther. the population of the city grows and grows still larger year by year, the congestion in the poorer quarters becomes acute, rents and rates rise hand in hand, and thousands of families are crowded into one-roomed tenements. there are , persons living in one-roomed tenements in glasgow alone at the present time. at last the land becomes ripe for sale--that means that the price is too tempting to be resisted any longer--and then, and not till then, it is sold by the yard or by the inch at ten times, or twenty times, or even fifty times, its agricultural value, on which alone hitherto it has been rated for the public service. the greater the population around the land, the greater the injury which they have sustained by its protracted denial, the more inconvenience which has been caused to everybody, the more serious the loss in economic strength and activity, the larger will be the profit of the landlord when the sale is finally accomplished. in fact you may say that the unearned increment on the land is on all-fours with the profit gathered by one of those american speculators who engineer a corner in corn, or meat, or cotton, or some other vital commodity, and that the unearned increment in land is reaped by the land monopolist in exact proportion, not to the service, but to the disservice done. it is monopoly which is the keynote; and where monopoly prevails, the greater the injury to society, the greater the reward of the monopolist will be. see how this evil process strikes at every form of industrial activity. the municipality, wishing for broader streets, better houses, more healthy, decent, scientifically planned towns, is made to pay, and is made to pay in exact proportion, or to a very great extent in proportion, as it has exerted itself in the past to make improvements. the more it has improved the town, the more it has increased the land value, and the more it will have to pay for any land it may wish to acquire. the manufacturer purposing to start a new industry, proposing to erect a great factory offering employment to thousands of hands, is made to pay such a price for his land that the purchase-price hangs round the neck of his whole business, hampering his competitive power in every market, clogging him far more than any foreign tariff in his export competition; and the land values strike down through the profits of the manufacturer on to the wages of the workman. the railway company wishing to build a new line finds that the price of land which yesterday was only rated at its agricultural value has risen to a prohibitive figure the moment it was known that the new line was projected; and either the railway is not built, or, if it is, is built, only on terms which largely transfer to the landowner the profits which are due to the shareholders and the advantages which should have accrued to the travelling public. it does not matter where you look or what examples you select, you will see that every form of enterprise, every step in material progress, is only undertaken after the land monopolist has skimmed the cream off for himself, and everywhere to-day the man, or the public body, who wishes to put land to its highest use is forced to pay a preliminary fine in land values to the man who is putting it to an inferior use, and in some cases to no use at all. all comes back to the land value, and its owner for the time being is able to levy his toll upon all other forms of wealth and upon every form of industry. a portion, in some cases the whole, of every benefit which is laboriously acquired by the community is represented in the land value, and finds its way automatically into the landlord's pocket. if there is a rise in wages, rents are able to move forward, because the workers can afford to pay a little more. if the opening of a new railway or a new tramway, or the institution of an improved service of workmen's trains, or a lowering of fares, or a new invention, or any other public convenience affords a benefit to the workers in any particular district, it becomes easier for them to live, and therefore the landlord and the ground landlord, one on top of the other, are able to charge them more for the privilege of living there. some years ago in london there was a toll-bar on a bridge across the thames, and all the working people who lived on the south side of the river, had to pay a daily toll of one penny for going and returning from their work. the spectacle of these poor people thus mulcted of so large a proportion of their earnings appealed to the public conscience: an agitation was set on foot, municipal authorities were roused, and at the cost of the ratepayers the bridge was freed and the toll removed. all those people who used the bridge were saved d. a week. within a very short period from that time the rents on the south side of the river were found to have advanced by about d. a week, or the amount of the toll which had been remitted. and a friend of mine was telling me the other day that in the parish of southwark about £ a year, roughly speaking, was given away in doles of bread by charitable people in connection with one of the churches, and as a consequence of this the competition for small houses, but more particularly for single-roomed tenements is, we are told, so great that rents are considerably higher than in the neighbouring district. all goes back to the land, and the landowner, who in many cases, in most cases, is a worthy person utterly unconscious of the character of the methods by which he is enriched, is enabled with resistless strength to absorb to himself a share of almost every public and every private benefit, however important or however pitiful those benefits may be. i hope you will understand that when i speak of the land monopolist, i am dealing more with the process than with the individual landowner. i have no wish to hold any class up to public disapprobation. i do not think that the man who makes money by unearned increment in land, is morally a worse man than any one else, who gathers his profit where he finds it, in this hard world under the law and according to common usage. it is not the individual i attack; it is the system. it is not the man who is bad; it is the law which is bad. it is not the man who is blameworthy for doing what the law allows and what other men do; it is the state which would be blameworthy, were it not to endeavour to reform the law and correct the practice. we do not want to punish the landlord. we want to alter the law. look at our actual proposal. we do not go back on the past. we accept as our basis the value as it stands to-day. the tax on the increment of land begins by recognising and franking all past increment. we look only to the future; and for the future we say only this: that the community shall be the partner in any further increment above the present value after all the owner's improvements have been deducted. we say that the state and the municipality should jointly levy a toll upon the future unearned increment of the land. a toll of what? of the whole? no. of a half? no. of a quarter? no. of a fifth--that is the proposal of the budget. and that is robbery, that is plunder, that is communism and spoliation, that is the social revolution at last, that is the overturn of civilised society, that is the end of the world foretold in the apocalypse! such is the increment tax about which so much chatter and outcry are raised at the present time, and upon which i will say that no more fair, considerate, or salutary proposal for taxation has ever been made in the house of commons. but there is another proposal concerning land values which is not less important. i mean the tax on the capital value of undeveloped urban or suburban land. the income derived from land and its rateable value under the present law depend upon the use to which the land is put. in consequence, income and rateable value are not always true or complete measures of the value of the land. take the case to which i have already referred, of the man who keeps a large plot in or near a growing town idle for years, while it is "ripening"--that is to say, while it is rising in price through the exertions of the surrounding community and the need of that community for more room to live. take that case. i daresay you have formed your own opinion upon it. mr. balfour, lord lansdowne, and the conservative party generally, think that that is an admirable arrangement. they speak of the profits of the land monopolist, as if they were the fruits of thrift and industry and a pleasing example for the poorer classes to imitate. we do not take that view of the process. we think it is a dog-in-the-manger game. we see the evil, we see the imposture upon the public, and we see the consequences in crowded slums, in hampered commerce, in distorted or restricted development, and in congested centres of population, and we say here and now to the land monopolist who is holding up his land--and the pity is, it was not said before--you shall judge for yourselves whether it is a fair offer or not--we say to the land monopolist: "this property of yours might be put to immediate use with general advantage. it is at this minute saleable in the market at ten times the value at which it is rated. if you choose to keep it idle in the expectation of still further unearned increment, then at least you shall be taxed at the true selling value in the meanwhile." and the budget proposes a tax of a halfpenny in the pound on the capital value of all such land; that is to say, a tax which is a little less in equivalent, than the income-tax would be upon the property, if the property were fully developed. that is the second main proposal of the budget with regard to the land; and its effects will be, first, to raise an expanding revenue for the needs of the state; secondly that, half the proceeds of this tax, as well as of the other land taxes, will go to the municipalities and local authorities generally to relieve rates; thirdly, the effect will be, as we believe, to bring land into the market, and thus somewhat cheapen the price at which land is obtainable for every object, public and private. by so doing we shall liberate new springs of enterprise and industry, we shall stimulate building, relieve overcrowding, and promote employment. these two taxes, both in themselves financially, economically, and socially sound, carry with them a further notable advantage. we shall obtain a complete valuation of the whole of the land in the united kingdom. we shall procure an up-to-date doomsday-book showing the capital value, apart from buildings and improvements, of every piece of land. now, there is nothing new in the principle of valuation for taxation purposes. it was established fifteen years ago in lord rosebery's government by the finance act of , and it has been applied ever since without friction or inconvenience by conservative administrations. and if there is nothing new in the principle of valuation, still less is there anything new or unexpected in the general principles underlying the land proposals of the budget. why, lord rosebery declared himself in favour of taxation of land values fifteen years ago. lord balfour has said a great many shrewd and sensible things on this subject which he is, no doubt, very anxious to have overlooked at the present time. the house of commons has repeatedly affirmed the principle, not only under liberal governments, but--which is much more remarkable--under a conservative government. four times during the last parliament mr. trevelyan's bill for the taxation of land values was brought before the house of commons and fully discussed, and twice it was read a second time during the last parliament, with its great conservative majority, the second time by a majority of no less than ninety votes. the house of lords, in adopting lord camperdown's amendment to the scottish valuation bill, has absolutely conceded the principle of rating undeveloped land upon its selling value, although it took very good care not to apply the principle; and all the greatest municipal corporations in england and scotland--many of them overwhelmingly conservative in complexion--have declared themselves in favour of the taxation of land values; and now, after at least a generation of study, examination, and debate, the time has come when we should take the first step to put these principles into practical effect. you have heard the saying "the hour and the man." the hour has come, and with it the chancellor of the exchequer. i have come to scotland to exhort you to engage in this battle and devote your whole energy and influence to securing a memorable victory. every nation in the world has its own way of doing things, its own successes and its own failures. all over europe we see systems of land tenure which economically, socially, and politically are far superior to ours; but the benefits that those countries derive from their improved land systems are largely swept away, or at any rate neutralised, by grinding tariffs on the necessaries of life and the materials of manufacture. in this country we have long enjoyed the blessings of free trade and of untaxed bread and meat, but against these inestimable benefits we have the evils of an unreformed and vicious land system. in no great country in the new world or the old have the working people yet secured the double advantage of free trade and free land together, by which i mean a commercial system and a land system from which, so far as possible, all forms of monopoly have been rigorously excluded. sixty years ago our system of national taxation was effectively reformed, and immense and undisputed advantages accrued therefrom to all classes, the richest as well as the poorest. the system of local taxation to-day is just as vicious and wasteful, just as great an impediment to enterprise and progress, just as harsh a burden upon the poor, as the thousand taxes and corn law sliding scales of the "hungry 'forties." we are met in an hour of tremendous opportunity. "you who shall liberate the land," said mr. cobden, "will do more for your country than we have done in the liberation of its commerce." you can follow the same general principle of distinguishing between earned and unearned increment through the government's treatment of the income-tax. there is all the difference in the world between the income which a man makes from month to month or from year to year by his continued exertion, which may stop at any moment, and will certainly stop, if he is incapacitated, and the income which is derived from the profits of accumulated capital, which is a continuing income irrespective of the exertion of its owner. nobody wants to penalise or to stigmatise income derived from dividends, rent, or interest; for accumulated capital, apart from monopoly, represents the exercise of thrift and prudence, qualities which are only less valuable to the community than actual service and labour. but the great difference between the two classes of income remains. we are all sensible of it, and we think that that great difference should be recognised when the necessary burdens of the state have to be divided and shared between all classes. the application of this principle of differentiation of income-tax has enabled the present government sensibly to lighten the burden of the great majority of income-tax payers. under the late conservative government about , , income-tax payers paid income-tax at the statutory rate of a shilling in the pound. mr. asquith, the prime minister, when chancellor of the exchequer, reduced the income-tax in respect of earned incomes under £ , a year from a shilling to ninepence, and it is calculated that , income-tax payers--that is to say, nearly three-quarters of the whole number of income-tax payers--who formerly paid at the shilling rate have obtained an actual relief from taxation to the extent of nearly £ , , a year in the aggregate. the present chancellor of the exchequer in the present budget has added to this abatement a further relief--a very sensible relief, i venture to think you will consider it--on account of each child of parents who possess under £ a year, and that concession involved a further abatement and relief equal to £ , a year. that statement is founded on high authority, for it figured in one of the budget proposals of mr. pitt, and it is to-day recognised by the law of prussia. taking together the income-tax reforms of mr. asquith and mr. lloyd-george, taking the two together--because they are all part of the same policy, and they are all part of our treatment as a government of this great subject--it is true to say that very nearly three out of every four persons who pay income-tax will be taxed after this budget, this penal budget, this wicked, monstrous, despoliatory budget--three out of every four persons will be taxed for income-tax at a lower rate than they were by the late conservative government. you will perhaps say to me that may be all very well, but are you sure that the rich and the very rich are not being burdened too heavily? are you sure that you are not laying on the backs of people who are struggling to support existence with incomes of upwards of £ , a year, burdens which are too heavy to be borne? will they not sink, crushed by the load of material cares, into early graves, followed there even by the unrelenting hand of the death duties collector? will they not take refuge in wholesale fraud and evasion, as some of their leaders ingenuously suggest, or will there be a general flight of all rich people from their native shores to the protection of the hospitable foreigner? let me reassure you on these points. the taxes which we now seek to impose to meet the need of the state will not appreciably affect, have not appreciably affected, the comfort, the status, or even the style of living of any class in the united kingdom. there has been no invidious singling out of a few rich men for special taxation. the increased burden which is placed upon wealth is evenly and broadly distributed over the whole of that wealthy class who are more numerous in great britain than in any other country in the world, and who, when this budget is passed, will still find great britain the best country to live in. when i reflect upon the power and influence that class possesses, upon the general goodwill with which they are still regarded by their poorer neighbours, upon the infinite opportunities for pleasure and for culture which are open to them in this free, prosperous, and orderly commonwealth, i cannot doubt that they ought to contribute, and i believe that great numbers of them are willing to contribute, in a greater degree than heretofore, towards the needs of the navy, for which they are always clamouring, and for those social reforms upon which the health and contentment of the whole population depend. and after all, gentlemen, when we are upon the sorrows of the rich and the heavy blows that have been struck by this wicked budget, let us not forget that this budget, which is denounced by all the vested interests in the country and in all the abodes of wealth and power, after all, draws nearly as much from the taxation of tobacco and spirits, which are the luxuries of the working classes, who pay their share with silence and dignity, as it does from those wealthy classes upon whose behalf such heartrending outcry is made. i do not think the issue before the country was ever more simple than it is now. the money must be found; there is no dispute about that. both parties are responsible for the expenditure and the obligations which render new revenue necessary; and, as we know, we have difficulty in resisting demands which are made upon us by the conservative party for expenditure upon armaments far beyond the limits which are necessary to maintain adequately the defences of the country, and which would only be the accompaniment of a sensational and aggressive policy in foreign and in colonial affairs. we declare that the proposals we have put forward are conceived with a desire to be fair to all and harsh to none. we assert they are conceived with a desire to secure good laws regulating the conditions by which wealth may be obtained and a just distribution of the burdens of the state. we know that the proposals which we have made will yield all the money that we need for national defence, and that they will yield an expanding revenue in future years for those great schemes of social organisation, of national insurance, of agricultural development, and of the treatment of the problems of poverty and unemployment, which are absolutely necessary if great britain is to hold her own in the front rank of the nations. the issue which you have to decide is whether these funds shall be raised by the taxation of a protective tariff upon articles of common use and upon the necessaries of life, including bread and meat, or whether it shall be raised, as we propose, by the taxation of luxuries, of superfluities, and monopolies. i have only one word more to say, and it is rendered necessary by the observations which fell from lord lansdowne last night, when, according to the scottish papers, he informed a gathering at which he was the principal speaker that the house of lords was not obliged to swallow the budget whole or without mincing.[ ] i ask you to mark that word. it is a characteristic expression. the house of lords means to assert its right to mince. now let us for our part be quite frank and plain. we want this budget bill to be fairly and fully discussed; we do not grudge the weeks that have been spent already; we are prepared to make every sacrifice--i speak for my honourable friends who are sitting on this platform--of personal convenience in order to secure a thorough, patient, searching examination of proposals the importance of which we do not seek to conceal. the government has shown itself ready and willing to meet reasonable argument, not merely by reasonable answer, but when a case is shown, by concessions, and generally in a spirit of goodwill. we have dealt with this subject throughout with a desire to mitigate hardships in special cases, and to gain as large a measure of agreement as possible for the proposals we are placing before the country. we want the budget not merely to be the work of the cabinet and of the chancellor of the exchequer; we want it to be the shaped and moulded plan deliberately considered by the house of commons. that will be a long and painful process to those who are forced from day to day to take part in it. we shall not shrink from it. but when that process is over, when the finance bill leaves the house of commons, i think you will agree with me that it ought to leave the house of commons in its final form. no amendments, no excision, no modifying or mutilating will be agreed to by us. we will stand no mincing, and unless lord lansdowne and his landlordly friends choose to eat their own mince, parliament will be dissolved, and we shall come to you in a moment of high consequence for every cause for which liberalism has ever fought. see that you do not fail us in that hour. footnotes: [ ] lord lansdowne has since been at pains to explain that he did not use the word "mincing." that word ought to have been "wincing" or "hesitation"--it is not clear which. the budget and the lords norwich, _july , _ (from _the manchester guardian_, by permission.) the budget is the great political issue of the day. it involves all other questions; it has brought all other issues to a decisive test. _the daily mail_ has stated that the budget is hung up. so it is. it is hung up in triumph over the high peak; it is hung up as a banner of victory over dumfries, over cleveland, and over mid-derby. the miniature general election just concluded has shown that the policy embodied in the budget, and which inspires the budget, has vivified and invigorated the liberal party, has brought union where there was falling away, has revived enthusiasm where apathy was creeping in. you cannot but have been impressed with the increasing sense of reality which political affairs have acquired during the last few months. what is it they are doing at westminster? across and beyond the complicated details of finance, the thousand amendments and more which cover the order paper, the absurd obstruction, the dry discussions in committee, the interminable repetition of divisions, the angry scenes which flash up from time to time, the white-faced members sitting the whole night through and walking home worn out in the full light of morning--across and beyond all this, can you not discern a people's cause in conflict? can you not see a great effort to make a big step forward towards that brighter and more equal world for which, be sure, those who come after us will hold our names in honour? that is the issue which is being decided from week to week in westminster now, and it is in support of that cause that we are asking from you earnest and unswerving allegiance. i do not think that there is any great country in the world where there are so many strong forces of virtue and vitality as there are in our own country. but there is scarcely any country in the world where there is so little organisation. look at our neighbour and friendly rival germany. i see that great state organised for peace and organised for war to a degree to which we cannot pretend. we are not organised as a nation, so far as i can see, for anything except party politics, and even for purposes of party politics we are not organised so well as they are in the united states. a more scientific, a more elaborate, a more comprehensive social organisation is indispensable to our country if we are to surmount the trials and stresses which the future years will bring. it is this organisation that the policy of the budget will create. it is this organisation that the loss of the budget will destroy. but, we are told, "it presses too heavily upon the land-owning classes." i have heard it said that in the french revolution, if the french nobility, instead of going to the scaffold with such dignity and fortitude, had struggled and cried and begged for mercy, even the hard hearts of the paris crowd would have been melted, and the reign of terror would have come to an end. there is happily no chance of our aristocracy having to meet such a fate in this loyal-hearted, law-abiding, sober-minded country. they are, however, asked to discharge a certain obligation. they are asked to contribute their share to the expenses of the state. that is all they are asked to do. yet what an outcry, what tribulation, what tears, what wrath, what weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth, and all because they are asked to pay their share. one would suppose, to listen to them, that the whole of the taxation was being raised from, or was about to be raised from the owners of agricultural estates. what are the facts? nearly half the taxation of the present budget is raised by the taxation of the luxuries of the working classes. are they indignant? are they crying out? not in the least. they are perfectly ready to pay their share, and to pay it in a manly way, and two hundred thousand of them took the trouble to go to hyde park the other day in order to say so. what are the facts about agricultural land? it is absolutely exempt from the operations of the new land taxation so long as agricultural land is worth no more for other purposes than it is for agricultural purposes: that is to say, so long as agricultural land is agricultural land and not urban or suburban land, it pays none of the new land taxation. it is only when its value for building purposes makes its continued agricultural use wasteful and uneconomic, it is only when it becomes building land and not agricultural land, and when because of that change it rises enormously in price and value--it is only then that it contributes under the new land taxation its share to the public of the increment value which the public has given to it. then take the death duties. one would suppose from what one hears in london and from the outcry that is raised, that the whole of the death duties were collected from the peers and from the county families. again i say, look at the facts. the inland revenue report for last year shows that £ , , of property passing on death became subject to death duties, and of that sum £ , , was personalty and not real estate, leaving only £ , , real estate, and of that £ , , only £ , , was agricultural land. these death duties are represented as being levied entirely upon a small class of landed gentry and nobility, but, as a matter of fact, there is collected from that class in respect of agricultural land only seven per cent. of the whole amount of money which the exchequer derives from death duties.[ ] i decline, however, to judge the question of the house of lords simply and solely by any action they may resolve to take upon the budget. we must look back upon the past. we remember the ill-usage and the humiliation which the great majority that was returned by the nation to support sir henry campbell-bannerman in has sustained in the last three years at the hands of the house of lords. that assembly must be judged by their conduct as a whole. lord lansdowne has explained, to the amusement of the nation, that he claimed no right on behalf of the house of lords to "mince" the budget. all, he tells us, he has asked for, so far as he is concerned, is the right to "wince" when swallowing it. well, that is a much more modest claim. it is for the conservative party to judge whether it is a very heroic claim for one of their leaders to make. if they are satisfied with the wincing marquis, we have no reason to protest. we should greatly regret to cause lord lansdowne and his friends any pain. we have no wish whatever to grudge them any relief which they may obtain by wincing or even by squirming. we accord them the fullest liberty in that respect. after all, the house of lords has made others wince in its time. even in the present parliament they have performed some notable exploits. when the house of lords rejected the bill to prevent one man casting his vote two or three times over in the same election, every one in this country who desired to see a full and true representation of the people in parliament might well have winced. when the house of lords rejected or mutilated beyond repair the land valuation bills for england and for scotland, every land reformer in the country might have winced. when the house of lords destroyed mr. birrell's education bill of , every man who cared for religious equality and educational peace might have winced. when they contemptuously flung out, without even discussing it or examining it, the licensing bill, upon which so many hopes were centred and upon which so many months of labour had been spent, they sent a message of despair to every temperance reformer, to every social and philanthropic worker, to every church, to every chapel, to every little sunday school throughout the land. if it should now prove to be their turn, if the measure they have meted out to others should be meted out to them again, however much we might regret their sorrows, we could not but observe the workings of poetic justice. but i hope the house of lords and those who back them will not be under any illusions about the budget and the position of the government. the government is in earnest about the budget. the budget carries with it their fortunes and the fortunes of the liberal party. careful argument, reasonable amendment, amicable concession, not affecting the principles at stake--all these we offer while the bill is in the house of commons. but when all that is said and done, as the bill leaves the house of commons so it must stand. it would be a great pity if lord curzon, the indian pro-consul, or the london _spectator_--it would be a great pity if those potentates were to make the great mistake of supposing that the government would acquiesce in the excision of the land clauses of the budget by the house of lords. such a course is unthinkable. any liberal government which adopted it would be swiftly ruined. the land proposals of the government have not been made without long deliberation and full responsibility. we shall not fail to carry them effectively through the house of commons; still less shall we accept any amendment at the hands of the house of lords. is it not an extraordinary thing that upon the budget we should even be discussing at all the action of the house of lords? the house of lords is an institution absolutely foreign to the spirit of the age and to the whole movement of society. it is not perhaps surprising in a country so fond of tradition, so proud of continuity, as ourselves that a feudal assembly of titled persons, with so long a history and so many famous names, should have survived to exert an influence upon public affairs at the present time. we see how often in england the old forms are reverently preserved after the forces by which they are sustained and the uses to which they were put and the dangers against which they were designed have passed away. a state of gradual decline was what the average englishman had come to associate with the house of lords. little by little, we might have expected, it would have ceased to take a controversial part in practical politics. year by year it would have faded more completely into the past to which it belongs until, like jack-in-the-green or punch-and-judy, only a picturesque and fitfully lingering memory would have remained. and during the last ten years of conservative government this was actually the case. but now we see the house of lords flushed with the wealth of the modern age, armed with a party caucus, fortified, revived, resuscitated, asserting its claims in the harshest and in the crudest manner, claiming to veto or destroy even without discussion any legislation, however important, sent to them by any majority, however large, from any house of commons, however newly elected. we see these unconscionable claims exercised with a frank and undisguised regard to party interest, to class interest, and to personal interest. we see the house of lords using the power which they should not hold at all, which if they hold at all, they should hold in trust for all, to play a shrewd, fierce, aggressive party game of electioneering and casting their votes according to the interest of the particular political party to which, body and soul, they belong. it is now suggested--publicly in some quarters, privately in many quarters--that the house of lords will not only use without scruple their veto in legislation but they propose to extend their prerogatives; they are going to lay their hands upon finance, and if they choose they will reject or amend the budget. i have always thought it a great pity that mr. gladstone made a compromise with the house of lords over the franchise bill of . i regret, and i think many of my hon. friends in the house of commons will regret, looking back upon the past, that the present government did not advise a dissolution of parliament upon the rejection of the education bill in . a dissolution in those circumstances would not merely have involved the measure under discussion, but if the government of that day had received the support of the electors at the poll their victory must have carried with it that settlement and reform of the relations between the two houses of parliament which is necessary to secure the effective authority of the house of commons. that is the question which, behind and beyond all others, even the budget, even free trade, even the land--that is the question which, as the prime minister has said, is the dominant issue of our time. opportunity is fickle, opportunity seldom returns; but i think you will agree with me that if the house of lords, not content with its recent exploits with the legislative veto, were to seize on the new power which its backers claim for it over finance--if, not content with the extreme assertions of its own privileges, it were to invade the most ancient privileges of the house of commons--if, as an act of class warfare, for it would be nothing less, the house of lords were to destroy the budget, and thus not only create a constitutional deadlock of novel and unmeasured gravity, but also plunge the whole finance of the country into unparalleled confusion, then, in my judgment, opportunity, clear, brilliant, and decisive, would return, and we should have the best chance we have ever had of dealing with them once for all. these circumstances may never occur. i don't believe they will occur. if we only all stand firm together i believe the budget will be carried. i believe the budget will vindicate the strength of the government supported by the house of commons. i believe it will vindicate the financial strength of this great country. i don't believe, if we pursue our course without wavering or weakening, there is any force in this country which can stand against us. the conservative whip in the house of lords, a friend of mine, lord churchill, said the other day that the house of lords when they received the budget would do their duty. i hope they will. but in any case be sure of this--that the government and the house of commons will do their duty. then if there is anything more to be done, see that you are ready to do your duty too. footnotes: [ ] since the date of this speech the new concessions, doubling the allowance exempted from income tax for the expenses of agricultural estates, have been made public. the spirit of the budget leicester, _september , _ (from _the times_, by permission.) i have done my best to study the political history of the last forty or fifty years, and i cannot find any government which, at the end of its fourth year, enjoyed the same measure of support, prestige, and good fortune that we do. the only administration which could compare in the importance and the volume of its legislation with the present government is mr. gladstone's great government of . that was a government of measures and of men; but no measure of that government could equal in importance the old-age pensions act which we have placed on the statute-book. the settlement of the irish church question by disestablishment was not a more baffling and intricate business, than the settlement of the irish university question which mr. birrell has achieved. the labour legislation of the government of , although very important, shows nothing which equals in importance the trades disputes act, which we have carried through, and mr. cardwell's reforms in army organisation were not more successful, and were certainly much less generally accepted, than those which have been effected by mr. haldane. in the fourth year of its administration the government of was genuinely unpopular. it had quarrelled with the nonconformists without gaining the support of the church; it had offended the liquor interest without satisfying the temperance forces in the country; it had disturbed and offended many vested interests without arousing popular enthusiasm. indeed, if you look back, you will find that the fourth year in the history of a government is always a very critical and has often been a very unfortunate year. it is quite true that mr. disraeli's government, which assumed office in , did enjoy in its fourth year a fleeting flush of success, which, however, proved illusory. with that single exception, every other modern government that has lasted so long, has occupied an unsatisfactory position in its fourth year. the government of in the year was brought very low, and was deeply involved in disastrous enterprises beyond the sea which ultimately resulted in sorrow and misfortune. the conservative government which took office in was by the year , owing to its strange proceedings against mr. parnell, brought to the depths of humiliation. the government of was in the year thoroughly unpopular, and if they had not plunged into the tumult of war in south africa, they would very shortly have been dismissed from power. as for the government of , in the fourth year of mr. balfour's late administration, i am sure i could not easily do justice to the melancholy position which they occupied. where do we stand to-day at the end of our fourth year of office? i put it plainly to you to consider, whether one is not justified in saying that we occupy a position of unexampled strength at the present time. the government is strong in its administrative record, which reveals no single serious or striking mistake in all the complicated conduct of affairs. there have been no regrettable incidents by land or sea and none of those personal conflicts between the high officials that used to occur so frequently under a late dispensation. we have had no waste of public treasure and no bloodshed. we are strong in the consciousness of a persistent effort to sweep away anomalies and inequalities, to redress injustice, to open more widely to the masses of the people the good chances in life, and to safeguard them against its evil chances. we also claim that we are strong in the support and enthusiasm of a majority of our fellow-countrymen. we are strong in the triumph of our policy in south africa; most of all we are strong in the hopes and plans which we have formed for the future. it is about this future that i will speak to you this afternoon. and let me tell you that when i think about it, i do not feel at all inclined to plead exhaustion in consequence of the exertions we have made, or to dwell upon the successes which we have had in the past, or to survey with complacency the record of the government or to ask you to praise us for the work which we have done. no; when i think of the work which lies before us, upon which we have already entered, of the long avenues of social reconstruction and reorganisation which open out in so many directions and ever more broadly before us, of the hideous squalor and misery which darken and poison the life of britain, of the need of earnest action, of the prospects of effective and immediate action--when i dwell upon this, it is not of feelings of lassitude or exhaustion that i am conscious, but only of a vehement impulse to press onwards. the social conditions of the british people in the early years of the twentieth century cannot be contemplated without deep anxiety. the anxiety is keen because it arises out of uncertainty. it is the gnawing anxiety of suspense. what is the destiny of our country to be? nothing is settled either for or against us. we have no reason to despair; still less have we any reason to be self-satisfied. all is still in our hands for good or for ill. we have the power to-day to choose our fortune, and i believe there is no nation in the world, perhaps there never has been in history, any nation which at one and the same moment was confronted with such opposite possibilities, was threatened on the one hand by more melancholy disaster, and cheered on the other by more bright, yet not unreasonable hopes. the two roads are open. we are at the cross-ways. if we stand on in the old happy-go-lucky way, the richer classes ever growing in wealth and in number, and ever declining in responsibility, the very poor remaining plunged or plunging even deeper into helpless, hopeless misery, then i think there is nothing before us but savage strife between class and class, with an increasing disorganisation, with an increasing destruction of human strength and human virtue--nothing, in fact, but that dual degeneration which comes from the simultaneous waste of extreme wealth and of extreme want. now we have had over here lately colonial editors from all the colonies of the british empire, and what is the opinion which they expressed as to the worst thing they saw in the old country? the representatives of every colony have expressed the opinion that the worst they saw here, was the extreme of poverty side by side with the extreme of luxury. do not you think it is very impressive to find an opinion like that, expressed in all friendship and sincerity, by men of our own race who have come from lands which are so widely scattered over the surface of the earth, and are the product of such varied conditions? is it not impressive to find that they are all agreed, coming as they do from australia, or canada, or south africa, or new zealand, that the greatest danger to the british empire and to the british people is not to be found among the enormous fleets and armies of the european continent, nor in the solemn problems of hindustan; it is not the yellow peril nor the black peril nor any danger in the wide circuit of colonial and foreign affairs. no, it is here in our midst, close at home, close at hand in the vast growing cities of england and scotland, and in the dwindling and cramped villages of our denuded countryside. it is there you will find the seeds of imperial ruin and national decay--the unnatural gap between rich and poor, the divorce of the people from the land, the want of proper discipline and training in our youth, the exploitation of boy labour, the physical degeneration which seems to follow so swiftly on civilised poverty, the awful jumbles of an obsolete poor law, the horrid havoc of the liquor traffic, the constant insecurity in the means of subsistence and employment which breaks the heart of many a sober, hard-working man, the absence of any established minimum standard of life and comfort among the workers, and, at the other end, the swift increase of vulgar, joyless luxury--here are the enemies of britain. beware lest they shatter the foundations of her power. then look at the other side, look at the forces for good, the moral forces, the spiritual forces, the civic, the scientific, the patriotic forces which make for order and harmony and health and life. are they not tremendous too? do we not see them everywhere, in every town, in every class, in every creed, strong forces worthy of old england, coming to her rescue, fighting for her soul? that is the situation in our country as i see it this afternoon--two great armies evenly matched, locked in fierce conflict with each other all along the line, swaying backwards and forwards in strife--and for my part i am confident that the right will win, that the generous influences will triumph over the selfish influences, that the organising forces will devour the forces of degeneration, and that the british people will emerge triumphant from their struggles to clear the road and lead the march amongst the foremost nations of the world. well, now, i want to ask you a question. i daresay there are some of you who do not like this or that particular point in the budget, who do not like some particular argument or phrase which some of us may have used in advocating or defending it. but it is not of these details that i speak; the question i want each of you to ask himself is this: on which side of this great battle which i have described to you, does the budget count? can any of you, looking at it broadly and as a whole, looking on the policy which surrounds it, and which depends upon it, looking at the arguments by which it is defended, as well as the arguments by which it is opposed--can any one doubt that the budget in its essential character and meaning, in its spirit and in its practical effect, would be a tremendous reinforcement, almost like a new army coming up at the end of the day, upon the side of all those forces and influences which are fighting for the life and health and progress of our race? in the speeches which i have made about the country since the budget was introduced i have explained and defended in detail the special financial proposals upon which we rely to provide the revenue for the year. you are, no doubt, generally acquainted with them. there is the increase in the income-tax of twopence, the further discrimination between earned and unearned income, and the super-tax of sixpence on incomes of over £ , a year. there are the increases in estate duties and in the legacy duties, and there are the new duties on stamps; there is the tax on motor-cars and petrol, the proceeds of which are to go to the improvement of the roads and the abatement of the dust nuisance; there are the taxes on working class indulgences--namely, the increase in the tax on tobacco and on whisky, which enable the working man to pay his share, as indeed he has shown himself very ready to do; there are the taxes on liquor licences, which are designed to secure for the state a certain special proportion of the monopoly value created wholly by the state and with which it should never have parted; and, lastly, there are the three taxes upon the unearned increment in land, upon undeveloped land, upon the unearned increment in the reversion of leases, and then there is the tax upon mining royalties. now these are the actual proposals of the budget, and i do not think that, if i had the time, i should find any great difficulty in showing you that there are many good arguments, a great volume of sound reason, which can be adduced in support of every one of these proposals. certainly there is no difficulty in showing that since the budget has been introduced there has been no shock to credit, there has been no dislocation of business, there has been no setback in the beginning of that trade revival about the approach of which i spoke to you, when i was in leicester at the beginning of the year and which there are now good reasons for believing is actually in progress. the taxes which have been proposed have not laid any burden upon the necessaries of life like bread or meat, nor have they laid any increased burden upon comforts like tea and sugar. there is nothing in these taxes which makes it harder for a labouring man to keep up his strength or for the small man of the middle class to maintain his style of living. there is nothing in these taxes which makes it more difficult for any hard-working person, whether he works with his hands or his head, to keep a home together in decent comfort. no impediment has been placed by these taxes upon enterprise; no hampering restrictions interrupt the flow of commerce. on the contrary, if the tax upon spirits should result in a diminution in the consumption of strong drink, depend upon it, the state will gain, and all classes will gain. the health of millions of people, the happiness of hundreds of thousands of homes, will be sensibly improved, and money that would have been spent upon whisky will flow into other channels, much less likely to produce evil and much more likely to produce employment. and if the tax on undeveloped land, on land, that is to say, which is kept out of the market, which is held up idly in order that its owner may reap unearned profit by the exertions and through the needs of the surrounding community, if that tax should have the effect of breaking this monopoly and of making land cheaper, a tremendous check on every form of productive activity will have been removed. all sorts of enterprises will become economically possible which are now impossible owing to the artificially high price of land, and new forces will be liberated to stimulate the wealth of the nation. but it is not on these points that i wish to dwell this afternoon. i want to tell you about the meaning and the spirit of the budget. upon the budget and upon the policy of the budget depends a far-reaching plan of social organisation designed to give a greater measure of security to all classes, but particularly to the labouring classes. in the centre of that plan stands the policy of national insurance. the chancellor of the exchequer has been for more than a year at work upon this scheme, and it is proposed--i hope next year, if there is a next year--it is proposed, working through the great friendly societies, which have done so much invaluable work on these lines, to make sure that, by the aid of a substantial subvention from the state, even the poorest steady worker or the poorest family shall be enabled to make provision against sickness, against invalidity, and for the widows and orphans who may be left behind. side by side with this is the scheme of insurance against unemployment which i hope to have the honour of passing through parliament next year. the details of that scheme are practically complete, and it will enable upwards of two and a quarter millions of workers in the most uncertain trades of this country--trades like ship-building, engineering, and building--to secure unemployment benefits, which in a great majority of cases will be sufficient to tide them over the season of unemployment. this scheme in its compulsory form is limited to certain great trades like those i have specified, but it will be open to other trades, to trade unions, to workers' associations of various kinds, or even to individuals to insure with the state unemployment insurance office against unemployment on a voluntary basis, and to secure, through the state subvention, much better terms than it would be possible for them to obtain at the present time. it would be impossible to work a scheme of unemployment insurance except in conjunction with some effective method of finding work and of testing willingness to work, and that can only be afforded by a national system of labour exchanges. that bill has already passed through parliament, and in the early months of next year we shall hope to bring it into operation by opening, all over the country, a network of labour exchanges connected with each other and with the centre by telephone. we believe this organisation may secure for labour--and, after all, labour is the only thing the great majority of people have to sell--it will secure for labour, for the first time, that free and fair market which almost all other commodities of infinitely less consequence already enjoy, and will replace the present wasteful, heartbreaking wanderings aimlessly to and fro in search of work by a scientific system; and we believe that the influence of this system in the end must tend to standardising the conditions of wages and employment throughout the country. lastly, in connection with unemployment i must direct your attention to the development bill, which is now before parliament, the object of which is to provide a fund for the economic development of our country, for the encouragement of agriculture, for afforestation, for the colonisation of england, and for the making of roads, harbours, and other public works. and i should like to draw your attention to a very important clause in that bill, which says that the prosecution of these works shall be regulated, as far as possible, by the conditions of the labour market, so that in a very bad year of unemployment they can be expanded, so as to increase the demand for labour at times of exceptional slackness, and thus correct and counterbalance the cruel fluctuations of the labour market. the large sums of money which will be needed for these purposes are being provided by the budget of mr. lloyd-george, and will be provided in an expanding volume in the years to come through the natural growth of the taxes we are imposing. i have hitherto been speaking of the industrial organisation of insurance schemes, labour exchanges, and economic development. now i come to that great group of questions which are concerned with the prevention and relief of distress. we have before us the reports of the majority and minority of the royal commission on the poor law, and we see there a great and urgent body of reforms which require the attention of parliament. the first and most costly step in the relief of distress has already been taken by the old-age pensions act, supplemented, as it will be if the budget passes, by the removal of the pauper disqualification. by that act we have rescued the aged from the poor law. we have yet to rescue the children; we have yet to distinguish effectively between the _bonâ fide_ unemployed workman and the mere loafer and vagrant; we have yet to transfer the sick, the inebriate, the feeble-minded and the totally demoralised to authorities specially concerned in their management and care. but what i want to show you, if i have made my argument clear, is that all these schemes--which i can do little more than mention this afternoon, each one of which is important--are connected one with the other, fit into one another at many points, that they are part of a concerted and interdependent system for giving a better, fairer social organisation to the masses of our fellow-countrymen. unemployment insurance, which will help to tide a workman over a bad period, is intimately and necessarily associated with the labour exchanges which will help to find him work and which will test his willingness to work. this, again, will be affected by the workings of the development bill, which, as i told you, we trust may act as a counterpoise to the rocking of the industrial boat and give a greater measure of stability to the labour market. the fact that everybody in the country, man and woman alike, will be entitled, with scarcely any exception, to an old-age pension from the state at the age of seventy--that fact makes it ever so much cheaper to insure against invalidity or infirmity up to the age of seventy. and, with the various insurance schemes which are in preparation, we ought to be able to set up a complete ladder, an unbroken bridge or causeway, as it were, along which the whole body of the people may move with a certain assured measure of security and safety against hazards and misfortunes. then, if provision can be arranged for widows and orphans who are left behind, that will be a powerful remedy against the sweating evil; for, as you know, these helpless people, who in every country find employment in particular trades, are unable to make any fair bargain for themselves, and their labour, and this consequently leads to the great evils which have very often been brought to the notice of parliament. that, again, will fit in with the anti-sweating bill we are passing through parliament this year. now, i want you to see what a large, coherent plan we are trying to work out, and i want you to believe that the object of the plan and the results of it will be to make us a stronger as well as a happier nation. i was reading the other day some of the speeches made by bismarck--a man who, perhaps more than any other, built up in his own lifetime the strength of a great nation--speeches which he made during the time when he was introducing into germany those vast insurance schemes, now deemed by all classes and parties in germany to be of the utmost consequence and value. "i should like to see the state" (said prince bismarck in ), "which for the most part consists of christians, penetrated to some extent by the principles of the religion which it professes, especially as concerns the help one gives to his neighbour, and sympathy with the lot of old and suffering people." then, again, in the year he said: "the whole matter centres in the question, 'is it the duty of the state or is it not to provide for its helpless citizens?' i maintain that it is its duty, that it is the duty, not only of the 'christian' state, as i ventured once to call it when speaking of 'practical christianity,' but of every state." there are a great many people who will tell you that such a policy, as i have been endeavouring to outline to you this afternoon, will not make our country stronger, because it will sap the self-reliance of the working classes. it is very easy for rich people to preach the virtues of self-reliance to the poor. it is also very foolish, because, as a matter of fact, the wealthy, so far from being self-reliant, are dependent on the constant attention of scores, and sometimes even hundreds, of persons who are employed in waiting upon them and ministering to their wants. i think you will agree with me, on the other hand--knowing what you do of the life of this city and of the working classes generally--that there are often trials and misfortunes which come upon working-class families quite beyond any provision which their utmost unaided industry and courage could secure for them. left to themselves, left absolutely to themselves, they must be smashed to pieces, if any exceptional disaster or accident, like recurring sickness, like the death or incapacity of the breadwinner, or prolonged or protracted unemployment, fall upon them. there is no chance of making people self-reliant by confronting them with problems and with trials beyond their capacity to surmount. you do not make a man self-reliant by crushing him under a steam roller. nothing in our plans will relieve people from the need of making every exertion to help themselves, but, on the contrary, we consider that we shall greatly stimulate their efforts by giving them for the first time a practical assurance that those efforts will be crowned with success. i have now tried to show you that the budget, and the policy of the budget, is the first conscious attempt on the part of the state to build up a better and a more scientific organisation of society for the workers of this country, and it will be for you to say--at no very distant date--whether all this effort for a coherent scheme of social reconstruction is to be swept away into the region of lost endeavour. that is the main aspect of the budget to which i wish to draw your attention. but there is another significance of the highest importance which attaches to the budget. i mean the new attitude of the state towards wealth. formerly the only question of the tax-gatherer was, "how much have you got?" we ask that question still, and there is a general feeling, recognised as just by all parties, that the rate of taxation should be greater for large incomes than for small. as to how much greater, parties are no doubt in dispute. but now a new question has arisen. we do not only ask to-day, "how much have you got?" we also ask, "how did you get it? did you earn it by yourself, or has it just been left you by others? was it gained by processes which are in themselves beneficial to the community in general, or was it gained by processes which have done no good to any one, but only harm? was it gained by the enterprise and capacity necessary to found a business, or merely by squeezing and bleeding the owner and founder of the business? was it gained by supplying the capital which industry needs, or by denying, except at an extortionate price, the land which industry requires? was it derived from active reproductive processes, or merely by squatting on some piece of necessary land till enterprise and labour, and national interests and municipal interests, had to buy you out at fifty times the agricultural value? was it gained from opening new minerals to the service of man, or by drawing a mining royalty from the toil and adventure of others? was it gained by the curious process of using political influence to convert an annual licence into a practical freehold and thereby pocketing a monopoly value which properly belongs to the state--how did you get it?" that is the new question which has been postulated and which is vibrating in penetrating repetition through the land.[ ] it is a tremendous question, never previously in this country asked so plainly, a new idea, pregnant, formidable, full of life, that taxation should not only have regard to the volume of wealth, but, so far as possible, to the character of the processes of its origin. i do not wonder it has raised a great stir. i do not wonder that there are heart-searchings and angry words because that simple question, that modest proposal, which we see embodied in the new income-tax provisions, in the land taxes, in the licence duties, and in the tax on mining royalties--that modest proposal means, and can only mean, the refusal of the modern state to bow down unquestioningly before the authority of wealth. this refusal to treat all forms of wealth with equal deference, no matter what may have been the process by which it was acquired, is a strenuous assertion in a practical form, that there ought to be a constant relation between acquired wealth and useful service previously rendered, and that where no service, but rather disservice, is proved, then, whenever possible, the state should make a sensible difference in the taxes it is bound to impose. it is well that you should keep these issues clearly before you during the weeks in which we seem to be marching towards a grave constitutional crisis. but i should like to tell you that a general election, consequent upon the rejection of the budget by the lords, would not, ought not to be, and could not be fought upon the budget alone. "budgets come," as the late lord salisbury said in --"budgets come and budgets go." every government frames its own expenditure for each year; every government has to make its own provision to meet that expenditure. there is a budget every year, and memorable as the budget of my right hon. friend may be, far-reaching as is the policy depending upon it, the finance bill, after all, is in its character only an annual affair. but the rejection of the budget by the house of lords would not be an annual affair. it would be a violent rupture of constitutional custom and usage extending over three hundred years and recognised during all that time by the leaders of every party in the state. it would involve a sharp and sensible breach with the traditions of the past; and what does the house of lords depend upon if not upon the traditions of the past? it would amount to an attempt at revolution not by the poor, but by the rich; not by the masses, but by the privileged few; not in the name of progress, but in that of reaction; not for the purpose of broadening the framework of the state, but of greatly narrowing it. such an attempt, whatever you may think of it, would be historic in its character, and the result of the battle fought upon it, whoever wins, must inevitably be not of an annual, but of a permanent and final character. the result of such an election must mean an alteration of the veto of the house of lords; if they win they will have asserted their right, not merely to reject legislation of the house of commons, but to control the finances of the country, and if they lose, we will deal with their veto once and for all. we do not seek the struggle, we have our work to do; but if it is to come, it could never come better than now. never again perhaps, certainly not for many years, will such an opportunity be presented to the british democracy. never will the ground be more favourable; never will the issues be more clearly or more vividly defined. those issues will be whether the new taxation, which is admitted on all sides to be necessary, shall be imposed upon luxuries, superfluities, and monopolies, or upon the prime necessaries of life; whether you shall put your tax upon the unearned increment on land or upon the daily bread of labour; whether the policy of constructive social reform on which we are embarked, and which expands and deepens as we advance, shall be carried through and given a fair chance, or whether it shall be brought to a dead stop and all the energies and attention of the state devoted to jingo armaments and senseless foreign adventure. and, lastly, the issue will be whether the british people in the year of grace are going to be ruled through a representative assembly, elected by six or seven millions of voters, about which almost every one in the country, man or woman, has a chance of being consulted, or whether they are going to allow themselves to be dictated to and domineered over by a minute minority of titled persons, who represent nobody, who are answerable to nobody, and who only scurry up to london to vote in their party interests, in their class interests, and in their own interests. these will be the issues, and i am content that the responsibility for such a struggle, if it should come, should rest with the house of lords themselves. but if it is to come, we shall not complain, we shall not draw back from it. we will engage in it with all our hearts and with all our might, it being always clearly understood that the fight will be a fight to the finish, and that the fullest forfeits, which are in accordance with the national welfare, shall be exacted from the defeated foe. footnotes: [ ] we do not, of course, ask it of the individual taxpayer. that would be an impossible inquisition. but the house of commons asks itself when it has to choose between taxes on various forms of wealth, "by what process was it got?" the budget and property. abernethy, _october , _ (from _the daily telegraph_, by permission of the editor.) this is a very fine gathering for a lonely glen, and it augurs well for the spirit of liberalism. much will be expected of scotland in the near future. she will be invited to pronounce upon some of the largest and most complicated questions of politics and finance that can possibly engage the attention of thoughtful citizens, and her decision will perhaps govern events. there is one contrast between parties which springs to the eye at once. one party has a policy, detailed, definite, declared, actually in being. the other party has no policy. the conservative party has no policy which it can put before the country at the present time on any of the great controverted questions of the day. on most of the previous occasions when we have approached a great trial of strength, the conservative party have had a policy of their own which they could state in clear terms. you would naturally expect some reticence or reserve from the head of a government responsible for the day-to-day administration of affairs. but what do you see at the present time? mr. asquith speaks out boldly and plainly on all the great questions which are being debated, and it is the leader of the opposition who has to take refuge in a tactical and evasive attitude. why, mr. balfour is unable to answer the simplest questions. at birmingham, the prime minister asked him in so many words: what alternative did he propose to the budget? what did he mean by tariff reform? and what was his counsel to the house of lords? it would not be difficult to frame an answer to all these questions. mr. chamberlain, for instance, was quite ready with his answers to all of them. at glasgow in he stated what his budget would have been, and he explained precisely what he meant by tariff reform. at birmingham last month he was equally clear in urging the lords to reject the budget. there is no doubt whatever where mr. chamberlain and those who agree with him stand to-day. they would raise the extra taxation which is required, by protective import duties on bread, on meat, on butter, cheese, and eggs, and upon foreign imported manufactured articles; and in order to substitute their plan for ours they are prepared to urge the house of lords to smash up the budget and to smash up as much of the british constitution and the british financial system as may be necessary for the purpose. that is their policy; but, after all, it is mr. balfour who is the leader of the conservative party. he is the statesman who would have to form and carry on any administration which might be formed from that party, and he will not state his policy upon any of the dominant questions of the day. why will he not answer these simple questions? he is the leader, and it is because he wishes to remain the leader that he observes this discreet silence. he tells us he is in favour of tariff reform, he loves tariff reform, he worships tariff reform. he feels that it is by tariff reform alone that the civilisation of great britain can be secured, and the unity of the empire achieved; but nothing will induce him to say what he means by tariff reform. that is a secret which remains locked in his own breast. he condemns our budget, he clamours for greater expenditure, and yet he puts forward no alternative proposals by which the void in the public finances may be made good. and as for his opinion about the house of lords, he dare not state his true opinion to-day upon that subject. i do not say that there are not good reasons for mr. balfour's caution. it sometimes happens that the politics of a party become involved in such a queer and awkward tangle that only a choice of evils is at the disposal of its leader; and when the leader has to choose between sliding into a bog on the one hand and jumping over a precipice on the other, some measure of indulgence may be extended to him if he prefers to go on marking time, and indicating the direction in which his followers are to advance by a vague general gesture towards the distant horizon. whatever you may think about politics, you must at least, in justice to his majesty's government, recognise that their position is perfectly plain and clear. some of you may say to me, "your course, your policy may be clear enough, but you are burdening wealth too heavily by your taxes and by your speeches." those shocking speeches! "you are driving capital out of the country." let us look at these points one at a time. the capital wealth of britain is increasing rapidly. sir robert giffen estimated some years ago that the addition to the capital wealth of the nation was at least between two hundred and three hundred millions a year. i notice that the paid-up capital of registered companies alone, which was , millions sterling in , has grown naturally and healthily to , millions sterling in . and, most remarkable of all, the figures i shall submit to you, the gross amount of income which comes under the view of the treasury commissioners who are charged with the collection of income-tax, was in the year - millions, and it had risen from that figure to millions sterling in the year - : that is to say, that it had risen by millions in the course of ten years. from this, of course, a deduction has to be made for more efficient methods of collection. this cannot be estimated exactly; but it certainly accounts for much less than half the increase. let us assume that it is a half. the increase is therefore millions. i only wish that wages had increased in the same proportion. when i was studying those figures i have mentioned to you i looked at the board of trade returns of wages. those returns deal with the affairs of upwards of ten millions of persons, and in the last ten years the increase in the annual wages of that great body of persons has only been about ten million pounds: that is to say, that the increase of income assessable to income-tax is at the very least more than ten times greater than the increase which has taken place in the same period in the wages of those trades which come within the board of trade returns. when we come to the question of how burdens are to be distributed, you must bear these facts and figures in mind, because the choice is severely limited. you can tax wealth or you can tax wages--that is the whole choice which is at the disposal of the chancellor of the exchequer. of course i know there are some people who say you can tax the foreigner--but i am quite sure that you will not expect me to waste your time in dealing with that gospel of quacks and creed of gulls. the choice is between wealth and wages, and we think that, in view of that great increase in accumulated wealth which has marked the last ten years, and is the feature of our modern life, it is not excessive or unreasonable at the present stage in our national finances to ask for a further contribution from the direct taxpayers of something under eight millions a year. that is the total of all the new taxes on wealth which our budget imposes, and it is about equal to the cost of four of those _dreadnoughts_ for which these same classes were clamouring a few months ago. and it is less than one-thirteenth of the increased income assessable to income-tax in the last ten years. it is because we have done this that we are the object of all this abuse and indignation which is so loudly expressed in certain quarters throughout the country at the present time. while the working-classes have borne the extra taxation upon their tobacco and whisky in silence, all this rage and fury is outpoured upon the government by the owners of this ever-increasing fund of wealth, and we are denounced as socialists, as jacobins, as anarchists, as communists, and all the rest of the half-understood vocabulary of irritated ignorance, for having dared to go to the wealthy classes for a fair share of the necessary burdens of the country. how easy it would be for us to escape from all this abuse if we were to put the extra taxation entirely upon the wages of the working classes by means of taxes on bread and on meat. in a moment the scene would change, and we should be hailed as patriotic, far-sighted empire-builders, loyal and noble-hearted citizens worthy of the motherland, and sagacious statesmen versed in the science of government. see, now, upon what insecure and doubtful foundations human praise and human censure stand. well, then, it is said your taxes fall too heavily upon the agricultural landowner and the country gentleman. now, there is no grosser misrepresentation of the budget than that it hits the agricultural landowner, and i think few greater disservices can be done to the agricultural landowner, whose property has in the last thirty years in many cases declined in value, than to confuse him with the ground landlord in a great city, who has netted enormous sums through the growth and the needs of the population of the city. none of the new land taxes touch agricultural land, while it remains agricultural land. no cost of the system of valuation which we are going to carry into effect will fall at all upon the individual owner of landed property. he will not be burdened in any way by these proposals. on the contrary, now that an amendment has been accepted permitting death duties to be paid in land in certain circumstances, the owner of a landed estate, instead of encumbering his estate by raising the money to pay off the death duties, can cut a portion from his estate; and this in many cases will be a sensible relief. secondly, we have given to agricultural landowners a substantial concession in regard to the deductions which they are permitted to make from income-tax assessment on account of the money which they spend as good landlords upon the upkeep of their properties, and we have raised the limit of deduction from ½ per cent. to per cent. thirdly, there is the development bill--that flagrant socialistic measure which passed a second reading in the house of lords unanimously--which will help all the countryside and all classes of agriculturists, and which will help the landlord in the country among the rest. so much for that charge. then it is said, "at any rate you cannot deny that the budget is driving capital out of the country." i should like to point out to you that before the budget was introduced, we were told that it was free trade that was driving capital out of the country. let that pass. it is said we cannot deny that the budget is driving capital out of the country. i deny it absolutely. to begin with, it is impossible to drive the greater part of our capital out of this country, for what is the capital of the country? the greatest part of that capital is the land, the state of cultivation which exists, the roads, the railways, the mines, the mills--this is the greatest part of the capital. the owners of that capital might conceivably, if they thought fit, depart from the country, but their possessions would remain behind. i shall be asked, what about all this foreign investment that is going on? is not british credit now being diverted abroad to foreign countries, to the detriment of our own country? is not british capital fleeing from the socialistic speeches of the chancellor of the exchequer, and the president of the board of trade, and taking refuge in germany, where of course there are no socialists, or in other countries, where there is never any disturbance, like france, or spain, or russia, or turkey? now let us look into that. there are only two ways in which capital can leave this country for foreign investments. it is no good sending bits of paper to the foreigner and expecting him to pay a dividend in return. there are only two ways--one is by exports made by british labour, and the other by bullion. now, if the exports were to increase, surely that should be a cause of rejoicing, especially to our tariff reformers, who regard the increase in exports as the index of national prosperity. as for the second--the export of bullion--would you believe it, it is only a coincidence, but it is an amusing coincidence, there are actually six million pounds' worth more gold in the country now, than there were at the beginning of the year before the budget was introduced. the active and profitable investment abroad which has marked the last two or three years, which is bound to swell the exports of the next few years, has not been attended by any starvation of home industry. on the contrary, the amount of money forthcoming for the development of new industries and now enterprises in this country during the last two or three years has compared very favourably with the years which immediately preceded them, when the conservative government was in power. property in great britain is secure. it would be a great mistake to suppose that that security depends upon the house of lords. if the security of property in a powerful nation like our own were dependent upon the action or inaction of or persons, that security would long ago have been swept away. the security of property depends upon its wide diffusion among great numbers and all classes of the population, and it becomes more secure year by year because it is gradually being more widely distributed. the vital processes of civilisation require, and the combined interests of millions guarantee, the security of property. a society in which property was insecure would speedily degenerate into barbarism; a society in which property was absolutely secure, irrespective of all conceptions of justice in regard to the manner of its acquisition, would degenerate, not to barbarism, but death. no one claims that a government should from time to time, according to its conceptions of justice, attempt fundamentally to recast the bases on which property is erected. the process must be a gradual one; must be a social and a moral process, working steadily in the mind and in the body of the community; but we contend, when new burdens have to be apportioned, when new revenues have to be procured, when the necessary upkeep of the state requires further taxes to be imposed--we contend that, in distributing the new burdens, a government should have regard first of all to ability to pay and, secondly, that they should have regard to some extent, and so far as is practicable, to the means and the process by which different forms of wealth have been acquired; and that they should make a sensible difference between wealth which is the fruit of productive enterprise and industry or of individual skill, and wealth which represents the capture by individuals of socially created values. we say that ought to be taken into consideration. we are taking it into consideration now by the difference we have made in the income-tax between earned and unearned incomes, by the difference we make between the taxation which is imposed upon a fortune which a man makes himself and the fortune which he obtains from a relative or a stranger. we are taking it into consideration in our tax on mining royalties, in our licence duties and in our taxes on the unearned increment in land. the state, we contend, has a special claim upon the monopoly value of the liquor licence, which the state itself has created, and which the state itself maintains from year to year by its sole authority. if that claim has not previously been made good, that is only because the liquor interest have had the power, by using one branch of the legislature, to keep the nation out of its rights. all the more reason to make our claim good now. again we say that the unearned increment in land is reaped in proportion to the disservice done to the community, is a mere toll levied upon the community, is an actual burden and imposition upon them, and an appropriation by an individual, under existing law, no doubt, of socially created wealth. for the principle of a special charge being levied on this class of wealth we can cite economic authority as high us adam smith, and political authority as respectable as lord rosebery; and for its application we need not merely cite authority, but we can point to the successful practice of great civilised neighbouring states. is it really the contention of the conservative party that the state is bound to view all processes of wealth-getting with an equal eye, provided they do not come under the criminal codes? is that their contention? are we really to be bound to impose the same burden upon the hardly won income of the professional man and the extraordinary profits of the land monopolist? are we really to recognise the liquor licence which the state created, which the law says is for one year only--as if it were as much the brewers' or the publicans' property _for ever_ as the coat on his back? no; it is absurd. of the waste and sorrow and ruin which are caused by the liquor traffic, of the injury to national health and national wealth which follows from it, which attends its ill-omened footsteps, i say nothing more in my argument this afternoon. the state is entitled to reclaim its own, and they shall at least render unto cæsar the things which are cæsar's. the money must be found, and we hold that parliament, in imposing the inevitable taxes, is entitled not only to lay a heavier proportionate burden upon the rich than on the poor, but also to lay a special burden upon certain forms of wealth which are clearly social in their origin, and have not at any point been derived from a useful or productive process on the part of their possessors. but it may be said, "your plans include other expenditure besides the navy and old-age pensions. what about insurance, labour exchanges, and economic development?" those objects, at least, it may be urged are not inevitable or indispensable. it is quite true that the taxation which we seek to impose this year, and which is sufficient, and only sufficient for the needs of this year, will yield more abundant revenues in future years, and if at the same time a reduction in the expenditure on armaments becomes possible, we shall have substantial revenues at our disposal. that is perfectly true, but is that a reason for condemning the budget? when we see on every hand great nations which cannot pay their way, which have to borrow merely to carry on from year to year, when we see how sterile and unproductive all the dodges and devices of their protective tariffs have become, when we remember how often we have ourselves been told that under free trade no more revenue could be got, is it not a welcome change for our country, and for our free trade policy, to find our opponents complaining of the expansive nature of a free trade revenue? i don't wonder that tory protectionists have passed a resolution at birmingham declaring that the budget will indefinitely postpone--that was the phrase--the scheme of tariff reform. and upon what objects and policies do we propose to spend the extra revenue which this budget will unquestionably yield in future years? people talk vaguely of the stability of society, of the strength of the empire, of the permanence of a christian civilisation. on what foundation do they seek to build? there is only one foundation--a healthy family life for all. if large classes of the population live under conditions which make it difficult if not impossible for them to keep a home together in decent comfort, if the children are habitually underfed, if the housewife is habitually over-strained, if the bread-winner is under-employed or under-paid, if all are unprotected and uninsured against the common hazards of modern industrial life, if sickness, accident, infirmity, or old age, or unchecked intemperance, or any other curse or affliction, break up the home, as they break up thousands of homes, and scatter the family, as they scatter thousands of families in our land, it is not merely the waste of earning-power or the dispersal of a few poor sticks of furniture, it is the stamina, the virtue, safety, and honour of the british race that are being squandered. now the object of every single constructive proposal to which the revenues raised by this budget will be devoted, not less than the object of the distribution of the taxes which make up the budget, is to buttress and fortify the homes of the people. that is our aim; to that task we have bent our backs; and in that labour we shall not be daunted by the machine-made abuse of partisans or by the nervous clamour of selfish riches. whatever power may be given to us shall be used for this object. it is for you to say whether power will be given us to prevail. but they say, "this uncertainty about the budget is causing unemployment; you are aggravating the evils you seek to remedy." the budget has not increased unemployment. unemployment is severe in the country this year, but it is less severe this year than it was last, and it is less severe since the budget was introduced than before it was introduced. the proportion of trade unionists reported to be unemployed in the board of trade returns at the end of september was . per cent., and that is lower than any month since may , and it compares very favourably with september of last year, when the proportion was not . , but . per cent. i can well believe that the uncertainty as to whether the house of lords will, in a desperate attempt to escape their fair share of public burdens, plunge the country into revolution and its finances into chaos--i can well believe that that uncertainty is bad for trade and employment, and is hampering the revival which is beginning all over the country. i do not doubt that all this talk of the rejection of the budget is injurious to business, to credit, and to enterprise; but who is to blame for that? when did we ever hear of a budget being rejected by the lords before? when did we ever hear of a leader of the house of lords proposing, like lord lansdowne, to decide whether he would tear up the british constitution after consultation with the leaders of the drink trade? the uncertainty is not due to our action, but to their threats. our action has been regular, constitutional, and necessary. their threats are violent, unprecedented, and outrageous. let them cease their threats. let one of their leaders--let mr. balfour, for instance, say this year what he said last year, in the month of october, at dumfries. let him say, "it is the house of commons and not the house of lords which settles uncontrolled our financial system." let him repeat these words, and all uncertainty about the budget will be over. i am amazed and i am amused when i read in the newspapers the silly and fantastic rumours which obtain credence, or at any rate currency, from day to day. one day we are told that it is the intention of the government to seek a dissolution of parliament before the budget reaches the house of lords--in other words, to kill the child to save its life. the next day we are told the government have decided to have a referendum--that is to say, they will ask everybody in the country to send them a postcard to say whether they would like the budget to become law or not. another day we are told that the government are contemplating a bargain with the house of lords to alter the budget to please them, or that we should make a bargain with them that if they pass the budget we should seek a dissolution in january. why should we make a bargain with the house of lords? every one of those rumours is more silly, more idiotic, than the other. i wish our conservative friends would face the facts of the situation. "things are what they are, and their consequences will be what they will be." the house of lords has no scrap of right to interfere in finance. if they do, they violate the constitution, they shatter the finances, and they create an administrative breakdown the outcome of which no man can foresee. if such a situation should occur a liberal government can look only to the people. we count on you, and we shall come to you. if you sustain us we shall take effectual steps to prevent such a deadlock ever occurring again. that is the whole policy of his majesty's government--blunt, sober, obvious, and unflinching. the constitutional menace national liberal club, _october , _ (from _the times_, by permission.) i have never been able to rank myself among those who believe that the budget will be rejected by the house of lords. it is not that i take an exaggerated view of the respect which that body would bear to the constitutional tradition upon which alone they depend. it is not that i underrate at all the feelings of personal resentment and of class-prejudice with which they regard, naturally, many of the provisions of the budget. but i have a difficulty in believing that the responsible statesmen by whom they are led, and by whom we think they are controlled, would not hesitate as patriotic men before they plunged the finances of the country into what would be a largely irremediable confusion. and still more i find it difficult to believe that party leaders, anxious no doubt for office on the most secure terms and at the shortest notice, would voluntarily run unusual risks in order to be able to fight a decisive battle upon exceptionally unfavourable ground. in common with most of us who are here to-night, i hold that the rejection of the budget by the house of lords would be a constitutional outrage. i do not think we are entitled at this stage to assume that such an outrage will be committed. we cannot credit such intentions, even though we read them every day brutally and blatantly affirmed by a powerful party press. we do not credit such intentions. we are, however, bound to be fully prepared against all contingencies. the necessary precautions must be taken. the fighting machine must undergo all those preliminary processes necessary for a rapid and efficient mobilisation. and the ground on which a great battle might take place, the theatre of war, must be scanned beforehand with military foresight. and that is being done. but those who lightly estimate the crisis which will follow the rejection of the budget by the house of lords must be either strangely unimaginative or else they must be strangely ignorant of british history and of the british constitution. the control of finance by the representative assembly is the keystone of all that constitutional fabric upon which and within which all of us here have dwelt safely and peacefully throughout our lives. it is by the application of the power of the purse, and by the application of the power of the purse almost alone, that we have moved forward, slowly and prosaically, no doubt, during the last two hundred years, but without any violent overturn such as has rent the life and history of almost every other considerable country, from a kind of mediæval oligarchy to a vast modern democratic state based on the suffrages of six million or seven million electors, loyal to the crown, and clothed with all the stately forms of the venerable english monarchy. finance has been the keystone. take finance away from the house of commons, take the complete control of financial business away from the representative assembly, and our whole system of government, be it good, bad, or indifferent, will crumble to pieces like a house of cards. the rejection of the budget by the house of lords would not merely be a question of stopping a money bill or of knocking out a few taxes obnoxious to particular classes; the rejection of the budget by the house of lords would mean the claim of the house of lords--that is, the claim of a non-elective and unrepresentative chamber--to make and to unmake governments; and a recognition of that claim by the country would unquestionably mean that the house of lords would become the main source and origin of all political power under the crown. now that is a great quarrel; that is a quarrel on which we had hoped, on which we had been taught, that the sword had been sheathed victoriously for ever. and that is the issue that is before us now. we do not intend to soften it in any way. the responsibility for the consequences must rest with the aggressor who first violates the constitutional tradition of our land. the budget is through committee. we have had not merely an exhaustive but an exhausting discussion. i am told by ingenious calculators in the newspapers that over six hundred hours, from some of which i confess i have been absent, of debate have been accorded to the committee stage. no guillotine closure has been applied. full, free, unfettered debate has been accorded--has been accorded with a patience and with a generosity unprecedented in parliamentary annals, and which in effect has left a minority not merely satisfied in all the conditions of reasonable debate, but unable even on grounds of the most meticulous partisanship to complain that the fullest opportunity has not been accorded to them. in all this long process of six hundred hours and upwards we have shown ourselves willing to make concessions. they are boasting to-day that they, forsooth, are in part the authors of the budget. every effort has been made to meet honest and outspoken difference; every effort has been made to gather for this budget--the people's budget, as they know full well it is--the greatest measure of support not only among the labouring classes, but among all classes in our vast and complicated community. it has been a terrible strain. lord rosebery the other day at glasgow paid his tribute to the gallant band who had fought in opposition to the budget. had he no word for his old friends? had he no word for those who were once proud to follow him, and who now use in regard to him only the language of regret? had he no word for that other gallant band, twice as numerous, often three times as numerous, as the tory opposition, who have sat through all these months--fine speakers silent through self-suppression for the cause, wealthy men sitting up to unreasonable hours to pass taxes by which they are mulcted as much as any tory? men who have gone on even at the cost of their lives--had he no word for them? we to-night gathered together here in the national liberal club have a word and a cheer for the private members of the liberal party in the house of commons who have fought this battle through with unequalled loyalty and firmness, and who have shown a development of parliamentary power to carry a great measure which i venture to say has no counterpart in the parliamentary history of this country. well, that long process of debate, of argument, of concession, of compromise, of conciliation will very soon come to an end. when the budget leaves the house of commons the time of discussion, so far as we are concerned, will have come to an end. it will leave the house of commons in a final form, and no amendment by the house of lords will be entertained by us. i have heard it often said, and i have read it more often still, that there are some members of the cabinet who want to see the budget rejected, and i have even been shocked to find myself mentioned as one of these machiavellian intriguers. to those who say we want to see the budget rejected i reply, that is not true. as party men we cannot be blind to the great tactical advantages which such an event would confer upon us. we cannot pretend that our feelings in such an event would be feelings of melancholy; but we have our work to do. politics is not a game. it is an earnest business. we have our work to do. we have large, complex schemes of social organisation and financial reform on which we have consumed our efforts, and which we desire to see, at the shortest possible date, brought to conception and maturity. we do not want to see the finances of the country plunged into inextricable confusion, and hideous loss inflicted on the mass of the people and the taxpayers. for my part, i say without hesitation i do not at all wish to see british politics enter upon a violent, storm-shaken, and revolutionary phase. i am glad, at any rate, if they are to enter upon that phase, it shall be on the responsibility of others. our intentions are straightforward. we seek no conflict; we fear no conflict. we shall make no overtures to the house of lords; we shall accept no compromise. we are not called upon to offer them any dignified means of escape from a situation into which they have been betrayed by the recklessness of some of their supporters. they have no right whatever to interfere in financial business directly or indirectly at any time. that is all we have to say, and for the rest we have a powerful organisation, we have a united party, we have a resolute prime minister, we have a splendid cause. i do not think we need at this stage speculate upon the result of a battle which has not yet been, and which may never be at this juncture fought. i have seen enough of the ups and downs of real war to know how foolish forecasts of that character often are. but when an army has been brought into the field in the best condition, in the largest possible numbers, in a spirit of the highest enthusiasm, at the most favourable season, and on the best possible ground--then i think, when our army has been brought into that situation, we can afford to await the supreme arbitrament with a cool and serene composure; and this mood of composure and of calmness may ripen into a kind of joyous and warlike heartiness, if we can also feel that the cause for which we are fighting is broadly and grandly a true and righteous cause. error, of course, there is always in all human affairs--error of conception, error of statement, error of manner, error of weakness, error of partisanship. we do not deny that, but strip both the great political parties which to-day present themselves before the people of britain, strip them of their error, strip them of that admixture of error which cloys and clogs all human action, divest them of the trappings of combat in which they are apparelled, let them be nakedly and faithfully revealed. if that were done, cannot we feel soberly and assuredly convinced that, on the main contested issues of the day, upon the need of social organisation, upon the relations between the two houses of parliament, upon the regulation and control of the liquor traffic, upon a national settlement with ireland as we have made with africa, upon free trade, upon the land--upon all of them separately, still more upon all of them together, if we ask ourselves in our most silent and reflective mood alone--cannot we feel a sober conviction that, on the whole, we hold the larger truth? _printed by hazell, watson & viney, ld., london and aylesbury._ * * * * * +--------------------------------------------------------------+ | typographical errors corrected in text: | | | | page : bona fide replaced with bonâ fide | | page : proverty replaced with property | | page : beween replaced with between | | page : 'more than any any' replaced with 'more than any' | | | +--------------------------------------------------------------+ * * * * * essays in liberalism _being the lectures and papers which were delivered at the liberal summer school at oxford, _ london: pall mall w. collins sons & co. ltd. glasgow melbourne auckland copyright _manufactured in great britain_ preface the papers contained in this volume are summaries--in some cases, owing to the defectiveness of the reports, very much abridged summaries--of a series of discourses delivered at the liberal summer school at oxford in the first ten days of august, . in two cases ("the state and industry" and "the machinery of government") two lectures have been condensed into a single paper. the summer school was not arranged by any of the official organisations of the liberal party, nor was any part of its expenses paid out of party funds. it was the outcome of a spontaneous movement among a number of men and women who, believing that liberalism is beyond all other political creeds dependent upon the free discussion of ideas, came to the conclusion that it was desirable to create a platform upon which such discussion could be carried on, in a manner quite different from what is usual, or indeed practicable, at ordinary official party gatherings. from the first the movement received cordial support and encouragement from the leaders of the party, who were more than content that a movement so essentially liberal in character should be carried on quite independently of any official control. the meetings were inaugurated by an address by mr. asquith, and wound up by a valediction from lord grey, while nearly all the recognised leaders of the party presided at one or more of the meetings, or willingly consented to give lectures. in short, while wholly unofficial, the meetings drew together all that is most vital in modern liberalism. in some degree the summer school represented a new departure in political discussion. most of the lectures were delivered, not by active politicians, but by scholars and experts whose distinction has been won in other fields than practical politics. one or two of the speakers were, indeed, not even professed liberals. they were invited to speak because it was known that on their subjects they would express the true mind of modern liberalism. whatever lord robert cecil, for example, may call himself, liberals at any rate recognise that on most subjects he expresses their convictions. as a glance at the list of contents will show, the papers cover almost the whole range of political interest, foreign, domestic, and imperial, but the greatest emphasis is laid upon the problems of economic and industrial organisation. yet, since it is impossible to survey the universe in ten days, there are large and important themes which remain unexplored, while many subjects of vital significance are but lightly touched upon. perhaps the most notable of these omissions is that of any treatment of local government, and of the immensely important subjects--education, public health, housing, and the like--for which local authorities are primarily held responsible. these subjects are held over for fuller treatment in later schools; and for that reason two papers--one on local government and one on education--which were delivered at oxford have not been included in the present volume. it must be obvious, from what has been said above, that these papers make no pretence to define what may be called an official programme or policy for the liberal party. it was with study rather than with programme-making that the school was concerned, and its aim was the stimulation of free inquiry rather than the formulation of dogmas. every speaker was, and is, responsible for the views expressed in his paper, though not for the form which the abridged report of it has assumed; and there are doubtless passages in this book which would not win the assent of all liberals, for liberalism has always encouraged and welcomed varieties of opinion. nevertheless, taken as a whole, these papers do fairly represent the outlook and temper of modern liberalism. and the candid reader will not fail to recognise in them a certain unity of tone and temper, in spite of the diversity of their authorship and subject-matter. whether the subject is foreign politics, or imperial problems, or government, or industry, the same temper shows itself--a belief in freedom rather than in regimentation; an earnest desire to substitute law for force; a belief in persuasion rather than in compulsion as the best mode of solving difficult problems; an eagerness to establish organised methods of discussion and co-operation as the best solvent of strife, in international relations and in industrial affairs quite as much as in the realm of national politics, to which these methods have long since been applied. that is the spirit of modern liberalism, which gives unity to the diversity of this little volume. as has often been said, liberalism is an attitude of mind rather than a body of definitely formulated doctrine. it does not claim to know of any formula which will guide us out of all our troubles, or of any panacea that will cure every social ill. it recognises that we are surrounded in every field of social and political life by infinitely difficult problems for which there is no easy solution. it puts its trust in the honest inquiry and thought of free men who take their civic responsibilities seriously. contents page preface v the league of nations and the rehabilitation of europe _rt. hon. lord robert cecil_ the balance of power _professor a.f. pollard_ international disarmament _sir frederick maurice_ reparations and inter-allied debt _john maynard keynes_ the outlook for national finance _sir josiah stamp_ free trade _rt. hon. j.m. robertson_ india _sir hamilton grant_ egypt _j.a. spender_ the machinery of government _ramsay muir_ the state and industry _w.t. layton_ the regulation of wages _professor l.t. hobhouse_ unemployment _h.d. henderson_ the problem of the mines _arnold d. mcnair_ the land question _a.s. comyns carr_ agricultural questions _rt. hon. f.d. acland_ the league of nations and the rehabilitation of europe by the rt. hon. lord robert cecil k.c., m.p., assistant secretary of state for foreign affairs, . minister of blockade, - . representative of union of south africa at assembly of league of nations. lord robert cecil said:--i ought to explain that i am here rather by accident. the speaker who was to have addressed you was my great personal friend, professor gilbert murray, and you have greatly suffered because he is not present. he is prevented by being at geneva on a matter connected with the league, and he suggested that i might take his place. i was very glad to do so, for, let me say quite frankly, i am ready to advocate the league of nations before any assembly, certainly not least an assembly of liberals. but not only an assembly of liberals--i should be ready to advocate it even before an assembly of "die-hards." your chairman has said, and said truly, that the league is not a party question. we welcome, we are anxious for support from every one. we have seen in another great country the very grave danger that may accrue to the cause of the league if it unhappily becomes identified with party politics. we welcome support, yes, i will say even from the prime minister; indeed no one will reject the support of the prime minister of england for any cause. i am bound to admit when i first read the speech to which reference has already been made, i was a little reminded of the celebrated letter of dr. johnson to lord chesterfield. lord chesterfield only began to recognise the value of johnson's works when johnson had already succeeded, and in one of the bitter phrases dr. johnson then used he said, "is not a patron one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water, and when he has reached ground incommodes him with help?" that was a passing phase in my mind, and i am a little ashamed of it, because, after all, we cannot say the league has reached ground as yet. we need and are grateful for the help of any one who will genuinely come to its assistance. i hope we may look not only for words, but for deeds. the league needs all the support it can get in the very perilous and menacing times which are before us. i was glad to note that the government has announced--it is one of the great test questions--that not only is it in favour of the entry of germany into the league, but it would support the election of germany to the council of the league. that is an earnest of what we trust may be a real league policy from the government of this country. and yet, though i have thought it right to emphasise the non-party aspect of this question, i am conscious, and i am sure all of you are, there are two ways in which the league is regarded. it is not only that, as your chairman would say, some people have more faith than others, but there is really a distinct attitude of mind adopted by some supporters of the league from that adopted by others. the two views of the league there is what i may call the empirical view of the league. there are those of us in this country, and indeed all over the world, who, profoundly impressed with the horrors of war, hating war from the bottom of their hearts as an evil thing--a company which must include, as far as i can see, all christian men and women--these people, impressed with the horrors of war, look about for some means of keeping it away, some safeguard against its renewal. and they say: "we have tried everything else, we have tried the doctrine of the preparation for war as a great safeguard of peace; we have tried the doctrine of the balance of power; we have tried the doctrine of making one state or group of states so powerful that it can enforce its will on the rest of the world. we have tried all these expedients, and we are driven to the conclusion that they lead not to peace, but to war. is there anything else?" and then they come quite legitimately to the league as their last hope of preserving the peace of the world. i was talking to a distinguished frenchman the other day, and that was his attitude. it is the attitude of a great many people. in my judgment it is quite sound as far as it goes. but it is not inspiring. it depends in the last resort merely on a frank appeal to the terrors of mankind. against that view you may set the more fundamental way of approaching this question. you may say if you are to have peace in the world it is not enough merely to provide safeguards against war. you must aim at creating a new international spirit, a new spirit in international affairs; you must build from the very foundations. that is the positive as opposed to the negative way of approaching this question. it is not enough to cast out the war spirit and leave its habitation swept and garnished. you have to replace the war spirit by a spirit of international co-operation. and that is the way of regarding this great movement which some people think can be disposed of by describing it as idealism--a favourite term of abuse, i learn, now, but which seems to me not only good politics and good morality, but common sense as well. the negative and the positive these two points of view do represent undoubtedly fundamental differences of political attitude, and you will find that the two sets of advocates or supporters of the league whom i have tried to describe, will inevitably regard with different emphasis the provisions of the covenant, and even the achievements of the league. for if you read the covenant you will find two sets of provisions in that document. it does recognise the two schools, as it were, that i have been describing. it has a set of provisions which deal with the enforcement, the safeguarding of peace, and a set of provisions which deal with the building up of international co-operation. you will notice the two sets of provisions. there are those aiming directly at the settlement of disputes without war. this is the central part of the league. it is the first thing before you can hope to do anything else. before you can begin to build up your international spirit you must get rid as far as you can of the actual menace of war; and in that sense this is the central part of the covenant. but, in my view, the most enduring and perhaps the most important part is that set of provisions which cluster round the group of articles beginning with article perhaps, certainly article , and going on to article --the group which says in effect that before nations submit their disputes to the arbitrament of war they are bound to try every other means of settling their differences. it lays down first the principle that every dispute should come to some kind of arbitration, either by the new court of international justice--one of the great achievements of the league--or discussion before a specially constituted arbitration court, or failing both, then discussion before the council of the league; and articles and provide that until that discussion has taken place, and until adequate time has been allowed for the public opinion of the world to operate on the disputants as the result of that examination, no war is to take place, and if any war takes place the aggressor is to be regarded as perhaps what may be called an international outlaw. before you begin to build you must have freedom from actual war, and the provisions have been effective. they are not merely theoretic. i am not sure whether it is generally recognised, even in so instructed an assembly as this, how successful these provisions have actually been in practice. let me give you briefly two illustrations: the dispute between sweden and finland, and the much more urgent case of the dispute between serbia and albania. in the first case you had a dispute about the possession of certain islands in the baltic. it was boiling up to be a serious danger to the peace of the world. it was referred to the league for discussion. it was before the existence of the international court. a special tribunal was constituted. the matter was threshed out with great elaboration; a decision was come to which, it is interesting to observe, was a decision against the stronger of the two parties. it was accepted, not with enthusiasm by the party that lost, but with great loyalty. it has been adopted, worked out in its details by other organs of the league, and as far as one can tell, as far as it is safe to prophesy about anything, it has absolutely closed that dispute, and the two countries are living in a greater degree of amity than existed before the dispute became acute. but the albanian case is stronger. you had a very striking case: a small country only just struggling into international existence. albania had only just been created before the war as an independent state, and during the war its independence had in effect vanished. the first thing that happened was its application for membership of the league. that was granted, and thereby albania came into existence really for the first time as an independent state. then came its effort to secure the boundaries to which it was entitled, which had been provisionally awarded to it before the war. while that dispute was still unsettled, its neighbour, following some rather disastrous examples given by greater people in europe, thought to solve the question by seizing even more of the land of albania than it already occupied. thereupon the articles of the covenant were brought into operation. the council was hastily summoned within a few days. it was known that this country was prepared to advocate before that council the adoption of the coercive measures described in article . the council met, and the aggressive state immediately recognised that as a member of the league it had no course open but to comply with its obligations, and that as a prudent state it dared not face the danger which would be caused to it by the operation of article . immediately, before the dispute had actually been developed, before the council, the serbians announced that they were prepared to withdraw from albanian territory, and gave orders to their troops to retire beyond the boundary. let us recognise that this decision having been come to, it was carried out with absolute loyalty and completeness. the troops withdrew. the territory was restored to albania without a hitch. no ill-feeling remains behind, and the next thing we hear is that a commercial treaty is entered into between the two states, so that they can live in peace and amity together. the spirit of the league i want to emphasise one point about these two cases. it is not so much that the coercive powers provided in the covenant were effectively used. in sweden and finland they never came into the question at all, and in the other case there was merely a suggestion of their operation. what really brought about a settlement of these two disputes was that the countries concerned really desired peace, and were really anxious to comply with their obligations as members of the league of nations. that is the essential thing--the league spirit. and if you want to see how essential it is you have to compare another international incident: the dispute between poland and lithuania, where the league spirit was conspicuous by its absence. there you had a dispute of the same character. but ultimately you did secure this: that from the date of the intervention of the league till the present day--about two years--there has been no fighting; actual hostilities were put an end to. though that is in itself an immensely satisfactory result, and an essential preliminary for all future international progress, yet one must add that the dispute still continues, and there is much recrimination and bitterness between the two countries. the reason why only partial success has been attained is because one must say poland has shown a miserable lack of the true spirit of the league. let me turn to the other parts of the covenant--those which aim directly at building up international co-operation. i am not sure that it is always sufficiently realised that that is not only an implicit but also an explicit object of the covenant--that it is the main purpose for which the league exists. international co-operation are the very first words of the preamble to the covenant. this is the fundamental idea i cannot insist on too strongly, because it does really go down to the very foundations of my whole creed in political matters. international co-operation, class co-operation, individual co-operation--that is the essential spirit if we are to solve the difficulties before us. let me remind you of the two instances of the action of the league in dealing with the threat of epidemics to europe. a conference was called at washington to consider what could be done to save europe from the danger of epidemics coming from the east. what is interesting is that in that conference you had present not only members of the league considering and devising means for the safety of europe, but you had representatives of germany and russia--a splendid example of the promotion of international co-operation extending even beyond the limits of the membership of the league. admirable work was done. all countries co-operated quite frankly and willingly under the presidency of a distinguished polish scientist. that is one example of what we mean by international co-operation. perhaps an even more striking example was the great work of dr. nansen in liberating the prisoners of war who were in russia. he was entrusted with the work on behalf of the league. the prisoners of war belonged to all nationalities, including our enemies in the late war. he accomplished his work because he went about it in the true spirit of the league, merely anxious to promote the welfare of all, leaving aside all prejudices whether arising from the war or from any other cause. dr. nansen is in my judgment the incarnation of the spirit of the league, and his work, immensely successful, restored to their homes some , persons, and he did it for less money than he originally estimated it would cost. do not put me down as a facile optimist in this matter. in the matter of international co-operation we have a long way to go before we reach our goal, and we can already see one or two serious failures. i deeply deplore that last year the league found itself unable, through the instructions given by the governments which composed it, to do anything effective on behalf of the famine in russia. it was a most deplorable failure for the league, and still more deplorable for this country. it was a great opportunity for us to show that we really did mean to be actuated by a new spirit in international affairs, and that we did recognise that the welfare of all human beings was part--if you like to put it so--of our national interests. we failed to make that recognition. we have been trying feebly and unsuccessfully to repair that great mistake ever since, and for my part i do not believe there is any hope of a solution of the russian difficulty until we absolutely acknowledge the failure we then made, and begin even at this late hour to retrace the false step we then took. i could give other instances of failure, but i do not wish to depress you, and there are cheering things we may look at. it is a matter of great relief and congratulation that the policy of mandates really does appear to be becoming effective, and one of the greatest activities of the league. nothing is better than the conception which the mandate clause embodies, that the old ideas of conquest are to be put aside; that you are not to allow nations to go out and take chunks of territory for themselves; that they must hold new territory not for themselves, but on behalf of and for the benefit of mankind at large. this is at the bottom of mandates. since i am speaking on behalf of professor murray, i ought to remind you of the provisions of the covenant for the protection of racial linguistic minorities, and minorities in different countries. it has not yet become an effective part of the machinery of the league, but i look forward to the time when we shall have established the doctrine that all racial minorities are entitled to be treated on a footing absolutely equal with other nationals of the country in which they live. if that could be established, one of the great difficulties in the way of international co-operation in the spirit of peace will be removed. the mistake of versailles these are the two aspects i wanted to bring before you. if we are to get down to the root of the matter; if we are to uproot the old jungle theory of international relations, we must recognise that the chief danger and difficulty before us is what may be described as excessive nationalism. we have to recognise in this and other countries that a mere belief in narrow national interests will never really take you anywhere. you must recognise that humanity can only exist and prosper as a whole, and that you cannot separate the nation in which you live, and say you will work for its prosperity and welfare alone, without considering that its prosperity and welfare depend on that of others. and the differences on that point go right through a great deal of the political thought of the day. take the question of reparations. i am not going to discuss in detail what ought to be done in that difficult and vexed question, but i want to call your attention to the mistake which was originally made, and which we have never yet been able to retrieve. the fundamental error of versailles was the failure to recognise that even in dealing with a conquered enemy you can only successfully proceed by co-operation. that was the mistake--the idea that the victorious powers could impose their will without regard to the feelings and desires and national sentiment of their enemy, even though he was beaten. for the first time in the history of peace conferences, the vanquished power was not allowed to take part in any real discussion of the terms of the treaty. the attitude adopted was, "these are our terms, take or leave them, but you will get nothing else." no attempt was made to appreciate, or even investigate the view put forward by the germans on that occasion. and last, but not least, they were most unfortunately excluded from membership of the league at that time. i felt profoundly indignant with the germans and their conduct of the war. i still believe it was due almost exclusively to the german policy and the policy of their rulers that the war took place, and that it was reasonable and right to feel profound indignation, and to desire that international misdeeds of that character should be adequately punished. but what was wrong was to think that you could as a matter of practice or of international ethics try to impose by main force a series of provisions without regard to the consent or dissent of the country on which you were trying to impose them. that is part of the heresy that force counts for everything. i wish some learned person in oxford or elsewhere would write an essay to show how little force has been able to achieve in the world. and the curious and the really remarkable thing is that it was this heresy which brought germany herself to grief. it is because of the false and immoral belief in the all-powerfulness of force that germany has fallen, and yet those opposed to germany, though they conquered her, adopted only too much of her moral code. it was because the allies really adopted the doctrine of the mailed fist that we are now suffering from the terrible economic difficulties and dangers which surround us. i venture to insist on that now, because there are a large number of people who have not abandoned that view. there are still a number of people who think the real failure that has been committed is not that we went wrong, as i think, in our negotiations at versailles, but that we have not exerted enough force, and that the remedy for the present situation is more threats of force. i am sure it won't answer. i want to say that that doctrine is just as pernicious when applied to france as when applied to germany. you have made an agreement. you have signed and ratified a treaty; you are internationally bound by that treaty. it is no use turning round and with a new incarnation of the policy of the mailed fist threatening one of your co-signatories that they are bound to abandon the rights which you wrongly and foolishly gave to them under that treaty. i am against a policy based on force as applied to germany. i am equally opposed to a policy based on force as applied to france. if we really understand the creed for which we stand, we must aim at co-operation all round. if we have made a mistake we must pay for it. if we are really anxious to bring peace to the world, and particularly to europe, we must be prepared for sacrifices. we have got to establish economic peace, and if we don't establish it in a very short time we shall be faced with economic ruin. in the strictest, most nationalistic interests of this country, we have to see that economic war comes to an end. we have got to make whatever concessions are necessary in order to bring that peace into being. economic peace that is true not only of the reparation question; it is true of our whole economic policy. we have been preaching to europe, and quite rightly, that the erection of economic barriers between countries is a treachery to the whole spirit of the league of nations, and all that it means, and yet with these words scarcely uttered we turn round and pass through parliament a new departure in our economic system which is the very contradiction of everything we have said in international conference. the safeguarding of industries act is absolutely opposed to the whole spirit and purpose which the league of nations has in view. a reference was made by your chairman to lord grey, and i saw in a very distinguished organ of the coalition an attack on his recent speech. we are told that he ought not at this crisis to be suggesting that the present government is not worthy of our confidence, but how can we trust the present government? how is it possible to trust them when one finds at brussels, at genoa, at the hague, and elsewhere they preach the necessity of the economic unity of europe, and then go down to the house of commons and justify this act on the strictest, the baldest, the most unvarnished doctrine of economic particularism for this country? nor does it stop there. i told you just now that for me this doctrine on which the league is based goes right through many other problems than those of a strictly international character. you will never solve indian or egyptian difficulties by a reliance on force and force alone. i believe that the deplorable, the scandalous condition to which the neighbouring island of ireland has been reduced is largely due to the failure to recognise that by unrestricted unreasoning, and sometimes immoral force, you cannot reach the solution of the difficulties of that country. and in industry it is the same thing. if you are really to get a solution of these great problems, depend upon it you will never do it by strikes and lock-outs. i am an outsider in industrial matters. i am reproached when i venture to say anything about them with the observation that i am no business man. i can only hope that in this case lookers-on may sometimes see most of the game. but to me it is profoundly depressing when i see whichever section of the industrial world happens to have the market with it--whether employers or wage-earners--making it its only concern to down the other party as much as it can. you will never reach a solution that way. you have to recognise in industrial as in international affairs that the spirit of co-operation, the spirit of partnership, is your only hope of salvation. the two causes of unrest what is the conclusion of what i have tried to say to you? there are at the present time two great causes of fighting and hostility. there used to be three. there was a time when men fought about religious doctrine, and though i do not defend it, it was perhaps less sordid than some of our fights to-day. now the two great causes of fighting are greed and fear. generally speaking, i think we may say that greed in international matters is a less potent cause of hostility than fear. the disease the world is suffering from is the disease of fear and suspicion. you see it between man and man, between class and class, and most of all between nation and nation. people reproach this great country and other great countries with being unreasonable or unwilling to make concessions. if you look deeply into it you will find always the same cause. it is not mere perversity; it is fear and fear alone that makes men unreasonable and contentious. it is no new thing; it has existed from the foundation of the world. the prime minister the other day said, and said quite truly, that the provisions of the covenant, however admirable, were not in themselves sufficient to secure the peace of the world. he made an appeal, quite rightly, to the religious forces and organisations to assist. i agree, but after all something may be done by political action, and something by international organisation. in modern medicine doctors are constantly telling us they cannot cure any disease--all they can do is to give nature a chance. no covenant will teach men to be moral or peace-loving, but you can remove, diminish, or modify the conditions which make for war, and take obstacles out of the way of peace. we advocate partnership in industry and social life. we advocate self-government, international co-operation. we recognise that these are no ends in themselves; they are means to the end; they are the influences which will facilitate the triumph of the right and impede the success of the wrong. but looking deeper into the matter, to the very foundations, we recognise, all of us, the most devoted adherents of the league, and all men of goodwill, that in the end we must strive for the brotherhood of man. we admit we can do comparatively little to help it forward. we recognise that our efforts, whether by covenant or other means, must necessarily be imperfect; but we say, and say rightly, that we have been told that perfect love casteth out fear, and that any step towards that love, however imperfect, will at any rate mitigate the terrors of mankind. the balance of power by professor a.f. pollard hon. litt.d.; fellow of all souls' college, oxford; f.b.a.; professor of english history in the university of london; chairman of the institute of historical research. professor pollard said:--the usual alternative to the league of nations, put forward as a means of averting war by those who desire or profess to desire permanent peace, but dislike or distrust the league of nations, is what they call the balance of power. it is a familiar phrase; but the thing for which the words are supposed to stand, has, if it can save us from war, so stupendous a virtue that it is worth while inquiring what it means, if it has any meaning at all. for words are not the same as things, and the more a phrase is used the less it tends to mean: verbal currency, like the coinage, gets worn with use until in time it has to be called in as bad. the time has come to recall the balance of power as a phrase that has completely lost the value it possessed when originally it was coined. recent events have made an examination of the doctrine of the balance of power a matter of some urgency. the allies who won the war concluded a pact to preserve the peace, but in that pact they have not yet been able to include germany or russia or the united states, three powers which are, potentially at any rate, among the greatest in the world. so, some fifty years ago, bismarck, who won three wars in the mid-victorian age, set himself to build up a pact of peace. but his triple alliance was not only used to restrain, but abused to repress, the excluded powers; and that abuse of a pact of peace drove the excluded powers, france and russia, into each other's arms. there resulted the balance of power which produced the war we have barely survived. and hardly was the great war fought and won than we saw the wheel beginning to revolve once more. the excluded powers, repressed or merely restrained, began to draw together; others than turkey might gravitate in the same direction, while the united states stands in splendid isolation as much aloof as we were from the triple alliance and the dual entente a generation ago. another balance of power loomed on the horizon. "let us face the facts," declared the _morning post_ on nd april last, "we are back again to the doctrine of the balance of power, whatever the visionaries and the blind may say." i propose to deal, as faithfully as i can in the time at my disposal, with the visionaries and the blind--when we have discovered who they are. by "visionaries" i suppose the _morning post_ means those who believe in the league of nations; and by the "blind" i suppose it means them, too, though usually a distinction is drawn between those who see too much and those who cannot see at all. nor need we determine whether those who believe in the balance of power belong rather to the visionaries or to the blind. a man may be receiving less than his due when he is asked whether he is a knave or a fool, because the form of the question seems to preclude the proper answer, which may be "both." believers in the balance of power are visionaries if they see in it a guarantee of peace, and blind if they fail to perceive that it naturally and almost inevitably leads to war. the fundamental antithesis is between the balance of power and the league of nations. balance or league? that antithesis comes out wherever the problem of preserving the peace of the world is seriously and intelligently discussed. six years ago, when he began to turn his attention to this subject, lord robert cecil wrote and privately circulated a memorandum in which he advocated something like a league of nations. to that memorandum an able reply was drafted by an eminent authority in the foreign office, in which it was contended that out of the discussion "the balance of power emerges as the fundamental factor." that criticism for the time being checked official leanings towards a league of nations. but the war went on, threatening to end in a balance of power, which was anything but welcome to those who combined a theoretical belief in the balance of power with a practical demand for its complete destruction by an overwhelming victory for our allies and ourselves. meanwhile, before america came in, president wilson was declaring that, in order to guarantee the permanence of such a settlement as would commend itself to the united states, there must be, not "a balance of power but a community of power." opinion in england was moving in the same direction. the league of nations society (afterwards called "union") had been formed, and at a great meeting on th may, , speeches advocating some such league as the best means of preventing future wars were delivered by lord bryce, general smuts, the archbishop of canterbury, lord hugh cecil, and others. labour was even more emphatic; and, responding to popular opinion, the government, at christmas, , appointed a small committee to explore the historical, juridical, and diplomatic bearings of the suggested solution. a brief survey sufficed to show that attempts to guarantee the peace of the world resolved themselves into three categories: ( ) a monopoly of power, ( ) balance of power, and ( ) community of power. rome had established the longest peace in history by subjugating all her rivals and creating a _pax romana_ imposed by a world-wide empire. that empire lasted for centuries, and the idea persisted throughout the middle ages. in modern times philip ii. of spain, louis xiv. of france, napoleon, and even the kaiser were suspected of attempting to revive it; and their efforts provoked the counter idea, first of a balance of power, and then in these latter days of a community of power. the conception of a monopoly of power was by common consent abandoned as impossible and intolerable, after the rise of nationality, by all except the particular aspirants to the monopoly. the balance of power and the community of power--in other words, the league of nations--thus became the two rival solutions of the problem of permanent peace. the theory of balance the discussion of their respective merits naturally led to an inquiry into what the alternative policies really meant. but inasmuch as the foreign office committee found itself able to agree in recommending some form of league of nations, the idea of the balance of power was not subjected to so close a scrutiny or so searching an analysis as would certainly have been the case had the committee realised the possibility that reaction against an imperfect league of nations might bring once more to the front the idea of the balance of power. the fact was, however, elicited that the foreign office conception of the balance of power is a conception erroneously supposed to have been expressed by castlereagh at the time of the congress of vienna, and adopted as the leading principle of nineteenth century british foreign policy. castlereagh was not, of course, the author of the phrase or of the policy. the phrase can be found before the end of the seventeenth century; and in the eighteenth the policy was always pleaded by potentates and powers when on the defensive, and ignored by them when in pursuit of honour or vital interests. but castlereagh defined it afresh after the colossal disturbance of the balance which napoleon effected; and he explained it as "a just repartition of force amongst the states of europe." they were, so to speak, to be rationed by common agreement. there were to be five or six great powers, whose independence was to be above suspicion and whose strength was to be restrained by the jealous watchfulness of one another. if any one state, like france under napoleon, grew too powerful, all the rest were to combine to restrain it. now, there is a good deal in common between castlereagh's idea and that of the league of nations. of course, there are obvious differences. castlereagh's powers were monarchies rather than peoples; they were limited to europe; little regard was paid to smaller states, whose independence sometimes rested on no better foundation than the inability of the great powers to agree about their absorption; and force rather than law or public opinion was the basis of the scheme. but none of these differences, important though they were, between castlereagh's balance of power and the league of nations is so fundamental as the difference between two things which are commonly regarded as identical, viz., castlereagh's idea of the balance of power and the meaning which has since become attached to the phrase. there are at least two senses in which it has been used, and the two are wholly incompatible with one another. the league of nations in reality resembles castlereagh's balance of power more closely than does the conventional notion of that balance; and a verbal identity has concealed a real diversity to the confusion of all political thought on the subject. castlereagh's balance of power is what i believe mathematicians call a multiple balance. it was not like a pair of scales, in which you have only two weights or forces balanced one against the other. it was rather like a chandelier, in which you have five or six different weights co-operating to produce a general stability or equilibrium. in castlereagh's scheme it would not much matter if one of the weights were a little heavier than the others, because there would be four or five of these others to counterbalance it; and his assumption was that these other powers would naturally combine for the purpose of redressing the balance and preserving the peace. but a simple balance between two opposing forces is a very different thing. if there are only two, you have no combination on which you can rely to counteract the increasing power of either, and the slightest disturbance suffices to upset the balance. castlereagh's whole scheme therefore presupposed the continued and permanent existence of some five or six great powers always preserving their independence in foreign policy and war, and automatically acting as a check upon the might and ambition of any single state. the change since castlereagh now, it was this condition, essential to the maintenance of castlereagh's balance of power, which completely broke down during the course of the nineteenth century. like most of the vital processes in history, the change was gradual and unobtrusive, and its significance escaped the notice of politicians, journalists, and even historians. men went on repeating castlereagh's phrases about the balance of power without perceiving that the circumstances, which alone had given it reality, had entirely altered. the individual independence and automatic action of the great powers in checking the growing ambitions and strength of particular states were impaired, if not destroyed, by separate alliances, which formed units into groups for the purposes of war and foreign policy, and broke up the unity of the european system, just as a similar tendency threatens to break up the league of nations. there was a good deal of shifting about in temporary alliances which there is no need to recount; but the ultimate upshot was the severance of europe into the two great groups with which we are all familiar, the triple alliance of germany, austria, and italy on one side, and the triple entente between russia, france, and great britain on the other. the multiple balance of power was thus changed into a simple balance between two vast aggregations of force, and nothing remained outside to hold the balance, except the united states, which had apparently forsworn by the monroe doctrine the function of keeping it even. and yet men continued to speak of the balance of power as though there had been no change, and as though castlereagh's ideas were as applicable to the novel situation as they had been to the old! that illustrates the tyranny of phrases. cynics have said that language is used to conceal our thoughts. it is difficult to resist the conclusion that phrases are used to save us the trouble of thinking. we are always giving things labels in order to put them away in their appropriate pigeon-holes, and then we talk about the labels without thinking about them, and often forgetting (if we ever knew) the things for which they stand. so we pelmanised the balance of power, and continued to use the phrase without in the least troubling to ask what it means. when i asked at the foreign office whether diplomatists meant by the balance of power the sort of simple balance between two great alliances like the triple alliance and the triple entente, i was told "yes"; and there was some surprise--since the tradition of castlereagh is strong in the service--when i pointed out that that was an entirely different balance from that of which castlereagh had approved as a guarantee of peace. you remember the cheshire cat in _alice in wonderland_--an excellent text-book for students of politics--and how the cat gradually faded away leaving only its grin behind it to perplex and puzzle the observer. so the body and the substance of castlereagh's balance of power passed away, and still men talk of the grin and look to the phrase to save them from war. whether to call them visionaries or the blind, i do not know. mischievous hallucination in either case, it is a mischievous hallucination; for the simple balance of power between two great combinations is not only no guarantee of peace, but the great begetter of fear, of the race for armaments, and of war. consider for a moment. if you want a balance, you want to have it perfect. what is a perfect balance between two opposing weights or forces? it is one which the addition of a feather-weight to either scale will at once and completely upset. now what will that equipoise produce? the ease with which the balance may be destroyed will produce either on one side the temptation to upset it, and on the other fear lest it be upset, or fear on both sides at once. what indeed was it but this even balance and consequent fear which produced the race for armaments? and what does the race for armaments result in but in war? if we want war, we need only aim at a balance of power, and it will do the rest. so far from being a guarantee of peace, the balance of power is a sovereign specific for precipitating war. of course, there are arguments for a balance of power. plenty of them, alas! though they are not often avowed. it produces other things than war. for one thing, it makes fortunes for munition firms. for another, it provides careers for those who have a taste for fighting or for military pomp. thirdly, in order to maintain armies and navies and armaments, it keeps up taxation and diverts money from social, educational, and other reforms which some people want to postpone. fourthly, it gratifies those who believe that force is the ultimate sanction of order, and, by necessitating the maintenance of large forces for defensive purposes, incidentally provides means for dealing with domestic discontent. fifthly, it panders to those who talk of prestige and think that prestige depends upon the size of a nation's armaments. for the sake of these things many would be willing to take the risk of war which the balance of power involves. but most of those who use the phrase are unconscious of these motives, and use it as they use many another phrase, simply because they know not what it means. for, assuredly, no sane person who had examined the balance of power, as it existed before the war, could ever advocate it as a means of peace. indeed, whenever there has been the prospect of a practical balance of power, its votaries have shown by their action that they knew their creed was nonsense. the late war, for instance, might have been ended in on the basis of a balance of power. there were a few who believed that that was the best solution; but they were not our latter-day believers in the balance of power. their cry was all for a fight to a finish and a total destruction of the balance of power by an overwhelming victory for the allies, and their one regret is that a final blow by marshal foch did not destroy the last vestige of a german army. what is the point of expressing belief in the balance of power when you indignantly repudiate your own doctrine on every occasion on which you might be able to give it effect? and what is the point of the present advocacy of the balance of power by those who think themselves neither visionaries nor blind? do they wish to restore the military strength of germany and of russia and to see an alliance between them confronting a franco-british union, compelled thereby to be militarist too? is it really that they wish to be militarists and that the league of nations, with its promise of peace, retrenchment, and reform, is to them a greater evil than the balance of power? where the line is drawn there is yet another fatal objection to the balance of power due to the change in circumstances since the days of castlereagh. he could afford to think only of europe, but we have to think of the world; and if our specific has any value it must be of world-wide application. we cannot proclaim the virtues of the balance of power and then propose to limit it to the land or to any particular continent. now, did our believers in the balance of power ever wish to see power balanced anywhere else than on the continent of europe? that, if we studied history in any other language than our own, we should know was the gibe which other peoples flung at our addiction to the balance of power. we wanted, they said, to see a balance of power on the continent of europe, to see one half of europe equally matched against the other, because the more anxiously continental states were absorbed in maintaining their balance of power, the keener would be their competition for our favour, and the freer would be our hands to do what we liked in the rest of the world. was that a baseless slander? let us test it with a question or two. did we ever want a balance of power at sea? british supremacy, with a two-to-one or at least a sixteen-to-ten standard was, i fancy, our minimum requirement. is british supremacy what we mean by a balance of power? again, did we ever desire a balance of power in africa, america, or asia? we may have talked of it sometimes, but only when we were the weaker party and feared that another might claim in those continents the sort of balance of power we claimed on the sea. we never spoke of the balance of power in the interests of any nation except ourselves and an occasional ally. we cannot speak in those terms to-day. if we demand a balance of power on land, we must expect others to claim it at sea; if we urge it on europe as a means of peace, we cannot object if others turn our own argument against us in other quarters of the globe; and wherever you have a balance of power you will have a race for armaments and the fear of war. the balance of power is, in fact, becoming as obsolete as the monopoly of power enjoyed by the roman empire. it is a bankrupt policy which went into liquidation in , and the high court of public opinion demands a reconstruction. the principle of that reconstruction was stated by president wilson, a great seer whose ultimate fame will survive the obloquy in which he has been involved by the exigencies of american party-politics and the short-sightedness of public opinion in europe. we want, he said, a community of power, and its organ must be the league of nations. nations must begin to co-operate and cease to counteract. i am not advocating the league of nations except in the limited way of attempting to show that the balance of power is impossible as an alternative unless you can re-create the conditions of a century ago, restore the individual independence of a number of fairly equal powers, and guarantee the commonwealth of nations against privy conspiracy and sedition in the form of separate groups and alliances. but there is one supreme advantage in a community of power, provided it remains a reality, and that is that it need never be used. its mere existence would be sufficient to ensure the peace; for no rebel state would care to challenge the inevitable defeat and retribution which a community of power could inflict. it has even been urged, and i believe it myself, that germany would never have invaded belgium had she been sure that great britain, and still less had she thought that america, would intervene. it was the balance of power that provoked the war, and it was the absence of a community of power which made it possible. basis of security but no one who thinks that power--whether a monopoly, a balance, or even a community of power is the ultimate guardian angel of our peace, has the root of the matter in him. men, said burke, are not governed primarily by laws, still less by force; and behind all power stands opinion. to believe in public opinion rather than in might excludes the believer from the regular forces of militarism and condemns him as a visionary and blind. for advocates of the balance of power bear a striking resemblance to the potsdam school; and even so moderate a german as the late dr. rathenau declared in his unregenerate days before the war that germans were not in the habit of reckoning with public opinion. nevertheless, there is a frontier in the world which for a century and more has enjoyed a security which all the armaments of prussian militarism could not give the german fatherland; and the absolute security of that frontier rests not upon a monopoly nor a community, still less upon a balance of power, but on the opinion held on both sides of that frontier that all power is irrational and futile as a guarantee of peace between civilised or christian people. let us look at that frontier for a moment. it is in its way the most wonderful thing on earth, and it holds a light to lighten the nations and to guide our feet into the way of peace. it runs, of course, between the dominion of canada and the united states of america across the great lakes and three thousand miles of prairie; and from the military and strategic point of view it is probably the worst frontier in the world. why then is it secure? is it because of any monopoly or community or balance of power? is it because the united states and the british empire are under a common government, or because there is along that frontier a nicely-balanced distribution of military strength? no, it is secure, not in spite of the absence of force, but because of the absence of force; and if you want to destroy the peace of that frontier from end to end, all you need to do is to send a regiment to protect it, launch a _dreadnought_ on those lakes, and establish a balance of power. for every regiment or warship on one side will produce a regiment or warship on the other; and then your race for armaments will begin, and the poison will spread until the whole of america becomes like europe, an armed camp of victims to the theory of strategic frontiers and of the balance of power. those theories, their application, and their consequences recently cost the world thirty million casualties and thousands of millions of pounds within a brief five years, and yet left the frontiers of europe less secure than they were before. three thousand miles of frontier in north america have in more than a hundred years cost us hardly a life, or a limb, or a penny. as we put those details side by side we realise _quantula regitur mundus sapientia_--with how little wisdom do men rule the world. yet the truth was told us long ago that he that ruleth his spirit is better than he that taketh a city, and we might have learnt by our experience of the peace that the only conquest that really pays is the conquest of oneself. the real peace of that north american frontier is due to no conquest of americans by canadians or of canadians by americans, but to their conquest of themselves and of that foolish pride of "heathen folk who put their trust in reeking tube and iron shard." let us face the facts, whatever the visionaries and the blind may say. so be it. the war is a fact, and so is the desolation it has wrought. but that anglo-american frontier is also a fact, and so is that century of peace which happily followed upon the resolution to depend for the defence of that frontier on moral restraint instead of on military force. verily, peace hath her victories not less renowned than those of war. the alternative we have, indeed, to face the facts, and the facts about the balance of power must dominate our deliberations and determine the fate of our programmes. there may be no more war for a generation, but there can be no peace with a balance of power. there can be nothing better than an armed truce; and an armed truce, with super-dreadnoughts costing from four to eight times what they did before the war, is fatal to any programme of retrenchment and reform. we are weighted enough in all conscience with the debt of that war without the burden of preparation for another; and a balance of power involves a progressive increase in preparations for war. unless we can exorcise fear, we are doomed to repeat the sisyphean cycles of the past and painfully roll our programmes up the hill, only to see them dashed to the bottom, before we get to the top, by the catastrophe of war. fear is fatal to freedom; it is fear which alone gives militarism its strength, compels nations to spend on armaments what they fain would devote to social reform, drives them into secret diplomacy and unnatural alliances, and leads them to deny their just liberties to subject populations. fear is the root of reaction as faith is the parent of progress; and the incarnation of international fear is the balance of power. international disarmament by major-general sir frederick maurice, k.c.m.g., c.b. director of military operations--imperial general staff, - . sir frederick maurice said:--this problem of the reduction of armaments is one of the most urgent of the international and national problems of the day. it is urgent in its economic aspect, urgent also as regards its relation to the future peace of the world. the urgency of its economic aspect was proclaimed two years ago at the brussels conference of financiers assembled by the league of nations. these experts said quite plainly and definitely that, so far as they could see, the salvation of europe from bankruptcy depended upon the immediate diminution of the crushing burden of expenditure upon arms. that was two years ago. linked up with this question is the whole question of the economic reconstruction of europe. linked up with it also is that deep and grave problem of reparations. it is no longer the case to-day, if it has ever been the case since the war, which i doubt, that sober opinion in france considers it necessary for france to have large military forces in order to protect her from german aggression in the near future. for the past two years, however, it has been the custom of those who live upon alarms to produce the german menace. there is a great body of opinion in france at this moment which feels that unless france is able to put the pistol to germany's head, it will never be able to get a penny out of germany. you have the further connection of the attitude of america to the problem. america said, officially through mr. hoover and unofficially through a number of her leading financiers, that she was not ready to come forward and take her share in the economic restoration of europe so long as europe is squandering its resources upon arms. the connection is quite definitely and explicitly recognised in the covenant of the league of nations. article begins: "the principles of the league recognise that the maintenance of peace requires reduction of national armaments to the lowest point consistent with national safety, and the enforcement by common action of international obligations." these words were promulgated in . personally, i find myself in complete agreement with what lord robert cecil said this morning, and what lord grey said a few days ago at newcastle, that one of the prime causes of the war was prussian militarism. by that i mean the influence of that tremendous military machine, which had been built up through years of labour in germany, in moulding the public opinion of that country. a group of new armies well, how do we stand in regard to that to-day? we stand to-day in the position that the armaments of germany, austria, hungary, bulgaria, have all been compulsorily drastically reduced, but in their place you have a whole group of new armies. you have armies to-day which did not exist before the war, in finland, esthonia, poland, lithuania, and czecho-slovakia, and the sum total is that at this moment there are more armed men in time of peace in europe than in . is there no danger that this machine will mould the minds of some other peoples, just as the german machine moulded the minds of the germans? this is the position as regards the peace establishments of europe to-day in their relation to the future peace of the world. what about the economic position? i have mentioned that certain powers have had their forces drastically reduced, and that has brought with it a drastic reduction of expenditure, but i have before me the naval, military, and air force estimates of the eight principal powers in europe, leaving out germany, austria, and bulgaria, whose forces have been compulsorily reduced. at the economic conference of financiers in brussels in it was mentioned with horror that per cent. of the income of europe was then being devoted to arms. i find that to-day per cent. of the total income of these eight powers is devoted to arms. i find, further, that of these eight powers who have budgeted for a smaller service, only one--yugo-slavia--has managed to balance her budget, and the others have large deficits which are many times covered by their expenditure on arms. and this is going on at a time when all these eight nations are taxed almost up to their limit, when the whole of their industries are suffering in consequence, and when the danger of bankruptcy, which horrified the financiers in , is even more imminent. that being the case, what has been done in the last few years to remedy this matter, and why is more not being done? as you all know, this question is in the forefront of the programme of the league of nations. and the league began to deal with it at once. lord robert cecil will agree with me that the framers of the covenant, of which he is one of the chief, could not foresee everything, and they did not foresee at the time the covenant was framed, that machinery would be required to deal with this extraordinarily complex question of armaments. they created an organisation then called a permanent military command, still in existence, to advise the council of the league on all military matters. but when these gentlemen got to work upon such questions as reduction of armaments, they at once found themselves dealing with matters entirely beyond their competence, because into this problem enter problems of high politics and finance, and a thousand other questions of which soldiers, sailors, and airmen know nothing whatever. the league's commission the first step was to remedy an oversight in the machinery, and that was done at the first meeting of the assembly. the first meeting of the assembly created a temporary mixed commission on armaments, which was composed of persons of recognised competence in political, social, and economic matters. it consisted of six members of the old permanent commission, and in addition a number of statesmen, employers, and representatives of labour. this body started to tackle this grave question. before it began the first assembly of the league had suggested one line of approach--that there should be an agreement to limit expenditure; that an attempt should be made to limit armaments by limiting budgets; and nations were asked to agree that they would not exceed in the two years following the acceptance of the resolution the budgeted expenditure on armaments of the current year. that proposal did not meet with great success. it was turned down by seven powers, notably by france and spain. on the whole, i think france and spain and the other powers had some reason on their side, because it is not possible to approach this problem solely from the financial standpoint. you cannot get a financial common denominator and apply it to armaments. the varying costs of a soldier in europe and in japan have no relation to each other. the cost of a voluntary soldier in great britain has no relation to the cost of a conscript on the continent. therefore, that line of approach, when applied too broadly, is not fruitful. i think myself it is quite possible that you may be able to apply financial limitations to the question of material, the construction of guns and other weapons of war, because the cost of these things in foreign countries tends much more to a common level. i think this is a possible line of approach, but to try to make a reduction of armaments by reducing budgets on a wholesale scale i do not think will lead us anywhere at all. i may safely say that for the present that line of approach has been abandoned. the temporary mixed commission got to work, and in its first year, frankly, i cannot say it did very much. it concerned itself very largely with the accumulation of information and the collection of statistics, bearing rather the same relation to world problems as a royal commission does to our domestic problems. by the time the second assembly met practically nothing had been done by the commission. but other people had been at work, and our own league of nations union had put forward a proposal--a line of approach, rather, i would say, to this problem--which i for one think is extremely useful. it began by inquiring as to what armaments were for, which after all is a useful way of beginning, and the inquiry came to the conclusion that nations required them for three purposes--to maintain internal order; as a last resort for the enforcement of law and order; and to protect overseas possessions. after these purposes were served there was a large residuum left. that residuum could only be required for one purpose--to protect the country in question from foreign aggression. when you had gone thus far in your reasoning, you had obviously got into the zone where bargaining becomes possible, because it is obvious that by agreement you can get the force by which a nation is liable to become reduced. that line of approach received the general blessing at the second assembly of the league of nations. things began to move, primarily because the dominion of south africa took a keen interest in this problem of the reduction of armaments, and south africa appointed lord robert cecil as its representative, and instructed him to press the matter on, and he did. the assembly definitely instructed this temporary mixed commission that by the time the third assembly met plans should be prepared and concrete proposals put on paper. washington soon after that came the washington conference--a great landmark in the history of this problem. for reasons i need not go into in detail, the naval problem is very much easier than the military or air problem. you have as the nucleus of naval forces something quite definite and precise--the battleship--and it also happens that that particular unit is extremely costly, and takes a long time to build, and no man has yet ever succeeded in concealing the existence of a battleship. there you had three important points--a large and important unit in the possession of everybody concerned, very costly, so that by reducing it you make great reductions in expenditure. there was no possibility of avoiding an agreement about the construction of battleships, and it is to these facts mainly that the happy results of the washington conference were due. but for the furtherance of the problem the point is this. the washington conference definitely established the principle of reduction of armaments on a great ratio. the ratio for battleships between great britain, the united states, japan, france, and italy, was settled as to , , , and . . they all agreed on a definite ratio. all agreed to scrap a certain number of ships, to bring their tonnage down to a certain figure, and by doing that relatively they were left in the same position as before, with this advantage--that they at once obtained an enormous reduction in expenditure on armaments. that opened up a new line of approach for the attack on this problem from the military and air standpoint. and the next development took place in february this year at the meeting of the temporary mixed commission on armaments, when the esher proposals were presented. there has been a great deal of talk about the esher proposals, and i am glad of it, because the one thing wanted in this question is public interest. the esher proposals were an endeavour to apply to land armaments this principle of reduction on a great ratio. and the line taken was this. it was necessary to find some unit in land armaments which corresponded with the battleships, and the unit selected by lord esher was the , regular soldiers of the peace armies in france, england, and spain. it was selected because it happened to be the number to which the austrian army was reduced by treaty, and with that unit he proposed a ratio for the armies of europe, which would leave everybody relatively in much the same position as before, but would obtain an immediate reduction in numbers of standing armies and a great reduction of expenditure. this proposal was subjected to a great deal of criticism, and i am sorry to say nine-tenths of the criticism appears to emanate from persons who have never read the proposal at all. it is a proposal which lends itself to a great deal of criticism, and the most effective criticism which could have been applied at the time it was presented was that it put the cart before the horse, and approached the problem from the wrong direction, for, as lord robert cecil has said here this morning, what nations require is security. some of them have clear ideas as to the way of obtaining it, but they all want it, and before you can expect people to reduce their armaments, which are, after all, maintained mainly for the purpose of providing security, you must give them something that will take the place of armaments. a general defensive pact in june an important development took place in this temporary commission. it was increased by the addition of a number of statesmen, and, amongst others, of men who ought to have been on it long ago. lord robert cecil was added, and he at once proceeded to remedy what was a real difficulty in lord esher's proposals. he put forward a plan for providing security in the form, as the assembly of the league had asked, of a definite written proposal--really a brief treaty. the purport of that treaty is included in the form of resolutions, which are roughly as follows:--no scheme for the reduction of armaments can be effective unless it is general; that in the present state of the world no government can accept the responsibility for a serious reduction of armaments unless it is given some other equally satisfactory guarantee of the safety of its country; such guarantee can only be found in a general defensive agreement of all the countries concerned, binding them all to come to the assistance of any one of them if attacked. a general defensive pact, with a proviso! it is obviously unreasonable to expect the states of the american continent to be ready to come over at any moment to help in europe. it is obviously unreasonable to expect the states of europe to bind themselves to come and fight in asia. therefore, there was this proviso added that an obligation to come to the assistance of the attacked country should be limited to those countries which belonged to the same quarter of the globe. thus, you see, you are getting the obligation of the league into regional application. personally my own conviction is that this is the line upon which many of the functions of the league will develop. the main point of the situation as it is to-day is that you have got a committee working out in detail a general pact, which when it is formulated will be far more complete and satisfactory than the very general and vague clause of the covenant. we have reached the position when practical proposals are beginning to emerge. what more is wanted? how can we help on this work? you will have gathered from what i said that it is my own conviction that with this problem of reduction of armaments is so closely linked up the problem of economic reconstruction and reparations that the whole ought to be taken together. i believe one of the reasons why so little progress has been made is that the economic problems have been entrusted, with the blessing of our and other governments, to perambulating conferences, while the disarmament problem has been left solely to the league of nations. i believe if you could get the whole of these problems considered by one authority--and there is one obvious authority--progress would be far more rapid. there is another matter which concerns us as citizens--the attitude of our own government to this question. i was delighted to see recently an announcement made by a minister in the house of commons that the government was seriously in favour of a reduction of armaments on a great ratio. i was delighted to read the other day a speech, to which reference has already been made, by the prime minister. we have had a great many words on this question. the time has come for action, and quite frankly the action of our government in the past two years with regard to this question has been neutral, and not always one of benevolent neutrality. our official representatives at geneva have been very careful to stress the difficulties, but up to the present i am unaware that our government has ever placed its immense resources as regards information at the disposal of the one englishman who has been striving with all his power and knowledge to get a definite solution. i believe there is going to be a change; i hope so. in any case, the best thing we can do is to see that it is changed, and that lord robert cecil is not left to fight a lone battle. the appeal to public opinion there is something more. there is something wanted from each of us. personally, i am convinced myself that this problem is soluble on the lines by which it is now being approached. i speak to you as a professional who has given some study to the subject. i am convinced that on the lines of a general pact as opposed to the particular pact, a general defensive agreement as opposed to separate alliances, followed by reduction on a great ratio, the practicability of which has been proved at washington, a solution can be reached. given goodwill--that is the point. at the last assembly of the league of nations a report was presented by the commission, of which lord robert cecil was a member, and it wound up with these words: "finally, the committee recognises that a policy of disarmament, to be successful, requires the support of the population of the world. limitation of armaments will never be imposed by governments on peoples, but it may be imposed by peoples on governments." that is absolutely true. how are we going to apply it? frankly, myself, i do not see that there is a great deal of value to be got by demonstrations which demand no more war. i have every sympathy with their object, but we have got to the stage when we want to get beyond words to practical resolutions. we want definite concrete proposals, and you won't get these merely by demonstrations. they are quite good in their way, but they are not enough. what you want in this matter is an informed public opinion which sees what is practical and insists on having it. i am speaking to you as one who for a great many years believed absolutely that preparation for war was the means of securing peace. in --when i had a little time to look round, to study the causes of the war and the events of the war--i changed my opinion. i then came quite definitely to the conclusion that preparation for war, carried to the point to which it had been carried in , was a direct cause of war. i had to find another path, and i found it in . lord robert may possibly remember that in the early days of the peace conference i came to him and made my confession of faith, and i promised to give him what little help i could. i have tried to keep my promise, and i believe this vital problem, upon which not only the economic reconstruction of europe and the future peace of the world, but also social development at home depend, can be solved provided you will recognise that the problem is very complex; that there is fear to be overcome; that you are content with what is practical from day to day, and accept each practical step provided it leads forward to the desired goal. i therefore most earnestly trust that the liberal party will take this question up, and translate it into practical politics. for that is what is required. reparations and inter-allied debt by john maynard keynes m.a., c.b.; fellow of king's college, cambridge; editor of _economic journal_ since ; principal representative of the treasury at the paris peace conference, and deputy for the chancellor of the exchequer on the supreme economic council, jan.-june, . mr. keynes said:--i do not complain of lord balfour's note, provided we assume, as i think we can, that it is our first move, and not our last. many people seem to regard it as being really addressed to the united states. i do not agree. essentially it is addressed to france. it is a reply, and a very necessary reply, to the kites which m. poincaré has been flying in _the times_ and elsewhere, suggesting that this country should sacrifice all its claims of every description in return for--practically nothing at all, certainly not a permanent solution of the general problem. the note brings us back to the facts and to the proper starting-point for negotiations. in this question of reparations the position changes so fast that it may be worth while for me to remind you just how the question stands at this moment. there are in existence two inconsistent settlements, both of which still hold good in law. the first is the assessment of the reparation commission, namely, milliard gold marks. this is a capital sum. the second is the london settlement, which is not a capital sum at all, but a schedule of annual payments calculated according to a formula; but the capitalised value of these annual payments, worked out on any reasonable hypothesis, comes to much less than the reparation commission's total, probably to not much more than a half. the breakdown of germany but that is not the end of the story. while both the above settlements remain in force, the temporary régime under which germany has been paying is different from, and much less than, either of them. by a decision of last march germany was to pay during £ , , (gold) in cash, _plus_ deliveries in kind. the value of the latter cannot be exactly calculated, but, apart from coal, they do not amount to much, with the result that the demands are probably between a third and a quarter of the london settlement, and less than one-sixth of the reparation commission's original total. it is under the weight of this reduced burden that germany has now broken down, and the present crisis is due to her inability to continue these reduced instalments beyond the payment of july, . in the long run the payments due during should be within germany's capacity. but the insensate policy pursued by the allies for the last four years has so completely ruined her finances, that for the time being she can pay nothing at all; and for a shorter or longer period it is certain that there is now no alternative to a moratorium. what, in these circumstances, does m. poincaré propose? to judge from the semi-official forecasts, he is prepared to cancel what are known as the "c" bonds, provided great britain lets france off the whole of her debt and forgoes her own claims to reparation. what are these "c" bonds? they are a part of the london settlement of may, , and, roughly speaking, they may be said to represent the excess of the reparation commission's assessment over the capitalised value of the london schedule of payments, and a bit more. that is to say, they are pure water. they mainly represent that part of the reparation commission's total assessment which will not be covered, even though the london schedule of payments is paid in full. in offering the cancellation of these bonds, therefore, m. poincaré is offering exactly nothing. if great britain gave up her own claims to reparations, and the "c" bonds were cancelled to the extent of france's indebtedness to us, france's claims against germany would be actually greater, even on paper, than they are now. for the demands under the london settlement would be unabated, and france would be entitled to a larger proportion of them. the offer is, therefore, derisory. and it seems to me to be little short of criminal on the part of _the times_ to endeavour to trick the people of this country into such a settlement. personally, i do not think that at this juncture there is anything whatever to be done except to grant a moratorium. it is out of the question that any figure, low enough to do germany's credit any good now, could be acceptable to m. poincaré, in however moderate a mood he may visit london next week. apart from which, it is really impossible at the present moment for any one to say how much germany will be able to pay in the long run. let us content ourselves, therefore, with a moratorium for the moment, and put off till next year the discussion of a final settlement, when, with proper preparations beforehand, there ought to be a grand conference on the whole connected problem of inter-governmental debt, with representatives of the united states present, and possibly at washington. the illusion of a loan the difficulties in the way of any immediate settlement now are so obvious that one might wonder why any one should be in favour of the attempt. the explanation lies in that popular illusion, with which it now pleases the world to deceive itself--the international loan. it is thought that if germany's liability can now be settled once and for all, the "bankers" will then lend her a huge sum of money by which she can anticipate her liabilities and satisfy the requirements of france. in my opinion the international loan on a great scale is just as big an illusion as reparations on a great scale. it will not happen. it cannot happen. and it would make a most disastrous disturbance if it did happen. the idea that the rest of the world is going to lend to germany, for her to hand over to france, about per cent. of their liquid savings--for that is what it amounts to--is utterly preposterous. and the sooner we get that into our heads the better. i am not quite clear for what sort of an amount the public imagine that the loan would be, but i think the sums generally mentioned vary from £ , , up to £ , , . the idea that any government in the world, or all of the governments in the world in combination, let alone bankrupt germany, could at the present time raise this amount of new money (that is to say, for other purposes than the funding or redemption of existing obligations) from investors in the world's stock exchanges is ridiculous. the highest figure which i have heard mentioned by a reliable authority is £ , , . personally, i think even this much too high. it could only be realised if subscriptions from special quarters, as, for example, german hoards abroad, and german-americans, were to provide the greater part of it, which would only be the case if it were part of a settlement which was of great and obvious advantage to germany. a loan to germany, on germany's own credit, yielding, say, to per cent., would not in my opinion be an investor's proposition in any part of the world, except on a most trifling scale. i do not mean that a larger anticipatory loan of a different character--issued, for example, in allied countries with the guarantees of the allied government, the proceeds in each such country being handed over to the guaranteeing government, so that no new money would pass--might not be possible. but a loan of this kind is not at present in question. yet a loan of from £ , , to £ , , --and i repeat that even this figure is very optimistic except as the result of a settlement of a kind which engaged the active goodwill of individual germans with foreign resources and of foreigners of german origin and sympathies--would only cover germany's liabilities under the london schedule for four to six months, and the temporarily reduced payments of last march for little more than a year. and from such a loan, after meeting belgian priorities and army of occupation costs, there would not be left any important sum for france. i see no possibility, therefore, of any final settlement with m. poincaré in the immediate future. he has now reached the point of saying that he is prepared to talk sense in return for an enormous bribe, and that is some progress. but as no one is in a position to offer him the bribe, it is not much progress, and as the force of events will compel him to talk sense sooner or later, even without a bribe, his bargaining position is not strong. in the meantime he may make trouble. if so, it can't be helped. but it will do him no good, and may even help to bring nearer the inevitable day of disillusion. i may add that for france to agree to a short moratorium is not a great sacrifice since, on account of the belgian priority and other items, the amount of cash to which france will be entitled in the near future, even if the payments fixed last march were to be paid in full, is quite trifling. a policy for the liberal party so much for the immediate situation and the politics of the case. if we look forward a little, i venture to think that there is a clear, simple, and practical policy for the liberal party to adopt and to persist in. both m. poincaré and mr. lloyd george have their hands tied by their past utterances. mr. lloyd george's part in the matter of reparations is the most discreditable episode in his career. it is not easy for him, whose hands are not clean in the matter, to give us a clean settlement. i say this although his present intentions appear to be reasonable. all the more reason why others should pronounce and persist in a clear and decided policy. i was disappointed, if i may say so, in what lord grey had to say about this at newcastle last week. he said many wise things, but not a word of constructive policy which could get any one an inch further forward. he seemed to think that all that was necessary was to talk to the french sympathetically and to put our trust in international bankers. he puts a faith in an international loan as the means of solution which i am sure is not justified. we must be much more concrete than that, and we must be prepared to say unpleasant things as well as pleasant ones. the right solution, the solution that we are bound to come to in the end, is not complicated. we must abandon the claim for pensions and bring to an end the occupation of the rhinelands. the reparation commission must be asked to divide their assessment into two parts--the part that represents pensions and separation allowances and the rest. and with the abandonment of the former the proportion due to france would be correspondingly raised. if france would agree to this--which is in her interest, anyhow--and would terminate the occupation it would be right for us to forgive her (and our other allies) all they owe us, and to accord a priority on all receipts in favour of the devastated areas. if we could secure a real settlement by these sacrifices, i think we should make them completely regardless of what the united states may say or do. in declaring for this policy in the house of commons yesterday, mr. asquith has given the liberal party a clear lead. i hope that they will make it a principal plank in their platform. this is a just and honourable settlement, satisfactory to sentiment and to expediency. those who adopt it unequivocally will find that they have with them the tide and a favouring wind. but no one must suppose that, even with such a settlement, any important part of germany's payments can be anticipated by a loan. any small loan that can be raised will be required for germany herself, to put her on her legs again, and enable her to make the necessary annual payments. the outlook for national finance by sir josiah stamp, k.b.e., d.sc. assistant secretary board of inland revenue, - . member of royal commission on income tax, . sir josiah stamp said:--in discussing the problem of national finance we have to decide which problem we mean, viz., the "short period" or the "long period," for there are distinctly two issues. i can, perhaps, illustrate it best by the analogy of the household in which the chief earner or the head of the family has been stricken down by illness. it may be that a heavy doctor's bill or surgeon's fee has to be met, and that this represents a serious burden and involves the strictest economy for a year or two; that all members of the household forgo some luxuries, and that there is a cessation of saving and perhaps a "cut" into some past accumulations. but once these heroic measures have been taken and the burden lifted, and the chief earner resumes his occupation, things proceed on the same scale and plan as before. it may be, however, that the illness or operation permanently impairs his earning power, and that the changes which have to be made must be more drastic and permanent. then perhaps would come an alteration of the whole ground plan of the life of that family, the removal to a smaller house with lower standing charges and a changed standard of living. what i call the "short period" problem involves a view only of the current year and the immediate future for the purpose of ascertaining whether we can make ends meet by temporary self-denial. what i term the "long distance" problem involves an examination of the whole scale upon which our future outlay is conditioned for us. the limit of further economies on the lines of the "geddes' cut" that can become effective in , would seem to be some or millions, because every per cent. in economy represents a much more drastic and difficult task than the preceding, and it cuts more deeply into your essential national services. on the other side of the account one sees the probable revenue diminish to an almost similar extent, having regard to the effect of reductions in the rate of tax and the depression in trade, with a lower scale of profits, brought about by a lower price level, entering into the income-tax average. it looks as though may just pay its way, but if so, then, like the current year, it will make no contribution towards the reduction of the debt. so much for the "short period." our worst difficulties are really going to be deep-seated ones. the two parts of a budget now a national budget may consist of two parts, one of which i will call the "responsive" and the other the "non-responsive" portion. the responsive portion is the part that may be expected to answer sooner or later--later perhaps rather than sooner--to alterations in general conditions, and particularly to price alterations. if there is a very marked difference in general price level, the salaries--both by the addition or remission of bonuses and the general alteration in scales for new entrants--may be expected to alter, at any rate, in the same direction, and that part of the expense which consists of the purchase of materials will also be responsive. the second, or non-responsive part, is the part that has a fixed expression in currency, and does not alter with changed conditions. this, for the most part, is the capital and interest for the public debt. now the nature and gravity of the "long distance" problem is almost entirely a question of the proportions which these two sections bear to each other. if the non-responsive portion is a small percentage of the total the problem will not be important, but if it is larger, then the question must be faced seriously. suppose, for example, that you have now a total budget of million pounds, and that, in the course of time, all values are expressed at half the present currency figure. imagine that the national income in this instance is million pounds. then the burden, on a first approximation, is per cent. now, if the whole budget is responsive, we may find it ultimately at million pounds out of a national income of million pounds, _i.e._ still per cent. but let the non-responsive portion be million pounds, then your total budget will be million pounds out of a national income of about million pounds, or - / per cent., and every alteration in prices--or what we call "improvement" in the cost of living--becomes an extraordinarily serious matter as a burden upon new enterprise in the future. let me give you a homely and familiar illustration. during the war the nation has borrowed something that is equivalent to a pair of boots. when the time comes for paying back the loan it repays something which is equivalent to two pairs or, possibly, even to three pairs. if the total number of boots produced has not altered, you will see what an increasing "pull" this is upon production. there are, of course, two ways in which this increasing pull--while a great boon to the person who is being repaid--must be an increased burden to the individual. firstly, if the number of people making boots increases substantially, it may still be only one pair of boots for the same volume of production, if the burden is spread over that larger volume. secondly, even supposing that the number of individuals is not increased, if the arts of production have so improved that two pairs can be produced with the same effort as was formerly necessary for one, then the debt may be repaid by them without the burden being actually heavier than before. now, coming back to the general problem. the two ways in which the alteration in price level can be prevented from resulting in a heavier individual burden than existed at the time when the transaction was begun, are a large increase in the population with no lower average wealth, or a large increase in wealth with the same population--which involves a greatly increased dividend from our complex modern social organism with all its mechanical, financial, and other differentiated functions. of course, some of the debt burden is responsive, so far as the annual charge is concerned, on that part of the floating debt which is reborrowed continually at rates of interest which follow current money rates, but, even so, the burden of capital repayment remains. an opportunity occurs for putting sections of the debt upon a lower annual charge basis whenever particular loans come to maturity, and there may be some considerable relief in the annual charge in the course of time by this method. what are the prospects of the two methods that i have mentioned coming to our rescue in this "long distance" problem? it is a problem to which our present "short distance" contribution is, you will admit, a very poor one, for we have not so far really made any substantial contribution from current revenue towards the repayment of the debt. a century of the national debt historical surveys and parallels are notoriously risky, particularly where the conditions have no precedent. they ought, however, to be made, provided that we keep our generalisations from them under careful control. now, after the napoleonic wars we had a national debt somewhat comparable in magnitude in its relation to the national wealth and income with the present debt. what happened to that as a burden during the years just gone by? if it was alleviated, to what was the alleviation due? i would not burden you with a mass of figures, but i would just give you one or two selected periods. you can find more details in my recent book on _wealth and taxable capacity_. we had a total debt of-- million pounds in " " " " " " " " " " " " and before this last war it had been reduced to million pounds. in , of course, it was over million pounds. such incidents as the crimean and the boer wars added materially to the debt, but apart therefrom you will see that there is no tremendous relief by way of capital repayment to the original debt. similarly, in a hundred years, even if we have no big wars, it is quite possible we may have additions to the national debt from smaller causes. yet the volume of the debt per head fell from £ to £ . , so you will see that the increasing population made an enormous difference. the real burden of the debt is of course felt mainly in its annual charge. i will take this, therefore, rather than the capital:-- in the charge was million pounds " " " " " " " " " " . " " in the charge was million pounds " " " " " " " " " " " " here you will see that the reduction from to was per cent. or a much greater reduction than the reduction of the _total_ capital debt, and this, of course, was contributed to by the lower rates of interest which had been brought about from time to time. when we take the annual charge per head the fall is much more striking. in the hundred years it decreased from s. to s. this, however, was a money reduction, and the _real_ burden per head can only be judged after we have considered what the purchasing power of that money was. now, the charge per head, reduced to a common basis of purchasing power, fell as follows:-- index figure in the year the charge per head was £ . and my purchasing power index figure . you will see that the _real_ burden in commodities moved down much less violently than the _money_ burden, and the relief was not actually so great as it looks, because prices were far lower in than they were early in the nineteenth century. in view of the fact that our debt is approximately ten times that of the last century, let us ask ourselves the broad question: "can we look forward to nothing better than the reduction of our debt by millions in thirty-seven years?" the nineteenth century was one long contest between two opposing forces. the increase in the population, together with the power to make wealth, were together enormously effective in decreasing the burden. against them was the ultimate tendency to lower prices, and the former of these two forces slowly won the day. i hesitate to say that we can expect anything at all comparable with the wonderful leap forward in productive power during the early victorian era. i hope that in this i may prove to be wrong. anyway i do not think that in our lifetime we can expect these islands to double their population. the capital levy if we cannot look forward to any great measure of relief through these channels, to what then must we look? by far the most important alternative remedy which has been put to us is that of a capital levy; it has the enormous virtue that it would repay on one level of prices the debts incurred at that level; in short, it would give back one pair of boots at once for every pair it has borrowed, instead of waiting and stretching out over future generations the burden of two pairs. it is so attractive that one cannot wonder there is a tendency to slur over its less obvious difficulties. advocates of this scheme fall into two camps, whom i would distinguish broadly as the economist group and the labour party, and if you will examine their advocacy carefully, you will see that they support it by two different sets of contentions, which are not easily reconciled. the economists lay stress upon the fact that you not only pay off at a less onerous cost in real goods, but that it may, considered arithmetically or actuarially, be "good business" for a payer of high income-tax to make an outright payment now and have a lighter income-tax in future. very much of the economists' case rests indeed upon the argument drawn from the outright cut and the arithmetical relief. it will be seen that this case depends upon two assumptions. the first is that the levy in practice as well as in theory is an outright cut, and the second, that it is not repeated, or rather that the income-tax is really effectively reduced. but if you look at the programme of the other supporters of the capital levy you will not find any convincing guarantees of its non-repetition. i have not seen anywhere any scheme by which we can feel politically insured against its repetition. you will find plenty of indication that some intend to have both the levy and a high tax as well, the new money to be employed for other social purposes. the arguments based upon arithmetical or actuarial superiority of the levy for your pocket and for mine may therefore rather go by the board. but i am not going to discuss either the question of political guarantees or the possible future socio-financial policy of the labour party. i will merely ask you to consider whether the levy is likely to be in practice the outright cut that is the basis of the chief and most valid contention for it. please understand that i am not attempting to sum up all the many reasons for and against this proposal, but only to deal with the particular virtue claimed for it, bearing upon the increasing burden of the debt as prices decline. any taxation scheme dependent upon general capital valuation, where the amount to be paid is large--say larger than a year's revenue--falls, in my judgment, into the second or third rate category of taxation expedients. whenever we are living in uncertain times, with no steadiness of outlook, valuation of many classes of wealth is then a tremendous lottery, and collection--which takes time--may be no less so. the fair face of the outright and graduated levy would be marred in many ways. first, there are cases affected by valuation. the valuation of a fixed rate of interest on good security is easy enough. the valuation of a field or a house in these days presents more difficulty, but is, of course, practicable. in practice, however, people do not own these things outright. they have only an interest in them. this is where the rub comes. a very large part of the property in this country is held in life interests, and on reversions or contingencies. it is not a question of saying that a given property is worth £ , and that it forms part of the fortune of jones, who pays per cent. duty. the point is that the £ , is split between jones and robinson. jones maybe has a life interest in it, and robinson a reversionary interest. you value jones's wealth by his prospect of life on a life table, and robinson has the balance. but the life table does not indicate the actual likelihood of jones's life being fifteen years. it only represents the actuarial average expectation of all the lives. this may be useful enough for insurance dependent on the total experience, but it may be a shocking injustice to the individual in taxation. only some per cent. of the joneses will live for the allotted time, and for the rest your valuation and your tax will be dead wrong, either too much or too little. jones will be coming to you two years after he has paid, or rather his executors will come to you and say: "we paid a tax based on jones living years, and he has died; this ought, therefore, to be shifted to robinson." difficulties of valuation people often say that a capital levy merely imagines everybody dying at the same time. this parallel is wrong in degree when you are considering the ease of paying duty or of changing the market values by a glut of shares, and it is still more wrong when you are thinking of ease of valuation. when a man is dead, he is dead, and in estimating the death duty you have not to bother about how long he is going to live! but every time you value a life interest and take a big slice of it for tax you are probably doing a double injustice. the charge is incorrect for two taxpayers. on a flat rate of tax this difficulty might be made less, but the essence of any effective levy is a progressive scale. moreover, whether you are right or wrong about robinson's tax, he has nothing in hand with which to pay it. he has either to raise a mortgage on his expectation (on which he pays _annual_ interest) or pay you by instalments. so far as his burden is concerned, therefore, there is no outright cut. you will be getting an annual figure over nearly the whole class of life interests and reversions. it is difficult to see how one can escape making adjustments year after year for some time in the light of the ascertained facts, until the expiry of, say, nine or ten years has reduced the disparities between the estimated valuations and the facts of life to smaller proportions. next come those valuations which depend for their accuracy upon being the true mid-point of probabilities. a given mine may last for five years in the view of some experts, or it may go on for fifteen in the view of others, and you may take a mid-point, say ten, and collect your tax, but, shortly after, this valuation turns out to be badly wrong, _though all your valuations in the aggregate are correct_. while the active procedure of collecting the levy is in progress for a number of years these assessments will simply shout at you for adjustment. there are other types of difficulty in assessment which involve annual adjustment, but you will appreciate most the necessity for care in the collection. enthusiastic advocates for the levy meet every hard case put forward where it is difficult to raise money, such as a private ownership of an indivisible business, by saying: "but that will be made in instalments, or the man can raise a mortgage." but the extent to which this is done robs the levy of all the virtues attaching to outrightness, for each instalment becomes, as the years roll on, different in its real content upon a shifting price level, and every payment of interest on the mortgage--to say nothing of the ultimate repayment of that mortgage--falls to be met as if reckoned upon the original currency level. then those classes of wealth which are not easily realisable without putting down the market price also require treatment by instalments, and those who wish to put forward a logical scheme also add a special charge upon salary-earners for some years--a pseudo-capitalisation of their earning power. a really fair and practicable levy would certainly be honeycombed with annual adjustments and payments for some period of years, and one must consider how far this would invalidate the economic case of the "outright cut," and make it no better than a high income-tax; indeed far worse, for the high income-tax does at least follow closely upon the annual facts as they change, or is not stereotyped by a valuation made in obsolete conditions. imagine three shipowners each with vessels valued at £ , , and each called upon to pay per cent., or £ , . one owning five small ships might have sold one of them, and thus paid his bill; the second, with one large ship, might have agreed to pay £ annually (plus interest) for five years; while the third might have mortgaged his vessel for £ , , having no other capital at disposal. at to-day's values each might have been worth, say, £ , , but for the tax. the first would actually have ships worth £ , , so he would have borne the correct duty of per cent. the second would have £ , , bringing in, say, £ annually, and would be attempting to pay £ out of it, while the third would be paying £ a year out of his income and still be faced with an per cent. charge on his fortune! his assessment is computed at one point of time, and liquidated at another, when its incidence is totally different. if one cannot have a levy complete at the time of imposition, it clearly ought not to be launched at a time of rapidly changing prices. but that is, perhaps, when the economic case for it is strongest. a desperate remedy i do not rule the capital levy out as impracticable by any means, but as a taxation expedient i cannot be enthusiastic about it. it is a desperate remedy. but if our present temper for "annual" tax relief at all costs continues, we may _need_ a desperate remedy. without a levy what kind of position can you look forward to? make some assumptions, not with any virtue in their details, but just in order to determine the possible prospect. if in fifteen to twenty years reparation payments have wiped out millions, debt repayments another , and ordinary reductions by sinking funds another millions, you will have the debt down to millions, and possibly the lower interest then effective may bring the annual charge down to some or million pounds. if the population has reached sixty millions the nominal annual charge will be reduced from £ s. by one-half, but if prices have dropped further, say half-way, to the pre-war level, the comparable burden will still be £ s. per head. it is no good talking about "holidays from taxation" and imagining you can get rid of this thing easily; you won't. we are still in the war financially. there is the same need of the true national spirit and heroism as there was then. thus hard facts may ultimately force us to some such expedient as the levy, but we should not accept it light-heartedly, or regard it as an obvious panacea. perhaps in two or three years we may tell whether economic conditions are stable enough to rob it of its worst evils. the question whether the burden of rapidly relieving debt by this means in an instalment levy over a decade is actually lighter than the sinking fund method, depends on the relation of the drop in prices over the short period to the drop over the ensuing period, with a proper allowance for discount--at the moment an insoluble problem. i cannot yet with confidence join those who, on purely economic and non-political grounds, commend the scheme and treat it as "good business for the income-tax payer." free trade by rt. hon. j.m. robertson p.c.; president of national liberal federation since ; m.p. (l.), tyneside division, northumberland, - ; parliamentary secretary to board of trade, - . mr. robertson said:--at an early stage of the war mr. h.g. wells published a newspaper article to the effect that while we remained free traders we were determined in future to accord free entry only to the goods of those states which allowed it to us. the mere state of war, no doubt, predisposed many to assent to such theses who a few years before would have remembered that this was but the nominal position of the average protectionist of the three preceding generations. war being in itself the negation of free trade, the inevitable restrictions and the war temper alike prepared many to find reasons for continuing a restrictive policy when the war was over. when, therefore, the committee of lord balfour of burleigh published its report, suggesting a variety of reasons for setting up compromises in a tariffist direction, there were not wanting professed free traders who agreed that the small tariffs proposed would not do any harm, while others were even anxious to think that they might do good. yet the policy proposed by lord balfour's committee has not been adopted by the coalition government in anything like its entirety. apart from the dyestuffs act, and such devices as the freeing of home-made sugar from excise, we have only had the safeguarding of industries bill, a meticulously conditional measure, providing for the setting up of particular tariffs in respect of particular industries which may at a given moment be adjudged by special committees _ad hoc_ to need special protection from what is loosely called "dumping." and even the findings of these committees so far have testified above all things to the lack of any accepted set of principles of a protectionist character. six thousand five hundred articles have been catalogued as theoretically liable to protective treatment, and some dozen have been actually protected. they have given protection to certain products and refused it to others; according it to fabric gloves and glass and aluminium goods and refusing it to dolls' eyes and gold leaf. finally, the decision in favour of a tariff on fabric gloves has evoked such a storm of protest from the textile manufacturers who export the yarns with which foreign fabric gloves are made, that even the coalitionist press has avowed its nervousness. when a professed protectionist like lord derby, actually committed to this protectionist act, declares that it will never do to protect one industry at the cost of injuring a much greater one, those of his party who have any foresight must begin to be apprehensive even when a house of commons majority backs the government, which, hard driven by its tariffists, decided to back its tariff committee against lancashire. protectionists are not much given to the searching study of statistics, but many of them have mastered the comparatively simple statistical process of counting votes. the "new circumstances" cry in a sense, there are new fiscal "circumstances." but i can assure my young friends that they are just the kind of circumstances which were foreseen by their seniors in pre-war days as sure to arise when any attempt was made to apply tariffist principles to british industry. as a german professor of economics once remarked at a free trade conference, it is not industries that are protected by tariffs: it is firms. when a multitude of firms in various industries subscribed to a large tariff reform fund for election-campaign purposes, they commanded a large conservative vote; but when for platform tariff propaganda, dealing in imaginative generalities and eclectic statistics, there are substituted definite proposals to meddle with specified interests, the real troubles of the tariffist begin. you might say that they began as soon as he met the free trader in argument; but that difficulty did not arise with his usual audiences. it is when he undertakes to protect hides and hits leather, or to protect leather and hits boot-making, or to help shipping and hits shipbuilding that he becomes acutely conscious of difficulties. now he is in the midst of them. the threat of setting up a general tariff which will hit everybody alike seems so far to create no alarm, because few traders now believe in it. still, it would be very unwise to infer that the project will not be proceeded with. it served as a party war-cry in opposition for ten years, and nearly every pre-war conservative statesman was committed to it--earl balfour and lord lansdowne included. even misgivings about lancashire may fail to deter the tariffist rump. some of the people who even yet understand nothing of free trade economics are still found to argue that, if only the duty on imported gloves is put high enough, sufficient gloves will be made at home to absorb all the yarns now exported to german glove-makers. they are still blind, that is to say, to the elementary fact that since germany manufactures for a much larger glove-market than the english, the exclusion of the german gloves means the probable loss to the yarn-makers of a much larger market than england can possibly offer, even if we make all our own gloves. in a word, instead of having to furnish new free trade arguments to meet a new situation, we find ourselves called upon to propound once more the fundamental truths of free trade, which are still so imperfectly assimilated by the nation. so far as i can gather, the circumstances alleged to constitute a new problem are these; the need to protect special industries for war purposes; and the need to make temporary fiscal provision against industrial fluctuation set up by variations in the international money exchanges. obviously, the first of these pleas has already gone by the board, as regards any comprehensive fiscal action. one of the greatest of all war industries is the production of food; and during the war some supposed that after it was over, there could be secured a general agreement to protect british agriculture to the point at which it could be relied on to produce at least a war ration on which the nation could subsist without imports. that dream has already been abandoned by practical politicians, if any of them ever entertained it. the effective protection of agriculture on that scale has been dismissed as impossible; and we rely on foreign imports as before. whatever may be said as to the need of subsidising special industries for the production of certain war material is nothing further to the fiscal purpose, whether the alleged need be real or not. the production of war material is a matter of military policy on all fours with the maintenance of government dockyards, and does not enter into the fiscal problem properly so called. but to the special case of dyes, considered as a "key" or "pivotal" industry, i will return later. how then stands the argument from the fluctuations of the exchanges? if that argument be valid further than to prove that _all_ monetary fluctuations are apt to embarrass industry, why is it not founded on for the protection of _all_ industries affected by german competition? the prime minister in his highly characteristic speech to the lancashire deputation, admitted that the fall of the mark had not had "the effect which we all anticipated"--that is, which he and his advisers anticipated--and this in the very act of pretending that the _further_ fall of the mark is a reason for adhering to the course of taxing fabric gloves. all this is the temporising of men who at last realise that the case they have been putting forward will bear no further scrutiny. the idea of systematically regulating an occasional tariff in terms of the day-to-day fluctuations of the exchanges is wholly chimerical. a tariff that is on even for one year and may be off the next is itself as disturbing a factor in industry as any exchange fluctuations can be. nor is there, in the nature of things, any possibility of continuous advantage in trade to any country through the low valuation of its currency. the prime minister confesses that germany is _not_ obtaining any export trade as the result of the fall. then the whole argument has been and is a false pretence. the plea that the german manufacturer is advantaged because his wages bill does not rise as fast as the mark falls in purchasing power is even in theory but a statement of one side of a fluctuating case, seeing that when the mark rises in value his wages bill will not fall as fast as the mark rises, and he is then, in the terms of the case, at a competitive disadvantage. but the worst absurdity of all in the tariffist reasoning on this topic is the assumption that in no other respect than wage-rates is german industry affected by the fall of the mark. the wiseacres who point warningly to the exchanges as a reason for firm action on fabric gloves never ask how a falling currency relates to the process of purchasing raw materials from abroad. so plainly is the falling mark a bar to such purchase that there is _prima facie_ no cause to doubt the german official statement made in june, that foreign goods are actually underbidding german goods in the german markets, and that the falling exchange makes it harder and harder for germany to compete abroad. we are dealing with a four-square fallacy, the logical implication of which is that a bankrupt country is the best advantaged for trade, that austria is even better placed for competition than germany, and that russia is to-day the best placed of all. tariffs and wages the argument from the exchanges, which is now admitted to be wholly false in practice, really brings us back to the old tariffist argument that tariffs are required to protect us against the imports of countries whose general rate of wages is lower than ours. on the one hand, they assured us that a tariff was the one means of securing good wages for the workers in general. on the other, they declared that foreign goods entered our country to the extent they did because foreign employers in general sweated their employees. that is to say--seeing that nearly all our competitors had tariffs--the tariffed countries pay the worst wages; and we were to raise ours by having tariffs also. but even that pleasing paralogism did not suffice for the appetite of tariffism in the way of fallacy. the same propaganda which affirmed the lowness of the rate of wages paid in tariffist countries affirmed also the _superiority_ of the rate of wages paid in the united states, whence came much of our imported goods which the tariffists wished to keep out. in this case, the evidence for the statement lay in the high wage-rate figures for three employments in particular--those of engine-drivers, compositors, and builders' labourers: three industries incapable of protection by tariffs. thus even the percentage of truth was turned to the account of delusion; for the wages in the protected industries of the states were so far from being on the scale of the others just mentioned, that they were reported at times to be absolutely below those paid in the same industries in britain. for the rest, _costs of living_ were shown by all the official statistics to be lower with us than in any of the competing tariffed countries; and in particular much lower than in the united states. there were thus established the three facts that wages were higher in the free trade country than in the european tariffed countries; that real wages here were higher than those of the protected industries in the united states, and that protection was thus so far from being a condition of good wages as to be ostensibly a certain condition of bad. all the same, high wages in america and low wages on the continent were alike given as reasons why we should have a protective tariff. there stands out, then, the fact that the payment of lower wages by the protected foreign manufacturer was one of the tariffist arguments of the pre-war period, when there was no question of unequal currency exchanges. to-day, the argument from unequal currency exchanges is that in the country where the currency value is sinking in terms of other currencies the manufacturer is getting his labour cheaper, seeing that wages are slow to follow increase in cost of living. both pleas alike evade the primary truth that if country a trades with country b at all, it must receive _some_ goods in payment for its exports, save in a case in which, for a temporary purpose, it may elect to import gold. but that fact is vital and must be faced if the issue is to be argued at all. unless, then, the defender of the occasional tariff system contends that that system will rectify trade conditions by keeping out goods which are made at an artificial advantage, amounting to what is called "unfair competition," and letting in only the goods not so produced, he is not facing the true fiscal problem at all. either he admits that exports and freight charges and other credit claims must be balanced by imports or he denies it. if he denies it, the discussion ceases: there is no use in arguing further. if he admits it, and argues that by his tariff he can more or less determine _what_ shall be imported, the debate soon narrows itself to one issue. the pre-war tariffist argued, when he dealt with the problem, that tariffs would suffice at will to keep out manufactured goods and let in only raw material. to that the answer was simple. an unbroken conversion of the whole yield of exports and freight returns and interest on foreign investments into imported raw material to be wholly converted into new products, mainly for export, was something utterly beyond the possibilities. it would mean a rate of expansion of exports never attained and not only not attainable but not desirable. on such a footing, the producing and exporting country would never concretely taste of its _profit_, which is to be realised, if at all, only in consumption of imported goods and foods. it is no less plainly impossible to discriminate by classes between kinds of manufactured imports on the plea that inequality in the exchanges gives the foreign competitor an advantage in terms of the relatively lower wage-rate paid by him while his currency value is falling. any such advantage, in the terms of the case, must be held to accrue to all forms of production alike, and cannot possibly be claimed to accrue in the manufacture of one thing as compared with another, as fabric gloves in comparison with gold leaf. in a word, the refusal of protection to gold leaf is an admission that the argument from inequality of currency exchanges counts for nothing in the operation of the safeguarding of industries bill. in the case of any other import, then, the argument falls. members one of another but that is not all. the case of russia alone has brought home to all capable of realising an economic truth the fact that the economic collapse of any large mass of population which had in the past entered into the totality of international trade is a condition of proportional impoverishment to all the others concerned. he who sees this as to russia cannot conceivably miss seeing it as to germany; even tariffist hallucinations about a "losing trade" under german tariffs cannot shut out the fact that our trade with russia and the united states was carried on under still higher hostile tariffs. the unalterable fact remains that industrial prosperity rises and falls in the measure of the total mass of goods handled; and men who realise the responsibility of all governments for the material wellbeing of their populations can come to only one conclusion. trade must be facilitated all round for our own sake. once more we come in sight of the truth that the industrial health of every trading country depends on the industrial health of the rest--a free trade truth that is perceptibly of more vital importance now than ever before. it is in the exchange of commodities, and the extension of consumption where that is required on a large scale, that the prosperity of the industrial nations consists. and to say that, is to say that until the trade exchanges of the world in general return to something like the old footing, there cannot be a return of the old degree of industrial wellbeing. not that industrial wellbeing is to be secured by the sole means of industrial re-expansion: the question of the need of restriction of rate of increase of population is now being more and more widely recognised as vital. but the present argument is limited to the fiscal issue; and it must suffice merely to indicate the other as being of the highest concurrent importance. adhering, then, to the fiscal issue, we reach the position that, just as foreign trade has been a main source of british wealth in the past, and particularly in the free trade era, the wealth consumed in the war is recoverable only on the same lines. it is not merely that british shipping--at present so lamentably paralysed and denuded of earning power--cannot be restored to prosperity without a large resumption of international exchanges: a large proportion of industrial employment unalterably depends upon that resumption. and it is wholly impossible to return to pre-war levels of employment by any plan of penalising imports. the dyestuffs act how then does the persistent free trader relate to the special case of the "key industry," of which we heard so much during the war, and hear so little to-day? i have said that the question of maintaining any given industry on the score that it is essential for the production of war material is a matter of military administration, and not properly a matter of fiscal policy at all. but the plea, we know, has been made the ground of a fiscal proceeding by the present government, inasmuch as the special measure known as the dyestuffs (import regulation) act of forbids for ten years the importation of dyestuffs into this country except under licence of the board of trade. dyestuffs include, by definition, all the coal-tar dyes, colours, and colouring matter, and all organic intermediate products used in the manufacture of these--the last category including a large number of chemicals such as formaldehyde, formic acid, acetic acid, and methyl alcohol. the argument is, in sum, that all this protective control is necessary to keep on foot, on a large scale, an industry which in time of war has been proved essential for the production of highly important munitions. what has actually happened under this act i confess i am unable to tell. weeks ago i wrote to the president of the board of trade asking if, without inconvenience, he could favour me with a general account of what had been done in the matter of issuing licences, and my letter was promised attention, but up to the moment of delivering this address i have had no further reply. i can only, then, discuss the proposed policy on its theoretic merits.[ ] the theoretic issues are fairly clear. either the licensing power of the board of trade has been used to exclude competitive imports or it has not. if it has been so used, it is obvious that we have no security whatever for the maintenance of the industry in question in a state of efficiency. in the terms of the case, it is enabled to persist in the use of plant and of methods which may be inferior to those used in the countries whose competition has been excluded. then the very object posited as the justification for the act, the securing of a thoroughly efficient key industry necessary to the production of munitions, is not attained by the fiscal device under notice. if, on the other hand, there has been no barring of imports under the licence system, the abstention from use of it is an admission that it was either unnecessary or injurious or was felt to be useless for its purpose. [footnote : the promised statistics were soon afterwards sent to mr. robertson by the board of trade. they will be found in the _liberal magazine_ for september, , p. .--ed.] and the common-sense verdict on the whole matter is that if continuous and vigilant research and experiment in the chemistry of dye-making is held to be essential to the national safety, the proper course is for the government to establish and maintain a department or arsenal for such research and experiment, unhampered by commercial exigencies. such an institution may or may not be well managed. but a dividend-earning company, necessarily concerned first and last with dividend earning, and at the same time protected against foreign competition in the sale of its products, cannot be for the purpose in question well managed, being expressly enabled and encouraged to persist in out-of-date practices. this being so, the whole argument for protection of key industries goes by the board. it has been abandoned as to agriculture, surely the most typical key industry of all; and it has never even been put forward in regard to shipbuilding, the next in order of importance. for the building of ships of war the government has its own dockyards: let it have its own chemical works, if that be proved to be necessary. protection cannot avail. if the dyestuffs act is put in operation so as to exclude the competition of foreign chemicals, it not only keeps our chemists in ignorance of the developments of the industry abroad: it raises the prices of dyestuffs against the dye-using industries at home, and thereby handicaps them dangerously in their never-ending competition with the foreign industries, german and other, which offer the same goods in foreign markets. the really fatal competition is never that of goods produced at low wages-cost. it is that of superior goods; and if foreign textiles have the aid of better dyes than are available to our manufacturers our industry will be wounded incurably. it appears in fact to be the superior quality of german fabric gloves, and not their cheapness, that has hitherto defeated the competition of the native product. to protect inferior production is simply the road to ruin for a british industry. delicacy in dyes, in the pre-war days, gave certain french woollen goods an advantage over ours in our own markets; yet we maintained our vast superiority in exports by the free use of all the dyes available. let protection operate all round, and our foreign markets will be closed to us by our own political folly. textiles which are neither well-dyed nor cheap will be unsaleable against better goods. the paris resolutions it is of a piece with that prodigy of self-contradiction that, when the liberal leaders in the house of commons expose the absurdity of professing to rectify the german exchanges by keeping out german fabric gloves, a tariffist leader replies by arguing that the paris resolutions of the first coalition government, under mr. asquith, conceded the necessity of protecting home industries against unfair competition. men who are normally good debaters seem, when they are fighting for a tariff, to lose all sense of the nature of argument. as has been repeatedly and unanswerably shown by my right hon. friend the chairman, the paris resolutions were expressly framed to guard against a state of things which has never supervened--a state of things then conceived as possible after a war without a victory, but wholly excluded by the actual course of the war. and those resolutions, all the same, expressly provided that each consenting state should remain free to act on them upon the lines of its established fiscal system, britain being thus left untrammelled as to its free trade policy. having regard to the whole history, free traders are entitled to say that the attempt of tariffists to cite the paris resolutions in support of the pitiful policy of taxing imports of german fabric gloves, or the rest of the ridiculous "litter of mice" that has thus far been yielded by the safeguarding of industries act, is the crowning proof at once of the insincerity and ineptitude of tariffism where it has a free hand, and of the adamantine strength of the free trade case. if any further illustration were needed, it is supplied by the other tariffist procedure in regard to the promise made five years ago to canada that she, with the other dominions, should have a relative preference in our markets for her products. in so far as that plan involved an advantage to our own dominions over the allies who, equally with them, bore with us the heat and burden of the war, it was as impolitic as it was unjust, and as unflattering as it was impolitic, inasmuch as it assumed that the dominions wanted a "tip" as a reward for their splendid comradeship. as it turns out, the one concession that canada really wanted was the removal of the invidious embargo on canadian store cattle in our ports. and whereas a promise to that effect was actually given by the tariffist coalition during the war, it is only after five years that the promise is about to be reluctantly fulfilled. it was a promise, be it observed, of _free importation_, and it is fulfilled only out of very shame. it may be surmised, indeed, that the point of the possible lifting of the canadian embargo was used during the negotiations with ireland to bring the sister state to terms; and that its removal may lead to new trouble in that direction. but that is another story, with which free traders are not concerned. their withers are unwrung. science and experience on the total survey, then, the case for free trade is not only unshaken, it is stronger than ever before, were it only because many of the enemy have visibly lost faith in their own cause. the coalition, in which professed liberals were prepared to sacrifice something of free trade to colleagues who were pledged in the past to destroy it, has quailed before the insuperable practical difficulties which arise the moment the scheme of destruction is sought to be framed. all that has resulted, after four and a half years, is a puerile tinkering with three or four small industries--a tinkering that is on the face of it open to suspicion of political corruption. to intelligent free traders there is nothing in it all that can give the faintest surprise. they knew their ground. the doctrine of free trade is _science_, or it is nothing. it is not a passing cry of faction, or a survival of prejudice, but the unshakable inference of a hundred years of economic experience verifying the economic science on which the great experiment was founded. on the other hand, let me say, the tactic of tinkering with free trade under a system of special committees who make decisions that only the house of commons should ever be able to make, is a "felon blow" at self-government. it puts national affairs under the control of cliques, amenable to the pressures of private interests. millions of men and women are thus taxable in respect of their living-costs at the caprice of handfuls of men appointed to do for a shifty government what it is afraid to do for itself. it is a vain thing to have secured by statute that the house of commons shall be the sole authority in matters of taxation, if the house of commons basely delegates its powers to unrepresentative men. here, as so often in the past, the free trade issue lies at the heart of sound democratic politics; and if the nation does not save its liberties in the next election it will pay the price in corrupted politics no less than in ruined trade. india by sir hamilton grant k.c.s.i., k.c.i.e.; chief commissioner, north-west frontier province, india; deputy commissioner of various frontier districts; secretary to frontier administration; foreign secretary, - ; negotiated peace treaty with afghanistan, . sir hamilton grant said:--i have been asked to address you on the subject of india, that vast, heterogeneous continent, with its varied races, its babel of languages, its contending creeds. there are many directions in which one might approach so immense a topic, presenting, as it does, all manner of problems, historical, ethnological, linguistic, scientific, political, economic, and strategic. i do not propose, however, to attempt to give you any general survey of those questions, or to offer you in tabloid form a resumé of the matters that concern the government of india. i propose to confine my remarks to two main questions which appear to be of paramount importance at the present time, and which, i believe, will be of interest to those here present to-day, namely, the problems of the north-west frontier, and the question of internal political unrest. let me deal first with the north-west frontier. as very few schoolboys know, we have here a dual boundary--an inner and an outer line. the inner line is the boundary of the settled districts of the north-west frontier province, the boundary, in fact, of british india proper, and is known as the administrative border. the outer line is the boundary between the indian empire and afghanistan, and is commonly known as the durand line, because it was settled by sir mortimer durand and his mission in with the old amir abdur rahman. these two lines give us three tracts to be dealt with--first, the tract inside the inner line, the settled districts of the north-west frontier province, inhabited for the most part by sturdy and somewhat turbulent pathans; second, the tract between the two lines, that welter of mountains where dwell the hardy brigand hillmen: the tribes of the black mountain, of swat and bajur, the mohmands, the afridis, the orakzais, the wazirs, the mahsuds, and a host of others, whose names from time to time become familiar according as the outrageousness of their misconduct necessitates military operations; third, the country beyond the outer line, "the god-granted kingdom of afghanistan and its dependencies." now each of these tracts presents its own peculiar problems, though all are intimately inter-connected and react one on the other. in the settled districts we are confronted with the task of maintaining law and order among a backward but very virile people, prone to violence and impregnated with strange but binding ideas of honour, for the most part at variance with the dictates of the indian penal code. for this reason there exists a special law called the frontier crimes regulation, a most valuable enactment enabling us to deal with cases through local councils of elders, with the task of providing them with education, medical relief etc., in accordance with their peculiar needs, and above all with the task of affording them protection from the raids and forays of their neighbours from the tribal hills. in the tribal area we are faced with the task of controlling the wild tribesmen. this control varies from practically direct administration as in the lower swat and kurram valleys to the most shadowy political influence, as in the remote highlands of upper swat and the dir kohistan, where the foot of white man has seldom trod. our general policy, however, with the tribes is to leave them independent in their internal affairs, so long as they respect british territory and certain sacrosanct tracts beyond the border, such as the khyber road, the kurram, and the tochi. the problem is difficult, because when hardy and well-armed hereditary robbers live in inaccessible mountains which cannot support the inhabitants, overlooking fat plains, the temptation to raid is obviously considerable: and when this inclination to raid is reinforced by fanatical religion, there must be an ever-present likelihood of trouble. frontier raids few people here in england reading of raids on the north-west frontier in india realise the full horror of these outrages. what generally happens is that in the small hours of the morning, a wretched village is suddenly assailed by a gang of perhaps , perhaps , well-armed raiders, who put out sentries, picket the approaches, and conduct the operation on the most skilful lines. the houses of the wealthiest men are attacked and looted; probably several villagers are brutally murdered--and probably one or two unhappy youths or women are carried off to be held up to ransom. sometimes the raid is on a larger scale, sometimes it is little more than an armed dacoity. but there is nearly always a tale of death and damage. not infrequently, however, our troops, our militia, our frontier constabulary, our armed police, or the village _chigha_ or hue-and-cry party are successful in repelling and destroying the raiders. our officers are untiring in their vigilance, and not infrequently the district officers and the officers of their civil forces are out three or four nights a week after raiding gangs. statistics in such matters are often misleading and generally dull, but it may be of interest to state that from the st april, , to the st march, , when the tribal ebullition consequent on the third afghan war had begun to die down, there were in the settled districts of the north-west frontier province raids in which british subjects were killed and wounded, in which british subjects were kidnapped and some £ , of property looted. these raids are often led by outlaws from british territory; but each tribe is responsible for what emanates from or passes through its limits--and when the bill against a tribe has mounted up beyond the possibility of settlement, there is nothing for it but punitive military operations. hence the large number of military expeditions that have taken place on this border within the last half century. now this brings us to the question so often asked by the advocates of what is called the forward policy: "if the tribes give so much trouble, why not go in and conquer them once and for all and occupy the country up to the durand line?" it sounds an attractive solution, and it has frequently been urged on paper by expert soldiers. but the truth is that to advance our frontier only means advancing the seat of trouble, and that the occupation of tribal territory by force is a much more formidable undertaking than it sounds. we have at this moment before us a striking proof of the immense difficulty and expense of attempting to tame and occupy even a comparatively small tract of tribal territory in the waziristan operations. those operations have been going on for two and a half years. at the start there were ample troops, ample equipment, and no financial stringency. the operations were conducted, if a layman may say so, with skill and determination, and our troops fought gallantly. but what is the upshot? we managed to advance into the heart of the mahsud country on a single line, subjected and still subject to incessant attacks by the enemy; but we are very little nearer effective occupation than when we started; and now financial stringency has necessitated a material alteration in the whole programme, and we are reverting more or less to the methods whereby we have always controlled the tribes, namely, tribal levies or _khassadars_ belonging to the tribe itself, frontier militia or other armed civil force, backed by troops behind. frontier policy and for my own part i believe this is the best solution. we must not expect a millennium on the north-west frontier. the tribal lion will not lie down beside the district lamb in our time, and we must deal with the problem as best we can in accordance with our means, and to this end my views are briefly as follows:-- ( ) we should do everything possible to provide the younger trans-border tribesmen with all honourable employment for which they are suited: service in the army, in the frontier civil forces, and in the indian police or similar forces overseas, and we should give labour and contracts as far as possible to tribesmen for public works in their vicinity. for the problem is largely economic. unless the lion gets other food he is bound to cast hungry eyes on the lamb. ( ) we should do all that is possible to establish friendly relations with the tribal elders through selected and sympathetic political officers, to give them, by means of subsidies for service, an interest in controlling the hot-bloods of their tribe, and, where possible, to give them assistance in education and enlightenment. we must remember that we have duties to the tribes as well as rights against them. ( ) we should extend the _khassadar_ or levy system; that is, we should pay for tribal corps to police their own borders, arming themselves and providing their own ammunition and equipment. in this way we give honourable employment and secure an effective safeguard against raiders without pouring more arms into tribal territory. ( ) we must have efficient irregular civil forces, militia, frontier constabulary, and police, well paid and contented. ( ) we should revert to the old system of a separate frontier force in the army, specially trained in the work of guarding the marches. those who remember the magnificent old punjab frontier force will agree with me in deploring its abolition in pursuance of a scheme of army reorganisation. ( ) we should improve communications, telephones, telegraphs, and lateral m.t. roads. ( ) we should give liberal rewards for the interception and destruction of raiding gangs, and the rounding up of villages from which raids emanate. ( ) we should admit that the amir of afghanistani for religious reasons exercises a paramount influence over our tribes, and we should get him to use that influence for the maintenance of peace on our common border. it has been the practise of our statesmen to adopt the attitude that because the amir was by treaty precluded from interfering with our tribes, therefore he must have nothing to do with them. this is a short-sighted view. we found during the great war the late amir's influence, particularly over the mahsuds, of the greatest value, when he agreed to use it on our behalf. ( ) finally, there is a suggestion afoot that the settled districts of the north-west frontier province should be re-amalgamated with the punjab. i have shown, i think, clearly, how inseparable are the problems of the districts, the tribal area, and of afghanistan; and any attempt to place the districts under a separate control could only mean friction, inefficiency, and disaster. the proposal is, indeed, little short of administrative lunacy. there is, however, an underlying method in the madness that has formulated it, namely, the self-interest of a clever minority, which i need not now dissect. i trust that if this proposal should go further it will be stoutly resisted. afghanistan let me now turn to afghanistan. generally speaking, the story of our dealings with that country has been a record of stupid, arrogant muddle. from the days of the first afghan war, when an ill-fated army was despatched on its crazy mission to place a puppet king, shah shuja, on the throne of afghanistan, our statesmen have, with some notable exceptions, mishandled the afghan problem. and yet it is simple enough in itself. for we want very little of afghanistan, and she does not really want much of us. all we want from the amir is good-neighbourliness; that he should not allow his country to become the focus of intrigue or aggression against us by powers hostile to us, and that he should co-operate with us for the maintenance of peace on our common border. all he wants of us is some assistance in money and munitions for the internal and external safeguarding of his realm, commercial and other facilities, and honourable recognition, for the afghan, like the indian, has a craving for self-respect and the respect of others. now, where our statesmen have failed is in regarding afghanistan as a petty little state to be browbeaten and ordered about at our pleasure, without recognising the very valuable cards that the amir holds against us. he sees his hand and appraises it at its value. he knows, in the first place, that nothing can be more embarrassing to us than the necessity for another afghan war, and the despatch of a large force to the highlands of kabul, to sit there possibly for years as an army of occupation, in a desolate country, incapable of affording supplies for the troops, at enormous cost which could never be recovered, and at the expense of much health and life, with no clear-cut policy beyond. he knows, in the second place, that such a war would be the signal for the rising of practically every tribe along our frontier. the cry of _jehad_ would go forth, as in the third afghan war, and we should be confronted sooner or later with an outburst from the black mountain to baluchistan--a formidable proposition in these days. he knows, in the third place, that with moslem feeling strained as it is to-day on the subject of turkey, there would be sympathy for him in india, and among the moslem troops of the indian army. now these are serious considerations, but i do not suggest that they are so serious as to make us tolerate for a moment an offensive or unreasonable attitude on the part of the amir. if the necessity should be forced on us, which god forbid, we should face the position with promptitude and firmness and hit at once; and apart from an advance into afghanistan we have a valuable card in the closing of the passes and the blockade of that country. all i suggest is that in negotiating with afghanistan, we should remember these things and should not attempt to browbeat a proud and sensitive ruler, who, however inferior in the ordinary equipment for regular war, holds such valuable assets on his side. and my own experience is that the afghans are not unreasonable. like every one else, they will "try it on," but if handled courteously, kindly, with geniality, and, above all, with complete candour, they will generally see reason. and remember one thing. in spite of all that has happened, our mistakes, our bluster, our occasional lapses from complete disingenuousness, the afghans still like us. moreover, their hereditary mistrust of russia still inclines them to lean on us. we have lately concluded a treaty with afghanistan--not by any means a perfect treaty, but the best certainly that could be secured in the circumstances, and we have sent a minister to kabul, lt.-colonel humphrys, who was one of my officers on the frontier. a better man for the post could not, i believe, be found in the empire. unless unduly hampered by a hectoring diplomacy from whitehall, he will succeed in establishing that goodwill and mutual confidence which between governments is of more value than all the paper engagements ever signed. one word more of the afghans. there is an idea that they are a treacherous and perfidious people. this, i believe, is wicked slander, so far as the rulers are concerned. in , during the indian mutiny, the amir dost muhammed was true to his bond, when he might have been a thorn in our side; and during the great war the late amir halilullah, in the face of appalling difficulties, maintained the neutrality of his country, as he promised, and was eventually murdered, a martyr to his own good faith to us. internal unrest let me now turn to our second question: internal political unrest. in clubs and other places where wise men in arm-chairs lay down the law about affairs of state, one constantly hears expressions of surprise and indignation that there should be any unrest in india at all. "we have," say the die-hard wiseacres, "governed india jolly well and jolly honestly, and the indians ought to be jolly grateful instead of kicking up all this fuss. if that meddlesome montagu had not put these wicked democratic ideas into their heads, and stirred up all this mud, we should have gone on quite comfortable as before." but if we face the facts squarely, we shall see that the wonder is not that there has been so much, but that there has been so comparatively little unrest, and that india should, on the whole, have waited so patiently for a definite advance towards self-government. what are the facts? they are these. partly by commercial enterprise, partly by adroit diplomacy, partly by accident, largely by the valour of our arms, we have obtained dominion over the great continent of india. we have ruled it for more than a century through the agency of a handful of englishmen, alien in creed, colour, and custom from the people whom they rule--men who do not even make their permanent homes in the land they administer. now, however efficient, however honest, however impartial, however disinterested such a rule may be, it cannot obviously be really agreeable to the peoples ruled. this is the fundamental weakness of our position. that our rule on these lines has lasted so long and has been so successful is due not to the fact alone that it has been backed by british bayonets, but rather to the fact that it has been remarkably efficient, honest, just, and disinterested--and, above all, that we have in the past given and secured goodwill. superimposed on this underlying irritant, there have been of late years a number of other more direct causes of unrest. education, which we gave to india and were bound to give, had inevitably bred political aspiration, and an _intelligensia_ had grown up hungry for political rights and powers. simultaneously the voracious demands of a centralised bureaucracy for reports and returns had left the district officer little leisure for that close touch with the people which in the past meant confidence and goodwill. political restlessness had already for some years begun to manifest itself in anarchical conspiracies and crimes of violence, when the great war began. in india, as elsewhere, the reflex action of the war was a disturbing element. high prices, stifled trade, high taxation, nationalist longings and ideas of self-determination and self-government served to reinforce subterranean agitation. but throughout the war india not only remained calm and restrained, but her actual contribution to the war, in men and material, was colossal and was ungrudgingly given. she had a right to expect in return generous treatment; but what did she get? she got the rowlatt bill. now, of course, there was a great deal of wicked, lying nonsense talked by agitators about the provisions of the rowlatt bill, and the people were grossly misled. but the plain fact remains that when india had emerged from the trying ordeal of the war, not only with honour untarnished, but having placed us under a great obligation, our first practical return was to pass a repressive measure, for fear, forsooth, that if it was not passed then it might be pigeon-holed and forgotten. india asked for bread and we gave her a stone--a stupid, blundering act, openly deprecated at the time by all moderate unofficial opinion in india. what was the result? the punjab disturbances and the preventive massacre of the jallianwala bagh. i do not propose to dwell on this deplorable and sadly mishandled matter, save to say that so far from cowing agitation, it has left a legacy of hate that it will take years to wipe out; and that the subsequent action of a number of ill-informed persons in raising a very large sum of money for the officer responsible for that massacre has further estranged indians and emphasised in their eyes the brand of their subjection. the rise of ghandi to india, thus seething with bitterness over the punjab disturbances, there was added the moslem resentment over the fate of turkey. i was myself in london and paris in a humble capacity at the peace conference, and i know that our leading statesmen were fully informed of the moslem attitude and the dangers of unsympathetic and dilatory action in this matter. but an arrogant diplomacy swept all warnings aside and scorned the moslem menace as a bogey. what was the result? troubles in egypt, in mesopotamia, kurdistan, afghanistan, and the khilifat movement in india. hindu agitators were not slow to exploit moslem bitterness, and for the first time there was a genuine, if very ephemeral, _entente_ between the two great rival creeds. it was in this electric atmosphere that ghandi, emerging from his ascetic retirement, found himself an unchallenged leader. short of stature, frail, with large ears, and a gap in his front teeth, he had none of the outward appearance of dominance. his appeal lay in the simplicity of his life and character, for asceticism is still revered in the east. but his intellectual equipment was mediocre, his political ideas nebulous and impracticable to a degree, his programme archaic and visionary; and from the start he was doomed to fail. the _hijrat_ movement which he advocated brought ruin to thousands of moslem homes; his attack on government educational establishments brought disaster to many youthful careers; non-co-operation fizzled out. government servants would not resign their appointments, lawyers would not cease to practise, and title-holders, with a few insignificant exceptions, would not surrender their titles; the "back to the spinning-wheel" call did not attract, and the continual failure of ghandi's predictions of the immediate attainment of complete _swaraj_ or self-government, which he was careful never to define, like hope deferred turned the heart sick. from being a demi-god ghandi gradually became a bore, and when he was at last arrested, tragic to relate, there was hardly a tremor of resentment through the tired political nerves of india. the arrest was indeed a triumph of wise timing that does credit to the sagacity of the government of india. had the arrest been effected when the name of ghandi was at its zenith, there would have been widespread trouble and bloodshed. as it was, people were only too glad to be rid of a gadfly that merely goaded them into infructuous bogs. i apologise for this long excursus on the somewhat threadbare subject of the causes of unrest in india. but i want those here present to realise what potent forces have been at work and to believe that the indian generally is not the ungrateful, black-hearted seditionist he is painted by the reactionary press. india is going through an inevitable stage of political transition, and we must not hastily judge her peoples--for the most part so gallant, so kindly, so law-abiding, so lovable--by the passing tantrums of political puberty. the present situation as things stand at present, there is a remarkable lull. it would be futile to predict whether it will last. it is due in part, as i have suggested, to general political weariness, in part to the drastic action taken against the smaller agitating fry, in part to the depletion of the coffers of the extremists, in part to the fact that the extremists are quarrelling amongst themselves as to their future programme. some are for continuing a boycott of the councils; others are for capturing all the seats and dominating the legislature; others are for re-beating the dead horse of non-co-operation. meanwhile, with disunion in the extremist camp, the councils conduct their business on moderate lines, and, so far as one can judge, with marked temperance and sanity. the work of the first councils has indeed been surprisingly good, and augurs well for the future. india has not yet, of course, by any means grasped the full significance of representative government. the party system is still in embryo, although two somewhat vague and nebulous parties calling themselves the "nationalists" and the "democrats" do exist. but these parties have no clear-cut programme, and they do not follow the lead of the ministers, who are regarded, not as representing the elected members of the council, but as newly-appointed additional members of the official bureaucracy. there will doubtless in time be gradual sorting of politicians into definite groups, but there are two unbridgeable gulfs in the indian social system which must always militate against the building up of a solid political party system: first, the gulf between hindu and moslem, which still yawns as wide as ever, and second, the gulf between the brahman and the "untouchables" who, by the way, have found their fears that they would be downtrodden under the new councils completely baseless. there are and must be breakers ahead. some we can see, and there are doubtless others still bigger which we cannot yet glimpse over the welter of troubled waters. what we can see is this: first, there is a danger that unless government and the councils together can before the next elections in - take definite steps towards the industrial development and the self-defence of india, the extremist party are likely to come in in full force and to create a deadlock in the administration; second, unless the councils continue to accept a fiscal policy in accordance with the general interests of great britain and the empire, there will be trouble. the fiscal position is obscure, but it is the crux, for the councils can indirectly stultify any policy distasteful to them, and this too may mean a deadlock; third, there is a danger that the indianisation of the services will advance much more rapidly than was ever contemplated, or than is desirable in the interests of india for many years to come, for the simple reason that capable young englishmen of the right stamp will not, without adequate guarantees for their future, accept employment in india. those guarantees can be given satisfactorily by one authority alone, and that is by the indian legislatures voicing popular opinion. for a complex administration bristling with technical questions, administrative, political, and economic, it is essential that india should have for many years to come the assistance of highly-educated britons with the tradition of administration in their blood. the councils will be wise to recognise this and make conditions which will secure for them in the future as in the past the best stamp of adventurous briton. finally, the montagu-chelmsford scheme, though a capable and conscientious endeavour to give gradual effect to a wise and generous policy, has of necessity its weak points. the system of diarchy--of allotting certain matters to the bureaucratic authority of the viceroy and of the provincial governors and other matters to the representatives of the people--is obviously a stop-gap, which is already moribund. the attempt to fix definite periods at which further advances towards self-government can be considered is bound to fail: you cannot give political concessions by a stop-watch; the advance will either be much more rapid or much slower than the scheme anticipates. again, the present basis of election is absurdly small, but any attempt to broaden it must tend towards adult suffrage, which in itself would appear impracticable with a population of over millions. our duty to india it is a mistake, however, in politics to look too far ahead. sufficient unto the day. for the time being we may be certain of one thing, and that is that we cannot break the indian connection and leave india. both our interests and our obligations demand that we should remain at the helm of indian affairs for many years to come. that being so, let us accept our part cheerfully and with goodwill as in the past. let us try to give india of our best, as we have done heretofore. let us regive and regain, above all things, goodwill. let us not resent the loss of past privilege, the changes in our individual status, and let us face the position in a practical and good-humoured spirit. let us abandon all talk of holding india by the sword, as we won it by the sword--because both propositions are fundamentally false. let us realise that we have held india by integrity, justice, disinterested efficiency--and, above all, by goodwill--and let us continue to co-operate with india in india for india on these same lines. egypt by j.a. spender editor of the _westminster gazette_, to ; member of the special mission to egypt, - . mr. spender said:--the egyptian problem resembles the indian and all other eastern problems in that there is no simple explanation or solution of it. among the many disagreeable surprises which awaited us after the war, none was more disagreeable than the discovery in march, , that egypt was in a state of rebellion. for years previously we had considered egypt a model of imperial administration. we had pulled her out of bankruptcy and given her prosperity. we had provided her with great public works which had enriched both pasha and fellah. we had scrupulously refrained from exploiting her in our own interests. no man ever worked so disinterestedly for a country not his own as lord cromer for egypt, and if ever a nationalist movement could have been killed by kindness, it should have been the egyptian. nor were the egyptian people ungrateful. i have talked to egyptian nationalists of all shades, and seldom found any who did not handsomely acknowledge what great britain had done for egypt, but they asked for one thing more, which was that she should restore them their independence. "we won it from the turks," they said, "and we cannot allow you to take it from us." this demand was no new thing, but it was brought to a climax by events during and after the war. when the war broke out, our representative in egypt was still only "agent and consul-general," and was theoretically and legally on the same footing with the representative of all other powers; when it ended, he was "high commissioner," governing by martial law under a system which we called a "protectorate." this to the egyptians seemed a definite and disastrous change for the worse. throughout the forty years of our occupation we have most carefully preserved the theory of egyptian independence. we have occupied and administered the country, but we have never annexed it or claimed it to be part of the british empire. we intervened in for the purpose of restoring order, and five years later we offered to withdraw, and were only prevented from carrying out our intention because the sultan of turkey declined, at the instigation of another power, to sign the firman which gave us the right of re-occupying the country if order should again be disturbed. in the subsequent years we gave repeated assurances to egyptians and to foreign powers that we had no intention of altering the status of the country as defined in its theoretical government by khedive, egyptian ministers, and egyptian council or assembly. and though it was true that in virtue of the army of occupation we were in fact supreme, by leaving the forms of their government untouched and refraining from all steps to legalise our position we reassured the egyptians as to our ultimate objects. in the eyes of the egyptians the proclamation of the protectorate and the conversion of the "agent and consul-general" into a "high commissioner" armed with the weapons of martial law seriously prejudiced this situation, and though they acquiesced for the period of the war, they were determined to have a settlement with us immediately it was over, and took us very seriously at our word when we promised to review the whole situation when that time came. the truth about the "protectorate" was that we adopted it as a way out of the legal entanglement which would otherwise have converted the egyptians into enemy aliens when their suzerain, the sultan of turkey, entered the war against us, and we did it deliberately as the preferable alternative to annexing the country. but we have neither explained to the egyptians nor made clear to ourselves what exactly we meant by it, and in the absence of explanations it was interpreted in egypt as a first step to the extinction of egyptian nationality. after-war mistakes had we acted wisely and expeditiously at the end of the war we might even then have avoided the trouble that followed. but when egyptian ministers asked leave to come to london in december, , we answered that the time was not opportune for these discussions, and when the nationalist leaders proposed to send a delegation, we said that no good purpose could be served by their coming to europe. this heightened the alarm, and the nationalists retorted by raising their claims from "complete autonomy" to "complete independence," and started a violent agitation. the government retaliated by deporting zaghlul to malta, whereupon the country broke into rebellion. lord allenby now came upon the scene, and, while suppressing the rebellion, released zaghlul and gave him and his delegation the permission to go to europe which had been refused in january. it was now decided to send out the milner mission, but there was a further delay of seven months before it started, and during all that time agitation continued. when the mission arrived it quickly discovered that there was no possible "constitution under the protectorate" which would satisfy the egyptians, and that the sole alternatives were further suppression or the discovery of some means of settlement which dispensed with the protectorate. the mission unanimously came to the conclusion that though the first was mechanically possible if the cost and discredit were faced, the second was not only feasible but far preferable, and that the right method was a treaty of alliance between great britain and egypt, recognising egypt as a sovereign state, but affording all necessary guarantees for imperial interests. working on those lines the mission gradually broke down the boycott proclaimed against them, convinced the egyptians of their goodwill, induced all parties of egyptian nationalists to come to london, and there negotiated the basis of the treaty which was described in the report. the main points were that there must be a british force in the country--not an army of occupation, but a force to guard imperial communications--that there must be british liaison officers for law and order and finance, that the control of foreign policy must remain in the hands of great britain, and that the soudan settlement of must remain untouched, but that with these exceptions the government of egypt should be in fact what it had always been in theory: a government of egyptians by egyptians. had the government accepted this in december, (instead of in march, ), and instructed lord milner to go forward and draft a treaty on this basis, it is extremely probable that a settlement would have been reached in a few weeks; but ministers, unhappily, were unable to make up their minds, and there was a further delay of three months before the egyptian prime minister, adli pasha, was invited to negotiate with the foreign office. by this time the nationalist parties which the mission had succeeded in uniting on a common platform had fallen apart, and the extremists once more started a violent agitation and upbraided the moderates for tamely waiting on the british government, which had evidently meant to deceive them. the situation had, therefore, changed again for the worse when adli came to london in april, , and it was made worse still by what followed. the negotiations dragged over six months, and finally broke down for reasons that have never been explained, but the probability is that egypt had now got entangled in coalition domestic politics, and that the "die-hards" claimed to have their way in egypt in return for their consent to the irish settlement. the door was now banged in the face of all schools of egyptian nationalists, and lord allenby was instructed to send to the sultan the unhappy letter in which egypt was peremptorily reminded that she was a "part of the communications of the british empire," and many other things said which were specially calculated to wound egyptian susceptibilities. the egyptian prime minister resigned, and for the next five months lord allenby endeavoured to govern the country by martial law without an egyptian ministry. then he came to london with the unanimous support of british officials in egypt to tell the government that the situation was impossible and a settlement imperative. the government gave way and british policy was again reversed, but three opportunities had now been thrown away, and at the fourth time of asking the difficulties were greatly increased. the nationalists were now divided and the moderates in danger of being violently attacked if they accepted a moderate solution. it was found necessary to deport zaghlul pasha and to put several of his chief adherents on trial. suspicions had been aroused by the delays and vacillations of the british government. a settlement by treaty was now impossible, and lord allenby had to give unconditionally the recognition of sovereignty which the mission intended to be part of the treaty, putting the egyptians under an honourable pledge to respect british rights and interests. in the circumstances there was nothing else to do, but it is greatly to be desired that when the constitution has been completed and the new assembly convened, an effort should be made to revert to the method of the treaty which particularly suited the egyptian character and would be regarded as a binding obligation by egyptians. the hope of the future in regard to the future, there is only one thing to do and that is to work honestly to its logical conclusion the theory now adopted, that egypt is a self-governing independent state. egyptians must be encouraged to shoulder the full responsibilities of a self-governing community. it would be folly to maintain a dual system which enabled an egyptian government to shunt the difficult or disagreeable part of its task on to a british high commissioner. whatever the system of government, there is no escape for either party from the most intimate mutual relations. geography and circumstances decree them, but there is no necessary clash between the imperial interests which require us to guard the highway to the east that runs through egyptian territory, and the full exercise of their national rights by egyptians. egyptians must remember that for many years to come the world will hold us responsible for law and order and solvency in egypt, and we on our part must remember that egyptians have the same pride in their country as other peoples, and that they will never consent to regard it as merely and primarily "a communication of the british empire." in any wise solution of the question any sudden breach with the past will be avoided, and egyptians will of their own free will enlist the aid of british officials who have proved their devotion to the country by loyal and skilful service. the hope of the future lies in substituting a free partnership for a domination of one race by the other, and with a genial and good-humoured people, such as the egyptians essentially are, there should be no difficulty in restoring friendship and burying past animosities. but there must be a real determination on both sides to make egyptian independence a success and no disposition on either to give merely a reluctant consent to the conditions agreed upon by them and then to throw the onus of failure on the others. i deeply regret the schism between the different schools of nationalists in egypt. as we have seen in ireland, nationalism is threatened from within as well as from without, and it is a great misfortune that in settling the egyptian problem we missed the moment in when the different nationalist parties were all but united on a common platform. extremist leaders have the power of compelling even their friends to deport them and treat them as enemies, and i assume that zaghlul put lord allenby under this compulsion, when he decided that his deportation was necessary. but zaghlul was one of the few nationalist leaders who were of peasant origin, and his followers stand for something that needs to be strongly represented in the government if it is not to take its complexion merely from the towns and the wealthy interests. the fellah is a very different man from what he was in the days of ismail, and it is improbable that he will again submit to oppression as his forefathers did but it is eminently desirable that there should be in the government men whom he would accept as leaders and whom he could trust to speak for him. above all, it is to be hoped that, having conceded the independence of egypt, we shall not slip back into governing the country by martial law with the aid of one party among the egyptians. that would be merely an evasion of the difficulty and a postponement of troubles. there are a good many difficulties yet to be overcome, and the progress of events will need careful watching by liberals in and out of the house of commons, but if at length we steer a straight course and bring political good sense to the details of the problem, there is no reason why we should not satisfy the egyptians and put anglo-egyptian relations on a good and enduring basis. in dealing with egypt as with all eastern countries, it should constantly be borne in mind that manners, character, and personality are a chief part of good politics. to a very large extent the estrangement has been caused by a failure to understand and respect the feelings of the egyptian people, and here, as in india, it is important to understand that the demand of the eastern man is not only for self-government, but also for a new status which will enable him to maintain his self-respect in his dealings with the west. the machinery of government by ramsay muir professor of modern history in the university of manchester, to . mr. ramsay muir said:--one of the most marked, and one of the most ominous, features of the political situation to-day is that there is an almost universal decline of belief in and respect for our system of government. this undermining of the confidence that a healthy community ought to feel in its institutions is a perturbing fact which it is the plain duty of all good liberals to consider seriously. we need not be deterred by the old gibe that liberalism has always cared more about political machinery than about social reorganisation. the gibe was never true. but, in any case, no projects of social reorganisation have much chance of success unless the political machinery by means of which they have to be carried into effect is working efficiently. moreover, since most of the projects of social reform which are being urged upon our attention involve an enlargement of the activities of the state, it is obvious that we shall be running the risk of a breakdown unless we make sure that the machinery of the state is capable of meeting the demands which are made upon it. we must be satisfied that our engine has sufficient power before we require it to draw a double load. in truth, one reason why the engine of government is not working well is that it has been required to do a great deal more work than it was designed for. the time has come to consider carefully the character and capacity of our machinery of government in view of the increased demands which are certain to be made upon it in the future. our national political system may be divided into two parts. on the one hand, there is the working machine, which goes on, year in, year out, whether parliament is sitting or not, and which would still go on quite well for a time if parliament never met again. we call it the government, and we habitually and rightly hold it responsible for every aspect of national policy and action, for legislation and finance as well as for foreign policy and internal administration. on the other hand, there is what burke used to call "the control on behalf of the nation," mainly exercised through parliament, whose chief function is to criticise and control the action of government, and to make the responsibility of government to the nation a real and a felt responsibility. the discontents of to-day apply to both parts of the system, and i propose to deal with them in turn, first inquiring what is wrong with the working machine of government and how it can be amended, and then turning to consider how far the control on behalf of the nation is working badly, and how it can be made more efficient. in what i have called the "working machine" of government there are two distinct elements. first, there is the large, permanent, professional staff, the civil service; secondly, there is the policy-directing body, the cabinet. both of these are the objects of a great deal of contemporary criticism. on the one hand, we are told that we are suffering from "bureaucracy," which means that the permanent officials have too much independent and uncontrolled, or imperfectly controlled, authority. on the other hand, we are told that we are suffering from cabinet dictatorship, or, alternatively, that the cabinet system is breaking down and being replaced by the autocracy of the prime minister. there is a good deal of _prima facie_ justification for all these complaints. the growth of the civil service first, as to bureaucracy. it is manifest that there has been an immense increase in the number, the functions, and the power of public officials. this is not merely due to the war. it has been going on for a long time--ever since, in fact, we began the deliberate process of national reconstruction in the years following . in itself this increase has not been a bad thing; on the contrary, it has been the only possible means of carrying into effect the great series of reforms which marked the nineteenth century. and may i here underline the fact that we liberals, in particular, have no right to criticise the process, since we have been mainly responsible for it, at any rate in all its early stages. when our predecessors set up the first factory inspectors in , and so rendered possible the creation of a whole code of factory laws; when they created the first rudimentary education office in , and so set to work the men who have really moulded our national system of education; when they set up a bureaucratic poor law board in , which shaped our poor law policy, and a public health board in , which gradually worked out our system of public health--when they did these things, they were beginning a process which has been carried further with every decade. if you like, they were laying the foundations of bureaucracy; but they were also creating the only machinery by which vast, beneficial and desperately needed measures of social reform could be carried into effect. and there is yet another thing for which liberalism must assume the responsibility. when gladstone instituted the civil service commission in , and the system of appointment by competitive examination in , he freed the civil service from the reputation for corruption and inefficiency which had clung to it; and he ensured that it should attract, as it has ever since done, much of the best intellect of the nation. but this very fact inevitably increased the influence of the civil service, and encouraged the expansion of its functions. if you put a body of very able men in charge of a department of public service, it is certain that they will magnify their office, take a disproportionate view of its claims, and incessantly strive to increase its functions and its staff. this is not only natural, it is healthy--so long as the process is subjected to efficient criticism and control. but the plain fact is that the control is inadequate. the vast machine of government has outgrown the power of the controlling mechanism. we trust for the control of the immense bureaucratic machine, almost entirely to the presence, at the head of each department, of a political minister directly responsible to parliament. we hold the minister responsible for everything that happens in his office, and we regard this ministerial responsibility as one of the keystones of our system. but when we reflect that the minister is distracted by a multitude of other calls upon his time, and that he has to deal with officials who are generally his equals in ability, and always his superiors in special knowledge; when we realise how impossible it is that a tithe of the multifarious business of a great department should come before him, and that the business which does come before him comes with the recommendations for action of men who know ten times more about it than he does, it must be obvious that the responsibility of the minister must be quite unreal, in regard to the normal working of the office. one thing alone he can do, and it is an important thing, quite big enough to occupy his attention. he can make sure that the broad policy of the office, and its big new departures, are in accord with the ideas of the majority in parliament, and are co-ordinated, through the cabinet, with the policy of the other departments. that, indeed, is the true function of a minister; and if he tries to make his responsibility real beyond that, he may easily neglect his main work. beyond this consideration of broad policy, i do not hesitate to say that the theory of ministerial responsibility is not a check upon the growth of bureaucracy, but is rather the cover under which bureaucracy has grown up. for the position of the minister enables him, and almost compels him, to use his influence in parliament for the purpose of diverting or minimising parliamentary criticism. a check upon bureaucracy how can this growth of inadequately controlled official power be checked? is it not apparent that this can only be done if a clear distinction is drawn between the sphere of broad policy, in which the minister both can be and ought to be responsible, and the sphere of ordinary administrative work for which the minister cannot be genuinely responsible? if that distinction is accepted, it ought not to be impossible for parliament without undermining ministerial or cabinet responsibility, to devise a means of making its control over the ordinary working of the departments effective, through a system of committees or in other ways. the current complaints of bureaucracy, however, are not directed mainly against the ineffectiveness of the machinery of control, but against the way in which public work is conducted by government officials--the formalism and red-tape by which it is hampered, the absence of elasticity and enterprise; and the methods of government departments are often compared, to their disadvantage, with those of business firms. but the comparison disregards a vital fact. the primary function of a government department is not creative or productive, but regulative. it has to see that laws are exactly carried out, and that public funds are used for the precise purposes for which they were voted; and for this kind of work a good deal of red-tape is necessary. moreover, it is essential that those who are charged with such functions should be above all suspicion of being influenced by fear or favour or the desire to make profit; and for this purpose fixed salaries and security of tenure are essential. in short, the fundamental principles upon which government departments are organised are right for the regulative functions which they primarily exist to perform. but they are altogether wrong for creative and productive work, which demands the utmost elasticity, adaptability, and freedom for experiment. and it is just because the ordinary machinery of government has been used on a large scale for this kind of work that the outcry against bureaucracy has recently been so vehement. it is not possible to imagine a worse method of conducting a great productive enterprise than to put it under the control of an evanescent minister selected on political grounds, and supported by a body of men whose work is carried on in accordance with the traditions of the civil service. if we are to avoid a breakdown of our whole system, we must abstain from placing productive enterprises under the control of the ordinary machinery of government--parliament, responsible political ministers, and civil service staffs. but it does not follow that no productive concern ought ever to be brought under public ownership and withdrawn from the sphere of private enterprise. as we shall later note, such concerns can, if it be necessary, be organised in a way which would avoid these dangers. the cabinet we turn next to the other element in the working machine of government, the cabinet, or policy-directing body, which is the very pivot of our whole system. two main functions fall to the cabinet. in the first place, it has to ensure an effective co-ordination between the various departments of government; in the second place, it is responsible for the initiation and guidance of national policy in every sphere, subject to the watchful but friendly control of parliament. long experience has shown that there are several conditions which must be fulfilled if a cabinet is to perform these functions satisfactorily. in the first place, its members must, among them, be able to speak for every department of government; failing this, the function of co-ordination cannot be effectively performed. this principle was discarded in the later stages of the war, when a small war cabinet was instituted, from which most of the ministers were excluded. the result was confusion and overlapping, and the attempt to remedy these evils by the creation of a staff of _liaison_ officers under the control of the prime minister had very imperfect success, and in some respects only added to the confusion. in the second place, the cabinet must be coherent and homogeneous, and its members must share the same ideals of national policy. national business cannot be efficiently transacted if the members of the cabinet are under the necessity of constantly arguing about, and making compromises upon, first principles. that is the justification for drawing the members of a cabinet from the leaders of a single party, who think alike and understand one another's minds. whenever this condition has been absent, confusion, vacillation and contradiction have always marked the conduct of public affairs, and disastrous results have followed. in the third place, the procedure of the cabinet must be intimate, informal, elastic, and confidential; every member must be able to feel that he has played his part in all the main decisions of policy, whether they directly concern his department or not, and that he is personally responsible for these decisions. constitutional usage has always prescribed that it is the duty of a cabinet minister to resign if he differs from his colleagues on any vital matter, whether relating to his department or not, and this usage is, in truth, the main safeguard for the preservation of genuine conjoint responsibility, and the main barrier against irresponsible action by a prime minister or a clique. when the practice of resignation in the sense of giving up office is replaced by the other kind of resignation--shrugging one's shoulders and letting things slide--the main virtue of cabinet government has been lost. in the fourth place, in order that every minister may fully share in every important discussion and decision, it is essential that the cabinet should be small. sir robert peel, in whose ministry of - the system probably reached perfection, laid it down that nine was the maximum number for efficiency, because not more than about nine men can sit round a table in full view of one another, all taking a real share in every discussion. when the membership of a cabinet largely exceeds this figure, it is inevitable that the sense of joint and several responsibility for every decision should be greatly weakened. modern changes in the cabinet i do not think any one will deny that the cabinet has in a large degree lost these four features which we have laid down as requisite for full efficiency. the process has been going on for a long time, but during the last six years it has been accelerated so greatly that the cabinet of to-day is almost unrecognisably different from what it was fifty years ago. to begin with, it has grown enormously in size, owing to the increase in the number of departments of government. this growth has markedly diminished the sense of responsibility for national policy as a whole felt by the individual members, and the wholesome practice of resignation has gone out of fashion. it has led to frequent failures in the co-ordination of the various departments, which are often seen working at cross purposes. it has brought about a new formality in the proceedings of the cabinet, in the establishment of a cabinet secretariat. the lack of an efficient joint cabinet control has encouraged a very marked and unhealthy increase in the personal authority of the prime minister and of the clique of more intimate colleagues by whom he is surrounded; and this is strengthened by the working of the new secretariat. all these unhealthy features have been intensified by the combination of the two strongest parties in parliament to form a coalition; for this has deprived the cabinet of homogeneity and made it the scene not of the definition of a policy guided by clear principles, but rather the scene of incessant argument, bargaining, and compromise on fundamentals. finally, the responsibility of the cabinet to parliament has been gravely weakened; it acts as the master of parliament, not as its agent, and its efficiency suffers from the fact that its members are able to take their responsibility to parliament very lightly. all these defects in the working of the cabinet system have been much more marked since the war than at any earlier time. but the two chief among them--lessened coherence due to unwieldiness of size, and diminished responsibility to parliament--were already becoming apparent during the generation before the war. on the question of responsibility to parliament we shall have something to say later. but it is worth while to ask whether there is any means whereby the old coherence, intimacy and community of responsibility can be restored. if it cannot be restored, the cabinet system, as we have known it, is doomed. i do not think that it can be restored unless the size of the cabinet can be greatly reduced, without excluding from its deliberations a responsible spokesman for each department of government. but this will only be possible if a considerable regrouping of the great departments can be effected. i do not think that such a regrouping is impracticable. indeed, it is for many reasons desirable. if it were carried out, a cabinet might consist of the following members, who would among them be in contact with the whole range of governmental activity. there would be the prime minister; there would be the chancellor of the exchequer, responsible for national finance; there would be the minister for foreign affairs; there would be a minister for imperial affairs, speaking for a sub-cabinet which would include secretaries for the dominions, for india, and for the crown colonies and protectorates; there would be a minister of defence, with a sub-cabinet including ministers of the navy, the army, and the air force; there would be a minister for justice and police, performing most of the functions both of the home office and of the lord chancellor, who would cease to be a political officer and be able to devote himself to his judicial functions; there would be a minister of agriculture, industry, and commerce, with a sub-cabinet representing the board of trade, the board of agriculture, the ministry of mines, the ministry of labour, and perhaps other departments. ministers of public health and of education would complete the list of active administrative chiefs; but one or two additional members, not burdened with the charge of a great department might be added, such as the lord president of the council, and one of these might very properly be a standing representative upon the council of the league of nations. the heads of productive trading departments--the post office and the public works department--should, i suggest, be excluded from the cabinet, and their departments should be separately organised in such a way as not to involve a change of personnel when one party succeeded another in power. these departments have no direct concern with the determination of national policy. on such a scheme we should have a cabinet of nine or ten members, representing among them all the departments which are concerned with regulative or purely governmental work. and i suggest that a rearrangement of this kind would not only restore efficiency to the cabinet, but would lead to very great administrative reforms, better co-ordination between closely related departments, and in many respects economy. but valuable as such changes may be, they would not in themselves be sufficient to restore complete health to our governmental system. in the last resort this depends upon the organisation of an efficient and unresting system of criticism and control. the house of commons in any modern state the control of the action of government is largely wielded by organs not formally recognised by law--by the general movement of public opinion; by the influence of what is vaguely called "the city"; by the resolutions of such powerful bodies as trade union congresses, federations of employers, religious organisations, and propagandist bodies of many kinds; and, above all, by the press. no review of our system would be complete without some discussion of these extremely powerful and in some cases dangerous influences. we cannot, however, touch upon them here. we must confine ourselves to the formal, constitutional machinery of national control over the actions of government, that is, to parliament, as the spokesman of the nation. an essential part of any full discussion of this subject would be a treatment of the second chamber problem. but that would demand a whole hour to itself; and i propose to pass it over for the present, and to ask you to consider the perturbing fact that the house of commons, which is the very heart of our system, has largely lost the confidence and belief which it once commanded. why has the house of commons lost the confidence of the nation? there are two main reasons, which we must investigate in turn. in the first place, in spite of the now completely democratic character of the electorate, the house is felt to be very imperfectly representative of the national mind. and in the second place, it is believed to perform very inefficiently its primary function of criticising and controlling the action of government. first of all, why do men vaguely feel that the house of commons is unrepresentative? i think there are three main reasons. the first is to be found in the method of election. since the house has been elected by equal electoral districts, each represented by a single member. now, if we suppose that every constituency was contested by two candidates only, about per cent. of the voters must feel that they had not voted for anybody who sat at westminster; while many of the remaining per cent. must feel that they had been limited to a choice between two men, neither of whom truly represented them. but if in many constituencies there are no contests, and in many others there are three or more candidates, the number of electors who feel that they have not voted for any member of the house may rise to per cent. or even per cent. of the total. the psychological effect of this state of things must be profound. and there is another consideration. the very name of the house of commons (communes, not common people) implies that it represents organised communities, with a character and personality and tradition of their own--boroughs or counties. so it did until . now it largely represents totally unreal units which exist only for the purpose of the election. the only possible means of overcoming these defects of the single member system is some mode of proportional representation--perhaps qualified by the retention of single members in those boroughs or counties which are just large enough to be entitled to one member. the main objection taken to proportional representation is that it would probably involve small and composite majorities which would not give sufficient authority to ministries. but our chief complaint is that the authority of modern ministries is too great, their power too unchecked. in the middle of the nineteenth century, when our system worked most smoothly, parties _were_ composite, and majorities were small--as they usually ought to be, if the real balance of opinion in the country is to be reflected. the result was that the control of parliament over the cabinet was far more effective than it is to-day; the cabinet could not ride roughshod over the house; and debates really influenced votes, as they now scarcely ever do. the immense majorities which have been the rule since are not healthy. they are the chief cause of the growth of cabinet autocracy. and they are due primarily to the working of the single-member constituency. the second ground of distrust is the belief that parliament is unduly dominated by party; that its members cannot speak and vote freely; that the cabinet always gets its way because it is able to hold over members, _in terrorem_, the threat of a general election, which means a fine of £ a head; and that (what creates more suspicion than anything) the policy of parties is unduly influenced by the subscribers of large amounts to secret party funds. i am a profound believer in organised parties as essential to the working of our system. but i also believe that there is real substance in these complaints, though they are often exaggerated. what is the remedy? first, smaller majorities, and a greater independence of the individual member, which would follow from a change in the methods of election. and, secondly, publicity of accounts in regard to party funds. there is no reason why an honest party should be ashamed of receiving large gifts for the public ends it serves, and every reason why it should be proud of receiving a multitude of small gifts. i very strongly hold that in politics, as in industry, the best safeguard against dishonest dealings, and the surest means of restoring confidence, is to be found in the policy of "cards on the table." is there any reason why we liberals should not begin by boldly adopting, in our own case, this plainly liberal policy? representation of "interests" there is a third reason for dissatisfaction with the composition of the house of commons, which has become more prominent in recent years. it is that, increasingly, organised interests are making use of the deficiencies of our electoral system to secure representation for themselves. if i may take as instances two men whom, in themselves, everybody would recognise as desirable members of the house, mr. j.h. thomas plainly is, and is bound to think of himself as, a representative of the railwaymen rather than of the great community of derby, while sir allan smith as plainly represents engineering employers rather than croydon. there used to be a powerful trade which chose as its motto "our trade is our politics." most of us have regarded that as an unsocial doctrine, yet the growing representation of interests suggests that it is being widely adopted. indeed, there are some who contend that we ought frankly to accept this development and universalise it, basing our political organisation upon what they describe (in a blessed, mesopotamic phrase) as "functional representation." the doctrine seems to have, for some minds, a strange plausibility. but is it not plain that it could not be justly carried out? who could define or enumerate the "functions" that are to be represented? if you limit them to economic functions (as, in practice, the advocates of this doctrine do), will you provide separate representation, for example, for the average-adjusters--a mere handful of men, who nevertheless perform a highly important function? but you cannot thus limit functions to the economic sphere without distorting your representation of the national mind and will. if you represent miners merely as miners, you misrepresent them, for they are also baptists or anglicans, dog-fanciers, or lovers of shelley, prize-fighters, or choral singers. the notion that you can represent the mind of the nation on a basis of functions is the merest moonshine. the most you can hope for is to get a body of men and women who will form a sort of microcosm of the more intelligent mind of the nation, and trust to it to control your government. such a body will consist of men who follow various trades. but the conditions under which they are chosen ought to be such as to impress upon them the duty of thinking of the national interest as a whole in the first instance, and of their trade interests only as they are consistent with that. the fundamental danger of functional representation is that it reverses this principle, and impresses upon the representative the view that his trade is his politics. but it is useless to deplore or condemn a tendency unless you see how it can be checked. why has this representation of economic interests become so strong? because parliament is the arena in which important industrial problems are discussed and settled. it is not a very good body for that purpose. if we had a national industrial council charged, not with the final decision, but with the most serious and systematic discussion of such problems, they would be more wisely dealt with. and, what is quite as important, such a body would offer precisely the kind of sphere within which the representation of interests as such would be altogether wholesome and useful; and, once it became the main arena of discussion, it would satisfy the demand for interest-representation, which is undermining the character of parliament. in other words, the true alternative to functional representation in parliament is functional devolution under the supreme authority of parliament. but still more important than the dissatisfaction aroused by the composition of the house is the dissatisfaction which is due to the belief that its functions are very inefficiently performed. it is widely believed that, instead of controlling government, parliament is in fact controlled by it. the truth is that the functions imposed upon parliament by increased legislative activity and the growth of the sphere of government are so vast and multifarious that no part of them _can_ be adequately performed in the course of sessions of reasonable length; and if the sessions are not of reasonable length--already they are too long--we shall be deprived of the services of many types of men without whom the house would cease to be genuinely representative of the mind of the nation. consider how the three main functions of parliament are performed--legislation, finance, and the control of administration. the discussion of legislation by the whole house has been made to seem futile by the crack of the party whip, by obstruction, and by the weapons designed to deal with obstruction--the closure, the guillotine, the kangaroo. a real amendment has been brought about in this sphere by the establishment of a system of committees to which legislative proposals of various kinds are referred, and this is one of the most hopeful features of recent development. but there is still one important sphere of legislation in which drastic reform is necessary: the costly and cumbrous methods of dealing with private bills promoted by municipalities or by railways and other public companies. it is surely necessary that the bulk of this work should be devolved upon subordinate bodies. when we pass to finance, the inefficiency of parliamentary control becomes painfully clear. it is true that a good deal of parliamentary time is devoted to the discussion of the estimates. but how much of this time is given to motions to reduce the salary of the foreign secretary by £ in order to call attention to what is happening in china? parliament never, in fact, attempts any searching analysis of the expenditure in this department or that. it cannot do so, because the national accounts are presented in a form which makes such discussion very difficult. the establishment of an estimates committee is an advance. but even an estimates committee cannot do such work without the aid of a whole series of special bodies intimately acquainted with the working of various departments. in short, the house of commons has largely lost control over national expenditure. as for the control of administration, we have already seen how inadequate that is, and why it is inadequate. these deficiencies must be corrected if parliament is to regain its prestige, and if our system of government is to attain real efficiency. for this purpose two things are necessary: in the first place, substantial changes in the procedure of parliament; in the second place, the delegation to subordinate bodies of such powers as can be appropriately exercised by them without impairing the supreme authority of parliament as the mouthpiece of the nation. i cannot here attempt to discuss these highly important matters in any detail. in regard to procedure, i can only suggest that the most valuable reform would be the institution of a series of committees each concerned with a different department of government. the function of these committees would be to investigate and criticise the organisation and normal working of the departments, not to deal with questions of broad policy; for these ought to be dealt with in relation to national policy as a whole, and they must, therefore, be the concern of the minister and of the cabinet, subject to the overriding authority of parliament as a whole. in order to secure that this distinction is maintained, and in order to avoid the defects of the french committee system under which independent _rapporteurs_ disregard and override the authority of the ministers, and thus gravely undermine their responsibility, it would be necessary not only that each committee should include a majority of supporters of government, but that the chair should be occupied by the minister or his deputy. devolution nor can i stop to dwell upon the very important subject of the delegation or devolution of powers by parliament to subordinate bodies. i will only say that devolution may be, and i think ought to be, of two kinds, which we may define as regional and functional. to regional bodies for large areas (which might either be directly elected or constituted by indirect election from the local government authorities within each area) might be allotted much of the legislative power of parliament in regard to private bills, together with general control over those public functions, such as education and public health, which are now mainly in the hands of local authorities. of functional devolution the most important expression would be the establishment of a national industrial council and of a series of councils or boards for various industries endowed with quasi-legislative authority; by which i mean that they should be empowered by statute to draft proposals for legislation of a defined kind, which would ultimately receive their validity from parliament, perhaps without necessarily passing through the whole of the elaborate process by which ordinary legislation is enacted. i believe there are many who share my conviction that a development in this direction represents the healthiest method of introducing a real element of industrial self-government. but for the moment we are concerned with it as a means of relieving parliament from some very difficult functions which parliament does not perform conspicuously well, without qualifying its supreme and final authority. one final point. if it is true, as i have argued, that the decay of the prestige and efficiency of parliament is due to the fact that it is already overloaded with functions and responsibilities, it must be obvious that to add to this burden the responsibility for controlling the conduct of great industries, such as the railways and the mines, would be to ensure the breakdown of our system of government, already on the verge of dislocation. in so far as it may be necessary to undertake on behalf of the community the ownership and conduct of any great industrial or commercial concern, i submit that it is essential that it should not be brought under the direct control of a ministerial department responsible to parliament. yet the ultimate responsibility for the right conduct of any such undertaking (_e.g._ the telephones, electric supply, or forests) must, when it is assumed by the state, rest upon parliament. how is this ultimate responsibility to be met? surely in the way in which it is already met in the case of the ecclesiastical commissioners or the port of london authority--by setting up, under an act of parliament, an appropriate body in each case, and by leaving to it a large degree of freedom of action, subject to the terms of the act and to the inalienable power of parliament to alter the act. in such a case the act could define how the authority should be constituted, on what principles its functions should be performed, and how its profits, if it made profits, should be distributed. and i suggest that there is no reason why the post office itself should not be dealt with in this way. it is only a fleeting and superficial survey which i have been able to give of the vast and complex themes on which i have touched; and there is no single one of them with which i have been able to deal fully. my purpose has been to show that in the political sphere as well as in the social and economic spheres vast tasks lie before liberalism, and, indeed, that our social and economic tasks are not likely to be efficiently performed unless we give very serious thought to the political problem. among the heavy responsibilities which lie upon our country in the troubled time upon which we are entering, there is none more heavy than the responsibility which rests upon her as the pioneer of parliamentary government--the responsibility of finding the means whereby this system may be made a respected and a trustworthy instrument for the labours of reconstruction that lie before us. the state and industry by w.t. layton m.a., c.h., c.b.e.; editor of the _economist_, ; formerly member of munitions council, and director of economic and financial section of the league of nations; director of welwyn garden city; fellow of gonville and caius college, cambridge, . mr. layton said:--the existing system of private enterprise has been seriously attacked on many grounds. for my present purpose i shall deal with four: ( ) the critic points to the extreme differences of wealth and poverty which have emerged from this system of private enterprise; ( ) it has produced and is producing to-day recurrent periods of depression which result in insecurity and unemployment for the worker; ( ) the critics say the system is producing great aggregations of capital and monopolies, and that by throwing social power into the hands of those controlling the capital of the country, it leads to exploitation of the many by industrial and financial magnates; ( ) it produces a chronic state of internal war which saps industrial activity and the economic life of the community. i shall not attempt to minimise the force of these objections; but in order to get our ideas into correct perspective it should be observed that the first two of these features are not new phenomena arising out of our industrial system. you find extreme inequalities of distribution in practically all forms of society--in the slave state, the feudal state, in india and in china to-day. nor is this the first period of history in which there has been insecurity. if you look at any primitive community, and note the effect of harvest fluctuations and the inevitable famine following upon them, you will recognise that the variations of fortune which affect such communities are more disastrous in their effect than the trade variations of the modern world. but after all qualifications have been made these four indictments are sufficiently serious and must be met, for it is these and similar considerations which have driven many to desire the complete abolition of the system. some wish to abolish private property, and desire a communist solution. others practically attack the system of private enterprise, and wish to substitute either the community in some form or another (_e.g._ state socialism), or some corporate form of industry (_e.g._ guild socialism). the liberal bias liberals, on the other hand, reject these solutions, and desire not to end the present system but to mend it. the grounds for this conclusion need to be clearly expressed, for after all it is the fundamental point of doctrine which distinguishes them from the labour party. in the first place, there is the fact that liberals attach a special importance to the liberty of the individual. the general relation of the individual to the state is rather outside my subject, but we start from the fact that the bias of liberals is towards liberty in every sphere, on the ground that spiritual and intellectual progress is greatest where individuality is least restricted by authority or convention. variety, originality in thought and action, are the vital virtues for the liberal. it is still true that "in this age the mere example of nonconformity, the mere refusal to bow the knee to custom, is itself a service." the liberal who no longer feels at the bottom of his heart a sympathy with the rebel who chafes against the institutions of society, whether religious, political, social or economic, is well on the road to the other camp. but the dynamic force of liberty, that great motive power of progress, though a good servant, may be a bad master; and the perennial problem of society is to harmonise its aims with those of the common good. when we come to the more specific problem of industry, which is our immediate concern, a glance at history shows that the era of most rapid economic progress the world has ever seen has been the era of the greatest freedom of the individual from statutory control in economic affairs. the features of the last hundred years have been the rapidity of development in industrial technique, and constant change in the form of industrial organisation and in the direction of the world's trade. could any one suppose that in these respects industry, under the complete control of the state or of corporations representing large groups of wage earners and persons engaged in trade, could have produced a sufficiently elastic system to have permitted that progress to be made? in reply to this it may be said that though this was true during the industrial revolution, it does not apply to-day; that our industries have become organised; that methods of production, population, and economic conditions generally are stabilised, and that we can now settle down to a new and standard form of industrial organisation. but this agreement is based on false premises. the industrial revolution is far from complete. we are to-day in the full flood of it. look at the changes in the last four decades--the evolution of electricity, the development of motor transport, or the discoveries in the chemical and metallurgical industries. consider what lies ahead; the conquest of the air, the possible evolution of new sources of power, and a hundred other phases which are opening up in man's conquest of nature, and you will agree that we are still at the threshold of industrial revolution. i may mention here a consideration which applies practically to great britain. we are a great exporting country, living by international trade, the world's greatest retail shopkeeper whose business is constantly changing in character and direction. the great structure of international commerce on which our national life depends is essentially a sphere in which elasticity is of the utmost importance, and in which standardised or stereotyped methods of control of production or exchange would be highly disastrous. liberal policy, therefore, aims at keeping the field of private enterprise in business as wide as possible. but in the general discussion of political or personal liberty in economic affairs, we have to consider how far and in what way the freedom of private enterprise needs to be limited or curtailed for the common good. we must solve that problem. for liberals there is no inherent sanctity in the conceptions of private property, or of private enterprise. they will survive, and we can support them only so long as they appear to work better in the public interest than any possible alternatives. retrospect and prospect my object, then, is to show how a system which embodies a large amount of private enterprise can be made tolerable and acceptable to modern ideas of equity. for this purpose we need to consider ( ) what have we done in that direction in the past? ( ) what is the setting of the economic problem to-day, and ( ) what is to be our policy for the future? dealing first with wealth and wages, the whole field of social legislation has a bearing upon them, including particularly education, elementary and technical, the factory acts, and a great mass of legislation which has affected the earning powers of the worker and the conditions under which he labours. just before the war we had come to the point of fixing a minimum wage in the mines, but an even more important factor was that we had introduced the trade board system, which had begun to impose a minimum wage in certain trades where wages were particularly low. but the most important direct attack upon the unequal distribution of wealth was by taxation in accordance with the liberal policy of a graduated and differential income-tax, and still more important by taxes upon inheritance; for it has long been recognised that though it may be desirable to allow men to accumulate great wealth during their lifetime, it by no means follows that they should be entitled to control the distribution of wealth in the next generation and launch their children on the world with a great advantage over their fellows of which they may be quite unworthy. on the question of insecurity it cannot be said that any serious attack has been made on the problem of how to diminish fluctuations of trade, but again the liberal solution for dealing with that difficulty was to remedy not the cause but its effects by insurance. on the question of monopolies and exploitation, though we hear a great deal of the growth of capitalistic organisation, in fact we find that, of the three greatest industrial countries in the world, great britain is the least trust-ridden, mainly because of its free trade system. in the case of enterprises not subject to foreign competition, we had begun to develop a fairly satisfactory system of control of public utility services which were of a monopolistic character. finally, there had been growing up a complete system of collective bargaining and conciliation, and though we always heard of it whenever there was dispute and strife, the ordinary public did not know that this machinery was working and developing in many great and important industries a feeling of co-operation or at all events of conciliation between the two sides. i only mention these points very briefly in passing in order to show that with the evolution of modern industry we were already feeling our way, haltingly and far too slowly, it is true, towards a solution of its most serious defects. turning to the present situation, we have to face the fact that great britain is to-day faced with one of the most serious positions in its economic history. we must make allowances for the readily understood pessimism of a miners' leader, but it should arrest attention that mr. frank hodges has recently described the present situation as the coming of the great famine in england. for nearly two decades before the war there was occurring a slight fall in the real wages of british workpeople. food was becoming dearer, as the world's food supply was not increasing as fast as the world's industrial population, and the industrial workers of the world had, therefore, to offer more of their product to secure the food they needed. hence the cost of living was rising faster than wages, except in trades where great technical advances were being made. there is some reason to fear that the war may have accentuated this tendency. for some years the distant countries of the world have had to do without european manufactured goods. you are all aware of the tendency, for example, of india, australia, and canada to develop their own steel resources and to create manufacturing industries of all kinds. moreover, we have lost part of our hold on the food-producing countries of the world by the sale of our capital investments in those countries to pay for the war. these and other considerations all suggest that we may find it increasingly difficult to maintain our position as one of the main suppliers of the manufactured goods of the world. in such circumstances we shall be hard put to it to maintain, far less raise, the pre-war standard of living. how then are we to cope with this problem of retaining our economic position? we can only hope to do it if the present financial difficulties and obstructions working through the exchanges, by which international commerce is restricted and constrained, are removed. we can only do it if and so long as the conception of international division of labour is maintained. and we can only do it if--granted that we can induce the world to accept this principle of international division of labour--we can prove ourselves, by our economic and productive efficiency, to be the best and cheapest producer of those classes of goods in which our skilled labour and fixed capital is invested. assuming the financial difficulty is overcome, and that the old régime of international specialisation revives, can we still show to the world that it is more profitable for them to buy goods and services from us than from other people? can we compete with other industrial countries of the world? the actual output of our labour in most cases is far less than its potential capacity, partly because of technical conservatism, and partly for reasons connected with the labour situation. how are we to mobilise these reserve resources. i have only space to deal with the second of these problems. in germany labour is well disciplined, and has the military virtues of persistence and obedience to orders in the factory. but we cannot hope to call forth the utmost product of our labouring population by drill-sergeant methods. in america this problem is a different one, because the american employer is often able to take full advantage of his economic position. for he has a labouring population of mixed nationality, which does not readily combine, and he can play off one section against the other. british employers cannot, if they would, deal with british labour on the principle of divide and rule. there is only one method by which we can hope to call forth this great reserve capacity of british labour, and that is by securing its confidence. if free trade is one of the legs on which british prosperity rests, the other is goodwill and active co-operation between the workman and his employer. how is that goodwill to be gained? the solution of that problem is only partly in the hands of the politician; that is one of the reasons why it is extremely difficult to suggest an industrial policy which is going to hold out the hope of reaching utopia in a short time. but it is obviously essential somehow or another to develop, particularly among employers, the sense of trusteeship--the sense that a man who controls a large amount of capital is in fact not merely an individual pursuing his own fortune, but is taking the very great responsibility of controlling a fragment of the nation's industrial resources. and we have also to develop a conception of partnership and joint enterprise between employer and employed. state ownership: for and against what policy in the political field can be adopted to further these objects? reverting once more to the fourfold division which i made at the outset, but taking the points in a different order, there is first the question whether there should be a great extension of state ownership, management, or control of monopolies and big business. in spite of the experience of the war, i suggest tentatively that no case has been made out for any wide or general extension of the field of state management in industry. this, however, is not a matter of principle, but of expediency, where each case must be considered on its merits. liberals should, indeed, keep an open mind in this connection and not be afraid to face an enlargement of the field of state management from time to time. there are, however, two special cases to be considered: the mines and the railways. as to the mines, the solution mr. mcnair puts forward is on characteristically liberal lines, because it will endeavour to harmonise the safeguarding of the interests of the state with the maximum freedom to private enterprise and the maximum scope for variety in methods of management. as to transport, we have recently passed an act altering the form of control of british railways. personally i think the question whether railways should or should not be nationalised is very much on the balance. it is obviously one of the questions where objections to state management are less serious than in most other cases. on the other hand, we may be able to find methods of control which may be even better than state management. i do not think the act of last year fulfils the conditions which liberals would have imposed on the railways, for the principle of guaranteeing to a monopoly a fixed income practically without any means of securing its efficiency, is the wrong way to control a public utility service. if we are going to leave public utilities in the hands of private enterprise, the principle must be applied that profit should vary in proportion to the services rendered to the community. in this connection the old gas company principle developed before the war is an admirable one. under it the gas companies were allowed to increase their dividends in proportion as they lowered their prices to the community. that is a key principle, and some adaptation of it is required wherever such services are left in private hands. my own view is that an amended form of railway control should first be tried, and if that fails we should be prepared for some form of nationalisation. trusts and monopolies but if we refuse at present to enlarge the sphere of state management, we are still faced with the problem of dealing with trusts and monopolies. in this matter, as in so many other instances, the right policy has already been worked out. under the stimulating conditions which obtained during the war, when old-established methods of thought had been rudely shaken, progressive ideas had unusually free play; and you will find in the general economic policy adumbrated during and immediately after the war much that liberals are looking for. on this question of monopolies, we should put into force the recommendation of the committee on trusts of , with one qualification. the policy i suggest is the policy of the majority, namely, that we should give very much enlarged powers of inquiry to the board of trade, and that a tribunal should be set up by which investigations could be made. but i would go further, and, taking one item from the minority report, i would add that either to this tribunal or to the board of trade department concerned there should be given in reserve the power in special cases to regulate prices. i do not think it would be necessary often to use that power, indeed the mere inquiry and publicity of results would be sufficient to modify the action of monopolies. but such a power in reserve, even though price-fixing in ordinary circumstances is usually mischievous and to be deprecated, would have a very salutary effect. in the case of public utilities of a standard kind, into which the element of buying and selling profits does not greatly enter, we should endeavour to start the experiment of putting representatives of the workpeople on the boards of directors, but in carefully selected cases, and not as a general rule. my own view is that if we are ready with the machinery of investigation, and are prepared to deal in these ways with public utilities at home where foreign competition is absent, we have little to fear from trusts. distribution as regards distribution and wages, in the first place we should adhere to our traditional policy, developing the system of differential and graduated taxation, and we should be prepared, if unequal distribution of wealth continues, to limit further the right of inheritance. this is not a new liberal doctrine: it is many decades old. on the question of wages we have to recognise that unless we can secure an increase in terms of food and other commodities of the national production the state cannot radically modify the general standard of living in the country; or by administrative action raise the level of wages which economic conditions are imposing on us. but the state can and should enforce a minimum in certain industries, provided that minimum is reasonably in harmony with the competitive level of wages. such action can prevent workers whose economic position is not a strong one--and this applies particularly to many women's employment--from being compelled to accept wages substantially less than the current standard. i therefore welcome the gradual extension of the trade board system, provided it follows the general principle recommended in the cave report--that the community should use its full powers of compulsion only in regard to the minimum, and that so far as all other classes of wages are concerned, the state should encourage collective bargaining. with this proviso, compulsory enforcement of a minimum could also be extended to the workpeople covered by whitley councils. as regards all wages above the minimum the cave committee recommended that, provided they are reached by agreement on the board, and provided that a sufficiently large proportion of the board concur, the wage so determined shall be enforced by civil process, whereas in the cases of the minimum, the rates would be determined if necessary by arbitration of the state-appointed members of the board, and non-payment would be a penal offence. the trade boards now cover three million workers. two million are in occupations for which trade boards are under consideration, and there are a further two million under industrial councils or whitley councils. if state powers are to be employed in trades employing seven millions of the eighteen million wage-earners of the country, the scope of those powers needs to be very carefully defined. the case for profit-sharing many liberals are, however, asking whether this is sufficient and whether it is not possible for the state to intervene to alter the distribution of the product of industry in favour of the wage-earner. in particular, they are wondering whether it is possible to secure the universal application of some system of profit-sharing. the underlying principle of profit-sharing is indeed one which we must look to if the whole-hearted assistance of labour is to be enlisted behind the productive effort of the country. but the profit we have to consider is the profit over which the worker has some influence. there is no merit in inviting him to share in purely commercial profits or losses which may be due to some one else's speculation or business foresight. it is futile to imagine you can reverse the functions of labour and capital, and say that capital should have a fixed wage, and that the employee should bear all the risks of the industry. again, in some cases it is suitable that profits should be considered in regard to a whole industry, but in others only in regard to a particular firm or section; and finally the rate of profit suitable to various trades varies between very wide limits. in short, there can be no universal rule in this matter which can be enforced by act of parliament. nevertheless, we must all desire to proceed along the lines of associating the pecuniary interests of the worker in the success of the enterprise, and if any one can suggest a way in which direct assistance to that end can be given by political action, as distinct from industrial, he will be doing a great service. i may add that there is an argument in favour of profit-sharing which is of the utmost importance and which was recently expressed by a prominent industrialist: who declared to me that at long last and after much opposition he has come round to believe in profit-sharing, _because it enables him to show his men the balance sheet_. the solution adopted last year in the mining industry contains the sort of elements we wish to see adopted in principle. the men are given, through their officials, the results of the industry. they see that they cannot get more than the industry can pay, and though the present economic conditions are putting the men in a desperate state to-day, the miners, who were often regarded before the war as the most pugnacious in the country, are not burning their employers' houses, but are studying how the economic conditions of the industry can be improved for the benefit of themselves and their employers. industrial publicity this brings me to the question of publicity, which is at the root of the whole problem. we desire the principle of private enterprise to remain. the one thing that can destroy it is secrecy. we argue that the self-interest of the investor makes capital flow into those channels where economic conditions need it most. but how can the investor know where it should go when the true financial condition of great industrial companies is a matter of guesswork? again, we rely upon our bankers to check excessive industrial fluctuations. how can they do this if they do not know the facts of production? the public should know what great combines are doing, but they do not know; and how can we expect the man in the street to be satisfied when his mind is filled with suspicions that can be neither confirmed nor removed? it is of the utmost importance to seek for greater publicity on two main lines. the illustration of the mines suggests one--production and wage data. there are only three industries in this country--coal, steel, and ships--in which production statistics exist. i suggest that in many of our great staple industries a few simple data with regard to production should be published promptly, say every three months. the data i have in mind are the wages bill, the cost of materials, and the value of the product. it is desirable that this should be done, and i believe it can be done, for almost every great industry in the country. these three facts alone will bring the whole wages discussion down to earth. then on finance, i suggest that one of the first things a liberal government should do should be to appoint a commission to overhaul the whole of our company law. this is not the occasion to enter in detail into a highly technical problem. but i would call attention to the following points: there is no compulsion on any joint-stock company to publish a balance sheet. it is almost the universal practice to do so; but as it is not an obligation, the company law lays down no rules as to what published balance sheets must contain. again, the difference between private and public companies must be considered; a private company which employs a great mass of capital and large numbers of work-people--a concern which may cover a whole town or district--should in the public interest be subject to the same rules as a public company. thirdly, in view of the amalgamation of industry, the linking up of company with company, there must be reconsideration as regards publicity in the case of subsidiary companies. finally, i think we have been wrong in assuming that a law applicable to a company with a modest little capital is suitable to regulate the publicity of a great combine controlling tens of millions of capital. some attempt should therefore be made to differentiate between what must be told by the big and by the little concerns respectively. i am well aware of the myriad difficulties that this demand for publicity will encounter. but difficulties exist to be overcome. and they must be overcome, for of this i feel certain: that if the system of private enterprise dies, it will be because the canker of secrecy has eaten into its vitals. a national industrial council i have left very little time for dealing specifically with the question of industrial relations, though much that i have said has a bearing upon it. there has been great disappointment with the results of the whitley council movement. many thought they were going to bring in a new era. but they have not lived up to these hopes, firstly, because they came into being at a time of unexampled economic difficulty, and, secondly, because they were introduced into industries where there was no tradition of co-operative action--being established mainly in industries lying between the entirely unorganised and the highly organised trades. but we must persist in encouraging whitley councils, and still more in the associated objective of encouraging works committees. the basis of industrial peace is in the individual works. co-operation cannot be created by act of parliament, but depends upon the development of opinion among employers and workmen. starting from works councils up through the whitley council, trade boards, or national trade union machinery for the negotiation of wages, we arrive at the national industrial council, which is the point at which the government can most directly assist the movement towards more cordial relations. the plan of this council is ready. it was proposed and developed in , and i personally do not want to change that plan very much. but i think it is of the utmost importance that we should embody in our liberal programme the institution of a national industrial council or parliament representing the trade organisations on both sides. whether it should represent the consumers, i, personally, am doubtful. it should be consulted before economic and particularly industrial legislation is introduced into parliament. it should be the forum on which we should get a much better informed discussion of industrial problems than is possible in parliament or through any other agency in the country. the national council also needs to have specific work to do. i would be prepared to see transferred to it many of the functions of the ministry of labour, or rather that it should be made obligatory for the minister of labour to consult this council on such questions as whether it should hold a compulsory inquiry into an industrial dispute. i would also throw upon it the duty of advising parliament exactly how my proposals as to publicity are to be carried out, and would give it responsibility for the ministry of labour index figures of the cost of living upon which so many industrial agreements depend. i believe if we could set out a series of specific functions to give the plan vitality, in addition to the more nebulous duty of advising the government on industrial questions, we should have created an important device for promoting the mutual confidence of which i have spoken. the suggestions i have made are perhaps not very new, but they seem to me to be in the natural line of evolution of liberal traditions. above all, if they are accepted they should be pursued unflinchingly and persevered with, not as a concession to this or that section which may happen to be strong at the moment, but as a corporate policy, which aims at combining the interests of us all in securing increased national wealth with justice to the component classes of the commonwealth. the regulation of wages by professor l.t. hobhouse professor of sociology, london university. professor hobhouse said:--the wages, hours, and general conditions of industrial workers are of interest to the community from two points of view. so far as the less skilled and lower paid workers are concerned, it is to the interest and it is the duty of the community to protect them from oppression, and to secure that every one of its members, who is willing and able to contribute honest and industrious work to the service of others, should be able in return to gain the means of a decent and civilised life. in this relation the establishment of a minimum wage is analogous to the restriction of hours or the provision for safety and health secured by factory legislation, and carries forward the provision for a minimum standard of life. the problem is to determine upon the minimum and adjust its enforcement to the conditions of trade in such wise as to avoid industrial dislocation and consequent unemployment. with regard to workers of higher skill, who command wages or salaries on a more generous scale, the interest of the community is of a different kind. such workers hardly stand in need of any special protection. they are well able to take care of themselves, and sometimes through combination are, in fact, the stronger party in the industrial bargain. in this region the interest of the community lies in maintaining industrial peace and securing the maximum of goodwill and co-operation. the intervention of the community in industrial disputes, however, has never been very popular with either party in the state. both sides to a dispute are inclined to trust to their own strength, and are only ready to submit to an impartial judgment when convinced that they are momentarily the weaker. nor is it easy when we once get above the minimum to lay down any general principles which a court of arbitration could apply in grading wages. for these reasons the movement for compulsory arbitration has never in this country advanced very far. we have an industrial court which can investigate a dispute, find a solution which commends itself as reasonable, and publish its finding, but without any power of enforcement. the movement has for the present stuck there, and is likely to take a long time to get further. yet every one recognises the damage inflicted by industrial disputes, and would admit in the abstract the desirability of a more rational method of settlement than that of pitting combination against combination. such a method may, i would suggest, grow naturally out of the system which has been devised for the protection of unskilled and unorganised workers, of which a brief account may now be given. the establishment of trade boards utilising experience gained in australia, parliament in passed an act empowering the board of trade (now the ministry of labour) to establish a trade board in any case where the rate of wages prevailing in any branch was "exceptionally low as compared with that in other employments." the board consisted of a number of persons selected by the minister as representatives of employers, an equal number as representatives of the workers, with a chairman and generally two colleagues not associated with the trade, and known as the appointed members. these three members hold a kind of casting vote, and can in general secure a decision if the sides disagree. no instruction was given in the statute as to the principles on which the board should determine wages, but the board has necessarily in mind on the one side the requirements of the worker, and on the other the economic position of the trade. the workers' representatives naturally emphasise the one aspect and the employers the other, but the appointed members and the board as a whole must take account of both. they must consider what the trade in general can afford to pay and yet continue to prosper and to give full employment to the workers. they must also consider the rate at which the worker can pay his way and live a decent, civilised life. mere subsistence is not enough. it is a cardinal point of economic justice that a well-organised society will enable a man to earn the means of living as a healthy, developed, civilised being by honest and useful service to the community. i would venture to add that in a perfectly organised society he would not be able--charitable provision apart--to make a living by any other method. there is nothing in these principles to close the avenues to personal initiative or to deny a career to ability and enterprise. on the contrary, it is a point of justice that such qualities should have their scope, but not to the injury of others. for this, i suggest with confidence to a liberal audience, is the condition by which all liberty must be defined.[ ] [footnote : i may perhaps be allowed to refer to my _elements of social justice_, allen & unwin, , for the fuller elaboration of these principles.] if we grant that it is the duty of the boards to aim at a decent minimum--one which in mr. seebohm rowntree's phrase would secure the "human needs" of labour--we have still some very difficult points of principle and of detail to settle. first and foremost, do we mean the needs of the individual worker or of a family, and if of the latter, how large a family? it has been generally thought that a man's wages should suffice for a family on the ground that there ought to be no economic compulsion--though there should be full legal and social liberty--for the mother to eke out deficiencies in the father's payment by going out to work. it has also been thought that a woman is not ordinarily under a similar obligation to maintain a family, so that her "human needs" would be met by a wage sufficient to maintain herself as an independent individual. these views have been attacked as involving a differentiation unfair in the first instance to women, but in the second instance to men, because opening a way to undercutting. the remedy proposed is public provision for children under the industrial age, and for the mother in return for her work in looking after them. with this subvention, it is conceived, the rates for men or women might be equalised on the basis of a sufficiency for the individual alone. this would certainly simplify the wages question, but at the cost of a serious financial question. i do not, myself, think that "human needs" can be fully met without the common provision of certain essentials for children. one such essential--education, has been long recognised as too costly to be put upon the wages of the worker. we may find that we shall have to add to the list if we are to secure to growing children all that the community would desire for them. on the other hand, the main responsibility for directing its own life should be left to each family, and this carries the consequence, that the adult-man's wage should be based not on personal but on family requirements. women's wages but the supposed injustice to woman is illusory. trade boards will not knowingly fix women's rates at a point at which they can undercut men. nor if women are properly represented on them will they fix their rates at a point at which women will be discarded in favour of male workers. in industries where both sexes are employed, if the women workers are of equal value with the men in the eyes of the employer, they will receive equal pay; if of less value, then, but only then, proportionately less pay. it is because women have received not proportionately but quite disproportionately less pay that they have been undercutting men, and the trade boards are--very gradually, i admit--correcting this error. for well-known historical reasons women have been at an economic disadvantage, and their work has secured less than its worth as compared with the work of men. the tendency of any impartial adjustment of wages is to correct this disadvantage, because any such system will attempt to secure equality of opportunity for employment for all the classes with which it is dealing. but it is admitted that there is a "lag" in women's wages which has been but partially made good. if the standard wage must provide for a family, what must be the size of the family? discussion on the subject generally assumes a "statistical" family of man and wife and three children under age. this is criticised on the ground that it does not meet the human needs of larger families and is in excess for smaller ones. the reply to this is that a general rate can only meet general needs. calculation easily shows that the minimum suited for three children is by no means extravagant if there should be but two children or only one, while it gives the bachelor or newly married couple some small chance of getting a little beforehand with the world. on the other hand, it is impossible to cater on general principles for the larger needs of individuals. the standard wage gives an approximation to what is needed for the ordinary family, and the balance must be made good by other provision, whether public or private i will not here discuss. i conclude that for adult men the minimum is reasonably fixed at a figure which would meet the "human needs" of a family of five, and that for women it should be determined by the value of their services relatively to that of men.[ ] [footnote : i am assuming that this value is sufficient to cover the needs of the independent woman worker. if not, these needs must also be taken into account. as a fact both considerations are present to the minds of the trade boards. a board would not willingly fix a wage which would either (_a_) diminish the opportunity of women to obtain employment, or (_b_) enable them to undercut men, or (_c_) fail to provide for them if living alone.] how far have trade boards actually succeeded in fixing such a minimum? mr. seebohm rowntree has put forward two sets of figures based on pre-war prices, and, of course, requiring adjustment for the changes that have subsequently taken place. one of these figures was designed for a subsistence wage, the other for a "human needs" wage. the latter was a figure which mr. rowntree himself did not expect to see reached in the near future. i have compared these figures with the actual minima for unskilled workers fixed by the boards during and , and i find that the rates fixed are intermediate between the two. the subsistence rate is passed, but the higher rate not attained, except for some classes of skilled workers. the boards have in general proceeded with moderation, but the more serious forms of underpayment have been suppressed so far as inspection has been adequately enforced. the ratio of the female to the male minimum averages . per cent., which may seem unduly low, but it must be remembered that in the case of women's wages a much greater leeway had to be made good, and there can be little doubt that the increases secured for female workers considerably exceeded those obtained for men. the question of a single minimum criticism of trade boards has fastened on their power to determine higher rates of wages for skilled workers, one of the additional powers that they secured under the act of . there are many who agree that a bare minimum should be fixed by a statutory authority with legal powers, but think that this should be the beginning and end of law's interference. as to this, it must be said, first, that the wide margin between a subsistence wage and a human needs wage, brought out by mr. rowntree's calculations, shows that there can be no question at present of a single minimum. to give the "human needs" figure legislative sanction would at present be utopian. very few trade boards ventured so far even when trade was booming. the boards move in the region between bare subsistence and "human needs," as trade conditions allow, and can secure a better figure for some classes of their clients when they cannot secure it for all. they therefore need all the elasticity which the present law gives them. on the other hand, it is contended with some force by the cave committee that it is improper for appointed members to decide questions of relatively high wages for skilled men or for the law to enforce such wages by criminal proceedings, and the committee accordingly propose to differentiate between higher and lower minima both as regards the method of determination and of enforcement. i have not time here to discuss the details of their proposal, but i wish to say a word on the retention--if in some altered shape--of the powers given by the act of . the trade board system has been remarkable for the development of understanding and co-operation between representatives of employers and workers. particularly in the work of the administrative committees, matters of detail which might easily excite controversy and passion are habitually handled with coolness and good sense in the common interest of the trade. a number of the employers have not merely acquiesced in the system, but have become its convinced supporters, and this attitude would be more common if certain irritating causes of friction were removed. the employer who desires to treat his workers well and maintain good conditions is relieved from the competition of rivals who care little for these things, and what he is chiefly concerned about is simplicity of rules and rigid universality of enforcement. it is this section of employers who have prevented the crippling of the boards in a time of general reaction. it is blindness to refuse to see in such co-operation a possible basis of industrial peace, and those were right who in saw in the mechanism of the boards the possibility, not merely of preventing industrial oppression and securing a minimum living wage, but of advancing to a general regulation of industrial relations. at that time it was thought that the whole of industry might be divided between trade boards and whitley councils, the former for the less, the latter for the more organised trades. in the result the whitley councils have proved to be hampered if not paralysed by the lack of an independent element and of compulsory powers. trade boards holding the field the trade board holds the field as the best machinery for the determination of industrial conditions. it is better than unfettered competition, which leaves the weak at the mercy of the strong. it is better than the contest of armed forces, in which the battle is decided with no reference to equity, to permanent economic conditions, or to the general good, by the main strength of one combination or the other in the circumstances of the moment. it is better than a universal state-determined wages-law which would take no account of fluctuating industrial conditions, and better than official determinations which are exposed to political influences and are apt to ignore the technicalities which only the practical worker or employer understands. it is better than arbitration, which acts intermittently and incalculably from outside, and makes no call on the continuous co-operation of the trade itself. my hope is that as the true value of the trade board comes to be better understood, its powers, far from being jealously curtailed, or confined to the suppression of the worst form of underpayment, will be extended to skilled employments, and organised industries, and be used not merely to fulfil the duty of the community to its humblest members, but to serve its still wider interest in the development of peaceful industrial co-operation. unemployment by h.d. henderson m.a.; fellow of clare college, cambridge; lecturer in economics; secretary to the cotton control board from - . mr. henderson said:--from one point of view the existence of an unemployment problem is an enigma and a paradox. in a world, where even before the war the standard of living that prevailed among the mass of the people was only what it was, even in those countries which we termed wealthy, it seems at first sight an utterly astonishing anomaly that at frequent intervals large numbers of competent and industrious work-people should find no work to do. the irony of the situation cannot be more tersely expressed than in the words, which a man is supposed to have uttered as he watched a procession of unemployed men: "no work to do. set them to rebuild their own houses." but, if we reflect just a shade more deeply, nothing should surprise us less than unemployment. we have more reason for surprise that it is usually upon so small a scale. the economic system under which we live in the modern world is very peculiar and only our familiarity with it keeps us from perceiving how peculiar it is. in one sense it is highly organised; in another sense it is not organised at all. there is an elaborate differentiation of functions--the "division of labour," to give it its time-honoured name, under which innumerable men and women perform each small specialised tasks, which fit into one another with the complexity of a jig-saw puzzle, to form an integral whole. some men dig coal from the depths of the earth, others move that coal over land by rail and over the seas in ships, others are working in factories, at home and abroad, which consume that coal, or in shipyards which build the ships; and it is obvious, not to multiply examples further, that the numbers of men engaged on those various tasks must somehow be adjusted, _in due proportions_ to one another. it is no use, for instance, building more ships than are required to carry the stuff there is to carry. adjustment, co-ordination, must somehow be secured. well, how is it secured? who is it that ordains that, say, a million men shall work in the coal-mines, and , on the railways, and , in the shipyards, and so on? who apportions the nation's labour power between the innumerable different occupations, so as to secure that there are not too many and not too few engaged in any one of them relatively to the others? is it the prime minister, or the cabinet, or parliament, or the civil service? is it the trade union congress, or the federation of british industries, or does any one suppose that it is some hidden cabal of big business interests? no, there is no co-ordinator. there is no human brain or organisation responsible for fitting together this vast jig-saw puzzle; and, that being so, i say that what should really excite our wonder is the fact that that puzzle should somehow get fitted together, usually with so few gaps left unfilled and with so few pieces left unplaced. it would, indeed, be a miracle, if it were not for the fact that those old economic laws, whose impersonal forces of supply and demand, whose existence some people nowadays are inclined to dispute, or to regard as being in extremely bad taste, really do work in a manner after all. they are our co-ordinators, the only ones we have; and they do their work with much friction and waste, only by correcting a maladjustment after it has taken place, by slow and often cruel devices, of which one of the most cruel is, precisely, unemployment and all the misery it entails. the causes of trade depressions i do not propose to deal with such branches of the problem of unemployment as casual labour or seasonal fluctuations. i confine myself to what we all, i suppose, feel to be the really big problem, to unemployment which is not special to particular industries or districts, but which is common to them all, to a general depression of almost every form of business and industrial activity. general trade depressions are no new phenomenon, though the present depression is, of course, far worse than any we have experienced in modern times. they used to occur so regularly that long before the war people had come to speak of cyclical fluctuations, or to use a phrase which is now common, the trade cycle. that is a useful phrase, and a useful conception. it is well that we should realise, when we speak of those normal pre-war conditions, to which we hope some day to revert, that in a sense trade conditions never were normal; that, at any particular moment you care to take, we were either in full tide of a trade boom, with employment active and prices rising, and order books congested; or else right on the crest of the boom, when prices were no longer rising generally, though they had not yet commenced to fall, when employment was still good, but when new orders were no longer coming in; or else in the early stages of a depression, with prices falling, and every one trying to unload stocks and failing to do so, and works beginning to close down; or else right in the trough of the depression where we are to-day; that we were at one or other of the innumerable stages of the trade cycle, without any prospect of remaining there for very long, but always, as it were, in motion, going round and round and round. what are the root causes which bring every period of active trade to an inevitable end? there are two which are almost invariably present towards the end of every boom. first, the general level of prices and wages has usually become too high; it is straining against the limits of the available supplies of currency and credit, and, unless inflation is to be permitted, a restriction of credit is inevitable which will bring on a trade depression. in those circumstances, a reduction of the general level of prices and wages is an essential condition of a trade revival. a reduction of prices _and wages_. that point has a significance to which i will return. the second cause is the distorted balance which grows up in every boom between different branches of industrial activity. when trade is good, we invariably build ships, produce machinery, erect factories, make every variety of what are termed "constructional goods" upon a scale which is altogether disproportionate to the scale upon which we are making "consumable goods" like food and clothes. and that condition of things could not possibly endure for very long. if it were to continue indefinitely, it would lead in the end to our having, say, half a dozen ships for every ton of wheat or cotton which there was to carry. you have there a maladjustment, which must be corrected somehow; and the longer the readjustment is postponed, the bigger the readjustment that will ultimately be inevitable. now that means, first on the negative side, that, when you are confronted with a trade depression, it is hopeless to try to cure it by looking for some device by which you can give a general stimulus to all forms of industry. devices of that nature may be very useful in the later stages of a trade depression, when the necessary readjustments both of the price-level and of the relative outputs of different classes of commodities have already been effected, and when trade remains depressed only because people have not yet plucked up the necessary confidence to start things going again. but in the early stages of a depression, an indiscriminating stimulus to industry in general will serve only to perpetuate the maladjustments which are the root of the trouble. it will only put off the evil day, and make it worse when it comes. the problem is not one of getting everybody back to work on their former jobs. it is one of getting them set to work on the _right_ jobs; and that is a far more difficult matter. on the positive side, what this really comes to is, that if you wish to prevent depressions occurring you must prevent booms taking the form they do. you must prevent prices rising so much, and so many constructional goods being made during the period of active trade; and i am not going to pretend that that is an easy thing to do. it's all very well to say that the bankers, through their control of the credit system, might endeavour to guide industry and keep it from straying out of the proper channels. but the bankers would have to know much more than they do about these matters, and, furthermore, the problem is not merely a national one--it is a world-wide problem. it would be of little use to prevent an excess of ships being built here, if that only meant that still more ships were built, say, in the united states. i do not say that even now the banks might not do something which would help; still less do i wish to convey the impression that mankind must always remain passive and submissive, impotent to control these forces which so vitally affect his welfare. but i say that for any serious attempt to master this problem, the necessary detailed knowledge has still to be acquired, and the rudiments of organisation have still to be built up; and the problem is not one at this stage for policies and programmes. what you can do by means of policies and programmes lies, at present, in the sphere of international politics. in that sphere, though you cannot achieve all, you might achieve much. to reduce the problem to its pre-war dimensions would be no small result; and that represents a big enough objective, for the time being, for the concentration of our hardest thinking and united efforts. but into that sphere i am not going to enter. i pass to the problem of unemployment relief. the scale of relief the fundamental difficulty of the problem of relieving unemployment is a very old one. it turns upon what used to be called, ninety years ago, "the principle of less eligibility," the principle that the position of the man who is unemployed and receiving support from the community should be made upon the whole less eligible, less attractive than that of the man who is working and living upon the wages that he earns. that is a principle which has been exposed to much criticism and denunciation in these modern days. we are told that it is the false and antiquated doctrine of a hard-hearted and coarse-minded age, which thought that unemployment was usually a man's own fault, which saw a malingerer in every recipient of relief, which was obsessed by the bad psychology of pains and penalties and looked instinctively for a deterrent as the cure for every complex evil. but, however that may be, this principle of less eligibility is one which you cannot ignore. it is not merely or mainly a matter of the effect on the character of the workmen who receive relief. the danger that adequate relief will demoralise the recipient has, i agree, been grossly exaggerated in the past. prolonged unemployment is always in itself demoralising. but, given that a man is unemployed, it will not demoralise him more that he should receive adequate relief rather than inadequate relief or no relief at all. on the contrary, on balance, it will, i believe, demoralise him less. for nothing so unfits a man for work as that he should go half-starved, or lack the means to maintain the elementary decencies of life. but there are other considerations which you have to take into account. if you get a situation such that the man who loses his job becomes thereby much better-off than the man who remains at work, i do not say that the former man will necessarily be demoralised, but i do say that the latter man will become disgruntled. i do not want to put that consideration too high. at the present time there are many such anomalies; in a great many occupations, the wages that the men at work are receiving amount to much less than the money they would obtain if they lost their jobs and were labelled unemployed. but they have stuck to their jobs, they are carrying on, with a patience and good humour that are beyond all praise. yes, but that state of affairs is so anomalous, so contrary to our elementary sense of fairness that, as a permanent proposition it would prove intolerable. we cannot go on for ever with a system under which in many trades men receive much more when they are unemployed than when they are at work. on the other hand, the attempt to avoid such anomalies leads us, so long as we have a uniform scale of relief, against an alternative which is equally intolerable. wages vary greatly from trade to trade; and, if the scale of relief is not to exceed the wages paid in _any_ occupation it must be very low indeed. that is the root dilemma of the problem of unemployment relief--how if your scale of relief is not to be too high for equity and prudence it is not to be too low for humanity and decency. we have not, as some people imagine, done anything in recent years to escape from it, we have merely exchanged one horn of the dilemma for the other. in any satisfactory system the scale of relief must vary from occupation to occupation, in accordance with the normal standard of wages ruling in each case. but it is very difficult, in fact i think it would always be impracticable to do that under any system of relief, administered by the state, either the central government or the local authorities. it must be done on an industrial basis; each industry settling its own scale, finding its own money, and managing its own scheme. that is an idea which has received much ventilation in the last few years. but the really telling arguments in favour of it do not seem to me to have received sufficient stress. foremost among them i place the consideration i have just indicated: that in this way, and in this way alone, it becomes possible for work-people who receive high wages when they are at work, and where habits of expenditure and standards of family living are built up on that basis, to receive when unemployed, adequate relief without that leading to anomalies which in the long run would prove intolerable. but there are many other arguments. a model scheme from lancashire about five years ago i had the opportunity of witnessing at very close quarters the working of an unemployment scheme on an industrial basis. the great lancashire cotton industry was faced during the war with a very serious unemployment problem, owing to the difficulty of transporting sufficient cotton from america. it met that situation with a scheme of unemployment relief, devised and administered by one of those war control boards, which in this case was essentially a representative joint committee of employers and employed. the money was raised, every penny of it, from the employers in the industry itself; the cotton control board laid down certain rules and regulations as to the scale of benefits, and the conditions entitling a worker to receive it; and the task of applying those rules and paying the money out was entrusted to the trade unions. well, i was in a good position to watch that experiment. i do not think i am a particularly credulous person, or one prone to indulge in easy enthusiasms, and i certainly don't believe in painting a fairy picture in glowing colours by way of being encouraging. but i say deliberately that there has never been an unemployment scheme in this country or in any other country which has worked with so little abuse, with so few anomalies, with so little demoralisation to any one, and at the same time which has met so adequately the needs of a formidable situation, or given such general satisfaction all round as that cotton control board scheme. i cannot describe as fully as i should like to do the various features which made that scheme attractive, and made it a success. i will take just one by way of illustration. it is technically possible in the cotton trade to work the mills with relays of workers, so that if a mill has work-people, and can only employ work-people each week, the whole can work each for four weeks out of the five, and "play off," as it is called, in regular sequence for the fifth week. and that was what was done for a long time. it was called the "rota" system; and the "rota" week of "playing off" became a very popular institution. under that system, benefits which would have been far from princely as the sole source of income week after week--they never amounted to more than /- for a man and /- for a woman--assumed a much more liberal aspect. for they came only as the occasional variants of full wages; and they were accompanied not by the depressing circumstances of long-continued unemployment, but by what is psychologically an entirely different and positively exhilarating thing, a full week's holiday. that meant that the available resources--and one of the difficulties of any scheme of unemployment relief is that the resources available are always limited--did much more to prevent misery and distress, and went much further towards fulfilling all the objects of an unemployment scheme than would have been possible otherwise. that system was possible in the cotton trade; in other trades it might be impossible for technical reasons, or, where possible, it might in certain circumstances be highly undesirable. the point i wish to stress is that under an industrial scheme you have an immense flexibility, you can adapt all the details to the special conditions of the particular industry, and by that means you can secure results immeasurably superior to anything that is possible under a universal state system. moreover, if certain features of the scheme should prove in practice unsatisfactory, they can be altered with comparatively little difficulty. you don't need to be so desperately afraid of the possibility of making a mistake as you must when it is a case of a great national scheme, which can only be altered by act of parliament. the moral obligation of industries i do not underrate the difficulty of applying this principle of industrial relief over the whole field of industry. there is the great difficulty of defining an industry, or drawing the lines of demarcation between one trade and another. i have not time to elaborate those difficulties, but i consider that they constitute an insuperable obstacle to anything in the nature of an act of parliament, which would impose forcibly upon each industry the obligation to work out an unemployment scheme. the initiative must come from within the industry; the organisations of employers and employed must get together and work out their own scheme, on their own responsibility and with a free hand. and, if it happens in this way--one industry taking the lead and others following--these difficulties of demarcation become comparatively unimportant. you can let an industry define itself more or less as it likes, and it does not matter much if its distinctions are somewhat arbitrary. it is not a fatal drawback if some firms and work-people are left outside who would like to be brought in. and if there are two industries which overlap one another, each of which is contemplating a scheme of the kind, it is a comparatively simple matter for the responsible bodies in the two industries to agree with one another as to the lines of demarcation between them, as was actually done during the war by the cotton control board and the wool control board, with practically no difficulty whatever. but for such agreements to work smoothly it is essential that the industries concerned should be anxious to make their schemes a success; and that is another reason why you cannot impose this policy by _force majeure_ upon a reluctant trade. it is in the field of industry that the real move must be made. but i think that parliament and the government might come in to the picture. in the first place, the ordinary national system of unemployment relief, which must in any case continue, might be so framed as to encourage rather than to discourage the institution of industrial schemes. under the insurance act of "contracting out" was provided for, but it was penalised, while at the present moment it is prohibited altogether. i say that it should rather be encouraged, that everything should be done, in fact, to suggest that not a legal but a moral obligation lies upon each industry to do its best to work out a satisfactory unemployment scheme. and, when an industry has done that, i think the state should come in again. i think that the representative joint committee, formed to administer such a scheme, might well be endowed by statute with a formal status, and certain clearly-defined powers--such as the cotton control board possessed during the war--of enforcing its decisions. but--and, of course, there is a "but"--we cannot expect very much from this in the near future. we must wait for better trade conditions before we begin; and, as i have already indicated, the prospects of really good trade in the next few years are none too well assured. for a long time to come, it is clear, we must rely upon the ordinary state machinery for the provision of unemployment relief; and, of course, the machinery of the state will always be required to cover a large part of the ground. the liability which an industry assumes must necessarily be strictly limited in point of time; and there are many occupations in which it will probably always prove impracticable for the occupation to assume even a temporary liability. for the meantime, at any rate, we must rely mainly upon the state machinery. is it possible to improve upon the present working of this machinery? i think it is. by the state machinery i mean not merely the central government, but the local authorities and the local boards of guardians. the present machinery of relief at present what is the situation? most unemployed work-people are entitled to receive certain payments from the employment exchanges under a so-called insurance scheme, which is administered on a national basis; some weeks they are entitled to receive those payments, other weeks they are not; but in any case those payments afford relief which is admittedly inadequate, and they are supplemented--and very materially supplemented--by sums varying from one locality to another, but within each locality on a uniform scale, which are paid by the boards of guardians in the form of outdoor relief. now that situation is highly unsatisfactory. the system of outdoor relief and the machinery of the guardians are not adapted for work of this kind. they are designed to meet the problem of individual cases of distress, not necessarily arising from unemployment, but in any event individual cases to be dealt with, each on its own merits, after detailed inquiry into the special circumstances of the case. that is the function which the guardians are fitted to perform, and it is a most important function, which will still have to be discharged by the guardians, or by similar local bodies, whatever the national system of unemployment relief may be. but for dealing with unemployment wholesale, for paying relief in accordance with a fixed scale and without regard to individual circumstances--for that work the guardians are a most inappropriate body. they possess no qualification for it which the central government does not possess, while they have some special and serious disqualifications. in any case, it is preposterous that you should have two agencies, each relieving the same people in the same wholesale way, the employment exchanges with their scale, asking whether a man is unemployed, and how many children he has to support, and paying him so much, and the guardians with their scale, asking only the same questions and paying him so much more. it would obviously be simpler, more economical, and more satisfactory in every way, if one or other of those agencies paid the man the whole sum. and i have no hesitation in saying that that agency should be the central government. perhaps the strongest argument in favour of that course is that, when relief is given locally, the money must be raised by one of the worst taxes in the whole of our fiscal system, local rates, which are tantamount to a tax, in many districts exceeding per cent., upon erection of houses and buildings generally. it is foolish to imagine that any useful end is served by keeping down taxes at the expense of rates. serious as is the problem of national finance, the fiscal resources of the central government are still far more elastic and less objectionable than those which the local authorities possess. i suggest, accordingly, as a policy for the immediate future, the raising of the scale of national relief to a more adequate level, coupled with the abolition of what i have termed wholesale outdoor relief in the localities. what it is right to pay on a uniform scale should be paid entirely by the central government, and local outdoor relief should be restricted to its proper function of the alleviation of cases of exceptional distress after special inquiries into the individual circumstances of each case. one final word to prevent misconception. i have said that our present system of relief is unsatisfactory, and i have indicated certain respects in which i think it could be improved. but i am far from complaining that relief is being granted throughout the country as a whole upon too generous a scale. anomalies there are which, if they continued indefinitely, would prove intolerable. but we have been passing through an unparalleled emergency. unemployment in the last two years has been far more widespread and intense than it has ever been before in modern times, and never was it less true that the men out of work have mainly themselves to blame. but it has meant far less distress, far less destruction of human vitality, and i will add far less demoralisation of human character than many of the bad years we had before the war. that is due to the system of doles, the national and local doles; and in the circumstances i prefer that system with all its anomalies to the alternative of a substantially lower scale of relief. we are still in the midst of that emergency; and if we are faced, as i think for this decade we must expect to be faced, with that dilemma which i indicated earlier, i should prefer, and i hope that every liberal will prefer, to err by putting the scale of relief somewhat too high for prudence and equity rather than obviously too low for humanity and decency. the problem of the mines by arnold d. mcnair m.a., ll.m., c.b.e.; fellow of gonville and caius college, cambridge; secretary of coal conservation committee, - ; secretary of advisory board of coal controller, - ; secretary of coal industry commission, (sankey commission). mr. mcnair said:--need i labour the point that there _is_ a problem of the mines? can any one, looking back on the last ten years, when time after time a crisis in the mining industry has threatened the internal peace and equilibrium of the state, deny that there is something seriously wrong with the present constitution of what our chairman has described as this great pivotal industry? what is it that is wrong? if i may take a historical parallel, will you please contrast the political situation and aspirations of the working-class population at the close of the napoleonic wars with their industrial situation and aspirations now. politically they were a hundred years ago unenfranchised; more or less constant political ferment prevailed until the reform bill, and later, extensions of the franchise applied the liberal solution of putting it within the power of the people, if they wished it, to take an effective share in the control of political affairs. industrially, their situation to-day is not unlike their political situation a hundred years ago. such influence as they have got is exerted almost entirely outside the constitution of industry, and very often in opposition to it. their trade unions, workers' committees, councils of action, triple alliances, and so forth, are not part of the regular industrial machine, and too often are found athwart its path. they are members of an industry with substantially no constitutional control over it, just as a hundred years ago they were members of a state whose destinies they had no constitutional power to direct. this does not mean that a hundred years ago every working man wanted the political vote, nor that now he wants to sit on a committee and control his industry. it meant that a substantial number of the more enlightened and ambitious did--a large enough number to be a source of permanent discontent until they got it. the same is true to-day in the case of many industries. many men in all classes of society are content to do their job, take their money, go home and work in their gardens, or course dogs or fly pigeons. they are very good citizens. many others, equally good citizens, take a more mental and active interest in their job, and want to have some share in the direction of it. this class is increasing and should not be discouraged. they constitute our problem. the liberal solution of a gradually extended franchise has cured the political ferment. political controversy is still acute, and long may it remain so, as it is the sign of a healthy political society. but the ugly, ominous, revolutionary features of a hundred years ago in the sphere of politics have substantially gone or been transferred to the industrial sphere. the liberalisation of industry the same solution must be applied to that sphere. this does not mean transferring the machinery of votes and elections to industry. it means finding channels in industry whereby every person may exercise his legitimate aspiration, if he should feel one, of being more than a mere routine worker while still perhaps doing routine work, and of contributing in an effective manner his ideas, thoughts, suggestions, experience, to the direction and improvement of the industry. we have satisfied the desire for self-expression as citizens, and we have now to find some means of satisfying a similar desire for self-expression as workers in industry. that is all very vague. does it mean co-partnership, profit-sharing, co-operative societies, joint committees, national wages boards, guild socialism, nationalisation? it may mean any or all of these things--one in one industry, one in another, or several different forms in the same industry--whatever experiment may prove to be best suited to each industry. but it must mean opportunity of experiment, and experiment by all concerned. it must mean greater recognition by employers of their trusteeship on behalf of their work-people as well as their shareholders; greater recognition of the public as opposed to the purely proprietary view of industry; and recognition that the man who contributes his manual skill and labour and risks his life and limb is as much a part of the industry as a man who contributes skill in finance, management, or salesmanship, or the man who risks his capital. coming to the mines, that is, the coal mining industry (with a few incidental mines such as stratified ironstone, fireclay, etc., which need not complicate our argument), the first step to the solution of the problem of the mines, _i.e._ the collieries, the mining industry, is the solution of the problem of the minerals. this distinction is not at first sight obvious to all, but it is fundamental. the ownership and leasing of the coal is one thing, the business or industry of mining it is quite another. state ownership of the former does not involve state ownership of the latter. that is elementary and fundamental. it lies at the root of what is to follow. will you picture to yourself a section of the coal-mining industry in the common form of the pictures one sees of an atlantic liner cut neatly in two so as to expose to view what is taking place on each deck. on top you have the landowner, under the surface of whose land coal, whether suspected or not, has been discovered. he may decide to mine the coal himself, but more frequently--indeed, usually--he grants to some persons or company a lease to mine that coal on payment of what is called a royalty of so much for every ton extracted. thereupon he is called the mineral-owner or royalty-owner, and the persons or company who actually engage in the business or industry of coal mining and pay him the royalties we shall call the colliery-owners. do not be misled by the confusing term "coal-owners." very frequently the colliery-owners are called the "coal-owners," and their associations "coal-owners' associations." that is quite a misnomer. the real _coal_-owner is the landowner, the royalty-owner, though it may well happen that the two functions of owning the minerals and mining them may be combined in the same person. below the colliery-owners we find the managerial staff; below them what may be called the non-commissioned officers of the mine, such as firemen or deputies, who have most important duties as to safety, and below them the miners as a whole, that is, both the actual coal-getters or hewers or colliers and all the other grades of labour who are essential to this the primary operation. the question of royalties coming back to the royalty-owner, you will see his functions are not very onerous. he signs receipts for his royalties and occasionally negotiates the terms of a lease. but as regards the coal-mining industry, he "toils not, neither does he spin." i do not say that reproachfully, for he (and his number has been estimated at ) is doubtless a good husband, a kind father, a busy man, and a good citizen. but as regards this industry he performs no essential function beyond allowing the colliery-owners to mine his coal. what is the total amount annually paid in coal royalties? we can arrive at an approximate estimate in this way: average output of coal for five years before the war, roughly, , , tons; average royalty, / d. per ton, which means, after deducting coal for colliery consumption and the mineral rights duty paid to the state by the royalty-owner, roughly £ , , per annum paid in coal royalties. regarding this as an annuity, the capital value is millions sterling if we allow a purchaser per cent. on his money ( . years' purchase), or / millions sterling if we allow him per cent. ( years' purchase). for all practical purposes the annuity may be regarded as perpetual. now the state must acquire these royalties. that is the only practicable solution, and a condition precedent to any modification in the structure of the coal-mining industry so long as the participants in that industry continue unwilling or unable to agree upon those modifications themselves. _why and how?_ ( ) first and foremost because until then the state is not master in its own house, and cannot make those experiments in modifying conditions in the industry which i believe to be essential to bring it into a healthy condition instead of being a standing menace to the equilibrium of the state--as it was before the war, and during the war, and has been since the war; ( ) the technical difficulties and obstacles resulting from the ownership of the minerals being in the hands of several thousand private landowners and preventing the economic working of coal are enormous. you will find abundant evidence of this second statement in the testimony given by sir richard redmayne and the late mr. james gemmell and others before the sankey commission in . how is the state to acquire them? not piece-meal, but once and for all in one final settlement, by an act of parliament providing adequate compensation in the form of state securities. the assessment of the compensation is largely a technical problem, and there is nothing insuperable about it. it is being done every day for the purpose of death duties, transfer on sale, etc. supposing, for the sake of argument, / millions sterling is the total capital value of the royalties, an ingenious method which has been recommended is to set aside that sum not in cash but in bonds and appoint a tribunal to divide it equitably amongst all the mineral-owners. that is called "throwing the bun to the bears." the state then knows its total commitments, is not involved in interminable arbitrations, and can get on with what lies ahead at once, leaving the claimants to fight out the compensation amongst themselves. this does not mean that the state will have to find / millions sterling in cash. it means this, in the words of sir richard redmayne: "the state would in effect say to each owner of a mineral tract: the value of your property to a purchaser is in present money £x, and you are required to lend to the state the amount of this purchase price at, say, per cent. per annum, in exchange for which you will receive bonds bearing interest at that rate in perpetuity, which bonds you can sell whenever you like." the minerals or royalties being acquired by the state, what then? for the first time the state would be placed in a strategic position for the control and development of this great national asset. having acquired the minerals and issued bonds to compensate the former owners, the state enters into the receipt of the royalty payments, and these payments will be kept alive. we must now decide between at least two courses: (_a_) is the state to do nothing more and merely wait for existing leases to expire and fall in, and then attach any new conditions it may consider necessary upon receiving applications for renewals? or (_b_) is the state to be empowered by parliament to determine the existing leases at any time and so accelerate the time when it can attach new conditions, make certain re-grouping of mines, etc.? my answer is that the latter course (_b_) must be adopted. the same act of parliament which vests the coal and the royalties in the state, or another act passed at the same time, should give the state power to determine the then existing leases if and when it chooses, subject to just compensation for disturbance in the event of the existing lessees refusing to take a fresh lease. why is course (_b_) recommended? (i) most leases are granted for terms varying from thirty to sixty years. they are falling in year by year, but we cannot afford to wait until they have all fallen in if we are effectively to deal with a pressing problem. (ii) the second objection to merely waiting is that some colliery-owners (not many) might make up their minds not to apply for a renewal of their leases, and might consequently be tempted to neglect the necessary development and maintenance work, over-concentrating on output, and thus allowing the colliery to get into a backward state from which it would cost much time and money to recover it--a state of affairs which could and would be provided against in future leases, but which the framers of existing leases may not have visualised. i do not suggest that upon the acquisition by the state of the minerals all the existing leases should automatically determine. but the state should have power to determine them on payment of compensation for disturbance. a national mining board at the same time a national mining board consisting of representatives of all the interested elements, colliery-owners, managerial and technical staffs, miners, and other grades of workers, and coal consumers would be formed (the mines department already has a national advisory committee); the mining engineering element must be strongly represented, and provision must be made for first-class technical advice being always available. it would then be the business of the national mining board to work out its policy and decide upon the broad principles which it wishes to weave into the existing structure of the coal-mining industry by means of its power of granting leases. the following principles will readily occur to most people, and are supported by evidence which is, in my humble judgment, convincing, given before the various commissions and committees which have inquired into this industry during recent years. firstly, more amalgamation or unification of collieries. at present there are about pits owned by about companies or individuals, and producing an aggregate output of about million tons per annum. already there have been many large amalgamations. (i) many fortunately situated small pits making a good profit will be found, but on the whole small collieries are economically unsound. in many cases at present the units are too small, having regard to the class of work being done, to the cost of up-to-date machinery and upkeep and to the variableness of the trade. broadly i believe it to be true that the larger collieries are as a general rule more efficient than the smaller ones. (ii) in respect of co-operation in pumping, larger units would frequently make for efficiency and reduced cost; sir richard redmayne, speaking of south staffordshire before the sankey commission, said that we had already lost a large part of that coalfield through disagreement between neighbouring owners as to pumping. (iii) the advantages of larger units in facilitating the advantageous buying of timber, ponies, rails, machinery and the vast amount of other materials required in a colliery will be obvious to most business men. i do not propose to chop up the coalfields into mathematical sections and compulsorily unify the collieries in those sections. i am merely laying down the broad principle that to get the best out of our national asset the national mining board must bring about through its power of granting leases the formation of larger working units than at present usually exist. the geological and other conditions in the different coalfields vary enormously, and these form a very relevant factor in deciding upon the ideal unit of size. it is conceivable that in certain districts all the colliery-owners in the district, with the aid of the national mining board, would form a statutory company on the lines of the district coal board, described in the report made by sir arthur duckham as a member of the sankey commission. one advantage accruing from unification (to which recent events have given more prominence) is that it mitigates the tendency for the wages of the district to be just those which the worst situated and the worst managed colliery can pay and yet keep going, and no more. this tendency seems to be recognised and mitigated in the agreement of june, , on which the mines are now being worked. secondly, provision for progressive joint control, that is, for enabling all the persons engaged in the mining industry either in money, in brains, or in manual labour, or a combination of those interests, gradually to exercise an effective voice in the direction of their industry. some of the arguments for this principle appear to me to be (i) that, as indicated in my opening remarks, a sufficiently large number of the manual or mainly manual workers in the industry ardently desire a progressively effective share in the control of the industry; (ii) that this desire is natural and legitimate, having regard to the great increase in the education of the workers and the improvement in their status as citizens, and that so far from being repressed it should be encouraged; (iii) that it is the natural development of the system of conciliation boards and (occasionally) pit committees which has prevailed in the industry for many years, though more highly developed in some parts of the country than others. so far, these organs have been mainly used for purposes of consultation and negotiation; the time has come when with a more representative personnel, while not usurping the functions of a mine manager or, on a larger scale, the managing director, they must be developed so as to exercise some effective share in controlling the industry. (iv) while working conditions are not so dangerous and unpleasant as the public are sometimes asked to believe, the workers in this industry are exposed to an unusually high risk of injury and loss of life, and thus have a very direct interest in devising and adopting measures for increased safety. these measures nearly always mean expenditure, and thus an increased cost of working, and so long as their adoption (except in so far as made compulsory by the mines department) rests solely with bodies on which capital alone is represented and labour not at all, there will be fruitful cause for suspicion and discontent. the miners are apt to argue that dividends and safety precautions are mutually antipathetic, and will continue to do so as long as they have no part or lot in the reconciliation of these competing obligations. the question is not whether this argument of the miners is well-founded or not: the point is that their suspicion is natural, and any excuse for it should be removed. (v) the exceptionally large items which wages form in the total cost of coal production indicates the important contribution made by the miners to the welfare of the industry and justifies some share in the direction of that industry. upon the basis of typical pre-war years, the value of the labour put into the coal mining industry is per cent. of the capital employed, and per cent. of the annual saleable value of the coal, and yet this large labour interest has no share in the management of the industry. the mystery as to profits thirdly, more financial publicity. secrecy as to profits, which always suggests that they are as large as to make one ashamed of them, has been the bane of the coal-mining industry. for nearly half a century wages have borne some relation to _selling prices_, and there have been quarterly audits of typical selected mines in each district by joint auditors appointed by the owners and the miners. but over _profits_ a curtain was drawn, except in so far as the compulsory filing at somerset house by public companies of a document called a statement in the form of a balance sheet, enabled the curious to draw not very accurate conclusions. it is not easy for the plain man to read a balance sheet or estimate profits, especially when shares are being subdivided, or when bonus shares are being issued, or large sums carried to reserve. the result has been continual and natural suspicion on the part of the miners, who doubtless imagined the colliery-owners' profits to be much larger than they were. the miners knew that whenever they asked for an increase in their wages they were liable to be told that such an increase would turn a moderate profit into a substantial loss, but the amount of the profit they had to take on trust. selling prices, yes, but profits, no. the war and coal control partly killed that, and it must not return. by the settlement of june, , for the first time the miners have established the principle of the adjustment of their wages in accordance with the proceeds of the industry "as ascertained by returns to be made by the owners, checked by a joint test audit of the owners' books carried out by independent accountants appointed by each side." that is an important step, but does not go anything like far enough. at least two good results would accrue if colliery-owners conducted their business more in public: (i) a great deal of the suspicion and mistrust of the miners would be removed, and they would realise why and when their wages must undergo fluctuations, and the value of the many other factors besides wages which went to make up the pit-head cost of coal; (ii) publicity coupled with _costing returns_ would make it possible to draw comparative conclusions as to the cost of production in different mines and districts, which would be a fruitful source of experiment and improvement. publicity does not involve publication of lists of customers, british or foreign. the lessees of the future how far will the lessees to whom the national mining board will grant leases to work the coal be the same persons and companies as the present lessees? in this matter it is desirable to maintain the maximum amount of flexibility and variety. i do not think we have yet discovered the ideal unit, the ideal organisation for the development of our principal national asset. so much do our coalfields differ in geological formation, in tradition, in the subdivision and classification of labour, in outlet for trade, that it is unlikely that any single unit or organisation will be the ideal one for every coalfield. so we must resist any attempt, especially an early attempt, at stereotyping or standardising the type of lessee. by trial and error we shall learn much. all the following types of lessee seem likely, sooner or later, to demand the attention of the national mining board. (i shall not touch on the question of distribution, inland and export. that is another and quite separate question):-- (i) _the present lessees._--i see no reason to doubt that in the vast majority of cases the present lessees would be prepared to continue to operate their mines, paying royalties to the state instead of to the present royalty-owner. where the unit is sufficiently large and the management efficient, the national mining board would probably grant a fresh lease, incorporating such conditions as to unification, joint control, and publicity as they might consider necessary. if the present lessees do not want the lease, there are others who will. (ii) _larger groups._--in a great many cases, however, the board would decline to grant separate leases in respect of each of a number of small collieries, and would indicate that they were only prepared to receive applications for leases by groups of persons or companies prepared to amalgamate themselves into a corporation representing an output of x tons _per annum_. this figure would vary in each coalfield. in south staffordshire, in particular, divided ownership has had most prejudicial effects in the matter of pumping. (iii) _district coal boards._--sir arthur duckham's scheme of statutory companies known as district coal boards requires consideration. without necessarily adopting his districts or his uniformity of type throughout the country, there are many areas where it might be found that voluntary amalgamation was impracticable, and that the desired result could only be attained by an act of parliament providing for the compulsory amalgamation of persons and companies working a specified area and the issue of shares in the new corporation in exchange for the previous holdings. (iv) _public authorities._--i should very much like to see, sooner or later, in some area, a lessee in the form of an organisation which, though not national--not the state--should be at any rate public--something on the lines of the port of london authority. it may well be that in one or more of our coalfields a public authority of this type, though with larger labour representation upon it and with a large measure of joint control from top to bottom, would be a suitable lessee of the minerals in that area. the important point is that public management need not mean bureaucratic state-management with the disadvantages popularly associated with it. (v) i have mentioned several types of possible lessees, but it will be noticed that there is nothing in these suggestions which would prevent the national mining board from making the experiment of working a few mines themselves. to sum up. there _is_ a problem of the mines. no sensible person should be deceived by the quiescence of the last twelve abnormal months. without using extravagant language, the coal-mining industry is a volcano liable at any moment to erupt and involve the whole community in loss and suffering. therefore, as a body of citizens, we are under a duty to seek a solution which can be effected between the occurrence of the recurring crises. as a body of liberal citizens we shall naturally seek a liberal solution, and the foregoing suggestions (for which no originality is claimed) are inspired by the liberal point of view. they apply to the industrial sphere principles which have been tried and proved in the political sphere, both in the central and the local government. apart from state acquisition of the minerals, about which there can surely be no question, these suggestions merely develop tendencies and organisations already existing within the industry. they involve no leap in the dark, such as has been attributed by some to nationalisation of the whole industry, and they provide for great flexibility and experimentation. the fact that the official spokesmen of neither miners nor colliery-owners may like them need not deter us. they have had numerous opportunities of settling the problem amongst themselves, but the "die-hards" in both camps have always prevented it. it is time that the general public outside the industry took the matter in hand and propounded a solution likely to be acceptable to the vast body of sensible and central feeling within the industry. the land question by a.s. comyns carr member of acquisition of land committee, . mr. comyns carr said:--the land question i believe to be the most important subject in purely domestic politics to-day, as it was in . at that date we were embarking, under the especial leadership of one who has now deserted us, upon a comprehensive campaign dealing with that question in all its aspects. the present government has filled a large portion of the statute book with legislation bearing on the land; it is not the quantity we have to complain of, but the quality. in we had already achieved one signal victory in carrying against the house of lords the land clauses of the budget of - , and although many of us were never satisfied with the form which those clauses took, they were valuable both as a step in the direction of land taxation and for the machinery of valuation which they established. mr. lloyd george in his present alliance with the tories has sunk so low as not only to repeal those clauses, but actually to refund to the landlords every penny which they have paid in taxation under them. the campaign which was inaugurated in did not deal with the question of taxation only, and for my part, although i am an enthusiast on this branch of the subject, i have never thought that other aspects should be neglected. we put forward proposals for dealing with leases both in town and country. the present government has carried and repealed again a series of statutes dealing with agriculture. their original policy was to offer to the farmer guaranteed prices for his produce, if necessary at the expense of the tax-payer, and to the labourer guaranteed wages, to be fixed and enforced by wages boards. before this policy was fully in operation it was repealed. the farmer got some cash compensation for his losses; the labourer has got nothing but voluntary conciliation boards, with no power to do more than pass pious resolutions. there has, however, survived this welter of contradictory legislation, a series of clauses which do confer upon the tenant farmer a substantial part of the rights in his dealings with his landlord for which we were agitating in . the town lease-holder, on the other hand, has got nothing, and it is one of the first duties of the liberal party to provide him with security against the confiscation of his improvements and goodwill, to give him reasonable security of tenure, and to put an end once for all to the pestilent system of building leases which extends all over london and to about half the other towns of england. the evils of this system are especially to be found in those older parts of our great cities where the original leases are drawing to a close. in such cases a kind of blight appears to settle on whole neighbourhoods, and no improvements can be carried out by either party because the landlord cannot obtain possession, and the tenant has not, and is unable to obtain, a sufficient length of term to make it worth his while to risk his capital upon them. housing the branch of the land question to which the government called the greatest attention in their election promises was housing. on this subject the government have placed many pages of legislation on the statute book. one can only wish that the houses occupied as much space. they began by informing us, probably accurately, that up to the time of the armistice there was an accumulated shortage of , houses; in pre-war days new working-class houses were required, and to a certain extent provided, although the shortage had then already begun, to an average number of , a year. according to the official figures in july last, , houses had been completed by local authorities and public utility societies; , by private builders with government subsidies; , were under construction, and as the government have now limited the total scheme (thereby causing the resignation of dr. addison, its sponsor) there remain , to be built. this is the record of four years, so clearly the government have not even succeeded in keeping pace with the normal annual demand, and the shortage has not been attacked, but actually accentuated. the cause of the failure was mainly financial. without attacking the roots of the evil in our land and rating system, and without attempting to control the output and supply of materials and building in the way in which munitions were controlled during the war, the government brought forward gigantic schemes to be financed from the supposedly bottomless purse of the tax-payer. at the same time the demand for building materials and labour in every direction was at its maximum, and unfortunately both employers and employed in the building and allied industries took the fullest advantage of the position to force up prices without regard to the unfortunate people who wanted houses. the trade unions concerned seem to have overlooked the fact that if wages were raised and output reduced houses would become so dear that their fellow-workmen who needed them could not attempt to pay the rents required, and the tax-payer would revolt against the burdens imposed upon him; thus the golden era for their own trade was bound to come to a rapid end, and, so far from employment being increased and prolonged, unemployment on a large scale was bound to result. with the anti-waste panic and the geddes axe, social reform was cut first, and, in their hurry to stop the provision of homes for heroes, the government is indulging in such false economies as leaving derelict land acquired and laid out at enormous cost, even covering over excavations already made, and paying out to members of the building trade large sums in unemployment benefit, while the demand for the houses on which they might be employed is left wholly unsatisfied. land for public purposes the acquisition and valuation of land for the purpose of public improvements is a branch of the question to which a great deal of attention was drawn during and immediately after the war. the government appointed a committee, of which the present solicitor-general was chairman, and which, in spite of a marked scarcity of advanced land reformers amongst its members, produced a series of remarkably unanimous and far-reaching recommendations. these recommendations dealt with four main topics:-- (_a_) improvements in the machinery by which powers may be obtained by public and private bodies for the acquisition of land for improvements of a public character; (_b_) valuation of land which it is proposed to acquire; (_c_) fair adjustment as between these bodies and the owners of other land, both of claims by owners for damage done by the undertaking to other lands, and of claims by the promoting bodies for increased value given by their undertaking to other lands; and (_d_) the application of these principles to the special subject of mining. the government in the acquisition of land act, , has adopted a great part of the committee's recommendations under the second head, and this act has undoubtedly effected an enormous improvement in the prices paid by public bodies for land which they require, although, most unfortunately, the same immunity from the extortion of the land-owner and the land speculator has not been extended to private bodies such as railway companies who need land for the improvement of public services. moreover, it has not attempted to bring the purchase price of land into any relation with its taxing valuation. the whole of the rest of the committee's recommendations dealing with the other three points which i have mentioned, the government has wholly ignored. powers for public development can still only be obtained by the slow, costly and antiquated processes in vogue before the war; private owners of lands adjoining works of a public character are still in a position to put into their own pockets large increases in value due to public improvements to which they have contributed nothing, and which they may even have impeded; the development of minerals is still hampered by the veto of unreasonable owners, by the necessity of leaving unnecessary barriers between different properties, and by other obstacles which were dealt with in detail in the committee's report. an illustration of the importance of this aspect of the question was put before the committee and has been emphasised by recent events. it was stated on behalf of the railway companies that they were prepared with schemes for the extension of their systems in various parts of the country, which would not only provide temporary employment for a large number of men on construction, and permanent employment to a smaller number on the working of the lines, but would also open up new residential and industrial districts, but that it was impossible for them to find the necessary funds unless they could have some guarantee that at least any loss upon the cost of construction would be charged upon the increased value of land in the new districts which would be created by the railway extensions. remarkable instances were given of the way in which the value of land had been multiplied many-fold by the promotion of new railways, which, nevertheless, had never succeeded in paying a dividend to their shareholders, and the capital cost of which had been practically lost. on the other hand, the committee were assured that, given a charge on the increased value of land likely to be created, there would be no difficulty in obtaining the necessary funds without government assistance. when the pressure of the unemployment problem became acute, and not before--and then it was, of course, too late--the government turned their attention to this problem, and have guaranteed the interest upon new capital to be expended on a few of these railway extensions, but instead of charging the guarantee upon the increased value of land, they have charged it upon the pocket of the tax-payer. the most striking instance is that of the tube railway from charing cross to golders green, now being extended under government guarantee to edgware. those who provided the original capital have never received any return upon their money, yet millions have been put into the pockets of the owners of what was undeveloped land now served by the line, and now that the extension is being carried out with the tax-payers' guarantee, the land-owners will again reap the benefit untaxed. the development of the natural resources of our country was one of the promises held out by mr. lloyd george to the electors in . schemes were ready, and are still in the official pigeon-holes, for the production of electricity on a very large scale both from water power and from coal, which would not only provide employment, but cheapen the cost of production in all our industries. france, italy, and other countries are at this moment carrying out similar schemes whereby they will relieve themselves to a large extent from dependence on british coal. but here, four years of coalition government have left us practically where we were. in france, although in many respects her social system seems to me less enlightened than our own, the power of the land-owner to obstruct enterprise and development is by no means so great. land reform in this country is a necessary preliminary to the fulfilment of mr. lloyd george's promises. development at the public expense without such reforms will result chiefly in further burdens upon the tax-payer and further enrichment of the landowner. rating relief for improvements this brings me to the last, and in my opinion the most important branch of the land question, that relating to the reform of our system of rating and taxation. i am myself an ardent supporter of the policy which i think has been rather unfortunately named the taxation of land values. the vital point about this policy is not so much that we should tax land values, as that we should leave off taxing buildings and other improvements of land. the policy would be better described as the relief of improvements from taxation. its economic merits seem to me so obvious as hardly to require examination. it is only because the present system has been in force for over years that it can find any supporters. if any one were to propose as a useful means of encouraging the steel trade or the boot trade, or as a desirable method of taxation, that a tax of, say, per cent. should be imposed upon the value of every ton of steel or every pair of boots turned out in our factories, he would be rightly and universally denounced as a lunatic. yet this is the system which ever since the days of queen elizabeth has been in force with regard to the building trade and all other industries which result in the production of improvements upon land. as long as land remains unused it pays no rates or taxes, whatever its immediate potential value. but the moment it is brought into use, as soon as a house, a factory, or a railway is built upon it, or it is drained or planted--rates and taxes, which in these days often exceed per cent. of its improved value, have to be paid, without regard even to the question whether its use is successful in yielding profits or not. familiarity with this system, instead of breeding the contempt which it deserves, has bred a kind of passive acquiescence which is exceedingly difficult to shake. even such a champion of our land system as the duke of bedford years ago in his book, _the story of a great agricultural estate_, perceived the absurdity, although he was apparently blind to the remedy and to the application of it to some of his estates which are not agricultural. he converted an ordinary arable field into a fruit garden, and discovered that his rates were promptly trebled by reason of his expenditure. striking, but, nevertheless, everyday examples may be found if we see how the system works out in urban districts. if a new factory is built, rates and taxes are immediately levied on the full annual value of the building, which is a direct charge upon production, and has to be paid before a single person can be employed in the factory. it therefore not only restricts the possibilities of employment, but has to be added to the price at which the goods can be sold. the lesson of the slums or take the illustration of a slum area. each tumble-down tenement is rated and taxed on the assessment based upon its annual rental value. in many places in the central parts of towns the total of these assessments is less than the sum for which the whole site could be sold as a building area, nevertheless if all the tenements fall or are pulled down the site may remain vacant for years and no rates or taxes are paid. but if substantial and decent buildings are erected on the site, immediately the assessment is raised to their full annual value. the individual or public body that has cleared away the slum and erected something decent in its place is thus immediately punished for doing so, with the result that such a thing is seldom done except at the public expense. the remedy for all these absurdities is quite a simple one. no one disputes that the sums necessary for municipal and imperial taxation have got to be provided. the question is, in so far as they are to be raised from lands and buildings, how can they be assessed most fairly and with the least injury to trade and commerce? they should be assessed upon the value of land which is not due to any effort of the owner or occupier; they should not be assessed upon nor increased because of any buildings which he may have erected or any improvements which he may have carried out. this question was closely investigated by the land enquiry committee appointed by mr. lloyd george in . they were unanimous in condemning the existing system and in regarding the one which i have just described as the ideal. they were, however, met by great difficulties in its immediate practical application, because, owing to the long prevalence of the wrong system, an immediate and total change would bring about rather startling alterations in the value of existing properties. the committee closely considered these objections, and a number of alternative methods of bringing the change into operation gradually and without these drastic changes in value were put forward. the one which immediately suggested itself as the simplest, and from many points of view the most desirable, was to leave the rates and taxes of existing properties on their present basis, to impose them at their present rate on the annual value of all unoccupied land, but to exempt from rates and taxes all future buildings and improvements of every kind. to illustrate the way in which this would work, let us revert to the case of a block of slum property. as long as it remained in its present condition the existing valuation based upon the annual rent obtainable for it would apply, but any parts of it which now are or may hereafter become unoccupied, would, instead of escaping as they do now from all rates and taxes, contribute on the basis of the value of their sites, which would be assessed at an annual rent for the purpose of comparison with the existing valuations, at least until the capital values of the whole rating area could be ascertained. if any improvements were carried out the assessments would not be raised on that account, as they would be under present conditions, and if a whole area were pulled down, replanned and rebuilt, the assessment instead of being based, as it would be to-day, on the annual value of the reconstructed property, would be based upon the site value alone. gradually in this way site value would become the prevalent basis of assessment. "it is obvious," as the committee said in , "that unrating of future improvements is from the economic point of view of far more importance than the unrating of existing improvements; if we want to encourage new buildings and new improvements, what is really important is to ensure that new improvements (not old ones) shall be exempt from the burden of rates." the committee were, however, compelled to reject this suggestion at that time on the ground that "it would cause an unfair differentiation between the man who had already put up buildings or improvements, and the man who put up buildings or improvements after the passing of the act." but as between buildings and improvements which existed before the war and those which come into existence under post-war conditions no such unfairness could operate, because the increase in the cost of building even to-day is greater than the benefit which would accrue from the unrating of improvements. the present is therefore the unique opportunity for bringing into force this much-needed reform in the most effective way, free from the difficulties which had to be met in . if it had been carried out immediately after the armistice it would, in my opinion, have done more than anything else to solve the housing problem, and even now it is not too late. in fact, in view of the present unemployment it would be most opportune. incidentally it would soon render unnecessary the renewal of the rent restriction act. i understand that something on these lines has been introduced in new york to meet a similar problem. a rate and a tax upon site values the committee of were obliged to turn their attention to other suggestions. they proposed: (_a_) that all future increases in the expenditure of each local authority which had to be met out of rates should be met by a rate upon site values instead of upon the existing assessments; and (_b_) that existing expenditure should be met to a small extent compulsorily, and to a larger extent at the option of the local authority, in the same manner. there is no reason why these proposals should not be brought into force simultaneously with that relating to new buildings and improvements. they made these proposals conditional upon a substantial increase in the grants in aid to local authorities, especially in necessitous areas, from the imperial exchequer; and they suggested, although they did not definitely recommend, that a part at least of this increased grant might be raised by means of an additional tax upon site values. this, i think, should certainly be done, and such a tax might be wholly or partially substituted for the present land tax and income-tax schedule a, which are assessed on the wrong basis. these proposals would, of course, involve the revival and revision of the national land valuation established by the finance act, - , which should be made the basis of all taxation and rating relating to real property. this would be both a reform and an economy, because there are at present several overlapping systems of valuation by central and local authorities, none of which are really satisfactory even on the present unsatisfactory basis of assessment. the existence of such a valuation frequently revised and kept up to date, and independent of local influences, would be invaluable not only for purposes of rating and taxation, but also in arriving at a fair price for the acquisition of land for public purposes, and for the levying of special charges upon the increased value due to particular public improvements, such as railway extensions, with which i have already dealt. i am not one of those who claim for these reforms that they would cure all the evils from which the community is at present suffering, but i do believe that there is no other and no better way of removing the unfairness and the restrictions of our present methods of rating and taxation or of setting free and stimulating the energies of our people in the development of the resources of our country. agricultural questions by rt. hon. f.d. acland p.c.; m.p. (l.) north-west cornwall; financial secretary, war office, - ; under-secretary of state for foreign affairs, - ; financial secretary to treasury, feb.-june, ; secretary to the board of agriculture, - ; a forestry commissioner. chairman of the agricultural organisation society. mr. acland said:--i begin by laying down in a didactic form five points which one would like to see firmly established in our rural life: (i) intensive production; (ii) plenty of employment at good wages; (iii) easy access to land, and a good chance of rising upon the land; (iv) real independence in rural life; (v) co-operative association for many purposes. intensive production is most important. it is so easy to say the farmer _can_ get more out of the land, and the farmer _should_ get more out of the land, that we are tempted to continue and say that the farmer _must be made_ to get more out of the land. but it isn't so easy. it has been tried and failed, and when any subject in our british political life has been brought up to the boiling-point, and yet nothing effective has been done, it is extremely difficult to bring it to the boil a second time. it is worth while tracing out what has actually happened. the government's agriculture act of contained four great principles:--(i) that we must have more food produced in this country (_a_) as an insurance against risk of war, (_b_) so as to meet our post-war conditions as a debtor nation by importing less of our food supplies; (ii) that as the most productive farming is arable farming, and as by maintaining a proper proportion of arable we can on emergency make ourselves independent for our food supplies for an indefinite time, farmers should be guaranteed against loss on their arable rotations; (iii) that if farmers are to be required to produce more they must have clear legal rights to farm their land in the most productive way, a greater compensation for disturbance; (iv) that as the first three principles give security to the nation and to the farmer, it is desirable also to give security to the worker by permanently continuing the war-time system of agricultural wages boards. these principles were duly embodied in the bill as it left the house of commons:-- (i) the ministry of agriculture, acting through the county agricultural committees, was given powers to insist on a certain standard of arable cultivation, as well as in minor matters, such as control of weeds and of rabbits; (ii) the difference between the ascertained market price and the estimated cost of production on his wheat and oat acreage was guaranteed to the farmer, the guarantee not to be altered except after four years' notice; (iii) the landlord had to forfeit a year's rent if a tenant was disturbed except for bad farming, or four years' rent if the disturbance was capricious; (iv) the existing wages board system was continued. the destruction of a policy the gradual destruction of this policy began in the house of lords. they allowed themselves to be swept away by the popular cry against government interference with industry, and cut out the power of control of cultivation. the prime minister had said that this was an absolutely essential part of the bill, and of the government's policy, but the government quietly and characteristically accepted the lords' amendment and the bill was passed. then troubles began. other industries began to ask why the government satisfied agriculture and not them, and as the government could not plead their control of agriculture in justification, no real reply was possible. also the cold fit came on as regards national expenditure. the bill for the corn subsidies threatened to be very high. though europe was starving, it could not buy, so cheap american grain flooded our markets; but cost of production here was still at its peak, and, for oats especially, the amount to be paid to the farmer threatened to be large. it was realised that it might cost - millions to implement the guarantees for the first year, and perhaps - millions a year later. in short, the guarantees had to go. instead of four years' notice of any change, a bill to repeal the great act was introduced five months after it had been passed. and it was unfortunately part of the bargain with the farmers who received for the single season perhaps six or eight millions less than they might have been entitled to under the act, that the wages boards should be abolished--and they were. there remained of the original structure only the depreciation of the value of all agricultural landowners' property by about one-twentieth, owing to the extra compensation for disturbance. every one felt that they had been had, and they had been. the industry which had lately been talked up and made much of was dumped into the dustbin. the farmers had lost their guarantees on the strength of which, in many cases, they had bought their farms dear or planned their rotations. the labourers, who particularly needed the protection of wages boards during a time of fall in cost of living and unemployment, had lost all legal protection. the landlords, willing enough to give what was asked of them if any national purpose was to be served, found that their loss brought no corresponding national gain. agriculture retired as far as it could from any contact with perfidious governments, to lick its wounds. that is not a good basis upon which to build intensive cultivation or any other active policy. there being now no legal or patriotic call to intensive production, we are driven back to ask, "does intensive production pay?" and the broad answer is that at a time of low prices it does not. there is no doubt that slowly and steadily education will gradually improve farming, and that farmers will learn to find out what parts of their business pay best and to concentrate upon them. there is also no doubt that even at low prices there is plenty of scope for better farming, and that better manuring, particularly of grass land, will pay. but the farmer is faced with an economic principle--the law of diminishing returns. it may be stated thus: beyond a certain point which rises and falls directly with the value of the product, extra doses of labour and manure do not give a corresponding return. it is this principle which accounts for what we see everywhere--that farmers are tending to economise as much as they can on their labour and to let arable land go back to grass. and if this is clear to farmers who are thinking of intensive arable farming, still more is it true in comparing arable with grass. if you take the same sort of quantity of arable and grass farms, farmed by men of the same skill and diligence, over a range of seasons under low world prices for farm produce, you will, i believe, find something like this: grass land needs half the capital and one-third of the labour of arable; it produces three-quarters the receipts with half the payments, and yields double the profit per acre and four times the profit on capital. the moral of all this is clear. unless the nation is willing to go back to protection for agriculture, which i am glad to believe in the general interest unthinkable, and unless it is willing to guarantee the farmer against loss from that method of agriculture which means most production and most employment, we must let the farmer set the tune and farm in the way it best suits him to farm. we must try, in fact, not to talk too much nonsense about intensive production as the cure for agricultural depression. it is useful to remember that all countries overseas which combine high wages with agricultural prosperity have a very low output per acre judged by our standards. employment and wages it follows directly from what i have just said that a time of high costs and low prices like the present, like the time of lower costs but still lower prices of the late ' 's and early ' 's, is not a favourable time for expecting employment to be brisk or wages high. and reasons other than those which we have yet considered make the farmer feel his labour to be specially burdensome at present. he finds that the prices he gets on the average are one and one-third times what they were before the war: what he has to buy costing from one and a half to one and two-thirds what it cost before the war; and he is expected in very many counties in england and wales to pay his workers about double what he paid before the war. this is a strong point for him. but the labourers' position is just as strong. "i was not sufficiently well paid before the war. if this is to be recognised in any way at all, i must at the present cost of living ( ) have double my pre-war wages." it is certainly beyond all question that /- a week, which is the present wage over a large part of england, is not, even with only /- a week rent for house and garden, enough to keep a man and his wife and family in a state of real efficiency. yet i know from personal experience that this fact is not properly recognised in practice. if one tries to pay more one is regarded as a very rich man, and an extremely stupid one--an idea erroneous as to one's wealth and possibly exaggerated as to one's mentality. how have the two conflicting views of farmer and labourer been reconciled in practice. i can only say that so far as my own knowledge extends--bearing in mind that the farmer has not the business man's habit of cheerfully setting off a bad year against a good (for the business man knows that trade must improve some time, and then he will make profits, while the farmer has no certainty that things will improve)--things might well have been worse. there has been a good deal of mutual consideration and desire to make the best of difficult circumstances. i have, however, little doubt that it would have been better had the wages boards, which had controlled the rise in wages during the rise in the cost of living, regulated the fall in wages during its fall--relaxing control perhaps later when things became more stable. the reason why i think that things might have been worse is that the district wages committee left a good legacy to the voluntary conciliation committees which followed them--the men serving on the latter were those who under the wages board system had learned to negotiate with and to know and respect the workers--generally some of the best farmers in their districts--and they genuinely tried not to let the workers down with too much of a bump; on the other hand, they knew that the only value their recommendations could have was that they should be voluntarily observed, and therefore they took care not to recommend rates higher than those which the least favourably situated farmers in the district could manage to pay--which meant rates lower than many might have been willing to give. this means that any general rate agreed to voluntarily will be rather on the low side. but i would rather have a rate which is generally observed, even if it is rather low, than that every farmer should be a law unto himself. if there is no recognised standard, and one man with impunity pays a lower rate than his neighbours, other rates also tend to come down, and then the process begins over again. looking to the future, the only thing that i can say with any certainty about the wages question is that it needs very careful watching. let us be sure first of our principle, that the first charge on land, as on any other industry, should be a reasonable standard of living for the workers. then let us be sure of the fact that there is over a very large part of england and wales no certain prospect of an improvement in the condition of the labourer compared with conditions ten years ago. the dangers to be feared are that in the present lamentable weakness of the men's unions large sections of farmers may break away from the recommendations of their leaders; and that if depression continues and war savings become depleted farmers will tend to push wages down in self-preservation. these things must be watched. if the general condition of agriculture improves without a corresponding improvement in the workers' condition, or if conditions get worse and the brunt of the burden is transferred to the labourer, we ought to be prepared to advocate a return to the old wages boards or the adoption of a trade board system. it must, i think, be a cardinal point of our liberal faith that though it is better to leave industrial questions to be adjusted as much as possible by the parties concerned in the industry, the state must be ready to step in in any case in which the workers have not developed the power by their own combination to secure reasonable conditions and prospects. it is to the prospects that i now turn. access to the land i mean by this that there should be as many chances as possible for men and women who have an inclination for country pursuits to take up cultivation of the soil; the freest opportunity for experiment in making a living out of the land; and good chances for those who have started on the land ladder to rise to the top of it. the three things which stand in the way are:-- (i) the cost of building and equipment; (ii) the practice under which the cultivator provides all the movable capital; (iii) the handicap on free use of land imposed upon its owners by the compensation clauses of the agriculture act. these obstacles do real harm, in the first place, because a very large proportion of farms in this country are the wrong size: too large for a man to work with his hands, and too much for him to work with his head, as sir thomas middleton has well said. figures show quite conclusively that whether you take production per acre or production per man, the farm of from to acres is economically the worst-sized unit. probably more than half of our farms lie between and acres. we should get far more out of the land if all were either below --so that a man and his family could manage them--or above , so that there would be a chance of applying to production the most scientific methods and up-to-date machinery. but movement, either towards breaking up existing holdings or throwing them together, will be extremely slow. the one process means building new houses and buildings, which is prohibitive in price; and the other, also fresh building and the abandonment of hearths and homes, which is prohibited both by price and by sentiment. any change in either direction is almost prohibitive to the new poor landowner class, because if one makes any change, except when a tenant dies or moves of his own accord, one forfeits a year's rent. i have not yet mentioned the difficulty about capital. under our british method, if a man wants a farm he must have capital--about £ per arable acre and about £ for grass. this is a great bar to freedom of experiment and the greatest bar on the way up the agricultural ladder. there ought to be free access to our farms by town brains, which can often strike out new and profitable lines if given a chance. it is not good for agriculture, and it does not promote that sympathy and contact and interchange which should exist between town and country, that a start in farming should need a heavy supply of capital. if our landlords were better off they might well try some of the continental systems, under which the landlord provides not only the farm and buildings, but the stock and equipment, and receives in addition to a fair rent for the land half the profits of the farm. but it is vain to hope for this under present conditions, and, for good or ill, the newly rich does not buy land. he knows too much, and he can get what he wants without it. he may lease a house, he does take shooting, but he won't buy an estate. when thinking of the importance of freedom of experiment and of a ladder with no missing rungs, i have my mind on the possibility of the owner of one estate of from , to , acres throwing all the farms and many of the fields together and making his best tenants fellow-directors with him of a joint enterprise, one doing the buying and selling, one looking after the power and the tractors and implements, one planning the agricultural processes, one directing the labour and so on. this gives a prospect of the greatest production and the greatest profit, and it gives a really good labourer a chance which at present he has not got. at present, unless he leaves the land, in nine cases out of ten once a labourer always a labourer. my vision would give him a chance to become, first, foreman, then assistant manager, manager, director, and managing-director. it ought to be tried--but how one's tenants would loathe it, and quite natural too! at present if things go wrong, if it's not the fault of the government or the weather, it's the farmer's own fault. on my joint-stock estate every director and manager would feel that all his colleagues were letting him down and destroying his profits. it is hard to make people accept at all readily, in practice, the teaching that they are their brothers' keeper. the scheme could hardly be started with men accustomed to the present methods, and the cost of obtaining vacant possession of land would make it difficult to try with new men. i am sure, however, that something of the sort is a good and hopeful idea, and the best way of making the ladder complete. and i am emboldened to think that something of the sort will be tried gradually in some places, when i see the number of landlords' sons who are in this and other universities taking the best courses they can get in the science and economics of agriculture. they know this is the only way to retain a remnant of the old acres. it is quite new since the war--and a most hopeful sign. independence i need not urge the importance in our villages of real independence of life. it was the absence of independence combined with long working hours and little occupation for the hours of leisure, which, more than low wages, caused the pre-war exodus from the country. should the prospects of industry improve, but agriculture remain depressed, there will be another exodus from the country-side of the best of the young men who have come back to it after the war. it is of first-class importance, both from the national and from the agricultural point of view, that they should stay, for there was a real danger before the war that agriculture might become a residual industry, carried on mainly by them, too lethargic in mind and body to do anything else. in a preface which he wrote to volume i of the land report, as chairman of lloyd george's land inquiry committee (it seems a long time ago now that lloyd george was a keen land reformer), my father sketched out the idea of setting up commissions to report parish by parish in each county, in the same way that commissions have reported on the parochial charities. they would record how the land was distributed, whether the influence of the landowners told for freedom or against it, whether there was a chance for the labourer to get on to the land and to mount the ladder. whether there was an efficient village institute, whether there were enough allotments conveniently situated, whether the cottagers were allowed to keep pigs and poultry, and what the health and housing were like. it is a good idea, and should be borne in mind. i confess i do not know enough to know whether it is now as desirable as it seemed to be before the war. i would fain hope not, but i am not sure. i believe that there is a good deal more real independent life in the villages now than there was ten years ago. there are, i think, now fewer villages like some in north yorkshire before the war, in which the only chance for a liberal candidate to have a meeting was to have it in the open-air, after dark on a night with no moon, and even then he needed a big voice--for his immediate audience was apt to be two dogs and a pig. now, it seems to me that people like having political meetings going on, but do not bother to listen to any of them. as to the present, there has been lately, within my knowledge, a great building of village institutes. there has been a tremendous development of football. village industries, under the wise encouragement of the development commission, are reviving. motor buses make access to town amusements much easier, and cinemas come out into the village. there is revived interest and very keen competition in the allotment and cottage garden shows. thus it is, at any rate, down our way--but no one can know more than his own bit of country. on these and similar matters we ought to think and watch and meet together to report and discuss. we need more maurice hewletts and mrs. sturge grettons to tell us how things really are, for nothing is so difficult to visualise as what is going on slowly in one's own parish. co-operation i come lastly to co-operation. you will think me biased when i speak of its possibilities. i am. i have been for eighteen years on the governing body of the agricultural organisation society, and happen now to be its chairman, and am therefore closely in touch with the work of organising co-operative effort. one sees fairly clearly how difficult it is to make any class of english agriculturists combine for any mutual purpose, how worth while it is, and what almost unexpected opportunities of useful work still exist. thanks largely to untiring work by sir leslie scott--who gave up the chairmanship of the society on his recent appointment as solicitor-general--the country is now fairly covered by societies for purchasing requirements co-operatively--principally fertilisers, feeding-stuffs, and seeds. there are also affiliated to the movement i have mentioned, many useful co-operative auction marts, slaughter-house societies, bacon factories, wool societies, egg and poultry societies, and fruit and garden produce societies (but not nearly enough), besides a thousand or so societies of allotment holders which, thanks largely to our friend, george nicholls, set all the others an example in keenness and loyalty to their parent body. the _ideal_ is that where a society exists the main raw materials of the industry shall be bought wholesale instead of retail, and the main products of the industry sold retail instead of wholesale; that thereby middlemen's and other profits shall be reduced to a reasonable figure, and that the consumer shall get the most efficient possible service with regard to his supplies. it is also the ideal that farmers and others shall learn more comradeship and brotherhood; that the big and small men alike shall become one community bound together for many common purposes, and that thus the cultivators of the soil shall lose that isolation and selfishness which is a reproach against them. the ideal is, however, not always realised. the farmer likes to have a co-operative society to keep down other people's prices, but, having helped to form a society, he does not see why he should be loyal to it if a trader offers him anything a shilling a ton cheaper. a good committee is formed, but the members think they hold their offices mainly in order to get first cut for themselves at some good bargain the society has made, and they start with the delusion that they are good men of business. things, therefore, get into the hands of the manager, and it is astonishing how much more quickly a bad manager can lose money than a good one can make it. and if in these and other ways it is uphill work with farmers' societies, the work is still more uphill with small-holders. it is the breath of their nostrils to bargain individually, and if a society is started they will only send their stuff to be sold when they and every one else have a glut, ungraded and badly packed--and then they grumble at getting a low price. but all co-operative work is abundantly worth while. and the field of co-operation is not limited to the purchase of supplies or the sale of produce. it ought to cover the use of tractors and threshing sets and the installation and distribution of power. and if agriculture gets a chance of settling down to a moderate amount of stability and prosperity, it would not be beyond the bounds of hope that part, at any rate, of the profits of co-operative enterprise should be used to develop the amenities of the common life of the community--to provide prizes for the sports and the flower show--the capital to start an industry for the winter evenings, and even seats for the old people round the village green. times are not propitious for increasing the productivity of our land, excepting by the slow processes of education--which work particularly slowly in agriculture. nor are they immediately propitious for raising the workers' standard of life, though we should never leave go of this as an essential. but many of us can, if we will, help a good man to start on the land, or help a man who has made good on the land to do better. many of us can help to develop real independence of life in the villages and, through co-operation, those kindly virtues of friendliness and helpfulness to others and willingness to work for common ends which are sometimes not so common as they might be. and those who _can_ do any of these things _should_, without waiting for legislation--for the legislator is a bruised reed. [transcriber's notes: the following apparent printer's errors have been corrected for this electronic edition: misconduct necessitates military operations; was "operations:" and if he tries to make his responsibility real was "responsiblity" things slide--the main virtue of cabinet was "virture" are two which are almost invariably present towards was "invarably"] the unexpurgated case against woman suffrage by sir almroth e. wright m.d., f.r.s. contents preface introduction programme of this treatise--motives from which women claim the suffrage--types of men who support the suffrage--john stuart mill. part i arguments which are adduced in support of woman's suffrage i arguments from elementary natural rights signification of the term "woman's rights"--argument from "justice"--juridical justice--"egalitarian equity"--argument from justice applied to taxation--argument from liberty--summary of arguments from elementary natural rights. ii arguments from intellectual grievances of woman complaint of want of chivalry--complaint of "insults"--complaint of "illogicalties"--complaint of "prejudices"--the familiar suffragist grievance of the drunkard voter and the woman of property who is a non-voter--the grievance of woman being required to obey man-made laws. iii arguments which take the form of "counsels of perfection" addressed to man argument that woman requires a vote for her protection--argument that woman ought to be invested with the responsibilities of voting in order that she may attain her full intellectual stature. part ii arguments against the concession of the parliamentary suffrage to woman i woman's disability in the matter of physical force international position of state would be imperilled by woman's suffrage--internal equilibrium of state would be imperilled. ii woman's disability in the matter of intellect characteristics of the feminine mind--suffragist illusions with regard to the equality of man and woman as workers--prospect for the intellectual future of woman--has woman advanced? iii woman's disability in the matter of public morality standards by which morality can be appraised--conflict between different moralities--the correct standard of morality--moral psychology of man and woman--difference between man and woman in matters of public morality. iv mental outlook and programme of the female legislative reformer v ulterior ends which the woman's suffrage movement has in view part iii is there, if the suffrage is barred, any palliative or corrective for the discontents of woman? i palliatives or correctives for the discontent of woman what are the suffragist's grievances?--economic and physiological difficulties of woman--intellectual grievances of suffragist and corrective. appendix letter on militant hysteria preface it has come to be believed that everything that has a bearing upon the concession of the suffrage to woman has already been brought forward. in reality, however, the influence of women has caused man to leave unsaid many things which he ought to have said. especially in two respects has woman restricted the discussion. she has placed her taboo upon all generalisations about women, taking exception to these on the threefold ground that there would be no generalisations which would hold true of all women; that generalisations when reached possess no practical utility; and that the element of sex does not leave upon women any general imprint such as could properly be brought up in connexion with the question of admitting them to the electorate. woman has further stifled discussion by placing her taboo upon anything seriously unflattering being said about her in public. i would suggest, and would propose here myself to act upon the suggestion, that, in connexion with the discussion of woman's suffrage, these restrictions should be laid aside. in connexion with the setting aside of the restriction upon generalising, i may perhaps profitably point out that all generalisations, and not only generalisations which relate to women, are _ex hypothesi [by hypothesis]_ subject to individual exceptions. (it is to generalisations that the proverb that "the exception proves the rule" really applies.) i may further point out that practically every decision which we take in ordinary life, and all legislative action without exception, is based upon generalisations; and again, that the question of the suffrage, and with it the larger question as to the proper sphere of woman, finally turns upon the question as to what imprint woman's sexual system leaves upon her physical frame, character, and intellect: in more technical terms, it turns upon the question as to what are the _secondary sexual character[istic]s_ of woman. now only by a felicitous exercise of the faculty of successful generalisation can we arrive at a knowledge of these. with respect to the restriction that nothing which might offend woman's _amour propre [self love]_ shall be said in public, it may be pointed out that, while it was perfectly proper and equitable that no evil (and, as pericles proposed, also no good) should be said of woman in public so long as she confined herself to the domestic sphere, the action of that section of women who have sought to effect an entrance into public life, has now brought down upon woman, as one of the penalties, the abrogation of that convention. a consideration which perhaps ranks only next in importance to that with which we have been dealing, is that of the logical sanction of the propositions which are enunciated in the course of such controversial discussions as that in which we are here involved. it is clearly a precondition of all useful discussion that the author and reader should be in accord with respect to the authority of the generalisations and definitions which supply the premisses for his reasonings. though this might perhaps to the reader appear an impractical ideal, i would propose here to attempt to reach it by explaining the logical method which i have set myself to follow. although i have from literary necessity employed in my text some of the verbal forms of dogmatism, i am very far from laying claim to any dogmatic authority. more than that, i would desire categorically to repudiate such a claim. for i do not conceal from myself that, if i took up such a position, i should wantonly be placing myself at the mercy of my reader. for he could then, by merely refusing to see in me an authority, bring down the whole edifice of my argument like a house of cards. moreover i am not blind to what would happen if, after i claimed to be taken as an authority, the reader was indulgent enough still to go on to read what i have written. he would in such a case, the moment he encountered a statement with which he disagreed, simply waive me on one side with the words, "so you say." and if he should encounter a statement with which he agreed, he would in his wisdom, censure me for neglecting to provide for that proposition a satisfactory logical foundation. if it is far from my thoughts to claim a right of dictation, it is equally remote from them to take up the position that i have in my arguments furnished _proof_ of the thesis which i set out to establish. it would be culpable misuse of language to speak in such connexion of _proof_ or _disproof_. proof by testimony, which is available in con-nexion with questions of fact, is unavailable in connexion with general truths; and logical proof is obtainable only in that comparatively narrow sphere where reasoning is based--as in mathematics--upon axioms, or--as in certain really crucial experiments in the mathematic sciences--upon quasi-axiomatic premisses. everywhere else we base our reasonings on premisses which are simply more or less probable; and accordingly the conclusions which we arrive at have in them always an element of insecurity. it will be clear that in philosophy, in jurisprudence, in political economy and sociology, and in literary criticism and such like, we are dealing not with certainties but with propositions which are, for literary convenience, invested with the garb of certainties. what kind of logical sanction is it, then, which can attach to reasonings such as are to be set out here? they have in point of fact the sanction which attaches to reasonings based upon premisses arrived at by the method of _diacritical judgment._ it is, i hasten to notify the reader, not the method, but only the name here assigned to it, which is unfamiliar. as soon as i exhibit it in the working, the reader will identify it as that by which every generalisation and definition ought to be put to the proof. i may for this purpose take the general statements or definitions which serve as premisses for my reasonings in the text. i bring forward those generalisations and definitions because they commend themselves to my diacritical judgment. in other words, i set them forth as results which have been reached after reiterated efforts to call up to mind the totality of my experience, and to de-tect the factor which is common to all the individual experiences. when for instance i propose a definition, i have endeavoured to call to mind all the different uses of the word with which i am familiar--eliminating, of course, all the obviously incorrect uses. and when i venture to attempt a generalisation about woman, i endeavour to recall to mind without distinction all the different women i have encountered, and to extricate from my impressions what was common to all,--omitting from consideration (except only when i am dealing specifically with these) all plainly abnormal women. having by this procedure arrived at a generalisation--which may of course be correct or incorrect--i submit it to my reader, and ask from him that he should, after going through the same mental operations as myself, review my judgment, and pronounce his verdict. if it should then so happen that the reader comes, in the case of any generalisation, to the same verdict as that which i have reached, that particular generalisation will, i submit, now go forward not as a datum of my individual experience, but as the intellectual resultant of two separate and distinct experiences. it will thereby be immensely fortified. if, on the other hand, the reader comes to the conclusion that a particular generalisation is out of conformity with his experience, that generalisation will go forward shorn of some, or perchance all, its authority. but in any case each individual generalisation must be referred further. and at the end it will, according as it finds, or fails to find, acceptance among the thoughtful, be endorsed as a truth, and be gathered into the garner of human knowledge; or be recognised as an error, and find its place with the tares, which the householder, in time of the harvest, will tell the reapers to bind in bundles to burn them. a. e. w. . introduction programme of this treatise--motives from which women claim the suffrage--types of men who support the suffrage--john stuart mill. the task which i undertake here is to show that the woman's suffrage movement has no real intellectual or moral sanction, and that there are very weighty reasons why the suffrage should not be conceded to woman. i would propose to begin by analysing the mental attitude of those who range themselves on the side of woman suffrage, and then to pass on to deal with the principal arguments upon which the woman suffragist relies. the preponderating majority of the women who claim the suffrage do not do so from motives of public interest or philanthropy. they are influenced almost exclusively by two motives: resentment at the suggestion that woman should be accounted by man as inherently his inferior in certain important respects; and reprehension of a state of society in which more money, more personal liberty (in reality only more of the personal liberty which the possession of money confers), more power, more public recognition and happier physiological conditions fall to the share of man. a cause which derives its driving force so little from philanthropy and public interest and so much from offended _amour propre_ and pretensions which are, as we shall see, unjustified, has in reality no moral prestige. for its intellectual prestige the movement depends entirely on the fact that it has the advocacy of a certain number of distinguished men. it will not be amiss to examine that advocacy. the "intellectual" whose name appears at the foot of woman's suffrage petitions will, when you have him by himself, very often make confession:--"woman suffrage," he will tell you, "is not the grave and important cause which the ardent female suffragist deems it to be. not only will it not do any of the things which she imagines it is going to do, but it will leave the world exactly where it is. still--the concession of votes to women is desirable from the point of view of symmetry of classification; and it will soothe the ruffled feelings of quite a number of very worthy women." it may be laid down as a broad general rule that only two classes of men have the cause of woman's suffrage really at heart. the first is the crank who, as soon as he thinks he has discerned a moral principle, immediately gets into the saddle, and then rides hell-for-leather, reckless of all considerations of public expediency. the second is that very curious type of man, who when it is suggested in his hearing that the species woman is, measured by certain intellectual and moral standards, the inferior of the species man, solemnly draws himself up and asks, "are you, sir, aware that you are insulting my wife?" to this, the type of man who feels every unfavourable criticism of woman as a personal affront to himself, john stuart mill, had affinities. we find him writing a letter to the home secretary, informing him, in relation to a parliamentary bill restricting the sale of arsenic to male persons over twenty-one years, that it was a "gross insult to every woman, all women from highest to lowest being deemed unfit to have poison in their possession, lest they shall commit murder." we find him again, in a state of indignation with the english marriage laws, preluding his nuptials with mrs. taylor by presenting that lady with a formal charter; renouncing all authority over her, and promising her security against all infringements of her liberty which might proceed from _himself_. to this lady he is always ascribing credit for his eminent intellectual achievements. and lest his reader should opine that woman stands somewhat in the shade with respect to her own intellectual triumphs, mill undertakes the explanation. "felicitous thoughts," he tells us, "occur by hundreds to every woman of intellect. but they are mostly lost for want of a husband or friend . . . to estimate them properly, and to bring them before the world; and even when they are brought before it they generally appear as his ideas." not only did mill see woman and all her works through an optical medium which gave images like this; but there was upon his retina a large blind area. by reason of this last it was inapprehensible to him that there could be an objection to the sexes co-operating indiscriminately in work. it was beyond his ken that the sex element would under these conditions invade whole departments of life which are now free from it. as he saw things, there was in point of fact a risk of the human race dying out by reason of the inadequate imperativeness of its sexual instincts. mill's unfaithfulness to the facts cannot, however, all be put down to constitutional defects of vision. when he deals with woman he is no longer scrupulously conscientious. we begin to have our suspicions of his uprightness when we find him in his _subjection of women_ laying it down as a fundamental postulate that the subjection of woman to man is always morally indefensible. for no upright mind can fail to see that the woman who lives in a condition of financial dependence upon man has no moral claim to unrestricted liberty. the suspicion of mill's honesty which is thus awakened is confirmed by further critical reading of his treatise. in that skilful tractate one comes across, every here and there, a _suggestio falsi [suggestion of a falsehood],_ or a _suppressio veri [suppression of the truth],_ or a fallacious analogy nebulously expressed, or a mendacious metaphor, or a passage which is contrived to lead off attention from some weak point in the feminist case.[ ] moreover, mill was unmindful of the obligations of intellectual morality when he allowed his stepdaughter, in connexion with feminist questions, to draft letters [ ] which went forward as his own. [ ] _vide [see]_ in this connexion the incidental references to mill on pp. , footnote, and . [ ] vide _letters of john stuart mill,_ vol. ii, pp. , , , , , , , , , , and . there is yet another factor which must be kept in mind in connexion with the writings of mill. it was the special characteristic of the man to set out to tackle concrete problems and then to spend his strength upon abstractions. in his _political economy_, where his proper subject matter was man with his full equipment of impulses, mill took as his theme an abstraction: an _economic man_ who is actuated solely by the desire of gain. he then worked out in great elaboration the course of conduct which an aggregate of these puppets of his imagination would pursue. having persuaded himself, after this, that he had in his possession a _vade mecum_ _[handbook]_ to the comprehension of human societies, he now took it upon himself to expound the principles which govern and direct these. until such time as this procedure was unmasked, mill's political economy enjoyed an unquestioned authority. exactly the same plan was followed by mill in handling the question of woman's suffrage. instead of dealing with woman as she is, and with woman placed in a setting of actually subsisting conditions, mill takes as his theme a woman who is a creature of his imagination. this woman is, _by assumption_, in mental endowments a replica of man. she lives in a world which is, _by tacit assumption_, free from complications of sex. and, if practical considerations had ever come into the purview of mill's mind, she would, _by tacit assumption_, be paying her own way, and be making full personal and financial contributions to the state. it is in connexion with this fictitious woman that mill sets himself to work out the benefits which women would derive from co-partnership with men in the government of the state, and those which such co-partnership would confer on the community. finally, practising again upon himself the same imposition as in his _political economy_, this unpractical trafficker in abstractions sets out to persuade his reader that he has, by dealing with fictions of the mind, effectively grappled with the concrete problem of woman's suffrage. this, then, is the philosopher who gives intellectual prestige to the woman's suffrage cause. but is there not, let us in the end ask ourselves, here and there at least, a man who is of real account in the world of affairs, and who is--not simply a luke-warm platonic friend or an opportunist advocate--but an impassioned promoter of the woman's suffrage movement? one knows quite well that there is. but then one suspects--one perhaps discerns by "the spirit sense"--that this impassioned promoter of woman's suffrage is, on the sequestered side of his life, an idealistic dreamer: one for whom some woman's memory has become, like beatrice for dante, a mystic religion. we may now pass on to deal with the arguments by which the woman suffragist has sought to establish her case. part i arguments which are adduced in support of woman's suffrage i arguments from elementary natural rights signification of the term "woman's rights"--argument from "justice"--juridical justice-"egalitarian equity"--argument from justice applied to taxation--argument from liberty--summary of arguments from elementary natural rights. let us note that the suffragist does not--except, perhaps, when she is addressing herself to unfledged girls and to the sexually embittered--really produce much effect by inveighing against the legal grievances of woman under the bastardy laws, the divorce laws, and the law which fixes the legal age of consent. this kind of appeal does not go down with the ordinary man and woman--first, because there are many who think that in spite of occasional hardships the public advantage is, on the whole, very well served by the existing laws; secondly, because any alterations which might be desirable could very easily be made without recourse to woman's suffrage; and thirdly, because the suffragist consistently acts on the principle of bringing up against man everything that can possibly be brought up against him, and of never allowing anything to appear on the credit side of the ledger. the arguments which the woman suffragist really places confidence in are those which are provided by undefined general principles, apothegms set out in the form of axioms, formulae which are vehicles for fallacies, ambiguous abstract terms, and "question-begging" epithets. your ordinary unsophisticated man and woman stand almost helpless against arguments of this kind. for these bring to bear moral pressure upon human nature. and when the intellect is confused by a word or formula which conveys an ethical appeal, one may very easily find oneself committed to action which one's unbiased reason would never have approved. the very first requirement in connexion with any word or phrase which conveys a moral exhortation is, therefore, to analyse it and find out its true signification. for all such concepts as justice, rights, freedom, chivalry--and it is with these that we shall be specially concerned--are, when properly defined and understood beacon-lights, but when ill understood and undefined, stumbling-blocks in the path of humanity. we may appropriately begin by analysing the term "woman's rights" and the correlative formula "woman has a right to the suffrage." our attention here immediately focuses upon the term _right_. it is one of the most important of the verbal agents by which the suffragist hopes to bring moral pressure to bear upon man. now, the term _right_ denotes in its juridical sense a debt which is owed to us by the state. a right is created when the community binds itself to us, its individual members, to intervene by force to restrain any one from interfering with us, and to protect us in the enjoyment of our faculties, privileges, and property. the term is capable of being given a wider meaning. while no one could appropriately speak of our having a _right_ to health or anything that man has not the power to bestow, it is arguable that there are, independent of and antecedent to law, elementary rights: a right to freedom; a right to protection against personal violence; a right to the protection of our property; and a right to the impartial administration of regulations which are binding upon all. such a use of the term _right_ could be justified on the ground that everybody would be willing to make personal sacrifices, and to combine with his fellows for the purpose of securing these essentials--an understanding which would almost amount to legal sanction. the suffragist who employs the term "woman's _rights_" does not employ the word rights in either of these senses. her case is analogous to that of a man who should in a republic argue about the divine _right_ of kings; or that of the liberal who should argue that it was his _right_ to live permanently under a liberal government; or of any member of a minority who should, with a view of getting what he wants, argue that he was contending only for his rights. the woman suffragist is merely bluffing. her formula "_woman's rights_" means simply "_woman's claims_." for the moment--for we shall presently be coming back to the question of the enforcement of rights--our task is to examine the arguments which the suffragist brings forward in support of her claims. first and chief among these is the argument that the _principle of justice_ prescribes that women should be enfranchised. when we inquire what the suffragist understands under the principle of justice, one receives by way of answer only the _petitio principii [question begging]_ that justice is a moral principle which includes woman suffrage among its implications. in reality it is only very few who clearly apprehend the nature of justice. for under this appellation two quite different principles are confounded. the primary and correct signification of the term justice will perhaps be best arrived at by pursuing the following train of considerations:-- when man, long impatient at arbitrary and quite incalculable autocratic judgments, proceeded to build up a legal system to take the place of these, he built it upon the following series of axioms:--(_a_) all actions of which the courts are to take cognisance shall be classified. (_b_) the legal consequences of each class of action shall be definitely fixed. (_c_) the courts shall adjudicate only on questions of fact, and on the issue as to how the particular deed which is the cause of action should be classified. and (_d_) such decisions shall carry with them in an automatic manner the appointed legal consequences. for example, if a man be arraigned for the appropriation of another man's goods, it is an axiom that the court (when once the questions of fact have been disposed of) shall adjudicate only on the issue as to whether the particular appropriation of goods in dispute comes under the denomination of larceny, burglary, or other co-ordinate category; and that upon this the sentence shall go forth: directing that the legal consequences which are appointed to that particular class of action be enforced. this is the system every one can see administered in every court of justice. there is, however, over and above what has just been set out another essential element in justice. it is an element which readily escapes the eye. i have in view the fact that the classifications which are adopted and embodied in the law must not be arbitrary classifications. they must all be conformable to the principle of utility, and be directed to the advantage of society. if, for instance, burglary is placed in a class apart from larceny, it is discriminated from it because this distinction is demanded by considerations of public advantage. but considerations of utility would not countenance, and by consequence justice would not accept, a classification of theft into theft committed by a poor man and theft committed by a rich man. the conception of justice is thus everywhere interfused with considerations of utility and expediency. it will have become plain that if we have in view the justice which is administered in the courts--we may here term it _juridical justice_--then the question as to whether it is _just_ to refuse the suffrage to woman will be determined by considering whether the classification of men as voters and of women as non-voters is in the public interest. put otherwise, the question whether it would be just that woman should have a vote would require the answer "yes" or "no," according as the question whether it would be expedient or inexpedient that woman should vote required the answer "yes" or "no." but it would be for the electorate, not for the woman suffragist, to decide that question. there is, as already indicated, another principle which passes under the name of justice. i have in view the principle that in the distribution of wealth or political power, or any other privileges which it is in the power of the state to bestow, every man should share equally with every other man, and every woman equally with every man, and that in countries where europeans and natives live side by side, these latter should share all privileges equally with the white--the goal of endeavour being that all distinctions depending upon natural endowment, sex, and race should be effaced. we may call this principle the _principle of egalitarian equity_--first, because it aims at establishing a quite artificial equality; secondly, because it makes appeal to our ethical instincts, and claims on that ground to override the distinctions of which formal law takes account. but let us reflect that we have here a principle which properly understood, embraces in its purview all mankind, and not mankind only but also the lower animals. that is to say, we have here a principle, which consistently followed out, would make of every man and woman _in primis [at first]_ a socialist; then a woman suffragist; then a philo-native, negrophil, and an advocate of the political rights of natives and negroes; and then, by logical compulsion ant anti-vivisectionist, who accounts it _unjust_ to experiment on an animal; a vegetarian, who accounts it _unjust_ to kill animals for food; and findly one who, like the jains, accounts it unjust to take the life of even verminous insects. if we accept this principle of egalitarian equity as of absolute obligation, we shall have to accept along with woman's suffrage all the other "isms" believed in, and agitated for, by the cranks who are so numerously represented in the ranks of woman suffragists. if, on the other hand, we accept the doctrine of egalitarian equity with the qualification that it shall apply only so far as what it enjoins is conformable to public advantage, we shall again make expediency the criterion of the justice of woman's suffrage. before passing on it will be well to point out that the argument from justice meets us not only in the form that justice requires that woman should have a vote, but also in all sorts of other forms. we encounter it in the writings of publicists, in the formula _taxation_ _carries with it a right to representation_; and we encounter it in the streets, on the banners of woman suffrage processions, in the form _taxation without representation is tyranny_. this latter theorem of taxation which is displayed on the banners of woman suffrage is, i suppose, deliberately and intentionally a _suggestio falsi_. for only that taxation is tyrannous which is diverted to objects which are not useful to the contributors. and even the suffragist does not suggest that the taxes which are levied on women are differentially applied to the uses of men. putting, then, this form of argument out of sight, let us come to close quarters with the question whether the payment of taxes gives a title to control the finances of the state. now, if it really did so without any regard to the status of the claimant, not only women, but also foreigners residing in, or holding property in, england, and with these lunatics and miners with property, and let me, for the sake of a pleasanter collocation of ideas, hastily add peers of the realm, who have now no control over public finance, ought to receive the parliamentary franchise. and in like manner if the payment of a tax, without consideration of its amount, were to give a title to a vote, every one who bought an article which had paid a duty would be entitled to a vote in his own, or in a foreign, country according as that duty has been paid at home or abroad. in reality the moral and logical nexus between the payment of taxes and the control of the public revenue is that the solvent and selfsupporting citizens, and only these, are entitled to direct its financial policy. if i have not received, or if i have refunded, any direct contributions i may have received from the coffers of the state; if i have paid my _pro rata_ share of its establishment charges--_i.e._ of the costs of both internal administration and external defence; and i have further paid my proportional share of whatever may be required to make up for the deficit incurred on account of my fellow-men and women who either require direct assistance from the state, or cannot meet their share of the expenses of the state, i am a _solvent citizen_; and if i fail to meet these liabilities, i am an _insolvent citizen_ even though i pay such taxes as the state insists upon my paying. now if a woman insists, in the face of warnings that she had better not do so, on taxing man with dishonesty for withholding from her financial control over the revenues of the state, she has only herself to blame if she is told very bluntly that her claim to such control is barred by the fact that she is, as a citizen insolvent. the taxes paid by women would cover only a very small proportion of the establishment charges of the state which would properly be assigned to them. it falls to man to make up that deficit. and it is to be noted with respect to those women who pay their full pro rata contribution and who ask to be treated as a class apart from, and superior to, other women, that only a very small proportion of these have made their position for themselves. immeasurably the larger number are in a solvent position only because men have placed them there. all large fortunes and practically all the incomes which are furnished by investments are derived from man. nay; but the very revenues which the woman suffrage societies devote to man's vilification are to a preponderating extent derived from funds which he earned and gave over to woman. in connexion with the financial position of woman as here stated, it will be well to consider first the rich woman's claim to the vote. we may seek light on the logical and moral aspects of this claim by considering here two parallel cases. the position which is occupied by the peer under the english constitution furnishes a very interesting parallel to the position of the woman who is here in question. time out of mind the commons have viewed with the utmost jealousy any effort of the house of lords to obtain co-partnership with them in the control of the finances of the state; and, in pursuance of that traditional policy, the peers have recently, after appeal to the country, been shorn of the last vestige of financial control. now we may perhaps see, in this jealousy of a house of lords, which represents inherited wealth, displayed by a house of commons representing voters electing on a financial qualification, an unconscious groping after the moral principle that those citizens who are solvent by their own efforts, and only these, should control the finances of the state. and if this analogy finds acceptance, it would not--even if there were nothing else than this against such proposals--be logically possible, after ousting the peers who are large tax-payers from all control over the finances of the state, to create a new class of voters out of the female representatives of unearned wealth. the second parallel case which we have to consider presents a much simpler analogy. consideration will show that the position occupied in the state by the woman who has inherited money is analogous to that occupied in a firm by a sleeping partner who stands in the shoes of a deceased working partner, and who has only a small amount of capital in the business. now, if such a partner were to claim any financial control, and were to make trouble about paying his _pro rata_ establishment charges, he would be very sharply called to order. and he would never dream of appealing to justice by breaking windows, going to gaol, and undertaking a hunger strike. coming back from the particular to the general, and from the logical to the moral aspect of woman's claim to control the finances of the state on the ground that she is a tax-payer, it will suffice to point out that this claim is on a par with the claim to increased political power and completer control over the finances of the state which is put forward by a class of male voters who are already paying much less than their _pro rata_ share of the upkeep of the state. in each case it is a question of trying to get control of other people's money. and in the case of woman it is of "trying on" in connexion with her public partnership with man that principle of domestic partnership, "all yours is mine, and all mine's my own." next to the plea of justice, the plea which is advanced most insistently by the woman who is contending for a vote is the plea of liberty. we have here, again, a word which is a valuable asset to woman suffrage both in the respect that it brings moral pressure to bear, and in the respect that it is a word of ambiguous meaning. in accordance with this we have john stuart mill making propaganda for woman suffrage in a tractate entitled the_ subjection of_ _women_; we have a woman's _freedom_ league--"freedom" being a question-begging synonym for "parliamentary franchise"--and everywhere in the literature of woman's suffrage we have talk of woman's "emancipation"; and we have women characterised as serfs, or slaves--the terms _serfs_ and _slaves_ supplying, of course, effective rhetorical synonyms for non-voters. when we have succeeded in getting through these thick husks of untruth we find that the idea of liberty which floats before the eyes of woman is, not at all a question of freedom from unequitable legal restraints, but essentially a question of getting more of the personal liberty (or command of other people's services), which the possession of money confers and more freedom from sexual restraints. the suffragist agitator makes profit out of this ambiguity. in addressing the woman worker who does not, at the rate which her labour commands on the market, earn enough to give her any reasonable measure of financial freedom, the agitator will assure her that the suffrage would bring her more money, describing the woman suffrage cause to her as the cause of liberty. by juggling in this way with the two meanings of "liberty" she will draw her into her toils. the vote, however, would not raise wages of the woman worker and bring to her the financial, nor yet the physiological freedom she is seeking. the tactics of the suffragist agitator are the same when she is dealing with a woman who is living at the charges of a husband or relative, and who recoils against the idea that she lies under a moral obligation to make to the man who works for her support some return of gratitude. the suffragist agitator will point out to her that such an obligation is slavery, and that the woman's suffrage cause is the cause of freedom. and so we find the women who want to have everything for nothing, and the wives who do not see that they are beholden to man for anything, and those who consider that they have not made a sufficiently good bargain for themselves--in short, all the ungrateful women--flock to the banner of women's freedom--the banner of financial freedom for woman at the expense of financial servitude for man. the grateful woman will practically always be an anti-suffragist. it will be well, before passing on to another class of arguments, to summarise what has been said in the three foregoing sections. we have recognised that woman has not been defrauded of elementary natural rights; that justice, as distinguished from egalitarian equity, does not prescribe that she should be admitted to the suffrage; and that her status is not, as is dishonestly alleged, a status of serfdom or slavery. with this the whole case for recrimination against man, and _a fortiori [for greater reason]_ the case for [a] resort to violence, collapses. and if it does collapse, this is one of those things that carries consequences. it would beseem man to bethink himself that to give in to an unjustified and doubtfully honest claim is to minister to the demoralisation of the claimant. ii arguments from intellectual grievances of woman complaint of want of chivalry--complaint of "insults"--complaint of "illogicalities"--complaint of "prejudices"--the familiar suffragist grievance of the drunkard voter and the woman of property who is a non-voter--the grievance of woman being required to obey man-made laws. we pass from the argument from elementary natural rights to a different class of arguments--intellectual grievances. the suffragist tells us that it is unchivalrous to oppose woman's suffrage; that it is insulting to tell woman that she is unfit to exercise the franchise; that it is "illogical" to make in her case an exception to a general rule; that it is mere "prejudice" to withhold the vote from her; that it is indignity that the virtuous and highly intelligent woman has no vote, while the drunkard has; and that the woman of property has no vote, while her male underlings have; and, lastly, that it is an affront that a woman should be required to obey "man-made" laws. we may take these in their order. let us consider chivalry, first, from the standpoint of the woman suffragist. her notion of _chivalry_ is that man should accept every disadvantageous offer which may be made to him by woman. that, of course, is to make chivalry the principle of egalitarian equity limited in its application to the case between man and woman. it follows that she who holds that the suffrage ought, in obedience to that principle of justice, to be granted to her by man, might quite logically hold that everything else in man's gift ought also to be conceded. but to do the woman suffragist justice, she does not press the argument from chivalry. inasmuch as life has brought home to her that the ordinary man has quite other conceptions of that virtue, she declares that "she has no use for it." let us now turn to the anti-suffragist view. the anti-suffragist (man or woman) holds that chivalry is a principle which enters into every reputable relation between the sexes, and that of all the civilising agencies at work in the world it is the most important. but i think i hear the reader interpose, "what, then, is chivalry if it is not a question of serving woman without reward?" a moment's thought will make the matter clear. when a man makes this compact with a woman, "i will do you reverence, and protect you, and yield you service; and you, for your part, will hold fast to an ideal of gentleness, of personal refinement, of modesty, of joyous maternity, and to who shall say what other graces and virtues that endear woman to man," that is _chivalry_. it is not a question of a purely one-sided bargain, as in the suffragist conception. nor yet is it a bargain about purely material things. it is a bargain in which man gives both material things, and also things which pertain perhaps somewhat to the spirit; and in which woman gives back of these last. but none the less it is of the nature of a contract. there is in it the inexorable _do ut des; facio ut facias [give me this, and i will give you that; do this for me, and i will do that for you]._ and the contract is infringed when woman breaks out into violence, when she jettisons her personal refinement, when she is ungrateful, and, possibly, when she places a quite extravagantly high estimate upon her intellectual powers. we now turn from these almost too intimate questions of personal morality to discuss the other grievances which were enumerated above. with regard to the suffragist's complaint that it is _"insulting"_ for woman to be told that she is as a class unfit to exercise the suffrage, it is relevant to point out that one is not insulted by being told about oneself, or one's class, untruths, but only at being told about oneself, or one's class, truths which one dislikes. and it is, of course, an offence against ethics to try to dispose of an unpalatable generalisation by characterising it as "insulting." but nothing that man could do would be likely to prevent the suffragist resorting to this aggravated form of intellectual immorality. we may now turn to the complaint that it is "illogical" to withhold the vote from women. this is the kind of complaint which brings out in relief the logical endowment and legislative sagacity of the suffragist. with regard to her logical endowment it will suffice to indicate that the suffragist would appear to regard the promulgation of a rule which is to hold without exception as an essentially logical act; and the admission of any class exception to a rule of general application as an illogicality. it would on this principle be "illogical" to except, under conscription, the female population from military service. with regard to the suffragist's legislative sagacity we may note that she asks that we should put back the clock, and return to the days when any arbitrary principle might be adduced as a ground for legislation. it is as if bentham had never taught:-- "what is it to offer a _good reason_ with respect to a law? it is to allege the good or evil which the law tends to produce; so much good, so many arguments in its favour; so much evil, so many arguments against it. "what is it to offer a _false reason?_ it is the alleging for, or against a law, something else than its good or evil effects." next, we may take up the question as to whether an unwelcome generalisation may legitimately be got out of the way by characterising it as a prejudice. this is a fundamentally important question not only in connexion with such an issue as woman suffrage, but in connexion with all search for truth in those regions where crucial scientific experiments cannot be instituted. in the whole of this region of thought we have to guide ourselves by generalisations. now every generalisation is in a sense a _prejudgment_. we make inferences from cases or individuals that have already presented themselves to such cases or individuals of the same class as may afterwards present themselves. and if our generalisation happens to be an unfavourable one, we shall of necessity have prejudged the case against those who are exceptions to their class. thus, for example, the proposition that woman is incapable of usefully exercising the parliamentary franchise prejudges the case against a certain number of capable women. it would none the less be absolutely anarchical to propose to abandon the system of guiding ourselves by prejudgments; and unfavourable prejudgments or prejudices are logically as well justified, and are obviously as indispensable to us as favourable prejudgments. the suffragist who proposes to dispose of generalisations which are unfavourable to woman as prejudices ought therefore to be told to stand down. it has probably never suggested itself to her that, if there were a mind which was not stored with both favourable prejudgments and prejudices, it would be a mind which had learned absolutely nothing from experience. but i hear the reader interpose, "is there not a grave danger that generalisations may be erroneous?" and i can hear the woman suffragist interject, "is there not a grave danger that unflattering generalisations about woman may be erroneous?" the answer to the general question is that there is of course always the risk that our generalisations may be erroneous. but when a generalisation finds wide acceptance among the thoughtful, we have come as close to truth as it is possible for humanity to come. to the question put by the suffragist the reply is that experience with regard to the capacity of woman has been accumulating in all climes, and through all times; and that the belief of men in the inherent inferiority of women in the matter of intellectual morality, and in the power of adjudication, has never varied. i pass now to the two most familiar grievances of the suffragist; the grievance that the virtuous and intelligent woman has no vote, while the male drunkard has; and the grievance that the woman of property has no vote, while her male underlings have. all that is worth while saying on these points is that the suffragist is here manufacturing grievances for herself, _first_, by reasoning from the false premiss that every legal distinction which happens to press hardly upon a few individuals ought for that to be abrogated; and, _secondly_, by steady leaving out of sight that logical inconsistencies can, for the more part, be got rid of only at the price of bringing others into being. the man who looks forward to the intellectual development of woman must be brought near to despair when he perceives that practically every woman suffragist sees in every hard case arising in connexion with a legal distinction affecting woman, an insult and example of the iniquity of man-made laws, or a logical inconsistency which could with a very little good-will be removed. we have come now to the last item on our list, to the grievance that woman has to submit herself to "_man-made laws_." this is a grievance which well rewards study. it is worth study from the suffragist point of view, because it is the one great injury under which all others are subsumed. and it is worth studying from the anti-suffragist point of view, because it shows how little the suffragist understands of the terms she employs; and how unreal are the wrongs which she resents. quite marvelously has the woman suffragist in this connexion misapprehended; or would she have us say misrepresented? the woman suffragist misapprehends--it will be better to assume that she "misapprehends"--when she suggests that we, the male electors, have framed the laws. in reality the law which we live under--and the law in those states which have adopted either the english, or the roman law--descends from the past. it has been evolved precedent, by precedent, by the decisions of generation upon generation of judges, and it has for centuries been purged by amending statutes. moreover we, the present male electors--the electors who are savagely attacked by the suffragist for our asserted iniquities in connexion with the laws which regulate sexual relations--have never in our capacity as electors had any power to alter an old, or to suggest a new law; except only in so far as by voting conservative or liberal we may indirectly have remotely influenced the general trend of legislation. "well but"--the suffragist will here rejoin--"is it not at any rate true that in the drafting of statutes and the framing of judicial decisions man has always nefariously discriminated against woman?" the question really supplies its own answer. it will be obvious to every one who considers that the drafting of statutes and the formulating of legal decisions is almost as impersonal a procedure as that of drawing up the rules to govern a game; and it offers hardly more opportunity for discriminating between man and woman. there are, however, three questions in connexion with which the law can and does make a distinction between man and woman. the _first_ is that of sexual relations: rape, divorce, bastardy, and the age of consent. in connexion with _rape_, it has never been alleged that the law is not sufficiently severe. it is, or has been, under colonial conditions, severe up to the point of ferocity. in the matter of _divorce_ the law of a minority of man-governed states differentiates in favour of man. it does so influenced by tradition, by what are held to be the natural equities, and by the fact that a man is required to support his wife's progeny. the law of _bastardy [illegitimate childbirth]_ is what it is because of the dangers of blackmail. the law which fixes the age of consent discriminates against man, laying him open to a criminal charge in situations where woman--and it is not certain that she is not a more frequent offender--escapes scot-free. the _second_ point in which the law differentiates is in the matter of exacting personal service for the state. if it had not been that man is more prone to discriminate in favour of woman than against her, every military state, when exacting personal military service from men, would have demanded from women some such equivalent personal service as would be represented by a similar period of work in an army clothing establishment, or ordnance factory, or army laundry; or would at any rate have levied upon woman a ransom in lieu of such service. the _third_ point in which the law distinguishes between man and woman is with reference to the suffrage. the object of this book is to show that this is equitable and in the interests of both. the suffragist further misapprehends when she regards it as an indignity to obey laws which she has not herself framed, or specifically sanctioned. (the whole male electorate, be it remarked, would here lie under the same dignity as woman.) but in reality, whether it is a question of the rules of a game, or of the reciprocal rights and duties of members of a community, it is, and ought to be, to every reasonable human being not a grievance, but a matter of felicitation, that an expert or a body of experts should have evolved a set of rules under which order and harmony are achieved. only vanity and folly would counsel amateurs to try to draw up rules or laws for themselves. again, the woman suffragist takes it as a matter of course that she would herself be able to construct a system of workable laws. in point of fact, the framing of a really useful law is a question of divining something which will apply to an infinite number of different cases and individuals. it is an intellectual feat on a par with the framing of a great generalisation. and would woman--that being of such short sight, whose mind is always so taken up with whatever instances lie nearest to her--be capable of framing anything that could pass muster as a great generalisation? lastly, the suffragist fails to see that the function of framing the laws is not an essential function of citizenship. the essential functions of citizenship are the shaping of public policy, and the control of the administrative acts of government. such directive control is in a state of political freedom exercised through two quite different agencies. it is exercised--and it is of the very essence of political freedom that this should be the normal method of control--in the first place, through expressed public opinion. by this are continuously regulated not only momentous matters of state, such as declarations of war and the introduction of constitutional changes, but also smaller and more individual matters, such as the commutation of a capital sentence, or the forcible feeding of militant suffragists. in the background, behind the moral compulsion of expressed public opinion, there is, in the case of a parliamentary state, also another instrument of control. i have in view that periodical settlement of the contested rulership of the state by the force of a majority of electors which is denoted a general election. the control exercised by the suffrages of the electors in a general election is in certain important respects less effective than that exercised by the everyday public expression of opinion. it falls short in the respect that its verdicts are, except only in connexion with the issue as to whether the government is to be retained in office or dismissed, ambiguous verdicts; further, in the respect that it comes into application either before governmental proposals have taken definite shape, or only after the expiration of a term of years, when the events are already passing out of memory. if we now consider the question of woman's franchise from the wider point of view here opened up, it will be clear that, so far as concerns the control which is exercised through public opinion on the government, the intelligent woman, and especially the intelligent woman who has made herself an expert on any matter, is already in possession of that which is a greater power than the franchise. she has the power which attaches to all intelligent opinion promulgated in a free state. moreover, wherever the special interest of women are involved, any woman may count on being listened to if she is voicing the opinions of any considerable section of her sex. in reality, therefore, woman is disfranchised only so far as relates to the confirmation of a government in office, or its dismissal by the _ultima ratio [ultimate reason]_ of an electoral contest. and when we reflect that woman does not come into consideration as a compelling force, and that an electoral contest partakes of the nature of a civil war, it becomes clear that to give her the parliamentary vote would be to reduce all those trials of strength which take the form of electoral contests to the level of a farce. with this i have, i will not say completed the tale of the suffragist's grievances--that would be impossible--but i have at any rate dealt with those which she has most acrimoniously insisted upon. iii arguments which take the form of "counsels of perfection" addressed to man argument that woman requires a vote for her protection--argument that woman ought to be invested with the responsibilities of voting in order that she may attain her full intellectual stature. there, however, remains still a further class of arguments. i have in view here arguments which have nothing to do with elementary natural rights, nor yet with wounded _amour propre._ they concern ethics, and sympathy, and charitable feelings. the suffragist here gives to man "counsels of perfection." it will be enough to consider here two of these:--the _first_, the argument that woman, being the weaker vessel, needs, more than man, the suffrage for her _protection_; the _second_, that woman, being less than man in relation to public life, ought to be given the vote for _instructional purposes_. the first of these appeals will, for instance, take the following form:--"consider the poor sweated east end woman worker. she knows best where the shoe pinches. you men can't know. give her a vote; and you shall see that she will very soon better her condition." when i hear that argument i consider:--we will suppose that woman was ill. should we go to her and say: "you know best, know better than any man, what is wrong with you. here are all the medicines and remedies. make your own selection, for that will assuredly provide what will be the most likely to help." if this would be both futile and inhuman, much more would it be so to seek out this woman who is sick in fortune and say to her, "go and vote for the parliamentary candidate who will be likely to influence the trend of legislation in a direction which will help." what would really help the sweated woman labourer would, of course, be to have the best intellect brought to bear, not specially upon the problem of indigent woman, but upon the whole social problem. but the aspect of the question which is, from our present point of view, the fundamentally important one is the following: granting that the extension of the suffrage to woman would enable her, as the suffragist contends, to bring pressure upon her parliamentary representative, man, while anxious to do his very best for woman, might very reasonably refuse to go about it in this particular way. if a man has a wife whom he desires to treat indulgently, he does not necessarily open a joint account with her at his bankers. if he wants to contribute to a charity he does not give to the managers of that charity a power of attorney over his property. and if he is a philanthropical director of a great business he does not, when a pathetic case of poverty among his staff is brought to his notice, imperil the fortunes of his undertaking by giving to his workmen shares and a vote in the management. moreover, he would perhaps regard it as a little suspect if a group of those who were claiming this as a right came and told him that "it was very _selfish_ of him" not to grant their request. precious above rubies to the suffragist and every other woman who wants to apply the screw to man is that word _selfish_. it furnishes her with the _petitio principii_ that man is under an ethical obligation to give anything she chooses to ask. we come next--and this is the last of all the arguments we have to consider--to the argument that the suffrage ought to be given to woman for instructional purposes. now it would be futile to attempt to deny that we have ready to hand in the politics of the british empire--that empire which is swept along in "the too vast orb of her fate"--an ideal political training-ground in which we might put woman to school. the woman voter would there be able to make any experiment she liked. but one wonders why it has not been proposed to carry woman's instruction further, and for instructional purposes to make of a woman let us say a judge, or an ambassador, or a prime minister. there would--if only it were legitimate to sacrifice vital national interests--be not a little to say in favour of such a course. one might at any rate hope by these means once for all to bring home to man the limitations of woman. part ii arguments against the concession of the parliamentary suffrage to woman i woman's disability in the matter of physical force international position of state would be imperilled by woman's suffrage--internal equilibrium of state would be imperilled. the woman suffrage movement has now gone too far to be disposed of by the overthrow of its arguments, and by a mere indication of those which could be advanced on the other side. the situation demands the bringing forward of the case against woman's suffrage; and it must be the full and quite unexpurgated case. i shall endeavour to do this in the fewest possible words, and to be more especially brief where i have to pass again over ground which i have previously traversed in dealing with the arguments of the suffragists. i may begin with what is fundamental. it is an axiom that we should in legislating guide ourselves directly by considerations of utility and expediency. for abstract principles--i have in view here _rights, justice, egalitarian equity, equality, liberty, chivalry, logicality,_ and such like--are not all of them guides to utility; and each of these is, as we have seen, open to all manner of private misinterpretation. applying the above axiom to the issue before us, it is clear that we ought to confine ourselves here to the discussion of the question as to whether the state would, or would not, suffer from the admission of women to the electorate. we can arrive at a judgment upon this by considering, on the one hand, the class-characters of women so far as these may be relevant to the question of the suffrage; and, on the other hand, the legislative programmes put forward by the female legislative reformer and the feminist. in connexion with the class-characters of woman, it will be well, before attempting to indicate them, to interpolate here the general consideration that the practical statesman, who has to deal with things as they are, is not required to decide whether the characters of women which will here be considered are, as the physiologist (who knows that the sexual products influence every tissue of the body) cannot doubt, "secondary sexual characters"; or, as the suffragist contends, "acquired characters." it will be plain that whether defects are "secondary sexual characters" (and therefore as irremediable as "racial characters"); or whether they are "acquired characters" (and as such theoretically remediable) they are relevant to the question of the concession of the suffrage just so long as they continue to be exhibited.[ ] [ ] this is a question on which mill (vide _subjection of women_, last third of chapter i) has endeavoured to confuse the issues for his reader, first, by representing that by no possibility can man know anything of the "nature," _i.e._, of the "secondary sexual characters" of woman; and, secondly, by distracting attention from the fact that "acquired characters" may produce unfitness for the suffrage. the primordial argument against giving woman the vote is that that vote would not represent physical force. now it is by physical force alone and by prestige--which represents physical force in the background--that a nation protects itself against foreign interference, upholds its rule over subject populations, and enforces its own laws. and nothing could in the end more certainly lead to war and revolt than the decline of the military spirit and loss of prestige which would inevitably follow if man admitted woman into political co-partnership. while it is arguable that such a partnership with woman in government as obtains in australia and new zealand is sufficiently unreal to be endurable, there cannot be two opinions on the question that a virile and imperial race will not brook any attempt at forcible control by women. again, no military foreign nation or native race would ever believe in the stamina and firmness of purpose of any nation that submitted even to the semblance of such control. the internal equilibrium of the state also would be endangered by the admission to the register of millions of electors whose vote would not be endorsed by the authority of physical force. regarded from this point of view a woman's suffrage measure stands on an absolutely different basis to any other extension of the suffrage. an extension which takes in more men--whatever else it may do--makes for stability in the respect that it makes the decrees of the legislature more irresistible. an extension which takes in any women undermines the physical sanction of the laws. we can see indications of the evil that would follow such an event in the profound dissatisfaction which is felt when--in violation of the democratic principle that every man shall count for one, and no man for more than one--the political wishes of the large constituencies which return relatively few members to parliament, are overborne by those of constituencies which, with a smaller aggregate population, return more members. and we see what such evil finally culminates in when the over-representation of one part of a country and the corresponding under-representation of other portions has led a large section of the people to pledge themselves to disregard the eventual ordinances of parliament. if ever the question as to whether the will of ulster or that of the nationalists is to prevail is brought to the arbitrament of physical force, it will be due to the inequalities of parliamentary representation as between england and ireland, and as between the unionist and nationalist population of ulster. the general lesson that all governmental action ought to be backed by force, is further brought home to the conscience when we take note of the fact that every one feels that public morality is affronted when senile, infirm, and bedridden men are brought to the poll to turn the scale in hotly contested elections. for electoral decisions are felt to have moral prestige only when the electoral figures quantitatively represent the physical forces which are engaged on either side. and where vital interests are involved, no class of men can be expected to accept any decision other than one which rests upon the _ultima ratio_. now all the evils which are the outcome of disparities between the parliamentary power and the organised physical force of contending parties would "grow" a hundredfold if women were admitted to the suffrage. there would after that be no electoral or parliamentary decision which would not be open to challenge on the ground that it was impossible to tell whether the party which came out the winner had a majority which could enforce its will, or only a majority obtained by the inclusion of women. and no measure of redistribution could ever set that right. there may find place here also the consideration that the voting of women would be an unsettling element in the government of the state, forasmuch as they would, by reason of a general lack of interest in public affairs, only very; seldom come to the poll: would, in fact, come to the poll in full strength only when some special appeal had come home to their emotions. now an electorate which includes a very large proportion of quite uninterested voters would be in the same case as a legislature which included a very large proportion of members who made a practice of staying away. it would be in the same case, because the absentees, who would not have acquired the training which comes from consecutive attention to public affairs, might at any moment step in and upset the stability of state by voting for some quite unconsidered measure. coming back in conclusion to our main issue, i would re-emphasise an aspect of the question upon which i have already elsewhere insisted.[ ] i have in view the fact that woman does, and should, stand to physical violence in a fundamentally different relation to man. nothing can alter the fact that, the very moment woman resorts to violence, she places herself within the jurisdiction of an ethical law, which is as old as civilisation, and which was framed in its interests. [ ] _vide_ appendix, pp. - . ii woman's disability in the matter of intellect characteristics of the feminine mind--suffragist illusions with regard to the equality of man and woman as workers--prospect for the intellectual future of woman--has woman advanced? the woman voter would be pernicious to the state not only because she could not back her vote by physical force, but also by reason of her intellectual defects. woman's mind attends in appraising a statement primarily to the mental images which it evokes, and only secondarily--and sometimes not at all--to what is predicated in the statement. it is over-influenced by individual instances; arrives at conclusions on incomplete evidence; has a very imperfect sense of proportion; accepts the congenial as true, and rejects the uncongenial as false; takes the imaginary which is desired for reality, and treats the undesired reality which is out of sight as non-existent--building up for itself in this way, when biased by predilections and aversions, a very unreal picture of the external world. the explanation of this is to be found in all the physiological attachments of woman's mind:[ ] in the fact that mental images are in her over-intimately linked up with emotional reflex responses; that yielding to such reflex responses gives gratification; that intellectual analysis and suspense of judgment involve an inhibition of reflex responses which is felt as neural distress; that precipitate judgment brings relief from this physiological strain; and that woman looks upon her mind not as an implement for the pursuit of truth, but as an instrument for providing her with creature comforts in the form of agreeable mental images. [ ] certain of these have already been referred to in the letter printed in the appendix (_ vide_ p. _infra_). in order to satisfy the physical yearning for such comforts, a considerable section of intelligent and virtuous women insist on picturing to themselves that the reign of physical force is over, or as good as over; that distinctions based upon physical and intellectual force may be reckoned as non-existent; that male supremacy as resting upon these is a thing of the past; and that justice means egalitarian equity--means equating the weaklings with the strong and the incapable with the capable. all this because these particular ideas are congenial to the woman of refinement, and because it is to her, when she is a suffragist, uncongenial that there should exist another principle of justice which demands from the physically and intellectually capable that they shall retain the reins of government in their own hands; and specially uncongenial that in all man-governed states the ideas of justice of the more forceful should have worked out so much to the advantage of women, that a large majority of these are indifferent or actively hostile to the woman's suffrage movement. in further illustration of what has been said above, it may be pointed out that woman, even intelligent woman, nurses all sorts of misconceptions about herself. she, for instance, is constantly picturing to herself that she can as a worker lay claim to the same all-round efficiency as a man--forgetting that woman is notoriously unadapted to tasks in which severe physical hardships have to be confronted; and that hardly any one would, if other alternative offered, employ a woman in any work which imposed upon her a combined physical and mental strain, or in any work where emergencies might have to be faced. in like manner the suffragist is fond of picturing to herself that woman is for all ordinary purposes the intellectual equal, and that the intelligent woman is the superior of the ordinary man. these results are arrived at by fixing the attention upon the fact that an ordinary man and an ordinary woman are, from the point of view of memory and apprehension, very much on a level; and that a highly intelligent woman has a quicker memory and a more rapid power of apprehension than the ordinary man; and further, by leaving out of regard that it is not so much a quick memory or a rapid power of apprehension which is required for effective intellectual work, as originality, or at any rate independence of thought, a faculty of felicitious generalisations and diacritical judgment, long-sustained intellectual effort, an unselective mirroring of the world in the mind, and that relative immunity to fallacy which goes together with a stable and comparatively unresponsive nervous system. when we consider that the intellect of the quite ungifted man works with this last-mentioned physiological advantage, we can see that the male intellect must be, and--_pace [with the permission of]_ the woman suffragist--it in point of fact is, within its range, a better instrument for dealing with the practical affairs of life than that of the intelligent woman. how far off we are in the case of woman from an unselective mirroring of the world in the mind is shown by the fact that large and important factors of life may be represented in woman's mind by lacunae [gaps] of which she is totally unconscious. thus, for instance, that not very unusual type of spinster who is in a condition of retarded development (and you will find this kind of woman even on county council's), is completely unconscious of the sexual element in herself and in human nature generally. nay, though one went from the dead, he could not bring it home to her that unsatisfied sexuality is an intellectual disability. sufficient illustration will now have been given of woman's incapacity to take a complete or objective view of any matter in which she has a personal, or any kind of emotional interest; and this would now be the place to discuss those other aspects of her mind which are relevant to her claim to the suffrage. i refer to her logical endowment and her political sagacity. all that i might have been required to say here on these issues has, however, already been said by me in dealing with the arguments of the suffragist. i have there carefully written it in between the lines. one thing only remains over.--we must, before we pass on, consider whether woman has really, as she tells us, given earnest for the future weeding out of these her secondary sexual characters, by making quite phenomenal advances within the lifetime of the present generation; and, above all, whether there is any basis for woman's confident assurance that, when for a few generations she shall have enjoyed educational advantages, she will at any rate pull up level with man. the vision of the future may first engage our attention; for only this roseate prospect makes of any man a feminist. now the basis that all this hope rests upon is the belief that it is a law of heredity that acquired characteristics are handed down; and, let it be observed, that whereas this theory found, not many decades ago, under the influence of darwin, thousands of adherents among scientific men, it finds to-day only here and there an adherent. but let that pass, for we have to consider here, not only whether acquired characteristics are handed down, but further whether, "if we held that doctrine true," it would furnish scientific basis for the belief that educational advantages carried on from generation to generation would level up woman's intellect to man's; and whether, as the suffragist also believes, the narrow education of past generations of women can be held responsible for their present intellectual shortcomings. a moment's consideration will show--for we may here fix our eyes only on the future--that woman could not hope to advance relatively to man except upon the condition that the acquired characteristics of woman, instead of being handed down equally to her male and female descendants, were accumulated upon her daughters. now if that be a law of heredity, it is a law which is as yet unheard of outside the sphere of the woman suffrage societies. moreover, one is accustomed to hear women, when they are not arguing on the suffrage, allege that clever mothers make clever sons. it must, as it will have come home to us, be clear to every thoughtful mind that woman's belief that she will, through education and the cumulation of its effects upon her through generations, become a more glorious being, rests, not upon any rational basis, but only on the physiological fact that what is congenial to woman impresses itself upon her as true. all that sober science in the form of history and physiology would seem to entitle us to hope from the future of woman is that she will develop _pari passu [step by step]_ with man; and that education will teach her not to retard him overmuch by her lagging in the rear. in view of this larger issue, the question as to whether woman has, in any real sense of the word, been making progress in the course of the present generation, loses much of interest. if to move about more freely, to read more freely, to speak out her mind more freely, and to have emancipated herself from traditionary beliefs--and, i would add, traditionary ethics--is to have advanced, woman has indubitably advanced. but the educated native too has advanced in all these respects; and he also tells us that he is pulling up level with the white man. let us at any rate, when the suffragist is congratulating herself on her own progress, meditate also upon that dictum of nietzsche, "progress is writ large on all woman's banners and bannerets; but one can actually see her going back." iii woman's disability in the matter of public morality standards by which morality can be appraised--conflict between different moralities--the correct standard of morality--moral psychology of men and woman--difference between man and woman in matters of public morality. yet a third point has to come into consideration in connexion with the woman voter. this is, that she would be pernicious to the state also by virtue of her defective moral equipment. let me make clear what is the nature of the defect of morality which is here imputed to woman. conduct may be appraised by very different standards. we may appraise it by reference to a transcendental religious ideal which demands that the physical shall be subordinated to the spiritual, and that the fetters of self should be flung aside. or again, we may bring into application purely mundane utilitarian standards, and may account conduct as immoral or moral according as it seeks only the happiness of the agent, or the happiness of the narrow circle of humanity which includes along with him also his relatives and intimate friends, or again, the welfare of the wider circle which includes all those with whom he may have come into contact, or whom he may affect through his work; or again, the welfare of the whole body-politic of which we are members; or lastly, that of the general body of mankind. now it might be contended that all these different moralities are in their essence one and the same; and that one cannot comply with the requirements of any one of these systems of morality without fulfilling in a measure the requirements of all the other moralities. it might, for example, be urged that if a man strive after the achievement of a transcendental ideal in which self shall be annulled, he will _pro tanto [to such extent]_ be bringing welfare to his domestic circle; or again, that it would be impossible to promote domestic welfare without, through this, promoting the welfare of the nation, and through that the general welfare of the world. in like manner it might be argued that all work done for abstract principles of morality like liberty and justice, for the advancement of knowledge, and for whatever else goes to the building up of a higher civilisation, will, by promoting the welfare of the general body of mankind, redound to the advantage of each several nation, and ultimately to the advantage of each domestic circle. but all this would be true only in a very superficial and strictly qualified sense. in reality, just as there is eternal conflict between egoism and altruism, so there is conflict between the different moralities. to take examples, the attempt to actualise the transcendental religious ideal may, when pursued with ardour, very easily conflict with the morality which makes domestic felicity its end. and again--as we see in the anti-militarist movement in france, in the history of the early christian church, in the case of the quakers and in the teachings of tolstoy--it may quite well set itself in conflict with national ideals, and dictate a line of conduct which is, from the point of view of the state, immoral. we need no further witness of the divorce between idealistic and national morality than that which is supplied in the memorable utterance of bishop magee, "no state which was conducted on truly christian principles could hold together for a week." and domestic morality will constantly come into conflict with public morality. to do everything in one's power to advance one's relatives and friends irrespectively of all considerations of merit would, no doubt, be quite sound domestic morality; it could, however, not always be reconciled with public morality. in the same way, to take one's country's part in all eventualities would be patriotic, but it might quite well conflict with the higher interests of humanity. now, the point towards which we have been winning our way is that each man's moral station and degree will be determined by the election which he makes where egoism and altruism, and where a narrower and a wider code of morality, conflict. that the moral law forbids yielding to the promptings of egoism or to those of the narrower moralities when this involves a violation of the precepts of the wider morality is axiomatic. criminal and anti-social actions are not excused by the fact that motives which impelled their commission were not purely egoistic. but the ethical law demands more than abstention from definitely anti-social actions. it demands from every individual that he shall recognise the precepts of public morality as of superior obligation to those of egoism and domestic morality. by the fact that her public men recognised this ethical law rome won for herself in the ancient world spectacular grandeur. by an unexampled national obedience to it glory has in our time accrued to japan. and, in truth, there is not anywhere any honour or renown but such as comes from casting away the bonds of self and of the narrower moralities to carry out the behests of the wider morality. even in the strongholds of transcendental religion where it was axiomatic that morality began and was summed up in personal morality, it is gradually coming to be recognised that, where we have two competing moralities, it is always the wider morality which has the prior claim upon our allegiance. kingsley's protest against the morality of "saving one's dirty soul" marked a step in advance. and we find full recognition of the superior claim of the larger morality in that other virile dictum of bishop magee, "i would rather have england free, than england sober." that is, "i would maintain the conditions which make for the highest civilisation even at the price of a certain number of lapses in personal and domestic morality." what is here new, let it be noted, is only the acknowledgment by those whose official allegiance is to a transcendental ideal of personal morality that they are called upon to obey a higher allegiance. for there has always existed, in the doctrine that guilty man could not be pardoned and taken back into favour until the claims of eternal justice had been satisfied, theoretical recognition of the principle that one must conform to the precepts of abstract morality before one may ethically indulge oneself in the lower moralities of philanthropy and personal benevolence. the view point from which i would propose to survey the morality of woman has now been reached. it has, however, still to be pointed out that we may appropriately, in comparing the morals of man and woman, confine our survey to a comparatively narrow field. that is to say, we may here rule out all that relates to purely personal and domestic morality--for this is not relevant to the suffrage. and we may also rule out all that relates to offences against the police laws--such as public drunkenness and offences against the criminal law--for these would come into consideration only in connexion with an absolutely inappreciable fraction of voters. it will be well to begin by signalising certain points in the moral psychology of man. when morality takes up its abode in a man who belongs to the intellectual caste it will show itself in his becoming mindful of his public obligations. he will consider the quality of his work as affecting the interest of those who have to place dependence upon it; behaviour to those who are casually brought into relations with him; the discharge of his indebtedness to the community; and the proper conduct of public affairs. in particular, it will be to him a matter of concern that the law shall be established upon classifications which are just (in the sense of being conformable to public advantage); and that the laws shall everywhere be justly, that is to say rigorously and impartially, administered. if we now turn to the man in the street we shall not find him especially sensible to the appeals of morality. but when the special call comes it will generally be possible to trust him: as an elector, to vote uninfluenced by considerations of private advantage; and, when called to serve on a jury, to apply legal classifications without distinction of person. furthermore, in all times of crisis he may be counted upon to apply the principles of communal morality which have been handed down in the race. the _titanic_ disaster, for example, showed in a conspicuous manner that the ordinary man will, "letting his own life go," obey the communal law which lays it upon him, when involved in a catastrophe, to save first the women and children. lastly, we come to the man who is intolerant of all the ordinary restraints of personal and domestic morality. even in him the seeds of communal morality will often be found deeply implanted. time and again a regiment of scallawags, who have let all other morality go hang, have, when the proper chord has been made to vibrate in them, heard the call of communal morality, and done deeds which make the ears of whosoever heareth of them to tingle. we come into an entirely different land when we come to the morality of woman. it is personal and domestic, not public, morality which is instinctive in her. in other words, when egoism gives ground to altruism, that altruism is exercised towards those who are linked up to her by a bond of sexual affection, or a community in blood, or failing this, by a relation of personal friendship, or by some other personal relation. and even when altruism has had her perfect work, woman feels no interest in, and no responsibility towards, any abstract moral ideal. and though the suffragist may protest, instancing in disproof of this her own burning enthusiasm for justice, we, for our part, may legitimately ask whether evidence of a moral enthusiasm for justice would be furnished by a desire to render to others their due, or by vehement insistence upon one's own rights, and systematic attempts to extort, under the cover of the word "justice," advantages for oneself. but it will be well to dwell a little longer on, and to bring out more clearly, the point that woman's moral ideals are personal and domestic, as distinguished from impersonal and public. let us note in this connexion that it would be difficult to conceive of a woman who had become deaf to the appeal of personal and domestic morality making it a matter of _amour propre_ to respond to a call of public morality; and difficult to conceive of a woman recovering lost self-respect by fulfilling such an obligation. but one knows that woman will rise and respond to the call of any strong human or transcendental personal affection. again, it is only a very exceptional woman who would, when put to her election between the claims of a narrow and domestic and a wider or public morality, subordinate the former to the latter. in ordinary life, at any rate, one finds her following in such a case the suggestions of domestic--i had almost called it animal--morality. it would be difficult to find any one who would trust a woman to be just to the rights of others in the case where the material interests of her children, or of a devoted husband, were involved. and even to consider the question of being in such a case intellectually just to any one who came into competition with personal belongings like husband and child would, of course, lie quite beyond the moral horizon of ordinary woman. it is not only the fact that the ideals of abstract justice and truth would inevitably be brushed aside by woman in the interests of those she loves which comes into consideration here; it is also the fact that woman is almost without a moral sense in the matter of executing a public trust such as voting or attaching herself to a political association with a view to influencing votes. there is between man and woman here a characteristic difference. while it is, of course, not a secret to anybody that the baser sort of man can at any time be diverted from the path of public morality by a monetary bribe or other personal advantage, he will not, at any rate, set at naught all public morality by doing so for a peppercorn. he will, for instance, not join, for the sake of a daughter, a political movement in which he has no belief; nor vote for this or that candidate just to please a son; or censure a member of parliament who has in voting on female suffrage failed to consider the predilections of his wife. but woman, whether she be politically enfranchised as in australasia, or unenfranchised as at home; whether she be immoral in the sense of being purely egoistic, or moral in the sense of being altruistic, very rarely makes any secret or any shame of doing these things. in this matter one would not be very far from the truth if one alleged that there are no good women, but only women who have lived under the influence of good men. even more serious than this postponement of public to private morality is the fact that even reputedly ethical women will, in the interests of what they take to be idealistic causes, violate laws which are universally accepted as being of moral obligation. i here pass over the recent epidemic of political crime among women to advert to the want of conscience which permits, in connexion with professedly idealistic causes, not only misrepresentations, but the making of deliberately false statements on matters of public concern. it is, for example, an illustration of the profoundly different moral atmospheres in which men and women live that when a public woman recently made, for what was to her an idealistic purpose, a deliberately false statement of fact in _the times_, she quite naively confessed to it, seeing nothing whatever amiss in her action. and it did not appear that any other woman suffragist could discern any kind of immorality in it. the worst thing they could find to say was that it perhaps was a little _gauche_ to confess to making a deliberately false statement on a public question when it was for the moment particularly desirable that woman should show up to best advantage before the eyes of man. we may now for a moment put aside the question of woman's public morality and consider a question which is inextricably mixed up with the question of the admission of woman to the suffrage. this is the mental attitude and the programme of the female legislative reformer. iv mental outlook and programme of the female legislative reformer the suffragist woman, when she is the kind of woman who piques herself upon her ethical impulses, will, even when she is intellectually very poorly equipped, and there is no imprint of altruism upon her life, assure you that nothing except the moral influence of woman, exerted through the legislation, which her practical mind would be capable of initiating, will ever avail to abate existing social evils, and to effect the moral redemption of the world. it will not be amiss first to try to introduce a little clearness and order into our ideas upon those formidably difficult problems which the female legislative reformer desires to attack, and then to consider how a rational reforming mind would go to work in the matter of proposing legislation for these. _first_ would come those evils which result from individuals seeking advantage to themselves by the direct infliction of injury upon others. violations of the criminal law and the various forms of sweating and fleecing one's fellow-men come under this category. _then_ would come the evils which arise out of purveying physiological and psychological refreshments and excitements, which are, according as they are indulged in temperately or intemperately, grateful and innocuous, or sources of disaster and ruin. the evils which are associated with the drink traffic and the betting industry are typical examples. _finally,_ there would come into consideration the evils of death or physical suffering deliberately inflicted by man upon man with a view to preventing worse evils. the evil of war would come under this category. in this same category might also come the much lesser evil of punitive measures inflicted upon criminals. and with this might be coupled the evil of killing and inflicting physical suffering upon animals for the advantage of man. we may now consider how the rational legislative reformer would in each case go to work. he would not start with the assumption that it _must_ be possible by some alteration of the law to abolish or conspicuously reduce any of the afore-mentioned evils; nor yet with the assumption that, if a particular alteration of the law would avail to bring about this result, that alteration ought necessarily to be made. he would recognise that many things which are theoretically desirable are unattainable; and that many legislative measures which could perfectly well be enforced would be barred by the fact that they would entail deplorable unintended consequences. the rational legislator whom we have here in view would accordingly always take expert advice as to whether the desired object could be achieved by legal compulsion; and as to whether a projected law which satisfied the condition of being workable would give a balance of advantages over disadvantages. in connexion with a proposal for the prevention of sweating he would, for instance, take expert advice as to whether its provisions could be enforced; and whether, if enforceable, they would impose added hardships on any class of employees or penalties on any innocent class of employers. in like manner in connexion with a proposed modification in criminal procedure, the rational reformer would defer to the expert on the question as to whether such modification would secure greater certainty of punishment for the guilty without increasing the risk of convicting the innocent. in connexion with the second category of evils--the category under which would come those of drinking and betting--the rational legislative reformer would recognise the complete impracticability of abolishing by legislative prohibition physiological indulgences and the evils which sometimes attend upon them. he would consider instead whether these attendant evils could be reduced by making the regulating laws more stringent; and whether more stringent restrictions--in addition to the fact that they would filch from the all too small stock of human happiness--would not, by paving the way for further invasions of personal liberty, cripple the free development of the community. on the former question, which only experts could properly answer, the reasonable reformer would defer to their advice. the answer to the last question he would think out for himself. in connexion with the evils which are deliberately inflicted by man with a view to reaping either personal profit, or profit for the nation, or profit for humanity, the reasonable reformer would begin by making clear to himself that the world we live in is not such a world as idealism might conjure up, but a world of violence, in which life must be taken and physical suffering be inflicted. and he would recognise that the vital material interests of the nation can be protected only by armed force; that civilisation can be safeguarded only by punishing violations of the criminal law; and that the taking of animal life and the infliction of a certain amount of physical suffering upon animals is essential to human well-being, comfort, and recreation; and essential also to the achievement of the knowledge which is required to combat disease. and the reasonable reformer will, in conformity with this, direct his efforts, not to the total abolition of war, but to the prevention of such wars as are not waged for really vital material interests, and to the abatement of the ferocities of warfare. in the case of punishment for criminals he would similarly devote his efforts not to the abrogation of punishments, but to the relinquishment of any that are not reformatory, or really deterrent. in like manner the reasonable reformer would not seek to prohibit the slaughtering of animals for food, or the killing off of animal pests, or the trapping, shooting, or hunting of animals for sport or profit, nor yet would he seek to prevent their utilisation of animals for the acquirement of knowledge. he would direct his efforts to reducing the pain which is inflicted, and to preserving everywhere measure and scale--not sentimentally forbidding in connexion with one form of utilisation of animals what is freely allowed in connexion with another--but differentiating, if differentiating at all in favour of permitting the infliction of proportionately greater suffering in the case where national and humanitarian interests, than in the case where mere recreation and luxury and personal profit, are at stake. having recognised what reason would prescribe to the legislative reformer, we have next to inquire how far the man voter conforms to these prescriptions of reason, and how far the woman reformer would do so if she became a voter. let it be noted that the man in the street makes no question about falling in with the fact that he is born into a world of violence, and he acquiesces in the principle that the state, and, failing the state, the individual, may employ force and take life in defence of vital material interests. and he frankly falls in with it being a matter of daily routine to kill and inflict suffering upon animals for human profit or advantage. even if these principles are not formulated by the man in the street in quite such plain terms, he not only carries them out in practice, but he conducts all his thinking upon these presuppositions. he, for instance, would fall in with the proposition that morality does not require from man that he should give up taking life or inflicting physical suffering. and he would not cavil with the statement that man should put reasonable limits to the amount of suffering he inflicts, and confine this within as narrow a range as possible--always requiring for the death or suffering inflicted some tangible advantage. moreover, if the question should be raised as to whether such advantage will result, the ordinary man will as a rule, where the matter lies beyond his personal ken, take expert opinion before intervening. he will, for instance, be prepared to be so guided in connexion with such questions as whether disease could, if more knowledge were available, be to a large extent prevented and cured; as to how far animal experiments would contribute to the acquirement of that knowledge; and as to how far the physical suffering which might be involved in these experiments can be minimised or abolished. but not every man is prepared to fall in with this programme of inflicting physical suffering for the relief of physical suffering. there is also a type of spiritually-minded man who in this world of violence sets his face uncompromisingly against the taking of any life and the infliction of any physical suffering--refusing to make himself a partaker of evil. an idealist of this type will, like tolstoy, be an anti-militarist. he will advocate a general gaol delivery for criminals. he will be a vegetarian. he will not allow an animal's life to be taken in his house, though the mice scamper over his floors. and he will, consistently with his conviction that it is immoral to resort to force, refuse to take any part in legislation or government. this attitude, which is that commended by the hindoo and the buddhist religions, is, of course, a quite unpractical attitude towards life. it is, in fact, a self-destructive attitude, unless a man's fellow-citizens are prepared by forcible means to secure to him the enjoyment of the work of his hands or of his inherited property, or unless those who refuse to desist from the exercise of force are prepared to untake the support of idealists. we have not only these two classes of men--the ordinary man who has no compunction in resorting to force when the requirements of life demand it, and the idealist who refuses to have any lot or part in violence; there is also a hybrid. this male hybrid will descant on the general iniquity of violence, and then not only connive at those forms of violence which minister to his personal comforts, but also make a virtue of trying to abate by legal violence some particular form of physical suffering which happens to offend in a quite special manner his individual sensibility. there is absolutely nothing to be said about this kind of reforming crank, except only that anything which may be said in relation to the female legislative reformer may be appositely said of him; and perhaps also this, that the ordinary man holds him both in intellectual and in moral contempt, and is resolved not to allow him to do any really serious injury to the community. to become formidable this quasi-male person must, as he recognises, ally himself with the female legislative reformer. passing on to deal with her, it imports us first to realise that while the male voter has--except where important constitutional issues were in question--been accustomed to leave actual legislation to the expert, the female reformer gives notice beforehand that she will, as soon as ever she gets the suffrage, insist on pressing forward by her vote her reforming schemes. what would result from the ordinary voter legislating on matters which require expert knowledge will be plain to every one who will consider the evolution of law. there stand over against each other here, as an example and a warning, the roman law, which was the creation of legal experts: the praetor and the jurisconsult; and the legal system of the greeks, which was the creation of a popular assembly--and it was a popular assembly which was quite ideally intelligent. upon the roman law has been built the law of the greater part of the civilised world. the greek is a by-word for inconsequence. how can one, then, without cold shudders think of that legal system which the female amateur legal reformer would bring to the birth? let us consider her qualifications. let us first take cognisance of the fact that the reforming woman will neither stand to the principle that man may, where this gives a balance of advantage, inflict on his fellow-man, and _a fortiori_ upon animals, death and physical suffering; nor yet will she stand to the principle that it is ethically unlawful to do deeds of violence. she spends her life halting between these two opinions, eternally shilly-shallying. she will, for instance, begin by announcing that it can never be lawful to do evil that good may come; and that killing and inflicting suffering is an evil. (in reality the precept of not doing evil that good may come has relation only to breaking for idealistic purposes moral laws of higher obligation.) she will then go back upon that and concede that war may sometimes be lawful, and that the punishment of criminals is not an evil. but if her emotions are touched by the forcible feeding of a criminal militant suffragist, she will again go back upon that and declare that the application of force is an intolerable evil. or, again, she will concede that the slaughtering of animals for food is not an evil, but that what is really unforgivable is the infliction of physical suffering on animals. and all the time for her, as well as for man, calves and lambs are being emasculated to make her meat succulent; wild animals are painfully done to death to provide her table with delicacies; birds with young in the nest are shot so that she may parade in their plumage; or fur-bearing animals are for her comfort and adornment massacred and tortured in traps. when a man crank who is co-responsible for these things begins to talk idealistic reforms, the ordinary decent man refuses to have anything more to say to him. but when a woman crank holds this language, the man merely shrugs his shoulders. "it is," he tells himself, "after all, the woman whom god gave him." it must be confessed that the problem as to how man with a dual nature may best accommodate himself to a world of violence presents a very difficult problem. it would obviously be no solution to follow out everywhere a programme of violence. not even the predatory animals do that. tigers do not savage their cubs; hawks do not pluck hawks' eyes; and dogs do not fight bitches. nor would, as has been shown, the solution of the problem be arrived at by everywhere surrendering--if we had been given the grace to do this--to the compunctious visitings of nature. what is required is to find the proper compromise. as to what that would be there is, as between the ordinary man and woman on the one side, and the male crank and the battalions of sentimental women on the other, a conflict which is, to all intents and purposes, a sex war. the compromise which ordinary human nature had fixed upon--and it is one which, ministering as it does to the survival of the race, has been adopted through the whole range of nature--is that of making within the world in which violence rules a series of enclaves in which the application of violence is progressively restricted and limited. outside the outermost of the series of ring fences thus constituted would be the realm of uncompromising violence such as exists when human life is endangered by wild animals, or murderous criminals, or savages. just within this outermost fence would be civilised war--for in civilised war non-combatants and prisoners and wounded are excluded from the application of violence. in like manner we bring humanity in general within a more sheltered enclosure than animals--pet animals within a more sheltered enclosure than other animals. again, we bring those who belong to the white race within a narrower protecting circle than mankind in general, and those of our own nation within a still narrower one. following out the same principle, we include women and children within a narrower shelter fence than our adult fellow-male; and we use the weapon of force more reluctantly when we are dealing with our relatives and friends than when we are dealing with those who are not personally known to us; and finally, we lay it aside more completely when we are dealing with the women of our households than when we are dealing with the males. the cause of civilisation and of the amenities, and the welfare of the nation, of the family, and of woman, are all intimately bound up with a faithful adherence to this compromise. but this policy imposes upon those whom it shelters from violence corresponding obligations. in war non-combatants--not to speak of the wounded on the battlefield--must desist from hostile action on the pain of being shot down like wild beasts. and though an individual non-combatant might think it a patriotic action for him to take part in war, the thoughtful man would recognise that such action was a violation of a well-understood covenant made in the interest of civilisation, and that to break through this covenant was to abrogate a humanitarian arrangement by which the general body of non-combatants immensely benefits. exactly the same principle finds, as already pointed out, application when a woman employs direct violence, or aspires to exercise by voting indirect violence. one always wonders if the suffragist appreciates all that woman stands to lose and all that she imperils by resort to physical force. one ought not to have to tell her that, if she had to fight for her position, her status would be that which is assigned to her among the kaffirs--not that which civilised man concedes to her. from considering the compromise by which man adapts his dual nature to violence in the world, we turn to that which the female legislative reformer would seek to impose by the aid of her vote. her proposal, as the reader will have discerned, would be that all those evils which make appeal to the feminine emotions should be legally prohibited, and that all those which fail to make this appeal shall be tolerated. in the former class would be included those which come directly under woman's ken, or have been brought vividly before the eyes of her imagination by emotional description. and the specially intolerable evils will be those which, owing to the fact that they fall upon woman or her immediate belongings, induce in the female legislative reformer pangs of sympathetic discomfort. in the class of evils which the suffragist is content to tolerate, or say nothing about, would be those which are incapable of evoking in her such sympathetic pangs, and she concerns herself very little with those evils which do not furnish her with a text for recriminations against man. conspicuous in this programme is the absence of any sense of proportion. one would have imagined that it would have been plain to everybody that the evils which individual women suffer at the hands of man are very far from being the most serious ills of humanity. one would have imagined that the suffering inflicted by disease and by bad social conditions--suffering which falls upon man and woman alike--deserved a first place in the thoughts of every reformer. and one might have expected it to be common knowledge that the wrongs individual men inflict upon women have a full counterpart in the wrongs which individual women inflict upon men. it may quite well be that there are mists which here "blot and fill the perspective" of the female legislative reformer. but to look only upon one's own things, and not also upon the things of others, is not for that morally innocent. there is further to be noted in connexion with the female legislative reformer that she has never been able to see why she should be required to put her aspirations into practical shape, or to consider ways and means, or to submit the practicability of her schemes to expert opinion. one also recognises that from a purely human point of view such tactics are judicious. for if the schemes of the female legislative reformer were once to be reviewed from the point of view of their practicability, her utility as a legislator would come into question, and the suffragist could no longer give out that there has been committed to her from on high a mission to draw water for man-kind out of the wells of salvation. lastly, we have to reflect in connection with the female legislative reformer that to go about proposing to reform the laws means to abandon that special field of usefulness which lies open to woman in alleviating misery and redressing those hard cases which will, under all laws and regulations of human manufacture and under all social dispositions, inevitably occur. now when a woman leaves a social task which is commensurate with her abilities, and which asks from her personal effort and self-sacrifice, for a task which is quite beyond her abilities, but which, she thinks, will bring her personal kudos, shall we impute it to her for righteousness? v ulterior ends which the woman's suffrage movement has in view we have now sufficiently considered the suffragist's humanitarian schemes, and we may lead up to the consideration of her further projects by contrasting woman's suffrage as it presents itself under colonial conditions--_i.e._ woman's suffrage without the female legislative reformer and the feminist--with the woman suffrage which is being agitated for in england--_i.e._ woman suffrage with the female legislative reformer and the feminist. in the colonies and undeveloped countries generally where women are in a minority, and where owing to the fact that practically all have an opportunity of marrying, there are not for woman any difficult economic and physiological conditions, there is no woman's question; and by consequence no female legislative reformer or feminist. the woman voter follows, as the opportunist politicians who enfranchised her intended, the lead of her men-folk--serving only a pawn in the game of politics. under such conditions woman's suffrage kleaves things as they are, except only that it undermines the logical foundations of the law, and still further debases the standard of public efficiency and public morality. in countries, such as england, where an excess female population [ ] has made economic difficulties for woman, and where the severe sexual restrictions, which here obtains, have bred in her sex-hostility, the suffrage movement has as its avowed ulterior object the abrogation of all distinctions which depend upon sex; and the achievement of the economic independence of woman. [ ] in england and wales there are, in a population of , , women between the ages of twenty and fifty, , , unmarried women. to secure this economic independence every post, occupation, and government service is to be thrown open to woman; she is to receive everywhere the same wages as man; male and female are to work side by side; and they are indiscriminately to be put in command the one over the other. furthermore, legal rights are to be secured to the wife over her husband's property and earnings. the programme is, in fact, to give to woman an economic independence out of the earnings and taxes of man. nor does feminist ambition stop short here. it demands that women shall be included in every advisory committee, every governing board, every jury, every judicial bench, every electorate, every parliament, and every ministerial cabinet; further, that every masculine foundation, university, school of learning, academy, trade union, professional corporation and scientific society shall be converted into an epicene institution--until we shall have everywhere one vast cock-and-hen show. the proposal to bring man and woman together everywhere into extremely intimate relationships raises very grave questions. it brings up, first, the question of sexual complications; secondly, the question as to whether the tradition of modesty and reticence between the sexes is to be definitely sacrificed; and, most important of all, the question as to whether epicene conditions would place obstacles in the way of intellectual work. of these issues the feminist puts the first two quite out of account. i have already elsewhere said my say upon these matters.[ ] with regard to the third, the feminist either fails to realise that purely intellectual intercourse--as distinguished from an intercommunion of mental images--with woman is to a large section of men repugnant; or else, perceiving this, she makes up her mind that, this notwithstanding, she will get her way by denouncing the man who does not welcome her as _selfish_; and by insisting that under feminism (the quotation is from mill, the italics which question his sincerity are mine) "the mass of mental faculties available for the higher service of mankind would be _doubled_." [ ] _vide_ appendix, pp. - . the matter cannot so lightly be disposed of. it will be necessary for us to find out whether really intimate association with woman on the purely intellectual plane is realisable. and if it is, in fact, unrealisable, it will be necessary to consider whether it is the exclusion of women from masculine corporations; or the perpetual attempt of women to force their way into these, which would deserve to be characterised as _selfish_. in connexion with the former of these issues, we have to consider here not whether that form of intellectual co-operation in which the man plays the game, and the woman moves the pawns under his orders, is possible. that form of co-operation is of course possible, and it has, doubtless, certain utilities. nor yet have we to consider whether quite intimate and purely intellectual association on an equal footing between a particular man and a selected woman may or may not be possible. it will suffice to note that the feminist alleges that this also is possible; but everybody knows that the woman very often marries the man. what we have to ask is whether--even if we leave out of regard the whole system of attractions or, as the case may be, repulsions which come into operation when the sexes are thrown together--purely intellectual intercourse between man and the typical unselected woman is not barred by the intellectual immoralities and limitations which appear to be secondary sexual characters of woman. with regard to this issue, there would seem to be very little real difference of opinion among men. but there are great differences in the matter of candour. there are men who speak out, and who enunciate like nietzsche that "man and woman are alien--never yet has any one conceived how alien." there are men who, from motives of delicacy or policy, do not speak out--averse to saying anything that might be unflattering to woman. and there are men who are by their profession of the feminist faith debarred from speaking out, but who upon occasion give themselves away. of such is the man who in the house of commons champions the cause of woman's suffrage, impassionately appealing to justice; and then betrays himself by announcing that he would shake off from his feet the dust of its purlieus if ever women were admitted as members--_i.e._ if ever women were forced upon _him_ as close intellectual associates. wherever we look we find aversion to compulsory intellectual co-operation with woman. we see it in the sullen attitude which the ordinary male student takes up towards the presence of women students in his classes. we see it in the fact that the older english universities, which have conceded everything else to women, have made a strong stand against making them actual members of the university; for this would impose them on men as intellectual associates. again we see the aversion in the opposition to the admission of women to the bar. but we need not look so far afield. practically every man feels that there is in woman--patent, or hidden away--an element of unreason which, when you come upon it, summarily puts an end to purely intellectual intercourse. one may reflect, for example, upon the way the woman's suffrage controversy has been conducted. proceeding now on the assumption that these things are so, and that man feels that he and woman belong to different intellectual castes, we come now to the question as to whether it is man who is selfish when he excludes women from his institutions, or woman when she unceasingly importunes for admittance. and we may define as _selfish_ all such conduct as pursues the advantage of the agent at the cost of the happiness and welfare of the general body of mankind. we shall be in a better position to pronounce judgment on this question of ethics when we have considered the following series of analogies: when a group of earnest and devout believers meet together for special intercession and worship, we do not tax them with selfishness if they exclude unbelievers. nor do we call people who are really devoted to music selfish if, coming together for this, they make a special point of excluding the unmusical. nor again would the imputation of selfishness lie against members of a club for black-balling a candidate who would, they feel, be uncongenial. nor should we regard it as an act of selfishness if the members of a family circle, or of the same nation, or of any social circle, desired to come together quite by themselves. nor yet would the term selfish apply to an east end music hall audience when they eject any one who belongs to a different social class to themselves and wears good clothes. and the like would hold true of servants resenting their employers intruding upon them in their hours of leisure or entertainments. if we do not characterise such exclusions as selfish, but rather respect and sympathise with them, it is because we recognise that the whole object and _raison d' etre_ of association would in each case be nullified by the weak-minded admission of the incompatible intruder. we recognise that if any charge of selfishness would lie, it would lie against that intruder. now if this holds in the case where the interests of religious worship or music, or family, national, or social life, or recreation and relaxation after labour are in question, it will hold true even more emphatically where the interests of intellectual work are involved. but the feminist will want to argue. she will--taking it as always for granted that woman has a right to all that men's hands or brains have fashioned--argue that it is very important for the intellectual development of woman that she should have exactly the same opportunities as man. and she will, scouting [rejecting with contempt] the idea of any differences between the intelligences of man and woman, discourse to you of their intimate affinity. it will, perhaps, be well to clear up these points. the importance of the higher development of woman is unquestionable. but after all it is the intellect of man which really comes into account in connexion with "the mass of mental faculties available for the higher service of mankind." the maintenance of the conditions which allow of man's doing his best intellectual work is therefore an interest which is superior to that of the intellectual development of woman. and woman might quite properly be referred for her intellectual development to instructional institutions which should be special to herself. coming to the question of the intimate resemblances between the masculine and the feminine intelligence, no man would be venturesome enough to dispute these, but he may be pardoned if he thinks--one would hope in no spirit of exaltation--also of the differences. we have an instructive analogy in connexion with the learned societies. it is uncontrovertible that every candidate for election into such a society will have, and will feel that he has, affinities with the members of that association. and he is invited to set these forth in his application. but there may also be differences of which he is not sensible. on that question the electors are the judges; and they are the final court of appeal. there would seem to be here a moral which the feminist would do well to lay to heart. there is also another lesson which she might very profitably consider. a quite small difference will often constitute as effective a bar to a useful and congenial co-operation as a more fundamental difference. in the case of a body of intellectual workers one might at first sight suppose that so small a distinction as that of belonging to a different nationality--sex, of course, is an infinitely profounder difference--would not be a bar to unrestricted intellectual co-operation. but in point of fact it is in every country, in every learned society, a uniform rule that when foreign scientists or scholars are admitted they are placed not on the ordinary list of working members, but on a special list. one discerns that there is justification for this in the fact that a foreigner would in certain eventualities be an incompatible person. one may think of the eventuality of the learned society deciding to recognise a national service, or to take part in a national movement. and one is not sure that a foreigner might not be an incompatible person in the eventuality of a scientist or scholar belonging to a nationality with which the foreigner's country was at feud being brought forward for election. and he would, of course, be an impossible person in a society if he were, in a spirit of chauvinism, to press for a larger representation of his own fellow-countrymen. now this is precisely the kind of way man feels about woman. he recognises that she is by virtue of her sex for certain purposes an incompatible person; and that, quite apart from this, her secondary sexual characters might in certain eventualities make her an impossible person. we may note, before passing on, that these considerations would seem to prescribe that woman should be admitted to masculine institutions only when real humanitarian grounds demand it; that she should--following here the analogy of what is done in the learned societies with respect to foreigners--be invited to co-operate with men only when she is quite specially eminent, or beyond all question useful for the particular purpose in hand; and lastly, that when co-opted into any masculine institution woman should always be placed upon a special list, to show that it was proposed to confine her co-operation within certain specified limits. from these general questions, which affect only the woman with intellectual aspirations, we pass to consider what would be the effect of feminism upon the rank and file of women if it made of these co-partners with man in work. they would suffer not only because woman's physiological disabilities and the restrictions which arise out of her sex place her at a great disadvantage when she has to enter into competition with man, but also because under feminism man would be less and less disposed to take off woman's shoulders a part of her burden. and there can be no dispute that the most valuable financial asset of the ordinary woman is the possibility that a man may be willing--and may, if only woman is disposed to fulfil her part of the bargain, be not only willing but anxious--to support her and to secure for her, if he can, a measure of that freedom which comes from the possession of money. in view of this every one who has a real fellow-feeling for woman, and who is concerned for her material welfare, as a father is concerned for his daughter's, will above everything else desire to nurture and encourage in man the sentiment of chivalry, and in woman that disposition of mind that makes chivalry possible. and the woman workers who have to fight the battle of life for themselves would indirectly profit from this fostering of chivalry; for those women who are supported by men do not compete in the limited labour market which is open to the woman worker. from every point of view, therefore, except perhaps that of the exceptional woman who would be able to hold her own against masculine competition--and men always issue informal letters of naturalisation to such an exceptional woman--the woman suffrage which leads up to feminism would be a social disaster. part iii is there, if the suffrage is barred, any palliative of corrective for the discontents of woman? i palliatives or correctives for the discontents of woman what are the suffragist's grievances?--economic and physiological difficulties of woman--intellectual grievances of suffragist and corrective. is there then, let us ask ourselves, if the suffrage with its programme of feminism is barred as leading to social disaster, any palliative or corrective that can be applied to the present discontents of woman? if such is to be found, it is to be found only by placing clearly before us the suffragist's grievances. these grievances are, _first,_ the economic difficulties of the woman who seeks to earn her living by work other than unskilled manual labour; _secondly_, the difficult physiological conditions in which woman is placed by the excess of the female over the male population and by her diminished chances of marriage [ ]; and _thirdly,_ the tedium which obsesses the life of the woman who is not forced, and cannot force herself, to work. on the top of these grievances comes the fact that the suffragist conceives herself to be harshly and unfairly treated by man. this last is the fire which sets a light to all the inflammable material. [ ] _vide_ footnote, p. . it would be quite out of question to discuss here the economic and physiological difficulties of woman. only this may be said: it is impossible, in view of the procession of starved and frustrated lives which is continuously filing past, to close one's eyes to the urgency of this woman's problem. after all, the primary object of all civilisation is to provide for every member of the community food and shelter and fulfilment of natural cravings. and when, in what passes as a civilised community, a whole class is called upon to go without any one of these our human requirements, it is little wonder that it should break out. but when a way of escape stands open revolt is not morally justified. thus, for example, a man who is born into, but cannot support himself in, a superior class of society is not, as long as he can find a livelihood abroad in a humbler walk in life, entitled to revolt. no more is the woman who is in economic or physiological difficulties. for, if only she has the pluck to take it, a way of escape stands open to her. she can emigrate; she can go out from the social class in which she is not self-supporting into a humbler social class in which she could earn a living; and she can forsake conditions in which she must remain a spinster for conditions in which she may perhaps become a mother. only in this way can the problem of finding work, and relief of tedium, for the woman who now goes idle be resolved. if women were to avail themselves of these ways of escape out of unphysiological conditions, the woman agitator would probably find it as difficult to keep alive a passionate agitation for woman suffrage as the irish nationalist agitator to keep alive, after the settlement of the land question and the grant of old age pensions, a passionate agitation for a separate parliament for ireland. for the happy wife and mother is never passionately concerned about the suffrage. it is always the woman who is galled either by physiological hardships, or by the fact that she has not the same amount of money as man, or by the fact that man does not desire her as a co-partner in work, and withholds the homage which she thinks he ought to pay to her intellect. for this class of grievances the present education of woman is responsible. the girl who is growing up to woman's estate is never taught where she stands relatively to man. she is not taught anything about woman's physical disabilities. she is not told--she is left to discover it for herself when too late--that child and husband are to woman physiological requirements. she is not taught the defects and limitations of the feminine mind. one might almost think there were no such defects and limitations; and that woman was not always overestimating her intellectual power. and the ordinary girl is not made to realise woman's intrinsically inferior money-earning capacity. she is not made to realise that the woman who cannot work with her hands is generally hard put to earn enough to keep herself alive in the incomplete condition of a spinster. as a result of such education, when, influenced by the feminist movement, woman comes to institute a comparison between herself and man, she brings into that comparison all those qualities in which she is substantially his equal, and leaves out of account all those in which she is his inferior. the failure to recognise that man is the master, and why he is the master, lies at the root of the suffrage movement. by disregarding man's superior physical force, the power of compulsion upon which all government is based is disregarded. by leaving out of account those powers of the mind in which man is the superior, woman falls into the error of thinking that she can really compete with him, and that she belongs to the self-same intellectual caste. finally, by putting out of sight man's superior money-earning capacity, the power of the purse is ignored. uninstructed woman commits also another fundamental error in her comparison. instead of comparing together the average man and the average woman, she sets herself to establish that there is no defect in woman which cannot be discovered also in man; and that there is no virtue or power in the ordinary man which cannot be discovered also in woman. which having been established to her satisfaction, she is led inevitably to the conclusion that there is nothing whatever to choose between the sexes. and from this there is only a step to the position that human beings ought to be assigned, without distinction of sex, to each and every function which would come within the range of their individual capacities, instead of being assigned as they are at present: men to one function, and women to another. here again women ought to have been safeguarded by education. she ought to have been taught that even when an individual woman comes up to the average of man this does not abrogate the disqualification which attaches to a difference of sex. nor yet--as every one who recognises that we live in a world which conducts itself by generalisations will see--does it abrogate the disqualification of belonging to an inferior intellectual caste. the present system of feminine education is blameworthy not only in the respect that it fails to draw attention to these disqualifications and to teach woman where she stands; it is even more blameworthy in that it fails to convey to the girl who is growing up any conception of that absolutely elementary form of morality which consists in distinguishing _meum_ and _tuum_ [_that which is mine_ and _that which is yours_]. instead of her educators encouraging every girl to assert "rights" as against man, and put forward claims, they ought to teach her with respect to him those lessons of behaviour which are driven home once for all into every boy at a public school. just as there you learn that you may not make unwarranted demands upon your fellow, and just as in the larger world every nation has got to learn that it cannot with impunity lay claim to the possessions of its neighbours, so woman will have to learn that when things are not offered to her, and she has not the power to take them by force, she has got to make the best of things as they are. one would wish for every girl who is growing up to womanhood that it might be brought home to her by some refined and ethically-minded member of her own sex how insufferable a person woman becomes when, like a spoilt child, she exploits the indulgence of man; when she proclaims that it is his duty to serve her and to share with her his power and possessions; when she makes an outcry when he refuses to part with what is his own; and when she insists upon thrusting her society upon men everywhere. and every girl ought to be warned that to embark upon a policy of recrimination when you do not get what you want, and to proclaim yourself a martyr when, having hit, you are hit back, is the way to get yourself thoroughly disliked. finally, every girl ought to be shown, in the example of the militant suffragist, how revolt and martyrdom, undertaken in order to possess oneself of what belongs to others, effects the complete disorganisation of moral character. no one would wish that in the education of girls these quite unlovely things should be insisted upon more than was absolutely necessary. but one would wish that the educators of the rising generation of women should, basing themselves upon these foundations, point out to every girl how great is woman's debt to civilisation; in other words, how much is under civilisation done for woman by man. and one would wish that, in a world which is rendered unwholesome by feminism, every girl's eyes were opened to comprehend the great outstanding fact of the world: the fact that, turn where you will, you find individual man showering upon individual woman--one man in tribute to her enchantment, another out of a sense of gratitude, and another just because she is something that is his--every good thing which, suffrage or no suffrage, she never could have procured for herself. appendix letter on militant hysteria reprinted by permission from _the times_ (london), march , . to the editor of the times sir,--for man the physiological psychology of woman is full of difficulties. he is not a little mystified when he encounters in her periodically recurring phases of hypersensitiveness, unreasonableness, and loss of the sense of proportion. he is frankly perplexed when confronted with a complete alteration of character in a woman who is child-bearing. when he is a witness of the "tendency of woman to morally warp when nervously ill," and of the terrible physical havoc which the pangs of a disappointed love may work, he is appalled. and it leaves on his mind an eerie feeling when he sees serious and long-continued mental disorders developing in connexion with the approaching extinction of a woman's reproductive faculty. no man can close his eyes to these things; but he does not feel at liberty to speak of them. "for the woman that god gave him is not his to give away."[ ] [ from "the female of the species" by rudyard kipling] as for woman herself, she makes very light of any of these mental upsettings. she perhaps smiles a little at them. . . .[ ] [ ] in the interests of those who feel that female dignity is compromised by it, i have here omitted a woman's flippant overestimate of the number of women in london society who suffer from nervous disorders at the climacteric [i.e. menopause]. none the less, these upsettings of her mental equilibrium are the things that a woman has most cause to fear; and no doctor can ever lose sight of the fact that the mind of woman is always threatened with danger from the reverberations of her physiological emergencies. it is with such thoughts that the doctor lets his eyes rest upon the militant suffragist. he cannot shut them to the fact that there is mixed up with the woman's movement much mental disorder; and he cannot conceal from himself the physiological emergencies which lie behind. the recruiting field for the militant suffragists is the million of our excess female population--that million which had better long ago have gone out to mate with its complement of men beyond the sea. among them there are the following different types of women:-- (_a_) first--let us put them first--come a class of women who hold, with minds otherwise unwarped, that they may, whenever it is to their advantage, lawfully resort to physical violence. the programme, as distinguished from the methods, of these women is not very different from that of the ordinary suffragist woman. (_b_) there file past next a class of women who have all their life-long been strangers to joy, women in whom instincts long suppressed have in the end broken into flame. these are the sexually embittered women in whom everything has turned into gall and bitterness of heart, and hatred of men. their legislative programme is license for themselves, or else restrictions for man. (_c_) next there file past the incomplete. one side of their nature has undergone atrophy, with the result that they have lost touch with their living fellow men and women. their programme is to convert the whole world into an epicene institution---an epicene institution in which man and woman shall everywhere work side by side at the selfsame tasks and for the selfsame pay. these wishes can never by any possibility be realised. even in animals--i say _even,_ because in these at least one of the sexes has periods of complete quiscence--male and female cannot be safely worked side by side, except when they are incomplete. while in the human species safety can be obtained, it can be obtained only at the price of continual constraint. and even then woman, though she protests that she does not require it, and that she does not receive it, practically always does receive differential treatment at the hands of man. it would be well, i often think, that every woman should be clearly told--and the woman of the world will immediately understand--that when man sets his face against the proposal to bring in an epicene world, he does so because he can do his best work only in surroundings where he is perfectly free from suggestion and from restraint, and from the onus which all differential treatment imposes. and i may add in connexion with my own profession that when a medical man asks that he should not be the yoke-fellow of a medical woman he does so also because he would wish to keep up as between men and women--even when they are doctors--some of the modesties and reticences upon which our civilisation has been built up. now the medical woman is of course never on the side of modesty,[ ] or in favour of any reticences. her desire for knowledge does not allow of these. [ ] to those who have out of inadvertence and as laymen and women misunderstood, it may be explained that the issue here discussed is the second in order of the three which are set out on p. (_supra_). (_d_) inextricably mixed up with the types which we have been discussing is the type of woman whom dr. leonard williams's recent letter brought so distinctly before our eyes--the woman who is poisoned by her misplaced self-esteem; and who flies out at every man who does not pay homage to her intellect. she is the woman who is affronted when a man avers that _for him_ the glory of woman lies in her power of attraction, in her capacity for motherhood, and in unswerving allegiance to the ethics which are special to her sex. i have heard such an intellectually embittered woman say, though she had been self-denyingly taken to wife, that "never in the whole course of her life had a man ever as much as done her a kindness." the programme of this type of woman is, as a preliminary, to compel man to admit her claim to be his intellectual equal; and, that done, to compel him to divide up everything with her to the last farthing, and so make her also his financial equal. and her journals exhibit to us the kind of parliamentary representative she desiderates. he humbly, hat in hand, asks for his orders from a knot of washerwomen standing arms a-kimbo.[ ] [ ] i give, in response to a request, the reference: _votes for women,_ march , , p. . (_e_) following in the wake of these embittered human beings come troops of girls just grown up. all these will assure you, these young girls--and what is seething in their minds is stirring also in the minds in the girls in the colleges and schools which are staffed by unmarried suffragists--that woman has suffered all manner of indignity and injustice at the hands of man. and these young girls have been told about the intellectual, and moral, and financial value of woman--such tales as it never entered into the heart of man to conceive. the programme of these young women is to be married upon their own terms. man shall--so runs their scheme--work for their support--to that end giving up his freedom, and putting himself under orders, for many hours of the day; but they themselves must not be asked to give up any of their liberty to him, or to subordinate themselves to his interests, or to obey him in anything. to obey a man would be to commit the unpardonable sin. it is not necessary, in connexion with a movement which proceeds on the lines set out above, any further to labour the point that there is in it an element of mental disorder. it is plain that it is there. there is also a quite fatuous element in the programmes of the militant suffragist. we have this element, for instance, in the doctrine that, notwithstanding the fact that the conditions of the labour market deny it to her, woman ought to receive the same wage as a man for the same work. this doctrine is fatuous, because it leaves out of sight that, even if woman succeeds in doing the same work as man, he has behind him a much larger reserve of physical strength. as soon as a time of strain comes, areserve of strength and freedom from periodic indisposition is worth paying extra for. fatuous also is the dogma that woman ought to have the same pay for the same work--fatuous because it leaves out of sight that woman's commercial value in many of the best fields of work is subject to a very heavy discount by reason of the fact that she cannot, like a male employee, work cheek by jowl with a male employer; nor work among men as a man with his fellow employees. so much for the woman suffragist's protest that she can conceive of no reason for a differential rate of pay for man. quite as fatuous are the marriage projects of the militant suffragist. every woman of the world could tell her--whispering it into her private ear--that if a sufficient number of men should come to the conclusion that it was not worth their while to marry except on the terms of fair give-and-take, the suffragist woman's demands would have to come down. it is not at all certain that the institution of matrimony--which, after all, is the great instrument in the levelling up of the financial situation of woman--can endure apart from some willing subordination on the part of the wife. it will have been observed that there is in these programmes, in addition to the element of mental disorder and to the element of the fatuous, which have been animadverted upon, also a very ugly element of dishonesty. in reality the very kernel of the militant suffrage movement is the element of immorality. there is here not only immorality in the ends which are in view, but also in the methods adopted for the attainment of those ends. we may restrict ourselves to indicating wherein lies the immorality of the methods. there is no one who does not discern that woman in her relations to physical force stands in quite a different position to man. out of that different relation there must of necessity shape itself a special code of ethics for woman. and to violate that code must be for woman immorality. so far as i have seen, no one in this controversy has laid his finger upon the essential point in the relations of woman to physical violence. it has been stated--and in the main quite truly stated--that woman in the mass cannot, like man, back up her vote by bringing physical force into play. but the woman suffragist here counters by insisting that she as an individual may have more physical force than an individual man. and it is quite certain--and it did not need suffragist raids and window-breaking riots to demonstrate it--that woman in the mass can bring a certain amount of physical force to bear. the true inwardness of the relation in which woman stands to physical force lies not in the question of her having it at command, but in the fact that she cannot put it forth without placing herself within the jurisdiction of an ethical law. the law against which she offends when she resorts to physical violence is not an ordinance of man; it is not written in the statutes of any state; it has not been enunciated by any human law-giver. it belongs to those unwritten, and unassailable, and irreversible commandments of religion, [_greek_ ], which we suddenly and mysteriously become aware of when we see them violated. [ from _antigone_ by sophocles; "_the unwritten and unassailable statutes given to us by the gods._" sir almroth had it in the original greek with greek fonts.] the law which the militant suffragist has violated is among the ordinances of that code which forbade us even to think of employing our native indian troops against the boers; which brands it as an ignominy when a man leaves his fellow in the lurch and saves his own life; and which makes it an outrage for a man to do violence to a woman. to violate any ordinance of that code is more dishonourable than to transgress every statutory law. we see acknowledgment of it in the fact that even the uneducated man in the street resents it as an outrage to civilisation when he sees a man strike a blow at a woman. but to the man who is committing the outrage it is a thing simply unaccountable that any one should fly out at him. in just such a case is the militant suffragist. she cannot understand why any one should think civilisation is outraged when she scuffles in the street mud with a policeman. if she asks for an explanation, it perhaps behoves a man to supply it. up to the present in the whole civilised world there has ruled a truce of god as between man and woman. that truce is based upon the solemn covenant that within the frontiers of civilisation (outside them of course the rule lapses) the weapon of physical force may not be applied by man against woman; nor by woman against man. under this covenant, the reign of force which prevails in the world without comes to an end when a man enters his household. under this covenant that half of the human race which most needs protection is raised up above the waves of violence. within the terms of this compact everything that woman has received from man, and everything man receives from woman, is given as a free gift. again, under this covenant a full half of the programme of christianity has been realised; and a foundation has been laid upon which it may be possible to build higher; and perhaps finally in the ideal future to achieve the abolition of physical violence and war. and it is this solemn covenant, the covenant so faithfully kept by man, which has been violated by the militant suffragist in the interest of her morbid, stupid, ugly, and dishonest programmes. is it wonder if men feel that they have had enough of the militant suffragist, and that the state would be well rid of her if she were crushed under the soldiers' shields like the traitor woman at the tarpeian rock [in ancient rome where traitors were killed]? we may turn now to that section of woman suffragists--one is almost inclined to doubt whether it any longer exists--which is opposed to all violent measures, though it numbers in its ranks women who are stung to the quick by the thought that man, who will concede the vote to the lowest and most degraded of his own sex, withholds it from "even the noblest woman in england." when that excited and somewhat pathetic appeal is addressed to us, we have only to consider what a vote really gives. the parliamentary vote is an instrument--and a quite astonishly disappointing instrument it is--for obtaining legislation; that is, for directing that the agents of the state shall in certain defined circumstances bring into application the weapon of physical compulsion. further, the vote is an instrument by which we give to this or that group of statesmen anthority to supervise and keep in motion the whole machinery of compulsion. to take examples. a vote cast in favour of a bill for the prohibition of alcohol--if we could find opportunity for giving a vote on such a question--would be a formal expression of our desire to apply, through the agency of the paid servants of the state, that same physical compulsion which mrs. carrie nation put into application in her "bar-smashing" crusades. and a vote which puts a government into office in a country where murder is punishable by death is a vote which, by agency of the hangman, puts the noose round the neck of every convicted murderer. so that the difference between voting and direct resort to force is simply the difference between exerting physical violence in person, and exerting it through the intermediary of an agent of the state. the thing, therefore, that is withheld from "the noblest woman in england," while it is conceded to the man who is lacking in nobility of character, is in the end only an instrument by which she might bring into application physical force. when one realises that that same noblest woman of england would shrink from any personal exercise of violence, one would have thought that it would have come home to her that it is not precisely her job to commission a man forcibly to shut up a public-house, or to hang a murderer. one cannot help asking oneself whether, if she understood what a vote really means, the noblest woman in england would still go on complaining of the bitter insult which is done to her in withholding the vote. but the opportunist--the practical politician, as he calls himself--will perhaps here intervene, holding some such language as this:--"granting all you say, granting, for the sake of argument, that the principle of giving votes to woman is unsound, and that evil must ultimately come of it, how can you get over the fact that no very conspicuous harm has resulted from woman suffrage in the countries which have adopted it? and can any firm reasons be rendered for the belief that the giving of votes to women in england would be any whit more harmful than in the colonies?" a very few words will supply the answer. the evils of woman suffrage lie, _first,_ in the fact that to give the vote to women is to give it to voters who as a class are quite incompetent to adjudicate upon political issues; _secondly,_ in the fact that women are a class of voters who cannot effectively back up their votes by force; and, _thirdly,_ in the fact that it may seriously embroil man and woman. the first two aspects of the question have already in this controversy been adequately dealt with. there remains the last issue. from the point of view of this issue the conditions which we have to deal with in this country are the absolute antithesis of those ruling in any of the countries and states which have adopted woman suffrage. when woman suffrage was adopted in these countries it was adopted in some for one reason, in others for another. in some it was adopted because it appealed to the _doctrinaire [theoretical]_ politician as the proper logical outcome of a democratic and socialistic policy. in others it was adopted because opportunist politicians saw in it an instrument by which they might gain electioneering advantages. so much was this the case that it sometimes happened that the woman's vote was sprung upon a community which was quite unprepared and indifferent to it. the cause of woman suffrage was thus in the countries of which we speak neither in its inception nor in its realisation a question of revolt of woman against the oppression of man. it had, and has, no relation to the programmes of the militant suffragists as set out at the outset of this letter. by virtue of this, all the evils which spring from the embroiling of man and woman have in the countries in question been conspicuously absent. instead of seeing himself confronted by a section of embittered and hostile women voters which might at any time outvote him and help to turn an election, man there sees his women folk voting practically everywhere in accordance with his directions, and lending him a hand to outvote his political opponent. whether or no such voting is for the good of the common weal is beside our present question. but it is clearly an arrangement which leads to amity and peace between a man and his womenkind, and through these to good-will towards all women. in england everything is different. if woman suffrage comes in here, it will have come as a surrender to a very violent feminist agitation--an agitation which we have traced back to our excess female population and the associated abnormal physiological conditions. if ever parliament concedes the vote to woman in england, it will be accepted by the militant suffragist, not as an eirenicon, but as a victory which she will value only for the better carrying on of her fight _a outrance [to the bitter end]_ against the oppression and injustice of man. a conciliation with hysterical revolt is neither an act of peace; nor will it bring peace. nor would the conferring of the vote upon women carry with it any advantages from the point of view of finding a way out of the material entanglements in which woman is enmeshed, and thus ending the war between man and woman. one has only to ask oneself whether or not it would help the legislator in remodelling the divorce or the bastardy laws if he had conjoined with him an unmarried militant suffragist as assessor. peace will come again. it will come when woman ceases to believe and to teach all manner of evil of man despitefully. it will come when she ceases to impute to him as a crime her own natural disabilities, when she ceases to resent the fact that man cannot and does not wish to work side by side with her. and peace will return when every woman for whom there is no room in england seeks "rest" beyond the sea, "each one in the house of her husband," and when the woman who remains in england comes to recognise that she can, without sacrifice of dignity, give a willing subordination to the husband or father, who, when all is said and done, earns and lays up money for her. a. e. wright. _march_ , . mrs. pankhurst's own story [illustration: e. pankhurst] my own story by emmeline pankhurst [illustration: logo] illustrated london eveleigh nash copyright, , by hearsts's international library co., inc. _all rights reserved, including the translation into foreign languages, including the scandinavian._ contents book i the making of a militant chapter page i ii iii iv book ii four years of peaceful militancy chapter page i ii iii iv v vi vii viii book iii the women's revolution chapter page i ii iii iv v vi vii viii ix illustrations portrait of mrs. pankhurst _frontispiece_ facing page mrs. pankhurst addressing a by-election crowd mrs. pankhurst and christabel hiding from the police on the roof garden at clements inn, october, christabel, mrs. drummond and mrs. pankhurst in the dock, first conspiracy trial, october, mrs. pankhurst and miss christabel pankhurst in prison dress inspector wells conducting mrs. pankhurst to the house of commons, june, over , women had been in prison--broad arrows in the parade the head of the deputation on black friday, november, for hours scenes like this were enacted on black friday, november, riot scenes on black friday, november, in this manner thousands of women throughout the kingdom slept in unoccupied houses over census night the argument of the broken window pane a suffragette throwing a bag of flour at mr. asquith in chester re-arrest of mrs. pankhurst at woking, may , mrs. pankhurst and christabel in the garden of christabel's home in paris "arrested at the king's gate!" may, acknowledgment the author wishes to express her deep obligation to rheta childe dorr for invaluable editorial services performed in the preparation of this volume, especially the american edition. foreword the closing paragraphs of this book were written in the late summer of , when the armies of every great power in europe were being mobilised for savage, unsparing, barbarous warfare--against one another, against small and unaggressive nations, against helpless women and children, against civilisation itself. how mild, by comparison with the despatches in the daily newspapers, will seem this chronicle of women's militant struggle against political and social injustice in one small corner of europe. yet let it stand as it was written, with peace--so-called, and civilisation, and orderly government as the background for heroism such as the world has seldom witnessed. the militancy of men, through all the centuries, has drenched the world with blood, and for these deeds of horror and destruction men have been rewarded with monuments, with great songs and epics. the militancy of women has harmed no human life save the lives of those who fought the battle of righteousness. time alone will reveal what reward will be allotted to the women. this we know, that in the black hour that has just struck in europe, the men are turning to their women and calling on them to take up the work of keeping civilisation alive. through all the harvest fields, in orchards and vineyards, women are garnering food for the men who fight, as well as for the children left fatherless by war. in the cities the women are keeping open the shops, they are driving trucks and trams, and are altogether attending to a multitude of business. when the remnants of the armies return, when the commerce of europe is resumed by men, will they forget the part the women so nobly played? will they forget in england how women in all ranks of life put aside their own interests and organised, not only to nurse the wounded, care for the destitute, comfort the sick and lonely, but actually to maintain the existence of the nation? thus far, it must be admitted, there are few indications that the english government are mindful of the unselfish devotion manifested by the women. thus far all government schemes for overcoming unemployment have been directed towards the unemployment of men. the work of women, making garments, etc., has in some cases been taken away. at the first alarm of war the militants proclaimed a truce, which was answered half-heartedly by the announcement that the government would release all suffrage prisoners who would give an undertaking "not to commit further crimes or outrages." since the truce had already been proclaimed, no suffrage prisoner deigned to reply to the home secretary's provision. a few days later, no doubt influenced by representations made to the government by men and women of every political faith--many of them never having been supporters of revolutionary tactics--mr. mckenna announced in the house of commons that it was the intention of the government, within a few days, to release unconditionally, all suffrage prisoners. so ends, for the present, the war of women against men. as of old, the women become the nurturing mothers of men, their sisters and uncomplaining helpmates. the future lies far ahead, but let this preface and this volume close with the assurance that the struggle for the full enfranchisement of women has not been abandoned; it has simply, for the moment, been placed in abeyance. when the clash of arms ceases, when normal, peaceful, rational society resumes its functions, the demand will again be made. if it is not quickly granted, then once more the women will take up the arms they to-day generously lay down. there can be no real peace in the world until woman, the mother half of the human family, is given liberty in the councils of the world. book i the making of a militant mrs. pankhurst's own story chapter i those men and women are fortunate who are born at a time when a great struggle for human freedom is in progress. it is an added good fortune to have parents who take a personal part in the great movements of their time. i am glad and thankful that this was my case. one of my earliest recollections is of a great bazaar which was held in my native city of manchester, the object of the bazaar being to raise money to relieve the poverty of the newly emancipated negro slaves in the united states. my mother took an active part in this effort, and i, as a small child, was entrusted with a lucky bag by means of which i helped to collect money. young as i was--i could not have been older than five years--i knew perfectly well the meaning of the words slavery and emancipation. from infancy i had been accustomed to hear pro and con discussions of slavery and the american civil war. although the british government finally decided not to recognise the confederacy, public opinion in england was sharply divided on the questions both of slavery and of secession. broadly speaking, the propertied classes were pro-slavery, but there were many exceptions to the rule. most of those who formed the circle of our family friends were opposed to slavery, and my father, robert goulden, was always a most ardent abolitionist. he was prominent enough in the movement to be appointed on a committee to meet and welcome henry ward beecher when he arrived in england for a lecture tour. mrs. harriet beecher stowe's novel, "uncle tom's cabin," was so great a favourite with my mother that she used it continually as a source of bedtime stories for our fascinated ears. those stories, told almost fifty years ago, are as fresh in my mind to-day as events detailed in the morning's papers. indeed they are more vivid, because they made a much deeper impression on my consciousness. i can still definitely recall the thrill i experienced every time my mother related the tale of eliza's race for freedom over the broken ice of the ohio river, the agonizing pursuit, and the final rescue at the hands of the determined old quaker. another thrilling tale was the story of a negro boy's flight from the plantation of his cruel master. the boy had never seen a railroad train, and when, staggering along the unfamiliar railroad track, he heard the roar of an approaching train, the clattering car-wheels seemed to his strained imagination to be repeating over and over again the awful words, "catch a nigger--catch a nigger--catch a nigger--" this was a terrible story, and throughout my childhood, whenever i rode in a train, i thought of that poor runaway slave escaping from the pursuing monster. these stories, with the bazaars and the relief funds and subscriptions of which i heard so much talk, i am sure made a permanent impression on my brain and my character. they awakened in me the two sets of sensations to which all my life i have most readily responded: first, admiration for that spirit of fighting and heroic sacrifice by which alone the soul of civilisation is saved; and next after that, appreciation of the gentler spirit which is moved to mend and repair the ravages of war. i do not remember a time when i could not read, nor any time when reading was not a joy and a solace. as far back as my memory runs i loved tales, especially those of a romantic and idealistic character. "pilgrim's progress" was an early favourite, as well as another of bunyan's visionary romances, which does not seem to be as well known, his "holy war." at nine i discovered the odyssey and very soon after that another classic which has remained all my life a source of inspiration. this was carlyle's "french revolution," and i received it with much the same emotion that keats experienced when he read chapman's translation of homer--" ... like some watcher of the skies, when a new planet swims into his ken." i never lost that first impression, and it strongly affected my attitude toward events which were occurring around my childhood. manchester is a city which has witnessed a great many stirring episodes, especially of a political character. generally speaking, its citizens have been liberal in their sentiments, defenders of free speech and liberty of opinion. in the late sixties there occurred in manchester one of those dreadful events that prove an exception to the rule. this was in connection with the fenian revolt in ireland. there was a fenian riot, and the police arrested the leaders. these men were being taken to the jail in a prison van. on the way the van was stopped and an attempt was made to rescue the prisoners. a man fired a pistol, endeavouring to break the lock of the van door. a policeman fell, mortally wounded, and several men were arrested and were charged with murder. i distinctly remember the riot, which i did not witness, but which i heard vividly described by my older brother. i had been spending the afternoon with a young playmate, and my brother had come after tea to escort me home. as we walked through the deepening november twilight he talked excitedly of the riot, the fatal pistol shot, and the slain policeman. i could almost see the man bleeding on the ground, while the crowd swayed and groaned around him. the rest of the story reveals one of those ghastly blunders which justice not infrequently makes. although the shooting was done without any intent to kill, the men were tried for murder and three of them were found guilty and hanged. their execution, which greatly excited the citizens of manchester, was almost the last, if not the last, public execution permitted to take place in the city. at the time i was a boarding-pupil in a school near manchester, and i spent my week-ends at home. a certain saturday afternoon stands out in my memory, as on my way home from school i passed the prison where i knew the men had been confined. i saw that a part of the prison wall had been torn away, and in the great gap that remained were evidences of a gallows recently removed. i was transfixed with horror, and over me there swept the sudden conviction that that hanging was a mistake--worse, a crime. it was my awakening to one of the most terrible facts of life--that justice and judgment lie often a world apart. i relate this incident of my formative years to illustrate the fact that the impressions of childhood often have more to do with character and future conduct than heredity or education. i tell it also to show that my development into an advocate of militancy was largely a sympathetic process. i have not personally suffered from the deprivations, the bitterness and sorrow which bring so many men and women to a realisation of social injustice. my childhood was protected by love and a comfortable home. yet, while still a very young child, i began instinctively to feel that there was something lacking, even in my own home, some false conception of family relations, some incomplete ideal. this vague feeling of mine began to shape itself into conviction about the time my brothers and i were sent to school. the education of the english boy, then as now, was considered a much more serious matter than the education of the english boy's sister. my parents, especially my father, discussed the question of my brothers' education as a matter of real importance. my education and that of my sister were scarcely discussed at all. of course we went to a carefully selected girls' school, but beyond the facts that the head mistress was a gentlewoman and that all the pupils were girls of my own class, nobody seemed concerned. a girl's education at that time seemed to have for its prime object the art of "making home attractive"--presumably to migratory male relatives. it used to puzzle me to understand why i was under such a particular obligation to make home attractive to my brothers. we were on excellent terms of friendship, but it was never suggested to them as a duty that they make home attractive to me. why not? nobody seemed to know. the answer to these puzzling questions came to me unexpectedly one night when i lay in my little bed waiting for sleep to overtake me. it was a custom of my father and mother to make the round of our bedrooms every night before going themselves to bed. when they entered my room that night i was still awake, but for some reason i chose to feign slumber. my father bent over me, shielding the candle flame with his big hand. i cannot know exactly what thought was in his mind as he gazed down at me, but i heard him say, somewhat sadly, "what a pity she wasn't born a lad." my first hot impulse was to sit up in bed and protest that i didn't want to be a boy, but i lay still and heard my parents' footsteps pass on toward the next child's bed. i thought about my father's remark for many days afterward, but i think i never decided that i regretted my sex. however, it was made quite clear that men considered themselves superior to women, and that women apparently acquiesced in that belief. i found this view of things difficult to reconcile with the fact that both my father and my mother were advocates of equal suffrage. i was very young when the reform act of was passed, but i very well remember the agitation caused by certain circumstances attending it. this reform act, known as the household franchise bill, marked the first popular extension of the ballot in england since . under its terms, householders paying a minimum of ten pounds a year rental were given the parliamentary vote. while it was still under discussion in the house of commons, john stuart mill moved an amendment to the bill to include women householders as well as men. the amendment was defeated, but in the act as passed the word "man," instead of the usual "male person," was used. now, under another act of parliament it had been decided that the word "man" always included "woman" unless otherwise specifically stated. for example, in certain acts containing rate-paying clauses, the masculine noun and pronoun are used throughout, but the provisions apply to women rate-payers as well as to men. so when the reform bill with the word "man" in it became law, many women believed that the right of suffrage had actually been bestowed upon them. a tremendous amount of discussion ensued, and the matter was finally tested by a large number of women seeking to have their names placed upon the register as voters. in my city of manchester , women, out of a total of , possible women voters, claimed their votes, and their claim was defended in the law courts by eminent lawyers, including my future husband, dr. pankhurst. of course the women's claim was settled adversely in the courts, but the agitation resulted in a strengthening of the woman-suffrage agitation all over the country. i was too young to understand the precise nature of the affair, but i shared in the general excitement. from reading newspapers aloud to my father i had developed a genuine interest in politics, and the reform bill presented itself to my young intelligence as something that was going to do the most wonderful good to the country. the first election after the bill became law was naturally a memorable occasion. it is chiefly memorable to me because it was the first one in which i ever participated. my sister and i had just been presented with new winter frocks, green in colour, and made alike, after the custom of proper british families. every girl child in those days wore a red flannel petticoat, and when we first put on our new frocks i was struck with the fact that we were wearing red and green--the colours of the liberal party. since our father was a liberal, of course the liberal party ought to carry the election, and i conceived a brilliant scheme for helping its progress. with my small sister trotting after me, i walked the better part of a mile to the nearest polling-booth. it happened to be in a rather rough factory district, but we did not notice that. arrived there, we two children picked up our green skirts to show our scarlet petticoats, and brimful of importance, walked up and down before the assembled crowds to encourage the liberal vote. from this eminence we were shortly snatched by outraged authority in the form of a nursery-maid. i believe we were sent to bed into the bargain, but i am not entirely clear on this point. i was fourteen years old when i went to my first suffrage meeting. returning from school one day, i met my mother just setting out for the meeting, and i begged her to let me go along. she consented, and without stopping to lay my books down i scampered away in my mother's wake. the speeches interested and excited me, especially the address of the great miss lydia becker, who was the susan b. anthony of the english movement, a splendid character and a truly eloquent speaker. she was the secretary of the manchester committee, and i had learned to admire her as the editor of the _women's suffrage journal_, which came to my mother every week. i left the meeting a conscious and confirmed suffragist. i suppose i had always been an unconscious suffragist. with my temperament and my surroundings i could scarcely have been otherwise. the movement was very much alive in the early seventies, nowhere more so than in manchester, where it was organised by a group of extraordinary men and women. among them were mr. and mrs. jacob bright, who were always ready to champion the struggling cause. mr. jacob bright, a brother of john bright, was for many years member of parliament for manchester, and to the day of his death was an active supporter of woman suffrage. two especially gifted women, besides miss becker, were members of the committee. these were mrs. alice cliff scatcherd and miss wolstentholm, now the venerable mrs. wolstentholm-elmy. one of the principal founders of the committee was the man whose wife, in later years, i was destined to become, dr. richard marsden pankhurst. when i was fifteen years old i went to paris, where i was entered as a pupil in one of the pioneer institutions in europe for the higher education of girls. this school, one of the founders of which was madame edmond adam, who was and is still a distinguished literary figure, was situated in a fine old house in the avenue de neuilly. it was under the direction of mlle. marchef-girard, a woman distinguished in education, and who afterward was appointed government inspector of schools in france. mlle. marchef-girard believed that girls' education should be quite as thorough and even more practical than the education boys were receiving at that time. she included chemistry and other sciences in her courses, and in addition to embroidery she had her girls taught bookkeeping. many other advanced ideas prevailed in this school, and the moral discipline which the pupils received was, to my mind, as valuable as the intellectual training. mlle. marchef-girard held that women should be given the highest ideals of honour. her pupils were kept to the strictest principles of truth-telling and candour. myself she understood and greatly benefited by an implicit trust which i am sure i could not have betrayed, even had i felt for her less real affection. my roommate in this delightful school was an interesting young girl of my own age, noemie rochefort, daughter of that great republican, communist, journalist, and swordsman, henri rochefort. this was very shortly after the franco-prussian war, and memories of the empire's fall and of the bloody and disastrous commune were very keen in paris. indeed my roommate's illustrious father and many others were then in exile in new caledonia for participation in the commune. my friend noemie was torn with anxiety for her father. she talked of him constantly, and many were the blood-curdling accounts of daring and of patriotism to which i listened. henri rochefort was, in fact, one of the moving spirits of the republican movement in france, and after his amazing escape in an open boat from new caledonia, he lived through many years of political adventures of the most lively and picturesque character. his daughter and i remained warm friends long after our school-days ended, and my association with her strengthened all the liberal ideas i had previously acquired. i was between eighteen and nineteen when i finally returned from school in paris and took my place in my father's home as a finished young lady. i sympathised with and worked for the woman-suffrage movement, and came to know dr. pankhurst, whose work for woman suffrage had never ceased. it was dr. pankhurst who drafted the first enfranchisement bill, known as the women's disabilities removal bill, and introduced into the house of commons in by mr. jacob bright. the bill advanced to its second reading by a majority vote of thirty-three, but it was killed in committee by mr. gladstone's peremptory orders. dr. pankhurst, as i have already said, with another distinguished barrister, lord coleridge, acted as counsel for the manchester women, who tried in to be placed on the register as voters. he also drafted the bill giving married women absolute control over their property and earnings, a bill which became law in . my marriage with dr. pankhurst took place in . i think we cannot be too grateful to the group of men and women who, like dr. pankhurst, in those early days lent the weight of their honoured names to the suffrage movement in the trials of its struggling youth. these men did not wait until the movement became popular, nor did they hesitate until it was plain that women were roused to the point of revolt. they worked all their lives with those who were organising, educating, and preparing for the revolt which was one day to come. unquestionably those pioneer men suffered in popularity for their feminist views. some of them suffered financially, some politically. yet they never wavered. my married life lasted through nineteen happy years. often i have heard the taunt that suffragists are women who have failed to find any normal outlet for their emotions, and are therefore soured and disappointed beings. this is probably not true of any suffragist, and it is most certainly not true of me. my home life and relations have been as nearly ideal as possible in this imperfect world. about a year after my marriage my daughter christabel was born, and in another eighteen months my second daughter sylvia came. two other children followed, and for some years i was rather deeply immersed in my domestic affairs. i was never so absorbed with home and children, however, that i lost interest in community affairs. dr. pankhurst did not desire that i should turn myself into a household machine. it was his firm belief that society as well as the family stands in need of women's services. so while my children were still in their cradles i was serving on the executive committee of the women's suffrage society, and also on the executive board of the committee which was working to secure the married women's property act. this act having passed in , i threw myself into the suffrage work with renewed energy. a new reform act, known as the county franchise bill, extending the suffrage to farm labourers, was under discussion, and we believed that our years of educational propaganda work had prepared the country to support us in a demand for a women's suffrage amendment to the bill. for several years we had been holding the most splendid meetings in cities all over the kingdom. the crowds, the enthusiasm, the generous response to appeals for support, all these seemed to justify us in our belief that women's suffrage was near. in fact, in , when the county franchise bill came before the country, we had an actual majority in favour of suffrage in the house of commons. but a favourable majority in the house of commons by no means insures the success of any measure. i shall explain this at length when i come to our work of opposing candidates who have avowed themselves suffragists, a course which has greatly puzzled our american friends. the liberal party was in power in , and a great memorial was sent to the prime minister, the right honourable william e. gladstone, asking that a women's suffrage amendment to the county franchise bill be submitted to the free and unbiased consideration of the house. mr. gladstone curtly refused, declaring that if a women's suffrage amendment should be carried, the government would disclaim responsibility for the bill. the amendment was submitted nevertheless, but mr. gladstone would not allow it to be freely discussed, and he ordered liberal members to vote against it. what we call a whip was sent out against it, a note virtually commanding party members to be on hand at a certain hour to vote against the women's amendment. undismayed, the women tried to have an independent suffrage bill introduced, but mr. gladstone so arranged parliamentary business that the bill never even came up for discussion. i am not going to write a history of the woman suffrage movement in england prior to , when the women's social and political union was organised. that history is full of repetitions of just such stories as the one i have related. gladstone was an implacable foe of woman suffrage. he believed that women's work and politics lay in service to men's parties. one of the shrewdest acts of mr. gladstone's career was his disruption of the suffrage organisation in england. he accomplished this by substituting "something just as good," that something being women's liberal associations. beginning in in bristol, these associations spread rapidly through the country and, in , became a national women's liberal federation. the promise of the federation was that by allying themselves with men in party politics, women would soon earn the right to vote. the avidity with which the women swallowed this promise, left off working for themselves, and threw themselves into the men's work was amazing. the women's liberal federation is an organisation of women who believe in the principles of the liberal party. (the somewhat older primrose league is a similar organisation of women who adhere to conservative party principles.) neither of these organisations have woman suffrage for their object. they came into existence to uphold party ideas and to work for the election of party candidates. i am told that women in america have recently allied themselves with political parties, believing, just as we did, that such action would break down opposition to suffrage by showing the men that women possess political ability, and that politics is work for women as well as men. let them not be deceived. i can assure the american women that our long alliance with the great parties, our devotion to party programmes, our faithful work at elections, never advanced the suffrage cause one step. the men accepted the services of the women, but they never offered any kind of payment. as far as i am concerned, i did not delude myself with any false hopes in the matter. i was present when the women's liberal federation came into existence. mrs. gladstone presided, offering the meeting many consolatory words for the absence of "our great leader," mr. gladstone, who of course had no time to waste on a gathering of women. at mrs. jacob bright's request i joined the federation. at this stage of my development i was a member of the fabian society, and i had considerable faith in the permeating powers of its mild socialism. but i was already fairly convinced of the futility of trusting to political parties. even as a child i had begun to wonder at the _naïve_ faith of party members in the promises of their leaders. i well remember my father returning home from political meetings, his face aglow with enthusiasm. "what happened, father?" i would ask, and he would reply triumphantly, "ah! we passed the resolution." "then you'll get your measure through the next session," i predicted. "i won't say that," was the usual reply. "things don't always move as quickly as that. but we passed the resolution." well, the suffragists, when they were admitted into the women's liberal federation must have felt that they had passed their resolution. they settled down to work for the party and to prove that they were as capable of voting as the recently enfranchised farm labourers. of course a few women remained loyal to suffrage. they began again on the old educational lines to work for the cause. not one woman took counsel with herself as to how and why the agricultural labourers had won their franchise. they had won it, as a matter of fact, by burning hay-ricks, rioting, and otherwise demonstrating their strength in the only way that english politicians can understand. the threat to march a hundred thousand men to the house of commons unless the bill was passed played its part also in securing the agricultural labourer his political freedom. but no woman suffragist noticed that. as for myself, i was too young politically to learn the lesson then. i had to go through years of public work before i acquired the experience and the wisdom to know how to wring concessions from the english government. i had to hold public office. i had to go behind the scenes in the government schools, in the workhouses and other charitable institutions; i had to get a close-hand view of the misery and unhappiness of a man-made world, before i reached the point where i could successfully revolt against it. it was almost immediately after the collapse of the woman suffrage movement in that i entered upon this new phase of my career. chapter ii in , a year after the failure of the third women's suffrage bill, my husband, dr. pankhurst, stood as the liberal candidate for parliament in rotherline, a riverside constituency of london. i went through the campaign with him, speaking and canvassing to the best of my ability. dr. pankhurst was a popular candidate, and unquestionably would have been returned but for the opposition of the home-rulers. parnell was in command, and his settled policy was opposition to all government candidates. so, in spite of the fact that dr. pankhurst was a staunch upholder of home rule, the parnell forces were solidly opposed to him, and he was defeated. i remember expressing considerable indignation, but my husband pointed out to me that parnell's policy was absolutely right. with his small party he could never hope to win home rule from a hostile majority, but by constant obstruction he could in time wear out the government, and force it to surrender. that was a valuable political lesson, one that years later i was destined to put into practice. the following year found us living in london, and, as usual, interesting ourselves with labour matters and other social movements. this year was memorable for a great strike of women working in the bryant and may match factories. i threw myself into this strike with enthusiasm, working with the girls and with some women of prominence, among these the celebrated mrs. annie besant. the strike was a successful one, the girls winning substantial improvements in their working conditions. it was a time of tremendous unrest, of labour agitations, of strikes and lockouts. it was a time also when a most stupid reactionary spirit seemed to take possession of the government and the authorities. the salvation army, the socialists, the trade-unionists--in fact, all bodies holding outdoor meetings--were made special objects of attack. as a protest against this policy a law and liberty league was formed in london, and an immense free speech meeting was held in trafalgar square, john burns and cunningham graham being the principal speakers. i was present at this meeting, which resulted in a bloody riot between the police and the populace. the trafalgar square riot is historic, and to it mr. john burns owes, in large part, his subsequent rise to political eminence. both john burns and cunningham graham served prison sentences for the part they played in the riot, but they gained fame, and they did much to establish the right of free speech for english men. english women are still contending for that right. in my last child was born in london. i now had a family of five young children, and for a time i was less active in public work. on the retirement of mrs. annie besant from the london school board i had been asked to stand as candidate for the vacancy, but although i should have enjoyed the work, i decided not to accept this invitation. the next year, however, a new suffrage association, the women's franchise league, was formed, and i felt it my duty to become affiliated with it the league was preparing a new suffrage bill, the provisions of which i could not possibly approve, and i joined with old friends, among whom were mrs. jacob bright, mrs. wolstentholm-elmy, who was a member of the london school board, and mrs. stanton blatch, then resident in england, in an effort to substitute the original bill drafted by dr. pankhurst. as a matter of fact, neither of the bills was introduced into parliament that year. mr. (now lord) haldane, who had the measure in charge, introduced one of his own drafting. it was a truly startling bill, royally inclusive in its terms. it not only enfranchised all women, married and unmarried, of the householding classes, but it made them eligible to all offices under the crown. the bill was never taken seriously by the government, and indeed it was never intended that it should be, as we were later made to understand. i remember going with mrs. stanton blatch to the law courts to see mr. haldane, and to protest against the introduction of a measure that had not the remotest chance of passing. "all, that bill," said haldane, "is for the future." all their woman suffrage bills are intended for the future, a future so remote as to be imperceptible. we were beginning to understand this even in . however, as long as there was a bill, we determined to support it. accordingly, we canvassed the members, distributed a great deal of literature, and organised and addressed meetings. we not only made speeches ourselves, but we induced friendly members of parliament to go on our platforms. one of these meetings, held in an east end radical club, was addressed by mr. haldane and a young man who accompanied him. this young man, sir edward grey, then in the beginning of his career, made an eloquent plea for woman's suffrage. that sir edward grey should, later in life, become a bitter foe of woman's suffrage need astonish no one. i have known many young englishmen who began their political life as suffrage speakers and who later became anti-suffragists or traitorous "friends" of the cause. these young and aspiring statesmen have to attract attention in some fashion, and the espousal of advanced causes, such as labour or women's suffrage, seems an easy way to accomplish that end. well, our speeches and our agitation did nothing at all to assist mr. haldane's impossible bill. it never advanced beyond the first reading. our london residence came to an end in . in that year we returned to our manchester home, and i again took up the work of the suffrage society. at my suggestion the members began to organise their first out-of-door meetings, and we continued these until we succeeded in working up a great meeting that filled free trade hall, and overflowed into and crowded a smaller hall near at hand. this marked the beginning of a campaign of propaganda among working people, an object which i had long desired to bring about. and now began a new and, as i look back on it, an absorbingly interesting stage of my career. i have told how our leaders in the liberal party had advised the women to prove their fitness for the parliamentary franchise by serving in municipal offices, especially the unsalaried offices. a large number of women had availed themselves of this advice, and were serving on boards of guardians, on school boards, and in other capacities. my children now being old enough for me to leave them with competent nurses, i was free to join these ranks. a year after my return to manchester i became a candidate for the board of poor law guardians. several weeks before, i had contested unsuccessfully for a place on the school board. this time, however, i was elected, heading the poll by a very large majority. for the benefit of american readers i shall explain something of the operation of our english poor law. the duty of the law is to administer an act of queen elizabeth, one of the greatest reforms effected by that wise and humane monarch. when elizabeth came to the throne she found england, the merrie england of contemporary poets, in a state of appalling poverty. hordes of people were literally starving to death, in wretched hovels, in the streets, and at the very gates of the palace. the cause of all this misery was the religious reformation under henry viii, and the secession from rome of the english church. king henry, it is known, seized all the church lands, the abbeys and the convents, and gave them as rewards to those nobles and favourites who had supported his policies. but in taking over the church's property the protestant nobles by no means assumed the church's ancient responsibilities of lodging wayfarers, giving alms, nursing the sick, educating youths, and caring for the young and the superannuated. when the monks and the nuns were turned out of their convents these duties devolved on no one. the result, after the brief reign of edward vi and the bloody one of queen mary, was the social anarchy inherited by elizabeth. this great queen and great woman, perceiving that the responsibility for the poor and the helpless rightfully rests on the community, caused an act to be passed creating in the parishes public bodies to deal with local conditions of poverty. the board of poor law guardians disburses for the poor the money coming from the poor rates (taxes), and some additional moneys allowed by the local government board, the president of which is a cabinet minister. mr. john burns is the present incumbent of the office. the board of guardians has control of the institution we call the workhouse. you have, i believe, almshouses, or poorhouses, but they are not quite so extensive as our workhouses, which are all kinds of institutions in one. we had, in my workhouse, a hospital with nine hundred beds, a school with several hundred children, a farm, and many workshops. when i came into office i found that the law in our district, chorlton, was being very harshly administered. the old board had been made up of the kind of men who are known as rate savers. they were guardians, not of the poor but of the rates, and, as i soon discovered, not very astute guardians even of money. for instance, although the inmates were being very poorly fed, a frightful waste of food was apparent. each inmate was given each day a certain weight of food, and bread formed so much of the ration that hardly anyone consumed all of his portion. in the farm department pigs were kept on purpose to consume this surplus of bread, and as pigs do not thrive on a solid diet of stale bread the animals fetched in the market a much lower price than properly fed farm pigs. i suggested that, instead of giving a solid weight of bread in one lump, the loaf be cut in slices and buttered with margarine, each person being allowed all that he cared to eat. the rest of the board objected, saying that our poor charges were very jealous of their rights, and would suspect in such an innovation an attempt to deprive them of a part of their ration. this was easily overcome by the suggestion that we consult the inmates before we made the change. of course the poor people consented, and with the bread that we saved we made puddings with milk and currants, to be fed to the old people of the workhouse. these old folks i found sitting on backless forms, or benches. they had no privacy, no possessions, not even a locker. the old women were without pockets in their gowns, so they were obliged to keep any poor little treasures they had in their bosoms. soon after i took office we gave the old people comfortable windsor chairs to sit in, and in a number of ways we managed to make their existence more endurable. these, after all, were minor benefits. but it does gratify me when i look back and remember what we were able to do for the children of the manchester workhouse. the first time i went into the place i was horrified to see little girls seven and eight years old on their knees scrubbing the cold stones of the long corridors. these little girls were clad, summer and winter, in thin cotton frocks, low in the neck and short sleeved. at night they wore nothing at all, night dresses being considered too good for paupers. the fact that bronchitis was epidemic among them most of the time had not suggested to the guardians any change in the fashion of their clothes. there was a school for the children, but the teaching was of the poorest order. they were forlorn enough, these poor innocents, when i first met them. in five years' time we had changed the face of the earth for them. we had bought land in the country and had built a cottage system home for the children, and we had established for them a modern school with trained teachers. we had even secured for them a gymnasium and a swimming-bath. i may say that i was on the building committee of the board, the only woman member. whatever may be urged against the english poor law system, i maintain that under it no stigma of pauperism need be applied to workhouse children. if they are treated like paupers of course they will be paupers, and they will grow up paupers, permanent burdens on society; but if they are regarded merely as children under the guardianship of the state, they assume quite another character. rich children are not pauperized by being sent to one or another of the free public schools with which england is blest. yet a great many of those schools, now exclusively used for the education of upper middle-class boys, were founded by legacies left to educate the poor--girls as well as boys. the english poor law, properly administered, ought to give back to the children of the destitute what the upper classes have taken from them, a good education on a self-respecting basis. the trouble is, as i soon perceived after taking office, the law cannot, in existing circumstances, do all the work, even for children, that it was intended to do. we shall have to have new laws, and it soon became apparent to me that we can never hope to get them until women have the vote. during the time i served on the board, and for years since then, women guardians all over the country have striven in vain to have the law reformed in order to ameliorate conditions which break the hearts of women to see, but which apparently affect men very little. i have spoken of the little girls i found scrubbing the workhouse floors. there were others at the hateful labour who aroused my keenest pity. i found that there were pregnant women in that workhouse, scrubbing floors, doing the hardest kind of work, almost until their babies came into the world. many of them were unmarried women, very, very young, mere girls. these poor mothers were allowed to stay in the hospital after confinement for a short two weeks. then they had to make a choice of staying in the workhouse and earning their living by scrubbing and other work, in which case they were separated from their babies; or of taking their discharges. they could stay and be paupers, or they could leave--leave with a two-weeks-old baby in their arms, without hope, without home, without money, without anywhere to go. what became of those girls, and what became of their hapless infants? that question was at the basis of the women guardians' demand for a reform of one part of the poor law. that section deals with the little children who are boarded out, not by the workhouse, but by the parents, that parent being almost always the mother. it is from that class of workhouse mothers--mostly young servant girls--which thoughtless people say all working girls ought to be; it is from that class more than from any other that cases of illegitimacy come. those poor little servant girls, who can get out perhaps only in the evening, whose minds are not very cultivated, and who find all the sentiment of their lives in cheap novelettes, fall an easy prey to those who have designs against them. these are the people by whom the babies are mostly put out to nurse, and the mothers have to pay for their keep. of course the babies are very badly protected. the poor law guardians are supposed to protect them by appointing inspectors to visit the homes where the babies are boarded. but, under the law, if a man who ruins a girl pays down a lump sum of twenty pounds, less than a hundred dollars, the boarding home is immune from inspection. as long as a baby-farmer takes only one child at a time, the twenty pounds being paid, the inspectors cannot inspect the house. of course the babies die with hideous promptness, often long before the twenty pounds have been spent, and then the baby-farmers are free to solicit another victim. for years, as i have said, women have tried in vain to get that one small reform of the poor law, to reach and protect all illegitimate children, and to make it impossible for any rich scoundrel to escape future liability for his child because of the lump sum he has paid down. over and over again it has been tried, but it has always failed, because the ones who really care about the thing are mere women. i thought i had been a suffragist before i became a poor law guardian, but now i began to think about the vote in women's hands not only as a right but as a desperate necessity. these poor, unprotected mothers and their babies i am sure were potent factors in my education as a militant. in fact, all the women i came in contact with in the workhouse contributed to that education. very soon after i went on the board i saw that the class of old women who came into the workhouse were in many ways superior to the kind of old men who came into the workhouse. one could not help noticing it. they were, to begin with, more industrious. in fact, it was quite touching to see their industry and patience. old women, over sixty and seventy years of age, did most of the work of that place, most of the sewing, most of the things that kept the house clean and which supplied the inmates with clothing. i found that the old men were different. one could not get very much work out of them. they liked to stop in the oakum picking-room, where they were allowed to smoke; but as to real work, very little was done by our old men. i began to make inquiries about these old women. i found that the majority of them were not women who had been dissolute, who had been criminal, but women who had lead perfectly respectable lives, either as wives and mothers, or as single women earning their own living. a great many were of the domestic-servant class, who had not married, who had lost their employment, and had reached a time of life when it was impossible to get more employment. it was through no fault of their own, but simply because they had never earned enough to save. the average wage of working women in england is less than two dollars a week. on this pittance it is difficult enough to keep alive, and of course it is impossible to save. every one who knows anything about conditions under which our working women live knows that few of them can ever hope to put by enough to keep them in old age. besides, the average working woman has to support others than herself. how can she save? some of our old women were married. many of them, i found, were widows of skilled artisans who had had pensions from their unions, but the pensions had died with the men. these women, who had given up the power to work for themselves, and had devoted themselves to working for their husbands and children, were left penniless. there was nothing for them to do but to go into the workhouse. many of them were widows of men who had served their country in the army or the navy. the men had had pensions from the government, but the pensions had died with them, and so the women were in the workhouse. we shall not in future, i hope, find so many respectable old women in english workhouses. we have an old-age pension law now, which allows old women as well as old men the sum of five shillings--$ . --a week; hardly enough to live on, but enough to enable the poor to keep their old fathers and mothers out of the workhouse without starving themselves or their children. but when i was a poor law guardian there was simply nothing to do with a woman when her life of toil ceased except make a pauper of her. i wish i had space to tell you of other tragedies of women i witnessed while i was on that board. in our out-relief department, which exists chiefly for able-bodied poor and dependent persons, i was brought into contact with widows who were struggling desperately to keep their homes and families together. the law allowed these women relief of a certain very inadequate kind, but for herself and one child it offered no relief except the workhouse. even if the woman had a baby at her breast she was regarded, under the law, as an able-bodied man. women, we are told, should stay at home and take care of their children. i used to astound my men colleagues by saying to them: "when women have the vote they will see that mothers _can_ stay at home and care for their children. you men have made it impossible for these mothers to do that." i am convinced that the enfranchised woman will find many ways in which to lessen, at least, the curse of poverty. women have more practical ideas about relief, and especially of prevention of dire poverty, than men display. i was struck with this whenever i attended the district conferences and the annual poor law union meetings. in our discussions the women showed themselves much more capable, much more resourceful, than the men. i remember two papers which i prepared and which caused considerable discussion. one of these was on the duties of guardians in times of unemployment, in which i pointed out that the government had one reserve of employment for men which could always be used. we have, on our northwest coast, a constant washing away of the fore shore. every once in a while the question of coast reclamation comes up for discussion, but i had never heard any man suggest coast reclamation as a means of giving the unemployed relief. in i suffered an irreparable loss in the death of my husband. his death occurred suddenly and left me with the heavy responsibility of caring for a family of children, the eldest only seventeen years of age. i resigned my place on the board of guardians, and was almost immediately appointed to the salaried office of registrar of births and deaths in manchester. we have registrars of births, deaths and marriages in england, but since the act establishing the last named contains the words "male person," a woman may not be appointed a registrar of marriages. the head of this department of the government is the registrar-general, with offices at somerset house, london, where all vital statistics are returned and all records filed. it was my duty as registrar of births and deaths to act as chief census officer of my district; i was obliged to receive all returns of births and deaths, record them, and send my books quarterly to the office of the registrar-general. my district was in a working-class quarter, and on this account i instituted evening office hours twice a week. it was touching to observe how glad the women were to have a woman registrar to go to. they used to tell me their stories, dreadful stories some of them, and all of them pathetic with that patient and uncomplaining pathos of poverty. even after my experience on the board of guardians, i was shocked to be reminded over and over again of the little respect there was in the world for women and children. i have had little girls of thirteen come to my office to register the births of their babies, illegitimate, of course. in many of these cases i found that the child's own father or some near male relative was responsible for her state. there was nothing that could be done in most cases. the age of consent in england is sixteen years, but a man can always claim that he thought the girl was over sixteen. during my term of office a very young mother of an illegitimate child exposed her baby, and it died. the girl was tried for murder and was sentenced to death. this was afterwards commuted, it is true, but the unhappy child had the horrible experience of the trial and the sentence "to be hanged by the neck, until you are dead." the wretch who was, from the point of view of justice, the real murderer of the baby, received no punishment at all. i needed only one more experience after this one, only one more contact with the life of my time and the position of women, to convince me that if civilisation is to advance at all in the future, it must be through the help of women, women freed of their political shackles, women with full power to work their will in society. in i was asked to stand as a candidate for the manchester school board. the schools were then under the old law, and the school boards were very active bodies. they administered the elementary education act, bought school sites, erected buildings, employed and paid teachers. the school code and the curriculum were framed by the board of education, which is part of the central government. of course this was absurd. a body of men in london could not possibly realise all the needs of boys and girls in remote parts of england. but so it was. as a member of the school board i very soon found that the teachers, working people of the higher grade, were in exactly the same position as the working people of the lower grades. that is, the men had all the advantage. teachers had a representative in the school board councils. of course that representative was a man teacher, and equally of course, he gave preference to the interests of the men teachers. men teachers received much higher salaries than the women, although many of the women, in addition to their regular class work, had to teach sewing and domestic science into the bargain. they received no extra pay for their extra work. in spite of this added burden, and in spite of the lower salaries received, i found that the women cared a great deal more about their work, and a great deal more about the children than the men. it was a winter when there was a great deal of poverty and unemployment in manchester. i found that the women teachers were spending their slender salaries to provide regular dinners for destitute children, and were giving up their time to waiting on them and seeing that they were nourished. they said to me, quite simply: "you see, the little things are too badly off to study their lessons. we have to feed them before we can teach them." well, instead of seeing that women care more for schools and school children than men do and should therefore have more power in education, the parliament of actually passed a law which took education in england entirely out of the hands of women. this law abolished the school board altogether and placed the administration of schools in the hands of the municipalities. certain corporations had formerly made certain grants to technical education--manchester had built a magnificent technical college--and now the corporations had full control of both elementary and secondary education. the law did indeed provide that the corporations should co-opt at least one woman on their education boards. manchester co-opted four women, and at the strong recommendation of the labour party, i was one of the women chosen. at their urgent solicitation i was appointed to the committee on technical instruction, the one woman admitted to this committee. i learned that the manchester technical college, called the second best in europe, spending thousands of pounds annually for technical training, had practically no provision for training women. even in classes where they might easily have been admitted, bakery and confectionery classes and the like, the girls were kept out because the men's trades unions objected to their being educated for such skilled work. it was rapidly becoming clear to my mind that men regarded women as a servant class in the community, and that women were going to remain in the servant class until they lifted themselves out of it. i asked myself many times in those days what was to be done. i had joined the labour party, thinking that through its councils something vital might come, some such demand for the women's enfranchisement that the politicians could not possibly ignore. nothing came. all these years my daughters had been growing up. all their lives they had been interested in women's suffrage. christabel and sylvia, as little girls, had cried to be taken to meetings. they had helped in our drawing-room meetings in every way that children can help. as they grew older we used to talk together about the suffrage, and i was sometimes rather frightened by their youthful confidence in the prospect, which they considered certain, of the success of the movement. one day christabel startled me with the remark: "how long you women have been trying for the vote. for my part, i mean to get it." was there, i reflected, any difference between trying for the vote and getting it? there is an old french proverb, "if youth could know; if age could do." it occurred to me that if the older suffrage workers could in some way join hands with the young, unwearied and resourceful suffragists, the movement might wake up to new life and new possibilities. after that i and my daughters together sought a way to bring about that union of young and old which would find new methods, blaze new trails. at length we thought we had found a way. chapter iii in the summer of --i think it was --susan b. anthony paid a visit to manchester, and that visit was one of the contributory causes that led to the founding of our militant suffrage organisation, the women's social and political union. during miss anthony's visit my daughter christabel, who was very deeply impressed, wrote an article for the manchester papers on the life and works of the venerable reformer. after her departure christabel spoke often of her, and always with sorrow and indignation that such a splendid worker for humanity was destined to die without seeing the hopes of her lifetime realised. "it is unendurable," declared my daughter, "to think of another generation of women wasting their lives begging for the vote. we must not lose any more time. we must act." by this time the labour party, of which i was still a member, had returned mr. keir hardie to parliament, and we decided that the first step in a campaign of action was to make the labour party responsible for a new suffrage bill. at a recent annual conference of the party i had moved a resolution calling upon the members to instruct their own member of parliament to introduce a bill for the enfranchisement of women. the resolution was passed, and we determined to organise a society of women to demand immediate enfranchisement, not by means of any outworn missionary methods, but through political action. it was in october, , that i invited a number of women to my house in nelson street, manchester, for purposes of organisation. we voted to call our new society the women's social and political union, partly to emphasise its democracy, and partly to define its object as political rather than propagandist. we resolved to limit our membership exclusively to women, to keep ourselves absolutely free from any party affiliation, and to be satisfied with nothing but action on our question. deeds, not words, was to be our permanent motto. to such a pass had the women's suffrage cause come in my country that the old leaders, who had done such fine educational work in the past, were now seemingly content with expressions of sympathy and regret on the part of hypocritical politicians. this fact was thrust upon me anew by an incident that occurred almost at the moment of the founding of the women's social and political union. in our parliament no bill has a chance of becoming a law unless it is made a government measure. private members are at liberty to introduce measures of their own, but these rarely reach the second reading, or debatable stage. so much time is given to discussion of government measures that very little time can be given to any private bills. about one day in a week is given over to consideration of private measures, to which, as we say, the government give facilities; and since there are a limited number of weeks in a session, the members, on the opening days of parliament, meet and draw lots to determine who shall have a place in the debates. only these successful men have a chance to speak to their bills, and only those who have drawn early chances have any prospect of getting much discussion on their measures. now, the old suffragists had long since given up hope of obtaining a government suffrage bill, but they clung to a hope that a private member's bill would some time obtain consideration. every year, on the opening day of parliament, the association sent a deputation of women to the house of commons, to meet so-called friendly members and consider the position of the women's suffrage cause. the ceremony was of a most conventional, not to say farcical character. the ladies made their speeches and the members made theirs. the ladies thanked the friendly members for their sympathy, and the members renewed their assurances that they believed in women's suffrage and would vote for it when they had an opportunity to do so. then the deputation, a trifle sad but entirely tranquil, took its departure, and the members resumed the real business of life, which was support of their party's policies. such a ceremony as this i attended soon after the founding of the w. s. p. u. sir charles m'laren was the friendly member who presided over the gathering, and he did his full duty in the matter of formally endorsing the cause of women's suffrage. he assured the delegation of his deep regret, as well as the regret of numbers of his colleagues, that women so intelligent, so devoted, etc., should remain unenfranchised. other members did likewise. the ceremonies drew to a close, but i, who had not been asked to speak, determined to add something to the occasion. "sir charles m'laren," i began abruptly, "has told us that numbers of his colleagues desire the success of the women's suffrage cause. now every one of us knows that at this moment the members of the house of commons are balloting for a place in the debates. will sir charles m'laren tell us if any member is preparing to introduce a bill for women's suffrage? will he tell us what he and the other members will pledge themselves to _do_ for the reform they so warmly endorse?" of course, the embarrassed sir charles was not prepared to tell us anything of the kind, and the deputation departed in confusion and wrath. i was told that i was an interloper, an impertinent intruder. who asked me to say anything? and what right had i to step in and ruin the good impression they had made? no one could tell how many friendly members i had alienated by my unfortunate remarks. i went back to manchester and with renewed energy continued the work of organising for the w. s. p. u. in the spring of i went to the annual conference of the independent labour party, determined if possible to induce the members to prepare a suffrage bill to be laid before parliament in the approaching session. although i was a member of the national administrative council and presumably a person holding some influence in the party, i knew that my plan would be bitterly opposed by a strong minority, who held that the labour party should direct all its efforts toward securing universal adult suffrage for both men and women. theoretically, of course, a labour party could not be satisfied with anything less than universal adult suffrage, but it was clear that no such sweeping reform could be effected at that time, unless indeed the government made it one of their measures. besides, while a large majority of members of the house of commons were pledged to support a bill giving women equal franchise rights with men, it was doubtful whether a majority could be relied upon to support a bill giving adult suffrage, even to men. such a bill, even if it were a government measure, would probably be difficult of passage. after considerable discussion, the national council decided to adopt the original women's enfranchisement bill, drafted by dr. pankhurst, and advanced in to its second reading in the house of commons. the council's decision was approved by an overwhelming majority of the conference. the new session of parliament, so eagerly looked forward to, met on february , . i went down from manchester, and with my daughter sylvia, then a student at the royal college of art, south kensington, spent eight days in the strangers' lobby of the house of commons, working for the suffrage bill. we interviewed every one of the members who had pledged themselves to support a suffrage bill when it should be introduced, but we found not one single member who would agree that his chance in the ballot, if he drew such a chance, should be given to introducing the bill. every man had some other measure he was anxious to further. mr. keir hardie had previously given us his pledge, but his name, as we had feared, was not drawn in the ballot. we next set out to interview all the men whose names had been drawn, and we finally induced mr. bamford slack, who held the fourteenth place, to introduce our bill. the fourteenth place was not a good one, but it served, and the second reading of our bill was set down for friday, may th, the second order of the day. this being the first suffrage bill in eight years, a thrill of excitement animated not only our ranks but all the old suffrage societies. meetings were held, and a large number of petitions circulated. when the day came for consideration on our bill, the strangers' lobby could not hold the enormous gathering of women of all classes, rich and poor, who flocked to the house of commons. it was pitiful to see the look of hope and joy that shone on the faces of many of these women. we knew that our poor little measure had the very slightest chance of being passed. the bill that occupied the first order of the day was one providing that carts travelling along public roads at night should carry a light behind as well as before. we had tried to induce the promoters of this unimportant little measure to withdraw it in the interests of our bill, but they refused. we had tried also to persuade the conservative government to give our bill facilities for full discussion, but they also refused. so, as we fully anticipated, the promoters of the roadway lighting bill were allowed to "talk out" our bill. they did this by spinning out the debate with silly stories and foolish jokes. the members listened to the insulting performance with laughter and applause. when news of what was happening reached the women who waited in the strangers' lobby, a feeling of wild excitement and indignation took possession of the throng. seeing their temper, i felt that the moment had come for a demonstration such as no old-fashioned suffragist had ever attempted. i called upon the women to follow me outside for a meeting of protest against the government. we swarmed out into the open, and mrs. wolstenholm-elmy, one of the oldest suffrage workers in england, began to speak. instantly the police rushed into the crowd of women, pushing them about and ordering them to disperse. we moved on as far as the great statue of richard coeur de lion that guards the entrance to the house of lords, but again the police intervened. finally the police agreed to let us hold a meeting in broad sanctuary, very near the gates of westminster abbey. here we made speeches and adopted a resolution condemning the government's action in allowing a small minority to talk out our bill. this was the first militant act of the w. s. p. u. it caused comment and even some alarm, but the police contented themselves with taking our names. the ensuing summer was spent in outdoor work. by this time the women's social and political union had acquired some valuable accessions, and money began to come to us. among our new members was one who was destined to play an important rôle in the unfolding drama of the militant movement. at the close of one of our meetings at oldham a young girl introduced herself to me as annie kenney, a mill-worker, and a strong suffrage sympathiser. she wanted to know more of our society and its objects, and i invited her and her sister jenny, a board school teacher, to tea the next day. they came and joined our union, a step that definitely changed the whole course of miss kenney's life, and gave us one of our most distinguished leaders and organisers. with her help we began to carry our propaganda to an entirely new public. in lancashire there is an institution known as the wakes, a sort of travelling fair where they have merry-go-rounds, aunt-sallies, and other festive games, side-shows of various kinds, and booths where all kinds of things are sold. every little village has its wakes-week during the summer and autumn, and it is the custom for the inhabitants of the villages to spend the sunday before the opening of the wakes walking among the booths in anticipation of tomorrow's joys. on these occasions the salvation army, temperance orators, venders of quack medicines, pedlars, and others, take advantage of the ready-made audience to advance their propaganda. at annie kenney's suggestion we went from one village to the other, following the wakes and making suffrage speeches. we soon rivalled in popularity the salvation army, and even the tooth-drawers and patent-medicine pedlars. the women's social and political union had been in existence two years before any opportunity was presented for work on a national scale. the autumn of brought a political situation which seemed to us to promise bright hopes for women's enfranchisement. the life of the old parliament, dominated for nearly twenty years by the conservative party, was drawing to an end, and the country was on the eve of a general election in which the liberals hoped to be returned to power. quite naturally the liberal candidates went to the country with perfervid promises of reform in every possible direction. they appealed to the voters to return them, as advocates and upholders of true democracy, and they promised that there should be a government united in favour of people's rights against the powers of a privileged aristocracy. now repeated experiences had taught us that the only way to attain women's suffrage was to commit a government to it. in other words, pledges of support from candidates were plainly useless. they were not worth having. the only object worth trying for was pledges from responsible leaders that the new government would make women's suffrage a part of the official programme. we determined to address ourselves to those men who were likely to be in the liberal cabinet, demanding to know whether their reforms were going to include justice to women. we laid our plans to begin this work at a great meeting to be held in free trade hall, manchester, with sir edward grey as the principal speaker. we intended to get seats in the gallery, directly facing the platform and we made for the occasion a large banner with the words: "will the liberal party give votes for women?" we were to let this banner down over the gallery rails at the moment when our speaker rose to put the question to sir edward grey. at the last moment, however, we had to alter the plan because it was impossible to get the gallery seats we wanted. there was no way in which we could use our large banner, so, late in the afternoon on the day of the meeting, we cut out and made a small banner with the three-word inscription: "votes for women." thus, quite accidentally, there came into existence the present slogan of the suffrage movement around the world. annie kenney and my daughter christabel were charged with the mission of questioning sir edward grey. they sat quietly through the meeting, at the close of which questions were invited. several questions were asked by men and were courteously answered. then annie kenney arose and asked: "if the liberal party is returned to power, will they take steps to give votes for women?" at the same time christabel held aloft the little banner that every one in the hall might understand the nature of the question. sir edward grey returned no answer to annie's question, and the men sitting near her forced her rudely into her seat, while a steward of the meeting pressed his hat over her face. a babel of shouts, cries and catcalls sounded from all over the hall. as soon as order was restored christabel stood up and repeated the question: "will the liberal government, if returned, give votes to women?" again sir edward grey ignored the question, and again a perfect tumult of shouts and angry cries arose. mr. william peacock, chief constable of manchester, left the platform and came down to the women, asking them to write their question, which he promised to hand to the speaker. they wrote: "will the liberal government give votes to working-women? signed, on behalf of the women's social and political union, annie kenney, member of the oldham committee of the card-and blowing-room operatives." they added a line to say that, as one of , organised women textile-workers, annie kenney earnestly desired an answer to the question. mr. peacock kept his word and handed the question to sir edward grey, who read it, smiled, and passed it to the others on the platform. they also read it with smiles, but no answer to the question was made. only one lady who was sitting on the platform tried to say something, but the chairman interrupted by asking lord durham to move a vote of thanks to the speaker. mr. winston churchill seconded the motion, sir edward grey replied briefly, and the meeting began to break up. annie kenney stood up in her chair and cried out over the noise of shuffling feet and murmurs of conversation: "will the liberal government give votes to women?" then the audience became a mob. they howled, they shouted and roared, shaking their fists fiercely at the woman who dared to intrude her question into a man's meeting. hands were lifted to drag her out of her chair, but christabel threw one arm about her as she stood, and with the other arm warded off the mob, who struck and scratched at her until her sleeve was red with blood. still the girls held together and shouted over and over: "the question! the question! answer the question!" six men, stewards of the meeting, seized christabel and dragged her down the aisle, past the platform, other men following with annie kenney, both girls still calling for an answer to their question. on the platform the liberal leaders sat silent and unmoved while this disgraceful scene was taking place, and the mob were shouting and shrieking from the floor. flung into the streets, the two girls staggered to their feet and began to address the crowds, and to tell them what had taken place in a liberal meeting. within five minutes they were arrested on a charge of obstruction and, in christabel's case, of assaulting the police. both were summonsed to appear next morning in a police court, where, after a trial which was a mere farce, annie kenney was sentenced to pay a fine of five shillings, with an alternative of three days in prison, and christabel pankhurst was given a fine of ten shillings or a jail sentence of one week. both girls promptly chose the prison sentence. as soon as they left the court-room i hurried around to the room where they were waiting, and i said to my daughter: "you have done everything you could be expected to do in this matter. i think you should let me pay your fines and take you home." without waiting for annie kenney to speak, my daughter exclaimed: "mother, if you pay my fine i will never go home." before going to the meeting she had said, "we will get our question answered or sleep in prison to-night." i now knew her courage remained unshaken. of course the affair created a tremendous sensation, not only in manchester, where my husband had been so well known and where i had so long held public office, but all over england. the comments of the press were almost unanimously bitter. ignoring the perfectly well-established fact that men in every political meeting ask questions and demand answers of the speakers, the newspapers treated the action of the two girls as something quite unprecedented and outrageous. they generally agreed that great leniency had been shown them. fines and jail-sentences were too good for such unsexed creatures. "the discipline of the nursery" would have been far more appropriate. one birmingham paper declared that "if any argument were required against giving ladies political status and power it had been furnished in manchester." newspapers which had heretofore ignored the whole subject now hinted that while they had formerly been in favour of women's suffrage, they could no longer countenance it. the manchester incident, it was said, had set the cause back, perhaps irrevocably. this is how it set the cause back. scores of people wrote to the newspapers expressing sympathy with the women. the wife of sir edward grey told her friends that she considered them quite justified in the means they had taken. it was stated that winston churchill, nervous about his own candidacy in manchester, visited strangeways gaol, where the two girls were imprisoned, and vainly begged the governor to allow him to pay their fines. on october , when the prisoners were released, they were given an immense demonstration in free-trade hall, the very hall from which they had been ejected the week before. the women's social and political union received a large number of new members. above all, the question of women's suffrage became at once a live topic of comment from one end of great britain to the other. we determined that from that time on the little "votes for women" banners should appear wherever a prospective member of the liberal government rose to speak, and that there should be no more peace until the women's question was answered. we clearly perceived that the new government, calling themselves liberal, were reactionary so far as women were concerned, that they were hostile to women's suffrage, and would have to be fought until they were conquered, or else driven from office. we did not begin to fight, however, until we had given the new government every chance to give us the pledge we wanted. early in december the conservative government had gone out, and sir henry campbell-bannerman, the liberal leader, had formed a new cabinet. on december a great meeting was held in royal albert hall, london, where sir henry, surrounded by his cabinet, made his first utterance as prime minister. previous to the meeting we wrote to sir henry and asked him, in the name of the women's social and political union, whether the liberal government would give women the vote. we added that our representatives would be present at the meeting, and we hoped that the prime minister would publicly answer the question. otherwise we should be obliged publicly to protest against his silence. of course sir henry campbell-bannerman returned no reply, nor did his speech contain any allusion to women's suffrage. so, at the conclusion, annie kenney, whom we had smuggled into the hall in disguise, whipped out her little white calico banner, and called out in her clear, sweet voice: "will the liberal government give women the vote?" at the same moment theresa billington let drop from a seat directly above the platform a huge banner with the words: "will the liberal government give justice to working-women?" just for a moment there was a gasping silence, the people waiting to see what the cabinet ministers would do. they did nothing. then, in the midst of uproar and conflicting shouts, the women were seized and flung out of the hall. this was the beginning of a campaign the like of which was never known in england, or, for that matter, in any other country. if we had been strong enough we should have opposed the election of every liberal candidate, but being limited both in funds and in members we concentrated on one member of the government, mr. winston churchill. not that we had any animus against mr. churchill. we chose him simply because he was the only important candidate standing for constituencies within reach of our headquarters. we attended every meeting addressed by mr. churchill. we heckled him unmercifully; we spoiled his best points by flinging back such obvious retorts that the crowds roared with laughter. we lifted out little white banners from unexpected corners of the hall, exactly at the moment when an interruption was least desired. sometimes our banners were torn from our hands and trodden under foot. sometimes, again, the crowds were with us, and we actually broke up the meeting. we did not succeed in defeating mr. churchill, but he was returned by a very small majority, the smallest of any of the manchester liberal candidates. we did not confine our efforts to heckling mr. churchill. throughout the campaign we kept up the work of questioning cabinet ministers at meetings all over england and scotland. at sun hall, liverpool, addressed by the prime minister, nine women in succession asked the important question, and were thrown out of the hall; this in the face of the fact that sir campbell-bannerman was an avowed suffragist. but we were not questioning him as to his private opinions on the suffrage; we were asking him what his government were willing to do about suffrage. we questioned mr. asquith in sheffield, mr. lloyd-george in altrincham, cheshire, the prime minister again in glasgow, and we interrupted a great many other meetings as well. always we were violently thrown out and insulted. often we were painfully bruised and hurt. what good did it do? we have often been asked that question, even by the women our actions spurred into an activity they had never before thought themselves capable of. for one thing, our heckling campaign made women's suffrage a matter of news--it had never been that before. now the newspapers were full of us. for another thing, we woke up the old suffrage associations. during the general election various groups of non-militant suffragists came back to life and organised a gigantic manifesto in favour of action from the liberal government. among others, the manifesto was signed by the women's co-operative guild with nearly , members; the women's liberal federation, with , members; the scottish women's liberal federation, with , members; the north-of-england weavers' association, with , members; the british women's temperance association, with nearly , members; and the independent labour party with , members. surely it was something to have inspired all this activity. we decided that the next step must be to carry the fight to london, and annie kenney was chosen to be organiser there. with only two pounds, less than ten dollars, in her pocket the intrepid girl set forth on her mission. in about a fortnight i left my official work as registrar in the hands of a deputy and went down to london to see what had been accomplished. to my astonishment i found that annie, working with my daughter sylvia, had organised a procession of women and a demonstration to be held on the opening day of parliament. the confident young things had actually engaged caxton hall, westminster; they had had printed a large number of handbills to announce the meeting, and they were busily engaged in working up the demonstration. mrs. drummond, who had joined the union shortly after the imprisonment of annie kenney and christabel, sent word from manchester that she was coming to help us. she had to borrow the money for her railroad-fare, but she came, and, as ever before and since, her help was invaluable. how we worked, distributing handbills, chalking announcements of the meeting on pavements, calling on every person we knew and on a great many more we knew only by name, canvassing from door to door! at length the opening day of parliament arrived. on february , , occurred the first suffrage procession in london. i think there were between three and four hundred women in that procession, poor working-women from the east end, for the most part, leading the way in which numberless women of every rank were afterward to follow. my eyes were misty with tears as i saw them, standing in line, holding the simple banners which my daughter sylvia had decorated, waiting for the word of command. of course our procession attracted a large crowd of intensely amused spectators. the police, however, made no attempt to disperse our ranks, but merely ordered us to furl our banners. there was no reason why we should not have carried banners but the fact that we were women, and therefore could be bullied. so, bannerless, the procession entered caxton hall. to my amazement it was filled with women, most of whom i had never seen at any suffrage gathering before. our meeting was most enthusiastic, and while annie kenney was speaking, to frequent applause, the news came to me that the king's speech (which is not the king's at all, but the formally announced government programme for the session) had been read, and that there was in it no mention of the women's suffrage question. as annie took her seat i arose and made this announcement, and i moved a resolution that the meeting should at once proceed to the house of commons to urge the members to introduce a suffrage measure. the resolution was carried, and we rushed out in a body and hurried toward the strangers' entrance. it was pouring rain and bitterly cold, yet no one turned back, even when we learned at the entrance that for the first time in memory the doors of the house of commons were barred to women. we sent in our cards to members who were personal friends, and some of them came out and urged our admittance. the police, however, were obdurate. they had their orders. the liberal government, advocates of the people's rights, had given orders that women should no longer set foot in their stronghold. pressure from members proved too great, and the government relented to the extent of allowing twenty women at a time to enter the lobby. through all the rain and cold those hundreds of women waited for hours their turn to enter. some never got in, and for those of us who did there was small satisfaction. not a member could be persuaded to take up our cause. out of the disappointment and dejection of that experience i yet reaped a richer harvest of happiness than i had ever known before. those women had followed me to the house of commons. they had defied the police. they were awake at last. they were prepared to do something that women had never done before--fight for themselves. women had always fought for men, and for their children. now they were ready to fight for their own human rights. our militant movement was established. chapter iv to account for the phenomenal growth of the women's social and political union after it was established in london, to explain why it made such an instant appeal to women hitherto indifferent, i shall have to point out exactly wherein our society differs from all other suffrage associations. in the first place, our members are absolutely single minded; they concentrate all their forces on one object, political equality with men. no member of the w. s. p. u. divides her attention between suffrage and other social reforms. we hold that both reason and justice dictate that women shall have a share in reforming the evils that afflict society, especially those evils bearing directly on women themselves. therefore, we demand, before any other legislation whatever, the elementary justice of votes for women. there is not the slightest doubt that the women of great britain would have been enfranchised years ago had all the suffragists adopted this simple principle. they never did, and even to-day many english women refuse to adopt it. they are party members first and suffragists afterward; or they are suffragists part of the time and social theorists the rest of the time. we further differ from other suffrage associations, or from others existing in , in that we clearly perceived the political situation that solidly interposed between us and our enfranchisement. for seven years we had had a majority in the house of commons pledged to vote favourably on a suffrage bill. the year before, they had voted favourably on one, yet that bill did not become law. why? because even an overwhelming majority of private members are powerless to enact law in the face of a hostile government of eleven cabinet ministers. the private member of parliament was once possessed of individual power and responsibility, but parliamentary usage and a changed conception of statesmanship have gradually lessened the functions of members. at the present time their powers, for all practical purposes, are limited to helping to enact such measures as the government introduces or, in rare instances, private measures approved by the government. it is true that the house can revolt, can, by voting a lack of confidence in the government, force them to resign. but that almost never happens, and it is less likely now than formerly to happen. figureheads don't revolt. this, then, was our situation: the government all-powerful and consistently hostile; the rank and file of legislators impotent; the country apathetic; the women divided in their interests. the women's social and political union was established to meet this situation, and to overcome it. moreover we had a policy which, if persisted in long enough, could not possibly fail to overcome it. do you wonder that we gained new members at every meeting we held? there was little formality about joining the union. any woman could become a member by paying a shilling, but at the same time she was required to sign a declaration of loyal adherence to our policy and a pledge not to work for any political party until the women's vote was won. this is still our inflexible custom. moreover, if at any time a member, or a group of members, loses faith in our policy; if any one begins to suggest, that some other policy ought to be substituted, or if she tries to confuse the issue by adding other policies, she ceases at once to be a member. autocratic? quite so. but, you may object, a suffrage organisation ought to be democratic. well the members of the w. s. p. u. do not agree with you. we do not believe in the effectiveness of the ordinary suffrage organisation. the w. s. p. u. is not hampered by a complexity of rules. we have no constitution and by-laws; nothing to be amended or tinkered with or quarrelled over at an annual meeting. in fact, we have no annual meeting, no business sessions, no elections of officers. the w. s. p. u. is simply a suffrage army in the field. it is purely a volunteer army, and no one is obliged to remain in it. indeed we don't want anybody to remain in it who does not ardently believe in the policy of the army. the foundation of our policy is opposition to a government who refuse votes to women. to support by word or deed a government hostile to woman suffrage is simply to invite them to go on being hostile. we oppose the liberal party because it is in power. we would oppose a unionist government if it were in power and were opposed to woman suffrage. we say to women that as long as they remain in the ranks of the liberal party they give their tacit approval to the government's anti-suffrage policy. we say to members of parliament that as long as they support any of the government's policies they give their tacit approval to the anti-suffrage policy. we call upon all sincere suffragists to leave the liberal party until women are given votes on equal terms with men. we call upon all voters to vote against liberal candidates until the liberal government does justice to women. we did not invent this policy. it was most successfully pursued by mr. parnell in his home rule struggle more than thirty-five years ago. any one who is old enough to remember the stirring days of parnell may recall how, in , the home rulers, by persistently voting against the government in the house of commons, forced the resignation of mr. gladstone and his cabinet. in the general election which followed, the liberal party was again returned to power, but by the slender majority of eighty-four, the home rulers having fought every liberal candidate, even those, who, like my husband, were enthusiastic believers in home rule. in order to control the house and keep his leadership, mr. gladstone was obliged to bring in a government home rule bill. the downfall, through private intrigue, and the subsequent death of parnell prevented the bill from becoming law. for many years afterward the irish nationalists had no leader strong enough to carry on parnell's anti-government policy, but within late years it was resumed by mr. james redmond, with the result that the commons passed a home rule bill. the contention of the old-fashioned suffragists, and of the politicians as well, has always been that an educated public opinion will ultimately give votes to women without any great force being exerted in behalf of the reform. we agree that public opinion must be educated, but we contend that even an educated public opinion is useless unless it is vigorously utilised. the keenest weapon is powerless unless it is courageously wielded. in the year there was an immensely large public opinion in favour of woman suffrage. but what good did that do the cause? we called upon the public for a great deal more than sympathy. we called upon it to demand of the government to yield to public opinion and give women votes. and we declared that we would wage war, not only on all anti-suffrage forces, but on all neutral and non-active forces. every man with a vote was considered a foe to woman suffrage unless he was prepared to be actively a friend. not that we believed that the campaign of education ought to be given up. on the contrary, we knew that education must go on, and in much more vigorous fashion than ever before. the first thing we did was to enter upon a sensational campaign to arouse the public to the importance of woman suffrage, and to interest it in our plans for forcing the government's hands. i think we can claim that our success in this regard was instant, and that it has proved permanent. from the very first, in those early london days, when we were few in numbers and very poor in purse, we made the public aware of the woman suffrage movement as it had never been before. we adopted salvation army methods and went out into the highways and the byways after converts. we threw away all our conventional notions of what was "ladylike" and "good form," and we applied to our methods the one test question, will it help? just as the booths and their followers took religion to the street crowds in such fashion that the church people were horrified, so we took suffrage to the general public in a manner that amazed and scandalised the other suffragists. we had a lot of suffrage literature printed, and day by day our members went forth and held street meetings. selecting a favourable spot, with a chair for a rostrum, one of us would ring a bell until people began to stop to see what was going to happen. what happened, of course, was a lively suffrage speech, and the distribution of literature. soon after our campaign had started, the sound of the bell was a signal for a crowd to spring up as if by magic. all over the neighbourhood you heard the cry: "here are the suffragettes! come on!" we covered london in this way; we never lacked an audience, and best of all, an audience to which the woman-suffrage doctrine was new. we were increasing our favourable public as well as waking it up. besides these street meetings, we held many hall and drawing-room meetings, and we got a great deal of press publicity, which was something never accorded the older suffrage methods. our plans included the introduction of a government suffrage bill at the earliest possible moment, and in the spring of we sent a deputation of about thirty of our members to interview the prime minister, sir henry campbell-bannerman. the prime minister, it was stated, was not at home; so in a few days we sent another deputation. this time the servant agreed to carry our request to the prime minister. the women waited patiently on the doorstep of the official residence, no. downing street, for nearly an hour. then the door opened and two men appeared. one of the men addressed the leader of the deputation, roughly ordering her and the others to leave. "we have sent a message to the prime minister," she replied, "and we are waiting for the answer." "there will be no answer," was the stern rejoinder, and the door closed. "yes, there will be an answer," exclaimed the leader, and she seized the door-knocker and banged it sharply. instantly the men reappeared, and one of them called to a policeman standing near, "take this woman in charge." the order was obeyed, and the peaceful deputation saw its leader taken off to canon row station. instantly the women protested vigorously. annie kenney began to address the crowd that had gathered, and mrs. drummond actually forced her way past the doorkeeper into the sacred residence of the prime minister of the british empire! her arrest and annie's followed. the three women were detained at the police station for about an hour, long enough, the prime minister probably thought, to frighten them thoroughly and teach them not to do such dreadful things again. then he sent them word that he had decided not to prosecute them, but would, on the contrary, receive a deputation from the w. s. p. u., and, if they cared to attend, from other suffrage societies as well. all the suffrage organisations at once began making preparations for the great event. at the same time two hundred members of parliament sent a petition to the prime minister, asking him to receive their committee that they might urge upon him the necessity of a government measure for woman suffrage. sir henry fixed may th as the day on which he would receive a joint deputation from parliament and from the women's suffrage organisations. the w. s. p. u. determined to make the occasion as public as possible, and began preparations for a procession and a demonstration. when the day came we assembled at the foot of the beautiful monument to the warrior-queen, boadicea, that guards the entrance to westminster bridge, and from there we marched to the foreign office. at the meeting eight women spoke in behalf of an immediate suffrage measure, and mr. keir hardie presented the argument for the suffrage members of parliament. i spoke for the w. s. p. u., and i tried to make the prime minister see that no business could be more pressing than ours. i told him that the group of women organised in our union felt so strongly the necessity for women enfranchisement that they were prepared to sacrifice for it everything they possessed, their means of livelihood, their very lives, if necessary. i begged him to make such a sacrifice needless by doing us justice now. what answer do you think sir henry campbell-bannerman made us? he assured us of his sympathy with our cause, his belief in its justice, and his confidence in our fitness to vote. and then he told us to have patience and wait; he could do nothing for us because some of his cabinet were opposed to us. after a few more words the usual vote of thanks was moved, and the deputation was dismissed. i had not expected anything better, but it wrung my heart to see the bitter disappointment of the w. s. p. u. women who had waited in the street to hear from the leaders the result of the deputation. we held a great meeting of protest that afternoon, and determined to carry on our agitation with increased vigor. now that it had been made plain that the government were resolved not to bring in a suffrage bill, there was nothing to do but to continue our policy of waking up the country, not only by public speeches and demonstrations, but by a constant heckling of cabinet ministers. since the memorable occasion when christabel pankhurst and annie kenney were thrown out of sir edward grey's meeting in manchester, and afterward imprisoned for the crime of asking a courteous question, we had not lost an opportunity of addressing the same question to every cabinet minister we could manage to encounter. for this we have been unmercifully criticised, and in a large number of cases most brutally handled. in almost every one of my american meetings i was asked the question, "what good do you expect to accomplish by interrupting meetings?" is it possible that the time-honoured, almost sacred english privilege of interrupting is unknown in america? i cannot imagine a political meeting from which "the voice" was entirely absent. in england it is invariably present. it is considered the inalienable right of the opposition to heckle the speaker and to hurl questions at him which are calculated to spoil his arguments. for instance, when liberals attend a conservative gathering they go prepared to shatter by witticisms and pointed questions all the best effects of the conservative orators. the next day you will read in liberal newspapers headlines like these: "the voice in fine form," "short shrift for tory twaddle," "awkward answers from the enemy's platform." in the body of the article you will learn that "lord x found that the liberals at his meeting were more than a match for him," that "there was continued interruption during sir so-and-so's speech," that "lord m fared badly last night in his encounter with the voice," or that "captain z had the greatest difficulty in making himself heard." in accordance with this custom we heckle cabinet ministers. mr. winston churchill, for example, is speaking. "one great question," he exclaims, "remains to be settled." "and that is woman suffrage," shouts a voice from the gallery. mr. churchill struggles on with his speech: "the men have been complaining of me----" "the women have been complaining of you, too, mr. churchill," comes back promptly from the back of the hall. "in the circumstances what can we do but----" "give votes to women." our object, of course, is to keep woman suffrage in the foreground of interest and to insist on every possible occasion that no other reform advocated is of such immediate importance. from the first the women's interruptions have been resented with unreasoning anger. i remember hearing mr. lloyd-george saying once of a man who interrupted him: "let him remain. i like interruptions. they show that people holding different opinions to mine are present, giving me a chance to convert them." but when suffragists interrupt mr. lloyd-george he says something polite like this: "pay no attention to those cats mewing." some of the ministers are more well bred in their expressions, but all are disdainful and resentful. all see with approval the brutal ejection of the women by the liberal stewards. at one meeting where mr. lloyd-george was speaking, we interrupted with a question, and he claimed the sympathy of the audience on the score that he was a friend to woman suffrage. "then why don't you do something to give votes to women?" was the obvious retort. but mr. lloyd-george evaded this by the counter query: "why don't they go for their enemies? why don't they go for their greatest enemy?" instantly, all over the hall, voices shouted, "asquith! asquith!" for even at that early day it was known that the then chancellor of the exchequer was a stern foe of women's independence. in the summer of , together with other members of the w. s. p. u., i went to northampton, where mr. asquith was holding a large meeting in behalf of the government's education bills. we organised a number of outdoor meetings, and of course prepared to attend mr. asquith's meeting. in conversation with the president of the local women's liberal association, i mentioned the fact that we expected to be put out, and she indignantly declared that such a thing could not happen in northampton, where the women had done so much for the liberal party. i told her that i hoped she would be at the meeting. i had not intended to go myself, my plans being to hold a meeting of my own outside the door. but our members, before mr. asquith began to speak, attempted to question him, and were thrown out with violence. so then, turning my meeting over to them, i slipped quietly into the hall and sat down in the front row of a division set apart for wives and women friends of the liberal leaders. i sat there in silence, hearing men interrupt the speaker and get answers to their questions. at the close of the speech i stood up and, addressing the chairman, said: "i should like to ask mr. asquith a question about education." the chairman turned inquiringly to mr. asquith, who frowningly shook his head. but without waiting for the chairman to say a word, i continued: "mr. asquith has said that the parents of children have a right to be consulted in the matter of their children's education, especially upon such questions as the kind of religious instruction they should receive. women are parents. does not mr. asquith think that women should have the right to control their children's education, as men do, through the vote?" at this point the stewards seized me by the arms and shoulders and rushed me, or rather dragged me, for i soon lost my footing, to the door and threw me out of the building. the effect on the president of the northampton women's liberal association was most salutary. she resigned her office and became a member of the w. s. p. u. perhaps her action was influenced further by the press reports of the incident. mr. asquith was reported as saying, after my ejection, that it was difficult to enter into the minds of people who thought they could serve a cause which professed to appeal to the reason of the electors of the country by disturbing public meetings. apparently he could enter into the minds of the men who disturbed public meetings. to our custom of public heckling of the responsible members of the hostile government we added the practice of sending deputations to them for the purpose of presenting orderly arguments in favour of our cause. after mr. asquith had shown himself so uninformed as to the objects of the suffragists, we decided to ask him to receive a deputation from the w. s. p. u. to our polite letter mr. asquith returned a cold refusal to be interviewed on any subject not connected with his particular office. whereupon we wrote again, reminding mr. asquith that as a member of the government he was concerned with all questions likely to be dealt with by parliament. we said that we urgently desired to put our question before him, and that we would send a deputation to his house hoping that he would feel it his duty to receive us. our first deputation was told that mr. asquith was not at home. he had, in fact, escaped from the house through the back door, and had sped away in a fast motor-car. two days later we sent a larger deputation, of about thirty women, to his house in cavendish square. to be accurate, the deputation got as near the house as the entrance to cavendish square; there the women met a strong force of police, who told them that they would not be permitted to go farther. many of the women were carrying little "votes for women" banners, and these the police tore from them, in some cases with blows and insults. seeing this, the leader of the deputation cried out: "we will go forward. you have no right to strike women like that." the reply, from a policeman near her, was a blow in the face. she screamed with pain and indignation, whereupon the man grasped her by the throat and choked her against the park railings until she was blue in the face. the young woman struggled and fought back, and for this she was arrested on a charge of assaulting the police. three other women were arrested, one because, in spite of the police, she succeeded in ringing mr. asquith's door-bell and another because she protested against the laughter of some ladies who watched the affair from a drawing-room window. she was a poor working-woman, and it seemed to her a terrible thing that rich and protected women should ridicule a cause that to her was so profoundly serious. the fourth woman was taken in charge, because after she had been pushed off the pavement, she dared to step back. charged with disorderly conduct, these women were sentenced to six weeks in the second division. they were given the option of a fine, it is true, but the payment of a fine would have been an acknowledgment of guilt, which made such a course impossible. the leader of the deputation was given a two months' sentence, with the option of a fine of ten pounds. she, too, refused to pay, and was sent to prison; but some unknown friend paid the fine secretly, and she was released before the expiration of her sentence. about the time these things were happening in london, similar violence was offered our women in manchester, where john burns, lloyd-george, and winston churchill, all three cabinet ministers, were addressing a great liberal demonstration. the women were there, as usual, to ask government support for our measure. there, too, they were thrown out of the meeting, and three of them were sent to prison. there are people in england, plenty of them, who will tell you that the suffragettes were sent to prison for destroying property. the fact is that hundreds of women were arrested for exactly such offences as i have described before it ever occurred to any of us to destroy property. we were determined, at the beginning of our movement, that we would make ourselves heard, that we would force the government to take up our question and answer it by action in parliament. perhaps you will see some parallel to our case in the stand taken in massachusetts by the early abolitionists, wendell phillips and william lloyd garrison. they, too, had to fight bitterly, to face insult and arrest, because they insisted on being heard. and they were heard; and so, in time, were we. i think we began to be noticed in earnest after our first success in opposing a liberal candidate. this was in a by-election held at cockermouth in august, . i shall have to explain that a by-election is a local election to fill a vacancy in parliament caused by a death or a resignation. the verdict of a by-election is considered as either an indorsement or a censure of the manner in which the government have fulfilled their pre-election pledges. so we went to cockermouth and told the voters how the liberal party had fulfilled its pledges of democracy and lived up to its avowed belief in the rights of all the people. we told them of the arrests in london and manchester, of the shameful treatment of women in liberal meetings, and we asked them to censure the government who had answered so brutally our demand for a vote. we told them that the only rebuke that the politicians would notice was a lost seat in parliament, and that on that ground we asked them to defeat the liberal candidate. how we were ridiculed! with what scorn the newspapers declared that "those wild women" could never turn a single vote. yet when the election was over it was found that the liberal candidate had lost the seat, which, at the general election a little more than a year before, had been won by a majority of . this time the unionist candidate was returned by a majority of . tremendously elated, we hurried our forces off to another by-election. now the ridicule was turned to stormy abuse. mind you, the liberal government still refused to notice the women's question; they declared through the liberal press that the defeat at cockermouth was insignificant, and that anyhow it wasn't caused by the suffragettes; yet the liberal leaders were furiously angry with the w. s. p. u. many of our members had been liberals, and it was considered by the men that these women were little better than traitors. they were very foolish and ill-advised, into the bargain, the liberals said, because the vote, if won at all, must be gained from the liberal party; and how did the women suppose the liberal party would ever give the vote to open and avowed enemies? this sage argument was used also by the women liberals and the constitutional suffragists. they advised us that the proper way was to work for the party. we retorted that we had done that unsuccessfully for too many years already, and persisted with the opposite method of persuasion. throughout the summer and autumn we devoted ourselves to the by-election work, sometimes actually defeating the liberal candidate, sometimes reducing the liberal majority, and always raising a tremendous sensation and gaining hundreds of new members to the union. in almost every neighbourhood we visited we left the nucleus of a local union, so that before the year was out we had branches all over england and many in scotland and wales. i especially remember a by-election in wales at which mr. samuel evans, who had accepted an officership under the crown, had to stand for re-election. unfortunately no candidate had been brought out against him. so there was nothing for my companions and me to do but make his campaign as lively as possible. mr.--now sir samuel--evans was the man who had incensed women by talking out a suffrage resolution introduced into the house by keir hardie. so we went to two of his meetings and literally talked him out, breaking up the gatherings amid the laughter and cheers of delighted crowds. on october d parliament met for its autumn session, and we led a deputation to the house of commons in another effort to induce the government to take action on woman suffrage. in accordance with orders given the police, only twenty of us were admitted to the strangers' lobby. we sent in for the chief liberal whip, and asked him to take a message to the prime minister, the message being the usual request to grant women the vote that session. we also asked the prime minister if he intended to include the registration of qualified women voters in the provisions of the plural voting bill, then under consideration. the liberal whip came back with the reply that nothing could be done for women that session. [illustration: mrs. pankhurst addressing a by-election crowd] "does the prime minister," i asked, "hold out any hope for the women for any session during this parliament, or at any future time?" the prime minister, you will remember, called himself a suffragist. the liberal whip replied, "no, mrs. pankhurst, the prime minister does not." what would a deputation of unenfranchised men have done in these circumstances--men who knew themselves to be qualified to exercise the franchise, who desperately needed the protection of the franchise, and who had a majority of legislators in favour of giving them the franchise? i hope they would have done at least as much as we did, which was to start a meeting of protest on the spot. the newspapers described our action as creating a disgraceful scene in the lobby of the house of commons, but i think that history will otherwise describe it. one of the women sprang up on a settee and began to address the crowd. in less than a minute she was pulled down, but instantly another woman took her place; and after she had been dragged down, still another sprang to her place, and following her another and another, until the order came to clear the lobby, and we were all forced outside. in the mêlée i was thrown to the floor and painfully hurt. the women, thinking me seriously injured, crowded around me and refused to move until i was able to regain myself. this angered the police, who were still more incensed when they found that the demonstration was continued outside. eleven women were arrested, including mrs. pethick lawrence, our treasurer, mrs. cobden sanderson, annie kenney and three more of our organisers; and they were all sent to holloway for two months. but the strength of our movement was proved by the number of volunteers who immediately came forward to carry on the work. mrs. tuke, now hon. secretary of the w. s. p. u., joined the union at this time. it had not occurred to the authorities that their action would have this effect. they thought to crush the union at a blow, but they gave it the greatest impetus it had yet received. the leaders of the older suffrage organisations for the time forgot their disapproval of our methods, and joined with women writers, physicians, actresses, artists, and other prominent women in denouncing the affair as barbarous. one more thing the authorities failed to take into account. the condition of english prisons was known to be very bad, but when two of our women were made so ill in holloway that they had to be released within a few days, the politicians began to tremble for their prestige. questions were asked in parliament concerning the advisability of treating the suffragettes not as common criminals but as political offenders with the right to confinement in the first division. mr. herbert gladstone, the home secretary, replied to these questions that he had no power to interfere with the magistrates' decisions, and could do nothing in the matter of the suffragettes' punishment. i shall ask you to remember this statement of mr. herbert gladstone's, as later we were able to prove it a deliberate falsehood--although really the falsehood proved itself when the women, by government order, were released from prison when they had served just half their sentences. the reason for this was that an important by-election was being held in the north of england, and we had distributed broadcast throughout the constituency hand bills telling the electors that nine women, including the daughter of richard cobden, were being held as common criminals by the liberal government who were asking for their votes. i took a group of the released prisoners to huddersfield, and they told prison stories to such effect that the liberal majority was reduced by votes. as usual the liberal leaders denied that our work had anything to do with the slender majority by which the party retained the seat, but among our souvenirs is a handbill, one of thousands given out from liberal headquarters: +------------------------------+ | men of huddersfield | | don't be misled | | by socialists, suffragettes | | or tories | | vote for sherwell | +------------------------------+ meanwhile, other demonstrations had taken place before the house of commons, and at christmas time twenty-one suffragettes were in holloway prison, though they had committed no crime. the government professed themselves unmoved, and members of parliament spoke with sneers of the "self-made martyrs." however, a considerable group of members, strongly moved by the passion and unquenchable ardor of this new order of suffragists, met during the last week of the year and formed a committee whose object it was to press upon the government the necessity of giving the franchise to women during that parliament. the committee resolved that its members would work to educate a wider public opinion on the question, and especially to advocate suffrage when addressing meetings in their constituencies, to take parliamentary action on every possible occasion, and to induce as many members of parliament as possible to ballot for the introduction of a suffrage bill or motion next session. our first year in london had borne wonderful fruits. we had grown from a mere handful of women, a "family party" the newspapers had derisively called us, to a strong organisation with branches all over the country, permanent headquarters in clements inn, strand; we had found good financial backing, and above all, we had created a suffrage committee in the house of commons. book ii four years of peaceful militancy chapter i the campaign of began with a women's parliament, called together on february th in caxton hall, to consider the provisions of the king's speech, which had been read in the national parliament on the opening day of the session, february th. the king's speech, as i have explained, is the official announcement of the government's programme for the session. when our women's parliament met at three o'clock on the afternoon of the thirteenth we knew that the government meant to do nothing for women during the session ahead. i presided over the women's meeting, which was marked with a fervency and a determination of spirit at that time altogether unprecedented. a resolution expressing indignation that woman suffrage should have been omitted from the king's speech, and calling upon the house of commons to give immediate facilities to such a measure, was moved and carried. a motion to send the resolution from the hall to the prime minister was also carried. the slogan, "rise up, women," was cried from the platform, the answering shout coming back as from one woman, "now!" with copies of the resolution in their hands, the chosen deputation hurried forth into the february dusk, ready for parliament or prison, as the fates decreed. fate did not leave them very long in doubt. the government, it appeared, had decided that not again should their sacred halls of parliament be desecrated by women asking for the vote, and orders had been given that would henceforth prevent women from reaching even the outer precincts of the house of commons. so when our deputation of women arrived in the neighbourhood of westminster abbey they found themselves opposed by a solid line of police, who, at a sharp order from their chief, began to stride through and through the ranks of the procession, trying to turn the women back. bravely the women rallied and pressed forward a little farther. suddenly a body of mounted police came riding up at a smart trot, and for the next five hours or more, a struggle, quite indescribable for brutality and ruthlessness, went on. the horsemen rode directly into the procession, scattering the women right and left. but still the women would not turn back. again and again they returned, only to fly again and again from the merciless hoofs. some of the women left the streets for the pavements, but even there the horsemen pursued them, pressing them so close to walls and railings that they were obliged to retreat temporarily to avoid being crushed. other strategists took refuge in doorways, but they were dragged out by the foot police and were thrown directly in front of the horses. still the women fought to reach the house of commons with their resolution. they fought until their clothes were torn, their bodies bruised, and the last ounce of their strength exhausted. fifteen of them did actually fight their way through those hundreds on hundreds of police, foot and mounted, as far as the strangers' lobby of the house. here they attempted to hold a meeting, and were arrested. outside, many more women were taken into custody. it was ten o'clock before the last arrest was made, and the square cleared of the crowds. after that the mounted men continued to guard the approaches to the house of commons until the house rose at midnight. the next morning fifty-seven women and two men were arraigned, two and three at a time, in westminster police court. christabel pankhurst was the first to be placed in the dock. she tried to explain to the magistrate that the deputation of the day before was a perfectly peaceful attempt to present a resolution, which, sooner or later, would be presented and acted upon. she assured him that the deputation was but the beginning of a campaign that would not cease until the government yielded to the women's demand. "there can be no going back for us," she declared, "and more will happen if we do not get justice." the magistrate, mr. curtis bennett, who was destined later to try women for that "more," rebuked my daughter sternly, telling her that the government had nothing to do with causing the disorders of the day before, that the women were entirely responsible for what had occurred, and finally, that these disgraceful scenes in the street must cease--just as king canute told the ocean that it must roll out instead of in. "the scenes can be stopped in only one way," replied the prisoner. his sole reply to that was, "twenty shillings or fourteen days," christabel chose the prison sentence, and so did all the other prisoners. mrs. despard, who headed the deputation, and sylvia pankhurst, who was with her, were given three weeks in prison. of course the raid, as it was called, gave the women's social and political union an enormous amount of publicity, on the whole, favourable publicity. the newspapers were almost unanimous in condemning the government for sending mounted troops out against unarmed women. angry questions were asked in parliament, and our ranks once more increased in size and ardour. the old-fashioned suffragists, men as well as women, cried out that we had alienated all our friends in parliament; but this proved to be untrue. indeed, it was found that a liberal member, mr. dickinson, had won the first place in the ballot, and had announced that he intended to use it to introduce a women's suffrage bill. more than this, the prime minister, sir henry campbell-bannerman, promised to give the bill his support. for a time, a very short time, it is true, we felt that the hour of our freedom might be at hand, that our prisoners had perhaps already won us our precious symbol--the vote. soon, however, a number of professed suffragists in the house began to complain that mr. dickinson's bill, practically the original bill, was not "democratic" enough, that it would enfranchise only the women of the upper classes--to which, by the way, most of them belonged. that this was not true had been proved again and again from the municipal registers, which showed a majority of working women's names as qualified householders. the contention was but a shallow excuse, and we knew it. therefore we were not surprised when sir henry campbell-bannerman departed from his pledge of support, and allowed the bill to be talked out. following this event, the second women's parliament assembled, on the afternoon of march , . as before, we adopted a resolution calling upon the government to introduce an official suffrage measure, and again we voted to send the resolution from the hall to the prime minister. lady harberton was chosen to lead the deputation, and instantly hundreds of women sprang up and volunteered to accompany her. this time the police met the women at the door of the hall, and another useless, disgraceful scene of barbarous, brute-force opposition took place. something like one thousand police had been sent out to guard the house of commons from the peaceful invasion of a few hundred women. all afternoon and evening we kept caxton hall open, the women returning every now and again, singly and in small groups, to have their bruises bathed, or their torn clothing repaired. as night fell the crowds in the street grew denser, and the struggle between the women and the police became more desperate. lady harberton, we heard, had succeeded in reaching the entrance to the house of commons, nay, had actually managed to press past the sentries into the lobby, but her resolution had not been presented to the prime minister. she and many others were arrested before the police at last succeeded in clearing the streets, and the dreadful affair was over. the next day, in westminster police court, the magistrate meted out sentences varying from twenty shillings or fourteen days to forty shillings or one month's imprisonment. two of the women, miss woodlock and mrs. chatterton, who had left holloway only a week before, were, as "old offenders," given thirty days without the option of a fine. another woman, mary leigh, was given thirty days because she offended the magistrate's dignity by hanging a "votes for women" banner over the edge of the dock. those of my readers who are unable to connect the word "militancy" with anything milder than arson are invited to reflect that within the first two months of the year the english government sent to prison one hundred and thirty women whose "militancy" consisted merely of trying to carry a resolution from a hall to the prime minister in the house of commons. our crime was called obstructing the police. it will be seen that it was the police who did the obstructing. it may be asked why neither of these deputations was led by me personally. the reason was that i was needed in another capacity, that of leader and supervisor of the suffrage forces in the field to defeat government candidates at by-elections. on the night of the second "riot," while our women were still struggling in the streets, i left london for hexham in northumberland, where by our work the majority of the liberal candidate was reduced by a thousand votes. seven more by-elections followed in rapid succession. our by-election work was such a new thing in english politics that we attracted an enormous amount of attention wherever we went. it was our custom to begin work the very hour we entered a town. if, on our way from the station to the hotel, we encountered a group of men, say, in the market-place, we either stopped and held a meeting on the spot, or else we stayed long enough to tell them when and where our meetings were to be held, and to urge them to attend. the usual first step, after securing lodgings, was to hire a vacant shop, fill the windows with suffrage literature, and fling out our purple, green, and white flag. meanwhile, some of us were busy hiring the best available hall. if we got possession of the battle-ground before the men, we sometimes "cornered" all the good halls and left the candidate nothing but schoolhouses for his indoor meetings. truth to tell, our meetings were so much more popular than theirs that we really needed the larger halls. often, a candidate with the suffragettes for rivals spoke to almost empty benches. the crowds were away listening to the women. naturally, this greatly displeased the politicians, and it scandalised many of the old-fashioned liberal partisans. in one place, i think it was colne valley in yorkshire, an amusing instance of masculine hostility occurred. we had arrived on a day when both conservative and liberal committees were choosing their candidates, and we thought it a good opportunity to hold a series of outdoor meetings. we tried to get a lorry for a rostrum, but the only man in town who had these big vans to let disapproved of suffragettes so violently that he wouldn't let us have one. so we borrowed a chair from a woman shopkeeper, and went at it. soon we had a large crowd and an interested audience. we also got the attention of a number of small boys with pea-shooters, and had to make our speeches under a blistering fire of dried peas. while i was speaking the fire ceased, to my relief--for dried peas sting. i continued my speech with renewed vigor, only to have one of my best points spoiled by roars of laughter from the crowd. i finished somehow, and sat down; and then it was explained to me that the pea-shooters had been financed by one of the prominent liberals of the town, another man who disapproved of our policy of opposing the government. as soon as the ammunition gave out this man furnished the boys with a choice supply of rotten oranges. these were not so easily handled, it appeared, for the very first one went wild, and struck the chivalrous gentleman violently in the neck. this it was that had caused the laughter, and stopped the attack on the women. we met with some pretty rough horse-play, and even with some brutality, in several by-elections, but on the whole we found the men ready, and the women more than ready, to listen to us. we tamed and educated a public that had always been used to violence at elections. we even tamed the boys, who came to the meetings on purpose to skylark. when we were in rutlandshire that spring three schoolboys came to see me and told me, shyly, that they were interested in suffrage. they had had a debate on the subject at their school, and although the decision had been for the other side, all the boys wanted to know more about it. wouldn't i please have a meeting especially for them? of course i consented, and i found my boy audience quite delightful. indeed, i hope they liked me half as well as i did them. all through the spring our by-election work continued with amazing success, although our part in the government losses was rarely admitted by the politicians. the voters knew, however. at an election in suffolk, where we helped to double the unionist vote, the successful candidate, speaking to the crowd from his hotel window, said, "what has been the cause of the great and glorious victory?" instantly the crowd roared, "votes for women!"--"three cheers for the suffragettes!" this was not at all what the successful candidate had intended, but he waved his hand graciously and said, "no doubt the ladies had something to do with it." the newspaper correspondents were not so reluctant to acknowledge our influence. even when they condemned our policy, they were unsparing in their admiration for our energy, and the courage and ardour of our workers. said the correspondent of the london _tribune_, a liberal paper hostile to our tactics: "their staying power, judging them by the standards of men, is extraordinary. by taking afternoon as well as evening meetings, they have worked twice as hard as the men. they are up earlier, they retire just as late. women against men, they are better speakers, more logical, better informed, better phrased, with a surer insight for the telling argument." after a summer spent in strengthening our forces, organising new branches, holding meetings--something like three thousand of these between may and october--invading meetings of cabinet ministers--we managed to do that about once every day--electioneering, and getting up huge demonstrations in various cities, we arrived at the end of the year. in the last months of the year, i directed several hotly contested by-elections, at one of which i met with one of the most serious misadventures of my life. this by-election was held in the division of mid-devon, a stronghold of liberalism. in fact, since its creation in , the seat has never been held by any except a liberal member. the constituency is a large one, divided into eight districts. the population of the towns is a rough and boisterous one, and its devotion, blind and unreasoning, to the liberal party has always reflected the rude spirit of the voters. a unionist woman told me, shortly after my arrival, that my life would be unsafe if i dared openly to oppose the liberal candidate. she had never dared, she assured me, to wear her party colours in public. however, i did speak--in our headquarters at newton abbott, the principal town of the division, at hull, and at bovey tracey. we held meetings twice a day, calling upon the voters to "beat the government in mid-devon, as a message that women must have votes next year." although some of the meetings were turbulent, we were treated with much more consideration than either of the candidates, who, not infrequently, were howled down and put to flight. often the air of their meetings was thick with decayed vegetables and dirty snowballs. we had some rather lively sessions, too. once, at an outdoor meeting, some young roughs dragged our lorry round and round until it seemed that we must be upset, and several times the language hurled at us from the crowd was quite unfit for me to repeat. still, we escaped actual violence until the day of the election, when it was announced that the unionist candidate had won the seat by a majority of twelve hundred and eighty. we knew instantly that the deepest resentment of the liberals would be aroused, but it did not occur to us that the resentment would be directed actively against us. after the declaration at the polls, my companion, mrs. martel, and i started to walk to our lodgings. some of our friends stopped us, and drew our attention to the newly elected unionist member of parliament, who was being escorted from the polling place by a strong guard of police. we were warned that our safety demanded an immediate flight from the town. i laughingly assured our friends that i was never afraid to trust myself in a crowd, and we walked on. suddenly we were confronted by a crowd of young men and boys, clay-cutters from the pits on the edge of town. these young men, who wore the red rosettes of the liberal party, had just heard of their candidate's defeat, and they were mad with rage and humiliation. one of them pointed to us, crying: "they did it! those women did it!" a yell went up from the crowd, and we were deluged with a shower of clay and rotten eggs. we were not especially frightened, but the eggs were unbearable, and to escape them we rushed into a little grocer's shop close at hand. the grocer's wife closed and bolted the door, but the poor grocer cried out that his place would be wrecked. i did not want that to happen, of course, so i asked them to let us out by the back door. they led us out the door, into a small back yard which led into a little lane, whence we expected to make our escape. but when we reached the yard we found that the rowdies, anticipating our move, had surged round the corner, and were waiting for us. they seized mrs. martel first, and began beating her over the head with their fists, but the brave wife of the shopkeeper, hearing the shouts and the oaths of the men, flung open the door and rushed to our rescue. between us we managed to tear mrs. martel from her captors and get her into the house. i expected to get into the house, too, but as i reached the threshold a staggering blow fell on the back of my head, rough hands grasped the collar of my coat, and i was flung violently to the ground. stunned, i must have lost consciousness for a moment, for my next sensation was of cold, wet mud seeping through my clothing. sight returning to me, i perceived the men, silent now, but with a dreadful, lowering silence, closing in a ring around me. in the centre of the ring was an empty barrel, and the horrid thought occurred to me that they might intend putting me in it. a long time seemed to pass, while the ring of men slowly drew closer. i looked at them, in their drab clothes smeared with yellow pit-clay, and they appeared so underfed, so puny and sodden, that a poignant pity for them swept over me. "poor souls," i thought, and then i said suddenly, "are none of you _men_?" then one of the youths darted toward me, and i knew that whatever was going to happen to me was about to begin. at that very moment came shouts, and a rush of police who had fought their way through hostile crowds to rescue us. of course the mob turned tail and fled, and i was carried gently into the shop, which the police guarded for two hours, before it was deemed safe for us to leave in a closed motor-car. it was many months before either mrs. martel or i recovered from our injuries. the rowdies, foiled of their woman prey, went to the conservative club, smashed all the windows in the house, and kept the members besieged there through the night. the next morning the body of a man, frightfully bruised about the head, was found in the mill-race. throughout all this disorder and probable crime, not a man was arrested. contrast this, if you like, with the treatment given our women in london. the king opened parliament in great state on january , . again his speech omitted all mention of woman suffrage, and again the w. s. p. u. issued a call for a women's parliament, for february th, th and th. before it was convened we heard that an excellent place in the ballot had been won by a friend of the movement, mr. stanger, who promised to introduce a suffrage bill, february th was the day fixed for the second reading, and we realised that strong pressure would have to be brought to bear to prevent the bill being wrecked, as the dickinson bill had been the previous year. therefore, on the first day of the women's parliament, almost every woman present volunteered for the deputation, which was to try to carry the resolution to the prime minister. led by two well-known portrait painters, the deputation left caxton hall and proceeded in orderly ranks, four abreast, toward the house of commons. the crowds in the streets were enormous, thousands of sympathisers coming out to help the women, thousands of police determined that the women should not be helped, and thousands of curious spectators. when the struggle was over, fifty women were locked up in police-court cells. the next morning, when the cases were tried, mr. muskett, who prosecuted for the crown, and who was perhaps a little tired of telling the suffragettes that these scenes in the streets must cease, and then seeing them go on exactly as if he had not spoken, made a very severe and terrifying address. he told the women that this time they would be subject to the usual maximum of two months' imprisonment, with the option of a fine of five pounds, but that, in case they ever offended again, the law had worse terrors in store for them. it was proposed to revive, for the benefit of the suffragettes, an act passed in the reign of charles ii, which dealt with "tumultuous petitions, either to the crown or parliament." this act provided that no person should dare to go to the king or to parliament "with any petition, complaint, remonstrance, declaration or other address" accompanied with a number of persons above twelve. a fine of one hundred pounds, or three months' imprisonment, might be imposed under this law. the magistrate then sentenced all but two of the women to be bound over for twelve months, or to serve six weeks in the second division. two other women, "old offenders," were given one month in the third division, or lowest class. all the prisoners, except two who had very ill relatives at home, chose the prison sentence. the next day's session of the women's parliament was one of intense excitement, as the women reviewed the events of the previous day, the trials, and especially the threat to revive the obsolete act of charles ii, an act _which was passed to obstruct the progress of the liberal party, which came into existence under the stuarts, and under the second charles was fighting for its life_. it was an amazing thing that the political descendants of these men were proposing to revive the act to obstruct the advance of the women's cause, fighting for its life under george v and his liberal government. at least, it was evidence that the government were baffled in their attempt to crush our movement. christabel pankhurst, presiding over the second session of the women's parliament, said: "at last it is realized that women are fighting for freedom, as their fathers fought. if they want twelve women, aye, and more than twelve, if a hundred women are wanted to be tried under that act and sent to prison for three months, they can be found." i was not present at this session, nor had i been present at the first one. i was working in a by-election at south leeds, the last of several important by-elections in great industrial centres, where our success was unquestioned, except by the liberal press. the elections had wound up with a great procession, and a meeting of , people on hounslet moor. the most wonderful enthusiasm marked that meeting. i shall never forget what splendid order the people kept, in spite of the fact that no police protection was given us; how the vast crowd parted to let our procession through; how the throngs of mill women kept up a chorus in broad yorkshire: "shall us win? shall us have the vote? we shall!" no wonder the old people shook their beads, and declared that "there had never been owt like it." chapter ii with those brave shouts in my ears, i hurried down to london for the concluding session of the parliament, for i had determined that i must be the first person to challenge the government to carry out their threat to revive the old act of charles ii. i made a long speech to the women that day, telling them something of my experiences of the past months, and how all that i had seen and heard throughout the country had only deepened my conviction of the necessity for women's votes. "i feel," i concluded, "that the time has come when i must act, and i wish to be one of those to carry our resolution to parliament this afternoon. my experience in the country, and especially in south leeds, has taught me things that cabinet ministers, who have not had that experience, do not know, and has made me feel that i must make one final attempt to see them, and to urge them to reconsider their position before some terrible disaster has occurred." amid a good deal of excitement and emotion, we chose the requisite thirteen women, who were prepared to be arrested and tried under the charles ii "tumultuous petitions" act. i had not entirely recovered from the attack made upon me at mid-devon, and my wrenched ankle was still too sensitive to make walking anything but a painful process. seeing me begin almost at once to limp badly, mrs. drummond, with characteristic, blunt kindness, called to a man driving a dog-cart and asked him if he would drive me to the house of commons. he readily agreed, and i mounted to the seat behind him, the other women forming in line behind the cart. we had not gone far when the police, who already surrounded us in great force, ordered me to dismount. of course i obeyed and walked, or rather limped along with my companions. they would have supported me, but the police insisted that we should walk single-file. presently i grew so faint from the pain of the ankle that i called to two of the women, who took hold of my arms and helped me on my way. this was our one act of disobedience to police orders. we moved with difficulty, for the crowd was of incredible size. all around, as far as eye could see, was the great moving, swaying, excited multitude, and surrounding us on all sides were regiments of uniformed police, foot and mounted. you might have supposed that instead of thirteen women, one of them lame, walking quietly along, the town was in the hands of an armed mob. we had progressed as far as the entrance to parliament square, when two stalwart policemen suddenly grasped my arms on either side and told me that i was under arrest. my two companions, because they refused to leave me, were also arrested, and a few minutes later annie kenney and five other women suffered arrest. that night we were released on bail, and the next morning we were arraigned in westminster police court for trial under the charles ii act. but, as it turned out, the authorities, embarrassed by our readiness to test the act, announced that they had changed their minds, and would continue, for the present, to treat us as common street brawlers. this was my first trial, and i listened, with a suspicion that my ears were playing tricks with my reason, to the most astonishing perjuries put forth by the prosecution. i heard that we had set forth from caxton hall with noisy shouts and songs, that we had resorted to the most riotous and vulgar behaviour, knocking off policemen's helmets, assaulting the officers right and left as we marched. our testimony, and that of our witnesses, was ignored. when i tried to speak in my own defence, i was cut short rudely, and was told briefly that i and the others must choose between being bound over or going to prison, in the second division, for six weeks. i remember only vaguely the long, jolting ride across london to holloway prison. we stopped at pentonville, the men's prison, to discharge several men prisoners, and i remember shuddering at the thought of our women, many of them little past girlhood, being haled to prison in the same van with criminal men. arriving at the prison, we groped our way through dim corridors into the reception-ward, where we were lined up against the wall for a superficial medical examination. after that we were locked up in separate cells, unfurnished, except for low, wooden stools. it seemed an endless time before my cell door was opened by a wardress, who ordered me to follow her. i entered a room where another wardress sat at a table, ready to take an inventory of my effects. obeying an order to undress, i took off my gown, then paused. "take off everything," was the next order. "everything?" i faltered. it seemed impossible that they expected me to strip. in fact, they did allow me to take off my last garments in the shelter of a bath-room. i shivered myself into some frightful underclothing, old and patched and stained, some coarse, brown woollen stockings with red stripes, and the hideous prison dress stamped all over with the broad arrow of disgrace. i fished a pair of shoes out of a big basket of shoes, old and mostly mismates. a pair of coarse but clean sheets, a towel, a mug of cold cocoa, and a thick slice of brown bread were given me, and i was conducted to my cell. my first sensations when the door was locked upon me were not altogether disagreeable. i was desperately weary, for i had been working hard, perhaps a little too hard, for several strenuous months. the excitement and fatigue of the previous day, and the indignation i had suffered throughout the trial, had combined to bring me to the point of exhaustion, and i was glad to throw myself on my hard prison bed and close my eyes. but soon the relief of being alone, and with nothing to do, passed from me. holloway prison is a very old place, and it has the disadvantages of old places which have never known enough air and sunshine. it reeks with the odours of generations of bad ventilation, and it contrives to be at once the stuffiest and the draughtiest building i have ever been in. soon i found myself sickening for fresh air. my head began to ache. sleep fled. i lay all night suffering with cold, gasping for air, aching with fatigue, and painfully wide awake. the next day i was fairly ill, but i said nothing about it. one does not expect to be comfortable in prison. as a matter of fact, one's mental suffering is so much greater than any common physical distress that the latter is almost forgotten. the english prison system is altogether mediæval and outworn. in some of its details the system has improved since they began to send the suffragettes to holloway. i may say that we, by our public denunciation of the system, have forced these slight improvements. in the rules were excessively cruel. the poor prisoner, when she entered holloway, dropped, as it were, into a tomb. no letters and no visitors were allowed for the first month of the sentence. think of it--a whole month, more than four weeks, without sending or receiving a single word. one's nearest and dearest may have gone through dreadful suffering, may have been ill, may have died, meantime. one was given plenty of time to imagine all these things, for the prisoner was kept in solitary confinement in a narrow, dimly-lit cell, twenty-three hours out of the twenty-four. solitary confinement is too terrible a punishment to inflict on any human being, no matter what his crime. hardened criminals in the men's prisons, it is said, often beg for the lash instead. picture what it must be to a woman who has committed some small offence, for most of the women who go to holloway are small offenders, sitting alone, day after day, in the heavy silence of a cell--thinking of her children at home--thinking, thinking. some women go mad. many suffer from shattered nerves for a long period after release. it is impossible to believe that any woman ever emerged from such a horror less criminal than when she entered it. two days of solitary confinement, broken each day by an hour of silent exercise in a bitterly cold courtyard, and i was ordered to the hospital. there i thought i should be a little more comfortable. the bed was better, the food a little better, and small comforts, such as warm water for washing, were allowed. i slept a little the first night. about midnight i awoke, and sat up in bed, listening. a woman in the cell next mine was moaning in long, sobbing breaths of mortal pain. she ceased for a few minutes, then moaned again, horribly. the truth flashed over me, turning me sick, as i realised that a life was coming into being, there in that frightful prison. a woman, imprisoned by men's laws, was giving a child to the world. a child born in a cell! i shall never forget that night, nor what i suffered with the birth-pangs of that woman, who, i found later, was simply waiting trial on a charge which was found to be baseless. the days passed very slowly, the nights more slowly still. being in hospital, i was deprived of chapel, and also of work. desperate, at last i begged the wardress for some sewing, and she kindly gave me a skirt of her own to hem, and later some coarse knitting to do. prisoners were allowed a few books, mostly of the "sunday-school" kind. one day i asked the chaplain if there were not some french or german books in the library, and he brought me a treasure, "_autour de mon jardin_," by jules janin. for a few days i was quite happy, reading my book and translating it on the absurd little slate they gave us in lieu of paper and pencil. that slate was, after all, a great comfort. i did all kinds of things with it. i kept a calendar, i wrote all the french poetry i could remember on it, i even recorded old school chorals and old english exercises. it helped wonderfully to pass the endless hours until my release. i even forgot the cold, which was the harder to bear because of the fur coat, which i knew was put away, ticketed with my name. i begged them for the coat, but they wouldn't let me have it. at last the time came when they gave me back all my things, and let me go free. at the door the governor spoke to me, and asked me if i had any complaints to make. "not of you," i replied, "nor of any of the wardresses. only of this prison, and all of men's prisons. we shall raze them to the ground." back in my comfortable home, surrounded by loving friends, i would have rested quietly for a few days, but there was a great meeting that night at albert hall, to mark the close of a week of self-denial to raise money for the year's campaign. women had sold papers, flowers, toys, swept crossings, and sung in the streets for the cause. many women, well known in the world of art and letters, did these things. i felt that i should be doing little if i merely attended the meeting. so i went. my release was not expected until the following morning, and no one thought of my appearing at the meeting. my chairman's seat was decorated with a large placard with the inscription, "mrs. pankhurst's chair." after all the others were seated, the speakers, and hundreds of ex-prisoners. i walked quietly onto the stage, took the placard out of the chair and sat down. a great cry went up from the women as they sprang from their seats and stretched their hands toward me. it was some time before i could see them for my tears, or speak to them for the emotion that shook me like a storm. the next morning i, with the other released prisoners, drove off to peckham, a constituency of london, where the w. s. p. u. members were fighting a vigorous by-election. in open brakes we paraded the streets, dressed in our prison clothes, or exact reproductions of them. naturally, we attracted a great deal of attention and sympathy, and our daily meetings on peckham rye, as their common is known, drew enormous crowds. when polling day came our members were stationed at every polling booth, and many men as they came to the booths told us that they were, for the first time, voting "for the women," by which they meant against the government. that night, amid great excitement, it was made known that the liberal majority of , at the last general election had been turned into a conservative majority of , . letters poured into the newspapers, declaring that the loss of this important liberal seat was due almost entirely to the work of the suffragettes, and many prominent liberals called upon party leaders to start doing something for women before the next general election. the liberal leaders, with the usual perspicacity of politicians, responded not at all. instead they beheld with approval the rise to highest power the arch-enemy of the suffragists, mr. asquith. mr. asquith became prime minister about easter time, , on the resignation, on account of ill health, of sir henry campbell-bannerman. mr. asquith was chosen, not because of any remarkable record of statesmanship, nor yet because of great personal popularity--for he possessed neither--but simply because no better man seemed available just then. he was known as a clever, astute, and somewhat unscrupulous lawyer. he had filled several high offices to the satisfaction of his party, and under sir henry campbell-bannerman had been chancellor of the exchequer, a post which is generally regarded as a stepping-stone to the premiership. the best thing the liberal press found to say of the new premier was that he was a "strong" man. generally in politics this term is used to describe an obstinate man, and this we already knew mr. asquith to be. he was a bluntly outspoken opponent of woman suffrage, and it was sufficiently plain to us that no methods of education or persuasion would ever prove successful where he was concerned. therefore the necessity of action on our part was greater than ever. such an opportunity presented itself at once through changes that took place in the new cabinet. according to english law, all new comers into the cabinet are obliged to resign their seats in parliament and offer themselves to their constituencies for re-election. besides these vacancies there were several others, on account of death or elevations to the peerage. this made necessary a number of by-elections, and the women's social and political union once more went into the field against the liberal candidates. i shall deal no further with these by-elections than is necessary to show the effect of our work on the government, and its subsequent effect on our movement--which was to force us into more and more militancy. i shall leave it to the honest judgment of my readers to place where it ought rightly to be placed the responsibility for those first broken windows. we selected as our first candidate for defeat mr. winston churchill, who was about to appeal to his constituency of north west manchester to sanction his appointment as president of the board of trade. my daughter christabel took charge of this election, and the work of herself and her forces was so successful that mr. churchill lost his seat by votes. all the newspapers acknowledged that it was the suffragettes who had defeated mr. churchill, and one liberal newspaper, the london _daily news_, called upon the party to put a stop to an intolerable state of affairs by granting the women's demand for votes. another seat was immediately secured for mr. churchill, that of dundee, then strongly--in the merely party sense--liberal, and therefore safe. nevertheless, we determined to fight mr. churchill there, to defeat him if possible, and to bring down the liberal majority in any case. i took personal charge of the campaign, holding a very large meeting in kinnaird hall on the evening before mr. churchill's arrival. although he felt absolutely sure of election in this scottish constituency, mr. churchill dreaded the effect of our presence on the liberal women. the second meeting he addressed in dundee was held for women only, and instead of asking for support of the various measures actually on the government's programme, the politician's usual method, he talked about the certainty of securing, within a short time, the parliamentary franchise for women. "no one," he declared, "can be blind to the fact that at the next general election woman suffrage will be a real, practical issue; and the next parliament, i think, ought to see the gratification of the women's claims. i do not exclude the possibility of the suffrage being dealt with in this parliament." mr. churchill earnestly reiterated his claim to be considered a true friend of the women's cause; but when pressed for a pledge that his government would take action, he urged his inability to speak for his colleagues. this specious promise, or rather, prophecy of woman suffrage at some indefinite time, won over a great many of the liberal women, who forthwith went staunchly to work for mr. churchill's election. dundee has a large population of extremely poor people, workers in the jute mills and the marmalade factories. some concessions in the matter of the sugar tax, timely made, and the announcement that the new government meant to establish old age pensions, created an immense wave of liberal enthusiasm that swept mr. churchill into office in spite of our work, which was untiring. we held something like two hundred meetings, and on election eve, five huge demonstrations--four of them in the open air and one which filled a large drill hall. polling day, may th, was very exciting. for every suffragette at the polling-booths there were half a dozen liberal men and women, handing out bills with such legends as "vote for churchill, and never mind the women," and "put churchill in and keep the women out." yet for all their efforts, mr. churchill polled votes less than his liberal predecessor had polled at the general election. in the first seven by-elections following mr. asquith's elevation to the premiership, we succeeded in pulling down the liberal vote by . then something happened to check our progress. mr. asquith received a deputation of liberal members of parliament, who urged him to allow the stanger suffrage bill, which had passed its second reading by a large majority, to be carried into law. mr. asquith replied that he himself did not wish to see women enfranchised, and that it would not be possible for the government to give the required facilities to mr. stanger's bill. he added that he was fully alive to the many defects of the electoral system, and that the government intended, "barring accidents," to bring in a reform bill before the close of that parliament. woman suffrage would have no place in it, but it would be so worded that a woman-suffrage amendment might be added if any member chose to move one. in that case, said mr. asquith, he should not consider it the duty of the government to oppose the amendment if it were approved by a majority of the house of commons--_provided_ that the amendment was on democratic lines, and that it had back of it the support, the strong and undoubted support, of the women of the country as well as the present electorate. one would not suppose that such an evasive utterance as this would be regarded in any quarter as a promise that woman suffrage would be given any real chances of success under the asquith government. that it was, by many, taken quite seriously is but another proof of the gullibility of the party-blinded public. the liberal press lauded mr. asquith's "promise," and called for a truce of militancy in order that the government might have every opportunity to act. said the _star_, in a leader typical of many others: "the meaning of mr. asquith's pledge is plain. woman's suffrage will be passed through the house of commons before the present government goes to the country." as for the women's liberal associations, they were quite delirious with joy. in a conference called for the purpose of passing resolutions of gratitude, lady carlisle said: "this is a glorious day of rejoicing. our great prime minister, all honour to him, has opened a way to us by which we can enter into that inheritance from which we have been too long debarred." at the two following by-elections, the last of the series, enormous posters were exhibited, "premier's great reform bill: votes for women." we tried to tell the electors that the pledge was false on the face of it; that the specious proviso that the amendment be "democratic" left no doubt that the government would cause the rejection of any practical amendment that might be moved. our words fell on deaf ears, and the liberal majorities soared. just a week later mr. asquith was questioned in the house of commons by a slightly alarmed anti-suffragist member. the member asked mr. asquith whether he considered himself pledged to introduce the reform hill during that parliament, whether he meant to allow such a bill to carry a woman-suffrage amendment, if such were moved, and whether, in that case, the suffrage amendment would become part of the government policy. evasive as ever, the prime minister, after some sparring, replied, "my honourable friend has asked me a question with regard to a remote and speculative future." thus was our interpretation of mr. asquith's "promise" justified from his own lips. yet the liberal women still clung to the hope of government action, and the liberal press pretended to cling to it. as for the women's social and political union, we prepared for more work. we had to strike out along a new line, since it was evident that the government could, for a time at least, neutralise our by-election work by more false promises. consistent with our policy, of never going further than the government compelled us to go, we made our first action a perfectly peaceable one. on the day when the stanger bill had reached its second reading in the house, and several days after i had gone to holloway for the first time, mr. herbert gladstone, the home secretary, made a speech which greatly interested the suffragettes. he professed himself a suffragist, and declared that he intended to vote for the bill. nevertheless, he was confident that it could not pass, because of the division in the cabinet, and because it had no political party united either for or against it. woman suffrage, said mr. gladstone, must advance to victory through all the stages that are required for great reforms to mature. first academic discussion, then effective action, was the history of men's suffrage; it must be the same with women's suffrage. "men," declared mr. gladstone, "have learned this lesson and know the necessity for demonstrating the greatness of their movement, and for establishing that _force majeure_ which actuates and arms a government for effective work. that is the task before the supporters of this great movement. looking back at the great political crises in the thirties, the sixties and the eighties, it will be found that the people did not go about in small crowds, nor were they content with enthusiastic meetings in large halls; they assembled in their tens of thousands all over the country. "of course," added mr. gladstone, "it is not to be expected that women can assemble in such masses, but power belongs to masses, and through this power a government can be influenced into more effective action than a government will be likely to take under present conditions." the women's social and political union determined to answer this challenge. if assembling in great masses was all that was necessary to convince the government that woman suffrage had passed the academic stage and now demanded political action, we thought we could undertake to satisfy the most skeptical member of the cabinet. we knew that we could organise a demonstration that would out-rival any of the great franchise demonstrations held by men in the thirties, sixties, and eighties. the largest number of people ever gathered in hyde park was said to have approximated , . we determined to organise a hyde park demonstration of at least , people. sunday, june , , was fixed for the date of this demonstration, and for many months we worked to make it a day notable in the history of the movement. our example was emulated by the non-militant suffragists, who organised a fine procession of their own, about a week before our demonstration. thirteen thousand women, it was said, marched in that procession. on our demonstration we spent, for advertising alone, over a thousand pounds, or five thousand dollars. we covered the hoardings of london and of all the principal provincial cities with great posters bearing portraits of the women who were to preside at the twenty platforms from which speeches were to be made; a map of london, showing the routes by which the seven processions were to advance, and a plan of the hyde park meeting-place were also shown. london, of course, was thoroughly organised. for weeks a small army of women was busy chalking announcements on sidewalks, distributing handbills, canvassing from house to house, advertising the demonstration by posters and sandwich boards carried through the streets. we invited everybody to be present, including both houses of parliament. a few days before the demonstration mrs. drummond and a number of other women hired and decorated a launch and sailed up the thames to the houses of parliament, arriving at the hour when members entertain their women friends at tea on the terrace. everyone left the tables and crowded to the water's edge as the boat stopped, and mrs. drummond's strong, clear voice pealed out her invitation to the cabinet and the members of parliament to join the women's demonstration in hyde park. "come to the park on sunday," she cried. "you shall have police protection, and there will be no arrests, we promise you." an alarmed someone telephoned for the police boats, but as they appeared, the women's boat steamed away. what a day was sunday, june st--clear, radiant, filled with golden sunshine! as i advanced, leading, with the venerable mrs. wolstenholm-elmy, the first of the seven processions, it seemed to me that all london had turned out to witness our demonstration. and a goodly part of london followed the processions. when i mounted my platform in hyde park, and surveyed the mighty throngs that waited there and the endless crowds that were still pouring into the park from all directions, i was filled with amazement not unmixed with awe. never had i imagined that so many people could be gathered together to share in a political demonstration. it was a gay and beautiful as well as an awe-inspiring spectacle, for the white gowns and flower-trimmed hats of the women, against the background of ancient trees, gave the park the appearance of a vast garden in full bloom. the bugles sounded, and the speakers at each of the twenty platforms began their addresses, which could not have been heard by more than half or a third of the vast audience. notwithstanding this, they remained to the end. at five o'clock the bugles sounded again, the speaking ceased, and the resolution calling upon the government to bring in an official woman-suffrage bill without delay was carried at every platform, often without a dissenting vote. then, with a three-times-repeated cry of "votes for women!" from the assembled multitude, the great meeting dispersed. the london _times_ said next day: "its organisers had counted on an audience of , . that expectation was certainly fulfilled, and probably it was doubled, and it would be difficult to contradict any one who asserted that it was trebled. like the distances and the number of the stars, the facts were beyond the threshold of perception." the _daily express_ said: "it is probable that so many people never before stood in one square mass anywhere in england. men who saw the great gladstone meeting years ago said that compared with yesterday's multitude it was as nothing." we felt that we had answered the challenge in mr. gladstone's declaration that "power belongs to the masses," and that through this power the government could be influenced; so it was with real hope that we despatched a copy of the resolution to the prime minister, asking him what answer the government would make to that unparalleled gathering of men and women. mr. asquith replied formally that he had nothing to add to his previous statement--that the government intended, at some indefinite time, to bring in a general reform bill which _might_ be amended to include woman suffrage. our wonderful demonstration, it appeared, had made no impression whatever upon him. chapter iii now we had reached a point where we had to choose between two alternatives. we had exhausted argument. therefore either we had to give up our agitation altogether, as the suffragists of the eighties virtually had done, or else we must act, and go on acting, until the selfishness and the obstinacy of the government was broken down, or the government themselves destroyed. until forced to do so, the government, we perceived, would never give women the vote. we realised the truth of john bright's words, spoken while the reform bill of was being agitated. parliament, john bright then declared, had never been hearty for any reform. the reform act of had been wrested by force from the government of that day, and now before another, he said, could be carried, the agitators would have to fill the streets with people from charing cross to westminster abbey. acting on john bright's advice, we issued a call to the public to join us in holding a huge demonstration, on june th outside the house of commons. we wanted to be sure that the government saw as well as read of our immense following. a public proclamation from the commissioner of police, warning the public not to assemble in parliament square and declaring that the approaches to the houses of parliament must be kept open, was at once issued. we persisted in announcing that the demonstration would take place, and i wrote a letter to mr. asquith telling him that a deputation would wait upon him at half-past four on the afternoon of june th. we held the usual women's parliament in caxton hall, after which mrs. pethick lawrence, eleven other women, and myself, set forth. we met with no opposition from the police, but marched through cheering crowds of spectators to the strangers' entrance to the house of commons. here we were met by a large group of uniformed men commanded by inspector scantlebury, of the police. the inspector, whom i knew personally, stepped forward and demanded officially, "are you mrs. pankhurst, and is this your deputation?" "yes," i replied. "my orders are to exclude you from the house of commons." "has mr. asquith received my letter?" i asked. for answer the inspector drew my letter from his pocket and handed it to me. "did mr. asquith return no message, no kind of reply?" i inquired. "no," replied the inspector. we turned and walked back to caxton hall, to tell the waiting audience what had occurred. we resolved that there was nothing to do but wait patiently until evening, and see how well the public would respond to our call to meet in parliament square. already we knew that the streets were filled with people, and early as it was the crowds were increasing rapidly. at eight we went out in groups from caxton hall, to find parliament square packed with a throng, estimated next day at least , . from the steps of public buildings, from stone copings, from the iron railings of the palace yard, to which they clung precariously, our women made speeches until the police pulled them down and flung them into the moving, swaying, excited crowds. some of the women were arrested, others were merely ordered to move on. mingled cheers and jeers rose from the spectators. some of the men were roughs who had come out to amuse themselves. others were genuinely sympathetic, and tried valiantly to help us to reach the house of commons. again and again the police lines were broken, and it was only as the result of repeated charges by mounted police that the people's attacks were repelled. many members of parliament, including mr. lloyd-george, mr. winston churchill, and mr. herbert gladstone, came out to witness the struggle, which lasted until midnight and resulted in the arrest of twenty-nine women. two of these women were arrested after they had each thrown a stone through a window of mr. asquith's official residence in downing street, the value of the windows being about $ . . this was the first window-breaking in our history. mrs. mary leigh and miss edith new, who had thrown the stones, sent word to me from the police court that, having acted without orders, they would not resent repudiation from headquarters. far from repudiating them, i went at once to see them in their cells, and assured them of my approval of their act. the smashing of windows is a time-honoured method of showing displeasure in a political situation. as one of the newspapers, commenting on the affair, truly said, "when the king and queen dine at apsley on the th inst. they will be entertained in rooms the windows of which the duke of wellington was obliged to protect with iron shutters from the fury of his political opponents." in winchester a few years ago, to give but one instance, a great riot took place as a protest against the removal of a historic gun from one part of the town to another. in the course of this riot windows were broken and other property of various kinds was destroyed, very serious damage being done. no punishment was administered in respect of this riot and the authorities, bowing to public opinion thus riotously expressed, restored the gun to its original situation. window-breaking, when englishmen do it, is regarded as honest expression of political opinion. window-breaking, when englishwomen do it, is treated as a crime. in sentencing mrs. leigh and miss new to two months in the first division, the magistrate used very severe language, and declared that such a thing must never happen again. of course the women assured him that it would happen again. said mrs. leigh: "we have no other course but to rebel against oppression, and if necessary to resort to stronger measures. this fight is going on." the summer of is remembered as one of the most oppressively hot seasons the country had known for years. our prisoners in holloway suffered intensely, some being made desperately ill from the heat, the bad air, and the miserable food. we who spent the summer campaigning suffered also, but in less degree. it was a tremendous relief when the cool days of autumn set in, and it was with renewed vigour that we prepared for the opening day of parliament, which was october th. again we resolved to send a deputation to the prime minister, and again we invited the general public to take part in the demonstration. we had printed thousands of little handbills bearing this inscription: "men and women, help the suffragettes to rush the house of commons, on tuesday evening, october th, at : ." on sunday, october th, we held a large meeting in trafalgar square, my daughter christabel, mrs. drummond and i speaking from the plinth of the nelson monument. mr. lloyd-george, as we afterward learned, was a member of the audience. the police were there, taking ample notes of our speeches. we had not failed to notice that they were watching us daily, dogging our footsteps, and showing in numerous ways that they were under orders to keep track of all our movements. the climax came at noon on october th, when christabel, mrs. drummond and i were each served with an imposing legal document which read, "information has been laid this day by the commissioner of police that you, in the month of october, in the year , were guilty of conduct likely to provoke a breach of the peace by initiating and causing to be initiated, by publishing and causing to be published, a certain handbill, calling upon and inciting the public to do a certain wrongful and illegal act, viz., to rush the house of commons at : p.m. on october th inst." [illustration: mrs. pankhurst and christabel hiding from the police on the roof garden at clements inn _october, _] the last paragraph was a summons to appear at bow street police station that same afternoon at three o'clock. we did not go to bow street police station. we went instead to a crowded "at home" at queen's hall, where it can be imagined that our news created great excitement. the place was surrounded by constables, and the police reporters were on hand to take stenographic reports of everything that was said from the platform. once an excited cry was raised that a police inspector was coming in to arrest us. but the officer merely brought a message that the summons had been adjourned until the following morning. it did not suit our convenience to obey the adjourned summons quite so early, so i wrote a polite note to the police, saying that we would be in our headquarters, no. clements inn, the next evening at six o'clock, and would then be at his disposal. warrants for our arrests were quickly issued, and inspector jarvis was instructed to execute them at once. this he found impossible to do, for mrs. drummond was spending her last day of liberty on private business, while my daughter and i had retreated to another part of clements inn, which is a big, rambling building. there, in the roof-garden of the pethick lawrence's private flat, we remained all day, busy, under the soft blue of the autumn sky, with our work and our preparations for a long absence. at six we walked downstairs, dressed for the street. mrs. drummond arrived promptly, the waiting officers read the warrants, and we all proceeded to bow street in cabs. it was too late for the trial to be held. we asked for bail, but the authorities had no mind to allow us to take part in the "rush" which we had incited, so we were obliged to spend the night in the police station. all night i lay awake, thinking of the scenes which were going on in the streets. the next morning, in a courtroom crowded to its utmost capacity, my daughter rose to conduct her first case at law. she had earned the right to an ll.b. after her name, but as women are not permitted to practise law in england, she had never appeared at the bar in any capacity except that of defendant. now she proposed to combine the two rôles of defendant and lawyer, and conduct the case for the three of us. she began by asking the magistrate not to try the case in that court, but to send it for trial before a judge and jury. we had long desired to take the suffragettes' cases before bodies of private citizens, because we had every reason to suspect that the police-court officials acted under the direct commands of the very persons against whom our agitation was directed. jury trial was denied us; but after the preliminary examination was over the magistrate, mr. curtis bennett, allowed a week's adjournment for preparation of the case. on october st the trial was resumed, with the courtroom as full as before and the press table even more crowded, for it had been widely published that we had actually subpoenaed two members of the government, who had witnessed the scenes on the night of october th. the first witness to enter the box was mr. lloyd-george. christabel examined him at some length as to the meaning and merits of the word rush, and succeeded in making him very uncomfortable--and the charge against ourselves look very flimsy. she then questioned him about the speeches he had heard at trafalgar square, and as to whether there had been any suggestion that property be destroyed or personal violence used. he admitted that the speeches were temperate and the crowds orderly. then christabel suddenly asked, "there were no words used so likely to incite to violence as the advice you gave at swansea, that the women should be ruthlessly flung out of your meeting?" mr. lloyd-george looked black, and answered nothing. the magistrate hastened to the protection of mr. lloyd-george. "this is quite irrelevant," he said. "that was a private meeting." it was a public meeting, and christabel said so. "it was a private meeting _in a sense_," insisted the magistrate. mr. lloyd-george assumed an air of pompous indignation when christabel asked him, "have we not received encouragement from you, and if not from you from your colleagues, to take action of this kind?" mr. lloyd-george rolled his eyes upward as he replied, "i should be very much surprised to hear that, miss pankhurst." "is it not a fact," asked christabel, "that you yourself have set us an example of revolt?" "i never incited a crowd to violence," exclaimed the witness. "not in the welsh graveyard case?" she asked. "no!" he cried angrily. "you did not tell them to break down a wall and disinter a body?" pursued christabel. he could not deny this but, "i gave advice which was found by the court of appeal to be sound legal advice," he snapped, and turned his back as far as he could in the narrow witness-box. mr. herbert gladstone had asked to be allowed to testify early, as he was being detained from important public duties. christabel asked to question one witness before mr. gladstone entered the box. the witness was miss georgiana brackenbury, who had recently suffered six weeks' imprisonment for the cause, and had since met and had a talk with mr. horace smith, the magistrate, who had made to her a most important and damaging admission of the government's interference in suffragists' trials. christabel asked her one question. "did mr. horace smith tell you in sentencing you that he was doing what he had been told to do?" "you must not put that question!" exclaimed the magistrate. but the witness had already answered "yes." there was an excited stir in the courtroom. it had been recorded under oath that a magistrate had admitted that suffragettes were being sentenced not by himself, according to the evidence and according to law, but by the government, for no one could possibly doubt where mr. horace smith's orders came from. mr. gladstone, plump, bald, and ruddy, in no way resembles his illustrious father. he entered the witness-box smiling and confident, but his complacence vanished when christabel asked him outright if the government had not ordered the commissioner of police to take this action against us. of course the magistrate intervened, and mr. gladstone did not answer the question. christabel tried again. "did you instruct mr. horace smith to decide against miss brackenbury, and to send her to prison for six weeks?" that too was objected to, as were all questions on the subject. all through the examination the magistrate constantly intervened to save the cabinet minister from embarrassment, but christabel finally succeeded in making mr. gladstone admit, point by point, that he had said that women could never get the vote because they could not fight for it as men had fought. a large number of witnesses testified to the orderly nature of the demonstration on the th, and then christabel rose to plead. she began by declaring that these proceedings had been taken, as the legal saying is, "in malice and vexation," in order to lame a political enemy. she declared that, under the law, the charge which might properly be brought against us was that of illegal assembly, but the government had not charged us with this offence, because the government desired to keep the case in a police court. "the authorities dare not see this case come before a jury," she declared, "because they know perfectly well that if it were heard before a jury of our countrymen we should be acquitted, just as john burns was acquitted years ago for taking action far more dangerous to the public peace than we have taken. we are deprived of trial by jury. we are also deprived of the right to appeal against the magistrate's decision. very carefully has this procedure been thought out." of the handbill she said: "we do not deny that we issued this bill; none of us three has wished to deny responsibility. we did issue the bill; we did cause it to be circulated; we did put upon it the words 'come and help the suffragettes rush the house of commons.' for these words we do not apologise. it is very well known that we took this action in order to press forward a claim, which, according to the british constitution, we are well entitled to make." in all that the suffragettes had done, in all that they might ever do, declared my daughter, they would only be following in the footsteps of men now in parliament. "mr. herbert gladstone has told us in the speech i read to him that the victory of argument alone is not enough. as we cannot hope to win by force of argument alone, it is necessary to overcome by other means the savage resistance of the government to our claim for citizenship. he says, 'go on, fight as the men did.' and then, when we show our power and get the people to help us, he takes proceedings against us in a manner that would have been disgraceful even in the old days of coercion. then there is mr. lloyd-george, who, if any man has done so, has set us an example. his whole career has been a series of revolts. he has said that if we do not get the vote--mark these words--we should be justified in adopting the methods the men had to adopt, namely, pulling down the hyde park railings." she quoted lord morley as saying of the indian unrest: "'we are in india in the presence of a living movement, and a movement for what? for objects which we ourselves have taught them to think are desirable objects; and unless we can somehow reconcile order with satisfaction of those ideals and aspirations, the fault will not be theirs, it will be ours--it will mark the breakdown of british statesmanship.'--apply those words to our case," she continued. [illustration: christabel, mrs. drummond and mrs. pankhurst in the dock, first conspiracy trial _october, _] "remember that we are demanding of liberal statesmen that which is for us the greatest boon and the most essential right--and if the present government cannot reconcile order with our demand for the vote without delay, it will mark the breakdown of their statesmanship. yes, their statesmanship has broken down already. they are disgraced. it is only in this court that they have the smallest hope of being supported." my daughter had spoken with passion and fervour, and her righteous indignation had moved her to words that caused the magistrate's face to turn an angry crimson. when i rose to address the court i began by assuming an appearance of calmness which i did not altogether feel. i endorsed all that christabel had said of the unfairness of our trial and the malice of the government; i protested against the trial of political offenders in a common police court, and i said that we were not women who would come into the court as ordinary law-breakers. i described mrs. drummond's worthy career as a wife, a mother, and a self-sustaining business woman. i said, "before you decide what is to be done with us, i should like you to hear from me a statement of what has brought me into the dock this morning." and then i told of my life and experiences, many of which i have related in these pages of what i had seen and known as a poor law guardian and a registrar of births and deaths; of how i had learned the burning necessity of changing the status of women, of altering the laws under which they and their children live, and of the essential justice of making women self-governing citizens. "i have seen," i said, "that men are encouraged by law to take advantage of the helplessness of women. many women have thought as i have, and for many, many years have tried, by that influence of which we have been so often reminded, to alter these laws, but we find that influence counts for nothing. when we went to the house of commons we used to be told, when we were persistent, that members of parliament were not responsible to women, they were responsible only to voters, and that their time was too fully occupied to reform those laws, although they agreed that they needed reforming. "we women have presented larger petitions in support of our enfranchisement than were ever presented for any other reform; we have succeeded in holding greater public meetings than men have ever held for any reform, in spite of the difficulty which women have in throwing off their natural diffidence, that desire to escape publicity which we have inherited from generations of our foremothers. we have broken through that. we have faced hostile mobs at street corners, because we were told that we could not have that representation for our taxes that men have won unless we converted the whole of the country to our side. because we have done this, we have been misrepresented, we have been ridiculed, we have had contempt poured upon us, and the ignorant mob have been incited to offer us violence, which we have faced unarmed and unprotected by the safeguards which cabinet ministers enjoy. we have been driven to do this; we are determined to go on with this agitation because we feel in honour bound. just as it was the duty of your forefathers, it is our duty to make the world a better place for women than it is to-day. "lastly, i want to call attention to the self-restraint which was shown by our followers on the night of the th, after we had been arrested. our rule has always been to be patient, exercise self-restraint, show our so-called superiors that we are not hysterical; to use no violence, but rather to offer ourselves to the violence of others. "that is all i have to say to you, sir. we are here, not because we are law-breakers; we are here in our efforts to become law-makers." the burly policemen, the reporters, and most of the spectators were in tears as i finished. but the magistrate, who had listened part of the time with his hand concealing his face, still held that we were properly charged in a common police court as inciters to riot. since we refused to be bound over to keep the peace, he sentenced mrs. drummond and myself to three months' imprisonment, and christabel to ten weeks' imprisonment. it was destined to be a kind of imprisonment the authorities had never yet been called upon to deal with. chapter iv my first act on reaching holloway was to demand that the governor be sent for. when he came i told him that the suffragettes had resolved that they would no longer submit to being treated as ordinary law-breakers. in the course of our trial two cabinet ministers had admitted that we were political offenders, and therefore we should henceforth refuse to be searched or to undress in the presence of the wardresses. for myself i claimed the right, and i hoped the others would do likewise, to speak to my friends during exercise, or whenever i came in contact with them. the governor, after reflection, yielded to the first two demands, but said that he would have to consult the home office before permitting us to break the rule of silence. we were accordingly allowed to change our clothing privately, and, as a further concession, were placed in adjoining cells. this was little advantage to me, however, since within a few days i was removed to a hospital cell, suffering from the illness which prison life always inflicts on me. here the governor visited me with the unwelcome news that the home secretary had refused to allow me the privilege of speech with my fellow prisoners. i asked him if i might, when i was strong enough to walk, take exercise with my friends. to this he assented, and i soon had the joy of seeing my daughter and the other brave comrades, and walking with them in the dismal courtyard of the prison. single file we walked, at a distance of three or four feet from one another, back and forth under the stony eyes of the wardresses. the rough flags of the pavement hurt our feet, shod in heavy, shapeless prison boots. the autumn days were cold and cheerless, and we shivered violently under our scanty cloaks. but of all our hardships the ceaseless silence of our lives was worst. at the end of the second week i decided i would no longer endure it. that afternoon at exercise i suddenly called my daughter by name and bade her stand still until i came up to her. of course she stopped, and when i reached her side we linked arms and began to talk in low tones. a wardress ran up to us, saying: "i shall listen to everything you say." i replied: "you are welcome to do that, but i shall insist on my right to speak to my daughter." another wardress had hastily left the yard, and now she returned with a large number of wardresses. they seized me and quickly removed me to my cell, while the other suffrage prisoners cheered my action at the top of their voices. for their "mutiny" they got three days' solitary confinement, and i, for mine, a much more severe punishment. unrepentant, i told the governor that, in spite of any punishment he might impose on me, i would never again submit to the silence rule. to forbid a mother to speak to her daughter was infamous. for this i was characterised as a "dangerous criminal" and was sent into solitary confinement, without exercise or chapel, while a wardress was stationed constantly at my cell door to see that i communicated with no one. [illustration: mrs. pankhurst and miss christabel pankhurst in prison dress] it was two weeks before i saw any of my friends again, and meantime the health of mrs. drummond had been so seriously impaired that she was released for hospital treatment. my daughter also, i learned, was ill, and in desperation i made application to the board of visiting magistrates to be allowed to see her. after a long conference, during which i was made to wait outside in the corridor, the magistrates returned a refusal, saying that i might renew my application in a month. the answer then, they said, would depend on my conduct. a month! my girl might be dead by that time. my anxiety sent me to bed ill again, but, although i did not know it, relief was already on its way. i had told the visiting magistrates that i would wait until public opinion got within those walls, and this happened sooner than i had dared to hope. mrs. drummond, as soon as she was able to appear in public, and the other suffrage prisoners, as they were released, spread broadcast the story of our mutiny, and of a subsequent one led by miss wallace dunlop, which sent a large number of women into solitary confinement. the suffragettes marched by thousands to holloway, thronging the approaches to the prison street. round and round the prison they marched, singing the women's marseillaise and cheering. faintly the sound came to our ears, infinitely lightening our burden of pain and loneliness. the following week they came again, so we afterwards learned, but this time the police turned them back long before they reached the confines of the prison. the demonstrations, together with a volley of questions asked in the house of commons, told at last. orders came from the home office that i was to see my daughter, and that we were to be allowed to exercise and to talk together for one hour each day. in addition, we were to be permitted the rare privilege of reading a daily newspaper. then, on december th, the day of christabel's release, orders came that i, too, should be discharged, two weeks before the expiration of my sentence. at the welcome breakfast given us, as released prisoners, at lincoln's inn hotel, i told our members that henceforth we should all insist on refusing to abide by ordinary prison rules. we did not propose to break laws and then shirk punishment. we simply meant to assert our right to be recognised as political prisoners. we reached this point after due reflection. we first set ourselves not to complain of prison, not to say anything about it, to avoid it, to keep away from all side issues, to keep along the straight path of political reform, to get the vote; because we knew that when we had won it we could reform prisons and a great many other abuses as well. but now that we had had in the witness box the admission of cabinet ministers that we are political offenders, we should in future demand the treatment given to men political offenders in all civilised countries. "if nations," i said, "are still so governed that they make political offenders, then great britain is going to treat her political offenders as well as political offenders are treated by other nations. if it were the custom to treat political offenders as ordinary offenders against the well-being of society are treated, we should not have complained if we were treated like that; but it is not the international custom to do it, and so, for the dignity of the women of the country, and for the sake of the consciences of the men of the country, and for the sake of our nation amongst the nations of the earth, we are not going to allow the liberal government to treat us like ordinary law-breakers in future." i said the same thing that night in a great meeting held in queen's hall to welcome the released prisoners, and, although we all knew that our determination involved a bitter struggle, our women endorsed it without a moment's hesitation. had they been able to look forward to the events which were even then overshadowing us, could they have foreseen the new forms of suffering and danger that lay in waiting, i am certain that they would still have done the same thing, for our experiences had taught us to dispense with fear. whatever of timidity, of shrinking from pain or hardship any of us had originally possessed, it had all vanished. there were no terrors that we were not now ready to face. the year marks an important point in our struggle, partly because of this decision of ours, never again to submit to be classed with criminals; and partly because in this year we forced the liberal government to go on record, publicly, in regard to the oldest of popular rights, the right of petition. we had long contemplated this step, and now the time seemed ripe for taking it. in the closing days of mr. asquith, speaking on the policy to be carried out in , commented on the various deputations he was obliged at that time to receive. they called on him, he said, "from all quarters and in all causes, on an average of something like two hours on three days in every week." the deputations all asked for different things, and, although all of the things could not possibly be included in the king's speech, mr. asquith was inclined to agree that many of them ought to be included. this declaration from the prime minister that he was constantly receiving deputations of men, and listening favourably to their suggestions of what policies to pursue, aroused in the suffragettes feelings of deep indignation. this in part they expressed on january th, when the first meeting of the cabinet council took place. a small deputation from the w. s. p. u. proceeded to downing street to claim the right to be heard, as men were heard. for knocking at the door of the official residence four of the women, including my sister, mrs. clark, were arrested and sent to prison for one month. a month later the seventh of our women's parliaments was called against this and against the fact that no mention of women had been included in the king's speech. led by mrs. pethick lawrence, lady constance lytton and miss daisy solomon, a deputation of women endeavoured to carry the resolution to the house of commons. they were promptly arrested and, next day, were sent to prison on sentences of from one to two months. the time was rapidly approaching when the legality of these arrests would have to be tested. in june of the year the test was made. it will be remembered that we had endeavoured to force the authorities to make good their threat to charge us under the obsolete charles ii "tumultuous petitions act," which prescribes severe penalties for persons proceeding to parliament in groups of more than twelve for the purpose of presenting petitions. it had been stated that if we were charged under that act our case would be given a hearing before a judge and jury instead of a police magistrate. since this was exactly what we desired to have happen we had sent deputation after deputation of more than twelve persons, but always they were tried in police courts, and were sent to prison often for periods as long as that prescribed in the charles ii act. now we determined to do something still more ambitious; we resolved to test, not the charles ii act, but the constitutional right of the subject to petition the prime minister as the seat of power. the right of petition, which has existed in england since the earliest known period, was written into the bill of rights which became law in on the accession of william and mary. it was, in fact, one of the conditions attaching to the accession of the joint monarchs. according to the bill of rights, "it is the right of subjects to petition the king and all commitments, and prosecutions for such petitionings are illegal." the power of the king having passed almost completely into the hands of parliament, the prime minister now stands where the king's majesty stood in former times. clearly, then, the right of the subject to petition the prime minister cannot be legally denied. thus were we advised, and in order to keep within the strict letter of the law, we accepted the limitations of the right of petition laid down in the charles ii act, and decided that our petition should be carried to the house of commons by small groups of women. again i called together, on the evening of june th, a parliament of women. previously i had written to mr. asquith stating that a deputation of women would wait on him at the house of commons at eight o'clock in the evening. i wrote him further that we were not to be refused, as we insisted upon our constitutional right to be received. to my note the prime minister returned a formal note declining to receive us. nevertheless we continued our preparations, because we knew that the prime minister would continue to decline, but that in the end he would be forced to receive us. an incident which occurred a week before the date of the deputation was destined to have important consequences. miss wallace dunlop went to st. stephen's hall in the house of commons, and marked with printer's ink on the stone work of the hall an extract from the bill of rights. the first time she made the attempt she was interrupted by a policeman, but two days later she succeeded in stamping on the ancient walls the reminder to parliament that women as well as men possess constitutional rights, and that they were proposing to exercise those rights. she was arrested and sentenced to prison for one month, in the third division. the option of a heavy fine was given her, which of course she refused. miss wallace dunlop's prison term began on june d. perhaps her deed had something to do with the unusual interest taken in the approaching deputation, an interest which was shown not only by the public but by many members of parliament. in the house of commons a strong feeling that the women ought this time to be received manifested itself in many questions put to the government. one member even asked leave to move the adjournment of the house on a matter of urgent public importance, namely the danger to the public peace, owing to the refusal of the prime minister to receive the deputation. this was denied, however, and the government mendaciously disclaimed all responsibility for what action the police might take toward the deputation. the home secretary, mr. gladstone, when asked by mr. kier hardie to give instructions that the deputation, if orderly, should be admitted to st. stephen's, replied: "i cannot say what action the police ought to take in the matter." our women's parliament met at half past seven on the evening of june th, and the petition to the prime minister was read and adopted. then our deputation set forth. accompanying me as leader were two highly respectable women of advanced years, mrs. saul solomon, whose husband had been prime minister at the cape, and miss neligan, one of the foremost of the pioneer educators of england. we three and five other women were preceded by miss elsie howey, who, riding fast, went on horse-back to announce our coming to the enormous crowds that filled the streets. she, we afterward learned, progressed as far as the approaches to the house of commons before being turned back by the police. as for the deputation, it pressed on through the crowd as far as st. margaret's church, westminster, where we found a long line of police blocking the road. we paused for a moment, gathering strength for the ordeal of trying to push through the lines, when an unexpected thing happened. an order was given from some one, and instantly the police lines parted, leaving a clear space through which we walked towards the house. we were escorted on our way by inspector wells, and as we passed the crowd broke into vociferous cheering, firmly believing that we were after all to be received. as for myself i did little speculating as to what was about to happen. i simply led my deputation on as far as the entrance to st. stephen's hall. there we encountered another strong force of police commanded by our old acquaintance, inspector scantlebury, who stepped forward and handed me a letter. i opened it and read in aloud to the women. "the prime minister, for the reasons which he has already given in a written reply to their request, regrets that he is unable to receive the proposed deputation." i dropped the note to the ground and said: "i stand upon my rights, as a subject of the king, to petition the prime minister, and i am firmly resolved to stand here until i am received." [illustration: inspector wells conducting mrs. pankhurst to the house of commons _june, _] inspector scantlebury turned away and walked rapidly towards the door of the strangers' entrance. i turned to inspector jarvis, who remained, to several members of parliament and some newspaper men who stood looking on, and begged them to take my message to the prime minister, but no one responded, and the inspector, seizing my arm, began to push me away. i now knew that the deputation would not be received and that the old miserable business of refusing to leave, of being forced backward, and returning again and again until arrested, would have to be re-enacted. i had to take into account that i was accompanied by two fragile old ladies, who, brave as they were to be there at all, could not possibly endure what i knew must follow. i quickly decided that i should have to force an immediate arrest, so i committed an act of technical assault on the person of inspector jarvis, striking him very lightly on the cheek. he said instantly, "i understand why you did that," and i supposed then that we would instantly be taken. but the other police apparently did not grasp the situation, for they began pushing and jostling our women. i said to the inspector: "shall i have to do it again?" and he said "yes." so i struck him lightly a second time, and then he ordered the police to make the arrests. the matter did not end with the arrest of our deputation of eight women. in recurring deputations of twelve the suffragettes again and again pressed forward in vain endeavour to reach the house of commons. in spite of the fact that the crowds were friendly and did everything they could to aid the women, their deputations were broken up by the police and many of the women arrested. by nine o'clock parliament square was empty, an enormous force of mounted police having beaten the people back into victoria street and across westminster bridge. for a short time all looked tranquil, but soon little groups of women, seven or eight at a time, kept appearing mysteriously and making spirited dashes toward the house. this extraordinary procedure greatly exasperated the police, who could not unravel the mystery of where the women came from. as a matter of bygone history the explanation is that the w. s. p. u. had hired thirty offices in the neighborhood, in the shelter of which the women waited until it was time for them to sally forth. it was a striking demonstration of the ingenuity of women opposing the physical force of men, but it served still another purpose. it diverted the attention of the police from another demonstration which was going on. other suffragettes had gone to the official residence of the first lord of the admiralty, to the home office, the treasury and privy council offices, and had registered their contempt for the government's refusal to receive the deputation by the time-honoured method of breaking a window in each place. one hundred and eight women were arrested that night, but instead of submitting to arrests and trial, the women's social and political union announced that they were prepared to prove that the government and not the women had broken the law in refusing to receive the petition. my case, coupled with that of the hon. mrs. haverfield, was selected as a test case for all the others, and lord robert cecil was retained for the defence. mr. muskett, who conducted the case for the prosecution, tried to prove that our women had not gone to the house of commons to present a petition, but this was easily demonstrated to be an unwarranted claim. the speeches of the leader, the official articles published in our newspaper, _votes for women_, and the letters sent to mr. asquith, not to speak of the indisputable facts that every member of the deputation carried a copy of the petition in her hand, furnished evidence enough of the nature of our errand. the whole case of the subject's right of petition was then brought forward for discussion. mr. muskett spoke first, then our council, mr. henle, then lord robert cecil. last of all i spoke, describing the events of june th. i told the magistrate that should he decide that we and not the government had been guilty of an infraction of the law, we should refuse to be bound over, but should all choose to go to prison. in that case we should not submit to being treated like criminals. "there are one hundred and eight of us here to-day," i said, pointing to the benches where my fellow-prisoners sat, "and just as we have thought it is our duty to defy the police in the street, so when we get into prison, as we are political prisoners, we shall do our best to bring back into the twentieth century the treatment of political prisoners which was thought right in the case of william cobbett, and other political offenders of his time." the magistrate, sir albert de rutzen, an elderly, amiable man, rather bewildered by this unprecedented situation, then gave his decision. he agreed with mr. henle and lord robert cecil that the right of petition was clearly guaranteed to every subject, but he thought that when the women were refused permission to enter the house of commons, and when mr. asquith had said that he would not receive them, the women acted wrongly to persist in their demands. he should, therefore, fine them five pounds each, or sentence them to prison for one month in the second division. the sentence would be suspended for the present until learned counsel could obtain a decision from a higher court on the legal point of the right of petition. i then put in a claim for all the prisoners, and asked that all their cases might be held over until the test case was decided, and this was agreed to, except in regard to fourteen women charged with window-breaking. they were tried separately and sent to prison on sentences varying from six weeks to two months. of them later. the appeal against sir albert de rutzen's decision was tried in a divisional court early in december of that year. lord robert cecil again appeared for the defence, and in a masterly piece of argumentation, contended that in england there was and always had been the right of petition, and that the right had always been considered a necessary condition of a free country and a civilised government. the right of petition, he pointed out, had three characteristics: in the first place, it was the right to petition the actual repositories of power; in the second place, it was the right to petition in person; and in the third place, the right must be exercised reasonably. a long list of historical precedents were offered in support of the right to petition in person, but lord robert argued that even if these did not exist, the right was admitted in the charles ii "tumultuous petitions act," which provides "that no person or persons whatsoever shall repair to his majesty or both or either houses of parliament upon pretence of presenting or delivering any petition, complaint, remonstrance, or declaration or other address, accompanied with excessive number of people ..." etc. the bill of rights had specially confirmed the right of petition in so far as the king personally was concerned. "the women," pursued lord robert, "had gone to parliament square on june th in the exercise of a plain constitutional right, and that in going there with a petition they had acted according to the only constitutional method they possessed, being voteless, for the redress of their grievances." if then it were true, as contended, the subject not only possessed the right to petition, but to petition in person, the only point to be considered was whether the right had been exercised reasonably. if persons desired to interview the prime minister, it was surely reasonable to go to the house of commons, and to present themselves at the strangers' entrance. mrs. pankhurst, mrs. haverfield and the others had, as the evidence showed, proceeded along the public highway and had been escorted to the door of the house of commons by an officer of the police, and could not therefore, up to that point, have been acting in an unlawful manner. the police had kept clear a large open space opposite the house of commons, the crowd being kept at a certain distance away. within the open space there were only persons having business in the house of commons, members of the police force and the eight women who formed the deputation. it could not possibly be contended that these eight women had caused an obstruction. it was true that a police officer told them that the prime minister was not in the house of commons, but when one desired an interview with a member of parliament one did not make his request of a casual policeman in the street. moreover, the police did not possess any authority to stop anyone from going into the house of commons. the letter given the women, in which the prime minister said that he could not or would not see them, had been cited. now, had the prime minister, in his letter, said that he could not or would not see the women at that time, that the time was not convenient; but that he would at some future time, at a more convenient time, receive them, that would have been a sufficient answer. the women would not have been justified in refusing to accept such an answer, because the right to petition must be exercised reasonably. but the letter contained an unqualified refusal, and that, if we allow the right of petition to exist, was no answer at all. last of all lord robert argued that if there is a right to petition a member of parliament, then it must be incumbent on the part of a member of parliament to receive the petition, and that no one has a right to interfere with the petitioner. if the eight women were legally justified in presenting their petition, then they were also justified in refusing to obey the orders of the police to leave the place. in an address full of bias, and revealing plainly that he had no accurate knowledge of any of the events that had led up to the case in hand, the lord chief justice delivered judgment. he said that he entirely agreed with lord robert cecil as to the right to present a petition to the prime minister, either as prime minister or as a member of parliament; and he agreed also that petitions to the king should be presented to the prime minister. but the claim of the women, he said, was not merely to present a petition, but to be received in a deputation. he did not think it likely that mr. asquith would have refused to receive a petition from the women, but his refusal to receive the deputation was not unnatural, "in consequence of what we know did happen on previous occasions."[ ] referring to the metropolitan police act of , which provides that it shall be lawful for the commissioner of police to make regulations and to give instructions to the constable for keeping order, and for preventing any obstruction of thoroughfares in the immediate neighbourhood of the house of commons, and the sessional order empowering the police to keep clear the approaches to the house of commons, the lord chief justice decided that i and the other women were guilty of an infraction of the law when we insisted on a right to enter the house of commons. the lord chief justice therefore ruled that our conviction in the lower court had been proper, and our appeal was dismissed with costs. thus was destroyed in england the ancient constitutional right of petition, secured to the people by the bill of rights, and cherished by uncounted generations of englishmen. i say the right was destroyed, for of how much value is a petition which cannot be presented in person? the decision of the high court was appalling to the members of the w. s. p. u., as it closed the last approach, by constitutional means, to our enfranchisement. far from discouraging or disheartening us, it simply spurred us on to new and more aggressive forms of militancy. footnote: [ ] mr. asquith had never, since becoming prime minister, received a deputation of women, nor had he ever received a deputation of the w. s. p. u. so it was absurd of the lord chief justice to speak of "what did happen, on previous occasions." chapter v between the time of the arrest in june and the handing down of the absurd decision of the lord chief justice that although we, as subjects, possessed the right of petition, yet we had committed an offence in exercising that right, nearly six months had passed. in that interval certain grave developments had lifted the militant movement onto a new and more heroic plane. it will be remembered that a week before our deputation to test the charles ii act, miss wallace dunlop had been sent to prison for one month for stamping an extract from the bill of rights on the stone walls of st. stephen's hall. on arriving at holloway on friday evening, july nd, she sent for the governor and demanded of him that she be treated as a political offender. the governor replied that he had no power to alter the sentence of the magistrate, whereupon miss wallace dunlop informed him that it was the unalterable resolution of the suffragettes never again to submit to the prison treatment given to ordinary offenders against the law. therefore she should, if placed in the second division as a common criminal, refuse to touch food until the government yielded her point. it is hardly likely that the government or the prison authorities realised the seriousness of miss wallace dunlop's action, or the heroic mould of the suffragettes' character. at all events the home secretary paid no attention to the letter sent him by the prisoner, in which she explained simply but clearly her motives for her desperate act, and the prison authorities did nothing except seek means of breaking down her resistance. the ordinary prison diet was replaced by the most tempting food, and this instead of being brought to her cell at intervals, was kept there night and day, but always untouched. several times daily the doctor came to feel her pulse and observe her growing weakness. the doctor, as well as the governor and the wardresses argued, coaxed and threatened, but without effect. the week passed without any sign of surrender on the part of the prisoner. on friday the doctor reported that she was rapidly reaching a point at which death might at any time supervene. hurried conferences were carried on between the prison and the home office, and that evening, june th, miss wallace dunlop was sent home, having served one-fourth of her sentence, and having ignored completely all the terms of her imprisonment. on the day of her release the fourteen women who had been convicted of window breaking received their sentences, and learning of miss wallace dunlop's act, they, as they were being taken to holloway in the prison van, held a consultation and agreed to follow her example. arrived at holloway they at once informed the officials that they would not give up any of their belongings, neither would they put on prison clothing, perform prison labour, eat prison food or keep the rule of silence. the governor agreed for the moment to allow them to retain their property and to wear their own clothing, but he told them that they had committed an act of mutiny and that he would have to so charge them at the next visit of the magistrates. the women then addressed petitions to the home secretary, demanding that they be given the prison treatment universally allowed political offenders. they decided to postpone the hunger strike until the home secretary had had time to reply. meanwhile, after a vain appeal for more fresh air, for the weather was stiflingly hot, the women committed one more act of mutiny, they broke the windows of their cells. we learned this from the prisoners themselves. several days after they had gone to prison, my daughter christabel and mrs. tuke, filled with anxiety for their fate, gained admission to an upper story room of a house overlooking the prison. calling at the top of their voices and waving a flag of the union, they succeeded in attracting the prisoners' attention. the women thrust their arms through the broken panes, waving handkerchiefs, votes for women badges, anything they could get hold of, and in a few shouted words told their tale. that same day the visiting magistrates arrived, and the mutineers were sentenced to terms of seven to ten days of solitary confinement in the punishment cells. in these frightful cells, dark, unclean, dripping with moisture, the prisoners resolutely hunger struck. at the end of five days one of the women was reduced to such a condition that the home secretary ordered her released. the next day several more were released, and before the end of the week the last of the fourteen had gained their liberty. the affair excited the greatest sympathy all over england, sympathy which mr. gladstone tried to divert by charging two of the prisoners with kicking and biting the wardresses. in spite of their vigorous denials these two women were sentenced, on these charges, one to ten days and the other to a month in prison. although still very weak from the previous hunger strike, they at once entered upon a second hunger strike, and in three days had to be released. after this each succeeding batch of suffragette prisoners, unless otherwise directed, followed the example of these heroic rebels. the prison officials, seeing their authority vanish, were panic stricken. holloway and other women's prisons throughout the kingdom became perfect dens of violence and brutality. hear the account given by lucy burns of her experience: "we remained quite still when ordered to undress, and when they told us to proceed to our cells we linked arms and stood with our backs to the wall. the governor blew his whistle and a great crowd of wardresses appeared, falling upon us, forcing us apart and dragging us towards the cells. i think i had twelve wardresses for my share, and among them they managed to trip me so that i fell helplessly to the floor. one of the wardresses grasped me by my hair, wound the long braid around her wrist and literally dragged me along the ground. in the cell they fairly ripped the clothing from my back, forcing on me one coarse cotton garment and throwing others on the bed for me to put on myself. left alone exhausted by the dreadful experience i lay for a time gasping and shivering on the floor. by and by a wardress came to the door and threw me a blanket. this i wrapped around me, for i was chilled to the bone by this time. the single cotton garment and the rough blanket were all the clothes i wore during my stay in prison. most of the prisoners refused everything but the blanket. according to agreement we all broke our windows and were immediately dragged off to the punishment cells. there we hunger struck, and after enduring great misery for nearly a week, we were one by one released." how simply they tell it. "after enduring great misery--" but no one who has not gone through the awful experience of the hunger strike can have any idea of how great that misery is. in an ordinary cell it is great enough. in the unspeakable squalor of the punishment cells it is worse. the actual hunger pangs last only about twenty-four hours with most prisoners. i generally suffer most on the second day. after that there is no very desperate craving for food. weakness and mental depression take its place. great disturbances of digestion divert the desire for food to a longing for relief from pain. often there is intense headache, with fits of dizziness, or slight delirium. complete exhaustion and a feeling of isolation from earth mark the final stages of the ordeal. recovery is often protracted, and entire recovery of normal health is sometimes discouragingly slow. the first hunger strike occurred in early july. in the two months that followed scores of women adopted the same form of protest against a government who would not recognise the political character of their offences. in some cases the hunger strikers were treated with unexampled cruelty. delicate women were sentenced, not only to solitary confinement, but to wear handcuffs for twenty-four hours at a stretch. one woman on refusing prison clothes was put into a straightwaistcoat. the irony of all this appears the greater when it is considered that, at this precise time, the leaders of the liberal party in the house of commons were in the midst of their first campaign against the veto power of the lords. on september th a great meeting was held in birmingham, on which occasion mr. asquith was to throw down his challenge to the lords, and to announce that their veto was to be abolished, leaving the people's will paramount in england. of course the suffragettes seized this opportunity for a demonstration. this course was perfectly logical. denied the right of petition, shut out now from every cabinet minister's meeting, the women were forced to take whatever means that remained to urge their cause upon the government. mrs. mary leigh and a group of birmingham members addressed a warning to the public not to attend mr. asquith's meeting as disturbances were likely to happen. from the time that the prime minister and his cabinet left the house of commons until the train drew in to the station at birmingham they were completely surrounded with detectives and policemen. the precautions taken to guard mr. asquith have never been equalled except in the case of the tsar during outbreaks of revolution in russia. from the station he was taken by an underground passage a quarter of a mile in length to his hotel, where he dined in solitary state, after having been carried upstairs in a luggage lift. escorted to the bingley hall by a strong guard of mounted police, he was so fearful of encountering the suffragettes that he entered by a side door. the hall was guarded as for a siege. over the glass roof a thick tarpaulin had been stretched. tall ladders were placed on either side of the building, and firemen's hose were laid in readiness--not to extinguish fires, but to play upon the suffragettes should they appear at an inaccessible spot on the roof. the streets on every hand were barricaded, and police, in regiments, were drawn up to defend the barricades against the onslaughts of the women. nobody was allowed to pass the barricades without showing his entrance tickets to long files of police, and then the ticket holders were squeezed through the narrow doors one by one. their precautions were in vain, for the determined suffragettes found more than one way in which to turn mr. asquith's triumph into a fiasco. although no women gained access to the hall, there were plenty of men sympathisers present, and before the meeting had proceeded far thirteen men had been violently thrown out for reminding the prime minister that "the people" whose right to govern he was professing to uphold, included women as well as men. outside, mingling in the vast crowds, bands of women attacked the barricades, the outer barricades being thrown down in spite of the thousands of police. from the roof of a neighbouring house mrs. leigh and charlotte marsh tore up dozens of slates and threw them on the roof of bingley hall and in the streets below, taking care, however, to strike no one. as mr. asquith drove away the women hurled slates at the guarded motor car. the fire hose was brought forth and the firemen were ordered to turn the water on the women. they refused, to their credit be it said, but the police, infuriated by their failure to keep the peace, did not scruple to play the cold water on the women as they crouched and clung to the dangerous slope of the roof. roughs in the streets flung bricks at them, drawing blood. eventually the women were dragged down by the police and in their dripping garments marched through the streets to the police station. the suffragettes who had rushed the barricades and flung stones at mr. asquith's departing train received sentences from a fortnight to one month, but miss marsh and mrs. leigh were sent to prison for three and four months respectively. all of the prisoners adopted the hunger strike, as we knew they would. several days later we were horrified to read in the newspapers that these prisoners were being forcibly fed by means of a rubber tube thrust into the stomach. members of the union applied at once both at the prison and at the home office to learn the truth of the report, but all information was refused. on the following monday at our request, mr. keir hardie, at question time in the house, insisted on information from the government. mr. masterman, speaking for the home secretary, reluctantly admitted that, in order to preserve the dignity of the government and at the same time save the lives of the prisoners, "hospital treatment" was being administered. "hospital treatment" was the term used to draw attention from one of the most disgusting and brutal expedients ever resorted to by prison authorities. no law allows it except in the case of persons certified to be insane, and even then when the operation is performed by skilled nursing attendants under the direction of skilled medical men, it cannot be called safe. in fact, the asylum cases usually die after a short time. _the lancet_, perhaps the best known medical journal in the language, published a long list of opinions from distinguished physicians and surgeons who condemned the practice as applied to the suffrage prisoners as unworthy of civilisation. one physician told of a case which had come under his observation in which death had occurred almost as soon as the tube had been inserted. another cited a case where the tongue, twisted behind the feeding tube, had, in the struggle, been almost bitten off. cases where food had been injected into the lungs were not unknown. mr. c. mansell-moullin, m.d., f.r.c.s., wrote to _the times_ that as a hospital surgeon of more than thirty years' experience he desired indignantly to protest against the government's term "hospital treatment" in connection with the forcible feeding of women. it was a foul libel, he declared, for violence and brutality have no place in hospitals. a memorial signed by well-known physicians was addressed to the prime minister protesting against the practice of forcible feeding, and pointing out to him in detail the grave dangers attaching to it. so much for medical testimony against a form of brutality which continued and still continues in our english prisons, as a punishment for women who are there for consciences' sake. as for the testimony of the victims, it makes a volume of most revolting sort. mrs. leigh, the first victim, is a woman of sturdy constitution, else she could scarcely have survived the experience. thrown into birmingham prison after the asquith demonstration, she had broken the windows of her cell, and as a punishment was sent to a dark and cold punishment cell. her hands were handcuffed, behind her during the day, and at night in front of her body _with the palms out_. she refused to touch the food that was brought to her, and three days after her arrival she was taken to the doctor's room. what she saw was enough to terrify the bravest. in the centre of the room was a stout chair resting on a cotton sheet. against the wall, as if ready for action stood four wardresses. the junior doctor was also on hand. the senior doctor spoke, saying: "listen carefully to what i have to say. i have orders from my superior officers that you are not to be released even on medical grounds. if you still refrain from food i must take other measures to compel you to take it." mrs. leigh replied that she did still refuse, and she said further that she knew that she could not legally be forcibly fed because an operation could not be performed without the consent of the patient if sane. the doctor repeated that he had his orders and would carry them out. a number of wardresses then fell upon mrs. leigh, held her down and tilted her chair backward. she was so taken by surprise that she could not resist successfully that time. they managed to make her swallow a little food from a feeding cup. later two doctors and the wardresses appeared in her cell, forced mrs. leigh down to the bed and held her there. to her horror the doctors produced a rubber tube, two yards in length, and this he began to stuff up her nostril. the pain was so dreadful that she shrieked again and again. three of the wardresses burst into tears and the junior doctor begged the other to desist. having had his orders from the government, the doctor persisted and the tube was pushed down into the stomach. one of the doctors, standing on a chair and holding the tube high poured liquid food through a funnel almost suffocating the poor victim. "the drums of my ears," she said afterwards, "seemed to be bursting. i could feel the pain to the end of the breast bone. when at last the tube was withdrawn it felt as if the back of my nose and throat were being torn out with it." in an almost fainting condition mrs. leigh was taken back to the punishment cell and laid on her plank bed. the ordeal was renewed day after day. the other prisoners suffered similar experiences. chapter vi the militant movement was at this point when, in october, , i made my first visit to the united states. i shall never forget the excitement of my landing, the first meeting with the american "reporter," an experience dreaded by all europeans. in fact the first few days seemed a bewildering whirl of reporters and receptions, all leading up to my first lecture at carnegie hall on october th. the huge hall was entirely filled, and an enormous crowd of people thronged the streets outside for blocks. with me on the stage were several women whom i had met in europe, and in the chair was an old friend, mrs. stanton blatch, whose early married life had been spent in england. the great crowd before me, however, was made up of strangers, and i could not know how they would respond to my story. when i rose to speak a deep hush fell, but at my first words: "i am what you call a hooligan--" a great shout of warm and sympathetic laughter shook the walls. then i knew that i had found friends in america. and this all the rest of the tour demonstrated. in boston the committee met me with a big grey automobile decorated in the colours of our union, and that night at tremont temple i spoke to an audience of , people all most generous in their responsiveness. in baltimore professors, and students from johns hopkins university acted as stewards of the meeting. i greatly enjoyed my visit to bryn mawr college and to rosemary hall, a wonderful school for girls in connecticut. in chicago, i met, among other notable people, miss jane addams and mrs. ella flagg young, superintendent of schools. my visit to canada will always be remembered, especially toronto, where the mayor, dressed in the chains of his office, welcomed me. i met too the venerable goldwin smith, since dead. everywhere i found the americans kind and keen, and i cannot say too much for the wonderful hospitality they showed me. the women i found were remarkably interested in social welfare. the work of the women's clubs struck me very favourably, and i thought these institutions a perfect basis for a suffrage movement. but at that time, , the suffrage movement in the united states was in a curious state of quiescence. a large number of women with whom i came in contact appeared to think it only just that they should have a vote, but few seemed to realise any actual need of it. some, it is true, were beginning to connect the vote with the reforms for which they were working so unselfishly and so devotedly. it was when talking with the younger women that i came to feel that under the surface of things in america, a strong suffrage movement was stirring. those young women, leaving their splendid colleges to begin life were realising in a very intelligent fashion that they needed and would be obliged to secure for themselves a political status. on december st i sailed on the _mauretania_ for england, and on arriving i learned that the prison sentence which hung over me while the petitions case had been argued, was discharged, some unknown friend having paid my fine while i was on the ocean. the year began with a general election, precipitated by the house of lords' rejection of mr. lloyd-george's budget. the liberal party went to the country with promises of taxes on land values. they promised also abolition of the veto power of the lords, irish home rule, disestablishment of the church of wales, and other reforms. woman suffrage was not directly promised, but mr. asquith pledged that, if retained in office, he would introduce an electoral reform bill which could be amended to include woman suffrage. the unionists under the leadership of mr. balfour, had tariff reform for their programme, and they offered not even a vague promise of a possible suffrage measure. yet we, as usual, went into the constituencies and opposed the liberal party. we had no faith in mr. asquith's pledge, and besides, if we had failed to oppose the party in power we should but have invited mr. asquith and mr. balfour to enter into an agreement not to deal with the suffrage, with the view of keeping the cause permanently outside practical politics. we were in something of the same position as the irish nationalists in , when neither the liberal nor the conservative leaders would include home rule in their programme. the irish opposed the liberal party, with the result that it was returned by such a narrow majority that the liberal government was dependent on the irish vote in parliament in order to remain in office. on this account they were obliged to bring in a home rule bill. the other suffrage societies and many of the liberal women begged us not to oppose the liberal party at this election. we were implored to waive our claim "just this once" in view of the importance of the struggle between the commons and the house of lords over the budget. we replied that the same plea had been made in when we were implored to waive our claim "just this once" on account of the fiscal issue. for women there was only one political issue, we said, and that was the issue of their own enfranchisement. the dispute between the lords and the commons was far less vital than the claims of the people--represented in this case by women--to be admitted to citizenship. from our point of view both houses of parliament were unrepresentative until women had a voice in choosing legislators and influencing law making. we opposed liberal candidates in forty constituencies, and in almost every one of these the liberal majorities were reduced and no less than eighteen seats were wrested from the liberal candidates. it really was a terrible election for the government. mr. asquith travelled from one constituency to another accompanied by a body guard of detectives, and official "chuckers out," whose sole duty was to eject women, and men as well, who interrupted his meetings on the question of votes for women. the halls where he spoke had the windows boarded up or the glass covered with strong wire netting. every thoroughfare leading to the halls was barricaded, traffic was suspended, and large forces of police were on guard. the most extraordinary precautions were taken to protect the prime minister. at one place he went to his meeting strongly guarded and by way of a secret pathway that led through gooseberry bushes and a cabbage patch to a back door. after the meeting he escaped through the same door and was solemnly guided along a path heavily laid with sawdust to deaden his footsteps, to a concealed motor car, where he sat until the crowd had all dispersed. the other ministers had to resort to similar precautions. they lived under the constant protection of body-guards. their meetings were policed in a manner without precedent. of course no women were admitted to their meetings, but they got in just the same. two women hid for twenty-five hours in the rafters of a hall in louth where mr. lloyd-george spoke. they were arrested, but not until after they had made their demonstration. two others hid under a platform for twenty-two hours in order to question the prime minister. i could continue this record almost indefinitely. we had printed a wonderful poster showing the process of forcible feeding, and we used it on hoardings everywhere. we told the electors that the "liberal party," the people's friend, had imprisoned women for the crime of asking for a vote. they were torturing women at that time in holloway. it was splendid ammunition and it told. the liberal party was returned to power, but with their majority over all sections of the house of commons swept away. the asquith government were dependent now for their very existence on the votes of the labour party and the irish nationalists. chapter vii the first months of were occupied by the re-elected government in a struggle to keep control of affairs. a coalition with the irish party, the leaders of which agreed, if the home rule bill were advanced, to stand by the budget. no publicly announced coalition with the labour party was made at that time, keir hardie, at the annual conference of the party, announcing that they would continue to be independent of the government. this was important to us because it meant that the labour party, instead of entering into an agreement to give general support to all government measures, would be free to oppose the government in the event of the continued withholding of a franchise bill. other things combined to make us hopeful that the tide had turned in our favour. it was hinted to us that the government were weary of our opposition and were ready to end the struggle in the only possible way, providing they could do so without appearing to yield to coercion. we therefore, early in february, declared a truce to all militancy. parliament met on february th and the king's speech was read on february st. no mention of women's suffrage was made in the speech nor was any private member successful in winning a place in the ballot for a suffrage bill. however, since the situation, on account of the proposed abolition of the lord's power of veto, was strained and abnormal, we decided to wait patiently for a while. it was confidently expected that another general election would have to be held before the contentions between the two houses of parliament were settled, and this event unquestionably would have occurred, not later than june, but for the unexpected death of king edward vii. this interrupted the strained situation. the passing of the king served as an occasion for the temporary softening of animosities and produced a general disposition to compromise on all troubled issues. the question of women's enfranchisement was taken up again in this spirit, and in a manner altogether creditable to the members with whom the movement originated. a strictly non-party committee on women's suffrage had been established in the house of commons in , mainly through the efforts of miss lydia becker, whom i have mentioned before as the susan b. anthony of the english suffrage movement. in , for reasons not necessary to enumerate, the original committee had been allowed to lapse, the liberal supporters of women's suffrage forming a committee of their own. now, in this period of good feeling, at the suggestion of certain members, led by mr. h. n. brailsford, not himself a member of parliament, formed another non-party body which they called the conciliation committee. its object was declared to be the bringing together of the full strength of suffragists of the house of commons, regardless of party affiliation, and of framing a suffrage measure that could be passed by their united effort. the earl of lytton accepted the chairmanship of the committee and mr. brailsford was made its secretary. the committee consisted of twenty-five liberals, seventeen conservatives, six irish nationalists, and six members of the labour party. under difficulties which i can hardly hope to make clear to american readers the committee laboured to frame a bill which should win the support of all sections of the house. the conservatives insisted on a moderate bill, whilst the liberals were concerned lest the terms of the bill should add to the power of the propertied classes. the original suffrage bill, drafted by my husband. dr. pankhurst, giving the vote to women on equal terms with men, was abandoned, and a bill was drawn up along the lines of the existing municipal franchise law. the basis of the municipal franchise is occupation, and the conciliation bill, as first drafted, proposed to extend the parliamentary vote to women householders, and to women occupiers of business premises paying ten pounds rental and upwards. it was estimated that about ninety-five per cent. of the women who would be enfranchised under the bill were householders. this, in england, does not mean a person occupying a whole house. any one who inhabits even a single room over which he or she exercises full control is a householder. the text of the conciliation bill was submitted to all the suffrage societies and other women's organisations, and it was accepted by every one of them. our official newspaper said editorially: "we of the women's social and political union are prepared to share in this united and peaceful action. the new bill does not give us all that we want, but we are for it if others are also for it." it seemed certain that an overwhelming majority of the house of commons were for the bill, and were prepared to vote it into law. although we knew that it could not possibly pass unless the government agreed that it should, we hoped that the leaders of all parties and the majority of their followers would unite in an agreement that the bill should pass. this settlement by consent is rare in the english parliament, but some extremely important and hard fought measures have been carried thus. the extension of the franchise in is a case in point. the conciliation bill was introduced into the house of commons on june th, , by mr. d. j. shackleton, and was received with the most extraordinary enthusiasm. the newspapers remarked on the feeling of reality which marked the attitude of the house towards the bill. it was plain that the members realised that here was no academic question upon which they were merely to debate and to register their opinions, but a measure which was intended to be carried through all its stages and to be written into english law. the enthusiasm of the house swept all over the kingdom. the medical profession sent in a memorial in its favour, signed by more than three hundred of the most distinguished men and women in the profession. memorials from writers, clergymen, social workers, artists, actors, musicians, were also sent. the women's liberal federation met and unanimously resolved to ask the prime minister to give full facilities to the bill. some advanced spirits in the federation actually proposed to send then and there a deputation to the house of commons with the resolution, but this proposal was rejected as savouring too much of militancy. a request for an interview was sent to mr. asquith, and he replied promising to receive, at an early day, representatives of both the liberal women's federation and of the national union of women's suffrage societies. the joint deputation was received by mr. asquith on june st, and lady m'laren, as a representative of the women's liberal federation, spoke very directly to her party's leader. she said in part: "if you refuse our request we shall have to go to the country and say you, who are against the veto of the house of lords, are placing a veto on the house of commons by refusing to allow a second reading of this bill." mr. asquith replied warily that he could not decide alone on such a serious matter, but would have to consult his cabinet, the majority of whom, he admitted, were suffragists. their decision, he said, would be given in the house of commons. [illustration: over , women had been in prison--broad arrows in the parade] the women's social and political union arranged a demonstration in support of the conciliation bill, the greatest that had, up to that time, been made. it was a national, indeed an inter-national affair in which all the suffrage groups took part, and its massed ranks were so great that the procession required an hour and a half to pass a given point. at the head marched six hundred and seventeen women, white clad and holding long silver staves tipped with the broad arrow. these were the women who had suffered imprisonment for the cause, and all along the line of march they received a tribute of cheers from the public. the immense albert hall, the largest hall in england, although it was packed from orchestra to the highest gallery, was not large enough to hold all the marchers. amid great joy and enthusiasm lord lytton delivered a stirring address in which he confidently predicted the speedy advance of the bill. the women, he declared, had every reason to believe that their enfranchisement was actually at hand. it was true that the time for passing a suffrage bill was ripe. not in fifty years had the way been so clear, because the momentary absence of ordinary legislation left the field open for an electoral reform bill. yet when the prime minister was asked in the house of commons whether he would give the members an early opportunity for discussion, the answer was not encouraging. the government, said mr. asquith, were prepared to give time before the close of the session for full debate and division on second reading, but they could not allow any further facilities. he stated frankly that he personally did not want the bill to pass, but the government realised that the house of commons ought to have an opportunity, if that was their deliberate desire, for effectively dealing with the whole question. this cryptic utterance was taken by the majority of the suffragists, by the press and by the public generally to mean that the government were preparing gracefully to yield to the undoubted desire of the house of commons to pass the bill. but the women's social and political union were doubtful. mr. asquith's remark was ambiguous, and was capable of being interpreted in several ways. it could mean that he was prepared to accept the verdict of the majority and let the bill pass through all its stages. that of course would be the only way to allow the house opportunity effectively to deal with the whole question. on the other hand mr. asquith might be intending to let the bill pass through its debating stages and be afterwards smothered in committee. we feared treachery, but in view of the announcement that the government had set apart july and for debate on the second reading, we preserved a spirit of waiting calm. july th had been fixed as the day for the adjournment of parliament, and if the bill was voted on favourably on the th there would be ample time to take it through its final stages. when a bill passes its second reading it is normally sent upstairs to a grand committee which sits while the house of commons is transacting other business, and thus the committee stage can proceed without special facilities. the bill does not go back to the house until the report stage is reached, at which time the third and last reading occurs. after that the bill goes to the house of lords. a week at most is all that is required for this procedure. a bill may be referred to the whole house, and in this case it cannot be brought up for its committee stage unless it is given special facilities. in our paper and in many public speeches we urged that the members vote to send the bill to a grand committee. some days before the bill reached its second reading it was rumoured that mr. lloyd-george was going to speak against it, but we refused to credit this. unfair to women as mr. lloyd-george had shown himself in various ways, he had consistently posed as a staunch friend of women's suffrage, and we could not believe that he would turn against us at the eleventh hour. mr. winston churchill, whose speech to the women of dundee i quoted in a previous chapter, the promoters of the bill also counted upon, as it was known that he had more than once expressed sympathy with its objects. but when the debates began we found both of these ardent suffragists arrayed against the bill. mr. churchill, after making a conventional anti-suffrage speech, in which he said that women did not need the ballot, and that they really had no grievances, attacked the conciliation bill because the class of women who would be enfranchised under it did not suit him. some women, he conceded, ought to be enfranchised, and he thought the best plan would be to select "some of the best women of all classes" on considerations of property, education and earning capacity. these special franchises would be carefully balanced, "so as not on the whole to give undue advantage to the property vote against the wage earning vote." a more fantastic proposal and one less likely to find favour in the house of commons could not possibly be imagined. mr. churchill's second objection to the bill was that it was anti-democratic! it seemed to us that anything was more democratic than his proposed "fancy" franchises. mr. lloyd-george said that he agreed with everything mr. churchill had said "both relevant and irrelevant." he made the amazing assertion that the conciliation committee that had drafted the bill was a "committee of women meeting outside the house." and that this committee said to the house of commons not only that they must vote for a women's suffrage bill but "you must vote for the particular form upon which we agree, and we will not even allow you to deliberate upon any other form." of course these statements were wholly false. the conciliation bill was drafted by men, and it was introduced because the government had refused to bring in a party measure. the suffragists would have been only too glad to have had the government deliberate on a broader form of suffrage. because they refused to deliberate on any form, this private bill was introduced. this fact was brought forward in the course of mr. lloyd-george's speech. it had been urged, said he, that this bill was better than none at all, but why should that be the alternative? "what is the other?" called out a member, but mr. lloyd-george dodged the question with a careless "well, i cannot say for the present." later on he said: "if the promoters of this bill say that they regard the second reading merely as an affirmation of the principle of women's suffrage, and if they promise that when they re-introduce the bill it will be in a form which will enable the house of commons to move any amendment either for restriction or extension i shall be happy to vote for this bill." mr. philip snowden, replying to this, said: "we will withdraw this bill if the right honourable gentleman, on behalf of the government, or the prime minister himself will undertake to give to this house the opportunity of discussing and carrying through its various stages another form of franchise bill. if we cannot get that, then we shall prosecute this bill." the government made no reply at all to this, and the debate proceeded. thirty-nine speeches were made, the prime minister showing plainly in his speech that he intended to use all his power to prevent the bill becoming law. he began by saying that a franchise measure ought never to be sent to a grand committee, but to one of the whole house. he said also that his conditions, that the majority of women should show beyond any doubt that they desired the franchise, and that the bill be democratic in its terms, had not been complied with. when the division was taken it was seen that the conciliation bill had passed its second reading by a majority of , a larger majority than the government's far famed budget or the house of lords resolution had received. in fact no measure during that parliament had received so great a majority-- members voted for it as against opposed. then the question arose as to which committee should deal with the bill. mr. asquith had said that all franchise bills should go to a committee of the whole house, so that in the division his words moved many sincere friends of the bill to send it there. others understood that this was a mischievous course, but were afraid of incurring the anger of the prime minister. of course all the anti-suffragists voted the same way, and thus the bill went to the whole house. even then the bill could have been advanced to its final reading. the house had time on their hands, as virtually all important legislative work was halted because of the deadlock between the lords and the commons. following the death of the king a conference of leaders of the conservative and the liberal parties had been arranged to adjust the matters at issue, and this conference had not yet reported. hence parliament had little business on hand. the strongest possible pressure was brought to bear upon the government to give facilities to the conciliation bill. a number of meetings were held in support of the bill. the men's political union for women's enfranchisement, the men's league for women's suffrage and the conciliation committee held a joint meeting in hyde park. some of the old school of suffragists held another large meeting in trafalgar square. the women's social and political union, on july rd, which was the anniversary of the day in on which working men, agitating for their vote, had pulled down the hyde park railings, held another enormous demonstration there. a space of half a square mile was cleared, forty platforms erected, and two great processions marched from east and west to the meeting. many other suffrage societies co-operated with us on this occasion. on the very day of that meeting mr. asquith wrote to lord lytton refusing to allow any more time for the bill during that session. those who still had faith that the government could be induced to do justice to women set their hopes on the autumn session of parliament. resolutions urging the government to give the bill facilities during the autumn were sent, not only by the suffrage associations but from many organisations of men. the corporations of thirty-eight cities, including liverpool, manchester, glasgow, dublin and cork, sent resolutions to this effect. cabinet ministers were besieged with requests to receive deputations of women, and since the country was on the verge of a general election, and the liberal party wanted the services of women, their requests could not altogether be ignored. mr. asquith, early in october, received a deputation of women from his own constituency of east fife, but all he had to tell them was that the bill could not be advanced that year. "what about next year?" they asked, and he replied shortly: "wait and see." it had been exceedingly difficult, during these troublous days, to hold all the members of the w. s. p. u. to the truce, and when it became perfectly apparent that the conciliation bill was doomed, war was again declared. at a great meeting held in albert hall on november th, i myself threw down the gage of battle. i said, because i wanted the whole matter to be clearly understood by the public as well as by our members: "this is the last constitutional effort of the women's social and political union to secure the passage of the bill into law. if the bill, in spite of our efforts, is killed by the government, then first of all, i have to say there is an end of the truce. if we are met by the statement that there is no power to secure on the floor of the house of commons time for our measure, then our first step is to say, 'we take it out of your hands, since you fail to help us, and we resume the direction of the campaign ourselves.'" another deputation, i declared, must go to the house of commons to carry a petition to the prime minister. i myself would lead, and if no one cared to follow me i would go alone. instantly, all over the hall, women sprang to their feet crying out, "mrs. pankhurst, i will go with you!" "i will go!" "i will go!" and i knew that our brave women were as ever ready to give themselves, their very lives, if need be, for the cause of freedom. the autumn session convened on friday, november th, and mr. asquith announced that parliament would be adjourned on november th. while his speech was in progress, women, in small groups, to keep within the strict letter of the law, were marching from caxton hall and from the headquarters of the union. [illustration: the head of the deputation on black friday _november, _] how to tell the story of that dreadful day, black friday, as it lives in our memory--how to describe what happened to english women at the behest of an english government, is a difficult task. i will try to tell it as simply and as accurately as possible. the plain facts, baldly stated, i am aware will strain credulity. remember that the country was on the eve of a general election, and that the liberal party needed the help of liberal women. this fact made the wholesale arrest and imprisonment of great numbers of women, who were demanding the passage of the conciliation bill, extremely undesirable from the government's point of view. the women's liberal federations also wanted the passage of the conciliation bill, although they were not ready to fight for it. what the government feared, was that the liberal women would be stirred by our sufferings into refraining from doing election work for the party. so the government conceived a plan whereby the suffragettes were to be punished, were to be turned back and defeated in their purpose of reaching the house, but would not be arrested. orders were evidently given that the police were to be present in the streets, and that the women were to be thrown from one uniformed or ununiformed policeman to another, that they were to be so rudely treated that sheer terror would cause them to turn back. i say orders were given and as one proof of this i can first point out that on all previous occasions the police had first tried to turn back the deputations and when the women persisted in going forward, had arrested them. at times individual policemen had behaved with cruelty and malice toward us, but never anything like the unanimous and wholesale brutality that was shown on black friday. the government very likely hoped that the violence of the police towards the women would be emulated by the crowds, but instead the crowds proved remarkably friendly. they pushed and struggled to make a clear pathway for us, and in spite of the efforts of the police my small deputation actually succeeded in reaching the door of the strangers' entrance. we mounted the steps to the enthusiastic cheers of the multitudes that filled the streets, and we stood there for hours gazing down on a scene which i hope never to look upon again. at intervals of two or three minutes small groups of women appeared in the square, trying to join us at the strangers' entrance. they carried little banners inscribed with various mottoes, "asquith has vetoed our bill," "where there's a bill there's a way," "women's will beats asquith's won't," and the like. these banners the police seized and tore in pieces. then they laid hands on the women and literally threw them from one man to another. some of the police used their fists, striking the women in their faces, their breasts, their shoulders. one woman i saw thrown down with violence three or four times in rapid succession, until at last she lay only half conscious against the curb, and in a serious condition was carried away by kindly strangers. every moment the struggle grew fiercer, as more and more women arrived on the scene. women, many of them eminent in art, in medicine and science, women of european reputation, subjected to treatment that would not have been meted out to criminals, and all for the offence of insisting upon the right of peaceful petition. [illustration: for hours scenes like this were enacted on black friday _november, _] this struggle lasted for about an hour, more and more women successfully pushing their way past the police and gaining the steps of the house. then the mounted police were summoned to turn the women back. but, desperately determined, the women, fearing not the hoofs of the horses or the crushing violence of the police, did not swerve from their purpose. and now the crowds began to murmur. people began to demand why the women were being knocked about; why, if they were breaking the law, they were not arrested; why, if they were not breaking the law, they were not permitted to go on unmolested. for a long time, nearly five hours, the police continued to hustle and beat the women, the crowds becoming more and more turbulent in their defence. then, at last the police were obliged to make arrests. one hundred and fifteen women and four men, most of them bruised and choked and otherwise injured, were arrested. while all this was going on outside the house of commons, the prime minister was obstinately refusing to listen to the counsels of some of the saner and more justice-loving members of the house. keir hardie, sir alfred mondell and others urged mr. asquith to receive the deputation, and lord castlereagh went so far as to move as an amendment to a government proposal, another proposal which would have compelled the government to provide immediate facilities to the conciliation bill. we heard of what was going on, and i sent in for one and another friendly member and made every possible effort to influence them in favour of lord castlereagh's amendment. i pointed to the brutal struggle that was going on in the square, and i begged them to go back and tell the others that it must be stopped. but, distressed as some of them undoubtedly were, they assured me that there was not the slightest chance for the amendment. "is there not a single _man_ in the house of commons," i cried, "one who will stand up for us, who will make the house see that the amendment must go forward?" well, perhaps there were men there, but all save fifty-two put their party loyalty before their manhood, and, because lord castlereagh's proposal would have meant censure of the government, they refused to support it. this did not happen, however, until mr. asquith had resorted to his usual crafty device of a promise of future action. in this instance he promised to make a statement on behalf of the government on the following tuesday. the next morning the suffrage prisoners were arraigned in police court. or rather, they were kept waiting outside the court room while mr. muskett, who prosecuted on behalf of the chief commissioner of police, explained to the astounded magistrate that he had received orders from the home secretary that the prisoners should all be discharged. mr. churchill it was declared, had had the matter under careful consideration, and had decided that "no public advantage would be gained by proceeding with the prosecution, and accordingly no evidence would be given against the prisoners." subdued laughter and, according to the newspapers, some contemptuous booing were raised in the court, and when order was restored the prisoners were brought in in batches and told that they were discharged. on the following tuesday the w. s. p. u. held another meeting of the women's parliament in caxton hall to hear the news from the house of commons. mr. asquith said: "the government will, if they are still in power, give facilities in the next parliament for effectively proceeding with a franchise bill which is so framed as to admit of free amendment." he would not promise that this would be done during the first year of parliament. we had demanded facilities for the conciliation bill, and mr. asquith's promise was too vague and too ambiguous to please us. the parliament now about to be dissolved had lasted a scant ten months. the next one might not last longer. therefore, mr. asquith's promise, as usual, meant nothing at all. i said to the women, "i am going to downing street. come along, all of you." and we went. we found a small force of police in downing street, and we easily broke through their line and would have invaded the prime minister's residence had not reinforcements of police arrived on the scene. mr. asquith himself appeared unexpectedly, and as we thought, very opportunely. before he could have realised what was happening he found himself surrounded by angry suffragettes. he was well hooted and, it is said, well shaken, before he was rescued by the police. as his taxicab rushed away some object struck one of the windows, smashing it. another cabinet minister, mr. birrell, unwittingly got into the midst of the mêlée, and i am obliged to record that he was pretty thoroughly hustled. but it is not true that his leg was injured by the women. his haste to jump into a taxicab resulted in a slightly sprained ankle. that night and the following day windows were broken in the houses of sir edward grey, mr. winston churchill, mr. lewis harcourt and mr. john burns; and also in the official residences of the premier and the chancellor of the exchequer. that week suffragettes were arrested, but all except those charged with window-breaking or assault were discharged. this amazing court action established two things: first, that when the home secretary stated that he had no responsibility for the prosecution and sentencing of suffrage prisoners, he told a colossal falsehood; and second, that the government fully realised that it was bad election tactics to be responsible for the imprisonment of women of good character who were struggling for citizenship. chapter viii almost immediately after the events chronicled in the preceding chapter i sailed for my second tour through the united states. i was delighted to find a thoroughly alive and progressive suffrage movement, where before had existed with most people only an academic theory in favour of equal political rights between men and women. my first meeting, held in brooklyn, was advertised by sandwich women walking through the principal streets of the city, quite like our militant suffragists at home. street meetings, i found, were now daily occurrences in new york. the women's political union had adopted an election policy, and throughout the country as far west as i travelled, i found women awakened to the necessity of political action instead of mere discussion of suffrage. my second visit to america, like my first one, is clouded in my memory with sorrow. very soon after my return to england a beloved sister, mrs. mary clarke died. my sister, who was a most ardent suffragist and a valued worker in the women's social and political union, was one of the women who was shockingly maltreated in parliament square on black friday. she was also one of the women who, a few days later, registered their protest against the government by throwing a stone through the window of an official residence. for this act she was sent to holloway prison for a term of one month. released on december st, it was plain to those who knew her best that her health had suffered seriously from the dreadful experience of black friday and the after experience of prison. she died suddenly on christmas day, to the profound sorrow of all her associates. hers was not the only life that was sacrificed as a result of that day. other deaths occurred, mostly from hearts weakened by overstrain. miss henria williams died on january nd, , from heart failure. miss cecelia wolseley haig was another victim. ill treatment on black friday resulted in her case in a painful illness which ended, after a year of intense suffering, in her death on december st, . it is not possible to publish a full list of all the women who have died or have been injured for life in the course of the suffrage agitation in england. in many cases the details have never been made public, and i do not feel at liberty to record them here. a very celebrated case, which is public property, is that of lady constance lytton, sister of the earl of lytton, who acted as chairman of the conciliation committee. lady constance had twice in gone to prison as a result of suffrage activities, and on both occasions had been given special privileges on account of her rank and family influence. in spite of her protests and her earnest pleadings to be accorded the same treatment as other suffrage prisoners, the snobbish and cowardly authorities insisted in retaining lady constance in the hospital cells and discharging her before the expiration of her sentence. this was done on a plea of her ill health, and it was true that she suffered from a valvular disease of the heart. [illustration: riot scenes on black friday _november, _] smarting under the sense of the injustice done her comrades in this discrimination, lady constance lytton did one of the most heroic deeds to be recorded in the history of the suffrage movement. she cut off her beautiful hair and otherwise disguised herself, put on cheap and ugly clothing, and as "jane warton" took part in a demonstration at newcastle, again suffering arrest and imprisonment. this time the authorities treated her as an ordinary prisoner. without testing her heart or otherwise giving her an adequate medical examination, they subjected her to the horrors of forcible feeding. owing to her fragile constitution she suffered frightful nausea each time, and when on one occasion the doctor's clothing was soiled, he struck her contemptuously on the cheek. this treatment was continued until the identity of the prisoner suddenly became known. she was, of course, immediately released, but she never recovered from the experience, and is now a hopeless invalid.[ ] i want to say right here, that those well-meaning friends on the outside who say that we have suffered these horrors of prison, of hunger strikes and forcible feeding, because we desired to martyrise ourselves for the cause, are absolutely and entirely mistaken. we never went to prison in order to be martyrs. we went there in order that we might obtain the rights of citizenship. we were willing to break laws that we might force men to give us the right to make laws. that is the way men have earned their citizenship. truly says mazzini that the way to reform has always led through prison. the result of the general election, which took place in january, , was that the liberal party was again returned to power. parliament met on january st, but the session formally opened on february th with the reading of the king's speech. the programme for the session included the lords' veto measure, home rule, payment for members of parliament, and the abolishment of plural voting. invalid insurance was also mentioned and certain amendments to the old age pension bill. women's suffrage was not mentioned. nevertheless, we were singularly lucky, the first three places in the ballot being secured by members of the conciliation committee. mr. philips, an irish member, drew the first place, but as the irish party had decided not to introduce any bills that session, he yielded to sir george kemp, who announced that he would use his place for the purpose of taking a second reading debate on the new conciliation bill. the old bill had been entitled: "a bill to give the vote to women occupiers," a title that made amendment difficult. the new bill bore the more flexible title, "a bill to confer the parliamentary franchise on women," thus doing away with one of mr. lloyd-george's most plausible objections to it. the £ occupation clause was omitted, doing away with another objection, that of the possibility of "faggot voting," that is, of a rich man conferring the vote on a family of daughters by the simple expedient of making them tenants of slices of his own property. the conciliation bill now read: " . every woman possessed of a household qualification within the meaning of the representation of the people act ( ) shall be entitled to be registered as a voter, and when registered to vote in the county or borough in which the qualifying premises are situated. " . for the purposes of this act a woman shall not be disqualified by marriage for being registered as a voter, provided that a husband and wife shall not both be registered as voters in the same parliamentary borough or county division." this bill met with even warmer approval than the first one, because it was believed that it would win votes from those members who felt that the original measure had fallen short of being truly democratic. nevertheless, the prime minister showed from the first that he intended to oppose it, as he had all previous suffrage measures. he announced that all fridays up to easter and also all time on tuesdays and wednesdays usually allowed for private members' bills were to be occupied with consideration of government measures. hardly a liberal voice was raised against this arbitrary ruling. the irish members indeed were delighted with it, since it gave the home rule bill an advantage. the labour members seemed complacent, and the rest of the coalition were indifferent. one back bench liberal went so far as to rise and thank the prime minister for the courtesy with which the gagging process was accomplished. there was some show of fight made by the opposition, but conservative indignation was tempered by the reflection that the precedent established might be followed to advantage when their party came into power. sir george kemp then announced that he would take may th for the second reading of the conciliation bill, and the supporters of the bill, according to their various convictions, set to work to further its interests. the conviction of the w. s. p. u. was that mr. asquith's government would never allow the bill to pass until they were actually forced to do so, and we adopted our own methods to secure a definite pledge from the government that they would give facilities to the bill. in april of that year the census was to be taken, and we organised a census resistance on the part of women. according to our law the census of the entire kingdom must be taken every ten years on a designated day. our plan was to reduce the value of the census for statistical purposes by refusing to make the required returns. two ways of resistance presented themselves. the first and most important was direct resistance by occupiers who should refuse to fill in the census papers. this laid the register open to a fine of £ or a month's imprisonment, and thus required the exercise of considerable courage. the second means of resistance was evasion--staying away from home during the entire time that the enumerators were taking the census. we made the announcement of this plan and instantly there ensued a splendid response from women and a chorus of horrified disapproval from the conservative public. the _times_ voiced this disapproval in a leading article, to which i replied, giving our reasons for the protest. "the census," i wrote, "is a numbering of the people. until women count as people for the purpose of representation in the councils of the nation as well as for purposes of taxation, we shall refuse to be numbered." on the subject of laws made by men--without the assistance of women--for the protection of women and children, i have a very special feeling. from my experience as poor law guardian and as registrar of births and deaths, i know how ridiculously, say rather how tragically, these laws fall short of protection. take for instance the vaunted "children's charter" of , the measure which spread mr. lloyd-george's fame throughout the world. a volume could be filled with the mistakes and the cruelties of that act, the object of which is the preservation and improvement of child life. a distinguishing characteristic of the act is that it puts most of the responsibility for neglect of children on the backs of the mothers, who, under the laws of england, have no rights as parents. two or three especially striking cases of this kind came into notice about this time, and gave the census resistance an additional justification. the case of annie woolmore was a very pitiful one. she was arrested and sentenced to holloway for six weeks for neglecting her children. the evidence showed that the woman lived with her husband and children in a miserable hovel, which would have been almost impossible to keep clean even if there had been water in the house. as it was the poor soul, who was in ill health and weakened by deprivation, had to carry all the water she used across a great distance. the children as well as the house were very dirty, it was true, but the children were well nourished and kindly treated. the husband, a labourer, out of work much of the time, testified that his wife "starved herself to feed the kids." yet she had violated the terms of the "children's charter" and she went to prison. i am glad to say that owing to the efforts of suffragists she was pardoned and provided with a better home. another case was that of helen conroy, who was charged with living in one wretched room, with her husband and seven children, the youngest a month old. according to the law the mother was forbidden to have this infant in bed with her overnight, yet part of the charge against her was that the child was found sleeping in a box of damp straw. doubtless she would have preferred a cradle, or even a box of dry straw. but direst poverty made the cradle impossible and the conditions of the tenement kept the straw damp. both parents in this instance were sent to prison for three months at hard labour. the magistrate casually remarked that the house in which these poor people lived had been condemned two years before, but some respectable property owner was still collecting rents from it. another poor mother, evicted from her home because she could not pay the rent, took her four children out into the open country, and when found was sleeping with them in a gravel pit. she was sent to prison for a month and the children went to the workhouse. these sorry mothers, logical results of the subjection of women, are enough in themselves to justify almost any defiance of a government who deny the women the right to work out their destinies in freedom. no pledge having been secured from the prime minister by april st, we carried out, and most successfully, our census resistance. many thousands of women all over the country refused or evaded the returns. i returned my census paper with the words "no vote no census" written across it, and other women followed that example with similar messages. one woman filled in the blank with full information about her one man servant, and added that there were many women but no more persons in her household. in birmingham sixteen women of wealth packed their houses with women resisters. they slept on the floors, on chairs and tables, and even in the baths. the head of a large college threw open the building to women. many women in other cities held all night parties for friends who wished to remain away from home. in some places unoccupied houses were rented for the night by resisters, who lay on the bare boards. some groups of women hired gipsy vans and spent the night on the moors. in london we gave a great concert at queen's hall on census night. many of us walked about trafalgar square until midnight and then repaired to aldwich skating rink, where we amused ourselves until morning. some skated while others looked on, and enjoyed the admirable musical and theatrical entertainment that helped to pass the hours. we had with us a number of the brightest stars in the theatrical world, and they were generous in their contributions. it being sunday night, the chairman had to call on each of the artists for a "speech" instead of a song or other turn. an all-night restaurant near at hand did a big business, and on the whole the resisters had a very good time. the scala theatre was the scene of another all-night entertainment. there was a good deal of curiosity to see what the government would devise in the way of a punishment for the rebellious women, but the government realised the impossibility of taking punitive action, and mr. john burns, who, as head of the local government board, was responsible for the census, announced that they had decided to treat the affair with magnanimity. the number of evasions, he declared, was insignificant. but every one knew that this was the exact reverse of the facts. [illustration: in this manner thousands of women throughout the kingdom slept in unoccupied houses over census night] the conciliation bill was debated on may th and passed its second reading by the enormous majority of . and now the public and a section of the press united in a strong demand that the government yield to the undoubted will of the house and grant facilities to the bill. the conciliation committee sent a deputation of members to the prime minister to remind him of his pre-election promise that the house of commons should have an opportunity of dealing with the whole question of woman suffrage, but they succeeded only in getting his assurance that he had the matter under consideration. late in the month the announcement was made in the house that the government would not grant facilities during that session, but, since the new bill fulfilled the conditions named by the prime minister, and was now capable of amendment, the government recognised it to be their duty to grant facilities in some session of the present parliament. they would be prepared next session, when the bill had been again read for the second time, either as a result of obtaining a good place in the ballot, or (if that did not happen) by a grant of a government day for the purpose, to give a week, which they understood to be the time suggested as reasonable by the promoters for its further stages. this pledge was made in order to deter the w. s. p. u. from making a militant demonstration in connection with the coronation of the king. keir hardie asked if the government would, by means of a closure or otherwise, make certain that the bill would go through in the week, and the prime minister replied, "no, i cannot give an assurance of that kind. after all, it is a problem of the very greatest magnitude." this reply seemed to make the government's pledge practically worthless. the conciliation committee also realised the possibilities of the bill being talked out, and lord lytton wrote to mr. asquith and asked him for assurances that the facilities offered were intended not for academic discussion but for effective opportunity for carrying the bill. he also asked that the week offered should not be construed rigidly but that, providing the committee stage were got through in the time, additional days for the report and third reading stages might be forthcoming. reasonable opportunity for making use of the closure was also asked. to lord lytton's letter the prime minister replied as follows: _my dear lytton_--in reply to your letter on the subject of the women's enfranchisement bill, i would refer you to some observations recently made in a speech at the national liberal club by sir edward grey, which accurately expresses the intention of the government. it follows (to answer your specific inquiries), that the "week" offered will be interpreted with reasonable elasticity, that the government will interpose no reasonable obstacle to the proper use of the closure, and that if (as you suggest) the bill gets through committee in the time proposed, the extra days required for report and third reading will not be refused. the government, though divided in opinion on the merits of the bill, are unanimous in their determination to give effect, not only in the letter but in the spirit, to the promise in regard to facilities which i made on their behalf before the last general election. yours etc., h. h. asquith. sceptical up to this point, the w. s. p. u. was now convinced that the government were sincere in their promise to give the bill full facilities in the following year. we held a joyful mass meeting in queen's hall and i again declared that warfare against the government was at an end. our new policy was the inauguration of a great holiday campaign, with the object of making victory in absolutely certain. electors must be aroused, members of parliament held to their allegiance. women must be organised in order that questions that vitally affect the social welfare of the country might be placed before them. i chose scotland and wales as the scenes of my holiday labours. i may say that our confidence was fully shared by the public at large. the belief in mr. asquith's pledge was accurately reflected in a leader published in _the nation_, which said: "from the moment the prime minister signed the frank and ungrudging letter to lord lytton which appeared in last saturday's newspapers, women became, in all but the legal formality, voters and citizens. for at least two years, if not for longer, nothing has been lacking save a full and fair opportunity for the house of commons to translate its convictions into the precise language of a statute. that opportunity has been promised for next session and promised in terms and under conditions which ensure success." the only thing, as we thought, that we had to fear were wrecking amendments to the bill, and in the new by-election policy which we adopted we worked against all candidates of every party who would refuse to promise, not only to support the conciliation committee to carry the bill, but also to vote against any amendment the committee thought dangerous. we believed that we had covered every possibility of disaster. but we had something yet to learn of the treachery of the asquith ministry and their capacity for cold-blooded lying. mr. lloyd-george from the first was an open enemy of the bill, but since we had no doubt of the sincerity of the prime minister, we could only conclude that mr. lloyd-george had detached himself from the main body of the government and had become the self-constituted leader of the opposition. in an address to a large liberal group mr. lloyd-george advised that liberal members be asked to ballot for a place for a "democratic measure," in order that such a measure might claim the prime minister's pledge for facilities next session. in one or two other speeches he made vague allusions to the possibilities of introducing another suffrage bill. his own idea was to amend the bill to give a vote to wives of all electors--making married women voters in virtue of their husband's qualification. the inevitable effect of such an amendment would be to wreck the bill, since it would have enfranchised about , , women in addition to the million and a half who would benefit by the original terms of the bill. such a wholesale addition to the electorate was never known in england; the number enfranchised by the reform bill of being hardly more than half a million. the reform bill of admitted a million new voters, and that of perhaps two millions. the absurdity of mr. lloyd-george's proposition was such that we did not regard it seriously. we did not allow his opposition to give us serious alarm until a day in august when a welsh member, mr. leif jones, asked the prime minister from the floor of the house, whether he was aware that his promise for facilities for the conciliation bill in the next session was being claimed exclusively for that bill, and asked further for a statement that the promised facilities would be equally granted to any other suffrage bill that might secure a second reading and was capable of amendment. mr. lloyd-george, speaking for the government, replied that they could not undertake to give facilities to more than one bill on the same subject, but that any bill which, satisfying these tests, secured a second reading, would be treated by them as falling within their engagements. astounded at this plain evasion of a sacred promise, lord lytton again wrote to the prime minister, reviewing the entire matter, and asking for another statement of the government's intentions. the following is the text of mr. asquith's reply: _my dear lytton_--i have no hesitation in saying that the promises made by, and on behalf of the government, in regard to giving facilities to the conciliation bill, will be strictly adhered to, both in letter and in spirit. yours sincerely, h. h. asquith. august , . again we were reassured, and our confidence in the premier's pledge remained unshaken throughout the campaign, although mr. lloyd-george continued to throw out hints that the promises of facilities for the bill were altogether illusory. we could not believe him, and when, two months later, i was asked in america: "when will english women vote?" i replied with perfect conviction, "next year." this was in louisville, kentucky, where i attended the annual convention of the national american woman suffrage association. i remember this third visit to the united states with especial pleasure. i was the guest in new york of dr. and mrs. john winters brannan, and through the courtesy of dr. brannan, who is at the head of all the city hospitals, i saw something of the penal system and the institutional life of america. we visited the workhouse and the penitentiary on blackwell's island, and although i am told that these places are not regarded as model institutions, i can assure my readers that they are infinitely superior to the english prisons where women are punished for trying to win their political freedom. in the american prisons, much as they lacked in some essentials, i saw no solitary confinement, no rule of silence, no deadly air of officialdom. the food was good and varied, and above all there was an air of kindness and good feeling between the officials and the prisoners that is almost wholly lacking in england. but, after all, in the united states as in other countries, the problem of the relations between unfranchised women and the state remains unsolved and unsatisfactory. one night my friends took me to that sombre and terrible institution, the night court for women. we sat on the bench with the magistrate, and he very courteously explained everything to us. the whole business was heart-breaking. all the women, with one exception--an old drunkard--were charged with solicitation. most of them were of high type by nature. it all seemed so hopeless, and it was clear that they were victims of an evil system. their conviction was a foregone conclusion. the magistrate said that in most cases the reason for their coming there was economic. one case of a little cigar maker, who said very simply that she only went on the streets when out of work, and that when in work she earned $ a week, was very tragic and touching. i could not keep the night court out of my speeches after that. the whole dreadful injustice of women's lives seemed mirrored in that place. i went as far west as the pacific coast on this visit, spending christmas day in seattle, and for the first time seeing a community where women and men existed on terms of exact equality. it was a delightful experience. as i wrote home to our members, the men of the western states seemed to my eyes eager, earnest, rough men, building a great community in a great hurry, but never have i seen greater respect, courtesy and chivalry shown to women than in that one suffrage state it has been my privilege to visit. i am getting a little ahead of my story, however. it was in november, when i was in the city of minneapolis, that a crushing blow descended on the english suffragists. i learned of this through cabled despatches in the newspapers and from private cables, and was so staggered that i could scarcely command myself sufficiently to fill my immediate engagements. this was the news, that the government had broken their plighted word and had deliberately destroyed the conciliation bill. my first wild thought, on hearing of this act of treachery, was to cancel all engagements and return to england, but my final decision to remain afterwards proved the right one, because the women at home, without a moment's loss of time, struck the answering blow, guided by that insight which has been characteristic of every act of the members of our union. i did not return to england until january , , and by that time great deeds had been done. our movement had entered upon a new and more vigorous stage of militancy. footnote: [ ] lady constance lytton's story has been thrillingly told in her book "prisons and prisoners," heinemann. book iii the women's revolution chapter i parliament had reassembled on october th, , and the first move on the part of the government was, to say the least of it, rather unpropitious. the prime minister submitted two motions, the first one empowering them to take all the time of the house during the remainder of the session, and the second guillotining discussion on the insurance bill so as to force the measure through before christmas. one day only was allotted to the clauses relating to women in that bill. these clauses were notoriously unfair; they provided for sickness insurance of about four million women and unemployment insurance of no women at all. under the provision of the bill eleven million men were ensured against sickness and about two and a half million against unemployment. women were given lower benefits for the same premium as men, and premiums paid out of the family income were credited solely to the men's account. the bill as drafted provided no form of insurance for wives, mothers and daughters who spent their lives at home working for the family. it penalised women for staying in the home, which most men agree is women's only legitimate sphere of action. the amended bill grudgingly allowed aside from maternity benefits, a small insurance, on rather difficult terms, for workingmen's wives. thus the re-elected government's first utterance to women was one of contempt; and this was followed, on november th, by the almost incredible announcement that the government intended, at the next session, to introduce a manhood suffrage bill. this announcement was not made in the house of commons, but to a deputation of men from the people's suffrage federation, a small group of people who advocated universal adult suffrage. the deputation, which was very privately arranged for, was received by mr. asquith, and the then master of elibank (chief liberal whip). the spokesman asked mr. asquith to bring in a government measure for universal adult suffrage, including adult women. the prime minister replied that the government had pledged facilities for the conciliation bill, which was as far as they were prepared to go in the matter of women's suffrage. but, he added, the government intended in the next session to introduce and to pass through all its stages a genuine reform bill which would sweep away existing qualifications for the franchise, and substitute a single qualification of residence. the bill would apply to adult males only, but it would be so framed as to be open to a woman suffrage amendment in case the house of commons desired to make that extension and amendment. this portentous announcement came like a bolt from the blue, and there was strong condemnation of the government's treachery to women. said the _saturday review_: with absolutely no demand, no ghost of a demand, for more votes for men, and with--beyond all cavil--a very strong demand for votes for women, the government announce their manhood suffrage bill and carefully evade the other question! for a naked, avowed plan of gerrymandering no government surely ever did beat this one. the _daily mail_ said that the "policy which mr. asquith proposes is absolutely indefensible." and the _evening standard and globe_ said: "we are no friends of female suffrage, but anything more contemptible than the attitude assumed by the government it is difficult to imagine." if the government hoped to deceive any one by their dishonest reference to the possibility of a woman suffrage amendment, they were disappointed. said the _evening news_: mr. asquith's bombshell will blow the conciliation bill to smithereens, for it is impossible to have a manhood suffrage for men and a property qualification for women. true, the premier consents to leave the question of women's suffrage to the house, but he knows well enough what the decision of the house will be. the conciliation bill had a chance, but the larger measure has none at all. i have quoted these newspaper leaders to show you that our opinion of the government's action was shared even by the press. universal suffrage in a country where women are in a majority of one million is not likely to happen in the lifetime of any reader of this volume, and the government's generous offer of a possible amendment was nothing more than a gratuitous insult to the suffragists. the truce, naturally, came to an abrupt end. the w. s. p. u. wrote to the prime minister, saying that consternation had been aroused by the government's announcement, and that it had been decided accordingly to send a deputation representing the women's social and political union to wait upon himself and the chancellor of the exchequer, on the evening of november st. the purpose of the deputation was to demand that the proposed manhood suffrage bill be abandoned, and that in its place should be introduced a government measure giving equal franchise rights to men and women. a similar letter was despatched to mr. lloyd-george. six times before on occasions of crisis had the w. s. p. u. requested an interview with mr. asquith, and each time they had been refused. this time the prime minister replied that he had decided to receive a deputation of the various suffrage societies on november th, "including your own society, if you desire it." it was proposed that each society appoint four representatives as members of the deputation which would be received by the prime minister and the chancellor of the exchequer. nine suffrage societies sent representatives to the meeting, our own representatives being christabel pankhurst, mrs. pethick lawrence, miss annie kenney, lady constance lytton and miss elizabeth robins. christabel and mrs. lawrence spoke for the union, and they did not hesitate to accuse the two ministers to their faces of having grossly tricked and falsely misled women. mr. asquith, in his reply to the deputation, resented these imputations. he had kept his pledge, he insisted, in regard to the conciliation bill. he was perfectly willing to give facilities to the bill, if the women preferred that to an amendment to his reform bill. moreover, he denied that he had made any new announcement. as far back as he had distinctly declared that the government regarded it as a sacred duty to bring forward a manhood suffrage bill before that parliament came to an end. it was true that the government did not carry out that binding obligation, and it was also true that until the present time nothing more was ever said about a manhood suffrage bill, but that was not the government's fault. the crisis of the lord's veto, had momentarily displaced the bill. now he merely proposed to fulfil his promise made in , and also his promise about giving facilities to the conciliation bill. he was ready to keep both promises. well he knew that those promises were incompatible, that the fulfilment of both was therefore impossible, and christabel told him so bluntly and fearlessly. "we are not satisfied," she warned him, and the prime minister said acidly: "i did not expect to satisfy _you_." the reply of the w. s. p. u. was immediate and forceful. led by mrs. pethick lawrence, our women went out with stones and hammers and broke hundreds of windows in the home office, the war and foreign offices, the board of education, the privy council office, the board of trade, the treasury, somerset house, the national liberal club, several post offices, the old banqueting hall, the london and south western bank, and a dozen other buildings, including the residence of lord haldane and mr. john burns. two hundred and twenty women were arrested and about of them sent to prison for terms varying from a week to two months. one individual protest deserves mention because of its prophetic character. in december miss emily wilding davison was arrested for attempting to set fire to a letter box at parliament street post office. in court miss davison said that she did it as a protest against the government's treachery, and as a demand that women's suffrage be included in the king's speech. "the protest was meant to be serious," she said, "and so i adopted a serious course. in past agitation for reform the next step after window-breaking was incendiarism, in order to draw the attention of the private citizens to the fact that this question of reform was their concern as well as that of women." miss davison received the severe sentence of six months' imprisonment for her deed. to this state of affairs i returned from my american tour. i had the comfort of reflecting that my imprisoned comrades were being accorded better treatment than the early prisoners had known. since early in some concessions had been granted, and some acknowledgment of the political character of our offences had been made. during the brief period when these scant concessions to justice were allowed, the hunger strike was abandoned and prison was robbed of its worst horror, forcible feeding. the situation was bad enough, however, and i could see that it might easily become a great deal worse. we had reached a stage at which the mere sympathy of members of parliament, however sincerely felt, was no longer of the slightest use. reminding our members this, in the first speeches made after returning to england i asked them to prepare themselves for more action. if women's suffrage was not included in the next king's speech we should have to make it absolutely impossible for the government to touch the question of the franchise. the king's speech, when parliament met in february, , alluded to the franchise question in very general terms. proposals, it was stated, would be brought forward for the amendment of the law with respect to the franchise and the registration of electors. this might be construed to mean that the government were going to introduce a manhood suffrage bill or a bill for the abolition of plural voting, which had been suggested in some quarters as a substitute for the manhood suffrage bill. no precise statement of the government's intentions was made, and the whole franchise question was left in a cloud of uncertainty. mr. agg gardner, a unionist member of the conciliation committee, drew the third place in the ballot, and he announced that he should reintroduce the conciliation bill. this interested us very slightly, for knowing its prospect of success to have been destroyed, for we were done with the conciliation bill forever. nothing less than a government measure would henceforth satisfy the w. s. p. u., because it had been clearly demonstrated that only a government measure would be allowed to pass the house of commons. with sublime faith, or rather with a deplorable lack of political insight, the women's liberal federation and the national union of women's suffrage societies professed full confidence in the proposed amendment to a manhood suffrage bill, but we knew how futile was that hope. we saw that the only course to take was to offer determined opposition to any measure of suffrage that did not include as an integral part, equal suffrage for men and women. on february th we held a large meeting of welcome to a number of released prisoners who had served two and three months for the window breaking demonstration that had taken place in the previous november. at this meeting we candidly surveyed the situation and agreed on a course of action which we believed would be sufficiently strong to prevent the government from advancing their threatened franchise bill. i said on this occasion: "we don't want to use any weapons that are unnecessarily strong. if the argument of the stone, that time-honoured official political argument, is sufficient, then we will never use any stronger argument. and that is the weapon and the argument that we are going to use next time. and so i say to every volunteer on our demonstration, 'be prepared to use that argument.' i am taking charge of the demonstration, and that is the argument i am going to use. i am not going to use it for any sentimental reason, i am going to use it because it is the easiest and the most readily understood. why should women go to parliament square and be battered about and insulted, and most important of all, produce less effect than when we throw stones? we tried it long enough. we submitted for years patiently to insult and assault. women had their health injured. women lost their lives. we should not have minded if that had succeeded, but that did not succeed, and we have made more progress with less hurt to ourselves by breaking glass than ever we made when we allowed them to break our bodies. "after all, is not a woman's life, is not her health, are not her limbs more valuable than panes of glass? there is no doubt of that, but most important of all, does not the breaking of glass produce more effect upon the government? if you are fighting a battle, that should dictate your choice of weapons. well, then, we are going to try this time if mere stones will do it. i do not think it will ever be necessary for us to arm ourselves as chinese women have done, but there are women who are prepared to do that if it should be necessary. in this union we don't lose our heads. we only go as far as we are obliged to go in order to win, and we are going forward with this next protest demonstration in full faith that this plan of campaign, initiated by our friends whom we honour to-night, will on this next occasion prove effective." ever since militancy took on the form of destruction of property the public generally, both at home and abroad, has expressed curiosity as to the logical connection between acts such as breaking windows, firing pillar boxes, et cetera, and the vote. only a complete lack of historical knowledge excuses that curiosity. for every advance of men's political freedom has been marked with violence and the destruction of property. usually the advance has been marked by war, which is called glorious. sometimes it has been marked by riotings, which are deemed less glorious but are at least effective. that speech of mine, just quoted, will probably strike the reader as one inciting to violence and illegal action, things as a rule and in ordinary circumstances quite inexcusable. well, i will call the reader's attention to what was, in this connection, a rather singular coincidence. at the very hour when i was making that speech, advising my audience of the political necessity of physical revolt, a responsible member of the government, in another hall, in another city, was telling his audience precisely the same thing. this cabinet minister, the right honourable c. e. h. hobhouse, addressing a large anti-suffrage meeting in his constituency of bristol, said that the suffrage movement was not a political issue because its adherents had failed to prove that behind this movement existed a large public demand. he declared that "in the case of the suffrage demand there has not been the kind of popular sentimental uprising which accounted for nottingham castle in or the hyde park railings in . there has not been a great ebullition of popular feeling." the "popular sentimental uprising" to which mr. hobhouse alluded was the burning to the ground of the castle of the anti-suffrage duke of newcastle, and of colwick castle, the country seat of another of the leaders of the opposition against the franchise bill. the militant men of that time did not select uninhabited buildings to be fired. they burned both these historic residences over their owners' heads. indeed, the wife of the owner of colwick castle died as a result of shock and exposure on that occasion. no arrests were made, no men imprisoned. on the contrary the king sent for the premier, and begged the whig ministers favourable to the franchise bill not to resign, and intimated that this was also the wish of the lords who had thrown out the bill. molesworth's history of england says: these declarations were imperatively called for. the danger was imminent and the ministers knew it and did all that lay in their power to tranquillise the people, and to assure them that the bill was only delayed and not finally defeated. for a time the people believed this, but soon they lost patience, and seeing signs of a renewed activity on the part of the anti-suffragists, they became aggressive again. bristol, the very city in which mr. hobhouse made his speech, was set on fire. the militant reformers burned the new gaol, the toll houses, the bishop's palace, both sides of queen's square, including the mansion house, the custom house, the excise office, many warehouses, and other private property, the whole valued at over £ , --five hundred thousand dollars. it was as a result of such violence, and in fear of more violence, that the reform bill was hurried through parliament and became law in june, . our demonstration, so mild by comparison with english men's political agitation, was announced for march th, and the announcement created much public alarm. sir william byles gave notice that he would "ask the secretary of state for the home department whether his attention had been drawn to a speech by mrs. pankhurst last friday night, openly and emphatically inciting her hearers to violent outrage and the destruction of property, and threatening the use of firearms if stones did not prove sufficiently effective; and what steps he proposes to take to protect society from this outbreak of lawlessness." the question was duly asked, and the home secretary replied that his attention had been called to the speech, but that it would not be desirable in the public interest to say more than this at present. whatever preparations the police department were making to prevent the demonstration, they failed because, while as usual, we were able to calculate exactly what the police department were going to do, they were utterly unable to calculate what we were going to do. we had planned a demonstration for march th, and this one we announced. we planned another demonstration for march st, but this one we did not announce. late in the afternoon of friday, march st, i drove in a taxicab, accompanied by the hon. secretary of the union, mrs. tuke and another of our members, to no. downing street, the official residence of the prime minister. it was exactly half past five when we alighted from the cab and threw our stones, four of them, through the window panes. as we expected we were promptly arrested and taken to cannon row police station. the hour that followed will long be remembered in london. at intervals of fifteen minutes relays of women who had volunteered for the demonstration did their work. the first smashing of glass occurred in the haymarket and piccadilly, and greatly startled and alarmed both pedestrians and police. a large number of the women were arrested, and everybody thought that this ended the affair. but before the excited populace and the frustrated shop owners' first exclamation had died down, before the police had reached the station with their prisoners, the ominous crashing and splintering of plate glass began again, this time along both sides of regent street and the strand. a furious rush of police and people towards the second scene of action ensued. while their attention was being taken up with occurrences in this quarter, the third relay of women began breaking the windows in oxford circus and bond street. the demonstration ended for the day at half past six with the breaking of many windows in the strand. the _daily mail_ gave this graphic account of the demonstration: from every part of the crowded and brilliantly lighted streets came the crash of splintered glass. people started as a window shattered at their side; suddenly there was another crash in front of them; on the other side of the street; behind--everywhere. scared shop assistants came running out to the pavements; traffic stopped; policemen sprang this way and that; five minutes later the streets were a procession of excited groups, each surrounding a woman wrecker being led in custody to the nearest police station. meanwhile the shopping quarter of london had plunged itself into a sudden twilight. shutters were hurriedly fitted; the rattle of iron curtains being drawn came from every side. guards of commissionaires and shopmen were quickly mounted, and any unaccompanied lady in sight, especially if she carried a hand bag, became an object of menacing suspicion. at the hour when this demonstration was being made a conference was being held at scotland yard to determine what should be done to prevent the smashing of windows on the coming monday night. but we had not announced the hour of our march th protest. i had in my speech simply invited women to assemble in parliament square on the evening of march th, and they accepted the invitation. said the _daily telegraph_: by six o'clock the neighbourhood houses of parliament were in a stage of siege. shop keepers in almost every instance barricaded their premises, removed goods from the windows and prepared for the worst. a few minutes before six o'clock a huge force of police, amounting to nearly three thousand constables, was posted in parliament square, whitehall, and streets adjoining, and large reserves were gathered in westminster hall and scotland yard. by half past eight whitehall was packed from end to end with police and public. mounted constables rode up and down whitehall keeping the people on the move. at no time was there any sign of danger.... the demonstration had taken place in the morning, when a hundred or more women walked quietly into knightsbridge and walking singly along the streets demolished nearly every pane of glass they passed. taken by surprise the police arrested as many as they could reach, but most of the women escaped. [illustration: the argument of the broken window pane] for that two days' work something like two hundred suffragettes were taken to the various police stations, and for days the long procession of women streamed through the courts. the dismayed magistrates found themselves facing, not only former rebels, but many new ones, in some cases, women whose names, like that of dr. ethel smyth, the composer, were famous throughout europe. these women, when arraigned, made clear and lucid statements of their positions and their motives, but magistrates are not schooled to examine motives. they are trained to think only of laws and mostly of laws protecting property. their ears are not tuned to listen to words like those spoken by one of the prisoners, who said: "we have tried every means--processions and meetings--which were of no avail. we have tried demonstrations, and now at last we have to break windows. i wish i had broken more. i am not in the least repentant. our women are working in far worse condition than the striking miners. i have seen widows struggling to bring up their children. only two out of every five are fit to be soldiers. what is the good of a country like ours? england is absolutely on the wane. you only have one point of view, and that is the men's, and while men have done the best they could, they cannot go far without the women and the women's views. we believe the whole is in a muddle too horrible to think of." the coal miners were at that time engaging in a terrible strike, and the government, instead of arresting the leaders, were trying to come to terms of peace with them. i reminded the magistrate of this fact, and i told him that what the women had done was but a fleabite by comparison with the miners' violence. i said further: "i hope our demonstration will be enough to show the government that the women's agitation is going on. if not, if you send me to prison, i will go further to show that women who have to help pay the salaries of cabinet ministers, and your salary too, sir, are going to have some voice in the making of the laws they have to obey." i was sentenced to two months' imprisonment. others received sentences ranging from one week to two months, while those who were accused of breaking glass above five pounds in value, were committed for trial in higher courts. they were sent to prison on remand, and when the last of us were behind the grim gates, not only holloway but three other women's prisons were taxed to provide for so many extra inmates. it was a stormy imprisonment for most of us. a great many of the women had received, in addition to their sentences, "hard labour," and this meant that the privileges at that time accorded to suffragettes, as political offenders, were withheld. the women adopted the hunger strike as a protest, but as the hint was conveyed to me that the privileges would be restored, i advised a cessation of the strike. the remand prisoners demanded that i be allowed to exercise with them, and when this was not answered they broke the windows of their cells. the other suffrage prisoners, hearing the sound of shattered glass, and the singing of the marseillaise, immediately broke their windows. the time had long gone by when the suffragettes submitted meekly to prison discipline. and so passed the first days of my imprisonment. chapter ii the panic stricken government did not rest content with the imprisonment of the window breakers. they sought, in a blind and blundering fashion, to perform the impossible feat of wrecking at a blow the entire militant movement. governments have always tried to crush reform movements, to destroy ideas, to kill the thing that cannot die. without regard to history, which shows that no government have ever succeeded in doing this, they go on trying in the old, senseless way. for days before the two demonstrations described in the last chapter our headquarters in clement's inn had been under constant observation by the police, and on the evening of march th an inspector of police and a large force of detectives suddenly descended on the place, with warrants for the arrest of christabel pankhurst and mr. and mrs. pethick lawrence, who with mrs. tuke and myself were charged with "conspiring to incite certain persons to commit malicious damage to property." when the officers entered they found mr. pethick lawrence at work in his office, and mrs. pethick lawrence in her flat upstairs. my daughter was not in the building. the lawrences, after making brief preparations drove in a taxicab to bow street station, where they spent the night. the police remained in possession of the offices, and detectives were despatched to find and arrest christabel. but that arrest never took place. christabel pankhurst eluded the entire force of detectives and uniformed police, trained hunters of human prey. christabel had gone home, and at first, on hearing of the arrest of mr. and mrs. pethick lawrence, had taken her own arrest for granted. a little reflection however showed her the danger in which the union would stand if completely deprived of its accustomed leadership, and seeing that it was her duty to avoid arrest, she quietly left the house. she spent that night with friends who, next morning, helped her to make the necessary arrangements and saw her safely away from london. the same night she reached paris, where she has since remained. my relief, when i learned of her flight, was very great, because i knew that whatever happened to the lawrences and myself, the movement would be wisely directed, this in spite of the fact that the police remained in full possession of headquarters. the offices in clement's inn were thoroughly ransacked by the police, in a determined effort to secure evidence of conspiracy. they went through every desk, file and cabinet, taking away with them two cab loads of books and papers, including all my private papers, photographs of my children in infancy, and letters sent me by my husband long ago. some of these i never saw again. the police also terrorised the printer of our weekly newspaper, and although the paper came out as usual, about a third of its columns were left blank. the headlines, however, with the ensuing space mere white paper produced a most dramatic effect. "history teaches" read one headline to a blank space, plainly indicating that the government were not willing to let the public know some of the things that history teaches. "women's moderation" suggested that the destroyed paragraph called for comparison of the women's window breaking with men's greater violence in the past. most eloquent of all was the editorial page, absolutely blank except for the headline, "a challenge!" and the name at the foot of the last column, christabel pankhurst. what words could have breathed a prouder defiance, a more implacable resolve? christabel was gone, out of the clutches of the government, yet she remained in complete possession of the field. for weeks the search for her went relentlessly on. police searched every railway station, every train, every sea port. the police of every city in the kingdom were furnished with her portrait. every amateur sherlock holmes in england joined with the police in finding her. she was reported in a dozen cities, including new york. but all the time she was living quietly in paris, in daily communication with the workers in london, who within a few days were once more at their appointed tasks. my daughter has remained in france ever since. meanwhile, i found myself in the anomalous position of a convicted offender serving two months' prison sentence, and of a prisoner on remand waiting to be charged with a more serious offence. i was in very bad health, having been placed in a damp and unwarmed third division cell, the result being an acute attack of bronchitis. i addressed a letter to the home secretary, telling him of my condition, and urging the necessity of liberty to recover my health and to prepare my case for trial. i asked for release on bail, the plain right of a remand prisoner, and i offered if bail were granted now to serve the rest of my two months' sentence later on. the sole concessions granted me, however, were removal to a better cell and the right to see my secretary and my solicitor, but only in the presence of a wardress and a member of the prison clerical staff. on march th mr. and mrs. pethick lawrence, mrs. tuke and myself were brought up for preliminary hearing on the charge of having, on november , , and on various other dates "conspired and combined together unlawfully and maliciously to commit damage, etc." the case opened on march th in a crowded courtroom in which i saw many friends. mr. bodkin, who appeared for the prosecution, made a very long address, in which he endeavoured to prove that the women's social and political union was a highly developed organisation of most sinister character. he produced much documentary evidence, some of it of such amusing character that the court rocked with stifled laughter, and the judge was obliged to conceal his smiles behind his hand. mr. bodkin cited our code book with the assistance of which we were able to communicate private messages. his voice sank to a scandalised half whisper as he stated the fact that we had presumed to include the sacred persons of the government in our private code. "we find," said mr. bodkin portentously, "that public men in the service of his majesty as members of the cabinet are tabulated here under code names. we find that the cabinet collectively has its code word "trees," and individual members of the cabinet are designated by the name, sometimes of trees, but i am also bound to say the commonest weeds as well." here a ripple of laughter interrupted. mr. bodkin frowned heavily, and continued: "there is one," he said solemnly, "called pansy; another one--more complimentary--roses, another, violets, and so on." each of the defendants was designated by a code letter. thus mrs. pankhurst was identified by the letter f; mrs. pethick lawrence, d; miss christabel pankhurst, e. every public building, including the house of commons, had its code name. the deadly possibilities of the code were illustrated by a telegram found in one of the files. it read: "silk, thistle, pansy, duck, wool, e. q." translated by the aid of the code book the telegram read: "will you protest asquith's public meeting to-morrow evening but don't get arrested unless success depends on it. wire back to christabel pankhurst, clements inn." more laughter followed these revelations, which after all proved no more than the business-like methods employed by the w. s. p. u. the laughter proved something a great deal more significant, for it was a plain indication that the old respect in which cabinet ministers had been held was no more. we had torn the veil from their sacro-sanct personalities and shown them for what they were, mean and scheming politicians. more serious from the point of view of prosecution was the evidence brought in by members of the police department in regard to the occurrences of march st and th. the policemen who arrested me and my two companions in downing street on march st, after we had broken the windows in the premier's house, testified that following the arrest, we had handed him our reserve stock of stones, and that they were all alike, heavy flints. other prisoners were found in possession of similar stones, tending to prove that the stones all came from one source. other officers testified to the methodical manner in which the window breaking of march st and th was carried out, how systematically it had been planned and how soldierly had been the behaviour of the women. by twos and threes march th they had been seen to go to the headquarters at clement's inn, carrying handbags, which they deposited at headquarters, and had then gone on to a meeting at the pavillion music hall. the police attended the meeting, which was the usual rally preceding a demonstration or a deputation. at five o'clock the meeting adjourned and the women went out, as if to go home. the police observed that many of them, still in groups of twos and threes, went to the gardenia restaurant in catherine street, strand, a place where many suffragette breakfasts and teas had been held. the police thought that about one hundred and fifty women congregated there on march th. they remained until seven o'clock, and then, under the watching eyes of the police, they sauntered out and dispersed. a few minutes later, when there was no reason to expect such a thing, the noise was heard, in many streets, of wholesale window smashing. the police authorities made much of the fact that the women who had left their bags at headquarters and were afterwards arrested, were bailed out that night by mr. pethick lawrence. the similarity of the stones used; the gathering of so many women in one building, prepared for arrest; the waiting at the gardenia restaurant; the apparent dispersal; the simultaneous destruction in many localities of plate glass, and the bailing of prisoners by a person connected with the headquarters mentioned, certainly showed a carefully worked out plan. only a public trial of the defendants could establish whether or not the plan was a conspiracy. on the second day of the ministerial hearing, mrs. tuke, who had been in the prison infirmary for twenty days and had to be attended in court by a trained nurse, was admitted to bail. mr. pethick lawrence made a strong plea for bail for himself and his wife, pointing out that they had been in prison on remand for two weeks and were entitled to bail. i also demanded the privileges of a prisoner on remand. both of these pleas were denied by the court, but a few days later the home secretary wrote to my solicitor that the remainder of my sentence of two months would be remitted until after the conspiracy trail at bow street. mr. and mrs. pethick lawrence had already been admitted to bail. public opinion forced the home secretary to make these concessions, as it is well known that it is next to impossible to prepare a defence while confined in prison. aside from the terrible effect of prison on one's body and nerves, there is the difficulty of consulting documents and securing other necessary data to be considered. on april th the ministerial hearing ended in the acquittal of mrs. tuke, whose activities in the w. s. p. u. were shown to be purely secretarial. mr. and mrs. pethick lawrence and myself were committed for trial at the next session of the central criminal court, beginning april rd. because of the weak state of my health the judge was with great difficulty prevailed upon to postpone the trial two weeks and it was, therefore, not until may th that the case was opened. the trial at old bailey is a thing that i shall never forget. the scene is clear before me as i write, the judge impressively bewigged and scarlet robed, dominating the crowded courtroom, the solicitors at their table, the jury, and looking very far away, the anxious pale faces of our friends who crowded the narrow galleries. by the veriest irony of fate this judge, lord coleridge, was the son of sir charles coleridge who, in the year , appeared with my husband, dr. pankhurst, in the famous case of chorlton v. lings, and sought to establish that women were persons, and as such were entitled to the parliamentary vote. to make the irony still deeper the attorney general, sir rufus isaacs, who appeared as counsel for the prosecution against women militants, himself had been guilty of remarkable speeches in corroboration of our point of view. in a speech made in , in relation to the abolition of the lords' veto, sir rufus made the statement that, although the agitation against privilege was being peacefully conducted, the indignation behind it was very intense. said sir rufus: "formerly when the great mass of the people were voteless they had to do something violent in order to show what they felt; to-day the elector's bullet is his ballot. let no one be deceived, therefore, because in this present struggle everything is peaceful and orderly, in contrast to the disorderliness of other great struggles of the past." we wondered if the man who said these words could fail to realise that voteless women, deprived of every constitutional means of righting their grievances, were also obliged to do something violent in order to show how they felt. his opening address removed all doubt on that score. sir rufus isaacs has a clear-cut, hawk-like face, deep eyes, and a somewhat world worn air. the first words he spoke were so astoundingly unfair that i could hardly believe that i heard them aright. he began his address to the jury by telling them that they must not, on any account, connect the act of the defendants with any political agitation. "i am very anxious to impress upon you," he said, "from the moment we begin to deal with the facts of this case, that all questions of whether a woman is entitled to the parliamentary franchise, whether she should have the same right of franchise as a man, are questions which are in no sense involved in the trial of this issue.... therefore, i ask you to discard altogether from the consideration of the matters which will be placed before you any viewpoint you may have on this no doubt very important political issue." nevertheless sir rufus added in the course of his remarks that he feared that it would not be possible to keep out of the conduct of the case various references to political events, and of course the entire trial, from beginning to end, showed clearly that the case was what mr. tim healey, mrs. pethick lawrence's counsel, called it, a great state trial. proceeding, the attorney general described the w. s. p. u., which he said he thought had been in existence since , and had used what were known as militant methods. in the association had become annoyed by the prime minister because he would not make women's suffrage what was called a government question. in november, , the prime minister announced the introduction of a manhood suffrage bill. from that time on the defendants set to work to carry out a campaign which would have meant nothing less than anarchy. women were to be induced to act together at a given time, in different given places, in such numbers that the police should be paralysed by the number of persons breaking the law, in order, to use the defendant's own words, "to bring the government to its knees." after designating the respective positions held by the four defendants in the w. s. p. u., sir rufus went on to relate the events which resulted in the smashing of plate glass windows valued at some two thousand pounds, and the imprisonment of over two hundred women who were incited to their deeds by the conspirators in the dock. he entirely ignored the motive of the acts in question, and he treated the whole affair as if the women had been burglars. this inverted statement of the matter, though accurate enough as to facts, was such as might have been given by king john of the signing of magna charta. a very great number of witnesses were examined, a large number of them being policemen, and their testimony, and our cross examination disclosed the startling fact that there exists in england a special band of secret police entirely engaged in political work. these men, seventy-five in number, form what is known as the political branch of the criminal investigation department of the police. they go about in disguise, and their sole duty is to shadow suffragettes and other political workers. they follow certain political workers from their homes to their places of business, to their social pleasures, into tea rooms and restaurants, even to the theatre. they pursue unsuspecting people in taxicabs, sit beside them in omnibuses. above all they take down speeches. in fact the system is exactly like the secret police system of russia. mr. pethick lawrence and i spoke in our own defence, and mr. healey m. p. defended mrs. pethick lawrence. i cannot give our speeches in full, but i should like to include as much of them as will serve to make the entire situation clear to the reader. mr. lawrence spoke first at the opening of the case. he began by giving an account of the suffrage movement and why he felt the enfranchisement of women appeared to him a question so grave that it warranted strong measures in its pursuit. he sketched briefly the history of the women's social and political union, from the time when christabel pankhurst and annie kenney were thrown out of sir edward grey's meeting and imprisoned for asking a political question, to the torpedoing of the conciliation bill. "the case that i have to put before you," he said, "is that neither the conspiracy nor the incitement is ours; but that the conspiracy is a conspiracy of the cabinet who are responsible for the government of this country; and that the incitement is the incitement of the ministers of the crown." and he did this most effectually not only by telling of the disgraceful trickery and deceit with which the government had misled the suffragists in the matter of suffrage bills, but by giving the plain words in which members of the cabinet had advised the women that they would never get the vote until they had learned to fight for it as men had fought in the past. when it came my turn to speak, realising that the average man is profoundly ignorant of the history of the women's movement--because the press has never adequately or truthfully chronicled the movement--i told the jury, as briefly as i could, the story of the forty years' peaceful agitation before my daughters and i resolved that we would give our lives to the work of getting the vote for women, and that we should use whatever means of getting the vote that were necessary to success. "we founded the women's social and political union," i said, "in . our first intention was to try and influence the particular political party, which was then coming into power, to make this question of the enfranchisement of women their own question and to push it. it took some little time to convince us--and i need not weary you with the history of all that has happened--but it took some little time to convince us that that was no use; that we could not secure things in that way. then in we faced the hard facts. we realised that there was a press boycott against women's suffrage. our speeches at public meetings were not reported, our letters to the editors, were not published, even if we implored the editors; even the things relating to women's suffrage in parliament were not recorded. they said the subject was not of sufficient public interest to be reported in the press, and they were not prepared to report it. then with regard to the men politicians in : we realised how shadowy were the fine phrases about democracy, about human equality, used by the gentlemen who were then coming into power. they meant to ignore the women--there was no doubt whatever about that. for in the official documents coming from the liberal party on the eve of the election, there were sentences like this: 'what the country wants is a simple measure of manhood suffrage.' there was no room for the inclusion of women. we knew perfectly well that if there was to be franchise reform at all, the liberal party which was then coming into power did not mean votes for women, in spite of all the pledges of members; in spite of the fact that a majority of the house of commons, especially on the liberal side, were pledged to it--it did not mean that they were going to put it into practice. and so we found some way of forcing their attention to this question. "now i come to the facts with regard to militancy. we realised that the plans we had in our minds would involve great sacrifice on our part, that it might cost us all we had. we were at that time a little organisation, composed in the main of working women, the wives and daughters of working men. and my daughters and i took a leading part, naturally, because we thought the thing out, and, to a certain extent, because we were of better social position than most of our members, and we felt a sense of responsibility." i described the events that marked the first days of our work, the scene in free trade hall, manchester, when my daughter and her companion were arrested for the crime of asking a question of a politician, and i continued: "what did they do next? (i want you to realise that no step we have taken forward has been taken until after some act of repression on the part of our enemy, the government--because it is the government that is our enemy; it is not the members of parliament, it is not the men in the country; it is the government in power alone that can give us the vote. it is the government alone that we regard as our enemy, and the whole of our agitation is directed to bringing just as much pressure as necessary upon those people who can deal with our grievance.) the next step the women took was to ask questions during the course of meetings, because, as i told you, these gentlemen gave them no opportunity of asking them afterwards. and then began the interjections of which we have heard, the interference with the right to hold public meetings, the interference with the right of free speech, of which we have heard, for which these women, these hooligan women, as they have been called--have been denounced. i ask you, gentlemen, to imagine the amount of courage which it needs for a woman to undertake that kind of work. when men come to interrupt women's meetings, they come in gangs, with noisy instruments, and sing and shout together, and stamp their feet. but when women have gone to cabinet ministers' meetings--only to interrupt cabinet ministers and nobody else--they have gone singly. and it has become increasingly difficult for them to get in, because as a result of the women's methods there has developed the system of admission by ticket and the exclusion of women--a thing which in my liberal days would have been thought a very disgraceful thing at liberal meetings. but this ticket system developed, and so the women could only get in with very great difficulty. women have concealed themselves for thirty-six hours in dangerous positions, under the platforms, in the organs, wherever they could get a vantage point. they waited starving in the cold, sometimes on the roof exposed to a winter's night, just to get a chance of saying in the course of a cabinet minister's speech, 'when is the liberal government going to put its promises into practice?' that has been the form militancy took in its further development." i went over the whole matter of our peaceful deputations, and of the violence with which they were invariably met; of our arrests and the farcical police court trials, where the mere evidence of policemen's unsupported statements sent us to prison for long terms; of the falsehoods told of us in the house of commons by responsible members of the government--tales of women scratching and biting policemen and using hatpins--and i accused the government of making these attacks against women who were powerless to defend themselves because they feared the women and desired to crush the agitation represented by our organisation. "now it has been stated in this court," i said, "that it is not the women's social and political union that is in the court, but that it is certain defendants. the action of the government, gentlemen, is certainly against the defendants who are before you here to-day, but it is also against the women's social and political union. the intention is to crush that organisation. and this intention apparently was arrived at after i had been sent to prison for two months for breaking a pane of glass worth, i am told, s. d., the punishment which i accepted because i was a leader of this movement, though it was an extraordinary punishment to inflict for so small an act of damages as i had committed. i accepted it as the punishment for a leader of an agitation disagreeable to the government; and while i was there this prosecution started. they thought they would make a clean sweep of the people who they considered were the political brains of the movement. we have got many false friends in the cabinet--people who by their words appear to be well-meaning towards the cause of women's suffrage. and they thought that if they could get the leaders of the union out of the way, it would result in the indefinite postponement and settlement of the question in this country. well, they have not succeeded in their design, and even if they had got all the so-called leaders of this movement out of their way they would not have succeeded even then. now why have they not put the union in the dock? we have a democratic government, so-called. this women's social and political union is not a collection of hysterical and unimportant wild women, as has been suggested to you, but it is an important organisation, which numbers amongst its membership very important people. it is composed of women of all classes of the community, women who have influence in their particular organisations as working women; women who have influence in professional organisations as professional women; women of social importance; women even of royal rank are amongst the members of this organisation, and so it would not pay a democratic government to deal with this organisation as a whole. "they hoped that by taking away the people that they thought guided the political fortunes of the organisation they would break the organisation down. they thought that if they put out of the way the influential members of the organisation they, as one member of the cabinet, i believe, said, would crush the movement and get it 'on the run.' well, governments have many times been mistaken, gentlemen, and i venture to suggest to you that governments are mistaken again. i think the answer to the government was given at the albert hall meeting held immediately after our arrest. within a few minutes, without the eloquence of mrs. pethick lawrence, without the appeals of the people who have been called the leaders of this movement, in a very few minutes £ , was subscribed for the carrying on of this movement. "now a movement like that, supported like that, is not a wild, hysterical movement. it is not a movement of misguided people. it is a very serious movement. women, i submit, like our members, and women, i venture to say, like the two women, and like the man who are in the dock to-day, are not people to undertake a thing like this lightly. may i just try to make you feel what it is that has made this movement the gigantic size it is from the very small beginnings it had? it is one of the biggest movements of modern times. a movement which is not only an influence, perhaps not yet recognised, in this country, but is influencing the women's movement all over the world. is there anything more marvellous in modern times than the kind of spontaneous outburst in every country of this woman's movement? even in china--and i think it somewhat of a disgrace to englishmen--even in china women have won the vote, as an outcome of a successful revolution, with which, i dare say, members of his majesty's government sympathise--a bloody revolution. "one more word on that point. when i was in prison the second time, for three months as a common criminal for no greater offence than the issue of a handbill--less inflammatory in its terms than some of the speeches of members of the government who prosecute us here--during that time, through the efforts of a member of parliament, there was secured for me permission to have the daily paper in prison, and the first thing i read in the daily press was this: that the government was at that moment fêting the members of the young turkish revolutionary party, gentlemen who had invaded the privacy of the sultan's home--we used to hear a great deal about invading the privacy of mr. asquith's residence when we ventured to ring his door bell--gentlemen who had killed and slain, and had been successful in their revolution, while we women had never thrown a stone--for none of us was imprisoned for stone throwing, but merely for taking the part we had then taken in this organisation. there we were imprisoned while these political murderers were being fêted by the very government who imprisoned us, and were being congratulated on the success of their revolution. now i ask you, was it to be wondered at that women said to themselves: 'perhaps it is that we have not done enough. perhaps it is that these gentlemen do not understand womenfolk. perhaps they do not realise women's ways, and because we have not done the things that men have done, they may think we are not in earnest.' "and then we come down to this last business of all, when we have responsible statesmen like mr. hobhouse saying that there had never been any sentimental uprising, no expression of feeling like that which led to the burning down of nottingham castle. can you wonder, then, that we decided we should have to nerve ourselves to do more, and can you understand why we cast about to find a way, as women will, that would not involve loss of human life and the maiming of human beings, because women care more about human life than men, and i think it is quite natural that we should, for we know what life costs. we risk our lives when men are born. now, i want to say this deliberately as a leader of this movement. we have tried to hold it back, we have tried to keep it from going beyond bounds, and i have never felt a prouder woman than i did one night when a police constable said to me, after one of these demonstrations, 'had this been a man's demonstration, there would have been bloodshed long ago.' well, my lord, there has not been any bloodshed except on the part of the women themselves--these so-called militant women. violence has been done to us, and i who stand before you in this dock have lost a dear sister in the course of this agitation. she died within three days of coming out of prison, a little more than a year ago. these are things which, wherever we are, we do not say very much about. we cannot keep cheery, we cannot keep cheerful, we cannot keep the right kind of spirit, which means success, if we dwell too much upon the hard part of our agitation. but i do say this, gentlemen, that whatever in future you may think of us, you will say this about us, that whatever our enemies may say, we have always put up an honourable fight, and taken no unfair means of defeating our opponents, although they have not always been people who have acted so honourably towards us. "we have assaulted no one; we have done no hurt to any one; and it was not until 'black friday'--and what happened on 'black friday' is that we had a new home secretary, and there appeared to be new orders given to the police, because the police on that occasion showed a kind of ferocity in dealing with the women that they had never done before, and the women came to us and said: 'we cannot bear this'--it was not until then we felt this new form of repression should compel us to take another step. that is the question of 'black friday,' and i want to say here and now that every effort was made after 'black friday' to get an open public judicial inquiry into the doings of 'black friday,' as to the instructions given to the police. that inquiry was refused; but an informal inquiry was held by a man, whose name will carry conviction as to his status and moral integrity on the one side of the great political parties, and a man of equal standing on the liberal side. these two men were lord robert cecil and mr. ellis griffith. they held a private inquiry, had women before them, took their evidence, examined that evidence, and after hearing it said that they believed what the women had told them was substantially true, and that they thought there was good cause for that inquiry to be held. that was embodied in a report. to show you our difficulties, lord robert cecil, in a speech at the criterion restaurant, spoke on this question. he called upon the government to hold this inquiry, and not one word of that speech was reported in any morning paper. that is the sort of thing we have had to face, and i welcome standing here, if only for the purpose of getting these facts out, and i challenge the attorney general to institute an inquiry into these proceedings--not that kind of inquiry of sending their inspectors to holloway and accepting what they are told by the officials--but to open a public inquiry, with a jury, if he likes, to deal with our grievances against the government and the methods of this agitation. "i say it is not the defendants who have conspired, but the government who have conspired against us to crush this agitation; but however the matter may be decided, we are content to abide by the verdict of posterity. we are not the kind of people who like to brag a lot; we are not the kind of people who would bring ourselves into this position unless we were convinced that it was the only way. i have tried--all my life i have worked for this question--i have tried arguments, i have tried persuasion. i have addressed a greater number of public meetings, perhaps, than any person in this court, and i have never addressed one meeting where substantially the opinion of the meeting--not a ticket meeting, but an open meeting, for i have never addressed any other kind of a meeting--has not been that where women bear burdens and share responsibilities like men they should be given the privileges that men enjoy. i am convinced that public opinion is with us--that it has been stifled--wilfully stifled--so that in a public court of justice one is glad of being allowed to speak on this question." the attorney general's summing up for the prosecution was very largely a defence of the liberal party and its course in regard to woman suffrage legislation. therefore, mr. tim healey, in his defence of mrs. pethick lawrence, did well to lay stress on the political character of the conspiracy charge and trial. he said: "it is no doubt a very useful thing when you have political opponents to be able to set the law in motion against them. i have not the smallest doubt it would be a very convenient thing, if they had the courage to do it, to shut up the whole of his majesty's opposition while the present government is in office--to lock up all the men of lustre and distinction in our public forum and on our public platforms--all the carsons, f. e. smiths, bonar laws, and so on. it would be a most convenient thing to end the whole thing, as it would be to end women's agitation in the form of the indictment. gentlemen of the jury, whatever words have been spoken by mutual opponents, whatever instructions have been addressed, not to feeble females, but to men who boast of drilling and of arms, they have not had the courage to prosecute anybody, except women, by means of an indictment. yet the government of my learned friend have selected two dates as cardinal dates, and they ask you to pass judgment upon the prisoners at the bar, and to say that, without rhyme or reason, taking the course suggested without provocation, these responsible, well-bred, educated, university people, have suddenly, in the words of the indictment, wickedly and with malice aforethought engaged in these criminal designs. "gentlemen of the jury, the first thing i would ask in that connection is this: what is there in the course of this demand put forward by women which should have excited the treatment at the hands of his majesty's ministers which this movement, according to the documents which are in evidence before me, has received? i should suppose that the essence of all government is the smooth conduct of affairs, so that those who enjoy high station, great emoluments, should not be parties against whom the accusation of provoking civic strife and breeding public turmoil should be brought. what do we find? we find that, in regard to the treatment of the demand which had always been put forward humbly, respectably, respectfully, in its origin, by those who have received trade unionists, anti-vaccinators, deceased wife's sisters, and all other forms of political demand, and who have received them humbly and yielded to them, we find that when these people advocating this particular form of civic reform request an audience, request admission, request even to have their petitions respectfully received, they have met, judicially, at all events, with a flat and solemn negative. that is the beginning of this unhappy spirit bred in the minds of persons like the defendants, persons like those against whom evidence has been tendered--which has led to your being empanelled in that box to-day. and i put it to you when you are considering whether it is the incitement of my clients or the conduct of ministers that have led to these events--whether i cannot ask you to say that even a fair apportionment of blame should not rest upon more responsible shoulders, and whether you should go out of your way to say that these persons in the dock alone are guilty." in closing mr. healey reverted to the political character of the trial. "the government have undertaken this prosecution," he declared, "to seclude for a considerable period their chief opponents. they hope there will be at public meetings which they attend no more inconvenient cries of 'votes for women.' i cannot conceive any other object which they could have in bringing the prosecution. i have expressed my regret at the loss which the shopkeepers, tradesmen and others have suffered. i regret it deeply. i regret that any person should bring loss or suffering upon innocent people. but i ask you to say that the law has already been sufficiently vindicated by the punishment of the immediate authors of the deed. what can be gained? does justice gain? "i almost hesitate to treat this as a legal inquiry. i regard it as a vindictive political act. of all the astonishing acts that have ever been brought into a public court against a prisoner i cannot help feeling the charge against mr. pethick lawrence is the most astonishing. he ventured to attend at some police courts and gave bail for women who had been arrested in endeavouring, as i understand, to present petitions to parliament or to have resort to violence. i do not complain of the way in which my learned friend has conducted the prosecution, but i do complain of the police methods--inquiring into the homes and the domestic circumstances of the prisoners, obtaining their papers, taking their newspaper, going into their banking account, bringing up their bankers here to say what is their balance; and i do say that in none of the prosecutions of the past have smaller methods belittled a great state trial, because, look at it as you will, you cannot get away from it that this is a great state trial. it is not the women who are on trial. it is the men. it is the system of government which is upon its trial. it is this method of rolling the dice by fifty-four counts in an indictment without showing to what any bit of evidence is fairly attributable; the system is on its trial--a system whereby every innocent act in public life is sought to be enmeshed in a conspiracy." the jury was absent for more than an hour, showing that they had some difficulty in agreeing upon a verdict. when they returned it was plain from their strained countenances that they were labouring under deep feeling. the foreman's voice shook as he pronounced the verdict, guilty as charged, and he had hard work to control his emotion as he added: "your lordship, we unanimously desire to express the hope that, taking into consideration the undoubtedly pure motives that underlie the agitation that has led to this trouble, you will be pleased to exercise the utmost clemency and leniency in dealing with the case." a burst of applause followed this plea. then mr. pethick lawrence arose and asked to say a few words before sentence was pronounced. he said that it must be evident, aside from the jury's recommendation, that we had been actuated by political motives, and that we were in fact political offenders. it had been decided in english courts that political offenders were different from ordinary offenders, and mr. lawrence cited the case of a swiss subject whose extradition was refused because of the political character of his offence. the court on that occasion had declared that even if the crime were murder committed with a political motive it was a political crime. mr. lawrence also reminded the judge of the case of the late mr. w. t. stead, convicted of a crime, yet because of the unusual motive behind the crime, was allowed first division treatment and full freedom to receive his family and friends. last of all the case of dr. jameson was cited. although his raid resulted in the death of twenty-one persons and the wounding of forty-six more, the political character of his offence was taken into account and he was made a first division prisoner. they were men, fighting in a man's war. we of the w. s. p. u. were women, fighting in a woman's war. lord coleridge, therefore, saw in us only reckless and criminal defiers of law. lord coleridge said: "you have been convicted of a crime for which the law would sanction, if i chose to impose it, a sentence of two years' imprisonment with hard labour. there are circumstances connected with your case which the jury have very properly brought to my attention, and i have been asked by you all three to treat you as first class misdemeanants. if, in the course of this case, i had observed any contrition or disavowal of the acts you have committed, or any hope that you would avoid repetition of them in future, i should have been very much prevailed upon by the arguments that have been advanced to me." no contrition having been expressed by us, the sentence of the court was that we were to suffer imprisonment, in the second division, for the term of nine months, and that we were to pay the costs of the prosecution. chapter iii the sentence of nine months astonished us beyond measure, especially in view of certain very recent events, one of these being the case of some sailors who had mutinied in order to call attention to something which they considered a peril to themselves and to all seafarers. they were tried and found technically guilty, but because of the motive behind their mutiny, were discharged without punishment. perhaps more nearly like our case than this was the case of the labour leader, tom mann, who, shortly before, had written a pamphlet calling upon his majesty's soldiers not to fire upon strikers when commanded to do so by their superior officers. from the government's point of view this was a much more serious kind of inciting than ours, because if it had been responded to the authorities would have been absolutely crippled in maintaining order. besides, soldiers who refuse to obey orders are liable to the death penalty. tom mann was given a sentence of six months, but this was received, on the part of the liberal press and liberal politicians, with so much clamour and protest that the prisoner was released at the end of two months. so, even on our way to prison, we told one another that our sentences could not stand. public opinion would never permit the government to keep us in prison for nine months, or in the second division for any part of our term. we agreed to wait seven parliamentary days before we began a hunger strike protest. it was very dreary waiting, those seven parliamentary days, because we could not know what was happening outside, or what was being talked of in the house. we could know nothing of the protests and memorials that were pouring in, on our behalf, from oxford and cambridge universities, from members of learned societies, and from distinguished men and women of all professions, not only in england but in every country of europe, from the united states and canada, and even from india. an international memorial asking that we be treated as political prisoners was signed by such great men and women as prof. paul milyoukoff, leader of the constitutional democrats in the duma; signor enrico ferri, of the italian chamber of deputies; edward bernstein, of the german reichstag; george brandes, edward westermarck, madame curie, ellen key, maurice maeterlinck, and many others. the greatest indignation was expressed in the house, keir hardie and mr. george lansbury leading in the demand for a drastic revision of our sentences and our immediate transference to the first division. so much pressure was brought to bear that within a few days the home secretary announced that he felt it his duty to examine into the circumstances of the case without delay. he explained that the prisoners had not at any time been forced to wear prison clothes. ultimately, which in this case means shortly before the expiration of the seven parliamentary days, we were all three placed in the first division. mrs. pethick lawrence was given the cell formerly occupied by dr. jameson and i had the cell adjoining. mr. pethick lawrence, in brixton gaol, was similarly accommodated. we all had the privilege of furnishing our cells with comfortable chairs, tables, our own bedding, towels, and so on. we had meals sent in from the outside; we wore our own clothing and had what books, newspapers and writing materials we required. we were not permitted to write or receive letters or to see our friends except in the ordinary two weeks' routine. still we had gained our point that suffrage prisoners were politicals. we had gained it, but, as it turned out, only for ourselves. when we made the inquiry, "are all our women now transferred to the first division?" the answer was that the order for transference referred only to mr. and mrs. pethick lawrence and myself. needless to say, we immediately refused to accept this unfair advantage, and after we had exhausted every means in our power to induce the home secretary to give the other suffrage prisoners the same justice that we had received, we adopted the protest of the hunger strike. the word flew swiftly through holloway, and in some mysterious way travelled to brixton, to aylesbury, and winson green, and at once all the other suffrage prisoners followed our lead. the government then had over eighty hunger strikers on their hands, and, as before, had ready only the argument of force, which means that disgusting and cruel process of forcible feeding. holloway became a place of horror and torment. sickening scenes of violence took place almost every hour of the day, as the doctors went from cell to cell performing their hideous office. one of the men did his work in such brutal fashion that the very sight of him provoked cries of horror and anguish. i shall never while i live forget the suffering i experienced during the days when those cries were ringing in my ears. in her frenzy of pain one woman threw herself from the gallery on which her cell opened. a wire netting eight feet below broke her fall to the iron staircase beneath, else she must inevitably have been killed. as it was she was frightfully hurt. the wholesale hunger strike created a tremendous stir throughout england, and every day in the house the ministers were harassed with questions. the climax was reached on the third or fourth day of the strike, when a stormy scene took place in the house of commons. the under home secretary, mr. ellis griffith, had been mercilessly questioned as to conditions under which the forcible feeding was being done, and as soon as this was over one of the suffragist members made a moving appeal to the prime minister himself to order the release of all the prisoners. mr. asquith, forced against his will to take part in the controversy, rose and said that it was not for him to interfere with the actions of his colleague, mr. mckenna, and he added, in his own suave, mendacious manner: "i must point out this, that there is not one single prisoner who cannot go out of prison this afternoon on giving the undertaking asked for by the home secretary." meaning an undertaking to refrain henceforth from militancy. instantly mr. george lansbury sprang to his feet and exclaimed: "you know they cannot! it is perfectly disgraceful that the prime minister of england should make such a statement." mr. asquith glanced carelessly at the indignant lansbury, but sank into his seat without deigning to reply. shocked to the depths of his soul by the insult thrown at our women, mr. lansbury strode up to the ministerial bench and confronted the prime minister, saying again: "that was a disgraceful thing for you to say, sir. you are beneath contempt, you and your colleagues. you call yourselves gentlemen, and you forcibly feed and murder women in this fashion. you ought to be driven out of office. talk about protesting. it is the most disgraceful thing that ever happened in the history of england. you will go down to history as the men who tortured innocent women." by this time the house was seething, and the indignant labour member had to shout at the top of his big voice in order to be heard over the din. mr. asquith's pompous order that mr. lansbury leave the house for the day was probably known to very few until it appeared in print next day. at all events mr. lansbury continued his protest for five minutes longer. "you murder, torture and drive women mad," he cried, "and then you tell them they can walk out. you ought to be ashamed of yourself. you talk about principle--you talk about fighting in ulster--you, too--" turning to the unionist benches--"you ought to be driven out of public life. these women are showing you what principle is. you ought to honour them for standing up for their womanhood. i tell you, commons of england, you ought to be ashamed of yourselves." the speaker came to mr. asquith's rescue at last and adjured mr. lansbury that he must obey the prime minister's order to leave the house, saying that such disorderly conduct would cause the house to lose respect. "sir," exclaimed mr. lansbury, in a final burst of righteous rage, "it has lost it already." this unprecedented explosion of wrath and scorn against the government was the sensation of the hour, and it was felt on all sides that the release of the prisoners, or at least cessation of forcible feeding, which amounted to the same thing, would be ordered. every day the suffragettes marched in great crowds to holloway, serenading the prisoners and holding protest meetings to immense crowds. the music and the cheering, faintly wafted to our straining ears, was inexpressibly sweet. yet it was while listening to one of these serenades that the most dreadful moment of my imprisonment occurred. i was lying in bed, very weak from starvation, when i heard a sudden scream from mrs. lawrence's cell, then the sound of a prolonged and very violent struggle, and i knew that they had dared to carry their brutal business to our doors. i sprang out of bed and, shaking with weakness and with anger, i set my back against the wall and waited for what might come. in a few moments they had finished with mrs. lawrence and had flung open the door of my cell. on the threshold i saw the doctors, and back of them a large group of wardresses. "mrs. pankhurst," began the doctor. instantly i caught up a heavy earthenware water jug from a table hard by, and with hands that now felt no weakness i swung the jug head high. "if any of you dares so much as to take one step inside this cell i shall defend myself," i cried. nobody moved or spoke for a few seconds, and then the doctor confusedly muttered something about to-morrow morning doing as well, and they all retreated. i demanded to be admitted to mrs. lawrence's cell, where i found my companion in a desperate state. she is a strong woman, and a very determined one, and it had required the united strength of nine wardresses to overcome her. they had rushed into the cell without any warning, and had seized her unawares, else they might not have succeeded at all. as it was she resisted so violently that the doctors could not apply the stethoscope, and they had very great difficulty in getting the tube down. after the wretched affair was over mrs. lawrence fainted, and for hours afterwards was very ill. this was the last attempt made to forcibly feed either mrs. lawrence or myself, and two days later we were ordered released on medical grounds. the other hunger strikers were released in batches, as every day a few more triumphant rebels approached the point where the government stood in danger of committing actual murder. mr. lawrence, who was forcibly fed twice a day for more than ten days, was released in a state of complete collapse on july st. within a few days after that the last of the prisoners were at liberty. as soon as i was sufficiently recovered i went to paris and had the joy of seeing again my daughter christabel, who, during all the days of strife and misery, had kept her personal anxiety in the background and had kept staunchly at her work of leadership. the absence of mr. and mrs. pethick lawrence had thrown the entire responsibility of the editorship of our paper, _votes for women_, on her shoulders, but as she has invariably risen to meet new responsibility, she conducted the paper with skill and discretion. we had much to talk about and to consider, because it was evident that militancy, instead of being dropped, as the other suffrage societies were constantly suggesting, must go on very much more vigorously than before. the struggle had been too long drawn out. we had to seek ways to shorten it, to bring it to such a climax that the government would acknowledge that something had to be done. we had already demonstrated that our forces were impregnable. we could not be conquered, we could not be terrified, we could not even be kept in prison. therefore, since the government had their war lost in advance, our task was merely to hasten the surrender. the situation in parliament, as far as the suffrage question was concerned, was clean swept and barren. the third conciliation bill had failed to pass its second reading, the majority against it being fourteen. many liberal members were afraid to vote for the bill because mr. lloyd-george and mr. lewis harcourt had persistently spread the rumour that its passage, at that time, would result in splitting the cabinet. the irish nationalist members had become hostile to the bill because their leader, mr. redmond, was an anti-suffragist, and had refused to include a woman suffrage clause in the home rule bill. our erstwhile friends, the labour members, were so apathetic, or so fearful for certain of their own measures, that most of them stayed away from the house on the day the bill reached its second reading. so it was lost, and the militants were blamed for its loss! in june the government announced that mr. asquith's manhood suffrage bill would soon be introduced, and very soon after this the bill did appear. it simplified the registration machinery, reduced the qualifying period of residence to six months, and abolished property qualifications, plural voting and university representation. in a word, it gave the parliamentary franchise to every man above the age of twenty-one and it denied it to all women. never in the history of the suffrage movement had such an affront been offered to women, and never in the history of england had such a blow been aimed at women's liberties. it is true that the prime minister had pledged himself to introduce a bill capable of being amended to include women's suffrage, and to permit any amendment that passed its second reading to become a part of the bill. but we had no faith in an amendment, nor in any bill that was not from its inception an official government measure. mr. asquith had broken every pledge he had ever made the women, and this new pledge impressed us not at all. well we knew that he had given it only to cover his treachery in torpedoing the conciliation bill, and in the hope of placating the suffragists, perhaps securing another truce to militancy. if this last was his hope he was most grievously disappointed. signs were constantly appearing to indicate that women would no longer be contented with the symbolic militancy involved in window breaking. for example, traces were found in the home secretary's office at whitehall of an attempt at arson. on the doorstep of another cabinet minister similar traces were found. had the government acted upon these warnings, by giving women the vote, all the serious acts of militancy that have occurred since would have been averted. but like the heart of pharaoh, the heart of the government hardened, and militant acts followed one another in rapid succession. in july the w. s. p. u. issued a manifesto which set forth our intentions in that regard. the manifesto read in part as follows: "the leaders of the women's social and political union have so often warned the government that unless the vote were granted to women in response to the mild militancy of the past, a fiercer spirit of revolt would be awakened which it would be impossible to control. the government have blindly disregarded the warning, and now they are reaping the harvest of their unstatesmanlike folly." this was issued immediately after a visit paid by mr. asquith to dublin. the occasion had been intended to be one of great pomp and circumstance, a huge popular demonstration in honour of the sponsor of home rule, but the suffragettes turned it into the most lamentable fiasco imaginable. from the hour of mr. asquith's attempted secret departure from london until his return he lived and moved in momentary dread of suffragettes. every time he entered or left a railway carriage or a steamer he was confronted by women. every time he rose to speak he was interrupted by women. every public appearance he made was turned into a riot by women. as he left dublin a woman threw a hatchet into his motor car, without, however, doing him any injury. as a final protest against his reception by irishmen, the theatre royal was set on fire by two women. the theatre was practically empty at the time, the performance having been completed, and the damage done was comparatively small, yet the two women chiefly concerned, mrs. leigh and miss evans, were given the barbarous sentences of five years each in prison. these were the first women sentenced to penal servitude in the history of our movement. of course they did not serve their sentences. on entering mountjoy prison they put in the usual claim for first division treatment, and this being refused, they immediately adopted the hunger strike. a number of irish suffragettes were in mountjoy at this time for a protest made against the exclusion of women from the home rule bill. they were in the first division, and they were almost on the eve of their release, but such is the indomitable spirit of militancy that these women entered upon a sympathetic hunger strike. they were released, but the government forbade the release of mrs. leigh and miss evans, that is, they ordered the authorities to retain the women as long as they could, by forcible feeding, be kept alive. after a struggle which, for fierceness and cruelty, is almost unparalleled in our annals, the two women fought their way out. all during that summer militancy surged up and down throughout the kingdom. a series of attacks on golf links was instituted, not at all in a spirit of wanton mischief, but with the direct and very practical object of reminding the dull and self-satisfied english public that when the liberties of english women were being stolen from them was no time to think of sports. the women selected country clubs where prominent liberal politicians were wont to take their week-end pleasures, and with acids they burned great patches of turf, rendering the golf greens useless for the time being. they burned the words, votes for women, in some cases, and always they left behind them reminders that women were warring for their freedom. on one occasion when the court was at balmoral castle in scotland, the suffragettes invaded the royal golf links, and when sunday morning dawned all the marking flags were found to have been replaced by w. s. p. u. flags hearing inscriptions such as "votes for women means peace for ministers," "forcible feeding must be stopped," and the like. the golf links were frequently visited by suffragettes in order to question recreant ministers. two women followed the prime minister to inverness, where he was playing golf with mr. mckenna. approaching the men one suffragette exclaimed: "mr. asquith, you must stop forcible feeding--" she got no farther, for mr. asquith, turning pale with rage--perhaps--retreated behind the home secretary, who, quite forgetting his manners, seized the suffragette, crying out that he was going to throw her into the pond. "then we will take you with us," the two retorted, after which a very lively scuffle ensued, and the women were not thrown into the pond. [illustration: a suffragette throwing a bag of flour at mr. asquith in chester] this golf green activity really aroused more hostility against us than all the window-breaking. the papers published appeals to us not to interfere with a game that helped weary politicians to think clearly, but our reply to this was that it had not had any such effect on the prime minister or mr. lloyd-george. we had undertaken to spoil their sport and that of a large class of comfortable men in order that they should be obliged to think clearly about women, and women's firm determination to get justice. i made my return to active work in the autumn by speaking at a great meeting of the w. s. p. u., held in the albert hall. at that meeting i had the announcement to make that the six years' association of mr. and mrs. pethick lawrence with the w. s. p. u. had ended. since personal dissensions have never been dwelt upon in the w. s. p. u., have never been allowed to halt the movement or to interfere for an hour with its progress, i shall not here say any more about this important dissension than i said at our first large meeting in albert hall after the holiday, on october th. that day a new paper was sold on the streets. it was called _the suffragette_, it was edited by christabel pankhurst, and was henceforth to be the official organ of the union. both in this new paper and in _votes for women_, the following announcement appeared: grave statement by the leaders at the first reunion of the leaders after the enforced holiday, mrs. pankhurst and miss christabel pankhurst outlined a new militant policy which mr. and mrs. pethick lawrence found themselves altogether unable to approve. mrs. pankhurst and miss christabel pankhurst indicated that they were not prepared to modify their intentions, and recommended that mr. and mrs. pethick lawrence should resume control of the paper, _votes for women_, and should leave the women's social and political union. rather than make schism in the ranks of the union mr. and mrs. pethick lawrence consented to take this course. this was signed by all four. that night at the meeting i further explained to the members that, hard as partings from old friends and comrades unquestionably were, we must remember that we were fighting in an army, and that unity of purpose and unity of policy are absolutely necessary, because without them the army is hopelessly weakened. "it is better," i said, "that those who cannot agree, cannot see eye to eye as to policy, should set themselves free, should part, and should be free to continue their policy as they see it in their own way, unfettered by those with whom they can no longer agree." continuing i said: "i give place to none in appreciation and gratitude to mr. and mrs. pethick lawrence for the incalculable services that they have rendered the militant movement for woman suffrage, and i firmly believe that the women's movement will be strengthened by their being free to work for woman suffrage in the future as they think best, while we of the women's social and political union shall continue the militant agitation for woman suffrage initiated by my daughter and myself and a handful of women more than six years ago." i then went on to survey the situation in which the w. s. p. u. now stood and to outline the new militant policy which he had decided upon. this policy, to begin with, was relentless opposition, not only to the party in power, the liberal party, but to all parties in the coalition. i reminded the women that the government that had tricked and betrayed us and was now plotting to make our progress towards citizenship doubly difficult, was kept in office through the coalition of three parties. there was the liberal party, nominally the governing party, but they could not live another day without the coalition of the nationalist and the labour parties. so we should say, not only to the liberal party but to the nationalist party and the labour party, "so long as you keep in office an anti-suffrage government, you are parties to their guilt, and from henceforth we offer you the same opposition which we give to the people whom you are keeping in power with your support." i said further: "we have summoned the labour party to do their duty by their own programme, and to go into opposition to the government on every question until the government do justice to women. they apparently are not willing to do that. some of them tell us that other things are more important than the liberty of women--than the liberty of working women. we say, 'then, gentlemen, we must teach you the value of your own principles, and until you are prepared to stand for the right of women to decide their lives and the laws under which they shall live, you, with mr. asquith and company, are equally responsible for all that has happened and is happening to women in this struggle for emancipation.'" outlining further our new and stronger policy of aggression, i said: "there is a great deal of criticism, ladies and gentlemen, of this movement. it always seems to me when the anti-suffrage members of the government criticise militancy in women that it is very like beasts of prey reproaching the gentler animals who turn in desperate resistance when at the point of death. criticism from gentlemen who do not hesitate to order out armies to kill and slay their opponents, who do not hesitate to encourage party mobs to attack defenceless women in public meetings--criticism from them hardly rings true. then i get letters from people who tell me that they are ardent suffragists but who say that they do not like the recent developments in the militant movement, and implore me to urge the members not to be reckless with human life. ladies and gentlemen, the only recklessness the militant suffragists have shown about human life has been about their own lives and not about the lives of others, and i say here and now that it has never been and never will be the policy of the women's social and political union recklessly to endanger human life. we leave that to the enemy. we leave that to the men in their warfare. it is not the method of women. no, even from the point of view of public policy, militancy affecting the security of human life would be out of place. _there is something that governments care far more for than human life, and that is the security of property, and so it is through property that we shall strike the enemy._ from henceforward the women who agree with me will say, 'we disregard your laws, gentlemen, we set the liberty and the dignity and the welfare of women above all such considerations, and we shall continue this war, as we have done in the past; and what sacrifice of property, or what injury to property accrues will not be our fault. it will be the fault of that government who admit the justice of our demands, but refuses to concede them without the evidence, so they have told us, afforded to governments of the past, that those who asked for liberty were in earnest in their demands!" i called upon the women of the meeting to join me in this new militancy, and i reminded them anew that the women who were fighting in the suffragette army had a great mission, the greatest mission the world has ever known--the freeing of one-half the human race, and through that freedom the saving of the other half. i said to them: "be militant each in your own way. those of you who can express your militancy by going to the house of commons and refusing to leave without satisfaction, as we did in the early days--do so. those of you who can express militancy by facing party mobs at cabinet ministers' meetings, when you remind them of their falseness to principle--do so. those of you who can express your militancy by joining us in our anti-government by-election policy--do so. those of you who can break windows--break them. those of you who can still further attack the secret idol of property, so as to make the government realise that property is as greatly endangered by women's suffrage as it was by the chartists of old--do so. and my last word is to the government: i incite this meeting to rebellion. i say to the government: you have not dared to take the leaders of ulster for their incitement to rebellion. take me if you dare, but if you dare i tell you this, that so long as those who incited to armed rebellion and the destruction of human life in ulster are at liberty, you will not keep me in prison. so long as men rebels--and voters--are at liberty, we will not remain in prison, first division or no first division." i ask my readers, some of whom no doubt will be shocked and displeased at these words of mine that i have so frankly set down, to put themselves in the place of those women who for years had given their lives entirely and unstintingly to the work of securing political freedom for women; who had converted so great a proportion of the electorate that, had the house of commons been a free body, we should have won that freedom years before; who had seen their freedom withheld from them through treachery and misuse of power. i ask you to consider that we had used, in our agitation, only peaceful means until we saw clearly that peaceful means were absolutely of no avail, and then for years we had used only the mildest militancy, until we were taunted by cabinet ministers, and told that we should never get the vote until we employed the same violence that men had used in their agitation for suffrage. after that we had used stronger militancy, but even that, by comparison with the militancy of men in labour disputes, could not possibly be counted as violent. through all these stages of our agitation we had been punished with the greatest severity, sent to prison like common criminals, and of late years tortured as no criminals have been tortured for a century in civilised countries of the world. and during all these years we had seen disastrous strikes that had caused suffering and death, to say nothing at all of the enormous economic waste, and we had never seen a single strike leader punished as we had been. we, who had suffered sentences of nine months' imprisonment for inciting women to mild rebellion, had seen a labour leader who had done his best to incite an army to mutiny released from prison in two months by the government. and now we had come to a point where we saw civil war threatened, where we read in the papers every day reports of speeches a thousand times more incendiary than anything we had ever said. we heard prominent members of parliament openly declaring that if the home rule bill was passed ulster would fight, and ulster would be right. none of these men were arrested. instead they were applauded. lord selborne, one of our sternest critics, referring to the fact that ulstermen were drilling under arms, said publicly: "the method which the people of ulster are adopting to show the depths of their convictions and the intensity of their feelings will impress the imagination of the whole country." but lord selborne was not arrested. neither were the mutinous officers who resigned their commissions when ordered to report for duty against the men of ulster who were actually preparing for civil war. what does all this mean? why is it that men's blood-shedding militancy is applauded and women's symbolic militancy punished with a prison cell and the forcible feeding horror? it means simply this, that men's double standard of sex morals, whereby the victims of their lust are counted as outcasts, while the men themselves escape all social censure, really applies to morals in all departments of life. men make the moral code and they expect women to accept it. they have decided that it is entirely right and proper for men to fight for their liberties and their rights, but that it is not right and proper for women to fight for theirs.[ ] they have decided that for men to remain silently quiescent while tyrannical rulers impose bonds of slavery upon them is cowardly and dishonourable, but that for women to do that same thing is not cowardly and dishonourable, but merely respectable. well, the suffragettes absolutely repudiate that double standard of morals. if it is right for men to fight for their freedom, and god knows what the human race would be like to-day if men had not, since time began, fought for their freedom, then it is right for women to fight for their freedom and the freedom of the children they bear. on this declaration of faith the militant women of england rest their case. footnote: [ ] there is no question that a great deal of the animus directed against us during and by the government was due to sex bitterness stirred up by a series of articles written by christabel pankhurst and published in _the suffragette_. these articles, a fearless and authoritative exposé of the evils of sexual immoralities and their blasting effect on innocent wives and children, have since been published in a book called "the great scourge, and how to end it," issued by david nutt, new oxford street, london w. c. chapter iv i had called upon women to join me in striking at the government through the only thing that governments are really very much concerned about--property--and the response was immediate. within a few days the newspapers rang with the story of the attack made on letter boxes in london, liverpool, birmingham, bristol, and half a dozen other cities. in some cases the boxes, when opened by postmen, mysteriously burst into flame; in others the letters were destroyed by corrosive chemicals; in still others the addresses were rendered illegible by black fluids. altogether it was estimated that over , letters were completely destroyed and many thousands more were delayed in transit. it was with a deep sense of their gravity that these letter-burning protests were undertaken, but we felt that something drastic must be done in order to destroy the apathy of the men of england who view with indifference the suffering of women oppressed by unjust laws. as we pointed out, letters, precious though they may be, are less precious than human bodies and souls. this fact was universally realised at the sinking of the _titanic_. letters and valuables disappeared forever, but their loss was forgotten in the far more terrible loss of the multitude of human lives. and so, in order to call attention to greater crimes against human beings, our letter burnings continued. in only a few cases were the offenders apprehended, and one of the few women arrested was a helpless cripple, a woman who could move about only in a wheeled chair. she received a sentence of eight months in the first division, and, resolutely hunger striking, was forcibly fed with unusual brutality, the prison doctor deliberately breaking one of her teeth in order to insert a gag. in spite of her disabilities and her weakness the crippled girl persisted in her hunger strike and her resistance to prison rules, and within a short time had to be released. the excessive sentences of the other pillar box destroyers resolved themselves into very short terms because of the resistance of the prisoners, every one of whom adopted the hunger strike. having shown the government that we were in deadly earnest when we declared that we would adopt guerrilla warfare, and also that we would not remain in prison, we announced a truce in order that the government might have full opportunity to fulfil their pledge in regard to a woman suffrage amendment to the franchise bill. we did not, for one moment, believe that mr. asquith would willingly keep his word. we knew that he would break it if he could, but there was a bare chance that he would not find this possible. however, our principal reason for declaring the truce was that we believed that the prime minister would find a way of evading his promise, and we were determined that the blame should be placed, not on militancy, but on the shoulders of the real traitor. we reviewed the history of past suffrage bills: in the bill had passed its second reading by a majority of ; and then mr. asquith had refused to allow it to go on; in the conciliation bill passed its second reading by a majority of , and again mr. asquith blocked its progress, pledging himself that if the bill were reintroduced in , in a form rendering it capable of free amendment, it would be given full facilities for becoming law; these conditions were met in , and we saw how the bill, after receiving the increased majority of votes, was torpedoed by the introduction of a government manhood suffrage bill. mr. asquith this time had pledged himself that the bill would be so framed that a woman suffrage amendment could be added, and he further pledged that in case such an amendment was carried through its second reading, he would allow it to become a part of the bill. just exactly how the government would manage to wriggle out of their promise was a matter of excited speculation. all sorts of rumours were flying about, some hinting at the resignation of the prime minister, some suggesting the possibility of a general election, others that the amended bill would carry with it a forced referendum on women's suffrage. it was also said that the intention of the government was to delay the bill so long that, after it was passed in the house, it would be excluded from the benefits of the parliament acts, according to which a bill, delayed of passage beyond the first two years of the life of a parliament, has no chance of being considered by the lords. in order to become a law without the sanction of the house of lords, a bill must pass three times through the house of commons. the prospect of a woman suffrage bill doing that was practically nil. to none of the rumours would mr. asquith give specific denial, and in fact the only positive utterance he made on the subject of the franchise bill was that he considered it highly improbable that the house would pass a woman suffrage amendment. in order to discourage woman suffrage sentiment in the house, mr. lloyd-george and mr. lewis harcourt again busied themselves with spreading pessimistic prophecies of a cabinet split in case an amendment was carried. no other threat, they well knew, would so terrorize the timid back bench liberals, who, in addition to their blind party loyalty, stood in fear of losing their seats in the general election which would follow such a split. rather than risk their political jobs they would have sacrificed any principle. of course the hint of a cabinet split was pure buncombe, and it deceived few of the members. but it established very clearly one thing, and this was that mr. asquith's promise that the house should be left absolutely free to decide the suffrage issue, and that the cabinet stood ready to bow to the decision of the house was never meant to be fulfilled. the franchise bill unamended, by its very wording, specifically denied the right of any woman to vote. sir edward grey moved an amendment deleting from the bill the word male, thus leaving room for a women's suffrage amendment. two such amendments were moved, one providing for adult suffrage for men and women, and the other providing full suffrage for women householders and wives of householders. the latter postponed the voting age of women to twenty-five years, instead of the men's twenty-one. on january th, , debate on the first of the amendments was begun. a day and a half had been allotted to consideration of sir edward grey's amendment, which if carried would leave the way clear for consideration of the other two, to each of which one-third of a day was allotted. we had arranged for huge meetings to be held every day during the debates, and on the day before they were to open we sent a deputation of working women, led by mrs. drummond and miss annie kenney, to interview mr. lloyd-george and sir edward grey. we had asked mr. asquith to receive the deputation, but, as usual, he refused. the deputation consisted of the two leaders, four cotton mill operatives from lancashire, four workers in sweated trades of london, two pit brow lassies, two teachers, two trained nurses, one shop assistant, one laundress, one boot and shoe worker and one domestic worker, twenty in all, the exact number specified by mr. lloyd-george. some hundreds of working women escorted the deputation to the official residence of the chancellor of the exchequer and waited anxiously in the street to hear the result of the audience. the result was, of course, barren. mr. lloyd-george glibly repeated his confidence in the "great opportunity" afforded by the franchise bill, and sir edward grey, reminding the women of the divergence of view held by the members of cabinet on the suffrage question, assured them that their best opportunity for success lay in an amendment to the present bill. the women spoke with the greatest candour to the two ministers and questioned them sharply as to the integrity of the prime minister's pledge to accept the amendments, if passed. to such depth of infamy had english politics sunk that it was possible for women openly to question the plighted word of the king's chief minister! mrs. drummond, who stands in awe of no human being, in plain words invited the slippery mr. lloyd-george to clear his own character from obloquy. in the closing words of her speech she put the whole matter clearly up to him, saying: "now, mr. lloyd-george, you have doggedly stuck to your old age pensions, and the insurance act, and secured them, and what you have done for these measures you can do also for the women." the house met on the following afternoon to debate sir edward grey's permissive amendment, but no sooner had the discussion opened than a veritable bombshell was cast into the situation. mr. bonar law arose and asked for a ruling on the constitutionality of a woman's suffrage amendment to the bill as framed. the speaker, who, besides acting as the presiding officer of the house, is its official parliamentarian, replied that, in his opinion, such an amendment would make a huge difference in the bill, and that he would be obliged, at a later stage of the debates, to consider carefully whether, if carried, any woman suffrage amendment would not so materially alter the bill that it would have to be withdrawn. in spite of this sinister pronouncement, the house continued to debate the grey amendment, which was ably supported by lord hugh cecil, sir john rolleston, and others. during the intervening week-end holiday two cabinet councils were held, and when the house met on monday the prime minister called upon the speaker for his ruling. the speaker declared that, in his opinion, the passage of any one of the woman suffrage amendments would so alter the scope of the franchise bill as practically to create a new bill, because the measure, as it was framed, did not have for its main object the bestowal of the franchise on a hitherto excluded class. had it been so framed a woman suffrage amendment would have been entirely proper. but the main object of the bill was to alter the qualification, or the basis of registration for a parliamentary vote. it would increase the male electorate, but only as an indirect result of the changed qualifications. an amendment to the bill removing the sex barrier from the election laws was not, in the speaker's opinion, a proper one. the prime minister then announced the intentions of the cabinet, which were to withdraw the franchise bill and to refrain from introducing, during that session, a plural voting bill. mr. asquith blandly admitted that his pledge in regard to women's suffrage had been rendered incapable of fulfilment, and he said that he felt constrained to give a new pledge to take its place. there were only two that could be given. the first was that the government should bring in a bill to enfranchise women, and this the government would not do. the second was that the government agree to give full facilities as to time, during the next session of parliament, to a private member's bill, so drafted as to be capable of free amendment. this was the course that the government had decided to adopt. mr. asquith had the effrontery to say in conclusion that he thought that the house would agree that he had striven and had succeeded in giving effect, both in letter and in spirit, to every undertaking which the government had given. two members only, mr. henderson and mr. keir hardie had the courage to stand up on the floor of the house and denounce the government's treachery, for treachery it unquestionably was. mr. asquith had pledged his sacred honour to introduce a bill that would be capable of an amendment to include women's suffrage, and he had framed a bill that could not be so amended. whether he had done the thing deliberately, with the plain intention of selling out the women, or whether ignorance of parliamentary rules accounted for the failure of the bill was immaterial. the bill need not have been drawn in ignorance. the fount of wisdom represented by mr. speaker could have been consulted at the time the bill was under construction quite as easily as when it had reached the debating stage. our paper said editorially, representing and perfectly expressing our member's views: "either the government are so ignorant of parliamentary procedure that they are unfit to occupy any position of responsibility, or else they are scoundrels of the worst kind." i am inclined to think that the verdict of posterity will lean towards the later conclusion. if mr. asquith had been a man of honour he would have reframed the franchise bill in such a way that it could have included a suffrage amendment, or else he would have made amends for his stupendous blunder--if it was a blunder--by introducing a government measure for women's suffrage. he did neither, but disposed of the matter by promising facilities for a private member's bill which he knew, and which everybody knew, could not possibly pass. there was no chance for a private member's bill, even with facilities, because of a number of reasons, but principally because the torpedoing of the conciliation bill had destroyed utterly the spirit of conciliation in which conservatives, liberals and radicals in the house of commons, and militant and non-militant women throughout the kingdom had set aside their differences of opinion and agreed to come together on a compromise measure. when the second conciliation bill, of , was under discussion, lord lytton had said: "if this bill does not go through, the woman suffrage movement will not be stopped, but the spirit of conciliation of which this bill is an expression will be destroyed, and there will he war throughout the country, raging, tearing, fierce, bitter strife, though nobody wants it." lord lytton's words were prophetic. at this last brazen piece of trickery on the part of the government the country blazed with bitter wrath. all the suffrage societies united in calling for a government measure for women's suffrage to be introduced without delay. the idle promise of facilities for a private member's bill was rejected with contumely and scorn. the liberal women's executive committee met, and a strong effort was made to pass a resolution threatening the withdrawal from party work of the entire federation, but this failed and the executive merely passed a feeble resolution of regret. the membership of the women's liberal federation was, at that time, close to , , and if the executive had passed the strong resolution, refusing to do any more work for the party until a government measure had been introduced, the government would have been forced to yield. they could not have faced the country without the support of the women. but these women, many of them, were wives of men in the service, the paid service of the liberal party. many of them were wives of liberal members. they lacked the courage, or the intelligence, or the insight, to declare war as a body on the government. a large number of women, and also many men, did resign from the liberal party, but the defections were not serious enough to affect the government. the militants declared, and proceeded instantly to carry out, unrelenting warfare. we announced that either we must have a government measure, or a cabinet split--those men in the cabinet calling themselves suffragists going out--or we would take up the sword again, never to lay it down until the enfranchisement of the women of england was won. it was at this time, february, , less than two years ago as i write these words, that militancy, as it is now generally understood by the public began--militancy in the sense of continued, destructive, guerilla warfare against the government through injury to private property. some property had been destroyed before this time, but the attacks were sporadic, and were meant to be in the nature of a warning as to what might become a settled policy. now we indeed lighted the torch, and we did it with the absolute conviction that no other course was open to us. we had tried every other measure, as i am sure that i have demonstrated to my readers, and our years of work and suffering and sacrifice had taught us that the government would not yield to right and justice, what the majority of members of the house of commons admitted was right and justice, but that the government would, as other governments invariably do, yield to expediency. now our task was to show the government that it was expedient to yield to the women's just demands. in order to do that we had to make england and every department of english life insecure and unsafe. we had to make english law a failure and the courts farce comedy theatres; we had to discredit the government and parliament in the eyes of the world; we had to spoil english sports, hurt business, destroy valuable property, demoralise the world of society, shame the churches, upset the whole orderly conduct of life-- that is, we had to do as much of this guerilla warfare as the people of england would tolerate. when they came to the point of saying to the government: "stop this, in the only way it can be stopped, by giving the women of england representation," then we should extinguish our torch. americans, of all people, ought to see the logic of our reasoning. there is one piece of american oratory, beloved of schoolboys, which has often been quoted from militant platforms. in a speech now included among the classics of the english language your great statesman, patrick henry, summed up the causes that led to the american revolution. he said: "we have petitioned, we have remonstrated, we have supplicated, we have prostrated ourselves at the foot of the throne, and it has all been in vain. we must fight--i repeat it, sir, we must fight." patrick henry, remember, was advocating killing people, as well as destroying private property, as the proper means of securing the political freedom of men. the suffragettes have not done that, and they never will. in fact the moving spirit of militancy is deep and abiding reverence for human life. in the latter course of our agitation i have been called upon to discuss our policies with many eminent men, politicians, literary men, barristers, scientists, clergymen. one of the last named, a high dignitary of the church of england, told me that while he was a convinced suffragist, he found it impossible to justify our doing wrong that right might follow. i said to him: "we are not doing wrong--we are doing right in our use of revolutionary methods against private property. it is our work to restore thereby true values, to emphasise the value of human rights against property rights. you are well aware, sir, that property has assumed a value in the eyes of men, and in the eyes of the law, that it ought never to claim. it is placed above all human values. the lives and health and happiness, and even the virtue of women and children--that is to say, the race itself--are being ruthlessly sacrificed to the god of property every day of the world." to this my reverend friend agreed, and i said: "if we women are wrong in destroying private property in order that human values may be restored, then i say, in all reverence, that it was wrong for the founder of christianity to destroy private property, as he did when he lashed the money changers out of the temple and when he drove the gaderene swine into the sea." it was absolutely in this spirit that our women went forth to war. in the first month of guerilla warfare an enormous amount of property was damaged and destroyed. on january st a number of putting greens were burned with acids; on february th and th telegraph and telephone wires were cut in several places and for some hours all communication between london and glasgow were suspended; a few days later windows in various of london's smartest clubs were broken, and the orchid houses at kew were wrecked and many valuable blooms destroyed by cold. the jewel room at the tower of london was invaded and a showcase broken. the residence of h. r. h. prince christian and lambeth palace, seat of the archbishop of canterbury, were visited and had windows broken. the refreshment house in regents park was burned to the ground on february th and on february th a country house which was being built at walton-on-the-hill for mr. lloyd-george was partially destroyed, a bomb having been exploded in the early morning before the arrival of the workmen. a hat pin and a hair pin picked up near the house--coupled with the fact that care had been taken not to endanger any lives--led the police to believe that the deed had been done by women enemies of mr. lloyd-george. four days later i was arrested and brought up in epsom police court, where i was charged with having "counselled and procured" the persons who did the damage. admitted to bail for the night, i appeared next morning in court, where the case was fully reviewed. speeches of mine were read, one speech, made at a meeting held on january nd, in which i called for volunteers to act with me in a particular engagement; and another, made the day after the explosion, in which i publicly accepted responsibility for all militant acts done in the past, and even for what had been done at walton. at the conclusion of the hearing i was committed for trial at the may assizes at guildford. bail would be allowed, it was stated, if i would agree to give the usual undertaking to refrain from all militancy or incitement to militancy. i asked that the case be set for speedy trial at the assizes then in progress. i was entirely willing, i said, to give an undertaking for a short period, for a week, or even two weeks, but i could not possibly do so for a much longer period, looking at the fact that a new session of parliament began in march, and was vitally concerned with the interests of women. the request was refused, and i was ordered to be taken to holloway. i warned the magistrate that i should at once adopt the hunger strike, and i told him that if i lived at all until the summer it would be a dying woman who would come up for trial. arriving at holloway i carried out my intention, but within twenty-four hours i heard that the authorities had arranged that my trial should take place on april st, instead of at the end of june, and at the central criminal court, london, instead of the guildford court. i then gave the required under-takings and was immediately released on bail. chapter v when i entered old bailey on that memorable wednesday, april nd, , to be tried for inciting to commit a felony, the court was packed with women. a great crowd of women who could not obtain the necessary tickets remained in the streets below for hours waiting news of the trial. a large number of detectives from scotland yard, and a still larger number of uniformed police were on duty both inside and outside the court. i could not imagine why it was considered necessary to have such a regiment of police on hand, for i had not, at that time, realised the state of terror into which the militant movement, in its new development, had thrown the authorities. mr. bodkin and mr. travers humphreys appeared to prosecute on behalf of the crown, and i conducted my own case, in consultation with my solicitor, mr. marshall. the judge, mr. justice lush, having taken his seat i entered the dock and listened to the reading of the indictment. i pled "not guilty," not because i wished to evade responsibility for the explosion,--i had already assumed that responsibility--but because the indictment accused me of having wickedly and maliciously incited women to crime. what i had done was not wicked of purpose, but quite the opposite of wicked. i could not therefore truthfully plead guilty. the trial having opened the judge courteously asked me if i would like to sit down. i thanked him, and asked if i might also have a small table on which to place my papers. by orders of the judge a table was brought me. mr. bodkin opened the case by explaining the "malicious damages to property act" of , under which i was charged, and after describing the explosion which had damaged the lloyd-george house at walton, said that i was accused of being in the affair an accessory before the fact. it was not suggested, he said, that i was present when the crime was committed, but it was charged that i had moved and incited, counselled and procured women whose names were unknown to carry out that crime. it would be for the jury to decide, after the evidence had been presented, whether the facts did not point most clearly to the conclusion that women, probably two in number, who committed the crime were members of the women's social and political union, which had its office in kingsway in london, and of which the defendant was the head, moving spirit and recognised leader. the blowing up of mr. lloyd-george's house was then described in detail. that the damage was intended as an act against mr. lloyd-george was clear, mr. bodkin said, from the malicious statements made against him by the prisoner. he produced a private letter written by me to a friend in which i had defended militancy, and said that not only had it become a duty but in the circumstances it had also become a political necessity. said mr. bodkin: "a letter of that kind proves very clearly several things. it shows that she is the leader. it shows her influence over the emotional members of this organisation. it shows that according to her, militancy can be withheld for a time and let loose upon society at another time. and it further shows that any person or any woman who wants to indulge in militancy, which is only a picturesque expression for committing crimes against society, has to communicate with her, and with her alone, by word of mouth or by letter. that is the proclamation which went out to the members of this organisation. the plain language of that letter is, 'if we don't get what we want, the government and their members will be responsible, and the government and the public will be bullied into giving us what we want.'" many extracts from my speeches made in january and february were read, and the final speech made just before my arrest at chelsea. but before they were read i said: "i wish to lodge an objection now to the police reports of my speeches. they have been supplied to me, and the only report i accept is that of the journalist of cardiff who is one of the witnesses. he has furnished a fairly accurate report of what i said in that town. the police reports i do not accept. they are grossly inaccurate and ignorant and ungrammatical, and they convey an absolutely wrong impression of what i said in many respects." witnesses were then examined; the carter who heard and reported the explosion; the foreman in charge of the damaged house, who told the cost of the damages, and described the explosives, etc., found on the premises; several police officers who told of finding hairpins and a woman's rubber golosh in the house, and so on. absolutely nothing was brought out that tended to show that the suffragettes had anything to do with the affair. the judge noted this for he said to mr. bodkin: "i am not quite sure how you present this case. there are two ways of looking at it. do you only ask the jury to say that the defendant specifically counselled the perpetration of this crime, or do you also say that, looking at her speeches that you read--assuming you prove that they were uttered--that the language used being a general incitement to damage property, any one who acted on this invitation and perpetrated this outrage would be incited by her to do it?" mr. bodkin replied that the latter assumption was correct. "i say that the speeches generally are incitement to all kinds of acts of violence against property, and that they present evidence of attacks against property and a particular individual, and that there is evidence in the speeches which have been read, and which will be proved, of admissions by mrs. pankhurst of having been connected with the particular outrage in a way which makes her in law an accessory before the fact." "but you do not confine the case to the latter way of putting it?" "no," replied mr. bodkin. "even if the jury are satisfied," said the judge, "that mrs. pankhurst was not directly connected with this outrage by counselling it, you still ask the jury to say that by counselling, as you say she had in the speeches, the destruction of property, especially that belonging to a particular gentleman, anybody who acted on that and committed this outrage would have been incited by her to do it?" "yes, my lord." "i think, mrs. pankhurst, you now understand the way it is put?" asked the judge. "i understand it quite well, my lord," i replied. proceedings were resumed on the following day, and the examination of witnesses for the prosecution went on. at the close of the examination, the judge inquired whether i desired to call any witnesses. i replied: "i do not desire to give evidence or to call any witnesses, but i desire to address your lordship." i began by objecting to some of the things mr. bodkin had said in his speech which concerned me personally. he had referred to me--or at least his words conveyed the suggestion--that i was a woman riding about in my motor car inciting other women to do acts which entail imprisonment and great suffering, while i, perhaps indulging in some curious form of pleasure, was protected, or thought myself protected, from serious consequences. i said that mr. bodkin knew perfectly well that i shared all the dangers the other women faced, that i had been in prison three times, serving two of the sentences in full, and being treated like an ordinary felon--searched, put in prison clothes, eating prison fare, given solitary confinement and conforming to all the abominable rules imposed upon women who commit crimes in england. i thought i owed it to myself, especially as the same suggestions--in regard to the luxury in which i lived, supported by the members of the w. s. p. u.--had been made, not only by mr. bodkin in court, but by members of the government in the house of commons--i thought i owed it to myself to say that i owned no motor car and never had owned one. the car in which i occasionally rode was owned by the organisation and was used for general propaganda work. in that car, and in cars owned by friends i had gone about my work as a speaker in the woman suffrage movement. it was equally untrue, i said, that some of us were making incomes of £ , to £ , a year out of the suffrage movement, as had actually been alleged in the debates in the house in which members of parliament were trying to decide how to crush militancy. no woman in our organisation was making any such income, or anything remotely like it. myself, i had sacrificed a considerable portion of my income because i had to surrender a very important part of it in order to be free to do what i thought was my duty in the movement. addressing myself to my defence i told the court that it was a very serious condition of things when a large number of respectable and naturally law abiding people, people of upright lives, came to hold the law in contempt, came seriously to making up their minds that they were justified in breaking the law. "the whole of good government," i said, "rests upon acceptance of the law, upon respect of the law, and i say to you seriously, my lord, and gentlemen of the jury, that women of intelligence, women of training, women of upright life, have for many years ceased to respect the laws of this country. it is an absolute fact, and when you look at the laws of this country as they effect women it is not to be wondered at." at some length i went over these laws, laws that made it possible for the judge to send me, if found guilty, to prison for fourteen years, while the maximum penalty for offences of the most revolting kind against little girls was only two years' imprisonment. the laws of inheritance, the laws of divorce, the laws of guardianship of children--all so scandalously unjust to women, i sketched briefly, and i said that not only these laws and others, but the administration of the laws fell so far short of adequacy that women felt that they must be permitted to share the work of cleaning up the entire situation. i tried here to tell of certain dreadful things that i had learned as the wife of a barrister, things about some of the men in high places who are entrusted with the administration of the law, of a judge of assizes where many hideous crimes against women were tried, this judge himself being found dead one morning in a brothel, but the court would not allow me to go into personalities, as he called it, with regard to "distinguished people," and told me that the sole question before the jury was whether or not i was guilty as charged. i must speak on that subject and on no other. after a hard fight to be allowed to tell the jury the reasons why women had lost respect for the law, and were making such a struggle in order to become law makers themselves, i closed my speech by saying: "over one thousand women have gone to prison in the course of this agitation, have suffered their imprisonment, have come out of prison injured in health, weakened in body, but not in spirit. i come to stand my trial from the bedside of one of my daughters, who has come out of holloway prison, sent there for two months' hard labour for participating with four other people in breaking a small pane of glass. she has hunger-struck in prison. she submitted herself for more than five weeks to the horrible ordeal of feeding by force, and she has come out of prison having lost nearly two stone in weight. she is so weak that she cannot get out of her bed. and i say to you, gentlemen, that is the kind of punishment you are inflicting upon me or any other woman who may be brought before you. i ask you if you are prepared to send an incalculable number of women to prison--i speak to you as representing others in the same position--if you are prepared to go on doing that kind of thing indefinitely, because that is what is going to happen. there is absolutely no doubt about it. i think you have seen enough even in this present case to convince you that we are not women who are notoriety hunters. we could get that, heaven knows, much more cheaply if we sought it. we are women, rightly or wrongly, convinced that this is the only way in which we can win power to alter what for us are intolerable conditions, absolutely intolerable conditions. a london clergyman only the other day said that per cent. of the married women in his parish were breadwinners, supporting their husbands as well as their children. when you think of the wages women earn, when you think of what this means to the future of the children of this country, i ask you to take this question very, very seriously. only this morning i have had information brought to me which could be supported by sworn affidavits, that there is in this country, in this very city of london of ours, a regulated traffic, not only in women of full age, but in little children; that they are being purchased, that they are being entrapped, and that they are being trained to minister to the vicious pleasures of persons who ought to know better in their positions of life. "well, these are the things that have made us women determined to go on, determined to face everything, determined to see this thing out to the end, let it cost us what it may. and if you convict me, gentlemen, if you find me guilty, i tell you quite honestly and quite frankly, that whether the sentence is a long sentence, whether the sentence is a short sentence, i shall not submit to it. i shall, the moment i leave this court, if i am sent to prison, whether to penal servitude or to the lighter form of imprisonment--because i am not sufficiently versed in the law to know what his lordship may decide; but whatever my sentence is, from the moment i leave this court i shall quite deliberately refuse to eat food--i shall join the women who are already in holloway on the hunger strike. i shall come out of prison, dead or alive, at the earliest possible moment; and once out again, as soon as i am physically fit i shall enter into this fight again. life is very dear to all of us. i am not seeking, as was said by the home secretary, to commit suicide. i do not want to commit suicide. i want to see the women of this country enfranchised, and i want to live until that is done. those are the feelings by which we are animated. we offer ourselves as sacrifices, just as your forefathers did in the past, in this cause, and i would ask you all to put this question to yourselves:--have you the right, as human beings, to condemn another human being to death--because that is what it amounts to? can you throw the first stone? have you the right to judge women? "you have not the right in human justice, not the right by the constitution of this country, if rightly interpreted, to judge me, because you are not my peers. you know, every one of you, that i should not be standing here, that i should not break one single law--if i had the rights that you possess, if i had a share in electing those who make the laws i have to obey; if i had a voice in controlling the taxes i am called upon to pay, i should not be standing here. and i say to you it is a very serious state of things. i say to you, my lord, it is a very serious situation, that women of upright life, women who have devoted the best of their years to the public weal, that women who are engaged in trying to undo some of the terrible mistakes that men in their government of the country have made, because after all, in the last resort, men are responsible for the present state of affairs--i put it to you that it is a very serious situation. you are not accustomed to deal with people like me in the ordinary discharge of your duties; but you are called upon to deal with people who break the law from selfish motives. i break the law from no selfish motive. i have no personal end to serve, neither have any of the other women who have gone through this court during the past few weeks, like sheep to the slaughter. not one of these women would, if women were free, be law-breakers. they are women who seriously believe that this hard path that they are treading is the only path to their enfranchisement. they seriously believe that the welfare of humanity demands this sacrifice; they believe that the horrible evils which are ravaging our civilisation will never be removed until women get the vote. they know that the very fount of life is being poisoned; they know that homes are being destroyed; that because of bad education, because of the unequal standard of morals, even the mothers and children are destroyed by one of the vilest and most horrible diseases that ravage humanity. "there is only one way to put a stop to this agitation; there is only one way to break down this agitation. it is not by deporting us, it is not by locking us up in gaol; it is by doing us justice. and so i appeal to you gentlemen, in this case of mine, to give a verdict, not only on my case, but upon the whole of this agitation. i ask you to find me not guilty of malicious incitement to a breach of the law. "these are my last words. my incitement is not malicious. if i had power to deal with these things, i would be in absolute obedience to the law. i would say to women, 'you have a constitutional means of getting redress for your grievances; use your votes, convince your fellow-voters of the righteousness of your demands. that is the way to obtain justice.' i am not guilty of malicious incitement, and i appeal to you, for the welfare of the country, for the welfare of the race, to return a verdict of not guilty in this case that you are called upon to try." after recapitulating the charge the judge, in summing up, said: "it is scarcely necessary for me to tell you that the topics urged by the defendant in her address to you with regard to provocation by the laws of the country and the injustice done to women because they are not given the vote as men are, have no bearing upon the question you have to decide. "the motive at the back of her mind, or at the back of the minds of those who actually did put the gunpowder there, would afford no defence to this indictment. i am quite sure you will deal with this case upon the evidence, and the evidence alone, without regard to any question as to whether you think the law is just or unjust. it has nothing to do with the case. i should think you will probably have no doubt that this defendant, if she did these things charged against her, is not actuated by the ordinary selfish motive that leads most of the criminals who are in this dock to commit the crimes that they do commit. she is none the less guilty if she did these things which are charged against her, although she believes that by means of this kind the condition of society will be altered." the jury retired, and soon after the afternoon session of the court opened they filed in, and in reply to the usual question asked by the clerk of arraigns, said that they had agreed upon a verdict. said the clerk: "do you find mrs. pankhurst guilty or not guilty?" "guilty," said the foreman, "with a strong recommendation to mercy." i spoke once more to the judge. "the jury have found me guilty, with a strong recommendation to mercy, and i do not see, since motive is not taken into account in human laws, that they could do otherwise after your summing up. but since motive is not taken into account in human laws, and since i, whose motives are not ordinary motives, am about to be sentenced by you to the punishment which is accorded to people whose motives are selfish motives, i have only this to say: if it was impossible for a different verdict to be found; if it is your duty to sentence me, as it will be presently, then i want to say to you, as a private citizen, and to the jury as private citizens, that i, standing here, found guilty by the laws of my country, i say to you it is your duty, as private citizens, to do what you can to put an end to this intolerable state of affairs. i put that duty upon you. and i want to say, _whatever the sentence you pass upon me, i shall do what is humanly possible to terminate that sentence at the earliest possible moment. i have no sense of guilt. i feel i have done my duty. i look upon myself as a prisoner of war. i am under no moral obligation to conform to, or in any way accept, the sentence imposed upon me._ i shall take the desperate remedy that other women have taken. it is obvious to you that the struggle will be an unequal one, but i shall make it--i shall make it as long as i have an ounce of strength left in me, or any life left in me. "i shall fight, i shall fight, i shall fight, from the moment i enter prison to struggle against overwhelming odds; i shall resist the doctors if they attempt to feed me. i was sentenced last may in this court to nine months' imprisonment. i remained in prison six weeks. there are people who have laughed at the ordeal of hunger-striking and forcible feeding. all i can say is, and the doctors can bear me out, that i was released because, had i remained there much longer, i should have been a dead woman. "i know what it is because i have gone through it. my own daughter[ ] has only just left it. there are women there still facing that ordeal, facing it twice a day. think of it, my lord, twice a day this fight is gone through. twice a day a weak woman resisting overwhelming force, fights and fights as long as she has strength left; fights against women and even against men, resisting with her tongue, with her teeth, this ordeal. last night in the house of commons some alternative was discussed, or rather, some additional punishment. is it not a strange thing, my lord, that laws which have sufficed to restrain men throughout the history of this country do not suffice now to restrain women--decent women, honourable women? "well, my lord, i do want you to realise it. i am not whining about my punishment, i invited it. i deliberately broke the law, not hysterically or emotionally, but of set serious purpose, because i honestly feel it is the only way. now, i put the responsibility of what is to follow upon you, my lord, as a private citizen, and upon the gentlemen of the jury, as private citizens, and upon all the men in this court--what are you, with your political powers, going to do to end this intolerable situation? "_to the women i have represented, to the women who, in response to my incitement, have faced these terrible consequences, have broken laws, to them, i want to say i am not going to fail them, but to face it as they face it, to go through with it, and i know that they will go on with the fight whether i live or whether i die._ "_this movement will go on and on until we have the rights of citizens in this country, as women have in our colonies, as they will have throughout the civilised world before this woman's war is ended._ "that is all i have to say." mr. justice lush, in passing sentence, said: "it is my duty, mrs. emmeline pankhurst, and a very painful duty it is, to pass what, in my opinion, is a suitable and adequate sentence for the crime of which you have been most properly convicted, having regard to the strong recommendation to mercy by the jury. i quite recognise, as i have already said, that the motives that have actuated you in committing this crime are not the selfish motives that actuate most of the persons who stand in your position, but although you blind your eyes to it, i cannot help pointing out to you that the crime of which you have been convicted is not only a very serious one, but, in spite of your motives, it is, in fact, a wicked one. it is wicked because it not only leads to the destruction of property of persons who have done you no wrong, but in spite of your calculations, it may expose other people to the danger of being maimed or even killed. it is wicked because you are, and have been, luring other people--young women, it may be--to engage in such crimes, possibly to their own ruin; and it is wicked, because you cannot help being alive to it if you would only think. "you are setting an example to other persons who may have other grievances that they legitimately want to have put right by embarking on a similar scheme to yours, and trying to effect their object by attacking the property, if not the lives, of other people. i know, unfortunately--at least, i feel sure--you will pay no heed to what i say. i only beg of you to think of these things." "i have thought of them," i interjected. "think, if only for one short hour, dispassionately," continued the majesty of law, "i can only say that, although the sentence i am going to pass must be a severe one, must be adequate to the crime of which you have been found guilty, if you would only realise the wrong you are doing, and the mistake you are making, and would see the error you have committed, and undertake to amend matters by using your influence in a right direction, i would be the first to use all my best endeavours to bring about a mitigation of the sentence i am about to pass. "i cannot, and i will not, regard your crime as a merely trivial one. it is not. it is a most serious one, and, whatever you may think, it is a wicked one. i have paid regard to the recommendation of the jury. you yourself have stated the maximum sentence which this particular offence is by the legislature thought to deserve. the least sentence i can pass upon you is a sentence of three years' penal servitude." as soon as the sentence was pronounced the intense silence which had reigned throughout the trial was broken, and an absolute pandemonium broke out among the spectators. at first it was merely a confused and angry murmur of "shame!" "shame!" the murmurs quickly swelled into loud and indignant cries, and then from gallery and court there arose a great chorus uttered with the utmost intensity and passion. "shame!" "shame!" the women sprang to their feet, in many instances stood on their seats, shouting "shame!" "shame!" as i was conducted out of the dock in charge of two wardresses. "keep the flag flying!" shouted a woman's voice, and the response came in a chorus: "we will!" "bravo!" "three cheers for mrs. pankhurst!" that was the last i heard of the courtroom protest. afterwards i heard that the noise and confusion was kept up for several minutes longer, the judge and the police being quite powerless to obtain order. then the women filed out singing the women's marseillaise-- "march on, march on, face to the dawn, the dawn of liberty." the judge flung after their retreating forms the dire threat of prison for any woman who dared repeat such a scene. threat of prison--to suffragettes! the women's song only swelled the louder and the corridors of old bailey reverberated with their shouts. certainly that venerable building had never in its checkered history witnessed such a scene. the great crowd of detectives and police who were on duty seemed actually paralysed by the audacity of the protest, for they made no attempt to intervene. at three o'clock, when i left the court by a side entrance in newgate street, i found a crowd of women waiting to cheer me. with the two wardresses i entered a four wheeler and was driven to holloway to begin my hunger strike. scores of women followed in taxicabs, and when i arrived at the prison gates there was another protest of cheers for the cause and boos for the law. in the midst of all this intense excitement i passed through the grim gates into the twilight of prison, now become a battle-ground. footnote: [ ] sylvia pankhurst, who was forcibly fed for five weeks, during an original sentence of two months imposed for breaking one window. chapter vi prison had indeed been for us a battle-ground ever since the time when we had solemnly resolved that, as a matter of principle, we would not submit to the rules that bound ordinary offenders against the law. but when i entered holloway on that april day in , it was with full knowledge that i had before me a far more prolonged struggle than any that the militant suffragists had hitherto faced. i have described the hunger strike, that terrible weapon with which we had repeatedly broken our prison bars. the government, at their wits' end to cope with the hunger strikers, and to overcome a situation which had brought the laws of england into such scandalous disrepute, had had recourse to a measure, surely the most savagely devised ever brought before a modern parliament. in march of that year, while i was waiting trial on the charge of conspiring to destroy mr. lloyd-george's country house, a bill was introduced into the house of commons by the home secretary, mr. reginald mckenna, a bill which had for its avowed object the breaking down of the hunger strike. this measure, now universally known as the "cat and mouse act," provided that when a hunger striking suffrage prisoner (the law was frankly admitted to apply only to suffrage prisoners) was certified by the prison doctors to be in danger of death, she could be ordered released on a sort of a ticket of leave for the purpose of regaining strength enough to undergo the remainder of her sentence. released, she was still a prisoner, the prisoner, or the patient, or the victim, as you may choose to call her, being kept under constant police surveillance. according to the terms of the bill the prisoner was released for a specified number of days, at the expiration of which she was supposed to return to prison on her own account. says the act: "the period of temporary discharge may, if the secretary of state thinks fit, be extended on a representation of the prisoner that the state of her health renders her unfit to return to prison. if such representation be made, the prisoner shall submit herself, if so required, for medical examination by the medical officer of the above mentioned prison, or other registered medical practitioner appointed by the secretary of state. the prisoner shall notify to the commissioner of police of the metropolis the place of residence to which she goes on her discharge. she shall not change her residence without giving one clear day's notice in writing to the commissioner, specifying the residence to which she is going and she shall not be temporarily absent from her residence for more than twelve hours without giving a like notice," etc. the idea of militant suffragists respecting a law of this order is almost humorous, and yet the smile dies before the pity one feels for the minister whose confession of failure is embodied in such a measure. here was a mighty government weakly resolved that justice to women it would not grant, knowing that submission of women it could not force, and so was willing to compromise with a piece of class legislation absolutely contrary to all of its avowed principles. said mr. mckenna, pleading in the house for the advancement of his odious measure: "at the present time i cannot make these prisoners undergo their sentences without serious risk of death and i want to have power to enable me to compel a prisoner to undergo the sentence, and i want that power in all cases where the prisoner adopts the system of the hunger strike. at the present moment, although i have the power of release, i cannot release a prisoner without a pardon, and i have to discharge them for good. i want the power of releasing a prisoner without a pardon, with the sentence remaining alive.... i want to enforce the law, and i want, if i can, to enforce it without forcible feeding, and without undergoing the risk of some one else's life." interrogated by several members, mr. mckenna admitted that the "cat and mouse" bill, if passed, would not inevitably do away with forcible feeding, but he promised that the hateful and disgusting process would be resorted to only when "absolutely necessary." we shall see later how hypocritical this representation was. parliament, which had never had time to consider, beyond its initial stages, a women's suffrage measure, passed the cat and mouse act through both houses within the limits of a few days. it was already law when i entered holloway on april rd, , and i grieve to state that many members of the labour party, pledged to support woman suffrage, helped to make it into law. of course the act was, from its inception, treated by the suffragists with the utmost contempt. we had not the slightest intention of assisting mr. mckenna in enforcing unjust sentences against soldiers in the army of freedom, and when the prison doors closed behind me i adopted the hunger strike exactly as though i expected it to prove, as formerly, a means of gaining my liberty. that struggle is not a pleasant one to recall. every possible means of breaking down my resolution was resorted to. the daintiest and most tempting food was placed in my cell. all sorts of arguments were brought to bear against me--the futility of resisting the cat and mouse act, the wickedness of risking suicide--i shall not attempt to record all the arguments. they fell against a blank wall of consciousness, for my thoughts were all very far away from holloway and all its torments. i knew, what afterwards i learned as a fact, that my imprisonment was followed by the greatest revolutionary outbreak that had been witnessed in england since . from one end of the island to the other the beacons of the women's revolution blazed night and day. many country houses--all unoccupied--were fired, the grand stand of ayr race course was burned to the ground, a bomb was exploded in oxted station, london, blowing out walls and windows, some empty railroad carriages were blown up, the glass of thirteen famous paintings in the manchester art gallery were smashed with hammers--these are simply random specimens of the general outbreak of secret guerilla warfare waged by women to whose liberties every other approach had been barricaded by the liberal government of free england. the only answer of the government was the closing of the british museum, the national gallery, windsor castle, and other tourist resorts. as for the result on the people of england, that was exactly what we had anticipated. the public were thrown into a state of emotion of insecurity and frightened expectancy. not yet did they show themselves ready to demand of the government that the outrages be stopped in the only way they could be stopped--by giving votes to women. i knew that it would be so. lying in my lonely cell in holloway, racked with pain, oppressed with increasing weakness, depressed with the heavy responsibility of unknown happenings, i was sadly aware that we were but approaching a far goal. the end, though certain, was still distant. patience, and still more patience, faith and still more faith, well, we had called upon these souls' help before and it was certain that they would not fail us at this greatest crisis of all. thus in great anguish of mind and body passed nine terrible days, each one longer and more acutely miserable than the preceding. towards the last, i was mercifully half unconscious of my surroundings. a curious indifference took possession of my over-wrought mind, and it was almost without emotion that i heard, on the morning of the tenth day, that i was to be released temporarily in order to recover my health. the governor came to my cell and read me my licence, which commanded me to return to holloway in fifteen days, and meanwhile to observe all the obsequious terms as to informing the police of my movements. with what strength my hands retained i tore the document in strips and dropped it on the floor of the cell. "i have no intention," i said, "of obeying this infamous law. you release me knowing perfectly well that i shall never voluntarily return to any of your prisons." they sent me away, sitting bolt upright in a cab, unmindful of the fact that i was in a dangerous condition of weakness, having lost two stone in weight and suffered seriously from irregularities of heart action. as i left the prison i was gratefully aware of groups of our women standing bravely at the gates, as though enduring a long vigil. as a matter of fact, relays of women had picketed the place night and day during the whole term of my imprisonment. the first pickets were arrested, but as others constantly arrived to fill their places the police finally gave in and allowed the women to march up and down before the prison carrying the flag. at the nursing home to which i was conveyed i learned that annie kenney, mrs. drummond, and our staunch friend, mr. george lansbury,[ ] had been arrested during my imprisonment, and that all three had adopted the hunger strike. i also learned on my own account how desperately the government were striving to make their cat and mouse act--the last stand in their losing campaign--a success. without regard to the extra expense laid on the unfortunate tax payers of the country, the government employed a large extra force of police especially for this purpose. as i lay in bed, being assisted by every medical resource to return to life and health, these special police, colloquially termed "cats," guarded the nursing home as if it were a besieged castle. in the street under my windows two detectives and a constable stood on guard night and day. in a house at right angles to my refuge three more detectives kept constant watch. in the mews at the rear of the house were more detectives, and diligently patrolling the road, as if in expectation of a rescuing regiment, two taxicabs, each with its quota of detectives, guarded the highways. all this made recovery slow and difficult. but worse was to come. on april th, just as i was beginning to rally somewhat, came the news that the police had swooped down on our headquarters in kingsway and had arrested the entire official force. miss barrett, associate editor of _the suffragette_; miss lennox, the sub-editor; miss lake, business manager; miss kerr, office manager, and mrs. sanders, financial secretary of the union, were arrested, although not one of them had ever appeared in any militant action. mr. e. g. clayton, a chemist, was also arrested, accused of furnishing the w. s. p. u. with explosive materials. the offices were thoroughly searched, and, as on a former occasion, stripped of all books and papers. while this was being done another party of police, armed with a special warrant, proceeded to the printing office where our paper, _the suffragette_, was published. the printer, mr. drew, was placed under arrest and the material for the paper, which was to appear on the following day, was seized. by one o'clock in the afternoon the entire plant and the headquarters of the union were in the hands of the police, and to all appearances the militant movement--temporarily at least--was brought to a full stop. in my state of semi-prostration it at first seemed to me best to let the week's issue of the paper lapse, but on second thought i decided that even the appearance of surrender was not to be thought of. how we managed it need not here be told, but we actually did, overnight, with hardly any material, except christabel's leading article, and with hastily summoned helpers, get out the paper as usual, and side by side with the morning journals which bore front page stories of the suppression of the suffragette organ, our paper sellers sold _the suffragette_. the front page bore, instead of the usual cartoon, the single word in bold faced type-- "raided," the full story of the police search and the arrests being related in the other pages. our headquarters, i may say in passing, remained closed less than forty-eight hours. we are so organised that the arrest of leaders does not seriously cripple us. every one has an understudy, and when one leader drops out her substitute is ready instantly to take her place. in this emergency there appeared as chief organiser in miss kenney's place, miss grace roe, one of the young suffragettes of whom i, as belonging to the older generation, am so proud. faced by difficulties as great as the government could make them, miss roe at once showed herself to be equal to the situation, and to have the gift of unswerving loyalty combined with a strong and rapid judgment of things and people. aiding her was mrs. dacre fox, who surprised us all by her amazing ability to act as assistant editor of _the suffragette_, manage a host of affairs in the office, and preside at our weekly meetings. another member of the union who came prominently to the front at the time of this crisis was mrs. mansel. in two days' time the office was open and running quite as usual, no outward sign showing the grief and indignation felt for our imprisoned comrades. most of them refused bail and instantly hunger struck appearing in court for trial three days later in a pitiful state. mrs. drummond was so obviously ill and in need of medical attention that she was discharged and was very soon afterwards operated upon. mr. drew, the printer, was forced to sign an undertaking not to publish the paper again. the others were sentenced to terms varying from six to eighteen months. mr. clayton was sentenced to twenty-one months, and after desperate resistance, during which he was forcibly fed many times, escaped his prison. the others, following the same example, starved their way to liberty, and have ever since been pursued at intervals and rearrested under the cat and mouse act. after my discharge, april th, i remained in the nursing home until partially restored, then, under the eyes of the police, i motored out to woking, the country home of my friend, dr. ethel smyth. this house, like the nursing home, was guarded by a small army of police. i never went to the window, i never took the air in the garden without being conscious of watching eyes. the situation became intolerable, and i determined to end it. on may th there was a great meeting at the london pavillion, and i gave notice that i would attend it. supported by dr. flora murray, dr. ethel smyth and my devoted nurse pine, i walked downstairs, to be confronted at the door by a detective, who demanded to know where i was going. i was in a weak state, much weaker than i had imagined, and in refusing the right of a man to question my movements i exhausted the last remnant of my strength and sank fainting in the arms of my friends. as soon as i recovered i got into the motor car. the detective instantly took his place beside me and told the chauffeur to drive to bow street station. the chauffeur replied that he took his orders only from mrs. pankhurst, whereupon the detective summoned a taxicab and, placing me under arrest, took me to bow street. under the cat and mouse act a paroled prisoner can be thus arrested without the formality of a warrant, nor does the time she has spent at liberty, in regaining her health, count off from her prison sentence. the magistrate at bow street was therefore quite within his legal rights when he ordered me returned to holloway. i felt it my duty, nevertheless, to point out to him the inhumanity of his act. i said to him: "i was released from holloway on account of my health. since then i have been treated exactly as if i were in prison. it has become absolutely impossible for any one to recover health under such conditions, and this morning i decided to make this protest against a state of affairs unparalleled in a civilised country." [illustration: re-arrest of mrs. pankhurst at woking _may , _] the magistrate replied formally: "you quite understand what the position is. you have been arrested on this warrant and all i have to do is to make an order recommending you to prison." "i think" i said, "that you should do so, with a full sense of responsibility. if i am taken to holloway on your warrant i shall resume the protest i made before which led to my release, and i shall go on indefinitely until i die, or until the government decide, since they have taken upon themselves to employ you and other people to administer the laws, that they must recognise women as citizens and give them some control over the laws of this country." it was a five days' hunger strike this time, because the extreme weakness of my condition made it impossible for me to endure a longer term. i was released on may th on a seven days' licence, and in a half-alive state was again carried to a nursing home. less than a week later, while i was still bed-ridden, a terrible event occurred, one that should have shaken the stolid british public into a realisation of the seriousness of the situation precipitated by the government. emily wilding davison, who had been associated with the militant movement since , gave up her life for the women's cause by throwing herself in the path of the thing, next to property, held most sacred to englishmen--sport. miss davison went to the races at epsom, and breaking through the barriers which separated the vast crowds from the race course, rushed in the path of the galloping horses and caught the bridle of the king's horse, which was leading all the others. the horse fell, throwing his jockey and crushing miss davison in such shocking fashion that she was carried from the course in a dying condition. everything possible was done to save her life. the great surgeon, mr. mansell moullin, put everything aside and devoted himself to her case, but though he operated most skilfully, the injuries she had received were so frightful that she died four days later without once having recovered consciousness. members of the union were beside her when she breathed her last, on june th, and on june th they gave her a great public funeral in london. crowds lined the streets as the funeral car, followed by thousands of women, passed slowly and sadly to st. george's church, bloomsbury, where the memorial services were held. emily wilding davison was a character almost inevitably developed by a struggle such as ours. she was a b. a. of london university, and had taken first class honours at oxford in english language and literature. yet the women's cause made such an appeal to her reason and her sympathies that she put every intellectual and social appeal aside and devoted herself untiringly and fearlessly to the work of the union. she had suffered many imprisonments, had been forcibly fed and most brutally treated. on one occasion when she had barricaded her cell against the prison doctors, a hose pipe was turned on her from the window and she was drenched and all but drowned in the icy water while workmen were breaking down her cell door. miss davison, after this experience, expressed to several of her friends the deep conviction that now, as in days called uncivilised, the conscience of the people would awaken only to the sacrifice of a human life. at one time in prison she tried to kill herself by throwing herself head-long from one of the upper galleries, but she succeeded only in sustaining cruel injuries. ever after that time she clung to her conviction that one great tragedy, the deliberate throwing into the breach of a human life, would put an end to the intolerable torture of women. and so she threw herself at the king's horse, in full view of the king and queen and a great multitude of their majesties' subjects, offering up her life as a petition to the king, praying for the release of suffering women throughout england and the world. no one can possibly doubt that that prayer can forever remain unanswered, for she took it straight to the throne of the king of all the worlds. the death of miss davison was a great shock to me and a very great grief as well, and although i was scarcely able to leave my bed i determined to risk everything to attend her funeral. this was not to be, however, for as i left the house i was again arrested by detectives who lay in waiting. again the farce of trying to make me serve a three years' sentence was undertaken. but now the militant women had discovered a new and more terrible weapon with which to defy the unjust laws of england, and this weapon--the thirst strike--i turned against my gaolers with such effect that they were forced within three days to release me. the hunger strike i have described as a dreadful ordeal, but it is a mild experience compared with the thirst strike, which is from beginning to end simple and unmitigated torture. hunger striking reduces a prisoner's weight very quickly, but thirst striking reduces weight so alarmingly fast that prison doctors were at first thrown into absolute panic of fright. later they became somewhat hardened, but even now they regard the thirst strike with terror. i am not sure that i can convey to the reader the effect of days spent without a single drop of water taken into the system. the body cannot endure loss of moisture. it cries out in protest with every nerve. the muscles waste, the skin becomes shrunken and flabby, the facial appearance alters horribly, all these outward symptoms being eloquent of the acute suffering of the entire physical being. every natural function is, of course, suspended, and the poisons which are unable to pass out of the body are retained and absorbed. the body becomes cold and shivery, there is constant headache and nausea, and sometimes there is fever. the mouth and tongue become coated and swollen, the throat thickens and the voice sinks to a thready whisper. when, at the end of the third day of my first thirst strike, i was sent home i was in a condition of jaundice from which i have never completely recovered. so badly was i affected that the prison authorities made no attempt to arrest me for nearly a month after my release. on july th i felt strong enough once more to protest against the odious cat and mouse act, and, with miss annie kenney, who was also at liberty "on medical grounds," i went to a meeting at the london pavillion. at the close of the meeting, during which miss kenney's prison licence was auctioned off for £ , we attempted for the first time the open escape which we have so frequently since effected. miss kenney, from the platform, announced that we should openly leave the hall, and she forthwith walked coolly down into the audience. the police rushed in in overwhelming numbers, and after a desperate fight, succeeded in capturing her. other detectives and policemen hurried to the side door of the hall to intercept me, but i disappointed them by leaving by the front door and escaping to a friend's house in a cab. the police soon traced me to the house of my friend, the distinguished scientist, mrs. hertha ayrton, and the place straightway became a besieged fortress. day and night the house was surrounded, not only by police, but by crowds of women sympathisers. on the saturday following my appearance at the pavillion we gave the police a bit of excitement of a kind they do not relish. a cab drove up to mrs. ayrton's door, and several well-known members of the union alighted and hurried indoors. at once the word was circulated that a rescue was being attempted, and the police drew resolutely around the cab. soon a veiled woman appeared in the doorway, surrounded by suffragettes, who, when the veiled lady attempted to get into the cab, resisted with all their strength the efforts of the police to lay hands upon her. the cry went up from all sides: "they are arresting mrs. pankhurst!" something very like a free fight ensued, occupying all the attention of the police who were not in the immediate vicinity of the cab. the men surrounding that rocking vehicle succeeded in tearing the veiled figure from the arms of the other women and piling into the cab ordered the chauffeur to drive full speed to bow street. before they reached their destination, however, the veiled lady raised her veil--alas, it was not mrs. pankhurst, who by that time was speeding away in another taxicab in quite another direction. our ruse infuriated the police, and they determined to arrest me at my first public appearance, which was at the pavillion on the monday following the episode just related. when i reached the pavillion i found it literally surrounded by police, hundreds of them. i managed to slip past the outside cordon, but scotland yard had its best men inside the hall, and i was not permitted to reach the platform. surrounded by plain clothes men, batons drawn, i could not escape, but i called out to the women that i was being taken, and so valiantly did they rush to the rescue that the police had their hands full for nearly half an hour before they got me into a taxicab bound for holloway. six women were arrested that day, and many more than six policemen were temporarily incapacitated for duty. by this time i had made up my mind that i would not only resist staying in prison, i would resist to the utmost of my ability going to prison. therefore, when we reached holloway i refused to get out of the cab, declaring to my captors that i would no longer acquiesce in the slow judicial murder to which the government were subjecting women. i was lifted out and carried into a cell in the convicted hospital wing of the gaol. the wardresses who were on duty there spoke with some kindness to me, suggesting that, as i was very apparently exhausted and ill, i should do well to undress and go to bed. "no," i replied, "i shall not go to bed, not once while i am kept here. i am weary of this brutal game, and i intend to end it." without undressing, i lay down on the outside of the bed. later in the evening the prison doctor visited me, but i refused to be examined. in the morning he came again, and with him the governor and the head wardress. as i had taken neither food nor water since the previous day my appearance had become altered to such an extent that the doctor was plainly perturbed. he begged me, "as a small concession," to allow him to feel my pulse, but i shook my head, and they left me alone for the day. that night i was so ill that i felt some alarm for my own condition, but i knew of nothing that could be done except to wait. on wednesday morning the governor came again and asked me with an assumption of carelessness if it were true that i was refusing both food and water. "it is true," i said, and he replied brutally: "you are very cheap to keep." then, as if the thing were not a ridiculous farce, he announced that i was sentenced to close confinement for three days, with deprivation of all privileges, after which he left my cell. twice that day the doctor visited me, but i would not allow him to touch me. later came a medical officer from the home office, to which i had complained, as i had complained to the governor and the prison doctor, of the pain i still suffered from the rough treatment i had received at the pavillion. both of the medical men insisted that i allow them to examine me, but i said: "i will not be examined by you because your intention is not to help me as a patient, but merely to ascertain how much longer it will be possible to keep me alive in prison. i am not prepared to assist you or the government in any such way. i am not prepared to relieve you of any responsibility in this matter." i added that it must be quite obvious that i was very ill and unfit to be confined in prison. they hesitated for a moment or two, then left me. wednesday night was a long nightmare of suffering, and by thursday morning i must have presented an almost mummified appearance. from the faces of the governor and the doctor when they came into my cell and looked at me i thought that they would at once arrange for my release. but the hours passed and no order for release came. i decided that i must force my release, and i got up from the bed where i had been lying and began to stagger up and down the cell. when all strength failed me and i could keep my feet no longer i lay down on the stone floor, and there, at four in the afternoon, they found me, gasping and half unconscious. and then they sent me away. i was in a very weakened condition this time, and had to be treated with saline solutions to save my life. i felt, however, that i had broken my prison walls for a time at least, and so this proved. it was on july th that i was released. a few days later i was borne in an invalid's chair to the platform of the london pavillion. i could not speak, but i was there, as i had promised to be. my licence, which by this time i had ceased to tear up because it had an auction value, was sold to an american present for the sum of one hundred pounds. i had told the governor on leaving that i intended to sell the licence and to spend the money for militant purposes, but i had not expected to raise such a splendid sum as one hundred pounds. i shall always remember the generosity of that unknown american friend. a great medical congress was being held in london in the summer of , and on august th we held a large meeting at kingsway hall, which was attended by hundreds of visiting doctors. i addressed this meeting, at which a ringing resolution against forcible feeding was passed, and i was allowed to go home without police interference. it was, as a matter of fact, the second time during that month that i had spoken in public without molestation. the presence of so many distinguished medical men in london may have suggested to the authorities that i had better be left alone for the time being. at all events i was left alone, and late in the month i went, quite publicly, to paris, to see my daughter christabel and plan with her the campaign for the coming autumn. i needed rest after the struggles of the past five months, during which i had served, of my three years' prison sentence, not quite three weeks. footnote: [ ] mr. lansbury shortly before this had resigned his seat in parliament and had gone to his constituents on the question of women's suffrage. both the liberal and the conservative parties had united against him, with the result that a unionist candidate was returned in his place. mr. lloyd-george publicly rejoiced in the result of this election, saying that mr. marsh, the conservative candidate, had been his man. the labour party, in parliament and out, meekly accepted this piece of liberal chicanery without protest. chapter vii the two months of the summer of which were spent with my daughter in paris were almost the last days of peace and rest i have been destined since to enjoy. i spent the days, or some hours of them, in the initial preparation of this volume, because it seemed to me that i had a duty to perform in giving to the world my own plain statement of the events which have led up to the women's revolution in england. other histories of the militant movement will undoubtedly be written; in times to come when in all constitutional countries of the world, women's votes will be as universally accepted as men's votes are now; when men and women occupy the world of industry on equal terms, as co-workers rather than as cut-throat competitors; when, in a word, all the dreadful and criminal discriminations which exist now between the sexes are abolished, as they must one day be abolished, the historian will be able to sit down in leisurely fashion and do full justice to the strange story of how the women of england took up arms against the blind and obstinate government of england and fought their way to political freedom. i should like to live long enough to read such a history, calmly considered, carefully analysed, conscientiously set forth. it will be a better book to read than this one, written, as it were, in camp between battles. but perhaps this one, hastily prepared as it has been, will give the reader of the future a clearer impression of the strenuousness and the desperation of the conflict, and also something of the heretofore undreamed of courage and fighting strength of women, who, having learned the joy of battle, lose all sense of fear and continue their struggle up to and past the gates of death, never flinching at any step of the way. every step since that meeting in october, , when we definitely declared war on the peace of england, has been beset with danger and difficulty, often unexpected and undeclared. in october, , i sailed in the french liner, _la provence_, for my third visit to the united states. my intention was published in the public press of england, france and america. no attempt at concealment of my purpose was made, and in fact, my departure was witnessed by two men from scotland yard. some hints had reached my ears that an attempt would be made by the immigration officers at the port of new york to exclude me as an undesirable alien, but i gave little credit to these reports. american friends wrote and cabled encouraging words, and so i passed my time aboard ship quite peacefully, working part of the time, resting also against the fatigue always attendant on a lecture tour. [illustration: mrs. pankhurst and christabel in the garden of christabel's home in paris] we came to anchor in the harbour of new york on october th, and there, to my astonishment, the immigration authorities notified me that i was ordered to ellis island to appear before a board of special inquiry. the officers who served the order of detention did so with all courtesy, even with a certain air of reluctance. they allowed my american travelling companion, mrs. rheta childe dorr, to accompany me to the island, but no one, not even the solicitor sent by mrs. o. h. p. belmont to defend me, was permitted to attend me before the board of special inquiry. i went before these three men quite alone, as many a poor, friendless woman, without any of my resources, has had to appear. the moment of my entrance to the room i knew that extraordinary means had been employed against me, for on the desk behind which the board sat i saw a complete _dossier_ of my case in english legal papers. these papers may have been supplied by scotland yard, or they may have been supplied by the government. i cannot tell, of course. they sufficed to convince the board of special inquiry that i was a person of doubtful character, to say the least of it, and i was informed that i should have to be detained until the higher authorities at washington examined my case. everything was done to make me comfortable, the rooms of the commissioner of immigration being turned over to me and my companion. the very men who found me guilty of moral obloquy--something of which no british jury has ever yet accused me--put themselves out in a number of ways to make my detention agreeable. i was escorted all over the island and through the quarters assigned detained immigrants, whose right to land in the united states is in question. the huge dining-rooms, the spotless kitchens and the admirably varied bill of fare interested and impressed me. nothing like them exists in any english institution. i remained at ellis island two and a half days, long enough for the commissioner of immigration at washington to take my case to the president who instantly ordered my release. whoever was responsible for my detention entirely overlooked the advertising value of the incident. my lecture tour was made much more successful for it and i embarked for england late in november with a very generous american contribution to our war chest, a contribution, alas, that i was not permitted to deliver in person. the night before the white star liner _majestic_ reached plymouth a wireless message from headquarters informed me that the government had decided to arrest me on my arrival. the arrest was made, under very dramatic conditions, the next day shortly before noon. the steamer came to anchor in the outer harbour, and we saw at once that the bay, usually so animated with passing vessels, had been cleared of all craft. far in the distance the tender, which on other occasions had always met the steamer, rested at anchor between two huge grey warships. for a moment or two the scene halted, the passengers crowding to the deckrails in speechless curiosity to see what was to happen next. suddenly a fisherman's dory, power driven, dashed across the harbour, directly under the noses of the grim war vessels. two women, spray drenched, stood up in the boat, and as it ploughed swiftly past our steamer the women called out to me: "the cats are here, mrs. pankhurst! they're close on you--" their voices trailed away into the mist and we heard no more. within a minute or two a frightened ship's boy appeared on deck and delivered a message from the purser asking me to step down to his office. i answered that i would certainly do nothing of the kind, and next the police swarmed out on deck and i heard, for the fifth time that i was arrested under the cat and mouse act. they had sent five men from scotland yard, two men from plymouth and a wardress from holloway, a sufficient number, it will be allowed, to take one woman from a ship anchored two miles out at sea. following my firm resolve not to assist in any way the enforcing of the infamous law, i refused to go with the men, who thereupon picked me up and carried me to the waiting police tender. we steamed some miles up the cornish coast, the police refusing absolutely to tell me whither they were conveying me, and finally disembarked at bull point, a government landing-stage, closed to the general public. here a motor car was waiting, and accompanied by my bodyguard from scotland yard and holloway, i was driven across dartmoor to exeter, where i had a not unendurable imprisonment and hunger strike of four days. everyone from the governor of the prison to the wardresses were openly sympathetic and kind, and i was told by one confidential official that they kept me only because they had orders to do so until after the great meeting at empress theatre, earls court, london, which had been arranged as a welcome home for me. the meeting was held on the sunday night following my arrest, and the great sum of £ , was poured into the coffers of militancy. this included the £ , which had been collected during my american tour. several days after my release from exeter i went openly to paris to confer with my daughter on matters relating to the campaign about to open, returning to attend a w. s. p. u. meeting on the day before my license expired. nevertheless the boat train carriage in which i travelled with my doctor and nurse was invaded at dover town by two detectives who told me to consider myself under arrest. we were making tea when the men entered, but this we immediately threw out of the window, because a hunger strike always began at the instant of arrest. we never compromised at all, but resisted from the very first moment of attack. the reason for this uncalled for arrest at dover was the fear on the part of the police of the body guard of women, just then organised for the expressed purpose of resisting attempts to arrest me. that the police, as well as the government were afraid to risk encountering women who were not afraid to fight we had had abundant testimony. we certainly had it on this occasion, for knowing that the body guard was waiting at victoria station, the authorities had cut off all approaches to the arrival platform and the place was guarded by battalions of police. not a passenger was permitted to leave a carriage until i had been carried across the arrival platform between a double line of police and detectives and thrown into a forty horse power motor car, guarded within by two plain clothes men and a wardress, and without by three more policemen. around this motor car were twelve taxi-cabs filled with plain clothes men, four to each vehicle, and three guarding the outside, not to mention the driver, who was also in the employ of the police department. detectives on motor cycles were on guard at various points ready to follow any rescuing taxicab. arrived at holloway i was again lifted from the car and taken to the reception room and placed on the floor in a state of great exhaustion. when the doctor came in and told me curtly to stand up i was obliged to tell him that i could not stand. i utterly refused to be examined, saying that i was resolved to make the government assume full responsibility for my condition. "i refuse to be examined by you or any prison doctor," i declared, "and i do this as a protest against my sentence, and against my being here at all. i no longer recognise a prison doctor as a medical man in the proper sense of the word. i have withdrawn my consent to be governed by the rules of prison; i refuse to recognise the authority of any prison official, and i therefore make it impossible for the government to carry out the sentence they have imposed upon me." wardresses were summoned, i was placed in an invalid chair and so carried up three flights of stairs and put into an unwarmed cell with a concrete floor. refusing to leave the chair i was lifted out and placed on the bed, where i lay all night without removing my coat or loosening my garments. it was on a saturday that the arrest had been made, and i was kept in prison until the following wednesday morning. during all that time no food or water passed my lips, and i added to this the sleep strike, which means that as far as was humanly possible i refused all sleep and rest. for two nights i sat or lay on the concrete floor, resolutely refusing the oft repeated offers of medical examination. "you are not a doctor," i told the man. "you are a government torturer, and all you want to do is to satisfy yourself that i am not quite ready to die." the doctor, a new man since my last imprisonment, flushed and looked extremely unhappy. "i suppose you do think that," he mumbled. on tuesday morning the governor came to look at me, and no doubt i presented by that time a fairly bad appearance. at least i gathered as much from the alarmed expression of the wardress who accompanied him. to the governor i made the simple announcement that i was ready to leave prison and that i intended to leave very soon, dead or alive. i told him that from that moment i should not even rest on the concrete floor, but should walk my cell until i was released or until i died from exhaustion. all day i kept to this resolution, pacing up and down the narrow cell, many times stumbling and falling, until the doctor came in at evening to tell me that i was ordered released on the following morning. then i loosened my gown and lay down, absolutely spent, and fell almost instantly into a death-like sleep. the next morning a motor ambulance took me to the kingsway headquarters where a hospital room had been arranged for my reception. the two imprisonments in less than ten days had made terrible drafts on my strength, and the coldness of the holloway cell had brought on a painful neuralgia. it was many days before i recovered even a tithe of my usual health. these two arrests resulted exactly as the government should have known that they would result, in a great outbreak of fresh militancy. as soon as the news spread that i had been taken at plymouth a huge fire broke out in the timber yards at richmond walk, devenport, and an acre and a half of timber, beside a pleasure fair and a scenic railway adjacent, to the value of thousands of pounds was destroyed. no one ever discovered the cause of the fire, the greatest that ever occurred in the neighbourhood, but tied to one of the railings was a copy of the _suffragette_ and to another railing two cards, on one of which was written a message to the government: "how dare you arrest mrs. pankhurst and allow sir edward carson and mr. bonar law to go free?" the second card bore the words: "our reply to the torture of mrs. pankhurst, and her cowardly arrest at plymouth." besides this fire, which waged fiercely from midnight until dawn, a large unoccupied house at bristol was destroyed by fire; a fine residence in scotland, also unoccupied, was badly damaged by fire; st. anne's church in a suburb of liverpool was partly destroyed; and many pillar boxes in london, edinburgh, derby and other cities were fired. in churches all over the kingdom our women created consternation by interpolating into the services reverently spoken prayers for prisoners who were suffering for conscience' sake. the reader no doubt has heard of these interruptions, and if so he has read of brawling, shrieking women, breaking into the sanctity of religious services, and creating riot in the house of god. i think the reader should know exactly what does happen when militants, who are usually religious women, interrupt church services. on the sunday when i was in holloway, following my arrest at dover, certain women attending the afternoon service at westminster abbey, chanted in concert the following prayer: "god save emmeline pankhurst, help us with thy love and strength to guard her, spare those who suffer for conscience' sake. hear us when we pray to thee." they had hardly finished this prayer when vergers fell upon them and with great violence hustled them out of the abbey. one kneeling man, who happened to be near one of the women, forgot his christian intercessions long enough to beat her in the face with his fists before the vergers came. similar scenes have taken place in churches and cathedrals throughout england and scotland, and in many instances the women have been most barbarously treated by vergers and members of the congregations. in other cases the women not only have been left unmolested, but have been allowed to finish their prayers amid deep and sympathetic silence. some clergymen have even been brave enough to add a reverent amen to these prayers for women in prison, and it has happened that clergymen have voluntarily offered prayers for us. the church as a whole, however, has undoubtedly failed to live up to its obligation to demand justice for women, and to protest against the torture of forcible feeding. during the year just closing we sent many deputations to church authorities, the bishops, one after another having been visited in this manner. some of the bishops, including the reactionary archbishop of canterbury, refused to accord the desired interview, and when that happened, the answer of the deputation was to sit on the doorstep of the episcopal residence until surrender followed--as it invariably did. as holloway gaol is within his diocese, the bishop of london was visited by the w. s. p. u. and the demand was made that the bishop himself should witness forcible feeding in order to realise the horror of the proceeding. he did visit two of the tortured women, but he did not see them forcibly fed, and when he came out he gave the public an account of his interview with them which was in effect the government's version of the facts. the w. s. p. u. was naturally indignant, while all the government's friends hailed the bishop as a supporter of the policy of torture. only those who have suffered the pain and agony, not to speak of the moral humiliation of forcible feeding can realise the depths of the iniquity which the bishop of london was manoeuvred by the government to whitewash. it may be true, as the bishop comforted himself by saying, that the victims of forcible feeding suffered the more because they struggled under the process. but, as mary richardson wrote in the _suffragette_, to expect a victim not to struggle was the same as telling her that she would suffer less if she did not jump on getting a cinder in her eye. "the principle," declared miss richardson, "is the same. one struggles because the pain is excruciating, and the nerves of the eyes, ears and face are so tortured that it would be impossible not to resist to the uttermost. one struggles, also, because of another reason--a moral reason--for forcible feeding is an immoral assault as well as a painful physical one, and to remain passive under it would give one the feeling of sin; the sin of concurrence. one's whole nature is revolted; resistance is therefore inevitable." i think it proper here to explain also the policy upon which we embarked in of taking our cause directly to the king. the reader has perhaps heard of suffragette "insults" to king george and queen mary, and it is but just that he should hear a direct account of how these "insults" are offered. several isolated attempts had been made to present petitions to the king, once when he was on his way to westminster to open parliament, and again on an occasion when he paid a visit to bristol. on the latter occasion the woman who tried to present the petition was assaulted by one of the king's equerries, who struck her with the flat of his sword. we finally resolved on the policy of direct petition to the king because we had been forced to abandon all hope of successful petitioning to his ministers. tricked and betrayed at every turn by the liberal government, we announced that we would not again put even a pretence of confidence in them. we would carry our demand for justice to the throne of the monarch. late in december, , while i was in prison for the second time since my return to england, a great gala performance was given at covent garden, the opera being the jeanne d'arc of raymond rôze. the king and queen and the entire court were present, and the scene was expected to be one of unusual brilliance. our women took advantage of the occasion to make one of the most successful demonstrations of the year. a box was secured directly opposite the royal box, and this was occupied by three women, beautifully gowned. on entering they had managed, without attracting the slightest attention, to lock and barricade the door, and at the close of the first act, as soon as the orchestra had disappeared, the women stood up, and one of them, with the aid of a megaphone, addressed the king. calling attention to the impressive scenes on the stage, the speaker told the king that women were to-day fighting, as joan of arc fought centuries ago, for human liberty, and that they, like the maid of orleans, were being tortured and done to death, in the name of the king, in the name of the church, and with the full knowledge and responsibility of established government. at this very hour the leader of these fighters in the army of liberty was being held in prison and tortured by the king's authority. the vast audience was thrown into a panic of excitement and horror, and amid a perfect turmoil of cries and adjurations, the door of the box was finally broken down and the women ejected. as soon as they had left the house others of our women, to the number of forty or more, who had been sitting quietly in an upper gallery, rose to their feet and rained suffrage literature on the heads of the audience below. it was fully three quarters of an hour before the excitement subsided and the singers could go on with the opera. the sensation caused by this direct address to royalty inspired us to make a second attempt to arouse the king's conscience, and early in january, as soon as parliament re-assembled, we announced that i would personally lead a deputation to buckingham palace. the plan was welcomed with enthusiasm by our members and a very large number of women volunteered to join the deputation, which was intended to make a protest against three things--the continued disfranchisement of women; the forcible feeding and the cat and mouse torture of those who were fighting against this injustice; and the scandalous manner in which the government, while coercing and torturing militant women, were allowing perfect freedom to the men opponents of home rule in ireland, men who openly announced that they were about to carry out a policy, not merely of attacking property, but of destroying human life. i wrote a letter to the king, conveying to him "the respectful and loyal request of the women's social and political union that your majesty will give audience to a deputation of women." the letter went on: "the deputation desire to submit to your majesty in person their claim to the parliamentary vote, which is the only protection against the grievous industrial and social wrongs that women suffer; is the symbol and guarantee of british citizenship; and means the recognition of women's equal dignity and worth, as members of our great empire. "the deputation will further lay before your majesty a complaint of the mediæval and barbarous methods of torture whereby your majesty's ministers are seeking to repress women's revolt against the deprivation of citizen rights--a revolt as noble and glorious in its spirit and purpose as any of those past struggles for liberty which are the pride of the british race. "we have been told by the unthinking--by those who are heedless of the constitutional principles upon which is based our loyal request for an audience of your majesty in person--that our conversation should be with your majesty's ministers. "we repudiate this suggestion. in the first place, it would not only be repugnant to our womanly sense of dignity, but it would be absurd and futile for us to interview the very men against whom we bring the accusations of betraying the women's cause and torturing those who fight for that cause. "in the second place, we will not be referred to, and we will not recognise the authority of men who, in our eyes, have no legal or constitutional standing in the matter, because we have not been consulted as to their election to parliament nor as to their appointment as ministers of the crown." i then cited as a precedent in support of our claim to be heard by the king in person, the case of the deputation of irish catholics, which, in the year , was received by king george iii in person. i further said: "our right as women to be heard and to be aided by your majesty is far stronger than any such right possessed by men, because it is based upon our lack of every other constitutional means of securing the redress of our grievances. we have no power to vote for members of parliament, and therefore for us there is no house of commons. we have no voice in the house of lords. but we have a king, and to him we make our appeal. "constitutionally speaking, we are, as voteless women, living in the time when the power of the monarch was unlimited. in that old time, which is passed for men though not for women, men who were oppressed had recourse to the king--the source of power, of justice, and of reform. "precisely in the same way we now claim the right to come to the foot of the throne and to make of the king in person our demand for the redress of the political grievance which we cannot, and will not, any longer tolerate. "because women are voteless, there are in our midst to-day sweated workers, white slaves, outraged children, and innocent mothers and their babes stricken by horrible disease. it is for the sake and in the cause of these unhappy members of our sex, that we ask of your majesty the audience that we are confident will be granted to us." it was some days before we had the answer to this letter, and in the meantime some uncommonly stirring and painful occurrences attracted the public attention. chapter viii for months before my return to england from my american lecture tour, the ulster situation had been increasingly serious. sir edward carson and his followers had declared that if home rule government should be created and set up in dublin, they would--law or no law--establish a rival and independent government in ulster. it was known that arms and ammunition were being shipped to ireland, and that men--and women too, for that matter--were drilling and otherwise getting ready for civil war. the w. s. p. u. approached sir edward carson and asked him if the proposed ulster government would give equal voting rights to women. we frankly declared that in case the ulster men alone were to have the vote, that we should deal with "king carson" and his colleagues exactly in the same manner that we had adopted towards the british government centred at westminster. sir edward carson at first promised us that the rebel ulster government, should it come into existence, would give votes to ulster women. this pledge was later repudiated, and in the early winter months of militancy appeared in ulster. it had been raging in scotland for some time, and now the imprisoned suffragettes in that country were being forcibly fed as in england. the answer to this was, of course, more militancy. the ancient scottish church of whitekirk, a relic of pre-reformation days, was destroyed by fire. several unoccupied country houses were also burned. it was about this time, february, , that i undertook a series of meetings outside london, the first of which was to be held in glasgow, in the st. andrews hall, which holds many thousands of people. in order that i might be free on the night of the meeting, i left london unknown to the police, in a motor car. in spite of all efforts to apprehend me i succeeded in reaching glasgow and in getting to the platform of st. andrews' where i found myself face to face with an enormous, and manifestly sympathetic audience. as it was suspected that the police might rush the platform, plans had been made to offer resistance, and the bodyguard was present in force. my speech was one of the shortest i have ever made. i said: "i have kept my promise, and in spite of his majesty's government i am here to-night. very few people in this audience, very few people in this country, know how much of the nation's money is being spent to silence women. but the wit and ingenuity of women is overcoming the power and money of the british government. it is well that we should have this meeting to-night, because to-day is a memorable day in the annals of the united kingdom of great britain and ireland. to-day in the house of commons has been witnessed the triumph of militancy--men's militancy--and to-night i hope to make it clear to the people in this meeting that if there is any distinction to be drawn at all between militancy in ulster and the militancy of women, it is all to the advantage of the women. our greatest task in this women's movement is to prove that we are human beings like men, and every stage of our fight is forcing home that very difficult lesson into the minds of men, and especially into the minds of politicians. i propose to-night at this political meeting to have a text. texts are usually given from pulpits, but perhaps you will forgive me if i have a text to-night. my text is: 'equal justice for men and women, equal political justice, equal legal justice, equal industrial justice, and equal social justice.' i want as clearly and briefly as i can to make it clear to you to-night that if it is justifiable to fight for common ordinary equal justice, then women have ample justification, nay, have greater justification, for revolution and rebellion, than ever men have had in the whole history of the human race. now that is a big contention to make, but i am going to prove it. you get the proof of the political injustice--" as i finished the word "injustice," a steward uttered a warning shout, there was a tramp of heavy feet, and a large body of police burst into the hall, and rushed up to the platform, drawing their truncheons as they ran. headed by detectives from scotland yard, they surged in on all sides, but as the foremost members attempted to storm the platform, they were met by a fusillade of flower-pots, tables, chairs, and other missiles. they seized the platform railing, in order to tear it down, but they found that under the decorations barbed wires were concealed. this gave them pause for a moment. meanwhile, more of the invading host came from other directions. the bodyguard and members of the audience vigorously repelled the attack, wielding clubs, batons, poles, planks, or anything they could seize, while the police laid about right and left with their batons, their violence being far the greater. men and women were seen on all sides with blood streaming down their faces, and there were cries for a doctor. in the middle of the struggle, several revolver shots rang out, and the woman who was firing the revolver--which i should explain was loaded with blank cartridges only--was able to terrorise and keep at bay a whole body of police. i had been surrounded by members of the bodyguard, who hurried me towards the stairs from the platform. the police, however, overtook us, and in spite of the resistance of the bodyguard, they seized me and dragged me down the narrow stair at the back of the hall. there a cab was waiting. i was pushed violently into it, and thrown on the floor, the seats being occupied by as many constables as could crowd inside. the meeting was left in a state of tremendous turmoil, and the people of glasgow who were present expressed their sense of outrage at the behavior of the police, who, acting under the government's instructions, had so disgraced the city. general drummond, who was present on the platform, took hold of the situation and delivered a rousing speech, in which she exhorted the audience to make the government feel the force of their indignation. i was kept in the glasgow police-cells all night, and the next morning was taken, a hunger and thirst striking prisoner, to holloway, where i remained for five memorable days. this was the seventh attempt the government had made to make me serve a three years' term of penal servitude on a conspiracy charge, in connection with the blowing up of mr. lloyd-george's country house. in the eleven and a half months since i had received that sentence i had spent just thirty days in prison. on march th i was again released, still suffering severely, not only from the hunger and thirst strike, but from injuries received at the time of my brutal arrest in glasgow. the answer to that arrest had been swift and strong. in bristol, the scene of great riots and destruction when men were fighting for votes, a large timber-yard was burnt. in scotland a mansion was destroyed by fire. a milder protest consisted of a raid upon the house of the home secretary, in the course of which eighteen windows were broken. the greatest and most startling of all protests hitherto made was the attack at this time on the rokeby "venus" in the national gallery. mary richardson, the young woman who carried out this protest, is possessed of a very fine artistic sense, and nothing but the most compelling sense of duty would have moved her to the deed. miss richardson being placed on trial, made a moving address to the court, in the course of which she said that her act was premeditated, and that she had thought it over very seriously before it was undertaken. she added: "i have been a student of art, and i suppose care as much for art as any one who was in the gallery when i made my protest. but i care more for justice than i do for art, and i firmly believe than when a nation shuts its eyes to justice, and prefers to have women who are fighting for justice ill-treated, mal-treated, and tortured, that such action as mine should be understandable; i don't say excusable, but it should be understood. "i should like to point out that the outrage which the government has committed upon mrs. pankhurst is an ultimatum of outrages. it is murder, slow murder, and premeditated murder. that is how i have looked at it.... "how you can hold women up to ridicule and contempt, and put them in prison, and yet say nothing to the government for murdering people, i cannot understand.... "the fact is that the nation is either dead or asleep. in my opinion there is undoubted evidence that the nation is dead, because women have knocked in vain at the door of administrators, archbishops, and even the king himself. the government have closed all doors to us. and remember this--a state of death in a nation, as well as in an individual, leads to one thing, and that is dissolution. i do not hesitate to say that if the men of the country do not at this eleventh hour put their hand out and save mrs. pankhurst, before a few more years are passed they will stretch out their hand in vain to save the empire." in sentencing miss richardson to six month's imprisonment the magistrate said regretfully that if she had smashed a window instead of an art treasure he could have given her a maximum sentence of eighteen months, which illustrates, i think, one more queer anomaly of english law. a few weeks later another famous painting, the sargent portrait of henry james, was attacked by a suffragette, who, like miss richardson, was sent through the farce of a trial and a prison sentence which she did not serve. by this time practically all the picture galleries and other public galleries and museums had been closed to the public. the suffragettes had succeeded in large measure in making england unattractive to tourists, and hence unprofitable to the world of business. as we had anticipated, the reaction against the liberal government began to manifest itself. questions were asked daily, in the press, in the house of commons, everywhere, as to the responsibility of the government in the suffragette activities. people began to place that responsibility where it belonged, at the doors of the government, rather than at our own. especially did the public begin to contrast the treatment meted out to the rebel women with that accorded to the rebel men of ulster. for a whole year the government had been attacking the women's right of free speech, by their refusal to allow the w. s. p. u. to hold public meetings in hyde park. the excuse given for this was that we advocated and defended a militant policy. but the government permitted the ulster militants to advocate their war policy in hyde park, and we determined that, with or without the government's permission, we should, on the day of the ulster meeting, hold a suffrage meeting in hyde park. general drummond was announced as the chief speaker at this meeting, and when the day came, militant ulster men and militant women assembled in hyde park. the militant men were allowed to speak in defence of bloodshed; but general drummond was arrested before she had uttered more than a few words. another proof that the government had a law of leniency for militant men and a law of persecution for militant women was shown at this time by the case of miss dorothy evans, our organiser in ulster. she and another suffragette, miss maud muir, were arrested in belfast charged with having in their possession a quantity of explosives. it was well known that there were houses in belfast that secreted tons of gunpowder and ammunition for the use of the rebels against home rule, but none of those houses were entered and searched by the police. the authorities reserved their energies in this direction for the headquarters of the militant women. naturally enough the two suffrage prisoners, on being arraigned in court, refused to be tried unless the government proceeded also against the men rebels. the prisoners throughout the proceedings kept up such a disturbance that the trial could not properly go on. when the case was called miss evans rose and protested loudly, saying: "i deny your jurisdiction entirely until there are in the dock beside us men who are well known leaders of the ulster militant movement." miss muir joined miss evans in her protest and both women were dragged from the court. after an hour's adjournment the trial was resumed, but the women again began to speak, and the case was hurried through in the midst of indescribable din and commotion. the women were sent to prison on remand, and after a four days' hunger and thirst strike were released unconditionally. the result of this case was a severe outbreak of militancy, three fires destroying belfast mansions within a few days. fires blazed almost daily throughout england, a very important instance being the destruction of the bath hotel at felixstowe, valued at £ , . the two women responsible for this were afterwards arrested, and as their trials were delayed, they were, although unconvicted prisoners, tortured by forcible feeding for several months. this occurred in april, a few weeks before the day appointed for our deputation to the king. i had appointed may st for the deputation, in spite of the fact that the king had, through his ministers, refused to receive us. replying to this i had written, again directly to the king, that we utterly denied the constitutional right of ministers, who not being elected by women were not responsible to them, to stand between ourselves and the throne, and to prevent us from having an audience of his majesty. i declared further that we would, on the date announced, present ourselves at the gates of buckingham palace to demand an interview. following the despatch of this letter my life was made as uncomfortable and as insecure as the government, through their police department, could contrive. i was not allowed to make a public appearance, but i addressed several huge meetings from the balcony of houses where i had taken refuge. these were all publicly announced, and each time the police, mingling with crowds, made strenuous efforts to arrest me. by strategy, and through the valiant efforts of the bodyguard, i was able each time to make my speech and afterwards to escape from the house. all of these occasions were marked by fierce opposition from the police and splendid courage and resistance on the part of the women. the deputation to the king was, of course, marked by the government as an occasion on which i could be arrested, and when, on the day appointed, i led the great deputation of women to the gates of buckingham palace, an army of several thousand police were sent out against us. the conduct of the police showed plainly that they had been instructed to repeat the tactics of black friday, described in an earlier chapter. indeed, the violence, brutality and insult of black friday were excelled on this day, and at the gates of the king of england. i myself did not suffer so greatly as others, because i had advanced towards the palace unnoticed by the police, who were looking for me at a more distant point. when i arrived at the gates i was recognised by an inspector, who at once seized me bodily, and conveyed me to holloway. [illustration: © _international news service_ "arrested at the king's gate!" _may, _] before the deputation had gone forth, i had made a short speech to them, warning them of what might happen, and my final message was: "whatever happens, do not turn back." they did not, and in spite of all the violence inflicted upon them, they went forward, resolved, so long as they were free, not to give up the attempt to reach the palace. many arrests were made, and of those arrested many were sent to prison. although for the majority, this was the first imprisonment, these brave women adopted the hunger strike, and passed seven or eight days without food and water before they were released, weak and ill as may be supposed. chapter ix in the weeks following the disgraceful events before buckingham palace the government made several last, desperate efforts to crush the w. s. p. u., to remove all the leaders and to destroy our paper, the _suffragette_. they issued summonses against mrs. drummond, mrs. dacre fox and miss grace roe; they raided our headquarters at lincolns inn house; twice they raided other headquarters temporarily in use, not to speak of raids made upon private dwellings where the new leaders, who had risen to take the places of those arrested, were at their work for the organisation. but with each successive raid the disturbances which the government were able to make in our affairs became less, because we were better able, each time, to provide against them. every effort made by the government to suppress the _suffragette_ failed, and it continued to come out regularly every week. although the paper was issued regularly, we had to use almost super-human energy to get it distributed. the government sent to all the great wholesale news agents a letter which was designed to terrorise and bully them into refusing to handle the paper or to sell it to the retail news agents. temporarily, at any rate, the letter produced in many cases the desired effect, but we overcame the emergency by taking immediate steps to build up a system of distribution which was worked by women themselves, independently of the newspaper trade. we also opened a "suffragette defence fund," to meet the extra expense of publishing and distributing the paper. twice more the government attempted to force me to serve the three years' term of penal servitude, one arrest being made when i was being carried to a meeting in an ambulance. wholesale arrests and hunger strikes occurred at the same time, but our women continued their work of militancy, and money flowed into our protest and defence fund. at one great meeting in july the fund was increased by nearly £ , . but now unmistakable signs began to appear that our long and bitter struggle was drawing to a close. the last resort of the government of inciting the street mobs against us had been little successful, and we could see in the temper of the public abundant hope that the reaction against the government, long hoped for by us, had actually begun. every day of the militant movement was so extraordinarily full of events and changes that it is difficult to choose a point at which this narrative should be brought to a close. i think, however, that an account of a recent debate which took place in the house of commons will give the reader the best idea of the complete breakdown of the government in their effort to crush the women's fight for liberty. on june th, when the house of commons had gone into a committee of supply, lord robert cecil moved a reduction of pounds on the home office vote, thus precipitating a discussion of militancy. lord robert said that he had read with some surprise that the government were not dissatisfied with the measures which they had taken to deal with the violent suffragists, and he added with some asperity that the government took a much more sanguine view of the matter than anybody else in the united kingdom. the house, lord robert went on to declare, would not be in a position to deal with the case satisfactorily unless they realised the devotion of the followers to their leaders, who were almost fully responsible for what was going on. ministerial cheers greeted this utterance, but they ceased suddenly when the speaker went on to say that these leaders could never have induced their followers to enter upon a career of crime but for the serious mistakes which had been made over and over again by the government. among these mistakes lord robert cited the shameful treatment of the women on black friday, the policy of forcible feeding and the scandal of the different treatment accorded lady constance lytton and "jane warton." there were opposition cheers at this, and they were again raised when lord robert deplored the terrible waste of energy, and "admirable material" involved in the militant movement. although lord robert cecil deemed it unjust as well as futile for suffragist members to withhold their support from the woman suffrage movement on account of militancy he himself was in favor of deportation for suffragettes. at this there were cries of "where to?" and "ulster!" mr. mckenna replied by first calling attention to the fact that in the militant movement they had a phenomenon "absolutely without precedent in our history." women in numbers were committing crimes, beginning with window breaking, and proceeding to arson, not with the motives of ordinary criminals, but with the intention of advertising a political cause and of forcing the public to grant their demands. mr. mckenna continuing said: "the number of women who commit crimes of that kind is extremely small, but the number of those who sympathise with them is extremely large. one of the difficulties which the police have in detecting this form of crime and in bringing home the offence to the criminal is that the criminals find so many sympathisers among the well-to-do and thoroughly respectable classes that the ordinary administration of the law is rendered comparatively impossible. let me give the house some figures showing the number of women who have been committed to prison for offences since the beginning of the militant agitation in . in that year the total number of commitments to prison was , all the persons charged being women. in the figure rose to ; in to ( women and six men); and in to ( women and two men). in the number dropped to , and so far this year it has dropped to . these figures include all commitments to prison and rearrests under the cat and mouse act. what is the obvious lesson to be drawn? up to the number of offences committed for which imprisonment was the punishment was steadily increasing, but since the beginning of last year--that is to say, since the new act came into force--the number of individual offences has been very greatly reduced. on the other hand, we see that the seriousness of the offences is much greater." this statement, that the number of imprisonments had decreased since the adoption of the cat and mouse act, was of course, incorrect, or at best misleading. the fact was that the number of imprisonments decreased because, where formerly the militants went willingly to prison for their acts, they now escaped prison wherever possible. a comparatively small number of "mice" were ever rearrested by the police. mr. mckenna went on to say that he realised fully the growing sense of indignation against the militant suffragists and he added, "their one hope is, rightly or wrongly, that the well advertised indignation of the public will recoil on the head of the government." "and so it will," interpolated a voice. "my honourable friend," replied mr. mckenna, "says so it will. i believe that he is mistaken." but he gave no reasons for so believing. referring to what he called the "recent grave rudenesses which have been committed against the king," mr. mckenna said: "it is true that all subjects have the right of petitioning his majesty, providing the petition is couched in respectful terms, but there is no right on the part of the subjects generally to personal audience for the purpose of the presentation of the petition or otherwise. it is the duty of the home secretary to present all such petitions to the king, and further to advise his majesty what action should be taken. it was therefore ridiculous for any suffragist to assert that there had been any breach of constitutional propriety on the part of the king in refusing, on the advice of the home secretary to receive the deputation." also, said mr. mckenna, in view of the fact that the petition for an audience was sent by a person under sentence of penal servitude--myself--it was the plain duty of the home secretary to advise the king not to grant it. he referred to the incident, he said, only because it was illustrative of the militant's methods of advertising their cause. he gave them credit, he was bound to say, for a certain degree of intelligence in adopting their methods. "no action has been so fruitful of advertisement as the recent absurdities which they have perpetrated in relation to the king." coming down to the question of methods of meeting and overcoming militancy, mr. mckenna said that he had received an almost unlimited correspondence on the subject from every section of the public. "four methods were suggested," said he. "the first is to let them die. (hear, hear.) that is, i should say, at the present moment, the most popular (laughter), judging by the number of letters i have received. the second is to deport them. (hear, hear.) the third is to treat them as lunatics. (hear, hear.) and the fourth is to give them the franchise. (hear, hear, and laughter.) i think that is an exhaustive list. i notice each one of them is received with a certain very moderate amount of applause in this house. i hope to give reason why at the present time i think we should not adopt any one of them." the first suggestion was usually, not always, based on the assumption that the women would take their food if they knew that the alternative was death. mr. mckenna read to the house in opposition to that view "the opinion of a great medical expert who had had intimate knowledge of the suffragettes from the first." "we have to face the fact, therefore, that they would die," continued mr. mckenna. "let me say, also, with actual experience of dealing with suffragists, in many cases they have got in their refusal of food and water beyond the point when they could help themselves, and they have clearly done all that they could do to show their readiness to die.... there are those who hold another assumption. they think that after one or two deaths in prison militancy would cease. in my judgment there was never a greater delusion. i readily admit that this is the issue upon which i stand and upon which i feel i would fight to the end those who would adopt as their policy to let the prisoners die. so far from putting an end to militancy, i believe it would be the greatest incentive to militancy which could ever happen. for every woman who dies, there would be scores of women who would come forward for the honour, as they would deem it, of earning the crown of martyrdom." "how do you know?" called out an opposition member. "how do i know?" retorted the home secretary. "i have had more to do with these women than the honourable member, much more. those who hold that opinion leave out of account all recognition of the nature of these women. i do not speak in admiration of them. they are hysterical fanatics, but, coupled with their hysterical fanaticism, they have a courage, part of their fanaticism, which undoubtedly stands at nothing, and the honourable member who thinks that they would not come forward, not merely to risk death, but to undergo it, for what they deem the greatest cause on earth is making, in my judgment, a profound mistake.... they would seek death, and i am sure that however strong public opinion outside might be to-day in favour of allowing them to die, when there were twenty, thirty, forty, or more deaths in prison, you would have a violent reaction of public opinion, and the honourable gentleman who now so glibly says 'let them die' would be among the first to blame the government for what he would describe as the inhuman attitude they had adopted. "that policy," continued mr. mckenna, "could not be adopted without an act of parliament. for the reason i have given i have not asked parliament to remove from prison officials the responsibility under which they now rest for doing their best to keep those committed to their charge alive. but, supposing this legal responsibility were removed from the prison officials, let honourable members for a moment transport themselves in imagination to a prison cell and conceive of a prison doctor, a humane man, standing by watching a woman slowly being done to death by starvation and thirst, knowing that he could help her and that he could keep her alive. did they think that any doctor would go on with such action, or that we should be able to retain medical men under such conditions in our service? i do not believe it. "the doctor would think, as i should think if i saw a woman lying there, 'what has been this woman's offence?' it may have been obstructing the police, coupled with the obstinacy derived from fanaticism which leads her to refuse food and water. obstructing the police and she is to die! i could not distinguish, and no home secretary could ever say, that this woman should be left to die and that that woman should not. once we were committed to a policy of allowing them to die if they did not take their food we should have to go on with it, and we should have woman after woman whose only offence may have been obstructing the police, breaking a window, or even burning down an empty house, dying because she was obstinate. i do not believe that that is a policy which on consideration will ever recommend itself to the british people, and i am bound to say for myself i could never take a hand in carrying that policy out." (cheers.) lord robert cecil's favourite remedy of deportation mr. mckenna dismissed on the grounds that this would be merely removing the difficulty to some other country than great britain. if the suggested distant island were treated as a prison the women would hunger strike there as they did in english prisons. if the island were not treated as a prison, the suffragettes' rich friends would come and rescue them in yachts. the suggestion that the militants be treated as lunatics was also dismissed as impossible. admitting that he had tried to get them certified as lunatics and had failed because the medical profession would not consent to such a course, mr. mckenna said that he could not, contrary to the advice of the doctors, get certification by act of parliament. "there remains," said mr. mckenna, "the last proposal, that we should give them the franchise." "that is the right one," exclaimed mr. william redmond, but the home secretary replied: "whatever may be said as to the merits or demerits of that proposal, it is clearly not one i can discuss now in committee of supply. i am not responsible, as home secretary, for the state of the law on the franchise, nor is there any occasion for me to express or conceal my own opinions on the point; but i certainly do not think, and i am sure the committee will agree with me, that that could be seriously treated as a remedy for the existing state of lawlessness." coming at last to the constructive part of his speech mr. mckenna told the house of commons that the government had one last resort, which was to take legal proceedings against subscribers to the funds of the w. s. p. u. the funds of the society, he said, were undoubtedly beyond the arm of the british law. but the government were in hopes of stopping future subscriptions. "we are now not without hope," he concluded, "that we have evidence which will enable us to proceed against the subscribers" (loud cheers) "in civil action, and if we succeed the subscribers will become personally liable for all the damage done." (cheers.) "it is a question of evidence.... i have further directed that the question should be considered whether the subscribers could not be proceeded against criminally as well as by civil action." (cheers.) "we have only been able to obtain this evidence by our now not infrequent raids upon the offices, and such property as we can get at of the society.... a year ago a raid was made on the offices of the society, but we obtained no such evidence. if we succeed in making the subscribers personally responsible individually for the whole damage done i have no doubt that the insurance companies will quickly follow the example set them by the government, and in turn bring actions to recover the cost which has been thrown upon them. if that is done i have no doubt the days of militancy are over. "the militants live only by the subscriptions of rich women" (cheers) "who themselves enjoy all the advantages of wealth secured for them by the labour of others" (cheers) "and use their wealth against the interests of society, paying their unfortunate victims to undergo all the horrors of a hunger and thirst strike in the commission of a crime. whatever feelings we may have against the wretched women who for s. and £ a week go about the country burning and destroying, what must our feelings be for the women who give their money to induce the perpetration of these crimes and leave their sisters to undergo the punishment while they live in luxury?" (cheers.) "if we can succeed against them we will spare no pains. if the action is successful in the total destruction of the means of revenue of the women's social and political union i think we shall see the last of the power of mrs. pankhurst and her friends." (cheers.) in the general debate which followed the government were obliged to listen to very severe criticisms of their past and present policy towards the militant women. mr. keir hardie said in part: "we may not to-day discuss the question of the franchise, but surely it was possible for the home secretary, without any transgression on the rules of the house, to have held out just a ray of hope for the future as to the intentions of the government in regard to this most urgent question. on that point, may i say that i am not one of those who believe that a right thing should be withheld because some of the advocates of it resort to weapons of which we do not approve. that note has been sounded more than once, and if it be true, and it is true, that a section of the public outside are strongly opposed to this conduct, it is equally true that the bulk of the people look with a very calm and indifferent eye upon what is happening so long as the vote is withheld from women." mr. hardie concluded by regretting that the house, instead of discussing woman suffrage, was discussing methods of penalising militant women. mr. rupert gwynne said: "nobody is in a more ridiculous position than the members on the treasury bench. they cannot address a meeting, or go to a railway station, or even get into a taxicab, without having detectives with them. even if they like it, we, the public do not, because we have to pay for it. it is not worth the expense that it costs to have a detective staff following cabinet ministers wherever they go, whether in a private or a public capacity. "further," said mr. gwynne, "if the home secretary is correct in saying that these women are prepared to die, and invite death, in order to advertise their devotion to their cause, does he really think they are going to mind if their funds are attached?" another friend of the suffragists, mr. wedgwood said: "we are dealing with a problem which is a very serious one indeed. to my mind, when you find a large body of public opinion, and a large number of people capable of going to these lengths, there is only one thing for a respectable house of commons to do, and that is to consider very closely and clearly whether the complaints of those who complain are or are not justified. we are not justified in acting in panic. what it is our duty to do is to consider the rights and wrongs of these people who have acted in this way. i attribute myself no value to the vote, but i do think that when we seriously consider the question of woman suffrage, which has not been done by this house up to the present, we should remember that when you see people capable of this amount of self-sacrifice, that the one duty of the house of commons is not to stamp the iron heel upon them, but to see how far their cause is just, and to act according to justice." when such a debate as this was possible in the house of commons, it must be plain to every disinterested reader that militancy never set the cause of suffrage back, but on the contrary, set it forward at least half a century. when i remember how that same house of commons, a few years ago, treated the mention of woman suffrage with scorn and contempt, how they permitted the most insulting things to be said of the women who were begging for their political freedom, how, with indecent laughter and coarse jokes they allowed suffrage bills to be talked out, i cannot but marvel at the change our militancy so quickly brought about. mr. mckenna's speech was in itself a token of the complete surrender of the government. of course the promise of the home secretary that subscribers to our funds should, if possible, be held legally responsible for damage done to private property by the suffragettes, was never meant to be adhered to. it was, in fact, a perfectly absurd promise, and i think that very few members of parliament were deceived by it. our subscribers can always remain anonymous if they choose, and if it should ever be possible to attack them for our deeds, they would naturally take refuge behind that privilege. our battles are practically over, we confidently believe. for the present at least our arms are grounded, for directly the threat of foreign war descended on our nation we declared a complete truce from militancy. what will come out of this european war--so terrible in its effects on the women who had no voice in averting it--so baneful in the suffering it must necessarily bring on innocent children--no human being can calculate. but one thing is reasonably certain, and that is that the cabinet changes which will necessarily result from warfare will make future militancy on the part of women unnecessary. no future government will repeat the mistakes and the brutality of the asquith ministry. none will be willing to undertake the impossible task of crushing or even delaying the march of women towards their rightful heritage of political liberty and social and industrial freedom. the end proofreading team. the framework of home rule by erskine childers author of "the riddle of the sands," "war and the arme blanche," "german influence on british cavalry"; editor of vol. v. of the _times_ "history of the war in south africa," etc. london edward arnold contents chapter pages introduction vii-xvi i. the colonization of ireland and america - ii. revolution in america and in ireland - iii. grattan's parliament - iv. the union - v. canada and ireland - vi. australia and ireland - vii. south africa and ireland - viii. the analogy - ix. ireland to-day - x. the framework of home rule - i. the elements of the problem - ii. federal or colonial home rule - iii. the exclusion or retention of irish members at westminster - iv. irish powers and their bearing on exclusion - xi. union finance - i. before the union - ii. from the union to the financial relations commission of - - iii. the financial relations commission of - - xii. the present financial situation - i. anglo-irish finance to-day - ii. irish expenditure - iii. irish revenue - xiii. financial independence - i. the essence of home rule - ii. the deficit - iii. further contribution to imperial services iv. ireland's share of the national debt v. ireland's share of imperial miscellaneous revenue vi. irish control of customs and excise - vii. federal finance - viii. alternative schemes of home rule finance - xiv. land purchase finance - i. land purchase loans - ii. minor loans to ireland - xv. the irish constitution - conclusion - appendix - index - introduction my purpose in this volume is to advocate a definite scheme of self-government for ireland. that task necessarily involves an historical as well as a constructive argument. it would be truer, perhaps, to say that the greater part of the constructive case for home rule must necessarily be historical. to postulate a vague acceptance of the principle of home rule, and to proceed at once to the details of the irish constitution, would be a waste of time and labour. it is impossible even to attempt to plan the framework of a home rule bill without a tolerably close knowledge not only of anglo-irish relations, but of the imperial history of which they form a part. the act will succeed exactly in so far as it gives effect to the lessons of experience. it will fail at every point where those lessons are neglected. constitutions which do not faithfully reflect the experience of the sovereign power which accords them, and of the peoples which have to live under them, are at the best perilous experiments liable to defeat the end of their framers. i shall enter into history only so far as it is relevant to the constitutional problem, using the comparative method, and confining myself almost exclusively to the british empire past and present. for the purposes of the irish controversy it is unnecessary to travel farther. in one degree or another every one of the vexed questions which make up the irish problem has arisen again and again within the circle of the english-speaking races. as a nation we have a body of experience applicable to the case of ireland incomparably greater than that possessed by any other race in the world. if, from timidity, prejudice, or sheer neglect, we fail to use it, we shall earn the heavy censure reserved for those who sin against the light. for the comparative sketch i shall attempt, materials in the shape of facts established beyond all controversy are abundant. colonial history, thanks to colonial freedom, is almost wholly free from the distorting influence of political passion. south african history alone will need revision in the light of recent events. when, under the alchemy of free national institutions, ireland has undergone the same transformation as south africa, her unhappy history will be chronicled afresh with a juster sense of perspective and a juster apportionment of responsibility for the calamities which have befallen her. and yet, if we consider the field for partisan bias which irish history presents, the amount of ground common to writers of all shades of political opinion is now astonishingly large. the result, i think, is due mainly to the good influence of that eminent historian and unionist politician, the late professor lecky. indeed, an advocate of home rule, nervously suspicious of tainted material, could afford to rely solely on his "history of ireland in the eighteenth century," "leaders of public opinion in ireland," and "clerical influences,"[ ] which are nationalist textbooks, and, for quite recent events, on "a consideration of ireland in the nineteenth century," by mr. g. locker-lampson, the present unionist member for salisbury. a strange circumstance; but ireland, like all countries where political development has been forcibly arrested from without, is a land of unending paradox. it is only one of innumerable anomalies that irish nationalists should use unionist histories as propaganda for nationalism; that the majority of irish unionists should insist on ignoring all historical traditions save those which in any normal country would long ago have been consigned by general consent to oblivion and the institutions they embody overthrown; and that unionist writers such as those i have mentioned should be able to reconcile their history and their politics only by a pessimism with regard to the tendencies of human nature in general, or of irish nature in particular, with which their own historical teaching, founded on a true perception of cause and effect, appears to be in direct contradiction. the truth is that the question is one of the construction, not of the verification, of facts; of prophecy for the future, rather than of bare affirmation or negation. no one can presume to determine such a question without a knowledge of how human beings have been accustomed to act under similar circumstances. illumination of that sort irish history and the contemporary irish problem incontestably need. the modern case for the union rests mainly on the abnormality of ireland, and that is precisely why it is such a formidable case to meet. for ireland in many ways is painfully abnormal. the most cursory study of her institutions and social, economic, and political life demonstrate that fact. the unionist, fixing his eyes on some of the secondary peculiarities, and ignoring their fundamental cause, demonstrates it with ease, and by a habit of mind which yields only with infinite slowness to the growth of political enlightenment, passes instinctively to the deduction that irish abnormalities render ireland unfit for self-government. in other words, he prescribes for the disease a persistent application of the very treatment which has engendered it. whatever the result, there is a plausible answer. if ireland is disorderly and retrograde, how can she deserve freedom? if she is peaceful, and shows symptoms of economic recuperation, clearly she does not need or even want it. in other words, if all that is healthy in the patient battles desperately and not in vain, first against irritant poison, and then against soporific drugs, this healthy struggle for self-preservation is attributed not to native vitality, but to the bracing regimen of coercive government. this train of argument, so far from being confined to ireland, is as old as the human race itself. of all human passions, that for political domination is the last to yield to reason. men are naturally inclined to attribute admitted social evils to every cause--religion, climate, race, congenital defects of character, the inscrutable decrees of divine providence--rather than to the form of political institutions; in other words, to the organic structure of the community, and to rest the security of an empire on any other foundation than that of the liberty of its component parts. if, in one case, their own experience proves them wrong, they will go to the strangest lengths of perversity in misreading their own experience, and they will seek every imaginable pretext for distinguishing the case from its predecessor. underlying all is a nervous terror of the abuse of freedom founded on the assumption that men will continue to act when free exactly as they acted under the demoralizing influence of coercion. the british empire has grown, and continues to grow, in spite of this deeply rooted political doctrine. ireland is peculiar only in that her proximity to the seat of power has exposed her for centuries to an application of the doctrine in its most extreme form and without any hope of escape through the merciful accidents to which more fortunate communities owe their emancipation. canada owes her position in the empire, and the empire itself exists in its present form to-day, owing to the accident that the transcendantly important principle of responsible government advocated by lord durham as a remedy for the anarchy and stagnation in which he found both the british and the french provinces of canada in , did not require imperial legislation, and was established without the parliamentary or electoral sanction of great britain. lord durham was derided as a visionary, and abused as unpatriotic for the assertion of this simple principle. far in advance of his time as he was, he himself shrank from the full application of his own lofty ideal, and consequently made one great, though under the circumstances not a capital, mistake in his diagnosis, and it was to that mistake only that parliament gave legislative effect in . by one of the most melancholy ironies in all history ireland was the source of his error, so that the union of the canadas, dissolved as a failure by the canadians themselves in , was actually based on the success of the anglo-irish union in repressing a dangerous nationality. did the proof of the error in canada induce englishmen to question the soundness of the precedent on which the error was based? on the contrary, the lesson passed unnoticed, and the irish precedent has survived to darken thought, to retard democratic progress, and to pervert domestic and imperial policy to this very day. it even had the truly extraordinary retrospective effect of obliterating from the minds of many eminent statesmen the significance of the canadian parallel; for it is only six years ago that a secretary of state for the colonies penned a despatch recommending for the transvaal a form of government similar to that which actually produced the canadian disorders of , and supporting it by an argument whose effect was not merely to resuscitate what time had proved to be false in durham's doctrine, but to discard what time had proved to be true. as for ireland herself, i know no more curious illustration of the strong tendency, even on the part of the most fair-minded men, to place that country outside the pale of social or political science, and of the extreme reluctance to judge its inhabitants by the elementary standards of human conduct, than the book to which i referred above--mr. locker-lampson's "a consideration of ireland in the nineteenth century." for what he admits to be the ruinous results of british government in the past, the author in the last few pages of a lengthy volume has no better cure to suggest than a continuance of british government, and he defends this course by a terse enumeration of the very phenomena which in durham's opinion rendered the grant of home rule to canada imperative, concluding with a paragraph which, with the substitution of "canada" for "ireland," constitutes an admirably condensed epitome of the arguments used both by politicians at home, and the minorities in canada, in favour of durham's error and against the truth he established. mr. lecky represents a somewhat different school of thought, and reached his unionism by reasoning more profound and consistent, but, on the other hand, wholly destructive of the imperial theory as held by the modern school of imperialists. his fear and distrust of democracy in all its forms and in all lands[ ] was such that he naturally dreaded irish nationalism, which is a form of democratic revolt suppressed so long and by such harsh methods as to exhibit features easily open to criticism. but the gist of his argument would have applied just as well to the political evolution of the self-governing colonies. indeed, if he had lived to see the last imperial conference, the pessimism of so clear a thinker would assuredly have given way before the astounding contrast between those countries in which his political philosophy had been abjured, and the only white country in the empire where by sheer force it had been maintained intact. if my only object in writing were to contribute something toward the dissipation of the fears and doubts which render it so hard to carry any measure, however small, of home rule for ireland, i should hope for little success. practical men, with a practical decision to make, rarely look outside the immediate facts before them. extremists, in a case like that of ireland, are reluctant to take account of what lord morley calls "the fundamental probabilities of civil society." sir edward carson would be more than human if he were to be influenced by a demonstration that the case he makes against home rule is the same as that made by the minority leaders, not only in the french, but in the british province of canada. most of the minority to which he appeals would now regard as an ill-timed paradox the view that the very vigour of their opposition to home rule is a better omen for the success of home rule than that kind of sapless nationalism, astonishingly rare in ireland under the circumstances, which is inclined to yield to the insidious temptation of setting the "eleemosynary benefits"--to use mr. walter long's phrase[ ]--derived from the british connection above the need for self-help and self-reliance. the real paradox is that any irishmen, unionist or nationalist, should tolerate advisers who, however sincere and patriotic, avowedly regard ireland as the parasite of great britain; who appeal to the lower nature of her people; to the fears of one section and the cupidity of both; advising unionists to rely on british power and all irishmen on british alms. a day will come when the humiliation will be seen in its true light. even now, i do venture to appeal to that small but powerful group of moderate irish unionists who, so far from fearing revenge or soliciting charity, spend their whole lives in the noble aim of uniting irishmen of all creeds on a basis of common endeavour for their own economic and spiritual salvation; who find their work checked in a thousand ways by the perpetual maintenance of a seemingly barren and sentimental agitation; who distrust both the parties to this agitation; but who are reluctant to accept the view that, without the satisfaction of the national claim, and without the national responsibility thereby conferred, their own aims can never be fully attained. i should be happy indeed if i could do even a little towards persuading some of these men that they mistake cause and effect; misinterpret what they resent; misjudge where they distrust, and in standing aloof from the battle for legislative autonomy, unconsciously concede a point--disinterested, constructive optimists as they are--to the interested and destructive pessimism which, from clare's savage insults to mr. walter long's contemptuous patronage, has always lain at the root of british policy towards ireland. in the meantime, for those who like or dislike it, home rule is imminent. we are face to face no longer with a highly speculative, but with a vividly practical problem, raising legislative and administrative questions of enormous practical importance, and next year we shall be dealing with this problem in an atmosphere of genuine reality totally unlike that of , when home rule was a startling novelty to the british electorate, or of , when the shadow of impending defeat clouded debate and weakened counsel. it would be pleasant to think that the time which has elapsed, besides greatly mitigating anti-irish prejudice, had been used for scientific study and dispassionate discussion of the problem of home rule. unfortunately, after eighteen years the problem remains almost exactly where it was. there are no detailed proposals of an authoritative character in existence. no concrete scheme was submitted to the country in the recent elections. none is before the country now. the reason, of course, is that the irish question is still an acute party question, not merely in ireland, but in great britain. party passion invariably discourages patient constructive thought, and all legislation associated with it suffers in consequence. tactical considerations, sometimes altogether irrelevant to the special issue, have to be considered. in the case of home rule, when the balance of parties is positively determined by the irish vote, the difficulty reaches its climax. it is idle to blame individuals. we should blame the union. so long as one island democracy claims to determine the destinies of another island democracy, of whose special needs and circumstances it is admittedly ignorant, so long will both islands suffer. this ignorance is not disputed. no irish unionist claims that great britain should govern ireland on the ground that the british electorate, or even british statesmen, understand irish questions. on the contrary, in ireland, at any rate, their ignorance is a matter for satirical comment with all parties. what he complains of is, that the british electorate is beginning to carry its ignorance to the point of believing that the irish electorate is competent to decide irish questions, and in educating the british electorate he has hitherto devoted himself exclusively to the eradication of this error. the financial results of the union are such that he is now being cajoled into adding, "it is your money, not your wisdom, that we want." once more, an odd state of affairs, and some day we shall all marvel in retrospect that the union was so long sustained by a separatist argument, reinforced in latter days by such an inconsistent and unconscionable claim. in the meantime, if only the present situation can be turned to advantage, this crowning paradox is the most hopeful element in the whole of a tangled question. it is not only that the british elector is likely to revolt at once against the slur upon his intelligence and the drain upon his purse, but that irish unionism, once convinced of the tenacity and sincerity of that revolt, is likely to undergo a dramatic and beneficent transformation. if they are to have home rule, irish unionists--even those who now most heartily detest it--will want the best possible scheme of home rule, and the best possible scheme is not likely to be the half measure which, from no fault of the statesman responsible for it, tactical difficulties may make inevitable. if the vital energy now poured into sheer uncompromising opposition to the principles of home rule could be transmuted into intellectual and moral effort after the best form of home rule, i believe that the result would be a drastic scheme. compromise enters more or less into the settlement of all burning political questions. that is inevitable under the party system; but of all questions under the sun, home rule questions are the least susceptible of compromise so engendered. the subject, in reality, is not suitable for settlement at westminster. this is a matter of experience, not of assertion. within the present bounds of the empire no lasting constitution has ever been framed for a subordinate state to the moulding of which parliament, in the character of a party assembly, contributed an active share. constitutions which promote prosperity and loyalty have actually or virtually been framed by those who were to live under them. if circumstances make it impossible to adopt this course for ireland, let us nevertheless remember that all the friction and enmity between the mother country and subordinate states have arisen, not from the absence, but from the inadequacy of self-governing powers. checks and restrictions, so far from benefiting great britain or the colonies, have damaged both in different degrees, the colonies suffering most because these checks and restrictions produce in the country submitted to them peculiar mischiefs which exist neither under a despotic régime nor an unnatural legislative union, fruitful of evil as both those systems are. the damage is not evanescent, but is apt to bite deep into national character and to survive the abolition of the institutions which caused it. the anglo-irish union was created and has ever since been justified by a systematic defamation of irish character. if it is at length resolved to bury the slander and trust ireland, in the name of justice and reason let the trust be complete and the institutions given her such as to permit full play to her best instincts and tendencies, not such as to deflect them into wrong paths. let us be scrupulously careful to avoid mistakes which might lead to a fresh campaign of defamation like that waged against canada, as well as ireland, between and . the position, i take it, is that most irish unionists still count, rightly or wrongly, on defeating home rule, not only in the first parliamentary battle, but by exciting public opinion during the long period of subsequent delay which the parliament bill permits. not until home rule is a moral certainty, and perhaps not even then, do the extremists intend to consider the irish constitution in a practical spirit. surely this is a perilous policy. surely it must be so regarded by the moderate men--and there are many--who, if home rule comes, intend to throw their abilities into making it a success, and who will be indispensable to ireland at a moment of supreme national importance. irretrievable mistakes may be made by too long a gamble with the chances of political warfare. whatever the scheme produced, the extremists will have to oppose it tooth and nail. if the measure is big, sound, and generous, it will be necessary to attack its best features with the greatest vigour; to rely on beating up vague, anti-separatist sentiment in great britain; to represent irish protestants as a timid race forced to shelter behind british bayonets; in short, to use all the arguments which, if irish unionists were compelled to frame a constitution themselves, they would scorn to employ, and which, if grafted on the act in the form of amendments, they themselves in after-years might bitterly regret. conversely, if the measure is a limited one, it will be necessary to commend its worst features; to extol its eleemosynary side and all the infractions of liberty which in actual practice they would find intolerably irksome. whatever happens, things will be said which are not meant, and passions aroused which will be difficult to allay on the eve of a crisis when ireland will need the harmonious co-operation of all her ablest sons. if, behind the calculation of a victory within the next two years, there lies the presentiment of an eventual defeat, let not the thought be encouraged that a better form of home rule is likely to come from a tory than from a liberal government. many irish unionists regard the prospect of continued submission to a liberal, or what they consider a semi-socialist, government as the one consideration which would reconcile them to home rule. no one can complain of that. but they make a fatal mistake in denying liberals credit for understanding questions of home rule better than tories. that, again, is a matter of proved experience. compare the abortive transvaal constitution of with the reality of , and measure the probable consequences of the former by the actual results of the latter. let them remember, too, that every year which passes aggravates the financial difficulties which imperil the future of ireland. the best hope of securing a final settlement of the irish question in the immediate future lies in promoting open discussion on the details of the home rule scheme, and of drawing into that discussion all irishmen and englishmen who realize the profound importance of the issue. this book is offered as a small contribution to the controversy. for help in writing it i am deeply indebted to many friends on both sides of the irish channel, in ireland to officials and private persons, who have generously placed their experience at my disposal; while in england i owe particular thanks to the committee of which i had the honour to be a member, which sat during the summer of this year under the chairmanship of mr. basil williams, and which published the series of essays called "home rule problems." e.c. footnotes: [ ] the two latter works were written by mr. lecky in his nationalist youth the first and greater work after he had become a unionist. they form a connected whole, however, and are not inconsistent with one another. [ ] see "democracy and liberty." [ ] "did the people of ireland understand that the destruction of the union, so lightly advocated by lord haldane, must result in the cessation of those largely eleemosynary benefits to which the progress of ireland is due, her 'dissatisfaction' would be unmistakably directed towards her false advisers?"--letter to the _belfast telegraph_, october , , criticizing lord haldane's preface to "home rule problems." errata since this book went to press the treasury has issued a revised version of return no. , [revenue and expenditure (england, scotland, and ireland)], cancelling the return issued in july, and correcting an error made in it. it now appears that the "true" excise revenue attributable to ireland from _spirits_ in - (with deductions made by the treasury from the sum actually collected in ireland) should be £ , , , instead of £ , , , and that the total "true" irish revenue in that year was, therefore, £ , , , instead of £ , , . in other words, irish revenue for - was over-estimated in the return now cancelled by £ , . the error does not affect the author's argument as expounded in chapters xii. and xiii.; but it necessitates the correction of a number of figures given by him, especially in chapter xii., the principal change being that the deficit in irish revenue, as calculated on the mean of the two years - and - , should actually be £ , , , instead of £ , , . the full list of corrections is as follows: page , line , _for_ "£ , , ," _read_ "£ , , ." page , table, third column, line , _for_ "£ , , ," _read_ "£ , "; last line, _for_ "£ , , ," _read_ "£ , , ." page , table, last column, last line but one, _for_ "£ , ," _read_ "£ , "; last line (total), _for_ "£ , , ," _read_ "£ , , ." page , line , _for_ "£ , , ," _read_ "£ , , "; line , _for_ "£ , , ," _read_ "£ , , ." page . table, last column, line , _for_ "£ , , ," _read_ "£ , , "; line , _for_ "£ , , ," _read_ "£ , , "; line , _for_ "£ , , ," _read_, "£ , , "; in text, last line but one of page, _for_ "£ , , ," _read_ "£ , , ." page , line , _for_ "£ , ," _read_, "£ , "; table, last column, line , _for_ "£ , , ," _read_ "£ , , "; line , _for_ "£ , , ," _read_ "£ , , "; line , _for_ "£ , , ," _read_ "£ , , "; last line, _for_ "£ , , ," _read_ "£ , , ." page , line , _for_ "£ , , ," _read_ "£ , , "; line , _for_ "£ , , ," _read_ "£ , , "; line , _for_ "£ , , ," _read_ "£ , , "; line , _for_ "£ , , ," _read_ "£ , , "; footnote, line , _for_ "£ , , ," _read_ "£ , , ." page , line , _for_ " . ," _read_ " . ." page , sixth line from bottom, _for_ "£ , , ," _read_ "£ , , ." * * * * * page , line and footnote, and page , lines - : a temporary measure has been passed (surplus revenue act, ), under which the surplus commonwealth revenue is returned to the states on a basis of £ s. per head of the population of each state. * * * * * page , line , _omit_ "like the isle of man and the channel islands." these islands have distinct local tariffs, but they cannot be said to be wholly under local control. the framework of home rule chapter i the colonization of ireland and america i. ireland was the oldest and the nearest of the colonies. we are apt to forget that she was ever colonized, and that for a long period, although styled a kingdom, she was kept in a position of commercial and political dependence inferior to that of any colony. constitutional theory still blinds a number of people to the fact that in actual practice ireland is still governed in many respects as a colony, but on principles which in all other white communities of the british empire are extinct. like all colonies, she has a governor or lord-lieutenant of her own, an executive of her own, and a complete system of separate government departments, but her people, unlike the inhabitants of a self-governing colony, exercise no control over the administration. she possesses no legislature of her own, although in theory she is supposed to possess sufficient legislative control over irish affairs through representation in the imperial parliament. in practice, however, this control has always been, and still remains, illusory, just as it would certainly have proved illusory if conferred upon any colony. it can be exercised only by cumbrous, circuitous, and often profoundly unhealthy methods; and over a wide range of matters it cannot by any method whatsoever be exercised at all. to look behind mere technicalities to the spirit of government, ireland resembles one of that class of crown colonies of which jamaica and malta are examples, where the inhabitants exercise no control over administration, and only partial control over legislation.[ ] why is this? mr. joseph chamberlain, always frank and fearless in his political judgments, gave the best answer in , when opposing the first reading of the second of mr. gladstone's home rule bills. "does anybody doubt," he said, "that if ireland were a thousand miles away from england she would not have been long before this a self-governing colony?" now this was not a barren geographical truism, which might by way of hypothesis be applied in identical terms to any fraction of the united kingdom--say, for example, to that part of england lying south of the thames. mr. chamberlain never made any attempt to deny--no one with the smallest knowledge of history could have denied--that ireland, though only sixty miles away from england, was less like england than any of the self-governing colonies then attached to the crown, possessing distinct national characteristics which entitled her, in theory at any rate, to demand, not merely colonial, but national autonomy. on the contrary, mr. chamberlain went out of his way to argue, with all the force and fire of an accomplished debater, that the bill was a highly dangerous measure precisely because, while granting ireland a measure of autonomy, it denied her some of the elementary powers, not only of colonial, but of national states; for instance, the full control over taxation, which all self-governing colonies possessed, and the control over foreign policy, which is a national attribute. the complementary step in his argument was that, although nominally withheld by statute, these fuller powers would be forcibly usurped by the future irish government through the leverage offered by a subordinate legislature and executive, and that, once grasped, they would be used to the injury of great britain and the minority in ireland. ireland ("a fearful danger") might arm, ally herself with france, and, while submitting the protestant minority to cruel persecution, would retain enough national unity to smite britain hip and thigh, and so avenge the wrong of ages. even to the most ardent unionist the case thus presented must, in the year , present a doubtful aspect. the british _entente_ with france, and the absence of the smallest ascertainable sympathy between ireland and germany, he will dismiss, perhaps, as points of minor importance, but he will detect at once in the argument an antagonism, natural enough in , between national and colonial attributes, and he will remember, with inner misgivings, that his own party has taken an especially active part during the last ten years in furthering the claim of the self-governing colonies to the status of nationhood as an essential step in the furtherance of imperial unity. the word "nation," therefore, as applied to ireland, has lost some of its virtue as a deterrent to home rule. even the word "colony" is becoming harmless; for every year that has passed since has made it more abundantly clear that colonial freedom means colonial friendship; and, after all, friendship is more important than legal ties. in one remarkable case, that of the conquered dutch republic in south africa, a flood of searching light has been thrown on the significance of those phrases "nation" and "colony." there, as in ireland, and originally in canada, "national" included racial characteristics, and colonial autonomy signified national autonomy in a more accurate sense than in australia or newfoundland. but we know now that it does not signify either a racial tyranny within those nations, or a racial antipathy to the mother country; but, on the contrary, a reconciliation of races within and friendship without. would mr. chamberlain recast his argument now? unhappily, we shall not know. but it does seem to me that recent history and his own temperament would force him to do so. as in his abandonment of free trade, it was a strong and sincere imperialist instinct that eventually transformed him from the advocate of provincial home rule into the relentless enemy of home rule in any shape. take the imperial argument, shaken to its foundations by subsequent events, from the case he stated in , and what remains? two pleas only--first, the abnormality of irishmen; second, ireland's proximity to england. the first expresses the old traditional view that ireland is outside the pale of all human analogy; the exception to all rules; her innate depravity and perversity such that she would abuse power where others respect it, derive enmity where others derive friendship, and willingly ruin herself by internal dissension and extravagant ambitions in order, if possible, at the same time to ruin england. unconnected, however loosely, with the high imperial argument, i do not believe that this plea could have been used with sincerity by mr. chamberlain even in . he was a democrat, devoted to the cause of enfranchising and trusting the people; and this plea was, after all, only the same anti-democratic argument applied to ireland, and tipped with racial venom, which had been used for generations by most tories and many whigs against any extension of popular power. lord randolph churchill, the tory democrat, in his dispassionate moments, always scouted it, resting his case against home rule on different grounds. it was strange enough to see the argument used by the radical author of all the classic denunciations of class ascendancy and the classic eulogies of the sense, forbearance and generosity of free electorates. it was all the stranger in that mr. chamberlain himself a few years before had committed himself to a scheme of restricted self-government for ireland, and in the debates on mr. gladstone's first home rule bill of , when the condition of ireland was far worse than in , had declared himself ready to give that country a constitution similar to that enjoyed by quebec or ontario within the dominion of canada. but politics are politics. under the inexorable laws of the party game, politicians are advocates and swell their indictments with every count which will bear the light. the system works well enough in every case but one--the indictment of a fellow-nation for incapacity to rule itself. there, both in ireland and everywhere else, as i shall show, it works incalculable mischief. once committed irrevocably to the opposition of mr. gladstone's bills, mr. chamberlain, standing on imperial ground, which seemed to him and his followers firm enough then, used his unrivalled debating powers to traduce and exasperate the irish people and their leaders by every device in his power. one other point survives in its integrity from the case made by mr. chamberlain in , and that is the argument about distance. clearly this is a quite distinct contention from the last; for distance from any given point does not by itself radically alter human nature. australians are not twice as good or twice as bad as south africans because they are twice as far from the mother country. "does anybody doubt"--let me repeat his words--"that if ireland were a thousand miles from england she would not have been long before this a self-governing colony?" the whole tragedy of ireland lies in that "if"; but the condition is, without doubt, still unsatisfied. ireland is still only sixty miles away from the english shores, and the argument from proximity, for what it is worth, is still plausible. to a vast number of minds it still seems conclusive. put the south african parallel to the average moderate unionist, half disposed to admit the force of this analogy, he would nevertheless answer: "ah, but ireland is so near." well, let us join issue on the two grounds i have indicated--the ground of irish abnormality, and the ground of ireland's proximity. it will be found, i think, that neither contention is tenable by itself; that a supporter of one unconsciously or consciously reinforces it by reference to the other, and that to refute one is to refute both. it will be found, too, that, apart from mechanical and unessential difficulties, the whole case against home rule is included and summed up in these two contentions, and that the mechanical problem itself will be greatly eased and illuminated by their refutation. ii. those sixty miles of salt water which we know as the irish channel--if only every englishman could realize their tremendous significance in anglo-irish history--what an ineffectual barrier "in the long result of time" to colonization and conquest; what an impassable barrier--through the ignorance and perversity of british statesmanship--to sympathy and racial fusion! for eight hundred years after the christian era her distance from europe gave ireland immunity from external shocks, and freedom to work out her own destiny. she never, for good or ill, underwent roman occupation or teutonic invasion. she was secure enough to construct and maintain unimpaired a civilization of her own, warlike, prosperous, and marvellously rich, for that age, in scholarship and culture. she produced heroic warriors, peaceful merchants, and gentle scholars and divines; poets, musicians, craftsmen, architects, theologians. she had a passion for diffusing knowledge, and for more than a thousand years sent her missionaries of piety, learning, art, and commerce, far and wide over europe. for two hundred years she resisted her first foreign invaders, the danes, with desperate tenacity, and seems to have absorbed into her own civilization and polity those who ultimately retained a footing on her eastern shores. with the coming of the anglo-normans at the end of the twelfth century the dark shadow begins to fall, and for the first time the irish channel assumes its tragic significance. england, compounded of britons, teutons, danes, scandinavians, normans, with the indelible impress of rome upon the whole, had emerged, under nature's mysterious alchemy, a strong state. ireland had preserved her gaelic purity, her tribal organization, her national culture, but at the cost of falling behind in the march of political and military organization. sixty miles divided her from the nearest part of the outlying dominions of feudal england, miles from the dynamic centre of english power. the degree of distance seems to have been calculated with fatal exactitude, in correspondence with the degrees of national vitality in the two countries respectively, to produce for ages to come the worst possible effects on both. the process was slow. ireland was near enough to attract the anglo-norman adventurers and colonists, but strong enough and fair enough for three hundred years to transform them into patriots "more irish than the irish"; always, however, too near and too weak, even with their aid, to expel the direct representatives of english rule from the foothold they had obtained on her shores, while at the same time too far and too formidable to enable that rule to expand into the complete conquest and subjugation of the realm. "the english rule," says mr. lecky, "as a living reality, was confined and concentrated within the limits of the pale. the hostile power planted in the heart of the nation destroyed all possibility of central government, while it was itself incapable of fulfilling that function. like a spear-point embedded in a living body, it inflamed all around it and deranged every vital function. it prevented the gradual reduction of the island by some native clovis, which would necessarily have taken place if the anglo-normans had not arrived, and instead of that peaceful and almost silent amalgamation of races, customs, laws, and languages, which took place in england, and which is the source of many of the best elements in english life and character, the two nations remained in ireland for centuries in hostility." from this period dates that intense national antipathy felt by the english for the irish race which has darkened all subsequent history. it was not originally a temperamental antipathy, or it would be impossible to explain the powerful attraction of irish character, manners, and laws for the great bulk of the anglo-norman colonists. nor within ireland, even after the reformation, was it a religious antipathy between a protestant race and a race exclusively and immovably catholic. it was in origin a political antipathy between a small official minority, backed by the support of a powerful mother country struggling for ascendancy over a large native and naturalized majority, divided itself by tribal feuds, but on the whole united in loathing and combating that ascendancy. universal experience, as i shall afterwards show, proves that an enmity so engendered takes a more monstrous and degrading shape than any other. religion becomes its pretext. ignorance makes it easy, and interest makes it necessary, to represent the native race as savages outside the pale of law and morals, against whom any violence and treachery is justifiable. the legend grows and becomes a permanent political axiom, distorting and abasing the character of those who act on it and those who, suffering from it, and retaliating against its consequences, construct their counter-legend of the inherent wickedness of the dominant race. if left to themselves, white races, of diverse nationalities, thrown together in one country, eventually coalesce, or at least learn to live together peaceably. but if an external power too remote to feel genuine responsibility for the welfare of the inhabitants, while near enough to exert its military power on them, takes sides in favour of the minority, and employs them as its permanent and privileged garrison, the results are fatal to the peace and prosperity of the country it seeks to dominate, and exceedingly harmful, though in a degree less easy to gauge, to itself. so it was with ireland; and yet it cannot fail to strike any student of history what an extraordinary resilience she showed again and again under any transient phase of wise and tolerant government. such a phase occurred in the latter part of the reign of henry viii., when, after the defeat of the geraldines, for the first time some semblance of royal authority was established over the whole realm; and when an effort was also made, not through theft or violence, but by conciliatory statecraft, to replace the native brehon system of law and land tenure by english institutions, and to anglicize the irish chiefs. the process stopped abruptly and for ever with the accession of mary, to be replaced by the forcible confiscation of irish land, and the "planting" of english and scotch settlers. ireland, for four hundred years the only british colony, is now drawn into the mighty stream of british colonial expansion. adventurous and ambitious englishmen began to regard her fertile acres as raleigh regarded america, and, in point of time, the systematic and state-aided colonization of ireland is approximately contemporaneous with that of america. it is true that until the first years of the sixteenth century no permanent british settlement had been made in america, while in ireland the plantation of king's and queen's counties was begun as early as , and under elizabeth further vast confiscations were carried out in munster within the same century. but from the reign of james i. onward, the two processes advance _pari passu_. virginia, first founded by raleigh in , is firmly settled in , just before the confiscation of ulster and its plantation by , scots; and in , just after that huge measure of expropriation, the pilgrim fathers landed in new plymouth. puritan massachusetts--with its offshoots, connecticut, new haven and rhode island--as well as catholic maryland, were formally established between and , and maine in , at a period when the politically inspired proscription of the catholic religion, succeeding the robbery of the soil, was goading the unhappy irish to the rebellion of . while that rebellion, with its fierce excesses and pitiless reprisals, was convulsing ireland, the united colonies of new england banded themselves together for mutual defence. a few years later cromwell, aiming, through massacre and rapine, at the extermination of the irish race, with the savage watchword "to hell or connaught," planted ulster, munster, and leinster with men of the same stock, stamp, and ideas as the colonists of new england, and in the first years of the restoration charles ii. confirmed these confiscations, at the same time that he granted carolina to lord clarendon, new netherlands to the duke of york, and new jersey to lord berkeley, and issued fresh charters for connecticut and maryland. finally, quaker penn founded pennsylvania in , and in william iii., after the hopeless jacobite insurrections in favour of the last of the stuarts, wrung the last million acres of good irish land from the old catholic proprietors, planted them with protestant englishmen, and completed the colonization of ireland. forty years passed ( ) before georgia, the last of the "old thirteen colonies," was planted, as ulster had been planted, mainly by scotch presbyterians. during the greater part of this period we must remember that conquered ireland herself was contributing to the colonization of america. every successive act of spoliation drove catholic irishmen across the atlantic as well as into europe, and gave every colony an infusion of irish blood. until the beginning of the eighteenth century this class of emigration was for the most part involuntary. cromwell, for example, shipped off thousands of families indiscriminately to the west indies and america for sale, as "servants" to the colonists. the only organized and voluntary expedition in which irish catholics took part was that to maryland under lord baltimore. the distinction in course of time became immaterial. in the free american air english, scotch, and irish became one people, with a common political and social tradition. it is interesting, and for a proper understanding of the irish question, indispensable, briefly to contrast the characteristics and progress of the american and irish settlements, and in doing so to observe the profound effects of geographical position and political institutions on human character. i shall afterwards ask the reader to include in the comparison the later british colonies formed in canada and south africa by conquest, and in australia by peaceful settlement. let us note, first, that both in america and ireland the colonies were bi-racial, with this all-important distinction, that in america the native race was coloured, savage, heathen, nomadic, incapable of fusion with the whites, and, in relation to the almost illimitable territory colonized, not numerous; while in ireland the native race was white, civilized, christian, numerous, and confined within the limits of a small island to which it was passionately attached by treasured national traditions, and whose soil it cultivated under an ancient and revered system of tribal tenure. the parallel, then, in this respect, is slight, and becomes insignificant, except in regard to the similarity of the mental attitude of the colonists towards indians and irish respectively. in natural humanity the colonists of ireland and the colonists of america differed in no appreciable degree. they were the same men, with the same inherent virtues and defects, acting according to the pressure of environment. danger, in proportionate degree, made both classes brutal and perfidious; but in america, though there were moments of sharp crisis, as in on the borders of massachusetts, the degree was comparatively small, and through the defeat and extrusion of the indians diminished steadily. in ireland, because complete expulsion and extermination were impossible, the degree was originally great, and, long after it had actually disappeared, haunted the imagination and distorted the policy of the invading nation. in america there was no land question. freeholds were plentiful for the meanest settlers and the title was sound and indisputable. in the "proprietary" colonies, it is true, vast tracts of country were originally vested by royal grants in a single nobleman or a group of capitalists, just as vast estates were granted in ireland to peers, london companies, and syndicates of "undertakers"; but by the nature of things, the extent of territory, its distance, and the absence of a white subject race, no agrarian harm resulted in america, and a healthy system of tenure, almost exclusively freehold, was naturally evolved. in ireland the land question was the whole question from the first. if the natives had been exterminated, or their remnants wholly confined, as cromwell planned, to the barren lands of connaught, all might have been well for the conquerors. or if ireland had been, in mr. chamberlain's phrase, a thousand miles away, all might have come right under the compulsion of circumstances and the healing influence of time. that the celtic race still possessed its strong powers of assimilation was shown by the almost complete denationalization and absorption of a large number of cromwell's soldier-colonists in the south and south-east under what mr. lecky calls the "invincible catholicism" of the irish women. but the irish were not only numerous, but fatally near the seat of empire. the natives--irish or anglo-irish--were still more than twice as numerous as the colonists; they were scattered over the whole country, barren or fertile, and that country was within a day's sail of england. the titles of the colonists to the land rested on sheer violence, sometimes aggravated by the grossest meanness and treachery, and these titles were not recognized by the plundered race. even with their gradual recognition it would have been difficult to introduce the english system of tenure, which was radically different and repellent to the irish mind. the bare idea of one man absolutely owning land and transmitting it entire to his heirs was incomprehensible to them. the solution for all these difficulties was unfortunately only too easy and obvious. england was near, strong, and thoroughly imbued with the policy of governing ireland on the principle of antagonizing the races within her. it was possible, therefore, by english help, under laws made in england, to constitute the irish outlaws from the land, labourers on it, no doubt, that was an economic necessity, precarious occupiers of plots just sufficient to support life; but, in the eyes of the law, serfs. the planters of the southern american colonies imported african negroes for the same purpose, with irretrievably mischievous results to their own descendants. nor is it an exaggeration to compare the use made of the irish for a certain period to the use made of these negroes, for great numbers of the irish were actually exported as slaves to barbadoes, jamaica, and even to carolina. the outlawed multitude in ireland were deprived, not only of all rights to the land, but, as a corollary, of all social privileges whatsoever. "the law," said an irish lord chancellor, "does not suppose any such person to exist as an irish roman catholic." the instrument of ostracism was the famous penal code, begun in william's reign in direct and immediate defiance of a solemn pledge given in the treaty of limerick, guaranteeing liberty of conscience to the catholics, and perfected in the reign of anne. this code, ostensibly framed to extirpate catholicism, was primarily designed to confirm and perpetuate the gigantic dislocation of property caused by the transference of irish and anglo-irish land into english and scotch ownership. since the rightful owners were catholic, and the wrongful owners protestants, the laws against the catholic religion--a religion feared everywhere by englishmen at this period--were the simplest means of legalizing and buttressing the new régime. i shall not linger over the details of the code. burke's description of it remains classic and unquestioned: "a complete system full of coherence and consistency, well digested and composed in all its parts ... a machine of wise and elaborate contrivance; and as well fitted for the oppression, impoverishment and degradation of a people, and the debasement in them of human nature itself, as ever proceeded from the perverted ingenuity of man." the aim was to reduce the catholics to poverty, ignorance, and impotence, and the aim was successful. of the laws against priests, worship, education, and of the bars to commerce and the professions, i need not speak. in the matter of property, the fundamental enactments concerned the land, namely, that no catholic could own land, or lease it for more than thirty years, and even then on conditions which made profitable tenure practically impossible. this law created and sustained the serfdom i have described, and is the direct cause of the modern land problem. it remained unaltered in the smallest respect for seventy years, that is, until , when a catholic was permitted to lease for sixty-one years as much as fifty acres of bog not less than four feet deep. long before this the distribution of landed property and the system of land tenure had become stereotyped. this system of tenure was one of the worst that ever existed on the face of the globe. it has been matched in portions of india, but nowhere else in this empire save in little prince edward island, where we shall meet with it again. in ireland, where it assumed its worst form, violent conquest by a neighbouring power not only made it politic to outlaw the old owners, but precluded the introduction of the traditional english tenures, even into the relations between the british superior landlord and the british occupying colonist. the bulk of the confiscated irish land, as i have mentioned, had been granted in fee to english noblemen, gentlemen, or speculators, who planted it with middle or lower-class tenants. a number of cromwell's private soldiers settled in leinster and munster, and, holding small farms in fee, formed an exception to this rule. but the greater part of ireland, in ownership, as distinguished from occupation, consisted of big estates, and a large number of the english owners, being only a day's sail from england, became, by natural instinct, habitual absentees. others lived in dublin and neglected their estates. absenteeism, non-existent in america, assumed in ireland the proportions of an enormous economic evil. in england the landlord was, and remains, a capitalist, providing a house and a fully equipped farm to the tenant. in ireland he was a rent receiver pure and simple, unconnected with the occupier by any healthy bond, moral or economic. the rent-receiving absentee involved a resident middleman, who contracted to pay a stipulated rent to the absentee, and had to extract that rent, plus a profit for himself, out of the occupiers, whether catholic serfs, protestant tenants, or both, and usually did so by subdivision of holdings and disproportionate elevation of rents. over three of the four provinces of ireland--for a small part of ulster was differently situated--the middleman himself frequently became an absentee and farmed his agency to another middleman, who by further subdivisions and extortions made an additional private profit, and who, in his turn, would create a subsidiary agency, until the land in many cases was "subset six deep."[ ] the ultimate occupier and sole creator of agricultural wealth lived perpetually on the verge of starvation, beggared not only by extortionate rents, partly worked out in virtually forced labour, but by extortionate tithes paid to the alien anglican church, in addition to the scanty dues willingly contributed to the hunted priests of his own prescribed religion. his resident upper class--though we must allow for many honourable exceptions--was the squirearchy, satirized by arthur young as petty despots with the vices of despots; idle, tyrannical, profligate, boorish, fit founders of the worst social system the modern civilized world has ever known. the slave-owning planters of carolina were by no means devoid of similar faults, which are the invariable products of arbitrary control over human beings, but there the physiological gulf between the dominant and subject race was too broad and deep to permit of substantial deterioration in the former. in ireland the ethnological difference was small; the artificial cleavage and deterioration great in inverse proportion. for the greater part of a century, in every part of ireland, tenancies of land, whether held by catholic or protestant, by lease or at will, were alike in certain fundamental characteristics. the tenant had neither security of tenure nor right to the value of the improvements which were invariably made by his own capital and labour. even a leaseholder, when his lease expired, had no prescriptive claim to renewal, but must take his chance at a rent-auction with strangers, the farm going to the highest bidder. if he lost, he was homeless and penniless, while the fruits of his labour and capital passed into other hands. the miserable catholic cottier was, of course, in a similar case, though relatively his hardship was less, since his condition, being the lowest possible in all circumstances, could scarcely be worse. obviously, in a case where the landlord was neither the capitalist nor the protector and friend of the tenant, the possession of those elementary rights, security of tenure and compensation for improvements, was the condition precedent to the growth of a sound agrarian system. their denial was incompatible with social order. yet they were denied, and for one hundred and eighty years an intermittent struggle to obtain them by violence and criminal conspiracy degraded and retarded ireland. but a marked distinction grew up between a small portion of ireland and the rest. james i.'s plantation of ulster had been far more drastic and thorough than any operation of the kind before or since. later immigrants had flowed in, and at the beginning of the eighteenth century in the north-eastern portion--the predominantly protestant ulster of to-day--scotch protestant tenants, mainly presbyterian, were thickly settled, and formed an industrious community of strong and tenacious temper. in the original leases granted by the concessionaires in the seventeenth century, fixity of tenure was implied, and a nominal rent levied, somewhat after the american model; but under the example of other provinces, and the economic pressure exerted by the growth in the catholic population, these privileges seem to have been almost wholly obliterated. the absentee landlords, reckless of social welfare, exacted the rack or competitive rent. as in the south and west, tithes to the established church and oppressive and corrupt local taxation for roads and other purposes, aggravated the discontent. for agrarian reasons only--and there were others which i shall mention--many thousands of protestants left ireland for ever. it required a long period of outrage and conspiracy, attaining in the proportions of a small civil war, and at the end of the century, by the anti-catholic passions it inspired, wrecking new hopes of racial unity, to establish what came to be known as the ulster custom of tenant right. if protestant freemen had to resort to these demoralizing methods to obtain, and then only after irreparable damage to ireland, the first condition of social stability, a tolerable land system, the effect of the agrarian system on catholic ireland, prostrate under the penal code, may be easily imagined. in addition to excessive subdivision of holdings and excessive tithes, rents, and local burdens, another agrarian evil, unknown in the vast and thinly populated tracts of america intensified the misery of the irish peasantry of the eighteenth century. this was the conversion of the best land from tillage into pasture, with the resulting clearances and migrations, and the ultimate congestion on the worst land. lecky quotes a contemporary pamphlet, which speaks of the "best arable land in the kingdom in immense tracts wantonly enjoyed by the cattle of a few individuals, and at the same time the junctions of our highways and streets crowded with shoals of mendicant fellow-creatures." this change from arable to pasture has been a common and often in the long run a healthy, economic tendency in many countries, england and scotland included, though temporarily a fruitful source of misery. under normal conditions the immediate evils right themselves in course of time. nothing was normal in ireland, and any breath of economic change in the outside world reacted cruelly on the wretched subject class, which produced, though it did not enjoy, the greater part of the wealth of the kingdom. under an accumulation of hardships famine was periodic, and from , when the first whiteboys appeared, disorder in one degree or another was chronic. the motive, it is universally agreed now, was material, not religious. the whiteboys of the south and west were the counterparts of the protestant steelboys and oakboys of the north, and even in the south and west there were protestant as well as catholic whiteboys. lord charlemont, the protestant irish statesman, denying this now well-ascertained fact, was nevertheless explicit enough about the cause of the disorders. "the real causes," he said, "were ... exorbitant rents, low wages, want of employment, farms of enormous extent let by their rapacious and indolent proprietors to monopolizing land-jobbers, by whom small portions of them were again let and relet to intermediate oppressors, and by them subdivided for five times their value among the wretched starvers upon potatoes and water; taxes yearly increasing, and still more tithes, which the catholic, without any possible benefit, unwillingly pays in addition to his priest's money ... misery, oppression, and famine."[ ] agrarian crime, operating through an endless succession of secret societies, whiteboys and rightboys in the eighteenth century; terry alts, rockites, caravats, ribbonmen, moonlighters, in the nineteenth, was rampant for nearly two centuries, long surviving the repeal of the penal code; and its last echoes may be heard at this moment. in the absence of all wholesome law, violence and terror were the only means of self-defence. the remedy applied was retaliatory violence under forms of law. nothing whatsoever was done to remove the essential vices of agrarian tenure during the eighteenth century; nothing tentative even during the nineteenth century until the year ; nothing effective and permanent until , when, as far as humanly possible, it was sought to give direct statutory expression to the ulster custom, with the addition of the principle of a fair judicial rent. englishmen should realize this when they discuss irish character. it is a very old story, but nine out of ten englishmen, when talking vaguely of irish discontent, disloyalty, and turbulence, forget, or have never learnt, this and other fundamental facts. as for the irish landlords, we must remember that the founders of that class differed in no respect from other english landlords, or from the aristocratic american concessionaires, just as their compatriot tenants and lessees were identical in stock with the american colonists. their descendants and successors have been the victims of circumstance. each generation has inherited the vested interests of the last, and it is not in human nature to look far behind vested interests into the wrongful acts which created them and the bad laws that perpetuate them. doubly victimized have been those resident landlords who at all periods, from the earliest era of colonization, in spite of temptation and bad examples around them, have acted towards their tenantry as humane and patriotic citizens. a bad agrarian system infects the whole body politic. good landlords and contented tenants inevitably suffered with the rest. in commerce and industry, as in land, the irish colony stood at a heavy disadvantage by comparison with america. from the restoration onward, english statesmen took the same view of both dependencies, namely, that their commercial interests should be wholly subordinate to those of the mother country, and the same department, the board of trade and plantations, made the fiscal regulations for ireland and america. the old idea that for trade purposes ireland counted as an integral part of the united kingdom did not last longer than . but it was not wholly abrogated by the great navigation act of that year, which, though it placed harsh restrictions on the irish cattle trade with england, did not expressly exclude irish ships from the monopoly of the colonial trade conferred upon english vessels, so that for seven years longer a tolerably prosperous business was carried on direct between ireland and the american colonies.[ ] an act of , prohibiting, with a few negligible exceptions, all direct imports from the colonies into ireland, gave a heavy check to this business, arrested the growth of irish shipping, and, in conjunction with subsequent measures of navigational, fiscal, and industrial repression, converted ireland for a century into a kind of trade helot. she was treated either as a foreign country, as a colony, or as something inferior to either, according to the dictation of english interests, while possessing neither the commercial independence of a foreign country nor the natural and indefeasible immunity which distance, climate, variety of soil, and unlimited room for expansion continued to confer, in spite of all coercive restraints, upon the american colonies. though the british trade monopoly was certainly a contributory cause in promoting the american revolution, it was never, any more than the british claim to tax, a severe practical grievance. the prohibition of the export of manufactures, and the compulsory reciprocal exchange of colonial natural products for british manufactured goods and the chartered merchandise of the orient, were not very onerous restrictions for young communities settled in virgin soil; nor, with a few exceptions like raw wool, whose export was forbidden, were the american natural products of a kind which could compete with those of the mother country. the real damage inflicted upon the colonies by the mercantile system--one which its modern defenders are apt to forget--was moral. to practise and condone smuggling was habitual in america, and some of the english governors set the worst example of all by making a profit out of connivance at the illicit traffic. "graft" was their creation. the moral mischief done was permanent, and it resembled in a lesser degree the mischief done in ireland both by bad agrarian and bad commercial laws. ireland, owing to her proximity, was in the unhappy position of being a competitor in the great staples of trade, both raw and manufactured, and she was near enough and weak enough to render it easy to stamp out this competition so far as it was thought to be inimical to english interests. the cattle and provision trade with england had been damaged as far back as , and was killed in , though the export of provisions to foreign countries survived, and became almost the sole source of irish trade during the eighteenth century. the policy with raw wool was to admit just as much as would satisfy the english weavers without arousing the determined opposition of the competitive english graziers. the irish manufactured wool trade, a flourishing business, for which irishmen showed exceptionally high aptitude, and which in the normal course of things would probably have become her staple industry, was destroyed altogether, avowedly in the interests of the english staple industry, by prohibitory export duties imposed in . subsidiary industries--cotton, glass, brewing, sugar-refining, sail-cloth, hempen rope, and salt--were successively strangled. one manufacture alone, that of linen, centred in the protestant north, was spared, and for a short period was even encouraged, not because it was a protestant industry, but because at first it aroused no trade jealousy in england, and was in some respects serviceable to her. in , when it was proposed to extend the industry to leinster, considerations of foreign trade provoked an outburst of hostility, and harassing restrictions were imposed on this industry also. on the whole, however, it suffered less than the rest, and lived to become one of the two important manufacturing industries of present-day ireland. english policy was as fatuous as it was cruel. numbers of the irish manufacturers and artisans, both catholic and protestant, emigrated to europe, and devoted their skill and energy to strengthening industries which competed with those of england. within ireland, since industry and commerce formed the one outlet left by the penal code for catholic brains and capital--though even here the code imposed harassing disabilities--the commercial restrictions completed the ruin of the proscribed sect. but at this period the main source of weakness to ireland, of strength to america, and of danger to the empire as a whole, was the protestant emigration. lecky estimates that , protestant families in dublin and , in the rest of the country were ruined by the suppression of the wool trade. the great majority of these protestants were presbyterians belonging to north-east ulster, and descendants of the men who had defended that province with such desperate gallantry against the irish insurgents under the deposed james ii. political power in ireland was wielded in the interests of a small territorial and episcopalian aristocracy, largely absentee. the dissenters belonged to the middle and lower classes, and were for the most part tenants or artisans. creed and caste antipathies were combined against them. their value as citizens was ignored. though their right to worship was legally recognized by an act of , they remained from to subject to the test, were incapacitated for all public employment, and were forbidden to open schools. under an accumulation of agrarian, economic, and religious disabilities, they naturally left ireland to find freedom in america. and it is beyond question that they turned the scale against the british arms in the great war of independence. footnotes: [ ] class c. in sir william anson's classification, "law and custom of the constitution," p. . [ ] j. fisher, "end of the irish parliament" cited. [ ] ms. autobiography cited by lecky, vol. ii., p. . [ ] the best modern account of the commercial relations of great britain mid ireland is miss murray's "commercial relations between england and ireland." chapter ii revolution in america and in ireland in the old world and in the new, therefore, two societies, composed of human beings similar in all essential respects, were growing up under the protection of the british crown; the one servile, the other free; the one stagnant where it was not retrograde, the other prosperous, progressive, and, by the magnetism of its own freedom, progress, and prosperity, steadily draining its irish fellow of talent, energy, and industrial skill. what was the ultimate cause of this glaring divergency? religion, as a spiritual force, was not the root cause. the american colonies, with three exceptions--the earliest virginia, the latest georgia, and the catholic community of maryland--were formed by dissenters,[ ] exiles themselves from persecution, but not necessarily forbearing to others, and, in the case of the new england puritans, bitterly intolerant. it is interesting to observe that the quakers and the catholics, men standing at the opposite poles of theology, set the highest example of tolerance. quaker pennsylvania enforced absolute liberty of conscience, and quakers in all the provinces worked for religious harmony and freedom. catholic maryland, as long as its government remained in catholic hands, and under the guidance of the wise and liberal proprietary, lord baltimore, pursued the same policy, and attracted members of sects persecuted in new england.[ ] the parallel with ireland is significant. at the end of the seventeenth century, when a quarrel was raging between the crown and massachusetts over the persecution of quakers in that colony, and for a further period in the eighteenth century, quaker missionaries and settlers were conducting a campaign of revivalism in ireland with no molestation from the catholics, though with intermittent obstruction from magistrates and protestant clergy. wesleyans received the same sympathetic treatment.[ ] the tolerance shown by irish catholics, in spite of terrible provocation, is acknowledged by all reputable historians. nor was protestant intolerance, whether anglican or nonconformist, of a deeper dogmatic shade than anywhere else in the king's dominions. but in ireland it was political, economic, and social, while in america it was purely theological, and, moreover, purely american. the episcopalian ascendancy in ireland represented foreign interests, and therefore struck against dissent as well as against popery, and estranged both. the root of the american trouble, leading to the separation of the colonies, was political and wholly unconnected with religion. the root of the irish trouble, adventitiously connected with religion, lay, and lies still, in the irish political system. other evils were transient and curable; this was permanent. the penal code was eventually relaxed; the disabilities of the dissenters were eventually removed; the commercial servitude was abolished, but the political system _in essentials_ has never been changed. let us see what it was and how it worked at the period we are considering, again by comparison with america. though the word "plantation" was applied alike to the colonization of ireland and america, ireland was never called a colony, but a kingdom. the distinction was not scientific, and operated, like all other distinctions, to the injury of ireland. neither country was represented in the british parliament. in both countries the representatives of the crown were appointed by england, and controlled, in america almost completely, in ireland absolutely, the executive and judges. in ireland the viceroy was always an englishman; in america, the governors of a few of the non-proprietary colonies were colonials, but most governors were english, and some of the proprietary class were absentees.[ ] in the case both of ireland and america the english government claimed a superior right of control over legislation and taxation, and in both cases it was found necessary to remove all doubts as to this right by passing declaratory acts, for ireland in , for america in . the great difference lay in the legislature, and was the result of different degrees of remoteness from the seat of power. america was profoundly democratic from the beginning, outpacing the mother country by fully two centuries. there was no aristocracy, and in most colonies little distinction between upper and middle classes. the popular assemblies, elected on the broadest possible franchise, were truly representative. some of the legislative councils, or upper chambers, were elective also. most of them, although nominated, and therefore inclined to be hostile to the popular body, were nevertheless of identical social composition; so that there was often an official, but never a caste, ascendancy. from very early times there was occasional friction between the home government, represented by the governors, and the colonial democracies, over such matters as taxation, official salaries, quartering of troops, and navigation laws. writs of _quo warranto_ were issued against connecticut, carolina, new york, and maryland, in the latter part of the seventeenth century, and the charter of massachusetts, after long wrangles with the crown, was forfeited in , and not restored until , after a period of despotic government under sir edmund andros. but for a century or more the system worked well enough upon the whole. under the powerful lever of the representative assembly, neutralized by the ever-present need for military protection from the mother country, and with the wholesome check to undue coercion set by the broad atlantic, civic freedom grew and flourished to a degree unknown in any other part of the civilized world. in ireland civic freedom was unknown. there was no popular assembly. a wealthy aristocracy of english extraction and of anglican faith, partly resident, partly absentee, and wholly subservient to the english government, constituted the upper house of that strange institution known as parliament, and to a great extent nominated and controlled the lower house through means frankly corrupt. representation was almost nominal; close pocket-boroughs predominated, and seats were bought and sold in the open market. in the year more than a third of the members of the house of commons were placemen, members out of were elected by boroughs and manors, and, of these, were elected by individual patrons. fifty-three of these patrons, nominating members, sat as peers in the upper house. cash, places, and peerages, were the usual considerations paid for maintaining a government majority. the catholics, from three-quarters to five-sixths of the population, had neither votes nor members; the dissenters scarcely any members and an almost powerless vote. the irish legislature, by an act as old as , the famous poynings' law, could neither initiate nor pass a measure without the consent of the english privy council, and the declaratory act of confirmed the power of making english acts applicable to ireland. government in england itself was, no doubt, unrepresentative and corrupt at that period, and the people paid the penalty in full; but it was a national government, under the aegis of the national faith, and resting, however remotely, on the ultimate sanction of the people, just as american opinion, more democratically ascertained, continued to control the major part of american affairs. in ireland the government was systematically anti-irish. there was no career for irishmen in ireland. both catholics and dissenters were excluded from all civil and military offices; the highest posts were generally given to englishmen born and bred, and the country, episcopalian only to a fractional extent, was ruled by a narrow episcopalian oligarchy of wealthy landowners and prelates, who bartered irish freedom for the place and power of their own families and dependents. the conditions of this sordid exchange were the ground of the first important anglo-irish political struggle in the eighteenth century, when the english viceroy, townshend, succeeded in - , at the cost of half a million, in transferring the bribing power, and therefore the controlling power, from the "undertakers," as they were known, direct to the crown. there seems to have been no continuous english policy beyond that of making ireland completely subservient to english interests and purposes, and often to purposes of the most humiliating and degrading kind. the irish pension list has earned immortal infamy. jobs too scandalous to pass muster in england were systematically foisted upon the irish establishment. royal mistresses, a host of needy germans, a danish queen banished for adultery, lived in england or abroad upon incomes drawn from the impoverished irish exchequer. nor was it only a question of pensions. quantities of valuable sinecure offices were habitually given to englishmen who never came near the shores of ireland. in short, the english policy towards ireland was similar to spain's policy towards her south american colonies, minus the grosser forms of physical cruelty and oppression. yet ireland, like the american colonies until the verge of the revolutionary struggle, was consistently loyal to the crown both in peace and war. the loyalty of catholic ireland, poverty-stricken, inarticulate, almost leaderless, and shamefully misgoverned, does not, from the human standpoint, appear worthy of admiration, but it was a fact. the few catholic noblemen outdid the protestants in expressions of devotion; the whiteboy risings were as little disloyal as religious. not a hand stirred for james or his heirs when jacobite plots and risings were causing grave public danger in england and scotland. catholic lord trimleston offered exclusively catholic regiments with catholic officers to george iii. for foreign service in , though they were vetoed by what his viceroy halifax called the "ill-bred bigotry" of the irish parliament. nor was it till thirty years after that date that protestant discontent, under intolerable provocation, assumed an anti-dynastic and republican form. to compare the imperial spirit displayed by america and ireland in their views and action is difficult, partly because the various american colonies differed widely, partly because there existed in ireland no organ of government which could express popular feeling. neither country, of course, paid any cash contribution to imperial expenses, though both could fairly claim that the english monopoly of trade imposed an indirect tribute of indefinite size, while ireland, in pensions, rents to absentees, and sinecure appointments, was drained of many millions more. american patronage was an element of substantial value to england, but it was not on the irish scale. america on the whole, perhaps, showed less patriotic feeling than ireland. with full allowance for the lack of sympathy and understanding shown by the british regulars to the american volunteers in their co-operation in the french wars, it can scarcely be denied that the colonists, together with much heroism and public spirit, showed occasional slackness and parsimony in resisting the penetration of a foreign power which threatened to hem in their settlements from the st. lawrence to the mouth of the mississippi. ireland during the seven years' war, and until the peace of paris in , maintained a war establishment of , troops. she maintained a peace establishment of , troops, and from onwards of , troops. there never seems to have been a whisper of protest from the catholic population against these measures, nor, except in the matter of the american war, to which we shall come presently, from the protestants. it may be added that, after , catholics in considerable numbers were surreptitiously enlisted in the ranks, in spite of the penal code, and from then until the present day have fought for the flag as staunchly as any other class of the king's subjects. it never occurred to responsible english statesmen that here was ground, firm as a rock in america, and firm enough in ireland, on which, if only they obeyed the instincts and maxims upon which england herself had risen to greatness, they might build a mighty and durable imperial structure. that loyalty, to be genuine and lasting, must spring from liberty was a truth they did not appreciate, and to this truth, strangely enough, in spite of the lessons of nearly a century and a half, a numerous school of english statesmen is still blind. it was no doubt a fatality that the smouldering discontent both of america and ireland burst into flame in the reign of a monarch who endeavoured, even within the limits of britain, to regain the arbitrary power which had cost their throne to the stuarts; it was an additional fatality that the standard of public morals among the class through which he ruled during the period of crisis had fallen to lower depths than ever before or since. even incorruptible men were either weak and selfish or subject to some cardinal defect of temper or intellect which, at times of crisis, neutralized their genius. chatham and burke were the noblest figures of the time, yet chatham, in his highest mood a nobler and truer champion of american liberty than burke, was minister--nominally, at any rate--when the revenue duties imposed upon the american colonies in destroyed in a moment the reconciliation brought about by the repeal of the stamp act. burke was surely false to his political philosophy in founding his american argument on expedience rather than on principle. chatham was a thorough democrat, trusting the people, poor or rich, rude or cultured, common or noble, american or british. burke, at a time when the reflection of the genuine opinion of the nation in a pure and free parliament might have saved us, as his splendid orations could not save us, from a disastrous war, scouted parliamentary reform, and took his unconscious share in playing the game of the most narrow coercionist tories like charles townshend and george iii. of the interminable chain of fatalities which sicken the mind in following every phase of ireland's history, burke's rigid temperamental conservatism always seems to me the most fatal and the most melancholy. it is not that he, the greatest intellect ireland has ever produced, made his career in england. by the time one reaches the period in which he lived one gets used to the expatriation of irish brains and vigour, not only to england and america, but to spain, france, russia, and germany. it is that his intellect was so constituted as in the long run to be useless, and on some occasions absolutely harmful, to ireland, sincerely as he loved her, and often as he supported measures for her temporary benefit, and rejoiced in their temporary success. an incident occurred in which tested his worth to ireland, and incidentally threw into strong light english views of ireland and america at the period immediately preceding the revolutionary epoch. the irish government, not with any high social aim, but in desperation at the growing treasury deficit, proposed a tax upon the rents of absentee landlords, and the fate of the measure, like all irish measures, had to be decided in the first instance in england. north's tory ministry actually consented to it. chatham, far from the active world, and too broken in health to influence policy either way, wrote a powerful plea for it; but a strong group of whig magnates, themselves wealthy absentee proprietors of irish land, signed a vehement remonstrance which carried the day against it, and the author of this remonstrance, of all men in the world, was the irishman burke, who, owning not an acre of irish land himself, devoted all his transcendent talents, all the subtlety and variety of his reasoning, to clothing the selfish greed of others with the garb of an enlightened patriotism. he was wrong fundamentally about ireland, and only superficially right about america. in the terms of this celebrated remonstrance, as illuminated by his own private correspondence, his consistency is revealed. by the very nature of things, he maintained, the central parliament of a great heterogeneous empire must exercise a supreme superintending power and regulate the polity and economy of the several parts as they relate to one another, a principle which, of course, would have justified the taxation of america, and which, save on the ground of expediency alone, he would certainly have applied to america. the proximity of ireland helped his logic, and surely logic was never distorted to stranger ends. the "ordinary residence" of the threatened irish landowners was in england, "to which country they were attached, not only by the ties of birth and early habit, but also by those of indisputable public duties," as though these facts did not constitute in themselves a damning satire on the system of irish government. they were to be "fined" for living in england, as though that fine were not the most just and politic which could be conceived, if it went even an inch towards establishing the principle that ireland's affairs were the business of responsible resident irishmen, or towards the further principle, enshrined in drummond's celebrated phrase of seventy years later in regard to the agrarian system which these whig noblemen shared in founding, that "property has its duties as well as its rights." finally, argued burke, heaping irony upon irony, the tax would lead directly to the "separation" of the two kingdoms both in interest and affection. the colonies would follow the irish example, and thus a principle of disunion and separation would pervade the whole empire; the bonds of common interest, knowledge, and sympathy which now knit it together would everywhere be loosened, and a narrow, insulated, local feeling and policy would be proportionately increased.[ ] such was burke's imperialism, as evoked by an irish measure which struck at the root of a frightful social evil and of a vicious political system. but the idea expressed by burke--the spirit of his whole argument--went far beyond this particular absentee tax or any similar tax proposed, as happened in one instance, by a colony. it was the superbly grandiose expression, and all the more insidiously seductive in that it was so grandiose, of a principle which all thinking men now know, or ought to know, is the negation of empire, which lost us america, which came within an ace of losing us canada, which might well have lost us south africa, and which has in very fact lost us, though not yet irrevocably, the "affection," to use burke's word, of ireland. we may call local patriotism "narrow and insulated," if we please, but we recognize now, in every case save that of ireland, that it is the only foundation for, and the only stimulant to, imperial patriotism. chatham, an englishman of the english, was nevertheless a better irishman than burke, and therefore a better imperialist. "the tax," he wrote, "was founded on strong irish policy. england, it is evident, profits by draining ireland of the vast incomes spent here from that country. but i could not, as a peer of england, advise the king, on principles of indirect, accidental english policy, to reject a tax on absentees sent over here as the genuine desire of the commons of ireland acting in their proper and peculiar sphere, and exercising their inherent exclusive right by raising supplies in the manner they judge best." chatham, in short, applied precisely the same argument to ireland as, in his memorable speeches of the next year ( ), he applied to america, and in both cases he was right. the only mistake he made was in his estimate of that travesty of a representative assembly, the irish house of commons, which, at the secret instigation of the viceroy, though without actual coercion, eventually threw out a tax so distasteful to its english patrons. but the argument for financial independence remained unassailable, and eventually the irish parliament itself summoned up the courage to adopt and act upon it. it may seem almost impossible that in a body so corrupt and exclusive a national sentiment should have arisen. but every elective assembly, however badly constituted, contains the seeds of its own regeneration, and, under even moderately favourable circumstances, moves irresistibly towards freedom. the pity was that circumstances, save for one brief and invigorating interlude, were persistently unfavourable to ireland. the task was enormous, demanding infinitely more self-sacrifice than even the ablest and most prescient of her parliamentarians realized. until it was too late, in fact, they never awoke to the true nature of the task, dazzled by illusory victories. rotten to the core as the irish parliament was, they sought, strengthened by popular influences, to make it the instrument for freeing ireland from a paralyzing servitude; and up to a point they succeeded, but they did not see that the only security for real and permanent success was to reform the parliament itself. there the inveterate spirit of creed and class ascendancy, resting in the last resort on english military power, survived long enough to nullify their efforts. the american revolution and the irish revolutionary renaissance--the one achieved by a long and bitter war, the other without bloodshed--originated and culminated together, were derived from the same sources, and ran their course in close connection. in ireland the movement was exclusively protestant, in america unsectarian; but in both cases finance was the lever of emancipation. america, resenting the commercial restrictions imposed by the mother country, but not, until passion had obscured all landmarks, contesting their abstract justice, and suffering no great material harm from their incidence, fought for the principle of self-taxation--a principle which did, of course, logically include, as the americans instinctively felt, that of commercial freedom. ireland, harassed by commercial restrictions far more onerous, naturally regarded their abolition as vital, and the control of internal taxation as subsidiary. apart from concrete grievances, both countries had to fear an unlimited extension of british claims founded on the all-embracing declaratory acts of and . unfortunately for herself, ireland for seventy years or more had been steadily supplying america with the human elements of resistance in their most energetic and independent form, and robbing herself proportionately approximately, how many protestants belonging mainly to ulster, whether through eviction from the land, industrial unemployment, or disgust at social and political ostracism, left ireland for america in the course of the eighteenth century, it is impossible to say; but the number, both relatively to population and relatively to the total emigration, catholic and protestant, to all parts of the world, was undoubtedly very large. mr. egerton, in his "origin and growth of the english colonies," reckons that in a sixth part of the thirteen insurrectionary colonies was composed of scots-irish exiles from ulster, and that half the protestant population of that province emigrated to those colonies between and . as the crisis approached, emigration became an exodus. thirty thousand of the farming class are said to have been driven west by the wholesale evictions of the early seventies, and ten thousand weavers followed them during the disastrous depression in the linen trade caused by interruption of commerce with america. the majority went to the northern colonies, especially pennsylvania, took from the first a vehement stand against the royal claims, and supplied some of washington's best soldiers. a minority went to the backwoods of virginia, maryland, and carolina, and were little heard of until as late in the war as , when tarleton began his anti-guerilla campaign in the south. then they woke up, and became, like their compatriots of the north, formidable and implacable foes. ireland and america, therefore, embarked on their struggle with the english parliament in close sympathy. the treatise of molyneux on irish liberty was read with wide approval in america. franklin visited and encouraged the irish patriots, and the americans in issued a special address to them, asserting an identity of interest. chatham, on the eve of war, dwelt strongly in the house of lords upon the same identity of interest, and in doing so expressly coupled together irish catholics and protestants. although united by interest and sentiment, ireland and america entered on the struggle under widely varying conditions. the american colonies were thirteen separate units, with only a rude organization for common action, and in each of these units there existed a cleavage of opinion, based neither on class nor creed, between rebels and loyalists. in spite of this weakness, the revolt was thoroughly national in the sense that it was organized and maintained through the state assemblies, resting on a broad popular franchise. in ireland, unbought and unofficial opinion was united against england. on the other hand, there was no national legislature; only an enslaved and unrepresentative legislature, tempered by a band of exceptionally brilliant and upright men, and continually thrust forward in spite of itself into bold and independent action by unconstitutional pressure from the unrepresented elements outside. success so won, as we shall see, was delusive. we may note two important additional circumstances: first, the dense mist of ignorance in which, and largely in consequence of which, england began her quarrel both with america and ireland. the average englishman was probably even more ignorant of ireland, which was sixty miles away, than of america, which was three thousand miles away. i am not at all sure that that fact is not true still. at any rate, it was true then. yet knowledge of ireland was more necessary, because her condition was bad in ways unknown in america. in all the essentials of material well-being, america was supremely fortunate, while ireland was in the depths of misery. it is not that this misery went undescribed or unlamented, or that it was not realized by a small number of englishmen. some of the most famous writings of the time, from the mordant satire of swift to the learned and elaborate diagnosis of arthur young, laid bare the hideous ravages wrought by misrule in ireland; but they had little or no effect upon english statesmen, and were unread by the only classes from which, if they had had knowledge, proper practical sympathy might have come. until townshend's viceroyalty ( - ) most of the irish viceroys were absentees for the greater part of their term of office, leaving the conduct of irish affairs to english bishops and judges, the wisest and most humane of whom could make little or no impression on english official indifference. american governors were at any rate resident, or mainly resident, and a few were good and popular administrators, though the information which most of them supplied to the home government showed a blindness to what was going on under their very eyes which would be incomprehensible if we did not know by experience that it is the invariable result of irresponsible rule over white men, whether at home or abroad. if, without the presence of race distinctions, it needed parliamentary reform in england itself to force the ruling class to study with real sympathy the needs, character, and desires of their own people, naturally the same ruling class, sending out its own members or dependents to america, obtained the most grotesquely distorted notions of what americans were and what they wanted or resented. "their office," wrote franklin of the governors,[ ] "makes them indolent, their indolence makes them odious, and, being conscious that they are hated, they become malicious. their malice urges them to continual abuse of the inhabitants in their letters to administration, representing them as disaffected and rebellious, and (to encourage the use of severity) as weak, divided, timid, and cowardly. government believes all, thinks it necessary to support and countenance its officers," etc. the same spirit pervades the official correspondence of even the best irish viceroys of the eighteenth century, and ultimately had a far more disastrous effect in that there were at all times in ireland ancient elements of social dissension which needed only skilful fomentation by her english rulers to ruin all hopes of reconciliation and unity. that phase was to come after the first irish victories. for the present the system--for it can scarcely be called a policy--was to irritate all irishmen and all americans alike, irrespective of creed, class, or sentiment, and thus to create on each side of the atlantic that dangerous phenomenon, an united people. the other noticeable point, admirably described by mr. holland in his "imperium et libertas," is the confusion of political ideas in regard to the status of white dependencies--a confusion greatly augmented by loose and misleading analogies with india and the tropical colonies. even a genius like burke, as i have already pointed out, was misled. chatham came nearest to the truth, but, naturally, the actual outbreak of war with america checked his political thinking, and threw him back on the bare doctrine of supremacy, right or wrong. it was not fully understood that there must be a radical difference between the government of places settled and populated by white colonists and of places merely exploited by white traders. all the prerogatives of the crown and parliament were theoretically valid over both classes of dependency, and to abandon any of them seemed to most men of that day to be inconsistent with imperial supremacy. honest and fair-minded politicians and thinkers tried in vain to reconcile local freedom with imperial unity. we have the key now, though we have made no use of it in ireland; but most of our forefathers not only had no glimmering of the truth when the fratricidal war began, but learnt nothing from the war itself, and remained unenlightened for sixty years more. if the renunciation in of the right to tax the colonies, and the negotiations founded thereon, had led to a peace, it is quite certain that friction would have subsequently arisen on other points. the idea of what we now know as "responsible government" was unknown. short of coercive war, there seemed to be only two altogether logical alternatives--complete separation and legislative union. america obtained the one, ireland was eventually to undergo the other; but it is interesting to remember that suggestions, rejected by franklin as useless, were made for the representation of the american colonies in the english parliament, just as suggestions for a legislative union between ireland and england appeared intermittently all through the eighteenth century, long before such a union was a question of practical politics. i need only briefly summarize the incidents which ended in the year with the final loss of the american colonies, and the simultaneous achievement by ireland of an apparent legislative independence. to take america first, the stamp act was passed in , and, thanks to the tumult it created, repealed by the whigs in , though the declaratory act which accompanied the repeal neutralized its good results. the new revenue duties on glass, paper, painters' colours, and tea were imposed in , reviving the old irritation, and all but that on tea were removed, after a period of growing friction, in . another comparative lull was succeeded by fresh disorder when in the east india company was permitted to send tea direct to america, and boston celebrated its historic "tea-party." the coercion of massachusetts followed, with gage as despotic military governor, and, as a result, all the colonies were galvanized into unity. in september, , the continental congress met, framed a declaration of rights, and obtained a general agreement to cease from all commerce with britain until grievances were redressed. fresh coercion having been applied, war broke out in . the declaration of independence was signed on july , , by john hancock, president of congress and the descendant of an ulster exile, and was first read aloud in philadelphia by captain john nixon, the son of an evicted wexford farmer. another irishman, general montgomery, led the invasion of canada.[ ] the war, with manifold vicissitudes, dragged on for eight years; but the surrender of cornwallis at yorktown on october , , virtually ended the physical struggle, while the resolution of the house of commons on february , , against the further prosecution of hostilities, ended the contest of principle. the turning-point had been the intervention of the french in , and the same event was to turn the scale in ireland. there, for many years past, the public finances had been sinking into a more and more scandalous condition. taxation was by no means heavy, but pensions and sinecures multiplied, and the debt swelled. inevitably there grew up within parliament a small independent opposition which would not be bribed into conniving at the ruin of ireland, while even bought placemen were stung into throwing their votes into the irish rather than the english scale. frequent efforts were made to use the insufficiency of the hereditary revenue as a lever for gaining control of finance and for obtaining domestic reform. an octennial act, passed in , went a little way towards transforming parliament from a permanent privileged committee, under the control of the executive, into the semblance at least of a free assembly, and the first dissolution under this act, in , produced the famous parliament which, though elected on the same narrow and corrupt basis as before, in the space of six years first admitted the principle of toleration for all creeds, and wrested from english hands commercial and legislative autonomy. it came too late to avert--if, indeed, it could ever have averted--the implication of ireland in the american war, its predecessor of having, in defiance of irish opinion, subscribed an address to the crown, expressing "abhorrence" of the american revolt and "inviolable attachment to the just rights" of the king's government, and having obediently voted four thousand irish troops for the war. nor, for all the impassioned eloquence of grattan and hussey burgh, did the real driving-power of the new parliament come from within its own ranks, but from the unrepresented multitude outside. a clause removing the test from dissenters was struck out of the catholic relief act of , mainly owing to dictation from england, but partly from resentment against presbyterian sympathy with the american cause. it was only in , when the presbyterians were enrolled in that formidable revolutionary organization known as the volunteers, that a test which had excluded them from all share in the government of their adopted country for seventy-four years was repealed. as for the catholics, the small measure of legal relief granted to them excited no opposition anywhere. parts of the penal code, especially the laws against worship and the clergy, had become inoperative with time and the sheer impossibility of enforcement. the religion, naturally, had thriven under persecution, so that in spite of the code's manifold temptations to recant, only four thousand converts had been registered in the last fifty years. the laws designed to safeguard the wholesale confiscations of the previous century had long ago achieved their purpose, and men were beginning to perceive the fatal economic effects of keeping the great mass of the people poor and ignorant. the real spirit of toleration shown in the enactments of , the most important of which enabled catholics to obtain land on a lease of years, was small enough if we consider the quiescence of the catholics for generations past, the absence of all tendency in them towards counter-persecution, or even towards intolerance of protestantism in any of its forms, quaker, huguenot, episcopalian, presbyterian, or methodist, in spite of their own overwhelming numbers and of the burning grievance of the tithes. politically they were a source of great strength to the government. when the presbyterians condemned the american war, the catholic leaders memorialized the government in favour of it as warmly as the tame majority in parliament. conservatives by religion, their devotion to authority annulled all instincts of revenge for the hideous wrongs of the past. the government, now on the verge of a war with the two great catholic powers of europe, began to realize this, and to feel the wisdom of some degree of conciliation. after all, only four years before they had not merely tolerated, but established, the catholic church in the conquered province of quebec, with the result that the french canadians remained loyal during the american war. but neither the government nor the finest independent men in parliament--not even grattan--entertained the remotest idea of admitting irish catholics to any really effective share in the government which their loyalty made stable. that noble but hopeless conception originated later, as the dynamic impulse for commercial freedom and legislative independence was originating now, outside the walls of parliament. the rupture with france in denuded ireland of troops, and called into being the protestant volunteers; a disciplined, armed body, headed by leaders as weighty and respectable as lord charlemont. this body, formed originally for home defence, by a natural and legitimate transition assumed a political aspect, and demanded from a dismayed and terrorized government commercial freedom for ireland. for once in her life ireland was too strong to be coerced. punishment like that applied to massachusetts was physically impossible. the bitter protests of english merchants passed unheeded, and the fiscal claims of the volunteers, with their cannon labelled "free trade or this," were granted in full early in . the moral was to persist. from , the numbers of the volunteers rose in the two succeeding years to , , and they stood firm for further concessions. the national movement grew like a river in spate; it swept forward the lethargic catholics and engulfed parliament. in a tempest of enthusiasm grattan's declaration of independence was carried unanimously in the irish house of commons on april , , and a month later received legal confirmation in england at the hands of the same whig government and parliament which broke off hostilities with america, and in the same session. america took her own road and worked out her own magnificent destiny. most of us now honour washington and the citizen troops he led. we say they fought, as hampden and their english forefathers fought, for a sublime ideal, freedom, and that they were chips of the old block. but let not distance delude us into supposing that they were without the full measure of human weakness, or that they did not suffer considerable, perhaps permanent, harm from the ten years of smothered revolt and lawless agitation, followed by the seven years of open war which preceded their victory. washington's genius carried them safely through the ordeal of the war, and the still more exacting ordeal of political reconstruction after the war, but it is well known how nearly he and his staunchest supporters failed. the revolution, like all revolutions, brought out all the bad as well as all the good in human nature. bad laws always deteriorate a people; they breed a contempt for law which coercion only aggravates, and which survives the establishment of good laws. as i have already indicated, the dislike and the systematic evasion by smuggling of the trade laws during the long period when the revolt was incubating harmed american character, and probably sowed the seed of future corruption and dissension. however true that may be, it is certainly true that the american rebels showed no more heroism or self-sacrifice than the average englishman or irishman in any other part of the world might have been expected to show under similar conditions. historians and politicians, to whom legal authority always seems sacrosanct and agitation against it a popular vice, who mistake cause and effect so far as to derive freedom from character, instead of character from freedom, can make, and have made, the conventional case against home rule for the americans as plausibly as the same case has, at various times, been made against home rule for canada, south africa, and ireland. since all white men are fundamentally alike in their faults as well as in their virtues, there is always abundant material for an indictment on the ground of bad character. the americans of the revolutionary war, together with much fortitude, integrity, and public spirit, showed without doubt a good deal of levity, self-seeking, vindictiveness, and incompetence; and whoever chooses to amass, magnify, and isolate evidences of their guilt can demonstrate their unfitness for self-government just as well as he can demonstrate the same proposition in the case of ireland. mr. j.w. fortescue, the learned and entertaining historian of the british army, has done the former task as well as it can be done. he denounces the whole colony of massachusetts--men of his own national stock--as the pestilent offspring of an "irreconcilable faction," which had originally left england deeply imbued with the doctrines of republicanism. having gained, and by lying and subterfuge retained, some measure of independence, they sank from depth to depth of meanness and turpitude. they struggled for no high principle, and refused to be taxed from england, simply because they were too contemptibly stingy and unpatriotic to pay a shilling a head towards the maintenance of the imperial army. it is always the "mob," the "ruffians," the "rabble," of boston who carry out the reprisals against the royal coercion, and, like the irish peasants of the nineteenth century, they are always the half-blind, half-criminal tools of unscrupulous "agitators." it has been, and remains, an obsession with the partisans of law over liberty all the world over that the fettered community, wherever it may be and however composed, does not really want liberty, but that the majority of its sober citizens are dragged into an artificial agitation by mercenary scribes and sham patriots--a view which is always somewhat difficult to reconcile, as students of american and irish history are aware, not only with the facts of prolonged and tenacious resistance, but with the other view, equally necessary to the argument for law, that the whole community is sinfully unfit for liberty; and mr. fortescue falls into the usual maze of self-contradiction and obscurity when he tries to give an intelligible account of a war which lasted seven long and weary years, and yet was "factitious," initiated by an hysterical rabble, stimulated and sustained by the basest and pettiest motives, and which, he contends, was "the work of a small but energetic and well-organized minority towards which the mass of the people, when not directly hostile, was mainly indifferent." happily, mr. fortescue's candour as an historian of facts gives us the clue to this strange tangle. we find no evidence that the sober loyalist majority who sustain one side of his argument, and whom we should expect to find crushing the revolt with ease in co-operation with the british regular troops, were, in fact, a majority, nor that they were either better or worse men, or more or less ardent patriots, than the mutinous minority, or the british regular soldiers themselves. their loyalty, like the disloyalty of the other side, is sometimes interested and evanescent, more often sincere and tenacious; they are given to desertion, like washington's troops, like lee's and grant's troops nearly a century later, like the boer troops and like all volunteer levies, which have somehow to combine war with the duty of keeping their homes and business afloat. we find, too, that a counter-current of desertion flows from the british, and still more from the german, regulars, also a natural enough phenomenon in what was virtually a civil war for liberty; so that "general greene was often heard to say that at the close of the war he fought the enemy with british soldiers, and that the british fought him with those of america." and then mr. fortescue, ignoring the british side of the case, exultingly quotes against the americans "the cynical benedict arnold, who knew his countrymen," and who said: "money will go farther than arms in america." yet arnold, whose opinion of his countrymen mr. fortescue accepts as correct and conclusive, was himself, not a plain deserter, but a perjured military traitor of the most despicable kind. we may conclude, perhaps, after taking a broad view of the whole revolution, that washington not only knew his countrymen, who were mr. fortescue's countrymen, better than arnold, but was a better representative of their dominant characteristics.[ ] mr. fortescue is peculiar in the violence of his prepossession, and we know the source of that prepossession, a passionate love of the british army, which does him great honour, while it distorts his political vision. i should not refer at such length to his view of the american war were it not that, whenever a concrete case of home rule comes up for discussion, his philosophy is apt to become the typical and predominant philosophy. historical sense seems to vanish, and the same savage racial bias supervenes, whether the unruly people concerned are absolutely consanguineous, closely related, or of foreign nationality. instead of a general acceptance of the ascertained truth that men thrive and coalesce under self-government and sink into deterioration and division under coercion, we get the same pharisaical assumption of superiority in the dominant people, the same attribution of sordid and ugly motives to the leaders of an unruly people, the same vague idealization of the loyalist minority, the same fixed hallucination that the majority does not want what by all the constitutional means in its power it says it wants, and the correspondingly fatal tendency to gauge the intensity of a conviction solely by the amount of physical violence it evokes, while making that very violence an argument for the depravity of those who use it, and a pretext for denying them self-government. all this is terribly true in the case of ireland, and when i next revert to the american continent, the reader will observe that the same ideas were entertained towards canada, the only white colony left to the british empire after the loss of the thirteen states. footnotes: [ ] the origin of north carolina is, perhaps, debatable. nearly all historians have represented it as settled by dissenting refugees; but mr. s.b. weeks, a carolina historian, has written an essay to prove that this was not the case ("religious development in the province of north carolina," baltimore, ). the charter contained a clause for liberty of conscience on the instructive ground that, "by reason of the remote distance of those places, toleration would be no breach of the unity and conformity established in this realm." [ ] "church and state in maryland," george petrie. lord baltimore, the catholic founder and proprietary, enforced complete tolerance from the first ( ), and secured the passage of an act in giving legal force to the policy, with heavy penalties against interference with any sect. in puritans gained control of the assembly, and passed an act against popery. a counter-revolution repealed this act, but finally in the church of england was established by law. [ ] lecky, "history of ireland in the eighteenth century," vol. i., pp. - . [ ] until massachusetts, rhode island, and connecticut, elected their own governors. massachusetts continued to have colonial governors, and sometimes new jersey and new hampshire. proprietary governments were gradually abolished and converted into "royal" governments like the rest. at the period of the declaration of independence two only were left--pennsylvania and maryland (see "origin and growth of the english colonies," h.e. egerton). [ ] lecky, "history of ireland in the eighteenth century," vol. ii., pp. - . [ ] trevelyan, "the american revolution," vol. i., p. . [ ] see "the irish race in america," by captain ed. o'meagher condore. [ ] "history of the british army," vol. iii. chapter iii grattan's parliament we left ireland in apparently in possession of a triumph as great as that of america, though won without bloodshed and without the least tincture of sedition; for the volunteers of were as loyal to the crown as the most ardent american royalists. in the light of political ideas developed at a much later period, we know that the american colonies might have remained within the empire, even if their utmost claims had been granted. had the idea of responsible government been understood, it would have been realized that their exclusive control of taxation and legislation was not inconsistent with imperial union, but essential to it. grattan and his irish friends, ignorant of the true solution, honestly thought, in the intoxication of the moment, that they had solved the problem so disastrously bungled for america. the facts of ethnology and geography seemed to have been recognized. ireland and england, united by a crown which both reverenced, stood together, like britain and the dominions of to-day, as sister nations, with the old irritating servitude swept away, and the bonds of natural affection and natural interest substituted. that the close proximity of the two nations, however marked the contrast between their natural characteristics, made these bonds far more necessary and valuable than in the case of america, stood to reason, and, again, the fact was recognized in anglo-irish relations. america had fought rather than submit to a forced contribution to imperial funds. nobody in ireland, in or out of parliament, had ever objected in principle to an indirect voluntary contribution in troops, and now that the american war was ended, non-parliamentary objections to one particular application of the principle had no further substance. nor, as was shortly to be shown in the reception given in ireland to pitt's abortive commercial propositions of , was there any objection to a direct contribution in money on a fixed annual scale in return for a mutual free trade.[ ] the sun had surely risen over a free yet loyal ireland. never was there a more complete delusion. it would have been far better for ireland if she had never had a parliament at all, but had had to seek her own salvation in the healthy rough-and-tumble of domestic revolution. the mere name of "parliament" seems perpetually to have hypnotized even its best members, and the illusion was at its highest now. nothing essential had been changed. commercial freedom was the most real gain, because it involved the definite repeal of certain trade-laws and the permission to ireland to make what she liked and send it where she liked; but it was a small gain without some means of finding out what ireland really liked, and translating that will, without external pressure, into law. the parliament was neither an organ of public opinion nor a free agent. it was even more corrupt and less representative than before. it was as completely under the control of the english government as before. the modern conception of a colonial ministry serving under a constitutional governor selected by the crown, but acting with the advice of his ministry, was unknown. the english government, through its lord-lieutenant, still appointed english ministers in ireland, and in the hands of these ministers lay not only that large portion of the national income known as the hereditary revenue, but the whole machinery of patronage and corruption. even the legislative independence was unreal; for majorities still had to be bought, irish bills had still to receive the royal assent, that is, english ministerial assent; so that powerful english pressure could be, and was, brought to bear upon their policy and construction. and the worst of it was that english pressure here and elsewhere meant then what it meant in the next century, and what it too often means now, english party pressure exercised spasmodically and ignorantly, in order to serve sectional english ends. in short, ireland, so far from being a nation, was still virtually a colony, subjected to the worst conceivable form of colonial government, groaning under economic evils unknown in the least fortunate of the colonies, and without the numerous mitigating circumstances and the hope of ultimate cure due to remoteness from the seat of empire. on the contrary, nearness to england, and, above all, nearness to france, where the misrule and miseries of ages were about to culminate in a fearful upheaval of social order, complicated immensely the problem of regeneration in ireland. what was the remedy? parliamentary reform. the volunteers saw this instantly. parliament itself scouted the idea of reform, because it threatened the protestant ascendancy. any weakening of the protestant ascendancy was unthinkable to irish statesmen, even to grattan, who in had coined the grandiose phrase that "the irish protestant could never be free until the irish catholic had ceased to be a slave," and who afterwards explained what he meant by saying that the liberty of the catholic was to be only such as was "entirely consistent with the protestant ascendancy," and that "the protestant interest was his first object." ascendancy, then, in the mind of the ruling class in ireland was fundamental. what was its corollary? dependence on england. ascendancies, whether based on creed or property, or, as in ireland, on both, cannot last in any white community without external support, and the external support for ascendancy in ireland was english force without and english bribes within. there was the chain of causation, the vicious circle rather; and yet grattan, who never touched a bribe, thought he had freed his beloved ireland from the english influences which were throttling her. he could not see that the more he wrestled for the independence of a sham parliament, while resisting its transformation into a real parliament, the more he strengthened those influences, because he inevitably widened the gulf between parliament and the irish people. the glamour his brilliant gifts had thrown over the irish parliament only served to divert his own mind and the minds of other talented and high-minded men from the seat of disease in ireland. time and talent were wasted from the first over points of pride, trivialities which seemed portentous to over-sensitive minds; metaphysical puzzles as to the exact nature of the relations now existing between ireland and england; whether the repeal of the poynings' act and the declaratory act were sufficient guarantees of freedom; whether ireland herself should nominate a regent or accept the nomination from england. meanwhile, the sands were running out, and ireland was a slave to a minute but powerful minority of her sons and, only through them, to england. yet the heart of ireland was sound. all the materials for regeneration were there. the catholics, whom by an old inherited instinct grattan professed to dread, were the most conservative part of the population, so conservative as to be unaware of the source of their miseries, without the smallest leaning towards a counter-ascendancy, and without a notion of sedition or rebellion. paradox as it seems, if they leaned in any political direction, it was dimly towards the constituted authority of the day, the irish parliament. but the truth is that they were without political consciousness, behind the times, unappreciative of the new forces operating round them. in sore need of courageous and enlightened guidance from men of their own faith, they were almost leaderless. the leeway to be made up after the destructive action of the penal laws was so enormous that catholic philanthropists had no time or will for high politics, and devoted their whole energy to the further relaxation of those laws, to the education of their backward co-religionists, and to the mitigation of poverty. for relief they instinctively looked towards the only legal source of relief, though the source of secular oppression, parliament. but this was habit. the catholics at this time were like clay in the hands of the potter, open to any curative and ennobling impulse. that impulse came, as was right and natural, from the protestant side. the only healthy political organization in ireland in was that of the volunteers of the north, with their headquarters at belfast. they represented all that was best in the protestant population. they had won the practical victory, such as it was, parliament, with all its flaming rhetoric, only the titular victory. they grasped the essential truth that parliament was rotten, and that ireland's future depended on its reform. numbering some , or , , they at once began to press for reform, and, since they had no constitutional resources, to overawe parliament. parliament at once stood on its dignity and on its civil rights against the "pretorian bands." "and now," said grattan in his magnificent way, "having given a parliament to the people, the volunteers will, i doubt not, leave the people to parliament, and thus close specifically and majestically a great work." but the work was not begun. parliament was the enemy of the people, and the volunteers knew it. now, what was the "people" in the minds of the volunteers? undoubtedly they did not, after a century of racial ascendancy, perform the miracle of accepting at once in its entirety the principle of absolute political equality for all irishmen, catholic and protestant alike. such mental revulsions rarely occur among men, and when they do occur are apt to produce reactionary cataclysms. but they did from the first give a real meaning to grattan's vague rhetoric about catholic slaves; from the first they made overtures towards the catholics, and ventilated proposals for the catholic franchise as a part of their scheme of reform ten years before that enfranchisement, without parliamentary reform and therefore valueless, became a practical issue. for the present these proposals were outvoted, and the effective demand of the volunteers, as framed in the great convention held at dublin in november, , was for a purification and reconstruction of parliament on a democratic protestant basis. the catholic franchise had been strongly supported, but by the influence of charlemont and flood rejected. it is, of course, easy to maintain in theory that a democratic protestant ascendancy so designed was as incompatible with irish freedom as an aristocratic and corrupt ascendancy; but nobody with faith in human nature or any knowledge of history, will care to affirm that the process of reform would have ended with the enactment of the volunteer bill. no present-day protestant ulsterman should entertain such a dishonouring doubt. mercifully, men are so made that, if left to themselves, they go forward, not backward. a pure assembly, formed on the volunteer plan, stimulated by the enlightened conscience which such an assembly invariably develops, by the discovery of the fundamental identity of interests between the great bulk of catholics and protestants, and by the manly instinct of self-preservation against undue english encroachment, would have moved rapidly towards tolerance and equality. but the assembly which might have saved ireland never came into being. the volunteers were in weak and incompetent hands. the metamorphosis they had undergone from a body formed for home defence into a militant political organization found them at the critical moment unprovided with the right stamp of leader. flood, who helped to draft their bill, was a brilliant but unscrupulous and discredited parliamentarian, and a fanatical advocate of an unimpaired protestant ascendancy. lord charlemont, one of the most influential founders of the movement, and a man of the highest integrity, was lukewarm for reform, an aristocrat and an ascendancy man to the finger-tips, dreading the mysterious forces he had helped to call into being, and desirous to keep them, as he said, "respectable." was it respectable for armed men to dictate to a parliament, however just their cause? as often happens in the ferment of popular movements, the one leader who spoke undiluted truth and sense spoke it in florid and unmeasured language and was himself of a figure and behaviour little likely to inspire permanent confidence. this was the famous bishop of derry, called by charlemont a blasphemous deist, by wesley an exemplary divine, by fox a dishonest madman, and by jeremy bentham "a most excellent companion, pleasant, intelligent, well-bred, and liberal-minded to the last degree." he was certainly vain and ostentatious, certainly a democratic free-thinker, but a full knowledge of his character is not of much concern to us. the point is that he was right about ireland's needs, though the wrong man at the moment to drive home her claims. many finer agitators than he have failed in causes just as good. many without half his merits have succeeded. we shall find his canadian counterparts later in the figures of mackenzie and papineau. the crisis came on november , , when the reform bill reached parliament, and was introduced by flood, wearing the volunteer dress. it was rejected on the first vote. no doubt the circumstances were humiliating, and if there had been any serious inclination in parliament towards self-reform and the relinquishment of an odious and mischievous monopoly, we should freely forgive rejection. but there was little or none, as after-events proved, and the real humiliation lay, not in the dictation of the irish volunteers, but in the fact that the volunteers themselves were overawed by a strong body of british regular troops, mustered for the occasion under general burgoyne. the vicious circle was complete. forced to choose between reform and dependence on england, parliament chose the latter. and only a year and a half before grattan had dazzled his hears with the words: "ireland is now a nation ... _esto perpetua_." there are very few critical dates in irish history, and of those few the night of november , , was the most critical of all. it marked the climax of a brief and bright renaissance from the long stagnation of the eighteenth, and heralded a decline into the long agony of the nineteenth century, a decline concealed by the fictitious lustre which still hangs over the first decade of grattan's unreformed parliament, but none the less already present. the volunteers, their grand opportunity lost, slowly broke up. should they have used force, even under the threat of burgoyne's guns? it would have been infinitely better both for england and ireland if they had. nothing but force could avail. never would force have been better justified, for the very soul of a people "rang zwischen tod und leben." it is hard, nevertheless, to blame the volunteers for not appreciating the full magnitude of the crisis and acting accordingly. they were ahead of their time as it was in the political instinct which taught them the vital importance of a reformed parliament. they were far ahead of england, where the younger pitt had failed to carry reform a few months before, and was to fail again two years later when he urged reform for ireland. they were even ahead of their time in religious tolerance--witness the gordon riots in london two years before. their parliament wore the crown and spoke the regal language of a patriot assembly. for five years they themselves had glorified justifiably in the perfect discipline and sobriety with which they had used their irregular power. their most trusted leaders suggested that they would yet achieve their ends without violence, while the large majority of the volunteers themselves were still as loyal to the crown as the catholics, and were inclined, therefore, to shrink from action which, although in itself not in the remotest degree connected with dynastic questions, involved a theoretical conflict with the crown, and perhaps an actual collision with royal troops. one of the last acts of the volunteer convention, before its dissolution, was to pass an address to the king expressing fervent zeal for the crown, reminding him of their quiet and dignified behaviour in the past, and praying that "their humble wish to have certain manifest perversions of the parliamentary representation of this kingdom remedied by the legislature in some reasonable degree, might not be imputed to any spirit of innovation in them, but to a sober and laudable desire to uphold the constitution, to confirm the satisfaction of their fellow-subjects, and to perpetuate the cordial union of the two kingdoms." this document might have been copied _mutatis mutandis_ from the american petitions prior to the war, and was to be reproduced almost word for word in canadian petitions dealing with less serious grievances whose neglect at the hands of the government did actually lead to armed rebellion. it must be taken, as mr. lecky truly says, as the "defence of the convention before the bar of history." drawn up by the most moderate and least prescient leaders, it was a vindication of the past, not a pledge for the future; for "from that time," as mr. lecky writes, "the conviction sank deep into the minds of many that reform in ireland could only be effected by revolution, and the rebellion of might be already foreseen." the story of that transition, with all its disastrous consequences in the denationalization of ireland, in the arrest of healing forces, in the reawakening of slumbering bigotries and hatreds, in the artificial transformation of catholics into anti-english rebels, and protestants into anti-irish loyalists, in the long agony of the land war, the tithe war, the church war, and the loathsome savageries of the rebellion itself, is one of the most repulsive in history. it is repulsive because you can watch, as it were, upon a dissecting-table the moral fibre of a people, from no inherent germ of decay, against reason, against nature, visibly wasting under a corrosive acid. typical figures stand out: the strong figure of fitzgibbon, voicing ascendancy in its crudest and ugliest form; at the other extreme the ardent but inadequate figure of wolfe tone, affirming in words which expressed the literal truth of the case that "to subvert the tyranny of our execrable government, to break the connection with england, the never-failing source of all our political evils, and to assert the independence of my country--these were my objects." midway stands grattan, the defeated and disillusioned "girondin," as mr. fisher aptly calls him,[ ] blind until it was too late to the errors which plunged his country into anarchy, and retiring in despair when he saw that anarchy coming. and on the other side of the water, pitt, dispassionately prescribing for ireland in , while there was yet time, the radical remedy, reform, patiently turning, when that was refused, to palliatives like mutual free trade in and the catholic franchise in ; and meanwhile, with an undercurrent of cool scepticism, preparing the ground for the only alternative to reform, short of a revolutionary separation of the two countries, legislative union, and remorselessly pushing that union through by the only available means, bribery. in this wretched story we seek in vain for individual scapegoats. tracing events to their source, we strike against two obstructions, proximity and ignorance, and we may as well make them our scapegoats. if proximity had implied knowledge and forbearance, all would have been well, but it implied just the reverse, and prohibited the kind of solution which, after very much the same sort of crisis, and in the teeth of ignorance and error, was afterwards reached in the case of canada and south africa. the immediate cause is clear. the failure of reform is the key to the rebellion and the union. in a patriotic anxiety to idealize grattan's parliament, with a view to justifying later claims for autonomy, irishmen have generally shut their eyes to this cardinal fact, and have preferred to dwell with exaggerated emphasis on the little good that parliament did rather than on the enormous evils which it not only left untouched, but scarcely observed. we must remember that it was not only a protestant body, but a close body of landlords, with an infusion of lawyers and others devoted to the interest of landlords. in that capacity it was incapable of diagnosing, much less of remedying, the gravest material ills of ireland. in the very narrow domain where the landlord interest was not concerned, as in industrial and commercial matters, parliament seems to have acted on the whole with wisdom. it endeavoured to encourage industries, while refusing to squander its newly won commercial powers in waging tariff wars with great britain, where prohibitive duties against irish goods still continued to be imposed. but ireland was no longer an industrial country. all the encouragement in the world could not replace lost aptitudes or bring back the exiled craftsmen who, during a century past, had left ireland to enrich european countries with their skill. the favoured linen industry alone survived to reach its present flourishing condition. the revival in other manufactures, even in that of wool, which was remarkably rapid and strong, seems to have been artificial and transient. no wonder; for, while ireland had been stagnant for a century, her great competitor, england, had been steadily building up that capacity for organized industry which, under the inventive genius of arkwright, hargreaves, and watt, and the economic genius of adam smith, made the last twenty years of the eighteenth century such a marvellous period of industrial expansion, and eventually converted england from an agricultural into a manufacturing nation. ireland was hopelessly late in the race. on the other hand, the fertile land of ireland remained as the indestructible source of wealth and the prime means of subsistence for the great bulk of the four and a half million souls who inhabited the country. parliament seems to have been almost indifferent to the miseries of the agricultural population, wholly indifferent, certainly, to their source, the vicious agrarian system which it was the interest of its own members to sustain. foster's famous corn law without doubt increased tillage, and, in conjunction with the inflated prices for produce caused by the french war, gave a powerful though a somewhat unhealthy impulse to the trade in corn. but it enriched only the landlords, and left untouched the real abuses, absenteeism, middlemanism, insecurity of tenure, rack-rents, and tithes. the whiteboy risings of the sixties and seventies recurred, and were met with coercion acts as stupid and cruel as those of the nineteenth century. the tithe grievance, which festered and grew into civil war in the nineteenth century, was never touched. while tenants in north-east ulster were painfully and forcibly establishing their custom of tenant right in the teeth of the law, the inhuman system of cottier tenancy, which was to last until , became more and more firmly rooted in other parts of ireland. none but a democratic assembly could possibly have grappled with these evils; nor is there any reason to suppose that in the existing condition of ireland a protestant democratic assembly, even if temporarily it retained its sectarian character, would have grappled with them less boldly and drastically than an assembly composed of catholics and protestants. the material interests of nineteen-twentieths of the people were the same, while the education and intelligence belonged mainly to the protestants. ulster tenants had as much need of good land laws as other tenants. tithes were as much disliked in the north as in the south. the established church was the church of a very small minority, and its clergy, numbers of whom were absentees, were as unpopular as the absentee landlords and the absentee office-holders and pensioners. but with no redress, and, what is more important, no prospect of redress for the primary ills of ireland, the centrifugal forces of religion and race had full scope for their baneful influence. and it was at the very moment when tolerance was steadily gaining ground among all classes that these spectres of ancient wrong were summoned up to destroy the good work. how did this come about? let us remember once more that everything hinged on reform. reform gained a little, but suffered far more, by its association with the question of catholic franchise, which was useless without reform, while it was the corollary of reform. nothing is more remarkable than the growth of academic tolerance during this period, doubtful and suspect as the motives sometimes were. it is true that the great relief act of , giving catholics the vote and removing a quantity of other disqualifications, would scarcely have been sanctioned by the parliamentary managers without the stern dictation of pitt, whose mind was strongly influenced by the violent anti-catholic turn just taken by the french revolution; but, once sanctioned, it passed rapidly, and was received with universal satisfaction in the country at large. without "emancipation," that is, the permission to elect catholics to sit in parliament and hold office, the franchise was illusory and even harmful. in the counties the forty-shilling "freehold" vote ("freehold" was an ironical misnomer) encouraged protestant landlords for another generation, before and after the union, still further to subdivide already excessively small holdings, while the benefits to be derived from the admission to power of propertied catholics, with all their intensely conservative instincts, were thrown away. emancipation apart, the franchise without reform was a complete farce, for the boroughs, which controlled the parliamentary balance, were the personal property of protestant landlords, and the parliamentary placemen were indirectly their tools. as usual, the men of light and leading contributed unconsciously to the strength of a system which, in their hearts, as honest men, they condemned. each of them had some fatal defect of understanding. grattan became a strong emancipator, but remained an academic and ineffectual reformer striving in vain to reconcile reform with a passionate abhorrence of democracy and a determination to keep power in the hands of landed property. in england, which was protestant in the established sense, he would have done no more harm than burke, who for the same reason fought reform as strongly as pitt and his father chatham had advocated it. but in ireland, which was catholic and nonconformist, landed property signified episcopalian landed property, that is, the narrowest form of ascendancy. charlemont was an even stranger paradox. he was an academic reformer before grattan, but not an emancipator, arriving at the same sterility as grattan through a religious bias which grattan ceased to feel, a bias inspired, not by a fanatical fear of democracy in itself, but by a fear of catholic revenge for past wrongs. these men and their like, admirable and lovable as in many respects they were, were useless to ireland in those terrible times. whether emancipation, unaccompanied by reform, had any real chance of passing parliament in , when the whig viceroy fitzwilliam, the one viceroy in the eighteenth century who ever conceived the idea of governing ireland according to irish ideas, came over from england with the avowed intention of proposing it, is a matter of conjecture. fitzwilliam was snuffed out by pitt, and recalled under circumstances which still remain a matter of controversy. all we can say with certainty is that the opinion of ireland at large was absolutely ignored, and that english party intrigues and english claims on irish patronage had much to do with the result. on the whole, however, i agree with mr. fisher that too much importance has been given to this episode, especially by mr. lecky, who devotes nearly a volume to it. the anti-national irish parliament was past praying for. long before the irish aristocracy had lost whatever power for good it ever possessed, and most of the resolute reformers of wolfe tone's middle-class protestant school had turned, under the enthralling fascination of the french revolution, into revolutionaries. reform had been refused in ; again, and without coercion from the volunteers, in . it was refused again in , against the advice of pitt and at the instigation of pitt's own viceroy, rutland, whom pitt had urged--what a grim irony it seems!--to give "unanswerable proofs that the cases of ireland and england are different," and who answered with truth that the ascendancy of a minority could only be maintained "by force or corruption." every succeeding year showed the same results. wolfe tone was more than justified, he was compelled, to convert his society of united irishmen, founded in , into a revolutionary organization and to seek by forcible means to overthrow the executive which controlled parliament and, through it, ireland. since the symbol of the irish executive was the british crown, he, of course, abjured the crown, though he had no more quarrel with the crown as such than had the american or canadian patriots. he simply loved his country, and from the first saw with clear eyes the only way to save her. tolerance to him was not an isolated virtue, but an integral part of democracy. he took little interest in the parliamentary side of catholic relief, realizing its hollow unreality, and, in the case of the bill of , actually ridiculing the absurd spectacle of the catholic cottiers being herded to the poll by their protestant landlords. nor was he even an extreme democrat, for he advocated a ten-pound, instead of a forty shilling franchise. his original pamphlet of contains nothing but the most sober political common sense. his aim was to unite irishmen of all creeds to overthrow a government which did not emanate from or represent them, and which was ruinous to them. it is not surprising that he failed. ireland was very near england. french intervention had been decisive in distant america, and the french revolution in its turn had been hastened by the american example. but the intervention in ireland of republican france, for purely selfish and strategic reasons, without effective command of the sea, and with the stain of the terror upon her, was of little material value and a grave moral handicap to the irish revolutionists. it is the manner of tone's failure and the consequences of his failure that have such a tragic interest. a united ireland could have dispensed with the aid of france. what prevented unity? tone laboured to bring both creeds together, and to a certain degree was successful. until the very last it was the catholics, not the protestants, who shrank most from revolution. yet, in the rebellion of , the north never moved, while catholic wexford and wicklow rose. the root cause is to be found in those agrarian abuses whose long neglect by the irish parliament constituted the strongest justification for reform. the orange society, founded under that name in , originated in the "peep o' day boys," a local association formed in armagh in for the purpose of bullying catholics. there is no doubt that the underlying incentive was economic. even when the penal code had lost in efficacy, its results survived in the low standard of living of the persecuted catholics. as i pointed out in a former chapter, the reckless cupidity of the landlords in terminating leases and fixing new rents by auction, with the alternative of eviction, threw those protestant tenants who did not emigrate into direct competition with catholic peasants of a lower economic stamp, who because they lived on little could afford to offer fancy rents. hence much bitter friction, leading to sordid village rows and eventually to the organized ruffianism of the peep o' day boys. the catholic franchise act of , unaccompanied by emancipation, actually intensified the trouble by removing the landlord's motive to prefer a protestant tenant on account of his vote. under ill-treatment, the catholics naturally retaliated with a society known as the "defenders," and in some districts were themselves the aggressors. defenderism, in its purely agrarian aspect, spread to other parts of ireland, where protestants were few, and became merged in whiteboyism. this had always been an agrarian movement, directed against abuses which the law refused to touch, and without religious animus, although the overwhelming numbers of the catholics in the regions where it flourished would have placed the protestants at their mercy. in ulster both the contending organizations necessarily acquired a religious form and necessarily retained it. but at bottom bad laws, not bigotry, were the cause. there was nothing incurable, or even unique, about the disorders. analogous phenomena have appeared elsewhere, for example, in australia, between the original squatters on large ranches and new and more energetic colonists in search of land for closer settlement. under a rational system of tenure and distribution there was plenty of good land in ireland for an even larger population. tone, who was a middle-class lawyer, seems never to have appreciated what was going on. so far from healing the schism, he appears to have widened it by throwing the united irish committee of ulster into the scale of the catholics against the orangemen. but, in truth, he was helpless. good administration only could unite these distracted elements, and without the reform for which he battled, good administration was impossible. the dissension, widening and acquiring an increasingly religious and racial character, paralyzed ulster, which originally was the seat of the revolution. the forces normally at work to favour law and order--loyalty to the crown, dislike of the french revolution, and resentment at franco-irish conspiracies--gathered proportionately greater strength. the southern rebellion of --a mad, pitiful thing at the best, the work of half-starved peasants into whose stunted minds the splendid ideal of tone had scarcely begun to penetrate--was a totally different sort of rebellion from any he had contemplated. it was neither national nor republican. the french invasions had met with little support; the first with positive reprobation. nor was it in origin sectarian, although, once aflame, it inevitably took a sectarian turn. several of the prominent leaders were protestants. priests naturally joined in it because they were the only friends the people had had in the dark ages of oppression. in so far as it can be regarded as spontaneous, it was of whiteboy origin, anti-tithe and anti-rack-rent. but it was not even spontaneous; that is another dreadful and indisputable fact which emerges. the barbarous measures taken to repress and disarm, prior to the outbreak, together with the skilfully propagated reports of a coming massacre by orangemen, would have goaded any peasantry in the world to revolt, and the only astonishing thing is that the revolt was so local and sporadic. general sir ralph abercromby retired, sickened with the horrors he was forbidden to avert. "within these twelve months," he wrote of the conduct of the soldiery at the time of his resignation, "every crime, every cruelty that could be committed by cossacks or calmucks has been transacted here.... the struggle has been, in the first place, whether i was to have the command of the army really or nominally, and then whether the character and discipline of it were to be degraded and ruined in the mode of using it, either from the facility of one man or from the violence and oppression of a set of men who have for more than twelve months employed it in measures which they durst not avow or sanction." abercromby's resignation, in mr. lecky's opinion, "took away the last faint chance of averting a rebellion." fitzgibbon, lord clare, was now supreme in the government, and henceforth represents incarnate the forces which provoked the rebellion and founded upon it the union. he had bided his time for a decade, watching the trend of events, foreseeing their outcome, and smiling sardonically at the ineffectual writhings of the men of compromise. he stands out like a block of black granite over against the slender figure of wolfe tone, who was his anti-type in ideas and aims, his inferior in intellect, his superior in morals, but no more than his rival in sincerity, clarity, and consistency of ideas. clare was a product of the penal code, the son of a catholic irishman who, to obtain a legal career, had become a protestant. he himself was not a bigot, but a very able cynic, with a definite theory of government. tolerance, emancipation, reform, were so much noxious, sentimental rubbish to him, and he had never scrupled to say so. ireland was a colony, english colonists were robbers in ireland, and robbers must be tyrants, or the robbed will come by their own again; that was his whole philosophy,[ ] his frigid and final estimate of the tendencies of human nature, and his considered cure for them. racial fusion was a crazy conception not worth argument. wrong on one side, revenge on the other; policy, coercion. as he put it in his famous speech on the union, the settlers to the third and fourth generation "were at the mercy of the old inhabitants of the island." "laws must be framed to meet the vicious propensities of human nature," and laws of this sort for the case of ireland should, he held with unanswerable logic, properly be made in england, not by the travesty of a parliament in ireland, which, in so far as it was in any degree irish, had shown faint but ominous tendencies towards tolerance and the reunion of irishmen. he never took the trouble to demonstrate the truth of his theory of revenge by a reasoned analysis of irish symptoms. he took it for granted as part of a universal axiomatic truth, and, like all philosophers of his school, pointed to the results of misgovernment and coercion as proofs of the innate depravity of the governed and of their need for more coercion. anticipating a certain limited class of irishmen of to-day, often brilliant lawyers like himself, he used to bewail english ignorance of ireland, meaning ignorance of the incurable criminality of his own kith and kin. he was just as immovably cynical about the vast majority of his own co-religionists as about the conquered race. if, as was obvious, so far from fearing the revenge of the catholics, their unimpeded instinct was to take sides with them to secure good government, they were not only traitors, but imbeciles who could not see the doom awaiting them. yet fitzgibbon's admirers must admit that his consistency was not complete. he was perfectly cognizant of the real causes of irish discontent. he was aware of the grievances of ulster, and his description of the conditions of the munster peasantry in the whiteboy debates of is classical. if pressed, he would have answered, we may suppose, that it was impolitic to cure evils which were at once the consequence of ascendancy and the condition of its maintenance. that other strange lapse in , when he described the unparalleled prosperity of ireland since under a constitution which, in the union debates of , he afterwards covered with deserved ridicule as having led to anarchy, destitution, and bankruptcy, must be attributed to the exigencies of debate; for he was an advocate as well as a statesman, and occasionally gave way to the temptation of making showy but unsubstantial points. these slips were rare, and do not detract from the massive coherence of his doctrine. he remains the frankest, the most vivid, and the most powerful exponent of a theory of government which has waged eternal conflict with its polar rival, the liberal theory, in the evolution of the empire. the theory, of course, extends much farther than the bi-racial irish case, to which fitzgibbon applied it. it was used, as we shall see, to meet the bi-racial circumstances of canada and south africa, and it was also used in a modified form to meet the uni-racial circumstances of australia and of great britain itself. anyone who reads the debates on the reform bill of will notice that the opposition rested at bottom on a profoundly pessimistic distrust of the people, and on the alleged necessity of an oligarchy vested with the power and duty of "framing laws to meet the vicious propensities of human nature." in a word, the theory is in essence not so much anti-racial as anti-democratic, while finding its easiest application where those distinctions of race and creed exist which it is its effect, though not its purpose, to intensify and envenom. fitzgibbon is a repulsive figure. yet it would be unjust to single him out for criticism. like him, the philosophers hume and paley believed in oligarchy, and accepted force or corruption as its two alternative props. burke thought the same, though the pitts thought otherwise. fitzgibbon's brutal pessimism was only the political philosophy of paley, hume, and burke pushed relentlessly in an exceptional case to its extreme logical conclusion. but we can justly criticize statesmen of the present day who, after a century's experience of the refutation of the doctrine in every part of the world, still adhere to it. footnotes: [ ] pitt's original scheme was accepted in ireland, but defeated in england, owing to the angry opposition of british commercial interests. the scheme, as amended to conciliate these interests, was deservedly rejected in ireland. [ ] j. fisher, "the end of the irish parliament." the author is much indebted to this brilliant study, which appeared only this year ( ). [ ] see fitzgibbon's speeches in the irish house of lords, on the catholic franchise bill, march , , and on the union, february , . chapter iv the union the worst feature of fitzgibbonism is that it has the power artificially to produce in the human beings subject to it some of the very phenomena which originally existed only in the perverted imagination of its professors. some only of the phenomena; not all; for human nature triumphs even over fitzgibbonism. there has never been a moment since the union when a representative irish parliament, if statesmen had been wise and generous enough, to set such a body up, would have acted on the principle of revenge or persecution. nor, in spite of all evidences to the contrary, has there ever been a moment when protestant ulstermen, heirs of the noble volunteer spirit, once represented in such a parliament, would have acted on the assumption that they had to meet a policy of revenge. nevertheless, fitzgibbonism did succeed, as it was to succeed in canada, in making pessimism at least plausible and in achieving an immense amount of direct ascertainable mischief. the rift between the creeds and races, just beginning to heal three generations after the era of confiscation, but reopened under the operations of economic forces connected with race and religion, yet perfectly capable of adjustment by a wise and instructed government, yawned wide from onwards, when government had become a soulless policeman, and scenes of frenzy and slaughter had occurred which could not be forgotten. swept asunder by a power outside their control, protestants and catholics stood henceforth in opposite political camps, and it became a fixed article of british policy to govern ireland by playing upon this antagonism. the flame of the volunteer spirit never perished, but it dwindled to a spark under the irresistible weight of a manufactured reaction. dissenters and anglicans united, not to lead the way in securing better conditions for their catholic fellow-countrymen, not for the interests of ireland as a whole, but under the ignoble colours of religious fanaticism. hence that strangely artificial alliance between the landlords of the south and west and the democratic tenantry, artisans, and merchants of the north; an alliance formed to meet an imaginary danger, and kept in being with the most mischievous results to the social and economic development of ireland. since the protestant minority had made up its mind to depend once more on the english power it had defied in , the old machine of ascendancy, which had showed certain manifest signs of decrepitude under grattan's parliament, was reconstructed on a firmer, less corrupt, and more lasting basis. the legislative union is not a landmark or a turning-point in irish history. it reproduced "under less assailable forms" the government which existed prior to . the real crisis, as i have said, came at the end of , when the volunteers tried, by reforming parliament, to give irish government an irish character. it is essential to remember--now as much as ever before--that ireland has never had a national parliament. she has never been given a chance of self-expression and self-development. it is useless, though home rulers frequently give way to the temptation, to advocate home rule by arguing from grattan's parliament. o'connell, in the repeal debate of , devoted hours to praising that parliament, and had his own argument turned against him with crushing force by the secretary to the treasury, who easily proved that it was the most corrupt and absurd body that ever existed. the same game of cross-purposes went on in the home rule debates of and , and reappeared but this year in a debate of the house of lords (july , ), when the roman catholic home ruler, lord macdonnell, eulogized grattan's parliament in answer to lord londonderry, the protestant unionist landlord, who painted it in its true colours. yet lord londonderry springs from the class and school of charlemont, who, by refusing to act as an irishman, hastened the ruin of the parliament which lord londonderry satirizes, and lord macdonnell from the race which was betrayed by that parliament. the anomaly need not surprise us. it is not stranger than the fact that the union would never have been carried without catholic support in ireland. the point we have to grasp is that ireland was a victim to the crudity and falsity of the political ideas current at the time of the union, persistent all over the empire for long afterwards, and not extinct yet. between separation, personified by tone, and union, personified by fitzgibbon, and carried by those milder statesmen, castlereagh and pitt, there seemed to be no alternative. actually there was and is an alternative: a responsible irish parliament and government united to england by sympathy and interest. the parliamentary history of the union does not much concern us. bribery, whether by titles, offices, or cash, had always been the normal means of securing a government majority in the irish house of commons. corruption was the only means of carrying the vote for the union, and the time and labour needed for securing that vote are a measure of the rewards gained by those who formed the majority. disgusting business as it was, we have to admit that a parliament which refused to reform itself at the bidding of all that was best and healthiest in ireland did, on its own account, deserve extinction. the sad thing is that the true ireland was sacrificed. pitt and castlereagh, though they plunged their hands deep in the mire to obtain the union, quite honestly believed in the policy of the union. they were wrong. they merely reestablished the old ascendancy in a form, morally perhaps more defensible, but just as damaging to the interests of ireland. in addition to absentee landlords, an alien and a largely absentee church, there was now an absentee parliament, remote from all possibility of pressure from irish public opinion, utterly ignorant of ireland, containing within it, for twenty-nine years, at any rate, representatives of only one creed, and that the creed of the small minority. pitt had virtually pledged himself to make catholic emancipation an immediate consequence of the union, and his viceroy, cornwallis, had thereby obtained the invaluable support of the catholic hierarchy and of many of the catholic gentry. the king, half mad at the time, refused to sanction the redemption of the pledge, and pitt, to his deep dishonour, accepted the insult and dropped the scheme. fitzgibbonism in its extreme form had triumphed. it was a repetition of the perfidy over the treaty of limerick a century before. indeed, at every turn of irish history, until quite recent times, there seems to have been perpetrated some superfluity of folly or turpitude which shut the last outlet for natural improvement. it cannot be held, however, that the refusal of emancipation for another generation seriously damaged the prospects of the union as a system of government. after it was granted, the system worked just as badly as before, and in all essentials continues to work just as badly now. inequalities in the irish franchise were only an aggravation. in order to cripple catholic power, emancipation itself was accompanied in by an act which disfranchised at a stroke between seven and eight tenths of the irish county electorate, nor was it until the latest extension of the united kingdom franchise, that is, eighty-five years after the union, that the irish representation was a true numerical reflection of the irish democracy. but these were not vital matters. in the home rule campaigns of and , irish opinion, constitutionally expressed, was impotent. the vital matter was that the union killed all wholesome political life in ireland, destroyed the last chance of promoting harmony among irishmen, and transferred the settlement of irish questions to an ignorant and prejudiced tribunal, incapable of comprehending these questions, much less of adjudicating upon them with any semblance of impartiality. the legislative union was unnatural. the two islands, near as they were to each other, were on different planes of civilization, wealth, and economic development, without a common tradition, a common literature, or a common religion. each had a temperament and genius of its own, and each needed a different channel of expression. laws applicable to one island were meaningless or noxious in the other; taxation applicable to a rich industrial island was inappropriate and oppressive for a poor agricultural island. and upon a system comprising all these incompatibilities there was grafted the ruinous principle of ascendancy. there is nothing inherently strange about the difference between england and ireland. artificial land-frontiers often denote much sharper cleavages of sentiment, character, physique, language, history. a sea-frontier sometimes makes a less, sometimes a more, effective line of delimitation. denmark and sweden, france and england, are examples. nor, on the other hand, did the profound differences between ireland and england preclude the possibility of their incorporation in a political system under one crown. we know, by a mass of experience from federal and other systems, that elements the most diverse in language, religion, wealth, and tradition may be welded together for common action, provided that the union be voluntary and the freedom of the separate parts be preserved. the first conditions of a true union were lacking in the case of ireland. the arrangement was not voluntary. it was accompanied by gross breach of faith, and it signified enslavement, not liberty. a true union was not even attempted. the government of ireland, in effect, and for the most part in form, was still that of a conquered colonial dependency. it was no more representative in any practical sense after the union than before the union. the popular vote was submerged in a hostile assembly far away. the irish peerage was regarded rightly by the irish people as the very symbol of their own degradation, the union having been purchased with titles, and titles having been for a century past the price paid for the servility of anglo-irish statesmen. but the peerage, in the persons of the twenty-eight representatives sent to westminster, still remained a powerful nucleus of anti-irish opinion, infecting the house of lords with anti-irish prejudice, and often opposing a last barrier to reform when the opposition of the british house of commons had been painfully overcome. in truth the cardinal reforms of the nineteenth century were obtained, not by persuasion, but by unconstitutional violence in ireland itself. there was still a separate executive in ireland, a separate system of local administration, and until a separate financial system, all of them wholly outside irish control. the only change of constitutional importance was that the viceroy gradually became a figure-head, and his autocratic powers, similar to those of the governor of a crown colony, were transferred to the chief secretary, who was a member of the british ministry. gradually, as the activity of government increased, there grew up that grotesque system of nominated and irresponsible boards which at the present day is the laughing-stock of the civilized world. the whole patronage remained as before, either directly or indirectly, in english hands. if it was no longer manipulated in ways frankly corrupt, it was manipulated in a fashion just as deleterious to ireland. before, as after, the union there was no public career in ireland for an irishman who was in sympathy with the great majority of his countrymen. to win the prizes of public life, judgeships, official posts, and the rest, it was not absolutely necessary to be a protestant, though for a long time all important offices were held exclusively, and are still held mainly, by protestants; but it was absolutely necessary to be a thoroughgoing supporter of the ascendancy, and in thoroughgoing hostility to irish public opinion as a whole. in other words, the unwritten penal code was preserved after the abolition of the written enactments, and was used for precisely the same pernicious purpose. it was a subtle and sustained attempt "to debauch the intellect of ireland," as mr. locker-lampson puts it, to denationalize her, and to make her own hands the instrument of her humiliation. the bar was the principal sufferer, because now, as before, it was the principal road to humiliation. fitzgibbons multiplied, so that for generations after the union some of the ablest irish lawyers were engaged in the hateful business of holding up their own people to execration in the eyes of the world, of combating legislation imperatively needed for ireland, and of framing and carrying into execution laws which increased the maladies they were intended to allay. let nobody think these phenomena are peculiar to ireland. in many parts of the world where ascendancies have existed, or exist, the same methods are employed, and always with a certain measure of success. irish moral fibre was at least as tough as that of any other nationality in resisting the poison. but the results were as calamitous in ireland as in other countries. no country can progress under such circumstances. the test of government is the condition of the people governed. judged by this criterion, it is no exaggeration to say that ireland as a whole went backward for at least seventy years after the union. even protestant north-east ulster, with its saving custom of tenant-right, its linen industry, and all the special advantages derived from a century of privilege, though it escaped the worst effects of the depression, suffered by emigration almost as heavily as the rest of ireland, and built up its industries with proportionate difficulty. over the rest of ireland the main features of the story are continuous from a period long antecedent to the union. a student of the condition of the irish peasantry in the eighteenth and in the first three-quarters of the nineteenth centuries can ignore changes in the form or personnel of government. he would scarcely be aware, unless he travelled outside his subject, that grattan's parliament ever existed, or that subsequently a long succession of whig and tory ministers, differing profoundly in their political principles, had alternately sent over to ireland chief secretaries with theoretically despotic powers for good or evil. these "transient and embarrassed phantoms" came and went, leaving their reputations behind them, and the country they were responsible for in much the same condition. it is not my purpose to enter in detail into the history of ireland in the nineteenth century, but only to note a few salient points which will help us to a comparison with the progress of other parts of the empire. it is necessary to repeat that the basis upon which the whole economic structure of ireland rested, the irish agrarian system, was inconsistent with social peace and an absolute bar to progress. i described in chapter i. how it came into being and the collateral mischiefs attending it. during the nineteenth century, by accident or design, these mischiefs were greatly aggravated. until high war prices and the low catholic franchise stimulated subdivision of holdings, already excessively small, and the growth of population. with the peace came evictions, conversions into pasture, and consolidation of farms. the disfranchisement of the mass of the peasantry which accompanied emancipation in inspired fresh clearances on a large scale and caused unspeakable misery, with further congestion on the worst agricultural land. "cottier" tenancy, at a competitive rent, and terminable without compensation for the improvements which were made exclusively by the tenant, was general over the greater part of ireland. generally it was tenancy-at-will, with perpetual liability to eviction. leaseholders, however, were under conditions almost as onerous. the labourer, who was allowed a small plot, which he paid for in labour, was in the worst plight of all. in addition, burdensome tithes were collected by an alien church and rents were largely spent abroad. if irish manufactures had not been destroyed, and there had been an outlet from agriculture into industry, the evil effects of the agrarian system would have been mitigated. as it was, in one of the richest and most fertile countries in the world the congestion and poverty were appalling. competition for land meant the struggle for bare life. rent had no relation to value, but was the price fixed by the frantic bidding of hungry peasants for the bare right to live. the tenant had no interest in improving the land, because the penalty for improvement was a higher rent, fixed after another bout of frantic competition. "almost alone amongst mankind," wrote john stuart mill,[ ] "the cottier is in this condition, that he can scarcely be either better or worse off by any act of his own. if he were industrious or prudent, nobody but his landlord would gain; if he is lazy or intemperate, it is at his landlord's expense. a situation more devoid of motives to either labour or self-command, imagination itself cannot conceive. the inducements of free human beings are taken away, _and those of a slave not substituted_. he has nothing to hope, and nothing to fear, except being dispossessed of his holding, and against this he protects himself by the _ultima ratio_ of a defensive civil war. rockism and whiteboyism were the determination of a people, who had nothing that could be called theirs but a daily meal of the lowest description of food, not to submit to being deprived of that for other people's convenience. "is it not, then, a bitter satire on the mode in which opinions are formed on the most important problems of human nature and life, to find public instructors of the greatest pretension imputing the backwardness of irish industry, and the want of energy of the irish people in improving their condition, to a peculiar indolence and insouciance in the celtic race? of all vulgar modes of escaping from the consideration of the effect of social and moral influences on the human mind, the most vulgar is that of attributing the diversities of conduct and character to inherent natural differences." the "civil war" referred to by mill as the _ultima ratio_ of the cottier tenant went on intermittently for ninety years of the nineteenth century, as it had gone on during the eighteenth century, and was met by coercive laws of the same general stamp. until mr. gladstone took the question in hand in , no reformer could get a hearing in parliament. bill after bill, privately introduced, met with contemptuous rejection in favour of some senseless measure of semi-military coercion. there can, i believe, be no doubt that responsible irish opinion, made effective, would have grappled with the evil firmly and conscientiously. until the peasant class was driven to the last pitch of desperation, their leaders did not conceive, and, indeed, never wholly succeeded in implanting, the idea of a complete overthrowal of landlordism. the peasant was not unwilling to pay rent. he had, and still has, a deep, instinctive respect for a landed aristocracy, and was ready, and is still ready, to repay good treatment with an intensity of devotion difficult to parallel in other parts of the united kingdom. in that veritably cataclysmic dispersion of the irish race which ensued upon the great famine, rent continued to be paid at home out of sums remitted from relatives in america. no less than nineteen millions of money were thus remitted, according to the emigration commissioners of , between and that date. the roman catholic church, as in every part of the world, was strongly on the side of law and order, and, indeed, on many occasions stepped in to condemn disorder legitimately provoked by intolerable suffering. the wealthy and educated landlord class, face to face in a free parliament with the tenant class, including, be it remembered, the ulster protestant tenants, with grievances less acute in degree, but similar in kind, would have consented to meet reform halfway under the stimulus of patriotism and an enlightened self-interest. against the great majority of irish landlords there was no personal charge. they came into incomes derived from a certain source under ancient laws for which they were not responsible. but, acting through the ascendancy parliament far away in london, they remained, as an organized class--for we must always make allowance for an enlightened and public-spirited minority--blind to their own genuine interests and to the demands of humane policy. their responsibility was transferred to english statesmen, who were not fitted, by temperament or training, to undertake it, and who always looked at the irish land question, which had no counterpart in england, through english spectacles. we cannot attribute their failure to lack of information. at every stage there was plenty of unbiassed and instructed testimony, whig and tory, protestant and catholic, independent and official, as to the nature and origin of the trouble. mill and bright, in , only emphasized what arthur young had said in , and what edward wakefield, sharman crawford, michael sadler, poulett scrope, and many other writers, thinkers, and politicians had confirmed in the intervening period, and what every fair-minded man admits now to be the truth. commission after commission reported the main facts correctly, if the remedies they proposed were inadequate. the devon commission, reporting in , on the eve of the great famine, condemned the prevalent agrarian tenure, and recommended the statutory establishment of the ulster custom of tenant right. a very mild and cautious bill was introduced and dropped. next year came the famine, revealing in an instant the rottenness of the economic foundations upon which the welfare of ireland depended. the population had swollen from four millions in to nearly eight and a half millions in , an unhealthy expansion, due to the well-known law of propagation in inverse ratio to the adequacy of subsistence. what happened was merely the failure of the potato-crop, not a serious matter in most countries, but in ireland the cause of starvation to three-quarters of a million persons, and the starting-point of that vast exodus which in the last half of the nineteenth century drained ireland of nearly four million souls. the famine passed, and with it all recollection of the report of the devon commission. hitherto most of the land legislation had been designed to facilitate evictions. now came the encumbered estates act of , whose purpose was to facilitate the buying out of bankrupt irish landlords, and whose effect was to perpetuate the old agrarian system under a new set of more mercenary landlords, pursuing the old policy of rack-rents and evictions. in the three years - , , families were evicted, or , souls. aroused from the stupor of the famine, the peasants had to retaliate with the same old defensive policy of outrage. peaceful agitation was of no use. the tenant league of north and south, formed in , claimed in vain the simplest of the rights granted under pressure of violence in and . violence, indeed, was the only efficient lever in ireland for any but secondary reforms until the last fifteen years of the century, when a remedial policy was spontaneously adopted, with the general consent of british statesmen and parties. fear inspired the emancipation act of , which was recommended to parliament by the duke of wellington as a measure wrong in itself, but necessary to avert an organized rebellion in ireland. tithes, the unjust burden of a century and a half, were only commuted in , after a seven years' war revolting in its incidents. mr. gladstone admitted, and no one who studies the course of events can deny, that without the fenianism of the sixties, and the light thrown thereby on the condition of ireland, it would have been impossible to carry the act--again overdue by a century--for the disestablishment of the irish church in , or the land act, timid and ineffectual as it was, of . without the organized lawlessness of the land league it would have been equally impossible to bring about those more drastic changes in irish land tenure which, amidst storms of protest from vested interests affected, were initiated under the great land act of , and, after another miserable decade of crime and secret conspiracy, extended by the acts of , , and . briefly, the effect of these acts was to establish three principles: a fair rent, fixed by a judicial tribunal, the land commission, and revisable every fifteen years; fixity of tenure as long as the rent is paid; and free sale of the tenant-right. the remedy eventually brought widespread relief, but, from a social and economic standpoint, it was not the right remedy. there is no security for good legislation unless it be framed by those who are to live under it. constructive thought in ireland for the solution of her own difficulties and the harmonizing of her own discordant elements had been systematically dammed, or diverted into revolutionary excesses, which, in the traditional spirit of fitzgibbonism, were made the pretext for more stupid torture. thus, o'connell, whose attachment to law was so strong that in , when the repeal agitation had reached seemingly irresistible proportions, he deliberately restrained it, was tried for sedition. so, too, were dissipated the brilliant talents of the young ireland group and the grave statesmanship of isaac butt. fits intervened of a penitent and bungling philanthropy which has left its traces on nearly all irish institutions. for example, it was decided in that the irish must be educated, and a system was set up which was deliberately designed to anglicize ireland and extirpate roman catholicism. four years later, in defiance of irish opinion, a poor law pedantically copied from the english model was applied to ireland. the railway system also was grossly mismanaged. and so with the land. when reform eventually came, the evil had gone too far, and it was beyond the art of the ablest and noblest englishmen, inheriting english conceptions of the rights of landed property, to devise any means of placing the relations between landlord and tenant in ireland, inhuman and absurd as they were, on a sound and durable basis. the dual ownership set up by the land acts was more humane, but in some respects no less absurd and mischievous. it exasperated the landlord, while, by placing before the tenant the continual temptation of further reductions in rent, it tended to check good cultivation. men came to realize at last that the complete expropriation of the landlords through the state-aided purchase of the land was the only logical resource, and this process, begun tentatively and on a very small scale as far back as , under the inspiration of john bright, and extended under a series of other acts, was eventually set in motion on a vast scale by the wyndham act of . i leave a final review of purchase and of other quite recent remedial legislation, as well as the far more important movements for regeneration from within, to later chapters. meanwhile, let us pause for a moment and pronounce upon the political system which made such havoc in ireland. all this havoc, all this incalculable waste of life, energy, brains, and loyalty, was preventable and unnecessary. ethics and honour apart, where was the common sense of the legislative union? would it have been possible to design a system better calculated to embitter, impoverish, and demoralize a valuable portion of the empire? let us now turn our eyes across the atlantic, and observe the effects of an imperial policy founded on the same root idea. footnotes: [ ] "principles of political economy," vol. ii., p. . chapter v canada and ireland in comparing the history of canada with the closely allied history of ireland, we must bear in mind that in the last half of the eighteenth century the present british north america consisted of three distinct portions: acadia, or the maritime provinces, which we now know as newfoundland, nova scotia, new brunswick and prince edward island, colonized originally by a few frenchmen and later by scotch and irish; lower canada, extensively colonized by the french, which we now know as the province of quebec; and upper canada, which we now know as ontario, colonized last of all by americans under circumstances to be described. in , before the repeal of any part of the penal code against irish roman catholics, the french catholic colony of lower canada, with a population of about seventy thousand souls and the two small towns of quebec and montreal, passed definitely into british possession under the treaty of paris, which brought to a conclusion the seven years' war. fortunately, there was no question, as in ireland, of expropriating the owners of the soil in favour of state-aided british planters, and hence no question of a penal code, even on the moderate scale current in great britain at the same period. on the contrary, it became a matter of urgent practical expediency to conciliate the conquered province in view of the growing disaffection of the american colonies bordering it on the south. this disaffection, assuming ominous proportions on the enactment of the stamp act in , was itself an indirect result of the conquest of canada a few years before; for the claim to tax the americans for imperial purposes arose from the enormous expense of the war of conquest and of the subsequent charges for defence and upkeep. it was forgotten that american volunteers had captured louisburg in , and had borne a distinguished part in later operations, and that to lay a compulsory tax upon them would banish glorious memories common to america and britain. henceforward, conquered french canada was made a political bulwark against rebellious america. the french colonists, a peaceable, primitive folk, as attached to their religion as the irish, and devoted mainly to agriculture, retained, as long as they desired it, the old french system of law known as the custom of paris and the free exercise of their religion. like the irish, they were strongly monarchical and strongly conservative in feeling, and as impervious to the republican propaganda emanating from their american neighbours as the catholic irish always at heart remained to the revolutionary principles of wolfe tone's school. unmolested in their habits and possessions, they philosophically accepted the transference from the bourbon to the hanoverian dynasty, and became an indispensable source of strength to george iii. when that monarch was using his german troops to coerce his american subjects and his british troops to overawe the ulster volunteers. in , immediately before the outbreak of a war against which ireland was protesting, and in which, with the soundest justification, the irish-americans, catholic and protestant, took such a prominent part against the british arms, the quebec act was passed giving formal statutory sanction to the catholic religion, and setting up a nominated legislative council, whose members were subject to no religious test. in ireland it was not till six years later, and, as we have seen, by means of precisely the same pressure--british fear of america--that the irish protestant volunteers obtained the abolition of the test for dissenters, while catholics in ireland were still little more than outlaws, and had to wait for nearly sixty years for complete emancipation. the result of the quebec act, together with the sympathetic administration of that great irishman, sir guy carleton, was the firm allegiance of the french province in spite of an exceedingly formidable invasion, during the whole of the american war, and even after the intervention of european france. it is part of the dramatic irony of these occurrences that some of the invading army was composed of morgan's irish-american riflemen, and that one of the two joint leaders of the invasion was the irish-american, general richard montgomery, who fell at the unsuccessful assault of quebec on december , . in spite of burke's noble appeal in the house of commons, toleration in the abstract had nothing to do with the treatment of the french catholics. british catholics in the neighbouring prince edward island were denied all civil rights in , and only gained them in . in england, the quebec act with difficulty survived a storm of indignation, in which even chatham joined. the small minority of british settled in quebec and montreal made vehement protests, while the american congress itself in committed the irreparable blunder of making the establishment of the roman catholic religion in canada one of its formally published grievances against great britain. when war broke out, and the magnitude of the mistake was seen, efforts were made to seduce the canadians by hints of a coming british tyranny, but the canadians very naturally abode by their first impressions. the peace of and the final recognition of american independence led to results of far-reaching importance for the further development of the british empire. out of the loss of the american colonies came the foundation of australia and of british canada. before the war it had been the custom to send convicts from the united kingdom to penal settlements in the american colonies. the united states stopped this traffic. pitt's government decided, after several years of doubt and delay, to divert the stream of convicts to the newly acquired and still unpopulated territory of new south wales, made known by the voyages of captain cook and sir joseph banks. at the same period a very different class of men, seeking a new home, were thrown upon the charity of the british government. these were the "united empire loyalists," as they styled themselves, some , americans, with a sprinkling of irishmen among them, such as luke carscallion, peter daly, willet casey, and john canniff,[ ] who had fought on the royalist side throughout the war, and at the end of it found their fortunes ruined and themselves the objects of keen resentment. pitt, with a "total lack of imperial imagination," as mr. holland rose puts it,[ ] does not seem to have considered the plan of colonizing australia with a part of these men, of whom were reported to be living in destitution in london three years after the war. no more alacrity was shown in relieving the distress of those still in america. in , however, a million and a quarter pounds were voted by parliament for relief, and large grants of land were made in canada, whither most of the loyalists had already begun to emigrate. some went to the maritime provinces, notably to the region now known as new brunswick; a few went to the towns of the quebec province, for the country lands on the lower reaches of the st. lawrence were already monopolized by the french "habitants"; the rest, estimated at , , to the upper reaches of the st. lawrence and along the shores of the lakes ontario and erie, in short, to what we now know as the province of ontario, and to what then became known as upper canada. from this moment the three canadas gain sharp definition. to the west upper canada, exclusively american or, as we must now say, british in character; next to the east, and cutting off its neighbour from the sea, the ancient province of lower canada, predominantly french, with a minority of british traders in the two towns quebec and montreal; last of all the maritime provinces, small communities with an almost independent history of their own, although, like upper and lower canada, they eventually presented a problem similar fundamentally to the irish problem on the other side of the atlantic. prince edward island is the closest parallel, for, besides the catholic disabilities of , in the whole of its land had been granted away by ballot in a single day to a handful of absentee english proprietors, who sublet to occupiers without security of tenure, with the result that a land question similar to that of ireland arose, which inflamed society and retarded the development of the island for a whole century. ultimately, moreover, statesmen were driven to an even more drastic solution--compulsory and universal state-aided land purchase.[ ] before the period we have now reached, nova scotia and prince edward island, which was carved out of it, had been given rude systems of representative government, and new brunswick, also at one time a part of nova scotia, received a constitution in . the great question after the american war was how to govern the two contiguous provinces of upper and lower canada, the one newly settled by men of british race and protestant faith, the other also under the british flag, but overwhelmingly french and catholic, both, in the critical half-century to come, to be reinforced by immigrants from the old world, and to a large extent from misgoverned ireland. but let the reader once and for all grasp this point, that, once out of ireland, there ceases, not immediately, but in course of time, to be any racial or political distinction between the different classes of irishmen, whose antagonism at home, artificially provoked and fomented by the bad form of government under which they lived, so often made ireland itself a very hell on earth. i want to dwell on this point in order to avoid confusion when i speak of the bi-racial conditions of lower canada and ireland respectively. to return to the question of government. the american colonies were lost. here in canada was an opportunity for a new imperial policy, better calculated to retain the affections of the colonists. three distinct problems were involved: . was french or lower canada, with its small minority of british, to be given representative government at all? . if so, was it to be left as a separate unit, or was it to be amalgamated in a union with its neighbour, upper canada? . whichever course was taken, what was to be the relation between the home government and canada? all these questions arise in the case of ireland itself, and the parallel in each case is interesting. in canada they were determined for the space of half a century by the constitutional act of , passed at the period when grattan's unreformed parliament was hastening to its fall, and wolfe tone was founding his society of united irishmen. let us take in turn the three questions posed above. . the british minority in lower canada, supported by a corresponding school in england, were strong for an undisguised british ascendancy, without any recognition of the french. they urged, what was true, that the french were unaccustomed to representative government, and implied, what was neither true nor politic, that they could not, and ought not to, be educated to it. if there was to be an assembly at all, it should, they claimed, be wholly british and protestant, or, in the alternative, the protestant minority only should be represented at westminster. in other words, they wished either for the pre-union irish system or for the post-union irish system, both of them, as time was just beginning to prove, equally disastrous to the interests of ireland. we are not surprised to find these ideas supported by the irishman burke, in whom horror of the french revolution had destroyed the last particle of liberalism. if pitt lacked "imperial imagination," he knew more than most of his contemporaries about the elementary principles of governing white men. it was only a few years before that he had urged upon his irish viceroy, rutland, a reform of the irish parliament which might have united the races and averted all the disasters to come, and in this very year ( ) he was pressing forward the catholic franchise in ireland. the french in canada must, he said, be represented in a popular assembly equally with the british, and on the broadest possible franchise, and they were. . the next question was that of the union or separation of upper and lower canada. here, and from the same underlying motive, the british minority in lower canada were for the union, partly on commercial grounds, but mainly as a step in the direction of overcoming french influence. upper canada, wholly british, was, on the whole, neutral. pitt, on high principle, again took correct ground. he did not, indeed, foresee that separation, for geographical reasons, would cause certain inconveniences; but he did understand--and experience in both provinces ultimately proved him right--that it was absolutely hopeless to try and avert social and racial discord by artificially swamping the french element. he declared, then, for the separation of the two canadas into two distinct provinces. note the beginnings of another, though a distant, analogy with the relations of ireland and great britain, distant because the french at this time largely outnumbered the british of both provinces, and in after-years maintained something very near a numerical equality. but the same underlying principle was involved. pitt, in the legislative union of ireland and great britain nine years later, constructed without geographical necessity, indeed, in defiance of geography and humanity, the very system which, in a form by comparison almost innocuous, he had condemned for canada; but not, we must in fairness remember, before doing his part at an earlier date to arrive at a solution which, given a fair chance, would have rendered the union of ireland and england unnecessary. . so far, good. but there still remained a further question far transcending the other in importance--what was to be the relation between the home government and the new colonies? here all british intellects, that of fox alone excepted, were as much at a loss as ever. one simple deduction was made from what had happened in america, namely, that the new colonies must not be forced to contribute to imperial funds by taxes levied from london. that claim had already been abandoned in by the colonial tax repeal act, which nevertheless expressly reserved the king's right to levy "such duties as it may be expedient to impose for the regulation of commerce," the sum so raised to be retained for the use of the colony. no one made the more comprehensive deduction, even in the case of wholly british upper canada, that colonial affairs should be controlled by colonial opinion, constitutionally ascertained, and that the british governor should act primarily through advisers chosen by the majority of the people under his rule. we must bear in mind that, had grattan's parliament been reformed, and the warring races in ireland been brought into harmony, it would still have had to pass through the crucial phase of establishing its right to choose ministers by whose advice the lord-lieutenant should be guided, that is, if it were to become a true home rule parliament of the kind we aim at to-day. from the date of the constitutional act passed for canada in , it took fifty-six troubled years and an armed rebellion in each province to establish the principle of what we call "responsible government" for canada, and, through canada, for the rest of the white colonies of the empire. during these fifty-six years, which correspond in irish history to a period dating from the middle of grattan's parliament down to the great famine, ascendancies, with the symptoms of disease which always attended ascendancies, grew up in canada, as they had in ireland, in spite of conditions which were far more favourable in canada to healthy political growth. canada started with this great advantage over ireland, that instead of a corrupt parody of a parliament, each of her provinces, under the constitutional act of , had a real popular assembly, elected without regard to race or religion. it was the upper house or legislative council, as it was called, that interposed the first obstacle to the free working of popular institutions. in both provinces this council was nominated by the governor, and could be used, and was naturally used, to represent minority interests and obstruct the popular assembly. fox had correctly prophesied that it would soon come "to inspire hatred and contempt." but he did not mean that such a chamber was in itself an insuperable bar to harmony. nominated or hereditary second chambers are not necessarily inconsistent with popular government, provided that the executive government itself possesses the confidence of the representative assembly. under that lever, obstruction eventually gives way. but this idea of a tie of confidence between the governors and the governed was exactly what was lacking. the executive council in each province was also chosen by the british governor or lieutenant-governor, generally a military man, from persons representing either his own purely british policy or the ideas of a privileged colonial minority, and without regard to the wishes or opinions of the colonial assembly, just as the executive officers in ireland, both before and after the union, were chosen out of corresponding elements by the lord-lieutenant or chief secretary, acting under the orders of the british government, and without any regard to the wishes or opinions of the majority of irishmen. behind all, in remote downing street stood the british government, in the shape of the colonial office for canada and the irish office for ireland, both working in dense ignorance of the real needs of the countries for which they were responsible, and permeated with prejudice and pedantry. to complete the parallel, there was now a foreign power in the close neighbourhood of each dependency, the united states in the case of canada, france in the case of ireland, both of them republican powers, and both able and willing to take advantage of disaffection in the dependencies in order to further a quarrel with the mother country. we have seen the results in ireland. let us now observe the results in canada, taking especial care to notice that an ascendancy government gives rise to the same type of evil in a uni-racial as in a bi-racial community. let us glance first at what happened in upper canada, which was uni-racial, that is, composed of settlers from the united kingdom (including ireland) and america. here the original settlers, the "united empire loyalists" from america, formed from the first, and maintained for half a century, an ascendancy of wealth and religion over the incoming settlers, who soon constituted the majority of the population. as in ireland, though in a degree small by comparison, there was a land question and a religious question, closely related to one another. happily, it was not a case of robbery, but of simple monopoly. excessively large grants of land, nine-tenths of which remained uncultivated, were obtained by the original settlers, most of whom were episcopalian in faith, and, under the act of , further tracts of enormous extent, which for the most part lay waste and idle, were set apart in each township, under the name of "clergy reserves" for the episcopalian church. since the majority of the incoming settlers were presbyterians, methodists, baptists, or roman catholics, many of them from the protestant and catholic parts of ireland, some from america, some even from germany, these conditions caused intense irritation, checking both the development of the country and the growth of solid character among the colonists. absentee ownership was a grave economic evil, though happily it was not complicated and embittered by a vicious system of tenure. education suffered severely through the diversion of the income from public lands to private purposes. the ascendancy was maintained on lines familiar in ireland--through the mutual dependence of the colonial minority and the home government acting through its governor. a few leading episcopalian families from among the united empire loyalists, installed at toronto, with the support of a succession of high tory lieutenant-governors, monopolized the executive council, the legislative council, the bench, the bar, and all offices of profit, denying a canadian career to the vast majority of upper canadians, just as irishmen were excluded from an irish career. for a long time the assembly itself, which retained its original constitution long after the influx of immigrants had rendered necessary its enlargement on a new electoral basis, was a subject of monopoly also. even when enlarged in it was helpless against the nominated council and executive, backed by downing street. the oligarchy came to be known by the name of the "family compact," and, as the reader will observe, it bore a close resemblance in form to the "undertaker" system in ireland before the union, and to the monopoly of patronage obtained by certain families, notably the beresfords. while the colony was still small, the system worked tolerably well; but from the second decade of the nineteenth century onwards, when the population grew from , to , in , and to , a few years later, and the episcopalians sank into a numerical minority as low as a quarter, troubles of the irish type became proportionately acute. the colony was in reality perfectly content with its position under the crown, and in the war with america in all classes and creeds united to repel invasion with enthusiasm. one of the prominent leaders was an irishman, james fitzgibbon, and a poor irish private, james o'hara, won fame by refusing to surrender at the capture of toronto fort. as usual, however, a fictitious standard of "loyalty," which, in fact, meant privilege, was set up, obscuring those questions of good government which were the only real matters at issue in canada, as in ireland. there were republican immigrants of many denominations from america, radicals of cobbett's school from england and scotland, tenants of a democratic turn from ulster, and a growing stream of catholic cottiers flying from the "clearances" and tithe war in other irish provinces. all these classes of men made excellent settlers, and only wanted fair and equal treatment to make them perfectly peaceable citizens. to the official oligarchy, however, even their moderate leaders came to be viewed as rebels, and were often subjected to imprisonment or to banishment. among others william gourlay, a scotsman, stephen willcocks and francis collins, irishmen, all three perfectly respectable reformers, suffered in this way. bidwell, the great robert baldwin, and other good men were rendered powerless for good. as invariably happens in any part of the world where a course is pursued which estranges moderate men and embitters extreme men, agitators came to the front lacking that self-control and sense of responsibility which the sobering education of office alone can give, and generally ruining themselves while they benefit humanity at large. chief of these was w.l. mackenzie, a presbyterian scot from dundee. all this man really wanted was what exists to-day as a matter of course in all self-governing countries--responsible government. he even conceived that great idea of the confederation of british north america, which came to birth in . thwarted in his attacks on the oligarchy, he degenerated into violent courses, and ultimately organized, or rather was provoked into organizing, the rebellion of . the grievances which led to this outbreak were genuine and severe, and were all in course of time admitted and redressed. one, the powerlessness of the assembly, owing to the control by the executive of annual sums sufficient to pay the official expenses of government, corresponded to a pre-union irish grievance, and was remedied by an act of . most of the other grievances were incurable by constitutional effort. they may be found summarized in the "seventh report of grievances," a temperate and truthful document drawn up by a committee of the assembly in . the huge unsettled clergy reserves and crown lands were the worst concrete abuse, and matters had just then been aggravated by the sudden establishment of scores of sinecure rectories. jobbery, maladministration, and the dependence of the judges on the executive were other complaints; but the main assault was made quite rightly on the form of the colonial government, which rendered peaceful reform of any abuse as impossible as in ireland, and the cardinal claim was that the executive should act, not under the dictation of downing street, of an irresponsible governor, or of a narrow colonial oligarchy, but in accordance with popular opinion. mackenzie's rebellion of was a no more formidable affair than the similar efforts in ireland made under incomparably greater provocation by emmett in and smith o'brien in , and was as easily suppressed; but, unlike the irish outbreaks, and in conjunction with a revolt arising in the same year and from similar causes in the adjoining province of lower canada, it led to a complete change of system. in lower canada the same preposterous system of government was aggravated by the presence of the two races, french and english. yet there was nothing inherently dangerous or unwholesome about this situation. the french, like the catholics in ireland, never showed the smallest tendency towards religious intolerance, nor were they less loyal at heart than the radicals of upper canada or the tories of either province. they took the same energetic part in repelling the american invasion of , and produced at least one remarkable leader in the person of colonel salaberry, who commanded the french-canadian voltigeurs. like their co-religionists in ireland, they were temperamentally averse to republicanism in any shape, whether on the american model over the border or on the model of revolutionary france, where republicanism since was anti-catholic and the result of miseries and oppressions as bad as those in ireland; whence, moreover, many priests and nobles fled from persecution to lower canada. as in eighteenth-century ireland, we find that the roman catholic clergy, the _seigneurs_ or aristocrats, and the _habitants_ or peasants, were of a conservative cast, throwing their weight, often even against their own interests, into the scale of the established government, while the lawyers and journalists alone produced determined agitators. the racial cleavage, moreover, as in ireland, was artificially accentuated by the political system. there was in reality a strong community of interest between the british lower class and the french lower class against the tyranny of an official clique, and to the end a substantial number of englishmen worked with the french for reform; but with the failure of their efforts came that inevitable tightening of the bonds of race, even against interest, which we have seen operating with such lamentable effect in ireland. and, as in ireland, we find the best instincts of the people withered and perverted into rebellion by "fitzgibbonism," the policy of distrust and coercion. the british official ascendancy, supreme from the first, became extraordinarily rigid. the executive council and legislative council were almost entirely british, the assembly overwhelmingly french. there were no regular heads of departments, so that the governor had no skilled advice, much less responsible advice. the councils blocked all legislation they disliked, and for more than forty years, by means of unrestricted control over a large part of the provincial revenues, were able to defy the assembly. it will be observed that, although ireland never had anything worth calling an assembly, her structure both before and after the union was essentially the same, in that irish public opinion, whether voiced by the volunteers against the unreformed parliament or after the union by the nationalist party at westminster, was powerless. the existence of a popular assembly in canada only made the anomalies more obvious. there were, of course, marked divergencies of character and less marked divergencies of interest between the french majority and the british minority in canada. the french, by comparison, were a backward and conservative race, less well educated and less progressive and energetic both in agriculture and commerce than the british. on the other hand, subsequent experience showed that, under free constitutional government, british intelligence, wealth, and energy would, here as elsewhere, have preserved their full legitimate influence. under a system which throttled french ideas and aspirations, and treated the most harmless popular movements as treasonable machinations, deadlock and anarchy were in the long run inevitable. the popular demands were much the same as those in upper canada: control of the purse, the independence of the judges, an elective legislative council, and a curtailment of the arbitrary powers and privileges of the executive, which led to gross jobbery, favouritism, and extravagance. as in upper canada, the greatest practical grievance, though it assumed a somewhat different form, was the disposal of the public lands. here, too, there were extensive and undeveloped clergy reserves for the episcopalian church, as well as free grants on a large scale to speculators. the estates of the jesuit order had been confiscated, so that disputes about their disposal were tinged with religious bitterness. but most of the friction over the land question came from the operations of a chartered land company, which, under the protection of the government, and with financial and political support from england, dealt with the unsettled land in a manner very unfair and often corrupt, and promoted here, as in upper canada and ireland, absentee ownership. the popular agitation ran the same course as in upper canada, reached its crisis at the same moment, threw into prominence the same types of men, moderate and extreme, and produced the same waste of good human material and distortion of human character, both in the ascendant and the subject classes. as sir john cockburn tells us in his "political annals of canada" (p. ), some of the most incendiary speakers and writers (in ) were "most able and worthy men, who in the subsequent days of tranquillity occupied most prominent and distinguished positions in the public service, revered as loyal, true, and able statesmen by all classes." the popular movement was by no means wholly french. a scot, john neilson; an englishman, wilfred nelson; and an irish journalist, dr. o'callaghan, were prominent members of a kind of radical party; but the ablest and most influential among the agitators, and in every respect more admirable than mackenzie, was the frenchman, louis papineau, who first became speaker of the assembly in , and retained that high position until the verge of the rebellion of . by no means devoid of superficial faults, but eloquent, honest, accomplished and adored by his compatriots, here was a man who, if he had been given reasonable scope for his talents, and steadied by official responsibility, would have been a tower of strength to the colony and the british connection. he corresponds in position and aims, and to a certain extent in character and gifts, to his great irish contemporary, o'connell. but o'connell was too conservative to produce great results. papineau, dashing himself in vain for twenty years against the entrenched camp of the ascendancy, finally degenerated, like mackenzie, into a commonplace rebel. the phases through which the agitation passed before it reached this disastrous point need only a brief review. naturally enough, owing to the bi-racial conditions, friction had arisen earlier in lower than in upper canada, yet the first recognition of the flagrant defects of the constitution was not made till , when a committee of the british house of commons published a report which, though its recommendations were mild and inadequate, was in effect a censure of the whole political system of the province and an admission of the justice of the agitation. there was no result for four years, while matters went from bad to worse in the colony. at last, in , under an act similar to that passed for upper canada, all the provincial revenues were placed under the control of the assembly in return for the voting of a fixed civil list. this well-meant half-measure made matters worse, because it left the assembly just as powerless as before over the details of legislation and administration, while giving it the power to paralyze the government by refusing all, instead of only part, of the supplies. this it proceeded to do, and in the next five years large deficits were piled up, and the colony became insolvent. meanwhile, in february, , a year before the publication of the "seventh report of grievances" in upper canada, and three months before o'connell's celebrated motion in the house of commons for the repeal of the union between england and ireland, the assembly of lower canada, at papineau's instance, passed the equally celebrated "ninety-two resolutions." bombastic and diffuse, like parts of o'connell's speech, this historic document nevertheless was as true in all really essential respects as mackenzie's manifesto and as o'connell's tremendous indictment of the system of government in ireland. all three men, o'connell with far the most justification, demanded the same thing, good government for their respective countries under a responsible parliament and ministry. they all occasionally used wild language, o'connell the least wild. o'connell, who nine years later deliberately quenched a popular revolt he could have headed, failed in his aim as completely as tone, emmett, and smith o'brien, who pressed their efforts to the point of violence. mackenzie and papineau, who took to arms, succeeded in their aim. the crisis in lower canada was precipitated, and, indeed, provoked, by a challenge thrown out in march, , from the british house of commons, where, at lord john russell's instance, the ten resolutions were agreed to, which amounted in effect to a denial of all the colonial claims and a declaration of war upon those who made them. papineau had to eat his words or make them good, and he chose the latter course. his insurrection was arranged in concert with that of the upper province, broke out simultaneously in the winter of , and was extinguished with little difficulty. the men who made it suffered. canada and the empire profited. both papineau and mackenzie, following the precedent of wolfe tone with france, endeavoured with little success to engage american sympathy and the aid of her army, though canada had as little desire for american rule as ireland had for french rule. let us remark, as an interesting fact for those who imagine that irishmen are always instinctively on the side of turbulence and disorder, that the irish immigrants who poured into canada at the average annual rate of , in the years--terrible years in ireland--preceding the rebellions,[ ] acted much as we might expect. in the lower province, following the lead of the french catholic hierarchy, they declared in november, , against papineau's party, and thus strengthened the hands of the government when the crisis approached.[ ] in the upper province catholics were strongly on the side of reform, but took no part in the rebellion. orangemen in both provinces, as we might guess, sided as strongly with the ascendancy parties, but colonial air seems to have taken some of the theological venom out of orangeism. if charles buller is to be trusted, some catholics joined the societies in upper canada, which were more tory than religious, and the healths of william of orange and the catholic bishop macdonnell were drunk in impartial amity.[ ] in the meantime, three of the four outlying provinces of north america--nova scotia, new brunswick, and prince edward island--where the same form of constitution prevailed as in upper and lower canada, had been passing through a similar phase of misgovernment and agitation during the previous thirty years. each suffered under a little monopolist ascendancy, called by the same name, "the family compact," and sustained, against the prevailing sentiment and interest, by the british governor, and in each had arisen, or was arising, the same loud demand for responsible government. samuel wilmot in new brunswick, joseph howe in nova scotia, were the best-known spokesmen. there was no violence, but a growing dislocation. in five provinces of north america, therefore, the colonial government had broken down or was tottering, and from exactly the same cause as in ireland, though under provocation infinitely less grave. for the moment, however, attention was concentrated upon the canadas, where, as a result of the rebellion, the constitution of lower canada was suspended early in . in the summer of lord durham, the radical peer, was sent out by melbourne's ministry as governor-general, with provisionally despotic powers, and with instructions to advise upon a new form of government. before we come to durham's proposals, let us pause and examine the state of home opinion on the irish and colonial questions. the people of great britain at large had no opinion at all. they were ignorant both of canada and ireland, and had been engaged, and, indeed, were still engaged, in a political struggle of their own which absorbed all their energies. the chartist movement in was assuming grave proportions. the reform, won in under the menace of revolution and in the midst of shocking disorders, was in reality a first step toward the domestic home rule that ireland and the five provinces of north america were clamouring for. tory statesmen were quite alive to this political fact, and condemned all the political movements, british, irish, and colonial, indiscriminately and on the same broad anti-democratic grounds. the duke of wellington, who was not a friend of the reform act, and had only adopted catholic emancipation in order to avoid civil war in ireland, speaking about canada in the house of lords on january , , coupled together the united states, british north america, and ireland as dismal examples of the folly of concession to popular demands. pointing to the results of the canada act of , to which i have already alluded, and which gave the assemblies control of the provincial revenue, and with an eye, no doubt, on the tithe war barely at an end in ireland, he said: "let noble lords learn from canada and our other dominions in north america what it is to hold forth what are called popular rights, but which are not popular rights here or elsewhere, and what occasion is given thereby to perpetuate a system of agitation which ends in insurrection and rebellion." the whig statesmen who, if we except peel's short administration of - , were in power from to , though by no means democratic men, were clear enough about reform for great britain, but nearly as ignorant and quite as wrong about ireland and canada as the tories. the only prominent parliamentarian who, as after events proved, correctly diagnosed and prescribed for the disease in both countries was o'connell. not fully alive to the irish analogy, but correct from first to last about canada, was a small group of independent radicals, of whom roebuck, hume, grote, molesworth, and leader were the principal representatives. after the insurrections in canada came john stuart mill, edward gibbon wakefield, charles buller, and with them lord durham himself. no one can understand either irish or colonial history without reading the debates of this period in the lords and commons on canada and ireland. alternating with one another with monotonous regularity, they nevertheless leave an impression of an extraordinary lack of earnestness, sympathy, and knowledge, and an extraordinary degree of prejudice and of bigotry in the parliament to whose care for better or worse the welfare of nearly ten millions of british citizens outside great britain was entrusted. save for an occasional full-dress debate at some peculiarly critical juncture, the debates were ill-attended. the prevailing sentiment seems to have been that ireland and canada, leavened by a few respectable "loyalists" and officials, on the whole, were two exceedingly mutinous and embarrassing possessions, which, nevertheless, it was the duty of every self-respecting briton to dragoon into obedience. both dependencies were assumed to be equally expensive, though, in fact, ireland, as we know now, was showing a handsome profit at the time, whereas canada was costing a quarter of a million a year. for the rest, the pride of power tempered a sort of fatalistic apathy. in the case of ireland the element of pure selfishness was stronger, because the immense vested interests, lay and clerical, in irish land were strongly represented. the proximity of ireland, too, rendered coercion more obvious and easy. otherwise, her case was the same as that of canada. "the canadas are endeavouring to escape from us, america has escaped us, but ireland shall not escape us," said an english member to o'connell just before the repeal debate of . such was the current view. yet, as in the case of ireland and of the lost american colonies, the materials for knowledge of canada were considerable. petitions poured in; committees and commissions were appointed, and made reports which were consigned to oblivion. roebuck, one of the small radical group, was himself a lower canadian by birth, and acted as agent at westminster for the popular party in that province. he was as impotent as o'connell, the spokesman of the irish popular party. if the colonial office was not quite the "den of peculation and plunder" which hume called it in ,[ ] it was an obscure and irresponsible department, where jobbery was as rife as in dublin castle. in the ten years of colonial crisis ( - ), there were eight different colonial secretaries and six irish chief secretaries. over and above all this apathy and arrogance was the perfectly genuine incapacity to comprehend that idea of responsible government which even the most hot-headed and erratic of the colonial agitators did instinctively comprehend. until durham had at last opened lord john russell's eyes, the great whig statesman was as positive and explicit as the tories, wellington and stanley, in declaring that it was utterly impossible for the monarch's representative overseas to govern otherwise than by instructions from home and through ministers appointed by himself in the name of the king. one constitutional king ruled over great britain, canada, and ireland. he could not be advised by two sets of ministers. the thing was not only an unthinkably absurd nullification of the whole imperial theory, but, in practice, would destroy and dissolve the empire. william iv. himself told lord melbourne that it was his "fixed resolution never to permit any despatch to be sent ... that can for a moment hold out the most distant idea of the king ever permitting the question even to be entertained by his majesty's confidential servants of a most remote bearing relative to any change of the appointment of the king's councils in the numerous colonies." lord stanley said, in , that the "double responsibility" was impossible, that there must either be separation or no responsible government, and that it was "no longer a question of expediency but of empire." lord john russell, polished, sober, scorning to descend to the mere vulgar abuse of the colonials which disfigured the utterances of many of his opponents, struggling visibly to reconcile liberalism with empire, nevertheless arrived at the same conclusion. in a debate of march , for example, in the same year, in proposing the defiant resolutions which provoked the rebellion in canada, he argued at length that a responsible colonial ministry was "incompatible with the relations of a mother country and a colony," and would be "subversive of the power of the british crown," and again, on december , that it meant "independence." o'connell rightly replied to the former speech that russell and his followers were supporting "principles that had been the fruitful source of civil war, dissension, and distractions in ireland for centuries." the radical group pushed home the irish parallel. hume quoted, as applicable to canada, fox's saying: "i would have the whole irish government regulated by irish notions and irish prejudices, and i firmly believe ... that the more she is under irish government the more she will be bound to english interests." molesworth declared, what was perfectly true at that moment of passion and folly, that his extreme political opponents wanted to make the reconquest of ireland a precedent for the reconquest of canada. it would repay the reader to turn back from this debate to the irish repeal debate of three years earlier, and listen to sir robert peel stating as one of the "truths which be too deep for argument," that the repeal of the union "must lead to the dismemberment of this great empire, must make great britain a fourth-rate power, and ireland a savage wilderness," which, as a matter of fact, it was at the very time he was speaking, after thirty years of the legislative union, and seven hundred years of irresponsible government. we must listen to him claiming that the beneficent and impartial british government was "saving ireland from civil war" between its own "warring sects," whereas, in fact, it was that government which had brought those warring sects into being, which had fomented and exploited their dissensions, which had provoked the rebellion of , and by its shameful neglect and partiality in the succeeding generation had flung ireland into a social condition hardly distinguishable from "civil war." and we must realize that closely similar arguments, with special stress on the right of taxation, had been used for the coercion of the american colonies, and that exactly the same arguments, founded on the same inversion of cause and effect, were used to defend the coercion of canada. there, also, the fitzgibbonist doctrine of revenge and oppression by a majority vested with power was freely used, even by lord john russell, in his speech of march , , and of december in the same year, when he spoke of the "deadly animosity" of the french and "of the wickedness of abandoning the british to proscription, loss of property, and probably of lives." he ignored the fact that the same state of anarchy had been reached in uni-racial upper canada as in bi-racial canada, and that the "loyalists" in both cases were not only in the same state of unreasoning alarm for their vested rights, but, in the spirit of the ulstermen of that day and ever since, were threatening to "cut the painter," and declare for annexation to the united states if their ascendancy were not sustained by the home government. then, as to-day, the ascendant minority were supported in their threats by a section of british politicians. lord stanley's speech of march , , where he boasted that the "loyal minority of wealth, education, and enterprise" would protect themselves, and, if necessary, call in the united states, is being matched in speeches of to-day. in all the debates of the period it is interesting to see the ignorance which prevailed about the troubles in upper canada. the racial question in lower canada, owing to the analogy with ireland, was seized on to the exclusion of the underlying and far more important political question in both provinces. against the policy of the two great political parties in england the little group of radicals struggled manfully, and in the long run not in vain, although for years they had to submit to insult and contumely in their patriotic efforts to expose the vices of the colonial administration and to avert the rebellion they foresaw in the canadas. what they feared, with only too good cause, was that the american and irish precedents would be followed, and war made for the coercion of the canadas, to be followed, if successful, by a still more despotic form of government, which would in its turn provoke a new revolt. rather than that such a catastrophe should take place, they went, rightly, to the extreme point of saying that an "amicable separation" should be arranged, maintaining, what is indisputable, that the claims of humanity should supersede the claims of possession. with russell himself declaring till the eleventh hour that responsible government was out of the question because it meant "separation," they were quite justified in demanding that separation, if indeed inevitable, should come about by agreement, not as the possible result of a fratricidal war. for such a war, though russell could not see it until durham made him see it, was the only alternative to the grant of responsible government. but the radicals never used this argument unless circumstances forced them to. molesworth, in a debate of march , , denounced the prevailing view of the colonies, insisted that we should be proud of them and study their interests, that reform, not separation, should be our aim. the radicals were fully aware of the alternatives, and were unwearied in pointing out the justice and policy, in the imperial interests, of acceding to the colonial popular demands. grote had expressed the truth in the december debate of , when he implored the house "not to use a tone of triumph at the superior power of england," but to remember that the colonists, "though freemen, like ourselves," desired to remain, "if they could do so with honour, in connection with england as the mother country." he was followed by a gentleman named inglis, who said that "it was in canada as in ireland," a faction called itself canada, and that we must bring "back the colonists," like the irish, "to subordination." roebuck, who led the radicals in canadian matters, had some of the faults of papineau and mackenzie; yet posterity should give him and his comrades credit for a constructive imperialism which the great men of his day lacked. it is now known that he and sir william molesworth powerfully influenced durham's policy. in a paper he drew up at durham's request on the eve of that nobleman's departure for canada he sketched a plan, imperfect in some details, but wise in broad conception, for pacifying the canadas, and went further in elaborating a scheme, also defective, for the confederation of british north america under the crown on the lines conceived by the despised demagogue, mackenzie.[ ] but the two men who, by influencing durham, probably did most to save canada for the empire and to lay the foundations of the present imperial structure, were charles buller, the radical m.p., and edward gibbon wakefield, both of whom accompanied the new governor-general to canada, and who are generally believed to have inspired, if they did not actually write, the greater part of the celebrated report which became the magna charta of the self-governing colonies of the empire. a word about the events which ended in the publication of this report. durham reached canada at the end of may, , and in november was recalled in disgrace for exceeding--strange as it seems!--the almost absolute powers temporarily entrusted to him. he was an extraordinary mixture of a despot and a democrat, an extreme radical in politics, an autocrat in manners, as vain and tactless as he was generous and sincere, making bitter enemies and warm friends in turn. he began by winning and ended by estranging almost every class in both provinces of canada, and returned to england to all appearances a spent and extinguished meteor. there is some truth, perhaps, in greville's observation that, had he been "plain john lambton," he would never have been chosen for canada. it is certain that those who sent him there little dreamed of the consequences of their action. lord melbourne, the prime minister, in a letter to the queen, charged him with magnifying the canadian troubles "in order to give greater _éclat_ to his own departure."[ ] still, he did his work of investigation faithfully, and formed his conclusions sanely, and there were plain men of greater ability at his elbow in the persons of wakefield and buller, by whose advice he was wise enough to be guided. all opinion was against him when news came of his recall, and even roebuck was denouncing him in the _spectator_ for his autocratic excesses; but a brilliant article by john stuart mill in the _westminster review_, pleading for time and confidence, arrested the tide of obloquy. durham's long report, and the events which followed it, ought to be studied carefully by every voter, however lowly, who has a voice in deciding the fate of irish home rule. after an exhaustive discussion of the causes of disorder in canada, durham made two recommendations, the first of incalculable importance, and proved by subsequent experience to be right; the second of minor consequence, and proved by subsequent experience to be wrong. the first was that responsible government should be inaugurated both in canada and in the maritime provinces of north america, whose constitutional troubles durham also discussed. his proposal was that the governor should govern in accordance with advice given by colonial ministers in whom the popular assembly reposed confidence, and who, through that assembly, were in touch with popular opinion; for it was to the strangulation of popular opinion that durham attributed all the disorders and disasters of the past. this recommendation was eventually adopted, not in the act subsequently passed, but by instructions to the governors concerned; instructions which were first interpreted in the full liberal spirit by lord elgin in . the maritime provinces at various dates and under various governors received full responsible government by . responsible government proved the salvation of canada and the empire, as it would have proved, if given the chance, the salvation of ireland and a source of immensely enhanced strength to the empire. the second and less important recommendation, afterwards embodied in the act of , was the union of the two provinces of upper and lower canada. here lord durham, misled unhappily by the irish precedent, fell into an error. during his visit to canada he came near to accepting that higher conception of a federal union with local home rule for each province, outlined by roebuck and mackenzie, and eventually consummated thirty years later. when he came home to london he made a _volte face_, rejecting the federal idea and accepting its antitype, that legislative and administrative union of the two provinces which had been rejected by pitt in . there were, of course, economic arguments for union apart from the racial factor; but they do not seem to have been decisive with durham. at the last moment he gave way to a dread of predominant french influence in lower canada, similar at bottom to his dread of the unchecked influence of the british minority. while he feared that the latter, if let alone, would inaugurate a reign of terror, he added also: "never again will the present generation of french-canadians yield a loyal submission to a british government." the argument is inconsistent with the whole spirit of the report, which attributes the friction in both provinces to bad political institutions. it is probable that durham was really more influenced by the quite reasonable recognition that the french were relatively backward in civilization and ideas. he sought, therefore, both to disarm them politically and to anglicize them socially, by amalgamating their political system with that of wholly british upper canada. his calculation was that in a joint assembly the british would have a small but sufficient majority. the estimated population of lower canada was , , of whom , were french, and , british and irish; that of upper canada , , all british and irish. that is to say, that in both provinces together there was a british and irish majority of , . the calculation over-estimated the british element, but in the event this mistake proved to be immaterial. though durham himself appears to have intended representation to be in strict accordance with population, the union act, passed in , allotted an equal number of representatives in the joint assembly to each of the old provinces. the assumption here was that the british members from upper canada would unite with those of old lower canada to vote down the french, just as the ulster protestants voted with english members to vote down the irish majority. in practice the union, after lasting twenty-six years, eventually broke down. durham's fear of french disloyalty proved to be as groundless as his ideal of complete anglicization was futile. it was neither necessary, sensible, nor possible to extinguish french sentiment, and human nature triumphed over this half-hearted effort to apply in dilution the medicine of fitzgibbonism to the colonies. little harm was done, because the introduction of responsible government, far transcending the union in importance, worked irresistibly for good. parties did not run wholly on racial lines, but racialism was encouraged by the equal representation of the two provinces in the assembly, in spite of the greater growth of population in the upper province. the system was unhealthy, and at last produced a state of deadlock, in which two exactly equal parties were balanced, and a stable government impossible. when that point was reached, men began to observe the strong and supple constitution of the adjacent united states, and to recognize that a politically feeble canada was courting an absorption from that quarter which all canadians disliked. the legislative union was dissolved by the mutual consent of the provinces with the approval of the mother country, and in , under the british north america act, the federal union was formed which exists in such strength and stability to-day. fear of french disloyalty or tyranny was a night-mare of the past, even with the british minority in lower canada. it was realized that french national sentiment was perfectly consistent with racial harmony under the british flag. upper canada became ontario, lower canada quebec. each province reserved a local autonomy for itself, and each at the same moment voluntarily surrendered certain high powers to a supreme centralized government, in which both had confidence. such a political system is capable of indefinite expansion. nova scotia and new brunswick joined the federation at the outset, prince edward island and british columbia a little later, and were followed in turn by the successively developed provinces which now form the united and powerful dominion of canada. turn back to ireland and weigh well the analogy. _mutatis mutandis_, almost every paragraph of the durham report applied with greater force to the ireland of his day. the ascendancy of a caste and creed minority in upper canada; of a race minority in lower canada; "the conflict of races, not of principles"; the consequent obliteration of natural political divisions, and the substitution of unnatural and vindictive antagonisms demoralizing both sides to every quarrel; the universal disgust with and distrust of the british government, though for reasons diametrically opposite; the hopelessness of true reforms; the perpetuation of abuses; the stagnation of trade and agriculture; the re-emigration to america, and the abuses of a church establishment with endowments from sources by right public--all these phenomena and many others had their counterpart in ireland. some have disappeared. the church is disestablished. the land question is on the way to settlement. the old ascendancy is mitigated. but many of the political, and all the psychological, features of the situation which durham described do, alas! exist to-day in ireland. ireland, like the canada of , is a land of bewildering paradox. there is a similarly unwholesome arrest of free political life, the same unnatural division of parties, the same suppression of moderate opinion, and the same inevitable maintenance of a home rule agitation, harmful in itself, because it retards the country and accentuates for the time being the very divisions it seeks to cure, but absolutely necessary for the final salvation of ireland. durham, in the case of canada, saw the truth, and swept into the limbo of discredited bogies the old figments of the coercionists. in a singularly noble and profound passage (p. ), revealing the ethical basis on which his philosophy rested, he declared that even if the political freedom of the colony were to lead in the distant future to her separation from the empire, she nevertheless had an indefeasible moral right to the blessings of freedom; but he prophesied correctly that the connection with the empire "would only become more durable and advantageous by having more of equality, of freedom, and of local administration." if only irish and british unionists would realize that these words came from a profound knowledge of human nature in the mass, and are applicable to irishmen in ireland just as much as to irish, british, french, and dutch in the colonies! the tenacity of the old superstition is extraordinary, and we can see it in the case of canada. it remains a wonder to this day how responsible government was ever introduced. there can be no question that the act of only secured a smooth passage because, in providing for the union of the french and british provinces, it represented a superficial analogy to that union of britain and ireland which had paralyzed irish aspirations. durham himself had actually quoted both the irish and scotch unions as successful expedients for "compelling the obedience of a refractory population," and thus arrived at the outstanding and solitary defect of his otherwise noble scheme. and o'connell, in a debate upon the report on june , , opposed the canadian union for irish reasons, and in language which after-experience proved to be perfectly correct. happily, as we have seen, the defect was small and curable, because the analogy with ireland, where there was no responsible, but, on the contrary, a separate and wholly irresponsible executive government, and whose interests were upheld by only members in a house of , was exceedingly remote. on responsible government itself the canadian act of was entirely silent. we may thank providence for the fact. durham's cardinal proposals had received unbridled vituperation as sentimental rubbish where they were not treasonable poison, the whole controversy taking precisely the same form as in and over mr. gladstone's home rule bills for ireland. the _quarterly review_ spoke of "this rank and infectious report," though it is fair to say that peel and wellington did not join in such wild language. five months after the issue of lord durham's report, lord john russell, in the debate of june , was denying, with the approval of all but the radicals, the possibility of responsible government as emphatically as ever. durham seems to have partially converted him in the summer, for in introducing the act itself in he cautiously committed himself to the plan of instructing the canadian governor to include in his executive council, or cabinet, men expressly chosen because they possessed the confidence of the assembly. but the act as it stood, ignoring this vital change, was impeccably conservative, and on that account went through. in some points it seemed, without good reason, to be even reactionary, and was regarded in that light with displeasure by the radicals, with satisfaction by whigs and tories. while confirming the control of revenue by the assembly, in return for a fixed civil list, it took away from the assembly, and vested in the executive, the power of recommending money votes, and it also retained the legislative council or upper chamber as a nominated, not as an elective, body. provided that the executive had the confidence of the representative assembly or lower house, the first point was perfectly sound, and the second was not vital; but there was no security for the condition precedent other than russell's vague outline of subsequent policy. while the supreme power of the king, acting with or without the governor, was reaffirmed in the most vigorous terms, there was not a word in the act about the composition of the executive council or its relation to the assembly. in canada much the same misconceptions prevailed, and promoted the acceptance of the act by the supporters of the old ascendancies. the question of the union and the question of responsible government, both raised by lord durham's report, became inextricably confused, and the various petitions and resolutions of the time reflect this confusion. the french opposed the union and supported responsible government on the same grounds, and in almost identical terms, as the irish opposed, and still oppose, their union with great britain, and ask for responsible government in ireland. moderate britishers supported both proposals, but the extremists of the old ascendancy bitterly denounced the whole theory of responsible government, union or no union. their views are ably and incisively set forth by a committee of the old legislative council of upper canada, that is, by the members of the "family compact," in a protest signed and transmitted to london, where it was quoted with approval by lord john russell. it may be found, together with other petitions of the time, in the "canadian constitutional development" of messrs. grant and egerton. with a few unessential changes and modifications, the whole document might be signed to-day by a committee of ulster unionists, and i heartily wish that every ulsterman would read it in a spirit of reason and generosity, and observe how every line of it was falsified by history, before he declares that the situation of ulster is peculiar, and sets his hand or gives his adhesion to a similar document. the signatories, who, it must be remembered, were a small ruling minority of the colonists, whose power was artificially sustained by the british governor, claim that they alone, in glorifying and in battling for "colonial dependence," are the true imperialists. they hold dear the "unity of the empire." responsible government within their own colony would lead to the "overthrowal" of that empire, and the reduction of britain to a "second-rate power." a colonial cabinet is absurd; the local and sectional interests are too strong; the british government must remain as "umpire" to keep the parties from flying at one another's throats. the majority, who are themselves a prey to divisions (and one thinks of nationalist splits), are seeking only for illegitimate power; the minority are for "justice and protection, and impartial government." yet in the same breath we are told that all is happy and peaceable as it is. why subject the colony to the dissensions of party? why foster a spirit of undying enmity among a people disposed to dwell together in harmony? the signatories argue from the history of ireland and scotland, "which never had responsible government, yet government became impracticable the moment it approached to equal rights." hence a union, because "government must be conducted with a view to some supreme ruling power, which is not practicable with several independent legislatures." finally, loyalists and imperialists as they are, they are not going to stand an attempt to "force independence" on them. they will take the matter into their own hands, and, if necessary, call in the united states to "replace the british influence needlessly overthrown." i do not quote this sort of thing in order to add any tinge of bitterness to present controversies. the signatories lived to see their errors and to be ashamed of what they wrote. they, like the irish unionist leaders of to-day, were able and sincere men, unconscious, we may assume, that their pessimism about the tendencies of their fellow-citizens was really due to the defective institutions which they themselves were upholding, and to the forcible suppression of the finer attributes of human nature; unconscious, we may also assume, of identifying loyalty with privilege, and "the supreme ruling power" with their own ruling power; unconscious that what they called "imperial unity" was in reality on the verge of producing imperial disruption; and wholly unconscious, certainly, of the ghastly irony of their analogy drawn from the brutally misgoverned, job-ridden, tithe-ridden, rack-rented ireland of their day, living, for no fault of its own, under a condition of intermittent martial law, and hurrying at that moment towards the agony of the famine years. less severe in degree, analogous abuses perpetuated in their own interest existed in their own colony, and were only abolished under the new régime which they attacked with such vehemence before it came, and which, because it transformed and elevated their own character and that of their fellow-citizens, while drawing them closer to the old country, they afterwards learned to regard with pride and thankfulness. as an effective contrast to the mistaken views of the upper canadian statesmen, the reader cannot do better than study the letters of joseph howe, the brilliant nova scotia "agitator," to lord john russell, in answer to that statesman's speech of june , , when he argued against responsible government, and quoted the upper canadian manifesto as his text. these letters make a wonderful piece of sustained and humorous satire, of which every word was true and every word applicable to ireland. howe's portrait, for example, of the average colonial governor applies line for line to the average chief secretary, coming at an hour's notice to a country he has never seen, and knows nothing of, vested with absolute powers of patronage, and often pledged to carry out a policy in direct conflict with the wishes of the vast majority of the people whose interests he is supposed to guard. the act of went through, but it had little to do with the regeneration and reconciliation of canada. poulett thompson, the first governor, peremptorily declined to admit the principle of ministerial responsibility. some good reforms were, indeed, made in the early years, but the act was on the verge of breaking down when lord elgin, durham's son-in-law, came to canada as governor-general in . after many party changes and combinations, french influence was temporarily in the ascendant, and in a bill was on the stocks for compensating french as well as british subjects for losses in the rebellion of . elgin, following the advice of his ministers, of whom baldwin was one, lafontaine another, gave the royal assent to the bill. the british, with the old cry of "loyalism," and with orangemen in the van, rioted, mobbed the governor, and burnt down the parliament house at montreal. elgin, expostulating with lord john russell, who was as pessimistic as ever, and threatened with recall, stuck to his guns under fierce obloquy, and the principle of responsible government was definitely established. it was applied at about the same period to the other british provinces of north america, with the ulterior results i have described, and in a few years to australia. the great year, then, was , the year of the irish famine, and the year before the pitiful rebellion of smith o'brien, surrendering in the historic cabbage-garden. our thoughts go back sixty-four years to , when the american war of independence ended; when, as a result of that war, british canada and australia were founded, and when, at the crisis--premature, alas!--of ireland's fortunes, the volunteers in vain demanded the reform which might have saved their country. look into historical details, read contemporary debates, and watch the contrast. within five years of responsible government canada solved all the great questions which had been convulsing society for so long, and turned her liberated energies towards economic development. in ireland the abuses of ages lingered to a point which seems incredible. the church was not disestablished, amid outcries of imminent ruin and threats of a protestant rebellion, till , when canada had already become a federated dominion. the irish land question, dating from the seventeenth century, was not seriously tackled until , not drastically and on the right lines till . education languishes at the present day. canada started an excellent system of municipal and local government in the forties. in ireland, while the minority, in greville's words, were "bellowing spoliation and revolution," an act was passed in with the utmost difficulty, removing an infinitesimal part of the gross abuses of municipal government under the ascendancy system, and it was not till that the people at large are admitted to a full share in county and town government. even this step inverted the natural order of things, for the new authorities are hampered in their work by the incessant political agitation for the home rule which should have preceded their establishment, as it preceded it in great britain and canada. home rule, the tried specific, was resisted, as those who read the debates of and will recognize, on the same grounds as canadian home rule, in the same spirit, and often in terms absolutely identical. was it because ireland, unlike canada, was "so near"? let us reflect. did durham advocate canadian home rule because canada was "so far"? on the contrary, it was a superficial inference, drawn not merely from ireland, but from scotland, and since proved to be false both in canada and south africa, that made him shrink from the full application of a philosophy which was already far in advance of the political thought and morality of his day. is it to be conceived that if he had lived to see the canadian federation, the domestic and imperial results of south african home rule, and the consequences of seventy more years of coercive government in ireland, he would still have regarded the united kingdom in the light of a successful expedient for "compelling the obedience of refractory populations"? in truth, durham, like ninety-nine out of a hundred englishmen of his day, knew nothing of ireland, not even that her political system differed, as it still differs, _toto coelo_ from that of scotland, and came into being under circumstances which had not the smallest analogy in scotland. so far as his knowledge went, he was a student of human nature as affected by political institutions. wakefield, who advised him, was a doctrinaire theorist who put his preconceived principles into highly successful practice both in australia and canada. they said: "your coercive system degrades and estranges your own fellow-citizens. change it, and you will make them friendly, manly, and prosperous." they were right, and one reflects once more on the terrible significance of mr. chamberlain's admission in , that "if ireland had been a thousand miles away, she would have what canada had had for fifty years." footnotes: [ ] "the irishman in canada" (n.f. davin), a book to which the author is indebted for much information of the same character. [ ] "william pitt and the national revival." [ ] canadian archives, ; "history of prince edward island," d. campbell; "history of canada," c.d.g. roberts. in , after a long period of agitation and discontent, the land purchase act was passed, and the dominion government asked mr. hugh childers to adjudicate on the land-sale expressly on the ground that he had been associated with the irish land act of ("life of mr. childers," by lieut.-col. spencer childers, vol. i., p. ). [ ] canadian archives, . note b. emigration ( - ). irish immigrants in , , ; in , , ; in , , ; in , , ; in , , ; in , , : about double the immigration of english and scottish together in the same period. [ ] "self-government in canada," f. bradshaw, p. _et seq_. [ ] "durham report," p. . [ ] hansard, january . [ ] "self-government in canada," f. bradshaw, p. . [ ] "letters of queen victoria," vol. i., november , . chapter vi australia and ireland i have described the canadian crisis at considerable length because it was the turning-point in imperial policy. yet policy is scarcely the right word. the colonists themselves wrenched the right to self-government from a reluctant mother country, and the mother country herself was hardly conscious of the loss of her prerogatives until it was too late to regret or recall them. the men who on principle believed in and laboured for home rule for canada were a mere unconsidered handful in the country, while most of those who voted for the act of thought that it killed home rule. no general election was held to obtain the "verdict of the predominant partner" on the real question at issue, with the cry of "american dollars" (which had, in fact, been paid); with lurid portraits of papineau and mackenzie levying black-mail on the prime minister, and quotations from their old speeches to show that they were traitors to the empire; with jeremiads about the terrors of rome, the abandonment of the loyal minority, and the dismemberment of the empire, to shake the nerves and stimulate the slothful conscience of an ignorant electorate. had there been any such opportunity we know it would have been used, and we can guess what the result would have been; for nothing is easier, alas! than to spur on a democracy with such cries as these to the exercise of the one function it should refrain from--interference with another democracy, be it in ireland or anywhere else. as it was, a merciful veil fell over canada; lord elgin's action in passed with little notice, and a mood of weary indifference to colonial affairs, for which, in default of any imperial idealism, we cannot be too thankful, took possession of parliament and the nation. it was in this mood that the measures conferring self-government on the australasian colonies, , miles away from the mother country, and exciting proportionately less concern than canada, were passed a few years later. from the landing of the first batch of convicts at botany bay in , new south wales, the mother colony, was a penal settlement pure and simple, under military government, for some thirty years. the island colony, tasmania, founded under the name of van diemen's land in , was used for the same purpose. victoria, originally port phillip, just escaped a like fate in , and remained uncolonized till , when the free settlers set their faces against the penal system, and in , acting like the bostonians of with the famous cargo of tea, refused to allow a cargo of convicts to land. south australia, first settled in , also escaped; so did new zealand, which was annexed to the crown in . western australia, dating from , proceeded on the opposite principle to that of victoria. free from convicts until , when transportation to other colonies was checked at their own repeated request, and came to an end in , this colony, owing to a chronic shortage of labour, actually petitioned the home government to divert the stream of criminals to its shores, with the result that in ten years' time nearly half the male adults in the colony, and more than half in the towns, were, or had been, convicts. it was not until , under strong pressure from the other colonies, that the system was finally abolished which threw western australia forty years behind its sister colonies in the attainment of home rule. the transportation policy has been unmercifully criticized, and with all the more justice in that pitt, when the american war closed the traditional dumping-ground for criminals, had the chance of employing the exiled loyalists of america, many of whom were starving in london, as pioneers of the new lands in the antipodes. "the outcasts of an old society cannot form the foundations of a new one," said a parliamentary report of july , . but they could do so, and did do so. ruskin's saying, _à propos_ of australia, that "under fit conditions the human race does not degenerate, but wins its way to higher levels," comes nearer the truth. in an amazingly short time after the transportation policy was reversed the taint disappeared. we must remember, however, that, sheer refuse as some of the convicts were, especially in the later period, a large number of the earlier convicts were the product of that "stupid severity of our laws" which the vicar of wakefield deplored, and to this category belonged many an unhappy irish peasant, sound in character, but driven into whiteboyism, or into the rebellions of and by some of the worst laws the human brain ever conceived. hundreds of these men survived the barbarous and brutalizing ordeal of a penal imprisonment to become prosperous and industrious citizens. it was not until , or thereabouts, that free white settlers, many irishmen among them, came in any substantial number to the mother colony of new south wales, and not until that these men began to press claims for the management of their own affairs, under the inspiration of an irish surgeon's son, william wentworth, the hampden of australia. the later colonies rapidly came into line, western australia, for the reason given above, remaining stationary. the first representative institutions were granted in to new south wales, and in to victoria, south australia, and tasmania. at that date, therefore, these settlements stood in much the same constitutional position as the canadas had stood in (although technically their constitutions were of a different kind), but with this important difference, that the act of , "for the better government of her majesty's australian colonies," gave power to those colonies to frame new constitutions for themselves. this they soon proceeded to do, each constructing its own, but all keeping in view the same model, the british constitution itself, and aiming at the same ideal, responsible government by a colonial cabinet under a government representing the crown. since responsible government in great britain itself was not a matter of legal enactment, but the product of slowly evolved conventions and precedents, to which political scientists had not yet given a scientific form, it is no wonder that the colonial constitution-makers found great difficulty in expressing exactly what they wanted in legal terms, and, indeed, none of them came near succeeding; but time, their own political instinct, a succession of sensible governors, and the forbearance of the home government solved the problem, and evolved home-ruled states legally subordinate to the crown, but with a constitution closely resembling our own. the constitutions became law by acts of the imperial parliament passed by a liberal ministry in . they are of unusual interest because they represent the first rude attempt to put into legal language a small part of the theory of the british constitution as applied to dependencies of the crown. in the most vital point of all, the relation of the dependency to the home government (as distinguished from questions of internal political structure), they are almost as reserved as the canadian act of , which, as we have seen, did not recognize by a word the duty of the governor to govern through a colonial cabinet. in certain clauses they hint, by distant implication, at the existence of such a cabinet, responsible to the colonial popular legislature--the canadian act did not assume even that--but they do not anywhere imply that the governor is bound normally to place himself in the hands of that cabinet, while they expressly and rightly reaffirm the supreme power of the crown, whether acting through the governor or not, over colonial legislation. how far this reticence about responsible government facilitated the passage of the australian acts in the british parliament, as it certainly facilitated the canadian act of , it is difficult to decide. it was probably a factor of some importance. at any rate, it is true to say that home rule, as in canada, was mainly a result of practice rather than of statutory enactment. the case of new zealand is a striking example of this. in new zealand obtained from a tory government a constitutional act, which resembles the canadian act of in abstaining from any expression, direct or indirect which implies the existence of a colonial cabinet, and it is probable that the framers of the act intended no such development, but on the contrary contemplated a permanent, irremovable executive. but the act was no sooner passed than an agitation began for responsible government, under the leadership of edward gibbon wakefield, part-author of the durham report, and at that time a member of the new zealand assembly. by , when the australian acts were passed, new zealand, without further legislation, had obtained what she wanted. to complete the story, queensland, carved out of new south wales in , entered upon full responsible government at once, and western australia, retarded for so long by the servile system of convict-labour, gained the same rights in . reading the debates of the middle of the nineteenth century, one is left with the impression that the australasian colonies obtained home rule by virtue of their distance, and because most politicians at home could not be bothered to fight hard against a principle which at bottom they disliked as heartily for the colonies as for ireland. the views of the various parties were not much changed since the days of the crisis in canada. there were some able colonial secretaries who thoroughly understood and believed in the principle of responsible government. on the other hand, some liberals were not yet converted, though liberal governments fathered the constitutional acts of and . disraeli's well-known saying in that "these wretched colonies will all be independent, too, in a few years, and are a mill-stone round our necks," was typical of the tory attitude.[ ] lord john russell, in the same year, , was complaining, as lord morley tells us,[ ] that we were "throwing the shields of our authority away," and leaving "the monarchy exposed in the colonies to the assaults of democracy." a group of radicals, headed by sir william molesworth and hume in parliament, and by wakefield from outside, still pushed the policy of emancipation energetically and persistently on the principle which they had urged in the case of canada, that freedom was better both for the colonies and the mother country. but molesworth and wakefield gained one illustrious convert and coadjutor in the person of mr. gladstone, whose speeches on the colonies at this period, to , placed him, in regard to that topic, in the radical ranks, and in veiled opposition to the whig leaders. lord morley quotes a minute from his hand, written in in answer to the view of lord john russell, referred to above, where he says "that the nominated council and independent executive were not 'shields of authority,' but sources of weakness, disorder, disunion, and disloyalty." his parliamentary and platform speeches, passing with little notice at the time, nevertheless remain the most eloquent and exalted expression of wise colonial policy that is to be found in our language. if it was not till a generation later that he applied the same arguments to the case of ireland, the arguments nevertheless did apply to ireland almost word for word. proximity to the mother country does not affect them. mr. gladstone attacks the problem on its human side, showing that coercive government is always and everywhere bad for those who administer it, and bad for those who live under it, expensive, inefficient, demoralizing, and that the longer it is maintained the more difficult it is to remove. he condemns the fallacy of preparing men by slow degrees for freedom, and the "miserable jargon about fitting them for the privileges thus conferred, while in point of fact every year and every month during which they are retained under the administration of a despotic government renders them less fit for free institutions." as to cost, "no consideration of money ought to induce parliament to sever the connection between any one of the colonies and the mother country," but the greater part of the cost, he urged, was due to the despotic system itself. his words are more applicable to the ireland of to-day than the ireland of the middle of the nineteenth century, for it is one of the many painful anomalies of irish history that that country, at the lowest point of its economic misery, was paying a relatively enormous contribution to imperial funds, and, incidentally, to the colonial vote, while the colonies were maintained at a loss correspondingly large, and at times even larger.[ ] but cost is, after all, a very small matter. the first consideration is the character and happiness of human beings, and here gladstone's words, like durham's, have a universal application. if the reader cannot study them at length in hansard, he should read the great speech on the new zealand bill in , and lord morley's masterly summary of others. i conclude with a passage quoted by him from a platform speech at chester in , the year when the australian constitutions were sanctioned. "experience has proved that if you want to strengthen the connection between the colonies and this country, if you want to see british law held in respect, and british institutions adopted and beloved in the colonies, never associate with them the hated name of force and coercion exercised by us at a distance over their rising fortunes. govern them upon a principle of freedom." at that moment, after half a century of coercion and neglect under what was called the "union," ireland was bleeding, as it seemed, to death. scarcely recovered from the stunning blow of the famine, she was undergoing in a fresh dose of clearances and evictions the result of that masterpiece of legislative unwisdom, the encumbered estates act. her people were leaving her by hundreds of thousands, cursing the name of england as bitterly as the evicted ulster farmers and the ruined weavers of the eighteenth century had cursed it, and bearing their wrongs and hatred to the same friendly shore, america. for the main stream of emigration, which before the union had set towards the american states, and from the union until the famine towards canada, reverted after the famine towards the united states, impregnating that nation with an hostility to great britain which in subsequent years became a grave international danger, and which, though greatly diminished, still remains an obstacle to the closer union of the english-speaking races. on the other hand, it is interesting to observe that among the irish emigrants to countries within the empire, and a very important part of this emigration was to australasia, the anti-british sentiment was far less tenacious, though the affection for their own native country was no less passionate. whatever we may conclude about the motives behind the concession of home rule to australia and new zealand, we may regard it as fortunate that they lay too far away for any close criticism from statesmen at home, whether before or after the attainment of self-government. most of these statesmen would have been scandalized by the manner in which these vigorous young democracies, destitute of the patrician element, shaped their own political destiny by the light of nature and in the teeth of great difficulties. almost to a man their leaders in this great work would have been regarded as "turbulent demagogues and dangerous agitators," and often were so regarded, when the rumour of their activities penetrated to far-off london. the old catchwords of revolution, spoliation and treason, consecrated to the case of ireland, would have been applied here with equal vehemence, and were in fact applied by the official classes in the colonies themselves, round whom small anti-democratic groups, calling themselves "loyal," crystallized, as in the provinces of upper canada and in ireland, and with whom the ruling classes at home were in instinctive sympathy. there were stormy, agitated times, there were illegal movements against the reception of convicts, struggles over land questions, religious questions, financial questions, the emancipation of ex-convicts, and the many difficult problems raised by the discovery of gold and the mushroom growth of digger communities in remote places. there was in the air more genuine lawlessness--irrespective, i mean, of revolt against bad laws--than ever existed in ireland, though there was never at any time any practical grievance approaching in magnitude to the practical grievances of ireland at the same period. but, could the spirit of english statesmanship towards analogous problems in ireland have been maintained in australasia, systematically translated into law and enforced with the help of coercion acts by soldiers and police, communities would have been artificially produced presenting all the lawless and retrograde features of ireland. the famous affair of the eureka stockade in is an interesting illustration. a great mass of diggers collected in the newly discovered ballarat goldfields had petitioned repeatedly against the government regulations about mining licences, for which extortionate fees were levied. this was before responsible government. the goldfields were not represented in the legislature, and there was no constitutional method of redress. the authorities held obstinately to their obsolete and irritating regulations, and eventually the miners revolted under the leadership of an irishman, peter lalor, and with the watchword "vinegar hill." there was a pitched battle with the military forces of the crown, ending after much bloodshed in the victory of the soldiers. lalor was wounded, and carried into hiding by his friends. other captured rioters were tried for "high treason" before juries of townsmen picked by the crown on the lines long familiar in ireland; but even these juries refused to convict, as they so often refused to convict in cases of agrarian crime in ireland. the state trials were then abandoned, a royal commission reported against the licence system, and parliamentary representation was given to the goldfields. it came to be universally acknowledged that the talk of "treason" was nonsense, that the outbreak had been provoked by laws which could not be constitutionally changed, and that the moral was to change them, not to expatriate and persecute those who had suffered under them. lalor reappeared, entered political life, became speaker of the reformed assembly of , and lived and died respected by everyone. he now appears as a prominent figure in a little book entitled "australian heroes," and it is admitted that the whole episode powerfully assisted the movement for responsible government in the colony. smith o'brien, meagher, mitchell, and others concerned in the irish rebellion of were at that moment languishing in the penal settlement of tasmania for sedition provoked by laws fifty times worse; laws, too, that a royal commission three years earlier had shown to be inconsistent with social peace, and which others subsequently condemned in still stronger terms. from their first establishment far back in the seventeenth century it took two centuries to abolish these laws. in the australian case it took one year. as for the irishmen of all creeds and classes who took such an important part in the splendid work of building up these new communities, and who are still estimated to constitute a quarter of the population, one can only marvel at the intensity of the prejudice which declared these men "unfit" for self-government at home, and which is not yet dissipated by the discovery that they were welcomed under the southern cross, not only as good workaday citizens in town, bush, or diggings, but as barristers, judges, bankers, stock-owners, mine-owners, as honoured leaders in municipal and political life, as speakers of the representative assemblies, and as ministers and prime ministers of the crown.[ ] is true, and the fact cannot surprise us, that the intestinal divisions of race and creed in ireland itself, stereotyped there by ages of bad government, were at first to a certain extent reproduced in australia, as in canada. aggressive orangeism was to be found sowing discord where no cause for discord existed. but the common sense of the community and the pure air of freedom tended to sterilize, though they have not to this day wholly killed, these germs of disease. a career was opened to every deserving irishman, whether catholic or protestant. hungry, hopeless, listless cottiers from munster and connaught built up nourishing towns like geelong and kilmore. two irishmen, dunne and connor, were the first discoverers of the ballarat goldfields. an irishman, robert o'hara burke, led the first transcontinental expedition, and another irishman, ambrose kyte, financed it; wentworth was the father of australian liberties. an irish roman catholic, sir redmond barry, founded the public library, museum, and university of melbourne. in the political annals of victoria and new south wales the names of irish catholics, men to whom no worthy political career was open in their own country, were prominent. sir john o'shanassy, for example, was three times prime minister of victoria, sir brian o'loughlen once. sir charles gavan duffy, a member of o'shanassy's cabinets, and at last prime minister himself, is the colonial statesman whose career and personality are the best proof of what ireland has lost in high-minded, tolerant, constructive statesmanship, through a system which silenced or drove from her shores the men who loved her most, who saw her faults and needs with the clearest eyes, and who sought to unite her people on a footing of self-reliance and mutual confidence. one of the ablest of o'connell's young adjutants, editor and founder of the _nation_, part-organizer of the young ireland movement which united men of opposite creeds in one of the finest national movements ever organized in any country, duffy's central aim had been to give ireland a native parliament, where irishmen could solve their own problems for themselves. he saw the rebellion of fail, and mitchell, smith o'brien, meagher, mcmanus, and o'donoghue transported to tasmania; he laboured on himself in ireland for seven years at land reform and other objects, and in gave up the struggle against such hopeless odds, and reached melbourne early in in time to sit in the first victorian parliament returned under the constitutional act of . from the beginning to the end of an honourable political career which lasted thirty years, he made it his dominant purpose to ensure that australia should be saved from the evils which cursed ireland; from government by a favoured class, from land monopoly, and from religious inequality and the venomous bigotries it engenders, and he took a large share in bringing about their exclusion. his land act of , for example, where he had another roman catholic irishman, judge casey, as an auxiliary, put an end in those districts where it was fairly worked to the grave abuses caused by the speculative acquisition of immense tracts of land by absentee owners, and promoted the closer settlement of the country by yeoman farmers. in australia, as in canada, we see the vital importance of good land laws, and can measure the misery which resulted in ireland from an agrarian system incalculably more absurd and unjust than anything known in any other part of the empire. the stagnation of western australia was originally due to the cession of huge unworkable estates to a handful of men. south australia was retarded for some little time from the same cause, and victoria and new south wales were all hampered in the same way. it was not a question, as in ireland, and to a less degree in prince edward island, of the legal relations between the landlord and tenant of lands originally confiscated, but of the grant and sale of crown lands. yet the after-results, especially in the check to tillage and the creation of vast pasture ranches, were often very similar.[ ] duffy was not the only colonial statesman to apply irish experience to the problems of newly settled countries. an englishman who became one of the greatest of colonial statesmen and administrators, the radical imperialist, sir george grey, began life as a lieutenant on military service in ireland in the year , and came away sick with the scenes he had witnessed at the evictions and forced collections of tithes where his troops were employed to strengthen the arm of the law. "ireland," his biographer, professor henderson, tells us,[ ] "was to him a tragedy of unrealized possibilities." the people had "good capacities for self-government," but englishmen "showed a vicious tendency to confuse cause and effect," and attributed to inherent lawlessness what was a revolt against bad economic conditions. "all that they or their children could hope for was to obtain, after the keenest competition, the temporary use of a spot of land on which to exercise their industry"; "for the tenant's very improvements went to swell the accumulations of the heirs of an absentee, not of his own." "haunted by the irish problem," grey made it his effort first in south australia, and afterwards in new zealand, where he was both governor and premier at various times, to secure the utmost possible measure of home rule for the colonists, and, in pursuance of a policy already inaugurated by edward gibbon wakefield, to establish a land system based, not on extravagant free grants, or on private tenure, but on sales by the state to occupiers at fair prices. the aim was to counteract that excessive accumulation of people in the large cities which, thanks to imperfect legislation, still exists in most of the australian states. subsequent new zealand land policy has been generally in the right direction, and is acknowledged to be highly successful. in the australian mainland states the absentee and the squatter caused constant difficulties and occasional disorder. the commonwealth at the present day is suffering for past neglect, and has found itself within the last year compelled to imitate new zealand in placing taxes on undeveloped land, with a higher percentage against absentees. let us add that grey, like duffy and most of the strongest advocates of home rule for the colonies, was a federalist long before federation became practical politics, seeing in that policy the best means of achieving the threefold aim of giving each colony in a group ample local freedom, of binding the whole group together into a compact, coherent state, and of strengthening the connection between that state and the mother country. as governor at the cape from to he vainly urged the home government to promote a federal union of the various south african states, dutch and british, in order, as he said, to create "an united south africa under the british flag," a scheme which, it is generally agreed, could then have been carried out, and which would have saved south africa from terrible disasters. and he wished to apply the same federal principle to the australian colonies, and to the case of ireland and great britain. he realized earlier than most men that the talk of "separation" and "disloyalty" was, in his own words already quoted, the result of a "vicious tendency to confuse cause and effect," and that to govern men by their own consent, to let them work out their own ideals in their own way, to encourage, not to repress, their sense of nationality, is the best way to gain their affection, or, if we choose to use that very misleading word, their loyalty. australia and new zealand present remarkable examples of this beneficent process, australia in particular, because there, for a long time even after the introduction of responsible government and, indeed, until a dozen years ago, there was a large party of so-called "disloyalists" who were never weary of decrying british influences and upholding australian nationality. mr. jebb, in his "colonial nationalism," gives an interesting account of this movement and of its organ, the widely circulated _sydney bulletin_, with its furiously anti-british views, its radicalism, its republicanism, and what not. he shows amusingly how entirely harmless the propaganda really was, and what a healthy effect it actually had in promoting an independence of feeling and national self-respect among australians, to such a degree that when the south african war broke out, there was a universal outburst of patriotism and a universal desire, which was realized, to share to the full as a nation in the expense, danger, and hardships of the war. mr. jebb adds the interesting suggestion that the reluctance of new zealand to enter the australian federation may be partly due to the strong individual sentiment of nationality evoked within her by the war and the exceptional exertions she made to aid the imperial troops. his book is a psychological study of men in the mass. what he sets out to prove, and what he does successfully prove, is that the encouragement of minor nationalities is not merely consistent with, but essential to, the unity of the empire. yet he never mentions ireland, not even for the purpose of proving her an exception to the rule, and i do not think i ever gauged the full extent of the prejudice against that country until i realized that in such a book such a topic did not receive even a line of notice; yet one would naturally suppose that it was as important to the empire, morally and strategically, to possess the affection and respect of four and a half million citizens within miles of the british coast as of the same number of citizens at the antipodes. mr. jebb is a unionist. how he reaches his conclusion i do not know. it would seem to be beyond human power to construct a case against home rule for ireland, with its strongly marked individuality of character and sentiment, which did not textually stultify his case for the more distant dependencies. his party generally is in sympathy with the views expressed in his book, and has done much to further them. how do they reconcile them with opposition to home rule for ireland? how do they explain away the support for that policy in the dominions? it seems to me that their only resource would be to say: "we are bound to maintain, and we have the necessary physical force to maintain, the present political system in ireland, because to alter it would impair the formal legislative 'unity' of the united kingdom; but let us frankly admit that as long as we take this view there can be no 'union' in the highest sense of the word. ireland must be retarded and estranged. we cannot raise territorial volunteers within her borders; on the contrary, we must keep and pay for a standing army of police to preserve our authority there. her population must diminish, her vital energy ebb away to other lands; as a market for our goods and as a source of revenue for imperial purposes she must remain undeveloped and unprogressive. she will continue rightly to agitate for home rule, and this agitation will always be baneful both to her and to us. it will distract her energies from her own economic and social problems. it will embitter and degrade our politics, and dislocate our parliamentary institutions. she must suffer, we must suffer, the empire must suffer. it is sad, but inevitable." morality aside, is that common sense? is it strange that the colonies themselves regard such logic, when applied to ireland, as perverted and absurd? before leaving australia we have only to recall the fact that at the close of the last century, after a generation of controversy and negotiation, the canadian example of was at length imitated, and the federal union formed which amalgamated all the mainland states, together with tasmania, in the commonwealth of australia, and that the union was sanctioned and legalized by the imperial act of . new zealand preferred to remain a distinct state. the australians departed in some important respects from the canadian model, the main difference being that a greater measure of independence was retained by the individual states, and smaller powers delegated to the central government. this was a matter of voluntary arrangement as between the states themselves, the home government standing wholly aside on the sound principle that australia knew its own interests best, and that what was best for australia was best for the empire. footnotes: [ ] letter to lord malmesbury, august , ("memoirs of an ex-minister," by the earl of malmesbury, vol. i., p. ). [ ] "life of gladstone," vol. i., p. . [ ] annual treasury returns ["imperial revenue (collection and expenditure)"]. according to these returns, ireland's imperial contribution in , before the famine, was £ , , ; in , after the famine, £ , , , and in - no less than £ , , . at the latter date the colonies were estimated to cost three and a half millions a year, of which nine-tenths were contributed by the taxpayers at home, british and irish. [ ] full information may be found in "the irish in australia," by j.f. hogan. [ ] for an excellent historical description of the various australian land systems, see the official "year-book of the commonwealth," . [ ] "life of sir george grey," professor g.c. henderson. chapter vii south africa and ireland in the years - , when wentworth was agitating for self-government in new south wales, and when canada was in rebellion for the lack of it, thousands of waggons, driven by men smarting under the same sort of grievance, were jolting northward across the south african veld bearing dutch families from the british colony of the cape of good hope to the new realms we now know as the orange river colony and the transvaal. the "great trek" was a form of protest against bad government to which we have no parallel in the empire save in the wholesale emigrations from ireland at various periods of her history--after the treaty of limerick, again after the destruction of the wool trade, again in - , after the ulster evictions, and lastly after the great famine. the trekkers, like the irish emigrants, nursed a resentment against the british government which was a source of untold expense and suffering in the future. indeed, the whole history of south africa bears a close resemblance to the history of ireland. in no other part of the empire, save in ireland, was the policy of the home government so persistently misguided, in spite of constantly recurring opportunities for the repair of past errors. fatality seems from first to last to have dogged the footsteps of those who tried to govern there. before the british conquest the dutch east india company and the netherlands government were as unsuccessful as their british successors, whose legal claim to the cape, established for the second time by conquest in , was definitely confirmed by the congress of vienna in . the dutch colonists were a fine race of men, whose ancestors, like the puritan founders of new england, had fled in from religious persecution, and who retained the virile qualities of their race. though in many respects they resembled the backward and intensely conservative french-canadian inhabitants, they differed from them, and resembled their closer relatives in race, the new englanders, in an innate passion for free representative government. they had rebelled repeatedly against their dutch oppressors, and had gone through a brief republican phase. it is an example, therefore, of the thoughtless inconsequence of our old colonial policy that we gave the french-canadians, who were the least desirous of it, the form, without the spirit, of representative institutions, while we denied, until it was too late to avert racial discord, even the form to the cape dutch. in truth, the colony seems to have been regarded purely in the light of a naval station, while the british and irish inflow of settlers, dating from about the year , contemporaneously with the advent of free settlers in australia, suggested the possibility of racial oppression by the dutch majority. yet if there was little real reason to fear oppression by the french in canada, there was still less reason to fear such oppression in the cape, where dutch ideals and civilization were far more similar to those of the british. in america the absorption of the dutch colonies in the seventeenth century had led to the peaceful fusion of both races, nor was there any reason why, under wise rule, the same fusion should not have occurred in south africa. until authority was purely military and despotic. in that year was established a small legislative council of officials and nominated members, with no representative element. in came the great trek. no one disputes that the dutch colonists had grievances, without the means of redress. as usual, we find a land question in the shape of enhanced rents charged by government after the british occupation; the dutch language was excluded from official use, and english local institutions were introduced with unnecessary abruptness; but the principal grievance concerned the native tribes. slavery existed in the colony, and its borders were continually threatened by these tribes. the dutch colonists were often terribly brutal to the natives; nevertheless there is little doubt that a tactful and sympathetic policy could easily have secured for them a more humane treatment, and the abolition of slavery without economic dislocation. but a strong humanitarian sentiment was sweeping over england at the time, including in its range the negro slaves of jamaica and the unconquered kaffirs of south africa, but absolutely ignoring, let us note in passing, the economic serfdom of the half-starved irish peasantry at our very doors. members of this school took too little account of the tremendous difficulties faced in south africa by small handfuls of white colonists in contact with hordes of savages. the colonial government, with a knowledge of the conditions gained only from well-meaning but somewhat prejudiced missionaries, endeavoured from onwards to enforce an impracticable equality between white and coloured men, and abolished slavery at one sudden stroke in without reasonable compensation. a large number of the dutch, unable to tolerate this treatment, deserted the british flag. those that remained were under suspicion for more than thirty years, so that political progress was very slow. it was not till that the colony received a representative assembly, and not until , eighteen years later than in australia, and twenty-five years later than in canada, that full responsible government was established. piet retief, one of the leaders of the voluntary exiles, had published a proclamation in the following terms before he joined the trek: "we quit this colony under the full assurance that the english government has nothing more to require of us, and will allow us to govern ourselves without its interference in the future. we are now leaving the fruitful land of our birth, in which we have suffered enormous losses and continual vexation, and are about to enter a strange and dangerous territory; but we go with a firm reliance on an all-seeing, just, and merciful god, whom we shall always fear and humbly endeavour to obey." this was high language, yet after-events proved that a steady, consistently fair treatment on our part would even then have reconciled these men to a permanent continuance of british sovereignty. unfortunately, our policy oscillated painfully between irritating interference and excessive timidity. first of all attempts were made to stop the trek by force, then to compel the trekkers to return by cutting off their supplies and ammunition, then to throttle their development of the new lands north of the orange and vaal rivers by calling into being fictitious native states on a huge scale in the midst of and around them, then tardily to repair the disastrous effects of this policy; but not before it had led to open hostilities ( ). hostilities, however, had this temporarily good result, in that it brought to the front one of the ablest and wisest of the cape governors, sir harry smith, who defeated the boers at boomplatz in , established what went by the name of the orange river sovereignty, and in a year or two secured such good and peaceful government within its borders as to attract considerable numbers of english and scotch colonists. the malcontents retired across the vaal. then came an abrupt change of policy in the home government, a sudden desire actuated mainly by fear of more native wars, to cancel all that was possible of our commitments in south africa. the transvaal, by the sand river convention, was declared independent in , the orange free state, by the convention of bloemfontein, in . this was to rush from one extreme to the other. it was as though in we had erected quebec into a sovereign state instead of giving it responsible government under the crown, or as if in we had been so deeply convinced by o'connell's second agitation for repeal that we had leapt straight from coercive government to the foundation of an independent republic in ireland, instead of giving her the kind of home rule which she was asking for. it was not yet too late to mend. in , when the cession of the free state had just been carried out, sir george grey, whom we have met with in australia and new zealand, came as high commissioner to the cape. in he made the proposal i alluded to in the last chapter for federating all the south african states, including the two new republics. there is little doubt that the scheme was feasible then. the orange free state was willing to join, and, indeed, had initiated proposals for federation. its adhesion would have compelled the transvaal, always more hostile to british rule, to come in eventually, if not at once; for the relations of the two republics were friendly enough at the time to permit one man, pretorius, to be president of both states. the scheme was rejected by lord derby's tory cabinet, and grey, a "dangerous man," as lord carnarvon, the colonial secretary, dubbed him, was recalled. sixteen years later, in , lord carnarvon himself, as a member of the disraeli ministry, revived the project. converted in his views of the colonies, like many of his tory colleagues at this period, he had carried through parliament the federation of canada in , and hoped to do the same with south africa. but it was too late. the cape parliament, now in possession of a responsible ministry, was hostile, while twenty years of self-government, for the most part under the great president brand, had changed the sentiments of the free state. federation, then, was impossible. on the other hand, the transvaal was in a state of political unrest and of danger from native aggression, which gave a pretext for reversion to the long-abandoned policy of annexation, and to that extreme carnarvon promptly went in april, . he took this dangerous course without ascertaining the considered wishes of the majority of the boers, acting through his emissary, sir t. shepstone, on the informal application of a minority of townsmen who honestly wished to come under british rule. rash as the measure was, lasting good might have come of it had the essential step been taken of preserving representative government. the promise was given and broken. for three years the assembly, or volksraad, was not summoned. once more home statesmanship was blind, and local administration blunderingly oppressive. shepstone was the wrong man for the post of administrator. sir owen lanyon, his successor, was an arrogant martinet of the stamp familiar in canada before , and painfully familiar in ireland. the refusal of an assembly naturally strengthened the popular demand for a reversal of the annexation, and this demand, twice pressed in london through a deputation headed by paul kruger, obscured the whole issue, and raised a question of british national pride, with all its inevitable consequences, where none need have been raised. there was a moment of hope when sir bartle frere, who stands, perhaps, next to sir george grey on the roll of eminent high commissioners, endeavoured to pacify the boer malcontents, and drafted the scheme of a liberal constitution for the transvaal. but one of the last acts of the tory government, at the end of , was to recall frere for an alleged transgression of his powers in regard to the zulu war, and to pigeon-hole his scheme. mr. gladstone, who in opposition had denounced the annexation with good enough justification, though in terms which under the circumstances were immoderate, found himself compelled to confirm it when he took office in april, . but he, too, allowed the liberal constitution to sleep in its pigeon-hole. he was assured by the officials on the spot that there was no danger, that the majority were loyal, and only a minority of turbulent demagogues disloyal; and in december, , the rebellion duly broke out, and the transvaal republic was proclaimed. what followed we know, war, laing's nek, majuba, and one more violent oscillation of policy in the concession of a virtual independence to the transvaal. whatever we may think of the policy of this concession, and lord morley has made the best case that can be made for mr. gladstone's action, it is certain that it was only a link in a long chain of blunders for which both great political parties had been equally responsible, and of which the end had not yet come. the nation at large, scarcely alive until now to the existence of the colonies, was stung into imperial consciousness by a national humiliation, for so it was not unnaturally regarded, coming from an obscure pastoral community confusedly identified as something between a colony, a foreign power, and a troublesome native tribe. the history of the previous seventy years in south africa was either unknown or forgotten, and mr. gladstone, who in past years had preached to indifferent hearers the soundest and sanest doctrine of enlightened imperialism, suddenly appeared, and for ever after remained in the eyes of a great body of his countrymen, as a betrayer of the nation's honour. resentment was all the greater in that it was universally believed that laing's nek and majuba were unlucky little accidents, and that another month or two of hostilities would have humbled the boers to the dust. this illusion, which is not yet eradicated, and which has coloured all subsequent discussion of the subject, lasted unmodified until the first months of the war in , when events took place exactly similar to laing's nek and majuba, and were followed by a campaign lasting nearly three years, requiring nearly , men for its completion, and the co-operation of the whole empire. it is impossible to estimate the course events would have taken in had the war been prolonged. if the free state had joined the transvaal, it may be reasonably conjectured that we should have been weaker, relatively, than in . though the boers were less numerous, less well organized, and less united as a nation in , they were even better shots and stalkers than in , because they had had more recent practice against game and natives; nor was there a large british population in the transvaal to counteract their efforts and supply magnificent corps like the imperial light horse for service in arms against them. our army, just as brave, was in every other respect, especially in the matter of mounted men and marksmanship, less fitted for such a peculiar campaign, and could have counted with far less certainty upon that assistance from mounted colonial troops without which the war of - could never have been finished at all. our command of the sea was less secure; the egyptian war of was brewing, and ireland, where the great land act of was not yet law, was seething with crime and disorder little distinguishable from war itself, and demanding large bodies of troops. if the further course of a war in is a matter of speculation, what we all know for certain is, first, that the conditions which led to war were produced by seventy years of vacillating policy, and, second, that war itself would have been a useless waste of life and treasure, unless success in it had been followed, as in , by the grant of that responsible government which all along had been the key to the whole difficulty, the condition precedent to a federal union of the south african states, and to their closer incorporation in the empire. few persons realized this at the time. the whole situation changed disastrously for the worse. arrogance and mutual contempt embittered the relations of the races. then came a crucial test for the boer capacity for enlightened and generous statesmanship. gold was discovered in the transvaal, and a large british population flocked in. the same problem, with local modifications, faced the boers as had been faced in upper and lower canada, and for centuries past in ireland. were they to trust or suspect, to admit or to exclude from full political rights, the new-comers? was it to be the policy of the duke of wellington or of the earl of durham, of fitzgibbon or the volunteers? they chose the wrong course, and set up an oligarchical ascendancy like the "family compact" of upper canada and nova scotia. can we be surprised that they, a rude, backward race, failed under the test where we ourselves, with far less justification, had failed so often? their experience of our methods had been bad from first to last. their latest taste of our rule had been the coercive system of lanyon, and they feared, with only too good reason, as events after the second war proved, that any concession would lead to a counter-ascendancy of british interests in a country which was legally their own, not a portion of the british dominions. we had suffered nothing, and had no reason to fear anything, from the irish and french-canadian catholics, nor from the nonconformist radicals of upper canada. it would have been well if a small fraction of the abuse lavished on the tyrannical boer oligarchy six thousand miles away had been diverted into criticism of the government of a country within sixty miles of our shores, where a large majority of the inhabitants had been for generations asking for the same thing as the uitlander minority in the transvaal--home rule--and were stimulated to make that demand by grievances of a kind unknown in the transvaal. but the british blood was up; the boer blood was up. such an atmosphere is not favourable to far-seeing statesmanship, and it would have taken statesmanship on both sides little short of superhuman to avert another war. the silly raid of and its condonation by public opinion in england hastened the explosion. can anyone wonder that public opinion in ireland was instinctively against that war? only a pedant will seize on the supposed paradox that a war for equal rights for white men should have met with reprobation from an ireland clamouring for home rule. irish experience amply justified irishmen in suspecting precisely what the boers suspected, a counter-ascendancy in the gold interest, and in seeing in a war for the conquest of a small independent country by a mighty foreign power an analogy to the original conquest of ireland by the same power. it is hard to speak with restraint of the educated men--men with books and time to read them, with brains and the wealth and leisure to develop them--who to this very day abuse their talents in encouraging among the ignorant multitude the belief that the irish leaders of that day were, to use the old hackneyed phrase, "traitors to the empire." if we look at the whole of these events in just perspective, if we search coolly and patiently for abiding principles beneath the sordid din and confusion of racial strife, we shall agree that in some respects irishmen were better friends to the empire than the politicians who denounced them, and sounder judges of its needs. yet there can be no doubt that the transvaal complications, followed unhappily by the gordon episode in the soudan, reacted fatally on ireland, and that the irish problem in its turn reacted with bad effect on the transvaal. when the statesman who refused to avenge majuba in proposed his irish home rule bills in and , it was easy for prejudiced minds to associate the two policies as harmonious parts of one great scheme of national dismemberment and betrayal. boers, irish, and soudanese savages, all were confusedly lumped together as dangerous people whom it was england's duty to conquer and coerce. the south african war of - came and passed. people will discuss to the end of time whether or not it could have been avoided. parties will differ to the end of time about its moral justification. for my own part, i think it is pleasanter to dwell on the splendid qualities it evoked in both races, and above all on the mutual respect which replaced the mutual contempt of earlier days. i myself am disposed to think that at the pass matters had reached in nothing but open war could have set the relations of the two races on a healthy footing. but bold and generous statesmanship was needed if the fruits of this mutual respect were to be reaped. the defeated republics were now british colonies, their inhabitants british subjects. after many vicissitudes we were back once more in the old political situation of before the great trek, and the policy which was right then was right now. bitter awakening as it was to our proud people after a war involving such colossal sacrifices, it was still just as true as of old that in ireland, canada, australia, south africa, or anywhere else, it is utterly impossible for one white democracy to rule another properly on the principle of ascendancy. it was physically possible, thanks to ireland's proximity, to deny that country home rule, but it would not have been even physically possible in the transvaal and orange river colony. yet the idea was conceived and the policy strongly backed which could only have had the disastrous effect of bringing into being two irelands in the midst of our south african dominions. it is not yet generally recognized that we owe the defeat of this policy in the first instance to lord kitchener. from the moment he took the supreme military command in south africa at the end of , while prosecuting the war with iron severity and sleepless energy, he insisted on and worked for a settlement by consent, with a formal promise of future self-government to the boers. in this he was in sharp opposition to lord milner, who desired to extort an unconditional surrender. of these two strong, able, high-minded men, the soldier, curiously enough, was the better statesman. in temperament he recalls the general abercromby of on the eve of the irish rebellion, still more perhaps general carleton, who administered french canada in the critical period after its conquest and during the american war. lord milner, in political theory, not in personality, corresponds to fitzgibbon. his view was that british prestige and authority could only be maintained in the future by thus humbling the national pride of our adversaries, who, moreover, by the formal annexations of , carried into effect when the war was still young, were by a legal fiction rebels, not belligerents. lord kitchener, besides seeing, as the responsible soldier in the field, the sheer physical impossibility of lowering the boer national pride by any military operations he had the power to undertake, from the beginning of the guerilla war onwards, was a truer judge of human nature and a better imperialist at heart in realizing that the self-respect of the boers was a precious asset, not a dangerous menace to the empire, and that the whole fate of south africa depended on a racial reconciliation on the basis of equal political rights, which would be for ever precluded by compelling the boers to pass under the caudine forks. fortunately lord kitchener was supported by the home government, and the peace of vereeniging took the form of a surrender on terms, or, virtually, of a treaty, formally guaranteeing, among other things, the concession "when circumstances should permit" of "representative institutions leading up to self-government." the next ordeal of british statesmanship came when the time arrived in to redeem this promise. there were two distinctly defined alternatives: one, to profit by experience and to give responsible government at once; the other, for the time being, to copy one of the constitutional models which had long been obsolete curiosities in the history of all the white colonies, which had never failed to produce mischievous results, whether in a bi-racial or a uni-racial community, and which were in reality suited only to groups of officials and traders living in the midst of uneducated coloured races in tropical lands. the government, and we cannot doubt that their traditional policy toward ireland warped their views, declared for the latter alternative, and issued under letters patent a constitution which happily never came into force. like the act of union with ireland, it gave the shadow of freedom without the substance. it set up a single legislative chamber, four-fifths elective, but containing, as _ex-officio_ members, the whole of the executive council as nominated by the crown. executive power, therefore, together with the last word in all legislation, was to remain wholly in the hands of the crown, acting through a ministry not responsible to the people's representatives. it would have been difficult to design a plan more certain to promote friction, racialism, and an eventual deadlock, necessitating either a humiliating surrender by the government under pressure of the refusal of supplies, or a reversion to despotic government which would have produced another war. with wide differences of detail and with the added risk of financial deadlock, it was sought to establish the kind of political situation prevalent in ireland after the act of union. the executive power in that country, and, with the exception of the department of agriculture, the policy and personnel of the host of nominated boards through which its affairs are administered, still stand wholly outside popular control, while legislation in accordance with irish views is only possible when, in the fluctuation of the british party balance, a british ministry happens to be in sympathy with these views, and only too often not even then. statesmen who looked with complacency on the history of a century in ireland under such a system naturally took a similar view of the transvaal, deriving it from the same low estimate of human tendencies. the literature, despatches, and speeches of the period carry us straight back to the canadian controversies of - , and beyond them to the union controversy of . in one respect the parallel with the irish union is closer, because, while british opinion in lower canada was predominantly against responsible government, there was in ireland a strong current of unbribed protestant opinion against the union. similarly, in the transvaal, there was a strong feeling among a section of the british population, coinciding with the general wishes of the dutch population, in favour of full responsible government. in other words, the mere prospect of self-government lessened racial cleavage, brought men of the two races together, and began the evolution of a new party cleavage on the normal lines natural to modern communities. the whole question was keenly canvassed at public meetings and in the press from november, , to february , , and in johannesburg a british party of considerable strength took the lead in demanding the fuller political rights, and formed the responsible government association. the controversy was embodied in a blue-book laid before parliament,[ ] and at every stage of its progress the facts were cabled home by lord milner to the government, who thus had the whole situation before them when they came to their decision. it would be worth the reader's while to study with some care the terms of the despatch announcing that decision.[ ] he will feel himself in contact with fundamental principles, undisturbed by individual bias; for no one could suspect mr. lyttelton, the genial and popular secretary of state who penned the despatch, of any violent prejudices. yet the spirit of the whole despatch, though gentle and persuasive in its terms, is the spirit of fitzgibbon's brutally outspoken argument for the extinction of the irish parliament, and the complete exclusion of irish roman catholics from influence over their country's affairs. the despatch begins, it is true, by explaining that the proposed constitution is only intended to be temporary; that it had been the invariable custom to grant freedom to the colonies by degrees, and that the custom must be followed; but the reasons adduced for following it, if we consider that they were adduced in the year , instead of a century and a half back, constitute one of the strangest of all the strange inversions of historical cause and effect which a home rule controversy has ever suggested to the human brain. instead of inferring from our bitter experiences in upper and lower canada, which are mentioned in the despatch, and in ireland, which is not, that race distinctions increase instead of lessening the necessity for responsible government, mr. lyttelton complacently quotes bi-racial lower canada as a precedent for his transvaal constitution. quite frankly, though in curiously misleading terms,[ ] he records the fact that a similar constitution there led to deadlock and rebellion. without intention to deceive, he ignores the fact that wholly british upper canada reached the same pass for the same reasons; and he appears to look forward with equanimity to the passage of the unfortunate transvaal through an identically painful phase of history toward the same sanguinary climax. the radical error in the official version of events in canada appears in the comparison between the rebellions of and the south african war of - . to contrast the "brief armed rising" in canada with the three years' war in south africa, and to argue that a degree of freedom could safely be given after the former, which would involve great danger after the latter, was to show ignorance of the chain of historical events and blindness to their true moral. the underlying idea is the one applied to the old american colonies and for centuries to ireland, namely, that the more mutinous a dependency is, the less reason for giving it home rule, with the paradoxical corollary applied even to this day in ireland, that if it is not disorderly it does not need home rule. so from age to age statesmen run their heads against facts, perpetuate the errors of their forefathers, and do their unconscious best to intensify the evils they deplore. it was erroneous to regard either the canadian rebellions or the boer war as events which rendered responsible government more or less dangerous. each of these events was itself the climax of a long period of irresponsible misgovernment dating from about the same period, the second decade of the nineteenth century, and demanding the same remedy. in the boer case, continuity was twice broken by grants of independence, and the climax proportionally delayed, but the origin of the trouble was the same. if the boers had not trekked _en masse_ from cape colony in order to escape from misgovernment, both movements--in the cape and canada--might have come to a head in exactly the same year, . in sober, weighty, tactful phrases, carefully chosen to avoid giving needless offence to the dutch, the despatch laboriously overthrows the liberal theory of government, and works out the negation of all imperial experience. it deplores the "bitter memories" of war, which free institutions, by tending to "emphasize and stereotype the racial line," will make more, not less bitter, and which can be effaced only by the "healing effect of time." we think of the durham report, of ireland, and marvel. we recollect the bulky blue-book at mr. lyttelton's elbow as he wrote, full of speeches and articles by englishmen, showing quite correctly, as has since been proved, that the "racial line" in johannesburg was growing fainter daily with the mere prospect of responsible government. these men were not afraid of the dutch, and said so. the answer was that they ought to be, or, in the persuasive language of diplomacy, as follows: "his majesty's government trust that those of british origin in the transvaal who, with honest conviction, have advocated the immediate concession of full responsible government, will recognize the soundness and cogency of the reasons, both in their own interests and in those of the empire, for proceeding more cautiously and slowly, and that under a political system which admittedly has its difficulties they will, notwithstanding a temporary disappointment, do their best to promote the welfare of the country and the smooth working of its institutions." then came a chivalrous compliment to the dutch for their "gallant struggle" in the war, coupled with a reminder that they are not to be trusted with political power, a reminder so courteously worded that it, too, becomes a compliment: "the inhabitants of dutch origin have recently witnessed, after their gallant struggle against superior power, the fall of the republic founded by the valour and sufferings of their ancestors, and cannot be expected, until time has done more to heal the wound, to entertain the most cordial feelings towards the government of the transvaal. but from them also, as from a people of practical genius, who have learned by long experience to make the best of circumstances, his majesty's government expect co-operation in the task of making their race, no longer in isolated independence, a strong pillar in the fabric of a world-wide empire. that this should be the result, and that a complete reconciliation between men of two great and kindred races should, under the leading of divine providence, speedily come to pass, is the ardent desire of his majesty the king and of his majesty's government." the tone recalls the tone of pitt and castlereagh in proposing the union. but fitzgibbon went more directly to the point in saying outright that, ireland having been conquered and confiscated, the colonists "were at the mercy of the old inhabitants of the island," and that laws must be framed by an external power to "meet the vicious propensities of human nature." let us recognize unreservedly that the words of the transvaal despatch were the outcome of deep and sincere conviction. that is the worst of it. from age to age ireland has to suffer for the depth and sincerity of these convictions. there, too, the cleavage of race and religion, never complete, always defying the official efforts to "stereotype and emphasize it," to quote the despatch of , grows fainter with time, and will grow fainter as long as the national movement lives to draw men together in the common interest of ireland. the volunteers, wolfe tone, emmet, many of the young irelanders, isaac butt, parnell, were protestants. and there is a strong band of protestant home rulers to-day in ulster and out of it, landlords, tenants, capitalists, labourers, members of parliament, and clergymen, who declare that they are not afraid of catholic oppression, and who are told by unionists that they ought to be. and in ireland, too, the roman catholic majority are told, rarely, it is true, in the courteous phrases of mr. lyttelton's despatch, that they "cannot be expected to entertain the most cordial feelings towards the government." in ireland, also, is a "political system which admittedly has its difficulties," ironical euphemism for a system whose analogue in the transvaal could have been used by the subject race, had they so willed, to bring civil government to a standstill, without the means of furnishing anything better, and which under the act of union can be, and has been, used to dislocate the parliamentary life of the united kingdom. the boers were asked "as a people of practical genius" to assist the "smooth working" of an unworkable constitution, so as to promote the "reconciliation of two great and kindred races." the irish are pursued with invective for legitimately using the constitutional power given them in order, while freeing parliament from an intolerable incubus, to gain the right to elicit character and responsibility in themselves by shouldering their own burdens and saving their own souls. if the official view of the transvaal was mistaken, the summit of error was reached in the view taken of the orange river colony. in that colony, which was almost wholly pastoral and dutch, and which until the war had enjoyed free institutions uninterruptedly for half a century, and had made remarkably good vise of them, representative government, even of the illusory kind designed for the transvaal, was to be indefinitely postponed, postponed at any rate until the results of the "experiment" in the transvaal had been observed. the government "recognize that there are industrial and economic conditions peculiar to the transvaal, which make it very desirable in that colony to have at the earliest possible date some better means of ascertaining the views of the different sections of the population than the present system affords. the question as regards the orange river colony being a less urgent one, it appears to them that there will be advantage in allowing a short period to intervene before elective representative institutions are granted to the last-named colony, because this will permit his majesty's government to observe the experiment, and, if need be, to profit by the experience so gained." what is the train of reasoning in this strange specimen of political argument? it was important to "ascertain the views" of the bi-racial transvaal, but needless to ascertain the views of the practically homogeneous orange river colony. the "question" there is a "less urgent one." what question? why less urgent? is it that the british minority, being so very small, is more liable to oppression by the dutch? that is a tenable point, though by parity of reasoning it would seem to make the question more, not less, urgent, and the importance of "ascertaining the views" of the different sections of the population, greater, not less. or is it the diametrically opposite train of thought, namely, that an assumed improbability of disorder owing to the homogeneity of the population is a reason, not for giving home rule, but for withholding it? these contradictions and confusions are painfully familiar in anti-home rule dialectics all over the world. a quiet ireland does not want home rule; a turbulent ireland is not fit for it. if the unionist element in ireland is strong, that is clearly an argument for withholding home rule in deference to the wishes of a strong minority. if the minority, on the other hand, is proved to be small, all the greater reason for withholding it, because oppression by the majority will be easier. so the sterile argument swings back and forth, and men still talk of "experiments" and "profiting by experience," while the demonstration of their errors is written in the blood and tears of centuries, and while masses of facts accumulate, demonstrating the great truth that free democratic government, whatever its disadvantages and dangers--and it has both--is the best resource for uniting, strengthening, and enriching a community of white men. the transvaal constitution of was cancelled on the incoming of the liberal ministry at the end of that year, and in the following year full responsible government was granted both to the transvaal and orange river colony, with the results that we know. instantaneously there permeated the bi-racial urban society in the transvaal a new sense of brotherhood. men of different race, as far apart in spirit as the members of the kildare street club, the orange societies, and the ancient order of hibernians, met and made friends because it was not only natural but necessary to make friends, since on all alike lay the burden of doing their best for their country on a basis of equal citizenship. nobody out there called the new system an "experiment." the wrench once over, the thing once done, there was general unanimity that whatever the difficulties--and there were great difficulties--it was the right thing to be done under the circumstances, and if this unanimity was combined, rightly or wrongly, with a good deal of resentment against the liberal attitude at home towards chinese labour, nobody is any the worse for that. the day will come when even that burning question will be seen in its true perspective as an infinitesimally small point beside the great principle of responsible government, which includes the decision of labour questions, together with all other branches of domestic policy. conservative opinion at home has been slower to change than british opinion in the transvaal. but, again, this was natural. parties had long been divided on the south african question. the abrupt reversal of policy was felt as a humiliation, and the ingrained mental habits engendered by the traditional policy towards ireland yielded slowly, grudgingly, and fearfully to the proof of error in south africa. it is not for the sake of opening an old wound, but solely because it is absolutely necessary for the completion of my argument, that i have to recall the angry and violent speeches which followed the announcement of the new policy; the dogmatic prognostications of imperial disruption, of financial collapse, and of a cruel boer tyranny in the emancipated colonies; the charges of wanton betrayal of loyalists, of disgraceful surrender to "the enemy." some of the leading actors in these scenes, notably mr. balfour and mr. lyttelton, have since acknowledged that they were wrong, while apparently feeling it their duty as honourable and loyal men to give a somewhat misleading turn to an old controversy in their praise of lord milner's services to south africa. that lord milner, in his administration during and after the war, did, indeed, do a vast amount of sound and lasting work for south africa is perfectly true, and he deserves all honour for it. probably no public servant of the empire ever laboured in its service with more unstinted devotion and a higher sense of duty. but good administration is not an adequate substitute for knowledge of men, and that knowledge lord milner lacked. he did no service to the british colonists of south africa in telling them that they had been shamefully betrayed by the home government in . it would have been wiser to advise them to rely on themselves and on the justice and wisdom of their dutch fellow-citizens. his violent speeches in - about the calamitous results of permitting dutch influences free play in south africa--speeches breathing the essential spirit of fitzgibbonism--would have wrought incalculable mischief had they coincided with effective british policy; while his view, as expressed in the house of lords,[ ] that a preparatory régime of benevolent despotism, showing "the obvious solicitude of the government for the welfare of the people," and taking shape "in a hundred and one works of material advancement," would "win us friends and diminish our enemies," evinces an ignorance of the ordinary motives influencing the conduct of white men, which would be incredible if we had not irish experience before us. "twenty years of resolute government," said lord salisbury. "home rule will be killed by kindness," said many of his successors. in later chapters i shall have to show what well-meant kindness and resolute government have done for ireland. if even at this late hour lord milner would frankly acknowledge his error, i believe he would enormously enhance his reputation in the eyes of the whole empire. as practical men, let us remember that the constitutions of would not have become law if, instead of being issued under letters patent, they had had to pass through parliament in the form of a bill. the whole conservative party, following lord milner, was vehemently against the letters patent. those who witnessed the debate upon them in the house of commons will not forget the scene. i recall this fact without any desire to entangle myself in the current controversy about the upper house, but with the strictly practical object of showing that because a home rule bill is defeated in parliament, as the irish bills of and were defeated, it does not necessarily follow that its policy is wrong. nor does it follow that its policy is wrong if that defeat in parliament is confirmed by a general election. home rule for canada never had to pass, and would not have passed even the parliamentary test. skilful and determined organization could have wrecked even the australian constitutions. no one, certainly, could have guaranteed a favourable result of a general election taken expressly upon the transvaal and orange river constitutions of , with the whole machinery of one of the great parties thrown into the scale against them. we know the case made against ireland on such occasions, and the case against the conquered republics was made in parliament with ten times greater force. if anyone doubts this, let him compare the speeches on ireland in and with the speeches on south africa in - . with the alteration of a name or two, with the substitution, for example, of johannesburg for ulster, the speeches against south african and irish home rule might be almost interchangeable. for electioneering purposes, evidences, in word and act, of boer treason, rapacity, and vindictiveness, could have been made by skilful orators to seem damning and unanswerable. all the arts for inflaming popular passion under the pretext of "patriotism" would have been used, and we know that patriotism sometimes assumes strange disguises. the material would have been rich and easily accessible. instead of having to ransack ancient numbers of irish or american newspapers for incautious phrases dropped by mr. redmond or mr. o'brien in moments of unusual provocation, the speeches of botha, steyn, and de wet, during the war, and even at the peace conference, would have been ready for the hoardings and the fly-sheets, and they would have had an appreciable effect. am i weakening the case for democracy itself in pressing this view? surely not. one democracy is incapable of understanding the domestic needs and problems of another. whenever, therefore, a democracy finds itself responsible for the adjudication of a claim for home rule from white men, it should limit itself to ascertaining whether the claim is genuine and sincere. if it is, the claim should be granted, and a constitution constructed in friendly concert with the men who are to live under it. that way lies safety and honour, and, happily, the democracy is being educated to that truth. if this be a counsel of perfection; if the difficult and delicate task of settling the details of irish home rule is to be hampered and complicated by the resuscitation of those time-honoured discussions over abstract principles which ought long ago to have been buried and forgotten, let every patriotic and enlightened man at any rate do his best to sweeten and mollify the controversy, to extirpate its grosser manifestations, and to substitute reason for passion. the grant of responsible government to the transvaal and orange river colony reacted with amazing rapidity on south african politics as a whole. it took the canadian provinces twenty-seven years (if we reckon from ), and the australian states forty-five years (if we reckon from ), to reach a federal union. hardly a minute was wasted in south africa. under very able guidance, the scheme was canvassed almost from the first, and in two years trusted leaders of both races, representing natal, cape colony, and two newly emancipated colonies--men, some of whom had been shooting at one another only five years before--were sitting at a table together hammering out the details of a south african union. here, indeed, was shown the "practical genius" which the government of had piously invoked for their abortive constitution. in the spirit of forbearance, of sympathy, of wise compromise, which governed the proceedings of this famous conference, was to be found the measure of the longing of all parties to extinguish racialism and make south africa truly a nation. the imperial act legalizing the arrangements ultimately arrived at by the agreement of the colonists was passed in . the political system constructed cannot be called federal. the framers rejected the australian model, and went much beyond the canadian model in centralizing authority and diminishing local autonomy; nor can there be any doubt that the strongest motive behind that policy was that of securing the harmony of the two white races. all this was the result of trusting the dutch in . "we cannot expect you to trust us, and we shall not trust you," said the despatch of . we know what the consequences of that policy would have been. it is not a question of imagination or hypothesis. it is a question of the operation of certain unchanging laws in the conduct of all white men. good or bad, our government would have been detested. we should have manufactured sedition, lawlessness, and discord. then the tendency would have been strong to follow the old irish precedent, and make the evil symptoms we had ourselves educed the pretext for tightening the screw of anti-popular government. it would have been said that we must sustain our prestige to the end and at all costs, a phrase which often cloaks the obstinacy of moral cowardice. or, too late to escape the contempt of the boers, we might have abruptly surrendered to clamour. it would have taken a long time to reach union then. contempt is a bad foundation. it brings one near despair to see the union of south africa used by men who should know better as an argument against irish home rule. the chain of causation is so clear, one would think, as to be incapable of misconstruction. but there seems to be no limit in certain minds to the prejudice against the principle of home rule. if it is seen to work well, the phenomenon is hurriedly swept into oblivion, and its results attributed with feverish ingenuity to any cause but the true one. the very speed with which the antidote pervades the body politic and expels the old poison helps these untiring propagators of error to suppress the history of recuperation, and to ascribe the cure of the patient to a treatment which, if applied long enough, would have killed him. the conservative party appear to have now reached this amazing conclusion: that they and lord milner were the authors of the south african union, and that that union is a weapon sent them by providence for combating the irish claims. this is what ireland has to pay for being the sport of british parties. individual statesmen may point at past mistakes; but a party, as a party, can never admit error: it is against the rules. to make things easier, there is that question-begging phrase, the "union." if south africa, like australia, had been federalized, this windfall would have been lost, because the word "federal" might have suggested some form of federal home rule for ireland. labels mean an enormous amount in politics. there is not the slightest doubt that mr. walter long, and even lord selborne, who, as high commissioner, actually witnessed the whole evolution from responsible government in the two conquered states to the union of south africa, are perfectly sincere in their opposition to irish home rule. but, i would respectfully suggest, it is their duty to use their knowledge and convictions in the right and fair way. let them say, if they will, ignoring the intermediate and indispensable phase of home rule in south africa: "here are two unions; never mind how they arose. both are good: all unions are good. the modern tendency to unify is sound; do not let us react to devolution." let them, in other words, confine their argument to the domain of political science. what, i submit, they should refrain from, is the imputation of sordid motives to nationalist leaders, the prognostications of religious and racial tyranny in ireland, and all those inflammatory arguments against the principle of home rule which have been used all the world over, from time immemorial, for the maintenance of unions based on legal, not on moral, ties, which were used against responsible government for the transvaal, and which, i venture to affirm, degrade our public life. i am assuming for the moment that most conservatives will elect to use the south african parallel in the way that mr. long and lord selborne have used it, that is, while tacitly approving in retrospect of the home rule of , to argue from union to union. but it is of no use to blink the fact that there are pessimists who will put forward an antithetical case, boldly declaring that we were wrong ever to trust the boers, that racialism is as bad as ever, that general botha's loyalty is cant, the cullinan diamond an insult, and that south africa will go from bad to worse under a dutch tyranny. party propaganda is quite elastic enough to permit the two opposite views to be used to convince the same electorate at the same election. pessimists are always active in these affairs, and they can always produce something in the nature of a plausible case, because it stands to reason that the evils of generations cannot be swept away in a moment, either in south africa or ireland. miracles do not happen, and the pessimists, who are the curse of ireland to-day, will be able to demonstrate with ease that the free ireland of to-morrow will not enter instantaneously upon a millennium. it is useless to attempt to convert these extremists. for a century back, hansard and the columns of daily papers have been full of their unfulfilled jeremiads about canada, about australia, and about the very smallest and most tardy attempts to give a little responsibility to the majority of citizens in ireland. the vocabulary of impending ruin has been exhausted long ago; there is nothing new to be said. but those who care to study in a cool temper the course of recent south african politics in the columns of the _times_, or, better still, in those of that excellent magazine for the discussion of imperial affairs, the _round table_, will conclude that extraordinary progress has been made towards racial reunion, and that in this respect no serious peril threatens south africa. the settlement, by friendly compromise at the end of the last session, of the very thorny question of language in the education of children, is a good example of what good-will can accomplish under free institutions. by a laboured construction of fragments of speeches culled from the utterances of exceptionally vehement partisans, it would be still possible to make up a theory of the "disloyalty" of the south african dutch. it would have been equally possible for a painstaking british student of the _sydney bulletin_ within recent memory to start a panic over the imminent "loss" of australia. some people think that canada is as good as "lost" now. yet the empire has never been so strong or so united as to-day. footnotes: [ ] cd. , . [ ] cd. , . [ ] "it is true that in the case of canada full responsible government was conceded, a few years after a troublous period culminating in a brief armed rising, to a population composed of races then not very friendly to each other, though now long since happily reconciled. but the canadas had by that time enjoyed representative institutions for over fifty years, the french-canadians had since the year been continuously british subjects, and the disorders which preceded lord durham's mission and the subsequent grant of self-government could not compare in any way with a war like that of - . it is also the fact that in the united colony of upper and lower canada, during the period of - , parties were formed mainly upon the lines of races, and that, as the representatives of the races were in number nearly balanced, stability of government was not attained, a difficulty which was not overcome until the federation of , accompanied by the relegation of provincial affairs to provincial legislatures, placed the whole political constitution of canada upon a wider basis." few would gather from the first sentence that the races were "not very friendly to each other" precisely because they lived under a coercive political system; and that, in the long-run, they were "happily reconciled" because they received responsible government. nor could it be deduced from the obscure reference lower down to the union of the two provinces that the union was the one blot upon durham's scheme, the one point in which, fearing the predominance of a french majority in lower canada, he shrank from his own principles and recommended an unworkable union which tended to encourage the formation "of parties on the lines of races." from the further allusion to the federal union of , no one would imagine that that great scheme was founded on a cessation of racial antipathy inside the quebec province, and on a voluntary recognition among all races and parties that it was best for that province to have a local autonomy of its own, parallel with that of the ontario province and under the supreme central authority of the dominion. [ ] february , march , . chapter viii the analogy let the reader endeavour to see the closely related stories of ireland and of these more distant communities as a whole, undistracted by the varying degrees of their proximity to the mother country, making his study one of men and laws, and remembering that ireland was the first and nearest of the british colonies. does not she become a convex mirror, in which, swollen to unnatural proportions, the mistakes of two centuries are reflected? principles of government universal in their nature, transcending geography, and painfully evolved in more distant parts of the empire, we have thrown to the winds in ireland. economic evils, resembling, in however distant a degree, those of ireland, have irritated and retarded every community in which they have been allowed to take root. a sound agrarian system has been the primary need of every country. to take the closest parallel, if absentee proprietorship and insecurity of tenure kept little prince edward island, peacefully and legally settled, backward and disturbed for a century, it is not surprising that ireland, submitted to confiscation, the penal code, and commercial rum, did not flourish under a land system beside which that of prince edward island was a paradise. tardy redress of the worst irish abuses is no defence of the system which created them and sustained them with such ruinous results. no white community of pride and spirit would willingly tolerate the grotesque form of crown colony administration, founded on force, and now tempered by a kind of paternal state socialism, under which ireland lives to-day. unionism for ireland is anti-imperialist. its upholders strenuously opposed colonial autonomy, and but yesterday were passionately opposing south african autonomy. to-day colonial autonomy is an axiom. but ireland is a measure of the depth of these convictions. there would be no empire to idealize if their irish principles had been applied just a little longer to any of the oversea states which constitute the self-governing colonies of to-day. as it is, these principles have wrought great and perhaps lasting mischief which, in the righteous glow of self-congratulation upon what we are accustomed to call our constructive political genius, we are too apt to overlook. it was bad for america to pass through that phase of agitation and discord which preceded the revolutionary war. it was demoralizing for the canadas to be driven into rebellion by the vices of ascendancy government. mr. gladstone, speaking of australian autonomy, was right in satirizing the "miserable jargon" about fitting men for political privileges, and in demonstrating the harm done by withholding those privileges. and the irish race all over the world, fine race as it is, would be finer still if ireland had been free. the political habits formed in dealing with ireland have disastrously influenced imperial policy in the past. cannot we, by a supreme national effort, reverse the mental process, and, if we have always failed in the past to learn from irish lessons how not to treat the colonies, at any rate learn, even at the eleventh hour, from our colonial lessons how to treat ireland? must we for ever sound the old alarms about "disloyalty" and "dismemberment" and "abandonment of the loyal minority to the tender mercies of their foes"; phrases as old as the stamp act of ? must we carry the "gentle art of making enemies," practised to the last point of danger in the colonies, to the preposterous pitch of estranging men at our very doors, while pluming ourselves on the friendship of peoples , miles away? these are anxious times. we have a mighty rival in europe, and we need the co-operation of all our hands and brains. on a basis of mere profit and loss, is it sensible to maintain a system in ireland which weakens both ireland and the whole united kingdom, clogs the delicate machinery of parliamentary government, and, worked out in hard figures of pounds, shillings, and pence, has ceased even to show a pecuniary advantage? have unionists really no better prescription for the constitutional difficulties caused by the union than to reduce the representation of ireland in parliament so as to give ireland still less control than at present over her own affairs? is that seriously their last word in statesmanship, to exasperate nationalist ireland without even providing in any appreciable degree a mechanical remedy for disordered political functions? the idea has only to be stated to be dismissed. it is not even practical politics. some things are sheer impossibilities; and to leave the union system as it is, while reducing representation, is one of them. we revert, then, to a contemplation of the well-tried expedient, "trust, and you will be trusted." but then we have to meet pessimists of two descriptions, the honest and the merely cynical. the honest pessimist (often, unhappily, an educated irishman) says: "the irish in ireland are an incurably criminal race. they differ from irishmen elsewhere and from anglo-saxons everywhere. air and soil are unaccountable. the union policy has been, and remains, a painful but a quite inevitable necessity. it is sound, now and for all time." the cynical pessimist, on the other hand, admits the errors of past policy, but says frankly that it is too late to change. "we have gone too far, raised passions we cannot allay." i shall not try further to confute the honest pessimist. the preceding chapters have been written in vain if they do not shatter the theory of original sin. and to the cynical pessimist, who is a reincarnation of our old friend fitzgibbon (for that clear-headed statesman frankly imputed original sin to the conquerors of ireland, as well as to the conquered), i would only say: "use your common sense." these panics over the vagaries and excesses of an irish parliament, always groundless, are beginning to look highly ridiculous. in , when the last home rule bill was being discussed, a franco-irish alliance was the fear. now it is the other way, and the _spectator_ has been writing solemn articles to warn its readers that mr. dillon, in a speech on foreign policy, has shown ominous signs of hostility to france. in the election of january, , an ex-cabinet minister informed the public that home rule meant the presence of a german fleet in belfast lough--at whose invitation he did not explain, though he probably did not intend to insult ulster. this wild talk has not even the merit of a strategical foundation. it belongs to another age. ireland has neither a fleet nor the will or money to build one. our fleet, in which large numbers of irishmen serve, guarantees the security of new zealand, and if it cannot maintain the command of home waters, including st. george's channel, our situation is desperate, whether ireland is friendly or hostile. we guarantee the independent existence of the kingdom of belgium, which is as near as ireland, with military liabilities vastly more serious than any which ireland could conceivably entail; but we do not claim, as a consequence, to control the executive of belgium and remove her parliament to westminster, in order to be quite sure that the belgians are not intriguing against us with germany. germany, our alarmists fear, is to invade ireland, and ireland is to greet the invaders with open arms. the same prophecy was being made not more than three years ago of the south african dutch. after asking for a century and a half to manage her own affairs, the irish are not likely to ask to be ruled by germans. the german strategists are men of common sense. if they were fortunate enough to gain the command of the sea, they could make no worse mistake than to dissipate their energies on ireland. perhaps it is a waste of time to attempt to destroy these foolish myths. let those that are sceptical about the effect of home rule in producing friendlier feelings between ireland and great britain consider in a reasonable spirit the commonplace question of mutual interests. what is the really practical significance of ireland's proximity to england? this, that their material interests are indissociably intertwined. if it is "safe," as the phrase goes, to entrust australia with home rule, surely it is safer still to entrust ireland with it. has ireland anything to gain by separation? clearly nothing. has she anything to lose? much. most of her trade is with great britain. british credit is of enormous value to her. the imperial forces are of less proportionate value to her because her external trade is small; but she willingly supplies a large and important part of their personnel; she shares in their glorious traditions; and if it is a case of protection for her trade, she will get no protection elsewhere. how idle are these calculations of profit and loss! the truth is that ireland has taken her full share in winning and populating the empire. the result is hers as much as britain's. mr. redmond spoke for his countrymen last may[ ] in saying: "we, as irishmen, are not prepared to surrender our share in the heritage [that is, the british empire] which our fathers created." that is sound sentiment and sound sense. it is the view taken by the colonies, where irishmen are known, respected, and understood, and where the support for home rule, based on personal experience of its blessings, has been, and remains, consistent and strong. indeed, we miss the significance of that support if we do not realize that irish home rule is an indispensable preliminary to the closer union of the various parts of the empire. let us add the wider generalization that it is an indispensable preliminary to the closer union of all the english-speaking races. it may be fairly computed that a fifth of the present white population of the united states is of irish blood.[ ] american opinion, as a whole, so far as it is directed towards ireland and away from a host of absorbing domestic problems, is favourable to home rule. irish-american opinion has never swerved, although it has become more sober, as the material condition of ireland has improved, and the interests of irish-americans themselves have become more closely identified with those of their adopted country. fenianism is altogether extinct. the extreme claim for the total separation of ireland from great britain is now no more than a sentimental survival among a handful of the older men, of the fierce hatreds provoked by the miseries and horrors of an era which has passed away.[ ] even mr. patrick ford and the _irish world_ have moderated their tone, and where that tone is still inflammatory it is not representative of irish-american opinion. i have studied with a good deal of care the columns of that journal for some months back, smiling over the imaginary terrors of the nervous people on this side of the atlantic who are taught by their party press to believe that mr. patrick ford is going to dynamite them in their beds. any liberal-minded student of history and human nature would pronounce the whole propaganda perfectly harmless. but the sane instinct that ireland should have a local autonomy of her own, an instinct common to the whole brotherhood of nations which have sprung from these shores, lasts undiminished and takes shape, quite rightly and naturally, as it takes shape in the colonies, in financial support of the nationalist party in ireland. anti-british sentiment in the united states, once a grave international danger, is that no longer; but it does still represent an obstacle to the complete realization of an ideal which all patriotic men should aim at: the formation of indestructible bonds of friendship between great britain and the united states. nor must it be forgotten that the calm and reasonable character of irish-american opinion is due in a large degree to confidence in the ultimate success of the constitutional movement here for home rule. every successive defeat of that policy tends to embitter feeling in america. oh, for an hour of intelligent politics! the old choice is before us--to make the best or the worst of the state of opinion in america; to disinter from ancient files of the _irish world_ sentences calculated to inflame an ignorant british audience; or to say in sensible and manly terms: "the situation is more favourable than it has been for a century past for the settlement of just irish claims." footnotes: [ ] at woodford, may , . [ ] this is a very general statement. no figures exist for an accurate computation. the census of gives the total population of the united states, white and coloured, as , , , of whom nearly , , are negroes. the figures about countries of origin are not yet available. the statistical abstract of the united states ( ) gives the total number of immigrants from ireland from to as , , (the large majority of whom must have been of marriageable age), but does not estimate the subsequent increase by marriage, and takes no account of the immigration prior to , which was very large, especially in the period preceding the revolutionary war of - . at the census of irishmen actually _born in ireland_ and then resident in the united states are stated to have been , , , as compared with , from wales, , from scotland, and , from england. [ ] i am especially indebted for information to mr. hugh sutherland, of the _north american_ (philadelphia), to mr. rodman wanamaker, of the same city, to mr. frank sanborn, of concord, and to mr. john o'callaghan, of boston. chapter ix ireland to-day why does present-day ireland need home rule? i put the question in that way because i am not going to question the fact that she wants home rule. she has always said she wanted it: she says so still, and that is enough. there is a powerful minority in ireland against home rule. there always have been minorities more or less powerful against home rule in all ages and places. that does not alter the national character of the claim. if once we go behind the voice of a people, constitutionally expressed, we court endless risks. national leaders have always been called "agitators," which, of course, they are, and non-representative agitators, which they are not. to deny the genuineness of a claim which is feared is an invariable feature of oppositions to measures of home rule. the denial is generally irreconcilable with the case made for the dangers of home rule, and that contradiction in its most glaring shape characterizes the present opposition to the irish claims. but unionists should elect to stand on one ground or the other, and for my part i shall assume that the large majority of irishmen, as shown by successive electoral votes, want home rule. precisely what form of home rule they want is another and by no means so clear a matter, on which i shall presently have a word to say. but they want, in the general sense, to manage their own local affairs. her best friends would despair of ireland if that was not her desire. what, in the colonies, ireland, and everywhere else, is the deep spiritual impulse behind the desire for home rule? a craving for self-expression, self-reliance. home rule is synonymous with the growth of independent character. that is why ireland instinctively and passionately wants it, that is why she needs it, and that is why great britain, for her own sake, and ireland's, should give it. if that is not the reason, it is idle to talk about home rule; but it is the reason. character is the very foundation of national prosperity and happiness, and we are blind to the facts of history if we cannot discern the profound effect of political institutions upon human character. self-government in the community corresponds to free will in the individual. i am far from saying that self-government is everything. but i do say that it is the master-key. it is fundamental. give responsibility and you will create responsibility. through political responsibility only can a society brace itself to organized effort, find out its own opinions on its own needs, test its own capabilities, and elicit the will, the brains, and the hands to solve its own problems. these are such commonplaces in every other part of the empire, which has an individual life of its own, that men smile if you suggest the contrary. but ordinary reasoning is rarely applied to ireland. there "good government" has been held to be "a substitute for self-government" and a régime of benevolent paternalism to be a full and sufficient compensation for cruel coercion and crueller neglect. in this paternal régime it is impossible to include those great measures of land reform passed in , , and , which revolutionized the agrarian system, and converted the cottier tenant into a judicial tenant.[ ] although these measures, which fall into an altogether different category from the subsequent policy of state-aided land purchase,[ ] were inspired by an earnest desire to mitigate frightful social evils, they cannot be regarded as voluntary. they were extorted, shocking as the reflection is, by crime and violence, by the spectacle of a whole social order visibly collapsing, and by the desperate efforts of a handful of irishmen, determined at any cost, by whatever means, to save the bodies and souls of their countrymen. the methods of these men were destructive. they were constructive only in this, the highest sense of all, that while battling against concrete economic evils, they sought to obtain for ireland the right to control her own affairs and cure her own economic evils. it is often said that parnell gave a tremendous impetus to the home rule movement by harnessing it to the land question. true; but what a strange way of expressing a truth! anywhere outside ireland men would say that self-government was the best road to the reform of a bad land system. with the tranquillity which was slowly restored by the alterations in agrarian tenure and the immense economic relief derived from the lowering of rents, a change came over the spirit of british statesmanship. with the exception of the short liberal government of - , which failed for the second time to carry home rule, conservatives were responsible for ireland from to . they felt that opposition to home rule could be justified only by a strenuous policy of amelioration in ireland, and the efforts of three chief secretaries, mr. arthur balfour, mr. gerald balfour, and mr. george wyndham--efforts often made in the teeth of bitter opposition from irish unionists--to carry out this policy, were sincere and earnest. the act of , with its grants for light railways, its additional facilities for land purchase, and its establishment of the congested districts board to deal with the terrible poverty of certain districts in the west, may be said to mark the beginning of the new era. the land act of was another step, and the establishment of a complete system of irish local government in another. in the following year came the act setting up the department of agriculture, and in mr. wyndham's great land purchase act. then came the strange "devolutionist" episode, arising from the appointment of sir antony (now lord) macdonnell to the post of under-secretary at dublin castle, the government who selected him being fully aware that he was in favour of some change in the government of ireland. he entered into relations with a group of prominent irishmen, headed by lord dunraven, who were thinking out a scheme for a mild measure of devolution. when the fact became known, there was an explosion of anger among irish unionists. mr. wyndham, who had been a popular chief secretary, resigned office, and was succeeded by mr. walter long; perhaps the most dramatic and significant example in modern times of the policy of governing ireland in deliberate and direct defiance of the wishes and sentiments of the vast majority of irishmen. the liberal government of , coming into office under a pledge to refrain from a full home rule measure, confined itself to the introduction of the irish council bill of , which, rightly, in my opinion, was repudiated by the irish people, and accordingly dropped. but the government was in general sympathy with nationalist ireland, so that a number of useful measures were added to the statute books; for example, the labourers (ireland) act of , empowering rural councils, with the aid of state credit, to acquire land for labourers' plots and cottages; the town tenants act, extending the principle of compensation for improvements at the termination of a lease to the urban tenant; the very important irish universities act of , which gave to roman catholics facilities for higher education which they had lacked for centuries, and, lastly, mr. birrell's land act of , which was designed partly to meet the imminent collapse of land purchase, owing to the failure of the financial arrangements made under the wyndham act of , and partly to extend the powers of the congested districts board. to these measures must be added another which was not confined to ireland, but which has exercised a most potent influence, and by no means a wholly beneficial influence, on irish life and irish finance, the old age pensions act of , under which the enormous sum of two and three-quarter millions is now allocated to ireland.[ ] the best that can be said of the legislation since is that it has laid the foundations of a new social order. agrarian crime has disappeared and material prosperity has greatly increased. government in the interests of a small favoured class has almost vanished. it survives to this extent, that civil administration and patronage, which are still, be it remembered, removed from popular control, remain, in fact, in protestant and unionist hands to an extent altogether disproportionate to the distribution of creeds, classes, and opinions. and, of course, in the major matter of home rule, the power of the unionist minority, as represented in the commons by seventeen out of the thirty-three ulster representatives, and in the house of lords by an overwhelming preponderance of unionist peers, is still enormous. but within ireland itself, central administration apart, the exceptional privileges and exceptional political power of protestants and landlords, which lasted almost intact until forty years ago, is now non-existent. the disestablishment act of , while immensely enhancing the moral power and religious zeal of the church of ireland, and even strengthening its financial position, took away its political monopoly, and through the final abolition of tithes, its baneful and irritating interference with economic life. the successive measures of land legislation, culminating in the transfer of half the land of ireland from landlord to peasant proprietorship, and the local government act of , surrendering at a stroke the whole local administration of the country into popular control, destroyed the exceptional political privileges of the landlord class. ascendancy, then, in the old sense, is a thing of the past. what has taken its place? what is the ruling power within ireland? is it a public opinion derived from the vital contact of ideas and interests, and taking shape in a healthy and normal distribution of parties? is thought free? has merit its reward? is there any unity of national purpose, transcending party divisions? if it were necessary to give a categorical "yes" or "no" to these questions, the answer would be "no." sane energizing politics, and the sovereign ascendancy of a sane public opinion, are absolutely unattainable in ireland or anywhere else without home rule. it is all the more to the credit of irishmen that, in the face of stupendous difficulties, and in a marvellously short space of time since the attainment, barely twenty years ago, of the elementary conditions of social peace, they have gone so far as they have gone towards the creation of a self-reliant, independently thinking, united ireland. the whole weight of imperial authority has been thrown into the scale against them. whatever the mood and policy of british upholders of the union, whether sympathetic or hostile, wise or foolish, their constant message to both parties in ireland has been, "look to us. trust in us. you are divided. we are umpires," and the reader will no doubt remember that the theory of "umpirage" was used in exactly the same way in the colonies, notably in upper canada,[ ] to thwart the tendency towards a reconciliation of creeds, races, and classes. fortunately, there have been irishmen who have laboured to counteract the effects of this enervating policy, and to reconstruct, by native effort from within, a new ireland on the ruins of the old. whether or not they have consciously aimed at home rule matters not a particle. some have, some have not; but the result of these efforts has been the same, to pull irishmen together and to begin the creation of a genuinely national atmosphere. it is not part of my scheme to describe in detail the various movements, agricultural, industrial, economic, literary, political, which in the last twenty years have contributed to this national revival. some have a world-wide fame, all have been excellently described at one time or another by writers of talent and insight.[ ] my purpose is to note their characteristics and progress, and to estimate their political significance. in the first place it must be remembered that some of the most important of the modern legislative measures have been initiated and promoted by home rulers and unionists, roman catholics and protestants, acting in friendly co-operation and throwing aside their political and religious antagonisms. such was the origin of the great land purchase act of , which mr. wyndham drafted on the basis of an agreement reached at a friendly conference of landlords and representatives of tenants. but a far more interesting and hopeful instance of co-operation had taken place seven years earlier. one of the very few really constructive measures of the last twenty years, the act of for setting up the department of agriculture and technical instruction, was the direct outcome of the recommendations of the recess committee brought together in and by sir horace plunkett; a committee containing nationalist and unionist members of the house of commons, tory and liberal unionist peers, ulster captains of industry, the grand master of the belfast orangemen, and an eminent jesuit.[ ] in its reunion of men divided by bitter feuds, it was just the kind of conference that assembled in durban in , six years after a devastating war, to discuss and to create the framework of south african union. that conference was the natural outcome of the grant of home rule to the defeated boer states. the irish conference, succeeding a land-war far more destructive and demoralizing, was brought together in spite of the absence of home rule, and the prejudice it had to overcome,[ ] is a measure of the fantastically abnormal conditions produced by the denial of self-government. there lay ireland, an island with a rich soil and a clever population, yet terribly backward, far behind england, far behind all the progressive nations of europe in agriculture and industry, her population declining, her land passing out of cultivation,[ ] her strongest sons and daughters hurrying away to enrich with their wits and sinews distant lands. there, in short, lay a country groaning for intelligent development by the concentrated energies of her own people. "we have in ireland," runs the first paragraph of the report of the committee, "a poor country practically without manufactures--except for the linen and shipbuilding of the north, and the brewing and distilling of dublin--dependent upon agriculture, with its soil imperfectly tilled, its area under cultivation decreasing, and a diminishing population without industrial habits or technical skill." the leeway to make up was enormous. to go no farther back than the institution of the penal code and the deliberate destruction of the woollen industry, two centuries of callous repression at the hands of an external authority had maimed and exhausted the country whose condition the committee had met to consider. these facts the members of the committee frankly recognized in that part of the report which is entitled with gentle irony "past action of the state." here, then, was a purely irish problem, intimately concerning every irishman, poor or rich, roman catholic or protestant, a problem of which great britain, though responsible both for its existence and its solution, knew and cared little. the really strange thing is, not that representative irishmen should have met together to consider and prescribe for the deplorable economic condition of their country, but that they should not also, like the south african conference, have drafted a constitution for ireland, on the sound ground that a system of government which had promoted and sustained the evils they described could never, with the best will in the world, become a good government for ireland. yet for a brief space of time these men actually had home rule, and by virtue of that privilege they did better work for ireland in six months than had been done in two centuries. what is more, they used the home rule principle in their recommendations for the establishment of a department of agriculture and technical instruction. "we think it essential," they reported on p. , "that the new department should be in touch with the public opinion of the classes whom its work concerns, and should rely largely for its success upon their active assistance and co-operation." its chief, they added, should be a minister directly responsible to parliament, and on p. they advocated a consultative council, whose functions should be--( ) to keep the department in direct touch with the public opinion of those classes whom the work of the ministry concerns; and ( ) to distribute some of the responsibility for administration amongst those classes. now these, in ireland, were revolutionary proposals. the idea of any part of the government "being in touch with public opinion" was wholly new. the idea of "distributing responsibility for administration" amongst the subjects of administration was startlingly novel. ireland, both before and after the union, had always been governed on a diametrically opposite principle. since the union, when irish departmental ministers, never responsible to the people, disappeared, not one of the host of nominated irish boards was legally amenable to irish public opinion. not one had a separate minister responsible even to the parliament at westminster, which was not an irish parliament. _a fortiori_, not one relied on the co-operation and advice of the classes for whose benefit it was supposed to exist. proposed, nevertheless, by a group of representative irishmen, the scheme for a democratically constituted department of agriculture passed smoothly into law as soon as the machinery for ascertaining public opinion on the matters at issue had been brought into existence. mr. gerald balfour, the chief secretary, was engaged at the time upon his measure for the extension of local government to ireland. this measure became law in , and the department act in . under that act, the duty was laid upon each of the new county councils of electing two members to serve upon a consultative council of agriculture, to which a minority of nominated members was added, and this council in its turn elects two-thirds of the members of an agricultural board, and supplies four representatives to a board of technical instruction, which, like the council and the agricultural board, has a predominantly popular character.[ ] at the summit stands the minister, or vice-president, as he is called (for in accordance with ancient custom, the chief secretary is nominally in supreme control of this as of all other irish departments), and a large and efficient staff of permanent officials. he and his staff have a large centralized authority, but this authority is subject to a constitutional check in the shape of a veto wielded by the boards over the expenditure of the endowment fund. what is more important, policy tends to be shaped in accordance with popular views by the existence of the council and the boards. here, then, is the germ of responsible government. at first sight a critic might exclaim: "why, here is democracy pushed to a point unknown even in great britain, where government departments are wholly independent of local councils." that is in a limited sense true, and it is quite arguable that british departments would be the better for an infusion of local control. but we must not be misled by a false analogy. great britain reaches the irish ideal by other means. her departmental ministers are directly responsible to a predominantly british house of commons where a hostile vote can at any moment eject them from office.[ ] there is no irish parliament, nor any kind of predominantly irish body which is vested with the same power. the vice-president of the irish department of agriculture, an institution concerned exclusively with irish affairs, whether he sits in the house of commons or not (and for two years mr. t.w. russell had not a seat at westminster), could not be ejected from office even by a unanimous vote of irish members of the house, with the moral backing of a unanimous irish people.[ ] that is one of the anomalous results of the union, and it was a recognition, though rather a confused one, of this anomaly, that inspired the ingenious compromise invented by the recess committee for introducing an element of popular control. but what a light the compromise throws on the anomaly which evoked it! is it common sense to make these elaborate arrangements for promoting an irish department on an irish popular basis while recoiling in terror from the prospect of crowning them with a minister responsible to ah irish parliament? the consequence is that even in this solitary example of an irish department under semi-popular control we see the subtle taint of crown colony government. popular opinion, acting indirectly, first through the council and then through the boards, can legally paralyze the department by declining to appropriate money in the way it prescribes, while possessing no legal power to enforce a different policy or change the personnel of administration. this is only an object-lesson. i hasten to add that such a paralysis has never taken place, though some acrimonious controversy, natural enough under the anomalous state of things, has arisen over the office of vice-president. there is now only one means by which irish opinion can, if it be so disposed, displace the holder of the office, and that is a thoroughly unreliable and unhealthy means, namely, through pressure brought to bear by one or other of the irish parliamentary parties upon a newly elected british ministry.[ ] but why in the world should the british party pendulum determine an important irish matter like this? why, _a fortiori_, should it determine the appointment to the office of chief secretary, the irresponsible prime minister, or, rather the autocrat of ireland? it is the _reductio ad absurdum_ of the union. the department commands a large measure of confidence. it would command far greater confidence if it were responsible to an irish parliament; but irishmen are sensible enough to perceive that as long as the union lasts, everyone is interested in making the existing system work smoothly and well. the general policy as laid down in the first instance, by the first vice-president, sir horace plunkett, has been sound and wise;[ ] to proceed slowly, while building up a staff of trained instructors, inspectors, organizers; to devote money and labour mainly to education, both industrial and agricultural, and to evoke self-reliance and initiative in the people by, so far as possible, spending money locally only where a local contribution is raised and a local scheme prepared. the last aim met with a fine response. every county council in ireland raises a rate, and has a scheme for agricultural and technical instruction. i can only enumerate some of the multifarious functions which the department evolved for itself or took over from various other unrelated boards and concentrated under single control. it gives instruction in agriculture and rural domestic economy (horticulture, butter-making, bee-keeping, poultry-keeping, etc.) through schools, colleges, or agricultural stations under its own direction, through private schools for both sexes, and through an extensive system of itinerant courses conducted (in ) by trained instructors. it gives premiums for the breeding of horses, cattle, asses, poultry, swine. it conducts original research, it experiments in crops, and, among other things, is slowly resuscitating the depressed industry of flax-growing, and starting a wholly new industry in the southern counties, that of early potatoes. it sprays potatoes, prescribes for the diseases of trees, crops, and stock, advises on manures and feeding-stuffs, teaches forestry, and gives scholarships at various colleges for proficiency in agricultural science. on the side of technical instruction it teaches and encourages all manner of small industries, such as lace-making. it superintends all technical instruction in secondary schools, and organizes and subsidizes similar instruction in a multitude of different subjects under schemes prepared by local authorities, while at the same time carrying on an important and extensive system of training teachers. it also superintends sea-fisheries and improves harbours. the material results have been great; the moral results perhaps even greater. just as we should expect, wherever education goes, and wherever men work together for economic improvement, unnatural antagonisms of race and religion tend to disappear. this is not the result of any direct influence wielded by the department, which never finds it necessary to lecture people on the duty of mutual tolerance; it is the result of common sense and a small experience in home rule. high officials of the department have informed me that their work, for all intents and purposes, is unhampered by local religious prejudices. a spirit of keen and wholesome rivalry permeates the people. county and borough committees in districts almost wholly roman catholic, with large powers of patronage, almost invariably appoint the best men, regardless of creed and local influence. anyone who wishes to gain a glimpse of the real belfast of the present and the future, as distinguished from the ugly, bigoted caricature of a great city which some even of its own citizens perversely insist on displaying to their english friends, a belfast as tolerant and generous as it is energetic and progressive, should visit the magnificent municipal technical institute, where , boys and girls, roman catholic and protestant, mix together on equal terms, and derive the same benefit from an extraordinary variety of educational courses in a building furnished with lecture-rooms, laboratories, experimental plant, and gymnasia, of a perfection hardly to be surpassed in any city of the united kingdom. here is something grand and fruitful accomplished in eleven years, and it is the outcome, be it remembered, of original, constructive thought devoted by irishmen to the needs of their own country. let us also remember that it represents the application of state-aid to economic development. but with the utmost caution, and the utmost efforts to elicit self-help, one may go too far in the direction of state-aid, and even in this sphere it is by no means certain that ireland is free from danger. let us pass to another movement whose essence is self-help: i mean the movement for agricultural co-operation. here again sir horace plunkett was the originator. indeed, with him and his able associates and advisers, of whom lord monteagle and mr. r.a. anderson, the secretary of the i.a.o.s., were the first, the twin aims of self-help and state-aid were combined as they should be, in one big, harmonious policy. self-help must, indeed, they held, be antecedent to, and preparatory for, state-aid. the position confronting them was that half a million unorganized tenant farmers, for the most part cultivating excessively small holdings, and just beginning to emerge after generations of agrarian war from an economic serfdom, were face to face with the competition of highly organized european countries, and of vast and rapidly developing territories of north and south america. it was as far back as that the first propaganda was begun, and in , a year before the recess committee met, the irish agricultural organization society was formed. by unwearied pains and patience, seemingly hopeless obstacles had been overcome, apathy, ignorance, and often contemptuous opposition from men of both political parties. for, with that ruinous pessimism always endemic in countries not politically free, and exactly paralleled in the canada described by the durham report of , extremists were inclined to suspect any movement which drew recruits from both political camps. nevertheless, the island is now covered with a network of co-operative societies, creameries, agricultural societies (for selling implements, foodstuffs, etc.), credit banks, poultry societies, and other miscellaneous organizations. the total membership is nearly , , the total turnover nearly two and a half millions.[ ] nearly half the butter exported from ireland is made in the co-operative creameries, and at the other end of the scale extraordinarily valuable work is done by the agricultural credit banks, which supply small loans, averaging only £ apiece, for strictly productive purposes on a system of mutual credit. moral and material regeneration go together. the aim is to build up a new rural civilization, to put life, heart, and hope into the monotony of country life and unite all classes in the strong bonds of sympathy and interest: a splendid ideal, applicable not to ireland alone, but to all countries, and ireland may truly be said to be pointing the way to many another country, great britain included. the co-operative movement attracts the most intelligent and progressive elements of the rural population. strictly non-political itself, it unites creeds and parties. it is as strong in predominantly roman catholic districts as in predominantly protestant districts, strongest of all in catholic wexford. probably two-thirds or more of the co-operators are home rulers, but that only accidentally reflects the distribution of irish parties. on the local committees political animus is unknown. the governing body contains members, lay and clerical, of all shades of opinion. step into plunkett house, that hospitable headquarters of the organization society, and if you have been nurtured in legends about inextinguishable class and creed antipathies, which are supposed to render home rule impossible and the eternal "umpirage" of great britain inevitable, you will soon learn to marvel that anyone can be found to propagate them. here, just because men are working together in a practical, self-contained, home-ruled organization for the good of the whole country, you will find liberality, open-mindedness, brotherhood, and keen, intelligent patriotism from ulsterman and southerners alike. the atmosphere is not political. but you will come away with a sense of the absurdity, of the insolence, of saying that a country which can produce and conduct fine movements like this is _unfit_ for self-government. i should add a word about a new organization which only came into being this year, and which also has its home at plunkett house, the united irishwomen, whose aim, in their own words, is to "unite irishwomen for the social and economic advantage of ireland." "they intend to organize the women of all classes in every rural district in ireland for social service. these bodies will discuss, and, if need be, take action upon any and every matter which concerns the welfare of society in their several localities. so far as women's knowledge and influence will avail, they will strive for a higher standard of material comfort and physical well-being in the country home, a more advanced agricultural economy, and a social existence a little more in harmony with the intellect and temperament of our people." anyone who wants to understand something of the spirit of the new self-reliant ireland which is springing up to-day should read the thrilling little pamphlet (i cannot describe it otherwise) from which i quote these words, and which introduced the united irish-women to the world, with its preface by father t.a. finlay, and its essays by mrs. ellice pilkington, sir horace plunkett, and mr. george w. russell, better known as "�," poet, painter, and editor of the co-operative weekly, the _irish homestead_. nor can i leave this part of my subject without referring to that amazing little journal. no other newspaper in the world that i know of bears upon it so deep an impress of genius. there are no "politics," in the irish sense, in it. it would be impossible to infer from its pages how the editor voted. what fascinates the reader is the shrewd and witty analysis of irish problems, the high range of vision which exposes the shortcomings and reveals the illimitable possibilities of a regenerated ireland and the ceaseless and implacable war waged by the editor upon all pettiness, melancholy, and pessimism. what the agricultural organization society is doing for agriculture the industrial development associations, formed only in quite recent years, are doing, in a different way, for the encouragement of irish industries. the associations of belfast, cork, and other cities work in harmony, and meet in an annual all-ireland industrial conference. their effort is to secure the concentration of irish brains and capital on irish industrial questions, to promote the sale of irish goods, both in ireland, great britain, and foreign countries, and to protect these goods against piracy and illicit competition.[ ] here again co-operation for irish welfare brings together the creeds and races, and tends to extinguish old bigotries and antipathies. here again the truth is recognized that ireland is a distinct economic entity whose conditions and needs demand special study from her citizens. in a country of which that basal truth is recognized it would seem inexplicable that protestants and catholics who meet in committee-rooms and on platforms to promote, outside parliament, the common interests of ireland, should not unite as one man to demand an irish legislature in which to focus those interests and make them the subjects of direct legislative enactment, free both from the paternal and the coercive interference of a country differently situated, and absorbed in its own affairs. i pass from the agricultural and industrial movements to another powerful factor in the reconstruction of ireland, namely, the gaelic league, founded in , whose success under the presidency of dr. douglas hyde in reviving the old national language, culture, and amusements, is attracting the attention of the world. fortunately the league encountered some ridicule at the outset and prospered proportionately. some of its work is not above criticism, but few persons--and none who have the least knowledge of such intellectual revivals elsewhere--now care to laugh at it. the league is non-political and non-sectarian. strange, is it not, that such a movement should have to emphasize the fact? strange paradox that in a country which is being re-born into a consciousness of its own individuality, which is regaining its own pride and self-respect, recovering its lost literature and culture, and vibrating to that "iron string, trust thyself," the conflict for self-government, that elementary symbol of self-trust, should still retain enough intestinal bitterness to compel men to label national movements as non-political and non-sectarian! it would be idle, of course, to pretend that this national movement, like all others in ireland, does not strengthen, especially among the younger generation, which grows increasingly nationalist, the sentiment for home rule. if it did not, we should indeed be in the presence of something miraculously abnormal. meanwhile the celtic revival does visible good. the language is no longer a fad; it is an envied accomplishment, a mark of distinction and education. wherever it goes, north and south, it obliterates race and creed distinctions, and all the terrible memories associated with them. there are ulstermen of saxon or scottish stock in whom the fascination of irish art and literature has extirpated every trace of orangeism and all implied in it. the language revivifies traditions, as beautiful as they are glorious, of an ireland full of high passions and stormy domestic feuds, but united in sentiment, breeding warriors, poets, lawgivers, saints, and fertilizing europe with her missionary genius. however far those times are, however grim and pitiful the havoc wrought by the race war, it is nevertheless a fact for thinkers and statesmen to ponder over, not a phantasy to sneer at, that celtic ireland lives. anglicization has failed, not because celts cannot appreciate the noblest manifestations of english genius in art, letters, science, war, colonization, but because to repress their own culture and nationality is at the same time to repress their power of appreciation and assimilation. until comparatively recent times, it was only the worst of english literature and music, the cheapest newspaper twaddle, the inanest music-hall songs, which penetrated beyond a limited circle of culture into the life of the country. the revolt against this sterilizing and belittling side of anglicization is strong and healthy. it affects all classes. farmers, labourers, small tradesmen, who had never conceived the idea of learning for learning's sake, and who had grown up, thanks to the national system of education, in all but complete ignorance of their own country's history and literature, spend time on reading and study and in the practice of the old indigenous dances and music, which was formerly wasted in idleness or dissipation. temperance and social harmony are irresistibly forwarded. nor is it a question of a few able men imposing their will on the many, or of an artificial, state-aided process. though the language has obtained a footing in more than a third of the state schools and in the national university,[ ] the motive force behind it comes from the people themselves. in the country district, with which i am best acquainted, boys and girls from very poor families are clubbing together to pay instructors in the irish language and dances, and the same thing is going on all over ireland. the brilliant modern school of poets and playwrights who, steeped in the old celtic thought and culture, have found for it such an exquisite vehicle in the english tongue, speak for themselves and are winning their own way to renown. the only criticism i venture to make is that some of them are too much inclined to look backward instead of forward, to idealize the far past rather than to illuminate the future, and to delineate the deformities of national character produced by ages of repression, rather than to aid in conjuring into being a virile, normal nation. the name of the last movement to be referred to sums up all the others, sinn fein. unlike the others, it had a purely political origin, and for that reason, probably, never made the same progress. yet the explanation is simple. in pursuance of the general purpose of inspiring irishmen to rely on themselves for their own salvation, economic and spiritual, sinn feiners, like john mitchel and others in the past, and like the hungarian patriots, attacked, with much point and satire, the whole policy of constitutional and parliamentary agitation for home rule. the policy, they said, had failed for half a century; it was not only negative and barren, but positively harmful. nationalists should refuse to send members to westminster and abide by the consequences. sensibly enough, most irishmen, while recognizing that there was an element of indisputable and valuable truth in this bold diagnosis, decided that it was premature to adopt the prescription. public opinion in britain was slowly changing, and confidence existed that this opinion would be finally converted. if the sinn fein alternative meant anything at all, it meant complete separation, which ireland does not want, and a final abandonment of constitutional methods. if another home rule bill were to fail, sinn fein would undoubtedly redouble its strength. its ideas are sane and sound. they are at bottom exactly the ideas which actuate every progressive and spirited community, and which in ireland animate the industrial development associations, the co-operative movement, the thirst for technical instruction, the gaelic league, the literary revival, and the work of the only truly irish organ of government, the department of agriculture and technical instruction. now, where do we stand? are the phenomena i have reviewed arguments for home rule or against home rule? do they tend to show that ireland is "fitter" now for home rule, or that she manages very well without home rule? these are superfluous questions. they are never asked save of countries obviously designed to govern themselves and obstinately denied the right. who would say now of canada or australia that they ought to have solved their economic, agrarian, and religious problems and have evolved an indigenous literature before they were declared fit for home rule, or--still more unreasonable proposition--that their strenuous efforts after self-help and internal harmony in the teeth of political disabilities proved, in so far as they were successful, that external government was a success? yet these questions were, as a fact, asked of the colonies, as they are asked of ireland. and misgovernment increased, and passions rose, and blood flowed, while, in the guise of dispassionate psychologists, a great many narrow, egotistical, and bullying people at home propounded these arid conundrums. where is our common sense? the irish phenomena i have described arise in spite of the absence of home rule, and the denial of home rule sets an absolute and final bar to progress beyond a certain point. that is certain; one cannot live in ireland with one's eyes and ears open without realizing it. all social and economic effort, successful as it is up to a certain point, and strong as its tendency is to promote nationalist feeling of the noblest kind, has to struggle desperately against the benumbing influence of abstract "politics." suspicion comes from both sides. both unionists and nationalists, for example, at one time or another have looked askance on the co-operative movement and on the department of agriculture as being too nationalist or too unionist in tendency. unionists caused sir horace plunkett to lose his seat in parliament in ; and nationalists, though with some constitutional justification, secured his removal from office in . at this moment there is friction and suspicion in this particular matter which seems to the impartial observer to be artificial, and which would not exist, or would be transmuted into something perfectly harmless, and probably highly beneficial, were there any normal political life in ireland and a central organ of public opinion. as long as great britain insists, to her own infinite inconvenience, upon deciding irish questions by party majorities fluctuating from toryism to radicalism, and thereby compels ireland to send parties to westminster whose _raison d'être_ is, not to represent crystallized irish opinion on irish domestic questions--that is at present wholly impossible--but to assert or deny the fundamental right for ireland to settle her own domestic questions, so long will these dislocations continue, to the grave prejudice of ireland and the deep discredit of great britain. ireland, like canada in , has no organic national life. apart from the abstract but paramount question of home rule, there are no formed political principles or parties. such parties as there are have no relation to the economic life of the country, and all interests suffer daily in consequence. in a normal country you would find urban and agricultural interests distinctly represented, but not in ireland. we should expect to rind clear-cut opinions on tariff reform and free trade. no such opinions exist. on the other hand, agreement on important industrial and agricultural questions finds not the smallest reflection in parliamentary representation. education, and other latent issues of burning importance, are not political issues. a budget may cause almost universal dissatisfaction, but it goes through, and the amazing thing is that unionists complain of its going through! most of the parliamentary elections are uncontested, though everybody knows that a dozen questions would set up a salutary ferment of opinion if they were not stifled by the refusal of home rule. the protestant tenant-farmers of ulster have identical interests with those of other provinces, and have profited largely by the legislation extorted by nationalists; but for the most part, though by no means wholly, they vote unionist. the two great towns, dublin and belfast, are divided by the most irrational antagonism. labourers, both rural and urban, have distinct and important interests; the rural labourers have no spokesman, the town-labourers only one. it was admitted to me by a unionist organizer in belfast that that city, but for the home rule issue, would probably return four labour members. nor have parties any close relation to the distribution of wealth. in the matter of incomes the prosperous traders of cork, limerick, and waterford are in the same case as regards taxation with those of londonderry and belfast. publicans are unionists in england, nationalists in ireland, both in ulster and elsewhere. before the home rule issue was raised, ulster was largely liberal. ulster liberalism is almost dead. extreme socialism may almost be said to be non-existent in ireland, yet ireland is not only administered on semi-collectivist principles, but continually runs the risk of being involved in legislation of a socialistic kind, which, rightly or wrongly, she heartily dislikes. as for the landed aristocracy all over ireland, their historic alliance with the intensely democratic tenant-farmers of one small corner of ireland, north-east ulster, against those of all the rest, presented strange enough features in the past, and is now becoming artificial in the highest degree. thanks to land purchase, no landed aristocracy in the world now has a better chance of throwing its wealth and intelligence into public life for the good of the whole country, of thinking out problems, of conciliating factions, and of ennobling public life. the landlord who has sold his land is a free man, far freer than the english landlord from misgivings caused by divergency of interest. the opportunity is still there. will they profit by it? one thing is essential: they must become nationalists, and in breathing that phrase, one is conscious of all the misleading implications and the bitter historical feuds it suggests. yet a small but powerful group of landlords is already leading the way. and the way, even before home rule, in reality is so simple. i speak from close observation. if a man is a good man, and worthy to represent a constituency, he has only to declare his belief that he thinks that he and his own fellow-citizens are fit to govern themselves. irishmen, especially in roman catholic districts, and, indeed, as an indirect result of catholicism, have never lost their belief in aristocracy. when a landlord, or any other protestant, comes forward as a nationalist, he is welcomed. his religion, whatever it may be, does not count. parnell and smith o'brien were protestant landlords. many of the most trusted popular leaders, tone, robert emmet, john mitchel, isaac butt, and others in the past have been protestants. ten members of the present nationalist party are protestants. the home rule issue would have lost some of its bitterness if a unionist electorate had ever elected a catholic to parliament. still, it is unfortunately true that the great bulk of the landlords and ex-landlords stand aloof from the home rule movement. the collateral result is that far too many of them instinctively stand aloof even from those purely economic and intellectual movements which tend to make a living united ireland out of chaos. the national loss is heavy; the waste of talent and of driving-power, for ireland needs driving-power from her leisured and cultured classes, is melancholy to contemplate. everywhere one sees waste of talent in ireland. the land abounds in men with ideas and potentialities waiting for those normal chances of development which self-governed countries provide. much of this good material is crushed under unnatural political tyrannies caused by ceaseless agitation for and against an abstract aim which should have been satisfied long ago, so that the energies it absorbed might have been diverted into practical channels. there is too much moral cowardice, too little bold, independent thought and action. nobody knows what ireland really is, and of what she is capable. nobody can know until she has responsibility for her own fate. local government, where popular opinion is nominally free, suffers from the absence of free central government. is it not on the face of it preposterous to give complete powers of local taxation and administration to a country while withholding from it, as unsafe and improper, central co-ordinating control? for any country but ireland--at any rate, in the british self-governing colonies and the united states--such a policy would be regarded as crazy. still more unreasonable is it to complain that local authorities under such a system spend part of the energy which should be devoted wholly to local affairs in abstract politics. i forbear from engaging in the statistical war over the numbers of catholics and protestants employed and elected by local bodies. one must remember, what unionists sometimes forget, that ireland is, broadly speaking, a roman catholic country, and that until thirteen years ago local administration and patronage were almost exclusively in protestant hands. we should naturally expect a marked change; but, with that reminder, i prefer to appeal to the reader's common sense. deny national home rule, and give local home rule. what would one expect to happen? what would have happened in any colony? what would mr. arthur balfour himself have prophesied with certainty in the case of any other country but ireland? why, this, that each little local body would become an outlet for suppressed agitation, and that national or anti-national politics, not urgent local necessities, would enter into local elections and influence the composition of local bodies. and what would be the further consequence? that numbers of the best local men would stand aloof or be rejected, and that favouritism would find a congenial soil. in point of fact, irish local authorities, under the circumstances, are wonderfully free from these evils, only another proof of the resilience and vitality of the country under persistent mismanagement. on the whole they bear comparison with british local authorities in thrift, purity, and efficiency. none of them has ever yet had a scandal like that of poplar. all of them have shown sense and spirit in forwarding sanitation and technical education. they vary widely, of course, the lowest units in the scale being the least efficient, as in england. county councils, for example, are better than rural district councils. on the other hand, dublin corporation, though not so bad as it is sometimes painted, occasionally sets a very bad example. the standard of efficiency is higher in the protestant north than in the catholic south, the standard of religious toleration lower. but at bottom it is not a question of theology, as every well-informed person knows, but a question of politics. the same causes that keep the landed gentry out of parliament keep them, although not to the same degree, out of local politics. sometimes this is their own fault, for declining to take part in them; for many of the protestant upper class in nationalist districts obtain election in spite of being unionists. tolerance is slowly growing in nationalist, though not, it is to be feared, in unionist, districts; again a quite intelligible fact.[ ] but when all is said and done, it is an undeniable fact that irish local authorities, especially those in the poverty-stricken west, where all social activities are more retrograde than elsewhere, are capable of great improvement, and that improvement can come only by allowing them to concentrate on local affairs, and obtain the co-operation of all classes and religions. the very existence of a central government of which irishmen were proud would influence the tone and standard of all minor authorities to the bottom of the scale. meanwhile, obvious and urgent problems, which no parliament but an irish parliament can deal with, cry aloud for settlement. the poor law, railways, arterial drainage, afforestation, are questions which i need only refer to by name, confining myself to the greater issues. education, primary and intermediate, is perhaps the greatest. the present system is almost universally condemned, and its bad results are recognized. it has got to be reformed. by no possibility can it be reformed so long as the union lasts, not only because the boards, national and intermediate, which control education, are composed of unelected amateurs, but because there is no means of finding out what the national opinion is as to the course reform is to take. meanwhile the children and the country suffer. the intermediate board is a purely examining and prize-giving body, and its system by general agreement is imperfect. in the national or primary schools the percentage of average daily attendance ( . per cent.), though slowly improving, is still very bad.[ ] many of the school-houses are, in the words of the commissioners, "mere hovels," unsanitary, leaky, ill-ventilated. the distribution of schools and funds is chaotic and wasteful. out of , schools (in - )[ ] nearly two hundred have an average daily attendance of less than fifteen pupils. in the number is less than thirty, and it is not only in sparsely inhabited country districts, but in big towns, that the distribution is bad. the power of the commissioners to stop the creation of unduly small schools, and even semi-bogus establishments which come into being in the great cities, is imperfect. another example of the curious mixture of anarchy and despotism that the system of irish government presents may be seen in the annual report of the commissioners. with a mutinous audacity which would be laughable, if the case were one for laughing, the commissioners openly rail at the treasury for the parsimony of its grants, and, in order to stir its compassion, paint the condition of irish education in black colours. imagine the various departmental ministers in great britain publicly attacking in their annual reports the cabinet of which they were members! the treasury, needless to say, is not to blame. it pays out of the common imperial purse all but a negligible fraction of the cost of primary education in ireland. nothing is raised by rates, and only £ , (in - ) from voluntary and local sources, as compared with £ , , from state grants. the treasury has no guarantee that this money is well spent; on the contrary, it knows from the reports of the commissioners themselves that a great deal of it is very badly spent. the business is a comic opera, but it has a tragic significance for ireland. primary education is so bad that a great number of the pupils are absolutely unfit to receive the expensive and excellent technical instruction organized by the department of agriculture and technical instruction, and contributed to by the ratepayers. the belfast technical institute, for example, has to go outside its proper functions, and spend from its too small stock in providing introductory courses in elementary subjects, so as to equip children for the reception of higher knowledge.[ ] all over the country the complaint is the same. no machinery whatever exists for co-ordinating primary, secondary, technical, and university education, and opportioning funds in an economical and profitable manner. religion is the immediate cause of the trouble; absence of popular control the fundamental cause. the national system of primary education, designed originally in to be undenominational, has become rigidly denominational. out of , primary schools, , only are attended by both protestants and roman catholics. the rest are of an exclusively sectarian character. even the protestants do not combine. the church of ireland, the presbyterians, the methodists, and other smaller denominations, frequently have small separate schools in the same parish. the management (save in the model schools, which are attended only by protestants) is exclusively sectarian, the local clergyman, roman catholic, church of ireland, or nonconformist having almost autocratic control over the school. this education question has got to be thrashed out by a home ruled ireland, and the sooner the better. after home rule the treasury grant will stop, and ireland will have to raise and apportion the funds herself, and set her house in order. at whatever sacrifice of religious scruples, and, it is needless to add that to the roman catholic hierarchy the sacrifice will be the greatest, the irish people must control and finance its schools, whether through a central department alone, or through local authorities as well. there is no reason in the world why a compromise should not be arrived at which would secure vastly increased efficiency and leave the teaching of denominational religion uninjured. other countries, where the same religions exist side by side, have attained that compromise. ireland will be judged by her success in attaining it. another important question is the treatment of the congested districts. more than a third of ireland is now under the benevolent jurisdiction of a despotic board.[ ] so long as its funds are raised from general imperial taxation, the inevitable tendency is to shirk the thorough discussion of this grave subject, to lay the responsibility on great britain, to acquiesce in a policy of extreme paternalism, and to appeal for higher and higher doles from the treasury. this cannot go on. whoever, in the eyes of divine justice, was originally responsible for the condition of the submerged west, and for the ruin of the evicted tenants, ireland, if she wants home rule, must shoulder the responsibility herself, and think out the whole question independently. the congested districts board has done, and continues to do, good work in the purchase and resettlement of estates; but even in this sphere there are wide differences of opinion as to the proper methods and policy to be employed, especially with regard to the division of grasslands and the migration of landless men. its other remedial work (part of which is now taken over by the department of agriculture under the land act of ), in encouraging fisheries, industries, and farm improvements out of state money, is open to criticism on the ground of its tendency to pauperize and weaken character. i do not care to pronounce on the controversy, though i think that there is much to be said for the view that money is best spent by encouraging agricultural co-operation. many able and distinguished men have devoted their minds to the subject, but it is plain that ireland as a whole has not thought, and cannot think, the matter out in a responsible spirit, and that the only way of reaching a truly irish decision is through an irish parliament, which both raises and votes money for the purpose.[ ] the reinstatement of evicted tenants teems with practical difficulties which can only be solved in the same way. as long as great britain remains responsible, errors are liable to be made which one day may be deeply regretted. the same observation applies to all future land legislation, not excepting land purchase, which i deal with fully in a later chapter.[ ] that great department of administration must, for financial reasons, be worked in harmonious consultation with the british government; but it ought to be controlled by ireland, and a free and normal outlet given to criticisms like those emanating from mr. william o'brien, whatever the intrinsic value of these criticisms. purchase itself settles nothing beyond the bare ownership of the land. it leaves the distribution and use of the land, except in the "resettled" districts, where it was, with a third or a quarter of the holdings so small as to be classed as "uneconomic." ireland is not as yet awake to the possibilities of the silent revolution proceeding from the erection of a small peasant proprietorship. the sense of responsibility in these new proprietors will be quickened and the interests of the whole country forwarded by a national parliament. temperance will never be tackled thoroughly but by an irish parliament. all irishmen are ashamed in their hearts of the encouragement given to drunkenness by the still grossly excessive number of licensed houses, which in was , , and of the national drink bill, which in the same year was £ , , ,[ ] or £ d. per head of a population not rich in this world's goods. temperance is not really a party or a sectarian question. all the churches make noble efforts to forward reform, and in a rationally governed ireland reform would be considered on its merits. at present it is inextricably mixed up with nationalist and anti-nationalist politics, and with irrelevant questions of imperial taxation. the latest examples of the embarrassment into which ireland without home rule is liable to drift from the absence of a formed public opinion and the means to give it effect, are the labour troubles and the national insurance scheme. there are signs that english labour is thrusting forward irish labour in advance of its own will and in advance of general irish opinion. in all labour questions ireland's position as an agricultural country is totally different from that of great britain. the same legislation cannot be applicable to both. ireland should frame her own. under present conditions it is impossible to know the considered judgment of ireland. there is certainly much opposition to insurance, and if all irishmen thoroughly realized that the scheme might complicate the finance of home rule and involve a greater financial dependence on great britain than exists even at present, they would study it with still more critical eyes,[ ] as they would certainly have studied the old age pensions scheme with more critical eyes. here i am led naturally to the great and all-embracing questions of irish finance and expenditure, which lie behind all the topics already discussed and many others. the subject is far too important and interwoven with history to be dealt with otherwise than as an historical whole, and that course i propose to take in a later part of the book. it is enough to say that all the arguments for home rule are summed up in the fiscal argument. every irishman worth his salt ought to be ashamed and indignant at the present position. the whole machinery of irish government, and the whole fiscal system under which ireland lives, need to be thoroughly overhauled by irishmen in their own interests, and in the interests of great britain. among many other writers, mr. barry o'brien, in his "dublin castle and the irish people," lord dunraven in "the outlook in ireland," and mr. g.f.h. berkeley in a paper contributed to "home rule problems," have lucidly and wittily described the wonderful collection of sixty-seven irresponsible and unrelated boards nominated by the chief secretary, or lord-lieutenant, which, with the official services beneath them, constitute the colonial bureaucracy of ireland; the extravagance of the judicial and other salaries, and the total lack of any central control worthy of the name. by omitting a number of insignificant little bureaux, the figure , according to mr. berkeley's classification, may be reduced to , of which are directly under castle influence, and the rest either branches of british departments or directly under the treasury. in , out of , principal official posts, were obtained purely by nomination, and by a qualifying examination only. in an able-bodied male population, which we may estimate at a million, there are reckoned to be about , persons employed by the state, or in . if we add , old age pensioners, we reach the figure of nearly a quarter of a million persons, out of a total population of under four and a half millions, dependent wholly or partially for their living on the state, exclusive of army and navy pensioners; again about in . four millions of money are paid in salaries or pensions to state employees, and two and three-quarter millions to old age pensioners. it is so easy to make fun about irish administration that one has to be cautious not to mistake the nature or exaggerate the dimensions of the evil. the great defect is that the expenditure is not controlled by ireland and has no relation to the revenue derived from ireland. the castle is not the odious institution that it was in the dark days of the land war; but it is still a foreign, not an irish institution, working, like the government of the most dependent of crown colonies, in a world of its own, with autocratic powers, and immunity from all popular influence. beyond the criticism that one religious denomination, the church of ireland, is rather unduly favoured in patronage, there is no personal complaint against the officials. they are as able, kindly, hard-working, and courteous as any other officials. some of the principal posts are held by men of the highest distinction, who will be as necessary to the new government as to the old. it is absolutely essential, but it will not be easy, to make substantial administrative economies at the outset, not only from the additional stress of novel work which will be thrown upon a home rule government, but from the widespread claims of vested interests. it will require courageous statesmanship, backed by courageous public opinion, to overhaul a bureaucracy so old and extensive. take the police, for example, the first and most urgent subject for reduction. adding the royal irish constabulary and the dublin metropolitan police together, we have a force of no less than , officers and men, a force twice as numerous in proportion to population as those of england and wales, and costing the huge sum of a million and a half; and this in a country which now is unusually free from crime, and which at all times has been naturally less disposed to crime than any part of great britain. it is the forcible maintenance of bad economic conditions that has produced irish crime in the past. irishmen hotly resent that symbol of coercion, the swollen police force, which is as far removed from their own control as a foreign army of occupation. on the other hand, the force itself is composed of irishmen, and is a considerable, though an unhealthy, economic factor in the life of the country. it performs some minor official duties outside the domain of justice; it is efficient, and its individual members are not unpopular. reduction will be difficult. but drastic reduction, at least by a half, must eventually be brought about if ireland is to hold up her head in the face of the world. the difficulty will extend through all the ramifications of public expenditure. ireland, through no fault of her own, against her persistent protests, has been retained in a position which is destructive to thrifty instincts. a rain of officials has produced an unhealthy thirst for the profits of officialdom. no one feels responsibility for the money spent for national purposes, because no one in ireland _is_, in any real sense, responsible. there is no irish budget or irish exchequer to make a separate irish government logically defensible. the people are heavily taxed, but, rightly, they do not connect their taxes with the expenditure going on around them. on the contrary, their mental habit is to look to great britain as the source of grants, salaries, pensions. and the worst of it is that they are now at the point of being financially dependent on great britain. after more than a century of union finance, after contributing, all told, over three hundred and twenty millions of money to the imperial purse over and above expenditure in ireland, they have now ceased to contribute a penny, and are a little in debt. as we shall see, when i come to a closer examination of finance, the main factor in producing this result has been the old age pensions. the application of the british scale, unmodified, to ireland is the kind of blunder which the union encourages. ireland, where wages and the standard of living are far lower than in england, does not need pensions on so high a scale, and already suffers too much from benevolent paternalism. it was an unavoidable blunder, given a joint financial system, but it has gravely compromised home rule finance. for acquiescing in this and similar grants, beyond the ascertained taxable resources of the country; for the general deficiency of public spirit and matured public opinion in ireland; for the backwardness of education, temperance legislation, and other important reforms, the irish parliamentary parties cannot be held responsible. they are abnormal in their composition and aims, and, beyond a certain limited point, they are powerless, even if they had the will, to promote irish policies. that is the pernicious result of an unsatisfied claim for self-government. it is the same everywhere else. while an agitation for self-government lasts, a country is stagnant, retrograde, or, like ireland, progressive only by dint of extraordinary native exertions. read the durham report on the condition of the canadas during the long agitation for home rule, and you will recognize the same state of things. the leaders of the agitation have to concentrate on the abstract and primary claim for home rule, and are reluctant to dissipate their energies on minor ends. yet they, too, are liable to irrational and painful divisions, like that which divides mr. o'brien from mr. redmond; symptoms of irritation in the body politic, not of political sanity. they cannot prove their powers of constructive statesmanship, because they are not given the power to construct or the responsibility which evokes statesmanship. the anti-home rule partisans degenerate into violent but equally sincere upholders of a pure negation. many of the able men who belong to both the irish parties will, it is to be hoped, soon be finding a far more fruitful and practical field for their abilities in a free ireland. but the parties, as such, will disappear, on condition that the measure of home rule given to ireland is adequate. on that point i shall have more to say later. if it is adequate, and irish politicians are absorbed in vital irish politics, the structure of the existing parties falls to pieces, to the immense advantage both of ireland--including the protestant sections of ulster--and of great britain. at present both parties, divided normally by a gulf of sentiment, do combine for certain limited purposes of irish legislation, but both are, in different degrees and ways, sterile. the policy of the nationalist party has been positive in the past, because it wrung from parliament the land legislation which saved a perishing society. it is essentially positive still in that it seeks home rule, which is the condition precedent to practical politics in ireland. more, the party is independent, in a sense which can be applied to no other party in the united kingdom. its members accept no offices or titles, the ordinary prizes of political life. but they themselves could not contend that they are truly representative of three-quarters of ireland in any other sense than that they are home rulers. half of the wit, brains, and eloquence of their best men runs to waste. some of them are merely nominated by the party machine, to represent, not local needs, but a paramount principle which the electors insist rightly on setting above immediate local needs. the purpose of the irish unionist party in the commons is purely negative, to defeat home rule. it does not represent north-east ulster, or any other fragment of ireland, in any sense but that. it is passionately sentimental and absolutely unrepresentative of the practical, virile genius of ulster industry. the irish unionist peers, in addition to voicing the same negative, are for the most part the spokesmen of a small minority of irishmen in whom the long habit of upholding landlord interests has begun to outlive the need. i have said little directly about the problem of modern ulster, not because i underrate its importance, which is very great, but because i have some hope that my arguments up to this point may be perceived to have a strong, though indirect, bearing upon it.[ ] the religious question i leave to others, with only these few observations. it is impossible to make out a historical case for the religious intolerance of roman catholics in ireland, or a practical case for the likelihood of a roman catholic tyranny in the future. no attempt which can be described as even plausible has ever been made in either direction. the late mr. lecky, a unionist historian, and one of the most eminent thinkers and writers of our time, has nobly vindicated catholic ireland, banishing both the theory and the fear into the domain of myth.[ ] he has shown, what, indeed, nobody denies, that, from the measures which provoked the rebellion of , through the penal code, to the middle of the nineteenth century, intolerance, inspired by supposed political necessities, and of a ferocity almost unequalled in history, came from the protestant colonists. in that brilliant little essay of his nationalist youth, "clerical influences" ( ), he described the sectarian animosity which was raging at that period as "the direct and inevitable consequence of the union," and wrote as follows: "much has been said of the terrific force with which it would rage were the irish parliament restored. we maintain, on the other hand, that no truth is more clearly stamped upon the page of history, and more distinctly deducible from the constitution of the human mind, than that a national feeling is the only check to sectarian passions." he was himself an anti-catholic extremist in the sense of holding (with many others) that "the logical consequences of the doctrines of the church of rome would be fatal to an independent and patriotic policy in any land." but he insists in the same passage "that nothing is more clear than that in every land where a healthy national feeling exists, roman catholic politicians are both independent and patriotic." he never recanted these opinions (which are confirmed by the subsequent course of events) even after his conversion to unionism, but derived his opposition to home rule from a dread of all democratic tendencies,[ ] the only ground on which, if men would be willing to confess the naked truth, it can be opposed. there the matter ought to rest. if the doctrines of the church of rome are, in fact, inconsistent with political freedom--i myself pronounce no opinion on that point--it is plain to the most superficial observer that the church, as a factor in politics, stands to lose rather than to gain by home rule. british statesmen have often accepted that view, and have endeavoured to use the roman catholic hierarchy against popular movements, just as they enlisted its influence to secure the union. the roman catholic laity have often subsequently rejected what they have considered to be undue political dictation from the seat of authority in rome. if i may venture an opinion, i believe that both of these mutually irreconcilable propositions--that home rule means rome rule, and that rome is the enemy to home rule--are wrong.[ ] such ludicrous contradictions only help to destroy the case against trusting a free ireland to give religion its legitimate, and no more than legitimate, position in the state. ireland is intensely religious, and it would be a disaster of the first magnitude if the roman catholic masses were to lose faith in their church. the preservation of that faith depends on the political liberalism of the church. corresponding tolerance will be demanded of ulster protestants. at present passion, not reason, governs the religious side of their opposition to home rule. it is futile to criticize ulster unionists for making the religious argument the spear-head of their attack on home rule. the argument is one which especially appeals to portions of the british electorate, and the rules of political warfare permit free use of it. it was pushed beyond the legitimate point, to actual violence, in the orange opposition to responsible government in canada in . and it has more than once inflamed and embittered australian politics, as it inflames the politics of certain english constituencies. but it is hardly to be conceived that ulster unionists really fear roman catholic tyranny. the fear is unmanly and unworthy of them. to anyone who has lived in an overwhelmingly catholic district, and seen the complete tranquillity and safety in which protestants exercise their religion, it seems painfully abnormal that a great city like belfast, with a population more than two-thirds protestant, should become hysterical over catholic tyranny. it would be physically impossible to enforce any tyrannical law in ulster or anywhere else, even if such a law were proposed, and many leading protestants from all parts of ireland have stated publicly that they have no fear of any such result from home rule.[ ] "loyalty" to the crown is a false issue. disloyalty to the crown is a negligible factor in all parts of ireland. loyalty or disloyalty to a certain political system is the real matter at issue. at the present day the really serious objections to home rule on the part of the leading ulster unionists seem to be economic. they have built up thriving trades under the union. they have the closest business connections with great britain, and a mutual fabric of credit. they cherish sincere and profound apprehensions that their business prosperity will suffer by any change in the form of government. to scoff at these apprehensions is absurd and impolitic in the last degree. but to reason against them is also an almost fruitless labour. those who feel them vaguely picture an irish parliament composed of home rulers and unionists, in the same proportion to population as at present, and divided by the same bitter and demoralizing feuds. but there will be no home rulers after home rule, that is to say, if the home rule conceded is sufficient. i believe that ulster unionists do not realize either the beneficent transformation which will follow a change from sentimental to practical politics in ireland, as it has followed a similar change in every other country in the empire, or the enormous weight which their own fine qualities and strong economic position will give them in the settlement of irish questions. nor do they realize, i venture to think, that any irish government, however composed, will be a patriotic government pledged and compelled for its own credit and safety to do its best for the interests of ireland. i have never met an irishman who was not proud of the northern industries, and it is obvious that the industrial prosperity of the north is vital to the fiscal and general interests of ireland, just as the far more wealthy mining interests of the rand are vital to the stability and prosperity of the transvaal, and were regarded as such and treated as such by the farmer majority of the transvaal after the grant of home rule. those interests have prospered amazingly since, and in that country, be it remembered, volunteer british corps raised on the rand had been the toughest of all the british foes which the peasant commandos had to meet in a war ended only four years before. if the fears of ulster took any concrete form, it would be easier to combat them; but they are unformulated, nebulous. meanwhile, it is hard to imagine what measure of oppression could possibly be invented by the most malignant irish government which would not recoil like a boomerang upon those in whose supposed interests it was framed. i shall have to deal with this point again in discussing taxation, and need here only remind the reader that ulster is not a province, any part of which could possibly be injured by any form of taxation which did not hit other provinces equally. it is the belief of ulster unionists that their prosperity depends on the maintenance of the union, but the belief rests on no sound foundation. rural emigration from ulster, even from the protestant parts, has been as great as from the rest of ireland.[ ] it is easy to point to a fall in stocks when the home rule issue is uppermost, but such phenomena occur in the case of big changes of government in any country. they merely reflect the fact that certain moneyed interests do, in fact, fear a change of government, and whether those fears are irrational or not, the effect is the same. it is an historical fact, on the other hand, that political freedom in a white country, in the long run invariably promotes industrial expansion and financial confidence. canada is one remarkable example, australia is another. the balkan states are others. not that i wish to push the colonial example to extremes. vast undeveloped territories impair the analogy to ireland; but it is none the less true that when a country with a separate economic life of its own obtains rulers of its own choice, and gains a national pride and responsibility, it goes ahead, not backward. intense, indeed, must be the racial prejudice which can cause ulstermen to forget the only really glorious memories of their past. orange memories are stirring, but they are not glorious beside the traditions of the volunteers. the orange flag is the symbol of conquest, confiscation, racial and religious ascendancy. it is not noble for irishmen to celebrate annually a battle in which ireland was defeated, or to taunt their catholic compatriots with agrarian lawlessness to which their own forefathers were forced to resort, in order to obtain a privileged immunity from the same scandalous land laws. ulstermen reached spiritual greatness when, like true patriots, they stood for tolerance, parliamentary reform, and the unity of ireland. they fell, surely, when they consented to style themselves a "garrison" under the shelter of an absentee parliament, which, through the enslavement and degradation of the old irish parliament, had driven tens of thousands of their own race into exile and rebellion. they cherish the imperial tradition, but let them love its sublime and reject its ignoble side. it is sublime where it stands for liberty; ignoble--and none knew this better than the ulster-american rebels--where it stands for government based on the dissensions of the governed. the verdict of history is that for men in the position of the ulster unionists, the path of honour and patriotism, and the path of true self-interest, lies in co-operation with their fellow-citizens for the attainment of political freedom under the crown. it is not as if they had to create a tradition. the tradition lives. footnotes: [ ] see pp. - and - . [ ] dealt with fully in chapter xiv. [ ] in - , £ , , (treasury return no. , ); plus £ , estimated increase owing to removal of poor law disqualification (answer to question in house of commons, february , ). [ ] see p. . [ ] see particularly "ireland in the new century," sir horace plunkett; "contemporary ireland," e. paul-dubois; "the new ireland," sydney brooks. [ ] "report of the recess committee," new edition (fisher unwin). [ ] colonel saunderson, for example, the leader of the irish unionists in the commons, refused publicly to be a member of a committee on which mr. redmond sat. mr. john redmond himself wrote that he could not take a very sanguine view of the conference, but that he was "unwilling to take the responsibility of declining to aid in any effort to promote useful legislation in ireland." [ ] area under cultivation in , , , acres; in , , , acres (in , , , acres; in , on a system of classification dividing arable land more accurately from pasture, there were only , , acres arable, and in the figures were , , acres) (official returns). population in , , , ; in , , , ; in , , , ; in , , , ; in , , , ; in , , , ; in , , , ; in , , , ; in , , , ; in , , , (in , , , ; in , , , ).--census returns and _thoms' directory_. [ ] _council of agriculture_: members elected by county councils; appointed by the department from the various provinces. total . _board of agriculture_: members elected by council of agriculture; appointed by the department. total . _board of technical instruction_: members appointed by county boroughs; elected by council of agriculture; appointed by the various government departments; by a joint committee of dublin district councils. total . [ ] i am not forgetting scotland. her few local departments are theoretically, but not practically, at the mercy of english votes and influence. scotch opinion, broadly speaking, governs scotch affairs. precisely to the extent to which it does not so govern them, is a demand for home rule likely to grow. [ ] even the recess committee (and we cannot wonder) but dimly grasped the constitutional position when they laid stress on the necessity for an agricultural minister "directly responsible to parliament." logically, they should have first recommended the establishment of an irish parliament to which the minister should be responsible. to make him responsible to the house of commons was absurd; and a departmental committee of has, in fact, recommended that the vice-president should not have a seat in parliament, but should remain in his proper place, ireland. meanwhile, the original mistake has caused friction and controversy. soon after the liberal ministry took office in , sir horace plunkett, the first vice-president, as a unionist, was replaced by mr. t.w. russell, a home ruler. on the assumption that such an office was parliamentary, its holder standing or falling with the british ministry of the day, the step was quite justifiable, and even necessary. on the opposite assumption, confirmed by the departmental committee, the step was unjustifiable, that is, on the theory of the union. an irish parliament alone should have the power of displacing irish ministers. [ ] see footnote, p. . [ ] "organization and policy of the department," official pamphlet. [ ] statistics of the irish agricultural organization movement to december , , with number of societies in existence on december , (supplied by the i.a.o.s.): --------------------------------------------------------------------- description. |number of |membership.|paid-up |loan |turnover. |societies. | |shares. |capital. | |-----------| | | | | .| .| | | | --------------------------------------------------------------------- creameries | | | , | , | , | , , agricultural | | | , | , | , | , credit | | | , | -- | , | , poultry | | | , | , | , | , industries | | | , | , | , | , miscellaneous| | | , | , | , | , flax | | | | | , | , federations | | | | , | , | , --------------------------------------------------------------------- | | | , | , | , | , , --------------------------------------------------------------------- [ ] an irish trademark has been secured, and has proved of great value "irish weeks," for the furtherance of the sale of irish products, are held. the organ of the association is the _irish industrial journal_, published weekly in dublin. [ ] on december , , irish was taught as an "extra subject" in , primary schools out of , , and in schools in irish-speaking districts in the west a bi-lingual programme of instruction was in force (report of committee of national education, ). forty-six thousand pupils passed the test of the inspectors. irish in was made a compulsory subject for matriculation at the national university. [ ] the election by nationalist votes of lord ashtown, a militant unionist peer of the most uncompromising type, in the spring of to one of the galway district councils is a good recent example of this tendency. [ ] permissive powers exist for county councils to enforce compulsory attendance. [ ] including convent, monastery, workhouse, and model schools. [ ] see "prospectus of the municipal technical institute, belfast," - , pp. and - . reading, grammar, and simple arithmetic are taught. [ ] see report of the congested districts board, - . [ ] see report of royal commission on congestion in ireland (cd. ); especially a memorandum by sir horace plunkett, published as a separate pamphlet by the department of agriculture and technical instruction. [ ] see chapter xiv. [ ] annual report ( ) of the "irish association for the prevention of intemperance." the estimate is that of dr. dawson burns. by the licensing (ireland) act of , the issue of any new licenses was prohibited. [ ] i write before the scheme has been fully discussed in parliament. [ ] it is scarcely necessary for me to remind the reader that the word "ulster," as used in current political dialectics, is misleading. part of ulster is overwhelmingly catholic; in part the population is divided between the two creeds, and in two counties it is overwhelmingly protestant. in the whole province the protestants are in a majority of , , but since a number of protestants vote nationalist, the representation of the province is almost equal, the unionists holding seventeen seats out of thirty-three. [ ] "ireland in the eighteenth century," "leaders of public opinion in ireland," "clerical influences." [ ] see "democracy and liberty." [ ] many unionists are to be found in the same breath prophesying catholic tyranny under home rule and averring without any evidence that clerical influence caused the repudiation in of the council bill, because it placed education under a semi-popular body. [ ] "religious intolerance under home rule: some opinions of leading irish protestants," pamphlet ( ) compiled by j. mcveagh, m.p. [ ] the census of shows that the population of ireland is still falling. the province of leinster, mainly catholic, alone shows a small increase, derived from the counties of dublin (including dublin city) and kildare. in ulster, down and antrim, which include the city of belfast, alone show an increase, but not so great as that of county dublin. chapter x the framework of home rule i. the elements of the problem. it was not only to support the principle of home rule for ireland that i followed in some detail the growth of the liberal principle of government as applied to outlying portions of the british empire. the historical circumstances which moulded the form of each individual colonial constitution, the constitutions themselves, and the modifications they have subsequently undergone, supply a mass of material rich in interest and instruction for the makers of an irish constitution. nor is the analogy academical. ireland is at this moment under a form of government unique, so far as i know, in the whole world, but resembling more closely than anything else that of a british crown colony where the executive is outside popular control, and the legislature is only partially within it; with this additional and crowning inconvenience, that the irish crown colony can obstruct the business of the mother country. what we have to do is to liberate great britain and to give ireland a rational constitution--not pedantically adhering to any colonial model, but recognizing that, however closely her past history resembles that of a colony, ireland, by her geographical position, has a closer community of interest with great britain than that of any colony. three main difficulties have to be contended with: first, that the system to be overthrown is so ancient, and the prejudice against home rule so inveterate; second, the irish are not agreed upon any constructive scheme; third, the confusion in the popular mind between "federal" and other systems of home rule. a. with regard to the first of these obstacles, we have got to make a big national effort to take a sensible and dispassionate view of the whole problem. we must cease to regard ireland as an insubordinate captive, as a "possession" to be exploited for profit, or as a child to be humoured and spoiled. all this is _vieux jeu_. it belongs to an utterly discredited form of so-called imperialism, which might more fitly be called little englandism, masquerading in the showy trappings of bismarckian philosophy. we have gone too far in the "dismemberment" of our historic empire, and near enough to the dismemberment of what remains, to apply this worn-out metaphor to the process of making ireland politically free. in ireland we must build on trust, or we build on sand. what is best for ireland will be best for the empire. let us firmly grasp these principles, or we shall fail. they may be carried to the extreme point. if it were for ireland's moral and material good to become an independent nation, it would be great britain's interest to encourage her to secede and assume the position of a small state like belgium, whose independence in our own interests we guarantee. since nobody of sense, in or out of ireland supposes that her interest lies in that direction, we need not consider the point; but it is just as well to bear in mind that a prosperous and friendly neighbour on a footing of independence is better than a discontented and backward neighbour on a footing of dependence. the corollary is this--that any restrictions or limitations upon the subordinate irish government and parliament which are not scientifically designed to secure the easy working of the whole imperial machinery, but are the outcome of suspicion and distrust, will serve only to aggravate existing evils. when the supreme object of a home rule measure is to create a sense of responsibility in the people to whom it is extended, what could be more perversely unwise than to accompany the gift with a declaration of the incompetence of the people to exercise responsibility, and with restraints designed to prevent them from proving the contrary? centuries of experience have not yet secured general acceptation for this simple principle. in this domain of thought the tenacity of error is marvellous, even if we make full allowance for the disturbing effect on men's minds of india and other coloured dependencies where despotic, or semi-despotic, systems are in vogue. since the expansion of england began in the seventeenth century, it cannot be said that the principle of trusting white races to manage their own affairs has ever received the express and conscious sanction of a united british people. it has been repeatedly repudiated by governments in the most categorical terms, and repudiated sometimes to the point of bloodshed. in other cases it has met with lazy retrospective acquiescence on the discovery that powers surreptitiously obtained or granted without formal legislation had not been abused. the australian acts of and were the first approach to a spontaneous application of the full principle; but even then many statesmen were not fully alive to the consequences of their action, while there was no public interest, and very little parliamentary interest, in the fate of these remote dependencies. the fully developed modern doctrine of comradeship with the great self-governing dominions, a doctrine which we may date from the accession of mr. chamberlain to colonial secretaryship in , was not the natural outcome of a belief in self-government, but a sudden and effusive acceptation of its matured results in certain definite cases. irish home rule itself had, in the preceding decade, twice been rejected by the nation. with the first opportunity, after , of testing belief in the principle, namely, in the transvaal constitution of , the government failed. finally, in , when, to redeem that failure, for the first time in the whole history of the empire a cabinet spontaneously and unreservedly declared its full belief in the principle, and translated that belief into law, the whole of the opposition, representing nearly half the electorate, washed their hands of the policy, and, if the constitutional means had existed, would, admittedly, have defeated it, as they had defeated the home rule bills of and . the change of national opinion has, i believe, been considerable; but the circumstances remain ominous for the dispassionate discussion of the irish constitution. patriotic people can only do their best to ensure that the grant of home rule shall not be nullified by restrictions and limitations which, if they are designed merely to appease opposition, are destined to create friction and discontent. i am far from implying that restrictions are bad things in themselves. all constitutions, whether the sole work of the men who are to live under them, like that of the united states, or the gift of a sovereign state to a dependency, or the joint work of a sovereign and a dependent state, contain restrictions designed for the common good. the criterion of their value is the measure of consent they meet with from those who have to live under and work the constitution, and it is that circumstance which makes it urgent that irish opinion should be evoked upon their future constitution, and that the irish nationalist party should think out its own scheme of home rule. the constitution of the united states contains many self-imposed restrictions upon the powers both of the central and the state governments, in the interest of minorities; and nobody accuses the americans of having insulted themselves. it will be no slur on ireland, for example, if the most elaborate safeguards against the oppression of the protestant minority are inserted in the bill, provided that nationalist ireland, recognizing the fears of the minority, spontaneously recommends, or, at any rate, freely consents to their insertion--a consent which could not, of course, be expected if their tendency was to derange the functions of government or cripple the legislature. on the other hand, it would be a slur on ireland which she would justly resent, besides being a highly impolitic step, to deny to the irish executive an important power, such, for example, as the control of its own police. b. it is a grave difficulty that there is no public opinion in ireland as to the form of the irish constitution. that is an almost inevitable result of political conditions past and present. violent intestinal antagonisms are not favourable to constructive thought. the best men of a country, working in harmony, are needed to devise a good constitution, and if any irishman could succeed in convening a conference like that which created the south african union, he would be famous and honoured for ever in the annals of the future ireland. that conference, we must remember, was itself the result of the grants of home rule two years previously, and these grants in their turn were greatly facilitated by the co-operation of britons and dutchmen.[ ] canada, in , is a warning of the errors made in constructing a constitution without such co-operation. eventually it had to be torn up and refashioned. the best way of avoiding any such error in ireland's case is to expel the spirit of distrust which animated the framers of the canadian union act of . c. so much for the spirit in which we should approach the problem, and i pass to the consideration of the problem itself. what is to be the framework of home rule? i take it for granted that there must, in the broad sense, be responsible government, that is to say, an irish legislature, with an irish cabinet responsible to that legislature, and, through the lord-lieutenant, to the crown. so much is common ground with nearly all advocates of home rule, for i take it that there is no question of reverting to anything in the nature of the abortive irish council bill of .[ ] but agreement upon responsible government does not carry us far enough. what are to be the relations between the subordinate irish parliament and government, and the imperial parliament and government? we immediately feel the need of a scientific nomenclature. in popular parlance, two possible types of home rule are recognized--"federal" and "colonial." both, of course, may be "colonial," because there are colonial federations as well as colonial unitary states. but, nomenclature apart, the two possible types of irish home rule correspond to two distinct types of subordinate constitution. the "colonial" type is peculiar to the british empire, the other is to be found in many parts of the world--the united states, for example, and germany, and switzerland. let us examine these types a little more closely, confining ourselves as far as possible to the british empire, past and present, because within it we can find nearly all the instruction we need. as i showed in my sketch of the growth of colonial home rule, all the colonies now classed as self-governing, together with the american colonies before their independence, were originally unitary states, subordinate to the crown, each looking directly to great britain, possessing no constitutional relation with one another, and gradually obtaining their individual local autonomies under the name of "responsible government." new zealand and newfoundland alone have maintained their original individualities, and their constitutions, from an historical standpoint, are the best examples of the first of the two types we are considering. now for the federal type. very early in the history of the american colonies (in ) the new england group formed amongst themselves a loose confederation, which was not formally recognized by the british government, and which perished in . in the next century the war of independence produced the confederation of all the thirteen colonies, but this was little more in effect than a very badly contrived alliance for military purposes, and it was a keen sense of the inadequacy of the bond that stimulated the construction of the great constitution of , the first federal union ever devised by the english-speaking race. all the states combined to confer certain defined powers upon a federal parliament, to which each sent representatives, and upon a federal executive whose head, the president, all shared in electing. at the same time, each state preserved its own constitution and the power to amend it, with the one broad condition that it must be republican, and subject to any limitation upon its powers which the federal constitution imposed. eighty years elapsed before any similar federal union was formed by colonies within the british empire. as we have seen, all the various north american colonies which received constitutions in the last quarter of the eighteenth century, and all the australasian colonies similarly honoured in the nineteenth century, were placed in direct relation to the british crown and in isolation from one another. upper canada had no political ties with lower canada, nova scotia none with new brunswick, victoria none with tasmania. several abortive schemes were proposed at one time or another for the federation of the north american colonies, but the first measure of amalgamation, namely, the union of the two canadas in , was a step in the wrong direction, and bore, as i have shown, a marked resemblance, particularly in the motives which dictated it, to the union of great britain and ireland. it was a compulsory union, imposed by the mother country, and founded on suspicion of the french. so far from being federal, it was a clumsy and unworkable legislative union of the two provinces, which lasted as long as it did only because the principle of responsible government, established in , covered a multitude of sins. the somewhat similar attempt in australia in to amalgamate the two settlements of port phillip, afterwards victoria, and new south wales, at a time when each had evolved a distinct individuality of its own, was defeated by the strenuous opposition of the port phillip colonists, and revoked in . meanwhile, all aspirations after federation in the outlying parts of the empire were discouraged by the home authorities. the most practical plan of all, sir george grey's great scheme of south african federation in , was nipped in the bud. canada eventually led the way. the failure of the canadian union brought about its dissolution in by the provinces concerned, under the sanction of great britain (an example of really sensible "dismemberment"), and their voluntary federation as ontario and quebec, together with nova scotia and new brunswick, under the collective title of the dominion of canada, and the subsequent inclusion in this federation of all the north american provinces with the exception of newfoundland. note, at the outset, that this federation differed from that of the united states in being founded on the recognition of an organic relation with an external suzerain authority--an authority which the americans had abjured in framing their independent republic. in the matter of constitutional relations with great britain, the dominion of canada now assumed, in its collective capacity, the position formerly held by each individual province, and still held by newfoundland. direct relations between the individual provinces of the federation and the mother country practically ceased, and were replaced by a federal relation with the dominion. provincial lieutenant-governors are appointed by the dominion government acting in the name of the governor-general, not directly by the british government,[ ] and, although in constitutional theory the crown, as in every least fraction of the empire, is the sole and immediate source of executive authority, and an indispensable agent in all legislation, not only in the dominion, but in the provinces,[ ] in actual practice the only organic connection left between a province and great britain is the right of appeal directly to the king in council, that is, to the judicial committee of the privy council, without the intervention of the supreme court of canada. so much for the external relations of the dominion. in respect to the domestic relations between the provinces and the dominion, the federal principle used in canada is fundamentally the same as that which obtains in the united states and in every true federation in the world, whether monarchical or republican, whether self-contained, like the united states, germany, and switzerland, or linked, as in the british empire, to a supreme and sovereign government centred in london. each province, as in every genuine federation, is an _imperium in imperio_, possessing a constitution of its own, and delegating central powers to a federal government. the nature and extent of the powers thus delegated or reserved, and the character of the federal constitution itself, vary widely in different federations, but we need not consider these differences in any detail. let us remark generally, however, that the powers of the canadian province are much smaller than those of the american state, and that what lawyers call "the residuary powers"--that is, all powers not specifically allotted--belong to the dominion, whereas in the united states and switzerland they belong to the state or canton. the australian commonwealth of came into being in the same way as the dominion of canada, by the voluntary act of the several colonies concerned--victoria, new south wales, tasmania, south australia, western australia, queensland--under the sanction of the british crown and parliament. new zealand stood out, and remained, like newfoundland, a unitary state directly subordinate to great britain. nor, in the matter of relations with the mother country, were the federating colonies merged so completely in the commonwealth as the provinces of canada in the dominion. the canadians had not only to construct the dominion constitution, but new constitutions for two of the federating provinces--ontario and quebec--and it was natural, therefore, that they should identify the provinces more closely with the dominion. the australians, having to deal with six ready-made state constitutions, left them as they were, subject only to the limitations imposed by the commonwealth constitution. one of the results is that the state governors are still appointed directly by the british government, not by the commonwealth. this constitutional arrangement, however, has no very practical significance. the right of appeal direct from a state court to the king in council, without the intervention of the high court of australia, remains, as in canada, the only direct link between the individual states and the british government. the federal tie between the states and the commonwealth, as defined in the act of , is looser than that between the provinces of canada and the dominion, and bears more resemblance to the relation between a state and the federal government of the united states. as in that country and in switzerland, residuary powers rest with the state or canton governments, not with the federal government. the south african union of , comprising the colonies of the cape of good hope, natal, the transvaal, and the orange river colony, had a federal origin, so to speak, in that the old colonies agreed to abandon a great part of their autonomies to a central government and legislature; but the spirit of unity carried them so far as almost to annul state rights. the powers now retained by the provincial legislatures are so small, and the control of the union government is so far-reaching, that the whole system is rightly described as a union, not as a federation. the provinces, which are really little more than municipalities, have no longer any relation except in remotest constitutional theory with the mother country, their administrators are appointed by the union, and, unlike the provinces of canada and the states of australia, they have not even an internal system of responsible government.[ ] no direct appeal lies to the king in council from the provincial courts, which are now, in fact, only "divisions" of the supreme court of south africa. the provinces, in short, do not possess "constitutions" at all. their powers can be extinguished without their individual assent by an act of the union parliament, whereas the canadian dominion has no power to amend either the dominion or the provincial constitutions, and in australia constitutional amendments must be agreed to by the states separately as well as by the commonwealth parliament. but these revolutionary changes in the status of the old south african colonies were brought about, let us remember, by the free consent of the inhabitants of south africa, after prolonged deliberation. the united states, the australian commonwealth, and the canadian dominion are, then, the three genuine federations which the english-speaking races have constructed. the two last are included in the present british empire, and they stand side by side with the three unitary colonies--south africa, new zealand, and newfoundland. the constitutional relation of each of these five bodies to the mother country is precisely the same, although they differ widely in internal structure, as in wealth and population. within each of the two federations, as we have seen, there exists a nexus of minor constitutions, state or provincial, which have virtually no relations with the mother country, but are integral parts of the major federation. ii. federal or colonial home rule? we are now in a position to pose our main question, and the simplest course is to pose it in an illustrative form. broadly speaking, is the relation between ireland and great britain to resemble that between the province of quebec and the dominion of canada, or that between the dominion of canada and the united kingdom? one might equally well contrast the relation of victoria to the australian commonwealth with the relation of new zealand or newfoundland to the united kingdom. i choose the canadian illustration because it is more compact and striking, and because it corresponds more closely to the history and to the realities of the case. moreover, quebec, although she had a no more stormy domestic history, owing to lack of home rule, than ontario, is bi-racial, and on that account underwent in compulsory amalgamation with her wholly british neighbour, just as ireland, originally bi-racial, was forcibly amalgamated with great britain in . the canadian partners agreed to break this bond, to fashion a better one on the federal principle, in the manner vaguely adumbrated by advocates of the "federal" principle for irish home rule, and, as regards their relations with the mother country, to pool their interests and accept representation by the dominion alone. quebec home rule or dominion home rule? needless to say, these are only broad types chosen expressly to illustrate two possible types of relation between ireland and great britain, which i shall henceforth refer to as "federal" and "colonial." there is no reason why we should not profit in other respects by both examples, nor is there any possibility of copying either faithfully. both types fulfil the fundamental condition laid down at the beginning of our discussion--both, that is to say, are consistent with responsible government in ireland. quebec, in its inner working, is a microcosm of the dominion, and the dominion system of responsible government is almost an exact copy of the unwritten british constitution. in quebec (as in all the provinces and states of canada and australia) there is a cabinet, headed by a prime minister, composed of members of the legislature, and responsible at once to that legislature and to the lieutenant-governor as representing the crown. ireland, under a similar system (and, _a fortiori_, if she were put in the position of the dominion), would have a cabinet responsible at once to the irish legislature and to the lord-lieutenant representing the crown. the parallel is more apposite in the case of the province of quebec than in the case of an australian state, because, as i noted above, the provincial lieutenant-governor is actually appointed by the dominion government, and is in his turn responsible in the first instance to that government, just as the irish governor, or lord-lieutenant, who, under home rule, will for the first time justify his existence, is, and will still be, appointed by the british government. but with the possibility of responsible government granted, it must be confessed that the arguments against "quebec home rule" as a measure of practical politics at the present moment, are insuperable. in the first place there is no question in the coming bill of federalizing the united kingdom on the lines of the dominion of canada--that is, of constructing a new federal parliament elected by the whole realm, together with new local legislatures elected by the various fractions of the realm. scottish and welsh home rule are in the air, but they are not practical issues. english home rule is not even in the air. i mean that englishmen, whatever their views on the congestion of parliamentary business owing to the pressure of irish, welsh, and scottish affairs, have not seriously considered the idea of a subordinate legislature exclusively english, which would be just as essential a feature of a completely federalized kingdom as subordinate legislatures exclusively irish, scottish, and welsh. not that it is essential to the federalization of the united kingdom that ireland, scotland, england, and wales, should all have separate legislature. any one of these fractions could coalesce with another or others in a joint legislature. it would be technically possible, though highly unreasonable, to go to the extreme of giving great britain, regarded as one province, a separate legislature; ireland, regarded as another province, a separate legislature; and, above these two subordinate bodies, a new imperial parliament representing the whole realm. such a dual federation was nearly coming about in canada, when ontario and quebec dissolved their union and resolved to federate. it became a quadruple federation, owing to the adhesion of nova scotia and new brunswick; but in a dual form it would have worked just as well. it is scarcely necessary to say that the disparity in population, resources, and power between ireland and great britain render a dual federation, which, of course, involves three legislatures, chimerical. what i want to insist on is that, whatever subdivisions are adopted, it is absolutely essential to every federation that there should be a division of powers between a central and at least two local legislatures--three altogether. that is the minimum. other things are also essential, but for the moment we can confine ourselves to the outstanding requirement. now, there is no question in the coming bill of any such federation. later years may see such a development, whether from pressure of work on the imperial parliament or from irresistible demand for home rule from scotland or wales, or both, but not next year. the bill will contemplate two parliaments, not three, namely, the existing imperial parliament and the irish legislature. there is, therefore, no question of federal home rule, and the term "federal," as applied to irish home rule at the present time, is meaningless. nor can the coming bill for ireland make any preparation, technically, for a general federation. morally, as i shall show, it might have an important effect in stimulating local sentiment, not only in england, scotland, and wales, but in ireland, towards a general federation in the future, but in its mechanical structure it must be not merely non-federal, but anti-federal. one often hears it carelessly propounded that irish home rule, so devised as to be applicable in later years, if they so desire, to scotland, wales, and england, will give us by smooth mechanical means a general federation. this is a fallacy. at one stage or another, the earliest or the latest, we should have to create a totally new central parliament, still elected by the whole people, but exclusively devoted to imperial affairs, and wholly exempt from local business, before we possessed anything in the nature of a federation. but, whatever the future has in store, it would be a scandal if irish home rule were to be hampered or delayed by the existence of scotch or welsh claims, and it is earnestly to be hoped that no action of that kind will be taken. the case of ireland is centuries old, and more urgent than ever. it differs radically from any case that can possibly be made for scotland and wales. the bill, i repeat, must be anti-federal, centrifugal. in the case of ireland we have first to dissolve an unnatural union, and then to revive an old right to autonomy, before we can reach a healthy federal union. such, exactly, was the history of canada. if, in that case, the dissolution of the legislative union and the construction of the federal union were consummated simultaneously in the british north america act of , they were nevertheless two distinct phases, and of these two phases the first, implying the revival of the old separate autonomies, was the indispensable precursor of federal union. this antecedent recognition of autonomy was not peculiar to canada. every federation in the world arose in the same way, by the voluntary act of states under one crown or suzerainty, but independent of one another, and it is of the essence of federalism that this psychological condition should exist. compulsory federation would not last a year. it would indeed be practicable to federalize the united kingdom by one legislative act, but the prior right to and fitness for complete home rule on the part of each of the component parts would have to be implicitly recognized. it needs only a moment's consideration of anglo-irish history to see the special applicability of the psychological rule to ireland. the evils of the canadian union, during the twenty-seven years of its duration, are infinitesimal beside the mischief, moral and material, which have been caused to both partners by the forcible amalgamation of great britain and ireland; the waste of indigenous talent, industrial and political; the dispersion all over the globe of irishmen; the conversion of friends into enemies, of peaceable citizens into plotters of treason, of farmers into criminals, of poets and statesmen into gaolbirds; the check to the production of wealth and anglo-irish commerce; the dislocation and demoralization of parliamentary life; and, saddest results of all, the reactionary effect upon british statesmanship, domestic and imperial, and the deterioration of irish character within ireland. the voluntary principle--at any rate, among the english-speaking races--is as essential to a true union, like that of the south african colonies or that of scotland and england, as to a federation. it is a sheer impossibility to create a perfect, mechanical union on a basis of hatred and coercion; witness the strangely anomalous colonial features surviving in irish government--the lord-lieutenancy, the separate administration, and the standing army of police. persons inclined to reckon the advantages, whether of federation or of union, in pounds, shillings, and pence, may regard the psychological requirement as fanciful. it is not fanciful; on the contrary, it is related in the clearest way to the concrete facts of the situation. before there is any question of federation ireland needs to find herself, to test her own potentialities, to prove independence of character, thought, and action, and to discover what she can do by her own unaided will with her own resources. as i endeavoured to show in the last chapter, these are the true reasons for home rule. home rule is neither a luxury nor a plaything, but a tremendously exacting duty which must be undertaken by every country conscious of repression and valuing its self-respect, and which ireland is praying to be allowed to undertake. when a people has learnt to understand the extent of its own powers and limitations, then it can safely and honourably co-operate on a federal basis with other peoples, and, in the interests of efficiency and economy, can delegate to a central government, partly of its own choice, functions hitherto locally exercised. once more, that is the origin of all true federations, british and foreign, in all parts of the world. if, then, the home rule bill cannot in legal form be a federating or unifying measure, it must be one of a precisely opposite character, and a measure of devolution. it is a proof of the need for a scientific nomenclature that the word "devolution" has to irish ears come to mean something similar in kind to "federal" home rule, but less in degree, and something different in kind from "colonial" home rule, and infinitely less in degree. what a tangle of truth and fallacy from the misuse of a single word! it is associated rightly with the ill-starred irish council bill of , and it has been universally but wrongly used to indicate a small measure of local government in contradistinction to the home rule bills of mr. gladstone and, _a fortiori_, to any more liberal schemes. nevertheless, the problem before us is one of devolution pure and simple, and the question is, how far is devolution to go? it may go to the full length of colonial home rule, that is, ireland may be vested with the full freedom now enjoyed by a self-governing colony (for the grants of colonial home rule were measures of devolution), or it might at the other extreme take the form of a petty municipal government. by hypothesis, however, we are precluded from considering any scheme which does not admit of responsible government in ireland. that condition commits us to something in the nature of "colonial" home rule, now enjoyed by states widely varying in size, wealth, and population, from the dominion of canada, with over seven million inhabitants, to newfoundland, with under a quarter of a million inhabitants and very slender resources. it is worth notice also (to shift our analogy for the moment) that little newfoundland, which, owing to divergency of interest, has declined both federation with the dominion and union with any of the constituent parts of the dominion, subsists happily and peacefully by the side of her powerful neighbour; and that new zealand, for the same reason, prefers to occupy the same independent position by the side of australia. iii. the exclusion or retention of irish members at westminster.[ ] we have discarded the "federal" solution as wholly impracticable, and have arrived at the "colonial" solution. and at this point i feel it necessary to plead for the reader's patient, if reluctant, attention to what follows. the solution i suggest is unpopular, mainly, i believe, because prejudice has so beclouded the issue in the past, and because for the eighteen years since the last home rule bill, while prejudice has diminished, the subject of irish home rule has ceased to be studied with scientific care. where is the crux of the problem? in what provision of the coming bill will the difference between federal home rule and colonial home rule arise? the answer is clear: in the retention or exclusion of irish members at westminster. no colony has representatives at westminster. the federal solution, on the other hand, whether it be applied to the whole empire or to the united kingdom alone, involves an exclusively federal parliament unconcerned with state or provincial affairs. that we have not got. what we have got is an absolutely supreme and sovereign parliament which has legal authority, not only over all imperial affairs within and without the united kingdom, but over the minutest local affairs. unrepresented though the colonies are, they can legally be taxed, coerced, enslaved at any moment by an act passed by a party majority in this parliament. such measures, though legal, would be unconstitutional; but, both by law and custom, and in actual daily practice, parliament passes and enforces certain acts affecting the self-governing colonies, and wields potential and actual authority of all-embracing extent over the empire and over the local affairs of the united kingdom. when we set up an irish legislature, then, we have to contemplate four different classes of affairs in a descending scale: ( ) affairs of common interest to the whole empire; ( ) affairs of exclusive interest to the united kingdom; ( ) affairs exclusively british; ( ) affairs exclusively irish. with regard to ( ), the prospects of imperial federation do not affect the irish issue. it is no doubt illogical and sometimes highly inconvenient that the british cabinet and parliament, representing british and irish electors only, should decide matters which deeply concern the whole empire, including the self-governing colonies, but it is the fact. in the meantime we are securing very effective consultation with the self-governing colonies by the method of imperial conference. a federal parliament for the whole empire is a possible though a remote alternative to that system. colonial representation in the present imperial parliament is an altogether impracticable alternative. the suggestion had often been made for the american colonies at the height of their discontent, later for canada as an alternative to the act of , and in recent times also. the same fallacious idea underlay the union of ireland with great britain and her representation in parliament, while retaining colonial institutions. at present the prospects of imperial federation seem to be indifferent. on the other hand, the affection between all branches of our race which is the indispensable groundwork of federation becomes visibly stronger, and will become stronger, provided that we do not revert to the ancient and discredited policy either of dictating to the colonies or taking sides with one or another of the parties within them, provided also that the colonies in their growing strength do not dictate to us or take sides with one or other of our parties. but, whatever the prospects of imperial federation, so long as the present situation lasts, there is no reason for giving a self-governing ireland more control over imperial matters affecting the self-governing colonies than the self-governing colonies themselves possess. the present position is illogical enough; that would be to render it doubly illogical. representation of ireland, therefore, at westminster, on the ground that she should take part in settling matters of the widest imperial purport, is indefensible. the alternative and much more effectual method, as with the colonies, is conference. ( - ) but it is when we come to regard the united kingdom as a self-contained entity that the difficulty of retaining irish members at westminster appears most formidable. if we discard the federal solution we must discard it wholeheartedly, not from a pedantic love of logic, but to avoid real, practical anomalies which might cause the whole political machine to work even worse than it does at present. from what i have written, it will be seen at once that to retain the irish members in the house of commons, while giving ireland responsible government, would be to set up a kind of hybrid system, retaining the disadvantages of the union without gaining the advantages of federalism. a federal system needs a federal parliament, which we have not got, and shall not get for a long time yet. to introduce into it a quasi-federal element is to mix oil with water. i state the proposition in this broad way at first in order to push home the truth that irish representation at westminster will involve anomalies and dangers which, beyond a certain very limited point, cannot be mitigated. methods of mitigation i will deal with in a moment. let me remark first upon the strange history of this question of irish representation at westminster. obviously it is the most fundamental question of all in the matter of home rule. the whole structure of the bill hangs on it. it affects every provision, and particularly the financial provisions. yet mr. gladstone went no farther than to call it an "organic detail," and in popular controversy it is still generally regarded in that light, or even in a less serious light. as a matter of history, however, it has proved to be a factor of importance in deciding the fate of the home rule bills. in mr. gladstone, in proposing to exclude irish members altogether, roused a storm of purely sentimental opposition. in , in proposing to retain them--first with limited functions, then on the old terms of complete equality with british members--he met with opposition even more formidable, because it was not merely sentimental, but unanswerably practical. on both occasions mr. chamberlain took a prominent part in the opposition: in because he was then a federalist, advocating "quebec" home rule for ireland, and regarding the exclusion of irish members from westminster as contravening the federal principle; in because, having ceased to be a home ruler, he had no difficulty in showing that the retention of irish members, either with full or limited functions, was neither federation nor union, but an unworkable mixture of the two. these facts should be a warning to those who trifle thoughtlessly with what they call "federal" home rule. it was through a desperate desire to conciliate that mr. gladstone caught at the federal chimera in , and produced a scheme which he himself could not defend. and it was one of the very statesmen that he sought to conciliate--a statesman, moreover, possessing one of the keenest and strongest intellects of the time--who snatched at the chimera in , and argued it out of existence in . we home rulers do not want a repetition of those events. we want home rule, and if we are to be defeated, let us be defeated on a simple straightforward issue, not on an indefensible complication of our own devising. now to details. there are five ways of dealing with the question, and of these i will take first the four different ways of including irish members in the house of commons, leaving their total _exclusion_ to the last. . inclusion of irish members in their full numbers for all purposes--that is, with a right to vote upon all questions--british, irish, and imperial. [by "full numbers" i mean, not the existing figure of , but numbers fully, and no more than fully, warrantable according to the latest figures of population--say .] . inclusion in full numbers for limited purposes. . inclusion in reduced numbers for all purposes. [by "reduced numbers" i mean in numbers less than population would warrant.] . inclusion in reduced numbers for limited purposes. now ( ) i only set out for symmetry. it has never been proposed by anybody, and hardly needs notice. the three others are alike in two respects--that they leave untouched the question of representation in the house of lords, and that they directly infringe both the federal principle and the union principle by giving representation, both in a unitary and a subordinate legislature, to one portion of the realm. let us look at no. --inclusion in full numbers for all purposes. this was mr. gladstone's revised proposal of , and it formed part of the bill thrown out by the lords. the number of irish members was to have been . but reduction, as mr. gladstone admitted, would scarcely affect the inherent difficulties of inclusion. nor must it be forgotten that reduction from to can be justified only by the concession of a large measure of home rule. it is one of the paradoxes of an unnatural union that, over-represented as ireland is, she has not now power enough to secure her own will. to reduce her numbers, while retaining large powers over irish affairs at westminster, would be unjust. for the time being i shall defer the consideration of those powers, and argue the matter on broad principle, assuming that the powers retained in imperial hands are small enough to warrant a reduction from to . now let us apply our touchstone to this question of inclusion in "full" numbers. will it be good for ireland? surely not. (_a_) it will be bad for ireland, in the first place, to have her energies weakened at the outset by having to find two complete sets of representatives, when she will be in urgent need of all her best men to do her own work. there is no analogy with quebec, victoria, massachusetts, or würtemburg, which had all been accustomed to self-government before they entered their respective federations. ireland has to find her best men, create her domestic policies, reconstruct her administration, and the larger the reservoir of talent she has to draw from the better. when true federation becomes practical politics it will be another matter. by that time she will have men to spare. (_b_) more serious objection still, retention in full numbers will, it is to be feared, tend to counteract the benefits of home rule in ireland by keeping alive old dissensions and bad political habits. if, after long and hot controversy, a system is set up under which great britain can still be regarded as a pacificator--half umpire and half policeman--of what peel called the "warring sects" of ireland, it is to be feared that the members sent to london may fall into the old unnatural party divisions; a protestant minority seeking to revoke or curtail home rule, and a nationalist majority--paradoxical survival of a pre-national period--seeking to maintain or enlarge home rule. these unhappy results would react in their turn upon the irish legislature, impairing the value of home rule, and making ireland, as of old, the cockpit of sectarian and sentimental politics. the same results would have happened if, simultaneously with the concession of home rule to canada, australia and south africa, these colonies had been given representation in the british parliament. (_c_) whatever the extent of the danger i have indicated, inclusion in full numbers will tend to keep alive the habit of dependence on great britain for financial aid, a habit so ingrained, through no fault of ireland's, that it will be difficult to break if the parliamentary leverage is left intact. if ever there was a country which needed, as far as humanly possible, to be thrown for a time--not necessarily for a long time--upon its own resources, it is ireland. every other self-governing colony in the empire has gone through that bracing and purifying ordeal, accepting from the mother country, without repayment, only the loan of military and naval defence, and ireland can imitate them without dishonour. what is bad for ireland is sure to be bad for great britain, too, and the bad effect in this case is sufficiently apparent. imagine the result if quebec, besides having her own legislature and her own representatives in the dominion parliament, were to be represented also in the ontario legislature. ireland, besides controlling her own affairs, free from british interference, would have a voice in british affairs, and sometimes a deciding voice. "if you keep the irish in," said mr. john morley in --and he meant in their full numbers--"they will be what they have ever been in the past--the arbitrators and masters of english policy, of english legislative business, and of the rise and fall of british administrations." that is a rather exaggerated account of the past, for had it been literally true ireland would have had home rule long ago; and it was unduly pessimistic about the future, for it hardly made sufficient allowance for a change in irish spirit as a result of home rule; but there is a truth in the words which everybody recognizes and whose recognition is one of the great motive forces behind home rule. even a total change in irish sentiments and parties would not remove the danger, and might intensify it by producing at westminster a solid instead of, as at present, a divided, irish vote. it would be truer, perhaps, to say what i said above, that retention of members would tend to stereotype irish parties and the mutual antipathy of ireland and great britain. . inclusion in full numbers (say ) for limited purposes. this (with the figure of ) was mr. gladstone's original proposal of , and it took the form of a clause known as the "in and out clause," which purported to divide all parliamentary business into imperial, irish, and non-irish business, and to give irish members the right to vote only on imperial and irish subjects. mr. gladstone never disguised his view that a sound classification was impracticable, and put forward the clause, frankly, as a tentative scheme for the discussion of the house. like its successor, the "omnes omnia" clause, it was riddled with criticism, and it was eventually withdrawn. without investigating details, the reader will perceive at once the hopeless confusion arising from an attempt to inject a tincture of federalism into a unitary parliament, forming part of an unwritten constitution of great age and infinite delicacy. it is not merely that it is absolutely impossible to distinguish rigidly between imperial, irish, and british business. the great objection is that there would be two alternating majorities in an assembly which is, and must be, absolutely governed by a party majority, and which, through that majority, controls the executive. it "passed the wit of man," said mr. gladstone, to separate in practice the legislative and executive functions in the british constitution. at present a hostile vote in the house of commons overturns the ministry of the day and changes the whole british and imperial administration. a hostile vote, therefore, determined by the irish members, on a question affecting ireland, such as the application to ireland of a british bill, would seriously embarrass the ministry, if it did not overturn it. the log-rolling and illicit pressure which this state of things would encourage may be easily imagined. a ministry might find itself after a general election in the position of having a majority for some purposes and not for others. that was actually the case in , when mr. gladstone, with a majority, including the irish nationalists, of only , was carrying his bill through parliament. it is actually the case now, in the sense that if the irish nationalists voted with the opposition, the ministry would be defeated. any change for the better in irish sentiment towards great britain would _pro tanto_ mitigate the difficulty, but would not remove it, and might, as i suggested above, increase it, by the creation of a solid irish vote. if great britain resents the present system, she alone is to blame. as long as she insists on keeping the irish members out of ireland, where they ought to be, she thoroughly deserves their tyranny, and would be wise to get rid of it by the means they suggest. until they are given home rule, they are not only justified in using their power, but are bound, in duty and honour, to use it. to reproduce in the home rule bill, albeit in a modified form, conditions which might lead to the same results as before would surely be a gratuitous act of unwisdom. . inclusion in reduced numbers for all purposes. by "reduced numbers" is meant numbers less than the population of ireland warrants. for the sake of argument we may assume the number to be , that is, approximately half the proper proportion; but directly we desert a scientific principle of allocation, the exact figure we adopt is a matter of arbitrary choice. mr. gladstone appears to have contemplated this plan for a brief period in ; but he dropped it. clearly it cannot be defended on any logical grounds, but only as a compromise designed, as it avowedly was, to conciliate british opinion. it would minimize but not remove the difficulties inherent in no. ; and so far as it did lessen these difficulties, the representation given would be impotent and superfluous. that is why i have taken it last in order of the three possible methods of inclusion. it raises in the sharpest and clearest form the important question underlying the whole of the discussion we have just been through--namely, what are to be the powers delegated to the irish parliament and executive, and what are to be the powers reserved to the imperial parliament and executive? if the powers reserved are small, it will be possible to justify not merely a small irish representation in the house of commons, but even under certain conditions the total exclusion of irish members. indeed, if the figure corresponded to the facts of the case, one might as well abandon these painful efforts to "conciliate british opinion," accept total exclusion, and substitute conference for representation. if the powers reserved are large, full representation in spite of all the crushing objections to it, will be absolutely necessary, in order to safeguard irish interests. here is the grand dilemma, and it says little for our common sense as a nation that we should submit to be puzzled and worried by it any longer. half the worry arises from the old and infinitely pernicious habit of regarding ireland as outside the pale of political science, of ignoring in her case what lord morley has called the "fundamental probabilities of civil society." let us break this habit once and for all and take the logical and politic course of total exclusion, with its logical and politic accompaniment, a measure of home rule wide enough to justify the absence of irish representation at westminster. that will be found to be the path both of duty and of safety. let it be clearly understood that lapse of time has not diminished appreciably the power of the arguments against the inclusion of irish members in the house of commons. on their merits, these arguments are still unanswerable, and we had better recognize the fact. mr. balfour said, in , "those questions" (of representation at westminster) "are not capable of solution, and the very fact that they are incapable of solution affords, in our opinion, a conclusive argument against the whole scheme, of which one or other of the plans in question must form a part." speaking as a unionist, mr. balfour was right, and, as home rulers, we should be wise to remember it. lastly, even if the question of inclusion in the house of commons were "capable of solution," as it is not, there would remain the problem raised by the house of lords. it is idle to ignore the fact that the bulk of the irish peerage, and the assembly of which it forms part, has been for a century in consistent and resolute opposition to the views of the vast majority of irishmen. the recent curtailment of its powers, whether a right or a wrong measure in itself, does not make it any the more suitable as an upper chamber, under a home rule scheme, for the decision of important irish questions reserved for settlement at westminster; indeed, the bare proposal is the best imaginable example of the extraordinary complications which would ensue from the introduction of a quasi-federal element into a unitary constitution. federal upper chambers, so far from being hostile to state rights, are almost invariably framed on the principle of giving disproportionately large representation to the smaller states. in the united states and australia, for example, every state, however small, has an equal number of senators. it will be clear now that there are two distinct ways of approaching the question of the framework of home rule. one may begin with the nature and extent of the powers reserved or delegated, and proceed from them to the inclusion and exclusion of irish representation at westminster, or one may begin with the topic of inclusion or exclusion and proceed from it to the nature and extent of powers. while premising that we must trust ireland and evoke her sense of responsibility, i chose the latter of the two courses, because i believe it to be on the whole the most illuminating and trustworthy course. it is also the more logical course, though i should not have adopted it for that reason alone; and i have already given, i hope, some good reasons to show that in this matter logic and policy coincide. englishmen pride themselves on the lack of logic which characterizes their slowly evolved institutions, but they may easily carry that pride to preposterous extremes. faced now with the necessity of making a written constitution which will stand the test of daily use they would commit the last of innumerable errors in irish policy if, with full warning from experience elsewhere, they were to frame a measure whose unprecedented and unworkable provisions were the outcome of a distrust of ireland which it was the ostensible object of the measure itself to remove. iv. irish powers and their bearing on exclusion. i pass to what i suggest to be the right solution: total exclusion, as proposed by mr. gladstone in , though he shrank from recommending what he knew to be its financial corollary. mr. bright regarded exclusion as the "best clause" of a dangerous scheme, and mr. chamberlain has admitted that he attacked it, as he attacked the proposals for land purchase, which he knew to be right, in order to "kill the bill."[ ] i propose only to recapitulate the merits of exclusion before dealing with the alleged difficulties of that form of home rule, and in particular with the point on which the controversy mainly turns--finance. to give ireland colonial home rule, without representation in london, is to follow the natural channel of historical development. ireland was virtually a colony, and is treated still in many respects as an inferior type of colony, in other respects as a partner in a vicious type of union. we cannot improve the union, and it is, admittedly, a failure. let us, then, in broad outline, model her political system on that of a self-governing colony. history apart, circumstances demand this solution. it is the best solution for ireland, because she needs, precisely what the colonies needed--full play for her native faculties, full responsibility for the adjustment of her internal dissensions, for the exploitation, unaided, of her own resources, and for the settlement of neglected problems peculiar to herself. as a member of the imperial family she will gain, not lose. and the empire, here as everywhere else, will gain, not lose. these ends will be jeopardized if we continue to bind her to the british parliament, and restrict her own autonomy accordingly. reciprocally, we damage the british parliament and gratuitously invite friction and deadlock in the administration either of british or of imperial affairs, or both. of the difficulties raised we can mitigate one only by bringing another into existence. endeavouring to minimize them all by reducing the irish representation to the lowest point, we either do a gross injustice to ireland, by diminishing her control over interests vital to her, or, by conceding that control, remove the necessity for any representation at all. most irish unionists would, i believe, prefer exclusion to retention. one gathers that from the debates of , and the view is in accordance with the traditional ulster spirit, and the spirit generally displayed by powerful minorities threatened with a home rule to which they object on principle. it was the spirit displayed by the upper canadian minority, in - (_vide_ p. ), in threatening to leave the empire rather than submit to home rule, and by the transvaal minority in the lukewarm and divided support given to the half-baked constitution of , and in the hearty welcome given to the full autonomy of . how the colonists expressed themselves matters nothing. we must make generous allowance for hot party feeling and old prejudices. the canadian minorities did not really mean to call in the united states, nor does it signify a particle that some of the johannesburgers vowed that anything could be borne which freed them from the interference of a liberal government. these opinions are transient and negligible. the spirit is essentially healthy. paradox as it may seem, the uncompromising attitude of ulster unionists, as voiced by the ablest representative they ever had, colonel saunderson,[ ] is hopeful for the prospects of home rule. they fight doggedly for the union, but i believe they would prefer a real home rule to a half-measure, and in making that choice they would show their virility and courage at its true worth. where are the dangers and difficulties of exclusion? the dangers first. i believe, from a study of events in the last twenty-five years, that the strongest opposition to it was founded, not so much upon a reluctance to give ireland powers full enough to render needless her representation at westminster, but on a jealous desire to keep irish members under surveillance, as a dangerous and intractable body of men who would hatch mischief against the empire if they were allowed to disappear from sight; the same kind of instinct which urged revolutionary paris to stop the flight of louis and to keep him under lock and key. in the case of ireland it is possible to understand the prevalence of this instinct in , though even then it was irrational enough. but in we should be ashamed to entertain it. irish plots against the empire have passed into electoral scares, and if they had not, representation in london would be no safeguard. we should also dismiss the more rational but groundless view that imperial co-operation necessitates representation in a joint assembly. conference is a better method. anyone who studies the proceedings of the last imperial conference and observes the number and variety of the subjects discussed and the numerous and valuable decisions arrived at, will realize how much can be done by mutual good-will and the pressure of mutual interest.[ ] it may be objected that, with one or two exceptions of quite recent date, the colonies have contributed nothing to the upkeep of the empire, except in the very indirect form of maintaining local military forces, that their present tendency --unquestionably a sound tendency--is to co-operate, not by way of direct money contribution to imperial funds, but by the construction of local navies out of their own money, and, in time of peace, under their own immediate control, and that ireland cannot be allowed to follow their example. the objection has no point. ireland, through no fault of her own, has reached a stage (if we are to trust the treasury figures) where she no longer pays any cash contribution to imperial expenses, nor is it possible to look back with any satisfaction upon the enormous total of her cash contributions in the past. they were not the voluntary offerings of a willing partner, but the product of a joint financial system which, like all consequences of a forced union, was bad for ireland. if we consider that a similar attempt to extort an imperial contribution from the american states led to their secession; that the principle was definitely abandoned in the case of the later colonies; that, on the contrary, large annual sums raised in these islands were, until quite recent times, spent for purposes of defence within these colonies; that in the south african war two hundred and fifty million pounds were spent in order to assist british subjects in the transvaal to obtain the rights of freemen in a self-governing colony; and that to this day indirect colonial contributions in the shape of local expenditure are small in proportion to the immense benefit derived from the protection of the imperial navy, army, and diplomacy, and from the assistance of british credit; if we then reflect that before the union ireland was, in the matter of contribution, somewhat in the same position as canada or australia to-day--that is, paying no fixed cash tribute, but voluntarily assuming the burden, very heavy in time of war, of certain army establishments; that for seventeen years after the union contributions fixed on a scale grossly inequitable drove her into bankruptcy; that from until two years ago, she paid, by dint of excessive taxation and in spite of terrible economic depression, a considerable share, and sometimes more than her proportionate share, of imperial expenditure;[ ] if, finally, we remember that, cash payments apart, irishmen for centuries past have taken an important part in manning the army and navy, have fought and died on innumerable battle-fields in the service of the empire, and have contributed some of its ablest military leaders; if we consider all these facts soberly and reasonably, we shall, i believe, agree that it would be fair and right to place a home ruled ireland in the position of a self-governing colony, with a moral obligation to contribute, when her means permit, and in proportion to her means, but without a statutory and compulsory tribute. what form should that contribution eventually take? does it necessarily follow that ireland should be given power to construct her own navy, and raise and control her own troops? let us use our common sense, and use it, let me add, fearlessly. if ireland really _wanted_ full colonial powers, if, like australia and canada, she would be discontented and resentful at their denial, we should be wise to grant them, and rely on common interests and affections to secure friendly co-operation. does it not stand to reason that a friendly alliance even with a foreign power, such as france, to say nothing of the far more intimate relations with a consanguineous colony, is better business than any arrangement for common forces unwillingly or resentfully acceded to? but, as i pointed out in chapter viii., all these uneasy speculations about independent irish armaments are superfluous. ireland does not want separate armaments. the sporadic attempts to discourage enlistment in the imperial forces are, as every sensible person should recognize, the results of refusing home rule. they would have occurred in every colony under similar circumstances, and they do occur in one degree or another wherever countries agitate vainly for home rule. if russia misinterprets such phenomena, we have, let us hope, more political enlightenment than russia. ireland's strategical situation bears no analogy to that of australia and canada, which, for geographical reasons, are compelled, as south africa will be compelled, to make a certain amount of independent provision, not only for military, but for naval defence, and would be wanting in patriotic feeling if they did otherwise. new zealand, on the other hand, is too small to be capable of creating a navy, and rightly contributes to ours. we have arrived at an interesting psychological point when australia and canada both seem to be inclined to reserve, in theory, a right to abstain from engaging their navies in a war undertaken by great britain, but nobody will be alarmed by this theoretical reservation. it is an insignificant matter beside the naval agreement reached at the last conference ( )--an agreement worth more than volumes of unwritten statutes--to the effect that the personnel of the colonial fleets is to be interchangeable with that of the imperial fleet and that in a joint war colonial ships are to form an integral part of the british fleet under the control of the admiralty. with such an agreement in existence, it becomes superfluous to lay stress upon the fact that without formal and complete separation from the mother country in time of peace, the neutrality of a colony would not be recognized by a belligerent enemy of great britain in time of war. in any case these developments have no concern for ireland, which does not want, and need not be given, power to raise a local navy. nor, with regard to the regular land forces, will anything be changed. troops quartered in ireland will be, as before, and as in the colonies now, under complete imperial control. so will imperial camps, magazines, arsenals, dock-yards. on the other hand, arrangements should certainly be made to permit the raising of volunteer forces in ireland. there are large numbers of irishmen in the british territorial army, and ireland sent five companies to the south african war. though the poverty of the country will for a long time check the growth of volunteer forces, it is the union which presents the only serious obstacle to their establishment. no surer proof of the need for home rule could be adduced than the fact that it was held to be impossible to extend the territorial system to ireland. one of the objects of home rule is to remove this suspicious atmosphere. whether local power to organize and arm volunteers in ireland should be given to the irish authority, or, as in the home rule bills of and , reserved to the imperial government, is, if we trust ireland, as we must, a secondary and not a vital matter, which would not affect the question of representation at westminster.[ ] probably it would be most convenient to leave the matters in the hands of the irish legislature. in any case, the command-in-chief of all forces in ireland, regular or volunteer, would, as in the colonies,[ ] be vested in the king. the control of the royal irish constabulary and dublin metropolitan police does not affect the question of representation at westminster. with or without representation, ireland should be given the control of all her own police forces from the first, without the restrictions imposed by the bills of and with regard to imperial control of the existing forces.[ ] with the important exception of taxation, with which i shall deal last, no other power which should properly be reserved to the imperial parliament, or delegated to the irish parliament, has any appreciable bearing upon the exclusion of irish members from the house of commons. nor do any of them raise issues which are likely to be troublesome. common sense and mutual convenience should decide them. the army, navy, and other military forces i have already dealt with. the crown, the lord-lieutenant, war and peace, prize and booty of war, foreign relations and treaties (with the exception of commercial treaties), titles, extradition, neutrality,[ ] and treason, are subjects upon which the colonies have no power to legislate or act, and of which it would be needless, strictly, to make any formal statutory exception in the case of ireland, though the exception no doubt will be made in the bill. naturalization, coinage, copyright, patents, trademarks, are all matters in which the colonies have local powers, whose existence, and the limitations attaching to them, are determined either solely by constitutional custom or with the addition of an implied or express statutory authority.[ ] the two former would, i should think, be wholly reserved to the imperial parliament. in the case of the latter three, which were wholly reserved in the bill of and , ireland might be placed in the position of a self-governing colony.[ ] in trade and navigation it would be wise to take the same course. the home rule bill of , without giving ireland representation at westminster, denied her all powers over trade and navigation. the bill of gave her powers over trade within ireland and inland navigation, and these powers at any rate should be given in the coming bill, together with the larger functions also; though ireland would naturally leave in operation the great bulk of the statutes concerned, since they intimately affect the commercial and industrial relations of the two countries. for the rest, ireland no more than the colonies can be freed from a measure of imperial control maintained by acts like the merchant shipping act of . the postal service in ireland should, as in the bill of , come under irish control. in the home rule bill of (section ) it was laid down that for three years the irish legislature should not "pass an act respecting the relations of landlord or tenant, or the sale, purchase, or letting of land generally." such a provision repeated in the coming bill would be inconsistent with the absence of irish members from westminster. but i take it for granted that there is no question of its repetition. at first it might appear that land purchase should be distinguished from other branches of land legislation and reserved to the imperial government on the ground that it needs imperial credit. i shall deal with this point fully in chapter xiv., and only need here to express the view that land purchase cannot be separated from other branches of land legislation, or from the congested districts board, or even from the control of the police, and that we are bound to give, and shall be acting wisely in giving, all these powers to the irish legislature from the first. it is necessary perhaps to add that non-representation at westminster does not in the smallest degree affect the complete legal supremacy of the imperial parliament over the subordinate irish legislature. this legislature will in legal language be a "local and territorial" body, like those of the colonies. it will be the creature of parliament, and could be amended or even extinguished by it in a subsequent act. the bill of (perhaps because it never reached the committee stage) said nothing explicit about the supremacy, though the bill of , while providing for representation at westminster, repeatedly (and sometimes quite superfluously) affirmed it--in the preamble, for example, and in a rider to clause . the king's authority, through the lord-lieutenant, will be supreme in ireland, as, through the governors, it is supreme in the colonies. every irish bill, like every colonial bill, will require the royal assent, given through the lord-lieutenant, who will correspond to the colonial governors. the lord-lieutenant, like his colonial counterpart, will have to exercise both his executive and legislative functions in a double capacity: in the first instance by the advice of his irish cabinet, but subject to a veto by the british cabinet. this dual capacity has belonged to all colonial governors ever since the principle of responsible government was established. as i showed in earlier chapters, it was regarded even by lord john russell as impossible and absurd as late as ; but it ought by now to be understood by every educated man, and we may hope to be spared the philosophical disquisitions and hair-splitting criticisms which it evoked from men who should have known better in the home rule debates of . laws framed at westminster will be applicable to ireland, as they are frequently made applicable to the colonies.[ ] conversely, only through the express legislative authority of westminster will an irish, like a colonial act,[ ] be held to operate outside the borders of ireland. apart from the strict legal omnipotence of imperial sovereignty, it is, of course, impossible to say now what the exact constitutional position of ireland will be under any form of home rule. no bill can state it fully in set terms. time, custom, and judicial decisions will build up a body of doctrine. it is so with the colonies, whose exact constitutional relations with the mother country are still a matter of juristic debate, and are only to be deduced from the study of an immense number of judicial decisions and of imperial acts passed subsequently to the grant of the original constitutions. some of these acts i have already illustrated. the one act of general application, namely, the colonial laws validity act, cannot be read without the rest, though in form it appears to contain a complete set of rules. while giving general power to a self-governing colony "to make laws for the peace, welfare, and good government of the colony" (words which will also necessarily appear in the home rule bill), the act makes void all colonial laws or parts of laws which are "repugnant to the provisions of any act of parliament extending to the colony to which such law shall relate," and this provision will no doubt, be applied, _mutatis mutandis,_ to ireland, as it was in section of the home rule bill of . the irish legislature, that is, will be able "to repeal or alter any enactments in force in ireland except such as either relate to matters beyond the power of the irish legislature, or, being enacted by parliament after the passing of this act, may be expressly extended to ireland." it will be noticed that the words "beyond the power of the irish legislature" referred to the subjects expressly excepted in the bill itself. this is one of the points in which the irish constitution will bear at any rate a superficial resemblance to that of a province or state within a federation rather than to that of a self-governing colony. the practice of expressly, and in the text of a constitution, forbidding a self-governing colony to legislate upon certain subjects, or of expressly reserving concurrent or exclusive powers of legislation to the mother country, has fallen into disuse since the establishment of the principle of responsible government. such restrictions were inserted in the canadian union act of , where the old right of the mother country to impose customs duties in the colonies for the regulation of commerce was reaffirmed, and even in the acts of for giving full powers of self-government to the australian colonies, which were forbidden to impose intercolonial customs, though they were expressly granted the power of imposing any other customs duties they pleased,[ ] but they do not appear in modern constitutions, for example in the transvaal constitution of . as i have indicated, this implies no change in the strict legal theory of colonial subordination to the mother country; for, although the tendency of modern juristic thought is to ascribe "plenary" power to a colony, restrictions nevertheless do exist in practice, and are contained, express or implicit, in a number of disjointed acts. a federating colony, on the other hand, like a foreign federation, has in its own self-made, domestic constitution to apportion powers with some approach to precision between the federal and the provincial authorities, and in this respect the irish bill, in reserving certain powers to the imperial parliament, will resemble a federating bill, and it should follow the american and australian precedents in leaving residuary powers to the subordinate or irish legislature, not, in accordance with the canadian precedent, to the parliament at westminster. that is an indispensable corollary of excluding irish members from westminster. in speaking of powers reserved or delegated, and of residuary or unallocated powers, i have thus far referred only to powers which must be exercised, or at any rate may need to be exercised, if not by the subordinate legislature, then by the superior parliament. those restrictions on the irish legislature which are imposed in order to protect the religious or economic interests of a minority within the state, or as a recognition that there are certain kinds of laws which it is morally wrong to pass, fall into an altogether different category. by implication they morally bind the superior parliament too, and are irrelevant, therefore, to the question of representation. they will be necessary, no doubt, in the coming irish bill, though they need not be so extensive as those which are to be found in clause of the bill of , some of which are borrowed from the famous anti-slavery amendments of - to the constitution of the united states.[ ] in inserting them we shall again be following the "federal" rather than the "colonial" model. no such restrictions have been imposed by the mother country upon any self-governing colony. the nearest approach, perhaps, to such a tendency was the provision in the transvaal constitution of (section ), that "any law whereby persons not of european birth or descent may be subjected or made liable to any disabilities or restrictions to which persons of european birth or descent are not also subjected or made liable" should be specially "reserved"--that is, sent home by the governor--for the signification of the royal pleasure; but no similar provision appeared in the act of for constituting the south african union. in federal systems, on the other hand, such restrictions, taking the form of self-denying ordinances, are common, whether appearing in the federal constitution itself or in the subordinate state constitutions. the constitution of the united states, for example, in addition to the anti-slavery provisions noted above, enacts that the national government cannot (by amendment i.) establish any religion or prohibit its free exercise, or (by amendment v.) take private property for public use without just compensation, or (by article , § ) grant a title of nobility. neither (by amendment xiv. and article , § respectively) can a state do these things. by article , § , a state cannot pass a law impairing the obligation of a contract. exactly similar restrictions appear in many of the individual state constitutions. others forbid the establishment of any church or sect; the introduction of armed men "for the suppression of domestic violence"; "perpetuities or monopolies," and a variety of other things. analogous provisions are to be found in the british north america act, (constituting the dominion of canada), where the provincial legislatures are forbidden to interfere with certain rights and privileges of religious bodies in the matter of education. there are no limitations of the kind in the australian commonwealth act of . australia, no doubt, correctly represents the tendency of modern thought on this matter. some of the american safeguards have produced great inconvenience. nor can it be denied that the most elaborately contrived legal safeguards are of less value than the moral safeguard afforded by the sense of honour, justice, and prudence in the community. the existence of these qualities in ireland, as in other white countries, is the true foundation of home rule. some day irishmen will ask, as a united country, for the repeal of these statutory safeguards. that brings me to the penultimate point of importance, which may be held to affect the inclusion or exclusion of irish members at westminster--i mean the question of future constitutional amendment. here the colonial analogies are a little complicated. since the australian colonies act of , in the new grant of a constitution to a self-governing colony, power has invariably been given to amend its own constitution, without, of course, detracting from any powers specified in it for preserving the sovereignty of the mother country. canada, when federating in , took the somewhat singular course of making no provision in her federal constitution for its subsequent amendment, though, by section of the british north america act, she gave her provinces the exclusive right to amend their own constitutions, a right which three of them have used to abolish their upper chambers. the dominion constitution, then, cannot be amended otherwise than by an imperial act. such amending acts are promoted by the dominion government without any specially devised machinery for ascertaining the public opinion of canadians. australia, on the other hand, when federating in , made elaborate arrangements, which have been put several times into operation, for the amendment of the federal constitution by the australian people itself, without an imperial act. now, it will follow as a matter of course that ireland will be given powers, as in both the previous bills,[ ] to amend her own constitution within certain defined limits, after a certain lapse of time, and without encroaching upon imperial authority. for my part i would strongly urge that the powers now to be conferred should be much wider; for i believe that ireland alone can make a really perfect constitution for herself. but, that point apart, the question arises of the further amendment, outside such permissive powers, of the home rule act itself, which will, of course, contain within its four corners the whole of the irish constitution, so far as it can be written down. no special arrangements were made for such a contingency in the bill of , presumably because ireland was to be represented at westminster and would have a share in the making of any amending act. in the bill of , which excluded the irish members, mr. gladstone proposed (in clause ) that no alteration of the act should be made (apart, of course, from points left for irish alteration) except ( ) by an imperial act formally assented to by the irish legislature, or ( ) by an imperial act for the passing of which a stated number of members of both branches of the irish legislature should be summoned to sit at westminster. it will be clear, i think, now, in , that this latter proposal is not worth revival. no substantial amendment of the act should properly be made without the formal consent of the irish legislature, representing irish public opinion, and the prior consultation with the irish cabinet which such consent would imply. if the lamentable necessity ever arose of amending the act against the wishes of ireland, the sudden invasion of westminster by a body of angry irish members, too small to affect the result (for otherwise the attempt to amend would not be made) and large enough to revive the old political dislocation and passion, would not simplify the process of amendment or be of value to anybody concerned. the proposal was probably only suggested by a vague leaning towards the federal principle, which, in the present case, we should certainly reject. it serves indeed as one more illustration of the anomalies which might result from the inclusion of irish members at westminster. no more unhealthy position could be imagined than one which would render it possible for an amendment of the home rule act, whether in the direction of greater latitude or of stricter limitation, to depend solely upon the irish vote in an assembly predominately non-irish. that is not to the discredit of ireland. the system would be just as indefensible, whatever the subordinate state concerned. it would be federalism run mad, and would make alexander hamilton turn in his grave. it is worth while to note that, even under a sane and normal federal system, the irish constitution would be less easily alterable in either direction than under the plan of treating her as a self-governing colony. in the latter case action is direct and simple, while most federal constitutions are extraordinarily difficult to amend. the dominion of canada is only an apparent exception. i turn lastly to finance, the point which most closely affects representation at westminster, and which distinguishes any form of quasi-federal home rule most sharply from its alternative, "colonial" home rule. all federal systems necessarily involve a certain amount of joint finance between the superior and the inferior government. the distribution of financial powers varies widely in different federations, but all have this feature in common--that the central or superior government controls customs and excise, and is to a large degree financed by means of the revenue derived from those sources. the united states government, as distinguished from that of the individual states, pays in this way for almost its entire expenditure.[ ] so does the dominion of canada;[ ] while in the australian commonwealth the receipts from customs and excise alone more than cover the whole commonwealth expenditure.[ ] finance makes or mars federations. some federations or organic unions of independent states have come into being through a strong desire in the separate states to have, among other things, a common system of customs, and in the case of the german empire and the south african union a customs union or _zollverein_ has preceded federation. these phenomena are the most marked illustration of the general truth that a common desire to federate, or unite, on the part of individual states is a condition precedent to a sound federation or union. on the other hand, finance, especially the question of joint customs, has sometimes presented obstacles to a federation which, on other grounds, was earnestly desired. the long delay in achieving the australian federation was largely due to the desire of new south wales to maintain her free trade system, while the financial arrangements generally caused most of the practical difficulties met with in arranging the federation both of canada and australia, and in their subsequent domestic relations. nova scotia in the former case, and western australia in the latter, held out to the last instant, and the former subsequently had to receive exceptionally favourable treatment. in both federations some measure of friction is chronic, and in neither has a perfectly satisfactory system been evolved. the union of ireland and great britain in was in this respect, as in all others, a flagrant departure from sound principle. the customs union which followed it was a forced customs union, and, together with the other financial arrangements between the two countries, has produced results incredibly absurd and mischievous. some of these results i briefly indicated in chapter v. in the following chapters i shall tell the whole story fully, and i hope to convince the reader that we should follow, not only historically, but morally and practically, the correct line of action if, in dissolving the legislative union, we dissolve the customs union also. that would involve a virtually independent system of finance for ireland, and place her fiscally in the position of a self-governing colony. if and when a real federation of the united kingdom becomes practical politics, she would then have the choice of entering it in the spirit and on the terms invariably associated with all true federations or unions. that is, she would voluntarily relinquish, in her own interest, financial and other rights to a central government solely concerned with central affairs. i need scarcely point out in this connection the vital importance of the question of representation at westminster. ireland resembles the self-governing colonies, and differs from great britain, in that the greater part of the revenue raised from her inhabitants is derived from customs and excise--that is, from the indirect taxation of commodities of common use. if she is denied control of these sources of revenue under the coming bill, it will be absolutely necessary, in spite of all the concomitant difficulties, to give her a representation at westminster which is as effective as it can be made. but let it be realized that we could not make her control over her own finance as effective as that exercised by a small state within a federation, because such a state, however small, has equal, or at any rate disproportionately large, representation in the federal upper chamber, and federal upper chambers can reject money bills. the upper chamber in ireland's case would be the house of lords, where she could scarcely be given effective representation, and which, in any case, cannot reject money bills. let us now examine ireland's claim for fiscal autonomy. footnotes: [ ] see p. . [ ] the bill set up a council of eighty-two elected and twenty-four nominated members, with the under-secretary as an _ex-officio_ member. so far it resembled the abortive transvaal constitution of (see p. ), but the irish council was only to be given control of certain specified departments, and was financed by a fixed imperial grant. it was to have no power of legislation or taxation, and was under the complete control of the lord-lieutenant. [ ] this arrangement, which is peculiar to the canadian federation, is regarded by some authorities as a somewhat serious infraction of the federal principle, since it seems to imply executive control of the province by the central government. the governors of the states in the australian federation are appointed by the home government. [ ] the judicial committee has ruled "that the relation between the crown and the provinces is the same as that between the crown and dominion in respect of such powers, executive and legislative, as are vested in them respectively." (maritime bank of canada _v._ receiver-general of new brunswick, ). [ ] they are governed by executive committees, the members of which need not be members of the councils. [ ] in writing upon this subject, i am indebted to an able paper by mr. basil williams, which is to be found in "home rule problems." [ ] "life of parnell," r. barry o'brien, pp. and - . [ ] _e.g._, in , on clause i. of the home rule bill (hansard, p. ): "the irish minority were willing to be treated on the footing of a colony, but they protested against a supremacy which would enable the honourable gentleman who formed the irish government to appeal to the imperial parliament for the assistance of the army and navy to compel the irish minority to obey their behests." [ ] cd. , . some of the subjects discussed were commercial relations and shipping, navigation law, labour exchanges, uniformity in copyright, etc., emigration, naturalization, compensation for accidents, etc. [ ] i am summarizing facts fully narrated in chapters xi. and xii. [ ] in the federal constitutions of australia and canada the central federal parliament is responsible for the colonial defences, but the provinces or states are, of course, represented in the federal parliament. [ ] commonwealth of australia constitution act, , sec. , and british north america act, , sec. . until quite recently it was the custom always to give the command of the canadian militia to a british officer lent to canada. the present commander, however, is a canadian. [ ] see appendix. [ ] a colony may make local regulations to carry out an imperial law about extradition and neutrality, but may not touch the law. [ ] for the constitutional position of self-governing colonies, the author owes much to mr. moore's "commonwealth of australia." [ ] the commonwealth of australia constitution act, , and the british north america act, , in order to delimit the respective powers of the federal and provincial legislatures, set out a list of subjects on which the federal parliament has exclusive or collateral power to legislate. there is implied, of course, a pre-existing right on the part of the colony, as a whole, _qua_ colony, to legislate on the matters referred to in the list. but the pre-existing right is subject to any pre-existing constitutional or statutory limitations. _e.g.,_ "naturalization and aliens" is in the list of commonwealth powers (sec. , xix.), and of the canadian powers (sec. , xxv.), but the power of any colony is limited by acts of and to giving naturalization within its own borders. (at the imperial conference of a scheme was foreshadowed for standardizing naturalization throughout the empire.) "copyright" is also in both lists, but the colonial power is limited by the international copyright act of , which, by sec. , implies that a "british possession" may only make laws "respecting the copyright within the limits of such possession of works produced in that possession." this copyright act is an example of implied limitation and sanction together. the coinage act of is an example of implied sanction only, in empowering a colony to legislate as if the act had not been passed. another class of imperial acts confers _direct_ powers to legislate on certain subjects--_e.g.,_ the australian colonies custom duties act of (removing the restrictions imposed upon intercolonial duties in ). the naturalization acts are partly of this character, and other examples are the colonial naval defence act of , and certain provisions of the army act of , and the colonial courts of admiralty act of . [ ] _e.g.,_ colonial attorneys belief act, ; colonial probates act, ; parts of the finance act, ; and wills act, . [ ] _e.g.,_ colonial laws made under sanction of the following imperial acts: colonial prisoners removal, ; merchant shipping, ; sections and , colonial marriages, . [ ] _e.g.,_ vict. ch. , sections and . [ ] see appendix, under the head of restrictions on "irish matters." for convenience, land legislation is included in the list, though it clearly belongs to a different category, and i have so dealt with it above. [ ] in the bill of (clause , subsec. ) and in the bill of (clause , subsec. ) power was given to alter the qualifications of the franchise, etc., for the lower house--in the former bill after the first dissolution, in the latter after six years. [ ] in , of the total federal revenue of , , dollars, , , dollars were raised in this way, or twelve-thirteenths. (postal revenue, which balances postal receipts, is excluded.) [ ] in - dominion revenue from customs and excise was , , dollars. total ordinary expenditure (excluding capital accounts), , , dollars. [ ] estimate for - . total federal revenue, £ , , ; revenue from customs and excise, £ , , . total federal expenditure £ , , . £ , , will be available for return to the state exchequers (see pp. - ). chapter xi union finance i ask the reader to follow with particular care the following historical summary of anglo-irish finance. none of it is irrelevant, i venture to say. it is not possible to construct a financial scheme, or to criticize it when framed, without a fairly accurate knowledge of the historical facts. i. before the union.[ ] before the union ireland had a fiscal system distinct from that of great britain, a separate exchequer, a separate debt, a separate system of taxation, a separate budget. yet she can never truly be said to have had financial independence, because she was never a truly self-governing country. until , when the protestant volunteers protested with arms in their hands against the annihilation of irish industries in the interest of british merchants and growers, her external trade and, consequently, her internal production, were absolutely at the mercy of great britain. as i showed in chapter i., ireland was treated considerably worse than the most oppressed colony, with permanently ruinous results. on the other hand, her internal taxation, never above a million a year, and her debt, never above two millions in amount, were not heavy. but from , through grattan's parliament to the union, a short period of twenty-one years, ireland, though still governed on the ascendancy system by an unrepresentative and corrupt parliament of exactly the same composition as before, nevertheless had financial independence in the sense that her parliament had complete control of irish taxation, revenue, and trade. it was, moreover, in these financial matters that the parliament showed most genuine national patriotism, together with a greatly enhanced measure of the imperial patriotism traditional with it. internal taxation, except in time of war, was still comparatively light; depressed home industries were judiciously encouraged by bounties; no attempt was made at vindictive retaliation upon british imports, though irish exports to great britain were still unmercifully penalized; and sums, growing to a relatively enormous size during the french war, which began in , were annually voted for the imperial forces. this voluntary contribution, which had averaged £ , in the eleven years of peace, from to , rose to £ , , in ,[ ] and in , when ireland was paying the bill for british troops called in to suppress her own rebellion, to £ , , , out of a total irish expenditure for the year on all purposes, military and civil, of £ , , . not more than half, on the average, of these war expenses were met out of the annual taxes. debt was created to meet the balance; but neither the debt, heavy as it was, nor the taxes, were intolerably burdensome--that is, if we regard ireland as financially responsible for imperial wars and for the suppression of a rebellion which was provoked by scandalous misgovernment. tax revenue rose from £ , , in , when the free parliament first prepared a budget, to £ , , in , and averaged a million and a half. in the same period the total amount of the funded and unfunded irish debt rose from £ , , to £ , , , almost the whole of this increase having taken place in the seven years of war immediately preceding the union. in great britain both debt and taxation had risen in a larger ratio, and were relatively far greater. for example, in the six years, - inclusive, £ , , had been added to the british debt, only £ , , to the irish debt. in the british debt stood at £ , , ; the irish debt at £ , , . ii. from the union to the financial relations commission of - . the union of , therefore, could not be justified on the ground that a poor country would profit by fiscal amalgamation with a rich country, and pitt and castlereagh, when framing the union act, recognized that truth by leaving ireland with a separate fiscal system, as before; though the administration of this system was, of course, now to be wholly in british hands. there were to be separate exchequers, debts,[ ] taxes, and balance-sheets, with the following restrictions: that prohibitions against imports and bounties on exports (corn excepted), should cease reciprocally in both countries; that, with the exception of per cent. ad valorem duties on a variety of articles named, there should be mutual free trade; and that no tax on any article of consumption should be higher in ireland than in great britain. but although pitt and castlereagh ostensibly carried out the principle of separate fiscal systems, they laid the foundations for a fiscal amalgamation which was disastrous to ireland. since his commercial propositions of , pitt had never abandoned the idea of obtaining from ireland an obligatory annual contribution to imperial services based on some fixed principle. by clause of the act of union he achieved his aim. it was settled that for twenty years ireland should contribute in the proportion of to / (or to )--that is, that great britain should pay / , or . per cent., of common imperial expenses, including the charge for debt contracted for imperial services, and ireland / , or . per cent. nobody now denies that this ratio was grossly unjust to ireland. it took no account of the relative pre-union debts; it took no account of the tribute of nearly four millions paid in rents to absentee english proprietors; it was based on superficial deductions from inadequate and misleading data, and the act was hardly passed before its absurdity became manifest. fifteen years of almost incessant war followed the union. ireland, even by raising taxation to the highest possible point, was unable to pay her contribution without contracting a debt colossal in proportion to her resources. while great britain only doubled her debt, and paid per cent. of her expenses out of current taxation, the irish debt quadrupled, and in reached the portentous total of £ , , ; while only per cent. of irish expenditure was paid for out of revenue. here is a little table which shows the effect upon ireland of clause of the act of union: five years. average average revenue. expenditure. £ £ { - , , , , before union ---{ - , , , , { - , , , , { - , , , , after union ---{ - , , , , { - , , , , the scandal could no longer be overlooked. it was impossible to raise the irish taxes. their yield was already showing signs of diminishing. but the act of union had provided for the situation which had arisen. one of the sections of the famous clause enacted that if and when the separate debts of the two countries should reach the proportion of their respective imperial contributions, parliament might, if it thought fit, declare that all future expenses of the united kingdom should be defrayed indiscriminately by equal taxes imposed on the same articles in both countries, "_subject only to such exemptions and abatements in favour of ireland as circumstances may appear from time to time to demand_." the framers of this section had anticipated that the english debt would sink to the level of the irish debt. anglo-irish finance teems with grim jokes of this sort; but the section was useful in either event. with its terms before them, a committee sat to consider the state of ireland, with the result that, by an act which came into operation on january , , the exchequers, debts, revenues, and expenditures, but not as yet the taxes, of the two countries were amalgamated. in professor oldham's words,[ ] "the corpse of ireland's insolvency was huddled into the grave, and no questions were to be asked." the whole expenditure, imperial and local, of the united kingdom, ireland included, was to be defrayed out of a consolidated fund, and the arrangements, therefore, for a separate irish contribution on a fixed basis to imperial services were cancelled. henceforth her imperial contribution, for anyone who troubled to calculate it, was represented by the excess of revenue raised within ireland over the expenditure in ireland. a mutual free trade was also established, not instantaneously, but in the course of a few years. by all duties, as between ireland and england, had ceased, and in the custom-houses ceased to record the transit of goods between england and ireland, except in articles such as spirits, on which a different excise duty was charged. no statistics were compiled, therefore, of anglo-irish trade until ninety years later, when the irish department of agriculture began to prepare returns. such was the origin of our customs union against the world (for, needless to say, those were still the days of high protection), and it is instructive to compare it with the voluntary pacts of the german states and south african colonies, and with their political results. in one important point unification was left incomplete. it was impossible in to equalize internal taxation in the two countries, though it was held desirable to do so, because ireland could not have borne the higher british scale, and suffered enough under her own. regard, too, was had at first to those important words in the act of union which guaranteed to ireland such "exemptions and abatements" as might appear fair. but they were soon forgotten. without any inquiry into the taxable capacity of ireland, the stamp, tea, and tobacco duties were equalized early in the period, the enhancement in ireland of the last duty from s. to s. on raw tobacco, and from s. to s. on manufactured tobacco, laying an exceptionally heavy burden on the irish poor. meanwhile the abolition, after the close of the war, of taxes representing about sixteen millions a year, and purely affecting great britain, gave a relief to her which ireland did not feel. but it was not until , when mr. gladstone extended the income-tax to ireland, and raised the irish spirit duty, that the principle of "exemptions and abatements" was most seriously infringed. mr. disraeli followed in with a further elevation of the spirit duty, which was finally equalized with the british duty in , at s. a gallon; while in both duties were raised to s. in the seven years - the taxation of ireland was raised by no less than two and a half millions per annum. it will be recalled that the great famine had taken place in - , and that between the census of and that of the population sank from eight to six millions, while the british population rose from eighteen and a half to twenty-three millions. the statistical result of the increased taxes, therefore, was to show a rise in taxation per head of the irish people from s. d. in to £ s. d. in , while in great britain it rose only from £ s. d. to £ s. during the same period. equality of taxation has never been wholly established, for to this day a few quite unimportant taxes are not levied, or are levied on a lower scale in ireland;[ ] but from onward we may regard the taxation of the two countries as almost identically the same. in the meantime a great revolution, also beginning at the time of the famine, had taken place in the fiscal system of the united kingdom. free trade with the outside world had been established, and whatever we may conclude about its effect, it had been established, as we know, with a special view to british industrial interests, and without the smallest concern for irish interests, which were predominantly agricultural. it was certainly followed by an immense industrial expansion and prosperity in great britain; it was certainly initiated at the lowest point of ireland's moral and physical wretchedness. opinions differ as to the precise economic effect upon ireland. miss murray, in her thoughtful and exhaustive study of the commercial relations between england and ireland, holds that, as agricultural producers, the irish lost far more than they have gained as consumers of foodstuffs, while a number of small and struggling rural industries, whose powerful counterparts in great britain could easily withstand foreign competition, did undeniably succumb in ireland. my own opinion is that the past influence upon ireland of free trade, in the first instance with great britain, and later with the outside world, though a highly interesting and important topic in itself, is commonly exaggerated, to the neglect of the vastly more important question of the tenure of land. free trade did not cause the famine. on the contrary, the presage of the famine was one of the minor causes which induced peel to take up cobden's policy for the free importation of foodstuffs. the effect of that policy upon ireland sinks into insignificance beside an agrarian system which had reduced the mass of the irish peasants to serfs, kept them near the borders of destitution, and in a state of sporadic crime for a century and a half before, and for forty years after the repeal of the corn laws, and, at the climax of a period of high protection for agricultural products, rendered it possible for a mere failure of the potato-crop to cause death to three-quarters of a million persons. these things do not happen in properly governed, in other words in self-governed, countries, whatever their fiscal system, and they have never happened to irishmen in any other part of the world but in their own fertile island. manufacturing industries stand on a different footing. most of the staple industries of ireland, notably the woollen industry, and the aptitudes which brought them into being, were deliberately destroyed long ago by fiscal measures imposed by england, and their destruction aggravated the misery and exhaustion produced by a bad land system. how far their partial revival under the fiscal home rule of grattan's parliament was genuine, and might, with a continuance of fiscal home rule, have been permanent, it is impossible to say. the retarding effect of the rebellion, and the long start already obtained by great britain in the industrial race, are factors beyond accurate calculation. but one thing is certain, that the revival of industries was, at that stage, of trivial importance beside the rural regeneration of ireland, and that grattan's parliament had not the remotest influence for good upon the land question, which it neglected as heartlessly as its predecessors for a century before and its successors for seventy years afterwards.[ ] industries are valuable assets for any country; but countries almost wholly agricultural, like denmark, can prosper remarkably, and without protection, provided that they possess or evolve a sound system of agrarian tenure, in other words, a sound relation between tenant and landlord, or, in default of that, peasant ownership. in every country in the world that has been a _sine qua non_ of prosperity. suppose that english labourers had built out of their own money and by their own hands the factories, docks, and railways in which they worked, and that the resulting profits, wages deducted, went solely to ground landlords. that gives us some idea of the old irish land system, whose overthrowal began only in ; a system under which the landlord put no capital into the land, though his rent represented the full profits of the tenant's capital and labour, less an amount equivalent to a bare subsistence wage, governed by competition. the present influence upon ireland of the imperial fiscal system, now that peasant proprietorship has been half accomplished, is another matter upon which i shall have to say more presently, when we have completed our review of anglo-irish finance. let us return to the point we had reached: that free trade with the outside world and the equalization of taxation between great britain and ireland approximately coincided in point of time, and were also contemporaneous with rapid and continuous growth in the wealth and population of great britain, and a steady and continuous decline in the irish population. we know now, moreover, though nobody knew it then, because the calculation was not yet made, that ireland was paying a large contribution to imperial services, over and above her local expenditure. in the half-century between and she had paid an average yearly sum of nearly four millions, and a total sum of nearly two hundred millions. in the year - , when the now equalized spirit duties were raised to s., she paid £ , , ; a sum considerably more than double the expenditure on irish services, and equivalent to no less than five-sevenths of the revenue raised in ireland. parliament gave no serious attention to any of these phenomena from the time of the fiscal union in until after the introduction of mr. gladstone's second home rule bill in . no settled conclusions were arrived at as to the relative wealth of the two countries, as to the capacity of ireland to bear the british scale of taxation, or even as to the amount of revenue derived from and expended in the countries respectively, with the consequent contributions made to common imperial services. a committee sat in - , which compiled some interesting information and heard some important witnesses, but ignored the main questions at issue and produced what sir edward hamilton described later as an "impotent" report. sir joseph mackenna, an able irish banker, again and again, between and , pleaded for an inquiry into anglo-irish finance, alleging gross injustice in the incidence of irish taxation, and obtained nothing more than a rough return showing that between and the gross tax revenue per head of the population had risen in ireland from s. . d. to £ s. . d. and had fallen in great britain from £ s. . d. to £ s. . d. for the first time also it was shown that the national beverages of england and ireland, beer and whisky, respectively, were taxed in a ratio unfair to ireland. in mr. gladstone, in preparing his first home rule bill, had to re-open the question of the relative resources of ireland and great britain for the first time since the union, because he proposed a fixed annual contribution, unchangeable for thirty years, from ireland towards the imperial services. he fixed the contribution at one-fifteenth or approximately half that of two-seventeenths fixed by pitt in , and the new figure was certainly not too low. in the question was again incidentally raised by mr. goschen, who apportioned certain equivalent grants towards local taxation in england, scotland, and ireland, in the proportion of , , , apparently on the principle that those were the proportions in which each country respectively contributed to imperial expenditure. mr. gladstone, in preparing the home rule bill of , made investigations which threw additional light on the true amount of revenue derived from ireland, with allowance made for revenue from dutiable goods taxed in ireland but consumed in great britain, and _vice versa_, but his financial scheme, as revised in the course of the session and passed by the house of commons, evaded the crucial issue by making ireland's contribution to imperial services a quota, one-third, of her true annual revenue. this quota, moreover, was indirectly reduced by temporary subsidies in aid of irish charges (_e.g._, for police) and was estimated, with these deductions, not to exceed at the outset one-fortieth. iii. the financial relations commission of - . it was now apparent that, with or without home rule, the whole subject needed serious investigation, and in , after the defeat of mr. gladstone's bill, a royal commission under the presidency of mr. hugh childers was appointed to consider the "financial relations between great britain and ireland." their report deserves careful study, because it contains within it all the essential materials for forming a judgment upon the financial problem of to-day. all that it lacks are the complementary figures of the subsequent seventeen years, and these figures, which i shall presently add, do not affect the conflict of principles, though they throw into more vivid relief than ever the outcome of conflicting principles. in composition it was a very strong commission; it consulted the highest financial authorities in the kingdom; it made for two years an exhaustive examination, historical and practical, of the questions submitted to it, and although the members disagreed on some important points, the conclusions upon which they were unanimous cannot be impugned. the terms of reference were: " . upon what principles of comparison, and by the application of what specific standards, the relative capacity of great britain and ireland to bear taxation may be most equitably determined. " . what, so far as can be ascertained, is the true proportion, under the principles and specific standards so determined, between the taxable capacity of great britain and ireland. " . the history of the financial relations between great britain and ireland at and after the legislative union, the charge for irish purposes on the imperial exchequer during that period, and the amount of irish taxation remaining available for contribution to imperial expenditure; also the imperial expenditure to which it is considered equitable that ireland should contribute." it will be observed that questions and deal with abstract points, no. (except the last clause) with concrete facts.[ ] in their short unanimous report the commissioners began by stating that "great britain and ireland must, for the purposes of this inquiry, be considered as separate entities." to question they made no unanimous answer. this was immaterial, because, as a result of numerous tests (assessment to estate duties and income-tax, consumption of commodities, population, etc.) all arrived unanimously at an answer to the next question. answer to question (and incidentally, as will be seen, to part of question ): "that whilst the tax revenue of ireland is about _one-eleventh_ of that of great britain, the relative taxable capacity of ireland is very much smaller, _and is not estimated by any of us as exceeding one-twentieth_." the wording of the answer needs to be explained by reference to the text of the report. (_a_) in saying "tax revenue" the commissioners meant to exclude non-tax revenue--_e.g._, post office receipts, etc.--but the commissioners in their various separate reports generally employed the figures of total revenue. taking these as our basis, the irish revenue then raised would have been nearly one-twelfth instead of one-eleventh of the british revenue. in other words, of the total revenue of the united kingdom, ireland paid nearly _one-thirteenth_. (_b_) as to the true irish taxable capacity of "one-twentieth," some confusion arises owing to the use of the phrase by different commissioners in different senses. mr. childers and sir david barbour appear to have meant one-twentieth of the united kingdom's taxable capacity, the others one-twentieth of great britain's. in order to be on the conservative side, i shall adopt the former estimate. the discrepancy is not material to the conclusions of the commissioners, as, for reasons which i need not go into, they agreed that the minimum amount of over-taxation was two millions and three-quarters. this was the main outstanding conclusion of the royal commission. translated into figures, it showed the following facts: in - the total revenue of the united kingdom from all sources was £ , , . of this sum the revenue contributed by great britain from all sources was £ , , ; by ireland, £ , , --that is, between one-eleventh and one-twelfth of the british revenue. if ireland in - had paid in proportion to her true taxable capacity of one-twentieth, the maximum arrived at by any member of the commission, the revenue derived from her would have been £ , , . in other words, there was held to be an excess payment from ireland of £ , , . it was not suggested by any member of the commission that ireland, since the union, had grown richer at a more rapid rate than england, and was therefore more capable of bearing taxation. on the contrary, it was admitted that she had grown, relatively, much poorer. on the most moderate estimate, therefore, the over-taxation of ireland since the union, computed strictly on the principle laid down, could be represented as amounting in to something like two hundred and fifty millions, or, if we date from the fiscal union of , two hundred millions. the answer given by the commissioners to question , so far as it goes, is explanatory of the previous answer. "that the act of union imposed upon ireland a burden which, as events showed, she was unable to bear. "that the increase of taxation laid upon ireland between and was not justified by the then existing circumstances." and they added the opinion "that identity of rates of taxation does not necessarily involve equality of burden." their answers, so far as they were complete, to the other inquiries contained in question no. about the tax revenue of ireland and the net contribution of ireland in the past to imperial services, are to be found in figures included in the body of the report, and these figures formed, of course, the basis of their unanimous conclusion as to the over-taxation of ireland. these figures, to which i have often alluded in this volume, necessitate a short digression, because they and subsequent returns of the same sort form the only official data upon which to estimate the present financial position of ireland. they were extracted partly from annual returns originally issued by the treasury for the home rule bill of , and entitled "financial relations (england, scotland, and ireland)," and partly from a new document known as the "pease" return, no. of . these returns, taken together, represented the first serious attempt by the treasury to construct an account covering a period from - to - , and showing (_a_) the exact revenue derived from ireland and great britain respectively; (_b_) the local expenditure in ireland and great britain respectively, as distinguished from imperial expenditure incurred for the benefit of the whole united kingdom; (_c_) the net contribution of ireland and great britain respectively to this latter expenditure for imperial services only. since two regular annual returns have been compiled, the one showing the revenue, local expenditure, and net imperial contribution of scotland, ireland, and england (including wales), the other giving an historical summary of similar figures for great britain and ireland only, from - to the current date. two insoluble problems have had to be grappled with by the treasury in preparing these returns: first, to differentiate imperial expenditure from local expenditure; second, to arrive at the "true" net revenue of the partners as distinguished from the revenue collected within their respective limits. both these problems arise whenever an attempt is made to look behind a system of unitary finance into the burdens and contributions of different portions of a united realm, and the latter, though not the former, of the two may arise in just as acute a form if the realm consists of federated states with a common system of customs and excise. with regard to the first problem, it is, of course, easy, in the case of a federation, to distinguish between central, or federal, expenditure and local, or state, expenditure, because the functions of the federal government and state governments are delimited in the constitution, and the separate expenditures form the subject of separate balance-sheets. but in a union, and above all in a union to which one part of the realm is an unwilling party, like that of the british isles, it is clear that no absolutely accurate line can be drawn between imperial and local expenditure. the army, the navy, and a number of other things are clearly enough imperial, but there are many debatable items. for example, is the upkeep of the lord-lieutenant an irish or an imperial charge? is a loss on post office business in ireland to be charged against ireland, or should ireland be credited with a proportion of the profits of the whole postal business of the united kingdom? more searching questions still: is the enormous charge for the irish police, which is under imperial control, and exists avowedly for the purpose of forcibly maintaining, in the imperial interest, an unpopular form of government in ireland, to be charged against ireland? or, again, should ireland be debited with the cost of the machinery for carrying out land purchase, a policy admittedly rendered necessary by the enforced maintenance in the past of bad land laws? obviously such questions can never be answered so as to satisfy both irishmen and englishmen, because they go to the root of the political relations between ireland and great britain. the royal commission, therefore, was naturally unable to give a unanimous answer to the last clause of question no. of their terms of reference--namely, "what is the imperial expenditure to which ireland should equitably contribute?" some members held that under the union even a theoretical classification was unjustifiable, while it was obvious that under the union no effect could be given to it. still, the classification had to be made, in order to arrive at a theoretical estimate of the financial situations of great britain and ireland respectively, and the treasury, charged with the preparation of this estimate, took the only course open to it in reckoning as irish expenditure all expenditure which would not have to be incurred if ireland did not exist. it was the perfectly correct course for the treasury to take in dealing with the task set before them, and, as we shall see, it provides the only basis on which to construct the balance-sheet of a financially independent ireland. the insolubility of the second problem--that of discovering the "true" revenue of ireland and great britain respectively--arises from the difficulty of tracing the passage of dutiable articles from one part of the kingdom to the other, and of tracing the incidence of direct imposts such as income-tax and stamps. the great bulk of irish revenue is derived from indirect taxes on commodities, liquor, tobacco, tea, sugar, etc. since the consumer pays the tax, revenue is rightly credited to the country of consumption. the tax, for example, on tobacco manufactured in ireland may be collected in ireland, but the revenue from irish-made tobacco exported to and consumed in great britain is rightly credited to great britain. the converse holds true. half the tea consumed in ireland has paid duty in london, but the whole of the revenue from tea consumed in ireland must be credited to ireland. now, since , no official records had been kept by the customs-houses of the transit of goods between ireland and england, except in the solitary case of spirits. the data, therefore, did not exist, and do not exist now, except in the case of spirits, for an accurate computation. this is frankly confessed by the treasury officials. they base their published figures on certain arbitrary methods of calculation which have never been submitted to any public inquiry, and which, as they admit, contain an element of guesswork. the matter is an exceedingly important one to ireland, because ever since an increasingly heavy deduction has been made by the treasury from her "collected" revenue, and her "true" revenue has proportionately diminished. part of this deduction is no doubt due to the fact that her exports of tobacco and liquor have, in recent times, much exceeded her imports, but the margin for error is nevertheless large. mr. gladstone, in framing his home rule bill of , was so sensible of the inherent difficulties of the calculation that, while retaining customs and excise under imperial control, he credited to the irish exchequer the whole of the revenue collected within ireland. on the balance of anglo-irish exchange in dutiable articles, as roughly estimated at that time, this provision meant an annual allowance to ireland of nearly a million and a half pounds, the principal reason being that ireland, which is a larger manufacturer of spirits and tobacco, was exporting more than she consumed of these commodities. in the bill of , as part of a wholly different financial scheme, mr. gladstone abandoned the plan just described, and provided for the annual calculation of "true" irish revenue, as distinguished from "collected" revenue; but it is a proof of the obscurity and intricacy of the whole business that the treasury officials made a mistake of £ , in the initial calculation, with the result that mr. gladstone had to recast his financial scheme from top to bottom. in the return of , as presented to the royal commission, this error was eliminated, but the method of calculation remained imperfect. nobody knows now what the true figures are, and there is good reason to think that irish revenue has always been, and still is, substantially underestimated. the same obscurity shrouded, and still shrouds, the "true" irish revenue from income-tax and stamps, whose proceeds it is exceedingly difficult to trace under a system of unitary finance, and which are traced by the treasury in a fashion again admittedly unreliable.[ ] in regard to taxes on consumption the same difficulty has been met with in australia since the federation of the colonies and the delegation to the commonwealth government of exclusive control over customs and excise. the product of these duties makes up the bulk of australian revenue, and is far too large for the needs of the commonwealth government. the constitution of provided that the surplus should be returned to the individual states in proportion to their "true" contributions to the revenue, and for the calculation of these "true" contributions an elaborate system of book-keeping was instituted, in order to trace the ultimate place of consumption of dutiable articles. each state was then credited with its "true" revenue, and debited, among other things, with a proportionate share of the expense of any department transferred by the constitution from the state to the commonwealth. the system caused general dissatisfaction, owing, as the australian official year book puts it, "to the practical impossibility of ensuring that in every case a consuming state will be duly credited with revenue collected on its behalf in a distributing state." that is the well-founded complaint of ireland in regard to the treasury returns. hitherto in australia efforts to change the system for another allocating the surplus on a basis of population have not been successful.[ ] the canadian federal constitution uses the basis of population for the distribution of small subsidies to the provinces, but complaints have arisen as to its fairness. british columbia, for example, for a long time complained that her subsidy was too small, one of the grounds being that her consumption of dutiable goods was unusually large. no means existed of verifying this complaint by figures.[ ] with this explanatory digression about a very important feature of anglo-irish finance, i return to the findings of the royal commission of - . the figures supplied to them were as shown on the opposite page. it will be noticed that the average "true" revenue of ireland was stationary at a little over five millions from to , rose with a bound to seven and a half millions with the equalization of taxes in the decade - , and remained stationary at that figure for the remaining thirty-four years. expenditure in ireland quadrupled in the whole sixty-four years; and the net contribution to imperial services, after rising from three and a half millions (in round numbers) in to five and a half millions in , fell automatically, as the expenditure rose, and had stood at two millions from afterwards. population had fallen by two millions, but the "true" revenue raised per head of population rose from s. d. in to £ s. d. in , while the local expenditure rose from s. d. per head in to £ s. in . statement showing the estimated local expenditure incurred in ireland, and the balance of true revenue which is available for imperial services after such expenditure has been met: revenue as adjustment estimated estimated balance population collected (+) or (-) true local available revenue expenditures for imperial services decadal figures. £ £ £ £ £ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - , , + , , , , , , , , , - , , + , , , , , , , , , , - , , + , , , , , , , , , - , , + , , , , , , , , , - , , + , , , , , , , , , - , , + , , , , , , , , , - , , - , , , , , , , , , - , , - , , , , , , , , , , annual figures. £ £ £ £ £ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - , , - , , , , , , , , -- - , , - , , , , , , , , -- - , , - , , , , , , , , -- - , , - , , , , , , , , , , in - , the last year under review, ireland, in round figures, was producing a net revenue of seven and a half millions, was costing five and a half millions, and was, therefore, contributing to imperial services a surplus of two millions. in the same year, while contributing her two millions, she was overtaxed, according to the lowest estimate of the commissioners, by two and three-quarter millions. but the significance of these figures cannot be discerned without an examination of their counterparts on the british side of the account. in the whole period great britain's "true" revenue had risen from £ , , to £ , , ; her local expenditure from £ , , to £ , , , and her net contribution to imperial services from £ , , to £ , , . her population had increased from , , in to , , (estimated) in , but her "true" revenue had _fallen_ per head of the population from £ s. to £ s. d. (approximately), although her local expenditure had risen from s. d. to £ s. (approximately). in other words, a great increase of wealth had enabled the british taxpayer to pay far more while feeling the burden far less. the converse was true of ireland. the current state of the account in - was as follows: great britain ireland - (population, (population, totals. , , ). , , ). £ £ £ "true" revenue , , , , , , local expenditure , , , , , , net contribution to imperial services , , , , , , great britain, though raising in "true" revenue between eleven and twelve times as much as ireland, was costing only between five and six times as much to administer as ireland, and was therefore contributing to imperial services twenty-eight times as much as ireland. now the commissioners had stated that the taxable capacity of ireland was not one-eleventh, but, at the utmost, one-twentieth --in other words, that she ought to contribute not more than one-twentieth of the united kingdom revenue. on that basis she should as we have seen, have been showing a revenue in - not of £ , , , but of £ , , . but, if her local expenditure had also been proportionate to her true taxable capacity of one-twentieth, instead of standing at £ , , , it would have stood at £ , , , or two-thirds less, while if her net contribution to imperial services had likewise been a twentieth, instead of paying £ , , , she would have had to pay £ , , , or a million more. the conclusion, therefore, might be extracted from the figures that, although by hypothesis overtaxed, ireland was drawing a balance of profit, because, by having more spent on her--or, to put it in another way, by costing more to govern, she paid a million less to the common purse than if she had been taxed according to her capacity. this was precisely the conclusion drawn by one member of the commission, sir david barbour, and implicitly acquiesced in by one other member, sir thomas sutherland. all the other commissioners agreed that there was something seriously amiss, and declined to regard the disproportionately high expenditure on ireland as compensation for the over-high taxation. the o'conor don, as successor in the chairmanship to mr. childers, and four others contented themselves with setting forth the facts, but made no recommendations, on the ground that the commission had not been asked to make any. mr. childers, who died before the completion of the inquiry, left a draft report recommending that a special grant, amounting to two millions a year, should for the future be allocated to ireland. the other six members, dividing into two groups of three, under lord farrer and mr. sexton respectively, and stating their views in two different reports, all agreed that a form of home rule giving financial independence to ireland was the only solution of the difficulty. the questions at issue were not at all obscure. any apparent obscurity was caused by the terms of reference to the commission, which assumed the permanence of the union, while it was absolutely impossible for the commission, divided though its members were in politics, to start work at all without, as they said, considering great britain and ireland as "separate entities." the reader must be on his guard against exaggerating the "over-taxation of ireland" in its purely cash aspect. the really important points were: ( ) the suitability of the irish taxes and the responsibility for levying them; ( ) the amount and suitability of the expenditure in ireland and the responsibility for its distribution. in order to see conflicting principles stated in their clearest form the reader should compare the terse and vigorous reports of sir david barbour on the one hand, and of lord farrer, lord welby, and mr. currie on the other. it was sir david barbour's great merit that he was not afraid of his own conclusions. he frankly stated, like all the other commissioners, that ireland's taxation, considered by itself, without regard to irish expenditure, was unsuitable and unjust. he recognized that a system of taxation which was suitable for a rich, industrial, and expanding country like great britain was unsuitable for a poor, agricultural, and economically stagnant country like ireland. he had before him the figures showing that two-thirds of the irish population was rural, and that between three and four-fifths of the english population was urban.[ ] he laid special stress on the fact that five-sevenths of irish revenue, as compared with less than half the british revenue, was derived from taxes on commodities of general consumption, pressing heavily on the poor, and set forth the figures showing that the product of these taxes represented a charge of £ s. . d. per head of the population in ireland, and £ s. . d. in great britain, although the wealth per head of great britain, as he admitted, "was much greater than the wealth of ireland per head."[ ] his conclusion was that this state of affairs, though regrettable, could not be helped, because, under the union, whose permanence he took for granted, a change of general taxation to suit ireland was simply impracticable. he did, it is true, point out incidentally that the same hardship might be said to affect poor localities in great britain and poor individuals in great britain, but he recoiled from the absurd fallacy involved in saying that on that account ireland was not unjustly taxed. if he had gone to that length he could never have signed the unanimous report. i only mention this latter point because some outside critics have been bold enough to assert the fallacy in its completeness, proving, as they easily can, that the purchase of a pound of tea or a pint of beer is as great an expense to a man with s. a week in whitechapel as to a man with s. a week in connemara. such reasoning nullifies the whole science of taxation. it would be as sensible to say that our whole fiscal system might wisely be transplanted in its entirety to any foreign country or to any self-governing colony absolutely irrespective of their social and economic conditions and of their habits. yet ireland in these respects has always differed from great britain at least as much as any self-governing colony and many european countries. the tea-tax produces scarcely anything in france; it produces an enormous amount relatively in ireland, and is a greater burden there than in great britain. the wine-tax is not felt by ireland; it is felt more by england; it would cause a revolution in france. beer is taxed lightly in the united kingdom, but the irishman drinks only half as much beer as the englishman. meat is untaxed, but the irish poor eat no meat. spirits and tobacco are highly taxed, and they are consumed more largely in ireland than in england. and so on. the whole commission recognized that the circumstances of the two countries were different, and stated "that identity of rates of taxation does not necessarily involve equality of burden." nor could sir david barbour have dissociated himself from these conclusions without destroying the rest of his argument. he pointed out with truth that merely to reduce irish taxation to its correct level, and to leave irish expenditure where it was, would be to wipe out ireland's contribution to imperial purposes and leave her with a subsidy from great britain of three-quarters of a million. on the other hand, he held, as i have already indicated, that unduly heavy taxation in ireland was already compensated for by an excess of local expenditure in ireland as compared with great britain. but how, on its merits, and apart from the question of taxation, could such an excess be justified? the act of union had provided for indiscriminate expenditure in the event of a fiscal union. most of the other commissioners, indeed, had objected to the idea of distinguishing between "imperial" expenditure and "local" expenditure, and striking a balance called an "imperial contribution," without, at the same time, distinguishing politically between ireland and great britain. in other words, they took up the not very logical position that ireland must be considered as a separate entity for purposes of finance owing to the phrase about "abatements and exemptions," but not for purposes of expenditure. whether this was a correct interpretation of the act of union has always been a matter of dispute, but the practical problem is little affected thereby. sir david barbour thought it an incorrect interpretation, and reached the more logical position that ireland, both for revenue and expenditure, could be regarded as a separate entity. this view enabled him to put forward an argument which, while ostensibly palliating the over-taxation of ireland, in reality condemned the whole of the political system established by the union. we can, he said, in effect, rightly distinguish between imperial and local expenditure, and it is permissible to spend more on ireland than on great britain. by so spending more we not only cancel our debt to ireland, but make her a present of a million which would otherwise go to swell her contribution to imperial purposes. now, to get at the pith of this argument, the reader must bear in mind what sir david barbour thought it needless to remark upon, that ireland had, and has, a separate quasi-colonial system of administration of her own, but outside her own control, a system of which he approved. in other words, besides having to be considered in finance as a "separate entity," she was to a large extent in actual fact, politically, a "separate entity," though not a self-governing entity, to which through the channel of the irish government departments a special large quota for local expenditure could be easily allocated. as an economist, therefore, and as an upholder of the strangely paradoxical system set up by the so-called "union," sir david barbour was absolutely consistent. so were lord farrer, lord welby, and mr. currie in coming to diametrically opposite conclusions. the crux of the discussion, stripped of academical reasoning, was simple. everything turned, obviously, on the nature, amount, and origin of irish expenditure. sir david barbour had passed lightly over these vital points, recommending only that any future _saving_ of expenditure in ireland ought to be used for irish purposes--a further admission of ireland's separate political existence--and shutting his eyes to future _increases_ of expenditure. lord farrer and his colleagues, while agreeing that it was impossible to alter the taxation of ireland so long as the union lasted, agreed that additional local expenditure in ireland could not be regarded as a set-off to undue taxation, not only because such a doctrine was inherently fallacious on economic grounds, and would hardly be listened to in the case of any other country than ireland, but because irish expenditure was subjected to no proper means of control. both irish revenue and irish services, the former being only theoretically, the latter actually, distinct and separate, were outside the control of irishmen, who had therefore no motive for economy. nor was there any proper measure of determining what expenditure was good for ireland and what was bad, though they held that there was reason to believe that much of irish administration was both bad and costly. with regard to the extensive system of imperial loans, whose charge swelled the irish expenditure, they quoted the unchallenged evidence of mr. murrough o'brien[ ] to the effect that the system of imperial loans for temporary emergencies and charity loans--"made to keep the people quiet or to keep them alive"--tends to increase the poverty of ireland, "does not prevent the recurrence of famine, distress, and discontent," and that "a great deal of the money nominally meant to be spent on productive works has been misspent and wasted." they also dwelt, with emphasis, on official figures showing the extravagance of civil government in ireland, the cost having risen from s. d. per head of the population in to s. d. per head in , whereas the cost of civil government in great britain had only risen from s. d. to s. d. the charge for legal salaries and five principal departments in ireland was double the right figure according to population, and represented an excess cost of nearly £ , . in wealthy and progressive belgium, civil government cost s. per head, or little more than half as much per head as in ireland.[ ] the absurdity of representing such excess charges and the wasteful expenditure of a blundering philanthropy, as a recompense for over-taxation, was manifest. meanwhile, the rise in the cost of irish government, coupled with a stagnant revenue, had decreased the annual contribution of ireland to imperial services, which had fallen from five and a half millions in to two millions in ; unless, indeed, half the cost of irish police, virtually a branch of the imperial army, and costing double the amount of scottish and english police, were to be reckoned, not as an irish expense, on the principle adopted by the treasury, but as a part of imperial expenditure. in any case both partners suffered from excessive and unwise expenditure in ireland. the gist of their conclusions was as follows:[ ] . it is impossible, under the union, to vary taxation for the benefit of ireland. . additional benevolent expenditure in ireland is not a remedy for over-taxation.[ ] "we entertain a profound distrust of benevolences, doles, grants-in-aid, by whatever name they are called, ... or by whatever machinery it is proposed to distribute them, convinced, as we are, that in some form or other political influence or personal interest will creep in so as to defeat, in part at any rate, the attainment of the objects for which the expenditure is made." . "we believe that the expenditure of public funds cannot be wisely and economically controlled unless _those who have the disposal_ of public money are made _responsible_ for raising it as well as spending it." grants of money "tend to weaken the spirit of independence and self-reliance," the absence of which qualities "has been the main cause of the backward condition" of ireland. . "one sure method of redressing the inequality which has been shown to exist between great britain and ireland will be to put upon the irish people the duty of levying their own taxes and of providing for their own expenditure." . "if it is objected that the course we suggest may lead to the imposition of new customs duties in ireland, we might reply that in this case, as in that of the colonies, _freedom is a greater good than free trade._ we doubt, however, whether irishmen, if entrusted with their own finance, would attempt to raise fiscal barriers between the two countries; for we are satisfied that ireland, and not great britain, would be the loser by such a policy. the market of great britain is of infinitely greater importance to ireland than that of ireland to great britain." the only point on which the three commissioners differed concerned ireland's contribution to imperial services. lord farrer and mr. currie, taking home rule as the foundation of their argument, and prophesying, quite correctly, that under the union, in a few years, ireland's contribution would disappear altogether, recommended that no such contribution should be exacted by law until ireland's taxable capacity approximately reached that of great britain. lord welby, regarding home rule as an essential but a distant ideal, was for an immediate reorganization of anglo-irish finances which should provide for a large reduction of irish civil expenditure, the saving to be devoted, on sir david barbour's principle, to irish purposes, and for a fixed contribution from ireland to the army, navy, national debt, etc. how lord welby, consistently with his previous argument, could count upon any reduction of expenditure in ireland under the existing political system it is difficult to see. at any rate, subsequent events proved both him and sir david barbour signally wrong on this important point.[ ] in every other point the wisdom of the three commissioners has been abundantly proved by lapse of time. do not the conclusions set forth above bear upon them the stamp of common sense? if it were not for the inveterate prejudice against home rule on other than financial grounds, no one would dream of disputing them; for they are based on principles universally accepted in every part of the british empire but ireland, and in most parts of the civilized world. they constitute, in fact, financially, one of the strongest arguments possible for political home rule. there, at any rate, lies a clear issue. seventeen years have not altered the essential principles involved. on the contrary, it will be seen that every year of the seventeen has strengthened the argument of lord farrer and his colleagues, and weakened the argument of sir david barbour. but, before proceeding to this final demonstration, let me in general terms describe what befell the royal commission's report, which was published in . for a moment all ireland, irrespective of class or creed, was alight with patriotic excitement. few listened to sir david barbour's view, namely, that so long as irish expenditure came near irish revenue there could be no irish grievance. home rulers and unionists met on friendly platforms to denounce the over-taxation of ireland and to display figures showing the hundreds of millions of profit made by great britain out of an unconscionable fiscal bargain. this criticism missed the real point and the unanimity was short-lived. no change could be made in the system without home rule, and the dissension about home rule was strong enough to prevent irishmen from uniting against a fiscal system which was not only unjust but demoralizing to ireland. a unionist government was in power for nine more years after , and a liberal government, pledged temporarily not to give home rule, for four further years. the natural result was that, in default of home rule, all parties in ireland embraced sir david barbour's insidiously attractive reservation, and have ever since fallen into the habit of regarding additional expenditure on ireland, not only on its merits, but as a set-off to excessive taxation and as something having no relation whatever to the taxable resources of the country. nobody took seriously sir david barbour's counsel of perfection about the reduction of the cost of irish civil government and the allocation of the saving to ireland, because such a process was, humanly speaking, impossible. expenditure is never reduced except by those who raise the money for it. on the other hand, in the face of the findings of the royal commission, and in the face of ireland's economic condition, no government which refused home rule could have refused large additional irish expenditure. much of it, indeed, was merely an automatic reflection of the immense growth of national expenditure in the wealthy and expanding partner-country over the water, and took the form of "equivalent grants," whether for the corresponding british head of expense or for something totally different. no doubt some of the money was well spent, but all of it came in a wrong form, through wrong channels, and was regarded in ireland in a false light. lastly came old age pensions applied on the british scale to a far poorer population. every word of lord welby's and lord farrer's condemnation was justified by events; every prophecy they made has been fulfilled. and the worst of it is that the delay has damaged the prospects of home rule. the habit of dissociating income from revenue becomes inveterate. the habit of nursing an old grievance and of expecting "restitution" for funds unwarrantably levied in the past is hard to shake off. restitution has gone too far already. perpetuated, it would ruin ireland. home rulers worth their salt must leave this cry to those unionists who descend to use it; but it is surely amazing that any irishman, least of all those who claim to represent the wealth and intelligence of the country, should tolerate a political system which inexorably involves a fiscal system so humiliating to ireland. until three years ago it could easily have been put an end to without affecting the independent solvency of ireland, even on the basis of an enormously swollen civil expenditure, and with the inclusion of services strictly imperial in origin and character. now it is a different matter, and we are faced with the opposition of british statesmen who, by sustaining the union, drove ireland to the verge of insolvency, and now use insolvency as an argument against home rule. one respects the clean and honest side of unionism, but there can be nothing but reprobation for the meanness of this latter-day argument. for generations ireland herself has asked to be free both from coercion and bribes, sanely conscious in her soul that both are equally demoralizing. the aim--though in the past not generally the conscious aim--of unionism was to sap the moral fibre of ireland now by one means, now by the other. at last the aim is avowed, so that men who applauded mr. chamberlain in for sneering at irish patriotism as a "sickly plant which needed to be watered by british gold" merely because her contribution under the home rule bill was to be small are now urging ireland to maintain the union--in mr. walter long's words--for its "eleemosynary benefits."[ ] ireland herself must and will rise to a higher moral level than that, when she is fully awake to the gravity of the situation. those who love her most will not lose a minute in explaining that situation. too much time already has been lost. footnotes: [ ] the treasury returns of , "public income and expenditure," in two volumes, are the basis of all information up to that date. [ ] mr. secretary pelham in this year estimated that ireland, though contributing nothing in money to the navy, had furnished no less than , men to the navy since the beginning of the war. [ ] pre-union debts were to be separate. post-union debt _contracted for imperial services_ was to be regarded as joint, and its charge was to be borne by the two countries in the proportions of their respective contributions (see below); but post-union debt contracted by ireland for domestic services was to be kept separate. [ ] eight lectures delivered in the national university, dublin, in . [ ] inhabited house duty, railway passenger tax, carriages, armorial bearings, etc. the license for dogs is half the english scale. [ ] on foster's corn law of , see p. . [ ] the text of the unanimous conclusions was as follows: . that great britain and ireland must, for the purpose of this inquiry, be considered as separate entities. . that the act of union imposed upon ireland a burden which, as events showed, she was unable to bear. . that the increase of taxation laid upon ireland between and was not justified by the then existing circumstances. . that identity of rates of taxation does not necessarily involve equality of burden. . that, whilst the actual tax revenue of ireland is about one-eleventh of that of great britain, the relative taxable capacity of ireland is very much smaller, and is not estimated by any of us as exceeding one-twentieth. [ ] detailed criticism of the current treasury accounts under this head will be found on pp. - . [ ] a referendum taken on april , , defeated the new proposals. see "report of premiers' conference held at brisbane, may, " (commonwealth parliamentary sessional paper, no. , ), and for a clear statement of the whole subject, the "year-book ( ) of the commonwealth of australia." (the relevant clauses of the constitutional act are nos. to .) the reasons for the failure of the system were summarized as follows: " . the trouble and expense which the necessary record entails. " . the practical impossibility of ensuring that in every case a consuming state will be duly credited with revenue collected on its behalf in a distributing state. " . the difficulty involved in equitably determining the amount to be debited to the several states in respect of general commonwealth expenses. " . the uncertainty on the part of the state governments as to the amount which will become available. " . the impossibility of securing independent state and commonwealth finance." see also pp. - . [ ] see proceedings of the conference of provincial premiers, , at ottawa (canadian sessional papers, vol. xl.), especially mcbride's memorandum for british columbia. numerous other grounds for special treatment were alleged--_e.g.,_ abnormal cost of civil government, due to vast extent of province. [ ] final report, p. (census figures of ). [ ] final report, p. . [ ] final report, p. . [ ] ibid., pp. , . [ ] ibid., pp. - . [ ] they were at issue here with mr. childers, who, in his draft report, proposed halving the rates on irish railways and further endowing the congested districts board. but mr. childers, though a home ruler, felt himself bound by the terms of reference not to suggest a home rule solution. [ ] lord welby (final report, p. ) compared his proposal for ireland with the system in the isle of man, where the proceeds of a tariff distinct from that of great britain were devoted in the first instance to the payment of a fixed imperial contribution and the surplus to local needs. but in the isle of man the whole point was that the tariff was a local tariff, chosen by manxmen to suit themselves, while the administration was under manx control. [ ] letter to the _belfast telegraph_, october , . chapter xii the present financial situation i. anglo-irish finance to-day. the finances of ireland since the union, when reviewed by the royal commission in - , exhibited five principal features: . a declining population. . an estimated true taxable capacity falling as compared with that of great britain, and standing in - at a maximum of to . . a revenue stationary for thirty-four years, and showing in - a ratio of to with that of great britain. . a growing local expenditure (though stationary for the last four years). . a dwindling net contribution to imperial services (though stationary for the last four years). if we review the subsequent seventeen years, we find: . a population still declining, though at a slower rate. . an estimated true taxable capacity still falling as compared with that of great britain, and now standing at a maximum of to .[ ] that is, ireland ought strictly to be paying no more than one-twenty-fifth of the united kingdom revenue. . a revenue rising, but very slowly and inelastically as compared with that of great britain, and now showing a ratio of to ; so that the "over-taxation" of ireland, as reckoned on the royal commission's principles, is still at least three millions.[ ] . a local expenditure growing rapidly and disproportionately to irish revenue; now just double the expenditure of - . . a net contribution to imperial services automatically diminishing with the growth of irish expenditure, disappearing altogether in - , and now converted into an adverse balance against ireland of £ , , . in great britain during the same seventeen years, population, taxable capacity, revenue, expenditure, and net contribution to imperial services have all grown steadily, and, what is more important, in healthy proportions to one another. on the next page will be found the comparative figures for ireland and great britain of revenue, expenditure, and contribution for - and - . let me remark at the outset _(a)_ that they and other official figures given in this chapter are taken from the annual treasury returns alluded to at p. , "revenue and expenditure (england, scotland, and ireland)" and "imperial revenue (collection and expenditure) (great britain and ireland)." for the current year - the official numbers of these returns are and , and the latter of the two is virtually a continuation of the original return, no. of ; _(b)_ that the non-collection of a large part of the revenue of - , owing to the delay in passing the budget, makes the revenue figures of the last two years, regarded in isolation, misleading; those of the first year being abnormally low, those of the last abnormally high. i therefore give the mean figures of the two years. expenditure is, of course, unaffected, _(c)_ that the irish revenue shown as "true" is reduced by heavy deductions from the revenue as actually collected in ireland. at p. i explained that this adjustment can be regarded only as approximately correct, owing to the admittedly unreliable methods adopted by the treasury, _(d)_ that the revenue shown includes non-tax as well as tax revenue. ireland. great britain. - . - . - . - . population , , , , , , , , (estimated) "collected" revenue £ , , £ , , £ , , £ , , (including non-tax (mean of two (mean of two revenue) years, - years, - , - ) , - ) "true" revenue £ , , £ , , £ , , £ , , (including (mean of two (mean of two non-tax revenue) years, - years, - , - ) , - ) local expenditure £ , , £ , , £ , , £ , , contribution to £ , , nil[a] £ , , £ , , imperial services [a] local expenditure in excess of "true" revenue (as averaged for years, - , - ): £ , , . irish expenditure has been rapidly overtaking irish revenue during the last three years. in - there was a balance available for imperial services of £ , , ; in - , of only £ , ; and in - , on the basis of a mean of that and the previous year, the deficit shown above of £ , , . the principal cause is the old age pensions vote, which began in . if all the elements of the problem be considered together, it will be seen that the fiscal partnership is as ill-matched as ever, and has produced results increasingly anomalous. each of the partners and their united interests suffer. ireland is still more heavily taxed relatively to great britain, yet ireland's contribution to imperial services has been converted into a minus quantity. why? because irish expenditure, paid out of the common purse, has doubled, while irish revenue has increased by less than a third. let me give the final survey of anglo-irish finance since the union, in the tabular form shown by professor oldham at the meeting of the british association in september, : net balances paid by ireland to great britain. single irish "true" expenditure balance decadal year. revenue. in ireland. one year. balance. £ £ £ £ - , , , , , , , , - , , , , , , , , - , , , , , , , , - , , , , , , , , - , , , , , , , , - , , , , , , , , - , , , , , , , , - , , , , , , , , - , , , , , , , , averaged balances for years , , add, actual balances, - , , net payments, in years , , deduct drawings, deficit of - , , net payments, in years , , add, actual balance, - , net balances paid by ireland to great britain, - , , what has become of sir david barbour's argument in favour of the existing fiscal system? he admitted that ireland was overtaxed by two millions and three-quarters. but he showed, it will be remembered, that if not only the revenue, but the expenditure and contribution to imperial services had all been in proportion to ireland's real taxable capacity of one-twentieth, she would have been a loser by a million.[ ] ireland, therefore, he argued, had certainly no grievance, while great britain received the substantial, though not strictly sufficient, sum of two millions as ireland's contribution to imperial expenses. let us apply the same reasoning to the present situation. ireland, by hypothesis, is "overtaxed" by three millions,[ ] but if not only the revenue, but the expenditure and contribution to imperial services of ireland were all in proportion to her real taxable capacity, which we may estimate now at one-twenty-fifth, we find that she would be a loser by five millions. her "true" revenue from all sources _ought_ on this supposition to be £ , , ; it _is_ £ , , . her local expenditure _ought_ to be £ , , ; it _is_ £ , , . her contribution to imperial services _ought_ to be £ , , ; it _is_ a minus quantity of £ , , . sir david barbour's reasoning, then, leads us to this astounding paradox, that ireland, while overtaxed by three millions, gains five millions by the arrangement. moreover, whether we accept sir david barbour's reasoning or not, it is a fact that to-day ireland, which contributed to imperial services five and a half millions in , and two millions in , now, so far from contributing anything, costs a million and a quarter more than she brings in. this, certainly, was not a result he either anticipated or would have approved of. on the contrary, he anticipated a reduction in irish civil expenditure, to be saved for irish purposes, without prejudice to the imperial contribution. it makes the brain dizzy to compare his anticipation with the reality. how, on the other hand, stands the argument of lord farrer and mr. currie? they prophesied a great increase in irish expenditure and the disappearance of the contribution to imperial services. that has come true. lord welby (and indeed the majority of the commission) was with them in declining to regard excessive local expenditure as a set-off to excessive and unsuitable taxation, and in condemning root and branch the system of grants, aids, and doles as wasteful in itself and as sapping the self-reliance of irishmen. there again they were right. they were at one with all their colleagues in holding that under the union it was impossible to differentiate between the taxation of ireland and great britain, and they prescribed, as the only sound remedy, home rule. once more they were right. the figures of to-day constitute the _reductio ad absurdum_ of the union. for over a century in ireland we have defied the laws of political economy, but they have conquered us at last. sound finance demands that revenue and expenditure should be co-related. ireland's economic circumstances are widely different from those of great britain, but she has been included, without any regard to her needs and without any reference to irish expenditure, in a system of taxation designed exclusively for the capacities and needs of great britain. hence irish revenue is both excessive and inadequate. "excessive"? "inadequate"? what do these terms really mean? let us once and for all clear our minds of all obscurity and look the facts in the face. no one knows what irish revenue and expenditure ought to be, or would be, if irishmen had controlled their own destinies. it is useless to parade immense sums as the cash equivalent of over-taxation; it is idle to array against them rival figures of over-expenditure. normal irish revenue and normal irish expenditure are matters of speculation. for all we know, ireland, had she been permitted normal political development, would be raising a larger revenue, and feeling it less; while it is absolutely certain that she would be paying her own way and contributing to imperial services more, in proportion to her resources, than she did before the union. the political and therefore the economic development of ireland have been deliberately and forcibly arrested. i do not say malignantly, because there was no malignant intention. but the action, if mistaken, was deliberately and consistently sustained. much of irish industrial talent was lost irrevocably before the old industrial restrictions were removed. there remained the land, an immense source of potential wealth, if properly developed under a rational system of agrarian tenure. for the best part of a century after the union, the agrarian tenure, dating from the first genuine colonization of ireland, when the land was confiscated wholesale and the peasantry enslaved, was maintained by force of arms. thirty years ago (if we date from the land act of ) we began to change this tenure into another equally defective, though far more favourable to the tenant. a little later, but only eight years ago, on a thorough and systematic scale, we began the parallel policy of land purchase. even now, having transferred half the land to peasant ownership, and placed the other half under judicial rents, many of our statesmen are unwilling to give ireland the control of its own affairs. on the contrary, step by step with the economic enfranchisement of the farmers, has gone the policy of destroying their personal and political independence, and forcing them to look outside their own country for financial aid, by spending money upon ireland which irishmen have no direct responsibility for raising. what a travesty of statesmanship! first, having assisted the farmer to buy his own land, to clap him on the back with "now, my fine fellow, you are a free man." in the same breath to tell him that he is not fit to have a direct voice in the management of his own country's affairs, and to try and reconcile him to this insult by sapping that very independence of character which the acquirement of a freehold has begun to instil in him. i described in chapter ix. how a number of patriotic irishmen, working both at industrial and agricultural development, have striven to counteract this fatal tendency, and to persuade their countrymen to rely on themselves alone. but i venture to repeat what i said then, that without the bracing discipline of home rule, and, above all, of the financial home rule, these efforts are doomed to comparative failure. it is absolutely necessary to produce an equilibrium between revenue and expenditure in ireland, as in every other country in the world. whatever the temporary strain upon ireland, whatever the sacrifices involved, the thing must be done, and done now or never. great britain's interest is something, but it is trivial beside that of ireland. the situation is growing worse, not better, and irishmen should unite to insist that the whole system should stop. ii. irish expenditure. let us look a little more closely at irish expenditure, as disclosed in the treasury returns. for purposes of comparison, i set out first the main heads of civil expenditure for england, scotland, and ireland in the year - :[ ] population. england, scotland, ireland, , , . , , . , , . £ £ £ civil government charges, - : (_a_) on consolidated fund: ( ) civil list, salaries, pensions, and miscellaneous charges , , , ( ) development and road improvement funds ( ) payments to local taxation accounts, etc. , , , , , , (_b_) voted , , , , , , total civil government charges , , , , , , customs and excise and inland revenue , , , , post office services , , , , , , total expenditure , , , , , , £ s. d. £ s. d. £ s. d. per head of population / the totals, if we consider relative populations, appear startling. look at the third, or irish, column, and set aside the two last items, "customs, excise, and inland revenue," and "post-office services," which represent the cost of collecting irish revenue and maintaining the irish postal, telegraph, and telephone services. we may note in passing, however, that the post-office receipts in ireland in - , according to the treasury estimate, were less than the outgoings by £ , (receipts, £ , , ; outgoings, £ , , ). the civil government charges are the most important heads of expense, and these are divided into two main classes: (_a_) charged on consolidated fund; (_b_) voted. class (_a_) consists of ( ) salaries, pensions, etc.; ( ) development and road improvement funds; ( ) payments to local taxation accounts. in other parts of return no. will be found the details of expenditure in these various classes: ( ) the salaries and pensions need not detain us long. the principal item is judicial salaries, £ , , as compared with £ , for england, which has more than eight times the population of ireland. another item, £ , for the lord-lieutenant, is double the sum allotted to any colonial governor, even of the dominion of canada, which has nearly twice the population of ireland. but the extravagance lies, not in the cash amount, but in the fact that the irish lord-lieutenancy is, under present conditions, an anomalous institution. no irishman would grudge a penny of the sum if the lord-lieutenant, like a colonial governor, presided over a responsibly governed ireland. ( ) road improvement and development funds. this category is blank for the year - . there will be payments for the current year which will swell the irish expenditure. ( ) payments to local taxation accounts, £ , , . this raises an intricate subject, into which i cannot enter in great detail. it is well known that the whole system of relieving local taxation out of imperial taxation needs thorough revision. meanwhile ireland, like other parts of great britain, has been allotted at various times a multitude of different grants under various acts, but principally under the local government (ireland) act, , and the finance acts of recent years. local government on the british pattern was, as i have already described, extended to ireland only in . the money now raised in ireland by local taxation is about £ , , , exclusive of the grants in aid which we are now considering, and which appear, rightly, on the national balance-sheet because they come from the common purse.[ ] they are based on different principles, and originated in many different ways. some are fixed annual sums, determined either by some arbitrary standard or (as in the case of the licence duty grants and the customs and excise grants[ ]) on the irish proceeds of certain duties in a year taken as standard. the estate duty grants still vary with the total product of duties in the united kingdom, and are still allocated on the proportion settled by mr. goschen in --namely, parts to ireland, to scotland, and to england.[ ] if the proportion were to be revised now, and, on mr. goschen's method, made to correspond to the respective estimated contributions to imperial services, ireland, instead of getting £ , , would get nothing at all. the largest item in the list--namely, the "agricultural grant," a fixed annual sum of £ , , dating from the local government act of --was designed partly to reconcile irish landlords to the passage of that act. nearly half of it represented the remission of the landlord's half-share of the poor-rate on agricultural land, as estimated in the standard year - . the english precedent for this was the agricultural rates act of , which relieved the english owner of agricultural land in a similar way. irish conditions were so different, however, that it was felt necessary in this case to balance the landlord's boon with an equivalent boon to the tenant; so that half the tenant's share of the county cess was also remitted. the result was a disproportionately large grant as compared with those received by england and scotland.[ ] we must remark, as one of the minor intricacies of irish finance, that all these grants do not actually go in relief of local taxation. some of them are diverted to public departments, such as the board of intermediate education, the congested districts board, and the department of agriculture. all these grants will cease, as such, after home rule, while their amount must be reckoned as part of the cost of irish government. the irish parliament will have to revise the whole system of relief to local taxation and establish it on some simple and rational basis. meanwhile, it is important to remember that the irish grants form the major part of the guarantee fund set up by the land purchase acts, and, until the last amending land act of , were chargeable--the estate duties grant, hi the first instance, the agricultural grant in the second instance--with the increasingly heavy losses incurred in floating land stock below par. in - the sums so withdrawn amounted to £ , . that liability was removed by mr. birrell's act, and they now remain chargeable only with any arrears in the annuities paid by the purchasing tenants. this is a negligible liability, and should properly be placed upon the irish government as a whole, which, if it pleased, could recover the money from localities.[ ] we now reach the category _(b)_ "voted," and find in the irish column the truly enormous sum of £ , , --nearly double that of scotland (£ , , ), which has a population slightly greater, and more than a third of that of england (£ , , ), which has a population eight times as great. when we search the various tables of detailed expenditure, three prominent items arrest our attention: constabulary and dublin metropolitan police[ ] £ , , old age pensions £ , , public (_i.e._, primary) education £ , , £ , , those three items may be said to epitomize the history of ireland under the union--coercion, pauperization, deficient education. the first two are, of course, intimately connected. the existing cost of police, surviving needlessly at the monstrous figure shown, represents the past cost of enforcing laws economically hurtful to ireland. the economic hurt is reflected in the cost of old age pensions paid to a disproportionately large number of old people, below the official standard of wealth, in a country drained by emigration for seventy years past of its strongest sons and daughters. police in ireland costs twice as much as in england and scotland, where (with the exception of the _london metropolitan police_) it is a local, not a national charge, while irish old age pensions cost in - more than twice as much as scottish pensions, and amounted to two-fifths of english pensions.[ ] with full allowance for excess payments owing to the lack of all birth records prior to a certain date, the irish figure is relatively enormous. it is £ , greater than the whole cost of irish government in , and, with the addition made in the estimates of the present year, it is just a million more than what, according to sir david barbour's reasoning, would have been the whole cost of irish government in - , had irish expenditure, like irish revenue, been in proportion to the taxable capacity of ireland. i touched upon the irish aspect of the policy of old age pensions at p. . whatever the pecuniary charge, i suggest that it is absolutely necessary for ireland in the future to control both payment and policy, and she might find it in her best interest, with due notice and due regard to present interests, to halve the scale of pensions. it is not a question of the general policy of old age pensions, but of the applicability of a certain scale to ireland, where agricultural wages (for example) average only s. d. as compared with s. d. for england, and s. d. for scotland.[ ] of all ways of remedying a backward economic condition, that of excessive pensions is the worst. the cost of irish primary education--£ , , , as i pointed out in chapter ix.--is at once too high and too low; too high in the sense that much of it is wasted owing to the lack of popular control, too low in the sense that it is a scandal to spend nearly as much on police as on the education of children, and £ , more on old age pensions than on the education of children. if part or even the whole of the additional expense eventually necessary is raised by rates, so much the better. accurate comparison is difficult with the english and scottish expenditure on elementary education, because the greater part of the cost in those countries is borne by private endowments and local rates, whereas in ireland no local rate is raised for elementary education, there are no endowments, and private subscriptions are very small.[ ] it is certain, however, that far greater sums, in proportion to population, are spent in england and scotland than in ireland. this is little to be wondered at if we consider the painful history of education in ireland; but we cannot recall the past, and, as i urged in chapter ix., one of the first duties of a free ireland will be to improve the education of the children. the irish vote for universities and colleges, £ , , has been swelled by the recent establishment of the national university. no item in the whole list represents money better spent. with regard to other irish services, i shall make use, with professor oldham's consent, of some interesting tables compiled by him, showing the principal variations in irish expenditure since the year - .[ ] they include certain expenses which i have already alluded to, and others which i shall have to remark upon further, besides giving a general view of the growth in the cost of irish government. neither of lists a or b is exhaustive: a. increases of expenditure. - . - . £ £ . old age pensions , , -- . primary education , , , . universities and colleges , , . payments to local taxation account , , , . ireland development grant , -- . post office , , , . cost of collecting irish revenue , , . surveys of the united kingdom , , . land commission , , . department of agriculture , , . other items (five[ ]) , , --------- --------- , , , , nos. to i have already dealt with, but it is interesting to note the contrasting figures of - . no. . the ireland development grant of £ , is interesting as an example of the haphazard methods of anglo-irish finance. it is an annual sum voted for various development purposes, and was originally established (at the figure of £ , ) in as an equivalent for the capitation grants for school attendance in england, given under the education act of in lieu of school fees. in allotting the irish equivalent, mr. goschen's proportion of , , was for the first time condemned by all parties. what the proportion ought to be was a matter of dispute, but it was fixed in this case on the basis of population. since the english grant has now risen to £ , , , the irish proportion therefore is now, strictly speaking, inadequate. nos. , , and are examples of charges debited by the treasury against ireland which are open to criticism as long as the union lasts, and which meet with much complaint in ireland. obviously, however, the first two at any rate are charges which an ireland financially independent would have to bear. no. . the land commission vote of £ , is of course the direct result of an abnormally bad system, necessitating abnormal and costly remedial administration. ireland herself is not morally responsible for a penny of it, but if she is wise she will shoulder the cost as a corollary of responsible government. small administrative economies may be made, and the cost will disappear altogether with the completion of land purchase, say in fifteen years, but in the immediate future no reduction can be counted on with certainty. the figure given includes the cost of the land commission proper, which deals with judicial rents and manages finance, as well as the cost of the estates commissioners who conduct the machinery of land purchase. it also includes losses on the flotation of land stock at a discount, and the interest and sinking-fund on the stock raised to pay the bonus to landlords. no. . the vote of £ , for the department of agriculture, whose origin and functions i described in chapter ix., does not accurately show the actual cost of the department, because it excludes the greater part of an endowment income of £ , a year, derived partly from the irish church fund, partly from the irish local taxation account, and partly from the interest on a capital endowment of £ , , as well as other small miscellaneous grants. but it includes a sum of about £ , for some museums, colleges, gardens, etc., whose english counterparts are subsidized under different votes, as well as the sum of £ , for the congested districts board.[ ] nor does this latter sum represent the full cost of the congested districts board, which has also an endowment income from the irish church fund of £ , , a subsidy from the ireland development grant, and a fluctuating income from various sources--rents, etc. part of the expense of the department itself must be regarded as abnormal, in view of the extraordinarily backward economic condition of the country when it was founded. nor, valuable as the department's work is, can it be safely assumed that the cost is not extravagant. as long as any department relies on an imperial vote there can be no certainty that the expenditure will be economical. the whole cost of the congested districts board is abnormal. its very existence is evidence of the failure of external government in ireland, and, as i urged in chapter ix., the whole question of the treatment of the congested districts needs thorough investigation at the hands of a responsible irish government. b. reductions in expenditure. - . - . £ £ . relief of distress , , . pauper lunatics grant , . teachers' pensions grant , . railways (ireland) grant , , . local government board , , . chief secretary's offices , , . registrar-general's office , , . justice and police , , , , --------- --------- , , , , most of these reductions are deceptive. no. is the saving of an abnormal grant, nos. and signify mere transfers to grants in aid of local taxation, no. a transfer of duties to the department of agriculture. the table shows a total reduction of £ , , while table a shows a total increase of £ , , . together they account for an increase since - of £ , , . here is a similar table, confined to justice and police: c. expenditure on justice and police. - . - . £ £ . judicial salaries ... ... ... , , . dublin metropolitan police ... , , . royal irish constabulary ... ... , , , , . judicial pensions, etc. ... ... , , . law charges ... ... ... ... , , . superior courts offices ... ... , , . county courts offices ... ... , , . prisons, etc. ... ... ... ... , , . reformatories, etc. ... ... ... , , , , , , to nos. , , and i have already referred. the whole charge of two millions, though it shows a slight decrease in twenty years, is grossly out of proportion to the resources of ireland. under heads and are included a number of posts which are notoriously little more than sinecures. to sum up once more, the cost of the irish government as paid out of the common purse in the last completed financial year was £ , , , or £ s. d. per head of the population, as compared with a cost per head of £ s. d. in england, and in scotland of £ s. / d. but this is not the minimum figure with which we have to reckon in considering the home rule scheme; some items show a marked increase in the estimates of the current year: ( ) the increase in old age pensions, not certain yet, will be at least £ , . ( ) the land commission is £ , , as compared with £ , . ( ) universities and colleges, £ , , as compared with £ , . ( ) department of agriculture, £ , , as compared with £ , . ( ) registrar-general's office, £ , , as compared with £ , . ( ) valuation and boundary survey, £ , , as compared with £ , . ( ) public works and buildings in ireland, £ , , as compared with £ , . even with allowance for over-estimates, especially in the last of these items,[ ] we must anticipate an increase of nearly half a million under the above heads, to which we must add £ , recently allocated by the road board to ireland for the year - , and £ , already allocated by the development commissioners. if ireland comes prematurely into the national insurance scheme, and assumes eventual financial responsibility for her share of the cost, that will be an additional source of expense; but it is to be hoped that her leaders, in common prudence, will henceforth endeavour to stem the rising flood of irish expenditure, and so facilitate the retrenchments imperatively necessary under home rule. as it is, the total outgoings of the current year ( - ), swelled by the increases shown above, will probably amount to £ , , , while this total will in its turn be added to by the office costs of the irish legislature and the salaries of ministers. the scheme framed cannot assume immediate economies, and a responsible ireland alone can decide the nature and extent of the drastic economies which must be made in the future. beyond the brief remarks and hints made in the course of this chapter, i myself venture only to lay down the broad proposition that, to the last farthing, irish revenue must govern and limit irish expenditure. for any hardship entailed in achieving that aim ireland will find superabundant compensation in the moral independence which is the foundation of national welfare. she will be sorely tempted to sell part of her freedom for a price. at whatever cost, she will be wise to resist. if irish revenue is to be the measure of irish expenditure, it follows that it must be wholly, or at any rate predominately, under irish control. let us look a little more closely, therefore, into its amount and composition. iii. irish revenue. as i have already pointed out, in order to arrive at the present revenue of ireland, our best course is to take the mean tax revenue of the two years - and - , and to add to it the non-tax revenue of - , which was, of course, unaffected by the delay in passing the budget of . for clearness, however, i first set out separately the irish figures of these two years, distinguishing between tax revenue and non-tax revenue, and giving the "collected" revenue and the "true" revenue in different columns: - . - . revenue as revenue as collected. "true." collected. "true" tax revenue. £ £ £ £ customs , , , , , , , , excise , , , , , , , , estate, etc., duties , , , , , , stamps , , , , income tax , , , , , , land value duties -- -- , , total irish revenue from taxes , , , , , , , , non-tax revenue. postal service , , , , telegraph service , , , , telephone service , , , , crown lands , , , , miscellaneous , , , , total irish non-tax revenue , , , , , , , , aggregate irish , , , , , , , , revenue percentage of the aggregate revenue of the united kingdom . . . . on p. are the details of the mean tax revenue, "collected" and "true," of the two years - , - , with the non-tax revenue of the latest year, - , added to them. present irish revenue (mean of the last two years). details of revenue. mean collected mean "true" or tax "contributed" tax revenue of the revenue of the years - , years - , - . - . tax revenue. £ £ indirect{customs , , , , taxation{excise , , , , (incl. licences £ , ) total indirect taxation , , , , {estate duties , , direct taxation{stamps , , {income tax , , , , {land value duties , , total direct taxation , , , , total tax revenue , , , , non tax revenue ( ). postal service , , telegraph service , , telephone service , , crown lands , , miscellaneous , , total non tax revenue ( ) , , , , collected "true" or revenue "contributed" at the revenue at the present day. present day, aggregates , , , , the two aggregate figures at the bottom, £ , , and £ , , , approximately represent the treasury estimate of the "collected" and the "true" revenue of ireland, respectively, at the present day. they are confirmed by the figures of previous years; for the average revenue of the five years, - , was as follows: "collected," £ , , ; "true" or "contributed," £ , , , the new taxation of - having added £ , to the "true" revenue. i must again remind the reader, however, that the figures are open to the criticism that the adjustment between the "collected" tax revenue and the "true" revenue is inaccurate owing to the methods employed by the treasury. it will be observed that the resulting net deduction from the "collected" tax revenue of to-day, a deduction attributable, on the balance of the various figures, almost exclusively to excise,[ ] and mainly to the excise duty on spirits, amounts to £ , , , and makes all the difference between the solvency and insolvency of ireland regarded as an independent financial unit. her expenditure, it will be remembered, was £ , , , her "collected" revenue £ , , , leaving a surplus of £ , , which becomes a deficit of £ , , if we reckon only the "true" or "contributed" revenue of £ , , . on the other hand, the principle, as distinguished from the methods of adjustment, is perfectly sound if we wish to arrive at a correct idea of the financial position of ireland. the £ , , virtually represents the duties on goods exported from ireland, and consumed in great britain, or rather the excess of these duties over those levied on goods exported from great britain and consumed in ireland. the consumer pays the tax on dutiable commodities, and a financially independent ireland could not raise revenue twice over from the same commodity. she would, for example, have to give a drawback from the excise duty on spirits exported to england, since a customs duty would be levied on its import into england. on the other hand, she would be entitled to every penny of revenue derived from the tea and sugar imported into and consumed within her borders, and to the full income tax on property held by irishmen. now, for two reasons, i do not propose to make any exhaustive inquiry into the accuracy of treasury adjustments for "true" revenue. my first reason is, that full material for calculation cannot be obtained by any private individual, and could not be obtained and worked up even by the treasury without an enormous expenditure of time and trouble. the most careful inquiry i have seen is embodied in an exceedingly able pamphlet by "an irishman," entitled "the financial relations of ireland with the imperial exchequer," and i mention below a few of the criticisms made by the writer. his and other investigations seem to prove that irish revenue is considerably underestimated, perhaps by half a million.[ ] my second reason is that errors of adjustment in either direction cannot affect in any substantial way the kind of financial scheme we are to adopt in the home rule bill. let us fix our attention, then, on the second of the two columns in the table on p. , showing the aggregate "true" revenue of ireland at the present day. disregard the non-tax revenue from the various postal services (which represents payment for services rendered, and is swallowed up by an excess on the expenditure side of £ , ), and examine the heads of tax revenue shown in the upper half of the column. it will be seen that - per cent. of irish "true" revenue is derived from customs and excise duties, which, with the exception perhaps of licence duties, may be classed as indirect taxation. the deduction for "true" revenue, it will be observed, has considerably modified the proportion, which for "collected" revenue works out at . per cent., or nearly four-fifths. as the reader is aware, this is not a new feature in irish finance. it formed the basis of the report of the financial relations commission with regard to the over-taxation of ireland. much the greater part of irish revenue, even since the abolition of protective duties and the substitution of direct taxation, has always been derived from taxes on articles of common consumption, the simple reason being that ireland is a country where there is little accumulated wealth from which to extract direct taxation. in great britain, whose circumstances dictate the finance of the united kingdom, no less than . per cent. of the tax revenue is derived from direct taxation, only . per cent. from customs and excise.[ ] the irish figures show that to retain in the hands of the imperial parliament the control of irish customs and excise will be to retain almost paramount control over irish revenue; to deny ireland the main lever she needs for co-ordinating her expenditure and her revenue, and for making her taxation suitable to her economic conditions. it will be to preserve the framework of a fiscal system which the highest financial authorities have pronounced to be unfair to ireland, and which incontrovertible facts show to be uneconomical both for ireland and great britain. meanwhile that system has at length produced a deficit, with which i shall deal in the next chapter. its amount, probably exaggerated, must necessarily remain uncertain under the present fiscal union. one thing alone is certain, that it will grow as long as that union lasts. footnotes: [ ] _i.e._, on the generally accepted basis of ( ) assessment to death duties, ( ) assessment to income-tax. with regard to ( ), in the last report of the inland revenue commissioners, the figure for the united kingdom was £ , , ; for ireland, £ , , , or / . with regard to ( ), the figure for the united kingdom was . millions; for ireland, . millions, or / . deduct a small allowance for the difference between resources and taxable capacity, and the result approximately is one-twenty-fifth. [ ] total revenue (including non-tax revenue) of united kingdom (mean of two years. - , - ) £ , , one-twenty-fifth £ , , actual "true" revenue contributed by ireland (mean of two years, - , - ) £ , , ----------- "over-taxation" £ , , if only the tax-revenue be taken, the over-taxation amounts to £ , , (total revenue for united kingdom, £ , , ; one-twenty-fifth=£ , , ; actual irish revenue, £ , , ). some members of the royal commission made certain allowances for education grants, etc., which it would be useless to parallel now. [ ] see pp. - . [ ] see p. , footnote. [ ] treasury return, no. , . [ ] a list is given at p. of return ( ), and an admirable exposition of the whole subject from the irish standpoint will be found in professor oldham's seventh published lecture on the "public finances of ireland" ( ). [ ] the "whisky money" was so treated under the finance act of . [ ] see p. . [ ] between and the equivalent grants to scotland and ireland were based on the goschen proportion, , , , the english grant being taken as standard. scotch grants are now determined by special legislation. [ ] see chapter xiv. [ ] only part of the dublin metropolitan police is paid out of state funds, the rest by the city of dublin. [ ] the relative figures were: ireland, £ , , ; scotland, £ , , ; england, £ , , . the recent removal of the disqualification for poor law relief adds considerably to these amounts. [ ] in the poorest parts of ireland they range as low as s. [ ] see pp. - . in , england and wales spent £ , , on elementary education, and raised £ , , for it in rates. of the rest, £ , , came from parliamentary grants. fees and endowment incomes of voluntary schools are not included (statistical abstract of united kingdom, ). the actual parliamentary votes, as they appear in the accounts for - , are: england (class iv.), "board of education," £ , , ; scotland, "public education," £ , , ; ireland, "public education," £ , , . but the english votes include sums devoted to technical education, museums, etc., whose counterparts in ireland come under other departments. [ ] two years earlier than the date i have chiefly used for the purposes of comparison, but the difference is not material. in point of fact, the expenditure was £ , less in the later than in the earlier year. [ ] ( ) rates on government buildings; ( ) superannuation; ( ) government printing; ( ) board of works; ( ) home office. [ ] department of agriculture, endowment fund: { ( ) local taxation account £ , income from --{ ( ) irish church fund £ , ( ) interest on capital sum of £ , . also (in - ): from ireland development fund £ , under an act of £ , [ ] the amount _voted_ for public works in - was £ , [see "civil service estimates" for - (no. -- )]; the amount _spent_, according to return no. , £ , . [ ] under the heads of excise, the principal deduction is in spirits (£ , , in - ) and beer (£ , in - ). the items of irish tax revenue in which the treasury make _no_ adjustment are: excise licenses (£ , in - ); club duty (£ , in - ); "other items" (£ , in - ); cards and patent medicines (£ , in - ); "estate, etc., duties" (£ , , in - ); income tax (schedules a and b) (£ , in - --abnormally large figure owing to non-collection in previous year); land value duties (£ , in - ). all the heads of customs revenue are subject to adjustment, though the total result is only a small deduction from ireland (£ , in - ). in all but two the adjustment is in favour of ireland. the two exceptions are "foreign spirits," where a deduction of £ , is made in - , and tobacco, where a deduction of £ , is made in - . [ ] _income tax_, schedules c and d (dividends from government stocks, public companies, foreign dividends, etc.). the treasury estimate (as stated in a side-note to the return) is based on statistics of _estate duty_ for the five years ending . but what light can estate duty throw on (for example) the dividends collected at the source from british or foreign securities held by irish banks? schedule c deals with "government stocks, etc.," schedule d with "public companies, foreign dividends, etc.," but in the adjustment for "true" revenue no distinction is made between them. now the banking statistics (ireland) of show that dividends were payable at the bank of ireland on £ , , of government securities, and that, in addition, a debt bearing interest was due to the bank from the government of / millions. income tax on these items alone would be £ , , less rebates; but the whole of schedule c, which includes foreign and colonial government stocks, is given in - as only £ , . no attempt is made to credit ireland with a share of the profits made by english and scottish companies through business done in ireland. the only reliable items in income tax are those of a and b (land, houses, and occupation of land), where in - ireland contributed about per cent. of the total; under other heads, according to the treasury, only . per cent. the writer estimates the true contribution as several hundred thousand pounds more. _post office_.--the treasury give no clue as to how they calculate the profit and loss on postal services. figures of letters, telegrams, parcels, etc., delivered in ireland are known from the postmaster-general's report, but the report does not distinguish irish from english postal orders, of which / millions were issued in the united kingdom in - . there is good reason to believe that a part of the postal profit now wholly credited to england should in reality be credited to ireland. _stamps_.--far too little allowance is made by the treasury for stamps on transfers executed through english and scottish exchanges for shares bought or sold by irishmen, and for bonds, deeds, insurances, issues of capital, etc. _tea and sugar_.--the treasury base their calculation "on quantities inter-changed between great britain and ireland in - ," and i learn from the inland revenue department that by this means the consumption per head of the population was arrived at, and that the present official figures are based on the assumption that the relation of consumption per head in ireland to consumption per head in the united kingdom as a whole has not altered since - . the unreliability of this assumption is manifest. it is probable that the heavy additional duty on spirits has raised the consumption of tea in ireland more than in great britain, and the figures of imports compiled by the department of agriculture seem to confirm this view. [ ] on the basis of the mean revenue of - and - . chapter xiii financial independence i. the essence of home rule. let us now sum up this financial question, and give its place in the general problem of home rule. in chapter x. i argued that, on broad grounds of political policy, ireland, in her own interest, and in the general interest of the united kingdom, should have "colonial" home rule without representation in the imperial parliament. leaving finance temporarily aside, while observing that any substantial imperial control over irish finance would defeat the "colonial" solution of the problem, i endeavoured to show that there were no tenable grounds of a non-financial character for retaining irish members at westminster, nor any dangers to be feared from excluding them. i have now reviewed the history of anglo-irish finance up to the present day, and i hope in so doing to have proved that, so far from presenting an obstacle to "colonial" home rule, the financial conditions demand such a solution. finance and policy are inseparably one. all the considerations which render home rule desirable lead irresistibly to the financial independence of ireland, with complete control assigned to her over all branches of taxation. without financial independence it is impossible to realize the objects of home rule. it would be a miracle were the case otherwise. ireland would, indeed, be abnormal if, after her history, she could reach prosperity and stability without passing through a phase of financial independence. no parallel, even in the most distant degree, could be found for any such metamorphosis in the whole of the british empire. if we study ireland's interest, we shall promote imperial interests. the main object of home rule is to make ireland self-reliant. lord welby and his colleagues were right in when they declared that ideal to be impracticable without giving ireland entire responsibility both for her revenue and her expenditure. this declaration is as true as ever. the situation has changed only in one respect: that financial independence will now mean a financial sacrifice to ireland, whereas in it would have meant a financial gain to ireland--that is, if lord welby's recommendation in favour of remitting the irish contribution to imperial services had been carried out. at that time ireland contributed two millions. now great britain contributes over a million to ireland. sooner or later that subsidy must stop, and the sooner it stops the better. but it is of vital importance that ireland should understand the situation. the present position is dangerous, because the irish people at large are ignorant of the facts, and their leaders are taking no steps to enlighten them. the reasons are intelligible, but they are not sound reasons. paced with the facts and the choice, ireland would not hesitate, but she must know the facts and understand the nature of the choice. ii. the deficit. let us deal at once with the question of the deficit. it is inconceivable surely that the existence of a deficit should be used as an argument against financial independence, much less as an argument against home rule in general. will anyone be found to say that an island with a fertile soil, several nourishing industries, and a clever population of four and a half millions, is to be regarded, whatever its past history, as incapable of supporting a government of its own out of its own resources? let nobody be tempted by the fallacy that, given time, ireland will regain financial stability under the fiscal union, and at a later stage, perhaps, be more fitted to bear the burden of fiscal independence. the supposition is chimerical. the present system, besides being radically vicious in a purely scientific sense, undermines the moral power of ireland to secure her own regeneration. it is now . the deficit, once a large surplus, came into being only two years ago. it was the direct and inevitable result of a fiscal union against which ireland has for generations unceasingly protested, and it was a result actually foretold in by lord welby and his two colleagues. it could have been averted, as they pointed out, only by a form of home rule giving financial independence to ireland. but the warning was older than the report of the financial relations commission. mr. gladstone told the house of commons in , when introducing his home rule bill, that no limit could be set to irish expenditure under the union; he and sir william harcourt repeated the warning in , and if the reader will study the debates on the financial clauses of the bill of ,[ ] he will find pages of bitter diatribe founded on the small net contribution from ireland to imperial services for which the revised financial scheme provided. ireland, said the opposition, was to make money out of great britain, and escape her fair proportion of imperial charges. mr. chamberlain showed that, with allowance for payment from the imperial purse of part of the cost of irish police, the net initial contribution was about one-fortieth, and asked: "is irish patriotism a plant of such sickly growth that it has to be watered with british gold?" the taunt was as pointless as it was cruel, for although the union had kept ireland poor, irish leaders, in spite of that poverty, had asked for a financial independence which mr. gladstone in neither of his bills felt disposed to give her. mr. chamberlain had his way; the union was maintained, and as a result ireland's actual contribution of two millions at that date has been replaced by a subsidy from great britain. are we to be told now by unionists that the union must be maintained in order to maintain this subsidy? or by home rulers that the irish deficit is an argument for the perpetuation of the financial dependence which caused it, and an insuperable bar to the financial independence which alone can extinguish it? no; let us look the facts in the face. here is a deficit officially given as £ , , . it is probably less, owing to an underestimate of irish revenue. but it may grow to be more, even with allowance for an automatic growth of revenue, owing to the increased votes of the present year, and the expenses peculiar to the establishment of the new irish legislature and government. what her really healthy and normal revenue should be only ireland herself can discover in the future. what her right expenditure should be she alone can determine. we can only work upon the data we have before us. economy cannot be instantaneous, either in ireland or anywhere else. assume, then, an initial deficit in the irish balance-sheet on the basis of present taxation. its exact size cannot affect the manner of dealing with it. how are we to deal with it? let us dismiss at once the theory of "restitution" with the earnest hope that we shall hear nothing of it in the coming controversy. no irishman will argue that a subsidy to the extent of, or exceeding the deficit, is a good thing in itself, and should be large and lasting because it will represent compensation for money unfairly exacted in the past. it is, indeed, true that the union impoverished ireland, but the most grievous wrong was moral, and for that wrong alone is reparation possible. home rule is not worth fighting for if it has not as its end and aim a self-reliant and self-supporting ireland. nor does it improve the argument in the least to represent the subsidy as productive expenditure for the purpose of raising ireland's taxable capacity and improving her economic position. no money raised outside of ireland will have that effect. once admit the principle of restitution, and where are you to stop? what rational or scientific limit can be set to it? more pertinent question still, what are the conditions which will inevitably be imposed in exchange? ireland cannot have it both ways. she must either hold out for financial independence or, for every financial boon, submit to a corresponding deduction from her political liberty. if there were no alternative between financial independence without a farthing of temporary aid, and permanent financial dependence with a permanent loss of liberty, it would pay ireland a thousandfold in the future to choose the former scheme, remodel taxation promptly to meet the initial deficit, and with equal promptitude set on foot such a drastic reduction of expenditure as would ensure the rapid attainment of a proper financial equilibrium. when once the irish realized the issue, they would accept the responsibility with all its attendant sacrifices, which would no doubt be severe. but there is an alternative, and that is to make good the initial deficit, whatever the financial authorities finally pronounce it to be, with an initial subsidy of equal size, or perhaps of somewhat greater size so as to admit of a small initial surplus, _but destined to diminish by stated amounts, and within a few years to terminate_. to such assistance, given unconditionally, ireland has an unanswerable claim, and to such assistance she ought, in my opinion, to limit her claim. until two years ago she contributed uninterruptedly, and sometimes excessively, to the support of the empire. with men and money she has made efforts for the common weal which no self-governing colony has made, though she has been treated, politically and financially, as not even a crown colony has been treated. just at the point where the self-governing colonies, thanks to the liberty allowed them, are beginning to contribute indirectly to the defence of the empire, ireland, as the ultimate result of a century of coercive government, ceases to contribute. she can claim honourably, if she wills, to be placed, by temporary financial aid from the authority which is responsible for her undoing, in the financial position of a self-governing colony. from the british point of view it is difficult to see any valid objection to the course suggested. there will be no stinginess in the settlement. even if there were any disposition in that direction, it would be idle to grudge the initial subsidy, because an equivalent sum is already being paid. the union will infallibly continue to accentuate the deficit and increase the resulting burden on the taxpayers of great britain. the plan proposed would eventually remove that burden. but, obviously, its success hinges on the concession of full financial powers to an ireland unrepresented at westminster. in their own interests, if not for very shame, englishmen should decline to make use of the old adage, that "he who pays the piper should call the tune." for more than a century ireland paid the piper and england called the tune--and what a tune, and with what results! representation has nothing to do with the case. precedents are needless, but there are, as a fact, many. crown colonies have frequently received free grants for the relief of distress--jamaica and other west indian islands, for example. the transvaal and orange river colony received several millions after the war to enable the ruined farmers to start business on a footing of solvency. during the whole period of their adolescence, and, indeed, until quite a recent date, all the self-governing colonies were virtually subsidized by the allocation of british forces for local defence, maintained at the imperial charge. and ireland paid her share of this charge. similar garrisons were, are, and will be, maintained in ireland. yes, but ireland contributed to their cost, and in course of time will, it is to be hoped, resume her contributions with a gladder heart and a freer conscience than ever before. canada was economically stagnant under coercion. if, in her case, we had carried coercion as far as we carried it in ireland, it would have been necessary to give her a temporary subsidy in order to enable her to assume the position of a self-governing colony. ireland's proximity does not alter economic laws. "facts are stubborn things," and these are the irish facts. duty apart, no more profitable investment could possibly be made by the british tax-payer than a subsidy designed to enable ireland to stand on her legs again. the present tribute to her is a dead loss. the subsidy, if given, ought, i submit, on no account to be earmarked, on the bad precedent set by the bills of and ,[ ] for any particular head of expenditure in ireland, as for police, pensions, land commission, or education. as i have shown previously, nothing is easier than to pick out items of excessive expenditure, or of under-expenditure, for which ireland is not herself responsible. but to allocate a grant specially to any of these purposes would be superfluous unless the intention were to maintain imperial control over the service in question. as i urged in chapter x., none of the services mentioned above ought to be retained under imperial control. extravagance in the first three will not be properly checked, save by a responsible ireland. nor will extra money on education be properly spent until it is raised and spent by ireland. there are no other services, with the possible exception of posts, to which a subsidy could possibly be applicable. even in that case an earmarked subsidy would be out of place. but posts are outside the point we are discussing. if for mutual convenience they were to be kept under imperial control--a step which would not render imperative irish representation at westminster--their finance would remain, as at present, common to the whole united kingdom. there is officially held, on bad evidence, to be a loss on irish posts of £ , , and this loss is debited against ireland, and goes to swell the deficit we have been considering. with the posts under imperial control, the initial deficit to be made good by subsidy would be reduced by the amount of the loss. should it, however, be decided that ireland is fairly entitled to a share of the large general profit earned by the postal services of the united kingdom, the annual profit so attributable to ireland would be set off against the annual subsidy as long as the subsidy lasted, and after it was at an end would be a clear item of revenue to ireland. my own opinion, as i stated in chapter x., is that the irish postal system, whether standing by itself it shows a profit or a loss, ought to be under irish control. iii. future contribution to imperial services. this must be left a voluntary matter for ireland, as it is for the self-governing colonies. there is no contribution from ireland at present, and to fix a future date at which a fixed contribution, like that from the isle of man, should begin, is a course hardly practicable even if it were desirable. iv. ireland's share of the national debt. until two years ago ireland, of course, contributed, _inter alia_, to the annual interest and sinking fund, amounting in - to £ , , , on the national debt of the united kingdom. it is impossible to estimate her share of the capital of the debt, and i scarcely think that anyone would seriously propose to encumber the new ireland with an old debt, based on some arbitrary estimate. for the great bulk of debt created in the past she has little moral responsibility--no more, at any rate, than the self-governing colonies. in this respect she must begin, like them, with a clean sheet. v. ireland's share of imperial miscellaneous revenue. on the other hand, ireland, in consideration of the remissions mentioned, must renounce the share to which she is technically entitled of the imperial miscellaneous revenue, derived mainly from suez canal shares and the mint, and amounting altogether in - to £ , , .[ ] vi. irish control of customs and excise. let us now come to close quarters with this important issue. the grand argument on the affirmative side is that the products of these duties represent nearly four-fifths of the tax revenue collected in ireland. what are the objections? we need scarcely consider the general objection, sometimes made ostensibly in the interests of ireland, that her public men have little financial experience. the fact is true, and it is not their fault. but the financial scheme cannot reasonably be based on a recognition of a temporary lack of experience. i place customs and excise together because i believe there is no serious question of making a distinction between the two, and of allowing ireland to levy and collect her own excise duties, while denying her authority over customs. it is true that until such a distinction was made, and a lower excise duty levied upon irish than upon british spirits;[ ] but the tendency in all modern states is to make the authority over customs the same as that over excise, and any departure from that principle, in the case of modern ireland, is likely to cause considerable inconvenience. license duties, which are included under the head of excise, may, no doubt, without much inconvenience, be differentiated from the rest, but their irish proceeds (£ , ) are too small to influence the question. excise, then, follows customs. what are the objections to giving ireland, like the isle of man and the channel islands, control over her own customs? without doubt, the establishment of a new customs barrier between ireland and great britain is in itself a drawback. the custom-house machinery exists, of course, at present, because ireland is an island; nor would the additional function of checking british as well as foreign imports into ireland cause any great increase of expense; but since the great bulk of irish external trade is with great britain, there will unquestionably be a certain amount of inconvenience and expense both to ireland and great britain in submitting merchandise on both sides of the irish channel to the passage of a customs barrier. that seems to be the limit to which criticism can justly go in the case of ireland and great britain. that is as far as it goes in the analogous case of new zealand and the australian commonwealth, where a small island state has a separate customs system from that of a large, wealthy, and populous neighbour of the same race, and with many identical interests. that is as far as it goes in the parallel case of little newfoundland and the great dominion of canada. neither the dominion nor the commonwealth claim that proximity, power, and racial identity give them the right to control the trade and taxation of their small independent neighbours, nor does the smallest friction result from the mutual independence. on the contrary, both the dominions and the commonwealth were founded on that vital principle of a pre-existent state independence surrendered voluntarily for larger ends. the whole empire depends on the principle of local autonomy, and, above all, on the principle of local financial autonomy. endeavours in america to sustain the opposite theory led to disaster. we have for generations regarded it as perfectly natural that the self-governing colonies should have customs systems of their own, even when they are used for the purpose of imposing heavy duties on goods coming from the mother country, and we know that that liberty has borne fruit a hundredfold in affection and loyalty to the imperial government. until the union of great britain and ireland it was regarded as equally natural that ireland should have control of her own customs, along with all other branches of revenue. even after the union, although there was no irish control over anything irish, it was recognized, until the fiscal unification of the two countries in , that irish conditions required a separate customs system, which, in fact, existed until .[ ] how fiscal unification and the subsequent abolition of separate customs was brought about i have told in chapter xi. it is not a pleasant story. to say the least, the conditions, moral and material, were not such as to warrant the inference that there is any inherent necessity for joint customs between ireland and great britain. the presumption raised by all subsequent events is in the opposite direction. but the tradition of unified customs, now nearly a century old, has immense potency, and unless it is fearlessly scrutinized and challenged, may be able, reinforced by the passions excited by the great controversy over free trade and protection, to defy the warnings writ large upon the page of history. the tradition must be so challenged. say what we will about the proximity of ireland and great britain, descant as we will in law-books, pamphlets, leading articles, debates, on what ought theoretically to be the fiscal relations of the two countries, we cannot escape from the fact that, in this as in so many other respects, both the human and economic problem before us is fundamentally a colonial problem, and that its being so is not the fault of ireland, but of great britain. belief in home rule seems to me necessarily to involve a willingness to give ireland her customs. great britain has no moral right to lay it down that her views about trade shall govern the course of irish policy; and if great britain believes sincerely in home rule, she should be willing to trust ireland, regardless of the economic consequences, and regardless of the effect upon the great tariff controversy. the effect upon that controversy i shall not discuss. it seems to me to possess only a tactical and electioneering interest, and that side of the home rule problem i have rigidly avoided, while expressing in general terms my belief that sound policy and sound tactics in reality coincide. the home rule bill is far more likely to be wrecked by timidity than by boldness, by precautions and compromises than by a fearless accommodation of british policy to irish facts and needs. as to the danger to great britain of separate irish customs, it seems to me to be greatly exaggerated. ireland's own interests will primarily dictate her action. what she will decide her interest to be, nobody can foretell with certainty beyond a limited point, because irish public opinion is not formed. ireland has taken little or no part in the fiscal controversy, for the simple reason that she has been absorbed in the task of getting home rule, and until she gets it she is precluded from formulating a trustworthy national opinion on most of the great subjects which agitate modern societies. there is, however, no tradition in favour of high protection, even from grattan's commercially free parliament. the question of a low protective or purely revenue tariff on imports has not received any serious investigation. let us frankly admit at the outset that no country in the world, economically situated as ireland is, dispenses with a general tariff of some sort, and undoubtedly there are to-day a good many irishmen outside political life who advocate the encouragement of infant irish manufacturing industries by sufficient protective duties directed against great britain as well as against the outside world. it would be strange if there were not, in view of the distressing past history of ireland's throttled industries, and in view of the strenuous efforts now being made by the development associations to push the manufacture and sale of irish goods in all parts of the world. there are many avowed free traders also; nor are the development associations themselves officially protectionist. the opinion is sometimes expressed that ireland, which could easily be self-supporting in the matter of food, occupies an unhealthy position in exporting a large proportion of her own agricultural produce, butter, bacon, meat, etc., and in importing for her own consumption inferior british and foreign qualities of some of the principal foodstuffs; but, so far as it is possible to ascertain it, the predominant opinion seems to be that an agricultural tariff would not be a good remedy for this weakness, if it be one, and that ireland's future development, like that of denmark, lies in the increasingly scientific organization of her agricultural industries, and in the better cultivation of her own soil. "better farming, better business, better living," to use the admirable motto invented by sir horace plunkett for the i.a.o.s. in the absence of an irish legislature, no special importance can be attached to individual expressions of opinion. yet a measure of prophecy is permissible. the irish legislature will have to study the national interest, and it is possible to say with certainty at least this--that ireland's interest lies in maintaining close and friendly trade relations with great britain. unfortunately, we have no means of accurately ascertaining the amount of trade done by ireland with great britain and with foreign and colonial countries respectively. irish commerce takes, of course, three forms: _(a)_ direct trade with countries outside great britain; _(b)_ indirect trade with these countries via great britain; _(c)_ direct local trade with great britain. the statisticians of the irish department of agriculture make only an imperfect attempt to distinguish between these classes, but their figures, so far as they go, prove beyond question that the great bulk of irish external commerce belongs to class _(c)_--local trade with great britain. the total value of irish trade in is estimated at £ , , , of which £ , , was for imports, £ , , for exports. probably per cent., at least, of this trade was strictly local. certainly great britain is the market for very nearly the whole of irish agricultural produce, and for most of her exports of linen, ships, tobacco, liquor, etc. any aggressive action likely to provoke a tariff war would be ruinous to ireland, while it would hurt great britain far less in proportion. but, in fact, both countries would suffer, great britain from the loss of an easily accessible food-supply of extraordinary value, not only for economic, but for strategical reasons; ireland from the loss of an excellent and indispensable customer. on the other hand, whatever ireland's trade policy may be, she certainly needs the power of fixing her own duties upon commodities like tea and sugar, which are of foreign origin, and are now merely transported to her through british ports. taxation of this sort is a matter of the deepest concern to a country where agricultural wages average only eleven shillings a week, and which cannot reduce its exorbitant old age pensions bill without giving some compensatory relief to the classes concerned. tobacco, of which in its manufactured forms ireland is a considerable producer as well as a large consumer, belongs to the same category. liquor is an important article of production in ireland, as well as of consumption, and the irish legislature ought to be able to form and carry out its own liquor policy. ireland is just as able and willing to promote temperance as great britain, and just as competent to reconcile a temperance policy with due regard to producing and distributing interests. the customs tariff is an irish question, not an ulster question. the interests of the protestant farmers of north-east ulster are identical with those of the rest of ireland, and obviously it will be a matter of the profoundest importance for ireland as a whole to safeguard the interests of the shipbuilding and linen industries in the north in whatever way may seem best. the industrial development associations, which are affiliated in a national organization, and are far above petty sectarian jealousies, may be trusted to see that ireland steers a safe financial course in her trade policy. if there is little or no danger that a home-ruled ireland will commit tariff follies of her own, she has unquestionably a right to escape from further entanglement in the tariff policy of great britain. what may be the issue of great britain's great fiscal controversy nobody can foretell. but as long as a protective tariff remains the cardinal point in the constructive policy of one of the british parties, there is a strong likelihood of such a tariff, which would be uniform for the whole united kingdom, being carried into law. free traders, like myself, may deplore the possibility, but we cannot shut our eyes to it. that tariff, if and when it is framed, will, like the free trade tariff of the past, be framed without regard to irish interests, which are predominantly agricultural, and with exclusive regard to british interests, which are mainly industrial. whatever may have been the original ideal of the conservative protectionists, however highly they may once have valued the protection of agriculture, irresistible political forces have driven them in the direction of a tariff framed mainly to secure the adhesion of the great manufacturing towns. the electoral power of these towns, the growing resentment of the working classes in most parts of the world at the increasing cost of living, the fact that great britain cannot under any conceivable circumstances feed her own population, have been reflected in the definite abandonment by the party leaders of the proposed small duty against colonial imports, and in the admission by mr. bonar law at manchester, during the last general election, that the proposed tariff would not benefit the farmers. nor will the failure of the reciprocity agreement between canada and the united states appreciably diminish the obstacles to food-taxes in the united kingdom. any practicable protective tariff, therefore, on the ground of its injustice to ireland, would cause strong and legitimate resentment in that country, which is subjected to the most formidable competition from foreign and colonial foodstuffs, but whose great competition in manufactured goods is great britain herself. the one irish industry which might favour it is the linen industry of the north. it would have no attraction for the shipbuilding industry, which in no part of the british isles has anything to gain by protection, as i believe all parties to the controversy agree. other small manufacturing industries would complain that they gained nothing; while the agricultural population would complain that, as consumers, they would be damaged by higher prices for clothing and other manufactured articles, while as producers they were ignored. the difficulty is only one further proof of the dissimilarity of economic conditions between great britain and ireland, and of the artificial and unnatural character of the present fiscal union. justice to ireland demands its dissolution. the dangers are imaginary. liberals, however firm their belief in free trade, should hold, with lord welby and his home rule colleagues on the financial relations commission, that "even if ireland initiates a protective policy, in this case, as in that of the colonies, freedom is a greater good than free trade." as for the protectionists, i have never seen an argument from that source, and i do not see how any consistent or plausible argument could possibly be framed, to show that a uniform tariff for the united kingdom could be fair to ireland. professor hewins, the leading tariff reform economist, virtually acknowledges the impossibility in his introduction to miss murray's "commercial relations between england and ireland." there were two sound lines of policy, he points out, which might have been adopted towards ireland in the period prior to the union: ( )to have placed her on a level of equality with the colonies, applying the mercantile system indiscriminately and impartially to the colonies and to her; or ( ) to have aimed from the first at the financial and commercial unity of the british isles. neither of these courses was taken. ireland, while kept financially and commercially separate, "was in a less favourable position than that of a colony." with regard to the present, "most of the difficulties of an economic character," says the professor, "in the financial relations between england and ireland, arise from the differences of economic structure and organization between the two countries. if ireland were a highly organized, populous, manufacturing country, the present fiscal system would probably work out no worse than it does in the urban districts of great britain. but whatever be the virtues or demerits of that system, it was certainly not framed with any reference to the economic conditions which prevail in ireland." we wait for the seemingly unavoidable political inference, but in vain. professor hewins is a unionist. "a 'national' policy for ireland ... is never likely to be possible." well, that is plain speaking, and the more plainly these things are said the better. let unionists, if they will, tell ireland frankly that she must eternally suffer for the union, but let them not pretend, as they do pretend, that ireland profits by the union. vii. federal finance. directly we leave the simple path of financial independence, and endeavour to construct schemes which on the one hand disguise the financial difficulties of ireland, and on the other provide for imperial control of irish customs and excise, we involve ourselves in a tangle of difficulties. a brief examination of these schemes will throw into still stronger relief the merits of the simpler solution. first of all, let us dispose finally of the federal analogy. in chapter x. i showed that the framework of home rule cannot be federal, because the conditions of federation do not exist in the united kingdom. one of the invariable features of a federation is the federal control of customs and excise, but i pointed out that an equally invariable condition precedent to federation was the willingness on the part of a self-supporting state, previously possessing complete financial independence, to abandon its individual control over this realm of taxation to a federal government of its own choosing,[ ] and that no such condition existed in the case of ireland. but some features of federal finance undoubtedly may be made to show a superficial analogy to anglo-irish conditions, and may therefore have an attraction for those who shrink from giving ireland financial independence. in the first place, it is possible to find federal precedents for the payment out of the common purse of certain large items of irish expenditure. there is no precedent for the payment of police, but old age pensions, for example, are paid in australia by the commonwealth, not by the states. the chief point of interest, however, is the mechanism of federal finance. the australian and canadian federations are the only two which suggest even a remote parallel. there the subordinate states are actually "subsidized" by regular annual payments out of federal revenues, mainly derived from customs and excise, and in the case of australia, as i observed at p. , the process at present entails an elaborate system of bookkeeping to distinguish between the "collected" and "true" revenue of the several states, similar in kind to the calculations now made by the treasury for ascertaining the "collected" and "true" revenue derived from ireland, scotland, and england.[ ] in australia this system of bookkeeping is discredited, although the recent attempt by a commonwealth referendum to abolish both it and the financial system of which it forms a part just failed. it is to be hoped that, whatever financial scheme is adopted for ireland, this bad colonial precedent, together with the precedent of the home rule bill of , will not be made pretexts for perpetuating a system whose defects are so glaring, and which is a source of continual dissatisfaction to ireland. if irish customs and excise are to be outside irish control, while their proceeds are to be credited to ireland, let her whole collected revenue from those sources be credited to her, in spite of the excessive allocation that step would involve. apart from this point of similarity in mechanism, the australian and canadian subsidies to the states and provinces respectively are of no value as models for a home rule bill. let us examine the case of australia. there the commonwealth, besides having exclusive control of customs and excise, has general powers of taxation concurrently with the states, though in practice commonwealth taxation is almost entirely confined to customs and excise. all surplus commonwealth revenue is, by the present law, returnable to the states, and the total annual amount so returned must not be less than three-fourths of the total proceeds of customs and excise; so large are these proceeds, and so small, relatively, the expenses of the commonwealth government.[ ] here at the outset is a feature which places australian federal finance in an altogether different category to that of the united kingdom, where only . per cent, of the revenue is from customs and excise. nor are the distributions of surplus revenue to the states really "subsidies," even in the case of the poorest states, but repayments, on a method laid down in the constitution, of that part of the state contribution to federal services which the federal government does not want. here the system of bookkeeping is of some service to us, because it reveals, approximately, at any rate, both the contribution and the actual repayment, which is based on a calculation of the amount saved to the state by the transference of certain departments to the federal government, set off by a _per capita_ charge for new federal expenditure, as, for example, for old age pensions (see table on p. ). the great bulk of the tax revenue shown comes, as i have said, from customs and excise, and it is unnecessary to set out the respective figures of revenue derived from these duties.[ ] it will be seen, after deducting repayments from contributions, that even the poorest states make a substantial net contribution to federal purposes. on the other hand, the relative proportion of revenue contributed by western australia and tasmania is diminishing. in western australia it was - per cent. of the whole in , - per cent. of the whole in . in the same period, not only relatively, but actually, the gross contribution of western australia has diminished from £ , , in to £ , , in , while the repayment to her has also diminished from £ , , in to £ , . tasmania's repayment is also diminishing, though her gross contribution has increased. these circumstances suggest a slight resemblance to the growing disproportion between the resources of ireland and great britain, but they do not assist us towards a solution of the irish problem. each australian state, while contributing the whole of its customs and excise to the federal government, receives back at least half, and in some cases two-thirds,[ ] and adds that sum to its own independent revenue for the maintenance of the state government. the sum refunded amounts on the average to a little below a quarter of the total state revenue--to be accurate, . per cent. of the remaining . per cent., only per cent, on the average is derived from direct taxation; . per cent from public lands, . per cent, from miscellaneous services, and no less than . per cent, from public works--railways, tramways, harbours, etc. contributions of, and repayments to, the states of the australian commonwealth, - .[ ] ----------------------------------------------------------- contributions to repayments from revenue. commonwealth. ----------------------------------------------------------- £ £ new south wales , , , , victoria , , , , queensland , , , , south australia , , , western australia , , , tasmania , , ------------------------------- total common- total wealth revenue. repayments. -------------------------------- , , , , ----------------------------------------------------------- here are the details of revenue for - in the richest and the poorest state, respectively: particulars. new south wales. tasmania. £ £ refunded by the commonwealth , , , taxation (direct) , , public works and services , , , land , , , miscellaneous , , totals , , , now, ireland raises no public revenues at all from public works, only £ , out of a total of ten millions from public lands; while . per cent, of her "true" tax revenue comes from direct taxation and . per cent, from customs and excise. to take away even a third of her receipts from customs and excise would be to leave her with a deficit of three millions and a half, which would have to be made up by additions to a direct taxation, which is already vastly higher than in any part of australia. she needs every penny of her revenue from whatever source derived, and there is no possibility of extracting from her a contribution to imperial services, unless it be an illusory contribution based on faked figures. the real moral to be derived from the australian comparison is that both australia and ireland are countries where accumulated wealth is comparatively small, and where the importance of indirect taxation is very great. all the more reason for giving ireland control of her own indirect taxation. canada, and, indeed, all the self-governing colonies, suggest the same moral. in canada the federal or dominion parliament has an unlimited power of taxation, the provinces being vested only with the concurrent right of direct taxation within their respective borders (b.n. america act, clauses and ). in practice, nearly the whole federal tax revenue is derived from customs and excise. we have no materials for a comparison of gross and net provincial contributions, because no records are compiled. under an act of , revising the former arrangements, two small subsidies, forming a fixed charge on the gross federal revenue, and bearing no specific proportion to the income from customs and excise, are given to each province. . a subsidy (from £ , to £ , ) based on the total provincial population. . a payment of cents per head of the provincial population. both together are very small by comparison with the australian payments. neither is really a subsidy, though it is given that name, but the return of a surplus indirectly contributed. it is, indeed, conceivable that a new and poor province might actually contribute less than she received back. one province, british columbia, having long complained that she contributed far more than her share, and received back too little, obtained an exceptional grant of £ , under the act of .[ ] the sums raised independently in each province for the support of the provincial administration are, as in australia, derived to a very slight extent from direct taxation, and to a very large extent from public property; not, as in australia, from railways, tramways, etc., but mainly from vast tracts of public land. in this respect the provinces resemble the dominion, which derives a large revenue from the same source. in three vital points, then, anglo-irish finance differs from that of the colonial federations. ireland's whole net income comes from taxes; she needs it all; and her economic conditions are totally different from those of great britain. so far from borrowing anything from federal finance, we should deduce from it the moral of financial independence for ireland. with all the powerful centripetal forces, moral and material, which originally united, and now hold together, the federated states of australia and canada, there is continual controversy, and sometimes considerable friction, over finance, generally in connection with the position of the poorer provinces or states. some problems are still unsolved. good authorities, among them sir arthur bourinot, think that the canadian subsidies are unsound. australia is dissatisfied with her system. the american states, while giving up customs and excise, are self-supporting entities; but that system has its drawback, in federal extravagance. we must remember, too, that even if these examples were of any use to us, the weak states or provinces in a federation have a greater control over federal financial policy than ireland could have under any scheme which reserved customs and excise to the imperial parliament; because the federal principle, partially infringed only in the case of canada, is to give them disproportionately high representation in the upper federal chamber, which can reject money bills.[ ] on all counts, ireland's position is that of a country which imperatively needs fiscal isolation similar to that enjoyed by states prior to federation, before it can dream of embarking on the perilous sea of quasi-federal finance. trouble enough comes from the present joint system. we should make a clean sweep of it, permit ireland, with a minimum of temporary assistance, to find her own financial equilibrium, and so lay the foundation, perhaps, for a genuine federation in the future. viii. alternative schemes of home rule finance[ ] historically, these fall into two classes; though, as i shall show, they are for all intents and purposes merged in one to-day. the two classes are--( ) the gladstonian; ( ) the "contract." . _mr. gladstone's schemes_.--it is unnecessary to examine these in close detail, though, if the reader cares to do so, he will find details set forth in the appendix. four outstanding features were common to the schemes both of and : (_a_) permanent imperial control over the imposition of customs and excise; (_b_) irish control over all other taxation; (_c_) an annual irish contribution to imperial expenditure; (_d_) imperial payment of part cost of the irish police. with regard to (_a_), the most important point of difference in the two bills was that under the first ireland was credited with her whole "collected" revenue from customs and excise, under the second (as amended) with only her "true" revenue, which was less than the former by £ , , . another point in which the two bills differed was the permission to ireland, under the bill of , after six years, to collect her own excise. both imposition and collection were wholly reserved under the bill of . i have already given grounds for the impolicy of retaining control over customs and excise. let me only ask the reader, in conclusion, to figure the situation. how could ireland frame a financial policy? three-quarters of the revenue, as at present levied, of a country profoundly dissimilar economically from great britain, and in need of drastic reforms of expenditure and marked changes in taxation, would be permanently outside the reach of an irish chancellor of the exchequer, and, in spite of the representation at westminster which imperial control would entail, would in the long-run fluctuate according to british needs and notions. in the long-run, i repeat; but incidentally there would be sharp and damaging conflicts. occasions might occur like that of , when the majority of irishmen, rightly or wrongly, resented the form of new taxation, and would have secured the rejection of the budget had not that step been hurtful to the prospects of home rule. it will be useless to blame either ireland or great britain. every country is bound to study its own circumstances. a similar crisis would have imperilled even the strongest federation. we are not in the least concerned at the moment with the goodness or badness of that famous budget. we are concerned with the effect on the relations of the two countries, and with the indefeasible right of ireland and great britain to do what they consider best for their own interests. with regard to (_b_), the bill of differed from that of in the provision of a suspensory period of six years, during which all existing taxation in ireland was to be under imperial control, though ireland could impose additional taxes of her own. after six years--and, under the bill of , from the outset--ireland was to have control over all taxation other than customs and excise. where is the wisdom in selecting direct taxation as peculiarly suitable to irish control? it is already higher in ireland than in any country economically situated as ireland is. yet ireland's power to reduce it will be very small and very difficult to use, if she is rigidly excluded from changes in the indirect taxation which presses mainly on the poor. would she naturally be inclined to increase direct taxation? land value duties produce next to nothing in ireland, and their extension would be unpopular. the existing rates of income-tax and estate duties cannot be raised, though their incidence might be extended to cover poorer elements of the population, as, for example, the small farmers. that is a kind of measure which the farmers would, if necessary, willingly agree to, in order to balance the accounts of a financially independent ireland, but it is not the kind of measure they would care about when their national finance was dictated by great britain. if one cared to make a dialectical point, one could add that a common argument against home rule is a fear of oppressive taxation of the rich or oppressive taxation of north-east ulster, at the hands of an irish parliament, through high direct imposts. the fear is one of those which scarcely need serious discussion. if irish statesmen were as black as their most industrious traducers paint them, they could not by any ingenuity invent any new direct tax which would not hit all the provinces equally, saving perhaps a tax on pasture ranches, which would hit north-east ulster least; while super-taxes on the exceptionally rich, if they were worth the trouble of collecting, would drive wealth out of a poor country at the very moment when it was most urgently necessary to gain the confidence of investors and the few wealthy residents. with regard to (c), mr. gladstone's various devices for obtaining from ireland a contribution to imperial services possess now only a melancholy and academical interest, because, without an elaborate manipulation of the accounts, so as to disguise their true significance, no such contribution can possibly be obtained. in mr. gladstone provided for an annual payment from ireland, fixed in amount for thirty years; in for the contribution of a _quota_--namely, one-third--of her "true" annual revenue from imperial taxes, to run for six years, and then to be revised. his calculations were conditioned to some extent by _(d),_ the part payment from the imperial purse of the cost of irish police, coupled, of course, with continued imperial control of that police, pending its replacement by a new civil force. it is easy enough in ways like this to show a balance in ireland's favour, and, at the same time, to cripple the responsibility of the irish legislature by transferring selected services from the irish to the imperial side of the account. we can extend the process to old age pensions, the land commission, and what not. as i have repeatedly urged, this course is radically unsound. as for the police, there can be no responsible government without control of the agents of law and order. by crediting ireland with her whole "collected" revenue, we can give her at once a balance of half a million. by freeing her from the payment of old age pensions, we can make the balance three millions. with the elimination of the land commission and the police, we can make it five millions. then we can postulate an imaginary taxable capacity, an ideal contribution to imperial services, and a hypothetical share of the national debt, and so arrive at a budget which will look well on paper, but which will deceive nobody, and be open to crushing criticism. . "_contract_" _finance_.--it will be seen that both mr. gladstone's schemes set up in ireland--though under the bill of only after six years--a dual system of taxation, imperial and irish, after the federal model. the revenue, "collected" or "true," derived from imperial taxes levied in ireland, was to be paid, after the deduction of sums due to the imperial government on various accounts, into the irish exchequer. and into the same exchequer went the proceeds of taxes levied by ireland herself. the distinguishing feature of "contract" finance is that it maintains the fiscal unity of the british isles. all taxation in ireland would be permanently levied and collected, as before, by the imperial parliament, ireland being allowed only the barren and illusory privilege of levying new additional taxes of her own. out of the imperial exchequer a lump sum of fixed amount, or a sum equivalent to the revenue _collected_ in ireland, would be handed over to ireland, by contract, as it were, for the maintenance of the administration. the simplicity of this scheme seems to me to be its only merit. it disposes of all complicated bookkeeping, all heart-burnings over "true" and "collected" revenue, and all controversies, for a long time at any rate, over an irish contribution to the empire; while it involves and immensely facilitates a subsidy based on the reservation of selected irish services for imperial management and payment. on the other hand, it is not home rule. it annihilates the responsibility of ireland for her own fortunes, and is, indeed, altogether incompatible with what we know as responsible government. its germ appeared in the irish council bill of --a bill which did not pretend to set up anything approaching responsible government, and to which the scheme was therefore in a sense appropriate, though it must, i think, have produced mischievous results if it had been carried into law.[ ] i wish to speak with the utmost respect of lord macdonnell and the other patriotic irishmen who have advocated this kind of financial solution. there was a time when it might have been good policy for ireland to obtain any--even the smallest--financial powers of her own as a lever, though a very bad lever, for the attainment of more. but we ought now to make a sound and final settlement, and i do earnestly urge upon all those who have irish interests at heart to reject schemes which merely evade, if they do not actually aggravate, some of the pressing difficulties of the irish problem of to-day. the fact that contract finance works well in india is _prima facie_ a reason why it should not work well in ireland. it does not exist, and it could not be made to show good results, in any community of white men. if anyone is disposed to trace a faint analogy--which in any case would be a false analogy--with the lesser of the two small subsidies given by the dominion of canada in aid of the provincial administrations,[ ] let him imagine what the moral and practical consequences would be if, instead of constituting a small fraction of the provincial income, this subsidy were increased to a lump sum calculated by the dominion government as correct and sufficient for the whole internal government of the province. and the pernicious results in a canadian province would be trivial beside the pernicious results in ireland, where the whole system of expenditure and revenue needs to be recast; where large economies are needed, together with additional outlay on education; and where above all, the sense of national responsibility, deliberately stifled for centuries, needs to be evoked. nothing could be more cruel to ireland than to give her a fictitious financial freedom, and then to complain that she did not use it well. no nation could use freedom well under the contract system of finance, whether based on a fixed grant or on revenue derived from ireland. it is not in human nature to reduce expenditure unless the reduction is reflected in reduced taxation. every official threatened with retrenchment, even in the services under irish control and, _a fortiori,_ in the services outside irish control, would have a grievance in which the public would sympathize, while resentment at an unequal fiscal union would be unabated. irish statesmen, like any other men in the same position, would be exposed unfairly to the continual temptation of preserving institutions and payments as they were, of making changes only of personnel, and of annually appealing to great britain for more money for new expenditure. these appeals could not possibly be refused. if great britain chooses to place ireland in a position of financial dependence, she must take the consequences and pay the bill, as in the past, even if the bill exceeds the revenue derived from ireland. but, indeed, under contract finance, attempts to make irish expenditure conform to irish revenue would necessarily be abandoned. bad as the results must be, we are inexorably driven to some form of contract finance directly we relinquish its anti-type, financial independence. there is very little practical difference between the gladstonian and later plans. we may be drawn along the downward path either by considerations of revenue, or considerations of expenditure, or by both combined. to retain imperial control of customs and excise, while crediting the irish proceeds to ireland, is in itself equivalent to making three-quarters of irish tax revenue take the form of an annual money grant fixed by great britain. if englishmen also want to retain control over irish police, and irishmen are short-sighted enough to desire imperial control, as a corollary of imperial payment, of old age pensions, national insurance, or land purchase, there at once are four millions, or more than a third of present irish expenditure, withheld from irish authority. to cover the remaining seven millions by a contract allowance, instead of going through the pretence of allotting items of revenue and of deducting a contribution to imperial services, is a step which is only too likely to commend itself to harassed statesmen. but it would not be home rule. this is not a matter of speculation, but of experience. as long ago as , in the case of canada, we discarded as vicious the old doctrine that a dependency ought not to be allowed to provide for the whole cost of government out of its own taxes, for fear that its legislature would control policy. if we are going to remove features which make ireland resemble a crown colony now, do not let us import others which recall the ancient fallacies of a century ago. there remains to be considered the important question of loans, and to that i shall devote a separate chapter. footnotes: [ ] hansard, july and , . [ ] both bills provided for part payment of the cost of irish police from imperial funds. [ ] return no. . [ ] see p. . [ ] see p. . [ ] i need scarcely point out that the newly-created provinces of the dominion of canada are exceptions to this rule. but there is no analogy with ireland. such provinces are carved out of newly settled public territory and given local government. [ ] see pp. - , and - . [ ] until two years ago even the remaining one-fourth, added to other small items of commonwealth revenue, was too large for the expenditure, and a part of it was returned annually to the states. [ ] the other principal source of revenue is from posts, but that is almost exactly balanced by expenditure, so that it barely affects the amount of the repayment to the states. [ ] these figures are taken from the official year-book of the commonwealth of australia, no. , - . [ ] it must be understood that the law requiring three-quarters of the commonwealth revenue from customs and excise to be returned to the states does not imply that each state should have three-quarters of its contribution returned, but that the total amount returned should be at least three-quarters. [ ] see p. . [ ] except perhaps in the case of canada. [ ] the author is indebted, here and elsewhere, to papers by messrs. c.r. buxton, p. macdermot, and r.c. phillimore, in "home rule problems." [ ] by clause the following sums were allocated to the irish council for five years: ( ) £ , , for the maintenance of eight government departments; ( ) £ , for public works; ( ) £ , supplemental. [ ] see p. . under the act of , no. was earmarked for this purpose. chapter xiv land purchase finance[ ] i. land purchase loans. the data of the land problem are as follows: the superficial area of ireland is , , acres, and in it was utilized as follows:[ ] acres. percentage. area under tillage, hay and fruit , , . area under pasture , , . grazed mountain land , , woods, etc. , . bog, barren mountain, water, roads, townlands, etc. , , . total , , . the agricultural area, calculated by the exclusion of the last item in the above column, works out at , , acres, but since bog forms part of a large number of farms, we may, for the purposes of land purchase, place the agricultural area of ireland at , , acres, the figure given in the census of , and its annual value for rating purposes, as given in the same census, at £ , , . this area is divided into , agricultural holdings, which are in the hands of , occupiers, and vary in size from vast pasture ranches to the tiny plots of miserable rock-sown soil, which abound in the congested districts of the west. but small holdings largely predominate. more than two-thirds do not exceed acres; , are between and acres, and , are below acres. size, however, is by itself an imperfect index to value. the effects of the ancient confiscations and of the extraordinarily unequal distribution of land which they and the bad irish agrarian system produced may be gauged by the valuation figures of the census of , which showed that , , or . per cent, of the total number of holdings had an annual value (for rating purposes) not exceeding £ , while they covered only a little more than a third of the total agricultural area; , of these holdings were rated below £ , and covered only , , acres. all farms rated below £ , and a large number of those below £ , may be regarded as "uneconomic"--that is, incapable by themselves of supplying a decent living to the farmer and his family. i shall say no more here about the legislation beginning forty years ago, which revolutionized the agrarian tenure derived directly from the penal code, and converted the irish tenant into a "judicial" tenant with a rent fixed by the land commission, with security of tenure, and free sale of the tenant-right.[ ] there are now in ireland two distinct classes of occupying tenants, "judicial" tenants, and purchasing tenants, and it is upon the question of the state-aided transference of the land from the landlord to the tenant that i wish to concentrate the reader's attention. the principle of land purchase is this: the state advances money, raised by a public loan, to the tenant, who pays off the landlord with it, and becomes for a fixed period the tenant of the state. during this period he pays, in lieu of rent, an annuity, which represents both interest and sinking-fund on the capital sum advanced to him. at the end of the period, which, of course, will vary with the fixed annual amount of the sinking-fund, he becomes owner in fee-simple of his farm. there is no charity to the tenant. he borrows the money and pays it back in a perfectly regular way, and the state has made a temporary investment of a profitable character. and now, for the last time, i must trouble the reader with a little indispensable history. there are four phases in the history of irish land purchase. . john bright was the first british statesman to maintain that no healthy and lasting readjustment of the relations between landlord and tenant in ireland could ever be made by law. he advocated state-aided purchase; and in the church disestablishment act of and the land acts of and , clauses were inserted allowing the state to advance money for land purchase. the conditions, however, were so onerous, both to landlord and tenant, that only , tenants out of more than half a million were able to avail themselves of these purchase clauses. . the ashbourne act of was the first successful measure of the kind. five millions were advanced under it, and five millions more under an extending act of . next came the act of , empowering the loan of thirty-three millions, followed by the amending and simplifying act of . these acts form a body of legislation by themselves, of which i need refer only to a few salient characteristics. they were all alike in settling the tenant's annuity (in lieu of rent) at per cent, on the purchase money, though the proportions allocated to interest and sinking-fund varied. under the first two acts the period for final redemption of his loan by the tenant was forty-nine years, under the third forty-two years, though this period was extended to seventy years if the tenant availed himself of decadal reductions in the annuity, proportionate to the capital paid off by the sinking-fund. the average price of the holdings sold under these acts represented seventeen and a half years' purchase, and the tenant's great inducement to buy was that, by the aid of cheap state credit, the annuity he paid, even over so short a period as forty-nine years, represented a reduction of more than per cent, on his existing judicial rent. under the first act, that of , the landlord received the purchase money in cash, under the other two, in guaranteed per cent, or | per cent, stock, an arrangement which suited him very well as long as government stocks maintained the high level which they reached in the period preceding the south african war. with the heavy fall in stocks during and after the war, purchase came to a standstill. the net result of the operations under the acts of to was that close upon twenty-four million pounds were advanced to , tenants, occupying about two and a half million acres, out of the total of , , acres which constitute the agricultural area of ireland. . once begun, purchase had to be continued, if for no other reason than that a purchasing tenant paid in annuity a substantially lower sum than the non-purchasing judicial tenant paid in rent, with the additional, if distant, prospect of an absolute fee-simple in the future. mr. wyndham, acting on the recommendation of a friendly conference between landlords and tenants, took the bull by the horns in , and carried the great land act of that year. under the wyndham act the system of cash payment to the landlord, dropped since , was resumed, on a basis calculated to give a selling landlord a sum which, invested in gilt-edged or / per cent. stocks, would yield him as much as the second term judicial rents on the holdings sold, less per cent., representing his former cost of collection; while the annuity payable by the tenant in lieu of rent was reduced from to / per cent., of which / per cent, was interest on the purchase money advanced, and / per cent, was sinking-fund. this reduction involved an extension of the period of redemption from forty-nine to sixty-eight and a half years. the annuity was calculated to represent an average reduction of from to per cent, on second-term judicial rents. since the gross income of the landlord was to be reduced only by per cent. on a basis of per cent. investments, while the annual payment by the tenant was to be reduced by an average of per cent., clearly there was a gap to be filled up, and this gap was filled by a state bonus to the selling landlord of per cent, on the purchase money, a bonus which went wholly to him personally, clear of all reversionary rights under settlements. a sum of twelve millions altogether was to be expended on the bonus. in addition to direct sales between landlord and tenant through the estates commissioners, large powers were also given both to the land commission and the congested districts board for the purchase and resale of certain classes of estates--land in congested districts, untenanted land, etc. the act was enormously popular. the landlord, in view of the manifold insecurities of land tenure in ireland, made an excellent bargain, and the tenant, tempted by the immediate transformation of his rent into an annuity of reduced amount, ignored the extension by twenty years of the period of redemption, and was willing to agree at high prices for the purchase of his land. the average price of land sold rose from the seventeen and a half years' purchase under the old acts to over twenty years' purchase, and the soil of ireland rapidly began to change hands. but the act broke down on finance, as adapted to what were then estimated as the requirements of the purchase operation. the estimate for the total sum required was one hundred millions, and the purchase money was to be raised by successive issues of - / per cent. guaranteed land stock. sums needed from time to time for payment of the landlord's bonus were also raised by stock, and were placed to an account known as the land purchase aid fund. now, any loss on flotation, due to stock being issued at a discount, was to be borne, in the first instance, by the ireland development grant,[ ] and, if and when that was exhausted, by the ratepayers of ireland through deduction from the grants in aid of local taxation.[ ] the stock, like all government stocks at that period, fell heavily from the first, and in the point was reached when further issues would have entailed a heavy loss payable out of irish rates, growing ultimately, as it was calculated, to an annual charge of more than half a million. the infliction of such a burden upon the ratepayers of ireland was felt to be inequitable. ireland was not responsible for the evils which necessitated purchase, and even if she were, the ratepayers were not the right persons to be mulcted. meanwhile, purchase was at a complete standstill. . this serious situation led to mr. birrell's land act of , which was based upon the report of a treasury committee which sat in the previous year.[ ] the problem was twofold: (a) how to deal with future agreements to purchase, between landlord and tenant;( ) how to deal with agreements to purchase pending under the act of , but as yet uncompleted. (a) with regard to future agreements, there are four main points:( ) the old policy of payment in stock, instead of in cash, is reverted to, and the stock is a per cent. stock. ( ) the tenant's annuity is raised from / to / per cent. ( ) the period of redemption is reduced from sixty-eight and a half years to sixty-five and a half years. ( ) the landlord's bonus is allocated on a graduated scale, under which the higher the price the land is sold at, the less is the bonus conferred. these changes, though no doubt somewhat prejudicial to the prospects of land purchase, were absolutely necessary, owing to a cause beyond human control--the condition of the money-market. (b) in regard to pending purchase agreements arrived at under the old act, no alteration is made in the terms of the bargains already concluded between landlord and tenant; but changes are made in the method of financing these agreed sales. briefly, parties can obtain priority in treatment among the enormous mass of cases awaiting the decision of the land commission by agreeing to accept - / per cent. stock at a price not lower than per cent, (which means, at present prices, that the loss on flotation is split between the landlord and the state), or, by waiting their turn, they can obtain half the price in stock at , and half in cash. payments elected to be made wholly in cash come last of all. bonus to be paid in cash as before. losses caused by the flotation of stock at a discount no longer fall upon the irish rates. any loss not capable of being borne by the ireland development grant is to be borne by the imperial exchequer. other important clauses gave compulsory powers of purchase to the congested districts board, and, in the case of "congested estates" and untenanted land outside the jurisdiction of the board, to the estates commissioners. otherwise purchase and sale remained voluntary. so much for the history of land purchase. how exactly do we stand at the present moment? in round numbers, nearly millions have actually been advanced under the old acts prior to , and up to march of this year ( ) a further sum of / millions had actually been advanced under the wyndham act of and the birrell act of .[ ] that makes a total of / millions actually advanced to , tenants up to march of , covering the purchase of nearly million acres of land, or nearly a third of the total agricultural area of ireland. the tenants of the land are now quasi-freeholders, and will eventually be complete freeholders. in addition, agreements for the purchase of properties by , tenants, under the wyndham and birrell acts, at a total price of / millions, for / million acres, were pending in march, , though the sale and vesting were not yet completed. the properties represented by these agreements will be duly transferred in the course of the next few years, though the congestion of business is very great. that will make a total of millions advanced to , tenants for the purchase of million acres under all acts up to and including that of . now, how much more will be required? we have only one recent official estimate--that made by the land commission in for the treasury committee which sat to consider the crisis in land purchase. it did not pretend to give an accurate forecast, but only to estimate the maximum amount which would be needed, on the assumption that all unsold land would eventually be sold at the average price reached under the act of .[ ] it is certain that the amount so calculated, covering as it does all classes and descriptions of agricultural land, and including land farmed by the landlord himself, as well as short-term pasture tenancies,[ ] will considerably exceed the actual requirements. some of the unsold land, especially of the pasture land, will never need to be sold; nor is the average purchase price likely to remain permanently as high as that obtained under the act of . still, this speculative estimate gives us an outside figure which is useful. the conclusion from it is that millions may be required to finance all future sales initiated under the act of . but if we want to know how much cash may be wanted, dating from march, , onwards, to finance land purchase, we must add the / millions needed for sales now agreed upon, and waiting to be carried through, but not yet completed. that brings the total to / millions. for the reasons given above, i think we might very well strike off from the millions of future sales, and so reduce the total to / millions. two further questions remain to be considered: ( ) can we assume that in the future purchase will proceed smoothly? ( ) who pays for the machinery of land purchase, and what is the security for the money advanced? . the act of is still young. at the end of march, , applications had been lodged for the direct sale of , holdings at a price of £ , , , representing an average of - years' purchase, and negotiations were in progress for the purchase by the congested districts board of estates worth another / millions. total, a little over millions--a substantial amount of business in view of the artificial acceleration caused by events in and , the subsequent reaction, and the enormous arrears of business still remaining to be cleared up. we should naturally expect a slight check to purchase under the act of , since the inducement both to landlord and tenant is less. the tenant would be inclined to hold out for a lower price because his annuity is higher (though signs of this check are not yet apparent), and the landlord is paid in a stock whose market price seems to be slowly but steadily falling. it is now (november, ) at / . on the other hand, the wise change in the allocation of the bonus places a much-needed premium on sales of poor land at low prices, and reverses the process by which a wealthy landlord of good land sometimes obtained the largest reward for submission to sale.[ ] moreover, there is constant pressure towards purchase owing to the better financial position of the purchasing tenant over the non-purchasing or judicial tenant, while the fear in the landlord's mind of further periodical reductions in the judicial rents tends to induce him to meet this pressure halfway. still, there is a point beyond which such pressure might not be strong enough to carry on voluntary purchase, especially if the per cent, stock continued to fall. wide powers of compulsion,[ ] covering considerably more than a third of ireland, and including the poorest areas, where purchase is most needed, already exist under the act of . some think that general compulsion will be needed. other well-informed men count with confidence on completing all the necessary part of the purchase of irish land in from twelve to fifteen years under the existing system. on the other hand, it is necessary to contemplate the possible need for universal compulsion. . cost of the working of land purchase, and security for the money advanced. it is just as well to make these points perfectly clear, in view of the legends which obtain circulation about the "giving" of british money for the purchase of irish land. the cost of the land purchase machinery falls at present on the taxpayers of the whole united kingdom, including, of course, those of ireland. it amounted in - , as i showed in the last chapter, to £ , , and for the estimate is £ , . this sum includes the administrative cost of the land commission and estates commissioners, the temporary losses on flotation caused in financing, under the act of , the balance of agreements made under the act of , and the bonus to landlords. the treasury, in their returns estimating the revenue and expenditure of various parts of the united kingdom, debit the whole of this sum against ireland, and, moral responsibility apart, i regard it as necessary that, under home rule, ireland should assume both the cost and the management of purchase. apart from the annual vote i have mentioned, land purchase pays for itself. the security for the individual holders of the guaranteed land stock by means of which the purchase money is raised is the consolidated fund of the united kingdom, but the consolidated fund has never been called upon for a penny, either for interest or capital, and never will be. at present the initial security of the government which controls the consolidated fund--in other words, the initial security of the united kingdom taxpayers--is the irish rates; for the grants in aid of irish local taxation still form a guarantee fund chargeable with the unpaid annuities of defaulting tenants, though they have escaped the liability for losses on the notation of stock at a discount. the ultimate security is the purchased land itself; for, in the last resort, a defaulting tenant who, it must be remembered, is a state tenant, can be sold up. but the really important security is the tenant himself. the irish tenants, treated properly, pay their debts as honestly and punctually as any other class of men in the world. annuities in arrear are negligible. the last report of the land commission shows that out of two million pounds of annuities due from , purchasing tenants, and close upon another two millions of interest (in lieu of rent) upon holdings agreed to be purchased by , tenants--a total of nearly four million pounds--only £ , were uncollected on march last. the cases of hopeless default, leading to a sale of the land, were only fifty-four. not a penny has actually been lost. the state, then, or, if we choose so to put it, the united kingdom taxpayers, are safe from loss, and make a good investment. there has never been the faintest symptom of a strike against annuities, and the only cause which could conceivably ever suggest such a strike would be the irritation provoked by a persistent refusal to grant home rule. even that possibility i regard as out of the question, because there is a sanctity attaching to annuities which it would be hard to impair. still, to speak broadly, it is true that home rule will improve a security already good, and that home rule, with financial independence, will make it absolutely impregnable. let me sum up. more than half the agricultural land of ireland is sold to the tenants, or agreed to be sold. eleven million acres out of / million acres have changed hands, or will soon change hands; , out of , occupiers now pay annuities or interest in lieu of rent, to the amount of nearly million pounds. in regard to value, out of a total value of millions for the whole agricultural land of ireland, / millions have actually been advanced for purchase, / millions are due to be advanced under signed agreements; and, on the extreme estimate of the land commission, based on the supposition that all the remaining land will ultimately be sold, millions more will have to be advanced. total future liability on the extreme estimate, / millions; or, if we take the more moderate and reasonable figure i suggested, / millions. now, two conditions must be laid down-- . purchase ought to continue. . cheap imperial credit is necessary for it. these conditions ought not to entail, beyond a strictly limited point, the continued control of purchase by the imperial government. that step, as i suggested at p. , might involve imperial control over ( ) the congested districts board; ( ) the whole work of the land commission, outside purchase, and all irish land legislation; ( ) the irish police; because the power of distraint for annuities, the last resource of the creditor government, rests, of course, with the arm of the law. any one of these consequences, as i have urged, would be inconsistent with responsible government in ireland. what are the objections to irish control over purchase, with its corollary, irish payment of the running costs of purchase? two distinct interests have to be considered: ( ) that of the british taxpayer; ( ) that of the landlord. . if we carry out the plan i have advocated, the british taxpayer, as soon as he ceases to contribute to the diminishing subsidy suggested at p. in order to meet the initial deficit in the national irish balance-sheet, will cease to contribute anything towards the running costs, landlord's bonus, and flotation losses of a purchase operation for the necessity of which great britain, in the past, was in reality responsible. great britain is under a moral obligation to continue to support land purchase with her national credit, which is indispensable. she is also entitled to demand whatever reasonable conditions she thinks fit, for example, a share in the nomination of land and estates commissioners; while any new legislation will, in the ordinary course, need her assent. the security, as i said above, will be impregnable. the purchasing tenant would become the tenant of the irish state. the irish government, as a whole, instead of the individual annuitants, would, of course, be responsible to the imperial government, would collect the annuities itself, and bear any contingent loss by their non-payment. to repudiate a public obligation of that sort would be as ruinous to ireland as the repudiation of a public debt is to any state in the world. in point of fact, the irish government would find it good policy to popularize irish land stock in ireland. at present prices the per cent, stock is among the cheapest and safest in the world, and would return to the farmer thrice as much interest as the average bank deposit which he now favours. mercifully, there is no exact historical precedent for such a case as ireland, though, on a small scale, prince edward island is an instructive parallel.[ ] but if precedents, in the shape of guaranteed loans to self-governing colonies, are needed, they exist. the most relevant and recent is the imperial guaranteed loan of millions made to the transvaal by mr. balfour's government in after the great war. why it should be a heresy to do for ireland what we did for the transvaal, i am at a loss to conceive. the loan became, of course, an obligation of the colony when it received home rule, and in a further guaranteed loan of millions was authorized, of which millions has been issued. like irish land stock, these loans are secured on the consolidated fund; but i do not think a fear is now suggested that the consolidated fund is in danger on that account. prophecies of that sort were common enough in the mouths of those who opposed transvaal home rule, but they did not long survive its enactment. another precedent is a guaranteed railway loan to canada in of £ , , , which is just now becoming redeemable, while the crown colony of mauritius received a guaranteed loan of £ , in . the british and irish taxpayers have also made themselves responsible for £ , , on account of egypt; £ , , on account of greece; and £ , , on account of turkey. the total nominal amount of the guaranteed loans to countries, colonial or foreign, outside the united kingdom is £ , , . the total amount outstanding on march , , was £ , , , and the government holds securities only to the value of £ , , against these liabilities, leaving the net liability of the taxpayer at £ , , . the net liability of the taxpayer at the same date on account of irish guaranteed land stocks of all descriptions was £ , , .[ ] ireland has a claim to imperial credit far superior to any of the colonies, dependencies, or foreign powers mentioned, and the credit should not entail control, or the representation of ireland at westminster. incidentally, it goes without saying that ireland, in common with the colonies, should receive the very valuable privilege of having independent loans raised by herself inscribed at the bank of england, and made trustee securities. . it may be argued that the congested districts board and the land commission, and through them irish statesmen, may be subjected to local pressure hostile to the landlord's interests, and that the irish government would feel itself more free for social and other reforms if the land question were placed legally outside their purview. my answer is, in the first place, that great britain would cease to lend if her conditions were unfulfilled; in the second place, that in this, as in all matters, we are bound to place faith in the self-respect and sense of justice of a free ireland--in its common prudence, too; for it would be a disaster whose magnitude is universally recognized in ireland if any course were to be taken which prevented the landlord class from joining in the great work of making a new ireland. fair treatment of the landlords by a free ireland, as distinguished from fair treatment at the hands of an external authority, would do more than anything else to bring about a reconciliation. that is human nature all the world over. ii. minor loans to ireland. it remains only to refer briefly to two other cases where ireland benefits from imperial credit. ( ) the labourers (ireland) act of sanctioned the advance of money through the land commission to rural councils for building labourers' cottages--a class of loans previously made by the public works commissioners of ireland. £ , , had been advanced under this head on march , , and £ , , had been applied for. the money is raised by guaranteed / per cent, stock in the same way as the money for land purchase. ( ) in addition, there are the loans granted by the irish commissioners of public works. in their capacity as lenders, which is only one of a multitude of capacities, the commissioners are really a subordinate branch of the treasury, and fulfil the same function as the public works loans commissioners in great britain. they lend principally to local authorities for all manner of public works and public health requirements, also to private individuals, mainly for the improvement of land, and, to a small extent, to arterial drainage boards and to railways. they get their money from the national debt commissioners, and in - issued loans to the amount of £ , --a figure which shows a considerable reduction on that of the previous two years.[ ] the total amount of , outstanding loans on march , , was £ , , , of which between two-thirds and three-quarters were due from local authorities. the interest varies, as in great britain, from / to per cent., according to the nature of the security, and in - averaged £ s. d. most of the loans are secured on local rates, where the interest payable is either / or / per cent., according to the period of the loan; others on undertakings such as harbours; and others on the land for the improvement of which the money is borrowed. here, then, are two small and secondary problems. under home rule ireland will have no claim to further imperial credit for loans of either of the above classes. on the other hand, there is no reason why the treasury, if it pleases, and on its own terms, should not lend as before, though not directly, as it virtually does now, but indirectly, by loan to the irish government. the security will be just as good, and probably better. if a negligent local government board under irish control sanctions reckless loans by local authorities, and a negligent irish government advances for such loans money borrowed from great britain, the irish treasury will suffer. such eventualities need not seriously be considered. the analogy with the transvaal and canada loans, which were mainly for public works, is very close. footnotes: [ ] parts of this chapter have appeared in a paper by the author in "home rule problems." [ ] agricultural statistics of ireland, . [ ] see pp. - , - . [ ] see p. - . [ ] see p. . [ ] cd. , . [ ] this and subsequent figures are taken from an answer to question in the house of commons, july , , and from the current exports of the land commission and estates commissioners. [ ] cd. , . the basis taken was the poor law valuation of the lands unsold, multiplied by the number of years purchase of the lands sold under the act of . on this basis the value of the land neither sold nor agreed to be sold in was £ , , . on the basis of acreage, the estimate worked out at £ , , , and on the basis of holdings (regarded as unreliable by the commissioners) at £ , , . the total sum required from first to last, including sums already advanced under all the various acts, was £ , , . [ ] pasture land let on eleven months' tenancies (a common form of tenure) counts as untenanted land, and is subject to purchase by the land commissioners, compulsorily, if necessary. [ ] but not always. heavily mortgaged landlords profited most, perhaps, under the act of . [ ] only once exercised up to october, : over lord inchiquin's estate in clare, to be acquired for the relief of congestion. [ ] see p. . there the loan for compulsory land purchase was ultimately raised by the dominion of canada, as one of the conditions upon which prince edward island entered the federation in . under the land purchase act, passed in by the island legislature, with the assent of the dominion, three commissioners adjudicated upon the sales; representing the island government, the landlords, and the dominion government respectively. [ ] finance accounts of the united kingdom, . [ ] report of the commissioners of public works, . the amount in - was £ , ; in - , £ , . the commissioners have been lending since , and have lent since that date £ , , . chapter xv the irish constitution[ ] i have dealt with the major issues of home rule. the exclusion or retention of irish members at westminster, and the powers--above all, the financial powers--of the irish state, are the two points of cardinal importance. as i have shown, they are inseparably connected, and form, in reality, one great question. i have endeavoured to prove that from whatever angle we approach that central issue, whether we argue from representation to powers, or from powers to representation, and whether the particular powers we argue from be financial, legislative, or executive; whether we place irish, british, or imperial interests in the forefront of our exposition--we are led irresistibly to the colonial solution--that is, to the cessation of irish representation at westminster, coupled with a concession to ireland of the full legislative and executive authority appropriate to that measure of independence, and, above all, with fiscal autonomy. all the other provisions of the bill are secondary. they may be divided into two categories, which necessarily overlap: . provisions concerning ireland only. . provisions defining the imperial authority over ireland. the structure of the irish legislature, the position of the irish judiciary, the safeguards for minorities, the provision made for existing servants of the state, the statutory arrangements, if any, for the future reorganization of the irish police--these and other questions are of great intrinsic importance, and need the most careful discussion; but they are altogether subordinate to those we have already considered. if it be over-sanguine to hope, in ireland's interest, that they will be discussed in a calm and dispassionate way, we can at least demand that those provisions belonging to the second category, which present no appreciable difficulty, will not excite bitter and barren disputes like those of . it is not within the scope of this volume to discuss exhaustively the secondary provisions of the bill, or to suggest the exact statutory form which those provisions, major or minor, should take. in this chapter i shall deal briefly with matters which i have hitherto left aside, and incidentally give more precision to the points upon which i have already suggested a conclusion, in both cases indicating, so far as possible, the most useful precedents and parallels from other constitutions. the result will be the rough sketch of a home rule bill. preamble. "whereas it is expedient that _without impairing or restricting the supreme authority of parliament_, an irish legislature should be created, etc." so ran the opening sentence of the home rule bill of . the words i have italicized are harmless but superfluous. they have never appeared in the constitutions granted to colonies, even at periods when the colonies were most distrusted. nothing can impair the supreme authority of parliament. executive authority. in all parts of the empire, power emanates from the sovereign, and is wielded locally in his name. section of the british north america act of runs as follows: "the executive government and authority of and over canada is hereby declared to continue and be vested in the queen." similar words are used in the south africa act of , and in the commonwealth of australia constitution act of . curiously enough, these were acts to legalize the federation, or union, of separate colonies, and were passed at a time when the principle embodied needed no affirmation. in earlier acts for granting colonial constitutions, the principle was taken for granted, and implied in numerous provisions, but not stated explicitly. the most recent unitary constitution, that of the transvaal (section ), was even more reticent, though the principle was none the less clear. the point is unimportant, and the words used in the home rule bills of and (clauses and respectively), modified to meet a change of sovereign, will serve very well: "the executive power in ireland (or the executive government of ireland) shall continue vested in his majesty...." thereon follow the provisions for delegation of the royal authority, first to the sovereign's personal representative in ireland, and then through him to the members of the irish executive. the simpler these provisions are, the better. what we know as responsible government has never been defined in any act of parliament. the phrase "responsible government" has only once appeared in any constitution--namely, in the preamble of the transvaal constitution granted in , and even then no attempt was made at definition, though certain sections, like certain sections in the australian constitutions of and in the later federal acts, inferentially suggested features of responsible government. the system is two-sided. ministers are responsible on the one hand to the king direct, as in great britain, or to the king's representative, as in the colonies, and, on the other hand, to the elected legislature. ireland will resemble a colony in being a dependent state under a representative of the king--namely, the lord-lieutenant. this personage, corresponding to the colonial governor, will also have to act in a dual capacity. on the one hand he will be responsible to the king, or, virtually, to the british cabinet, and, on the other hand, he will be bound by an unwritten law to nominate for the government of ireland persons acceptable to the elected legislature, and in irish matters to act by their advice in all normal circumstances. let us dispose first of the relation of the ministers and of other public officials to the legislature. there will be no question, presumably, of giving statutory power to this relation. it is an unwritten custom--( ) that ministers must be members of one branch of the legislature; ( ) that they must hold the confidence of the elected branch; ( ) that, as a cabinet, they stand or fall together; and, lastly, ( ) that all non-political officials are excluded from the legislature. the first and the last of these conventions have taken legal form in some isolated cases;[ ] the other two appear in no statute that has yet been framed.[ ] neither have the functions in practice exercised by the ministry or cabinet, nor the relations which in practice exist between it and the king's representative, ever had statutory definition. whatever form the home rule bill takes, it cannot give legal precision to these things. the king's representative always nominates an executive council--that is, a cabinet to "advise" him in the government, and whether, as in the bill of , that council is called an executive committee of the privy council of ireland by analogy with the dominion of canada, where it is the "king's privy council for canada," or whether it is merely an executive council is immaterial. that it is, nominally, the constitutional duty of the king's representative (like that of the king himself) to perform executive acts on the advice of his ministers is never stated expressly. he is always, and generally in the text of the constitution, vested with the power of summoning, proroguing, and dissolving the legislature, and of giving or withholding the royal assent to bills. he also, by unwritten law, wields the prerogative of pardon, and appoints all public servants; and in all these cases, except in the case of appointing non-political officials, he occasionally has to act on his own personal responsibility. this personal responsibility cannot be distinguished in practice from his responsibility to the crown, which appoints and can remove him. cases have arisen where the governor of a self-governing colony has written home for special guidance on some specific point, and where the answer given has been that he must act on his own responsibility, or follow the advice of his ministers. all colonial governors, however, whether or not their powers are defined in the constitution, are appointed by commission from the crown with powers defined in letters patent and instructions as to their exercise. these letters patent and instructions are not of much importance in the case of a self-governing colony where responsible advice so largely controls the action of the governor. sometimes the executive powers given by instructions to the governor are indirectly alluded to in the constitution, as in the south africa act of , where, by clause , under the head of "executive government," the governor-general is "to exercise such powers and functions of the king as his majesty may be pleased to assign to him." in the australian and canadian acts of and respectively, the words do not appear. i name this point because in clause of the home rule bill of , and clause of the bill of , a similar course was taken in providing that the lord-lieutenant should "exercise any prerogatives, or other executive power of the queen, the exercise of which may be delegated to him by her majesty." the words are not strictly necessary. the lord-lieutenant will, of course, have his letters patent and instructions, but the powers of the crown are theoretically absolute. if the crown, acting under responsible british advice, should wish to defy the irish legislature, it could do so whatever the terms of the bill. naturally, there will be certain imperial and non-irish matters in which the lord-lieutenant will act primarily under the orders of the british cabinet, and the departmental british minister primarily responsible for irish-imperial matters would be the home secretary.[ ] the question may be raised, as in (july , hansard), whether a staff of imperial officials ought not to be set up to conduct any imperial business which has to be done in ireland, on the analogy of the federal staff in the united states. i hope mr. gladstone's answer will still hold good--that no such staff is needed; that the irish officials will be responsible, and ought, on the home rule principle, to be trusted, as they are trusted in the colonies. the royal assent to bills is always a matter for express enactment in the constitution, but here the "instructions" of the governor, and even his personal "discretion," have generally been alluded to in recent constitutions, whether conferred by act or letters patent. the typical form of words is that the governor "shall declare his assent according to his discretion, but subject to his majesty's instructions."[ ] the home rule bill of left out reference to "discretion," and, on the other hand, is, i think, the only document of the kind in which the "advice of the executive council" has ever been expressly alluded to, although the practice, of course, is that the assent, normally, is given or withheld on that advice. the transvaal constitution of (section ) was unique in prescribing that special instructions must be received by the governor in the case of each proposed law, before the assent is given. i hope that will not be made a precedent for ireland. such precautions only irritate the law-makers, and serve no useful purpose. colonial governors, besides the power of assent and veto, may "reserve" bills for the royal pleasure, which is to be signified within two years. moreover, bills which have received the governor's assent may be disallowed within one or two years.[ ] neither of these provisions appeared in the home rule bills of and , and neither appear to be strictly necessary, owing to the proximity of ireland. whatever is done, we may hope that the practice now established in canada, where the federal government never disallows a provincial law on any other ground than that it is _ultra vires_, and, _a fortiori_, the similar practice as between great britain and the dominions, may be imitated in the case of ireland. to sum up, the terse and simple words of the bill of really enunciate all that is necessary: [sidenote: constitution of the executive authority.] " .--( ) the executive government of ireland shall continue vested in (her) majesty, and shall be carried on by the lord-lieutenant on behalf of (her) majesty with the aid of such officers and such council as to her majesty may from time to time seem fit. "( ) subject to any instructions which may from time to time be given by (her) majesty, the lord-lieutenant shall give or withhold the assent of (her) majesty to bills passed by the irish legislative body, and shall exercise the prerogatives of (her) majesty in respect of the summoning, proroguing, and dissolving of the irish legislative body, and any prerogatives the exercise of which may be delegated to him by (her) majesty." lord-lieutenant and civil list. the restriction as to the religion of the lord-lieutenant will, of course, be removed. there is no reason why his term of office should be limited by law. his salary, payable by ireland, should perhaps be stated in the act, as in the case of canada and south africa, though not in that of australia. australia, on the other hand, has a statutory civil list, and a fixed civil list was an invariable feature of the old constitutions given to self-governing colonies. canada and south africa are under no such restrictions, and it would be very inexpedient to impose them upon ireland. legislative authority. the irish legislature will be given power, according to the historic phrase, "to make laws for the peace, order, and good government of ireland," subject to restrictions afterwards named. that the laws should be only "in respect of matters exclusively relating to ireland or some part thereof" goes without saying, and need not be copied from the bill of (clause ). nor need the superfluous proviso in the same clause be reproduced, asserting the "supreme power and authority of the parliament of the united kingdom." the supreme power becomes none the more supreme for such assertions. clause of the bill of is simple and decisive: " . with the exceptions of and subject to the restrictions in this act mentioned, it shall be lawful for (her) majesty (the queen), by and with the advice of the irish legislative body, to make laws for the peace, order, and good government of ireland, and by any such law to alter and repeal any law in ireland." with the restrictions on the powers of the legislature i dealt fully enough in chapter x.,[ ] and i need only summarize my conclusions: . _reservations of imperial authority._--the irish legislature should _not_ have power to make laws upon-- {the crown or a regency. {making of war or peace. {prize and booty of war. {army or navy. {foreign relations and treaties (excepting commercial treaties). {conduct as neutrals. {titles and dignities. {extradition. {treason. coinage. naturalization and alienage. reservation of the nine subjects included in the bracket is implied, without enactment, in all colonial constitutions, but in the irish bill it is no doubt necessary that all reserved powers should be formally specified. all powers not specifically reserved will belong to the irish legislature, subject to those restrictions, constitutional or statutory, which in matters like trade and navigation, copyright, patents, etc., bind the whole empire. section of the bill of , borrowed from the colonial laws validity act, will no doubt be applied. . _minority safeguards_.--this point, too, i dealt with in chapter x.[ ] let the nationalist members come forward and frankly accept any prohibitory clauses which the fears of the minority may suggest, provided that they do not impair the ordinary legislative power which every efficient legislature must enjoy. almost every conceivable safeguard for the protection of religion, denominational education, and civil rights was inserted in the bill of , including even some of the "slavery" amendments to the united states constitution. the list may require revision--(_a_) in view of the recent establishment of the national university, and the disappearances of all apprehension about the status of trinity college, dublin; (_b_) in regard to an extraordinarily wide sub-clause (no. ) about interference with corporations; (_c_) in regard to the words, "in accordance with settled principles and precedents," which appeared in sub-clause (no. ) (legislature to make no law "whereby any person may be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law[ ] _in accordance with settled principles and precedents_," etc.). a debate on this question may be found in hansard, may , . the words italicized were added in committee on the motion of mr. gerald balfour, though the attorney-general declared that they gave no additional strength to the phrase "due process of law," while they certainly appear calculated to provoke litigation. sir henry james appeared to think that they made the suspension of the habeas corpus act _ultra vires._ if that is their effect, there is no reason why they should be inserted. even a canadian province, whose powers are more limited than those of the subordinate states in any other federation, has "exclusive" powers within its own borders over "property and civil rights,"[ ] and can, beyond any doubt, suspend the habeas corpus act, if it pleases. the same superfluous words appeared in sub-clause (no. ) about corporations. the irish legislature.[ ] as i urged in chapter x., this is a subject in which large powers of constitutional revision--much larger than those contained in either of the home rule bills--should be given to the irish legislature itself, corresponding to the powers given by statute to the self-governing colonies, and to the powers always held by the constituent states of a federation. in the bill itself it would be wisest to follow beaten tracks as far as possible, and not to embark on experiments. present conditions are, unhappily, very unfavourable for the elaboration of any scheme ideally fit for ireland. _a bi-cameral legislature._--working on this principle, we must affirm that ireland's position, without representation in the imperial parliament, would certainly make a second chamber requisite. three of the provinces within the federation of canada (manitoba, british columbia, and ontario) prefer to do without second chambers--so do most of the swiss cantons--but all the federal legislatures of the world are bi-cameral, and all the unitary constitutions of self-governing colonies have been, or are, bi-cameral. _the upper chamber._--one simple course would be to constitute the upper chamber of a limited number of irish peers, chosen by the whole of their number, as they are chosen at present for representation in the house of lords. historical and practical considerations render this course out of the question, though some people would be fairly sanguine about the success of such a body in commanding confidence, on the indispensable condition that all representation at westminster were to cease. it has been membership, before the union of an ascendency parliament, and after the union of an absentee parliament, which has kept the bulk of the irish peerage in violent hostility to the bulk of the irish people. those peers who seek and obtain a career in an irish popular legislature--to both branches of which they will, of course, be eligible--will be able to do valuable service to their country. the same applies to all landlords. now that land reform is converting ireland itself into a nation of small landholders, who, in most countries, are very conservative in tendency, the ancient cleavage is likely to disappear. indeed, an ideal second chamber ought perhaps to give special weight to urban and industrial interests, while aiming, not at an obstructive, but at a revising body of steady, moderate, highly-educated business men. we have to choose one of two alternatives: a nominated or an elective chamber. the choice is difficult, for second chambers all over the world may be said to be on their trial. on the other hand, nothing vital depends upon the choice, for experience proves that countries can flourish equally under every imaginable variety of second chamber, provided that means exist for enabling popular wishes, in the long-run, to prevail. the european and american examples are of little use to us, and the widely varied types within the empire admit of no sure inferences. allowance must be made for the effect of the referendum wherever it exists (as in australia and switzerland), as a force tending to weaken both chambers, but especially the upper chamber of a legislature. it does, indeed, seem to be generally admitted, even by canadians, that the nominated senate of the dominion of canada, which is added to on strict party principles by successive governments, is not a success, and it was so regarded by the australian colonies when they entered upon federation, and set up an elective senate. the south african statesmen, who had to reckon with racial divisions similar to those in ireland, compromised with a senate partly nominated, partly elected, but made the whole arrangement revisable in ten years.[ ] it would be desirable, perhaps, on similar grounds of immediate policy, to let those who now represent the minority in ireland have a deciding voice in the matter. no arrangement made otherwise than by a free ireland herself can be regarded as final, and i suggest only that a nominated chamber would be the best expedient at the outset, or in the alternative a partly nominated, partly elected chamber. if and in so far as the upper chamber is elective, should election be direct or indirect? there is a somewhat attractive irish precedent for indirect election, namely, the present highly successful department of agriculture, whose council and boards the county councils have a share in constituting,[ ] and i have seen and admired a most ingenious scheme of irish manufacture for constructing the whole irish legislature and ministry on this principle. but the objections appear to be considerable. local bodies in the future should not be mixed up in national politics. that has been their bane in the past. besides, the principle of indirect election is under a cloud everywhere, most of all in the united states. australia rejected it in , and the south africans, while giving it partial recognition in the senate, made the expedient provisional. _the lower house_.--the lower house might very well be elected on the same franchise and from the same constituencies as at present, subject to any small redistributional modifications necessitated by changes of population. this is certainly a matter which ireland should have full power to settle for itself subsequently. lord courtney's proposals for proportional representation[ ] merit close consideration and possess great attractions, especially in view of their very favourable reception from nationalists in ireland. my own feeling is that such novel proposals may overload a bill which, however simply it be framed, will provoke very long and very warm discussion. if the system were to be regarded by the present minority as a real safeguard for their interests, its establishment, on tactical grounds alone, would be worth any expenditure of time and trouble; but, if they accept the assumption that existing parties in ireland are going to be stereotyped under home rule, and then point to the paucity of unionists in all parts of ireland but the north-east of ulster, they can demonstrate that no _practicable_ enlargement of constituencies could seriously influence the results of an election. my own view, already expressed, is that, provided we give ireland sufficient freedom, wholly new parties must, within a short time, inevitably be formed in ireland, and the old barriers of race and religion be broken down, and, therefore, that all expedients devised on the contrary hypothesis will eventually prove to be needless and might even prove unpopular and inconvenient. on the other hand, merits are claimed, with a great show of reason, for proportional representation, which are altogether independent of the protection of minorities from oppression. it is claimed that the system brings forward moderate men of all shades of opinion, checks party animus, and steadies the policy of the state. but i think that a free ireland should be the judge of these merits. at present the bulk of the people do not understand the subject, and need much education before they can appreciate the issue. meanwhile, the conventional party system, based on conventional constituencies, will, to say the least, do no more harm to ireland than to any other state in the empire. any minor defects will be infinitesimal beside the vast and beneficial change wrought by responsible government. disagreement between the two houses. it is essential to provide for this, and it would be difficult to better the proposal in the bill of : that after two years, or an intervening dissolution, the question should be decided by a joint vote in joint session. money bills and resolutions. to originate in the lower house on the motion of a minister. police. the royal irish constabulary and dublin metropolitan police should be under irish control from the first. the former force will undoubtedly have to be reconstituted, and its reconstitution, as an ordinary civil police, ought to be undertaken by the irish government, but the financial interests of "retrenched" officers and men should be safeguarded in the bill itself. judges. all future appointments should be made by the irish government, without the suspensory period of six years named in the bill of . present irish judges should retain their appointments, as in both previous bills. the precedent of canada, where provincial judges, unlike the state judges of australia, are appointed and paid by the federal government, is certainly not relevant. law courts. the federal analogy, except in one particular noticed under the next heading, has no application to ireland. only one provision of any importance is needed, namely, that appeals, in the last resort, should be to the judicial committee of the privy council instead of to the house of lords. the judicial committee is the final court of appeal for the whole empire, and, strengthened by one or more irish judges, should hear irish appeals. it is true that the tribunal has been subjected to some criticism lately, especially from australia. federal states naturally wish to secure pre-eminent authority for their own supreme courts. but the tribunal is, on the whole, popular with the colonial democracies, and the argument from distance and expense does not apply to ireland. at the end of an interesting discussion at the last imperial conference, in which suggestions were put forward for strengthening the judicial committee by colonial judges, it was agreed that new proposals should be made by the imperial government for an imperial final court of appeal in two divisions, one for the united kingdom, another for the colonies. if that step is taken, the position of ireland will need fresh consideration.[ ] decision of constitutional questions.[ ] the validity of an irish act which has received the royal assent will, like that of a colonial act which has received the royal assent, be determined in the ordinary course by the irish courts, with an ultimate appeal to the judicial committee, which should be strengthened for the occasion by one or more irish judges. but both the previous home rule bills made the convenient provision that the lord-lieutenant should have the power of referring questions of validity arising on a bill, before its enactment, to the judicial committee of the privy council for final decision. there is a useful canadian precedent for this provision, in the imperial act passed in , for giving the governor-general in council power, in the widest terms, to refer, _inter alia_, questions touching provincial legislation to the supreme court of canada, with an appeal from it to the judicial committee.[ ] to follow this precedent would not involve any federal complications. exchequer judges. if ireland controls her own customs and excise, no provision for this tribunal appears to be necessary, unless it be that some counterpart is needed for the colonial courts of admiralty.[ ] the bill of (clause ) limited the jurisdiction to revenue questions. the bill of (clause ) widened it to include "any matter not within the power of the irish legislature," or "any matter affected by a law which the irish legislature have not power to repeal or alter." the minds of the authors of this clause were evidently affected by the federal principle which involves two judicial authorities--one for federal, one for provincial matters. there seems to be no reason for embarking on any such complications in the case of ireland. safeguards for existing public servants in ireland.[ ] retrenchment, and in some departments drastic retrenchment, will be needed in the irish public service, just as it was needed in the transvaal after the grant of home rule to that colony. it is highly desirable that statutory provision should be made safeguarding existing interests. no such provision was made in the case of the transvaal, and some bad feeling resulted. the past responsibility for excessive civil expenditure lies, of course, on great britain, as it lay in the case of the transvaal, and on grounds of abstract justice it would have been fair in that case for great britain to have assumed a limited part of the expense of compensating retrenched public servants. the practical objections to such a policy are, however, very great. in this, as in all matters, ireland will gain more by independence than by financial aid, however strongly justified. all payments should be a direct charge upon the irish exchequer, not, as in some cases under the bill of , upon the imperial exchequer in the first instance, with provision for repayment from ireland. finance. i summarize the conclusions already indicated in previous chapters: . fiscal independence, with complete control over all irish taxation and expenditure. . initial deficit to be supplied by a grant-in-aid, diminishing annually and terminable in a short period, say, seven years. . future contribution to imperial services to be voluntary. . remission to ireland of her share of the national debt, and relinquishment by ireland of her share of the imperial miscellaneous revenue. . imperial credit for land purchase to be extended as before, by loans guaranteed on the consolidated fund, under any conditions now or hereafter to be made by the imperial authorities. loans to the public works commissioners to be optional. representation at westminster. to cease. conference between the irish and imperial authorities. this is a very important point, because friendly consultation, as at present with the colonies, will take the place of irish representation in the imperial parliament, and will prove a far more satisfactory means of securing harmony and co-operation. arrangements similar to those of the imperial conference, only more precise and efficient, and of a permanent character, should be made for consultation between the irish and british authorities on all subjects where the interests of the two countries touch one another. the need for more frequent consultation with the colonies is being felt with increasing force, and although no permanent consultation body has yet been created, special _ad hoc_ conferences have recently been held--for defence in , and for copyright in --in addition to the quadrennial meetings, where a vast amount of varied topics are discussed, and the most valuable decisions arrived at.[ ] what the precise machinery should be in the case of anglo-irish relations i do not venture to say. the ministers of the respective countries will be so easily accessible to one another that there would seem to be no need for the frequent attendance of a powerful personnel at joint meetings. but a standing committee, with a small official staff, would be necessary. constitutional amendment.[ ] for amendment of the home rule act itself it is not possible to make any statutory provision. like all constitutional acts, it will only be alterable by another imperial statute, which, if it were needed, should be promoted by ireland. but one of the most important clauses in the act itself will be that defining ireland's power to amend her own constitution without coming to parliament. i venture to repeat the view that this power should be as wide as possible, consistently with the maintenance of the imperial authority, and subject, of course, to provisions prescribing--( ) a time-limit for the initial arrangements; ( ) the method of ascertaining irish opinion; and ( ) the majority in the legislature, or in the electorate, or in both, necessary to sanction a constitutional change.[ ] if a home rule constitution, passed into law in the heat of a party fight at westminster, proves to be perfect, a miracle will have been performed unparalleled in the history of the empire. at this moment a committee of ireland's ablest men of all parties should be at work upon it, with an instructed public opinion behind them. so only are good constitutions made, and even the very best need subsequent amendment. footnotes: [ ] for details of prior home rule bills, see the appendix. [ ] the victorian and south australian constitutions of state in clear terms that the ministry must be members of the legislature, and all the australian constitutions of the same date, except that of tasmania, formally exclude all other officials from the legislature. the transvaal constitution of made no reference to either point; nor do the federating acts of , , and for canada, australia, and south africa. [ ] a fifth custom, very common, of compelling new ministers to seek re-election is incorporated in most of the australian constitutions, but was expressly ruled out in section of the transvaal constitution of . [ ] see hansard, july , , speech of mr. john morley. [ ] the words "subject to this constitution" or "subject to this act" are sometimes added, but have no special significance. the australian commonwealth constitution act does not mention the governor's "instructions," but only his "discretion." [ ] british north america act, , sects. - ; commonwealth of australia constitution act, , sects. - . [ ] see especially pp. - . [ ] see pp. - . [ ] taken from amendment xiv. to the united states constitution, passed july , . [ ] british north america act, , sect. ( ). but the province may not encroach on powers reserved to the dominion--e.g., in bankruptcy (gushing v. depuy [before jud. comm. of privy council]). see the "constitution of canada," j.e.c. munro, pp. - . there has been much litigation over points where dominion and federal powers overlapped. (see "federations and unions of the british empire," h.e. egerton, pp. - ). [ ] for the proposals of the bills of and , see appendix. [ ] south africa act, , sects. and . [ ] see pp. - . [ ] see pamphlet no. , published by proportional representation society, and an excellent paper by mr. j.f. williams in "home rule problems." [ ] cd. , , pp. - . [ ] see appendix and the bill of , clause ; bill of , clause . [ ] and vict., ch. , sect. . [ ] courts of admiralty in the colonies are regulated by imperial acts, though by an act of large powers were conferred on the colonies of declaring ordinary courts to be courts of admiralty (see moore's "commonwealth of australia," pp. and ). [ ] see clauses - of the bill of , and clauses - of the bill of . [ ] see the precis of proceedings, cd. , . [ ] see pp. - . [ ] see section of the australia constitution act, , and section of the south africa act, . conclusion is it altogether idle to hope that some such body will yet come into existence, if not in time to influence the drafting of the bill, at any rate to bring to bear upon its provisions the sober wisdom, not of one party only in the state, but of all; and so, if it were possible, to give to the charter of ireland in her "new birth of freedom" the sanction of a united people? home rule will eventually come. within the empire, the utmost achieved by the government of white men without their own consent is to weaken their capacity to assume the sacred responsibility of self-government. it is impossible to kill the idea of home rule, though it is possible, by retarding its realization, to pervert some of its strength and beauty, and to diminish the vital energy on which its fruition depends. and it is possible in the case of ireland, up to and in the very hour of her emancipation, after a struggle more bitter and exhausting than any in the empire, to heap obstacles in the path of the men who have carried her to the goal, and on whom in the first instance must fall the extraordinarily difficult and delicate task of political reconstruction. they will be on their mettle in the eyes of the world to prove that the prophets of evil were wrong, to show sympathy and inspire confidence in the very quarters where they have been most savagely traduced and least trusted, and they will have to exhibit dauntless courage in attacking old abuses and promoting new reforms. they will need their hands strengthened in every possible way. the help must come--and it cannot come too soon--from the working optimists of ireland, from the hundreds of men and women, of both parties and creeds, who are labouring outside politics to extirpate that stifling undergrowth of pessimism which runs riot in countries denied the light and air of freedom. all these people agree on the axiom that ireland has a distinct individual existence, and that her future depends upon herself. no one should dare to stop there. let him who feels impelled to stop there at any rate act with open eyes. in expecting to realize social reconstruction without political reconstruction--however divergent the aims may now seem to be--he expects to achieve what has never been achieved in any country in the empire, and to achieve this miracle in the very country which has suffered most from political repression, and possesses the most fantastic system of government to be found in the king's dominions. the thing is impossible, and if at bottom he feels it to be so, and inclines sadly to the view that political servitude is but the least of two evils, i would only venture to suggest this: is it not a finer course to stake something on a risk run in every white community but ireland rather than to face the certainty of half achievement? and is it not, after all, a sound risk to trust the very men who now respond to the appeal for self-reliance, mutual tolerance, and united effort in their private affairs, not to renounce these qualities and abuse the rights of citizenship when the public affairs of their country are under their own control? as for the risk to great britain, i have only this last word to say: let her people, not for the first time, show that they can rise superior to the philosophy, as fallacious in effect as it is base and cowardly in purpose, which sets the safety of a great nation above the happiness and prosperity of a small one. within the last few weeks the wheel has turned full circle, and the almost inexplicable contradiction which has existed for so long between unionism and imperialism has been illuminated with a frank cynicism rare in our public life. it is being said that the freedom given to canada cannot be given to ireland, because the separation from the empire theoretically rendered possible by such a step would be immaterial in the case of canada, which is distant, but perilous in the case of ireland, which is near. if this be imperialism, it should stink in the nostrils of every decent citizen at home and abroad. it is true, to our shame, that, by little more than an accident, canada obtained the freedom which gave her people harmony, energy, and wealth in the teeth of this mean and selfish doctrine. but lord durham took a higher view. let me recall the memorable words which he added to his long and brilliant argument for liberty as a source, not only of domestic regeneration, but of affection and loyalty to the motherland: "_but at any rate our first duty is to secure the well-being of our colonial countrymen;_ and if, in the hidden decrees of that wisdom by which this world is ruled, it is written that these countries are not for ever to remain portions of the empire, we owe it to our honour to take good care that, when they separate from us, they should not be the only countries on the american continent in which the anglo-saxon race shall be found unfit to govern itself." lord durham was doubly right; in his prophecy of the closer union liberty would promote, and in elementary law which he laid down, of moral obligation which, whatever the result, he held superior to dynastic calculations. it is a fact of ominous significance that the intellectual successors of the men who most hotly repudiated both these doctrines in are being driven by pressure of their irish views to revive that repudiation in , and to revive it in the midst of the most effusive protestations of the need for still closer union with a colony which would either have undergone the fate of ireland or have ceased to be a member of the empire if their philosophy had triumphed. i do not believe there is any conscious cant in that flagrant contradiction, but i do firmly believe that so long as their error about ireland poisons in them the springs of imperial thought, some element of fallacy lies in any imperial policy they undertake. in common prudence, at any rate, they should avoid telling canada, while beckoning her nearer to the heart of the empire, that they only gave her freedom because she was so far. but i rely still on an awakening, on a fundamental change of spirit. the empire owes everything to those who have disputed, sometimes at the cost of their lives, illegitimate authority. some day the politicians who now spend sleepless nights with paste and scissors in ransacking the ancient files of the world's press for proofs that mr. redmond once used words signifying that he aimed at "separation"--whatever that phrase may mean--will regret that they ever demeaned themselves by such petty labour, and will place mr. redmond among the number of those who have saved the empire from the consequences of its own errors. appendix comparative table, showing the principal provisions of the home rule bills of and home rule bill of . home rule bill of . the irish legislature. to consist of the crown and _two to consist of the crown and orders_, sitting together, and _two houses_, sitting separately. unless either order demands a separate vote, voting together. . _first order_, to consist of . _council_, of councillors _(a)_ members elected on a £ elected on a £ franchise from franchise from a new set of a new set of constituencies. constituencies. term of office, term of office, eight years. ten years. _(b)_ peerage members, to give place by degrees to elective members as in _(a)_. _ . second order_, members . _assembly_ of members elected as at present. two from each elected as at present. constituency (with an alteration in the case of cork). dissolution at least every five dissolution at least every five years. years. _money bills_ and votes to originate in the assembly. disagreement between orders or houses. after three years or a after two years or a dissolution question to be dissolution question to be decided by joint vote. decided by joint vote in joint session. estrictions on irish legislature. . _imperial matters_. _no power to make laws about_-- _nor_ with: the lord-lieutenant, the crown, war or peace, army or conduct as neutrals, extradition, navy, volunteers or militia, trade-marks, nor (for six years) prize or booty of war, treaties, post office in or out of titles, treason, naturalization, ireland. trade or navigation, lighthouses, etc., coinage, but trade _within ireland_ and copyright, patents, post office _inland_ navigation conceded to (except within ireland). ireland. . _irish matters. no power to make laws for the purpose of_-- ( ) _establishing or endowing ( ) ditto, ditto, but more any religion_ or imposing explicit and far-reaching. disabilities or conferring privileges on account of _religion_, or affecting the undenominational constitution of national schools, etc. ( ) impairing rights or property ( ) ditto, ditto, or "without of corporations, without address for due process of law" and both orders and consent of crown. compensation. ( ) depriving anyone of _life, liberty, or property_ without due process of law in accordance with settled precedents, or denying _equal protection of laws_, or taking property without _just compensation_. ( ) imposing disabilities or conferring privileges on account of _birth, parentage, or place of business_. ( ) (_for three years_) respecting relations of _landlord and tenant_ or the purchase and letting of _land_ generally. irish representation in imperial parliament. to cease altogether (except in ireland to send members to the case of a proposed westminster (instead of ). alteration of the home rule act). peers as before. executive authority. the crown, as represented by the lord-lieutenant, acting in irish affairs with the advice of an irish cabinet responsible to the irish legislature. power of veto on irish legislation. to be held by lord-lieutenant to be held by lord-lieutenant, (acting normally on the advice _acting on advice of irish of irish cabinet?), but subject cabinet_, but subject to to instructions from imperial instructions from imperial government. government. finance. . _taxation_. _customs and excise_ still to be ( ) _for six years_ all existing levied by imperial parliament and taxes to continue to be imposed collected by imperial officers. by imperial parliament and all other taxes to be under irish collected by imperial officers. control. ireland to have power to impose additional taxes of her own. ( ) _after six years_, customs and excise to remain imperial taxes; all others to be under irish control. but excise to be collected, though not levied, by ireland. . _ireland's revenue_. _gross_ revenue collected in ( ) _true_ irish revenue from ireland from imperial and irish imperial taxes (_i.e._, with taxes and crown lands, etc.; allowance made for duties _plus_ an imperial grant towards collected in ireland on the cost of irish police. (total articles consumed in great cost at that time £ , , : britain, and _vice versa_). ireland to pay £ , , , treasury any surplus over ( ) revenue from irish taxes £ , , , until cost reduced and crown lands. to that point.) ( ) imperial grant of one-third of annual cost of irish police (equal in first year to £ , ). . _ireland's contribution to imperial exchequer_. ( ) _for thirty years_ ireland ( ) _for six years_ ireland to to pay fixed annual maximum sums, pay _one-third of the "true" representing ireland's share of revenue raised in ireland from (a) army, navy, civil list, etc.; imperial taxes and crown (b) national debt. payments not lands_. (estimated share for to be increased, but might be first year, £ , , , or diminished. share for army, navy, about one-twenty-eighth of etc., never to exceed total imperial expenditure.) one-fifteenth of total cost. total payments under these heads for first year, £ , , . ( ) _after thirty years_, ( ) _after six years_, both contribution _to be revisable_. method and amount of ireland's contribution to be revised and settled afresh. . _contribution to special war taxes_. optional to ireland. for six years compulsory on ireland to pay her proportional share of any such tax levied. _ . post office_. to be taken over by ireland for six years to remain under under irish act. imperial control. profit or loss on irish posts to be credited to or debited _against_ ireland. police. dublin police to be under both dublin police and imperial control for two years. constabulary, as long as they constabulary, "while that force should exist, to be under subsists," to be under imperial imperial control. control, but ireland to have power to create a new force meanwhile an ordinary locally under control of local controlled civil police to be authorities. gradually established by irish government, and to take the place of the old forces. but _for six years_, imperial government to have the power to maintain in existence the old forces, if considered expedient. judges. _present irish judges to remain_. all future irish judges to be for six years future irish appointed by irish government. supreme court judges (not county court judges, etc.) to be appointed by imperial government. after six years by irish government. law courts. _constitution to remain the same_. but appeals to the house of lords to cease; instead, to the judicial committee of the privy council. constitutional questions. _(as to validity of irish laws, etc.)_. to be decided by the judicial committee of the privy council (including one or more irish judges). exchequer judges. legal proceedings in ireland all legal proceedings in or against imperial revenue land ireland _which touch any authorities to be referred, if matter_ (financial or either party wishes, to the otherwise) _not within the exchequer division judges of power of the irish the united kingdom. legislature_ to be referred, if either party wishes, to two exchequer judges appointed and paid by the imperial government. appeal to be to the judicial committee of the privy council. lord-lieutenant _might be of any religion_. term of office indefinite. term of office six years. constitutional amendment. after the first dissolution, after six years, legislature legislature to have power to to have power to reconstitute reconstitute second order. assembly. remarks on the financial arrangements. the arrangements differed widely in the two bills. the main points of likeness were: ( ) that from the first there was to be a _separate irish exchequer_; ( ) that for all time ireland was to be _denied control over the imposition of customs and excise_--that is to say, over about _three-quarters of her revenue_ as then raised; ( ) that about _a third of the cost of the irish police_ was to be paid by the imperial government; ( ) that payments due from ireland to the imperial government were to be made a first charge on proceeds of imperial taxes in ireland. the principal points of difference were: . under the bill of , apart from the very important restriction of customs and excise, ireland was at once to have freedom to control her own taxation. under the bill of (as amended) there was to be a suspensory period of six years during which all existing taxes were to continue to be imposed by the imperial government; but with power to ireland to add taxes of her own. _amounts_ of imperial taxes might be varied, but _no new ones_ imposed, except specially for war. after six years, financial freedom, except in customs and excise. excise, however, was to be _collected_, though not levied, by ireland. . "_collected" and "true" revenue_.--in , ireland was credited with all the revenue _collected in ireland_ from customs and excise _(i.e.,_ the "gross" revenue from those taxes), but she had to pay the cost of collection herself. in allowance was made for duties collected in ireland on articles consumed in great britain, and _vice versa,_ ireland being credited only with her "true" revenue--that is, revenue from dutiable articles _consumed in ireland._ similar allowances made in the income tax account. a joint anglo-irish committee was to settle these adjustments. this system involved a deduction from the first year's gross irish revenue of nearly two millions. (in the corresponding sum, credited to ireland, was £ , , .) on the other hand, in the greater part of the cost of collection (£ , ) was not to be borne by ireland. . _imperial contribution by ireland._--in , a fixed annual maximum, which might be diminished, but could not be exceeded, revisable in thirty years. in (for six years) an annually ascertained _quota_--namely, a third of ireland's "true" revenue (exclusive of taxes imposed by herself). . _ireland's budget._--note the important point that under both bills three-quarters of irish revenue was derived from customs and excise, over which, in , ireland could exercise no control; in only the control given by the presence of eighty members in the house of commons. in both cases ireland was to be wholly responsible for her own civil expenditure (except for the existing police). under both bills ireland was intended to start with a surplus of about half a million, which may be regarded roughly as the equivalent, in both cases, of the imperial share of the cost of the irish police. but note that, in , ireland being pledged to pay a fixed million of the cost of police, would obtain no relief until the cost was reduced below a million; while in , paying two-thirds of the annually ascertained cost, she would obtain relief from any annual reduction. the police referred to was, of course, the then existing police, imperially organized and controlled. the new civil police eventually set up in substitution would be financed and controlled by the irish government. the charges, therefore, on the british taxpayer would, it was expected, be a rapidly diminishing one. the loss on irish posts in , debited against ireland, was estimated at £ , . . _special war taxes._--ireland's contribution optional in ; in , compulsory (at any rate, for six years, which would have included the beginning of the south african war). index abercromby, sir r., , absentee taxes, in ireland, - ; in australasia, absenteeism, in ireland, , ; in prince edward island, - ; in upper canada, ; in lower canada, ; in australia, acadia. see maritime provinces act of union, , - , - administrators, in south africa, agricultural co-operation. see irish agricultural organization society, also , agricultural grant, ireland, agricultural rates act, , agricultural statistics, ireland, , - amendment of constitution, ireland, - , ; colonies, - , american colonies, colonization of, - ; land tenure in (see land tenure); mercantile system, - , ; government of, - , ; revolution in, - , , . see also united states anglo-normans, in ireland, - annuities, tenant's. see land purchase armagh, peep o' day boys in, army act, , (footnote) army and navy, - , arnold, benedict, ashbourne act, , . see also land acts australian colonies act, , , australian colonies customs duties act, , , footnote australian colonies, history of, see chapter vi., and under names of the various states; federation of, as commonwealth of australia, , , ; finance in, - , - , , - . see also commonwealth of australia constitution act, , constitutions, federal systems, customs and excise, subsidies baldwin, robert, in upper canada, , balfour, arthur, , , , balfour, gerald, , , baltimore, lord, barbour, sir david, on anglo-irish finance, - barry, sir redmond, belfast, , , , , belgium, cost of government in, berkeley, g.f.h., bidwell, b., in upper canada, birrell, augustine, his land act of . see land acts, land tenure, land purchase bloemfontein, convention of, boer war of - , ; of - , - , , bonus to landlords, - , . see also land purchase boomplatz, battle of, , botha, general, brand, president, bright, john, , , , british columbia, finances of, , ; upper chamber in, british north america act, , citations from, , (footnote), , , , (footnote), , (footnote); , . see also canada buller, charles, , , - burgh, hussey, burke, edmund, , - , , , , burke, robert o'hara, butt, isaac, , , canada, upper and lower, history of, (see chapter v. and introduction, viii, - ); relations of, with american colonies, ; with united states, , , , ; union of the two provinces proposed, - , carried out, - , , , , , - , , and introduction, viii; comparison of history with that of transvaal, - ; confederation of, as the dominion of canada, proposed, , , carried out ( ), , - ; finance in, - , - , . see also constitutions, federal systems, customs and excise, subsidies, guaranteed loans, british north america acts, , carleton, sir guy, , carnarvon, lord, - carolina, plantation of, , , carson, sir edward, introduction, x casey, judge, castlereagh, lord, , , catholic relief act, , ; , - , chamberlain, joseph, - , , , , , channel islands, finance, charlemont, lord, , - , charles ii., king, chartist movement, chatham, lord, , - , , chief secretary, , ; compared with canadian governor, childers, hugh, in prince edward island, (footnote); as chairman of royal commission on finance, - church funds, irish, - civil list, civil servants, ireland, ; transvaal, clare, earl of, see fitzgibbon clergy reserves, upper canada, ; lower canada, - cockburn, sir john, coinage, colonial and irish powers over, , (footnote); act of , (footnote) collins, francis, in upper canada, colonial attorneys relief act, , (footnote) colonial courts of admiralty act, , (footnote), (and footnote) colonial defence forces, - (and footnote) colonial laws validity act, colonial marriages act, , (footnote) colonial naval defence act, , (footnote) colonial office, colonial prisoners' removal act, , (footnote) colonial probates act, , (footnote) commercial propositions of , , commercial restrictions, ireland, - , , , , ; american colonies, - , ; canada, commonwealth of australia constitution act, , citations from, , (footnote), , - (footnote), (footnote), conferences, imperial, , , ; suggestions for, with ireland under home rule, , , congested districts board, , - ; in land purchase, , ; under home rule, - , , connecticut, - , constitutional act, , canada, - , constitutional doubts, settlement of, constitution, irish, summary of proposed, chapter xv. constitutions: transvaal, of , - ; of , - , - , - , (footnote); united states, , - , - , ; dominion of canada, , , , , , , , ; australian states, - , (footnote); commonwealth of australia, , , , , , ; south african union, , . see also federal systems and individual colonies continental congress. , "contract" finance, , - contribution of ireland to imperial services; in the eighteenth century, , ; during the union, , , - , , - , ; under home rule, , , - , - , convict system, australia, copyright, - (footnote); imperial conference on, corn laws, repeal of, cornwallis, lord, , courtney, lord, cromwell, oliver, crown colony, features of, in irish government, - , , , , , , , , crown lands, revenue from, currie, b.w., , customs and excise, ireland, control of, under home rule, - , - , - , - , - ; australia, - , - , , - ; canada, - ; united states, - ; in colonies generally, , . see also finance, federal systems debt, irish public, until , - danish invasions, declaration of independence, irish, ; american, declaratory acts for america and ireland, - , , , defender society, - deficit, in irish revenue, amount of, - , , ; method of dealing with, - , denmark, agricultural policy in, , department of agriculture and technical instruction, ; founding of, - ; allusions to, , , , derby, lord, derry, bishop of, development commissioners, grants to ireland, devolution movement, devon commission, , dillon, john, disagreement between two chambers of irish legislature, disestablishment of irish church, , , disraeli, benjamin, , dissenters, in ireland, , - , , ; in american colonies, , ; in canada, - dublin, , , duffy, sir c. gavan, - dunraven, lord, , durban, conference at, for closer union, - , durham, lord, introduction, viii, - , - , , durham report, - , , dutch east india company, education, ireland, , , - , ; finance of, - ; england, ; scotland, egerton, h.e., , elgin, lord, , - , emancipation, catholic, - , , - , emigration, from ireland, - , , , , , , emmett, robert, , , , encumbered estates act, , , equalization of taxes, in ireland and great britain, - , estate duties, assessment to, as test of taxable capacity, , ; yield of, in ireland, - estates commissioners. see land purchase eureka stockade, , - evicted tenants, executive authority, in colonies, - , - ; in ireland, under home rule, - , - executive council, in upper canada, , , ; in lower canada, , , extradition, colonial powers over, (and footnote); irish powers over, , "family compact," in upper canada, ; in the maritime provinces, famine, irish, , , , farrer, lord, , - "federal" home rule, , - , - , - federal systems, in general, - ; upper chamber in, - , , , - ; division of powers, as in home rule bill, , ; amendment of constitution, - ; finance, - , - , - ; judiciary, - ; settlement of constitutional questions, . see also canada, australian colonies, south africa, united states, switzerland, germany, constitutions fenianism, financial relations of ireland and great britain (see chapters xi., xii., xiii.); before the union, - , ; from the union to , - ; royal commission on, - , - ; present situation, - , and chapters xii. and xiii. finance, of the home rule bill, chapter xiii., and summary, finance, colonial. see federal systems, and under names of colonies finance act, , (footnote) finance act, , , finlay, father t.a., fiscal amalgamation, , , fisher, j., author of "the end of the irish parliament," , fitzgibbon, earl of clare, introduction, xi, and , - , , , , , , , , fitzgibbon, james, fitzwilliam, lord, - flood, henry, - ford, patrick, fortescue, hon. j.w., - foster's corn law, , (footnote) fox, charles james, on canada, - ; on ireland, france, seven years' war with, ; in canada, - ; in american war of independence, ; effect of, on ireland, ; effect of french revolution on ireland, - ; invasions of ireland, franklin, benjamin, , - free trade, opinion in ireland on, , ; influence of, on ireland, - . see also tariff reform, customs and excise french-canadians. see chapter v., especially pages - , - , - ; also frere, sir bartle, gaelic league, - geelong, georgia, , germany, ; federal constitution of, , (zollverein) gladstone, w.e., irish land reform, , , ; on colonial liberty, - ; his transvaal and irish policies, , ; on representation of ireland at westminster, - ; taxation of ireland, - ; on irish expenditure, ; financial schemes in the home rule bills of and , - , and appendix; for details of the bills generally, see appendix and in the text _passim_ gourlay, william, in upper canada, governors, in american colonies, , ; in the canadas, , ; in the dominion of canada, , ; in the commonwealth of australia, (footnote), , grattan, henry, , , , , grattan's parliament, chapter iii. greene, general, greville's "memoirs," , grey, sir george, in australasia, - ; in south africa, - , grote, george, , guarantee fund, . see also land purchase guaranteed loans, to ireland (see land purchase); to the transvaal and canada, ; to crown colonies and foreign powers, - habeas corpus act, hamilton, sir edward, hancock, john, henderson, professor g.c., henry viii., ireland in the reign of, hewins, professor w.a.s., - holland, bernard, home rule bills of and . for details, see appendix, allusions in text _passim_ "home rule problems," edited by basil williams, introduction, xiv, and pp. , , , house of lords: under the union, ; after home rule, , , howe, joseph, in nova scotia, hume, philosophy of, hume, joseph, , , hyde, dr. douglas, imperial federation, - "in and out" clause, income tax, first imposition of, in ireland, - ; assessment to, as test of taxable capacity, , ; yield of, in ireland, - ; errors in computing irish yield, (footnote) india, indians, in america, industrial development associations, , , , insurance, national, , , international copyright act, , (footnote) ireland development grant, irish agricultural organization society, - irish council bill, , , _irish homestead_, irish members at westminster. see representation at westminster irish universities act, , , isle of man, finance of, , jamaica, , james, sir henry, jebb, richard, - johannesburg, , judges, irish, under home rule, - ; exchequer judges, judicial salaries, ireland, kilmore, kitchener, lord, kruger, president paul, kyte, ambrose, labourers (ireland) act, , , labour questions, in ireland, , lafontaine, sir louis, laing's nek, lalor, peter, - land acts, irish, of , - , , - , , ; , - , , , , ; , ; , , ; , , , - ; , , , ; , , , - , , - ; , , - . see also land tenure, land purchase land commission, ; cost and control of, , , - land league, land purchase in ireland, chapter xiv., , , - , , , , ; in prince edward island, , land tenure, in ireland, - , , - , , - , , - , , - ; in america, , ; in prince edward island, , - , , ; in upper canada, ; in lower canada, - ; in australia, - ; in new zealand, . see also land acts, land purchase lanyon, sir owen, , law, bonar, law courts, ireland, - lecky, professor w.h., introduction, vi and ix, and , , , , , , , legislative councils, in america, ; in upper canada, , , - ; in lower canada, , , legislature, irish, powers of, general, - , - ; financial powers, chapter xiii., and - , ; composition of, - . for restrictions on, see also safeguards for minorities legislatures, colonial, powers and limitations of, general, - . see also constitutions, federal systems, and under names of colonies leinster, plantations in, lieutenant-governors, in dominion of canada, , limerick, treaty of, , local government board, cost of, local government, working of, in ireland, , - local government (ireland) act, , , , local taxation, ireland, ; grants in aid of, - , locker-lampson, g., introduction, vi, and londonderry, lord, long, walter, introduction, x, xi, and , lord-lieutenant, before the union, - , - ; under the union, ; under home rule, , , , , , - , , louisburg, capture of, lyttelton, mr. alfred, - , macdonnell, lord, , , mackenzie, w.l., in upper canada, , , - , , mckenna, sir j., mcmanus, t.b., maine, majuba, , malta, manitoba, maritime provinces, , , , , and chapter v. see also nova scotia, new brunswick, prince edward island maryland, - , massachusetts, , , - (and footnote), meagher, t.f., - melbourne, lord, merchant shipping act, , , mill, john stuart, , , , milner, lord, , , - , miscellaneous revenue, imperial, ireland's share of, - mitchel, john, - molesworth, sir william, , - , molyneux, on irish liberty, montreal, - , montgomery, general, , moore, w. harrison, author of "the commonwealth of australia," morgan's riflemen, morley, lord, his "life of gladstone," introduction, x, and , ; on irish members at westminster, ; on clause of the bill of , municipal technical institute, belfast, , municipal reform act, , munster, plantations in, murray, miss a.e., , , natal, , national debt, ireland's contribution to, - , naturalization, , (footnote), naval agreement, , navigation acts, - navies, colonial. see colonial defence forces neilson, john, in lower canada, nelson, wilfred, in lower canada, netherlands government, neutrality, , new brunswick, chapter v., and , - , , , new england, , , newfoundland, , - , new haven, new netherlands, plantation of, new south wales, - , , , , , ; finance in, - , new zealand, , , - , , , , , ninety-two resolutions, lower canada, nixon, captain john, north carolina, (footnote) nova scotia, chapter v., and , , , , , oakboys, in ulster, o'brien, barry, , o'brien, murrough, o'brien, smith, , , , o'brien, william, , o'callaghan, dr., in lower canada, o'connell, daniel, - , , , , , , , o'conor don, the, octennial act, , o'hara, james, old age pensions, , - , , , , , oldham, professor c.h., on irish finance, , , o'loughlen, sir brian, in victoria, "omnes omnia" clause, ontario, province of, prior to , see canada; after , see canada, confederation of, and , , orange free state, , - , , , , orange society, in ireland, , , , , ; in canada, , , ; in australia, , o'shanassy, sir john, in victoria, paley, dr., philosophy of, papineau, louis, in lower canada, , - , , parliamentary parties, irish, - parliament, irish (pre-union), , , - , , ; finance under, - , parnell, charles stewart, , , patents, peace of paris, peel, sir robert, on the repeal of the union, - , , peep o' day boys, penal code, - , , , , , , , , , penn, william, pennsylvania, , pilkington, mrs., pitt, william, , , , , , , , , plantations, of ireland and america, - plunkett house, plunkett, sir horace, , (footnote), , police, irish, present position and cost of, , ; under home rule, , , , poor law (ireland), , port phillip. see victoria postal services, irish, powers over, ; loss on, , , poynings' act, , preamble, home rule bill, prince edward island, , , , , , . see also land tenure, land purchase prize and booty of war, , proportional representation, proprietary colonies of america, , public works, commissioners of, ireland, - , quakers, , _quarterly review_, quebec, town of, quebec, province of, prior to , - ; from to , see under names of lower canada and canada; after , see canada, confederation of, and , , - , ; present constitution of, compared with irish home rule, - , , quebec act, , - queensland, , ; finance in, railways, ireland, , raleigh, sir walter, rebellions, irish, of , , ; of , , recess committee, action and report of, - reciprocity agreement, redmond, john, , , , , reform, parliamentary (ireland), - , - ; great britain, , , , repeal of the union, , representation at westminster, of ireland, - , , ; of american colonies (proposals for), , ; of canada (proposals for), residuary powers, under home rule, . see also federal systems retief, piet, revenue, from ireland. see financial relations, estate duties, income tax, customs and excise revenue, "true" and "collected," method of estimating in united kingdom, - , - (and footnotes); in australia, - , revolution, irish, - , chapter ii.; american, , chapter ii rhode island, , (footnote) road board, grants to ireland, roebuck, j.a., , , rose, holland, royal assent, , - ruskin, john, russell, george w., russell, lord john, on canada, , , , , , , , ; on australia, - russell, t.w., (and footnote) rutland, lord, , safeguards for minorities, ireland, , - , - ; united states, , - ; canada, ; australia, st. lawrence, river, salaberry, colonel, sand river convention, , saunderson, colonel, (footnote), (and footnote) scotland, , (footnote); home rule for, - ; revenue from, and expenditure on, , ; police in, ; education in, selborne, lord, seventh report of grievances (upper canada), , seven years' war, , sexton, t., shepstone, sir t., sinn fein, smith, adam, smith, sir harry, socialism, in ireland, introduction, xiv, , south africa act, , citations from, - , , , , south african colonies, history of, see chapter vii., and under cape of good hope, transvaal, orange free state, natal; federal union, proposed ( ), , ; conference for closer union ( ), , - ; union of , - , - ; see also south africa act, , constitutions, federal systems south australia, - , , ; finance in, spanish colonies, spirit duty, - , - , stamp act ( ), and revenue duties (america), , - , stanley, lord, - steelboys, in ulster, subsidies, to ireland, under home rule, - , ; to colonies, - ; by federal governments to subordinate states or provinces, - , suez canal shares, revenue from, supremacy of the imperial parliament, , - , , supreme court, of australia, , - ; of south africa, , - ; of canada, , - sutherland, sir t., swift, dean, switzerland, federal constitution of, , _sydney bulletin_, , tariff reform, opinion in ireland on, ; effect of, on ireland, , - ; opinion of professor hewins on, for ireland, - tariffs. see customs and excise, free trade, tariff reform tasmania, - , , ; finance in, - , taxable capacity of ireland: in , ; in , - ; in , - technical instruction, ireland, , temperance reform, ireland, - , tenant league, ten resolutions ( ), territorials, ireland, , thompson, poulett, lord sydenham, titles, power of conferring, , tone, wolfe, , , , , , , , toronto, townshend, lord, , townshend, charles, town tenants act, trade, external, of ireland, - , trade and navigation, colonial and irish powers over, , trade-mark, irish, ; colonial and irish powers over, transvaal, introduction, xiv, , - , , , , and whole of chapter vii. see also south african colonies, constitutions treason, , treasury, committee on land purchase, , ; returns (financial relations), - , - , - treaties, power of making, , trek, the great, - , , trimleston, lord, ulster, plantation of, , ; land tenure in, , , - ; emigration from, , - , , ; orange society in (see orange society); comparison with canadian minorities, , - , - , ; with transvaal minority, , , ; views of, with regard to representation at westminster, - ; under home rule, introduction, x, xii, , - , , ulster custom. see ulster, land tenure in "umpirage," of great britain, in canada, , ; in ireland, , "undertakers," , union, of ireland and great britain, chapter iv.; compared with that of the two canadas, introduction, viii, - , - , , , , , - ; of the canadas (see canada) united empire loyalists, - , united irishmen, , , united states, relations with canada, , , , ; emigration to, from ireland, , ; feeling towards ireland, - ; constitution of, - . see also federal systems, constitutions, safeguards for minorities, customs, and excise universities, irish, , , upper chamber, irish, under home rule, - . see also federal systems van diemen's land. see tasmania vereeniging, peace of, victoria, chapter v., and - , - , , , , ; finance in, virginia, , volksraad, volunteers, ireland ( - ), , - , , , - , , , , , . see also territorials wakefield, edward gibbon, in canada, , - , ; in australia, - , wakefield, vicar of, wales, home rule for, - war and peace, power of making, , washington, general george, welby, lord, on anglo-irish finance, - , - , , wellington, duke of, on ireland and canada, , , , wentworth, william, in australia, , , western australia, - , , , and chapter v. west indies, banishment of irish to, ; grants-in-aid to, whiteboys, , , , , willcocks, stephen, in upper canada, william iv., on canada, williams, basil, editor of "home rule problems," introduction, xiv, wills act, , (footnote) wilmot, samuel, in new brunswick, wyndham, george, ; his land act of , , , , etc. young, arthur, on ireland, , , young ireland movement, , , transcriber's note: inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document have been preserved. obvious typographical errors have been corrected. italic text is denoted by _underscores_ and bold text by =equal signs=. everyman's library edited by ernest rhys history hallam's constitutional history with an introduction by professor j. h. morgan volume one the publishers of _everyman's library_ will be pleased to send freely to all applicants a list of the published and projected volumes to be comprised under the following thirteen headings: travel science fiction theology & philosophy history classical for young people essays oratory poetry & drama biography reference romance in four styles of binding: cloth, flat back, coloured top; leather, round corners, gilt top; library binding in cloth, & quarter pigskin london: j. m. dent & sons, ltd. new york: e. p. dutton & co. consider history with the beginnings of it stretching dimly into the remote time; emerging darkly ovt of the mysteriovs eternity: the trve epic poem and vniversal divine scriptvre. carlyle constitutional history of england henry vii to george ii by henry hallam vol i london: published by j·m·dent·&·sons·ltd and in new york by e·p·dutton & co introduction few historical works have stood the test of time better than hallam's _constitutional history_. it was written nearly a century ago--the first edition was published in --and at a time when historians were nothing if not stout party men. the science of history, as we now know it, was in its infancy; apologetics were preferred to exegesis; the study of "sources," the editing of texts, the classification of authorities were almost unknown. history was regarded as the handmaid of politics, and the duty of the historian was conceived as being, in the language of macaulay, the impression of "general truths" upon his generation as to the art of government and the progress of society. whig and tory, erastian and high churchman, debated on the field of history. the characters of laud and cromwell excited as much passion and recrimination as if they were contemporary politicians. that a history written in such times, and by a writer who was proud to call himself a whig, should still hold its place is not a little remarkable. the reason for its vitality is to be found in the temperament and training of the author. hallam was a lawyer in the sense in which that term is used at the bar; that is to say, not so much a seductive advocate as a man deeply versed in the law, accurate, judicious, and impartial. macaulay, who was as much the advocate as hallam is the judge, described the _constitutional history_ as "the most impartial book we ever read," and the tribute was not undeserved. hallam is often didactic, but he is never partisan. although a whig he was by no means concerned, like macaulay, to prove that the whigs were never in the wrong, and, as he shrewdly remarks, in his examination of the tenets of the two great parties in the eighteenth century: "it is one thing to prefer the whig principles, another to justify, as an advocate, the party which bore that name." no better illustration of his attitude of mind can be found than the passage in which, treating of the outbreak of hostilities between charles i. and the long parliament, he sets himself to consider "whether _a thoroughly upright and enlightened man_ would rather have listed under the royal or the parliamentary standard." in these days when, as the distinguished occupant of the chair of modern history at cambridge tells us, "history has nothing to do with morality," hallam's grave anxiety to solve this problem may sound quaint and, indeed, irrelevant; but there is no denying the high purpose, the sincerity, and the passion for truth which characterise the passage in question. to-day the historian's conception of truth is purely objective: his aim is to discover what former generations thought rather than to concern himself with what we should think of them. the late lord acton[ ] stood almost alone among the modern school of historians in insisting that it is the duty of the historian to uphold "the authority of conscience" and "that moral standard which the powers of earth and religion itself tend constantly to depress." it is more fashionable to contend that the moral standard is relative; that we cannot judge the men of the past by the ethical rules of the present; that conscience itself is the product of historical development. it may be questioned whether this scepticism has not been carried too far. hallam had no such doubts. for him "the thoroughly upright and enlightened man" of the seventeenth century was not intrinsically different from the thoroughly upright and enlightened man of the nineteenth; the one concession he makes to time is that the historian is probably in a better, not a worse, position to judge than the men of whom he writes--if only because he is more detached. he condemns the obsequiousness of cranmer, the bigotry of laud, the tortuousness of charles i., the ambition of strafford, with the same reprobation as he would have extended to similar obliquities in a contemporary. unless we are to exclude conduct altogether from our consideration and to deny the personal factor in history, we shall find it hard to say he is wrong. gardiner, the latest historian of the stuarts, does not hesitate to pronounce similar judgments, though he expresses himself more mildly. sorel, perhaps the most illustrious of the modern school of french historians and a scholar who spent his life among the archives, has not hesitated--in writing on the partition of poland--to speak of the nemesis which always waits upon such "public crimes." hallam's predilection for moral judgments is the more intelligible if we remember that his conception of "constitutional" history is somewhat wider than ours is to-day. he included in it much that would now be called "political" history. one has only to compare his work with the latest of our authorities--the posthumous book of f. w. maitland--to realise how the term has become specialised. maitland confines his treatment to the results of political action as they are represented in the growth of institutions; with political action itself he is, unlike hallam, not concerned. the rise and fall of parties, the issues of parliamentary debate, the progress of political speculation interest him but little and disturb him not at all. but to hallam these things were hardly less important than the statute book and the law reports. this liberal view of his subject is not a thing to be regretted. it enables the reader to appreciate the large part played in the development of the english constitution by those "conventions" which are a gloss upon the law and without which the constitution itself is unintelligible. as bagehot has pointed out, the legal powers of the king are as large as his actual authority is small. in strict legal theory the cabinet is merely an informal group of ministers of the crown who hold office during the king's pleasure. in fact and in practice it is a committee of the house of commons dependent upon the support of the majority of the members. the fact is the outcome of a conventional modification of the theory, and this convention is due to the political changes of the eighteenth century and the growth of the party system. in the pages of hallam these changes receive their due recognition, and without it the development of the english constitution is unintelligible. it was a favourite doctrine of hallam that so far as the law was concerned the constitution was developed very early and that all that later generations contributed to it was better administration of the law and a more vigilant public opinion. he even goes so far as to say in his chapter in the _middle ages_ that he doubts "whether there are any essential privileges of our countrymen, any fundamental securities against arbitrary power, so far as they depend upon positive institutions, which may not be traced to the time of the plantagenets." this is something of an anachronism, but it represents a not unjustifiable reaction against the high prerogative doctrines of writers of his own day. what hallam, however, was really concerned to prove was that constitutional law in this country rests upon the common law--upon the rules laid down by mediæval judges as to the right of the subject to trial by jury, his immunity from arbitrary arrest, his claim not to be arbitrarily dispossessed of his property, and his right of action against the servants of the crown when he has suffered wrong. in this conception hallam was undoubtedly right, and he urged it at a time when no one had made it as familiar as it has now become in the classic pages of professor dicey. but hallam was perfectly well aware that these securities for the liberty of the subject were often abused, that the sheriffs who empanelled the jury were often corrupt and the judges who directed it were not infrequently servile; also that so long as the star chamber existed no jury could venture to give a verdict of "not guilty" in a prosecution by the crown without running the risk of being heavily punished. he is not insensible to these abuses and to the length of time it took to correct them, as the reader of the following pages will discover for himself, and he attaches due weight to the constitutional importance of the act for the abolition of the star chamber. but the truth of his main contention (as expressed in his chapter on "the english constitution" in an earlier work[ ]), that what chiefly distinguished our constitution from that of other countries was the "security for personal freedom and property" enjoyed by the subject, is undeniable. it was not so much the possession of representative institutions as the enjoyment of equal rights at common law that constituted the englishman's advantage. maitland[ ] has recently pointed this out in language almost identical with that of hallam when he insists that "parliaments" or "estates" were in no way peculiar to england; every country in western europe possessed them in the middle ages, but what those countries did not possess was a great school of law like the inns of court determined to uphold at all costs the claims of the customary law of the nation against the despotic doctrines of the civil law of rome. hallam's attitude towards the constitution was that of burke--he regarded it with a veneration little short of superstition. he has expressed himself in his earlier works in words which can hardly fail to provoke a smile to-day:-- "no unbiassed observer, who derives pleasure from the welfare of his species, can fail to consider the long and uninterruptedly increasing prosperity of england as the most beautiful phenomenon in the history of mankind. climates more propitious may impart more largely the mere enjoyments of existence; but in no other region have the benefits that political institutions can confer been diffused over so extended a population; nor have any people so well reconciled the discordant elements of wealth, order, and liberty. these advantages are surely not owing to the soil of this island, nor to the latitude in which it is placed; but to the spirit of its laws, from which, through various means, the characteristic independence and industriousness of our nation have been derived. the constitution, therefore, of england must be to inquisitive men of all countries, far more to ourselves, an object of superior interest; distinguished especially as it is from all free governments of powerful nations which history has recorded by its manifesting, after the lapse of several centuries, not merely no symptom of irretrievable decay, but a more expansive energy."[ ] if his language seems extravagant, i may remind the reader that there would have been few in hallam's day who were prepared to dispute it. england, almost alone among the states of europe, had escaped the infection of the french revolution. its constitution had survived the shock of a movement which, as de tocqueville has remarked, was as widely destructive of the old order in europe as the reformation itself. the result was to give the english constitution such a prestige as it had not enjoyed since the days of montesquieu. a school of thinkers, beginning with guizot and hardly terminating with gneist, grew up on the continent who made it their duty to follow burke's advice and "study the british constitution" as the last word in political wisdom. hallam's complacency may be naive in its expression, but its sentiment is sound, and englishmen should be the last to disclaim it. upon this rock many a political church has been built; the "law and custom of our parliament" have, since he wrote, been studied in every university in europe and adopted in almost all the legislatures of the civilised world. hallam, like thucydides, with whom in dignity and sententiousness he may not unjustly be compared, had a noble pride in the constitution of his country. j. h. morgan. footnotes: [ ] cf. _historical essays and studies_, vol. ii. p. . [ ] _europe during the middle ages_, chapter viii. part . i may remind the reader that hallam regarded his _constitutional history_ as a continuation of this chapter, which sketches the development of the constitution from the earliest times down to the accession of henry vii., the point at which the present work begins. [ ] _english law at the renaissance_, p. . [ ] _middle ages_ ( th ed.), ii. p. . bibliography a view of the state of europe during the middle ages, ; nd edition, ; passed through twelve editions before ; revised and corrected, ; adapted to the use of students by w. smith, ; edited by a. murray, ; translated into italian by g. carraro and published at firenze, ; supplemental notes to view of the state of europe, . the constitutional history of england from the accession of henry viii. to death of george ii., ; translated into german by f. a. rüder and published at leipzig, ; translated into french by m. guizot and published in paris, ; passed through eight editions before ; adapted to the use of students by w. smith, . edited (with preface and memoir of his son) remains in verse and prose of a. h. hallam, , . the introduction to the literature of europe during the th, th, and th centuries, - ; nd edition, ; other editions, , , . contributed to j. c. hare's vindication of luther against his recent english assailants ( nd edition, enlarged), . a short life and criticism of henry hallam appears in f. a. m. mignet's _eloges historiques_, published in paris in . to henry marquis of lansdowne in token of high esteem and sincere regard this work is respectfully inscribed by the author contents chapter i on the english constitution from henry vii. to mary ancient government of england--limitations of royal authority--difference in the effective operation of these--sketch of the state of society and law--henry vii.--statute for the security of the subject under a king _de facto_--statute of fines--discussion of its effect and motive--exactions of money under henry vii.--taxes demanded by henry viii.--illegal exactions of wolsey in and --acts of parliament releasing the king from his debts--a benevolence again exacted--oppressive treatment of reed--severe and unjust executions for treason--earl of warwick--earl of suffolk--duke of buckingham--new treasons created by statute--executions of fisher and more--cromwell --duke of norfolk--anne boleyn--fresh statutes enacting the penalties of treason--act giving proclamations the force of law--government of edward vi.'s counsellors--attainder of lord seymour and duke of somerset--violence of mary's reign--the house of commons recovers part of its independent power in these two reigns--attempt of the court to strengthen itself by creating new boroughs--causes of the high prerogative of the tudors--jurisdiction of the council of star-chamber--this not the same with the court erected by henry vii.--influence of the authority of the star-chamber in enhancing the royal power--tendency of religious disputes to the same end page chapter ii on the english church under henry viii., edward vi., and mary state of public opinion as to religion--henry viii.'s controversy with luther--his divorce from catherine --separation from the church of rome--dissolution of monasteries--progress of the reformed doctrine in england--its establishment under edward--sketch of the chief points of difference between the two religions--opposition made by part of the nation--cranmer--his moderation in introducing changes not acceptable to the zealots--mary --persecution under her--its effect rather favourable to protestantism page chapter iii on the laws of elizabeth's reign respecting the roman catholics change of religion on the queen's accession--acts of supremacy and uniformity--restraint of roman catholic worship in the first years of elizabeth--statute of --speech of lord montague against it--this act not fully enforced--application of the emperor in behalf of the english catholics--persecution of this body in the ensuing period--uncertain succession of the crown between the families of scotland and suffolk--the queen's unwillingness to decide this, or to marry--imprisonment of lady catherine grey--mary queen of scotland--combination in her favour--bull of pius v.--statutes for the queen's security--catholics more rigorously treated--refugees in the netherlands--their hostility to the government--fresh laws against the catholic worship--execution of campion and others--defence of the queen by burleigh--increased severity of the government--mary--plot in her favour--her execution--remarks upon it--continued persecution of roman catholics--general observations page chapter iv on the laws of elizabeth's reign respecting protestant nonconformists origin of the differences among the english protestants --religious inclinations of the queen--unwillingness of many to comply with the established ceremonies--conformity enforced by the archbishop--against the disposition of others--a more determined opposition, about , led by cartwright--dangerous nature of his tenets--puritans supported in the commons--and in some measure by the council--prophesyings--archbishops grindal and whitgift --conduct of the latter in enforcing conformity--high commission court--lord burleigh averse to severity--puritan libels--attempt to set up a presbyterian system--house of commons averse to episcopal authority--independents liable to severe laws--hooker's _ecclesiastical polity_--its character--spoliation of church revenues--general remarks--letter of walsingham in defence of the queen's government page chapter v on the civil government of elizabeth general remarks--defective security of the subject's liberty--trials for treason and other political offences unjustly conducted--illegal commitments--remonstrance of judges against them--proclamations unwarranted by law--restrictions on printing--martial law--loans of money not quite voluntary--character of lord burleigh's administration--disposition of the house of commons --addresses concerning the succession--difference on this between the queen and commons in --session of --influence of the puritans in parliament--speech of mr. wentworth in --the commons continue to seek redress of ecclesiastical grievances--also of monopolies, especially in the session of --influence of the crown in parliament --debate on election of non-resident burgesses--assertion of privileges by commons--case of ferrers, under henry viii.--other cases of privilege--privilege of determining contested elections claimed by the house--the english constitution not admitted to be an absolute monarchy--pretensions of the crown page chapter vi on the english constitution under james i. quiet accession of james--question of his title to the crown--legitimacy of the earl of hertford's issue--early unpopularity of the king--conduct towards the puritans --parliament convoked by an irregular proclamation--question of fortescue and goodwin's election--shirley's case of privilege--complaints of grievances--commons' vindication of themselves--session of --union with scotland debated--continual bickerings between the crown and commons--impositions on merchandise without consent of parliament--remonstrances against these in session of --doctrine of king's absolute power inculcated by clergy--articuli cleri--cowell's interpreter--renewed complaints of the commons--negotiation for giving up the feudal revenue--dissolution of parliament--character of james--death of lord salisbury--foreign politics of the government--lord coke's alienation from the court--illegal proclamations--means resorted to in order to avoid the meeting of parliament--parliament of --undertakers--it is dissolved without passing a single act--benevolences --prosecution of peacham--dispute about the jurisdiction of the court of chancery--case of commendams--arbitrary proceedings in star-chamber--arabella stuart--somerset and overbury--sir walter raleigh--parliament of --proceedings against mompesson and lord bacon--violence in the case of floyd--disagreement between the king and commons--their dissolution, after a strong remonstrance --marriage-treaty with spain--parliament of --impeachment of middlesex page chapter vii on the english constitution from the accession of charles i. to the dissolution of his third parliament parliament of --its dissolution--another parliament called--prosecution of buckingham--arbitrary proceedings towards the earls of arundel and bristol--loan demanded by the king--several committed for refusal to contribute--they sue for a habeas corpus--arguments on this question, which is decided against them--a parliament called in --petition of right--king's reluctance to grant it--tonnage and poundage disputed--king dissolves parliament--religious differences--prosecution of puritans by bancroft--growth of high-church tenets--differences as to the observance of sunday--arminian controversy--state catholics under james--jealousy of the court's favour towards them--unconstitutional tenets promulgated by the high-church party--general remarks page preface the origin and progress of the english constitution, down to the extinction of the house of plantagenet, formed a considerable portion of a work published by me some years since, on the history, and especially the laws and institutions, of europe during the period of the middle ages. it had been my first intention to have prosecuted that undertaking in a general continuation; and when experience taught me to abandon a scheme projected early in life with very inadequate views of its magnitude, i still determined to carry forward the constitutional history of my own country, as both the most important to ourselves, and, in many respects, the most congenial to my own studies and habits of mind. the title which i have adopted, appears to exclude all matter not referable to the state of government, or what is loosely denominated the constitution. i have, therefore, generally abstained from mentioning, except cursorily, either military or political transactions, which do not seem to bear on this primary subject. it must, however, be evident, that the constitutional and general history of england, at some periods, nearly coincide; and i presume that a few occasional deviations of this nature will not be deemed unpardonable, especially where they tend, at least indirectly, to illustrate the main topic of enquiry. nor will the reader, perhaps, be of opinion that i have forgotten my theme in those parts of the following work which relate to the establishment of the english church, and to the proceedings of the state with respect to those who have dissented from it; facts certainly belonging to the history of our constitution, in the large sense of the word, and most important in their application to modern times, for which all knowledge of the past is principally valuable. still less apology can be required for a slight verbal inconsistency with the title of these volumes in the addition of two supplemental chapters on scotland and ireland. this indeed i mention less to obviate a criticism, which possibly might not be suggested, than to express my regret that, on account of their brevity, if for no other reasons, they are both so disproportionate to the interest and importance of their subjects. during the years that, amidst avocations of different kinds, have been occupied in the composition of this work, several others have been given to the world, and have attracted considerable attention, relating particularly to the periods of the reformation and of the civil wars. it seems necessary to mention that i have read none of these, till after i had written such of the following pages as treat of the same subjects. the three first chapters indeed were finished in , before the appearance of those publications which have led to so much controversy, as to the ecclesiastical history of the sixteenth century; and i was equally unacquainted with mr. brodie's _history of the british empire from the accession of charles i. to the restoration_, while engaged myself on that period. i have, however, on a revision of the present work, availed myself of the valuable labours of recent authors, especially dr. lingard and mr. brodie; and in several of my notes i have sometimes supported myself by their authority, sometimes taken the liberty to express my dissent; but i have seldom thought it necessary to make more than a few verbal modifications in my text. it would, perhaps, not become me to offer any observations on these contemporaries; but i cannot refrain from bearing testimony to the work of a distinguished foreigner, m. guizot, _histoire de la revolution d'angleterre, depuis l'avenement de charles i. jusqu'à la chute de jacques ii._, the first volume of which was published in . the extensive knowledge of m. guizot, and his remarkable impartiality, have already been displayed in his collection of memoirs illustrating that part of english history; and i am much disposed to believe that if the rest of his present undertaking shall be completed in as satisfactory a manner as the first volume, he will be entitled to the preference above any one, perhaps, of our native writers, as a guide through the great period of the seventeenth century. in terminating the _constitutional history of england_ at the accession of george iii., i have been influenced by unwillingness to excite the prejudices of modern politics, especially those connected with personal character, which extend back through at least a large portion of that reign. it is indeed vain to expect that any comprehensive account of the two preceding centuries can be given without risking the disapprobation of those parties, religious or political, which originated during that period; but as i shall hardly incur the imputation of being the blind zealot of any of these, i have little to fear, in this respect, from the dispassionate public, whose favour, both in this country and on the continent, has been bestowed on my former work, with a liberality less due to any literary merit it may possess, than to a regard for truth, which will, i trust, be found equally characteristic of the present. _june ._ advertisement to the third edition the present edition has been revised, and some use made of recent publications. the note on the authenticity of the icon basilice, at the end of the second volume of the two former editions, has been withdrawn; not from the slightest doubt in the author's mind as to the correctness of its argument; but because a discussion of a point of literary criticism, as this ought to be considered, seemed rather out of its place in the _constitutional history of england_. _april ._ list of authorities _the following editions have been used for the references in these volumes_ _statutes at large_, by ruffhead, except where the late edition of _statutes of the realm_ is expressly quoted. _state trials_, by howell. rymer's _foedera_, london, vols. the paging of this edition is preserved in the margin of the hague edition in vols. _parliamentary history_, new edition. burnet's _history of the reformation_, vols. folio, . strype's _ecclesiastical memorials_, _annals of reformation_, and lives of archbishops cranmer, parker, grindal, and whitgift, folio. the paging of these editions is preserved in those lately published in vo. hall's _chronicles of england_. holingshed's _chronicles of england, scotland, and ireland_. the edition in to published in . _somers tracts_, by walter scott, vols. to. _harleian miscellany_, vols. to. neal's _history of the puritans_, vols. to. bacon's works, by mallet, vols. folio, . kennet's _complete history of england_, vols. folio, . wood's _history of university of oxford_, by gutch, vols. to. lingard's _history of england_, vols. vo. butler's _memoirs of english catholics_, vols. . harris's _lives of james i., charles i., cromwell, and charles ii._, vols. . clarendon's _history of the rebellion_, vols. vo. oxford, . it is to be regretted that the editor has not preserved the paging of the folio in his margin, which is of great convenience in a book so frequently referred to; and still more so, that he has not thought the true text worthy of a better place than the bottom of the page, leaving to the spurious readings the post of honour. clarendon's _life_, folio. _rushworth abridged_, vols. vo. . this edition contains many additions from works published since the folio edition in . whitelock's _memorials_, . _memoirs of col. hutchinson_, to. . may's _history of the parliament_, to. . baxter's _life_, folio. rapin's _history of england_, vols. folio, . burnet's _history of his own times_, vols. folio. the paging of this edition is preserved in the margin of that printed at oxford, , which is sometimes quoted, and the text of which has always been followed. _life of william lord russell_, by lord john russell, to. temple's _works_, vols. folio, . coxe's _life of marlborough_, vols. to. coxe's _memoirs of sir robert walpole_, vols. to. robertson's _history of scotland_, vols. vo. . laing's _history of scotland_, vols. vo. dalrymple's _annals of scotland_, vols. to. leland's _history of ireland_, vols. to. spenser's _account of state of ireland_, in th volume of todd's edition of spenser's works. these are, i believe, almost all the works quoted in the following volumes, concerning which any uncertainty could arise from the mode of reference. constitutional history of england from henry vii. to george ii. chapter i on the english constitution from henry vii. to mary _ancient government of england._--the government of england, in all times recorded by history, has been one of those mixed or limited monarchies which the celtic and gothic tribes appear universally to have established, in preference to the coarse despotism of eastern nations, to the more artificial tyranny of rome and constantinople, or to the various models of republican polity which were tried upon the coasts of the mediterranean sea. it bore the same general features, it belonged, as it were, to the same family, as the governments of almost every european state, though less resembling, perhaps, that of france than any other. but, in the course of many centuries, the boundaries which determined the sovereign's prerogative and the people's liberty or power having seldom been very accurately defined by law, or at least by such law as was deemed fundamental and unchangeable, the forms and principles of political regimen in these different nations became more divergent from each other, according to their peculiar dispositions, the revolutions they underwent, or the influence of personal character. england, more fortunate than the rest, had acquired in the fifteenth century a just reputation for the goodness of her laws and the security of her citizens from oppression. this liberty had been the slow fruit of ages, still waiting a happier season for its perfect ripeness, but already giving proof of the vigour and industry which had been employed in its culture. i have endeavoured, in a work of which this may in a certain degree be reckoned a continuation, to trace the leading events and causes of its progress. it will be sufficient in this place briefly to point out the principal circumstances in the polity of england at the accession of henry vii. _limitations of royal authority._--the essential checks upon the royal authority were five in number.-- . the king could levy no sort of new tax upon his people, except by the grant of his parliament, consisting as well of bishops and mitred abbots, or lords spiritual, and of hereditary peers or temporal lords, who sat and voted promiscuously in the same chamber, as of representatives from the freeholders of each county, and from the burgesses of many towns and less considerable places, forming the lower or commons' house. . the previous assent and authority of the same assembly was necessary for every new law, whether of a general or temporary nature. . no man could be committed to prison but by a legal warrant specifying his offence; and by an usage nearly tantamount to constitutional right, he must be speedily brought to trial by means of regular sessions of gaol-delivery. . the fact of guilt or innocence on a criminal charge was determined in a public court, and in the county where the offence was alleged to have occurred, by a jury of twelve men, from whose unanimous verdict no appeal could be made. civil rights, so far as they depended on questions of fact, were subject to the same decision. . the officers and servants of the crown, violating the personal liberty or other right of the subject, might be sued in an action for damages, to be assessed by a jury, or, in some cases, were liable to criminal process; nor could they plead any warrant or command in their justification, not even the direct order of the king. these securities, though it would be easy to prove that they were all recognised in law, differed much in the degree of their effective operation. it may be said of the first, that it was now completely established. after a long contention, the kings of england had desisted for near a hundred years from every attempt to impose taxes without consent of parliament; and their recent device of demanding benevolences, or half-compulsory gifts, though very oppressive, and on that account just abolished by an act of the late usurper, richard, was in effect a recognition of the general principle, which it sought to elude rather than transgress. the necessary concurrence of the two houses of parliament in legislation, though it could not be more unequivocally established than the former, had in earlier times been more free from all attempt or pretext of encroachment. we know not of any laws that were ever enacted by our kings without the assent and advice of their great council; though it is justly doubted, whether the representatives of the ordinary freeholders, or of the boroughs, had seats and suffrages in that assembly during seven or eight reigns after the conquest. they were then, however, ingrafted upon it with plenary legislative authority; and if the sanction of a statute were required for this fundamental axiom, we might refer to one in the th of edward ii. ( ), which declares that "the matters to be established for the estate of the king and of his heirs, and for the estate of the realm and of the people, should be treated, accorded, and established in parliament, by the king, and by the assent of the prelates, earls, and barons, and the commonalty of the realm, according as had been before accustomed."[ ] it may not be impertinent to remark in this place, that the opinion of such as have fancied the royal prerogative under the houses of plantagenet and tudor to have had no effectual or unquestioned limitations is decisively refuted by the notorious fact, that no alteration in the general laws of the realm was ever made, or attempted to be made, without the consent of parliament. it is not surprising that the council, in great exigency of money, should sometimes employ force to extort it from the merchants, or that servile lawyers should be found to vindicate these encroachments of power. impositions, like other arbitrary measures, were particular and temporary, prompted by rapacity, and endured through compulsion. but if the kings of england had been supposed to enjoy an absolute authority, we should find some proofs of it in their exercise of the supreme function of sovereignty, the enactment of new laws. yet there is not a single instance from the first dawn of our constitutional history, where a proclamation, or order of council, has dictated any change, however trifling, in the code of private rights, or in the penalties of criminal offences. was it ever pretended that the king could empower his subjects to devise their freeholds, or to levy fines of their entailed lands? has even the slightest regulation as to judicial procedure, or any permanent prohibition, even in fiscal law, been ever enforced without statute? there was, indeed, a period, later than that of henry vii., when a control over the subject's free right of doing all things not unlawful was usurped by means of proclamations. these, however, were always temporary, and did not affect to alter the established law. but though it would be difficult to assert that none of this kind had ever been issued in rude and irregular times, i have not observed any under the kings of the plantagenet name which evidently transgress the boundaries of their legal prerogative. the general privileges of the nation were far more secure than those of private men. great violence was often used by the various officers of the crown, for which no adequate redress could be procured; the courts of justice were not strong enough, whatever might be their temper, to chastise such aggressions; juries, through intimidation or ignorance, returned such verdicts as were desired by the crown; and, in general, there was perhaps little effective restraint upon the government, except in the two articles of levying money and enacting laws. _state of society and law._--the peers alone, a small body varying from about fifty to eighty persons, enjoyed the privileges of aristocracy; which, except that of sitting in parliament, were not very considerable, far less oppressive. all below them, even their children, were commoners, and in the eye of the law equal to each other. in the gradation of ranks, which, if not regally recognised, must still subsist through the necessary inequalities of birth and wealth, we find the gentry or principal landholders, many of them distinguished by knighthood, and all by bearing coat armour, but without any exclusive privilege; the yeomanry, or small freeholders and farmers, a very numerous and respectable body, some occupying their own estates, some those of landlords; the burgesses and inferior inhabitants of trading towns; and, lastly, the peasantry and labourers. of these, in earlier times, a considerable part, though not perhaps so very large a proportion as is usually taken for granted, had been in the ignominious state of villenage, incapable of possessing property but at the will of their lords. they had, however, gradually been raised above this servitude; many had acquired a stable possession of lands under the name of copyholders; and the condition of mere villenage was become rare. the three courts at westminster--the king's bench, common pleas, and exchequer--consisting each of four or five judges, administered justice to the whole kingdom; the first having an appellant jurisdiction over the second, and the third being in a great measure confined to causes affecting the crown's property. but as all suits relating to land, as well as some others, and all criminal indictments, could only be determined, so far as they depended upon oral evidence, by a jury of the county, it was necessary that justices of assize and gaol-delivery, being in general the judges of the courts at westminster, should travel into each county, commonly twice a year, in order to try issues of fact, so called in distinction from issues of law, where the suitors, admitting all essential facts, disputed the rule applicable to them.[ ] by this device, which is as ancient as the reign of henry ii., the fundamental privilege of trial by jury, and the convenience of private suitors, as well as accused persons, was made consistent with an uniform jurisprudence; and though the reference of every legal question, however insignificant, to the courts above must have been inconvenient and expensive in a still greater degree than at present, it had doubtless a powerful tendency to knit together the different parts of england, to check the influence of feudality and clanship, to make the inhabitants of distant counties better acquainted with the capital city and more accustomed to the course of government, and to impair the spirit of provincial patriotism and animosity. the minor tribunals of each county, hundred, and manor, respectable for their antiquity and for their effect in preserving a sense of freedom and justice, had in a great measure, though not probably so much as in modern times, gone into disuse. in a few counties there still remained a palatine jurisdiction, exclusive of the king's courts; but in these the common rules of law and the mode of trial by jury were preserved. justices of the peace, appointed out of the gentlemen of each county, enquired into criminal charges, committed offenders to prison, and tried them at their quarterly sessions, according to the same forms as the judges of gaol-delivery. the chartered towns had their separate jurisdiction under the municipal magistracy. the laws against theft were severe, and capital punishments unsparingly inflicted. yet they had little effect in repressing acts of violence, to which a rude and licentious state of manners, and very imperfect dispositions for preserving the public peace, naturally gave rise. these were frequently perpetrated or instigated by men of superior wealth and power, above the control of the mere officers of justice. meanwhile the kingdom was increasing in opulence, the english merchants possessed a large share of the trade of the north; and a woollen manufacture, established in different parts of the kingdom, had not only enabled the legislature to restrain the import of cloths, but begun to supply foreign nations. the population may probably be reckoned, without any material error, at about three millions, but by no means distributed in the same proportions as at present; the northern counties, especially lancashire and cumberland, being very ill peopled, and the inhabitants of london and westminster not exceeding sixty or seventy thousand.[ ] such was the political condition of england, when henry tudor, the only living representative of the house of lancaster, though incapable, by reason of the illegitimacy of the ancestor who connected him with it, of asserting a just right of inheritance, became master of the throne by the defeat and death of his competitor at bosworth, and by the general submission of the kingdom. he assumed the royal title immediately after his victory, and summoned a parliament to recognise or sanction his possession. the circumstances were by no means such as to offer an auspicious presage for the future. a subdued party had risen from the ground, incensed by proscription and elated by success; the late battle had in effect been a contest between one usurper and another; and england had little better prospect than a renewal of that desperate and interminable contention, which the pretences of hereditary right have so often entailed upon nations. a parliament called by a conqueror might be presumed to be itself conquered. yet this assembly did not display so servile a temper, or so much of the lancastrian spirit, as might be expected. it was "ordained and enacted by the assent of the lords, and at the request of the commons, that the inheritance of the crowns of england and france, and all dominions appertaining to them, should remain in henry vii. and the heirs of his body for ever, and in none other."[ ] words studiously ambiguous, which, while they avoid the assertion of an hereditary right that the public voice repelled, were meant to create a parliamentary title, before which the pretensions of lineal descent were to give way. they seem to make henry the stock of a new dynasty. but, lest the spectre of indefeasible right should stand once more in arms on the tomb of the house of york, the two houses of parliament showed an earnest desire for the king's marriage with the daughter of edward iv., who, if she should bear only the name of royalty, might transmit an undisputed inheritance of its prerogatives to her posterity. _statute for the security of the subject under a king_ de facto.--this marriage, and the king's great vigilance in guarding his crown, caused his reign to pass with considerable reputation, though not without disturbance. he had to learn by the extraordinary, though transient, success of two impostors (if the second may with certainty be reckoned such), that his subjects were still strongly infected with the prejudice which had once overthrown the family he claimed to represent. nor could those who served him be exempt from apprehensions of a change of dynasty, which might convert them into attainted rebels. the state of the nobles and gentry had been intolerable during the alternate proscriptions of henry vi. and edward iv. such apprehensions led to a very important statute in the eleventh year of this king's reign, intended, as far as law could furnish a prospective security against the violence and vengeance of factions, to place the civil duty of allegiance on a just and reasonable foundation, and indirectly to cut away the distinction between governments _de jure_ and _de facto_. it enacts, after reciting that subjects by reason of their allegiance are bound to serve their prince for the time being against every rebellion and power raised against him, that "no person attending upon the king and sovereign lord of this land for the time being, and doing him true and faithful service, shall be convicted of high treason, by act of parliament or other process of law, nor suffer any forfeiture or punishment; but that every act made contrary to this statute should be void and of no effect."[ ] the endeavour to bind future parliaments was of course nugatory; but the statute remains an unquestionable authority for the constitutional maxim, that possession of the throne gives a sufficient title to the subject's allegiance, and justifies his resistance of those who may pretend to a better right. it was much resorted to in argument at the time of the revolution, and in the subsequent period.[ ] it has been usual to speak of this reign as if it formed a great epoch in our constitution; the king having by his politic measures broken the power of the barons who had hitherto withstood the prerogative, while the commons had not yet risen from the humble station which they were supposed to have occupied. i doubt, however, whether the change was quite so precisely referable to the time of henry vii., and whether his policy has not been somewhat over-rated. in certain respects, his reign is undoubtedly an æra in our history. it began in revolution and a change in the line of descent. it nearly coincides, which is more material, with the commencement of what is termed modern history, as distinguished from the middle ages, and with the memorable events that have led us to make that leading distinction, especially the consolidation of the great european monarchies, among which england took a conspicuous station. but, relatively to the main subject of our enquiry, it is not evident that henry vii. carried the authority of the crown much beyond the point at which edward iv. had left it. the strength of the nobility had been grievously impaired by the bloodshed of the civil wars, and the attainders that followed them. from this cause, or from the general intimidation, we find, as i have observed in another place, that no laws favourable to public liberty, or remedial with respect to the aggressions of power, were enacted, or (so far as appears) even proposed in parliament, during the reign of edward iv.; the first, since that of john, to which such a remark can be applied. the commons, who had not always been so humble and abject as smatterers in history are apt to fancy, were by this time much degenerated from the spirit they had displayed under edward iii. and richard ii. thus the founder of the line of tudor came, not certainly to an absolute, but a vigorous prerogative, which his cautious dissembling temper and close attention to business were well calculated to extend. _statute of fines._--the laws of henry vii. have been highly praised by lord bacon as "deep and not vulgar, not made upon the spur of a particular occasion for the present, but out of providence for the future, to make the estate of his people still more and more happy, after the manner of the legislators in ancient and heroical times." but when we consider how very few kings or statesmen have displayed this prospective wisdom and benevolence in legislation, we may hesitate a little to bestow so rare a praise upon henry. like the laws of all other times, his statutes seem to have had no further aim than to remove some immediate mischief, or to promote some particular end. one, however, has been much celebrated as an instance of his sagacious policy, and as the principal cause of exalting the royal authority upon the ruins of the aristocracy; i mean, the statute of fines (as one passed in the fourth year of his reign is commonly called), which is supposed to have given the power of alienating entailed lands. but both the intention and effect of this seem not to have been justly apprehended. in the first place it is remarkable that the statute of henry vii. is merely a transcript, with very little variation, from one of richard iii., which is actually printed in most editions. it was re-enacted, as we must presume, in order to obviate any doubt, however ill-grounded, which might hang upon the validity of richard's laws. thus vanish at once into air the deep policy of henry vii. and his insidious schemes of leading on a prodigal aristocracy to its ruin. it is surely strange that those who have extolled this sagacious monarch for breaking the fetters of landed property (though many of them were lawyers) should never have observed, that whatever credit might be due for the innovation should redound to the honour of the unfortunate usurper. but richard, in truth, had no leisure for such long-sighted projects of strengthening a throne for his posterity which he could not preserve for himself. his law, and that of his successor, had a different object in view. it would be useless to some readers, and perhaps disgusting to others, especially in the very outset of this work, to enter upon the history of the english law as to the power of alienation. but i cannot explain the present subject without mentioning that, by a statute in the reign of edward i, commonly called _de donis conditionalibus_, lands given to a man and the heirs of his body, with remainder to other persons, or reversion to the donor, could not be alienated by the possessor for the time being, either from his own issue, or from those who were to succeed them. such lands were also incapable of forfeiture for treason or felony; and more, perhaps, upon this account than from any more enlarged principle, these entails were not viewed with favour by the courts of justice. several attempts were successfully made to relax their strictness; and finally, in the reign of edward iv., it was held by the judges in the famous case of taltarum, that a tenant in tail might, by what is called suffering a common recovery, that is, by means of an imaginary process of law, divest all those who were to come after him of their succession, and become owner of the fee simple. such a decision was certainly far beyond the sphere of judicial authority. the legislature, it was probably suspected, would not have consented to infringe a statute which they reckoned the safeguard of their families. the law, however, was laid down by the judges; and in those days the appellant jurisdiction of the house of lords, by means of which the aristocracy might have indignantly reversed the insidious decision, had gone wholly into disuse. it became by degrees a fundamental principle, that an estate in tail can be barred by a common recovery; nor is it possible by any legal subtlety to deprive the tenant of this control over his estate. schemes were indeed gradually devised, which to a limited extent have restrained the power of alienation; but these do not belong to our subject. the real intention of these statutes of richard and henry was not to give the tenant in tail a greater power over his estate (for it is by no means clear that the words enable him to bar his issue by levying a fine; and when a decision to that effect took place long afterwards ( h. ), it was with such difference of opinion that it was thought necessary to confirm the interpretation by a new act of parliament); but rather, by establishing a short term of prescription, to put a check on the suits for recovery of lands, which, after times of so much violence and disturbance, were naturally springing up in the courts. it is the usual policy of commonwealths to favour possession; and on this principle the statute enacts, that a fine levied with proclamations in a public court of justice shall after five years, except in particular circumstances, be a bar to all claims upon lands. this was its main scope; the liberty of alienation was neither necessary, nor probably intended to be given.[ ] _exactions of henry vii._--the two first of the tudors rarely experienced opposition but when they endeavoured to levy money. taxation, in the eyes of their subjects, was so far from being no tyranny, that it seemed the only species worth a complaint. henry vii. obtained from his first parliament a grant of tonnage and poundage during life, according to several precedents of former reigns. but when general subsidies were granted, the same people, who would have seen an innocent man led to prison or the scaffold with little attention, twice broke out into dangerous rebellions; and as these, however arising from such immediate discontent, were yet a good deal connected with the opinion of henry's usurpation and the claims of a pretender, it was a necessary policy to avoid too frequent imposition of burdens upon the poorer classes of the community.[ ] he had recourse accordingly to the system of benevolences, or contributions apparently voluntary, though in fact extorted from his richer subjects. these having become an intolerable grievance under edward iv., were abolished in the only parliament of richard iii. with strong expressions of indignation. but in the seventh year of henry's reign, when, after having with timid and parsimonious hesitation suffered the marriage of anne of brittany with charles viii., he was compelled by the national spirit to make a demonstration of war, he ventured to try this unfair and unconstitutional method of obtaining aid, which received afterwards too much of a parliamentary sanction, by an act enforcing the payment of arrears of money, which private men had thus been prevailed upon to promise.[ ] the statute indeed of richard is so expressed as not clearly to forbid the solicitation of voluntary gifts, which of course rendered it almost nugatory. archbishop morton is famous for the dilemma which he proposed to merchants and others, whom he solicited to contribute. he told those who lived handsomely, that their opulence was manifest by their rate of expenditure. those, again, whose course of living was less sumptuous, must have grown rich by their economy. either class could well afford assistance to their sovereign. this piece of logic, unanswerable in the mouth of a privy councillor, acquired the name of morton's fork. henry doubtless reaped great profit from these indefinite exactions, miscalled benevolences. but, insatiate of accumulating treasure, he discovered other methods of extortion, still more odious, and possibly more lucrative. many statutes had been enacted in preceding reigns, sometimes rashly or from temporary motives, sometimes in opposition to prevailing usages which they could not restrain, of which the pecuniary penalties, though exceedingly severe, were so little enforced as to have lost their terror. these his ministers raked out from oblivion; and, prosecuting such as could afford to endure the law's severity, filled his treasury with the dishonourable produce of amercements and forfeitures. the feudal rights became, as indeed they always had been, instrumental to oppression. the lands of those who died without heirs fell back to the crown by escheat. it was the duty of certain officers in every county to look after its rights. the king's title was to be found by the inquest of a jury, summoned at the instance of the escheator, and returned into the exchequer. it then became a matter of record, and could not be impeached. hence the escheators taking hasty inquests, or sometimes falsely pretending them, defeated the right heir of his succession. excessive fines were imposed on granting livery to the king's wards on their majority. informations for intrusion, criminal indictments, outlawries on civil process, in short, the whole course of justice, furnished pretences for exacting money; while a host of dependents on the court, suborned to play their part as witnesses, or even as jurors, rendered it hardly possible for the most innocent to escape these penalties. empson and dudley are notorious as the prostitute instruments of henry's avarice in the later and more unpopular years of his reign; but they dearly purchased a brief hour of favour by an ignominious death and perpetual infamy.[ ] the avarice of henry vii., as it rendered his government unpopular, which had always been penurious, must be deemed a drawback from the wisdom ascribed to him; though by his good fortune it answered the end of invigorating his power. by these fines and forfeitures he impoverished and intimidated the nobility. the earl of oxford compounded, by the payment of £ , , for the penalties he had incurred by keeping retainers in livery; a practice mischievous and illegal, but too customary to have been punished before this reign. even the king's clemency seems to have been influenced by the sordid motive of selling pardons; and it has been shown, that he made a profit of every office in his court, and received money for conferring bishoprics.[ ] it is asserted by early writers, though perhaps only on conjecture, that he left a sum thus amassed, of no less than £ , , at his decease. this treasure was soon dissipated by his successor, who had recourse to the assistance of parliament in the very first year of his reign. the foreign policy of henry viii., far unlike that of his father, was ambitious and enterprising. no former king had involved himself so frequently in the labyrinth of continental alliances. and, if it were necessary to abandon that neutrality which is generally the most advantageous and laudable course, it is certain that his early undertakings against france were more consonant to english interests, as well as more honourable, than the opposite policy, which he pursued after the battle of pavia. the campaigns of henry in france and scotland displayed the valour of our english infantry, seldom called into action for fifty years before, and contributed with other circumstances to throw a lustre over his reign, which prevented most of his contemporaries from duly appreciating its character. but they naturally drew the king into heavy expenses, and, together with his profusion and love of magnificence, rendered his government very burthensome. at his accession, however, the rapacity of his father's administration had excited such universal discontent, that it was found expedient to conciliate the nation. an act was passed in his first parliament to correct the abuses that had prevailed in finding the king's title to lands by escheat.[ ] the same parliament repealed a law of the late reign, enabling justices of assize and of the peace to determine all offences, except treason and felony, against any statute in force, without a jury, upon information in the king's name.[ ] this serious innovation had evidently been prompted by the spirit of rapacity, which probably some honest juries had shown courage enough to withstand. it was a much less laudable concession to the vindictive temper of an injured people, seldom unwilling to see bad methods employed in punishing bad men, that empson and dudley, who might perhaps by stretching the prerogative have incurred the penalties of a misdemeanor, were put to death on a frivolous charge of high treason.[ ] _taxes demanded by henry viii._--the demands made by henry viii. on parliament were considerable both in frequency and amount. notwithstanding the servility of those times, they sometimes attempted to make a stand against these inroads upon the public purse. wolsey came into the house of commons in , and asked for £ , , to be raised by a tax of one-fifth upon lands and goods, in order to prosecute the war just commenced against france. sir thomas more, then speaker, is said to have urged the house to acquiesce.[ ] but the sum demanded was so much beyond any precedent, that all the independent members opposed a vigorous resistance. a committee was appointed to remonstrate with the cardinal, and to set forth the impossibility of raising such a subsidy. it was alleged that it exceeded all the current coin of the kingdom. wolsey, after giving an uncivil answer to the committee, came down again to the house, on pretence of reasoning with them, but probably with a hope of carrying his end by intimidation. they received him, at more's suggestion, with all the train of attendants that usually encircled the haughtiest subject who had ever been known in england. but they made no other answer to his harangue than that it was their usage to debate only among themselves. these debates lasted fifteen or sixteen days. a considerable part of the commons appears to have consisted of the king's household officers, whose influence, with the utmost difficulty, obtained a grant much inferior to the cardinal's requisition, and payable by instalments in four years. but wolsey, greatly dissatisfied with this imperfect obedience, compelled the people to pay up the whole subsidy at once.[ ] _illegal exactions of wolsey in and ._--no parliament was assembled for nearly seven years after this time. wolsey had already resorted to more arbitrary methods of raising money by loans and benevolences.[ ] the year before this debate in the commons, he borrowed twenty thousand pounds of the city of london; yet so insufficient did that appear for the king's exigencies, that within two months commissioners were appointed throughout the kingdom to swear every man to the value of his possessions, requiring a rateable part according to such declaration. the clergy, it is said, were expected to contribute a fourth; but i believe that benefices above ten pounds in yearly value were taxed at one-third. such unparalleled violations of the clearest and most important privilege that belonged to englishmen excited a general apprehension.[ ] fresh commissioners however were appointed in , with instructions to demand the sixth part of every man's substance, payable in money, plate, or jewels, according to the last valuation.[ ] this demand wolsey made in person to the mayor and chief citizens of london. they attempted to remonstrate, but were warned to beware, lest "it might fortune to cost some their heads." some were sent to prison for hasty words, to which the smart of injury incited them. the clergy, from whom, according to usage, a larger measure of contribution was demanded, stood upon their privilege to grant their money only in convocation, and denied the right of a king of england to ask any man's money without authority of parliament. the rich and poor agreed in cursing the cardinal as the subverter of their laws and liberties; and said "if men should give their goods by a commission, then it would be worse than the taxes of france, and england should be bond, and not free."[ ] nor did their discontent terminate in complaints. the commissioners met with forcible opposition in several counties, and a serious insurrection broke out in suffolk. so menacing a spirit overawed the proud tempers of henry and his minister, who found it necessary not only to pardon all those concerned in these tumults, but to recede altogether upon some frivolous pretexts from the illegal exaction, revoking the commissions and remitting all sums demanded under them. they now resorted to the more specious request of a voluntary benevolence. this also the citizens of london endeavoured to repel, by alleging the statute of richard iii. but it was answered that he was an usurper, whose acts did not oblige a lawful sovereign. it does not appear whether or not wolsey was more successful in this new scheme; but, generally, rich individuals had no remedy but to compound with the government. no very material attempt had been made since the reign of edward iii. to levy a general imposition without consent of parliament, and in the most remote and irregular times it would be difficult to find a precedent for so universal and enormous an exaction; since tallages, however arbitrary, were never paid by the barons or freeholders, nor by their tenants; and the aids to which they were liable were restricted to particular cases. if wolsey therefore could have procured the acquiescence of the nation under this yoke, there would probably have been an end of parliaments for all ordinary purposes; though, like the states general of france, they might still be convoked to give weight and security to great innovations. we cannot indeed doubt that the unshackled condition of his friend, though rival, francis i., afforded a mortifying contrast to henry. even under his tyrannical administration there was enough to distinguish the king of a people who submitted in murmuring to violations of their known rights, from one whose subjects had almost forgotten that they ever possessed any. but the courage and love of freedom natural to the english commons, speaking in the hoarse voice of tumult, though very ill supported by their superiors, preserved us in so great a peril.[ ] _acts of parliament releasing the king from his debts._--if we justly regard with detestation the memory of those ministers who have aimed at subverting the liberties of their country, we shall scarcely approve the partiality of some modern historians towards cardinal wolsey; a partiality, too, that contradicts the general opinion of his contemporaries. haughty beyond comparison, negligent of the duties and decorums of his station, profuse as well as rapacious, obnoxious alike to his own order and to the laity, his fall had long been secretly desired by the nation and contrived by his adversaries. his generosity and magnificence seem rather to have dazzled succeeding ages than his own. but, in fact, his best apology is the disposition of his master. the latter years of henry's reign were far more tyrannical than those during which he listened to the counsels of wolsey; and though this was principally owing to the peculiar circumstances of the latter period, it is but equitable to allow some praise to a minister for the mischief which he may be presumed to have averted. had a nobler spirit animated the parliament which met at the era of wolsey's fall, it might have prompted his impeachment for gross violations of liberty. but these were not the offences that had forfeited his prince's favour, or that they dared bring to justice. they were not absent perhaps from the recollection of some of those who took a part in prosecuting the fallen minister. i can discover no better apology for sir thomas more's participation in impeaching wolsey on articles so frivolous that they have served to redeem his fame with later times, than his knowledge of weightier offences against the common weal which could not be alleged, and especially the commissions of .[ ] but in truth this parliament showed little outward disposition to object any injustice of such a kind to the cardinal. they professed to take upon themselves to give a sanction to his proceedings, as if in mockery of their own and their country's liberties. they passed a statute, the most extraordinary perhaps of those strange times, wherein "they do, for themselves and all the whole body of the realm which they represent, freely, liberally, and absolutely, give and grant unto the king's highness, by authority of this present parliament, all and every sum and sums of money which to them and every of them, is, ought, or might be due, by reason of any money, or any other thing, to his grace at any time heretofore advanced or paid by way of trust or loan, either upon any letter or letters under the king's privy seal, general or particular, letter missive, promise bond, or obligation of repayment, or by any taxation or other assessing, by virtue of any commission or commissions, or by any other mean or means, whatever it be, heretofore, passed for that purpose."[ ] this extreme servility and breach of trust naturally excited loud murmurs; for the debts thus released had been assigned over by many to their own creditors, and having all the security both of the king's honour and legal obligation, were reckoned as valid as any other property. it is said by hall, that most of this house of commons held offices under the crown. this illaudable precedent was remembered in , when a similar act passed, releasing to the king all monies borrowed by him since , with the additional provision, that if he should have already discharged any of these debts, the party or his heirs should repay his majesty.[ ] _a benevolence again exacted._--henry had once more recourse, about , to a general exaction, miscalled benevolence. the council's instructions to the commissioners employed in levying it leave no doubt as to its compulsory character. they were directed to incite all men to a loving contribution according to the rates of their substance, as they were assessed at the last subsidy, calling on no one whose lands were of less value than _s._ or whose chattels were less than £ . it is intimated that the least which his majesty could reasonably accept would be twenty pence in the pound, on the yearly value of land, and half that sum on movable goods. they are to summon but a few to attend at one time, and to commune with every one apart, "lest some one unreasonable man, amongst so many, forgetting his duty towards god, his sovereign lord, and his country, may go about by his malicious frowardness to silence all the rest, be they never so well disposed." they were to use "good words and amiable behaviour," to induce men to contribute, and to dismiss the obedient with thanks. but if any person should withstand their gentle solicitations, alleging either poverty or some other pretence which the commissioners should deem unfit to be allowed, then after failure of persuasions and reproaches for ingratitude, they were to command his attendance before the privy council, at such time as they should appoint, to whom they were to certify his behaviour, enjoining him silence in the meantime, that his evil example might not corrupt the better disposed.[ ] it is only through the accidental publication of some family papers, that we have become acquainted with this document, so curiously illustrative of the government of henry viii. from the same authority may be exhibited a particular specimen of the consequences that awaited the refusal of this benevolence. one richard reed, an alderman of london, had stood alone, as is said, among his fellow-citizens, in refusing to contribute. it was deemed expedient not to overlook this disobedience; and the course adopted in pursuing it is somewhat remarkable. the english army was then in the field on the scots border. reed was sent down to serve as a soldier at his own charge; and the general, sir ralph ewer, received intimations to employ him on the hardest and most perilous duty, and subject him, when in garrison, to the greatest privations, that he might feel the smart of his folly and sturdy disobedience. "finally," the letter concludes, "you must use him in all things according to the sharpe disciplyne militar of the northern wars."[ ] it is natural to presume that few would expose themselves to the treatment of this unfortunate citizen; and that the commissioners, whom we find appointed two years afterwards in every county, to obtain from the king's subjects as much as they would willingly give, if they did not always find perfect readiness, had not to complain of many peremptory denials.[ ] _severe and unjust executions for treason._--such was the security that remained against arbitrary taxation under the two henries. were men's lives better protected from unjust measures, and less at the mercy of a jealous court? it cannot be necessary to expatiate very much on this subject in a work that supposes the reader's acquaintance with the common facts of our history; yet it would leave the picture too imperfect, were i not to recapitulate the more striking instances of sanguinary injustice that have cast so deep a shade over the memory of these princes. _earl of warwick._--the duke of clarence, attainted in the reign of his brother edward iv., left one son, whom his uncle restored to the title of earl of warwick. this boy, at the accession of henry vii., being then about twelve years old, was shut up in the tower. fifteen years of captivity had elapsed, when, if we trust to the common story, having unfortunately become acquainted with his fellow-prisoner perkin warbeck, he listened to a scheme for their escape, and would probably not have been averse to second the ambitious views of that young man. but it was surmised, with as much likelihood as the character of both parties could give it, that the king had promised ferdinand of aragon to remove the earl of warwick out of the way, as the condition of his daughter's marriage with the prince of wales, and the best means of securing their inheritance. warwick accordingly was brought to trial for a conspiracy to overturn the government; which he was induced to confess, in the hope, as we must conceive, and perhaps with an assurance, of pardon, and was immediately executed. _earl of suffolk._--the nearest heir to the house of york, after the queen and her children, and the descendants of the duke of clarence, was a son of edward iv.'s sister, the earl of suffolk, whose elder brother, the earl of lincoln, had joined in the rebellion of lambert simnel, and perished at the battle of stoke. suffolk, having killed a man in an affray, obtained a pardon which the king compelled him to plead in open court at his arraignment. this laudable impartiality is said to have given him offence, and provoked his flight into the netherlands; whence, being a man of a turbulent disposition, and partaking in the hatred of his family towards the house of lancaster, he engaged in a conspiracy with some persons at home, which caused him to be attainted of treason. some time afterwards, the archduke philip, having been shipwrecked on the coast of england, found himself in a sort of honourable detention at henry's court. on consenting to his departure, the king requested him to send over the earl of suffolk; and philip, though not insensible to the breach of hospitality exacted from him, was content to satisfy his honour by obtaining a promise that the prisoner's life should be spared. henry is said to have reckoned this engagement merely personal, and to have left as a last injunction to his successor, that he should carry into effect the sentence against suffolk. though this was an evident violation of the promise in its spirit, yet henry viii., after the lapse of a few years, with no new pretext, caused him to be executed. _duke of buckingham._--the duke of buckingham, representing the ancient family of stafford, and hereditary high constable of england, stood the first in rank and consequence, perhaps in riches, among the nobility. but being too ambitious and arrogant for the age in which he was born, he drew on himself the jealousy of the king, and the resentment of wolsey. the evidence, on his trial for high treason, was almost entirely confined to idle and vaunting language, held with servants who betrayed his confidence, and soothsayers whom he had believed. as we find no other persons charged as parties with him, it seems manifest that buckingham was innocent of any real conspiracy. his condemnation not only gratified the cardinal's revenge, but answered a very constant purpose of the tudor government, that of intimidating the great families, from whom the preceding dynasty had experienced so much disquietude.[ ] _new treasons created by statutes._--the execution, however, of suffolk was at least not contrary to law; and even buckingham was attainted on evidence which, according to the tremendous latitude with which the law of treason had been construed, a court of justice could not be expected to disregard. but after the fall of wolsey, and henry's breach with the roman see, his fierce temper, strengthened by habit and exasperated by resistance, demanded more constant supplies of blood; and many perished by sentences which we can hardly prevent ourselves from considering as illegal, because the statutes to which they might be conformable seem, from their temporary duration, their violence, and the passiveness of the parliaments that enacted them, rather like arbitrary invasions of the law than alterations of it. by an act of , not only an oath was imposed to maintain the succession in the heirs of the king's second marriage, in exclusion of the princess mary; but it was made high treason to deny that ecclesiastical supremacy of the crown, which, till about two years before, no one had ever ventured to assert. bishop fisher, the most inflexibly honest churchman who filled a high station in that age, was beheaded for this denial. sir thomas more, whose name can ask no epithet, underwent a similar fate. he had offered to take the oath to maintain the succession, which, as he justly said, the legislature was competent to alter; but prudently avoided to give an opinion as to the supremacy, till rich, solicitor-general, and afterwards chancellor, elicited, in a private conversation, some expressions, which were thought sufficient to bring him within the fangs of the recent statute. a considerable number of less distinguished persons, chiefly ecclesiastical, were afterwards executed by virtue of this law. the sudden and harsh innovations made by henry in religion, as to which every artifice of concealment and delay is required, his destruction of venerable establishments, his tyranny over the recesses of the conscience, excited so dangerous a rebellion in the north of england, that his own general, the duke of norfolk, thought it absolutely necessary to employ measures of conciliation.[ ] the insurgents laid down their arms, on an unconditional promise of amnesty. but another rising having occurred in a different quarter, the king made use of this pretext to put to death some persons of superior rank, who, though they had, voluntarily or by compulsion, partaken in the first rebellion, had no concern in the second, and to let loose military law upon their followers. nor was his vengeance confined to those who had evidently been guilty of these tumults. it is, indeed, unreasonable to deny that there might be, nay, there probably were, some real conspirators among those who suffered on the scaffolds of henry. yet in the processes against the countess of salisbury, an aged woman, but obnoxious as the daughter of the duke of clarence and mother of reginald pole, an active instrument of the pope in fomenting rebellion,[ ] against the abbots of reading and glastonbury, and others who were implicated in charges of treason at this period, we find so much haste, such neglect of judicial forms, and so blood-thirsty a determination to obtain convictions, that we are naturally tempted to reckon them among the victims of revenge or rapacity. _cromwell._--it was, probably, during these prosecutions that cromwell, a man not destitute of liberal qualities, but who is liable to the one great reproach of having obeyed too implicitly a master whose commands were crimes, inquired of the judges whether, if parliament should condemn a man to die for treason without hearing him, the attainder could ever be disputed. they answered that it was a dangerous question, and that parliament should rather set an example to inferior courts for proceeding according to justice. but being pressed to reply by the king's express commandment, they said that an attainder in parliament, whether the party had been heard or not in his defence, could never be reversed in a court of law. no proceedings, it is said, took place against the person intended, nor is it known who he was.[ ] but men prone to remark all that seems an appropriate retribution of providence, took notice that he, who had thus solicited the interpreters of the law to sanction such a violation of natural justice, was himself its earliest example. in the apparent zenith of favour, this able and faithful minister, the king's viceregent in his ecclesiastical supremacy, and recently created earl of essex, fell so suddenly, and so totally without offence, that it has perplexed some writers to assign the cause. but there seems little doubt that henry's dissatisfaction with his fourth wife, anne of cleves, whom cromwell had recommended, alienated his selfish temper, and inclined his ear to the whisperings of those courtiers who abhorred the favourite and his measures. an act attainting him of treason and heresy was hurried through parliament, without hearing him in his defence.[ ] the charges, indeed, at least of the first kind, were so ungrounded, that had he been permitted to refute them, his condemnation, though not less certain, might, perhaps, have caused more shame. this precedent of sentencing men unheard, by means of an act of attainder, was followed in the case of dr. barnes, burned not long afterwards for heresy. _duke of norfolk._--the duke of norfolk had been, throughout henry's reign, one of his most confidential ministers. but as the king approached his end, an inordinate jealousy of great men, rather than mere caprice, appears to have prompted the resolution of destroying the most conspicuous family in england. norfolk's son, too, the earl of surrey, though long a favourite with the king, possessed more talents and renown, as well as a more haughty spirit, than was compatible with his safety. a strong party at court had always been hostile to the duke of norfolk; and his ruin was attributed especially to the influence of the two seymours. no accusations could be more futile than those who sufficed to take away the life of the noblest and most accomplished man in england. surrey's treason seems to have consisted chiefly in quartering the royal arms in his escutcheon; and this false heraldry, if such it were, must have been considered as evidence of meditating the king's death. his father ignominiously confessed the charges against himself, in a vain hope of mercy from one who knew not what it meant. an act of attainder (for both houses of parliament were commonly made accessary to the legal murders of this reign) was passed with much haste, and perhaps irregularly; but henry's demise ensuing at the instant, prevented the execution of norfolk. continuing in prison during edward's reign, he just survived to be released and restored in blood under mary. _anne boleyn._--among the victims of this monarch's ferocity, as we bestow most of our admiration on sir thomas more, so we reserve our greatest pity for anne boleyn. few, very few, have in any age hesitated to admit her innocence.[ ] but her discretion was by no means sufficient to preserve her steps on that dizzy height, which she had ascended with more eager ambition than feminine delicacy could approve. henry was probably quick-sighted enough to perceive that he did not possess her affections; and his own were soon transferred to another object. nothing in this detestable reign is worse than her trial. she was indicted, partly upon the statute of edward iii., which, by a just though rather technical construction, has been held to extend the guilt of treason to an adulterous queen as well as to her paramour, and partly on the recent law for preservation of the succession, which attached the same penalties to anything done or said in slander of the king's issue. her levities in discourse were brought within this strange act by a still more strange interpretation. nor was the wounded pride of the king content with her death. under the fear, as is most likely, of a more cruel punishment, which the law affixed to her offence, anne was induced to confess a pre-contract with lord percy, on which her marriage with the king was annulled by an ecclesiastical sentence, without awaiting its certain dissolution by the axe.[ ] henry seems to have thought his honour too much sullied by the infidelity of a lawful wife. but for this destiny he was yet reserved. i shall not impute to him as an act of tyranny the execution of catherine howard, since it appears probable that the licentious habits of that young woman had continued after her marriage; and though we might not in general applaud the vengeance of a husband who should put a guilty wife to death, it could not be expected that henry viii. should lose so reasonable an opportunity of shedding blood.[ ] it was after the execution of this fifth wife that the celebrated law was enacted, whereby any woman whom the king should marry as a virgin incurred the penalties of treason, if she did not previously reveal any failings that had disqualified her for the service of diana.[ ] _fresh statutes enacting the penalties of treason._--these parliamentary attainders, being intended rather as judicial than legislative proceedings, were violations of reason and justice in the application of law. but many general enactments of this reign bear the same character of servility. new political offences were created in every parliament, against which the severest penalties were denounced. the nation had scarcely time to rejoice in the termination of those long debates between the houses of york and lancaster, when the king's divorce, and the consequent illegitimacy of his eldest daughter, laid open the succession to fresh questions. it was needlessly unnatural and unjust to bastardise the princess mary, whose title ought rather to have had the confirmation of parliament. but henry, who would have deemed so moderate a proceeding injurious to his cause in the eyes of europe, and a sort of concession to the adversaries of the divorce, procured an act settling the crown on his children by anne or any subsequent wife. any person disputing the lawfulness of the king's second marriage might, by the sort of construction that would be put on this act, become liable to the penalties of treason. in two years more this very marriage was annulled by sentence; and it would perhaps have been treasonable to assert the princess elizabeth's legitimacy. the same punishment was enacted against such as should marry without licence under the great seal, or have a criminal intercourse with any of the king's children "lawfully born, or otherwise commonly reputed to be his children, or his sister, aunt, or niece."[ ] _act giving proclamations the force of law._--henry's two divorces had created an uncertainty as to the line of succession, which parliament endeavoured to remove, not by such constitutional provisions in concurrence with the crown as might define the course of inheritance, but by enabling the king, on failure of issue by jane seymour or any other lawful wife, to make over and bequeath the kingdom to any persons at his pleasure, not even reserving a preference to the descendants of former sovereigns.[ ] by a subsequent statute, the princesses mary and elizabeth were nominated in the entail, after the king's male issue, subject, however, to such conditions as he should declare, by non-compliance with which their right was to cease.[ ] this act still left it in his power to limit the remainder at his discretion. in execution of this authority, he devised the crown, upon failure of issue from his three children, to the heirs of the body of mary duchess of suffolk, the younger of his two sisters; postponing at least, if not excluding, the royal family of scotland, descended from his elder sister margaret. in surrendering the regular laws of the monarchy to one man's caprice, this parliament became accessary, so far as in it lay, to dispositions which might eventually have kindled the flames of civil war. but it seemed to aim at inflicting a still deeper injury on future generations, in enacting that a king, after he should have attained the age of twenty-four years, might repeal any statutes made since his accession.[ ] such a provision not only tended to annihilate the authority of a regency, and to expose the kingdom to a sort of anarchical confusion during its continuance, but seemed to prepare the way for a more absolute power of abrogating all acts of the legislature. three years afterwards it was enacted that proclamations made by the king and council, under penalty of fine and imprisonment, should have the force of statutes, so that they should not be prejudicial to any person's inheritance, offices, liberties, goods, and chattels, or infringe the established laws. this has been often noticed as an instance of servile compliance. it is, however, a striking testimony to the free constitution it infringed, and demonstrates that the prerogative could not soar to the heights it aimed at, till thus imped by the perfidious hand of parliament. it is also to be observed, that the power given to the king's proclamations is considerably limited.[ ] a government administered with so frequent violations not only of the chartered privileges of englishmen, but of those still more sacred rights which natural law has established, must have been regarded, one would imagine, with just abhorrence, and earnest longings for a change. yet contemporary authorities by no means answer to this expectation. some mention henry after his death in language of eulogy; and, if we except those whom attachment to the ancient religion had inspired with hatred towards his memory, very few appear to have been aware that his name would descend to posterity among those of the many tyrants and oppressors of innocence, whom the wrath of heaven has raised up, and the servility of men has endured. i do not indeed believe that he had really conciliated his people's affection. that perfect fear which attended him must have cast out love. but he had a few qualities that deserve esteem, and several which a nation is pleased to behold in its sovereign. he wanted, or at least did not manifest in any eminent degree, one usual vice of tyrants, dissimulation; his manners were affable, and his temper generous. though his schemes of foreign policy were not very sagacious, and his wars, either with france or scotland, productive of no material advantage, they were uniformly successful, and retrieved the honour of the english name. but the main cause of the reverence with which our forefathers cherished this king's memory, was the share he had taken in the reformation. they saw in him not indeed the proselyte of their faith, but the subverter of their enemies' power, the avenging minister of heaven, by whose giant arm the chain of superstition had been broken, and the prison gates burst asunder.[ ] _government of edward vi.'s counsellors._--the ill-assorted body of counsellors who exercised the functions of regency by henry's testament, were sensible that they had not sinews to wield his iron sceptre, and that some sacrifice must be made to a nation exasperated as well as overawed by the violent measures of his reign. in the first session accordingly of edward's parliament, the new treasons and felonies which had been created to please his father's sanguinary disposition, were at once abrogated.[ ] the statute of edward iii. became again the standard of high treason, except that the denial of the king's supremacy was still liable to its penalties. the same act, which relieves the subject from these terrors, contains also a repeal of that which had given legislative validity to the king's proclamations. these provisions appear like an elastic recoil of the constitution after the extraordinary pressure of that despotic reign. but, however they may indicate the temper of parliament, we must consider them but as an unwilling and insincere compliance on the part of the government. henry, too arrogant to dissemble with his subjects, had stamped the law itself with the print of his despotism. the more wily courtiers of edward's council deemed it less obnoxious to violate than to new-mould the constitution. for, although proclamations had no longer the legal character of statutes, we find several during edward's reign enforced by penalty of fine and imprisonment. many of the ecclesiastical changes were first established by no other authority, though afterwards sanctioned by parliament. rates were thus fixed for the price of provisions; bad money was cried down, with penalties on those who should buy it under a certain value, and the melting of the current coin prohibited on pain of forfeiture.[ ] some of these might possibly have a sanction from precedent, and from the acknowledged prerogative of the crown in regulating the coin. but no legal apology can be made for a proclamation in april , addressed to all justices of the peace, enjoining them to arrest sowers and tellers abroad of vain and forged tales and lies, and to commit them to the galleys, there to row in chains as slaves during the king's pleasure.[ ] one would imagine that the late statute had been repealed, as too far restraining the royal power, rather than as giving it an unconstitutional extension. _attainder of lord seymour._--it soon became evident that, if the new administration had not fully imbibed the sanguinary spirit of their late master, they were as little scrupulous in bending the rules of law and justice to their purpose in cases of treason. the duke of somerset, nominated by henry only as one of his sixteen executors, obtained almost immediately afterwards a patent from the young king, who during his minority was certainly not capable of any valid act, constituting him sole regent under the name of protector, with the assistance indeed of the rest as his counsellors, but with the power of adding any others to their number. conscious of his own usurpation, it was natural for somerset to dread the aspiring views of others; nor was it long before he discovered a rival in his brother, lord seymour of sudeley, whom, according to the policy of that age, he thought it necessary to destroy by a bill of attainder. seymour was apparently a dangerous and unprincipled man; he had courted the favour of the young king by small presents of money, and appears beyond question to have entertained a hope of marrying the princess elizabeth, who had lived much in his house during his short union with the queen dowager. it was surmised that this lady had been poisoned to make room for a still nobler consort.[ ] but in this there could be no treason; and it is not likely that any evidence was given which could have brought him within the statute of edward iii. in this prosecution against lord seymour, it was thought expedient to follow the very worst of henry's precedents, by not hearing the accused in his defence. the bill passed through the upper house, the natural guardian of a peer's life and honour, without one dissenting voice. the commons addressed the king that they might hear the witnesses, and also the accused. it was answered that the king did not think it necessary for them to hear the latter, but that those who had given their depositions before the lords might repeat their evidence before the lower house. it rather appears that the commons did not insist on this any farther; but the bill of attainder was carried with a few negative voices.[ ] how striking a picture it affords of the sixteenth century, to behold the popular and well-natured duke of somerset, more estimable at least than any statesman employed under edward, not only promoting this unjust condemnation of his brother, but signing the warrant under which he was beheaded! _attainder of duke of somerset._--but it was more easy to crush a single competitor, than to keep in subjection the subtle and daring spirits trained in henry's councils, and jealous of the usurpation of an equal. the protector, attributing his success, as is usual with men in power, rather to skill than fortune, and confident in the two frailest supports that a minister can have, the favour of a child and of the lower people, was stripped of his authority within a few months after the execution of lord seymour, by a confederacy which he had neither the discretion to prevent, nor the firmness to resist. though from this time but a secondary character upon the public stage, he was so near the throne as to keep alive the suspicions of the duke of northumberland, who, with no ostensible title, had become not less absolute than himself. it is not improbable that somerset was innocent of the charge imputed to him, namely, a conspiracy to murder some of the privy councillors, which had been erected into felony by a recent statute; but the evidence, though it may have been false, does not seem legally insufficient. he demanded on his trial to be confronted with the witnesses; a favour rarely granted in that age to state criminals, and which he could not very decently solicit after causing his brother to be condemned unheard. three lords, against whom he was charged to have conspired, sat upon his trial; and it was thought a sufficient reply to his complaints of this breach of a known principle, that no challenge could be allowed in the case of a peer. from this designing and unscrupulous oligarchy no measure conducive to liberty and justice could be expected to spring. but among the commons there must have been men, although their names have not descended to us, who, animated by a purer zeal for these objects, perceived on how precarious a thread the life of every man was suspended, when the private deposition of one suborned witness, unconfronted with the prisoner, could suffice to obtain a conviction in cases of treason. in the worst period of edward's reign, we find inserted in a bill creating some new treasons, one of the most important constitutional provisions which the annals of the tudor family afford. it is enacted, that "no person shall be indicted for any manner of treason, except on the testimony of two lawful witnesses, who shall be brought in person before the accused at the time of his trial, to avow and maintain what they have to say against him, unless he shall willingly confess the charges."[ ] this salutary provision was strengthened, not taken away, as some later judges ventured to assert, by an act in the reign of mary. in a subsequent part of this work, i shall find an opportunity for discussing this important branch of constitutional law. _violence of mary's reign._--it seems hardly necessary to mention the momentary usurpation of lady jane grey, founded on no pretext of title which could be sustained by any argument. she certainly did not obtain that degree of actual possession which might have sheltered her adherents under the statute of henry vii.; nor did the duke of northumberland allege this excuse on his trial, though he set up one of a more technical nature, that the great seal was a sufficient protection for acts done by its authority.[ ] the reign that immediately followed is chiefly remembered as a period of sanguinary persecution; but though i reserve for the next chapter all mention of ecclesiastical disputes, some of mary's proceedings in re-establishing popery belong to the civil history of our constitution. impatient, under the existence, for a moment, of rites and usages which she abhorred, this bigoted woman anticipated the legal authority which her parliament was ready to interpose for their abrogation; the latin liturgy was restored, the married clergy expelled from their livings, and even many protestant ministers thrown into prison for no other crime than their religion, before any change had been made in the established laws.[ ] the queen, in fact, and those around her, acted and felt as a legitimate government restored after an usurpation, and treated the recent statutes as null and invalid. but even in matters of temporal government, the stretches of prerogative were more violent and alarming than during her brother's reign. it is due indeed to the memory of one who has left so odious a name, to remark that mary was conscientiously averse to encroach upon what she understood to be the privileges of her people. a wretched book having been written to exalt her prerogative, on the ridiculous pretence that, as a queen, she was not bound by the laws of former kings, she showed it to gardiner, and on his expressing indignation at the sophism, threw it herself into the fire. an act passed, however, to settle such questions, which declares the queen to have all the lawful prerogatives of the crown.[ ] but she was surrounded by wicked counsellors, renegades of every faith and ministers of every tyranny. we must, in candour, attribute to their advice her arbitrary measures, though not her persecution of heresy, which she counted for virtue. she is said to have extorted loans from the citizens of london, and others of her subjects.[ ] this, indeed, was not more than had been usual with her predecessors. but we find one clear instance during her reign of a duty upon foreign cloth, imposed without assent of parliament; an encroachment unprecedented since the reign of richard ii. several proofs might be adduced from records of arbitrary inquests for offences, and illegal modes of punishment. the torture is, perhaps, more frequently mentioned in her short reign than in all former ages of our history put together; and probably from that imitation of foreign governments, which contributed not a little to deface our constitution in the sixteenth century, seems deliberately to have been introduced as part of the process in those dark and uncontrolled tribunals which investigated offences against the state.[ ] a commission issued in , authorising the persons named in it to enquire, by any means they could devise, into charges of heresy or other religious offences, and in some instances to punish the guilty, in others of a graver nature to remit them to their ordinaries, seems (as burnet has well observed) to have been meant as a preliminary step to bringing in the inquisition. it was at least the germ of the high-commission court in the next reign.[ ] one proclamation, in the last year of her inauspicious administration, may be deemed a flight of tyranny beyond her father's example; which, after denouncing the importation of books filled with heresy and treason from beyond sea, proceeds to declare that whoever should be found to have such books in his possession should be reputed and taken for a rebel, and executed according to martial law.[ ] this had been provoked as well by a violent libel written at geneva by goodman, a refugee, exciting the people to dethrone the queen; as by the recent attempt of one stafford, a descendant of the house of buckingham, who, having landed with a small force at scarborough, had vainly hoped that the general disaffection would enable him to overthrow her government.[ ] _the house of commons recovers part of its independent power in these two reigns._--notwithstanding, however, this apparently uncontrolled career of power, it is certain that the children of henry viii. did not preserve his almost absolute dominion over parliament. i have only met with one instance in his reign where the commons refused to pass a bill recommended by the crown. this was in ; but so unquestionable were the legislative rights of parliament, that, although much displeased, even henry was forced to yield.[ ] we find several instances during the reign of edward, and still more in that of mary, where the commons rejected bills sent down from the upper house; and though there was always a majority of peers for the government, yet the dissent of no small number is frequently recorded in the former reign. thus the commons not only threw out a bill creating several new treasons, and substituted one of a more moderate nature, with that memorable clause for two witnesses to be produced in open court, which i have already mentioned;[ ] but rejected one attainting tunstal bishop of durham for misprision of treason, and were hardly brought to grant a subsidy.[ ] their conduct in the two former instances, and probably in the third, must be attributed to the indignation that was generally felt at the usurped power of northumberland, and the untimely fate of somerset. several cases of similar unwillingness to go along with court measures occurred under mary. she dissolved, in fact, her two first parliaments on this account. but the third was far from obsequious, and rejected several of her favourite bills.[ ] two reasons principally contributed to this opposition; the one, a fear of entailing upon the country those numerous exactions of which so many generations had complained, by reviving the papal supremacy, and more especially of a restoration of abbey lands; the other, an extreme repugnance to the queen's spanish connection.[ ] if mary could have obtained the consent of parliament, she would have settled the crown on her husband, and sent her sister, perhaps, to the scaffold.[ ] _attempt of the court to strengthen itself by creating new boroughs._--there cannot be a stronger proof of the increased weight of the commons during these reigns, than the anxiety of the court to obtain favourable elections. many ancient boroughs undoubtedly have at no period possessed sufficient importance to deserve the elective franchise on the score of their riches or population; and it is most likely that some temporary interest or partiality, which cannot now be traced, first caused a writ to be addressed to them. but there is much reason to conclude that the counsellors of edward vi., in erecting new boroughs, acted upon a deliberate plan of strengthening their influence among the commons. twenty-two boroughs were created or restored in this short reign; some of them, indeed, places of much consideration, but not less than seven in cornwall, and several others that appear to have been insignificant. mary added fourteen to the number; and as the same course was pursued under elizabeth, we in fact owe a great part of that irregularity in our popular representation, the advantages or evils of which we need not here discuss, less to changes wrought by time, than to deliberate and not very constitutional policy. nor did the government scruple a direct and avowed interference with elections. a circular letter of edward to all the sheriffs commands them to give notice to the freeholders, citizens, and burgesses within their respective counties, "that our pleasure and commandment is, that they shall choose and appoint, as nigh as they possibly may, men of knowledge and experience within the counties, cities, and boroughs;" but nevertheless, that where the privy council should "recommend men of learning and wisdom, in such case their directions be regarded and followed." several persons accordingly were recommended by letters to the sheriffs, and elected as knights for different shires; all of whom belonged to the court, or were in places of trust about the king.[ ] it appears probable that persons in office formed at all times a very considerable portion of the house of commons. another circular of mary before the parliament of , directing the sheriffs to admonish the electors to choose good catholics and "inhabitants, as the old laws require," is much less unconstitutional; but the earl of sussex, one of her most active counsellors, wrote to the gentlemen of norfolk, and to the burgesses of yarmouth, requesting them to reserve their voices for the person he should name.[ ] there is reason to believe that the court, or rather the imperial ambassador, did homage to the power of the commons, by presents of money, in order to procure their support of the unpopular marriage with philip;[ ] and if noailles, the ambassador of henry ii., did not make use of the same means to thwart the grants of subsidy and other measures of the administration, he was at least very active in promising the succour of france, and animating the patriotism of those unknown leaders of that assembly, who withstood the design of a besotted woman and her unprincipled counsellors to transfer this kingdom under the yoke of spain.[ ] _causes of the high prerogative of the tudors._--it appears to be a very natural enquiry, after beholding the course of administration under the tudor line, by what means a government so violent in itself, and so plainly inconsistent with the acknowledged laws, could be maintained; and what had become of that english spirit which had not only controlled such injudicious princes as john and richard ii., but withstood the first and third edward in the fulness of their pride and glory. not, indeed, that the excesses of prerogative had ever been thoroughly restrained, or that, if the memorials of earlier ages had been as carefully preserved as those of the sixteenth century, we might not possibly find in them equally flagrant instances of oppression; but still the petitions of parliament and frequent statutes remain on record, bearing witness to our constitutional law and to the energy that gave it birth. there had evidently been a retrograde tendency towards absolute monarchy between the reigns of henry vi. and henry viii. nor could this be attributed to the common engine of despotism, a military force. for, except the yeomen of the guard, fifty in number, and the common servants of the king's household, there was not, in time of peace, an armed man receiving pay throughout england.[ ] a government that ruled by intimidation was absolutely destitute of force to intimidate. hence risings of the mere commonalty were sometimes highly dangerous, and lasted much longer than ordinary. a rabble of cornishmen, in the reign of henry vii., headed by a blacksmith, marched up from their own county to the suburbs of london without resistance. the insurrections of in consequence of wolsey's illegal taxation, those of the north ten years afterwards, wherein, indeed, some men of higher quality were engaged, and those which broke out simultaneously in several counties under edward vi., excited a well-grounded alarm in the country; and in the two latter instances were not quelled without much time and exertion. the reproach of servility and patient acquiescence under usurped power falls not on the english people, but on its natural leaders. we have seen, indeed, that the house of commons now and then gave signs of an independent spirit, and occasioned more trouble, even to henry viii., than his compliant nobility. they yielded to every mandate of his imperious will; they bent with every breath of his capricious humour; they are responsible for the illegal trial, for the iniquitous attainder, for the sanguinary statute, for the tyranny which they sanctioned by law, and for that which they permitted to subsist without law. nor was this selfish and pusillanimous subserviency more characteristic of the minions of henry's favour, the cromwells, the riches, the pagets, the russells, and the powletts, than of the representatives of ancient and honourable houses, the norfolks, the arundels, and the shrewsburies. we trace the noble statesmen of those reigns concurring in all the inconsistencies of their revolutions, supporting all the religions of henry, edward, mary, and elizabeth; adjudging the death of somerset to gratify northumberland, and of northumberland to redeem their participation in his fault, setting up the usurpation of lady jane, and abandoning her on the first doubt of success, constant only in the rapacious acquisition of estates and honours from whatever source, and in adherence to the present power. _jurisdiction of the council of star-chamber._--i have noticed in a former work that illegal and arbitrary jurisdiction exercised by the council, which, in despite of several positive statutes, continued in a greater or less degree through all the period of the plantagenet family, to deprive the subject, in many criminal charges, of that sacred privilege, trial by his peers.[ ] this usurped jurisdiction, carried much farther and exercised more vigorously, was the principal grievance under the tudors; and the forced submission of our forefathers was chiefly owing to the terrors of a tribunal, which left them secure from no infliction but public execution, or actual dispossession of their freeholds. and, though it was beyond its direct province to pass sentence on capital charges; yet, by intimidating jurors, it procured convictions which it was not authorised to pronounce. we are naturally astonished at the easiness with which verdicts were sometimes given against persons accused of treason on evidence insufficient to support the charge in point of law, or in its nature not competent to be received, or unworthy of belief. but this is explained by the peril that hung over the jury in case of acquittal. "if," says sir thomas smith, in his _treatise on the commonwealth of england_, "they do pronounce not guilty upon the prisoner, against whom manifest witness is brought in, the prisoner escapeth, but the twelve are not only rebuked by the judges, but also threatened of punishment, and many times commanded to appear in the star-chamber, or before the privy council, for the matter. but this threatening chanceth oftener than the execution thereof; and the twelve answer with most gentle words, they did it according to their consciences, and pray the judges to be good unto them; they did as they thought right, and as they accorded all; and so it passeth away for the most part. yet i have seen in my time, but not in the reign of the king now [elizabeth], that an inquest for pronouncing one not guilty of treason contrary to such evidence as was brought in, were not only imprisoned for a space, but a large fine set upon their heads, which they were fain to pay; another inquest for acquitting another, beside paying a fine, were put to open ignominy and shame. but these doings were even then accounted of many for violent, tyrannical, and contrary to the liberty and custom of the realm of england."[ ] one of the instances to which he alludes was probably that of the jury who acquitted sir nicholas throckmorton in the second year of mary. he had conducted his own defence with singular boldness and dexterity. on delivering their verdict, the court committed them to prison. four, having acknowledged their offence, were soon released; but the rest, attempting to justify themselves before the council, were sentenced to pay, some a fine of two thousand pounds, some of one thousand marks; a part of which seems ultimately to have been remitted.[ ] it is here to be observed that the council of which we have just heard, or, as lord hale denominates it (though rather, i believe, for the sake of distinction than upon any ancient authority), the king's ordinary council, was something different from the privy council, with which several modern writers are apt to confound it; that is, the court of jurisdiction is to be distinguished from the deliberative body, the advisers of the crown. every privy councillor belonged to the concilium ordinarium; but the chief justices, and perhaps several others who sat in the latter (not to mention all temporal and spiritual peers, who, in the opinion at least of some, had a right of suffrage therein), were not necessarily of the former body.[ ] this cannot be called in question, without either charging lord coke, lord hale, and other writers on the subject, with ignorance of what existed in their own age, or gratuitously supposing that an entirely novel tribunal sprung up in the sixteenth century under the name of the star-chamber. it has indeed been often assumed that a statute enacted early in the reign of henry vii. gave the first legal authority to the criminal jurisdiction exercised by that famous court, which in reality was nothing else but another name for the ancient concilium regis, of which our records are full, and whose encroachments so many statutes had endeavoured to repress; a name derived from the chamber wherein it sat, and which is found in many precedents before the time of henry vii., though not so specially applied to the council of judicature as afterwards.[ ] the statute of this reign has a much more limited operation. i have observed in another place, that the coercive jurisdiction of the council had great convenience, in cases where the ordinary course of justice was so much obstructed by one party, through writs, combinations of maintenance, or overawing influence, that no inferior court would find its process obeyed; and that such seem to have been reckoned necessary exceptions from the statutes which restrain its interference. the act of h. , c. appears intended to place on a lawful and permanent basis the jurisdiction of the council, or rather a part of the council, over this peculiar class of offences; and after reciting the combinations supported by giving liveries, and by indentures or promises, the partiality of sheriffs in making pannels, and in untrue returns, the taking of money by juries, the great riots and unlawful assemblies, which almost annihilated the fair administration of justice, empowers the chancellor, treasurer, and keeper of the privy seal, or any two of them, with a bishop and temporal lord of the council, and the chief justices of king's bench and common pleas, or two other justices in their absence, to call before them such as offended in the before-mentioned respects, and to punish them after examination in such manner as if they had been convicted by course of law. but this statute, if it renders legal a jurisdiction which had long been exercised with much advantage, must be allowed to limit the persons in whom it should reside, and certainly does not convey by any implication more extensive functions over a different description of misdemeanours. by a later act, h. , c. , the president of the council is added to the judges of this court; a decisive proof that it still existed as a tribunal perfectly distinct from the council itself. but it is not styled by the name of star-chamber in this, any more than in the preceding statute. it is very difficult, i believe, to determine at what time the jurisdiction legally vested in this new court, and still exercised by it forty years afterwards, fell silently into the hands of the body of the council, and was extended by them so far beyond the boundaries assigned by law, under the appellation of the court of star-chamber. sir thomas smith, writing in the early part of elizabeth's reign, while he does not advert to the former court, speaks of the jurisdiction of the latter as fully established, and ascribes the whole praise (and to a certain degree it was matter of praise) to cardinal wolsey. the celebrated statute of h. , c. , which gives the king's proclamations, to a certain extent, the force of acts of parliament, enacts that offenders convicted of breaking such proclamations before certain persons enumerated therein (being apparently the usual officers of the privy council, together with some bishops and judges), "in the star-chamber or elsewhere," shall suffer such penalties of fine and imprisonment as they shall adjudge. "it is the effect of this court," smith says, "to bridle such stout noblemen or gentlemen which would offer wrong by force to any manner of men, and cannot be content to demand or defend the right by order of the law. it began long before, but took augmentation and authority at that time that cardinal wolsey, archbishop of york, was chancellor of england, who of some was thought to have first devised that court, because that he, after some intermission, by negligence of time, augmented the authority of it,[ ] which was at that time marvellous necessary to do to repress the insolency of the noblemen and gentlemen in the north parts of england, who being far from the king and the seat of justice, made almost, as it were, an ordinary war among themselves, and made their force their law, binding themselves, with their tenants and servants, to do or revenge an injury one against another as they listed. this thing seemed not supportable to the noble prince henry viii.; and sending for them one after another to his court, to answer before the persons before named, after they had remonstrance showed them of their evil demeanour, and been well disciplined, as well by words as by _fleeting_ [confinement in the fleet prison] a while, and thereby their pride and courage somewhat assuaged, they began to range themselves in order, and to understand that they had a prince who would rule his subjects by his law and obedience. since that time, this court has been in more estimation, and is continued to this day in manner as i have said before."[ ] but as the court erected by the statute of henry vii. appears to have been in activity as late as the fall of cardinal wolsey, and exercised its jurisdiction over precisely that class of offences which smith here describes, it may perhaps be more likely that it did not wholly merge in the general body of the council till the minority of edward, when that oligarchy became almost independent and supreme. it is obvious that most, if not all, of the judges in the court held under that statute were members of the council; so that it might in a certain sense be considered as a committee from that body, who had long before been wont to interfere with the punishment of similar misdemeanours. and the distinction was so soon forgotten, that the judges of the king's bench in the th of elizabeth cite a case from the year-book of h. as "concerning the star-chamber," which related to the limited court erected by the statute.[ ] in this half-barbarous state of manners we certainly discover an apology, as well as motive, for the council's interference; for it is rather a servile worshipping of names than a rational love of liberty, to prefer the forms of trial to the attainment of justice, or to fancy that verdicts obtained by violence or corruption are at all less iniquitous than the violent or corrupt sentences of a court. but there were many cases wherein neither the necessity of circumstances, nor the legal sanction of any statute, could excuse the jurisdiction habitually exercised by the court of star-chamber. lord bacon takes occasion from the act of henry vii. to descant on the sage and noble institution, as he terms it, of that court, whose walls had been so often witnesses to the degradation of his own mind. it took cognisance principally, he tells us, of four kinds of causes, "forces, frauds, crimes various of stellionate, and the inchoations or middle acts towards crimes capital or heinous, not actually committed or perpetrated."[ ] sir thomas smith uses expressions less indefinite than these last; and specifies scandalous reports of persons in power, and seditious news, as offences which they were accustomed to punish. we shall find abundant proofs of this department of their functions in the succeeding reigns. but this was in violation of many ancient laws, and not in the least supported by that of henry vii.[ ] _influence of the authority of the star-chamber in enhancing the royal power._--a tribunal so vigilant and severe as that of the star-chamber, proceeding by modes of interrogatory unknown to the common law, and possessing a discretionary power of fine and imprisonment, was easily able to quell any private opposition or contumacy. we have seen how the council dealt with those who refused to lend money by way of benevolence, and with the juries who found verdicts that they disapproved. those that did not yield obedience to their proclamations were not likely to fare better. i know not whether menaces were used towards members of the commons who took part against the crown; but it would not be unreasonable to believe it, or at least that a man of moderate courage would scarcely care to expose himself to the resentment which the council might indulge after a dissolution. a knight was sent to the tower by mary, for his conduct in parliament;[ ] and henry viii. is reported, not perhaps on very certain authority, to have talked of cutting off the heads of refractory commoners. in the persevering struggles of earlier parliaments against edward iii., richard ii., and henry iv., it is a very probable conjecture, that many considerable peers acted in union with, and encouraged the efforts of, the commons. but in the period now before us, the nobility were precisely the class most deficient in that constitutional spirit, which was far from being extinct in those below them. they knew what havoc had been made among their fathers, by multiplied attainders during the rivalry of the two roses. they had seen terrible examples of the danger of giving umbrage to a jealous court, in the fate of lord stanley and the duke of buckingham, both condemned on slight evidence of treacherous friends and servants, from whom no man could be secure. though rigour and cruelty tend frequently to overturn the government of feeble princes, it is unfortunately too true that, steadily employed and combined with vigilance and courage, they are often the safest policy of despotism. a single suspicion in the dark bosom of henry vii., a single cloud of wayward humour in his son, would have been sufficient to send the proudest peer of england to the dungeon and the scaffold. thus a life of eminent services in the field, and of unceasing compliance in council, could not rescue the duke of norfolk from the effects of a dislike which we cannot even explain. nor were the nobles of this age more held in subjection by terror than by the still baser influence of gain. our law of forfeiture was well devised to stimulate, as well as to deter; and henry viii., better pleased to slaughter the prey than to gorge himself with the carcass, distributed the spoils it brought him among those who had helped in the chase. the dissolution of monasteries opened a more abundant source of munificence; every courtier, every peer, looked for an increase of wealth from grants of ecclesiastical estates, and naturally thought that the king's favour would most readily be gained by an implicit conformity to his will. nothing however seems more to have sustained the arbitrary rule of henry viii. than the jealousy of the two religious parties formed in his time, and who, for all the latter years of his life, were maintaining a doubtful and emulous contest for his favour. but this religious contest, and the ultimate establishment of the reformation, are events far too important, even in a constitutional history, to be treated in a cursory manner; and as, in order to avoid transitions, i have purposely kept them out of sight in the present chapter, they will form the proper subject of the next. footnotes: [ ] this statute is not even alluded to in ruffhead's edition, and has been very little noticed by writers on our law or history. it is printed in the late edition, published by authority, and is brought forward in the first report of the lords' committee, on the dignity of a peer ( ), p. . nothing can be more evident than that it not only establishes by a legislative declaration the present constitution of parliament, but recognises it as already standing upon a custom of some length of time. [ ] the pleadings, as they are called, or written allegations of both parties, which form the basis of a judicial enquiry, commence with the _declaration_, wherein the plaintiff states, either specially, or in some established form, according to the nature of the case, that he has a debt to demand from or an injury to be redressed by, the defendant. the latter, in return, puts in his _plea_; which, if it amount to a denial of the facts alleged in the declaration, must _conclude to the country_, that is, must refer the whole matter to a jury. but if it contain an admission of the fact, along with a legal justification of it, it is said to _conclude to the court_; the effect of which is to make it necessary for the plaintiff to reply; in which _replication_ he may deny the facts pleaded in justification, and conclude to the country; or allege some new matter in explanation, to show that they do not meet all the circumstances, concluding to the court. either party also may demur, that is, deny that, although true and complete as a statement of facts, the declaration or plea is sufficient according to law to found or repel the plaintiff's suit. in the last case it becomes an issue in law, and is determined by the judges without the intervention of a jury; it being a principle, that by demurring, the party acknowledges the truth of all matters alleged on the pleadings. but in whatever stage of the proceedings either of the litigants concludes to the country (which he is obliged to do, whenever the question can be deduced to a disputed fact), a jury must be impanelled to decide it by their verdict. these pleadings, together with what is called the _postea_, that is, an indorsement by the clerk of the court wherein the trial has been, reciting that _afterwards_ the cause was so tried, and such a verdict returned, with the subsequent entry of the judgment itself, form the record. this is merely intended to explain the phrase in the text, which common readers might not clearly understand. the theory of special pleading, as it is generally called, could not be further elucidated without lengthening this note beyond all bounds. but it all rests upon the ancient maxim: "de facto respondent juratores, de jure judices." perhaps it may be well to add one observation--that in many forms of action, and those of most frequent occurrence in modern times, it is not required to state the legal justification on the pleadings, but to give it in evidence on the general issue; that is, upon a bare plea of denial. in this case the whole matter is actually in the power of the jury. but they are generally bound in conscience to defer, as to the operation of any rule of law, to what is laid down on that head by the judge; and when they disregard his directions, it is usual to annul the verdict, and grant a new trial. there seem to be some disadvantages in the annihilation, as it may be called, of written pleadings, by their reduction to an unmeaning form, which has prevailed in three such important and extensive forms of action, as _ejectment_, _general_ _assumpsit_, and _trover_; both as it throws too much power into the hands of the jury, and as it almost nullifies the appellant jurisdiction, which can only be exercised where some error is apparent on the face of the record. but great practical convenience, and almost necessity, has generally been alleged as far more than a compensation for these evils. [ ] the population for is estimated by comparing a sort of census in , when the inhabitants of the realm seem to have amounted to about , , , with one still more loose under elizabeth in , which would give about , , ; making some allowance for the more rapid increase in the latter period. three millions at the accession of henry vii. is probably not too low an estimate. [ ] _rot. parl._ vi. . but the pope's bull of dispensation for the king's marriage speaks of the realm of england as "jure hæreditario ad te legitimum in illo prædecessorum tuorum successorem pertinens." rymer, xii. . and all henry's own instruments claim an hereditary right, of which many proofs appear in rymer. [ ] stat. h. , c. . [ ] blackstone (vol. iv. c. ) has some rather perplexed reasoning on this statute, leaning a little towards the _de jure_ doctrine, and at best confounding _moral_ with _legal_ obligations. in the latter sense, whoever attends to the preamble of the act will see that hawkins, whose opinion blackstone calls in question, is right; and that he is himself wrong in pretending that "the statute of henry vii. does by no means command any opposition to a king _de jure_, but excuses the obedience paid to a king _de facto_." [ ] for these observations on the statute of fines, i am principally indebted to reeves's _history of the english law_ (iv. ), a work, especially in the latter volumes, of great research and judgment; a continuation of which, in the same spirit, and with the same qualities (besides some others that are rather too much wanting in it), would be a valuable accession not only to the lawyer's, but philosopher's library. that entails had been defeated by means of a common recovery before the statute, had been remarked by former writers, and is indeed obvious; but the subject was never put in so clear a light as by mr. reeves. the principle of breaking down the statute _de donis_ was so little established, or consistently acted upon, in this reign, that in h. the judges held that the donor of an estate-tail might restrain the tenant from suffering a recovery. _id._ p. , from the year-book. [ ] it is said by the biographer of sir thomas more, that parliament refused the king a subsidy in , which he demanded on account of the marriage of his daughter margaret, at the advice of more, then but twenty-two years old. "forthwith mr. tyler, one of the privy chamber, that was then present, resorted to the king, declaring that a beardless boy, called more, had done more harm than all the rest, for by his means all the purpose is dashed." this of course displeased henry, who would not, however, he says, "infringe the ancient liberties of that house, which would have been odiously taken." wordsworth's _eccles. biography_, ii. . this story is also told by roper. [ ] stat. h. , c. . bacon says the benevolence was granted by act of parliament, which hume shows to be a mistake. the preamble of h. recites it to have been "granted by divers of your subjects severally;" and contains a provision, that no heir shall be charged on account of his ancestor's promise. [ ] hall, . [ ] turner's _history of england_, iii. , from a ms. document. a vast number of persons paid fines for their share in the western rebellion of , from £ down to _s._ hall, . ellis's _letters illustrative of english history_, i. . [ ] h. , c. . [ ] h. , c. . rep. h. , c. . [ ] they were convicted by a jury, and afterwards attainted by parliament, but not executed for more than a year after the king's accession. if we may believe holingshed, the council at henry viii.'s accession made restitution to some who had been wronged by the extortion of the late reign;--a singular contrast to their subsequent proceedings! this, indeed, had been enjoined by henry vii.'s will. but he had excepted from this restitution "what had been done by the course and order of our laws;" which, as mr. astle observes, was the common mode of his oppressions. [ ] lord hubert inserts an acute speech, which he seems to ascribe to more, arguing more acquaintance with sound principles of political economy than was usual in the supposed speaker's age, or even in that of the writer. but it is more probable that this is of his own invention. he has taken a similar liberty on another occasion, throwing his own broad notions of religion into an imaginary speech of some unnamed member of the commons, though manifestly unsuited to the character of the times. that more gave satisfaction to wolsey by his conduct in the chair appears by a letter of the latter to the king, in state papers, temp. h. , , p. . [ ] roper's _life of more_; hall, , . this chronicler, who wrote under edward vi., is our best witness for the events of henry's reign. grafton is so literally a copyist from him, that it was a great mistake to republish this part of his chronicle in the late expensive, and therefore incomplete, collection; since he adds no one word, and omits only a few ebullitions of protestant zeal which he seems to have considered too warm. holingshed, though valuable, is later than hall. wolsey, the latter observes, gave offence to the commons, by descanting on the wealth and luxury of the nation, "as though he had repined or disclaimed that any man should fare well, or be well clothed, but himself." but the most authentic memorial of what passed on this occasion has been preserved in a letter from a member of the commons to the earl of surrey (soon after duke of norfolk), at that time the king's lieutenant in the north. "please it your good lordships to understand, that sithence the beginning of the parliament, there hath been the greatest and sorest hold in the lower house for the payment of two shillings of the pound, that ever was seen, i think, in any parliament. this matter hath been debated, and beaten fifteen or sixteen days together. the highest necessity alledged on the king's behalf to us, that ever was heard of; and, on the contrary, the highest poverty confessed, as well by knights, esquires, and gentlemen of every quarter, as by the commoners, citizens, and burgesses. there hath been such hold that the house was like to have been dissevered; that is to say, the knights being of the king's council, the king's servants and gentlemen of the one party; which in so long time were spoken with, and made to see, yea, it may fortune, contrary to their heart, will, and conscience. thus hanging this matter, yesterday the more part being the king's servants, gentlemen, were there assembled; and so they, being the more part, willed and gave to the king two shillings of the pound of goods or lands, the best to be taken for the king. all lands to pay two shillings of the pound for the laity, to the highest. the goods to pay two shillings of the pound, for twenty pound upward; and from forty shillings of goods, to twenty pound, to pay sixteen pence of the pound; and under forty shillings, every person to pay eight pence. this to be paid in two years. i have heard no man in my life that can remember that ever there was given to any one of the king's ancestors half so much at one graunt. nor, i think, there was never such a president seen before this time. i beseeke almighty god, it may be well and peaceably levied, and surely payd unto the king's grace, without grudge, and especially without loosing the good will and true hearts of his subjects, which i reckon a far greater treasure for the king than gold and silver. and the gentlemen that must take pains to levy this money among the king's subjects, i think, shall have no little business about the same." strype's _eccles. memorials_, vol. i. p. . this is also printed in ellis's _letters illustrative of english history_, i. . [ ] i may notice here a mistake of mr. hume and dr. lingard. they assert henry to have received tonnage and poundage several years before it was vested in him by the legislature. but it was granted by his first parliament, stat. h. , c. , as will be found even in ruffhead's table of contents, though not in the body of his volume; and the act is of course printed at length in the great edition of the statutes. that which probably by its title gave rise to the error, h. , c. , has a different object. [ ] hall, . this chronicler says the laity were assessed at a tenth part. but this was only so of the smaller estates, namely, from £ to £ ; for from £ to £ the contribution demanded was twenty marks for each £ , and for an estate of £ , two hundred marks, and so in proportion upwards. ms. instructions to commissioners, penes auctorem. this was, "upon sufficient promise and assurance, to be repaid unto them upon such grants and contributions as shall be given and granted to his grace at his next parliament."--_ib._ "and they shall practise by all the means to them possible that such sums as shall be so granted by the way of loan, be forthwith levied and paid, or the most part, or at the least the moiety thereof, the same to be paid in as brief time after as they can possibly persuade and induce them unto; showing unto them that, for the sure payment thereof, they shall have writings delivered unto them under the king's privy seal by such person or persons as shall be deputed by the king to receive the said loan, after the form of a minute to be shown unto them by the said commissioners, the tenor whereof is thus: we, henry viii., by the grace of god, king of england and of france, defender of faith, and lord of ireland, promise by these presents truly to content and repay unto our trusty and well-beloved subject a. b. the sum of ----, which he hath lovingly advanced unto us by way of loan, for defence of our realm, and maintenance of our wars against france and scotland; in witness whereof we have caused our privy seal hereunto to be set and annexed the ---- day of ----, the fourteenth year of our reign."--_ib._ the rate fixed on the clergy i collect by analogy, from that imposed in , which i find in another manuscript letter. [ ] a letter in my possession from the duke of norfolk to wolsey, without the date of the year, relates, i believe, to this commission of , rather than that of ; it being dated on the th april, which appears from the contents to have been before easter; whereas easter did not fall beyond that day in or , but did so in ; and the first commission, being of the th year of the king's reign, must have sat later than easter . he informs the cardinal, that from twenty pounds upward there were not twenty in the county of norfolk who had not consented. "so that i see great likelihood that this grant shall be much more than the loan was." it was done, however, very reluctantly, as he confesses; "assuring your grace that they have not granted the same without shedding of many salt tears, only for doubt how to find money to content the king's highness." the resistance went further than the duke thought fit to suppose; for in a very short time the insurrection of the common people took place in suffolk. in another letter from him and the duke of suffolk to the cardinal they treat this rather lightly, and seem to object to the remission of the contribution. this commission issued soon after the news of the battle of pavia arrived. the pretext was the king's intention to lead an army into france. warham wrote more freely than the duke of norfolk as to the popular discontent, in a letter to wolsey, dated april . "it hath been showed me in a secret manner of my friends, the people sore grudgeth and murmureth, and speaketh cursedly among themselves, as far as they dare, saying that they shall never have rest of payments as long as some liveth, and that they had better die than to be thus continually handled, reckoning themselves, their children, and wives, as despoulit, and not greatly caring what they do, or what becomes of them.... further i am informed, that there is a grudge newly now resuscitate, and revived in the minds of the people; for the loan is not repaid to them upon the first receipt of the grant of parliament, as it was promised them by the commissioners, showing them the king's grace's instructions, containing the same, signed with his grace's own hand in summer, that they fear not to speak, that they be continually beguiled, and no promise is kept unto them; and thereupon some of them suppose that if this gift and grant be once levied, albeit the king's grace go not beyond the sea, yet nothing shall be restored again, albeit they be showed the contrary. and generally it is reported unto me, that for the most part every man saith he will be contented if the king's grace have as much as he can spare, but verily many say they be not able to do as they be required. and many denieth not but they will give the king's grace according to their power, but they will not anywise give at other men's appointments, which knoweth not their needs.... i have heard say, moreover, that when the people be commanded to make fires and tokens of joy for the taking of the french king, divers of them have spoken that they have more cause to weep than to rejoice thereat. and divers, as it hath been showed me secretly, have wished openly that the french king were at his liberty again, so as there were a good peace, and the king should not attempt to win france; the winning whereof should be more chargeful to england than profitable, and the keeping thereof much more chargeful than the winning. also it hath been told me secretly that divers have recounted and repeated what infinite sums of money the king's grace hath spent already in invading france, once in his own royal person, and two other sundry times by his several noble captains, and little or nothing in comparison of his costs hath prevailed; insomuch that the king's grace at this hour hath not one foot of land more in france than his most noble father had, which lacked no riches or wisdom to win the kingdom of france, if he had thought it expedient." the archbishop goes on to observe, rather oddly, that "he would that the time had suffered that this practising with the people for so great sums might have been spared till the cuckow time and the hot weather (at which time mad brains be wont to be most busy) had been overpassed." warham dwells, in another letter, on the great difficulty the clergy had in making so large a payment as was required of them, and their unwillingness to be sworn as to the value of their goods. the archbishop seems to have thought it passing strange that people would be so wrongheaded about their money. "i have been," he says, "in this shire twenty years and above, and as yet i have not seen men but would be conformable to reason, and would be induced to good order, till this time; and what shall cause them now to fall into these wilful and indiscreet ways, i cannot tell, except poverty and decay of substance be the cause of it." [ ] hall, . these expressions, and numberless others might be found, show the fallacy of hume's hasty assertion, that the writers of the sixteenth century do not speak of their own government as more free than that of france. [ ] hall, . [ ] the word impeachment is not very accurately applicable to these proceedings against wolsey; since the articles were first presented to the upper house, and sent down to the commons, where cromwell so ably defended his fallen master that nothing was done upon them. "upon this honest beginning," says lord herbert, "cromwell obtained his first reputation." i am disposed to conjecture from cromwell's character and that of the house of commons, as well as from some passages of henry's subsequent behaviour towards the cardinal, that it was not the king's intention to follow up this prosecution, at least for the present. this also i find to be dr. lingard's opinion. [ ] _rot. parl._ vi. ; burnet, appendix, no. . "when this release of the loan," says hall, "was known to the commons of the realm, lord! so they grudged and spake ill of the whole parliament; for almost every man counted it his debt, and reckoned surely of the payment of the same, and therefore some made their wills of the same, and some other did set it over to other for debt; and so many men had loss by it, which caused them sore to murmur, but there was no remedy."--p. . [ ] stat. h. , c. . i find in a manuscript, which seems to have been copied from an original in the exchequer, that the monies thus received by way of loan in amounted to £ , _s._ _d._ there was also a sum called _devotion money_, amounting only to £ , _s._ _d._, levied in , "of the devotion of his highnesse's subjects for _defence of christendom against the turk_." [ ] lodge's _illustrations of british history_, i. ; strype's _eccles. memorials_, appendix, n. . the sums raised from different counties for this benevolence afford a sort of criterion of their relative opulence. somerset gave £ ; kent £ ; suffolk £ ; norfolk £ ; devon £ ; essex £ ; but lancaster only £ ; and cumberland, £ . the whole produced £ , _s._ _d._ besides arrears. in haynes's _state papers_, p. , we find a curious minute of secretary paget, containing reasons why it was better to get the money wanted by means of a benevolence than through parliament. but he does not hint at any difficulty of obtaining a parliamentary grant. [ ] lodge, p. . lord herbert mentions this story, and observes, that reed having been taken by the scots, was compelled to pay much more for his ransom than the benevolence required of him. [ ] rhymer, xv. . these commissions bearing date th january . [ ] hall, . hume, who is favourable to wolsey, says, "there is no reason to think the sentence against buckingham unjust." but no one who reads the trial will find any evidence to satisfy a reasonable mind; and hume himself soon after adds, that his crime proceeded more from indiscretion than deliberate malice. in fact, the condemnation of this great noble was owing to wolsey's resentment, acting on the savage temper of henry. [ ] several letters that passed between the council and duke of norfolk (_hardwicke state papers_, i. , etc.) tend to confirm what some historians have hinted, that he was suspected of leaning too favourably towards the rebels. the king was most unwilling to grant a free pardon. norfolk is told, "if you could, by any good means or possible dexterity, reserve a very few persons for punishments, you should assuredly administer the greatest pleasure to his highness that could be imagined, and much in the same advance your own honour."--p. . he must have thought himself in danger from some of these letters, which indicate the king's distrust of him. he had recommended the employment of men of high rank as lords of the marches, instead of the rather inferior persons whom the king had lately chosen. this called down on him rather a warm reprimand (p. ); for it was the natural policy of a despotic court to restrain the ascendency of great families; nor were there wanting very good reasons for this, even if the public weal had been the sole object of henry's council. see also, for the subject of this note, the state papers and mss., h. , , p. _et alibi_. they contain a good deal of interesting matter as to the northern rebellion, which gave henry a pretext for great severities towards the monasteries in that part of england. [ ] pole, at his own solicitation, was appointed legate to the low countries in , with the sole object of keeping alive the flame of the northern rebellion, and exciting foreign powers as well as the english nation to restore religion by force, if not to dethrone henry. it is difficult not to suspect that he was influenced by ambitious views in a proceeding so treasonable, and so little in conformity with his polished manners and temperate life. philips, his able and artful biographer, both proves and glories in the treason. _life of pole_, sect. . [ ] coke's th institute, . it is, however, said by lord herbert and others, that the countess of salisbury and the marchioness of exeter were not heard in their defence. the acts of attainder against them were certainly hurried through parliament; but whether without hearing the parties, does not appear. [ ] burnet observes, that cranmer was absent the first day the bill was read, th june ; and by his silence leaves the reader to infer that he was so likewise on th june, when it was read a second and third time. but this, i fear, cannot be asserted. he is marked in the journal as present on the latter day; and there is the following entry; "hodie lecta est pro secundo et tertio, billa attincturæ thomæ comitis essex, et communi omnium procerum tunc præsentium concessu nemine discrepante, expedita est." and at the close of the session, we find a still more remarkable testimony to the unanimity of parliament, in the following words: "hoc animadvertendum est, quod in hac sessione cum proceres darent suffragia, et dicerent sententias super actibus prædictis, ea erat concordia et sententiarum conformitas, ut singuli iis et eorum singulis assenserint, nemine discrepante. thomas de soulemont, cleric. parliamentorum." as far therefore as entries on the journals are evidence, cranmer was placed in the painful and humiliating predicament of voting for the death of his innocent friend. he had gone as far as he dared in writing a letter to henry, which might be construed into an apology for cromwell, though it was full as much so for himself. [ ] burnet has taken much pains with the subject, and set her innocence in a very clear light (i. and iii. ). see also strype, i. , and ellis's _letters_, ii. . but anne had all the failings of a vain, weak woman, raised suddenly to greatness. she behaved with unamiable vindictiveness towards wolsey, and perhaps (but this worst charge is not fully authenticated) exasperated the king against more. a remarkable passage in cavendish's _life of wolsey_, p. , edit. , strongly displays her indiscretion. a late writer, whose acuteness and industry would raise him to a very respectable place among our historians, if he could have repressed the inveterate partiality of his profession, has used every oblique artifice to lead his readers into a belief of anne boleyn's guilt, while he affects to hold the balance, and state both sides of the question without determining it. thus he repeats what he must have known to be the strange and extravagant lies of sanders about her birth; without vouching for them indeed, but without any reprobation of their absurd malignity. lingard's _hist. of england_, vi. ( vo. edit). thus he intimates that "the records of her trial and conviction have perished, perhaps by the hands of those who respected her memory" (p. ); though, had he read burnet with any care, he would have found that they were seen by that historian, and surely have not perished since by any unfair means; not to mention that the record of a trial contains nothing from which a party's guilt or innocence can be inferred. thus he says that those who were executed on the same charge with the queen, neither admitted nor denied the offence, for which they suffered; though the best informed writers assert that norris constantly declared the queen's innocence and his own. dr. lingard can hardly be thought serious, when he takes credit to himself, in the commencement of a note at the end of the same volume, for not "rendering his book more interesting, by representing her as an innocent and injured woman, falling a victim to the intrigues of a religious faction." he well knows that he could not have done so, without contradicting the tenor of his entire work, without ceasing, as it were, to be himself. all the rest of this note is a pretended balancing of evidence, in the style of a judge who can hardly bear to put for a moment the possibility of a prisoner's innocence. i regret very much to be compelled, in this edition, to add the name of mr. sharon turner to those who have countenanced the supposition of anne boleyn's guilt. but mr. turner, a most worthy and painstaking man, to whose earlier writings our literature is much indebted, has, in his history of henry viii., gone upon the strange principle of exalting that tyrant's reputation at the expense of every one of his victims, to whatever party they may have belonged. _odit damnatos._ perhaps he is the first, and will be the last, who has defended the attainder of sir thomas more. a verdict of a jury, an assertion of a statesman, a recital of an act of parliament, are, with him, satisfactory proofs of the most improbable accusations against the most blameless character. [ ] the lords pronounced a singular sentence, that she should be burned or beheaded at the king's pleasure. burnet says the judges complained of this as unprecedented. perhaps in strictness the king's right to _alter_ a sentence is questionable, or rather would be so, if a few precedents were out of the way. in high treason committed by a man, the beheading was part of the sentence, and the king only remitted the more cruel preliminaries. women, till , were condemned to be burned. but the two queens of henry, the countess of salisbury, lady rochford, lady jane grey, and, in later times, mrs. lisle, were beheaded. poor mrs. gaunt was not thought noble enough to be rescued from the fire. in felony, where beheading is no part of the sentence, it has been substituted by the king's warrant in the cases of the duke of somerset and lord audley. i know not why the latter obtained this favour; for it had been refused to lord stourton, hanged for murder under mary, as it was afterwards to earl ferrers. [ ] it is often difficult to understand the grounds of a parliamentary attainder, for which any kind of evidence was thought sufficient; and the strongest proofs against catherine howard undoubtedly related to her behaviour before marriage, which could be no legal crime. but some of the depositions extend further. dr. lingard has made a curious observation on this case. "a plot was woven by the industry of the reformers, which brought the young queen to the scaffold, and weakened the ascendency of the reigning party."--p. . this is a very strange assertion; for he proceeds to admit her ante-nuptial guilt, which indeed she is well known to have confessed, and does not give the slightest proof of any plot. yet he adds, speaking of the queen and lady rochford: "i fear [_i.e._ wish to insinuate] both were sacrificed to the manes of anne boleyn." [ ] stat. h. , c. . it may be here observed, that the act attainting catherine howard of treason proceeds to declare that the king's assent to bills by commission under the great seal is as valid as if he were personally present; any custom or use to the contrary notwithstanding. h. , c. . this may be presumed therefore to be the earliest instance of the king's passing bills in this manner. [ ] h. , c. . [ ] h. , c. . [ ] h. , c. . [ ] h. , c. . [ ] h. , c. ; burnet, i. , explains the origin of this act. great exceptions had been taken to some of the king's ecclesiastical proclamations, which altered laws, and laid taxes on spiritual persons. he justly observes that the restrictions contained in it gave great power to the judges, who had the power of expounding in their hands. the preamble is full as offensive as the body of the act; reciting the contempt and disobedience of the king's proclamations by some "who did not consider _what a king by his royal power might do_, which if it continued would tend to the disobedience of the laws of god, and the dishonour of the king's majesty, who might full ill bear it," etc. see this act at length in the great edition of the statutes. there was one singular provision; the clause protecting all persons, as mentioned, in their inheritance or other property, proceeds, "nor shall by virtue of the said act suffer any pains of death." but an exception is afterwards made for "such persons which shall offend against any proclamation to be made by the king's highness, his heirs or successors, for or concerning any kind of heresies against christian doctrine." thus it seems that the king claimed a power to declare heresy by proclamation, under penalty of death. [ ] gray has finely glanced at this bright point of henry's character, in that beautiful stanza where he has made the founders of cambridge pass before our eyes, like shadows over a magic glass: "the majestic lord, who broke the bonds of rome." in a poet, this was a fair employment of his art; but the partiality of burnet towards henry viii. is less warrantable; and he should have blushed to excuse, by absurd and unworthy sophistry, the punishment of those who refused to swear to the king's supremacy. p. . after all, henry was every whit as good a king and man as francis i., whom there are still some, on the other side of the channel, servile enough to extol; not in the least more tyrannical and sanguinary, and of better faith towards his neighbours. [ ] edw. , c. . by this act it is provided that a lord of parliament shall have the benefit of clergy though he cannot read. sect. . yet one can hardly believe, that this provision was necessary at so late an æra. [ ] strype, , , . [ ] _id._ . dr. lingard has remarked an important change in the coronation ceremony of edward vi. formerly, the king had taken an oath to preserve the liberties of the realm, and especially those granted by edward the confessor, etc., before the people were asked whether they would consent to have him as their king. see the form observed at richard the second's coronation in rymer, vii. . but at edward's coronation, the archbishop presented the king to the people, as rightful and undoubted inheritor by the laws of god and man to the royal dignity and crown imperial of this realm, etc., and asked if they would serve him and assent to his coronation, as by their duty of allegiance they were bound to do. all this was before the oath. burnet, appendix, p. . few will pretend that the coronation, or the coronation oath, were essential to the legal succession of the crown, or the exercise of its prerogatives. but this alteration in the form is a curious proof of the solicitude displayed by the tudors, as it was much more by the next family, to suppress every recollection that could make their sovereignty appear to be of popular origin. [ ] haynes's state papers contain many curious proofs of the incipient amour between lord seymour and elizabeth, and show much indecent familiarity on one side, with a little childish coquetry on the other. these documents also rather tend to confirm the story of our elder historians, which i have found attested by foreign writers of that age (though burnet has thrown doubts upon it), that some differences between the queen-dowager and the duchess of somerset aggravated at least those of their husbands. p. , . it is alleged with absurd exaggeration, in the articles against lord seymour, that, had the former proved immediately with child after her marriage with him, it might have passed for the king's. this marriage, however, did not take place before june, henry having died in january. ellis's _letters_, ii. . [ ] journals, feb. , march , - . from these i am led to doubt whether the commons actually heard witnesses against seymour, which burnet and strype have taken for granted. [ ] stat. and edw. vi., c. , s. . [ ] burnet, ii. . an act was made to confirm deeds of private persons, dated during jane's ten days, concerning which some doubt had arisen. mary, sess. , c. . it is said in this statute, "her highness's most lawful possession was for a time disturbed and disquieted by traiterous rebellion and usurpation." it appears that the young king's original intention was to establish a modified salic law, excluding females from the crown, but not their male heirs. in a writing drawn by himself, and entitled "my device for the succession," it is entailed on the heirs male of the lady queen, if she have any before his death; then to the _lady jane and her heirs male_; then to the heirs male of lady katharine; and in every instance, except jane, excluding the female herself. strype's _cranmer_, append. . a late author, on consulting the original ms., in the king's handwriting, found that it had been at first written, "the lady jane's heirs male," but that the words "and her" had been interlined. nares's _memoirs of lord burghley_, i. . mr. nares does not seem to doubt but that this was done by edward himself: the change, however, is remarkable, and should probably be ascribed to northumberland's influence. [ ] burnet, strype, iii. , ; carte, . i doubt whether we have anything in our history more like conquest than the administration of . the queen, in the month only of october, presented to livings, restoring all those turned out under the acts of uniformity. yet the deprivation of the bishops might be justified probably by the terms of the commission they had taken out in edward's reign, to hold their sees during the king's pleasure, for which was afterwards substituted "during good behaviour." burnet, app. ; collier, . [ ] burnet, ii. ; stat. mary, sess. , c. . dr. lingard rather strangely tells this story on the authority of father persons, whom his readers probably do not esteem quite as much as he does. if he had attended to burnet, he would have found a more sufficient voucher. [ ] carte, . [ ] haynes, ; burnet, ii. appendix, , iii. . [ ] burnet, ii. . collier, ii. , and lingard, vii. (who, by the way, confounds this commission with something different two years earlier) will not hear of this allusion to the inquisition. but burnet has said nothing that is not perfectly just. [ ] strype, iii. . [ ] see stafford's proclamation from scarborough castle, strype, iii. appendix, no. . it contains no allusion to religion, both parties being weary of mary's spanish counsels. the important letters of noailles, the french ambassador, to which carte had access, and which have since been printed, have afforded information to dr. lingard, and with those of the imperial ambassador, renard, which i have not had an opportunity of seeing, throw much light on this reign. they certainly appear to justify the restraint put on elizabeth, who, if not herself privy to the conspiracies planned in her behalf (which is, however, very probable), was at least too dangerous to be left at liberty. noailles intrigued with the malcontents, and instigated the rebellion of wyatt, of which dr. lingard gives a very interesting account. carte, indeed, differs from him in many of these circumstances, though writing from the same source, and particularly denies that noailles gave any encouragement to wyatt. it is, however, evident from the tenor of his despatches that he had gone great lengths in fomenting the discontent, and was evidently desirous of the success of the insurrection (iii. , , etc.). this critical state of the government may furnish the usual excuse for its rigour. but its unpopularity was brought on by mary's breach of her word as to religion, and still more by her obstinacy in forming her union with philip against the general voice of the nation, and the opposition of gardiner; who, however, after her resolution was taken, became its strenuous supporter in public. for the detestation in which the queen was held, see the letters of noailles, _passim_; but with some degree of allowance for his own antipathy to her. [ ] burnet, i. . the king refused his assent to a bill which had passed both houses, but apparently not of a political nature. _lords' journals_, p. . [ ] burnet, . [ ] _id._ , . this was the parliament, in order to secure favourable elections for which the council had written letters to the sheriffs. these do not appear to have availed so much as they might hope. [ ] carte, , ; noailles, v. . he says that she committed some knights to the tower for their language in the house. _id._ . burnet, p. , mentions the same. [ ] burnet, ; carte, . noailles says, that a third part of the commons in mary's first parliament was hostile to the repeal of edward's laws about religion, and that the debates lasted a week. ii. . the journals do not mention any division; though it is said in strype, iii. , that one member, sir ralph bagnal, refused to concur in the act abolishing the supremacy. the queen, however, in her letter to cardinal pole, says of this repeal: "quod non sine contentione, disputatione acri, et summo labore fidelium factum est." lingard, carte, philips's _life of pole_. noailles speaks repeatedly of the strength of the protestant party, and of the enmity which the english nation, as he expresses it, bore to the pope. but the aversion to the marriage with philip, and dread of falling under the yoke of spain, was common to both religions, with the exception of a few mere bigots to the church of rome. [ ] noailles, vol. , _passim_. [ ] strype, ii. . [ ] strype, iii. ; burnet, ii. . [ ] burnet, ii. , . [ ] noailles, v. . of the truth of this plot there can be no rational ground to doubt; even dr. lingard has nothing to advance against it but the assertion of mary's counsellors, the pagets and arundels, the most worthless of mankind. we are, in fact, greatly indebted to noailles for his spirited activity, which contributed, in a high degree, to secure both the protestant religion and the national independence of our ancestors. [ ] henry vii. first established a band of fifty archers to wait on him. henry viii. had fifty horse-guards, each with an archer, demilance and couteiller, like the gendarmerie of france; but on account, probably, of the expense it occasioned, their equipment being too magnificent, this soon was given up. [ ] _view of middle ages_, ch. . i must here acknowledge, that i did not make the requisite distinction between the concilium secretum, or privy council of state, and the concilium ordinarium, as lord hale calls it, which alone exercised jurisdiction. [ ] _commonwealth of england_, book , c. . the statute h. , c. enacts, that if a jury in wales acquit a felon, contrary to good and pregnant evidence, or otherwise misbehave themselves, the judge may bind them to appear before the president and council of the welsh marches. the partiality of welsh jurors was notorious in that age; and the reproach has not quite ceased. [ ] _state trials_, i. ; strype, ii. . in a letter to the duke of norfolk (_hardwicke papers_, i. ) at the time of the yorkshire rebellion in , he is directed to question the jury who had acquitted a particular person, in order to discover their motive. norfolk seems to have objected to this for a good reason, "least the fear thereof might trouble others in the like case." but it may not be uncandid to ascribe this rather to a leaning towards the insurgents than a constitutional principle. [ ] _hale's jurisdiction of the lords' house_, p. . coke, th inst. , where we have the following passage: "so this court [the court of star-chamber, as the concilium was then called] being holden coram rege et concilio, it is, or may be, compounded of three several councils; that is to say, of the lords and others of his majesty's privy council, always judges without appointment, as before it appeareth. . the judges of either bench and barons of the exchequer are of the king's council, for matters of law, etc., and the two chief justices, or in their absence other two justices, are standing judges of this court. . the lords of parliament are properly de magno concilio regis; but neither those, not being of the king's privy council, nor any of the rest of the judges or barons of the exchequer are standing judges of the court." but hudson, in his _treatise of the court of star-chamber_, written about the end of james's reign, inclines to think that all peers had a right of sitting in the court of star-chamber; there being several instances where some who were not of the council of state were present and gave judgment, as in the case of mr. davison, "and how they were complete judges unsworn, if not by their native right, i cannot comprehend; for surely the calling of them in that case was not made legitimate by any act of parliament; neither without their right were they more apt to be judges than any other inferior persons in the kingdom; and yet i doubt not but it resteth in the king's pleasure to restrain any man from that table, as well as he may any of his council from the board." _collectanea juridica_, ii. p. . he says also, that it was demurrable for a bill to pray process against the defendant, to appear before the king and his privy council. _ibid._ [ ] the privy council sometimes met in the star-chamber, and made orders. see one in h. , harl. mss. catalogue, n. , fol. . so the statute, h. , c. , recites a decree _by the king's council in his star-chamber_, that no alien artificer shall keep more than two alien servants, and other matters of the same kind. this could no way belong to the court of star-chamber, which was a judicial tribunal. it should be remarked, though not to our immediate purpose, that this decree was supposed to require an act of parliament for its confirmation; so far was the government of henry viii. from arrogating a legislative power in matters of private right. [ ] lord hale thinks that the jurisdiction of the council was gradually "brought into great disuse, though there remain some straggling footsteps of their proceedings till near h. ."--p. . "the continual complaints of the commons against the proceedings before the council in causes civil or criminal, although they did not always attain their concession, yet brought a disreputation upon the proceedings of the council, as contrary to magna charta and the known laws."--p. . he seems to admit afterwards, however, that many instances of proceedings before them in criminal causes might be added to those mentioned by lord coke. p. . the paucity of records about the time of edward iv. renders the negative argument rather weak; but, from the expression of sir thomas smith in the text, it may perhaps be inferred that the council had intermitted in a considerable degree, though not absolutely disused, their exercise of jurisdiction for some time before the accession of the house of tudor. mr. brodie, in his _history of the british empire under charles i._, i. , has treated at considerable length, and with much acuteness, this subject of the antiquity of the star-chamber. i do not coincide in all his positions; but the only one very important, is that wherein we fully agree, that its jurisdiction was chiefly usurped, as well as tyrannical. i will here observe that this part of our ancient constitutional history is likely to be elucidated by a friend of my own, who has already given evidence to the world of his singular competence for such an undertaking, and who unites, with all the learning and diligence of spelman, prynne, and madox, an acuteness and vivacity of intellect which none of those writers possessed. [ ] _commonwealth of england_, book , c. . we find sir robert sheffield in "put into the tower again for the complaint he made to the king of my lord cardinal." lodge's _illustrations_, i. p. . see also hall, p. , for wolsey's strictness in punishing the "lords, knights, and men of all sorts, for riots, bearing, and maintenance." [ ] plowden's _commentaries,_ . in the year-book itself, h. , pl. ult. the word star-chamber is not used. it is held in this case, that the chancellor, treasurer, and privy-seal were the only judges, and the rest but assistants. coke, inst. , denies this to be law; but on no better grounds than that the practice of the star-chamber, that is, of a different tribunal, was not such. [ ] _hist. of henry vii._ in bacon's works, ii. p. . [ ] the result of what has been said in the last pages may be summed up in a few propositions. . the court erected by the statute of henry vii. was not the court of star-chamber. . this court by the statute subsisted in full force till beyond the middle of henry viii.'s reign, but not long afterwards went into disuse. . the court of star-chamber was the old concilium ordinarium, against whose jurisdiction many statutes had been enacted from the time of edward iii. . no part of the jurisdiction exercised by the star-chamber could be maintained on the authority of the statute of henry vii. [ ] burnet, ii. . chapter ii on the english church under henry viii., edward vi., and mary reformation. _state of public opinion as to religion._--no revolution has ever been more gradually prepared than that which separated almost one-half of europe from the communion of the roman see; nor were luther and zuingle any more than occasional instruments of that change which, had they never existed, would at no great distance of time have been effected under the names of some other reformers. at the beginning of the sixteenth century, the learned doubtfully and with caution, the ignorant with zeal and eagerness, were tending to depart from the faith and rites which authority prescribed. but probably not even germany was so far advanced on this course as england. almost a hundred and fifty years before luther, nearly the same doctrines as he taught had been maintained by wicliffe, whose disciples, usually called lollards, lasted as a numerous, though obscure and proscribed sect, till, aided by the confluence of foreign streams, they swelled into the protestant church of england. we hear indeed little of them during some part of the fifteenth century; for they generally shunned persecution; and it is chiefly through records of persecution that we learn the existence of heretics. but immediately before the name of luther was known, they seem to have become more numerous, or to have attracted more attention; since several persons were burned for heresy, and others abjured their errors, in the first years of henry viii.'s reign. some of these (as usual among ignorant men engaging in religious speculations) are charged with very absurd notions; but it is not so material to observe their particular tenets as the general fact, that an inquisitive and sectarian spirit had begun to prevail. those who took little interest in theological questions, or who retained an attachment to the faith in which they had been educated, were in general not less offended than the lollards themselves with the inordinate opulence and encroaching temper of the clergy. it had been for two or three centuries the policy of our lawyers to restrain these within some bounds. no ecclesiastical privilege had occasioned such dispute, or proved so mischievous, as the immunity of all tonsured persons from civil punishment for crimes. it was a material improvement in the law under henry vi. that, instead of being instantly claimed by the bishop on their arrest for any criminal charge, they were compelled to plead their privilege at their arraignment, or after conviction. henry vii. carried this much farther, by enacting that clerks convicted of felony should be burned in the hand. and in ( h. ), the benefit of clergy was entirely taken away from murderers and highway robbers. an exemption was still made for priests, deacons, and subdeacons. but this was not sufficient to satisfy the church, who had been accustomed to shield under the mantle of her immunity a vast number of persons in the lower degrees of orders, or without any orders at all; and had owed no small part of her influence to those who derived so important a benefit from her protection. hence, besides violent language in preaching against this statute, the convocation attacked one doctor standish, who had denied the divine right of clerks to their exemption from temporal jurisdiction. the temporal courts naturally defended standish; and the parliament addressed the king to support him against the malice of his persecutors. henry, after a full debate between the opposite parties in his presence, thought his prerogative concerned in taking the same side; and the clergy sustained a mortifying defeat. about the same time, a citizen of london named hun, having been confined on a charge of heresy in the bishop's prison, was found hanged in his chamber; and though this was asserted to be his own act, yet the bishop's chancellor was indicted for the murder on such vehement presumptions, that he would infallibly have been convicted, had the attorney-general thought fit to proceed in the trial. this occurring at the same time with the affair of standish, furnished each party with an argument; for the clergy maintained that they should have no chance of justice in a temporal court; one of the bishops declaring, that the london juries were so prejudiced against the church, that they would find abel guilty of the murder of cain. such an admission is of more consequence than whether hun died by his own hands, or those of a clergyman; and the story is chiefly worth remembering, as it illustrates the popular disposition towards those who had once been the objects of reverence.[ ] _henry viii.'s controversy with luther._--such was the temper of england when martin luther threw down his gauntlet of defiance against the ancient hierarchy of the catholic church. but, ripe as a great portion of the people might be to applaud the efforts of this reformer, they were viewed with no approbation by their sovereign. henry had acquired a fair portion of theological learning, and on reading one of luther's treatises, was not only shocked at its tenets, but undertook to confute them in a formal answer.[ ] kings who divest themselves of their robes to mingle among polemical writers, have not perhaps a claim to much deference from strangers; and luther, intoxicated with arrogance, and deeming himself a more prominent individual among the human species than any monarch, treated henry, in replying to his book, with the rudeness that characterised his temper. a few years afterwards, indeed, he thought proper to write a letter of apology for the language he had held towards the king; but this letter, a strange medley of abjectness and impertinence, excited only contempt in henry, and was published by him with a severe commentary.[ ] whatever apprehension therefore for the future might be grounded on the humour of the nation, no king in europe appeared so steadfast in his allegiance to rome as henry viii. at the moment when a storm sprang up that broke the chain for ever. _his divorce from catherine._--it is certain that henry's marriage with his brother's widow was unsupported by any precedent and that, although the pope's dispensation might pass for a cure of all defects, it had been originally considered by many persons in a very different light from those unions which are merely prohibited by the canons. he himself, on coming to the age of fourteen, entered a protest against the marriage which had been celebrated more than two years before, and declared his intention not to confirm it; an act which must naturally be ascribed to his father.[ ] it is true that in this very instrument we find no mention of the impediment on the score of affinity; yet it is hard to suggest any other objection, and possibly a common form had been adopted in drawing up the protest. he did not cohabit with catherine during his father's lifetime. upon his own accession, he was remarried to her; and it does not appear manifest at what time his scruples began, nor whether they preceded his passion for anne boleyn.[ ] this, however, seems the more probable supposition; yet there can be little doubt, that weariness of catherine's person, a woman considerably older than himself and unlikely to bear more children, had a far greater effect on his conscience than the study of thomas aquinas or any other theologian. it by no means follows from hence that, according to the casuistry of the catholic church and the principles of the canon law, the merits of that famous process were so much against henry, as out of dislike to him and pity for his queen we are apt to imagine, and as the writers of that persuasion have subsequently assumed. it would be unnecessary to repeat, what is told by so many historians, the vacillating and evasive behaviour of clement vii., the assurances he gave the king, and the arts with which he receded from them, the unfinished trial in england before his delegates, campegio and wolsey, the opinions obtained from foreign universities in the king's favour, not always without a little bribery,[ ] and those of the same import at home, not given without a little intimidation, or the tedious continuance of the process after its adjournment to rome. more than five years had elapsed from the first application to the pope, before henry, though by nature the most uncontrollable of mankind, though irritated by perpetual chicanery and breach of promise, though stimulated by impatient love, presumed to set at nought the jurisdiction to which he had submitted, by a marriage with anne. even this was a furtive step; and it was not till compelled by the consequences that he avowed her as his wife, and was finally divorced from catherine by a sentence of nullity, which would more decently, no doubt, have preceded his second marriage.[ ] but, determined as his mind had become, it was plainly impossible for clement to have conciliated him by anything short of a decision, which he could not utter without the loss of the emperor's favour and the ruin of his own family's interests in italy. and even for less selfish reasons, it was an extremely embarrassing measure for the pope, in the critical circumstances of that age, to set aside a dispensation granted by his predecessor; knowing that, however erroneous allegations of fact contained therein might serve for an outward pretext, yet the principle on which the divorce was commonly supported in europe, went generally to restrain the dispensing power of the holy see. hence it may seem very doubtful whether the treaty which was afterwards partially renewed through the mediation of francis i., during his interview with the pope at nice about the end of , would have led to a restoration of amity through the only possible means; when we consider the weight of the imperial party in the conclave, the discredit that so notorious a submission would have thrown on the church, and, above all, the precarious condition of the medici at florence in case of a rupture with charles v. it was more probably the aim of clement to delude henry once more by his promises; but this was prevented by the more violent measure into which the cardinals forced him, of a definitive sentence in favour of catherine, whom the king was required under pain of excommunication to take back as his wife. this sentence of the rd of march , proved a declaration of interminable war; and the king, who, in consequence of the hopes held out to him by francis, had already despatched an envoy to rome with his submission to what the pope should decide, now resolved to break off all intercourse for ever, and trust to his own prerogative and power over his subjects for securing the succession to the crown in the line which he designed. it was doubtless a regard to this consideration that put him upon his last overtures for an amicable settlement with the court of rome.[ ] but long before this final cessation of intercourse with that court, henry had entered upon a course of measures which would have opposed fresh obstacles to a renewal of the connection. he had found a great part of his subjects in a disposition to go beyond all he could wish in sustaining his quarrel, not, in this instance, from mere terror, but because a jealousy of ecclesiastical power, and of the roman court, had long been a sort of national sentiment in england. the pope's avocation of the process to rome, by which his duplicity and alienation from the king's side was made evident, and the disgrace of wolsey, took place in the summer of . the parliament which met soon afterwards was continued through several sessions (an unusual circumstance), till it completed the separation of this kingdom from the supremacy of rome. in the progress of ecclesiastical usurpation, the papal and episcopal powers had lent mutual support to each other; both consequently were involved in the same odium, and had become the object of restrictions in a similar spirit. warm attacks were made on the clergy by speeches in the commons, which bishop fisher severely reprehended in the upper house. this provoked the commons to send a complaint to the king by their speaker, demanding reparation; and fisher explained away the words that had given offence. an act passed to limit the fees on probates of wills, a mode of ecclesiastical extortion much complained of, and upon mortuaries.[ ] the next proceeding was of a far more serious nature. it was pretended, that wolsey's exercise of authority as papal legate contravened a statute of richard ii., and that both himself and the whole body of the clergy, by their submission to him, had incurred the penalties of a præmunire, that is, the forfeiture of their movable estate, besides imprisonment at discretion. these old statutes in restraint of the papal jurisdiction had been so little regarded, and so many legates had acted in england without objection, that henry's prosecution of the church on this occasion was extremely harsh and unfair. the clergy, however, now felt themselves to be the weaker party. in convocation they implored the king's clemency, and obtained it by paying a large sum of money. in their petition he was styled the protector and supreme head of the church and clergy of england. many of that body were staggered at the unexpected introduction of a title that seemed to strike at the supremacy they had always acknowledged in the roman see. and in the end it passed only with a very suspicious qualification, "so far as is permitted by the law of christ." henry had previously given the pope several intimations that he could proceed in his divorce without him. for, besides a strong remonstrance by letter from the temporal peers as well as bishops against the procrastination of sentence in so just a suit, the opinions of english and foreign universities had been laid before both houses of parliament and of convocation, and the divorce approved without difficulty in the former, and by a great majority in the latter. these proceedings took place in the first months of , while the king's ambassadors at rome were still pressing for a favourable sentence, though with diminished hopes. next year the annates, or first fruits of benefices, a constant source of discord between the nations of europe, and their spiritual chief, were taken away by act of parliament, but with a remarkable condition, that if the pope would either abolish the payment of annates, or reduce them to a moderate burthen, the king might declare before next session, by letters patent, whether this act, or any part of it, should be observed. it was accordingly confirmed by letters patent more than a year after it received the royal assent. it is difficult for us to determine whether the pope, by conceding to henry the great object of his solicitude, could in this stage have not only arrested the progress of the schism, but recovered his former ascendency over the english church and kingdom. but probably he could not have done so in its full extent. sir thomas more, who had rather complied than concurred with the proceedings for a divorce, though his acceptance of the great seal on wolsey's disgrace would have been inconsistent with his character, had he been altogether opposed in conscience to the king's measures, now thought it necessary to resign, when the papal authority was steadily, though gradually, assailed.[ ] in the next session an act was passed to take away all appeals to rome from ecclesiastical courts; which annihilated at one stroke the jurisdiction built on long usage and on the authority of the false decretals. this law rendered the king's second marriage, which had preceded it, secure from being annulled by the papal court. henry, however, still advanced, very cautiously, and on the death of warham, archbishop of canterbury, not long before this time, applied to rome for the usual bulls in behalf of cranmer, whom he nominated to the vacant see. these were the last bulls obtained, and probably the last instance of any exercise of the papal supremacy in this reign. an act followed in the next session, that bishops elected by their chapter on a royal recommendation, should be consecrated, and archbishops receive the pall, without suing for the pope's bulls. all dispensations and licences hitherto granted by that court were set aside by another statute, and the power of issuing them in lawful cases transferred to the archbishop of canterbury. the king is in this act recited to be the supreme head of the church of england, as the clergy had two years before acknowledged in convocation. but this title was not formally declared by parliament to appertain to the crown till the ensuing session of parliament.[ ] _separation from the church of rome._--by these means was the church of england altogether emancipated from the superiority of that of rome. for as to the pope's merely spiritual primacy and authority in matters of faith, which are, or at least were, defended by catholics of the gallican or cisalpine school on quite different grounds from his jurisdiction or his legislatorial power in points of discipline, they seem to have attracted little peculiar attention at the time, and to have dropped off as a dead branch, when the axe had lopped the fibres that gave it nourishment. like other momentous revolutions, this divided the judgment and feelings of the nation. in the previous affair of catherine's divorce, generous minds were more influenced by the rigour and indignity of her treatment than by the king's inclinations, or the venal opinions of foreign doctors in law. bellay, bishop of bayonne, the french ambassador at london, wrote home in , that a revolt was apprehended from the general unpopularity of the divorce.[ ] much difficulty was found in procuring the judgments of oxford and cambridge against the marriage; which was effected in the former case, as is said, by excluding the masters of arts, the younger and less worldly part of the university, from their right of suffrage. even so late as , in the pliant house of commons, a member had the boldness to move an address to the king, that he would take back his wife. and this temper of the people seems to have been the great inducement with henry to postpone any sentence by a domestic jurisdiction, so long as a chance of the pope's sanction remained. the aversion entertained by a large part of the community, and especially of the clerical order, towards the divorce, was not perhaps so generally founded upon motives of justice and compassion, as on the obvious tendency which its prosecution latterly manifested to bring about a separation from rome. though the principal lutherans of germany were far less favourably disposed to the king in their opinions on this subject than the catholic theologians, holding that the prohibition of marrying a brother's widow in the levitical law was not binding on christians, or at least that the marriage ought not to be annulled after so many years' continuance;[ ] yet in england the interests of anne boleyn and of the reformation were considered as the same. she was herself strongly suspected of an inclination to the new tenets; and her friend cranmer had been the most active person both in promoting the divorce, and the recognition of the king's supremacy. the latter was, as i imagine, by no means unacceptable to the nobility and gentry, who saw in it the only effectual method of cutting off the papal exactions that had so long impoverished the realm; nor yet to the citizens of london, and other large towns, who, with the same dislike of the roman court, had begun to acquire some taste for the protestant doctrine. but the common people, especially in remote counties, had been used to an implicit reverence for the holy see, and had suffered comparatively little by its impositions. they looked up also to their own teachers as guides in faith; and the main body of the clergy was certainly very reluctant to tear themselves, at the pleasure of a disappointed monarch, in the most dangerous crisis of religion, from the bosom of catholic unity.[ ] they complied indeed with all the measures of government far more than men of rigid conscience could have endured to do; but many who wanted the courage of more and fisher, were not far removed from their way of thinking.[ ] this repugnance to so great an alteration showed itself, above all, in the monastic orders, some of whom by wealth, hospitality, and long-established dignity, others by activity in preaching and confessing, enjoyed a very considerable influence over the poorer class. but they had to deal with a sovereign, whose policy as well as temper dictated that he had no safety but in advancing; and their disaffection to his government, while it overwhelmed them in ruin, produced a second grand innovation in the ecclesiastical polity of england. _dissolution of monasteries._--the enormous, and in a great measure ill-gotten, opulence of the regular clergy had long since excited jealousy in every part of europe. though the statutes of mortmain under edward i. and edward iii. had put some obstacle to its increase, yet as these were eluded by licences of alienation, a larger proportion of landed wealth was constantly accumulating, in hands which lost nothing that they had grasped.[ ] a writer much inclined to partiality towards the monasteries says that they held not one-fifth part of the kingdom; no insignificant patrimony! he adds, what may probably be true, that through granting easy leases, they did not enjoy more than one-tenth in value.[ ] these vast possessions were very unequally distributed among four or five hundred monasteries. some abbots, as those of reading, glastonbury, and battle, lived in princely splendour, and were in every sense the spiritual peers and magnates of the realm. in other foundations, the revenues did little more than afford a subsistence for the monks, and defray the needful expenses. as they were in general exempted from episcopal visitation, and intrusted with the care of their own discipline, such abuses had gradually prevailed and gained strength by connivance, as we may naturally expect in corporate bodies of men leading almost of necessity useless and indolent lives, and in whom very indistinct views of moral obligations were combined with a great facility of violating them. the vices that for many ages had been supposed to haunt the monasteries, had certainly not left their precincts in that of henry viii. wolsey, as papal legate, at the instigation of fox, bishop of hereford, a favourer of the reformation, commenced a visitation of the professed as well as secular clergy in , in consequence of the general complaint against their manners.[ ] this great minister, though not perhaps very rigid as to the morality of the church, was the first who set an example of reforming monastic foundations in the most efficacious manner, by converting their revenues to different purposes. full of anxious zeal for promoting education, the noblest part of his character, he obtained bulls from rome suppressing many convents (among which was that of st. frideswide at oxford), in order to erect and endow a new college in that university, his favourite work, which after his fall was more completely established by the name of christ church.[ ] a few more were afterwards extinguished through his instigation; and thus the prejudice against interference with this species of property was somewhat worn off, and men's minds gradually prepared for the sweeping confiscations of cromwell. the king indeed was abundantly willing to replenish his exchequer by violent means, and to avenge himself on those who gainsayed his supremacy; but it was this able statesman who, prompted both by the natural appetite of ministers for the subject's money and by a secret partiality towards the reformation, devised and carried on with complete success, if not with the utmost prudence, a measure of no inconsiderable hazard and difficulty. for such it surely was, under a system of government which rested so much on antiquity, and in spite of the peculiar sacredness which the english attach to all freehold property, to annihilate so many prescriptive baronial tenures, the possessors whereof composed more than a third part of the house of lords, and to subject so many estates which the law had rendered inalienable, to maxims of escheat and forfeiture that had never been held applicable to their tenure. but for this purpose it was necessary, by exposing the gross corruptions of monasteries, both to intimidate the regular clergy, and to excite popular indignation against them. it is not to be doubted that in the visitation of these foundations under the direction of cromwell, as lord vicegerent of the king's ecclesiastical supremacy, many things were done in an arbitrary manner, and much was unfairly represented.[ ] yet the reports of these visitors are so minute and specific that it is rather a preposterous degree of incredulity to reject their testimony, whenever it bears hard on the regulars. it is always to be remembered that the vices to which they bear witness, are not only probable from the nature of such foundations, but are imputed to them by the most respectable writers of preceding ages. nor do i find that the reports of this visitation were impeached for general falsehood in that age, whatever exaggeration there might be in particular cases. and surely the commendation bestowed on some religious houses as pure and unexceptionable, may afford a presumption that the censure of others was not an indiscriminate prejudging of their merits.[ ] the dread of these visitors soon induced a number of abbots to make surrenders to the king; a step of very questionable legality. but in the next session the smaller convents, whose revenues were less than £ a year, were suppressed by act of parliament, to the number of three hundred and seventy-six, and their estates vested in the crown. this summary spoliation led to the great northern rebellion soon afterwards. it was, in fact, not merely to wound the people's strongest impressions of religion, and especially those connected with their departed friends, for whose souls prayers were offered in the monasteries, but to deprive the indigent, in many places, of succour, and the better rank of hospitable reception. this of course was experienced in a far greater degree at the dissolution of the larger monasteries, which took place in . but, henry having entirely subdued the rebellion, and being now exceedingly dreaded by both the religious parties, this measure produced no open resistance; though there seems to have been less pretext for it on the score of immorality and neglect of discipline than was found for abolishing the smaller convents.[ ] these great foundations were all surrendered; a few excepted, which, against every principle of received law, were held to fall by the attainder of their abbots for high treason. parliament had only to confirm the king's title arising out of these surrenders and forfeitures. some historians assert the monks to have been turned adrift with a small sum of money. but it rather appears that they generally received pensions not inadequate, and which are said to have been pretty faithfully paid.[ ] these however were voluntary gifts on the part of the crown. for the parliament which dissolved the monastic foundations, while it took abundant care to preserve any rights of property which private persons might enjoy over the estates thus escheated to the crown, vouchsafed not a word towards securing the slightest compensation to the dispossessed owners. the fall of the mitred abbots changed the proportions of the two estates which constitute the upper house of parliament. though the number of abbots and priors to whom writs of summons were directed varied considerably in different parliaments, they always, joined to the twenty-one bishops, preponderated over the temporal peers.[ ] it was no longer possible for the prelacy to offer an efficacious opposition to the reformation they abhorred. their own baronial tenure, their high dignity as legislative counsellors of the land, remained; but, one branch as ancient and venerable as their own thus lopped off, the spiritual aristocracy was reduced to play a very secondary part in the councils of the nation. nor could the protestant religion have easily been established by legal methods under edward and elizabeth without this previous destruction of the monasteries. those who, professing an attachment to that religion, have swollen the clamour of its adversaries against the dissolution of foundations that existed only for the sake of a different faith and worship, seem to me not very consistent or enlightened reasoners. in some, the love of antiquity produces a sort of fanciful illusion; and the very sight of those buildings, so magnificent in their prosperous hour, so beautiful even in their present ruin, begets a sympathy for those who founded and inhabited them. in many, the violent courses of confiscation and attainder which accompanied this great revolution excite so just an indignation, that they either forget to ask whether the end might not have been reached by more laudable means, or condemn that end itself either as sacrilege, or at least as an atrocious violation of the rights of property. others again, who acknowledge that the monastic discipline cannot be reconciled with the modern system of religion, or with public utility, lament only that these ample endowments were not bestowed upon ecclesiastical corporations, freed from the monkish cowl, but still belonging to that spiritual profession to whose use they were originally consecrated. and it was a very natural theme of complaint at the time, that such abundant revenues as might have sustained the dignity of the crown and supplied the means of public defence without burthening the subject, had served little other purpose than that of swelling the fortunes of rapacious courtiers, and had left the king as necessitous and craving as before. notwithstanding these various censures, i must own myself of opinion, both that the abolition of monastic institutions might have been conducted in a manner consonant to justice as well as policy, and that henry's profuse alienation of the abbey lands, however illaudable in its motive, has proved upon the whole more beneficial to england than any other disposition would have turned out. i cannot, until some broad principle is made more obvious than it ever has yet been, do such violence to all common notions on the subject, as to attach an equal inviolability to private and corporate property. the law of hereditary succession, as ancient and universal as that of property itself, the law of testamentary disposition, the complement of the former, so long established in most countries as to seem a natural right, have invested the individual possessor of the soil with such a fictitious immortality, such anticipated enjoyment, as it were, of futurity, that his perpetual ownership could not be limited to the term of his own existence, without what he would justly feel as a real deprivation of property. nor are the expectancies of children, or other probable heirs, less real possessions, which it is a hardship, if not an absolute injury, to defeat. yet even this hereditary claim is set aside by the laws of forfeiture, which have almost everywhere prevailed. but in estates held, as we call it, in mortmain, there is no intercommunity, no natural privity of interest, between the present possessor and those who may succeed him; and as the former cannot have any pretext for complaint, if, his own rights being preserved, the legislature should alter the course of transmission after his decease, so neither is any hardship sustained by others, unless their succession has been already designated or rendered probable. corporate property therefore appears to stand on a very different footing from that of private individuals; and while all infringements of the established privileges of the latter are to be sedulously avoided, and held justifiable only by the strongest motives of public expediency, we cannot but admit the full right of the legislature to new mould and regulate the former in all that does not involve existing interests upon far slighter reasons of convenience. if henry had been content with prohibiting the profession of religious persons for the future, and had gradually diverted their revenues instead of violently confiscating them, no protestant could have found it easy to censure his policy. it is indeed impossible to feel too much indignation at the spirit in which these proceedings were conducted. besides the hardship sustained by so many persons turned loose upon society for whose occupations they were unfit, the indiscriminate destruction of convents produced several public mischiefs. the visitors themselves strongly interceded for the nunnery of godstow, as irreproachable managed, and an excellent place of education; and no doubt some other foundations should have been preserved for the same reason. latimer, who could not have a prejudice on that side, begged earnestly that the priory of malvern might be spared, for the maintenance of preaching and hospitality. it was urged for hexham abbey that, there not being a house for many miles in that part of england, the country would be in danger of going to waste.[ ] and the total want of inns in many parts of the kingdom must have rendered the loss of these hospitable places of reception a serious grievance. these and probably other reasons ought to have checked the destroying spirit of reform in its career, and suggested to henry's counsellors that a few years would not be ill consumed in contriving new methods of attaining the beneficial effects which monastic institutions had not failed to produce, and in preparing the people's minds for so important an innovation. the suppression of monasteries poured in an instant such a torrent of wealth upon the crown, as has seldom been equalled in any country by the confiscations following a subdued rebellion. the clear yearly value was rated at £ , ; but was in reality, if we believe burnet, ten times as great; the courtiers undervaluing those estates, in order to obtain grants or sales of them more easily. it is certain, however, that burnet's supposition errs extravagantly on the other side.[ ] the movables of the smaller monasteries alone were reckoned at £ , ; and, as the rents of these were less than a fourth of the whole, we may calculate the aggregate value of movable wealth in the same proportion. all this was enough to dazzle a more prudent mind than that of henry, and to inspire those sanguine dreams of inexhaustible affluence with which private men are so often filled by sudden prosperity. the monastic rule of life being thus abrogated, as neither conformable to pure religion nor to policy, it is to be considered, to what uses these immense endowments ought to have been applied. there are some, perhaps, who may be of opinion that the original founders of monasteries, or those who had afterwards bestowed lands on them, having annexed to their grants an implied condition of the continuance of certain devotional services, and especially of prayers for the repose of their souls, it were but equitable that, if the legislature rendered the performance of this condition impossible, their heirs should re-enter upon the lands that would not have been alienated from them on any other account. but, without adverting to the difficulty in many cases of ascertaining the lawful heir, it might be answered that the donors had absolutely divested themselves of all interest in their grants, and that it was more consonant to the analogy of law to treat these estates as escheats or vacant possessions, devolving to the sovereign, than to imagine a right of reversion that no party had ever contemplated. there was indeed a class of persons, very different from the founders of monasteries, to whom restitution was due. a large proportion of conventual revenues arose out of parochial tithes, diverted from the legitimate object of maintaining the incumbent to swell the pomp of some remote abbot. these impropriations were in no one instance, i believe, restored to the parochial clergy, and have passed either into the hands of laymen, or of bishops and other ecclesiastical persons, who were frequently compelled by the tudor princes to take them in exchange for lands.[ ] it was not in the spirit of henry's policy, or in that of the times, to preserve much of these revenues to the church, though he had designed to allot £ , a year for eighteen new sees, of which he only erected six with far inferior endowments. nor was he much better inclined to husband them for public exigencies, although more than sufficient to make the crown independent of parliamentary aid. it may perhaps be reckoned a providential circumstance that his thoughtless humour should have rejected the obvious means of establishing an uncontrollable despotism, by rendering unnecessary the only exertion of power which his subjects were likely to withstand. henry vii. would probably have followed a very different course. large sums, however, are said to have been expended in the repair of highways, and in fortifying ports in the channel.[ ] but the greater part was dissipated in profuse grants to the courtiers, who frequently contrived to veil their acquisitions under cover of a purchase from the crown. it has been surmised that cromwell, in his desire to promote the reformation, advised the king to make this partition of abbey lands among the nobles and gentry, either by grant, or by sale on easy terms, that, being thus bound by the sure ties of private interest, they might always oppose any return towards the dominion of rome.[ ] in mary's reign accordingly her parliament, so obsequious in all matters of religion, adhered with a firm grasp to the possession of church lands; nor could the papal supremacy be re-established until a sanction was given to their enjoyment. and we may ascribe part of the zeal of the same class in bringing back and preserving the reformed church under elizabeth to a similar motive; not that these gentlemen were hypocritical pretenders to a belief they did not entertain, but that, according to the general laws of human nature, they gave a readier reception to truths which made their estates more secure. but, if the participation of so many persons in the spoils of ecclesiastical property gave stability to the new religion, by pledging them to its support, it was also of no slight advantage to our civil constitution, strengthening, and as it were infusing new blood into the territorial aristocracy, who were to withstand the enormous prerogative of the crown. for if it be true, as surely it is, that wealth is power, the distribution of so large a portion of the kingdom among the nobles and gentry, the elevation of so many new families, and the increased opulence of the more ancient, must have sensibly affected their weight in the balance. those families indeed, within or without the bounds of the peerage, which are now deemed the most considerable, will be found, with no great number of exceptions, to have first become conspicuous under the tudor line of kings; and, if we could trace the titles of their estates, to have acquired no small portion of them, mediately or immediately, from monastic or other ecclesiastical foundations. and better it has been that these revenues should thus from age to age have been expended in liberal hospitality, in discerning charity, in the promotion of industry and cultivation, in the active duties or even generous amusements of life, than in maintaining a host of ignorant and inactive monks, in deceiving the populace by superstitious pageantry, or in the encouragement of idleness and mendicity.[ ] a very ungrounded prejudice had long obtained currency, and, notwithstanding the contradiction it has experienced in our more accurate age, seems still not eradicated, that the alms of monasteries maintained the indigent throughout the kingdom, and that the system of parochial relief, now so much the topic of complaint, was rendered necessary by the dissolution of those beneficent foundations. there can be no doubt that many of the impotent poor derived support from their charity. but the blind eleemosynary spirit inculcated by the romish church is notoriously the cause, not the cure, of beggary and wretchedness. the monastic foundations, scattered in different counties, but by no means at regular distances, could never answer the end of local and limited succour, meted out in just proportion to the demands of poverty. their gates might indeed be open to those who knocked at them for alms, and came in search of streams that must always be too scanty for a thirsty multitude. nothing could have a stronger tendency to promote that vagabond mendicity, which unceasing and very severe statutes were enacted to repress. it was and must always continue a hard problem, to discover the means of rescuing those whom labour cannot maintain from the last extremities of helpless suffering. the regular clergy were in all respects ill fitted for this great office of humanity. even while the monasteries were yet standing, the scheme of a provision for the poor had been adopted by the legislature, by means of regular collections, which in the course of a long series of statutes, ending in the rd of elizabeth, were almost insensibly converted into compulsory assessments.[ ] it is by no means probable that, however some in particular districts may have had to lament the cessation of hospitality in the convents, the poor in general were placed in a worse condition by their dissolution; nor are we to forget that the class to whom the abbey lands have fallen have been distinguished at all times, and never more than in the first century after that transference of property, for their charity and munificence. these two great political measures, the separation from the roman see, and the suppression of monasteries, so broke the vast power of the english clergy, and humbled their spirit, that they became the most abject of henry's vassals, and dared not offer any steady opposition to his caprice, even when it led him to make innovations in the essential parts of their religion. it is certain that a large majority of that order would gladly have retained their allegiance to rome, and that they viewed with horror the downfall of the monasteries. in rending away so much that had been incorporated with the public faith, henry seemed to prepare the road for the still more radical changes of the reformers. these, a numerous and increasing sect, exulted by turns in the innovations he promulgated, lamented their dilatoriness and imperfection, or trembled at the reaction of his bigotry against themselves. trained in the school of theological controversy, and drawing from those bitter waters fresh aliment for his sanguinary and imperious temper, he displayed the impartiality of his intolerance by alternately persecuting the two conflicting parties. we all have read how three persons convicted of disputing his supremacy, and three deniers of transubstantiation, were drawn on the same hurdle to execution. but the doctrinal system adopted by henry in the latter years of his reign, varying indeed in some measure from time to time, was about equally removed from popish and protestant orthodoxy. the corporal presence of christ in the consecrated elements was a tenet which no one might dispute without incurring the penalty of death by fire; and the king had a capricious partiality to the romish practice in those very points where a great many real catholics on the continent were earnest for its alteration, the communion of the laity by bread alone, and the celibacy of the clergy. but in several other respects he was wrought upon by cranmer to draw pretty near to the lutheran creed, and to permit such explications to be given in the books set forth by his authority, the _institution_, and the _erudition of a christian man_, as, if they did not absolutely proscribe most of the ancient opinions, threw at best much doubt upon them, and gave intimations which the people, now become attentive to these questions, were acute enough to interpret.[ ] _progress of the reformed doctrine in england._--it was natural to suspect, from the previous temper of the nation, that the revolutionary spirit which blazed out in germany should spread rapidly over england. the enemies of ancient superstition at home, by frequent communication with the lutheran and swiss reformers, acquired not only more enlivening confidence, but a surer and more definite system of belief. books printed in germany or in the flemish provinces, where at first the administration connived at the new religion, were imported and read with that eagerness and delight which always compensate the risk of forbidden studies.[ ] wolsey, who had no turn towards persecution, contented himself with ordering heretical writings to be burned, and strictly prohibiting their importation. but to withstand the course of popular opinion is always like a combat against the elements in commotion; nor is it likely that a government far more steady and unanimous than that of henry viii. could have effectually prevented the diffusion of protestantism. and the severe punishment of many zealous reformers, in the subsequent part of his reign, tended, beyond a doubt, to excite a favourable prejudice for men whose manifest sincerity, piety, and constancy in suffering, were as good pledges for the truth of their doctrine, as the people had been always taught to esteem the same qualities in the legends of the early martyrs. nor were henry's persecutions conducted upon the only rational principle, that of the inquisition, which judges from the analogy of medicine, that a deadly poison cannot be extirpated but by the speedy and radical excision of the diseased part; but falling only upon a few of a more eager and officious zeal, left a well-grounded opinion among the rest, that by some degree of temporising prudence they might escape molestation till a season of liberty should arrive. one of the books originally included in the list of proscription among the writings of luther and the foreign protestants, was a translation of the new testament into english by tindal, printed at antwerp in . a complete version of the bible, partly by tindal, and partly by coverdale, appeared, perhaps at hamburgh, in ; a second edition, under the name of matthews, following in ; and as cranmer's influence over the king became greater, and his aversion to the roman church more inveterate, so material a change was made in the ecclesiastical policy of this reign, as to direct the scriptures in this translation (but with corrections in many places) to be set up in parish churches, and permit them to be publicly sold.[ ] this measure had a strong tendency to promote the reformation, especially among those who were capable of reading; not surely that the controverted doctrines of the romish church are so indisputably erroneous as to bear no sort of examination, but because such a promulgation of the scriptures at that particular time seemed both tacitly to admit the chief point of contest, that they were the exclusive standard of christian faith, and to lead the people to interpret them with that sort of prejudice which a jury would feel in considering evidence that one party in a cause had attempted to suppress; a danger which those who wish to restrain the course of free discussion without very sure means of success will in all ages do well to reflect upon. the great change of religious opinions was not so much effected by reasoning on points of theological controversy, upon which some are apt to fancy it turned, as on a persuasion that fraud and corruption pervaded the established church. the pretended miracles, which had so long held the understanding in captivity, were wisely exposed to ridicule and indignation by the government. plays and interludes were represented in churches, of which the usual subject was the vices and corruptions of the monks and clergy. these were disapproved of by the graver sort, but no doubt served a useful purpose.[ ] the press sent forth its light hosts of libels; and though the catholic party did not fail to try the same means of influence, they had both less liberty to write as they pleased, and fewer readers than their antagonists. _its establishment under edward._--in this feverish state of the public mind on the most interesting subject, ensued the death of henry viii., who had excited and kept it up. more than once, during the latter part of his capricious reign, the popish party, headed by norfolk and gardiner, had gained an ascendant and several persons had been burned for denying transubstantiation. but at the moment of his decease, norfolk was a prisoner attainted of treason, gardiner in disgrace, and the favour of cranmer at its height. it is said that henry had meditated some further changes in religion. of his executors, the greater part, as their subsequent conduct evinces, were nearly indifferent to the two systems, except so far as more might be gained by innovation. but somerset, the new protector, appears to have inclined sincerely towards the reformation, though not wholly uninfluenced by similar motives. his authority readily overcame all opposition in the council: and it was soon perceived that edward, whose singular precocity gave his opinions in childhood an importance not wholly ridiculous, had imbibed a steady and ardent attachment to the new religion, which probably, had he lived longer, would have led him both to diverge farther from what he thought an idolatrous superstition, and to have treated its adherents with severity.[ ] under his reign accordingly a series of alterations in the tenets and homilies of the english church were made, the principal of which i shall point out, without following a chronological order, or adverting to such matters of controversy as did not produce a sensible effect on the people. _sketch of the chief points of difference between the two religions._-- . it was obviously among the first steps required in order to introduce a mode of religion at once more reasonable and more earnest than the former, that the public services of the church should be expressed in the mother tongue of the congregation. the latin ritual had been unchanged ever since the age when it was familiar; partly through a sluggish dislike of innovation, but partly also because the mysteriousness of an unknown dialect served to impose on the vulgar, and to throw an air of wisdom around the priesthood. yet what was thus concealed would have borne the light. our own liturgy, so justly celebrated for its piety, elevation, and simplicity, is in great measure a translation from the catholic services; those portions of course being omitted which had relation to different principles of worship. in the second year of edward's reign, the reformation of the public service was accomplished, and an english liturgy compiled not essentially different from that in present use.[ ] . no part of exterior religion was more prominent, or more offensive to those who had imbibed a protestant spirit, than the worship, or at least veneration, of images, which in remote and barbarous ages had given excessive scandal both in the greek and latin churches, though long fully established in the practice of each. the populace, in towns where the reformed tenets prevailed, began to pull them down in the very first days of edward's reign; and after a little pretence at distinguishing those which had not been abused, orders were given that all images should be taken away from churches. it was perhaps necessary thus to hinder the zealous protestants from abating them as nuisances, which had already caused several disturbances.[ ] but this order was executed with a rigour which lovers of art and antiquity have long deplored. our churches bear witness to the devastation committed in the wantonness of triumphant reform, by defacing statues and crosses on the exterior of buildings intended for worship, or windows and monuments within. missals and other books dedicated to superstition perished in the same manner. altars were taken down, and a great variety of ceremonies abrogated; such as the use of incense, tapers, and holy water; and though more of these were retained than eager innovators could approve, the whole surface of religious ordinances, all that is palpable to common minds, underwent a surprising transformation. . but this change in ceremonial observances and outward show was trifling, when compared to that in the objects of worship, and in the purposes for which they were addressed. those who have visited some catholic temples, and attended to the current language of devotion, must have perceived, what the writings of apologists or decrees of councils will never enable them to discover, that the saints, but more especially the virgin, are almost exclusively the _popular_ deities of that religion. all this polytheism was swept away by the reformers; and in this may be deemed to consist the most specific difference of the two systems. nor did they spare the belief in purgatory, that unknown land which the hierarchy swayed with so absolute a rule, and to which the earth had been rendered a tributary province. yet in the first liturgy put forth under edward, the prayers for departed souls were retained; whether out of respect to the prejudices of the people, or to the immemorial antiquity of the practice. but such prayers, if not necessarily implying the doctrine of purgatory (which yet in the main they appear to do), are at least so closely connected with it, that the belief could never be eradicated while they remained. hence, in the revision of the liturgy, four years afterwards, they were laid aside;[ ] and several other changes made, to eradicate the vestiges of the ancient superstition. . auricular confession, as commonly called, or the private and special confession of sins to a priest for the purpose of obtaining his absolution, an imperative duty in the church of rome, and preserved as such in the statute of the six articles, and in the religious codes published by henry viii., was left to each man's discretion in the new order; a judicious temperament, which the reformers would have done well to adopt in some other points. and thus, while it has never been condemned in our church, it went without dispute into complete neglect. those who desire to augment the influence of the clergy regret, of course, its discontinuance; and some may conceive that it would serve either for wholesome restraint, or useful admonition. it is very difficult, or perhaps beyond the reach of any human being, to determine absolutely how far these benefits, which cannot be reasonably denied to result in some instances from the rite of confession, outweigh the mischiefs connected with it. there seems to be something in the roman catholic discipline (and i know nothing else so likely) which keeps the balance, as it were, of moral influence pretty even between the two religions, and compensates for the ignorance and superstition which the elder preserves: for i am not sure that the protestant system in the present age has any very sensible advantage in this respect; or that in countries where the comparison can fairly be made, as in germany or switzerland, there is more honesty in one sex, or more chastity in the other, when they belong to the reformed churches. yet, on the other hand, the practice of confession is at the best of very doubtful utility, when considered in its full extent and general bearings. the ordinary confessor, listening mechanically to hundreds of penitents, can hardly preserve much authority over most of them. but in proportion as his attention is directed to the secrets of conscience, his influence may become dangerous; men grow accustomed to the control of one perhaps more feeble and guilty than themselves, but over whose frailties they exercise no reciprocal command! and, if the confessors of kings have been sometimes terrible to nations, their ascendency is probably not less mischievous, in proportion to its extent, within the sphere of domestic life. in a political light, and with the object of lessening the weight of the ecclesiastical order in temporal affairs, there cannot be the least hesitation as to the expediency of discontinuing the usage.[ ] . it has very rarely been the custom of theologians to measure the importance of orthodox opinions by their effect on the lives and hearts of those who adopt them; nor was this predilection for speculative above practical doctrines ever more evident than in the leading controversy of the sixteenth century, that respecting the lord's supper. no errors on this point could have had any influence on men's moral conduct, nor indeed much on the general nature of their faith; yet it was selected as the test of heresy; and most, if not all, of those who suffered death upon that charge, whether in england or on the continent, were convicted of denying the corporal presence in the sense of the roman church. it had been well if the reformers had learned, by abhorring her persecution, not to practise it in a somewhat less degree upon each other, or by exposing the absurdities of transubstantiation, not to contend for equal nonsense of their own. four principal theories, to say nothing of subordinate varieties, divided europe at the accession of edward vi. about the sacrament of the eucharist. the church of rome would not depart a single letter from transubstantiation, or the change, at the moment of consecration, of the substances of bread and wine into those of christ's body and blood; the accidents, in school language, or sensible qualities of the former remaining, or becoming inherent in the new substance. this doctrine does not, as vulgarly supposed, contradict the evidence of our senses; since our senses can report nothing as to the unknown being, which the schoolmen denominated substance, and which alone was the subject of this conversion. but metaphysicians of later ages might enquire whether material substances, abstractedly considered, exist at all, or, if they exist, whether they can have any specific distinction except their sensible qualities. this, perhaps, did not suggest itself in the sixteenth century; but it was strongly objected that the simultaneous existence of a body in many places, which the romish doctrine implied, was inconceivable, and even contradictory. luther, partly, as it seems, out of his determination to multiply differences with the church, invented a theory somewhat different, usually called consubstantiation, which was adopted in the confession of augsburgh, and to which, at least down to the end of the seventeenth century, the divines of that communion were much attached. they imagined the two substances to be united in the sacramental elements, so that they might be termed bread and wine, or the body and blood, with equal propriety.[ ] but it must be obvious that there is merely a scholastic distinction between this doctrine and that of rome; though, when it suited the lutherans to magnify, rather than dissemble, their deviations from the mother church, it was raised into an important difference. a simpler and more rational explication occurred to zuingle and oecolampadius, from whom the helvetian protestants imbibed their faith. rejecting every notion of a real presence, and divesting the institution of all its mystery, they saw only figurative symbols in the elements which christ had appointed as a commemoration of his death. but this novel opinion excited as much indignation in luther as in the romanists. it was indeed a rock on which the reformation was nearly shipwrecked; since the violent contests which it occasioned, and the narrow intolerance which one side at least displayed throughout the controversy, not only weakened on several occasions the temporal power of the protestant churches, but disgusted many of those who might have inclined towards espousing their sentiments. besides these three hypotheses, a fourth was promulgated by martin bucer of strasburgh, a man of much acuteness, but prone to metaphysical subtlety, and not, it is said, of a very ingenuous character. his theory upon the sacrament of the lord's supper, after having been adopted with little variation by calvin, was finally received into some of the offices of the english church. if the roman and lutheran doctrines teemed with unmasked absurdity, this middle system (if indeed it is to be considered as a genuine opinion, and not rather a politic device),[ ] had no advantage but in the disguise of unmeaning terms; while it had the peculiar infelicity of departing as much from the literal sense of the words of institution, wherein the former triumphed, as the zuinglian interpretation itself. it is not easy to state in language tolerably perspicuous this obsolete metaphysical theology. but bucer, as i apprehend, though his expressions are unusually confused, did not acknowledge a local presence of christ's body and blood in the elements after consecration--so far concurring with the helvetians; while he contended that they were really, and without figure, received by the worthy communicant through faith, so as to preserve the belief of a mysterious union, and of what was sometimes called a real presence. it can hardly fail to strike every unprejudiced reader that a material substance can only in a very figurative sense be said to be received through faith; that there can be no real presence of such a body, consistently with the proper use of language, but by its local occupation of space; and that, as the romish tenet of transubstantiation is rather the best, so this of the calvinists is the worst imagined of the three that have been opposed to the simplicity of the helvetic explanation. bucer himself came to england early in the reign of edward, and had a considerable share in advising the measures of reformation. but peter martyr, a disciple of the swiss school, had also no small influence. in the forty-two articles set forth by authority, the real or corporeal presence, using these words as synonymous, is explicitly denied. this clause was omitted on the revision of the articles under elizabeth.[ ] . these various innovations were exceedingly inimical to the influence and interests of the priesthood. but that order obtained a sort of compensation in being released from its obligation to celibacy. this obligation, though unwarranted by scripture, rested on a most ancient and universal rule of discipline; for though the greek and eastern churches have always permitted the ordination of married persons, yet they do not allow those already ordained to take wives. no very good reason, however, could be given for this distinction; and the constrained celibacy of the latin clergy had given rise to mischiefs, of which their general practice of retaining concubines might be reckoned among the smallest.[ ] the german protestants soon rejected this burden, and encouraged regular as well as secular priests to marry. cranmer had himself taken a wife in germany, whom henry's law of the six articles, one of which made the marriage of priests felony, compelled him to send away. in the reign of edward this was justly reckoned an indispensable part of the new reformation. but the bill for that purpose passed the lords with some little difficulty, nine bishops and four peers dissenting; and its preamble cast such an imputation on the practice it allowed, treating the marriage of priests as ignominious and a tolerated evil, that another act was thought necessary a few years afterwards, when the reformation was better established, to vindicate this right of the protestant church.[ ] a great number of the clergy availed themselves of their liberty; which may probably have had as extensive an effect in conciliating the ecclesiastical profession, as the suppression of monasteries had in rendering the gentry favourable to the new order of religion. _opposition made by part of the nation._--but great as was the number of those whom conviction or self-interest enlisted under the protestant banner, it appears plain that the reformation moved on with too precipitate a step for the majority. the new doctrines prevailed in london, in many large towns, and in the eastern counties. but in the north and west of england, the body of the people were strictly catholics. the clergy, though not very scrupulous about conforming to the innovations, were generally averse to most of them.[ ] and, in spite of the church lands, i imagine that most of the nobility, if not the gentry, inclined to the same persuasion; not a few peers having sometimes dissented from the bills passed on the subject of religion in this reign, while no sort of disagreement appears in the upper house during that of mary. in the western insurrection of , which partly originated in the alleged grievance of enclosures, many of the demands made by the rebels go to the entire re-establishment of popery. those of the norfolk insurgents in the same year, whose political complaints were the same, do not, as far as i perceive, show any such tendency. but an historian, whose bias was certainly not unfavourable to protestantism, confesses that all endeavours were too weak to overcome the aversion of the people towards reformation, and even intimates that german troops were sent for from calais on account of the bigotry with which the bulk of the nation adhered to the old superstition.[ ] this is somewhat a humiliating admission, that the protestant faith was imposed upon our ancestors by a foreign army. and as the reformers, though still the fewer, were undeniably a great and increasing party, it may be natural to enquire, whether a regard to policy as well as equitable considerations should not have repressed still more, as it did in some measure, the zeal of cranmer and somerset? it might be asked, whether, in the acknowledged co-existence of two religions, some preference were not fairly claimed for the creed, which all had once held, and which the greater part yet retained; whether it were becoming that the counsellors of an infant king should use such violence in breaking up the ecclesiastical constitution; whether it were to be expected that a free-spirited people should see their consciences thus transferred by proclamation, and all that they had learned to venerate not only torn away from them, but exposed to what they must reckon blasphemous contumely and profanation? the demolition of shrines and images, far unlike the speculative disputes of theologians, was an overt insult on every catholic heart. still more were they exasperated at the ribaldry which vulgar protestants uttered against their most sacred mystery. it was found necessary in the very first act of the first protestant parliament, to denounce penalties against such as spoke irreverently of the sacrament, an indecency not unusual with those who held the zuinglian opinion in that age of coarse pleasantry and unmixed invective.[ ] nor could the people repose much confidence in the judgment and sincerity of their governors, whom they had seen submitting without outward repugnance to henry's various schemes of religion, and whom they saw every day enriching themselves with the plunder of the church they affected to reform. there was a sort of endowed colleges or fraternities, called chantries, consisting of secular priests, whose duty was to say daily masses for the founders. these were abolished and given to the king by acts of parliament in the last year of henry, and the first of edward. it was intimated in the preamble of the latter statute that their revenues should be converted to the erection of schools, the augmentation of the universities, and the sustenance of the indigent.[ ] but this was entirely neglected, and the estates fell into the hands of the courtiers. nor did they content themselves with this escheated wealth of the church. almost every bishopric was spoiled by their ravenous power in this reign, either through mere alienations, or long leases, or unequal exchanges. exeter and llandaff from being among the richest sees, fell into the class of the poorest. lichfield lost the chief part of its lands to raise an estate for lord paget. london, winchester, and even canterbury, suffered considerably. the duke of somerset was much beloved; yet he had given no unjust offence by pulling down some churches in order to erect somerset house with the materials. he had even projected the demolition of westminster abbey; but the chapter averted this outrageous piece of rapacity, sufficient of itself to characterise that age, by the usual method, a grant of some of their estates.[ ] tolerance in religion, it is well known, so unanimously admitted (at least verbally) even by theologians in the present century, was seldom considered as practicable, much less as a matter of right, during the period of the reformation. the difference in this respect between the catholics and protestants was only in degree, and in degree there was much less difference than we are apt to believe. persecution is the deadly original sin of the reformed churches; that which cools every honest man's zeal for their cause, in proportion as his reading becomes more extensive. the lutheran princes and cities in germany constantly refused to tolerate the use of the mass as an idolatrous service;[ ] and this name of idolatry, though adopted in retaliation for that of heresy, answered the same end as the other, of exciting animosity and uncharitableness. the roman worship was equally proscribed in england. many persons were sent to prison for hearing mass and similar offences.[ ] the princess mary supplicated in vain to have the exercise of her own religion at home; and charles v. several times interceded in her behalf; but though cranmer and ridley, as well as the council, would have consented to this indulgence, the young king, whose education had unhappily infused a good deal of bigotry into his mind, could not be prevailed upon to connive at such idolatry.[ ] yet in one memorable instance he had shown a milder spirit, struggling against cranmer to save a fanatical woman from the punishment of heresy. this is a stain upon cranmer's memory which nothing but his own death could have lightened. in men hardly escaped from a similar peril, in men who had nothing to plead but the right of private judgment, in men who had defied the prescriptive authority of past ages and of established power, the crime of persecution assumes a far deeper hue, and is capable of far less extenuation, than in a roman inquisitor. thus the death of servetus has weighed down the name and memory of calvin. and though cranmer was incapable of the rancorous malignity of the genevan lawgiver, yet i regret to say that there is a peculiar circumstance of aggravation in his pursuing to death this woman, joan boucher, and a dutchman that had been convicted of arianism. it is said that he had been accessary in the preceding reign to the condemnation of lambert, and perhaps some others, for opinions concerning the lord's supper which he had himself afterwards embraced.[ ] such an evidence of the fallibility of human judgment, such an example that persecutions for heresy, how conscientiously soever managed, are liable to end in shedding the blood of those who maintain truth, should have taught him, above all men, a scrupulous repugnance to carry into effect those sanguinary laws. compared with these executions for heresy, the imprisonment and deprivation of gardiner and bonner appear but measures of ordinary severity towards political adversaries under the pretext of religion; yet are they wholly unjustifiable, particularly in the former instance; and if the subsequent retaliation of those bad men was beyond all proportion excessive, we should remember that such is the natural consequence of tyrannical aggressions.[ ] _cranmer._--the person most conspicuous, though ridley was perhaps the most learned divine, in moulding the faith and discipline of the english church, which has not been very materially altered since his time, was archbishop cranmer.[ ] few men, about whose conduct there is so little room for controversy upon facts, have been represented in more opposite lights. we know the favouring colours of protestant writers; but turn to the bitter invective of bossuet; and the patriarch of our reformed church stands forth as the most abandoned of time-serving hypocrites. no political factions affect the impartiality of men's judgment so grossly, or so permanently, as religious heats. doubtless, if we should reverse the picture, and imagine the end and scope of cranmer's labour to have been the establishment of the roman catholic religion in a protestant country, the estimate formed of his behaviour would be somewhat less favourable than it is at present. if, casting away all prejudice on either side, we weigh the character of this prelate in an equal balance, he will appear far indeed removed from the turpitude imputed to him by his enemies, yet not entitled to any extraordinary veneration. though it is most eminently true of cranmer that his faults were always the effect of circumstances, and not of intention; yet this palliating consideration is rather weakened when we recollect that he consented to place himself in a station where those circumstances occurred. at the time of cranmer's elevation to the see of canterbury, henry, though on the point of separating for ever from rome, had not absolutely determined upon so strong a measure; and his policy required that the new archbishop should solicit the usual bulls from the pope, and take the oath of canonical obedience to him. cranmer, already a rebel from that dominion in his heart, had recourse to the disingenuous shift of a protest, before his consecration, that "he did not intend to restrain himself thereby from anything to which he was bound by his duty to god or the king, or from taking part in any reformation of the english church which he might judge to be required."[ ] this first deviation from integrity, as is almost always the case, drew after it many others; and began that discreditable course of temporising, and undue compliance, to which he was reduced for the rest of henry's reign. cranmer's abilities were not perhaps of a high order, or at least they were unsuited to public affairs; but his principal defect was in that firmness by which men of more ordinary talents may ensure respect. nothing could be weaker than his conduct in the usurpation of lady jane, which he might better have boldly sustained, like ridley, as a step necessary for the conservation of protestantism, than given into against his conscience, overpowered by the importunities of a misguided boy. had the malignity of his enemies been directed rather against his reputation than his life, had he been permitted to survive his shame, as a prisoner in the tower, it must have seemed a more arduous task to defend the memory of cranmer; but his fame has brightened in the fire that consumed him.[ ] _cranmer's moderation in introducing changes not acceptable to the zealots._--those who, with the habits of thinking that prevail in our times, cast back their eyes on the reign of edward vi. will generally be disposed to censure the precipitancy, and still more the exclusive spirit, of our principal reformers. but relatively to the course that things had taken in germany, and to the feverish zeal of that age, the moderation of cranmer and ridley, the only ecclesiastics who took a prominent share in these measures, was very conspicuous; and tended above everything to place the anglican church in that middle position which it has always preserved, between the roman hierarchy and that of other protestant denominations. it is manifest from the history of the reformation in germany, that its predisposing cause was the covetous and arrogant character of the superior ecclesiastics, founded upon vast temporal authority; a yoke long borne with impatience, and which the unanimous adherence of the prelates to rome in the period of separation gave the lutheran princes a good excuse for entirely throwing off. some of the more temperate reformers, as melancthon, would have admitted a limited jurisdiction of the episcopacy: but in general the destruction of that order, such as it then existed, may be deemed as fundamental a principle of the new discipline, as any theological point could be of the new doctrine. but, besides that the subjection of ecclesiastical to civil tribunals, and possibly other causes, had rendered the superior clergy in england less obnoxious than in germany, there was this important difference between the two countries, that several bishops from zealous conviction, many more from pliability to self-interest, had gone along with the new-modelling of the english church by henry and edward; so that it was perfectly easy to keep up that form of government, in the regular succession which had usually been deemed essential; though the foreign reformers had neither the wish, nor possibly the means, to preserve it. cranmer himself, indeed, during the reign of henry, had bent, as usual, to the king's despotic humour; and favoured a novel theory of ecclesiastical authority, which resolved all its spiritual as well as temporal powers into the royal supremacy. accordingly, at the accession of edward, he himself, and several other bishops, took out commissions to hold their sees during pleasure.[ ] but when the necessity of compliance had passed by, they showed a disposition not only to oppose the continual spoliations of church property, but to maintain the jurisdiction which the canon law had conferred upon them.[ ] and though, as this papal code did not appear very well adapted to a protestant church, a new scheme of ecclesiastical laws was drawn up, which the king's death rendered abortive, this was rather calculated to strengthen the hands of the spiritual courts than to withdraw any matter from their cognisance.[ ] the policy, or it may be the prejudices, of cranmer induced him also to retain in the church a few ceremonial usages, which the helvetic, though not the lutheran, reformers had swept away; such as the copes and rochets of bishops, and the surplice of officiating priests. it should seem inconceivable that any one could object to these vestments, considered in themselves; far more, if they could answer in the slightest degree the end of conciliating a reluctant people. but this motive unfortunately was often disregarded in that age; and indeed in all ages an abhorrence of concession and compromise is a never-failing characteristic of religious factions. the foreign reformers then in england, two of whom, bucer and peter martyr, enjoyed a deserved reputation, expressed their dissatisfaction at seeing these habits retained, and complained, in general, of the backwardness of the english reformation. calvin and bullinger wrote from switzerland in the same strain.[ ] nor was this sentiment by any means confined to strangers. hooper, an eminent divine, having been elected bishop of gloucester, refused to be consecrated in the usual dress. it marks, almost ludicrously, the spirit of those times, that, instead of permitting him to decline the station, the council sent him to prison for some time, until by some mutual concessions the business was adjusted.[ ] these events it would hardly be worth while to notice in such a work as the present, if they had not been the prologue to a long and serious drama. _persecution under mary._--it is certain that the re-establishment of popery on mary's accession must have been acceptable to a large part, or perhaps to the majority, of the nation. there is reason however to believe that the reformed doctrine had made a real progress in the few years of her brother's reign. the counties of norfolk and suffolk, which placed mary on the throne as the lawful heir, were chiefly protestant, and experienced from her the usual gratitude and good faith of a bigot.[ ] noailles bears witness, in many of his despatches, to the unwillingness which great numbers of the people displayed to endure the restoration of popery, and to the queen's excessive unpopularity, even before her marriage with philip had been resolved upon.[ ] as for the higher classes, they partook far less than their inferiors in the religious zeal of that age. henry, edward, mary, elizabeth, found almost an equal compliance with their varying schemes of faith. yet the larger proportion of the nobility and gentry appear to have preferred the catholic religion. several peers opposed the bills for reformation under edward; and others, who had gone along with the current, became active counsellors of mary. not a few persons of family emigrated in the latter reign; but, with the exception of the second earl of bedford, who suffered a short imprisonment on account of religion, the protestant martyrology contains no confessor of superior rank.[ ] the same accommodating spirit characterised, upon the whole, the clergy; and would have been far more general, if a considerable number had not availed themselves of the permission to marry granted by edward; which led to their expulsion from their cures on his sister's coming to the throne.[ ] yet it was not the temper of mary's parliaments, whatever pains had been taken about their election, to second her bigotry in surrendering the temporal fruits of their recent schism. the bill for restoring first fruits and impropriations in the queen's hands to the church passed not without difficulty; and it was found impossible to obtain a repeal of the act of supremacy without the pope's explicit confirmation of the abbey lands to their new proprietors. even this confirmation, though made through the legate cardinal pole, by virtue of a full commission, left not unreasonably an apprehension that, on some better opportunity, the imprescriptible nature of church property might be urged against the possessors.[ ] with these selfish considerations others of a more generous nature conspired to render the old religion more obnoxious than it had been at the queen's accession. her marriage with philip, his encroaching disposition, the arbitrary turn of his counsels, the insolence imputed to the spaniards who accompanied him, the unfortunate loss of calais through that alliance, while it thoroughly alienated the kingdom from mary, created a prejudice against the religion which the spanish court so steadily favoured.[ ] so violent indeed was the hatred conceived by the english nation against spain during the short period of philip's marriage with their queen, that it diverted the old channel of public feelings, and almost put an end to that dislike and jealousy of france which had so long existed. for at least a century after this time we rarely find in popular writers any expression of hostility towards that country; though their national manners, so remote from our own, are not unfrequently the object of ridicule. the prejudices of the populace, as much as the policy of our counsellors, were far more directed against spain. _its effect rather favourable to protestantism._--but what had the greatest efficacy in disgusting the english with mary's system of faith, was the cruelty by which it was accompanied. though the privy council were in fact continually urging the bishops forward in this prosecution,[ ] the latter bore the chief blame, and the abhorrence entertained for them naturally extended to the doctrine they professed. a sort of instinctive reasoning told the people, what the learned on neither side had been able to discover, that the truth of a religion begins to be very suspicious, when it stands in need of prisons and scaffolds to eke out its evidences. and as the english were constitutionally humane, and not hardened by continually witnessing the infliction of barbarous punishments, there arose a sympathy for men suffering torments with such meekness and patience, which the populace of some other nations were perhaps less apt to display, especially in executions on the score of heresy.[ ] the theologian indeed and the philosopher may concur in deriding the notion that either sincerity or moral rectitude can be the test of truth; yet among the various species of authority to which recourse had been had to supersede or to supply the deficiencies of argument, i know not whether any be more reasonable, and none certainly is so congenial to unsophisticated minds. many are said to have become protestants under mary, who, at her coming to the throne, had retained the contrary persuasion.[ ] and the strongest proof of this may be drawn from the acquiescence of the great body of the kingdom in the re-establishment of protestantism by elizabeth, when compared with the seditions and discontent on that account under edward. the course which this famous princess steered in ecclesiastical concerns, during her long reign, will form the subject of the two ensuing chapters. footnotes: [ ] burnet. reeves's _history of the law_, iv. p. . the contemporary authority is keilwey's reports. collier disbelieves the murder of hun on the authority of sir thomas more; but he was surely a prejudiced apologist of the clergy, and this historian is hardly less so. an entry on the journals, h. , drawn of course by some ecclesiastic, particularly complains of standish as the author of periculosissimæ seditiones inter clericam et secularem potestatem. [ ] burnet is confident that the answer to luther was not written by henry (vol. iii. ), and others have been of the same opinion. the king, however, in his answer to luther's apologetical letter, where this was insinuated, declares it to be his own. from henry's general character and proneness to theological disputation, it may be inferred that he had at least a considerable share in the work, though probably with the assistance of some who had more command of the latin language. burnet mentions in another place, that he had seen a copy of the _necessary erudition of a christian man_, full of interlineations by the king. [ ] epist. lutheri ad henricum regem missa, etc. lond. . the letter bears date at wittenberg, september , . it had no relation, therefore, to henry's quarrel with the pope, though probably luther imagined that the king was becoming more favourably disposed. after saying that he had written against the king "stultus ac præceps," which was true, he adds, "invitantibus iis qui majestati tuæ parum favebant," which was surely a pretence; since who, at wittenberg, in , could have any motive to wish that henry should be so scurrilously treated? he then bursts out into the most absurd attack on wolsey; "illud monstrum et publicum odium dei et hominum, cardinalis eboracensis, pestis illa regni tui." this was a singular style to adopt in writing to a king, whom he affected to propitiate; wolsey being nearer than any man to henry's heart. thence, relapsing into his tone of abasement, he says, "ita ut vehementer nunc pudefactus, metuam oculos coram majestate tuâ levare, qui passus sim levitate istâ me moveri in talem tantumque regem per malignos istos operarios; præsertim cum sim foex et vermis, quem solo contemptu oportuit victum aut neglectum esse," etc. among the many strange things which luther said and wrote, i know not one more extravagant than this letter, which almost justifies the supposition that there was a vein of insanity in his very remarkable character. [ ] collier, vol. ii. appendix, no. . in the _hardwicke papers_, i. , we have an account of the ceremonial of the first marriage of henry with catherine in . it is remarkable that a person was appointed to object publicly in latin to the marriage, as unlawful, for reasons he should there exhibit; "whereunto mr. doctor barnes shall reply, and declare solemnly, also in latin, the said marriage to be good and effectual in the law of christ's church, by virtue of a dispensation, which he shall have then to be openly read." there seems to be something in this of the tortuous policy of henry vii.; but it shows that the marriage had given offence to scrupulous minds. [ ] see burnet, lingard, turner, and the letters lately printed in state papers, temp. henry viii. pp. , . [ ] burnet wishes to disprove the bribery of these foreign doctors. but there are strong presumptions that some opinions were got by money (collier, ii. ); and the greatest difficulty was found, where corruption perhaps had least influence, in the sorbonne. burnet himself proves that some of the cardinals were bribed by the king's ambassador, both in and . vol. i. append. pp. , . see, too, strype, i. append. no. . the same writer will not allow that henry menaced the university of oxford in case of non-compliance; yet there are three letters of his to them, a tenth part of which, considering the nature of the writer, was enough to terrify his readers. vol. iii. append. p. . these probably burnet did not know when he published his first volume. [ ] the king's marriage is related by the earlier historians to have taken place november , . burnet however is convinced by a letter of cranmer, who, he says, could not be mistaken, though he was not apprised of the fact till some time afterwards, that it was not solemnised till about the th of january (vol. iii. p. ). this letter has since been published in the _archæologia_, vol. xviii., and in ellis's _letters_, ii. . elizabeth was born september , ; for though burnet, on the authority, he says, of cranmer, places her birth on september , the former date is decisively confirmed by letters in harl. mss. , , and , (both set down incorrectly in the catalogue). if a late historian therefore had contented himself with commenting on these dates and the clandestine nature of the marriage, he would not have gone beyond the limits of that character of an advocate for one party which he has chosen to assume. it may not be unlikely, though by no means evident, that anne's prudence, though, as fuller says of her, "she was cunning in her chastity," was surprised at the end of this long courtship. i think a prurient curiosity about such obsolete scandal very unworthy of history. but when this author asserts henry to have cohabited with her for three years, and repeatedly calls her his mistress, when he attributes henry's patience with the pope's chicanery to "the infecundity of anne," and all this on no other authority than a letter of the french ambassador, which amounts hardly to evidence of a transient rumour, we cannot but complain of a great deficiency in historical candour. [ ] the principal authority on the story of henry's divorce from catherine is burnet, in the first and third volumes of his _history of the reformation_; the latter correcting the former from additional documents. strype, in his _ecclesiastical memorials_, adds some particulars not contained in burnet, especially as to the negotiations with the pope in ; and a very little may be gleaned from collier, carte, and other writers. there are few parts of history, on the whole, that have been better elucidated. one exception perhaps may yet be made. the beautiful and affecting story of catherine's behaviour before the legates at dunstable is told by cavendish and hall, from whom later historians have copied it. burnet, however, in his third volume, p. , disputes its truth, and on what should seem conclusive authority, that of the original register, whence it appears that the queen never came into court but once, june , , to read a paper protesting against the jurisdiction, and that the king never entered it. carte accordingly treated the story as a fabrication. hume of course did not choose to omit so interesting a circumstance; but dr. lingard has pointed out a letter of the king, which burnet himself had printed, vol. i. append. , mentioning the queen's presence as well as his own, on june , and greatly corroborating the popular account. to say the truth, there is no small difficulty in choosing between two authorities so considerable, if they cannot be reconciled, which seems impossible: but, upon the whole, the preference is due to henry's letter, dated june , as he could not be mistaken, and had no motive to misstate. this is not altogether immaterial; for catherine's appeal to henry, de integritate corporis usque ad secundas nuptias servatâ, without reply on his part, is an important circumstance as to that part of the question. it is however certain, that, whether on this occasion or not, she did constantly declare this; and the evidence adduced to prove the contrary is very defective, especially as opposed to the assertion of so virtuous a woman. dr. lingard says that all the favourable answers which the king obtained from foreign universities went upon the supposition that the former marriage had been consummated, and were of no avail unless that could be proved. see a letter of wolsey to the king, july , , printed in state papers, temp. henry viii. p. ; whence it appears that the queen had been consistent in her denial. [ ] stat. , hen. , cc. , ; strype, i. ; burnet, . it cost a thousand marks to prove sir william compton's will in . these exactions had been much augmented by wolsey, who interfered, as legate, with the prerogative court. [ ] it is hard to say what were more's original sentiments about the divorce. in a letter to cromwell (strype, i. , and app. no. ; burnet, app. p. ) he speaks of himself as always doubtful. but, if his disposition had not been rather favourable to the king, would he have been offered, or have accepted, the great seal? we do not indeed find his name in the letter of remonstrance to the pope, signed by the nobility and chief commoners in , which wolsey, though then in disgrace, very willingly subscribed. but in march, , he went down to the house of commons, attended by several lords, to declare the king's scruples about his marriage, and to lay before them the opinions of universities. in this he perhaps thought himself acting ministerially. but there can be no doubt that he always considered the divorce as a matter wholly of the pope's competence, and which no other party could take out of his hands, though he had gone along cheerfully, as burnet says, with the prosecution against the clergy, and wished to cut off the illegal jurisdiction of the roman see. the king did not look upon him as hostile; for even so late as , dr. bennet, the envoy at rome, proposed to the pope that the cause should be tried by four commissioners, of whom the king should name one, either sir thomas more or stokesly, bishop of london. burnet, i. . [ ] dr. lingard has pointed out, as burnet had done less distinctly, that the bill abrogating the papal supremacy was brought into the commons in the beginning of march, and received the royal assent on the th; whereas the determination of the conclave at rome against the divorce was on the rd; so that the latter could not have been the cause of this final rupture. clement vii. might have been outwitted in his turn by the king, if, after pronouncing a decree in favour of the divorce, he had found it too late to regain his jurisdiction in england. on the other hand, so flexible were the parliaments of this reign, that, if henry had made terms with the pope, the supremacy might have revived again as easily as it had been extinguished. [ ] burnet, iii. ; and app. . [ ] conf. burnet, i. , and app. no. ; strype, i. ; sleidan, _hist. de la réformation_ (par courayer), l. . the notions of these divines, as here stated, are not very consistent or intelligible. the swiss reformers were in favour of the divorce, though they advised that the princess mary should not be declared illegitimate. luther seems to have inclined towards compromising the difference by the marriage of a secondary wife. lingard, p. . melancthon, this writer says, was of the same opinion. burnet indeed denies this; but it is rendered not improbable by the well-authenticated fact that these divines, together with bucer, signed a permission to the landgrave of hesse to take a wife or concubine, on account of the drunkenness and disagreeable person of his landgravine. bossuet, _hist. des var. des egl. protest_. vol. i., where the instrument is published. clement vii., however, recommended the king to marry immediately, and then prosecute his suit for a divorce, which it would be easier for him to obtain in such circumstances. this was as early as january, (burnet, i., app. p. ). but at a much later period, september , he expressly suggested the expedient of allowing the king to retain two wives. though the letter of cassali, the king's ambassador at rome, containing this proposition, was not found by burnet, it is quoted at length by an author of unquestionable veracity, lord herbert. henry had himself, at one time, favoured this scheme, according to burnet, who does not, however, produce any authority for the instructions to that effect said to have been given to brian and vannes, despatched to rome at the end of . but at the time when the pope made this proposal, the king had become exasperated against catherine, and little inclined to treat either her or the holy see with any respect. [ ] strype, i. _et alibi_. [ ] strype, _passim_. tunstal, gardiner, and bonner wrote in favour of the royal supremacy; all of them, no doubt, insincerely. the first of these has escaped severe censure by the mildness of his general character, but was full as much a temporiser as cranmer. but the history of this period has been written with such undisguised partiality by burnet and strype on the one hand, and lately by dr. lingard on the other, that it is almost amusing to find the most opposite conclusions and general results from nearly the same premises. collier, though with many prejudices of his own, is, all things considered, the fairest of our ecclesiastical writers as to this reign. [ ] burnet, . for the methods by which the regulars acquired wealth, fair and unfair, i may be allowed to refer to the _view of the middle ages_, ch. , or rather to the sources from which the sketch there given was derived. [ ] harmer's _specimens of errors in burnet_. [ ] strype, i. append. . [ ] burnet; strype. wolsey alleged as the ground for this suppression, the great wickedness that prevailed therein. strype says the number is twenty; but collier, ii. , reckons them at forty. [ ] collier, though not implicitly to be trusted, tells some hard truths, and charges cromwell with receiving bribes from several abbeys, in order to spare them. p. . this is repeated by lingard, on the authority of some cottonian manuscripts. even burnet speaks of the violent proceedings of a doctor loudon towards the monasteries. this man was of infamous character, and became afterwards a conspirator against cranmer, and a persecutor of protestants. [ ] burnet, ; strype, i. ch. , see especially p. ; ellis's _letters_, ii. . we should be on our guard against the romanising high-church men, such as collier, and the whole class of antiquaries, wood, hearne, drake, browne, willis, etc., etc., who are, with hardly an exception, partial to the monastic orders, and sometimes scarce keep on the mask of protestantism. no one fact can be better supported by current opinion, and that general testimony which carries conviction, than the relaxed and vicious state of those foundations for many ages before their fall. ecclesiastical writers had not then learned, as they have since, the trick of suppressing what might excite odium against their church, but speak out boldly and bitterly. thus we find in wilkins, iii. , a bull of innocent viii. for the reform of monasteries in england, charging many of them with dissoluteness of life. and this is followed by a severe monition from archbishop morton to the abbot of st. alban's, imputing all kinds of scandalous vices to him and his monks. those who reject at once the reports of henry's visitors will do well to consider this. see also fosbrooke's _british monachism, passim_. [ ] the preamble of h. , c. , which gives the smaller monasteries to the king, after reciting that "manifest sin, vicious, carnal, and abominable living, is daily used and committed commonly in such little and small abbeys, priories, and other religious houses of monks, canons, and nuns, where the congregation of such religious persons is under the number of twelve persons," bestows praise on many of the greater foundations, and certainly does not intimate that their fate was so near at hand. nor is any misconduct alleged or insinuated against the greater monasteries in the act h. , c. , that abolishes them; which is rather more remarkable, as in some instances the religious had been induced to confess their evil lives and ill deserts. burnet, . [ ] _id. ibid._ and append. p. ; collier, . the pensions to the superiors of the dissolved greater monasteries, says a writer not likely to spare henry's government, appear to have varied from £ to £ per annum. the priors of cells received generally £ . a few, whose services had merited the distinction, obtained £ . to the other monks were allotted pensions of six, four, or two pounds, with a small sum to each at his departure, to provide for his immediate wants. the pensions to nuns averaged about £ . lingard, vi. . he admits that these were ten times their present value in money; and surely they were not unreasonably small. compare them with those, generally and justly thought munificent, which this country bestows on her veterans of chelsea and greenwich. the monks had no right to expect more than the means of that hard fare to which they ought by their rules to have been confined in the convents. the whole revenues were not to be shared among them as private property. it cannot of course be denied that the compulsory change of life was to many a severe and an unmerited hardship; but no great revolution, and the reformation as little as any, could be achieved without much private suffering. [ ] the abbots sat till the end of the first session of henry's sixth parliament, the act extinguishing them not having passed till the last day. in the next session they do not appear, the writ of summons not being supposed to give them personal seats. there are indeed so many parallel instances among spiritual lords, and the principle is so obvious, that it would not be worth noticing, but for a strange doubt said to be thrown out by some legal authorities, near the beginning of george iii.'s reign, in the case of pearce, bishop of rochester, whether, after resigning his see, he would not retain his seat as a lord of parliament; in consequence of which his resignation was not accepted. [ ] burnet, i. append. . [ ] p. . dr. lingard, on the authority of nasmith's edition of tanner's _notitia monastica_, puts the annual revenue of all the monastic houses at £ , . this would only be one-twentieth part of the rental of the kingdom, if hume were right in estimating that at three millions. but this is certainly by much too high. the author of harmer's _observations on burnet_, as i have mentioned above, says the monks will be found not to have possessed above one-fifth of the kingdom, and in value, by reason of their long leases, not one-tenth. but on this supposition, the crown's gain was enormous. according to a valuation in speed's _catalogue of religious houses, apud_ collier, append. p. , sixteen mitred abbots had revenues above £ per annum. st. peter's, westminster, was the richest, and valued at £ , glastonbury at £ , st. alban's at £ , etc. [ ] an act entitling the queen to take into her hands, on the avoidance of any bishopric, so much of the lands belonging to it as should be equal in value to the impropriate rectories, etc., within the same, belonging to the crown, and to give the latter in exchange, was made ( eliz. c. ). this bill passed on a division in the commons by to , and was ill taken by some of the bishops, who saw themselves reduced to live on the lawful subsistence of the parochial clergy. strype's _annals_, i. , . [ ] burnet, , . in strype, i. , we have a paper drawn up by cromwell for the king's inspection, setting forth what might be done with the revenues of the lesser monasteries. among a few other particulars are the following: "his grace may furnish gentlemen to attend on his person; every one of them to have marks yearly-- , marks. his highness may assign to the yearly reparation of highways in sundry parts, or the doing of other good deeds for the commonwealth, marks." in such scant proportion did the claims of public utility come after those of selfish pomp, or rather perhaps, looking more attentively, of cunning corruption. [ ] burnet, i. . [ ] it is a favourite theory with many who regret the absolute secularisation of conventual estates, that they might have been rendered useful to learning and religion by being bestowed on chapters and colleges. thomas whitaker has sketched a pretty scheme for the abbey of whalley, wherein, besides certain opulent prebendaries, he would provide for schoolmasters and physicians. i suppose this is considered an adherence to the donor's intention, and no sort of violation of property; somewhat on the principle called _cy près_, adopted by the court of chancery in cases of charitable bequests; according to which, that tribunal, if it holds the testator's intention unfit to be executed, carries the bequest into effect by doing what it presumes to come next in his wishes, though sometimes very far from them. it might be difficult indeed to prove that a norman baron, who, not quite easy about his future prospects, took comfort in his last hours from the anticipation of daily masses for his soul, would have been better satisfied that his lands should maintain a grammar-school, than that they should escheat to the crown. but to waive this, and to revert to the principle of public utility, it may possibly be true that, in one instance, such as whalley, a more beneficial disposition could have been made in favour of a college than by granting away the lands. but the question is, whether all, or even a great part, of the monastic estates could have been kept in mortmain with advantage. we may easily argue that the derwentwater property, applied as it has been, has done the state more service, than if it had gone to maintain a race of ratcliffes, and been squandered at white's or newmarket. but does it follow that the kingdom would be the more prosperous, if all the estates of the peerage were diverted to similar endowments? and can we seriously believe that, if such a plan had been adopted at the suppression of monasteries, either religion or learning would have been the better for such an inundation of prebendaries and schoolmasters? [ ] the first act for the relief of the impotent poor passed in ( h. , c. ). by this statute no alms were allowed to be given to beggars, on pain of forfeiting ten times the value; but a collection was to be made in every parish. the compulsory contributions, properly speaking, began in ( eliz. c. ). but by an earlier statute ( edward , c. ), the bishop was empowered to proceed in his court against such as should refuse to contribute, or dissuade others from doing so. [ ] the _institution_ was printed in ; the _erudition_, according to burnet, in ; but in collier and strype's opinion, not till . they are both artfully drawn, probably in the main by cranmer, but not without the interference of some less favourable to the new doctrine, and under the eye of the king himself. collier, , . the doctrinal variations in these two summaries of royal faith are by no means inconsiderable. [ ] strype, i. . a statute enacted in ( h. , c. ), after reciting that "at this day there be within this realm a great number cunning and expert in printing, and as able to execute the said craft as any stranger," proceeds to forbid the sale of bound books imported from the continent. a terrible blow was thus levelled both against general literature and the reformed religion; but, like many other bad laws, produced very little effect. [ ] the accounts of early editions of the english bible in burnet, collier, strype, and an essay by johnson in watson's _theological tracts,_ vol. iii., are erroneous or defective. a letter of strype in harleian mss. , which has been printed, is better; but the most complete enumeration is in cotton's list of editions, . the dispersion of the scriptures, with full liberty to read them, was greatly due to cromwell, as is shown by burnet. even after his fall, a proclamation, dated may , , referring to the king's former injunctions for the same purpose, directs a large bible to be set up in every parish church. but, next year, the duke of norfolk and gardiner prevailing over cranmer, henry retraced a part of his steps; and the act h. , c. . forbids the sale of tindal's "false translation," and the reading of the bible in churches, or by yeomen, women, and other incapable persons. the popish bishops, well aware how much turned on this general liberty of reading the scriptures, did all in their power to discredit the new version. gardiner made a list of about one hundred words which he thought unfit to be translated, and which, in case of an authorised version (whereof the clergy in convocation had reluctantly admitted the expediency), ought, in his opinion, to be left in latin. tindal's translation may, i apprehend, be reckoned the basis of that now in use, but has undergone several corrections before the last. it has been a matter of dispute whether it were made from the original languages or from the vulgate. hebrew and even greek were very little known in england at that time. the edition of , called matthews's bible, printed by grafton, contains marginal notes reflecting on the corruptions of popery. these it was thought expedient to suppress in that of , commonly called cranmer's bible, as having been revised by him, and in later editions. in all these editions of henry's reign, though the version is properly tindal's, there are, as i am informed, considerable variations and amendments. thus, in cranmer's bible, the word _ecclesia_ is always rendered congregation, instead of church; either as the primary meaning, or, more probably, to point out that the laity had a share in the government of a christian society. [ ] burnet, ; strype's _life of parker_, ; collier ( ) is of course much scandalised. in his view of things, it had been better to give up the reformation entirely, than to suffer one reflection on the clergy. these dramatic satires on that order had also an effect in promoting the reformation in holland. brandt's _history of reformation in low countries_, vol. i. p. . [ ] i can hardly avoid doubting, whether edward vi.'s journal, published in the second volume of burnet, be altogether his own; because it is strange for a boy of ten years old to write with the precise brevity of a man of business. yet it is hard to say how far an intercourse with able men on serious subjects may force a royal plant of such natural vigour; and his letters to his young friend barnaby fitzpatrick, published by h. walpole in , are quite unlike the style of a boy. one could wish this journal not to be genuine; for the manner in which he speaks of both his uncles' executions does not show a good heart. unfortunately, however, there is a letter extant, of the king to fitzpatrick, which must be genuine, and is in the same strain. he treated his sister mary harshly about her religion, and had, i suspect, too much tudor blood in his veins. it is certain that he was a very extraordinary boy, or, as cardan calls him, monstrificus puellus; and the reluctance with which he yielded, on the solicitations of cranmer, to sign the warrant for burning john boucher, is as much to his honour, as it is against the archbishop's. [ ] the litany had been translated into english in . burnet, i. ; collier, iii, where it may be read, not much differing from that now in use. it was always held out by our church, when the object was conciliation, that the liturgy was essentially the same with the mass-book. strype's _annals_, ii. ; hollingshed, iii, ( to edition). [ ] it was observed, says strype, ii. , that where images were left there was most contest, and most peace where they were all sheer pulled down, as they were in some places. [ ] collier, p. , enters into a vindication of the practice, which appears to have prevailed in the church from the second century. it was defended in general by the nonjurors, and the whole school of andrews. but, independently of its wanting the authority of scripture, which the reformers set up exclusively of all tradition, it contradicted the doctrine of justification by mere faith, in the strict sense which they affixed to that tenet. see preamble of the act for dissolution of chantries, edw. , c. . [ ] collier, p. , descants, in the true spirit of a high churchman, on the importance of confession. this also, as is well known, is one of the points on which his party disagreed with the generality of protestants. [ ] nostra sententia est, says luther, _apud_ burnet, , appendix, , corpus ita cum pane, seu in pane esse, ut revera cum pane manducetur, et quemcunque motum vel actionem panis habet, eundem et corpus christi. [ ] "bucer thought, that for avoiding contention, and for maintaining peace and quietness in the church, somewhat more ambiguous words should be used, that might have a respect to both persuasions concerning the presence. but martyr was of another judgment, and affected to speak of the sacrament with all plainness and perspicuity." strype, ii. . the truth is, that there were but two opinions at bottom as to this main point of the controversy; nor in the nature of things was it possible that there should be more; for what can be predicated concerning a body, in its relation to a given space, but presence and absence? [ ] burnet, ii. , app. ; strype, ii. , ; collier, etc. the calvinists certainly did not own a local presence in the elements. it is the artifice of modern romish writers, dr. milner, mr. c. butler, etc., to disguise the incompatibility of their tenets with those of the church of england on this, as they do on all other topics of controversy, by representing her as maintaining an actual, incomprehensible presence of christ's body in the consecrated elements; which was never meant to be asserted in any authorised exposition of faith; though in the seventeenth century it was held by many distinguished churchmen. see the th, th, and th articles of religion. an eminent living writer, who would be as useful as he is agreeable, if he could bring himself to write with less heat and haste, says, that at elizabeth's accession, among other changes, "the language of the article which affirmed a real presence was so framed as to allow latitude of belief for those who were persuaded of an exclusive one." southey's _book of the church_, vol. ii. p. . the real presence was not affirmed, but denied, in the original draft; and as to what mr. s. calls "an exclusive one" (that is, transubstantiation, if the words have any meaning), it is positively rejected in the amended article. [ ] it appears to have been common for the clergy, by licence from their bishops, to retain concubines, who were, collier says, for the most part their wives. p. . but i do not clearly understand in what the distinction could have consisted; for it seems unlikely that marriages of priests were ever solemnised at so late a period; or if they were, they were invalid. [ ] stat. and edw. vi. c. ; and edw. vi. c. ; burnet, . [ ] strype, . latimer pressed the necessity of expelling these temporising conformists.--"out with them all! i require it in god's behalf: make them _quondams_, all the pack of them." _id._ ; burnet, . [ ] burnet, iii. , . "the use of the old religion," says paget, in remonstrating with somerset on his rough treatment of some of the gentry, and partiality to the commons, "is forbidden by a law, and the use of the new is not yet printed in the stomachs of eleven out of twelve parts of the realm, whatever countenance men make outwardly to please them in whom they see the power resteth." strype, ii. appendix, h.h. this seems rather to refer to the upper classes, than to the whole people. but at any rate it was an exaggeration of the fact, the protestants being certainly in a much greater proportion. paget was the adviser of the scheme of sending for german troops in , which, however, was in order to quell a seditious spirit in the nation, not by any means wholly founded upon religious grounds. strype, xi. . [ ] edward , c. ; strype, xi. . [ ] h. , c. ; edw. , c. ; strype, ii. ; burnet, etc. cranmer, as well as the catholic bishops, protested against this act, well knowing how little regard would be paid to its intention. in the latter part of the young king's reign, as he became more capable of exerting his own power, he endowed, as is well known, several excellent foundations. [ ] strype, burnet, collier, _passim_; harmer's _specimens_, . sir philip hobby, our minister in germany, writes to the protector in , that the foreign protestants thought our bishops too rich, and advises him to reduce them to a competent living; he particularly recommends his taking away all the prebends in england. strype, . these counsels, and the acts which they prompted, disgust us, from the spirit of rapacity they breathe. yet it might be urged with some force that the enormous wealth of the superior ecclesiastics had been the main cause of those corruptions which it was sought to cast away, and that most of the dignitaries were very averse to the new religion. even cranmer had written some years before to cromwell, deprecating the establishment of any prebends out of the conventual estates, and speaking of the collegiate clergy as an idle, ignorant, and gormandising race, who might, without any harm, be extinguished along with the regulars. burnet, iii. . but the gross selfishness of the great men in edward's reign justly made him anxious to save what he could for a church that seemed on the brink of absolute ruin. collier mentions a characteristic circumstance. so great a quantity of church plate had been stolen, that a commission was appointed to enquire into the facts, and compel its restitution. instead of this, the commissioners found more left than they thought sufficient, and seized the greater part to the king's use. [ ] they declared, in the famous protestation of spire, which gave them the name of protestants, that their preachers having confuted the mass by passages of scripture, they could not permit their subjects to go thither; since it would afford a bad example, to suffer two sorts of service, directly opposite to each other, in their churches. schmidt, _hist. des allemands_, vi. , vii. . [ ] stat. and edw. , c. ; strype's _cranmer_, p. . [ ] burnet, . somerset had always allowed her to exercise her religion, though censured for this by warwick, who died himself a papist, but had pretended to fall in with the young king's prejudices. her ill treatment was subsequent to the protector's overthrow. it is to be observed that, in her father's life, she had acknowledged his supremacy, and the justice of her mother's divorce. strype, ; burnet, ; lingard, vi. . it was of course by intimidation; but that excuse might be made for others. cranmer is said to have persuaded henry not to put her to death, which we must in charity hope she did not know. [ ] when joan boucher was condemned, she said to her judges, "it was not long ago since you burned anne askew for a piece of bread, and yet came yourselves soon after to believe and profess the same doctrine for which you burned her; and now you will needs burn me for a piece of flesh, and in the end you will come to believe this also when you have read the scriptures and understand them." strype, ii. . [ ] gardiner had some virtues, and entertained sounder notions of the civil constitution of england than his adversaries. in a letter to sir john godsalve, giving his reasons for refusing compliance with the injunctions issued by the council to the ecclesiastical visitors (which, burnet says, does him more honour than anything else in his life), he dwells on the king's wanting power to command anything contrary to common law, or to a statute, and brings authorities for this. burnet, ii. append. . see also lingard, vi. , for another instance. nor was this regard to the constitution displayed only when out of the sunshine. for in the next reign he was against despotic counsels, of which an instance has been given in the last chapter. his conduct, indeed, with respect to the spanish connection, is equivocal. he was much against the marriage at first, and took credit to himself for the securities exacted in the treaty with philip, and established by statute. burnet, ii. . but afterwards, if we may trust noailles, he fell in with the spanish party in the council, and even suggested to parliament that the queen should have the same power as her father to dispose of the succession by will. _ambassades de noailles_, iii. , etc., etc. yet according to dr. lingard, on the imperial ambassador's authority, he saved elizabeth's life against all the council. the article gardiner, in the _biographia britannica_, contains an elaborate and partial apology, at great length; and the historian just quoted has of course said all he could in favour of one who laboured so strenuously for the extirpation of the northern heresy. but he was certainly not an honest man, and had been active in henry's reign against his real opinions. even if the ill treatment of gardiner and bonner by edward's council could be excused (and the latter by his rudeness might deserve some punishment), what can be said for the imprisonment of the bishops heath and day, worthy and moderate men, who had gone a great way with the reformation, but objected to the removal of altars, an innovation by no means necessary, and which should have been deferred till the people had grown ripe for further change? mr. southey says, "gardiner and bonner were deprived of their sees and imprisoned: but _no rigour was used towards them_." _book of the church_, ii. . liberty and property being trifles! [ ] the doctrines of the english church were set forth in articles, drawn up, as is generally believed, by cranmer and ridley, with the advice of bucer and martyr, and perhaps of cox. the three last of these, condemning some novel opinions, were not renewed under elizabeth, and a few other variations were made; but upon the whole there is little difference, and none perhaps in those tenets which have been most the object of discussion. see the original articles in burnet, ii. app. n. . they were never confirmed by a convocation or a parliament, but imposed by the king's supremacy on all the clergy, and on the universities. his death however, ensued before they could be actually subscribed. [ ] strype's _cranmer_, appendix, p. . i am sorry to find a respectable writer inclining to vindicate cranmer in this protestation, which burnet admits to agree better with the maxims of the casuists than with the prelate's sincerity: todd's introduction to _cranmer's defence of the true doctrine of the sacrament_ ( ), p. . it is of no importance to enquire, whether the protest were made publicly or privately. nothing can possibly turn upon this. it was, on either supposition, unknown to the promisee, the pope at rome. the question is, whether, having obtained the bulls from rome on an express stipulation that he should take a certain oath, he had a right to offer a limitation, not explanatory, but utterly inconsistent with it? we are sure that cranmer's views and intentions, which he very soon carried into effect, were irreconcilable with any sort of obedience to the pope; and if, under all the circumstances, his conduct was justifiable, there would be an end of all promissory obligations whatever. [ ] the character of cranmer is summed up in no unfair manner by mr. c. butler, _memoirs of english catholics_, vol. i. p. ; except that his obtaining from anne boleyn an acknowledgment of her supposed pre-contract of marriage, having proceeded from motives of humanity, ought not to incur much censure, though the sentence of nullity was a mere mockery of law.--poor cranmer was compelled to subscribe not less than six recantations. strype (iii. ) had the integrity to publish all these, which were not fully known before. [ ] burnet, ii. . [ ] there are two curious entries in the lords' jour., th and th of november , which point out the origin of the new code of ecclesiastical law mentioned in the next note: "hodie questi sunt episcopi, contemni se a plebe, audere autem nihil pro potestate suâ administrare, eo quod per publicas quasdam denuntiationes quas proclamationes vocant, sublata esset penitus sua jurisdictio, adeo ut neminem judicio sistere, nullum scelus punire, neminem ad ædem sacram cogere, neque cætera id genus munia ad eos pertinentia exequi auderent. hæc querela ab omnibus proceribus non sine moerore audita est; et ut quam citissimè huic malo subveniretur, injunctum est episcopis ut formulam aliquam statuti hâc de re scriptam traderent: quæ si consilio postea prælecta omnibus ordinibus probaretur, pro lege omnibus sententiis sanciri posset. " november. hodie lecta est billa pro jurisdictione episcoporum et aliorum ecclesiasticorum, quæ cum proceribus, _eo quod episcopi nimis sibi arrogare viderentur_, non placeret, visum est deligere prudentes aliquot viros utriusque ordinis, qui habitâ maturâ tantæ rei inter se deliberatione, referrent toti consilio quid pro ratione temporis et rei necessitate in hac causa agi expediret." accordingly, the lords appoint the archbishop of canterbury, the bishops of ely, durham, and lichfield, lords dorset, wharton, and stafford, with chief justice montague. [ ] it had been enacted, edw. , c. , that thirty-two commissioners, half clergy, half lay, should be appointed to draw up a collection of new canons. but these, according to strype, ii. (though i do not find it in the act), might be reduced to eight, without preserving the equality of orders; and of those nominated in november , five were ecclesiastics, three laymen. the influence of the former shows itself in the collection, published with the title of _reformatio legum ecclesiasticûm_, and intended as a complete code of protestant canon law. this was referred for revisal to a new commission; but the king's death ensued, and the business was never again taken up. burnet, ii. ; collier, . the latin style is highly praised; cheke and haddon, the most elegant scholars of that age, having been concerned in it. this however is of small importance. the canons are founded on a principle current among the clergy, that a rigorous discipline, enforced by church censures and the aid of the civil power, is the best safeguard of a christian commonwealth against vice. but it is easy to perceive that its severity would never have been endured in this country, and that this was the true reason why it was laid aside; not, according to the improbable refinement with which warburton has furnished hurd, because the old canon law was thought more favourable to the prerogative of the crown. compare warburton's _letters to hurd_, p. , with the latter's _moral and political dialogues_, p. , th edit. the canons trench in several places on the known province of the common law, by assigning specific penalties and forfeitures to offences, as in the case of adultery; and though it is true that this was all subject to the confirmation of parliament, yet the lawyers would look with their usual jealousy on such provisions in ecclesiastical canons. but the great sin of this protestant legislation is its extension of the name and penalties of heresy to the wilful denial of any part of the authorised articles of faith. this is clear from the first and second titles. but it has been doubted whether capital punishments for this offence were intended to be preserved. burnet, always favourable to the reformers, asserts that they were laid aside. collier and lingard, whose bias is the other way, maintain the contrary. there is, it appears to me, some difficulty in determining this. that all persons denying any one of the articles might be turned over to the secular power is evident. yet it rather seems by one passage in the title, de judiciis contra hæreses, c. , that infamy and civil disability were the only punishments intended to be kept up, except in case of the denial of the christian religion. for if a heretic were, as a matter of course, to be burned, it seems needless to provide, as in this chapter, that he should be incapable of being a witness, or of making a will. dr. lingard, on the other hand, says, "it regulates the delivery of the obstinate heretic to the civil magistrate, that he may _suffer death_ according to law." the words to which he refers are these: cum sic penitus insederit error, et tam alte radices egerit, ut nec sententiâ quidem excommunicationis ad veritatem reus inflecti possit, tum consumptis omnibus aliis remediis, ad extremum ad civiles magistratus ablegetur _puniendus_. _id._ tit. c. . it is generally best, where the words are at all ambiguous, to give the reader the power of judging for himself. but i by no means pretend that dr. lingard is mistaken. on the contrary, the language of this passage leads to a strong suspicion that the rigour of popish persecution was intended to remain, especially as the writ de hæretico comburendo was in force by law, and there is no hint of taking it away. yet it seems monstrous to conceive that the denial of predestination (which by the way is asserted in this collection, tit. de hæresibus, c. , with a shade more of calvinism than in the articles) was to subject any one to be burned alive. and on the other hand, there is this difficulty, that arianism, pelagianism, popery, anabaptism, are all put on the same footing; so that, if we deny that the papist or free-willer was to be burned, we must deny the same of the anti-trinitarian, which contradicts the principle and practice of that age. upon the whole, i cannot form a decided opinion as to this matter. dr. lingard does not hesitate to say, "cranmer and his associates perished in the flames which they had prepared to kindle for the destruction of their opponents." upon further consideration, i incline to suspect that the temporal punishment of heresy was intended to be fixed by act of parliament; and probably with various degrees, which will account for the indefinite word "puniendus." before i quit these canons, one mistake of dr. lingard's may be corrected. he says that divorces were allowed by them not only for adultery, but cruelty, desertion, and _incompatibility of temper_. but the contrary may be clearly shown, from tit. de matrimonio, c. , and tit. de divortiis, c. . divorce was allowed for something more than incompatibility of temper; namely, _capitales inimicitiæ_, meaning, as i conceive, attempts by one party on the other's life. in this respect, their scheme of a very important branch of social law seems far better than our own. nothing can be more absurd than our modern _privilegia_, our acts of parliament to break the bond between an adulteress and her husband. nor do i see how we can justify the denial of redress to women in every case of adultery and desertion. it does not follow that the marriage tie ought to be dissolved as easily as it is, at least by the rich, in the lutheran states of germany. [ ] strype, _passim_. burnet, ii. ; iii. append. ; collier, , . [ ] strype, burnet. the former is more accurate. [ ] burnet, , ; strype, , . no part of england suffered so much in the persecution. [ ] _ambassades de noailles_, v. ii. _passim_. strype, . [ ] strype, iii. . he reckons the emigrants at . _life of cranmer_, . of these the most illustrious was the duchess of suffolk, first cousin of the queen. in the parliament of , a bill sequestering the property of "the duchess of suffolk and others, contemptuously gone over the seas," was rejected by the commons on the third reading. journals, th december. it must not be understood that all the aristocracy were supple hypocrites, though they did not expose themselves voluntarily to prosecution. noailles tells us that the earls of oxford and westmoreland, and lord willoughby, were censured by the council _for religion_; and it was thought that the former would lose his title (more probably his hereditary office of chamberlain), which would be conferred on the earl of pembroke, v. . michele, the venetian ambassador, in his relazione del stato d'inghilterra, lansdowne mss. , does not speak favourably of the general affection towards popery. "the english in general," he says, "would turn jews or turks if their sovereign pleased; but the restoration of the abbey lands by the crown keeps alive a constant fear among those who possess them."--fol. . this restitution of church lands in the hands of the crown cost the queen £ , a year of revenue. [ ] parker had extravagantly reckoned the number of these at , , which burnet reduces to , vol. iii. . but upon this computation they formed a very considerable body on the protestant side. burnet's calculation, however, is made by assuming the ejected ministers of the diocese of norwich to have been in the ratio of the whole; which, from the eminent protestantism of that district, is not probable; and dr. lingard, on wharton's authority, who has taken his ratio from the diocese of canterbury, thinks they did not amount to more than about . [ ] burnet, ii. ; iii. . but see philips's _life of pole_, sect. ix. _contra_; and ridley's answer to this, p. . in fact, no scheme of religion would on the whole have been so acceptable to the nation, as that which henry left established, consisting chiefly of what was called catholic in doctrine, but free from the grosser abuses and from all connection with the see of rome. arbitrary and capricious as that king was, he carried the people along with him, as i believe, in all great points, both as to what he renounced, and what he retained. michele (relazione, etc.) is of this opinion. [ ] no one of our historians has been so severe on mary's reign, except on a religious account, as carte, on the authority of the letters of noailles. dr. lingard, though with these before him, has softened and suppressed, till this queen appears honest and even amiable. a man of sense should be ashamed of such partiality to his sect. admitting that the french ambassador had a temptation to exaggerate the faults of a government wholly devoted to spain, it is manifest that mary's reign was inglorious, her capacity narrow, and her temper sanguinary; that, although conscientious in some respects, she was as capable of dissimulation as her sister, and of breach of faith as her husband; that she obstinately and wilfully sacrificed her subjects' affections and interests to a misplaced and discreditable attachment; and that the words with which carte has concluded the character of this unlamented sovereign, though little pleasing to men of dr. lingard's profession, are perfectly just: "having reduced the nation to the brink of ruin, she left it, by her seasonable decease, to be restored by her admirable successor to its ancient prosperity and glory." i fully admit, at the same time, that dr. lingard has proved elizabeth to have been as dangerous a prisoner, as she afterwards found the queen of scots. [ ] strype, ii. ; burnet, iii. , and append. , where there is a letter from the king and queen to bonner, as if even he wanted excitement to prosecute heretics. the number who suffered death by fire in this reign is reckoned by fox at , by speed at , and by lord burghley at . strype, iii. . these numbers come so near to each other, that they may be presumed also to approach the truth. but carte, on the authority of one of noailles's letters, thinks many more were put to death than our martyrologists have discovered. and the prefacer to ridley's _treatise de coenâ domini_, supposed to be bishop grindal, says that suffered in this manner for religion. burnet, ii. . i incline, however, to the lower statements. [ ] burnet makes a very just observation on the cruelties of this period, that "they raised that horror in the whole nation, that there seems ever since that time such an abhorrence to that religion to be derived down from father to son, that it is no wonder an aversion so deeply rooted and raised upon such grounds, does upon every new provocation or jealousy or returning to it break out in most violent and convulsive symptoms."--p. . "delicta majorum immeritus luis, _romane_." but those who would diminish this aversion, and prevent these convulsive symptoms, will do better by avoiding for the future either such panegyrics on mary and her advisers, or such insidious extenuations of her persecution as we have lately read, and which do not raise a favourable impression of their sincerity in the principles of toleration to which they profess to have been converted. noailles, who, though an enemy to mary's government, must, as a catholic, be reckoned an unsuspicious witness, remarkably confirms the account given by fox, and since by all our writers, of the death of rogers, the proto-martyr, and its effect on the people. "ce jour d'huy a esté faite la confirmation de 'alliance entre le pape et ce royaume par un sacrifice publique et solemnel d'un docteur predicant nommé rogerus, le quel a eté brulé tout vif pour estre lutherien; mais il est mort persistant en son opinion. a quoy le plus grand partie de ce peuple a pris tel plaisir, qu'ils n'ont eu crainte de luy faire plusieurs acclamations pour comforter son courage; et meme ses enfans y on assisté, le consolant de telle façon qu'il semblait qu'on le menait aux noces."--v. . [ ] strype, iii. . chapter iii on the laws of elizabeth's reign respecting the roman catholics _change of religion on the queen's accession._--the accession of elizabeth, gratifying to the whole nation on account of the late queen's extreme unpopularity, infused peculiar joy into the hearts of all well-wishers to the reformation. child of that famous marriage which had severed the connection of england with the roman see, and trained betimes in the learned and reasoning discipline of protestant theology, suspected and oppressed for that very reason by a sister's jealousy, and scarcely preserved from the death which at one time threatened her, there was every ground to be confident, that, notwithstanding her forced compliance with the catholic rites during the late reign, her inclinations had continued steadfast to the opposite side.[ ] nor was she long in manifesting this disposition sufficiently to alarm one party, though not entirely to satisfy the other. her great prudence, and that of her advisers, which taught her to move slowly, while the temper of the nation was still uncertain, and her government still embarrassed with a french war and a spanish alliance, joined with a certain tendency in her religious sentiments not so thoroughly protestant as had been expected, produced some complaints of delay from the ardent reformers just returned from exile. she directed sir edward karn, her sister's ambassador at rome, to notify her accession to paul iv. several catholic writers have laid stress on this circumstance as indicative of a desire to remain in his communion; and have attributed her separation from it to his arrogant reply, commanding her to lay down the title of royalty, and to submit her pretentions to his decision. but she had begun to make alterations, though not very essential, in the church service, before the pope's behaviour could have become known to her; and the bishops must have been well aware of the course she designed to pursue, when they adopted the violent and impolitic resolution of refusing to officiate at her coronation.[ ] her council was formed of a very few catholics, of several pliant conformists with all changes, and of some known friends to the protestant interest. but two of these, cecil and bacon, were so much higher in her confidence, and so incomparably superior in talents to the other counsellors, that it was evident which way she must incline.[ ] the parliament met about two months after her accession. the creed of parliament from the time of henry viii. had been always that of the court; whether it were that elections had constantly been influenced, as we know was sometimes the case, or that men of adverse principles, yielding to the torrent, had left the way clear to the partisans of power. this first, like all subsequent parliaments, was to the full as favourable to protestantism as the queen could desire: the first fruits of benefices, and, what was far more important, the supremacy in ecclesiastical affairs, were restored to the crown; the laws made concerning religion in edward's time were re-enacted. these acts did not pass without considerable opposition among the lords; nine temporal peers, besides all the bishops, having protested against the bill of uniformity establishing the anglican liturgy, though some pains had been taken to soften the passages most obnoxious to catholics.[ ] but the act restoring the royal supremacy met with less resistance; whether it were that the system of henry retained its hold over some minds, or that it did not encroach, like the former, on the liberty of conscience, or that men not over-scrupulous were satisfied with the interpretation which the queen caused to be put upon the oath. several of the bishops had submitted to the reformation under edward vi. but they had acted, in general, so conspicuous a part in the late restoration of popery, that, even amidst so many examples of false profession, shame restrained them from a second apostasy. their number happened not to exceed sixteen, one of whom was prevailed on to conform; while the rest, refusing the oath of supremacy, were deprived of their bishoprics by the court of ecclesiastical high commission. in the summer of , the queen appointed a general ecclesiastical visitation, to compel the observance of the protestant formularies. it appears from their reports that only about one hundred dignitaries, and eighty parochial priests, resigned their benefices, or were deprived.[ ] men eminent for their zeal in the protestant cause, and most of them exiles during the persecution, occupied the vacant sees. and thus, before the end of , the english church, so long contended for as a prize by the two religions, was lost for ever to that of rome. _acts of supremacy and uniformity._--these two statutes, commonly denominated the acts of supremacy and uniformity, form the basis of that restrictive code of laws, deemed by some one of the fundamental bulwarks, by others the reproach of our constitution, which pressed so heavily for more than two centuries upon the adherents to the romish church. by the former all beneficed ecclesiastics, and all laymen holding office under the crown, were obliged to take the oath of supremacy, renouncing the spiritual as well as temporal jurisdiction of every foreign prince or prelate, on pain of forfeiting their office or benefice; and it was rendered highly penal, and for the third offence treasonable, to maintain such supremacy by writing or advised speaking.[ ] the latter statute trenched more on the natural rights of conscience; prohibiting, under pain of forfeiting goods and chattels for the first offence, of a year's imprisonment for the second, and of imprisonment during life for the third, the use by a minister, whether beneficed or not, of any but the established liturgy; and imposed a fine of one shilling on all who should absent themselves from church on sundays and holidays.[ ] _restraint of roman catholic worship in the first years of elizabeth._--this act operated as an absolute interdiction of the catholic rites, however privately celebrated. it has frequently been asserted that the government connived at the domestic exercise of that religion during these first years of elizabeth's reign. this may possibly have been the case with respect to some persons of very high rank whom it was inexpedient to irritate. but we find instances of severity towards catholics, even in that early period; and it is evident that their solemn rites were only performed by stealth, and at much hazard. thus sir edward waldgrave and his lady were sent to the tower in , for hearing mass and having a priest in their house. many others about the same time were punished for the like offence.[ ] two bishops, one of whom, i regret to say, was grindal, write to the council in , concerning a priest apprehended in a lady's house, that neither he nor the servants would be sworn to answer to articles, saying they would not accuse themselves; and, after a wise remark on this, that "papistry is like to end in anabaptistry," proceed to hint, that "some think that if this priest might be put to some kind of torment, and so driven to confess what he knoweth, he might gain the queen's majesty a good mass of money by the masses that he hath said; but this we refer to your lordship's wisdom."[ ] this commencement of persecution induced many catholics to fly beyond sea, and gave rise to those reunions of disaffected exiles, which never ceased to endanger the throne of elizabeth. it cannot, as far as appears, be truly alleged that any greater provocation had as yet been given by the catholics, than that of pertinaciously continuing to believe and worship as their fathers had done before them. i request those who may hesitate about this, to pay some attention to the order of time, before they form their opinions. the master mover, that became afterwards so busy, had not yet put his wires into action. every prudent man at rome (and we shall not at least deny that there were such) condemned the precipitate and insolent behaviour of paul iv. towards elizabeth, as they did most other parts of his administration. pius iv., the successor of that injudicious old man, aware of the inestimable importance of reconciliation, and suspecting probably that the queen's turn of thinking did not exclude all hope of it, despatched a nuncio to england, with an invitation to send ambassadors to the council at trent, and with powers, as is said, to confirm the english liturgy, and to permit double communion; one of the few concessions which the more indulgent romanists of that age were not very reluctant to make.[ ] but elizabeth had taken her line as to the court of rome; the nuncio received a message at brussels, that he must not enter the kingdom; and she was too wise to countenance the impartial fathers of trent, whose labours had nearly drawn to a close, and whose decisions on the controverted points it had never been very difficult to foretell. i have not found that pius iv., more moderate than most other pontiffs of the sixteenth century, took any measures hostile to the temporal government of this realm; but the deprived ecclesiastics were not unfairly anxious to keep alive the faith of their former hearers, and to prevent them from sliding into conformity, through indifference and disuse of their ancient rites.[ ] the means taken were chiefly the same as had been adopted against themselves, the dispersion of small papers either in a serious or lively strain; but, the remarkable position in which the queen was placed rendering her death a most important contingency, the popish party made use of pretended conjurations and prophecies of that event, in order to unsettle the people's minds, and dispose them to anticipate another re-action.[ ] partly through these political circumstances, but far more from the hard usage they experienced for professing their religion, there seems to have been an increasing restlessness among the catholics about , which was met with new rigour by the parliament of that year.[ ] _statute of ._--the act entitled, "for the assurance of the queen's royal power over all estates and subjects within her dominions," enacts, with an iniquitous and sanguinary retrospect, that all persons, who had ever taken holy orders or any degree in the universities, or had been admitted to the practice of the laws, or held any office in their execution, should be bound to take the oath of supremacy, when tendered to them by a bishop, or by commissioners appointed under the great seal. the penalty for the first refusal of this oath was that of a præmunire; but any person, who after the space of three months from the first tender should again refuse it when in like manner tendered, incurred the pains of high treason. the oath of supremacy was imposed by this statute on every member of the house of commons, but could not be tendered to a peer; the queen declaring her full confidence in those hereditary counsellors. several peers of great weight and dignity were still catholics.[ ] _speech of lord montague against it._--this harsh statute did not pass without opposition. two speeches against it have been preserved; one by lord montagu in the house of lords, the other by mr. atkinson in the commons, breathing such generous abhorrence of persecution as some erroneously imagine to have been unknown to that age, because we rarely meet with it in theological writings. "this law," said lord montagu, "is not necessary; forasmuch as the catholics of this realm disturb not, nor hinder the public affairs of the realms, neither spiritual nor temporal. they dispute not, they preach not, they disobey not the queen; they cause no trouble nor tumults among the people; so that no man can say that thereby the realm doth receive any hurt or damage by them. they have brought into the realm no novelties in doctrine and religion. this being true and evident, as it is indeed, there is no necessity why any new law should be made against them. and where there is no sore nor grief, medicines are superfluous, and also hurtful and dangerous. i do entreat," he says afterwards, "whether it be just to make this penal statute to force the subjects of this realm to receive and believe the religion of protestants on pain of death. this i say to be a thing most unjust; for that it is repugnant to the natural liberty of men's understanding. for understanding may be persuaded, but not forced." and further on: "it is an easy thing to understand that a thing so unjust, and so contrary to all reason and liberty of man, cannot be put in execution but with great incommodity and difficulty. for what man is there so without courage and stomach, or void of all honour, that can consent or agree to receive an opinion and new religion by force and compulsion; or will swear that he thinketh the contrary to what he thinketh? to be still, or dissemble, may be borne and suffered for a time--to keep his reckoning with god alone; but to be compelled to lie and to swear, or else to die therefore, are things that no man ought to suffer and endure. and it is to be feared rather than to die they will seek how to defend themselves; whereby should ensue the contrary of what every good prince and well advised commonwealth ought to seek and pretend, that is, to keep their kingdom and government in peace."[ ] _statute of not fully enforced._--i am never very willing to admit as an apology for unjust or cruel enactments, that they are not designed to be generally executed; a pretext often insidious, always insecure, and tending to mask the approaches of arbitrary government. but it is certain that elizabeth did not wish this act to be enforced in its full severity. and archbishop parker, by far the most prudent churchman of the time, judging some of the bishops too little moderate in their dealings with the papists, warned them privately to use great caution in tendering the oath of supremacy according to the act, and never to do so the second time, on which the penalty of treason might attach, without his previous approbation.[ ] the temper of some of his colleagues was more narrow and vindictive. several of the deprived prelates had been detained in a sort of honourable custody in the palaces of their successors.[ ] bonner, the most justly obnoxious of them all, was confined in the marshalsea. upon the occasion of this new statute, horn, bishop of winchester, indignant at the impunity of such a man, proceeded to tender him the oath of supremacy, with an evident intention of driving him to high treason. bonner, however, instead of evading this attack, intrepidly denied the other to be a lawful bishop; and, strange as it may seem, not only escaped all farther molestation, but had the pleasure of seeing his adversaries reduced to pass an act of parliament, declaring the present bishops to have been legally consecrated.[ ] this statute, and especially its preamble, might lead a hasty reader to suspect that the celebrated story of an irregular consecration of the first protestant bishops at the nag's-head tavern was not wholly undeserving of credit. that tale, however, has been satisfactorily refuted: the only irregularity which gave rise to this statute consisted in the use of an ordinal, which had not been legally re-established.[ ] _application of the emperor in behalf of the english catholics._--it was not long after the act imposing such heavy penalties on catholic priests for refusing the oath of supremacy, that the emperor ferdinand addressed two letters to elizabeth, interceding for the adherents to that religion, both with respect to those new severities to which they might become liable by conscientiously declining that oath, and to the prohibition of the free exercise of their rites. he suggested that it might be reasonable to allow them the use of one church in every city. and he concluded with an expression, which might possibly be designed to intimate that his own conduct towards the protestants in his dominions would be influenced by her concurrence in his request.[ ] such considerations were not without great importance. the protestant religion was gaining ground in austria, where a large proportion of the nobility as well as citizens had for some years earnestly claimed its public toleration. ferdinand, prudent and averse from bigoted counsels, and for every reason solicitous to heal the wounds which religious differences had made in the empire, while he was endeavouring, not absolutely without hope of success, to obtain some concessions from the pope, had shown a disposition to grant further indulgences to his protestant subjects. his son, maximilian, not only through his moderate temper, but some real inclination towards the new doctrines, bade fair to carry much farther the liberal policy of the reigning emperor.[ ] it was consulting very little the general interests of protestantism, to disgust persons so capable and so well disposed to befriend it. but our queen, although free from the fanatical spirit of persecution which actuated part of her subjects, was too deeply imbued with arbitrary principles to endure any public deviation from the mode of worship she should prescribe. and it must perhaps be admitted that experience alone could fully demonstrate the safety of toleration, and show the fallacy of apprehensions that unprejudiced men might have entertained. in her answer to ferdinand, the queen declares that she cannot grant churches to those who disagree from her religion, being against the laws of her parliament, and highly dangerous to the state of her kingdom; as it would sow various opinions in the nation to distract the minds of honest men, and would cherish parties and factions that might disturb the present tranquillity of the commonwealth. yet enough had already occurred in france to lead observing men to suspect that severities and restrictions are by no means an infallible specific to prevent or subdue religious factions. camden and many others have asserted that by systematic connivance the roman catholics enjoyed a pretty free use of their religion for the first fourteen years of elizabeth's reign. but this is not reconcilable to many passages in strype's collections. we find abundance of persons harassed for recusancy, that is, for not attending the protestant church, and driven to insincere promises of conformity. others were dragged before ecclesiastical commissions for harbouring priests, or for sending money to those who had fled beyond sea.[ ] students of the inns of court, where popery had a strong hold at this time, were examined in the star-chamber as to their religion, and on not giving satisfactory answers were committed to the fleet.[ ] the catholic party were not always scrupulous about the usual artifices of an oppressed people, meeting force by fraud, and concealing their heartfelt wishes under the mask of ready submission, or even of zealous attachment. a great majority both of clergy and laity yielded to the times; and of these temporising conformists it cannot be doubted that many lost by degrees all thought of returning to their ancient fold. but others, while they complied with exterior ceremonies, retained in their private devotions their accustomed mode of worship. it is an admitted fact, that the catholics generally attended the church, till it came to be reckoned a distinctive sign of their having renounced their own religion. they persuaded themselves (and the english priests, uninstructed and accustomed to a temporising conduct, did not discourage the notion) that the private observance of their own rites would excuse a formal obedience to the civil power.[ ] the romish scheme of worship, though it attaches more importance to ceremonial rites, has one remarkable difference from the protestant, that it is far less social; and consequently the prevention of its open exercise has far less tendency to weaken men's religious associations, so long as their individual intercourse with a priest, its essential requisite, can be preserved. priests therefore travelled the country in various disguises, to keep alive a flame which the practice of outward conformity was calculated to extinguish. there was not a county throughout england, says a catholic historian, where several of mary's clergy did not reside, and were commonly called the old priests. they served as chaplains in private families.[ ] by stealth, at the dead of night, in private chambers, in the secret lurking-places of an ill-peopled country, with all the mystery that subdues the imagination, with all the mutual trust that invigorates constancy, these proscribed ecclesiastics celebrated their solemn rites, more impressive in such concealment than if surrounded by all their former splendour. the strong predilection indeed of mankind for mystery, which has probably led many to tamper in political conspiracies without much further motive, will suffice to preserve secret associations, even where their purposes are far less interesting than those of religion. many of these itinerant priests assumed the character of protestant preachers; and it has been said, with some truth, though not probably without exaggeration, that, under the directions of their crafty court, they fomented the division then springing up, and mingled with the anabaptists and other sectaries, in the hope both of exciting dislike to the establishment, and of instilling their own tenets, slightly disguised, into the minds of unwary enthusiasts.[ ] _persecution of the catholics in the ensuing period._--it is my thorough conviction that the persecution, for it can obtain no better name,[ ] carried on against the english catholics, however it might serve to delude the government by producing an apparent conformity, could not but excite a spirit of disloyalty in many adherents of that faith. nor would it be safe to assert that a more conciliating policy would have altogether disarmed their hostility, much less laid at rest those busy hopes of the future, which the peculiar circumstances of elizabeth's reign had a tendency to produce. this remarkable posture of affairs affected all her civil, and still more her ecclesiastical policy. her own title to the crown depended absolutely on a parliamentary recognition. the act of h. , c. had settled the crown upon her, and thus far restrained the previous statute, h. , c. , which had empowered her father to regulate the succession at his pleasure. besides this legislative authority, his testament had bequeathed the kingdom to elizabeth after her sister mary; and the common consent of the nation had ratified her possession. but the queen of scots, niece of henry by margaret, his elder sister, had a prior right to the throne during elizabeth's reign, in the eyes of such catholics as preferred an hereditary to a parliamentary title, and was reckoned by the far greater part of the nation its presumptive heir after her decease. there could indeed be no question of this, had the succession been left to its natural course. but henry had exercised the power with which his parliament, in too servile a spirit, yet in the plenitude of its sovereign authority, had invested him, by settling the succession in remainder upon the house of suffolk, descendants of his second sister mary, to whom he postponed the elder line of scotland. mary left two daughters, frances and eleanor. the former became wife of grey, marquis of dorset, created duke of suffolk by edward; and had three daughters--jane, whose fate is well known, catherine, and mary. eleanor brandon, by her union with the earl of cumberland, had a daughter, who married the earl of derby. at the beginning of elizabeth's reign, or rather after the death of the duchess of suffolk, lady catherine grey was by statute law the presumptive heiress of the crown; but according to the rules of hereditary descent, which the bulk of mankind do not readily permit an arbitrary and capricious enactment to disturb, mary queen of scots, granddaughter of margaret, was the indisputable representative of her royal progenitors, and the next in succession to elizabeth. _elizabeth's unwillingness to decide the succession, or to marry._--this reversion, indeed, after a youthful princess, might well appear rather an improbable contingency. it was to be expected that a fertile marriage would defeat all speculations about her inheritance; nor had elizabeth been many weeks on the throne, before this began to occupy her subjects' minds.[ ] among several who were named, two very soon became the prominent candidates for her favour, the archduke charles, son of the emperor ferdinand, and lord robert dudley, sometime after created earl of leicester; one recommended by his dignity and alliances, the other by her own evident partiality. she gave at the outset so little encouragement to the former proposal, that leicester's ambition did not appear extravagant.[ ] but her ablest counsellors who knew his vices, and her greatest peers who thought his nobility recent and ill acquired, deprecated so unworthy a connection.[ ] few will pretend to explore the labyrinths of elizabeth's heart; yet we may almost conclude that her passion for this favourite kept up a struggle against her wisdom for the first seven or eight years of her reign. meantime she still continued unmarried; and those expressions she had so early used, of her resolution to live and die a virgin, began to appear less like coy affectation than at first. never had a sovereign's marriage been more desirable for a kingdom. cecil, aware how important it was that the queen should marry, but dreading her union with leicester, contrived, about the end of , to renew the treaty with the archduke charles.[ ] during this negotiation, which lasted from two to three years, she showed not a little of that evasive and dissembling coquetry which was to be more fully displayed on subsequent occasions.[ ] leicester deemed himself so much interested as to quarrel with those who manifested any zeal for the austrian marriage; but his mistress gradually overcame her misplaced inclinations; and from the time when that connection was broken off, his prospects of becoming her husband seem rapidly to have vanished away. the pretext made for relinquishing this treaty with the archduke was elizabeth's constant refusal to tolerate the exercise of his religion; a difficulty which, whether real or ostensible, recurred in all her subsequent negotiations of a similar nature.[ ] in every parliament of elizabeth the house of commons was zealously attached to the protestant interest. this, as well as an apprehension of disturbance from a contested succession, led to those importunate solicitations that she would choose a husband, which she so artfully evaded. a determination so contrary to her apparent interest, and to the earnest desire of her people, may give some countenance to the surmises of the time, that she was restrained from marriage by a secret consciousness that it was unlikely to be fruitful.[ ] whether these conjectures were well founded, of which i know no evidence, or whether the risk of experiencing that ingratitude which the husbands of sovereign princesses have often displayed, and of which one glaring example was immediately before her eyes, outweighed in her judgment that of remaining single, or whether she might not even apprehend a more desperate combination of the catholic party at home and abroad, if the birth of any issue from her should shut out their hopes of mary's succession, it is difficult for us to decide. though the queen's marriage were the primary object of these addresses, as the most probable means of securing an undisputed heir to the crown, yet she might have satisfied the parliament in some degree by limiting the succession to one certain line. but it seems doubtful whether this would have answered the proposed end. if she had taken a firm resolution against matrimony, which, unless on the supposition already hinted, could hardly be reconciled with a sincere regard for her people's welfare, it might be less dangerous to leave the course of events to regulate her inheritance. though all parties seem to have conspired in pressing her to some decisive settlement on this subject, it would not have been easy to content the two factions, who looked for a successor to very different quarters.[ ] it is evident that any confirmation of the suffolk title would have been regarded by the queen of scots and her numerous partisans as a flagrant injustice, to which they would not submit but by compulsion: and on the other hand, by re-establishing the hereditary line, elizabeth would have lost her check on one whom she had reason to consider as a rival and competitor, and whose influence was already alarmingly extensive among her subjects. _imprisonment of lady catherine grey._--she had, however, in one of the first years of her reign, without any better motive than her own jealous and malignant humour, taken a step not only harsh and arbitrary, but very little consonant to policy, which had almost put it out of her power to defeat the queen of scots' succession. lady catherine grey, who has been already mentioned as next in remainder of the house of suffolk, proved with child by a private marriage, as they both alleged, with the earl of hertford. the queen, always envious of the happiness of lovers, and jealous of all who could entertain any hopes of the succession, threw them both into the tower. by connivance of their keepers, the lady bore a second child during this imprisonment. upon this elizabeth caused an enquiry to be instituted before a commission of privy counsellors and civilians; wherein, the parties being unable to adduce proof of their marriage, archbishop parker pronounced that their cohabitation was illegal, and that they should be censured for fornication. he was to be pitied if the law obliged him to utter so harsh a sentence, or to be blamed if it did not. even had the marriage never been solemnised, it was impossible to doubt the existence of a contract, which both were still desirous to perform. but there is reason to believe that there had been an actual marriage, though so hasty and clandestine that they had not taken precautions to secure evidence of it. the injured lady sunk under this hardship and indignity;[ ] but the legitimacy of her children was acknowledged by general consent, and, in a distant age, by a legislative declaration. these proceedings excited much dissatisfaction; generous minds revolted from their severity, and many lamented to see the reformed branch of the royal stock thus bruised by the queen's unkind and impolitic jealousy.[ ] hales, clerk of the hanaper, a zealous protestant, having written in favour of lady catherine's marriage, and of her title to the succession, was sent to the tower.[ ] the lord keeper bacon himself, a known friend to the house of suffolk, being suspected of having prompted hales to write this treatise, lost much of his mistress's favour. even cecil, though he had taken a share in prosecuting lady catherine, perhaps in some degree from an apprehension that the queen might remember he had once joined in proclaiming her sister jane, did not always escape the same suspicion;[ ] and it is probable that he felt the imprudence of entirely discountenancing a party from which the queen and religion had nothing to dread. there is reason to believe that the house of suffolk was favoured in parliament; the address of the commons in , imploring the queen to settle the succession, contains several indications of a spirit unfriendly to the scottish line;[ ] and a speech is extant, said to have been made as late as , expressly vindicating the rival pretension.[ ] if indeed we consider with attention the statute of eliz. c. , which renders it treasonable to deny that the sovereigns of this kingdom, with consent of parliament, might alter the line of succession, it will appear little short of a confirmation of that title, which the descendants of mary brandon derived from a parliamentary settlement. but the doubtful birth of lord beauchamp and his brother, with an ignoble marriage, which frances, the younger sister of lady catherine grey, had thought it prudent to contract, deprived this party of all political consequence much sooner, as i conceive, than the wisest of elizabeth's advisers could have desired; and gave rise to various other pretensions, which failed not to occupy speculative or intriguing tempers throughout this reign. _mary, queen of scotland._--we may well avoid the tedious and intricate paths of scottish history, where each fact must be sustained by a controversial discussion. every one will recollect, that mary stuart's retention of the arms and style of england gave the first, and, as it proved, inexpiable provocation to elizabeth. it is indeed true, that she was queen consort of france, a state lately at war with england, and that if the sovereigns of the latter country, even in peace, would persist in claiming the french throne, they could hardly complain of this retaliation. but, although it might be difficult to find a diplomatic answer to this, yet every one was sensible of an important difference between a title retained through vanity, and expressive of pretensions long since abandoned, from one that several foreign powers were prepared to recognise, and a great part of the nation might perhaps only want opportunity to support.[ ] if, however, after the death of francis ii. had set the queen of scots free from all adverse connections, she had with more readiness and apparent sincerity renounced a pretension which could not be made compatible with elizabeth's friendship, she might perhaps have escaped some of the consequences of that powerful neighbour's jealousy. but, whether it were that female weakness restrained her from unequivocally abandoning claims which she deemed well founded, and which future events might enable her to realise even in elizabeth's lifetime, or whether she fancied that to drop the arms of england from her scutcheon would look like a dereliction of her right of succession, no satisfaction was fairly given on this point to the english court. elizabeth took a far more effective revenge, by intriguing with all the malecontents of scotland. but while she was endeavouring to render mary's throne uncomfortable and insecure, she did not employ that influence against her in england, which lay more fairly in her power. she certainly was not unfavourable to the queen of scots' succession, however she might decline compliance with importunate and injudicious solicitations to declare it. she threw both hales and one thornton into prison for writing against that title. and when mary's secretary, lethington, urged that henry's testament, which alone stood in their way, should be examined, alleging that it had not been signed by the king, she paid no attention to this imprudent request.[ ] the circumstances wherein mary found herself placed on her arrival in scotland were sufficiently embarrassing to divert her attention from any regular scheme against elizabeth, though she may sometimes have indulged visionary hopes; nor it is probable that with the most circumspect management she could so far have mitigated the rancour of some or checked the ambition of others, as to find leisure for hostile intrigues. but her imprudent marriage with darnley, and the far greater errors of her subsequent behaviour, by lowering both her resources and reputation as far as possible, seemed to be pledges of perfect security from that quarter. yet it was precisely when mary was become most feeble and helpless, that elizabeth's apprehensions grew most serious and well founded. at the time when mary, escaped from captivity, threw herself on the protection of a related, though rival queen, three courses lay open to elizabeth, and were discussed in her councils. to restore her by force of arms, or rather by a mediation which would certainly have been effectual, to the throne which she had compulsorily abdicated, was the most generous, and would probably have turned out the most judicious proceeding. reigning thus with tarnished honour and diminished power, she must have continually depended on the support of england, and become little better than a vassal of its sovereign. still it might be objected by many, that the queen's honour was concerned not to maintain too decidedly the cause of one accused by common fame, and even by evidence that had already been made public, of adultery and the assassination of her husband. to have permitted her retreat into france would have shown an impartial neutrality; and probably that court was too much occupied at home to have afforded her any material assistance. yet this appeared rather dangerous; and policy was supposed, as frequently happens, to indicate a measure absolutely repugnant to justice, that of detaining her in perpetual custody.[ ] whether this policy had no other fault than its want of justice, may reasonably be called in question. _combination in favour of mary._--the queen's determination neither to marry nor limit the succession had inevitably turned every one's thoughts towards the contingency of her death. she was young indeed; but had been dangerously ill, once in ,[ ] and again in . of all possible competitors for the throne, mary was incomparably the most powerful, both among the nobility and the people. besides the undivided attachment of all who retained any longings for the ancient religion, and many such were to be found at elizabeth's court and chapel, she had the stronghold of hereditary right, and the general sentiment that revolts from acknowledging the omnipotency of a servile parliament. cecil, whom no one could suspect of partiality towards her, admits in a remarkable minute on the state of the kingdom, in , that "the queen of scots' strength standeth by the universal opinion of the world for the justice of her title, as coming of the ancient line."[ ] this was no doubt in some degree counteracted by a sense of the danger which her accession would occasion to the protestant church, and which, far more than its parliamentary title, kept up a sort of party for the house of suffolk. the crimes imputed to her did not immediately gain credit among the people; and some of higher rank were too experienced politicians to turn aside for such considerations. she had always preserved her connections among the english nobility, of whom many were catholics, and others adverse to cecil, by whose counsels the queen had been principally directed in all her conduct with regard to scotland and its sovereign.[ ] after the unfinished process of enquiry to which mary submitted at york and hampton court, when the charge of participation in darnley's murder had been substantiated by evidence at least that she did not disprove, and the whole course of which proceedings created a very unfavourable impression both in england and on the continent, no time was to be lost by those who considered her as the object of their dearest hopes. she was in the kingdom; she might, by a bold rescue, be placed at their head; every hour's delay increased the danger of her being delivered up to the rebel scots; and doubtless some eager protestants had already begun to demand her exclusion by an absolute decision of the legislature. elizabeth must have laid her account, if not with the disaffection of the catholic party, yet at least with their attachment to the queen of scots. but the extensive combination that appeared, in , to bring about by force the duke of norfolk's marriage with that princess, might well startle her cabinet. in this combination westmoreland and northumberland, avowed catholics, pembroke and arundel, suspected ones, were mingled with sussex and even leicester, unquestioned protestants. the duke of norfolk himself, greater and richer than any english subject, had gone such lengths in this conspiracy that his life became the just forfeit of his guilt and folly. it is almost impossible to pity this unhappy man, who lured by the most criminal ambition, after proclaiming the queen of scots a notorious adulteress and murderer, would have compassed a union with her at the hazard of his sovereign's crown, of the tranquillity and even independence of his country, and of the reformed religion.[ ] there is abundant proof of his intrigues with the duke of alva, who had engaged to invade the kingdom. his trial was not indeed conducted in a manner that we can approve (such was the nature of state proceedings in that age), nor can it, i think, be denied that it formed a precedent of constructive treason not easily reconcilable with the statute; but much evidence is extant that his prosecutors did not adduce; and no one fell by a sentence more amply merited, or the execution of which was more indispensable.[ ] _bull of pius v._--norfolk was the dupe throughout all this intrigue of more artful men; first of murray and lethington, who had filled his mind with ambitious hopes, and afterwards of italian agents employed by pius v. to procure a combination of the catholic party. collateral to norfolk's conspiracy, but doubtless connected with it, was that of the northern earls of northumberland and westmoreland, long prepared, and perfectly foreseen by the government, of which the ostensible and manifest aim was the re-establishment of popery.[ ] pius v., who took a far more active part than his predecessor in english affairs, and had secretly instigated this insurrection, now published his celebrated bull, excommunicating and deposing elizabeth, in order to second the efforts of her rebellious subjects.[ ] this is, perhaps, with the exception of that issued by sixtus v. against mary iv. of france, the latest blast of that trumpet, which had thrilled the hearts of monarchs. yet there was nothing in the sound that bespoke declining vigour; even the illegitimacy of elizabeth's birth is scarcely alluded to; and the pope seems to have chosen rather to tread the path of his predecessors, and absolve her subjects from their allegiance, as the just and necessary punishment of her heresy. since nothing so much strengthens any government as an unsuccessful endeavour to subvert it, it may be thought that the complete failure of the rebellion under the earls of northumberland and westmoreland, with the detection and punishment of the duke of norfolk, rendered elizabeth's throne more secure. but those events revealed the number of her enemies, or at least of those in whom no confidence could be reposed. the rebellion, though provided against by the ministry, and headed by two peers of great family but no personal weight, had not only assumed for a time a most formidable aspect in the north, but caused many to waver in other parts of the kingdom.[ ] even in norfolk, an eminently protestant county, there was a slight insurrection in , out of attachment to the duke.[ ] if her greatest subject could thus be led astray from his faith and loyalty, if others not less near to her councils could unite with him in measures so contrary to her wishes and interests, on whom was she firmly to rely? who, especially, could be trusted, were she to be snatched away from the world, for the maintenance of the protestant establishment under a yet unknown successor? this was the manifest and principal danger that her counsellors had to dread. her own great reputation, and the respectful attachment of her people, might give reason to hope that no machinations would be successful against her crown; but let us reflect in what situation the kingdom would have been left by her death in a sudden illness, such as she had more than once experienced in earlier years, and again in . "you must think," lord burleigh writes to walsingham, on that occasion, "such a matter would drive me to the end of my wits." and sir thomas smith expresses his fears in equally strong language.[ ] such statesmen do not entertain apprehensions lightly. whom, in truth, could her privy council, on such an event, have resolved to proclaim? the house of suffolk, had its right been more generally recognised than it was (lady catherine being now dead), presented no undoubted heir. the young king of scotland, an alien and an infant, could only have reigned through a regency; and it might have been difficult to have selected from the english nobility a fit person to undertake that office, or at least one in whose elevation the rest would have acquiesced. it appears most probable that the numerous and powerful faction who had promoted norfolk's union with mary would have contrived again to remove her from her prison to the throne. of such a revolution the disgrace of cecil and of elizabeth's wisest ministers must have been the immediate consequence; and it is probable that the restoration of the catholic worship would have ensued. these apprehensions prompted cecil, walsingham, and smith to press the queen's marriage with the duke of anjou far more earnestly than would otherwise have appeared consistent with her interests. a union with any member of that perfidious court was repugnant to genuine protestant sentiments. but the queen's absolute want of foreign alliances, and the secret hostility both of france and spain, impressed cecil with that deep sense of the perils of the time which his private letters so strongly bespeak. a treaty was believed to have been concluded in , to which the two last-mentioned powers, with the emperor maximilian and some other catholic princes, were parties, for the extirpation of the protestant religion.[ ] no alliance that the court of charles ix. could have formed with elizabeth was likely to have diverted it from pursuing this object; and it may have been fortunate that her own insincerity saved her from being the dupe of those who practised it so well. walsingham himself, sagacious as he was, fell into the snares of that den of treachery, giving credit to the young king's assurances almost on the very eve of st. bartholomew.[ ] _statutes for the queen's security._--the bull of pius v., far more injurious in its consequences to those it was designed to serve than to elizabeth, forms a leading epoch in the history of our english catholics. it rested upon a principle never universally acknowledged, and regarded with much jealousy by temporal governments, yet maintained in all countries by many whose zeal and ability rendered them formidable--the right vested in the supreme pontiff to depose kings for heinous crimes against the church. one felton affixed this bull to the gates of the bishop of london's palace, and suffered death for the offence. so audacious a manifestation of disloyalty was imputed with little justice to the catholics at large, but might more reasonably lie at the door of those active instruments of rome, the english refugee priests and jesuits dispersed over flanders and lately established at douay, who were continually passing into the kingdom, not only to keep alive the precarious faith of the laity, but, as was generally surmised, to excite them against their sovereign.[ ] this produced the act of eliz. c. ; which, after reciting these mischiefs, enacts that all persons publishing any bull from rome, or absolving and reconciling any one to the romish church, or being so reconciled, should incur the penalties of high treason; and such as brought into the realm any crosses, pictures, or superstitious things consecrated by the pope or under his authority, should be liable to a premunire. those who should conceal or connive at the offenders were to be held guilty of misprision of treason. this statute exposed the catholic priesthood, and in great measure the laity, to the continual risk of martyrdom; for so many had fallen away from their faith through a pliant spirit of conformity with the times, that the regular discipline would exact their absolution and reconciliation before they could be reinstated in the church's communion. another act of the same session, manifestly levelled against the partisans of mary, and even against herself, makes it high treason to affirm that the queen ought not to enjoy the crown, but some other person; or to publish that she is a heretic, schismatic, tyrant, infidel, or usurper of the crown; or to claim right to the crown, or to usurp the same during the queen's life; or to affirm that the laws and statutes do not bind the right of the crown, and the descent, limitation, inheritance, or governance thereof. and whosoever should during the queen's life, by any book or work written or printed, expressly affirm, before the same had been established by parliament, that any one particular person was or ought to be heir and successor to the queen, except the same be the natural issue of her body, or should print or utter any such book or writing, was for the first offence to be imprisoned a year, and to forfeit half his goods; and for the second to incur the penalties of a premunire.[ ] it is impossible to misunderstand the chief aim of this statute. but the house of commons, in which the zealous protestants, or, as they were now rather denominated, puritans, had a predominant influence, were not content with these demonstrations against the unfortunate captive. fear, as often happens, excited a sanguinary spirit amongst them; they addressed the queen upon what they called the great cause, that is, the business of the queen of scots, presenting by their committee reasons gathered out of the civil law to prove that "it standeth not only with justice, but also with the queen's majesty's honour and safety, to proceed criminally against the pretended scottish queen."[ ] elizabeth, who could not really dislike these symptoms of hatred towards her rival, took the opportunity of simulating more humanity than the commons; and when they sent a bill to the upper house attainting mary of treason, checked its course by proroguing the parliament. her backwardness to concur in any measures for securing the kingdom, as far as in her lay, from those calamities which her decease might occasion, could not but displease lord burleigh. "all that we laboured for," he writes to walsingham in , "and had with full consent brought to fashion, i mean a law to make the scottish queen unable and unworthy of succession to the crown, was by her majesty neither assented to nor rejected, but deferred." some of those about her, he hints, made herself her own enemy by persuading her not to countenance these proceedings in parliament.[ ] i do not think it admits of much question that, at this juncture, the civil and religious institutions of england would have been rendered more secure by mary's exclusion from a throne, which indeed, after all that had occurred, she could not be endured to fill without national dishonour. but the violent measures suggested against her life were hardly, under all the circumstances of her case, to be reconciled with justice; even admitting her privity to the northern rebellion and to the projected invasion by the duke of alva. these however were not approved merely by an eager party in the commons: archbishop parker does not scruple to write about her to cecil--"if that only [one] desperate person were taken away, as by justice soon it might be, the queen's majesty's good subjects would be in better hope, and the papists' daily expectation vanquished."[ ] and walsingham, during his embassy at paris, desires that "the queen should see how much they (the papists) built upon the possibility of that dangerous woman's coming to the crown of england, whose life was a step to her majesty's death;" adding that "she was bound for her own safety and that of her subjects, to add to god's providence her own policy, so far as might stand with justice."[ ] _catholics more rigorously treated._--we cannot wonder to read that these new statutes increased the dissatisfaction of the roman catholics, who perceived a systematic determination to extirpate their religion. governments ought always to remember that the intimidation of a few disaffected persons is dearly bought by alienating any large portion of the community.[ ] many retired to foreign countries, and receiving for their maintenance pensions from the court of spain, became unhappy instruments of its ambitious enterprises. those who remained at home could hardly think their oppression much mitigated by the precarious indulgences which elizabeth's caprice, or rather the fluctuation of different parties in her councils, sometimes extended to them. the queen indeed, so far as we can penetrate her dissimulation, seems to have been really averse to extreme rigour against her catholic subjects: and her greatest minister, as we shall more fully see afterwards, was at this time in the same sentiments. but such of her advisers as leaned towards the puritan faction, and too many of the anglican clergy, whether puritan or not, thought no measure of charity or compassion should be extended to them. with the divines they were idolaters; with the council they were a dangerous and disaffected party; with the judges they were refractory transgressors of statutes; on every side they were obnoxious and oppressed. a few aged men having been set at liberty, sampson, the famous puritan, himself a sufferer for conscience sake, wrote a letter of remonstrance to lord burleigh. he urged in this that they should be compelled to hear sermons, though he would not at first oblige them to communicate.[ ] a bill having been introduced in the session of imposing a penalty for not receiving the communion, it was objected that consciences ought not to be forced. but mr. strickland entirely denied this principle, and quoted authorities against it.[ ] even parker, by no means tainted with puritan bigotry, and who had been reckoned moderate in his proceedings towards catholics, complained of what he called "a machiavel government;" that is, of the queen's lenity in not absolutely rooting them out.[ ] this indulgence, however, shown by elizabeth, the topic of reproach in those times, and sometimes of boast in our own, never extended to any positive toleration, nor even to any general connivance at the romish worship in its most private exercise. she published a declaration in , that she did not intend to sift men's consciences, provided they observed her laws by coming to church; which, as she well knew, the greater part deemed inconsistent with their integrity.[ ] nor did the government always abstain from an inquisition into men's private thoughts. the inns of court were more than once purified of popery by examining their members on articles of faith. gentlemen of good families in the country were harassed in the same manner.[ ] one sir richard shelley, who had long acted as a sort of spy for cecil on the continent, and given much useful information, requested only leave to enjoy his religion without hindrance; but the queen did not accede to this without much reluctance and delay.[ ] she had indeed assigned no other ostensible pretext for breaking off her own treaty of marriage with the archduke charles, and subsequently with the dukes of anjou and alençon, than her determination not to suffer the mass to be celebrated even in her husband's private chapel. it is worthy to be repeatedly inculcated on the reader, since so false a colour has been often employed to disguise the ecclesiastical tyranny of this reign, that the most clandestine exercise of the romish worship was severely punished. thus we read in the life of whitgift, that on information given that some ladies and others heard mass in the house of one edwards by night, in the county of denbigh, he being then bishop of worcester and vice-president of wales, was directed to make inquiry into the facts; and finally was instructed to commit edwards to close prison, and as for another person implicated, named morice, "if he remained obstinate, he might cause some kind of torture to be used upon him, and the like order they prayed him to use with the others."[ ] but this is one of many instances, the events of every day, forgotten on the morrow, and of which no general historian takes account. nothing but the minute and patient diligence of such a compiler as strype, who thinks no fact below his regard, could have preserved them from oblivion.[ ] it will not surprise those who have observed the effect of all persecution for matters of opinion upon the human mind, that during this period the romish party continued such in numbers and in zeal as to give the most lively alarm to elizabeth's administration. one cause of this was beyond doubt the connivance of justices of the peace, a great many of whom were secretly attached to the same interest, though it was not easy to exclude them from the commission, on account of their wealth and respectability.[ ] the facility with which catholic rites can be performed in secret, as before observed, was a still more important circumstance. nor did the voluntary exiles established in flanders remit their diligence in filling the kingdom with emissaries. the object of many at least among them, it cannot for a moment be doubted, from the æra of the bull of pius v., if not earlier, was nothing less than to subvert the queen's throne. they were closely united with the court of spain, which had passed from the character of an ally and pretended friend, to that of a cold and jealous neighbour, and at length of an implacable adversary. though no war had been declared between elizabeth and philip, neither party had scrupled to enter into leagues with the disaffected subjects of the other. such sworn vassals of rome and spain as an allen or a persons, were just objects of the english government's distrust: it is the extension of that jealousy to the peaceful and loyal which we stigmatise as oppressive, and even as impolitic.[ ] _fresh laws against the catholic worship._--in concert with the directing powers of the vatican and escurial, the refugees redoubled their exertions about the year . mary was now wearing out her years in hopeless captivity; her son, though they did not lose hope of him, had received a strictly protestant education; while a new generation had grown up in england, rather inclined to diverge more widely from the ancient religion than to suffer its restoration. such were they who formed the house of commons that met in , discontented with the severities used against the puritans, but ready to go beyond any measures that the court might propose to subdue and extirpate popery. here an act was passed, which, after repeating the former provisions that had made it high treason to reconcile any of her majesty's subjects, or to be reconciled to the church of rome, imposes a penalty of £ a month on all persons absenting themselves from church, unless they shall hear the english service at home: such as could not pay the same within three months after judgment were to be imprisoned until they should conform. the queen, by a subsequent act, had the power of seizing two-thirds of the party's land, and all his goods, for default of payment.[ ] these grievous penalties on recusancy, as the wilful absence of catholics from church came now to be denominated, were doubtless founded on the extreme difficulty of proving an actual celebration of their own rites. but they established a persecution which fell not at all short in principle of that for which the inquisition had become so odious. nor were the statutes merely designed for terror's sake, to keep a check over the disaffected, as some would pretend. they were executed in the most sweeping and indiscriminating manner, unless perhaps a few families of high rank might enjoy a connivance.[ ] _execution of campian and others._--it had certainly been the desire of elizabeth to abstain from capital punishments on the score of religion. the first instance of a priest suffering death by her statutes was in , when one mayne was hanged at launceston, without any charge against him except his religion, and a gentleman who had harboured him was sentenced to imprisonment for life.[ ] in the next year, if we may trust the zealous catholic writers, thomas sherwood, a boy of fourteen years, was executed for refusing to deny the temporal power of the pope, when urged by his judges.[ ] but in several seminary priests from flanders having been arrested, whose projects were supposed (perhaps not wholly without foundation) to be very inconsistent with their allegiance, it was unhappily deemed necessary to hold out some more conspicuous examples of rigour. of those brought to trial the most eminent was campian, formerly a protestant, but long known as the boast of douay for his learning and virtues.[ ] this man, so justly respected, was put to the rack, and revealed through torture the names of some catholic gentlemen with whom he had conversed.[ ] he appears to have been indicted along with several other priests, not on the recent statutes, but on that of edw. iii. for compassing and imagining the queen's death. nothing that i have read affords the slightest proof of campian's concern in treasonable practices, though his connections, and profession as a jesuit, render it by no means unlikely. if we may confide in the published trial, the prosecution was as unfairly conducted, and supported by as slender evidence, as any perhaps which can be found in our books.[ ] but as this account, wherein campian's language is full of a dignified eloquence, rather seems to have been compiled by a partial hand, its faithfulness may not be above suspicion. for the same reason i hesitate to admit his alleged declarations at the place of execution, where, as well as at his trial, he is represented to have expressly acknowledged elizabeth, and to have prayed for her as his queen _de facto_ and _de jure_. for this was one of the questions propounded to him before his trial, which he refused to answer, in such a manner as betrayed his way of thinking. most of those interrogated at the same time, on being pressed whether the queen was their lawful sovereign whom they were bound to obey, notwithstanding any sentence of deprivation that the pope might pronounce, endeavoured, like campian, to evade the snare. a few, who unequivocally disclaimed the deposing power of the roman see, were pardoned.[ ] it is more honourable to campian's memory that we should reject these pretended declarations, than imagine him to have made them at the expense of his consistency and integrity. for the pope's right to deprive kings of their crowns was in that age the common creed of the jesuits, to whose order campian belonged; and the continent was full of writings published by the english exiles, by sanders, bristow, persons, and allen, against elizabeth's unlawful usurpation of the throne. but many availed themselves of what was called an explanation of the bull of pius v., given by his successor gregory xiii.; namely, that the bull should be considered as always in force against elizabeth and the heretics, but should only be binding on catholics when due execution of it could be had.[ ] this was designed to satisfy the consciences of some papists in submitting to her government, and taking the oath of allegiance. but in thus granting a permission to dissemble, in hope of better opportunity for revolt, this interpretation was not likely to tranquillise her council, or conciliate them towards the romish party. the distinction, however, between a king by possession and one by right, was neither heard for the first, nor for the last time, in the reign of elizabeth. it is the lot of every government that is not founded on the popular opinion of legitimacy, to receive only a precarious allegiance. subject to this reservation, which was pretty generally known, it does not appear that the priests or other roman catholics, examined at various times during this reign, are more chargeable with insincerity or dissimulation than accused persons generally are. the public executions, numerous as they were, scarcely form the most odious part of this persecution. the common law of england has always abhorred the accursed mysteries of a prison-house; and neither admits of torture to extort confession, nor of any penal infliction not warranted by a judicial sentence. but this law, though still sacred in the courts of justice, was set aside by the privy council under the tudor line. the rack seldom stood idle in the tower for all the latter part of elizabeth's reign.[ ] to those who remember the annals of their country, that dark and gloomy pile affords associations not quite so numerous and recent as the bastile, yet enough to excite our hatred and horror. but standing as it does in such striking contrast to the fresh and flourishing constructions of modern wealth, the proofs and the rewards of civil and religious liberty, it seems like a captive tyrant, reserved to grace the triumph of a victorious republic, and should teach us to reflect in thankfulness, how highly we have been elevated in virtue and happiness above our forefathers. such excessive severities under the pretext of treason, but sustained by very little evidence of any other offence than the exercise of the catholic ministry, excited indignation throughout a great part of europe. the queen was held forth in pamphlets, dispersed everywhere from rome and douay, not only as a usurper and heretic, but a tyrant more ferocious than any heathen persecutor, for inadequate parallels to whom they ransacked all former history.[ ] these exaggerations, coming from the very precincts of the inquisition, required the unblushing forehead of bigotry; but the charge of cruelty stood on too many facts to be passed over, and it was thought expedient to repel it by two remarkable pamphlets, both ascribed to the pen of lord burleigh. _defence of the queen, by burleigh._--one of these, entitled "the execution of justice in england for maintenance of public and private peace," appears to have been published in . it contains an elaborate justification of the late prosecutions for treason, as no way connected with religious tenets, but grounded on the ancient laws for protection of the queen's person and government from conspiracy. it is alleged that a vast number of catholics, whether of the laity or priesthood, among whom the deprived bishops are particularly enumerated, had lived unmolested on the score of their faith, because they paid due temporal allegiance to their sovereign. nor were any indicted for treason, but such as obstinately maintained the pope's bull depriving the queen of her crown. and even of these offenders, as many as after condemnation would renounce their traitorous principles, had been permitted to live; such was her majesty's unwillingness, it is asserted, to have any blood spilled without this just and urgent cause proceeding from themselves. but that any matter of opinion, not proved to have ripened into an overt act, and extorted only, or rather conjectured, through a compulsive inquiry, could sustain in law or justice a conviction for high treason, is what the author of this pamphlet has not rendered manifest.[ ] a second and much shorter paper bears for title, "a declaration of the favourable dealing of her majesty's commissioners, appointed for the examination of certain traitors, and of tortures unjustly reported to be done upon them for matter of religion." its scope was to palliate the imputation of excessive cruelty with which europe was then resounding. those who revere the memory of lord burleigh must blush for this pitiful apology. "it is affirmed for truth," he says, "that the forms of torture in their severity or rigour of execution have not been such and in such manner performed, as the slanderers and seditious libellers have published. and that even the principal offender, campian himself, who was sent and came from rome, and continued here in sundry corners of the realm, having secretly wandered in the greater part of the shires of england in a disguised suit, to be intent to make special preparation of treasons, was never so racked but that he was perfectly able to walk and to write, and did presently write and subscribe all his confessions. the queen's servants, the warders, whose office and act it is to handle the rack, were ever by those that attended the examinations specially charged to use it in so charitable a manner as such a thing might be. none of those who were at any time put to the rack," he proceeds to assert, "were asked, during their torture, any question as to points of doctrine; but merely concerning their plots and conspiracies, and the persons with whom they had had dealings, and what was their own opinion as to the pope's right to deprive the queen of her crown. nor was any one so racked until it was rendered evidently probable by former detections or confessions that he was guilty; nor was the torture ever employed to wring out confessions at random; nor unless the party had first refused to declare the truth at the queen's commandment." such miserable excuses serve only to mingle contempt with our detestation.[ ] but it is due to elizabeth to observe, that she ordered the torture to be disused; and upon a subsequent occasion, the quartering of some concerned in babington's conspiracy having been executed with unusual cruelty, gave directions that the rest should not be taken down from the gallows until they were dead.[ ] i should be reluctant, but for the consent of several authorities, to ascribe this little tract to lord burleigh, for his honour's sake. but we may quote with more satisfaction a memorial addressed by him to the queen about the same year, , full not only of sagacious, but just and tolerant advice. "considering," he says, "that the urging of the oath of supremacy must needs, in some degree, beget despair, since in the taking of it, he [the papist] must either think he doth an unlawful act, as without the special grace of god he cannot think otherwise, or else, by refusing it, must become a traitor, which before some hurt done seemeth hard; i humbly submit this to your excellent consideration, whether, with as much security of your majesty's person and state, and more satisfaction for them, it were not better to leave the oath to this sense, that whosoever would not bear arms against all foreign princes, and namely the pope, that should any way invade your majesty's dominions, he should be a traitor. for hereof this commodity will ensue, that those papists, as i think most papists would, that should take this oath, would be divided from the great mutual confidence which is now between the pope and them, by reason of their afflictions for him; and such priests as would refuse that oath then, no tongue could say for shame that they suffer for religion, if they did suffer. "but here it may be objected, they would dissemble and equivocate with this oath, and that the pope would dispense with them in that case. even so may they with the present oath both dissemble and equivocate, and also have the pope's dispensation for the present oath, as well as for the other. but this is certain, that whomsoever the conscience, or fear of breaking an oath, both bind, him would that oath bind. and that they make conscience of an oath, the trouble, losses, and disgraces that they suffer for refusing the same do sufficiently testify; and you know that the perjury of either oath is equal." these sentiments are not such as bigoted theologians were then, or have been since, accustomed to entertain. "i account," he says afterwards, "that putting to death does no ways lessen them; since we find by experience, that it worketh no such effect, but, like hydra's heads, upon cutting off one, seven grow up, persecution being accounted as the badge of the church: and therefore they should never have the honour to take any pretence of martyrdom in england, where the fullness of blood and greatness of heart is such that they will even for shameful things go bravely for death; much more, when they think themselves to climb heaven, and this vice of obstinacy seems to the common people a divine constancy; so that for my part i wish no lessening of their number, but by preaching and by education of the younger under schoolmasters." and hence the means he recommends for keeping down popery, after the encouragement of diligent preachers and schoolmasters, are, "the taking order that, from the highest counsellor to the lowest constable, none shall have any charge or office but such as will really pray and communicate in their congregation according to the doctrine received generally into this realm;" and next, the protection of tenants against their popish landlords, "that they be not put out of their living, for embracing the established religion."--"this," he says, "would greatly bind the commons' hearts unto you, in whom indeed consisteth the power and strength of your realm; and it will make them less, or nothing at all, depend on their landlords. and, although there may hereby grow some wrong, which the tenants upon that confidence may offer to their landlords, yet those wrongs are very easily, even with one wink of your majesty's, redressed; and are nothing comparable to the danger of having many thousands depending on the adverse party."[ ] _increased severity of the government._--the strictness used with recusants, which much increased from or , had the usual consequence of persecution, that of multiplying hypocrites. for, in fact, if men will once bring themselves to comply, to take all oaths, to practise all conformity, to oppose simulation and dissimulation to arbitrary inquiries, it is hardly possible that any government should not be baffled. fraud becomes an over-match for power. the real danger meanwhile, the internal disaffection, remains as before, or is aggravated. the laws enacted against popery were precisely calculated to produce this result. many indeed, especially of the female sex, whose religion, lying commonly more in sentiment than reason, is less ductile to the sophisms of worldly wisdom, stood out and endured the penalties. but the oath of supremacy was not refused; the worship of the church was frequented by multitudes who secretly repined for a change; and the council, whose fear of open enmity had prompted their first severities, were led on by the fear of dissembled resentment to devise yet further measures of the same kind. hence, in , a law was enacted, enjoining all jesuits, seminary priests, and other priests, whether ordained within or without the kingdom, to depart from it within forty days, on pain of being adjudged traitors. the penalty of fine and imprisonment at the queen's pleasure was inflicted on such as, knowing any priest to be within the realm, should not discover it to a magistrate. this seemed to fill up the measure of prosecution, and to render the longer preservation of this obnoxious religion absolutely impracticable. some of its adherents presented a petition against this bill, praying that they might not be suspected of disloyalty on account of refraining from the public worship, which they did to avoid sin; and that their priests might not be banished from the kingdom.[ ] and they all very justly complained of this determined oppression. the queen, without any fault of theirs, they alleged, had been alienated by the artifices of leicester and walsingham. snares were laid to involve them unawares in the guilt of treason; their steps were watched by spies; and it was become intolerable to continue in england. camden indeed asserts that counterfeit letters were privately sent in the name of the queen of scots or of the exiles, and left in papists' houses.[ ] a general inquisition seems to have been made about this time; but whether it was founded on sufficient grounds of previous suspicion, we cannot absolutely determine. the earl of northumberland, brother of him who had been executed for the rebellion of , and the earl of arundel, son of the unfortunate duke of norfolk, were committed to the tower, where the former put an end to his own life (for we cannot charge the government with an unproved murder); and the second, after being condemned for a traitorous correspondence with the queen's enemies, died in that custody. but whether or no some conspiracies (i mean more active than usual, for there was one perpetual conspiracy of rome and spain during most of the queen's reign), had preceded these severe and unfair methods by which her ministry counteracted them, it was not long before schemes, more formidable than ever, were put in action against her life. as the whole body of catholics was irritated and alarmed by the laws of proscription against their clergy, and by the heavy penalties on recusancy, which, as they alleged, showed a manifest purpose to reduce them to poverty;[ ] so some desperate men saw no surer means to rescue their cause than the queen's assassination. one somerville, half a lunatic, and parry, a man who, long employed as a spy upon the papists, had learned to serve with sincerity those he was sent to betray, were the first who suffered death for unconnected plots against elizabeth's life.[ ] _plot in favour of mary._--more deep-laid machinations were carried on by several catholic laymen at home and abroad, among whom a brother of lord paget was the most prominent.[ ] these had in view two objects, the deliverance of mary, and the death of her enemy. some perhaps who were engaged in the former project did not give countenance to the latter. but few, if any, ministers have been better served by their spies than cecil and walsingham. it is surprising to see how every letter seems to have been intercepted, every thread of these conspiracies unravelled, every secret revealed to these wise counsellors of the queen. they saw that while one lived, whom so many deemed the presumptive heir, and from whose succession they anticipated, at least in possibility, an entire reversal of all that had been wrought for thirty years, the queen was as a mark for the pistol or dagger of every zealot. and fortunate, no question, they thought it, that the detection of babington's conspiracy enabled them with truth, or a semblance of truth, to impute a participation in that crime to the most dangerous enemy whom, for their mistress, their religion, or themselves, they had to apprehend. mary had now consumed the best years of her life in custody; and, though still the perpetual object of the queen's vigilance, had perhaps gradually become somewhat less formidable to the protestant interest. whether she would have ascended the throne, if elizabeth had died during the latter years of her imprisonment, must appear very doubtful, when we consider the increasing strength of the puritans, the antipathy of the nation to spain, the prevailing opinion of her consent to darnley's murder, and the obvious expedient of treating her son, now advancing to manhood, as the representative of her claim. the new projects imputed to her friends even against the queen's life, exasperated the hatred of the protestants against mary. an association was formed in , the members of which bound themselves by oath "to withstand and pursue, as well by force of arms as by all other means of revenge, all manner of persons, of whatsoever state they shall be and their abettors, that shall attempt any act, or counsel, or consent to anything that shall tend to the harm of her majesty's royal person; and never to desist from all manner of forcible pursuit against such persons, to the utter extermination of them, their counsellors, aiders, and abettors. and if any such wicked attempt against her most royal person shall be taken in hand or procured, whereby any that have, may or shall pretend title to come to this crown by the untimely death of her majesty so wickedly procured (which god of his mercy forbid!), that the same may be avenged, we do not only bind ourselves both jointly and severally never to allow, accept, or favour any such pretended successor, by whom or for whom any such detestable act shall be attempted or committed, as unworthy of all government in any christian realm or civil state, but do also further vow and promise, as we are most bound, and that in the presence of the eternal and everlasting god, to _prosecute such person or persons to death_, with our joint and particular forces, and to act the utmost revenge upon them, that by any means we or any of us can devise and do, or cause to be devised and done for their utter overthrow and extirpation."[ ] _execution of mary queen of scots._--the pledge given by this voluntary association received the sanction of parliament in an act "for the security of the queen's person, and continuance of the realm in peace." this statute enacts that, if any invasion or rebellion should be made by or for any person pretending title to the crown after her majesty's decease, or if anything be confessed or imagined tending to the hurt of her person with the privity of any such person, a number of peers, privy counsellors, and judges, to be commissioned by the queen, should examine and give judgment on such offences, and all circumstances relating thereto; after which judgment all persons against whom it should be published should be disabled for ever to make any such claim.[ ] i omit some further provisions to the same effect, for the sake of brevity. but we may remark that this statute differs from the associators' engagement, in omitting the outrageous threat of pursuing to death any person, whether privy or not to the design, on whose behalf an attempt against the queen's life should be made. the main intention of the statute was to procure, in the event of any rebellious movements, what the queen's counsellors had long ardently desired to obtain from her, an absolute exclusion of mary from the succession. but, if the scheme of assassination, devised by some of her desperate partisans, had taken effect, however questionable might be her concern in it, i have little doubt that the rage of the nation would, with or without some process of law, have instantly avenged it in her blood. this was, in the language of parliament, their great cause; an expression which, though it may have an ultimate reference to the general interest of religion is never applied, so far as i remember, but to the punishment of mary, which they had demanded in , and now clamoured for in . the addresses of both houses to the queen, to carry the sentence passed by the commissioners into effect, her evasive answers and feigned reluctance, as well as the strange scenes of hypocrisy which she acted afterwards, are well known matters of history, upon which it is unnecessary to dwell. no one will be found to excuse the hollow affectation of elizabeth; but the famous sentence that brought mary to the scaffold, though it has certainly left in popular opinion a darker stain on the queen's memory than any other transaction of her life, if not capable of complete vindication, has at least encountered a disproportioned censure. it is of course essential to any kind of apology for elizabeth in this matter, that mary should have been assenting to a conspiracy against her life. for it could be no real crime to endeavour at her own deliverance; nor, under the circumstances of so long and so unjust a detention, would even a conspiracy against the aggressor's power afford a moral justification for her death. but though the proceedings against her are by no means exempt from the shameful breach of legal rules, almost universal in trials for high treason during that reign (the witnesses not having been examined in open court); yet the depositions of her two secretaries, joined to the confessions of babington and other conspirators, form a body of evidence, not indeed irresistibly convincing, but far stronger than we find in many instances where condemnation has ensued. and hume has alleged sufficient reasons for believing its truth, derived from the great probability of her concurring in any scheme against her oppressor, from the certainty of her long correspondence with the conspirators (who, i may add, had not made any difficulty of hinting to her their designs against the queen's life),[ ] and from the deep guilt that the falsehood of the charge must inevitably attach to sir francis walsingham.[ ] those at least who cannot acquit the queen of scots of her husband's murder, will hardly imagine that she would scruple to concur in a crime so much more capable of extenuation, and so much more essential to her interests. but as the proofs are not perhaps complete, we must hypothetically assume her guilt, in order to set this famous problem in the casuistry of public law upon its proper footing. it has been said so often, that few perhaps wait to reflect whether it has been said with reason, that mary, as an independent sovereign, was not amenable to any english jurisdiction. this, however, does not appear unquestionable. by one of those principles of law, which may be called natural, as forming the basis of a just and rational jurisprudence, every independent government is supreme within its own territory. strangers, voluntarily resident within a state, owe a temporary allegiance to its sovereign, and are amenable to the jurisdiction of his tribunals; and this principle, which is perfectly conformable to natural law, has been extended by positive usage even to those who are detained in it by force. instances have occurred very recently in england, when prisoners of war have suffered death for criminal offences; and if some have doubted the propriety of carrying such sentences into effect, where a penalty of unusual severity has been inflicted by our municipal law, few, i believe, would dispute the fitness of punishing a prisoner of war for wilful murder, in such a manner as the general practice of civil societies and the prevailing sentiments of mankind agree to point out. it is certainly true that an exception to this rule, incorporated with the positive law of nations, and established, no doubt, before the age of elizabeth, has rendered the ambassadors of sovereign princes exempt, in all ordinary cases at least, from criminal process. whether, however, an ambassador may not be brought to punishment for such a flagrant abuse of the confidence which is implied by receiving him, as a conspiracy against the life itself of the prince at whose court he resides, has been doubted by those writers who are most inclined to respect the privileges with which courtesy and convenience have invested him.[ ] a sovereign, during a temporary residence in the territories of another, must of course possess as extensive an immunity as his representative. but that he might, in such circumstances, frame plots for the prince's assassination with impunity, seems to take for granted some principle that i do not apprehend. but whatever be the privilege of inviolability attached to sovereigns, it must, on every rational ground, be confined to those who enjoy and exercise dominion in some independent territory. an abdicated or dethroned monarch may preserve his title by the courtesy of other states, but cannot rank with sovereigns in the tribunals where public law is administered. i should be rather surprised to hear any one assert that the parliament of paris was incompetent to try christina for the murder of monaldeschi. and, though we must admit that mary's resignation of her crown was compulsory, and retracted on the first occasion; yet after a twenty years' loss of possession, when not one of her former subjects avowed allegiance to her, when the king of scotland had been so long acknowledged by england and by all europe, is it possible to consider her as more than a titular queen, divested of every substantial right to which a sovereign tribunal could have regard? she was styled accordingly, in the indictment, "mary, daughter and heir of james the fifth, late king of scots, otherwise called mary queen of scots, dowager of france." we read even that some lawyers would have had her tried by a jury of the county of stafford, rather than the special commission; which elizabeth noticed as a strange indignity. the commission, however, was perfectly legal under the recent statute.[ ] but, while we can hardly pronounce mary's execution to have been so wholly iniquitous and unwarrantable as it has been represented, it may be admitted that a more generous nature than that of elizabeth would not have exacted the law's full penalty. the queen of scots' detention in england was in violation of all natural, public, and municipal law; and if reasons of state policy or precedents from the custom of princes are allowed to extenuate this injustice, it is to be asked whether such reasons and such precedents might not palliate the crime of assassination imputed to her. some might perhaps allege, as was so frequently urged at the time, that if her life could be taken with justice, it could not be spared in prudence; and that elizabeth's higher duty to preserve her people from the risks of civil commotion must silence every feeling that could plead for mercy. of this necessity different judgments may perhaps be formed; it is evident that mary's death extinguished the best hope of popery in england: but the relative force of the two religions was greatly changed since norfolk's conspiracy; and it appears to me that an act of parliament explicitly cutting her off from the crown, and at the same time entailing it on her son, would have afforded a very reasonable prospect of securing the succession against all serious disturbance. but this neither suited the inclination of elizabeth, nor of some among those who surrounded her. _continued persecution of roman catholics_.--as the catholics endured without any open murmuring the execution of her on whom their fond hopes had so long rested, so for the remainder of the queen's reign they by no means appear, when considered as a body, to have furnished any specious pretexts for severity. in that memorable year, when the dark cloud gathered around our coasts, when europe stood by in fearful suspense to behold what should be the result of that great cast in the game of human politics, what the craft of rome, the power of philip, the genius of farnese, could achieve against the island-queen with her drakes and cecils--in that agony of the protestant faith and english name, they stood the trial of their spirits without swerving from their allegiance. it was then that the catholics in every county repaired to the standard of the lord-lieutenant, imploring that they might not be suspected of bartering the national independence for their religion itself. it was then that the venerable lord montague brought a troop of horse to the queen at tilbury, commanded by himself, his son and grandson.[ ] it would have been a sign of gratitude if the laws depriving them of the free exercise of their religion had been, if not repealed, yet suffered to sleep, after these proofs of loyalty. but the execution of priests and of other catholics became on the contrary more frequent, and the fines for recusancy exacted as rigorously as before.[ ] a statute was enacted, restraining popish recusants, a distinctive name now first imposed by law, to particular places of residence, and subjecting them to other vexatious provisions.[ ] all persons were forbidden, by proclamation, to harbour any of whose conformity they were not assured.[ ] some indulgence was doubtless shown during all elizabeth's reign to particular persons, and it was not unusual to release priests from confinement; but such precarious and irregular connivance gave more scandal to the puritans than comfort to the opposite party. the catholic martyrs under elizabeth amount to no inconsiderable number. dodd reckons them at ; milner has raised the list to . fifteen of these, according to him, suffered for denying the queen's supremacy, for exercising their ministry, and the rest for being reconciled to the romish church. many others died of hardships in prison, and many were deprived of their property.[ ] there seems nevertheless to be good reason for doubting whether any one who was executed might not have saved his life by explicitly denying the pope's power to depose the queen. it was constantly maintained by her ministers, that no one had been executed for his religion. this would be an odious and hypocritical subterfuge, if it rested on the letter of these statutes, which adjudge the mere manifestation of a belief in the roman catholic religion, under certain circumstances, to be an act of treason. but both lord burleigh, in his _execution of justice_, and walsingham in a letter published by burnet,[ ] positively assert the contrary; and i am not aware that their assertion has been disproved. this certainly furnishes a distinction between the persecution under elizabeth (which, unjust as it was in its operation, yet as far as it extended to capital inflictions, had in view the security of the government), and that which the protestants had sustained in her sister's reign, springing from mere bigotry and vindictive rancour, and not even shielding itself at the time with those shallow pretexts of policy which it has of late been attempted to set up in its extenuation. but that which renders these condemnations of popish priests so iniquitous, is, that the belief in, or rather the refusal to disclaim, a speculative tenet, dangerous indeed and incompatible with loyalty, but not coupled with any overt act, was construed into treason; nor can any one affect to justify these sentences, who is not prepared to maintain that a refusal of the oath of abjuration, while the pretensions of the house of stuart subsisted, might lawfully or justly have incurred the same penalty.[ ] an apology was always deduced for these measures, whether of restriction or punishment, adopted against all adherents to the roman church, from the restless activity of that new militia which the holy see had lately organised. the mendicant orders established in the thirteenth century had lent former popes a powerful aid towards subjecting both the laity and the secular priesthood, by their superior learning and ability, their emulous zeal, their systematic concert, their implicit obedience. but in all these requisites for good and faithful janissaries of the church, they were far excelled by the new order of ignatius loyola. rome, i believe, found in their services what has stayed her fall. they contributed in a very material degree to check the tide of the reformation. subtle alike and intrepid, pliant in their direction, unshaken in their aim, the sworn, implacable, unscrupulous enemies of protestant governments, the jesuits were a legitimate object of jealousy and restraint. as every member of that society enters into an engagement of absolute, unhesitating obedience to its superior, no one could justly complain that he was presumed capable at least of committing any crimes that the policy of his monarch might enjoin. but if the jesuits by their abilities and busy spirit of intrigue promoted the interests of rome, they raised up enemies by the same means to themselves within the bosom of the church; and became little less obnoxious to the secular clergy, and to a great proportion of the laity, than to the protestants whom they were commissioned to oppose. their intermeddling character was shown in the very prisons occupied by catholic recusants, where a schism broke out between the two parties, and the secular priests loudly complained of their usurping associates.[ ] this was manifestly connected with the great problem of allegiance to the queen, which the one side being always ready to pay, did not relish the sharp usage it endured on account of the other's disaffection. the council indeed gave some signs of attending to this distinction, by a proclamation issued in , ordering all priests to depart from the kingdom, unless they should come in and acknowledge their allegiance, with whom the queen would take further order.[ ] thirteen priests came forward on this, with a declaration of allegiance as full as could be devised. some of the more violent papists blamed them for this; and the louvain divines concurred in the censure.[ ] there were now two parties among the english catholics; and those who, goaded by the sense of long persecution, and inflamed by obstinate bigotry, regarded every heretical government as unlawful or unworthy of obedience, used every machination to deter the rest from giving any test of their loyalty. these were the more busy, but by much the less numerous class; and their influence was mainly derived from the law's severity, which they had braved or endured with fortitude. it is equally candid and reasonable to believe that, if a fair and legal toleration, or even a general connivance at the exercise of their worship, had been conceded in the first part of elizabeth's reign, she would have spared herself those perpetual terrors of rebellion which occupied all her later years. rome would not indeed have been appeased, and some desperate fanatic might have sought her life; but the english catholics collectively would have repaid her protection by an attachment, which even her rigour seems not wholly to have prevented. it is not to be imagined that an entire unanimity prevailed in the councils of this reign as to the best mode of dealing with the adherents of rome. those temporary connivances or remissions of punishment, which, though to our present view they hardly lighten the shadows of this persecution, excited loud complaints from bigoted men, were owing to the queen's personal humour, or the influence of some advisers more liberal than the rest. elizabeth herself seems always to have inclined rather to indulgence than extreme severity. sir christopher hatton, for some years her chief favourite, incurred odium for his lenity towards papists, and was, in their own opinion, secretly inclined to them.[ ] whitgift found enough to do with an opposite party. and that too noble and high-minded spirit, so ill fitted for a servile and dissembling court, the earl of essex, was the consistent friend of religious liberty, whether the catholic or the puritan were to enjoy it. but those counsellors, on the other hand, who favoured the more precise reformers, and looked coldly on the established church, never failed to demonstrate their protestantism by excessive harshness towards the old religion's adherents. that bold bad man, whose favour is the great reproach of elizabeth's reign, the earl of leicester, and the sagacious, disinterested, inexorable walsingham, were deemed the chief advisers of sanguinary punishments. but, after their deaths, the catholics were mortified to discover that lord burleigh, from whom they had hoped for more moderation, persisted in the same severities; contrary, i think, to the principles he had himself laid down in the paper from which i have above made some extracts.[ ] the restraints and penalties, by which civil governments have at various times thought it expedient to limit the religious liberties of their subjects, may be arranged in something like the following scale. the first and slightest degree is the requisition of a test of conformity to the established religion, as the condition of exercising offices of civil trust. the next step is to restrain the free promulgation of opinions, especially through the press. all prohibitions of the open exercise of religious worship appear to form a third, and more severe, class of restrictive laws. they become yet more rigorous, when they afford no indulgence to the most private and secret acts of devotion or expressions of opinion. finally, the last stage of persecution is to enforce by legal penalties a conformity to the established church, or an abjuration of heterodox tenets. the first degree in this classification, or the exclusion of dissidents from trust and power, though it be always incumbent on those who maintain it to prove its necessity, may, under certain rare circumstances, be conducive to the political well-being of a state; and can then only be reckoned an encroachment on the principles of toleration, when it ceases to produce a public benefit sufficient to compensate for the privation it occasions to its objects. such was the english test act during the interval between and . but, in my judgment, the instances which the history of mankind affords, where even these restrictions have been really consonant to the soundest policy, are by no means numerous. cases may also be imagined, where the free discussion of controverted doctrines might for a time at least be subjected to some limitation for the sake of public tranquillity. i can scarcely conceive the necessity of restraining an open exercise of religious rites in any case, except that of glaring immorality. in no possible case can it be justifiable for the temporal power to intermeddle with the private devotions or doctrines of any man. but least of all, can it carry its inquisition into the heart's recesses, and bend the reluctant conscience to an insincere profession of truth, or extort from it an acknowledgment of error, for the purpose of inflicting punishment. the statutes of elizabeth's reign comprehend every one of these progressive degrees of restraint and persecution. and it is much to be regretted that any writers worthy of respect should, either through undue prejudice against an adverse religion, or through timid acquiescence in whatever has been enacted, have offered for this odious code the false pretext of political necessity. that necessity, i am persuaded, can never be made out: the statutes were, in many instances, absolutely unjust; in others, not demanded by circumstances; in almost all, prompted by religious bigotry, by excessive apprehension, or by the arbitrary spirit with which our government was administered under elizabeth. footnotes: [ ] elizabeth was much suspected of a concern in the conspiracy of , which was more extensive than appeared from wyatt's insurrection, and had in view the placing her on the throne, with the earl of devonshire for her husband. wyatt indeed at his execution acquitted her; but as he said as much for devonshire, who is proved by the letters of noailles to have been engaged, his testimony is of less value. nothing, however, appears in these letters, i believe, to criminate elizabeth. her life was saved, against the advice of the imperial court, and of their party in the cabinet, especially lord paget, by gardiner, according to dr. lingard, writing on the authority of renard's despatches. burnet, who had no access to that source of information, imagines gardiner to have been her most inveterate enemy. she was even released from prison for the time, though soon afterwards detained again, and kept in custody, as is well known, for the rest of this reign. her inimitable dissimulation was all required to save her from the penalties of heresy and treason. it appears by the memoir of the venetian ambassador, in (lansdowne mss. ), as well as from the letters of noailles, that mary was desirous to change the succession, and would have done so, had it not been for philip's reluctance, and the impracticability of obtaining the consent of parliament. though of a dissembling character, she could not conceal the hatred she bore to one who brought back the memory of her mother's and her own wrongs; especially when she saw all eyes turned towards the successor, and felt that the curse of her own barrenness was to fall on her beloved religion. elizabeth had been not only forced to have a chapel in her house, and to give all exterior signs of conformity, but to protest on oath her attachment to the catholic faith; though hume, who always loves a popular story, gives credence to the well known verses ascribed to her, in order to elude a declaration of her opinion on the sacrament. the inquisitors of that age were not so easily turned round by an equivocal answer. yet elizabeth's faith was constantly suspected. "accresce oltro questo l'odio," says the venetian, "il sapere che sia aliena dalla religione presente, per essere non pur nata, ma dotta ed allevata nell' altra, che se bene con la esteriore ha mostrato, e mostra di essersi ridotta, vivendo cattolicamente, pure è opinione che dissimuli e nell' interiore la ritenga più che mai." [ ] elizabeth ascended the throne november , . on the th of december mary was buried; and on this occasion white, bishop of winchester, in preaching her funeral sermon, spoke with virulence against the protestant exiles, and expressed apprehension of their return. burnet, iii. . directions to read part of the service in english, and forbidding the elevation of the host, were issued prior to the proclamation of december , against innovations without authority. the great seal was taken from archbishop heath early in january, and given to sir nicholas bacon. parker was pitched upon to succeed pole at canterbury in the preceding month. from the dates of these and other facts, it may be fairly inferred that elizabeth's resolution was formed independently of the pope's behaviour towards sir edward karn; though that might probably exasperate her against the adherents of the roman see, and make their religion appear more inconsistent with their civil allegiance. if, indeed, the refusal of the bishops to officiate at her coronation (january , - ) were founded in any degree on paul iv.'s denial of her title, it must have seemed in that age within a hair's-breadth of high treason. but it more probably arose from her order that the host should not be elevated, which in truth was not legally to be justified. mass was said, however, at her coronation; so that she seems to have dispensed with this prohibition. [ ] see a paper by cecil on the best means of reforming religion, written at this time with all his cautious wisdom, in burnet, or in strype's _annals of the reformation_, or in the _somers tracts_. [ ] _parl. hist._ vol. i. p. . in the reign of edward, a prayer had been inserted in the liturgy to deliver us "from the bishop of rome and all his detestable enormities." this was now struck out; and, what was more acceptable to the nation, the words used in distributing the elements were so contrived by blending the two forms successively adopted under edward, as neither to offend the popish or lutheran, nor the zuinglian communicant. a rubric directed against the doctrine of the real or corporal presence was omitted. this was replaced after the restoration. burnet owns that the greater part of the nation still adhered to this tenet though it was not the opinion of the rulers of the church. ii. , . [ ] burnet; strype's _annals_, . pensions were reserved for those who quitted their benefices on account of religion. burnet, ii. . this was a very liberal measure, and at the same time a politic check on their conduct. lingard thinks the number must have been much greater; but the visitors' reports seem the best authority. it is however highly probable that others resigned their preferments afterwards, when the casuistry of their church grew more scrupulous. it may be added, that the visitors restored the married clergy who had been dispossessed in the preceding reign; which would of course considerably augment the number of sufferers for popery. [ ] eliz. c. i. the oath of supremacy was expressed as follows: "i, a. b., do utterly testify and declare, that the queen's highness is the only supreme governor of this realm, and all other her highness's dominions and countries, as well in all spiritual and ecclesiastical things or causes, as temporal; and that no foreign prince, person, prelate, state, or potentate, hath or ought to have any jurisdiction, power, superiority, pre-eminence, or authority, ecclesiastical or spiritual, within this realm; and therefore i do utterly renounce and forsake all foreign jurisdictions, powers, superiorities, and authorities, and do promise that from henceforth i shall bear faith and true allegiance to the queen's highness, her heirs and lawful successors, and to my power shall assist and defend all jurisdictions, pre-eminences, privileges, and authorities, granted or belonging to the queen's highness, her heirs and successors, or united and annexed to the imperial crown of this realm." a remarkable passage in the injunctions to the ecclesiastical visitors of , which may be reckoned in the nature of a contemporaneous exposition of the law, restrains the royal supremacy established by this act, and asserted in the above oath, in the following words: "her majesty forbiddeth all manner her subjects to give ear or credit to such perverse and malicious persons, which most sinisterly and maliciously labour to notify to her loving subjects, how by words of the said oath it may be collected, that the kings or queens of this realm, possessors of the crown, may challenge authority and power of ministry of divine service in the church; wherein her said subjects be much abused by such evil-disposed persons. for certainly her majesty neither doth, nor ever will, challenge any other authority than that was challenged and lately used by the said noble kings of famous memory, king henry viii. and king edward vi., which is, and was of ancient time, due to the imperial crown of this realm; that is, under god to have the sovereignty and rule over all manner of persons born within these her realms, dominions, and countries, of what estate, either ecclesiastical or temporal, soever they be, so as no other foreign power shall or ought to have any superiority over them. and if any person that hath conceived any other sense of the form of the said oath shall accept the same with this interpretation, sense, or meaning, her majesty is well pleased to accept every such in that behalf, as her good and obedient subjects, and shall acquit them of all manner of penalties contained in the said act, against such as shall peremptorily or obstinately take the same oath." _somers tracts_, edit. scott, . this interpretation was afterwards given in one of the thirty-nine articles, which having been confirmed by parliament, it is undoubtedly to be reckoned the true sense of the oath. mr. butler, in his _memoirs of english catholics_, vol. i. p. , enters into a discussion of the question, whether roman catholics might conscientiously take the oath of supremacy in this sense. it appears that in the seventeenth century some contended for the affirmative; and this seems to explain the fact, that several persons of that persuasion, besides peers from whom the oath was not exacted, did actually hold offices under the stuarts, and even enter into parliament, and that the test act and declaration against transubstantiation were thus rendered necessary to make their exclusion certain. mr. b. decides against taking the oath, but on grounds by no means sufficient; and oddly overlooks the decisive objection, that it denies _in toto_ the jurisdiction and ecclesiastical authority of the pope. no writer, as far as my slender knowledge extends, of the gallican or german school of discipline, has gone to this length; certainly not mr. butler himself, who in a modern publication (_book of the roman catholic church_, p. ), seems to consider even the appellant jurisdiction in ecclesiastical causes as vested in the holy see by divine right. as to the exposition before given of the oath of supremacy, i conceive that it was intended not only to relieve the scruples of catholics, but of those who had imbibed from the school of calvin an apprehension of what is sometimes, though rather improperly, called erastianism--the merging of all spiritual powers, even those of ordination and of preaching, in the paramount authority of the state, towards which the despotism of henry, and obsequiousness of cranmer, had seemed to bring the church of england. [ ] eliz. c. . [ ] strype's _annals_, i. , . [ ] haynes, . the penalty for causing mass to be said, by the act of uniformity, was only marks for the first offence. these imprisonments were probably in many cases illegal, and only sustained by the arbitrary power of the high commission court. [ ] strype, . [ ] questions of conscience were circulated, with answers, all tending to show the unlawfulness of conformity. strype, . there was nothing more in this than the catholic clergy were bound in consistency with their principles to do, though it seemed very atrocious to bigots. mr. butler says, that some theologians at trent were consulted as to the lawfulness of occasional conformity to the anglican rites, who pronounced against it. _mem. of catholics_, i. . [ ] the trick of conjuration about the queen's death began very early in her reign (strype, i. ), and led to a penal statute against "fond and fantastical prophecies." eliz. c. . [ ] i know not how to charge the catholics with the conspiracy of the two poles, nephews of the cardinal, and some others, to obtain five thousand troops from the duke of guise, and proclaim mary queen. this seems, however, to have been the immediate provocation for the statute eliz.; and it may be thought to indicate a good deal of discontent in that party upon which the conspirators relied. but as elizabeth spared the lives of all who were arraigned, and we know no details of the case, it may be doubted whether their intentions were altogether so criminal as was charged. strype, i. ; camden, (in kennet). strype tells us (i. ) of resolutions adopted against the queen in a consistory held by pius iv. in ; one of these is a pardon to any cook, brewer, vintner, or other, that would poison her. but this is so unlikely, and so little in that pope's character, that it makes us suspect the rest, as false information of a spy. [ ] eliz. c. . [ ] strype, collier, _parliamentary history_. the original source is the manuscript collections of fox the martyrologist, a very unsuspicious authority; so that there seems every reason to consider this speech, as well as mr. atkinson's, authentic. the following is a specimen of the sort of answer given to these arguments: "they say it touches conscience, and it is a thing wherein a man ought to have a scruple; but if any hath a conscience in it, these four years' space might have settled it. also, after his first refusal, he hath three months' respite for conference and settling of his conscience." strype, . [ ] strype's _life of parker_, . [ ] strype's _annals_, . tunstall was treated in a very handsome manner by parker, whose guest he was. but feckenham, abbot of westminster, met with rather unkind usage, though he had been active in saving the lives of protestants under mary, from bishops horn and cox (the latter of whom seems to have been an honest, but narrow-spirited and peevish man), and at last was sent to wisbeach gaol for refusing the oath of supremacy. strype, i. , ii. ; fuller's _church history_, . [ ] eliz. c. . eleven peers dissented, all noted catholics, except the earl of sussex. strype, i. . [ ] even dr. lingard admits that parker was consecrated at lambeth, on december , ; but conjectures that there may have been some previous meeting at the nag's head, which gave rise to the story. this means that any absurdity may be presumed, rather than acknowledge good catholics to have propagated a lie. [ ] nobis vero factura est rem adeo gratam, ut omnem simus daturi operam, quo possimus eam rem serenitati vestræ mutuis benevolentiæ et fraterni animi studiis cumulatissimè compensare. see the letter in the additions to the first volume of strype's _annals_, prefixed to the second, p. . it has been erroneously referred by camden, whom many have followed, to the year , but bears date th september . [ ] for the dispositions of ferdinand and maximilian towards religious toleration in austria, which indeed for a time existed, see f. paul, _concile de trente_ (par courayer), ii. , , , etc.; schmidt, _hist. des allemands_, viii. , , etc.; flechier, _vie de commendom_, ; or coxe's _house of austria_. [ ] strype, , _et alibi_. [ ] strype, . he says the lawyers in most eminent places were generally favourers of popery. p. . but, if he means the judges, they did not long continue so. [ ] cum regina maria moreretur, et religio in angliâ mutaret, post episcopos et prælatos catholicos captos et fugatos, populus velut ovium grex sine pastore in magnis tenebris et caligine animarum suarum oberravit. unde etiam factum est multi ut catholicorum superstitionibus impiis dissimulationibus et gravibus juramentis contra sanctæ sedis apostolicæ auctoritatem, cum admodum parvo aut plane nullo conscientiarum suarum scrupulo assuescerent. frequentabant ergo hæreticorum synagogas, intererant eorum concionibus, atque ad easdem etiam audiendas filios et familiam suam compellabant. videbatur illis ut catholici essent, sufficere una cum hæreticis eorum templa non adire, ferri autem posse si ante vel post illos eadem intrassent. communicabatur de sacrilegâ calvini coenâ, vel secreto et clanculum intra privatos parietes. missam qui audiverant, ac postea calvinianos se haberi volebant, sic se de præcepto satisfecisse existimabant. deferebantur filii catholicorum ad baptisteria hæreticorum, ac inter illorum manus matrimonia contrahebant. atque hæc omnia sine omni scrupulo fiebant, facta propter catholicorum sacerdotum ignorantiam, qui talia vel licere credebant, vel timore quodam præpediti dissimulabant. nunc autem per dei misericordiam omnes catholici intelligunt, ut salventur non satis esse corde fidem catholicam credere, sed eandem etiam ore oportere confiteri. _ribadeneira de schismate_, p. . see also butler's _english catholics_, vol. iii. p. . [ ] dodd's _church his._ vol. ii. p. . [ ] thomas heath, brother to the late archbishop of york, was seized at rochester about , well provided with anabaptist and arian tracts for circulation. strype, i. . for other instances, see p. , ; _life of parker_, ; nalson's _collections_, vol. i.; introduction, p. , etc., from a pamphlet written also by nalson, entitled, _foxes and firebrands_. it was surmised that one henry nicolas, chief of a set of fanatics, called the family of love, of whom we read a great deal in this reign, and who sprouted up again about the time of cromwell, was secretly employed by the popish party. strype, ii. , , . but these conjectures were very often ill-founded, and possibly so in this instance, though the passages quoted by strype ( ) are suspicious. brandt however (_hist. of reformation in low countries_, vol. i. p. ) does not suspect nicolas of being other than a fanatic. his sect appeared in the netherlands about . [ ] "that church [of england] and the queen, its re-founder, are clear of persecution, as regards the catholics. no church, no sect, no individual even, had yet professed the principle of toleration." southey's _book of the church_, vol. ii. p. . if the second of these sentences is intended as a proof of the first, i must say, it is little to the purpose. but it is not true in this broad way of assertion. nor to mention sir thomas more's _utopia_, the principle of toleration had been avowed by the chancellor l'hospital, and many others in france. i mention him as on the stronger side; for in fact the weaker had always professed the general principle, and could demand toleration from those of different sentiments on no other plea. and as to _capital_ inflictions for heresy, which mr. s. seems chiefly to have in his mind, there is reason to believe that many protestants never approved them. sleidan intimates (vol. iii. p. ) that calvin incurred odium by the death of servetus. and melancthon says expressly the same thing, in the letter which he unfortunately wrote to the reformer of geneva, declaring his own approbation of the crime; and which i am willing to ascribe rather to his constitutional fear of giving offence than to sincere conviction. [ ] the address of the house of commons, begging the queen to marry, was on february , . [ ] haynes, . [ ] see particularly two letters in the _hardwicke state papers_, i. and , dated in october and november , which show the alarm excited by the queen's ill-placed partiality. [ ] cecil's earnestness for the austrian marriage appears plainly (haynes, ), and still more in a remarkable minute, where he has drawn up, in parallel columns, according to a rather formal, but perspicuous, method he much used, his reasons in favour of the archduke, and against the earl of leicester. the former chiefly relate to foreign politics, and may be conjectured by those acquainted with history. the latter are as follows: . nothing is increased by marriage of him, either in riches, estimation, or power. . it will be thought that the slanderous speeches of the queen with the earl have been true. . he shall study nothing but to enhance his own particular friends to wealth, to offices, to lands, and to offend others. . he is infamed by death of his wife. . he is far in debt. . he is likely to be unkind, and jealous of the queen's majesty. _id._ . these suggestions, and especially the second, if actually laid before the queen, show the plainness and freedom which this great statesman ventured to use towards her. the allusion to the death of leicester's wife, which had occurred in a very suspicious manner, at cumnor, near oxford, and is well known as the foundation of the novel of _kenilworth_, though related there with great anachronism and confusion of persons, may be frequently met with in contemporary documents. by the above quoted letters in the _hardwicke papers_, it appears that those who disliked leicester had spoken freely of this report to the queen. [ ] elizabeth carried her dissimulation so far as to propose marriage articles, which were formally laid before the imperial ambassador. these, though copied from what had been agreed on mary's marriage with philip, now seemed highly ridiculous, when exacted from a younger brother without territories or revenues. jura et leges regni conserventur, neque quicquam mutetur in religione aut in statu publico. officia et magistratus exerceantur per naturales. neque regina, neque liberi sui educantur ex regno sine consensu regni, etc. haynes, . cecil was not too wise a man to give some credit to astrology. the stars were consulted about the queen's marriage; and those veracious oracles gave response, that she should be married in the thirty-first year of her age to a _foreigner_, and have one son, who would be a great prince, and a daughter, etc., etc. strype, ii. , and appendix , where the nonsense may be read at full length. perhaps, however, the wily minister was no dupe, but meant that his mistress should be. [ ] the council appear in general to have been as resolute against tolerating the exercise of the catholic religion in any husband the queen might choose, as herself. we find, however, that several divines were consulted on two questions: . whether it were lawful to marry a papist. . whether the queen might permit mass to be said. to which answers were given, not agreeing with each other. strype, ii. , and appendix , . when the earl of worcester was sent over to paris in , as proxy for the queen, who had been made sponsor for charles ix.'s infant daughter, she would not permit him, though himself a catholic, to be present at the mass on that occasion. ii. . [ ] "the people," camden says, "cursed huic, the queen's physician, as having dissuaded the queen from marrying on account of some impediment and defect in her." many will recollect the allusion to this in mary's scandalous letter to elizabeth, wherein, under pretence of repeating what the countess of shrewsbury had said, she utters everything that female spite and mistrust could dictate. but in the long and confidential correspondence of cecil, walsingham, and sir thomas smith, about the queen's marriage with the duke of anjou, in , for which they were evidently most anxious, i do not perceive the slightest intimation that the prospect of her bearing children was at all less favourable than in any other case. the council seem, indeed, in the subsequent treaty with the other duke of anjou, in , when she was forty-six, to have reckoned on something rather beyond the usual laws of nature in this respect; for in a minute by cecil of the reasons for and against this marriage, he sets down the probability of issue on the favourable side. "by marriage with monsieur she is likely to have children, _because of his youth_;" as if her age were no objection. [ ] camden, after telling us that the queen's disinclination to marry raised great clamours, and that the earls of pembroke and leicester had professed their opinion that she ought to be obliged to take a husband, or that a successor should be declared by act of parliament even against her will, asserts some time after, as inconsistently as improperly, that "very few but malcontents and traitors appeared very solicitous in the business of a successor."--p. (in kennet's _complete hist. of england_, vol. ii.). this, however, from camden's known proneness to flatter james, seems to indicate that the suffolk party were more active than the scots upon this occasion. their strength lay in the house of commons, which was wholly protestant, and rather puritan. at the end of murden's _state papers_ is a short journal kept by cecil, containing a succinct and authentic summary of events in elizabeth's reign. i extract as a specimen such passages as bear on the present subject. october , . certain lewd bills thrown abroad against the queen's majesty for not assenting to have the matter of succession proved in parliament; and bills also to charge sir w. cecil, the secretary, with the occasion thereof. . certain lords, viz., the earls of pembroke and leicester, were excluded the presence-chamber for furthering the proposition of the succession to be declared by parliament without the queen's allowance. november . messrs. bell and monson moved trouble in the parliament about the succession. . the queen had before her thirty lords and thirty commoners, to receive her answer concerning their petition for the succession and for marriage. dalton was blamed for speaking in the commons' house. . command given to the parliament not to treat of the succession. nota: in this parliament time the queen's majesty did remit a part of the offer of a subsidy to the commons, who offered largely, to the end to have had the succession established. p. . [ ] catherine, after her release from the tower, was placed in the custody of her uncle, lord john grey, but still suffering the queen's displeasure, and separated from her husband. several interesting letters from her and her uncle to cecil are among the lansdowne mss. vol. vi. they cannot be read without indignation at elizabeth's unfeeling severity. sorrow killed this poor young woman the next year, who was never permitted to see her husband again. strype, i. . the earl of hertford underwent a long imprisonment, and continued in obscurity during elizabeth's reign; but had some public employments under her successor. he was twice afterwards married, and lived to a very advanced age, not dying till , near sixty years after his ill-starred and ambitious love. it is worth while to read the epitaph on his monument in the s.e. aisle of salisbury cathedral, an affecting testimony to the purity and faithfulness of an attachment rendered still more sacred by misfortune and time. quo desiderio veteres revocavit amores! i shall revert to the question of this marriage in a subsequent chapter. [ ] haynes, . [ ] _id._ ; strype, . hales's treatise in favour of the authenticity of henry's will is among the harleian mss. n. and , and has also been printed in the appendix to _hereditary right asserted_, fol. . [ ] camden, p. , ascribes the powerful coalition formed against him in , wherein norfolk and leicester were combined with all the catholic peers, to his predilection for the house of suffolk. but it was more probably owing to their knowledge of his integrity and attachment to his sovereign, which would steadfastly oppose their wicked design of bringing about norfolk's marriage with mary, as well as to their jealousy of his influence. carte reports, on the authority of the despatches of fenelon, the french ambassador, that they intended to bring him to account for breaking off the ancient league with the house of burgundy, or, in other words, for maintaining the protestant interest. vol. iii. p. . a papist writer, under the name of andreas philopater, gives an account of this confederacy against cecil at some length. norfolk and leicester belonged to it; and the object was to defeat the suffolk succession, which cecil and bacon favoured. leicester betrayed his associates to the queen. it had been intended that norfolk should accuse the two counsellors before the lords, eâ ratione ut è senatu regiâque abreptos ad curiæ januas in crucem agi præciperet, eoque perfecto rectè deinceps ad forum progressus explicaret populo tum hujus facti rationem, tum successionis etiam regnandi legitimam seriem, si quid forte reginæ humanitus accideret. p. . [ ] d'ewes, . [ ] strype, , append. this speech seems to have been made while catherine grey was living; perhaps therefore it was in a former parliament, for no account that i have seen represents her as having been alive so late as . [ ] there was something peculiar in mary's mode of blazonry. she bore scotland and england quarterly, the former being first; but over all was a half scutcheon of pretence with the arms of england, the sinister half being, as it were, obscured, in order to intimate that she was kept out of her right. strype, vol. i. p. . the despatches of throckmorton, the english ambassador in france, bear continual testimony to the insulting and hostile manner in which francis ii. and his queen displayed their pretensions to our crown. forbes's _state papers_, vol. i. _passim_. the following is an instance. at the entrance of the king and queen into chatelherault, rd november , these lines formed the inscription over one of the gates: "gallia perpetuis pugnaxque britannia bellis olim odio inter se dimicuere pari. nunc gallos totoque remotos orbe britannos unum dos mariæ cogit in imperium. ergo pace potes, francisce, quod omnibus armis mille patres annis non potuere tui." this offensive behaviour of the french court is the apology of elizabeth's intrigues during the same period with the malcontents, which to a certain extent cannot be denied by any one who has read the collection above quoted; though i do not think dr. lingard warranted in asserting her privity to the conspiracy of amboise as a proved fact. throckmorton was a man very likely to exceed his instructions; and there is much reason to believe that he did so. it is remarkable that no modern french writer that i have seen, anquetil, garnier, lacretelle, or the editors of the _general collection of memoirs_, seem to have been aware of elizabeth's secret intrigues with the king of navarre and other protestant chiefs in , which these letters, published by forbes in , demonstrate. [ ] burnet, i. append. . many letters, both of mary herself and of her secretary, the famous maitland of lethington, occur in haynes's _state papers_, about the end of . in one of his to cecil, he urges, in answer to what had been alleged by the english court, that a collateral successor had never been declared in any prince's life-time, that whatever reason there might be for that, "if the succession had remained untouched according to the law, yet where by a limitation men had gone about to prevent the providence of god, and shift one into the place due to another, the offended party could not but seek the redress thereof."--p. . [ ] a very remarkable letter of the earl of sussex, october , , contains these words: "i think surely no end can be made good for england, except the person of the scottish queen be detained, by one means or other, in england." the whole letter manifests the spirit of elizabeth's advisers, and does no great credit to sussex's sense of justice, but a great deal to his ability. yet he afterwards became an advocate for the duke of norfolk's marriage with mary. lodge's _illustrations_, vol. ii. p. . [ ] hume and carte say, this first illness was the small-pox. but it appears by a letter from the queen to lord shrewsbury (lodge, ) that her attack in was suspected to be that disorder. [ ] haynes, . [ ] in a conversation which mary had with one rooksby, a spy of cecil's, about the spring of , she imprudently named several of her friends, and of others whom she hoped to win, such as the duke of norfolk, the earls of derby, northumberland, westmoreland, cumberland, shrewsbury. "she had the better hope of this, for that she thought them to be all of the old religion, which she meant to restore again with all expedition, and thereby win the hearts of the common people." the whole passage is worth notice. haynes, . see also melvil's _memoirs_, for the dispositions of an english party towards mary in . [ ] murden's _state papers_, , . norfolk was a very weak man, the dupe of some very cunning ones. we may observe that his submission, to the queen (_id._ ) is expressed in a style which would now be thought most pusillanimous in a man of much lower station, yet he died with great intrepidity. but such was the tone of those times; an exaggerated hypocrisy prevailed in everything. [ ] _state trials_, i. . he was interrogated by the queen's counsel with the most insidious questions. all the material evidence was read to the lords from written depositions of witnesses who might have been called, contrary to the statute of edward vi. but the _burghley papers_, published by haynes and murden, contain a mass of documents relative to this conspiracy, which leave no doubt as to the most heinous charge, that of inviting the duke of alva to invade the kingdom. there is reason to suspect that he feigned himself a catholic in order to secure alva's assistance. murden, p. . [ ] the northern counties were at this time chiefly catholic. "there are not," says sadler, writing from thence, "ten gentlemen in this country who do favour and allow of their majesty's proceedings in the cause of religion." lingard, vii. . it was consequently the great resort of the priests from the netherlands, and in the feeble state of the protestant church there wanted sufficient ministers to stand up in its defence. strype, i. , _et post_; ii. . many of the gentry indeed were still disaffected in other parts towards the new religion. a profession of conformity was required in from all justices of the peace, which some refused, and others made against their consciences. _id._ i. . [ ] camden has quoted a long passage from hieronymo catena's _life of pius v._, published at rome in , which illustrates the evidence to the same effect contained in the _burghley papers_, and partly adduced on the duke of norfolk's trial. [ ] strype, i. , , . [ ] _id._ ; camden, ; lodge, ii. . [ ] strype, ii. ; _life of smith_, . [ ] strype, i. . i do not give any credit whatever to this league, as printed in strype, which seems to have been fabricated by some of the queen's emissaries. there had been, not perhaps a treaty, but a verbal agreement between france and spain at bayonne some time before; but its object was apparently confined to the suppression of protestantism in france and the netherlands. had they succeeded, however, in this, the next blow would have been struck at england. it seems very unlikely that maximilian was concerned in such a league. [ ] strype, vol. ii. [ ] the college of douay for english refugee priests was established in or . lingard, . strype seems, but i believe through inadvertence, to put this event several years later. _annals_, ii. . it was dissolved by requesens, while governor of flanders, but revived at rheims in , under the protection of the cardinal of lorrain, and returned to douay in . similar colleges were founded at rome in , at valladolid in , at st. omer in , and at louvain in . [ ] eliz. c. . this act was made at first retrospective, so as to affect every one who had at any time denied the queen's title. a member objected to this in debate as "a precedent most perilous." but sir francis knollys, mr. norton, and others defended it. d'ewes, . it seems to have been amended by the lords. so little notion had men of observing the first principles of equity towards their enemies! there is much reason from the debate to suspect that the _ex post facto_ words were levelled at mary. [ ] strype, ii. ; d'ewes, . [ ] strype, ii. . [ ] _life of parker_, . [ ] strype's _annals_, ii. . [ ] murden's _papers_, p. , contain proofs of the increased discontent among the catholics in consequence of the penal laws. [ ] strype, ii. . see too in vol. iii. appendix , a series of petitions intended to be offered to the queen and parliament, about . these came from the puritanical mint, and show the dread that party entertained of mary's succession, and of a relapse into popery. it is urged in these, that no toleration should be granted to the popish worship in private houses. nor in fact had they much cause to complain that it was so. knox's famous intolerance is well known. "one mass," he declared in preaching against mary's private chapel at holyrood house, "was more fearful unto him than if ten thousand armed enemies were landed in any part of the realm, on purpose to suppress the whole religion." m'crie's _life of knox_, vol. ii. p. . in a conversation with maitland he asserted most explicitly the duty of putting idolaters to death. _id._ p. . nothing can be more sanguinary than the reformer's spirit in this remarkable interview. st. dominic could not have surpassed him. it is strange to see men, professing all the while our modern creed of charity and toleration, extol these sanguinary spirits of the sixteenth century. the english puritans, though i cannot cite any passages so strong as the foregoing, were much the bitterest enemies of the catholics. when we read a letter from any one, such as mr. topcliffe, very fierce against the latter, we may expect to find him put in a word in favour of silenced ministers. [ ] d'ewes, , . [ ] strype's _life of parker_, . [ ] strype's _annals_, i. . honest old strype, who thinks church and state never in the wrong, calls this "a notable piece of favour." [ ] _id._ ii. , . [ ] strype's _annals_, iii. . [ ] _life of whitgift_, . see too p. , and _annals of reformation_, ii. , etc.; also holingshed, ann. , _ad init._ [ ] an almost incredible specimen of ungracious behaviour towards a roman catholic gentleman is mentioned in a letter of topcliffe, a man whose daily occupation was to hunt out and molest men for popery. "the next good news, but in account the highest, her majesty hath served god with great zeal and comfortable examples; for by her council two notorious papists, young rockwood, the master of euston hall, where her majesty did lie upon sunday now a fortnight, and one downes, a gentleman, were both committed, the one to the town prison at norwich, the other to the country prison there, for obstinate papistry; and seven more gentlemen of worship were committed to several houses in norwich as prisoners; two of the lovels, another downes, one beningfield, one parry, and two others not worth memory for badness of belief. "this rockwood is a papist of kind [family] newly crept out of his late wardship. her majesty, by some means i know not, was lodged at his house, euston, far unmeet for her highness; nevertheless, the gentleman brought into her presence by like device, her majesty gave him ordinary thanks for his bad house, and her fair hand to kiss: but my lord chamberlain nobly and gravely understanding that rockwood was excommunicated for papistry, called him before him, demanded of him how he durst presume to attempt her royal presence, he, unfit to accompany any christian person; forthwith said he was fitter for a pair of stocks, commanded him out of the court, and yet to attend her council's pleasure at norwich he was committed. and to dissyffer [sic] the gentleman to the full, a piece of plate being missed in the court, and searched for in his hay-house, in the hay-rick, such an image of our lady was there found, as for greatness, for gayness, and workmanship, i did never see a match; and after a sort of country dances ended, in her majesty's sight the idol was set behind the people who avoided; she rather seemed a beast raised upon a sudden from hell by conjuring, than the picture for whom it had been so often and so long abused. her majesty commanded it to the fire, which in her sight by the country folks was quickly done to her content, and unspeakable joy of everyone but some one or two who had sucked of the idol's poisoned milk. "shortly after, a great sort of good preachers, who had been long commanded to silence for a little niceness, were licensed, and again commanded to preach; a greater and more universal joy to the countries, and the most of the court, than the disgrace of the papists: and the gentlemen of those parts, being great and hot protestants, almost before by policy discredited and disgraced, were greatly countenanced. "i was so happy lately, amongst other good graces, that her majesty did tell me of sundry lewd papist beasts that have resorted to buxton," etc. lodge, ii. , august . this topcliffe was the most implacable persecutor of his age. in a letter to lord burleigh (strype, iv. ), he urges him to imprison all the principal recusants, and especially women, "the farther off from their own family and friends the better." the whole letter is curious, as a specimen of the prevalent spirit, especially among the puritans, whom topcliffe favoured. instances of the ill-treatment experienced by respectable families (the fitzherberts and foljambes), and even aged ladies, without any other provocation than their recusancy, may be found in lodge, ii. , ; iii. . but those farthest removed from puritanism partook sometimes of the same tyrannous spirit. aylmer, bishop of london, renowned for his persecution of nonconformists, is said by rishton de schismate, p. , to have sent a young catholic lady to be whipped in bridewell for refusing to conform. if the authority is suspicious (and yet i do not perceive that rishton is a liar like sanders), the fact is rendered hardly improbable by aylmer's harsh character. [ ] strype's _life of smith_, ; _annals_, ii. , ; iii. ; and append. . the last reference is to a list of magistrates sent up by the bishops from each diocese, with their characters. several of these, but the wives of many more, were inclined to popery. [ ] allen's _admonition to the nobility and people of england_, written in , to promote the success of the armada, is full of gross lies against the queen. see an analysis of it in lingard, note b. b. mr. butler fully acknowledges, what indeed the whole tenor of historical documents for this reign confirms, that allen and persons were actively engaged in endeavouring to dethrone elizabeth, by means of a spanish force. but it must, i think, be candidly confessed by protestants, that they had very little influence over the superior catholic laity. and an argument may be drawn from hence against those who conceive the political conduct of catholics to be entirely swayed by their priests, when even in the sixteenth century the efforts of these able men, united with the head of their church, could produce so little effect. strype owns that allen's book gave offence to many catholics, iii. ; _life of whitgift_, . one wright of douay answered a case of conscience, whether catholics might take up arms to assist the king of spain against the queen, in the negative. _id._ ; _annals_, . this man, though a known loyalist, and actually in the employment of the ministry, was afterwards kept in a disagreeable sort of confinement, in the dean of westminster's house, of which he complains with much reason. birch's _memoirs_, vol. ii. p. _et alibi_. though it does not fall within the province of a writer on the constitution to enlarge on elizabeth's foreign policy, i must observe, in consequence of the laboured attempts of dr. lingard to represent it as perfectly machiavelian, and without any motive but wanton malignity, that, with respect to france and spain, and even scotland, it was strictly defensive, and justified by the law of self-preservation; though, in some of the means employed, she did not always adhere more scrupulously to good faith than her enemies. [ ] eliz. c. and eliz. c. . [ ] strype's _whitgift_, p. , and other authorities _passim_. [ ] camden, lingard. two others suffered at tyburn not long afterwards for the same offence. holingshed, . see in butler's _mem. of catholics_, vol. iii. p. , an affecting narrative, from dodd's _church history_, of the sufferings of mr. tregian and his family, the gentleman whose chaplain mayne had been. i see no cause to doubt its truth. [ ] ribadeneira, _continuatio sanderi et rishtoni de schismate anglicano_, p. ; philopater, p. . this circumstance of sherwood's age is not mentioned by stowe; nor does dr. lingard advert to it. no woman was put to death under the penal code, so far as i remember; which of itself distinguishes the persecution from that of mary, and of the house of austria in spain and the netherlands. [ ] strype's _parker_, . [ ] strype's _annals_, ii. . [ ] _state trials_, i. ; from the _phoenix britannicus_. [ ] _id._ ; butler's _english catholics_, i. , ; lingard, vii. , whose remarks are just and candid. a tract, of which i have only seen an italian translation, printed at macerata in , entitled "historia del glorioso martirio di diciotto sacerdoti e un secolare, fatti morire in inghilterra per la confessione e difensione della fede cattolica," by no means asserts that he acknowledged elizabeth to be queen _de jure_, but rather that he refused to give an opinion as to her right. he prayed, however, for her as a queen. "io ho pregato, e prego per lei. all' ora il signor howardo li domandò per qual regina egli pregasse, se per elisabetta? al quale rispose, si, per elisabetta." mr. butler quotes this tract in english. the trials and deaths of campian and his associates are told in the continuation of holingshed, with a savageness and bigotry which, i am very sure, no scribe for the inquisition could have surpassed. p. . but it is plain, even from this account, that campian owned elizabeth as queen. see particularly p. , for the insulting manner in which this writer describes the pious fortitude of these butchered ecclesiastics. [ ] strype, ii. ; butler's _eng. catholics_, i. . the earl of southampton asked mary's ambassador, bishop lesley, whether, after the bull, he could in conscience obey elizabeth. lesley answered, that as long as she was the stronger he ought to obey her. murden, p. . the writer quoted before by the name of andreas philopater (persons, translated by cresswell, according to mr. butler, vol. iii. p. ), after justifying at length the resistance of the league to henry iv., adds the following remarkable paragraph: "hinc etiam infert universa theologorum et jurisconsultorum schola, et est certum et de fide, quemcunque principem christianum, si a religione catholicâ manifestè deflexerit, et alios avocare voluerit, excidere statim omni potestate et dignitate, ex ipsâ vi juris tum divini tum humani, hocque ante omnem sententiam supremi pastoris ac judicis contra ipsum prolatam; et subditos quoscunque liberos esse ab omni juramenti obligatione, quod ei de obedientiâ tanquam principi legitimo præstitissent, posseque et debere (si vires habeant) istiusmodi hominem, tanquam apostatam, hæreticum, ac christi domini desertorem, et inimicum reipublicæ suæ, hostemque ex hominum christianorum dominatu ejicere, ne alios inficiat, vel suo exemplo aut imperio a fide avertat."--p. . he quotes four authorities for this in the margin, from the works of divines or canonists. this broad duty, however, of expelling a heretic sovereign, he qualifies by two conditions; first, that the subjects should have the power, "ut vires habeant idoneas ad hoc subditi;" secondly, that the heresy be undeniable. there can, in truth, be no doubt that the allegiance professed to the queen by the seminary priests and jesuits, and, as far as their influence extended, by all catholics, was with this reservation--till they should be strong enough to throw it off. see the same tract, p. . but after all, when we come fairly to consider it, is not this the case with every disaffected party in every state? a good reason for watchfulness, but none for extermination. [ ] rishton and ribadeneira. see in lingard, note u, a specification of the different kinds of torture used in this reign. the government did not pretend to deny the employment of torture. but the puritans, eager as they were to exert the utmost severity of the law against the professors of the old religion, had more regard to civil liberty than to approve such a violation of it. beal, clerk of the council, wrote, about , a vehement book against the ecclesiastical system, from which whitgift picks out various enormous propositions, as he thinks them; one of which is, "that he condemns, without exception of any cause, racking of grievous offenders, as being cruel, barbarous, contrary to law, and unto the liberty of english subjects." strype's _whitgift_, p. . [ ] the persecution of catholics in england was made use of as an argument against permitting henry iv. to reign in france, as appears by the title of a tract published in : "advertissement des catholiques, anglois aux françois catholiques, du danger où ils sont de perdre leur religion et d'expérimenter, comme en angleterre, la cruauté des ministres, s'ils reçoivent à la couronne un roy qui soit hérétique." it is in the british museum. one of the attacks on elizabeth deserves some notice, as it has lately been revived. in the statute eliz. an expression is used, "her majesty, and the natural issue of her body," instead of the more common legal phrase, "lawful issue." this probably was adopted by the queen out of prudery, as if the usual term implied the possibility of her having unlawful issue. but the papistical libellers put the most absurd interpretation on the word "natural," as if it was meant to secure the succession for some imaginary bastards by leicester. and dr. lingard is not ashamed to insinuate the same suspicion. vol. viii. p. , note. surely what was congenial to the dark malignity of persons, and the blind frenzy of whitaker, does not become the good sense, i cannot say the candour, of this writer. it is true that some, not prejudiced against elizabeth, have doubted whether "cupid's fiery dart" was as effectually "quenched in the chaste beams of the watery moon," as her poet intimates. this i must leave to the reader's judgment. she certainly went strange lengths of indelicacy. but, if she might sacrifice herself to the queen of cnidus and paphos, she was unmercifully severe to those about her, of both sexes, who showed any inclination to that worship, though under the escort of hymen. miss aikin, in her well written and interesting _memoirs of the court of elizabeth_, has collected several instances from harrington and birch. it is by no means true, as dr. lingard asserts, on the authority of one faunt, an austere puritan, that her court was dissolute, comparatively at least with the general character of courts; though neither was it so virtuous as the enthusiasts of the elizabethan period suppose. [ ] _somers tracts_, i ; strype, iii. , , . strype says that he had seen the manuscript of this tract in lord burleigh's handwriting. it was answered by cardinal allen, to whom a reply was made by poor stubbe, after he had lost his right hand. an italian translation of the _execution of justice_ was published at london in . this shows how anxious the queen was to repel the charges of cruelty, which she must have felt to be not wholly unfounded. [ ] _somers tracts_, p. . [ ] _state trials_, i. . [ ] _somers tracts_, . [ ] strype, iii. . shelley, though notoriously loyal and frequently employed by burleigh, was taken up and examined before the council for preparing this petition. [ ] p. . proofs of the text are too numerous for quotation, and occur continually to a reader of strype's nd and rd volumes. in vol. iii. append. , we have a letter to the queen from one antony tyrrel, a priest, who seems to have acted as an informer, wherein he declares all his accusations of catholics to be false. this man had formerly professed himself a protestant, and returned afterwards to the same religion; so that his veracity may be dubious. so, a little further on, we find in the same collection (p. ) a letter from one bennet, a priest, to lord arundel, lamenting the false accusations he had given against him, and craving pardon. it is always possible, as i have just hinted, that these retractations may be more false than the charges. but ministers who employ spies, without the utmost distrust of their information, are sure to become their dupes, and end by the most violent injustice and tyranny. [ ] the rich catholics compounded for their recusancy by annual payments, which were of some consideration in the queen's rather scanty revenue. a list of such recusants, and of the annual fines paid by them in , is published in strype, iv. , but is plainly very imperfect. the total was £ _s_. _d_. a few paid as much as £ per annum. the average seems, however, to have been about £ . vol. iii. append. ; see also p. . probably these compositions, though oppressive, were not quite so serious as the catholics pretended. [ ] parry seems to have been privately reconciled to the church of rome about ; after which he continued to correspond with cecil, but generally recommending some catholics to mercy. he says, in one letter, that a book printed at rome, _de persecutione anglicanâ_, had raised a barbarous opinion of our cruelty; and that he could wish that in those cases it might please her majesty to pardon the dismembering and drawing. strype, iii. . he sat afterwards in the parliament of , taking, of course, the oath of supremacy, where he alone opposed the act against catholic priests. _parl. hist._ . whether he were actually guilty of plotting against the queen's life (for this part of his treason he denied at the scaffold) i cannot say; but his speech there made contained some very good advice to her. the ministry garbled this before its publication in holingshed and other books; but strype has preserved a genuine copy. vol. iii. append. . it is plain that parry died a catholic; though some late writers of that communion have tried to disclaim him. dr. lingard, it may be added, admits that there were many schemes to assassinate elizabeth, though he will not confess any particular instance. "there exist," he says, "in the archives at simancas several notices of such offers."--p. . [ ] it might be inferred from some authorities that the catholics had become in a great degree disaffected to the queen about , in consequence of the extreme rigour practised against them. in a memoir of one crichton, a scots jesuit, intended to show the easiness of invading england, he says, that "all the catholics without exception favour the enterprise, first, for the sake of the restitution of the catholic faith; secondly, for the right and interest which the queen of scots has to the kingdom, and to deliver her out of prison; thirdly, for the great trouble and misery they endure more and more, being kept out of all employments, and dishonoured in their own countries, and treated with great injustice and partiality when they have need to recur to law; and also for the execution of the laws touching the confiscation of their goods in such sort as in so short time would reduce the catholics to extreme poverty." strype, iii. . and in the report of the earl of northumberland's treasons, laid before the star-chamber, we read that "throckmorton said, that the bottom of this enterprise, which was not to be known to many, was, that if a toleration of religion might not be obtained without alteration of the government, that then the government should be altered, and the queen removed." _somers tracts_, vol. i. p. . further proofs that the rigour used towards the catholics was the great means of promoting philip's designs occur in birch's _memoirs of elizabeth_, i. _et alibi_. we have also a letter from persons in england to allen in , giving a good account of the zeal of the catholics, though a very bad one of their condition through severe imprisonment and other ill-treatment. strype, iii. , and append. . rishton and ribadeneira bear testimony that the persecution had rendered the laity more zealous and sincere. de schismate, l. iii. , and l. iv. . yet to all this we may oppose their good conduct in the year of the spanish armada, and in general during the queen's reign; which proves that the loyalty of the main body was more firm than their leaders wished, or their enemies believed. however, if any of my readers should incline to suspect that there was more disposition among this part of the community to throw off their allegiance to the queen altogether than i have admitted, he may possibly be in the right; and i shall not impugn his opinion, provided he concurs in attributing the whole, or nearly the whole, of this disaffection to her unjust aggressions on the liberty of conscience. [ ] _state trials_, i. . [ ] eliz. c. i. [ ] in murden's _state papers_ we have abundant evidence of mary's acquaintance with the plots going forward in and against elizabeth's government, if not with those for her assassination. but thomas morgan, one of the most active conspirators, writes to her, th july, : "there be some good members that attend opportunity to do the queen of england a piece of service, which i trust will quiet many things, if it shall please god to lay his assistance to the cause, for the which i pray daily."--p. . in her answer to this letter, she does not advert to this hint, but mentions babington as in correspondence with her. at her trial she denied all communication with him. [ ] it may probably be answered to this, that if the letter signed by walsingham as well as davison to sir amias paulet, urging him "to find out some way to shorten the life of the scots queen," be genuine, which cannot perhaps be justly questioned (though it is so in the _biog. brit._ art. walsingham, note o), it will be difficult to give him credit for any scrupulousness with respect to mary. but, without entirely justifying this letter, it is proper to remark, what the marian party choose to overlook, that it was written after the sentence, during the queen's odious scenes of grimace, when some might argue, though erroneously, that, a legal trial having passed, the formal method of putting the prisoner to death might in so peculiar a case, be dispensed with. this was elizabeth's own wish, in order to save her reputation, and enable her to throw the obloquy on her servants; which by paulet's prudence and honour in refusing to obey her by privately murdering his prisoner, she was reduced to do in a very bungling and scandalous manner. [ ] questions were put to civilians by the queen's order in , concerning the extent of lesley, bishop of ross's privilege, as mary's ambassador. _murden papers_, p. ; _somers tracts_, i. . they answered, first, that an ambassador that raises rebellion against the prince to whom he is sent, by the law of nations, and the civil law of the romans, has forfeited the privileges of an ambassador, and is liable to punishment: secondly, that if a prince be lawfully deposed from his public authority, and another substituted in his stead, the agent of such a prince cannot challenge the privileges of an ambassador; since none but absolute princes, and such as enjoy a royal prerogative, can constitute ambassadors. these questions are so far curious, that they show the _jus gentium_ to have been already reckoned in matter of science, in which a particular class of lawyers was conversant. [ ] strype, , . civilians were consulted about the legality of trying mary. _idem_, append. . [ ] butler's _english catholics_, i. ; hume. this is strongly confirmed by a letter printed not long after, and republished in the harleian _miscellany_, vol. i. p. , with the name of one leigh, a seminary priest, but probably the work of some protestant. he says, "for contributions of money, and for all other warlike actions, there was no difference between the catholic and the heretic. but in this case [of the armada] to withstand the threatened conquest, yea, to defend the person of the queen, there appeared such a sympathy, concourse, and consent of all sorts of persons, without respect of religion, as they all appeared to be ready to fight against all strangers as it were with one heart and one body." notwithstanding this, i am far from thinking that it would have been safe to place the catholics, generally speaking, in command. sir william stanley's recent treachery in giving up deventer to the spaniards made it unreasonable for them to complain of exclusion from trust. nor do i know that they did so. but trust and toleration are two different things. and even with respect to the former, i believe it far better to leave the matter in the hands of the executive government, which will not readily suffer itself to be betrayed, than to proscribe, as we have done, whole bodies by a legislative exclusion. whenever, indeed, the government itself is not to be trusted, there arises a new condition of the problem. [ ] strype, vols. iii. and iv. _passim_; _life of whitgift_, , ; murden, ; birch's _memoirs of elizabeth_, lingard, etc. one hundred and ten catholics suffered death between and . lingard, . [ ] eliz. c. . [ ] camden, ; strype, iv. . this was the declaration of october , which andreas philopater answered. ribadeneira also inveighs against it. according to them, its publication was delayed till after the death of hatton, when the persecuting part of the queen's council gained the ascendency. [ ] butler, . in coke's famous speech in opening the case of the powder-plot, he says that not more than thirty priests and five receivers had been executed in the whole of the queen's reign, and for religion not any one. _state trials_, ii. . dr. lingard says of those who were executed between , and the queen's death, "the butchery, with a few exceptions, was performed on the victim while he was in full possession of his senses." vol. viii. p. . i should be glad to think that the few exceptions were the other way. much would depend on the humanity of the sheriff, which one might hope to be stronger in an english gentleman than his zeal against popery. but i cannot help acknowledging that there is reason to believe the disgusting cruelties of the legal sentence to have been frequently inflicted. in an anonymous memorial among lord burleigh's papers, written about , it is recommended that priests persisting in their treasonable opinion should be hanged, "and the manner of drawing and quartering forborne." strype, iii. . this seems to imply that it had been usually practised on the living. and lord bacon, in his observations on a libel written against lord burleigh in , does not deny the "bowellings" of catholics; but makes a sort of apology for it, as "less cruel than the wheel or forcipation, or even simple burning." bacon's works, vol. i. p. . [ ] burnet, ii. . [ ] "though no papists were in this reign put to death purely on account of their religion, as numberless protestants had been in the woeful days of queen mary, yet many were executed for treason." churton's _life of nowell_, p. . mr. southey, whose abandonment of the oppressed side i sincerely regret, holds the same language; and a later writer, mr. townsend, in his _accusations of history against the church of rome_, has laboured to defend the capital, as well as other, punishments of catholics under elizabeth, on the same pretence of their treason. treason, by the law of england, and according to the common use of language, is the crime of rebellion or conspiracy against the government. if a statute is made, by which the celebration of certain religious rites is subjected to the same penalties as rebellion or conspiracy, would any man, free from prejudice, and not designing to impose upon the uninformed, speak of persons convicted on such a statute as guilty of treason, without expressing in what sense he uses the words, or deny that they were as truly punished for their religion, as if they had been convicted of heresy? a man is punished for religion, when he incurs a penalty for its profession or exercise, to which he was not liable on any other account. this is applicable to the great majority of capital convictions on this score under elizabeth. the persons convicted could not be traitors in any fair sense of the word, because they were not charged with anything properly denominated treason. it certainly appears that campian and some other priests about the same time were indicted on the statute of edward iii. for compassing the queen's death, or intending to depose her. but the only evidence, so far as we know or have reason to suspect, that could be brought against them, was their own admission, at least by refusing to abjure it, of the pope's power to depose heretical princes. i suppose it is unnecessary to prove that, without some overt act to show a design of acting upon this principle, it could not fall within the statute. [ ] watson's _quodlibets_. true relation of the faction begun at wisbech, . these tracts contain rather an uninteresting account of the squabbles in wisbech castle among the prisoners, but cast heavy reproaches on the jesuits, as the "firebrands of all sedition, seeking by right or wrong simply or absolutely the monarchy of all england, enemies to all secular priests, and the causes of all the discord in the english nation."--p. . i have seen several other pamphlets of the time relating to this difference. some account of it may be found in camden, , and strype, iv. , as well as in the catholic historians, dodd and lingard. [ ] rymer, xv. , . [ ] butler's _engl. catholics_, p. . [ ] ribadeneira says, that hatton, "animo catholicus, nihil perinde quam innocentem illorum sanguinem adeo crudeliter perfundi dolebat." he prevented cecil from promulgating a more atrocious edict than any other, which was published after his death in . _de schismate anglic._ c. . this must have been the proclamation of th nov. , forbidding all persons to harbour any one, of whose conformity they should not be well assured. [ ] birch, i. . chapter iv on the laws of elizabeth's reign respecting protestant nonconformists the two statutes enacted in the first year of elizabeth, commonly called the acts of supremacy and uniformity, are the main links of the anglican church with the temporal constitution, and establish the subordination and dependency of the former; the first abrogating all jurisdiction and legislative power of ecclesiastical rulers, except under the authority of the crown; and the second prohibiting all changes of rites and discipline without the approbation of parliament. it was the constant policy of this queen to maintain her ecclesiastical prerogative and the laws she had enacted. but in following up this principle she found herself involved in many troubles, and had to contend with a religious party, quite opposite to the romish, less dangerous indeed and inimical to her government, but full as vexatious and determined. _origin of the differences among the english protestants._--i have in another place slightly mentioned the differences that began to spring up under edward vi. between the moderate reformers who established the new anglican church, and those who accused them of proceeding with too much forbearance in casting off superstitions and abuses. these diversities of opinion were not without some relation to those which distinguished the two great families of protestantism in europe. luther, intent on his own system of dogmatic theology, had shown much indifference about retrenching exterior ceremonies, and had even favoured, especially in the first years of his preaching, that specious worship which some ardent reformers were eager to reduce to simplicity.[ ] crucifixes and images, tapers and priestly vestments, even for a time the elevation of the host and the latin mass-book, continued in the lutheran churches; while the disciples of zuingle and calvin were carefully eradicating them as popish idolatry and superstition. cranmer and ridley, the founders of the english reformation, justly deeming themselves independent of any foreign master, adopted a middle course between the lutheran and calvinistic ritual. the general tendency however of protestants, even in the reign of edward vi., was towards the simpler forms; whether through the influence of those foreign divines who co-operated in our reformation, or because it was natural in the heat of religious animosity to recede as far as possible, especially in such exterior distinctions, from the opposite denomination. the death of edward seems to have prevented a further approach to the scheme of geneva in our ceremonies, and perhaps in our discipline. during the persecution of mary's reign, the most eminent protestant clergymen took refuge in various cities of germany and switzerland. they were received by the calvinists with hospitality and fraternal kindness; while the lutheran divines, a narrow-minded intolerant faction, both neglected and insulted them.[ ] divisions soon arose among themselves about the use of the english service, in which a pretty considerable party was disposed to make alterations. the chief scene of these disturbances was frankfort, where knox, the famous reformer of scotland, headed the innovators; while cox, an eminent divine, much concerned in the establishment of edward vi., and afterwards bishop of ely, stood up for the original liturgy. cox succeeded (not quite fairly, if we may rely on the only narrative we possess) in driving his opponents from the city; but these disagreements were by no means healed, when the accession of elizabeth recalled both parties to their own country, neither of them very likely to display more mutual charity in their prosperous hour, than they had been able to exercise in a common persecution.[ ] _religious inclinations of the queen._--the first mortification these exiles endured on their return was to find a more dilatory advance towards public reformation of religion, and more of what they deemed lukewarmness, than their sanguine zeal had anticipated. most part of this delay was owing to the greater prudence of the queen's counsellors, who felt the pulse of the nation before they ventured on such essential changes. but there was yet another obstacle, on which the reformers had not reckoned. elizabeth, though resolute against submitting to the papal supremacy, was not so averse to all the tenets abjured by protestants, and loved also a more splendid worship than had prevailed in her brother's reign; while many of those returned from the continent were intent on copying a still simpler model. she reproved a divine who preached against the real presence, and is even said to have used prayers to the virgin.[ ] but her great struggle with the reformers was about images, and particularly the crucifix, which she retained, with lighted tapers before it, in her chapel; though in the injunctions to the ecclesiastical visitors of , they are directed to have them taken away from churches.[ ] this concession she must have made very reluctantly, for we find proofs the next year of her inclination to restore them; and the question of their lawfulness was debated, as jewel writes word to peter martyr, by himself and grindal on one side, against parker and cox, who had been persuaded to argue in their favour.[ ] but the strenuous opposition of men so distinguished as jewel, sandys, and grindal, of whom the first declared his intention of resigning his bishopric in case this return towards superstition should be made, compelled elizabeth to relinquish her project.[ ] the crucifix was even for a time removed from her own chapel, but replaced about .[ ] there was however one other subject of dispute between the old and new religions, upon which her majesty could not be brought to adopt the protestant side of the question. this was the marriage of the clergy, to which she expressed so great an aversion, that she would never consent to repeal the statute of her sister's reign against it.[ ] accordingly, the bishops and clergy, though they married by connivance, or rather by an ungracious permission,[ ] saw, with very just dissatisfaction, their children treated by the law as the offspring of concubinage.[ ] this continued, in legal strictness, till the first year of james, when the statute of mary was explicitly repealed; though i cannot help suspecting that clerical marriages had been tacitly recognised, even in courts of justice, long before that time. yet it appears less probable to derive elizabeth's prejudice in this respect from any deference to the roman discipline, than from that strange dislike to the most lawful union between the sexes, which formed one of the singularities of her character. such a reluctance as the queen displayed to return in every point even to the system established under edward, was no slight disappointment to those who thought that too little had been effected by it. they had beheld at zurich and geneva the simplest, and, as they conceived, the purest form of worship. they were persuaded that the vestments still worn by the clergy, as in the days of popery, though in themselves indifferent, led to erroneous notions among the people, and kept alive a recollection of former superstitions, which would render their return to them more easy in the event of another political revolution.[ ] they disliked some other ceremonies for the same reason. these objections were by no means confined, as is perpetually insinuated, to a few discontented persons. except archbishop parker, who had remained in england during the late reign, and cox, bishop of ely, who had taken a strong part at frankfort against innovation, all the most eminent churchmen, such as jewel, grindal, sandys, nowell, were in favour of leaving off the surplice and what were called the popish ceremonies.[ ] whether their objections are to be deemed narrow and frivolous or otherwise, it is inconsistent with veracity to dissemble that the queen alone was the cause of retaining those observances, to which the great separation from the anglican establishment is ascribed. had her influence been withdrawn, surplices and square caps would have lost their steadiest friend; and several other little accommodations to the prevalent dispositions of protestants would have taken place. of this it seems impossible to doubt, when we read the proceedings of the convocation in , when a proposition to abolish most of the usages deemed objectionable was lost only by a vote, the numbers being to .[ ] in thus restraining the ardent zeal of reformation, elizabeth may not have been guided merely by her own prejudices, without far higher motives of prudence and even of equity. it is difficult to pronounce in what proportion the two conflicting religions were blended on her coming to the throne. the reformed occupied most large towns, and were no doubt a more active and powerful body than their opponents. nor did the ecclesiastical visitors of complain of any resistance, or even unwillingness, among the people.[ ] still the romish party was extremely numerous; it comprehended the far greater portion of the beneficed clergy, and all those who, having no turn for controversy, clung with pious reverence to the rites and worship of their earliest associations. it might be thought perhaps not very repugnant to wisdom or to charity, that such persons should be won over to the reformed faith by retaining a few indifferent usages, which gratified their eyes, and took off the impression, so unpleasing to simple minds, of religious innovation. it might be urged that, should even somewhat more of superstition remain awhile than rational men would approve, the mischief would be far less than to drive the people back into the arms of popery, or to expose them to the natural consequences of destroying at once all old landmarks of reverence,--a dangerous fanaticism, or a careless irreligion. i know not in what degree these considerations had weight with elizabeth; but they were such as it well became her to entertain. we live however too far from the period of her accession, to pass an unqualified decision on the course of policy which it was best for the queen to pursue. the difficulties of effecting a compromise between two intolerant and exclusive sects were perhaps insuperable. in maintaining or altering a religious establishment, it may be reckoned the general duty of governments to respect the wishes of the majority. but it is also a rule of human policy to favour the more efficient and determined, which may not always be the more numerous party. i am far from being convinced that it would not have been practicable, by receding a little from that uniformity which governors delight to prescribe, to have palliated in a great measure, if not put an end for a time, to the discontent that so soon endangered the new establishment. the frivolous usages, to which so many frivolous objections were raised, such as the tippet and surplice, the sign of the cross in baptism, the ring in matrimony, the posture of kneeling at the communion, might have been left to private discretion, not possibly without some inconvenience, but with less, as i conceive, than resulted from rendering their observance indispensable. nor should we allow ourselves to be turned aside by the common reply, that no concessions of this kind would have ultimately prevented the disunion of the church upon more essential differences than these litigated ceremonies; since the science of policy, like that of medicine, must content itself with devising remedies for immediate danger, and can at best only retard the progress of that intrinsic decay which seems to be the law of all things human, and through which every institution of man, like his earthly frame, must one day crumble into ruin. _unwillingness to comply with the established ceremonies._--the repugnance felt by a large part of the protestant clergy to the ceremonies with which elizabeth would not consent to dispense, showed itself in irregular transgressions of the uniformity prescribed by statute. some continued to wear the habits, others laid them aside; the communicants received the sacrament sitting, or standing, or kneeling, according to the minister's taste; some baptized in the font, others in a basin; some with the sign of the cross, others without it. the people in london and other towns, siding chiefly with the malcontents, insulted such of the clergy as observed the prescribed order.[ ] many of the bishops readily connived at deviations from ceremonies which they disapproved. some, who felt little objection to their use, were against imposing them as necessary.[ ] and this opinion, which led to very momentous inferences, began so much to prevail, that we soon find the objections to conformity more grounded on the unlawfulness of compulsory regulations in the church prescribed by the civil power, than on any special impropriety in the usages themselves. but this principle, which perhaps the scrupulous party did not yet very fully avow, was altogether incompatible with the supremacy vested in the queen, of which fairest flower of her prerogative she was abundantly tenacious. one thing was evident, that the puritan malcontents were growing every day more numerous, more determined, and more likely to win over the generality of those who sincerely favoured the protestant cause. there were but two lines to be taken; either to relax and modify the regulations which gave offence, or to enforce a more punctual observation of them. it seems to me far more probable that the former course would have prevented a great deal of that mischief which the second manifestly aggravated. for in this early stage the advocates of a simpler ritual had by no means assumed the shape of an embodied faction, whom concessions, it must be owned, are not apt to satisfy, but numbered the most learned and distinguished portion of the hierarchy. parker stood nearly alone on the other side, but alone more than an equipoise in the balance, through his high station, his judgment in matters of policy, and his knowledge of the queen's disposition. he had possibly reason to apprehend that elizabeth, irritated by the prevalent humour for alteration, might burst entirely away from the protestant side, or stretch her supremacy to reduce the church into a slavish subjection to her caprice.[ ] this might induce a man of his sagacity, who took a far wider view of civil affairs than his brethren, to exert himself according to her peremptory command for universal conformity. but it is not easy to reconcile the whole of his conduct to this supposition; and in the copious memorials of strype, we find the archbishop rather exciting the queen to rigorous measures against the puritans than standing in need of her admonition.[ ] _conformity enforced by the archbishop against the disposition of others._--the unsettled state of exterior religion which has been mentioned lasted till . in the beginning of that year a determination was taken by the queen, or rather perhaps the archbishop, to put a stop to all irregularities in the public service. he set forth a book called _advertisements_, containing orders and regulations for the discipline of the clergy. this modest title was taken in consequence of the queen's withholding her sanction of its appearance through leicester's influence.[ ] the primate's next step was to summon before the ecclesiastical commission sampson, dean of christchurch, and humphrey, president of magdalen college, oxford, men of signal non-conformity, but at the same time of such eminent reputation that, when the law took its course against them, no other offender could hope for indulgence. on refusing to wear the customary habits, sampson was deprived of his deanery; but the other seems to have been tolerated.[ ] this instance of severity, as commonly happens, rather irritated than intimidated the puritan clergy, aware of their numbers, their popularity, and their powerful friends, but above all sustained by their own sincerity and earnestness. parker had taken his resolution to proceed in the vigorous course he had begun. he obtained from the queen a proclamation, peremptorily requiring conformity in the use of the clerical vestments and other matters of discipline. the london ministers, summoned before himself and their bishop, grindal, who did not very willingly co-operate with his metropolitan, were called upon for a promise to comply with the legal ceremonies, which thirty-seven out of ninety-eight refused to make. they were in consequence suspended from their ministry, and their livings put in sequestration. but these unfortunately, as was the case in all this reign, were the most conspicuous, both for their general character and for their talent in preaching.[ ] whatever deviations from uniformity existed within the pale of the anglican church, no attempt had hitherto been made to form separate assemblies; nor could it be deemed necessary, while so much indulgence had been conceded to the scrupulous clergy. but they were now reduced to determine whether the imposition of those rites they disliked would justify, or render necessary, an abandonment of their ministry. the bishops of that school had so far overcome their repugnance, as not only to observe the ceremonies of the church, but, in some instances, to employ compulsion towards others.[ ] a more unexceptionable, because more disinterested, judgment was pronounced by some of the swiss reformers to whom our own paid great respect--beza, gualter, and bullinger; who, while they regretted the continuance of a few superfluous rites, and still more the severity used towards good men, dissuaded their friends from deserting their vocation on that account. several of the most respectable opponents of the ceremonies were equally adverse to any open schism.[ ] but the animosities springing from heated zeal, and the smart of what seemed oppression, would not suffer the english puritans generally to acquiesce in such temperate counsels. they began to form separate conventicles in london, not ostentatiously indeed, but of course without the possibility of eluding notice. it was doubtless worthy of much consideration, whether an established church-government could wink at the systematic disregard of its discipline by those who were subject to its jurisdiction and partook of its revenues. and yet there were many important considerations derived from the posture of religion and of the state, which might induce cool-headed men to doubt the expediency of too much straightening the reins. but there are few, i trust, who can hesitate to admit that the puritan clergy, after being excluded from their benefices, might still claim from a just government a peaceful toleration of their particular worship. this it was vain to expect from the queen's arbitrary spirit, the imperious humour of parker, and that total disregard of the rights of conscience which was common to all parties in the sixteenth century. the first instance of actual punishment inflicted on protestant dissenters was in june , when a company of more than one hundred were seized during their religious exercises at plummer's hall, which they had hired on pretence of a wedding, and fourteen or fifteen of them were sent to prison.[ ] they behaved on their examination with a rudeness as well as self-sufficiency, that had already begun to characterise the puritan faction. but this cannot excuse the fatal error of molesting men for the exercise of their own religion. these coercive proceedings of the archbishop were feebly seconded, or directly thwarted, by most leading men both in church and state. grindal and sandys, successively bishops of london and archbishops of york, were naturally reckoned at this time somewhat favourable to the non-conforming ministers, whose scruples they had partaken. parkhurst and pilkington, bishops of norwich and durham, were openly on their side.[ ] they had still more effectual support in the queen's council. the earl of leicester, who possessed more power than any one to sway her wavering and capricious temper, the earls of bedford, huntingdon, and warwick, regarded as the steadiest protestants among the aristocracy, the wise and grave lord keeper bacon, the sagacious walsingham, the experienced sadler, the zealous knollys, considered these objects of parker's severity, either as demanding a purer worship than had been established in the church, or at least as worthy by their virtues and services of more indulgent treatment.[ ] cecil himself, though on intimate terms with the archbishop, and concurring generally in his measures, was not far removed from the latter way of thinking, if his natural caution and extreme dread at this juncture of losing the queen's favour had permitted him more unequivocally to express it. those whose judgment did not incline them towards the puritan notions, respected the scruples of men in whom the reformed religion could so implicitly confide. they had regard also to the condition of the church. the far greater part of its benefices were supplied by conformists of very doubtful sincerity, who would resume their mass-books with more alacrity than they had cast them aside.[ ] such a deficiency of protestant clergy had been experienced at the queen's accession, that for several years it was a common practice to appoint laymen, usually mechanics, to read the service in vacant churches.[ ] these were not always wholly illiterate; or if they were, it was no more than might be said of the popish clergy, the vast majority of whom were destitute of all useful knowledge, and could read little latin.[ ] of the two universities, oxford had become so strongly attached to the romish side during the late reign, that, after the desertion or expulsion of the most zealous of that party had almost emptied several colleges, it still for many years abounded with adherents to the old religion.[ ] but at cambridge, which had been equally popish at the queen's accession, the opposite faction soon acquired the ascendant. the younger students, imbibing ardently the new creed of ecclesiastical liberty, and excited by puritan sermons, began to throw off their surplices, and to commit other breaches of discipline, from which it might be inferred that the generation to come would not be less apt for innovation than the present.[ ] _a more determined opposition, about , led by cartwright._--the first period in the history of puritanism includes the time from the queen's accession to , during which the retention of superstitious ceremonies in the church had been the sole avowed ground of complaint. but when these obnoxious rites came to be enforced with unsparing rigour, and even those who voluntarily renounced the temporal advantages of the establishment were hunted from their private conventicles, they began to consider the national system of ecclesiastical regimen as itself in fault, and to transfer to the institution of episcopacy that dislike they felt for some of the prelates. the ostensible founder of this new school (though probably its tenets were by no means new to many of the sect) was thomas cartwright, the lady margaret's professor of divinity at cambridge. he began about to inculcate the unlawfulness of any form of church-government, except what the apostles had instituted, namely, the presbyterian. a deserved reputation for virtue, learning, and acuteness, an ardent zeal, an inflexible self-confidence, a vigorous, rude, and arrogant style, marked him as the formidable leader of a religious faction.[ ] in he published his celebrated _admonition to the parliament_, calling on that assembly to reform the various abuses subsisting in the church. in this treatise, such a hardy spirit of innovation was displayed, and schemes of ecclesiastical policy so novel and extraordinary were developed, that it made a most important epoch in the contest, and rendered its termination far more improbable. the hour for liberal concessions had been suffered to pass away; the archbishops' intolerant temper had taught men to question the authority that oppressed them, till the battle was no longer to be fought for a tippet and a surplice, but for the whole ecclesiastical hierarchy, interwoven as it was with the temporal constitution of england. it had been the first measure adopted in throwing off the yoke of rome to invest the sovereign with an absolute control over the anglican church; so that no part of its coercive discipline could be exercised but by his authority, nor any laws enacted for its governance without his sanction. this supremacy, indeed both henry viii. and edward vi. had carried so far, that the bishops were reduced almost to the rank of temporal officers, taking out commissions to rule their dioceses during the king's pleasure; and cranmer had prostrated at the feet of henry those spiritual functions which have usually been reckoned inherent in the order of clergy. elizabeth took some pains to soften and almost explain away her supremacy, in order to conciliate the catholics; while, by means of the high commission court, established by statute in the first year of her reign, she was practically asserting it with no little despotism. but the avowed opponents of this prerogative were hitherto chiefly those who looked to rome for another head of their church. the disciples of cartwright now learned to claim an ecclesiastical independence, as unconstrained as the romish priesthood in the darkest ages had usurped. "no civil magistrate in councils or assemblies for church matters," he says in his _admonition_, "can either be chief moderator, over-ruler, judge, or determiner; nor has he such authority as that, without his consent, it should not be lawful for ecclesiastical persons to make any church orders or ceremonies. church matters ought ordinarily to be handled by church officers. the principal direction of them is by god's ordinance committed to the ministers of the church and to the ecclesiastical governors. as these meddle not with the making civil laws, so the civil magistrate ought not to ordain ceremonies, or determine controversies in the church, as long as they do not intrench upon his temporal authority. 'tis the prince's province to protect and defend the councils of his clergy, to keep the peace, to see their decrees executed, and to punish the contemners of them; but to exercise no spiritual jurisdiction."[ ] "it must be remembered," he says in another place, "that civil magistrates must govern the church according to the rules of god prescribed in his word, and that as they are nurses, so they be servants unto the church; and as they rule in the church, so they must remember to submit themselves unto the church, to submit their sceptres, to throw down their crowns before the church, yea, as the prophet speaketh, to lick the dust of the feet of the church."[ ] it is difficult to believe that i am transcribing the words of a protestant writer; so much does this passage call to mind those tones of infatuated arrogance, which had been heard from the lips of gregory vii. and of those who trod in his footsteps.[ ] the strength of the protestant party had been derived, both in germany and in england, far less from their superiority in argument, however decisive this might be, than from that desire which all classes, and especially the higher, had long experienced to emancipate themselves from the thraldom of ecclesiastical jurisdiction. for it is ever found, that men do not so much as give a hearing to novel systems in religion, till they have imbibed, from some cause or other, a secret distaste to that in which they have been educated. it was therefore rather alarming to such as had an acquaintance with ecclesiastical history, and knew the encroachments formerly made by the hierarchy throughout europe, encroachments perfectly distinguishable from those of the roman see, to perceive the same pretensions urged, and the same ambition and arrogance at work, which had imposed a yoke on the necks of their fathers. with whatever plausibility it might be maintained that a connection with temporal magistrates could only corrupt the purity and shackle the liberties of a christian church, this argument was not for them to urge, who called on those magistrates to do the church's bidding, to enforce its decrees, to punish its refractory members; and while they disdained to accept the prince's co-operation as their ally, claimed his service as their minister. the protestant dissenters since the revolution, who have almost unanimously, and, i doubt not, sincerely, declared their averseness to any religious establishment, especially as accompanied with coercive power, even in favour of their own sect, are by no means chargeable with these errors of the early puritans. but the scope of cartwright's declaration was not to obtain a toleration for dissent, not even by abolishing the whole ecclesiastical polity, to place the different professions of religion on an equal footing, but to substitute his own model of government, the one, exclusive, unappealable standard of obedience, with all the endowments, so far as applicable to its frame, of the present church, and with all the support to its discipline that the civil power could afford.[ ] we are not however to conclude that every one, or even the majority, of those who might be counted on the puritan side in elizabeth's reign, would have subscribed to these extravagant sentences of cartwright, or desired to take away the legal supremacy of the crown.[ ] that party acquired strength by the prevailing hatred and dread of popery, and by the disgust which the bishops had been unfortunate enough to excite. if the language which i have quoted from the puritans breathed a spirit of ecclesiastical usurpation that might one day become dangerous, many were of opinion that a spirit not less mischievous in the present hierarchy, under the mask of the queen's authority, was actually manifesting itself in deeds of oppression. the upper ranks among the laity, setting aside courtiers, and such as took little interest in the dispute, were chiefly divided between those attached to the ancient church and those who wished for further alterations in the new. i conceive the church of england party, that is, the party adverse to any species of ecclesiastical change, to have been the least numerous of the three during this reign; still excepting, as i have said, the neutrals, who commonly make a numerical majority, and are counted along with the dominant religion.[ ] but by the act of the fifth of elizabeth, roman catholics were excluded from the house of commons; or, if some that way affected might occasionally creep into it, yet the terror of penal laws impending over their heads would make them extremely cautious of betraying their sentiments. this contributed with the prevalent tone of public opinion, to throw such a weight into the puritanical scale in the commons, as it required all the queen's energy to counterbalance. _puritans supported in the commons._--in the parliament that met in april , a few days only after the commencement of the session, mr. strickland, "a grave and ancient man of great zeal," as the reporter styles him, began the attack by a long but apparently temperate speech on the abuses of the church, tending only to the retrenchment of a few superstitions in the liturgy, and to some reforms in the disposition of benefices. he proceeded to bring in a bill for the reformation of the common prayer, which was read a first time. abuses in respect to benefices appear to have been a copious theme of scandal. the power of dispensation, which had occasioned so much clamour in former ages, instead of being abolished or even reduced into bounds at the reformation, had been transferred entire from the pope to the king and archbishop. and, after the council of trent had effected such considerable reforms in the catholic discipline, it seemed a sort of reproach to the protestant church of england, that she retained all the dispensations, the exemptions, the pluralities, which had been deemed the peculiar corruptions of the worst times of popery.[ ] in the reign of edward vi., as i have already mentioned, the canon law being naturally obnoxious from its origin and character, a commission was appointed to draw up a code of ecclesiastical laws. this was accordingly compiled, but never obtained the sanction of parliament; and though some attempts were made, and especially in the commons at this very time, to bring it again before the legislature, our ecclesiastical tribunals have been always compelled to borrow a great part of their principles from canon law: one important consequence of which may be mentioned by way of illustration; that they are incompetent to grant a divorce from the bond of marriage in cases of adultery, as had been provided in the reformation of ecclesiastical laws compiled under edward vi. a disorderly state of the church, arising partly from the want of any fixed rules of discipline, partly from the negligence of some bishops, and simony of others, but above all, from the rude state of manners and general ignorance of the clergy, is the common theme of complaint in this period, and aggravated the increasing disaffection towards the prelacy. a bill was brought into the commons to take away the granting of licences and dispensations by the archbishop of canterbury. but the queen's interference put a stop to this measure.[ ] the house of commons gave in this session a more forcible proof of its temper in ecclesiastical concerns. the articles of the english church, originally drawn up under edward vi., after having undergone some alteration, were finally reduced to their present form by the convocation of . but it seems to have been thought necessary that they should have the sanction of parliament, in order to make them binding on the clergy. of these articles the far greater portion relate to matters of faith, concerning which no difference of opinion had as yet appeared. some few however declare the lawfulness of the established form of consecrating bishops and priests, the supremacy of the crown, and the power of the church to order rites and ceremonies. these involved the main questions at issue; and the puritan opposition was strong enough to withhold the approbation of the legislature from this part of the national symbol. the act of eliz. c. , accordingly enacts, that every priest or minister shall subscribe to all the articles of religion which _only_ concern the confession of the true christian faith, and the doctrine of the sacraments, comprised in a book entitled _articles whereupon it was agreed_, etc. that the word _only_ was inserted for the sake of excluding the articles which established church authority and the actual discipline, is evident from a remarkable conversation which mr. wentworth, the most distinguished asserter of civil liberty in this reign, relates himself in a subsequent session (that of ), to have held on the subject with archbishop parker. "i was," he says, "among others, the last parliament sent for unto the archbishop of canterbury, for the articles of religion that then passed this house. he asked us, 'why we did put out of the book the articles for the homilies, consecration of bishops, and such like?' 'surely, sir,' said i, 'because we were so occupied in other matters that we had no time to examine them how they agreed with the word of god.' 'what!' said he, 'surely you mistake the matter; you will refer yourselves wholly to us therein!' 'no; by the faith i bear to god,' said i, 'we will pass nothing before we understand what it is; for that were but to make you popes: make you popes who list,' said i, 'for we will make you none.' and sure, mr. speaker, the speech seemed to me to be a pope-like speech, and i fear least our bishops do attribute this of the pope's canons unto themselves; papa non potest errare."[ ] the intrepid assertion of the right of private judgment on one side, and the pretension to something like infallibility on the other, which have been for more than two centuries since so incessantly repeated, are here curiously brought into contrast. as to the reservation itself, obliquely insinuated rather than expressed in this statute, it proved of little practical importance, the bishops having always exacted a subscription to the whole thirty-nine articles.[ ] it was not to be expected that the haughty spirit of parker, which had refused to spare the honest scruples of sampson and coverdale, would abate of its rigour towards the daring paradoxes of cartwright. his disciples, in truth, from dissatisfied subjects of the church, were become her downright rebels, with whom it was hardly practicable to make any compromise that would avoid a schism, except by sacrificing the splendour and jurisdiction of an established hierarchy. the archbishop continued, therefore, to harass the puritan ministers, suppressing their books, silencing them in churches, prosecuting them in private meetings.[ ] sandys and grindal, the moderate reformers of our spiritual aristocracy, not only withdrew their countenance from a party who aimed at improvement by subversion, but fell, according to the unhappy temper of their age, into courses of undue severity. not merely the preachers, to whom, as regular ministers, the rules of canonical obedience might apply, but plain citizens, for listening to their sermons, were dragged before the high commission and imprisoned upon any refusal to conform.[ ] strange that these prelates should not have remembered their own magnanimous readiness to encounter suffering for conscience sake in the days of mary, or should have fondly arrogated to their particular church that elastic force of resolution, which disdains to acknowledge tyrannous power within the sanctuary of the soul, and belongs to the martyrs of every opinion without attesting the truth of any! the puritans meanwhile had not lost all their friends in the council, though it had become more difficult to protect them. one powerful reason undoubtedly operated on walsingham and other ministers of elizabeth's court against crushing their party; namely, the precariousness of the queen's life, and the unsettled prospects of succession. they had already seen, in the duke of norfolk's conspiracy, that more than half the superior nobility had committed themselves to support the title of the queen of scots. that title was sacred to all who professed the catholic religion, and respectable to a large proportion of the rest. but deeming, as they did, that queen a convicted adulteress and murderer, the determined enemy of their faith, and conscious that she could never forgive those who had counselled her detention and sought her death, it would have been unworthy of their prudence and magnanimity to have gone as sheep to the slaughter, and risked the destruction of protestantism under a second mary, if the intrigues of ambitious men, the pusillanimity of the multitude, and the specious pretext of hereditary right, should favour her claims on a demise of the crown. they would have failed perhaps in attempting to resist them; but upon resistance i make no question that they had resolved. in so awful a crisis, to what could they better look than to the stern, intrepid, uncompromising spirit of puritanism; congenial to that of the scottish reformers, by whose aid the lords of the congregation had overthrown the ancient religion in despite of the regent mary of guise? of conforming churchmen, in general, they might well be doubtful, after the oscillations of the three preceding reigns; but every abhorrer of ceremonies, every rejecter of prelatical authority, might be trusted as protestant to the heart's core, whose sword would be as ready as his tongue to withstand idolatry. nor had the puritans admitted, even in theory, those extravagant notions of passive obedience which the church of england had thought fit to mingle with her homilies. while the victory was yet so uncertain, while contingencies so incalculable might renew the struggle, all politic friends of the reformation would be anxious not to strengthen the enemy by disunion in their own camp. thus sir francis walsingham, who had been against enforcing the obnoxious habits, used his influence with the scrupulous not to separate from the church on account of them; and again, when the schism had already ensued, thwarted as far as his credit in the council extended, that harsh intolerance of the bishops which aggravated its mischiefs.[ ] we should reason in as confined a manner as the puritans themselves, by looking only at the captious frivolousness of their scruples, and treating their sect either as wholly contemptible or as absolutely mischievous. we do injustice to these wise counsellors of the maiden queen, when we condemn, i do not mean on the maxims only of toleration, but of civil prudence, their unwillingness to crush the non-conforming clergy by an undeviating rigour. it may justly be said that, in a religious sense, it was a greater good to possess a well-instructed pious clergy, able to contend against popery, than it was an evil to let some prejudices against mere ceremonies gain a head. the old religion was by no means, for at least the first half of elizabeth's reign, gone out of the minds of the people. the lurking priests had great advantages from the attractive nature of their faith, and some, no doubt, from its persecution. a middle system, like the anglican, though it was more likely to produce exterior conformity, and for that reason was, i think, judiciously introduced at the outset, did not afford such a security against relapse, nor draw over the heart so thoroughly, as one which admitted of no compromise. thus the sign of the cross in baptism, one of the principal topics of objection, may well seem in itself a very innocent and decorous ceremony. but if the perpetual use of that sign is one of the most striking superstitions in the church of rome, it might be urged in behalf of the puritans, that the people were less likely to treat it with contempt, when they saw its continuance, even in one instance, so strictly insisted upon. i do not pretend to say that this reasoning is right, but that it is at least plausible, and that we must go back and place ourselves, as far as we can, in those times, before we determine upon the whole of this controversy in its manifold bearings. the great object of elizabeth's ministers, it must be kept in mind, was the preservation of the protestant religion, to which all ceremonies of the church, and even its form of discipline, were subordinate. an indifferent passiveness among the people, a humble trust in authority, however desirable in the eyes of churchmen, was not the temper which would have kept out the right heir from the throne, or quelled the generous ardour of the catholic gentry on the queen's decease. _prophecyings._--a matter very much connected with the present subject will illustrate the different schemes of ecclesiastical policy pursued by the two parties that divided elizabeth's council. the clergy in several dioceses set up, with encouragement from their superiors, a certain religious exercise, called prophecyings. they met at appointed times to expound and discuss together particular texts of scripture, under the presidency of a moderator, appointed by the bishop, who finished by repeating the substance of their debate with his own determination upon it. these discussions were in public; and it was contended that this sifting of the grounds of their faith, and habitual argumentation, would both tend to edify the people, very little acquainted as yet with their religion, and supply in some degree the deficiencies of learning among the pastors themselves. these deficiencies were indeed glaring; and it is not unlikely that the prophecyings might have had a salutary effect, if it had been possible to exclude the prevailing spirit of the age. it must however be evident to any one who had experience of mankind, that the precise clergy, armed not only with popular topics, but with an intrinsic superiority of learning and ability to support them, would wield these assemblies at their pleasure, whatever might be the regulations devised for their control. the queen entirely disliked them, and directed parker to put them down. he wrote accordingly to parkhurst, bishop of norwich, for that purpose. the bishop was unwilling to comply. and some privy counsellors interfered by a letter, enjoining him not to hinder these exercises, so long as nothing contrary to the church was taught therein. this letter was signed by sir thomas smith, sir walter mildmay, bishop sandys, and sir francis knollys. it was, in effect, to reverse what the archbishop had done. parker, however, who was not easily daunted, wrote again to parkhurst, that, understanding he had received instructions in opposition to the queen's orders and his own, he desired to be informed what they were. this seems to have checked the counsellors; for we find that the prophecyings were now put down.[ ] though many will be of opinion that parker took a statesmanlike view of the interests of the church of england in discouraging these exercises, they were generally regarded as so conducive to instruction that he seems to have stood almost alone in his opposition to them. sandys' name appears to the above-mentioned letter of the council to parkhurst. cox, also, was inclined to favour the prophecyings. and grindal, who in succeeded parker in the see of canterbury, bore the whole brunt of the queen's displeasure rather than obey her commands on this subject. he conceived that, by establishing strict rules with respect to the direction of those assemblies, the abuses which had already appeared of disorderly debate, and attacks on the discipline of the church, might be got rid of without entirely abolishing the exercise. the queen would hear of no middle course, and insisted both that the prophecyings should be discontinued, and that fewer licences for preaching should be granted. for no parish priest could without a licence preach any discourse except the regular homilies; and this was one of the points of contention with the puritans. grindal steadily refused to comply with this injunction; and was in consequence sequestered from the exercise of his jurisdiction for the space of about five years, till, on his making a kind of submission, the sequestration was taken off not long before his death. the queen, by circular letters to the bishops, commanded them to put an end to the prophecyings, which were never afterwards renewed.[ ] _whitgift._--whitgift, bishop of worcester, a person of a very opposite disposition, was promoted, in , to the primacy, on grindal's decease. he had distinguished himself some years before by an answer to cartwright's _admonition_, written with much ability, but not falling short of the work it undertook to confute in rudeness and asperity.[ ] it is seldom good policy to confer such eminent stations in the church on the gladiators of theological controversy; who from vanity and resentment, as well as the course of their studies, will always be prone to exaggerate the importance of the disputes wherein they have been engaged, and to turn whatever authority the laws or the influence of their place may give them against their adversaries. this was fully illustrated by the conduct of archbishop whitgift, whose elevation the wisest of elizabeth's counsellors had ample reason to regret. in a few months after his promotion, he gave an earnest of the rigour he had determined to adopt, by promulgating articles for the observance of discipline. one of these prohibited all preaching, reading, or catechising in private houses, whereto any not of the same family should resort, "seeing the same was never permitted as lawful under any christian magistrate." but that which excited the loudest complaints was the subscription to three points, the queen's supremacy, the lawfulness of the common prayer and ordination service, and the truth of the whole thirty-nine articles, exacted from every minister of the church.[ ] these indeed were so far from novelties, that it might seem rather supererogatory to demand them (if in fact the law required subscription to all the articles); yet it is highly probable that many had hitherto eluded the legal subscriptions, and that others had conceived their scruples after having conformed to the prescribed order. the archbishop's peremptory requisition passed, perhaps justly, for an illegal stretch of power.[ ] it encountered the resistance of men pertinaciously attached to their own tenets, and ready to suffer the privations of poverty rather than yield a simulated obedience. to suffer however in silence has at no time been a virtue with our protestant dissenters. the kingdom resounded with the clamour of those who were suspended or deprived of their benefices, and of their numerous abettors.[ ] they appealed from the archbishop to the privy council. the gentry of kent and other countries strongly interposed in their behalf. they had powerful friends at court, especially knollys, who wrote a warm letter to the archbishop.[ ] but, secure of the queen's support, who was now chiefly under the influence of sir christopher hatton, a decided enemy to the puritans, whitgift relented not a jot of his resolution, and went far greater lengths than parker had ever ventured, or perhaps had desired, to proceed. _high commission court._--the act of supremacy, while it restored all ecclesiastical jurisdiction to the crown, empowered the queen to execute it by commissioners appointed under the great seal, in such manner and for such time as she should direct; whose power should extend to visit, correct, and amend all heresies, schisms, abuses, and offences whatever, which fall under the cognisance and are subject to the correction of spiritual authority. several temporary commissions had sat under this act with continually augmented powers, before that appointed in , wherein the jurisdiction of this anomalous court almost reached its zenith. it consisted of forty-four commissioners, twelve of whom were bishops, many more privy-counsellors, and the rest either clergymen or civilians. this commission, after reciting the acts of supremacy, uniformity, and two others, directs them to inquire from time to time, as well by the oaths of twelve good and lawful men, as by witnesses and all other means they can devise, of all offences, contempts, or misdemeanours done and committed contrary to the tenor of the said several acts and statutes; and also to inquire of all heretical opinions, seditious books, contempts, conspiracies, false rumours or talk, slanderous words and sayings, etc., contrary to the aforesaid laws. power is given to any three commissioners, of whom one must be a bishop, to punish all persons absent from church, according to the act of uniformity, or to visit and reform heresies and schisms according to law; to deprive all beneficed persons holding any doctrine contrary to the thirty-nine articles; to punish incests, adulteries, and all offences of the kind; to examine all suspected persons on their oaths, and to punish all who should refuse to appear or to obey their orders, by spiritual censure or by discretionary fine or imprisonment; to alter and amend the statutes of colleges, cathedrals, schools, and other foundations, and to tender the oath of supremacy according to the act of parliament.[ ] master of such tremendous machinery, the archbishop proceeded to call into action one of its powers contained for the first time in the present commission, by tendering what was technically styled the oath _ex officio_, to such of the clergy as were surmised to harbour a spirit of puritanical disaffection. this procedure, which was wholly founded on the canon law, consisted in a series of interrogations, so comprehensive as to embrace the whole scope of clerical uniformity, yet so precise and minute as to leave no room for evasion, to which the suspected party was bound to answer upon oath.[ ] so repugnant was this to the rules of our english law, and to the principles of natural equity, that no species of ecclesiastical tyranny seems to have excited so much indignation. _lord burleigh averse to severity._--lord burleigh, who, though at first rather friendly to whitgift, was soon disgusted by his intolerant and arbitrary behaviour, wrote in strong terms of remonstrance against these articles of examination, as "so curiously penned, so full of branches and circumstances, as he thought the inquisitors of spain used not so many questions to comprehend and to trap their preys." the primate replied by alleging reasons in behalf of the mode of examination, but very frivolous, and such as a man determined to persevere in an unwarrantable course of action may commonly find.[ ] they had little effect on the calm and sagacious mind of the treasurer, who continued to express his dissatisfaction, both individually and as one of the privy council.[ ] but the extensive jurisdiction improvidently granted to the ecclesiastical commissioners, and which the queen was not at all likely to recall, placed whitgift beyond the control of the temporal administration. the archbishop, however, did not stand alone in this impracticable endeavour to overcome the stubborn sectaries by dint of hard usage. several other bishops were engaged in the same uncharitable course;[ ] but especially aylmer of london, who has left a worse name in this respect than any prelate of elizabeth's reign.[ ] the violence of aylmer's temper was not redeemed by many virtues; it is impossible to exonerate his character from the imputations of covetousness and of plundering the revenues of his see; faults very prevalent among the bishops of that period. the privy council wrote sometimes to expostulate with aylmer, in a tone which could hardly have been employed towards a man in his station who had not forfeited the general esteem. thus, upon occasion of one benison, whom he had imprisoned without cause, we find a letter signed by burleigh, leicester, walsingham, and even hatton, besides several others, urging the bishop to give the man a sum of money, since he would recover damages at law, which might hurt his lordship's credit. aylmer, however, who was of a stout disposition, especially when his purse was interested, objected strongly to this suggestion, offering rather to confer on benison a small living, or to let him take his action at law. the result does not appear; but probably the bishop did not yield.[ ] he had worse success in an information laid against him for felling his woods, which ended not only in an injunction, but a sharp reprimand from cecil in the star-chamber.[ ] what lord burleigh thought of these proceedings may be seen in the memorial to the queen on matters of religion and state, from which i have, in the last chapter, made an extract to show the tolerance of his disposition with respect to catholics. protesting that he was not in the least addicted to the preciser sort of preachers, he declares himself "bold to think that the bishops, in these dangerous times, take a very ill and unadvised course in driving them from their cures;" first, because it must discredit the reputation of her majesty's power, when foreign princes should perceive that even among her protestant subjects, in whom consisted all her force, strength, and power, there was so great a heart-burning and division; and secondly, "because," he says, "though they were over squeamish and nice in their opinions, and more scrupulous than they need; yet with their careful catechising and diligent preaching, they bring forth that fruit which your most excellent majesty is to desire and wish; namely, the lessening and diminishing the papistical numbers."[ ] but this great minister's knowledge of the queen's temper, and excessive anxiety to retain her favour, made him sometimes fearful to act according to his own judgment. "it is well known," lord bacon says of him, in a treatise published in , "that as to her majesty, there was never a counsellor of his lordship's long continuance that was so appliable to her majesty's princely resolutions, endeavouring always after faithful propositions and remonstrances, and these in the best words and the most grateful manner, to rest upon such conclusions as her majesty in her own wisdom determineth, and them to execute to the best; so far hath he been from contestation, or drawing her majesty into any of his own courses."[ ] statesmen who betray this unfortunate infirmity of clinging too fondly to power, become the slaves of the princes they serve. burleigh used to complain of the harshness with which the queen treated him.[ ] and though, more lucky than most of his class, he kept the white staff of treasurer down to his death, he was reduced in his latter years to court a rising favourite more submissively than became his own dignity.[ ] from such a disposition we could not expect any decided resistance to those measures of severity towards the puritans which fell in so entirely with elizabeth's temper. there is no middle course, in dealing with religious sectaries, between the persecution that exterminates, and the toleration that satisfies. they were wise in their generation, the loaisas and valdes of spain, who kindled the fires of the inquisition, and quenched the rising spirit of protestantism in the blood of a seso and a cazalla. but sustained by the favouring voice of his associates, and still more by that firm persuasion which bigots never know how to appreciate in their adversaries, a puritan minister set at nought the vexatious and arrogant tribunal before which he was summoned. exasperated, not overawed, the sectaries threw off what little respect they had hitherto paid to the hierarchy. they had learned, in the earlier controversies of the reformation, the use, or, more truly, the abuse, of that powerful lever of human bosoms, the press. he who in saxony had sounded the first trumpet-peal against the battlements of rome, had often turned aside from his graver labours to excite the rude passions of the populace by low ribaldry and exaggerated invective; nor had the english reformers ever scrupled to win proselytes by the same arts. what had been accounted holy zeal in the mitred bale and martyred latimer, might plead some apology from example in the aggrieved puritan. pamphlets, chiefly anonymous, were rapidly circulated throughout the kingdom, inveighing against the prelacy. of these libels the most famous went under the name of martin mar-prelate, a vizored knight of those lists, behind whose shield a host of sturdy puritans were supposed to fight. these were printed at a movable press, shifted to different parts of the country as the pursuit grew hot, and contained little serious argument, but the unwarrantable invectives of angry men, who stuck at no calumny to blacken their enemies.[ ] if these insults upon authority are apt sometimes to shock us even now, when long usage has rendered such licentiousness of seditious and profligate libellers almost our daily food, what must they have seemed in the reign of elizabeth, when the press had no acknowledged liberty, and while the accustomed tone in addressing those in power was little better than servile adulation? a law had been enacted some years before, levelled at the books dispersed by the seminary priests, which rendered the publication of seditious libels against the queen's government a capital felony.[ ] this act, by one of those strained constructions which the judges were commonly ready to put upon any political crime, was brought to bear on some of these puritanical writings. the authors of martin mar-prelate could not be traced with certainty; but strong suspicions having fallen on one penry, a young welshman, he was tried some time after for another pamphlet, containing some sharp reflections on the queen herself, and received sentence of death, which it was thought proper to carry into execution.[ ] udal, a puritan minister, fell into the grasp of the same statute for an alleged libel on the bishops, which had surely a very indirect reference to the queen's administration. his trial, like most other political trials of the age, disgraces the name of english justice. it consisted mainly in a pitiful attempt by the court to entrap him into a confession that the imputed libel was of his writing, as to which their proof was deficient. though he avoided this snare, the jury did not fail to obey the directions they received to convict him. so far from being concerned in martin's writings, udal professed his disapprobation of them and his ignorance of the author. this sentence appeared too iniquitous to be executed even in the eyes of whitgift, who interceded for his life; but he died of the effects of confinement.[ ] _attempt to set up a presbyterian system._--if the libellous pen of martin mar-prelate was a thorn to the rulers of the church, they had still more cause to take alarm at an overt measure of revolution which the discontented party began to effect about the year . they set up, by common agreement, their own platform of government by synods and classes; the former being a sort of general assemblies, the latter held in particular shires or dioceses, agreeably to the presbyterian model established in scotland. in these meetings debates were had, and determinations usually made, sufficiently unfavourable to the established system. the ministers composing them subscribed to the puritan book of discipline. these associations had been formed in several counties, but chiefly in those of northampton and warwick, under the direction of cartwright, the legislator of their republic, who possessed, by the earl of leicester's patronage, the mastership of a hospital in the latter town.[ ] it would be unjust to censure the archbishop for interfering to protect the discipline of his church against these innovators, had but the means adopted for that purpose been more consonant to equity. cartwright with several of his sect were summoned before the ecclesiastical commission; where refusing to inculpate themselves by taking the oath _ex officio_, they were committed to the fleet. this punishment not satisfying the rigid churchmen, and the authority of the ecclesiastical commission being incompetent to inflict any heavier judgment, it was thought fit the next year to remove the proceedings into the court of star-chamber. the judges, on being consulted, gave it as their opinion, that since far less crimes had been punished by condemnation to the galleys or perpetual banishment, the latter would be fittest for their offence. but several of the council had more tender regards to sincere, though intractable, men; and in the end they were admitted to bail upon a promise to be quiet, after answering some interrogatories respecting the queen's supremacy and other points, with civility and an evident wish to avoid offence.[ ] it may be observed that cartwright explicitly declared his disapprobation of the libels under the name of martin mar-prelate.[ ] every political party, however honourable may be its objects and character, is liable to be disgraced by the association of such unscrupulous zealots. but, though it is an uncandid sophism to charge the leaders with the excesses they profess to disapprove in their followers, it must be confessed that few chiefs of faction have had the virtue to condemn with sufficient energy the misrepresentations which are intended for their benefit. it was imputed to the puritan faction with more or less of truth, that, not content with the subversion of episcopacy and of the whole ecclesiastical polity established in the kingdom, they maintained principles that would essentially affect its civil institutions. their denial indeed of the queen's supremacy, carried to such lengths as i have shown above, might justly be considered as a derogation of her temporal sovereignty. many of them asserted the obligation of the judicial law of moses, at least in criminal cases; and deduced from this the duty of putting idolaters (that is, papists), adulterers, witches and demoniacs, sabbath-breakers, and several other classes of offenders, to death.[ ] they claimed to their ecclesiastical assemblies the right of determining "all matters wherein breach of charity may be, and all matters of doctrine and manners, so far as appertaineth to conscience." they took away the temporal right of patronage to churches, leaving the choice of ministers to general suffrage.[ ] there are even passages in cartwright's admonition, which intimate that the commonwealth ought to be fashioned after the model of the church.[ ] but these it would not be candid to press against the more explicit declarations of all the puritans in favour of a limited monarchy, though they grounded its legitimacy on the republican principles of popular consent.[ ] and with respect to the former opinions, they appear to have been by no means common to the whole puritan body; some of the deprived and imprisoned ministers even acknowledging the queen's supremacy in as full a manner as the law conferred it on her, and as she professed to claim it.[ ] the pretensions advanced by the school of cartwright did not seem the less dangerous to those who cast their eyes upon what was passing in scotland, where they received a practical illustration. in that kingdom, a form of polity very nearly conforming to the puritanical platform had become established at the reformation of ; except that the office of bishop or superintendent still continued, but with no paramount, far less arbitrary dominion, and subject even to the provincial synod, much more to the general assembly of the scottish church. even this very limited episcopacy was abolished in . the presbyterian clergy, individually and collectively, displayed the intrepid, haughty, and untractable spirit of the english puritans. though elizabeth had from policy abetted the scottish clergy in their attacks upon the civil administration, this connection itself had probably given her such an insight into their temper as well as their influence, that she must have shuddered at the thought of seeing a republican assembly substituted for those faithful satraps, her bishops, so ready to do her bidding, and so patient under the hard usage she sometimes bestowed on them. _house of commons averse to episcopal authority._--these prelates did not however obtain so much support from the house of commons as from their sovereign. in that assembly a determined band of puritans frequently carried the victory against the courtiers. every session exhibited proofs of their dissatisfaction with the state of the church. the crown's influence would have been too weak without stretches of its prerogative. the commons in received a message forbidding them to meddle with religious concerns. for five years afterwards the queen did not convoke parliament, of which her dislike to their puritanical temper might in all probability be the chief reason. but, when they met again in , the same topic of ecclesiastical grievances, which had by no means abated during the interval, was revived. the commons appointed a committee, formed only of the principal officers of the crown who sat in the house, to confer with some of the bishops, according to the irregular and imperfect course of parliamentary proceedings in that age, "touching the griefs of this house for some things very requisite to be reformed in the church, as the great number of unlearned and unable ministers, the great abuse of excommunications for every matter of small moment, the commutation of penances, and the great multitude of dispensations and pluralities, and other things very hurtful to the church."[ ] the committee reported that they found some of the bishops desirous of a remedy for the abuses they confessed, and of joining in a petition for that purpose to her majesty; which had accordingly been done, and a gracious answer, promising all convenient reformation, by laying the blame of remissness upon some prelates, had been received. this the house took with great thankfulness. it was exactly the course which pleased elizabeth, who had no regard for her bishops, and a real anxiety that her ecclesiastical as well as temporal government should be well administered, provided her subjects would intrust the sole care of it to herself, or limit their interference to modest petitioning. a new parliament having been assembled, soon after whitgift on his elevation to the primacy had begun to enforce an universal conformity, the lower house drew up a petition in sixteen articles, to which they requested the lords' concurrence, complaining of the oath _ex officio_, the subscription to the three new articles, the abuses of excommunication, licences for non-residence, and other ecclesiastical grievances. the lords replied coolly, that they conceived many of those articles, which the commons had proposed, to be unnecessary, and that others of them were already provided for; and that the uniformity of the common prayer, the use of which the commons had requested to leave in certain respects to the minister's discretion, had been established by parliament. the two archbishops, whitgift and sandys, made a more particular answer to each article of the petition, in the name of their brethren.[ ] but, in order to show some willingness towards reformation, they proposed themselves in convocation a few regulations for redress of abuses, none of which, however, on this occasion, though they received the royal assent, were submitted to the legislature;[ ] the queen in fact maintaining an insuperable jealousy of all intermeddling on the part of parliament with her exclusive supremacy over the church. excluded by elizabeth's jealousy from entertaining these religious innovations, which would probably have met no unfavourable reception from a free parliament, the commons vented their ill-will towards the dominant hierarchy in complaints of ecclesiastical grievances, and measures to redress them; as to which, even with the low notions of parliamentary right prevailing at court, it was impossible to deny their competence. several bills were introduced this session of - into the lower house, which, though they had little chance of receiving the queen's assent, manifest the sense of that assembly, and in all likelihood of their constituents. one of these imported that bishops should be sworn in one of the courts of justice to do nothing in their office contrary to the common law. another went to restrain pluralities, as to which the prelates would very reluctantly admit of any limitation.[ ] a bill of the same nature passed the commons in , though not without some opposition. the clergy took so great alarm at this measure, that the convocation addressed the queen in vehement language against it; and the archbishop throwing all the weight of his advice and authority into the same scale, the bill expired in the upper house.[ ] a similar proposition in the session of seems to have miscarried in the commons.[ ] in the next chapter will be found other instances of the commons' reforming temper in ecclesiastical concerns, and the queen's determined assertion of her supremacy. the oath _ex officio_, binding the taker to answer all questions that should be put to him, inasmuch as it contravened the generous maxim of english law that no one is obliged to criminate himself, provoked very just animadversion. morice, attorney of the court of wards, not only attacked its legality with arguments of no slight force, but introduced a bill to take it away. this was on the whole well received by the house; and sir francis knollys, the stanch enemy of episcopacy, though in high office, spoke in its favour. but the queen put a stop to the proceeding, and morice lay some time in prison for his boldness. the civilians, of whom several sat in the lower house, defended a mode of procedure that had been borrowed from their own jurisprudence. this revived the ancient animosity between them and the common lawyers. the latter had always manifested a great jealousy of the spiritual jurisdiction, and had early learned to restrain its exorbitances by writs of prohibition from the temporal courts. whitgift, as tenacious of power as the most ambitious of his predecessors, murmured like them at this subordination, for such it evidently was, to a lay tribunal.[ ] but the judges, who found as much gratification in exerting their power as the bishops, paid little regard to the remonstrances of the latter. we find the reports of this and the succeeding reign full of cases of prohibition. nor did other abuses imputed to these obnoxious judicatures fail to provoke censure, such as the unreasonable fees of their officers, and the usage of granting licences, and commuting penances for money.[ ] the ecclesiastical courts indeed have generally been reckoned more dilatory, vexatious, and expensive than those of the common law. but in the present age that part of their jurisdiction, which, though coercive, is professedly spiritual, and wherein the greatest abuses have been alleged to exist, has gone very much into disuse. in matrimonial and testamentary causes, their course of proceeding may not be open to any censure, so far as the essential administration of justice is concerned; though in the latter of these, a most inconvenient division of jurisdictions, following not only the unequal boundaries of episcopal dioceses, but the various peculiars or exempt districts which the church of england has continued to retain, is productive of a good deal of trouble and needless expense. _independents liable to severe laws._--notwithstanding the tendency towards puritanism which the house of commons generally displayed, the court succeeded in procuring an act, which eventually pressed with very great severity upon that class. this passed in , and enacted the penalty of imprisonment against any person above the age of sixteen, who should forbear for the space of a month to repair to some church, until he should make such open submission and declaration of conformity as the act appoints. those who refused to submit to these conditions were to abjure the realm, and if they should return without the queen's licence, to suffer death as felons.[ ] as this, on the one hand, like so many former statutes, helped to crush the unfortunate adherents to the romish faith, so too did it bear an obvious application to such protestant sectaries as had professedly separated from the anglican church. but it is here worthy of remark, that the puritan ministers throughout this reign disclaimed the imputation of schism, and acknowledged the lawfulness of continuing in the established church, while they demanded a further reformation of her discipline.[ ] the real separatists, who were also a numerous body, were denominated brownists or barrowists, from the names of their founders, afterwards lost in the more general appellation of independents. these went far beyond the puritans in their aversion to the legal ministry, and were deemed in consequence still more proper subjects for persecution. multitudes of them fled to holland from the rigour of the bishops in enforcing this statute.[ ] but two of this persuasion, barrow and greenwood, experienced a still severer fate. they were indicted on that perilous law of the rd of the queen, mentioned in the last chapter, for spreading seditious writings, and executed at bury. they died, neal tells us, with such expressions of piety and loyalty that elizabeth regretted the consent she had given to their deaths.[ ] _hooker's "ecclesiastical polity." its character._--but, while these scenes of pride and persecution on one hand, and of sectarian insolence on the other, were deforming the bosom of the english church, she found a defender of her institutions in one who mingled in these vulgar controversies like a knight of romance among caitiff brawlers, with arms of finer temper and worthy to be proved in a nobler field. richard hooker, master of the temple, published the first four books of his _ecclesiastical polity_ in ; the fifth three years afterwards; and dying in , left behind three which did not see the light till . this eminent work may justly be reckoned to mark an æra in our literature. for if passages of much good sense and even of a vigorous eloquence are scattered in several earlier writers in prose, yet none of these, except perhaps latimer and ascham, and sir philip sidney in his _arcadia_, can be said to have acquired enough reputation to be generally known even by name, much less are read in the present day; and it is indeed not a little remarkable that england, until near the end of the sixteenth century, had given few proofs in literature of that intellectual power which was about to develop itself with such unmatchable energy in shakspeare and bacon. we cannot indeed place hooker (but whom dare we to place?) by the side of these master spirits; yet he has abundant claims to be counted among the luminaries of english literature. he not only opened the mine, but explored the depths, of our native eloquence. so stately and graceful is the march of his periods, so various the fall of his musical cadences upon the ear, so rich in images, so condensed in sentences, so grave and noble his diction, so little is there of vulgarity in his racy idiom, of pedantry in his learned phrase, that i know not whether any later writer has more admirably displayed the capacities of our language, or produced passages more worthy of comparison with the splendid monuments of antiquity. if we compare the first book of the _ecclesiastical polity_ with what bears perhaps most resemblance to it of any thing extant, the treatise of cicero de legibus, it will appear somewhat perhaps inferior, through the imperfection of our language, which with all its force and dignity does not equal the latin in either of these qualities, and certainly more tedious and diffuse in some of its reasonings, but by no means less high-toned in sentiment, or less bright in fancy, and far more comprehensive and profound in the foundations of its philosophy. the advocates of a presbyterian church had always thought it sufficient to prove that it was conformable to the apostolical scheme as deduced merely from the scriptures. a pious reverence for the sacred writings, which they made almost their exclusive study, had degenerated into very narrow views on the great themes of natural religion and the moral law, as deducible from reason and sentiment. these, as most of the various families of their descendants continue to do, they greatly slighted, or even treated as the mere chimeras of heathen philosophy. if they looked to the mosaic law as the standard of criminal jurisprudence, if they sought precedents from scripture for all matters of temporal policy, much more would they deem the practice of the apostles an unerring and immutable rule for the discipline of the christian church.[ ] to encounter these adversaries, hooker took a far more original course than the ordinary controvertists, who fought their battle with conflicting interpretations of scriptural texts or passages from the fathers. he enquired into the nature and foundation of law itself as the rule of operation to all created beings, yielding thereto obedience by unconscious necessity, or sensitive appetite, or reasonable choice; reviewing especially those laws that regulate human agency, as they arise out of moral relations, common to our species, or the institutions of politic societies, or the inter-community of independent nations; and having thoroughly established the fundamental distinction between laws natural and positive, eternal and temporary, immutable and variable, he came with all this strength of moral philosophy to discriminate by the same criterion the various rules and precepts contained in the scriptures. it was a kind of maxim among the puritans, that scripture was so much the exclusive rule of human actions, that whatever, in matters at least concerning religion, could not be found to have its authority, was unlawful. hooker devoted the whole second book of his work to the refutation of this principle. he proceeded afterwards to attack its application more particularly to the episcopal scheme of church government, and to the various ceremonies or usages which those sectaries treated as either absolutely superstitious, or at least as impositions without authority. it was maintained by this great writer, not only that ritual observances are variable according to the discretion of ecclesiastical rulers, but that no certain form of polity is set down in scripture as generally indispensable for a christian church. far, however, from conceding to his antagonists the fact which they assumed, he contended for episcopacy as an apostolical institution, and always preferable, when circumstances would allow its preservation, to the more democratical model of the calvinistic congregations. "if we did seek," he says, "to maintain that which most advantageth our own cause, the very best way for us and the strongest against them were to hold, even as they do, that in scripture there must needs be found some particular form of church polity which god hath instituted, and which for that very cause belongeth to all churches at all times. but with any such partial eye to respect ourselves, and by cunning to make those things seem the truest, which are the fittest to serve our purpose, is a thing which we neither like nor mean to follow." the richness of hooker's eloquence is chiefly displayed in his first book; beyond which perhaps few who want a taste for ecclesiastical reading are likely to proceed. the second and third, however, though less brilliant, are not inferior in the force and comprehensiveness of reasoning. the eighth and last returns to the subject of civil government, and expands, with remarkable liberality, the principles he had laid down as to its nature in the first book. those that intervene are mostly confined to a more minute discussion of the questions mooted between the church and puritans; and in these, as far as i have looked into them, though hooker's argument is always vigorous and logical, and he seems to be exempt from that abusive insolence to which polemical writers were then even more prone than at present, yet he has not altogether the terseness or lucidity, which long habits of literary warfare, and perhaps a natural turn of mind, have given to some expert dialecticians. in respect of language, the three posthumous books, partly from having never received the author's last touches, and partly, perhaps, from his weariness of the labour, are beyond comparison less elegantly written than the preceding. the better parts of the _ecclesiastical polity_ bear a resemblance to the philosophical writings of antiquity, in their defects as well as their excellencies. hooker is often too vague in the use of general terms, too inconsiderate in the admission of principles, too apt to acquiesce in the scholastic pseudo-philosophy, and indeed in all received tenets; he is comprehensive rather than sagacious, and more fitted to sift the truth from the stores of accumulated learning than to seize it by an original impulse of his own mind; somewhat also impeded, like many other great men of that and the succeeding century, by too much acquaintance with books, and too much deference for their authors. it may be justly objected to some passages, that they elevate ecclesiastical authority, even in matters of belief, with an exaggeration not easily reconciled to the protestant right of private judgment, and even of dangerous consequence in those times; as when he inclines to give a decisive voice in theological controversies to general councils; not indeed on the principles of the church of rome, but on such as must end in the same conclusion, the high probability that the aggregate judgment of many grave and learned men should be well founded.[ ] nor would it be difficult to point out several other subjects, such as religious toleration, as to which he did not emancipate himself from the trammels of prejudice. but, whatever may be the imperfections of his _ecclesiastical polity_, they are far more than compensated by its eloquence and its reasoning, and above all by that deep pervading sense of the relation between man and his creator, as the groundwork of all eternal law, which rendered the first book of this work a rampart, on the one hand against the puritan school who shunned the light of nature as a deceitful meteor; and on the other against that immoral philosophy which, displayed in the dark precepts of machiavel, or lurking in the desultory sallies of montaigne, and not always rejected by writers of more apparent seriousness, threatened to destroy the sense of intrinsic distinctions in the quality of actions, and to convert the maxims of state-craft and dissembling policy into the rule of life and manners. nothing perhaps is more striking to a reader of the _ecclesiastical polity_ than the constant and almost excessive predilection of hooker for those liberal principles of civil government, which are sometimes so just and always so attractive. upon these subjects, his theory absolutely coincides with that of locke. the origin of government, both in right and in fact, he explicitly derives from a primary contract; "without which consent, there were no reason that one should take upon him to be lord or judge over another; because, although there be, according to the opinion of some very great and judicious men, a kind of natural right in the noble, wise, and virtuous, to govern them which are of servile disposition; nevertheless, for manifestation of this their right, and men's more peaceable contentment on both sides, the assent of them who are to be governed seemeth necessary." "the lawful power," he observes elsewhere, "of making laws to command whole politic societies of men, belongeth so properly unto the same entire societies, that for any prince or potentate of what kind soever upon earth to exercise the same of himself, and not either by express commission immediately and personally received from god, or else by authority received at first from their consent upon whose persons they impose laws, it is no better than mere tyranny. laws they are not, therefore, which public approbation hath not made so. but approbation not only they give, who personally declare their assent by voice, sign, or act; but also when others do it in their names, by right originally, at the least, derived from them. as in parliaments, councils, and the like assemblies, although we be not personally ourselves present, notwithstanding our assent is by reason of other agents there in our behalf. and what we do by others, no reason but that it should stand as our deed, no less effectually to bind us, than if ourselves had done it in person." and in another place still more peremptorily: "of this thing no man doubteth, namely, that in all societies, companies, and corporations, what severally each shall be bound unto, it must be with all their assents ratified. against all equity it were that a man should suffer detriment at the hands of men, for not observing that which he never did either by himself or others mediately or immediately agree unto." these notions respecting the basis of political society, so far unlike what prevailed among the next generation of churchmen, are chiefly developed and dwelt upon in hooker's concluding book, the eighth; and gave rise to a rumour, very sedulously propagated soon after the time of its publication, and still sometimes repeated, that the posthumous portion of his work had been interpolated or altered by the puritans.[ ] for this surmise, however, i am persuaded that there is no foundation. the three latter books are doubtless imperfect, and it is possible that verbal changes may have been made by their transcribers or editors; but the testimony that has been brought forward to throw a doubt over their authenticity consists in those vague and self-contradictory stories, which gossiping compilers of literary anecdote can easily accumulate; while the intrinsic evidence arising from the work itself, on which, in this branch of criticism, i am apt chiefly to rely, seems altogether to repel every suspicion. for not only the principles of civil government, presented in a more expanded form by hooker in the eighth book, are precisely what he laid down in the first; but there is a peculiar chain of consecutive reasoning running through it, wherein it would be difficult to point out any passages that could be rejected without dismembering the context. it was his business in this part of the _ecclesiastical polity_, to vindicate the queen's supremacy over the church: and this he has done by identifying the church with the commonwealth; no one, according to him, being a member of the one who was not also a member of the other. but as the constitution of the christian church, so far as the laity partook in its government, by choice of pastors or otherwise, was undeniably democratical, he laboured to show, through the medium of the original compact of civil society, that the sovereign had received this, as well as all other powers, at the hands of the people. "laws being made among us," he affirms, "are not by any of us so taken or interpreted, as if they did receive their force from power which the prince doth communicate unto the parliament, or unto any other court under him, but from power which the whole body of the realm being naturally possessed with, hath by free and deliberate assent derived unto him that ruleth over them so far forth as hath been declared; so that our laws made concerning religion do take originally their essence from the power of the whole realm and church of england." in this system of hooker and locke, for it will be obvious to the reader that their principles were the same, there is much, if i am not mistaken, to disapprove. that no man can be justly bound by laws which his own assent has not ratified, appears to me a position incompatible with the existence of society in its literal sense, or illusory in the sophistical interpretations by which it is usual to evade its meaning. it will be more satisfactory and important to remark the views which this great writer entertained of our own constitution, to which he frequently and fearlessly appeals, as the standing illustration of a government restrained by law. "i cannot choose," he says, "but commend highly their wisdom, by whom the foundation of the commonwealth hath been laid; wherein though no manner of person or cause be unsubject unto the king's power, yet so is the power of the king over all, and in all limited, that unto all his proceedings the law itself is a rule. the axioms of our regal government are these: 'lex facit regem'--the king's grant of any favour made contrary to the law is void;-'rex nihil potest nisi quod jure potest'--what power the king hath, he hath it by law: the bounds and limits of it are known, the entire community giveth general order by law, how all things publicly are to be done; and the king, as the head thereof, the highest in authority over all, causeth, according to the same law, every particular to be framed and ordered thereby. the whole body politic maketh laws, which laws give power unto the king; and the king having bound himself to use according to law that power, it so falleth out, that the execution of the one is accomplished by the other." these doctrines of limited monarchy recur perpetually in the eighth book; and though hooker, as may be supposed, does not enter upon the perilous question of resistance, and even intimates that he does not see how the people can limit the extent of power once granted, unless where it escheats to them, yet he positively lays it down, that usurpers of power, that is, lawful rulers arrogating more than the law gives to them, cannot in conscience bind any man to obedience. it would perhaps have been a deviation from my subject to enlarge so much on these political principles in a writer of any later age, when they had been openly sustained in the councils of the nation. but as the reigns of the tudor family were so inauspicious to liberty that some have been apt to imagine its recollection to have been almost effaced, it becomes of more importance to show that absolute monarchy was, in the eyes of so eminent an author as hooker, both pernicious in itself, and contrary to the fundamental laws of the english commonwealth. nor would such sentiments, we may surely presume, have been avowed by a man of singular humility, and whom we might charge with somewhat of an excessive deference to authority, unless they had obtained more currency, both among divines and lawyers, than the complaisance of courtiers in these two professions might lead us to conclude; hooker being not prone to deal in paradoxes, nor to borrow from his adversaries that sturdy republicanism of the school of geneva which had been their scandal. i cannot indeed but suspect that his whig principles, in the last book, are announced with a temerity that would have startled his superiors; and that its authenticity, however called in question, has been better preserved by the circumstance of a posthumous publication than if he had lived to give it to the world. whitgift would probably have induced him to suppress a few passages incompatible with the servile theories already in vogue. it is far more usual that an author's genuine sentiments are perverted by means of his friends and patrons than of his adversaries. _spoliation of church revenues._--the prelates of the english church, while they inflicted so many severities on others, had not always cause to exult in their own condition. from the time when henry taught his courtiers to revel in the spoil of monasteries, there had been a perpetual appetite for ecclesiastical possessions. endowed by a prodigal superstition with pomp and wealth beyond all reasonable measure, and far beyond what the new system of religion appeared to prescribe, the church of england still excited the covetousness of the powerful, and the scandal of the austere.[ ] i have mentioned in another place how the bishoprics were impoverished in the first reformation under edward vi. the catholic bishops who followed made haste to plunder, from a consciousness that the goods of their church were speedily to pass into the hands of heretics.[ ] hence the alienation of their estates had gone so far that in the beginning of elizabeth's reign statutes were made, disabling ecclesiastical proprietors from granting away their lands, except on leases for three lives, or twenty-one years.[ ] but an unfortunate reservation was introduced in favour of the crown. the queen, therefore, and her courtiers, who obtained grants from her, continued to prey upon their succulent victim. few of her council imitated the noble disinterestedness of walsingham, who spent his own estate in her service, and left not sufficient to pay his debts. the documents of that age contain ample proofs of their rapacity. thus cecil surrounded his mansion-house at burleigh with estates, once belonging to the see of peterborough. thus hatton built his house in holborn on the bishop of ely's garden. cox, on making resistance to this spoliation, received a singular epistle from the queen.[ ] this bishop, in consequence of such vexations, was desirous of retiring from the see before his death. after that event, elizabeth kept it vacant eighteen years. during this period we have a petition to her from lord keeper puckering, that she would confer it on scambler, bishop of norwich, then eighty-eight years old, and notorious for simony, in order that he might give him a lease of part of the lands.[ ] these transactions denote the mercenary and rapacious spirit which leavened almost all elizabeth's courtiers. the bishops of this reign do not appear, with some distinguished exceptions, to have reflected so much honour on the established church as those who attach a superstitious reverence to the age of the reformation are apt to conceive. in the plunder that went forward, they took good care of themselves. charges against them of simony, corruption, covetousness, and especially destruction of their church estates for the benefit of their families, are very common--sometimes no doubt unjust, but too frequent to be absolutely without foundation.[ ] the council often wrote to them, as well as concerning them, with a sort of asperity which would astonish one of their successors. and the queen never restrained herself in treating them on any provocation with a good deal of rudeness, of which i have just mentioned an egregious example.[ ] in her speech to parliament on closing the session of , when many complaints against the rulers of the church had rung in her ears, she told the bishops that if they did not amend what was wrong, she meant to depose them.[ ] for there seems to have been no question in that age but that this might be done by virtue of the crown's supremacy. the church of england was not left by elizabeth in circumstances that demanded applause for the policy of her rulers. after forty years of constantly aggravated molestation of the nonconforming clergy, their numbers were become greater, their popularity more deeply rooted, their enmity to the established order more irreconcilable. it was doubtless a problem of no slight difficulty, by what means so obstinate and opinionated a class of sectaries could have been managed; nor are we perhaps, at this distance of time, altogether competent to decide upon the fittest course of policy in that respect.[ ] but it is manifest that the obstinacy of bold and sincere men is not to be quelled by any punishments that do not exterminate them, and that they were not likely to entertain a less conceit of their own reason when they found no arguments so much relied on to refute it as that of force. statesmen invariably take a better view of such questions than churchmen; and we may well believe that cecil and walsingham judged more sagaciously than whitgift and aylmer. the best apology that can be made for elizabeth's tenaciousness of those ceremonies which produced this fatal contention i have already suggested, without much express authority from the records of that age; namely, the justice and expediency of winning over the catholics to conformity, by retaining as much as possible of their accustomed rites. but in the latter period of the queen's reign, this policy had lost a great deal of its application; or rather the same principle of policy would have dictated numerous concessions in order to satisfy the people. it appears by no means unlikely that, by reforming the abuses and corruption of the spiritual courts, by abandoning a part of their jurisdiction, so heterogeneous and so unduly obtained, by abrogating obnoxious and at best frivolous ceremonies, by restraining pluralities of benefices, by ceasing to discountenance the most diligent ministers, and by more temper and disinterestedness in their own behaviour, the bishops would have palliated, to an indefinite degree, that dissatisfaction with the established scheme of polity, which its want of resemblance to that of other protestant churches must more or less have produced. such a reformation would at least have contented those reasonable and moderate persons who occupy sometimes a more extensive ground between contending factions than the zealots of either are willing to believe or acknowledge. _general remarks._--i am very sensible that such freedom as i have used in this chapter cannot be pleasing to such as have sworn allegiance to either the anglican or the puritan party; and that even candid and liberal minds may be inclined to suspect that i have not sufficiently admitted the excesses of one side to furnish an excuse for those of the other. such readers i would gladly refer to lord bacon's "advertisement touching the controversies of the church of england;" a treatise written under elizabeth, in that tone of dispassionate philosophy which the precepts of burleigh sown in his own deep and fertile mind had taught him to apply. this treatise, to which i did not turn my attention in writing the present chapter, appears to coincide in every respect with the views it displays. if he censures the pride and obstinacy of the puritan teachers, their indecent and libellous style of writing, their affected imitation of foreign churches, their extravagance of receding from everything formerly practised, he animadverts with no less plainness on the faults of the episcopal party, on the bad example of some prelates, on their peevish opposition to every improvement, their unjust accusations, their contempt of foreign churches, their persecuting spirit.[ ] _letter of walsingham in defence of the queen's government._--yet that we may not deprive this great queen's administration, in what concerned her dealings with the two religious parties opposed to the established church, of what vindication may best be offered for it, i will refer the reader to a letter of sir francis walsingham, written to a person in france, after the year .[ ] it is a very able apology for her government; and if the reader should detect, as he doubtless may, somewhat of sophistry in reasoning, and of mis-statement in matter of fact, he will ascribe both one and the other to the narrow spirit of the age with respect to civil and religious freedom, or to the circumstances of the writer, an advocate whose sovereign was his client. footnotes: [ ] sleidan, _hist. de la réformation_ (par courayer), ii. . [ ] strype's _cranmer_, . [ ] these transactions have been perpetuated by a tract, entitled "discourse of the troubles at frankfort," first published in , and reprinted in the well-known collection entitled _the phoenix_. it is fairly and temperately written, though with an avowed bias towards the puritan party. whatever we read in any historian on the subject, is derived from this authority; but the refraction is of course very different through the pages of collier and of neal. [ ] strype, ii. . there was a lutheran party at the beginning of her reign, to which the queen may be said to have inclined, not altogether from religion, but from policy. _id._ i. . her situation was very hazardous; and in order to connect herself with sincere allies, she had thoughts of joining the smalcaldic league of the german princes, whose bigotry would admit none but members of the augsburg confession. jewel's letters to peter martyr, in the appendix to burnet's third volume, throw considerable light on the first two years of elizabeth's reign; and show that famous prelate to have been what afterwards would have been called a precisian or puritan. he even approved a scruple elizabeth entertained about her title of head of the church, as appertaining only to christ. but the unreasonableness of the discontented party, and the natural tendency of a man who has joined the side of power to deal severely with those he has left, made him afterwards their enemy. [ ] roods and relics accordingly were broken to pieces and burned throughout the kingdom, of which collier makes loud complaint. this, strype says, gave much offence to the catholics; and it was not the most obvious method of inducing them to conform. [ ] burnet, iii. appendix, ; strype's _parker_, . [ ] quantum auguror, non scribam ad te posthac episcopus. eo enim jam res pervenit, ut aut cruces argenteæ et stanneæ, quas nos ubique confregimus, restituendæ sint, aut episcopatus relinquendi. burnet, . sandys writes, that he had nearly been deprived for expressing himself warmly against images. _id._ . other proofs of the text may be found in the same collection, as well as in strype's _annals_, and his _life of parker_. even parker seems, on one occasion, to have expected the queen to make such a retrograde movement in religion as would compel them all to disobey her. _life of parker_, appendix, ; a very remarkable letter. [ ] strype's _parker_, . the archbishop seems to disapprove this as inexpedient, but rather coldly; he was far from sharing the usual opinions on this subject. a puritan pamphleteer took the liberty to name the queen's chapel as "the pattern and precedent of all superstition." strype's _annals_, i. . [ ] burnet, ii. . [ ] one of the injunctions to the visitors of , reciting the offence and slander to the church that had arisen by lack of discreet and sober behaviour in many ministers, both in choosing of their wives, and in living with them, directs that no priest or deacon shall marry without the allowance of the bishops, and two justices of the peace, dwelling near the woman's abode, nor without the consent of her parents or kinsfolk, or, for want of these, of her master or mistress, on pain of not being permitted to exercise the ministry, or hold any benefice; and that the marriages of bishops should be approved by the metropolitan, and also by commissioners appointed by the queen. _somers tracts_, i. ; burnet, ii. . it is reasonable to suppose, that when a host of low-bred and illiterate priests were at once released from the obligation to celibacy, many of them would abuse their liberty improvidently, or even scandalously; and this probably had increased elizabeth's prejudice against clerical matrimony. but i do not suppose that this injunction was ever much regarded. some time afterwards (aug. ) she put forth another extraordinary injunction, that no member of a college or cathedral should have his wife living within its precincts, under pain of forfeiting all his preferments. cecil sent this to parker, telling him at the same time that it was with great difficulty he had prevented the queen from altogether forbidding the marriage of priests. _life of p._ . and the archbishop himself says, in the letter above mentioned, "i was in a horror to hear such words to come from her mild nature and christianly learned conscience, as she spake concerning god's holy ordinance and institution of matrimony." [ ] sandys writes to parker, april , "the queen's majesty will wink at it, but not stablish it by law, which is nothing else but to bastard our children." and decisive proofs are brought by strype, that the marriages of the clergy were not held legal, in the first part at least of the queen's reign. elizabeth herself, after having been sumptuously entertained by the archbishop at lambeth, took leave of mrs. parker with the following courtesy: "_madam_ (the style of a married lady) i may not call you; _mistress_ (the appellation at that time of an unmarried woman) i am loth to call you; but, however, i thank you for your good cheer." the lady is styled, in deeds made while her husband was archbishop, _parker_, alias _harleston_; which was her maiden name. and she dying before her husband, her brother is called her heir-at-law, though she left children. but the archbishop procured letters of legitimation, in order to render them capable of inheritance. _life of parker_, . others did the same. _annals_, i. . yet such letters were, i conceive, beyond the queen's power to grant, and could not have obtained any regard in a court of law. in the diocese of bangor, it was usual for the clergy, some years after elizabeth's accession, to pay the bishop for a licence to keep a concubine. strype's _parker_, . [ ] burnet, iii. . [ ] jewel's letters to bullinger, in burnet, are full of proofs of his dissatisfaction; and those who feel any doubts may easily satisfy themselves from the same collection, and from strype as to the others. the current opinion, that these scruples were imbibed during the banishment of our reformers, must be received with great allowance. the dislike to some parts of the anglican ritual had begun at home; it had broken out at frankfort; it is displayed in all the early documents of elizabeth's reign by the english divines, far more warmly than by their swiss correspondents. grindal, when first named to the see of london, had his scruples about wearing the episcopal habits removed by peter martyr. strype's _grindal_, . [ ] it was proposed on this occasion to abolish all saints' days, to omit the cross in baptism, to leave kneeling at the communion to the ordinary's discretion, to take away organs, and one or two more of the ceremonies then chiefly in dispute. burnet, iii. and append. ; strype, i. , . nowell voted in the minority. it can hardly be going too far to suppose that some of the majority were attached to the old religion. [ ] jewel, one of these visitors, writes afterwards to martyr: "invenimus ubique animos multitudinis satis propensos ad religionem; ibi etiam, ubi omnia putabantur fore difficillima.... si quid erat obstinatæ malitiæ, id totum erat in presbyteris, illis præsertim, qui aliquando stetissent à nostrâ sententiâ." burnet, iii. append. . the common people in london and elsewhere, strype says, took an active part in demolishing images; the pleasure of destruction, i suppose, mingling with their abhorrence of idolatry. and during the conferences held in westminster abbey, jan. , between the catholic and protestant divines, the populace who had been admitted as spectators, testified such disapprobation of the former, that they made it a pretext for breaking off the argument. there was indeed such a tendency to anticipate the government in reformation, as necessitated a proclamation, dec. , , silencing preachers on both sides. mr. butler says, from several circumstances it is evident that a great majority of the nation then inclined to the roman catholic religion. _mem. of eng. catholics_, i. . but his proofs of this are extremely weak. the attachment he supposes to have existed in the laity towards their pastors may well be doubted; it could not be founded on the natural grounds of esteem; and if rishton, the continuator of sanders de schismate, whom he quotes, says that one-third of the nation was protestant, we may surely double the calculation of so determined a papist. as to the influence which mr. b. alleges the court to have employed in elections for elizabeth's first parliament, the argument would equally prove that the majority was protestant under mary, since she had recourse to the same means. the whole tenor of historical documents in elizabeth's reign proves that the catholics soon became a minority, and still more among the common people than the gentry. the north of england, where their strength lay, was in every respect the least important part of the kingdom. even according to dr. lingard, who thinks fit to claim half the nation as catholic in the middle of this reign, the number of recusants certified to the council under eliz. c. , amounted only to fifty thousand; and, if we can trust the authority of other lists, they were much fewer before the accession of james. this writer, i may observe in passing, has, through haste and thoughtlessness, misstated a passage he cites from murden's _state papers_, p. , and confounded the persons suspected for religion in the city of london, about the time of the armada, with the whole number of men fit for arms; thus making the former amount to seventeen thousand and eighty-three. mr. butler has taken up so paradoxical a notion on this subject, that he literally maintains the catholics to have been at least one half of the people at the epoch of the gunpowder plot. vol. i. p. . we should be glad to know at what time he supposes the grand apostasy to have been consummated. cardinal bentivoglio gives a very different account; reckoning the real catholics, such as did not make profession of heresy, at only a thirtieth part of the whole; though he supposes that four-fifths might become such, from secret inclination or general indifference, if it were once established. _opere di bentivoglio_, p. , edit. paris, . but i presume neither mr. butler nor dr. lingard would own these _adiaphorists_. the latter writer, on the other hand, reckons the hugonots of france, soon after , at only one-hundredth part of the nation, quoting for this castelnau, a useful memoir writer, but no authority on a matter of calculation. the stern spirit of coligni, _atrox animus catonis_, rising above all misfortune, and unconquerable, except by the darkest treachery, is sufficiently admirable without reducing his party to so miserable a fraction. the calvinists at this time are reckoned by some at one-fourth, but more frequently at one-tenth, of the french nation. even in the beginning of the next century, when proscription and massacre, lukewarmness and self-interest, had thinned their ranks, they are estimated by bentivoglio (_ubi supra_) at one-fifteenth. [ ] strype's _parker_, , ; collier, . in the lansdowne collection, vol. viii. , is a letter from parker, apr. , complaining of turner, dean of wells, for having made a man do penance for adultery in a square cap. [ ] strype's _parker_, , . [ ] this apprehension of elizabeth's taking a disgust to protestantism is intimated in a letter of bishop cox. strype's _parker_, . [ ] parker sometimes declares himself willing to see some indulgence as to the habits and other matters; but, the queen's commands being peremptory, he had thought it his duty to obey them, though forewarning her that the puritan ministers would not give way ( , ). this, however, is not consistent with other passages, where he appears to importune the queen to proceed. her wavering conduct, partly owing to caprice, partly to insincerity, was naturally vexatious to a man of his firm and ardent temper. possibly he might dissemble a little in writing to cecil, who was against driving the puritans to extremities. but, on the review of his whole behaviour, he must be reckoned, and always has been reckoned, the most severe disciplinarian of elizabeth's first hierarchy; though more violent men came afterwards. [ ] strype's _annals_, ; _parker_, . some years after, these advertisements obtained the queen's sanction, and got the name of articles and ordinances. _id._ . [ ] strype's _annals_, , ; _life of parker_, . sampson had refused a bishopric on account of these ceremonies. burnet, iii. . [ ] _life of parker_, . strype says (p. ) that the suspended ministers preached again after a little time by connivance. [ ] jewel is said to have become strict in enforcing the use of the surplice. _annals_, . [ ] strype's _annals_, i. , ii. ; _life of parker_, , ; burnet, iii. , , . bishops grindal and horn wrote to zurich, saying plainly, it was not their fault that the habits were not laid aside, with the cross in baptism, the use of organs, baptism by women, etc. p. . this last usage was much inveighed against by the calvinists, because it involved a theological tenet differing from their own, as to the necessity of baptism. in strype's _annals_, , we have the form of an oath taken by all mid-wives, to exercise their calling without sorcery or superstition, and to baptize with the proper words. it was abolished by james i. beza was more dissatisfied than the helvetic divines with the state of the english church (_annals_, i. ; collier, ); but dissuaded the puritans from separation, and advised them rather to comply with the ceremonies. _id._ . [ ] strype's _life of parker_, ; _life of grindal_, . [ ] burnet, iii. ; strype's _parker_, _et alibi_. [ ] _id._ . the church had but two or three friends, strype says, in the council about , of whom cecil was the chief. _id._ . [ ] burnet says, on the authority of the visitors' reports, that out of beneficed clergymen, not more than about refused to conform. this caused for some years just apprehensions of the danger into which religion was brought by their retaining their affections to the old superstition; "so that," he proceeds, "if queen elizabeth had not lived so long as she did, till all that generation was dead, and a new set of men better educated and principled were grown up and put in their rooms; and if a prince of another religion had succeeded before that time, they had probably turned about again to the old superstition as nimbly as they had done before in queen mary's days." vol. ii. p. . it would be easy to multiply testimonies out of strype, to the papist inclinations of a great part of the clergy in the first part of this reign. they are said to have been sunk in superstition and looseness of living. _annals_, i. . [ ] strype's _annals_, , ; collier, , . this seems to show that more churches were empty by the desertion of popish incumbents than the foregoing note would lead us to suppose. i believe that many went off to foreign parts from time to time, who had complied in ; and others were put out of their livings. the roman catholic writers make out a longer list than burnet's calculation allows. it appears from an account sent in to the privy council by parkhurst, bishop of norwich, in , that in his diocese more than one-third of the benefices were vacant. _annals_, i. . but in ely, out of cures only were served in . _l. of parker_, . [ ] parker wrote in to the bishops of his province, enjoining them to send him certificates of the names and qualities of all their clergy; one column, in the form of certificate, was for learning: "and this," strype says, "was commonly set down; latinè aliqua verba intelligit, latinè utcunque intelligit; latinè pauca intelligit," etc. sometimes, however, we find doctus. _l. of parker_, . but if the clergy could not read the language in which their very prayers were composed, what other learning or knowledge could they have? certainly none; and even those who had gone far enough to study the school logic and divinity, do not deserve a much higher place than the wholly uninstructed. the greek tongue was never _generally_ taught in the universities or public schools till the reformation, and perhaps not so soon. since this note was written, a letter of gibson has been published in pepys's _memoirs_, vol. ii. p. , mentioning a catalogue he had found of the clergy in the archdeaconry of middlesex, a.d. , with their qualifications annexed. three only are described as docti latinè et græcè; twelve are called docti simply; nine, latinè docti; thirty-one, latinè mediocriter intelligentes; forty-two, latinè perperam, utcunque aliquid, pauca verba, etc., intelligentes; seventeen are non docti or indocti. if this was the case in london, what can we think of more remote parts? [ ] in the struggle made for popery at the queen's accession, the lower house of convocation sent up to the bishops five articles of faith, all strongly catholic. these had previously been transmitted to the two universities, and returned with the hands of the greater part of the doctors to the first four. the fifth they scrupled, as trenching too much on the queen's temporal power. burnet, ii. , iii. . strype says, the universities were so addicted to popery that for some years few educated in them were ordained. _life of grindal_, p. . and wood's _antiquities of the university of oxford_ contain many proofs of its attachment to the old religion. in exeter college, as late as , there were not above four protestants out of eighty, "all the rest secret or open roman affectionaries." these chiefly came from the west, "where popery greatly prevailed, and the gentry were bred up in that religion." strype's _annals_, ii. . but afterwards, wood complains, "through the influence of humphrey and reynolds (the latter of whom became divinity lecturer on secretary walsingham's foundation in ), the disposition of the times, and the long continuance of the earl of leicester, the principal patron of the puritanical faction, in the place of chancellor of oxford, the face of the university was so much altered that there was little to be seen in it of the church of england, according to the principles and positions upon which it was first reformed." _hist. of oxford_, vol. ii. p. . previously, however, to this change towards puritanism, the university had not been anglican, but popish; which wood liked much better than the first, and nearly as well as the second. a letter from the university of oxford to elizabeth on her accession (hearne's edition of roper's _life of more_, p. ) shows the accommodating character of these academies. they extol mary as an excellent queen, but are consoled by the thought of her excellent successor. one sentence is curious: "cum _patri_, _fratri_, _sorori_, nihil fuerit republicâ carius, _religione optatius_, verâ gloriâ dulcius; cum in hâc familiâ hæ laudes floruerint, vehementer confidimus, etc., quæ ejusdem stirpis sis, easdem cupidissime prosecuturam." it was a singular strain of complaisance to praise henry's, edward's, and mary's religious sentiments in the same breath; but the queen might at least learn this from it, that whether she fixed on one of their creeds, or devised a new one for herself, she was sure of the acquiescence of this ancient and learned body. a preceding letter to cardinal pole, in which the times of henry and edward are treated more cavalierly, seems by the style, which is very elegant, to have been the production of the same pen. [ ] the fellows and scholars of st. john's college, to the number of three hundred, threw off their hoods and surplices, in , without any opposition from the master, till cecil, as chancellor of the university, took up the matter, and insisted on their conformity to the established regulations. this gave much dissatisfaction to the university; not only the more intemperate party, but many heads of colleges and grave men, among whom we are rather surprised to find the name of whitgift, interceding with their chancellor for some mitigation as to these unpalatable observances. strype's _annals_, i. ; _life of parker_, . cambridge had, however, her catholics, as oxford had her puritans, of whom dr. caius, founder of the college that bears his name, was among the most remarkable. _id._ . the chancellors of oxford and cambridge, leicester and cecil, kept a very strict hand over them, especially the latter, who seems to have acted as paramount visitor over every college, making them reverse any act which he disapproved. strype, _passim_. [ ] strype's _annals_, i. ; _life of parker_, , ; _life of whitgift_, . [ ] cartwright's _admonition_, quoted in neal's _hist. of puritans_, i. . [ ] madox's _vindication of church of england against neal_, p. . this writer quotes several very extravagant passages from cartwright, which go to prove irresistibly that he would have made no compromise short of the overthrow of the established church. p. , etc. "as to you, dear brethren," is said in a puritan tract of , "whom god hath called into the brunt of the battle, the lord keep you constant, that ye yield neither to toleration, neither to any other subtle persuasions of dispensations and licences, which were to fortify their romish practices; but, as you fight the lord's fight, be valiant." madox, p. . [ ] these principles had already been broached by those who called calvin master; he had himself become a sort of prophet-king at geneva. and collier quotes passages from knox's _second blast_, inconsistent with any government, except one slavishly subservient to the church. p. . the nonjuring historian holds out the hand of fellowship to the puritans he abhors, when they preach up ecclesiastical independence. collier liked the royal supremacy as little as cartwright; and in giving an account of bancroft's attack on the nonconformists for denying it, enters upon a long discussion in favour of an absolute emancipation from the control of laymen. p. . he does not even approve the determination of the judges in cawdrey's case ( coke's reports), though against the nonconformists, as proceeding on a wrong principle of setting up the state above the church. p. . [ ] the school of cartwright were as little disposed as the episcopalians to see the laity fatten on church property. bancroft, in his famous sermon preached at paul's cross in (p. ), divides the puritans into the clergy factious, and the lay factious. the former, he says, contend and lay it down in their supplication to parliament in , that things once dedicated to a sacred use ought so to remain for ever, and not to be converted to any private use. the lay, on the contrary, think it enough for the clergy to fare as the apostles did. cartwright did not spare those who longed to pull down bishoprics for the sake of plundering them, and charged those who held impropriations with sin. bancroft takes delight in quoting his bitter phrases from the ecclesiastical discipline. [ ] the old friends and protectors of our reformers at zurich, bullinger and gualter, however they had favoured the principles of the first nonconformists, write in strong disapprobation of the innovators of . strype's _annals_, ii. . and fox, the martyrologist, a refuser to conform, speaks, in a remarkable letter quoted by fuller in his _church history_, p. , of factiosa illa puritanorum capita, saying that he is totus ab iis alienus, and unwilling perbacchari in episcopos. the same is true of bernard gilpin, who disliked some of the ceremonies, and had subscribed the articles with a reservation, "so far as agreeable to the word of god;" but was wholly opposed to the new reform of church discipline. _carleton's life of gilpin_, and wordsworth's _ecclesiastical biography_, vol. iv. neal has not reported the matter faithfully. [ ] "the puritan," says persons the jesuit, in , "is more generally favoured throughout the realm with all those which are not of the roman religion than is the protestant, upon a certain general persuasion, that his profession is the more perfect, especially in great towns, where preachers have made more impression in the artificers and burghers than in the country people. and among the protestants themselves, all those that were less interested in ecclesiastical livings, or other preferments depending of the state, are more affected commonly to the puritans, or easily are to be induced to pass that way for the same reason." doleman's _conference about the next succession to the crown of england_, p. . and again: "the puritan party at home, in england, is thought to be most rigorous of any other, that is to say, most ardent, quick, bold, resolute, and to have a great part of the best captains and soldiers on their side, which is a point of no small moment."--p. . i do not quote these passages out of trust in father persons, but because they coincide with much besides that has occurred to me in reading, and especially with the parliamentary proceedings of this reign. the following observation will confirm what may startle some readers; that the puritans, or at least those who rather favoured them, had a majority among the protestant gentry in the queen's days. it is agreed on all hands, and is quite manifest, that they predominated in the house of commons. but that house was composed, as it has ever been, of the principal landed proprietors, and as much represented the general wish of the community when it demanded a further reform in religious matters, as on any other subject. one would imagine, by the manner in which some express themselves, that the discontented were a small faction, who by some unaccountable means, in despite of the government and the nation, formed a majority of all parliaments under elizabeth and her two successors. [ ] burnet, iii. . pluralities are still the great abuse of the church of england; and the rules on this head are so complicated and unreasonable that scarce any one can remember them. it would be difficult to prove that, with a view to the interests of religion among the people, or of the clergy themselves, taken as a body, any pluralities of benefices with cure of souls ought to remain, except of small contiguous parishes. but with a view to the interests of some hundred well connected ecclesiastics, the difficulty is none at all. [ ] d'ewes, p. ; _parliament. hist._ i. , etc. [ ] d'ewes, p. ; _parl. hist._ ; strype's _life of parker_, . in a debate between cardinal carvajal and rockisane, the famous calixtin archbishop of prague, at the council of basle, the former said he would reduce the whole argument to two syllables; crede. the latter replied he would do the same, and confine himself to two others; proba. lenfant makes a very just observation on this: "si la gravité de l'histoire le permettoit, on diroit avec le comique: c'est tout comme ici. il y a long tems que le premier de ces mots est le langage de ce qu'on appelle _l'eglise_, et que le second est le langage de ce qu'on appelle _l'heresie_." _concile de basle_, p. . [ ] several ministers were deprived, in , for refusing to subscribe the articles. strype, ii. . unless these were papists, which indeed is possible, their objection must have been to the articles touching discipline; for the puritans liked the rest very well. [ ] neal, ; strype's _parker_, . parker wrote to lord burleigh (june ), exciting the council to proceed against some of those men who had been called before the star-chamber. "he knew them," he said, "to be cowards"--a very great mistake--"and if they of the privy council gave over, they would hinder her majesty's government more than they were aware, and much abate the estimation of their own authorities," etc. _id._ p. ; cartwright's _admonition_ was now prohibited to be sold. _ibid._ [ ] neal, . [ ] strype's _annals_, i. . [ ] strype's _annals_, ii. , ; _life of parker_, . [ ] strype's _life of grindal_, , , . the archbishop's letter to the queen, declaring his unwillingness to obey her requisition, is in a far bolder strain than the prelates were wont to use in this reign, and perhaps contributed to the severity she showed towards him. grindal was a very honest, conscientious man, but too little of a courtier or statesman for the place he filled. he was on the point of resigning the archbishopric when he died; there had at one time been some thoughts of depriving him. [ ] strype's _whitgift_, _et alibi_. he did not disdain to reflect on cartwright for his poverty, the consequence of a scrupulous adherence to his principles. but the controversial writers of every side in the sixteenth century display a want of decency and humanity which even our anonymous libellers have hardly matched. whitgift was not of much learning, if it be true, as the editors of the _biographia britannica_ intimate, that he had no acquaintance with the greek language. this must seem strange to those who have an exaggerated notion of the scholarship of that age. [ ] strype's _whitgift_, . [ ] neal, ; birch's _memoirs of elizabeth_, vol. i. p. , , etc. [ ] according to a paper in the appendix to strype's _life of whitgift_, p. , the number of conformable ministers in eleven dioceses, not including those of london and norwich, the strongholds of puritanism, was , that of non-compliers . but neal says that ministers were suspended in only six counties, of whom in norfolk, in suffolk, in essex. p. . the puritans formed so much the more learned and diligent part of the clergy, that a great scarcity of preachers was experienced throughout this reign, in consequence of silencing so many of the former. thus in cornwall, about the year , out of clergymen, not one was capable of preaching. neal, p. . and, in general, the number of those who could not preach, but only read the service, was to the others nearly as four to one; the preachers being a majority only in london. _id_. p. . this may be deemed by some an instance of neal's prejudice. but that historian is not so ill-informed as they suppose; and the fact is highly probable. let it be remembered that there existed few books of divinity in english; that all books were, comparatively to the value of money, far dearer than at present; that the majority of the clergy were nearly illiterate, and many of them addicted to drunkenness and low vices; above all, that they had no means of supplying their deficiences by preaching the discourses of others; and we shall see little cause for doubting neal's statement, though founded on a puritan document. [ ] _life of whitgift_, _et alibi pluries_; _annals_, iii. . [ ] neal, ; strype's _annals_, iii. . the germ of the high commission court seems to have been a commission granted by mary (feb. ) to certain bishops and others to inquire after all heresies, punish persons misbehaving at church, and such as refused to come thither, either by means of presentments by witness, or any other politic way they could devise; with full power to proceed as their discretions and consciences should direct them; and to use all such means as they could invent, for the searching of the premises, to call witnesses, and force them to make oath of such things as might discover what they sought after. burnet, ii. . but the primary model was the inquisition itself. it was questioned whether the power of deprivation for not reading the common prayer, granted to the high commissioners, were legal; the act of uniformity having annexed a much smaller penalty. but it was held by the judges in the case of cawdrey ( coke reports), that the act did not take away the ecclesiastical jurisdiction and supremacy which had ever appertained to the crown, and by virtue of which it might erect courts with as full spiritual jurisdiction as the archbishops and bishops exercised. [ ] strype's _whitgift_, ; and appendix, . [ ] _id._ , . [ ] _id._ , _et alibi_; birch's _memoirs_, i. . there was said to be a scheme on foot, about , to make all persons in office subscribe a declaration that episcopacy was lawful by the word of god, which burleigh prevented. [ ] neal, , . [ ] _id._ ; strype's _life of aylmer_, p. , etc. his biographer is here, as in all his writings, too partial to condemn, but too honest to conceal. [ ] neal, . [ ] strype's _aylmer_, . when he grew old, and reflected that a large sum of money would be due from his family, for dilapidations of the palace at fulham, etc., he literally proposed to sell his bishopric to bancroft. _id._ . the other, however, waited for his death, and had above £ awarded to him; but the crafty old man having laid out his money in land, this sum was never paid. bancroft tried to get an act of parliament in order to render the real estate liable, but without success. p. . [ ] _somers' tracts_, i. . [ ] bacon's works, i. . [ ] birch's _memoirs_, ii. , [ ] _id. ibid._ burleigh does not shine much in these memoirs; but most of the letters they contain are from the two bacons, then engaged in the essex faction, though nephews of the treasurer. [ ] the first of martin mar-prelate's libels were published in . in the month of november of that year the archbishop is directed by a letter from the council to search for and commit to prison the authors and printers. strype's _whitgift_, . these pamphlets are scarce; but a few extracts from them may be found in strype, and other authors. the abusive language of the puritan pamphleteers had begun several years before. strype's _annals_, ii. . see the trial of sir richard knightley of northamptonshire for dispersing puritanical libels. _state trials_, i. . [ ] eliz. c. . [ ] penry's protestation at his death is in a style of the most affecting and simple eloquence. _life of whitgift_, , and appendix . it is a striking contrast to the coarse abuse for which he suffered. the authors of martin mar-prelate were never fully discovered; but penry seems not to deny his concern in it. [ ] _state trials_, . it may be remarked on this as on other occasions, that udal's trial is evidently published by himself; and a defendant, especially in a political proceeding, is apt to give a partial colour to his own case. _life of whitgift_, ; _annals of reformation_, iv. ; fuller's _church history_, ; neal, . this writer says: "among the divines who _suffered death_ for the libels above mentioned, was the rev. mr. udal." this is no doubt a splenetic mode of speaking. but warburton, in his short notes on neal's history, treats it as a wilful and audacious attempt to impose on the reader; as if the ensuing pages did not let him into all the circumstances. i will here observe that warburton, in his self-conceit, has paid a much higher compliment to neal than he intended, speaking of his own comments as "a full confutation (i quote from memory) of that historian's false facts and misrepresentations." but when we look at these, we find a good deal of wit and some pointed remarks, but hardly anything that can be deemed a material correction of facts. neal's _history of the puritans_ is almost wholly compiled, as far as this reign is concerned, from strype, and from a manuscript written by some puritan about the time. it was answered by madox, afterwards bishop of worcester, in a _vindication of the church of england_, published anonymously in . neal replied with tolerable success; but madox's book is still an useful corrective. both, however, were, like most controversialists, prejudiced men, loving the interests of their respective factions better than truth, and not very scrupulous about misrepresenting an adversary. but neal had got rid of the intolerant spirit of the puritans, while madox labours to justify every act of whitgift and parker. [ ] _life of whitgift_, . [ ] _id._ , , , append. , . [ ] _id._ append. ; _annals_, iv. . [ ] this predilection for the mosaic polity was not uncommon among the reformers; collier quotes passages from martin bucer as strong as could well be found in the puritan writings. p. . [ ] _life of whitgift_, p. , , and append. ; _annals_, iv. . as i have not seen the original works in which these tenets are said to be promulgated, i cannot vouch for the fairness of the representation made by hostile pens, though i conceive it to be not very far from the truth. [ ] _ibid_. madox's _vindication of the ch. of eng. against neal_, p. ; strype's _annals_, iv. . [ ] the large views of civil government entertained by the puritans were sometimes imputed to them as a crime by their more courtly adversaries, who reproached them with the writings of buchanan and languet. _life of whitgift_, ; _annals_, iv. . [ ] see a declaration to this effect, at which no one could cavil, in strype's _annals_, iv. . the puritans, or at least some of their friends, retaliated this charge of denying the queen's supremacy on their adversaries. sir francis knollys strongly opposed the claims of episcopacy, as a divine institution, which had been covertly insinuated by bancroft, on the ground of its incompatibility with the prerogative, and urged lord burleigh to make the bishops acknowledge they had no superiority over the clergy, except by statute, as the only means to save her majesty from the extreme danger into which she was brought by the machinations of the pope and king of spain. _life of whitgift_, p. , , . he wrote afterwards to lord burleigh in , that if he might not speak his mind freely against the power of the bishops, and prove it unlawful, by the laws of this realm, and not by the canon law, he hoped to be allowed to become a private man. this bold letter he desires to have shown to the queen. _lansdowne catalogue_, vol. lxviii. . [ ] d'ewes, ; strype's _whitgift_, , append. . [ ] d'ewes, _et post_; strype's _whitgift_, , etc., append. . [ ] strype's _annals_, iii. . [ ] strype's _annals_, iii. , . compare append. . [ ] strype's _whitgift_, ; _annals_, iii. . [ ] _parl. hist._ . [ ] strype's _whitgift_, , , app. . the archbishop could not disguise his dislike to the lawyers. "the temporal lawyer," he says in a letter to cecil, "_whose learning is no learning anywhere but here at home_, being born to nothing, doth by his labour and travel in that barbarous knowledge purchase to himself and his heirs for ever a thousand pounds per annum, and oftentimes much more, whereof there are at this day many examples."--p. . [ ] strype's _whitgift_, and d'ewes, _passim_. in a convocation held during grindal's sequestration ( ), proposals for reforming certain abuses in the spiritual courts were considered; but nothing was done in it. strype's _grindal_, p. , and appendix, p. . and in , a commission to enquire into abuses in the spiritual courts was issued; but whether this were intended _bonâ fide_ or not, it produced no reformation. strype's _whitgift_, . [ ] eliz. c. ; _parl. hist._ . [ ] neal asserts in his summary of the controversy, as it stood in this reign, that the puritans did not object to the office of bishop, provided he was only the head of the presbyters, and acted in conjunction with them. p. . but this was in effect to demand everything. for if the office could be so far lowered in eminence, there were many waiting to clip the temporal revenues and dignity in proportion. in another passage, neal states clearly, if not quite fairly, the main points of difference between the church and nonconforming parties under elizabeth. p. . he concludes with the following remark, which is very true. "both parties agreed too well in asserting the necessity of an uniformity of public worship, and of calling in the sword of the magistrates for the support and defence of the several principles, which they made an ill use of in their turns, as they could grasp the power into their hands. the standard of uniformity, according to the bishops, was the queen's supremacy and the laws of the land; according to the puritans, the decrees of provincial and national synods, allowed and enforced by the civil magistrate; but neither party were for admitting that liberty of conscience and freedom of profession which is every man's right, as far as is consistent with the peace of the government he lives under." [ ] neal, , . [ ] strype's _whitgift_, ; neal, . several years before, in , two men called anabaptists, thacker and copping, were hanged at the same place on the same statute for denying the queen's ecclesiastical supremacy; the proof of which was their dispersion of brown's tracts, wherein that was only owned in civil cases. strype's _annals_, iii. . this was according to the invariable practice of tudor times: an oppressive and sanguinary statute was first made; and next, as occasion might serve, a construction was put on it contrary to all common sense, in order to take away men's lives. [ ] "the discipline of christ's church," said cartwright, "that is necessary for all times, is delivered by christ, and set down in the holy scriptures. therefore the true and lawful discipline is to be fetched from thence, and from thence alone. and that which resteth upon any other foundation ought to be esteemed unlawful and counterfeit." whitgift, in his answer to cartwright's _admonition_, rested the controversy in the main, as hooker did, on the indifferency of church discipline and ceremony. it was not till afterwards that the defenders of the established order found out that one claim of divine right was best met by another. [ ] "if the natural strength of men's wit may by experience and study attain unto such ripeness in the knowledge of things human, that men in this respect may presume to build somewhat upon their judgment; what reason have we to think but that even in matters divine, the like wits, furnished with necessary helps, exercised in scripture with like diligence, and assisted with the grace of almighty god, may grow unto so much perfection of knowledge, that men shall have just cause, when anything pertinent unto faith and religion is doubted of, the more willingly to incline their minds towards that which the sentence of so grave, wise, and learned in that faculty shall judge most sound? for the controversy is of the weight of such men's judgment," etc. but hooker's mistake was to exaggerate the weight of such men's judgment; and not to allow enough for their passions and infirmities, the imperfection of their knowledge, their connivance with power, their attachment to names and persons, and all the other drawbacks to ecclesiastical authority. it is well known that the preface to the _ecclesiastical polity_ was one of the two books to which james ii. ascribed his return into the fold of rome; and it is not difficult to perceive by what course of reasoning on the positions it contains this was effected. [ ] in the life of hooker prefixed to the edition i use, fol. , i find an assertion of dr. barnard, chaplain to usher, that he had seen a manuscript of the last books of hooker, containing many things omitted in the printed volume. one passage is quoted, and seems in hooker's style. but the question is rather with respect to interpolations than omissions. and of the former i see no evidence or likelihood. if it be true, as is alleged, that different manuscripts of the three last books did not agree, if even these disagreements were the result of fraud, why should we conclude that they were corrupted by the puritans rather than the church? in zouch's edition of walton's _life of hooker_, the reader will find a long and ill digested note on this subject, the result of which has been to convince me that there is no reason to believe any other than verbal changes to have been made in the loose draught which the author left, but that whatever changes were made, it does not appear that the manuscript was ever in the hands of the puritans. the strongest probability, however, of their authenticity is from internal evidence. a late writer has produced a somewhat ridiculous proof of the carelessness with which all editions of the _ecclesiastical polity_ have been printed; a sentence having slipped into the text of the seventh book, which makes nonsense, and which he very probably conjectures to have been a marginal memorandum of the author for his own use on revising the manuscript. m'crie's _life of melvil_, vol. i. p. . [ ] the puritans objected to the title of lord bishops. sampson wrote a peevish letter to grindal on this, and received a very good answer. strype's _parker_, append. . parker, in a letter to cecil, defends it on the best ground; that the bishops hold their lands by barony, and therefore the giving them the title of lords was no irregularity, and nothing more than a consequence of the tenure. collier, . this will not cover our modern _colonial_ bishops, on whom the same title has, without any good reason, been conferred. [ ] strype's _annals_, i. . [ ] eliz. c. ; eliz. c. ; blackstone's _commentaries_, vol. ii. c. . the exception in favour of the crown was repealed in the first year of james. [ ] it was couched in the following terms:-- "proud prelate,--you know what you were before i made you what you are: if you do not immediately comply with my request, by g---- i will unfrock you. elizabeth." poor cox wrote a very good letter before this, printed in strype's _annals_, vol. ii. append. . the names of hatton garden and ely place (mantua væ miseræ nimium vicina cremonæ) still bear witness to the encroaching lord keeper, and the elbowed bishop. [ ] strype, iv. . see also p. of the same volume. by an act in the first year of james, c. , conveyances of bishops' lands to the crown are made void; a concession much to the king's honour. [ ] harrington's "state of the church," in _nugæ antiquæ_, vol. ii. _passim_; wilkins's _concilia_, iv. ; strype's _annals_, iii. _et alibi_; _life of parker_, ; _of whitgift_, ; _of aylmer, passim_. observe the preamble of eliz. c. . it must be admitted, on the other hand, that the gentry, when popishly or puritanically affected, were apt to behave exceedingly ill towards the bishops. at lambeth and fulham they were pretty safe; but at a distance they found it hard to struggle with the rudeness and iniquity of the territorial aristocracy; as sandys twice experienced. [ ] birch's _memoirs_, i. . elizabeth seems to have fancied herself entitled by her supremacy to dispose of bishops as she pleased, though they did not hold commissions _durante bene placito_, as in her brother's time. thus she suspended fletcher, bishop of london, of her own authority, only for marrying "a fine lady and a widow." strype's _whitgift_, . and aylmer, having preached too vehemently against female vanity in dress, which came home to the queen's conscience, she told her ladies that if the bishop held more discourse on such matters, she would fit him for heaven; but he should walk thither without a staff and leave his mantle behind him. harrington's "state of the church," in _nugæ antiquæ_, i. ; see too p. . it will of course not appear surprising that hutton, archbishop of york, an exceedingly honest prelate, having preached a bold sermon before the queen, urging her to settle the succession, and pointing strongly towards scotland, received a sharp message. p. . [ ] d'ewes, . [ ] collier says (p. ) on heylin's authority, that walsingham offered the puritans, about , in the queen's name, to give up the ceremony of kneeling at the communion, the cross in baptism, and the surplice; but that they answered, "ne ungulam quidem esse relinquendam." but i am not aware of any better testimony to the fact; and it is by no means agreeable to the queen's general conduct. [ ] bacon, ii. . see also another paper concerning the pacification of the church, written under james, p. . "the wrongs," he says, "of those which are possessed of the government of the church towards the other, may hardly be dissembled or excused."--p. . yet bacon was never charged with affection for the puritans. in truth, elizabeth and james were personally the great support of the high church interest; it had few real friends among their counsellors. [ ] burnet, ii. ; cabala, part ii. ( to edition). walsingham grounds the queen's proceedings upon two principles: the one, that "consciences are not to be forced, but to be won and reduced by force of truth, with the aid of time, and use of all good means of instruction and persuasion;" the other, that "cases of conscience, when they exceed their bounds, and grow to be matter of faction, lose their nature; and that sovereign princes ought distinctly to punish their practices and contempt, though coloured with the pretence of conscience and religion." bacon has repeated the same words, as well as some more of walsingham's letter, in his observations on the libel on lord burleigh, i. . and mr. southey (_book of the church_, ii. ) seems to adopt them as his own. upon this it may be observed; first, that they take for granted the fundamental sophism of religious intolerance, namely, that the civil magistrate, or the church he supports, is not only in the right, but so clearly in the right, that no honest man, if he takes time and pains to consider the subject, can help acknowledging it: secondly, that, according to the principles of christianity as admitted on each side, it does not rest in an esoteric persuasion, but requires an exterior profession, evidenced both by social worship, and by certain positive rites; and that the marks of this profession, according to the form best adapted to their respective ways of thinking, were as incumbent upon the catholic and puritan, as they had been upon the primitive church: nor were they more chargeable with faction, or with exceeding the bounds of conscience, when they persisted in the use of them, notwithstanding any prohibitory statute, than the early christians. the generality of statesmen, and churchmen themselves not unfrequently, have argued upon the principles of what, in the seventeenth century, was called hobbism, towards which the erastian system, which is that of the church of england, though excellent in some points of view, had a tendency to gravitate; namely, that civil and religious allegiance are so necessarily connected, that it is the subject's duty to follow the dictates of the magistrate in both alike. and this received some countenance from the false and mischievous position of hooker, that the church and commonwealth are but different denominations of the same society. warburton has sufficiently exposed the sophistry of this theory; though i do not think him equally successful in what he substitutes for it. chapter v on the civil government of elizabeth the subject of the two last chapters, i mean the policy adopted by elizabeth for restricting the two religious parties which from opposite quarters resisted the exercise of her ecclesiastical prerogatives, has already afforded us many illustrations of what may more strictly be reckoned the constitutional history of her reign. the tone and temper of her administration have been displayed in a vigilant execution of severe statutes, especially towards the catholics, and sometimes in stretches of power beyond the law. and as elizabeth had no domestic enemies or refractory subjects who did not range under one or other of these two sects, and little disagreement with her people on any other grounds, the ecclesiastical history of this period is the best preparation for our enquiry into the civil government. in the present chapter i shall first offer a short view of the practical exercise of government in this reign, and then proceed to show how the queen's high assumptions of prerogative were encountered by a resistance in parliament, not quite uniform, but insensibly becoming more vigorous. elizabeth ascended the throne with all the advantages of a very extended authority. though the jurisdiction actually exerted by the court of star-chamber could not be vindicated according to statute-law, it had been so well established as to pass without many audible murmurs. her progenitors had intimidated the nobility; and if she had something to fear at one season from this order, the fate of the duke of norfolk and of the rebellious earls in the north put an end for ever to all apprehension from the feudal influence of the aristocracy. there seems no reason to believe that she attempted a more absolute power than her predecessors; the wisdom of her counsellors, on the contrary, led them generally to shun the more violent measures of the late reigns; but she certainly acted upon many of the precedents they had bequeathed her, with little consideration of their legality. her own remarkable talents, her masculine intrepidity, her readiness of wit and royal deportment, which the bravest men unaffectedly dreaded, her temper of mind, above all, at once fiery and inscrutably dissembling, would in any circumstances have ensured her more real sovereignty than weak monarchs, however nominally absolute, can ever enjoy or retain. to these personal qualities was added the co-operation of some of the most diligent and circumspect, as well as the most sagacious counsellors that any prince has employed; men as unlikely to loose from their grasp the least portion of that authority which they found themselves to possess, as to excite popular odium by an unusual or misplaced exertion of it. the most eminent instances, as i have remarked, of a high-strained prerogative in her reign, have some relation to ecclesiastical concerns; and herein the temper of the predominant religion was such as to account no measures harsh or arbitrary that were adopted towards its conquered, but still formidable, enemy. yet when the royal supremacy was to be maintained against a different foe by less violent acts of power, it revived the smouldering embers of english liberty. the stern and exasperated puritans became the depositaries of that sacred fire; and this manifests a second connection between the temporal and ecclesiastical history of the present reign. civil liberty, in this kingdom, has two direct guarantees; the open administration of justice according to known laws truly interpreted, and fair constructions of evidence; and the right of parliament, without let or interruption, to enquire into, and obtain the redress of, public grievances. of these, the first is by far the most indispensable; nor can the subjects of any state be reckoned to enjoy a real freedom, where this condition is not found both in its judicial institutions and in their constant exercise. in this, much more than in positive law, our ancient constitution, both under the plantagenet and tudor line, had ever been failing; and it is because one set of writers have looked merely to the letter of our statutes or other authorities, while another have been almost exclusively struck by the instances of arbitrary government they found on record, that such incompatible systems have been laid down with equal positiveness on the character of that constitution. _trials for treason and other political offences unjustly conducted._--i have found it impossible not to anticipate, in more places than one, some of those glaring transgressions of natural as well as positive law, that rendered our courts of justice in cases of treason little better than the caverns of murderers. whoever was arraigned at their bar was almost certain to meet a virulent prosecutor, a judge hardly distinguishable from the prosecutor except by his ermine, and a passive pusillanimous jury. those who are acquainted only with our modern decent and dignified procedure, can form little conception of the irregularity of ancient trials; the perpetual interrogation of the prisoner, which gives most of us so much offence at this day in the tribunals of a neighbouring kingdom; and the want of all evidence except written, and perhaps unattested, examinations or confessions. habington, one of the conspirators against elizabeth's life in , complained that two witnesses had not been brought against him, conformably to the statute of edward vi. but anderson, the chief justice, told him, that as he was indicted on the act of edward iii., that provision was not in force.[ ] in the case of captain lee, a partisan of essex and southampton, the court appear to have denied the right of peremptory challenge.[ ] nor was more equal measure dealt to the noblest prisoners by their equals. the earl of arundel was convicted of imagining the queen's death, on evidence which at the utmost would only have supported an indictment for reconciliation to the church of rome.[ ] the integrity of judges is put to the proof as much by prosecutions for seditious writings as by charges of treason. i have before mentioned the conviction of udal and penry, for a felony created by the rd of elizabeth; the former of which, especially, must strike every reader of the trial as one of the gross judicial iniquities of this reign. but, before this sanguinary statute was enacted, a punishment of uncommon severity had been inflicted upon one stubbe, a puritan lawyer, for a pamphlet against the queen's intended marriage with the duke of anjou. it will be in the recollection of most of my readers that, in the year , elizabeth exposed herself to much censure and ridicule, and inspired the justest alarm in her most faithful subjects, by entertaining, at the age of forty-six, the proposals of this young scion of the house of valois. her council, though several of them in their deliberations had much inclined against the preposterous alliance, yet in the end, displaying the compliance usual with the servants of self-willed princes, agreed, "conceiving," as they say, "her earnest disposition for this her marriage," to further it with all their power. sir philip sidney, with more real loyalty, wrote her a spirited remonstrance, which she had the magnanimity never to resent.[ ] but she poured her indignation on stubbe, who, not entitled to use a private address, had ventured to arouse a popular cry in his "gaping gulph, in which england will be swallowed up by the french marriage." this pamphlet is very far from being, what some have ignorantly or unjustly called it, a virulent libel; but is written in a sensible manner, and with unfeigned loyalty and affection towards the queen. but, besides the main offence of addressing the people on state affairs, he had, in the simplicity of his heart, thrown out many allusions proper to hurt her pride, such as dwelling too long on the influence her husband would acquire over her, and imploring that she would ask her physicians whether to bear children at her years would not be highly dangerous to her life. stubbe, for writing this pamphlet, received sentence to have his right hand cut off. when the penalty was inflicted, taking off his hat with his left, he exclaimed, long live queen elizabeth! burleigh, who knew that his fidelity had borne so rude a test, employed him afterwards in answering some of the popish libellers.[ ] there is no room for wonder at any verdict that could be returned by a jury, when we consider what means the government possessed of securing it. the sheriff returned a pannel, either according to express directions, of which we have proofs, or to what he judged himself of the crown's intention and interest.[ ] if a verdict had gone against the prosecution in a matter of moment, the jurors must have laid their account with appearing before the star-chamber; lucky, if they should escape, on humble retractation, with sharp words, instead of enormous fines and indefinite imprisonment. the control of this arbitrary tribunal bound down and rendered impotent all the minor jurisdictions. that primæval institution, those inquests by twelve true men, the unadulterated voice of the people responsible alone to god and their conscience, which should have been heard in the sanctuaries of justice, as fountains springing fresh from the lap of earth, became, like waters constrained in their course by art, stagnant and impure. until this weight that hung upon the constitution should be taken off, there was literally no prospect of enjoying with security those civil privileges which it held forth.[ ] _illegal commitments._--it cannot be too frequently repeated, that no power of arbitrary detention has ever been known to our constitution since the charter obtained at runnymede. the writ of habeas corpus has always been a matter of right. but as may naturally be imagined, no right of the subject, in his relation to the crown, was preserved with greater difficulty. not only the privy council in general arrogated to itself a power of discretionary imprisonment, into which no inferior court was to enquire, but commitments by a single counsellor appear to have been frequent. these abuses gave rise to a remarkable complaint of the judges, which, though an authentic recognition of the privilege of personal freedom against such irregular and oppressive acts of individual ministers, must be admitted to leave by far too great latitude to the executive government, and to surrender, at least by implication from rather obscure language, a great part of the liberties which many statutes had confirmed.[ ] this is contained in a passage from chief justice anderson's _reports_. but as there is an original manuscript in the british museum, differing in some material points from the print, i shall follow it in preference.[ ] _remonstrance of judges against them._--"to the rt. hon. our very good lords sir chr. hatton, of the honourable order of the garter knight, and chancellor of england, and sir w. cecill of the hon. order of the garter knight, lord burleigh, lord high treasurer of england,--we her majesty's justices, of both benches, and barons of the exchequer, do desire your lordships that by your good means such order may be taken that her highness's subjects may not be committed or detained in prison, by commandment of any nobleman or counsellor, against the laws of the realm, to the grievous charges and oppression of her majesty's said subjects: or else help us to have access to her majesty, to be suitors unto her highness for the same; for divers have been imprisoned for suing ordinary actions, and suits at the common law, until they will leave the same, or against their wills put their matter to order, although some time it be after judgment and accusation. "item: others have been committed and detained in prison upon such commandment against the law; and upon the queen's writ in that behalf, no cause sufficient hath been certified or returned. "item: some of the parties so committed and detained in prison after they have, by the queen's writ, been lawfully discharged in court, have been eftsoones recommitted to prison in secret places, and not in common and ordinary known prisons, as the marshalsea, fleet, king's bench, gatehouse, nor the custodie of any sheriff, so as upon complaint made for their delivery, the queen's court cannot learn to whom to award her majesty's writ, without which justice cannot be done. "item: divers serjeants of london and officers have been many times committed to prison for lawful execution of her majesty's writs out of the king's bench, common pleas, and other courts, to their great charges and oppression, whereby they are put in such fear as they dare not execute the queen's process. "item: divers have been sent for by pursuivants for private causes, some of them dwelling far distant from london, and compelled to pay to the pursuivants great sums of money against the law, and have been committed to prison till they would release the lawful benefit of their suits, judgments, or executions for remedie, in which behalf we are almost daily called upon to minister justice according to law, whereunto we are bound by our office and oath. "and whereas it pleased your lordships to will divers of us to set down when a prisoner sent to custody by her majesty, her council, or some one or two of them, is to be detained in prison, and not to be delivered by her majesty's courts or judges: "we think that, if any person shall be committed by her majesty's special commandment, or by order from the council-board, or for treason touching her majesty's person (a word of five letters follows, illegible to me), which causes being generally returned into any court, is good cause for the same court to leave the person committed in custody. "but if any person shall be committed for any other cause, then the same ought specially to be returned." this paper bears the original signatures of eleven judges. it has no date, but is indorsed june . in the printed report, it is said to have been delivered in easter term eliz., that is, in . the chancellor hatton, whose name is mentioned, died in november ; so that, if there is no mistake, this must have been delivered a second time, after undergoing the revision of the judges. and in fact the differences are far too material to have proceeded from accidental carelessness in transcription. the latter copy is fuller, and on the whole more perspicuous, than the manuscript i have followed; but in one or two places it will be better understood by comparison with it. _proclamations unwarranted by law._--it was a natural consequence, not more of the high notions entertained of prerogative than of the very irregular and infrequent meeting of parliament, that an extensive and somewhat indefinite authority should be arrogated to proclamations of the king in council. temporary ordinances, bordering at least on legislative authority, grow out of the varying exigencies of civil society, and will by very necessity be put up with in silence, wherever the constitution of the commonwealth does not, directly or in effect, provide for frequent assemblies of the body in whom the right of making or consenting to laws has been vested. since the english constitution has reached its zenith, we have endeavoured to provide a remedy by statute for every possible mischief or inconvenience; and if this has swollen our code to an enormous redundance, till, in the labyrinth of written law, we almost feel again the uncertainties of arbitrary power, it has at least put an end to such exertions of prerogative as fell at once on the persons and properties of whole classes. it seems by the proclamations issued under elizabeth, that the crown claimed a sort of supplemental right of legislation, to perfect and carry into effect what the spirit of existing laws might require, as well as a paramount supremacy, called sometimes the king's absolute or sovereign power, which sanctioned commands beyond the legal prerogative, for the sake of public safety, whenever the council might judge that to be in hazard. thus we find anabaptists, without distinction of natives or aliens, banished the realm; irishmen commanded to depart into ireland; the culture of woad,[ ] and the exportation of corn, money, and various commodities, prohibited; the excess of apparel restrained. a proclamation in forbids the erection of houses within three miles of london, on account of the too great increase of the city, under the penalty of imprisonment and forfeiture of the materials.[ ] this is repeated at other times, and lastly (i mean during her reign) in , with additional restrictions.[ ] some proclamations in this reign hold out menaces, which the common law could never have executed on the disobedient. to trade with the french king's rebels, or to export victuals into the spanish dominions (the latter of which might possibly be construed into assisting the queen's enemies) incurred the penalty of treason. and persons having in their possession goods taken on the high seas, which had not paid custom, are enjoined to give them up, on pain of being punished as felons and pirates.[ ] notwithstanding these instances, it cannot perhaps be said on the whole that elizabeth stretched her authority very outrageously in this respect. many of her proclamations, which may at first sight appear illegal, are warrantable by statutes then in force, or by ancient precedents. thus the council is empowered by an act ( h. , c. ) to fix the prices of wines; and abstinence from flesh in lent, as well as on fridays and saturdays (a common subject of elizabeth's proclamations), is enjoined by several statutes of edward vi. and of her own.[ ] and it has been argued by some not at all inclined to diminish any popular rights, that the king did possess a prerogative by common law of restraining the export of corn and other commodities.[ ] _restrictions on printing._--it is natural to suppose that a government thus arbitrary and vigilant must have looked with extreme jealousy on the diffusion of free enquiry through the press. the trades of printing and bookselling, in fact, though not absolutely licensed, were always subject to a sort of peculiar superintendence. besides protecting the copyright of authors,[ ] the council frequently issued proclamations to restrain the importation of books, or to regulate their sale.[ ] it was penal to utter, or so much as to possess, even the most learned works on the catholic side; or if some connivance was usual in favour of educated men, the utmost strictness was used in suppressing that light infantry of literature, the smart and vigorous pamphlets with which the two parties arrayed against the church assaulted her opposite flanks.[ ] stowe, the well-known chronicler of england, who lay under suspicion of an attachment to popery, had his library searched by warrant, and his unlawful books taken away; several of which were but materials for his history.[ ] whitgift, in this, as in every other respect, aggravated the rigour of preceding times. at his instigation, the star-chamber, in , published ordinances for the regulation of the press. the preface of these recites enormities and abuses of disorderly persons professing the art of printing and selling books to have more and more increased in spite of the ordinances made against them, which it attributes to the inadequacy of the penalties hitherto inflicted. every printer therefore is enjoined to certify his presses to the stationers' company, on pain of having them defaced, and suffering a year's imprisonment. none to print at all, under similar penalties, except in london, and one in each of the two universities. no printer who has only set up his trade within six months to exercise it any longer, nor any to begin it in future, until the excessive multitude of printers be diminished, and brought to such a number as the archbishop of canterbury and bishop of london for the time being shall think convenient; but, whenever any addition to the number of master printers shall be required, the stationers' company shall select proper persons to use that calling with the approbation of the ecclesiastical commissioners. none to print any book, matter, or thing whatsoever, until it shall have been first seen, perused, and allowed by the archbishop of canterbury, or bishop of london, except the queen's printer, to be appointed for some special service, or law-printers, who shall require the licence only of the chief justices. every one selling books printed contrary to the intent of this ordinance, to suffer three months' imprisonment. the stationers' company empowered to search houses and shops of printers and booksellers, and to seize all books printed in contravention of this ordinance, to destroy and deface the presses, and to arrest and bring before the council those who shall have offended therein.[ ] the forms of english law, however inadequate to defend the subject in state prosecutions, imposed a degree of seeming restraint on the crown, and wounded that pride which is commonly a yet stronger sentiment than the lust of power, with princes and their counsellors. it was possible that juries might absolve a prisoner; it was always necessary that they should be the arbiters of his fate. delays too were interposed by the regular process; not such, perhaps, as the life of man should require, yet enough to weaken the terrors of summary punishment. kings love to display the divinity with which their flatterers invest them, in nothing so much as the instantaneous execution of their will; and to stand revealed, as it were, in the storm and thunderbolt, when their power breaks through the operation of secondary causes, and awes a prostrate nation without the intervention of law. there may indeed be times of pressing danger, when the conservation of all demands the sacrifice of the legal rights of a few; there may be circumstances that not only justify, but compel, the temporary abandonment of constitutional forms. it has been usual for all governments, during an actual rebellion, to proclaim martial law, or the suspension of civil jurisdiction. and this anomaly, i must admit, is very far from being less indispensable at such unhappy seasons, in countries where the ordinary mode of trial is by jury, than where the right of decision resides in the judge. but it is of high importance to watch with extreme jealousy the disposition, towards which most governments are prone, to introduce too soon, to extend too far, to retain too long, so perilous a remedy. in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the court of the constable and marshal, whose jurisdiction was considered as of a military nature, and whose proceedings were not according to the course of the common law, sometimes tried offenders by what was called martial law, but only, i believe, either during, or not long after, a serious rebellion. this tribunal fell into disuse under the tudors. but mary had executed some of those taken in wyatt's insurrection without regular process, though their leader had his trial by a jury. elizabeth, always hasty in passion and quick to punish, would have resorted to this summary course on a slighter occasion. one pete burchell, a fanatical puritan, and perhaps insane, conceiving that sir christopher hatton was an enemy to true religion, determined to assassinate him. but by mistake he wounded instead a famous seaman, captain hawkins. for this ordinary crime, the queen could hardly be prevented from directing him to be tried instantly by martial law. her council, however (and this it is important to observe), resisted this illegal proposition with spirit and success.[ ] we have indeed a proclamation some years afterwards, declaring that such as brought into the kingdom or dispersed papal bulls, or traitorous libels against the queen, should with all severity be proceeded against by her majesty's lieutenants or their deputies, by martial law, and suffer such pains and penalties as they should inflict; and that none of her said lieutenants or their deputies be any wise impeached, in body, lands, or goods, at any time hereafter, for anything to be done or executed in the punishment of any such offender, according to the said martial law, and the tenor of this proclamation, any law or statute to the contrary in any wise notwithstanding.[ ] this measure, though by no means constitutional, finds an apology in the circumstances of the time. it bears date the st of july , when within the lapse of a few days the vast armament of spain might effect a landing upon our coasts; and prospectively to a crisis, when the nation, struggling for life against an invader's grasp, could not afford the protection of law to domestic traitors. but it is an unhappy consequence of all deviations from the even course of law, that the forced acts of over-ruling necessity come to be distorted into precedents to serve the purposes of arbitrary power. _martial law._--no other measure of elizabeth's reign can be compared, in point of violence and illegality, to a commission in july , directed to sir thomas wilford; whereby upon no other allegation than that there had been of late sundry great unlawful assemblies of a number of base people in riotous sort, both in the city of london and the suburbs, for the suppression whereof (for that the insolency of many desperate offenders is such, that they care not for any ordinary punishment by imprisonment), it was found necessary to have some such notable rebellious persons to be speedily suppressed by execution to death, according to the justice of martial law, he is appointed provost-marshal, with authority, on notice by the magistrates, to attach and seize such notable rebellious and incorrigible offenders, and in the presence of the magistrates to execute them openly on the gallows. the commission empowers him also "to repair to all common highways near to the city, which any vagrant persons do haunt, and, with the assistance of justices and constables, to apprehend all such vagrant and suspected persons, and them to deliver to the said justices, by them to be committed and examined of the causes of their wandering, and finding them notoriously culpable in their unlawful manner of life, as incorrigible, and so certified by the said justices, to cause to be executed upon the gallows or gibbet some of them that are so found most notorious and incorrigible offenders; and some such also of them as have manifestly broken the peace, since they have been adjudged and condemned to death for former offences, and had the queen's pardon for the same."[ ] this peremptory style of superseding the common law was a stretch of prerogative without an adequate parallel, so far as i know, in any former period. it is to be remarked, that no tumults had taken place of any political character or of serious importance, some riotous apprentices only having committed a few disorders.[ ] but rather more than usual suspicion had been excited about the same time by the intrigues of the jesuits in favour of spain, and the queen's advanced age had begun to renew men's doubts as to the succession. the rapid increase of london gave evident uneasiness, as the proclamations against new buildings show, to a very cautious administration, environed by bold and inveterate enemies, and entirely destitute of regular troops to withstand a sudden insurrection. circumstances of which we are ignorant, i do not question, gave rise to this extraordinary commission. the executive government in modern times has been invested with a degree of coercive power to maintain obedience, of which our ancestors, in the most arbitrary reigns, had no practical experience. if we reflect upon the multitude of statutes enacted since the days of elizabeth in order to restrain and suppress disorder, and above all on the prompt and certain aid that a disciplined army affords to our civil authorities, we may be inclined to think that it was rather the weakness than the vigour of her government which led to its inquisitorial watchfulness and harsh measures of prevention. we find in an earlier part of her reign an act of state somewhat of the same character, though not perhaps illegal. letters were written to the sheriffs and justices of divers counties in , directing them to apprehend, on a certain night, all vagabonds and idle persons having no master, nor means of living, and either to commit them to prison, or pass them to their proper homes. this was repeated several times; and no less than , persons were thus apprehended, chiefly in the north, which, as strype says, very much broke the rebellion attempted in that year.[ ] amidst so many infringements of the freedom of commerce, and with so precarious an enjoyment of personal liberty, the english subject continued to pride himself in his immunity from taxation without consent of parliament. this privilege he had asserted, though not with constant success, against the rapacity of henry vii. and the violence of his son. nor was it ever disputed in theory by elizabeth. she retained, indeed, notwithstanding the complaints of the merchants at her accession, a custom upon cloths, arbitrarily imposed by her sister, and laid one herself upon sweet wines. but she made no attempt at levying internal taxes, except that the clergy were called upon, in , for an aid not granted in convocation, but assessed by the archdeacon according to the value of their benefices; to which they naturally showed no little reluctance.[ ] by dint of singular frugality she continued to steer the true course, so as to keep her popularity undiminished and her prerogative unimpaired; asking very little of her subjects' money in parliaments, and being hence enabled both to have long breathing times between their sessions, and to meet them without coaxing or wrangling; till, in the latter years of her reign, a foreign war and a rebellion in ireland, joined to a rapid depreciation in the value of money, rendered her demands somewhat higher. but she did not abstain from the ancient practice of sending privy-seals to borrow money of the wealthy. _loans of money not quite voluntary._--these were not considered as illegal, though plainly forbidden by the statute of richard iii.; for it was the fashion to set aside the authority of that act, as having been passed by an usurper. it is impossible to doubt that such loans were so far obtained by compulsion, that any gentleman or citizen of sufficient ability refusing compliance would have discovered that it were far better to part with his money than to incur the council's displeasure. we have indeed a letter from a lord mayor to the council informing them that he had committed to prison some citizens for refusing to pay the money demanded of them.[ ] but the queen seems to have been punctual in their speedy repayment according to stipulation; a virtue somewhat unusual with royal debtors. thus we find a proclamation in , that such as had lent the queen money in the last summer should receive repayment in november and december.[ ] such loans were but an anticipation of her regular revenue, and no great hardship on rich merchants; who, if they got no interest for their money, were recompensed with knighthoods and gracious words. and as elizabeth incurred no debt till near the conclusion of her reign, it is probable that she never had borrowed more than she was sure to repay. a letter quoted by hume from lord burleigh's papers, though not written by him, as the historian asserts, and somewhat obscure in its purport, appears to warrant the conclusion that he had revolved in his mind some project of raising money by a general contribution or benevolence from persons of ability, without purpose of repayment. this was also amidst the difficulties of the year , when cecil perhaps might be afraid of meeting parliament, on account of the factions leagued against himself. but as nothing further was done in this matter, we must presume that he perceived the impracticability of so unconstitutional a scheme.[ ] _character of lord burleigh's administration._--those whose curiosity has led them to somewhat more acquaintance with the details of english history under elizabeth than the pages of camden or hume will afford, cannot but have been struck with the perpetual interference of men in power with matters of private concern. i am far from pretending to know how far the solicitations for a prime minister's aid and influence may extend at present. yet one may think that he would hardly be employed, like cecil, where he had no personal connection, in reconciling family quarrels, interceding with a landlord for his tenant, or persuading a rich citizen to bestow his daughter on a young lord. we are sure, at least, that he would not use the air of authority upon such occasions. the vast collection of lord burleigh's letters in the museum is full of such petty matters, too insignificant, for the most part, to be mentioned even by strype.[ ] they exhibit, however, collectively, a curious view of the manner in which england was managed, as if it had been the household and estate of a nobleman under a strict and prying steward. we are told that the relaxation of this minister's mind was to study the state of england and the pedigrees of its nobility and gentry: of these last he drew whole books with his own hands; so that he was better versed in descents and families than most of the heralds, and would often surprise persons of distinction at his table by appearing better acquainted with their manors, parks, and woods, than themselves.[ ] such knowledge was not sought by the crafty cecil for mere diversion's sake. it was a main part of his system to keep alive in the english gentry a persuasion that his eye was upon them. no minister was ever more exempt from that false security which is the usual weakness of a court. his failing was rather a bias towards suspicion and timidity; there were times, at least, in which his strength of mind seems to have almost deserted him, through sense of the perils of his sovereign and country. but those perils appear less to us, who know how the vessel outrode them, than they could do to one harassed by continual informations of those numerous spies whom he employed both at home and abroad. the one word of burleigh's policy was prevention; and this was dictated by a consciousness of wanting an armed force or money to support it, as well as by some uncertainty as to the public spirit, in respect at least of religion. but a government that directs its chief attention to prevent offences against itself, is in its very nature incompatible with that absence of restraint, that immunity from suspicion, in which civil liberty, as a tangible possession, may be said to consist. it appears probable, that elizabeth's administration carried too far, even as a matter of policy, this precautionary system upon which they founded the penal code against popery; and we may surely point to a contrast very advantageous to our modern constitution, in the lenient treatment which the jacobite faction experienced from the princes of the house of hanover. she reigned however in a period of real difficulty and danger. at such seasons, few ministers will abstain from arbitrary actions, except those who are not strong enough to practise them. _disposition of the house of commons._--i have traced, in another work, the acquisition by the house of commons of a practical right to enquire into and advise upon the public administration of affairs, during the reigns of edward iii., richard ii., and the princes of the line of lancaster. this energy of parliament was quelled by the civil wars of the fifteenth century; and, whatever may have passed in debates within its walls that have not been preserved, did not often display itself in any overt act under the first tudors. to grant subsidies which could not be raised by any other course, to propose statutes which were not binding without their consent, to consider of public grievances, and procure their redress, either by law or petition to the crown, were their acknowledged constitutional privileges, which no sovereign or minister ever pretended to deny. for this end liberty of speech and free access to the royal person were claimed by the speaker as customary privileges (though not quite, in his modern language, as undoubted rights), at the commencement of every parliament. but the house of commons in elizabeth's reign contained men of a bold and steady patriotism, well read in the laws and records of old time, sensible to the dangers of their country and abuses of government, and conscious that it was their privilege and their duty to watch over the common weal. this led to several conflicts between the crown and parliament; wherein, if the former often asserted the victory, the latter sometimes kept the field, and was left on the whole a gainer at the close of the campaign. it would surely be erroneous to conceive, that many acts of government in the four preceding reigns had not appeared at the time arbitrary and unconstitutional. if indeed we are not mistaken in judging them according to the ancient law, they must have been viewed in the same light by contemporaries, who were full as able to try them by that standard. but, to repeat what i have once before said, the extant documents from which we draw our knowledge of constitutional history under those reigns are so scanty, that instances even of a successful parliamentary resistance to measures of the crown may have left no memorial. the debates of parliament are not preserved, and very little is to be gained from such histories as the age produced. the complete barrenness indeed of elizabeth's chroniclers, holingshed and thin, as to every parliamentary or constitutional information, speaks of itself the jealous tone of her administration. camden, writing to the next generation, though far from an ingenuous historian, is somewhat less under restraint. this forced silence of history is much more to be suspected after the use of printing and the reformation, than in the ages when monks compiled annals in their convents, reckless of the censure of courts, because independent of their permission. grosser ignorance of public transactions is undoubtedly found in the chronicles of the middle ages; but far less of that deliberate mendacity, or of that insidious suppression, by which fear, and flattery, and hatred, and the thirst of gain, have, since the invention of printing, corrupted so much of historical literature throughout europe. we begin however to find in elizabeth's reign more copious and unquestionable documents for parliamentary history. the regular journals indeed are partly lost; nor would those which remain give us a sufficient insight into the spirit of parliament, without the aid of other sources. but a volume called sir simon d'ewes's journal, part of which is copied from a manuscript of heywood townsend, a member of all parliaments from to , contains minutes of the most interesting debates as well as transactions, and for the first time renders us acquainted with the names of those who swayed an english house of commons.[ ] _addresses concerning the succession._--there was no peril more alarming to this kingdom during the queen's reign than the precariousness of her life--a thread whereon its tranquillity, if not its religion and independence, was suspended. hence the commons felt it an imperious duty not only to recommend her to marry, but, when this was delayed, to solicit that some limitations of the crown might be enacted, in failure of her issue. the former request she evaded without ever manifesting much displeasure, though not sparing a hint that it was a little beyond the province of parliament. upon the last occasion, indeed, that it was preferred, namely, by the speaker in , she gave what from any other woman must have appeared an assent, and almost a promise. but about declaring the succession she was always very sensible. through a policy not perhaps entirely selfish, and certainly not erroneous on selfish principles, she was determined never to pronounce among the possible competitors for the throne. least of all could she brook the intermeddling of parliament in such a concern. the commons first took up this business in , when there had begun to be much debate in the nation about the opposite titles of the queen of scots and lady catherine grey; and especially in consequence of a dangerous sickness the queen had just experienced, and which is said to have been the cause of summoning parliament. their language is wary, praying her only by "proclamation of certainty already provided, if any such be," alluding to the will of henry viii., "or else by limitations of certainty, if none be, to provide a most gracious remedy in this great necessity;"[ ] offering at the same time to concur in provisions to guarantee her personal safety against any one who might be limited in remainder. elizabeth gave them a tolerably courteous answer, though not without some intimation of her dislike to this address.[ ] but at their next meeting, which was not till , the hope of her own marriage having grown fainter, and the circumstances of the kingdom still more powerfully demanding some security, both houses of parliament united, with a boldness of which there had perhaps been no example for more than a hundred years, to overcome her repugnance. some of her own council among the peers are said to have asserted in their places that the queen ought to be obliged to take a husband, or that a successor should be declared by parliament against her will. she was charged with a disregard to the state and to posterity. she would prove, in the uncourtly phrase of some sturdy members of the lower house, a step-mother to her country, as being seemingly desirous that england, which lived as it were in her, should rather expire with than survive her; that kings can only gain the affections of their subjects by providing for their welfare both while they live and after their deaths; nor did any but princes hated by their subjects, or faint-hearted women, ever stand in fear of their successors.[ ] but this great princess wanted not skill and courage to resist this unusual importunity of parliament. the peers, who had forgotten their customary respectfulness, were excluded the presence-chamber till they made their submission. she prevailed on the commons, through her ministers who sat there, to join a request for her marriage with the more unpalatable alternative of naming her successor; and when this request was presented, gave them fair words, and a sort of assurance that their desires should by some means be fulfilled.[ ] when they continued to dwell on the same topic in their speeches, she sent messages through her ministers, and at length a positive injunction through the speaker, that they should proceed no further in the business. the house however was not in a temper for such ready acquiescence as it sometimes displayed. paul wentworth, a bold and plain-spoken man, moved to know whether the queen's command and inhibition that they should no longer dispute of the matter of succession, were not against their liberties and privileges. this caused, as we are told, long debates; which do not appear to have terminated in any resolution.[ ] but, more probably having passed than we know at present, the queen, whose haughty temper and tenaciousness of prerogative were always within check of her discretion, several days after announced through the speaker, that she revoked her two former commandments; "which revocation," says the journal, "was taken by the house most joyfully, with hearty prayer and thanks for the same." at the dissolution of this parliament, which was perhaps determined upon in consequence of their steadiness, elizabeth alluded in addressing them with no small bitterness to what had occurred.[ ] this is the most serious disagreement on record between the crown and the commons since the days of richard ii. and henry iv. doubtless the queen's indignation was excited by the nature of the subject her parliament ventured to discuss, still more than by her general disapprobation of their interference in matters of state. it was an endeavour to penetrate the great secret of her reign, in preserving which she conceived her peace, dignity, and personal safety to be bound up. there were, in her opinion, as she intimates in her speech at closing the session, some underhand movers of this intrigue (whether of the scots or suffolk faction does not appear), who were more to blame than even the speakers in parliament. and if, as cecil seems justly to have thought, no limitations of the crown could at that time have been effected without much peril and inconvenience, we may find some apology for her warmth about their precipitation in a business, which, even according to our present constitutional usage, it would naturally be for the government to bring forward. it is to be collected from wentworth's motion, that to deliberate on subjects affecting the commonwealth was reckoned, by at least a large part of the house of commons, one of their ancient privileges and liberties. this was not one which elizabeth, however she had yielded for the moment in revoking her prohibition, ever designed to concede to them. such was her frugality, that, although she had remitted a subsidy granted in this session, alleging the very honourable reason that, knowing it to have been voted in expectation of some settlement of the succession, she would not accept it when that implied condition had not been fulfilled, she was able to pass five years without again convoking her people. _session of ._--a parliament met in april , when the lord keeper bacon,[ ] in answer to the speaker's customary request for freedom of speech in the commons, said that "her majesty having experience of late of some disorder and certain offences, which, though they were not punished, yet were they offences still, and so must be accounted, they would therefore do well to meddle with no matters of state, but such as should be propounded unto them, and to occupy themselves in other matters concerning the commonwealth." _influence of the puritans in parliament._--the commons so far attended to this intimation, that no proceedings about the succession appear to have taken place in this parliament, except such as were calculated to gratify the queen. we may perhaps except a bill attainting the queen of scots, which was rejected in the upper house. but they entered for the first time on a new topic, which did not cease for the rest of this reign to furnish matter of contention with their sovereign. the party called puritan, including such as charged abuses on the actual government of the church, as well as those who objected to part of its lawful discipline, had, not a little in consequence of the absolute exclusion of the catholic gentry, obtained a very considerable strength in the commons. but the queen valued her ecclesiastical supremacy more than any part of her prerogative. next to the succession of the crown, it was the point she could least endure to be touched. the house had indeed resolved, upon reading a bill the first time for reformation of the common prayer, that petition be made to the queen's majesty for her licence to proceed in it, before it should be further dealt in. but strickland, who had proposed it, was sent for to the council, and restrained from appearing again in his place, though put under no confinement. this was noticed as an infringement of their liberties. the ministers endeavoured to excuse his detention, as not intended to lead to any severity, nor occasioned by anything spoken in that house, but on account of his introducing a bill against the prerogative of the queen, which was not to be tolerated. and instances were quoted of animadversion or speeches made in parliament. but mr. yelverton maintained that all matters not treasonable, nor too much to the derogation of the imperial crown, were tolerable there, where all things came to be considered, and where there was such fulness of power as even the right of the crown was to be determined, which it would be high treason to deny. princes were to have their prerogatives, but yet to be confined within reasonable limits. the queen could not of herself make laws, neither could she break them. this was the true voice of english liberty, not so new to men's ears as hume has imagined, though many there were who would not forfeit the court's favour by uttering it. such speeches as the historian has quoted of sir humphry gilbert, and many such may be found in the proceedings of this reign, are rather directed to intimidate the house by exaggerating their inability to contend with the crown, than to prove the law of the land to be against them. in the present affair of strickland, it became so evident that the commons would at least address the queen to restore him, that she adopted the course her usual prudence indicated, and permitted his return to his house. but she took the reformation of ecclesiastical abuses out of their hands, sending word that she would have some articles for that purpose executed by the bishops under her royal supremacy, and not dealt in by parliament. this did not prevent the commons from proceeding to send up some bills in the upper house, where, as was natural to expect, they fell to the ground.[ ] this session is also remarkable for the first marked complaints against some notorious abuses, which defaced the civil government of elizabeth.[ ] a member having rather prematurely suggested the offer of a subsidy, several complaints were made of irregular and oppressive practices, and mr. bell said, that licences granted by the crown and other abuses galled the people, intimating also, that the subsidy should be accompanied by a redress of grievances.[ ] this occasion of introducing the subject, though strictly constitutional, was likely to cause displeasure. the speaker informed them a few days after of a message from the queen to spend little time in motions, and make no long speeches.[ ] and bell, it appears, having been sent for by the council, came into the house "with such an amazed countenance, that it daunted all the rest," who for many days durst not enter on any matter of importance.[ ] it became the common whisper, that no one must speak against licences, lest the queen and council should be angry. and at the close of the session, the lord keeper severely reprimanded those audacious, arrogant, and presumptuous members who had called her majesty's grants and prerogatives in question, meddling with matters neither pertaining to them, nor within the capacity of their understanding.[ ] the parliament of seemed to give evidence of their inheriting the spirit of the last by choosing mr. bell for their speaker.[ ] but very little of it appeared in their proceedings. in their first short session, chiefly occupied by the business of the queen of scots, the most remarkable circumstances are the following. the commons were desirous of absolutely excluding mary from inheriting the crown, and even of taking away her life, and had prepared bills with this intent. but elizabeth, constant to her mysterious policy, made one of her ministers inform them that she would neither have the queen of scots enabled nor disabled to succeed, and willed that the bill respecting her should be drawn by her council: and that, in the meantime, the house should not enter on any speeches or arguments on that matter.[ ] another circumstance worthy of note in this session is a signification, through the speaker, of her majesty's pleasure that no bills concerning religion should be received, unless they should be first considered and approved by the clergy, and requiring to see certain bills touching rites and ceremonies that had been read in the house. the bills were accordingly ordered to be delivered to her, with a humble prayer that, if she should dislike them, she would not conceive an ill opinion of the house, or of the parties by whom they were preferred.[ ] _speech of mr. wentworth in ._--the submissiveness of this parliament was doubtless owing to the queen's vigorous dealings with the last. at their next meeting, which was not till february - , peter wentworth, brother, i believe, of the person of that name before mentioned, broke out, in a speech of uncommon boldness, against her arbitrary encroachments on their privileges. the liberty of free speech, he said, had in the two last sessions been so many ways infringed, that they were in danger, while they contented themselves with the name, of losing and foregoing the thing. it was common for a rumour to spread through that house, "the queen likes or dislikes such a matter; beware what you do." messages were even sometimes brought down, either commanding or inhibiting, very injurious to the liberty of debate. he instanced that in the last session, restraining the house from dealing in matters of religion; against which and against the prelates he inveighed with great acrimony. with still greater indignation he spoke of the queen's refusal to assent to the attainder of mary, and after surprising the house by the bold words, "none is without fault, no not our noble queen, but has committed great and dangerous faults to herself," went on to tax her with ingratitude and unkindness to her subjects, in a strain perfectly free indeed from disaffection, but of more rude censure than any kings would put up with.[ ] this direct attack upon the sovereign, in matters relating to her public administration, seems no doubt unparliamentary; though neither the rules of parliament in this respect, nor even the constitutional principle, were so strictly understood as at present. but it was part of elizabeth's character to render herself extremely prominent, and, as it were, responsible in public esteem, for every important measure of her government. it was difficult to consider a queen as acting merely by the advice of ministers, who protested in parliament that they had laboured in vain to bend her heart to their councils. the doctrine that some one must be responsible for every act of the crown was yet perfectly unknown; and elizabeth would have been the last to adopt a system so inglorious to monarchy. but wentworth had gone to a length which alarmed the house of commons. they judged it expedient to prevent an unpleasant interference by sequestering their member, and appointing a committee of all the privy counsellors in the house to examine him. wentworth declined their authority, till they assured him that they sat as members of the commons, and not as counsellors. after a long examination, in which he not only behaved with intrepidity, but, according to his own statement, reduced them to confess the truth of all he advanced, they made a report to the house, who committed him to the tower. he had lain there a month when the queen sent word that she remitted her displeasure towards him, and referred his enlargement to the house, who released him upon a reprimand from the speaker, and an acknowledgment of his fault upon his knees.[ ] in this commitment of wentworth, it can hardly be said that there was anything, as to the main point, by which the house sacrificed its acknowledged privileges. in later instances, and even in the reign of george i., members have been committed for much less indecent reflections on the sovereign. the queen had no reason upon the whole to be ill-pleased with this parliament, nor was she in haste to dissolve it, though there was a long intermission of its sessions. the next was in , when the chancellor, on confirming a new speaker, did not fail to admonish him that the house of commons should not intermeddle in anything touching her majesty's person or estate, or church government. they were supposed to disobey this injunction and fell under the queen's displeasure, by appointing a public fast on their own authority, though to be enforced on none but themselves. this trifling resolution, which showed indeed a little of the puritan spirit, passed for an encroachment on the supremacy, and was only expiated by a humble apology.[ ] it is not till the month of february - , that the zeal for ecclesiastical reformation overcame in some measure the terrors of power, but with no better success than before. a mr. cope offered to the house, we are informed, a bill and a book, the former annulling all laws respecting ecclesiastical government then in force, and establishing a certain new form of common prayer contained in the latter. the speaker interposed to prevent this bill from being read, on the ground that her majesty had commanded them not to meddle in this matter. several members however spoke in favour of hearing it read, and the day passed in debate on this subject. before they met again, the queen sent for the speaker, who delivered up to her the bill and book. next time that the house sat, mr. wentworth insisted that some questions of his proposing should be read. these queries were to the following purport: whether this council was not a place for any member of the same, freely and without control, by bill or speech, to utter any of the griefs of this commonwealth? whether there be any council that can make, add, or diminish from the laws of the realm, but only this council of parliament? whether it be not against the orders of this council to make any secret or matter of weight, which is here in hand, known to the prince or any other, without consent of the house? whether the speaker may overrule the house in any matter or cause in question? whether the prince and state can continue and stand, and be maintained without this council of parliament, not altering the government of the state? these questions serjeant pickering, the speaker, instead of reading them to the house, showed to a courtier, through whose means wentworth was committed to the tower. mr. cope, and those who had spoken in favour of his motion, underwent the same fate; and notwithstanding some notice taken of it in the house, it does not appear that they were set at liberty before its dissolution, which ensued in three weeks.[ ] yet the commons were so set on displaying an ineffectual hankering after reform, that they appointed a committee to address the queen for a learned ministry. _the commons continue to seek redress of ecclesiastical grievances._--at the beginning of the next parliament, which met in - , the speaker received an admonition that the house were not to extend their privileges to any irreverent or misbecoming speech. in this session mr. damport, we are informed by d'ewes,[ ] moved neither for making of any new laws, nor for abrogating of any old ones, but for a due course of proceeding in laws already established, but executed by some ecclesiastical governors contrary both to their purport and the intent of the legislature, which he proposed to bring into discussion. so cautious a motion saved its author from the punishment which had attended mr. cope for his more radical reform; but the secretary of state, reminding the house of the queen's express inhibition from dealing with ecclesiastical causes, declared to them by the chancellor at the commencement of the session (in a speech which does not appear), prevented them from taking any further notice of mr. damport's motion. they narrowly escaped elizabeth's displeasure in attacking some civil abuses. sir edward hobby brought in a bill to prevent certain exactions made for their own profit by the officers of the exchequer. two days after he complained that he had been very sharply rebuked by some great personage, not a member of the house, for his speech on that occasion. but instead of testifying indignation at this breach of their privileges, neither he nor the house thought of any further redress than by exculpating him to this great personage, apparently one of the ministers, and admonishing their members not to repeat elsewhere anything uttered in their debates.[ ] for the bill itself, as well as one intended to restrain the flagrant abuses of purveyance, they both were passed to the lords. but the queen sent a message to the upper house, expressing her dislike of them, as meddling with abuses, which, if they existed, she was both able and willing to repress; and this having been formally communicated to the commons, they appointed a committee to search for precedents in order to satisfy her majesty about their proceedings. they received afterwards a gracious answer to their address, the queen declaring her willingness to afford a remedy for the alleged grievances.[ ] elizabeth, whose reputation for consistency, which haughty princes overvalue, was engaged in protecting the established hierarchy, must have experienced not a little vexation at the perpetual recurrence of complaints which the unpopularity of that order drew from every parliament. the speaker of that summoned in received for answer to his request of liberty of speech, that it was granted, "but not to speak every one what he listeth, or what cometh into his brain to utter; their privilege was aye or no. wherefore, mr. speaker," continues the lord keeper pickering, himself speaker in the parliament of , "her majesty's pleasure is, that if you perceive any idle heads which will not stick to hazard their own estates, which will meddle with reforming the church and transforming the commonwealth, and do exhibit such bills to such purpose, that you receive them not, until they be viewed and considered by those, who it is fitter should consider of such things, and can better judge of them." it seems not improbable that this admonition, which indeed is in no unusual style for this reign, was suggested by the expectation of some unpleasing debate. for we read that the very first day of the session, though the commons had adjourned on account of the speaker's illness, the unconquerable peter wentworth, with another member, presented a petition to the lord keeper, desiring the lords of the upper house to join with them of the lower in imploring her majesty to entail the succession of the crown, for which they had already prepared a bill. this step, which may seem to us rather arrogant and unparliamentary, drew down, as they must have expected, the queen's indignation. they were summoned before the council, and committed to different prisons.[ ] a few days afterwards a bill for reforming the abuses of ecclesiastical courts was presented by morice, attorney of the court of wards, and underwent some discussion in the house.[ ] but the queen sent for the speaker, and expressly commanded that no bill touching matters of state or reformation of causes ecclesiastical should be exhibited; and if any such should be offered, enjoining him on his allegiance not to read it.[ ] it was the custom at that time for the speaker to read and expound to the house all the bills that any member offered. morice himself was committed to safe custody, from which he wrote a spirited letter to lord burleigh, expressing his sorrow for having offended the queen, but at the same time his resolution "to strive," he says, "while his life should last, for freedom of conscience, public justice, and the liberties of his country."[ ] some days after a motion was made that, as some places might complain of paying subsidies, their representatives not having been consulted nor been present when they were granted, the house should address the queen to set their members at liberty. but the ministers opposed this, as likely to hurt those whose good was sought, her majesty being more likely to release them, if left to her own gracious disposition. it does not appear however that she did so during the session, which lasted above a month.[ ] we read, on the contrary, in an undoubted authority, namely, a letter of antony bacon to his mother, that "divers gentlemen, who were of the parliament, and thought to have returned into the country after the end thereof, were stayed by her majesty's commandment, for being privy, as it is thought, and consenting to mr. wentworth's motion."[ ] some difficulty was made by this house of commons about their grant of subsidies, which was uncommonly large, though rather in appearance than truth, so great had been the depreciation of silver for some years past.[ ] _monopolies, especially in the session of ._--the admonitions not to abuse freedom of speech, which had become almost as much matter of course as the request for it, were repeated in the ensuing parliaments of and . nothing more remarkable occurs in the former of these sessions than an address to the queen against the enormous abuse of monopolies. the crown either possessed or assumed the prerogative of regulating almost all matters of commerce at its discretion. patents to deal exclusively in particular articles, generally of foreign growth, but reaching in some instances to such important necessaries of life as salt, leather, and coal, had been lavishly granted to the courtiers, with little direct advantage to the revenue. they sold them to companies of merchants, who of course enhanced the price to the utmost ability of the purchaser. this business seems to have been purposely protracted by the ministers and the speaker, who, in this reign, was usually in the court's interests, till the last day of the session; when, in answer to his mention of it, the lord keeper said that the queen "hoped her dutiful and loving subjects would not take away her prerogative, which is the choicest flower in her garden, and the principal and head pearl in her crown and diadem; but would rather leave that to her disposition, promising to examine all patents, and to abide the touchstone of the law."[ ] this answer, though less stern than had been usual, was merely evasive; and in the session of , a bolder and more successful attack was made on the administration than this reign had witnessed. the grievance of monopolies had gone on continually increasing; scarce any article was exempt from these oppressive patents. when the list of them was read over in the house, a member exclaimed, "is not bread among the number?" the house seemed amazed: "nay," said he, "if no remedy is found for these, bread will be there before the next parliament." every tongue seemed now unloosed; each as if emulously descanting on the injuries of the place he represented. it was vain for the courtiers to withstand this torrent. raleigh, no small gainer himself by some monopolies, after making what excuse he could, offered to give them up. robert cecil the secretary, and bacon, talked loudly of the prerogative, and endeavoured at least to persuade the house that it would be fitter to proceed by petition to the queen than by a bill. but it was properly answered, that nothing had been gained by petitioning in the last parliament. after four days of eager debate, and more heat than had ever been witnessed, this ferment was suddenly appeased by one of those well-timed concessions by which skilful princes spare themselves the mortification of being overcome. elizabeth sent down a message that she would revoke all grants that should be found injurious by fair trial at law: and cecil rendered the somewhat ambiguous generality of this expression more satisfactory by an assurance that the existing patents should all be repealed, and no more be granted. this victory filled the commons with joy, perhaps the more from being rather unexpected.[ ] they addressed the queen with rapturous and hyperbolical acknowledgments, to which she answered in an affectionate strain, glancing only with an oblique irony at some of those movers in the debate, whom in her earlier and more vigorous years she would have keenly reprimanded. she repeated this a little more plainly at the close of the session, but still with commendation of the body of the commons. so altered a tone must be ascribed partly to the growing spirit she perceived in her subjects, but partly also to those cares which clouded with listless melancholy the last scenes of her illustrious life.[ ] the discontent that vented itself against monopolies was not a little excited by the increasing demands which elizabeth was compelled to make upon the commons in all her latter parliaments. though it was declared in the preamble to the subsidy bill of , that "these large and unusual grants, made to a most excellent princess on a most pressing and extraordinary occasion, should not at any time hereafter be drawn into a precedent," yet an equal sum was obtained in , and one still greater in . but money was always reluctantly given, and the queen's early frugality had accustomed her subjects to very low taxes; so that the debates on the supply in , as handed down to us by townsend, exhibit a lurking ill-humour, which would find a better occasion to break forth. _influence of the crown in parliament._--the house of commons, upon a review of elizabeth's reign, was very far, on the one hand, from exercising those constitutional rights which have long since belonged to it, or even those which by ancient precedent they might have claimed as their own; yet, on the other hand, was not quite so servile and submissive an assembly as an artful historian has represented it. if many of its members were but creatures of power, if the majority was often too readily intimidated, if the bold and honest, but not very judicious, wentworths were but feebly supported, when their impatience hurried them beyond their colleagues, there was still a considerable party sometimes carrying the house along with them, who with patient resolution and inflexible aim recurred in every session to the assertion of that one great privilege which their sovereign contested, the right of parliament to enquire into and suggest a remedy for every public mischief or danger. it may be remarked, that, the ministers, such as knollys, hatton, and robert cecil, not only sat among the commons, but took a very leading part in their discussions; a proof that the influence of argument could no more be dispensed with than that of power. this, as i conceive, will never be the case in any kingdom where the assembly of the estates is quite subservient to the crown. nor should we put out of consideration the manner in which the commons were composed. sixty-two members were added at different times by elizabeth to the representation; as well from places which had in earlier times discontinued their franchise, as from those to which it was first granted;[ ] a very large proportion of them petty boroughs, evidently under the influence of the crown or peerage. this had been the policy of her brother and sister, in order to counterbalance the country gentlemen, and find room for those dependants who had no natural interest to return them to parliament. the ministry took much pains with elections, of which many proofs remain.[ ] the house accordingly was filled with placemen, civilians, and common lawyers grasping at preferment. the slavish tone of these persons, as we collect from the minutes of d'ewes, is strikingly contrasted by the manliness of independent gentlemen. and as the house was by no means very fully attended, the divisions, a few of which are recorded, running from to in the aggregate, it may be perceived that the court, whose followers were at hand, would maintain a formidable influence. but this influence, however pernicious to the integrity of parliament, is distinguishable from that exertion of almost absolute prerogative, which hume has assumed as the sole spring of elizabeth's government, and would never be employed till some deficiency of strength was experienced in the other. _debate on election of non-resident burgesses._--d'ewes has preserved a somewhat remarkable debate on a bill presented in the session of , in order to render valid elections of non-resident burgesses. according to the tenor of the king's writ, confirmed by an act passed under henry v., every city and borough was required to elect none but members of their own community. to this provision, as a seat in the commons' house grew more an object of general ambition, while many boroughs fell into comparative decay, less and less attention had been paid; till, the greater part of the borough representatives having become strangers, it was deemed by some expedient to repeal the ancient statute, and give a sanction to the innovation that time had wrought; while others contended in favour of the original usage, and seemed anxious to restore its vigour. it was alleged on the one hand by mr. norton that the bill would take away all pretence for sending unfit men, as was too often seen, and remove any objection that might be started to the sufficiency of the present parliament, wherein, for the most part against positive law, strangers to their several boroughs had been chosen: that persons able and fit for so great an employment ought to be preferred without regard to their inhabitancy; since a man could not be presumed to be the wiser for being a resident burgess: and that the whole body of the realm, and the service of the same, was rather to be respected than any private regard of place or person. this is a remarkable, and perhaps the earliest assertion, of an important constitutional principle, that each member of the house of commons is deputed to serve, not only for his constituents, but for the whole kingdom; a principle which marks the distinction between a modern english parliament and such deputations of the estates as were assembled in several continental kingdoms; a principle to which the house of commons is indebted for its weight and dignity, as well as its beneficial efficiency, and which none but the servile worshippers of the populace are ever found to gainsay. it is obvious that such a principle could never obtain currency, or even be advanced on any plausible ground, until the law for the election of resident burgesses had gone into disuse. those who defended the existing law, forgetting, as is often the case with the defenders of existing laws, that it had lost its practical efficacy, urged that the inferior ranks using manual and mechanical arts ought like the rest to be regarded and consulted with on matters which concerned them, and of which strangers could less judge. "we," said a member, "who have never seen berwick or st. michael's mount, can but blindly guess of them, albeit we look on the maps that come from thence, or see letters of instruction sent; some one whom observation, experience, and due consideration of that country hath taught, can more perfectly open what shall in question thereof grow, and more effectually reason thereupon, than the skilfullest otherwise whatsoever." but the greatest mischief resulting from an abandonment of their old constitution would be the interference of noblemen with elections; lords' letters, it was said, would from henceforth bear the sway; instances of which, so late as the days of mary, were alleged, though no one cared to allude particularly to anything of a more recent date. some proposed to impose a fine of forty pounds on any borough making its election on a peer's nomination. the bill was committed by a majority; but as no further entry appears in the journals, we may infer it to have dropped.[ ] it may be mentioned, as not unconnected with this subject, that in the same session a fine was imposed on the borough of westbury for receiving a bribe of four pounds from thomas long, "being a very simple man and of small capacity to serve in that place;" and the mayor was ordered to repay the money. long, however, does not seem to have been expelled. this is the earliest precedent on record for the punishment of bribery in elections.[ ] _assertion of privileges by commons._--we shall find an additional proof that the house of commons under the tudor princes, and especially elizabeth, was not so feeble and insignificant an assembly as has been often insinuated, if we look at their frequent assertion and gradual acquisition of those peculiar authorities and immunities which constitute what is called privilege of parliament. of these the first, in order of time if not of importance, was their exemption from arrest on civil process during their session. several instances occur under the plantagenet dynasty, where this privilege was claimed and admitted; but generally by means of a distinct act of parliament, or at least by a writ of privilege out of chancery. the house of commons for the first time took upon themselves to avenge their own injury in , when the remarkable case of george ferrers occurred. this is related in detail by holingshed, and is perhaps the only piece of constitutional information we owe to him. without repeating all the circumstances, it will be sufficient here to mention, that the commons sent their serjeant with his mace to demand the release of ferrers, a burgess who had been arrested on his way to the house; that the gaolers and sheriffs of london having not only refused compliance, but ill-treated the serjeant, they compelled them, as well as the sheriffs of london, and even the plaintiff who had sued the writ against ferrers, to appear at the bar of the house, and committed them to prison; and that the king, in the presence of the judges, confirmed in the strongest manner this assertion of privilege by the commons. it was however, so far at least as our knowledge extends, a very important novelty in constitutional practice; not a trace occurring in any former instance on record, either of a party being delivered from arrest at the mere demand of the serjeant, or of any one being committed to prison by the sole authority of the house of commons. with respect to the first, "the chancellor," says holingshed, "offered to grant them a writ of privilege, which they of the commons' house refused, being of a clear opinion that all commandments and other acts proceeding from the nether house were to be done and executed by their serjeant without writ, only by show of his mace, which was his warrant." it might naturally seem to follow from this position, if it were conceded, that the house had the same power of attachment for contempt, that is, of committing to prison persons refusing obedience to lawful process, which our law attributes to all courts of justice, as essential to the discharge of their duties. the king's behaviour is worthy of notice: while he dexterously endeavours to insinuate that the offence was rather against him than the commons, ferrers happening to be in his service, he displays that cunning flattery towards them in their moment of exasperation, which his daughter knew so well how to employ.[ ] _other cases of privilege._--such important powers were not likely to be thrown away, though their exertion might not always be thought expedient. the commons had sometimes recourse to a writ of privilege in order to release their members under arrest, and did not repeat the proceeding in ferrers's case till that of smalley, a member's servant, in , whom they sent their serjeant to deliver. and this was only "after sundry reasons, arguments, and disputations," as the journal informs us; and, what is more, after rescinding a previous resolution that they could find no precedents for setting at liberty any one in arrest, except by writ of privilege.[ ] it is to be observed, that the privilege of immunity extended to the menial servants of members, till taken away by a statute of george iii. several persons however were, at different times, under mary and elizabeth, committed by the house to the tower, or to the custody of their own serjeant, for assaults on their members.[ ] smalley himself above-mentioned, it having been discovered that he had fraudulently procured this arrest, in order to get rid of the debt, was committed for a month, and ordered to pay the plaintiff one hundred pounds, which was possibly the amount of what he owed.[ ] one also, who had served a subpoena out of the star-chamber on a member in the session of , was not only put in confinement, but obliged to pay the party's expenses, before they would discharge him, making his humble submission on his knees.[ ] this is the more remarkable, inasmuch as the chancellor had but just before made answer to a committee deputed "to signify to him how by the ancient liberties of the house, the members thereof are privileged from being served with subpoenas," that "he thought the house had no such privilege, nor would he allow any precedents for it, unless they had also been ratified in the court of chancery."[ ] they continued to enforce this summary mode of redress with no objection, so far as appears, of any other authority, till, by the end of the queen's reign, it had become their established law of privilege that "no subpoena or summons for the attendance of a member in any other court ought to be served, without leave obtained or information given to the house; and that the persons who procured or served such process were guilty of a breach of privilege, and were punishable by commitment or otherwise, by the order of the house."[ ] the great importance of such a privilege was the security it furnished, when fully claimed and acted upon, against those irregular detentions and examinations by the council, and which, in despite of the promised liberty of speech, had, as we have seen, oppressed some of their most distinguished members. but it must be owned that by thus suspending all civil and private suits against themselves, the commons gave too much encouragement to needy and worthless men who sought their walls as a place of sanctuary. this power of punishment, as it were for contempt, assumed in respect of those who molested members of the commons by legal process, was still more naturally applicable to offences against established order committed by any of themselves. in the earliest record that is extant of their daily proceedings, the commons' journal of the first parliament of edward vi., we find, on st january - , a short entry of an order that john storie, one of the burgesses, shall be committed to the custody of the serjeant. the order is repeated the next day; on the next, articles of accusation are read against storie. it is ordered on the following day that he shall be committed prisoner to the tower. his wife soon after presents a petition, which is ordered to be delivered to the protector. on the th of february, letters from storie in the tower are read. these probably were not deemed satisfactory, for it is not till the nd of march that we have an entry of a letter from mr. storie in the tower with his submission. and an order immediately follows, that "the king's privy council in the nether house shall humbly declare unto the lord protector's grace, that the resolution of the house is, that mr. storie be enlarged and at liberty, out of prison; and to require the king's majesty to forgive him his offences in this case towards his majesty and his council." storie was a zealous enemy of the reformation, and suffered death for treason under elizabeth. his temper appears to have been ungovernable; even in mary's reign he fell a second time under the censure of the house for disrespect to the speaker. it is highly probable that his offence in the present instance was some ebullition of virulence against the changes in religion; for the first entry concerning him immediately follows the third reading of the bill that established the english liturgy. it is also manifest that he had to atone for language disrespectful to the protector's government, as well as to the house. but it is worthy of notice, that the commons by their single authority commit their burgess first to their own officer, and next to the tower; and that upon his submission they inform the protector of their resolution to discharge him out of custody, recommending him to forgiveness as to his offence against the council, which, as they must have been aware, the privilege of parliament as to words spoken within its walls (if we are right in supposing such to have been the case) would extend to cover. it would be very unreasonable to conclude that this is the first instance of a member's commitment by order of the house, the earlier journals not being in existence. nothing indicates that the course taken was unprecedented. yet on the other hand we can as little infer that it rested on any previous usage; and the times were just such, in which a new precedent was likely to be established. the right of the house indeed to punish its own members for indecent abuse of the liberty of speech, may be thought the result naturally from the king's concession of that liberty; and its right to preserve order in debate is plainly incident to that of debating at all. in the subsequent reign of mary, mr. copley incurred the displeasure of the house for speaking irreverend words of her majesty, and was committed to the serjeant at arms; but the despotic character of that government led the commons to recede in some degree from the regard to their own privileges they had shown in the former case. the speaker was directed to declare this offence to the queen, and to request her mercy for the offender. mary answered, that she would well consider that request, but desired that copley should be examined as to the cause of his behaviour. a prorogation followed the same day, and of course no more took place in this affair.[ ] a more remarkable assertion of the house's right to inflict punishment on its own members occurred in , and being much better known than those i have mentioned, has been sometimes treated as the earliest precedent. one arthur hall, a burgess for grantham, was charged with having caused to be published a book against the present parliament, on account of certain proceedings in the last session, wherein he was privately interested, "not only reproaching some particular good members of the house, but also very much slanderous and derogatory to its general authority, power, and state, and prejudicial to the validity of its proceedings in making and establishing of laws." hall was the master of smalley, whose case has been mentioned above, and had so much incurred the displeasure of the house by his supposed privity to the fraud of his servant, that a bill was brought in and read a first time, the precise nature of which does not appear, but expressed to be against him and two of his servants. it seems probable, from these and some other passages in the entries that occur on this subject in the journal, that hall in his libel had depreciated the house of commons as an estate of parliament, and especially in respect of its privileges, pretty much in the strain which the advocates of prerogative came afterwards to employ. whatever share therefore personal resentment may have had in exasperating the house, they had a public quarrel to avenge against one of their members, who was led by pique to betray their ancient liberties. the vengeance of popular assemblies is not easily satisfied. though hall made a pretty humble submission, they went on, by a unanimous vote, to heap every punishment in their power upon his head. they expelled him, they imposed a fine of five hundred marks upon him, they sent him to the tower until he should make a satisfactory retractation. at the end of the session he had not been released; nor was it the design of the commons that his imprisonment should then terminate; but their own dissolution, which ensued, put an end to the business.[ ] hall sat in some later parliaments. this is the leading precedent, as far as records show, for the power of expulsion, which the commons have ever retained without dispute of those who would most curtail their privileges. but in it had been put to the vote whether one outlawed and guilty of divers frauds should continue to sit, and carried in his favour by a very small majority; which affords a presumption that the right of expulsion was already deemed to appertain to the house.[ ] they exercised it with no small violence in the session of against the famous dr. parry, who having spoken warmly against the bill inflicting the penalty of death on jesuits and seminary priests, as being cruel and bloody, the commons not only ordered him into the custody of the serjeant, for opposing a bill approved of by a committee, and directed the speaker to reprimand him upon his knees, but on his failing to make a sufficient apology, voted him no longer a burgess of that house.[ ] the year afterwards bland, a currier, was brought to their bar for using what were judged contumelious expressions against the house for something they had done in a matter of little moment, and discharged on account of his poverty, on making submission, and paying a fine of twenty shillings.[ ] in this case they perhaps stretched their power somewhat farther than in the case of arthur hall, who, as one of their body, might seem more amenable to their jurisdiction. _privilege of determining contested elections claimed by the house._--the commons asserted in this reign, perhaps for the first time, another most important privilege, the right of determining all matters relative to their own elections. difficulties of this nature had in former times been decided in chancery, from which the writ issued, and into which the return was made. whether no cases of interference on the part of the house had occurred, it is impossible to pronounce, on account of the unsatisfactory state of the rolls and journals of parliament under edward iv., henry vii. and henry viii. one remarkable entry, however, may be found in the reign of mary, when a committee is appointed "to inquire if alexander nowell, prebendary of westminster, may be of the house;" and it is declared next day by them, that "alexander nowell, being prebendary in westminster, and thereby having voice in the convocation-house, cannot be a member of this house; and so agreed by the house, and the queen's writ to be directed for another burgess in his place."[ ] nothing farther appears on record till in the house appointed a committee to examine the state and circumstances of the returns for the county of norfolk. the fact was, that the chancellor had issued a second writ for this county, on the ground of some irregularity in the first return, and a different person had been elected. some notice having been taken of this matter in the commons, the speaker received orders to signify to them her majesty's displeasure that "the house had been troubled with a thing impertinent for them to deal with, and only belonging to the charge and office of the lord chancellor, whom she had appointed to confer with the judges about the returns for the county of norfolk, and to act therein according to justice and right." the house, in spite of this peremptory inhibition, proceeded to nominate a committee to examine into and report the circumstances of these returns; who reported the whole case with their opinion, that those elected on the first writ should take their seats, declaring further that they understood the chancellor and some of the judges to be of the same opinion; but that "they had not thought it proper to inquire of the chancellor what he had done, because they thought it prejudicial to the privilege of the house to have the same determined by others than such as were members thereof. and though they thought very reverently of the said lord chancellor and judges, and knew them to be competent judges in their places; yet in this case they took them not for judges in parliament in this house: and thereupon required that the members, if it were so thought good, might take their oaths and be allowed of by force of the first writ, as allowed by the censure of this house, and not as allowed of by the said lord chancellor and judges. which was agreed unto by the whole house."[ ] this judicial control over their elections was not lost. a committee was appointed, in the session of , to examine into sundry abuses of returns, among which is enumerated that some are returned for new places.[ ] and several instances of the house's deciding on elections occur in subsequent parliaments. this tenaciousness of their own dignity and privileges was shown in some disagreements with the upper house. they complained to the lords in , that they had received a message from the commons at their bar without uncovering, or rising from their places. but the lords proved, upon a conference, that this was agreeable to usage in the case of messages; though when bills were brought up from the lower house, the speaker of the lords always left his place, and received them at the bar.[ ] another remonstrance of the commons, against having amendments to bills sent down to them on paper instead of parchment, seems a little frivolous, but serves to indicate a rising spirit, jealous of the superiority that the peers had arrogated.[ ] in one point more material, and in which they had more precedent on their side, the commons successfully vindicated their privilege. the lords sent them a message in the session of , reminding them of the queen's want of a supply, and requesting that a committee of conference might be appointed. this was accordingly done, and sir robert cecil reported from it that the lords would consent to nothing less than a grant of three entire subsidies, the commons having shown a reluctance to give more than two. but mr. francis bacon said, "he yielded to the subsidy, but disliked that this house should join with the upper house in granting it. for the custom and privilege of this house hath always been, first to make offer of the subsidies from hence, then to the upper house; except it were that they present a bill unto this house, with desire of our assent thereto, and then to send it up again." but the house were now so much awakened to the privilege of originating money-bills, that, in spite of all the exertions of the court, the proposition for another conference with the lords was lost on a division by to .[ ] it was by his opposition to the ministry in this session, that bacon, who acted perhaps full as much from pique towards the cecils, and ambitious attachment to essex, as from any real patriotism, so deeply offended the queen, that, with all his subsequent pliancy, he never fully reinstated himself in her favour.[ ] _the english constitution not admitted to be an absolute monarchy._--that the government of england was a monarchy, bounded by law, far unlike the actual state of the principal kingdoms on the continent, appears to have been so obvious and fundamental a truth, that flattery itself did not venture directly to contravene it. hume has laid hold of a passage in raleigh's preface to his _history of the world_ (written indeed a few years later than the age of elizabeth), as if it fairly represented public opinion as to our form of government. raleigh says that philip ii. "attempted to make himself not only an absolute monarch over the netherlands, like unto the kings and sovereigns of england and france; but, turk-like, to tread under his feet all their national and fundamental laws, privileges, and ancient rights." but who, that was really desirous of establishing the truth, would have brought raleigh into court as an unexceptionable witness on such a question? unscrupulous ambition taught men in that age who sought to win or regain the crown's favour, to falsify all law and fact in behalf of prerogative, as unblushingly as our modern demagogues exaggerate and distort the liberties of the people.[ ] the sentence itself, if designed to carry the full meaning that hume assigns to it, is little better than an absurdity. for why were the rights and privileges of the netherlands more fundamental than those of england? and by what logic could it be proved more turk-like to impose the tax of the twentieth penny, or to bring spanish troops into those provinces, in contravention of their ancient charters, than to transgress the great charter of this kingdom, with all those unrescinded statutes and those traditional unwritten liberties which were the ancient inheritance of its subjects? or could any one, conversant in the slightest degree with the two countries, range in the same class of absolute sovereigns the kings of france in england? the arbitrary acts of our tudor princes, even of henry viii., were trifling in comparison of the despotism of francis i. and henry ii., who forced their most tyrannical ordinances down the throats of the parliament of paris with all the violence of military usurpers. no permanent law had ever been attempted in england, nor any internal tax imposed, without consent of the people's representatives. no law in france had ever received such consent; nor had the taxes, enormously burthensome as they were in raleigh's time, been imposed, for one hundred and fifty years past, by any higher authority than a royal ordinance. if a few nobler spirits had protested against the excessive despotism of the house of valois; if la boetie had drunk at the springs of classical republicanism; if hottoman had appealed to the records of their freeborn ancestry that surrounded the throne of clovis; if languet had spoken in yet a bolder tone of a rightful resistance to tyranny;[ ] if the jesuits and partisans of the league had cunningly attempted to win men's hearts to their faction by the sweet sounds of civil liberty and the popular origin of politic rule; yet these obnoxious paradoxes availed little with the nation, which, after the wild fascination of a rebellion arising wholly from religious bigotry had passed away, relapsed at once into its patient loyalty, its self-complacent servitude. but did the english ever recognise, even by implication, the strange parallels which raleigh has made for their government with that of france, and hume with that of turkey? the language adopted in addressing elizabeth was always remarkably submissive. hypocritical adulation was so much among the vices of that age, that the want of it passed for rudeness. yet onslow, speaker of the parliament of , being then solicitor-general, in addressing the queen says: "by our common law, although there be for the prince provided many princely prerogatives and royalties, yet it is not such as the prince can take money or other things, or do as he will at his own pleasure without order, but quietly to suffer his subjects to enjoy their own, without wrongful oppression; wherein other princes by their liberty do take as pleaseth them."[ ] in the first months of elizabeth's reign, aylmer, afterwards bishop of london, published an answer to a book by john knox, against female monarchy, or, as he termed it, _blast of the trumpet against the monstrous regiment of women_; which, though written in the time of mary, and directed against her, was of course not acceptable to her sister. the answer relies, among other arguments, on the nature of the english constitution, which, by diminishing the power of the crown, renders it less unfit to be worn by a woman. "well," he says, "a woman may not reign in england! better in england than anywhere, as it shall well appear to him that without affection will consider the kind of regimen. while i compare ours with other, as it is in itself, and not maimed by usurpation, i can find none either so good or so indifferent. the regiment of england is not a mere monarchy, as some for lack of consideration think, nor a mere oligarchy nor democracy, but a rule mixed of all these, wherein each one of these have or should have like authority. the image whereof, and not the image but the thing indeed, is to be seen in the parliament-house, wherein you shall find these three estates; the king or queen which representeth the monarchy, the noblemen which be the aristocracy, and the burgesses and knights the democracy. if the parliament use their privileges, the king can ordain nothing without them: if he do, it is his fault in usurping it, and their fault in permitting it. wherefore, in my judgment, those that in king henry viii.'s days would not grant him that his proclamations should have the force of a statute, were good fathers of the country, and worthy commendation in defending their liberty. but to what purpose is all this? to declare that it is not in england so dangerous a matter to have a woman ruler, as men take it to be. for first it is not she that ruleth, but the laws, the executors whereof be her judges appointed by her, her justices and such other officers. secondly, she maketh no statutes or laws, but the honourable court of parliament; she breaketh none, but it must be she and they together, or else not. if on the other part the regiment were such as all hanged on the king's or queen's will, and not upon the laws written; if she might decree and make laws alone without her senate; if she judged offences according to her wisdom, and not by limitation of statutes and laws; if she might dispose alone of war and peace; if, to be short, she were a mere monarch, and not a mixed ruler, you might peradventure make me to fear the matter the more, and the less to defend the cause."[ ] this passage, notwithstanding some slight mistakes it contains, affords a proof of the doctrine current among englishmen in , and may perhaps be the less suspected, as it does not proceed from a skilful pen. and the quotations i have made in the last chapter from hooker are evidence still more satisfactory, on account of the gravity and judiciousness of the writer, that they continued to be the orthodox faith in the later period of elizabeth's reign. it may be observed, that those who speak of the limitations of the sovereign's power, and of the acknowledged liberties of the subject, use a distinct and intelligible language; while the opposite tenets are insinuated by means of vague and obscure generalities, as in the sentence above quoted from raleigh. sir thomas smith, secretary of state to elizabeth, has bequeathed us a valuable legacy in his treatise on the commonwealth of england. but undoubtedly he evades, as far as possible, all great constitutional principles, and treats them, if at all, with a vagueness and timidity very different from the tone of fortescue. he thus concludes his chapter on the parliament: "this is the order and form of the highest and most authentical court of england, by virtue whereof all these things be established whereof i spoke before, and no other means accounted available to make any new _forfeiture of life, members, or lands_, of any englishman, where there was no law ordered for it before."[ ] this leaves no small latitude for the authority of royal proclamations, which the phrase, i make no question, was studiously adopted in order to preserve. _pretensions of the crown._--there was unfortunately a notion very prevalent in the cabinet of elizabeth, though it was not quite so broadly or at least so frequently promulgated as in the following reigns, that, besides the common prerogatives of the english crown, which were admitted to have legal bounds, there was a kind of paramount sovereignty, which they denominated her absolute power, incident, as they pretended, to the abstract nature of sovereignty, and arising out of its primary office of preserving the state from destruction. this seemed analogous to the dictatorial power, which might be said to reside in the roman senate, since it could confer it upon an individual. and we all must, in fact, admit that self-preservation is the first necessity of commonwealths as well as persons, which may justify, in montesquieu's poetical language, the veiling of the statues of liberty. thus martial law is proclaimed during an invasion, and houses are destroyed in expectation of a siege. but few governments are to be trusted with this insidious plea of necessity, which more often means their own security than that of the people. nor do i conceive that the ministers of elizabeth restrained this pretended absolute power, even in theory, to such cases of overbearing exigency. it was the misfortune of the sixteenth century to see kingly power strained to the highest pitch in the two principal european monarchies. charles v. and philip ii. had crushed and trampled the ancient liberties of castile and arragon. francis i. and his successors, who found the work nearly done to their hands, had inflicted every practical oppression upon their subjects. these examples could not be without their effect on a government so unceasingly attentive to all that passed on the stage of europe.[ ] nor was this effect confined to the court of elizabeth. a king of england, in the presence of absolute sovereigns, or perhaps of their ambassadors, must always feel some degree of that humiliation with which a young man, in check of a prudent father, regards the careless prodigality of the rich heirs with whom he associates. good sense and elevated views of duty may subdue the emotion; but he must be above human nature who is insensible to the contrast. there must be few of my readers who are unacquainted with the animated sketch that hume has delineated of the english constitution under elizabeth. it has been partly the object of the present chapter to correct his exaggerated outline; and nothing would be more easy than to point at other mistakes into which he has fallen through prejudice, through carelessness, or through want of acquaintance with law. his capital and inexcusable fault in everything he has written on our constitution is to have sought for evidence upon one side only of the question. thus the remonstrance of the judges against arbitrary imprisonment by the council is infinitely more conclusive to prove that the right of personal liberty existed, than the fact of its infringement can be to prove that it did not. there is something fallacious in the negative argument which he perpetually uses, that because we find no mention of any umbrage being taken at certain strains of prerogative, they must have been perfectly consonant to law. for if nothing of this could be traced, which is not so often the case as he represents it, we should remember that even when a constant watchfulness is exercised by means of political parties and a free press, a nation is seldom alive to the transgressions of a prudent and successful government. the character, which on a former occasion i have given of the english constitution under the house of plantagenet, may still be applied to it under the line of tudor, that it was a monarchy greatly limited by law, but retaining much power that was ill calculated to promote the public good, and swerving continually into an irregular course, which there was no restraint adequate to correct. it may be added, that the practical exercise of authority seems to have been less frequently violent and oppressive, and its legal limitations better understood in the reign of elizabeth, than for some preceding ages; and that sufficient indications had become distinguishable before its close, from which it might be gathered that the seventeenth century had arisen upon a race of men in whom the spirit of those who stood against john and edward was rekindled with a less partial and a steadier warmth.[ ] footnotes: [ ] _state trials_, i. . [ ] _id._ . [ ] _id._ . [ ] murden, . dr. lingard has fully established, what indeed no one could reasonably have disputed, elizabeth's passion for anjou; and says very truly, "the writers who set all this down to policy cannot have consulted the original documents."--p. . it was altogether repugnant to sound policy. persons, the jesuit, indeed says, in his famous libel, _leicester's commonwealth_, written not long after this time, that it would have been "honourable, convenient, profitable, and needful:" which every honest englishman would interpret by the rule of contraries. sussex wrote indeed to the queen in favour of the marriage (lodge, ii. ); and cecil undoubtedly professed to favour it; but this must have been out of obsequiousness to the queen. it was a habit of this minister to set down briefly the arguments on both sides of a question, sometimes in parallel columns, sometimes successively; a method which would seem too formal in our age, but tending to give himself and others a clearer view of the case. he has done this twice in the present instance (murden, , ); and it is evident that he does not, and cannot, answer his own objections to the match. when the council waited on her with this resolution in favour of the marriage, she spoke sharply to those whom she believed to be against it. yet the treaty went on for two years; her coquetry in this strange delay breeding her, as walsingham wrote from paris, "greater dishonour than i dare commit to paper." strype's _annals_, iii. . that she ultimately broke it off, must be ascribed to the suspiciousness and irresolution of her character, which, acting for once conjointly with her good understanding, overcame a disgraceful inclination. [ ] strype, iii. . stubbe always signed himself scæva, in these left-handed productions. [ ] lodge, ii. ; iii. . [ ] several volumes of the harleian mss. illustrate the course of government under elizabeth. the copious analysis in the catalogue, by humphrey wanley and others, which i have in general found accurate, will, for most purposes, be sufficient. see particularly vol. . a letter, _inter alia_, in this (folio ) from lord hunsdon and walsingham to the sheriff of sussex, directs him not to assist the creditors of john ashburnham in molesting him, "till such time as our determination touching the premises shall be known," ashburnham being to attend the council to prefer his complaint. see also vols. , , , and many others. the lansdowne catalogue will furnish other evidences. [ ] anderson's _reports_, i. . it may be found also in the _biographia britannica_, and the _biographical dictionary_, art. anderson. [ ] lansdowne mss. lviii. . the harleian ms. is a mere transcript from anderson's _reports_, and consequently of no value. there is another in the same collection, at which i have not looked. [ ] hume says, "that the queen had taken a dislike to the smell of this useful plant." but this reason, if it existed, would hardly have induced her to prohibit its cultivation throughout the kingdom. the real motive appears in several letters of the lansdowne collection. by the domestic culture of woad, the customs on its importation were reduced; and this led to a project of levying a sort of excise upon it at home. _catalogue of lansdowne mss._ xlix. - . the same principle has since caused the prohibition of sowing tobacco. [ ] camden, . [ ] rymer, xvi. . [ ] many of these proclamations are scattered through rymer; and the whole have been collected in a volume. [ ] by a proclamation in , butchers killing flesh in lent are made subject to a specific penalty of £ ; which was levied upon one man. strype's _annals_, i. . this seems to have been illegal. [ ] lord camden in . hargrave, in preface to "hale de jure coronæ," in _law tracts_, vol. i. [ ] we find an exclusive privilege granted in to thomas cooper, afterwards bishop of winchester, to print his _thesaurus_, or latin dictionary for twelve years (rymer, xv. ); and to richard wright to print his translation of tacitus during his natural life; any one infringing this privilege to forfeit _s._ for every printed copy. _id._ xvi. . [ ] strype's _parker_, . by the st of the queen's injunctions, in , no one might print any book or paper whatsoever unless the same be first licensed by the council or ordinary. [ ] a proclamation, dated february , against seditious and schismatical books and writings, commands all persons who shall have in their custody any such libels against the order and government of the church of england, or the rites and ceremonies used in it, to bring and deliver up the same with convenient speed to their ordinary. _life of whitgift_, appendix . this has probably been one cause of the extreme scarcity of these puritanical pamphlets. [ ] strype's _grindal_, , and append. , where a list of these books is given. [ ] strype's _whitgift_, , and append. . the archbishop exercised his power over the press, as may be supposed, with little moderation. not confining himself to the suppression of books favouring the two religions adverse to the church, he permitted nothing to appear that interfered in the least with his own notions. thus we find him seizing an edition of some works of hugh broughton, an eminent hebrew scholar. this learned divine differed from whitgift about christ's descent to hell. it is amusing to read that ultimately the primate came over to broughton's opinion; which, if it prove some degree of candour, is a glaring evidence of the advantages of that free enquiry he had sought to suppress. p. , . [ ] camden, ; strype's _annals_, ii. . the queen had been told, it seems, of what was done in wyatt's business, a case not all parallel; though there was no sufficient necessity even in that instance to justify the proceeding by martial law. but bad precedents always beget "progeniem vitiosiorem." there was a difficulty how to punish burchell capitally, which probably suggested to the queen this strange expedient. it is said, which is full as strange, that the bishops were about to pass sentence on him for heresy, in having asserted that a papist might lawfully be killed. he put an end, however, to this dilemma, by cleaving the skull of one of the keepers in the tower, and was hanged in a common way. [ ] strype's _annals_, iii. ; _life of whitgift_, append. . [ ] rymer, xvi. . [ ] carte, , from stowe. [ ] strype's _annals_, i. . [ ] strype, iii. append. . this was exacted in order to raise men for service in the low countries. but the beneficed clergy were always bound to furnish horses and armour, or their value, for the defence of the kingdom in peril of invasion or rebellion. an instance of their being called on for such a contingent occurred in . strype's _parker_, ; and rymer will supply many others in earlier times. the magistrates of cheshire and lancashire had imposed a charge of eightpence a week on each parish of those counties for the maintenance of recusants in custody. this, though very nearly borne out by the letter of a recent statute ( th eliz. c. ), was conceived by the inhabitants to be against law. we have, in strype's _annals_, vol. iii. append. , a letter from the privy council, directing the charge to be taken off. it is only worth noticing, as it illustrates the jealousy which the people entertained of anything approaching to taxation without consent of parliament, and the caution of the ministry in not pushing any exertion of prerogative farther than would readily be endured. [ ] murden, . that some degree of intimidation was occasionally made use of, may be inferred from the following letter of sir henry cholmley to the mayor and aldermen of chester, in . he informs them of letters received by him from the council, "whereby i am commanded in all haste to require you that you and every of you send in your several sums of money unto torpley (tarporly) on friday next the rd december, or else that you and every of you give me meeting there, the said day and place, to enter severally into bond to her highness for your appearance forthwith before their lordships, to show cause wherefore you and every of you should refuse to pay her majesty loan according to her highness several privy-seals by you received, letting you wit that i am now directed by other letters from their lordships to pay over the said money to the use of her majesty, and to send and certify the said bonds so taken: which praying you heartily to consider of as the last direction of the service, i heartily bid you farewell." harl. mss. , . [ ] strype, ii. . in haynes, p. , is the form of a circular letter or privy-seal, as it was called from passing that office, sent in , a year of great difficulty, to those of whose aid the queen stood in need. it contains a promise of repayment at the expiration of twelve months. a similar application was made through the lord-lieutenants in their several counties, to the wealthy and well disposed, in , immediately after the destruction of the armada. the loans are asked only for the space of a year, as "heretofore has been yielded unto her majesty in times of less need and danger, and yet always fully repaid." strype, iii. . large sums of money are said to have been demanded of the citizens of london in . carte, . it is perhaps to this year that we may refer a curious fact mentioned in mr. justice hutton's judgment in the case of ship-money. "in the time of queen elizabeth (he says), who was a gracious and a glorious queen, yet in the end of her reign, whether through covetousness, or by reason of the wars that came upon her, i know not by what counsel she desired benevolence, the statue of nd richard iii. was pressed, yet it went so far, that by commission and direction money was gathered in every inn of court; and i myself for my part paid twenty shillings. but when the queen was informed by her judges that this kind of proceeding was against law, she gave directions to pay all such sums as were collected back; and so i (as all the rest of our house, and as i think of other houses too) had my twenty shillings repaid me again; and privy counsellors were sent down to all parts, to tell them that it was for the defence of the realm, and it should be repaid them again." _state trials_, iii. . [ ] haynes, . hume has exaggerated this, like other facts, in his very able, but partial, sketch of the constitution in elizabeth's reign. [ ] the following are a few specimens, copied from the lansdowne catalogue. "sir antony cooke to sir william cecil, that he would move mr. peters to recommend mr. edward stanhope to a certain young lady of mr. p.'s acquaintance, whom mr. stanhope was desirous to marry."--jan. , , lxxi. . "sir john mason to sir william cecil, that he fears his young landlord, spelman, has intentions of turning him out of his house, which will be disagreeable; hopes therefore sir william c. will speak in his behalf."--feb. , , _id._ . "lord stafford to lord burleigh, to further a match between a certain rich citizen's daughter and his son; he requests lord b. to appoint the father to meet him (lord stafford) some day at his house, 'where i will in few words make him so reasonable an offer as i trust he will not disallow.'"--lxviii. . "lady zouch to lord burleigh, for his friendly interposition to reconcile lord zouch her husband, who had forsaken her through jealousy."-- , lxxiv. . [ ] _biographia britannica_, art. cecil. [ ] townsend's manuscript has been separately published; but i do not find that d'ewes has omitted anything of consequence. [ ] d'ewes, p. ; strype, i. , from which latter passage it seems that cecil was rather adverse to the proposal. [ ] d'ewes, p. . the speech which hume, on d'ewes's authority, has put into the queen's mouth at the end of this session, is but an imperfect copy or abridgment of one which she made in ; as d'ewes himself afterwards confesses. her real answer to the speaker in is in harrington's _nugæ antiquæ_, vol. i. p. . [ ] camden, p. . [ ] the courtiers told the house, that the queen intended to marry in order to divert them from their request that they would name her successor. strype, vol. i. p. . [ ] d'ewes, p. . [ ] _id._ p. ; journals, th oct., th nov., nd jan. [ ] d'ewes, p. . [ ] d'ewes, , etc. there is no mention of strickland's business in the journal. [ ] something of this sort seems to have occurred in the session of , as may be inferred from the lord keeper's reproof to the speaker for calling her majesty's letters patent in question. _id._ . [ ] _id._ ; journals, apr. [ ] journals, and apr. [ ] d'ewes, . [ ] d'ewes, . [ ] bell, i suppose, had reconciled himself to the court, which would have approved no speaker chosen without its recommendation. there was always an understanding between this servant of the house and the government. proofs and presumptions of this are not unfrequent. in strype's _annals_, vol. iv. p. , we find instructions for the speaker's speech in , drawn up by lord burleigh, as might very likely be the case on other occasions. [ ] d'ewes, . [ ] _id._, , . [ ] d'ewes, . [ ] d'ewes, . [ ] _id._ . [ ] d'ewes, . [ ] p. . townsend calls this gentleman davenport, which no doubt was his true name. [ ] d'ewes, . [ ] _id. et post._ [ ] _id._ . [ ] d'ewes, ; townsend, . [ ] _id._ . [ ] see the letter in lodge's _illustrations_, vol. iii. . townsend says he was committed to sir john fortescue's keeping, a gentler sort of imprisonment. p. . [ ] d'ewes, . [ ] birch's _memoirs of elisabeth_, i. . [ ] strype has published, from lord burleigh's manuscripts, a speech made in the parliament of against the subsidy then proposed. _annals_, vol. iii. append. . not a word about this occurs in d'ewes's journal; and i mention it as an additional proof how little we can rely on negative inferences as to proceedings in parliament at this period. [ ] d'ewes, . [ ] their joy and gratitude were rather premature, for her majesty did not revoke all of them; as appears by rymer, xvi. , and carte, iii. . a list of them, dated may (lodge, iii. ), seems to imply that they were still existing. [ ] d'ewes, , , etc. the speeches made in this parliament are reported more fully than usual by heywood townsend, from whose journal those of most importance have been transcribed by d'ewes. hume has given considerable extracts, for the sole purpose of inferring from this very debate on monopolies, that the royal prerogative was, according to the opinion of the house of commons itself, hardly subject to any kind of restraint. but the passages he selects are so unfairly taken (some of them being the mere language of courtiers, others separated from the context, in order to distort their meaning), that no one who compares them with the original can acquit him of extreme prejudice. the adulatory strain in which it was usual to speak of the sovereign often covered a strong disposition to keep down his authority. thus when a mr. davies says in this debate: "god hath given that power to absolute princes, which he attributes to himself--dixi quod dii estis;" it would have been seen, if hume had quoted the following sentence, that he infers from hence, that justice being a divine attribute, the king can do nothing that is unjust, and consequently cannot grant licences to the injury of his subjects. strong language was no doubt used in respect of the prerogative. but it is erroneous to assert, with hume, that it came equally from the courtiers and country gentlemen, and was admitted by both. it will chiefly be found in the speeches of secretary cecil, the official defender of prerogative, and of some lawyers. hume, after quoting an extravagant speech ascribed to sergeant heyle, that "all we have is her majesty's, and she may lawfully at any time take it from us; yea, she hath as much right to all our lands and goods as to any revenue of her crown," observes that heyle was an eminent lawyer, a man of character. that heyle was high in his profession is beyond doubt; but in that age, as has since, though from the change of times less grossly, continued to be the case, the most distinguished lawyers notoriously considered the court and country as plaintiff and defendant in a great suit, and themselves as their retained advocates. it is not likely, however, that heyle should have used the exact words imputed to him. he made, no doubt, a strong speech for prerogative, but so grossly to transcend all limits of truth and decency seems even beyond a lawyer seeking office. townsend and d'ewes write with a sort of sarcastic humour, which is not always to be taken according to the letter. d'ewes, ; townsend, . hume proceeds to tell us, that it was asserted this session, that the speaker might either admit or reject bills in the house; and remarks, that the very proposal of it is a proof at what a low ebb liberty was at that time in england. there cannot be a more complete mistake. no such assertion was made; but a member suggested that the speaker might, as the consuls in the roman senate used, appoint the order in which bills should be read; at which speech, it is added, some hissed. d'ewes, . the present regularity of parliamentary forms, so justly valued by the house, was yet unknown; and the members called confusedly for the business they wished to have brought forward. [ ] _parl. hist._ . in the session of , a committee was appointed to confer with the attorney and solicitor-general about the return of burgesses from nine places which had not been presented in the last parliament. but in the end it was "ordered, by mr. attorney's assent, that the burgesses shall remain according to their returns; for that the validity of the charters of their towns is elsewhere to be examined, if cause be." d'ewes p. , . d'ewes observes that it was very common in former times, in order to avoid the charge of paying wages to their burgesses, that a borough which had fallen into poverty or decay, either got licence of the sovereign for the time being to be discharged from electing members, or discontinued it of themselves; but that of late the members for the most part bearing their own charges, many of those towns which had thus discontinued their privilege, renewed it both in elizabeth's reign and that of james. p. . this could only have been, it is hardly necessary to say, by obtaining writs out of chancery for that purpose. as to the payment of wages, the words of d'ewes intimate that it was not entirely disused. in the session of , the borough of grantham complained that arthur hall (whose name now appears for the last time) had sued them for wages due to him as their representative in the preceding parliament; alleging that, as well by reason of his negligent attendance and some other offences by him committed in some of its sessions, as of his promise not to require any such wages, they ought not to be charged; and a committee having been appointed to enquire into this, reported that they had requested mr. hall to remit his claim for wages, which he had freely done. d'ewes, p. . [ ] strype mentions letters from the council to mildmay, sheriff of essex, in , about the choice of knights. _annals_, v. i. p. . and other instances of interference may be found in the lansdowne and harleian collections. thus we read that a mr. copley used to nominate burgesses for gatton, "for that there were no burgesses in the borough." the present proprietor being a minor in custody of the court of wards, lord burleigh directs the sheriff of surrey to make no return without instructions from himself; and afterwards orders him to cancel the name of francis bacon in his indenture, he being returned for another place, and to substitute edward brown. harl. mss. dcciii. . i will introduce in this place, though not belonging to the present reign, a proof that henry viii. did not trust altogether to the intimidating effects of his despotism for the obedience of parliament, and that his ministers looked to the management of elections, as their successors have always done. sir robert sadler writes to some one, whose name does not appear, to inform him that the duke of norfolk had spoken to the king, who was well content he should be a burgess of oxford; and that he should "order himself in the said _room_ according to such instructions as the said duke of norfolk should give him from the king:" if he is not elected at oxford, the writer will recommend him to some of "my lord's towns of his bishopric of winchester." cotton mss. cleopatra e. iv. . thus we see that the practice of our government has always been alike; and we may add the same of the nobility, who interfered with elections full as continually, and far more openly, than in modern times. the difference is, that a secretary of the treasury, or peer's agent, does that with some precaution of secrecy, which the council board, or the peer himself, under the tudors, did by express letters to the returning officer; and that the operating motive is the prospect of a good place in the excise or customs for compliance, rather than that of lying some months in the fleet for disobedience. a very late writer has asserted, as an undoubted fact, which "historic truth requires to be mentioned," that for the first parliament of elizabeth, "five candidates were nominated by the court for each borough, and three for each county; and by the authority of the sheriffs, the members were chosen from among the candidates." butler's _book of the roman catholic church_, p. . i never met with any tolerable authority for this, and believe it to be a mere fabrication; not certainly of mr. butler, who is utterly incapable of a wilful deviation from truth, but of some of those whom he too implicitly follows. [ ] d'ewes, . [ ] journals, p. . [ ] holingshed, vol. iii. p. ( to edit.); hatsell's _precedents_, vol. i. p. . mr. hatsell inclines too much, in my opinion, to depreciate the authority of this case, imagining that it was rather as the king's servant, than as a member of the house, that ferrers was delivered. but, though henry artfully endeavours to rest it chiefly on this ground, it appears to me that the commons claim the privilege as belonging to themselves, without the least reference to this circumstance. if they did not always assert it afterwards, this negative presumption is very weak, when we consider how common it was to overlook or recede from precedents, before the constitution had been reduced into a system. carte, vol. iii. p. , endeavours to discredit the case of ferrers as an absolute fable, and certainly points out some inaccuracy as to dates; but it is highly improbable that the whole should be an invention. he returns to the subject afterwards (p. ), and, with a folly almost inconceivable even in a jacobite, supposes the puritans to have fabricated the tale, and prevailed on holingshed to insert it in his history. [ ] journals, feb. nd and th. [ ] hatsell, , , . [ ] _id._ . [ ] _id._ . [ ] _id._ . [ ] _id._ . [ ] journals, th and th march - . [ ] d'ewes, ; hatsell, . the latter says, "i cannot but suspect, that there was some private history in this affair, some particular offence against the queen, with which we are unacquainted." but i believe the explanation i have given will be thought more to the purpose; and so far from having offended the queen, hall seems to have had a patron in lord burleigh, to whom he wrote many letters, complaining of the commons, which are extant in the lansdowne collection. he seems to have been a man of eccentric and unpopular character, and had already incurred the displeasure of the commons in the session of , when he was ordered to be warned by the serjeant to appear at the bar "to answer for sundry lewd speeches used as well in the house as elsewhere." another entry records him to have been "charged with seven several articles, but having humbly submitted himself to the house, and confessed his folly, to have been upon the question released with a good exhortation from the speaker." d'ewes, , . [ ] hatsell, . [ ] d'ewes, . [ ] d'ewes, . this case, though of considerable importance, is overlooked by hatsell, who speaks of that of hall as the only one before the long parliament, wherein the commons have punished the authors of libels derogatory to their privileges. p. . though he speaks only of libels, certainly the punishment of words spoken is at least as strong an exercise of power. [ ] journals, mary, p. . [ ] d'ewes, , etc. [ ] _id._ . [ ] _id._ . [ ] _id._ . [ ] d'ewes, . another trifling circumstance may be mentioned to show the rising spirit of the age. in the session of , sir robert cecil having proposed that the speaker should _attend_ the lord keeper about some matter, sir edward hobby took up the word in strong language, as derogatory to their dignity; and the secretary, who knew, as later ministers have done, that the commons are never so unmanageable as on such points of honour, made a proper apology. _id._ . [ ] birch's _memoirs_, i. , , , etc., ii. ; bacon's works, vol. ii. p. , . [ ] raleigh's _dedication of his prerogative of parliaments to james i._ contains terrible things. "the bonds of subjects to their kings should always be wrought out of iron, the bonds of kings unto subjects but with cobwebs."--"all binding of a king by law upon the advantage of his necessity, makes the breach itself lawful in a king; his charters and all other instruments being no other than the surviving witnesses of his unconstrained will." the object, however, of the book, is to persuade the king to call a parliament (about ), and we are not to suppose that raleigh meant what he said. he was never very scrupulous about truth. in another of his tracts, entitled _the prince; or, thesaurus of state_, he holds, though not without flattery towards james, a more reasonable language. "in every just state some part of the government is or ought to be impartial to the people; as in a kingdom, a voice or suffrage in making laws: and sometimes also in levying of arms, if the charge be great and the prince be forced to borrow help of his subjects, the matter rightly may be propounded to a parliament, that the tax may seem to have proceeded from themselves." [ ] _le contre un_ of la boetie, the friend of montaigne, is, as the title intimates, a vehement philippic against monarchy. it is subjoined to some editions of the latter's essays. the _franco-gallia_ of hottoman contains little more than extracts from fredegarius, aimoin, and other ancient writers, to prove the elective character and general freedom of the monarchy under the two first races. this made a considerable impression at the time, though the passages in question have been so often quoted since, that we are almost surprised to find the book so devoid of novelty. hubert languet's _vindicæ contra tyrannos_, published under the name of junius brutus, is a more argumentative discussion of the rights of governors and their subjects. [ ] d'ewes, p. . i have already adverted to gardiner's resolute assertion of the law against the prince's single will, as a proof that, in spite of hume's preposterous insinuations to the contrary, the english monarchy was known and acknowledged to be limited. another testimony may be adduced from the words of a great protestant churchman. archbishop parker, writing to cecil to justify himself for not allowing the queen's right to grant some dispensation in a case of marriage, says, "he would not dispute of the queen's absolute power, or prerogative royal, how far her highness might go in following the roman authority; but he yet doubted, that if any dispensation should pass from her authority, to any subject, not avouchable by laws of her realm, made and established by herself and her three estates, whether that subject be in surety at all times afterwards: specially seeing there be parliament laws, precisely determining cases of dispensations." strype's _parker_, . perhaps, however, there is no more decisive testimony to the established principles of limited monarchy in the age of elizabeth, than a circumstance mentioned in anderson's _reports_, . the queen had granted to mr. richard cavendish an office for issuing certain writs, and directed the judges to admit him to it, which they neglected (that is, did not think fit) to do. cavendish hereupon obtained a letter from her majesty, expressing her surprise that he was not admitted according to her grant, and commanding them to sequester the profits of the office for his use, or that of any other to whom these might appear to be due, as soon as the controversy respecting the execution of the said office should be decided. it is plain that some other persons were in possession of these profits, or claimed a right therein. the judges conceived that they could not lawfully act according to the said letter and command, because through such a sequestration of the emoluments, those who claimed a right to issue the writs would be disseised of their freehold. the queen, informed that they did not obey the letter, sent another, under the sign manual, in more positive language, ending in these words: "we look that you and every of you should dutifully fulfil our commandment herein, and these our letters shall be your warrant."-- st april . this letter was delivered to the justices in the presence of the chancellor and lord leicester, who were commissioned to hear their answer, telling them also, that the queen had granted the patent on account of her great desire to provide for cavendish. the judges took a little time to consult what should be said; and, returning to the lords, answered that they desired in all respects humbly to obey her majesty; but, as this case is, could not do so without perjury, which they well knew the queen would not require, and so went away. their answer was reported to the queen, who ordered the chancellor, chief justice of the king's bench, and master of the rolls, to hear the judges' reasons; and the queen's council were ordered to attend, when the queen's serjeant began to show the queen's prerogative to grant the issuing of writs, and showed precedents. the judges protested in answer, that they had every wish to assist her majesty to all her rights, but said that this manner of proceeding was out of course of justice; and gave their reasons, that the right of issuing these writs and fees incident to it was in the prothonotaries and others, who claimed it by freehold; who ought to be made to answer, and not the judges, being more interested therein. this was certainly a little feeble, but they soon recovered themselves. they were then charged with having neglected to obey these letters of the queen; which they confessed, but said that this was no offence or contempt towards her majesty, because the command was against the law of the land; in which case, they said, no one is bound to obey such command. when farther pressed, they said the queen herself was sworn to keep the laws as well as they; and that they could not obey this command without going against the laws directly and plainly, against their oaths, and to the offence of god, her majesty, the country and commonwealth in which they were born and live: so that if the fear of god were gone from them, yet the examples of others, and the punishment of those who had formerly transgressed the laws, would remind them and keep them from such an offence. then they cited the spensers, and thorp, a judge under edward iii., and precedents of richard ii.'s time, and of empson, and the statutes from magna charta, which show what a crime it is for judges to infringe the laws of the land; and thus, since the queen and the judges were sworn to observe them, they said that they would not act as was commanded in these letters. all this was repeated to her majesty for her good allowance of the said reasons, and which her majesty, as i have heard, says the reporter, took well; but nothing farther was heard of the business.--such was the law and the government, which mr. hume has compared to that of turkey! it is almost certain, that neither james nor charles would have made so discreet a sacrifice of their pride and arbitrary temper; and in this self-command lay the great superiority of elizabeth's policy. [ ] _harborowe of true and faithful subjects_, . most of this passage is quoted by dr. m'crie, in his _life of knox_, vol. i. note bb, to whom i am indebted for pointing it out. [ ] _commonwealth of england_, b. ii. c. . [ ] bodin says the english ambassador, m. dail (mr. dale), had assured him, not only that the king may assent to or refuse a bill as he pleases, but that il ne laisse pas d'en ordonner à son plaisir, et centre la volonté des estats, comme on a vu henry viii. avoir toujours usé de sa puissance souveraine. he admitted, however, that taxes could only be imposed in parliament. _de la république_, l. i. c. . [ ] the misrepresentations of hume as to the english constitution under elizabeth, and the general administration of her reign, have been exposed since the present chapter was written, by mr. brodie, in his _history of the british empire from the accession of charles i. to the restoration_, vol. i. c. . in some respects, mr. b. seems to have gone too far in an opposite system, and to represent the practical course of government as less arbitrary than i can admit it to have been. chapter vi on the english constitution under james i _quiet accession of james._--it might afford an illustration of the fallaciousness of political speculations, to contrast the hopes and inquietudes that agitated the minds of men concerning the inheritance of the crown during elizabeth's lifetime, while not less than fourteen titles were idly or mischievously reckoned up, with the perfect tranquillity that accompanied the accession of her successor.[ ] the house of suffolk, whose claim was legally indisputable, if we admit the testament of henry viii. to have been duly executed, appear, though no public enquiry had been made into that fact, to have lost ground in popular opinion, partly through an unequal marriage of lord beauchamp with a private gentleman's daughter, but still more from a natural disposition to favour the hereditary line rather than the capricious disposition of a sovereign long since dead, as soon as it became consistent with the preservation of the reformed faith. leicester once hoped, it is said, to place his brother-in-law, the earl of huntingdon, descended from the duke of clarence, upon the throne; but this pretension had been entirely forgotten. the more intriguing and violent of the catholic party, after the death of mary, entertaining little hope that the king of scots would abandon the principles of his education, sought to gain support to a pretended title in the king of spain, or his daughter the infanta, who afterwards married the archduke albert, governor of the netherlands. others, abhorring so odious a claim, looked to arabella stuart, daughter of the earl of lennox, younger brother of james's father, and equally descended from the stock of henry vii., sustaining her manifest defect of primogeniture by her birth within the realm, according to the principle of law that excluded aliens from inheritance. but this principle was justly deemed inapplicable to the crown. clement viii., who had no other view than to secure the re-establishment of the catholic faith in england, and had the judgment to perceive that the ascendency of spain would neither be endured by the nation, nor permitted by the french king, favoured this claim of arabella, who though apparently of the reformed religion, was rather suspected at home of wavering in her faith; and entertained a hope of marrying her to the cardinal farnese, brother of the duke of parma.[ ] considerations of public interest, however, unequivocally pleaded for the scottish line; the extinction of long sanguinary feuds, and the consolidation of the british empire, elizabeth herself, though by no means on terms of sincere friendship with james, and harassing him by intrigues with his subjects to the close of her life, seems to have always designed that he should inherit her crown. and the general expectation of what was to follow, as well from conviction of his right as from the impracticability of any effectual competition, had so thoroughly paved the way, that the council's proclamation of the king of scots excited no more commotion than that of an heir apparent.[ ] _question of his title to the crown._--the popular voice in favour of james was undoubtedly raised in consequence of a natural opinion that he was the lawful heir to the throne. but this was only according to vulgar notions of right, which respect hereditary succession as something indefeasible. in point of fact, it is at least very doubtful whether james i. or any of his posterity were legitimate sovereigns, according to the sense which that word ought properly to bear. the house of stuart no more came in by a clear title than the house of brunswick; by such a title, i mean, as the constitution and established laws of this kingdom had recognised. no private man could have recovered an acre of land without proving a better right than they could make out to the crown of england. what then had james to rest upon? what renders it absurd to call him and his children usurpers? he had that which the flatterers of his family most affected to disdain, the will of the people; not certainly expressed in regular suffrage or declared election, but unanimously and voluntarily ratifying that which in itself could surely give no right, the determination of the late queen's council to proclaim his accession to the throne. it is probable that what has been just said may appear rather paradoxical to those who have not considered this part of our history; yet it is capable of satisfactory proof. this proof consists of four propositions: . that a lawful king of england, with the advice and consent of parliament, may make statutes to limit the inheritance of the crown as shall seem fit;-- . that a statute passed in the th year of king henry viii. enabled that prince to dispose of the succession by his last will signed with his own hand;-- . that henry executed such a will, by which, in default of issue from his children, the crown was entailed upon the descendants of his younger sister mary, duchess of suffolk, before those of margaret, queen of scots;-- . that such descendants of mary were living at the decease of elizabeth. of these propositions, the two former can require no support; the first being one that it would be perilous to deny, and the second asserting a notorious fact. a question has, however, been raised with respect to the third proposition; for though the will of henry, now in the chapter-house at westminster, is certainly authentic, and is attested by many witnesses, it has been doubted whether the signature was made with his own hand, as required by the act of parliament. in the reign of elizabeth, it was asserted by the queen of scots' ministers, that the king being at the last extremity, some one had put a stamp for him to the instrument. it is true, that he was in the latter part of his life accustomed to employ a stamp instead of making his signature. many impressions of this are extant; but it is evident on the first inspection, not only that the presumed autographs in the will (for there are two) are not like these impressions, but that they are not the impressions of any stamp, the marks of the pen being very clearly discernible.[ ] it is more difficult to pronounce that they may not be feigned; but such is not the opinion of some who are best acquainted with henry's handwriting;[ ] and what is still more to the purpose, there is no pretence for setting up such a possibility, when the story of the stamp, as to which the partisans of mary pretended to adduce evidence, appears so clearly to be a fabrication. we have therefore every reasonable ground to maintain, that henry did duly execute a will, postponing the scots line to that of suffolk. the fourth proposition is in itself undeniable. there were descendants of mary, duchess of suffolk, by her two daughters, frances, second duchess of suffolk, and eleanor, countess of cumberland. a story had indeed been circulated that charles brandon, duke of suffolk, was already married to a lady of the name of mortimer at the time of his union with the king's sister. but this circumstance seems to be sufficiently explained in the treatise of hales.[ ] it is somewhat more questionable, from which of his two daughters we are to derive the hereditary stock. this depends on the legitimacy of lord beauchamp, son of the earl of hertford by catherine grey. i have mentioned in another place the process before a commission appointed by elizabeth, which ended in declaring that their marriage was not proved, and that their cohabitation had been illicit. the parties alleged themselves to have been married clandestinely in the earl of hertford's house, by a minister whom they had never before seen, and of whose name they were ignorant, in the presence only of a sister of the earl, then deceased. this entire absence of testimony, and the somewhat improbable nature of the story, at least in appearance, may still perhaps leave a shade of doubt as to the reality of the marriage. on the other hand, it was unquestionable that their object must have been a legitimate union; and such a hasty and furtive ceremony as they asserted to have taken place, while it would, if sufficiently proved, be completely valid, was necessary to protect them from the queen's indignation. they were examined separately upon oath to answer a series of the closest interrogatories, which they did with little contradiction, and a perfect agreement in the main; nor was any evidence worth mentioning adduced on the other side; so that, unless the rules of the ecclesiastical law are scandalously repugnant to common justice, their oaths entitled them to credit on the merits of the case.[ ] the earl of hertford, soon after the tranquil accession of james, having long abandoned all ambitious hopes, and seeking only to establish his children's legitimacy and the honour of one who had been the victim of their unhappy loves, petitioned the king for a review of the proceedings, alleging himself to have vainly sought this at the hands of elizabeth. it seems probable, though i have not met with any more distinct proof of it than a story in dugdale, that he had been successful in finding the person who solemnised the marriage.[ ] a commission of delegates was accordingly appointed to investigate the allegations of the earl's petition. but the jealousy that had so long oppressed this unfortunate family was not yet at rest. questions seem to have been raised as to the lapse of time and other technical difficulties, which served as a pretext for coming to no determination on the merits.[ ] hertford, or rather his son, not long after, endeavoured indirectly to bring forward the main question by means of a suit for some lands against lord monteagle. this is said to have been heard in the court of wards, where a jury was impanelled to try the fact. but the law officers of the crown interposed to prevent a verdict, which, though it could not have been legally conclusive upon the marriage, would certainly have given a sanction to it in public opinion.[ ] the house of seymour was now compelled to seek a renewal of their honours by another channel. lord beauchamp, as he had uniformly been called, took a grant of the barony of beauchamp, and another of the earldom of hertford, to take effect upon the death of the earl, who is not denominated his father in the patent.[ ] but after the return of charles ii., in the patent restoring this lord beauchamp's son to the dukedom of somerset, he is recited to be heir male of the body of the first duke by his wife anne, which establishes (if the recital of a private act of parliament can be said to establish anything) the validity of the disputed marriage.[ ] the descent from eleanor, the younger daughter of mary brandon, who married the earl of cumberland, is subject to no difficulties. she left an only daughter, married to the earl of derby, from whom the claim devolved again upon females, and seems to have attracted less notice during the reign of elizabeth than some others much inferior in plausibility. if any should be of opinion that no marriage was regularly contracted between the earl of hertford and lady catherine grey, so as to make their children capable of inheritance, the title to the crown, resulting from the statute of h. and the testament of that prince, will have descended, at the death of elizabeth, on the issue of the countess of cumberland, the youngest daughter of the duchess of suffolk, lady frances keyes, having died without issue.[ ] in neither case could the house of stuart have a lawful claim. but i may, perhaps, have dwelled too long on a subject which, though curious and not very generally understood, can be of no sort of importance, except as it serves to cast ridicule upon those notions of legitimate sovereignty and absolute right, which it was once attempted to set up as paramount even to the great interests of a commonwealth. there is much reason to believe that the consciousness of this defect in his parliamentary title put james on magnifying, still more than from his natural temper he was prone to do, the inherent rights of primogenitary succession, as something indefeasible by the legislature; a doctrine which, however it might suit the schools of divinity, was in diametrical opposition to our statutes.[ ] through the servile spirit of those times, however, it made a rapid progress; and, interwoven by cunning and bigotry with religion, became a distinguishing tenet of the party who encouraged the stuarts to subvert the liberties of this kingdom. in james's proclamation on ascending the throne, he sets forth his hereditary right in pompous and perhaps unconstitutional phrases. it was the first measure of parliament to pass an act of recognition, acknowledging that, immediately on the decease of elizabeth, "the imperial crown of the realm of england did by inherent birthright, and lawful and undoubted succession, descend and come to his most excellent majesty, as being lineally, justly, and lawfully, next and sole heir of the blood royal of this realm."[ ] the will of henry viii. it was tacitly agreed by all parties to consign to oblivion: and this most wisely, not on the principles which seem rather too much insinuated in this act of recognition, but on such substantial motives of public expediency as it would have shown an equal want of patriotism and of good sense for the descendants of the house of suffolk to have withstood. james left a kingdom where his authority was incessantly thwarted and sometimes openly assailed, for one wherein the royal prerogative had for more than a century been strained to a very high pitch, and where there had not occurred for above thirty years the least appearance of rebellion and hardly of tumult. such a posture of the english commonwealth, as well as the general satisfaction testified at his accession, seemed favourable circumstances to one who entertained, with less disguise if not with more earnestness than most other sovereigns, the desire of reigning with as little impediment as possible to his own will. yet some considerations might have induced a prince who really possessed the king-craft wherein james prided himself, to take his measures with caution. the late queen's popularity had remarkably abated during her last years.[ ] it is a very common delusion of royal personages to triumph in the people's dislike of those into whose place they expect shortly to come, and to count upon the most transitory of possessions, a favour built on hopes that they cannot realise and discontents that they will not assuage. if elizabeth lost a great deal of that affection her subjects had entertained for her, this may be ascribed, not so much to essex's death, though that no doubt had its share, as to weightier taxation, to some oppressions of her government, and above all to her inflexible tenaciousness in every point of ecclesiastical discipline. it was the part of a prudent successor to preserve an undeviating economy, to remove without repugnance or delay the irritations of monopolies and purveyance, and to remedy those alleged abuses in the church, against which the greater and stronger part of the nation had so long and so loudly raised its voice. _early unpopularity of the king._--the new king's character, notwithstanding the vicinity of scotland, seems to have been little understood by the english at his accession. but he was not long in undeceiving them, if it be true that his popularity had vanished away before his arrival in london.[ ] the kingdom was full of acute wits and skilful politicians, quick enough to have seen through a less unguarded character than that of james. it was soon manifest that he was unable to wield the sceptre of the great princess whom he ridiculously affected to despise,[ ] so as to keep under that rising spirit, which might perhaps have grown too strong even for her control. he committed an important error in throwing away the best opportunity that had offered itself for healing the wounds of the church of england. in his way to london, the malcontent clergy presented to him what was commonly called the millenary petition, as if signed by ministers, though the real number was not so great.[ ] this petition contained no demand inconsistent with the established hierarchy, nor, as far as i am aware, which might not have been granted without inconvenience. james, however, who had not unnaturally taken an extreme disgust at the presbyterian clergy of his native kingdom, by whom his life had been perpetually harassed, showed no disposition to treat these petitioners with favour.[ ] the bishops had promised him an obsequiousness to which he had been little accustomed, and a zeal to enhance his prerogative which they afterwards too well displayed. his measures towards the nonconformist party had evidently been resolved upon before he summoned a few of their divines to the famous conference at hampton court. in the accounts that we read of this meeting, we are alternately struck with wonder at the indecent and partial behaviour of the king, and at the abject baseness of the bishops, mixed, according to the custom of servile natures, with insolence towards their opponents.[ ] it was easy for a monarch and eighteen churchmen to claim the victory, be the merits of their dispute what they might, over four abashed and intimidated adversaries.[ ] a very few alterations were made in the church service after this conference, but not of such moment as to reconcile probably a single minister to the established discipline.[ ] the king soon afterwards put forth a proclamation, requiring all ecclesiastical and civil officers to do their duty by enforcing conformity, and admonishing all men not to expect nor attempt any further alteration in the public service; for "he would neither let any presume that his own judgment, having determined in a matter of this weight, should be swayed to alteration by the frivolous suggestions of any light spirit, nor was he ignorant of the inconvenience of admitting innovation in things once settled by mature deliberation."[ ] and he had already strictly enjoined the bishops to proceed against all their clergy who did not observe the prescribed order;[ ] a command which bancroft, who about this time followed whitgift in the primacy, did not wait to have repeated. but the most enormous outrage on the civil rights of these men was the commitment to prison of ten among those who had presented the millenary petition; the judges having declared in the star-chamber, that it was an offence finable at discretion, and very near to treason and felony, as it tended to sedition and rebellion.[ ] by such beginnings did the house of stuart indicate the course it would steer. an entire year elapsed, chiefly on account of the unhealthiness of the season in london, before james summoned his first parliament. it might perhaps have been more politic to have chosen some other city; for the length of this interval gave time to form a disadvantageous estimate of his administration and to alienate beyond recovery the puritanical party. libels were already in circulation, reflecting with a sharpness never before known on the king's personal behaviour, which presented an extraordinary contrast to that of elizabeth.[ ] the nation, it is easy to perceive, cheated itself into a persuasion, that it had borne that princess more affection than it had really felt, especially in her latter years; the sorrow of subjects for deceased monarchs being often rather inspired by a sense of evil than a recollection of good. james however little heeded the popular voice, satisfied with the fulsome and preposterous adulation of his court, and intent on promulgating certain maxims concerning the dignity and power of princes, which he had already announced in his discourse on the "true law of free monarchies," printed some years before in scotland. in this treatise, after laying it down that monarchy is the true pattern of divinity, and proving the duty of passive obedience, rather singularly, from that passage in the book of samuel where the prophet so forcibly paints the miseries of absolute power, he denies that the kings of scotland owe their crown to any primary contract, fergus, their progenitor, having conquered the country with his irish; and advances more alarming tenets, as that the king makes daily statutes and ordinances enjoining such pains thereto as he thinks meet, without any advice of parliament or estates; that general laws made publicly in parliament may by the king's authority be mitigated or suspended upon causes only known to him; and that, "although a good king will frame all his actions to be according to the law, yet he is not bound thereto, but of his own will and for example-giving to his subjects."[ ] these doctrines, if not absolutely novel, seemed peculiarly indecent as well as dangerous, from the mouth of a sovereign. yet they proceeded far more from james's self-conceit and pique against the republican spirit of presbyterianism than from his love of power, which (in its exercise i mean, as distinguished from its possession) he did not feel in so eminent a degree as either his predecessor or his son. in the proclamation for calling together his first parliament, the king, after dilating, as was his favourite practice, on a series of rather common truths in very good language, charges all persons interested in the choice of knights for the shire to select them out of the principal knights or gentlemen within the county; and for the burgesses, that choice be made of men of sufficiency and discretion, without desire to please parents and friends, that often speak for their children or kindred; avoiding persons noted in religion for their superstitious blindness one way, or for their turbulent humour other ways. we do command, he says, that no bankrupts or outlaws be chosen, but men of known good behaviour and sufficient livelihood. the sheriffs are charged not to direct a writ to any ancient town being so ruined that there are not residents sufficient to make such choice, and of whom such lawful election may be made. all returns are to be filed in chancery, and if any be found contrary to this proclamation, the same to be rejected as unlawful and insufficient, and the place to be fined for making it; and any one elected contrary to the purport, effect, and true meaning of this proclamation, to be fined and imprisoned.[ ] _question of fortescue and goodwin's election._--such an assumption of control over parliamentary elections was a glaring infringement of those privileges which the house of commons had been steadily and successfully asserting in the late reign. an opportunity very soon occurred of contesting this important point. at the election for the county of buckingham, sir francis goodwin had been chosen in preference to sir john fortescue, a privy counsellor, and the writ returned into chancery. goodwin having been some years before outlawed, the return was sent back to the sheriff, as contrary to the late proclamation; and, on a second election, sir john fortescue was chosen. this matter being brought under the consideration of the house of commons, a very few days after the opening of the session, gave rise to their first struggle with the new king. it was resolved, after hearing the whole case, and arguments by members on both sides, that goodwin was lawfully elected and returned, and ought to be received. the first notice taken of this was by the lords, who requested that this might be discussed in a conference between the two houses, before any other matter should be proceeded in. the commons returned for answer, that they conceived it not according to the honour of the house to give account of any of their proceedings. the lords replied, that having acquainted his majesty with the matter, he desired there might be a conference thereon between the two houses. upon this message, the commons came to a resolution that the speaker with a numerous deputation of members should attend his majesty, and report the reasons of their proceedings in goodwin's case. in this conference with the king, as related by the speaker, it appears that he had shown some degree of chagrin, and insisted that the house ought not to meddle with returns, which could only be corrected by the court of chancery; and that since they derived all matters of privilege from him and his grant, he expected they should not be turned against him. he ended by directing the house to confer with the judges. after a debate which seems, from the minutes in the journals, to have been rather warm, it was unanimously agreed not to have a conference with the judges; but the reasons of the house's proceeding were laid before the king in a written statement or memorial, answering the several objections that his majesty had alleged. this they sent to the lords, requesting them to deliver it to the king, and to be mediators in behalf of the house for his majesty's satisfaction; a message in rather a lower tone than they had previously taken. the king sending for the speaker privately, told him that he was now distracted in judgment as to the merits of the case; and for his further satisfaction, desired and commanded, as an absolute king, that there should be a conference between the house and the judges. upon this unexpected message, says the journal, there grew some amazement and silence. but at last one stood up and said: "the prince's command is like a thunderbolt; his command upon our allegiance like the roaring of a lion. to his command there is no contradiction; but how or in what manner we should now proceed to perform obedience, that will be the question."[ ] it was resolved to confer with the judges in presence of the king and council. in this second conference, the king, after some favourable expressions towards the house, and conceding that it was a court of record, and judge of returns, though not exclusively of the chancery, suggested that both goodwin and fortescue should be set aside, by issuing a new writ. this compromise was joyfully accepted by the greater part of the commons, after the dispute had lasted nearly three weeks.[ ] they have been considered as victorious, upon the whole, in this contest, though they apparently fell short in the result of what they had obtained some years before. but no attempt was ever afterwards made to dispute their exclusive jurisdiction.[ ] _shirley's case of privilege._--the commons were engaged during this session in the defence of another privilege, to which they annexed perhaps a disproportionate importance. sir thomas shirley, a member, having been taken in execution on a private debt before their meeting, and the warden of the fleet prison refusing to deliver him up, they were at a loss how to obtain his release. several methods were projected; among which, that of sending a party of members with the serjeant and his mace, to force open the prison, was carried on a division; but the speaker hinting that such a vigorous measure would expose them individually to prosecution as trespassers, it was prudently abandoned. the warden, though committed by the house to a dungeon in the tower, continued obstinate, conceiving that by releasing his prisoner he should become answerable for the debt. they were evidently reluctant to solicit the king's interference; but aware at length that their own authority was insufficient, "the vice-chamberlain, according to a memorandum in the journals, was privately instructed to go to the king, and humbly desire that he would be pleased to command the warden, on his allegiance, to deliver up sir thomas; not as petitioned for by the house, but as if himself thought it fit, out of his own gracious judgment." by this stratagem, if we may so term it, they saved the point of honour, and recovered their member.[ ] the warden's apprehensions, however, of exposing himself to an action for the escape gave rise to a statute, which empowers the creditor to sue out a new execution against any one who shall be delivered by virtue of his privilege of parliament, after that shall have expired, and discharges from liability those out of whose custody such persons shall be delivered. this is the first legislative recognition of privilege.[ ] the most important part of the whole is a proviso subjoined to the act, "that nothing therein contained shall extend to the diminishing of any punishment to be hereafter, by censure in parliament, inflicted upon any person who hereafter shall make or procure to be made any such arrest as is aforesaid." the right of commitment, in such cases at least, by a vote of the house of commons, is here unequivocally maintained. _complaints of grievances._--it is not necessary to repeat the complaints of ecclesiastical abuses preferred by this house of commons, as by those that had gone before them. james, by siding openly with the bishops, had given alarm to the reforming party. it was anticipated that he would go farther than his predecessor, whose uncertain humour, as well as the inclinations of some of her advisers, had materially counterbalanced the dislike she entertained of the innovators. a code of new canons had recently been established in convocation with the king's assent, obligatory perhaps upon the clergy, but tending to set up an unwarranted authority over the whole nation; imposing oaths and exacting securities in certain cases from the laity, and aiming at the exclusion of nonconformists from all civil rights.[ ] against these canons, as well as various other grievances, the commons remonstrated in a conference with the upper house, but with little immediate effect.[ ] they made a more remarkable effort in attacking some public mischiefs of a temporal nature, which, though long the theme of general murmurs, were closely interwoven with the ancient and undisputed prerogatives of the crown. complaints were uttered, and innovations projected by the commons of , which elizabeth would have met with an angry message, and perhaps visited with punishment on the proposers. james however was not entirely averse to some of the projected alterations, from which he hoped to derive a pecuniary advantage. the two principal grievances were, purveyance and the incidents of military tenure. the former had been restrained by not less than thirty-six statutes, as the commons assert in a petition to the king; in spite of which the impressing of carts and carriages, and the exaction of victuals for the king's use, at prices far below the true value, and in quantity beyond what was necessary, continued to prevail under authority of commissions from the board of green cloth, and was enforced, in case of demur or resistance, by imprisonment under their warrant. the purveyors, indeed, are described as living at free quarters upon the country, felling woods without the owners' consent, and commanding labour with little or no recompense.[ ] purveyance was a very ancient topic of remonstrance; but both the inadequate revenues of the crown, and a supposed dignity attached to this royal right of spoil, had prevented its abolition from being attempted. but the commons seemed still more to trench on the pride of our feudal monarchy, when they proposed to take away guardianship in chivalry; that lucrative tyranny, bequeathed by norman conquerors, the custody of every military tenant's estate until he should arrive at twenty-one, without accounting for the profits. this, among other grievances, was referred to a committee, in which bacon took an active share. they obtained a conference on this subject with the lords, who refused to agree to a bill for taking guardianship in chivalry away, but offered to join in a petition for that purpose to the king, since it could not be called a wrong, having been patiently endured by their ancestors as well as themselves, and being warranted by the law of the land. in the end the lords advised to drop the matter for the present, as somewhat unseasonable in the king's first parliament.[ ] in the midst of these testimonies of dissatisfaction with the civil and ecclesiastical administration, the house of commons had not felt much willingness to greet the new sovereign with a subsidy. no demand had been made upon them, far less any proof given of the king's exigencies; and they doubtless knew by experience, that an obstinate determination not to yield to any of their wishes would hardly be shaken by a liberal grant of money. they had even passed the usual bill granting tonnage and poundage for life, with certain reservations that gave the court offence, and which apparently they afterwards omitted. but there was so little disposition to do anything further, that the king sent a message to express his desire that the commons would not enter upon the business of a subsidy, and assuring them that he would not take unkindly their omission. by this artifice, which was rather transparent, he avoided the not improbable mortification of seeing the proposal rejected.[ ] _commons' vindication of themselves._--the king's discontent at the proceedings of this session, which he seems to have rather strongly expressed in some speech to the commons that has not been recorded,[ ] gave rise to a very remarkable vindication, prepared by a committee at the house's command, and entitled "a form of apology and satisfaction to be delivered to his majesty," though such may not be deemed the most appropriate title. it contains a full and pertinent justification of all those proceedings at which james had taken umbrage, and asserts, with respectful boldness and in explicit language, the constitutional rights and liberties of parliament. if the english monarchy had been reckoned as absolute under the plantagenets and tudors as hume has endeavoured to make it appear, the commons of must have made a surprising advance in their notions of freedom since the king's accession. adverting to what they call the misinformation openly delivered to his majesty in three things; namely, that their privileges were not of right, but of grace only, renewed every parliament on petition; that they are no court of record, nor yet a court that can command view of records; that the examination of the returns of writs for knights and burgesses is without their compass, and belonging to the chancery: assertions, they say, "tending directly and apparently to the utter overthrow of the very fundamental privileges of our house, and therein of the rights and liberties of the whole commons of your realm of england, which they and their ancestors, from time immemorial, have undoubtedly enjoyed under your majesty's most noble progenitors;" and against which they expressly protest, as derogatory in the highest degree to the true dignity and authority of parliament, desiring "that such their protestation might be recorded to all posterity;" they maintain, on the contrary, " . that their privileges and liberties are their right and inheritance, no less than their very lands and goods; . that they cannot be withheld from them, denied or impaired, but with apparent wrong to the whole state of the realm; . that their making request, at the beginning of a parliament, to enjoy their privilege, is only an act of manners, and does not weaken their right; . that their house is a court of record, and has been ever so esteemed; . that there is not the highest standing court in this land that ought to enter into competition, either for dignity or authority, with this high court of parliament, which, with his majesty's royal assent, gives law to other courts, but from other courts receives neither laws nor orders; . that the house of commons is the sole proper judge of return of all such writs, and the election of all such members as belong to it, without which the freedom of election were not entire." they aver that in this session the privileges of the house have been more universally and dangerously impugned than ever, as they suppose, since the beginnings of parliaments. that in regard to the late queen's sex and age, and much more upon care to avoid all trouble, which by wicked practice might have been drawn to impeach the quiet of his majesty's right in the succession, those actions were then passed over which they hoped in succeeding times to redress and rectify; whereas, on the contrary, in this parliament, not privileges, but the whole freedom of the parliament and realm had been hewed from them. "what cause," they proceed, "we, your poor commons, have to watch over our privileges is manifest in itself to all men. the prerogatives of princes may easily and do daily grow. the privileges of the subject are for the most part at an everlasting stand. they may be by good providence and care preserved; but being once lost, are not recovered but with much disquiet." they then enter in detail on the various matters that had arisen during the session--the business of goodwin's election, of shirley's arrest, and some smaller matters of privilege to which my limits have not permitted me to allude. "we thought not," speaking of the first, "that the judge's opinion, which yet in due place we greatly reverence, being delivered what the common law was, which extends only to inferior and standing courts, ought to bring any prejudice to this high court of parliament, whose power being above the law is not founded on the common law, but have their rights and privileges peculiar to themselves." they vindicate their endeavours to obtain redress of religious and public grievances: "your majesty would be misinformed," they tell him, "if any man should deliver that the kings of england have any absolute power in themselves, either to alter religion, which god defend should be in the power of any mortal man whatsoever, or to make any laws concerning the same, otherwise than as in temporal causes, by consent of parliament. we have and shall at all times by our oaths acknowledge, that your majesty is sovereign lord and supreme governor in both."[ ] such was the voice of the english commons in , at the commencement of that great conflict for their liberties, which is measured by the line of the house of stuart. but it is not certain that this apology was ever delivered to the king, though he seems to allude to it in a letter written to one of his ministers about the same time.[ ] _session_, .--the next session, which is remarkable on account of the conspiracy of some desperate men to blow up both houses of parliament with gunpowder on the day of their meeting, did not produce much worthy of our notice. a bill to regulate, or probably to suppress, purveyance was thrown out by the lords. the commons sent up another bill to the same effect, which the upper house rejected without discussion, by a rule then perhaps first established, that the same bill could not be proposed twice in one session.[ ] they voted a liberal subsidy, which the king, who had reigned three years without one, had just cause to require. for though he had concluded a peace with spain soon after his accession, yet the late queen had left a debt of £ , , and other charges had fallen on the crown. but the bill for this subsidy lay a good while in the house of commons, who came to a vote that it should not pass till their list of grievances was ready to be presented. no notice was taken of these till the next session beginning in november , when the king returned an answer to each of the sixteen articles in which matters of grievance were alleged. of these the greater part refer to certain grants made to particular persons in the nature of monopolies; the king either defending these in his answer, or remitting the parties to the courts of law to try their legality. _union with scotland debated._--the principal business of this third session, as it had been of the last, was james's favourite scheme of a perfect union between england and scotland. it may be collected, though this was never explicitly brought forward, that his views extended to a legislative incorporation.[ ] but in all the speeches on this subject, and especially his own, there is a want of distinctness as to the object proposed. he dwells continually upon the advantage of unity of laws, yet extols those of england as the best, which the scots, as was evident, had no inclination to adopt. wherefore then was delay to be imputed to our english parliament, if it waited for that of the sister kingdom? and what steps were recommended towards this measure, that the commons can be said to have declined, except only the naturalisation of the ante-nati, or scots born before the king's accession to our throne, which could only have a temporary effect?[ ] yet hume, ever prone to eulogise this monarch at the expense of his people, while he bestows merited praise on his speech in favour of the union, which is upon the whole a well-written and judicious performance, charges the parliament with prejudice, reluctance, and obstinacy. the code, as it may be called, of international hostility, those numerous statutes treating the northern inhabitants of this island as foreigners and enemies, were entirely abrogated. and if the commons, while both the theory of our own constitution was so unsettled and its practice so full of abuse, did not precipitately give in to schemes that might create still further difficulty in all questions between the crown and themselves, schemes, too, which there was no imperious motive for carrying into effect at that juncture, we may justly consider it as an additional proof of their wisdom and public spirit. their slow progress however in this favourite measure, which, though they could not refuse to entertain it, they endeavoured to defeat by interposing delays and impediments, gave much offence to the king, which he expressed in a speech to the two houses, with the haughtiness, but not the dignity, of elizabeth. he threatened them to live alternately in the two kingdoms, or to keep his court at york; and alluded, with peculiar acrimony, to certain speeches made in the house, wherein probably his own fame had not been spared.[ ] "i looked," he says, "for no such fruits at your hands, such personal discourses and speeches, which of all other, i looked you should avoid, as not beseeming the gravity of your assembly. i am your king; i am placed to govern you, and shall answer for your errors; i am a man of flesh and blood, and have my passions and affections as other men; i pray you, do not too far move me to do that which my power may tempt me unto."[ ] _continual bickerings between the crown and commons._--it is most probable, as experience had shown, that such a demonstration of displeasure from elizabeth would have ensured the repentant submission of the commons. but within a few years of the most unbroken tranquillity, there had been one of those changes of popular feeling which a government is seldom observant enough to watch. two springs had kept in play the machine of her administration, affection and fear; attachment arising from the sense of dangers endured, and glory achieved for her people, tempered, though not subdued, by the dread of her stern courage and vindictive rigour. for james not a particle of loyal affection lived in the hearts of the nation, while his easy and pusillanimous, though choleric disposition, had gradually diminished those sentiments of apprehension which royal frowns used to excite. the commons, after some angry speeches, resolved to make known to the king through the speaker their desire, that he would listen to no private reports, but take his information of the house's meaning from themselves; that he would give leave to such persons as he had blamed for their speeches to clear themselves in his hearing; and that he would by some gracious message make known his intention that they should deliver their opinions with full liberty, and without fear. the speaker next day communicated a slight but civil answer he had received from the king, importing his wish to preserve their privileges, especially that of liberty of speech.[ ] this, however, did not prevent his sending a message a few days afterwards, commenting on their debates, and on some clauses they had introduced into the bill for the abolition of all hostile laws.[ ] and a petition having been prepared by a committee under the house's direction for better execution of the laws against recusants, the speaker, on its being moved that the petition be read, said that his majesty had taken notice of the petition as a thing belonging to himself, concerning which it was needless to press him. this interference provoked some members to resent it, as an infringement of their liberties. the speaker replied that there were many precedents in the late queen's time, where she had restrained the house from meddling in politics of divers kinds. this, as a matter of fact, was too notorious to be denied. a motion was made for a committee "to search for precedents of ancient as well as later times that do concern any messages from the sovereign magistrate, king or queen of this realm, touching petitions offered to the house of commons." the king now interposed by a second message, that, though the petition were such as the like had not been read in the house, and contained matter whereof the house could not properly take knowledge, yet if they thought good to have it read, he was not against the reading. and the commons were so well satisfied with this concession, that no further proceedings were had; and the petition, says the journal, was at length, with general liking, agreed to sleep. it contained some strong remonstrances against ecclesiastical abuses, and in favour of the deprived and silenced puritans, but such as the house had often before in various modes brought forward.[ ] the ministry betrayed, in a still more pointed manner, their jealousy of any interference on the part of the commons with the conduct of public affairs in a business of a different nature. the pacification concluded with spain in , very much against the general wish,[ ] had neither removed all grounds of dispute between the governments, nor allayed the dislike of the nations. spain advanced in that age the most preposterous claims to an exclusive navigation beyond the tropic, and to the sole possession of the american continent; while the english merchants, mindful of the lucrative adventures of the queen's reign, could not be restrained from trespassing on the rich harvest of the indies by contraband and sometimes piratical voyages. these conflicting interests led of course to mutual complaints of maritime tyranny and fraud; neither likely to be ill-founded, where the one party was as much distinguished for the despotic exercise of vast power, as the other by boldness and cupidity. it was the prevailing bias of the king's temper to keep on friendly terms with spain, or rather to court her with undisguised and impolitic partiality.[ ] but this so much thwarted the prejudices of his subjects that no part perhaps of his administration had such a disadvantageous effect on his popularity. the merchants presented to the commons, in this session of , a petition upon the grievances they sustained from spain, entering into such a detail of alleged cruelties as was likely to exasperate that assembly. nothing however was done for a considerable time, when after receiving the report of a committee on the subject, the house prayed a conference with the lords. they, who acted in this and the preceding session as the mere agents of government, intimated in their reply, that they thought it an unusual matter for the commons to enter upon, and took time to consider about a conference. after some delay this was granted, and sir francis bacon reported its result to the lower house. the earl of salisbury managed the conference on the part of the lords. the tenor of his speech, as reported by bacon, is very remarkable. after discussing the merits of the petition, and considerably extenuating the wrongs imputed to spain, he adverted to the circumstance of its being presented to the commons. the crown of england was invested, he said, with an absolute power of peace and war; and inferred, from a series of precedents which he vouched, that petitions made in parliament, intermeddling with such matters, had gained little success; that great inconveniences must follow from the public debate of a king's designs, which, if they take wind, must be frustrated; and that if parliaments have ever been made acquainted with matter of peace or war in a general way, it was either when the king and council conceived that it was material to have some declaration of the zeal and affection of the people, or else when they needed money for the charge of a war, in which case they should be sure enough to hear of it; that the lords would make a good construction of the commons' desire, that it sprang from a forwardness to assist his majesty's future resolutions, rather than a determination to do that wrong to his supreme power which haply might appear to those who were prone to draw evil inferences from their proceedings. the earl of northampton, who also bore a part in this conference, gave as one reason among others, why the lords could not concur in forwarding the petition to the crown, that the composition of the house of commons was in its first foundation intended merely to be of those that have their residence and vocation in the places for which they serve, and therefore to have a private and local wisdom according to that compass, and so not fit to examine or determine secrets of state which depend upon such variety of circumstances; and although he acknowledged that there were divers gentlemen in the house of good capacity and insight into matters of state, yet that was the accident of the person, and not the intention of the place; and things were to be taken in the institution, and not in the practice. the commons seemed to have acquiesced in this rather contemptuous treatment. several precedents indeed might have been opposed to those of the earl of salisbury, wherein the commons, especially under richard ii. and henry vi., had assumed a right of advising on matters of peace and war. but the more recent usage of the constitution did not warrant such an interference. it was however rather a bold assertion, that they were not the proper channel through which public grievances, or those of so large a portion of the community as the merchants, ought to be represented to the throne.[ ] _impositions on merchandise without consent of parliament._--during the interval of two years and a half that elapsed before the commencement of the next session, a decision had occurred in the court of exchequer, which threatened the entire overthrow of our constitution. it had always been deemed the indispensable characteristic of a limited monarchy, however irregular and inconsistent might be the exercise of some prerogatives, that no money could be raised from the subject without the consent of the estates. this essential principle was settled in england, after much contention, by the statute entitled confirmatio chartarum, in the th year of edward i. more comprehensive and specific in its expression than the great charter of john, it abolishes all "aids, tasks, and prises, unless by the common assent of the realm, and for the common profit thereof, saving the ancient aids and prises due and accustomed;" the king explicitly renouncing the custom he had lately set on wool. thus the letter of the statute and the history of the times conspire to prove, that impositions on merchandise at the ports, to which alone the word prises was applicable, could no more be levied by the royal prerogative after its enactment, than internal taxes upon landed or movable property, known in that age by the appellations of aids and tallages. but as the former could be assessed with great ease, and with no risk of immediate resistance, and especially as certain ancient customs were preserved by the statute,[ ] so that a train of fiscal officers, and a scheme of regulations and restraints upon the export and import of goods became necessary, it was long before the sovereigns of this kingdom could be induced constantly to respect this part of the law. hence several remonstrances from the commons under edward iii. against the maletolts or unjust exactions upon wool, by which, if they did not obtain more than a promise of effectual redress, they kept up their claim, and perpetuated the recognition of its justice, for the sake of posterity. they became powerful enough to enforce it under richard ii., in whose time there is little clear evidence of illegal impositions; and from the accession of the house of lancaster it is undeniable that they ceased altogether. the grant of tonnage and poundage for the king's life, which from the time of henry v. was made in the first parliament of every reign, might perhaps be considered as a tacit compensation to the crown for its abandonment of these irregular extortions. henry vii., the most rapacious, and henry viii., the most despotic, of english monarchs, did not presume to violate this acknowledged right. the first who had again recourse to this means of enhancing the revenue was mary, who, in the year , set a duty upon cloths exported beyond seas, and afterwards another on the importation of french wines. the former of those was probably defended by arguing, that there was already a duty on wool; and if cloth, which was wool manufactured, could pass free, there would be a fraud on the revenue. the merchants however did not acquiesce in this arbitrary imposition, and as soon as elizabeth's accession gave hopes of a restoration of english government, they petitioned to be released from this burthen. the question appears, by a memorandum in dyer's reports, to have been extra-judicially referred to the judges, unless it were rather as assistants to the privy council that their opinion was demanded. this entry concludes abruptly, without any determination of the judges.[ ] but we may presume, that if any such had been given in favour of the crown, it would have been made public. and that the majority of the bench would not have favoured this claim of the crown, we may strongly presume from their doctrine in a case of the same description, wherein they held the assessment of treble custom on aliens for violation of letters patent to be absolutely against the law.[ ] the administration, however, would not release this duty, which continued to be paid under elizabeth. she also imposed one upon sweet wines. we read of no complaint in parliament against this novel taxation; but it is alluded to by bacon in one of his tracts during the queen's reign, as a grievance alleged by her enemies. he defends it, as laid only on a foreign merchandise, and a delicacy which might be forborne.[ ] but considering elizabeth's unwillingness to require subsidies from the common, and the rapid increase of foreign traffic during her reign, it might be asked why she did not extend these duties to other commodities, and secure to herself no trifling annual revenue. what answer can be given, except that, aware how little any unparliamentary levying of money could be supported by law or usage, her ministers shunned to excite attention to these innovations which wanted hitherto the stamp of time to give them prescriptive validity?[ ] james had imposed a duty of five shillings per hundredweight on currants, over and above that of two shillings and sixpence, which was granted by the statute of tonnage and poundage.[ ] bates, a turkey merchant, having refused payment, an information was exhibited against him in the exchequer. judgment was soon given for the crown. the courts of justice, it is hardly necessary to say, did not consist of men conscientiously impartial between the king and the subject; some corrupt with hope of promotion, many more fearful of removal, or awe-struck by the frowns of power. the speeches of chief baron fleming, and of baron clark, the only two that are preserved in lane's reports, contain propositions still worse than their decision, and wholly subversive of all liberty. "the king's power," it was said, "is double--ordinary and absolute; and these have several laws and ends. that of the ordinary is for the profit of particular subjects, exercised in ordinary courts, and called common law, which cannot be changed in substance without parliament. the king's absolute power is applied to no particular person's benefit, but to the general safety; and this is not directed by the rules of common law, but more properly termed policy and government, varying according to his wisdom for the common good; and all things done within those rules are lawful. the matter in question is matter of state, to be ruled according to policy by the king's extraordinary power. all customs (duties so called) are the effects of foreign commerce; but all affairs of commerce and all treaties with foreign nations belong to the king's absolute power; he therefore who has power over the cause, must have it also over the effect. the seaports are the king's gates, which he may open and shut to whom he pleases." the ancient customs on wine and wool are asserted to have originated in the king's absolute power, and not in a grant of parliament; a point, whether true or not, of no great importance, if it were acknowledged, that many statutes had subsequently controlled this prerogative. but these judges impugned the authority of statutes derogatory to their idol. that of e. , c. , that no new imposition should be laid on wool or leather, one of them maintains, did not bind the king's successors; for the right to impose such duties was a principal part of the crown of england, which the king could not diminish. they extolled the king's grace in permitting the matter to be argued, commenting at the same time on the insolence shown in disputing so undeniable a claim. nor could any judges be more peremptory in resisting an attempt to overthrow the most established precedents, than were these barons of king james's exchequer, in giving away those fundamental liberties in which every englishman was inherited.[ ] _remonstrances against impositions in session of ._--the immediate consequence of this decision was a book of rates, published in july , under the authority of the great seal, imposing heavy duties upon almost all merchandise.[ ] but the judgment of the court of exchequer did not satisfy men jealous of the crown's encroachments. the imposition on currants had been already noticed as a grievance by the house of commons in . but the king answered that the question was in a course for legal determination; and the commons themselves, which is worthy of remark, do not appear to have entertained any clear persuasion that the impost was contrary to law.[ ] in the session, however, which began in february , they had acquired new light by sifting the legal authorities, and instead of submitting their opinions to the courts of law, which were in truth little worthy of such deference, were the more provoked to remonstrate against the novel usurpation those servile men had endeavoured to prop up. lawyers, as learned probably as most of the judges, were not wanting in their ranks. the illegality of impositions was shown in two elaborate speeches by hakewill and yelverton.[ ] and the country gentlemen, who, though less deeply versed in precedents, had too good sense not to discern that the next step would be to levy taxes on their lands, were delighted to find that there had been an old english constitution not yet abrogated, which would bear them out in their opposition. when the king therefore had intimated by a message, and afterwards in a speech, his command not to enter on the subject, couched in that arrogant tone of despotism which this absurd prince affected,[ ] they presented a strong remonstrance against this inhibition; claiming "as an ancient, general, and undoubted right of parliament to debate freely all matters which do probably concern the subject; which freedom of debate being once foreclosed, the essence of the liberty of parliament is withal dissolved. for the judgment given by the exchequer, they take not on them to review it, but desire to know the reasons whereon it was grounded; especially as it was generally apprehended that the reasons of that judgment extended much farther, even to the utter ruin of the ancient liberty of this kingdom, and of the subjects' right of property in their lands and goods."[ ] "the policy and constitution of this your kingdom (they say) appropriates unto the kings of this realm, with the assent of the parliament, as well the sovereign power of making laws, as that of taxing, or imposing upon the subjects' goods or merchandises, as may not, without their consents, be altered or changed. this is the cause that the people of this kingdom, as they ever showed themselves faithful and loving to their kings, and ready to aid them, in all their just occasions, with voluntary contributions; so have they been ever careful to preserve their own liberties and rights, when anything hath been done to prejudice or impeach the same. and therefore when their princes, occasioned either by their wars, or their over-great bounty, or by any other necessity, have without consent of parliament set impositions, either within the land, or upon commodities either exported or imported by the merchants, they have, in open parliament, complained of it, in that it was done without their consents: and thereupon never failed to obtain a speedy and full redress, without any claim made by the kings, of any power or prerogative in that point. and though the law of property be original, and carefully preserved by the common laws of this realm, which are as ancient as the kingdom itself; yet these famous kings, for the better contentment and assurance of their loving subjects, agreed, that this old fundamental right should be further declared and established by act of parliament. wherein it is provided, that no such charges should ever be laid upon the people, without their common consent, as may appear by sundry records of former times. we, therefore, your majesty's most humble commons assembled in parliament, following the example of this worthy case of our ancestors, and out of a duty of those for whom we serve, finding that your majesty, without advice or consent of parliament, hath lately, in time of peace, set both greater impositions, and far more in number, than any your noble ancestors did ever in time of war, have, with all humility, presumed to present this most just and necessary petition unto your majesty, that all impositions set without the assent of parliament may be quite abolished and taken away; and that your majesty, in imitation likewise of your noble progenitors, will be pleased, that a law be made during this session of parliament, to declare that all impositions set, or to be set upon your people, their goods or merchandises, save only by common assent in parliament, are and shall be void."[ ] they proceeded accordingly, after a pretty long time occupied in searching for precedents, to pass a bill taking away impositions; which, as might be anticipated, did not obtain the concurrence of the upper house. _doctrine of king's absolute power inculcated by clergy._--the commons had reason for their apprehensions. this doctrine of the king's absolute power beyond the law had become current with all who sought his favour, and especially with the high church party. the convocation had in drawn up a set of canons, denouncing as erroneous a number of tenets hostile in their opinion to royal government. these canons, though never authentically published till a later age, could not have been secret. they consist of a series of propositions or paragraphs, to each of which an anathema of the opposite error is attached; deducing the origin of government from the patriarchal regimen of families, to the exclusion of any popular choice. in those golden days the functions both of king and priest were, as they term it, "the prerogatives of birthright;" till the wickedness of mankind brought in usurpation, and so confused the pure stream of the fountain with its muddy runnels, that we must now look to prescription for that right which we cannot assign to primogeniture. passive obedience in all cases without exception to the established monarch is inculcated.[ ] it is not impossible that a man might adopt this theory of the original of government, unsatisfactory as it must appear on reflection, without deeming it incompatible with our mixed and limited monarchy. but its tendency was evidently in a contrary direction. the king's power was of god, that of the parliament only of man, obtained perhaps by rebellion; but out of rebellion what right could spring? or were it even by voluntary concession, could a king alienate a divine gift, and infringe the order of providence? could his grants, if not in themselves null, avail against his posterity, heirs like himself under the great feoffment of creation? these consequences were at least plausible; and some would be found to draw them. and indeed if they were never explicitly laid down, the mere difference of respect with which mankind could not but contemplate a divine and human, a primitive or paramount, and a derivative authority, would operate as a prodigious advantage in favour of the crown. the real aim of the clergy in thus enormously enhancing the pretensions of the crown was to gain its sanction and support for their own. schemes of ecclesiastical jurisdiction, hardly less extensive than had warmed the imagination of becket, now floated before the eyes of his successor bancroft. he had fallen indeed upon evil days, and perfect independence on the temporal magistrate could no longer be attempted; but he acted upon the refined policy of making the royal supremacy over the church, which he was obliged to acknowledge, and professed to exaggerate, the very instrument of its independence upon the law. the favourite object of the bishops in this age was to render their ecclesiastical jurisdiction, no part of which had been curtailed in our hasty reformation, as unrestrained as possible by the courts of law. these had been wont, down from the reign of henry ii., to grant writs of prohibition, whenever the spiritual courts transgressed their proper limits; to the great benefit of the subject, who would otherwise have lost his birthright of the common law, and been exposed to the defective, not to say iniquitous and corrupt, procedure of the ecclesiastical tribunals. but the civilians, supported by the prelates, loudly complained of these prohibitions, which seem to have been much more frequent in the latter years of elizabeth and the reign of james, than in any other period. bancroft accordingly presented to the star-chamber, in , a series of petitions in the name of the clergy, which lord coke has denominated articuli cleri, by analogy to some similar representations of that order under edward ii.[ ] in these it was complained that the courts of law interfered by continual prohibitions with a jurisdiction as established and as much derived from the king as their own, either in cases which were clearly within that jurisdiction's limits, or on the slightest suggestion of some matter belonging to the temporal court. it was hinted that the whole course of granting prohibitions was an encroachment of the king's bench and common pleas, and that they could regularly issue only out of chancery. to each of these articles of complaint, extending to twenty-five, the judges made separate answers, in a rough, and, some might say, a rude style, but pointed and much to the purpose; vindicating in every instance their right to take cognisance of every collateral matter springing out of an ecclesiastical suit, and repelling the attack upon their power to issue prohibitions, as a strange presumption. nothing was done, nor, thanks to the firmness of the judges, could be done, by the council in this respect. for the clergy had begun by advancing that the king's authority was sufficient to reform what was amiss in any of his own courts, all jurisdiction spiritual and temporal being annexed to his crown. but it was positively and repeatedly denied in reply, that anything less than an act of parliament could alter the course of justice established by law. this effectually silenced the archbishop, who knew how little he had to hope from the commons. by the pretensions made for the church in this affair, he exasperated the judges, who had been quite sufficiently disposed to second all rigorous measures against the puritan ministers, and aggravated that jealousy of the ecclesiastical courts which the common lawyers had long entertained. _cowell's interpreter._--an opportunity was soon given to those who disliked the civilians, that is, not only to the common lawyers, but to all the patriots and puritans in england, by an imprudent publication of a doctor cowell. this man, in a law dictionary dedicated to bancroft, had thought fit to insert passages of a tenor conformable to the new creed of the king's absolute or arbitrary power. under the title king, it is said:--"he is above the law by his absolute power, and though for the better and equal course in making laws he do admit the three estates unto council, yet this in divers learned men's opinion is not of constraint, but of his own benignity, or by reason of the promise made upon oath at the time of his coronation. and though at his coronation he take an oath not to alter the laws of the land, yet this oath notwithstanding, he may alter or suspend any particular law that seemeth hurtful to the public estate. thus much in short, because i have heard some to be of opinion that the laws are above the king." and in treating of the parliament, cowell observes: "of these two one must be true, either that the king is above the parliament, that is, the positive laws of his kingdom, or else that he is not an absolute king. and therefore though it be a merciful policy and also a politic mercy, not alterable without great peril, to make laws by the consent of the whole realm, because so no part shall have cause to complain of a partiality, yet simply to bind the prince to or by these laws were repugnant to the nature and constitution of an absolute monarchy." it is said again, under the title prerogative, that "the king, by the custom of this kingdom, maketh no laws without the consent of the three estates, though he may quash any law concluded of by them;" and that he "holds it incontrollable, that the king of england is an absolute king."[ ] such monstrous positions from the mouth of a man of learning and conspicuous in his profession, who was surmised to have been instigated as well as patronised by the archbishop, and of whose book the king was reported to have spoken in terms of eulogy, gave very just scandal to the house of commons. they solicited and obtained a conference with the lords, which the attorney-general, sir francis bacon, managed on the part of the lower house; a remarkable proof of his adroitness and pliancy. james now discovered that it was necessary to sacrifice this too unguarded advocate of prerogative: cowell's book was suppressed by proclamation, for which the commons returned thanks, with great joy at their victory.[ ] it is the evident policy of every administration, in dealing with the house of commons, to humour them in everything that touches their pride and tenaciousness of privilege, never attempting to protect any one who incurs their displeasure by want of respect. this seems to have been understood by the earl of salisbury, the first english minister who, having long sat in the lower house, had become skilful in those arts of management which his successors have always reckoned so essential a part of their mystery. he wanted a considerable sum of money to defray the king's debts, which, on his coming into the office of lord treasurer after lord buckhurst's death, he had found to amount to £ , , , about one-third of which was still undischarged. the ordinary expense also surpassed the revenue by £ , . it was impossible that this could continue, without involving the crown in such embarrassments as would leave it wholly at the mercy of parliament. cecil therefore devised the scheme of obtaining a perpetual yearly revenue of £ , , to be granted once for all by parliament; and the better to incline the house to this high and extraordinary demand, he promised in the king's name to give all the redress and satisfaction in his power for any grievances they might bring forward.[ ] _renewed complaints of the commons._--this offer on the part of government seemed to make an opening for a prosperous adjustment of the differences which had subsisted ever since the king's accession. the commons accordingly, postponing the business of a subsidy, to which the courtiers wished to give priority, brought forward a host of their accustomed grievances in ecclesiastical and temporal concerns. the most essential was undoubtedly that of impositions, which they sent up a bill to the lords, as above mentioned, to take away. they next complained of the ecclesiastical high commission court, which took upon itself to fine and imprison, powers not belonging to their jurisdiction, and passed sentences without appeal, interfering frequently with civil rights, and in all its procedure neglecting the rules and precautions of the common law. they dwelt on the late abuse of proclamations assuming the character of laws. "amongst many other points of happiness and freedom," it is said, "which your majesty's subjects of this kingdom have enjoyed under your royal progenitors, kings and queens of this realm, there is none which they have accounted more dear and precious than this, to be guided and governed by the certain rule of the law, which giveth both to the head and members that which of right belongeth to them, and not by any uncertain or arbitrary form of government, which, as it hath proceeded from the original good constitution and temperature of this estate, so hath it been the principal means of upholding the same, in such sort as that their kings have been just, beloved, happy, and glorious, and the kingdom itself peaceable, flourishing, and durable so many ages. and the effect, as well of the contentment that the subjects of this kingdom have taken in this form of government, as also of the love, respect, and duty, which they have by reason of the same rendered unto their princes, may appear in this, that they have, as occasion hath required, yielded more extraordinary and voluntary contribution to assist their kings, than the subjects of any other known kingdom whatsoever. out of this root hath grown the indubitable right of the people of this kingdom, not to be made subject to any punishment that shall extend to their lives, lands, bodies, or goods, other than such as are ordained by the common laws of this land, or the statutes made by their common consent in parliament. nevertheless, it is apparent, both that proclamations have been of late years much more frequent than heretofore, and that they are extended, not only to the liberty, but also to the goods, inheritances, and livelihood of men; some of them tending to alter some points of the law, and make a new; other some made, shortly after a session of parliament, for matter directly rejected in the same session; other appointing punishments to be inflicted before lawful trial and conviction; some containing penalties in form of penal statutes; some referring the punishment of offenders to courts of arbitrary discretion, which have laid heavy and grievous censures upon the delinquents; some, as the proclamation for starch, accompanied with letters commanding enquiry to be made against the transgressors at the quarter-sessions; and some vouching former proclamations to countenance and warrant the later, as by a catalogue here underwritten more particularly appeareth. by reason whereof there is a general fear conceived and spread amongst your majesty's people, that proclamations will, by degrees, grow up, and increase to the strength and nature of laws; whereby not only that ancient happiness, freedom, will be much blemished (if not quite taken away) which their ancestors have so long enjoyed; but the same may also (in process of time) bring a new form of arbitrary government upon the realm: and this their fear is the more increased by occasion of certain books lately published, which ascribe a greater power to proclamations than heretofore had been conceived to belong unto them; as also of the care taken to reduce all the proclamations made since your majesty's reign into one volume, and to print them in such form as acts of parliament formerly have been, and still are used to be, which seemeth to imply a purpose to give them more reputation and more establishment than heretofore they have had."[ ] they proceed, after a list of these illegal proclamations, to enumerate other grievances, such as the delay of courts of law in granting writs of prohibition and habeas corpus, the jurisdiction of the council of wales over the four bordering shires of gloucester, worcester, hereford, and salop,[ ] some patents of monopolies, and a tax under the name of a licence recently set upon victuallers. the king answered these remonstrances with civility, making, as usual, no concession with respect to the ecclesiastical commission, and evading some of their other requests; but promising that his proclamations should go no farther than was warranted by law, and that the royal licences to victuallers should be revoked. _negotiation for giving up the feudal revenue._--it appears that the commons, deeming these enumerated abuses contrary to law, were unwilling to chaffer with the crown for the restitution of their actual rights. there were, however, parts of the prerogative which they could not dispute, though galled by the burthen; the incidents of feudal tenure, and purveyance. a negotiation was accordingly commenced and carried on for some time with the court, for abolishing both these, or at least the former. the king, though he refused to part with tenure by knight's service, which he thought connected with the honour of the monarchy, was induced, with some real or pretended reluctance, to give up its lucrative incidents, relief, primer seisin, and wardship, as well as the right of purveyance. but material difficulties recurred in the prosecution of this treaty. some were apprehensive that the validity of a statute cutting off such ancient branches of prerogative might hereafter be called in question; especially if the root from which they sprung, tenure in capite, should still remain. the king's demands, too, seemed exorbitant. he asked £ , as a yearly revenue over and above £ , , at which his wardships were valued, and which the commons were content to give. after some days' pause upon this proposition, they represented to the lords, with whom, through committees of conference, the whole matter had been discussed, that if such a sum were to be levied on those only who had lands subject to wardship, it would be a burthen they could not endure; and that if it were imposed equally on the kingdom, it would cause more offence and commotion in the people than they could risk. after a good deal of haggling, salisbury delivered the king's final determination to accept of £ , per annum, which the commons voted to grant as a full composition for abolishing the right of wardship, and dissolving the court that managed it, and for taking away all purveyance; with some further concessions, and particularly, that the king's claim to lands should be bound by sixty years' prescription. two points yet remained, of no small moment; namely, by what assurance they could secure themselves against the king's prerogative, so often held up by court lawyers as something uncontrollable by statute, and by what means so great an imposition should be levied; but the consideration of these was reserved for the ensuing session, which was to take place in october.[ ] they were prorogued in july till that month, having previously granted a subsidy for the king's immediate exigencies. on their meeting again, the lords began the business by requesting a conference with the other house about the proposed contract. but it appeared that the commons had lost their disposition to comply. time had been given them to calculate the disproportion of the terms, and the perpetual burthen that lands held by knight's service must endure. they had reflected too on the king's prodigal humour, the rapacity of the scots in his service, and the probability that this additional revenue would be wasted without sustaining the national honour, or preventing future applications for money. they saw that after all the specious promises by which they had been led on, no redress was to be expected as to those grievances they had most at heart; that the ecclesiastical courts would not be suffered to lose a jot of their jurisdiction, that illegal customs were still to be levied at the out-ports, that proclamations were still to be enforced like acts of parliament. great coldness accordingly was displayed in their proceedings; and in a short time, this distinguished parliament, after sitting nearly seven years, was dissolved by proclamation.[ ] _dissolution of parliament--character of james._--it was now perhaps too late for the king, by any reform or concession, to regain that public esteem which he had forfeited. deceived by an overweening opinion of his own learning, which was not inconsiderable, of his general abilities which were far from contemptible, and of his capacity for government, which was very small, and confirmed in this delusion by the disgraceful flattery of his courtiers and bishops, he had wholly overlooked the real difficulties of his position; as a foreigner, rather distantly connected with the royal stock, and as a native of a hostile and hateful kingdom, come to succeed the most renowned of sovereigns, and to grasp a sceptre which deep policy and long experience had taught her admirably to wield.[ ] the people were proud of martial glory, he spoke only of the blessing of the peacemakers; they abhorred the court of spain, he sought its friendship; they asked indulgence for scrupulous consciences, he would bear no deviation from conformity; they writhed under the yoke of the bishops, whose power he thought necessary to his own; they were animated by a persecuting temper towards the catholics, he was averse to extreme rigour; they had been used to the utmost frugality in dispensing the public treasure, he squandered it on unworthy favourites; they had seen at least exterior decency of morals prevail in the queen's court, they now heard only of its dissoluteness and extravagance;[ ] they had imbibed an exclusive fondness for the common law as the source of their liberties and privileges; his churchmen and courtiers, but none more than himself, talked of absolute power and the imprescriptible rights of monarchy.[ ] _death of lord salisbury._--james lost in his son prince henry, and in the lord treasurer salisbury. he showed little regret for the former, whose high spirit and great popularity afforded a mortifying contrast; especially as the young prince had not taken sufficient pains to disguise his contempt for his father.[ ] salisbury was a very able man, to whom perhaps his contemporaries did some injustice. the ministers of weak and wilful monarchs are made answerable for the mischiefs they are compelled to suffer, and gain no credit for those which they prevent. cecil had made personal enemies of those who had loved essex or admired raleigh, as well as those who looked invidiously on his elevation. it was believed that the desire shown by the house of commons to abolish the feudal wardships, proceeded in a great measure from the circumstance that this obnoxious minister was master of the court of wards; an office both lucrative and productive of much influence. but he came into the scheme of abolishing it with a readiness that did him credit. his chief praise, however, was his management of continental relations. the only minister of james's cabinet who had been trained in the councils of elizabeth, he retained some of her jealousy of spain, and of her regard for the protestant interests. the court of madrid, aware both of the king's pusillanimity and of his favourable dispositions, affected a tone in the conferences held in , about a treaty of peace, which elizabeth would have resented in a very different manner.[ ] on this occasion, he not only deserted the united provinces, but gave hopes to spain that he might, if they persevered in their obstinacy, take part against them. nor have i any doubt that his blind attachment to that power would have precipitated him into a ruinous connection, if cecil's wisdom had not influenced his councils. during this minister's life, our foreign politics seem to have been conducted with as much firmness and prudence as his master's temper would allow; the mediation of england was of considerable service in bringing about the great truce of twelve years between spain and holland in ; and in the dispute which sprang up soon afterwards concerning the succession to the duchies of cleves and juliers, a dispute which threatened to mingle in arms the catholic and protestant parties throughout europe,[ ] our councils were full of a vigour and promptitude unusual in this reign; nor did anything but the assassination of henry iv. prevent the appearance of an english army in the netherlands. it must at least be confessed that the king's affairs, both at home and abroad, were far worse conducted after the death of the earl of salisbury than before.[ ] _lord coke's alienation from the court._--the administration found an important disadvantage, about this time, in a sort of defection of sir edward coke (more usually called lord coke), chief justice of the king's bench, from the side of prerogative. he was a man of strong, though narrow, intellect; confessedly the greatest master of english law that had ever appeared; but proud and overbearing, a flatterer and tool of the court till he had obtained his ends, and odious to the nation for the brutal manner in which, as attorney-general, he had behaved towards sir walter raleigh on his trial. in raising him to the post of chief justice, the council had of course relied on finding his unfathomable stores of precedent subservient to their purposes. but soon after his promotion, coke, from various causes, began to steer a more independent course. he was little formed to endure a competitor in his own profession, and lived on ill terms both with the lord chancellor egerton, and with the attorney-general, sir francis bacon. the latter had long been his rival and enemy. discountenanced by elizabeth, who, against the importunity of essex, had raised coke over his head, that great and aspiring genius was now high in the king's favour. the chief justice affected to look down on one as inferior to him in knowledge of our municipal law, as he was superior in all other learning and in all the philosophy of jurisprudence. and the mutual enmity of these illustrious men never ceased till each in his turn satiated his revenge by the other's fall. coke was also much offended by the attempts of the bishops to emancipate their ecclesiastical courts from the civil jurisdiction. i have already mentioned the peremptory tone in which he repelled bancroft's articuli cleri. but as the king and some of the council rather favoured these episcopal pretensions, they were troubled by what they deemed his obstinacy, and discovered more and more that they had to deal with a most impracticable spirit. it would be invidious to exclude from the motives that altered lord coke's behaviour in matters of prerogative his real affection for the laws of the land, which novel systems, broached by the churchmen and civilians, threatened to subvert.[ ] in bates's case, which seems to have come in some shape extra-judicially before him, he had delivered an opinion in favour of the king's right to impose at the out-ports; but so cautiously guarded, and bottomed on such different grounds from those taken by the barons of the exchequer, that it could not be cited in favour of any fresh encroachments.[ ] he now performed a great service to his country. the practice of issuing proclamations, by way of temporary regulation indeed, but interfering with the subject's liberty, in cases unprovided for by parliament, had grown still more usual than under elizabeth. coke was sent for to attend some of the council, who might perhaps have reason to conjecture his sentiments; and it was demanded whether the king, by his proclamation, might prohibit new buildings about london, and whether he might prohibit the making of starch from wheat. this was during the session of parliament in , and with a view to what answer the king should make to the commons' remonstrance against these proclamations. coke replied, that it was a matter of great importance, on which he would confer with his brethren. "the chancellor said, that every precedent had first a commencement, and he would advise the judges to maintain the power and prerogative of the king; and in cases wherein there is no authority and precedent, to leave it to the king to order in it according to his wisdom and for the good of his subjects, or otherwise the king would be no more than the duke of venice; and that the king was so much restrained in his prerogative, that it was to be feared the bonds would be broken. and the lord privy-seal (northampton) said, that the physician was not always bound to a precedent, but to apply his medicine according to the quality of the disease; and all concluded that it should be necessary at that time to confirm the king's prerogative, with our opinions, although that there were not any former precedent or authority in law; for every precedent ought to have a commencement. to which i answered, that true it is that every precedent ought to have a commencement; but when authority and precedent is wanting, there is need of great consideration before that anything of novelty shall be established, and to provide that this be not against the law of the land; for i said that the king cannot change any part of the common law, nor create any offence by his proclamation which was not an offence before, without parliament. but at this time i only desired to have a time of consultation and conference with my brothers." this was agreed to by the council, and three judges, besides coke, appointed to consider it. they resolved that the king, by his proclamation, cannot create any offence which was not one before; for then he might alter the law of the land in a high point; for if he may create an offence where none is, upon that ensues fine and imprisonment. it was also resolved that the king hath no prerogative but what the law of the land allows him. but the king, for prevention of offences, may by proclamation admonish all his subjects that they keep the laws and do not offend them, upon punishment to be inflicted by the law; and the neglect of such proclamation, coke says, aggravates the offence. lastly, they resolved that if an offence be not punishable in the star-chamber, the prohibition of it by proclamation cannot make it so. after this resolution, the report goes on to remark, no proclamation imposing fine and imprisonment was made.[ ] _means resorted to in order to avoid the meeting of parliament._--by the abrupt dissolution of parliament james was left nearly in the same necessity as before; their subsidy, being by no means sufficient to defray his expenses, far less to discharge his debts. he had frequently betaken himself to the usual resource of applying to private subjects, especially rich merchants, for loans of money. these loans, which bore no interest, and for the repayment of which there was no security, disturbed the prudent citizens; especially as the council used to solicit them with a degree of importunity at least bordering on compulsion. the house of commons had in the last session requested that no one should be bound to lend money to the king against his will. the king had answered that he allowed not of any precedents from the time of usurping or decaying princes, or people too bold and wanton; that he desired not to govern in that commonwealth where the people be assured of everything and hope for nothing, nor would he leave to posterity such a mark of weakness on his reign; yet, in the matter of loans, he would refuse no reasonable excuse.[ ] forced loans or benevolences were directly prohibited by an act of richard iii., whose laws, however the court might sometimes throw a slur upon his usurpation, had always been in the statute-book. after the dissolution of , james attempted as usual to obtain loans; but the merchants, grown bolder with the spirit of the times, refused him the accommodation.[ ] he had recourse to another method of raising money, unprecedented, i believe, before his reign, though long practised in france, the sale of honours. he sold several peerages for considerable sums, and created a new order of hereditary knights, called baronets, who paid £ , each for their patents.[ ] such resources, however, being evidently insufficient and temporary, it was almost indispensable to try once more the temper of a parliament. this was strongly urged by bacon, whose fertility of invention rendered him constitutionally sanguine of success. he submitted to the king that there were expedients for more judiciously managing a house of commons, than cecil, upon whom he was too willing to throw blame, had done with the last; that some of those who had been most forward in opposing were now won over; such as neville, yelverton, hyde, crew, dudley digges; that much might be done by forethought towards filling the house with well-affected persons, winning or blinding the lawyers, whom he calls the literæ vocales of the house, and drawing the chief constituent bodies of the assembly, the country gentlemen, the merchants, the courtiers, to act for the king's advantage; that it would be expedient to tender voluntarily certain graces and modifications of the king's prerogative, such as might with smallest injury be conceded, lest they should be first demanded, and in order to save more important points.[ ] this advice was seconded by sir henry neville, an ambitious man, who had narrowly escaped in the queen's time for having tampered in essex's conspiracy, and had much promoted the opposition in the late parliament, but was now seeking the post of secretary of state. he advised the king, in a very sensible memorial, to consider what had been demanded and what had been promised in the last session, granting the more reasonable of the commons' requests, and performing all his own promises; to avoid any speech likely to excite irritation; and to seem confident of the parliament's good affections, not waiting to be pressed for what he meant to do.[ ] neville and others, who, like him, professed to understand the temper of the commons, and to facilitate the king's dealings with them, were called _undertakers_.[ ] this circumstance, like several others in the present reign, is curious, as it shows the rise of a systematic parliamentary influence, which was one day to become the mainspring of government. neville, however, and his associates had deceived the courtiers with promises they could not realise. it was resolved to announce certain intended graces in the speech from the throne; that is, to declare the king's readiness to pass bills that might remedy some grievances and retrench a part of his prerogative. these proffered amendments of the law, though eleven in number, failed altogether of giving the content that had been fully expected. except the repeal of a strange act of henry viii., allowing the king to make such laws as he should think fit for the principality of wales without consent of parliament,[ ] none of them could perhaps be reckoned of any constitutional importance. in all domanial and fiscal causes, and wherever the private interests of the crown stood in competition with those of a subject, the former enjoyed enormous and superior advantages, whereof what is strictly called its prerogative was principally composed. the terms of prescription that bound other men's right, the rules of pleading and procedure established for the sake of truth and justice, did not, in general, oblige the king. it was not by doing away with a very few of these invidious and oppressive distinctions, that the crown could be allowed to keep on foot still more momentous abuses. _parliament of ._--the commons of accordingly went at once to the characteristic grievance of this reign, the customs at the outports. they had grown so confident in their cause by ransacking ancient records, that an unanimous vote passed against the king's right of imposition; not that there were no courtiers in the house, but the cry was too obstreperous to be withstood.[ ] they demanded a conference on the subject with the lords, who preserved a kind of mediating neutrality throughout this reign.[ ] in the course of their debate, neyle, bishop of lichfield, threw out some aspersion on the commons. they were immediately in a flame, and demanded reparation. this neyle was a man of indifferent character, and very unpopular from the share he had taken in the earl of essex's divorce, and from his severity towards the puritans; nor did the house fail to comment upon all his faults in their debate. he had, however, the prudence to excuse himself ("with many tears," as the lords' journals inform us), denying the most offensive words imputed to him; and the affair went no farther.[ ] this ill-humour of the commons disconcerted those who had relied on the undertakers. but as the secret of these men had not been kept, their project considerably aggravated the prevailing discontent.[ ] the king had positively denied in his first speech that there were any such undertakers; and bacon, then attorney-general, laughed at the chimerical notion, that private men should undertake for all the commons of england.[ ] that some persons however had obtained that name at court, and held out such promises, is at present out of doubt; and indeed the king, forgetful of his former denial, expressly confessed it on opening the session of . amidst these heats little progress was made; and no one took up the essential business of supply. the king at length sent a message, requesting that a supply might be granted, with a threat of dissolving parliament unless it were done. but the days of intimidation were gone by. the house voted that they would first proceed with the business of impositions, and postpone supply till their grievances should be redressed.[ ] aware of the impossibility of conquering their resolution, the king carried his measure into effect by a dissolution.[ ] they had sat about two months, and, what is perhaps unprecedented in our history, had not passed a single bill. james followed up this strong step by one still more vigorous. several members, who had distinguished themselves by warm language against the government, were arrested after the dissolution, and kept for a short time in custody; a manifest violation of that freedom of speech, without which no assembly can be independent, and which is the stipulated privilege of the house of commons.[ ] _benevolences._--it was now evident that james could never expect to be on terms of harmony with a parliament, unless by surrendering pretensions, which not only were in his eyes indispensable to the lustre of his monarchy, but from which he derived an income that he had no means of replacing. he went on accordingly for six years, supplying his exigencies by such precarious sources as circumstances might furnish. he restored the towns mortgaged by the dutch to elizabeth on payment of , , florins, about one-third of the original debt. the enormous fines imposed by the star-chamber, though seldom, i believe, enforced to their utmost extent, must have considerably enriched the exchequer. it is said by carte that some dutch merchants paid fines to the amount of £ , for exporting gold coin.[ ] but still greater profit was hoped from the requisition of that more than half involuntary contribution, miscalled a benevolence. it began by a subscription of the nobility and principal persons about the court. letters were sent written to the sheriffs and magistrates, directing them to call on people of ability. it had always been supposed doubtful whether the statute of richard iii. abrogating "exactions, called benevolences," should extend to voluntary gifts at the solicitation of the crown. the language used in that act certainly implies that the pretended benevolences of edward's reign had been extorted against the subjects' will; yet if positive violence were not employed, it seems difficult to find a legal criterion by which to distinguish the effects of willing loyalty from those of fear or shame. lord coke is said to have at first declared that the king could not solicit a benevolence from his subjects, but to have afterwards retracted his opinion and pronounced in favour of its legality. to this second opinion he adheres in his reports.[ ] while this business was pending, mr. oliver st. john wrote a letter to the mayor of marlborough, explaining his reasons for declining to contribute, founded on the several statutes which he deemed applicable, and on the impropriety of particular men opposing their judgment, to the commons in parliament, who had refused to grant any subsidy. this argument, in itself exasperating, he followed up by somewhat blunt observations on the king. his letter came under the consideration of the star-chamber, where the offence having been severely descanted upon by the attorney-general, mr. st. john was sentenced to a fine of £ , and to imprisonment during pleasure.[ ] _prosecution of peacham._--coke, though still much at the council-board, was regarded with increasing dislike on account of his uncompromising humour. this he had occasion to display in perhaps the worst and most tyrannical act of king james's reign, the prosecution of one peacham, a minister in somersetshire, for high treason. a sermon had been found in this man's study (it does not appear what led to the search), never preached, nor, if judge croke is right, intended to be preached, containing such sharp censures upon the king, and invectives against the government, as, had they been published, would have amounted to a seditious libel. but common sense revolted at construing it into treason, under the statute of edward iii., as a compassing of the king's death. james, however, took it up with indecent eagerness. peacham was put to the rack, and examined upon various interrogatories, as it is expressed by secretary winwood, "before torture, in torture, between torture, and after torture." nothing could be drawn from him as to any accomplices, nor any explanation of his design in writing the sermon; which was probably but an intemperate effusion, so common among the puritan clergy. it was necessary therefore to rely on this, as the overt act of treason. aware of the difficulties that attended this course, the king directed bacon previously to confer with the judges of the king's bench, one by one, in order to secure their determination for the crown. coke objected that "such particular, and as he called it, auricular taking of opinions was not according to the custom of this realm."[ ] the other three judges having been tampered with, agreed to answer such questions concerning the case as the king might direct to be put to them; yielding to the sophism that every judge was bound by his oath to give counsel to his majesty. the chief justice continued to maintain his objection to this separate closeting of judges; yet, finding himself abandoned by his colleagues, consented to give answers in writing, which seem to have been merely evasive. peacham was brought to trial, and found guilty, but not executed, dying in prison a few months after.[ ] _dispute about the jurisdiction of the court of chancery._--it was not long before the intrepid chief justice incurred again the council's displeasure. this will require, for the sake of part of my readers, some little previous explanation. the equitable jurisdiction, as it is called, of the court of chancery appears to have been derived from that extensive judicial power which, in early times, the king's ordinary council had exercised. the chancellor, as one of the highest officers of state, took a great share in the council's business; and when it was not sitting, he had a court of his own, with jurisdiction in many important matters, out of which process to compel appearance of parties might at any time emanate. it is not unlikely therefore that redress, in matters beyond the legal province of the chancellor, was occasionally given through the paramount authority of this court. we find the council and the chancery named together in many remonstrances of the commons against this interference with private rights, from the time of richard ii. to that of henry vi. it was probably in the former reign that the chancellor began to establish systematically his peculiar restraining jurisdiction. this originated in the practice of feoffments to uses, by which the feoffee, who had legal seisin of the land, stood bound by private engagement to suffer another, called the cestui que use, to enjoy its use and possession. such fiduciary estates were well known to the roman jurists, but inconsistent with the feudal genius of our law. the courts of justice gave no redress, if the feoffee to uses violated his trust by detaining the land. to remedy this, an ecclesiastical chancellor devised the writ of subpoena, compelling him to answer upon oath as to his trust. it was evidently necessary also to restrain him from proceeding, as he might do, to obtain possession; and this gave rise to injunctions, that is, prohibitions to sue at law, the violation of which was punishable by imprisonment as a contempt of court. other instances of breach of trust occurred in personal contracts, and others wherein, without any trust, there was a wrong committed beyond the competence of the courts of law to redress; to all which the process of subpoena was made applicable. this extension of a novel jurisdiction was partly owing to a fundamental principle of our common law, that a defendant cannot be examined, so that, if no witness or written instrument could be produced to prove a demand, the plaintiff was wholly debarred of justice; but in a still greater degree, to a strange narrowness and scrupulosity of the judges, who, fearful of quitting the letter of their precedents, even with the clearest analogies to guide them, repelled so many just suits, and set up rules of so much hardship, that men were thankful to embrace the relief held out by a tribunal acting in a more rational spirit. this error the common lawyers began to discover, in time to resume a great part of their jurisdiction in matters of contract, which would otherwise have escaped from them. they made too an apparently successful effort to recover their exclusive authority over real property, by obtaining a statute for turning uses into possession; that is, for annihilating the fictitious estate of the feoffee to uses, and vesting the legal as well as equitable possession in the cestui que use. but this victory, if i may use such an expression (since it would have freed them, in a most important point, from the chancellor's control), they threw away by one of those timid and narrow constructions which had already turned so much to their prejudice; and they permitted trust-estates, by the introduction of a few more words into a conveyance, to maintain their ground, contra-distinguished from the legal seisin, under the protection and guarantee, as before, of the courts of equity. the particular limits of this equitable jurisdiction were as yet exceedingly indefinite. the chancellors were generally prone to extend them; and being at the same time ministers of state in a government of very arbitrary temper, regarded too little that course of precedent by which the other judges held themselves too strictly bound. the cases reckoned cognisable in chancery grew silently more and more numerous; but with little overt opposition from the courts of law till the time of sir edward coke. that great master of the common law was inspired not only with the jealousy of this irregular and encroaching jurisdiction which all lawyers seem to have felt, but with a tenaciousness of his own dignity, and a personal enmity towards egerton who held the great seal. it happened that an action was tried before him, the precise circumstances of which do not appear, wherein the plaintiff lost the verdict, in consequence of one of his witnesses being artfully kept away. he had recourse to the court of chancery, filing a bill against the defendant to make him answer upon oath, which he refused to do, and was committed for contempt. indictments were upon this preferred, at coke's instigation, against the parties who had filed the bill in chancery, their counsel and solicitors, for suing in another court after judgment obtained at law; which was alleged to be contrary to the statute of præmunire. but the grand jury, though pressed, as is said, by one of the judges, threw out these indictments. the king, already incensed with coke, and stimulated by bacon, thought this too great an insult upon his chancellor to be passed over. he first directed bacon and others to search for precedents of cases where relief had been given in chancery after judgment at law. they reported that there was a series of such precedents from the time of henry viii.; and some where the chancellor had entertained suits even after execution. the attorney-general was directed to prosecute in the star-chamber those who had preferred the indictments; and as coke had not been ostensibly implicated in the business, the king contented himself with making an order in the council-book, declaring the chancellor not to have exceeded his jurisdiction.[ ] _case of commendams._--the chief justice almost at the same time gave another provocation, which exposed him more directly to the court's resentment. a cause happened to be argued in the court of the king's bench, wherein the validity of a particular grant of a benefice to a bishop to be held in commendam, that is, along with his bishopric, came into question; and the counsel at the bar, besides the special points of the case, had disputed the king's general prerogative of making such a grant. the king, on receiving information of this, signified to the chief justice through the attorney-general, that he would not have the court proceed to judgment till he had spoken with them. coke requested that similar letters might be written to the judges of all the courts. this having been done, they assembled, and by a letter subscribed with all their hands, certified his majesty, that they were bound by their oaths not to regard any letters that might come to them contrary to law, but to do the law notwithstanding; that they held with one consent the attorney-general's letter to be contrary to law, and such as they could not yield to, and that they had proceeded according to their oath to argue the cause. the king, who was then at newmarket, returned answer that he would not suffer his prerogative to be wounded, under pretext of the interest of private persons; that it had already been more boldly dealt with in westminster hall than in the reigns of preceding princes, which popular and unlawful liberty he would no longer endure; that their oath not to delay justice was not meant to prejudice the king's prerogative; concluding that out of his absolute power and authority royal he commanded them to forbear meddling any further in the cause till they should hear his pleasure from his own mouth. upon his return to london, the twelve judges appeared as culprits in the council-chamber. the king set forth their misdemeanours, both in substance and in the tone of their letter. he observed that the judges ought to check those advocates who presume to argue against his prerogative; that the popular lawyers had been the men, ever since his accession, who had trodden in all parliaments upon it, though the law could never be respected if the king were not reverenced; that he had a double prerogative--whereof the one was ordinary, and had relation to his private interest, which might be and was every day disputed in westminster hall; the other was of a higher nature, referring to his supreme and imperial power and sovereignty, which ought not to be disputed or handled in vulgar argument; but that of late the courts of common law are grown so vast and transcendant, as they did both meddle with the king's prerogative, and had encroached upon all other courts of justice. he commented on the form of the letter, as highly indecent; certifying him merely what they had done, instead of submitting to his princely judgment what they should do. after this harangue the judges fell upon their knees, and acknowledged their error as to the form of the letter. but coke entered on a defence of the substance, maintaining the delay required to be against the law and their oaths. the king required the chancellor and attorney-general to deliver their opinions; which, as may be supposed, were diametrically opposite to those of the chief justice. these being heard, the following question was put to the judges: whether, if at any time, in a case depending before the judges, his majesty conceived it to concern him either in power or profit, and thereupon required to consult with them, and that they should stay proceedings in the meantime, they ought not to stay accordingly? they all, except the chief justice, declared that they would do so, and acknowledged it to be their duty; hobart, chief justice of the common pleas, adding that he would ever trust the justice of his majesty's commandment. but coke only answered, that when the case should arise, he would do what should be fit for a judge to do. the king dismissed them all with a command to keep the limits of their several courts, and not to suffer his prerogative to be wounded; for he well knew the true and ancient common law to be the most favourable to kings of any law in the world, to which law he advised them to apply their studies.[ ] the behaviour of the judges in this inglorious contention was such as to deprive them of every shadow of that confidence which ought to be reposed in their integrity. hobart, doddridge, and several more, were men of much consideration for learning; and their authority in ordinary matters of law is still held high. but, having been induced by a sense of duty, or through the ascendancy that coke had acquired over them, to make a show of withstanding the court, they behaved like cowardly rebels who surrender at the first discharge of cannon; and prostituted their integrity and their fame, through dread of losing their offices, or rather perhaps of incurring the unmerciful and ruinous penalties of the star-chamber. the government had nothing to fear from such recreants; but coke was suspended from his office, and not long afterwards dismissed.[ ] having however, fortunately in this respect, married his daughter to a brother of the duke of buckingham, he was restored in about three years to the privy council, where his great experience in business rendered him useful; and had the satisfaction of voting for an enormous fine on his enemy the earl of suffolk, late high-treasurer, convicted in the star-chamber of embezzlement.[ ] in the parliament of , and still more conspicuously in that of , he became, not without some honourable inconsistency of doctrine as well as practice, the strenuous asserter of liberty on the principles of those ancient laws which no one was admitted to know so well as himself; redeeming, in an intrepid and patriotic old age, the faults which we cannot avoid perceiving in his earlier life. _arbitrary proceedings of the star-chamber._--the unconstitutional and usurped authority of the star-chamber over-rode every personal right, though an assembled parliament might assert its general privileges. several remarkable instances in history illustrate its tyranny and contempt of all known laws and liberties. two puritans having been committed by the high-commission court, for refusing the oath _ex officio_, employed mr. fuller, a bencher of gray's inn, to move for their habeas corpus; which he did on the ground that the high commissioners were not empowered to commit any of his majesty's subjects to prison. this being reckoned a heinous offence, he was himself committed, at bancroft's instigation (whether by the king's personal warrant, or that of the council-board, does not appear), and lay in gaol to the day of his death; the archbishop constantly opposing his discharge for which he petitioned.[ ] whitelock, a barrister and afterwards a judge, was brought before the star-chamber on the charge of having given a private opinion to his client, that a certain commission issued by the crown was illegal. this was said to be a high contempt and slander of the king's prerogative. but, after a speech from bacon in aggravation of this offence, the delinquent was discharged on a humble submission.[ ] such too was the fate of a more distinguished person on a still more preposterous accusation. selden, in his _history of tithes_, had indirectly weakened the claim of divine right, which the high church faction pretended, and had attacked the argument from prescription, deriving their legal institution from the age of charlemagne, or even a later æra. not content with letting loose on him some stanch polemical writers, the bishops prevailed on james to summon the author before the council. this proceeding is as much the disgrace of england, as that against galileo nearly at the same time is of italy. selden, like the great florentine astronomer, bent to the rod of power, and made rather too submissive an apology for entering on this purely historical discussion.[ ] _arabella stuart._--every generous mind must reckon the treatment of arabella stuart among the hard measures of despotism, even if it were not also grossly in violation of english law. exposed by her high descent and ambiguous pretensions to become the victim of ambitious designs wherein she did not participate, that lady may be added to the sad list of royal sufferers who have envied the lot of humble birth. there is not, as i believe, the least particle of evidence that she was engaged in the intrigues of the catholic party to place her on the throne. it was, however, thought a necessary precaution to put her in confinement a short time before the queen's death.[ ] at the trial of raleigh she was present; and cecil openly acquitted her of any share in the conspiracy.[ ] she enjoyed afterwards a pension from the king, and might have died in peace and obscurity, had she not conceived an unhappy attachment for mr. seymour, grandson of that earl of hertford, himself so memorable an example of the perils of ambitious love. they were privately married; but on the fact transpiring, the council, who saw with jealous eyes the possible union of two dormant pretensions to the crown, committed them to the tower.[ ] they both made their escape; but arabella was arrested and brought back. long and hopeless calamity broke down her mind; imploring in vain the just privileges of an englishwoman, and nearly in want of necessaries, she died in prison, and in a state of lunacy, some years afterwards.[ ] and this through the oppression of a kinsman, whose advocates are always vaunting his good nature! her husband became the famous marquis of hertford, the faithful counsellor of charles the first and partaker of his adversity. lady shrewsbury, aunt to arabella, was examined on suspicion of being privy to her escape; and for refusing to answer the questions put to her, or, in other words, to accuse herself, was sentenced to a fine of £ , , and discretionary imprisonment.[ ] _somerset and overbury._--several events, so well known that it is hardly necessary to dwell on them, aggravated the king's unpopularity during this parliamentary interval. the murder of overbury burst into light, and revealed to an indignant nation the king's unworthy favourite, the earl of somerset, and the hoary pander of that favourite's vices, the earl of northampton, accomplices in that deep-laid and deliberate atrocity. nor was it only that men so flagitious should have swayed the councils of this country, and rioted in the king's favour. strange things were whispered, as if the death of overbury was connected with something that did not yet transpire, and which every effort was employed to conceal. the people, who had already attributed prince henry's death to poison, now laid it at the door of somerset; but for that conjecture, however highly countenanced at the time, there could be no foundation. the symptoms of the prince's illness, and the appearances on dissection, are not such as could result from any poison, and manifestly indicate a malignant fever, aggravated perhaps by injudicious treatment.[ ] yet it is certain that a mystery hangs over this scandalous tale of overbury's murder. the insolence and menaces of somerset in the tower, the shrinking apprehensions of him which the king could not conceal, the pains taken by bacon to prevent his becoming desperate, and, as i suspect, to mislead the hearers by throwing them on a wrong scent, are very remarkable circumstances to which, after a good deal of attention, i can discover no probable clue. but it is evident that he was master of some secret, which it would have highly prejudiced the king's honour to divulge.[ ] _sir walter raleigh._--sir walter raleigh's execution was another stain upon the reputation of james i. it is needless to mention that he fell under a sentence passed fifteen years before, on a charge of high treason, in plotting to raise arabella stuart to the throne. it is very probable that this charge was, partly at least, founded in truth;[ ] but his conviction was obtained on the single deposition of lord cobham, an accomplice, a prisoner, not examined in court, and known to have already retracted his accusation. such a verdict was thought contrary to law, even in that age of ready convictions. it was a severe measure to detain for twelve years in prison so splendid an ornament of his country, and to confiscate his whole estate.[ ] for raleigh's conduct in the expedition to guiana, there is not much excuse to make. rashness and want of foresight were always among his failings; else he would not have undertaken a service of so much hazard without obtaining a regular pardon for his former offence. but it might surely be urged that either his commission was absolutely null, or that it operated as a pardon; since a man attainted of treason is incapable of exercising that authority which it conferred upon him.[ ] be this as it may, no technical reasoning could overcome the moral sense that revolted at carrying the original sentence into execution. raleigh might be amenable to punishment for the deception, by which he had obtained a commission that ought never to have issued; but the nation could not help seeing in his death the sacrifice of the bravest and most renowned of englishmen to the vengeance of spain.[ ] this unfortunate predilection for the court of madrid had always exposed james to his subjects' jealousy. they connected it with an inclination at least to tolerate popery, and with a dereliction of their commercial interests. but from the time that he fixed his hopes on the union of his son with the infanta,[ ] the popular dislike to spain increased in proportion to his blind preference. if the king had not systematically disregarded the public wishes, he could never have set his heart on this impolitic match; contrary to the wiser maxim he had laid down in his own _basilicon doron_, never to seek a wife for his son except in a protestant family. but his absurd pride made him despise the uncrowned princes of germany. this spanish policy grew much more odious after the memorable events of , the election of the king's son-in-law to the throne of bohemia, his rapid downfall, and the conquest of the upper palatinate by austria. if james had listened to some sanguine advisers, he would in the first instance have supported the pretensions of frederic. but neither his own views of public law nor true policy dictated such an interference. the case was changed after the loss of his hereditary dominions, and the king was sincerely desirous to restore him to the palatinate; but he unreasonably expected that he could effect this through the friendly mediation of spain, while the nation, not perhaps less unreasonably, were clamorous for his attempting it by force of arms. in this agitation of the public mind, he summoned the parliament that met in february .[ ] _parliament of ._--the king's speech on opening the session was, like all he had made on former occasions, full of hopes and promises, taking cheerfully his share of the blame as to past disagreements, and treating them as little likely to recur, though all their causes were still in operation.[ ] he displayed, however, more judgment than usual in the commencement of this parliament. among the methods devised to compensate the want of subsidies, none had been more injurious to the subject than patents of monopoly, including licences for exclusively carrying on certain trades. though the government was principally responsible for the exactions they connived at, and from which they reaped a large benefit, the popular odium fell of course on the monopolists. of these the most obnoxious was sir giles mompesson, who, having obtained a patent for gold and silver thread, sold it of baser metal. this fraud seems neither very extraordinary nor very important; but he had another patent for licensing inns and alehouses, wherein he is said to have used extreme violence and oppression. the house of commons proceeded to investigate mompesson's delinquency. conscious that the crown had withdrawn its protection, he fled beyond sea. one michell, a justice of peace, who had been the instrument of his tyranny, fell into the hands of the commons, who voted him incapable of being in the commission of the peace, and sent him to the tower.[ ] entertaining, however, upon second thoughts, as we must presume, some doubts about their competence to inflict this punishment, especially the former part of it, they took the more prudent course with respect to mompesson, of appointing noy and hakewill to search for precedents in order to show how far and for what offences their power extended to punish delinquents against the state as well as those who offended against that house. the result appears some days after, in a vote that "they must join with the lords for punishing sir giles mompesson; it being no offence against our particular house, nor any member of it, but a general grievance."[ ] the earliest instance of parliamentary impeachment, or of a solemn accusation of any individual by the commons at the bar of the lords, was that of lord latimer in the year . the latest hitherto was that of the duke of suffolk in ; for a proceeding against the bishop of london in , which has sometimes been reckoned an instance of parliamentary impeachment, does not by any means support that privilege of the commons.[ ] it had fallen into disuse, partly from the loss of that control which the commons had obtained under richard ii. and the lancastrian kings; and partly from the preference the tudor princes had given to bills of attainder or of pains and penalties, when they wished to turn the arm of parliament against an obnoxious subject. the revival of this ancient mode of proceeding in the case of mompesson, though a remarkable event in our constitutional annals, does not appear to have been noticed as an anomaly. it was not indeed conducted according to all the forms of an impeachment. the commons, requesting a conference with the other house, informed them generally of that person's offence, but did not exhibit any distinct articles at their bar. the lords took up themselves the inquiry; and having become satisfied of his guilt, sent a message to the commons, that they were ready to pronounce sentence. the speaker accordingly, attended by all the house, demanded judgment at the bar: when the lords passed as heavy a sentence as could be awarded for any misdemeanour; to which the king, by a stretch of prerogative, which no one was then inclined to call in question, was pleased to add perpetual banishment.[ ] the impeachment of mompesson was followed up by others against michell, the associate in his iniquities; against sir john bennet, judge of the prerogative court, for corruption in his office; and against field, bishop of landaff, for being concerned in a matter of bribery.[ ] the first of these was punished; but the prosecution of bennet seems to have dropped in consequence of the adjournment, and that of the bishop ended in a slight censure. but the wrath of the commons was justly roused against that shameless corruption, which characterises the reign of james beyond every other in our history. _proceedings against lord bacon._--it is too well known, how deeply the greatest man of that age was tarnished by the prevailing iniquity. complaints poured in against the chancellor bacon for receiving bribes from suitors in his court. some have vainly endeavoured to discover an excuse which he did not pretend to set up, and even ascribed the prosecution to the malevolence of sir edward coke.[ ] but coke took no prominent share in this business; and though some of the charges against bacon may not appear very heinous, especially for those times, i know not whether the unanimous conviction of such a man, and the conscious pusillanimity of his defence do not afford a more irresistible presumption of his misconduct than anything specially alleged. he was abandoned by the court, and had previously lost, as i rather suspect, buckingham's favour; but the king, who had a sense of his transcendent genius, remitted the fine of £ , imposed by the lords, which he was wholly unable to pay.[ ] there was much to commend in the severity practised by the house towards public delinquents; such examples being far more likely to prevent the malversation of men in power than any law they could enact. but in the midst of these laudable proceedings, they were hurried by the passions of the moment into an act of most unwarrantable violence. it came to the knowledge of the house that one floyd, a gentleman confined in the fleet prison, had used some slighting words about the elector palatine and his wife. it appeared in aggravation, that he was a roman catholic. nothing could exceed the fury into which the commons were thrown by this very insignificant story. a flippant expression, below the cognisance of an ordinary court, grew at once into a portentous offence, which they ransacked their invention to chastise. after sundry novel and monstrous propositions, they fixed upon the most degrading punishment they could devise. next day, however, the chancellor of the exchequer delivered a message, that the king, thanking them for their zeal, but desiring that it should not transport them to inconveniences, would have them consider whether they could sentence one who did not belong to them, nor had offended against the house or any member of it; and whether they could sentence a denying party, without the oath of witnesses; referring them to an entry on the rolls of parliament in the first year of henry iv., that the judicial power of parliament does not belong to the commons. he would have them consider whether it would not be better to leave floyd to him, who would punish him according to his fault. this message put them into some embarrassment. they had come to a vote in mompesson's case, in the very words employed in the king's message, confessing themselves to have no jurisdiction, except over offences against themselves. the warm speakers now controverted this proposition with such arguments as they could muster; coke, though from the reported debates he seems not to have gone the whole length, contending that the house was a court of record, and that it consequently had power to administer an oath.[ ] they returned a message by the speaker, excepting to the record in h. , because it was not an act of parliament to bind them, and persisting, though with humility, in their first votes.[ ] the king replied mildly; urging them to show precedents, which they were manifestly incapable of doing. the lords requested a conference, which they managed with more temper, and notwithstanding the solicitude displayed by the commons to maintain their pretended right, succeeded in withdrawing the matter to their own jurisdiction.[ ] this conflict of privileges was by no means of service to the unfortunate culprit; the lords perceived that they could not mitigate the sentence of the lower house without reviving their dispute, and vindicated themselves from all suspicion of indifference towards the cause of the palatinate by augmenting its severity. floyd was adjudged to be degraded from his gentility, and to be held an infamous person; his testimony not to be received; to ride from the fleet to cheapside on horseback without a saddle, with his face to the horse's tail, and the tail in his hand, and there to stand two hours in the pillory, and to be branded in the forehead with the letter k; to ride four days afterwards in the same manner to westminster, and there to stand two hours more in the pillory, with words in a paper in his hat showing his offence; to be whipped at the cart's tail from the fleet to westminster hall; to pay a fine of £ , and to be a prisoner in newgate during his life. the whipping was a few days after remitted on prince charles's motion; but he seems to have undergone the rest of the sentence. there is surely no instance in the annals of our own, and hardly of any civilised country, where a trifling offence, if it were one, has been visited with such outrageous cruelty. the cold-blooded deliberate policy of the lords is still more disgusting than the wild fury of the lower house.[ ] this case of floyd is an unhappy proof of the disregard that popular assemblies, when inflamed by passion, are ever apt to show for those principles of equity and moderation, by which, however the sophistry of contemporary factions may set them aside, a calm judging posterity will never fail to measure their proceedings. it has contributed at least, along with several others of the same kind, to inspire me with a jealous distrust of that indefinable, uncontrollable privilege of parliament, which has sometimes been asserted, and perhaps with rather too much encouragement from those whose function it is to restrain all exorbitant power. i speak only of the extent to which theoretical principles have been carried, without insinuating that the privileges of the house of commons have been practically stretched in late times beyond their constitutional bounds. time and the course of opinion have softened down those high pretensions, which the dangers of liberty under james the first, as well as the natural character of a popular assembly, then taught the commons to assume; and the greater humanity of modern ages has made us revolt from such disproportionate punishments as were inflicted on floyd.[ ] everything had hitherto proceeded with harmony between the king and parliament. his ready concurrence in their animadversion on mompesson and michell, delinquents who had acted at least with the connivance of government, and in the abolition of monopolies, seemed to remove all discontent. the commons granted two subsidies early in the session without alloying their bounty with a single complaint of grievances. one might suppose that the subject of impositions had been entirely forgotten, not an allusion to them occurring in any debate.[ ] it was voted indeed, in the first days of the session, to petition the king about the breach of their privilege of free speech, by the imprisonment of sir edwin sandys, in , for words spoken in the last parliament; but the house did not prosecute this matter, contenting itself with some explanation by the secretary of state.[ ] they were going on with some bills for reformation of abuses, to which the king was willing to accede, when they received an intimation that he expected them to adjourn over the summer. it produced a good deal of dissatisfaction to see their labour so hastily interrupted; especially as they ascribed it to a want of sufficient sympathy on the court's part with their enthusiastic zeal for the elector palatine.[ ] they were adjourned by the king's commission, after an unanimous declaration ("sounded forth," says one present, "with the voices of them all, withal lifting up their hats in their hands so high as they could hold them, as a visible testimony of their unanimous consent, in such sort, that the like had scarce ever been seen in parliament") of their resolution to spend their lives and fortunes for the defence of their own religion and of the palatinate. this solemn protestation and pledge was entered on record in the journals.[ ] they met again after five months, without any change in their views of policy. at a conference of the two houses, lord digby, by the king's command, explained all that had occurred in his embassy to germany for the restitution of the palatinate; which, though absolutely ineffective, was as much as james could reasonably expect without a war.[ ] he had in fact, though, according to the laxity of those times, without declaring war on any one, sent a body of troops under sir horace vere, who still defended the lower palatinate. it was necessary to vote more money, lest these should mutiny for want of pay. and it was stated to the commons in this conference, that to maintain a sufficient army in that country for one year would require £ , ; which was left to their consideration.[ ] but now it was seen that men's promises to spend their fortunes in a cause not essentially their own are written in the sand. the commons had no reason perhaps to suspect that the charge of keeping , men in the heart of germany would fall much short of the estimate. yet after long haggling they voted only one subsidy, amounting to £ , ; a sum manifestly insufficient for the first equipment of such a force.[ ] this parsimony could hardly be excused by their suspicion of the king's unwillingness to undertake the war, for which it afforded the best justification. _disagreement between the king and commons._--james was probably not much displeased at finding so good a pretext for evading a compliance with their martial humour; nor had there been much appearance of dissatisfaction on either side (if we except some murmurs at the commitment of one of their most active members, sir edwin sandys, to the tower, which were tolerably appeased by the secretary calvert's declaration that he had not been committed for any parliamentary matter),[ ] till the commons drew up a petition and remonstrance against the growth of popery; suggesting, among other remedies for this grievance, that the prince should marry one of our own religion, and that the king would direct his efforts against the power (meaning spain) which first maintained the war in the palatinate. this petition was proposed by sir edward coke. the courtiers opposed it as without precedent; the chancellor of the duchy observing that it was of so high and transcendent a nature, he had never known the like within those walls. even the mover defended it rather weakly, according to our notions, as intended only to remind the king, but requiring no answer. the scruples affected by the courtiers, and the real novelty of the proposition, had so great an effect, that some words were inserted, declaring that the house "did not mean to press on the king's most undoubted and royal prerogative."[ ] the petition, however, had not been presented, when the king, having obtained a copy of it, sent a peremptory letter to the speaker, that he had heard how some fiery and popular spirits had been imboldened to debate and argue on matters far beyond their reach or capacity, and directing him to acquaint the house with his pleasure that none therein should presume to meddle with anything concerning his government or mysteries of state; namely, not to speak of his son's match with the princess of spain, nor to touch the honour of that king, or any other of his friends and confederates. sandys's commitment, he bade them be informed, was not for any misdemeanour in parliament. but to put them out of doubt of any question of that nature that may arise among them hereafter, he let them know that he thought himself very free and able to punish any man's misdemeanours in parliament, as well during their sitting as after, which he meant not to spare upon occasion of any man's insolent behaviour in that place. he assured them that he would not deign to hear their petition, if it touched on any of those points which he had forbidden.[ ] the house received this message with unanimous firmness, but without any undue warmth. a committee was appointed to draw up a petition, which, in the most decorous language, and with strong professions of regret at his majesty's displeasure, contained a defence of their former proceedings, and hinted very gently, that they could not conceive his honour and safety, or the state of the kingdom, to be matters at any time unfit for their deepest consideration in time of parliament. they adverted more pointedly to that part of the king's message which threatened them for liberty of speech, calling it their ancient and undoubted right, and an inheritance received from their ancestors, which they again prayed him to confirm.[ ] his answer, though considerably milder than what he had designed, gave indications of a resentment not yet subdued. he dwelt at length on their unfitness for entering on matters of government, and commented with some asperity even on their present apologetical petition. in the conclusion he observed that "although he could not allow of the style, calling their privileges an undoubted right and inheritance, but could rather have wished that they had said that their privileges were derived from the grace and permission of his ancestors and himself (for most of them had grown from precedent which rather shows a toleration than inheritance); yet he gave them his royal assurance, that as long as they contained themselves within the limits of their duty, he would be as careful to maintain their lawful liberties and privileges as he would his own prerogative; so that their house did not touch on that prerogative which would enforce him or any just king to retrench their privileges."[ ] this explicit assertion that the privileges of the commons existed only by sufferance, and conditionally upon good behaviour, exasperated the house far more than the denial of their right to enter on matters of state. in the one, they were conscious of having somewhat transgressed the boundaries of ordinary precedents; in the other, their individual security, and their very existence as a deliberative assembly, were at stake. calvert, the secretary, and the other ministers, admitted the king's expressions to be incapable of defence, and called them a slip of the pen at the close of a long answer.[ ] the commons were not to be diverted by any such excuses from their necessary duty of placing on record a solemn claim of right. nor had a letter from the king, addressed to calvert, much influence; wherein, while he reiterated his assurances of respecting their privileges, and tacitly withdrew the menace that rendered them precarious, he said that he could not with patience endure his subjects to use such anti-monarchical words to him concerning their liberties, as "ancient and undoubted right and inheritance," without subjoining that they were granted by the grace and favour of his predecessors.[ ] after a long and warm debate, they entered on record in the journals their famous protestation of december th, , in the following words:-- "the commons now assembled in parliament, being justly occasioned thereunto, concerning sundry liberties, franchises, privileges, and jurisdictions of parliament, amongst others not herein mentioned, do make this protestation following:--that the liberties, franchises, privileges, and jurisdictions of parliament are the ancient and undoubted birthright and inheritance of the subjects of england; and that the arduous and urgent affairs concerning the king, state, and the defence of the realm, and of the church of england, and the making and maintenance of laws, and redress of mischiefs and grievances which daily happen within this realm, are proper subjects and matter of counsel and debate in parliament; and that in the handling and proceeding of those businesses, every member of the house hath, and of right ought to have, freedom of speech to propound, treat, reason, and bring to conclusion, the same: that the commons in parliament have like liberty and freedom to treat of those matters in such order as in their judgments shall seem fittest: and that every such member of the said house hath like freedom from all impeachment, imprisonment, and molestation (other than by the censure of the house itself) for or concerning any bill, speaking, reasoning, or declaring of any matter or matters touching the parliament or parliament business; and that, if any of the said members be complained of, and questioned for anything said or done in parliament, the same is to be showed to the king by the advice and assent of all the commons assembled in parliament, before the king give credence to any private information."[ ] _dissolution of the commons, after a strong remonstrance._--this protestation was not likely to pacify the king's anger. he had already pressed the commons to make an end of the business before them, under pretence of wishing to adjourn them before christmas, but probably looking to a dissolution. they were not in a temper to regard any business, least of all to grant a subsidy, till this attack on their privileges should be fully retracted. the king therefore adjourned, and in about a fortnight after dissolved them. but in the interval, having sent for the journal book, he erased their last protestation with his own hand; and published a declaration of the causes which had provoked him to this unusual measure, alleging the unfitness of such a protest, after his ample assurance of maintaining their privileges, the irregular manner in which, according to him, it was voted, and its ambiguous and general wording, which might serve in future times to invade most of the prerogatives annexed to the imperial crown. in his proclamation for dissolving the parliament, james recapitulated all his grounds of offences; but finally required his subjects to take notice that it was his intention to govern them as his progenitors and predecessors had done, and to call a parliament again on the first convenient occasion.[ ] he immediately followed up this dissolution of parliament by dealing his vengeance on its most conspicuous leaders: sir edward coke and sir robert philips were committed to the tower; mr. pym, and one or two more, to other prisons; sir dudley digges, and several who were somewhat less obnoxious than the former, were sent on a commission to ireland, as a sort of honourable banishment.[ ] the earls of oxford and southampton underwent an examination before the council; and the former was committed to the tower on pretence of having spoken words against the king. it is worthy of observation that, in this session, a portion of the upper house had united in opposing the court. nothing of this kind is noticed in former parliaments, except perhaps a little on the establishment of the reformation. in this minority were considerable names; essex, southampton, warwick, oxford, say, spencer. whether a sense of public wrongs, or their particular resentments, influenced these noblemen, their opposition must be reckoned an evident sign of the change that was at work in the spirit of the nation, and by which no rank could be wholly unaffected.[ ] _marriage treaty with spain._--james, with all his reputed pusillanimity, never showed any signs of fearing popular opinion. his obstinate adherence to the marriage treaty with spain was the height of political rashness in so critical a state of the public mind. but what with elevated notions of his prerogative and of his skill in government on the one hand, what with a confidence in the submissive loyalty of the english on the other, he seems constantly to have fancied that all opposition proceeded from a small troublesome faction, whom if he could any way silence, the rest of his people would at once repose in a dutiful reliance on his wisdom. hence he met every succeeding parliament with as sanguine hopes as if he had suffered no disappointment in the last. the nation was however wrought up at this time to an alarming pitch of discontent. libels were in circulation about , so bitterly malignant in their censures of his person and administration, than two hundred years might seem, as we read them, to have been mistaken in their date.[ ] heedless, however, of this growing odium, james continued to solicit the affected coyness of the court of madrid. the circumstances of that negotiation belong to general history.[ ] it is only necessary to remind the reader that the king was induced, during the residence of prince charles and the duke of buckingham in spain, to swear to certain private articles, some of which he had already promised before their departure, by which he bound himself to suspend all penal laws affecting the catholics, to permit the exercise of their religion in private houses, and to procure from parliament, if possible, a legal toleration. this toleration, as preliminary to the entire re-establishment of popery, had been the first great object of spain in the treaty. but that court, having protracted the treaty for years, in order to extort more favourable terms, and interposed a thousand pretences, became the dupe of its own artifices; the resentment of a haughty minion overthrowing with ease the painful fabric of this tedious negotiation. _parliament of ._--buckingham obtained a transient and unmerited popularity by thus averting a great public mischief, which rendered the next parliament unexpectedly peaceable. the commons voted three subsidies and three-fifteenths, in value about £ , ;[ ] but with a condition, proposed by the king himself, that, in order to ensure its application to naval and military armaments, it should be paid into the hands of treasurers appointed by themselves, who should issue money only on the warrant of the council of war. he seemed anxious to tread back the steps made in the former session, not only referring the highest matters of state to their consideration, but promising not to treat for peace without their advice. they, on the other hand, acknowledged themselves most bound to his majesty for having been pleased to require their humble advice in a case so important, not meaning, we may be sure, by these courteous and loyal expressions, to recede from what they had claimed in the last parliament as their undoubted right.[ ] _impeachment of middlesex._--the most remarkable affair in this session was the impeachment of the earl of middlesex, actually lord treasurer of england, for bribery and other misdemeanours. it is well known that the prince of wales and duke of buckingham instituted this prosecution to gratify the latter's private pique against the wishes of the king, who warned them they would live to have their fill of parliamentary impeachment. it was conducted by managers on the part of the commons in a very regular form, except that the depositions of witnesses were merely read by the clerk; that fundamental rule of english law which insists on the _vivâ voce_ examination, being as yet unknown, or dispensed with in political trials. nothing is more worthy of notice in the proceedings upon this impeachment than what dropped from sir edwin sandys, in speaking upon one of the charges. middlesex had laid an imposition of £ per ton on french wines, for taking off which he received a gratuity. sandys, commenting on this offence, protested in the name of the commons, that they intended not to question the power of imposing claimed by the king's prerogative: this they touched not upon now; they continued only their claim, and when they should have occasion to dispute it, would do so with all due regard to his majesty's state and revenue.[ ] such cautious and temperate language, far from indicating any disposition to recede from their pretensions, is rather a proof of such united steadiness and discretion as must ensure their success. middlesex was unanimously convicted by the peers.[ ] his impeachment was of the highest moment to the commons; as it restored for ever that salutary constitutional right which the single precedent of lord bacon might have been insufficient to establish against the ministers of the crown. the two last parliaments had been dissolved without passing a single act, except the subsidy bill of . an interval of legislation for thirteen years was too long for any civilised country. several statutes were enacted in the present session, but none so material as that for abolishing monopolies for the sale of merchandise, or for using any trade.[ ] this is of a declaratory nature, and recites that they are already contrary to the ancient and fundamental laws of the realm. scarce any difference arose between the crown and the commons. this singular calm might probably have been interrupted, had not the king put an end to the session. they expressed some little dissatisfaction at this step,[ ] and presented a list of grievances, one only of which is sufficiently considerable to deserve notice; namely, the proclamations already mentioned in restraint of building about london, whereof they complain in very gentle terms, considering their obvious illegality and violation of private right.[ ] the commons had now been engaged, for more than twenty years, in a struggle to restore and to fortify their own and their fellow subjects' liberties. they had obtained in this period but one legislative measure of importance, the late declaratory act against monopolies. but they had rescued from disuse their ancient right of impeachment. they had placed on record a protestation of their claim to debate all matters of public concern. they had remonstrated against the usurped prerogatives of binding the subject by proclamation, and of levying customs at the out-ports. they had secured beyond controversy their exclusive privilege of determining contested elections of their members. they had maintained, and carried indeed to an unwarrantable extent, their power of judging and inflicting punishment, even for offences not committed against their house. of these advantages some were evidently incomplete; and it would require the most vigorous exertions of future parliaments to realise them. but such exertions the increased energy of the nation gave abundant cause to anticipate. a deep and lasting love of freedom had taken hold of every class except perhaps the clergy; from which, when viewed together with the rash pride of the court, and the uncertainty of constitutional principles and precedents, collected through our long and various history, a calm by-stander might presage that the ensuing reign would not pass without disturbance, nor perhaps end without confusion. footnotes: [ ] father persons, a subtle and lying jesuit, published in , under the name of doleman, a treatise entitled _conference about the next succession to the crown of england_. this book is dedicated to lord essex, whether from any hopes entertained of him, or as was then supposed, in order to injure his fame and his credit with the queen. _sidney papers_, i. ; birch's _memoirs_, i. . it is written with much art, to show the extreme uncertainty of the succession, and to perplex men's minds by multiplying the number of competitors. this, however, is but the second part of his _conference_, the aim of the first being to prove the right of commonwealths to depose sovereigns, much more to exclude the right heir, especially for want of true religion. "i affirm and hold," he says, "that for any man to give his help, consent, or assistance towards the making of a king whom he judgeth or believeth to be faulty in religion, and consequently would advance either no religion, or the wrong, if he were in authority, is a most grievous and damnable sin to him that doth it, of what side soever the truth be, or how good or bad soever the party be that is preferred."--p. . he pretends to have found very few who favour the king of scots' title; an assertion by which we may appreciate his veracity. the protestant party, he tells us, was wont to favour the house of hertford, but of late have gone more towards arabella, whose claim the lord burleigh is supposed to countenance. p. . the drift of the whole is to recommend the infanta, by means of perverted history and bad law, yet ingeniously contrived to ensnare ignorant persons. in his former and more celebrated treatise, _leicester's commonwealth_, though he harps much on the embarrassments attending the succession, persons argues with all his power in favour of the scottish title, mary being still alive, and james's return to the faith not desperate. both these works are full of the mendacity generally and justly ascribed to his order; yet they are worthy to be read by any one who is curious about the secret politics of the queen's reign. philip ii. held out assurances, that if the english would aid him in dethroning elizabeth, a free parliament should elect any catholic sovereign at their pleasure, not doubting that their choice would fall on the infanta. he promised also to enlarge the privileges of the people, to give the merchants a free trade to the indies, with many other flattering inducements. birch's _memoirs_, ii. . but most of the catholic gentry, it is just to observe, would never concur in the invasion of the kingdom by foreigners, preferring the elevation of arabella, according to the pope's project. this difference of opinion gave rise, among other causes, to the violent dissensions of that party in the latter years of elizabeth's reign; dissensions that began soon after the death of mary, in favour of whom they were all united, though they could never afterwards agree on any project for the succession. winwood's _memorials_, i. ; _lettres du cardinal d'ossat_, ii. . for the life and character of the famous father persons, or parsons, above mentioned, see dodd's _church history_, the _biographia britannica_, or miss aikin's _james i._, i. . mr. butler is too favourably inclined towards a man without patriotism or veracity. dodd plainly thinks worse of him than he dares speak. [ ] d'ossat, _ubi suprà_. clement had, some years before, indulged the idle hope that france and spain might unite to conquer england, and either bestow the kingdom on some catholic prince or divide it between themselves, as louis xii. and ferdinand had done with naples in ; an example not very inviting to the french. d'ossat, henry's minister at rome, pointed out the difficulties of such an enterprise, england being the greatest naval power in the world, and the people warlike. the pope only replied, that the kingdom had been once conquered, and might be so again; and especially being governed by an old woman, whom he was ignorant enough to compare with joanna ii. of naples. vol. i. . henry iv. would not even encourage the project of setting up arabella, which he declared to be both unjust and chimerical. _mem. de sully_, l. . a knot of protestants were also busy about the interests of arabella, or suspected of being so; raleigh, cobham, northumberland, though perhaps the last was catholic. their intrigues occupy a great part of the letters of other intriguers, cecil and lord henry howard, in the _secret correspondence with king james_, published by sir david dalrymple, vol. i. _passim_. [ ] the explicit declaration on her death-bed ascribed to her by hume and most other writers, that her kingsman the king of scots should succeed her, is not confirmed by carey, who was there at the time. "she was speechless when the council proposed the king of scots to succeed her, but put her hand to her head as if in token of approbation." e. of monmouth's _memoirs_, p. . but her uniform conduct shows her intentions. see, however, d'israeli's _curiosities of literature_, iii. . it is impossible to justify elizabeth's conduct towards james in his own kingdom. what is best to be said for it is, that his indiscretion, his suspicious intrigues at rome and madrid, the dangerous influence of his favourites, and the evident purpose of the court of spain to make him its tool, rendered it necessary to keep a very strict watch over his proceedings. if she excited the peers and presbyters of scotland against their king, he was not behind her in some of the last years of her reign. it appears by a letter from the earl of mar, in dalrymple's _secret correspondence_, p. , that james had hopes of a rebellion in england in , which he would have had no scruple in abetting. and a letter from him to tyrone, in the lansdowne mss. lxxxiv. , dated nd dec. , when the latter was at least preparing for rebellion, though rather cautious, is full of expressions of favour, and of promises to receive his assistance thankfully at the queen's death. this letter being found in the collection once belonging to sir michael hicks, must have been in lord burleigh's, and probably in elizabeth's hands; it would not make her less inclined to instigate conspiracies across the tweed. the letter is not an original, and may have been communicated by some one about the king of scots in the pay of england. [ ] see burnet, vol. i, appendix , for secretary lethington's letter to cecil, where he tells a circumstantial story so positively, and so open, if false, to a contradiction it never received, that those who lay too much stress on this very equivocal species of presumption would, if the will had perished, have reckoned its forgery beyond question. the king's death approaching, he asserts, "some as well known to you as to me caused william clarke, sometimes servant to thomas heneage, to sign the supposed will with a stamp, for otherwise signed it was never;" for which he appeals to an attestation of the late lord paget in parliament, and requests the depositions of several persons now living to be taken. he proceeds to refer him "to the original will surmised to be signed with the king's own hand, that thereby it may most clearly and evidently appear by some differences, how the same was not signed with the king's hand, but stamped as aforesaid. and albeit it is used both as an argument and calumniation against my sovereign by some, that the said original hath been embezzled in queen mary's time, i trust god will and hath reserved the same to be an instrument to relieve [prove] the truth, and to confound false surmises, that thereby the right may take place, notwithstanding the many exemplifications and transcripts, which being sealed with the great seal, do run abroad in england." lesley, bishop of ross, repeats the same story with some additions. bedford's _hereditary right_, p. . a treatise of hales, for which he suffered imprisonment, in defence of the suffolk title under the will, of which there is a manuscript in the british museum, harl. mss. , and which is also printed in the appendix to the book last quoted, leads me to conjecture that the original will had been mislaid or rather concealed at that time. for he certainly argues on the supposition that it was not forthcoming, and had not himself seen it; but "he has been informed that the king's name is evidently written with a pen, though some of the strokes are unseen, as if drawn by a weak and trembling hand." everyone who has seen the will must bear witness to the correctness of this information. the reappearance of this very remarkable instrument was, as i conceive, after the revolution; for collier mentions that he had heard it was in existence; and it is also described in a note to the _acta regia_. [ ] it is right to mention, that some difference of opinion exists as to the genuineness of henry's signature. but as it is attested by many witnesses, and cannot be proved a forgery, the legal presumption turns much in its favour. [ ] bedford's (harbin's) _hereditary right asserted_, p. . [ ] a manuscript in the cottonian library, faustina a. xi., written about in a very hostile spirit, endeavours to prove from the want of testimony, and from some variances in their depositions (not very material ones), that their allegations of matrimony could not be admitted, and that they had incurred an ecclesiastical censure for fornication. but another, which i have also found in the museum, harl. mss. , contains the whole proceedings and evidence, from which i have drawn the conclusion in the text. their ignorance of the clergyman who performed the ceremony is not perhaps very extraordinary; he seems to have been one of those vagabond ecclesiastics, who, till the marriage act of , were always ready to do that service for a fee. [ ] "hereupon i shall add, what i have heard related from persons of great credit, which is, that the validity of this marriage was afterwards brought to a trial at the common law; when the minister who married them being present, and other circumstances agreeing, the jury (whereof john digby of coleshill, in com. war. esquire, was the foreman) found it a good marriage." _baronage of england_, part ii. . mr. luders doubts the accuracy of dugdale's story; and i think it not unlikely that it is a confused account of what happened in the court of wards. [ ] i derive this fact from a cotton ms. vitellius c. xvi. , etc.; but the volume is much burned, and the papers confused with others relative to lord essex's divorce. see as to the same suit, or rather perhaps that mentioned in the next note, birch's _negotiations_, p. , or aikin's _james i._ i. . [ ] "the same day a great cause between the lord beauchamp and monteagle was heard in the court of wards, the main point whereof was to prove the lawfulness of e. of hertford's marriage. the court sat until five of the clock in the afternoon, and the jury had a week's respite for the delivery of their verdict." letter of sir e. hoby to sir t. edmonds, feb. , . "for my lord of hertford's cause, when the verdict was ready to be given up, mr. attorney interposed himself for the king, and said that the land that they both strove for was the king's, and until his title were decided, the jury ought not to proceed; not doubting but the king will be gracious to both lords. but thereby both land and legitimation remain undecided." the same to the same march . sloane mss. . [ ] dugdale's _baronage_; luders' _essay on the right of succession to the crown in the reign of elizabeth_. this ingenious author is, i believe, the first who has taken the strong position as to the want of legal title to the house of stuart which i have endeavoured to support. in the entertaining letters of joseph mede on the news of the day (harl. mss. ), it is said that the king had thoughts of declaring hertford's issue by lady catherine grey illegitimate in the parliament of , and that lord southampton's commitment was for having searched for proofs of their marriage. june , . [ ] luders, _ubi suprà_. [ ] the representative of the title of mary brandon, duchess of suffolk, that is, the person on whom the claim has descended, according to the rules which determine the succession of the crown, on the supposition that hertford was duly married to catherine grey, is the present duchess of buckingham; upon the contrary supposition, the marquis of stafford. this is, of course, if we may take for granted the accuracy of common books of genealogy. i have not adverted to one objection which some urged at the time, as we find by persons's treatises, _leicester's commonwealth_, and the _conference_, to the legitimacy of the seymours. catherine grey had been betrothed, or perhaps married, to lord herbert, son of the earl of pembroke, during the brilliant days of her family, at the close of edward's reign. but on her father's fall pembroke caused a sentence of divorce to be pronounced, the grounds of which do not appear, but which was probably sufficient in law to warrant her subsequent union with hertford. no advantage is taken of this in the proceedings, which seems to show that there was no legal bond remaining between the parties. camden says she was divorced from lord herbert, "being so far gone with child, as to be very near her time." but from her youth at the time, and the silence of all other writers, i conclude this to be unworthy of credit. [ ] bolingbroke is of this opinion; considering the act of recognition as "the æra of hereditary right, and of all those exalted notions concerning the power of prerogative of kings and the sacredness of their persons." _dissertation on parties_, letter ii. [ ] stat. jac. c. . [ ] this is confirmed by a curious little tract in the british museum, sloane mss. , containing a short history of the queen's death, and new king's accession. it affords a good contemporary illustration of the various feelings which influenced men at this crisis, and is written in a dispassionate manner. the author ascribes the loss of elizabeth's popularity to the impoverishment of the realm, and to the abuses which prevailed. carte says, "foreigners were shocked on james's arrival at the applause of the populace who had professed to adore the late queen, but in fact she had no huzzas after essex's execution. she was in four days' time as much forgot as if she had never existed, by all the world, and even by her own servants." vol. iii. p. . this is exaggerated, and what carte could not know; but there is no doubt that the generality were glad of a change. [ ] carte, no foe surely to the house of stuart, says: "by the time he reached london, the admiration of the intelligent world was turned into contempt." on this journey he gave a remarkable proof of his hasty temper and disregard of law, in ordering a pickpocket taken in the fact to be hanged without trial. the historian last quoted thinks fit to say in vindication, that "all felonies committed within the verge of the court are cognizable in the court of the king's household," referring to h. , c. i. this act, however, contains no such thing; nor does any court appear to have been held. though the man's notorious guilt might prevent any open complaint of so illegal a proceeding, it did not fail to excite observation. "i hear our new king," says sir john harrington, "has hanged one man before he was tried; it is strangely done: now if the wind bloweth thus, why may not a man be tried before he has offended?" _nugæ antiquæ_, vol. i. p. . birch and carte tell us, on the authority of the french ambassador's despatches, that on this journey he expressed a great contempt for women, suffering them to be presented on their knees, and indiscreetly censuring his own wife; that he offended the military men by telling them they might sheathe their swords, since peace was his object; that he showed impatience of the common people who flocked to see him while hunting, driving them away with curses, very unlike the affable manners of the late queen. this is confirmed by wilson, in kennet's _complete history_, vol. ii. p. . [ ] sully, being sent over to compliment james on his accession, persisted in wearing mourning for elizabeth, though no one had done so in the king's presence, and he was warned that it would be taken ill; "dans une cour où il sembloit qu'on eût si fort affecté de mettre en oubli cette grande reine qu'on n'y faisoit jamais mention d'elle, et qu'on évitoit même de prononcer son nom." _mém. de sully_, l. . james afterwards spoke slightingly to sully of his predecessor, and said that he had long ruled england through her ministers. [ ] it was subscribed by ministers from twenty-five counties. it states, that neither as factious men desiring a popular party in the church, nor as schismatics aiming at the dissolution of the state ecclesiastical, they humbly desired the redress of some abuses. their objections were chiefly to the cap and surplice, the cross in baptism, baptism by women, confirmation, the ring in marriage, the reading of the apocrypha, bowing at the name of jesus, etc.; to non-residence and incapable ministers, the commendams held by bishops, unnecessary excommunications, and other usual topics. neal, p. ; fuller, part ii. p. . [ ] the puritans seem to have flattered themselves that james would favour their sect, on the credit of some strong assertions he had occasionally made of his adherence to the scots kirk. some of these were a good while before; but on quitting the kingdom he had declared that he left it in a state which he did not intend to alter. neal, . james, however, was all his life rather a bold liar than a good dissembler. it seems strange that they should not have attended to his _basilicon doron_, printed three years before, though not for general circulation, wherein there is a passage quite decisive of his disposition towards the presbyterians and their scheme of polity. the millenary petition indeed did not go so far as to request anything of that kind. [ ] strype's _whitgift_, p. ; collier, p. ; neal, p. ; fuller, part ii. p. .; _state trials_, vol. ii. p. ; _phoenix britannicus_, i. ; winwood, ii. . all these, except the last, are taken from an account of the conference published by barlow, and probably more favourable to the king and bishops than they deserved. see what harrington, an eye-witness, says in _nugæ antiquæ_, i. , which i would quote as the best evidence of james's behaviour, were the passage quite decent. [ ] reynolds, the principal disputant on the puritan side, was nearly, if not altogether, the most learned man in england. he was censured by his faction for making a weak defence; but the king's partiality and intemperance plead his apology. he is said to have complained of unfair representation in barlow's account. _hist. and ant. of oxford_, ii. . james wrote a conceited letter to one blake, boasting of his own superior logic and learning. strype's _whitgift_, append. . [ ] rymer, xvi. . [ ] strype's _whitgift_, . how desirous men not at all connected in faction with the puritans were of amendments in the church, appears by a tract of bacon, written, as it seems, about the end of , vol. i. p. .--he excepts to several matters of ceremony; the cap and surplice, the ring in marriage, the use of organs, the form of absolution, lay-baptism, etc.; and inveighs against the abuse of excommunication, against non-residence and pluralities, the oath _ex officio_, the sole exercise of ordination and jurisdiction by the bishop, conceiving that the dean and chapter should always assent, etc. and, in his predominant spirit of improvement, asks, "why the civil state should be purged and restored by good and wholesome laws made every three or four years in parliament assembled, devising remedies as fast as time breedeth mischief; and contrariwise the ecclesiastical state should still continue upon the dregs of time, and receive no alteration now for these forty-five years or more?" [ ] _id. ibid._ [ ] neal, ; winwood, ii. . [ ] see one of the _somers tracts_, vol. ii. p. , entitled "advertisements of a loyal subject, drawn from the observation of the people's speeches." this appears to have been written before the meeting of parliament. the french ambassadors, sully and la boderie, thought most contemptibly of the king. lingard, vol. ix. p. . his own courtiers, as their private letters show, disliked and derided him. [ ] king james's works, p. . [ ] _parl. hist._ i. . [ ] commons' journals, i. . [ ] it appears that some of the more eager patriots were dissatisfied at the concession made by vacating goodwin's seat, and said they had drawn on themselves the reproach of inconstancy and levity. "but the acclamation of the house was, that it was a testimony of our duty, and no levity." it was thought expedient, however, to save their honour, that goodwin should send a letter to the speaker expressing his acquiescence. p. . [ ] commons' journals, , etc.; _parl. hist._ ; carte, iii. , who gives, on this occasion, a review of the earlier cases where the house had entered on matters of election. see also a rather curious letter of cecil in winwood's _memorials_, ii. , where he artfully endeavours to treat the matter as of little importance. [ ] commons' journals, page , etc.; _parl. hist._ ; carte, . [ ] jac. i. c. . [ ] by one of these canons, all persons affirming any of the thirty-nine articles to be erroneous are excommunicated _ipso facto_; consequently become incapable of being witnesses, of suing for their debts, etc. neal, . but the courts of law disregarded these _ipso facto_ excommunications. [ ] _somers tracts_, ii. ; journals, , , ; _parl. hist._ . it is here said, that a bill restraining excommunications passed into a law, which does not appear to be true, though james himself had objected to their frequency. i cannot trace such a bill in the journals beyond the committee, nor is it in the statute-book. the fact is, that the king desired the house to confer on the subject with the convocation, which they justly deemed unprecedented, and derogatory to their privileges; but offered to confer with the bishops, as lords of parliament. journals, . [ ] bacon's works, i. ; journals, , . [ ] commons' journals, , etc. [ ] journals, . [ ] journals, . [ ] _parl. hist._ , from petyt's _jus parliamentarium_, the earliest book, as far as i know, where this important document is preserved. the entry on the journals, p. , contains only the first paragraph. hume and carte have been ignorant of it. it is just alluded to by rapin. it is remarked that the attendance of members in this session was more frequent than had ever been known, so that fresh seats were required. journals, . [ ] "my faithful , such is now my misfortune, as i must be for this time secretary to the devil in answering your letters directed unto him. that the entering now into the matter of the subsidy should be deferred until the council's next meeting with me, i think no ways convenient, especially for three reasons. first, ye see it has bin already longest delayd of anything, and yet yee see the lower house are ever the longer the further from it; and (as in everything that concerns mee) delay of time does never turn them towards mee, but, by the contrary, every hour breedeth a new trick of contradiction amongst them, and every day produces new matter of sedition, so fertile are their brains in ever buttering forth venome. next, the parlt. is now so very near an end, as this matter can suffer no longer delay. and thirdly, if this be not granted unto before they receive my answer unto their petition, it needs never to be moved, for the will of man or angel cannot devise a pleasing answer to their proposition, except i should pull the crown not only from my own head, but also from the head of all those that shall succeed unto mee, and lay it down at their feet. and that freedom of uttering my thoughts, which no extremity, strait nor peril of my life could ever bereave mee of in time past, shall now remain with me, as long as the soul shall with the body. and as for the reservations of the bill of tonnage and poundage, yee of the upper house must out of your love and discretion help it again or otherwise they will in this, as in all things else that concern mee, wrack both me and all my posterity. yee may impart this to little and bigg suffolk. and so farewell from my wildernesse, wch i had rather live in (as god shall judge mee) like an hermite in this forrest, then be a king over such a people as the pack of puritans are that over-rules the lower house. j. r." ms. penes autorem. i cannot tell who is addressed in this letter by the numeral ; perhaps the earl of dunbar. by we must doubtless understand salisbury. [ ] _parl. hist. journals_, , , etc. in a conference with the lords on this bill, mr. hare, a member, spoke so warmly, as to give their lordships offence, and to incur some reprehension. "you would have thought," says sir thomas hoby, in a manuscript letter in the museum, sloane mss. , "that hare and hyde represented two tribunes of the people." but the commons resented this infringement on their privileges, and after voting that mr. hare did not err in his employment in the committee with the lords, sent a message to inform the other house of their vote, and to request that they "would forbear hereafter any taxations and reprehensions in their conferences." journals, th and nd feb. [ ] journals, . an acute historical critic doubts whether james aimed at an union of legislatures, though suggested by bacon. laing's _hist. of scotland_, iii. . it is certain that his own speeches on the subject do not mention this; nor do i know that it was ever distinctly brought forward by the government; yet it is hard to see how the incorporation could have been complete without it. bacon not only contemplates the formation of a single parliament, but the alterations necessary to give it effect (vol. i. p. ), suggesting that the previous commission of lords of articles might be adopted for some, though not for all purposes. this of itself was a sufficient justification for the dilatoriness of the english parliament. nor were the common lawyers who sat in the house much better pleased with bacon's schemes for remodelling all our laws. see his speech (vol. i. p. ) for naturalising the ante-nati. in this he asserts the kingdom not to be fully peopled; "the territories of france, italy, flanders, and some parts of germany, do in equal space of ground bear and contain a far greater quantity of people, if they were mustered by the poll;" and even goes on to assert the population to have been more considerable under the heptarchy. [ ] it was held by twelve judges out of fourteen, in calvin's case, that the post-nati, or scots born after the king's accession, were natural subjects of the king of england. this is laid down, and irresistibly demonstrated, by coke, then chief justice, with his abundant legal learning. _state trials_, vol. ii. . it may be observed, that the high-flying creed of prerogative mingled itself intimately with this question of naturalisation; which was much argued on the monarchical principle of personal allegiance to the sovereign, as opposed to the half-republican theory that lurked in the contrary proposition. "allegiance," says lord bacon, "is of a greater extent and dimension than laws or kingdoms, and cannot consist by the laws merely, because it began before laws; it continueth after laws, and it is in vigour when laws are suspended and have not had their force." _id._ . so lord coke: "whatsoever is due by the law or constitution of man may be altered; but natural legiance or obedience of the subject to the sovereign cannot be altered; ergo, natural legiance or obedience to the sovereign is not due by the law or constitution of man."-- . there are many doubtful positions scattered through the judgment in this famous case. its surest basis is the long series of precedents, evincing that the natives of jersey, guernsey, calais, and even normandy and guienne, while these countries appertained to the kings of england, though not in right of its crown, were never reputed aliens. [ ] the house had lately expelled sir christopher pigott for reflecting on the scots nation in a speech. journals, th feb. . [ ] commons' journals, . the journals are full of notes of these long discussions about the union in , , , and even . it is easy to perceive a jealousy that the prerogative by some means or other would be the gainer. the very change of name to great britain was objected to. one said, we cannot legislate for great britain. p. . another, with more astonishing sagacity, feared that the king might succeed, by what the lawyers call _remitter_, to the prerogatives of the british kings before julius cæsar, which would supersede magna charta. p. . james took the title of king of great britain in the second year of his reign. lord bacon drew a well-written proclamation on that occasion. bacon, i. ; rymer, xvi. . but it was, not long afterwards, abandoned. [ ] commons' journals, p. . [ ] p. . [ ] commons' journals, p. . [ ] james entertained the strange notion that the war with spain ceased by his accession to the throne. by a proclamation dated rd june , he permits his subjects to keep such ships as had been captured by them before the th april, but orders all taken since to be restored to the owners. rymer, xvi. . he had been used to call the dutch rebels, and was probably kept with difficulty by cecil from displaying his partiality still more outrageously. carte, iii. . all the council, except this minister, are said to have been favourable to peace. _id._ . [ ] winwood, vol. ii. , , etc.; birch's _negotiations of edmondes_. if we may believe sir charles cornwallis, our ambassador at madrid, "england never lost such an opportunity of winning honour and wealth, as by relinquishing the war." the spaniards were astonished how peace could have been obtained on such advantageous conditions. winwood, p. . [ ] bacon, i. ; journals, p. . carte says, on the authority of the french ambassador's despatches, that the ministry secretly put forward this petition of the commons in order to frighten the spanish court into making compensation to the merchants, wherein they succeeded. iii. . this is rendered very improbable by salisbury's behaviour. it was carte's mistake to rely too much on the despatches he was permitted to read in the dépôt des affaires etrangères; as if an ambassador were not liable to be deceived by rumours in a country of which he has in general too little knowledge to correct them. [ ] there was a duty on wool, woolfells, and leather, called magna, or sometimes antiqua custuma, which is said in dyer to have been by prescription, and by the barons in bates's case to have been imposed by the king's prerogative. as this existed before the th edward i., it is not very material whether it were so imposed, or granted by parliament. during the discussion, however, which took place in , a record was discovered of edw. i. proving it to have been granted par tous les grauntz del realme, par la prière des comunes des marchants de tout engleterre. hale, . the prisage of wines, or duty of two tons from every vessel, is considerably more ancient; but how the crown came by this right does not appear. [ ] dyer, fol. . an argument of the great lawyer plowden in this case of the queen's increasing the duty on cloths is in the british museum, hargrave mss. , and seems, as far as the difficult handwriting permitted me to judge, adverse to the prerogative. [ ] this case i have had the good fortune to discover in one of mr. hargrave's mss. in the museum, , fol. . it is in the handwriting of chief justice hyde (temp. car. i.), who has written in the margin: "this is the report of a case in my lord dyer's written original, but is not in the printed books." the reader will judge for himself why it was omitted, and why the entry of the former case breaks off so abruptly. "philip and mary granted to the town of southampton that all malmsy wines should be landed at that port under penalty of paying treble custom. some merchants of venice having landed wines elsewhere, an information was brought against them in the exchequer ( eliz.), and argued several times in the presence of all the judges. eight were of opinion against the letters patent, among whom dyer and catlin, chief justices, as well for the principal matter of restraint in the landing of malmsies at the will and pleasure of the merchants, for that it was against the laws, statutes, and customs of the realm (magna charta, c. ; e. ; e. ; e. , c. ; e. ; e. ; r. , c. , and others), as also in the assessment of treble custom, _which is merely against the law_; also the prohibition above said was held to be private, and not public. but baron lake _e contra_, and browne j. _censuit deliberandum_. and after, at an after meeting the same easter term at serjeants' inn, it was resolved as above. and after by parliament ( eliz.) the patent was confirmed and affirmed against aliens." [ ] bacon, i. . [ ] hale's _treatise on the customs_, part ; in hargrave's _collection of law tracts_. see also the preface by hargrave to bates's case, in the _state trials_, where this most important question is learnedly argued. [ ] he had previously published letters patent, setting a duty of six shillings and eight-pence a pound, in addition to two-pence already payable, on tobacco; intended no doubt to operate as a prohibition of a drug he so much hated. rymer, xvi. . [ ] _state trials_, ii. . [ ] hale's _treatise on the customs_. these were perpetual, "to be for ever hereafter paid to the king and his successors, on pain of his displeasure." _state trials_, . [ ] journals, , . [ ] mr. hakewill's speech, though long, will repay the diligent reader's trouble, as being a very luminous and masterly statement of this great argument. _state trials_, ii. . the extreme inferiority of bacon, who sustained the cause of prerogative, must be apparent to every one. _id._ . sir john davis makes somewhat a better defence; his argument is, that the king may lay an embargo on trade, so as to prevent it entirely, and consequently may annex conditions to it. _id._ . but to this it was answered, that the king can only lay a temporary embargo, for the sake of some public good, not prohibit foreign trade altogether. as to the king's prerogative of restraining foreign trade, see extracts from hale's ms. treatise de jure coronæ, in hargrave's preface to _collection of law tracts_, p. xxx. etc. it seems to have been chiefly as to exportation of corn. [ ] aikin's _memoirs of james i._ i. . this speech justly gave offence. "the st of this present (may )," says a correspondent of sir ralph winwood, "he made another speech to both the houses, but so little to their satisfaction that i hear it bred generally much discomfort to see our monarchical power and royal prerogative strained so high, and made so transcendent every way, that if the practice should follow the positions, we are not likely to leave to our successors that freedom we received from our forefathers; nor make account of anything we have, longer than they list that govern." winwood, iii. . the traces of this discontent appear in short notes of the debate. journals, p. . [ ] journals, . [ ] _somers tracts_, vol. ii. ; in the journals much shorter. [ ] these canons were published in from a copy belonging to bishop overall, with sancroft's imprimatur. the title-page runs in an odd expression: "bishop overall's convocation-book concerning the government of god's catholic church and the kingdoms of the whole world." the second canon is as follows: "if any man shall affirm that men at the first ran up and down in woods and fields, etc., until they were taught by experience the necessity of government; and that therefore they chose some among themselves to order and rule the rest, giving them power and authority so to do; and that consequently all civil power, jurisdiction, and authority, was first derived from the people and disordered multitude, or either is originally still in them, or else is deduced by their consent naturally from them, and is not god's ordinance, originally descending from him and depending upon him, he doth greatly err."--p. . [ ] coke's nd institute, ; collier, ; _state trials_, ii. . see too an angry letter of bancroft, written about (strype's _life of whitgift_, append. ), wherein he inveighs against the common lawyers and the parliament. [ ] cowell's _interpreter, or law dictionary_; edit. . these passages are expunged in the later editions of this useful book. what the author says of the writ of prohibition, and the statutes of præmunire, under these words, was very invidious towards the common lawyers, treating such restraints upon the ecclesiastical jurisdiction as necessary in former ages, but now become useless since the annexation of the supremacy of the crown. [ ] commons' journals, , and afterwards to . the authors of the _parliamentary history_ say there is no further mention of the business after the conference, overlooking the most important circumstance, the king's proclamation suppressing the book, which yet is mentioned by rapin and carte, though the latter makes a false and disingenuous excuse for cowell. vol. iii. p. . several passages concerning this affair occur in winwood's _memorials_, to which i refer the curious reader. vol. iii. p. , , , , , . [ ] winwood, iii. . [ ] _somers tracts_, ii. ; _state trials_, ii. . [ ] the court of the council of wales was erected by statute h. , c. , for that principality and its marches, with authority to determine such causes and matters as should be assigned to them by the king, "as heretofore hath been accustomed and used;" which implies a previous existence of some such jurisdiction. it was pretended, that the four counties of hereford, worcester, gloucester, and salop were included within their authority, as marches of wales. this was controverted in the reign of james by the inhabitants of these counties, and on reference to the twelve judges, according to lord coke, it was resolved that they were ancient english shires, and not within the jurisdiction of the council of wales; "and yet," he subjoins, "the commission was not after reformed in all points as it ought to have been." fourth inst. . an elaborate argument in defence of the jurisdiction may be found in bacon, ii. . and there are many papers on this subject in cotton mss. vitellius, c. i. the complaints of this enactment had begun in the time of elizabeth. it was alleged that the four counties had been reduced from a very disorderly state to tranquillity by means of the council's jurisdiction. but, if this were true, it did not furnish a reason for continuing to exclude them from the general privileges of the common law, after the necessity had ceased. the king, however, was determined not to concede this point. carte, iii. . [ ] commons' journals for , _passim_; lords' journals, th may, _et post_; _parl. hist._ , _et post_; bacon, i. ; winwood, iii. , _et post_. [ ] it appears by a letter of the king, in murden's _state papers_, p. , that some indecent allusions to himself in the house of commons had irritated him. "wherein we have misbehaved ourselves, we know not, nor we can never yet learn; but sure we are, we may say with bellarmin in his book, that in all the lower houses these seven years past, especially these two last sessions, ego pungor, ego carpor. our fame and actions have been tossed like tennis-balls among them, and all that spite and malice durst do to disgrace and inflame us hath been used. to be short, this lower house by their behaviour have perilled and annoyed our health, wounded our reputation, emboldened all ill-natured people, encroached upon many of our privileges, and plagued our people with their delays. it only resteth now, that you labour all you can to do that you think best to the repairing of our estate." [ ] "your queen," says lord thos. howard, in a letter, "did talk of her subjects' love and good affection, and in good truth she aimed well; our king talketh of his subjects' fear and subjection, and herein i think he doth well too, as long as it holdeth good." _nugæ antiquæ_, i. . [ ] the court of james i. was incomparably the most disgraceful scene of profligacy which this country has ever witnessed; equal to that of charles ii. in the laxity of female virtue, and without any sort of parallel in some other respects. gross drunkenness is imputed even to some of the ladies who acted in the court pageants (_nugæ antiquæ_, i. ), which mr. gifford, who seems absolutely enraptured with this age and its manners, might as well have remembered. _life of ben jonson_, p. , etc. the king's prodigality is notorious. [ ] "it is atheism and blasphemy," he says in a speech made in the star-chamber, , "to dispute what god can do; good christians content themselves with his will revealed in his word; so it is presumption and high contempt in a subject to dispute what a king can do, or say that a king cannot do this or that." king james's works, p. . it is probable that his familiar conversation was full of this rodomontade, disgusting and contemptible from so wretched a pedant, as well as offensive to the indignant ears of those who knew and valued their liberties. the story of bishops neile and andrews is far too trite for repetition. [ ] carte, iii. ; birch's _life of p. henry_, . rochester, three days after, directed sir thomas edmondes at paris to commence a negotiation for a marriage between prince charles and the second daughter of the late king of france. but the ambassador had more sense of decency, and declined to enter on such an affair at that moment. [ ] winwood, vol. ii.; carte, iii. ; watson's _hist. of philip iii._ appendix. in some passages of this negotiation cecil may appear not wholly to have deserved the character i have given him for adhering to elizabeth's principles of policy. but he was placed in a difficult position, not feeling himself secure of the king's favour, which, notwithstanding his great previous services, that capricious prince, for the first year after his accession, rather sparingly afforded; as appears from the _memoirs of sully_, l. , and _nugæ. antiquæ_, i. . it may be said that cecil was as little spanish, just as walpole was as little hanoverian, as the partialities of their respective sovereigns would permit for their own reputation. it is hardly necessary to observe, that james and the kingdom were chiefly indebted to cecil for the tranquillity that attended the accession of the former to the throne. i will take this opportunity of noticing that the learned and worthy compiler of the catalogue of the lansdowne manuscripts in the museum has thought fit not only to charge sir michael hicks with venality, but to add: "it is certain that articles among these papers contribute to justify very strong suspicions, that neither of the secretary's masters [lord burleigh and lord salisbury] was altogether innocent on the score of corruption." _lands. cat._ vol. xci. p. . this is much too strong an accusation to be brought forward without more proof than appears. it is absurd to mention presents of fat bucks to men in power, as bribes; and rather more so to charge a man with being corrupted because an attempt is made to corrupt him, as the catalogue-maker has done in this place. i would not offend this respectable gentleman; but by referring to many of the lansdowne manuscripts i am enabled to say that he has travelled frequently out of his province, and substituted his conjectures for an analysis or abstract of the document before him. [ ] a great part of winwood's third volume relates to this business, which, as is well known, attracted a prodigious degree of attention throughout europe. the question, as winwood wrote to salisbury, was "not of the succession of cleves and juliers, but whether the house of austria and the church of rome, both now on the wane, shall recover their lustre and greatness in these parts of europe."--p. . james wished to have the right referred to his arbitration, and would have decided in favour of the elector of brandenburg, the chief protestant competitor. [ ] winwood, vols. ii. and iii. _passim_. birch, that accurate master of this part of english history, has done justice to salisbury's character. _negotiations of edmondes_, p. . miss aikin, looking to his want of constitutional principle, is more unfavourable, and perhaps on the whole justly; but what statesman of that age was ready to admit the new creed of parliamentary control over the executive government? _memoirs of james_, i. . [ ] "on sunday, before the king's going to newmarket (which was sunday last was a se'nnight), my lord coke and all the judges of the common law were before his majesty to answer some complaints made by the civil lawyers for the general granting of prohibitions. i heard that the lord coke, amongst other offensive speech, should say to his majesty that his highness was defended by his laws. at which saying, with other speech then used by the lord coke, his majesty was very much offended, and told him he spoke foolishly, and said that he was not defended by his laws, but by god, and so gave the lord coke, in other words, a very sharp reprehension, both for that and other things; and withal told him that sir thomas crompton (judge of the admiralty) was as good a man as coke; my lord coke having then, by way of exception, used some speech against sir thomas crompton. had not my lord treasurer, most humbly on his knee, used many good words to pacify his majesty and to excuse that which had been spoken, it was thought his highness would have been much more offended. in the conclusion, his majesty, by the means of my lord treasurer, was well pacified, and gave a gracious countenance to all the other judges, and said he would maintain the common law." lodge, iii. . the letter is dated th november , which shows how early coke had begun to give offence by his zeal for the law. [ ] reports. in his second institute, p. , written a good deal later, he speaks in a very different manner of bates's case, and declares the judgment of the court of exchequer to be contrary to law. [ ] reports. there were, however, several proclamations afterwards to forbid building within two miles of london, except on old foundations, and in that case only with brick or stone, under penalty of being proceeded against by the attorney-general in the star-chamber. rymer, xvii. ( ), ( ), ( ). london nevertheless increased rapidly, which was by means of licences to build; the prohibition being in this, as in many other cases enacted chiefly for the sake of the dispensations. james made use of proclamations to infringe personal liberty in another respect. he disliked to see any country-gentleman come up to london, where, it must be confessed, if we trust to what those proclamations assert and the memoirs of the age confirm, neither their own behaviour, nor that of their wives and daughters, who took the worst means of repairing the ruin their extravagance had caused, redounded to their honour. the king's comparison of them to ships in a river and in the sea is well known. still, in a constitutional point of view, we may be startled at proclamations commanding them to return to their country-houses and maintain hospitality, on pain of condign punishment. rymer, xvi. ( ); xvii. ( ), ( ). i neglected, in the first chapter, the reference i had made to an important dictum of the judges in the reign of mary, which is decisive as to the legal character of proclamations even in the midst of the tudor period. "the king, it is said, may make a proclamation quoad terrorem populi, to put them in fear of his displeasure, but not to impose any fine, forefeiture, or imprisonment; for no proclamation can make a new law, but only confirm and ratify an ancient one." dalison's reports, . [ ] winwood, iii. . [ ] carte, iii. . [ ] the number of these was intended to be two hundred, but only ninety-three patents were sold in the first six years. lingard, ix. , from _somers tracts_. in the first part of his reign he had availed himself of an old feudal resource, calling on all who held £ a year in chivalry (whether of the crown or not, as it seems) to receive knighthood, or to pay a composition. rymer, xvi. . the object of this was of course to raise money from those who thought the honour troublesome and expensive, but such as chose to appear could not be refused; and this accounts for his having made many hundred knights in the first year of his reign. harris's _life of james_, . [ ] ms. penes autorem. [ ] carte, iv. . [ ] wilson, in kennet, ii. . [ ] this act ( h. , c. ) was repealed a few years afterwards. j. , c. . [ ] commons' journals, , , , . sir henry wotton at length muttered something in favour of the prerogative of laying impositions, as belonging to hereditary though not to elective princes. _id._ . this silly argument is only worth notice, as a proof what erroneous notions of government were sometimes imbibed from an intercourse with foreign nations. dudley digges and sandys answered him very properly. [ ] the judges having been called upon by the house of lords to deliver their opinions on the subject of impositions, previous to the intended conference, requested, by the mouth of chief justice coke, to be excused. this was probably a disappointment to lord chancellor egerton, who had moved to consult them, and proceeded from coke's dislike to him and to the court. it induced the house to decline the conference. lords' journals, rd may. [ ] lords' journals, may ; commons' journals, , . [ ] carte, iv. . neville's memorial above mentioned was read in the house, may . [ ] carte, iv. , ; bacon, i. ; c. j. . [ ] c. j. ; carte, . this writer absurdly defends the prerogative of laying impositions on merchandise as part of the _law of nations_. [ ] it is said that, previously to taking this step, the king sent for the commons, and tore all their bills before their faces in the banqueting-house at whitehall. d'israeli's _character of james_, p. , on the authority of an unpublished letter. [ ] carte; wilson; camden's _annals of james i._ (in kennet, ii. ). [ ] carte, iv. p. . [ ] reports, . [ ] _state trials_, ii. . [ ] there had, however, been instances of it, as in sir walter raleigh's case (lodge, iii. , ); and i have found proofs of it in the queen's reign; though i cannot at present quote my authority. in a former age, the judges had refused to give an extra-judicial answer to the king. lingard, v. , from the year-book, pasch. h. , , trin. . [ ] _state trials_, ii. ; bacon, ii. , etc.; dalrymple's _memorials of james i._, vol. i. p. . some other very unjustifiable constructions of the law of treason took place in this reign. thomas owen was indicted and found guilty, under the statute of edward iii., for saying, that "the king, being excommunicated (_i.e._ if he should be excommunicated) by the pope, might be lawfully deposed and killed by any one, which killing would not be murder, being the execution of the supreme sentence of the pope;" a position very atrocious, but not amounting to treason. _state trials_, ii. . and williams, another papist, was convicted of treason by a still more violent stretch of law, for writing a book predicting the king's death in the year . _id._ . [ ] bacon, ii. , , ; cro. jac. , . [ ] bacon, ii. , etc.; carte, iv. ; _biograph. brit._, art. coke. the king told the judges, he thought his prerogative as much wounded if it be publicly disputed upon, as if any sentence were given against it. [ ] see d'israeli, _character of james i._, p. . he was too much affected by his dismissal from office. [ ] camden's _annals of james i._ in kennet, vol. ii.; wilson, _ibid._, , ; bacon's works, ii. . the fine imposed was £ , ; coke voted for £ , . [ ] fuller's _church hist._ ; neal, i. ; lodge, iii. . [ ] _state trials_, ii. . [ ] collier, , ; selden's life in _biographia brit._ [ ] carte, iii. . [ ] _state trials_, ii. ; lodge's _illustrations_, iii. . [ ] winwood, iii. , . [ ] _id._ . in this collection are one or two letters from arabella, which show her to have been a lively and accomplished woman. it is said in a manuscript account of circumstances about the king's accession, which seems entitled to some credit, that on its being proposed that she should walk at the queen's funeral, she answered with spirit that, as she had been debarred her majesty's presence while living, she would not be brought on the stage as a public spectacle after her death. sloane mss. . much occurs on the subject of this lady's imprisonment in one of the valuable volumes in dr. birch's handwriting, among the same mss. . those have already assisted mr. d'israeli in his interesting memoir on arabella stuart, in the _curiosities of literature_, new series, vol. i. they cannot be read (as i should conceive) without indignation at james and his ministers. one of her letters is addressed to the two chief-justices, begging to be brought before them by habeas corpus, being informed that it is designed to remove her far from those courts of justice where she ought to be tried and condemned, or cleared, to remote parts, whose courts she holds unfitted for her offence. "and if your lordships may not or will not grant unto me the ordinary relief of a distressed subject, then i beseech you become humble intercessors to his majesty that i may receive such benefit of justice, as both his majesty by his oath hath promised, and the laws of this realm afford to all others, those of his blood not excepted. and though, unfortunate woman! i can obtain neither, yet i beseech your lordships retain me in your good opinion, and judge charitably till i be proved to have committed any offence either against god or his majesty deserving so long restraint or separation from my lawful husband." arabella did not profess the roman catholic religion, but that party seem to have relied upon her; and so late as , she incurred some "suspicion of being collapsed." winwood, ii. . this had been also conjectured in the queen's life-time. _secret correspondence of cecil with james i._, p. . [ ] _state trials_, ii. . [ ] sir charles cornwallis's _memoir of prince henry_, reprinted in the somers tracts, vol. ii., and of which sufficient extracts may be found in birch's life, contains a remarkably minute detail of all the symptoms attending the prince's illness, which was an epidemic typhus fever. the report of his physicians after dissection may also be read in many books. nature might possibly have overcome the disorder, if an empirical doctor had not insisted on continually bleeding him. he had no other murderer. we need not even have recourse to hume's acute and decisive remark that, if somerset had been so experienced in this trade, he would not have spent five months in bungling about overbury's death. carte says (vol. iv. ) that the queen charged somerset with designing to poison her, prince charles, and the elector palatine, in order to marry the electress to lord suffolk's son. but this is too extravagant, whatever anne might have thrown out in passion against a favourite she hated. on henry's death the first suspicion fell of course on the papists. winwood, iii. . burnet doubts whether his aversion to popery did not hasten his death. and there is a remarkable letter from sir robert naunton to winwood, in the note of the last reference, which shows that suspicions of some such agency were entertained very early. but the positive evidence we have of his disease outweighs all conjecture. [ ] the circumstances to which i allude are well known to the curious in english history, and might furnish materials for a separate dissertation, had i leisure to stray in these by-paths. hume has treated them as quite unimportant; and carte, with his usual honesty, has never alluded to them. those who read carefully the new edition of the _state trials_, and various passages in lord bacon's _letters_, may form for themselves the best judgment they can. a few conclusions may, perhaps, be laid down as established, . that overbury's death was occasioned, not merely by lady somerset's revenge, but by his possession of important secrets, which in his passion he had threatened somerset to divulge. . that somerset conceived himself to have a hold over the king by the possession of the same or some other secrets, and used indirect threats of revealing them. . that the king was in the utmost terror at hearing of these measures; as is proved by a passage in weldon's _memoirs_, p. , which, after being long ascribed to his libellous spirit, has lately received the most entire confirmation by some letters from more, lieutenant of the tower, published in the _archæologia_, vol. xviii. . that bacon was in the king's confidence, and employed by him so to manage somerset's trial, as to prevent him from making any imprudent disclosure, or the judges from getting any insight into that which it was not meant to reveal. see particularly a passage in his letter to coke, vol. ii. , beginning, "this crime was second to none but the powder-plot." upon the whole, i cannot satisfy myself in any manner as to this mystery. prince henry's death, as i have observed, is out of the question; nor does a different solution, hinted by harris and others, and which may have suggested itself to the reader, appear probable to my judgment on weighing the whole case. overbury was an ambitious, unprincipled man; and it seems more likely than anything else, that james had listened too much to some criminal suggestion from him and somerset; but of what nature i cannot pretend even to conjecture; and that through apprehension of this being disclosed, he had pusillanimously acquiesced in the scheme of overbury's murder. it is a remarkable fact, mentioned by burnet, and perhaps little believed, but which, like the former, has lately been confirmed by documents printed in the _archæologia_, that james in the last year of his reign, while dissatisfied with buckingham, privately renewed his correspondence with somerset, on whom he bestowed at the same time a full pardon, and seems to have given him hopes of being restored to his former favour. a memorial drawn up by somerset, evidently at the king's command, and most probably after the clandestine interview reported by burnet, contains strong charges against buckingham. _archæologia_, vol. xvii. . but no consequences resulted from this; james was either reconciled to his favourite before his death, or felt himself too old for a struggle. somerset seems to have tampered a little with the popular party in the beginning of the next reign. a speech of sir robert cotton's in (_parl. hist._ ii. ) praises him, comparatively at least with his successor in royal favour; and he was one of those against whom informations were brought in the star-chamber for dispersing sir robert dudley's famous proposal for bridling the impertinences of parliament. kennet, iii. . the patriots, however, of that age had too much sense to encumber themselves with an ally equally unserviceable and infamous. there cannot be the slightest doubt of somerset's guilt as to the murder, though some have thought the evidence insufficient (carte, iv. ); he does not deny it in his remarkable letter to james, requesting, or rather demanding, mercy, printed in the cabala and in bacon's works. [ ] raleigh made an attempt to destroy himself on being committed to the tower; which of course affords a presumption of his consciousness that something could be proved against him. cayley's _life of raleigh_, vol. ii. p. . hume says, it appears from sully's _memoirs_ that he had offered his services to the french ambassador. i cannot find this in sully; whom raleigh, however, and his party seem to have aimed at deceiving by false information. nor could there be any treason in making an interest with the minister of a friendly power. carte quotes the despatches of beaumont, the french ambassador, to prove the connection of the conspirators with the spanish plenipotentiary. but it may be questioned whether he knew any more than the government gave out. if raleigh had ever shown a discretion bearing the least proportion to his genius, we might reject the whole story as improbable. but it is to be remembered that there had long been a catholic faction, who fixed their hopes on arabella; so that the conspiracy, though extremely injudicious, was not so perfectly unintelligible as it appears to a reader of hume, who has overlooked the previous circumstances. it is also to be considered, that the king had shown so marked a prejudice against raleigh on his coming to england, and the hostility of cecil was so insidious and implacable, as might drive a man of his rash and impetuous courage to desperate courses. see cayley's _life of raleigh_, vol. ii.; a work containing much interesting matter, but unfortunately written too much in the spirit of an advocate, which, with so faulty a client, must tend to an erroneous representation of facts. [ ] this estate was sherborn castle, which raleigh had not very fairly obtained from the see of salisbury. he settled this before his conviction upon his son; but an accidental flaw in the deed enabled the king to wrest it from him, and bestow it on the earl of somerset. lady raleigh, it is said, solicited his majesty on her knees to spare it; but he only answered, "i mun have the land, i mun have it for carr." he gave him, however, £ , instead. but the estate was worth £ per annum. this ruin of the prospects of a man far too intent on aggrandisement impelled him once more into the labyrinth of fatal and dishonest speculations. cayley, , etc.; _somers tracts_, ii. p. , etc.; _curiosities of literature_, new series, vol. ii. it has been said that raleigh's unjust conviction made him in one day the most popular, from having been the most odious, man in england. he was certainly such under elizabeth. this is a striking, but by no means solitary, instance of the impolicy of political persecution. [ ] rymer, xvi. . he was empowered to name officers, to use martial law, etc. [ ] james made it a merit with the court of madrid, that he had put to death a man so capable of serving him merely to give them satisfaction. _somers tracts_, ii. . there is even reason to suspect that he betrayed the secret of raleigh's voyage to gondomar, before he sailed. hardwicke, _state papers_, i. . it is said in mr. cayley's _life of raleigh_ that his fatal mistake in not securing a pardon under the great seal was on account of the expense. but the king would have made some difficulty at least about granting it. [ ] this project began as early as . winwood, vol. ii. the king had hopes that the united provinces would acknowledge the sovereignty of prince henry and the infanta on their marriage; and cornwallis was directed to propose this formally to the court of madrid. _id._ p. . but spain would not cede the point of sovereignty; nor was this scheme likely to please either the states-general or the court of france. in the later negotiation about the marriage of prince charles, those of the council who were known or suspected catholics, arundel, worcester, digby, weston, calvert, as well as buckingham, whose connections were such, were in the spanish party. those reputed to be jealous protestants were all against it. wilson, in kennet, ii. . many of the former were bribed by gondomar. _id._ and rushworth, i. . [ ] the proclamation for this parliament contains many of the unconstitutional directions to the electors, contained, as has been seen, in that of , though shorter. rymer, xvii. . [ ] "deal with me, as i shall desire at your hands," etc. "he knew not," he told them, "the laws and customs of the land when he first came, and was misled by the old counsellors whom the old queen had left;"--he owns that at the last parliament there was "a strange kind of beast called undertaker," etc. _parl. hist._ i. . yet this coaxing language was oddly mingled with sallies of his pride and prerogative notions. it is evidently his own composition, not bacon's. the latter, in granting the speaker's petitions, took the high tone so usual in this reign, and directed the house of commons like a schoolmaster. bacon's works, i. . [ ] debates of commons in , vol. i. p. . i quote the two volumes published at oxford in ; they are abridged in the new _parliamentary history_. [ ] _id._ , . [ ] the commons in this session complained to the lords, that the bishop of london (stokesley) had imprisoned one philips on suspicion of heresy. some time afterwards, they called upon him to answer their complaint. the bishop laid the matter before the lords, who all declared that it was unbecoming for any lord of parliament to make answer to any one in that place; "quod non consentaneum fuit aliquem procerum prædictorum alicui in eo loco responsorum." lords' journals, i. . the lords, however, in (_state trials_, xiv. ), seem to have recognised this as a case of impeachment. [ ] debates in , p. , , . [ ] _id. passim._ [ ] carte. [ ] clarendon speaks of this impeachment as an unhappy precedent, made to gratify a private displeasure. this expression seems rather to point to buckingham than to coke; and some letters of bacon to the favourite at the time of his fall display a consciousness of having offended him. yet buckingham had much more reason to thank bacon as his wisest counsellor, than to assist in crushing him. in his works (vol. i. p. ) is a tract, entitled "advice to the duke of buckingham," containing instructions for his governance as minister. these are marked by the deep sagacity and extensive observation of the writer. one passage should be quoted in justice to bacon. "as far as it may lie in you, let no arbitrary power be intruded; the people of this kingdom love the laws thereof, and nothing will oblige them more than a confidence of the free enjoying of them: what the nobles upon an occasion once said in parliament, 'nolumus leges angliæ mutari,' is imprinted in the hearts of all the people." i may add that with all bacon's pliancy, there are fewer over-strained expressions about the prerogative in his political writings than we should expect. his practice was servile, but his principles were not unconstitutional. we have seen how strongly he urged the calling of parliament in : and he did the same, unhappily for himself, in . vol. ii. p. . he refused also to set the great seal to an office intended to be erected for enrolling prentices, a speculation apparently of some monopolists; writing a very proper letter to buckingham, that there was no ground of law for it. p. . i am very loth to call bacon, for the sake of pope's antithesis, "the meanest of mankind." who would not wish to believe the feeling language of his letter to the king, after the attack on him had already begun? "i hope i shall not be found to have the troubled fountain of a corrupt heart, in a depraved habit of taking rewards to pervert justice; howsoever i may be frail, and partake of the abuses of the times."--p. . yet the general disesteem of his contemporaries speaks forcibly against him. sir simon d'ewes and weldon, both indeed bitter men, give him the worst of characters. "surely," says the latter, "never so many parts and so base and abject a spirit tenanted together in any one earthen cottage as in this man." it is a striking proof of the splendour of bacon's genius, that it was unanimously acknowledged in his own age amidst so much that should excite contempt. he had indeed ingratiated himself with every preceding parliament through his incomparable ductility; having take an active part in their complaints of grievances in , before he became attorney-general, and even on many occasions afterwards while he held that office, having been intrusted with the management of conferences on the most delicate subjects. in , the commons, after voting that the attorney-general ought not to be elected to parliament, made an exception in favour of bacon. journals, p. . "i have been always gracious in the lower house," he writes to james in , begging for the post of chancellor; "i have interest in the gentlemen of england, and shall be able to do some good effect in rectifying that body of parliament-men, which is cardo rerum." vol. ii. p. . i shall conclude this note by observing, that, if all lord bacon's philosophy had never existed, there would be enough in his political writings to place him among the greatest men this country has produced. [ ] debates in , vol. ii. p. . [ ] debates, p. . [ ] in a former parliament of this reign, the commons having sent up a message, wherein they entitled themselves the knights, citizens, burgesses, and barons of the commons' court of parliament, the lords sent them word that they would never acknowledge any man that sitteth in the lower house to have the right or title of a baron of parliament; nor could admit the term of the commons' court of parliament; "because all your house together, without theirs, doth make no court of parliament." th march, . lords' journals. nevertheless the lords did not scruple almost immediately afterwards, to denominate their own house a court, as appears by memoranda of th and th may; they even issued a habeas corpus as from a court, to bring a servant of the earl of bedford before them. so also in , th and th of february. and on april th and th, ; and probably later, if search were made. i need hardly mention, that the barons mentioned above, as part of the commons, were the members for the cinque ports, whose denomination is recognised in several statutes. [ ] debates in , vol. i. p. , etc.; vol. ii. p. , etc. mede writes to his correspondent on may , that the execution had not taken place; "but i hope it will." the king was plainly averse to it. [ ] the following observation on floyd's case, written by mr. harley, in a manuscript account of the proceedings (harl. mss. ), is well worthy to be inserted. i copy from the appendix to the above-mentioned debates of . "the following collection," he has written at the top, "is an instance how far a zeal against popery and for one branch of the royal family, which was supposed to be neglected by king james, and consequently in opposition to him, will carry people against common justice and humanity." and again at the bottom: "for the honour of englishmen, and indeed of human nature, it were to be hoped these debates were not truly taken, there being so many motions contrary to the laws of the land, the laws of parliament, and common justice. robert harley, july , ." it is remarkable that this date is very near the time when the writer of these just observations, and the party which he led, had been straining in more than one instance the privileges of the house of commons, not certainly with such violence as in the case of floyd, but much beyond what can be deemed their legitimate extent. [ ] in a much later period of the session, when the commons had lost their good humour, some heat was very justly excited by a petition from some brewers, complaining of an imposition of four-pence on the quarter of malt. the courtiers defended this as a composition in lieu of purveyance. but it was answered that it was compulsory, for several of the principal brewers had been committed and lay long in prison for not yielding to it. one said that impositions of this nature overthrew the liberty of all the subjects of this kingdom; and if the king may impose such taxes, then are we but villains, and lose all our liberties. it produced an order that the matter be examined before the house, the petitioners to be heard by council, and all the lawyers of the house to be present. debates of , vol. ii. ; journals, p. . but nothing further seems to have taken place, whether on account of the magnitude of the business which occupied them during the short remainder of the session, or because a bill which passed their house to prevent illegal imprisonment, or restraint on the lawful occupation of the subject, was supposed to meet this case. it is a remarkable instance of arbitrary taxation, and preparatory to an excise. [ ] debates of , p. ; hatsell's _precedents_, i. . [ ] debates, p. , _et alibi, passim_. [ ] vol. ii. , . [ ] _id._ p. . [ ] p. . lord cranfield told the commons there were three reasons why they should give liberally. . that lands were now a third better than when the king came to the crown. . that wools, which were then _s._ were now _s._ . that corn had risen from _s._ to _s._ the quarter. _ibid._ there had certainly been a very great increase of wealth under james, especially to the country gentlemen; of which their style of building is an evident proof. yet in this very session complaints had been made of the want of money, and fall in the price of lands (vol. i. p. ); and an act was proposed against the importation of corn (vol. ii. p. ). in fact, rents had been enormously enhanced in this reign, which the country gentlemen of course endeavoured to keep up. but corn, probably through good seasons, was rather lower in than it had been--about _s._ a quarter. [ ] p. , etc. [ ] _id._ , . compare also p. . sir thomas wentworth appears to have discountenanced the resenting this as a breach of privilege. doubtless the house showed great and even excessive moderation in it; for we can hardly doubt that sandys was really committed for no other cause than his behaviour in parliament. it was taken up again afterwards. p. . [ ] p. , etc. [ ] p. . [ ] p. . [ ] p. . [ ] p. . [ ] p. . [ ] p. . [ ] rymer, xvii. ; _parl. hist._ carte, ; wilson. [ ] besides the historians, see cabala, part ii. p. ( to edit.); d'israeli's _character of james i._, p. ; and mede's letters, harl. mss. . [ ] wilson's _hist. of james i._ in kennet, ii. , . thirty-three peers, mr. joseph mede tells us in a letter of feb. , (harl. mss. ), "signed a petition to the king which they refused to deliver to the council, as he desired, nor even to the prince, unless he would say he did not receive it as a counsellor; whereupon the king sent for lord oxford, and asked him for it; he, according to previous agreement, said he had it not; then he sent for another, who made the same answer: at last they told him they had resolved not to deliver it, unless they were admitted all together. whereupon his majesty, wonderfully incensed, sent them all away, _re infectâ_, and said that he would come into parliament himself, and bring them all to the bar." this petition, i believe, did not relate to any general grievances, but to a question of their own privileges, as to their precedence of scots peers. wilson, _ubi supra_. but several of this large number were inspired by more generous sentiments; and the commencement of an aristocratic opposition deserves to be noticed. in another letter, written in march, mede speaks of the good understanding between the king and parliament; he promised they should sit as long as they like, and hereafter he would have a parliament every three years. "is not this good if it be true?... but certain it is that the lords stick wonderful fast to the commons and all take great pains." the entertaining and sensible biographer of james has sketched the characters of these whig peers. aikin's _james i._, ii. . [ ] one of these may be found in the _somers tracts_, ii. , entitled tom tell-truth, a most malignant ebullition of disloyalty, which the author must have risked his neck as well as ears in publishing. some outrageous reflections on the personal character of the king could hardly be excelled by modern licentiousness. proclamations about this time against excess of lavish speech in matters of state (rymer, xvii. , ), and against printing or uttering seditious and scandalous pamphlets (_id._ , ) show the tone and temper of the nation. [ ] the letters on this subject, published by lord hardwicke (_state papers_, vol. i.) are highly important; and being unknown to carte and hume, render their narratives less satisfactory. some pamphlets of the time, in the second volume of the _somers tracts_, may be read with interest; and howell's _letters_, being written from madrid during the prince of wales's residence, deserve notice. see also wilson in kennet, p. , _et post_. dr. lingard has illustrated the subject lately (ix. ). [ ] hume, and many other writers on the side of the crown, assert the value of a subsidy to have fallen from £ , , at which it had been under the tudors, to £ , , or a less sum. but though i will not assert a negative too boldly, i have no recollection of having found any good authority for this; and it is surely too improbable to be lightly credited. for admit that no change was made in each man's rate according to the increase of wealth and diminution of the value of money, the amount must at least have been equal to what it had been; and to suppose the contributors to have prevailed on the assessors to underrate them, is rather contrary to common fiscal usage. in one of mede's letters, which of course i do not quote as decisive, it is said that the value of a subsidy was _not above_ £ , ; and that the assessors were directed (this was in ) not to follow former books, but value every man's estate according to their knowledge, and not his own confession. [ ] _parl. hist._ , , ; carte, . the king seems to have acted pretty fairly in this parliament, bating a gross falsehood in denying the intended toleration of papists. he wished to get further pledges of support from parliament before he plunged into a war, and was very right in doing so. on the other hand, the prince and duke of buckingham behaved in public towards him with great rudeness. _parl. hist._ . [ ] _parl. hist._ . [ ] clarendon blames the impeachment of middlesex for the very reason which makes me deem it a fortunate event for the constitution, and seems to consider him as a sacrifice to buckingham's resentment. hacket also, the biographer of williams, takes his part. carte, however, thought him guilty (p. ); and the unanimous vote of the peers is much against him, since that house was not wholly governed by buckingham. see too the "life of nicholas farrar" in wordsworth's _ecclesiastical biography_, vol. iv.; where it appears that that pious and conscientious man was one of the treasurer's most forward accusers, having been deeply injured by him. it is difficult to determine the question from the printed trial. [ ] jac. , c. . see what lord coke says on this act, and on the general subject of monopolies. inst. . [ ] _p. h._ . [ ] _id._ . chapter vii on the english constitution from the accession of charles i. to the dissolution of his third parliament - charles the first had much in his character very suitable to the times in which he lived, and to the spirit of the people he was to rule; a stern and serious deportment, a disinclination to all licentiousness, and a sense of religion that seemed more real than in his father.[ ] these qualities we might suppose to have raised some expectation of him, and to have procured at his accession some of that popularity, which is rarely withheld from untried princes. yet it does not appear that he enjoyed even this first transient sunshine of his subjects' affection. solely intent on retrenching the excesses of prerogative, and well aware that no sovereign would voluntarily recede from the possession of power, they seem to have dreaded to admit into their bosoms any sentiments of personal loyalty, which might enervate their resolution. and charles took speedy means to convince them that they had not erred in withholding their confidence. elizabeth in her systematic parsimony, james in his averseness to war, had been alike influenced by a consciousness that want of money alone could render a parliament formidable to their power. none of the irregular modes of supply were ever productive enough to compensate for the clamour they occasioned; after impositions and benevolences were exhausted, it had always been found necessary, in the most arbitrary times of the tudors, to fall back on the representatives of the people. but charles succeeded to a war, at least to the preparation of a war, rashly undertaken through his own weak compliance, the arrogance of his favourite, and the generous or fanatical zeal of the last parliament. he would have perceived it to be manifestly impossible, if he had been capable of understanding his own position, to continue this war without the constant assistance of the house of commons, or to obtain that assistance without very costly sacrifices of his royal power. it was not the least of this monarch's imprudences, or rather of his blind compliances with buckingham, to have not only commenced hostilities against spain which he might easily have avoided,[ ] and persisted in them for four years, but entered on a fresh war with france, though he had abundant experience to demonstrate the impossibility of defraying its charges. _parliament of ._--the first parliament of this reign has been severely censured on account of the penurious supply it doled out for the exigencies of a war, in which its predecessors had involved the king. i will not say that this reproach is wholly unfounded. a more liberal proceeding, if it did not obtain a reciprocal concession from the king, would have put him more in the wrong. but, according to the common practice and character of all such assemblies, it was preposterous to expect subsidies equal to the occasion, until a foundation of confidence should be laid between the crown and parliament. the commons had begun probably to repent of their hastiness in the preceding year, and to discover that buckingham and his pupil, or master (which shall we say?), had conspired to deceive them.[ ] they were not to forget that none of the chief grievances of the last reign were yet redressed, and that supplies must be voted slowly and conditionally if they would hope for reformation. hence they made their grant of tonnage and poundage to last but for a year instead of the king's life, as had for two centuries been the practice; on which account the upper house rejected the bill.[ ] nor would they have refused a further supply, beyond the two subsidies (about £ , ) which they had granted, had some tender of redress been made by the crown; and were actually in debate upon the matter, when interrupted by a sudden dissolution.[ ] nothing could be more evident, by the experience of the late reign as well as by observing the state of public spirit, than that hasty and premature dissolutions or prorogations of parliament served but to aggravate the crown's embarrassments. every successive house of commons inherited the feelings of its predecessor, without which it would have ill represented the prevalent humour of the nation. the same men, for the most part, came again to parliament more irritated and desperate of reconciliation with the sovereign than before. even the politic measure, as it was fancied to be, of excluding some of the most active members from seats in the new assembly, by nominating them sheriffs for the year, failed altogether of the expected success; as it naturally must in an age when all ranks partook in a common enthusiasm.[ ] hence the prosecution against buckingham, to avert which charles had dissolved his first parliament, was commenced with redoubled vigour in the second. it was too late, after the precedents of bacon and middlesex, to dispute the right of the commons to impeach a minister of state. the king, however, anticipating their resolutions, after some sharp speeches only had been uttered against his favourite, sent a message that he would not allow any of his servants to be questioned among them, much less such as were of eminent place and near unto him. he saw, he said, that some of them aimed at the duke of buckingham, whom, in the last parliament of his father, all had combined to honour and respect, nor did he know what had happened since to alter their affections; but he assured them that the duke had done nothing without his own special direction and appointment. this haughty message so provoked the commons that, having no express testimony against buckingham, they came to a vote that common fame is a good ground of proceeding either by inquiry, or presenting the complaint to the king or lords; nor did a speech from the lord keeper, severely rating their presumption, and requiring on the king's behalf that they should punish two of their members who had given him offence by insolent discourses in the house, lest he should be compelled to use his royal authority against them; nor one from the king himself, bidding them remember that parliaments were altogether in his power for their calling, sitting, and dissolution; therefore, as he found the fruits of them good or evil, they were to continue to be or not to be, tend to pacify or to intimidate the assembly. they addressed the king in very decorous language, but asserting "the ancient, constant, and undoubted right and usage of parliaments to question and complain of all persons, of what degree soever, found grievous to the commonwealth, in abusing the power and trust committed to them by their sovereign."[ ] the duke was accordingly impeached at the bar of the house of peers on eight articles, many of them probably well-founded; yet as the commons heard no evidence in support of them, it was rather unreasonable in them to request that he might be committed to the tower. in the conduct of this impeachment, two of the managers, sir john eliot and sir dudley digges, one the most illustrious confessor in the cause of liberty, whom that time produced, the other, a man of much ability and a useful supporter of the popular party, though not exempt from some oblique views towards promotion, gave such offence by words spoken, or alleged to be spoken, in derogation of his majesty's honour, that they were committed to the tower. the commons, of course, resented this new outrage. they resolved to do no more business till they were righted in their privileges. they denied the words imputed to digges; and, thirty-six peers asserting that he had not spoken them, the king admitted that he was mistaken, and released both their members.[ ] he had already broken in upon the privileges of the house of lords, by committing the earl of arundel to the tower during the session; not upon any political charge, but, as was commonly surmised, on account of a marriage which his son had made with a lady of royal blood. such private offences were sufficient in those arbitrary reigns to expose the subject to indefinite imprisonment, if not to an actual sentence in the star-chamber. the lords took up this detention of one of their body, and after formal examination of precedents by a committee, came to a resolution, "that no lord of parliament, the parliament sitting, or within the usual times of privilege of parliament, is to be imprisoned or restrained without sentence or order of the house, unless it be for treason or felony, or for refusing to give surety for the peace." this assertion of privilege was manifestly warranted by the co-extensive liberties of the commons. after various messages between the king and lords, arundel was ultimately set at liberty.[ ] this infringement of the rights of the peerage was accompanied by another not less injurious, the refusal of a writ of summons to the earl of bristol. the lords were justly tenacious of this unquestionable privilege of their order, without which its constitutional dignity and independence could never be maintained. whatever irregularities or uncertainty of legal principle might be found in earlier times as to persons summoned only by writ without patents of creation, concerning whose hereditary peerage there is much reason to doubt; it was beyond all controversy that an earl of bristol holding his dignity by patent was entitled of right to attend parliament. the house necessarily insisted upon bristol's receiving his summons, which was sent him with an injunction not to comply with it by taking his place. but the spirited earl knew that the king's constitutional will expressed in the writ ought to outweigh his private command, and laid the secretary's letter before the house of lords. the king prevented any further interference in his behalf by causing articles of charge to be exhibited against him by the attorney-general, whereon he was committed to the tower. these assaults on the pride and consequence of an aristocratic assembly, from whom alone the king could expect effectual support, display his unfitness not only for the government of england, but of any other nation. nor was his conduct towards bristol less oppressive than impolitic. if we look at the harsh and indecent employment of his own authority and even testimony, to influence a criminal process against a man of approved and untainted worth,[ ] and his sanction of charges which, if bristol's defence be as true as it is now generally admitted to be, he must have known to be unfounded; we shall hardly concur with those candid persons who believe that charles would have been an excellent prince in a more absolute monarchy. nothing in truth can be more preposterous than to maintain, like clarendon and hume, the integrity and innocence of lord bristol, together with the sincerity and humanity of charles i. such inconsistencies betray a determination in the historian to speak of men according to his preconceived affection or prejudice, without so much as attempting to reconcile these sentiments to the facts which he can neither deny nor excuse.[ ] though the lords petitioned against a dissolution, the king was determined to protect his favourite, and rescue himself from the importunities of so refractory a house of commons.[ ] perhaps he had already taken the resolution of governing without the concurrence of parliaments, though he was induced to break it the ensuing year. for the commons having delayed to pass a bill for the five subsidies they had voted in this session till they should obtain some satisfaction for their complaints, he was left without any regular supply. this was not wholly unacceptable to some of his counsellors, and probably to himself; as affording a pretext for those unauthorised demands which the advocates of arbitrary prerogative deemed more consonant to the monarch's honour. he had issued letters of privy seal, after the former parliament, to those in every county, whose names had been returned by the lord lieutenant as most capable, mentioning the sum they were required to lend, with a promise of repayment in eighteen months.[ ] this specification of a particular sum was reckoned an unusual encroachment, and a manifest breach of the statute against arbitrary benevolences; especially as the name of those who refused compliance were to be returned to the council. but the government now ventured on a still more outrageous stretch of power. they first attempted to persuade the people that, as subsidies had been voted in the house of commons, they should not refuse to pay them, though no bill had been passed for that purpose. but a tumultuous cry was raised in westminster hall from those who had been convened, that they would pay no subsidy but by authority of parliament.[ ] this course, therefore, was abandoned for one hardly less unconstitutional. a general loan was demanded from every subject, according to the rate at which he was assessed in the last subsidy. the commissioners appointed for the collection of this loan received private instructions to require not less than a certain proportion of each man's property in lands or goods, to treat separately with every one, to examine on oath such as should refuse, to certify the names of refractory persons to the privy council, and to admit of no excuse for abatement of the sum required.[ ] _arbitrary taxation._--this arbitrary taxation (for the name of loan could not disguise the extreme improbability that the money would be repaid), so general and systematic as well as so weighty, could not be endured without establishing a precedent that must have shortly put an end to the existence of parliaments. for, if those assemblies were to meet only for the sake of pouring out stupid flatteries at the foot of the throne, of humbly tendering such supplies as the ministry should suggest, or even of hinting at a few subordinate grievances which touched not the king's prerogative and absolute control in matters of state--functions which the tudors and stuarts were well pleased that they should exercise--if every remonstrance was to be checked by a dissolution, and chastised by imprisonment of its promoters, every denial of subsidy to furnish a justification for extorted loans, our free-born high-minded gentry would not long have brooked to give their attendance in such an ignominious assembly, and an english parliament would have become as idle a mockery of national representation as the cortes of castile. but this kingdom was not in a temper to put up with tyranny. the king's advisers were as little disposed to recede from their attempt. they prepared to enforce it by the arm of power.[ ] the common people who refused to contribute were impressed to serve in the navy. the gentry were bound by recognisance to appear at the council-table, where many of them were committed to prison.[ ] among these were five knights, darnel, carbet, earl, heveningham, and hampden, who sued the court of king's bench for their writ of habeas corpus. the writ was granted; but the warden of the fleet made return that they were detained by a warrant from the privy council, informing him of no particular cause of imprisonment, but that they were committed by the special command of his majesty. this gave rise to a most important question, whether such a return was sufficient in law to justify the court in remitting the parties to custody. the fundamental immunity of english subjects from arbitrary detention had never before been so fully canvassed; and it is to the discussion which arose out of the case of these five gentlemen that we owe its continual assertion by parliament, and its ultimate establishment in full practical efficacy by the statute of charles ii. it was argued with great ability by noy, selden, and other eminent lawyers, on behalf of the claimants, and by the attorney-general heath for the crown. the counsel for the prisoners grounded their demand of liberty on the original basis of magna charta; the twenty-ninth section of which, as is well known, provides that "no free man shall be taken or imprisoned unless by lawful judgment of his peers, or the law of the land." this principle having been frequently transgressed by the king's privy council in earlier times, statutes had been repeatedly enacted, independently of the general confirmations of the charter, to redress this material grievance. thus in the th of edward iii. it is provided that "no one shall be taken by petition or suggestion to the king or his counsel, unless it be (_i.e._ but only) by indictment or presentment, or by writ original at the common law." and this is again enacted three years afterwards, with little variation, and once again in the course of the same reign. it was never understood, whatever the loose language of these old statutes might suggest, that no man could be kept in custody upon a criminal charge before indictment, which would have afforded too great security to offenders. but it was the regular practice that every warrant of commitment, and every return by a gaoler to the writ of habeas corpus, must express the nature of the charge, so that it might appear whether it were no legal offence; in which case the party must be instantly set at liberty; or one for which bail ought to be taken, or one for which he must be remanded to prison. it appears also to have been admitted without controversy, though not perhaps according to the strict letter of law, that the privy council might commit to prison on a criminal charge, since it seemed preposterous to deny that power to those intrusted with the care of the commonwealth, which every petty magistrate enjoyed. but it was contended that they were as much bound as every petty magistrate to assign such a cause for their commitments as might enable the court of king's bench to determine whether it should release or remand the prisoners brought before them by habeas corpus. the advocates for this principal alleged several precedents, from the reign of henry vii. to that of james, where persons committed by the council generally, or even by the special command of the king, had been admitted to bail on their habeas corpus. "but i conceive," said one of these, "that our case will not stand upon precedent, but upon the fundamental laws and statutes of this realm; and though the precedents look one way or the other, they are to be brought back unto the laws by which the kingdom is governed." he was aware that a pretext might be found to elude most of his precedents. the warrant had commonly declared the party to be charged on _suspicion_ of treason or of felony; in which case he would of course be bailed by the court. yet in some of these instances the words "by the king's special command," were inserted in the commitment; so that they served to repel the pretension of an arbitrary right to supersede the law by his personal authority. ample proof was brought from the old law books that the king's command could not excuse an illegal act. "if the king command me," said one of the judges under henry vi., "to arrest a man, and i arrest him, he shall have an action of false imprisonment against me, though it were done in the king's presence." "the king," said chief justice markham to edward iv., "cannot arrest a man upon suspicion of felony or treason, as any of his subjects may; because if he should wrong a man by such arrest, he can have no remedy against him." no verbal order of the king, nor any under his sign manual or privy signet, was a command, it was contended by selden, which the law would recognise as sufficient to arrest or detain any of his subjects; a writ duly issued under the seal of a court being the only language in which he could signify his will. they urged further that, even if the first commitment by the king's command were lawful, yet when a party had continued in prison for a reasonable time, he should be brought to answer, and not be indefinitely detained; liberty being a thing so favoured by the law that it will not suffer any man to remain in confinement for any longer time than of necessity it must. to these pleadings for liberty, heath, the attorney-general, replied in a speech of considerable ability, full of those high principles of prerogative which, trampling as it were on all statute and precedent, seemed to tell the judges that they were placed there to obey rather than to determine. "this commitment," he says, "is not in a legal and ordinary way, but by the special command of our lord the king, which implies not only the fact done, but so extraordinarily done, that it is notoriously his majesty's immediate act and will that it should be so." he alludes afterwards, though somewhat obscurely, to the king's absolute power, as contra-distinguished from that according to law; a favourite distinction, as i have already observed, with the supporters of despotism. "shall we make inquiries," he says, "whether his commands are lawful?--who shall call in question the justice of the king's actions, who is not to give account for them?" he argues from the legal maxim that the king can do no wrong, that a cause must be presumed to exist for the commitment, though it be not set forth. he adverts with more success to the number of papists and other state prisoners, detained for years in custody for mere political jealousy. "some there were," he says, "in the tower who were put in it when very young; should they bring a habeas corpus, would the court deliver them?" passing next to the precedents of the other side, and condescending to admit their validity, however contrary to the tenor of his former argument, he evades their application by such distinctions as i have already mentioned. the judges behaved during this great cause with apparent moderation and sense of its importance to the subject's freedom. their decision, however, was in favour of the crown; and the prisoners were remanded to custody. in pronouncing this judgment, the chief justice, sir nicholas hyde, avoiding the more extravagant tenets of absolute monarchy, took the narrower line of denying the application of those precedents, which had been alleged to show the practice of the court in bailing persons committed by the king's special command. he endeavoured also to prove that, where no cause had been expressed in the warrant, except such command as in the present instance, the judges had always remanded the parties; but with so little success that i cannot perceive more than one case mentioned by him, and that above a hundred years old, which supports this doctrine. the best authority on which he had to rely, was the resolution of the judges in the th of elizabeth, published in anderson's _reports_.[ ] for, though this is not grammatically worded, it seems impossible to doubt that it acknowledges the special command of the king or the authority of the privy council as a body, to be such sufficient warrant for a commitment as to require no further cause to be expressed, and to prevent the judges from discharging the party from custody, either absolutely or upon bail. yet it was evidently the consequence of this decision, that every statute from the time of magna charta, designed to protect the personal liberties of englishmen, became a dead letter; since the insertion of four words in a warrant (per speciale mandatum regis), which might become matter of form, would control their remedial efficacy. and this wound was the more deadly, in that the notorious cause of these gentlemen's imprisonment was their withstanding an illegal exaction of money. everything that distinguished our constitutional laws, all that rendered the name of england valuable, was at stake on this issue. if the judgment in the case of ship-money was more flagrantly iniquitous, it was not so extensively destructive as the present.[ ] _a parliament called in ._--neither of these measures, however, of illegal severity towards the uncompliant, backed as they were by a timid court of justice, nor the exhortations of a more prostitute and shameless band of churchmen, could divert the nation from its cardinal point of faith in its own prescriptive franchises. to call another parliament appeared the only practicable means of raising money for a war, in which the king persisted with great impolicy or rather blind trust in his favourite. he consented to this with extreme unwillingness.[ ] previously to its assembling, he released a considerable number of gentlemen and others who had been committed for their refusal of the loan. these were, in many cases, elected to the new parliament; coming thither with just indignation at their country's wrongs, and pardonable resentment at their own. no year, indeed, within the memory of any one living, had witnessed such violations of public liberty as . charles seemed born to carry into daily practice those theories of absolute power, which had been promulgated from his father's lips. even now, while the writs were out for a new parliament, commissioners were appointed to raise money "by impositions or otherwise, as they should find most convenient in a case of such inevitable necessity, wherein form and circumstance must be dispensed with rather than the substance be lost and hazarded;"[ ] and the levying of ship-money was already debated in the council. anticipating, as indeed was natural, that this house of commons would correspond as ill to the king's wishes as their predecessors, his advisers were preparing schemes more congenial, if they could be rendered effective, to the spirit in which he was to govern. a contract was entered into for transporting some troops and a considerable quantity of arms from flanders into england, under circumstances at least highly suspicious, and which, combined with all the rest that appears of the court policy at that time, leaves no great doubt on the mind that they were designed to keep under the people, while the business of contribution was going forward.[ ] shall it be imputed as a reproach to the cokes, the seldens, the glanvils, the pyms, the eliots, the philipses, of this famous parliament, that they endeavoured to devise more effectual restraints than the law had hitherto imposed on a prince who had snapped like bands of tow the ancient statutes of the land, to remove from his presence counsellors, to have been misled by whom was his best apology, and to subject him to an entire dependence on his people for the expenditure of government, as the surest pledge of his obedience to the laws? _petition of right._--the principal matters of complaint taken up by the commons in this session were, the exaction of money under the name of loans; the commitment of those who refused compliance, and the late decision of the king's bench, remanding them upon a habeas corpus; the billeting of soldiers on private persons, which had occurred in the last year, whether for convenience or for purposes of intimidation and annoyance; and the commissions to try military offenders by martial law--a procedure necessary within certain limits to the discipline of an army, but unwarranted by the constitution of this country which was little used to any regular forces, and stretched by the arbitrary spirit of the king's administration beyond all bounds.[ ] these four grievances or abuses form the foundation of the petition of right, presented by the commons in the shape of a declaratory statute. charles had recourse to many subterfuges in hopes to elude the passing of this law; rather perhaps through wounded pride, as we may judge from his subsequent conduct, than such apprehension that it would create a serious impediment to his despotic schemes. he tried to persuade them to acquiesce in his royal promise not to arrest any one without just cause, or in a simple confirmation of the great charter, and other statutes in favour of liberty. the peers, too pliant in this instance to his wishes, and half receding from the patriot banner they had lately joined, lent him their aid by proposing amendments (insidious in those who suggested them, though not in the body of the house), which the commons firmly rejected.[ ] even when the bill was tendered to him for that assent, which it had been necessary for the last two centuries that the king should grant or refuse in a word, he returned a long and equivocal answer, from which it could only be collected that he did not intend to remit any portion of what he had claimed as his prerogative. but on an address from both houses for a more explicit answer, he thought fit to consent to the bill in the usual form. the commons, of whose harshness towards charles his advocates have said so much, immediately passed a bill for granting five subsidies, about £ , ; a sum not too great for the wealth of the kingdom or for his exigencies, but considerable according to the precedents of former times, to which men naturally look.[ ] the sincerity of charles in thus according his assent to the petition of right may be estimated by the following very remarkable conference which he held on the subject with his judges. before the bill was passed, he sent for the two chief justices, hyde and richardson, to whitehall; and propounded certain questions, directing that the other judges should be assembled in order to answer them. the first question was, "whether in no case whatsoever the king may not commit a subject without showing cause?" to which the judges gave an answer the same day under their hands, which was the next day presented to his majesty by the two chief justices in these words: "we are of opinion that, by the general rule of law, the cause of commitment by his majesty ought to be shown; yet some cases may require such secrecy, that the king may commit a subject without showing the cause for a convenient time." the king then delivered them a second question, and required them to keep it very secret, as the former: "whether, in case a habeas corpus be brought, and a warrant from the king without any general or special cause returned, the judges ought to deliver him before they understand the cause from the king?" their answer was as follows: "upon a habeas corpus brought for one committed by the king, if the cause be not specially or generally returned, so as the court may take knowledge thereof, the party ought by the general rule of law to be delivered. but, if the case be such that the same requireth secrecy, and may not presently be disclosed, the court of discretion may forbear to deliver the prisoner for a convenient time, to the end the court may be advertised of the truth thereof." on receiving this answer, the king proposed a third question: "whether, if the king grant the commons' petition, he doth not thereby exclude himself from committing or restraining a subject for any time or cause whatsoever, without showing a cause?" the judges returned for answer to this important query: "every law, after it is made, hath its exposition, and so this petition and answer must have an exposition as the case in the nature thereof shall require to stand with justice; which is to be left to the courts of justice to determine, which cannot particularly be discovered until such case shall happen. and although the petition be granted, there is no fear of conclusion as is intimated in the question."[ ] the king, a very few days afterwards gave his _first_ answer to the petition of right. for even this indirect promise of compliance, which the judges gave him, did not relieve him from apprehensions that he might lose the prerogative of arbitrary commitment. and though, after being beaten from this evasion, he was compelled to accede in general terms to the petition, he had the insincerity to circulate one thousand five hundred copies of it through the country, after the prorogation, with his first answer annexed; an attempt to deceive without the possibility of success.[ ] but instances of such ill faith, accumulated as they are through the life of charles, render the assertion of his sincerity a proof either of historical ignorance, or of a want of moral delicacy. the petition of right, as this statute is still called, from its not being drawn in the common form of an act of parliament, after reciting the various laws which have established certain essential privileges of the subject, and enumerating the violations of them which had recently occurred, in the four points of illegal exactions, arbitrary commitments, quartering of soldiers or sailors, and infliction of punishment by martial law, prays the king, "that no man hereafter be compelled to make or yield any gift, loan, benevolence, tax, or such like charge without common consent by act of parliament; and that none be called to answer or take such oath, or to give attendance, or be confined or otherwise molested or disquieted concerning the same, or for refusal thereof; and that no freeman in any such manner as is before mentioned be imprisoned or detained; and that your majesty would be pleased to remove the said soldiers and marines, and that your people may not be so burthened in time to come; and that the aforesaid commissions for proceeding by martial law may be revoked and annulled; and that hereafter no commissions of the like nature may issue forth to any person or persons whatever, to be executed as aforesaid, lest by colour of them any of your majesty's subjects be destroyed or put to death contrary to the laws and franchises of the land."[ ] _tonnage and poundage disputed._--it might not unreasonably be questioned whether the language of this statute were sufficiently general to comprehend duties charged on merchandise at the outports, as well as internal taxes and exactions, especially as the former had received a sort of sanction, though justly deemed contrary to law, by the judgment of the court of exchequer in bates's case. the commons, however, were steadily determined not to desist till they should have rescued their fellow-subjects from a burthen as unwarrantably imposed as those specifically enumerated in their petition of right. tonnage and poundage, the customary grant of every reign, had been taken by the present king without consent of parliament; the lords having rejected, as before-mentioned, a bill that limited it to a single year. the house now prepared a bill to grant it, but purposely delayed its passing; in order to remonstrate with the king against his unconstitutional anticipation of their consent. they declared "that there ought not any imposition to be laid upon the goods of merchants, exported or imported, without common consent by act of parliament; that tonnage and poundage, like other subsidies, sprung from the free grant of the people; that when impositions had been laid on the subjects' goods and merchandises without authority of law, which had very seldom occurred, they had, on complaint in parliament, been forthwith relieved; except in the late king's reign, who, through evil counsel, had raised the rates and charges to the height at which they then were." they conclude, after repeating their declaration that the receiving of tonnage and poundage and other impositions not granted by parliament is a breach of the fundamental liberties of this kingdom, and contrary to the late petition of right, with most humbly beseeching his majesty to forbear any further receiving of the same, and not to take it in ill part from those of his loving subjects who should refuse to make payment of any such charges without warrant of law.[ ] the king anticipated the delivery of this remonstrance by proroguing the parliament. tonnage and poundage, he told them, was what he had never meant to give away, nor could possibly do without. by this abrupt prorogation, while so great a matter was unsettled, he trod back his late footsteps, and dissipated what little hopes might have arisen from his tardy assent to the petition of right. during the interval before the ensuing session, those merchants, among whom chambers, rolls, and vassal are particularly to be remembered with honour, who gallantly refused to comply with the demands of the custom house, had their goods distrained, and on suing writs of replevin, were told by the judges that the king's right, having been established in the case of bates, could no longer be disputed.[ ] thus the commons re-assembled, by no means less inflamed against the king's administration than at the commencement of the preceding session. their proceedings were conducted with more than usual warmth.[ ] buckingham's death, which had occurred since the prorogation, did not allay their resentment against the advisers of the crown. but the king, who had very much lowered his tone in speaking of tonnage and poundage, and would have been content to receive it as their grant, perceiving that they were bent on a full statutory recognition of the illegality of impositions without their consent, and that they had opened a fresh battery on another side, by mingling in certain religious disputes in order to attack some of his favourite prelates, took the step, to which he was always inclined, of dissolving this third parliament. _religious differences._--the religious disputes to which i have just alluded are chiefly to be considered, for the present purpose, in their relation to those jealousies and resentments springing out of the ecclesiastical administration, which during the reigns of the two first stuarts furnished unceasing food to political discontent. james having early shown his inflexible determination to restrain the puritans, the bishops proceeded with still more rigour than under elizabeth. no longer thwarted, as in her time, by an unwilling council, they succeeded in exacting a general conformity to the ordinances of the church. it had been solemnly decided by the judges in the queen's reign, and in , that, although the statute establishing the high commission court did not authorise it to deprive ministers of their benefices, yet this law being only in affirmation of the queen's inherent supremacy, she might, by virtue of that, regulate all ecclesiastical matters at her pleasure, and erect courts with such powers as she should think fit. upon this somewhat dangerous principle, archbishop bancroft deprived a considerable number of puritan clergymen;[ ] while many more, finding that the interference of the commons in their behalf was not regarded, and that all schemes of evasion were come to an end, were content to submit to the obnoxious discipline. but their affections being very little conciliated by this coercion, there remained a large party within the bosom of the established church, prone to watch for and magnify the errors of their spiritual rulers. these men preserved the name of puritans. austere in their lives, while many of the others were careless or irregular, learned as a body comparatively with the opposite party, implacably averse to everything that could be construed into an approximation to popery, they acquired a degree of respect from grave men, which would have been much more general, had they not sometimes given offence by a moroseness and even malignity of disposition, as well as by a certain tendency to equivocation and deceitfulness; faults, however, which so frequently belong to the weaker party under a rigorous government that they scarcely afford a marked reproach against the puritans. they naturally fell in with the patriotic party in the house of commons, and kept up throughout the kingdom a distrust of the crown, which has never been so general in england as when connected with some religious apprehensions. _growth of high church tenets._--the system pursued by bancroft and his imitators, bishops neile and laud, with the approbation of the king, far opposed to the healing counsels of burleigh and bacon, was just such as low-born and little-minded men, raised to power by fortune's caprice, are ever found to pursue. they studiously aggravated every difference, and irritated every wound. as the characteristic prejudice of the puritans was so bigoted an abhorrence of the romish faith, that they hardly deemed its followers to deserve the name of christians, the prevailing high church party took care to shock that prejudice by somewhat of a retrograde movement, and various seeming, or indeed real, accommodations of their tenets to those of the abjured religion. they began by preaching the divine right, as it is called, or absolute indispensability, of episcopacy;[ ] a doctrine of which the first traces, as i apprehend, are found about the end of elizabeth's reign. they insisted on the necessity of episcopal succession regularly derived from the apostles. they drew an inference from this tenet, that ordinations by presbyters were in all cases null. and as this affected all the reformed churches in europe except their own, the lutherans not having preserved the succession of their bishops, while the calvinists had altogether abolished that order, they began to speak of them not as brethren of the same faith, united in the same cause, and distinguished only by differences little more material than those of political commonwealths (which had been the language of the church of england ever since the reformation), but as aliens to whom they were not at all related, and schismatics with whom they held no communion; nay, as wanting the very essence of a christian society. this again brought them nearer, by irresistible consequence, to the disciples of rome, with becoming charity, but against the received creed of the puritans and perhaps against their own articles, they all acknowledged to be a part of the catholic church, while they were withholding that appellation, expressly or by inference, from heidelberg and geneva. _differences as to the observance of sunday._--the founders of the english reformation, after abolishing most of the festivals kept before that time, had made little or no change as to the mode of observance of those they retained. sundays and holidays stood much on the same footing as days on which no work except for good cause was to be performed, the service of the church was to be attended, and any lawful amusement might be indulged in.[ ] a just distinction, however, soon grew up; an industrious people could spare time for very few holidays; and the more scrupulous party, while they slighted the church festivals as of human appointment, prescribed a stricter observance of the lord's day. but it was not till about that they began to place it very nearly on the footing of the jewish sabbath, interdicting not only the slightest action of worldly business, but even every sort of pastime and recreation; a system which, once promulgated, soon gained ground as suiting their atrabilious humour, and affording a new theme of censure on the vices of the great.[ ] those who opposed them on the high church side, not only derided the extravagance of the sabbatarians, as the others were called, but pretended that the commandment having been confined to the hebrews, the modern observance of the first day of the week as a season of rest and devotion was an ecclesiastical institution, and in no degree more venerable than that of the other festivals or the season of lent, which the puritans stubbornly despised.[ ] such a controversy might well have been left to the usual weapons. but james i., or some of the bishops to whom he listened, bethought themselves that this might serve as a test of puritan ministers. he published accordingly a declaration to be read in churches, permitting all lawful recreations on sunday after divine service, such as dancing, archery, may-games, and morrice-dances, and other usual sports; but with a prohibition of bear-hunting and other unlawful games. no recusant, or any one who had not attended the church service, was entitled to this privilege; which might consequently be regarded as a bounty on devotion. the severe puritan saw it in no such point of view. to his cynical temper, may-games and morrice-dances were hardly tolerable on six days of the week; they were now recommended for the seventh. and this impious licence was to be promulgated in the church itself. it is indeed difficult to explain so unnecessary an insult on the precise clergy, but by supposing an intention to harass those who should refuse compliance.[ ] but this intention, from whatever cause, perhaps through the influence of archbishop abbot, was not carried into effect; nor was the declaration itself enforced till the following reign. the house of commons displayed their attachment to the puritan maxims, or their dislike of the prelatical clergy, by bringing in bills to enforce a greater strictness in this respect. a circumstance that occurred in the session of will serve to prove their fanatical violence. a bill having been brought in "for the better observance of the sabbath, usually called sunday," one mr. shepherd, sneering at the puritans, remarked that, as saturday was dies sabbati, this might be entitled a bill for the observance of saturday, commonly called sunday. this witticism brought on his head the wrath of that dangerous assembly. he was reprimanded on his knees, expelled the house, and when he saw what befell poor floyd, might deem himself cheaply saved from their fangs with no worse chastisement.[ ] yet when the upper house sent down their bill with "the lord's day" substituted for "the sabbath," observing, "that people do now much incline to words of judaism," the commons took no exception.[ ] the use of the word sabbath instead of sunday became in that age a distinctive mark of the puritan party. _arminian controversy._--a far more permanent controversy sprang up about the end of the same reign, which afforded a new pretext for intolerance and a fresh source of mutual hatred. every one of my readers is acquainted more or less with the theological tenets of original sin, free will, and predestination, variously taught in the schools, and debated by polemical writers for so many centuries; and few can be ignorant that the articles of our own church, as they relate to these doctrines, have been very differently interpreted, and that a controversy about their meaning has long been carried on with a pertinacity which could not have continued on so limited a topic, had the combatants been merely influenced by the love of truth. those who have no bias to warp their judgment will not perhaps have much hesitation in drawing their line between, though not at an equal distance between, the conflicting parties. it appears, on the other hand, that the articles are worded on some of these doctrines with considerable ambiguity; whether we attribute this to the intrinsic obscurity of the subject, to the additional difficulties with which it had been entangled by theological systems, to discrepancy of opinion in the compilers, or to their solicitude to prevent disunion by adopting formularies which men of different sentiments might subscribe. it is also manifest that their framers came, as it were, with averted eyes to the augustinian doctrine of predestination, and wisely reprehended those who turned their attention to a system so pregnant with objections, and so dangerous, when needlessly dwelt upon, to all practical piety and virtue. but, on the other hand, this very reluctance to inculcate the tenet is so expressed as to manifest their undoubting belief in it; nor is it possible either to assign a motive for inserting the seventeenth article, or to give any reasonable interpretation to it, upon the theory which at present passes for orthodox in the english church. and upon other subjects intimately related to the former, such as the penalty of original sin and the depravation of human nature, the articles, after making every allowance for want of precision, seem totally irreconcilable with the scheme usually denominated arminian. the force of those conclusions, which we must, in my judgment, deduce from the language of these articles, will be materially increased by that appeal of contemporary and other early authorities, to which recourse has been had in order to invalidate them. whatever doubts may be raised as to the calvinism of cranmer and ridley, there can surely be no room for any as to the chiefs of the anglican church under elizabeth. we find explicit proofs that jewel, nowell, sandys, cox, professed to concur with the reformers of zurich and geneva in every point of doctrine.[ ] the works of calvin and bullinger became textbooks in the english universities.[ ] those who did not hold the predestinarian theory were branded with reproach by the names of free-willers and pelagians.[ ] and when the opposite tenets came to be advanced, as they were at cambridge about , a clamour was raised as if some unusual heresy had been broached. whitgift, with the concurrence of some other prelates, in order to withstand its progress, published what were called the lambeth articles, containing the broadest and most repulsive declaration of all the calvinistic tenets. but, lord burleigh having shown some disapprobation, these articles never obtained any legal sanction.[ ] these more rigorous tenets, in fact, especially when so crudely enounced, were beginning to give way. they had been already abandoned by the lutheran church. they had long been opposed in that of rome by the franciscan order, and latterly by the jesuits. above all, the study of the greek fathers, with whom the first reformers had been little conversant, taught the divines of a more learned age, that men of as high a name as augustin, and whom they were prone to over-value, had entertained very different sentiments.[ ] still the novel opinions passed for heterodox, and were promulgated with much vacillation and indistinctness. when they were published in unequivocal propositions by arminius and his school, james declared himself with vehemence against this heresy.[ ] he not only sent english divines to sit in the synod of dort, where the calvinistic system was fully established, but instigated the proceedings against the remonstrants with more of theological pedantry than charity or decorum.[ ] yet this inconsistent monarch within a very few years was so wrought on by one or two favourite ecclesiastics, who inclined towards the doctrines condemned in that assembly, that openly to maintain the augustinian system became almost a sure means of exclusion from preferment in our church. this was carried to its height under charles. laud, his sole counsellor in ecclesiastical matters, advised a declaration enjoining silence on the controverted points; a measure by no means unwise, if it had been fairly acted upon. it is alleged, however, that the preachers on one side only were silenced, the printers of books on one side censured in the star-chamber, while full scope was indulged to the opposite sect.[ ] the house of commons, especially in their last session, took up the increase of arminianism as a public grievance. it was coupled in their remonstrances with popery, as a new danger to religion, hardly less terrible than the former. this bigoted clamour arose in part from the nature of their own calvinistic tenets, which, being still prevalent in the kingdom, would, independently of all political motives, predominate in any popular assembly. but they had a sort of excuse for it in the close, though accidental and temporary, connection that subsisted between the partisans of these new speculative tenets and those of arbitrary power; the churchmen who receded most from calvinism being generally the zealots of prerogative. they conceived also that these theories, conformable in the main to those most countenanced in the church of rome, might pave the way for that restoration of her faith which from so many other quarters appeared to threaten them. nor was this last apprehension so destitute of all plausibility as the advocates of the two first stuarts have always pretended it to be. _state of catholics under james._--james, well instructed in the theology of the reformers, and inured himself to controversial dialectics, was far removed in point of opinion from any bias towards the romish creed. but he had, while in scotland, given rise to some suspicions at the court of elizabeth, by a little clandestine coquetry with the pope, which he fancied to be a politic means of disarming enmity.[ ] some knowledge of this, probably, as well as his avowed dislike of sanguinary persecution, and a foolish reliance on the trifling circumstance that one if not both of his parents had professed their religion, led the english catholics to expect a great deal of indulgence, if not support, at his hands. this hope might receive some encouragement from his speech on opening the parliament of , wherein he intimated his design to revise and explain the penal laws, "which the judges might perhaps," he said, "in times past have too rigorously interpreted." but the temper of those he addressed was very different. the catholics were disappointed by an act inflicting new penalties on recusants, and especially debarring them from educating their children according to their consciences.[ ] the administration took a sudden turn towards severity; the prisons were filled, the penalties exacted, several suffered death,[ ] and the general helplessness of their condition impelled a few persons (most of whom had belonged to what was called the spanish party in the last reign) to the gunpowder conspiracy, unjustly imputed to the majority of catholics, though perhaps extending beyond those who appeared in it.[ ] we cannot wonder that a parliament so narrowly rescued from personal destruction endeavoured to draw the cord still tighter round these dangerous enemies. the statute passed on this occasion is by no means more harsh than might be expected. it required not only attendance on worship, but participation in the communion, as a test of conformity, and gave an option to the king of taking a penalty of £ a month from recusants, or two-thirds of their lands. it prescribed also an oath of allegiance, the refusal of which incurred the penalties of a præmunire. this imported that, notwithstanding any sentence of deprivation or excommunication by the pope, the taker would bear true allegiance to the king, and defend him against any conspiracies which should be made by reason of such sentence or otherwise, and do his best endeavour to disclose them; that he from his heart abhorred, detested, and abjured as impious and heretical, the damnable doctrine and position that princes, excommunicated or deprived by the pope, may be deposed or murdered by their subjects, or any other whatsoever; and that he did not believe that the pope or any other could absolve him from this oath.[ ] except by cavilling at one or two words, it seemed impossible for the roman catholics to decline so reasonable a test of loyalty, without justifying the worst suspicions of protestant jealousy. most of the secular priests in england, asking only a connivance in the exercise of their ministry, and aware how much the good work of reclaiming their apostate countrymen was retarded by the political obloquy they incurred, would have willingly acquiesced in the oath. but the court of rome, not yet receding an inch from her proudest claims, absolutely forbade all catholics to abjure her deposing power by this test, and employed bellarmine to prove its unlawfulness. the king stooped to a literary controversy with this redoubted champion, and was prouder of no exploit of his life than his answer to the cardinal's book; by which he incurred the contempt of foreign courts and of all judicious men.[ ] though neither the murderous conspiracy of , nor this refusal to abjure the principles on which it was founded, could dispose james to persecution, or even render the papist so obnoxious in his eyes as the puritan; yet he was long averse to anything like a general remission of the penal laws. in sixteen instances after this time, the sanguinary enactments of his predecessor were enforced, but only perhaps against priests who refused the oath;[ ] the catholics enjoyed on the whole somewhat more indulgence than before, in respect to the private exercise of their religion; at least enough to offend narrow-spirited zealots, and furnish pretext for the murmurs of a discontented parliament, but under condition of paying compositions for recusancy; a regular annual source of revenue which, though apparently trifling in amount, the king was not likely to abandon, even if his notions of prerogative, and the generally received prejudices of that age, had not determined him against an express toleration.[ ] in the course, however, of that impolitic negotiation, which exposed him to all eyes as the dupe and tool of the court of madrid, james was led on to promise concessions for which his protestant subjects were ill prepared. that court had wrought on his feeble mind by affected coyness about the infanta's marriage, with two private aims; to secure his neutrality in the war of the palatinate, and to obtain better terms for the english catholics. fully successful in both ends, it would probably have at length permitted the union to take place, had not buckingham's rash insolence broken off the treaty; but i am at a loss to perceive the sincere and even generous conduct which some have found in the spanish council during this negotiation.[ ] the king acted with such culpable weakness, as even in him excites our astonishment. buckingham, in his first eagerness for the marriage on arriving in spain, wrote to ask if the king would acknowledge the pope's spiritual supremacy, as the surest means of success. james professed to be much shocked at this, but offered to recognise his jurisdiction as patriarch of the west, to whom ecclesiastical appeals might ultimately be made; a concession as incompatible with the code of our protestant laws as the former. yet with this knowledge of his favourite's disposition, he gave the prince and him a written promise to perform whatever they should agree upon with the court of madrid.[ ] on the treaty being almost concluded, the king, prince, and privy council swore to observe certain stipulated articles, by which the infanta was not only to have the exercise of her religion, but the education of her children till ten years of age. but the king was also sworn to private articles; that no penal laws should be put in force against the catholics, that there should be a perpetual toleration of their religion in private houses, that he and his son would use their authority to make parliament confirm and ratify these articles, and revoke all laws (as it is with strange latitude expressed) containing anything repugnant to the roman catholic religion, and that they would not consent to any new laws against them. the prince of wales separately engaged to procure the suspension or abrogation of the penal laws within three years, and to lengthen the term for the mother's education of their children from ten years to twelve, if it should be in his own power. he promised also to listen to catholic divines, whenever the infanta should desire it.[ ] these secret assurances, when they were whispered in england, might not unreasonably excite suspicion of the prince's wavering in his religion, which he contrived to aggravate by an act as imprudent as it was reprehensible. during his stay at madrid, while his inclinations were still bent on concluding the marriage, the sole apparent obstacle being the pope's delay in forwarding the dispensation, he wrote a letter to gregory xv., in reply to one received from him, in language evidently intended to give an impression of his favourable dispositions towards the romish faith. the whole tenor of his subsequent life must have satisfied every reasonable inquirer into our history, of charles's real attachment to the anglican church; nor could he have had any other aim than to facilitate his arrangements with the court of rome by this deception. it would perhaps be uncandid to judge severely a want of ingenuousness, which youth, love, and bad counsels may extenuate; yet i cannot help remarking that the letter is written with the precautions of a veteran in dissimulation; and, while it is full of what might raise expectation, contains no special pledge that he could be called on to redeem. but it was rather presumptuous to hope that he could foil the subtlest masters of artifice with their own weapons.[ ] james, impatient for this ill-omened alliance, lost no time in fulfilling his private stipulations with spain. he published a general pardon of all penalties already incurred for recusancy. it was designed to follow this up by a proclamation prohibiting the bishops, judges, and other magistrates to execute any penal statute against the catholics. but the lord keeper, bishop williams, hesitated at so unpopular a stretch of power.[ ] and, the rupture with spain ensuing almost immediately, the king, with a singular defiance of all honest men's opinion, though the secret articles of the late treaty had become generally known, declared in his first speech to parliament in , that "he had only thought good sometimes to wink and connive at the execution of some penal laws, and not to go on so rigorously as at other times, but not to dispense with any or to forbid or alter any that concern religion; he never permitted or yielded, he never did think it with his heart, nor spoke it with his mouth."[ ] when james soon after this, not yet taught by experience to avoid a catholic alliance, demanded the hand of henrietta maria for his son, richlieu thought himself bound by policy and honour as well as religion to obtain the same or greater advantages for the english catholics than had been promised in the former negotiation. henrietta was to have the education of her children till they reached the age of twelve; thus were added two years, at a time of life when the mind becomes susceptible of lasting impressions, to the term at which, by the treaty of spain, the mother's superintendence was to cease.[ ] yet there is the strongest reason to believe that this condition was merely inserted for the honour of the french crown, with a secret understanding that it should never be executed.[ ] in fact, the royal children were placed at a very early age under protestant governors of the king's appointment; nor does henrietta appear to have ever insisted on her right. that james and charles should have incurred the scandal of this engagement, since the articles, though called private, must be expected to transpire, without any real intentions of performing it, is an additional instance of that arrogant contempt of public opinion which distinguished the stuart family. it was stipulated in the same private articles, that prisoners on the score of religion should be set at liberty, and that none should be molested in future.[ ] these promises were irregularly fulfilled, according to the terms on which charles stood with his brother-in-law. sometimes general orders were issued to suspend all penal laws against papists; again, by a capricious change of policy, all officers and judges are directed to proceed in their execution; and this severity gave place in its turn to a renewed season of indulgence. if these alterations were not very satisfactory to the catholics, the whole scheme of lenity displeased and alarmed the protestants. tolerance, in any extensive sense, of that proscribed worship was equally abhorrent to the prelatist and the puritan; though one would have winked at its peaceable and domestic exercise, which the other was zealous to eradicate. but, had they been capable of more liberal reasoning upon this subject, there was enough to justify their indignation at this attempt to sweep away the restrictive code established by so many statutes, and so long deemed essential to the security of their church, by an unconstitutional exertion of the prerogative, prompted by no more worthy motive than compliance with a foreign power, and tending to confirm suspicions of the king's wavering between the two religions, or his indifference to either. in the very first months of his reign, and while that parliament was sitting, which has been reproached for its parsimony, he sent a fleet to assist the french king in blocking up the port of rochelle; and with utter disregard of the national honour, ordered the admiral, who reported that the sailors would not fight against protestants, to sail to dieppe, and give up his ships into the possession of france.[ ] his subsequent alliance with the hugonot party in consequence merely of buckingham's unwarrantable hostility to france, founded on the most extraordinary motives, could not redeem, in the eyes of the nation, this instance of lukewarmness, to say the least, in the general cause of the reformation. later ages have had means of estimating the attachment of charles the first to protestantism, which his contemporaries in that early period of his reign did not enjoy; and this has led some to treat the apprehensions of parliament as either insincere or preposterously unjust. but can this be fairly pretended by any one who has acquainted himself with the course of proceedings on the spanish marriage, the whole of which was revealed by the earl of bristol to the house of lords? was there nothing, again, to excite alarm in the frequent conversions of persons of high rank to popery, in the more dangerous partialities of many more, in the evident bias of certain distinguished churchmen to tenets rejected at the reformation? the course pursued with respect to religious matters after the dissolution of parliament in , to which i shall presently advert, did by no means show the misgivings of that assembly to have been ill-founded. it was neither, however, the arminian opinions of the higher clergy, nor even their supposed leaning towards those of rome, that chiefly rendered them obnoxious to the commons. they had studiously inculcated that resistance to the commands of rulers was in every conceivable instance a heinous sin; a tenet so evidently subversive of all civil liberty that it can be little worth while to argue about right and privilege, wherever it has obtained a real hold on the understanding and conscience of a nation. this had very early been adopted by the anglican reformers, as a barrier against the disaffection of those who adhered to the ancient religion, and in order to exhibit their own loyalty in a more favourable light. the homily against wilful disobedience and rebellion was written on occasion of the rising of the northern earls in , and is full of temporary and even personal allusions.[ ] but the same doctrine is enforced in others of those compositions, which enjoy a kind of half authority in the english church. it is laid down in the canons of convocation in . it is very frequent in the writings of english divines, those especially who were much about the court. and an unlucky preacher at oxford, named knight, about , having thrown out some intimation that subjects oppressed by their prince on account of religion might defend themselves by arms; that university, on the king's highly resenting such heresy, not only censured the preacher (who had the audacity to observe that the king by then sending aid to the french hugonots of rochelle, as was rumoured to be designed, had sanctioned his position), but pronounced a solemn decree that it is in no case lawful for subjects to make use of force against their princes, nor to appear offensively or defensively in the field against them. all persons promoted to degrees were to subscribe this article, and to take an oath that they not only at present detested the opposite opinion, but would at no future time entertain it. a ludicrous display of the folly and despotic spirit of learned academies![ ] those, however, who most strenuously denied the abstract right of resistance to unlawful commands, were by no means obliged to maintain the duty of yielding them an active obedience. in the case of religion, it was necessary to admit that god was rather to be obeyed than man. nor had it been pretended, except by the most servile churchmen, that subjects had no positive rights, in behalf of which they might decline compliance with illegal requisitions. this, however, was openly asserted in the reign of charles. those who refused the general loan of , had to encounter assaults from very different quarters, and were not only imprisoned, but preached at. two sermons by sibthorp and mainwaring excited particular attention. these men, eager for preferment which they knew the readiest method to attain, taught that the king might take the subject's money at his pleasure, and that no one might refuse his demand, on penalty of damnation. "parliaments," said mainwaring, "were not ordained to contribute any right to the king, but for the more equal imposing and more easy exacting of that which unto kings doth appertain by natural and original law and justice, as their proper inheritance annexed to their imperial crowns from their birth."[ ] these extravagances of rather obscure men would have passed with less notice, if the government had not given them the most indecent encouragement. abbot, archbishop of canterbury, a man of integrity, but upon that account as well as for his calvinistic partialities, long since obnoxious to the courtiers, refused to license sibthorp's sermon, alleging some unwarrantable passages which it contained. for no other cause than this, he was sequestered from the exercise of his archiepiscopal jurisdiction, and confined to a country-house in kent.[ ] the house of commons, after many complaints of those ecclesiastics, finally proceeded against mainwaring by impeachment at the bar of the lords. he was condemned to pay a fine of £ , to be suspended for three years from his ministry, and to be incapable of holding any ecclesiastical dignity. yet the king almost immediately pardoned mainwaring, who became in a few years a bishop, as sibthorp was promoted to an inferior dignity.[ ] _general remarks._--there seems on the whole to be very little ground for censure in the proceedings of this illustrious parliament. i admit that, if we believe charles the first to have been a gentle and beneficient monarch, incapable of harbouring any design against the liberties of his people, or those who stood forward in defence of their privileges, wise in the choice of his counsellors, and patient in listening to them, the commons may seem to have carried their opposition to an unreasonable length. but, if he had shown himself possessed with such notions of his own prerogative, no matter how derived, as could bear no effective control from fixed law or from the nation's representatives; if he was hasty and violent in temper, yet stooping to low arts of equivocation and insincerity, whatever might be his estimable qualities in other respects, they could act, in the main, no otherwise than by endeavouring to keep him in the power of parliament, lest his power should make parliament but a name. every popular assembly, truly zealous in a great cause, will display more heat and passion than cool-blooded men after the lapse of centuries may wholly approve.[ ] but so far were they from encroaching, as our tory writers pretend, on the just powers of a limited monarch, that they do not appear to have conceived, they at least never hinted at, the securities without which all they had obtained or attempted would become ineffectual. no one member of that house, in the utmost warmth of debate, is recorded to have suggested the abolition of the court of star-chamber, or any provision for the periodical meeting of parliament. though such remedies for the greatest abuses were in reality consonant to the actual unrepealed law of the land; yet, as they implied, in the apprehension of the generality, a retrenchment of the king's prerogative, they had not yet become familiar to their hopes. in asserting the illegality of arbitrary detention, of compulsory loans, of tonnage and poundage levied without consent of parliament, they stood in defence of positive rights won by their fathers, the prescriptive inheritance of englishmen. twelve years more of repeated aggressions taught the long parliament what a few sagacious men might perhaps have already suspected, that they must recover more of their ancient constitution from oblivion, that they must sustain its partial weakness by new securities, that, in order to render the existence of monarchy compatible with that of freedom, they must not only strip it of all it had usurped, but of something that was its own. footnotes: [ ] the general temperance and chastity of charles, and the effect those virtues had in reforming the outward face of the court, are attested by many writers, and especially by mrs. hutchinson, whose good word he would not have undeservedly obtained. _mem. of col. hutchinson_, p. . i am aware that he was not the perfect saint as well as martyr which his panegyrists represent him to have been; but it is an unworthy office, even for the purpose of throwing ridicule on exaggerated praise, to turn the microscope of history on private life. [ ] war had not been declared at charles's accession, nor at the dissolution of the first parliament. in fact, he was much more set upon it than his subjects. hume and all his school keep this out of sight. [ ] hume has disputed this, but with little success, even on his own showing. he observes, on an assertion of wilson, that buckingham lost his popularity after bristol arrived, because he proved that the former, while in spain, had professed himself a papist--that it is false, and _was never said by bristol_. it is singular that hume should know so positively what bristol did not say in , when it is notorious that he said in parliament what nearly comes to the same thing in . see a curious letter in cabala, p. , showing what a combination had been formed against buckingham, of all descriptions of malcontents. [ ] _parl. hist._ vol. ii. p. . [ ] _id._ . [ ] the language of lord-keeper coventry in opening the session was very ill calculated for the spirit of the commons: "if we consider aright, and think of that incomparable distance between the supreme height and majesty of a mighty monarch and the submissive awe and lowliness of loyal subjects, we cannot but receive exceeding comfort and contentment in the frame and constitution of this highest court, wherein not only the prelates, nobles, and grandees, but the commons of all degrees, have their part; and wherein that high majesty doth descend to admit, or rather to invite, the humblest of his subjects to conference and counsel with him," etc. he gave them a distinct hint afterwards that they must not expect to sit long. _parl. hist._ . [ ] _parl. hist._ . i know of nothing under the tudors of greater arrogance than this language. sir dudley carleton, accustomed more to foreign negotiations than to an english house of commons, gave very just offence by descanting on the misery of the people in other countries. "he cautioned them not to make the king out of love with parliaments by incroaching on his prerogative; for in his messages he had told them that he must then use new councils. in all christian kingdoms there were parliaments anciently, till the monarchs seeing their turbulent spirits, stood upon their prerogatives, and overthrew them all, except with us. in foreign countries the people look not like ours, with store of flesh on their backs; but like ghosts, being nothing but skin and bones, with some thin cover to their nakedness, and wearing wooden shoes on their feet; a misery beyond expression, and that we are yet free from; and let us not lose the repute of a free-born nation by our turbulency in parliament." rushworth. this was a hint, in the usual arrogant style of courts, that the liberties of the people depended on favour, and not on their own determination to maintain them. [ ] _parl. hist._ ; hatsell, i. ; lords' journals. a few peers refused to join in this. dr. lingard has observed that the opposition in the house of lords was headed by the earl of pembroke, who had been rather conspicuous in the late reign, and whose character is drawn by clarendon in the first book of history. he held ten proxies in the king's first parliament, as buckingham did thirteen. lingard, ix. . in the second pembroke had had only five, but the duke still came with thirteen. lords' journals, p. . this enormous accumulation of suffrages in one person led to an order of the house, which is now its established regulation, that no peer can hold more than two proxies. lords' journals, p. . [ ] _parl. hist._ ; hatsell, . [ ] mr. brodie has commented rather too severely on bristol's conduct. vol. ii. p. . that he was "actuated merely by motives of self-aggrandisement," is surely not apparent; though he might be more partial to spain than we may think right, or even though he might have some bias towards the religion of rome. the last, however, is by no means proved; for the king's word is no proof in my eyes. [ ] see the proceedings on the mutual charges of buckingham and bristol in rushworth, or the _parliamentary history_. charles's behaviour is worth noticing. he sent a message to the house, desiring that they would not comply with the earl's request of being allowed counsel; and yielded ungraciously, when the lords remonstrated against the prohibition. _parl. hist._ , . the attorney-general exhibited articles against bristol as to facts depending in great measure on the king's sole testimony. bristol petitioned the house "to take in consideration of what consequence such a precedent might be; and thereon most humbly to move his majesty for the declining, at least, of his majesty's accusation and testimony." _id._ . the house ordered two questions on this to be put to the judges: . whether, in case of treason or felony, the king's testimony was to be admitted or not? . whether words spoken to the prince, who is after king, make any alteration in the case? they were ordered to deliver their opinions three days afterwards. but when the time came, the chief justice informed the house that the attorney-general had communicated to the judges his majesty's pleasure that they should forbear to give an answer. _id._ , . hume says, "charles himself was certainly deceived by buckingham, when he corroborated his favourite's narrative by his testimony." but no assertion can be more gratuitous; the supposition indeed is impossible. [ ] _parl. hist._ . if the following letter is accurate, the privy-council themselves were against this dissolution: "yesterday the lords sitting in council at whitehall to argue whether the parliament should be dissolved or not, were all with one voice against the dissolution of it; and to-day, when the lord keeper drew out the commission to have read it, they sent four of their own body to his majesty to let him know how dangerous this abruption would be to the state, and beseech him the parliament might sit but two days--he answered not a minute."-- june, . mede's letters, _ubi supra_. the author expresses great alarm at what might be the consequence of this step. mede ascribes this to the council; but others, perhaps more probably, to the house of peers. the king's expression "not a minute" is mentioned by several writers. [ ] rushworth, kennet. [ ] mede's letters--"on monday the judges sat in westminster-hall to persuade the people to pay subsidies; but there arose a great tumultuous shout amongst them: 'a parliament! a parliament! else no subsidies!' the levying of the subsidies, verbally granted in parliament, being propounded to the subsidy men in westminster, all of them, saving some thirty among five thousand (and they all the king's servants), cried 'a parliament! a parliament!' etc. the same was done in middlesex on monday also, in five or six places, but far more are said to have refused the grant. at hicks's hall the men of middlesex assembled there, when they had heard a speech for the purpose, made their obeisance; and so went out without any answer affirmative or negative. in kent the whole county denied, saying that subsidies were matters of too high a nature for them to meddle withal, and that they durst not deal therewith, lest, hereafter they might be called in question." july , _et post_. in harleian mss. xxxvii. fol. , we find a letter from the king to the deputy lieutenant and justices of every county, informing them that he had dissolved the last parliament because the disordered passion of some members of that house, contrary to the good inclination of the greater and wiser sort of them, had frustrated the grant of four subsidies, and three-fifteenths, where they had promised; he therefore enjoins the deputy lieutenants to cause all the troops and bands of the county to be mustered, trained, and ready to march, as he is threatened with invasion; that the justices do divide the county into districts, and appoint in each able persons to collect and receive moneys, promising the parties to employ them in the common defence; to send a list of those who contribute and those who refuse, "that we may hereby be informed who are well affected to our service, and who are otherwise." july , . it is evident that the pretext of invasion, which was utterly improbable, was made use of in order to shelter the king's illegal proceedings. [ ] rushworth's abr. i. . [ ] the st volume of hargrave mss. p. , contains minutes of a debate at the council-table during the interval between the second and third parliaments of charles, taken by a counsellor. it was proposed to lay an excise on beer; others suggested that it should be on malt, on account of what was brewed in private houses. it was then debated "how to overcome difficulties, whether by persuasion or force. persuasion, it was thought, would not gain it; and for judicial courses, it would not hold against the subject that would stand upon the right of his own property, and against the fundamental constitutions of the kingdom. the last resort was to a proclamation; for in star-chamber it might be punishable, and thereupon it rested." there follows much more; it seemed to be agreed that there was such a necessity as might justify the imposition; yet a sort of reluctance is visible even among these timid counsellors. the king pressed it forward much. in the same volume (p. ) we find other proceedings at the council-table, whereof the subject was, the censuring or punishing of some one who had refused to contribute to the loan of on the ground of its illegality. the highest language is held by some of the conclave in this debate. mr. d'israeli has collected from the same copious reservoir, the manuscripts of the british museum, several more illustrations, both of the arbitrary proceedings of the council, and of the bold spirit with which they were resisted. _curiosities of literature_, new series, iii. . but this ingenious author is too much imbued with "the monstrous faith of many made for one," and sets the private feelings of charles for an unworthy and dangerous minion, above the liberties and interests of the nation. [ ] rushworth, kennet. [ ] see above, in chap. v. coke himself, while chief justice, had held that one committed by the privy-council was not bailable by any court in england. _parl. hist._ . he had nothing to say when pressed with this in the next parliament, but that he had misgrounded his opinion upon a certain precedent, which being nothing to the purpose, he was now assured his opinion was as little to the purpose. _id._ ; _state trials_, iii. . [ ] _state trials_, iii. - ; _parl. hist._ , , etc.; rushworth. [ ] at the council-table, some proposing a parliament, the king said, he did abominate the name. mede's letters, th sept. . [ ] rushworth; mede's letters in harl. mss. _passim_. [ ] rushworth's abr. i. ; cabala, part ii. . see what is said of this by mr. brodie, ii. . [ ] a commission addressed to lord wimbledon, th dec. , empowers him to proceed against soldiers or dissolute persons joining with them, who should commit any robberies, etc., which by martial law ought to be punished with death, by such summary course as is agreeable to martial law, etc. rymer, xviii. . another, in , may be found. p. . it is unnecessary to point out how unlike these commissions are to our present mutiny-bills. [ ] bishop williams, as we are informed by his biographer, though he promoted the petition of right, stickled for the additional clause adopted by the lords, reserving the king's sovereign power; which very justly exposed him to suspicion of being corrupted. for that he was so is most evident by what follows; where we are told that he had an interview with the duke of buckingham, when they were reconciled; and "his grace had the bishop's consent with a little asking, that he would be his grace's faithful servant in the next session of parliament, and was allowed to hold up a seeming enmity, and his own popular estimation, that he might the sooner do the work." hacket's _life of williams_, pp. , . with such instances of baseness and treachery in the public men of this age, surely the distrust of the commons was not so extravagant as the school of hume pretend. [ ] the debates and conferences on this momentous subject, especially on the article of the habeas corpus, occupy near two hundred columns in the _new parliamentary history_, to which i refer the reader. in one of these conferences, the lords, observing what a prodigious weight of legal ability was arrayed on the side of the petition, very fairly determined to hear counsel for the crown. one of these, serjeant ashley, having argued in behalf of the prerogative in a high tone, such as had been usual in the late reign, was ordered into custody; and the lords assured the other house, that he had no authority from them for what he had said. _id._ . a remarkable proof of the rapid growth of popular principles! [ ] hargrave mss. xxxii. . [ ] _parl. hist._ . [ ] stat. car. i. c. . hume has printed in a note the whole statute with the preamble, which i omit for the sake of brevity, and because it may be found in so common a book. [ ] _parl. hist._ . [ ] rushworth abr. i. . [ ] _parl. hist._ , etc. [ ] cawdrey's case, reports; cro. jac. ; neal, p. . the latter says, above three hundred were deprived; but collier reduces them to forty-nine. p. . the former writer states the nonconformist ministers at this time in twenty-four counties to have been ; of course the whole number was much greater. p. . this minority was considerable; but it is chiefly to be noticed, that it contained the more exemplary portion of the clergy; no scandalous or absolutely illiterate incumbent, of whom there was a very large number, being a nonconformist. this general enforcement of conformity, however it might compel the majority's obedience, rendered the separation of the incompliant more decided. neal, . many retired to holland, especially of the brownist, or independent denomination. _id._ . and bancroft, like his successor laud, interfered to stop some who were setting out for virginia. _id._ . [ ] lord bacon, in his advertisement respecting the _controversies of the church of england_, written under elizabeth, speaks of this notion as newly broached. "yea and some indiscreet persons have been bold in open preaching to use dishonourable and derogatory speech and censure of the churches abroad; and that so far, as some of our men ordained in foreign parts have been pronounced to be no lawful ministers."--vol. i. p. . it is evident, by some passages in strype, attentively considered, that natives regularly ordained abroad in the presbyterian churches were admitted to hold preferment in england; the first bishop who objected to them seems to have been aylmer. instances, however, of foreigners holding preferment without any re-ordination, may be found down to the civil wars. _annals of reformation_, ii. , and appendix, ; _life of grindal_, ; collier, ii. ; neal, i. . the divine right of episcopacy is said to have been laid down by bancroft, in his famous sermon at paul's cross, in . but i do not find anything in it to that effect. it is, however, pretty distinctly asserted, if i mistake not the sense, in the canons of . overall's _convocation book_, , etc. yet laud had been reproved by the university of oxford in , for maintaining, in his exercise for bachelor of divinity, that there could be no true church without bishops, which was thought to cast a bone of contention between the church of england and the reformed upon the continent. heylin's _life of laud_, . cranmer and some of the original founders of the anglican church, so far from maintaining the divine and indispensable right of episcopal government, held bishops and priests to be the same order. [ ] see the queen's injunctions of (_somers tracts_, i. ), and compare preamble of and of edw. vi. c. . [ ] the first of these sabbatarians was a dr. bound, whose sermon was suppressed by whitgift's order. but some years before, one of martin mar-prelate's charges against aylmer was for playing at bowls on sundays: and the word sabbath as applied to that day may be found occasionally under elizabeth, though by no means so usual as afterwards. one of bound's recommendations was that no feasts should be given on that day, "except by lords, knights, and persons of quality;" for which unlucky reservation his adversaries did not forget to deride him. fuller's _church history_, p. . this writer describes in his quaint style the abstinence from sports produced by this new doctrine; and remarks, what a slight acquaintance with human nature would have taught archbishop laud, that "the more liberty people were offered, the less they used it; it was sport for them to refrain from sport." see also collier, ; neal, ; strype's _whitgift_, ; may's _hist. of parliament_, . [ ] heylin's _life of laud_, ; fuller, part ii. p. . the regulations enacted at various times since the reformation for the observance of abstinence in as strict a manner, though not ostensibly on the same grounds, as it is enjoined in the church of rome, may deserve some notice. a statute of ( and edward vi. c. ), after reciting that one day or one kind of meat is not more holy, pure, or clean than another, and much else to the same effect, yet "forasmuch as divers of the king's subjects, turning their knowledge therein to gratify their sensuality, have of late more than in times past broken and contemned such abstinence, which hath been used in this realm upon the fridays and saturdays, the embering days and other days commonly called vigils, and in the time commonly called lent, and other accustomed times; the king's majesty considering that due and godly abstinence is a mean to virtue and to subdue men's bodies to their soul and spirit, and considering also especially that fishers and men using the trade of fishing in the sea may thereby the rather be set on work, and that by eating of fish much flesh shall be saved and increased," enacts, after repealing all existing laws on the subject, that such as eat flesh at the forbidden seasons shall incur a penalty of ten shillings, or ten days' imprisonment _without flesh_, and a double penalty for the second offence. the next statute relating to abstinence is one ( th eliz. c. ) entirely for the increase of the fishery. it enacts (§ , etc.) that no one, unless having a licence, shall eat flesh on fish-days, or on wednesdays, now made an additional fish-day, under a penalty of £ , or three months' imprisonment. except that every one having three dishes of sea-fish at his table, might have one of flesh also. but "because no manner of person shall misjudge of the intent of this statute," it is enacted that whosoever shall notify that any eating of fish or forbearing of flesh mentioned therein is of any necessity for the saving of the soul of man, or that it is the service of god, otherwise than as other politic laws are and be; that then such persons shall be punished as spreaders of false news (§ and ). the act th eliz. c. , repeals the prohibition as to wednesday; and provides that no victuallers shall vend flesh in lent, nor upon fridays or saturdays, under a penalty. the th eliz. c. , § , reduces the penalty of three pounds or three months' imprisonment, enacted by th of eliz. to one-third. this is the latest statute that appears on the subject. many proclamations appear to have been issued in order to enforce an observance so little congenial to the propensities of englishmen. one of those in the first year of edward was before any statute; and its very words respecting the indifference of meats in a religious sense were adopted by the legislature the next year. strype's _eccles. memor._ ii. . in one of elizabeth's, a.d. , as in the statute of edward, the political motives of the prohibition seem in some measure associated with the superstition it disclaims; for eating in the season of lent is called "licentious and carnal disorder, in contempt of god and man, and only to the satisfaction of devilish and carnal appetite;" and butchers, etc., "ministering to such foul lust of the flesh," were severely mulcted. strype's _annals_, ii. . but in another proclamation to the same effect uses no such hard words, and protests strongly against any superstitious interpretation of its motive. _life of grindal_, p. . so also in (strype's _annals_, ii. ), and, as far as i have observed, in all of a later date, the encouragement of the navy and fishery is set forth as their sole ground. in , whitgift, by the queen's command, issued letters to the bishops of his province, to take order that the fasting-days, wednesday and friday, should be kept, and no suppers eaten, especially on friday evens. this was on account of the great dearth of that and the preceding year. strype's _whitgift_, p. . these proclamations for the observance of lent continued under james and charles, as late, i presume, as the commencement of the civil war. they were diametrically opposed to the puritan tenets; for, notwithstanding the pretext about the fishery, there is no doubt that the dominant ecclesiastics maintained the observance of lent as an ordinance of the church. but i suspect that little regard was paid to friday and saturday as days of weekly fast. rymer, xvii. , , ; xviii. , , . this abstemious system, however, was only compulsory on the poor. licences were easily obtained by others from the privy-council in edward's days, and afterwards from the bishop. they were empowered, with their guests, to eat flesh on all fasting-days for life. sometimes the number of guests was limited. thus the marquis of winchester had permission for twelve friends; and john sanford, draper of gloucester, for two. strype's _memorials_, ii. . the act above mentioned for encouragement of the fishery, th eliz. c. , provides that £ _s._ _d._ shall be paid for granting every licence, and _s._ _d._ annually afterwards, to the poor of the parish. but no licence was to be granted for eating beef at any time of the year, or veal from michaelmas to the first of may. a melancholy privation to our countrymen! but, i have no doubt, little regarded. strype makes known to us the interesting fact, that ambrose potter, of gravesend, and his wife, had permission from archbishop whitgift "to eat flesh and white meats in lent, during their lives; so that it was done soberly and frugally, cautiously, and avoiding public scandal as much as might be, and giving _s._ _d._ annually to the poor of the parish." _life of whitgift_, . the civil wars did not so put an end to the compulsory observance of lent and fish days but that similar proclamations are found after the restoration, i know not how long. kennet's register, p. and . and some orthodox anglicans continued to make a show of fasting. the following extracts from pepys' diary are, perhaps, characteristic of the class. "i called for a dish of fish which we had for dinner, this being the first day of lent; and i do intend to try whether i can keep it or no." feb. , . "notwithstanding my resolution, yet for want of other victuals, i did eat flesh this lent, but am resolved to eat as little as i can." [ ] wilson, . [ ] debates in parliament, , vol. i. pp. , . the king requested them not to pass this bill, being so directly against his proclamation. _id._ . shepherd's expulsion is mentioned in mede's letters, harl. mss. . [ ] vol. ii. . two acts were passed ( car. i. c. and car i. c. ) for the better observance of sunday; the former of which gave great annoyance, it seems, to the orthodox party. "had any such bill," says heylin, "been offered in king james's time, it would have found a sorry welcome; but this king being under a necessity of compliance with them, resolved to grant them their desires in that particular, to the end that they might grant his also in the aid required, when that obstruction was removed. the sabbatarians took the benefit of this opportunity for the obtaining of this grant, the first that ever they obtained by all their strugglings, which of what consequence it was we shall see hereafter." _life of laud_, p. . yet this statute permits the people lawful sports and pastimes on sundays within their own parishes. [ ] without loading the page with too many references on a subject so little connected with this work, i mention strype's _annals_, vol. i. p. , and a letter from jewel to p. martyr in burnet, vol. iii. appendix . [ ] collier, . [ ] strype's _annals_, i. , . [ ] strype's _whitgift_, - . [ ] it is admitted on all hands that the greek fathers did not inculcate the predestinarian system. elizabeth having begun to read some of the fathers, bishop cox writes of it with some disapprobation, adverting especially to the pelagianism of chrysostom and the other greeks. strype's _annals_, i. . [ ] winwood, iii. . the intemperate and even impertinent behaviour of james in pressing the states of holland to inflict some censure or punishment on vorstius, is well known. but though vorstius was an arminian, it was not precisely on account of those opinions that he incurred the king's peculiar displeasure, but for certain propositions as to the nature of the deity, which james called atheistical, but which were in fact arian. the letters on this subject in winwood are curious. even at this time, the king is said to have spoken moderately of predestination as a dubious point (p. ), though he had treated arminius as a mischievous innovator for raising a question about it; and this is confirmed by his letter to the states in . brandt, iii. ; and see p. ; see collier, p. , for the king's sentiments in ; also brandt, iii. . [ ] sir dudley carleton's _letters and negotiations, passim_; brandt's _history of reformation in low countries_, vol. iii. the english divines sent to this synod were decidedly inclined to calvinism, but they spoke of themselves as deputed by the king, not by the church of england which they did not represent. [ ] there is some obscurity about the rapid transition of the court from calvinism to the opposite side. it has been supposed that the part taken by james at the synod of dort was chiefly political, with a view to support the house of orange against the party headed by barnevelt. but he was so much more of a theologian than a statesman, that i much doubt whether this will account satisfactorily for his zeal in behalf of the gomarists. he wrote on the subject with much polemical bitterness, but without reference, so far as i have observed, to any political faction; though sir dudley carleton's letters show that _he_ contemplated the matter as a minister ought to do. heylin intimates that the king grew "more moderate afterwards, and into a better liking of those opinions which he had laboured to condemn at the synod of dort." _life of laud_, . the court language, indeed, shifted so very soon after this, that antonio de dominis, the famous half-converted archbishop of spalato, is said to have invented the name of doctrinal puritans for those who distinguished themselves by holding the calvinistic tenets. yet the synod of dort was in ; while de dominis left england not later than . buckingham seems to have gone very warmly into laud's scheme of excluding the calvinists. the latter gave him a list of divines on charles's accession, distinguishing their names by o. and p. for orthodox and puritan; including several tenets in the latter denomination, besides those of the quinquarticular controversy; such as the indispensable observance of the lord's day, the indiscrimination of bishops and presbyters, etc. _life of laud_, . the influence of laud became so great that to preach in favour of calvinism, though commonly reputed to be the doctrine of the church, incurred punishment in any rank. davenant, bishop of salisbury, one of the divines sent to dort, and reckoned among the principal theologians of that age, was reprimanded on his knees before the privy-council for this offence. collier, p. . but in james's reign the university of oxford was decidedly calvinistic. a preacher, about , having used some suspicious expressions, was compelled to recant them, and to maintain the following theses in the divinity school: decretum prædestinationis non est conditionale--gratia sufficiens ad salutem non conceditur omnibus. wood, ii. . and i suppose it continued so in the next reign, so far as the university's opinions could be manifested. but laud took care that no one should be promoted, as far as he could help it, who held these tenets. [ ] winwood, vol. i. pp. , , ; _lettres d'ossat_, i. ; birch's _negotiations of edmondes_, p. . these references do not relate to the letter said to have been forged in the king's name, and addressed to clement viii. by lord balmerino. but laing, _hist. of scotland_, iii. , and birch's _negotiations_, etc. , render it almost certain that this letter was genuine, which indeed has been generally believed by men of sense. james was a man of so little consistency or sincerity that it is difficult to solve the problem of this clandestine intercourse. but it might very likely proceed from his dread of being excommunicated, and, in consequence, assassinated. in a proclamation, commanding all jesuits and priests to quit the realm, dated in , he declares himself personally "so much beholden to the new bishop of rome for his kind office and private temporal carriage towards us in many things, as we shall ever be ready to requite the same towards him as bishop of rome in state and condition of a secular prince." rymer, xvi. . this is explained by a passage in the memoirs of sully (l. ). clement viii., though before elizabeth's death he had abetted the project of placing arabella on the throne, thought it expedient, after this design had failed, to pay some court to james, and had refused to accept the dedication of a work written against him, besides, probably, some other courtesies. there is a letter from the king addressed to the pope, and probably written in , among the cottonian mss. nero b. vi. , which shows his disposition to coax and coquet with the babylonian, against whom he so much inveighs in his printed works. it seems that clement had so far presumed as to suggest that the prince of wales should be educated a catholic; which the king refuses, but not in so strong a manner as he should have done. i cannot recollect whether this letter has been printed, though i can scarcely suppose the contrary. persons himself began to praise the works of james, and show much hope of what he would do. cotton, jul. b. vi. . the severities against catholics seem at first to have been practically mitigated. winwood, ii. . archbishop hutton wrote to cecil, complaining of the toleration granted to papists, while the puritans were severely treated. _id._ p. ; lodge, iii. . "the former," he says, "partly by this round dealing with the puritans, and partly by some extraordinary favour, have grown mightily in number, courage, and influence."--"if the gospel shall quail, and popery prevail, it will be imputed principally unto your great counsellors, who either procure or yield to grant toleration to some." james told some gentlemen who petitioned for toleration, that the utmost they could expect was connivance. carte, iii. . this seems to have been what he intended through his reign, till importuned by spain and france to promise more. [ ] jac. i. c. . the penalties of recusancy were particularly hard upon women, who, as i have observed in another place, adhered longer to the old religion than the other sex; and still more so upon those who had to pay for their scruples. it was proposed in parliament, but with the usual fate of humane suggestions, that husbands going to church, should not be liable for their wives' recusancy. carte, . but they had the alternative afterwards, by jac. i. c. , of letting their wives lie in prison or paying £ a month. [ ] lingard, ix. , . [ ] from comparing some passages in sir charles cornwallis's despatches, (winwood, vol. ii. pp. , , , with others in birch's account of sir thomas edmondes's negotiations, p. , _et seq._) it appears that the english catholics were looking forward at this time to some crisis in their favour, and that even the court of spain was influenced by their hopes. a letter from sir thomas parry to edmondes, dated at paris, oct. , is remarkable: "our priests are very busy about petitions to be exhibited to the king's majesty at this parliament, and some further designs upon refusal. these matters are secretly managed by intelligence with their colleagues in those parts where you reside, and with the two nuncios. i think it were necessary for his majesty's service that you found means to have privy spies amongst them, to discover their negotiations. something is at present in hand amongst these desperate hypocrites, which i trust god shall divert by the vigilant care of his majesty's faithful servants and friends abroad, and prudence of his council at home." birch, p. . there seems indeed some ground for suspicion that the nuncio at brussels was privy to the conspiracy; though this ought not to be asserted as an historical fact. whether the offence of garnet went beyond misprision of treason has been much controverted. the catholic writers maintain that he had no knowledge of the conspiracy, except by having heard it in confession. but this rests altogether on his word; and the prevarication of which he has been proved to be guilty (not to mention the damning circumstance that he was taken at hendlip in concealment along with the other conspirators), makes it difficult for a candid man to acquit him of a thorough participation in their guilt. compare townsend's _accusations of history against the church of rome_ ( ), p. , containing extracts from some important documents in the state paper-office, not as yet published, with _state trials_, vol. ii.; and see lingard, ix. , etc. yet it should be kept in mind that it was easy for a few artful persons to keep on the alert by indistinct communications a credulous multitude whose daily food was rumour; and the general hopes of the english romanists at the moment are not evidence of their privity to the gunpowder-treason, which was probably contrived late, and imparted to very few. but to deny that there was such a plot, or, which is the same thing, to throw the whole on the contrivance and management of cecil, as has sometimes been done, argues great effrontery in those who lead, and great stupidity in those who follow. the letter to lord monteagle, the discovery of the powder, the simultaneous rising in arms in warwickshire, are as indisputable as any facts in history. what then had cecil to do with the plot, except that he hit upon the clue to the dark allusions in the letter to monteagle, of which he was courtier enough to let the king take the credit? james's admirers have always reckoned this, as he did himself, a vast proof of sagacity; yet there seems no great acuteness in the discovery, even if it had been his own. he might have recollected the circumstances of his father's catastrophe, which would naturally put him on the scent of gunpowder. in point of fact, however, the happy conjecture appears to be cecil's. winwood, ii. . but had he no previous hint? see lodge, iii. . the earl of northumberland was not only committed to the tower on suspicion of privity in the plot, but lay fourteen years there, and paid a fine of £ , (by composition for £ , ), before he was released. lingard, ix. . it appears almost incredible that a man of his ability, though certainly of a dangerous and discontented spirit, and rather destitute of religion than a zealot for popery, which he did not, i believe, openly profess, should have mingled in so flagitious a design. there is indeed a remarkable letter in winwood, vol. iii. p. , which tends to corroborate the suspicions entertained of him. but this letter is from salisbury, his inveterate enemy. every one must agree, that the fine imposed on this nobleman was preposterous. were we even to admit that suspicion might justify his long imprisonment, a participation in one of the most atrocious conspiracies recorded in history was, if proved, to be more severely punished; if unproved, not at all. [ ] jac. i. c. , . [ ] carte, iii. ; collier, ; butler's _memoirs of catholics_; lingard, vol. ix. ; aikin, i. . it is observed by collier, ii. , and indeed by the king himself, in his _apology for the oath of allegiance_ (edit. ), p. , that bellarmine plainly confounds the oath of allegiance with that of supremacy. but this cannot be the whole of the case; it is notorious that bellarmine protested against any denial of the pope's deposing power. [ ] lingard, ix. . drury, executed in , was one of the twelve priests who, in , had signed a declaration of the queen's right to the crown, notwithstanding her excommunication. but, though he evidently wavered, he could not be induced to say as much now in order to save his life. _state trials_, ii. . [ ] lord bacon, wise in all things, always recommended mildness towards recusants. in a letter to villiers, in , he advises that the oath of supremacy should by no means be tendered to recusant magistrates in ireland; "the new plantation of protestants," he says, "must mate the other party in time." vol. ii. p. . this has not indeed proved true; yet as much, perhaps, for want of following bacon's advice, as for any other cause. he wished for a like toleration in england. but the king, as buckingham lets him know, was of a quite contrary opinion; for, "though he would not by any means have a more severe course held than his laws appoint in that case, yet there are many reasons why there should be no mitigation above that which his laws have exerted, and his own conscience telleth him to be fit." he afterwards professes "to account it a baseness in a prince to show such a desire of the match [this was in ] as to slack anything in his course of government, much more in propagation of the religion he professeth, for fear of giving hinderance to the match thereby."--page . what a contrast to the behaviour of this same king six years afterwards! the commons were always dissatisfied with lenity, and complained that the lands of recusants were undervalued; as they must have been, if the king got only £ per annum by the compositions. debates in , vol. i. pp. , . but he valued those in england and ireland at £ , . lingard, , from _hardwicke papers_. [ ] the absurd and highly blamable conduct of buckingham has created a prejudice in favour of the court of madrid. that they desired the marriage is easy to be believed; but that they would have ever sincerely co-operated for the restoration of the palatinate, or even withdrawn the spanish troops from it, is neither rendered probable by the general policy of that government, nor by the conduct it pursued in the negotiation. compare _hardwicke state papers_, vol. i.; cabala, , _et post_; howell's _letters_; _clarendon state papers_, vol. i. _ad initium_, especially p. . a very curious paper in the latter collection (p. ) may be thought, perhaps, to throw light on buckingham's projects, and account in some measure for his sudden enmity to spain. during his residence at madrid in , a secretary who had been dissatisfied with the court revealed to him a pretended secret discovery of gold mines in a part of america, and suggested that they might be easily possessed by any association that could command seven or eight hundred men; and that after having made such a settlement, it would be easy to take the spanish flotilla, and attempt the conquest of jamaica and st. domingo. this made so great an impression on the mind of buckingham, that, long afterwards in , he entered into a contract with gustavus adolphus, who bound himself to defend him against all opposers in the possession of these mines, as an absolute prince and sovereign, on condition of receiving one-tenth of the profits; promising especially his aid against any puritans who might attack him from barbadoes or elsewhere, and to furnish him with four thousand men and six ships of war, to be paid out of the revenue of the mines. this is a very strange document, if genuine. it seems to show that buckingham, aware of his unpopularity in england, and that sooner or later he must fall, and led away, as so many were, by the expectation of immense wealth in america, had contrived this arrangement, which was probably intended to take place only in the event of his banishment from england. the share that gustavus appears to have taken in so wild a plan is rather extraordinary, and may expose the whole to some suspicion. it is not clear how this came among the clarendon papers; but the indorsement runs: "presented, and the design attempted and in some measure attained by cromwell, anno ." i should conjecture therefore that some spy of the king's procured the copy from cromwell's papers. i have since found that harte had seen a sketch of this treaty, but he does not tell us by what means. _hist. gust. adolph._ i. . but that prince, in , laid before the diet of sweden a plan for establishing a commerce with the west indies; for which sums of money were subscribed. _id._ . [ ] _hardwicke papers_, pp. , , . the very curious letters in this collection relative to the spanish match are the vouchers for my text. it appears by one of secretary conway's, since published (ellis, iii. ), that the king was in great distress at the engagement for a complete immunity from penal laws for the catholics, entered into by the prince and buckingham; but, on full deliberation in the council, it was agreed that he must adhere to his promise. this rash promise was the cause of his subsequent prevarications. [ ] _hardwicke papers_; rushworth. [ ] _hardwicke papers_, p. , where the letter is printed in latin. the translation in wilson, rushworth, and cabala, p. , is not by any means exact, going in several places much beyond the original. if hume knew nothing but the translation, as is most probable, we may well be astonished at his way of dismissing this business; that "the prince having received a very civil letter from the pope, he was induced to return a very civil answer." clarendon saw it in a different light. _clar. state papers_, ii. . urban viii. had succeeded gregory xv. before the arrival of charles's letter. he answered it, of course, in a style of approbation, and so as to give the utmost meaning to the prince's compliments, expressing his satisfaction, "cum pontificem romanum ex officii genere colere princeps britannus inciperet," etc. rushworth, vol. i. p. . it is said by howell, who was then on the spot, that the prince never used the service of the church of england while he was at madrid, though two chaplains, church-plate, etc., had been sent over. howell's _letters_, p. . bristol and buckingham charged each other with advising charles to embrace the romish religion; and he himself, in a letter to bristol, jan. , - , imputes this to him in the most positive terms. cabal p. , to edit. as to buckingham's willingness to see this step taken, there can, i presume, be little doubt. [ ] rushworth; cabala, p. . [ ] _parl. hist._ . both houses, however, joined in an address that the laws against recusants might be put in execution (_id._ ); and the commons returned again to the charge afterwards. _idem_, . [ ] rushworth. [ ] see a series of letters from lord kensington (better known afterwards as earl of holland), the king's ambassador at paris for this marriage-treaty; in the appendix to _clarendon state papers_, vol. ii. pp. v. viii. ix. [ ] _hardwicke papers_, i. . birch, in one of those volumes given by him to the british museum (and which ought to be published according to his own intention), has made several extracts from the ms. despatches of tillieres, the french ambassador, which illustrate this negotiation. the pope, it seems, stood off from granting the dispensation, requiring that the english catholic clergy should represent to him their approbation of the marriage. he was informed that the cardinal had obtained terms much more favourable for the catholics than in the spanish treaty. in short, they evidently fancied themselves to have gained a full assurance of toleration; nor could the match have been effected on any other terms. the french minister writes to louis xiii. from london, october , , that he had obtained a supersedeas of all prosecutions, more than themselves expected, or could have believed possible; "en somme, un acte très publique, et qui fut résolu en plein conseil, le dit roi l'ayant assemblé exprès pour cela le jour d'hier." the pope agreed to appoint a bishop for england, nominated by the king of france. oct. . the oath of allegiance, however, was a stumbling-block; the king could not change it by his own authority, and establish another in parliament, "où la faction des puritains prédomine, de sorte qu'ils peuvent ce qu'ils veulent." buckingham, however, promised "de nous faire obtenir l'assurance que votre majesté désire tant, que les catholiques de ce pais ne seront jamais inquiétés pour le raison du serment de fidélité, du quel votre majesté a si souvent ouï parler." dec. . he speaks the same day of an audience he had of king james, who promised never to persecute his catholic subjects, nor desire of them any oath which spoke of the pope's spiritual authority, "mais seulement un acte de la reconnoissance de la domination temporelle qui dieu lui a donnée, et qu'ils auroient en considération de votre majesté, et de la confiance que vous prenez en sa parole, beaucoup plus de liberté qu'ils n'auroient eu en vertu des articles du traité d'espagne." the french advised that no parliament should be called till henrietta should come over, "de qui la présence serviroit de bride aux puritains." it is not wonderful, with all this good-will on the part of their court, that the english catholics should now send a letter to request the granting of the dispensation. a few days after, dec. , the ambassador announces the king's letter to the archbishops, directing them to stop the prosecution of catholics, the enlargement of prisoners on the score of religion, and the written promises of the king and prince to let the catholics enjoy more liberty than they would have had by virtue of the treaty with spain. on the credit of this, louis wrote on the rd of january to request six or eight ships of war to employ against soubise, the chief of the hugonots; with which, as is well known, charles complied in the ensuing summer. the king's letter above mentioned does not, i believe, appear. but his ambassadors, carlisle and holland, had promised in his name that he would give a written promise, on the word and honour of a king, which the prince and a secretary of state should also sign, that all his roman catholic subjects should enjoy more freedom as to their religion than they could have had by any articles agreed on with spain; not being molested in their persons or property for their profession and exercise of their religion, provided they used their liberty with moderation, and rendered due submission to the king, who would not force them to any oath contrary to their religion. this was signed th nov. _hardw. pap._ . yet after this concession on the king's part, the french cabinet was encouraged by it to ask for "a direct and public toleration, not by connivance, promise, or _écrit_ secret, but by a public notification to all the roman catholics, and that of all his majesty's kingdoms whatsoever, confirmed by his majesty's and the prince's oath, and attested by a public act, whereof a copy to be delivered to the pope or his minister, and the same to bind his majesty and the prince's successors for ever." _id._ p. . the ambassadors expressed the strongest indignation at this proposal, on which the french did not think fit to insist. in all this wretched negotiation, james was as much the dupe as he had been in the former, expecting that france would assist in the recovery of the palatinate, towards which, in spite of promises, she took no steps. richlieu had said, "donnez-nous des prêtres, et nous vous donnerons des colonels." _id._ p. . charles could hardly be expected to keep his engagement as to the catholics, when he found himself so grossly outwitted. it was during this marriage-treaty of , that the archbishop of embrun, as he relates himself, in the course of several conferences with the king on that subject, was assured by him that he was desirous of re-entering the fold of the church. wilson in rennet, p. , note by wellwood. i have not seen the original passage; but dr. lingard puts by no means so strong an interpretation on the king's words, as related by the archbishop. vol. ix. . [ ] rennet, p. vi.; rushworth; lingard, ix. ; cabala, p. . [ ] "god alloweth (it is said in this homily, among other passages to the same effect) neither the dignity of any person, nor the multitude of any people, nor the weight of any cause, as sufficient for the which the subjects may move rebellion against their princes." the next sentence contains a bold position. "turn over and read the histories of all nations, look over the chronicles of our own country, call to mind so many rebellions of old time, and some yet fresh in memory; ye shall not find that god ever prospered any rebellion against their natural and lawful prince, but contrariwise, that the rebels were overthrown and slain, and such as were taken prisoners dreadfully executed." they illustrate their doctrine by the most preposterous example i have ever seen alleged in any book, that of the virgin mary; who "being of the royal blood of the ancient natural kings of jewry obeyed the proclamation of augustus to go to bethlehem. this obedience of this most noble and most virtuous lady to a foreign and pagan prince doth well teach us, who in comparison of her are both base and vile, what ready obedience we do owe to our natural and gracious sovereign." in another homily entitled "on obedience," the duty of non-resistance, even in defence of religion, is most decidedly maintained; and in such a manner as might have been inconvenient in case of a popish successor. nor was this theory very consistent with the aid and countenance given to the united provinces. our learned churchmen, however, cared very little for the dutch. they were more puzzled about the maccabees. but that knot is cut in bishop overall's _convocation book_, by denying that antiochus epiphanes had lawful possession of palestine; a proposition not easy to be made out. [ ] collier, ; neal, ; wood's _history of the university of oxford_, ii. . knight was sent to the gate-house prison, where he remained two years. laud was the chief cause of this severity, if we may believe wood; and his own diary seems to confirm this. [ ] _parl. hist._ , , , etc.; kennet, p. ; collier, , . this historian, though a non-juror, is englishman enough to blame the doctrines of sibthorp and mainwaring, and, consistently with his high-church principles, is displeased at the suspension of abbot by the king's authority. [ ] _state trials_, ii. . a few years before this, abbot had the misfortune, while hunting deer in a nobleman's park, to shoot one of the keepers with his cross-bow. williams and laud, who then acted together, with some other of the servile crew, had the baseness to affect scruples at the archbishop's continuance in his function, on pretence that, by some contemptible old canon, he had become irregular in consequence of this accidental homicide; and spelman disgraced himself by writing a treatise in support of this doctrine. james, however, had more sense than the antiquary, and less ill-nature than the churchmen; and the civilians gave no countenance to williams's hypocritical scruples. hacket's _life of williams_, p. ; _biograph. britann._ art. abbot; spelman's works, part , p. ; aikin's _james i._, ii. . williams's real object was to succeed the archbishop on his degradation. it may be remarked that abbot, though a very worthy man, had not always been untainted by the air of a court. he had not scrupled grossly to flatter the king: (see his article in _biograph. brit._ and aikin, i. ) and tells us himself, that he introduced villiers, in order to supplant somerset; which, though well-meant, did not become his function. even in the delicate business of promising toleration to the catholics by the secret articles of the treaty with spain, he gave satisfaction to the king (_hardwicke papers_, i. ), which could only be by compliance. this shows that the letter in rushworth, ascribed to the archbishop, deprecating all such concessions, is not genuine. in cabala, p. , it is printed with the name of the archbishop of york, matthews. [ ] the bishops were many of them gross sycophants of buckingham. besides laud, williams, and neile, one field, bishop of landaff, was an abject courtier. see a letter of his in cabala, p. , to edit. mede says ( th may ), "i am sorry to hear they (the bishops) are so habituated to flattery that they seem not to know of any other duty that belongs to them." see ellis's _letters_, iii. , for the account mede gives of the manner in which the heads of houses forced the election of buckingham as chancellor of cambridge, while the impeachment was pending against him. the junior masters of arts, however, made a good stand; so that it was carried against the earl of berkshire only by three voices. [ ] those who may be inclined to dissent from my text, will perhaps bow to their favourite clarendon. he says that in the three first parliaments, though there were "several distempered speeches of particular persons, not fit for the reverence due to his majesty," yet he "does not know any formed act of either house (for neither the remonstrance nor votes of the last day were such), that was not agreeable to the wisdom and justice of great courts upon those extraordinary occasions; and whoever considers the acts of power and injustice in the intervals of parliament, will not be much scandalised at the warmth and vivacity of those meetings." vol. i. p. , edit. . the temple press, printers, letchworth transcriber's notes: words in italics in the original are surrounded by _underscores_. words in bold are surrounded by =equal signs=. variations in spelling and hyphenation remain as in the original. ellipses match the original. a complete list of typographical corrections follows the text. the government of england volume i the macmillan company new york · boston · chicago atlanta · san francisco macmillan & co., limited london · bombay · calcutta melbourne the macmillan co. of canada, ltd. toronto the government of england by a. lawrence lowell professor of the science of government in harvard university volume i new york the macmillan company _all rights reserved_ copyright, , by a. lawrence lowell. set up and electrotyped. published may, . reprinted june, . norwood press j. s. cushing co.--berwick & smith co. norwood, mass., u.s.a. preface measured by the standards of duration, absence of violent commotions, maintenance of law and order, general prosperity and contentment of the people, and by the extent of its influence on the institutions and political thought of other lands, the english government has been one of the most remarkable the world has ever known. an attempt, therefore, to study it at any salient epoch cannot be valueless; and the present is a salient epoch, for the nation has now enjoyed something very near to manhood suffrage in the boroughs for forty years, and throughout the country more than twenty years, a period long enough for democracy to produce its primary if not its ultimate effects. moreover, england has one of the most interesting of popular governments, because it has had a free development, little hampered by rigid constitutional devices. it is an organism constantly adapting itself to its environment, and hence in full harmony with national conditions. an endeavour has been made in these volumes to portray the present form of that organism and the forces which maintain its equilibrium. in preparing a study of this kind one feels the need of limiting its scope, by reducing the denominator as arthur helps remarked. hence the work covers only the english government as it stands to-day; and further, only those institutions, national and local, that have a general bearing. the british constitution is full of exceptions, of local customs and special acts with which town clerks must be familiar. they fill the path of these men with pitfalls, but they do not affect seriously the general principles of the government, and no attempt is made to describe them here. even the institutions of scotland and ireland, interesting as they are in themselves, have been referred to only so far as they relate to the national government or throw light upon its working. even so limited, the subject is not without difficulties. the forces to be studied do not lie upon the surface, and some of them are not described in any document or found in any treatise. they can be learned only from men connected with the machinery of public life. a student must, therefore, rely largely upon conversations which he can use but cannot cite as authorities, and the soundness of his conclusions must be measured less by his references in footnotes than by the judgment of the small portion of the public that knows at first-hand the things whereof he speaks. the precise effect of the various forces at work must be a matter of opinion on which well-informed people may differ, and the writer has drawn the picture as it appeared to him. to undertake a study of this kind would be impossible without manifold assistance from others; and the writer is glad of this chance to express his sense of obligation to the many persons who have given him help and information, men in public life belonging to different parties, permanent officials, national and local, officers of political associations, jurists, publicists and many others. it is pleasant for him to recall the constant courtesy with which he was treated, not infrequently, in the case of local officers, without any introduction or claim of any kind. among many men to whom he owes much he desires to acknowledge his debt to rt. hon. joseph chamberlain, lord fitzmaurice, rt. hon. john morley, the late sir william harcourt, lord reay, mr. frederic harrison, sir william james farrer, sir alexander hargreaves brown, sir frederick pollock, sir c. p. lucas, sir horace plunkett, mr. sidney webb, mr. graham wallas, dr. william cunningham, mr. francis w. hirst, the late capt. r. w. e. middleton, mr. a. e. southall of the national union of conservative associations and mr. charles geake of the liberal publication department. his thanks are especially due to professor a. v. dicey, sir courtenay ilbert, professor h. morse stephens, now of the university of california, and professor w. b. munro of harvard university, who, besides giving him information, have kindly read a part of the manuscript or proof sheets and made many valuable suggestions. above all he feels the deepest gratitude to rt. hon. james bryce, now happily british ambassador to the united states, the master and guide of all students of modern political systems, whose unwearied assistance, counsel and encouragement have been a constant help throughout the preparation of this work, and who has read the whole of the proof sheets except the chapters that deal with the empire. these friends have made the writing of the book possible, and saved the author from many blunders. it is needless to say that none of them are in any way responsible for any opinions in these pages; and in fact the writer has tried not to express, and so far as possible not to form, opinions on matters of current party politics. the writer is indebted also to a number of his students at harvard, who have made researches in several different subjects. while some of the more important of these contributions have been referred to in the notes, it has been impossible to do this in all cases. finally he desires to acknowledge the help he has received in his investigations from three assistants: mr. emerson david fite, now of yale university, mr. robert lee hale, now of the harvard law school, and mr. thomas n. hoover of the harvard graduate school, the last of these having also verified the citations and prepared the index. april, . table of contents volume i page introductory note on the constitution part i.--the central government chapter i the crown chapter ii the crown and the cabinet chapter iii the cabinet and the ministers chapter iv the executive departments chapter v the treasury chapter vi miscellaneous offices chapter vii the permanent civil service chapter viii the ministers and the civil service chapter ix the house of commons--constituencies and voters chapter x the house of commons--electoral procedure chapter xi the house of commons--disqualifications, privilege, sessions chapter xii procedure in the house of commons--the house, its rules and officers chapter xiii procedure in the house of commons--committees and public bills chapter xiv procedure in the house of commons--money bills and accounts chapter xv procedure in the house of commons--closure chapter xvi procedure in the house of commons--sittings and order of business chapter xvii the cabinet's control of the commons chapter xviii the commons' control of the cabinet chapter xix the form and contents of statutes chapter xx private bill legislation chapter xxi the house of lords chapter xxii the cabinet and the house of lords chapter xxiii the cabinet and the country part ii.--the party system chapter xxiv party and the parliamentary system chapter xxv party organisation in parliament chapter xxvi non-party organisations outside of parliament chapter xxvii local party organisations chapter xxviii action of local organisations chapter xxix the rise and fall of the caucus--the liberals chapter xxx the rise and fall of the caucus--the conservatives volume ii chapter xxxi ancillary party organisations chapter xxxii the functions of party organisations chapter xxxiii the labour party chapter xxxiv candidates and elections chapter xxx the strength of party ties chapter xxxv political oscillations chapter xxxvii the existing parties part iii.--local government chapter xxxviii areas of local government chapter xxxix boroughs--the town council chapter xl boroughs--the permanent officials chapter xli boroughs--powers and resources chapter xlii london chapter xliii the london county council chapter xliv municipal trading chapter xlv other local authorities chapter xlvi central control part iv.--education chapter xlvii public elementary education chapter xlviii secondary education chapter xlix the universities chapter l education in scotland part v.--the church chapter li organisation of the church chapter lii revenues of the church chapter liii the free church federation part vi.--the empire chapter liv component parts of the empire chapter lv the self-governing colonies chapter lvi the crown colonies chapter lvii india and the protectorates chapter lviii imperial federation part vii.--the courts of law chapter lix history of the courts chapter lx the existing courts chapter lxi the english conception of law chapter lxii effects of the conception of law part viii.--reflections chapter lxiii aristocracy and democracy chapter lxiv public, private and local interests chapter lxv the growth of paternalism chapter lxvi party and class legislation chapter lxvii conclusion index introductory note on the constitution [sidenote: different meanings of the word constitution.] de tocqueville declared that the english constitution did not really exist,[ : ] and he said so because in his mind the word "constitution" meant a perfectly definite thing to which nothing in england conformed. an examination of modern governments shows, however, that the thing is by no means so definite as he had supposed. [sidenote: a document embodying the chief institutions.] the term "constitution" is usually applied to an attempt to embody in a single authoritative document, or a small group of documents, the fundamental political institutions of a state. but such an attempt is rarely, if ever, completely successful; and even if the constitution when framed covers all the main principles on which the government is based, it often happens that they become modified in practice, or that other principles arise, so that the constitution no longer corresponds fully with the actual government of the country. in france, for example, the principle that the cabinet can stay in office only so long as it retains the confidence of the popular chamber, the principle, in short, of a ministry responsible in the parliamentary sense, was not mentioned in the charters of or , and yet it was certainly firmly established in the reign of louis philippe; and it is noteworthy that this same principle, on which the whole political system of the english self-governing colonies is based, appears neither in the british north american act nor in the australian federation act. the first of those statutes, following the english tradition, speaks of the privy council for canada,[ : ] but never of the cabinet or the ministers; while the australian act, going a step farther, refers to the queen's ministers of state,[ : ] but ignores their responsibility to the parliament.[ : ] again, in the united states, the provision that the electoral college shall choose the president has become so modified in practice that the electors must vote for the candidate nominated by the party to which they owe their own election. in choosing the president they have become, by the force of custom, as much a mere piece of mechanism as the crown in england when giving its assent to acts passed by the two houses of parliament. their freedom of choice is as obsolete as the royal veto. so far, therefore, as this meaning of the term is concerned, the constitution of england differs from those of other countries rather in degree than in kind. it differs in the fact that the documents, being many statutes, are very numerous, and the part played by custom is unusually large. [sidenote: not changeable by ordinary legislation.] [sidenote: rigid and flexible constitutions.] de tocqueville had more particularly in mind another meaning which is commonly attached to the term "constitution." it is that of an instrument of special sanctity, distinct in character from all other laws; and alterable only by a peculiar process, differing to a greater or less extent from the ordinary forms of legislation. the special sanctity is, of course, a matter of sentiment incapable of exact definition, and it may be said to belong to the british constitution quite as much as to some others. the peculiar process of amendment, on the other hand,--the separation of the so-called constituent and law-making powers,--upon which mr. bryce bases his division of constitutions into rigid and flexible,[ : ] has had a long history and been much discussed; but although the contrast between the two types is highly important, the creation of intermediate forms has made it less exact as a basis of classification. the later constitutions, and the more recent practice, have tended to obscure the distinction. a separation between the constituent and law-making powers does not, in fact, always exist in written constitutions. the italian _statuto_, for instance, which contains no provision for amendment, can be, and in fact has been, altered by the ordinary process of legislation;[ : ] and the same thing was true of the french charter of .[ : ] the last spanish constitution omits all provision for amendment, but one may assume that if it lasts long enough to require amendment the changes will be made by ordinary legislative process. from countries which can change their fundamental constitution by the ordinary process of legislation we pass by almost imperceptible degrees to those where the constitutional and law-making powers are in substantially different hands. thus the procedure for changing the constitution in prussia differs from that for the enactment of laws only by the requirement of two readings at an interval of twenty-one days. here there is a difference legally perceptible between the methods of changing the constitution and other laws; but it may be remarked that a provision in the constitution to the effect that all laws should require two readings at an interval of twenty-one days, would not essentially change the nature of the constitution, and yet in theory it would make that constitution flexible instead of rigid. as it is, the fundamental laws are quite as much under the control of the legislature in prussia as they are in england.[ : ] this is almost equally true of france; for although the changes in her constitution are made by the national assembly, composed of the two chambers sitting together, yet the assembly can meet only after the two chambers have passed a concurrent resolution to that effect; and in fact the chambers are in the habit of determining beforehand by separate votes the amendments which shall be submitted to the assembly. so that in france, also, the constitution is virtually under the unrestricted control of the legislature. [sidenote: the distinction has lost practical importance.] the separation of constituent and law-making powers has been rendered of much less practical importance in some countries not only by making the process of amending the constitution more simple, but also by making the enactment of laws more complex. in switzerland, for example, changes in the constitution of required a popular vote, while changes in the laws did not; but after the referendum on ordinary laws was introduced in , this distinction largely disappeared, and at the present day the differences between the methods of passing constitutional amendments and ordinary laws are comparatively slight. in the case of ordinary laws a popular vote is taken only on the petition of thirty thousand citizens or eight cantons, and the popular majority is decisive; whereas constitutional amendments must be submitted to the people whether a petition is presented or not, and for their ratification a majority vote in more than half the cantons as well as a majority in the confederation as a whole is required.[ : ] in those european countries where the difference in the procedure for changing constitutional and other laws is the most marked, the special formalities for the former consist in requiring more than a majority vote in the legislature, or that a general election shall take place before the amendment is finally adopted, or both. now the last of those conditions is practically not unknown in england. there is a growing feeling that no fundamental or far-reaching change ought to be made unless, as a result of a general election fought on that issue, parliament has received from the nation a mandate to make the change. such a doctrine does not affect the law, but it does affect that body of customs which is a not less vital part of the british constitution. the classical distinction between constituent and law-making powers, and hence between rigid and flexible constitutions, has also been somewhat effaced by extending the requirement of a special procedure to the enactment of certain classes of ordinary law. thus in the german empire the only peculiar formality for amendments to the constitution is found in the provision that they are defeated by fourteen adverse votes in the bundesrath.[ : ] this gives prussia with her seventeen votes a veto upon them, but she has also a veto in the bundesrath upon any measures affecting the army, the navy, customs-duties or excises.[ : ] [sidenote: growing variety in written constitutions.] in the middle of the last century written constitutions in europe were framed for the most part upon the same model and were much alike, so that a written constitution usually implied a definite type of limited monarchy, where the same class of matters were removed from the direct control of the legislature and placed, in theory at least, under special protection. but now written constitutions all over the world have come to differ a great deal, some of them being simpler, and others more comprehensive than of old. the constitutional laws of france, for example, provide only for the bare organisation of the public authorities, and can be amended virtually at will by the legislature; while the constitutions of switzerland, germany and the united states go into great detail, and that of the united states can be amended only with the greatest difficulty. the result is that the french constitution, although written and technically rigid, bears from the point of view of rigidity a far closer resemblance to the constitution of england than to that of the united states. it would seem, therefore, that the distinction between constitutions which are flexible and those which are rigid, while valuable, has ceased to mark a contrast between widely separated groups; and that it might be well to regard the distinction as one of degree rather than of kind. from this aspect it may be said that of late years constitutions have tended on the whole to become more flexible; and at the same time there has been a tendency toward greater variations in flexibility, the constitutions of england and of hungary standing at one end of the scale, and that of the united states at the other. [sidenote: a constitution as a supreme law.] [sidenote: meaning of law where the common law prevails.] if the term "constitution" does not necessarily imply that the so-called constituent and law-making powers are in different hands, still less does it imply the existence of a law of superior obligation which controls legally the acts of the legislature. before discussing that question, one must understand clearly what is meant by a law. in england, and in the countries that have inherited the anglo-norman system of jurisprudence, a law may be defined as a rule that will be enforced by the courts. this results from the fact that officers of the government, like private persons, are subject to judicial process, and liable to have the legality of their actions examined and determined by the ordinary tribunals. hence a rule recognised as law by the courts will be enforced against both officials and private citizens; and a rule which they do not recognise cannot be enforced at all, for they will entertain suits and prosecutions against officials who try to apply it, and will afford protection to individuals who resist them.[ : ] assuming this definition of law, the famous decision of chief justice marshall[ : ] that an act of congress inconsistent with the constitution of the united states must be treated as invalid was a logical necessity. the constitution was certainly intended to be a law, and as such it could be enforced by the courts. but if that law came into conflict with another law, an act of congress for example, the court must consider, as in any other case of conflict of laws, which law was of superior authority; and there could be no doubt that the constitution was the superior of the two. the same principle is applied in the british colonies, when colonial acts come into collision with the acts of parliament establishing the colonial government;[ : ] and it has been incorporated into the constitutions of the spanish american republics. [sidenote: where the civil law prevails.] but, except for those latin countries which have copied it from the united states, the doctrine is almost entirely confined to the places where the common law prevails,[ : ] for elsewhere the same definition of law does not obtain. in accordance with the french interpretation of the theory of the separation of powers, it is the general rule on the continent of europe that the ordinary courts administer only private law between private citizens, and that questions affecting the rights and duties of public officials are withdrawn from their jurisdiction. such questions are now usually, though not universally, submitted to special tribunals known as administrative courts. the rules administered by these tribunals are laws, but they form a distinct and separate branch of the law from that applied by the ordinary courts. on the continent, therefore, a constitution may or may not be properly regarded as a law, but even if it be so regarded it is not of necessity enforced by any court. on the contrary, if an ordinary court is not suffered to pass upon the legality of the actions of a policeman, it would be hardly rational that it should pass upon the validity of an act of the national legislature; and it would be even more irrational to intrust any such power to the administrative courts which are under the influence of the executive branch of the government.[ : ] [sidenote: legal restraints on power of legislature are rare.] the conception of a constitution as a law of superior obligation, which imposes legal restraints upon the action of the legislature, is really confined to a very few countries, chiefly to america and the english self-governing colonies.[ : ] in europe it has no proper place, for whether a constitution in continental states be or be not regarded as a supreme law, no body of men has, as a rule, been intrusted with legal authority to enforce its provisions as against the legislature; and in england there is no law superior in obligation to an act of parliament. there can, indeed, be no doubt that the acts of union with scotland and ireland were intended to be, in part at least, forever binding, but as they created no authority with power either to enforce or to amend the acts, the united parliament assumed that, like its predecessors, it possessed unlimited sovereignty; and it has, in fact, altered material provisions in each of those statutes.[ : ] [sidenote: sources of the english constitution.] the english constitution--speaking, of course, of its form, not its content--differs, therefore, from those of most other european nations more widely in method of expression than in essential nature and legal effect. they have been created usually as a result of a movement to change fundamentally the political institutions of the country, and the new plan has naturally been embodied in a document; but since the restoration england has never revised her frame of government as a whole, and hence has felt no need of codifying it. the national political institutions are to be found in statutes,[ : ] in customs which are enforced and developed by the courts and form a part of the common law, and in customs strictly so called which have no legal validity whatever and cannot be enforced at law. these last are very appropriately called by professor dicey the conventions of the constitution. the two chief peculiarities of the english constitution are: first, that no laws are ear-marked as constitutional,--all laws can be changed by parliament, and hence it is futile to attempt to draw a sharp line between those laws which do and those which do not form a part of the constitution;--second, the large part played by customary rules, which are carefully followed, but which are entirely devoid of legal sanction. customs or conventions of this kind exist, and in the nature of things must to some extent exist, under all governments. in the united states where they might, perhaps, be least expected, they have, as already observed, transformed the presidential electors into a mere machine for registering the popular vote in the several states, and this is only the most striking of the instances that might be cited.[ : ] england is peculiar, not because it has such conventions, but because they are more abundant and all-pervasive than elsewhere. the most familiar of them is, of course, the rule that the king must act on the advice of his ministers, while they must resign or dissolve parliament when they lose the confidence of the majority in the house of commons. it is impossible, however, to make a precise list of the conventions of the constitution, for they are constantly changing by a natural process of growth and decay; and while some of them are universally accepted, others are in a state of uncertainty. hence one hears from time to time a member of the opposition assert that some action of the government is unconstitutional, meaning that it is an unusual breach of a principle which in his opinion ought to be recognised as inviolable. it was said, for example, that the parliament of , having been elected on the issue of the south african war, was not justified in enacting measures of great importance on other subjects, but that a fresh mandate from the nation ought to be obtained by another general election. as claims of this kind are in dispute, those customs alone can safely be said to be a part of the constitution which are generally assumed to be outside the range of current political controversy. [sidenote: the relation of law and custom.] the relation between law and custom in the english government is characteristic. from the very fact that the law consists of those rules which are enforced by the courts, it follows that the law,--including, of course, both the statutes and the common law,--is perfectly distinct from the conventions of the constitution; is quite independent of them, and is rigidly enforced. the conventions do not abrogate or obliterate legal rights and privileges, but merely determine how they shall be exercised. the legal forms are scrupulously observed, and are as requisite for the validity of an act as if custom had not affected their use.[ : ] the power of the crown, for example, to refuse its consent to bills passed by the two houses of parliament is obsolete, yet the right remains legally unimpaired. the royal assent is given to such bills with as much solemnity as if it were still discretionary, and without that formality a statute would have no validity whatever. public law in countries where it is administered not by the ordinary courts, but solely by the executive, or with the aid of special tribunals composed of administrative officials, must of necessity contain a discretionary element, and that element is always affected by political conventions. hence there is a likelihood that the line between law and convention will become blurred, but this is not so in england. there the law and the conventions of the constitution are each developing by processes peculiar to themselves, but the line between them remains permanently clear. the conventions are superimposed upon the law, and modify political relations without in the least affecting legal ones. in fact freeman declared that the growth of the unwritten conventions of the constitution began after the supremacy of the law had been firmly established by the revolution of , and that they could not have been evolved if that condition had not existed.[ : ] [sidenote: the sanction of custom.] the question why the conventions of the constitution are so scrupulously followed, when they have no legal force, is not a simple one. impeachment as a means of compelling the observance of traditions has, of course, long been obsolete. professor dicey maintains that the ultimate sanction of these conventions lies in the fact that any ministry or official violating them would be speedily brought into conflict with the law of the land as enforced by the courts.[ : ] he takes as illustrations the omission to summon parliament every year, and the retention of office by a ministry against the will of the commons without dissolving; and he shows in each case how the ministry would be brought into conflict with the law by the failure to enact the annual army bill or to pass the appropriations. he proves that in such cases the wheels of government would be stopped by the regular operation of the law; and that the house of commons can readily bring about this result if it pleases.[ : ] there is, however, another question, and that is why the house is determined to exert its power so as to maintain the conventions of the constitution as they stand to-day. it has long possessed the necessary authority, but the conventions were evolved slowly. the house of representatives in washington has the same power to stop appropriations, but it does not try to use it to force a responsible ministry upon the president; a result which has, on the other hand, been brought about in france almost as conclusively as in england, and that without the sanction arising from the risk of conflict between the government and the courts. any parliament could use its authority if it chose to keep the ministry in office indefinitely, as well as to make it responsible. it could pass a permanent army act, grant the tea and income taxes for a term of years, charge all ordinary expenses upon the consolidated fund, and so make the existing ministry well-nigh independent of future parliaments. the question seems to resolve itself into two parts: first, why a custom once established is so tenaciously followed in england; and, second, why the conventions have assumed their present form. in regard to the first it may be suggested that while the consequences mentioned by professor dicey form, no doubt, the ultimate sanction of the most important conventions of the constitution, they are not the usual, or in fact the real, motive for obedience; just as the dread of criminal punishment is not the general motive for ordinary morality. the risk of imprisonment never occurs, indeed, to people of high character, and in the same way the ultimate sanctions of the law are not usually present in the minds of men in english public life. in the main the conventions are observed because they are a code of honour. they are, as it were, the rules of the game, and the single class in the community which has hitherto had the conduct of english public life almost entirely in its own hands is the very class that is peculiarly sensitive to obligation of this kind. moreover, the very fact that one class rules, by the sufferance of the whole nation, as trustees for the public, makes that class exceedingly careful not to violate the understandings on which the trust is held. the key to the question why the conventions have assumed their present form is to be found mainly in professor dicey's remark[ : ] that all of them exist for the sake of securing obedience to the deliberately expressed will of the house of commons, and ultimately to the will of the nation. their effect has been to bring the prerogatives of the crown more and more completely under the control of the cabinet, and the cabinet itself under the control of the house of commons; to restrain the opposition of the lords to any policy on which the commons backed by the nation are determined; and, finally, through the power of dissolution to make the house of commons itself reflect as nearly as may be the views of the electorate. in england there is, in fact, only one conclusive means of expressing the popular will--that of an election to the house of commons; and in ordinary cases there is only one body that has power to interpret that expression, the cabinet placed in office by the house so elected. [sidenote: the effects of custom.] professor dicey has also pointed out a singular result of the conventions. if the growing power of the house of commons, instead of being used to impose customary restraints on the exercise of authority by the crown and the house of lords, had been exerted to limit that authority by law, the crown and the house of lords would have been far more free to exercise at their discretion the powers still left in their hands; and hence the house of commons could not have obtained its present omnipotence. by leaving the prerogative substantially untouched by law, and requiring that it should be wielded by ministers responsible to them, the commons have drawn into their own control all the powers of the sovereign that time has not rendered entirely obsolete. the great part played by custom has had another effect upon english public life. it has tended to develop a conservative temperament. if laws are changed the new ones may have the same authority as the old; but if customs are changed rapidly they lose their force altogether. stability is necessary for the very life of custom. the conventions of the constitution could not exist without respect for precedent, and where the institutions and liberties of a country depend not upon a written code, but upon custom, there is a natural tendency to magnify the importance of tradition and precedent in themselves. in england, therefore, there is a peculiar veneration for custom, and a disposition to make as little change in it as is compatible with changing times. the result is a constant tinkering, rather than remodelling, of outworn institutions,--a spirit which is strongly marked throughout the whole of english public life. [sidenote: english system not logical but scientific.] critics and apologists both assert that the english political system is not logical; and the statement is true in the sense that the system was not excogitated by an _a priori_ method. but on the other hand the very fact that it has grown up by a continual series of adaptations to existing needs has made it on the whole more consistent with itself, has brought each part more into harmony with the rest, than is the case in any other government. in this it is like a living organism. there are, no doubt, many small anomalies and survivals that mar the unity for the purpose of description; but these, like survivals of structure in animals, like the splint bones in the leg of a horse for example, do not interfere seriously with the action of the whole. it may be said that in politics the frenchman has tended in the past to draw logical conclusions from correct premises, and that his results have often been wrong, while the englishman draws illogical conclusions from incorrect premises, and his results are commonly right. the fact being that all abstract propositions in politics are at best approximations, and an attempt to reason from them usually magnifies the inaccuracy. but in england the institutions being empirical have resulted from experience, although men have often tried to explain them afterwards by a somewhat artificial and incongruous process of reasoning. in this sense french political principles may be said to be the more logical, the english government--not the theories about it--the more scientific. it is more important, therefore, to describe the organs of the english government and their relations to one another than to consider the traditional principles that have been supposed to underlie the system. but the very nature of the english government renders it peculiarly difficult to portray. as the laws that regulate its structure are overlaid by customs which moderate very greatly their operation without affecting their meaning or their validity, it is necessary to describe separately the legal and customary aspects of the constitution. it is almost unavoidable to pass in review first the legal organisation of each institution, and then its actual functions. such a process is sometimes tedious, especially for a person already familiar with the subject, but an attempt has been made in the following pages to separate as far as possible the dry legal details from a discussion of the working forces, so that the former may be skipped by the judicious reader. footnotes: [ : ] _la démocratie en amérique_, i., ch. vi. [ : ] - vic., c. , § . [ : ] - vic., c. , const., §§ - . [ : ] the provisions about the responsibility of the ministers are almost identical in the constitutions of belgium (arts. , , , , , ) and prussia (arts. , , , ); but in belgium the cabinet is politically responsible to the chamber, while in prussia it is not. [ : ] "studies in history and jurisprudence," essay iii. [ : ] _cf._ brusa, _italien_, in marquardsen's _handbuch des oeffentlichen rechts_, - , - . [ : ] professor dicey points out ("law of the constitution," ed., and note ) that de tocqueville considered the charter unalterable by reason of this omission, but that it was, in fact, changed like an ordinary law. [ : ] for the purpose of the argument it is unimportant that prussia is not a sovereign state, and for sixteen years it did exist as an independent sovereign state under its present constitution. [ : ] constitutional amendments can also be proposed by popular initiative, and ordinary laws cannot. [ : ] const., art. . [ : ] _ibid._, art. . [ : ] by far the best exposition of this matter is to be found in professor dicey's "law of the constitution." it is discussed more fully in chapter xl., _infra_. [ : ] marbury _vs._ madison, cranch, . [ : ] the australian federation act (§ ) refers particularly to the decision of such questions, limiting the right to bring them on appeal before the judicial committee of the privy council. [ : ] there are a few exceptions. provisions giving such a power to the courts are to be found in the constitutions of the little swiss cantons of uri (art. ) and unterwalden nid dem wald (art. ). the swiss national constitution, on the other hand (art. ), directs the federal tribunal to apply every law enacted by the national legislature. some discussion has taken place on the question in germany. (see brinton coxe, "judicial power and unconstitutional legislation," ch. ix., and the writer's "governments and parties in continental europe," i., - .) curiously enough, a struggle over this question occurred in the transvaal not long before the south african war (bryce's "studies in history and jurisprudence," ; kruger's "memoirs," - ). in his next inaugural address president kruger quoted scripture to prove that the principle of holding statutes unconstitutional had been invented by the devil. (kruger, - .) [ : ] esmein (_elements de droit constitutionel_, - ) describes the various proposals made at different times in france for annulling unconstitutional laws. one of these, sieyes's _jurie constitutionaire_, bears a curious resemblance to an institution for a somewhat analogous purpose in athens: goodwin, "demosthenes on the crown," essay ii., - . [ : ] it must be observed, also, that the english colonies are not legally independent or sovereign states, and hence their parliaments are legally subordinate legislatures. we may note in this connection that the swiss federal tribunal can hold unconstitutional laws of the cantons which violate the constitution either of the confederation or of the canton. [ : ] professor dicey argued that the first home rule bill if enacted might have restricted the legal sovereignty of parliament. "england's case against home rule," , _et seq._ this result was denied by the other side. bryce, "studies in hist. and jur.," , note. [ : ] boutmy in his _etudes de droit constitutionel_ ( ed., ) adds treaties or quasi-treaties (the acts of union), and solemn agreements such as the bill of rights. but all these are in legal effect simply statutes. [ : ] bryce, american commonwealth, ch. xxxiv. [ : ] the habit of collecting new or increased duties or excises as soon as the resolution to impose them passes the house of commons is an apparent exception to this principle, for the taxes are not legally payable until laid by act of parliament. the object of the custom is to prevent a large loss of revenue by importations made after it is known that the duty will be levied and before it goes into effect. the act when passed contains, of course, a clause authorising and thereby making legal the collection from the date of the resolution, and if it fails to pass the tax is refunded. [ : ] "growth of the english constitution," , - , . [ : ] "law of the constitution," ch. xv. [ : ] all this is true only of conventions that give effect to the will of the majority of the house of commons, not of those that secure fair play to the minority, which are in fact not less important. [ : ] "law of the constitution," , . part i.--central government chapter i the crown political liberty and romance in english history are both bound up with the shifting fortunes of the throne. the strong hand of the norman and angevin kings welded the whole country into a nation, and on that foundation were built the solid structures of a national common law, a national parliament, and a long series of national statutes. when in the fulness of time the crown had accomplished its work of unification, it came into conflict with parliament, and after a series of convulsions, in which one king lost his head and another his throne, political evolution resumed its normal course. the house of commons gradually drew the royal authority under its control. but it did so without seriously curtailing the legal powers of the crown, and thus the king legally enjoys most of the attributes that belonged to his predecessors, although the exercise of his functions has passed into other hands. if the personal authority of the monarch has become a shadow of its former massiveness, the government is still conducted in his name, and largely by means of the legal rights attached to his office. with a study of the crown, therefore, a description of english government most fittingly begins. [sidenote: the title to the crown.] ever since , when james ii., fleeing in fear of his life, "withdrew himself out of the kingdom, and thereby abdicated," the title to the crown has been based entirely upon parliamentary enactment. at the present day it rests upon the act of settlement of ,[ : ] which provided that, in default of heirs of william and of anne, the crown should pass to the electress sophia, and the heirs of her body, being protestants. sophia was the granddaughter of james i., through her mother, wife of the elector palatine; and while not his nearest heir, was the nearest who was a protestant. [sidenote: the rules of succession.] the rules of descent are in the main the same as those for the inheritance of land at common law.[ : ] that is, the title passes to the eldest son; or, if he is not living, through him to his issue, male or female, as if he had himself died upon the throne. if the first son has died without issue, then to, or through, the eldest son who is living, or has issue living; and in default of any sons living, or leaving issue, then to, or through, the eldest daughter. the rule is, however, subject to the qualification that any one who is, or becomes, a catholic is excluded from, and forfeits, the right to the crown, which then passes to the next heir. in order to insure a test that will make this last provision effective, the sovereign is obliged to take an oath, abjuring the catholic religion, in words which have proved offensive to members of that faith. after the accession of edward vii., therefore, but before his coronation, an effort was made to modify the form of the oath, and a bill was introduced into the house of lords for that purpose; but it was not then found possible to arrange a phrase satisfactory to all parties, and the bill was dropped. [sidenote: incapacity of the sovereign.] in other monarchies permanent provision has been made by law for the possible incapacity of the monarch, whether by reason of infancy or insanity. but this has never been done in england. each case has been dealt with as it arose, and usually after it has arisen, so that, in default of any person competent to give the royal assent to bills, parliament has been driven into the legal absurdity of first passing a regency bill to confer such a power upon a regent, and then directing the chancellor to affix the great seal to a commission for giving assent to that bill. until recent times it was also thought necessary to appoint officers, lords justices or others, to exercise the royal powers when the sovereign went out of the kingdom; but with the rapidity of modern travel and communication this has become unnecessary, and it has not been done since the accession of queen victoria. [sidenote: the powers of the crown.] the authority of the english monarch may be considered from different points of view, which must be taken up in succession; the first question being what power is legally vested in the crown; the second how much of that power can practically be exercised at all; the third how far the power of the crown actually is, or may be, used in accordance with the personal wishes of the king, and how far its exercise is really directed by his ministers; the fourth, how far their action is in turn controlled by parliament. the first two questions, which form the subject of this chapter, cannot always be treated separately, for it is sometimes impossible to be sure whether a power that cannot practically be exercised is or is not legally vested in the crown. an attempt to make use of any doubtful power would probably be resisted, and the legality of the act could be discussed in parliament or determined by the law courts; but it is very rare at the present day that any such attempt is made. there are powers that have been disputed, or fallen into disuse, and that no government would ever think of reviving; and thus the question of law never having been settled, the legal right of the crown to make use of them must remain uncertain. [sidenote: the prerogative.] the authority of the crown may be traced to two different sources. one of them is statutory, and comprises the various powers conferred upon the crown by acts of parliament. the other source gives rise to what is more properly called the prerogative. this has been described by professor dicey[ : ] as the original discretionary authority left at any moment in the hands of the king; in other words, what remains of the ancient customary or common law powers inherent in the crown. the distinction is one not always perfectly easy to draw, for many parts of the prerogative have been regulated and modified by statute, and in such cases it is not always clear whether the authority now exercised is derived from statute or from the prerogative. nevertheless the distinction is often important, because where the powers have been conferred by parliament the crown acts by virtue of a delegated authority which lies wholly within the four corners of the statute, and exists only so far as it is expressly contained therein; while the prerogative not being circumscribed by any document is more indefinite, and capable of expanding or contracting with the progress of the suns. [sidenote: legislative power.] all legislative power is vested in the king in parliament; that is, in the king acting in concert with the two houses. legally, every act requires the royal assent, and, indeed, the houses can transact business only during the pleasure of the crown, which summons and prorogues them, and can at any moment dissolve the house of commons. but it is important to note that by itself, and apart from parliament, the crown has to-day, within the united kingdom,[ : ] no inherent legislative power whatever. this was not always true, for legislation has at times been enacted by the crown alone in the form of ordinances or proclamations; but the practice may be said to have received its death-blow from the famous opinion of lord coke, "that the king by his proclamation cannot create any offence which was not an offence before, for then he may alter the law of the land."[ : ] the english crown has, therefore, no inherent power to make ordinances for completing the laws, such as is possessed by the chief magistrate in france and other continental states. this does not mean that it cannot make regulations for the conduct of affairs by its own servants, by orders in council, for example, establishing regulations for the management of the army, or prescribing examinations for entrance to the civil service. these are merely rules such as any private employer might make in his own business, and differ entirely in their nature from ordinances which have the force of law, and are binding quite apart from any contract of employment. power to make ordinances which have the force of law and are binding on the whole community is, however, frequently given to the crown[ : ] by statute, notably in matters affecting public health, education, etc., and the practice is constantly becoming more and more extensive, until at present the rules made in pursuance of such powers--known as "statutory orders"--are published every year in a volume similar in form to that containing the statutes. some of these orders must be submitted to parliament, but go into effect unless within a certain time an address to the contrary is passed by one of the houses, while others take effect at once, or after a fixed period, and are laid upon the tables of the houses in order to give formal notice of their adoption. a fuller description of these orders must, however, be postponed to the chapters that deal with parliament. it is only necessary here to point out that in making such orders the crown acts by virtue of a purely delegated authority, and stands in the same position as a town council. the orders are a species of subordinate legislation, and can be enacted only in strict conformity with the statutes by which the power is granted; and being delegated, not inherent in the crown, a power of this kind does not fall within the prerogative in its narrower and more appropriate sense. [sidenote: executive power.] the crown is at the head of the executive branch of the central government, and carries out the laws, so far as their execution requires the intervention of any national public authority. in fact all national executive power, whether regulated by statute, or forming strictly a part of the prerogative, is exercised in the name of the crown, and by its authority, except when directly conferred by statute upon some officer of the crown, and in this case, as we shall see, it is exercised by that officer as a servant of the crown, and under its direction and control. legally some of the executive powers are indeed vested in the crown in council--that is, in the king acting with his privy council--but as the council has no independent authority, and consists, for practical purposes, of the principal ministers appointed by the crown, even these powers may be said to reside in the crown alone. [sidenote: appointments to office.] all national public officers, except some of the officials of the houses of parliament, and a few hereditary dignitaries whose duties are purely ceremonial,[ : ] are appointed directly by the crown or by the high state officials whom it has itself appointed; and the crown has also the right to remove them, barring a small number whose tenure is during good behaviour. of these last by far the most important are the judges, the members of the council of india, and the controller and auditor general, no one of whom has any direct part in the executive government of the kingdom.[ : ] now the right to appoint and remove involves the power to control; and, therefore, it may be said in general that the whole executive machinery of the central government of england is under the direction of the crown. [sidenote: other powers under the prerogative.] the crown furthermore authorises under the sign manual the expenditure of public money in accordance with the appropriations made by parliament, and then expends the money. it can grant charters of incorporation, with powers not inconsistent with the law of the land, so far as the right to do so has not been limited by statute; but in consequence of the various reform acts, municipal corporation acts, and local government acts, no charter conferring political power can now be created except in pursuance of statute, while even commercial companies usually require privileges which can be given only by the same authority.[ : ] the crown grants all pardons, creates all peers, and confers all titles and honours. as head of the established church of england it summons convocation with a license to transact business specified in advance. it virtually appoints the archbishops, bishops and most of the deans and canons, and has in its gift many rectorships and other livings.[ : ] as head of the army and navy it raises and controls the armed forces of the nation, and makes regulations for their government, subject, of course, to the statutes and to the passage of the annual army act. it represents the empire in all external relations, and in all dealings with foreign powers. it has power to declare war, make peace, and conclude treaties, save that, without the sanction of parliament, a treaty cannot impose a charge upon the people, or change the law of the land, and it is doubtful how far without that sanction private rights can be sacrificed or territory ceded.[ : ] [sidenote: executive powers under statutes.] just as parliament has often conferred legislative authority upon the crown, so it has conferred executive power in addition to that possessed by virtue of the prerogative. i do not refer here to the cases where a statute creates new public duties to be performed directly by the crown and confers upon it the authority needed for the purpose. such powers, although statutory, are exercised in the same way as those derived from the prerogative. i refer to statutes that regulate the duties or privileges of local and other bodies, and give to the crown, not a direct authority to carry out the law, but a power of supervision and control. statutes of this kind have become very common during the last half century in relation to such matters as local government, public health, pauperism, housing of the working-classes, education, tramways, electric lighting and a host of other things. even without an express grant of authority, supervisory powers have often been conferred upon the crown by means of appropriations for local purposes which can be applied by the government at its discretion, and hence in accordance with such regulations as it chooses to prescribe. this has been true, for example, of the subsidies in aid of the local police, and of education. by such methods the local authorities, and especially the smaller ones, have been brought under the tutelage of the crown to an extent quite unknown in the past. [sidenote: wide extent of the powers of the crown.] all told, the executive authority of the crown is, in the eye of the law, very wide, far wider than that of the chief magistrate in many countries, and well-nigh as extensive as that now possessed by the monarch in any government not an absolute despotism; and although the crown has no inherent legislative power except in conjunction with parliament, it has been given by statute very large powers of subordinate legislation. "it would very much surprise people," as bagehot remarked in his incisive way, "if they were only told how many things the queen could do without consulting parliament . . . not to mention other things, she could disband the army (by law she cannot engage more than a certain number of men, but she is not obliged to engage any men); she could dismiss all the officers, from the general commanding-in-chief downwards; she could dismiss all the sailors too; she could sell off all our ships of war and all our naval stores; she could make a peace by the sacrifice of cornwall, and begin a war for the conquest of brittany. she could make every citizen in the united kingdom, male or female, a peer; she could make every parish in the united kingdom a 'university'; she could dismiss most of the civil servants; she could pardon all offenders. in a word, the queen could by prerogative upset all the action of civil government within the government."[ : ] we might add that the crown could appoint bishops, and in many places clergymen, whose doctrines were repulsive to their flocks; could cause every dog to be muzzled, every pauper to eat leeks, every child in the public elementary schools to study welsh; and could make all local improvements, such as tramways and electric light, well-nigh impossible. [sidenote: powers that have been lost.] great as the prerogative is to-day, it was, in some directions, even more extensive in the past, and men are in the habit of repeating the phrases derived from that past after they have lost their meaning. this is done by writers who are not under the slightest misapprehension in regard to the actual legal authority of the crown. it is the habit, for example, to speak of the crown as the fountain of justice, and even an author so learned and accurate as todd repeats blackstone's statement that "by the fountain of justice, the law does not mean the author or original, but only the distributor. justice is not derived from the king, as from his free gift, but he is the steward of the public, to dispense it to whom it is due. he is not the spring, but the reservoir, from whence right and equity are conducted by a thousand channels to every individual."[ : ] now apart from public prosecution by the state, which is less common in england than elsewhere, and the use of the king's name in judicial process, the only legal connection of the crown with the distribution of justice to-day lies in the appointment of the judges; and to call it on that account the reservoir of justice is merely fanciful. there was a time when the crown was really the fountain or reservoir of justice, when it might fairly have been said to administer justice by deputy. it created the common law courts, and after the growth of civilisation had produced more refined and complex ideas of justice it received petitions for the redress of wrongs not recognised before, and established new courts to deal with them. stubbs has compared the process to that of the sun throwing off a series of nebulous envelopes, which rolled up into compact bodies, but left the old nucleus of light to assert its vitality, unimpaired by successive emanations.[ : ] in this way the courts of equity arose to give relief in cases where there was no remedy by the strict rules of the common law, while the star chamber performed an analogous function in criminal matters. this last tribunal came to be used as a political engine under the stuarts, and was abolished by statute[ : ] early in the struggle with charles i. with the fall of the stuarts the power of the crown to create new courts came to an end altogether. in the bill of rights declared the "court of commissioners for ecclesiastical causes, and all other commissions and courts of a like nature," illegal, and since that time an act of parliament has been necessary to create any new court of justice in england. the crown has been deprived in the same way of other powers once possessed or claimed under the prerogative. the bill of rights, for example, declared illegal the suspending or dispensing with laws, and the maintenance of a standing army in time of peace without the consent of parliament. some powers have, from long disuse, become obsolete and have been lost; such as the right to confer on boroughs the privilege of electing members to the house of commons;[ : ] and the power to create life peers with votes in the house of lords.[ : ] other powers again, although legally unimpaired, have become obsolete in practice, and can no longer be exerted. the illustration commonly given of this is the right of the crown to withhold its assent to a bill passed by parliament,--popularly called, or miscalled, the veto. the right has not been exercised since the days of queen anne; but it may not be gone so completely beyond revival as is generally supposed. it could, of course, be used only on the advice of the ministry of the day, and under ordinary circumstances a ministry willing to withhold the royal assent to a bill would be bound to treat the passage of that bill by the house of commons as a ground for resignation or dissolution. one can imagine, however, a case where after a bill has passed the commons the ministry should resign, and the house of lords should insist on passing the bill in spite of the opposition of the new cabinet. it would be rash to assert that in such a case the royal assent would not be withheld. something of the kind very nearly occurred in , when the ministry threatened to advise the queen to withhold her assent to a private bill unless the lords gave permission to the board of works to appear before the private bill committee and oppose the plans.[ : ] [sidenote: powers of the crown exercised by ministers.] since the accession of the house of hanover the new powers conferred upon the crown by statute have probably more than made up for the loss to the prerogative of powers which have either been restricted by the same process or become obsolete by disuse. by far the greater part of the prerogative, as it existed at that time, has remained legally vested in the crown, and can be exercised to-day; but it is no longer used in accordance with the personal wishes of the sovereign. by a gradual process his authority has come more and more under the control of his ministers, until it is now almost entirely in the hands of the cabinet, which is responsible to parliament, and through parliament to the nation. the cabinet is to-day the mainspring of the whole political system, and the clearest method of explaining the relations of the different branches of the government to each other is to describe in succession their relations with the cabinet. footnotes: [ : ] - will. iii., c. . [ : ] except, of course, that the eldest of several sisters succeeds instead of all having equal rights as co-parceners. [ : ] "law of the constitution," . [ : ] the statement is made with this limitation because the crown has always had inherent authority to legislate directly for crown colonies acquired by conquest; but if the crown once grants a representative legislature to such a colony without reserving its own legislative authority, it surrenders that authority over the colony forever. see jenkyns, "british rule and jurisdiction beyond the seas," - , ; campbell _vs._ hall, cowp., . [ : ] coke's reports, xii., . [ : ] or more strictly to the crown in council. [ : ] such as the hereditary earl marshal and grand falconer. [ : ] on the power of removal from an office held during good behaviour, and on the effect of the provision that the three classes of officers mentioned above may be removed upon the address of both houses of parliament, see anson, "law and custom of the constitution," ii., - . the references to anson are to the ed. of vol. i. ( ); the ed. of vol. ii. ( ). [ : ] todd, "parl. govt. in england," ed. ( ), ch. xiv. [ : ] see the later chapter on the church. [ : ] _cf._ anson, "law and custom," ii., - ; dicey, "law of the constitution," . heligoland was ceded to germany by treaty in , subject to the assent of parliament, which was given by - vic., c. . [ : ] "english constitution," ed. (amer.), introd., . [ : ] todd, "parl. govt. in england," i., . [ : ] "const. hist. of england," ed., i., . [ : ] car. i., c. . [ : ] it may be maintained that the right, if not already lost by disuse, was by implication, though not expressly, taken away by the reform acts of , and , which created new boroughs and disfranchised old ones. [ : ] see the debate in the lords on the wensleydale case. hans., ser., cxl., _passim_. [ : ] the victoria station and pimlico railway bill, hans., ser., cli., - , - , - . see todd, ii., . chapter ii the crown and the cabinet it is not within the province of this book to trace the process whereby the king became irresponsible both at law and before the nation, while the responsibility for his acts became transferred to his ministers. the story has been told by others far better than the writer could tell it, and the object here is only to note the results of that process in the existing constitution. [sidenote: the king can do no wrong at law;] the doctrine that "the king can do no wrong" had its beginnings as far back as the infancy of henry iii., and by degrees it grew until it became a cardinal principle of the constitution. legally it means that he cannot be adjudged guilty of wrong-doing, and hence that no proceedings can be brought against him. he cannot be prosecuted criminally, or, without his own consent, sued civilly in tort or in contract in any court in the land.[ : ] but clearly if the government is to be one of law, if public officers like private citizens are to be subject to the courts, if the people are to be protected from arbitrary power, the servant who acts on behalf of the crown must be held responsible for illegal conduct from the consequences of which the king himself is free. hence the principle arose that the king's command is no excuse for a wrongful act, and this is a firmly established maxim of the common law in both civil and criminal proceedings.[ : ] to prevent royal violations of the law, however, it is not enough to hold liable a servant who executes unlawful orders, if the master still has power to commit offences directly. a further step must be taken by restraining the crown from acting without the mediation of a servant who can be made accountable, and for this reason edward i. was informed that he could not make an arrest in person.[ : ] but, as the kings and queens are not likely to be tempted into personal assaults and trespasses, the principle that they can act only through agents has had little importance from the point of view of their liability at law, although it is a matter of vital consequence in relation to their political responsibility. [sidenote: or in politics.] the doctrine that the king can do no wrong applies not only to legal offences, but also to political errors. the principle developed slowly, as a part of the long movement that has brought the royal authority under the control of public opinion; not that the process was altogether conscious, or the steps deliberately planned, but taking constitutional history as a whole, we can see that it tended to a result, and in speaking of this it is natural to use terms implying an intent which the actors did not really possess. to keep the crown from actual violations of law was not always easy, but it was far more difficult to prevent it from using its undoubted prerogatives to carry out an unpopular policy. parliament could do something in a fitful and intermittent way by refusing supplies or insisting upon the redress of particular grievances, but that alone was not enough to secure harmony between the crown and the other political forces of the day. there could, in the nature of things, be no appropriate penalty for royal misgovernment. in the middle ages, indeed, a bad king or a weak king might lose his throne or even his life; but in more settled times such things could not take place without a violent convulsion of the whole realm,--a truth only too well illustrated by the events of the seventeenth century. an orderly government cannot be founded on the basis of personal rule tempered by revolution. either the royal power must be exercised at the personal will of the monarch, or else other persons who can be made accountable must take part in his acts of state. [sidenote: a minister responsible for each of his acts.] as early as the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the king's council had begun to encumber the affixing of the various seals with a series of formalities which involved the intervention of one or more royal officers. the process continued until custom or statute required that almost every public act which the crown was in the habit of performing directly--except the appointment and removal of the great officers of state themselves--must either be done in the privy council, or by means of an instrument authenticated by seals or countersignatures affixed by one or more officers of state.[ : ] the object of these formalities was to protect the crown from improvident grants, and to secure the influence of the council over the administration,[ : ] rather than to create any responsibility to parliament or the public; and yet it was easy to maintain, when the time was ripe, that the officer who sealed or signed assumed thereby responsibility for the act. then if a wrong was committed some one could be held to account; for misconduct some one could be punished; for acts that were unpopular, or a policy that was odious, some one beneath the throne could be assailed; and if a strong expression of resentment did not deter the offender, parliament had as a last resort the weapons of impeachment and bill of attainder. these weapons were a stage in the process of evolution, a stepping-stone in the progress of parliamentary control, but they were far too rough to produce a true accord between the crown and parliament; and when the political experiments of william and of anne, fostered by the timely accident of two unkingly foreigners upon the throne, evolved at last the system of a responsible ministry in its present form, even impeachment became obsolete, or rather it lingered only as a means of retribution for personal malfeasance in office. [sidenote: nature of modern responsibility.] the rules requiring seals or signatures to be affixed to royal acts, though somewhat simplified, remain in force to-day, but they have ceased to be the real source of responsibility. the effort to fasten upon a particular person the actual responsibility for each public act of the crown by compelling some officer to put his approval of it on record, has been superseded by the general principle that the responsibility must always be imputed to a minister. though ignorant of the matter at the time it occurred, he becomes answerable if he retains his post after it comes to his knowledge; and even though not in office when the act was done, yet if he is appointed in consequence of it, he assumes with the office the responsibility for the act. this happened to sir robert peel in . believing, as every one at that time did believe, that the king had arbitrarily dismissed lord melbourne's cabinet, he said, "i should by my acceptance of the office of first minister become _technically, if not morally_, responsible for the dissolution of the preceding government, although i had not the remotest concern in it."[ : ] the rule is so universal in its operation "that there is not a moment in the king's life, from his accession to his demise, during which there is not some one responsible to parliament for his public conduct."[ : ] a minister is now politically responsible for everything that occurs in his department, whether countersignature or seal is affixed by him or not; and all the ministers are jointly responsible for every highly important political act. a minister whose policy is condemned by parliament is no longer punished, he resigns; and if the affair involves more than his personal conduct or competence, if it is of such moment that it ought to have engaged the attention of the cabinet, his colleagues resign with him. thus punitive responsibility has been replaced by political responsibility, and separate has been enlarged to joint responsibility. [sidenote: the king must follow the advice of ministers;] the ministers, being responsible to parliament for all the acts of the crown, are obliged to refrain from things that they cannot justify, and to insist upon actions which they regard as necessary. in short, the cabinet must carry out its own policy; and to that policy the crown must submit. the king may, of course, be able to persuade his ministers to abandon a policy of which he does not approve, and of his opportunities for doing so we shall have more to say later; but if he cannot persuade them, and, backed by a majority in parliament, they insist upon their views, he must yield. it is commonly said that he must give his ministers his confidence, but it would be more accurate to say that he must follow their advice. with the progress of the parliamentary system this custom has grown more and more settled, the ministers assuming greater control, and the crown yielding more readily, not necessarily from any dread of the consequences, but from the force of habit. [sidenote: or find others who will accept responsibility.] according to the older theory of parliamentary government, it was merely necessary that the king should have ministers who would accept responsibility for his acts; and, therefore, he might disregard their advice if he could find others who were willing to adopt his policy, and assume responsibility for it. such an alternative is a very remote possibility in england to-day. it could only be brought about in one of two ways. in the first place it might be brought about by the dismissal of the cabinet. william iv. was long supposed to have dismissed arbitrarily lord melbourne's cabinet in , and for many years his action in so doing was freely criticised; but on the publication of the melbourne papers[ : ] it appeared that the prime minister himself, meeting with great difficulty in carrying on the government, virtually suggested the dismissal to the king; and thus the incident was rather in the nature of a resignation than a dismissal. the right to dismiss a ministry, although unquestionably within the legal prerogative of the crown, seems to be regarded as one of those powers which the close responsibility of the cabinet to the house of commons has practically made obsolete. as in the case of some other powers, however, it is hardly safe to predict that it will never be used again, for circumstances might arise in which it was evident that the ministry and the house of commons no longer represented the opinion of the country. before mr. gladstone's last administration few people would have hesitated to say that the house of lords would never again venture to reject a bill on which a house of commons, fresh from a general election, was thoroughly in earnest, when the subject of the bill had been one of the chief issues in that election. yet the lords rejected the last home rule bill of , without losing popularity by so doing; and in it destroyed the education bill. it is conceivable that under similar conditions the crown might, by dismissing a ministry, force a dissolution, and appeal to the electorate. such an event, though highly improbable, cannot be said to be impossible. the dismissal of a ministry must, of course, be carefully distinguished from the dismissal of an individual minister. this would be done, as in the case of lord palmerston,--the last of the kind that has occurred,--at the request of the premier, and therefore not contrary to, but in accordance with, the advice of the person chiefly responsible for the acts of the crown. the other way in which a change of ministry could be brought about by the crown would be by a refusal to consent to some act which the ministry deemed essential to their remaining in office. some cases of the exercise of such a right by the representative of the crown have taken place in the self-governing colonies, but they are not such as are likely to occur in england. a request, for example, by the ministry to be allowed to dissolve a colonial legislature has on several occasions been refused by the governor, usually on the ground that a general election had recently been held, or that there was no important issue pending between the parties which the people could properly be called upon to decide.[ : ] in england, on the other hand, such a request by a ministry has never been refused since william pitt in invented the principle that a government faced by a hostile majority in the house of commons may appeal to the electorate instead of resigning; nor is it probable that it will be refused, because the rules of political fair play are so thoroughly understood among english statesmen that the power is not likely to be misused for party purposes. an interesting discussion on the right of a colonial governor to reject the advice of his ministers was raised in the case of governor darling of victoria in . the story has been often told. it grew out of a quarrel between the assembly and the legislative council, which were both elective, but happened to be on opposite sides in politics. the assembly, wishing to enact a protective tariff, to which a majority of the council was known to be opposed, tacked it to the annual appropriation bill; and the council, unable to amend such a bill, rejected it altogether. thereupon the governor, yielding to the pressure of his ministers, sanctioned the levy of the new duties, the issue of a loan, and the payment of official salaries, without the authority of any act regularly passed by both branches of the legislature. for permitting, on the advice of his ministers, such a violation of law, governor darling was rebuked, and finally dismissed by the secretary of state for the colonies.[ : ] it is needless to say that no such situation has ever arisen, or is likely to arise, in england. [sidenote: selection of a new premier.] there is one matter in which the crown cannot really be bound by the advice of ministers, and that is in the selection of a premier. it would be obviously improper, not to say absurd, that the king in the selection of a new prime minister should be obliged to follow the opinion of the old one who has just resigned in consequence of a change of party in the house of commons. that mr. balfour, for example, should have had the right to dictate whether sir henry campbell-bannerman or lord rosebery should be his successor would have been grotesque. there is usually one recognised leader of the opposition, and when that is the case the crown must intrust the formation of the new ministry to him. this was illustrated in . mr. gladstone had, some years before, retired from the leadership of the liberals in parliament, and the queen, after their success at the general election, sent for lord hartington, then leading them in the house of commons; but she found that mr. gladstone, who had really led the party in the country to victory, was the only possible head of a liberal government.[ : ] if the party that has obtained a majority in parliament has no recognised leader, the crown may intrust the formation of a ministry to any one of its chief men who is willing to undertake the task; or if, as is sometimes the case, the parties have become more or less disintegrated, so that only a coalition ministry can be formed, the crown can send for the head of any one of the various groups. not to speak of earlier days, when the king had more freedom than at present in the formation of his cabinets, it happened several times in the reign of queen victoria that the question who should be prime minister was determined by her personal choice. in , for example, lord aberdeen's coalition cabinet was formed by her desire.[ : ] in she selected lord palmerston rather than lord john russell;[ : ] and in and , when in each case the existing cabinet lost its head, she selected the minister who was to succeed, designating in the first case mr. disraeli, and in the last lord rosebery.[ : ] such opportunities, however, are likely to be less common in future, for it is altogether probable that a party will prefer to choose its own leader rather than to leave the selection to the crown. [sidenote: selection of other ministers.] the choice of the other members of the cabinet is a very different matter; for although former sovereigns insisted on having a decisive voice in the composition of the ministry, it may be said that with peel's appointment to office in the principle was definitely established that the prime minister chooses his colleagues, and is responsible for their selection.[ : ] the royal authority in this matter gave a last dying flicker in the bed-chamber question of , where peel's clumsiness and the queen's impetuosity gave rise to a misunderstanding. peel wished to replace some of the ladies attendant on the queen, who were exclusively whigs, by conservatives; and the queen, getting the impression that he intended to replace them all, refused.[ : ] when peel came into office two years later part of the whig ladies retired and were replaced; and it has since been settled that the mistress of the robes, like the gentlemen of the household, shall change with the administration, but that the other ladies shall remain. the mistress of the robes, however, must always be a duchess, and during the last years of the queen's life it happened that there was no duchess who was a liberal. at the present day all persons whose offices are considered political are appointed in accordance with the advice of the prime minister. this does not mean that the sovereign may not urge his own views, perhaps with success, and on one occasion, at least, the queen secured, it is said, a place in the cabinet for a former minister whom the incoming premier had either forgotten or meant to leave out. it does mean, however, that if the minister insists upon his advice it must be accepted. more than once, for example, the queen tried in vain to exclude from the foreign office lord palmerston, who was a constant grief of mind to her. as mr. morley puts it in the chapter, in his "life of walpole," which is understood to express mr. gladstone's views upon the cabinet, "constitutional respect for the crown would inspire a natural regard for the personal wishes of the sovereign in recommendations to office, but royal predilections or prejudices will undoubtedly be less and less able to stand against the prime minister's strong view of the requirements of the public service."[ : ] [sidenote: for what acts ministers are responsible.] the responsibilities of the ministers may be classified as technical and complete. thus for acts which happen before they come into office, and which they could not possibly have advised, they assume what may be called a technical, or perhaps a nominal, responsibility. a premier is technically responsible for his own selection; but as responsibility of that kind means merely the obligation to resign on an adverse vote of the house of commons, and as he would be obliged to do this in any event, he assumes no additional responsibility by reason of his own selection; and the same thing may be said of all acts which happen before the ministers come into power, and which they do not by accepting office effectually sanction or condone. they become responsible, for example, for the condition of the public departments of which they take charge; and yet it may be for the very purpose of changing that condition that they were put in office. in other words, there is a difference between those things for which they are technically responsible but not to blame, and those things which have been done by their advice, and for the consequence of which they may be said to be morally or completely responsible. the distinction is unimportant from the point of view of the conventions of the constitution, but its practical consequences are considerable as regards the position of the cabinet before parliament and the public. now the ministers are completely responsible for all political acts done by the crown during their tenure of office, even those which appear to be most directly the work of the sovereign himself. all communications with the representatives of foreign powers, for example, pass through their hands. the creation of peers, the granting of honours, are now unquestionably subject to their advice; and although when king edward's list of coronation honours was announced in , _the times_ declared that the names were the personal choice of the monarch, it took pains to add that the constitutional responsibility must, of course, rest with the ministers.[ : ] in short, the ministers direct the action of the crown in all matters relating to the government. the king's speech on the opening of parliament is, of course, written by them; and they prepare any answers to addresses that may have a political character. all official letters and reports to the king, and all communications from him, must pass through the hands of one of their number. a letter addressed to the sovereign as such by a subject, or other private person, passes through the office of the home secretary; and even peers, who have a constitutional right to approach him, must make an appointment for the interview through the same office. this does not mean that the crown may not consult any one it pleases. that question came up in relation to prince albert, whom the ministers at first held at arm's length, and whose presence at their interviews with the queen they refused for a couple of years to permit, while he, on the other hand, called himself the queen's "confidential adviser" and "permanent minister."[ : ] confidential adviser he certainly was, but minister he certainly was not, because in the nature of things he could not be responsible for her acts. mr. gladstone in his "gleanings of past years"[ : ] seems to have defined the true position of the queen and prince consort when he said that she has a right to take secret counsel with any one, subject only to the condition that it does not disturb her relation with her ministers. she cannot, as a rule, consult the opposition, because they are directly opposed to the ministry; but she can consult any one else, provided it does not affect the responsibility of her ministers; that is, provided that in the end she follows their advice. [sidenote: public and private acts of the crown.] the ministers are responsible for the public, not the private, acts of the crown; but it is sometimes hard to distinguish between the two. queen victoria, for example, had relatives on many of the thrones of europe to whom it was absurd that she should not write private letters; while other crowned heads were constantly writing letters to her on public business which they did not intend the ministers to see. the rule was, therefore, adopted that all her correspondence with foreign sovereigns, not her relatives, should pass through the ministers' hands,--an arrangement which, though a necessary result of english responsible government, was galling to the queen, who was often made to express in her own handwriting opinions quite different from those which she really held.[ : ] in domestic matters, also, it is hard to draw the line between what is public and what is private. the queen's marriage, which was felt at the time to have a greater political importance than it would have to-day, was arranged by herself, without consultation with her ministers, and merely announced to them. on the other hand, when the princess louise was betrothed to the marquis of lorne, mr. gladstone stated in the house of commons that the marriage with a subject had not been decided upon without the advice of the ministers of the crown.[ : ] the risk of a strong infusion of british blood in the veins of some future occupant of the throne is, it seems, a political matter, for which the cabinet must hold itself responsible. but this is not true of purely social affairs. one of the chief functions of the crown is that connected with its duties as the head of the social life of the capital. these duties the queen virtually abandoned for many years after her husband's death; but although there were loud complaints on the part of the public, the question was not regarded as a political one for which the ministers could be called to account. [sidenote: the king's name not brought into public controversy.] since the king can do no wrong, he can do neither right nor wrong. he must not be praised or blamed for political acts; nor must his ministers make public the fact that any decision on a matter of state was actually made by him.[ : ] his name must not be brought into political controversy in any way, or his personal wishes referred to in argument, either within or without parliament.[ : ] this principle was not fully recognized until after the accession of queen victoria. at the first election of her reign the tories complained, apparently with reason, that the whigs used her and her name as party weapons,[ : ] and three years later we find wellington referring to the queen as the head of the party opposed to the conservatives.[ : ] almost the only public acts that can be done by the crown before the public eye are ceremonies, public functions, speeches which have no political character and deeds of kindness that are above criticism. when the queen, for example, made her last visit to ireland, the public were allowed to understand that it was her own suggestion, and the same thing was true of her order allowing irish soldiers to wear the shamrock, it being assumed that such acts could not have a political bearing, and would excite no hostile comment. [sidenote: actual influence of the sovereign.] according to the earlier theory of the constitution the ministers were the counsellors of the king. it was for them to advise and for him to decide. now the parts are almost reversed. the king is consulted, but the ministers decide. it is commonly said that, with the sovereign, influence has been substituted for power; or as bagehot puts it in his own emphatic way, the crown has "three rights--the right to be consulted, the right to encourage, the right to warn. and a king of great sense and sagacity would want no others."[ : ] but after the advice and warning have been given the final decision must remain with the ministers. it is for them to determine whether their opinion is of such importance that they feel obliged to insist upon it in spite of the objections of the king, and if they do he must yield. bagehot goes on to describe how effective the right to advise may become in the hands of a sage and experienced monarch, but he admits how small the chance must be that the occupant of the throne will possess the qualities needed for making a good use of the right, and adds that the attempt of the ordinary monarch to exercise it would probably do more harm than good. [sidenote: he is consulted after a decision is reached.] historians have often observed that the absence of the sovereign from cabinet meetings, since the accession of the house of hanover, has been a great factor in the growth of cabinet government. his absence had, indeed, three distinct effects. it helped to free the individual members of the cabinet from royal pressure; it made it easier for them to act as a unit in their relations with the monarch; and it tended to remove him from the discussion of public policy until it had been formulated. this last point is highly important, and has a bearing upon the influence of the king to-day, because it is before the ministers have formed an opinion that his advice and warning are most effective. it is while some of them are reluctant and others are hesitating that the weight of his views has the best chance of turning the scale. after the matter has been threshed out and an agreement reached the decision is far less likely to be reversed, or even seriously modified, by his personal preferences. now the sovereign is not usually consulted about matters of domestic legislation and policy until the opinion of the cabinet has taken shape. for although he is informed in general terms of what is done at cabinet meetings, and sometimes discusses with a minister the proposed measures relating to his department, yet a matter is commonly talked over and agreed upon by the ministers before it is submitted to him for approval. in this way "the sovereign is brought into contact only with the net results of previous inquiry and deliberation,"[ : ] and the views of the cabinet are "laid before" him "and before parliament, as if they were the views of one man."[ : ] queen victoria tried, indeed, to insist upon the right of "commenting on all proposals before they are matured;"[ : ] but apparently without much success. this was not equally true, however, of all departments of the government. on the contrary, after a long struggle with lord palmerston, in which she suffered many exasperating rebuffs, the autocratic foreign minister by his impulsiveness and lack of perfect candour gave her at last an advantage. she succeeded in establishing, by the memorandum of august, , the rule that she must be kept informed of foreign correspondence and despatches before they were sent, so that foreign matters should be intact and not already compromised when they were brought to her attention. mr. gladstone has criticised the principles laid down at that time because they meant that the comments of the premier on despatches were to be made, not privately to the foreign minister, but after the draft had been submitted to the queen.[ : ] in other words, he complained that the queen was consulted before the tenor of the despatch had been finally settled between the premier and the foreign minister. his criticism seems, therefore, to be levelled at the practice of consulting the crown before the policy has been agreed upon by those who are responsible for it,[ : ] in this case the prime minister and the foreign secretary, for despatches are not ordinarily brought before the full cabinet for consideration. the opportunity for an exertion of royal influence is much less in those matters which are settled in cabinet meeting than in others. in the former case the sovereign is not usually consulted until the question has been thoroughly discussed, and the cabinet has reached a decision which is the more difficult to change because it is often the result of a compromise, and has, therefore, something of the binding force of an agreement; whereas, in questions which are not brought directly before the cabinet, the crown when consulted has to overcome only the opinion, and perhaps the hasty opinion, of one or two ministers. this is true in such matters as the less important foreign relations, ecclesiastical and other patronage, and the ordinary executive work of the various departments. but herein another difference must be observed. the executive action of the government in domestic affairs is usually brought under very close scrutiny by parliament, and is subjected to a galling fire there. hence the minister, with the volley of questions levelled at the treasury bench ever before his mind, finds it more difficult in these affairs to yield his opinion to that of the monarch than he does in the case of foreign negotiations, and of ecclesiastical, judicial and military patronage, which are not habitually discussed in parliament.[ : ] it would seem, therefore, that under ordinary circumstances the personal influence of the king in political matters is not likely to be very effectively asserted outside of foreign affairs, church patronage, and some other appointments to office. [sidenote: personal influence of queen victoria.] although one can perceive the general limitations upon the personal influence of the monarch imposed by the conditions under which it is exercised, one can never know how vigorously it is being used at the moment; and, indeed, it is difficult to estimate its actual effect during any comparatively recent period. there is no use in going back beyond the reign of queen victoria, to times when the parliamentary system was so imperfectly developed that ministers sometimes gave individual and contrary advice to the king;[ : ] and since the queen came to the throne very little has been published which throws light upon the subject. from the various memoirs and letters of her ministers almost everything has been eliminated that bears upon the actual influence she exerted. nevertheless certain facts appear. there can be no doubt that the personal opinions of the monarch were deemed of greater importance at the time of the queen's accession than they are to-day. of late years, indeed, many popular writers have tended to neglect the royal influence altogether. with the love of broad generalisation, which is at once valuable and perilous in political philosophy, publicists have been in the habit of speaking of the queen as a figurehead; but statesmen who have seen the inner life of the cabinet know that the metaphor is inexact. mr. gladstone is reported to have said that every treatise on the english government which he had read failed to estimate her actual influence at its true value; and in his "gleanings of past years"[ : ] he remarks, "there is not a doubt that the aggregate of direct influence normally exercised by the sovereign upon the counsels and proceedings of her ministers is considerable in amount, tends to permanence and solidity of action, and confers much benefit on the country." perhaps at a later period he might have stated this less strongly; and although no final judgment can yet be formed, one may venture an estimate of the queen's influence in the different branches of the government. [sidenote: in domestic policy.] the effect of the queen's personal preferences in the selection of the prime minister and his colleagues has already been discussed, and it may be added that on two or three occasions a cabinet, instead of resigning on a defeat in the commons, dissolved parliament in deference to her wishes;[ : ] but except for this it is hard to find definite traces of her influence upon the general domestic policy of the country. yet in some departments, at least, of the public service she took a very lively interest. at times she was prodigal of suggestions and advice, which bore, as far as one can see, no positive fruit. she held her opinions strongly, expressed them boldly, and was frank in her criticism of measures, but did not succeed apparently in persuading her ministers to abandon or even to modify them. on more than one occasion she used her personal influence over the peers to prevent a disagreement between the houses, but this was never done to give effect to her own personal views, and in the case of the irish church disestablishment bill it was done to secure the passage of a government measure with which she was not herself in sympathy.[ : ] in short her personal influence in domestic affairs, either in the form of initiating policy, or of effecting changes in that of her ministers, seems to have been very slight. to this statement, however, a couple of exceptions must be made, which relate to the army and the church. the queen, who regarded the army as peculiarly dependent upon the sovereign, procured the appointment of a royal duke as commander-in-chief, and for a time she resisted successfully all attempts to change the vague relation of that office to the crown,[ : ] although in the end it was made completely subordinate to the minister responsible to parliament.[ : ] in the matter of ecclesiastical appointments her opinions were expressed with still greater effect, bishops and deans having in several cases been selected by her, sometimes in preference to candidates proposed by the prime minister. [sidenote: in foreign affairs.] but it was in foreign affairs that the queen's efforts were most untiring, and on the whole most successful, in spite of many disappointments. for years she was opposed to lord palmerston's aggressive attitude, and while she never effected a radical change of policy, she appears at times to have softened it to some extent.[ : ] throughout her reign she insisted upon the right to criticise despatches, and not infrequently she caused changes to be made in them; sometimes, as in the european crisis of - , by appealing from the foreign secretary and the prime minister to the cabinet as a whole.[ : ] the most famous case is that of the trent affair in , where the changes made in a despatch, in accordance with the suggestions of the prince consort a few days before his death, avoided a danger of serious trouble with the united states. in foreign affairs, therefore, it is safe to conclude that while the queen never initiated a policy, her influence had on several important occasions a perceptible effect in modifying the policy of her ministers. [sidenote: changes during the queen's reign.] in the closing chapter of his biography of the queen, mr. lee says that her "personal influence was far greater at the end of her life than at her accession to the throne. nevertheless it was a vague intangible element in the political sphere, and was far removed from the solid remnants of personal power which had adhered to the sceptre of her predecessors."[ : ] no doubt her long experience, and the veneration due to her age and unblemished character, caused her opinions to be treated with growing respect; but there can be no doubt, also, that the political influence of the sovereign faded slowly to a narrower and fainter ray during her reign. one sees this in peel's remark at her accession, that the personal character of a constitutional monarch counteracts the levity of ministers and the blasts of democratic passions.[ : ] one sees it in the great importance attached at that time to the persons surrounding the queen, to the ladies of the bedchamber, to the question of her private secretary, and to the position of the prince consort. the queen herself seems to have held views about her own position that were drawn from the past rather than the present.[ : ] at least this is the impression one forms, and it is fortified both by her defence of her seclusion in , on the ground that she had higher duties to discharge which she could not neglect without injury to the public service; and by her complaint that some of her ministers did not allow her time enough to consider and decide public questions, when in reality the decision was not made by her at all. the crown has been compared to a wheel turning inside the engine of state with great rapidity, but producing little effect because unconnected with the rest of the machinery. this is, no doubt, an exaggeration; but the actual influence of queen victoria upon the course of political events was small as compared with the great industry and activity she displayed. what the influence of the sovereign will be in the future cannot be foretold with precision. it must depend largely upon the insight, the tact, the skill, the industry and the popularity of the monarch himself; and as regards any one department, upon his interest in that department. the monarch is not likely to be inured to a life of strenuous work, and yet in addition to the political routine, which is by no means small, his duties, social and ceremonial, are great. moreover, with the highest qualifications for the throne, his opportunities must be very limited, for there is certainly no reason to expect any growth in irresponsible political authority. [sidenote: utility of the monarchy; as a political force.] bagehot's views upon the utility of the monarchy have become classic. recognising the small chance that an hereditary sovereign would possess the qualities necessary to exert any great influence for good upon political questions, he did not deem the crown of great value as a part of the machinery of the state; and he explained at some length how a parliamentary system of government could be made to work perfectly well in a republic, although up to that time such an experiment had never been tried. but he thought the crown of the highest importance in england as the dignified part of the government. writing shortly before the reform bill of , he dreaded the extension of democracy in great britain, for he had a low opinion of the political capacity of the english masses. he felt that the good government of the country depended upon their remaining in a deferential attitude towards the classes fitted by nature to rule the state, and he regarded the crown as one of the strongest elements in keeping up that deferential attitude. according to his conception of english polity the lower classes believed that the government was conducted by the queen, whom they revered, while the cabinet, unseen and unknown by the ignorant multitude, was thereby enabled to carry on a system which would be in danger of collapsing if the public thoroughly understood its real nature. whatever may have been the case when bagehot wrote, this state of things is certainly not true to-day. the english masses have more political intelligence than he supposed, or more political education than when he wrote. a traveller in england does not meet to-day people who think that the country is governed by the king, nor does he find any ignorance about the cabinet, or any illusions about the part played by the chief leaders in parliament. the english workingman is now bombarded from the platform, in the newspapers and in political leaflets, with electioneering appeals which do not refer to the king, but discuss unceasingly the party leaders and their doings. the political action of the crown is, in fact, less present to men's minds than it was half a century ago. mr. lee tells us that he was impressed by the outspoken criticism of the queen's actions in the early and middle years of her reign.[ : ] to-day the social and ceremonial functions of the crown attract quite as much interest as ever; but as a political organ it has receded into the background, and occupies less public attention than it did formerly. the stranger can hardly fail to note how rarely he hears the name of the sovereign mentioned in connection with political matters; and when he does hear it the reference is only too apt to be made by way of complaint. if the foreign policy is unpopular, if there is delay in the formation of a cabinet, one may hear utterly unfounded rumours attributing the blame to the king. even if a committee of inquiry is thought not to have probed some matter to the bottom, it is perhaps whispered that persons in favour at court are involved. fortunately such reports are uncommon. in general the growth of the doctrine of royal irresponsibility has removed the crown farther and farther out of the public sight, while the spread of democracy has made the masses more and more familiar with the actual forces in public life. one may dismiss, therefore, the idea that the crown has any perceptible effect to-day in securing the loyalty of the english people, or their obedience to the government. on the other hand, the government of england is inconceivable without the parliamentary system, and no one has yet devised a method of working that system without a central figure, powerless, no doubt, but beyond the reach of party strife. european countries that had no kings have felt constrained to adopt monarchs who might hold a sceptre which they could not wield; and one nation, disliking kings, has been forced to set up a president with most of the attributes of royalty except the title. if the english crown is no longer the motive power of the ship of state, it is the spar on which the sail is bent, and as such it is not only a useful but an essential part of the vessel. [sidenote: as a social and moral force.] the social and ceremonial duties of the crown are now its most conspicuous, if not its most important, functions. there can be no question that the influence of the queen and her court was a powerful element in the movement that raised the moral tone of society during the first half of the last century. but such an influence must vary with the personal character of the monarch. it may be exerted for good or for evil; and it may not be so strong in the future as it has been in the past. [sidenote: as a pageant.] in its relation to the masses royalty may be considered in another aspect. within a generation there has been a great growth of interest in ceremony and dress. antiquated customs and costumes have been revived, and matters of this kind are regarded by many people as of prime importance. a kindred result of the same social force has been a marked increase in what bagehot called the spirit of deference, and what those who dislike it call snobbishness--a tendency by no means confined to the british isles. all this has exalted the regard for titles and offices, and enhanced the attractiveness of those who bear them. in prestige the titled classes have profited thereby, and although their position is less and less dependent upon court favour, the royal family has also profited directly. the presence of some one of its members is sought at ceremonies of all kinds, whether it be the opening of a new building, the inauguration of a charity, or an anniversary celebration at a university. the attendance of the king on such occasions insures an extended report in all the newspapers of the country, and is, therefore, a most effective form of advertisement. [sidenote: as a symbol.] a century or more ago people who had learned nothing from the history of greece or rome, and above all of venice, were wont to assert that the sentiment of loyalty requires a person for its object. no one would make such a statement now. no one pretends that the english would be less patriotic under a republic; and yet with the strengthening conception of the british empire, the importance of the crown as the symbol of imperial unity has been more keenly felt. to most countries the visible symbol of the state is the flag; but curiously enough there is no british national flag. different banners are used for different purposes; the king himself uses the royal standard; ships of war carry at the peak the white ensign; naval reserve vessels fly the blue ensign, and merchantmen the red ensign; while the troops march, and parliament meets, under the union jack; and all of these are freely displayed on occasions of public rejoicing. there is a tendency at the moment to speak of the union jack as the national flag, but a recent occurrence will illustrate how far this is from being justified. a british subject residing at panama had been in the habit of flying the red ensign, until one day he hoisted in its place the union jack. now, according to the regulations the jack is displayed from the consulates, and the british consul requested his patriotic fellow-citizen not to use it on his private house. the question was finally referred to the british foreign office, which in deference to a law of panama forbidding all private display of alien flags, supported the position of the consul, but refrained from expressing any opinion on the right of an english citizen to hoist the union jack in foreign parts.[ : ] each of the self-governing colonies has, moreover, its own flag, which consists of the union jack with some distinctive emblem upon it. one of the first acts of the new commonwealth of australia was to adopt a separate flag of this kind. the government held a competition in designs, and some thirty thousand were presented. from these one was selected which showed at the same time the connection with the empire and the self-dependence of the commonwealth. it is the union jack with a southern cross and a six-pointed star at one end,--a design that seems to have been more shocking to heraldic than to imperialist sensibilities. the crown is thus the only visible symbol of the union of the empire, and this has undoubtedly had no inconsiderable effect upon the reverence felt for the throne. [sidenote: popularity of the monarchy.] whatever the utility of the crown may be at the present time, there is no doubt of its universal popularity. a generation ago, when the queen, by her seclusion after the death of prince albert, neglected the social functions of the court, a number of people began to have serious doubts on the subject. this was while republican ideals of the earlier type still prevailed, and before men had learned that a republic is essentially a form of government, and not necessarily either better or worse than other forms. the small republican group in england thought the monarchy useless and expensive; but people have now learned that republics are not economical, and that the real cost of maintaining the throne is relatively small.[ : ] so that while the benefits derived from the crown may not be estimated more highly, or admitted more universally than they were at that time, the objections to the monarchy have almost entirely disappeared, and there is no republican sentiment left to-day either in parliament or the country. footnotes: [ : ] if a person has a claim against the crown for breach of contract, or because his property is in its possession, he may bring a petition of right, and the crown on the advice of the home secretary will order the petition indorsed "let right be done," when the case proceeds like an ordinary suit. [ : ] anson, ii., , , , , , , - . but a servant of the crown is not liable on its contracts, for he has made no contract personally, and he cannot be compelled to carry out the contracts of the crown. gidley _vs._ lord palmerston, b. & b., . the rule that the sovereign cannot be sued has been held to prevent a possessory action against a person wrongfully in the possession of land as agent of the crown: doe. d. legh. _vs._ roe., m. & w., . it would seem that in such a case the courts might have held that as the king could do no wrong, the wrongful act, and consequently the possession, was not his; in other words, that the agency could not be set up as a defence to the wrongful act. compare united states _vs._ lee, u.s., , where land had been illegally seized by the government of the united states. [ : ] coke, inst. ( ed.), ii, - . "hussey chief justice reported, that sir john markham said to king e. i. that the king could not arrest any man for suspicion of treason, or felony, as any of his subjects might, because if the king did wrong, the party could not have his action." [ : ] anson, ii., , - . dicey, "the privy council," _et seq._ [ : ] dicey, _ibid._, - . [ : ] mahon and cardwell, "memoirs by sir robert peel," ii., . [ : ] todd, "parl. govt. in england," ed., i., . [ : ] pp. - . [ : ] a description of these cases may be found in todd, "parl. govt. in the british colonies," - . [ : ] todd, "parl. govt. in the british colonies," _et seq._ [ : ] _cf._ morley, "life of gladstone," book ii., ch. vii. [ : ] sidney lee, "life of queen victoria," ed., - . [ : ] ashley's "life of lord palmerston," ii., - . lee, "life of queen victoria," . [ : ] lee, _ibid._, . [ : ] todd, "parl. govt. in england," ed., i., _et seq._ [ : ] parker, "sir robert peel," ii., _et seq._, and lee, "life of queen victoria," - . [ : ] morley, "walpole," . [ : ] _the times_, june , . [ : ] martin, "life of the prince consort," ed., i., . [ : ] i., . [ : ] lee, "life of queen victoria," ed., - . [ : ] todd, "parl. govt. in england," ed., i., , note _y_. hans., ser. cciv., , . [ : ] disraeli's opponents were right for criticising him for letting it be known that it was the queen who had decided whether to accept his resignation or to dissolve in : hans., ser. cxci., , , , , , , , . there was no objection to allowing her to decide if he pleased,--that is, he might accept her opinion as his own,--but he ought to have assumed in public the sole responsibility for the decision. [ : ] in mr. lowe in a public speech expressed his belief that the queen had urged previous ministers in vain to procure for her the title of empress of india. the matter was brought to the attention of the house of commons, and he was forced to make an apology, which was somewhat abject, the queen through the prime minister having denied the truth of his statement: hans., ser. ccxxviii., _et seq._; and ccxxix., - . an apparent, though not a real, exception may be found in the rule which requires that before a bill affecting the prerogative can be introduced into parliament, notice of the king's assent thereto must be given. if the bill affects only the private property of the crown it is not a political matter. if it affects the public powers of the crown, then the assent is given on the responsibility of the ministers. [ : ] lee, "life of queen victoria," - . [ : ] parker, "sir robert peel," ii., _et seq._ [ : ] english const., ed., . [ : ] gladstone, "gleanings of past years," i., . [ : ] morley, "life of walpole," . [ : ] this was in . lee, "life of queen victoria," . [ : ] "gleanings of past years," i., , . [ : ] for the same reason the president of the board of control objected in , when lord ellenborough, the governor general of india, took upon himself to write directly to the queen, a proceeding which would undoubtedly not be permitted to-day. parker, "life of sir robert peel," ii., . in lord randolph churchill tendered his resignation as secretary of state for india, because the prime minister, without consulting him, had transmitted to the viceroy a suggestion by the queen that one of her sons should be appointed to the command of the forces in bombay. the appointment was not made, and lord randolph withdrew his resignation. winston churchill, "life of lord randolph churchill," i., - . [ : ] _cf._ dicey, "law of the constitution," ed., . [ : ] _cf._ parker, "life of sir robert peel," i., . [ : ] i., . [ : ] lee, "life of queen victoria," , , , and see page , note , _supra_. [ : ] morley, "life of gladstone," ii., _et seq._ davidson and benham, "life of archbishop tait," ed., ii., - , - , - . [ : ] lee, "life of queen victoria," , . [ : ] - vic., c. . order in council, june , . [ : ] _cf._ lee, "life of queen victoria," , , . [ : ] morley, "life of walpole," . but see morley, "life of gladstone," i., . [ : ] pp. - . [ : ] "croker papers," ii., . a couple of years earlier peel had dreaded the advent of a ministry that might appear to be dictated to the king by the house of commons, and continue in office independently of his will and control. parker, "sir robert peel," ii., . no statesman would repeat either of these remarks to-day. [ : ] in prince albert's letter to his daughter, the crown princess of prussia, on the advantages of a responsible ministry, he speaks of the power of the monarch to settle the principles on which political action is to be based, in terms not applicable in england. martin, "life of the prince consort," iv., . [ : ] "life of victoria," pref., vii-viii. [ : ] _the times_, sept. , . [ : ] hans., ser. xciv., . the civil list of edward vii. was fixed at his accession at £ , , to which must be added about £ , of revenues from the duchy of lancaster, and also the revenues from the duchy of cornwall which go to the heir apparent as duke of cornwall. rep. com. on civil list, com. papers, , v., . chapter iii the cabinet and the ministers [sidenote: absence of fixed traditions.] a german professor in a lecture on anatomy is reported to have said to his class, "gentlemen, we now come to the spleen. about the functions of the spleen, gentlemen, we know nothing. so much for the spleen." it is with such feelings that one enters upon the task of writing a chapter upon the cabinet; although that body has become more and more, decade by decade, the motive power of all political action. the fact is that the cabinet from its very nature can hardly have fixed traditions. in the first place, it has no legal status as an organ of government, but is an informal body, unknown to the law, whose business is to bring about a coöperation among the different forces of the state without interfering with their legal independence. its action must, therefore, be of an informal character. then it meets in secret, and no records of its proceedings are kept, which would in itself make very difficult the establishment and preservation of a tradition. this could, indeed, happen only in case of a certain permanence among the members who could learn and transmit its practice. but a new cabinet contains under ordinary circumstances none of the members of its predecessor. a conservative minister knows nothing of the procedure under liberal administrations; and we find even a man of the experience of sir robert peel asking sir james graham about the practice of a liberal cabinet, of which that statesman--who at this time changed his party every decade--had formerly been a member.[ : ] no doubt the mode of transacting business varies a good deal from one cabinet to another, depending to a great extent upon the personal qualities of the members. still, the real nature of the work to be done, and hence the method of doing it, have changed during the last half century less in the case of the cabinet than of any of the other political organs of the state, and one can observe certain general characteristics that may be noted. [sidenote: nature of the cabinet.] the conventions of the constitution have limited and regulated the exercise of all legal powers by the regular organs of the state in such a way as to vest the main authority of the central government--the driving and the steering force--in the hands of a body entirely unknown to the law. the members of the cabinet are now always the holders of public offices created by law; but their possession of those offices by no means determines their activity as members of the cabinet. they have, indeed, two functions. individually, as officials, they do the executive work of the state and administer its departments; collectively they direct the general policy of the government, and this they do irrespective of their individual authority as officials. their several administrative duties, and their collective functions are quite distinct; and may, in the case of a particular person, have little or no connection. the lord privy seal, for example, has no administrative duties whatever; and it is conceivable that the work of other members might not come before the cabinet during the whole life of the ministry. [sidenote: functions of the cabinet.] the essential function of the cabinet is to coördinate and guide the political action of the different branches of the government, and thus create a consistent policy. bagehot called it a hyphen that joins, a buckle that fastens, the executive and legislative together; and in another place he speaks of it as a committee of parliament chosen to rule the nation. more strictly, it is a committee of the party that has a majority in the house of commons. the minority are not represented upon it; and in this it differs from every other parliamentary committee. the distinction is so obvious to us to-day, we are so accustomed to government by party wherever popular institutions prevail, that we are apt to forget the importance of the fact. party government as a system has developed comparatively recently; but it has now become almost universal. the only exception among democratic countries (that is, the only case where the executive body habitually contains members of opposing parties) is in switzerland. still the system is carried to a greater extent in some countries than in others; and the amount of power concentrated in the hands of a single party leader, or a body of party leaders, varies very much. the president of the united states, for example, is the representative of a party; but he rules the nation only in part. the legislature is neither in theory or in practice under his control; and this is so far true that even when congress is of the same party as himself, neither he nor any committee of the party so controls both executive and legislative that any one body can be said to rule the nation. but where the parliamentary system prevails, the cabinet, virtually combining in its own hands, as it does, the legislative and executive authorities, may fairly be said to rule the nation; although the degree in which this is true must depend upon the extent of its real control over the legislature. now, although the legal power of the executive government is in some respects less in england than in most continental countries, the actual control of the cabinet over the legislature is greater than anywhere else. the cabinet is selected by the party, not directly, but indirectly, yet for that very reason represents it the better. direct election is apt to mean strife within the party, resulting in a choice that represents the views of one section as opposed to those of another, or else in a compromise on colourless persons; while the existing indirect selection results practically in taking the men, and all the men, who have forced themselves into the front rank of the party and acquired influence in parliament. the minority of the house of commons is not represented in the cabinet; but the whole of the majority is now habitually represented, all the more prominent leaders from every section of the party being admitted. in its essence, therefore, the cabinet is an informal but permanent caucus of the parliamentary chiefs of the party in power--and it must be remembered that the chiefs of the party are all in parliament. its object is to secure the cohesion without which the party cannot retain a majority in the house of commons and remain in power. the machinery is one of wheels within wheels; the outside ring consisting of the party that has a majority in the house of commons; the next ring being the ministry, which contains the men who are most active within that party; and the smallest of all being the cabinet, containing the real leaders or chiefs. by this means is secured that unity of party action which depends upon placing the directing power in the hands of a body small enough to agree, and influential enough to control. there have, of course, been times when the majority was not sufficiently homogeneous to unite in a cabinet; when a ministry of one party has depended for its majority upon the support of a detached group holding the balance of power. the peelites in , the liberal unionists in , and the irish nationalists in formed groups of this kind; but such a condition of things is in its nature temporary and transitional, and usually gives place to a coalition ministry, followed by party amalgamation. [sidenote: formation of the cabinet.] the statesman sent for by the crown and intrusted with the formation of a ministry becomes himself the prime minister, and selects his colleagues. it may be added, also, that he has virtually power to dismiss a minister; that is, subject to his responsibility to the cabinet as a whole and to parliament, he can request the crown to dismiss a colleague--a request which the crown cannot practically refuse.[ : ] in the selection of the cabinet his choice is, however, decidedly limited both as to persons and offices. in the first place, all the men still in active public life who served in the last cabinet of the party have a claim, a very strong claim, to sit in the new cabinet, and hence it is unusual to discard a man who is willing to return to office.[ : ] this in itself fills a goodly number of the cabinet positions. then all the prominent leaders in parliament, and especially in the house of commons, must be included. in fact, as mr. bagehot puts it, the prime minister's independent choice extends rather to the division of the cabinet offices than to the choice of cabinet ministers. still, he has some latitude in regard to the men whom he will admit; especially the younger men, who are appointed to offices in the ministry but not in the cabinet, and this may be a matter of great moment. one cannot tell, for example, how different the history of parliament in the middle of the century might have been had peel decided to invite disraeli to join his ministry in .[ : ] although the prime minister has by no means a free hand in the selection of his colleagues, the task is often extremely difficult and vexatious. it is like that of constructing a figure out of blocks which are too numerous for the purpose, and which are not of shapes to fit perfectly together; for with the selection of the members of the cabinet the difficulties are by no means over. the distribution of the offices among them may raise additional problems. one man will take only a particular office, while others may object to serving if he occupies that post. where parties are a good deal broken up, or are evenly divided, obstacles like these have sometimes prevented the formation of a cabinet altogether; and there is always some disappointment and consequent discontent on the part of men who thought themselves sufficiently prominent to be admitted to the ministry, and whose chagrin may drive them into an independent attitude. there are, indeed, two ways in which an ambitious young member of the house of commons can render his services indispensable to the prime minister. he must, of course, first get the ear of the house, and make himself a power there. then he may vote regularly with the party whips, support the leaders of his party on all occasions, and speak in their favour whenever he can be of use to them. in that case he is likely to be regarded as a promising young man of sound principles who can be relied upon by his chiefs. or, he may follow the opposite course of the candid friend, criticising and even attacking the leader of his party, showing the weak points in his arguments, and the errors in his policy. in that case, if the young man has achieved so important a position that he cannot be disregarded, he stands a good chance of being given an office as a dangerous critic who must be conciliated and attached firmly to the government. the first of these methods is slower but safer. the second has sometimes been tried with startling success, notably in the case of lord randolph churchill; but it has also been tried too obviously, and without the necessary social or parliamentary influence; and when it does not succeed it is likely to leave its victim hopelessly stranded below the gangway. [sidenote: increase in size.] the number of members in the cabinet has varied very much at different times,[ : ] and of late years it has shown a marked tendency to increase. william pitt had only six colleagues. a generation ago the cabinets contained from a dozen to sixteen members; but they have now run up to eighteen or twenty. there are several reasons for the change. in the first place, as the sphere of the state activity extends and the government grows more paternal, the range of affairs that come within the action of the cabinet is greater; and hence from time to time there is need of admitting a representative of some fresh department to its consultations. then, on the political side, the development of the parliamentary system has made it necessary for the cabinet to have an ever stronger and stronger hold upon the house of commons; and, therefore, the different shades of feeling in the party that has a majority in that house must be more and more fully represented in the cabinet. this alone would tend to increase the number of its members; but far more important still is the fact that a seat in the cabinet has become the ambition of all the prominent men in parliament. consequently the desire to be included is very great, and the disappointment correspondingly acute. for these various reasons there is a constant pressure to increase the size of the cabinet. the result is not without its evils. a score of men cannot discuss and agree on a policy with the same readiness as a dozen. there is more danger of delay when action must be taken. there is a greater probability of long discussions that are inconclusive or result in a weak compromise. there is, in short, all the lack of administrative efficiency which a larger body always presents; unless, indeed, that body is virtually guided and controlled by a small number of its own members. that some recent cabinets have been actually so controlled there can be little doubt; and this must become more and more the case as the cabinet grows larger, if it is to retain its great suppleness and strength. one sometimes hears of an interior junto, or cabinet within the cabinet, that really determines the policy. this is undoubtedly an exaggeration; a giving of formal shape to informal conferences among leaders on special questions, which have always taken place; but it appears not improbable that if the growth in the size of the cabinet continues, some such interior nucleus may develop which will bear to the cabinet something of the relation that the cabinet now bears to the ministry. [sidenote: offices in the cabinet.] certain offices always bring their holders into the cabinet. these are the positions of first lord of the treasury (a post almost invariably held either by the prime minister himself, or by the leader of the house of commons if the prime minister is a peer and takes some other office); lord chancellor (a great political as well as judicial office); the great english executive offices, those of the chancellor of the exchequer, the five secretaries of state, and the first lord of the admiralty; and a couple of dignified positions without active administrative duties, those of president of the council and the lord privy seal. certain other officers have been of late years always in the cabinet; such are the presidents of the board of trade, the local government board, and the board of education, and the chief secretary for ireland,--except when his nominal superior, the lord lieutenant for ireland, is himself a member. on the other hand, the secretary for scotland and the chancellor of the duchy of lancaster are usually in the cabinet; while the president of the board of agriculture and the postmaster-general are often there; the first commissioner of works and the lord chancellor for ireland occasionally so. the tendency at the present day is certainly in the direction of including the head of every considerable branch of the administration. the counsel of a statesman who was incapacitated for the performance of steady administrative work, or unwilling to undertake it, was occasionally secured in former times by giving him a seat in the cabinet without any office under the crown. he then became what is known on the continent as a minister without portfolio. the last case of this kind in england was that of lord john russell in - ; but the same object is practically attained to-day by means of the office of lord privy seal,[ : ] which involves no real administrative duties, and those of president of the council,[ : ] and chancellor of the duchy of lancaster, where the duties are very light. [sidenote: the ministers must have seats in parliament.] as the continental practice whereby ministers are allowed to address the legislature, whether they have seats in it or not, is unknown in england, every member of the cabinet, and indeed of the ministry, must have a seat in one or other house of parliament;[ : ] the last exception being that of mr. gladstone, who held the office of secretary of state for the colonies during the last few months of sir robert peel's administration in , although he had failed of reëlection to the house of commons.[ : ] the reason commonly given for such a limitation in the selection of ministers is that otherwise they could not be made responsible to parliament, where they must be present in order to answer questions, and give information relating to their departments. from the standpoint of parliament this is perfectly true, but the converse is also true. the head of a department sits in the house of commons quite as much in order to control the house, as in order that the house may control him. in his chapter on "changes of ministry," bagehot has shown how defenceless against attack any department is sure to be without a spokesman in parliament, and he cites as a forcible illustration the fate of the first poor law commission.[ : ] all this applies, of course, only to the house of commons, for although the presence of ministers in the house of lords is a convenience in debate, and an appropriate recognition of the legal equality of the two chambers, there is no responsibility to be secured thereby, and it is not the essential means of controlling the action of the peers. [sidenote: the cabinet system and administrative efficiency.] the men who win places in the ministry have usually, although by no means invariably, made their mark in debate. it is a strange assumption that a good talker must be a good administrator, and that a strong government can be formed by parcelling out the offices among the leading debaters in the legislative body. at first sight it appears as irrational as the other corollary of the parliamentary system, that the public service is promoted by dismissing an excellent foreign minister, because the house of commons does not like an unpopular clause in an education bill. any one with a sense of humour can point out the incongruities in any human organisation, whether it works in practice well or ill. but there is, in fact, reason to expect that a leading debater will make a good head of a department. influence is rarely acquired over a body so permanent as the house of commons by mere showy eloquence. real weight there must be based upon a knowledge of men, and a power to master facts and grasp the essential points in a situation. it must be based, in other words, upon the qualities most essential to a good head of a department in a government where, as in england, the technical knowledge, the traditions, and the orderly conduct of affairs, are secured by a corps of highly efficient permanent officials. no doubt all leading debaters do not make good administrators. sometimes a minister is negligent or ineffective, and occasionally he is rash. there are men, also, who have outlived their usefulness, or who were once thought very promising, and have not fulfilled their promise, but who cannot be discarded and must be given a post of more or less importance. the system works, however, on the whole very well, and supplies to the government offices a few extraordinary, and many fairly efficient, chiefs, although it puts some departments under the control of poor administrators. the power of creating peers would make it possible to select for the head of a department a tried administrator altogether outside of the parliamentary field. something like this was attempted in the recent case of lord milner, who was offered, on mr. chamberlain's resignation, the post of secretary of state for the colonies. lord milner was, indeed, a peer at the time the place was tendered to him, but he had attended in the house of lords only to take his seat. he had never spoken or voted there, and in fact had had no parliamentary career, his nearest approach to st. stephens having consisted in standing on one occasion as a candidate for the house of commons without success. formerly a statesman regularly began his official life as a parliamentary under-secretary; and he did not become the head of a department, or win a seat in the cabinet, until he had in this way served his apprenticeship in public administration--a practice which furnished both a guarantee of experience and a test of executive capacity. of late years there have been a number of exceptions to this rule. mr. chamberlain, lord randolph churchill, mr. morley and mr. birrell, for example, were admitted to the cabinet, and put at the head of great departments without any previous training in the service of the government. as a rule, however, the old system is likely to prevail, because it is difficult for a man to make his mark in parliament unless he begins his work there very young; and the exceptions occur only in cases of men of great ability. [sidenote: the need of unity in the cabinet.] in the earlier part of the century, before the party system had developed as fully as it has to-day, complete unity in the cabinet was much less necessary than it is now. at that time it was not uncommon to have matters, sometimes very important ones, treated as open questions in the cabinet, and a good deal of discussion has taken place upon the advantages and the evils of such a practice.[ : ] members of the cabinet occasionally spoke and voted against government measures, although a difference carried to that length was always rare. one even finds colleagues in the ministry standing as opposing candidates at an election.[ : ] such occurrences would be impossible to-day, because, as will appear more fully when we come to treat of the political parties, parliamentary government in its present highly developed form requires a very strong cohesion among the members of the majority in the house of commons, and, therefore, absolute harmony, or the appearance of harmony, among their leaders. it is necessary to present a united front to the opposition, but if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself for the battle? any one watching the course of events during the early summer of must have observed how rapidly the process of disintegration went on in the conservative party while it was known that the ministers were at odds over the tariff. party cohesion, both in the house and in the cabinet, is, indeed, an essential feature of the parliamentary system; but since men, however united on general principles, do not by nature think alike in all things, differences of opinion must constantly arise within the cabinet itself.[ : ] sometimes they are pushed so far that they can be settled only by a division or vote, but this is exceptional, for the object of the members is, if possible, to agree, not to obtain a majority of voices and override the rest.[ : ] the work of every cabinet must, therefore, involve a series of compromises and concessions, the more so because the members represent the varying shades of opinion comprised in the party in power. a minister who belongs to one wing of the party may, in fact, be more nearly in accord with a member of the front opposition bench than with some colleague who stands at the other political pole of opinion, and yet he will stay in the cabinet unless the measures proposed are such that he feels conscientiously obliged to resign. so long as he remains in the government he will attempt to agree with his colleagues, but when he has finally left them his personal opinions will take full course, and he may go off at a tangent. in this way the behaviour of an ex-minister towards his former colleagues, which is sometimes attributed to rancour, may very well be due to a natural expansion of opinions which were held in check while he clung to the cabinet. [sidenote: need of secrecy.] men engaged in a common cause who come together for the purpose of reaching an agreement usually succeed, provided their differences of opinion are not made public. but without secrecy harmony of views is well-nigh unattainable; for if the contradictory opinions held by members of the cabinet were once made public it would be impossible afterwards to make the concessions necessary to a compromise, without the loss of public reputation for consistency and force of character. moreover a knowledge of the initial divergence of views among the ministers would vastly increase the difficulty of rallying the whole party in support of the policy finally adopted, and would offer vulnerable points to the attacks of the opposition. secrecy is, therefore, an essential part of the parliamentary system, and hence it is the habit, while making public the fact that a meeting of the cabinet has taken place, and the names of the members present, to give no statement of the business transacted. not only is no official notice of the proceedings published, but it is no less important that they should not be in any way divulged. in fact, by a well-recognised custom, it is highly improper to refer in parliament, or elsewhere, to what has been said or done at meetings of the cabinet, although reticence must at times place certain members in a very uncomfortable position.[ : ] occasionally it becomes well-nigh intolerable. this is true where a cabinet breaks up owing to dissensions over an issue that excites keen public interest, and in such cases the story of what happened may be told in a way that would be thought inexcusable under other circumstances.[ : ] when we consider the great public interest that attaches to the decisions of the cabinet, and the great value that premature information would have for journalists and speculators, it is astonishing how little cabinet secrets have leaked out. in curious contrast with this are the reports of select committees of parliament, the contents of which are often known before the report is made,[ : ] probably in most cases not from any deliberate disclosure, but as a result of the piecing together of small bits of information, no one of which alone would seem to be a betrayal of confidence. the reason this does not happen in the case of cabinets is no doubt to be sought in the complete reliance of the members upon one another, and their disbelief in the statements of any one who pretends to have obtained information from a colleague. the best proof of the real silence of ministers is found in the fact that although on two or three occasions the press has been remarkably shrewd in guessing at probable decisions, members of the cabinet have seldom been guilty of talking indiscreetly. the one or two instances where it is alleged to have occurred have, indeed, acquired the sort of notoriety of exceptions that prove the rule.[ : ] at one time, it seems, before the reign of queen victoria, minutes of cabinet meetings were kept, showing the opinions held, with the reasons given therefor, and these were transmitted to the king.[ : ] even as late as regular cabinet dinners took place, marked by the possible convenience that no reports of the topics of discussion were sent to the sovereign, as in the case of more formal meetings.[ : ] at the present day he receives only a general statement of the matters discussed, with formal minutes of decisions that require his approval; and it would be considered improper to inform him of the conflicting opinions held by the different ministers.[ : ] in fact no records of the cabinet are kept. this results in occasional differences of recollection on the question whether a definite conclusion was reached on certain matters or not; but possible difficulties of that kind are probably of far less consequence than the facility in compromising differences of opinion and reaching a harmonious conclusion that comes from the entire informality of the proceedings. so little formal, indeed, are the meetings that a person not a member of the cabinet is occasionally brought in for consultation. this occurred in , for example, when the duke of wellington attended a liberal cabinet to give advice upon measures to be taken in view of the danger of the chartist riots. [sidenote: times of meeting.] it is an old practice, and obviously a necessary one, to hold one or more meetings of the cabinet in the autumn to consider the measures to be presented to parliament during the coming session; to arrange, as it were, the government's parliamentary programme. other meetings are held from time to time whenever necessary; sometimes as often as once a week during the session; occasionally even more frequently when urgent and difficult matters are to be decided. after the session of parliament comes to an end in august, the ministers usually take their vacation in travel, sport, or public speaking; and cabinet meetings are suspended unless political questions of a pressing nature arise. in the rare cases where the cabinet is obliged to settle its policy by the crude method of a division or vote, the voices of its members count alike; but questions are usually decided by preponderance of opinion, not by votes; and the weight of the opinions of the ministers is naturally very unequal. such a difference must be particularly marked in the large cabinets of the present day; and some of the members must be perfectly well aware that they are expected to follow rather than to lead. the relative influence of the different ministers over their colleagues, both at the cabinet meetings and elsewhere, depends, of course, primarily upon their personal qualities; although the post occupied is, in some cases, not without importance. this is particularly true in the case of the prime minister. [sidenote: the prime minister.] until the prime minister, like the cabinet itself, was unknown to the law,[ : ] but the position has long been one of large though somewhat ill-defined authority. it has grown with the growth of the cabinet itself; and, indeed, the administrations of the great prime ministers, such as walpole, pitt and peel, are landmarks in the evolution of the system.[ : ] we have, fortunately, from two of the chief prime ministers in the latter half of the nineteenth century, descriptions both of the cabinet and the premiership, which are authoritative;[ : ] and although they do not add a great deal to what is popularly known, they enable us to state it with greater confidence. at the meetings of the cabinet the prime minister as chairman is no doubt merely _primus inter pares_. his opinion carries peculiar weight with his colleagues mainly by the force it derives from his character, ability, experience and reputation; but apart from cabinet meetings he has an authority that is real, though not always the same or easy to define. in the first place the prime minister has a considerable patronage at his disposal. subject to the limitations imposed by political exigencies, he virtually appoints all the members of the ministry. the ecclesiastical offices also, from the bishoprics to the larger livings in the gift of the crown, are bestowed on his recommendation; and so as a rule are peerages and other honours; and he has a general presumptive right to nominate to any new office that is established under the crown.[ : ] [sidenote: his supervision.] he is both an official channel of communication and an informal mediator. the duties of the prime minister, if one may use the expression, surround the cabinet. he stands in a sense between it and all the other forces in the state with which it may come into contact, and he even stands between it and its own members. matters of exceptional importance ought to be brought to his attention before they are discussed in the cabinet; and any differences that may arise between any two ministers, or the departments over which they preside, should be submitted to him for decision, subject, of course, to a possible appeal to the cabinet. he is supposed to exercise a general supervision over all the departments. nothing of moment that relates to the general policy of the government, or that may affect seriously the efficiency of the service, ought to be transacted without his advice. he has a right to expect, for example, to be consulted about the filling of the highest posts in the permanent civil service.[ : ] all this is true of every branch of the government, but the foreign relations of the country are subject to his oversight in a peculiar degree, for he is supposed to see all the important despatches before they are sent, and be kept constantly informed by the foreign secretary of the state of relations with other powers. the extent to which a prime minister actually supervises and controls the several departments must, of course, vary in different cabinets. one cannot read the memoirs of sir robert peel without seeing how closely he watched, and how much he guided, every department of the government.[ : ] a score of years later we find lord palmerston lamenting that when able men fill every post it is impossible for the prime minister to exercise the same decisive influence on public policy;[ : ] and recently lord rosebery has told us that owing to the widening of the activity of the government no premier could, at the present day, exert the control that peel had over the various branches of the public service.[ : ] it is certain that a prime minister cannot maintain such a control if his time is taken up by the conduct of a special department; and this, combined with some natural recklessness in speech, accounts for the strange ignorance that lord salisbury displayed at times about the details of administration, as in the case when he excused the lack of military preparation for the south african war on the ground that the boers had misled the british war office by smuggling guns into the country in locomotives and munitions of war in pianos.[ : ] it has been usual, therefore, for the prime minister to take the office of first lord of the treasury, which involves very little administrative work, and leaves its occupant free for his more general duties.[ : ] [sidenote: he represents the cabinet.] the prime minister stands between the crown and the cabinet; for although the king may, and sometimes does, communicate with a minister about the affairs relating to his own department, it is the premier who acts as the connecting link with the cabinet as a whole, and communicates to him their collective opinion. to such an extent is he the representative of the cabinet in its relations to the crown that whereas the resignation of any other minister creates only a vacancy, the resignation of a premier dissolves the cabinet altogether; and even when his successor is selected from among his former colleagues, and not another change is made, yet the loss of the premier involves technically the formation of a new cabinet. unless the prime minister is a peer he represents the cabinet as a whole in the house of commons, making there any statements of a general nature, such as relate, for example, to the amount of time the government will need for its measures, or to the question of what bills it will proceed with, and how far the lack of time will compel it to abandon the rest. the other ministers usually speak only about matters in which they are directly concerned. they defend the appropriations, explain the measures, and answer the questions relating to their own departments; but they do not ordinarily take any active part in the discussion of other subjects, unless a debate lasts for two or three days, when one or more of them may be needed. they are, indeed, often so busy in their own rooms at the house that it is not uncommon, when a government measure of second-rate importance is in progress, to see the treasury bench entirely deserted except for the minister in charge of the bill. but the prime minister must keep a careful watch on the progress of all government measures; and he is expected to speak not only on all general questions, but on all the most important government bills. he can do this, of course, only in the house of which he happens to be a member; and the strength of his all-pervading influence upon the government depends to no slight extent upon the question whether he sits in the lords or the commons. as the house of commons is the place where the great battles of the parties are fought, a prime minister who is a peer is in something of the position of a commander-in-chief who is not present with the forces in the field. he must send his directions from afar, and trust a lieutenant to carry them out. in such a case the leader of the house of commons stands in something of the position of a deputy premier. he is, of necessity, constantly consulted by his colleagues in the house, and he can, if so disposed, draw into his own hands a part of the authority belonging to the head of the cabinet. as mr. gladstone remarked, "the overweight, again, of the house of commons is apt, other things being equal, to bring its leader inconveniently near in power to a prime minister who is a peer. he can play off the house of commons against his chief; and instances might be cited, though they are happily most rare, when he has served him very ugly tricks."[ : ] it is certainly true that the prime ministers who have most dominated their cabinets, and have had their administrations most fully under their control, have all been in the commons. it may be added that a high authority has declared that "no administrations are so successful as those where the distance in parliamentary authority, party influence, and popular position, between the prime minister and his colleagues in the cabinet, is wide, recognised and decisive."[ : ] [sidenote: relation of the ministers to one another.] not only does the prime minister stand above and apart from his colleagues, but they do not all stand upon one plane. the influence of a minister depends upon his personal force, but it may be affected by the office that he holds, and perhaps by his nearness to the prime minister himself; for although there is no formal interior junta, or cabinet within the cabinet, yet the premier is apt to take counsel informally with other leading ministers, and if he is a masterful man those who can command or win his confidence have the better chance of shaping the policy of the government while it is still formless and malleable. the cabinet, moreover, does not always act as a whole. it sometimes appoints committees to consider special subjects, and indeed it has an old and well-established practice of appointing committees to prepare important government bills.[ : ] [sidenote: joint and several responsibility.] it is commonly said that the ministers are severally responsible to parliament for the conduct of their own departments, and jointly responsible for the general policy of the government. like many other maxims of the british constitution, this has the advantage of being sufficiently vague to be capable of different interpretations at different times. with the growth of the parliamentary system, and the more clearly marked opposition between the parties, the joint responsibility has in fact become greater and the several responsibility less. the last instances where a single minister resigned on an adverse vote of the house of commons were those of mr. lowe, who retired from the vice-presidency of the committee on education in in consequence of a vote charging him with improper mutilation of the reports of inspectors, and lord chancellor westbury, who resigned in on account of a vote censuring his grant of a pension to a registrar in bankruptcy charged with misconduct.[ : ] if at the present day the cause of complaint were a personal error on the part of the minister, he would probably be brought to resign voluntarily before there was a chance of his resignation being forced by a hostile vote in the house; and if the question were one of policy, the government would, save in very exceptional cases, assume the responsibility for that policy, treating a hostile vote as showing a want of confidence in itself. the majority in the house of commons, on the other hand, while it may question, criticise and blame a minister in debate, is reluctant to permit a vote of censure upon him which is liable to involve the fall of the ministry.[ : ] each minister is responsible to the cabinet for the conduct of his department. he is constantly meeting with problems which may involve criticism in parliament, and where a mistake might entail serious consequences for the whole government. in such cases he must decide how far he can assume to settle the question in accordance with his own opinion, and what matters he ought to bring before the cabinet. he must not, on the one hand, take up its time in discussing trivialities, and he must not, on the other, commit his colleagues to a course of action which really involves general policy. if in doubt he can, of course, consult the prime minister; but in spite of this privilege annoying blunders must inevitably occur. a minister naturally has charge in the cabinet of the business relating to his own department, but how far he takes an active part in other things will depend upon the interest that he feels in them. lord palmerston, for example, when secretary for foreign affairs, took, as his letters show, little interest in anything else; but when he became home secretary he took not only an active but a leading part in directing the foreign relations of the country. this he was fully entitled to do, because the cabinet is both an assemblage of ministers at the head of the separate branches of the administration, and a council of state which must form a collective judgment upon the questions submitted to it. a minister is, therefore, justified in pressing his views on any subject, whether connected with his own department or not; and on no other basis could collective responsibility be maintained. the practice is particularly marked in the case of foreign affairs, which usually form a large part of the business at the meetings. [sidenote: the treasury and other departments.] it is not only on questions of general policy, brought before the cabinet, that differences of opinion between ministers may arise, for there are many matters of current administration that affect more than one department. in such cases the ministers concerned confer together, and if they cannot agree their differences must be submitted to the prime minister, and ultimately to the cabinet. there is, indeed, one department which is continually brought into contact--one might almost say conflict--with all the others; that is the treasury. any vigorous branch of the public service always sees excellent reasons for increasing its expenditure, and proposes to do so without much regard for the needs of the other branches; while the chancellor of the exchequer, who is obliged to find the money, must strive to restrict the aggregate outlay. if he did not, the expenditure of the government would certainly be extravagant. as a preliminary step to the preparation of the budget the treasury issues in the autumn a circular to the other departments asking for estimates of their expenses during the coming fiscal year. these are made up in the first instance by the permanent officials, and then laid before the parliamentary head of the department, who revises and perhaps reduces them. when they reach the treasury they are scrutinised by the permanent officials there, and if anything is not clear, an explanation is sought from the department concerned. the estimates are then submitted by the treasury officials to their parliamentary chiefs, and if there is an objection to any item it is the duty of the financial secretary of the treasury to confer with the head of the department whose estimates are in question.[ : ] if the parliamentary head of the department does not agree with the financial secretary he may go to the chancellor of the exchequer, and if they cannot settle the matter they must appeal to the prime minister and as a last resort to the cabinet. being placed in such a relation to his colleagues, it is not unnatural that the chancellor of the exchequer should often differ with them. as gladstone notes in his diary in , "estimates always settled at the dagger's point."[ : ] like other differences in the cabinet, these occasionally come to light, especially when they have been so sharp as to cause the chancellor's resignation. lord randolph churchill resigned in because the cabinet insisted upon appropriations for the army which he opposed; and sir michael hicks-beach has told us recently that had it not been for the fact that his protests against the growth of expenditure were received with indifference he might not have quitted the office.[ : ] one cause, moreover, of the final resignation of mr. gladstone--who although not then chancellor of the exchequer, always looked upon matters from the treasury standpoint--was a difference of opinion between him and his colleagues on the question of the cost of national defence.[ : ] whatever the policy of the cabinet at any moment may be, the scale of expenditure is ultimately determined by the feeling in the house of commons, and this in turn depends upon the state of public opinion. except for a few short periods of extravagance, the seventy years that followed the close of the napoleonic wars were marked by a decided tendency in favour of economy. people felt the pressure of taxation, worried little about the condition of the army or the navy, and had no strong desire to increase the expenses of the government in any direction. latterly the tendency has been reversed. the country has felt rich; there have been a series of alarms about national defence, and at the same time the general growth of paternalism has brought in a desire for improvement and expenditure in many ways. [sidenote: the cabinet and the ministry.] the ministry is composed, as has already been pointed out, of an inner part that formulates the policy of the government, and an outer part that follows the lines laid down; the inner part, or cabinet, containing the more prominent party leaders, who are also holders of the principal offices of state, while the outer part consists of the heads of the less important departments, the parliamentary under-secretaries, the whips and the officers of the royal household. all of these persons are strictly in the ministry, and resign with the cabinet; but the officers of the household have, as such, no political functions, and do not concern us here. the heads of departments without seats in the cabinet have become, with the increase in size of that body, very few. by far the greater part of the ministers outside of the cabinet are the parliamentary under-secretaries, who have two distinct sets of duties, one administrative and the other parliamentary. their administrative duties vary very largely, mainly in accordance with personal considerations. some of them are really active in their departments, doing work which might fall upon the parliamentary chief, or upon the permanent under-secretary, while others have little or no administrative business; but in any case the real object of their existence is to be found on the parliamentary side. whatever duties, parliamentary or administrative, may be assigned to an under-secretary, he is strictly subordinate to his chief, who retains both the authority and the responsibility for the decision of all questions that arise in the department;[ : ] although an active under-secretary in the commons may sometimes attract more public notice than his real chief in the lords. it is commonly said that as a minister can speak only in the house of which he is a member, there must be two parliamentary representatives for every department, one in each house. this, however, is not strictly true. going back, for example, over the period of a generation, we find that the foreign, colonial and indian offices have practically always been represented in both houses.[ : ] the other great departments have, of course, always been represented in the commons;[ : ] but the war office and the admiralty have not always been represented in the lords. the board of trade has often, and the local government board and home office have usually, had no spokesman of their own there;[ : ] while all the parliamentary officers of the treasury invariably sit in the commons. the system of under-secretaries, therefore, is by no means always used in order to give a representative to the department in both houses. it not infrequently happens that both, or in the case of the war office and the admiralty all three, representatives sit in the house of commons. an under-secretary, even when he sits with his chief in the commons, is, however, a convenience for those departments which have a great deal of business to attend to, and many questions to answer. moreover, the large number of under-secretaryships has the advantage already noticed of including within the ministry a considerable number of lesser party lights who have not achieved sufficient prominence to be included in the cabinet, and yet whose interest in the fortunes of the ministry it is wise to secure. [sidenote: the cabinet and the privy council.] one of the great changes in administrative machinery that has taken place in the civilised world within the last two hundred years is the substitution of an informal cabinet composed of the heads of departments, for a formal governing council of members who had themselves no direct administrative duties. the form of the old council has survived in england under the name of the privy council, but its functions have become a shadow. the privy council never meets as a whole now except for ceremonial purposes. its action is, indeed, still legally necessary for the performance of many acts of state, such as the adoption of orders in council, and the like; but this is a formal matter, requiring the presence of only three persons, who follow the directions of a minister, for all cabinet ministers are members of the privy council. the council does real work to-day only through its committees. of these the most notable is the judicial committee, which sits as a court of appeal in ecclesiastical and colonial cases, and will be more fully described in a later chapter. other committees, such as those on trade and on education, have at times rendered great service to the state, but the more important administrative committees have now been transformed into regular departments of the government. it is by no means certain, however, that the privy council may not, through its committees, become in the future an organ by means of which important political functions, especially in connection with the growth of the empire, will be evolved. at present it is mainly an honorary body. its members are appointed for life, and bear the title of right honourable; and, indeed, of late years membership in the council has been conferred as a sort of decoration for services in politics, literature, science, war, or administration. [sidenote: future of the cabinet.] mr. gladstone was of opinion that the cabinet had "found its final shape, attributes, functions, and permanent ordering,"[ : ] and so far as its relation to parliament alone is concerned, this may very well be true; but parliament is gradually ceasing to be the one final arbiter in public life. the cabinet is daily coming into closer contact with the nation, and what modifications that may entail we cannot foresee. it may be observed, however, that while the members of the cabinet present a united front, and say the same thing in parliament, they do not always say the same thing to the country. the ministers agree on a policy before announcing it in parliament, but they are not always in the habit of taking counsel together about the speeches that they make upon the platform. mr. chamberlain's sudden declaration of a policy of preferential tariffs in his speech at birmingham in is only an extreme example of what sometimes occurs. absolute unanimity may not, indeed, prove to be so necessary to the ministers in order to maintain their authority before the people as it is to hold their position in the house of commons.[ : ] but no serious changes in the structure of the cabinet are probable so long as parliamentary government continues in its present form; and it is too early to speculate on the changes that may occur if the parliamentary system itself becomes modified under the pressure of political parties acting in a democratic country. footnotes: [ : ] parker, "sir robert peel," iii., . [ : ] this is the opinion of two of the most prominent prime ministers of the century. ashley, "life of palmerston," ii., ; morley, "life of walpole," ; the latter representing, as has already been pointed out, the views of mr. gladstone. [ : ] for an example of the difficulties that arise on this score, _cf._ morley, "life of gladstone," ii., - . lord rosebery, who, after being prime minister in , was left out of the next liberal cabinet in , had taken himself out of the field by saying that he could not serve in a ministry whose chief held the views on home rule that sir henry campbell-bannerman had expressed. [ : ] _cf._ parker, "sir robert peel," ii., - ; iii., - . [ : ] todd, "parl. govt. in england," ed., ii., - . [ : ] if the post of lord privy seal is not needed for this purpose, it is given, without salary, to the holder of some other office. [ : ] the president of the council had in the past a somewhat undefined authority in connection with the committee of the council on education, but this committee has now been replaced by a board. [ : ] the law officers present occasional exceptions. [ : ] as in the case of mr. birrell in the present ministry, a man who is not in parliament may, of course, be included in a new cabinet in the expectation that he will win a seat at the impending dissolution. [ : ] eng. const., ed., - . [ : ] _cf._ todd, "parl. govt. in england," ii., , note _w_. [ : ] this happened, for example, in , when palmerston, goulburn and copley (all three in the ministry) were three out of the six candidates for the two seats for cambridge university. bulwer, "life of palmerston," i., _et seq._ [ : ] one cannot read mr. morley's "life of gladstone" without being struck by the frequency of such differences. one feels that in his twenty-five years of life in the cabinet gladstone must have expended almost as much effort in making his views prevail with his colleagues as in forcing them through parliament. [ : ] in gladstone's cabinet of - the practice of counting votes was complained of, as an innovation. morley, "life of gladstone," iii., . [ : ] this obligation has been said to rest upon the cabinet minister's oath of secrecy as a privy councillor (todd, ed., ii., - , ). but this would seem to be another case of confusion between the law and the conventions of the constitution. although the permission of the sovereign must be obtained before proceedings in the cabinet can be made public (_cf._ hans., ser. ccciv., , , ), yet in fact the duty of secrecy is not merely a legal obligation towards the sovereign which he can waive under the advice, for example, of a ministry of the other party. it is a moral duty towards one's colleagues, which ceases when by lapse of time, or otherwise, the reason for it has been removed; and the secrets must be kept from other privy councillors, the leaders of the opposition for example, as well as from the rest of the world. sometimes sharp discussions have occurred on the limits of the permission given to reveal what has taken place at cabinet meetings. this occurred after mr. chamberlain's resignation in . churchill, "life of lord randolph churchill," ii., - . [ : ] _e.g._ hans. ( ), ser. ccciv., _et seq._, _et seq._, and ( ), ser. cxxix., , ; cxxx., _et seq._; cxxxi., _et seq._, _et seq._ [ : ] _e.g._ rep. com. on civil list, com. papers, , v., . [ : ] there is some interesting gossip about instances of this kind in macdonagh, "book of parliament," - . [ : ] parker, "sir robert peel," iii., - . [ : ] morley, "life of walpole," . cabinet dinners have occasionally taken place of late years, but it is safe to say that they have not been held with that object. [ : ] mr. gladstone "was emphatic and decided in his opinion that if the premier mentioned to the queen any of his colleagues who had opposed him in the cabinet, he was guilty of great baseness and perfidy." morley, "life of gladstone," ii., . but this seems to have applied only to giving their names. _ibid._, iii., . [ : ] in the position was recognized by being accorded a place in the order of precedence. _cf._ hans., ser. clvi., . [ : ] walpole repudiated the title of first or prime minister, although he was, in fact, the first man to occupy such a position. [ : ] see ashley, "life of palmerston," ii., - ; gladstone, "gleanings of past years," i., . see also the description in morley, "life of walpole," - , which, as already pointed out, represents mr. gladstone's views. [ : ] morley, "life of gladstone," ii., . [ : ] morley, "life of walpole," - . [ : ] "sir robert peel, from his private correspondence"; _cf._ parker, "sir robert peel"; morley, "life of gladstone," i., , . [ : ] ashley, "life of palmerston," ii., ; _cf._ morley, "life of gladstone," ii., . [ : ] in his review of parker's "sir robert peel," in the first number of the _anglo-saxon review_. [ : ] hans., ser. lxxviii., . [ : ] at the end of his first ministry, and at the beginning of his second, mr. gladstone held the office of chancellor of the exchequer. with this exception, and with that of lord salisbury, no prime minister has been at the head of a department since . [ : ] "gleanings of past years," i., . [ : ] morley, "life of walpole," - . this would hardly be stated in such broad terms to-day. [ : ] during the late war in south africa, there was a special cabinet committee on national defence, which was afterwards enlarged and made permanent, as explained in the following chapter. [ : ] see a collection of instances in todd, "parl. govt. in england," ed., ii., _et seq._, and i., - , - . the vote in to adjourn in order to draw attention to the conduct of the police in the case of miss cass might very well have been regarded as a censure upon the home secretary, mr. matthews; but he did not think it necessary to resign. hans., ser. cccxvi., - . [ : ] the vote to reduce the salary of the secretary of state for war in was anomalous. it was a trick which will be explained in a later chapter. [ : ] com. on nat. expenditure, com. papers, , vii., , app. and . [ : ] morley, "life of gladstone," ii., . [ : ] hans., ser. cxxiii., - . [ : ] morley, "life of gladstone," iii., - . [ : ] it may be noted that the chief secretary of the lord lieutenant of ireland is not a parliamentary under-secretary, but the real head of the irish office, unless the viceroy is in the cabinet; also that until the creation of the recent board of education the relations between the president and vice-president of the committee of council on education were not clearly defined. [ : ] in the liberal cabinet of , however, both representatives of india are in the commons. [ : ] the board of works and the post-office have at times been represented in the commons by the treasury. [ : ] some member of the government is always ready to answer questions for them, and if need be to defend a department not directly represented. [ : ] morley, "life of walpole," . [ : ] the duke of argyle found fault with this practice as early as the cabinet of - . morley, "life of gladstone," iii., . mr. gladstone thought that liberty of speech should be used by a cabinet minister "sparingly, reluctantly, and with much modesty and reserve" (_ibid._, ), although his own incautious remark about the american civil war had at an earlier time caused the cabinet of which he was a member no little embarrassment. _ibid._, ii., - . chapter iv the executive departments the departments of state are very different from one another, both in historical origin and in legal organisation; and they have gone through transformations of all kinds, until the nomenclature has in some cases almost ceased to bear any relation to the facts. the title of an officer often gives no clear idea of his functions. the most striking case is that of the treasury, whose regular chief, from the time of henry viii. to the death of anne, was the lord high treasurer. since the office has always been in commission; that is, its duties have been intrusted to a board composed of a number of lords of the treasury. but while the board is still regularly constituted by letters patent whenever a new ministry is formed, and still retains its legal authority, all political power has, in fact, passed from its hands. the board never meets, most of its members have little or no connection with the treasury, and its functions are really performed by the chancellor of the exchequer, who is not now a chancellor, and does not control the work of what is more properly called the exchequer. thus, by a strange process of evolution the powers of the lord high treasurer have, by law, become vested in a board; and by a still later custom they are actually wielded by quite a different officer, whose title indicates neither his succession to the treasurer nor the nature of his present duties. although in origin and legal organisation the departments of state are very unlike, yet the growth of custom, and the exigencies of parliamentary life, have, for practical purposes, forced almost all of them into something very near one common type. whatever the legal form of the authority at their head, the actual control is now in nearly every case in the hands of a single responsible minister, usually assisted by one or more parliamentary subordinates, and supported by a corps of permanent non-political officials, who carry on the work of the office. [sidenote: origin of the departments.] [sidenote: the former great offices.] the historical origin of most of the departments may be traced to one of three sources: the great offices of an earlier time; the secretariat of state; and the more recent boards and commissions. many of the former offices of state survive as honorary posts, or with duties connected solely with the royal household.[ : ] the only ones that are still in touch with public administration are those of the lord high chancellor, who has retained the greater part of his ancient authority; of the lord high treasurer, the transformations of whose office have already been mentioned; and of the lord high admiral, whose powers have also gone into commission, and are vested in the admiralty board. [sidenote: the secretariat of state.] the secretariat is an old institution, although the standing of its members has varied much at different times. there are now five secretaries of state, but their position is peculiar in this, that they all share, from a legal point of view, the same office; and except so far as statutes have conferred special authority upon one or another, each of them can perform the duties of all the rest. during the greater part of the eighteenth century there were two secretaries, one for the northern and the other for the southern department, the former having charge of the relations with the northern powers, the latter of those with the southern powers together with home and colonial affairs. a series of changes made at the end of the century resulted in an increase of the number of secretaries to three, and a redistribution of their work, so that one had charge of foreign relations, another of home affairs, and the third of war and the colonies. the crimean war brought about in the separation of the colonial and war departments, with the creation of a fourth secretary of state; and, finally, the mutiny in india, and the consequent transfer of the direct government of that country to the crown, caused the appointment of a fifth secretary of state to take charge of indian affairs. [sidenote: the recent boards and commissions.] [sidenote: sham boards.] the third great source of public departments has been the creation in comparatively recent times of a number of administrative boards or commissions, whose duties (except in the case of the board of works) are not primarily executive; that is, they are not concerned mainly with direct administration, but rather with the supervision and control of local authorities and of bodies exercising functions of a public or a quasi-public nature. there are now five boards of this kind, the board of trade, the local government board, the board of works, the board of agriculture, and the board of education. some of them, the first and last named, for example, have developed from committees of the privy council; while others have grown out of administrative commissions which were not originally regarded as political, and had no representatives of their own in parliament. except in the case of the board of trade,[ : ] both their organisation and their functions now rest upon statutes,[ : ] and in general character they are all very much alike. each of them consists of a president,[ : ] of the five secretaries of state, and of other high dignitaries, such as the lord president of the privy council, the first lord of the treasury, or the chancellor of the exchequer, and sometimes, in the case of the older boards, even of the archbishop of canterbury and the speaker of the house of commons. but the board never meets; the president alone constitutes a quorum, and he conducts the business of the department, with the assistance, in the case of the board of trade, of the local government board and the board of education, of a secretary who is not himself a member of the board, but is, like the president, capable of sitting in the house of commons, and occupies, in short, the position of a parliamentary under-secretary. in practice, therefore, these boards are legal phantoms that provide imaginary colleagues for a single responsible minister; and, indeed, the only department in the english government conducted by a board that really meets for the transaction of business is the admiralty.[ : ] a satirical observer has remarked that the english constitution is a bundle of shams; and this is inevitable where law fails to keep pace with custom--where the legal organisation has ceased to express the real working of the system. but it is difficult to penetrate the motive for deliberately constructing a sham; and yet that was done in the creation of the board of agriculture in , and the board of education ten years later. in the last case the measure was criticised upon this ground;[ : ] and sir john gorst in reply said that, as there were other boards, the general desire of the house was thought to be in favour of a board of education, and that, although these boards did not often meet, they were potential.[ : ] he denied that the committee of council on education had never met, and referred to an occasion, about twenty years earlier, when it had been called together, and actually transacted business.[ : ] a better statement of the reason, or rather the absence of any reason, for the creation of a sham board, was made with characteristic frankness by the duke of devonshire, who said, "as far as i remember, the point was mooted when the bill was first prepared, but i quite admit that i am unable, at the present moment, to recollect the reasons which weighed in favour of a board rather than a secretariat. it has the advantage, at all events, of numerous precedents, and it is perfectly well understood that there will be no board at all."[ : ] in giving in this chapter a sketch of the executive departments nothing will be said of those offices to which no substantial administrative duties, or none outside of the royal household, are attached. there are about a dozen such posts, which are regarded as so far political that their holders retire upon a change of ministry; but they are omitted here, because the object is to describe not the offices of state, but the different branches of the public service and the distribution of business among them. most of the departments require for our purpose only a few words, to point out the general nature of their duties and anything unusual in their structure or method of working. the functions of some others, such as the colonial office, the local government board and the board of education, can be passed over rapidly, because they will be treated more fully in the chapters devoted to the subjects under their control; while the army, the navy and the treasury are described at greater length on account of the peculiarities in their organisation, and the fact that their work is not dealt with in any other part of the book. [sidenote: the foreign office.] the foreign office has at its head a secretary of state, who, like the chief of every normal department, is supported by a parliamentary under-secretary and also by a permanent staff consisting of an under-secretary, several assistant under-secretaries--in this instance three--besides clerks and other permanent officials. for convenience of administration there are in the foreign office a number of departments, the business being distributed among them partly on a geographical basis, and partly according to the nature of the subject.[ : ] the office has, of course, charge of foreign relations, controlling for that purpose the diplomatic representatives and the consuls. the only odd thing about its duties is the fact that in addition to the ordinary functions of a foreign office it governs certain dependencies of the crown. the expansion of european influence over the less favoured portions of the globe has produced among other new things the "protectorate," which involves, by a political fiction, an international as well as a philanthropic relation between the ruler and the ruled. the result is that protectorates not closely connected with existing colonies are administered by the foreign office. this has been true of a number of protectorates in africa, and notably of egypt, which is still nominally ruled by the khedive under the suzerainty of the turkish sultan, but is practically governed by a british agent. [sidenote: position of the foreign secretary.] the conduct of the relations with foreign powers requires from its very nature a peculiar method of procedure. much of the work of the foreign office consists, no doubt, in examining and pushing the private legal claims of british subjects, and to some extent work of that kind has a routine character. but apart from this there is comparatively little of the detailed administration--so common in other departments--which, involving merely the application of settled principles to particular cases, can be conducted by subordinates without consulting the political chief. much of the correspondence with foreign powers may entail serious consequences, and hence must ordinarily be laid before the secretary of state. the permanent officials play, therefore, a smaller part in the management of affairs than in most branches of the public service, a matter that will be discussed more fully in a subsequent chapter.[ : ] moreover, the representatives at foreign courts are kept, by means of the telegraph, under more constant instructions than formerly, and it has become the habit in all countries to retain diplomatic negotiations very closely in the hands of the home government. even the functions of foreign envoys as the eyes and ears of the state have declined in importance; and it has been observed that as gatherers of political information they have been largely superseded by the correspondents of the press. all this has the effect of concentrating the direction of foreign relations in the hands of the secretary of state. at the same time he is singularly free from immediate parliamentary control. diplomatic correspondence is ordinarily confidential, and it is usually a sufficient answer to any question in parliament, touching foreign relations, to say that the information sought cannot be given without detriment to the public service. it follows that the presence of the minister in the house of commons is less necessary than in the case of other departments; while his arduous duties make it hard for him to find the time required for attendance at the long sittings. these facts, coupled with the strange provision of law which permits only four of the five secretaries of state to sit there, resulted in placing peers at the head of the foreign office continuously from to , the under-secretary alone representing the department in the popular chamber. but if the secretary of state for foreign affairs is less under the direct control of parliament than other ministers, he is more under the control of his colleagues. we have already seen that every important despatch ought to be submitted, before it is sent off, both to the prime minister and to the sovereign; and, as a rule, the telegrams, together with correspondence of peculiar interest, are also circulated among all the members of the cabinet.[ : ] in fact there is probably no department where the executive action of the minister is so constantly brought to the notice of his colleagues. [sidenote: the colonial office.] ever since england began to extend her dominion beyond the seas her foreign relations have been complicated by her distant possessions, and it is therefore natural to pass from the offices of the secretary of state for foreign affairs on one side of the doorway in downing street to those of the secretary of state for the colonies on the other. but it is needless to speak of the colonial office at length here, because the government of the dependencies will form the subject of later chapters. the secretary of state for the colonies is assisted by his parliamentary and permanent under-secretaries, and by a staff of subordinate officials. there are in this office four permanent assistant under-secretaries; one of whom has charge of questions of law, and also at present of business connected with canada, australasia and a number of islands; another of south africa; a third of the east and west indies, emigration, prisons and hospitals, with a mass of miscellaneous matters; and the fourth of east and west africa.[ : ] but the division of the colonies among these officers is not fixed, and varies to some extent with their personal experience. there are, in close connection with the office, agents for each of the dependencies, those for the self-governing colonies being real representatives appointed by the colonial governments, while the three who act on behalf of the crown colonies are selected by the colonial office itself. it may be observed that the colonial office has by no means charge of all the outlying dependencies of the british crown. besides the protectorates governed by the foreign office, there are a number of smaller places under the care of other departments. the isle of man and the channel islands, for example, are under the home secretary; some small islets are used only for lighthouses by the board of trade; while by an official fiction the island of ascension is considered a vessel of war, and as such is commanded by the admiralty. but larger by far than any of these, more populous than all the other parts of the british empire put together, is india. it is not classed among the colonies, for that term is confined to the places under the colonial office, and does not extend to a country ruled by a distinct administrative system of its own. [sidenote: the india office.] the secretary of state for india has the usual parliamentary and permanent staff; but he has in addition a council of india, composed of not less than ten or more than fifteen members, appointed for a term of ten years. in order to insure a familiarity with indian conditions, it is provided that nine of the members must have lived in india within ten years of their appointment.[ : ] the council is a consultative body. it has no power of initiative, but except for matters requiring secrecy or urgency (such as war and peace, or the relations of india with foreign powers or with the native states), all questions must be brought before it for consideration. the secretary of state is not, however, bound by its decision, save in a few cases, of which the most important are the expenditure of the indian revenues, and the issue of indian loans.[ : ] legally, the government of india is directed by the secretary of state and his council. even the laws made in india can be disallowed by the crown on their advice; but in spite of the ease of communication furnished by the telegraph, the internal affairs of the country are still in the main managed by the authorities in india, happily without much interference from england. parliament, moreover, exercises little control over indian administration. some matters--the use of the indian revenues, for example, to pay for expeditions beyond the frontier--require its consent; and in other cases notice of action taken must be laid before it within a certain time. but the ordinary opportunities for bringing pressure to bear do not exist, because the salary of the secretary of state for india, being paid out of the indian revenues, does not furnish an occasion for a debate in parliament; and although the indian budget is regularly submitted, it does not need to be approved. on one of the last days of the session, when the work of the year is almost done, and the members are weary of attending, this budget, which is merely a financial statement, is introduced, and in order to give an opportunity for debate a formal motion is made that the indian accounts show such and such totals of receipts and expenses. a discussion follows on the part of members who deem themselves qualified to express opinions on the government of india, and then the vote is passed. an illustration of the small authority of parliament in indian matters may be found in the fact that in (april ) the house of commons carried against the ministers a motion condemning the opium revenue; and in (june ) a resolution that the examinations for the indian civil service ought to be held in india, as well as in england, was carried in the same way; yet, on each occasion, the government after studying the subject came to the conclusion that the opinion of the house had been wrong, and did not carry it into effect. such a condition of things is highly fortunate, for there is probably no body of men less fitted to rule a people than a representative assembly elected in another land by a different race. if the vast colonial empire has complicated foreign relations it has also caused england to become the greatest of maritime powers, with an enormous navy to protect her dependencies, her merchant ships, and not least important, the routes of her food supply. the effective organisation of a naval force is, therefore, of more importance in her case than in that of any other nation. [sidenote: the admiralty.] it has already been observed that the admiralty is the only department of state conducted by a board that really meets for the transaction of business, yet even in this case the statement may convey a false impression of the character of the body. the board as created by letters patent under the great seal consists of a first lord, four naval lords and a civil lord; but by a series of orders in council, and by the practice of the department, the parliamentary and permanent secretaries also sit as members of the board.[ : ] the first lord, the civil lord and the parliamentary secretary are capable of sitting in the house of commons, and are, in fact, always members of one or other house of parliament. the permanent secretary is, as his name implies, a permanent official, and hence excluded from the house of commons altogether. the naval lords, on the other hand, although eligible to parliament,[ : ] are very rarely members,[ : ] and yet they are not permanent officials. they occupy the anomalous position of non-political officials, who nevertheless retire upon the fall of the ministry. this does not mean that they belong necessarily to the party in power, or that they may not be reappointed under the commission issued when a new ministry comes into office. in order to preserve a continuity of administration, and a knowledge of the work, the new patent usually includes one, and sometimes more, of the naval lords who served under the preceding cabinet, and commonly another who held the place under some earlier ministry of the party that has taken office. [sidenote: position of the first lord.] according to the language of the patent all of the members of the board of admiralty are equal in authority; but in fact the first lord, who is always in the cabinet, is held by parliament responsible for the conduct of the department, and as the other members of the board can be changed if necessary on his recommendation, they must adopt the course which he can justify in parliament. with the evolution of the cabinet system, therefore, the power of the first lord has increased until he has become practically a minister of marine assisted by an advisory council. the relation was sanctioned, not created, by orders in council of jan. , , and march , , which declared the first lord responsible for all business of the admiralty,[ : ] and thus "the department now possesses more the character of a council with a supreme responsible head than that of an administrative board."[ : ] [sidenote: the other lords.] the civil lord and the financial or parliamentary secretary are subordinate ministers, who occupy substantially the position of parliamentary under-secretaries. they are civilians, as is the permanent secretary also; while the four naval lords are naval officers, usually of high rank, who bring an expert knowledge to bear upon the administration of the department. but the members of the board, like the cabinet ministers, have individual as well as collective duties. by the orders in council of march , , and march , , and the regulations made in pursuance thereof, the work of the office is distributed among the members of the board, each of whom is at the head of a branch of the service, and responsible for it to the first lord. by virtue of this arrangement the first lord retains in his own hands the general direction of political questions, and the appointment of flag officers and the commanders of ships. the first naval lord, who is also the principal adviser of his chief, has charge of strategical questions, the distribution of the fleet, discipline, and the selection of the higher officers not commanding ships. the second naval lord has charge of the recruiting and education of officers and men, and the selection of the lower officers. the third naval lord, who is the "controller," attends to the dockyards, and to construction, repairs and ordnance; while the junior naval lord has charge of the transport and medical service, and the victualling and coaling of the fleet. the civil lord attends to the civil establishments, and the contracts relating to stores and to land. the parliamentary secretary is responsible for finance; and the permanent secretary for the personnel in the admiralty office, for routine papers and correspondence and for the continuity of business on the advent of a new board.[ : ] thus the actual administration of the navy devolves upon the members of the board charged with the superintendence of the different branches of the service, while the full board meets frequently for the consideration of such questions as the first lord wishes to refer to it.[ : ] there have been at times complaints about the working of the board, and the existing organisation is the result of gradual adaptations,[ : ] but at the present day the system appears to be highly satisfactory, and in fact it is constantly held up as a model to the less fortunate chiefs of the army. [sidenote: the war office.] [sidenote: effect of the crimean war.] the organisation of the war office has undergone far more changes than that of the admiralty, and has been the subject of a great deal more criticism both in and out of parliament.[ : ] like other countries with a popular form of government, england has found it hard to reconcile military command and civil control. in the war office, as in the admiralty, there has been a tendency to transfer supreme power gradually to the hands of the parliamentary chief; but owing to a number of causes--one of which was the tenacity with which the queen clung to the idea of a peculiar personal connection between the crown and the army--the process of change in the war office has been slow and halting. up to the time of the crimean war the army was controlled by several different authorities, whose relations to one another were not very clearly defined, and who were subordinate to no single administrative head. this naturally produced friction and lack of efficiency, which was forcibly brought to public attention by the sufferings of the troops during the war. the result was the creation of a distinct secretary of state for war, and the concentration in his hands of most of the business relating to the army; but the change was made without a thorough reorganisation of the war office, and without defining the relative authority of the secretary of state and the commander-in-chief.[ : ] this last office was held at that time by the queen's cousin, the duke of cambridge; and the fact that he was a royal duke, coupled with the queen's feelings about the army, threw an obstacle in the way of bringing the office fully under the control of the secretary. in , however, the queen was prevailed upon to issue an order in council providing that the commander-in-chief should be completely subordinate to the secretary of state.[ : ] unfortunately, this order by no means settled either the organisation of the war office, or the relation between the secretary and the commander-in-chief. [sidenote: lord hartington's commission.] a number of commissions have examined the subject, one of the most important of late years being lord hartington's commission, which reported in .[ : ] at that time[ : ] the adjutant general, who was charged with the general supervision of the military department, was the first staff officer of the commander-in-chief, and as such was responsible to him for the efficiency of the forces; while the other principal military officers--the quartermaster general, military secretary, director of artillery, inspector of fortifications, and director of military intelligence--were also immediately responsible not to the secretary of state, but to the commander-in-chief, and approached the latter through the adjutant general. thus, while all the officers in the department were nominally subordinate to the secretary of state, practically between him and them stood the commander-in-chief, who had the privilege of approaching the crown directly and without the intervention of the secretary. the commission thought that such a system failed to make the heads of the different branches of the service effectively responsible to the secretary, or to provide any satisfactory system for giving him expert advice. they recommended, therefore, the virtual abolition of the office of commander-in-chief, and a division of the duties among a number of officers, who should be individually responsible for their administrative work to the secretary, and should collectively advise him as a war office council. they recommended, in short, a system not unlike that of the admiralty. [sidenote: the changes of .] as a preliminary to bringing about a change of this kind sir henry campbell-bannerman, the liberal secretary of state for war, procured the resignation of the duke of cambridge in , and lord wolseley was appointed commander-in-chief for five years. the secretary then announced a plan in accordance with the main principles suggested by the hartington commission. but just at that time the liberal administration fell,[ : ] and lord lansdowne, the new secretary of state, made a change in the plan, which left more power in the hands of the commander-in-chief. the policy thus adopted was embodied in an order in council of nov. , , followed by a memorandum setting out in greater detail the duties of the heads of the different branches of the service thereunder.[ : ] according to the new system the commander-in-chief exercised the general command, issued army orders, inspected troops, took charge of the distribution of the army, and prepared strategical plans, having under him for that purpose the director of military intelligence. he was also to have the general supervision of all the military departments, and to be the principal military adviser of the secretary of state, all important questions going to him before submission to the secretary. the adjutant general was to have charge of the discipline and training of officers and men, and the patterns of their uniforms,--a matter which seems to involve as many changes in fashion as a dressmaking establishment. the quartermaster general had charge of food, forage, transports and remounts. the inspector of fortifications constructed and maintained forts, barracks, etc., and supervised the engineer corps. the inspector general of ordnance looked after the supply of warlike stores and equipments, and each of these officers advised the secretary of state on questions connected with his department. the financial secretary had charge of all questions of expenditure, and of the audit of accounts. until he was also at the head of the manufacturing departments, but by an order of that year they were transferred to the inspector general of ordnance, whose title was changed to director. by the memorandum which followed the order a war office council was created, consisting of the heads of the military departments, the under-secretaries of state, and the financial secretary, together with any other officers who might be summoned; its function being to discuss subjects referred to it by the secretary of state. an army board, composed of the heads of the principal military departments, was also established, which was to report upon promotions to the higher grades in the army, upon estimates, and upon other questions submitted to it by the secretary of state. [sidenote: their results.] the two great changes made at this time were the modification in the powers of the commander-in-chief, and the creation of consultative boards in the war office. neither of them can be said to have attained the object aimed at. the attempt to create advisory councils of that kind has been tried more than once, but after working usefully for a time they have ceased to meet regularly and have fallen into disuse. this appears to have been the case with the war office council and army board created in and reorganized in and .[ : ] the position of commander-in-chief under the order in council of has been the subject of severe criticism. at the expiration of his term of five years, lord wolseley recorded in a memorandum his opinion that the attempt to give the commander-in-chief a supervision over the departments of the war office, and yet make their heads responsible to the secretary of state, involved a contradiction, and had resulted in depriving the commander-in-chief of all effective control, and in making his office a high-sounding title with no real responsibility. he insisted that no army could be efficient unless the command, discipline and training of the troops were in the hands of one man, and that man a soldier; and he urged that the commander-in-chief should either be made the real head of the forces, or that the office should be abolished, and the secretary of state for war should be himself a military man.[ : ] the only direct result that the memorandum had on the organisation of the war office was the reëstablishmemt of the control of the commander-in-chief over the department of the adjutant general by an order in council on nov. , .[ : ] but a statement by lord wolseley of his views, in a speech in the house of lords in march, , led to an unseemly altercation with lord lansdowne, the late secretary of state for war, in which each sought to cast upon the other the blame for the lack of preparation for the war in south africa.[ : ] the occurrence would appear to show that the relations between the military and civil authorities at the war office are not yet upon a well-recognised or satisfactory basis; and it shows also that this relation is very different from that which ordinarily prevails between ministers and their expert officials. for reasons that will be explained in a later chapter, such a dispute in any other department would be well-nigh inconceivable. from a political point of view the army and navy officers are, in fact, in an exceptional situation. they are not subject to the general rule which excludes from the house of commons all office-holders who are not ministers.[ : ] and just as military officers are allowed to play a part in politics forbidden to other public servants, so those among them who hold high administrative posts stand in a position peculiar to themselves, a position which in the case of the admiralty is definite and satisfactory, although anomalous, but in the case of the army is not altogether definite or satisfactory. [sidenote: effect of the south african war.] the efficiency of the war office was put to a rude test by the south african war, and some branches of the service did not stand the test very well. the results recalled, although in different respects, the experiences of the crimean war. the commission on the war found that, both as regards plans and stores, there had been a grave lack of preparation which was not wholly due to the suddenness of the emergency.[ : ] there was not merely a deficiency in warlike stores, such as guns[ : ] and ammunition for them,[ : ] cavalry-swords[ : ] and clothing;[ : ] but some of the stores were unfit for use. such clothing, for example, as there was on hand six months before the war broke out was all red and blue cloth, quite unsuitable for the campaign; and even after the manufacture of khaki suits had begun, changes were ordered first in the material and then in the pattern.[ : ] more than one third of the small arms ammunition on hand was found to be unserviceable and was discarded;[ : ] and all the reserve rifles were wrongly sighted, so that at a distance of five hundred yards they shot eighteen inches to the right--an occurrence the more extraordinary because the government had been manufacturing those weapons for some years, and never discovered the defect until after the war broke out.[ : ] it would be a mistake to suppose that all the shortcomings in the south african war arose from defects in the war office. some of them were of a kind certain to occur where a military organisation is suddenly expanded beyond its normal size. still, the errors already described certainly showed a lack of efficiency, and they have led to a remodelling of the office. in november, , another commission was appointed for this purpose, and its principal recommendations[ : ] were put into effect in the course of the following year.[ : ] [sidenote: the changes of .] according to this last system, for which the admiralty served as a pattern, an army council has been formed, consisting of the secretary of state for war, the parliamentary under-secretary, the financial secretary to the war office, and of four military members. the post of commander-in-chief having been abolished, and that of chief of staff created instead, the four military members of the council are the chief of staff, the adjutant general, the quartermaster general, and the master general of ordnance. by the terms of the order in council the military members are responsible to the secretary of state for so much of the business relating to the organisation, disposition, personnel, armament and maintenance of the army as he assigns to them or each of them, while the financial secretary is responsible for finance, and the parliamentary under-secretary for the other matters that are not strictly military. the permanent under-secretary acts as secretary of the council, which has also under its orders a new officer, the inspector general of the forces, charged with the duty of reporting to it upon the results of its policy, and of inspecting and reporting upon the training and efficiency of the troops, and the condition of the equipment and fortifications. but the army council has in the last resort only advisory powers, for the secretary of state is expressly declared responsible to the crown and to parliament for all its business. [sidenote: lack of initiative among officers.] an army, and especially a standing army, is liable during a long period of peace to fall into habits that impair its efficiency in war. one of the chief criticisms made after the south african war related to the lack of initiative, and of capacity to assume responsibility, on the part of the officers both in the war office and in the field.[ : ] now, this is precisely the defect that one would expect to find under the circumstances. with the traditions of strict discipline ingrained in military men, there is a natural tendency in time of peace to regulate everything with precision, leaving to subordinate officers little independence of action. and in fact the committee on war office organisation in reported that the army was administered by means of a vast system of minute regulations, which tended on the one hand to suppress individuality and initiative, while on the other their interpretation led to protracted references, and to absorbing the time of high officials by matters of routine.[ : ] the evidence presented to the committee on the war in south africa pointed to the same evil, for it showed that the deficiencies of the officers arose from their being too much controlled and supervised during their training.[ : ] [sidenote: their training.] the excessive tendency to routine, and the consequent lack of initiative, might be counteracted in some measure by a keen intellectual interest in the profession on the part of the younger officers; but the military education they receive is hardly of a character to stimulate such an interest. as a rule the candidates for commissions, after leaving the great public schools, such as eton, harrow and rugby, where the sons of the upper classes are educated, obtain admission to the military academies by means of competitive examinations based upon the curriculum of those schools. the ordinary time then spent in studying at woolwich, where the engineer and artillery officers are taught, is two years; that at sandhurst, the school for the infantry and cavalry, was eighteen months before the south african war, and later only a year. periods of this length are obviously too short to give a thorough training, or even a strong interest, in military science; and, in fact, the object is rather to produce a good subaltern than a highly educated officer.[ : ] if a man is ambitious for promotion he is expected to pursue his studies by himself, or to attend the staff college, later in life. now, with the modern application of science to warfare, a military officer has become a member of a learned profession. but in england the preliminary teaching is insufficient for this purpose; and what is more, the conditions of the service are very unlike those of learned professions, and hardly such as to stimulate intellectual activity. moreover, the private contributions to the mess, and the other expenses of an officer, are often so great that it is difficult for a man without private means to follow the army as a career. in short, after the abolition of the purchase of commissions in , the army ceased to be a caste without becoming a profession.[ : ] [sidenote: advantages of the navy.] the fact that the navy escapes some of the difficulties that beset the army is not due altogether to better organisation. the navy has in many ways great natural advantages as compared with the army. most civilians feel that after a short experience they could lead a regiment, but few landsmen have the hardihood to believe that they could ever command a ship. the navy is a mystery which ordinary men do not pretend to understand, and with which they do not attempt to interfere; and this is a security for expert management. again the navy is less exposed to the dangers of peace. warships are constantly in service. if they do not fight, at least they go to sea; and hence the navy is far less likely than the army to suffer from the demoralising influence of minute and antiquated regulations. [sidenote: the training of naval officers.] this has an effect also upon the training of naval officers. under the old plan which is now being superseded, the theoretical education given them was by no means high. the cadets destined for executive naval officers entered "the britannia" at the age of about fifteen, and spent there a little less than a year and a half. they then had a service of about three years at sea, where besides learning the practical side of their profession, they were expected to study elementary mathematics, mechanics, physics, navigation, surveying, etc. then followed a couple of months at greenwich preparing for the final examination in those subjects; and, lastly, before receiving their commissions as sub-lieutenants, five or six months at portsmouth studying pilotage, gunnery, and torpedo practice. thus the average age for obtaining the commission was not far from twenty years. the theoretical study pursued was certainly not of an advanced character. in mathematics, for example, it did not include the calculus, or even conic sections. in fact, according to the syllabus as revised in , one of the optional subjects which men who desired to go farther than the rest might pursue, if they desired, was projectiles, "treated so as not to require a knowledge of conic sections."[ : ] the principal changes made by the new plan, which began to go into effect in , were, first, making the executive, engineer and marine, officers more nearly into a single corps, and therefore giving them a common training until they reach the grade of sub-lieutenant; and, second, reducing the age for entering "the britannia" to between twelve and thirteen. this last change enables the cadets to remain at the school four years, and will, it is hoped, insure a sounder education. they are then to get a training at sea for three years, followed by three months at greenwich and six at portsmouth. at that point they are to receive their commissions as sub-lieutenants, and those who join the executive branch of the service will go to sea again, while the engineer and marine officers attend their respective colleges for some time longer.[ : ] whatever good effects the new plan may have in other directions, it can hardly increase materially the scientific education of the cadet. but if the education in the theory of naval science has not been carried far, the junior naval officer has much greater opportunities for learning the practice of his profession than the officer in the army. in fact, if not a master of naval science he becomes an excellent seaman, and this, in the opinion of many officers, is much the more important of the two. [sidenote: the defence committee.] one of the chief criticisms of lord hartington's commission on the administration of the naval and military departments, bore upon the lack of combined plans of operation for the defence of the empire. they suggested the formation of a naval and military council, to be presided over by the prime minister, and to consist of the parliamentary heads of the two services, and their principal professional advisers.[ : ] in partial fulfilment of this recommendation a committee of the cabinet was formed, consisting of the prime minister, the parliamentary heads of the army and the navy, the first lord of the treasury, with the addition, if need be, of the colonial secretary. the committee was intended to deal with questions unsettled between the two departments, matters in which a joint policy was advisable, and questions relating to the relative importance of expenditures; and it differed from other committees in that minutes were to be kept of its proceedings, and formally recorded by the departments. the committee seems, however, not to have fulfilled the intentions of the hartington commission, for it has been openly stated in parliament that it never met;[ : ] and even the secretary of state for war admitted that it acted mainly with regard to estimates, and to questions within the war office and the admiralty, while, in his opinion, it ought to act on larger questions of policy. a new defence committee was, therefore, created in , to consist, besides members of the cabinet, of the most influential experts of the two services, and when necessary of representatives of the indian and colonial offices. the committee is intended to deal not only with estimates, but with larger questions of military policy.[ : ] but whether this result will be permanently attained, or whether the committee will meet with the usual fate, and find itself absorbed by details of administration and of expenditure, is yet to be seen. the departments of state that remain to be considered in this chapter need not detain us long. they are all concerned with the internal government of the kingdom, and so far as their work is of general interest it will be touched upon again. [sidenote: the home office.] the home office is a kind of residuary legatee. it is intrusted with all the work of the secretariat that has not been especially assigned to the remaining secretaries of state, or to the other administrative departments. its duties are, therefore, of a somewhat miscellaneous character. as the heir to the residue of the secretariat, the home secretary is the principal channel of communication between the king and his subjects, and countersigns the greater number of the king's acts. he receives addresses and petitions addressed to the sovereign, and presents them if he thinks best. among others he receives petitions of right--that is, claims to be allowed to sue the crown--and consults the attorney general about the answer to be given. outlying places, such as the channel islands and the isle of man, which are not from an administrative point of view a part of the united kingdom and yet are not colonies, fall under his jurisdiction. he has charge of questions of naturalisation and extradition. but more important still, the central control over the police, not having been transferred to the local government board, remains in his hands, and this gives him wide powers of supervision. the metropolitan police of london is, indeed, administered directly by the national government under his immediate control;[ : ] and although the police elsewhere is not under his orders, yet the fact that the central government pays one half of the cost on condition his regulations are observed, enables him to prescribe the organisation, equipment and discipline of the local police all over england. moreover, all by-laws of counties and boroughs, except those relating to nuisances, must be submitted to him for approval, and may on his advice be disallowed by the crown.[ : ] as a part of his authority in matters of police he manages the prisons, both the national prisons for convicts and the county and borough gaols. he is responsible for the appointment and removal of recorders and stipendiary magistrates. he appoints the director of public prosecutions, and makes regulations about costs in criminal proceedings. by virtue of special statutes he sees to the enforcement of the acts relating to factories, mines, burial-grounds, inebriates, anatomy, vivisection, explosives, and other kindred matters. he is assisted by a parliamentary under-secretary, and by a large staff of permanent officials, beginning with a permanent under-secretary, and including a prison commissioner, a metropolitan police commission, and a host of inspectors for factories, mines, police, and so forth. it will be observed that although primarily responsible for public order, the home secretary is by no means a minister of the interior in the continental sense, for apart from the police he has very little to do with local government. the supervision of matters of that kind, although in part scattered among different departments, is mainly concentrated in the hands of the local government board. the home secretary has, on the other hand, some of the functions of a minister of justice; and this will be referred to again when we come to speak of the law officers of the crown. [sidenote: the board of works.] the board of works is not regarded as a department of great political importance, and for this reason it presents one of the two or three cases where the minister has no parliamentary under-secretary. for a score of years the public lands and buildings were under the care of a body called the commissioners of woods and forests; but in order to keep the revenue from land separate from the expenditure upon buildings, and so bring the latter more completely under the control of parliament, the duties were divided in . the commissioners of woods, forests and land revenues were made a permanent non-political body under the treasury, while the board of works was established to take charge of the construction and maintenance of parks, palaces and other buildings. at that time many of the public buildings were, in fact, committed to the care of the departments that occupied them; but by a series of statutes these have now been transferred almost wholly to the board of works. now, although the amount of money that passes through its hands is very large, the board is by no means entirely free, for without the sanction of the treasury it can undertake no work not directly ordered by parliament, and it can make no contracts for the erection of large public buildings without submitting them to the same authority,[ : ] which also appoints the ordinary permanent staff of the office.[ : ] [sidenote: the board of trade.] the board of trade occupies, on the contrary, a position of great and growing importance. it has had a long and chequered history, and although in the course of its career it has lost duties enough to keep an active department busy, these have been more than replaced under that modern tendency toward state regulation of industry which is constantly adding to its burdens. it deals not only with trade, but with many of the chief agencies of trade, and especially with transportation. as in the case of the three other boards to be described hereafter, the board of trade is engaged not in direct administration, but in supervising and regulating the action of private bodies and local authorities, and in keeping a watch upon the enforcement of the law. speaking broadly, its powers have grown by the process of making it responsible for the application of a great many statutes. its functions may be classified roughly under the heads of collecting information, registration, inspection, and authorising acts or undertakings of a public nature; although any such classification is sadly confused by the fact that duties of more than one kind have been conferred upon the board in regard to the same subject-matter, and even by the same statute. to the first of these classes belong its functions in collecting and publishing statistics relating to domestic and foreign trade, and giving advice on commercial matters to other departments of the government. to that class belong also its functions as a labour bureau in preparing statistics about labour, wages and other matters touching the interests of workingmen. in this connection it has power also to act as a board of conciliation in labour disputes, and to name arbitrators or conciliators. under the head of registration may be mentioned its duties in maintaining the standards of weights and measures; registering joint-stock companies; examining and recording patents and trade-marks; and keeping a register of ships and seamen. under the head of inspection come its functions in ascertaining that merchant vessels are in a seaworthy condition, and properly laden, officered, manned and equipped; with the power to detain unseaworthy craft. under the same head may be classed its control over harbours, its duty to see to the enforcement of the laws relating to railways[ : ] and to inquire into the causes of railway accidents and disasters at sea. as an example of the final class of powers may be cited the fact that the by-laws of a railway company require for their validity the approval of the board; but a far more important instance is to be found in its control over the building of new lines of railway, over new undertakings for the supply of water, gas and electric light, and over the construction of tramways and light railways, the last being a recent invention legally very different, but physically indistinguishable, from tramways. this control is exercised by means of provisional orders, prepared by the board after an investigation and a hearing of all the persons interested, and then confirmed by parliament.[ : ] the petitioner is not, indeed, compelled to resort to a provisional order, but may avoid the direct control of the board of trade by means of a private bill in parliament. but a provisional order is far less expensive; and even when the procedure is by private bill the board endeavours to exert its influence by scrutinising the bill, and bringing to the notice of the officers of the house any departures from the general policy of legislation.[ : ] the result is that the board has an effective, although by no means an absolute, control over these matters. the subject of bankruptcy has also been placed in the hands of the board of trade, and except for legal questions which come before the courts, it has the entire charge of the cases, maintaining for that purpose a staff of inspectors, examiners and official receivers. the nearest approach to actual administrative work intrusted to the board is in the case of lighthouses, buoys and beacons, which are maintained by trinity house, an ancient corporation composed of self-elected brethren but financially under the control of the board of trade. [sidenote: the local government board.] until the era of the reform bill local affairs in england were managed in the main by justices of the peace and town councillors, whose powers were derived from a host of statutes covering many subjects in great detail. these officers were kept rigorously within the limits of their authority because the legality of their acts could be tested in the courts of law; but they were almost entirely free from administrative control. the first wide breach in the system was made by the poor law amendment act of , which aimed at a reform in the method of giving poor relief, and set up for the purpose a commission to supervise the local bodies. the new commissioners, being vigorous and efficient, aroused hostility, and as they were not permitted to sit in parliament, they found it hard to defend their policy. in fact the experience they went through is used by bagehot as an illustration of the impotence of an executive department without a representative in the house of commons.[ : ] in the body was reorganised under the title of the poor law board, with a responsible minister at its head, and thenceforth received from time to time additions to its duties. various functions relating to public health and local government had in the meanwhile been intrusted to the home secretary and the privy council; and, finally, in the greater part of them were transferred to the poor law board, which was given the name of local government board. legislation of this kind has entirely transformed the nature of english local government. partly by bringing the exercise of existing powers under the supervision of the central government, partly by subjecting to systematic control the new powers called into life by the wants of the time, the old system of local self-government--limited by law, but independent of any administrative superior--has been replaced by a system where the local bodies, and especially those outside of the great towns, are to a considerable extent under the tutelage of the state. the subjection is not the same as that which prevails in other european countries, and it is not so great, but it is in some respects more nearly akin to the continental system than to that of england in the eighteenth century. except for such matters as police, education, and the supply of transportation, light and water, the control over the local authorities is almost entirely vested in the local government board; but as the subject of local government, and therefore the powers of the board, will be considered at some length in another part of this book, we do not need to enumerate its functions here. we need only point out that it has the unusual number of five assistant under-secretaries, and a large staff of clerks, auditors and inspectors. but although the amount of head work to be done, and therefore the number of permanent officials of high grade, is large, yet from a political point of view the department is not regarded as of the first class. [sidenote: the board of agriculture.] the creation in of a new department of state to attend to the matters that have been transferred from various commissions to the board of agriculture hardly seems to have been necessary; and, indeed, the board is not important enough to require a parliamentary under-secretary. it has inherited the duty of shaking the dry bones of ancient tenures by dealing with such subjects as the commutation of tithes, the enfranchisement of copyhold, the enclosure of commons, allotments to labourers, and the improvement of land by limited owners. the control of fisheries, the promotion of agriculture and the prevention of contagious diseases among animals are also placed under its care, and it has been given power, or rather authority, to muzzle dogs and destroy the colorado beetle. [sidenote: the board of education.] the board of education is the youngest of all the boards, but in reality it is only a committee of the privy council reorganised with some additional powers. the most remarkable thing about the act creating it--apart from the erection of a sham board--is the extent of the authority delegated to the executive. instead of prescribing minutely the organisation and functions of the department of education, the act empowered the government, in its discretion, to set up such a consultative committee as it saw fit, and to transfer to the board any educational duties of the charity commissioners or the board of agriculture that it thought best.[ : ] both of these powers have been exercised by orders in council of aug. , , and the consultative committee has been made to consist of representatives selected by the universities and by other bodies interested in education. but the subject of public education will be treated in subsequent chapters, and it is enough here to note that by means of elaborate regulations, commonly known as the education code, the board prescribes the instruction to be given in all schools aided by public money;[ : ] that it inspects endowed or private secondary schools at their request;[ : ] and that it has charge of the museums at south kensington and bethnal green, and of the geological museum and survey. [sidenote: the post office.] from the point of view of the national government the post office has two functions. it is a great administrative department which conducts a huge business, with a minister at its head; and it is a source of income, its gross receipts forming about one seventh of the total revenues of the united kingdom, its disbursements only about one tenth of the total expenditure. for that reason it is under a financial control by the treasury so strict as to leave very little chance for independent action, and this renders the position of postmaster general far less important than it would otherwise be. the office has been regarded as political since ; but until the holder could not sit in the house of commons, and since that time he has occasionally been a peer, the post office in such a case being usually represented in the commons by the financial secretary of the treasury. the duties of the postmaster general are minutely prescribed by statute, and while he has power to make regulations for the management of the postal service, it is not easy to make substantial changes or improvements without affecting the receipts or the expenses, and when that is done he comes at once under the control of the treasury. the rates of postage, for example, and the compensation for carrying the mails, when not fixed by act of parliament, are subject to the approval of the treasury; and so are the purchase or sale of land, and any lease of the right to carry on a telegraph or telephone business. the same approval is also required for his regulations touching money-orders, post office savings-banks, and the telegraph, although in these cases the revenue would not appear to be necessarily involved. in short, as sir william anson puts it,[ : ] "the postmaster general is no more than the acting manager of a great business, with little discretionary power except in the exercise of the very considerable patronage of his office."[ : ] the business of the department is certainly enormous, the number of persons employed being little short of two hundred thousand. in addition to the usual work of transmitting letters, books, parcels and money-orders, the post office in england maintains savings-banks, with deposits of about £ , , ; and it has been given exclusive control of the telegraph by provisions which have been held to include the telephone also. but while the administration of the telegraph has been retained by the government in its own hands, the right to conduct the telephone business was granted, by means of temporary licenses, to private companies, and to some extent to local authorities also; and the government has only recently decided to take over the management as soon as the licenses expire. footnotes: [ : ] such are the offices of the lord steward and the lord chamberlain, the latter having in his charge also the censorship of plays and theatrical performances. [ : ] the name of the board of trade is now statutory ( - vic., c. , § ; - vic., c. , § , cl. ). its composition, however, is fixed not by statute but by order in council at the beginning of each reign, save that an act of ( - vic., c. ) abolished the office of vice-president, and provided instead that one of the secretaries to the board might sit in parliament. [ : ] for the organisation of the board of works, see - vic., c. ; - vic., c. ; for the local government board, - vic., c. ; board of agriculture, - vic., c. ; board of education, - vic., c. . [ : ] in the case of the board of works he is styled first commissioner. [ : ] the council of india, described hereafter, has some of the characteristics of a board. [ : ] hans., ser. lxviii., - ; lxx., , ; lxxiii., , . [ : ] _ibid._, lxxiii., . [ : ] in the course of the debate lord norton declared (hans., ser. lxviii., ) that he had served on two different boards, and could remember only one instance where a board had been called together or consulted in any way. [ : ] hans., ser. lxx., . there may have been good reasons for not creating a sixth secretary of state, and among them the fact that a secretary of state receives a salary of £ , while the president of the board receives £ . but, as mr. bryce pointed out (hans., ser. lxxiii., ), a secretary might have been appointed who, like the secretary for scotland, should not be a secretary of state. the salary of the secretary for scotland is, in fact, £ . [ : ] until a few years ago the departments were: ( ) the eastern (eastern europe and central asia); ( ) western (western europe, northwest africa and the pacific islands); ( ) american and asiatic (which includes china, japan and siam); ( ) consular (including east and west africa); ( ) commercial; ( ) the chief clerk's (which has charge of financial business); ( ) the library (with the papers of the office); ( ) the treaty department. (fourth rep. of the comn. on civil establishments, com. papers, , xxvii., .) within a few years four new departments have been created: an african, an african protectorates, a far eastern and a parliamentary. (see the foreign office list.) [ : ] ch. viii. the permanent under-secretary at the head of the staff holds, however, an important place. [ : ] see hammond, "the adventures of a paper in the foreign office." rep. of sel. com. on trade, com. papers, , vii., , q. . [ : ] colonial office list, , xiii. [ : ] three of the members may, however, be appointed for life, and any other member may be reappointed for five years. ilbert, "government of india," . [ : ] _ibid._, - . [ : ] report of comrs. on admn. of naval and mil. depts., com. papers, , xix., , pp. viii-ix. [ : ] - will. iv., c. , § . [ : ] lord charles beresford was a naval lord and a member of the house of commons from to . [ : ] rep. of comrs. on admn. of naval and mil. depts., com. papers, , xix., , p. viii. [ : ] _ibid._, p. x. [ : ] return on the distribution of business between the members of the admiralty board, com. papers, , xliv., . [ : ] rep. of comrs. on admn. of naval and mil. depts., com. papers, , xix., , p. ix. [ : ] todd, ii., _et seq._ [ : ] the military forces consist of the regular army (with the reserves, that is, the men who have served their time but are liable to be recalled in case of war); and of the militia, yeomanry and volunteers. the militia are a little more like regular troops than the volunteers. they are formally enlisted and their period of training is longer. none of the auxiliary forces can be ordered out of the united kingdom; but while the volunteers are intended solely to support the regular army in defending the country in case of invasion, the militia have always offered their services in time of war, and have often been used for garrison duty both at home and abroad, and even for field service abroad. the yeomanry are a body of cavalry forming part of the militia. a royal commission on the militia and volunteers reported in that both of these forces were unfit to take the field against a regular army; that the period of training ought to be increased in each case; and that a home defence army, capable of protecting the united kingdom in the absence of the greater part of the regular army could be raised only by universal compulsory military service. (com. papers, , xxx., , pp. , , , - .) this last suggestion was received with general disfavour. [ : ] for the history of the war office up to this time, see clode, "military forces of the crown." [ : ] order in council, june , , com. papers, xlii., . [ : ] com. papers, , xix., . [ : ] by virtue of orders in council of dec. , , and feb. , . _ibid._, app. viii. [ : ] on account of a vote at the close of the same debate in which this change was announced. [ : ] com. papers, , li., . [ : ] rep. of com. on war office organisation, com. papers, , xl., , p. ; rep. of com. on the war in south africa, com. papers, , xl., , pp. - . [ : ] com. papers, , xxxix., . [ : ] _ibid._, , lviii., . [ : ] hans., ser. xc., _et seq._; xci., _et seq._ [ : ] anne, c. , § . (in the rev. sts. it is c. , § .) [ : ] rep. in com. papers, , xl., , pp. , . [ : ] _ibid._, p. . [ : ] _ibid._, p. . [ : ] _ibid._, p. . [ : ] _ibid._, pp. - . [ : ] _ibid._, pp. - . [ : ] _ibid._, pp. - . [ : ] _ibid._, pp. - . [ : ] com. papers, , viii., . [ : ] _cf._ orders in council of aug. , , com. papers, , xlvi., , , . [ : ] rep. of com. on war in south africa, com. papers, , xl., , pp. - . [ : ] rep. of com. on war office organisation, com. papers, , xl., , p. . [ : ] rep. of com. on war in south africa, com. papers, , xl., , pp. - . [ : ] the recent committee on military education evidently approved of that object. com. papers, , x., , p. . [ : ] the committee on military education were impressed by the widespread dissatisfaction with the education of army officers, and in sandhurst, especially, much was found to criticise. the education of the junior officers after leaving the military academies was reported to be in a most unsatisfactory state. they were said to be lamentably wanting in military knowledge, and in the desire to study the science and master the art of their profession; while the examinations for promotion encouraged "the customs of idleness with a brief period of cram." com. papers, , x., . there may well be some exaggeration in the criticism of the moment, due to a natural revulsion from the military self-complacency that preceded the war. [ : ] rep. of com. on training and examination of junior naval officers, com. papers, , xlii., , p. . [ : ] memorandum, com. papers, , lxi., . since this was written another change has been made dividing naval officers into a sea-faring and fighting branch and an engineer branch. [ : ] com. papers, , xix., , pp. vi-viii. [ : ] lord charles beresford, hans., ser. cxii., , . [ : ] rep. of com. on war in south africa, com. papers, , xl., , pp. - . hans., ser. cxviii., . [ : ] the "city" of london is an oasis with its own police force. [ : ] glen on public health, ed., , , . [ : ] rep. com. on nat. expend., com. papers, , vii., , q. . [ : ] - vic., c. , §§ , . [ : ] in the settlement of railway controversies was transferred to a judicial body, the railway and canal commission. [ : ] in the case of light railways the orders are made by the light railway commission and confirmed by the board of trade, the members of the commission being appointed by the president of the board. - vic., c. ; edw. vii., c. . [ : ] rep. of com. on municipal trading, com. papers, , vii., . [ : ] "english const.," ed., - . [ : ] - vic., c. , §§ - . [ : ] this does not, of course, apply to special establishments, like the naval and military schools, which are managed by other departments. [ : ] throughout this chapter statements relating to local government must be understood not to apply to scotland or ireland; but in this case wales, with monmouthshire, is also excluded because, by the welsh intermediate education act of , a special board chosen by the local authorities inspects the secondary schools there. [ : ] "law and custom of the constitution," ii., . [ : ] it may be observed that for many years after the postmaster general was rarely in the cabinet, and hence he has not acquired the authority possessed by a regular cabinet minister. he has, however, now been in the cabinet continuously since . chapter v the treasury the most important of all the departments, and the one that exhibits in the highest degree the merits of the english government, is the treasury. it is the central department of the administration, which keeps in touch with all the others, and maintains a constant financial control over them. but before considering how that is done it may be well to explain the process by which money flows in and out of the national purse. the part played by parliament in the imposition of taxes, and the authorisation of expenditure by means of appropriations, will be described in chapter xiv, and we are concerned here only with the machinery for collecting those taxes, and giving effect to the appropriations.[ : ] [sidenote: the consolidated fund and the bank of england.] until the commonwealth, taxes were, as a rule, granted to the king, who used the proceeds to carry on the government as he saw fit; but under charles ii. parliament began to appropriate parts of the revenue for specific purposes, and after the revolution of this developed into a comprehensive system, so that the whole revenue was appropriated, to be used only for the objects, and in the sums, designated by parliament.[ : ] it was the custom, however, to appropriate for specific objects the proceeds of particular taxes, a practice that made the public accounts needlessly complex. in william pitt, following earlier partial experiments, simplified matters by creating a single consolidated fund into which all revenues from every source were turned, and from which all payments were made.[ : ] the consolidated fund is deposited in the bank of england and the bank of ireland, which have a right to use it like any other deposit, and perform, in fact, for the government much the same service that an ordinary bank does for a merchant. this method of dealing with the national finances continued substantially intact until a few years ago,[ : ] when it was complicated by two innovations, one of which allows a department to use incidental revenues, under the name of "appropriations in aid," to defray expenses, and the other sets aside certain parts of the national income to supplement local taxation, in each case without passing through the consolidated fund.[ : ] the second of these exceptions is due to the great increase of local expenditure, and the narrow range of local taxation, which have caused a demand for national subventions, and have resulted in setting apart for the purpose the proceeds of specific sources of revenue. in this way the income from the local taxation licenses, and a portion of the income from the death duties and the duties on spirits and beer, are now collected by the central government and paid directly into the local taxation account.[ : ] but saving these cases, all the national receipts are paid into, and all the disbursements are made from, the consolidated fund. [sidenote: method of getting money into the consolidated fund.] [sidenote: the sources of revenue.] the financial procedure of the treasury is now regulated by the exchequer and audit departments act of ,[ : ] and the public accounts and charges act of .[ : ] by these acts the gross revenue--after making the deductions already mentioned--is paid into the "account of his majesty's exchequer," at the banks of england and ireland, to be used as a single fund. the three chief collectors of revenue are the commissioners of customs, the commissioners of inland revenue and the post office. with the growth of the principles of free trade the customs duties became confined to coffee, chicory, cocoa, dried fruit, tea, tobacco, wine, and a number of articles, such as spirits, on which duties are laid to countervail the excise upon similar articles produced at home. to these were added at the time of the south african war an export duty on coal, and import duties on sugar and grain, the last being again dropped in , while the coal duty was repealed in . under normal fiscal conditions in times of peace, the customs duties yield about one fifth of the total revenue, the receipts being mainly from tobacco, tea and spirits. the gross receipts from the post office (including the telegraphs) form about one seventh of the revenue, but this is really misleading, because three quarters of those receipts are paid out again for the expenses of the department. all but a very small fraction of the remaining receipts come through the commissioners of inland revenue, and their sources of income are of a miscellaneous character. the largest item is the excise, mainly on beer and spirits, which yields more than a quarter of the total national revenue.[ : ] the next largest is the income tax, which varies very much from time to time, and has produced during the last score of years from one seventh to one quarter of the total revenue. then there are the death duties, a progressive tax on property passing at death, which yield one tenth of the revenue. the ancient land-tax, and the inhabited-house duty produce comparatively small sums; and, finally, there are the stamp duties on all kinds of transactions, articles and licenses which yield all together about one twelfth of the revenue. some of the license fees collected under the head of excise are so small as to appear rather vexatious than productive, such as one guinea for the display of armorial bearings not used upon a carriage, fifteen shillings for a license to have a manservant, or keep a carriage with less than four wheels, and fourpence a day for the privilege of occasionally selling tobacco.[ : ] [sidenote: permanent and annual taxes.] neither the expenditure nor the proceeds of taxes being absolutely constant, it is necessary, in order to maintain a close balance between them, to adjust the sources of revenue to some extent from year to year, and this is done by means of a small number of variable charges. most of the taxes are imposed by permanent statutes, changed only at long intervals, but the rates of assessment under the tea duty and the income tax are fixed each year in the annual finance act; and since certain additional duties on beer and spirits have also been laid for a year at a time. [sidenote: accuracy of the budget.] it has been the aim of english statesmen to make the revenue and expenditure of each year balance one another as closely as possible, and their skill in doing so has been extraordinary. while the south african war was raging such a result was naturally impossible, but during the preceding twenty-five years the difference between receipts and expenditures (including payments on account of the debt) was never more than about four per cent, and in fifteen of those years it did not exceed one and a half per cent. the taxes are, indeed, of such a character that it is possible to forecast their proceeds with great accuracy. the chancellor of the exchequer intends to make his calculations so as to leave a margin of safety, and yet during the period under consideration the difference between the estimated and actual receipts was never more than about three and a half per cent.[ : ] accurate fiscal administration is very much promoted by the rule that any part of an appropriation unexpended at the end of the financial year in which it is voted shall lapse, and cannot afterwards be used unless it is granted afresh by parliament.[ : ] the rule has been thought to lead to wastefulness by provoking improvident haste in spending the whole appropriation before march .[ : ] but such an evil is surely far smaller than that of allowing the appropriations to run on, with the result, well known in france, for example, that the annual accounts cannot be finally made up, and the extent of the deficit determined, until several years have passed. like all other excellent things devised by men, the english system of finance is not without its drawbacks. if it promotes careful administration, and rivets attention upon any increase in the budget, it also makes the revenue inelastic in emergencies. a great deal has been said in parliament of late about broadening the basis of taxation, but that is a very difficult thing to do suddenly, without dislocating the commercial as well as the fiscal system; and while the existing taxes are elastic up to a certain point, an attempt to raise them too much would diminish rather than increase their productiveness. [sidenote: method of getting money out of the consolidated fund.] just as there are two kinds of taxes, one permanent and the other annual, so there are two classes of expenditure, one regulated by standing laws, and the other by annual appropriations. all the ordinary expenses of the government require parliamentary sanction every year, both on the theory that the money collected from the nation ought not to be spent without the consent of its representatives, and also in order that parliament may be able to oversee the administration and criticise it in every session. but there are certain matters that ought to be kept aloof from current politics, and ought not to be brought in question in the heat of party conflict. the principal charges that have been regarded in this light are the interest on the national debt, the civil list or personal provision for the king, annuities for the royal family, certain pensions, and the salaries of the judges, of the comptroller and auditor general, of the speaker, and of a few officers of lesser importance. these charges amount to nearly one quarter of the total expenditures; and they are called consolidated fund charges, because by statute they are paid directly out of the consolidated fund without the need of any further action by parliament. the other expenditures are for what are known as the supply services, because the appropriations for them are voted by the house of commons in committee of supply. the administrative procedure for getting money out of the consolidated fund to pay the consolidated fund charges and the supply services is not precisely the same. in the case of the supply services a royal order for the amounts appropriated by parliament is made under the king's sign manual, countersigned by two of the commissioners of the treasury. the treasury then requires the comptroller and auditor general to grant credits at the banks of england and ireland for those amounts, and if satisfied that the authority from parliament is complete, he makes an order on the banks granting the credits. from time to time the treasury requests the banks to transfer to the various supply accounts, for disbursement, sums of money not exceeding the credits so granted.[ : ] the procedure in the case of consolidated fund charges differs from this only in the fact that a royal order is not needed, and the comptroller and auditor general, on the requisition of the treasury, grants quarterly credits for the amounts prescribed by statute.[ : ] by this process a highly effective security is provided that no money shall be spent without the authority of parliament. the consolidated fund is deposited in the banks of england and ireland, which are liable if any of it is withdrawn without an order from the comptroller and auditor general, while that officer is given the same independence as the judges. like them he is appointed during good behaviour, with a salary charged upon the consolidated fund. the security is not absolutely perfect, for there are some moneys, such as the appropriations in aid, that do not pass through the consolidated fund; and as no foresight can be unfailing, the government is given a limited power to meet unforeseen contingencies, and to cover expenses that have inevitably proved larger than was anticipated.[ : ] but all matters of this kind are fully reported to parliament by the comptroller and auditor general. [sidenote: audit of the accounts.] the treasury lays before parliament annually the finance accounts of the preceding year, while the comptroller and auditor general submits at a later date a separate report. therein he examines the consolidated fund charges, and makes for the supply services more elaborate statements, called the appropriation accounts, in three volumes, relating to the army, the navy and the civil service. the accounts are rendered to him by the several departments, and after auditing them he transmits them to the house of commons with his comments.[ : ] the money granted by parliament is divided into votes, of which there are in all about one hundred and forty.[ : ] in the estimates these votes are subdivided into subheads and items; but the votes would appear to be the only limitation expressly placed by parliament upon expenditure; for the annual appropriation act provides that the sums granted shall be deemed to be appropriated "for the services and purposes expressed in schedule (b) annexed" thereto, and that schedule gives a list of the votes, but not of the subheads or items. nevertheless, the comptroller and auditor general is enjoined by the exchequer and audit departments act of to ascertain whether the money expended has been applied to the purpose or purposes for which each grant was intended to provide,[ : ] and hence the reports that he submits note the excess or saving with the reasons therefor, under each subhead, and sometimes, as in the case of votes for the construction of new buildings, under each item. he adds, also, his own comments wherever it seems to him necessary to do so. all this is done, even where the saving under one subhead more than counterbalances the excess under another in the same vote. when that happens, however, no action by parliament is required; but if the total amount of a vote has been overspent, the excess is entirely unauthorised, and must be covered by a deficiency appropriation, which parliament grants upon the reports of the comptroller and auditor general and the committee on accounts of the house of commons. to the last rule there is one exception. in order to facilitate the administration of the army and navy, the annual appropriation act declares that the treasury may authorise expenditure, not provided for, to be defrayed temporarily out of any surplus effected upon other votes in each of those departments; and the act goes on to recite and sanction the transfers of surplus so authorised by the treasury in the last year for which the accounts are complete.[ : ] this brings us to another important question, that of the financial control of the treasury over the other branches of the administration. [sidenote: treasury control over other departments.] [sidenote: control over estimates.] there has been a great deal of discussion about treasury control over the receipt and expenditure of public money. in the case of the receipts it is a simple matter, for the financial control over the post office has already been described, and the other great revenue departments are, as will shortly be explained, virtually subordinate to the treasury. the question of control over expenditure is far more complicated. committees of the house of commons have, at different times, collected evidence on the subject,[ : ] but the statements made have often been vague, and tend to confuse the control of the treasury over the estimates, with its control over expenditure after the appropriations have been voted by parliament. the control over the estimates has been discussed in the preceding chapter. it is only necessary here to repeat that such a control is by no means absolute, because any important question of expenditure becomes a question of policy to be decided, in case of disagreement, by the prime minister or the cabinet; and to point out that the departments supported by their political chiefs are usually too strong for the treasury to resist.[ : ] [sidenote: control over expenditure.] it might be supposed that after the appropriations had been voted the departments would be free in expending them, subject only to their responsibility to parliament; but this is not altogether true. in the first place a statute sometimes requires that the expenses of a department shall be sanctioned by the treasury.[ : ] then it is not infrequently provided that the salaries shall be fixed by the treasury, or that alterations in the establishment shall require its consent. moreover, the salaries of certain grades of clerks are regulated by orders in council,[ : ] which are changed only on the advice of the treasury. apart, however, from statutes and orders in council there is a general customary principle forbidding any increase in the civil establishment of a department,--that is, any increase in the number or salary of permanent officials,--without the approval of the treasury; and this although the appropriations would not be exceeded.[ : ] [sidenote: transfer of a surplus.] over certain departments the control is even more extensive, for not only do the contracts made by the post office require its approval, but contracts entered into by the board of works are also the subject of discussion between the treasury and the first commissioner.[ : ] in the case of the army and navy the fact that the treasury can authorise a transfer of the surplus under one vote to cover a deficiency under another gives it a certain authority; and, indeed, its sanction is to some extent sought even for transfers between subheads of the same vote. this last is, of course, a matter of custom rather than of law, and practice differs in the two services. the admiralty, which always plays the part of the good boy, comes very frequently to the treasury for permission to make transfers between subheads before it acts; while the army, save in exceptional cases, comes only at the end of the year for a formal approval.[ : ] the exceptional cases are, however, numerous. they sometimes extend even to separate items, and are regulated by a code of rules made by the treasury and the department.[ : ] every excess, for example, of a certain size in an item for a new building, the payment of any excess to a contractor, the discharge of a loss, or the insertion of a new item, require the sanction of the treasury; and in fact the appropriation accounts of the army and navy are followed by many pages of correspondence on matters of this kind between the treasury and the department. in the case of the civil services, where the treasury has no authority to sanction transfers between votes, the system is less elaborate and the correspondence is not printed in full. still there are frequent references in the accounts to treasury letters sanctioning expenditures under subheads or items, especially in relation to such matters as salaries, the purchase of land, large excesses over estimates for construction, the abandonment of claims, and unforeseen expenditures.[ : ] [sidenote: effect of treasury control.] the control by the treasury is sometimes vexatious in small matters,[ : ] but it does not seriously hamper the administration, or impair the efficiency of the service;[ : ] and while it can hardly prevent an expenditure on which a department is seriously determined,[ : ] the very need of consultation can hardly fail to act as a restraint upon extravagance.[ : ] in addition to its control over the application of the sums voted by parliament, and its authority to permit the use of appropriations for purposes not contemplated in the estimates, the treasury has a limited power to open the national purse in case of necessity when no grant has been made by parliament. for this purpose it has three sources of supply at its disposal: the treasury chest fund, limited to £ , , , may be used to make temporary advances for carrying on the public service, to be repaid out of sums afterwards appropriated; the civil contingencies fund, limited to £ , , is available on similar terms for unforeseen contingencies and deficiencies; and, finally, any incidental receipts, not granted by parliament as appropriations in aid, may be used as such under the authority of a treasury minute to be laid before the houses.[ : ] [sidenote: the organisation of the treasury.] in the remarks on the history of the treasury board, at the beginning of the last chapter, it was pointed out that the board no longer meets. the treasury minutes are still drawn up in the name of "my lords," but this is merely the survival of a form, and all the members of the board, except the chancellor of the exchequer, have ceased to take part in directing the financial administration. the three junior lords have at times some small departmental duties, but their real functions are to act as assistants to the parliamentary or patronage secretary, who is the chief government whip in the house of commons. all the four whips receive salaries from the state on the theory that it is their duty to keep a house, or in other words to insure the presence of a quorum, while the supplies are being voted. but in fact they are officers, not of the state, but of the party in power, and it is their business to see that whenever a vote is taken in which the ministry is interested, their partisans are present in greater force than those of the opposition. the relation of the first lord to the treasury is anomalous. he is usually the prime minister, and as such is supposed to keep a general supervision upon all branches of the administration, and to act as a sort of umpire between the different ministers, and, therefore, between the treasury and the other departments. but whether he is prime minister or not he has a real connection with the treasury. the functions of that office cover a much wider field than its name would imply, including subjects of a most miscellaneous character; and while the finances are entirely under the charge of the chancellor of the exchequer,--who is, in fact, the minister of finance, with the financial secretary of the treasury as his parliamentary under-secretary,--the first lord may be said, speaking very roughly, to be at the head of the outlying departments which are not concerned with financial affairs. [sidenote: the subordinate departments.] the treasury has been described as a superintending and controlling office that has properly no administrative functions;[ : ] and this, in a sense, is true, for even in money matters its duty as an organised department is financial direction and control, not the actual collection and disbursement of the revenue. it prepares the budget, reviewing the estimates submitted to it, and devising the means of defraying them; it supervises the collection of the revenue, and keeps watch over the expenditure. in this work the political chiefs are assisted by a body of clerks, headed by the permanent under-secretary, whose office is generally regarded as the highest in the permanent civil service. the offices that have direct charge of the collection of revenue have separate organisations with distinct staffs of permanent officials; but, except for the post office, they have no political chiefs of their own, and are in fact subordinate branches of the treasury. the four great offices of this kind are the post office, which has already been described; and the departments of customs, of inland revenue, and of woods, forests and land revenues, each of which is managed by commissioners who are members of the permanent civil service, and do not change with changes of ministry.[ : ] the treasury bears a similar relation to the departments that deal with purely fiscal payments, the national debt office, the public works loan board, and the paymaster general's office, through which almost all disbursements are now made. for, although the paymaster general is a political officer, he has ceased to have any real connection with his department, and it is administered under the direction of the treasury.[ : ] [sidenote: the outlying departments.] besides the departments subordinate to the treasury, there are a number of outlying departments more or less closely connected with it which have already been referred to as having nothing to do with financial affairs; and, indeed, one may say that in theory, at least, every branch of the public service--except the ecclesiastical and charity commissions[ : ]--that does not have a political chief of its own, and is not connected with some other department, is under the supervision of the treasury and represented in parliament thereby. but while the commissioners, or other heads of such offices, are as a rule appointed on the recommendation of the first lord, or of the prime minister, the degree of control exercised over them by the treasury varies a great deal; and in some cases its responsibility, apart from regulating the amount of expenditure, is somewhat illusory. several institutions in this position are intended to be entirely outside the range of party controversy; and the boards of trustees of the british museum, the national gallery, and the national portrait gallery habitually contain members of parliament who would never think of resigning their posts by reason of a change of ministry. the principal outlying departments of the treasury directly connected with national administration, are: the civil service commission, which examines the candidates for the various branches of the civil service; the parliamentary counsel's office, which drafts all the bills introduced by the ministers; and the stationery office, which does all the government printing. throughout a great part of the nineteenth century the influence of the commercial classes was strong, the government was conducted on strict business principles, and the treasury as the representative of those principles was the keystone of the administrative arch, or to change the metaphor, the axle on which the machinery of the state revolved. for a long time, indeed, there was a marked tendency to consider the office of chancellor of the exchequer as the most important in the cabinet after that of the prime minister, to regard the person who held it as heir presumptive to the premiership, and to make him leader in the house of commons when his chief was a peer. but with the waning desire for economy, and the growth of other interests, the treasury has to some extent lost its predominant position. a symptom of this may be seen in the fact that during the last dozen years of lord salisbury's administrations, the commons were led, not by the chancellor of the exchequer, but by a first lord of the treasury appointed for the purpose. the turning point came at the beginning of that period, when lord randolph churchill in quarrelled with his colleagues over the estimates for the army. the occurrence did not produce, but it did mark, a change in the tone of public opinion; and although the treasury will no doubt maintain its control over the details of expenditure, one cannot feel certain that its head will regain the powerful influence upon general or financial policy exerted thirty years ago. footnotes: [ : ] an excellent description of the existing financial procedure may be found in sir courtney ilbert's "legislative methods and forms," - . [ : ] this did not apply to the hereditary revenues of the crown until, with the exception of the revenues belonging to the duchies of lancaster and cornwall, they were surrendered by george iii., in return for a fixed civil list. [ : ] geo. iii., c. . [ : ] the rule had not been absolutely without exceptions, for the mercantile marine fund, derived from port charges on vessels, was used to defray part of the expenses of the board of trade without going through the consolidated fund. _cf._ d rep. com. on civil estab., com. papers, , xxvii., , qs. - . in this process was restricted to the maintenance of lighthouses, buoys and beacons. it may be observed, also, that the act of concerning "appropriations in aid" ( - vic., c. , § ) declares that it merely gives statutory authority to an existing practice. such appropriations are now regularly granted by parliament in aid of the votes for the services in which they occur. the amount in aid of each vote is fixed, and listed in a separate column in the schedule to the appropriation act, only the excess above that amount being paid into the consolidated fund. [ : ] ilbert, "legislative methods and forms," - ; glen, "law of public health," , . [ : ] this innovation has been vigorously criticised as tending to confuse the national accounts. see a memorandum by sir e. w. hamilton, com. papers, , vii., , app. . [ : ] - vic., c. . [ : ] - vic., c. . [ : ] the sums paid to the local taxation account not being included. [ : ] these license fees go into the local taxation account, not into the national exchequer. [ : ] it is noteworthy that from to the amount of money raised by taxation for national purposes was never less than £ _s._ _d._ and never more than £ _s._ _d._ per head of population. of late years it has shown a steady tendency to increase. in , the year before the war, it was £ _s._ _d._; and in it was £ _s._ _d._, the expenditure being £ _s._ _d._ between and the national debt was reduced by gradual payments from £ , , to £ , , . in it had increased in consequence of the south african war to £ , , . [ : ] for the history of this rule see todd, "parl. govt. in england," ii., - . [ : ] rep. of the com. on war office organisation, com. papers, , xl., , p. . but see d rep. com. pub. accounts, com. papers, , v., , p. iv. [ : ] - vic., c. , §§ , . [ : ] _ibid._, § . [ : ] for the provision made for such cases, see page , _infra_. [ : ] the finance accounts give only the issues to the departments from the exchequer, not the actual expenditures. these last are contained only in the appropriation accounts of the auditor general. except for certain departments, like the navy, where sir james graham began the practice of submitting them as early as , the actual expenditures were not submitted as a whole to parliament until the act of . memorandum by lord welby, com. papers, , vii., , app. . hatschek, _englisches staatsrecht_, i., - , gives an interesting description of the influence of french methods upon the english system of keeping public accounts, including the introduction of double-entry bookkeeping. [ : ] fifteen or sixteen relate to the navy; as many more to the army; something over one hundred to the various branches of the civil service, grouped into seven classes; and five to the revenue departments. [ : ] - vic., c. , § , and see todd, ii., - . [ : ] for the history of this matter, see todd, ii., - . [ : ] see, for a history of the question, todd, ii., - , - , and for recent collections of evidence the d and d reps. of com. on civil serv. exp., com. papers, , vii., , ; d rep. of com. on civil estabs., com. papers, , xxvii., ; rep. of com. on war office organisation, com. papers, , xl., ; reps. of com. on nat. expenditure, com. papers, , vii., ; , vii., . [ : ] rep. of com. on civil estab., com. papers, , xxvii., , evid. of sir r. e. welby, perm. sec. of treas., qs. - , , - , . [ : ] this was true, for example, of the act creating the board of agriculture ( - , vic., c. , § ). [ : ] for clerks of the second division by order in council, march , , §§ - , com. papers, , lviii., . positions of higher grade are regulated "by the heads of the departments to which they belong, subject to approval by the commissioners of the treasury;" order in council, feb. , , § , com. papers, , xxvii., , p. ; but no vacancies in these positions can be filled or new appointments made until the treasury is satisfied that the number of officers in the department with salaries higher than those of the second division will not be excessive; order in council, nov. , , § , following order of feb. , , § . the evidence before the committees of and was, however, conclusive on the impotence of the treasury in forcing reductions, whatever its actual power might be in preventing an increase of establishment. [ : ] _cf._ d rep. com. on civil serv. exp., com. papers, , vii., , qs. , - ; d rep., com. on civil estabs., com. papers, , xxvii., , pp. xi, xii, and qs. , - , - , ; rep. com. on nat. exp., com. papers, , vii., , q. . [ : ] rep. com. on nat. exp., com. papers, , vii., , q. . [ : ] rep. of com. on war office org., com. papers, , xl., , qs. - . an excess on the subheads for food and forage, for example, would be met as a matter of course by a saving on fuel or rents. _ibid._, p. . [ : ] memoranda on treasury control by f. t. marzials, accountant general of the army, _ibid._, pp. - ; and by robert chalmers, rep. com. on nat. exp., com. papers, , vii., , app. . [ : ] the control of the treasury over expenditure connected with the courts is less than it is in the case of other branches of the civil service; but the salaries of the clerks are fixed as a rule by an understanding between the judges and the treasury. d rep. com. on civil serv. exp., com. papers, , vii., , pp. vi-viii. [ : ] rep. com. on civil estabs., com. papers, , xxvii., , qs. , , , , - , - . as lord farrer, formerly permanent under-secretary of the board of trade, expressed it, "we can cheat them in big things; they may bully us in little things." _ibid._, q. , . [ : ] rep. of com. on war office org., com. papers, , xl., , p. ; rep. of com. on war in south africa, com. papers, , xl., , p. . [ : ] _cf._ sir r. e. welby, rep. com. on civil estabs., com. papers, , xxvii., , qs. - . [ : ] the real sanction of the control of the treasury lies in the support it is almost certain to receive from the committee on accounts of the house of commons. in , for example, in a case where the war office, without exceeding its total vote, but before seeking the approval of the treasury, paid to a contractor an addition of £ upon a contract for which no item appeared in the votes of the year, the committee of accounts remarked, "your committee deprecate in the strongest manner any diversion of parliamentary funds without treasury sanction." d rep. com. of pub. accounts, com. papers, , v., , pp. iv-v. [ : ] public accounts and charges act, - vic., c. , § ( ). [ : ] todd, ii., . [ : ] the organisation of all these offices, and their relation to the treasury, has been described at great length in gneist, _das englische verwaltungsrecht_, auf., buch iii., kap. . the office of woods, forests and land revenues collects the revenue from the crown lands, except those belonging to the duchies of lancaster and cornwall, the revenues from these last never having been surrendered to the nation, and being still enjoyed by the king and the prince of wales respectively. it collects also some other bits of hereditary revenue; but the total amount of its receipts is small, and the commissioners are only two in number. the customs establishment, which collects all duties on imports and exports, is managed by a chairman, a deputy chairman and one other commissioner; and, finally, the inland revenue office, which collects the excises, and all the other national taxes, is a huge concern, and has at its head a chairman, deputy chairman and two other commissioners. this department was formed by uniting the boards of excise, of taxes and of stamps; and it has been suggested that the departments of customs and of inland revenue should be combined, but that has been thought inadvisable. (_cf._ d rep. com. on civil estabs., com. papers, , xxi., .) [ : ] the chancellor of the exchequer is also _ex officio_ master of the mint. [ : ] the ecclesiastical commission manages the episcopal estates and other church property, using the revenues to pay the income of the bishops, and to promote the work of the established church in poor and populous places. it is not connected with any department of the government, and in fact is rather an institution belonging to the church than a branch of the public service. the commissioners include all the bishops, several cabinet ministers, and a number of other laymen, of whom a couple sit in parliament. the charity commission, a body possessing semi-judicial powers in the regulation of charitable trusts, occupies a position more like that of an administrative department. of the four commissioners one is unpaid, and represents the body in parliament. these two commissions are, therefore, in the anomalous position of having been deliberately provided with spokesmen in parliament, who are not responsible ministers of the crown. the british museum, the national gallery, and the national portrait gallery are in this respect in the same situation. chapter vi miscellaneous offices [sidenote: the government and the administration of law.] there is in england no single officer corresponding to the minister of justice, or attorney general, in other countries, some of the duties performed by them elsewhere being divided in england among a number of authorities, while others are not performed at all. the principal officers who fill this important gap are the lord chancellor, the law officers of the crown, and the director of public prosecutions. [sidenote: the lord chancellor.] the greatest political dignitary in the british government, the one endowed by law with the most exalted and most diverse functions, the only great officer of state who has retained his ancient rights, the man who defies the doctrine of the separation of powers more than any other personage on earth, is the lord chancellor. apart from his duties as a judge, as the presiding officer of the house of lords, and as a member of the cabinet, all of which have been or will be described in other places, he has many powers of a miscellaneous character connected for the most part with the administration of the law.[ : ] he is, for example, at the head of the crown office in chancery. this, as the place where the great seal is affixed, is legally and formally, although not politically, important. the commissioners in lunacy, also, report to him. the regulations relating to public prosecutions require his approval, and the control of the land registry office devolves mainly upon him. almost all the judicial patronage, moreover, is in his hands, for he is consulted about the highest posts, the selection of the puisne judges of the high court is made on his recommendation, and he appoints and removes the county court judges and justices of the peace.[ : ] although the lord chancellor is a party leader, and is at once an active member of the legislative, the executive and the judicial branches of the government, the evils that might be supposed to result from such a combination of powers in the same hands do not in fact appear. he might, indeed, when sitting in the judicial committee, or in the house of lords, be called upon to construe a statute which he had a share in enacting, but this does no great harm. the really serious matter is a confusion of the executive and judicial powers, the sitting in judgment by a political officer upon a question on which he has acted, or which may affect his future action, in an administrative capacity. but since the chancellor never holds court alone at the present day, such a question could come before him only in the court of appeal, the house of lords, or the judicial committee, where he sits with other judges, who have no connection with the ministry. moreover, the chancellor, although the legal member of the cabinet, is not its sole, nor indeed its official, legal adviser; and the government would never think of acting upon any doubtful point of law without obtaining the opinion of the law officers of the crown. these gentlemen hold no judicial position; and curiously enough, while a part of the ministry, are never in the cabinet. [sidenote: the law officers of the crown.] the principal law officers of the crown are the attorney general, and the solicitor general, who is his colleague and substitute.[ : ] their opinion on questions of law may be asked by the government, and by any department, although many of the departments are provided with permanent legal counsel of their own whose advice is sufficient for all ordinary matters. the attorney and solicitor general conduct personally a few prosecutions of unusual importance, file criminal informations, and appear in cases where the rights of the crown are involved, or where their intervention is necessary to protect charitable endowments. they defend in parliament the legality of the government's action, and explain incomprehensible legal points in its measures. while they are no longer permitted to engage in private practice, their salaries and fees are so large[ : ] that these posts are among the great political prizes for lawyers who have made their mark in the warfare of the house of commons,[ : ] prizes the greater because, in addition to the direct emoluments, they confer a presumptive claim to the very highest places on the bench that may become vacant while the party is in power. [sidenote: public prosecutions in england.] it has been observed that the law officers of the crown conduct in person only a few criminal cases of unusual importance. in other countries the prosecution of offenders is the affair of the state, and is conducted in all the courts great and small by public officers. this is true in scotland also, where the matter is in the hands of a body of officers, known as procurators fiscal, with the lord advocate at their head; and even in ireland a similar system has developed informally by the employment of crown counsel acting under the control of the attorney general for that kingdom. but in england criminal prosecutions in the vast majority of cases are still, in theory at least, conducted by private persons.[ : ] any one, whether a person injured or not, may prosecute the offender.[ : ] as a rule the examining magistrate, after committing the accused for trial, binds some one over to prosecute--either the complainant, the person injured, a policeman, the magistrate's own clerk, or a solicitor employed for the purpose. the case is usually conducted by the solicitor to the local magistrate, but the person bound over may employ his own counsel to take charge of it. the costs of the trial are, however, at the present day, allowed by the court, and paid out of the national treasury, under regulations made by the home secretary. [sidenote: the director of public prosecutions.] it has always been the habit for the attorney general to conduct great state trials, cases, for example, of high treason; and it gradually came to be the practice for the legal officers attached to the different departments to prosecute in certain other cases, such as offences against the coinage. but about the middle of the last century there arose a demand for a general system of state prosecutions under the charge of a ministry of justice.[ : ] this movement culminated, or evaporated, in the acts of and ,[ : ] whereby the solicitor to the treasury, who is the permanent legal adviser of that department, and is also charged with a number of other duties of a legal nature, has been made the director of public prosecutions. the regulations governing his actions in this capacity are made by the attorney general with the approval of the lord chancellor and the home secretary. they provide in substance[ : ] that he shall prosecute in all capital cases, in offences against the coinage, cases of fraudulent bankruptcy, cases where he is directed to do so by the attorney general or the home secretary, and cases where such action appears to him necessary in the public interest. he may employ counsel to conduct both the cases that he brings, and any other criminal proceedings before the high courts where no counsel has been retained; and he may also assist a private prosecutor by authorising special expenses for evidence or counsel. it is his duty to give advice to the clerks of justices of the peace, and to police officers; and, finally, he is in all these matters subject to the control of the attorney general. the director of public prosecutions makes to parliament an annual report of his doings, enlivened by narratives of the most interesting cases. but in spite of his activity the vast bulk of the prosecutions are conducted as of old under private direction; for out of the many thousands of criminal cases tried every year, only from three hundred and fifty to five hundred are in his charge, and the number shows no marked tendency to increase. enough has been said to justify the statement that no single officer exercises any considerable part of the functions of a minister of justice. such duties are not only divided among a number of persons, but scattered in small fragments among different departments. an illustration of this is furnished by the return of public prosecutions, which is submitted to parliament by the home secretary, and bears his signature on the first page; while the return itself is signed by the director of public prosecutions, and dated from the treasury. gneist, in his work on the english administrative system, portrays the lord chancellor as the minister of justice for civil, and the home secretary for criminal, matters,[ : ] but such a generalisation is overstrained and misleading, and it is safer to assert that when the english bring confusion into any administrative department they usually succeed in confounding utterly all general principles, and making all general statements inaccurate. [sidenote: the church.] if there is no minister of justice in england, still less is there a minister of religion such as is commonly found in countries that possess established churches. the government of the church of england will be treated in another chapter, and it is only necessary here to point out that although a strictly national institution, often deeply involved in political controversy, the church is in many ways singularly free from the control of the executive government. it is, no doubt, regulated by laws that cannot be altered without the authority of parliament. its organisation, its ritual, and its articles of faith can be changed only by statute. but in administrative affairs its dependence upon the state is very much less. the king is, indeed, its supreme head; he virtually appoints the bishops and other high dignitaries, and his assent is necessary to the exercise of their limited powers by the convocations of the two provinces.[ : ] beyond this, however, the crown does not interfere in the government of the church, or the discipline of its members, which are left under the charge of its own officers. proceedings against a clergyman for doctrinal errors or violation of the ritual can be taken only with the consent of the bishop, the government having no part in it; and although the crown appoints a portion of the members of the ecclesiastical commission, which manages much of the church property, the bishops form a large majority of the body, and the commission itself is not subordinate to any minister of state. the only control, therefore, exercised by the cabinet upon the administration of the church is to be found in the restraint upon convocation, and in the fact that the responsibility for the selection of high ecclesiastics rests with the prime minister, who, curiously enough, is not necessarily, and in the last two cabinets actually has not been, a member of the church of england. the prime minister also nominates the incumbents of a number of large livings, while the lord chancellor presents to several hundred others that happen to lie in the gift of the crown.[ : ] except for these things no minister is responsible for the conduct of the church or of its members. the connection between church and state in england is thus a peculiar one. in some ways the relation is very close, but it is rather legislative and judicial than administrative. the church is minutely regulated by state laws, the judge of its principal tribunal must be confirmed by the crown, and appeals lie to a secular court;[ : ] but it lives upon its own revenues without any grant from parliament, and although its highest officers are appointed by the state, and sit in the upper house of parliament, yet once appointed, they, like all the rest of the clergy, are practically free from the supervision and control of the executive government. [sidenote: scotland.] these are all the public offices in the english government that it is necessary to mention. a description of the peculiar institutions of scotland and ireland is not within the scope of this book, except so far as they affect the central government. until twenty years ago the connection of the government with matters relating exclusively to scotland was maintained chiefly through the home office, but the lord advocate was virtually the parliamentary under-secretary for scotch business, and took entire charge of it, unless his chief was a scotchman, and cared to assert himself. in a secretary for scotland was created, one might perhaps say revived, and to him were intrusted for that kingdom duties corresponding to those discharged in england by the home office, the local government board and the board of education. in fact he may be said to be the general representative for scotch purposes of all the various civil departments of state; and in particular he is at the head of the scotch local government board and the scotch education department. he is not one of the secretaries of state and receives a much smaller salary than they do, but he is a member of the ministry, usually, though not invariably, with a seat in the cabinet, and he is always a member of one or the other house of parliament. the contrast between the relations of england to scotland and to ireland is striking. by the act of union of england and scotland became one state, with a common parliament and a common executive government, but political differences have not been obliterated. the act of union preserved the ecclesiastical and legal institutions of scotland; and at the present day she has her own established church, which is presbyterian; her own system of education, which is quite different from the english; and her own system of law, based upon the civil not the common law, and adorned by a nomenclature so disfigured as to pass for her own. with such differences as these it has been not uncommon for parliament, even where the same legislative principles were to be applied on both sides of the tweed, to enact them in separate statutes, each adapted to the institutions of the country in which it is to operate. socially, also, the fusion has not been complete. every scotchman is an englishman, but an englishman is not a scotchman. the scotch regard themselves as an elect race who are entitled to all the rights of englishmen and to their own privileges besides. all english offices ought to be open to them, but scotch posts are the natural heritage of the scots. they take part freely in the debates on legislation affecting england alone, but in their opinion acts confined to scotland ought to be, and in fact they are in the main, governed by the opinion of the scotch members. such a condition is due partly to the fact that scotch institutions and ideas are sufficiently distinct from those of england to require separate treatment, and not different enough to excite repugnance. it is due in part also to the fact that the scotch are both a homogeneous and a practical people, so that all classes can unite in common opinions about religion, politics and social justice. the result is that scotland is governed by scotchmen in accordance with scotch ideas, while ireland has been governed by englishmen, and until recently, in accordance with english ideas. [sidenote: ireland.] the act of union with ireland in abolished the irish parliament, and vested the whole legislative power for the united kingdom in the joint parliament at westminster; but the executive government for ireland was left at dublin. it is conducted in the name of the lord lieutenant as the representative of the crown.[ : ] the work is nominally done by him in his privy council, subject to such instructions as may be sent to him by the english government through the home secretary. in practice, however, matters have worked out very differently, for the administration of ireland has been far too important to rest under the wing of the home office. the lord lieutenant is always a great nobleman, and he is expected to keep up a vice-regal state, sometimes at an expense exceeding his enormous salary of £ , a year; but he is not ordinarily the real head of the irish office. since he has been a member of the cabinet less than eleven years, whereas his chief secretary has been in the cabinet during the whole of that period, except from to , and for three other intervals that were very brief. moreover, the chief secretary is always a member of the house of commons, where he must defend the administration of ireland against the attacks of the irish members, and often of the english opposition also. thus it has come about that the chief secretary habitually plays the part of minister for ireland, and is practically the ruler of the country. he is at the head of the irish local government board, congested districts board and department of agriculture and technical instruction, and in general he is held responsible for all administration of a political character, except in the case of the revenue and the irish board of works, which are under the direct control of the treasury.[ : ] he possesses, indeed, not only the authority vested in a number of ministers in england, but also powers not conferred upon them at all. during the greater part of the time since the union in , ireland has been subject to a long series of coercion acts, temporary in duration, but renewed at short intervals under different names.[ : ] the provisions have varied, but the object has always been to arm the irish government with extraordinary and arbitrary powers for the suppression of disorder. moreover, the police of ireland, instead of being, as in england and scotland, under the control of the local authorities, is under the direct orders of dublin castle. this force, the royal irish constabulary, contains over twelve thousand men, a number twice as large in proportion to the population as that of the police in great britain. [sidenote: causes of misgovernment.] the administration of ireland has been the conspicuous failure of the english government. its history for a century has been a long tale of expedients, palliations and concessions, which have never availed to secure either permanent good order or the contentment and loyalty of the inhabitants. each step has been taken, not of foresight, but under pressure. the repressive measures have been avowedly temporary, devised to meet an emergency, not part of a permanent policy; while concessions, which if granted earlier might have had more effect, have only come when attention to the matter has been compelled by signs of widespread and grievous discontent. catholic emancipation was virtually won by the clare election; disestablishment of the anglican church was hastened by the fenian movement; the home rule bill followed the growth of the irish parliamentary party, culminating in parnell's hold upon the balance of power in the house of commons; and the land laws have resulted from agrarian agitation. it has been said that the same thing is true of english reforms, that parliament seldom gives redress until a wrong has been brought forcibly to its notice, and this is no doubt a natural if not an inevitable result of the parliamentary form of government. it is a part of the general tendency to treat symptoms rather than causes, to which we shall have occasion to refer again. but while parliament, now that all classes are represented there, is certain to be made aware of an english grievance long before it has become intolerable, it is by no means so keenly sensitive to an irish one. the fact is that irish problems lie beyond the experience of the english member and his constituents. being unable to distinguish readily a real grievance from an unreasonable demand, he does not heed it until he is obliged to; and the cabinet, with its hands already full, is not inclined to burn its fingers with matters in which the house is not deeply or generally interested. all this is merely one of many illustrations of the truth that parliamentary government can work well only so far as the nation itself is fairly homogeneous in its political aspirations. [sidenote: difficulty of the problem.] but if the parliamentary system has proved an instrument ill-fitted for ruling ireland, it is also true that the problem has been one of extreme difficulty. english statesmen might have repeated what lord durham said of canada in his famous report: "i expected to find a contest between a government and a people. i found two nations warring in the bosom of a single state."[ : ] for centuries ireland has remained a conquered land without a thorough fusion of the victors and the vanquished; the native stock has been subjected without being assimilated, and the difference of race has been intensified by a difference of creed. the celt still looks upon his saxon landlord, and upon the orangemen in ulster, as aliens, and upon the constabulary as the garrison of a foreign power. this has not only made the management of ireland an exceedingly hard thing for an english government to carry on, but it also stands in the way of any other solution of the problem. to allow the irish to govern themselves means putting the under dog on top and the upper dog underneath. the difficulty has been further increased by a deep-seated divergence in the conceptions of law and justice. unlike scotland, ireland has the english system of jurisprudence. her courts are modelled on those at westminster, and administer the english common law, while most of the statutes affecting civil rights are the same. but, as men have often pointed out, there are in times of agitation two laws, and two governments, in the country; on one side the english law, administered by the english government through its officials, and on the other a hostile system resting upon very different principles, and applied by an extra-legal political organisation, but in fact more vigorously enforced than the first, and often more in harmony with the popular sense of justice. [sidenote: the land question.] the divergence between the legal conceptions of the english and irish is most marked in the case of land. according to the ideas of englishmen, and of irish landlords, the land belongs to the owner, and apart from special statutory provisions, the tenant has only a contractual right of possession, during the continuance, and subject to the terms, of his contract. but the tenants feel that, subject to somewhat indefinite duties towards the landlord in the way of rent, they have rights in the land, of which their forbears were robbed, and which they have reclaimed from the waste.[ : ] such a difference is fundamental, and cannot be adjusted to the satisfaction of both parties. people speak of the hunger of the irish for land, as if that were the cause of the difficulty, but the irishman has no general land-hunger. when he has emigrated to america, instead of going, like the swede, to the great open prairies where any industrious man can easily own a farm, he has settled, like the landless hebrew, in the great cities. what the irish want is irish land, and to this they think they have a right. various remedies for solving the relation of landlord and tenant have been tried. first came the act of , which based that relation strictly upon contract, though restraining to some extent its enforcement by summary eviction. ten years later the act of proceeded upon quite a different principle, for it extended the ulster tenant-right over the whole country, giving to the tenant a salable property in his holding. it granted, even to a tenant from year to year, a claim against his landlord for disturbance; and it conferred a right to compensation for past as well as future improvements. but these provisions did not set the questions at rest. later followed in the judicial reduction of rents,--the fixing by public authority of fair rents as they were called. but here trouble arose on both sides. if the landlord's views were right, and the land belonged absolutely to him, it was clearly unjust to deprive him of its market value in rent, and he was entitled to feel that the government was giving away his property to smooth its own political difficulties.[ : ] on the other hand, the fair rents did not end the matter for the tenant. the english, deeply impressed with the sanctity of contract, meant the new rents to be paid as rents are paid in england; but the irishman, living in what might almost be called a world of status, and brought up under a system of rack rent, had far less respect for contract, and regarded rents as things to be paid approximately rather than exactly. the result was more friction, and a further judicial reduction in . finally, after a series of land-purchase acts designed to promote peasant proprietorship, but too limited in scope to affect general social conditions, had been tried, a number of landlords and some of the irish leaders held a conference in , and virtually agreed that as both parties claimed rights in the land, the government should pay the landlord for it and transfer it to the tenant, an arrangement the more easy because by that time the landlords' interest had fallen greatly in value. the government undertook to carry out the plan by the land purchase act of , making not indeed an immediate gift, but a loan of its credit, and charging the tenant a low rent which is expected eventually to repay the advance, and leave him the owner of the land.[ : ] since that time the purchase and distribution of estates, under the act, has been going on, but the process naturally takes time, and as might be expected, it has been far more rapid in the prosperous than in the poor parts of the country. one may hope that by this means the land question will in time be solved, but he must have a blind faith who believes that with it the irish question will disappear. a crude outline of the land legislation has been given simply to show the enormous difficulty of governing a country where the legal conceptions of rulers and ruled are irreconcilable, and yet that is precisely the kind of obstacle that arises at every step in the irish problem. footnotes: [ : ] he has some powers that have no relation to the law, such as the appointment to a large number of crown livings; and in this connection it may be noted that the offices of lord chancellor of great britain and lord lieutenant of ireland are the only ones that cannot be held by roman catholics. the subject is not free from doubt. see anson, ii., , and the debate in , hans., ser. cccxlix., _et seq._ on that occasion the house of commons refused to remove any disability that might exist. [ : ] the list of justices of the peace for each county is in practice drawn up by the lord lieutenant, except in lancashire, where it is made by the chancellor of the duchy, and that list is almost always adopted by the lord chancellor. no little controversy has, however, arisen of late over this subject. [ : ] there are also a lord advocate and a solicitor general for scotland, and an attorney general and a solicitor general for ireland. [ : ] the salary of the attorney general is £ ; that of the solicitor general £ ; and the fees in each case amount to about £ more. [ : ] the solicitor general for scotland, and the attorney and solicitor general for ireland, although political officers who change with the ministry, are not always in parliament. [ : ] see the excellent chapter on prosecution in maitland's "justice and police." [ : ] the prosecution is, however, in the name of the king, and the attorney general can put a stop to it by _nolle prosequi_ if he considers it vexatious. [ : ] in an article in the _fortnightly review_ for march, , entitled, "the organisation of a legal department of government," mr. bryce showed the need, and sketched the outline, for such a ministry. [ : ] - vic., c. ; - vic., c. . [ : ] com. papers, , liii., . [ : ] _englische verwaltungsrecht_, ii., - . [ : ] without action by parliament these extend only to the making of canons binding on the clergy. [ : ] all crown livings with less than £ of yearly revenue are in the gift of the lord chancellor, hans., ser. clxix., , and so are many livings of considerable size. hans., ser. clxx., . the chancellor of the duchy of lancaster nominates to crown livings belonging to the duchy, and the home secretary to those in the channel islands and the isle of man. hans., ser. cccxlix., - . [ : ] the judicial committee of the privy council. [ : ] the provisions of the test act still apply to this office, so that the lord lieutenant must necessarily be of a faith different from that of the large majority of the people he is appointed to rule. [ : ] public non-technical education is directed by the commissioners of irish national education, and the board of intermediate education. these boards are not political, but the members, who must be partly protestant and partly roman catholic, are appointed by the lord lieutenant, and the chief secretary has a certain measure of control over them. [ : ] the last of them, the crimes act of , is a permanent statute, but its provisions come into force only on a proclamation by the lord lieutenant, which is revocable at any time. [ : ] com. papers, , xvii., , p. . [ : ] the fact that improvements have been generally made by the landlord in england, and by the tenant in ireland, has much to do with this feeling. [ : ] the case for the landlords has been very strongly stated by mr. lecky in his "democracy and liberty," i., - . [ : ] edw. vii., c. . the act of was hailed with joy, but the irish members soon complained of its administration, and on july , , they moved successfully to reduce by £ the appropriation for the land commission as an expression of dissatisfaction. hans., ser. cxlix., - . chapter vii the permanent civil service [sidenote: sharp distinction between political and non-political officials.] the history of the permanent civil service would be one of the most instructive chapters in the long story of english constitutional development, but unfortunately it has never been written. the nation has been saved from a bureaucracy, such as prevails over the greater part of europe, on the one hand, and from the american spoils system on the other, by the sharp distinction between political and non-political officials. the former are trained in parliament, not in administrative routine. they direct the general policy of the government, or at least they have the power to direct it, are entirely responsible for it, and go out of office with the cabinet; while the non-political officials remain at their posts without regard to party changes, are thoroughly familiar with the whole field of administration, and carry out in detail the policy adopted by the ministry of the day. the distinction has arisen gradually with the growth of the parliamentary system. [sidenote: exclusion of non-political officials from parliament.] a dread of the power of the king to control parliament, by a distribution of offices and pensions among its members, gave rise to a provision, in the act of settlement of , that after the accession of the house of hanover no person holding an office or place of profit under the crown should be capable of sitting in the house of commons.[ : ] but before this act took effect the disadvantages of excluding entirely from the house the great officers of state was perceived. the provision was, therefore, modified so as to shut out absolutely only the holders of new offices created after oct. , , and of certain specified posts already existing. members of the house of commons appointed to other offices were to lose their seats, but be capable of reëlection.[ : ] as there were many old offices the number of placemen in parliament continued large, and no sharp line was drawn at once between the great officers of state and their subordinates. but two processes went on which in time rendered the distinction effective. when a new office of a political nature was created it became the habit to make a special statutory provision permitting the holder to sit in the house of commons; and, on the other hand, place bills were passed from time to time excluding from parliament whole classes of officials of a lower grade. these acts apply, for example, to all the clerks in many of the government departments,[ : ] and together with the provision excluding the holders of all new offices created since , they cover a large part of all the officials under the rank of minister.[ : ] the distinction between the offices which are and those which are not compatible with a seat in the house of commons, is made complete by the regulations of the service itself. these cannot render void an election to the house which is not invalid by statute. they cannot make the holding of office a disqualification for parliament, but they can make a seat in parliament a reason for the loss of office. they can and do provide that if any civil servant intends to be a candidate he must resign his office when he first issues his address to the electors.[ : ] if it were not for three or four ministers, such as the irish law officers, who are expected to get themselves elected to parliament if they can, but whose tenure of their positions does not depend upon their doing so, one might say that the public service is divided into political officers who must sit in parliament, and non-political officers who must not. [sidenote: permanent officials take no active part in politics.] [sidenote: but are not disfranchised] in a popular government, based upon party, the exclusion of the subordinate civil servants from the legislature is an essential condition both of their abstaining from active politics and of their permanence of tenure. but it does not by itself necessarily involve either of those results. this is clear from the example of the united states, where office-holders of all grades are excluded from congress by the provisions of the constitution, but by no means refrain from party warfare. the keeping out of politics, however, and the permanence of tenure must, in the long run, go together; for it is manifest that office can be held regardless of party changes only in case the holders do not take an active part in bringing those changes to pass; and if, on the other hand, they are doomed to lose their places on a defeat at the polls of the party in power, they will certainly do their utmost to avert such a defeat. in england the abstinence and the permanence have been attained, and it is noteworthy that they are both secured by the force of opinion hardening into tradition, and not by the sanction of law.[ : ] at one time, indeed, large classes of public servants were deprived of the parliamentary franchise. an act of , for example,[ : ] withdrew the right to vote from officers employed in collecting excises, customs and other duties, and from postmasters; but these disqualifications were removed in .[ : ] the police, also, were, by a series of acts, deprived of the franchise in the constituencies where they held office. except as regards ireland, however, these statutes were, in their turn, repealed in ;[ : ] and the only disqualifications now attaching to public officials relate to such positions as those of returning officers at elections.[ : ] england enfranchised her officials at the very time when she was enlarging the suffrage and the number of office-holders. in some other countries the political danger of a large class of government employees has been keenly felt. this has been particularly true of the new democracies in australia with their armies of public servants on the state railroads; and, indeed, the pressure constantly brought to bear in the legislature in favour of this class caused victoria in to readjust her election laws.[ : ] the employees of the government have not been disfranchised altogether, but they have been deprived of the right to vote in the regular constituencies, and have been allotted one representative in the legislative council and two in the assembly to be elected entirely by their own class. they have, therefore, their spokesmen in the legislature, but they are no longer able to influence the other members as of old. [sidenote: effect of giving them votes.] in england these dangers are by no means unknown; but they have not taken the form of work done by civil servants for purely party ends. from that evil the country has been almost wholly free; for although all office-holders, not directly connected with the conduct of elections, have now a legal right to vote, and are quite at liberty to do so, it is a well-settled principle that those who are non-political--that is, all who are not ministers--must not be active in party politics. they must not, for example, work in a party organisation, serve on the committee of a candidate for parliament, canvass in his interest, or make speeches on general politics. all this is so thoroughly recognised that one rarely hears complaints of irregular conduct, or even of actions of a doubtful propriety. in this connection it is worthy of note that the revenue officers were disfranchised in at their own request. at that time the government controlled through them seventy seats in the house of commons, and lord north sent them notice that it would go hard with them if they did not support his party. his opponents sent them a similar warning, and the result was that in self-protection they sent up a strong petition asking for exclusion from the franchise.[ : ] the bill to reënfranchise them was carried in against the wishes of the government of the day.[ : ] but on that occasion, and in , when the acts imposing penalties upon their taking an active part at elections were repealed, it was perfectly well understood that they would not be permitted to go into party politics, and that the government was entitled to make regulations on the subject.[ : ] those regulations are still in force,[ : ] and it is only by maintaining them that the civil servants can continue to enjoy both permanence of tenure and the right to vote. [sidenote: attempts to improve their position.] [sidenote: the dockyards.] the danger arising from the votes of public servants has been felt in a different way. while the government employees have kept clear of party politics, they have in some cases used their electoral rights to bring pressure to bear upon members of parliament in favour of increasing their own pay and improving the conditions of their work. this has been peculiarly true of the dockyards. the members of the half dozen boroughs where the state maintains great shops for the construction and repair of warships are always urging the interests of the workmen; and they do it with so little regard to the national finances, or to the question whether they are elected as supporters or opponents of the ministry, that they have become a byword in parliament under the name of "dockyard-members."[ : ] [sidenote: other officials.] unfortunately the difficulty has not been confined to the dockyards. at the time when the revenue and post-office employees were enfranchised, disraeli dreaded their use of the franchise for the purpose of raising their salaries;[ : ] and gladstone said he was not afraid of government influence, or of an influence in favour of one political party or another, but of class influence, "which in his opinion was the great reproach of the reformed parliament."[ : ] these fears have not proved groundless. as early as it was recognised that the salaries paid by the government were above the market rate;[ : ] and ever since the officials in the revenue and postal departments obtained the right to vote, pressure on behalf of their interests has been brought to bear by them upon members of parliament, and by the latter upon the government. complaints of this have been constant.[ : ] it has been a source of criticism that members should have attended meetings of civil servants held to demand an increase of pay,[ : ] and that they should receive whips urging their attendance at the house when questions of this sort are to come up.[ : ] owing to the concentration of government employees in london the pressure upon the metropolitan members is particularly severe. [sidenote: recent efforts of postal officials for more pay.] for nearly a score of years a continuous effort has been made in parliament to secure the appointment of a committee to inquire into the pay of postal and telegraph employees, and into grievances which are said to exist in the service. the government has in part yielded, in part resisted; but in trying to prevent pressure upon members of parliament, it took at one time a step that furnished a fresh cause of complaint. the story of this movement illustrates forcibly the dangers of the situation. in the postmaster general, sir james fergusson, called the attention of the house of commons to a circular addressed by an association of telegraph clerks to candidates at the general election, asking whether if elected they would vote for a committee to inquire into the working of the service.[ : ] he then sent to the clerks an official warning that it is improper for government employees to try to extract promises from candidates with reference to their pay or duties.[ : ] nevertheless two of the clerks, clery and cheesman, who had been chairman and secretary of the meeting which had voted to issue the circular, signed a statement that the notice by the postmaster general "does not affect the policy of the association." immediately after the election these two men were dismissed.[ : ] that became a grievance in itself, and year after year attempts were made in parliament to have them reinstated. shortly after they had been dismissed mr. gladstone came into office; and he made a vague statement to the effect that the government intended to place no restraint upon the civil servants beyond the rule forbidding them to take an active part in political contests.[ : ] but it would seem that fergusson's warning circular was not cancelled,[ : ] and certainly clery and cheesman were not taken back. [sidenote: demand for a parliamentary committee.] [sidenote: pressure brought to bear.] the motions for a parliamentary committee to inquire into the conditions of the service were kept up; and in the government gave way so far as to appoint a commission, composed mainly of officials drawn from various departments, which reported in recommending some increases of pay both in the postal and in the telegraph service. these were at once adopted, and in fact further concessions were made shortly afterward, but still the agitation did not cease. the employees would be satisfied with nothing but a parliamentary committee, no doubt for the same reason that led the government to refuse it, namely the pressure to which members of parliament were subject,[ : ] and the additional force that pressure would have if brought to a focus upon the persons selected to serve on a committee.[ : ] year after year grievances on one side, and on the other charges of almost intolerable pressure were repeated. in the interest centred in a motion to the effect that public servants in the post office were deprived of their political rights. a long debate took place in which the whole history of the subject was reviewed,[ : ] and hanbury, the financial secretary of the treasury, exclaimed, "we have done away with personal and individual bribery, but there is a still worse form of bribery, and that is when a man asks a candidate to buy his vote out of the public purse."[ : ] in mr. austen chamberlain stated that members had come to him, not from one side of the house alone, to seek from him, in his position as postmaster general, protection in the discharge of their public duties against the pressure sought to be put upon them by the employees of the post office.[ : ] he consented, however, to appoint a commission of business men to advise him about the wages of employees; but again there was a protest against any committee of inquiry not composed of members of parliament.[ : ] the report of the commission was followed in by a debate of the usual character.[ : ] finally in the new liberal ministry yielded, and a select committee was appointed.[ : ] there are now employed in the postal and telegraph services about two hundred thousand persons, who have votes enough, when organised, to be an important factor at elections in many constituencies, and to turn the scale in some of them. if their influence is exerted only to raise wages in a service recruited by competitive examination,[ : ] the evil is not of the first magnitude; but it is not difficult to perceive that such a power might be used in directions highly detrimental to the state. there is no reason to expect the pressure to grow less, and mutterings are sometimes heard about the necessity of taking the franchise away from government employees. that would be the only effective remedy, and the time may not be far distant when it will have to be considered seriously. as we shall have occasion to see hereafter, the pressure in behalf of individuals is comparatively small, and it is characteristic of modern english parliamentary government that political influence should be used to promote class rather than personal interests. [sidenote: permanence of tenure of officials.] permanence of tenure in the english civil service, like the abstinence from partly politics, is secured by custom, not by law, for the officials with whom we are concerned here are appointed during pleasure, and can legally be dismissed at any time for any cause. now, although the removal, for partisan motives, of officials who would be classed to-day as permanent and non-political, has not been altogether unknown in england, yet it was never a general practice. the reason that the spoils system--that is, the wholesale discharge of officials on a change of party--obtained no foothold is not to be found in any peculiarly exalted sense, inherent in the british character, that every public office is a sacred trust. that conception is of comparatively modern origin; for in the eighteenth century the abuse of patronage, and even the grosser forms of political corruption, were shamelessly practised. it is rather to be sought in quite a different sentiment, the sentiment that a man has a vested interest in the office that he holds. this feeling is constantly giving rise, both in public and private affairs, to a demand for the compensation of persons displaced or injured by a change of methods which seems strange to a foreigner.[ : ] the claim by publicans for compensation when their licenses are not renewed, a claim recognised by the act of , is based upon the same sentiment and causes the traveller to inquire how any one can, as the result of a license ostensibly temporary, have a vested right to help other people to get drunk. the habit of discharging officials on party grounds never having become established, it was not unnatural that with the growth of the parliamentary system the line between the changing political chiefs and their permanent subordinates should be more and more clearly marked, and this process has gone on until at the present day the dismissal of the latter on political grounds is practically unheard of, either in national or local administration. [sidenote: former party patronage.] while the discharge of public servants on political grounds never became a settled custom in england, such vacancies as occurred in the natural course of events were freely used in former times to confer favours on political and personal friends, or to reward party services. such a practice was regarded as obvious, and it continued unchecked until after the first reform act. it was particularly bad in ireland, where peel, who was chief secretary from to , took great credit to himself for breaking up the habit of treating the irish patronage as the perquisite of the leading families, and for dispensing it on public grounds, that is, using it to secure political support for the party in power.[ : ] that the patronage was used for the same purpose in england at that period may be seen in the reports and evidence laid before parliament in , and after a different system had begun to take its place.[ : ] it was no doubt an effective means of procuring political service, and lord john russell speaks of the tories in as apparently invincible from long possession of government patronage, spreading over the church, the law, the army, the navy, and the colonies.[ : ] the support most needed by the ministry was that of members of the house of commons, and they received in return places for constituents who had been, or might become, influential at elections. thus it came about that the greater part of the appointments, especially to local offices, were made through the members of parliament.[ : ] the system hampered the efficiency of administration, and harassed the ministers. writing in , the duke of wellington used words that might have been applied to other countries at a later time,--"the whole system of the patronage of the government," he wrote, "is in my opinion erroneous. certain members claim a right to dispose of everything that falls vacant within the town or county which they represent; and this is so much a matter of right that they now claim the patronage whether they support upon every occasion, or now and then, or when not required, or entirely oppose; and in fact the only question about local patronage is whether it shall be given to the disposal of one gentleman or another."[ : ] [sidenote: the introduction of examinations.] at last a revulsion of feeling took place. between and pass examinations, which discarded utterly incompetent candidates, were established in some of the departments, and in several cases even competitive examinations were introduced. but the great impulse toward a new method of appointment dates from , and it came from two different quarters. in that year the charter of the east india company was renewed, and parliament was not disposed to continue the privilege hitherto enjoyed by the directors of making appointments to haileybury--the preparatory school for the civil service in india. a commission, with macaulay at its head, reported in the following year that appointments to the indian service ought to be made on the basis of an open competitive examination of a scholastic character. the plan was at once adopted, haileybury was abandoned, and with some changes in detail, the system of examination recommended by the commission has been in operation ever since.[ : ] [sidenote: open competition.] in , also, sir stafford northcote and sir charles trevelyan, who were selected by mr. gladstone to inquire into the condition of the civil service in england, reported in favour of a system of appointment by open competitive examination. the new method met with far more opposition at home than in india, and made its way much more slowly. foreseeing obstacles in the house of commons, lord palmerston's government determined to proceed, not by legislation, but by executive order, resorting to parliament only for the necessary appropriation. an order in council was accordingly made on may , ,[ : ] creating a body of three civil service commissioners,[ : ] who were to examine all candidates for the junior positions in the various departments of the civil service. the reform was not at the outset very radical, for political nomination was not abolished, and the examinations--not necessarily competitive--were to be arranged in accordance with the desires of the heads of the different departments. the change could progress, therefore, only so fast as the ministers in charge of the various state offices might be convinced of its value; but from this time the new method gained favour steadily with high administrative officials, with parliament and with the public. in [ : ] it was enacted that (except for appointments made directly by the crown, and posts where professional or other peculiar qualifications were required) no person thereafter appointed should, for the purpose of superannuation pensions, be deemed to have served in the permanent civil service of the state unless admitted with a certificate from the civil service commissioners. in a parliamentary committee reported that limited competition ought to supersede mere pass examinations, and that open competition, which does away entirely with the privilege of nomination, was better than either.[ : ] the committee, however, did not think the time ripe for taking this last step, and the general principle of open competition was not established until june , . an order in council of that date,[ : ] which is still the basis of the system of examinations, provides that (except for offices to which the holder is appointed directly by the crown, situations filled by promotion, and positions requiring professional or other peculiar qualifications, where the examinations may be wholly or partly dispensed with) no person shall be employed in any department of the civil service until he has been tested by the civil service commissioners, and reported by them qualified to be admitted on probation.[ : ] it provides further that the appointments named in schedule a, annexed to the order, must be made by open competitive examination; and this list has been extended from time to time until it covers the greater part of the positions where the work does not require peculiar qualifications, or is not of a confidential nature, or of a distinctly inferior or manual character like that of attendants, messengers, workmen, etc.[ : ] [sidenote: a test of capacity rather than fitness.] since the general introduction of open competition, by the order in council of , two tendencies have been at work which are not unconnected. the first is towards simplification, by grouping positions that have similar duties into large classes, with a single competition for each class, and thus diminishing the number of examinations for separate positions.[ : ] the second is the tendency so to examine the candidates as to test their general ability and attainments, and hence their capacity to become useful in the positions assigned to them, rather than the technical knowledge they possess.[ : ] this distinction marks an important difference between the system of civil service examinations as it exists in the united states, and the form which the system has assumed in england. for in the united states the object is almost entirely to discover the immediate fitness of the candidates for the work they are expected to do; in england the object in most cases is to measure what their ability to do the work will be after they have learned it. the difference arises partly from the fact that in america the examinations were superimposed upon a custom of rotation in office and spoils, while in england permanence of tenure was already the rule; and partly from the fact that the system is applied in america mainly to positions requiring routine or clerical work, whereas in england it affects also positions involving, directly or prospectively, a much greater amount of discretion and responsibility. now, it is clear that if men are to be selected young for a lifelong career, especially if that career involves responsible administrative work, any acquaintance with the details of the duties to be performed, and any present fitness for the position, are of far less consequence than a thorough education, keen intelligence and capacity for development. proceeding upon this assumption, macaulay's commission on the indian civil service laid down two principles: first, that young men admitted to that service ought to have the best general education england could give; and, second, that ambitious men should not be led to spend time in special study which would be useless if they were not successful in the competition. the commission urged, therefore, that the examinations should be closely fitted to the studies pursued in the english universities. this plan was adopted, and although at one time the age of admission, and with it the standard, was lowered, they were afterwards restored; and the same principle is now also applied to the higher grades in the home service. for the lower positions in that service, where the work is of a clerical nature, and hence less discretion and responsibility are involved, it was formerly the habit to make the examinations more of a test of immediate preparation for the duties of the office; but this, as we shall see, has recently been replaced by a system based upon macaulay's ideas, though applied, of course, to an inferior scale of education. [sidenote: the different grades in the civil service.] the permanent officials of a typical department comprise a permanent under-secretary at the head, and one or more assistant under-secretaries and chiefs of branches. these offices are treated as not subject to examination under the order of , either because they are filled by promotion, or on the ground that the positions require peculiar qualifications.[ : ] as a matter of fact such posts are by no means always filled by promotion, and persons are sometimes selected for them who are outside of the service altogether. next in rank come the principal clerks; but they are recruited entirely by promotion from the first-class clerks, who are, therefore, the highest grade of officials entering the service by competitive examination. below them are the men now properly called clerks of the second division, although the title of this class of civil servants has been changed so often that one finds strange variations of nomenclature in the different departments. below these again come the assistant clerks (abstractor class), and finally the boy clerks. [sidenote: their origin.] the sharp separation of the clerks into classes, with distinct examinations for each class, did not arise at once. the first examinations under the original order of were required only for a "junior situation in any department," and they were not the same in the different departments. they were elementary affairs,[ : ] evidently designed to sift out incompetence rather than to test superiority; for it must be observed that in only a very small proportion of these examinations was there even a limited competition.[ : ] when, however, the order of extended the admission examinations to all positions in the service, not specially excepted or filled by promotion, and set up the principle of open competition, it became necessary to distinguish between the higher posts, involving discretionary powers and requiring a liberal education, and the lower ones where the duties are of a clerical kind; to distinguish, in other words, between the administrator and the clerk. such a distinction was made by the commissioners in their earliest regulations under the order of ,[ : ] the two classes being recruited separately by examinations of different character, the first of which was adapted to university graduates, and the second to young men from commercial life. at the outset the line was drawn somewhat at haphazard without sufficient attention to the real nature of the work to be done, and it was readjusted several times before it assumed its present form.[ : ] [sidenote: exceptional positions.] aside from the regular grades of clerks recruited by open competition, there are various kinds of inspectors, clerks and other special officials, appointed after open competition, limited competition, pass examination or no examination at all. in fact the departments are full of anomalies, some of them the necessary result of peculiar conditions of service, and others due apparently to no very rational cause. the reader will, no doubt, be sufficiently wearied by a description of the more common methods of examination, without going into the eccentricities of the system. it may be convenient to consider first the open competitions, and then the appointments that are made in other ways. [sidenote: the first-class clerkships.] the highest posts in the permanent civil service to which admission is obtained by competitive examination are known as the first-class clerkships. in the examinations for these positions and for the indian civil service were consolidated, and in the following year those for the eastern cadets[ : ] were added; so that a single annual competition is now the gateway to all three careers, the successful candidates being allowed, in the order of their rank at the examination, to choose the service they will enter. in spite of the smaller pay the first men on the list have usually selected the home service, because the life is more agreeable; and so far as the vacancies make it possible they are assigned to the particular department they prefer. [sidenote: the entrance examinations.] although these positions are called clerkships, the work is not of a clerical, but of an administrative, and in the upper grades of a highly responsible, character. the aim of the commissioners is, therefore, to recruit young men of thorough general education for an important and lifelong administrative career. with this object the candidates are required to be between twenty-two and twenty-four years of age, and the examination, which has no direct connection with their subsequent duties, is closely fitted to the courses of study in the universities. as a matter of fact the papers in mathematics and natural science are based upon the requirements for honour degrees at cambridge, the papers in classical and other subjects upon those at oxford; and thus it happens that by far the larger part of the successful candidates come from one or other of these two great universities.[ : ] the range of subjects is naturally large, and a candidate is allowed to offer as many as he pleases, but by an ingenious system of marking a thorough knowledge of a few subjects is made to yield a higher aggregate of marks than a superficial acquaintance with a larger number.[ : ] the examination papers are set, and the books are read, by well-known scholars, instructors at the universities and others, who are selected for the purpose. that the papers are severe any one may convince himself by looking at them. moreover the number of candidates, which is two or three times as large as the vacancies in all three services together, insures a rigorous competition; and the result is that the candidates who win the appointments are men of education and intellectual power. they belong to the type that forms the kernel of the professions; and many of them enter the civil service simply because they have not the means to enable them to wait long enough to achieve success in a professional career. they form an excellent corps of administrators, although the time has not come to express an opinion on the question whether they will prove the best material from which to draw the permanent under-secretaries and the other staff officers at the head of the different services. as yet few of them have attained positions of this grade, but it must be remembered that they have only recently begun to reach an age when they could be expected to do so. [sidenote: their social effect.] when the government was considering the introduction of competitive examinations, in , fears were expressed that such a system would result in driving the aristocracy out of the civil service, and replacing it by a lower social class.[ : ] mr. gladstone himself did not share that belief. on the contrary, he thought the plan would give to the highly educated class a stronger hold than ever upon the higher positions in the service.[ : ] in this he proved a better prophet than his critics. by far the greater part of the successful competitors for the class i clerkships now come, as we have seen, from oxford and cambridge; and the men educated at those universities are still drawn chiefly from the upper classes, from the aristocracy, the gentry, the sons of clergymen, of lawyers, of doctors, and of rich merchants who have made, or who hope to make, their way into the higher strata of society. men of more humble extraction go, as a rule, to the provincial colleges. the civil service commissioners have given in some of their annual reports the occupations of the fathers of the successful candidates at the chief open competitions; and while in the case of the joint examination for the class i clerkships and the indian civil service the list includes no peers, and does include some tradesmen, yet on the whole it consists of persons belonging to the upper and the upper middle class. thus it has come about that competitive examinations, instead of having a levelling tendency, by throwing the service open to a crowd of quick-witted youths without breeding, has helped to strengthen the hold of the upper classes upon the government, by reserving most of the important posts for men trained in the old aristocratic seats of learning. in this connection it may be observed that the highest positions in the civil service are often held by men of noble blood, and it has sometimes happened that the permanent under-secretary has been a man of higher social position than his political chief. sir robert herbert and sir courtenay boyle, for example, who were recently the permanent heads of the colonial office and the board of trade, were scions of ancient families in england and ireland; and the latter had at one time as his political chief mr. mundella, who had begun life as a printer's devil.[ : ] [sidenote: the second division clerkships.] ranking below the class i clerkships, there is a large body of persons whose work is mainly clerical. these are known as the second division clerks, and they are recruited by open competition. the standard of education required by the examination is naturally much less high than in the case of the first-class clerks, and the candidates are consequently younger, the competition being now limited to youths between seventeen and twenty years of age.[ : ] [sidenote: nature of examinations.] as the work done by the second division is of the same general character as that performed by clerks in commercial houses, the examination was at first devised on the supposition that the candidates would have a commercial training, and it was adapted to test their immediate fitness for that work. besides the elementary general subjects of writing, english composition, arithmetic, geography and english history, it covered copying, indexing, digesting returns and bookkeeping. such a test was not inappropriate in the earlier days, when appointments were made by nomination and the object of the examination was simply to eliminate individual appointees who were unfit for their duties; but it was continued long after the system of open competition, with its crowd of eager young candidates almost devoid of actual commercial training, had brought in a very different state of things. in the association of head masters pointed out, in a memorandum, the bad effect produced on general education. they showed that, in order to improve their chance of success, boys were prematurely taken from school and placed in the hands of crammers to acquire "a high degree of polish upon a rather low though useful order of accomplishment"; and they asked that the examination might be brought more into line with the curriculum of the schools. this was done, without giving up the former methods altogether, by introducing a number of options, so that a candidate need offer only the subjects ordinarily taught in a secondary school.[ : ] the result in the future will no doubt be to make proficiency in regular school work the real test for appointment, and thus, in accordance with macaulay's principle, to base the selection upon general education instead of technical knowledge. unlike the first-class clerks, the clerks of the second division are drawn mainly from the middle and lower middle classes, and their education has been obtained in the grammar schools and other schools of a similar kind. although a distinct corps, recruited by a different examination, and intended for a lower grade of work, they are not altogether cut off from the higher positions. after eight years of service they can, in exceptional cases, be promoted to first-class clerkships, and this is sometimes done. but as the number of second division clerks appointed each year is about three hundred, and the number promoted to first-class clerkships is on the average only about four, the chance of reaching that grade is very small.[ : ] [sidenote: assistant clerks.] within the last few years a new grade, called assistant clerks (abstractor class), has been formed, recruited at present by competitive examinations among the boy clerks. the work is chiefly in the nature of copying, but an assistant clerk may for special merit be appointed to the second division without competing in the examination.[ : ] [sidenote: boy clerks.] the lowest grade of officials recruited in common for a number of departments is that of boy clerks.[ : ] these come from much the same class in the community as the clerks of the second division, and the competitive examination, though more elementary, is of the same character,[ : ] the limits of age being fifteen and seventeen years. the employment is essentially temporary, and in fact boy clerks are not retained after they are twenty; but the position is a step towards further advancement, for the boy clerks alone can compete for the assistant clerkships, and if they go into the examination for the second division a credit for the service they have done is added to the marks they obtain. yet the examination for boy clerks is one of the few competitions for a large number of positions, where the quantity of candidates is insufficient. [sidenote: other competitive examinations.] besides the open competitions for the general grades of clerks, there are many others for special classes of employees in the different departments. some of these positions require no peculiar qualifications, and there is no obvious reason for having a number of separate examinations differing slightly from one another; but certain departments still cling to their own schemes, and the post office to several schemes. all this is being gradually simplified, by having the same examination for a number of distinct services, that for the second division clerks, for example, being now used for recruiting the clerks in the custom house.[ : ] the examinations for the second division could, probably, be combined with those for clerks in the customs and inland revenue, just as a combination has been made in the case of the first-class clerkships, the indian civil service and the eastern cadets--and that will, no doubt, be the tendency in the future. the same criticism does not, of course, apply to all the examinations. some of them require very different degrees of education; for others, such as those for draughtsmen, law clerks, and many more, professional or technical training is obviously necessary; while certain positions are reserved for women. each of these examinations is governed by regulations prescribing the age of the candidates, the fee to be paid, and the subjects included, but it is clearly needless for our purpose to follow them in detail.[ : ] [sidenote: limited competition.] in most of the departments there are positions in the permanent civil service not filled by competition, because the kind of experience and capacity needed cannot be tested, or fully tested, by examination; and in that case the examination may be wholly or partially dispensed with under clause vii of the order in council of . there are other positions where open competition is inapplicable because the places to be filled are not numerous enough, or sufficiently tempting, to attract competitors at large; or, because, as in the case of the higher class clerks in the foreign office, of attachés of legation, and of inspectors of various kinds, the work is of a delicate and confidential nature, and can be intrusted only to persons whose character is well known. in such cases it is common to have competitive examinations limited to candidates selected for the purpose.[ : ] even a limited competition has a tendency to raise the standard, but it must be remembered that in order to obtain a chance to compete in such cases some influence, direct or indirect, is indispensable; although the power of nomination does not, in fact, appear to be abused for political purposes. [sidenote: nomination with a pass examination.] there are positions for which no competition is held, but where a single person is nominated subject to an examination to test his competence. some of these places might very well be open to competition, and, indeed, there are still strange anomalies in various branches of the civil service; the strangest being the fact that the employees of the education department are, almost invariably, appointed without any examination at all, and this is true not only of inspectors, whose work requires peculiar qualifications, but even of clerks of the abstractor class. there are, however, positions in the civil service where the technical knowledge or experience needed are really such as to render a competition difficult. even in manual occupations this is believed to be the case. in the royal dockyards, for example, although the apprentices are recruited by open competition, the artificers are appointed subject to a pass examination touching only their skill in their trade, while the foremen are usually selected by a limited competition which includes something more. provincial postmasters also form a class by themselves. until a few years ago they owed their positions to political influence; for long after the members of parliament had lost all control over other appointments, they retained the power to fill any vacancies that might occur in the postal service within their constituencies, provided, of course, they belonged to the party in power. but this last remnant of parliamentary patronage was abolished in , and provincial postmasters are now appointed on the recommendation of the surveyors of the postal districts.[ : ] [sidenote: nomination without examination.] finally there are the appointments made entirely without examination of any kind, either because examination is dispensed with under clause vii of the order in council of , or because the position is one excepted altogether from the operation of the order. such posts are chiefly at the top or at the bottom of the service. they include positions of responsibility at one end of the scale; and those of messengers,[ : ] porters and servants at the other. [sidenote: promotions.] political influence has not only ceased almost entirely to affect appointments to office, but it has also been very nearly eliminated in the matter of promotion. the struggle on this subject began as early as , and the government has been strong enough to declare that an effort to bring influence to bear will be treated as an offence on the part of the employee; or as the minutes adopted by the treasury in , and by the admiralty a couple of years later, ingeniously and forcibly express it, the attempt by a public officer to support his application by any solicitation on the part of members of parliament, or other persons of influence, "will be treated . . . as an admission on the part of such officer that his case is not good upon its merits."[ : ] these measures seem to have had the desired effect.[ : ] [sidenote: why the civil service was easily freed from political influence.] if we seek to understand how it happened that the baneful influence of political patronage in the civil service, which had been dominant in england in the eighteenth century, was thrown off with comparative ease a hundred years later, while in some other nations that influence was, at the same period, growing in strength, and has proved extremely tenacious; if we seek to explain this contrast, we must take account of a striking peculiarity of english public life at the present day that has come with the evolution of the parliamentary system. for reasons that will be discussed hereafter a member of the majority of the house of commons votes on the side of the government with singular constancy; and as compared with most other countries under a popular form of government politics turn to an unusual extent upon public questions. the house is engaged in almost ceaseless battles between the two front benches with the ranks of their followers marshalled behind them; and the battles are over public matters. questions affecting private, personal or local interests occupy a relatively small share of the attention of the member of parliament. he is primarily the representative of a national party elected to support or oppose the cabinet, rather than the delegate of a district sent to watch over the interests of his constituents, and push the claims of influential electors. the defence, said to have been triumphantly made elsewhere, by a member accused of absence from important divisions, that he had procured more favours for his constituency than any other representative, could not be pleaded as an excuse in england. hence the ministry is not compelled to enlist personal support either in the legislature or at the polls, by an appeal to private gratitude. it can afford to turn a deaf ear to solicitations for patronage, and stand upon its public policy alone. in short, the enormous strength of party, in the legitimate sense of a body of men combined for a common public object, has enabled the government to do what it could not have done so easily had party required the support of artificial props. the political condition that has strengthened the government for this work is not in itself an unmixed good. it brings with it evils, which will be noticed in due course; but to its credit must be placed the purification of the civil service. at the outset ministers feared that the change would meet with resistance in parliament, but using one's influence to procure favours for others is not a wholly agreeable task, especially when more supplicants are disappointed than gratified. the reform brought to the house of commons relief from pressure by importunate constituents, and all the later steps have been taken with the approval of the members themselves. [sidenote: pensions.] with the elimination of politics the civil service has become a career, steady and free from risk. but the salaries are not high in relation to the capacity required, and as a rule they begin low with a small increment for each year of service. they are not large enough to provide for illness and old age; and, hence, along with the progress of reform there grew up a demand for pensions. the law on the subject, although frequently amended, is still based upon the superannuation act of , which grants to "persons who shall have served in an established capacity in the permanent civil service of the state" for ten years, and retire at sixty years of age or by reason of infirmity, a pension equal to ten sixtieths of their final salary. for every additional year of service another sixtieth is added up to a maximum of forty sixtieths. provision has been made, also, for the case of injuries received in the public service; while more recent statutes have authorised gratuities to women employees upon marriage--an allowance apparently given, as in the case of the other grants, rather in a spirit of commiseration, than in order to encourage matrimony. footnotes: [ : ] - will. iii., c. , § . for a description of earlier efforts to the same end, see todd, parl. govt. in england, ii., - . [ : ] anne, c. , and anne, c. , §§ , . by § of this act officers in the army and navy are exempted from its operation. they may sit in the house of commons, and they do so in considerable numbers, although they are as a rule required to resign their seats when given an active command. military officers occupy, indeed, a position quite different from that of other public servants, for they not only sit in parliament, and take an active part there in the discussion of questions relating to the service; but they are constantly talking to the public, a practice that would not be permitted for a moment in the case of civilians in government employ. the statements in this chapter are, therefore, confined to the members of the civil service. [ : ] _cf._ rogers on elections, ed., ii., - . [ : ] for a list of such statutes, see anson, i., - . [ : ] treasury minute of nov. , , com. papers, - , xlv., . [ : ] electioneering by civil servants has been the subject of legislation. an act of ( anne, c. , § ) rendered liable to fine and dismissal any post-office official who "shall, by word, message, or writing, or in any other manner whatsoever, endeavour to persuade any elector to give or dissuade any elector from giving his vote for the choice of any person . . . to serve in parliament." _cf._ eaton, "civil service in great britain," . [ : ] geo. iii., c. . rogers on elections, i., - . [ : ] - vic., c. . all penalties attaching to any of their acts in relation to elections were abolished by - vic., c. . [ : ] rogers, i., - . [ : ] _ibid._, - . [ : ] victoria constitution act, com. papers, , xliv., , pp. - . [ : ] _cf._ hans., ser. liii., - . [ : ] _ibid._, cxciii., _et seq._ [ : ] in fact in the bill was amended so as to make this clear. hans., ser. ccxix., - . for see hans., ser. cxciii., - . [ : ] _cf._ hans., ser. xvi., ; liii., . [ : ] _cf._ courtney, "the working constitution of the united kingdom," . [ : ] hans., ser. cxciii., . [ : ] _ibid._, . [ : ] rep. of com. on increased cost of tel. service, com. papers, , xx., , p. ; st rep. civil serv. inq. com., com. papers, , xxiii., , p. . for information and references on the efforts of the civil servants to raise their pay, and on their pressure upon members of parliament, i am indebted to mr. hugo meyer, who kindly showed me his manuscript on "the nationalisation of the telegraphs in england." [ : ] see, for example, hans., ser. cclxv., ; cclxxi., ; ser. xxxix., - ; li., - , ; liii., _et seq._; lxvi., _et seq._; lxxii., ; lxxxii., _et seq._; xciv., - ; cvi., ; cxxi., ; and cxxxix., , , , . d rep. com. on civil estabs., com. papers, , xxvii., , qs. - , - , ; rep. com. on post office, com. papers, , xliv., , q. . [ : ] d rep. com. on civil estabs., com. papers, , xxvii., , qs. - , , - , - . [ : ] hans., ser. ccclii., . [ : ] hans., ser. v., _et seq._ [ : ] _ibid._, _et seq._ [ : ] _ibid._, vii., - . [ : ] _ibid._, xvi., . [ : ] _ibid._, liii., - . [ : ] hans., ser. cxxi., . [ : ] _ibid._, lxvi., . [ : ] _ibid._, liii., _et seq._ [ : ] _ibid._, . in the course of his speech he pointed out that the membership of the trade-unions in the postal and telegraph service had grown very much of late years. but he declared that they were accorded all the privileges enjoyed by trade-unions elsewhere. [ : ] _ibid._, cxxi., . [ : ] _ibid._, cxxii., , , . [ : ] _ibid._, cxxxix., - . [ : ] _ibid._, cliii., . [ : ] it may be observed that the use of competitive examinations was made general by the act of , passed shortly after the enfranchisement of revenue officials. [ : ] the prevailing american sentiment, on the other hand, is expressed in the declaration of rights of the constitution of massachusetts, adopted in , which says (art. viii), "in order to prevent those who are vested with authority from becoming oppressors, the people have a right at such periods and in such manner as they shall establish by their frame of government, to cause their public officers to return to private life; and to fill up vacant places by certain and regular elections and appointments." this lays down the principle of rotation in office, and although by no means so intended by its framers, may be said to be the charter of the spoils system. [ : ] parker, "sir robert peel," i., , - , , . at this time the permanent under-secretary in ireland was expected to take an active part in politics, for we find peel writing to him to use every exertion to get the irish members to support the government on the catholic question. _ibid._, . [ : ] dorman b. eaton, "civil service in great britain." although not always accurate, this is the best, and indeed almost the sole, history of the patronage system and the gradual substitution therefor of appointment by examination. [ : ] "recollections and suggestions," . [ : ] sir thomas erskine may, although writing when this system was passing away, seemed to regard it as essential to party government. speaking of the effects of parliamentary reform upon the state of parties, he says, "but throughout these changes, patronage has been the mainspring of the organisation of parties." "const. hist. of england" ( am. ed.), ii., . [ : ] parker, "sir robert peel," ii., . [ : ] _cf._ lowell and stephens, "colonial civil service." [ : ] com. papers, - , xli., . [ : ] these have since been reduced to two. [ : ] vic., c. ; §§ , . [ : ] com. papers, , ix., . [ : ] _ibid._, , xix., , p. vii. [ : ] §§ , , and schedule b. _cf._ orders in council, aug. , , § ; sept. , . the order of requires a certificate of qualification from the civil service commissioners as a condition of employment in "any situation or appointment in any department of the civil service," not specially excepted from the operation of the order. the exceptions were enumerated in schedule b, and are those described in the parenthesis of the sentence to which this is a note. the order originally applied, therefore, to all other positions whatever their nature; but by § the chief authorities of any department were given power, with the concurrence of the treasury, to add to the schedules, or withdraw situations therefrom; and this power has been used to add to schedule b, and thus exempt from examination altogether a number of positions, almost exclusively menial, such as those of messengers, porters, charwomen, etc. the orders in council and treasury minutes relating to the civil service may be found at the end of the civil service year book. [ : ] schedule a at first contained a list, not of situations, but of departments; so that the system of open competition applied to all the positions (not specially expected) in some departments, and to none of those in others. this irrational classification recurs constantly in the history of the civil service examinations, but in the case of open competitions it has been changed under the reserved power to modify schedule a. clerkships, and other posts, in departments not previously included, have been added to the schedule; while large classes of situations have been withdrawn therefrom. these are, for the most part, manual occupations, such as office keepers, messengers, porters, foremen, artisans, labourers, matrons and domestic servants. some of them, as explained in the preceding note, have been exempted from examination altogether, and for the rest the candidates are nominated subject to a pass examination, or a limited competition. the requirements in the case of the more important classes among them will be described in a later part of this chapter. [ : ] _cf._ rep. civil serv. comrs., com. papers, , xviii., , pp. lxxxiii-lxxxvii. [ : ] _cf. ibid._, pp. lxxiii-lxxv. [ : ] under order in council june , , § , and schedule b. playfair's commission remarked of these positions, that in order to obtain superannuation pensions the holders must have been appointed with a certificate from the civil service commissioners, or must, under section of the superannuation act of , be excepted from the rule by the treasury on the ground that the office is one requiring peculiar qualifications. the commission found that in fact the examination was not in general required. (com. papers, , xxiii., , p. .) [ : ] they covered reading, writing and arithmetic, often dictation, précis, geography, english history, latin and french, sometimes bookkeeping, and occasionally something more; d rep. of civil serv. comrs., com. papers, - , xxv., , app. b. [ : ] rep. of the com. on civil service appointments, com. papers, , ix., , pp. vii-viii. [ : ] th rep. civil serv. comrs., com. papers, , xvii., , app. . [ : ] in a committee on civil service expenditure suggested abolishing the distinction altogether, and having a single examination for admission to each department, the men to stand upon an equality as regards subsequent promotion by merit. ( d rep., com. papers, , vii., , p. iv.) no action was taken on this recommendation; and two years later playfair's commission on admission to the civil service reported (com. papers, , xxiii., ) that the distinction between a higher division to do the responsible work, and a lower division to do the routine work, ought to be maintained. but they criticised the existing division into classes i and ii, on the ground that there was no possibility of promotion from the second to the first, and that the distinction did not correspond with the real difference in the nature of the work, so that mechanical work was done by the first class and responsible work by the second, while the clerks in some of the departments belonged wholly to one class. they recommended that there should be in every department a lower division of men and boy clerks; that its members should serve in any department to which they were appointed or transferred; and that after ten years' service they might, if they had shown exceptional capacity, be promoted to the upper division. these recommendations were embodied in the order in council of feb. , . the organisation of the civil service was thereby simplified and improved, but it was still imperfect. the commission on civil establishments, in their second report, in (com. papers, , xxvii., ), said that in practice the work of the two divisions had overlapped, and the line between them had been drawn too low. they suggested also that the name of the lower division should be changed to second division. this was carried into effect by an order in council of march , , which constituted the second division of the civil service, with a higher grade to be reached by promotion, and made the boy clerks into a separate division. the rules affecting the second division have since been embodied in a new order in council of nov. , , amended by another order of sept. , . the first division, known as class i of the civil service, was regulated afresh by an order in council of aug. , , which created there also an upper grade to be reached by promotion. it may be added that appointments made as the result of competitive examination are not absolute at once, but are probationary for a certain period. [ : ] these are the men entering the civil service of the eastern colonies, ceylon, hong kong, the federated malay states, etc. [ : ] of the successful candidates for the class i clerkships, the indian civil service and the eastern cadets, from to inclusive, had studied at oxford, at cambridge, at other universities in the united kingdom, in colonial and indian universities, and in no university at all. ( th rep. of the civil serv. comrs., com. papers, , xviii., , pp. lxxix-lxxxii.) the proportion from oxford and cambridge in the class i clerkships alone would be somewhat larger still. the later reports of the civil service commission show that these proportions have not been very much changed. [ : ] a more detailed statement of the method of conducting the examination and its results may be found in lowell and stephens, "colonial civil service." [ : ] morley, "life of gladstone," i., . [ : ] in a letter to lord john russell he wrote: "it must be remembered that an essential part of any such plan as it is now under discussion is the separation of _work_, wherever it can be made, into mechanical and intellectual, a separation which will open to the highly educated class a career, and give them a command over all the higher parts of the civil service, which up to this time they have never enjoyed." _ibid._, . [ : ] for mundella's origin see davidson, "eminent english liberals," ch. xii.; hinton, "english radical leaders," ch. viii. [ : ] as in all such cases, the upper limit is extended to some extent for men who have served the public in a military or other capacity. [ : ] th rep. civil serv. comrs., com. papers, , xviii., , pp. lxxiii-iv. under the present regulations, writing (with copying), arithmetic and english composition are required; and of the eight optional subjects--précis (including indexing and adjusting of returns), bookkeeping and shorthand, geography and english history, latin, french, german, elementary mathematics (plane geometry and algebra), and chemistry and physics--not more than four may be offered, including not more than two of the three languages. [ : ] during the thirteen years from to , inclusive, first-class clerks were appointed by open competition, were promoted from the second division (or the corresponding class that preceded it), and came from other sources (virtually by transfer from distinct services). during the same period second division clerks were promoted to other posts carrying an increase of salary. com. papers, , lxxvii., . from the later reports of the civil service commissioners it would appear that the proportion of first-class clerkships filled by promotion does not increase. [ : ] order in council, nov. , , § . [ : ] or boy copyists. they were formerly two separate classes, but are now combined. [ : ] the nature of the examination was changed at the same time, and for the same reason as that of the second division clerks. [ : ] th rep. of the civil serv. comrs., com. papers, , xviii., , pp. lxxxiii-vii. [ : ] _ibid._, , pp. lxxxiii-vii. [ : ] the committee on civil establishments reported that this method of appointment was a necessity in the foreign office. com. papers, , xxvii., , p. . [ : ] courtney, "the working constitution," - . the local member, however, is still often consulted, but rather as having local knowledge than with a view to political influence. [ : ] messengers are often examined in the three r's. [ : ] com. papers, , xxxviii., . [ : ] third rep. of the com. on civil serv. exp., com. papers, , vii., , qs. - , , , . there was at that time some trouble in the case of dismissals. _ibid._, qs. - . chapter viii the ministers and the civil service [sidenote: the need of both expert and layman.] as scientific and technical knowledge increase, as the relations of life become more complex, there is an ever-growing need of men of special training in every department of human activity; and this is no less true of the government than of every other organisation. any work, therefore, carried on at the present day without the assistance of experts is certain to be more or less inefficient. but, on the other hand, experts acting alone tend to take disproportionate views, and to get more or less out of touch with the common sense of the rest of the world. they are apt to exaggerate the importance of technical questions as compared with others of a more general nature--a tendency which leads either to hobbies, or, where the organism is less vigorous, to officialism and red tape. these evils have become so marked in the case of some governments as to give rise to the ill name of bureaucracy. in order, therefore, to produce really good results, and avoid the dangers of inefficiency on the one hand, and of bureaucracy on the other, it is necessary to have in any administration a proper combination of experts and men of the world. now, of all the existing political traditions in england, the least known to the public, and yet one of those most deserving attention, is that which governs the relation between the expert and the layman. [sidenote: the judge and jury.] the first branch of the english government to reach a high point of development was that which dealt with the administration of justice; and it is here that we first see the coöperation of professional and lay elements. they appear in the form of judge and jury; and in that form they have worked together from the middle ages to the present day. the judge, a royal officer of high rank, supplies the expert knowledge, while the lay influence is exerted by means of a panel of twelve men of average ignorance, drawn from the community by lot for the occasion; and although this is not the usual method of combining the two elements, their reciprocal control has certainly been effective. [sidenote: the justice of the peace and his clerk.] it was not, however, in the superior courts of law alone that the principle made itself felt. its working, if less evident on the surface, may be traced no less clearly in the exercise of petty jurisdiction by the justices of the peace sitting without a jury. but here the mutual relation of the two elements was reversed. the justice of the peace was in most cases a landowner, a country gentleman, not skilled in law. in the earlier period the commission included a number of trained lawyers, who were said to be of the quorum, because without the presence of one of them the justices were not by law competent to act.[ : ] but in process of time the trained lawyers ceased to be appointed, while the names of almost all the justices came to be inserted in the quorum clause;[ : ] and thus it happened that judicial authority was vested in a squire who knew little of the law he was called upon to administer. but the justice supplied, in fact, the lay, not the professional, element in his own court; the requisite legal knowledge being usually furnished by his clerk, who was learned in the law; or, at least, learned in the duties of the justice of the peace as set forth in the statutes and in the manuals published for the purpose. the office of clerk of the peace for the county must be of considerable age, for it is referred to in a statute of richard ii. in .[ : ] but besides this office, which is a public one, it has been the habit time out of memory for an active justice to retain a private clerk of his own to assist him when acting as a single magistrate; such a clerk being paid partly out of the justice's pocket, partly from the fees that accrued.[ : ] [sidenote: as portrayed in literature.] more important than the age of these offices is the question of the real power exerted by their holders. that the influence of a clerk over the justice who employed him has long been both great and notorious is clear from the frequent references to it in literature. early in the seventeenth century fletcher, in "the elder brother," makes miramont say to brissac:[ : ]-- "thou monstrous piece of ignorance in office! thou that hast no more knowledge than thy clerk infuses." near the end of that century the same idea was expressed with singular frankness in a manual on "the office of the clerk of the peace," published in . in an address "to the reader," which precedes the second part of the volume, the author explains the object of the book. after saying of the justices of the peace that their birth is a glory to their seats, he continues:-- "but divers of these gentlemen having not been conversant in the practice of the ordinary courts of justice, often in the absence of those worthy persons, who be associated with them for their learning in the law, meet with many difficulties and discouragements." coming down to the eighteenth century there is the case of squire western and his clerk in "tom jones"; and later in the same novel the scene in the inn at upton, where the strange justice is unwilling to act because he has not with him his book or his clerk. the reader will probably remember justice foxley and his clerk in "redgauntlet"; and also dickens's burlesque of the relation in the scene at ipswich, where after much whispering between the justice (mr. nupkins) and his clerk (mr. jinks) the magistrate says to mr. pickwick:-- "an information has been sworn before me that it is apprehended you are going to fight a duel, and that the other man, tupman, is your aider and abettor in it. therefore--eh, mr. jinks?" "certainly, sir." "therefore, i call upon you both to--i think that's the course, mr. jinks?" "certainly, sir." "to--to--what, mr. jinks?" said the magistrate pettishly. "to find bail, sir." "yes. therefore, i call upon you both--as i was about to say, when i was interrupted by my clerk--to find bail." the satire here is particularly keen, because before the public the magistrate always takes the whole credit to himself, and is very sensitive about having the world believe that he is under the control of his clerk. [sidenote: lay chief with expert subordinate an english usage.] leslie stephen, i think, remarks somewhere that the characteristic feature of the english system of government is a justice of the peace who is a gentleman, with a clerk who knows the law; and certainly the relationship between the titular holder of a public post, enjoying the honours, and assuming the responsibility, of office, and a subordinate, who, without attracting attention, supplies the technical knowledge and largely directs the conduct of his chief, extends throughout the english government from the treasury bench to the borough council. perhaps, indeed, it is not altogether fanciful to attribute the ease with which the principle has become established in the national government to the fact that the members of parliament, and the ministers as well, have been drawn in the past mainly from the same class as the justices of the peace, and have brought with them to a larger sphere the traditions of the local magistrate. [sidenote: influence of permanent officials in the colonial office.] the extent of the control exerted in the national administration by the permanent officials is forcibly illustrated by the history of the colonial office. my colleague, professor edward channing, has pointed out to me that the records of the american colonies reveal how largely the committee for trade and plantations was in the hands of blathwayt, its secretary. in spite of all the violent political upheavals of the time that functionary retained his post without interruption from the latter part of the reign of charles ii. until some years after the revolution of ; and if a colony wanted anything done by the home government it was he that must be persuaded, sometimes by inducements of a pecuniary nature. the power, but happily not the corruption, of the permanent officials in the colonial office can be traced still more clearly at a much later time. in lord durham, in his famous "report on the affairs of british north america," complains that owing to the repeated changes in the political chiefs of the colonial office, the real management of the colonies fell into the hands of "the permanent but utterly irresponsible members of the office"; and he quotes from a report made in the preceding year by a select committee of the assembly of upper canada, to show that this was felt by the colonists themselves as a grievance.[ : ] the group of english colonial reformers, with whom lord durham was associated, held the same opinion. gibbon wakefield tells us, in his "view of the art of colonization" that "the great bulk, accordingly, of the labours of the office are performed, as the greater portion of its legislative and executive authority is necessarily wielded, by the permanent under-secretary and the superior clerks."[ : ] wakefield and his school disapproved of the colonial policy of the day, and disliked cordially the permanent officials and their methods. "our colonial system of government," wakefield adds, "is the bureaucratic, spoiled by being grafted on to free institutions."[ : ] he had a special aversion for sir james stephen--long the legal adviser, and afterwards permanent under-secretary, to the colonial office--whom he regarded as the archetype, if not the founder, of the class of officials that had become the real arbiters of the destinies of the colonial empire.[ : ] [sidenote: mr. mothercountry.] wakefield quotes from charles buller's "responsible government for colonies" (a work published in , but at that time already out of print), an extract entitled "mr. mothercountry, of the colonial office."[ : ] parliament, buller declares, takes no interest in the colonies, and exercises no efficient control over the administration and legislation affecting them; and hence the supremacy of england really resides in the colonial office. but the secretary of state holds a shifting position. perplexed by the vast variety of questions presented to him, he is obliged at the outset to rely on one or other of the permanent officials, and the official who thus directs the action of the british government buller calls "mr. mothercountry." he is familiar with every detail of his business, and handles with unfaltering hand the piles of papers at which his superiors quail. he knows the policy which previous actions render necessary; but he never appears to dictate. a new secretary of state intends to be independent, but something turns up that obliges him to consult mr. mothercountry. he is pleased with the ready and unobtrusive advice which takes a great deal of trouble off his hands. if things go well, his confidence in mr. mothercountry rises. if badly, that official alone can get him out of the colonial or parliamentary scrape; and the more independent he is the more scrapes he falls into. buller goes on to point out the faults of mr. mothercountry; his love of routine, his tendency to follow precedent, his dislike of innovation, and his dread of being criticised. [sidenote: memoirs of colonial officials.] any one, with even a slight knowledge of government offices in england, will recognise that the portrait of mr. mothercountry and his influence is hardly overdrawn, in cases where the political chief either holds his place for a short time, or is not a man of commanding ability. the impression of the critics of colonial administration is, indeed, strikingly reënforced in this respect by memoirs of the permanent officials themselves; although some allowance must, no doubt, be made for a natural overestimate of their own importance.[ : ] sir henry taylor confided to the world in his autobiography a number of remarks that throw light on the internal working of the colonial office in the second quarter of the century. while never its permanent under-secretary, he was for a great many years a highly influential person there, as may be seen from the fact that early in his career he drew up, on his own judgment, a despatch recalling a governor, which the secretary signed.[ : ] taylor tells us that lords goderich and howick, who became the political chiefs of the colonial office in , were "not more in pupilage than it is necessary and natural that men should be who are new to their work."[ : ] he says that when lord stanley was appointed secretary of state, in , he asked no advice from his subordinates, and a measure he prepared was blown into the air by the house of commons; whereupon he had recourse to mr. stephen,[ : ] "who for so many years might better have been called the colonial department itself than the 'counsel to the colonial department.'"[ : ] a little later he repeats this last statement, saying that while lord glenelg was secretary "stephen virtually ruled the colonial empire."[ : ] taylor's own influence was shown when complaints were made of his administration of the west indies. the house of commons appointed a committee of inquiry, and the report of that committee, with the exception of the last few sentences, was entirely drawn up by taylor himself.[ : ] sir frederick rogers (afterwards lord blachford), who was permanent under-secretary from to , has left in his letters suggestive comments upon most of his political chiefs. the duke of newcastle, he says, is "very ready to accept your conclusions, very clear in his own directions, and extremely careful (which i respect very highly) never to throw back on a subordinate any shadow of responsibility for advice that he has once accepted."[ : ] "cardwell," he remarks, "is happily absent, though not so much as i could wish";[ : ] and, finally, he writes that he likes lord granville, who "is very pleasant and friendly, and i think will not meddle beyond what is required to keep us clear of political slips."[ : ] some people outside of the office evidently thought that the secretaries of state had not meddled overmuch, for george higginbottom, afterwards chief justice of victoria, once remarked in the assembly, "it might be said with perfect truth that the million and a half of englishmen who inhabit these colonies, and who during the last fifteen years have believed they possessed self-government, have been really governed during the whole of that time by a person named rogers";[ : ] and in the same vein rees, in his "life and times of sir george grey," refers to sir robert herbert (permanent under-secretary from to ) as the man who "controls the destinies of the colonial office."[ : ] [sidenote: influence of permanent officials in other departments.] with the growing interest in the empire, there has come a change; but until a very recent period the fact that british statesmen knew little of the subject, and did not care much more, no doubt made the power of the permanent officials peculiarly great in the colonial office. their influence, however, upon the policy of the government in the other departments, if less absolute, has nevertheless been very large. this impression one obtains both from published documents, and from private conversations, although the former alone can be cited as evidence. as far back as we find the lord lieutenant speaking of the permanent under-secretary as "the main-spring of your government in ireland."[ : ] but more important than scattered statements of this kind is the information derived from the testimony taken by parliamentary committees of inquiry. one cannot read, for example, the evidence collected in by the committee on municipal trading[ : ] without being convinced that not only the efficiency, but also in large measure the current policy, of the board of trade depended upon the permanent official at its head, and this is true of every branch of the administration.[ : ] sir lyon playfair gave the reason for it when he said: "the secretary being a very busy man is very apt to take the advice of the clerk who has been looking over all the details and the correspondence before it comes to him."[ : ] a superior, indeed, lacking the time to become thoroughly familiar with the facts, must be to a great extent in the hands of a trusted subordinate who has them all at his fingers' ends. it is the common case of the layman and his confidential expert; and it must be observed in this connection that with exacting parliamentary and other duties, the cabinet ministers cannot devote all their time to the work of their departments. [sidenote: theoretical relation of political and permanent heads.] the theoretical relation between the political chief and his permanent subordinate is a simple one. the political chief furnishes the lay element in the concern. his function is to bring the administration into harmony with the general sense of the community and especially of parliament. he must keep it in accord with the views of the majority in the house of commons, and conversely he must defend it when criticised, and protect it against injury by any ill-considered action of the house. he is also a critic charged with the duty of rooting out old abuses, correcting the tendency to red tape and routine, and preventing the department from going to sleep or falling into ruts; and, being at the head, it is for him, after weighing the opinion of the experts, to decide upon the general policy to be pursued. the permanent officials, on the other hand, are to give their advice upon the questions that arise, so as to enable the chief to reach a wise conclusion and keep him from falling into mistakes. when he has made his decision they are to carry it out; and they must keep the department running by doing the routine work. in short the chief lays down the general policy, while his subordinates give him the benefit of their advice, and attend to the details. it is easy enough to state a principle of this kind, but in practice it is very hard to draw the line. the work of a public department consists of a vast mass of administrative detail, the importance of which is not self-evident until some strain is brought to bear upon it; and all the acts done, however trifling in themselves, form precedents, which accumulate silently until they become as immovable as the rocks of the geologic strata. to know how far the opinion of an expert must be followed, and how far it may be overruled; to know what is really general policy, and what is mere detail; to know these things is the most valuable art in life. the capacity of an administrator on a large scale depends upon what he attends to himself, and what he commits to others. but the political chief of a department is so situated that it is difficult for him to determine what questions he will reserve for himself and what he will leave to his subordinates. to understand why that is the case it is necessary to know something of the procedure in the government offices. [sidenote: procedure in the public departments.] the method of doing business in a public office is of necessity more elaborate than in a private concern. there is more responsibility for the work done; more subjection to public criticism in small matters; and a stronger obligation to treat every one alike, which means a more strict adherence to precedent. all this entails a complicated machinery that is less needed in private business, where a man can say that if he makes a mistake the loss falls upon himself and is no other person's affair. in a public office, therefore, more writing is done, more things are preserved and recorded, than in a private business, and there are more steps in a single transaction.[ : ] now although the procedure in the english departments varies somewhat in detail, the general practice is much the same throughout the public service. when a minister wishes to prepare a measure for parliament, or to make any change in administrative policy, he consults the permanent under-secretary and any other officials especially familiar with the subject; if, indeed, the matter has not been suggested to him by them. he weighs their advice, and states his conclusion to the permanent under-secretary, who in turn gives his directions to the proper subordinates for carrying it into effect. in such a case the procedure is obvious; but by far the greater part of the action in the central offices begins at the other end, and comes from the contact of the government with the public, or from questions that arise in the course of administration. when anything of this kind occurs, whether it be in the form of a despatch, a petition, a complaint, a request for instructions, or a communication of any sort, it is sent by the official charged with the opening of correspondence to the principal, or senior, clerk within whose province it falls. the senior clerk intrusts it to one of the junior first-class clerks in his division. he examines the paper, and unless it is of such a purely routine character that he feels authorised to dispose of it, he affixes to it a minute or memorandum, which gives a history of the matter, the precedents in similar cases, and any other information that may assist his superiors in reaching a decision, commonly adding a suggestion of the course to be pursued. the paper then goes back to the senior clerk, who inspects it, and if the question is of small consequence approves the minute or directs a different disposition, subscribing his initials. if the affair is more weighty, he adds his own comments in the form of a second minute, and transmits the paper to the permanent under-secretary.[ : ] that officer, as the permanent head of the department, gives the final directions,[ : ] and returns the paper, unless the matter is of great importance, or involves a new question of policy, or is likely to give rise to discussion in parliament, when he submits it to his political chief with a further minute of his own.[ : ] [sidenote: each official a reader for his superior.] each permanent official thus performs a double service for his immediate superior. he collects all the material that bears upon a question, presenting it in such a form that a decision can be readily and quickly made; and he acts to a certain extent as a reader, examining a mass of papers that the superior would be quite unable to go through, and making up his own mind how far they contain anything that requires his chief's attention.[ : ] this system runs throughout the department, from the junior first-class clerks to the parliamentary head, each official deciding what he will submit to his superior; in the same way that the minister himself determines what matters he will settle on his own authority, and what he had better lay before the cabinet. no doubt a subordinate in undertaking to decide a question occasionally makes a mistake for which the minister must assume the responsibility; but that is not a serious danger. the besetting sin of bureaucracy is the tendency to refer too much to a higher authority, which cannot become familiar with the facts of each case, and finds its only refuge in clinging to hard and fast rules. it is fortunate, therefore, that the growth in the machinery of central administration in england has been accompanied by greater deconcentration within the departments.[ : ] the process has not been without effect on the position of the permanent under-secretary. by relieving him of detail it has made him more free to devote his attention to general policy; and, in fact, a departmental committee reported a few years ago that he ought "to divest himself of all but the most important matters in which the application of a new principle is involved." no question, the report continued, ought to reach him until it has been threshed out by the responsible head of a division, and is ripe for decision. "the permanent secretary should be able to devote himself to such work as conferring with and advising his parliamentary chiefs, framing or elaborating proposals for new legislation or administrative reform, considering all questions in parliament, receiving members of parliament, or representatives of the public on questions of difficulty, and generally controlling and directing the conduct of the department."[ : ] [sidenote: differences between the departments.] the point to which deconcentration is carried is not the same in all branches of the public service. mr. gladstone declared that the chancellor of the exchequer could not take as active a part as other ministers in the current business of his department;[ : ] while in the foreign office, on the other hand, it has been the tradition that the secretary of state ought to see almost everything. no doubt this is in part due to the very nature of diplomatic relations, but there can also be no doubt that in the past it has been carried much too far. when mr. hammond was under-secretary for foreign affairs he insisted on making the first minute on all papers in the office.[ : ] a change has been made in this respect, and the practice brought more into accord with that which prevails in other departments;[ : ] but the foreign secretary is still expected to give his personal attention to a greater mass of detail than other ministers.[ : ] [sidenote: effect of the procedure on the power of officials.] now any subordinate who determines what questions he may decide himself, and what he will refer to his superiors, and who prepares the materials for a final judgment in the cases that he does refer, is certain to exert a great deal of influence. the permanent under-secretary, holding his position, as he does, for an indefinite period, devoting his whole time to the work, and becoming thoroughly familiar with the affairs of his department, can, no doubt, regulate the class of questions that shall be referred to him, and can acquire complete control over the administration. but the minister, who is usually unfamiliar with the department to which he is assigned, who remains at its head a comparatively short time, and whose attention is largely engrossed by the more exciting scenes enacted in the cabinet, in parliament, and on the platform, must, unless gifted with extraordinary executive capacity, be to a considerable extent in the hands of his permanent subordinates. [sidenote: need of mutual confidence between political and permanent heads.] the smooth working of a system of this kind evidently depends upon the existence of mutual respect and confidence between the minister and the permanent under-secretary. if the minister, knowing that the under-secretary does not share his own political views, fails to treat him with perfect frankness, or if, after one party has been long in power, the permanent officials have little sympathy with a new ministry from the other party, and do not give it their active and cordial help, then mistakes are certain to be made, the efficiency of the service suffers, and the plans of the government are likely to miscarry. the permanent under-secretary ought to feel, and in fact does feel, a temporary allegiance to his chief, although of a different political party. he gives his advice frankly until the chief has reached a decision, and then he carries that out loyally. confidential communications--and they are numberless--he treats as sacred even from the next parliamentary chief. if one minister prepares a measure which never sees the light, the permanent under-secretary might refuse to show the documents to the succeeding minister, and the latter would recognise the propriety of such a course. the minister on his part seeks the advice of the under-secretary on all questions that arise, making allowance for bias due to preconceived political or personal conviction. this does not mean that if a government comes into power pledged to a definite policy, such as home rule or a preferential tariff, the under-secretary would be consulted about the general principle. in a case of that kind the policy has been settled in parliament or by a general election, and the advice of the permanent officials would be limited to the details of the measure proposed. the system has, of course, its limits. there are cases where the known opinions of the under-secretary would make it almost impossible for him to conduct a certain policy effectively. when the conservatives, for example, came into office in with a policy of coercion for ireland, they found as permanent irish under-secretary sir robert hamilton, who was known to be a strong home ruler, and believing that it would be very difficult for them to govern the country through his agency, they promoted him out of the way; such cases must sometimes occur, but they are extremely rare. it is, indeed, astonishing how far the system can be carried; to what an extent an under-secretary can act as the loyal adviser and administrator for chiefs of totally different political opinions. [sidenote: actual relation depends on personality.] the actual relations between the minister and the permanent under-secretary depend in any particular case very much upon the personality of the men. peel and gladstone, for example, maintained a close supervision and control over the departments under their charge, while john bright felt that his real field of usefulness was in the house of commons, and left the affairs of the board of trade almost altogether in the hands of the permanent officials. the system naturally works at its best when minister and under-secretary are both strong, good-tempered men, when each is active, but recognises clearly the province of the other. the saying has become almost proverbial that the most valuable minister is one who knows nothing about his department when appointed, and like most paradoxes it contains a distorted truth. a good minister must be a good administrator, but he must look to results, and not suppose that he knows as much about the technical side of the work as his permanent subordinate. for, as bagehot quotes sir george cornwall lewis, "it is not the business of a cabinet minister to work his department. his business is to see that it is properly worked."[ : ] if he attempts to go beyond his province, to be dogmatic and to interfere in details, he will cause friction and probably come to grief. [sidenote: methods of controlling a minister.] the permanent officials have, indeed, several means of controlling a minister who ventures to disregard them. they have been heard to say that a fool, if given rope enough, will hang himself. if he does not care for their advice they need not tender it, and then he is sure to make mistakes for which he alone will be held responsible. if, on the other hand, he tries, with the best intentions, to go too much into detail, nothing is easier than the trick, familiar, probably, to every bureaucracy, of overwhelming him with detail. he wishes to decide questions himself. the papers bearing upon them are brought to him in ever-increasing piles, until he finds himself hopelessly unable to cope with the mass of documents, and virtually surrenders at discretion. then there are the means of control arising from the audit of accounts and from questions in parliament. the permanent under-secretary points out to his chief that an expenditure he proposes is likely to be disallowed by the auditor, or that an action he suggests may very well give rise to an embarrassing question in the house of commons, and to these things a minister is highly sensitive. questions afford, indeed, a means of mutual control, for the permanent officials are usually far more afraid of the house of commons than the minister is himself, and tend to be reticent in preparing answers. the treasury bench is not so omniscient as it appears when answering questions in the house. after notice of a question has been given, the materials for a reply are prepared, and often the answer itself is drawn up, by some permanent official in the department. sometimes the minister merely reads the answer as it has been placed in his hands, but more commonly while keeping the substance, he puts it into words of his own that he thinks better suited to the temper of the house. the labour of working up the answers to innumerable questions on every conceivable subject, and of every degree of importance and triviality, is in the aggregate very great, and places a heavy burden upon the permanent officials during the session of parliament. but no satisfactory method of limiting the privilege has yet been devised, and although abused, it has the effect of keeping the administration up to the mark. the system affords an opportunity for constant public criticism, and while it gives the permanent officials some control over the minister, it is, on the other hand, a most effective means of preventing the growth of a bureaucratic spirit. [sidenote: evils where a minister is inactive.] if the permanent officials can restrain a minister from interfering overmuch, there is no similar means of preventing him from neglecting his duties. yet in that case the service suffers. it is apt to become numbed and bureaucratic. permanent officials tend to follow precedent, and, indeed, the force of precedent furnishes the basis of their power, but the tendency to be too rigid in their rules is the curse of all their tribe. they shrink from innovation, rarely making a new precedent themselves. this is particularly true in the lesser offices, giving rise, at times, to complaint; and the political chief has to insist upon the need of making exceptions in hard cases, without allowing the hard cases themselves to make bad law. the surest remedy for an excess of routine is a parliamentary head who is interested in the department, and with him a permanent under-secretary of large calibre and wide experience in affairs. [sidenote: influence of permanent officials not increasing.] speaking in about the reform bill then pending, sir stafford northcote predicted that an extension of the franchise would increase the power of the permanent officials;[ : ] and many people think that the prophecy has been fulfilled. but this would seem to be one of the cases where an impression is due not so much to a real change of conditions, as to the fact that a state of things already existing has become recognised. the power of the civil service has undoubtedly grown very much within the last hundred years; owing partly to the fact that the ministers, instead of being primarily administrators, have become legislators, engrossed by the work of parliament and by general politics; partly to the much shorter periods for which they hold office. during the one hundred and two years from to there were nineteen chancellors of the exchequer; of whom five held office for more than ten years apiece, the aggregate length of their services being seventy-eight years. in the eighty-two years from to , twenty-three men held the office, one of them for thirteen years, another for nine, and no one else for more than about six years. the effect of such a shortening of the minister's tenure of office upon the position of his permanent subordinates is self-evident. but the present conditions of political life have now existed with little change for a generation; and, in the opinion of men well qualified to form a judgment, the power of the permanent officials, while varying from time to time with the personnel of the ministry, has not of late years shown any general tendency to increase. [sidenote: self-effacement of the civil servants.] although the civil servant enjoys a great deal of the substance of power, yet he purports to act only under the directions of his political chief. sir stafford northcote was admonished early in his career by mr. gladstone "that references from the opposition bench to opinions of the permanent officers of government, in contradiction to the opinion of the minister who is responsible in the matter at issue, were contrary to rule and to convenience."[ : ] if this were not so the principle of ministerial responsibility could hardly be maintained. the minister is alone responsible for everything done in his department, and he receives all the credit and all the blame. the civil servant never talks in public about the policy of his department,[ : ] never claims anything done there as his own work; and, on the other hand, the minister ought not to attribute blunders or misconduct to a subordinate unless prepared at the same time to announce his discharge. this rule is not, indeed, always observed in the military services, for within a few years the house of lords has heard the late secretary of state for war and the commander-in-chief charge each other with the responsibility for the lack of preparation in south africa;[ : ] and in the first lord of the admiralty in the house of lords laid the blame for the capsizing of the royal yacht at her launching upon the naval constructor, while praising, at the same time, his skill in designing battleships.[ : ] in the civil services the principle has been, as a rule, very strictly followed; although here, also, in the case of sir antony macdonnell, the under-secretary to the lord lieutenant of ireland, an exception occurred which caused no small stir at the time.[ : ] nor is the responsibility of the minister merely formal and conventional, for the mistakes of the officials in his department go into the great balance of good and evil report, whereby the reputation of the cabinet is made, and its fate at the next election is determined. in short, the permanent official, like the king, can do no wrong. both are shielded by the responsibility of the minister, and in fact it may happen that a policy adopted, let us say by the foreign office, which is popularly attributed to the personal wishes of the king, is in reality the work of some permanent subordinate. fifty years ago the public was not aware of the power of the civil servants, and parliament, regarding them as clerks, paid little attention to them. but now that their importance has come to be understood there is, in the opinion of some of their own members, a danger that they will be made too prominent, that the screen which protects them from the public gaze will be partly drawn aside, and that they will thereby lose their complete irresponsibility, and with it their permanence and their non-political character. whether such a danger will prove serious is at present only a matter for conjecture. [sidenote: honours conferred upon civil servants.] while the permanent official can win no credit for particular acts, a life of exceptional service does not pass unrecognised. sir robert peel, who appreciated their importance, lamented that honours were not conferred upon them more freely.[ : ] such a complaint could hardly be made to-day, for a number of them are knighted every year, and occasionally a permanent under-secretary, on retiring from office, is even raised to the peerage. in spite of self-effacement, therefore, the career of a permanent official is honourable and attractive. if he is debarred from the excitement and the glory of the political arena, he is spared its hazards, its vexations, and its disappointments. he wields great power, takes a real part in shaping the destinies of the nation, and if capable and fortunate he may end his days in the subdued lustre of the house of lords. footnotes: [ : ] _cf._ gneist, "self-government in england," auf., - . [ : ] blackstone, bk. i., . [ : ] ric. ii., c. ( ). _cf._ hen. viii., c. . [ : ] gneist, "self-government," . [ : ] act ii., sc. i. the characters of the play purport to be french, but the manners and customs are, of course, english. fletcher died in . an earlier, though less definite, reference to the power of the clerk is found in william lambard's "eirenarcha or, of the office of the justices of peace," published in (p. ): "howbeit, i do not thinke, that in our case, this dutie of estreating is so peculiar to the clarke of the peace, but that the justices of the peace themselves, ought also to have a common and carefull eye unto it . . . least otherwise, it lye altogither in the power of the clarke of the peace, to save or slay (as one sayd) the sparrow that he holdeth closed in his hand." [ : ] com. papers, , xvii., , pp. - . [ : ] p. . [ : ] p. . [ : ] p. . [ : ] p. . [ : ] for the quotations from these memoirs i am indebted to mr. evan randolph, who made, while a student at harvard college, a careful examination of the subject. [ : ] "autobiography," london ed. ( ), i., . [ : ] _ibid._, . [ : ] _ibid._, . [ : ] _ibid._, . [ : ] _ibid._, , _cf._ . it was during lord glenelg's time that stephen became permanent under-secretary. [ : ] "autobiography," ii., . [ : ] marindin, "letters of lord blachford," . [ : ] _ibid._, . [ : ] _ibid._, . [ : ] morris, "memoirs of higginbottom," . [ : ] ii., . [ : ] parker, "sir robert peel," iii., . [ : ] com. papers, , vii., . [ : ] in that same year much discussion was provoked by lord salisbury's sweeping remark that the british constitution was not a good fighting machine on account of the power of the treasury to restrain military expenditure. (hans., ser. lxxviii., , , .) it was pointed out that if the political chiefs of the army and navy want to increase their expenditure they cannot be blocked by the treasury clerks. they can confer with the chancellor of the exchequer, and if he will not consent, they can appeal to the prime minister, and ultimately to the cabinet. nevertheless it is true that if the political chief does not consider a matter of first-class importance--and many of the most far-reaching matters do not appear so at the time--or does not want to fight about it, the opinion of the treasury officials may prevail, even to the extent of blocking useful reforms that cost a little money. moreover, if a matter is fought out between the political chiefs, their opinions may very well be derived from their permanent subordinates. when the subject of treasury control was investigated by the committee on civil establishments, sir reginald (now lord) welby was asked, "is not this question not so much between political ministers as between permanent heads of departments?" he answered "yes, but the permanent heads of departments to (_sic_) convince their political chiefs behind whom they fight," and added that the political chiefs commonly support their subordinates. (com. papers, , xxvii., , qs. , .) [ : ] com. papers, , xxvii., , q. . [ : ] _cf._ giffen's ev., d rep. com. on civil estabs., com. papers, , xxvii., , qs. - , . [ : ] if there is an assistant under-secretary the paper passes, of course, through his hands; and in case local conditions require to be examined an inspector is sent down to report. [ : ] it has already been observed that in some departments the parliamentary under-secretary is the administrative head for some matters. [ : ] todd, with his unfailing industry, searched the blue books for information on this subject. (parl. govt. in england, ed. ii., , , - , - , , .) since he wrote, a great deal of evidence on the procedure in the several departments has been collected by the com. on civil estabs. ( d rep., com. papers, , xxvii., , qs. - , - , - , - , - , - , , - ). [ : ] com. papers, , xxvii., , qs. - . [ : ] in the home office, for example, the minuting for replies to papers was formerly done by the permanent under-secretary alone. later the senior clerks were allowed to make minutes, and now the process begins with the junior clerks. (com. papers, , xxvii., , qs. - .) the same tendency has been at work in the foreign office, as will be explained later. [ : ] rep. on clerical staff of local gov. board, com. papers, , xl., , p. . [ : ] he said "the relation of the chancellor of the exchequer to the treasury is somewhat anomalous; it does not correspond at all with that of a secretary of state to his department, because of course he lies a good deal outside the treasury, and a good deal of the current business never comes before him at all." ( d rep. com. on pub. accounts, com. papers, , xi., , q. .) [ : ] _cf._ mr. hammond's memorandum entitled "the adventures of a paper in the foreign office," rep. of sel. com. on trade, com. papers, , vii., , q. ; reprinted in st rep. of com. on dip. and cons. services, com. papers, , vii., , qs. - . [ : ] com. papers, , vii., , qs. - . hans. ser. ccxxxii., . [ : ] th rep. com. on civil estabs., com. papers, , xxvii., , ev. of mr. bryce, qs. - , sir charles dilke, q. . the position of the secretary of state for war, and the first lord of the admiralty, although in most ways not unlike that of the other ministers, is peculiar in the fact that they are the lay heads of great professions. their relation to the military officers detailed for service in the principal administrative posts in their departments has already been discussed in chap. iv. [ : ] "the english constitution," ed., . [ : ] "after that there will come a bureaucratic despotism; that is to say, the permanent officials will take the management of affairs into their hands, and parliament will have little to do." andrew lang, "life, letters, and diaries of sir stafford northcote," ed., ii., . [ : ] lang, "life, letters, and diaries of sir stafford northcote," i., . [ : ] after resigning his post in the education department in , sir george kekewich condemned publicly the education bill which had been passed while he was in office, but it may safely be said that even this is not regarded as the best form. [ : ] hans. ser. xc., _et seq._, xci., _et seq._ [ : ] _ibid._, xcvi., . [ : ] sir antony macdonnell, who had distinguished himself greatly as an indian administrator, and had just been given a place on the council of india, was appointed by mr. wyndham under-secretary for ireland in september, , in spite of the fact that he was an irishman, a roman catholic and a liberal in politics. in the summer of , believing that he had the approval of mr. wyndham, the chief secretary, in so doing, he assisted lord dunraven to formulate the policy of devolution in ireland. but mr. wyndham hastened to make public his disapproval of that policy as soon as the plan appeared in the press. when parliament met in february, , mr. wyndham, in reply to questions of the irish unionists, stated these facts, adding that sir antony macdonnell had been censured by the cabinet, which was, however, thoroughly satisfied that his conduct was not open to the imputation of disloyalty. (hans. ser. cxli., - .) the occurrence gave rise to a good deal of hot discussion in both houses of parliament in the latter half of february, in the course of which mr. wyndham said that he could not invite such a man as sir antony macdonnell to come and help him as a clerical assistant, that he was invited rather as a colleague than as a mere under-secretary. (hans. ser. cxli., , and see lord lansdowne's remarks, _ibid._, .) the letters that passed between mr. wyndham and sir antony macdonnell at the time of his appointment were then produced, and they contain a stipulation couched in language that can fairly be interpreted as implying either a position of exceptional importance, or merely such influence as an under-secretary possessing the full confidence of his chief might enjoy. (hans. ser. cxli., - .) the debate led to the resignation of mr. wyndham; and his successor, mr. long, as well as mr. balfour, insisted that no agreement made with sir antony gave him a position different from that of other under-secretaries in the civil service. (hans. ser. cxli., ; cxlii., - ; cxliv., - , - ). an aftermath of the trouble came in the autumn of when mr. long challenged sir antony macdonnell to publish any letters bearing upon the events of - , but these the conservative government, when in power, had declined to produce in parliament. (the _times_, aug. , , sept. , , .) correspondence of this nature cannot, of course, be published, at the good pleasure of the possessor. the whole episode illustrates clearly the difficulties that arise when a parliamentary chief fails to assume complete responsibility for everything that happens in his department. it shows also that the relations between the political chief and his permanent subordinate are fixed by the nature of the parliamentary system, and cannot be effectively changed in special cases. [ : ] parker, "sir robert peel," ii., - . chapter ix the house of commons _constituencies and voters_ [sidenote: electors and constituencies offer distinct problems.] the composition of any representative body involves two separate things; the electors and the constituencies. during the first part of the nineteenth century public attention outside of england was mainly concentrated upon the electors, or in other words upon the extension of the franchise. but now that something like universal suffrage has been introduced into most of the countries which have a popular element in their government, the franchise is little discussed, and much more is said about the constituencies, that is, the method of combining the voters into groups. the change is largely due to discontent with some of the results of democracy, a feeling which finds vent in widespread criticism of representative institutions.[ : ] it was formerly assumed that the interests of the masses of the people were fundamentally identical; and hence the mode in which the electors were grouped was comparatively unimportant, the main question being the enlargement of the basis of representation. we have now learned that the formation of the constituencies offers a distinct problem with grave practical effects, and popular government not having brought the millennium that was foretold, men seek a remedy in different methods of combining the voters. we constantly see discussions of this subject. we hear of the relative advantage of _scrutin d'arrondissement_ and _scrutin de liste_; that is, single electoral districts or large areas choosing a number of representatives apiece. we hear about the grouping of voters on the basis of their natural economic relations into urban and rural constituencies; or on the basis of wealth, as in the three-class system of prussia. we hear suggestions of possible grouping on the basis of occupations;[ : ] and a vast amount of literature has been published to prove the advantage of a grouping on the basis of opinions, by some form of proportional representation. [sidenote: how treated in england.] in england the two questions of the electors and the constituencies, although usually considered, and made the subject of legislation, at the same time, have always been kept distinct. each of the great series of measures of parliamentary reform has touched both subjects, but in unequal degree; and, in fact, it was really the state of the constituencies that forced both problems upon public attention. the reform act of brought in a general franchise for boroughs in place of the multifarious, and on the whole highly exclusive, privileges which had existed before. it also changed, though in a less radical way, the franchise in the counties. but as a political measure its greatest importance lay in its effect upon the constituencies by the redistribution of seats. it took from small boroughs in various stages of decay and rottenness one hundred and forty-three seats, and gave them to the counties, and to new large towns hitherto unrepresented. the act of , on the other hand, while transferring seats to some extent, was mainly a measure for extending greatly the borough franchise. in and both subjects were dealt with radically. by the act of the franchise for counties was much enlarged; and by that of the distribution of seats was reorganised upon a basis closely akin to equal electoral districts. [sidenote: the constituencies.] the constituencies for the english parliament are of three kinds; counties, boroughs and universities. the last are quite different from the others in nature and franchise, and a word may be said about them here. [sidenote: universities.] oxford and cambridge were given two seats apiece by james i. the university of dublin, which had already one seat, obtained another by the reform act of ; and, finally, the act of gave one member to london university, one to glasgow and aberdeen combined, and another to edinburgh and st. andrews. the franchise for the universities belongs in general to the registered graduates.[ : ] [sidenote: the reform act of .] until each county, and each borough that had the privilege of being represented, elected, as a rule, two members of parliament. this, however, was not true of the scotch boroughs, which were, with few exceptions, grouped into districts returning a single member apiece; a system that has been maintained to the present day. some of the english boroughs had been given the right of electing members by the tudors and the early stuarts, not because they were places of importance, but, on the contrary, because they were not populous, and their members could be easily controlled by the crown--the electoral rights being commonly vested in the governing council, which was a close corporation. other boroughs that had once been places of consequence had, in the course of time, fallen into decay. so that by the beginning of the nineteenth century many members of the house represented no substantial communities, and were really appointed either by small self-perpetuating bodies, or by patrons, who, owning the land, controlled the votes of the few electors in the constituency. this condition of things was made scandalous by the open practice of selling elections to parliament for cash; and the demand for reform, which had been checked by the long struggle with france, began again after the peace, culminating finally in the reform act of .[ : ] the object of this measure was to remove a manifest abuse, rather than to reorganise the representation of the country on a new basis, and it applied to the conditions a somewhat rough and inexact remedy. the boroughs with less than two thousand population by the census of were disfranchised altogether, those with more than two thousand and less than four thousand lost one member, and the seats thus obtained were divided about equally between the counties and the new large towns that had hitherto been unrepresented.[ : ] but the constituencies still remained very uneven in population--and, indeed, the framers of the act had no desire for equal electoral districts. [sidenote: the reform act of .] the same process was continued by the act of , which again took members from little towns and gave them to larger ones and to the counties. while there was no general attempt to make the number of representatives proportional to the size of a constituency, a few of the largest provincial towns were given three members; and in that connection an interesting experiment was tried. with the object of providing for minority representation, the electors in the boroughs returning three members--the so-called three-cornered constituencies--were allowed to vote for only two candidates apiece. this resulted in diminishing the real representation of the borough, as compared with the rest of the country. if manchester, for example, was liberal, she would probably be represented by two liberals and one conservative. but in a party division the conservative would neutralise one of the liberals, so that manchester would count for only one vote, and would, therefore, have only half as much weight as a much smaller borough with two members both belonging to the same party. the experiment gave so little satisfaction that it was afterward abandoned; and it is chiefly interesting to-day because the effort to organise a large party majority so as to compass the election of all three members gave rise to the birmingham caucus, whose birth and whose progeny will be described in a subsequent chapter. except for the few three-member constituencies, and a much larger number of boroughs having only a single seat, the constituencies still returned two members apiece; and this continued to be the rule until the third and last of the great measures of parliamentary reform. [sidenote: the reform act of .] the redistribution act of , although, like all english measures of reform, to some extent a compromise between the old ideas and the new, rested upon the principle of equal electoral districts each returning a single member. the proportion of one seat for every , people was roughly taken as the basis of representation; and in order to adapt the principle to the existing system with the least possible change, boroughs with less than , inhabitants were disfranchised altogether, and became, for electoral purposes, simply a part of the county in which they were situated. boroughs with more than , and less than , people were allowed to retain, or if hitherto unrepresented were given, one member; those with more than , and less than , , two members; those above , three members, with an additional member for every , people more. the same general principle was followed in the counties.[ : ] the boroughs that had hitherto elected two members, and were entitled to the same number under the new scheme, remained single constituencies for the election of those two members. of these boroughs there are twenty-three,[ : ] which, with the city of london, and the three universities (oxford, cambridge, and dublin), makes in all twenty-seven cases where two members are elected together. all the other constituencies are single-member districts, a result which was brought about by a partition of the counties, of boroughs with more than two members, and of the new boroughs with only two members, into separate electoral divisions, each with its own distinctive name. it may be interesting to note that the reforms of and did not change the total number of members of the house, but merely redistributed the existing seats. by the disfranchisement, after , for corrupt practices, of four boroughs returning six members, the number was reduced to ; and the reform act of increased it to , where it has since remained. [sidenote: inequalities in representation.] the distribution of seats under the act of was only a rough approximation to equal electoral districts; and in time it has become far less close, until to-day the difference in the size of the constituencies is very great. the smallest is the borough of newry in ireland, which had at the census of a population of only , ; or, if we leave ireland aside on account of its peculiar conditions, the smallest in great britain is the city of durham with a population of , ; while the largest is the southern division of the county of essex, with , inhabitants; so that the largest constituency to-day is nearly fifteen times as populous as the smallest.[ : ] nor are the inequalities confined to extreme cases; for they exist in lesser degree throughout the electoral body, many of the constituencies being two or three times as large as many others. but unless one assumes that the exact equivalence of all votes is a fundamental principle of political justice, differences of this kind are of little consequence, provided one part of the community, or rather one set of opinions or interests, is not distinctly over-represented at the expense of another. now, in parliament an over-representation of this kind does exist; not, indeed, in regard to the different social classes or economic interests in the nation--for inequalities of that sort are not marked enough to be important--but between the different parts of the country. [sidenote: over-representation of ireland.] some parts of great britain have grown very rapidly, while the population of ireland has actually diminished during the last half century; and the result is that whereas in the united kingdom as a whole there is now, on the average, one member of parliament for every , people, england has only one for every , ; and ireland one for every , . if a redistribution of seats were to be made in strict proportion to population, ireland would therefore lose thirty members, and england would gain about as many, while scotland would gain one seat, and wales would lose three. the question of the proportional representation of england and ireland is a burning one, because the parliamentary system cannot work well unless one party has a majority which can give to the ministry a stable support. but eighty of the irish members are nationalists, who do not belong to either of the great parties, and may at any general election acquire a balance of power, and cause confusion in politics, as they did after the election of . the loss of twenty-five seats, which they would suffer by a reduction of the irish representation, would materially lessen that danger. the conservative government was constantly urged by its supporters to make the transfer of seats from ireland to england, and was actually preparing to do so at the time it resigned in . on behalf of ireland it was argued that this would be a violation of the act of union, which was in the nature of a treaty, and allotted to ireland one hundred members in the house of commons.[ : ] on the other hand the advocates of the policy replied that the terms of the act of union cannot be forever binding under a change of circumstances; they referred to the fact that in the church of england was disestablished in ireland, notwithstanding the provision in the act for its perpetual establishment there;[ : ] and they said that conditions had so changed as to justify a redistribution of seats. the irish, however, claim that the great bulk of their people wanted disestablishment, and that ireland could waive provisions made in her behalf; but it may be urged that the provision about the church was made for the benefit not of ireland, or its people, but of a minority there. the formation in england of new constituencies for the seats transferred would raise great practical difficulties. even if it did not involve a general redistribution bill, it would necessitate changing many of the districts. quite apart from the danger of incurring a charge of gerrymandering for party purposes, there would be a host of personal interests of members of parliament to be considered. each member affected would be anxious that the change should not make his seat less secure than before; and claims of this sort have peculiar weight in a country where, as in england, the sitting member has almost a prescriptive right to renomination by his party. [sidenote: effect of the english method of distributing seats.] the english practice of rearranging the constituencies, and apportioning the representatives among them, only at long intervals, of treating a bill for the purpose as an exceptional measure of great political importance, instead of the natural result of each new census, has the advantage of preventing frequent temptations to gerrymander. but, on the other hand, it raises the matter of electoral districts to the height of a constitutional, and almost a revolutionary, question, preceded sometimes by long and serious agitation, and always fought over on party grounds. this is a perpetual difficulty, for the shifting of population, which must always be changing the ratio of representation, will from time to time make a redistribution of seats inevitable. [sidenote: the franchise.] the extension of the franchise was long a grave constitutional question also, but it has now been so nearly worked out that it can hardly be regarded in that light in future. before the reform act of the franchise in the counties depended entirely upon the ownership of land, an old statute of ,[ : ] having confined the right of voting to forty-shilling freeholders; that is, to men who owned an estate of inheritance, or at least a life estate, in land of the annual value of forty shillings.[ : ] in the boroughs the franchise was based upon no uniform principle, but varied according to the custom or charter of the borough. sometimes it depended upon the tenure of land; and, since residence was by no means always necessary, it might happen that the voters did not live in the place, and there were even cases where members were returned to parliament by boroughs that had no longer a single inhabitant. sometimes the right belonged to the governing body of the town; sometimes to all the freemen; sometimes to all householders who paid local taxes; and in one place, at least, it extended to all the inhabitants. in these last cases the franchise was actually wider before the reform act of than it was afterward, so that although the act enlarged the electorate very much on the whole, and preserved the rights of all existing voters, it narrowed the franchise seriously for the future in a few places.[ : ] [sidenote: reform act of .] [sidenote: counties.] in the counties the act of continued to treat the right to vote as dependent upon the tenure of land, although in some ways restricting and in others much more largely extending it. in order to prevent the manufacture of forty-shilling freeholders for electoral purposes, the act provided that a voter must have been in possession of his land for six months, unless it came to him by descent, devise, marriage or promotion to an office;[ : ] and, also, that if he held only a life estate he must either have acquired it by one of these methods, or must be in actual occupation, unless again it was of the clear yearly value of ten pounds.[ : ] on the other hand the act extended the right of voting in counties to persons entitled to copyholds, and leaseholds for sixty years, of the annual value of ten pounds; to leaseholds for twenty years of the value of fifty pounds; and to leaseholds of fifty pounds annual value without regard to the length of the term, if the tenant was in actual occupation of the land.[ : ] [sidenote: boroughs.] in the boroughs the reform act wrought a complete change. except that it preserved the personal rights of living voters,[ : ] and retained the privileges of freemen in towns where they existed,[ : ] it swept away all the old qualifications,[ : ] and replaced them by a single new franchise based exclusively upon the tenure, or rather the occupation, of land. the new qualification was uniform throughout england, and included every man who occupied, as owner or tenant, a house, shop, or other building, worth, with the land, ten pounds a year. but while the franchise in the boroughs was thus based, like that in the counties, upon land, the effect was entirely different, and was intended to be so. it has been said that the framers of the act meant the county members to represent property, and the borough members to represent numbers. the boroughs, as will appear later, did not really stand for numbers, but the counties did certainly represent property, and that in spite of the chandos clause which admitted fifty-pound leaseholders and was resisted by the authors of the bill. the electorate in the counties consisted of the landholders with a few large farmers, while in the towns it comprised the great middle class. later in the same session acts of a similar nature were passed for scotland[ : ] and ireland;[ : ] and in fact it was the practice until to deal with the franchise in the three kingdoms by separate statutes. [sidenote: effect of the act of .] as the practice of keeping a register of persons entitled to vote at parliamentary elections did not begin until this time, it is impossible to say precisely how much the act of increased the size of the electorate. but from returns made just prior to the passage of the act,[ : ] it would appear that the number of borough electors in england and wales was then about , ; whereas immediately after the act had gone into effect it was , .[ : ] the total increase in the borough electorate, which was the one chiefly affected, was therefore about , , and a great part of this increase consisted of the voters in the large towns that had been given seats for the first time by the act. the new system was in no sense either democratic or proportionate to population. the average ratio of electors to population for the whole united kingdom was about one in thirty; but the variation in different constituencies and different parts of the kingdom was very great. in the english and welsh counties the ratio ran all the way from one in five in westmoreland, to one in thirty-seven in lancashire, one in thirty-nine in middlesex, and one in sixty in merioneth. in the english and welsh boroughs it ran from nearly one in four in bedford and aylesbury, where practically all adult males were voters, to one in forty-five in the manufacturing towns. in scotland even a smaller part of the population enjoyed the franchise. in the counties the ratio ran from one in twenty-four in selkirk, to one in ninety-seven in sutherland; and in boroughs or districts, from one in twenty in the elgin district, to one in forty in that of linlithgow. in the irish counties it ran from one in fifty-eight in carlow, to one in two hundred and sixty-one in tyrone; and in the boroughs from one in nine in carrickfergus and waterford, to one in fifty-three in tralee. the proportion of members of parliament to population was far more uneven still. as reformers at a later date were constantly pointing out, one half of the borough population of england was contained in sixteen boroughs, and elected only thirty-four members; the other half, numbering less than two and a half millions, still returning two hundred and ninety-three members; while the counties with eight millions of people returned one hundred and forty-four members. thus it happened that less than one fifth of the population in england elected nearly one half of the representatives; and as these came from the boroughs it can hardly be said that the borough members represented numbers.[ : ] [sidenote: later reform bills.] mr. g. lowes dickinson, in his "development of parliament during the nineteenth century,"[ : ] has pointed out that while the framers of the act of had not the least intention of introducing democracy, the measure itself could not have furnished a permanent settlement of the franchise, and was destined inevitably to lead to further steps in the direction of universal suffrage. the first step was a slight reduction, in , of the amounts required for the qualification of voters in ireland.[ : ] this was followed by a series of moderate english reform bills, which failed to pass the house of commons.[ : ] [sidenote: the act of .] in disraeli, who had educated his reluctant party until it accepted the political need of extending the franchise, brought in a bill with elaborate safeguards against the predominance of the masses. under the existing law a small fraction of the working classes had votes in the boroughs;[ : ] and it was disraeli's intention to admit a larger number of the more prosperous workingmen without giving them an overwhelming weight in the electorate. but the parliamentary situation was peculiar. the conservative government, which had come into power only through the quarrels of its opponents, had not a majority in the house of commons, and could not insist upon its own policy; while the liberals were not under the sense of responsibility that comes with office. the result was that the bill was transformed by amendments, the safeguards proposed by the cabinet were swept away, and a far longer stride toward universal suffrage was taken than any one had expected. in the counties the act of [ : ] reduced the ten-pound qualification for owners and long leaseholders to five pounds, and created a new twelve-pound occupation franchise. but a far greater extension was made in the boroughs, where two new franchises were introduced. the most important of these was that of the "householder," whereby a vote was given to every man who occupied, as owner or tenant for twelve months, a dwelling-house, or any part of a house used as a separate dwelling, without regard to its value.[ : ] the other franchise admitted lodgers who occupied for the same period lodgings of the clear value, unfurnished, of ten pounds a year.[ : ] in the course of the next session acts, in general similar, were passed for scotland and ireland.[ : ] [sidenote: its effects.] from to , in spite of the general gain in wealth, the electors had increased very little faster than the population; in england and wales, indeed, the voters remained about one twentieth of the people,[ : ] while in scotland they had risen only from one thirty seventh to one thirtieth.[ : ] but the acts of and almost doubled the electorate. in the counties the voters, who numbered , just before those acts, were, by , , , ; while the borough voters increased from , to , , .[ : ] [sidenote: the act of .] it was evident that the qualifications for voting could not long remain far wider in one class of constituencies than in another; that the franchise of the boroughs must, in time, be extended to the counties. this was done in ,[ : ] and the change more than doubled the county electorate. the franchise, therefore, is now substantially uniform throughout the united kingdom, except that certain owners and leaseholders have a right to vote in counties, and that in some old towns the freemen still possess the suffrage. inasmuch as most of the boroughs are included in counties, the occupier, householder, or lodger would be entitled on the same qualifying property to vote in both; and hence a man in a borough would have two votes at an election, while another man with the same qualification outside of the borough would have only one. to avoid this result it is provided that a man shall not be entitled to vote at an election for a county in respect of the occupation of a dwelling-house, lodging, land or tenement in a borough;[ : ] but he may vote in the county on account of the ownership of land in a borough which he does not occupy, or on account of land which he both owns and occupies if he occupies other land in the borough sufficient to qualify him there.[ : ] [sidenote: the existing qualifications.] although the franchise is now substantially uniform, it is not exactly the same for the different parts of the united kingdom; nor is it by any means simple. the latest acts have not codified the law. it must still be sought in many statutes, whose provisions are so complicated, and often obscure, that they can be understood only by studying the interpretation put upon them by the courts. the reader who wishes to ascertain the law on a special point must refer to treatises upon the subject, such as rogers on "elections." it will be enough for our purpose to summarise the various franchises as they exist to-day. [sidenote: property.] there are two qualifications which are not universal. one of these, relating to property rights in land, applies only to counties, and to some extent to boroughs which are counties in themselves.[ : ] it confers the right to vote on owners of land[ : ] of forty shillings yearly value, who hold an estate of inheritance; or who hold an estate for life, and are in actual occupation of the land, or have acquired it by some means other than purchase, or whose land is of five pounds clear yearly value.[ : ] under this franchise come, also, the leaseholders of land of five pounds yearly value if the original term was not less than sixty years, and fifty pounds value if the term was not less than twenty years.[ : ] the corresponding qualifications for scotland and ireland are slightly different in their conditions and in the values required. [sidenote: freemen.] the other franchise which is not universal is that of freemen in those towns where they had a right to vote before . the privilege still exists in a number of old boroughs, but, except in the city of london, is confined to freemen who have become such by birth or apprenticeship. [sidenote: occupiers, householders, and lodgers.] the three remaining franchises are universal, though not precisely uniform. they are those of the ten-pound occupiers, the householders, and the lodgers. the first of these gives the right to vote to a man who occupies, as owner or tenant, any land or tenement of the clear yearly value of ten pounds. the second confers the right on a man who occupies, as owner or tenant, any dwelling-house, or part of a house used as a separate dwelling, without regard to its value. the qualification extends also to men who are not owners or tenants, but who occupy by virtue of an office, service, or employment, a dwelling-house in which the employer does not himself reside. the third of these franchises confers the right to vote upon a man who occupies lodgings of the value, unfurnished, of ten pounds a year. the application of these franchises to particular cases has given rise to a great amount of litigation, and in particular the courts have found it almost impossible to distinguish between a householder and a lodger. for the general reader, who is concerned with the study of the english government, and not with the effort to get the largest possible number of party members registered, such questions have little interest; but there are two or three matters that ought to be noted, because they have an important bearing on the actual size of the electorate. [sidenote: period of occupation.] one matter of political consequence relates to the period of occupation required. owners of land in counties, who have acquired it by descent, marriage, promotion to an office, etc., are not required to have owned it for any period. all other owners must have held the title for six calendar months before the th of july preceding the registration; and all other voters, except freemen, must have been in occupation of the qualifying premises, or some other premises within the same constituency, for one year preceding the th of july.[ : ] this, of course, has the effect of disqualifying entirely persons whose occupation has not been continuous for the whole of that year, and as the register does not take effect until the st of january following, and then remains in effect a whole year, voters who have moved to another part of the country within eighteen months after their year of occupation can vote only by a journey back to their former place of abode. [sidenote: residence.] a second matter that must be noticed is the question of residence. before the reform act of the qualification for counties was based upon ownership; that for boroughs varied very much; but in those places where the franchise was broad it was based mainly upon residence. this distinction has, to some extent, persisted. in general it may be said that for english and scotch counties, and in ireland for both boroughs and counties, residence is not required, except so far as the occupation of a dwelling-house or lodging may involve residence and this is not necessarily the case.[ : ] in english boroughs a voter must have resided for six calendar months previous to the th of july in the borough, or within seven miles thereof;[ : ] and in scotland he must have resided there for a whole year. the requirement of residence does not, however, imply quite so much as might appear, because, according to english law, the possession of a chamber in which a man occasionally sleeps, and to which he can return at any time, is enough to constitute residence; and, hence, he may have a residence in more than one place.[ : ] in the counties, therefore, residence is unnecessary, and even in the boroughs the requirement of residence does not limit a man to voting in a single constituency. the importance of this will shortly be pointed out. [sidenote: payment of rates.] the third matter to be noticed is the question of rating. we have already observed that at one time the personal payment of rates by the voter was much discussed, and was regarded as an important guarantee of character.[ : ] in england poor rates are assessed upon the occupiers, not the owners, of the property, and it is still provided that all voters whose qualification depends upon the occupation of land (except lodgers, who are not from the legal point of view occupiers) must have been rated and must have paid their rates.[ : ] but this means only that the rates must have been paid on their behalf; and the practice of compounding by the landlord for small tenements is so universal that practically the landlord pays the rates in almost all cases where the occupiers would be likely to fail to do so. in england, therefore, the requirement that the rates must have been paid has little or no effect on the electorate. in scotland, on the other hand, this is not the case. there the rates are divided between the owner and the occupier, and the practice of compounding does not exist. the result is that many occupiers are omitted from the parliamentary register every year on account of their failure to pay rates. for the whole of scotland the number reaches fifty thousand.[ : ] [sidenote: actual extent of the suffrage.] a comparison of the number of electors on the register with the total population shows that england is not very far to-day from manhood suffrage. the ratio is about one in six,[ : ] whereas the normal proportion of males above the age of twenty-one years (making no allowance for paupers, criminals, and other persons disqualified by the laws of all countries), is somewhat less than one in four. the only classes excluded from the franchise are domestic servants, bachelors living with their parents and occupying no premises on their own account, and persons whose change of abode deprives them of a vote. now, these are not necessarily the worst political elements in the community. no doubt the provision requiring twelve months' occupation excludes vagrants, but it also excludes excellent artisans who migrate with changes of trade, and other persons whose calling compels them to move from place to place. in a school-teacher, in a plaintive letter to _the times_,[ : ] described how he had never been able to vote at a general election. he had graduated with honours from his university, was nearly forty years old, married, and prosperous; but his very success in his profession, by involving changes of residence, had always cost him the right to vote. it is a common saying that many respectable people are disfranchised from this cause, although the slums, which move little, are not. the present condition of the franchise is, indeed, historical rather than rational. it is complicated, uncertain, expensive in the machinery required, and excludes a certain number of people whom there is no reason for excluding, while it admits many people who ought not to be admitted if any one is to be debarred. but the hardship or injustice affects individuals alone. no considerable class in the community is aggrieved, and neither political party is now anxious to extend the franchise. the conservatives are not by tradition in favour of such a course, and leading liberals have come to realise that any further extension would be likely to benefit their opponents. [sidenote: plural voting.] although there is no urgent demand for a closer approach to manhood suffrage, there has long been a strong desire to restrict each man to a single vote. that a man should have a vote in two different constituencies is as clearly a breach of political equality as if he had two votes in the same place; and for this reason, as well as from the fact that most of the men who have more than one vote are conservatives, a demand for the abolition of plural voting has been for many years an article in the liberal programme. so far as the franchise is not dependent upon residence there is nothing to prevent a man from voting in every constituency where he possesses a qualification.[ : ] now for the counties and the universities residence is not necessary; and even in the boroughs, where it is required, plural voting is restrained only in part, because a man may have more than one residence, and because residence within seven miles of the borough is enough, so that the men who carry on their business in the town and live in the suburbs are qualified in the borough by reason of their offices or workshops, and in a suburban borough or the county by reason of their dwellings. it is not easy to determine how many persons are entitled to vote in more than one constituency, or how much they affect the result of elections. in a return of resident and non-resident voters made to parliament in ,[ : ] it appeared, as was natural, that the proportion of the latter was greatest among the freeholders in the counties, nearly one quarter of whom were non-residents. in all there were about two hundred thousand non-resident voters in england and wales. this is between four and five per cent. of the total electorate, which does not seem an important fraction; but it fails to express the full effect of plural voting, because it does not include the persons who have more than one residence, or who live outside the limits of a borough but within seven miles of it, or those again who reside in a borough that forms part of a county and are qualified to vote in both. moreover, the men with more than one vote, although a small proportion of the whole electorate of the kingdom, are quite numerous enough to turn the scale in a close constituency. one of the first acts of the new liberal ministry in the session of , was to bring in a bill to abolish plural voting altogether. this could not be done simply by making residence a condition of the franchise, because in england a man may have more than one residence. the measure provided, therefore, that the voter must elect in which of the places where he possessed a qualification he would be registered, and forbade him to vote anywhere else. the bill was passed by the house of commons, but rejected forthwith by the lords. [sidenote: number of electors by classes.] it is interesting to observe the number of voters registered under the different franchises. in the figures for the united kingdom were as follows:-- owners , occupiers , , lodgers , freemen, etc. , univs. , --------- total , , by far the greater part of the voters are registered as occupiers, a class which includes both the householders and the ten-pound occupiers. the table contains a surprisingly small number of lodgers; and this is due to the fact that whereas the lists of owners and freemen are virtually permanent, and the list of occupiers is made up by the overseers of the poor from the rate-book,[ : ] a lodger alone must make every year a personal application to be registered.[ : ] the result is that no one seeks to be enrolled as a lodger if he has any other franchise; and no doubt many lodgers, who have no other qualification, neglect to register at all. [sidenote: disqualifications for voting.] a characteristic, although not in itself a very important peculiarity of the english electoral law, is the rule depriving peers of the right to vote;[ : ] and in fact the commons still profess to be highly jealous of any part taken in electoral campaigns by members of the house of lords.[ : ] in other respects the disqualifications for voting in england are now much the same as in other countries. there are the usual rules excluding aliens, infants, idiots, paupers, convicts, and persons who have been guilty of corrupt practices at elections. formerly there were also provisions excluding large classes of public officers, but these have been repealed, except in the case of the irish police, of certain officers directly concerned in the conduct of elections, and of persons employed and paid by the candidates. women cannot vote for members of parliament, although they possess the franchise for almost all local elections. this question has of late aroused much interest. although both of the political parties have at times adopted resolutions in favour of woman suffrage, the leading men in both are divided about it, and the labour party may be said to be the only political organisation of men in england that want it heartily. but many women are agitating for it very vigorously, and the most enthusiastic of them have sought martyrdom by refusing to pay taxes, by creating a disturbance in the ladies' gallery of the house of commons, and by getting arrested for speech-making in the palace yard. they are known as suffragettes, and evidently have faith in the old adage that parliament never redresses grievances until they are brought forcibly to its notice. women will no doubt ultimately obtain the suffrage if they are substantially united in wanting it, and the principle is certainly making great headway among them in england to-day. [sidenote: registration.] it is not enough that a man possesses the requisite qualifications for the franchise. his name must also be upon the register of voters for the constituency, and the process of compiling the register is cumbrous and expensive. this is due in part to the complicated nature of the various franchises, which may involve intricate questions of law and of fact, and partly to the practice of leaving the duty of proving claims and objections mainly in the hands of private individuals. the lists are made up in the first instance by the overseers of the poor in each parish; but any person whose name is omitted may claim to have it inserted, and any person whose name is on the lists may file an objection to any other name which he thinks ought not to have been included. these claims and objections are heard in september by the revising barrister--a barrister of not less than seven years' standing, appointed for the purpose by the judge in whose circuit the constituency lies, and paid by the treasury. it is his duty to revise the register by adding the names of persons who prove their claims, and by striking off names improperly inserted. in doing this he is not limited to names against which objections have been filed, for he has a right to make inquiries and summon witnesses on his own motion.[ : ] in practice, however, the cases are prepared beforehand, and argued before him, by the local agents of the two political parties, whose object is to get the names of their partisans on to the register and keep off those of their opponents. the process is repeated every year, and the work and cost involved are considerable, the money being provided by the candidate for parliament, or by means of subscriptions to the party funds. this is one of the things that makes elections expensive; and it helps to explain the desire of each party in a constituency to have a candidate at all times, even when an election is not impending. in scotland registration is far less of a burden upon the parties, and costs the candidate very little, because the qualifications of all the voters, except the lodgers, are investigated by a public officer, called the assessor, and a corps of assistants, with the result that there are few claims or objections for the political agents to contest. there seems to be no self-evident reason why this should not be done everywhere, and for every class of voter. footnotes: [ : ] this feeling was forcibly expressed by godkin in his essay on "the decline of legislatures." [ : ] this is elaborately discussed by charles benoist, _la crise de l'État moderne_. [ : ] for "keeping one's name on the books" the university sometimes requires a fee which diminishes seriously the number of graduates entitled to vote either for parliament or on academic questions. in cambridge, for example, the electors are only about one half the graduates. [ : ] for england, will. iv., c. . for scotland, - will. iv., c. . for ireland - will. iv., c. . [ : ] scotland obtained eight additional members, and ireland five. [ : ] in several cases small scotch counties are combined in pairs for the election of a single member, but this antedated the act of . [ : ] whereof twenty are in england, and one each in wales, scotland, and ireland. [ : ] this is not because the county constituencies are essentially larger or smaller than those of the boroughs. the borough of wandsworth, for example, had, in , a population of , . these figures are taken from single-member constituencies; for it so happens that the two-member boroughs, when their population is divided by two, are neither among the largest or the smallest. com. papers, , lxii., _et seq._ [ : ] - geo. iii., c. , art. . [ : ] _ibid._, art. . [ : ] hen. vi., c. . [ : ] in scotland the value of the land, if not of "old extent," had to be £ a year. in ireland an act of had raised the limit of annual value to £ , to restrain the practice of manufacturing fagot voters on the eve of an election. [ : ] in ireland the borough franchise was multifarious as in england. in scotland it was wholly in the hands of the councils of the royal burghs. [ : ] - will. iv., c. , § . [ : ] _ibid._, § . [ : ] - will. iv., c. , §§ , . the last provision was added during the passage of the bill, and is known from its proposer as the chandos clause. [ : ] _ibid._, § . [ : ] _ibid._, § ; but freemen thereafter admitted could vote only if made such by birth or servitude. [ : ] _ibid._, § . by § , _s._ freeholders retained the franchise in boroughs that are counties by themselves. [ : ] - will. iv., c. . [ : ] _ibid._, c. . [ : ] com. papers, - , xxxvi., . [ : ] it is interesting to observe that of these, , , or nearly two fifths were freemen, scot and lot voters, potwallopers and other persons whose ancient rights had been preserved. they belonged, of course, only to the old boroughs. election returns (boroughs and counties), com. papers, , lvii., , p. . [ : ] these figures, about the proportion of electors and members to population, are taken from a report on electoral expenses, com. papers, , ix., , app. a. [ : ] pp. _et seq._ [ : ] - vic., c. . [ : ] in reading the debates on these bills a foreigner is often puzzled by the distinction between ratable value and clear yearly value. the latter is what is called gross estimated rental in the rate book, while the ratable value is supposed to be the net yearly value, and it is obtained by making a reduction from the gross, which varies from place to place, but is on the average about ten per cent. [ : ] of the borough electors in england and wales . per cent belonged to the working classes; com. papers, , lvii., , p. . in scotland the proportion was . per cent. _ibid._, , p. . [ : ] - vic., c. . [ : ] one of the safeguards in the bill was the provision that householders must be separately rated for the relief of the poor, and must have paid their rates; and in order to insure personal payment by the householder, the act forbade the common practice of rating the owner of dwellings in lieu of the occupier. but the practice saved the local authorities much trouble. it enabled them to receive the rates in a single payment from the owner of a number of houses, instead of collecting small sums from many tenants; and they were in the habit of allowing a commission or rebate to owners who paid in this way. the convenience of the old practice was so great that in it was again permitted; and the act ( - vic., c. ) also provided that such a payment by the owner should be deemed a payment by the occupier for the purpose of the franchise, thus sweeping away the safeguard of personal payment of rates. the practice is called compounding for rates, and the tenant whose rates were paid by the landlord was the subject of fierce discussion under the name of "compound householder," although it was in fact the rate, and not the house or the holder thereof, that was compounded. [ : ] it will be observed that the £ occupier differed from the householder in the fact that he might occupy any shop, warehouse, or other building, whereas the householder was qualified only by a dwelling-house. on the other hand, the premises occupied by a £ occupier must be of the clear yearly value of £ , whereas the householder was qualified without regard to the value of the house. by the act of the householder might occupy any part of a house used as a separate dwelling; while the £ occupier must occupy a whole building. this difference was, however, done away with in by an act ( - vic., c. , § ), which provided that the occupation might be of any separate part of the building, if that part were of the yearly value of £ . [ : ] - vic., cc. , . [ : ] they ran from a little less than one in twenty-one to a little more than one in twenty. _cf._ com. papers, , lvii., , . [ : ] _ibid._, . the extension of the franchise in ireland in nearly trebled the number of county voters there, in spite of the falling off in population. it may be observed that the growth in registered voters is not an exact measure of the increase in the number of persons qualified for the franchise, because with the organisation of the political parties there has been a greater and greater effort to make every man register who is entitled to do so. [ : ] com. papers, , xlvii., . [ : ] - vic., c. . the act also extended the household qualification--both for counties and boroughs--to men who occupy a dwelling-house not as owners or tenants, but by virtue of their office or employment, provided the employer does not also occupy the house, the object of that proviso being to exclude domestic servants. this qualification is known as the "service franchise." [ : ] - vic., c. , ; and see also - will. iv., c. , § , and - vic., c. , § . [ : ] rogers on elections, i., - . the references to rogers are to the th ed. of vol. i., to the th ed. of vol. ii. [ : ] the amount required for the qualification of freeholders in boroughs which are counties is not exactly the same as in counties; and the leasehold qualifications do not extend to them. in england there are now only four boroughs which retain these rights: bristol, exeter, norwich, and nottingham. rogers on "elections," i., _et seq._ [ : ] rent charges, whether arising from the commutation of tithes or otherwise, are realty, and qualify a voter as land. [ : ] if the land is copyhold or other tenure, it must in any case be of the yearly value of £ . [ : ] the £ leaseholders admitted by the chandos clause in the act of were required to occupy the land, and are now included in the £ occupation franchise. [ : ] rogers, i., - , . [ : ] _ibid._, , . [ : ] rogers, i., - , . in the city of london he may reside within twenty-five miles. [ : ] _ibid._, - . [ : ] page , note , _supra_. [ : ] rogers, i., , , _et seq._, _et seq._ [ : ] com. papers, , lxxx., . [ : ] it is slightly less in scotland than in england and ireland. [ : ] aug. . [ : ] a man cannot vote in more than one division of the same borough. - vic., c. , § . but there is no such limitation in the case of divisions of a county. _ibid._, § . metropolitan london is not a single borough, but a collection of boroughs, several of which contain more than one division, and hence the effect of this provision is quite irrational there. [ : ] com. papers, , lxxix., . [ : ] where the landlord compounds for the rates he is required to give to the overseers a list of the actual occupiers. rogers, i., . [ : ] rogers, i., , , . [ : ] an irish peer actually sitting for a constituency in great britain can vote. [ : ] they adopt every year a sessional order that for a peer "to concern himself in the election of members" is "a high infringement of the liberties and privileges of the commons." [ : ] for the duties of the revising barrister, see rogers, i., - . from the decision of the revising barrister an appeal lies on questions of law to the king's bench division of the high court of justice. chapter x the house of commons _electoral procedure_ all elections to parliament, whether general elections following a dissolution, or the so-called by-elections resulting from an accidental vacancy, take place in pursuance of a writ under the great seal, issued from the crown office, and directed to the returning officer of the constituency. in all counties, and in scotch and irish boroughs, the returning officer is the sheriff or his deputy. in english boroughs he is the mayor. [sidenote: procedure at elections.] [sidenote: before the ballot act.] until candidates for parliament were nominated _viva voce_ at the hustings,--a temporary platform erected for the purpose. if more names were proposed than there were seats to be filled, the election was said to be contested, and a show of hands was called for. many of the persons present were probably not entitled to vote, but that was of no importance, because the show of hands was merely formal, and a poll was always demanded. a time for taking it was then fixed, extending over a number of days, during which the electors declared their votes publicly. this gave a chance for bribery, for the intimidation of voters, and for disturbances of various kinds, not seldom deliberately planned. the disorderly scenes that accompanied an election have often been described both in histories, and in novels such as "the pickwick papers" and "coningsby," written by men familiar with the old polling days. in the method of conducting elections was changed by the ballot act,[ : ] which introduced secret voting, and made the procedure more orderly in many other respects. [sidenote: existing procedure.] [sidenote: nomination.] nominations are now made in writing by proposer, seconder, and eight others, all registered voters. if only one person is nominated for a seat, the candidate, or candidates if it be a two-member constituency, are at once declared elected; nor is this a hypothetical case, because, for reasons that will be described hereafter, usually more than one fourth, and sometimes more than one third, of the seats are not contested at a general election. [sidenote: election days.] if, on the other hand, the election is contested, a day is fixed for the poll; for voting is now confined to a single day in each constituency. it is not the same day in all of them, on account of the latitude still given to the returning officer. he has a right, within certain limits which are different for counties and boroughs, to determine how many days shall elapse between his receipt of the writ and the election (that is, the nomination) and how many between the election and the poll.[ : ] the result is that in boroughs the voting may take place anywhere from four to eight days after the receipt of the writ; and in counties anywhere from six to seventeen days. now, as the writs are sent out by mail at the same time, the voting at the general election covers a period of more than two weeks. it might be supposed that such a power to arrange the order of elections would be used by the returning officer to help his own party, and this is said to be done, not systematically over the country, but in particular places. the multiplicity of election days has another and more important political effect; for it gives time to the out-voters, as the non-residents are called, to get from one constituency to another, and thus it facilitates voting in more than one place. for this reason the liberal party--which is opposed to plural voting--has demanded in its platform that all elections should take place on the same day. to this it has been objected that the change would, by lengthening the electoral period in the boroughs, increase the fatigue and cost to borough candidates; and in view of the rate at which labour and money are expended on such occasions the objection is not altogether without foundation. [sidenote: method of voting.] for the convenience of voting the constituency is divided into a number of polling districts; and when an election is contested, the vote is taken in these districts between eight in the morning and eight in the evening of the appointed day. the method of voting under the australian system of secret ballot, which was adopted in , need not be described, because in some form its use has become well-nigh universal in civilised countries.[ : ] it may be noted, however, that the ballot act has never been extended to the universities, where voting is still done orally, or by means of a voting paper tendered at the polls by another elector to whom it has been intrusted.[ : ] in fact most of the university votes are given by proxy--a practice which was introduced in ,[ : ] and would be abolished by the ballot. [sidenote: legislation against corruption.] before the reform act of , huge sums of money were sometimes expended at parliamentary elections, and bribery and corruption were rife. nor did the disfranchisement of rotten boroughs, and the extension of the franchise, by any means put an entire stop to the practice. even as late as the special commissions appointed to inquire into the conduct of a number of boroughs, for which election petitions had been filed, found a bad state of affairs.[ : ] in macclesfield and sandwich about half the voters had been guilty of bribery and other corrupt practices;[ : ] and as a result of the investigation those two boroughs, which were decidedly the worst, were entirely disfranchised. a series of attempts have been made to root out the evil by legislation. they have been more and more elaborate, and reached their culmination in the corrupt and illegal practices act of .[ : ] these laws seek to restrain improper conduct at elections by several methods; first, by forbidding altogether certain classes of acts, which either interfere directly with the purity of elections, or have proved a source of inordinate expense; second, by limiting the total amount that can be spent, and the purposes for which it can be used; third, by requiring that disbursements shall be made through one recognised agent, who is obliged to return to the government a full account thereof; and, fourth, by imposing for violation of these provisions penalties, political and other, inflicted not only by criminal process, but also summarily by the tribunal that tries the validity of a controverted election. [sidenote: corrupt practices.] the most demoralising acts forbidden by law are known as corrupt practices. they are bribery, treating, undue influence, and personation.[ : ] [sidenote: bribery.] bribery at elections is, of course, criminal in all countries; and in england the offence is defined in great detail, for just as there are seven recognised kinds of lies, so the english statutes describe seven distinct methods by which bribery can be committed.[ : ] it is unnecessary for anybody who is not engaged in electoral work to remember these; and it is enough here to point out that they include a promise, or endeavour, to procure any office or employment for a voter in order to influence his vote. [sidenote: treating.] treating differs from bribery in the fact that bribery involves a contract for a vote, express or implied, whereas the person who treats obtains no promise from the voter, and relies only upon his general sense of gratitude. but, as one of the judges remarked in the trial of an election petition some years ago, it is difficult in the large constituencies of the present day to bribe successfully, while a small amount of treating is sufficient to procure a great deal of popularity.[ : ] this is particularly true in england, where the habit of treating is made easy by the existence of sharp class distinctions. treating was forbidden as long ago as the days of william iii., and it is now defined[ : ] as giving, or paying the expense of giving, "any meat, drink, entertainment or provision to or for any person for the purpose of corruptly influencing that person or any other person to give or refrain from giving his vote." [sidenote: undue influence.] undue influence is defined by the act of [ : ] as making use, or threatening to make use, of any force, violence, or restraint, or inflicting, or threatening to inflict, any temporal or spiritual injury on any person in order to influence, or on account of, his vote; or by duress or fraud impeding the free exercise of the franchise by any man. these provisions cover threats by an employer to discharge workmen,[ : ] and the denunciation by priests of spiritual penalties on political opponents.[ : ] personation it is unnecessary to describe. [sidenote: corrupt practices avoid the election.] all these corrupt practices are criminal offences punishable by fine or imprisonment, and by the loss of political rights for seven years.[ : ] what is more important for our purpose, they are liable to cost the member his seat; for if upon the trial of a controverted election the court reports that any corrupt practice has been committed by the candidate, or that bribery or personation has been committed with his knowledge and consent, his election is void, and he is forever incapable of being elected to parliament by that constituency.[ : ] moreover, if the election court reports that a corrupt practice has been committed by his agents, although he may be personally quite innocent, his election is void, and he is incapable of being chosen by that constituency for seven years.[ : ] [sidenote: but only if done by the candidate or his agents.] it will be observed that in order to set aside an election, the corrupt practice must be brought home to the candidate, personally or through his agents. in accordance with the older traditions of english public life, the election is regarded as the affair of the candidates alone. the action of party organisations, or other bodies, is not taken into account,[ : ] and their conduct has no effect upon the result, unless their relations with the candidate have been such as to make them his agents. so long as a political association is urging the general interests of the party, rather than supporting a particular candidate, he is not responsible for their acts. it has been held, for example, that a candidate is not responsible for treating by such an association, although he was present and spoke at the meeting where it was done, if it was got up by them for their own purposes, and not to assist in his election.[ : ] it has been held, also, that a payment by a party organisation of bills for music and beer at public meetings, previous to an election, and even the candidate's subscription to their funds, need not be included in his election expenses, unless the organisation was a sham supported by him.[ : ] in all such cases it is difficult to prove agency to the satisfaction of an election court. the time must come in any election, however, when the local party association by active assistance to the candidate becomes his agent.[ : ] but this is not true of other bodies less directly connected with the party organisation, which are, nevertheless, in the habit of doing a great deal of work at elections. thus it has been held that a licensed victuallers association, having a distinct and direct interest in the election, did not become the agent of the candidate, although it played an important part in the campaign.[ : ] that this leaves a door wide open for corrupt influence is self-evident. [sidenote: general corruption.] to the general principle that a corrupt practice must be brought home to the candidate there is one exception. if bribery, treating, personation, intimidation, or undue influence, whether physical or ecclesiastical, has been general in the constituency--that is, so extensive that the voting could not have been the free expression of the will of the electorate--the result of the election is invalid at common law, although neither the candidate nor his agent are directly implicated.[ : ] [sidenote: distinction between corrupt and illegal practices.] besides corrupt practices, certain other acts are forbidden under the name of illegal practices; but the provisions relating to them are mainly designed to restrain the expense of elections, and will be described under that head. the essential distinction between the two practices is much like that which lawyers were formerly in the habit of drawing in the case of crimes between _malum prohibitum_ and _malum in se_. a corrupt practice involves moral turpitude, and it is necessary to prove a corrupt intent.[ : ] a gift to a voter, for example, is not bribery unless it is made for the purpose of influencing his vote; but an illegal practice is simply an act forbidden by statute, and as such--in the case, for instance, of a payment of expenses above the maximum fixed by law--is illegal without regard to the motive with which it is done. for this reason a corrupt practice cannot be excused,[ : ] while the election court may grant relief from the consequences of an illegal practice where it is trivial in itself, and was committed without the connivance of the candidate who took all reasonable means to prevent it; or where, although the direct act of the candidate or his election agent, it arose from inadvertence, accidental miscalculation, or other reasonable cause; or, finally, where a failure to make a return of expenses has been due to illness. [sidenote: practices tending to lower the tone of elections.] some acts which, without involving great expense, tend to lower the tone of elections, are treated as illegal practices, and forbidden by statute. such are the use for committee rooms[ : ] of premises where liquor is sold, and the furnishing of voters with cockades, ribbons, or other marks of distinction,[ : ] a proceeding which is believed to engender broils. [sidenote: restraint of expenditure.] other acts apparently harmless are prohibited in order to prevent extravagance. the most curious example of this is the provision forbidding the use of hired carriages to take voters to the polls.[ : ] such a rule may seem unnecessary; but before the act of , by which it was enacted, thousands of pounds were said to have been spent in certain cases for the conveyance of electors. the act does not forbid the use of carriages, but only of hired ones; and the result is that the private carriages and motor cars of wealthy partisans, sometimes blazoned with ancient armorial bearings, are placed at the disposal of the candidate. in fact in estimating the chances of an election one constantly hears that the conservative has the advantage of a larger number of carriages. [sidenote: authorised expenses.] [sidenote: employment.] but by far the most systematic effort to restrain extravagance at elections is found in the provisions that prescribe on the one hand the objects of expenditure, and on the other its total amount. a schedule to the act of enumerates the objects for which expenses may be legally incurred, and the first part of the schedule deals with the persons who may be employed. these are: one election agent;[ : ] a polling agent to watch the voting at each polling station; and clerks and messengers in proportion to population, the allowance being somewhat more liberal in counties than in boroughs on account of the greater area of the constituency. the act provides that, except as authorised by this schedule, no person shall be employed for pay;[ : ] and that no paid employee shall vote.[ : ] it may be noticed that among the list of persons who can be employed, canvassers are not mentioned, and hence the use of paid canvassers is illegal.[ : ] now, as canvassing, that is the personal solicitation of votes, is by far the most effective part of the work done at an election, each candidate is always assisted by an army of volunteers. wherever possible he is also helped by the agents of other constituencies, or of distinct associations, who, not being paid by him, and in fact, receiving no additional pay for their services on this occasion, are not within the prohibition of the law. [sidenote: other expenses.] the other expenditures authorised by the schedule are printing, advertising, stationery, postage, and the like; public meetings; one committee room for every five hundred electors;[ : ] and miscellaneous expenses not exceeding two hundred pounds for matters not otherwise illegal. the candidate is also allowed to incur personal expenses for travelling and hotel bills;[ : ] and, finally, there are the charges of the returning officer for the cost of erecting polling booths, the payment of persons on duty thereat, and the other expenses attending the election.[ : ] these last charges are divided between the candidates and they are by no means small, as may be seen from the fact that at the general election of they amounted, for the whole united kingdom, to £ , _s._ _d._, or nearly one fifth of the whole expense incurred.[ : ] the national liberal federation has, indeed, repeatedly urged in its programme that such charges ought to be defrayed by the state, instead of being a burden upon the candidates. [sidenote: maximum expenditure.] in order to reduce the cost of elections, parliament has not only enumerated the objects for which money may be used, but has also set a maximum limit to the amount that may be spent.[ : ] in the case of boroughs this is fixed at three hundred and fifty pounds if the registered electors do not exceed two thousand, with an additional thirty pounds for every thousand electors above that number. in the counties the scale is somewhat higher, six hundred and fifty pounds being allowed where the registered electors do not exceed two thousand, with sixty pounds for each thousand electors more.[ : ] these sums do not, however, represent the total cost, for they include neither the personal expenses of the candidate to an amount of one hundred pounds, nor the charges of the returning officers. [sidenote: penalties for illegal payments.] the rules in regard to election expenses are furnished with sanctions of the same nature as those attached to corrupt practices, although the penalties are less severe. in addition to the criminal punishments that may be inflicted, it is provided that a candidate, or his election agent, who violates those rules shall be guilty of an illegal practice;[ : ] and that if a candidate is guilty, personally or by his agents, of an illegal practice (from the consequences of which he has not been relieved as heretofore described) he shall lose his seat, and cannot be elected by the same constituency during the life of that parliament.[ : ] [sidenote: the election agent.] it is one thing to make elaborate regulations about election expenses, and it is quite a different thing to insure their observance. the device adopted for this purpose in england is that of requiring each candidate to appoint an election agent, who is responsible for the disbursements. except for the personal expenses of the candidate, to an amount not exceeding one hundred pounds, no payment of election expenses can be made by the candidate, or by any person on his behalf, except through the election agent,[ : ] and no contract for any such expenses is valid unless made by him.[ : ] within thirty-five days after the election the agent must give to the returning officer an account of all his payments, and of all sums that he has received from the candidate or any one else, for the purposes of the campaign; and the candidate must certify that the account is true to the best of his knowledge and belief.[ : ] the class of person selected for this duty is not only a matter of great importance to the candidate, but upon it depends also in large measure the purity of elections. a candidate may act as his own election agent, but this is rarely done. usually, though by no means invariably, he takes the paid secretary of the local political association, who has the advantage of knowing the constituency better than any one else; and the practical manual for parliamentary elections, issued by the conservative party, advises that course.[ : ] rogers, on the other hand, in his work on elections,[ : ] warns candidates that it is unwise to select such persons, because "when this is done attempts are frequently made to saddle the candidate with responsibility for the acts of the association and its members." "a further danger," he remarks, "arises in such cases of the election expenses being confused with or concealed under registration or other expenses of the association." with the modern organisation of parties a confusion of that kind is liable to occur in any event; and perhaps it is not so much dreaded by candidates as the author of the text-book on elections might imply. in spite of any dangers that may lurk in the practice, it is not only common, but apparently growing; and in fact the occupation of a paid secretary and agent has developed into a profession whose characteristics will be discussed in the chapters on party organisations. [sidenote: the election court.] formerly the validity of elections was decided by the house of commons itself, with the natural consequence that politics were a large factor in the result. to such an extent was this true that the fall of sir robert walpole was brought about by a hostile vote on an election case. in the matter was placed by statute in the hands of select committees of the house; but that did not put an end to political bias, and finally in , the trial of election petitions, whether filed on the ground of a miscount, or of corrupt or illegal practices, was committed to a judicial body. the tribunal now consists of two judges of the king's bench division of the high court of justice, selected by the other judges of that division.[ : ] a defeated candidate, or any voter, may present to the court a petition stating the grounds on which he claims that the election is invalid, and the case is then tried, witnesses are examined, and costs are awarded, according to the usual course of judicial proceedings. the decision takes the form of a report to the speaker of the house of commons, but it is really a final judgment upon the questions involved, for if the court finds that corrupt or illegal practices have taken place, the report has the effect not merely of avoiding the election, but of subjecting the candidate, and any guilty persons, to the political incapacities which those practices entail.[ : ] [sidenote: results of the corrupt practices act.] [sidenote: reduction of expense.] so far as the reduction of the cost of elections is concerned, the english method of dealing with the subject has certainly been successful. according to the returns laid before parliament, the total aggregate expenses incurred by candidates throughout the united kingdom at the general election of --the last that took place before the corrupt practices act of --was £ , , ; at the next election in it fell to £ , , , and on every subsequent occasion it has been less than that. in it was £ , , which is not far from the average in these days. the expense of english elections is, however, far from small to-day. in the average cost for the united kingdom in constituencies that were not uncontested was four shillings and four pence, for every vote cast.[ : ] [sidenote: returns of expenses sometimes incomplete.] moreover the returns undoubtedly do not in every case include all that is spent. a recent series of letters to _the times_, under the title "the worries of a parliamentary representative," throws light on this subject.[ : ] it opened with a letter from the member for a welsh borough complaining that about a month after he had signed the return of his election expenses he received a note from his agent in regard to claims by workers at the election; that upon his refusal to pay any such claims in violation of the corrupt practices act the agent wrote asking whether he would or would not fulfil the obligations made on his behalf during the election. his continued refusal, the member declared, had made him unpopular with many of his former supporters, who were now trying to prevent his renomination. in answer to this charge the agent, in a letter to _the times_, explained that all he had meant was that the member "should find some way--legal, of course--of expressing his gratitude to men who had worked splendidly in his cause;" and he added that this way had eventually been found, its name being "undoubted distress." in his reply in _the times_ the member denied that his relief of distress in the constituency had any relation to the election, or was a mode of expressing gratitude to men who had worked for him. it would be rash to assert that indirect means of rewarding party workers are not often found; and in fact another election agent stated in a letter to _the times_[ : ] in the course of the foregoing controversy, that promises of such a nature, made in behalf of the candidate, were unfortunately too common. [sidenote: ease of evasion.] [sidenote: difficult to prove agency;] apart from occasional acts involving direct violations of the corrupt practices act by the candidate himself, the statute has holes through which others can pass so readily that an election agent has been known to speak of the return of expenses as largely a farce. in fact the elaborate provisions of the law can easily be evaded if the candidate and his agent have a mind to do so. if they only keep their eyes shut tight enough, and are sufficiently ignorant of what goes on, it is very difficult to connect them with corrupt or illegal practices in such a way as to avoid the election.[ : ] an agent from another constituency may pay the railway fares of out-voters. the primrose league, or some other body, may give picnics, teas and what not, which would be corrupt treating if done by the candidate, but for which he is not held responsible. the brewers may furnish free beer in public houses where voters are collected before going to the polls, and yet the candidate has done nothing to forfeit his seat. nor is this an imaginary danger; for, with the introduction of what is known as the tied-house system, the publicans have come under the control of the great brewing establishments, which have to-day a huge stake in the results of parliamentary elections. agency, in short, is a very difficult thing to establish in such cases. as rogers, who devotes a whole chapter to the subject, remarks: "it is to conceal agency, and so to relieve the candidate from the consequences of corruption practised on his behalf, that efforts of unscrupulous men engaged in the conduct of an election have been generally directed, and it is not too much to say that an election inquiry has been more frequently baffled from a failure in the proof of agency than from all other causes put together."[ : ] [sidenote: or know when election period begins.] then there is the uncertainty when the election period begins, and hence what payments must be included in the return of election expenses. the act of defines a candidate, unless the context otherwise requires, as one who is nominated or declared to be such on or after the issue of the writ or the dissolution or vacancy in consequence of which it is issued.[ : ] but clearly this does not mean that a corrupt act committed earlier will not avoid the election. on the contrary it is settled by repeated decisions that a man may become a candidate, and his election expenses may begin, before that date;[ : ] although it is impossible to lay down any hard and fast limit of time.[ : ] a great deal must depend on the nature of the expense itself. registration, for example, is something entirely distinct from the election, and the cost of registration, whenever incurred, need not be included in the return of expenses.[ : ] on the other hand proof of the actual purchase of a vote at any time would certainly cost the candidate his seat.[ : ] between these two extremes there are a great many acts whose character is affected by the proximity of an election. a subscription to a local political organisation, made when the dissolution was impending, has been held to be a part of the election expenses,[ : ] when it would not be so under other circumstances;[ : ] and in the same way the question whether a gift of money or food to relieve distress in the constituency is or is not made with a corrupt purpose of influencing votes may depend upon the expectation of an election in the near future.[ : ] [sidenote: nursing constituencies.] as general elections in england come at irregular intervals, and at short notice, it is common to select candidates without regard to the prospect of a dissolution, sometimes years before it occurs; and in fact the sitting member, having a presumptive right to stand again, is regarded in the light of a permanent candidate. under these conditions it is the habit in most places for a candidate, who can afford it, to ingratiate himself with his constituents by subscribing liberally to public and charitable objects; and since a payment to be corrupt must be made for the purpose of influencing particular voters[ : ] subscriptions of this kind are not deemed corrupt; nor, unless given near the time of an election, are they election expenses or illegal payments.[ : ] the practice is called nursing a constituency, and it takes a great variety of forms, from a subscription for a cricket club to the founding of a hospital. the sums expended vary very much with the nature of the place and the wealth of the candidate, and no one knows how large they are in the aggregate, because men do not state publicly what they give in this way; but as far as one can form an opinion, it would appear that such gifts by a member of parliament commonly amount to a number of hundred pounds a year. it is obvious that the custom of nursing, combined with the uncertainty about the time when the election period begins, opens a door to abuse. [sidenote: difficulty in getting evidence.] another difficulty in a strict enforcement of the election laws is connected with the proof of the offence. a witness cannot, indeed, refuse to give evidence on the ground that it will incriminate him, for the law provides that he must testify; and if he tells the truth he is entitled to a certificate of indemnity, which protects him against prosecution.[ : ] but the facts that tend to establish bribery, for example, are directly known, as a rule, only to persons who have the strongest motives for concealing them; and the same thing is true to a greater or less extent of other breaches of the election law. it is clear, therefore, that if the offence must be proved by legally competent evidence beyond reasonable doubt, as in criminal cases, an election procured by improper means may well stand, just as many criminals escape punishment; and this brings us to another question, that of the efficiency of the election courts. [sidenote: merits of the election courts.] the system of sending petitions for trial to a couple of judges selected by the bench itself has provided a court as free as any human tribunal can be from the party bias that always affects the decisions of such questions by a legislative body. [sidenote: their defects.] [sidenote: expense of petitions.] but no institution is altogether without defects. a select committee on the subject of election petitions reported in that the grievances alleged to exist in the present system related to delay, to the expense involved, and to the lack of security for costs in favour of the successful party; and it recommended some changes in procedure to improve these matters.[ : ] the expense of an election trial is undoubtedly great--sometimes thousands of pounds--and since the charges are borne by the litigants, and a favourable judgment involves a fresh election, while the trial itself is likely to entail a certain amount of unpopularity, it is not surprising that a defeated candidate hesitates to file a petition. [sidenote: uncertainty of the result.] with all respect to the select committee of the house of commons, it would seem to a foreign observer that the defects it reported are not the only ones to be found in the existing system. the bringing of election petitions is discouraged not only by the cost involved, but also by uncertainty both in the result and in the grounds on which it will be based. a candidate may feel convinced that his defeat was due to corruption practised by his opponent, by the publicans, and by the local political organisation, and yet the court, finding some of these charges unproved, may think it unnecessary to inquire into others because much graver questions are decisive of the case; the graver matter being that, contrary to the provision forbidding "marks of distinction," the defendant's agent furnished his supporters with cards to wear in their hats.[ : ] where serious corrupt practices are charged, the election may be set aside on account of the payment of a railway fare to an out-voter.[ : ] and in a case where the facts stated by the court portrayed a bacchanalian orgy in the form of a drunken procession through the streets, headed by the candidate himself in a barouche, with some direct evidence that he offered free drink to the crowd, the judges found that there was no sufficient evidence of treating; but avoided the election on account of the payment of two shillings for conveying a voter to the polls.[ : ] [sidenote: attitude of the judges.] such results are thoroughly unsatisfactory for both parties; to the defeated party because he loses his seat; to the successful party because he does not want to have an election, which he believes to be vitiated by gross corruption, set aside on account of a trivial breach of the law. the main difficulty seems to lie in the attitude of mind of the judges. they require a degree of proof of corrupt intent, which is very proper in criminal cases, but which would seem to be out of place in an election petition. on a charge, for example, that an agent of the candidate, to whom pay was promised, had voted, it was held necessary to prove an actual express promise of payment, and not such an implied promise as would support a civil action.[ : ] so, also, where a candidate named lowles caused to be distributed among the poor, some time before an election, his own visiting cards exchangeable for food, and it was announced in a newspaper that gifts of food had been arranged by the unionist candidate, one of the judges said: "i cannot bring myself to believe in the circumstances of this case that the motive of mr. lowles in giving away the tickets, months before any election was imminent; was to influence voters."[ : ] nor is this an isolated instance. where soup and coal tickets were distributed largely at the expense of a candidate, who reminded voters, when the election came on some months later, that he had given away soup, the court said that "although . . . it would have been more prudent for the respondent had he kept aloof from the immediate distribution of the relief, we cannot infer, from the evidence before us, that his motive or conduct was corrupt."[ : ] the difficulty seems to lie to some extent in the fact that a report of corrupt or illegal practices by the court involves not only the setting aside of an election, but the same loss of political rights as would follow upon a conviction;[ : ] and, hence, the judges tend to require the kind of evidence that would support a criminal prosecution. moreover, they seem to find it incredible that a candidate for parliament can be guilty of the grosser kind of offences. one feels this very strongly in reading the opinions in election cases. [sidenote: how much corruption still exists.] if the present system of trying election petitions is not a complete success, it is nevertheless certain that the old electoral abuses have been very much reduced. there is a current impression both in england and elsewhere that the bribery of voters in great britain has been entirely rooted out. but any one familiar with english elections knows that this is by no means altogether true.[ : ] that the cases where gross corruption occurs are not made public by means of election petitions is due, partly to the reluctance to bring such petitions which has already been pointed out, and partly to the fact that where bribery is extensive both sides are usually guilty. bribery in england is disappearing. in by far the greater part of the constituencies it does not exist, and the elections are, on the whole, pure; but in a few places the old traditions still persist. these are mostly boroughs in the south of england containing a considerable number of ancient freemen, among whom corruption is sometimes widespread. the writer has heard the number of such places estimated by persons in a position to know the facts at a score or two dozen. the names of several of them are well known to every one who takes an active part in electoral work; but even in these boroughs the increase in the number of voters has lowered the price paid for votes, and in some of them the practice is slowly dying out. it is only fair to add that it does not receive any countenance or encouragement from the central authorities of the great political organisations. footnotes: [ : ] - vic., c. . [ : ] he must, within a day after receiving the writ in boroughs and two days in counties, give notice of the day of election. this must be not less than three days in boroughs, or four in counties, after the notice is given; and must be in boroughs within four days of the receipt of the writ, and counties within nine days. if, on the day fixed for nomination, the election is contested, he must appoint for the polling a date falling within the next three days in boroughs, and not less than two nor more than six days distant in counties. [ : ] "in one only of the three kingdoms the ballot helped to make a truly vital difference; it dislodged the political power of the irish landlord. in england its influence made for purity, freedom, and decency, but it developed no new sources of liberal strength." morley, "gladstone," ii., . but the ballot is also said to have slowly strengthened the liberal party in english rural districts by shielding the agricultural labourer. [ : ] - vic., c. , §§ , . rogers, ii., . [ : ] - vic., c. . [ : ] com. papers, , xxxviii.-xlv. [ : ] com. papers, , xliii., xlv., and schedules to these reports. [ : ] - vic., c. . [ : ] _ibid._, § . [ : ] - vic., c. , §§ , . [ : ] hexham div., o'm. & h., , at . after the general election of a member was unseated on this ground. bodmin div., o'm. & h., . [ : ] - vic., c. , § . [ : ] _ibid._, § . [ : ] rogers, ii., - . [ : ] so. meath & no. meath, o'm. & h., , . [ : ] - vic., c. , § . [ : ] - vic., c. , § . [ : ] _ibid._, § . [ : ] in the return of election expenses the candidate and his agent must declare that to the best of their knowledge or belief no person, club, society, or association has made any payment in respect to the conduct of the election. _ibid._, sched. . but this merely requires them to take care to be ignorant of any such payment. [ : ] cockermouth div., o'm. & h., . st. george's div., o'm. & h., , at - . in the first of these cases the treating was done by a liberal unionist association; in the second by an irish unionist alliance. [ : ] lancaster div., o'm. & h., , at - . [ : ] walsall, o'm. & h., , per pollock b, at . [ : ] _ibid._ [ : ] rogers, ii., , , - , . [ : ] a false statement in the return of election expenses, if made knowingly, is a corrupt and not illegal practice. - vic., c. , § ( ). [ : ] here, again, there is an exception; for relief may be given in the case of treating or undue influence committed by an agent, other than the election agent, if trivial in itself, and if the candidate and his election agent did not connive at it, but took all reasonable means to prevent corrupt and illegal practices. - vic., c. , § . [ : ] _ibid._, § [ : ] - vic., c. , § . [ : ] - vic., c. , §§ , . [ : ] and in counties a sub-agent for each polling station. [ : ] - vic., c. , § . [ : ] _ibid._, § and sched. i., part ( ). [ : ] rogers, ii., , , . [ : ] in counties one central committee room, and in each polling district one committee room for every five hundred voters. [ : ] - vic., c. , § . [ : ] - vic., c. ; - vic., c. . [ : ] com. papers, , lix., , p. . [ : ] - vic., c. , sched. i., part iv. [ : ] in ireland the limit both for boroughs and counties is somewhat lower. [ : ] - vic., c. , § . [ : ] if the offence was committed with his knowledge and consent, the incapacity continues seven years. _ibid._, § . [ : ] _ibid._, §§ , . [ : ] _ibid._, § . [ : ] _ibid._, § and sched. ii. [ : ] ed. ( ), . [ : ] ii., - . [ : ] - vic., c. ; - vic., c. ; - vic., c. , § . [ : ] - vic., c. , §§ , , . [ : ] com. papers, , lix., , p. . [ : ] july , , , . [ : ] july , . [ : ] see the cases already cited in the discussion of agency. [ : ] rogers, ii., . in a case at the general election of , where bribery was proved, the election was upheld because the judges disagreed on the question of agency. great yarmouth, o'm. & h., . [ : ] - vic., c. , § . [ : ] rogers, ii., - . [ : ] counties of elgin and nairn, o'm. & h., . [ : ] rogers, ii., . [ : ] _ibid._, , . [ : ] lichfield div., o'm. & h., , at - . [ : ] counties of elgin & nairn, o'm. & h., . [ : ] _cf._ lichfield div., o'm. & h., ; haggerston div., _ibid._, , at - , st. george's div., _ibid._, . so of treating, great yarmouth, _ibid._, , at . [ : ] hastings, o'm. & h., , at . [ : ] subscriptions _bona fide_ made for public or charitable purposes are not election expenses, rogers, ii., - . but it is not easy to say what is _bona fides_; for gifts of this kind by a candidate for parliament who has no other connection with the constituency must always be made, in part at least, for the sake of indirectly gaining votes by increasing his popularity. [ : ] - vic., c. , § . [ : ] com. papers, , ix., . [ : ] walsall, o'm. & h., , at . [ : ] pontefract, o'm. & h., . [ : ] southampton, o'm. & h., . [ : ] lichfield div., o'm. & h., , at - . [ : ] haggerston div., o'm. & h., , at . [ : ] st. george's div., o'm. & h., , at . [ : ] - vic., c. , §§ , . [ : ] after the general election of one member was unseated for bribery by his agents. worcester, o'm. & h., . chapter xi the house of commons _disqualifications, privilege, sessions_ [sidenote: disqualifications for parliament.] no property qualification is now required for sitting in the house of commons, and any male british subject may be elected, who is not specially debarred.[ : ] infants are excluded both at common law, and by statute, although this rule has been disregarded in several notable instances, the best known cases being those of charles james fox and lord john russell who entered parliament before they came of age. incurable insanity was a disqualification at common law, and so by statute is confinement in a lunatic hospital. but it would seem that a temporary lunatic, if at large, is not incompetent to sit and vote. peers are also excluded; and this is true even of those scotch peers who, not having been chosen among the sixteen representatives of the peerage of scotland, have no right to sit in the house of lords. there is one exception, however, to the rule that peers are ineligible to the house of commons, for a peer of ireland, who is not selected to represent that kingdom in the house of lords, may sit for any county or borough in great britain, but not for an irish constituency. the rule excluding peers is sometimes a hardship on a rising young man transferred by the death of his father from the active battlefield of politics in the house of commons to the dignified seclusion of the house of lords. but it has had, on the other hand, some effect in preventing the house of commons from absorbing all the political life of the country, and has thus helped to maintain the vitality of the house of lords. among the peers there have always been men of great national authority who would have preferred to sit in the other house. it is safe to say that in the year two of the statesmen who possessed the greatest influence with the people--lord salisbury and lord rosebery--would have been in the house of commons had it not been for the rule excluding peers. the clergy of the roman catholic church and the church of england, and ministers of the church of scotland, are disqualified by statute;[ : ] but these provisions do not include dissenting ministers; and it may be added that at the present day a clergyman of the church of england may by unfrocking himself remove his disqualification.[ : ] as in most other countries, there are in england rules disqualifying persons who, by assuming certain relations with the government, or by misconduct, have rendered themselves unfit to serve; such are government contractors, and holders of pensions not granted for civil or diplomatic services; bankrupts,[ : ] and persons convicted of treason or of felony, or guilty of corrupt practices. [sidenote: office-holders.] the exclusion of permanent officials has already been discussed; and it will be remembered that by the compromise effected in the reign of queen anne the holders of certain specified offices, or of any offices created after oct. , , are absolutely disqualified; while a member accepting any other office from the crown loses his seat, but can be reëlected.[ : ] it will be remembered, also, that by later statutes or by custom all holders of civil offices not distinctly political are now excluded from the house of commons; and so are the judges of the higher courts, and most of those in the lower ones. now the offices held by ministers are either old offices within the meaning of the act of anne, and therefore compatible with a seat in parliament, or new offices that have been taken out of the rule by special statutes passed usually when the office was created. this is not, indeed, universally true; for by special provision of statute only four of the five secretaries of state, and four of their under-secretaries, can sit in the house of commons at one time. with that limitation every minister is capable of sitting; but on his appointment he loses his seat, and must go back to his constituents for a new election. the last rule, however, like every other, has its exceptions. the under-secretaries of state occupy _old_ offices, but as they do not accept them _from_ the crown they are not obliged to undergo a fresh election on their appointment; and they are not, in fact, in the habit of doing so.[ : ] the same privilege has been extended by statute to the financial secretary of the war office. there is, indeed, no self-evident reason to-day why it should not be extended to all the ministers. the original fear of influence on the part of the crown no longer applies; and the only important effect of the rule is that if a new cabinet comes into power when parliament is in session, all business there has to be suspended while the ministers are seeking reëlection. a number of attempts have been made to do away with the rule, and they have been supported by very eminent statesmen, but they have been constantly defeated, mainly on the ground that a constituency, having elected a man while he was in an independent position, has a right to reconsider its choice when he assumes the burden of public office.[ : ] such reasoning is characteristic of english political life. it either proves nothing or it proves too much, for if it is sound, the same principle applies with quite as much force to the under-secretaries, and with a great deal more force to the speaker. this objection to a change was avoided, while a part of the practical inconvenience was removed, by a provision in the reform act of that a person who has been elected to parliament since he became a minister shall not vacate his seat on account of accepting a different office in the ministry.[ : ] [sidenote: extinct disqualifications.] formerly there were a number of other qualifications and disqualifications that have now been swept away, such as the requirement of ownership of land, and of residence in the constituency,[ : ] and the provision for oaths and declarations intended mainly to exclude roman catholics. it is curious that after the disabilities of the roman catholics were removed in the oath continued to be an impediment to the admission of jews and atheists, although it had never been aimed at them. in each case the law was changed, but only after the matter had been brought somewhat violently to the attention of the house. the last religious impediment was taken away in at the conclusion of the unseemly wrangle with mr. bradlaugh. [sidenote: resignation.] a disqualification not only prevents a person from sitting in the house, but is also the only way in which he can voluntarily get out of it. a man cannot resign his seat, and hence the regular method of accomplishing the same result is the acceptance of a disqualifying office. two or three sinecures are retained for that purpose, the best known being the stewardship of the chiltern hundreds, a position which the member desiring to leave parliament applies for, accepts, and immediately gives up. the place is, in fact, not an office, but an exit. it may be added that the house has power, for reasons satisfactory to itself, to declare a seat vacant, and to expel a member. [sidenote: privileges of the house.] [sidenote: freedom from arrest.] it is unnecessary to say much here about the privileges of the house of commons. most of them are matters of historical rather than present political significance. at the opening of each new parliament, the speaker, after being confirmed by the crown, demands the ancient and undoubted rights and privileges of the commons, the most important of which are freedom from arrest and liberty of speech. the freedom from arrest, which is enjoyed by members during the session and forty days before and after it, does not protect a member from the consequences of any indictable offence, or of contempt of court; nor in civil actions does it now prevent any process against him except arrest. [sidenote: liberty of speech.] freedom of speech was not acquired without a long struggle; but since the bill of rights of it has been a settled principle that "the freedom of speech, and debates or proceedings in parliament, ought not to be impeached or questioned in any court or place out of parliament." a man cannot, therefore, be prosecuted criminally, or made civilly responsible, for anything he has said in the house; although the house itself may punish what it deems an abuse of the forms of debate. [sidenote: publication of debates.] curiously enough the privilege of free speech in the house does not necessarily include the right to publish that speech outside. this matter has had an eventful history. until about one hundred years ago the house attempted to prevent the report of its debates in the public press, and in the course of the struggle became entangled in the memorable controversy with wilkes. the question has never been dealt with by legislation, and it is still assumed that the house might declare the publication of its debates a breach of privilege, and put a stop to it. but the struggle came to an end because the house changed its mind. instead of objecting to the publication of the debates it came, in time, to desire it; and whereas it had attempted earlier to keep out reporters, it now strove to protect them. the privilege of free speech covered only words uttered in the house and matter printed for circulation among the members alone. it did not extend to the printing of a speech, or to documents intended for general distribution even though issued by order of the house itself; and in its later attempt to insist upon its right of publication, as in its earlier effort to insist upon its right to prevent publication, the house came into conflict with the judiciary. in the case of stockdale _v_. hansard[ : ] the queen's bench held that a publisher might be liable in damages to a person injured by defamatory matter contained in a report made to the house of commons, although the printing was ordered by the house itself. the question was then set at rest by a statute[ : ] providing that publication by order of either house should be a defence to any civil or criminal proceedings. but this has no effect upon the newspapers, and although a fair account of a debate published in the ordinary course of reporting is not in itself libellous, even if it contain defamatory matter, yet a faithful report of a speech published with a malicious intent is still libellous, and it is never safe to go to a jury on a question of intent. if the attitude of the house of commons toward the publication of its debates has changed entirely, it is because its relation to the public has undergone a complete transformation. every member of parliament to-day is seeking for the approbation of his constituents, and far from dreading publication of what he says in the house, his effort is rather to attract attention to himself by the reports in the local press of his remarks in parliament. moreover, the house as a whole depends more than ever upon popular support; and one may find a striking illustration of the way the same thing produces different political effects under different conditions by observing that while the cabinet would lose authority if its discussions were not secret, parliament would suffer if its debates were not public. [sidenote: privilege in the courts of law.] sir william anson remarks that "the privileges of parliament, like the prerogative of the crown, are rights conferred by law, and as such their limits are ascertainable and determinable, like the limits of other rights, by the courts of law."[ : ] this principle has not always been accepted by the house, which has on several occasions come into collision with the courts; but the latter have always maintained, and maintained successfully, that when a question involving a privilege of the house comes before them for decision, it is their duty to ascertain whether the privilege exists or not, and to determine its effect upon the case before them. they have further maintained that they must decide the question for themselves, and that a claim to the privilege on the part of the house is not conclusive. in one respect the authority of the courts is incomplete; for the house has a right to order a man committed to prison for contempt, and the question what constitutes a contempt is so far within the discretion of the house that the court will not order the prisoner set at liberty on _habeas corpus_ where the return to the writ simply states that he is committed for contempt by order of the house. referring to this subject, professor dicey says: "the powers exercised by the houses, and especially in practice by the house of commons, make a near approach to an authority above that of the ordinary law of the land."[ : ] such a power, however, is exceedingly unlikely to be used in any dissension with the courts to-day; and if it were used, the courts would be almost certain to win, because the commitment by the house terminates with the session. [sidenote: summons and dissolution.] there remain to be considered only the methods of calling parliament together, and of putting an end to its labours. parliament can be summoned and dissolved, and its sessions can be opened and closed by the crown alone, the only legal restraint upon the arbitrary power of the sovereign in the matter being the act of william and mary, which provides that a new parliament shall be summoned within three years after a dissolution.[ : ] this statute is now, of course, unnecessary; and, in fact, the same proclamation which dissolves one parliament always announces the issue of writs for the election of another. if parliament is not dissolved by the crown, its term expires at the end of the seven years prescribed by the septennial act of ; but, as a matter of fact, parliament never dies a natural death, and if its life is not cut off earlier, a dissolution takes place shortly before the end of the seven years. until the death of a sovereign always wrought a dissolution of parliament; but this rule, which depended more on ancient theory than on modern convenience, was abolished by the reform act of that year. [sidenote: prorogation and adjournment.] [sidenote: effect on unfinished business.] while a session can be brought to a close only by prorogation, either house may adjourn for any period at its pleasure, subject only to the right of the crown to terminate an adjournment of more than fourteen days. although a prorogation is made by the crown, and adjournment by the house itself, practically both are virtually in the hands of the ministry to-day, and the really important difference between them is that a prorogation terminates all unfinished business, while an adjournment does not. for that reason a government which has business that it cannot put through during the regular session, and does not want to abandon, will sometimes resort to an adjournment instead of a prorogation. this was done, for example, in in order to complete the stages of the education bill in the autumn, and again in chiefly in order that the house of lords might consider the pending government measures. the wisdom of the rule that the close of the session puts an end to all measures that have not finished their course in both houses is not so clear in the case of parliament, as in that of legislative bodies where a vast number of measures are brought in by irresponsible members. in such bodies the rule may result in killing a great many bills that had better die, but in parliament this is far less true. almost all important legislation relating to public affairs is now introduced by the ministers; and every year measures to which both they and the house have devoted much time and thought are killed by the close of the session. a day comes when the leader of the house arises and states what bills he is obliged by lack of time to drop, a process commonly known as the slaughter of the innocents. the necessity would seem to be unfortunate. in fact the house of commons spends so much time in debating each bill that it gets through its work slowly; and whereas many other popular chambers are reproached with legislating too much, parliament is accused of legislating too little. moreover the house of commons suffers less from an excess of the easy good nature, which, in america at least, is the parent of many ill-considered and unwise laws; yet the present rule does act as a serious check upon the persistent member with a mission, and perhaps it kills off, on the whole, more bad bills than good ones. [sidenote: suspending private bills.] there is, however, a class of measures on which the rule, if carried out strictly, would have a distinctly injurious effect. these are the private bills--a term applied to projects which relate to private or local interests, such as bills for the extension of a railway, or for authority to supply water, gas, tramways and the like. legislation of that kind is, as we shall see, conducted in parliament by a semi-judicial process, and as it is highly expensive for both sides, it would be unreasonable that the closing of the session, for reasons quite unconnected with these matters, should oblige the promoters and objectors to incur the cost of beginning proceedings all over again. in practice this seldom happens, for in the few cases where such a bill cannot be completed before the end of the session it is usually suspended by a special order providing that the stages it has already passed shall be formally taken at the opening of the next session, so that the bill really begins its progress again at the point it had already reached. when, as in , parliament comes to an untimely end in the midst of a session, a general provision of this kind is made suspending all unfinished private bills, and thus a great deal of unnecessary hardship is avoided. footnotes: [ : ] in a couple of instances natives of india have been elected. [ : ] the question was raised in in the famous case of horne tooke, and set at rest for the future by an act of that year: geo. iii., c. . the provision in regard to the roman catholic clergy was made in : geo. iv., c. , § . [ : ] - vic., c. . [ : ] a cause that disqualifies will not always unseat. for the latter purpose bankruptcy and lunacy must have continued six months. rogers, ii., , . [ : ] anne, c. , §§ , . referred to in the revised statutes as anne, c. . [ : ] statement by the attorney general, hans. ser., clxxiv., - . [ : ] todd, "parl. govt. in england," ed., ii., - . [ : ] - vic., c. , § , and sched. h. [ : ] this became obsolete by long-continued disregard. it is said to be the only case of a statute which is deemed to have been annulled by "contrarius usus." it was afterwards expressly repealed by statute. rogers, ii., . [ : ] a. & e., . [ : ] - vic., c. . [ : ] "law and custom of the constitution," i., . [ : ] "law of the constitution," ed., , note. [ : ] anson, i., - . chapter xii procedure in the house of commons _the house, its rules and officers_ [sidenote: small number of seats.] to the traveller who cares for history, either of the past or in the making, there is no place more interesting than the long sombre building with a tower at each end, that borders the thames just above westminster bridge. apart from occasional meetings at other places during the middle ages, the mother of parliaments has sat close to this spot for more than six hundred years. except for old westminster hall, almost the whole of the present structure was, indeed, built after the fire of . yet if it contains little that is really venerable, save memories, the smoke of london has given to the gothic panelling of the outer walls the dignity of apparent age. the interior has a more modern air, for it is not only well planned with a view to its present use, but in some parts it expresses with peculiar fitness the purposes it serves. from opposite sides of the large central lobby corridors lead to the two houses, but the hall of the lords seems designed for ornament, that of the commons for doing work. the house of commons is seventy-five feet long by forty-five feet wide and forty-one feet high, panelled in dark oak, and lit by long stained glass windows and sky-lights in the ceiling. from the main entrance a broad aisle runs the whole length of the chamber, with the clerks' table filling nearly the whole upper end of it, and beyond this a raised chair for the speaker with a canopy over his head. facing the aisle on each side long rows of high-backed benches, covered with dark green leather, slope upward tier above tier to the walls of the room; and through them, at right angles to the aisle, a narrow passage, known as the gangway, cuts across the house. there is also a gallery running all around the room, the part of it facing the speaker being given up to strangers, while the front rows at the opposite end belong to the reporters, and behind them there stands, before a still higher gallery, a heavy screen, like those erected in turkish mosques to conceal the presence of women, and used here for the same purpose. the structure and arrangement of a legislative chamber are not without influence upon the mode of transacting business. the whole number of seats in the house of commons is far from large, not large enough for all the members. the two side galleries are reserved for them, but they are very narrow, containing only a little more than one hundred seats apiece, and although they are occupied on very crowded nights, they are practically useless for any one who intends to take part in debate. a small portion of the space under the strangers' gallery is also appropriated for visitors, and the rest of the floor contains only three hundred and sixty seats, enough for little more than one half of the six hundred and seventy members of the house. during the greater part of the time even those seats are not filled, for they are adapted only for the transaction of the business of the house. they are merely benches with no means for writing. if a member wants to carry on his correspondence, he goes to the library, or to one of the other rooms near by. in the house he can only speak, listen, and applaud. [sidenote: attendance often small.] on a great occasion, like the introduction by mr. gladstone of his first home rule bill, every seat in the house is taken. at the opening of an ordinary sitting, also, while questions to the ministers are asked and answered, and at a time when the leaders of the two great parties are speaking about a measure of general interest, most of the seats on the floor are occupied; but as soon as the lesser lights arise the members begin to drop off, going to the lobby, the library, the smoking-room, the dining-room, or the terrace. nor is it always the lesser lights alone that speak to nearly empty benches, or rather to the reporters' gallery. the writer well remembers, on the first occasion when he saw the house, now more than twenty years ago, that sir william harcourt, then home secretary, made a speech an hour and three quarters long upon a bill which he had brought in to reform the government of london, and that, during a great part of the time, the only persons present besides the officers of the house, were the lord mayor, the chairman of the metropolitan board of works, and a casual who sat on one of the upper benches behind the minister. this is the smallest number of members the writer has ever beheld in the house, but to see only a score or two on the benches is by no means unusual. many more, however, although not within ear-shot, are potentially present. forty members constitute a quorum, but if any one suggests that they are not there, electric bells are rung all over the building, summoning the members into the house, a two-minute sand-glass is turned, and the members are not counted until it has run out. the same process takes place whenever a division--that is a vote by count--is challenged. [sidenote: effect of this on debates.] the small size of the chamber makes it easy to hear an ordinary tone of voice; and this, coupled with the still smaller attendance, discourages flights of oratory or popular eloquence, and gives to the debates a businesslike and almost conversational character. moreover, the very fact that members do not stay in the house if not interested in what is being said, prevents the distracting hum of conversation which is sometimes annoying in other representative bodies. all this makes the spectator feel that the members are present for public business and nothing else. except for occasional scenes enacted for the most part by the irish members, the proceedings are orderly, and respect for the dignity of the house, and the authority of the chair, are almost universal. [sidenote: the arrangement of seats.] even the arrangement of seats in the house is not without its bearing upon political life; and although a small matter, it affords another illustration of the principle that an institution which, instead of being deliberately planned, is evolved slowly, will develop in harmony with its environment, or force its environment into harmony with itself. the front bench at the upper end of the aisle, close at the right hand of the speaker, is called the treasury bench, and is reserved for the ministers; the corresponding bench on the other side being occupied by the former ministers of the party now in opposition. behind these two benches sit for the most part men whose fidelity to their respective parties is undoubted, members whose allegiance is less absolute generally preferring seats below the gangway on either side. of course, on a crowded night members cannot always find seats that express their exact sentiments. still, the arrangement is fairly well preserved, especially in the case of prominent men, with whom it is sometimes a matter of no little consideration.[ : ] any group that desires to emphasise its freedom from regular party control always sits below the gangway. the fourth party, for example, sat in below the gangway on the opposition side, the labour party has sat there since the election of , and the same position is occupied by the irish nationalists under every ministry; while the liberal unionists at the time of their breach with mr. gladstone over his first home rule bill took up their seats below the gangway on the government side. the house at a great debate resembles a martial array, with the leaders face to face in the van, supported by their troops in ranks behind them. the minister leans over the table, and points in indignation or in scorn at the "honourable gentlemen opposite." all this expresses the idea of party government, and lends a dramatic effect to parliamentary warfare. [sidenote: mode of treating the subject of procedure.] nowhere in the whole range of british institutions does the interaction of law and custom baffle any attempt at logical description so much as in the case of procedure in parliament. the cabinet, which is becoming more and more exclusively the motive force in all important legislative action, is not, indeed, so completely unknown to the rules of the house as it is to the statute-book; and yet a study of the rules alone would give but a faint idea of the authority of the treasury bench. on the other hand, it is impossible to understand how the government is attacked, and how it carries through its plans, unless one is familiar with the rules themselves. at the present day the discussions connected with appropriations, for example, turn little on financial questions, and are used mainly as an opportunity for criticising administrative conduct; but to understand how this is done, and to what extent the government has sought to limit the practice, a knowledge of the process of granting supply is essential. the actual working of the house of commons involves three problems: first, the regular forms of procedure; second, the action of the cabinet and of private members, operating subject to those forms; and third, the methods by which the cabinet maintains a control over its own supporters, and through them over the house itself. to deal with these three matters together would involve so much confusion, that it has seemed better to take up one of them at a time. this chapter and the two succeeding ones are, therefore, devoted solely to the organisation of the house and the forms of procedure on public matters, the relation of the government to the work of the house being described in the chapters that follow, while the machinery for keeping the majority compact and under the lead of the treasury bench will be dealt with at a later stage under the head of "party organisation in parliament." legislation for private and local objects, which has had a peculiar and instructive development, is treated in a chapter by itself. [sidenote: the method of voting.] [sidenote: a division.] before describing the organisation and procedure of the house it may be well to explain the method of voting, because frequent reference must be made to it, and the terms are technical. after stating the question to be voted upon, the speaker, or the chairman, calls in the ordinary way for the ayes and noes. according to the apparent preponderance of voices he then says, "i think the ayes (or noes) have it." if no objection is raised, he adds a moment later, "the ayes (or noes) have it," and the vote is so recorded. if, on the other hand, any of the minority doubt the result, or wish the numbers and names recorded, they cry out contrary to the speaker, "the noes (or ayes) have it." whereupon the speaker directs strangers to withdraw (except from the places reserved for them), the division bells are rung all over the building, the two-minute sand-glass is turned, and when it has run the doors are locked, and the question and vote are repeated in the same way.[ : ] if the speaker's opinion of the result is again challenged--and this is almost always done--he orders a division of the house, that is, he directs the ayes to go to the right, the noes to the left; and he appoints two tellers from each side, one of each pair to count the ayes, and the other the noes, in order to check one another. the ayes then go into the lobby that runs parallel to the house on the speaker's right, the noes into that on his left; and until every member in the house, except the speaker, was obliged to go into one lobby or the other, unless he was physically disabled, when his vote might be counted in the house.[ : ] the tellers, standing at the door of each lobby, count the members as they pass between them in returning to the house, while clerks at tables in the lobbies take down their names. ever since , when the method of taking a division assumed its present form, the names of members voting on each side have been printed and preserved, although curiously enough these division lists are not included among the parliamentary papers. the process may seem a clumsy way of counting votes, but under the system in force until it took, on the average, only twenty minutes, and under the new system, whereby the recording of names begins when the sand-glass is turned, it takes not much more than half as long. this is less time than would be consumed by a roll-call, and the system has been found so satisfactory that it was adopted by the house of lords. until recently a division was the only means, apart from an oral vote, of taking the sense of the house; and any one member could force a division by challenging the result of an oral vote, or rather any two members could do so, for a division cannot take place unless two tellers can be found for each side. in , however, as a part of the movement to prevent obstruction and waste of time, the speaker or chairman was empowered, if he thinks a division frivolously or vexatiously claimed, to call upon the ayes and noes to rise in their places. he can then count them, and declare the result;[ : ] but this is in fact rarely done. the names of the men selected as tellers indicate the political nature of the vote. if the government intend to treat the question, i will not say as one of confidence, (for there are cases of secondary importance where a ministry may be beaten without feeling that they have lost the confidence of the house and must resign), but if they intend to treat it as one where an adverse vote is a defeat for them, if they desire to rally their followers to vote solidly upon it, then the government whips are appointed tellers. if in the same way the opposition want to treat it as a party question, their whips are appointed tellers upon the other side. but if on one side or the other this is not the case, private members who have made or seconded the motion or taken an active part in debate are selected by the chair as tellers, and if so any member may, without disloyalty to his party, vote according to his own unaided convictions. [sidenote: standing and sessional orders.] like other legislative bodies the house of commons has printed rules, and the most important of these, the standing orders, are published every year among the parliamentary papers. but the standing orders are by no means a code of procedure, for they cover only a fraction, and so far as they relate to public business a small fraction, of the subject.[ : ] the procedure rests essentially upon custom, to be gathered in part from precedents and the rulings of speakers, in part from unrecorded tradition known by personal experience. many standing orders have, in fact, been adopted from time to time in order to modify or forbid an existing practice, and hence their effect is mainly negative. no particular formality is required for the adoption of these rules, but in , when extensive changes were made, the proposals were read several times, and were, in fact, submitted to a procedure similar to that for the enactment of a bill.[ : ] [sidenote: standing orders endure from one parliament to another.] the standing orders differ from the rules of legislative bodies in some other countries in two important respects. in the first place they do not have to be adopted afresh by each new house of commons, but once established they continue in force from parliament to parliament until repealed. there are, indeed, sessional orders which require to be renewed at the beginning of each session, and sometimes a new rule after proving its utility in this way is given the permanent form of a standing order. orders or resolutions without any fixed duration are also adopted at times. these expire upon prorogation, but it sometimes happens that without being formally revived they continue to be observed as a part of customary practice of the house.[ : ] [sidenote: they can be suspended by a simple vote.] the second peculiarity of the standing orders lies in the fact that they can be suspended by a simple majority vote. notice of a motion for that purpose is usually required and given, but it may be dispensed with; and it is not even necessary to refer in the motion to the standing orders at all. any order or resolution, inconsistent with their terms, has, if adopted, the effect of suspending them,[ : ] and the house is, in fact, constantly adopting special orders which change the course of procedure as prescribed by the standing orders or the customary practice. this has often been done when the government has needed to take, for its own measures, part of the time allotted to private members, or has wanted to extend the sitting beyond the usual hour. many of these cases are now provided for by the new rules adopted in ; but the most effective form of cutting short debate, the process known as the "guillotine," although now regulated by standing order in the case of supply,[ : ] is still applied in the case of all other bills solely by a special order of the house adopted for a particular bill on the motion of a minister. [sidenote: tendency of changes in the standing orders.] most of the changes in the standing orders made during the last fifty years have been aimed at preserving order, or preventing waste of time, or altering the distribution of time.[ : ] those of the first class, such as the provisions authorising the suspension of a member for disorder, arose from the conduct of the irish members, and may be regarded as an accident unconnected with the normal evolution of the parliamentary system. this is not true of the rules designed to prevent waste of time; for although the provisions to cut off debate grew out of irish obstruction, the subsequent history of closure has shown that some process of this kind was certain to come sooner or later in the natural course of things, and that the irish merely hastened it.[ : ] [sidenote: efforts to save time.] the changes made in order to save time are commonly attributed to the increase in the amount of business the house is called upon to despatch, and if in that business be included the enlarged control of the house over administrative detail by means of questions and otherwise, this is undoubtedly true, but so far as legislation is concerned, it would be more accurate to attribute the changes to the fact that it requires more time to transact business than it did formerly. there are a far larger number of members who want to interrogate and criticise the ministers, and to take part in debate. the pages of hansard are more numerous in proportion to those of the statute-book. now the old procedure was very elaborate. in the passage of an ordinary public bill through the house there were, apart from amendments, more than a score of different steps, upon each of which debate might take place, and a division might be claimed. then motions to adjourn, and other dilatory tactics could be used indefinitely. moreover, the general rule that amendments and debate must be relevant to the question before the house[ : ] was subject to wide exceptions, if, indeed, there could be said to be any such general rule at all. the debate upon a dilatory motion, for example, was not limited to the motion itself;[ : ] and every time a motion was made to go into committee of the whole on supply, any grievance could be brought forward and discussed.[ : ] all this was unimportant so long as the battles between the parties were confined to occasional full-dress debates, and the rest of the time was devoted to the real work of legislation. but when systematic obstruction arose, and when without any intent to obstruct it became the recognised business of the opposition to oppose, and in the case of measures that aroused strong party feeling to oppose at every step, the opportunities for doing so were too numerous to endure. some of the steps in the enactment of a bill, such as engrossment,[ : ] passage,[ : ] and first and second reading in the committee of the whole,[ : ] have been discontinued altogether. others, such as taking up the consideration of a bill,[ : ] or going into committee of the whole on a bill,[ : ] or bringing up a report from committee of the whole,[ : ] are taken as a matter of course without question put. in other cases again the question is put, but no debate is allowed.[ : ] with the same object debate upon a dilatory motion has been limited to the subject-matter of the motion, and the speaker or chairman has been empowered to forbid debate upon it, or even to refuse to put the question at all, if he considers the motion an abuse of the rules of the house.[ : ] the opportunities for criticising the government both in going into committee of supply, and by other means, have also been limited in various ways, and above all the system of cutting short debate by means of closure has been brought of late years to a condition of great efficiency. these matters, and the distribution of time between the government and private members will be considered more fully hereafter, and it is only necessary to remark now that the tendencies noted are permanent, because although a party while in opposition may object to changes in the rules that enhance the control of the government over the conduct and time of the house, it finds itself compelled to maintain them when it comes into office. the tendencies are, in fact, the natural result of the more and more exclusive responsibility of the ministry for all public action, legislative as well as executive. [sidenote: the speaker.] the commons are always summoned to the bar in the house of lords to hear any formal communication from the crown, and when after a general election they meet on the day appointed, they are summoned there to hear the formal opening of the new parliament. they are then desired in the name of the sovereign to choose a speaker, and retire to their chamber for the purpose. as soon as he has been chosen, the mace is placed on the table before him, as a symbol of his authority and a token that the commons are sitting as a house. but he is still only speaker-elect, until the next day, when, followed by the commons, he again presents himself at the bar of the lords, announces his election, and asks for the royal confirmation, which is now, of course, never refused. [sidenote: his election.] if only one person is nominated for speaker, he is called to the chair without a vote. if more than one, they are voted upon successively, a majority being required for election.[ : ] the proposer and seconder are always private members, for it is considered more fitting that the ministers should not be prominent in the matter.[ : ] the speaker is, however, always selected by the government of the day, and a new speaker is always taken from the ranks of the party in power. sometimes the election is not uncontested, and this happened when mr. gully was chosen in . but although the speaker may have been opposed when first chosen, and although he is elected only for the duration of the parliament, it has now become the invariable habit to reëlect him so long as he is willing to serve. the last cases where a speaker's reëlection was opposed occurred in and , and on the second of those occasions he was defeated. the principle is well illustrated by the career of mr. gully. he was elected by a small majority, during the last few months of a moribund liberal cabinet. his selection had not pleased the conservatives, and he was warned that they held themselves at liberty not to reëlect him if they came to power in the next parliament. contrary to the ordinary rule his constituency was contested at the next general election, but although the conservatives obtained a large majority in the new parliament, he was returned to the chair without opposition. [sidenote: his powers over debate.] the speaker is purely a presiding officer. he has nothing to do with appointing any committees, or guiding the house in its work. he is not a leader but an umpire, otherwise he could not remain in the chair through changes of party. as an umpire, however, his powers are very great, and in some cases under the modern changes in the standing orders they are autocratic. he decides, for example, whether a motion to closure debate may be put, or whether it is an infringement of the rights of the minority;[ : ] he can refuse to entertain a dilatory motion if he considers it an abuse of the rules of the house;[ : ] and he can stop the speech of a member who "persists in irrelevance, or tedious repetition."[ : ] moreover, from his decision on those matters, or on any points of order, there is no appeal.[ : ] the house can suspend or change its own rules by a simple majority vote, but it cannot in a concrete case override the speaker's construction of them.[ : ] this is a general principle of english parliamentary law, which is applied in almost all public bodies.[ : ] it may render a conscientious man more careful in his rulings, but it certainly places in his hands enormous power. [sidenote: his power to preserve order.] familiarity with representative bodies seems to breed contempt, for the last half century has been marked by an increase of disorderly scenes in the legislatures of many countries. in england such things were brought about by the growth of the irish home rule party, which regarded the government of ireland by the british parliament as unjust on principle, and oppressive in fact; and which, to say the least, was not distressed by loss of dignity on the part of the house of commons. in the speaker was given the power to repress disorder, now embodied, with subsequent modifications, in standing order . he can name a member who disregards his authority or obstructs business, and then a motion is in order, to be decided at once without amendment or debate, to suspend that member.[ : ] when the standing orders were revised in they contained a clause prescribing the duration of the suspension for the first and subsequent offences, but this was struck out during the discussion, and a suspension is now indeterminate. it is obvious that to a party, in a hopeless minority, which denies the authority of parliament, a disorderly scene followed by a suspension, and an opportunity to go home and make stirring speeches, may not be an undesirable form of protest. apart from occasional outbursts chiefly, though not exclusively, on the part of the irish members, a stranger in the gallery is much impressed by the respect paid to the speaker, and by his moral control over the house.[ : ] his emoluments are in proportion to the dignity of his position. he enjoys a salary of five thousand pounds a year, with an official residence in the houses of parliament and other perquisites; and although standing aloof from political leadership, he is regarded as the first commoner of the realm. he is, indeed, on the threshold of the house of lords, for it has been the habit of late years to make him a peer when he retires. [sidenote: he votes only in case of a tie.] [sidenote: the chairman of committees.] as late as the speaker occasionally took part in debate, when the house was in committee of the whole where he does not preside;[ : ] but it would now be thought inconsistent with his position of absolute impartiality to speak or vote in committee. he therefore never votes unless he is obliged to do so by a tie occurring when he is in the chair. it is commonly said that he always gives his casting vote in such cases so as to keep the question open; but this is not strictly true. when, however, his vote involves a final decision, he bases it, not upon his personal opinion of the merits of the measure, but upon the probable intention of the house as shown by its previous action, or upon some general constitutional principle;[ : ] and it may be added that the chairman of a committee of the whole, when called upon to break a tie, follows the same practice.[ : ] the chair in committee of the whole is regularly taken by the chairman of the committee of ways and means--commonly called for that reason the chairman of committees--who, like the speaker, withdraws, on his appointment, from political contests, speaking and voting in the house nowadays only on questions relating to private bills. he is nominated at the beginning of the parliament by the ministry, from among their prominent supporters, and retires from the position when they resign. considering that his duties consist in presiding, like the speaker, with strict impartiality, and in a purely non-partisan supervision of private bill legislation, it is somewhat strange that he should go in and out of office with the cabinet, but in fact one hears no criticism of his conduct on that score, largely, no doubt, because he always takes the speaker as his model. since he has acted as deputy speaker, when the speaker is unavoidably absent,[ : ] and in order to prevent any possible inconvenience from the absence of both of these officers from the house, or of the chairman of ways and means from the committee of the whole, provision was made in for the election of a deputy chairman who can fill the vacant place.[ : ] [sidenote: other officers of the house.] the only other officers of the house that need be mentioned here are the sergeant-at-arms, who acts as the executive officer and chief of police of the house under the direction of the speaker; the clerk of the house; and the counsel to mr. speaker, who is a legal adviser, and has important duties in connection with private bill legislation. it is a curious survival that the sergeant-at-arms,[ : ] and the clerk of the house with his chief assistants,[ : ] are appointed by the crown, and hold office permanently. their work is, of course, of a non-partisan character, and they do not always belong to the party of the ministry that appoints them. sir courtenay ilbert, for example, the present clerk of the house, although a liberal, was appointed by the conservative government, and not by way of promotion in the service of the house, for he was at the time parliamentary counsel to the treasury. footnotes: [ : ] the question where the peelites should sit in was much discussed among themselves. morley, "life of gladstone," i., - . [ : ] standing orders - , com. papers, , lxii., . under the new rule adopted in the speaker orders the lobby to be cleared, and the members begin to pass through it at once. [ : ] to refuse to do so has been treated as such a disregard of the authority of the chair as will justify suspending the member. may, "parl. practice," ed., . on march , , twelve irish nationalists, who refused to go into the lobby because they had had no chance to speak when the closure was moved on a vote on account, were suspended; hans. ser. xc., - ; and on aug. , , the welsh members refused to vote as a protest against the use of closure on the education (local authorities defaults) bill. after they had persisted so far that the chairman reported the matter to the house, they consented to withdraw altogether, and no further steps were taken against them. hans. ser. cxxxix., - . [ : ] s.o. . [ : ] the standing orders relating to private business are much more elaborate and come far nearer to a code of procedure. [ : ] this had not been the practice earlier; but the discussion of changes in the standing orders has sometimes been very long. in the new rules, which dealt with closure, the suspension of disorderly members and the creation of standing committees, were debated for thirty-three days. on the other hand, a change was made in on the motion of a private member, at a single sitting. hans. ser. xcii., - . in the changes were referred to a select committee and then each of them adopted on a motion by the government. hans. ser. clv., _et seq._ [ : ] may, . [ : ] _ibid._, . [ : ] s.o. . [ : ] in his excellent _recht und technik des englischen parlamentarismus_--the only systematic history of procedure in the house of commons--dr. redlich dwells on two tendencies in the evolution of the standing orders since . one of these consists in giving to the ministry an ever greater control over the time, and hence over the activity, of the house; the other in keeping the house more and more strictly to its prearranged order of business for the day. now the manifestations of this last tendency, which he makes very clear, can also be classed as changes made to save time or to arrange the distribution of time. whether in the form of forbidding motions to vary the prescribed order of business, or to confine amendments and debate to matters relevant to the main question, or to exclude dilatory motions and others that open an indefinite field for discussion, they have the effect either of preventing waste of time by debating trivial questions or matters that the house does not care to take up, or of preventing the use for some other purpose of time allotted to the government or to a private member. since this was written dr. redlich's book has happily been translated into english, but as the english edition has not yet been received the references to the german edition are left unchanged. [ : ] this is also dr. redlich's opinion, _recht und technik_, . [ : ] may, . [ : ] _ibid._, . [ : ] _ibid._, . [ : ] _ibid._, . [ : ] _ibid._, - . [ : ] s.o. . [ : ] s.o. . [ : ] s.o. , . [ : ] s.o. . [ : ] _e.g._ s.o. ( ), , , , . [ : ] s.o. , . [ : ] may, . [ : ] _cf. ibid._, , note . [ : ] s.o. . [ : ] s.o. . [ : ] s.o. . [ : ] but the speaker himself may submit a question to the judgment of the house. may, . [ : ] the action of the speaker can be brought before the house only by a motion made at another time after due notice, but this is, of course, almost useless for the purpose of reversing the ruling complained of: hans. ser. cclviii., , . on the occasion when speaker brand made this ruling he intimated that a member making on the spot a motion to disagree with it would be guilty of disregarding the authority of the chair, and liable to suspension under the standing orders. _ibid._, . [ : ] the lord chancellor has far less power as presiding officer of the house of lords. may, , , , . [ : ] s.o. . if a member who is suspended refuses to leave the house, the speaker may, on his own authority, suspend him for the remainder of the session. _ibid._ [ : ] in the provision, common in continental legislatures, which authorises the speaker to suspend the sitting, in case of grave disorder, was embodied in s.o. . this has been used only once, on may , , when the opposition, thinking it was the duty of the prime minister to give an immediate explanation, refused with great disorder to hear another member of the government. (hans. ser. cxlvi., - .) one may hope that it will rarely be necessary to apply this undignified process of taking off the lid to allow the tea-pot to cool down. [ : ] may, - . [ : ] may, - . [ : ] may, - . [ : ] may, ; s.o. (formerly s.o. ). [ : ] s.o. ( ). by s.o. ( ), the speaker nominates a panel of not more than five members to act as temporary chairmen of committees, but this would seem to have been rendered less necessary by the new provision for a deputy chairman. [ : ] may, . [ : ] may, . chapter xiii procedure in the house of commons _committees and public bills_ [sidenote: the committees.] no great representative assembly at the present day can do all its work in full meeting. it has neither the time, the patience nor the knowledge required. its sittings ought not to be frittered away in discussing proposals that have no chance of success; while measures that are to be brought before the whole body ought to be threshed out beforehand, their provisions carefully weighed and put into precise language, objections, if possible, met by concession and compromise, or brought to a sharp difference of principle. in short, they ought to be put into such a shape that the assembly is only called upon to decide a small number of perfectly definite questions. to enable it to do so intelligently it may be necessary also to collect information about doubtful facts. modern assemblies have sought to accomplish these results mainly by committees of some kind; and in england where the parliamentary form of government has reached a higher development than anywhere else, the chief instrument for the purpose is that informal joint committee of the houses, known as the cabinet. but unless parliament were to be very nearly reduced to the rôle of criticising the ministers, and answering yes or no to a series of questions propounded by them, it must do a part of its work through other committees. the reasons why those committees have not become--as in some other european nations that have adopted the system of a responsible ministry--dangerous rivals of the cabinet, at times frustrating its objects and undermining its authority, will be discussed in the chapters on the relation between the cabinet and the house of commons. we must consider here their organisation and duties. [sidenote: the committee of the whole.] the most important committee, the committee of the whole, is not in this sense a committee at all. it is simply the house itself acting under special forms of procedure; the chief differences being that the chairman of committees presides, and that the rule of the house forbidding a member to speak more than once on the same question does not apply. but the fact that a member can speak more than once makes it a real convenience for the purpose for which it is chiefly used, that is, the consideration of measures in detail, such as the discussion and amendment of the separate clauses of a bill, or the debates upon different items of appropriations. the committee of the whole has had a long history.[ : ] it is called by different names according to the subject-matter with which it deals. for ordinary bills it is called simply the committee of the whole. when engaged upon appropriations it is called committee of the whole on supply, or in common parlance the committee of supply. when providing money to meet the appropriations it is called the committee of ways and means; and when reviewing the revenue accounts of india it is named from that subject. the committees of the whole called by these names are so far distinct that each of them can deal only with its own affairs, and the house must go into committee again in order to take up any other matter. but the simple committee of the whole can take up one bill after another which has been referred to it without reporting to the house and being reconstituted.[ : ] [sidenote: select committees.] of the real committees the most numerous are the select committees. their normal size is fifteen members, although they are often smaller, and occasionally, by special leave of the house,[ : ] they are somewhat larger. they may be nominated from the floor, and elected by the house,[ : ] or chosen by ballot; but in order to avoid loss of time, and to secure impartiality, the appointment of a part, at least, of the members is usually intrusted to the committee of selection. [sidenote: committee of selection.] some of the select committees are appointed regularly every year, and are therefore known as sessional committees. one of these, the committee of selection, has already been mentioned. it has been enlarged from time to time, and now consists of eleven members, chosen by the house itself at the beginning of the session.[ : ] the members are, in fact, designated by an understanding between the leaders of the two great parties in the house. but the object is to create an impartial body, and so far is this object attained that in the memoir of sir john mowbray, who was its chairman continuously for thirty-two years, we are told that divisions in the committee are rare, and never on party lines.[ : ] its duties, so far as public business is concerned, consist in appointing members of select and standing committees. it appoints also the committees on all private and local bills, and divides those bills among them.[ : ] this is, indeed, the primary object of its existence, but, together with a description of the various committees employed in private bill legislation, it must be postponed to a later chapter. it may, however, save confusion in the mind of a reader unfamiliar with parliamentary practice to insist here upon the distinction between a private member's bill and a private bill. the former is a bill of a public nature introduced by a private member, whereas a private bill is one dealing only with a matter of private, personal, or local interest. [sidenote: other sessional committees.] the remaining sessional committees are the committee on public accounts,[ : ] which goes through the report of the auditor and comptroller general, considers in detail objections to the legality of any expenditures by the public departments, examines witnesses thereon, and reports to the house; the committee on public petitions, appointed to inspect the numerous petitions presented to the house;[ : ] and the committee on the kitchen and refreshment rooms, which has importance for the members of the house, though not for the general public.[ : ] [sidenote: other select committees.] [sidenote: their object.] the other select committees are created to consider some special matter that is referred to them, either a bill, or a subject upon which the house wishes to institute an inquiry.[ : ] in either case the chief object of the committee is to obtain and sift information. even where a particular bill is referred to it the primary object is not to take the place of debate in the house, and in fact by the present practice a select committee saves no step in procedure, a bill when reported by it going to the committee of the whole for discussion in detail, precisely as if no select committee had been appointed.[ : ] select committees are the organs, and the only organs, of the house for collecting evidence and examining witnesses;[ : ] and hence they are commonly given power to send for persons, papers and records. they summon before them people whose testimony they wish to obtain; but although a man of prominence, or a recognised authority on the subject, would, no doubt, be summoned at his own request, there is nothing in their procedure in the least corresponding to the public hearings customary throughout the united states, where anybody is at liberty to attend and express his views--a practice that deserves far more attention than it has yet received. [sidenote: their procedure.] in select committees the procedure follows as closely as possible that of a committee of the whole;[ : ] but they choose their own chairman, who has no vote except in case of a tie. they keep minutes, not only of their own proceedings, but also of all evidence taken before them; and these, together with the report of their conclusions, are laid before the house,[ : ] and published among the parliamentary papers of the session. strictly speaking, a minority report is unknown to english parliamentary usage, although the habit of placing upon select committees representatives of the various groups of opinion in the house makes a disagreement about the report very common. practically, however, the minority attain the same object by moving a substitute for the report prepared by the majority, and as the standing orders provide that every division in a select committee must be entered upon its minutes,[ : ] the substitute with the names of those who voted for it, are submitted to the house, and have the effect of a minority report. the fact that men with all shades of opinions sit upon these committees, and have an opportunity to examine the witnesses, lifts their reports, and still more the evidence they collect, above the plane of mere party documents, and gives them a far greater permanent value. many committees are not directly concerned with legislation, that is, with a bill actually pending, but only with inquiry into some grievance, some alleged defect in the law or in administration, yet their reports often lay the foundation for future statutes; and, indeed, a large part of the legislative or administrative reforms carried out by one or both of the great parties in the state, have been based upon the reports of select committees or royal commissions. [sidenote: joint committees.] from obvious motives of convenience joint select committees from the lords and commons have been occasionally appointed,[ : ] but owing to the different standing of the two houses they are used chiefly for private bills, and for regulating the intercourse between the two bodies.[ : ] the principal exceptions of late years have been the joint committees on statute law revision bills and on the subject of municipal trading. [sidenote: standing or grand committees.] as the pressure for time in the house of commons grew more intense, select committees that collected information were not enough. something was needed that would save debate in the house, and for this purpose resolutions were adopted on dec. , , for setting up two large committees on bills relating to law and to trade, whose deliberations should take the place of debate in the committee of the whole. such committees were at first an experiment, tried for a couple of sessions, but in they were revived by standing orders, and made permanent organs of the house.[ : ] as distinguished from select committees, which expire when they have made a report upon the special matters committed to their charge, they were made standing bodies, lasting throughout the session, and considering all the bills from time to time referred to them; one of them being created to deal with bills relating to law, courts of justice, and legal procedure; the other with those relating to trade, shipping, manufactures, agriculture, and fishing. they consist of not less than sixty nor more than eighty members of the house, appointed by the committee of selection, which has power to discharge members and substitute others during the course of the session. in order to secure the presence of persons who may throw light on any particular bill, the same committee can also appoint not more than fifteen additional members for the consideration of that bill. [sidenote: their procedure.] a peculiar provision was made for the designation of the chairman. at the beginning of each session the committee of selection appoints a chairman's panel of not less than four nor more than six members, and this body selects from among its members the chairmen of the standing committees[ : ]--a device intended to secure continuity of traditions and experience in the presiding officer. for the rest, the standing orders prescribed that the procedure in standing committees should be the same as in select committees;[ : ] but it would be more accurate to say, as may does,[ : ] that their proceedings were assimilated, as far as possible, to those of a committee of the whole house, for they were created to do precisely the same work.[ : ] they were to collect no evidence, examine no witnesses, but simply to debate the clauses of the bill in detail, being in fact a substitute for the committee of the whole; that step in the procedure upon a bill being entirely omitted when a bill goes to a standing committee. for this reason they are miniatures of the house itself, representing all the parties there in proportion to their numbers. they are samples that stand for the complete house, and like the committee of the whole they do not report their opinions, but report the bills referred to them with or without amendments. in one respect only does their position differ materially from that of a committee of the whole. if the committee of the whole makes any amendments in a bill, they can be considered again, and further amendments can be made, upon the report stage. but if it makes no amendments, there is no report stage. this was equally true of the standing committees, so that if they did not amend a bill referred to them, the house never had an opportunity to do so, but must pass or reject the bill as first introduced; and, in fact, standing committees have been charged with refraining from minor changes in order to prevent amendments, which might hinder or delay the passage of the bill, from being proposed in the house itself.[ : ] this raised so much objection that in the standing orders were changed so as to require a report stage in the house on all bills from standing committees whether amended or not.[ : ] [sidenote: kind of bills referred to them.] the standing committees were designed primarily to deal with a technical class of bills, where the discussion of details would not be of general interest.[ : ] for reasons that will be described hereafter, it has been recognised that the bills referred to them ought to be of a non-contentious nature, that contentious measures, which arouse strong party feelings, are not suited for their consideration. this is the general principle, not always observed in practice, and there is sometimes a sharp difference of opinion upon the question whether a particular bill is contentious or not. [sidenote: their utility.] within their limits the utility of the standing committees in legislation cannot be doubted. on the average about one seventh of the public bills enacted year by year have passed through their hands, and the proportion has shown a slight tendency to increase.[ : ] moreover, the pressure for time in the house of commons has become so great that a bill has a better chance of getting through if referred to a standing committee than if it has to undergo the ordeal of a long debate in committee of the whole. every year the government is obliged by lack of time to drop something like one third of the bills it has introduced, but those of its bills that are referred to the standing committees rarely fail to be enacted. in the case of bills brought in by private members the contrast is even more striking; for while scarcely one tenth of all such bills become law, more than one half of those among them fortunate enough to reach a standing committee are enacted.[ : ] in fact these committees furnish by far the best chance of passing private members' bills through the house of commons.[ : ] [sidenote: standing committee for scotland.] when the two great committees were revived in , motions were made to create others to consider bills relating to scotland and wales. the motions were all rejected at the time; but in the liberal government took the matter up in the case of scotland, and in that year and the next carried resolutions establishing such a committee for the session. it consisted of all the members for scotch constituencies, seventy-two in number, and of fifteen or twenty others appointed by the committee of selection. on each occasion the plan was vigorously opposed,[ : ] the chief objections being; that it tended toward legislative dismemberment of the united kingdom; that such a committee would not, like the other standing committees, reflect fairly the proportion of the parties in the house, because two thirds of the scotch members were liberals;[ : ] and that the bills referred to it would not be exclusively of a non-contentious nature. when the conservatives came to power they quietly dropped this committee. even had they felt no other reason for doing so, it would, no doubt, have been enough that, in spite of considerable losses at the general election of , the liberals were still in a majority among the scotch members. the creation of such a body illustrates, however, the exceptional position of scotland in the british parliament; and any one who has followed a debate on an ordinary scotch bill, and observed how largely it is confined to scotch members, will realise that practically the resolution of did little more than sanction formally by means of a standing committee the kind of discussion that habitually takes place in the committee of the whole. [sidenote: the four standing committees of .] with a view to enlarging the legislative capacity of parliament a select committee on procedure in the house of commons reported on may , , in favour of increasing the number of standing committees from two to four, and making the reference of bills to them the normal, instead of an exceptional, proceeding. in pursuance of this recommendation the house on april , , changed standing orders , , and [ : ] so that there should be four standing committees, one of which is in effect the former scotch committee, while the other three are to consider any bills that may be referred to them, and not as heretofore only those relating to law or to trade.[ : ] all bills, except money bills and bills for confirming provisional orders, are to be referred to one of the standing committees, unless the house otherwise order on a motion to be decided without amendment or debate; and the bills are to be distributed among the committees by the speaker. the object of the change was to give a better chance of enactment for measures which there is not time to debate in committee of the whole; and the provision that the house may vote not to send a bill to a standing committee was designed chiefly for the great party measures of the government which must always be debated in the house itself. the new procedure has not been in operation long enough to judge of its effects, but something will be said of its relation to the parliamentary form of government in the chapter on the "cabinet's control of the commons." [sidenote: the procedure on public bills.] the steps through which an ordinary public bill must still pass are very numerous, but while formerly a debate and division might take place at each of them, of late years the opportunity for this--and practically the number of steps--has been much reduced by causing some of them to be taken as a matter of course without a vote, and by permitting no debate on others. this is well illustrated at the outset of a bill's career, where, indeed, an old complex procedure and a later and simpler one continue to exist side by side. [sidenote: introduction and first reading.] a bill may be introduced in one of three ways. a motion may be made for an order for leave to bring it in, accompanied by a speech explaining its objects, and followed by a debate and vote. this was formerly the only method, and debates lasting over several days have occurred at this stage.[ : ] amendments might be moved hostile to the provisions of the bill. in fact the adoption of such an amendment to a militia bill caused the fall of lord john russell's ministry in . now only important government bills are introduced in that way; for by a standing order adopted in a motion to bring in a bill may be made at the commencement of public business, and after brief explanatory statements by the mover and one opponent the speaker may put the question.[ : ] from the length of time taken by the speeches this is known as the ten-minute rule. after an order to bring in a bill has been obtained in either of these ways, the question that the bill be read a first time is voted upon without amendment or debate.[ : ] finally, in , a still more expeditious process was established. it permits a member to present his bill, which is read a first time without any order or vote of the house whatever.[ : ] [sidenote: second reading.] the next step, and, except on great party measures, the first occasion for a debate, is the second reading. this is the proper stage for a discussion of the general principles of the bill, not of its details, and amendments to the several clauses are not in order. the methods of opposing the second reading are somewhat technical. the form of the question is "that this bill be _now_ read a second time"; and a negative vote does not kill the bill, because it does not prevent a motion to read it being made on a subsequent day.[ : ] in order to shelve the bill without forcing a direct vote upon it, the habit formerly prevailed of moving the previous question;[ : ] but this was open to the same objection, and had, in fact, the effect of the american practice of moving to lay the bill upon the table. a similar difficulty arises when an amendment is moved stating some special reason for not reading the bill. it may express the sense of the house, but it does not necessarily dispose of the measure. of late years, therefore, it has been customary to move that the bill be read this day six months, or three months, the date being such as to fall beyond the end of the session. on the general principle that a question which the house has decided cannot be raised again, such a vote kills the bill. nor does it make any difference that the house happens to be sitting at the end of six months, for that date is treated as a sort of greek calends that never comes.[ : ] [sidenote: committee of the whole.] after the second reading a bill, until , went normally to the committee of the whole, with or without instructions,[ : ] and now it goes there if the house so decides. when the order of the day for the committee of the whole is reached the speaker leaves the chair, and the house goes into committee without question put.[ : ] this is the stage for consideration of the bill in detail, and the clauses are taken up one after another, the amendments to each clause being disposed of in their order. then new clauses may be proposed, and finally the bill is reported back to the house. [sidenote: reference to a select committee] [sidenote: or standing committee.] normally a bill goes either to the committee of the whole or to a standing committee, but after it has been read a second time a motion may be made to refer it to a select committee. such a reference simply adds a step to the journey of the bill, for when reported it goes to a standing committee or to the committee of the whole. a standing committee, on the other hand, is, as already explained, a substitute for the committee of the whole. it deals with the bill in precisely the same way, reporting it back to the house amended or unchanged. [sidenote: report.] when a bill has been reported from the committee of the whole with amendments,[ : ] and when it has been reported from a standing committee whether amended or not,[ : ] it is considered by the house in detail, upon what is known as the report stage. the object is to give the house an opportunity to review the work done in committee, and see whether it wishes to maintain the amendments there adopted. but the house is not restricted to confirming or reversing the changes made in the bill, and although the process of going through the measure clause by clause is not repeated, fresh amendments may be proposed and new clauses added.[ : ] if the bill is reported from a committee of the whole without amendments, it is assumed that the details are satisfactory to the house, and there is no report stage. [sidenote: third reading.] the next, and now the last, stage of a bill in the house of commons is the third reading. like the second reading, this raises only the question whether or not the house approves of the measure as a whole, and the moves for compassing its defeat are the same. verbal amendments alone are in order, and any substantial alteration can be brought about only by moving to recommit. usually the several steps in the enactment of a bill are taken on different days,[ : ] but there is nothing in the rules of the house of commons to require this, and urgent measures have at times passed through all their stages in both houses in one day. the last case was that of the explosive substances bill passed in under the pressure of the dynamite scare.[ : ] [sidenote: lords' amendments.] when a bill passed by one house is amended by the other, it is sent back for the consideration of those amendments. if they are agreed to, the bill is ready for the royal assent. if not, the bill is returned, and a committee is appointed to frame a message to the other house, stating the reasons for disagreement.[ : ] the other house may, of course, waive its amendments, insist upon them or modify them, and the bill might thus, with new changes, go back and forth between the houses indefinitely. formerly it was the habit, when the houses failed to agree, to appoint managers to hold a conference, but this practice has fallen into disuse,[ : ] and in the case of government bills--almost all important bills to-day are government bills--negotiations are carried on between the ministers and the leading peers who oppose them. [sidenote: summary of the procedure.] leaving out of account the first reading, which rarely involves a real debate, the ordinary course of a public bill through the house of commons gives, therefore, an opportunity for two debates upon its general merits, and between them two discussions of its details, or one debate upon the details if that one results in no changes, or if the bill has been referred to a standing committee. when the house desires to collect evidence it does so after approving of the general principle, and before taking up the details. stated in this way the whole matter is plain and rational enough. it is, in fact, one of the many striking examples of adaptation in the english political system. a collection of rules that appear cumbrous and antiquated, and that even now are well-nigh incomprehensible when described in all their involved technicality, have been pruned away until they furnish a procedure almost as simple, direct and appropriate as any one could devise. many old forms remain, but they have been shorn of their meaning, and often amount to nothing but entries in the journal. even the first reading, which seems anomalous, has its use. a real debate at that stage occurs only in the case of great party measures, where both sides of the house want to be familiar with the scope of the bill, the objections that may be made to it, and the way it strikes the public, before the first effective debate upon its merits opens. the procedure upon money bills, which appears at first sight still more arbitrary, and complex, is perfectly rational also, and the differences from the method of passing ordinary measures arise from the nature of the case. there can be no doubt about the general principle of the annual appropriation bill. supplies must be voted to carry on the government, and the only questions arise over particular grants. hence there is no object in opening with a first or second reading, and the procedure begins in committee. but in order to understand how this works out one must again go back to the technical rules. footnotes: [ : ] _cf._ redlich, - . [ : ] s.o. . [ : ] _cf._ s.o. . [ : ] _cf._ s.o. - . [ : ] standing orders (relative to private business), . [ : ] "seventy years at westminster," _et seq._ [ : ] _ibid._, - . [ : ] s.o. . [ : ] s.o. - . [ : ] "at the commencement of every session an order is made 'that a committee of privileges be appointed,' but no members have been nominated to it since ." "manual of procedure of the house of commons," prepared in by sir courtenay ilbert, clerk of the house, § . there are also a couple of sessional committees whose work is wholly concerned with private bills and are described therewith. [ : ] the question often arises whether inquiry shall be conducted by a committee of the house, or by a commission appointed by the government. when the matter is distinctly political a committee of the house is the proper organ; but when the judgment of outside experts is needed the other alternative is obviously preferable, several members of parliament being often included in such cases. naturally enough, the ministry and the members chiefly interested in pushing an inquiry do not always agree about the matter. one instance of a dispute on this point has already been referred to--that in relation to the grievances of post office employees. another famous example occurred upon the charges made by _the times_ against parnell in connection with the forged pigott letters. [ : ] may, - . [ : ] the private bill committees to be described in a later chapter are select committees. [ : ] may, - , . [ : ] s.o. - , . [ : ] s.o. . [ : ] may, - . [ : ] redlich, . [ : ] s.o. - ; may, - . [ : ] s.o. . [ : ] s.o. . [ : ] may, . [ : ] as in the house itself, the attendance during debate is sometimes small. complaints are heard of this, and of the practice of fetching members in to take part in divisions. hans. ser. xcii., . the divisions, by the way, are taken by roll-call. [ : ] hans. ser. xcii., , . [ : ] s.o. . _cf._ hans. ser. xcii., - . [ : ] see the remarks of gladstone in proposing them in , hans. ser. cclxxv., - . [ : ] in the sixteen years from (when these committees were revived) through , public bills were enacted, of which passed through their hands. during the eight years from to , this was true of bills out of the enacted. [ : ] from to , of the government bills referred to a standing committee were enacted; from to , were so referred, and all but two of them were enacted. from to , out of private members' bills so referred were enacted; and from to , out of . _cf._ return in com. papers, , lxxxii., , and the annual returns for - . [ : ] _cf._ hans. ser. xcii., , . [ : ] _cf._ hans. ( ) ser. cccxxiii., _et seq._, _et seq._; ( ) ser. xxii., _et seq._, _et seq._; xxiii., _et seq._, _et seq._, _et seq._; ( ) xxxiii., _et seq._; xxxiv., _et seq._ [ : ] this objection was partially met by a provision in regard to the additional members. hans. ser. xxiii., ; xxxiv., . [ : ] _cf._ hans. ser. clxxii., pp. lxxix-lxxx. [ : ] a committee to which a bill relating exclusively to wales and monmouthshire is referred must comprise all the members from that part of the kingdom. in order to provide chairmen enough, the maximum of the chairmen's panel was raised from six to eight. [ : ] may, , note . [ : ] s.o. . [ : ] s.o. . this is also true when a bill is brought from the lords. [ : ] s.o. . [ : ] _cf._ hans. ser. clvii., . [ : ] until the form of the motion was "that that question be now put," and the mover voted in the negative; but after the closure was introduced with a motion in these same words, the previous question was changed, and put in the form "that that question not be now put." may, . if under either form the house decided in favour of putting the question, the vote upon the second reading was taken without further debate. may, _ibid._ but as the previous question was itself subject to a discussion which might cover the principles of the bill, it did not have the effect of cutting off debate. (_cf._ report of com. on business of the house. com. papers, , ix., , qs. - .) [ : ] may, . [ : ] by s.o. , committees of the whole are instructed to make such amendments, relevant to the bill, as they think fit. the object of a special instruction is merely to empower the committee to make amendments, within the general scope and framework of the bill, which it would not possess under the standing order. ilbert, "manual," §§ - . [ : ] s.o. . adopted in . [ : ] s.o. . [ : ] s.o. . [ : ] _cf._ s.o. - . unless a motion is made to recommit, the bill is considered on report, when reached, without question put. s.o. . [ : ] except that the third reading often follows immediately upon the report stage. may, . [ : ] may, . in the lords this requires a suspension of the rules. some kinds of bills are subject to special forms of procedure which it seems hardly necessary to mention. a bill for the restitution of honours begins in the lords, and in the commons is referred to a select committee which takes the place of a committee of the whole. a bill for a general pardon originates with the crown, and is read only once in each house. may, - . [ : ] may, ; ilbert, "manual," § . [ : ] may, - ; ilbert, § note. chapter xiv procedure in the house of commons _money bills and accounts_ the procedure in the case of financial measures differs in important respects from that followed in passing other bills. it will be remembered that, with some exceptions already described, all the national revenues are first paid into the consolidated fund, and then drawn out of it to meet the expenditures of the government. the financial work of parliament, like that of the administration, turns, therefore, upon the processes of getting money into and out of that fund. the second process comes first in the order of parliamentary business, and its nature is fixed by two standing orders, which date from the early years of the eighteenth century. one of them, adopted in , provides that the house will not proceed upon any petition or motion for granting money but in committee of the whole house;[ : ] the other, that it will not receive any petition, or proceed upon any motion, for a grant or charge upon the public revenue unless recommended from the crown.[ : ] [sidenote: the rule that appropriations require consent of the crown.] this last rule, first adopted by a resolution in , and made a standing order in ,[ : ] was designed to prevent improvident expenditure on private initiative. it has proved not only an invaluable protection to the treasury, but a bulwark for the authority of the ministry.[ : ] its importance has been so well recognised that it has been embodied in the fundamental laws of the self-governing colonies;[ : ] while some foreign countries, like france and italy, that have copied the forms of parliamentary government, without always perceiving the foundation on which they rest, have suffered not a little from its absence.[ : ] even in england the rule has been at times evaded. about the middle of the last century, it was the habit to bring in bills involving the expenditure of public funds, and avoid a violation of the rule by inserting a clause that the expenses incurred should be "defrayed out of moneys to be hereafter voted by parliament." but a vote in favour of such a bill was clearly an expression of opinion that well-nigh compelled the ministers to include the expense in their next estimates. this practice was stopped in by changing the standing order so as to provide that the house will not "proceed upon any motion for a grant or charge upon the public revenue, whether payable out of the consolidated fund, or out of moneys to be provided by parliament, unless recommended from the crown."[ : ] the change, however, does not absolutely prevent the house from forcing the hands of the government. a resolution can be passed in abstract and general terms in favour of a certain kind of expenditure, the construction of harbours of refuge, for example; or an address to the crown can be adopted asking for an expenditure, and promising "that this house will make good the same," a procedure followed in erecting statues on the death of great leaders of the house.[ : ] as late as mr. gladstone lamented the loss of financial control by the crown, complaining that, by addresses, resolutions, and even bills, the house pledged itself to expenditure for local claims or the interests of classes and individuals, and that the government was morally bound to redeem the pledges. this he thought was carried so far as to be a great public mischief.[ : ] whether such a statement was an exaggeration at that time or not, it would hardly be repeated now; for on the one hand the control of the cabinet over the house, and on the other the obstacles encountered by private members in passing measures, have increased so much that it is very difficult, without the help of the treasury bench, to get the house to adopt anything to which there is serious opposition. [sidenote: the rule prevents increase of the estimates.] although in terms the rule applies only to a motion for making a grant, it has been construed to cover any amendment for increasing a grant beyond the amount recommended from the crown,[ : ]--an extension certainly needed to protect both the treasury and the authority of the ministers. when, therefore, the minister moves that a sum of money be granted for a definite purpose, no amendment is in order either to increase that sum or to alter its destination.[ : ] but the rule does not forbid a reduction. it follows that if any member deems the sum named too small, his only course is to move to reduce it in order to draw attention to its insufficiency. reductions of one hundred pounds are, in fact, constantly moved to make an occasion for discussing some grievance connected with the service in question, and they afford a ready means of protest, free from peril to the treasury.[ : ] [sidenote: the rule is applied to taxes.] a still greater extension of the rule is made in its application to taxes; but this depends not upon the standing order, but upon a general constitutional principle which has gradually been evolved therefrom. the principle has, in fact, been expanded until it may be stated in the general form that no motion can be made to raise or expend national revenue without a recommendation from the crown, or to increase the sum asked for by the crown. the government has accordingly the exclusive right to propose fresh national taxation, whether in the form of new taxes or of higher rates for existing ones,[ : ] and no private member can move to augment the taxes so proposed.[ : ] he can, however, move to reduce them, and he is even free to bring in a bill to repeal or reduce taxes which the government has not proposed to touch.[ : ] moreover, as the principle merely forbids him to urge an increase of the burdens upon the people beyond the point at which they stand, or the point at which the ministers propose to place them, he can, when the government suggests a reduction of a tax, move an amendment to reduce it less,[ : ] and when the government brings in a plan for a revision of taxation, he can move to substitute a somewhat different tax for the one proposed, provided the amount of revenue yielded will not be greater.[ : ] but these rights are seldom used, and almost never with success; otherwise they would, no doubt, be found objectionable and swept away. the house of commons, at the present day, certainly stimulates extravagance, rather than economy; but this is done by opinions expressed in debate, not by specific proposals made by the members. it is done by criticising the administration, by complaints, for example, that the army and navy are insufficient for the defence of the empire. the result is a growth in the budgets prepared by the ministry; but this is a very different thing from expenditure directly caused by the irresponsible action of private members. the former is deliberate and reflects public opinion, the latter may originate in personal or local feelings, and then be adopted through heedless good nature or skilful log-rolling. [sidenote: committee of supply.] as grants of money can be taken up only in committee of the whole, and only on the recommendation of the crown,--that is, of a minister--the house resolves itself, early in the session, into committee of the whole on supply, to consider the estimates submitted by the government.[ : ] [sidenote: consolidated fund charges.] [sidenote: estimates for the supply services.] now it will be remembered that certain charges, such as the interest on the national debt, the royal civil list, and the salaries of the judges, are payable by statute out of the consolidated fund, and hence do not require an annual vote of parliament, or come before the committee of supply. the estimates for the rest of the expenditures for the coming year, known as the supply services, are divided into three parts, relating to the army, the navy, and the civil services. the last of the three is divided into classes, and all of them are divided into grants or votes, which are in turn subdivided into subheads and items. each grant is the subject of a separate vote in committee of supply, and amendments may be moved to omit or reduce any item therein. [sidenote: votes on account.] the english financial system aims at precision. it is deemed of great importance that the estimates should be as accurate as they can be made, and hence they must be prepared as short a time as possible before going into effect. they are made up in the several departments late in the autumn, then submitted for revision to the treasury, and laid before parliament shortly after it meets about the middle of february. but as the financial year begins on april , it is manifest that the committee of supply cannot finish its discussion of them by that time. with the work it must do in passing upon supplementary estimates for the current year, it can, in fact, make little progress with those of the coming year during march, and yet money must be spent, and there must be legal authority to spend it, especially as the unspent balances of appropriations lapse at the close of the financial year in which they are voted. the committee, therefore, passes votes on account to cover the time until the regular appropriations are made. the reader will, perhaps, recall the fact that in the military and naval services an excess on one grant may, with the approval of the treasury, be used to cover deficiencies on other grants, and hence it is the habit in the case of those services to vote in march the grant for the pay and wages of the men for the whole year, and use the money so obtained for all purposes until the appropriations have been completed. in the civil services, where this is not allowed, votes on account are passed for all the grants, large enough to carry on the government for four or five months. [sidenote: supplementary grants.] with the utmost effort at accuracy in the estimates they will always prove to be insufficient in some branch of the service, or an unexpected need for expenditure will arise; and to provide funds in such cases supplementary estimates must be presented and voted before the close of the financial year. [sidenote: excess grants.] there may also be other expenses outside the estimates, which have, by the authority vested in the treasury, been temporarily met by advances from the civil contingencies fund or the treasury chest fund, or from extra receipts of the department. these do not require an immediate appropriation; but they are reported to the committee on public accounts at the next regular session after the close of the financial year, and then presented to the committee of supply to be covered at once by an excess grant. before the end of march, therefore, the committee of supply must pass the supplementary grants for the year then coming to a close, the excess grants for the preceding year, the votes on account for the coming year, and make such progress as it can with the regular estimates for that year. [sidenote: consolidated fund acts.] but the committee merely passes and reports to the house resolutions in favour of those grants, and the money cannot be paid out of the consolidated fund without the authority of a statute. the next step is taken in the committee of the whole on ways and means, where on the motion of a minister another resolution is passed, that to make good the supply already voted, the sum required be granted out of the consolidated fund. this in turn must be reported to and confirmed by the house.[ : ] a bill called a consolidated fund bill is then brought in to give effect to the resolution. the bill, with the separate grants annexed in a schedule, goes through the ordinary stages; but the time spent upon it is short, because its only object being to authorise the issue of money to cover the supply already voted, no amendment can be moved to reduce the amount, or change the destination, of the grants.[ : ] [sidenote: the appropriation act.] the first consolidated fund act must be passed in time to receive the royal assent before april . one or two more follow from time to time as the committee of supply makes its way slowly through the estimates.[ : ] finally, after the whole supply for the year has been voted, the appropriation bill is brought in, which sums up and embodies all the grants for the services of the year, prescribes their application by means of the schedules annexed, and authorises their payment out of the consolidated fund. this is usually passed on the last day of the session. [sidenote: the budget.] so much for the process of getting money out of the consolidated fund. that of getting money into the fund goes on at the same time, but independently. it is usually early in april that the chancellor introduces his budget in the committee of ways and means. in an elaborate speech he reviews the finances of the past year, comparing the results with the estimates, and dealing with the state of trade and the national debt. he then refers to the estimates already submitted, and coming to the gist of his speech, and the part of it that is awaited with curiosity, he explains how he proposes to raise the revenue required to meet the expenditures. as he could have no right to take the floor without a motion before the house, he concludes by moving one or more of a series of resolutions containing the changes in taxation, or the continuation of temporary taxes, that he desires. about three quarters of the revenue is derived from permanent taxes, which are rarely changed, and require no action by parliament from year to year. but in order to adjust the income closely to expenses, certain taxes are voted for a year at a time, their rates being raised or lowered as may be required to balance the budget. for many years the only imposts so treated were the income tax and the duty on tea; one of them being regarded as a direct tax levied upon property, and the other as an indirect tax resting upon the mass of the people. recently, however, the duties on tobacco, beer and spirits, and the corresponding excises on beer and spirits, have been increased, and the additions so made have been voted from year to year. the budget speech of the chancellor of the exchequer is followed by a general discussion of the questions he has raised, and either at once, or on subsequent days, by debates and votes upon the resolutions he has brought in. the resolutions when adopted are reported to the house for ratification, but as in the case of supply, they have no legal effect until enacted in the form of a statute. perhaps it would be more correct to say that they have no legal validity; because in order to prevent large importations made to avoid a projected increase in a duty, it is customary to prescribe in the resolution a date near at hand when the tax shall take effect, and to collect it from that date if the resolution has been agreed to by the house on report. the collection is quite unauthorised by law at the time, but it is afterward ratified by a statute which fixes the same date for the operation of the tax; and this gives the transaction complete legal validity, because parliament has power to pass a retroactive law. if for any reason the provision for the tax fails of enactment, the duties that have been collected are, of course, refunded. [sidenote: the finance act.] it was formerly the habit to include in the fiscal resolutions based upon the budget, and in the act to give them effect, the annual and temporary taxes alone; the permanent taxes, and especially those imposed rather for economic reasons than for the purpose of revenue, being dealt with by special acts.[ : ] but the use of taxation for revenue only, and still more a quarrel with the house of lords, brought about a change of system. in the government determined to repeal the paper duties, which hindered the publication of cheap newspapers, and were decried as a tax on knowledge. the loss of revenue was taken into account in the financial plans of the year; but according to custom the repeal of the duties was contained in a separate bill by itself. the lords, after passing the act to give effect to the rest of the budget, rejected this bill. at the moment the commons could do nothing save express their opinions; but the next year they included the repeal of the paper duties in the annual tax bill, and the lords were constrained to pass it; for although the peers do not formally admit the claim of the commons that they must accept or reject money bills without alteration, they never venture to amend them. the policy of including all the taxes in one bill has developed into a permanent practice, and under the name of the finance bill this now includes all fiscal regulations relating both to the revenue and to the national debt.[ : ] [sidenote: the public accounts.] the whole initiative, as regards both revenue and expenditure, lies with the government alone. the house has merely power to reject or reduce the amounts asked for, and it uses that power very little. financially, its work is rather supervision than direction; and its real usefulness consists in securing publicity and criticism rather than in controlling expenditure. it is the tribunal where at the opening of the financial year the ministers must explain and justify every detail of their fiscal policy, and where at its close they must render an account of their stewardship. this last duty is highly important. the house receives every year reports of the administration of the finances from three independent bodies, or to be more accurate, it receives two distinct sets of accounts and one report. [sidenote: the finance accounts.] as soon as possible after the close of the financial year, the treasury submits the finance accounts, which cover all receipts paid into, and all issues out of, the consolidated fund, giving the sources from which the revenue was derived and the purpose for which the issues were made.[ : ] as these accounts are based, not upon the sums expended by the different branches of the government, but upon the amounts transferred to their credit at the banks of england and ireland, they can be compiled quickly; and, in fact, they are laid before parliament near the end of june, about three months after the close of the financial year to which they relate. [sidenote: the appropriation accounts.] meanwhile the comptroller and auditor general--who holds his office during good behaviour, with a salary paid by statute directly out of the consolidated fund, and who considers himself in no sense a servant of the treasury, but an officer responsible to the house of commons[ : ]--examines the accounts of the several departments. this is a matter requiring much time, and it is not until the opening of the next regular session that he presents what are known as the appropriation accounts,[ : ] covering in great detail the actual expenditures in all the supply services, with his reports and comments thereon.[ : ] [sidenote: the committee of public accounts.] his accounts and reports are referred to the committee of public accounts, which consists of eleven members of the house chosen at the beginning of the session,[ : ] and includes the financial secretary of the treasury, some one who has held a similar office under the opposite party, and other men interested in the subject. it inspects the accounts and the comptroller and auditor general's notes of the reason why more or less than the estimate was spent on each item. it inquires into the items that need further explanation, examining for the purpose the auditing officers of the departments, and other persons; and it makes a series of reports to the house, which refer in detail to the cases where an excess grant must be made by parliament, or a transfer between grants in the military departments must be approved.[ : ] the committee of public accounts has undoubtedly great influence in keeping the expenditures very strictly within the appropriations, and from time to time it expresses its opinions strongly about any laxity in that respect--remarks that are not forgotten by the officials. but there has been much complaint that the house itself, while criticising the administrative conduct of the government freely in the discussion of the estimates, takes little interest in their financial aspect; and, therefore, the recent committee on national expenditure has suggested that one day, at least, should be set apart for the discussion of the report of the committee on public accounts.[ : ] [sidenote: indian revenue accounts.] there are a couple of anomalous cases where, by statute, the estimates for a service are not voted by parliament, but the accounts are afterward submitted to it for approval. this is true of india; and the provision is a wise one, for it allows the government of that country to be conducted by the authorities on the spot, who are alone competent to do it, and yet it reserves to the house of commons an opportunity for supervision and criticism. on one of the last days of the session a motion is made to go into committee of the whole to consider these accounts, and on that motion a general debate on indian affairs is in order. in the committee itself only a formal motion is made certifying the total revenue and expenditure, and debate is confined to the economic and financial condition of the dependency.[ : ] in the same way the expenses of greenwich hospital are, by statute, defrayed out of its revenues, but the accounts are submitted to the house annually, with a resolution for their approval.[ : ] footnotes: [ : ] s.o. . [ : ] s.o. . may ( ) points out that these two rules, together with s.o. , adopted in , that the house will receive no petition for compounding a revenue debt due to the crown without a certificate from the proper officer stating the facts, were for more than a century the only standing orders of the house. [ : ] todd, "parl. govt. in england," ed., i., . [ : ] as an illustration of the fact that the rise of the authority exerted by ministers over parliament was contemporary with the loss by the king of personal legislative power, todd (ii., ) remarks that this rule was first adopted in , and the last royal veto was given in . [ : ] british north amer. act, § . commonwealth of australia constitution act, § . after the government of india was transferred from the east india company to the crown, in , the rule was extended to motions for a charge upon the indian revenue. s.o. . [ : ] for france, _cf._ dupriez, _les ministres_, ii., - , - ; lowell, "govts. and parties," i., - ; for italy, dupriez, i., - ; lowell, - . owing to the greater cohesion of parties, and to the fact that the expenditures are contained in a series of separate acts which can hardly be changed without disturbing the financial equilibrium, belgium has suffered little from this cause. dupriez, i., - . [ : ] todd, i., - . when the main object of a bill is the creation of a public charge, a resolution for that charge must be passed in committee of the whole upon a recommendation from the crown before the bill is introduced. but when the charge is merely subsidiary or incidental, the bill can be brought in previously, the clauses or provisions creating the charge being printed in italics. the words so printed are regarded as mere blanks with an indication of the way they are eventually intended to be filled, and they cannot be considered by the house until a committee of the whole has passed the necessary resolutions on a recommendation from the crown. may, - , . [ : ] may, - ; todd, i., - . by s.o. an address of this kind must be adopted in committee of the whole. [ : ] "gleanings of past years," i., . [ : ] may, , . [ : ] _ibid._, - . todd, i., . [ : ] such reductions are sometimes carried. there was the famous case in when a motion was made to reduce the salary of the secretary of state for war to draw attention to the alleged lack of supply of cordite. the defeat of the government in this case furnished the occasion for the resignation of lord rosebery's cabinet. (hans. ser. xxxiv., - , .) in mr. redmond, the leader of the irish nationalists, moved to reduce by £ the appropriation for education in ireland, and obtained a majority of to . mr. balfour, declining to treat the matter seriously, remarked that the irish leader had succeeded in reducing the grant to ireland by £ ; to which the latter replied that defeating the government at a cost of £ was money well spent. (hans. ser. cxxxi., - .) again in a motion to reduce by £ the appropriation for the irish land commission was carried by a vote of to . (hans. ser. cxlix., - .) after some reflection the government decided that it was not a sufficient cause either for resignation or dissolution, although the ministry was undoubtedly losing its hold upon the country. in each of these three cases the defeat of the government was an accident, the result of a "snap vote." [ : ] may, - , . todd, i., - . but this does not apply to local taxation for local purposes. may, - ; todd, i., . [ : ] may, , ; todd (i., ) says that a motion can be made to increase a tax proposed by the government, but of the two precedents he cites, one (hans. ser. lxxv., ) was a motion by the minister to restore in a sugar duties bill the rate of duty which had been proposed, but reduced in committee of ways and means; the other (hans. ser. ccxviii., ) was a motion to renew the existing rate of _d._ for the income tax, the government having proposed to reduce it to _d._ [ : ] may, , ; todd, i., _et seq._ provided the bill does not incidentally increase some other tax. may, . [ : ] may, - . [ : ] _ibid._, ; todd, i., . [ : ] s.o. provides that the committees of supply and ways and means shall be set up as soon as the address in reply to the king's speech has been agreed to. [ : ] on the procedure in the committee of ways and means, and on report from committee of supply and of ways and means, see may, _et seq._ [ : ] may, ; ilbert, "manual," § , note. [ : ] in order to provide money enough in the consolidated fund in anticipation of receipts from taxation, each of these bills authorises the bank of england to advance the sums required, and the treasury to borrow on treasury bills. may, , n. ; ilbert, § . [ : ] may, - ; todd, i., . [ : ] the name customs and inland revenue act was changed to finance act in when the death duties were included in it. in the provisions for the sinking-fund were also included. courtney, "the working constitution of the united kingdom," - ; and see the recent finance acts. [ : ] in the case of the consolidated fund services the separate items, _e.g._ the individual salaries, are given. in the case of the supply services only the amounts issued on account of each grant are given for the civil service; and for the army and navy only the total amounts. [ : ] see his evidence before the com. on nat. expend., com. papers, , vii., , qs. - , . [ : ] thus the parliamentary papers for contain the finance accounts for the financial year ending march , , and the far more elaborate appropriation accounts for the year ending march , . [ : ] he presents also separate accounts of the consolidated fund services, and other matters, with reports upon them. [ : ] s.o. . for a brief history of the system of audit, and the laying of accounts before parliament, see the memorandum by lord welby. rep. com. on nat. expend., com. papers, , vii., , app. . see also the description by hatschek, in his _englisches staatsrecht_ ( - ), of the introduction into england of double entry and the french system of keeping the national accounts. [ : ] all the reports of the committees on public accounts from to , with the minutes made in consequence by the treasury, have been collected and printed together from time to time in blue books. there are now three of these published in , , and , the last containing an index of all three (com. papers, , lxxix., ; , lxx., ; , lviii., ). [ : ] rep. com. on nat. expend., com. papers, , vii., , p. v. [ : ] may, . on july , , an amendment to the motion that the speaker leave the chair was proposed, to the effect that the salary of the secretary of state for india ought to be placed among the regular treasury estimates, in order to give a better chance to discuss the government of india. one of the chief objections made to this was that it would tend to bring the indian administration into party politics, and the amendment was rejected by a large majority. (hans. ser. clxi., - .) [ : ] may, . chapter xv procedure in the house of commons _closure_ [sidenote: the need of closure.] almost all great legislative bodies at the present day have been forced to adopt some method of cutting off debate, and bringing matters under discussion to a decisive vote. they have been driven to do so partly as a defence against wilful obstruction by minorities, and partly as a means of getting through their work. although following the path with great reluctance, the house of commons has been no exception to the rule. with the evolution of popular government it has become more representative and less self-contained. formerly an important public measure gave rise to one great debate, conducted mainly by the leading men, and the vote that followed was deemed to settle the question. the case had been argued, parliament had rendered its verdict, and that ended the matter. but now every one has his eye upon the country outside. the ordinary member is not satisfied to have the case argued well; he wants to take part in the argument himself. he wants the public, and especially his own constituents, to see that he is active, capable, and to some extent prominent.[ : ] he watches, therefore, his chance to express his views at some stage in the proceedings. moreover, the strategy of the leaders of the opposition has changed. they are not trying merely to persuade the house, or to register their protests there. they are speaking to the nation, striving to convince the voters of the righteousness of their cause, and of the earnestness, devotion, and tenacity with which they are urging it. hence they take every opportunity for resistance offered by the rules, and fight doggedly at every step. just as in war the great battle that settled a campaign has been replaced by a long series of stubborn contests behind intrenchments; so in the important issues of parliamentary warfare, the single conclusive debate has given way to many struggles that take place whenever the rules afford a means of resistance. this may not be done for the sake of obstruction or delay, but it consumes time, and it has made some process of cutting off debate and reaching a vote an absolute necessity. [sidenote: first used in .] the first resort to such a process was brought about by deliberate obstruction. this had been felt to be an evil for a dozen years,[ : ] and was made intolerable by the tactics of the irish members in opposing the introduction of the coercion bill of . several nights of debate were followed by a continuous session of forty-one hours; when the speaker, on his return to the chair, of which he had been for a time relieved by his deputy, interrupting the discussion, said that the dignity, the credit and the authority of the house were threatened, and that he was satisfied he should but carry out its will by putting the question forthwith.[ : ] his action was not authorised by standing order or by precedent, but whether justifiable or not, it marked an epoch in parliamentary history. [sidenote: the urgency resolution of .] brand, the speaker, had not come to his decision without consulting gladstone, then prime minister; and had made his action conditional upon the introduction of some regular process for coping with obstruction.[ : ] gladstone at once gave notice of an urgency resolution, which was speedily adopted, thanks to the suspension of all the irish members for interrupting debate contrary to the orders of the chair. the resolution enabled a minister to move that the state of public business with regard to any pending measure was urgent. this motion was to be put forthwith without debate, and if carried by a majority of three to one in a house of not less than three hundred members, was to vest in the speaker, for the purpose of proceeding with such measure, all the powers of the house for the regulation of its business.[ : ] [sidenote: urgency rules.] [sidenote: closure rule of .] the language was vague, but the intent was clear. the urgency resolution sanctioned for the future the authority recently assumed by the chair. the speaker, however, not wishing to make what might appear to be an arbitrary use of his new powers, laid before the house a number of rules by which he should be guided;[ : ] and these have furnished the suggestions for much of the later procedure for curtailing debate.[ : ] the one dealing with the primary object of the resolution provided that when it appeared to the speaker, or to the chairman in committee of supply or ways and means, to be the general sense of the house that the question should be put, he might so inform the house, and then a motion made to that effect should be voted upon without debate, and if carried by a majority of three to one, the original question should be put forthwith. the urgency motion was used at once to push through a couple of bills relating to ireland; but the resolution expired with the session, and after being revived for a short time the next year, it was replaced in the autumn of by a standing order based upon the speaker's rules.[ : ] the new order made, however, two changes in the procedure. instead of being applicable only after urgency had been voted, on a motion by a minister, in regard to some particular measure, it could be used at any time; and instead of requiring a vote of three to one, it required either a bare majority, if two hundred affirmative votes were cast, or one hundred affirmative votes, if there were less than forty votes against it. instead, therefore, of being a weapon that could be used only in cases of exceptional obstruction by a small group, it became a process applicable at any time to limit debate by the minority. but although apparently a regular part of the procedure of the house, the motion to cut off further debate could be made only on the suggestion of the speaker, and this vested in him an arbitrary initiative which he was loth to exercise. the standing order was, in fact, put into operation on two occasions only, on feb. , , and on feb. , . [sidenote: closure rule of .] the difficulty that had been felt in using the procedure was avoided by the adoption in of a new standing order[ : ] transferring the initiative to the members of the house, while securing fair play to minorities by leaving with the speaker a power of veto. the rule provides that any member may claim to move that the question pending be now put, "and unless it shall appear to the chair that such motion is an abuse of the rules of the house, or an infringement of the rights of the minority," it shall be put forthwith. if carried, the pending question, and following it the main question before the house, with all others depending upon it, must be put without further amendment or debate.[ : ] the process, now entitled for the first time "closure," was modified in , so that the only requirement about the size of the majority was that one hundred votes must be cast in the affirmative. in this form it has ever since remained, and it has been freely used, having been actually applied from one score to four score times each year.[ : ] [sidenote: the speaker's consent.] the requirement of the speaker's assent has proved to be no mere formality. this is especially true where closure has been moved by private members, for his consent, or that of the chairman of committees, has been refused in one third of such cases.[ : ] largely for that reason, no doubt, the use of closure by private members has become far less common than it was formerly. during the first ten years after it was moved by private members on the average about forty times a year, but since that period the average has been only twelve. even in the case of motions made by a minister, consent has often been withheld. it happened very frequently during the earlier years, but of late has been much less common.[ : ] evidently the treasury bench and the speaker have come to adopt very nearly the same standard for determining when a matter has been sufficiently debated. to a spectator in the gallery the discussion seems to proceed until the house must be thoroughly weary of it before closure is moved; and, indeed, the house itself very rarely rejects the motion when it gets a chance to vote upon it--a fact which shows that if the speaker had not power to withhold his consent, the majority would cut short debate more drastically than it does now. but although debate may have gone on until the house is weary, and the benches are nearly empty, until the speeches consist mainly of the reiteration of arguments in less incisive form, yet there are almost always members who are longing in vain for a chance to make a few remarks. in great debates the order of the chief speakers on each side is commonly arranged between the whips, and given to the presiding officer; who usually follows it, though not without occasional exceptions. for the rest he gives the preference, among the members who try to catch his eye, to those who have the ear of the house, or who are likely to say something worth hearing, not forgetting to call on a new man who rises to make his maiden speech. by seizing on the dull hours, when the house is not full, an undistinguished member can often get his chance. still, there are many men who sit impatiently with what they believe to be effective little speeches ready to be fired off upon an appreciative public, and see their chance slipping away.[ : ] perhaps they are bores, but on them the closure falls as a blight, and they raise the bitter cry of the curtailment of the rights of private members. [sidenote: closure at the end of a sitting.] the closure can be moved at any time, even when a member is speaking, but perhaps its most effective use is at the close of the sitting. a standing order adopted in provides[ : ] that when the hour arrives for the cessation of debate--technically known as the interruption of business,--the closure may be moved upon the main question under consideration, with all others dependent upon it. this gives an opportunity of finishing a bit of work without appearing to cut off discussion arbitrarily, and it is especially valuable now that the new rules of have established on four days of the week[ : ] two regular sittings with an interruption at the end of each. [sidenote: the guillotine.] while the closure is effective in bringing to an end debate on a single question, or in getting past some one particularly difficult point in the career of a bill, it is quite inadequate for passing a great, complicated government measure that provokes relentless opposition. here it is as useless as the sword of hercules against the hydra. amendments bristle by the score at every clause, and spring up faster than they can be cut off. the motion that certain words "stand part of a clause," or that a "clause stand part of the bill," was intended to work like the hero's hot iron, because if the motion is adopted no amendment can afterward be moved to that word or that clause. but in practice such motions cannot be used ruthlessly. the government discovered the insufficiency of the closure under the standing order of , during the debates on the very bill whose enactment it had been adopted to secure, and resorted to a procedure which had already been used by mr. gladstone on a couple of irish coercion bills in .[ : ] five days had been consumed on the first reading of the irish crimes act of , seven on the second reading, and fifteen days more had been spent in committee of the whole on four out of the twenty clauses of the bill; when the government moved that at ten o'clock on june , being the end of the next week, the chairman should, without further debate, put all questions necessary to bring the committee stage to an end.[ : ] the motion was adopted, and from its trenchant operation the process was known as the "guillotine." it served its purpose, but from the point of view of parliamentary deliberation it was a very imperfect instrument, for all the clauses after the sixth were put to vote without amendment or debate.[ : ] [sidenote: closure by compartments.] the defect of the guillotine, that it resulted in needlessly long discussions on a few early clauses, to the entire neglect of the rest, was largely remedied in the case of the home rule bill of . after twenty-eight nights had been spent in committee on the first four clauses, the house, on june , adopted a resolution that debate on clauses five to eight should close on july , on clauses nine to twenty-six on july , on clauses twenty-seven to forty on july , and on the postponed and new clauses on july .[ : ] this form of procedure, sometimes called closure by compartments, has the merit of distributing the discussion over different parts of the measure, and of affording at least a probability that any provision exciting general interest will receive some measure of attention. it was used again on the evicted tenants bill in ,[ : ] and the education bill in ;[ : ] and may now be said to have become a regular, because a necessary, practice in the case of difficult and hotly contested measures. but save in the case of supply, it has been the subject of a special resolution passed for a particular bill, under what have been treated as exceptional conditions, and it has found no mention in the standing orders.[ : ] [sidenote: closure of supply.] the guillotine has been applied more systematically to supply. formerly the estimates were taken in their order, with the result that much time was wasted early in the session over trivial matters, like the repairs of royal palaces in class i.; while great appropriations of important departments were rushed through at the fag end of the session.[ : ] but at the instance of mr. balfour a sessional order was passed in allowing in that session twenty days for supply, with a provision for taking a vote, without further debate, on every grant left when the days expired, the time allowed being, he thought, about the average amount heretofore devoted to the subject.[ : ] as the grants in supply, unlike the clauses of a bill, can be brought before the house in any order that the minister may choose, there was not the same need of a closure by compartments; but in order to remove any fear that the government might hold back certain appropriations, mr. balfour said that the important grants, and those which any group of members wanted to discuss, would be taken first.[ : ] the resolution was renewed from year to year[ : ] until by the new rules of it was permanently embodied in the standing orders.[ : ] as the rule now stands, twenty days,[ : ] all to come before aug. , are allotted for the consideration of the estimates,[ : ] and on the days so allotted no other business can be taken before midnight.[ : ] at ten o'clock on the last day but one the chairman must put to vote every question needed to dispose of the grant under consideration; and then put in succession all the outstanding grants by classes, those in each class being taken together and put as a single question. at ten o'clock on the last day the speaker follows the same process for closing the report stage of the estimates. the real object of the debates in supply at the present day is not financial discussion, but criticism of the administration of the departments, their work being brought under review as their estimates are considered.[ : ] in that light the new procedure has worked very well. complaint has been made that the government no longer cares what grants are brought forward for debate--leaving that to the opposition,--or how long the discussion upon them may take, or whether it ends with a vote upon them or not, knowing very well that all these grants must be adopted under closure when the twenty days expire.[ : ] this is perfectly true; but on the other hand the procedure gives the fullest opportunity for criticising the administration, and forcing a discussion of grievances, the matters to be criticised being selected by the critics themselves. although the opposition, as in duty bound, resisted the adoption of some portions of the rule, it may be safely said that the rule itself will not be repealed by any government that may come to power. footnotes: [ : ] lecky attributed what he called "the enormous and portentous development of parliamentary speaking" partly to the scenes of violence and obstruction, which have weakened both the respect for the house and the timidity that imposed a restraint on idle speech; partly to the growth of the provincial press which reports members in full in their own constituencies; and partly to the vast increase in stump oratory which has given nearly all members a fatal facility. ("democracy and liberty," i., - .) a traveller is struck both by the universal fluency, and by the ephemeral character, of public speaking in england, at the present day. [ : ] hans. ser. cclvii., - . [ : ] hans. ser. cclxvi., - . [ : ] morley, "life of gladstone," iii., - . [ : ] hans. ser. cclviii., - . [ : ] _ibid._, - , - , - ; cclix., - ; also published in com. papers, , lxxiv., - . [ : ] such as that debate on dilatory motions should be confined to the motion; that the house should go in and out of committee without question put; that divisions frivolously claimed, and dilatory motions made for delay might be refused by the chair; and most striking of all, a provision for stopping debate altogether upon a certain stage of a bill by putting all outstanding amendments and clauses at a fixed time--a shadow of the future guillotine. this process was, indeed, employed by mr. gladstone to pass two irish bills in that very session. [ : ] a number of new rules were added at this time, and the standing orders were rearranged and put into their present sequence. com. papers, , lii., , . the standing order on this subject became no. . [ : ] the standing order of was not repealed until . [ : ] in the same way a motion may be made to put forthwith the question that certain words stand part of a clause, or that a clause stand part of the bill, and this cuts off summarily all amendments to those words or that clause. these standing orders are now nos. and . [ : ] owing partly to the extension of an automatic form of closure, to be explained hereafter, the applications in fell to thirteen. [ : ] from to , inclusive, the closure was moved by private members times, and consent was refused in of these cases. the proportion of refusals is almost uniform throughout the period, rather increasing during the last few years. closure has failed for lack of affirmative votes only once in the last ten years. that was in . [ : ] from to , inclusive, the closure was moved by the government times, and consent was withheld in of these cases. from to it was so moved times, but consent was withheld only times. [ : ] _cf._ palgrave, "the house of commons," ed. of , - . [ : ] now s.o. ( ). [ : ] it is commonly stated that closure cannot be used in a standing committee, (ilbert, "manual," §§ , note, note); but it was done on july , , in the standing committee on law; and although the persons aggrieved stated that they should bring the matter to the attention of the house, they did not feel confidence enough in their case to do so. (see _the times_, july , , and the political notes in the number for july . curiously enough the incident is not mentioned in the report of the meeting of the committee in that number.) for other statements of its use in a standing committee, _cf._ d rep. of sel. com. on house of commons (procedure), may , , qs. , . since this was written closure in standing committees has been sanctioned by a change in the standing orders; twenty affirmative votes being required. [ : ] after giving notice of his intention to do so, he moved, on feb. , , that all clauses and amendments of the protection of life and property (ireland) bill should be put to vote in committee of the whole at twelve o'clock that night. this was done, and repeated upon the report stage of the bill (hans. ser. cclviii., , , , , , , - ). the same process was adopted a few days later for the peace preservation (ireland) bill. (hans. ser. cclix., , , - , , , - .) [ : ] hans. ser. cccxv., . [ : ] hans. ser. cccxvi., - . [ : ] hans. ser. xiv., . [ : ] hans. ser. xxvii., - . in this case, for the first time, the report stage was included in the original motion. [ : ] hans. ser. cxiv., - . [ : ] one of the latest and most elaborate examples of its use was on the territorial and reserve forces bill of . hans. ser. clxxiii., - , - . [ : ] _cf._ hans. ser. xxxvii., . [ : ] _ibid._, . [ : ] _ibid._, - . [ : ] it may be assumed that the house will never reject any of the outstanding grants, but a useless number of divisions might be forced in voting upon them. as the number of such grants is usually little short of one hundred, the time wasted in walking through the lobbies on the last night might be monstrous. to avoid this a rule was adopted in that when the allotted time expired, all the remaining grants in any one class should be put to vote together. hans. ser. xcviii., - . [ : ] s.o. . [ : ] three more days may be added by special order. [ : ] these include the votes on account, but only one day can be given to each of the three votes on account, and only one sitting, or half a day, to the report of such a vote. days devoted to supplementary estimates or votes of credit are not included; nor are those days on which the question must be put that the speaker leave the chair, because those days are really occupied not by the votes of supply, but by general criticism of the government. (see chap. xviii., _infra_.) the short sitting of friday counts as half a day. this does not apply to private bills, questions, and the other matters that are taken up in the first hour, before the regular orders of the day are reached. [ : ] mr. balfour said this frankly in the debate on the rule in . (hans. ser. xxxvii., - .) [ : ] hans. ser. xcviii., . chapter xvi procedure in the house of commons _sittings and order of business_ [sidenote: sittings of the house.] after describing the processes of legislation, a word must be said about the order of business for each day and for the session as a whole. on monday, tuesday, wednesday, and thursday the house now meets at a quarter before three, and sits until half-past eleven, when it is automatically adjourned unless business specially exempted is under consideration. but the sitting is divided by the mystic hour of a quarter past eight into two parts which are reserved on certain days for quite different kinds of business. on friday the house sits from noon till half-past five, and on saturday it does not meet at all unless by special vote on very rare occasions.[ : ] [sidenote: interruption of business.] with the exception to be noted in a moment, all business upon which the house may be engaged is interrupted at half-past five o'clock on friday, and eleven on other days; but unopposed business may still be taken up until the hour arrives for adjournment. during that interval the orders of the day are read, and each of them may in turn be debated and even voted upon, unless a division is challenged, or some member objects.[ : ] in short, work can be done after the time for interruption only by universal consent, a single member having power to prevent the consideration of any measure to which he is opposed. yet a certain amount of business is transacted at these times; and, in fact, a private member's bill would stand little chance, even if no one had any serious objection to it, unless it could pass through some of its stages in this way. [sidenote: exceptions thereto.] to the rule that no opposed business can be taken after eleven o'clock there is an important exception. a minister may move at the beginning of the afternoon sitting that any specified business shall not be interrupted at that hour, and the question must be put without amendment or debate. this is often done toward the close of the session, and results in sittings that run far into the night. bills originating in committee of ways and means, and proceedings taken in pursuance of a statute[ : ] or standing order, are also exempted from the rules about interruption, about taking up no opposed business after eleven o'clock, and about adjournment at half-past eleven o'clock.[ : ] it must be remembered also that closure may be moved after the hour for interruption has struck.[ : ] [sidenote: order of business for the day.] the first sitting of each day is opened with prayer. the speaker then takes the chair, and certain formal or routine business that occupies little time is taken up in the following order. . private business, that is, bills relating to private or local matters. private business, which is unopposed, and therefore takes no appreciable time, is taken up first. opposed private business is not taken up at all on friday, and if not finished by three o'clock on other days is postponed to a quarter past eight on such day as the chairman of ways and means may determine.[ : ] . presentation of public petitions (if presented orally instead of being dropped silently into a bag behind the speaker's chair). as a rule no debate is in order, and hence this process is also short,[ : ] and must be finished by three o'clock.[ : ] . at that hour, on the afternoon sittings, the important business of putting questions to ministers begins.[ : ] the character and political effect of these questions will be examined in chapter xviii, but from the point of view of parliamentary time it may be noted that the practice has grown so much during the last thirty years as to require some limitation. in the questions asked numbered , and consumed hours, or the equivalent of fifteen parliamentary days of eight hours each.[ : ] the new rules of sought to check the tendency in two ways; by giving the option of requiring an oral or a written answer, the question in the former case being marked in the notice paper with an asterisk; and by fixing a strict limit to the time consumed. forty minutes are allowed for putting questions, the answers to those not reached by a quarter before four, like the answers to questions not starred, being printed with the votes of the day.[ : ] . if there is a vacant moment before three o'clock, or between the time questions come to an end and a quarter before four o'clock, it may be used by motions for unopposed returns, for leave of absence, or for similar unopposed matters that would otherwise have to be taken up after the interruption of business.[ : ] . immediately after questions, a member rising in his place may make the portentous motion "for the adjournment of the house for the purpose of discussing a definite matter of urgent public importance."[ : ] this is usually, but not necessarily, made in consequence of a highly unsatisfactory answer that has just been given to a question. it may seem strange to move to adjourn before serious business has begun, but as such a motion has not been carried for nearly a score of years that feature is unimportant, and its real significance in giving a chance to discuss at short notice some action of the government will be explained in chapter xviii. formerly the debate upon the motion took place immediately; but now the member merely obtains--by the support of forty members, or by vote of the house--leave to make his motion, while the debate itself is postponed to a quarter past eight o'clock. . then come what are called "matters taken at the commencement of public business." these are the presentation of bills without an order of the house or under the ten-minute rule, and motions by a minister relating to the conduct of business to be decided without amendment or debate. . finally comes the regular business of the sitting, in the form of notices of motions or orders of the day. the distinction between these two classes of business is not easy to explain with precision;[ : ] but for our purpose it is unimportant, except so far as one class has precedence over the other. now the government has authority to arrange the order of its own business as it pleases;[ : ] and in relation to private members, orders of the day practically mean bills, and notices of motion mean resolutions and other matters that are not bills. the application of the distinction comes, therefore, to this, that of the sittings set apart for private members, friday is reserved for their bills, and tuesdays and wednesdays after a quarter past eight o'clock for their other motions.[ : ] [sidenote: order at evening sittings.] at a quarter past eight o'clock the first business is a motion for adjournment on an urgent matter of public business, in the occasional instances where leave has been obtained at the afternoon sitting to make it. next follows any postponed private business that may have been assigned to that evening; and then come the notices of motions and orders of the day. by the new arrangement with its definite time for certain business, the work of the house is better distributed. there is no longer the same danger that the discussion of a private bill or of a motion to adjourn, or an interminable series of questions, will unexpectedly cut a great piece out of the hours when the house is most crowded, and the leading men are waiting to debate a great public measure. at the afternoon sitting the regular business of the day is reached at a quarter before four, or very little later, and it proceeds without interruption until a quarter before eight. after that hour--unless there is an opposed private bill, which does not often take long, or by chance a motion to adjourn--the regular business, which may not be the same as at the afternoon sitting, begins again, and goes on until eleven. with the habits of slack attendance when nothing is expected, and the necessity for a presence in force when a division that touches the treasury bench may be taken, it is a matter of no small import to be able to forecast the business of a sitting. the severe pressure for time has thus brought about a minute allotment of the hours at each sitting for definite kinds of business, and the same cause has produced a similar, although less exact, distribution in the work of the session as a whole. [sidenote: order of business for the session.] the regular session of parliament opens about the beginning of february, and the first business is the address in reply to the king's speech. formerly it was an elaborate affair, which referred to the clauses of the speech in succession, but since it has taken the form of a single resolution expressing simply the thanks of the commons for his majesty's most gracious speech. amendments are moved by the various sections of the opposition in the shape of additions thereto, pointing out how the government has done things it ought not to have done, and left undone things it ought to have done; and even members of the majority, who are disgruntled because their pet hobbies have been left unnoticed, follow the same course. the debates on the address take practically the whole time of the house for two or three weeks.[ : ] as soon as they are over, the committee of supply is set up, and sits one or two days each week, the rest of the sittings being taken up with government measures, and with business introduced by private members. hope springs eternal in the legislative breast, and every assembly undertakes more work than it can accomplish thoroughly. in some legislatures this results in a headlong rushing through of measures almost without discussion at the end of the session. but while, under closure by compartments and the supply rule, this may be true in england of certain clauses of bills and of large parts of the appropriations, it is not true of bills as a whole. parliament is, primarily, a forum for debate, rather than a machine for legislation, and bills that cannot be discussed at some length are dropped. after the whitsuntide recess every year, the leader of the house announces that owing to lack of time the government has found it necessary to abandon such and such measures, a proceeding familiarly known as the slaughter of the innocents. but it is not their own bills alone that the ministers are obliged to slay. in order to get through their own remaining work they have long been in the habit of taking by special order, after the easter recess, a part of the sittings reserved for private members, and of seizing all the rest soon after whitsuntide. the practice was regulated and made systematic by the new rules of ; but this brings us to the relation of the cabinet and of private members to the work of the house, which forms the subject of the following chapter. footnotes: [ : ] until the regular hour of meeting on monday, tuesday, thursday, and friday was a quarter before four o'clock; but as there was no provision for adjournment at any fixed hour, debate on a subject might go on indefinitely; and, in fact, all-night sittings were common. in a standing order had been adopted that no opposed business, not specially exempted, should be taken up after half-past twelve; but this did not put a stop to a business in hand at that hour. owing to the fatigue caused by late sittings (temple, "life in parliament," - ), a standing order was adopted in changing the hour of meeting on those four days to three o'clock, and providing that at midnight the business under consideration should, unless specially exempted, be interrupted; that no other opposed business should thereafter be taken up; and that the house should adjourn not later than one o'clock. the hours of sitting on wednesday were left as before at from noon to six o'clock. for some time it had been the habit, especially in the latter part of the session, to break the day occasionally into two sittings, the earlier one beginning at two o'clock, and being called a morning sitting. after these two sittings were held from two until seven, and from nine until twelve (s.o. of march , ), the days being commonly tuesdays and fridays. now although the system of two sittings a day, with a considerable interval for dinner, involved beginning at an hour in the afternoon inconveniently early for men in the active work of a business or profession, it had certain manifest advantages, and was made the universal practice in . at that time the standing orders were extensively revised, and in particular the subject of the sittings, with the order of business thereat, was remodelled. for the sake of giving members a chance to pass what is known as the week-end in the country, the short day was transferred from wednesday to friday, the house meeting on that day at twelve, and adjourning automatically at six (s.o. ); while each of the other four working days was divided into afternoon and evening sittings, the first from two until half-past seven, and the other from nine until one (s.o. ). finally in another change of hours was made, without, however, any essential alteration in the method of doing business. the inconvenience of early attendance at the house was avoided by changing the hour of meeting on monday, tuesday, wednesday, and thursday to quarter before three, while the hour for the adjournment was changed to half-past eleven, and a part of the time then lost was made up by abolishing the formal interval of an hour and a half for dinner. but although there is now one continuous sitting on each of these days, the order of business arranged for the two sittings has been retained, the break coming at a quarter past eight. the hour of adjournment on friday was changed at the same time to half-past five. [ : ] may, . business which is merely formal, or which follows as of course from action already taken by the house, may be transacted in spite of objection. may, . [ : ] under this head is included action upon statutory orders, where the act provides, as it usually does, that the order shall be laid before parliament, and shall not go into effect if either house adopts an address with that object. without this exception to the rule the house would have no real opportunity to adopt such an address, unless the government chose to give part of its time for the purpose. ilbert, "manual," § note. [ : ] s.o. ( ), ( ), ( ), ( ), ( ). ilbert, §§ - . the annual army bill has always been treated as exempted business. _ibid._, § note. [ : ] s.o. ( ). a division in progress is not interrupted. ilbert, § note. [ : ] such postponed private business must be distributed as equally as may be between the days allotted to the government and to private members. s.o. ; ilbert, § . the procedure on private bills will be described in chap. xx. _infra_. [ : ] ilbert, §§ - , n. s.os. - . [ : ] except in the rare cases where debate is allowed on the ground that an urgent personal grievance is involved. ilbert, § ( ). [ : ] s.o. . ilbert, §§ - . it is not usual to ask on friday questions requiring an oral answer. ilbert, § note. [ : ] hans. ser. ci., . [ : ] unless the minister was not present to answer, or the question did not appear on the notice paper, and is of an urgent character. s.o. ( ). [ : ] in practice a motion for a new writ of election is usually made before questions, and the introduction of a new member follows them. ilbert, § note. [ : ] s.o. . [ : ] ilbert, § note. technically an order of the day is a matter which is set down for a particular day by an order of the house; a notice of motion is a motion set down for the day by notice given by a member without any order of the house; but under the present rules an order of the house is made in many cases without any actual vote, or even the opportunity for a vote, the proceedings being in fact much the same as in the case of a notice of motion. the distinction remains, however, as a means of classifying different kinds of business. [ : ] s.o. . [ : ] s.o. . [ : ] as redlich remarks (_recht und technik_, - ), the speech having a general political character, debate and amendment are not limited by any rule of relevancy, but stray over every kind of political grievance or aspiration and the whole foreign and domestic policy of the government. he points out that until the debate rarely took more than a couple of days, but since that time the number of sittings devoted to it has run from six to sixteen. chapter xvii the cabinet's control of the commons [sidenote: a body of men can say only yes or no.] for the purpose of collective action every body of men is in the plight of m. noirtier de villefort in "monte cristo," who was completely paralysed except for one eye. like him it has only a single faculty, that of saying yes or no. individually the members may express the most involved opinions, the most complex and divergent sentiments, but when it comes to voting, the body can vote only yes or no. some one makes a motion, some one else moves an amendment, perhaps other amendments are superimposed, but on each amendment in turn, and finally on the main question, the body simply votes for or against. where a body acts by plurality it can, of course, choose which of several propositions it will adopt, which of several persons, for example, it will elect.[ : ] but this depends upon the same general principle, that the body can act collectively only on propositions laid before it by an individual, or a group of men acting together as an individual. ordinarily it can only answer yes or no to questions laid before it one at a time in that way. [sidenote: framing the question.] obviously, therefore, it is of vital importance to know who has power to ask the question; and, in fact, one of the great arts in managing bodies of men consists in so framing questions as to get the best possible chance of a favourable reply. in small bodies that have limited functions and an abundance of time, the members are free to propose any questions they please; but in large assemblies, all of whose proceedings are of necessity slower, this freedom is curtailed by lack of time, especially if the range of activities is wide. hence the legislatures of all great states have been constrained to adopt some process for restricting or sifting the proposals or bills of their members. the most common device is that of referring the bills to committees, which can practically eliminate those that have no serious chance of success, and can amend others, putting them into a more acceptable form. in such cases the committees enjoy, if not the exclusive privilege of proposing questions to the legislature, at least the primary right of framing the questions that are to be submitted, and this gives them a momentous power. an organisation by committees is the most natural evolution of a legislative body, if there is nothing to obstruct it. now in parliament there has been something to obstruct it, and that is the system of a responsible ministry. [sidenote: the cabinet.] the cabinet has been said to be a committee, and the most important committee of the house; but it is really far more. unlike an ordinary committee, it does not have the bills of members referred to it. on the contrary it has the sole right to initiate, as well as to frame, the measures it submits to the house; and these comprise, in fact, almost all the important bills that are enacted. by far the greater part of legislation originates, therefore, exclusively with the ministers. the system of a responsible ministry has obstructed the growth of committees; because, in the case of government measures, the chief function of such committees, that of sifting bills and putting them into proper shape, is performed by the cabinet itself; and also because, as will be shown hereafter, the authority of the cabinet would be weakened if other bodies, not necessarily in accord with it, had power to modify its proposals. in this connection it may be observed that in the domain of private and local bills, where the responsibility of the cabinet does not extend, there has developed a most elaborate and complete set of committees, to which all such bills are referred. [sidenote: subjects treated in this chapter.] the relation of the cabinet to the house of commons may be conveniently treated under three heads: the initiative left to private members; the direct control of the cabinet over legislation with its effects; and the control of the house over the administration and the general policy of the government. [sidenote: private members' bills.] it may appear strange that the existence of a responsible ministry should obstruct the growth of committees on public bills brought in by private members. nevertheless it has done so; partly by reducing those bills to a position of secondary importance; and partly because if the committees were under the control of the government the private member would be even more helpless than he is now, and if they were not they might be at times inconvenient rivals to the ministry. as the house of commons is organised, therefore, the committees play a minor part. the most important legislation of a public nature originates with the ministers, and is entirely in their charge, save for an occasional reference to a committee under exceptional circumstances; while private members are free to bring their public bills before the house, unfettered by any committee, provided they can find a chance to do so in the extremely meagre allowance of time at their disposal. in short the commons have solved the question of time by giving most of it to the government to use as it pleases, and leaving the private members to scramble for the rest. [sidenote: time allotted to private members.] under the new rules of and government business has precedence, from the opening of the session until easter, at every sitting, except after a quarter past eight o'clock on tuesday and wednesday and at the sitting on friday. until easter, therefore, these three periods in the week are reserved for the private members. between easter and whitsuntide the government is given the whole of tuesday for its own use, and after whitsuntide it has all the time except the third and fourth fridays next following.[ : ] as the private members have no time reserved for them until the close of the debate on the address, the arrangement gives them in a normal year about thirty parts of the session out of a couple of hundred. it must be remembered also that the part of a sitting after quarter past eight is shorter than that which goes before; is never, on private members' nights, prolonged beyond the hour of interruption; and is liable to be broken into by opposed private bills, and motions to adjourn on a matter of urgent public importance.[ : ] it is clear, therefore, that the share of time reserved for private members is small. but although their lamentations over confiscation of their sittings by the government have been constant, the actual time at their disposal has not, in fact, been seriously diminished of late years. an examination of the parliamentary papers shows that in the ten years from to government business actually had precedence on the average in eighty-three per cent. of the sittings, and during the following decade in about eighty-four and a half per cent.[ : ] this is very little less than the proportion that now prevails. the recent rules have merely sanctioned by permanent standing order a practice that had long been followed in an irregular way by special resolutions adopted during the course of the session. [sidenote: ballot for days.] when, as hobbes remarked, there is not enough of any article to satisfy everybody, and no one has authority to apportion it, the most obvious means of distribution is the lot. this primitive method is still employed for dividing among the private members the time reserved for their use. their sittings are devoted to two different objects. on tuesday and wednesday evenings notices of motions have precedence, while friday is the day for bills. at the beginning of a session members who want to introduce bills send in their names, and in the order in which the lots are drawn they set down their bills for second reading on a friday, selecting, of course, the earliest unoccupied day. in this way every friday before whitsuntide is taken, and although there will probably not be time to deal with more than one bill in a day, less successful competitors place their measures second or third on the lists, hoping that they may be reached. the first bill on the list usually comes to a vote on the second reading, but when that point has been passed it is difficult to find an opportunity for any of its subsequent steps. a reference to a standing committee affords the best chance, because it avoids the committee stage in the house. if a bill is not so referred, it is almost certainly doomed, unless it can pass some of its stages, unopposed, after the hour for the interruption of business; and, in fact, any bill is well-nigh hopeless that does not take at least one step in this way.[ : ] on the two fridays remaining after whitsuntide private members' bills are given precedence in the order of their progress,[ : ] the most advanced obtaining the right of way. the leader of the house may, however, star any bill, that is, give to it a fraction of the government time, but this is very rarely done, and never till near the close of a session. [sidenote: insignificance of private members' legislation.] as there are only about a dozen fridays before whitsuntide, a private member must be very fortunate in the ballot, or he must have a number of friends interested in the same bill, to get it started with any prospect of success; and even then there is scarcely a hope of carrying it through if a single member opposes it persistently at every point. ten or fifteen such bills are enacted a year, and of these only a couple provoke enough difference of opinion to lead to a division during their course in the house.[ : ] but while many private members loudly bewail their wrongs, they make no organised effort for mutual protection. these men are, in fact, separate units without a basis for combination. they have not even that spirit of the golden rule, which does much harm in legislation. they show neither the good nature, nor the instinct for log-rolling, which prompts men to vote for one another's bills, hoping for like favours in return. hence their labours produce little fruit, either sweet or bitter. in short, the public legislation initiated by private members is neither large in amount, nor important in character, and it cannot be passed against serious opposition,--a condition that tends to become more marked as time goes on. [sidenote: private members' motions.] the privilege on the part of private members of bringing forward motions on tuesday or wednesday evenings is, like that of having bills considered on friday, determined by lot; with this difference, that a notice of motion cannot be given more than four motion days ahead, and hence the first ballot covers only two weeks, and is followed by fresh balloting every week until easter.[ : ] in order to improve the chance of getting a hearing, a number of members interested in the same question will often send in their names, with the understanding that any one of them who is lucky enough to be drawn shall set down the motion. this practice was introduced by the irishmen; but it has now become common among members of all kinds who take, or wish to appear to take, an interest in a subject. it is called "syndicating," and has resulted in making the motions not infrequently reflect the views of a considerable section of the house. [sidenote: their nature and effect.] the motions on these nights take the form of resolutions, and are of every kind. some of them express aspirations of an abstract nature, such as that the government ought to encourage cotton-growing in the british colonies, or that the greater part of the cost of training teachers ought to be borne by the national exchequer.[ : ] others demand more definite legislation about matters on which the parties are not prepared to take sides. a motion, for example, was carried in that the franchise for members of parliament ought to be extended to women. but a resolution adopted in that way, without opposition from the government, is commonly regarded as a mere aspiration, and has hardly a perceptible effect. others again deal with the hobbies of individuals, and in that case the members are apt to go home, so that after an hour or two of desultory talk the house is counted out for lack of a quorum; the frequency with which that occurs depending, of course, upon the amount of general interest attaching to the motions that happen to appear on the list.[ : ] finally there are motions which attack the cabinet or its policy, motions, for example, condemning preferential tariffs on food, or the control by the central government of the police in ireland. motions of that sort are, of course, strenuously resisted by the treasury bench, and they will be discussed hereafter when we come to the methods of criticising the action of the ministry.[ : ] apart from cases of this last class, the motions of private members have even less practical importance than their bills. occasionally a real popular demand may find expression in that way, but it is uncommon, and the chief value of the tuesday and wednesday evening sittings would seem to lie in helping to keep alive the salutary fiction that members of parliament still possess a substantial power of independent action. [sidenote: control of the cabinet over legislation.] all the sittings not reserved for private members are at the disposal of the government, and it can arrange the order of its business as it thinks best.[ : ] the responsibility of the ministers for legislation is a comparatively recent matter.[ : ] before the reform act of their functions were chiefly executive; but the rapid demand for great remedial measures, and later the complexity of legislation due to the extended control and supervision by the administrative departments, and not least the concentration of power in the cabinet by the growth of the parliamentary system, brought about a change. by the middle of the century that change was recognised, and at the present day the ministers would treat the rejection of any of their important measures as equivalent to a vote of want of confidence.[ : ] moreover, the government is responsible not only for introducing a bill, but also for failing to do so. at a meeting in the autumn the cabinet decides upon the measures it intends to bring forward, and announces them in the king's speech at the opening of the session. amendments to the address in reply are moved expressing regret that his majesty has not referred to some measure that is desired, and if such an amendment were carried it would almost certainly cause the downfall of the ministry. this happened, indeed, in , when the resignation of lord salisbury's cabinet was brought about by the adoption of an amendment regretting that the speech announced no measure for providing agricultural labourers with land. [sidenote: amendments to government bills.] following upon the responsibility for the introduction and passage of all important measures has come an increasing control by the ministers over the details of their measures. it was formerly maintained that the house could exercise a great deal of freedom in amending bills, without implying a loss of general confidence in the cabinet.[ : ] but of late amendments carried against the opposition of the treasury bench have been extremely rare.[ : ] in fact only four such cases have occurred in the last ten years. this does not mean that the debates on the details of bills are fruitless. on the contrary, it often happens that the discussion exposes defects of which the government was not aware, or reveals an unsuspected but widespread hostility to some provision; and when this happens the minister in charge of the bill often declares that he will accept an amendment, or undertakes to prepare a clause to meet the objection which has been pointed out.[ : ] but it does mean that the changes in their bills are made by the ministers themselves after hearing the debate, and that an amendment, even of small consequence, can seldom be carried without their consent. this is the natural outcome of the principle that the cabinet is completely responsible for the principal public measures, and hence must be able to control all their provisions so long as it remains in office. [sidenote: relation of the cabinet to the committees.] from the same point of view the relation of the government to the various committees of the house is a matter of great importance. if the cabinet is to be responsible for the policy of the state, and must resign when defeated, it is manifestly entitled to frame the policy on which it stands. but if, as in some countries that have copied the parliamentary form of government, and notably in france, the bills of the cabinet are referred for consideration and amendment to committees not under its control, then it may have to face the alternative of opposing its own bill on account of the amendments made therein, or of standing upon a measure of which it can no longer wholly approve. it may be put in the awkward position of defending a policy that has been forced upon it, instead of one of its own selection. such a condition of things has sapped the authority of the ministry, and weakened the government in more than one nation of continental europe.[ : ] this danger has been avoided in england by the very limited use of committees on public bills, and by the influence of the treasury bench over those that exist. [sidenote: controversial bills not referred to committees.] the most important government bills, and especially those of a highly controversial nature, are not referred to committees at all. they are debated only in the house itself; and in committee of the whole, which is merely the house sitting with slightly different rules, and not a committee in the sense in which the word is used in this chapter. to select committees few public bills are referred, and those as a rule are certainly not of a controversial character.[ : ] the only difficulty arises in the case of the standing committees. when he first proposed these in , mr. gladstone said that they were not intended to consider measures of a partisan character;[ : ] and it has been generally recognised ever since that very contentious bills ought not to be referred to them.[ : ] a long debate on the subject took place recently, on the occasion when the bill to restrict alien immigration was sent to the standing committee on law in .[ : ] all the members who took part in the discussions, except mr. chamberlain,[ : ] agreed on the general principle; but they did not agree upon any test of contentiousness, and were sharply divided on the question whether the aliens bill was contentious or not. mr. balfour himself took the ground that the controversial character of a bill is a matter of degree, and that this bill was near the border line. the obstacles in its path proved in the end so serious that it had to be dropped for the session. that a bill is non-contentious clearly does not mean that it is unopposed, or even that the opposition has no connection with party. every one of the six government bills referred to standing committees in , for example, had a party vote at some stage in its passage through the house.[ : ] these committees are expected to deal, not with questions of political principle, but with details that require technical skill or careful consideration, in bills where the general principle is either non-contentious, or may be regarded as settled by the house itself. they were intended to be used for measures on which the committee stage is not likely to raise any important questions of policy. the original intention, however, has not been wholly carried out. highly contentious bills have not infrequently been "sent upstairs,"[ : ] as the expression goes, although this has never been done in the case of the most important government measures. many people feel that the departure is unfortunate, and hence there was no little opposition in to raising the number of standing committees to four, and providing that all bills should be referred to them unless the house ordered otherwise. an amendment, to the report of the committee, that the provision should not apply to bills containing general controversial matter was rejected by a strict party vote,[ : ] and the change in procedure was put through the house itself by the use of closure.[ : ] if the standing committees were confined to non-contentious measures, they could create no serious embarrassment for the ministry, even if quite free from its control. [sidenote: party complexion of committees.] but in fact the committees are a good deal under the influence of the government. in the first place the government party is always given a majority of the members. formerly it had on select committees a majority of one only,[ : ] but now it has become a general rule that both select and standing committees shall reflect as nearly as may be the party complexion of the house itself. thus in , when the parties were nearly evenly balanced in the house, the government majority on the committees was usually very small, but after the conservatives came into power with a much larger majority, their share of members in the committees was correspondingly great.[ : ] the standing committees, and often the select committees also, are appointed by the committee of selection, which contains usually six adherents of the party in power, and five from the other side of the house. but they are members of great experience. they know the principles they are expected to apply, and with their discretion in the choice of individuals the ministers make no attempt to interfere.[ : ] [sidenote: influence of the government in committees.] the mere possession of a majority upon a committee is not always enough, unless the government can bring pressure to bear upon its followers. in select committees on bills this is not a matter of much consequence, because, as we have seen, they rarely have charge of important, or at least of contentious, measures. in select committees of inquiry one hears nothing of pressure--to the credit of statesmen be it said--and although the report of an english committee or commission of inquiry is often a variation on the theme that "no one did anything wrong, but they had better not do it again," still there are reports that contain severe criticism on the public administration.[ : ] in the standing committees the influence of the government is palpable. in fact these committees, when dealing with government bills, are miniatures of the house in arrangement as well as in composition. there are the same rows of benches facing each other; and the minister in charge of the bill sits in the corner seat at the chairman's right hand, accepting, or refusing to accept, amendments on behalf of the government.[ : ] absent members are fetched in the same way to take part in divisions;[ : ] and when the conservatives were in power, whips were sometimes issued imploring them to be present on the morrow, because an important vote was expected. the liberals do not do this, and often have trouble in getting their partisans to attend. moreover, a difficulty sometimes arises from the fact that the members who are most strongly interested in a bill and hence least under the control of the minister--the labour men or the irish nationalists, for example, in the case of bills affecting their constituents--attend far more regularly than the rest. but although the influence of the government over a standing committee is distinctly less than over the house itself,[ : ] it is certainly very considerable. [sidenote: few party votes in committees.] nevertheless the voting in both select and standing committees runs little on party lines, decidedly less than it does in the house itself. taking two recent years, and , for which the writer has had statistics prepared, it appears that in there were in the select committees twenty-three party votes out of eighty-four divisions; and in the standing committees on law and trade[ : ] there were only seven divisions in all, of which only two were on party lines; whereas in the house itself there were one hundred and eighty-four party votes out of a total of two hundred and forty-six divisions. moreover, the party votes in committees were mainly confined to a very few subjects. thus seventeen of the twenty-three party votes in the select committees were given in the committee on the work of the charity commission, and four of the remainder were in that on scotch feus and building leases.[ : ] for the comparison is even more striking. in the select committees there was one party vote out of sixty-three divisions; in the standing committees six out of fifty-three--and those six were all on one bill[ : ]--while in the house there were two hundred and forty-two party votes out of three hundred and fifty-seven divisions.[ : ] the reasons why the votes run on party lines less in the committees than in the house itself are self-evident. first there is the fact that the most contentious measures, those where party feeling runs highest, are not referred to committees. another reason, not less important, is that a defeat of the government, even in a standing committee, cannot directly imperil the life of the ministry, and hence the final means of pressure is lacking. in fact an amendment is occasionally carried against the government in a standing committee, and in that case the minister either makes up his mind to accept the change or tries to get it reversed in the house on report. but this very condition, which is embarrassing for the minister, shows that there is a limit to the work standing committees can be set to do, without imperilling the authority of the cabinet. [sidenote: suggestion of a committee on the estimates.] a similar danger would attend the use of committees on the estimates. the creation of such committees has often been suggested,[ : ] and for a very good reason. the debates on the estimates in the house of commons have become an opportunity for criticising the conduct of the administration, while the financial aspect of the matter, the question whether the grants are excessive and ought to be reduced or not, has largely fallen out of sight. it has not unnaturally been felt that this function, which the house itself is disinclined to discharge, might be effectively performed by a select or standing committee. but if the committee were really to revise the estimates, it would, like the committees on the budget in continental parliaments, encroach upon the power of the government to frame its own budget. it would imperil the exclusive initiative in money matters, which is the corner-stone both of sound finance, and of the authority of a responsible ministry. that the committee on accounts should scrutinise the disbursements with care, to see that they correspond with the votes, is most salutary; and that special committees should be appointed from time to time, to review the expenditures, and suggest possible lines of saving, is also excellent. these are in the nature of criticism of past actions, with suggestions of a general character for the future, and they do not affect the freedom of the cabinet to lay down its own policy and prepare its own budget. the last committee on national expenditure reported in in favour of having a select committee examine each year one class or portion of the estimates; but there was a sharp difference of opinion on the question whether such a committee would or would not interfere with the responsibility of ministers, and the recommendation was adopted only by a vote of seven to five.[ : ] in view of the experience in other countries, one cannot help feeling that the minority was right; that while the proposed committee would be far less of a thorn in the side of the treasury bench than one on the estimates as a whole, yet that if it really exerted any authority, and ventured to report reductions, it would stand to just that extent in a position of antagonism and rivalry with the ministers. [sidenote: legislative capacity of parliament has been reached.] one of mr. gladstone's objects in proposing the standing committees was to increase the legislative capacity of the house, by enabling it to do a part of its work by sections sitting at the same time.[ : ] such a process of making one worm into two by cutting it in halves is well enough with an organism whose nervous system is not too highly centralised; and in england it seems to have been carried about as far as is consistent with a responsible ministry. the standing committees have to some extent fulfilled this purpose, but it is extremely doubtful whether they can wisely be charged with bills of a more contentious nature than are sent to them now. in order to increase the legislative output the number of standing committees was raised to four, on april , , with a provision that bills should be regularly referred to them unless the house directed the contrary. how far this change will result in placing in their hands more controversial bills, and how far it will increase the power of the house to pass laws, remains to be seen. there can be no doubt, however, that the legislative capacity of parliament is limited; and the limit would appear to be well-nigh reached, unless private members are to lose their remnant of time, or debate is to be still further restricted, so that the members will no longer be free, until closure is moved, to speak at such length as they please, and to discuss every conceivable detail, great or small, often several times over. but upon the preservation of these things the position of the house of commons largely depends. to say that at present the cabinet legislates with the advice and consent of parliament would hardly be an exaggeration; and it is only the right of private members to bring in a few motions and bills of their own, and to criticise government measures, or propose amendments to them, freely, that prevents legislation from being the work of a mere automatic majority. it does not follow that the action of the cabinet is arbitrary; that it springs from personal judgment divorced from all dependence on popular or parliamentary opinion. the cabinet has its finger always on the pulse of the house of commons, and especially of its own majority there; and it is ever on the watch for expressions of public feeling outside. its function is in large part to sum up and formulate the desires of its supporters, but the majority must accept its conclusions, and in carrying them out becomes well-nigh automatic. footnotes: [ : ] curiously enough, such a procedure is unknown in the house of commons, and the term itself is unfamiliar. it means in the case of an election, for example, that a candidate to be successful need only have more votes than any one else, whereas election by majority means that he must have more than half of the votes cast. the proposal for a second ballot in elections to parliament involves requiring a majority instead of a plurality on the first ballot. [ : ] s.o. . in his account of the evolution of procedure in the house of commons (_recht und technik des englischen parlamentarismus_, _buch i., abs. _), redlich traces the history of the practice of reserving particular days for the government, which began in . [ : ] it is a mistake to lay too much stress upon the exact proportion of time allotted to private members and to the government; because much of the time of each is devoted to the same purpose. one of the uses to which private members' evenings are put is criticism of the conduct of the ministry, but this is also the principal object of the debates upon the address, upon the estimates in committee of supply, upon motions to adjourn and on other occasions. [ : ] these figures are taken from the return made for ten years in , and the subsequent annual returns, making due allowance for the cases of two short sittings instead of a long one in a day. an exact computation by hours would be difficult. the evening sittings are shorter than the average sittings, but so were the old wednesday sittings reserved for private members. [ : ] as redlich observes (_recht und technik_, ) the introduction of the twelve-o'clock rule for the interruption of business brought in the habit of talking out a bill before midnight, and blocking bills after midnight, two of the great obstacles to legislation by private members. [ : ] s.o. . [ : ] although the time at the disposal of private members has not changed much of late years, the number of these bills enacted, and especially of those enacted against opposition, has diminished sensibly. in the decade from to about twenty-three such bills were passed a year, and on four or five of these divisions took place. [ : ] s.o. . ilbert, "manual," §§ , . [ : ] the following examples are all taken from the session of . [ : ] in , for example, the house was counted out for want of a quorum on seven out of the seventeen private members' nights; while in this happened only once, and then after the first motion had been voted down. [ : ] on march and , , the ministers, with their followers, took no part in the debates or divisions on the motions of private members condemning their attitude on the fiscal question, and they paid no attention to the votes. this event, which was unprecedented, will be discussed later. [ : ] s.o. . [ : ] _cf._ todd, "parl. govt. in england," ii., . ilbert, "legislative methods and forms," , . [ : ] the only cases where a government bill has been rejected by the house of commons for more than a score of years are those of the home rule bill in , on which the cabinet dissolved parliament, and an insignificant bill on church buildings in the isle of man, which was defeated in a thin house in . [ : ] _cf._ todd, "parl. govt. in england," ii., - . [ : ] the number of amendments to government bills (not including the estimates) carried against the government whips acting as tellers in each year since , has been as follows:-- [ : ] the minister often says that he will consider whether he can meet the views that have been expressed; and then on the report stage he brings up a compromise clause. an interesting example of this occurred on july , , when the opposition complained that sufficient time had not been given for debating the educational council for wales, the provisions proposed having been profoundly changed since it had been last before the house. the government replied that the changes had been made to meet objections raised by the opposition itself. hans. ser. clxi., _et seq._ [ : ] for france, see dupriez, _les ministres_, ii., - , - . lowell, "governments and parties," i., - . for italy, dupriez, i., , . lowell, i., - . for belgium, where the evil is diminished by greater party discipline, and by the fact that the changes proposed by the committee must be moved as amendments to the government bill, see dupriez, i., - . in france permanent standing committees have been very extensively substituted during the last few years for temporary ones appointed to consider particular bills; but while this may do good in other ways, it cannot entirely remove the evil described in the text. [ : ] in each of the years and , for example,--years for which i have analysed the divisions in parliament,--only one government bill, that was enacted, was referred to a select committee, and neither of these bills had a division on party lines in the course of its progress through the house. [ : ] hans. ser. cclxxv., . [ : ] see, for example, hans. ser. iv., , xxii., , xxiii., - , , xxxiii., - , cii., . [ : ] hans. ser. cxxxv., _et seq._ another debate has since occurred on march - , . [ : ] mr. chamberlain's views seem to have undergone some modification. _cf._ hans. ser. xxiii., , and cxxxv., - . [ : ] i define a party vote arbitrarily as one where more than nine tenths of the members of the party in power, who take part in the division, vote together on one side, and nine tenths of the opposition who take part vote together on the other side. [ : ] second rep. of com. on house of commons (procedure), may , , qs. , , , (p. ). the rooms of the standing committees are on the upper floor. [ : ] _ibid._, p. viii. [ : ] hans. ser. clxxii., - . [ : ] hans. ser. cclxxv., - . [ : ] this does not, of course, apply to the ordinary committees on private and local bills, and it cannot always be strictly applied to all select committees. but in the case of standing committees the apportionment is decidedly accurate. in fact one of the chief objections to a standing committee for scotland, composed mainly of scotch members, was that it would not reflect the proportion of parties in the house. in the debate mr. balfour remarked that this "is not merely the traditional practice, but a practice absolutely necessary if we are to maintain governmental responsibility in matters of legislation." he asked what would be the position of the government with standing committees of which they did not happen to possess the confidence. the committee would send back a bill changed, and then the minister must either drop the bill, or accept it as it is, or reverse the changes on the report stage. such a position would, as he said, be intolerable, and would make legislation by a responsible ministry an absurdity. (hans. ser. xxii., , - .) _cf._ second rep. com. on house of commons (procedure), may , , q. . [ : ] hans. ser. cccxxxix., . the chairmen of the standing committees are intended, like the speaker, to be strictly impartial. they are selected by and from the chairman's panel, which contains three members from each side of the house; and a member of the opposition often presides when a government bill is discussed. [ : ] notably in recent years that of on the war in south africa, com. papers, , xl., _et seq._; and that of on the beck case, com. papers, , lxii., _et seq._ [ : ] "the very structure and furniture . . . of the chamber in which the grand committee would sit, were designed to carry out the idea of government by party." hans. ser. xxii., . [ : ] hans. ser. xcii., . [ : ] second rep. of com. on house of commons (procedure), , qs. , , . [ : ] in the anomalous standing committee for scotch business the condition of things was very different. it reported upon only one bill, that on local government for scotland, and on this there were no less than sixty-three divisions, of which twenty-one were party votes. [ : ] both of the party votes in the standing committees of law and trade in were on the church patronage bill, which was not a government bill. [ : ] the agriculture and technical education (ireland) bill. [ : ] the method of making these computations is the same as that described in the chapter on "the strength of party ties," and the divisions in the committees are taken from their reports in the blue books for the year. the figures may be presented in other ways which give much the same result. if we take only the party in power, to see in what proportion of divisions it cast a party vote--paying no attention to the votes of the members of the opposition--we find it as follows:-- : house %; select coms. %; stand. coms. law & trade % : house %; select coms. %; stand. coms. law & trade % : house select coms. %; stand. coms. law & trade % the proportion of divisions where neither party cast a party vote were as follows:-- : house . %; select coms. %; stand. coms. law & trade % : house . %; select coms. %; stand. coms. law & trade % : house select coms. %; stand. coms. law & trade % the number of party votes in was in select coms. out of , and in stand. coms. out of . [ : ] todd, "parl. govt. in england," i., - . may, . rep. of com. on estimates procedure, com. papers, , xii., , p. iv. report com. on nat. exp., com. papers, , vii., . [ : ] rep. com. on nat. exp., com. papers, , vii., . [ : ] hans. ser. cclxxv., - . chapter xviii the commons' control of the cabinet [sidenote: control of the house over administration.] if the relations between the cabinet and the house of commons in legislative matters have changed, their relations in executive matters have been modified also. if the cabinet to-day legislates with the advice and consent of the house, it administers subject to its constant supervision and criticism. in both cases the relation is fundamentally the same. in both the english system seems to be approximating more and more to a condition where the cabinet initiates everything, frames its own policy, submits that policy to a searching criticism in the house, and adopts such suggestions as it deems best; but where the house, after all this has been done, must accept the acts and proposals of the government as they stand, or pass a vote of censure, and take the chances of a change of ministry or a dissolution. [sidenote: it rarely directs administrative action.] there is nothing to prevent the house of commons from adopting an address or resolution calling upon the government for specific administrative action; and it has been occasionally, though not often, done.[ : ] under the present rules of procedure there are few opportunities for a direct vote of this kind, the chief occasions when it is in order being the evening sittings reserved for private members' motions. on these and other occasions resolutions asking for executive action are sometimes brought forward,[ : ] but they are rarely carried against the opposition of the cabinet. in fact it does not seem to have occurred at all in the last ten years, while in the preceding ten years it occurred only four times; and it so happened that in the last three of those cases, at least, the government did not carry out the wishes of the house.[ : ] such votes are not likely to be common in the future, because the modern principle of responsibility requires that the ministers should be free to act and be held to account for what they do, rather than that they should be given explicit directions in regard to their duties. [sidenote: it criticises freely the conduct of the government.] if the house of commons does not often pass votes asking for executive action in the future, its members criticise the conduct of the government in the past freely and constantly. the opportunities for doing so are, indeed, manifold. there is first the address in answer to the king's speech at the opening of the session; then the questions day by day give a chance, if not for direct criticism, at least for calling the ministers to account; then there are the motions to adjourn; the private members' motions; the debates on going into the committees of supply and ways and means; the discussions in the committee of supply itself; the debates on the consolidated fund resolutions, on the appropriation bill, on the budget, and on the motions to adjourn for the holidays; and, finally, the formal motions of want of confidence. the way in which these various occasions are used to bring the acts of the ministers to the attention of parliament needs explanation. [sidenote: individual criticism and collective censure.] but first it is important to distinguish between individual criticism by members, and collective censure by vote of the house. the former, whether coming from the seats behind the treasury bench, or from the opposite side of the floor, is in the nature of a caution to the ministers, an expression of personal opinion that is likely to find more or less of an echo outside of parliament. it does not in itself imperil the position of the government at the moment, although the errors of the ministers pointed out in this way go into the great balance of account on which the nation renders its verdict at the next general election. but a collective censure by vote of the house may mean immediate resignation. now the system of a responsible ministry implies the alternation in power of two parties holding different views upon the questions of the day. if it does not imply this; if the fall of one cabinet is followed by the appointment of another with a similar policy; then public life will revolve about the personal ambitions and intrigues of leading politicians,--a condition that has caused much of the discredit now attached to the parliamentary system in some continental states. but if a change of ministry involves the transfer of power to an opposition with quite a different programme, it is clear that the change ought not to take place until the nation has declared, either at the polls, or through its representatives in the house of commons, that it wishes that result. the ministers ought, therefore, to stand or fall upon their general policy, upon their whole record, or upon some one question that in permanent consequence outweighs everything else, not upon a particular act of secondary importance. moreover the judgment ought to be given after mature deliberation, not in the heat of a debate upon some political blunder brought suddenly to the notice of the house. exactly the reverse of this occurs under the french system of interpellations. by that procedure a single act of the government can be made the subject of a debate ending with motions condemning or justifying the occurrence; and great ingenuity is sometimes displayed in so framing the motions as to catch the votes of members, who, although supporters of the cabinet, cannot approve of the act in question.[ : ] how a resort to similar tactics in the house of commons has been more and more barred out, will be seen in the following pages, which describe the different methods of bringing the conduct of the ministers before the house. [sidenote: address in reply to the king's speech.] the first two or three weeks of an ordinary session are taken up with a debate on the address in reply to the king's speech. the address provides a field for a series of political battles, fought over the amendments that are brought forward. there are a dozen or more of these every year; many of them urging the need of legislation that is not foreshadowed in the speech; others relating to purely administrative matters arising in foreign or domestic affairs. sometimes they deal with large questions of public policy, like the extension of the frontier of india, or the maintenance of the integrity of china. but this is by no means always true; and amendments are moved, for example, drawing attention to the grievances of the postal and telegraph clerks, or complaining of the government for failure to prosecute the directors of a blasted financial scheme or for the releasing or refusing to release persons convicted of crimes connected with political agitation in ireland. in some of these cases particular acts are brought before the bar of the house; and it is usually impossible to avoid a direct vote upon them. but they are not recent events, or unexpectedly sprung upon parliament. they have almost always aroused a good deal of public attention, and formed the subject of no little discussion. the government has, therefore, plenty of time to prepare its defence, to sound and marshal its followers; and it does not, in fact, suffer defeats on administrative questions brought forward in this way. twice in more than twenty years the government tellers have found themselves in a minority on an amendment to the address, but neither case involved an executive act. the first, in , was an amendment expressing regret that the speech had announced no measure for the relief of agricultural labourers. under the peculiar state of parties lord salisbury's cabinet took the defeat as a vote of want of confidence and resigned. the other case occurred in , when an amendment aimed at the power of the lords to reject bills passed by the commons was carried against the government on the motion of some of its own followers; but it was clearly not the kind of vote that involves the downfall of a ministry. while, therefore, the address is essentially a time for the discussion of questions of general policy, it is, no doubt, an occasion when particular acts may be brought up for judgment, and a direct vote forced upon them, although not in the way that is most embarrassing for a cabinet. [sidenote: questions to ministers.] isolated examples of questions addressed to ministers can be found far back in the eighteenth century, but the habit did not become common until about sixty years ago. at that period one hundred or more questions were asked in the course of a session, and the first regulations were made regarding the time and method of putting them.[ : ] thereafter the practice grew so fast that in the seventies over one thousand were asked in a session, and by the end of the century it had increased to about five thousand. in form questions are simply requests for information. they must contain no argument, no statement of fact not needed to make their purport clear, and they must be addressed to that minister in the house in whose province the subject-matter of the inquiry falls.[ : ] they cover almost every conceivable field; the intentions of ministers in the conduct of the business of the house; acts done by officials of all grades in every department of the public service; and even events that might be expected to give rise to action by the government. the process of answering questions gives to the treasury bench an air of omniscience not wholly deserved, for notice of the question to be asked is sent in a day or two in advance so as to give time for the permanent subordinates to hunt up the matter, and supply their chief with the facts required. [sidenote: motives for asking them.] questions are asked from various motives; sometimes simply to obtain information; sometimes to show to constituents the assiduity of their member, or to exhibit his opinions; sometimes to draw public attention to a grievance; sometimes to embarrass the government, or make a telling point; and at times a question is asked by a supporter of the minister in order to give him a chance to bring out a fact effectively. but whatever the personal motive may be, the system provides a method of dragging before the house any act or omission by the departments of state, and of turning a searchlight upon every corner of the public service. the privilege is easily abused, but it helps very much to keep the administration of the country up to the mark, and it is a great safeguard against negligent or arbitrary conduct, or the growth of that bureaucratic arrogance which is quite unknown in england. the minister is not, of course, obliged to answer, but unless he can plead an obvious reason of public policy why he should not do so, as is often the case in foreign affairs, a refusal would look like an attempt to conceal, and would have a bad effect. [sidenote: not followed by debate or vote.] now while questions furnish a most effective means of bringing administrative errors to the notice of the house they afford no opportunity for passing judgment upon them; and thereby they avoid the dangers of the french custom of interpellations. a question in england is not even followed by a debate. often, indeed, the member says that his inquiry has not been fully answered, or interjects a remark, objection or further question; but this is never allowed to grow into a discussion, and when the habit of asking supplementary questions becomes too common the ministers refuse to answer them altogether, to the temporary exasperation of the opposition, or the speaker himself checks them, enforcing the rule against introducing matter of argument. if no debate is in order, neither is a vote; and hence questions furnish a means of drawing public attention to an act, but not for collective censure of it by the house. [sidenote: motions to adjourn.] [sidenote: their history.] although a question cannot give rise directly to a discussion or a vote, yet a motion, followed both by a debate and a division, may result from a question. this is the "motion to adjourn for the purpose of discussing a definite matter of urgent public importance," which is commonly, but by no means always, provoked by an answer to a question. it has had a curious history. there is in the house of commons no principle of universal application requiring debate to be confined to the subject of the motion before the house, and great latitude was formerly permitted in the discussion of motions to adjourn.[ : ] taking advantage of this fact it became the habit to create an opportunity for debating some matter that could not be brought forward in the ordinary course of procedure, by moving the adjournment before the orders of the day had been taken up; and the object being merely debate, the motion was almost always withdrawn after it had served its purpose. in motions of this kind began to be used, much against the inclination of the speaker, to bring on a debate where the answer to a question had been unsatisfactory; and about the same time they ceased to be regularly withdrawn.[ : ] a few years later, indeed, it became common to push these motions to a division. before this seems to have been done in only two instances,[ : ] but in that year it was done seven times, and the motions themselves rose to the unprecedented number of nineteen. members were beginning to regard the motion to adjourn as a privilege, while the freedom with which it could be used opened a door for abuse. the government, however, speedily restricted the practice by regulations that dealt with different kinds of motions to adjourn in different ways. the motion to adjourn for the easter or whitsuntide recess was left untouched, and still gives rise, as we shall see, to a miscellaneous discussion of many things. upon a motion to adjourn, made, on the other hand, while the house is engaged upon the business of the day, debate was, by a standing order of , confined strictly to the question of adjournment;[ : ] and, finally, the motion to adjourn, made before the orders of the day have been taken up, was hedged about by limitations peculiar to itself. [sidenote: motion to adjourn to discuss an urgent public matter.] mr. gladstone's urgency resolution of gave to the speaker control over the business of the house so long as the matter declared urgent was under consideration; and in framing rules for the exercise of his power the speaker laid down a principle that was embodied in a standing order in the autumn of .[ : ] the order, which is still in force to-day, provides that a motion to adjourn shall not be made before taking up the business of the day, except by leave of the house, unless forty members rise in their places to support it, or ten members rise, and the house, on a division, decides that the motion shall be made. it provides, also, that the motion can be made only "for the purpose of discussing a definite matter of urgent public importance."[ : ] the standing order of prevented waste of time by a frivolous or eccentric use of the motion to adjourn, but did not prevent any considerable body of opponents from using it to bring the ministers to account. this may be seen from the fact that in the twenty years following the adoption of the order the motion was made one hundred and forty-six times, and in just one half of those cases it was pushed to a division. [sidenote: object of the motion.] although the motion is almost invariably made by an opponent of the ministry, the object is not always censure. sometimes it is made in order to obtain fuller information than can be given by an answer to a question; sometimes in order to rivet attention on a subject; and, as we have seen, it is often withdrawn or negatived without a division. yet it does furnish a method by which, without notice, a debate can be precipitated and a vote taken upon a specific act or omission of the government; and this is after all its chief importance. the motion bears, therefore, a certain resemblance to the french interpellation, but the difference in form is of the utmost consequence. there is in england no chance to frame the motion, as in france, to express subtle shades of meaning. it cannot be so drafted that conscientious members of the dominant party may feel obliged to vote for it, although it implies a condemnation of the government. the motion to adjourn does not, indeed, express in terms any judgment upon the subject-matter of the debate, and a supporter of the cabinet can, without inconsistency, state his opinion that the ministers have blundered, and then vote against the adjournment. the motion has, in fact, been carried only twice; once on may , , before the standing order of , in a very thin house, when the government did not oppose it;[ : ] and a second time on july , , after the debate over the arrest of miss cass. in neither case did any minister resign. [sidenote: its danger.] [sidenote: under the rules of and .] still the motion to adjourn is a source of danger to the cabinet. cool as english public men are, and strong as the bonds of party have become, it would be rash to predict that the house of commons will not be carried away again as it was in the case of miss cass, and that the cabinet would not regard a vote to adjourn as a censure implying lack of confidence. the danger has been slightly reduced by the rules of . by a change in the standing orders adopted in that year, and slightly modified in , the motion can be made only when the putting of questions is finished at three o'clock, and then it stands over for debate until a quarter past eight of the same day. by this arrangement the government escapes the risk of surprise. it has five hours, after notice of the debate, in which to prepare its case, ascertain the opinion of its followers, persuade the doubtful, and rally the faithful. then the debate comes on at an hour when the attendance is habitually small, instead of a time when the house is always full.[ : ] [sidenote: blocking orders.] moreover a motion to adjourn for the purpose of discussing a matter of urgent public importance can, in the case of any particular subject, be prevented altogether, if necessary, by a very simple device. there is a general principle of parliamentary law in england that no question on which the house has rendered a decision shall be brought before it a second time in the same session; and in the commons--although not in the lords--the principle has been extended by rulings of the speakers to forbid the anticipation of questions of which notice has already been given. nor is it necessary that a definite time for taking the matter up should have been fixed.[ : ] it is enough that the notice of a motion should have been given, no matter how remote may be the chance that the member who gave the notice will ever be able to bring his motion before the house. by merely giving notice of a motion, which he has no intention of calling up, any member can, therefore, prevent a subject from being brought forward either by a motion to adjourn, or by a subsequent private member's motion, or in the course of the debate on adjournment for the easter or whitsuntide recess. a "blocking motion" of this kind is thus an effectual barrier against a motion to adjourn which might place the government in an awkward position. complaints of the use of blocking motions have been often made, and in there was no little discussion of the subject.[ : ] there were said to be on the notice paper, without any day assigned for their consideration, thirty-four notices of motion, relating among other things to fiscal reform, macedonia, the congo state, thibet, the reorganisation of the war office, chinese labour in south africa, public health, military training, local and other taxation, and the system of blocking motions itself.[ : ] it was asserted that motions of this kind were set down by supporters of the treasury bench after consultation with the government whip. mr. balfour did not deny the charge, but said that he never inquired into consultations of that kind.[ : ] he thought that "there ought to be no limitation of the powers of the house to discuss anything upon a motion for adjournment for the holidays"; but he was more cautious in giving an opinion about motions to adjourn to discuss a matter of urgent public importance. the government dislikes these motions, because they consume precious time, and because they can be used on all occasions to raise awkward questions on which the cabinet may be unwilling to show its hand or supply facts. there is, however, another serious objection to them. the house ought to be at liberty to criticise the ministry freely at all times, but that the discussion should be followed by a vote, expressing, however indirectly, a judgment on the matter, involves a possible danger to the parliamentary form of government. [sidenote: private members' motions.] the most direct method by which the acts of the ministers can be brought before parliament, and a vote taken upon them, is that of private members' motions. these may, and often do, contain an explicit condemnation of some part of the policy or administrative conduct of the government. but the effectiveness of such motions as a means of passing judgment upon the treasury bench is not in reality great, and that for several reasons. there are in all only about seventeen evenings reserved for the purpose, and it is rare that more than one motion reaches a vote in an evening. nor are those few occasions all used to take the government to task. the right to make a motion is determined by the ballot, and the fortunate member is free to raise any question he pleases. being one of the rare chances for private initiative, he often uses it to bring forward some favourite project of his own. several of these evenings are thus devoted every year to discussing aspirations that lie outside the field of party politics, and do not affect the position of the cabinet. the number of motions aimed at the government is, therefore, not large, and unless many members are interested in criticising the same thing, it is a mere chance what is brought forward for discussion. then all the private members' evenings come in the early part of the year; and notices of the motions must be given four evenings in advance. it follows that they can hardly deal with current questions that arise after the session is well under way, and this is in itself a very serious limitation upon their importance as a means of bringing the ministers to account. [sidenote: means of avoiding them.] in case of necessity a hostile vote on a private member's motion can usually be avoided. the member has but one evening, and the ministers could no doubt prolong the debate until the moment of interruption, and then defeat an attempt at closure. but this does not appear to be done, and might be regarded as showing too much fear of the result. sometimes, also, a motion can be blocked, although that is not so easy as in the case of a motion to adjourn, because the private member has as early an opportunity as the blocker to give notice of his motion. there are, however, other means of defence; and, in fact, the possibility of escaping a disastrous vote on a private member's motion has been recently illustrated in the case of the fiscal question in a very striking way, for during the sessions of and such motions were used persistently in a vain attempt to get a decisive expression of opinion on that question. on may , , a motion was made against any protective tax on food, which the government met by an amendment that it was not necessary to discuss the question. as there were a number of unionists who objected to a tax on food, but did not want to upset the government, the amendment was carried. early in the next session another inconvenient motion of a similar kind was shelved by the previous question; and, finally, mr. balfour decided that he could avoid the consequences of a wager of battle by simply refusing to fight. on march and , , followed by most of his supporters, he absented himself from the debates and divisions on private members' motions touching this subject, although on the second occasion the motion condemned in direct terms the policy of the government. he explained that he took this course because the subject ought not to be discussed on party lines, and could not be dealt with by the existing parliament, which had no mandate from the nation for the purpose. he added that if the house was allowed on private members' nights to act without the ordinary machinery of party management, the conclusions at which it might arrive would be treated as expressions of opinion which do not govern policy.[ : ] in other words, he claimed that the ministers might decline to take part in the proceedings on private members' motions, and disregard the votes passed. his attitude was severely criticised, and may have damaged the ministry in the eyes of the public, but that he should have been able to assume it shows the impotence of motions of that kind. [sidenote: rarely carried against the ministers.] as lately as twenty years ago motions made by private members were not infrequently carried against the opposition of the government--on the average nearly once a year. like all other votes hostile to the ministers, however, they have become more rare, and in fact the last case of the kind occurred in . but if private members' motions have not of late proved effectual, as a means of bringing some special part of the conduct of the government before the judgment of the house, and obtaining a test vote upon it, this may not hereafter be true in every case. they certainly furnish possible exception to the principle that in its relations with the government the house of commons passes judgment only upon the measures which the ministers choose to bring forward, or upon their policy and administrative record as a whole. [sidenote: debate on going into supply.] amendments to the address, motions to adjourn and private members' motions, are almost the only occasions at the present time when criticism of the government's action can be followed by a vote upon the act criticised. formerly there was another opportunity as constant and prolific as any of them. this came when the house resolved itself into committee of the whole on supply. before taking up supply on any day a motion had to be made that the speaker do leave the chair; and in accordance, it was said, with the ancient doctrine that redress of grievances should be considered before supply, any subject not requiring a substantive motion, or not a matter of detail properly discussed in the committee itself, could be debated either on the principal motion, or on an amendment framed for the purpose.[ : ] this gave frequent opportunities, throughout the greater part of the session, not only for finding fault with the conduct of the government, but also for taking the sense of the house thereon by means of amendments to the motion that the speaker do leave the chair. [sidenote: how limited in .] [sidenote: in and .] the practice opened the door to a vexatious waste of time, and in it was limited by a standing order, which provided that on monday or thursday the speaker should leave the chair without question put (and therefore without amendment or debate) unless on first going into supply on the estimates for the army, navy, or civil service, or on a vote of credit, an amendment should be moved, or question raised, relating to the estimates proposed to be taken in supply.[ : ] tuesdays and wednesdays were at that time private members' days, and whenever they were seized by the government, and used for supply, it was the habit to extend the order to them by special vote.[ : ] this left friday as the only day on which the motion that the speaker do leave the chair was open to amendment and debate.[ : ] finally, in , when a fixed number of days were allotted to supply, the standing order was extended to friday also. it was done at first by a sessional order; but this was renewed from year to year, until it was made permanent by the rules of .[ : ] [sidenote: effect of the present practice.] at present the speaker leaves the chair without putting any question, except on going into supply for the first time on the army, navy and civil service estimates; and on these three occasions the rule that discussion and amendment must relate to the estimates in that branch of supply about to be taken up is very strictly applied.[ : ] moreover, only a single amendment to the motion that the speaker do leave the chair can be moved, because the amendment takes the form that certain words in the motion be left out in order to substitute others, and the question is put to the house whether the words proposed to be left out shall stand. if, therefore, the amendment is negatived, the house has decided that those words shall stand part of the question, and no other amendment to omit them can afterward be proposed.[ : ] debate, however, may and usually does continue upon the main question. but the house can hardly reject the motion that the speaker do leave the chair; and, in fact, such a vote, although perhaps a general reflection upon the ministry, could not, after a miscellaneous debate upon many topics, be regarded as expressing an opinion upon any particular subject. it follows that (besides the extraordinary case of a vote of credit) there are every year three occasions set apart for general discussion of all matters germane to the three great branches of supply, on each of which a single vote can be taken upon some special grievance or question of policy. formerly the amendment that obtained the right of way depended largely upon the accident of catching the speaker's eye,[ : ] but now, like the motions on private members' nights, it is determined by the blinder justice of the lot.[ : ] the amendments relate to all manner of things, such as the system of enlistment for the army, the number of artillery horses, the insufficient manning of the fleet, the desirability of an international agreement for a reduction in ship-building, the refusal of the post office to grant telephone licenses to municipalities, the inequitable fiscal treatment of scotland, and the defective state of primary education in ireland. the three general debates upon the motions to go into committee of supply upon the estimates still afford an excellent chance for criticising the government, but the limitations upon amendments, and the conditions under which they are proposed, has reduced the opportunity for a decisive condemnation of any part of its conduct almost to nothing. until a score of years ago the ministers were, indeed, beaten nearly every session upon some amendment on going into supply, but since this has not happened once. [sidenote: amendments on going into ways and means.] after the general rule forbidding debate and amendment on going into committee of supply had been extended to friday, it occurred to mr. gibson bowles, an enterprising mentor of the government, that a similar use might be made of the motion to go into committee of ways and means. accordingly in the regular session of , and in the special session in december of that year, he moved amendments to the motion, but the practice grieved the treasury bench and was stopped by a change in the standing orders made in .[ : ] [sidenote: debate in the committee of supply as a means of criticism.] in proposing his new procedure for supply in , mr. balfour spoke of the belief that the object of debating the appropriations is to secure economical administration, as an ancient superstition no longer at all true. members, he said, now move reductions in order to get from ministers a promise of future increase; and the danger is that the house will urge too much extravagance. he insisted that the real object of the committee of supply is the chance it affords to private members of criticising the executive and administrative action of the government; that it is an open platform for members, where the ministers, for the sake of getting their appropriations passed, are bound to keep a quorum.[ : ] this is, indeed, manifest to any one familiar with the debates upon the estimates. they are not to any great extent discussions of financial questions, of what the nation can, or cannot, afford to do. they are a long series of criticisms upon the policy of the ministers, and the conduct of the departments under their control. from this point of view mr. balfour suggested a method of making the debates more valuable. he described the futility of the old system of taking up the estimates in their numerical order, pointing out how much time was wasted every year in discussing the earlier votes in class i.,--repairs of royal palaces, etc.,--while some of the largest appropriations were always hurried through with little comment at the fag end of the session. he promised in future to bring forward the important votes in the earlier part of the year, and in fact to give precedence to estimates that any group of members might wish to discuss.[ : ] adding together the days regularly allotted to supply under the standing order, the additional sittings used for the purpose, and those devoted to supplementary estimates,[ : ] the better part of more than thirty days are spent every year in committee of supply. this would appear to give time enough for a thorough overhauling of many branches of the administration; and under mr. balfour's practice, which will, no doubt, be followed by future cabinets, the question what departments shall be examined is determined by the critics themselves. the debates in the committee of supply must be relevant to the estimates under consideration, that is, they must be confined to the particular vote then before the house, and the conduct of the government connected therewith. the greater part of the time is therefore taken up with a discussion of small details of administration. but there are certain votes that give a chance to review the broader questions of policy. as the grants made to the army and navy for one purpose can, with the consent of the treasury, be used for another, the debate on the great votes for the pay of the men is allowed to range over the general policy and management of the service concerned.[ : ] the items for the salaries of the ministers give a similar, though less comprehensive, chance to examine the policy pursued in their several departments; and in order to raise a debate of that kind it is common to move to reduce the salary of a minister by one hundred pounds. if an excessive proportion of the time devoted to supply is consumed in the ventilation of small grievances, that is due to the fact that the criticism is conducted, in the main, by individual members of the house, and not by an organised opposition; but at least it has the merit of keeping the administration in all its details highly sensitive to public opinion. [sidenote: amendments in supply as an expression of opinion.] the debates in supply afford an excellent opportunity for criticising the acts of the government, but the divisions in supply are not an effective means of expressing the judgment of the house upon those acts. the items of appropriation are grouped into votes, each of which, as its name implies, is passed as a single vote; and every vote contains so many items that the house cannot reject it entirely. moreover, the only amendment in order is a motion to reduce the vote, by omitting a particular item or otherwise. now a reduction may be moved either because the house really objects to the appropriation, or as a means of expressing condemnation of some act of the government connected with the item in question. even in these days of extravagance the house occasionally objects to an appropriation on the ground that it is unnecessary or excessive, or because it disapproves of the purpose altogether. in such cases the chancellor of the exchequer is apt to withdraw the estimate or consent to the reduction. in fact, there have been only two instances in the last twenty years where a reduction was made for this reason without the consent of the government, and only one where it was carried against their opposition.[ : ] [sidenote: reductions used as a protest.] a reduction is often moved, on the other hand, to emphasise some grievance, some act of the administration that is the subject of complaint. but such a motion is not an effective means of testing the opinion of the house upon the matter in debate. when, for example, a reduction of a minister's salary is proposed in order to draw attention to a shortcoming in his department, the supporters of the cabinet almost invariably vote against the reduction without regard to their opinion upon the shortcoming in question; and they are perfectly right in so doing. they would be quite justified, and quite logical, in refusing to vote the reduction in salary, while saying that the act complained of had been a mistake and ought not to occur again. an amendment of that kind is, therefore, seldom carried; and then usually by accident. it has happened only four times in a score of years. on june , , when lord rosebery's cabinet was struggling for its life, with only a majority of a dozen in the commons, it was beaten on an amendment reducing the appropriation for the parliament buildings by five hundred pounds to call attention to the quantity of rooms occupied by officials of the house. the number of members who took part in the division was so small--the vote being sixty-three to forty-three--that the result must be regarded as a fluke, rather than as an expression of opinion by the house. a week later the government was defeated again on an amendment to reduce the salary of the secretary of state for war by one hundred pounds to draw attention to an alleged lack of supply of cordite. this was done by a trick. enough conservatives to turn the scale were brought into the house, by way of the terrace, without the knowledge of the whips on either side. under ordinary circumstances the ministers would not have paid much attention to such a division, but their position in this case was so precarious and so uncomfortable, that they took advantage of the occurrence to resign. the third instance happened in when the grant for the commissioners of national education in ireland was reduced by one hundred pounds as a protest against a circular they had issued which limited the teaching of the irish language in the schools. it was a "snap" vote, coming suddenly after a very short debate. had the ministers foreseen the division they could easily have called in enough of their followers to change the majority;[ : ] and, in fact, they seem to have disregarded the vote altogether, save that they expended for irish education one hundred pounds less than they had intended. the last case was in , when the appropriation for the irish land commission was reduced by one hundred pounds as a protest against the administration of the land act of . this was serious, and the government considered its position for a couple of days, but decided for the moment neither to resign nor dissolve.[ : ] manifestly the debates in committee of supply offer a very wide field for individual criticism, while they give little chance for collective condemnation of the matters criticised. this is even more obvious in certain other forms of procedure that are yet to be considered. [sidenote: debates on the finance bill;] the debates upon the resolutions embodying the proposals of the budget, and upon the finance bill that carries them into effect, are governed by the ordinary rules of debate upon bills, and are confined to the questions immediately before the house.[ : ] [sidenote: on the budget;] but in introducing his budget the chancellor of the exchequer makes a statement covering the income and expenditure of the current and coming years, and incidentally reviewing the economic condition of the country and the state of trade. the debate that ensues may wander as far as the statement itself, regardless of the particular resolution on which it is nominally based. this gives a chance to examine fully the financial policy--but only the financial policy--of the government; without, however, any corresponding means of expressing the judgment of the house thereon. [sidenote: on the consolidated fund bills.] in his treatise on parliamentary practice, sir thomas erskine may states that debate and amendment on the stages of consolidated fund bills "must be relevant to the bill, and must be confined to the conduct or action of those who receive or administer the grants specified in the bill."[ : ] the first part of this statement is true of the committee stage. debate and amendment must then be strictly relevant; and as the object of the bills is simply to authorise the issue out of the consolidated fund of the sums required to meet the grants already voted, and to provide that those grants must be used for the purposes for which they are made, no criticism of administrative conduct is in order.[ : ] the proceedings in committee are, therefore, brief. the latter part of may's statement applies to the second and third readings, but as the bills cover the grants that support practically every branch of the government, except the india office,[ : ] the acts of almost any department can be discussed at those stages. the occasions are, as a rule, freely used for the purpose. sometimes the debate is of a miscellaneous character, and runs off into small details, but more commonly it turns upon a few large questions of domestic, colonial or foreign policy that have aroused general interest.[ : ] amendments can, indeed, be moved, and they may range as far as the debate itself. the procedure would appear, therefore, to resemble that of going into committee of supply. but the house is aware that it must pass the bills, and although a division on the reading is often taken, the negative votes are usually confined to the irish members, who are more anxious to impede than to make use of the parliamentary system. in the rare cases where amendments have been moved the object is simply to concentrate discussion upon some particular question,[ : ] and they have seldom, if ever, been carried. [sidenote: debates on adjournment for easter and whitsuntide.] perhaps the most striking case of an opportunity for criticising the government, without any means of condemning its action, is furnished by the motion to adjourn over easter or whitsuntide. according to the old practice about adjournment, the rule of relevancy does not apply in these cases, and hence the discussion may, and in fact does, wander wherever the members please. it is of a heterogeneous nature, touching upon many subjects. but as the speakers have ruled that no amendment is in order, except on the time of adjournment,[ : ] the motion which provides the excuse for a debate is always adopted as it stands. [sidenote: motion of want of confidence.] the foregoing comprise all the ordinary means of criticising the conduct of the government. the leader of the opposition has one more. he can at any time claim to move a vote of want of confidence, and within reasonable limits the leader of the house will always assign a day for the purpose. but this is quite a different matter from the criticism of particular acts of which we have been speaking. whatever the precise form of the motion may be, the object is to turn the ministry out, and every member goes into one or the other lobby, according to his desire that the cabinet shall stand or fall. the judgment of the house is passed not upon any one act or question of policy, but distinctly upon the record of the ministry as a whole; and a defeat must be immediately followed by resignation or dissolution. [sidenote: freedom of criticism.] [sidenote: difficulty in passing judgment.] from this survey of the various methods by which the ministers can be called to account in the house of commons, it is clear that the opportunities to air grievances, to suggest reforms, and to criticise the government for both large matters and small, for their general policy and their least administrative acts, are many and constant. if less numerous than formerly, they are in practice quite as useful. for the object they serve, that of turning a searchlight upon the government, and keeping the public informed of its conduct, they are abundant. on the other hand, the opportunities to pass judgment upon particular acts of the ministers have diminished very much, and there is a marked tendency to make a definite expression of opinion on such matters by vote of the house more and more difficult. such a tendency is entirely in accord with the true principle of parliamentary government. there ought to be the fullest opportunity for criticism; but the cabinet must be free not only to frame its own policy, but also to carry that policy out, and it ought not to be shackled, or thrust out, so long as its conduct of affairs is on the whole satisfactory to the nation. [sidenote: illustrated by the debates on fiscal policy.] so far we have considered primarily the functions of the house in relation to administrative matters, but, except for the bills brought in by the government, what has been said applies equally to its control over the general policy of the cabinet, for its means of criticising and passing judgment are the same. how far the ministers are free to-day to frame the programme on which they will take their stand, and how hard it is to force an issue on a question that they do not choose to bring forward, may be seen from the recent history of the debates on the fiscal question. a considerable number of unionists were strongly opposed to a return to protective duties in any form, and especially to a taxation of food. there were enough of them to turn the scale, so that if a division could have been taken at any time on the fiscal question alone, the house would in all probability have voted in favour of maintaining the existing system. on the other hand, most of the free-food unionists, being heartily in accord with the cabinet on other matters, desired to keep it in power so long as it adopted no fiscal policy hostile to their principles; and therefore they were anxious not to vote against the government if they could conscientiously abstain from doing so. under these circumstances the liberals sought by every means to force a direct vote upon the fiscal question, while mr. balfour cautiously avoided any definite statement of policy himself, and strove to prevent the house from expressing a distinct opinion on the subject. he took the ground that until the cabinet announced a fiscal programme the only form in which the attitude of the ministers on the question could properly come before parliament was that of a general motion of want of confidence in them. [sidenote: in .] mr. chamberlain broached his plan of preferential tariffs in a speech at birmingham on may , . by that time it was just too late in the year to bring forward a private member's motion on the subject; so that the first debate upon it took place on the motion to adjourn over whitsuntide,[ : ] when no amendment or vote expressing the opinion of the house was in order. this was may . the next opportunity for extensive discussion came on june over the finance bill; but the speaker ruled, that as the government had made no proposals for a change of fiscal policy, such changes could not be brought into the debate on that bill.[ : ] the opposition then resorted to a motion to adjourn. but it was not easy to treat as an urgent matter the question of adopting a policy, which the ministers declared the existing parliament incompetent to adopt, and the opposition insisted ought never to be adopted at all. the liberals solved the difficulty by taking advantage of a recent occurrence, and on june moved to adjourn to discuss a misunderstanding of the tariff speeches of mr. balfour and mr. chamberlain by the premier of new south wales. the speaker, however, ruled that a general debate of the fiscal question did not come within the terms of the motion, although a motion of wider scope might have been made. the adjournment was, of course, rejected, and by a vote of to .[ : ] both on this and on later occasions, mr. balfour, while refusing to give any of the government's time for the discussion of fiscal policy as such, expressed his entire readiness to assign a day for a formal motion of lack of confidence;[ : ] but the liberals did not accept the offer. they said, and with truth, that a vote of censure would not test the opinion of the house on the fiscal question; and they knew that it would result in an overwhelming defeat for them. finally, on aug. , the speaker ruled that, as no official act of any minister was involved, the question could not be debated on the second reading of the appropriation bill.[ : ] and thus, although there were many questions put on the subject, and some incidental discussion during the debates on other matters, the session of came to an end without any vote on fiscal policy. [sidenote: in .] when the house met again great changes had taken place in the ministry. both mr. chamberlain and his strongest opponents had resigned, and it was certain that the cabinet would take no positive attitude on the fiscal question during the life of the parliament. yet the liberals had several means of extracting a vote on the subject, which they had lacked in the second half of the preceding session. they began at once with the debate on the address, by moving that the removal of protective duties has conduced to the welfare of the population, and that any return to them would be injurious. the wording was not well adapted to drive a wedge into the government majority, for the ministers repudiated the charge that they contemplated protection. only twenty-one unionists voted for the amendment, which was rejected by to .[ : ] then came, on march , a private member's motion to the effect that the house expresses its condemnation of the continual agitation in favour of a protective tariff encouraged by the ministers. this also was not well conceived, and was rejected by to , nineteen unionists voting against the government. on may another private member's motion came on; which stated that the house, believing a protective tariff on food burdensome to the people, welcomes the declaration that the government is opposed to it. it was a more dangerous attack, which the ministers met by moving an amendment that it was unnecessary to discuss the question. they succeeded by about the same majority as on the other occasions, for the amendment was carried by a vote of to , seventeen unionists in the minority.[ : ] at last the liberals asked for a day to move a vote of censure, and aug. was set apart for the purpose. the motion expressed regret that certain ministers had accepted official positions in the liberal unionist association, which had recently declared its adhesion to the policy of preferential duties, involving the taxation of food. but the form of the motion was unimportant, and the result illustrates the nature of a vote of want of confidence, and the futility of using it to test the opinion of the house on any particular question of policy. no one voted against the ministers who was not prepared to turn them out, and the motion was rejected by a vote of to .[ : ] only one member classed as a unionist voted for it, while of those who had gone into the opposition lobby on previous occasions one voted with the government, and the rest absented themselves. although the fiscal question had been debated several times,[ : ] the opposition had again been baffled throughout the session in their efforts to get a vote upon its merits. [sidenote: in .] the result in the following year was the same, but the tactics were different. the first private member's motion on the subject was shelved by the previous question, and the government dealt with the subsequent ones by the novel device, already described, of staying away from the division altogether. mr. balfour virtually took the ground that a vote on which the government exerted no pressure could not be regarded as a true expression of the opinion of the house, and might therefore be ignored--an extension, although by no means an illogical extension, of the accepted doctrines of the constitution. [sidenote: parliament the great inquest of the nation.] the system of a responsible ministry can develop in a normal and healthy way only in case the legislative body is divided into two parties, and under those conditions it is the inevitable consequence of the system that parliament cannot support the cabinet on one question and oppose it on another. the programme of the ministers must be accepted or rejected as a whole, and hence the power of initiative, both legislative and executive, must rest entirely with them. this is clearly the tendency in parliament at the present day.[ : ] the house of commons is finding more and more difficulty in passing any effective vote, except a vote of censure. it tends to lose all powers except the power to criticise and the power to sentence to death. parliament has been called the great inquest of the nation, and for that purpose its functions have of late been rather enlarged than impaired. nor are the inquisitors confined to any one section of the house, for while that part is played chiefly by the opposition, the government often receives a caution from its own supporters also. if the parliamentary system has made the cabinet of the day autocratic, it is an autocracy exerted with the utmost publicity, under a constant fire of criticism; and tempered by the force of public opinion, the risk of a vote of want of confidence, and the prospects of the next election. footnotes: [ : ] for a collection of instances from to see todd, "parl. govt. in england," i., - , - . [ : ] in the year , for example, there were three motions clearly of this character. the first two (in favour of paying unskilled government workmen the standard rate of wages, and against granting permits for the vivisection of dogs) did not come to a vote; while the third (calling upon the government to encourage cotton growing in africa) was agreed to without a division. [ : ] it is sometimes difficult to distinguish between censure of past action, and a direction for the future; but, if we exclude votes indirectly implying censure, by a reduction of an appropriation, or an adjournment of the house, the only instances since where a vote relating in express terms to either of these things has been carried against the opposition of the government, have been as follows: on june , , a resolution was adopted that redundant officials ought to be transferred to other departments, although a royal commission was already considering the subject. on april , , a vote was passed condemning the indian fiscal system for encouraging the opium trade; and another vote to the same effect was carried, on going into the committee of supply on april , . a commission appointed by the government reported in favour of the existing system which was thereupon maintained. (com. papers, , lx., ; lxi.; lxii.; , xlii., _et seq._; _cf._ , lviii.; and , lxvi.) finally, on june , , it was voted that the examinations for the indian civil service ought to be held in india as well as in england; but, after collecting the opinions of indian officials, which were almost wholly adverse to the change, the government decided not to make it (com. papers, , lxiv., ; , lx., ), and so informed the house, hans. ser. xxiv., . [ : ] cf. dupriez, _les ministres_, ii., - . lowell, "governments and parties," i., - . [ : ] may, , note , , note . todd, ii., - . [ : ] may, - . questions may also be addressed to the speaker, or to private members in regard to bills or motions in their charge, but questions of this kind are few, and do not concern us here. [ : ] may, . [ : ] in the five years from to thirty-one such motions were made, of which all but three were withdrawn. those three were negatived by an oral vote, and were not pushed to an actual division. in the next five years, up to the adoption of the standing order of , the motions numbered sixty-four, and only eighteen of them were withdrawn, while twelve (one in , seven in , and four in ) were pushed to a division. for these and many other facts relating to these motions to adjourn i am indebted to my students at harvard, messrs. o. m. dickerson and e. takasugi. [ : ] in and . [ : ] now s.o. . [ : ] the rules framed by the speaker on feb. , , provided, in regard to motions to adjourn, that no adjournment should be moved before the business of the day was taken up, except by leave of the house; and that debate on a motion to adjourn made after business had been taken up, should be confined to the question of adjournment. com. papers, , lxxiv., . [ : ] now s.o. . the changes made in did not affect these provisions, but merely the time when the debate on the motion should take place. [ : ] the debate was over the arrest of mr. dillon, m.p. mr. gladstone, not thinking it a proper way to bring the question before the house, declined to resist the motion, which was carried without a division. hans. ser. cclxi., - . [ : ] in the twenty years that the standing order of remained unchanged, the number of motions to adjourn, before public business began averaged seven a year. in there were only three of them, and in seven; but in , when mr. balfour's cabinet was manifestly losing its hold upon the country, the number rose to nine. incidentally the change of rule has tended to shift the debates on those motions into the time reserved for private members, for the debate must occur at the evening sitting, and in the earlier part of the session two of the four evening sittings belong to the private members. [ : ] may, - , . [ : ] _e.g._ hans. ser. cxxv., - , - , - , - , , - , - ; _ibid._, cxxxvi., - . _cf._ remarks by mr. swift macneill in . _ibid._, clii., - . [ : ] hans. ser. cxxxv., . since this was written a report has been made by a select committee on the subject; and appended thereto is a memorandum by sir courtenay ilbert on the history of the rule against anticipation. [ : ] _ibid._ . _cf._ cxxxvi., . [ : ] hans. ser. cxliii., - . [ : ] anson, "law and custom of the const." i., ; may, - . redlich (_recht und technik_, - ) points out that these amendments began in at the very moment when special days were first reserved for the government. [ : ] old s.o. . [ : ] may, - . [ : ] friday was especially reserved for this purpose by old s.o. , _cf._ old s.o. . [ : ] s.o. . [ : ] may, . [ : ] may, ; ilbert, "manual," § . [ : ] may, . [ : ] ilbert, "manual," § . [ : ] the change consisted in leaving the committee of ways and means out of the exceptions, in s.o. , to the general rule that the house goes into committee without question put. [sidenote: the committee on indian accounts.] debate on the motion to go into committee on the east indian accounts is still allowed, in order to provide an opportunity for general debate on the questions that may arise on these accounts. (s.o. , _cf._ ilbert, "manual," § .) an amendment can also be moved (_ibid._, § ), but in practice this has no serious effect. [ : ] hans. ser. xxxvii., - . with this may be contrasted the report of the select committee on procedure in supply in (com. papers, , xii., ), which said that the debates on the estimates were an effective means, both of criticising the administration and of controlling expenditure. it expressed the opinion that although the estimates were not often actually reduced, the discussion prevented future extravagance. for the condition at the present day see the report of the committee on national expenditure, and the evidence thereto annexed (com. papers, , vii., ; , vii., ). [ : ] hans. ser. xxxvii., - . [ : ] debate on supplementary and excess grants is limited to those particular grants. may, - . [ : ] may, - . [ : ] since the reduction of the vote for royal parks on march , , the only two instances have been a reduction of the salaries of the officers of the house of lords, carried against the government in on the ground that they were excessive, and in a rejection of the appropriation for a statue of cromwell. a list of all the reductions in the estimates from to may be found in appendix to the report of the committee on estimates procedure (com. papers, , xii., ). a list of those from through in appendix , of the first report of the committee on national expenditure (com. papers, , vii., . _cf._ return of divisions in supply, - . com. papers, , lxxxii., ). there were eighteen reductions in the twenty years covered by the earlier report, eleven in the fourteen years next following. of those eleven, four were cases where estimates were withdrawn by the government (two of them supplementary estimates, afterward voted as regular estimates for the next year), three were reductions moved by the government because the expenditure had become unnecessary, another was a reduction accepted by the government, two more were the two cases mentioned in the text, and the remaining one was moved to call attention to a grievance, _i.e._ the number of rooms in the parliament buildings occupied by officers of the house. this last case, together with the reduction of the salary of the secretary of state for war (which occurred in , but is not mentioned in the list), is described hereafter in the text. [ : ] the vote was to . (hans. ser. cxxxi., - .) [ : ] the vote was to . (hans. ser. cil., _et seq._) mr. balfour's cabinet resigned three months later when parliament was not in session. [ : ] _cf._ may, . [ : ] may, . he speaks here only of the appropriation bill, but what he says is equally true of all the consolidated fund bills, of which the appropriation bill is merely the last, completing the process for the year. [ : ] _ibid._, . [ : ] the india office is maintained out of the revenues of india, but, as already explained, an opportunity to criticise the administration of that country is provided every year when the indian accounts are laid before parliament. [ : ] the debate must relate to the administrative conduct of those who receive the grants (may, - ), and therefore the speaker, in , ruled out of order a discussion of the fiscal question on which the cabinet had taken no action, and had refused to announce a policy. (hans. ser. cxxvii., - .) [ : ] this was true of the latest example, that of an amendment relating to native labour in south africa, moved on the second reading of the consolidated fund (no. ) bill of . it was withdrawn when it had served the purpose. (hans. ser. cxx., .) [ : ] may, . [ : ] hans. ser. cxxiii., . [ : ] _ibid._, . [ : ] _ibid._, , , . [ : ] hans. ser. cxxiii., , ; cxxv., - . [ : ] _ibid._ cxxvii., . [ : ] hans. ser. cxxix., , . there was on march a motion to adjourn to call attention to the failure of mr. balfour to explain the resignations of ministers in the autumn. this involved the fiscal question only indirectly, and was rejected to . [ : ] hans. ser. cxxxv., _et seq._ [ : ] _ibid._, cxxxix., _et seq._ [ : ] it had also been discussed on the adjournment for easter. [ : ] redlich ends his book on the procedure of the house of commons with the remark (p. ), that the rules of a legislative body are the political manometer, which measures the strain of forces in the parliamentary machine, and thereby in the whole organism of the state. chapter xix the form and contents of statutes [sidenote: difficulty of passing laws.] we have seen that the legislative capacity of the house of commons has nearly reached its limit. what is more, it is small, and markedly smaller than in the past. in the decade beginning with , ninety-four government bills on the average became law each year, but of late the number has not been half so large, and private members' bills have fallen off in about the same proportion. the fact is that a growth in the number of members who want to take part in debate, a more minute criticism, and a more systematic opposition, have made the process of passing a bill through the house increasingly difficult. this is particularly true of measures that are long or complicated, for the greater the length the more the pegs on which to hang amendments.[ : ] now the difficulty of passing laws has had an effect both on the form of the statutes and on the content of legislation. [sidenote: drafting of bills.] a public bill introduced by a private member may be drafted by him, or by counsel he has employed for the purpose. there is no systematic supervision over such bills,[ : ] no stage at which their drafting is reviewed, and whether well or ill drawn, they are not likely to be much improved in their passage through parliament. government bills, on the other hand, which relate to england, and are not of a purely formal and routine character,[ : ] are now all drafted by the parliamentary counsel to the treasury, or by his assistants under his direction.[ : ] they are prepared under instructions from, and after consultations with, the departments concerned, and are sometimes recast several times before they are introduced into parliament. they are then assailed by a host of critics, both in and out of the houses; some of them trying to pick flaws in a measure which they want to destroy; while others, who are not opposed to the general principle involved, discover provisions that affect their interests, based, perhaps, on local custom or privilege. the objections raised may not have been entirely foreseen, or may prove of greater political importance than was supposed, and hence amendments and new clauses are adopted during the debates in committee. these changes are usually made with the consent of the minister in charge of the bill, and the parliamentary counsel, as well as the permanent head of the department concerned, is often present under the gallery to give his advice; but still the amendments mar the fair handicraft of the draftsman, and an effort has to be made to improve the text either on the report stage or in the house of lords. [sidenote: defects of form.] sir courtenay ilbert attributes the defects of form in the english statutes of the present day chiefly to the battering that a bill must almost necessarily encounter in passing through the house of commons, and to the fact that an act of parliament is essentially a creature of compromise.[ : ] yet there would seem to be other difficulties arising from the conditions under which legislation is conducted. the parliamentary counsel's office has certainly improved the statutes very much by making them more concise, uniform and orderly; but their form is far from perfect. two objects must be aimed at in drafting an act; one that it shall be intelligible to the persons who are compelled to obey it; and the other that the courts which interpret it, or the counsel who are called upon to advise upon it, shall be able to ascertain its precise meaning with certainty. now to a layman, and even to a foreign lawyer, an english act is often difficult to understand, and sometimes misleading. to penetrate its intent one must frequently be familiar with all previous legislation on the subject. it is no doubt true that "no statute is completely intelligible as an isolated enactment. every statute is a chapter, or a fragment of a chapter, of a body of law."[ : ] still it does not seem necessary that english acts should be quite so obscure as they often are. nor, judging from the amount of litigation that sometimes occurs over their interpretation, does this defect appear to be always counterbalanced by remarkable legal certainty. the most celebrated case is that of the education act of . after the provision for the payment of religious instruction in the church schools out of local rates had provoked dogged resistance, and the magistrates had enforced it against recalcitrant rate-payers for a couple of years, the matter was brought before the higher courts by the refusal of the county council for the west riding of yorkshire to make the payment; and the majority of the court of appeal was of opinion that the statute did not oblige it to do so.[ : ] the house of lords reversed the decision;[ : ] but for parliament to pass the act in such a form that the court of appeal could regard it as failing to effect what everybody knew to be one of its main objects is surely an amazing example of bad drafting. nor was this the result of amendments in the house of commons, for the provision in question went through unchanged; and although in this case the fault is said not to lie at the door of the parliamentary counsel, it shows none the less the defects of the system. [sidenote: the defects arise;] it has already been remarked that the limited capacity of parliament for law-making affects both the form and the content of its acts; and this is one of many elements in a complex problem. the lack of time for comprehensive legislation, the political temperament of the nation, and the exigencies of a responsible ministry have each a marked influence on the form and the substance of the statutes; and, indeed, all these factors act and react upon one another. [sidenote: from difficulty of legislating;] the difficulty of passing long or complicated measures makes the minister insist that his bill shall be as short as possible,[ : ] and hence it must include no clauses not absolutely necessary for the object he has in view. the draftsman, therefore, disturbs existing statutes as little as he can, either in the way of revising or incorporating their provisions. if he must embody earlier enactments in his draft, he does so by referring to them, rather than by repeating them.[ : ] the practice of legislation by reference, which is a source of no small inconvenience in using the statutes, has been carried very far. in fact there is a long series of "clauses acts" on various subjects, not enacted with an independent legislative force of their own, but placed on the statute book as standard provisions to be embodied in subsequent acts by reference express or implied.[ : ] the desire to have the bill short has also given a strong impulse to the practice of removing details from the body of the act, and massing them in schedules at its close.[ : ] this is an advantage to the minister who has charge of the bill, because while it does not withdraw the matters in the schedules from the control of the house, it does make them less conspicuous and concentrates the attention of the members on the principal questions of policy. [sidenote: from political temperament;] a similar result, although one that concerns more directly the substance than the form of the statutes, may be traced to a conservative tradition in legislation. it is commonly said that in industrial matters englishmen do not appreciate the value of the scrap-heap, that they tend to use old-fashioned machinery when it would be better to discard it altogether. if they dislike to abandon a machine, they have a still greater aversion to repealing an act of parliament. every briton happily believes that it is better to readjust the institutions of a country slowly, than to pull them down and build anew; and there being no line between the institutions that are fundamental, and those that are not, a fragment of the veneration for the british constitution attaches to every statute; and, indeed, to custom also. this helps to make the legislator cautious, and his work tentative. moreover, there is a great respect for vested rights, and for that matter for vested habits, and sometimes vested abuses. sir courtenay ilbert tells us how much solicitude is aroused by the probable effect of a bill on the peculiar circumstances of the parish of ockley-cum-withypool, or the emoluments of the beadle of little peddlington.[ : ] too much attention seems to be paid at times to such interests when they conflict with those of the public; and this brings up the third factor in the problem, that of cabinet responsibility, which has a marked influence on both the form and the content of legislation. [sidenote: reform-sponsibility of ministers.] if the parliamentary system, as it has developed in england, intrusts the active conduct of legislation and administration to the ministry of the day, and thereby concentrates enormous political power in the hands of a few men, it does so among a highly individualistic people. the ministers wield their great authority on two conditions. one is that they must retain an absolute hold upon their own majority, and the other is that their rule must be tempered by liberty of criticism. they must explain everything they do, they must defend it against the attacks of the whole house, and justify it to the satisfaction of almost all their followers. the result is that they try to bring into their measures nothing that might furnish a needless target for critics, or prove a cause of offence to any of their supporters. restraint, in some form, is the price paid for power; and great strength in one direction is apt to conceal weakness in another. an english ministry with a good majority at its back appears omnipotent. it announces its policy, forces through its bills against the protests of the opposition, and even against appeals from members on its own side not to put pressure upon them. but the power it exerts is in large part the resultant of other forces less openly displayed. if, on pain of disloyalty, and for fear of handing the government over to the adversary, the private adherent of the party in power must follow the whips in critical divisions, the ministers, on their part, are sometimes compelled by an insistent group of their supporters to adopt one measure, or to mutilate or abandon another. they cannot disregard the serious objections of any considerable section of their own followers, and this has become more and more true with the evolution of the parliamentary system. half a century ago they might win as many votes from the other side of the house as they lost on their own, but that is rarely possible to-day. they must now carry with them on every question substantially the whole of their party.[ : ] their omnipotence is therefore a very limited and cautious omnipotence, and this has shown itself, especially under the late conservative government, in the meagre annual production of statutes. [sidenote: revision and codification of statutes.] if the legislation of a country is to consist, not in passing comprehensive laws dealing with a whole subject, but in making progressive changes by tinkering and patching the existing acts, it would seem an obvious convenience to issue from time to time new editions of those acts compiled in a more compact and intelligible form. it would be a great advantage to have frequent revisions or codification of the statutes on a subject, not involving a change of substance, but merely a simplification of form. but such a process of consolidation has not been common in england. a great deal of labour was expended on this object by several commissions during the nineteenth century; but the only positive results have been the production of two editions of revised statutes--being simply the statutes at large rearranged with the parts no longer in force omitted--and the passage of a limited number of acts consolidating the statutes on certain subjects.[ : ] such acts are not easy to pass, because, as sir courtenay ilbert remarks, "it is difficult to disabuse the average member of parliament of the notion that the introduction of a consolidation bill affords a suitable opportunity for proposing amendments, to satisfy him that reënactment does not mean approval or perpetuation of the existing law, or to convince him that attempts to combine substantial amendment with consolidation almost inevitably spell failure in both."[ : ] the process has neither been extended to so many subjects, nor repeated at such short intervals, as might be wished. [sidenote: temporary laws.] another curious result of the difficulty of enacting laws may be seen in the long list of temporary statutes, continued in force from time to time, sometimes for many years. some of these are acts of a transitory nature, designed to cover an emergency, or to deal with an ephemeral state of things. laws of that kind expire with the conditions that called them forth. but the english temporary acts often relate to permanent matters. that a statute of an experimental character should be enacted at the outset for a limited period is natural enough, but when the period has come to an end, and the experiment has proved a success, one would expect to see the law reënacted in an enduring form. in england, however, there is passed every year an expiring laws continuance act, giving another twelve-month's lease of life to a list of acts appended in a schedule, many of which are already old. one or two have already reached the age of threescore years and ten; and among the list are still found the ballot act of , with most of the statutes of the last half century that regulate the conduct of elections. the reason for the existence of perpetual temporary laws is to be found, no doubt, in the fact that in this form they can be continued almost without opposition, while an attempt to enact them as permanent statutes would give rise to great debates with a host of amendments, and consume a vast deal of the one thing whereof the ministry has never enough--that is time. [sidenote: delegation of legislative power.] the limited capacity of parliament to pass statutes is not felt as a pressing evil, because the period of great remedial legislation is over. the transition from the political and industrial conditions of the eighteenth century has been accomplished, and the consequent change in laws and institutions has been, in the main, effected. the demand for radical legislation is, therefore, comparatively small, and for the time at least the process of making law can afford to run slow. yet it may be doubted whether, with the great extension in the sphere of government, parliament could be suffered to move at its present pace were it not for the growing practice of delegating legislative power. we hear much talk about the need for a devolution of the power of parliament on subordinate representative bodies, but the tendency is not mainly in that direction. the authority of this kind vested in the county councils by recent statutes is small, too small to affect the question. the real delegation has been in favour of the administrative departments of the central government, and this involves a striking departure from anglo-saxon traditions, with a distinct approach to the practice of continental countries.[ : ] [sidenote: statutory orders.] formerly an english statute went into great detail, attempting to provide expressly for every question that could possibly arise. its interpretation, or its applicability to a special case, could be determined only by the courts, while its defects could be remedied, or its omissions filled up, only by another statute. it contained in itself the complete expression of the legislative will. but of late it has become more and more common for parliament to embody in a statute only general provisions, and give to some public department a power to make regulations for completing the details, and applying the act to particular cases. these regulations--known as statutory orders--cover a great variety of subjects, and govern not only the duties of officials, and the administration of public affairs, both national and local, but also the conduct of individuals in the management of their own concerns. they prescribe, for example, how many persons can live on canal-boats, the number of cubic feet of air in factories, the precautions that must be taken for cleanliness in dairies, what per cent of water may be contained in genuine butter, and under an authority of this kind a general order was issued in for muzzling all the dogs in the country. [sidenote: control of parliament over provisional orders.] parliament usually attempts to retain a control, or at least an oversight, of the orders made by the public departments under the authority delegated to them in this way. sometimes the order is issued under a power that is provisional only, and does not become operative until confirmed by a statute. this is usually, though not invariably,[ : ] true of rights granted to private companies or local authorities to construct works of public utility, such as waterworks, gas-works, tramways, and the like.[ : ] provisional orders of that kind do not involve any true delegation of legislative power, because they derive their validity, not from the act of the department, but from the statutes by which they are confirmed; and they are included among the acts of parliament, and not the statutory orders of the year. practically, however, they are almost always confirmed without amendment. [sidenote: over statutory orders.] parliamentary control over statutory orders strictly so called, which involve a real delegation of legislative power, is commonly maintained by requiring them to be reported to the two houses; and in order to give an opportunity for preliminary criticism, the regulation, or a draft thereof, must sometimes be laid on the table for a certain time before it becomes operative.[ : ] moreover, control by parliament is often expressly reserved by providing that if, within forty days, either house presents an address to the crown against a draft or order, then the order shall not be made, or in case it has already gone into effect it shall thenceforth be void.[ : ] an address under such a provision is exempted from the rule about the interruption of business in the house of commons, and hence can be moved by a private member at the close of the sitting on any evening, without taking his chance in drawing lots, or appealing to the government for a part of its time.[ : ] as a matter of fact, motions of this kind are uncommon, and are rarely, if ever, successful; although the frequency with which the statutory orders are revised by the departments would seem to show that the officials who make them are highly sensitive to outside opinion. since the statutory orders of each year have been regularly published like the acts of parliament;[ : ] and an idea of their number may be derived from the fact that they always fill one, and often two, large volumes, each much thicker than the present emaciated book of the public general acts.[ : ] in spite of the potential control retained by the houses over statutory orders, the growing habit of delegating authority to make them involves a substantial transfer of power from parliament to the executive branch of the government, a transfer due in part to the increasing difficulty in legislation. the existing relation between the cabinet and the house of commons has thus had a number of distinct, and at first sight contradictory, effects. while placing the initiative for almost all important legislation in the hands of the ministers, it has tended to reduce the number and completeness of the laws they can carry through; and on the other hand it has helped to invest them with a power of subordinate or secondary legislation quite foreign to english traditions. this is true of public matters, but in regard to private and local acts the relation of the cabinet to parliament, and hence the effects of that relation, are wholly different. footnotes: [ : ] _cf._ ilbert, "legislative methods and forms," . [ : ] ilbert, _ibid._, - . private bills are, of course, drafted by the counsel for the petitioners, and provisional order bills by the department that grants the provisional order. [ : ] ilbert, "leg. methods and forms," note. the scotch and irish bills, and almost all the most important indian bills, are drawn by draftsmen attached to the offices for those countries. [ : ] sir courtenay ilbert, himself parliamentary counsel at the time he wrote his work on "legislative methods and forms," has given therein an excellent description of the history ( - , - ) and the work ( - , - , - ) of the office. [ : ] "leg. methods and forms," - . [ : ] "leg. methods and forms," . [ : ] rex _vs._ west riding of yorkshire, ( ) k.b., . [ : ] atty. gen. _vs._ west riding of yorkshire, ( ) app. cas., . [ : ] ilbert, "leg. methods and forms," , . [ : ] _ibid._, - . _cf._ - . [ : ] this is particularly true in the case of local and private bills, where the provisions of "clauses acts" must often be incorporated, either by the terms of those acts, or in consequence of the standing orders on private business. _ibid._, . [ : ] _cf. ibid._, - . [ : ] ilbert, "leg. methods and forms," . [ : ] the extent to which this is done, and the amount it has increased, is shown by statistics in the chapter on "the strength of party ties." the difficulty to-day comes, not from the opinions or interests of individual members, but from groups of members acting on public grounds, or at least, on grounds which affect a great part of their constituents. [ : ] ilbert, "leg. methods and forms," chs. iv., vii. [ : ] _ibid._, . [ : ] _cf._ ilbert, "leg. methods and forms," chap. iii., and pp. - , . [ : ] authority, for example, to construct a light railway, which is legally distinct, but physically indistinguishable, from a tramway, does not require confirmation by parliament, - vic., c. , § . [ : ] a change in the boundaries of a county or borough requires in the same way confirmation by parliament; but an order altering an urban or rural district or parish, requires only to be laid upon the table of each house, - vic., c. (part ). [ : ] drafts of orders that are not required to be laid before parliament before they come into operation, must, by - vic., c. , § , be open to criticism, by any public body interested, for forty days before they are finally settled and made. but this does not apply to rules made by the local government board, the board of trade and some others (§ ( )). [ : ] _cf._ ilbert, "leg. methods and forms," , _cf._ - . [ : ] ilbert, "manual," § . [ : ] - vic., c. , § . [ : ] this last, however, does not contain the text, but only a list of titles, of local and private acts, although many of them are legally public general acts. on the other hand the published statutory orders for the year do not include by any means all the orders of a temporary nature. chapter xx private bill legislation if the direction of important legislation of a public character lies almost altogether in the hands of the ministers, special laws affecting private or local interests are not less completely outside of their province. [sidenote: the nature of private bills.] private acts of parliament are of immemorial antiquity, but they seem to have first become numerous in connection with the building of turnpike roads and the enclosure of commons in the second half of the eighteenth century.[ : ] they were also the means used to authorise the construction of canals, and later of railways; and, in fact, it was the great number of railway bills, presented in and that gave rise to the modern private bill procedure in the house of commons. apart from railway bills they have been used of late years chiefly to regulate local police and sanitary matters, or to grant powers to private companies or municipal corporations for the supply of public conveniences, such as water, gas, electric light, or tramways; for private bill procedure applies not only to bills that affect private persons or companies, but also to those that deal with the rights and duties of organs of local government in any particular place.[ : ] the line, however, between public and private bills is not altogether logical. measures, for example, touching matters of general interest affecting the whole metropolis have been passed as public bills; and this has been true to a smaller extent of other places; while bills regulating affairs of less importance for those very areas have been treated as private. in fact the same subject has at different times been dealt with by public and private bills; the question which procedure should be followed depending upon the uncertain standard of the degree in which the public interest was involved.[ : ] with these exceptions it may be said that every bill introduced for the benefit of any person, company or locality, is, for the purposes of procedure, a private bill. [sidenote: procedure on private bills.] the standing orders that govern procedure upon private bills are much more elaborate and comprehensive than those relating to public bills. they fill in print five times as many pages; and although custom and precedent play an important part, still the printed rules approach very nearly to a code of private bill procedure.[ : ] [sidenote: petition and notice.] before a private bill is introduced, a petition therefor is drawn up, and in order to give any one interested an opportunity to prepare his objections, notice of the petition must be given, in october or november, in _the gazette_, in appropriate local newspapers, and in some cases by posters upon the roadside. personal notice must also be served in december upon the owners of land directly affected, and if the petition is for leave to build a tramway, the consent of the local authority must be obtained.[ : ] plans of the work proposed must also be deposited for inspection both at westminster and with some local officer.[ : ] the petition, with the bill itself, must be filed on or before dec. in the private bill office of the house, and a copy must be delivered to the treasury, the local government board, the post office, and to any other department whose duties relate to the subject involved.[ : ] the petitioner is also required to file estimates of cost, and to deposit a sum equal to four or five per cent. of the proposed expenditures as a guarantee fund for the benefit of persons who may be injured by a commencement, and failure to complete, the work.[ : ] [sidenote: examiners of petitions.] the next step is to make sure that these preliminary regulations have been obeyed. it is done by paid officers of the house called examiners of petitions for private bills,[ : ] and since the two houses have appointed the same persons to that post, so that the process is gone through only once.[ : ] the petitioner must prove before the examiner that he has complied with the standing orders; and any person affected has a right to be heard on the question, if he has filed a memorial of his intention to appear. the examiner certifies that the standing orders have been followed, or reports in what respect they have been disregarded.[ : ] [sidenote: legislative and judicial aspects of the procedure.] private bill procedure has both a legislative and a judicial aspect. the final aim being the passage of an act, a private bill goes through all the stages of a public bill, and the records of its progress appear in the journals of the house. but the procedure is also regarded as a controversy between the promoters and opponents of the measure, and this involves an additional process of a judicial character. for that purpose the full records of the case are preserved in the private bill office, where they are open to public inspection. the preliminary steps already described are intended chiefly to prepare the case for the judicial trial, and to give opponents a chance to make ready their defence. they correspond to the pleadings in the clerk's office of a court; and they are conducted by a parliamentary agent who performs the duties of a solicitor in a law suit.[ : ] [sidenote: introduction of the bill.] the preliminaries over, the bill is ready to be introduced, and the first thing is to arrange in which house it shall begin its career. this is decided at a conference between the chairmen of committees of the two houses, or in practice by the gentlemen who act as their legal advisers, the counsel to mr. speaker and the counsel to the lord chairman of committees.[ : ] all these proceedings take place before the usual date for the meeting of parliament, so that when it assembles the bills can be brought in at once.[ : ] if the examiner reports that the standing orders have been complied with, the bill is presented forthwith by being laid upon the table of the house. if not, his report is referred to the committee on standing orders, composed of eleven members chosen by the house itself at the opening of the session.[ : ] this committee reports whether the omission is of such a nature that under the circumstances it ought to be excused or not; and the report is almost always adopted by the house. in case the omission is excused the bill is presented by being laid upon the table; and every bill is deemed when presented to have been read a first time.[ : ] [sidenote: second reading.] on the next stage, the second reading, a debate may take place upon the general principle involved, and a bill is sometimes rejected at this point, either because it is inconsistent with public policy, or because opponents whose interests are involved have been able to persuade a majority of the members to vote against it. instructions to the committee about the provisions to be inserted in the bill can also be adopted at that time. [sidenote: private bill committees.] the committee stage of the bill, for the consideration of its provisions in detail, is devolved upon a private bill committee. here takes place the judicial process, or trial of the controversy between conflicting interests, which presents the peculiar feature of the english procedure. until near the middle of the nineteenth century the committees for private bills were made up on the same principle as select committees on other matters. they consisted in large part of supporters and opponents of the measure. but in the lords began to form their private bill committee of a small number of wholly impartial members,--a practice which was adopted by the commons for railway bills in , and for all other private bills in .[ : ] the system of committees in the two houses is now very much the same,[ : ] the order of proceeding in the commons being as follows: all opposed private bills, except those relating to railways and canals, divorce, and police and sanitary matters, are referred under the rules to the committee of selection, which divides them into groups and refers each group to a separate committee, consisting of a chairman and three members not locally or otherwise interested, all of whom it appoints for the purpose.[ : ] [sidenote: railway and canal bills.] in order to secure greater uniformity in the private acts relating to railways, a general committee on railway and canal bills was created in .[ : ] it is appointed every year by the committee of selection, and to it are referred all bills of that kind. but it does not take charge of them itself. it merely divides them into groups, and then acts as a chairman's panel; that is, it refers the bills to separate committees, the chairman of which it selects from its own ranks, the other three members being appointed by the committee of selection.[ : ] [sidenote: police and sanitary bills.] with the same object of obtaining uniformity, all bills promoted by local authorities for police and sanitary purposes were referred after to a single committee. in this case, however, the bills were not too numerous to be considered by the committee itself, although to relieve pressure it was, in , enlarged to eleven members, and authorised to bisect itself for the more rapid despatch of business. curiously enough the committee was discontinued for some years, but, after loud complaints about exceptional powers granted by private acts, it was revived by sessional order in , and intrusted with all police and sanitary bills which contain powers "in conflict with, deviation from, or excess of, the general law."[ : ] a committee on divorce bills is still provided for in the rules, but since the power of granting divorces in england and scotland has been entirely transferred to the courts, bills of this kind have become rare. while the various private bill committees are thus formed in slightly different ways, their mode of dealing with the measures that come before them is the same. [sidenote: _locus standi._] the bills referred to these committees have been described as "opposed," but that implies an opponent, and means, not an objector in the house, but an outside contestant on the basis of interest, for the chief object of these committees is a judicial hearing of opposing parties. if there is no opponent, so that the question is solely whether the privileges sought are consistent with the public welfare, the bill is said to be unopposed, and goes through quite a different procedure to be described hereafter. plainly, therefore, the question who may oppose a bill, and on what grounds, is of vital importance. a person who enjoys the right is said to have a _locus standi_; and the first question to be decided is whether an opponent does or does not have it. now, any one who wishes to oppose a bill must, on or before feb. , file a petition in the private bill office, stating the ground of his objection,[ : ] and if the promoters contest his right to appear,[ : ] the question of _locus standi_ is decided by the court of referees, consisting of the chairman of ways and means, the deputy chairman, and not less than seven members of the house appointed by the speaker. the counsel to mr. speaker assists the court, but sits now only as an assessor.[ : ] the principal divergence in the procedure of the two houses arises at this point, for questions of _locus standi_ are determined in the house of lords by the committee that considers the bill; and there is some difference of opinion about the relative merits of the two systems.[ : ] in both houses the decisions are governed partly by express provisions in the standing orders,[ : ] and partly by precedents that have hardened into rules. [sidenote: grounds of _locus standi_.] in order to have a _locus standi_, an opponent must, as a rule, show that the bill may affect his property or business. he must prove a personal interest distinct from that of the rest of the community. moreover, it is a general principle that, except on the ground of some special injury to themselves, both individuals and public boards are precluded from opposing before a private bill committee a public body on which they are represented. if, for example, a borough proposes to construct and work a tramway, an omnibus company has a right to be heard in opposition, but a rate-payer who believes that the plan will be financially disastrous has not.[ : ] it is, of course, unnecessary to describe here all the kinds of private interest that will furnish a _locus standi_.[ : ] but in general, it may be said that the right is enjoyed by all persons whose land is to be compulsorily taken; by the owners and occupiers of buildings along the line of a proposed tramway; by traders affected by the tolls, fares, or rates proposed;[ : ] by public authorities; and sometimes by inhabitants acting on behalf of a county, town, or district, that is or may be affected. competition, also, is a ground for _locus standi_, although the right to appear is usually confined to monopolies, to organisations that represent the trade as a whole, or to individuals whose business is important enough to represent that trade;[ : ] moreover the privilege is extended by the standing orders to chambers of agriculture, commerce or shipping.[ : ] while, therefore, the rules of _locus standi_ are not perfectly logical, they are distinctly based upon private interest, individual or collective, and not upon the general welfare. [sidenote: hearing before the committee.] the hearing of the parties before the committee follows the pattern of a trial in a court of law, even to the standing of the counsel employed. up to this point the parties have been represented by parliamentary agents, who, although not necessarily attorneys or solicitors, hold a similar position, and must be registered in the private bill office.[ : ] the actual hearings, however, like trials in court, are conducted by barristers. the fees, which are large, attract a high order of talent, and in fact the practice before private bill committees has become almost a distinct branch of the profession, the counsel who pursue it being known as the parliamentary bar.[ : ] the proceedings are strictly judicial in form, the barristers examining and cross-examining the witnesses and making the arguments in the ordinary way. moreover, if either party has vexatiously subjected the other to expense, the committee can award costs like a court of law, and this is occasionally done.[ : ] the first thing taken up is the preamble, the hearing upon this involving the general merits of the bill, so that if the committee is of opinion that promoters have failed to prove that part of their case, it reports at once against the bill. otherwise the clauses are taken up in order, and the committee reports the bill with or without amendments. [sidenote: the committee and public policy.] although the peculiar function of the committee consists in passing upon the conflicting claims of the parties that appear before it, the question whether the public welfare will be promoted by the enactment of the bill must be considered also. this is, of course, one of the chief things that the promoters must prove; but the committee seeks no evidence on its own account, nor can it permit a private person who has no _locus standi_ to address it on the subject. in the interest of public policy, however, some safeguards have been devised. in the first place the standing orders direct that in various classes of measures certain provisions must be inserted. these relate to such matters as the level of roads, grade crossings, the amount of mortgages, the time for completing works, deposits to secure completion, minimum rates of fare, the application of general railway acts, leaving open spaces for recreation in enclosure bills, and the erection in london of new workmen's dwellings to replace others that are torn down. in some cases also the committee must report specially any unusual provisions contained in the bill, notably in relation to the borrowing powers of local authorities. moreover, on some questions the committee has the benefit of advice from public officials. that private bills must be filed with one or more of the public departments has already been pointed out. in a few cases the departments are directed to submit to parliament a report upon the bill,[ : ] and they are always at liberty to do so. under the rules these communications are referred to the committees,[ : ] which are required to notice in their reports the recommendations of the departments, and state the reasons for dissent where they have not been followed.[ : ] occasionally, representatives of the departments appear before the committees;[ : ] and, what is more important, a general oversight of private bill legislation, with the right to make suggestions, is maintained by the officers of the houses.[ : ] this is especially true of the counsel to mr. speaker, and of the chairman of committees and his counsel in the house of lords; but the question how effective their supervision is must be deferred until the results of the system are discussed. [sidenote: unopposed bills.] unopposed bills, that is bills where no adverse petition has been filed, or where the petitioner has not proved a _locus standi_, do not involve a judicial trial between contestants, but only an examination with a view to the public interest.[ : ] they are, therefore, referred to quite a different committee. until it consisted of the chairman, or deputy chairman, of the committee of ways and means, and the counsel to mr. speaker, assisted usually, but not always, by one other member of the house.[ : ] the select committee of on private business was of opinion that a body with so much authority ought to be strengthened by the addition of more members directly responsible to the house,[ : ] and in partial fulfilment of its recommendations the standing orders provided in the following year that the committee on unopposed bills should consist of the chairman and deputy chairman of ways and means, of two other members of the house, appointed by the committee of selection, and of the counsel to mr. speaker.[ : ] the bills having already been read through by the speaker's counsel, and in part by the chairman of ways and means, the committee goes over them rapidly with the promoters, discussing chiefly such points as have been raised by the speaker's counsel, and by any reports from government departments.[ : ] if any other question should come up involving a new and important matter of public policy, the chairman, who was already overworked, would formerly have avoided the responsibility of deciding it himself by reporting to the house, as he has power to do,[ : ] that the bill ought to be treated as opposed;[ : ] and this although there was no one to conduct the opposition.[ : ] one of the objects of strengthening the committee was to put it in a position to decide all such questions itself. as a matter of fact the committee often makes amendments in a bill, but seldom reports that it ought not to pass. [sidenote: report and consideration.] after a bill, whether opposed or not, has been reported, the house, if dissatisfied, may recommit it either as a whole or with reference to particular clauses, and with or without instructions. when this does not happen, and it is unusual, the bill, if reported without amendment, and not a railway or tramway bill, stands ready for its third reading. if, on the other hand, it has been amended by the committee, or is a railway or tramway bill, it is ordered to lie upon the table for consideration on report.[ : ] at that stage amendments may be proposed, or a motion may be made to recommit, but in order to insure that the standing orders are complied with, both by the private bill committee and by the house itself, the consideration cannot take place until the chairman of ways and means has informed the house that this is the case; nor can any amendments be offered until the committee on standing orders has reported upon them, if the chairman thinks it proper that they should do so.[ : ] the last stage is that of third reading where only verbal amendments are in order.[ : ] [sidenote: private bills in the lords.] after passing through one house a private bill goes to the other, and there is the usual process for reaching an agreement upon amendments. it is needless to trace here the course of a private bill in the lords.[ : ] the procedure is essentially the same as in the commons, and the only differences of any consequence have already been mentioned in the text or in the notes. a great deal of discussion has taken place upon the wisdom of having two separate hearings before the private committees of the two houses.[ : ] it has been suggested that a second hearing is needless, and that time and expense would be saved by having a single trial before a joint committee. on the other hand it is urged that where a bill is objectionable or defective the second hearing gives a better chance to reject or improve it; and that as a matter of fact the parties often accept the decision of the first committee, or compromise their differences, only about one third of the bills opposed in one house being opposed again in the other.[ : ] [sidenote: special procedure for scotland.] the inconvenience and expense of a trial before a committee in london led to a strong demand for hearings in scotland upon private bills relating to that kingdom, and in a statute was enacted for that purpose.[ : ] the act and the general orders made in pursuance thereof, provide that, instead of following the ordinary procedure, promoters of scotch private bills shall, in april or december, file a petition with the secretary for scotland for a draft provisional order deposited therewith. they must also comply with rules similar to those in force for private bills about giving notice, and filing copies and plans with the government departments. the draft order is submitted to the chairmen of committees of the two houses. if either of them is of opinion that it affects interests outside of scotland, or is of such a character, or raises such a question of policy, that it ought not to be dealt with in the new way, then it takes the regular course of an english private bill. if not, the order follows the new scotch procedure. the two chairmen assign an examiner to see that the general orders about notice, and other matters, have been observed, the final power of dispensation in case of non-compliance resting also in their hands. after these preliminary steps have been taken, the petition is ready to begin its active career. [sidenote: scotch private bill committees.] if the petition is not opposed, the secretary for scotland may, after considering the reports of the public departments, make the provisional order, as prayed for or with amendments. in short, he takes the place of a committee on unopposed private bills. if, on the other hand, he thinks an inquiry ought to be held, or if the petition is opposed, he sends it to a commission selected on a curious plan designed to retain the work as far as possible in parliamentary hands. the difficulty, on one side, of getting members of parliament to undertake such a service, and the desire, on the other, to retain a close connection with the houses, resulted in a compromise between a parliamentary committee and a permanent commission.[ : ] each house provides a panel of its own members, that of the commons consisting of not more than fifteen members appointed by the committee of selection.[ : ] there is also an extra parliamentary panel of twenty men appointed for a term of five years by the two chairmen and the secretary for scotland. the commission upon every petition consists of four persons taken from these panels, the chairmen of committees selecting two from the panel of each house, if possible; if not, they appoint as many of the four as they can from the two house panels indiscriminately, the remainder in any case being taken by the secretary from the extra parliamentary panel.[ : ] the commission so formed holds its sessions, of course, in scotland, proceeds like a committee upon an opposed private bill, and has power to decide all questions of _locus standi_. it reports to the secretary whether the provisional order should be issued and in what form; and he acts accordingly.[ : ] [sidenote: confirmation by parliament.] the order of the secretary, whether opposed or unopposed, is not final, but provisional only, and requires confirmation by parliament. he brings in a bill to confirm it, and if the order was not opposed in scotland, or is not opposed in parliament, it is treated as if it had already gone through all the stages up to and including committee, and is ordered to be considered as if reported from a committee of the house. but the right of the parties to a hearing in parliament as the final court of appeal has been to some extent preserved, for a petition may be presented against any order that has been opposed, or has been the subject of a local inquiry, in scotland, and in that case a motion may be made to refer the bill to a joint committee, which hears the parties as in the case of an ordinary private bill, but reports to both houses. the question of permitting an appeal to a parliamentary committee in london was much discussed at the time, and the bill as finally passed reserved the right, limiting it to a single hearing before a joint committee, instead of two hearings before separate committees of each house as in the case of an ordinary private bill. the promoter, moreover, as well as the opponent, has a right to appeal to parliament. if his draft order is refused, he may, without going through the other preliminary steps, file it in the form of a substitute bill in the proper public office, and proceed with it like a private bill.[ : ] the scotch procedure has thus the effect of a compulsory arbitration in scotland, preceding a possible trial at westminster. it appears, however, that a scotch confirmation bill is in fact seldom opposed in london. [sidenote: ireland and wales.] two years after the scotch statute was passed, similar acts were proposed for ireland and for wales, but neither of them was passed. a select committee on a welsh bill of this kind reported in that the scotch procedure as it stood was not adapted to wales, and that any desire in england for a less costly procedure than now existed would best be met by an extension of the system of provisional orders. the committee remarked that while most of the witnesses examined thought the scotch act had worked well on the whole, some of them believed there had been no saving of expense in the case of large schemes. this was attributed by the witnesses mainly to the cost of bringing counsel and experts from london, and in fact, the evidence showed no little difference of opinion about the advantages of the new procedure in several respects.[ : ] in ireland there is another obstacle to the adoption of the scotch act; for while local hearings on private bills would have especial value beyond st. george's channel, the nationalists do not want any form of devolution that leaves the final management of irish affairs in the hands of the british parliament. [sidenote: provisional orders.] the vast amount of private legislation enacted in england every year is due in large measure to the absence of general statutes upon subjects that would seem to be ripe for them. year after year private bills are passed on the same subject, until a policy is established which might well be crystallised into a general law, leaving the controversies that arise in its application to be settled by a body of purely judicial character; or, as in continental countries, a final power of dealing with these matters might, subject to rules fixed by law, be vested in the administrative departments. that many costly bills in parliament would be saved by passing appropriate statutes has been suggested,[ : ] yet the process goes on slowly, and so far as it has been carried it is for the most part incomplete. during the last fifty years central administrative authority in local and other matters has increased enormously, but in conferring powers upon public departments parliament has been reluctant to give up its own ultimate control over particular cases. this is especially true of the compulsory sale of land for public purposes; for property in land still retains a peculiar sanctity in england.[ : ] parliament has, no doubt, in many cases, delegated to the administrative organs of the state a final authority to grant special powers to local bodies or private companies, or at least to sanction their use;[ : ] but in other cases the grant must be laid before the houses, and does not go into effect if either of them passes a resolution of disapproval.[ : ] sometimes if opposed,[ : ] and more often whether opposed or not, the orders conferring the powers must be submitted to parliament for a formal ratification. this is the origin of provisional orders. they are issued by a government office under the authority of statutes, but they are merely provisional until confirmed by parliament. except the treasury, the admiralty, and the indian and colonial offices, which can hardly come into direct touch with local affairs, almost all the important departments, and even the county councils, have been given some powers of this kind; and they cover all manner of subjects that would otherwise be dealt with by private bills.[ : ] [sidenote: procedure upon provisional orders.] provisional orders are begun by an application to the department that has power to issue them, and although the standing orders do not as a rule apply to these applications,[ : ] yet, by the enabling acts, or by the instructions issued by the departments themselves, similar regulations about notices, deposit of plans, consent of local authorities, and so forth, are enforced. the department usually holds, by means of an inspector, an inquiry on the spot; and either in this or in some other way objectors who are interested are given a chance to present their case. upon the report of the inspector, and such other information as it obtains, the department decides whether it will make the order or not. the orders made are then arranged in groups according to their subjects, and each group is scheduled to a confirming bill, which is introduced into parliament like a public bill by the minister at the head of the department. but it is not treated as a public bill, still less as a government bill. the minister does not try to force it through; he does not put pressure upon his followers by having the government whips act as tellers in a division. the measure is treated as a group of private bills, except that if an order is unopposed an officer of the department appears in support of it before the committee. the bill is read a first time, sent to the examiner, read a second time and referred to the committee of selection or the committee on railway and canal bills. then if no petition has been filed against any of the orders in the bill it goes to the committee on unopposed private bills; otherwise it goes, with all the orders it contains, to an ordinary private bill committee which gives a hearing in the usual form to the promoters and opponents of the orders that are opposed.[ : ] finally, the bill goes through the regular stages in the house.[ : ] in fact the standing orders direct[ : ] that provisional order bills, after being reported, shall be subject to the same rules as private bills, except so far as the payment of fees by the promoters is concerned. [sidenote: advantages of provisional orders.] the question of fees is a very important matter. it is one of the chief reasons for resorting to a provisional order; because the fees charged by the houses to the promoters of private bills are heavy, and in the case of unopposed bills they form a large part of the cost of obtaining the act. an unopposed provisional order is, therefore, very much less expensive than an unopposed private bill; and although, with the large fees of counsel and expert witnesses, an opposed order may cost as much or even more than an opposed bill, it has the benefit of the presumption arising from the action of the department. moreover, provisional orders, even if contested before the department, are not commonly opposed in the house. in the four years from to less than one tenth of the provisional orders were opposed in parliament, and only one of them failed to pass.[ : ] it is, indeed, noteworthy that of the provisional orders issued by the local government board from to only were rejected by parliament.[ : ] [sidenote: defects of private bill legislation.] [sidenote: expense.] the system of private bill legislation, like the rest of man's handiwork, is not altogether without defects. one of these is the costliness of the procedure. a local governing body that wants to do some obvious and necessary public duty, such as to take land for the purpose of a new street or schoolhouse, must go to the expense of getting a provisional order; or if the object happens to be one not covered by any statute for provisional orders, it must incur the greater cost of promoting a private bill; and in either case the owner, if determined to fight to the bitter end, can force the expense up to a considerable sum. in the house of commons there is a fee for almost every step that is taken by the promoters of a private bill; the minimum fees for the various stages in the house itself taken together are never less than thirty-five pounds, and they increase according to the amount involved, up to four times as much. there is, moreover, a fee of ten pounds for each day that the committee sits, if the promoters appear by counsel, and of five pounds if they do not. fees on a smaller scale are also charged to opponents. altogether the annual receipts of the house of commons from private bill legislation average over forty thousand pounds, while its expenses on that account are less than twelve thousand.[ : ] in the house of lords the fees are arranged somewhat differently, but they are, on the whole, about as large;[ : ] so that the parliamentary charges on the smallest unopposed private bill amount to over one hundred and ninety pounds. then there are the expenses of parliamentary and local agents, of printing, advertising, and, in the case of opposed bills, of counsel, witnesses, and experts. sometimes, all this makes a very large sum. birmingham, for example, spent £ , in in promoting a single bill.[ : ] the total amount spent by local authorities in the united kingdom during the seven years from to in promoting and opposing private bills was £ , , , while private companies expended for the same purpose £ , , . adding the smaller sums spent on provisional orders, and those paid out by harbour and dock boards, the grand total consumed in private legislation was £ , , .[ : ] the cost of opposed bills cannot be materially reduced by parliament if the present system is to be maintained; and while this is not true of unopposed bills, it has been argued that high fees are an earnest of good faith and tend to check private speculation in concessions. [sidenote: neglect of the public interest.] a second defect in the system is a lack of sufficient attention to the interests of the public. as early as it struck observers that, apart from certain partial safeguards, the public had no friend in this class of legislation.[ : ] the fact is that private bill committees are chiefly occupied by a hearing between conflicting interests, in which a citizen whose only motive for appearing is the general welfare has no _locus standi_.[ : ] moreover, they are shifting tribunals, whose decisions are uncertain, and whose very nature renders a consistent policy extremely difficult. in fact it is this uncertainty that often causes promoters to try the chance of a private bill, rather than apply for a provisional order on the same subject to a public department that is trying to enforce a well-known policy at variance in some respects with the powers the promoter is seeking to obtain. the committees are sometimes willing to grant new and unusual powers, without enough regard for the ultimate effect of the precedent they create. this has been specially true in the case of borough councils, and was a cause of no small complaint before the committee on municipal trading in . [sidenote: effect of the standing orders.] there are, indeed, certain means of preserving uniformity of action that are more or less effective. the first of these are the standing orders, which lay down some rules for the guidance of the committees, and prescribe a few provisions that must be inserted in certain classes of bills. they do not, however, go very far. [sidenote: clauses acts and model bills.] then there are the clauses acts, of various kinds, which are practically always incorporated--though not without additions or exceptions--in private bills on the subjects with which they deal. there are, also, the model bills, which have been carefully drawn up as standards for the committees to follow, although they are by no means obliged to do so. but all these things tend merely to maintain uniformity in legislation of a well-recognised type, along familiar lines. they have little effect in cases where a request is made for new and unusual powers. cases of that kind are not, indeed, wholly without supervision. if a bill deals with local police or health, it goes before the police and sanitary committee created by the house of commons for the very purpose of preserving a consistent policy in such matters, and of no small use in that way.[ : ] but this is true only for a very limited class of measures. [sidenote: the government departments.] the only general oversight comes from the government departments, and the officers of parliament. it has already been pointed out that all private bills must be referred to one or more of the departments, and that these are sometimes obliged, and always at liberty, to make reports upon them. the reports go to the private bill committees, which are required to notice the recommendations therein in their own reports to the house. the suggestions cannot, therefore, be entirely ignored, but the departments have no means of enforcing them. the home office is, indeed, always represented before the committee on police and sanitary bills,[ : ] but it is rarely asked to attend before others;[ : ] and, in general, it may be said that for a department to communicate with the committees save by its written reports is somewhat exceptional.[ : ] on novel questions of policy, moreover, the departments seem to follow rather than lead the private bill committees.[ : ] [sidenote: chairman of ways and means.] the officers of the houses of parliament have a more effective influence. under the standing orders of the commons all private bills must be shown to the chairman of ways and means, both before they are considered by a committee and after any amendments have been made.[ : ] when sitting in the committee on unopposed bills, he frequently requires the agent of the promoters to omit or insert clauses,[ : ] and occasionally he draws the attention of the chairman of a private bill committee to an extraordinary provision; but he does not feel it his duty to try to secure a general uniformity in private bills.[ : ] in fact, he is so busy that he can examine personally only a small part of them.[ : ] the appointment of a deputy chairman has been an assistance in this way.[ : ] but the work is mainly done by the counsel to mr. speaker, who reads all the bills; makes a careful analysis of them, noting the reports from the government departments; sees the agents about any amendments he has to suggest; and calls the attention of the chairman of ways and means to any matters that may require it.[ : ] sometimes he is consulted by the chairman of a private bill committee;[ : ] while the paid referee, on account of his large experience, had formerly some influence with the committees.[ : ] [sidenote: the lord chairman.] but by far the most important officer of parliament in this respect is the chairman of committees in the house of lords, the lord chairman, as he is called. being less busy with public affairs than the house chairman, he is able to devote much more time to private bill legislation. he examines all the bills, even reading those introduced into the house of commons before the speaker's counsel sees them;[ : ] and he is in constant communication with the chairman of ways and means, and with the government departments.[ : ] he does not, as a rule, act directly upon the private bill committees,[ : ] but he confers with the promoters of the bills or their agents, and explains to them what changes he requires them to make. in such cases the promoters usually comply with his wishes. in fact they are practically obliged to do so or withdraw their bill, because the second and third readings of private bills in the house of lords are always moved by the lord chairman, who would simply refuse to act if his advice were not accepted. of course, some other peer might make the motion and carry it, but this is said to have happened only once within living memory.[ : ] the lord chairman examines provisional orders less thoroughly, and if they contain objectionable provisions he confers with the department that is responsible for them rather than with the promoters.[ : ] the greatest obstacles which the lord chairman meets with come from what are known as "agreed clauses," that is, clauses agreed upon between opponents and promoters of the bill. these in most cases are accepted without much examination by the private bill committees. the lord chairman tries to strike them out when he deems them against public policy; but this is not always easy, because it may be an injustice to one of the parties who has consented not to urge or oppose other provisions on the faith of those clauses. moreover, even if the clauses are struck out of the bill, they may still be operative in fact, as the persons interested often feel bound in honour to carry them out. the matter has a very important bearing on the subject of municipal trading,[ : ] that is, the supply of public utilities by companies and public bodies, and it will be noticed hereafter in that connection. it is curious that the protection of the public interest in private bill legislation should depend very largely on the action of one man, and that man not the holder of a representative office or responsible to the public, but a member of an hereditary chamber who practically holds his post as long as he pleases. [sidenote: merits of the system.] if the english system of private bill legislation has its defects, they are far more than outweighed by its merits. the curse of most representative bodies at the present day is the tendency of the members to urge the interests of their localities or their constituents. it is this more than anything else that has brought legislatures into discredit, and has made them appear to be concerned with a tangled skein of private interests rather than with the public welfare.[ : ] it is this that makes possible the american boss, who draws his resources from his profession of private bill broker. now the very essence of the english system lies in the fact that it tends to remove private and local bills from the general field of political discussion, and thus helps to rivet the attention of parliament upon public matters. a ministry stands or falls upon its general legislative and administrative record, and not because it has offended one member by opposing the demands of a powerful company, and another by ignoring the desires of a borough council. [sidenote: it depends on the support of the committees by the house.] such a condition would not be possible unless parliament was willing to leave private legislation in the main to small impartial committees, and abide by their judgment. if this were not true--and it would not be true in most other legislatures--the promoters and opponents of the bill would attempt to forestall or reverse the decisions of the committees on the floor of the house, and would try to enlist the support of the members in their favour. that is, indeed, occasionally done, and has called forth no small complaint. perhaps the most notable instance of late years was that of the bills for the organisation of companies to supply electric power in durham and south wales. the bills were opposed on the ground both of public policy and of local interest, and were rejected by the house of commons in under the powerful influence of the association of municipal corporations. public feeling was, however, aroused, and the bills were passed in . in the very nature of things parliament must have power to overrule the private bill committees, and sometimes does so, but the permanence of the system depends upon the fact that it is not done often. the question, therefore, whether there is a growing tendency to override the committees is a very interesting one. such meagre statistics as have been collected would appear to show that there has been a slight increase in the number of bills opposed on second and third reading, and in the number of instructions to committees that have been moved,[ : ] as well as in the amount of time spent in the house in debating these matters.[ : ] it seems, also, to be the general opinion of men in close touch with private bill practice, that the habit of overruling the committees has gained ground of late years, but fortunately not to any dangerous extent.[ : ] footnotes: [ : ] for the history of this subject see clifford's "history of private bill legislation." [ : ] the distinction between public and private bills, and public and private acts is not the same. the former depends upon the nature of the procedure in parliament; while acts are classified as ( ) public general acts, ( ) local acts, which have the same legal effect as public acts, but apply only to a particular locality, and may relate to an organ of local government or a company; ( ) private acts--now few in number--which are of a personal nature, and are not taken notice of by courts unless specially pleaded. with some exceptions that will appear sufficiently in the text, the acts in classes ( ) and ( ) do, and those in class ( ) do not, go through the procedure of private bills. [ : ] [sidenote: hybrid bills.] _cf._ may, - . ilbert, "leg. methods and forms," - . moreover, as measures intended primarily to affect particular places, may, on account of their far-reaching importance, be treated as public bills, so others designed for public objects may interfere in a peculiar way with private interests. measures of either kind are sometimes, under the name of "hybrid bills," put through a mixed procedure. they are introduced as public bills, and then referred to a private bill committee, which is, however, larger than an ordinary committee of that kind, the members being appointed partly by the house and partly by the committee of selection. a procedure of this sort is required in the case of bills of the london county council for raising loans (s.o.p.b. ). [ : ] to distinguish between the two classes of standing orders the numbers of those relating to public business are printed in the parliamentary papers in bold-faced type. but in the footnotes to this book those relating to private business are referred to as s.o.p.b. the references are to the standing orders as revised in , because a number of changes were made in that year in pursuance of the recommendations of the select committee of . the statements in this chapter relate to the procedure in the house of commons; for the practice in the house of lords is so nearly the same in almost all essential points, that it is enough to indicate the more important differences in the text or in the notes. a memorandum on the differences in detail may be found in the report of the committee on private business (com. papers, , vii., , app. ). [ : ] the rules about notice are contained in s.o.p.b. - . see also may, - . [ : ] s.o.p.b. - . [ : ] _ibid._, - . [ : ] _ibid._, - , - . by the so-called wharncliffe order a special meeting of the members of any company must be held to authorise or ratify an application for a private bill. _ibid._, - . [ : ] s.o.p.b. - . [ : ] may, ; _cf._ clifford, - . [ : ] s.o.p.b. - , - . may, - . [ : ] the legislative procedure in the house is regulated by part iv. ( - ) of the standing orders relating to private business; the conduct of the private bill office by part v. ( - ); the judicial procedure before private bill committees, with the supervision thereof by the officers of the house, and the prescription of provisions that must, or must not, be inserted, by part iii. ( - ). [ : ] rep. of sel. com. on priv. business, com. papers, , xvi., , q. ; rep. of a similar com., com. papers, , vii., , qs. , - . formerly many more private bills began in the commons than in the lords, but now the numbers are not very far from the same. _ibid._, q. , and app. . [ : ] until the division of bills between the two houses was not made until after parliament met. _ibid._, qs. - , . but the committee of recommended a change which was made (_ibid._, report sect. s.o.p.b. ). [ : ] s.o.p.b. - . there is a committee with similar powers in the house of lords, composed of forty peers, besides the chairman of committees who with any two other members forms a quorum. may, . [ : ] s.o.p.b. . this is a change made in accordance with the report of the select committee of . before that time a vote, though a formal one, took place on the first reading. [ : ] clifford, i., - , ; ii., - . rep. of com. on priv. bill leg., com. papers, , xvi., , p. xix. [ : ] in the lords the committees on opposed bills consist of five members and the chairman has no casting vote. in the commons he has both an ordinary and a casting vote, s.o.p.b. . in the lords there is no committee on railway and canal bills. [ : ] s.o.p.b. , , - , , - , - , . until a few years ago there was a paid referee who could sit on the committee with an advisory voice but no vote. may, . there were formerly two paid referees, and later only one. [ : ] clifford, i., . [ : ] s.o.p.b. - , , . [ : ] may, . ilbert, "manual," § , and p. . it is appointed by the committee of selection. [ : ] s.o.p.b. - . if the bill is brought from the house of lords, or delayed in any other way, the petition must be filed within ten days of the first reading. [ : ] may, . [ : ] s.o.p.b. - . until the speaker's counsel and the paid referee were members, and the important members, of the court. [ : ] rep. com. on priv. bill leg., com. papers, , xvi., , p. iv., and see the evidence before the committee on private business, com. papers, , vii., . [ : ] s.o.p.b. - . these precedents are collected in the reports of cases in the court of referees, by rickards and saunders, and saunders and austin. [ : ] by the borough funds act of the expense of promoting a private bill cannot be incurred by a local authority unless sanctioned by a meeting of the rate-payers. glen, "law of public health," ed., , - . but this does not apply to matters for which provisional orders can be obtained. _ibid._, ; _cf._ rep. of com. on priv. business, com. papers, , vii., , qs. , - , - . by the borough funds act, , no such sanction is required for opposing a private bill. [ : ] _cf._ may, - . [ : ] but usually only in case they appear as a class. s.o.p.b. ; may, . [ : ] rep. of com. on municipal trading, com. papers, , vii., , qs. , , . [ : ] if the court of referees thinks fit. s.o.p.b. a. this provision is not restricted to cases of competition. [ : ] may, - . [ : ] by custom, parliamentary counsel are never appointed to the bench, and as they cannot enter parliament without giving up their practice, they are shut out from a political career. [ : ] may, - . [ : ] _cf._ s.o.p.b. , , a, b, , c. [ : ] s.o.p.b. . [ : ] _ibid._, , , a, a, c, d. [ : ] rep. com. on municipal trading, com. papers, , vii., , qs. , . [ : ] _cf._ s.o.p.b. - . [ : ] the total number of private bills that come before the house of commons runs from to a year, and of these about one half are unopposed in that house. there are also about unopposed provisional orders. [ : ] _cf._ s.o.p.b. ( ) , . for bills originating in the house the third man was the member indorsing the bill. but this member, if interested, locally or otherwise, although taking part in other ways, could not vote. s.o.p.b. ( ) , now s.o.p.b. . for bills coming from the house of lords he was mr. parker smith, m.p. rep. com. on priv. business, com. papers, , vii., , qs. , - , ; and see the return printed yearly in the commons papers of the persons who served on the committee for each unopposed bill. in the lords the committee on unopposed bills consists of the chairman of committees and such lords as think fit to attend, but the work is practically done by the chairman and his counsel. may, . rep. com. on priv. business, com. papers, , vii., , qs. , - , , - . [ : ] com. papers, , vii., , pp. viii-ix. [ : ] s.o.p.b. . [ : ] rep. com. on priv. business, com. papers, , vii., , qs. , , - , , - . [ : ] s.o.p.b. , . [ : ] rep. com. on priv. business, com. papers, , vii., , qs. - , - . [ : ] _ibid._, q. . [ : ] s.o.p.b. . [ : ] s.o.p.b. , , , - , . amendments made by the lords must also be laid before the chairman of ways and means. _ibid._, . before consideration bills must also be sent again to the government departments where they have to be deposited before they are introduced. _ibid._, . [ : ] s.o.p.b. . in the house of lords there is no consideration or report stage, and substantial amendments may be made on third reading. rep. of com. on priv. business, com. papers, , vii., , app. . [ : ] _cf._ may, ch. xxix. [ : ] _cf._ reps. of the sel. coms. of and , com. papers, , xvi., ; , vii., . [ : ] _cf._ rep. of com. on priv. business, com. papers, , vii., , apps. , . [ : ] - vic., c. . section of the act empowers the lord chairman of committees and the chairman of ways and means, acting jointly with the secretary for scotland, to make, subject to objection by either house, general orders for regulating proceedings under the act. these orders, which are voluminous, may be found in com. papers, , lxvii., . a few standing orders for scotch bills are published as part vi. of the standing orders relating to private business. [ : ] rep. of com. on priv. bill proc. (scotland), com. papers, , xi., . [ : ] s.o.p.b. . [ : ] the parliamentary returns show that of the dozen persons required each year to make three commissions on groups of petitions, it has been necessary to take only a couple of names from the extra parliamentary panel. [ : ] by § if the commission report that the order be issued, he may amend their draft. [ : ] s.o.p.b. - . [ : ] com. papers, , vi., . [ : ] _e.g._ rep. of com. on police and sanitary bills, com. papers, , xi., ; rep. of com. on priv. business, com. papers, , vii., , p. vii. [ : ] the cases where land can be taken compulsorily without confirmation by parliament, are few, and are in the main confined to widening highways, enlarging public buildings, providing for national defence, furnishing allotments to labourers, and acquiring land for parish purposes. the most striking departure from the rule is in the act of for the construction of light railways. _cf._ ilbert, "leg. methods and forms," . [ : ] this applies to many matters connected with local government. it is true also of the construction of light railways. - vic., c. , § . [ : ] this is true, for example, of certificates granted by the board of trade to railways, for raising capital, working agreements, and other matters. [ : ] to this class belong the orders for providing dwellings for the working classes, granting charters to municipal boroughs, changing the boundaries of divided parishes, constructing tramways in ireland, etc. [ : ] for a description of the various statutes giving authority to issue provisional orders see clifford, ch. xviii., and may, ch. xxvi., and for a more exhaustive list of those relating to the local government board see rep. of com. on priv. business, com. papers, , vii., , app. . [ : ] the only ones that apply are s.o.p.b. and about replacing workmen's dwellings and the deposit of plans. [ : ] s.o.p.b. a. [ : ] in the house of lords an unopposed bill, like a public bill, is referred after second reading to a committee of the whole. an opposed order goes to a private bill committee, and then, with the rest of the bill to a committee of the whole. [ : ] s.o.p.b. . [ : ] rep. of com. on priv. business, com. papers, , vii., , app. . [ : ] _ibid._, p. . [ : ] _ibid._, app. . [ : ] _ibid._, app. , and see the tables appended to the standing orders. [ : ] return of expense of private bill legislation, - , com. papers, , lxvii., , p. . [ : ] _ibid._, , p. . see also the returns for the preceding seven years in com. papers, , lxiii., . [ : ] clifford, ii., . [ : ] at the local inquiries held by the departments for the purpose of issuing provisional orders, any resident of the district has, in some cases, at least, a right to be heard. macassey, "private bills and provisional orders," , . [ : ] rep. of com. on municipal trading, com. papers, , vii., , qs. , . [ : ] rep. of the com. on municipal trading, com. papers, , vii., , q. ; rep. of the com. on priv. business, com. papers, , vii., , qs. - , - . [ : ] rep. of com. on priv. business, , vii., , qs. , - . [ : ] rep. of com. on municipal trading, , vii., , qs. - . [ : ] _cf. ibid._, qs. , , , and . [ : ] s.o.p.b. . [ : ] rep. of committee on priv. business, , vii., , qs. - . [ : ] _ibid._, qs. - . [ : ] _ibid._, q. . [ : ] _ibid_., qs. - . [ : ] rep. of com. on priv. bill legislation, com. papers, , xvi., , qs. - . [ : ] rep. of com. on priv. bill legislation, com. papers, , xvi., i., qs. . rep. of com. on municipal trading, , vii., , q. . [ : ] rep. of com. on municipal trading, , vii., , qs. , , and . [ : ] rep. of com. on priv. business, , vii., , q. . [ : ] rep. on municipal trading, , vii., , q. . [ : ] _ibid._, qs. - and - . [ : ] _ibid._, qs. - , , , , ; rep. of com. on priv. business, , vii., , qs. - , - . [ : ] rep. on municipal trading, , vii., , qs. - and - . [ : ] _cf._ rep. on municipal trading, , vii., , qs. , - , , - . [ : ] for a careful study from this point of view of a fairly good legislative body, by one of its members well fitted to observe, see an article by francis c. lowell, in the _atlantic monthly_, lxxix., - , march, . [ : ] in the five years - the number of bills opposed on second reading averaged - / , while from - they averaged . rep. of com. on priv. business, , vii., , q. . [ : ] rep. of com. on priv. business, , vii., , app. . but these periods are too short to warrant any accurate conclusion. in not more than eight or nine per cent. of the cases does the opposition seem to have succeeded. _ibid._, q. - . [ : ] _cf._ rep. of com. on priv. bill leg., com. papers, , xvi., , qs. - , - , , . rep. of com. on municipal trading, , vii., , qs. , - , . com. on priv. business, , vii., , qs. - . in conversation the writer found the opinion that the habit was increasing substantially universal. when the speaker's counsel hears that opposition in the house is likely to be made, he sometimes tries to prevent it by arranging for a conference between the promoters and opponents in the presence of the chairman of ways and means. rep. of com. on priv. bill legislation, , xvi., , q. . chapter xxi the house of lords tracing its origin to the ancient council of the magnates of the realm, the house of lords has, in the fulness of time, undergone several changes of character.[ : ] from a meeting of the great council of the king, it became an assembly of his principal vassals, the chief landholders of the kingdom, ecclesiastical and lay; and finally it was gradually transformed into a chamber of hereditary peers, enjoying their honours by virtue of a grant from the crown. each phase has left a trace upon its organisation or functions, or upon the privileges of its members. [sidenote: composition of the house.] before the reformation the ecclesiastics in the house of lords,[ : ] including the abbots and priors, usually outnumbered the laymen; but upon the dissolution of the monasteries, and the disappearance therewith of the abbots and priors, the proportions were reversed, and the hereditary element became predominant. at present the house contains several kinds of members, for it must be remembered that every peer has not a right to sit, and all members of the house are not in every respect peers. [sidenote: the hereditary peers.] first there are the peers with hereditary seats. they are the peers of england, created before the union with scotland in ; the peers of great britain created between that time and the union with ireland in ; and the peers of the united kingdom created thereafter. they rank as dukes, marquises, earls, viscounts, and barons, whose precedence, with that of their wives and children, furnishes abundant interest to those who care for such things. the crown, that is, the ministry of the day, has unlimited power to create hereditary peerages with any rules of descent known to the law in the case of estates in land,[ : ] and since the accession of george iii. the power has been freely used. all but seventy-four out of nearly six hundred seats belong to this class, which is now the only channel for an increase in the membership of the house. [sidenote: the representative peers of scotland.] when the union with scotland was made in , the scotch peers were more numerous in proportion to population than the english; and therefore, instead of admitting them all to the house of lords, it was provided that they should elect sixteen representatives of their order for the duration of each parliament. no provision was made for the creation of new scotch peers, so that with the dying out of peerages, and the giving of hereditary seats to scotch noblemen by creating them peers of the united kingdom,[ : ] the number of scotch peers who have no seats in their own right has fallen from one hundred and sixty-five to thirty-three. within another generation they may not be more than enough to furnish the sixteen representatives. [sidenote: of ireland.] the same problem arose upon the union with ireland a hundred years later; but the scotch precedent was not followed in all respects; for the act provided that the irish peers should elect twenty-eight of their number representatives for life, and an arrangement was also made for perpetuating the nobility of ireland within certain limits. not more than one new irish peerage was to be created for every three that became extinct, until the number--exclusive of those having hereditary seats in the house of lords under other titles--had fallen to one hundred, a limit above which it can never be raised.[ : ] there is another important difference between the scotch and irish peers. the former are wholly excluded from the house of commons, but the latter can sit for any constituency in great britain, though not in ireland. under this provision irish peers have, in fact, often sat in the commons, the most famous case being that of lord palmerston. the irish peerage thus affords an opportunity to ennoble a statesman, without putting an end to his political career in the popular chamber. [sidenote: the bishops.] the dissolution of the monasteries, by removing the abbots and priors from the house of lords, left the bishops the only spiritual peers; and as such they have held their seats to the present day. by the time the union with scotland was made, the established church of that kingdom was presbyterian in form, and no scotch ecclesiastics were added to the house of lords. but the irish established church was episcopal and protestant, and hence at the union with ireland in four places were given to her bishops, who filled them by rotation sitting for a session apiece. with the disestablishment of the irish church in its representatives vanished from parliament, leaving the english prelates as the only spiritual peers in the house of lords.[ : ] meanwhile the greater attention paid to the needs of the church has brought about the creation of new bishoprics in england; but in order not to increase the number of spiritual peers, it has been provided that while the archbishops of canterbury and york, with the bishops of london, durham, and winchester, shall always have seats in the house of lords, of the rest only the twenty-one shall sit who are seniors in the order of appointment.[ : ] the spiritual peers are members of the house solely by virtue of their office, and so long as they retain it. except, in fact, for the five great sees they are members only by virtue of seniority in office. at times the nonconformists have tried to exclude them altogether; but with the growth in the number of lay peers their relative importance has diminished, and it is not probable that they will be removed, unless as part of a larger movement for the reform of the house of lords, or the disestablishment of the church. [sidenote: life peers.] [sidenote: the case of baron wensleydale.] since the house of lords is not only a legislative chamber, but also the highest court of appeal for the british isles, it is well that it should contain at all times the legal talent required for the purpose. an obvious method of accomplishing the result, without permanently enlarging the house, or hampering the career of heirs who may not have the wealth to support the dignity, is by giving seats for life to eminent judges. with this object sir james parke, a distinguished baron of the court of exchequer, received in a patent as baron wensleydale for life. much learning has been expended upon the question whether the crown has ever exercised the power to create a life peer with a seat in the house of lords,[ : ] and whether, if it ever existed, the power has become obsolete; but the wensleydale case was settled by a vote of the house that the letters patent did not enable the grantee to sit and vote in parliament. sir james parke was thereupon created baron wensleydale with an hereditary title, and the appointment of law lords as life peers was postponed a score of years. [sidenote: the lords of appeal.] at last the need for increasing the legal members of the house became so clear that in an act was passed to authorise the appointment of two, and ultimately of four, lords of appeal in ordinary for life.[ : ] they hold the position, and enjoy a salary of six thousand pounds, on the same tenure as other judges; and since they have also had a right to sit in the house as long as they live, irrespective of their tenure of the office. the motive for their creation was simply to strengthen the house of lords as a court of appeal. proposals for life peerages on a more extended scale have also been made in connection with plans to reform the house of lords as a branch of parliament. so far these have come to nothing; and, as we shall see hereafter, it is by no means clear that they would attain the end in view, or that, if they did, they would be wise. [sidenote: the house determines the qualification of its members.] the authority of the house of lords to determine the validity of new patents has already been referred to in connection with the wensleydale case. it is also empowered by statute to pass upon the election of scotch and irish representative peers. disputed claims to the succession of hereditary peerages, on the other hand, may be settled by the crown on its own authority, but it is the habit at the present day to refer these likewise for decision to the lords.[ : ] [sidenote: disqualifications.] infants, aliens, bankrupts, and persons under sentence for grave offences, are incapable of sitting in the house of lords;[ : ] and instances occurred in the seventeenth century of special sentence of exclusion by the house itself. but more important from a political point of view than the disqualifications for the upper chamber is the fact that a peer cannot escape from the peerage. this is sometimes a misfortune when a man, who has made his mark in the house of commons, has an obscure greatness thrust upon him by the untimely death of his father. in such a case he loses at once and forever his seat in the house where the active warfare of politics goes on, and this although he may be a scotch peer, who has no seat in the house of lords. the question was debated at some length in , when lord selborne tried to retain his seat in the commons by omitting to apply for a writ of summons as a peer; but the commons decided that he could not do so.[ : ] [sidenote: personal privileges of the peers.] besides the liberty of speech and freedom from arrest which they possess in common with the members of the other house, the peers, partly in memory of their position as councillors of the crown, partly as an aftermath of feudal conditions, retain certain personal privileges, of small political importance, but sometimes of interest to the person concerned. one of these is the right of access to the sovereign for the purpose of an audience on public affairs. another is the right to be tried by their peers in all cases of treason or felony.[ : ] if parliament is in session, the trial is conducted by the whole house of lords, presided over by the lord high steward appointed by the crown. if not it takes place in the court of the lord high steward, to which, however, all the peers are summoned.[ : ] the privilege extends to the scotch and irish peers, whether chosen to sit in the house of lords or not; to the life peers; to peeresses in their own right; and to the wives and widows of peers, unless they have "disparaged" themselves by a second marriage with a commoner; but it does not extend to the bishops, or to irish peers while members of the house of commons.[ : ] [sidenote: functions of the house.] the house of lords is both a coördinate branch of parliament and a court of law. its duties as a court of appeal will be described in another chapter with the rest of the national judicial system, and its original jurisdiction, in the trial of peers and of impeachments brought by the house of commons, is no longer of much consequence. the evolution of the political responsibility of ministers has made impeachment a clumsy and useless device for getting rid of an official, while the greater efficiency of the criminal law has made it needless for punishing an offender; and in fact the last case where it was used was that of lord melville, one hundred years ago. it may be noted, however, in this connection that the house still retains the right to require the attendance of the judges, not only when acting in a judicial capacity, but on all occasions when it may need their advice. [sidenote: money bills.] since the house is a coördinate branch of the legislature, every act of parliament requires its assent, and although in practice it is far less powerful than the house of commons, the only subject on which the limitations of its authority can be stated with precision is that of finance. as far back as the commons resolved "that, in all aids given to the king, by the commons, the rate or tax ought not to be altered by the lords";[ : ] and in they adopted another resolution that all bills granting supplies "ought to begin with the commons. and that it is the undoubted and sole right of the commons, to direct, limit, and appoint, in such bills, the ends, purposes, considerations, conditions, limitations, and qualifications of such grants; which ought not to be changed, or altered by the house of lords."[ : ] the commons have clung to this principle ever since, enforcing it by a refusal to consider bills in which the lords have inserted or amended financial provisions; and although the lords have never expressly admitted the claim, they have in fact submitted to it.[ : ] [sidenote: paper duties bill in .] the upper house can, of course, reject a money bill altogether, but the history of the last case where they did so shows the futility of such a power by itself. in the ministry brought in a bill to repeal the duties on paper, which hindered the development of a cheap newspaper press, and the lords rejected it in spite of the fact that the budget already passed imposed additional taxation to make up for the loss of revenue from paper. the next year the repeal of the paper duties was simply included in the annual tax bill, and forced through in that way. it is now the regular practice to include all the taxation in one bill, and as the peers never venture to reject as a whole either this, or any of the great measures granting supplies, it is truly said that the house of lords cannot initiate or amend, and practically cannot reject, any money bill. the principle applies not only to the national receipts and expenditures, but also to local rates,[ : ] but it does not apply to revenues of the crown or the church, nor at the present day to penalties or fees not payable into the exchequer.[ : ] [sidenote: tacking.] it might be supposed that the commons could carry any piece of legislation by tacking it to a money bill. this was formerly done; but the lords have long had a standing order forbidding such a practice, and no attempt has been made of late years to revive it.[ : ] moreover the rule about money bills is not strictly enforced where the financial provision is merely incidental to general legislation. the lords are free to omit such a clause altogether,[ : ] or if it is so interwoven with the rest of the measure that it cannot be treated separately, the commons have often waived their rights and taken into consideration amendments made by the lords.[ : ] for the sake of convenience they have gone farther still, for they suffer expedients to be used, that really evade, while recognising, their privilege. bills are sometimes introduced in the house of lords with financial provisions which are struck out on third reading. in the commons these provisions are printed as ghosts, underlined or in brackets, to indicate that they are not at the moment a part of the bill, but that a motion will be made in committee to reinsert them.[ : ] what is more, the commons have adopted a standing order that it will not insist on its privileges in the case of private, or provisional order, bills which impose tolls, or authorise rates by local authorities for local purposes.[ : ] the rule about money bills applies only to measures actually before parliament. it does not prevent the house of lords from expressing an opinion upon financial matters either in debate or by resolution, or from inquiring into them by means of select committees.[ : ] in , indeed, was seen the curious spectacle of the house of lords debating freely mr. chamberlain's fiscal policy, while the opposition in the commons was striving almost in vain for an opportunity to do so. [sidenote: officers of the house of lords.] except when a peer is being tried the lord chancellor presides over the house. in practice he is always made a peer, but this is not a legal necessity, and, in fact, the woolsack, on which he sits, is commonly said not to be within the house itself. perhaps for this very reason he has not the authority of the speaker of the commons in ruling upon points of order. he does not even decide which peer shall speak, but if more than one rise at once, and refuse to give way, the question who shall have the floor is decided by the house itself, if necessary by division.[ : ] order in debate, also, is enforced not by him but by the lords themselves. moreover, he has no casting vote, and it is characteristic of his position that the peers do not address him, but speak to "my lords." in short, his functions are limited to formal proceedings, and even in these he can be overruled by the house.[ : ] if a peer he can, of course, as such, take part in debate; but otherwise not. during his absence one of the deputy speakers, appointed by the crown, takes his place, or if none of these be present the house appoints a speaker _pro tempore_.[ : ] the other principal officers of the house are the lord chairman of committees, chosen by the house itself, who presides in committee of the whole, and who, as we have seen, has great influence over private bill legislation; the clerk of the parliaments, who acts as clerk of the house; the gentleman usher of the black rod, who acts as messenger of the house on great and formal occasions; and the sergeant-at-arms; all these last three being appointed by the crown. [sidenote: quorum.] the quorum of the house is fixed at the absurdly small number of three, but this is to some extent delusive, for the presence of thirty lords is necessary for an effectual division upon any stage of a bill. formerly the house occasionally imposed fines upon its absent members, a practice that has fallen into disuse. the privilege of voting by proxy has also disappeared. it was abolished by standing order in .[ : ] [sidenote: procedure.] the procedure upon bills is in general similar to that in the house of commons. there are two readings, and then a committee of the whole, followed by a third reading; and there is the familiar rule that no member can speak more than once to the same question, except in committee of the whole. the chief difference from the commons consists in the rule adopted in recent years for referring bills after the committee stage, and before report, to a standing committee appointed by the committee of selection.[ : ] this gives an opportunity to revise the drafting of a bill that has been battered out of shape in its passage through parliament. as a matter of practice, however, the reference to a standing committee is usually omitted, for the lords are quite in the habit of shortening the process of legislation by special vote of the house. the committee stage is often left out altogether; and in money bills this always is done. on the appropriation bills, indeed, there is rarely any debate, and all the stages are not infrequently taken on one day. [sidenote: the peers have abundance of time.] the lords have no constituents to impress, and hence there are not so many members as in the commons who want to take part in debate. moreover, they are not obliged to devote a large part of their time to supply and to the budget; and as their chamber is not the place where the great political battles are fought, the opposition does not oppose at every possible step. they can, therefore, get through their work at leisure. they make use, indeed, of select and sessional committees in much the same way as the commons; but, having time enough to consider every bill in committee of the whole, they do not need time-saving machinery like the standing committees on law and trade. for the same reason, and because there is no disposition to wilful obstruction, they do not require and do not have a closure to cut off debate. their sittings also are short. on wednesday and saturday they seldom meet at all, while on other days their usual hour of meeting is half-past four, and they rarely sit after dinner-time. [sidenote: their action is little fettered by rules.] on the other hand, the very fact that the fate of ministers does not hang upon their votes renders possible a much larger freedom of action than in the commons. there is not the same need of precaution against hasty, ill-considered motions, or against votes that might embarrass the government without implying a real lack of confidence. hence there is no restriction upon the motions that can be brought forward, save that notice must be given beforehand;[ : ] and any question to a minister may be followed by a general debate, provided again that notice of the question has been given in the orders of the day.[ : ] footnotes: [ : ] the best history of the house is pike's "constitutional history of the house of lords." [ : ] the question whether they sat by virtue of their tenure of land, or of their offices in the church, has been a subject of some discussion. _cf._ pike, _et seq._ anson, i., - . [ : ] and possibly with others. _cf._ anson, i., - . [ : ] at one time the house of lords held that a scotch peer could not be given an hereditary seat as a peer of great britain; but this decision was afterwards reversed. pike, - . a peer so created can still vote for representatives as a scotch peer. _ibid._, - . and there has been some doubt whether, if a representative peer, he vacates his seat at once. _ibid._, , may, . [ : ] the number is now less than one hundred. [ : ] the bishop of sodor and man has a seat, but no vote. [ : ] there are now ten english bishops who do not sit in the house of lords. [ : ] _cf._ pike, - . stubbs, "const. hist.," ed., iii., . [ : ] before appointment they must have held high judicial office for two years, or have practised at the english, scotch, or irish bar for fifteen years. [ : ] pike, - ; anson, i., - . these cases are referred to the committee of privileges. [ : ] the act of abolished corruption of blood, so that a sentence no longer cuts off the heirs. [ : ] hans. ser. xxxiii., _et seq._, _et seq._, and _et seq._ _cf._ rep. of com. on vacating of seats, com. papers, , x., . [ : ] for misdemeanors, peers, like other persons, are tried by an ordinary jury. [ : ] upon conviction a peer is now liable to the same punishment as other offenders. [ : ] for the history of the subject in general see pike, chs. x., xi., and for that of the bishops, _ibid._, - , - , - . [ : ] com. journals, . [ : ] _ibid._, . [ : ] _cf._ may, "const. hist.," i., ch. viii., . [ : ] may, "parl. prac.," . [ : ] _ibid._, , - . [ : ] _ibid._, - . [ : ] _ibid._, - . [ : ] _cf. ibid._, - . [ : ] for the same purpose the lords sometimes insert a clause, in a bill or amendment, that a financial provision really essential to their plan shall not be operative, and then the commons strike the clause out. may, - . [ : ] s.o.p.b. . sometimes, also, at the request of the member in charge of a bill, the commons consent to waive a privilege on which they might have insisted. [ : ] may, . [ : ] _ibid._, - . [ : ] _ibid._, , . [ : ] a lord keeper of the great seal has the same rights to preside as the lord chancellor, and if the seal be in commission the crown appoints a lord speaker. may, - . [ : ] two days' notice must be given of a motion to suspend this order. may, - . [ : ] may, , . [ : ] may, , . [ : ] _ibid._, . chapter xxii the cabinet and the house of lords [sidenote: effect of the reform act of .] by sweeping away rotten boroughs, and giving representatives to new centres of industry, the reform act of made a great change in the position of the house of lords; not by lessening its power--for since the great rebellion the lords as a branch of the legislature has never had much power--but by the change in the composition of the house of commons which opened a door to conflicts between the two bodies. in the old unreformed days the lords and commons were in general accord, because both were controlled by a territorial aristocracy whose chief members were peers. that element remained, no doubt, strong in the commons after the act of , but it was no longer overmastering, and it had to use its authority in a more popular spirit, so that the two houses ceased to be controlled by the same force. by bringing about this result the reform act drew attention to the fact that an hereditary body, however great the personal influence of its members, could not in nineteenth century england be the equal in corporate authority of a representative chamber. it became apparent that the house of lords might on important issues differ in opinion from the house of commons, and that in such cases an enduring desire of the nation, as expressed in the representative chamber, must prevail. [sidenote: power of the lords thereafter.] this did not mean that the house of lords must submit to everything that the commons chose to ordain; that it was to become a mere fifth wheel of the coach; on the contrary, in matters not of great importance, or on which the commons were not thoroughly in earnest, it exercised its own judgment, sometimes in cases that caused no little friction between the houses. in , for example, it rejected the bill to repeal the duties on paper; in it refused to concur in the abolition of the purchase of commissions in the army; and in it rejected the bill to compensate evicted irish tenants. in all these cases the policy of the house of commons was ultimately carried out; and the peers recognised fully that their action on great measures was tentative; that they must not go too far; and that if public opinion was persistent they must in the end give way. as mr. sidney low well says: "the house of lords, ever since the struggle over the great reform bill, has been haunted by a suspicion that it exists on sufferance."[ : ] [sidenote: the house of lords is conservative.] from the fact that it represents, in the main, the interests of property, and especially of landed property, the house of lords tends naturally to be conservative, in the sense that it is adverse to popular demands which appear dangerous to interests of that kind, or indeed to the established order of things; but more than this, the peerage as a mass tends from its social position in the nation to gravitate toward the political party that clings to the nobility and the church as pillars of the state. during the half century that followed the first reform act, the liberals were in power much the greater part of the time, and they created by far the larger number of peers;[ : ] yet the house of lords remained firmly conservative throughout; for even liberal peers--and still more their descendants--are drawn by a steady current to the other side; a current that was accelerated, but not caused, by the home rule bill. the house is, in fact, overwhelmingly conservative. of the hereditary peers more than four fifths belong to the unionist party; and the disproportion is increased by the representatives from scotland and ireland. in the case of ireland this is the inevitable result of the method of choosing, because elections occur only one at a time on the death of a representative peer, and his successor is always taken from the dominant--that is, the unionist--party. in scotland, there being no provision for minority representation, the same result takes place, the majority electing all the sixteen peers for the parliament from its own side; and thus the representative peers from both kingdoms, forty-four in number, are unionists to a man. [sidenote: meaning of the term "conservative."] it is commonly said that the house of lords is a conservative body which acts as a drag on hasty legislation, and holds back until the nation shows clearly that it has made up its mind. this is undoubtedly true, and if it were the whole truth the limited authority retained by the house would provoke no strong resentment in any quarter; but it is only a part of the truth. the word "conservative" has two distinct meanings in england, according as it is spelled with a small or a capital c. the first signifies an aversion to change; the second, one of the two great political parties in the state. now, for more than a generation after the reform act of these two meanings of the word were not very far apart. the conservative party was to such an extent the party of resistance to change as to make plausible, if not accurate, macaulay's comparison of the two parties that divided the nation to the fore and hind legs of a stag, the liberals being always in advance, and the conservatives following their footsteps at a distance. the simile expressed one aspect of a not uncommon feeling, that the direction of the national policy rested normally with the liberals, but that when they went too fast the conservatives would come to power for a short time, while the country adjusted itself to its new conditions. that under these circumstances the house of lords should act with the conservative party, and should help them to play the part of a brake from time to time, not in order to stop, but only to slow down, the coach on a hill, was natural, and not open to serious objection. but disraeli's constant preaching against a merely negative policy, coupled with the need of seeking for working-class support after the extension of the franchise by the reform act of , led to the abandonment by the tories of the attitude of resistance to change. even if it be true that the new tory democracy is, on the whole, less progressive than the liberal party, it is certainly not opposed to all progress. in more than one direction, indeed, it is distinctly more favourable to change. if the stag has not become double-headed, he has, at least, learned to walk with either end in front; and this change in the tory party has had a marked effect upon the position of the house of lords. [sidenote: the house has become a tool of the conservative party.] although the conservatives have outgrown their negative attitude of resistance to change, and have become an aggressive party with a positive policy, they have retained and even strengthened their control of the house of lords. the house has not, of course, lost all volition so completely as merely to register the commands of the unionist leaders. to some extent it has its own opinions, which are now more conservative than theirs; and even when they are in power it amends the lesser details of their bills with a good deal of freedom, sometimes making its own views prevail. in , for example, it struck out of the london local government bill the provision allowing women to vote for the borough councils, a change that the commons accepted with reluctance; and in it succeeded in making amendments to the elementary education bill, which threw upon the rates the burden of current repairs in the church schools, and preserved some control by the bishops over religious instruction therein. but while the house of lords has a will of its own in smaller questions, on the great party struggles that rend the country it throws its weight wholly on the side of the tories, and plays into their hands. thus, from to , and again in ,--the only two occasions on which the liberals have been in office for a score of years,--the house of lords used its power boldly to hobble the government. that it did so to help the unionist party, and not simply from conservative objection to change, is curiously brought out by its treatment of the principal measures of . besides the education bill, where the conflict of opinion lay very deep, two other government measures that aroused some feeling came to it from the commons. one of them, the trades dispute bill, which provided that a trade union should not be liable to suit for any action it might take during a strike, was certainly a radical measure, and one to which a chamber of conservative temperament might well object; but the lords passed it without amendment. the other, the plural voting bill, designed to prevent a man from voting in more than one place, involved no very profound question of principle, and made no very far-reaching change in english institutions, but was a bone of contention between the parties because it affected the chances of election in close districts. this bill the house of lords summarily rejected. the fact is that since the reform act of government by party has become highly developed; and although the differences between the principles of the two parties may be less fundamental than they were formerly, the voting in parliament runs very much more strictly on party lines.[ : ] politics have become more completely a battle between parties, in which it is more difficult than ever to avoid taking sides, while the combatants try to make use of every weapon within their reach. now the very accentuation of party has made it easier for the peers to resist a liberal ministry, because in doing so they are evidently opposing, not the people as a whole, but only a part of the people, and a part that is a majority by a very small fraction. in this way it has happened that the house of lords, without ceasing to have an opinion of its own on other matters, has become for party purposes an instrument in the hands of the tory leaders, who use it as a bishop or knight of their own colour on the chess-board of party politics. [sidenote: position of the house in forcing a referendum.] a cabinet never thinks of resigning on account of the hostility of the lords; nor is its position directly affected by their action. indirectly, however, it may be very seriously impaired, if the peers, claiming that the government is not really in accord with the electorate, reject important measures, and thereby challenge a dissolution of parliament. by doing so they may reduce a ministry, that is not in a condition to dissolve, to a state of political impotence, both in fact and in the eyes of the nation. this was true of the liberal administration in - , when the peers rejected the home rule bill, and made amendments that struck at the root of the parish councils and employers' liability bills, changing the latter in a manner so vital that the government finally withdrew the measure altogether. the liberals protested that the house of lords thwarted the will of the people, and ought to be ended or mended. the alliteration helped to make the phrase a catchword, but the cry excited popular enthusiasm so little that at the dissolution in the country upheld the same party as the house of lords, and returned a large unionist majority to parliament. for the lords to appeal to the people at a moment when the people were of their party was naturally not an unpopular thing to do, and for some time after the fall of lord rosebery's government they rather gained than lost ground in the esteem of the public. the conservatives, indeed, declared that the house had renewed its youth, and had become once more an important organ of the state by asserting its right to appealing from the cabinet and the majority in the commons to the nation itself. the lords were said to have attained the function of demanding a sort of referendum on measures of exceptional gravity; but useful as such a function might be, if in the nature of things a possible one, the existing house of lords cannot really exercise it, because their object in doing so is essentially partisan. in attempting to appeal to the electorate, they act at the behest of one party alone. thus in the lords were quite ready to force the issue whether the cabinet retained the confidence of the country; but in when a series of adverse by-elections made it exceedingly doubtful whether the conservative government had not lost its popularity, nothing was further from their intention than to cause a dissolution. now, a power to provoke a referendum or appeal to the people, which is always used in favour of one party and against the other, however popular it may be at a given moment, and however much it may be permanently satisfactory to the party that it helps, cannot fail in the long run to be exceedingly annoying to its rival; nor is it likely to commend itself to the great mass of thinking men as a just and statesmanlike institution. the house of lords is a permanent handicap in favour of the tories, which is believed to have helped them even in elections for the house of commons. the workingmen have been told that although the conservatives promise them less, they are better able to fulfil their promises than the liberals who cannot control the house of lords. these things must be borne in mind in discussing a possible reform of the upper house; but before coming to that question it will be well to look at the lords under some other aspects--at their non-partisan activity, their treatment of private members' bills, and of private bill legislation, and at the personal influence of the leading peers. [sidenote: non-political legislation.] so far we have considered only government bills, backed by the authority of a responsible ministry, which the upper house must treat with circumspection. the lords do not feel the same restraint in regard to private members' bills sent to them from the commons. these lie beyond the immediate range of party conflicts, and although they may occasionally deal with important subjects, neither the cabinet nor the parties take sides officially upon them. the lords can, therefore, amend or reject them without fear; but it has become so difficult for a private member to get through the commons any bill to which there is serious opposition, that this function of the upper house is not of great use. still less vital is its power to initiate measures. in order the better to employ the time of the commons the government introduces some of its secondary bills first in the lords;[ : ] but measures proposed by individual peers have little chance of success. it is hard enough for a private member of the commons to put his bill through its stages in that house, with all the sittings reserved for the purpose in the earlier part of the session; and it is even harder to pass a bill brought from the lords at a later date. the result is that of the few private members' bills enacted each session only about one sixth originate with the peers. [sidenote: private bill legislation.] the relation of the house of lords to private bill legislation is very different, for bills of that kind are in a region quite outside of politics. in their case, as already observed, the action of the lords is, if anything, even more important than that of the commons; and, in fact, the private bill committees of the upper house inspire in general a greater confidence, because the members are men of more experience.[ : ] while, therefore, the house of lords occupies a subordinate place in regard to public measures of all kinds, and a position of marked inferiority in the case of government bills, in private and local legislation, which in england is of great importance, its activity is constant and highly useful. [sidenote: personal influence of the peers.] the personal influence of the lords is far greater than their collective authority. with the waning of the landed gentry the respect for the old territorial aristocracy has been replaced by a veneration for titles, and this has inured to the benefit of the peerage. one sees it even in business affairs, although the lords as a class are little qualified by experience for dealing with matters of that kind, the nobility having until recently been debarred by tradition from commercial life. one of the devices of that arch promoter hooley for inducing the public to embark in his schemes was to include a number of peers in his list of directors--guinea-pig directors, as they were called, because their most visible function was to pocket a guinea for attendance at each meeting. the hooley revelations some years ago checked this practice; but the fact that it should have existed shows the confidence that titles were believed to inspire among a large class of investors. the glamour of rank appears to be if anything more dazzling as one descends in the social scale; and a scion of a noble family, even when he has no landed interest at his back, is usually a strong parliamentary candidate in a working-class constituency. the extension of the franchise has thus rather increased than diminished the influence of the nobility. the house of commons, no doubt, makes a show of insisting that the peers shall take no part in general elections; but they are, nevertheless, active in politics and even in great electioneering organisations, particularly in those that stand, like the primrose league, a little outside of the regular party machinery. when a general election is not in progress the leaders of the house of lords speak constantly in public; and at the present day speeches from the platform are reported in the daily press quite as fully, and read at least as widely, as those delivered in the house of commons. a foreigner is impressed by the popular confidence in those peers who have attained a position in the forefront of politics. there seems to be a feeling that they are raised above the scrimmage of public life; that in rank, wealth, and reputation they possess already the goal of ambition, and are beyond the reach of the temptations that beset the ordinary man. [sidenote: reform of the house of lords.] [sidenote: objects of reform.] the adoption by the lords, in the autumn of , of amendments to the education bill, so contrary to its spirit that they were rejected in the commons by an overwhelming majority without any attempt at compromise, has brought the question of a reform of the upper house again prominently before the country. no one would now think of creating the house of lords as it stands; but, as mr. (now lord) courtney remarks, "the public judgment may long tolerate a machine which works without unnecessary friction, although it would not construct it in the same fashion if it had to be for the first time devised."[ : ] this is particularly true if it is difficult to propose something that would work better; and therefore in discussing the reform of the house of lords it is important to have clearly in mind the objects to be attained. now, there are four possible objects of a reform: to make the house less powerful; to make it more powerful; to change the nature of its power; or to bring it into greater harmony with the popular elements in the state; and it may be interesting to examine these objects in turn. [sidenote: to reduce the power of the house.] the national liberal federation has repeatedly passed resolutions in favour of restricting what is called the veto of the house of lords. this is most natural, for besides the objection in principle to hereditary legislators, there is the galling fact that the house is always hostile to the liberal party. no one would suggest that so long as a second chamber is suffered to exist it should be wholly deprived of the right to reject or amend bills sent to it from the commons. it is proposed, however, that the veto shall not be repeated after a certain interval, and the vital question is what that interval shall be. a provision that the lords should not reject a bill passed by the commons in two successive parliaments, would probably be a mere legal ratification of their present constitutional position; for although, after a fresh general election has proved that the cabinet retains the confidence of the nation, the lords may refuse a second time to enact one of its measures, they have never done so, and are not very likely to venture so far. a provision, on the other hand, that the lords should not reject or amend a bill passed by the commons in two successive sessions of the same parliament would mean that except in the last session of an expiring parliament, they could reject or amend seriously no government bill, whether convinced that the nation approved of it or not.[ : ] this would be almost equivalent to an entire abolition of the second chamber so far as government measures are concerned, because the shred of authority left would amount to little more than that of requiring the ministers to reconsider their position, which they could hardly do without stultifying themselves. the president of the french republic has a similar right in relation to the chambers, but it is never exercised. a change of this kind could certainly be made, but whether it would be wise or not is another question. moreover, if a rule that the lords should not reject or amend a government bill passed by the commons in two successive sessions did not virtually destroy the power of the house of lords altogether, it would not accomplish the object of the liberals. it would not put them upon a footing of equality with the conservatives, for it would mean that it would take them two sessions to pass any legislation of a far-reaching character, while the conservatives could do it in one. we are not concerned now with the question of reducing the power of the hereditary members of the house, by introducing other members in their stead; but of reducing the power of the house as a whole. those persons who are seriously interested in reforming the composition of the body are usually more anxious to increase than to diminish its authority, and it would be somewhat strange to make the house of lords more representative or more popular, while at the same time taking away the last remnants of its power in political questions. [sidenote: to increase its power.] in considering suggestions to reform the house of lords for the sake of increasing its efficiency we are met by the question whether with a parliamentary system, that is with government by party, as highly developed as it is in england, a more powerful upper house is possible. fifty years ago second chambers were defended on the ground that they acted as a drag on radical legislation. but, as we have seen, the house of lords does not really perform that function. it does not try to check legislation by one of the parties, and only under peculiar circumstances can it seriously restrain the other. nor could any upper house render that service effectively in england to-day. the fact is that although historically the position of the house of lords may have been the consequence of its hereditary, non-representative character, it is now doomed to its present condition by the inexorable logic of a political system. its limitations in dealing with government bills are imposed by the principle of a ministry responsible to the popular chamber, and working through highly developed parties; its inability to exert a substantial influence upon other public legislation is the result, not of its own inherent weakness, but of the condition of the house of commons; while in private bill legislation, which lies outside the domain of politics, it shares in full measure the authority of a coördinate branch of parliament. [sidenote: to change the nature of its power.] the same reasoning would apply to any proposal to alter in character the powers exercised by the lords. the channels of possible activity of any second chamber are fixed in england by the system itself, and they are not far from the ones in which the house of lords now moves. the house could, no doubt, be shorn of the remnant of political authority that it still wields, and it could be deprived of its right to take part in private bill legislation; but it would seem that, except by merely reducing their extent, the nature of its powers cannot be very materially changed. [sidenote: to bring it into harmony with the nation.] [sidenote: creation of peers.] during the generation following the reform act of , men spoke of the possibility of making new peers as a sufficient safeguard against obstinacy on the part of the upper house. it was felt that a ministry with the nation at its back could, if necessary, force the lords to yield by advising the crown to create peers enough to turn the scale. lord grey's government proposed to do this as a last resort to pass the reform bill of , and obtained the consent of william iv.; but the threat was enough, and the lords gave way. such a drastic means of coercion is probably useless to-day; and would be only a temporary remedy. it is really not with the commons that the house of lords now comes into serious conflict, but with the cabinet which represents, or claims to represent, the nation, or to be more accurate the major part of the nation; and no creation of peers would be made to force a bill through the house of lords unless the party in power had a mandate from the people to pass it. this is the real meaning of the saying that the house of lords can force a referendum, or appeal to the nation, on a measure to which they object. a creation of peers to swamp the upper house would, therefore, not be tried until a general election had proved the persistent will of the electorate upon the measure in question, and then the lords would in any case submit. differences of opinion may, of course, arise on the question whether there is sufficient evidence of the popular will or not. in , for example, the liberals contended that the preceding general election had been carried on the issue of home rule, while the conservatives insisted that it had really turned on other matters; and the same thing happened in the case of the education bill of . such a discussion may be conducted with heat, but especially with the enormous number of peers now required to turn a majority in their house, there is little danger of precipitate action. it is one of many cases where the conventions of the constitution may appear to be strained, but where one may be sure they will not be broken.[ : ] moreover, if the creation of peers were within the region of practical politics to-day, it would be only a temporary remedy for existing grievances. contrary to the prevalent opinion, lord john russell thought that in the authority of the house of lords suffered, on the whole, more from the abstention of its members under threat, than it would have from an actual creation of peers that might have brought it into harmony with the people. he remarks that the tory majority of eighty, hostile to lord grey's government, was held back by wellington, but employed by lyndhurst to kill unpretending but useful measures.[ : ] subsequent events have shown the impossibility of maintaining harmony between the houses by a single creation of peers, for had a batch of lord grey's supporters been given seats in the lords in , the house would have been heavily conservative again within a generation. the difficulty to-day is not so much that the peers are permanently out of accord with the nation, as that they are bound to one of the two parties into which the country is divided. a mere reduction in the size of the tory majority would do little or no good; nor would the difficulty be solved if the majority were transferred to the other party, or even if it shifted at different periods. in a country governed by party as strictly as england is to-day, the majority in the upper house must at any one time belong to one side or the other. if the majority shifted, there would not be permanent irritation in the same quarter; but first one side, and then the other, would complain that the lords thwarted the popular will. while, therefore, the occasional creation of a large number of peers, either hereditary or for life, might, at a sacrifice of the self-respect of the house of lords, produce for the moment a greater similarity of views between the two branches of parliament, a constant political harmony could be attained only by such additions to the upper house by each new set of ministers as would make it a mere tool in their hands. in short, an upper house in a true parliamentary system cannot be brought into constant accord with the dominant party of the day without destroying its independence altogether; and to make the house of lords a mere tool in the hands of every cabinet would be well-nigh impossible and politically absurd. [sidenote: reform in the composition of the house.] what is true of the creation of peers is true also of any other method of changing the membership of the house. suggestions for reforming its composition have been based mainly upon the desire to reduce the hereditary element, and supply its place by representative men selected in other ways. the house contains, of course, many drones, who have inherited the right, without the desire, for public work. either they do not attend at all, or they come only to swell a foregone majority upon some measure that has attracted popular interest. they give no time or thought to the work of the house, and their votes, on the rare occasions when they are cast, are peculiarly exasperating to their opponents. as the regular attendants at the sittings are few, it has been suggested that the english, like the scotch and irish, nobility should choose representatives of their own order, and that the rest should have no right to vote. just as the scotch and irish representative peers are solidly unionist, so a change of this kind would merely result in increasing the conservative majority of the house, unless some principle of minority representation were adopted, in which case the majority, though numerically smaller, would be equally constant and more subject to party dictation. on the other hand, it has been proposed to make the house more broadly representative of the nation by a more or less extended creation of life peers, nominated, in part, perhaps, by sundry public bodies in the united kingdom. it may be doubted, however, whether life peers are needed to increase the eminence or, in one sense, the representative character of the house. the peerage has been opened freely to men distinguished in various fields; and while many men without wealth have doubtless been precluded from an honour that would burden their descendants, many others have come in. the number of hereditary members of the house has increased nearly, although not quite, in proportion to population; and only about one fourth of the present members sit by virtue of titles dating before . a large share of the creations have been made for political service; but others have been conferred in consequence of wealth amassed in commercial and industrial pursuits; the most distinguished lawyers and soldiers have always been rewarded by a peerage; and so in more recent times have a few men of eminence in science and literature. a body that contains, or has recently contained, such men as tennyson, acton, kelvin, lister, rayleigh, and many more, can bear comparison in personal distinction with any legislative chamber the world has ever known. therefore one may fairly doubt whether the defect to be remedied by a creation of life peers is either a lack of brains in the house, or a failure of its members to represent the deeper currents of national life. [sidenote: reform unlikely to add much strength.] but the personal distinction of members, in fields outside of public affairs, has very little connection with the political power of a body; and the house of lords itself furnishes one of the most striking proofs of that fact. the men whose names have been mentioned have taken no part in the work of the house, and such people rarely do. moreover, if they take part they rarely do it well. occasionally such a man may have a chance to say something on the subject of his own profession that carries weight. the speech of lord roberts in july, , for example, about the inefficiency of the british army, was considered a very impressive utterance, but, except for the rule of office that sealed his mouth in any other place, he might have delivered it with just as much effect elsewhere. men who would be created life peers on account of their distinction in other lines would either take no interest in politics, or would take it so late in life that they would rarely carry weight with the public. such influence and repute as the house of lords now possesses is derived not from the personal fame of the members but from the social lustre of the peerage, and no creation of life peers would be likely to add anything to that. the authority of a public body depends not upon the eminence but upon the political following of its members; and it is self-evident that no leading english statesman in the full tide of his vigour and popularity would willingly exchange a seat in the house of commons for an appointment for life in any second chamber, so that a house of lords constructed on these principles would become in large part an asylum for decrepit politicians. another suggestion of a similar kind is that the house should be remodelled upon the lines of the privy council, but the privy council to-day as a working body is nothing but the ministry, the other members attending only on ceremonial occasions. it is a mere instrument of government in the hands of the cabinet; nor, so far as english politics are concerned, can it very well be anything else. the proposal that colonial members should sit in the house of lords is interesting from other points of view, but clearly it could not be applied in the case of domestic legislation. that the will of the house of commons on english questions should be thwarted by representatives from other parts of the empire would be far more unfortunate than to have it thwarted by hereditary english nobles. [sidenote: other probable results.] but if a change in the composition of the house of lords would be very unlikely to raise its political position as a whole, it might well reduce the personal influence of individual peers. if the house came to be regarded as mainly a collection of persons holding seats for life, the social position of its members might be very different from that of an hereditary nobility. a radical reform in the composition of the house might also very well produce a change of another kind. perhaps the most important function of the house of lords at the present day, and probably the chief privilege of its members, comes from the fact that it is largely a reservoir of ministers of state. by the present traditions ministers must be all taken from one house or the other; and a large proportion of them are always taken from the peers. this gives a nobleman, who is sincerely interested in public life, even if of somewhat slender ability, a fair prospect of obtaining a position of honour and usefulness. now, if a number of life peers were to be created, it would clearly be possible to confer a title upon a man for the purpose of making him a minister. if this were done commonly, it might affect not only the position of the existing peers, but also that of the house of commons. for a man not born to a coronet would be able to achieve a high office of state without an apprenticeship in the popular chamber. thus a channel might be opened for a direct connection between the cabinet and the political forces of the nation without the mediation of the house of commons. the change might be a first step in lessening the authority of parliament, because cabinets, as will be explained in the following chapter, being really made or destroyed by the popular voice uttered in general elections, much of the power of the house of commons is based upon the fact that it is the sole recruiting ground for all ministers not hereditary peers. unsatisfactory, therefore, as the present position of the house of lords is to many people in england, the difficulties that surround the question of reform are very great; and a half-unconscious perception of these explains in large part the fact that although proposals to reform the house have been made of late years by leading men of every shade of political opinion, none of them has borne fruit, or even taken the shape of a definite plan commanding any considerable amount of support. to reform the house of lords, or to create some other satisfactory second chamber may not be an impossible task, but it is one that will require constructive statesmanship in a high degree; and to obtain the best chance of success it ought to be undertaken at the most unlikely time, a time when the question provokes no passionate interest. footnotes: [ : ] "the governance of england," . [ : ] in the house of lords contained hereditary members. from that time until the fall of mr. gladstone's cabinet, in , the liberals made additions to these members; and during the same period the conservatives made . since the conservatives have been in power by far the greater part of the time, and their creations of peers have been correspondingly more numerous. [ : ] see the chapter on "the strength of party ties," _infra_. [ : ] when the liberals are in power this is not much use for bills which the lords are likely to amend seriously, because the amendments would have to be reversed in the commons at a cost of much time. [ : ] rep. of com. on priv. bill legislation, com. papers, , xvi., . [ : ] "the working constitution," . [ : ] probably the advocates of this policy would not want to apply it in the case of private bill legislation. [ : ] the power to create peers enough to swamp the house has a potential value. it could be used once for all to abolish or transform the body, and this fact has, no doubt, its effect on the general attitude of the members, but that does not affect the argument that as a means of maintaining harmony between the houses the power is useless. [ : ] "recollections and suggestions," - . chapter xxiii the cabinet and the country [sidenote: transfer of power from parliament to the people.] [sidenote: its causes; ( ) the growth of power of the cabinet.] if the predominance of the house of commons has been lessened by a delegation of authority to the cabinet, it has been weakened also by the transfer of power directly to the electorate. the two tendencies are not, indeed, unconnected. the transfer of power to the electorate is due in part to the growing influence of the ministers, to the recognition that policy is mainly directed, not by parliament, but by them. the cabinet now rules the nation by and with the advice and consent of parliament; and for that very reason the nation wishes to decide what cabinet it shall be that rules. no doubt the ministry depends for its existence upon the good pleasure of the house of commons; but it really gets its commission from the country as the result of a general election. even if its life should be cut short by the commons, the new cabinet would not now rest for support upon that parliament; but would at once dissolve and seek a fresh majority from the electors. this was by no means true forty years ago. the parliament elected in , which sat a little more than four years, supported during the first half of that time a coalition ministry of liberals and peelites, and during the second half a ministry of liberals alone. the following parliament affords an even better illustration. it met in with a large majority for the liberal cabinet of lord palmerston; but in less than a year he was defeated and resigned, to be succeeded by the conservatives under lord derby, who carried on the government for another year before dissolving. the case of the next conservative administration is more striking still. coming into office in , in face of a hostile majority, strongly liberal, but hopelessly divided upon questions of reform, it remained in power more than two years, and brought to pass a drastic extension of the franchise before it dissolved parliament. nothing of the kind has occurred since that time. every subsequent change of ministry has either been the immediate consequence of a general election, or if not, the new cabinet has kept the old parliament together only so long as was absolutely necessary to dispose of current business, and has then appealed to the people. practically, therefore, a change of ministry to-day is either the result of, or is at once ratified by, a general election. [sidenote: ( ) the increase of the electorate.] the decline in the power of the house is partly due also to the extension of the franchise, and the consequent growth in size of the electorate, which has become so large that the voters cannot be reached by private or personal contact, but only by publicity. a cynic might well say that if oligarchy fosters intrigue, democracy is based upon advertisement, for in order to control the electorate it is no longer enough, as it was a hundred years ago, to be backed by a few influential patrons or to enlist the support of the members of parliament. the immense mass of the voters must be addressed, and hence public questions must be discussed not only in parliament, but in the ears of the people at large. [sidenote: ( ) the control by public opinion.] a third reason why power tends to pass away from the house is the greater control exerted in political affairs by public opinion, in consequence of the rapid means of disseminating knowledge and of forming and expressing a judgment. whatever may be the importance of the editorial columns of the daily press in creating, or giving voice to, the general sentiment--and there is reason to suppose that editorials are of less consequence in both respects than they were formerly--it is certainly clear that the multiplication of cheap newspapers has made it possible for vastly larger numbers of men to become rapidly acquainted with current events; while the post and telegraph, and the habit of organisation, have made it much more easy for them to express their views. a debate, a vote, or a scene, that occurs in parliament late at night is brought home to the whole country at breakfast the next morning, and prominent constituents, clubs, committees and the like, can praise or censure, encourage or admonish, their member for his vote before the next sitting of the house. rousseau's charge that the english were free only at the moment of electing a parliament, and then were in bondage during the whole of its term, was by no means really true when he wrote it, and is far less true to-day. it is for this reason that there has ceased to be any clamour for annual parliaments, almost the only one of the famous six points in the people's charter that has not been substantially achieved.[ : ] parliaments have not grown shorter. on the contrary, in the twenty years from to , when the cry of the chartists was heard, the average duration of parliaments was four years, and since the extension of the suffrage in they have averaged four years and three-quarters. [sidenote: its manifestations.] the passing of political power from the house of commons to the people is shown by many unmistakable signs, and by none more clearly than by the frequent reference in parliament itself to the opinions of the "man in the street." he is said to fear this, or be shocked by that, or expect the other; and the house is supposed to pay some regard to his views, not because he is peculiarly gifted with knowledge, experience, or wisdom, in greater measure than the members themselves. far from it. he is cited as a specimen of average humanity; the person to whom carlyle referred when he spoke of modern parliaments with twenty-seven millions, mostly fools, listening to them.[ : ] the members of the house are supposed to heed him because they are his representatives; for he is taken as a type of the voter of fair intelligence. in fact he is the personification of what is believed to be outside opinion. [sidenote: the doctrine of mandate.] another sign of the times is found in the doctrine, now sanctioned by the highest authority, that parliament cannot legislate on a new question of vital importance without a mandate from the nation. the theory that the individual representative is a mere delegate of his constituents, so that he is bound to resign and submit to reëlection if he changes his views, has long been a subject of discussion; but the idea that parliament as a whole exercises a delegated authority in the sense that it is morally restrained from dealing with questions that have not been laid before the people at the preceding general election would formerly have been regarded as a dangerous political heresy. yet during the recent agitation in regard to fiscal policy, mr. balfour, while repudiating the suggestion that the existing parliament, having been elected on the single issue of the south african war, ought to be dissolved when peace was made,[ : ] refused to grant time for a debate on free food, on the ground that it would be constitutionally improper for parliament to act on the question until it had been submitted to the people at a general election,[ : ] and that it would be unwise for the house to discuss a subject on which it could not act.[ : ] based upon a similar principle is the claim reiterated by the opposition during the latter part of mr. balfour's administration, that, although supported by a majority in the house of commons, he ought to resign, because a long series of by-elections had shown that he had lost the confidence of the country. his retention of office under those conditions was said to be contrary to the spirit of the constitution;[ : ] and mr. balfour's resignation late in , when parliament was not in session, involved an acknowledgment, if not of the necessity, at least of the propriety, of withdrawing from office in such a case. former cabinets have sometimes broken up on account of dissensions among their members, or the impossibility of maintaining an efficient government; but there has been no previous instance of a cabinet, supported by a majority in parliament, which has resigned apparently in consequence of a change of popular sentiment. [sidenote: waning interest in reports of debates.] but perhaps the most ominous sign that power is passing away from the house is the slowly waning interest in parliamentary debates. in the eighteenth century the house strove to prevent the publication of its discussions. now the debates are printed under a contract with the government, which provides that no speech shall be reported at less than one third of its actual length;[ : ] and most of the members like to appear in the newspapers as prominently as they can. but, if the desire of the members to be reported is still increasing, the eagerness of the public to read what they say is less keen. men who are thoroughly familiar with the reporters' gallery tell us that the demand for long reports of speeches in parliament has declined, and that editors find it for their interest to cut them down, often substituting for the remarks of the members themselves descriptive sketches of what took place.[ : ] one cause of this is, no doubt, the length of the debates, and the number of minor speakers taking part, which tends naturally to dull the popular craving to read them. then there is the fact that parliament is no longer the only place where the party leaders make notable speeches. in short, the predominance of the house of commons as the great forum for the discussion of public questions has been undermined by the rise and growth of the platform. [sidenote: history of the platform.] after a long slumber the habit of speaking at public meetings revived about the middle of the eighteenth century;[ : ] and a little later it was taken up, in connection with the early political associations, as a systematic means of agitation in the hope of bringing pressure to bear upon parliament. at an early time leaders of the party in opposition were present; but after the outbreak of the french revolution public meetings came to be used mainly by the working classes, and were regarded as seditious. men who took part in them were prosecuted, and acts were passed to suppress them. these were so effective that by the opening of the next century political meetings had ceased to be held; except at elections, when some of the candidates for parliament made speeches to their constituents. the repressive statutes were, however, temporary, and, although they were reënacted more than once, the meetings revived during the intervals of freedom. the last of these special statutes, one of the famous six acts of , expired in , and from that time the platform entered upon a fresh career, marked by three new features: the participation of all classes; the organised effort to bring about a definite political change by a legitimate creation of public opinion; and the growing use of public speaking by parliamentary leaders as a regular engine of party warfare. moreover, the influence of the platform was much enlarged by the practice, which began shortly before that time, of reporting the meetings and speeches at considerable length in the provincial press. [sidenote: the platform and popular movements for reform.] the first movement at this period in which the platform played a leading part was conducted by the catholic association in ireland, and ended in the removal of catholic disabilities by the act of . but far more important examples of the use of public meetings are to be found in england. throughout the agitation that accompanied the passage of the reform act of , public meetings were innumerable, and the platform was raised to a dignity and influence much greater than ever before. in fact its position as a recognised power in english public life began at that time. its rapid advance in good repute was much helped by the fact that during the struggle for reform it was used mainly to strengthen the hands of the ministry; but this was not yet its characteristic function. for the next score of years it was chiefly employed in attempts to force upon the attention of parliament, by popular agitation, measures which did not otherwise receive serious consideration. two efforts of the kind are especially noteworthy. one of them, that of the anti-corn-law league, by the completeness of its organisation, by the cohesion and eloquence of its leaders, by confining its attention to one point, and by good fortune, succeeded in accomplishing its object. the other, that of the chartists, lacking these advantages, failed; and although most of the demands of the chartists were afterward obtained, that was the result not of their endeavours, but of other causes. [sidenote: the platform and the ministers.] meanwhile the platform was used more and more freely by the parliamentary leaders, but this came gradually. pitt spoke only in the house of commons; and in fact until a few years before the reform bill almost no minister, except canning, made political speeches outside, and his were addressed mainly to his own constituents. in , however, he delivered a speech at plymouth, in which for the first time a statement about foreign policy was made by a minister in public, and five years later the change in the government's policy about catholic disabilities was announced at a banquet. with the reform movement the ministers began to take the public a little more into their confidence. at the general election of , lord john russell made the first public speech intended as an election cry,[ : ] and aroused an echo at meetings throughout the land. in the same year lord grey talked about the bill at the lord mayor's dinner, a festivity that became in after years a regular occasion for announcements of government policy. from that time the use of the platform grew rapidly in favour with the cabinet. in lord brougham made the unfortunate series of harangues in scotland that wrecked his political career. a little later lord melbourne explained his own dismissal in a public speech; and peel, on taking office, declared his policy in an address to his constituents. so important a matter, indeed, did the platform become in public life, that lord melbourne, referring to the performances of brougham and o'connell, spoke of the vacation as a trying time.[ : ] thereafter the platform was constantly used both by ministers and leaders of the opposition to bring public opinion to their side. as usual in english politics, practice outran theory; for so late as mr. gladstone, in answer to a remonstrance from the queen, felt it necessary to excuse himself for making speeches outside of his constituency, on the ground that in doing so he was merely following the example of the conservatives.[ : ] yet in he had set the nation ablaze by his midlothian campaign; and although his orations there were delivered as a candidate for the seat, they were, and must have been intended to be, published by the newspapers all over the country.[ : ] it was, in fact, at this very time that lord hartington spoke of the far greater interest taken in public speeches than in debates in parliament.[ : ] not that the platform became at once of especial value to the party leaders. on the contrary, it was at first used much more frequently by the anti-corn-law league, the chartists and others. but since the introduction of something very near manhood suffrage, which began in , great popular movements, unconnected with party politics, have become well-nigh impossible. in a real democracy there is little use in trying to overawe the government by a display of physical force, and hence an agitation has for its natural object the winning of votes. but the house of commons has now been brought so fully into accord with the masses of the people that any strong popular sentiment is certain to find immediate expression there. once in the house it is on the edge of a whirlpool, for even if it originates quite outside of the existing parties, and gives rise, at first, to a new political group, it can hardly fail, as it gathers headway, to be drawn into the current of one of the two great parties, and find a place in their programme. now in any question connected with party politics the highest interest attaches to the speeches of the party leaders, both because they are the standard bearers in the fight, and because they are the men who have power, or at the next turn of the wheel will have power, to give effect to their opinions. [sidenote: public speaking now universal.] the platform has thus had a perfectly natural evolution. so long as elections to the house of commons were controlled by a small number of persons, public speaking could be effective only occasionally, when popular feeling could be deeply stirred over some grievance; and it was employed chiefly by outsiders in an effort to force the hands of parliament. this was in part true even after . but when the suffrage was more widely extended in , so that elections depended upon the good-will of the masses, it became necessary for any one with political aspirations to reach the public at large, and the most obvious means of so doing was from the platform. speeches by candidates at elections became universal, and in order not to let the flame of loyalty burn low, it has been increasingly common to fan it at other times, by the talking of members to their constituents, and still more by addresses to the whole community on the part of leaders of national reputation. public speaking has, therefore, become constant, without regard to the existence of any issue of unusual prominence. james russell lowell long ago made a remark to the effect that democracy is government by declamation, and certainly household suffrage has loosened the tongues of public men. an observer at the present day is struck by the fluency of englishmen upon their feet, and by the free use of humour as a means of emphasis, instead of the sonorous phrases formerly styled oratory. [sidenote: the platform has increased the influence of party leaders.] it has now become a settled custom for the cabinet ministers and the leaders of the parliamentary opposition to make a business of speaking during the late autumn and the spring recess; and the habit tends to magnify their power, for they are the only persons who have fully the ear of the public. except for a few important utterances, the debates in parliament are not very widely read; editorials in the press are read solely by members of one political faith; the remarks of private members to their constituents are published only in the local papers; but public speeches by the chief ministers, and to a less extent those by the principal leaders of the opposition, are printed at great length by the newspapers of both parties, and are read everywhere.[ : ] moreover, the platform gives a greater freedom than the floor of the house. the ministers do not want to bring before parliament a policy they are not immediately prepared to push through, nor would it be easy to find time amid the business of a session to do so. it is not altogether an accident, it is rather a sign of the times, that mr. chamberlain broached his plan of preferential tariffs, not in parliament, but at a public meeting in birmingham. it was, indeed, a strange thing to see an ardent discussion on a most important question conducted in public meetings and in the press, while the ministers were striving to prevent debate upon it in the house of commons. it was a mark of the limitation which the course of events has placed upon parliament. the platform has brought the ministers face to face with the people, and this has increased the political importance of both. not only is the electorate the ultimate arbiter in political matters, but the platform has in some degree supplanted the house as the forum where public questions are discussed. [sidenote: its benefits.] frequent public addresses by the men in whom the whole responsibility for the conduct of national affairs is concentrated, and by those who will be responsible when the next change of ministry occurs, cannot fail to educate the voters, and quicken their interest in all the political issues of the day. moreover, the process is not confined to the intermittent periods of election, but goes on all the time; and although the practice, brought into vogue by the anti-corn-law league, of joint debates at public meetings has not taken permanent root in england, the same result is reached in another way, because the party leaders answer one another's speeches from different platforms, and if the listeners are not identical, the public reads both arguments. sir henry maine spoke of the tendency to look upon politics as a "deeply interesting game, a never-ending cricket-match between blue and yellow";[ : ] and the fact that this aspect of the matter is more marked in england than anywhere else makes english politics the most interesting, and the most easy to follow, in the world. the rulers of the country, and those who both have been and will be her rulers, fight at close range across a table for six months of the year, and during the rest of the time they carry on the ceaseless war by public speaking. as in the athenian democracy, the citizens witness a constant struggle among rival statesmen for supremacy, but in england they are merely spectators until a general election summons them to give their verdict. one can hardly conceive of a system better calculated to stimulate interest in politics without instability in the government. [sidenote: its perils.] but if the platform educates the voter, it has its dangers also. bismarck is reported to have said that the qualities of the orator are not only unlike, but incompatible with, those of the statesman; and certainly the continual need of taking the public into one's confidence is hard to reconcile with the execution of far-reaching plans for the national welfare, for until the results are in sight, these cannot be made intelligible to the mass of the people. the english statesman is called upon at all times to show his hand, at the risk of seeming disingenuous or secretive if he does not do so. his whole policy is analysed and criticised; the seeds he plants are dug up prematurely to see if they are sprouting. hence he is under a strong temptation to take a stand that will win immediately popular approval. in short, he lives in a glass house, which is likely to mean a very respectable but rather superficial life. moreover, in the custom of speaking from the platform there lurks a danger to the system of cabinet government; for that system is based upon the principle that the initiative in public policy rests with the ministers, and the main issue decided at a general election is whether the cabinet shall remain in power. now ministers have not always been in the habit of arranging what shall be said upon the platform with the same care as what measures shall be brought before parliament. but in view of the present importance of the platform it is obvious that if the cabinet system is to continue, the ministers must present a unanimous front to the public as well as to parliament; and this consideration leads to a study of the function of party in the english political system. footnotes: [ : ] the six points were: universal suffrage, annual parliaments, equal electoral districts, abolition of property qualification, vote by ballot, and payment of members. of all these demands annual parliaments and payment of members alone have not been substantially attained. [ : ] "latter day pamphlets: the stump orator," no. . [ : ] _e.g._ hans. ser. cxxxii., - ; cxli., . [ : ] _ibid._, cxxxi., ; cxlvi., - . [ : ] _ibid._, cxli., ; cxlv., , ; cxlvi., . [ : ] _ibid._, cxxxii., , ; cxli., - , - . [ : ] cabinet ministers and the leaders of the opposition are reported in full in the parliamentary debates, and other members usually at about two-thirds length. macdonagh's "book of parliament" contains an interesting chapter on "the reporters' gallery." [ : ] macdonagh, . and see an article by alfred kinnear, and an answer by a. p. nicholson in the _contemporary review_ for march and april, , lxxxvii., , . [ : ] the best work on this subject is jephson's "the platform: its rise and progress." [ : ] jephson, ii., . [ : ] walpole, "life of lord john russell," i., . [ : ] morley, "life of gladstone," iii., . [ : ] mr. lecky expressed a common opinion in the introduction to the second edition of his "democracy and liberty" (p. liii.), where he spoke of mr. gladstone as "the first english minister who was accustomed, on a large scale, to bring his policy in great meetings directly before the people," adding that he "completely discarded the old tradition that a leading minister or ex-minister should confine himself almost exclusively to parliamentary utterances and should only on rare occasions address the public outside." mr. gladstone's power was, indeed, due quite as much to the effect of his public speeches as to his influence over the house of commons. [ : ] quoted by jephson, ii., . [ : ] mr. kinnear in the _contemporary review_ for march, , says that the demand by newspapers for public speeches by leading statesmen has declined. they would probably have more readers, though less hearers, if they were neither so long nor so frequent. [ : ] "popular government," . part ii.--the party system chapter xxiv party and the parliamentary system [sidenote: lack of a psychology of political parties.] the last generation has made great strides in the study of psychology. the workings of the individual mind, and its reaction to every stimulus or impression, especially under morbid conditions, have been examined with far more care than ever before. social psychology has also come into view, and attempts have been made to explain the psychology of national traits, and of abnormal or unhealthy popular movements, notably mobs. but the normal forces that govern the ordinary conduct of men in their public relations have scarcely received any scientific treatment at all. in short, we are almost wholly lacking in a psychology of political parties, the few scattered remarks in maine's "popular government" being, perhaps, still the nearest approach to such a thing that we possess.[ : ] [sidenote: although parties are universal.] the absence of treatises on the subject is all the more remarkable because the phenomena to be studied are almost universal in modern governments that contain a popular element. experience has, indeed, shown that democracy in a great country, where the number of voters is necessarily large, involves the permanent existence of political parties; and it would not be hard to demonstrate that this must in the nature of things be the case. that parties exist, and are likely to continue to do so, has provoked general attention. by all statesmen they are recognised as a factor to be reckoned with in public life; and, indeed, efforts have been made in various places to deal with them by law. in the united states, for example, the local caucuses, or conventions of the parties, and their methods of nominating candidates, have of late years been regulated by statute; while in switzerland and belgium, elaborate schemes of proportional representation have been put into operation to insure a fair share of seats to the groups in the minority. [sidenote: modern view of parties.] but if political parties have become well-nigh universal at the present time, they are comparatively new in their modern form. no one in the eighteenth century foresaw party government as it exists to-day, enfolding the whole surface of public life in its constant ebb and flow. an occasional man like burke could speak of party without condemnation;[ : ] but with most writers on political philosophy parties were commonly called factions, and were assumed to be subversive of good order and the public welfare. men looked at the history with which they were familiar; the struggles for supremacy at athens and at rome; the guelphs and ghibelines exiling one another in the italian republics; the riots in the netherlands; the civil war and the political strife of the seventeenth century in england. it was not unnatural that with such examples before their eyes they should have regarded parties as fatal to the prosperity of the state. to them the idea of a party opposed to the government was associated with a band of selfish intriguers, or a movement that endangered the public peace and the security of political institutions. foreign observers, indeed, point out that for nearly three hundred years political parties have existed in england, as they have not in continental countries; and that the procedure of the house of commons has consistently protected the opposition in its attacks upon the government.[ : ] this is true, and there is no doubt that even in the seventeenth century party struggles were carried on both in parliament and by pamphlets and public speeches, with a freedom unknown in most other nations; but still they were a very different thing from what they are now. they were never far removed from violence. when the opposition of those days did not actually lead to bloodshed, it was perilously near to plots and insurrection; and the fallen minister, who was driven from power by popular feeling or the hostility of parliament, passed under the shadow at least of the scaffold. danby was impeached, and shaftesbury, his rival, died a refugee in holland. with the accession of the house of hanover, and the vanishing of the old issues, political violence subsided. the parties degenerated into personal factions among the ruling class; and true parties were evolved slowly by the new problems of a later generation. [sidenote: "his majesty's opposition."] the expression, "his majesty's opposition," said to have been coined by john cam hobhouse before the reform bill,[ : ] would not have been understood at an earlier period; and it embodies the greatest contribution of the nineteenth century to the art of government--that of a party out of power which is recognised as perfectly loyal to the institutions of the state, and ready at any moment to come into office without a shock to the political traditions of the nation. in countries where popular control of public affairs has endured long enough to be firmly established, an opposition is not regarded as in its nature unpatriotic. on the contrary, the party in power has no desire to see the opposition disappear. it wants to remain in power itself, and for that reason it wants to keep a majority of the people on its side; but it knows well that if the opposition were to become so enfeebled as to be no longer formidable, rifts would soon appear in its own ranks. in the newer democracies, such as france and italy, there are large bodies of men whose aims are revolutionary, whose object is to change the existing form of government, although not necessarily by violent means. these men are termed "irreconcilables," and so long as they maintain that attitude, quiet political life with a peaceful alternation of parties in power is an impossibility. [sidenote: conditions of good party government.] the recognition of the opposition as a legitimate body, entitled to attain to power by persuasion, is a primary condition of the success of the party system, and therefore of popular government on a large scale. other conditions of success follow from this. [sidenote: opposition must not be revolutionary.] if the opposition is not to be regarded as revolutionary, its objects must not be of that character, either in the eyes of its own adherents, or in those of other people. as professor dicey has put it, parties must be divided upon real differences, which are important, but not fundamental. there is, of course, no self-evident line to mark off those things that are revolutionary or fundamental; and herein lies an incidental advantage of a written constitution restricting the competence of the legislature, for it draws just such a line, and goes far to confine the immediate energies of the parties to questions that are admitted not to be revolutionary.[ : ] in the absence of a constitution of that kind, party activity must be limited to a conventional field, which is regarded by the public opinion of the day as fairly within the range of practical politics. clearly the issues must not involve vital matters, such as life or confiscation. when, during the progress of the french revolution, an orator argued in favour of the responsibility of the ministers, and added "by responsibility we mean death," he advocated a principle inconsistent with the peaceful alternation of parties in power. [sidenote: lines of cleavage must not be social.] for the same reason there is grave danger when the lines of cleavage of the parties coincide with those between the different social classes in the community, because one side is likely to believe that the other is shaking the foundations of society, and passions are kindled like those that blaze in civil war. this is true whenever the parties are separated by any of the deeper feelings that divide mankind sharply into groups; and especially when two or three such feelings follow the same channel. the chief difficulty with irish nationalism, as a factor in english politics, lies in the fact that to a great extent the line of cleavage is at once racial, religious, social, and economic. [sidenote: issues must be based on public matters.] in order that the warfare of parties may be not only safe, but healthy, it must be based upon a real difference of opinion about the needs of the community as a whole. in so far as it is waged, not for public objects, but for the private gain, whether of individuals, or of classes, or of collective interests, rich or poor, to that extent politics will degenerate into a scramble of self-seekers. [sidenote: relation of parties to political institutions.] before inquiring how far these conditions have been fulfilled in england we must consider the form that party has assumed there, and the institutions to which it has given birth. england is, in fact, the only large country in which the political institutions and the party system are thoroughly in harmony. [sidenote: in america.] the framers of the constitution of the united states did not foresee the rôle that party was to play in popular government,[ : ] and they made no provision for it in their plan; yet they established a system in which parties were a necessity. it was from the first inevitable, and soon became clear, that the real selection of the president would not be left to the judgment of the electoral college--a result made the more certain, first, by providing that the members should assemble by states, and hence should not meet together as a whole for deliberation; and second, by excluding from the college all congressmen and holders of federal offices, that is, all the leading men in national public life.[ : ] if the electoral college was not really to select the president, it must become a mere machine for registering the results of a popular vote throughout the nation, and the candidates for the presidency must be designated beforehand in some way. in a small district where the voters are few, and an interchange of opinions naturally takes place by informal conference, public officers may be elected by popular vote without the existence of any machinery for nomination; but in a large constituency, where the voters are not personally acquainted with each other, men who have the same objects in view must get together, agree upon a candidate, and recommend him to the public. otherwise votes will be thrown away by scattering them, and it will be mere chance whether the result corresponds with the real wishes of the voters or not. in short, there must be some process for nominating candidates; that is, some party organisation; and the larger the electorate the more imperative the need of it. now the electorate that practically chooses the president of the united states is by far the largest single constituency that has ever existed in the world. it is, in fact, noteworthy that democracy throughout europe adheres to the custom of dividing the country for political purposes into comparatively small electorates; while in the united states it is the habit to make whole communities single constituencies for the choice of their chief magistrates--state governors or national president--a condition of things that involves elaborate party machinery for nomination, and hence the creation of huge party organisations on a popular basis. the form of government in the united states has thus made parties inevitable; and yet they were furnished with no opportunity for the exercise of their functions by the regular organs of the state. there were no means provided whereby a party could formulate and carry through its policy, select its candidates for high office, or insure that they should be treated as the real leaders of the party and able to control its action.[ : ] the machinery of party, therefore, from the national convention to the legislative caucus, has perforce been created outside the framework of the government, and cannot be nicely adjusted thereto. [sidenote: in continental europe.] the european countries, on the other hand, that have adopted the english parliamentary system, have usually copied those features, like the responsibility of the ministers, which were most readily perceived, without acquiring at the same time the substructure on which the system rests, the procedure which prevents friction, or the national traditions which supply the motive power. the result has been that a form of government well fitted to the great english parties has proved very imperfectly suited to the numerous political groups that exist in most of the continental legislatures.[ : ] in france the conditions have indeed changed much in the last few years, the procedure has been gradually better adapted to the parliamentary system, and the ministries have gained in stability; but as yet the difficulties are by no means overcome. in some of the smaller countries, such as belgium and switzerland, the organs of government and the system of parties are less inconsistent; in belgium because she followed british precedents more faithfully; in switzerland because she was enabled by her small size, coupled with a federal structure, to create a novel polity of her own, in which parties are given no constitutional sphere of action, and play an unusually subordinate part. in none of these countries, however, is the form of government so fully consonant with the party system as it is in great britain. [sidenote: english parliamentary system grew out of parties.] in england the party system is no more in accord with the strictly legal institutions, with king, lords and commons, than it is elsewhere; but it is in absolute harmony with those conventions, which, although quite unknown to the law, make up the actual working constitution of the state. it is in harmony with them because they were created by the warfare of parties, were evolved out of party life. government by a responsible ministry was not the inevitable consequence of the long struggle between the house of commons and the crown. some other means might very well have been devised for taking the executive power out of the personal control of the king. it was rather the result of the condition of the house itself; for it is inconceivable that this form of government should have appeared if parliament had not been divided into whigs and tories. in fact the whole plan would be senseless if parties did not exist. the reason for the resignation of a ministry upon the rejection of a measure it has proposed is that the defeat indicates a general loss of confidence in the policy of the party in power, and the preference for another body of leaders with a different policy. if this were not so, the swiss practice of remaining in office, but yielding on the point at issue, would be far more sensible. the parliamentary system is thus a rational expression of the division of the ruling chamber into two parties. [sidenote: it has made parties stronger.] neither the parliamentary system nor the party system, neither the responsibility of ministers to the house of commons nor the permanent division into two parties, grew up in a day. throughout the eighteenth century the principle of cabinet responsibility was but dimly recognised; while parties at times disintegrated, and the wheels of government were kept going by means of corruption, which has served in all ages as a lubricant for ill-adjusted political machinery. but little by little, with halting steps, the rivalry of parties built up the responsibility of ministers, and this in turn helped to perpetuate the party divisions; for the parliamentary system, like every rational form of government, reacts upon and strengthens the conditions of its own existence. it is based upon party, and by the law of its nature tends to accentuate party. ministers perceived that their security depended upon standing together, presenting a united front, and prevailing upon their friends to do the same. the leaders of the opposition learned also that their chance of attaining to power was improved by pursuing a similar course. in this way two parties are arrayed against one another continually, while every member of parliament finds himself powerfully drawn to enlist under one banner or the other, and follow it on all occasions. he cannot consider measures simply on their merits, but must take into account the ultimate effect of his vote. as soon as men recognise that the defeat of a government bill means a change of ministry, the pressure is great to sacrifice personal opinions on that bill to the greater principles for which the party stands; and the more fully the system develops, the clearer becomes the incompatibility between voting as the member of parliament pleases on particular measures, and maintaining in power the party he approves. in short, the action of the house of commons has tended to become more and more party action, with the ministers, as we have already seen, gradually drawing the initiative in legislation, and the control over procedure, more and more into their own hands. [sidenote: it is government by party.] the english government is builded as a city that is in unity with itself, and party is an integral part of the fabric. party works, therefore, inside, instead of outside, the regular political institutions. in fact, so far as parliament is concerned, the machinery of party and of government are not merely in accord; they are one and the same thing. the party cabal has become the treasury bench. the ministers are the party chiefs, selected not artificially but by natural prominence, and the majority in the house of commons, which legislates, appropriates money, supervises and controls the administration, and sustains or discards ministers, is the party itself acting under the guidance of those chiefs. the parliamentary system, as it has grown up spontaneously in england, is in its origin and nature government by party, sanctioned and refined by custom. in that respect it differs, not only from national political systems elsewhere, but also from british local government. this last is not an outgrowth of party, but, like most of the existing popular institutions in other countries, was designed, not evolved. in it, as we shall see hereafter, party has no organic connection with the ruling bodies, and has not the same controlling authority as in national affairs. [sidenote: it can thrive only with two parties.] if the existence of a responsible ministry normally involves government by party, it also requires as a condition of success that there shall be only two parties. the ills that have flowed from the subdivision of the french, the italian and other parliaments, into a number of groups are now an oft-told tale. the consequences there are very different from those that occur where the executive is not responsible to the legislature. in this last case the presence of several groups may result in the election of a president, a council or an assembly, representing a minority of the voters, and if so the popular will may not be truly expressed. yet the government will go on unshaken until the next periodic election. but with similar conditions under the parliamentary system the administration itself will be weak, its position unstable, its tenure of office dependent upon the pleasure of a group that may be ready to sacrifice everything else for a single object. parnell was quite right in his reckoning that if he could keep the home rulers together until they held the balance of power in the house, one or other of the great parties must make terms with them, or parliamentary government would be unworkable. [sidenote: opposition not entirely genuine.] in the english system the initiative in most matters of importance has come into the hands of the cabinet ministers, as the representatives and leaders of the predominant party. it is their business to propose, and it is the business of the opposition to oppose. but the attitude of the latter is not quite spontaneous. on rare occasions it congratulates the government upon some action, which it supports heartily. more commonly it seeks to criticise everything, to find all imaginable faults. impotent to legislate, it tries to prevent the majority from doing so; not content with expressing its views and registering a protest, it raises the same objections at every stage in the passage of a bill; and sometimes strives to delay and even to destroy measures which it would itself enact if in power. its immediate object is, in fact, to discredit the cabinet. now this sounds mischievous, and would be so were parliament the ultimate political authority. but the parties are really in the position of barristers arguing a case before a jury, that jury being the national electorate; and experience has shown, contrary to the prepossessions of non-professional legal reformers in all ages, that the best method of attaining justice is to have a strong advocate argue on each side before an impartial umpire. unfortunately the jurymen in this case are not impartial, and the arguments are largely addressed to their interests, but that is a difficulty inseparable from democracy, or, indeed, from any form of government. [sidenote: waste of capacity.] another result of party government that is constantly decried is the waste of capacity it involves. why, it is asked, should an excellent administrator leave his post, because some measure quite unconnected with his department--a measure, it may be, that he has himself opposed in the cabinet--is rejected by the house of commons? such a system interferes with that continuity of policy which is often essential to success both in foreign and internal affairs, and this is, no doubt, an evil; but owing to the presence of a highly trained body of permanent officials, who carry on the traditions and largely control the policy of the departments, it is not so important in england as one might suppose. the system also debars one half of the talent in public life from the service of the state; but this misfortune is one that, for one reason or another, has existed to some extent in all countries at all times. the idea of a state where all the ablest men in the land join, without regard to political opinions, to devote the best of their talents to the public service, is enchanting, but it has never been permanently realised anywhere. [sidenote: issues not decided solely on their merits.] another criticism levelled at party government in england arises from the impossibility of supporting the party in power on one issue and opposing it on another. a voter at the last election who objected strongly to any change in fiscal policy, and equally strongly to any concessions on the subject of home rule, found himself on the horns of a dilemma. he was compelled to make up his mind which issue he thought most important, and trust to providence about the other. in a party government, where the cabinet must resign if any of its vital measures are rejected, those measures cannot be considered by individuals on their merits. the policy of one party or the other must be supported as a whole. this is certainly a limitation on personal freedom of action, and it acts as a restraint just to the extent that the government is conducted strictly on party lines. the party system certainly involves compromise of opinion; but then there is some compromise required for the enactment of every public measure, whether parties exist or not, for it never happens that the legislators who vote for any bill are all perfectly satisfied with every one of its clauses. government by party is not an ideal regimen. like everything else it contains both good and evil. a political organisation, indeed, that avoided all strife and all waste would certainly be impossible, and would probably, by relaxing effort and sapping the springs of human nature, prove undesirable. as yet it is too early to strike a final balance between the merits and the defects of the party system in england, and it would be hopeless to attempt it here. both good and evil will appear more fully as we proceed. footnotes: [ : ] rohmer's _lehre von den politischen parteien_, which attempts to explain the division into parties by natural differences of temperament corresponding to the four periods of man's life, is highly suggestive, but is rather philosophic than psychological; and like most philosophical treatises on political subjects it is based upon the writer's own time and place rather than upon a study of human nature under different conditions. [ : ] in his oft-quoted, but very brief, remarks in the "observations on 'the present state of the nation,'" and "thoughts on the cause of the present discontents." but twenty-five years later in a letter to richard burke he falls into the current talk about the evils of domination by a faction. [ : ] _e.g._ redlich, _recht und technik_, - . [ : ] _cf._ review of his unpublished "recollections of a long life," in the _edinburgh review_, april, , p. . [ : ] neither in france nor in italy does the constitution really perform that service; because in each case it does little more than fix the framework of the government, without placing an effective restraint upon legislative action; and because the constitution itself is not felt to be morally binding by the irreconcilables. [ : ] for the views of these men on the relation of parties or "factions" to public life see "the federalist," no. , written by madison. [ : ] professor max farrand has pointed out to me that the question of having the electors for the whole country meet in one place was discussed in the constitutional convention, and was rejected in favour of the present plan, because under the latter, "as the electors would vote at the same time throughout the u.s. and at so great a distance from each other, the great evil of cabal was avoided." g. hunt's "writings of madison," iv., - . cabal had a vague and spectral meaning, but covered anything in the nature of party. the exclusion from the electoral college of members of congress and federal office-holders was defended on the same ground. _cf._ "the federalist," no. . [ : ] in his "rise and growth of american politics," a book full of penetrating suggestions, mr. henry jones ford has argued that party exists in america in order to bring about an accord among public bodies that were made independent by the constitution; to force into harmonious action the various representatives of the people. professor goodnow develops the same idea from a different standpoint in his "politics and administration." but, especially in view of the comparatively small accord among public bodies, or harmonious action of the public representatives, and the enormous influence of parties in elections, it seems to the writer more correct to say that parties in america exist mainly for the selection of candidates. [ : ] this subject is treated in dupriez's admirable work _les ministres_, in bodley's "france," and in the writer's "governments and parties in continental europe." chapter xxv party organisation in parliament [sidenote: the need of whips.] in every legislative body a vote is supposed to express the sense of the house, and there is a universal fiction that all the members are constantly present; but this is often far from being the fact; and it always behooves any one interested in a particular matter to expend no small amount of labour in making sure that those persons who agree with him are on hand when the decisive moment comes. all this applies with peculiar force to the house of commons; for not only the fate of the particular measure under consideration, but the very life of the ministry itself, may depend upon a single division; and it is the more true because the average attendance, while a debate is going on, is unusually small. when the division bell rings, two minutes are, indeed, given for the members to rush in from the lobbies, the library, the smoking and dining rooms, and the terrace, yet the government cannot trust to luck for the presence of enough of its followers in the precincts of the house to make up a majority. there must be someone whose duty it is to see that they are within call. [sidenote: who they are.] the duty of keeping the members of a party on hand is performed by the whips, whose name is abbreviated from the men who act as whippers-in at a fox-hunt. they are all members of the house, and those on the government side receive salaries from the public purse on the theory that it is their business to "keep a house" during supply; that is, to insure the presence of a quorum, so that the appropriations may be voted. the chief government whip holds the office of parliamentary secretary to the treasury, with a salary of £ . formerly he was often called simply the secretary of the treasury--an expression occasionally confusing to the readers of books written a generation ago. he is sometimes called, also, patronage secretary of the treasury; and in old times no small part of his functions consisted in distributing patronage, in the days when it was freely employed to secure the support of members of parliament. in fact he is still a channel for the disposition of such minor patronage as remains in the gift of the prime minister, including the creation of lesser titles. he is assisted by three other members, who hold the office of junior lords of the treasury, with the salary of £ apiece.[ : ] as has already been explained, the treasury board never meets, so that the duties of the junior lords are to-day almost entirely confined to acting as whips; and, to enable them to do that more effectively, one of them is always a scotch member. the position of whip is one of great importance, but it entails some sacrifices, for by custom the whips take no part in debate, and although their work is felt throughout the house, it is little seen by the public. the chief whip, however, is often given afterwards a position in the ministry, or otherwise rewarded. the opposition also has its whips, usually three in number, whose position is important; though not so important as that of the government whips, because while a failure to have the full strength of the party present may be unfortunate, it cannot, as in the case of the government, be disastrous. naturally the opposition whips have no salaries, but they are sustained by the hope that their turn will come. [sidenote: duties of the whips.] the government whips act as the aides-de-camp, and intelligence department, of the leader of the house. in the former capacity they arrange for him with the whips on the other side those matters in which it is a convenience to have an understanding. the membership of select committees, for example, is generally settled between the chief whips on the two sides of the house; and the time when the test vote on some great measure will take place is usually arranged beforehand in the same way. [sidenote: they bring in the members.] when an important division is likely to occur, each side musters its whole force for a great trial of strength; and not only the majority, but the size of the majority, is a matter of importance to the ministers, for it shows how completely they can depend upon the support of their followers. but it is not on vital questions alone that the government must avoid being beaten, because a defeat, even though not such a one as would cause resignation, nevertheless weakens to some extent the credit of the cabinet. it gives the public the impression that the ministers are losing popularity; either that their followers are becoming rebellious and voting against them, or, at least, that they are so far indifferent or disaffected as to stay away. nothing succeeds like success; and it is a maxim in politics as well as in war that one must maintain a reputation for being invincible. any defeat of the government always causes cheers of triumph among the opposition; and especially of late years, when defeats have become more rare, it is a thing that requires explanation. the whips must, therefore, always keep a majority within sound of the division bell whenever any business that may affect the government is under consideration. for this purpose they are in the habit of sending out almost every day to all their supporters lithographed notices stating that a vote on such and such a matter is likely to come on, and requesting the attendance of the member. these notices are underscored, in accordance with the importance of attendance, from a single line, meaning that the whip desires the member's attendance, to four lines, or a couple of very thick lines, which mean "come on pain of being thought a deserter." in fact the receipt of messages of this kind is the test of party membership. in a correspondence on the subject took place between peel and disraeli shortly before the final breach occurred. disraeli, who had been criticising the policy of the government in ireland and servia, was not sent the usual whips, and protested on the ground that he had not ceased to be a member of the party.[ : ] all this is not so important in the case of the opposition; for, the consequences of being caught napping are not so serious. it is enough for them to summon their full force from time to time, when a good chance for a large vote occurs. the proceedings of their whips, therefore, though generally the same, are somewhat less systematic. [sidenote: they must know that the members are present.] [sidenote: snap votes.] the whips act also as an intelligence department for the government leader. it is their business not only to summon the members of the party to the house, but to know that they are there. by the door leading to the coat room, through which the members ordinarily enter the house from palace yard, there are seats; and here may always be seen one of the government whips, and often one from the opposition. each of them takes note of every member who goes in and out, sometimes remonstrating with him if he is leaving without sufficient reason. by this means the whip is expected to be able, at any moment, to tell just how large a majority the government has within the precincts of the house; and on the most important divisions the whip sees that every member of the party, who is well, is either present or paired. of course, the same thoroughness cannot be attained on smaller questions; and although the government whip tries to have constantly on hand more members of his own party than of the opposition, it is not always possible to do so. he may have expected a vote to take place at a given hour, and sent out a notice to every one to be present at that time, and the debate may suddenly show signs of coming to an end earlier. in that case it is usually possible to get some member of the government to talk against time while the needed members are fetched in. at times even this resource fails, and the government is occasionally defeated on what is known as "a snap vote." [sidenote: that of .] humorous anecdotes are told of frantic attempts to bring in the members, and of practical jokes in trying to prevent it;[ : ] but the only one of these cases that led to serious results occurred in . the liberal government had been desperately clinging for life to a small majority of about a dozen, when there came on for debate a motion to reduce the salary of the secretary of state for war, made in order to draw attention to an alleged lack of cordite. the whips sitting by the regular entrance of the house had in their tally the usual majority for the government; but a score of tories had gone from the palace yard directly to the terrace, without passing through the ordinary coat-room entrance. when the division bell rang they came straight from the terrace to the house, and to the surprise no less of the tellers than of every one else, the government was defeated by a few votes. this was clearly a "snap" division, which would not ordinarily have been treated as showing a lack of confidence in the ministry. but the time comes when a tired man in the sea would rather drown than cling longer; and that was the position of lord rosebery's government. [sidenote: whips must know the temper of the party.] the whips keep in constant touch with the members of their party. it is their business to detect the least sign of disaffection or discontent; to know the disposition of every member of the party on every measure of importance to the ministry, reporting it constantly to their chief. a member of the party, indeed, who feels that he cannot vote for a government measure, or that he must vote for an amendment to it, is expected to notify the whip. if there are few men in that position, so that the majority of the government is ample, and the result is not in danger, the whip will make no objection. a novice in the strangers' gallery, who hears three or four men on the government side attack one of its measures vigorously, sometimes thinks that there is a serious risk of defeat; but if he watched the countenance of the chief whip on the extreme end of the treasury bench, he would see no sign of anxiety, and when the division takes place the majority of the government is about the normal size. the fact is that the whip has known all along just how many men behind him would vote against the government, just how many would stay away, and that it really made no difference. [sidenote: methods of pressure on members.] [sidenote: fear of dissolution.] if, on the other hand, the majority of the government is narrow, or the number of refractory members is considerable, the whip will try to reason with them; and in a crisis, where a hostile vote will be followed by a dissolution, or by a resignation of the ministry which involves, of course, a dissolution, his reasoning is likely to be effective; for no member wants to face unnecessarily the expense of a general election, or the risk of losing his seat. the strength of motives of this kind naturally depends very much upon his tenure of the seat. if, as sometimes happens, he is the only member of the party who has a good chance of carrying the seat, or if his local or personal influence there is so strong that he is certain to carry it, he will hold a position of more than usual independence. but this is rarely the case. [sidenote: action of constituents.] nor is the fear of dissolution the only means by which pressure can be brought to bear upon a member who strays too far from the party fold. his constituents, or the local party association--which for this purpose is much the same thing--can be relied upon to do something. any direct attempt by the whips to bring pressure upon a member through his constituents would be likely to irritate, and do more harm than good. but it is easy enough, in various ways, to let the constituents know that the member is not thoroughly supporting his party; and unless his vote against the government is cast in the interest of the constituents themselves, they are not likely to have much sympathy with his independence. [sidenote: social influence.] another means of pressure is found in social influence, which counts for much in english public life; and for that reason it is considered important to have as chief whip a man of high social standing as well as of pleasant manners and general popularity. the power of social influence has always been great in england, more particularly among the conservatives. in , disraeli, who was trying hard to build up the tory party, and had at the time little else to build it with, urged the importance of lord derby's asking all his followers in parliament to dinner in the course of the session.[ : ] nor does the use of influence of this kind appear to have declined. it has been said of late years that if a unionist did not vote with his party, he was not invited to the functions at the foreign office; and the weakness of the liberals for nearly a score of years after the split over home rule was due in no small part to the fact that they had very little social influence at their command. a sudden political conversion some years ago was attributed to disappointment of the member at the small number of invitations received through liberal connections; and the change of faith no doubt met its reward, for it was followed in time by knighthood. [sidenote: payment of election expenses.] finally the whips have, upon a certain number of members, a claim arising from gratitude. elections are expensive for the candidate, and it is not always easy to find a man who is ready to incur the needful cost and trouble, especially when the chance of success is not large. under these conditions the central office of the party, which is under the control of the leaders and the whip, will often contribute toward a candidate's expenses. it is done most frequently in well-nigh hopeless constituencies, and therefore the proportion of men who have received such aid is much greater among defeated than among elected candidates; although the cases are by no means confined to the former class. how often aid is given, and in what cases it is given, is never known, for the whip naturally keeps his own counsel about the matter; but the number of members on each side of the house, a part of whose election expenses have been paid from the party treasury, is not inconsiderable. upon these men the whips have, of course, a strong claim which can be used to secure their attendance and votes when needed. if all the means of pressure which the whips can bring to bear are unavailing, and the supporters of the government who propose to vote against it are enough to turn the scale, or if the whips report that the dissatisfaction is widespread, the cabinet will, if possible, modify its position. this is said to have been the real cause of the apparent surrender of the liberal ministry to the demands of the labour party upon the bill to regulate the liability of trade unions in . the whips found that many of their own followers had pledged themselves so deeply that they could not support the government bill as it stood. [sidenote: the whips as tellers.] when the government is interested in the result of a vote, it informs the speaker that it would like its whips appointed tellers in the division, a suggestion with which he always complies. this is the sign that the ministers are calling for the support of all their followers, and that the division is to be upon party lines. often in the course of a debate upon some amendment to a government bill, one hears a member, rising behind the treasury bench, appeal to the leader of the house not to put pressure upon his supporters on that question. he means that the government whips shall not be made the tellers, in which case each member is free to vote as he thinks best without a breach of party loyalty, and the result, whatever it may be, is not regarded as a defeat for the cabinet. occasionally this is done, but not often; because on the question so treated the government, in abandoning its leadership, is exposed to a charge of weakness; and also because it is unsafe to do it unless the ministers are quite indifferent about the result, for the effect of the pressure on the votes of many members is very great. [sidenote: no other party machinery in parliament.] the whips may be said to constitute the only regular party organisation in the house of commons, unless we include under that description the two front benches. the very fact, indeed, that the ministry and the leaders of the opposition furnish in themselves the real party machinery of the house, avoids the need of any other. the ministers prepare and carry out the programme of the party in power, while a small coterie of leaders on the other side devise the plans for opposing them. the front bench thus does the work of a party committee or council, and in neither of the great parties is there anything resembling a general caucus for the discussion and determination of party policy. sometimes a great meeting of the adherents of the party in parliament is called at one of the political clubs or elsewhere, when the leaders address their followers. but it is held to exhort, not to consult; and, in fact, surprise is sometimes expressed by private members that the chiefs take them so little into their confidence.[ : ] the organisation of the two great parties in parliament has almost a military character, with the cabinet as the general staff, and the leader of the house as the commander in the field. this is naturally far less true of lesser groups, which have not the tradition of cabinet leadership to keep them in line. in their case a real caucus of the party, to consider the position it shall assume in a crisis, is not unknown. two particularly celebrated meetings of that kind took place within a few years of each other: one held by the liberal unionists before the vote on the home rule bill in ; the other the meeting of the irish nationalists which deposed parnell from the leadership of the party in . a caucus of one of the two great parties has occasionally been held to select a leader in the house, in those rare cases where it has found itself in opposition without a chief. this happened, for example, in , when the post of leader having been left vacant by the retirement of sir william harcourt therefrom in the preceding december, the liberal members of the house met on the day before the opening of the session, and chose sir henry campbell-bannerman to succeed him. sir henry thenceforward led the party in the commons, and became, in due course, prime minister, when the liberals came to power in . except, however, for an accident of that sort, neither of the two great parties has any machinery for choosing its chiefs, or deciding upon its course of action. the leaders, and when the party comes to power the ministers, are, no doubt, indirectly selected by the party itself, for they are the men who have shown themselves able to win its confidence, and command its support. but the choice is not made by any formal vote; nor is it always precisely such as would result from a vote. the prime minister, if not himself in the commons, appoints the leader of the house and his principal lieutenants, being guided in the choice by his own estimate of their hold upon the party, and by the advice of the other chiefs. when appointed, the leader leads, and the party follows. footnotes: [ : ] formerly the parliamentary groom in waiting acted also as a whip; but the office was abolished in . [ : ] parker, "sir robert peel," iii., - . [ : ] macdonagh, "book of parliament," - . [ : ] malmesbury, "memoirs of an ex-minister," i., . [ : ] see, for example, sir richard temple, "life in parliament," and especially pp. - . chapter xxvi non-party organisations outside of parliament [sidenote: different kinds of political organisations.] the political organisations outside the walls of parliament may, for convenience, be classified under four heads; although the groups so set apart are not always perfectly distinct, and a particular organisation is sometimes on the border line between two different groups. these four heads are:-- . non-party organisations, whose object is to carry into effect some one project or line of policy, but not to obtain control of the general government, or to act as an independent political group in the house of commons. . local party organisations, each confined to one locality, whose primary object is to nominate party candidates and carry the elections in that place, although they may incidentally bring their influence to bear on the national policy of the party. . national party organisations, whose object is to propagate the principles of the party, to aid in carrying the elections throughout the country, and also to formulate and control to a greater or less extent the national party policy. of the organisations formed for such a purpose, the most famous was early dubbed by its foes the "caucus," and under that title the career of these bodies on the liberal and the conservative side will be described in chapters xxix. and xxx., the labour party being treated in a later chapter by itself. . ancillary party organisations. these are handmaids to the party, which make no pretence of trying to direct its policy, but confine themselves to the work of extending its popularity, promoting its interests, and preparing the way for its success at the polls. they will be discussed hereafter, but a few words must be said here about the most important of them all, because without a knowledge of its character, the history of the caucus, with which it has come into contact, can hardly be understood. it is the central association, or central office, of the party, composed of paid officials and agents, with or without the help of a group of wealthy and influential men. it raises and disburses the campaign funds of the party, and takes charge of general electioneering interests; but it always acts in close concert with the party leaders and the whips, and is, in fact, under their immediate direction and control. the central office is thus a branch of the whip's office, which attends to the work outside of parliament, and it is really managed by a principal agent or secretary directly responsible to the parliamentary chiefs. [sidenote: they are distinct from the organs of state.] unlike the instruments of party inside of parliament, all of these four classes of exterior political organisation are wholly unconnected with the constitutional organs of government; save that the central office is directed by the whip. outside of parliament, as in the united states, the organisation of parties is artificial or voluntary, that is, the mechanism stands quite apart from that of the state, and its effect thereon is from without, not from within. from this fact have flowed important consequences that will be noted hereafter. [sidenote: the non-party organisations.] among the different kinds of political organisation those here called non-partisan are by far the oldest. yet the term itself may be misleading. it does not mean that they have confined their efforts to cultivating an abstract public opinion in favour of their dogmas, for they have often sought to elect to parliament men who would advocate them there. nor does it mean that they have had no connection with the existing parties, for sometimes one of the parties has countenanced and supported their views, and in that case they have thrown their influence in favour of the candidates of that party. the term is used simply to denote a body whose primary object is not to achieve victory for a regular political party. curiously enough, such a group of persons often comes nearer than the great parties of the present day to burke's definition of party as "a body of men united for promoting by their joint endeavours the national interest upon some particular principle in which they are all agreed." for each of the leading parties includes men who are not wholly at one in their principles. party aims are complicated and confused, and are attained only by a series of compromises, in which the ultimate principle is sometimes obscured by the means employed to reach it. a party in modern parliamentary government would be more accurately defined as a body of men united by the intent of sustaining a common ministry. [sidenote: their early history.] various organisations of the kind termed here "non-partisan" arose during the latter part of the eighteenth century. the first of these of any great importance appears to have been the society for supporting the bill of rights, founded in to assist wilkes in his controversy with the house of commons, and in general to maintain the public liberties and demand an extension of the popular element in the constitution. finding that the society was used to promote the personal ambition of wilkes, some of the leading members withdrew, and founded the constitutional society with the same objects. ten years later county associations were formed, and conventions composed of delegates therefrom met in london in and to petition for the redress of public grievances. other societies were established about the same time, and they were not always of a radical character. the protestant association, for example, was formed under the lead of lord george gordon to maintain the disabilities of the roman catholics, and brought about the riots of june, , which are still called by his name. the political societies of those days were short-lived, and most of them died soon; but the outbreak of the french revolution sowed the seed for a fresh crop. in the working classes of the metropolis organised the london corresponding society, and the next year men of less extreme views founded the society of the friends of the people to promote moderate reform. whether radical or moderate, however, associations of that kind could not live in those troublous times. the repulsion and alarm provoked by the course of events in france were too strong to be resisted, and a number of repressive statutes were passed to break them up. first came an act of to suspend the writ of habeas corpus, then in the following session another to prevent seditious meetings, and, finally, a statute of , which suppressed the london corresponding society by name, and any others that were organised with branches. these acts and a series of prosecutions drove out of existence all the societies aiming at political reform; and during a few years, while the struggle with france was at its height, the course of domestic politics was unvexed by such movements. but the distress that followed the wars of napoleon caused another resort to associations, which was again met by hostile legislation. [sidenote: the catholic association, and movements for reform.] the repressive statutes were, however, temporary, and when the last of them expired in , the way for popular organisations was again free. the catholic association had already been formed in ireland to procure the removal of religious disabilities, and just as it disbanded, with its object won, in , the shadow of the coming reform act brought forth a number of new political societies in england. in that very year thomas atwood founded at birmingham the political union for the protection of public rights, with the object of promoting parliamentary reform; and after the introduction of the reform bill similar unions, formed to support it, sprang up all over the country. an attempt was even made to affiliate them together in a great national organisation; but the government declared the plan illegal, and it was abandoned. among the most interesting of the societies of this kind were those organised in london. here, in , the national union of the working classes was founded by artisans, disciples of robert owen, commonly known as the "rotundanists," from the name of the hall where their meetings were held. but francis place, the tailor, a notable figure in the agitations of the day, had no sympathy with the socialistic ideas of these men, and dreaded the effect of their society upon the fate of the reform bill. he had a much keener insight into the real situation, and started as a counterstroke the national political union, with the sole object of supplying in london the popular impulse needed, in his opinion, to push the measure through.[ : ] the bill was no sooner passed than the many associations, which had been founded upon a union of the middle and lower classes to effect a particular reform, began to die out. [sidenote: the anti-slavery societies.] meanwhile two successive organisations of a non-partisan, and, indeed, of a non-political, character, had been carrying a purely humanitarian movement to a triumphant end. the committee for the abolition of the slave trade was formed in , and strove, by the collection of evidence, by petitions, pamphlets and corresponding local committees, to enlighten public opinion and persuade parliament. after working for a score of years, supported by the tireless efforts of wilberforce in the house of commons, it prevailed at last upon parliament to suppress the slave-trade by the acts of and . sixteen years thereafter the anti-slavery society was formed to urge the entire abolition of slavery throughout the british dominions, and this it brought about in , the strength of its advocates in the commons, backed by popular agitation outside, being great enough to compel lord grey's government to bring in a bill for the purpose.[ : ] [sidenote: non-party organisations after .] [sidenote: the chartists.] since the non-party organisations have been, on the whole, more permanent, and more widely extended than before; and, with some marked exceptions like that of the chartists, they have tended to rely less upon a display of physical force, and more upon appeals to the electorate--a change following naturally enough upon the enlargement of the franchise. chartism developed out of a large number of separate local organisations of workingmen, who realised that they had gained no political power from the reform act, and demanded a reform of parliament in a really democratic spirit. the movement took its name from the people's charter, with its six points, published in by the london working men's association. to this the various local bodies adhered, sending the next year delegates to a great people's parliament in london. but the violence of the language used by the chartists opened a door for prosecution; the leaders became frightened, and for the moment the agitation lost its force. in it was reorganised, and was supported by several hundred affiliated bodies. from first to last, however, it was weakened by dissensions among the leaders, relating both to the methods of operation and to subordinate issues. the movement culminated in , in the mass meeting on kennington common, which was to form in procession, and present a mammoth petition to parliament. the plan had caused grave anxiety; troops were brought up, thousands of special constables were sworn in; but at the last minute feargus o'connor, the leader of the chartists, lost his nerve, and gave up the procession. the great demonstration was a fiasco, and soon after the whole movement collapsed. [sidenote: the anti-corn-law league.] one of the many reasons for the failure of chartism was the existence at the same time of the most successful non-partisan organisation that england has ever known, the anti-corn-law league. this, like the anti-slavery association of an earlier day, was formed to advocate a single specific reform, and to its steadfast fidelity to that principle its success was largely due. it excluded rigidly all questions of party politics, and in fact its most prominent leader, cobden, always retained a profound distrust of both parties. the reform embodied, however, in the eyes of its votaries, both an economic and a moral principle, so that they were able to appeal at the same time to the pocket and the conscience of the nation--a combination that goaded carlyle into his reference to cobden as an inspired bagman preaching a calico millennium. as the league appealed to more than one motive, so it used freely more than one means of making the appeal. after a number of local associations had been formed, a meeting of delegates from these, held in , founded the league, which proceeded to organise branches all over the country, sent forth speakers and lecturers, worked the press, collected information, issued pamphlets by the ton, petitioned parliament, and strove to elect candidates who would support its views. all this was done upon a huge scale with indefatigable energy. the movement derived its force from the middle-class manufacturers, but they strained every nerve to indoctrinate the working classes in the cities, and later the rural population, until at last public opinion was so far won that the crisis caused by the failure of the irish potato crop brought about the repeal of the corn laws in . the league had done its work and dissolved. [sidenote: other non-partisan associations.] there have been, and still are, a large number of other associations of a non-partisan character, which bestir themselves about some political question. often they exist in pairs to advocate opposing views, like the marriage law reform association, and the marriage law defence union, the imperial vaccination league, and the national anti-vaccination league. these associations are of many different kinds. some of them are organised for other objects, concerning themselves with legislation only incidentally, and taking no part at elections, like the association of chambers of commerce, and the association of municipal corporations. some exist primarily for other purposes, but are very active in politics, like certain of the trade unions;[ : ] others are formed solely for the diffusion of political doctrines, but generally abstain from direct electoral work, like the fabian society, with its socialist ideals; and, finally, there are organisations which, although not primarily partisan, in fact exert themselves vigorously to help the candidates of one of the great parties. to the last class belongs the liberation society, formerly very active in urging the disestablishment of the church, and throwing its influence in favour of the liberals; and also its opponent, the committee for church defence, equally strong on the side of the conservatives. more active than either of them at the present day is the free church federation, which has been brought into the political arena by its repugnance to the education act of . in the same category must be placed the national trade defence association, an organisation formed by the liquor dealers to resist temperance legislation, and perhaps mr. chamberlain's recent tariff reform league, both of which support the tories. it so happens that the societies that oppose the last two bodies are not so consistently devoted to the liberals. then there are societies of another type formed for a transitory purpose in foreign affairs: such as the eastern question association of , which opposed disraeli's turkish policy, and the present balkan committee working for freedom in macedonia. all associations that attempt to influence elections are in the habit of catechising the candidates and publishing their answers, sometimes producing a decided effect upon the vote. now it may be suggested that societies which take an active part in elections, and always throw their influence on the same side, ought not to be classed as non-partisan, but rather as adjuncts to the great parties; and yet they differ from the true ancillary organisations because their primary object as societies (whatever the personal aim of individual members may be) is not to place the party in power, but to carry through a particular policy with which that party happens to be more nearly in sympathy than its rival. footnotes: [ : ] graham wallas, in his "life of francis place," gives a graphic description of the movements in london. [ : ] for these movements see clarkson's "history of the slave trade," "the life of wilberforce," by his sons, and "the memoirs of sir t. fowell buxton." [ : ] this does not refer to the political labour organisations that have grown out of the trade unions, but must now be classed as regular parties. for the earlier political activity of the trade unions, as such, see sidney and beatrice webb, "industrial democracy," i., _et seq._ chapter xxvii local party organisations contrasted with those bodies which are non-partisan, but extend over the whole country, or at least over an indefinite area, stand the local party organisations. before the reform act of local organisations such as exist to-day for the election of parliamentary candidates were almost unknown. they would, indeed, have been of little use in most of the old electorates. not to speak of the rotten boroughs, which were sold for cash, a large number of the smaller constituencies were pocket boroughs, in the hands of patrons who would not have suffered any one else to influence the voters. in , when lord palmerston was elected to parliament for newtown in the isle of wight, sir leonard holmes, who controlled the seat, made a stipulation that he should "never, even for an election, set foot in the place. so jealous was the patron lest any attempt should be made to get a new interest in the borough."[ : ] even in the counties the voters were so much under the personal lead of the landowners that party machinery would have been superfluous. a few of the large boroughs had, indeed, an extended franchise and a wide electorate. most notable among them was westminster, and here a real political organisation for the election of members to parliament existed for some years before the great reform. it was, however, conducted in the interest neither of the whigs, nor of the tories, but of radical reformers, who were truly independent of both parties.[ : ] [sidenote: their origin.] with the extension of the franchise a change began in the political status of the voters. in many constituencies it was no longer enough to secure the support of a few influential persons; and the winning of a seat by either party depended upon getting as many of its adherents as possible upon the voting lists. the watchword of the new era was given by sir robert peel in his celebrated advice to the electors of tamworth in , "register, register, register!" it was the more important for the parties to take the matter in hand, because disputes about the complex electoral qualifications, instead of being settled on the initiative of the state, were left to be fought out before the revising barrister by the voters themselves, who were apt to be very negligent unless some one made a systematic effort to set them in motion. it was not less necessary for the parties to keep the matter constantly in hand, because, the duration of parliament being uncertain, it could not be put off until shortly before the election. the lists must be kept always full in view of a possible dissolution. often the work was done on behalf of the sitting member or the prospective candidate by his agent on the spot, without any formal organisation. but this was not always true, and, in fact, the reform bill was no sooner enacted than local registration societies began to be formed, which for some years increased rapidly in number among both liberals and conservatives.[ : ] [sidenote: their early objects.] the primary object of the registration societies was to get the names of their partisans on to the lists, and keep those of their opponents off; and they are said to have done it with more zeal than fairness, often with unjust results, for any claim or objection, though really ill-founded, was likely to be allowed by the revising barrister if unopposed.[ : ] from registration a natural step led to canvassing at election time; that is, seeking the voters in their own homes; persuading the doubtful; when possible, converting the unbelieving; and, above all, making sure that the faithful came to the polls. this had always been done by the candidates in popular constituencies; and now the registration societies furnished a nucleus for the purpose, with a mass of information about the persons to be canvassed, already acquired in making up the voting lists. the nomination of candidates did not necessarily form any part of their functions. the old theory prevailed, of which traces may be found all through english life, that the candidate offered himself for election, or was recommended by some influential friend. the idea that he ought to be designated by the voters of his party had not arisen; nor did the local societies, which were merely self-constituted bodies, claim any right to speak for those voters. no doubt they often selected and recommended candidates; but they did so as a group of individuals whose opinions carried weight, not as a council representing the party. the time was coming, however, when another extension of the franchise, and the growth of democratic ideas, would bring a demand for the organisation of the societies on a representative basis. the change began almost immediately after the passage of the reform act of ; and the occasion--it cannot properly be called the cause--of the movement is curious. when discussion in england was busy with hare's plan for proportional representation, which john stuart mill hailed as the salvation of society, serious voices were heard to object to the scheme on the ground that it would lead to the growth of party organisations, and would place the voter in the grip of a political machine.[ : ] it is, therefore, interesting to note that the first outcry in england against actual party machinery was directed at an organisation which sprang from the minute grain of minority representation in the act of . [sidenote: the birmingham caucus.] [sidenote: its object.] by the reform act of the great towns of liverpool, manchester, birmingham and leeds were given three members of parliament apiece; but in order to provide some representation for the minority, the lords inserted, and the commons accepted, a clause that no elector in those towns should vote for more than two candidates.[ : ] much foresight was not required to perceive that if one of those towns elected two liberals and a conservative, two of her members would neutralise each other on a party division, and her weight would be only one vote; while a much smaller town that chose two members of the same party in the ordinary way would count for two in a division. such a result seemed to the radicals of birmingham a violation of the democratic principle, and they were determined to prevent it if possible. they had on their side more than three fifths of the voters, or more than half as many again as their opponents, and this was enough to carry all three seats if their votes were evenly distributed between three candidates. but to give to three candidates the same number of votes when each elector could vote for only two of them was not an easy thing to do, and failure might mean the loss of two seats. very careful planning was required for success, very strict discipline among the voters, and hence a keen interest in the result among the mass of the people and perfect confidence in the party managers. [sidenote: its formation.] to provide the machinery needed, mr. william harris, the secretary of the birmingham liberal association, a self-constituted election committee of the familiar type, proposed to transform that body into a representative party organisation; which was forthwith done in october, . the new rules provided that every liberal subscribing a shilling should be a member of the association, and that an annual meeting of the members should choose the officers and twenty members to serve upon an executive committee. this committee, which had charge of the general business of the association, was to consist of the four officers and twenty members already mentioned, of twenty more to be chosen by the midland branch of the national reform league when formed, and of three members chosen by a ward committee to be elected by the members of the association in each ward. according to a common english custom the committee had power to add to its members four more persons chosen, or, as the expression goes, coöpted, by itself. there was also a larger body, consisting of the whole executive committee and of not more than twenty-four members elected by each of the ward committees. it was officially called the general committee, but was commonly known from the approximate number of its members as "the four hundred." it was to have control of the policy of the association, and to nominate the three liberal candidates for parliament in the borough.[ : ] the number of liberal voters in each of the several wards was then carefully ascertained; and those in one ward were directed to vote for a and b; those of another for a and c; those of a third for b and c; and so on, in such a way that the total votes cast for each of the three candidates should be as nearly as possible the same. protests were, of course, made against voting by dictation. it offended the sense of personal independence; but the great mass of liberals voted as they were told, and all three of the candidates were elected. [sidenote: its early victories.] the association had accomplished a great feat. three liberals had been sent to parliament from birmingham in spite of the minority representation clause. but a chance for another victory of the same kind did not come again until the dissolution six years later; and at first the managers were less fortunate in the elections to the school board. the education act of provided for cumulative voting at the election of these bodies; that is, the elector might cast all the votes to which he was entitled for one candidate, or distribute them in any way he pleased. the system made it possible for very small minorities to elect one or more candidates, and the liberal association, in trying to elude its effects, as they had done in the case of the parliamentary election, attempted too much and carried only a minority of the board. for a time the organisation languished; but it was soon recalled to a more vigorous life than ever. [sidenote: its revival in .] in the association was revived for the purpose of getting control of the municipal government of the town, and introducing a more progressive policy in its administration. two names are especially associated with the new departure, that of mr. schnadhorst, the secretary of the association, who had a genius for organising, and that of mr. chamberlain, who was the leading spirit of the movement, and became the mayor of the borough in the following autumn. these men proceeded to reconstruct the association on a slightly different, and apparently even more democratic, plan. taking the wards as the sole basis of the fabric, an annual meeting was held in each ward, at which any liberals residing there might take part. they were entitled to do so whether voters or not, and without regard to any subscription, provided they signified their adherence to the objects and organisation of the association, a statement which was understood to imply a willingness to accept the decisions of the majority. the meeting elected a committee, a chairman and a secretary for the ward; three persons to serve with those two officers upon the executive committee of the central association; and a number of persons, fixed in at thirty, to serve on the general committee. the central executive committee contained, in addition to the five members so elected in each ward, the four officers of the association, and thirty members coöpted by itself. it chose seven of its own members, who with the four officers formed a management sub-committee of eleven. the general committee of the association was composed, as before, of the whole executive committee, together with the thirty representatives from each ward; and, as there were sixteen wards, it numbered by five hundred and ninety-four members; and was known as the "six hundred" of birmingham. it had power to determine the policy of the association, and to nominate the candidates for parliament and the school board. the members of the town council, on the other hand, being elected by wards, were nominated by the ward committees; but the whole association was bound to support them. [sidenote: its efficiency.] such was the new organisation of the liberal association.[ : ] its efficiency as an engine for controlling elections is proved by the fact that during the four years from to , inclusive, it carried all three seats in parliament in spite of the provision for minority representation, a majority of the school board at each election in spite of the provision for cumulative voting, and all but two of the sixty-eight members elected to the town council during that period.[ : ] the association was, indeed, well constructed for the purpose. as in the case of every political organisation based upon primary meetings, an attempt to wrest the control from those who held it was a difficult undertaking. to be successful more than half the wards must be captured at one time, and that in the face of vigilant men, who knew all the ropes, who had the management sub-committee in their hands, and who by means of coöptation could convert a narrow majority into a larger one, and thus perpetuate their own power. on the other hand, a revolt against the nominations actually made was well-nigh precluded by the agreement virtually entered into on joining the association, to abide by the decision of the majority. it has been said that for a dozen years the men who conducted the organisation sent travelling companions to one ward meeting after another to insure the election of their supporters to the various committees.[ : ] whether this be true or not, it is certain that the power of the managers was never overturned. their rule has, indeed, been prolonged over such a period that it must be attributed both to the excellence of the mechanism and to their own popularity. throughout the many vicissitudes of his long career, from his early years of advanced radicalism, through his breach with mr. gladstone over the home rule bill, his subsequent junction with the conservatives, and finally his advocacy of a wholly new policy about preferential tariffs, mr. chamberlain has never failed to carry every one of the parliamentary seats in birmingham for his own adherents. such a result shows a power which nothing but a strong personal hold upon the people, and a hold coupled with a highly efficient organisation, could have secured. [sidenote: criticisms of the system.] the system adopted by the liberals in birmingham was copied in other places, and soon became the subject of vehement discussion, the arguments for and against it being the same that are commonly used in the case of every party organisation. its adversaries declared that it threw absolute power into the hands of men with time to devote to working the machinery; that it set up a tyranny which crushed out individuality, extinguished free discussion of opinions, destroyed independence in public life, caused a loss of variety and fertility in liberalism, and brought party politics into municipal affairs where they ought not to be. [sidenote: its defence.] to these criticisms the advocates of the system replied that the association was conducted by the men with the most public spirit, because they were willing to devote time and thought to the work; that it could not create a tyranny, because the ward meetings were open to all liberals, who could at any time overthrow the management if they chose; that, in regard to independence, every liberal had a right to speak freely at the ward meetings, to persuade his fellows to adopt his views if he could, and that this is the only right he ought to enjoy, because "a minority has no right to thwart a majority in determining the course of liberal policy." they insisted that the association was simply "a method by which those who believe in human progress . . . can take counsel together; come to an agreement as to their nearest duty; and give their decisions practical effect in the legislation of their town and country." they claimed that such men "are bound to select representatives who will support the definite measures they believe to be immediately necessary for the peace and prosperity of the land."[ : ] in short the radicals of birmingham looked upon themselves as reformers with a mission to fulfil, and felt the impatience--perhaps one may say intolerance--which men in that position always feel for the hesitating, the wavering, and the independent members of their own party. to the radicals the association appeared as an effective instrument for putting their ideals into practice, and seemed wholly good; while others, who had not the same faith in the end to be attained, felt keenly the evils which the organisation actually involved, and still more the abuses to which it might give rise in the future. [sidenote: the caucus and town politics.] in regard to the charge of bringing politics into municipal affairs the radicals boldly justified their course, insisting that they stood for a definite progressive policy in local, as well as in national, affairs.[ : ] under the lead of mr. chamberlain, who was elected mayor of birmingham in the autumn of --the same year in which the association was revived--the town council entered upon a period of great activity. it improved the ordinary public services, such as paving and sanitation; reorganised the health department; and inaugurated an efficient system of sewerage with a large filtration farm, which was, at least, a great improvement on what had gone before. it undertook also a number of public works of a class now called "municipal trading." the first of these was the supply of gas, both for lighting the streets and for private use. there were at the time two gas companies in birmingham, and mr. chamberlain persuaded the council that the town could make a profit by buying their property, and conducting the business itself. a bargain was struck with the companies, and the purchase was made. it was no sooner done than a proposal was made to apply the same principle to water, which was also in the hands of a private company. in this case, however, the object was not profit, but an improvement of the supply with a view to better health, for a large part of the population still depended upon wells, many of them, of course, in a dangerous condition. again a bargain was made with the company, and the water passed in turn under public control. finally an ambitious plan was adopted for improving the appearance of the town. parliament has enacted a long series of statutes intended to secure better houses for the working classes. one of them, the artisans and labourers dwellings improvement act of ,[ : ] empowered any town, if authorised by a provisional order of the local government board confirmed by parliament, to expropriate at its fair market value an unhealthy area, that is, a district where the crowding together or bad condition of the houses, and the want of light and air, were such as to be dangerous to health. the town was to prepare a scheme for laying out new streets and otherwise improving the area, and was authorised to sell or let any part of the land on condition that the purchasers should carry the scheme into effect. now birmingham, like many of the english manufacturing places, had grown up in a squalid way, a network of narrow streets, devoid of space or dignity; and in the centre was a great slum with a high death-rate. this last, a region of more than ninety acres in extent, was taken under the act; a broad thoroughfare, named, in recognition of its public origin, "corporation street," was laid out, and the land bordering upon it let on long ground leases for commercial buildings. the original intention had been to erect new houses for the people whose dwellings had been destroyed; but this part of the plan was in the main abandoned, on the ground that houses enough were provided by private enterprise. the management by a town of its gas and water supply, the purchase and lease of large tracts of land, are steps in the direction of what is known to-day as municipal socialism; and they provoked a difference of opinion that still exists, both upon the wisdom of the policy in general, and upon the extent to which it can be profitably carried. the problem will be discussed hereafter, but we must note here that the radicals of birmingham believed it to be a political issue, which justified the use of party organisation as much as the issues that arose in parliament. they felt in the same way about the administration of the new school law. in their eyes all these things formed part of a great radical policy of which they were the protagonists. [sidenote: the spread of associations on the birmingham model.] the birmingham radicals had faith, not only in their political aims, but also in the means they had devised for carrying them out. they did no little missionary work in other towns, urging the liberals to introduce local representative associations on a democratic basis after the birmingham pattern. in spite of opposition the idea was received with such favour that by the end of about one hundred bodies of this kind existed in different places.[ : ] the movement was reënforced by the foundation, in , of the national liberal federation, whose history will form the subject of a later chapter. this body admitted to membership only associations of a democratic character, and its influence was strongly felt. the birmingham leaders, who controlled the federation, naturally desired to increase its power by extending the number of affiliated bodies as much as possible; while the local associations found an advantage in joining it as soon as it became a factor in liberal politics. moreover, after the split in the party over the home rule bill, in , when the federation took the side of mr. gladstone's followers against mr. chamberlain, the former became interested in making the organisation as widely representative and popular as possible. these various motives gave successive impulses, with the result that by the federation comprised two hundred and fifty-five local associations, and by seven hundred and sixteen.[ : ] the rules of the federation, under the title of the "objects" for which it exists, still open with the words "to assist in the organisation throughout the country of liberal associations based on popular representation," and the rules are preceded by a statement which says, _all associations, thus constituted, are eligible for affiliation_. although the statement goes on to declare that "no interference with the local independence of the federated associations is involved. each association arranges the details of its own organisation, and administers its own affairs." still it has always been assumed that the local bodies were to be popular in character. in fact the old self-appointed committees were hardly compatible with the democratic spirit brought in by the reform act of , and in the boroughs they soon gave way to representative bodies with a popular organisation. the process was much less rapid in the country constituencies,[ : ] for not until was the franchise in these enlarged as it had been in the boroughs in , and when that had been done the traditional authority of the squire and the parson presented an obstacle that yielded slowly. even now conservative candidates are returned unopposed more frequently in the counties than in the boroughs, especially in the rural counties of the south. often it was found impossible to establish a liberal association in each parish, and a local correspondent was, and in some cases still is, a necessary substitute. but the growth of democratic ideas, the practice of popular election, the change in economic conditions caused by the decay of agricultural prosperity and the desire to live in cities, with the consequent scarcity of rural labour, have, by reducing the patriarchal influence of the landlord over his people, paved the way for representative political organisations. at the present day associations democratic in form exist in almost every parliamentary constituency, whether borough or county, where the number of liberal voters is not so small, or the chance of success at elections is not so desperate, that the district is what is sometimes officially called derelict. [sidenote: existing organisation of local liberal associations.] the constitutions of the local liberal associations are not precisely uniform, nor, apart from the general principle that they ought to be based upon popular representation, is any pressure exerted to make them alike. the liberals in each place are at liberty to organise themselves as they please; and in this connection it may be observed that all political societies are treated as purely voluntary, that is, the state makes no attempt to regulate them by law. the provisions in regard to primaries and the nomination of candidates by party conventions, which have become universal in the united states, are entirely foreign to english ideas, and would be regarded with astonishment and aversion. [sidenote: the draft rules.] [sidenote: rural districts.] but while the federation does not strive to enforce uniform regulations, it issues a pamphlet of "notes and hints for the guidance of liberals," covering organisations both in rural villages and in towns, and containing drafts of rules, which may be taken as typical. the pamphlet suggests that in rural districts there should be normally, in each parish or polling district, a self-appointed committee with power to add to its own members. the term "committee" is used because the members, being few, can do most of the work directly, instead of delegating it to a smaller body. in reality the committee is the whole association for the parish, and although the draft rules do not expressly so provide, the intention is clear that it shall include all known liberals there, whether voters or not. it must meet at least six times in the year; and elects a chairman, treasurer, honorary secretary, and any sub-committees that may be needed. it appoints, also, in proportion to population, delegates to the liberal association for the parliamentary division, which selects the candidate of the party for the house of commons. [sidenote: small towns.] for small towns without wards the model organisation is similar, except that the primary body is called an association, and meets only once a year, unless convened at other times on the request of twelve members; current business being transacted by an executive committee composed of the officers, and of a certain number of other members chosen at the annual meeting. above the associations for the parish or polling district, and the small town, comes an association for the parliamentary division of the county in which they are situated. this is often, though not always, purely a representative body, without any mass meeting of members. it has a council, composed mainly of delegates chosen from the parishes, towns, or other primary districts, roughly in proportion to population; and an executive committee, sometimes elected entirely by the council, sometimes containing delegates from the districts. finally it has its officers who are members of both these bodies. [sidenote: large towns.] for large towns, that are divided into wards, the draft rules follow more closely the birmingham plan. they provide in each ward for a committee or association designed to include every man who is disposed to help the liberal cause. this body elects its officers, the other members of its executive committee, and delegates to the general committee for the town according to population. the association for the whole town meets annually to choose its officers, some members of the general committee, and, in case the town is not a parliamentary borough, delegates to the association for the division of the county. the association for the town is managed, as is usually the case in all organisations of this kind, by three distinct authorities. first, the officers, who attend to current administration. second, the executive committee, which consists of these officers, of the three officers of each ward, and of members chosen by the general committee. third, the general committee itself, which determines the policy to be pursued, and is composed of members elected in part by the ward committees and in part by the annual meeting of the whole association for the town. in parliamentary boroughs the general committee--often known as the council, and sometimes as the liberal two hundred, or whatever the nearest hundred may be--nominates the party candidate for the house of commons, on the recommendation of the executive committee, and subject to final adoption at a meeting of the association. but in fact the executive committee, in all liberal associations for parliamentary constituencies, either selects the candidate, and asks for a formal approval by the council, or lays before that body two or three names to choose from. in any case the meeting of the whole association is merely a grand ratification gathering held for applause, not for consultation. the effect is like that of the ancient proclamation, "this is your king an' it please you." [sidenote: variations in different places.] the draft rules prepared by the federation are merely typical, and although in their general outlines they give a very fair idea of the organisation of local associations throughout the country, there are endless variations in detail and in nomenclature. if, indeed, the constitutions of a number of these bodies are examined at random, no two of them will probably be found exactly alike. it may be observed that the draft rules make no provision for coöptation, an arrangement that appears nevertheless in the rules of many local associations. nor do they require the payment of any subscription as a condition for membership; but this again is not infrequently done, the sum required running from a nominal amount up as high as five shillings. sometimes the payment is a condition for any participation in the organisation; sometimes it is not needed for voting in the ward or district meetings, but confers a right to vote in the general meetings of the association, or to be elected to the committees by coöptation. occasionally liberal members of the town council and school board have _ex officio_ seats on the council of the association; or local liberal clubs, although not strictly democratic, are given a representation upon it. but owing to the fact, which will be explained hereafter, that the competition for nomination to parliament is not very keen, and hence there is rarely a close canvass of the members of the committees, all these differences in detail are of little practical importance. the essential point is that in almost every english parliamentary constituency, whether county or borough, where the chance of carrying the election is fair, there is to-day an association of a representative and nominally, at least, of a democratic character. it contains habitually the three organs, of officers, executive committee, and council; while in the great towns that have several seats there is a still larger organisation comprising all the parliamentary divisions. [sidenote: the paid agents.] it is an old custom for parliamentary candidates to employ paid agents, usually solicitors by profession, to take charge of the election, and with the growth of popular organisations the business has assumed in most places a more systematic form. the association for each parliamentary division, and sometimes for a smaller district, has a paid as well as an honorary secretary. his duties are many, for he is the maid-of-all-work of the organisation, and is known by the comprehensive title of liberal agent for that division. he acts as clerk for the association, organises committees for wards or polling districts, supervises subordinate agents, arranges public meetings, gives advice and assistance wherever needed, canvasses the voters, attends to their registration, and conducts the hearings before the revising barrister. he is also usually appointed by the candidate his statutory election agent; and, if so, he takes general charge of the whole campaign, having under him a band of clerks, sub-agents, and messengers, and a small army of volunteer canvassers. he is an important factor in politics; for upon his skill as an organiser, and his tact and good sense in conducting the fight, the result of the election may often depend. these agents have been said to be the only professional politicians in england; and in one sense that is true, for they are the only class of men who make a living out of party politics; but the expression is inappropriate, because they are not politicians at all in the sense in which the term is used in other countries. they have nothing to do with the direction of politics; they merely help to elect a candidate in whose selection they have no voice; and although their advice may have weight, their duty is solely to carry out the instructions of others. like all other permanent officials in england, their actual influence depends upon circumstances. if a chairman is capable and active, the power of the agent will not be so great as in the more common case where the chairman leans very much upon him. the agents, in short, are more nearly akin to the permanent official than to the politician. in fact they have no political aspirations for themselves, for they are not of the class from which members of parliament are taken. their salaries, which vary much, run all the way from forty pounds to four hundred pounds, with about one hundred and fifty pounds as the average, the scale of pay having risen somewhat of late years. they must be thoroughly familiar with the law of registration and election, and are commonly recruited from solicitors with a small practice, or from accountants; although many of them--perhaps nearly one half--finding that their work as agents fills their whole time, have given up all other business. the occupation tends, indeed, to become a profession by itself; one to which a man devotes his life after he has once entered it. the liberal agents have a national association of their own, containing some two hundred and fifty members, and a few years ago, in order to maintain a higher standard, a smaller society was formed, which issues certificates of qualification. the association meets every year at the time of the meeting of the national liberal federation, and such of the agents attend as can afford to go, or can get their employers to pay their expenses. they meet usually about one hundred and fifty strong, and are given a breakfast at which they are addressed by the chief whip, and by the leader of the party in parliament or some other prominent member; for their importance is now thoroughly appreciated. thus there has arisen in english political life a class of men whose counterpart exists in no other country. they occupy in the party a position not unlike that of the non-commissioned officers in the army. their work is essential to success, but they have no hope of promotion beyond their own grade. their position is perfectly well understood, and they tend to surround it with professional safeguards and supports. [sidenote: liberal agents in scotland.] in scotland political associations with paid agents have developed more slowly than in england; partly because a great deal of the work connected with registration, which falls upon the party agents in england, is done by the public authorities north of the tweed; and partly because it was the old scotch habit to have election business, like everything else, conducted for the candidate by his regular attorney. the result is that although there are many liberal associations in scotland, and the agents have tended to become a class so far as to form a society among themselves, they have as a rule much less work to do than in england, and are still usually paid almost entirely out of the candidate's own pocket. hence, when he is defeated, and gives up the fight, the constituency is apt to lose its agent altogether, and become derelict. [sidenote: conservative local organisations.] contrary to the prevailing opinion, the conservatives have, in the matter of party organisation, been more than once the first in the field; and although their machinery has neither been so democratic nor attracted so much attention as that of the liberals, it has been on the whole more effective. the reform act of was no sooner passed than they began energetically to form registration societies; and the extension of the borough franchise in brought a renewed activity. they tried at once to enlist the interest, and win the support, of the workingmen who had been made voters in large numbers. at the general election of the following year they worked in vain, but in a short time they succeeded so well, that at the next election, in , they obtained a majority in the house of commons for the first time since . their victory was, indeed, commonly attributed to their superior organisation, a fact which gave a powerful incentive to the adoption by their rivals of mr. chamberlain's plan for a national liberal federation. [sidenote: their growth after .] conservative associations of a modern type had, indeed, been formed in some places long before ,[ : ] but the act of that year gave a new and vigorous impulse. it had hardly been enacted when local associations, largely composed of workingmen, sprang up, especially in the manufacturing districts of the north. some of them were very large, the one at bradford, for example, had, by , twenty-five hundred members, and was believed to have caused the change in the politics of the place.[ : ] the associations increased rapidly in number. in there were two hundred and eighty-nine of them; in , three hundred and forty-eight; in , four hundred and seven; in , four hundred and forty-seven; in , four hundred and seventy-two, besides two hundred and twenty-eight branch associations; and in the number of conservative associations of every kind in england and wales was nearly eight hundred.[ : ] a considerable part of them were composed almost entirely of the artisan class. many societies had, indeed, been organised under the name of conservative working men's associations, and these had set up a separate national union among themselves. [sidenote: they become representative.] the associations formed at this time seem to have been voluntary bodies without a representative character, and in fact some of them were turned into clubs, in order to make them more attractive, or, according to the expression then used, to enable the members to obtain recreation as well as knowledge. but if the new conservative associations were unlike the birmingham caucus, the size of their membership made them also very unlike the old registration societies. the object was not now merely to see that the faithful were properly registered, but to recruit supporters, stimulate enthusiasm, and discipline a fighting force among the masses of the people. the conservatives are more easily led by authority than the liberals, but the time was at hand when even among them more democratic forms were needed. after mr. gladstone's victory at the elections of a cry was again heard that the result was due to better organisation; in this case to the birmingham caucus, and curiously enough to the paid agents which it employed.[ : ] the movement among the conservatives towards more popular forms of party machinery began with the associations in the large towns, which felt keenly the competition of the liberal hundreds with their closely knit fabric of representative committees based on open meetings in the wards. in these places the conservatives copied the organisation of their rivals, and thence the fashion spread gradually over the country, receiving an additional impetus in , when the national union of conservative associations was itself remodelled upon a wider basis, with a series of representative councils. [sidenote: existing conservative local organisations.] like the national liberal federation, the conservative central office has issued draft rules to serve as models for local associations, and they may be regarded as typical. in the case of a borough the ward polling district, or such other subdivision as shall be found convenient, is suggested as the primary unit. in each of these there is to be a branch association, composed of all the conservatives in the district who subscribe not less than one shilling to its funds. the branch association, at a mass meeting of its members, is to elect a president, a chairman, an honorary secretary and a treasurer, a committee to manage its affairs, and representatives to the central committee for the borough, in the proportion of one for every two hundred voters upon the parliamentary register. the central association for the whole borough is to consist of the members of the various branches. it is to hold general meetings for the choice of its officers; but it is to be managed by a central committee composed of the officers and representatives of the branch associations, together with the officers of any conservative clubs in the borough, and representatives of the local habitations of the primrose league. this committee, being large, is authorised to delegate any of its powers to an executive committee, and other sub-committees, subject to ratification of their acts. in order to stimulate the necessary subscriptions, the rules provide, in accordance with a common conservative practice, that all members who contribute not less than one guinea a year shall be styled vice-president; but in this case they are given no power, and the title is their sole reward. the model rules for the parliamentary division of a county are framed upon the same lines, except that, when possible, associations are to be organised in each parish. this involves an additional wheel in the machinery, the parochial meetings electing the committee for the polling district; and the district meeting, which consists of all the members of the parish associations, electing the central committee for the parliamentary division. [sidenote: a complex type--bradford.] as in the case of the liberal party, the model rules issued by the central office are merely typical, and although the general principles of organisation in the different local bodies are the same, there are great variations in detail. the conservative association of bradford may be taken as a good example of the more complex forms. here the geographical elements are the polling district, the ward, the three parliamentary divisions, and the borough as a whole; the committees in each of these being constructed by a combination of direct election, and of representation both of the smaller units and of clubs. thus the polling district has a committee, composed of all the members of the party therein, which elects, besides its own officers, ten representatives to the ward association--of whom three are designated to serve on the ward executive--five representatives to the council for the parliamentary division, and two to the general council for the borough. the ward association consists of the officers and representatives of the polling districts; of representatives of any constitutional associations within the ward; and of subscribers to the amount of five shillings a year. it has an executive committee composed of the officers for the ward, and of the officers and representatives of the polling districts. the chief business of the ward association is registration, and the nomination and election of candidates for the city council, the municipal contests in bradford being conducted on party lines. the divisional association consists of all persons who subscribe a shilling, or are enrolled as members of a polling district committee. its business is conducted by a council containing the officers and five other members chosen at the annual mass meeting, the officers of ward and polling district associations, and representatives both from those associations, and from conservative clubs. it acts, however, largely by means of sub-committees. finally the general association for the borough, with a similar qualification for membership, has, besides the ordinary officers, a long list of vice-chairmen, which includes all persons subscribing two pounds a year to its funds. the general council is composed of all these officers, of representatives from the divisions, polling districts and clubs, and in addition, of all men who pay one guinea a year--another instance of giving special privileges to the larger subscribers. the executive for the borough, styled the finance and general purposes committee, consists of thirty members elected by the council; of representatives of the two leading clubs; of officers of the divisional associations; and of all the officers of the central association, including the vice-chairmen. now, in , the vice-chairmen formed a majority of the committee, and many of them must have acquired the position by reason of subscriptions to the funds. this is important not only because the management of the association as a whole is really in the hands of the general purposes committee, but especially because the rules require the divisional councils to invite that committee to be present for consultation at the meetings held for the selection of parliamentary candidates. the privilege so conferred is, however, merely potential, for it is almost universally the case in conservative associations that the nomination of candidates for the house of commons is arranged by the executive body or by a sub-committee thereof, and is simply accepted by the council. [sidenote: extent of conservative associations.] [sidenote: the paid agents.] conservative associations of a popular character, with subordinate branches more or less fully developed, now exist in almost every parliamentary constituency in england and wales, and in all but a few of those in scotland, the central office of the party being engaged in a ceaseless effort to perfect the organisation wherever it remains incomplete. unless in a very feeble state, the associations have their professional secretaries or agents, who are paid, on the average, a little higher salaries than their liberal rivals, and are, therefore, it is claimed, on the whole, a better grade of men. the conservative, like the liberal, agents have societies of their own; a mutual benevolent society, and a national association with subordinate branches which admits members only on examination. [sidenote: similarity of liberal and conservative associations.] at the present day local party organisation has been brought to a high state of efficiency in england, each party having covered almost the whole of great britain with a tessellated pavement of associations. these are especially complete in the boroughs, for on both sides the machinery in the rural parts of counties is less fully developed. the conservatives have done their work a little more thoroughly than the liberals, because with more rich men in their ranks they have larger resources in money, and can maintain paid agents in more constituencies where the chance of success is small. in general character the local associations of the two parties do not differ greatly, the most obvious contrasts being the common use of coöptation by the liberals, and the special privileges accorded to the larger subscribers among the conservatives. but neither of these things is universal, and in their essential features the local organisations of both parties are framed upon the same general principles. both of them are democratic in form, admitting all adherents of the party, or all who pay a small subscription. both are in form representative, the affairs of the associations being managed by a series of councils and committees, composed mainly of delegates whose authority is based ultimately upon mass meetings of all the members. footnotes: [ : ] bulwer, "life of palmerston," i., - . [ : ] _cf._ wallas, "life of francis place," chs. ii., v. [ : ] by conservative registration societies had become common throughout the country. (publications of the national union of conservative associations, , no. .) by far the best, and in fact the only comprehensive, work on the party organisations in great britain is ostrogorski's "democracy and the organisation of political parties," vol. i. his description is very complete, but, while accurate, is likely to mislead a superficial reader, who might easily get an impression that the extreme cases were typical, although the writer takes pains not to say so. mr. bryce's caution in the preface should, therefore, be borne in mind. mr. ostrogorski appears to look on democracy, and on party machinery in particular, from the outside, as something artificial and weird, rather than the natural result of human conduct under the existing conditions. he does not seem to put himself quite in the shoes of mr. chamberlain, mr. gladstone, mr. schnadhorst, lord randolph churchill, lord salisbury, captain middleton, or other men who have come into contact with the party organisations, and ask what he himself would, or might, have done in the same position. hence his analysis has a slight air of unreality, and does not wholly approve itself as a study of ordinary political motives. but apart from this criticism, the work is admirably done, and is an invaluable contribution to political science. [ : ] ostrogorski, i., - . [ : ] trevelyan, "a few remarks on mr. hare's scheme of representation." _macmillan_, april, ; bagehot, "english constitution," ed., - ; and see hans. ser. clxxxix., . see also leslie stephen, "the value of political machinery," _fortnightly_, december, . [ : ] the provision was applied also to the county constituencies returning three members, which some of them did under the reform act of . in the city of london, which had four seats, an elector was to vote for only three candidates. - vic., c. , §§ , , . [ : ] ostrogorski, "the introduction of the caucus into england," _political science quarterly_, june, , p. . langford, "modern birmingham," ii., - . [ : ] h. w. crosskey, "the liberal association--the --of birmingham." _macmillan_, february, . [ : ] h. w. crosskey, _ut supra_. [ : ] ostrogorski, i., - . [ : ] h. w. crosskey, "the birmingham liberal association and its assailants." _macmillan_, december, . [ : ] _cf._ chamberlain, "the caucus." _fortnightly_, november, ; and the two articles by h. w. crosskey already cited. [ : ] - vic., c. . [ : ] h. w. crosskey. _macmillan_, december, . [ : ] proc. ann. meeting, , p. . [ : ] _cf._ ostrogorski, "democracy," i., part iii., ch. i., ser. viii. [ : ] in liverpool, for example, a conservative association originally formed in , was replaced in by a new constitutional association upon a broader foundation. among the objects the latter aimed "to promote by all legal means the election of members of parliament for the borough who subscribe to, and uphold the principles of the association. . . . to promote by all legal means the election of such candidates for the town council as are members of this association." it contained at the outset a couple of hundred members; and it had in part a representative character with the wards as a basis, for its affairs were managed by a general committee, composed of thirty members chosen by the association, together with the chairman and secretary of each ward committee _ex officio_. (fiftieth rep. liverpool const. assoc., .) [ : ] speech of mr. taylor, in the report of the conference of the national union in . [ : ] reports of council at conferences of the national union in and . [ : ] in his remarks at the conference in , the chairman of the council of the national union of conservative associations said: "it was not at all satisfactory to find that in a number of constituencies gentlemen who practically knew nothing of election matters undertook the management merely as a professional duty in their capacity as lawyers. . . . the birmingham radicals had made a point for many years of training a number of men to election work, and of giving them experience by employing them in municipal contests, and he recommended their example to the attention of the meeting." report of the conference of . chapter xxviii action of local organisations [sidenote: all popular party organisations are largely shams.] although the local associations purport to be democratic and representative, it would be an error to take their rules too seriously. every voluntary political organisation contains an element of sham. part of its stock in trade is the pretence that it is more powerful, and more widely representative, than it really is. much of its success depends upon the old chinese military policy of scaring the enemy by an imposing appearance before the fight begins. in ordinary times of public inattention the _vox populi_ may be manufactured by a small number of persons, for the mass of the people are rarely interested until an issue has been presented to them, and the framing of that issue, which may be by far the most important step in the whole process, is often done at a meeting of half a dozen men. all the members of the party may have a right to attend that meeting, but they will not do so, or if they do the private conference will take place earlier, and the meeting will simply decide upon the acceptance of plans prepared beforehand. this is a law of human nature resulting from the fact that a large assembly can only say yes or no. it does not mean that the desires of the public are perverted, for as a rule it has none that are strong or definite. it means that the number of people who care enough to take an active part in the formative stage is small, and in the long run they get control of the wires whether as an elected or a self-constituted committee. the sham consists in making it appear that the plan proposed expresses the preconceived wish of a large body of people. [sidenote: local associations controlled by a few men.] in england the element of sham in the party organisations is as great as it is elsewhere. although the council of a local association is a numerous body, and gives the appearance of a highly popular institution, the association, as a whole, usually contains among its enrolled members not more than one tenth, or at most one fifth of the voters belonging to the party; and the meetings for the election of delegates to the various councils and committees are thinly attended.[ : ] the organisation is, in fact, managed, as a rule, by a few men influenced to a greater or less extent by the paid agent. they are often, especially among the liberals, tradesmen or even workingmen, who take an active interest in politics, without cherishing any parliamentary aspirations for themselves, or any political ambition unless it be for municipal office; but they like, especially if conservatives, to take for their chairman a man of higher social position. moreover, there seems to be little rivalry for the positions that give a control of the body. on the contrary, one is much more impressed in ordinary times by the efforts of an organising secretary, spurred on from above, to interest people in forming associations in unpromising districts, than by struggles for power in the most active associations. in england the stage at which public interest awakes is the election, the process of selecting the candidates arousing little attention. while, therefore, the franchise is wide, and the number of people who vote is very great, the nomination is really made by a body of men no larger than the voters in an ordinary borough before . [sidenote: possibility of their capture.] [sidenote: for personal motives.] one might suppose that under such conditions it would be easy for a small knot of adroit and persistent men, or even for a single resourceful manipulator, to capture a local association; but in normal times there is little incentive to do so. to explain fully why this is the case would anticipate much that remains to be said about the social and political traditions of england. yet some of the reasons can readily be suggested. the expense of maintaining the organisation and a seat in parliament is large, and the funds must be provided by somebody. if they are subscribed from public spirit by local men who do not want the seat themselves, those persons will naturally control the association. if they are defrayed by the candidate, or member of parliament, then under ordinary circumstances he will control so far as his own seat is concerned; and by nursing and courting the constituency, or by his political reputation, he will probably have built up a popularity among the voters which the association cannot defy. the expense limits, therefore, the class of persons who might want to capture the association in order to control the nomination to the house of commons; nor among those who could afford the cost is there much object in so doing. if, as in some other countries, nominations were confined by law or by custom to residents of the constituency, the rivalry between two or three aspirants for the honour might become intense; but in england the local man has little advantage over a stranger, and if the party association in his own place is unwilling to accept him, the expenditure of labour, time and money required to capture it would probably be much greater than would procure him a nomination elsewhere. apart from the personal privilege of sitting in the house there are no strong selfish motives for getting control of a local organisation. the member of parliament has no patronage to distribute among the men to whom he owes his seat; and although the association may lead to the town council, or even the honourable post of a justice of the peace, these are not in themselves objects of keen emulation, nor are they stepping-stones to higher things beyond. [sidenote: for political objects.] moreover, there is no object under ordinary circumstances in capturing a local association with a view to promoting a political policy; for the policy of the party is directed by the parliamentary leaders, in the cabinet or on the front opposition bench, and the local party voter has, as a rule, little sympathy for the member who weakens the party by thwarting them. there are, however, cases of deep political cleavage in the party ranks before the leaders have agreed upon a policy, when there may be the strongest incentive to capture the local organisations in order to turn the scale. the breach among the liberals over the first home rule bill was an example of that kind, and had mr. gladstone given a longer premonition of his plans there would, no doubt, have been a struggle for the control of the local liberal associations all over the country. the recent agitation for fiscal reform furnished another instance of the same kind, and a very striking one; because the conservative leader not only took no positive stand on the question, but intimated that the party could adopt no definite policy on the subject until the next election. under these conditions the attitude of the local conservative organisations became of the utmost importance, and it is said that a systematic effort was made by the members of the tariff reform league to capture them in the interest of the reform. certainly many of them showed that they held very definite opinions on the point, sometimes absolutely opposed to those of their sitting member. [sidenote: relation of an m.p. to his association.] connected with this question is another: that of the relation of a member of parliament to the association of his constituency. in the early days of the birmingham caucus, shortly after it had begun to spread over england, a case of friction between a sitting member and the local association occurred, which caused much controversy and no little alarm. the caucus was the bugbear of the day, and men feared that it was about to turn the representative into a mere instrument to register the decisions of a party machine--an anxiety heightened by the fact that the new associations were in the hands of the radical wing of the party. [sidenote: the case of mr. forster.] mr. w. e. forster, in carrying through parliament the education act of , had offended the more extreme radicals, because the act did not provide that education supported by public rates should be compulsory and free, and because, in their eyes, it treated the church schools with too much favour. although opposed by the radicals, he was reëlected for bradford in by the help of conservative votes; but in he came into collision with the liberal association which had just been formed there. one of its rules provided that any one proposed for nomination to parliament must give an assurance to the general committee that he would abide by their decision in regard to the selection of the candidate. to that condition mr. forster refused to submit, denying the right of any association to come between him and his constituents. the association insisted upon its rule, and the controversy in bradford provoked a discussion in the public press of the country. in the end the matter was compromised by changing the rule so as to read that such an assurance "may be required" instead of "shall be required," and mr. forster allowed his name to be submitted to the general committee. he had won his point, for he had been nominated without giving the assurance; but his troubles with the association were not at an end. in he resigned from mr. gladstone's ministry because he disapproved of the so-called kilmainham treaty, and before long the quarrel broke out again, continuing until his death in .[ : ] the particular provision which gave occasion to the dispute in has not proved a permanent source of difficulty, for the local associations have not been in the habit of demanding a pledge of that kind, and on the other hand the ordinary rules of fair play require that a man who allows his name to be proposed for nomination shall abide by the decision of the body to which he submits it, unless he feels that he has been unjustly treated, or unless some important question of policy is involved. [sidenote: local pressure on members neither new nor systematic.] a much more important matter is the control exerted by the local party association over its representative in the house of commons, whether by urging him to take a particular line of action, by refusing a renomination, or even by the more drastic measure of requesting his resignation in case he fails to comply with its opinion. mr. ostrogorski lays great stress upon the quarrel in between the liberal association in newcastle and mr. joseph cowen, who had taken a highly independent attitude in parliament, and had not given a consistent support to the liberal cabinet.[ : ] no one would assert that an association, any more than an individual voter, is bound to support a candidate of whose views and conduct in public affairs it seriously disapproves, because he is an estimable person. yet this was very nearly the relation of mr. cowen to the local association. voters and organisations must consider the opinions as well as the personality of the candidate, and this they may well do without reducing him to a mere mouthpiece of their wishes. but in order to determine the real import of an attempt to fetter the independence of a member of parliament, one must consider how far it introduced a new practice into english politics, and for what purposes the claim of the association to call the member to account has been used. the question whether a member of parliament is the agent of his constituents, morally bound to carry out their wishes, or whether he is to act solely according to his own opinion of the interest of the whole kingdom, is as old as burke's famous discussion with the electors of bristol. the latter view always has been, and still is, the prevailing one in theory; but the charge that the representatives have become mere delegates has been constantly cropping up. in , for example, very nearly at the high-water mark of independence in parliament, and long before the party machine had been thought of, there were complaints about the thraldom of members to their constituents.[ : ] a member must always have been more or less in bondage in the proprietary boroughs, and this continued in some places after the first reform act. as late as sir stafford northcote gave up his seat for dudley because he found that he practically represented lord ward.[ : ] the exercise of control over their member by influential constituents is, therefore, not a new thing, and the advent of the modern party associations has not, as men feared, developed it into a system. no doubt the liberal caucus in the days of its youth tried to bring an organised pressure to bear upon the members,[ : ] but this has diminished rather than increased of late years. [sidenote: the question when a member ought to resign.] the question under what circumstances a member ought to resign his seat is one which always has been, and always will be, perplexing. the doctrine that he must resign simply because the local party association asks him to do so can be confidently asserted to have made little or no headway in either of the two great parties. but that a member who has pledged himself expressly or tacitly to the support of a certain policy, and then changes his mind, may, in some cases, be bound in honour to go back to his constituents, would hardly be denied. whether such an obligation has arisen or not must depend upon the circumstances, and upon the definiteness and importance of the pledge or understanding. when peel decided to bring in the bill for catholic emancipation, to which he had previously been openly opposed, he felt constrained to resign his seat for oxford, and was defeated for reëlection to his great grief;[ : ] but he did not feel under a similar duty when converted to the repeal of the corn laws, and was reproached on that account by disraeli.[ : ] a candidate who seeks election as a member of a party, or as a supporter of a cabinet, may well be considered to have given a general pledge to remain in the party or to support that cabinet, so that if he ceases entirely to do so he may be bound to resign. this is the form in which the question has arisen of late between members and local associations, but both obligation and actual practice are as unsettled to-day as similar questions have been in the past. when the south african war broke out a few members on the government side of the house felt unable to support the cabinet on that question. one of them, sir edward clarke, who sat for plymouth, was requested by the conservative association of the borough to resign, and did so,[ : ] provoking comment favourable and otherwise. the same action was proposed in the case of mr. (now lord) courtney; but he took the ground that as a liberal unionist he had professed to support the cabinet only on the issue of home rule, and had caused his independence upon other matters to be clearly understood. the motion to request his resignation was defeated in the liberal unionist association of his constituency,[ : ] but he was not renominated at the next general election. in the same parliament mr. (now sir) george doughty, who, for other reasons, crossed the floor from the liberal to the government side, resigned his seat at great grimsby, and was reëlected by an increased majority. while in the following parliament sir michael foster and mr. winston churchill crossed in the opposite direction, without feeling bound to resign. the former, representing a university, had, indeed, stated at the election that he was by no means a strict party man, and retained his seat after a good deal of reflection.[ : ] other cases of a radical change of policy could be cited, but these are enough to show that local party organisations have not fastened on their members chains that can be used with certainty to withdraw them from their seats even in so strong a case as an open breach with their party. [sidenote: refusal to renominate.] the refusal of support for reëlection, by men of decisive influence in a constituency, on the ground that they cannot approve the course pursued by their representative, is a thing that must always happen; although it did not take the form of withholding a nomination by a party association until bodies of that kind came into being. a refusal made by powerful individuals was not less effective because they were not styled a representative committee. but such refusals, by whomsoever made, have always been rare. nothing, indeed, impresses a foreign observer of british politics more than the universal recognition of the claim of a sitting member to renomination. so far as his own party is concerned his tenure of office is good behaviour, and at the present day the local association very seldom fails to renominate him, save in two cases; one where his course of action has been nearly tantamount to a change of party, a going over to the enemy; the other where the party itself is deeply cleft over a vital question on which the leaders have given an uncertain sound. this last was true in the general election of , when several of the local party organisations were sharply divided upon the issue of fiscal policy. [sidenote: influence of local associations used for party cohesion.] the fear that the local associations, by dictating to their member a given course of action, by requesting his resignation, or by refusing him renomination, would degrade him to the position of the delegate of a local party machine has certainly not been realised; and it is not less instructive to observe the purposes for which such influence as they possess has actually been used. a stranger might have expected that it would be employed to promote local interests. but that has not been the case. no doubt members of parliament, like all other popular representatives, are affected by the special interests of their constituents. on matters that touch these they must consider the welfare of their own locality. a measure like the agricultural rates act of , for example, which by relieving agricultural land from a part of its burden of rates, and making up the loss to the local authority from the national treasury, changed the incidence of taxation between town and country, is sure, for local reasons, to detach some members from their regular party allegiance. but with the absence of national grants for local improvements, and with the judicial procedure for private bill legislation, the occasions, outside of the dockyard towns, where distinctly local interests come into play are not numerous. moreover, in those cases the member is affected by the impression his action is likely to have upon the bulk of his constituents, or by the solicitation of a body that represents special interests, rather than by pressure from his local party association. nor does the latter, at the present day, commonly try to enforce upon him the particular views held by its managers upon matters of public policy. on the contrary such action as it takes is, and has been from the beginning, almost wholly confined to urging him to support the leaders of the party.[ : ] [sidenote: reasons for this.] that the local associations act, not on behalf of local interests or opinions, but for the cohesion of the party as a whole, is the result of many causes, and not least among them of the fact that the member is commonly not a resident of the place for which he stands. this makes it easy for him to look upon himself as a representative of the nation at large, rather than a delegate of a borough. it saves him also from parochial sympathies and prejudices; and above all it relieves him from the necessity, he would otherwise be under, of serving an apprenticeship in the local association, and coming into parliament a product of the machine. another cause is the strength of national party ties, and the greater strictness of party discipline, of which more will be said hereafter. the local associations have fallen in with this tendency, and any substantial control they have acquired over their members has been exerted to make them follow, not local wishes, but the party leaders. bagehot has remarked somewhere that the house of commons has been saved from becoming a collection of delegates from local constituencies by the spirit of deference; but at the present day it is due in even larger measure to the spirit of party. that spirit has prevented the predominance of local interests which is the curse of many legislative bodies. footnotes: [ : ] ostrogorski, i., - . [ : ] ostrogorski, i., - , - . t. w. reid, "life of william edward forster," i., - ; ii., - , - , - , , , - . [ : ] i., - . [ : ] _cf._ jephson, "the platform," ii., - . [ : ] lang, "life of sir stafford northcote," i., - . [ : ] _cf._ ostrogorski, i., - , and see ch. xxix., _infra._ [ : ] parker, "life of sir robert peel," ii., , - . [ : ] "to the opinions which i have expressed in this house in favour of protection, i adhere. they sent me to this house, and if i had relinquished them, i should have relinquished my seat also." hans. ser. lxxxiii., . [ : ] _the times_, feb. , . [ : ] _ibid._, feb. and , march and , . [ : ] _ibid._, nov. , , jan. , , , , , , , , . [ : ] occasionally some local interest is touched by an administrative act or order, and the member for the place exerts himself to get the grievance redressed; but except, perhaps, for asking a question in the house this hardly affects his attitude in parliament, and the fact that he belongs to one party or the other has little or no weight with the administrative departments. chapter xxix the rise and fall of the caucus _the liberals_ [sidenote: the conference at birmingham in may, .] not content with creating local associations of liberals on a democratic basis, the radicals at birmingham conceived the idea of uniting them together in a great national federation which should represent the whole party throughout the kingdom. the tories had formed, some years earlier, the national union of conservative associations, and their great victory of , attributed largely to better organisation, had made the time ripe for a more vigorous combination on the liberal side. moreover, the new associations framed on the birmingham pattern had already shown the possibility of concerted action on national questions; for they had held simultaneously a large number of indignation meetings to denounce the bulgarian atrocities. in may, , therefore, they were invited to send delegates to a conference at birmingham to form a national party organisation. the call for the meeting contained a clear statement of its purpose. "the essential feature of the proposed federation," it declared, "is the principle which must henceforth govern the action of liberals as a political party--namely, the direct participation of all members of the party in the direction, and in the selection of those particular measures of reform and of progress to which priority shall be given. this object can be secured only by the organisation of the party upon a representative basis."[ : ] [sidenote: proceedings thereat.] the conference was attended by delegates from ninety-five local associations, and mr. chamberlain, who had entered parliament the year before, was called to the chair. in his opening speech he propounded with even greater distinctness the object of the plan. "we hope," he said, "that the time is not distant when we may see a meeting of what will be a really liberal parliament, outside the imperial legislature, and, unlike it, elected by universal suffrage, and with some regard for a fair distribution of political power." after speaking of the need of trusting to the popular initiative in framing the immediate policy of the party, he continued: "our association will be founded on the belief that the liberals in the country are more united than their leaders, and that they have attained a pretty clear conception of what are the changes in our constitution which they believe will be beneficial to the country; that we may obtain their adoption by a little gentle pressure which concerted action may enable us to bring to bear, and that in this way we may exert a great influence on the future policy of the liberal party." in the ensuing debates the same point of view was emphasised by mr. william harris, the founder of the liberal "four hundred" in birmingham, who declared that "the enfranchisement of the great mass of the people in towns had given the power of controlling representation into the hands of the people, but the direction of the policy of the party, the inauguration of measures to be submitted to parliament, and the determination of questions on which the people should be asked to agitate, had been confined to the people who had managed the liberal party; and it was, no doubt, the dissatisfaction of the liberals with this state of things which led to the inaction of the liberal party at the last election. . . . to find a remedy for this state of things was the object they invited the representatives present to consider that morning. . . . why should they not at once and for all form a federation which, by collecting together the opinions of the majority of the people in all the great centres of political activity, should be able to speak on whatever questions arose with the full authority of the national voice." the chief business of the conference was the adoption--without amendment--of the constitution which had been prepared beforehand. mr. chamberlain was then elected president of the federation with great enthusiasm. a number of vice-presidents were taken from other towns; but the treasurer and honorary secretary were also citizens of birmingham, while mr. schnadhorst, the great organiser, whose hand had been at work throughout the movement, became at once the active secretary. in short, all the offices of any real importance were retained in the town that had given birth to the federation and was to control its movements for some years to come. [sidenote: mr. gladstone's benediction.] [sidenote: aim of the federation.] the makers of the federation had taken pains to secure for their plan the sanction of mr. gladstone, whose name, in spite of his resignation of the liberal leadership, carried more weight than that of any one else in the party. he was present in birmingham on the day of the conference, and in the evening addressed a public meeting. after stating that, in point of organisation, the conservatives had for years been ahead, and would remain ahead so long as the liberals adhered like them to a method of arbitrary selection of the representatives of party, founded mainly upon the power of the purse, he declared that it was, in his opinion, to the honour of birmingham that she had "held up the banner of a wider and of a holier principle"; and he rejoiced that the large attendance of representatives of constituencies showed a disposition to adopt this admirable principle. thus he gave the new organisation his blessing and bade it god-speed.[ : ] the public meeting ended with a resolution moved by mr. chamberlain, and adopted unanimously, which put into formal terms the aim of the movement, already so clearly set forth in debate. it said that, as the opinion of the people should have a full and direct expression in framing and supporting the policy of the liberal party, this meeting heartily approves of the proposal of a federation of liberal associations. in short, it was made perfectly evident at every step in the genesis of the federation, in the call for a conference, in the speeches made thereat, and in the final resolution which closed the proceedings, that the new organisation was intended to take an important, and perhaps the leading, hand in directing the policy of the party. it was expected to be, as mr. chamberlain expressed it, a liberal parliament outside the imperial legislature; not, indeed, doing the work of that body, but arranging what work it should do, or rather what work the liberal members should bring before it, and what attitude they should assume. by this process the initiative on all the greater issues, so far as the liberal party was concerned, would be largely transferred from the treasury bench to the federation. this was, indeed, expressly stated by some of the speakers as their principal desire, and with such an avowed object it is not surprising that the new machine for the manufacture of liberal policy should have been popularly called the caucus. [sidenote: its constitution.] [sidenote: the council.] the constitution adopted at the conference provided for a great representative assembly of the federation, called the council, composed entirely of delegates from the local associations, roughly in proportion to the population of their towns or districts. if the population was under fifty thousand the association was entitled to five representatives; if between fifty and one hundred thousand to ten; and if larger still to twenty representatives. the council was to hold an annual meeting at which the president, vice-president, treasurer, and honorary secretary, were to be elected. special meetings could also be called by the officers. each annual meeting was to decide upon the place at which the next should be held, and in order to awake enthusiasm for the party all over the country it has been the habit, from that day to this, to hold the annual meeting at one after another of the chief provincial towns. [sidenote: the general committee.] the constitution set up one other body, partly but not wholly representative in character. it was called the general committee, and consisted of the officers of the federation; of delegates from the associations, two in number if the town or district had less than fifty thousand people, three if it had between fifty and one hundred, five if it had over one hundred thousand; and finally of not more than twenty-five additional members chosen by the committee itself. the principal functions of the committee were: to aid in the formation of local associations based on popular representation (no others being admitted to membership in the federation); and to submit to the associations political questions upon which united action might be considered desirable. unlike the council, which was to visit different places, the general committee was to meet in birmingham until it decided otherwise. it was empowered to elect its own chairman, and it chose mr. william harris of that town, the father of the first representative association established there in . [sidenote: the federation begins actively.] the federation does not seem at first to have been universally attractive, even to the local associations formed after the birmingham pattern, for it was joined at the outset by only about half as many of them as had sent delegates to the conference. but by january, , when the first meeting of the council was held at leeds, the number had risen to one hundred and one. in its report at that meeting the general committee showed that it had been very active. it had held no less than five sessions, and on the subject of the eastern question it had stirred up many public meetings, and had organised a great deputation of local delegates to the liberal leaders in the two houses of parliament. the committee believed that its labours had not been fruitless, for the report said: "in regulating the action of the liberal party, both in and out of parliament, in bringing about closer union between leaders and followers . . . the efforts of the federation resulted in a great and important measure of success. . . . but for the liberal action, largely stimulated and guided by the federated liberal associations, we should unquestionably have been at war with russia." mr. chamberlain in his presidential address at the meeting of the council at leeds, speaking of any possible attempt to avoid a programme of domestic policy, when the liberals again came to power, remarked: "i think we shall be justified in saying to lord hartington[ : ] that concession is a virtue that gains by being reciprocal." at this time the radicals and the whigs, or liberals of the older type, still formed mutually distrustful wings of the party, and the federation was the organ of the former. in its regular session the council passed no vote on public policy; but, at the public meeting in the evening, resolutions were adopted against the foreign policy of the conservative government, and in favour of peace, retrenchment, and reform. at the meeting at darlington in the following year a similar course was followed. clearly the federation was taking very seriously its mission as a spur to the liberal steed; but equally clearly it was not as yet seeking to act as a parliament outside of the imperial legislature, and the centre of gravity was at this time not in the council, but in the general committee. [sidenote: mr. chamberlain enters the cabinet.] before the third meeting of the council took place in january, , an event had occurred that changed essentially the attitude of the federation. the general election of had placed the liberals in office with mr. gladstone at their head, and mr. chamberlain had been given a seat in the cabinet. it is commonly stated that his connection with the federation was not the cause of his selection, and this is no doubt perfectly true in the sense that it was not the direct reason for offering him the seat. it is, indeed, well known that the choice lay between him and sir charles dilke.[ : ] but as mr. chamberlain had sat less than four years in parliament, and had never been in the ministry, it can hardly be denied that his position at the head of the new liberal organisation, which had attracted so much attention throughout the country, was one of the factors in the political prominence that brought him within reach of the cabinet. his new office necessarily brought a change in his relation to the federation. it was obviously unfitting for him to remain the chief officer of a body that might be used to bring pressure to bear upon parliament and even upon his colleagues. he therefore resigned the post of president, and was succeeded by his friend and fellow-citizen mr. jesse collings;[ : ] but he continued until the liberal split in to make the principal speech at the evening public meeting held in connection with the annual session of the council. [sidenote: the federation begins to act as an outside parliament.] the federation lost none of its momentum from the change of ministry. on the contrary its activity increased, and in fact it began at this time to try its hand at framing a programme for the party in a rudimentary way. at its meeting in birmingham in january, , the council passed, among other resolutions, one that urged upon the government the need of dealing at the earliest possible moment with various reforms, such as the amendment of the land laws, the extension of the franchise in rural districts, the redistribution of seats, and the creation of representative institutions in the counties. similar resolutions were passed at the next annual meeting, which took place at liverpool in october of the same year. [sidenote: it puts pressure upon members of parliament.] meanwhile the activity of the general committee about current political questions continued; especially in the form of inciting local associations to constrain their representatives to vote with the cabinet. the annual report to the meeting of the council at liverpool said that some liberals had been disposed to propose or support amendments which struck at the vital principle of the irish land bill, while others abstained from voting. the committee had thereupon decided that its "duty could be most properly and efficiently discharged by inviting the liberal constituencies to bring legitimate pressure to bear upon those of their representatives, who, in a great national crisis, had failed to support the government." a circular was, therefore, issued to the federated associations which excited much complaint amongst the members of parliament, but produced the desired effect.[ : ] when the bill was threatened with amendments of the house of lords a meeting of delegates was called to attack the peers. this, in the opinion of the committee, also had an effect, and helped to pass the bill.[ : ] the systematic obstruction by mr. parnell and his followers in the commons, and mr. gladstone's plan in for a new procedure which would enable the house to cut off debate, gave a fresh occasion for bringing the pressure of the federated associations to bear. a circular was sent out, and at once a large majority of them passed resolutions in support of the government's plan.[ : ] the general committee held meetings also in connection with the irish coercion act of that year, and sustained the cabinet heartily, while at the same time suggesting amendments. some of these were adopted, and as the committee complacently remarked, "the federation may thus claim the credit of having on the one hand strengthened and guided public opinion in support of measures deemed necessary for the maintenance of order; and on the other of having sought to mitigate the severity of the proposed enactments."[ : ] [sidenote: it calls a general conference of the party.] in the federation took up energetically the extension of the franchise in the counties. it called a great conference of delegates at leeds; acting on this occasion in coöperation with the national reform union of manchester and the london and counties liberal union, two rival organisations, which were, however, more local and less aggressive, and waned slowly before the greater vigour of the federation.[ : ] the delegates met two thousand strong, representing more than five hundred associations, and adopted resolutions declaring that it was the duty of the government at the next session of parliament to introduce bills to extend the county franchise and redistribute seats. another conference in scotland passed similar votes. "taken together," the general committee say in their annual report, "they represent the great bulk of the liberal party throughout great britain . . . and . . . it is not too much to expect that such an expression of opinion will exercise decisive weight with the members of the government in the arrangement of their measures." [sidenote: its claims at this time.] these examples show the attitude and the activity of the federation during the first liberal ministry that held office after its formation. it claimed to represent, or perhaps one ought to say it claimed that it would when fully developed represent and that it could immediately evoke, the opinion of the whole liberal party in the country. it was, therefore, convinced that it ought to exert a great influence upon the cabinet in the framing of measures; and it believed that it did so. there is no need of reviewing further the history of the federation during this period, for its position remained unchanged until mr. gladstone brought in his home rule bill in . but on two points the action of the council is noteworthy in connection with its subsequent career. the resolutions passed at the annual meetings began to cover a wider field. this was especially true after the downfall of the liberal government, in , when they assumed the proportions of a full programme of internal reforms.[ : ] then again amendments to the resolutions offered were moved from the floor. in , for example, an amendment in favour of woman suffrage was carried; and in another demanding local option in regulating the sale of liquor. [sidenote: the struggle over home rule.] mr. gladstone's ministry having resigned in consequence of a defeat on the budget, the conservatives came to power in june, , and the general election at the end of the year, with the political upheavals to which it gave rise, proved a turning-point in the history of the caucus. the election left both parties without a working majority; for the conservatives and home rulers together almost exactly balanced the liberals. in january the conservatives were beaten on the address with the help of irish votes, and mr. gladstone, returning to office, prepared a bill for a separate parliament in ireland. some members of the moderate wing of the party had already left him during the debate on the address; and in march, while the home rule bill and its complement, the irish land bill, were under discussion in the cabinet, several of the ministers, including mr. chamberlain, resigned, one of their chief stumbling blocks being the exclusion of irish representatives from the house of commons. a struggle began at once for the control of the national liberal federation. on one side stood mr. gladstone with his cabinet, the official leaders of the party; on the other mr. chamberlain, hitherto the hero and idol of the caucus, which he had nurtured and made great, which had treated him as its special representative in the cabinet, and had passed each year a vote to welcome him when he came to make his speech. he had declared in parliament not long before that he was not the caucus,[ : ] but it certainly expressed his views, and he fought its battles. during the late election he had made the country ring with appeals for the reforms advocated in its programme, especially the demand for labourers' allotments, embodied in the cry for "three acres and a cow." the caucus was the weapon of the radical wing of the party, while he was the greatest radical champion, and although kitson, the president of the federation, was against him, the majority of the officers were on his side, among them william harris, the founder of popular party organisation in birmingham and still the chairman of the general committee. [sidenote: mr. chamberlain is defeated in the council;] on april , two days before mr. gladstone brought in the home rule bill, the officers sent a circular to the federated associations asking them to consider the proposals of the government, as soon as they were made known, with a view to an expression of opinion by the liberal party. a special meeting of the council was then summoned to meet in london on may . there mr. harris moved a resolution drawn up by the officers, and expressing mr. chamberlain's ideas. it approved of giving the people of ireland a large control over their own affairs by means of a legislative assembly; but, while declaring the confidence of the council in mr. gladstone, requested him to amend his bill by retaining the irish representatives at westminster. the resolution was met by an amendment moved by the followers of the prime minister, commending the home rule bill, thanking him for it, and assuring him of support in the present crisis. after a long and eager discussion the amendment was carried by an overwhelming majority. [sidenote: and withdraws from the federation.] the result, so far as the federation was concerned, was decisive. six members of the general committee, including mr. harris,[ : ] thereupon resigned; and several influential public men, among them mr. chamberlain, withdrew from the organisation. but the mass of the people think on broad lines, delight in strong contrasts easily understood, and have little sympathy with a half-way group that stands between the two opposing parties in the state. hence like the peelites in , and the free trade conservatives in , the liberal unionists in were a body in which the members of parliament were many and their following in the country comparatively few. the personal secessions from the federation were not numerous, and not a single local association left the fold.[ : ] but the break soon became incurable. the opponents of the home rule bill ceased to be regarded by their former companions in arms as members of the party, and were constrained to leave the liberal associations;[ : ] while mr. chamberlain in conjunction not only with his radical friends, but with all the liberals who could not follow mr. gladstone's irish policy, including even lord hartington and the whigs, founded a new organisation upon the old model, called the liberal unionist association. [sidenote: new position of the federation.] the national liberal federation did not save mr. gladstone and his adherents from defeat at the general election of ; but they had obtained control of the organisation, and must find out what to do with it. if a power, it had also been a source of anxiety, and under the wrong management it might again be used to put pressure on the members of parliament, and even on the leaders themselves. it was useful and must be cajoled; but it was also dangerous and must be kept in check. like a colt, it must be treated kindly, but must be broken to harness, and above all the reins must not be allowed to get into strange hands lest it learn bad tricks. [sidenote: removal to london.] obviously the offices of the federation could remain no longer at birmingham, because in spite of the loss of his organisation mr. chamberlain still controlled the city so completely that his candidates carried every seat there at the election of . the offices were, therefore, moved to london, where they were established in the same building with the liberal central association--the body that acts in conjunction with the party whips--and what is more, m. schnadhorst, the paid secretary of the federation, who had taken mr. gladstone's side at the time of the split, was also appointed honorary secretary of the association. this arrangement, which lasted until he retired in , and has continued ever since under his successor mr. hudson, was not mentioned at the time in the printed reports of the general committee, but its effects in bringing the leaders of the party into close touch with the management of the federation can readily be imagined. another link of the same kind was soon made. the general committee had always been in the habit of distributing political literature, and in a publication department was created under the direction of a joint committee consisting of two representatives of the central association, and two of the federation.[ : ] all these changes brought the federation nearer to the party chiefs, and gave it also a more national stamp. [sidenote: the federation broadened.] at the same time the constitution was slightly modified. the principal changes adopted in were: making the representation on the council more nearly proportional to population; giving to each association for a whole constituency three votes in the general committee, and to all others one vote apiece without regard to size; and lastly providing for district federations, especially for wales, the home counties and london, which should be represented as separate organisations upon the governing bodies. the object of these changes appears to have been to make the federation attractive to all liberals throughout the country, for it had hitherto been regarded as preëminently an instrument of the radical wing of the party, and many local associations had held aloof. the managers now tried to induce them to join in order to make the federation as fully representative of the whole party as possible. in this they were successful in a high degree, as may be seen from the fact that the federated associations, which numbered in , before the split over home rule, only two hundred and fifty-five, rose in two years to seven hundred and sixteen.[ : ] in carrying out this object there was no need of opening the door to local associations not framed upon a popular and representative basis, because societies of that kind had already been entirely superseded.[ : ] [sidenote: relation to the party leaders.] when the federation, breaking away from mr. chamberlain, chose the side of mr. gladstone, the leaders of the party took it at once under their patronage, and began to show a keen interest in its proceedings. not only did mr. gladstone address almost every year a great public meeting held in the evening during the session of the council, as mr. chamberlain had been in the habit of doing before ; but other leaders of the party attended the meetings of the council itself, and former cabinet ministers made speeches there in moving, seconding or supporting the resolutions. this practice magnified the apparent importance of the federation, and lasted until the liberals came into office again in . [sidenote: resolution of the council] [sidenote: the nottingham programme.] meanwhile the council, meeting as before in one after another of the great provincial towns, continued to adopt a series of resolutions setting forth the policy of the liberal party. the embarrassment that might come from this in the future was not fully perceived at the time, and there was at first no attempt to discourage it. in fact a statement of the objects of the federation published with the new rules in repeated the words originally written ten years earlier: "the essential feature of the federation is the participation of all members of the party in the formation and direction of its policy, and in the selection of those particular measures of reform and progress to which priority shall be given."[ : ] the resolutions became, in fact, more and more comprehensive, because the council was naturally in the habit each year of reaffirming its previous votes about internal reforms, and adding new ones, the older expressions of opinion being after a while condensed into what was known as the "omnibus resolution." at the meeting held at nottingham in a series of resolutions were adopted condemning coercion, urging home rule, the principle of one man one vote, registration reform, disestablishment of the church in wales, and the need of reform in the land laws, in labourers' allotments, county government, local option, london municipal government, and free education. the resolutions were talked about as a programme for the party, and the managers began to see that a danger was involved, but apparently as yet only the danger of splitting the party. the general committee, therefore, in its next annual report, after speaking of the influence exerted by the federation, remarked: "a force so great and so overwhelming requires to be directed with the utmost care and judgment, and your committee asks for the support of the federated associations in applying it only to questions of a practical character, with regard to which there is a general consensus of opinion in the party. . . . much has been said and written of the nottingham programme. neither the resolutions submitted at nottingham, nor the resolutions which are submitted at the present meetings of the council, are intended to constitute a political programme. the resolutions which were submitted last year, and those which will be submitted this year, refer to subjects upon which there is a general consensus of opinion in the liberal ranks. every question added which is not thus approved tends to divide and to weaken the party."[ : ] [sidenote: amendments ruled out of order.] the principle that resolutions on which there was not a general consensus of opinion ought not to be adopted by the council was given a very definite application at that meeting. a motion stood upon the agenda in favour of one man one vote, and the payment out of the public rates of returning officers' expenses. the president, sir james kitson, stated that a delegate wished to add the question of the payment of members, but he must rule that it should be sent up by one of the federated associations with a request for inclusion in next year's programme. as the agenda was prepared by the general committee, the action of the president was in effect a ruling that a question not placed by that committee upon the paper could not be proposed from the floor. a little later in the meeting he took the same position when a member wanted to bring forward the grievances of the scotch crofters.[ : ] the ruling was a complete innovation, for amendments of a similar character had not only been adopted by the council in former years, in and , for example; but in the great struggle for the control of the federation in , the defeat of mr. chamberlain had been brought about by an amendment in favour of the home rule bill, which was carried in the council by a large majority. the conditions, however, had changed. a freedom of making motions that was harmless when the federation contained only one extreme wing of the liberals, became a very different thing when it comprised all the elements in their ranks, and the ruling was now essential if motions were not to be made that might divide or weaken the party. it was repeated the next year when a delegate sought to add to the omnibus resolution a rider on the question of the eight-hour day;[ : ] and it was confirmed by the new president, dr. spence watson, in .[ : ] in fact, dr. watson in his opening address at the meeting explained that in his opinion the exclusion of any alteration or amendment of the resolutions submitted to the council arose from the very nature of the case;[ : ] and thereafter the rule was firmly established in the proceedings of the body. three matters, however, deserve a brief notice in this connection. first, the rule has never been applied to the general committee. at its meetings amendments may be freely moved and carried; but then the general committee has power merely to discuss public questions, not to express definitely the opinion of the party.[ : ] second, the rule in the council would seem to apply only to amendments that may provoke a difference of opinion. at the meeting of , for example, immediately after the eight-hour day amendment had been ruled out of order, another declaring "that welsh disestablishment and disendowment should be dealt with as soon as irish home rule is attained," was adopted, without objection from the president, with the unanimous approval of the meeting.[ : ] third, the rule in the council applies only to resolutions affecting the liberal programme. it has not been applied to such a matter as a revision of the rules of the federation, and in and several motions to amend proposals relating to the rules were made, and one of them, which occasioned a count of votes, was carried by a narrow majority.[ : ] [sidenote: resolutions and speakers cut and dried.] with no questions submitted, save those on which there was believed to be a general consensus of opinion in the liberal ranks, and no amendments allowed, serious dissent about the adoption of the resolutions never occurred. nor was there much real discussion. in accordance with a common english custom an agenda paper was distributed before the meeting, which contained not only a list of the resolutions to be brought forward, but also the names of the proposer, the seconder, and sometimes a third or fourth man who would support each of them. now these persons were expected to make speeches long enough to fill together nearly the whole of the sitting; and hence the other delegates, although at liberty to take part, did not often feel inclined to make, upon an unopposed resolution, remarks that in the presence of one or two thousand people must be in the nature of an harangue. as a rule, therefore, the proceedings followed closely the agenda; a resolution was proposed, seconded, and supported as had been arranged, and was then carried unanimously. under such conditions the duty of preparing the resolutions for the council, by drawing up the agenda, was of prime importance. if the federation was no longer used, as in the days when it was guided from birmingham, to press forward a policy upon which all liberals were not agreed, it might now be supposed to speak with a more authoritative voice on behalf of the whole party; and while its votes were passed by common consent, the right to select the questions which should be presented for general acceptance conferred no small power. nominally this function was intrusted to the general committee, but that body, which was far too large for such a task, had been in the habit of delegating the preliminary work to a few of its own members under the title of the general purposes committee,[ : ] and in amendments to the rules of the federation were proposed chiefly in order to confer the power definitely upon the smaller body. they provided that the general purposes committee should consist of the officers of the federation, and of not more than twenty other members elected by the general committee; that it should prepare the business for meetings of the council, and generally carry on the affairs of the federation. although the change involved a concentration of power it was adopted at the time without opposition,[ : ] but was the cause of heart-burning at a later date. [sidenote: the process of preparing resolutions.] in his opening speech the next year the president explained the functions of the council. "from the earliest time," he said, "it has been the practice and the rule of these meetings to make certain declarations. some of us think those declarations are a little too numerous already. some of us are afraid that the declarations partake somewhat of the character of a programme. some of us look back to the good old time when we took up one burning question and fought it, and fought it until we carried it into law. in the first place this is a business meeting for the purpose of receiving the report. in the second place it has come to be a meeting for making certain declarations. it is not--and i wish to be particularly clear upon this point--for the discussion of subjects. but you will say 'the national liberal federation not to discuss subjects!' certainly it can, and certainly it does. it does not discuss them at the annual meeting. it does discuss them at the general committee meetings, and at the conferences held from time to time.[ : ] great dissatisfaction is found with the fact that there are rules affecting the federation. no federation, no society of any kind, could ever exist without rules. there must be absolute rules of procedure, and one of the rules of the proceedings of these meetings has been that beforehand the general purposes committee sends out to every association which is federated--between and --to ascertain what the wishes of that association may be. from the replies it receives, from prior resolutions, from the business which has been transacted at the general committee meetings of the federation and at the conferences, the general purposes committee prepares the resolutions which are submitted, and those resolutions are either accepted or rejected. they are not altered or amended. that arises from the very nature of the case. . . . it is absolutely impossible to discuss questions in which great numbers of men take a great interest and hold different views in a gathering of this character. the first discussion must take place in the individual associations. the individual associations must send up their delegates to our general committee meetings and conferences, and the matter must be threshed out there, and there must be clear evidence as to the question having received general acceptance before it comes to a meeting of this kind." then, after referring to the question of an eight-hour day, about which the associations showed a wide difference of opinion, he added: "do you think we wish to stifle discussion? why, discussion is the very life-blood of liberalism. we long for discussion of all questions. we wish to have further discussion of this question, a discussion searching out to the very bottom of the matter. we don't want a hap-hazard discussion in a great meeting where it is absolutely impossible that men can give their real opinions, can argue the question out, and go down to the roots of the matter."[ : ] [sidenote: contrast with the original plan.] it would be difficult to express more forcibly the change that had come over the federation, in the functions, and still more in the aims, of the council meetings. according to the original plan the federation was to be a true liberal parliament outside the imperial legislature; and it was a far cry from that conception to a body voting, without amendment or real debate, ratifications of measures prearranged by a small committee, and found by previous inquiry to express the universal sentiment of the party. if the federation, with its general purposes committee, its general committee and its council, still remained a shadow of a liberal parliament, it was one somewhat after the model of napoleon's legislature with its council of state, its tribunate, and its legislative assembly, where one body prepared the laws, another debated, and a third voted them.[ : ] [sidenote: the newcastle programme.] as the general purposes committee placed upon the agenda for the council only resolutions on which the party was believed to be united, it is not strange that they were invariably carried, and almost always with substantial unanimity. the surprising thing is the number of questions on which the whole body of liberals appeared to agree; but it must be remembered that the party was in opposition, so that neither the leaders, nor any one else, could make any effort at present to put into effect the resolutions that had been voted. they expressed merely aspirations, and the impulse of every one was to assent to any proposal for a reform to which he had no fixed objection. this was the more true because all assemblies of that kind are attended most largely by the ardent or advanced members of the organisation, the more moderate elements caring far less to be present. the resolutions, therefore, increased until they reached high-water mark at the very meeting of ,[ : ] where dr. spence watson in his opening address said he thought them too numerous already. from the town where the council met that year the resolutions became known as the "newcastle programme." at the evening meeting mr. gladstone took up, one after another, most of the subjects included therein, and dwelt upon the importance of each of them; but before doing so he remarked that when the liberals came to power they would want the additional virtue of patience, because with the surfeit of work to be done it would be difficult to choose proper subjects of immediate attention.[ : ] the virtue of patience was needed very soon. the council had met at newcastle in october, . owing to a change in the date of meeting, it was not called together again until january, ; and in the meanwhile a liberal ministry had come into office. the council took up no new questions, and passed a single modest resolution relating to the party policy, saying "that this council confirms the series of resolutions known as 'the newcastle programme,' and confidently expects that mr. gladstone's government will promptly introduce into the house of commons bills embodying reforms which have been declared again and again by this council to be essential to the welfare of the people of the united kingdom."[ : ] as the reforms contained in the newcastle programme could hardly have been embodied in statutes in less than ten years by a cabinet with a large and homogeneous majority, the demand that bills upon all those subjects should be promptly introduced by a ministry with a very narrow majority, and depending for its life upon the support of irish votes, showed the need of patience rather than its presence. in fact most of the speakers at the meeting emphasised the reforms in which they were especially interested, and the rest urged the importance of the whole array. [sidenote: its effects.] the wealth of the programme speedily caused embarrassment to the leaders of the party. home rule, as every one admitted, was entitled to the first place; but after that had been put on the shelf by the house of lords difficulties arose, for the liberals in the house of commons were not all of one mind. some of them were more interested in one reform, some in another, and each had an equal right to feel that his subject had been accepted as an essential part of the liberal policy deserving immediate attention. people said that the traditional division into parties was passing away, that the parties were falling apart into groups, like those in continental legislatures. the assertion was frequently repeated, although it was disproved by the constancy with which the ministers were supported by their followers in a house of commons where the defection of a dozen members at any moment would have turned the scale. month after month the whips came regularly to the table with their slight margin of liberal votes. in fact the government defeats on minor matters were less frequent than in mr. gladstone's previous administration; and no defeat on a question of political importance occurred until june, , when it was accomplished by the trick of bringing conservatives secretly into the house through the terrace. after that defeat the ministers resigned, not because their followers had ceased to vote with them, but because they were weary of a hopeless struggle. nevertheless the newcastle programme with its magnificent promises had been a source of weakness to them. it restrained their freedom of action, and forced their hands. in short, it hampered their initiative in party policy, and it caused disappointment among their followers. [sidenote: lord rosebery's criticism.] lord rosebery, who had succeeded mr. gladstone as prime minister in , felt the bad effects of the newcastle programme. at the public meeting, held when the council met in january, , he spoke of the function of the federation in threshing out the issues lying before the party, and that of the cabinet in winnowing them, selecting from a vast field the bills to be brought forward in the session. "now, this programme," he went on, "as it stands now, without any addition, would require many energetic years in which a strong government, supported by a united and powerful liberal party, would have to do their best to carry into effect (_sic_). but what is sometimes forgotten is this--that we cannot pass all the measures of this programme simultaneously. . . . whilst this process of winnowing is going on, all cabinet ministers are subject to a bombardment of correspondence . . . by appeals, some of them menacing, some of them coaxing and cajoling, but all of them extremely earnest, and praying that the particular hobby of the writer shall be made the first government bill. . . . any delay in pushing forward each measure that has been recorded in what is called the newcastle programme implies, we are told, the alienation of all the earnest and thoughtful members of the liberal party--in fact, the backbone of the liberal party. and i have come to the conclusion that the liberal party is extremely rich in backbones."[ : ] at the public meeting in the following year, after the fall of his government, he spoke even more plainly. he said there had been complaint that officialdom had crept into the national liberal federation. his own experience was that it played a very subordinate part there, and if he had a secret hope on the subject, it was that officialdom might have a little more to do with the organisation. "i remember two occasions on which the national liberal federation took the bit between its teeth and, certainly uninspired by officialdom, took very remarkable action. the first occasion was when it made at newcastle a programme, a very celebrated expression of faith which, i confess, was in my opinion too long for practical purposes."[ : ] later in alluding to the fall of his ministry he asked: "why did it fall? it fell because, with a chivalrous sense of honour too rare in politics, and with inadequate means, it determined to fulfil all the pledges that it had given in opposition. it had, i think, given too many pledges--partly owing to you, dr. spence watson. it had, i think, assumed too many responsibilities, it had taken a burden too heavy for its back, or the back of any government or any parliament, to bear."[ : ] [sidenote: the programme cut down after .] the lesson of the newcastle programme had not been in vain. already in the "omnibus resolution," which, by way of comprehensive reform, threatened the interests of the landlord, the manufacturer, the mine owner, the church, and the house of lords, had been omitted, although most of the matters covered by it were made the subject of special votes. the next year the programme was left out altogether. apart from resolutions criticising the conservative government for its foreign policy in armenia and egypt, and stating on what terms an education bill ought to be based, the only vote dealing with the policy of the liberal party declared simply, "that this council reaffirms its adherence to the principles for which the federation has always contended," a confession of faith not likely to cause acute discomfort to a future cabinet. as the years went by the pressure for specific reforms was too strong to be resisted, and resolutions dealing with them were adopted; but they have never again reached anything resembling the range, the well-nigh revolutionary proportions, or the suicidal capacity, of the newcastle programme. [sidenote: complaints that the whips control the federation.] a political, like a military, defeat is apt to cause mutual recriminations. if lord rosebery lamented that the leaders in parliament had been overburdened by the programme of the federation, there were radicals aggrieved by the control which, in their opinion, the leaders, acting through the whips and the liberal central association, had acquired over the federation. the complaints were so loud, and so much discussed in the press, that dr. spence watson felt constrained to deal with them in his presidential address. the charge was that by having the same quarters, and the same secretary (mr. hudson) the federation had been fused with and merged into the central association. this, he insisted, was absolutely incorrect, the two organisations having duties which lay quite apart one from the other; and he defended the existing connection between them as a good business arrangement, which had resulted in much better work.[ : ] the charge in another form was that the general purposes committee, in preparing the resolutions for the council, was swayed by the whips by means of mr. hudson. of this he said: "we are told that the resolutions are not genuine; that they are forced upon us by the whips through the secretary, mr. hudson. no man admires the work of mr. hudson more than i do, because no man sees more of his work. i think mr. hudson, if he were so disposed, which i imagine is very far from his disposition, would find it very difficult to impose the will of the whips upon us. we are not exactly the men to be dealt with in that way. now, gentlemen, i wish to put this quite plainly. there is not a grain of truth in it. i have written down these words because i wish to be precise. i assert that not a single resolution has ever, at all events since , been suggested, hinted at, drawn, altered, or manipulated by any whip or leader whatsoever."[ : ] [sidenote: power concentrated in an executive committee in .] although the statement was no doubt true, and would perhaps continue to be true, the efficiency of the party might well depend upon having the resolutions of the council prepared by a small body of men of proved discretion, who would insert nothing embarrassing to the leaders. in view of the experience with the newcastle programme it might be wise to take even greater care in the selection of men who could understand the situation of the front bench, and to increase their powers. at a meeting of the general committee, at leeds, in december, , a vote was passed instructing the general purposes committee "to consider whether the machinery of the federation can be made more representative and democratic." democracy is a principle in whose name strange things are done; and in accordance with this vote a plan was reported for a revision of the rules, in which the principal changes proposed would strengthen the hands of the general purposes committee, renamed the executive committee. that body was directed to invite expressions of opinion from the federated associations about the subjects to be brought before the council; was confirmed in its power to frame the resolutions to be submitted;[ : ] and was given authority to decide any questions of procedure that might arise during the sessions of the council.[ : ] in order, as the general committee said in their report, to "afford an opportunity for the ventilation of views upon subjects not dealt with in the resolutions," it was provided that upon the motion to adopt the annual report "the council shall be open for the free discussion of any matter affecting the policy and principles of the liberal party." a mere chance to talk supplies a useful safety valve, without doing harm; and in this case the talk could not be followed by an expression of opinion on the part of the council, for no vote would be in order save to accept, or reject, or refer back, the annual report.[ : ] the discussion would be like that in the house of commons on the motion to adjourn over easter. hitherto the action of the general committee had been entirely free, but the revised rules intrusted the executive committee with the duty of preparing the business for that body as well as for the council; not, indeed, in the same absolute way, for any federated association could propose an amendment or further resolution, provided they gave notice thereof to the secretary five days, at least, before the meeting. moreover the executive committee was given power to nominate its own members. every association had also a right to make nominations, but these were not, like those of the executive committee, circulated among the local associations before the meeting.[ : ] [sidenote: members of parliament excluded therefrom.] finally, members of parliament were declared ineligible to the executive committee. to a question why they were excluded, the chairman of the general committee "replied that it had always been considered desirable that when a man became a member of parliament he should retire from the executive, and that they should be free from all thought of outside influence."[ : ] the answer does not make it perfectly clear whether the object of the provision was to free the members of parliament from the influence of the committee, or the committee from the influence of the members. both results were in fact attained. the members of the house were left to the sole tutelage of the whips, so far as the federation was concerned, for since it had ceased altogether from the practice of stirring up local associations to bring pressure to bear upon their representatives;[ : ] and, on the other hand, the new rule removed any opportunity for a member of parliament to use, or appear to use, the committee for his own political advancement.[ : ] lord randolph churchill's doings in the national union of conservative associations--to be related in the next chapter--was still fresh in men's minds. it is, indeed, a striking fact that from the time when the liberals came to power in the leaders ceased for some years to attend even the sittings of the council, which were left wholly to the lesser lights.[ : ] one of the chiefs spoke at a public evening meeting; but they all stayed away from the council itself where business was transacted, thus depriving it of the weight that came from having its words sanctioned by the presence of the real leaders of the party. [sidenote: opposition to the changes.] during the debate on the new rules in the council,[ : ] a number of amendments were moved, which aimed at preventing the concentration of power in the hands of the general and executive committees. of this nature were motions that the executive committee should be chosen by the council; that amendments to the agenda and further resolutions might be proposed at council meetings; that the agenda should be prepared by the general, instead of the executive, committee; and that the executive committee should not have power to nominate its own members. as these amendments struck at the very root of the revision, none of them were carried, and in fact the new rules were adopted without substantial alteration. [sidenote: renewed discussion in and .] at the meeting in the following year, , the same questions were raised again. changes in the rules were proposed, similar in character to the amendments rejected in , and brought forward with the same object. they were urged on the ground that the control ought to be taken from the hands of the few and placed in the hands of the many, that at present "the whole thing was wire-pulled from the top," that the liberal party had got out of touch with the labour party, and that the associations had not so much opportunity as they ought to have to bring matters before the council. in the end the proposals were shelved by being referred to the executive committee.[ : ] the next report of the general committee treated the matter with great frankness: "the annual council meeting," we read, "must either be (_a_) an open conference for the debate of multitudinous questions about which the party has come to no agreement, or (_b_) an assembly of a declaratory character to emphasise matters upon which the party are agreed. the former function is impossible, if merely because the council may consist of more than a thousand persons sitting for less than a dozen hours. . . . it is inevitable (and there is no reason why it should not be frankly recognised) that the business of the council meeting should be more or less 'cut and dried' beforehand. . . . these resolutions are intended to inform the party leaders of the subjects in dealing with which they may rely upon the support of the party as a whole. the federation does not interfere with the time or order in which questions should be taken up. that is the province of the leaders of the party."[ : ] the report went on to discuss the occult question: who was responsible for the newcastle programme? "the federation," it said, "had steadily refused to formulate a political programme. . . . how then did the newcastle programme come into existence? no newcastle programme was ever framed by the federation or by any one connected with it." the council merely passed a number of resolutions urging reforms, all of which had been demanded at previous meetings. "but the resolutions of this particular meeting received a special significance from the fact that . . . to the surprise of every one, our great leader, mr. gladstone . . . took up _seriatim_ the resolutions which had been passed at the council meetings and gave them the weight of his direct approval. the newspapers at once spoke of the newcastle programme."[ : ] poor mr. gladstone! it seems that by taking the action of the federation too seriously, he became quite unconsciously[ : ] the unfortunate author of the newcastle programme. a few members protested vehemently in favour of the changes they had proposed in the rules, but the report of the general committee was adopted with only two dissentients; and thus the opposition to the concentration of power in the hands of a small executive body was laid to rest. but it must be observed that if the direction of the federation is in the hands of a few men, their power is exerted, not to incite, but to restrain the council, not to use it to carry through a policy of their own, but to prevent it from doing something indiscreet. [sidenote: discussion in the press.] the ill-starred newcastle programme, and the concentration of authority within the liberal organisation to which it gave rise, provoked discussion in the press as well as in the federation itself, with the contending views painted in higher colours. one can find articles written to prove that the political machine had taken the place of public opinion;[ : ] or that the federation acted at the instigation of the whips, was as much subject to the liberal government as the board of trade, and was used by the leaders to register opinions upon questions on which the party itself was divided;[ : ] or finally that the federation had become an anti-democratic juggernaut, which elevated the aristocratic elements in the party and killed enthusiasm.[ : ] opinions of this kind are exaggerated, springing from dread of the organisation, or disappointment at the results achieved. another writer tells us more calmly that the evolution of liberal policy goes through three stages: first, a free discussion in the general committee, which shows the trend if not the balance of opinion, but which does not add articles to the party programme, because the federation does not act by majorities, and all the associations may not have sent delegates to the committee; second, the adoption by the council, without amendment or real debate, of resolutions which have been found to command the assent of practically the whole party; and third, the unfettered selection by the liberal cabinet from among those resolutions, of the measures they think it best to bring before parliament.[ : ] the writer states correctly the theory of the matter; and sees clearly that although the general committee is allowed to discuss very freely and to act by majority, its decisions are not considered authoritative, while the council which speaks in the name of the party is not permitted to deal at all with questions that might arouse a serious difference of opinion. [sidenote: the general committee and council at work.] [sidenote: example in the boer war.] the actual working of the national liberal federation is well illustrated by its action in regard to the boer war, a matter on which the liberals were divided. at a meeting of the general committee in december, , a resolution was proposed, saying that there was much to deplore in the conduct of negotiations with president kruger, and that in making peace due regard must be paid to the wishes of all sections of the south african population; but avoiding carefully any statement whether the war was inevitable or not. a second clause simply praised the soldiers and expressed sympathy with the sufferers. a motion was made to add somewhat incongruously in the clause a recital that "a wise statesmanship could and should have avoided" the war, and it was carried by votes to .[ : ] but this was treated merely as the opinion of the persons present, not as binding the party; and when the agenda was prepared for the meeting of the council in the following march, the executive committee, wishing to avoid points of difference, omitted the words that had been inserted. the principal resolution relating to the war was introduced in the council by a speech in which the mover virtually threw the blame for the war upon the boers. this raised a storm of dissent, and speakers took the other side with no mild language. but an amendment could not be moved, and after the most contradictory opinions had been uttered the resolution was adopted unanimously.[ : ] the members of the general committee, therefore, expressed their views individually and collectively, but ineffectually, while in the larger assembly the members could personally declare their opinions, but the council as a whole could not. it could only pass a resolution carefully drawn so as to conceal the differences of opinion that existed. [sidenote: selection of the party leader.] at one time the federation was tempted to lay its hand on a matter even more delicate than the formulation of party policy, and that is the selection of the party leader. on dec. , , sir william harcourt's resignation of the liberal leadership in the house of commons was made public, and it so happened that the general committee met three days later. there a motion was made requesting him to reconsider his position, and another "that, in the opinion of this meeting, the question of the leadership of the liberal party should be taken into immediate consideration, and calls upon the leaders to close up their ranks." in deference, however, to a strong feeling that the motions did not come within the functions of the federation they were withdrawn;[ : ] and before the council met the liberals in the house of commons had chosen sir henry campbell-bannerman as their leader. the decision in the committee was wise, for the success of parliamentary government depends upon the fact that the leaders in the commons possess the influence required to command the support of their followers, and this can be secured only by having them selected, formally or informally, by the members of the party in parliament. a man chosen by a popular body outside might well be quite unable to lead the house. [sidenote: the federation is muzzled.] the national liberal federation has now had a history of thirty years, and it has proved very different from what it was originally intended to be. as an organisation it is highly useful to the party in many ways. it does valuable work in promoting local organisation, in distributing party literature, in collecting information, and in keeping the liberal workers throughout the country alert. even the council does good service in arousing enthusiasm, and preserving an appearance of participation by the rank and file in the management of party affairs. but as a liberal parliament outside of the imperial legislature, which directs the policy of the party, the federation is a sham. the general committee can debate and act freely, but the lack of a sufficiently representative character, and the almost invariable absence of all the leading liberals,[ : ] deprives its deliberations of any real might; while the council is effectively muzzled. its resolutions are carefully prepared so as to express no opinions on which every one does not agree, and hence they declare nothing that every one did not know already. nevertheless it involves some dangers. popular excitement on some question might force the executive committee to bring in unwise resolutions; the council itself might become roused, and by a change in the rules tear off the muzzle; and it is not inconceivable that a man with popular talents and a demagogic temperament might capture the organisation, and use it to combat the leaders and thrust himself into power. to a person unfamiliar with the hopes and fears inspired by the caucus a generation ago, a discussion of this length about a body that wields very little real power may seem like a long chapter on the snakes in iceland; but there are a couple of good reasons for treating the subject thoroughly. the very fact that the caucus was regarded as the coming form of democracy, destined to undermine the older political institutions of the nation, makes its subsequent history important, for it shows that among a highly practical people democratic theories about direct expression of the popular will yield to the exigencies of actual public life. the story of the caucus illustrates also the central conception of this book, that in the english parliamentary system leadership must be in the hands of the parliamentary leaders. we have seen this principle at work in the house of commons, and a popular organisation, in attempting to direct party policy, strove against it in vain. that the result is not an accident may be seen from the experience of the conservative party, where a similar movement, not less dramatic at times, has travelled through different paths to the same end. footnotes: [ : ] these and the following statements are taken from the official "proceedings attending the formation of the national federation of liberal associations with report of conference held in birmingham on thursday, may , ." since this chapter was written, "the national liberal federation, from its commencement to the general election of ," has been published by dr. robert spence watson, for many years its president. but although a valuable history of the organisation, and a vigorous statement of the opinions held by its leaders, the book adds little to the information that may be gathered from other sources, for the author does not take us behind the scenes. [ : ] m. ostrogorski points out very clearly how important it was for the standing of the federation to have the real liberal leader for its sponsor, and how this was possible, because he was not the nominal leader. i., . [ : ] then the liberal leader in the house of commons. the statements of what took place at these meetings are taken from the annual reports published by the federation. [ : ] morley, "life of gladstone," ii., . jeyes, "mr. chamberlain," - . [ : ] mr. collings remained president only one year, and his successors were from other towns. [ : ] rep. of , _cf._ ostrogorski, i., - . [ : ] political education had always been one of the functions of the federation, and it was in the habit of distributing party literature. in it sent out copies of two speeches by mr. chamberlain. these were, in fact, the only speeches it circulated that year. [ : ] rep. of meeting of general committee, march , ; ann. rep. to council, december, , _cf._ ostrogorski, i., - . [ : ] ann. rep. to council, december, . [ : ] _cf._ ostrogorski, i., - . [ : ] the resolutions adopted by the council in october, , related to primogeniture and entail, tenure and compensation of tenants, registration of land titles, enfranchisement of leaseholders, compulsory purchase of land for labourers, public elementary schools, election of rural governing bodies, and disestablishment of the church. [ : ] hans. ser. ccxciii., (oct. , ). [ : ] mr. harris came back a few years later and served on the executive body. [ : ] rep. of the gen. com. in . [ : ] _cf._ ostrogorski, i., , - . [ : ] rep. of , pp. , , . [ : ] rep. of , p. . [ : ] _ibid._, p. . [ : ] _ibid._, , p. . [ : ] rep. of , pp. , . [ : ] rep. of , pp. , . [ : ] _ibid._, , pp. - . [ : ] _ibid._, , pp. , . [ : ] _ibid._, p. . on other occasions he repeated the statement, adding that the practice saved the council the risk from which the union of conservative associations had suffered, of having alterations made suddenly under the magic strains of eloquence. rep. of , p. ; , p. . [ : ] as late as the general committee declared that the registration bill of the liberal government was not satisfactory and urged its amendment. rep. of . [ : ] rep. of , p. . [ : ] _ibid._, , pp. - ; rep. of , pp. - . [ : ] rep. of , p. . [ : ] _ibid._, pp. - , . [ : ] these were special conferences of delegates from the associations of the whole, or of some part, of the country. they were not infrequently held. [ : ] rep. for , pp. - . [ : ] "now whilst the council of the federation declares what the party as a whole desires, the general committee attempts by preliminary discussion to arrive at what the desires are. as the general committee examines but does not declare, the freest and fullest discussion takes place at its meetings." rep. of , p. . [ : ] rep. of , pp. - . [ : ] _ibid._, p. . [ : ] rep. of , p. . [ : ] rep. of , pp. - . [ : ] the other occasion was when it held a conference on the subject of the house of lords. [ : ] rep. of , pp. , [ : ] rep. of , pp. - . [ : ] _ibid._, p. . [ : ] the agenda was to be sent to the associations in advance of the meeting. [ : ] in the committee itself proposed at the council meeting, and carried a substitute for its own resolution. rep. of , p. . [ : ] it was so ruled. rep. of , p. . [ : ] the text of this provision was: "one month, at least, prior to the meeting of the general committee at which the executive committee is to be elected, a list of those members of the existing executive committee who offer themselves for reëlection, together with the names of any others nominated by the executive committee, shall be sent to each of the federated associations. federated associations desiring to nominate other candidates for the executive committee shall send in formal nominations to the secretary of the federation at least fourteen days before the meeting. in the event of nominations exceeding the number to be elected, a ballot will be taken at the meeting of the general committee." [ : ] rep. of , p. . [ : ] this appears from the annual reports of the general committee, which did, however, continue for some years to send circulars to local associations urging them to pass resolutions of a general character. [ : ] at the same time all the liberal members of parliament were made _ex officio_ members of the council, where their presence was expected to exert a restraining influence upon the extreme and impracticable elements in the party. [ : ] after the party had been out of power many years this rule was not rigidly observed. in , for example, sir henry campbell-bannerman spoke in support of one of the resolutions. rep. of , p. . [ : ] rep. of , pp. - . [ : ] rep. of , pp. - . one of the arguments in favour of the election of the executive committee by the general committee was that the latter was more fairly representative than the council, because the delegates to the council from the part of the country where the meeting was held attended in greater numbers than from more distant places. [ : ] _ibid._, , pp. , . [ : ] rep. of , pp. - . [ : ] _ibid._, pp. - . [ : ] "the ministry of the masses," _edinburgh review_, july, . [ : ] "the reorganisation of liberalism," james annand, _new review_, november, . [ : ] "the future of liberalism," _fortnightly review_, january, . [ : ] "the national liberal federation," _contemporary review_, february, . [ : ] rep. of , p. . [ : ] _ibid._, pp. - . [ : ] rep. of , pp. , . [ : ] the exceptions are rare. in , however, mr. bryce moved a resolution on education. rep. of , p. . chapter xxx the rise and fall of the caucus _the conservatives_ [sidenote: formation of the national union of conservative associations.] ten years before the national liberal federation was founded, a tory organisation, called the national union of conservative and constitutional associations, had been started upon similar lines. after some preliminary meetings it was definitely formed at a conference in november, , where delegates from fifty-four towns and the university of london were present.[ : ] here a constitution was adopted, which, with the amendments made in the first few years, contained the following provisions. any conservative or constitutional association might be admitted to the union on payment of one guinea a year, and would then be entitled to send two delegates to the conference. this last body was the great representative assembly of the union. like the council of the national liberal federation it was to meet in a different place each year,[ : ] and was composed of the two delegates from each subscribing association, of the officers of the union, and of such honorary members as were also members of the council. the council was the executive body of the union, and consisted of the president, treasurer, and trustees; of twenty-four members elected by the conference; of not more than twenty nominated by the principal provincial associations; and of such members of the consultative committee as were willing to act, the last being a body formed out of vice-presidents and honorary members to which difficult questions could be referred. in order to attract money, it was provided that any one subscribing a guinea a year should be an honorary member of the union, that the subscribers of five guineas a year should be vice-presidents with seats _ex officio_ in the conference, and that any one subscribing twenty guineas should be a vice-president for life. in order to attract titles provision was made for the election of a patron and ten vice-patrons of the union. these methods of procuring the countenance of rank and wealth were not tried in vain. in lord derby became the patron of the union, and on his death he was succeeded by the duke of richmond. in the report of the council in we read, "the total number of vice-presidents is now , among whom are noblemen, and past and present members of the house of commons." the honorary members at the same time numbered . [sidenote: objects of the union.] [sidenote: it did not try to guide party policy.] although the national union was much older than the national liberal federation, it attracted far less notice. during its earlier years, indeed, the conferences were very small affairs. at the second conference, for example, in , there were present only three officers and four delegates, and in the two following years respectively only thirty-six and thirty-five persons all told. the chief reason, however, why the union made so much less stir than the federation, lies in the nature of the work it undertook to do. the federation was a weapon of militant radicalism, designed to carry into effect an aggressive public policy, and was considered a serious menace to old institutions; but the union was intended merely as an instrument for helping the conservative party to win victories at the elections. its object was to strengthen the hands of local associations; while its work consisted chiefly in helping to form such associations, and in giving information.[ : ] for this purpose, it kept a register of all conservative associations, so that it could act as their london agency; it offered suggestions, was ready to give advice, printed and distributed pamphlets, and arranged for speeches and lectures.[ : ] the union made no claim to direct the policy of the party. at the meeting in , when the constitution was adopted, one speaker said that "unless the union was managed by the leaders of the conservative party it would have no force and no effect whatever," and this was given as a reason for making the honorary members eligible to the council.[ : ] the matter was put in a nutshell some years later by mr. cecil raikes, one of the founders, when he said that "the union had been organised rather as what he might call a handmaid to the party, than to usurp the functions of party leadership."[ : ] in fact, for the first nine years the conference passed no resolutions of a political character at all, and those which it adopted during the decade that followed expressed little more than confidence in the leaders of the party. [sidenote: its relation to the party leaders.] mr. (afterwards sir john) gorst, who had presided at the first conference in , was appointed in principal agent of the party--that is, the head, under the whips, of the conservative central office--and in order to connect the new representative organisation with the old centralised one he was made the next year honorary secretary of the union.[ : ] the policy was soon carried farther. in their report for the council said: "since the last conference, an arrangement has been made by which the work of the union has been more closely incorporated with that of the party generally, and its offices have been removed to the headquarters of the party in parliament street. this arrangement has been productive of the most satisfactory results, not only by having brought the union into more direct contact with the leaders of the party, and thereby enhancing the value of its operations, but also by greatly reducing its working expenses." at an early stage of its existence, therefore, the union took for its honorary secretary an officer responsible through the whips to the leaders of the party in parliament, and this was openly proclaimed an advantage. no secret was made of the fact that the union was expected to follow, not to lead; for at the banquet held in connection with the conference that same year the earl of shrewsbury, in proposing a toast to the army, said, "the duty of a soldier is obedience, and discipline is the great characteristic of the army and navy, and i may also say that in a like manner it is characteristic of the conservative union." [sidenote: the conference of .] the conference held in seems to have been the first that attracted much public attention, and it was notable for two things. mr. disraeli had insisted that the working classes were by nature conservative, and that the extension of the franchise would bring an accession of strength to his party. his opponents, assuming that liberalism was a corollary of democracy, had laughed at the idea; and although his followers had expended much energy in organising conservative workingmen's associations, the results of the election of appeared to have disproved his theory. but the meeting in showed that among the artisans tories were by no means rare. in connection with the conference, which was held in london, a great banquet was given at the crystal palace, and this caused mr. cecil raikes, the chairman of the council, to remark: "a few years ago" everybody said "that if a conservative workingman could be found he ought to be put in a glass case. we have found for him the largest glass case in england to-night." the banquet was also notable for a speech by mr. disraeli, which was ridiculed at the time on account of the characteristically grandiloquent phrase, "you have nothing to trust to but your own energy and the sublime instinct of an ancient people."[ : ] nevertheless it was a remarkable speech, for it laid down the main principles of tory policy for the next thirty years and more, a feat that is probably without parallel in modern history.[ : ] [sidenote: complaints that the union was not representative.] although the conservative party carried the country at the general election of , and mr. disraeli, for the first time, came into power with a majority at his back, popular interest in the union grew slowly. as late as not more than two hundred and sixty-six out of the nine hundred and fifty conservative associations were affiliated to the union, and delegates from only forty-seven of them attended the conference.[ : ] yet complaints were already heard that foreshadowed the strife to come in the future. in mr. gorst, the honorary secretary, but no longer the principal agent of the party, proposed to reorganise the council by making it more representative in character.[ : ] his suggestion was opposed by mr. raikes, and was voted down. the next year, however, he returned to the subject, moving first to abolish the consultative committee altogether, and then that its members should not sit on the council. he withdrew these motions on the understanding that the council would consider the matter; and although other persons also urged that the council should be strengthened by becoming a more representative body, the only action taken at this meeting was to provide that the council itself should not propose for reëlection more than two thirds of its retiring members. [sidenote: changes in its rules.] mr. gorst resigned his position as honorary secretary in november, and in spite of continued criticism of the council on the ground that it was to a great extent self-elected,[ : ] nothing was done to change its composition until after the liberals had won the general election of . under the pressure of the defeat the conference of that year adopted a new set of rules drawn up by the council itself. they provided that the associations should be represented at the conference in proportion to their size; that the members of the consultative committee should no longer sit on the council; and that instead of the twenty members of the council nominated by the principal associations, who were said to attend little, the council itself should add twelve persons to its number. this plan of coöptation was destined to open the door for a most audacious attempt to capture the organisation. [sidenote: the fourth party.] the chance for a new man to distinguish himself in parliament comes in opposition. as mr. winston churchill remarks in the life of his father: "there is small scope for a supporter of a government. the whips do not want speeches, but votes. the ministers regard an oration in their praise or defence as only one degree less tiresome than an attack."[ : ] but in the opposition free lances are applauded if they assault the treasury bench from any quarter. moreover, although the game of politics in england is played under a conventional code of rules which are scrupulously observed, a skilful player can achieve a rapid prominence by violating the rules boldly, if he has great ability, high social rank, or wins the ear of the people. these truths were turned to advantage in the parliament which sat from to by lord randolph churchill and his small band of friends, who, in contradistinction to the liberals, conservatives, and irish home rulers, came to be known as the fourth party. the general election of had brought mr. gladstone back to power, and in the course of this administration he was obliged to face unexpectedly many delicate and difficult questions. the conservative opposition was led by sir stafford northcote, a man of decorous rather than combative temperament, who had been mr. gladstone's private secretary in early life, and was not inclined to carry parliamentary contests to extremes. the conditions were favourable to a small body of members, something between knights errant and banditti, who fought as guerillas under the conservative banner, but attacked on occasion their own leaders with magnanimous impartiality. [sidenote: its origin and policy.] the fourth party began in one of those accidents that happen in irregular warfare.[ : ] the bradlaugh case, involving the thorny question whether a professed atheist could qualify in the house of commons by affirmation or oath, vexed the whole life of the parliament, and brought together in the opening days sir henry wolff, mr. john gorst, lord randolph churchill, and mr. arthur balfour. this case, in which they played successfully upon the feelings of the house, made them at once conspicuous, and taught them the value of concerted action. with a short interruption, caused by a difference of opinion about the irish coercion bill of , the friends acted in harmony for four years. they had no formal programme, and no one of them was recognised as the chief, but it was understood that they should defend one another when attacked, and they were in the habit of dining together to arrange a common plan of action. they took a vigorous part in all debates, criticised the government unsparingly, and under the pretence of assisting to perfect its measures, spun out the discussions and obstructed progress. they showed great skill in baiting mr. gladstone, and when delay was their object, in drawing him by turns into long explanations in response to plausible questions about the clauses of his bills. their aggressiveness, and their profession of popular principles under the name of tory democracy, spread their reputation in the country, and gave them an importance out of proportion to their number or their direct influence in the house of commons. [sidenote: its attacks on the tory leaders.] throughout its career the fourth party assumed to be independent of the regular conservative leaders in the house. at times it went much farther, accusing them of indecision and an inability to lead, which disorganised the party. lord beaconsfield's death in left the conservatives with no single recognised leader; for lord salisbury was chosen by the tory peers leader of the house of lords; and sir stafford northcote remained, as he had been in lord beaconsfield's last years, the leader in the house of commons, neither of them being regarded as superior in authority to the other. the members of the fourth party asserted that this dual leadership, by causing uncertainty in the counsels of the party, was disastrous; and they soon settled upon sir stafford northcote as the object of their censure. the attack upon him culminated in april, , when his selection to unveil the statue of lord beaconsfield seemed to indicate that he was to be the future premier whenever the conservatives might come to power. on that occasion lord randolph churchill published a couple of letters in _the times_ in which he spoke of sir stafford in strong terms, and declared that lord salisbury was the only man capable of taking the lead. these he followed up by an article in the _fortnightly review_ for may, entitled "elijah's mantle," describing the decay of the conservative party, setting forth his ideas of tory democracy as a means of regeneration, designating lord salisbury as the proper heir to lord beaconsfield's mantle, but revealing at the same time his confidence in his own fitness for command. his quarrel with his chief in the house of commons did not impair his popularity in the country; while his speeches, with their invective against prominent liberals, and their appeals for the support of the masses, caught the fancy of the tory crowds. hitherto he had decried sir stafford northcote and praised lord salisbury, but he now embarked upon an adventure that brought him into sharp conflict with the latter. mr. balfour, being lord salisbury's nephew, could not follow in the new path, and before long opposed his former comrade, while the other two members of the fourth party continued to support him. [sidenote: lord randolph churchill's plan to capture the union.] in the summer of lord randolph churchill conceived the bold plan of getting control of the national union of conservative associations, and making it, under his guidance, a great political force in the party. complaints had already been made, as we have seen, that the council, instead of being truly representative, was in the hands of a small self-elected group of men. in fact the council had been managed in concert with the leaders of the party in parliament; while the real direction of electoral matters was vested in the "central committee," a body quite distinct from the union, created at the instance of lord beaconsfield after the defeat of to devise means of improving the party organisation. the committee had become permanent, and, working under the whips, had exclusive charge of the ample sums subscribed for campaign expenses. in order to achieve any large measure of independent power the national union must have pecuniary resources, and hence, as a part of his plan, lord randolph churchill determined to obtain for it a share of the funds in the possession of the central committee. [sidenote: the conference at birmingham in .] the three friends were already members of the council. sir henry wolff had been there from the beginning. mr. gorst, who had taken an active part in its work in the past, had recently been given a seat again as vice-chairman; and lord randolph churchill had been elected a coöpted member in by the casting vote of the chairman, lord percy. the first scene in the drama was arranged for the conference held at birmingham on oct. , . there, when the usual motion was made to adopt the annual report, a mr. hudson moved a rider directing "the council for the ensuing year to take such steps as may be requisite for securing to the national union its legitimate influence in the party organisation." he said that the conservative workingmen should not be led by the nose, and that the union ought to have the management of its own policy. [sidenote: lord randolph churchill's speech.] lord randolph churchill supported the rider in a characteristic speech, in which he described how the central committee had drawn into their own hands all the powers and available resources of the party. "from that day to this," he went on, "in spite of constant efforts on the part of many members of your council, in spite of a friction which has been going on ever since, your council has been kept in a state of tutelage, you have been called upon year by year to elect a council, which does not advise, and an executive which does not administer. . . . i should like to see the control of the party organisation taken out of the hands of a self-elected body, and placed in the hands of an elected body."[ : ] he intimated that the central committee had used money at the last election for corrupt purposes, and declared that such practices would not cease until the party funds were managed openly. finally, he said that the conservative party would never gain power until it gained the confidence of the working classes, who must, therefore, be invited to take a share, and a real share, in the party government. several men spoke on the other side, among them lord percy, who repudiated the charge that the central committee had spent money corruptly. he said that he and others had been members both of that committee and of the council, and that there was a constant interchange of ideas between the two bodies. he was willing, however, to accept the rider upon the understanding that the conference was not committed to any of the modes of carrying it out that had been suggested. the rider was then adopted unanimously.[ : ] [sidenote: he becomes chairman of the council.] lord randolph churchill was elected to the council, and so were many of his opponents. the parties were, in fact, nearly evenly balanced, but he and his friends had the great advantage of a definite, well-arranged plan. twelve coöpted members were to be chosen, and by presenting the names of prominent men from the large towns, to whom his opponents found it hard to object, lord randolph secured a small but decisive majority on the council. at the first meeting in december he procured the appointment of a committee to consider the best means of carrying into effect the rider passed at the conference. the committee was composed mainly of his friends, and at once elected him its chairman, although according to the custom that had been followed hitherto the chairman of the council, lord percy, should have presided in all the committees. early in january, , the committee had an interview with lord salisbury, and brought to his notice the uneasiness that prevailed about the party organisation, and the desire of the union to obtain its legitimate share of influence in the management. lord salisbury took the matter under consideration. meanwhile, on february , when the committee reported progress to the council, lord percy protested against his exclusion from the chair, and motions were made to the effect that he ought to preside at meetings of committees; but they were rejected by close votes. thereupon he resigned his position as chairman of the council, and as he refused to withdraw his resignation, lord randolph churchill was, on feb. , chosen to succeed him by seventeen votes to fifteen for mr. chaplin. lord salisbury, however, ignoring the change of chairman, still communicated with the council through lord percy, which exasperated lord randolph's partisans. [sidenote: lord salisbury's letter of feb. , .] on feb. , lord salisbury, in a letter to lord randolph churchill, replied, on behalf of himself and sir stafford northcote, to the suggestions that had been made to him in january. he began by observing that no proposals had been put forward by the union, beyond the representation that the council had not opportunity of concurring largely enough in the practical organisation of the party. "it appears to us," he continued, "that that organisation is, and must remain in all its essential features, local. but there is still much work which a central body, like the council of the national union, can perform with great advantage to the party. it is the representative of many associations on whom, in their respective constituencies, the work of the party greatly depends. it can superintend and stimulate their exertions; furnish them with advice, and in some measure, with funds; provide them with lecturers; aid them in the improvement and development of the local press; and help them in perfecting the machinery by which the registration is conducted, and the arrangements for providing volunteer agency at election times. it will have special opportunity of pressing upon the local associations which it represents, the paramount duty of selecting, in time, the candidates who are to come forward at the dissolution. this field of work seems to us large--as large as the nature of the case permits." but he added that any proposal which the council might desire to submit would receive their attentive consideration. [sidenote: it is misconstrued by lord randolph.] the letter was, no doubt, intended to enumerate in substance the very functions that the council had hitherto performed; but the committee affected to receive it with joy as a complete acceptance of their plan. they prepared a report to the council, stating that the duties which, according to lord salisbury's letter, ought to devolve upon the council, were such as, with the exception of lecturers, they had not hitherto been permitted to undertake. "the council," they went on, "will, no doubt, perceive that for the proper discharge of these duties, now imposed upon them by the leaders of the party, the provision of considerable funds becomes a matter of first-class necessity." they ought, therefore, to claim a definite sum out of the funds in the hands of the central committee, from which they had as yet received only irregular and uncertain contributions. the report recommended that a small executive committee be appointed with directions to carry out lord salisbury's scheme, to incur liability for urgent expenditure, to enter into communication with all the local associations in order to learn about their candidates, elections, funds, and agents, and to invite from those associations the "fullest and freest communication of all information bearing upon political and parliamentary questions as viewed in the localities." all questions involving large and general principles of party policy were to be reserved for the determination of the council, but the chairman and vice-chairman were to be authorised to perform all ordinary executive acts between meetings. it is needless to point out the imitation of the national liberal federation as it worked at that time, or the great power that these changes would throw into the hands of lord randolph churchill. [sidenote: further correspondence.] lord salisbury was informed of the report, and hastened to remove any misapprehension. in a letter to lord randolph, on march , he said he had not contemplated that the union should in any way take the place of the central committee, and he hoped there was no chance of their paths crossing. lord randolph replied that he feared that hope might be disappointed. "in a struggle between a popular body and a close corporation, the latter, i am happy to say, in these days goes to the wall."[ : ] a correspondence took place also between lord salisbury and lord percy, in the course of which the former wrote: "the central committee represents the leaders, by whom it is appointed. so far as those duties are concerned which attach, and always have attached, to the leaders of the party, and depend on their sanction, these can only be delegated to gentlemen whom we appoint." he said that in his opinion no change in this respect would be desirable, and that he could not think the adoption of the report would be expedient. lord percy laid the letter before the council, and moved that the report should not be accepted, but his motion was rejected by a vote of nineteen to fourteen; the report was then adopted, and the committee was instructed to confer with the leaders of the party as to the best way of carrying out the plans foreshadowed in their letters. [sidenote: lord salisbury's letter of april , .] the temper of the leaders may be imagined, and may well excuse a step, which was, nevertheless, a mistake, because it offended members of the council of local importance,[ : ] who had probably intended no disrespect to lord salisbury. three days after the adoption of the report a curt letter came from mr. bartley, the principal agent of the party, giving the national union notice to quit the offices occupied jointly with the central committee. lord randolph churchill displayed no open resentment at this; but treating the objections of the leaders as if they applied only to the details of the report, he proposed to modify it in part, especially by a change which showed that the general questions of policy reserved for the council were to relate not to public affairs, but merely to party organisation. he held also a conference with lord salisbury, which was again an occasion for misunderstanding; for on april that nobleman wrote that as he and sir stafford northcote had already expressed their disapproval of the report, they could not consider it further in the absence of explanation, but that some passages had been explained at the conference, and it had been made clear that the national union did not intend to trench on the province of the central committee, or take any course on political questions not acceptable to the leaders of the party. it was very satisfactory, the letter said, to find the council agreeing that matters hitherto disposed of by the leaders and the whips must remain in their hands, including the expenditure of the funds standing in the name of the central committee. lord salisbury then went on to describe the proper functions of the council in language evidently intended to cover the same ground as his letter of feb. .[ : ] he added that to insure complete unity of action it was desirable to have the whips sit _ex officio_ on the council, and be present at the meetings of all committees; and he ended by saying that under the circumstances a separation of establishments would not be necessary. [sidenote: lord randolph's caustic reply.] lord randolph called at once a meeting of the committee on organisation, and although only three members besides himself were present, he sent to lord salisbury, in the name of the committee, a letter unique in english political annals. the document is long, but the following extracts may serve to show its meaning and portray its tone: "it is quite clear to us," it said, "that . . . we have hopelessly failed to convey to your mind anything like an appreciation, either of the significance of the movement which the national union commenced at birmingham in october last, or of the unfortunate effect which a neglect or a repression of that movement by the leaders of the party would have upon the conservative cause. the resolution of the conference at birmingham . . . signified that the old methods of party organisation, namely, the control of parliamentary elections, by the leader, the whip, the paid agent drawing their resources from secret funds, which were suitable to the manipulation of the ten pound householder were utterly obsolete and would not secure the confidence of the masses of the people who were enfranchised by mr. disraeli's reform bill. . . . the delegates at the conference were evidently of opinion that . . . the organisation of the party would have to become an imitation . . . of the birmingham caucus. the caucus may be, perhaps, a name of evil sound and omen in the ears of aristocratic and privileged classes, but it is undeniably the only form of political organisation which can collect, guide, and control for common objects, large masses of electors. . . . it appeared at first, from a letter which we had the honour of receiving from you on the th february, that your lordship and sir stafford northcote entered fully and sympathetically into the wishes of the council.[ : ] . . . the council, however, committed the serious error of imagining that your lordship and sir stafford northcote were in earnest, in wishing them to become a real source of usefulness to the party. . . . the council have been rudely undeceived . . . the precise language of your former letter of the th february is totally abandoned, and refuge taken in vague, foggy, and utterly intangible suggestions. finally, in order that the council of the national union may be completely and for ever reduced to its ancient condition of dependence upon, and servility to certain irresponsible persons who find favour in your eyes, you demand that the whips of the party, . . . should sit _ex officio_ on the council. . . . it may be that the powerful and secret influences which have hitherto been unsuccessfully at work on the council with the knowledge and consent of your lordship and sir stafford northcote, may at last be effectual in reducing the national union to its former make-believe and impotent condition; in that case we shall know what steps to take to clear ourselves of all responsibility for the failure of an attempt to avert the misfortunes and reverses which will, we are certain, under the present effete system of wire-pulling and secret organisation, overtake and attend the conservative party at a general election." a copy of the letter was read to the council the next day, when a motion was made regretting its disrespectful and improper tone, and declining to accept any responsibility for it. this was defeated by a vote of nineteen to thirteen, and then an executive committee was appointed to carry out the recommendations in the report. [sidenote: negotiations reopened,] it might be supposed that after receiving a letter of that kind lord salisbury would have had no more to do with lord randolph churchill forever, and would have refused to hold further communication with the council; but politics makes strange bedfellows, especially in a parliamentary form of government. lord salisbury could not afford to alienate a body which represented a considerable fraction of the conservatives in the country; while it would have been folly for lord randolph to burn the bridges behind him. negotiations were, therefore, opened through a third person, very nearly on the lines of lord salisbury's letter of april , except that three thousand pounds a year were to be paid to the national union; and an understanding was nearly reached, when an event took place which broke it off for a time. [sidenote: and interrupted.] mr. j. m. maclean, one of lord randolph's supporters in the council, whose object had been simply to supplant sir stafford northcote, became alarmed lest the movement might result in supplanting lord salisbury also, or might cause a real breach in the party. not being aware of the pending negotiations, he moved at a meeting of the council on may the appointment of a committee to confer with the central committee in order to secure harmony and united action.[ : ] although letters were read showing that steps already taken would probably lead to an understanding, and although lord randolph told mr. maclean that he should regard the motion as one of want of confidence, the latter persisted, and, as several of lord randolph's friends were absent, carried his proposal by a vote of seventeen to thirteen. lord randolph then resigned as chairman of the council; but his popularity in the country was great, and there was a widespread feeling of regret at a quarrel among influential members of the party. a conference of chairmen of the conservative associations in eight of the chief provincial towns acted as peacemaker. it drew up a memorandum regretting the lack of harmony, suggested an arrangement very similar to that almost reached in the negotiations recently broken off, and submitted that if these suggestions were accepted lord randolph should withdraw his resignation. [sidenote: a truce effected.] the memorandum was laid before the council at a meeting on may , and lord randolph was unanimously reëlected chairman. at the same meeting, the committee, composed mainly of lord randolph's opponents, which had been appointed to confer with the central committee, reported that they had effected an agreement. again the terms were almost precisely the ones indicated by lord salisbury in his letter of april , save for the payment of three thousand pounds a year to the union.[ : ] coming from this source it is not surprising that they were unsatisfactory to lord randolph's friends, and they were referred back for further consideration to the committee reënforced by new members. a month elapsed, and at a meeting on june the committee reported that they had suggested some changes, which the leaders would not accept.[ : ] the matter was again recommitted, but finally on june , the committee reported that they had made an agreement on the lines of the earlier plan, and this was adopted as it stood. except for a moderate annual subsidy, lord randolph churchill had really obtained nothing for the national union.[ : ] personally he had become the leading figure of what purported to be the great representative organisation of the party, for the chairman of the council was the most important officer in the union; but the position of the organisation itself remained substantially unchanged. the agreement that had been reached was, however, merely a truce, and both sides canvassed eagerly the delegates to the approaching conference, each hoping for a decisive victory that would give undisputed control of the council. [sidenote: the conference at sheffield.] the conference of the national union for met at sheffield on july . it was unusually well attended, with some four hundred and fifty delegates in the hall, representing two hundred and thirty-four associations. in his speech on presenting the report of the council lord randolph described the dissensions that had occurred, and begged the delegates to elect members who would support one side or the other. his object, he said, had been to establish a bona fide popular organisation, bringing its influence to bear right up to the centre of affairs, so that the tory party might be a self-governing party; but as yet this had been successfully thwarted by those who possessed influence. the speech was followed by a fierce debate, ending, of course, in the adoption of the report. the real interest of the meeting centred in the ballot for the council, and before that began a change was made in the method of election. instead of choosing twenty-four members, and allowing them to add twelve more to their number, a resolution was adopted, whereby all thirty-six were elected directly by the conference, thus making the ballot there conclusive upon the complexion of the council. judging from the action of the conference on certain minor questions of organisation, and from the size of lord randolph's personal vote for the council, he had the sympathy of a majority of the delegates; but they did not, as he had hoped, divide on a sharp line for one side or the other. lord randolph himself received votes, while the next highest on the list, although his supporter, received only . when, however, the result was announced, his friends formed only a small majority on the council. [sidenote: lord randolph makes his peace and abandons the union.] lord randolph churchill had won a victory; but a victory that was little better than a drawn battle. his own reëlection as chairman was assured, and for the moment he controlled the council, but his control would be neither undisputed nor certain to endure. he could use the union in a way that would be highly uncomfortable for lord salisbury, but he had not captured it so completely that he could do with it as he pleased. again it was for the interest of both sides to make peace, and the negotiations were completed in a few days. the central committee was in form abolished; the primrose league, recently founded by the fourth party, was recognised by the leaders; lord randolph withdrew from the chairmanship of the council; and mutual confidence and harmony of action were restored. these appear to have been the nominal conditions.[ : ] whether the real terms were ever definitely stated, or were merely left in the shape of a tacit understanding, it is at present impossible to say. the practical upshot was that the fourth party was broken up; lord randolph abandoned the national union to its fate, acted in concert with the parliamentary leaders, and was given a seat in the cabinet when the conservatives next came to power. the reconciliation was sealed by a dinner given by lord salisbury to the council of the union. [sidenote: his later career.] the subsequent career of lord randolph churchill may be told in a few words. in the reorganisation of the union he took no part, and, indeed, he ceased before long to attend the meetings of the council altogether. but when lord salisbury formed a ministry in june, , he was offered the post of secretary of state for india, with a seat in the cabinet. he made it a condition of acceptance that sir stafford northcote should cease to lead in the house of commons. lord salisbury, who had been hitherto loyal to sir stafford, hesitated, but at last the old statesman was transferred to the oblivion of the house of lords, and sir michael hicks-beach took his place as leader of the commons. lord randolph's success had been extraordinary, but he was destined to reach even greater eminence in the near future. the home rule bill, in the session of , gave him a chance to increase his reputation as a debater, and when the general elections following the rejection of that bill brought a new conservative government into office, he was given the position of chancellor of the exchequer with the leadership of the house of commons. his popularity in the country was greater than ever; his appearance on the platform at a conference of the national union, on oct. , , "was the signal for a tremendous outburst of long-sustained cheering,"[ : ] and addresses were presented to him from several hundred associations. but he overestimated his personal power, and is commonly supposed to have thought that one more quarrel would leave him master of the party. his battle-ground was unfortunately chosen, for he took his stand in the cabinet for a reduction of the army and navy estimates, at a time when the national desire for economy was on the wane. his colleagues did not agree with him, and on dec. he tendered his resignation to the prime minister. he was apparently confident of coming out victorious; but mr. goshen, a liberal unionist, took his place, and the government went on without him.[ : ] he failed to realise that a conflict in with the leaders of the conservative party in the houses of parliament, two men neither of whom had yet proved his capacity to be at the head of the cabinet or won the full confidence of the country, was a very different thing from a quarrel in with the government of the nation, at a time when it stood in the eyes of the majority of the people as the bulwark against disunion. his miscalculation was fatal, and during the few years of his life that were left he never regained a position of political importance. [sidenote: reconstruction of the national union.] meanwhile the national union underwent a transformation. the leaders of the party were determined that it should not be captured again, or used to force their hand. but any changes must be made without losing the semblance of a democratic organisation; and, in fact, it was believed that if the union were in reality broadly popular it would be more inclined to follow the leaders of the party, and less easily captured, than if it represented only a fraction of the local associations. in this respect the position bore some resemblance to that of the national liberal federation after the home rule struggle a year later. the time was propitious for reconstructing the union, because the redistribution act of had marked off the constituencies on new lines, and thus involved the formation of many of the local associations afresh. it is interesting to note that the changes provoked no struggle between those elements in the union which had recently been in conflict; and, indeed, the dissensions ceased with the withdrawal of lord randolph churchill. [sidenote: the first changes; .] the first alterations, made in , were designed merely to give the union a broader basis, and the council a more representative character. the most important provision was that every conservative association should be affiliated without the need of any formal action. the union thus came to be a really national party organisation in a way that it had never been before, the report for stating that the affiliated associations numbered . the changes of did not affect seriously the structure of the union, or its relation to the whip's office, but these questions were taken up at once by three men. one of them was sir albert rollit, who drafted and carried through a new set of rules. another was captain middleton, who devised the scheme on which those rules were based. he was appointed principal agent of the party in , and in was made honorary secretary of the union. he continued to hold both positions until , and so far as the success of the conservatives at the polls during the period of their ascendency was the result of political organisation, it was due to him more than to any one else. the third was mr. southall, who became in , and has ever since remained, the secretary of the union. his constant coöperation with captain middleton removed the severe friction that had existed between the union and the whip's office, and enabled them to work in perfect harmony. [sidenote: the new organisation.] the new rules were adopted at a special conference held in may, , at which more than six hundred delegates were present. slightly modified so far as the national union itself is concerned in , and as regards the divisional unions in , , and , they remained in force until ; and hence they governed the organisation of the conservative party during the period of greatest and longest prosperity that it has known since the reform act of . they recite that the objects of the union are: to form a centre of united action, communication, and coöperation, among associations; to promote the organisation of associations; to spread conservative principles; and to enable associations to give expression to conservative feeling by petitions and resolutions. they provide that the chief association of each constituency in england and wales shall be a member of the union without payment, while any other association or club with fifty members may be admitted on paying one guinea a year;[ : ] and that any person may be admitted as an honorary member or vice-president on payment of a sum appropriate to those dignities.[ : ] the conference was made to consist of the officers and honorary members, and of delegates from subscribing associations, from the ten new divisional unions, and from the chief organisations of scotland and ireland.[ : ] the council was composed of the president and trustees; of one of the whips, and the principal agent of the party; of twenty-one members elected by the conference; and of the chairman and three representatives elected by each of the divisional unions. [sidenote: the ten divisional unions.] within the national union, which included only england and wales, there were created ten new territorial divisions; and a provincial or divisional union consisted of all the members of the national union, whether associations or individuals, within that division. it had its annual meeting corresponding to the conference, and its council.[ : ] in fact, it was intended to be a miniature of the national union itself, with similar structure and functions. the mechanism of the national union, and its subordinate branches, looks formidable; but it has not proved in practice so complex as it appears. the principal change was the creation of the provincial or divisional unions, which were interposed between the local associations and the central conference and council. the object in creating them was said to be the development of local effort as essential to the success of the party. representation, it was pointed out, thus passed by graduated steps from the individual elector, through the branch or district associations and clubs, and through the central associations in each constituency to the provincial councils, to be summed up in the conference and council of the whole union.[ : ] perhaps the words "strained" or "filtered" would, better than "passed," have signified the real intention, for the divisional unions were designed as a safeguard against popular caprice and personal ambition. they were expected to act like water-tight compartments, as it was believed that all ten divisions would not go mad at once, and that any man would find it very hard to capture enough of them, one at a time, to control the union. they did not, however, develop any vigorous life of their own, and have not had corporate solidity enough to maintain separate deliberative bodies. the annual meetings have been little more than an occasion for an address by the president. in short, the divisions did not turn out to be of much consequence as a basis for representative party gatherings. [sidenote: concentration of power.] although the divisions did not prove important from a deliberative point of view, they have had a very distinct value for administrative purposes, and have been distinctly convenient as districts for the spread of conservative doctrines. moreover, they have furnished a means for controlling the party from headquarters, and a channel through which it could be kept in touch with the whip's office. this was darkly hinted at when, on behalf of the committee that framed the new rules, a hope was expressed that "in your local associations, in the provincial unions, and in the national union, and with the help also of the principal whip and the principal agent of the party, you will have a chain of assistance, experience and authority, which will bind together our party." one of the whips and the principal agent of the party were, indeed, given seats _ex officio_ not only upon the council of the national union itself, but both upon the council and the executive committee of each of its divisions. this was, of course, part of the "chain of assistance, experience and authority which will bind together our party." another provision in the rules relating to the divisional unions has also proved important in this respect. it is one that contemplated the employment as divisional secretary of a sub-agent of the central office without cost. by doing this the division saved both salary and rent; while the principal agent, who represented the leaders and the whips, had in the secretary an agent selected and paid by him. the relation was the more useful because the habit of changing every year the president of the divisional union, and the chairman of its council, prevented any one from acquiring a large influence, except the secretary, who was permanent. the arrangement was made in most of the divisions. even where it was not, the secretary acted as though he were a subordinate of captain middleton, and being in constant communication with the local agents, he could give information about political matters throughout his division, thus keeping the principal agent in touch with the whole organisation of the party. personally popular and tactful, captain middleton was enabled by his relation to the divisional agents, by close coöperation with the national union, with the conservative clubs, and with other ancillary bodies, to draw all the threads of the conservative organisation into his office without provoking jealousy, or appearing to exert more power than naturally belonged to his office. the result was that while he held the place of principal agent the conservative organisation was a highly efficient administrative machine, working in perfect harmony with the leaders. [sidenote: resolutions on political questions] any popular party organisation in england involves two dangers, one personal and the other political; one that a man may use it for selfish purposes; the other that it may force upon the leaders a policy which they were not prepared to adopt. we have seen how this second peril actually confronted the liberal ministry in the form of the newcastle programme, and how it was met by muzzling the council of the national liberal federation. in the national union the difficulty has been solved in a very different way. until the conference passed no resolutions on general policy, save in the form of expressing confidence in the leaders, or congratulating them on their exploits; but in that year, when an effort was made to give to the union the appearance of a free popular organisation, confessions of faith on current politics began. resolutions of this kind soon became numerous and included demands to which the conservative leaders could not assent, such as woman suffrage, and fair trade, that is, protection in a modified form.[ : ] [sidenote: are free;] but, except for occasional cases where a delegate was persuaded to withdraw his motion, or where it was shelved by the previous question on the ground that a vote on the subject would be impolitic, no attempt has been made by the managers to fetter the free expression of opinion. the conservative leaders, however, made it clear almost at once that they did not take the action of the conference very seriously. in it adopted resolutions in favour of fair trade, woman suffrage, and reforms in the tenure and sale of church livings; but although lord salisbury, then prime minister, in a public speech immediately afterward said, "more and more in this day political leading and the making of political opinion must be a matter of local effort," and although he referred to agricultural distress, and the forthcoming budget, he made no allusion to fair trade, or for that matter to woman suffrage or church livings.[ : ] there was, at first, no doubt, some dread of the effect the resolutions might have on the public, and on several occasions the chairman called attention to the fact that among the delegates were men connected with the press, warning them not to report the proceedings.[ : ] at one time, in fact, an unofficial proposal was made to forbid the passing of resolutions altogether. in a delegate moved that although general questions of policy might be discussed, no vote should in future be taken upon them. the fair trade resolution of , which had provoked criticism, was referred to, and several gentlemen said they wished to prevent a repetition of that incident. the matter was referred to the council, which reported in the following year that they had considered both this suggestion and another that no resolution should be placed upon the agenda without the consent of the council; but that they had decided to recommend no change in the rules, except an increase in the number of days prior to the conference that notice of a motion must be sent in. they went even further, and advised that reporters for the press should be admitted to the meetings, which was done forthwith. [sidenote: but are ignored.] the proceedings at the conference of the national union are thus quite free. any delegate or other member has a right, on giving the prescribed notice, to prepare a resolution on any subject, and amendments can be moved upon the spot. the result has been a large number of declarations of opinion on public questions, not always consistent or unopposed. a resolution in favour of woman suffrage was adopted in , , and , and then defeated in by a substantial majority. the action of the conference is not fettered; it is ignored. some great nobleman presides, and one of the party leaders usually addresses a public meeting in the evening; but statesmen of the first rank take no part in the regular proceedings, which have, therefore, no political weight. [sidenote: the fiscal question.] a proof of the small importance attached to the votes is furnished by the history of the movement for fair trade or preferential tariffs. resolutions in favour of such a policy were passed over and over again, but they did not bring the question even within the range of active political issues until mr. chamberlain made his speech on the subject to his constituents at birmingham in the spring of . the meeting of the conference at sheffield in the following october then awoke a real interest; and yet the proceedings at that very meeting show how the national union shrank from a decided stand at a critical moment. the situation was extraordinary. mr. chamberlain had taken his stand for a preferential tariff in favour of the colonies, including a duty on grain, and had recently resigned from the cabinet to advocate his views more freely before the country; while other ministers had resigned because they could not abandon the principle of free trade. mr. balfour had expressed no definite opinion, and was expected to make a statement on the subject at a public meeting after the close of the first day's session of the union. under these circumstances a resolution was placed upon the agenda which stated the need for reconsidering the fiscal system, thanked the prime minister for instituting an inquiry on the subject, and welcomed the policy of retaliatory tariffs he had foreshadowed. to this mr. chaplin moved a rider favouring explicitly mr. chamberlain's views; while sir john gorst stood ready to move another against any protective duty on food. during the afternoon the fiscal question was hotly debated, and, judging by the way the free trade speakers were interrupted, a large majority of those present must have agreed with mr. chamberlain's opinions; but in order not to pass a vote before hearing the prime minister, the debate was adjourned until the following day. in the evening mr. balfour declared himself in favour of a retaliatory tariff as a means of commercial bargaining with other nations, but said that a tax on food was not within the limits of practical politics. when the debate was resumed the next morning, mr. chaplin withdrew his rider, on the ground that it might look like a resolution hostile to the prime minister; and sir john gorst said that mr. balfour's statement was so far satisfactory that he should make no motion. thus the sharp differences of opinion that seethed in the conference were calmed on the surface, and the original resolution was adopted unanimously, only a couple of staunch free traders abstaining from the vote. if ever an english political organisation had a chance to determine the policy of the party it was on this occasion, and a decisive majority was undoubtedly on mr. chaplin's side. yet this conference which had often voted for fair trade when the ministers would have none of it, shrank from saying what it thought when the ministers were undecided. a stronger proof could hardly be found that the national union is powerless to direct the policy of the party. [sidenote: the organisation breaks down after .] although the popular character of the national union was unreal, as regards both administrative machinery and the formulation of political opinion, the system worked well so long as the conservatives were in the ascendent, and captain middleton remained in control. but he had concentrated the whole management so completely in his own hands that the machinery could not run smoothly of itself after he retired in . his successor, instead of consulting the officers of the union, proceeded as if the central office was all-powerful, and thus lost touch with the union and the local associations. moreover, the sub-agents in some of the divisions were not wisely chosen, and caused friction rather than harmony in the party. complaints became loud, and found expression at the meeting of the conference at newcastle in november, , where a resolution was adopted "that in the opinion of this conference the management of the central conservative association in london is defective, and needs revising; and for this purpose a popularly elected committee should be appointed to coöperate with the conservative whips." the principal agent thereupon resigned; and the resolution of the conference, followed by the disastrous defeat at the general election in the january following, led to another reorganisation of the party in . when a ministry that has been in power is beaten at the polls, much of the blame is always laid at the door of the party organisation, and a cry is raised for its reform upon a more democratic basis. the movement on this occasion is interesting enough to merit a little study, because it furnishes the latest illustration of the way a demand for popular control within the party is constantly cropping up in england, and of the obstacles that it meets. as in earlier cases, the party machinery was not so largely responsible as some people asserted. still it had fallen out of repair. besides the dislocation at headquarters, the local associations had been neglected in many places; many tory members of parliament having come to feel that the country was normally conservative, and that their own seats were safe, had done little or nothing to keep the local organisations in working order; while for a time some associations had not dared to meet, knowing that any discussion would bring to light sharp differences of opinion on the question of fiscal policy. [sidenote: changes of .] the election of january, , was no sooner over than the whips and the officers of the national union set to work to overhaul the party machinery. in the first place they created an advisory committee of seven persons, charged, indeed, with no executive powers, but with the duty of advising the whip, and thus keeping the leaders in touch with the currents of opinion in the party. the committee consisted of the chief whip, three persons selected by him, and three chosen by the national union.[ : ] in the second place they transferred a number of functions from the central office to the union, together with a staff of clerks to carry them out, and a grant of money from the funds to defray the expense; the most important function so transferred being the entire supervision of local organisations, the supply of speakers over the country, and the publication of party literature, the last two of these having been hitherto only to a very small extent in the hands of the union. they worked out also a plan for changes in the organisation of the national union itself, which were discussed and adopted at a special conference in london. [sidenote: the conference in july.] the conference met on july ; and after a unanimous vote in favour of the fiscal policy of the party leaders had been passed, an attack was made upon the central office in the form of a motion that it ought to be brought under more effective popular control. the supporters of the motion pointed out that in the new advisory committee the representatives of the national union were in a minority; that the committee had authority merely to tender advice; and that even this function did not extend to party finance, to the recommendation of candidates for parliament, or to patronage of any kind. they repeated the charge, familiar even before the days of lord randolph churchill, that the party was a democracy managed by aristocratic methods, that the leaders ought to trust it more and suspect it less, and that the central office had not its confidence. in short the demand was the old one for a more popular control of the party machinery. sir alexander acland-hood, the chief whip, met it by stating frankly that the finances were a delicate and confidential matter, which must be in the hands of one man; and--referring to the new advisory body of seven--he said that it would be disastrous to have the party managed by a committee. the party could stand many things, but in his judgment it could not stand a caucus. policy must, he said, be initiated by the leaders; no leader and no whip would submit to anything else. although the demand for greater popular control had been greeted with applause, it was evident that the prevailing sentiment of the meeting was with the chief whip, and the motion was finally withdrawn; not, however, without an intimation that it would be renewed in the near future. [sidenote: the new rules of .] the special conference then went on to debate and adopt the new set of rules, the most important change involved being the enlargement of the central council by the direct representation thereon of the counties and boroughs, the former in the proportion of one member for every fifty thousand voters, the latter in that of one for every twenty-five thousand. this, it was thought, would make the body more truly representative, by freeing it both from the control of a small group of men, and from the tendency of every annual conference to choose persons whose names were known in the part of the country where the conference happened to meet.[ : ] the only other change of importance related to the provincial divisions. these were made more elastic by a provision that any one or more counties might be erected into a separate division. their internal organisation was also remodelled; and the arrangement for furnishing sub-agents of the central office as their secretaries, free of charge, was abolished, partly because it had ceased to work smoothly, and partly because many members of the union felt that it kept them in leading strings.[ : ] the discussion of the divisional councils brought up an interesting question. by the rules of the national union honorary members had already a right to attend the conference without votes;[ : ] and by the new rules they were given full membership in the councils of the provincial divisions. when strenuous objection was made to this as undemocratic, a delegate replied that if money was the root of all evil, it was also the source of all power; and that in order to get money it was necessary to do something for the men who gave it. the clause was the subject of the only vote at the conference close enough to require a count, and the new provision was adopted by to . in other respects the existing rules, though much changed in detail, were not altered in their essential features.[ : ] [sidenote: their probable effect.] the new arrangements have increased the functions of the national union, while the enlargement of the council will, no doubt, change its method of work, and may possibly make it more useful as an organ for interpreting the feelings of the party. but it is highly improbable that these things will cause any substantial change in the relation of the organisation to the leaders in parliament. there are still several means of controlling the union, and preventing it from getting out of hand. one of these is furnished by the party war chest, or campaign fund, over which lord randolph churchill tried in vain to get a large share of control. it is disbursed by the central office, and its distribution holds many constituencies in a state of more or less dependence. then again, even in the last reorganisation, the recommendation of candidates for parliament to places seeking for them has been retained under the exclusive control of the central office, instead of being allowed to pass into the hands of the national union; and this is in itself no small source of power. as a further security against capture of the union, the practice was established in of changing the chairman of the council every year, so that no one could acquire influence enough to be dangerous. moreover, fidelity upon the council has often brought its reward in the form of a seat in parliament, or of a baronetcy. so far these various precautions have been effective. since no one has attempted to get control of the union for his personal advantage. certainly the capture of the organisation has been made more difficult than it was formerly, but it would be rash to predict that it is altogether impossible. nor would it be safe to say that the union will never embarrass the leaders by laying down a definite course of policy and insisting that the leaders should adopt it; this, however, never has happened, and there appears no more reason to expect it in the future than in the past. the national unions both in england and scotland[ : ] have very important functions, which they perform with great efficiency; but they are really electioneering bodies. their work is to promote local organisation, to arouse interest, to propagate conservative doctrines, and this they do exceedingly well by means of departments for the publication of party literature and for providing lecturers. the english union has established also a political library in london, which collects a large amount of information, including the speeches and records of all the leading men in public life. but as organs for the popular control of the party, for formulating opinion, and for ascertaining and giving effect to the wishes of the rank and file, these bodies are mere pretences. both the national liberal federation and the national union of conservative associations have been sources of anxiety to the party leaders, but for the time, at least, both have been made harmless. the process in each case has not been the same, although the results are not unlike. both are shams, but with this difference that the conservative organisation is a transparent, and the liberal an opaque, sham. footnotes: [ : ] the reports of the first three conferences are found only in the manuscript minutes of proceedings. reports of the fourth to the ninth conference inclusive were printed. since that time only the reports of the council and the programmes for the conferences have been published. [ : ] in the original constitution it was to meet every third year in london, but this was changed in . it will be observed that the conference corresponds to the council of the national liberal federation; and the council, although a much smaller body, to the general committee of the federation. [ : ] _cf._ statement made at first conference, , and rep. of the council at the conference of . [ : ] _cf._ leaflet no. , . [ : ] manuscript minutes, p. . [ : ] rep. of the conference of . [ : ] rep. of the council for . he held the post of principal agent through the general election of which his efforts helped much to win. in he took the position again, and at that time was made a vice-chairman of the council so as to bring the union into coöperation with the whips' office. (rep. of the council for .) [ : ] punch made the expression the subject of a cartoon. [ : ] curiously enough he suggested one principle which has only recently been taken up seriously by conservative leaders. among the three great objects of the party he placed the upholding of the empire, and in speaking of this he said that when self-government was given to the colonies, it ought to have been with provisions for an imperial tariff, common defence, and some representative council in london. [ : ] rep. of conference of . but many of the local associations may have been branches with less than one hundred members, and therefore not admissible under the rules. [ : ] the need of a reorganisation of the party on a more popular basis was afterward urged by mr. gorst and sir henry drummond wolff in an article entitled "the state of the opposition," _fortnightly review_, november, . [ : ] _e.g._, by dr. evans. rep. of conference of . [ : ] "lord randolph churchill," i., . [ : ] the best accounts of the fourth party are to be found in winston churchill's "life of lord randolph churchill," i., ch. iii., and in three articles by harold e. gorst entitled "the story of the fourth party" in the _nineteenth century_ for november, and december, and january, , afterward republished as a book. these accounts are written by the sons of two of the members of the group, and may be taken to express the views of those two members. [ : ] these words are taken from the manuscript report of the conference in the records of the national union. the language is more brief, and differs in unimportant details from that quoted in winston churchill's life of lord randolph. [ : ] a motion was also carried unanimously requesting the council to consider a method of electing its members, such that the associations might be represented upon it by delegates. [ : ] these two letters do not appear in the report of the council, but are quoted by mr. winston churchill. [ : ] winston churchill, "lord randolph churchill," i., . [ : ] "it appears to us that these objects may be defined to be the same as those for which the associations themselves are working. the chief object for which the associations exist is to keep alive and extend conservative convictions, and so to increase the number of conservative voters. this is done by acting on opinion through various channels; by the establishment of clubs, by holding meetings, by securing the assistance of speakers and lecturers, and by the circulation of printed matter in defence of conservative opinions, by collecting the facts required for the use of conservative speakers and writers, and by the invigoration of the local press. "in all these efforts it is the function of the council of the national union to aid, stimulate and guide the associations it represents. "much valuable work may also be done through the associations, by watching the registration and, at election time, by providing volunteer canvassers and volunteer conveyance." this letter and the reply to it are printed in full in winston churchill's "lord randolph churchill," i., app. ii. [ : ] here follows a rehearsal of the functions lord salisbury had ascribed to the council, which are pronounced to have been clear, definite, and satisfactory. the assurance with which they are assumed to mean something quite different from what his lordship must have intended is one of the marvellous things about the affair. [ : ] maclean's own account of the matter is given in his "recollections of westminster and india," - . [ : ] the terms were briefly as follows:-- . the two bodies to occupy the same offices. . the union to attend to the formation and maintenance of local associations. the agents of the central committee to assist in this and report to the union through the principal agent. . parliamentary elections, the recommendation of candidates, and questions of general policy, to be outside the province of the union. . the union to publish literature as it may desire, and to provide speakers. . the council to help the party leaders to organise public meetings, and circulate pamphlets. . the central committee to allot a sum of money to be paid annually to the union. . the chief whip and the principal agent to have seats on the council, and the chief whip to sit on all committees. . if the chief whip thinks any action of the union inconsistent with the welfare of party, the matter to be referred to the leaders for decision. . the leaders of the party to appoint one or two members of the council on the central committee. it may be observed that this arrangement gave the leaders of the party more formal power of control over the union than ever. [ : ] the changes were the omission of nos. and ; and that the chief whip should have merely a right to be present at all the committees, instead of being a member of them. [ : ] mr. winston churchill (i., , ) and mr. ostrogorski attribute a larger measure of success to lord randolph, but that opinion seems to me inconsistent with the correspondence, the reports of the committees and the proceedings of the council, which are set forth in the printed report laid before the next conference. [ : ] winston churchill, "lord randolph churchill," i., - . [ : ] _the times_ of oct. , , p. , c. . [ : ] mr. winston churchill's account of the occurrence is extremely interesting; but the motives he attributes to his father do not seem wholly consistent with one another. [ : ] for workingmen's clubs with less than one hundred members the fee is only half as large. [ : ] the sums required for these offices are the same as when the union was originally formed. the subscriptions from associations go one half each to the national and divisional unions; those of individuals go wholly to the divisional union except in the case of life payments, which are made to the national union, one half of the interest being paid over to the division. [ : ] to these the principal paid agent, or secretary, in each english or welsh constituency was added in . this has not been a matter of much importance, because few of them can afford to attend. [ : ] all the conservative members of parliament for constituencies in the division were given the right to attend the annual meeting, and were made members of the council. [ : ] rep. of the council, october, . [ : ] these were both passed in and at intervals thereafter. [ : ] _the times_, nov. , . [ : ] _e.g._ rep. of the conference in october, . [ : ] in the original plan these were to be chosen by the council; but at the special conference in july it was agreed that they should be elected at the annual conference. [ : ] under the new rules the central council--previously called simply the council--consists of the president and trustees of the national union; the chief whip and the principal agent of the party; one representative for every fifty thousand voters, or fraction thereof, in each county, chosen at the meeting of the provincial division by the delegates of the county thereat; one representative for every complete twenty-five thousand voters in each parliamentary borough that contains so many, chosen by the central council of the borough; twenty-one members elected annually by the conference; the chairman, honorary secretary, and two representatives from the national society of conservative agents; one representative from each of the eight local associations of conservative agents; and two representatives apiece from the association of conservative clubs, the national conservative league, and the united club. the council as thus enlarged contains nearly two hundred members. [ : ] opinion on this question was by no means unanimous. one or two divisions wanted to retain the former system on the score of economy, and the chief whip agreed to allow them to do so for a time. [ : ] rule v. [ : ] by the new rules the conference consists of the officers of the union, and the members of the central council; of the honorary members of the union, who have, however, no vote; of the conservative members of both houses of parliament; of the officers of each provincial division; of the chairman, the paid agent, and three representatives of the central association in each constituency; of one representative for each subscribing association or club; and of twenty representatives apiece from scotland and ireland. [ : ] [sidenote: the caucus is largely a sham.] [sidenote: the scotch national union.] the union hitherto described covers england and wales alone, although the scotch and irish organisations are entitled to send to the conference twenty delegates apiece. north of the tweed there is a separate national union of conservative associations for scotland. it is a copy of the english body, but except for the twenty delegates is entirely independent. it has a conference which adopts resolutions as ineffective as those passed farther south. it has six territorial divisions; but, owing to the fact that scotland is in the main liberal, several of these are not very vigorous, and do not raise money enough to have councils of their own. all the divisions are very much under the control of the central council of the scotch union, to which they send their reports for approval. they are, indeed, largely ornamental. but if the national union for scotland is independent of the english union it is by no means free from the influence of the whip's office. the party agent for scotland, who has a right to attend--although without a vote--all meetings of the central and divisional councils and their committees, is appointed by the principal agent in london, and, like the secretaries of the divisions in england, is practically his subordinate. in this way the whip and the principal agent, acting through the agent for scotland and the local agents, and fortified by subsidies at election times, maintain a real control over the whole party organisation throughout the kingdom. by the right hon. james bryce, d.c.l. the american commonwealth _third edition, revised throughout, after many reprintings._ _in two crown vo volumes, the set, $ . net_ "his work rises at once to an eminent place among studies of great nations and their institutions. it is, so far as america goes, a work unique in scope, spirit, and knowledge. there is nothing like it anywhere extant, nothing that approaches it. . . . without exaggeration it may be called the most considerable and gratifying tribute that has yet been bestowed upon us by an englishman, and perhaps by even england herself. . . . one despairs in an attempt to give, in a single newspaper article, an adequate account of a work so infused with knowledge and sparkling with suggestion. . . . every thoughtful american will read it and will long hold in grateful remembrance its author's name."--_new york times._ "written with full knowledge by a distinguished englishman to dispel vulgar prejudices and to help kindred people to understand each other better, professor bryce's work is in a sense an embassy of peace, a message of good-will from one nation to another."--_the times_, london. "this work will be invaluable . . . to the american citizen who wishes something more than superficial knowledge of the political system under which he lives and of the differences between it and those of other countries. . . . the fact is that no writer has ever attempted to present so comprehensive an account of our political system, founded upon such length of observation, enriched with so great a mass of detail, and so thoroughly practical in its character. . . . we have here a storehouse of political information regarding america such as no other writer, american or other, has ever provided in one work. . . . it will remain a standard even for the american reader."--_new york tribune._ "it is not too much to call 'the american commonwealth' one of the most distinguished additions to political and social science which this generation has seen. it has done, and will continue to do, a great work in informing the world concerning the principles of this government."--_philadelphia evening telegraph._ abridged edition of james bryce's the american commonwealth being an introduction to the study of the government and institutions of the united states for the use of colleges and high schools. _in one crown vo volume, $ . net_ "the greatest historical work of the age."--_times._ the cambridge modern history planned by the late lord acton, ll.d., regius professor of modern history in the university of cambridge. edited by a. w. ward, litt. d., g. w. prothero, litt. d., and stanley leathes, m.a. to be complete in twelve royal vo volumes, each $ . net (carriage extra), issued at the rate of two volumes a year. =i. the renaissance. _ready._= =ii. the reformation. _ready._= =iii. the wars of religion. _ready._= =iv. the thirty years' war. _ready._= =v. the age of louis xiv. _ready._= =vi. the eighteenth century.= =vii. the united states. _ready._= =viii. the french revolution. _ready._= =ix. napoleon. _ready._= =x. restoration. _ready._= =xi. the growth of nationalities.= =xii. the latest age.= _press comment on the work as issued_:-- "the most full, comprehensive, and scientific history of modern times in the english language, or in any language."--_the evening post_, new york. "there can be no question about the great value of the work--in fact, it is invaluable to every historical student."--_public ledger_, philadelphia. "a work of great value. it may justly claim to have no rival in english."--_the atlantic monthly_, boston. the cambridge mediæval history planned by professor j. b. bury, edited by h. m. gwatkin, miss m. bateson, and mr. g. t. lapsley. to be complete in eight royal octavo volumes similar to those of "the cambridge modern history." _publication will begin on the completion of "the cambridge modern history."_ most important of modern histories lord cromer's modern egypt _in two vo volumes, with portraits and map, $ . net_ it is unnecessary to dwell upon the importance of this announcement, for it will without doubt excite the liveliest interest in both the british empire and the foreign countries which have watched keenly the development of egypt from a state of anarchy to its present prosperous condition under lord cromer. the author states that his object in writing the book is twofold. in the first place, he wishes to place on record an accurate narrative of some of the principal events which have occurred in egypt and in the soudan since ; he has had access to all the documents in the foreign offices of both cairo and london; and has been in close communication with every one who has taken a leading part in egyptian affairs during the period of which he writes. in the second place, he wishes to explain the results which have accrued to egypt from the british occupation of the country in . such a showing of tangible results of twenty-five years' experience renders the work of tremendous value to any nation facing similar problems in her own dependencies. the work is divided into the following seven parts: part i, ismail pasha, - ; part ii, the arabi revolt, august to august ; part iii, the soudan, - (including the story of gordon's journey to khartoum, the relief expedition, and the evacuation of the soudan); part iv, the egyptian puzzle; part v, british policy in egypt; part vi, the reforms; and part vii, the future of egypt. "a record of practical and humane statesmanship for which it would be hard to find an exact parallel. the charm of these volumes is that the work is recounted by one who was a large part of that which he describes. . . . for rich content, as well as pleasing form, this work of a seasoned statesman is one to be not only read but pondered. in addition to a style notable for simplicity and point, we have sagacious reflections, remarks which light up whole principles of government, characterizations of individuals and of races which reveal a philosophical mind with a disciplined imagination. . . . "in these volumes we get much more than historical records and political discussions; we get the overflow of a full and powerful mind. the book is so noteworthy because the intellect and the character which have gone to its making are so exceptional. lord cromer is not only a great administrator; he stands before us as a great thinker."--_new york evening post._ works by b. l. putnam weale manchu and muscovite _cloth, vo, pp., $ . net_ (_postage c._) the book was written just before the russo-japanese war. it is the detailed account of a journey through manchuria with the avowed object of showing the character of the russian occupation. it attracted attention at the time for its interest, and later for its accurate forecasts of events. "so far superior to all other books on the subject of the russian rule in manchuria that it may be considered really the only one."--_daily news_, london. the re-shaping of the far east _in two volumes, with many illustrations from photographs_ _vol. i. pp. vol. ii. pp. the set, cloth, vo, $ . net_ _the atlantic monthly's_ reviewer, mr. john w. foster, found this "one of the most readable and valuable books which have appeared in recent years. . . . an official of the chinese foreign customs service gives the result of his manifestly careful study of chinese history, and his observations during residence and extensive travels through central and northern china, japan, and korea. the greater part of the work is in the narrative style, with the charm and piquancy which made his 'manchu and muscovite' so popular." "a remarkably searching, analytical, clear, and comprehensive presentation of a complicated and perplexing situation."--_new york tribune._ the truce in the east and its aftermath _cloth, vo, $ . net; by mail $ . _ a sequel to and uniform with "the re-shaping of the far east." with illustrations and map. "the most significant and interesting volume on the political and commercial situation in eastern asia since the recent war."--_record-herald_, chicago. the coming struggle in eastern asia _cloth, vo, uniform with the above, $ . net_ "it is given to few authors to know so much about the subjects they discuss as does mr. weale about his," said the _boston transcript_ of his earlier work. the macmillan company sixty-four and sixty-six fifth avenue, new york transcriber's notes: the following corrections have been made to the text: page : adds, also, his own comments wherever[original has where-ever hyphenated across a line break] page : true that the problem[original has probem] has been one page : but be capable of reëlection[original has re-election hyphenated across a line break] page : [sidenote: merits of the election courts.[period missing in original]] page : loses his seat, but can be reëlected[original has re-elected hyphenated across a line break] page : desires to emphasise its freedom[original has freeedom] page : without further amendment or debate.[original has comma] page : evening sittings reserved for private[original has privae] members' motions page : [sidenote: the committee[original has committes] and public policy.] page : the expression goes, coöpted[original has co-opted hyphenated across a line break], by itself page : [sidenote: local pressure on members neither new nor systematic.[period missing in original]] page : [sidenote: the conference at birmingham in .[period missing in original]] page : lord randolph was unanimously reëlected[original has re-elected hyphenated across a line break] [ : ] arrest any man for suspicion[original has suspition] of treason [ : ] hans., ser. cxci.[period missing in original], , [ : ] in gneist, _das englische verwaltungsrecht_,[original has extraneous quotation mark] [ : ] com. papers, , ix., [original has extraneous period], pp. vii-viii [ : ] vic., c. , sched. i.[period missing in original], part iv. [ : ] com. papers, , xxvii.,[comma missing in original] [ : ] hans. ser. cclxxv., - .[period missing in original] [ : ] if[original has it] we take only the party in power [ : ] _the times_ of oct. , , p. , c.[original has comma] . the irish constitution [illustration: the constitution committee in session. _from left to right_:--r. j. p. mortished (_secretary_), john o'byrne, b.l.; c. j. france, darrell figgis (_acting chairman_), e. m. stephens, b.l. (_secretary_); p. a. o'toole, b.l. (_secretary_); james macneill, hugh kennedy, k.c.; james murnahan, b.l.; james douglas. (prof. alfred o'rahilly and kevin o'shiel, b.l. were absent from the session).] the irish constitution explained by darrell figgis mellifont press, ltd. kildare house, westmoreland street, dublin i inscribe this book to my friend arthur griffith contents page introduction explanation draft constitution articles of agreement for a treaty between great britain and ireland introduction ireland and a community of nations. the articles that are now gathered together in this little book were first published in the _irish independent_ at the invitation of its editor. they were not written for publication in book-form; and they naturally suffer, in their present form, from the conditions that were first imposed on them, conditions proper to their original setting. with the exception of two of them, they were written rather in a spirit of exposition than in a spirit of analysis and criticism; and this intention was only departed from because it seemed that the two matters so dealt with departed, with differing degrees of flagrancy, from the original purpose of the constitution, which was to make the mechanism of government malleable at every stage to the will of the people of ireland. whether one believes ardently in the faith that the will of a people should under all circumstances prevail, and that the forms of government should at all times be submissive to that will, is indifferent. that is a question for the individual, with which i do not presume to interfere. one need only believe with l'abbé coignard that "a people is not susceptible to more than one form of government at the same period," to believe, further, that if one asserts the derivation of all power and authority from the popular will, if that will be once fairly and honestly ascertained, it then follows that the will of the people is sufficient to itself, and that all forms of government must be made malleable to it. on that supposition, all frustrations and obstructions of, and impediments to, the constant exercise of that will must of necessity be cogs in the machinery of government; and for that reason in two articles i turned from exposition to criticism. apart from these two matters, i held to the essentials of exposition, without turning aside to criticism of details; and i based that exposition on the original plan and structure, which are preserved in the present draft, of the constitution. it is right that the fundamental law of a state should be fully discussed and debated before it be enacted; and when that debate occurs criticism will find details enough to fasten upon. but at the present moment it is the essential plan that matters--not the feudal trumperies with which it is adorned, like stage jewels stuck upon a comely and decent garment, marring its simple truth, but not otherwise injuring its effectiveness for its purpose. and it was because it seemed to me that these two matters departed from the spirit of this essential plan, by placing important parts of the judiciary and the executive beyond the ready control of the people or the people's representatives, that i dealt with them as i did. apart from them i kept away from criticism. similarly i did not deal with certain matters anterior to the constitution, in the light of which the constitution can alone be understood. they lay out of sight of these articles, though they were essential to them, since they brought the constitution, in its present form, into being. chief among these is the historical fact that ireland has, by treaty, confirmed by the act of her legislature, consented to enter a community of nations known at the moment as the british commonwealth of nations. we may disagree with this act; but it is an international fact; and without it the constitution would not be what it now is. this factor in the result is therefore worth brief attention, by way of introduction to the present publication of these articles. to anyone familiar with the constitutions of the nations that now comprise the commonwealth of nations the present constitution will speak in an unaccustomed language. it is unlike any of them. it has clearly been planned as the result of a distinct and separate conception. the causes of the difference are, however, not very difficult to discover, and once seen are plain to understand. they constitute what may prove to be an international factor of the very first importance. these causes fall under, broadly, two heads. the first is that ireland is not what these other nations were when their constitutions were first framed. nor is ireland, indeed, what they are now. canada, for example, and australia, are english colonies, first established by white men in a coloured population. the greater part of these white men draw their traditions and inspiration, their habits of thought and habits of public conduct, from the rootstock of the english nation. they look to england as their mother-country. but ireland is an ancient nation and a mother-country in her own right. she has herself peopled the earth with her children. her empire is as far-flung as england's. and if it is not based on military might, but linked by ties of memory, pride and love, it has not therefore proved itself any the less powerful internationally at times of crisis and danger for the mother at home. moreover, it was she who, when in the eighth and ninth centuries europe fell into decay after the barbarian inroads, re-established and rebuilt european civilisation, sending her scholars with her books into every part of the continent of ruin. it was her missionaries, indeed, who first brought christianity to england, and her scholars who taught the first english poet his letters. before the name of england was heard, the name of ireland was known and respected. she possessed an intricate, if uncompleted national polity when the neighbouring island was peopled by distinct and scattered populations of conquerors. by virtue of these ancient dignities she was accorded international rank long after england had risen to nationhood, and when invasion had brought her national polity to ruin and silenced the voice of poet and scholar. these are not matters merely of the past. if they were, they could be dismissed to the antiquity in which they would lie. but they live in the consciousness of a nation to-day; and therefore to-day they are a factor, to neglect which would be to neglect a prime element without which neither the present nor the future may be understood. only the sentimentalist waves out of sight considerations that are unpleasant to him. the realist faces every element of being, conscious or unconscious; for he knows that only out of the sum of all those elements can life proceed, or creation begin. for these ancient dignities have passed into the consciousness of every sort of irishmen. it was, for example, molyneux who, in his _case of ireland stated_ at the end of the th century, first among modern irish writers based an argument upon them. molyneux was an english colonist. in the wars of tirconnell and patrick sarsfield he had fled to england, returning only when ginkel the dutchman had won the field for his master, now monarch of england. he regarded the ancient nation with aversion. yet when the english parliament harassed what he proudly conceived to be the ancient liberty of ireland, he stated the case of that nation, stated it as his case, in a public document of historic moment; and the english parliament caused his book to be burned by the public hangman. the sorest part of his book was his reference to the council of constance of . this council may rightly claim to be the first of modern international congresses. at it a certain question of precedence had arisen between france and england, which was referred to the court of heralds. in the judgment which was given it was stated as an international ruling that europe was first constituted from four nations. these nations, in the order of their precedence, were rome, byzantium, ireland and spain. and molyneux, the english colonist, proudly referred to this ruling, and based a great part of his case upon it. the breed of molyneux is alive to-day. political differences have divided it from the ancient race which furnished its arguments. but the pride is the same; the sense of possession is essentially the same, obscured though it may have been by the causes of difference; and when a new alignment of political parties has blent the two points of view into one outlook, and made the whole consciousness to merge in one, the living factor of ancient nationhood will arise with a new strength. that strength will prove a factor for the future. the cause of it is registered in the present draft constitution; and it is the first of the two causes that make it unlike those of the other nations with which ireland is now confederate and co-equal. the second cause is curiously like, and yet curiously unlike, to the first. it is also derived from the fact of nationhood, but from the achievement of nationhood at the other end of history. for the other nations of the commonwealth are themselves not now what they were when their constitutions were first framed. they were then but colonies, on whom their mother-country was pleased to bestow constitutions--and if the pleasure was not always the most noticeable part of the bestowal, the legal smile did not diminish the fact of the gift. in their constitutions, therefore, the apron-strings are very much in evidence. it is clear from them that the mother did not propose to let the children wander far from her control, even though she permitted them to walk with their own feet. not only in the actual provisions of these constitutions, but in their very conception and plan, drawn exactly according to english methods and from english experience, it is evident that a state of perpetual tutelage was imagined for the peoples to whom they were given. that has now changed. the colonies have come to be nations, very jealous of their nationhood. they have grown with experience, have moved onward with time, and it would go hard with anyone who attempted to remind them of what, nevertheless, their constitutions are a continual reminder. the consequence is that the provisions of these constitutions cannot be enforced since they do not square with experience. they encumber the documents which contain them as so much dead timber. they are sometimes carelessly, and more often dishonestly, described as legal fictions. but they are not legal fictions. they are dead letters--dead timber which a wise woodman would soon hew away. life and experience have outgrown them; and this growth finds expression--if, unfortunately, not the full expression that might at one time have seemed possible--in the present draft constitution. for under her treaty with england ireland agreed to take equal rank in the community of nations with the other members of it. specifically she accepted the "law, practice and constitutional usage" of canada; and that constitutional usage implies, not the dead timber of the canadian constitution, but the living tissue of her constitutional experience. these two causes, then, have joined together to produce the draft of the irish constitution. from them was created the original plan of the constitution, according to which ireland takes her place, not only generally among all nations in virtue of her ancient right, but specially in a certain confederacy of nations in virtue of a treaty of peace, signed between her plenipotentiaries and england's plenipotentiaries, and approved by both legislatures. to the most casual glance, it is indeed a most modern and forward-looking document; yet it draws from so ancient a fountain-head. and the conjunction of these two may prove of searching value, if rightly used, to ireland's influence in the world--provided that there be peace at home, without which a nation is nought. that influence may not be of the same kind as one had hoped before the treaty of peace was signed. but even if it be not of the same kind, its measure need not be less. it cannot be so immediate; and that is loss; but it may with wisdom and firmness prove ultimately to be more extensive. whatever the means, the end remains the same; and that end is the contribution in the comity of nations of the fruits of personality--without which neither men nor nations can plead a justification for life. for when a nation such as ireland joins a confederacy so composed, she by the mere fact of her addition transfigures the whole. this is not a fanciful figure of speech. it is a literal description of what has already occurred. in the case of no other nation of the community, for example, has its advent been signalled by an international treaty. that, in itself, is a transfiguration of the whole. similarly, other nations of the community had protested the co-equality of each and all; but the protestation had remained a protestation until it was formally declared for each and all by the claim made by and recognised for ireland. so it has proved in the very case of this constitution. the full height of nationhood is the recognition of sovereignty; and the completest act of sovereignty of which a nation may be capable is to confer its constitution on itself. with the exception of great britain, none of the other members of the community were, when their constitutions were enacted, capable of this. each of them received its constitution as bestowed, not by the act of its own legislature, but by the act of a suzerain legislature. and that shortness of national stature remained until it was removed by the addition of ireland to the community. for ireland will receive her constitution by the act of her own constituent assembly, not by the act of any suzerain legislature. whether the constitution be or be not adopted by any other assembly neither gives nor detracts from the national authority it will possess. if it be so adopted, it will be adopted, not as giving it authority, but as the completing act of ratifying the treaty. that is to say, it will be adopted by the parliament of great britain as concluding the interest of that parliament in the international bargain of the treaty; and it will be passed and prescribed by the irish assembly as giving it full force and effect in ireland. and that is a full sovereign act. but, since all the members of the community are declared to be co-equal, the advent of ireland, therefore, has given the recognition of sovereignty to them all, and raised each to the full height of nationhood. the consequences of this are at the moment difficult to foresee fully; but they are consequences that the addition of ireland to the community has created, though in the fullness of time they were ready for her advent. it is certain that they will reach far and strike deep, not only within the community, but towards other nations, not members of the community. already as between the six full members of the community the thought of empire belongs to the past; and the word and feudal trappings will follow the thought. indeed, though the foolish trappings remain, in the text of both the treaty and the constitution the word has already begun to be supplanted by the word community. and though it be true that words are only words, it is equally true that words are the parasites of thought, and cling to the mind long after their original uses are forgotten. to cause the relinquishment of an ancient word is itself a liberal accomplishment of no mean sort, as psychologists know; and none can say where new conceptions will not lead when once the barrier of words has been broken down. these are, however, considerations for the future; and the future is only for those who are worthy of it--and not always even for such. already a considerable change has been wrought; and that change is registered with all its faults in the present draft constitution. the nation that caused the change is the same nation still, in spite of sad scattering of its national strength. it is still an ancient nation: not a colony: never a colony: deeply conscious of its historic heirlooms and prescriptive dignities. ireland is still a mother-country, fully resolved to employ her empire of memory and love for the purposes which she and it judge worthy. her place and power in the community will prove to be of no mean degree, and of no small meaning for the nations outside that community, as well for the peoples and nations within it, if she rally her strength around her and prove worthy of her destiny. when she shall have conferred a constitution upon herself, within the limits of her contractual obligation in the treaty, she will not have foresworn her heritage (unless she elect to do so); she will not have diminished her strength (unless she choose to dissipate it); but she will be able by a persistent purpose, of which she has already given her pledges, to contribute in the future as she contributed in the past, with a security that has not been allowed her for many centuries, to the benefit of nations. and it is to this end i dedicate this little book. the irish constitution i. what is a constitution? during the early days of the second french republic a customer entered a bookseller's and asked: "have you a copy of the french constitution?" "we do not," the bookseller politely replied, "deal in periodical literature." now, to any student of history such a story is a sure indication of the time of which it is told. he need not inquire to know that the time was one of revolution, change, and unsettlement. he also knows the mind of the people of that time, for insecure conditions beget a nervous, restless fear. and these things are significant. they reveal a quality of constitution-making that is not always, or easily, remembered. for whatever changes may proceed in legislation--however many and rapid they be--as long as the constitution, written or unwritten, remains intact, the state at least is stable and its foundations are secure. plainly, therefore, nothing should be written into a constitution that is of a temporary, experimental, or questionable nature, or which should fall to the lot of ordinary law-making and the changing convenience of practice. a constitution is that which is permanent, as far as anything in this world may be permanent. even to amend it, or add to it, requires in all countries (except england, where the constitution has not taken a written form) a procedure quite different from that of ordinary legislation. to change it, or recast it, requires a revolution. such a revolution may not be accompanied by bloodshedding, or it may, but it is certainly accompanied by insecurity and unsettlement. it should, therefore, be the business of constitution-makers to prescribe only what to them is fundamental and irrefutable; to lay down the secure foundations of their state; and to leave all other matters to the experience of the nation, without seeking to shackle that experience by provisions that time may not commend. otherwise, a convulsion may be necessary to get done what ordinary legislation could have accomplished without affecting the stability of the state. this, then, is the first definition of a constitution, that it contains the fundamental law of a state, and only the fundamental law. in england there is no such thing as a fundamental law. it is claimed by english constitutional lawyers that this is because parliament is sovereign; but the historical truth is that in england parliament exercises a sovereignty in fact which the king is supposed to exercise in theory; and any attempt to make the theory square with the fact by the writing of a fundamental law would lead, perhaps, to a surprising situation. yet in england certain fundamental rights are recognised, with which parliament would not lightly tamper; and these amount in effect to a fundamental law, holding a higher rank than ordinary laws. in practically all other countries such rights are set forth in a document, different from all other legal documents, inasmuch as unless these other documents observe the conditions required in the first, and do not conflict with its provisions, they are null and void. in both sets of documents the laws of the realm are to be found; but the two sets of laws are of different sorts. one is fundamental and permanent; the other is by contrast casual and changeable. this, then, is the second definition of a constitution, not only that it contains the fundamental law of a state, but that it prescribes the manner in which all other laws must be made, and put limits and restrictions on all other law-making. in the american phrase, it is a "frame of government." in english the words constitution and legislation do not carry on their face the relation of one to the other, and the distinction between them. in irish the case is different. in irish the word for legislation is _reacht_, and the word for constitution is _bunreacht_--fixed and foundation legislation. but even the distinction so simply carried on the face of these words does not complete the relation of one to the other. for that relation is precise; and consists in the fact that all laws comprising the _reacht_ must be built upon the foundation of the _bunreacht_, and must be contained within the fixed limits of the _bunreacht_. the moment they attempt to build elsewhere, or go outside those limits, that moment they cease to be binding on any citizen; and all citizens may claim the protection of the courts of law against them. from this follows the third definition of a constitution, which is that it contains the highest and completest sovereign act of a nation. a nation may confer a constitution on itself, and that constitution may contain no declaration that the people are sovereign; but the fact that the nation did so make their own constitution is itself a declaration of sovereignty. declarations of sovereignty in the body of a constitution may be very wise; and they are always pleasant; but they are not necessary. similarly, a nation may make a constitution for itself, and in that constitution confer the chief executive authority on a person to be known as a king; and that person may be known in name as a sovereign; but the fact that he derives his power from the constitution is evidence that, not he, but the people, are sovereign. his is only a sovereign name; theirs is the sovereign reality. such constitutions were made in by norway, in by belgium, and only last year by "jugo-slavia." in the last case the kingly line already existed before the constitution was framed, and an oath was prescribed in it, according to which the king swore "to maintain the constitution intact." in the first two cases the kingly lines were not chosen until the constitutions had been framed, when the chosen dynasties stepped into the places appointed for them, and carried out the functions defined for them. in each case, however, the authority of the king sprang, not from the divine right of kings, but from the divine right of the people, as set forth in the sovereign act of giving themselves a constitution. how different the power of kings such as these from the power of the french monarch who in the th century declared, "l'etat, c'est moi"--"i am the state." he was right. he was sovereign. sovereignty had to reside somewhere; and until the people arose and declared that it resided in them, and expressed that declaration in a formal constitution, it continued to reside in the ruler who claimed it. when, however, in , the thirteen american states "ordained and established a constitution" for their union, then in the modern world the people came by their own. france quickly followed the example, but as a result of the wars which followed the world was thrown back into reaction. throughout the th century, however, the statement of democratic sovereignty as a fundamental law of the state found expression in constitution after constitution; with the result that now, in modern practice, the existence of a constitution is practically identical with a statement of national sovereignty. there has hitherto been one chief exception; and that exception is of striking interest at the present time. for within the british empire the theory has been that there is only one sovereign assembly, the parliament at westminster. it is true that the constitutions of canada, australia and south africa were each drawn up by constituent conventions in the countries themselves; but by the prevalent theory none of these peoples were competent to confer these constitutions upon themselves. they were not, that is to say, sovereign; and before the constitutions they devised therefore could come of effect they had to be passed as imperial acts by the parliament at westminster. yet that also has now changed. ireland has wrought the change; and the deep influence of that change cannot be foretold. for the dail elected to pass the constitution will act, not as a constituent convention, but as a constituent assembly. it will not only devise the constitution, with the present constitution before it as a bill for discussion, but, having devised it, will prescribe it; and thus, through their elected representatives, the people of ireland will have conferred it on themselves as their fundamental law. that is a sovereign act; and that act will differ in no degree from a similar act by any other sovereign people. from this, however, one last consideration follows; and, though it is simple, it is not usually remembered. for if the passing of a constitution is an act of full sovereignty, and if that constitution, being a fundamental law, restricts and limits all future law-making, then the assemblies to come which will pass those future laws will not be sovereign. they will not be able to do what they will, and they will not be able to act as they will, for they must obey the requirements and act within the limits of the constitution, as prescribed by the first assembly, which alone was of full sovereignty. for this reason every nation has gone to great care to choose persons of special competence for the body which is to act as a constituent assembly--the body, indeed, which is to act as the first, and, so long as that constitution shall remain, the last sovereign assembly of the nation. the act of prescribing a constitution being the highest act that a nation can make, care has always been taken to make it the fullest and the freest. for, once done, it cannot be undone, except at great trouble, and perhaps as the result of great convulsion. ii. the plan of the constitution. to draw up a plan is almost inevitably to express a philosophy. in shaping the sequence and proportion of the parts which are to comprise the whole, the trick of the mind will out; and it is in that trick of the mind that, ultimately, all philosophies are contained. perhaps there are few who, after consideration, would deny this in all the ordinary (greater or lesser) concerns of life; but many will think it strange in a matter so dry as the drafting of a constitution. yet even in the drafting of a constitution it will be found equally true. a constitution may be likened to a pyramid, the apex of which is the executive authority, and the base the people. the first question that therefore at once arises is, where shall one begin first with this pyramid? but before this question can be answered, another must first be met; and it is, whether the base is hung from the apex, or whether the apex rests on the base? what relation has the executive authority (whether kingly, presidential or consular) to the people, and the people to the executive authority; and which, names and titles apart, is ultimately the sovereign? these are ripe questions; and only in the making of the plan can they be answered. i have already shewn that the writing of a constitution is itself evidence that the people are sovereign, even though no statement to that effect is included in the writing. but when one comes to look in the constitutions of the world it is curious to note the persistence with which that truth is overlooked. the canadian constitution, for example, having provided for the union of provinces by which the federation was created, begins at once with the statement that "the executive government and authority of and over canada is hereby declared to continue and be vested in the queen." nothing has been said about a legislature--nothing about the people of canada. the constitution begins at once with an executive authority which nothing has brought into being, and which therefore exists of its own right, original and indefeasible, all things else in the constitution depending from it. the pyramid is hung from heaven, for the philosophy of the plan is to be found in the mediaeval myth of the divine right of kings. the constitution of canada consequently proceeds downwards from that apex to the legislature; and in that legislature, according to the philosophy, the senate comes before the commons. "there shall," it says, "be one parliament for canada, consisting of the queen, an upper house, styled the senate, and the house of commons." as for the base, it is found nowhere at all. the interest is exhausted before it is reached; and the people are not mentioned. i have taken the canadian constitution because it is specially mentioned in the present draft of the constitution of _saorstat eireann_; but the same supposition is found in many other constitutions, such as those of denmark, sweden, south africa. in them are to be found the relics of the mediaeval theory of government, of a divine authority conferred on a family, which therefore ruled of its own right; and of its own grace summoned the subjects of that authority for counsel and advice. therefore in these constitutions it is assumed that the sovereignty is above and the subjection below--even though no one to-day supposes that the practical facts are what they assume them to be. in the irish constitution, as in most modern constitutions, this order is inverted. the sovereignty is below, and the subjection is above. never once throughout the irish constitution (either in its original or its present form) are the people once considered as subjects, but always as sovereign citizens. the pyramid is based on the broad earth, in the divine right of the people; and a beginning is therefore made with the base, proceeding upward to the apex. the plan in fact is reversed because the philosophy is different. the constitution of _saorstat eireann_ begins with the people, and with a statement of the sovereignty of the people. "all powers of government," it says in article , "and all authority, legislative, executive and judicial, are derived from the people and the same shall be exercised in _saorstat eireann_ through the organisations established by or under, and in accord with, this constitution." in this constitution, therefore, the people of ireland establish their own right, original and indefeasible, and all things and persons and institutions named or created by or under it depend from them. that is in the present, as it was in the original, draft. whatever institution or organisation is established to act on their behalf, acts under an authority conferred by them; and in accord with the specific bestowal of that authority; and not otherwise. whatever person or power is named, is named to act on their behalf; acts under the same authority; in accord with the specific bestowal of that authority; and not otherwise. the people confer of their own right; and what they may confer they may withdraw. if the authority they confer be abused or transgressed, it ceases thereupon to have any sanction or reverence, and possesses no binding effect. that is to say, in the terms of my figure, the apex of the pyramid rests on the base, is hung from no mythical divine right of kings, and has no support outside the people of ireland. the people, consequently, are citizens of a free state, not the subjects of authority. it is necessary, therefore, at once to state who are the citizens of this state, and what constitutes their citizenship. this the next article proceeds to define. in this article the whole question of future citizenship is referred to legislation. it properly belongs to legislation, since it includes a number of complex matters and details quite unsuited to a constitution. yet there must be an original citizenship, otherwise the service of the state could not begin. article , therefore, states what constitutes the original citizenship of saorstat eireann; and leaves all matters "governing the future acquisition and termination of citizenship" to be "determined by law," making it a constitutional provision, however, that "men and women have equal rights as citizens." and article provides that the official language of that citizenship shall be the irish language. from these original citizens, and from whomever shall be admitted to citizenship in the future, all the authority of the state derives under the constitution. they are the base of the pyramid, and it is they who in the constitution (according to the plan on which it is framed) confer on certain persons and organisations definite powers of government in ireland. but the authority which can confer, can also withhold; and from the powers which they grant, certain matters are withheld. for there are matters which comprise the fundamental rights of their sovereignty, with which no government created by them can interfere. if the government had existed, or had claimed to have existed, of its own original right, it could, being itself sovereign, have acted as it pleased; and in past times it did so. but since government under the constitution exists only by reason of an authority conferred by a sovereign people, these fundamental rights of their sovereignty are kept apart; and no authority--legislative, executive or judicial--and no power of government is conceded the right to touch them. therefore in the first section of the constitution, where the original authority of the people is stated, certain matters are withheld. they are described as _fundamental rights_. the liberty of the person, the inviolability of the dwelling, freedom of conscience and the free practice and profession of religion, the free expression of opinion, free assembly, free association, free elementary education, and the inalienability of natural resources, are each dealt with in successive articles as forming the essentials of these rights. before any powers are conferred, before any organisations or institutions of government are created, these matters are put to one side and reserved. they belong to the people. none shall interfere with them. the people are sovereign, and they so decide. such is the plan, for such is the philosophy. the first section of the constitution, therefore, includes what may be described as the base of the pyramid, resting on the soil of ireland and established in the right of the people of ireland. from that base the pyramid is built up toward the executive authority, in section by section, giving the logical order in which power is derived. each section is based on that which precedes it; for the order is the same as in the original draft, and therefore the plan is preserved. iii. the making of laws. all powers of government may derive from the people, but the people cannot of themselves govern themselves. in simple small communities the people may gather together and frame the manner of their government from meeting to meeting (and only then when ancient custom has given them the practice and expectation of such assemblies); but among nations for a people to discipline and rule themselves it is necessary that they bestow recognised and definite powers of government on representatives of their choice. such representatives, to be sure, have a habit of conceiving that they are rulers of their own right. cases have even been known where they have endeavoured to obstruct the right of the people to depose them. but the truth is that such representatives are merely a convenience. they are a people's instruments, and no more. without them the achievement of a common agreement, and the formulation of laws based on that common agreement, would prove so cumbersome as to be impossible. a people must therefore tolerate them with good humour; and keep them under proper control. and when such representatives have been chosen, they together form an organised body for the making of laws, and for the supervision and control of the execution of such laws. obviously, then, once a constitution has stated the sovereign source of all authority, and defined the fundamental rights of that sovereignty, it is essential that it should prescribe the manner in which laws shall be made for the peace, order and good government of the whole people. the second section of the constitution, therefore, deals with the _legislative provisions_ of the state. the most important of these, manifestly, is the creation of an organisation of representatives; but, owing to the tendency of representatives to arrogate powers to themselves, of late years the peoples of many states have insisted on a direct voice in the checking, and even in the making, of laws. this direct voice has been exerted by means of two instruments known generally as the referendum and the initiative. wherever these prevail, the assembly of representatives is given only a limited power in the making of laws, the sovereign authority reserving to itself a constant and continuous control over its action. and in our constitution both these instruments are given a place. for it is a sound rule that the people are generally better than their representatives--wiser of counsel, more disinterested of judgment--and it is therefore provided in the constitution that there shall be an assembly of representatives, but that the people may require of that assembly that laws be referred to them for final decision, or that laws be made to suit their desire. the most important part of these legislative provisions, however, is the setting up of a national assembly, or synod, to be known as the oireachtas. this is to be formed of two houses, dail eireann and seanad eireann. there are many powerful arguments against the two-chamber system. in the end they all resolve themselves into a question of ultimate responsibility. in a simple illustration, if there be one thimble and one pea, it is easy enough to know where the pea is. but directly a second thimble is brought up beside the first, the difficulty of placing the pea becomes at once a problem. on the other hand, the arguments in favour of a second-chamber system also resolve themselves into a question of responsibility. for if there is only one chamber, without a second to check it and act together with it, there is, it is argued, a greater likelihood of its acting in an irresponsible manner, and of its running into hasty, ill-advised legislation. its members, having acquired the habit of concerted action, may moreover strike a bargain behind the people's back, even while preserving all the forms of opposition and discussion. with the two instruments of the referendum and the initiative in operation this danger is less likely, provided that the people be sufficiently alert. yet it exists. in most countries, therefore, two chambers are the rule; and in our constitution it is provided that there shall be two chambers, care being taken to fix responsibility ultimately in the first in case of doubt or delay. given two chambers, the difficulty is the creation of the second chamber. the first chamber causes little difficulty, and is mainly a matter, not for the constitution, but for an electoral law. the second chamber is a matter for the constitution. indeed, the question and creation of a second chamber, and the formation of the executive power, are the two foremost problems for the making of every constitution. the first difficulty is to find for the second chamber a sufficient constituency, and the second difficulty is to find for it a proper function; and both these problems are essentially matters for the constitution of a state. to answer both of them satisfactorily is the difficulty; and an examination of the constitutions of other countries reveals that in few cases have they been answered even to general satisfaction. as for the constituency, it is clear that this cannot be the same as for the first chamber, otherwise the two houses are simply repetitions. that is one consideration to be remembered. there is another. for from earliest times mankind has desired to call into its special councils those who have distinguished themselves in the conduct of its affairs. folk may disagree with such persons, but they defer to them and hear them. what may be called the senatorial person is a recognised factor in the history of all nations. in the push and jostle of entry to the first house--where special and local interests are represented--such a senatorial person is most likely to be thrust aside, even if he or she be inclined to mingle in the fray. he is consequently lost to the councils of the nation. how shall a place be found for him or for her; and when the place is found, what shall be the measure of his or her counsel? other nations have answered these problems in divers ways. none has answered them as they are answered in the constitution of _saorstat eireann_. for it is clear that if there is to be a second chamber, the right place for such a senatorial person is in that second chamber, since only thus is it possible to avoid making one chamber a mere copy of the other. in some countries, therefore, the second chamber is composed of persons on whom a title has been conferred--and on their children who succeed to that title. in other countries the second chamber is created by nomination--with at least the ostensible wish that only senatorial persons will be appointed. both these methods have led to corruption. both, moreover, have led to one fatal fault. for second chambers are mainly of value at times when the first chamber is likely to rush to a mistake; and at such times no people are inclined to give careful heed to the counsel of persons whom they have not themselves chosen to give that counsel. they may be exactly such persons as they themselves would have chosen; but the fact that they did not choose them, the fact that they came there by the accident of birth, or the power of money, robs them of authority just when their authority is most required. for this reason, the people's own choice of senators is necessary to their efficiency and authority. in countries formed out of a confederation this difficulty is evaded by the creation of the senate from the federated states, while creating the first chamber directly from the whole people. but where there are no federated states the people's direct bestowal of authority cannot be evaded if friction and loss of strength are to be avoided. thus one returns to the original problem, which is, how the people shall choose a senate which will not be a copy of the chamber of deputies, and how the senatorial person will find his way to the councils of the nation, bringing with him an unanswerable authority. our constitution meets this by making the whole country one constituency for the election of the senate. the deputies are elected from localities where they are known, and the special interests of which they are qualified to represent. over those interests the major interest of the whole nation stands guard. it would be possible for persons to enter the chamber of deputies who are not known outside their own localities, but who are qualified to represent those localities. but by making the entire country one constituency for the election of the senate, no merely local interest will have power to secure election. and thus it will be possible to find a place for the senatorial person from, as the constitution reads, "citizens who have done honour to the nation by reason of useful public service, or who, because of special qualifications or attainments, represent important aspects of the nation's life." these persons are to be elected by proportional representation; and in order that the business of election shall not prove too cumbersome it is appointed that one-fourth of the senate shall retire every three years, and that before each election a list shall be prepared by both houses consisting of at least three times as many persons as there are vacancies to be filled. such form the two houses of the oireachtas. their relation to one another is carefully defined. the seanad is created as an advisory and delaying body, and the ultimate responsibility is given to the dail. but endowed, as it is, with so strong an authority, vested in it by the entire nation voting as a whole, it is unlikely that its criticisms and advice can be neglected. for such criticisms will be furnished in the course of debates that will be read by the whole people; and behind them there will always be the possibility of appeal to the whole nation by referendum, which the senate can compel by a three-fifths vote. the senate and the people, therefore, are placed in a watchful alliance over the acts and proceedings of the dail. indeed, it is not unlikely that in the future the senate and the people (by referendum) will often be found in practical alliance against any attempt of the dail to arrogate power to itself. the senate has the power to make it so--a power of greater worth to it, and to the nation, than any constitutional right arbitrarily to obstruct legislation or to make legislation abortive. iv. the people as law-makers. more is spoken of the two instruments of the referendum and the initiative (particularly the former) than is known about them; for in the countries where they have been adopted, folk use them and do not talk about them, and where they have not been adopted folk talk about them with ardour or with fear but without knowledge. briefly they may be described as a retention by the sovereign people of sovereign authority over the making of laws. the case is not without an historical parallel. in earlier times in other states the sovereign was the king, who said, "l'etat, c'est moi." he was therefore the law-maker, by supreme right. he might summon the estates of his realm--lords and commons--to advise and counsel him; and he might, normally, allow their acts without his interference; but, being sovereign, he reserved the right to cause those acts to be referred to him for the final act of his will; and he at all times reserved the right to send a message to them instructing them to make laws on matters that seemed to him to require attention. this he did, being the sovereign. his parliament was the legislature of the state, but he preserved the referendum and the initiative, and held them as his sovereign authority over the authority deputed to the legislature. when, however, sovereignty passed to the people, they assumed the attributes and the functions of that sovereignty. where once the king's person and the king's dwelling, for example, had been declared to be inviolable, now (as in our constitution) the people's persons and the people's dwellings are declared to be inviolable. and where once the king reserved the right to veto and to initiate legislation, so now (as again in our constitution) the people reserve the right to veto and to initiate legislation. and this is the plain and simple meaning of the two instruments of the referendum and the initiative. their effect is to shift sovereignty from the parliament to the people, where the revolutions of the th and th centuries shifted sovereignty from the king to the parliament. it frequently happens that theories (for whatever they may be worth) are carried to their logical ends by practical people and not by theorists--for theory generally lags in the rear of practice. so it happened in this case. for it was the soberly practical and conservative people of switzerland who in modern times first devised the referendum, and then the initiative. since then they have been adopted in many countries, chief of which are belgium, australia, and many of the american states; and they appear in most of the constitutions recently adopted in europe. but it is in switzerland that they can most usefully be studied, for there they have a solid experience of ninety years continuous practice behind them. the referendum came first; and in its modern form was first adopted in the constitution of the canton of st. gall in , the second and third articles of which read: art. .--the people of the canton are sovereign. sovereignty, which is the sum of all political powers, resides in the whole body of citizens. art. .--it results from this that the people themselves exercise the legislative powers, and every law is submitted to their sanction. this sanction is the right of the people to refuse to recognise any law submitted to them, and to prevent its execution in virtue of their sovereign power. from st. gall it spread to each of the other twenty-two cantons, and to the legislation reserved to the federal assembly. everywhere it is either compulsory for every law to be submitted to the people by referendum, or for laws to be submitted when a given number of electors, within a limited period of time, have demanded that the referendum be exercised, some of the cantons having adopted it in one form and some in another, the confederation adopting it in the optional rather than in the obligatory form. then, after the referendum, followed the initiative with quick pace, by which the people asserted the right, not merely that laws may be submitted to them for their approval or rejection, but that a given number of electors (in writing) may demand that the legislature proceed without delay to legislate on any matter that they judge to be of sufficient importance. at first sight measures such as these appear to be revolutionary and drastic. in practice they have proved to be conservative. the mere existence of the referendum has proved to be a check on legislation that might otherwise have been carried by parliamentary manoeuvring for votes. the people, in actual fact, have proved to be both purer and more conservative than their representatives; and the tendency towards economy in the expenditure of public moneys has, in the main, been not the least benefit it has conferred. people are little inclined to study bills debated in the national assembly when they realise that they are powerless to change or check the measures it may pass. the power to throw out their representatives at the next general election is only a limited form of freedom, and it is illusory in face of the fact that those representatives are generally chosen by powerful political organisations which take care to select pliant and obedient tools. only at times of great crisis does the wish of the people become vocal; and even then it is more usually neglected than not. but with the referendum in their hands (especially with the initiative added to it) the will of the people is always present. the people can hasten legislation where it moves slowly. they can retard it where it presses too fast ahead. they themselves can make the pace. and the effect on themselves is that, with this added responsibility, they take a quick interest in their own concerns. in the first place they break up the power of political organisations; and in the second place they themselves become alert and educated citizens, responsible and intelligent guiders of their own destinies. nor are these the imaginings of theory. they are the practical outcome in every country or state where the referendum and initiative have been adopted. they have especially been the result in switzerland, where, by means of the initiative, the people have insisted on measures being passed that no political party would have dared to undertake. for there are many questions that cut clean across all parties, which dare not offend a majority or a minority, and where therefore the unity of the party comes before the interest of the nation. but minorities from all parties may join, and in switzerland have joined, together to press for their adoption, with the consequence that the national assembly has had no alternative but to frame legislation to deal with them. and when such legislation has come before the people by the referendum, the people have in many cases adopted them. the presence, therefore, in our constitution of both the referendum and the initiative is therefore a sign that the people of ireland are to be rulers in their own house--not merely as against foreign control, but as against the dominance of political parties. it means more. it means that responsibility is now definitely reposed in them. there are provisions which, in the present draft of the constitution, could with advantage be changed. for to require, in article , that a petition from the people of not less than "one-twentieth of the voters then on the register" is necessary (in the alternative of a vote of three-fifths of the senate), before a measure may be put to the referendum, is to impose an almost impracticable, and certainly an extremely difficult, task. it reveals a fear of the exercise of the referendum that experience in other countries does not justify. with the wide franchise allowed in the constitution, the tendency will be to play into the hands of political parties, and one of the purposes of the referendum is to destroy the power of political parties. yet a slight change here may easily be made. and the essential fact is that the people of ireland, having asserted the fact of their sovereignty, and defined its qualities, proceed to exercise its functions by holding over the oireachtas the two instruments of the referendum and the initiative. how will those functions be exercised? it is impossible to say, except that there is no education like the education of responsibility. v. the executive power. i have likened a constitution to a pyramid, the base of which is the people, and the apex the executive authority. in all pyramids, it is the apex that first catches the eye, not the base; yet it is from the base upward that democratic constitutions are built. usually it happens in most countries that the executive masters the law-making body, and that the law-making body in turn masters the people. it is therefore necessary to remember, and to emphasise, that the true order is the other way about, the people being the master of the law-making body, and the law-making body the master of the executive. in the degree in which that true order is asserted, and observed, the health of the state is preserved. in the degree in which it is neglected, or frustrated, there is suspicion, irritation, discontent. and as it is always the executive which tends naturally, where it does not intrigue deliberately, to upset that order, by gathering all power into its hands, obviously the provisions respecting the formation and maintenance of executive power are the most critical part of every constitution. it was a wise man, and an experienced, who said that it did not matter to him who had the making of laws, so long as he had the administration of them. "for forms of government let fools contest," said the poet; "that which is best administered is best." and as the administration of a state is reposed in the care of the executive power, for the most part beyond the sight of the law-making assembly of the people, it is essential that the constitution should provide that the executive should at all times, and with the utmost flexibility, lie in the control of the legislature. otherwise, whatever safeguards may be provided that laws carry the consent of the people, the people will in the end find themselves baffled, unable to track into the thicket of secret decisions the will that they have elsewhere endeavoured plainly to express. it is therefore the plain duty of every constitution to keep the executive simple and flexible, responsive always to the will of the legislature, as the legislature should always be responsive to the will of the people. crises will arise in the history of every nation when the powers of the executive require to be strengthened; and at such times those powers will be readily conceded. but it is the legislature and the people which must decide; and the constitution must leave them free to do so. it is no part of the duty of a constitution to provide for a time of crisis, and to make that provision fixed and rigid for all later times, when circumstances will have completely changed. all that it is the absolute duty of a constitution to do is to state how the executive shall be formed, and to define its responsibility to the legislature. the rest may be left to the practice of the future. certainly to indulge in experiments in a constitution respecting so vital a part of it as the executive (experiments unlike anything yet attempted in any constitution in the world) is an extremely hazardous proceeding. nor are such experiments necessary in a constitution, since they may be tried in the course of ordinary legislation, and surrendered if they prove impracticable. it is one thing to experiment--which a constitution should allow. it is another thing to be pledged to one's experiments for ever--which is what a constitutional provision is intended to mean. the experimental nature of the provisions for the executive in the present draft of the constitution is manifest. they are unlike anything in any constitution. they are quite unlike the provisions in the swiss constitution, from which the inspiration is supposed to be derived. switzerland is a confederation, consisting of twenty-two sovereign cantons, where only limited powers are conferred on the federal authorities. the twenty-two sovereign cantons differ widely in religion, language, habits and traditions. they are jealous of the federal authorities, and jealous of one another, and therefore insist that the federal council (which acts as the executive), as well as the federal assembly, shall be representative directly of the languages, religions and traditions of different parts of the country. certain of the larger towns and cantons, indeed, claim prescriptive rights to the appointment of members of the federal council. this council, therefore, is appointed for the whole term of the assembly by the two chambers of the assembly sitting together, and are chosen by the two chambers, as the constitution says, "from among all swiss citizens eligible to the national council." the members of the council may speak, and propose motions, in both chambers, but they may not vote in either, for they form a separate institution outside the assembly. it is well to see what are the provisions for the executive power under the swiss constitution in order to note how widely the executive in our draft differs from them. good or bad, our draft stands or falls by itself, and cannot depend from the swiss example, from which it differs both in itself and in the circumstance which it is designed to meet. the intention may be of the noblest; but intentions are only prophecies; and the fundamental law of a constitution is scarcely the place to commit a whole people to a prophecy. the intention is to overcome party government, and is conceived at a time when parties are divided along lines that do not represent the economic issues that ordinarily influence the course of legislation. for parties, in so far as parties represent true economic issues, are a natural and inevitable medium for conducting the government of a country. where parties do not represent such issues, but are held together by unnatural organisations, they do, it is true, obscure the orderly government of a country. the remedy is to be found, not in an enforced and arbitrary creation of an executive, but in the right election of the legislature, of which the executive must be a reflection if the legislature is to work harmoniously with it, and keep a constant control over it. to attempt by arbitrary provisions to create an executive that does not accurately and at all times reflect the legislature (on whatever party lines that legislature be composed) is automatically to remove that executive from the continuous control of the legislature. and it is surely the essential business of a constitution to insist that that control be emphasised, not diminished. otherwise, whatever be the intention, the executive will become irresponsible, government will fall into the hands of rulers who can only with difficulty be removed, and constant friction will ensue. such is the broader line of argument. in detail the executive provisions of the present draft seem even less defensible. for authority is reposed in an executive council formed of two parts. of twelve ministers, it is stated, four must be members of the chamber and eight must not be members--or, if they were members before, they cannot continue to be members, and must resign. it is true that on the motion of the president of the council these four (who are members of the chamber) may be increased to seven; but the draft makes it perfectly clear that according to the normal procedure under the constitution the proportions are to be four and eight; and it is on the normal, not on the exceptional, procedure that attention must therefore necessarily be laid. eight out of twelve ministers, therefore, are not permitted by the draft to be, or to remain, members of the legislature. if they were members before their appointment as ministers, they must resign. consequently, within a few days of a general election, bye-elections become necessary in respect of so many ministers as were elected as deputies--although other ministers who are elected as deputies may continue to remain both as ministers and as deputies. the general election, however, was held under the constitution on the principles of proportional representation. but bye-elections, in such a case, cannot be held according to proportional representation. they become a party tussle between two or more candidates. the first effect of this arrangement, therefore, is to increase the number of elections, with their confusion and unrest, to create party contests in their strongest form, and to undo the proportional representation of the nation in the legislature. someone of an entirely different party might be returned in such a bye-election from the person who resigned on appointment as minister; and the representation of minorities be directly injured as a consequence. that would be the immediate result. the next to follow would be that the nation would find itself faced with the danger of an executive within an executive. for the eight external ministers are to be appointed for the whole life of that chamber. they are to be nominated by a committee itself specially elected for that purpose. they cannot be removed during the life of that chamber unless the committee finds that they have been guilty of malfeasance, incompetence or disobedience to the will of the chamber--definite sins of omission which are not always easily susceptible of proof. this is of itself sufficient to remove them from constant control by the chamber. but the four internal ministers are, for some reason, to be appointed in quite a different manner, and they hold office by quite a different tenure. they are to be appointed on the nomination of the president of the council. they can at any time be removed by an ordinary vote of the chamber. they must therefore study the chamber, and devise their policies to suit its will, for they are subject to its constant control. the whole twelve, it is true, are said to form one single executive council. but what are the chances of this? is it not only too clear that the four internal ministers, since they can be removed by an ordinary vote (which the eight cannot), will frequently, and in most larger matters, meet and act separately together in coming to their decisions? will not necessity drive them to this? but this would mean at once, not one executive council, but two--one within the other. this is acknowledged to be a dangerous practice. we know what happened in england when during the european war a similar practice was adopted, and how soon it became necessary to change it. and is it not equally clear that they will, and must, use the majority that keeps them in power to make the eight external ministers subservient to their will, if their policies cross, without calling them into council? for the policies of all ministers cross, and inter-cross, and should do so if there is to be a harmonious and healthy administration, especially in questions and policies of finance. ultimately the temptation will always be present to these four internal ministers to get subservient persons nominated to the positions to be held by the eight external ministers. they themselves will have come to power by a majority of the chamber. of that majority they will be the acknowledged leaders; and it would be strange if they did not use that majority to find eight external ministers to their liking. but where this happened (as happen it certainly would, in the ordinary human probabilities of the situation) a very remarkable result would come to pass, unlike anything in the history of representative government. this is, that the four would in practice dictate the executive policy of the eight, but they would not be answerable to the chamber for the administrative conduct of those eight departments. they would require what must be done, but they would not themselves be responsible for the manner in which it was done, or whether it were done at all. for the eight would have been nominated for the life of the chamber by a special committee, they would not be members of the chamber, they would not be susceptible to a vote of lack of confidence, but could only be removed when the committee which nominated them had found them guilty of some public misconduct in their administration. the first result of this amazing separation of executive and administrative responsibility would be that the chamber, looking from one to the other in the attempt to fix the ultimate responsibility, would find itself with only the vain shadow of control. for the eight would in theory be responsible to it, but in practice--certainly on all major matters of policy--would be directed by the four. yet the four could not be held responsible for the doings of the eight. and the second result would be that the eight would be little more than civil servants. yet they would not be civil servants. they would neither be ministers nor civil servants, having neither one kind of responsibility nor the other. the baffling consequence would be that the chamber would not only lose control over the eight, but, because of the same division between executive and administrative responsibility, would lose control over the whole executive (including the four) in respect of functions ascribed to the eight. it is in the details of administrative practice that the control of the legislature is usually most important; and it is in just these details that, by the division of the council into two kinds of ministers, with different methods of appointment and removal and different sorts of tenure, that the chamber will under these provisions have lost its control. it is true that it would have the remedy of putting out the four; but few chambers, having appointed the head or heads of a government, desire to throw them out except on some fundamental, paramount issue. the remedy might be worse than the evil; and thus, by its reluctance to take so drastic a step, and by the division of responsibility, it would lose its continuous control over the executive which is the very breath of legislative freedom. it is unnecessary to point, further, to the danger of nominating a large part of an executive under these circumstances through a committee. it is notorious that committees are, or can be made, more easily accessible to intrigue than larger assemblies. the chamber itself should be its own committee for the selection of ministers, on the recommendation of the president of the council, with whom they would have to work. this provision still further removes the executive from the control of the chamber. and so the order of responsibility is inverted, which the plan of the constitution elsewhere so constantly emphasises. for the people may at all times, by the referendum and the initiative, control the legislature. but the legislature cannot, under these provisions, at all times and so simply control the executive. and so control fails just at the point where authority tends most to arrogate power to itself. incidentally, also, the legislature loses what generally has proved its greatest source of strength. for the best informed critics of any chamber are those who once were ministers, who appreciate the responsibility of ministers, and who temper their words as members with their knowledge and experience. but, under these provisions, a member who is appointed as one of the external ministers ceases to be a member. if he therefore finds it incumbent on him to resign, because of disagreement with his colleagues of the executive (inner or outer), he ceases to be both a minister and a member, and his service and knowledge are lost to the chamber--not to speak of the loss of detailed information on the cause of the particular issue of his resignation, on which the chamber may wish enlightenment. indeed, such a provision as this seems peculiarly arbitrary and meaningless. there is, indeed, much virtue in the liberty of the chamber to appoint as ministers persons who may be specially qualified, but who may not be members. in the jostle at the hustings to enter a chamber of but two hundred members it is unlikely that the best ability would always succeed, if it were so much as willing to share the fray. a legislature should therefore not be hampered in the choice of its executive by restricting that choice to two hundred persons. if persons, not members of the chamber, were appointed as ministers, clearly they could not vote; but they could be present, could speak, and could propose motions on behalf of the executive of which they were members. but the whole executive should share an equal responsibility, and be subject at all times to the continuous control of the legislature, of which they are the servants, not the masters. vi. the judiciary. the three organic parts of every constitution are the legislature, for the making and enacting of laws, the executive, for the execution and administration of laws, and the judicature, for the interpretation and enforcement of laws. these three comprise the powers of government which a people bestow on certain organisations which they create for that purpose, in the sovereign act of conferring a constitution on themselves. the authority which such organisations shall henceforward exercise in ireland derive, under the constitution, from the people of ireland; and from no right or power, pretended or real, existing elsewhere. the first of these three organic parts, obviously, is the legislature, since laws cannot be executed or interpreted until they first exist. the second, equally obviously, is the executive, since laws, having come into existence, must first be put into execution before they can be liable to interpretation, or before they can be said to require enforcement. but when a legislature and an executive have been brought into existence, as necessary organisations for a people's government of themselves, a judicial organisation at once becomes necessary. for no law can so be made as of itself to fit each particular case. laws, by their nature, are of general meaning, and must be interpreted to the particular instance where its construction is questioned. and there is (unhappily) no law that is not sometimes altogether challenged, and set at defiance, when therefore the law made by the people at large must be enforced on the individual, and its defiance punished. unfortunately few people regard their judicature with the same pride of possession with which they (sometimes) regard the legislature, and even the executive. even when folk disapprove of their law-makers and their ministers, they disapprove because they conceive they have acted mistakenly on their behalf, whereas they conceive of judges as having acted from a malignancy inborn in them or in the system, with the kind of disapproval reserved for those who are created and are destined to act against their behalf. that is--in most countries, and especially in ireland--a legacy from evil days, when judges were not the people's judges, but whips sent forth through the land by some person who claimed to be sovereign. with the reversal of sovereignty, however, the judges become the people's judges; the courts are the people's courts, where the laws of their own making are interpreted; the judicial system is the people's system; and it is for the people to insist that this attitude is observed, not only by them, but by those who interpret the laws and administer justice. for, under the constitution, no judge sits in any court in the land save by an authority bestowed on him by the people, in the constitution which they confer on themselves. and it is for the people to remember that fact; for only by that memory will it be recognised in the courts themselves--and, indeed, only thus will it deserve to be recognised there. it is not, however, necessary that the details of the judicial system should be worked out in the constitution. it is not, indeed, desirable that they should be (a consideration worthy of attention, not alone here, but in connection with the provisions for the executive also), for such details belong to later legislation. all that is required in the constitution is the general outline of the judiciary, and a statement of its organic relation to the other parts of the powers of government created under it. how that outline will be completed, and the details of the organic relation made good, must be dealt with in a subsequent judiciary act, preceded probably by a judiciary commission established to review the whole of the present system and to report to government on the changes required. in the meantime the present system will continue, subject to the principles and plan of the constitution, which is the law fundamental to the later act, and therefore at once of effect in respect of its general principles and plan. according to that plan the entire system of courts and titles that derive from ancient feudal practice is abolished. a new and simple system comes into existence, comprising a number of courts, civil or criminal, of original instance and a court of final appeal. the court of final appeal is to be known as the supreme court, and the chief of the courts of first instance as the high court. in these courts all cases are entered, and the civil authority of the nation is made paramount in all circumstances. "the jurisdiction of courts martial," says article , "shall not be extended to or exercised over the civil population save in time of war, and for acts committed in time of war, and in accordance with the regulations to be preserved by law. such jurisdiction shall not be exercised in any area in which the civil courts are open or capable of being held, and no person shall be removed from one area to another for the purpose of creating such jurisdiction." moreover, soldiers themselves are relieved from courts martial, unless they are on active service, except for purely military offences. for article reads: "a member of the armed forces of the irish free state not on active service shall not be tried by any court martial for an offence cognisable by the civil courts." it may be asked, however, how safeguards such as these, together with the qualities of sovereignty declared in the constitution to be the fundamental rights of the people, shall be protected. for it is a temptation to all governments to find an easy way out of difficulties by riding roughshod over rights and safeguards, however earnestly they may be declared. there is only one answer. in the making of constitutions there can be only one answer. it is that the judiciary is the people's judiciary, and the third part of the organic whole of government which the people create. article , therefore, reads that "the judicial power of the high court"--with appeal to the supreme court--"shall extend to the question of the validity of any law having regard to the provisions of the constitution." the judiciary is the interpreter of laws. it is therefore the interpreter of the fundamental law. and it is therefore the interpreter of the fundamental law and the protector of the fundamental law, as against all other laws of the legislature that may violate it, not to say arbitrary acts of the executive that may neglect it. it must be so. there is no other way to protect the guarantee of fundamental rights written carefully in a people's constitution. without some such provision a constitution might be written in water, and its guarantees set aside by any powerful executive, or any executive not instantly answerable to the people's will. a provision of this kind is, therefore, a necessary democratic safeguard. it is true that in the united states the judicial review of the supreme court over legislative and executive acts has led to unfortunate decisions and much acrimonious discussion. the evils of an institution are always apparent, and no institution but has its evils. the evils that would have come into existence had that institution not been there, however, are not apparent. they are the incalculable part of the bargain; and, being incalculable, are inevitably neglected in argument. yet they may prove to be the overwhelming factor of the argument. so it is in this case. it would be blindness to neglect it. the mere existence of the judicial review in the united states has unquestionably prevented many an arbitrary act of the executive in defiance of the rights ensured by the constitution; and if the supreme court has, as it undoubtedly has, abused its power of interpretation, the remedy is, not to sweep away that judicial review, and so to jeopardise the provisions of the constitution, but to amend the constitution in plainer terms, or to amend the supreme court. for it is plain that without judicial protection of the fundamental law (as the judiciary is required to protect, interpret and enforce the ordinary law) its clearest provisions could be neglected at pleasure. i may take only one instance. article of the constitution protects the right of free expression of opinion, the right of free assembly, and the right of forming associations not opposed to public morality. now it hardly needs to be said that no government likes the expression of opinions hostile to itself. and no government likes associations formed to bring its hour to an end. under the constitution the minorities of the day have the honest chance of becoming the majorities of the morrow in a peaceable manner. but what would be the worth of this honest chance before a powerful government unless these protections, these rights of a sovereign people, were placed in the care of the third institution of the constitution, the institution entrusted with the interpretation and enforcement of laws? it is true that the judiciary may abuse its power (since power is nearly always abused) by interpreting social reform, let us say, to be "opposed to public morality." but in this connection, it is right to remember, first, that judgment is not reserved only to one court, but to two courts--to the high court, with appeal to the supreme court. and it is right to remember, next, that the people have always in their possession the instruments of the initiative and the referendum, by which they may require either the fundamental law or later laws to be amended to meet their need. there are, therefore, considerable safeguards in the constitution against abuse. yet, even so, because one-fourth of a fundamental right may be jeopardised by an abuse of the judicial power, that is no reason why four-fourths should be surrendered to the abuse of the executive power. therefore the judiciary is placed in care of the provisions of the constitution, not to imperil but to protect them. the rights conferred in the constitution are the people's rights. the constitution is the people's constitution. the judiciary is the people's judiciary. it is for the people, by alert and active citizenship, to make them so in every real sense. vii. the question of appeals. in the section dealing with the judiciary one provision lends itself at once to criticism. it is hostile, on the face of it, to the entire spirit of the constitution. it has everywhere created bitterness and irritation among the other co-equal members of the commonwealth of nations, which ireland has now joined. if the purpose of life, therefore, is to learn from experience as one may reasonably believe, in spite of an apparently united conviction to the contrary, a new state at the outset of its career would be well advised not to create trouble for the future, and others would be well advised to honour that quite reasonable wish. and yet in this provision there lies hid a principle of very great meaning, if it could be extracted, separated from its feudal lumber, and wrought upon creatively. i refer to the provision at the end of article . the article itself reads: "the supreme court of the irish free state shall, with such exceptions (not including cases which involve questions as to the validity of any law) and subject to such regulations as may be prescribed by law, have appellate jurisdiction from all decisions of the high court. the decision of the supreme court shall in all cases be final and conclusive, and shall not be reviewed or capable of being reviewed by any other court, tribunal or authority whatsoever." to which, in the present draft, the following apparently contradictory words are now added: "provided that nothing in this constitution shall impair the right of any person to petition his majesty for special leave to appeal from the supreme court to his majesty in council or the right of his majesty to grant such leave." according to this article as it now stands the supreme court of the irish free state is the highest court of appeal for all citizens of that state; but if any citizen, or any corporation, desires to affront the sense of those amongst whom he, or it, lives, he or it may carry a case elsewhere, outside the country altogether. this is known as the right of appeal to the judicial committee of the privy council. the right is rooted in the principle of crown prerogative--a prerogative which has been removed in the highest questions of life and death, but which apparently exists in smaller matters, although there too it has been described by no less an authority than professor berriedale keith as "in process of obsolescence," so far as the other members of the commonwealth are concerned. apart from the theory of the matter, however (a theory vested in an outworn feudalism), what is its effect in practice? that practice can be investigated on its merits, without the least prejudice; and it will be found that it has not produced justice, and that it has proved fruitful of increasing irritation and anger. in the first place, such a right of appeal out of the country defeats the ends of justice by placing a premium on wealth. it has so proved among the other members of the commonwealth. it is obvious that it must be so. for it requires a large purse to carry a case out of the country, once it has been well handled in at least two courts at home. therefore the experience in canada, australia and s. africa is that only strong corporations take advantage of such a right of appeal, because only strong corporations possess the moneys, and only strong corporations can afford to defy local feeling, since local feeling cannot react easily against anything so powerful while so intangible as a corporation. in the second place, it defeats the ends of justice because it is an appeal to a court where the local circumstances are not familiar, and where it may even happen (as it will certainly happen in the case of ireland) that the very axioms of the law may not be rightly apprehended. for a central court of appeal of this kind supposes uniform circumstances and uniform law. now the circumstances manifestly are not uniform. yet neither is the law likely to be uniform. the example of s. africa may be taken. in s. africa the law in force is roman-dutch law, not the english common law. it has therefore proved that the judicial committee has been required to handle an instrument with which it is unfamiliar. the same will apply in ireland, where it has already proved, notoriously, that the principles of the law known familiarly as "brehon law" have worked in opposition to the black-letter precedents of english law. in addition to this, however, it is to be remembered that the lawyers composing the judicial committee are obviously unfamiliar with the principles underlying the structure of our constitution, since they are quite unlike the principles with which they themselves have to deal. one need not argue which are the better. it is enough that they are unlike. a mechanic cannot be supposed to deliver impartial justice between two farmers in a matter of farming economy. the famous case of the loch neagh fisheries is enough to prove that only those who are familiar, not only with irish circumstances, but with irish history, can expect to deliver justice in irish matters. moreover, there is a further consideration, which the plain facts of the case require should be firmly stated--and which the experience of other nations of the commonwealth emphasises. it is that under the chief of the two heads under which such appeals to the judicial committee would fall the very intention to do impartial and indifferent justice could not presumed in advance. for all such appeals involve two classes of cases. the first deals with appeals from interpretation of the ordinary law. the second deals with appeals from interpretations of the fundamental law of the constitution. now appeals from an interpretation of the ordinary law heard in some country where the principles of that law are unfamiliar would, as has been indicated, involve injustices enough; but they would concern only the individual or some corporate enterprise. the injustice would exist; but it would be limited; and lawyers of another country might be supposed to wish to search for justice, even if the trading enterprise had its seat in their own nation and the individual were irish. but a constitution is the very charter of a nation's freedom. cases concerning an interpretation of the constitution are vital to a whole people, and, as between two nations, vital to international safety and polity. and such cases could, under the circumstances, only arise between two nations, ireland, whose the constitution is, and england, whose the constitution is not, and where parties might arise to power who would intrigue to impeach that constitution. moreover, in england it is frequently the practice to recruit the higher offices of the judiciary, not from men of acknowledged skill in the achievement of equity, but rather from men who have snatched a casual eminence in the heat of party strife, men of political passions and political prejudices, who have come to the front by the very profession of partisanship. it is such men who will form for the most part the lawyers of the judicial committee. even if the road to that committee were of the straightest and purest legal character, no reasonable person would expect it to deliver impartial judgment on the fundamental law of another nation, especially if an adjustment of the liberties of two nations were concerned, one of those nations being, more than conceivably, their own. but since the road is, admittedly, neither of the straightest nor of the purest, the expectation of impartial and indifferent justice would be a fool's dream. and where a court exists from which a people presumes injustice in advance, the wells of security and good order are at once poisoned. yet, even supposing that these questions of justice are neglected, how is the system likely to work? how has it, in fact, worked elsewhere? assume that a case has been decided in a certain way by the supreme court in ireland. it is carried to the judicial committee, which decides in favour of the opposite party. how is such a decision of the judicial committee to be put into effect? such cases have occurred in australia; and the australian high court has refused to recognise the decisions of the judicial committee, or to give them effect. special legislation therefore at once became necessary; but the obvious fact which emerged was that the judicial committee had no machinery to put decisions into effect which were contrary to local feeling. of the last of these cases the australian premier said at the "'imperial conference,' ," that the "decision was one which must have caused great embarrassment and confusion if it were not for the fortunate fact that the reasons for the judicial committee's decision are stated in such a way that no court and no council in australia has yet been able to find out what they were." it is little wonder that mr. hughes in the same speech should have said that "australia's experience of the privy council in constitutional cases has been, to say the least of it, unfortunate." he also read an extract from a resolution of the final court of appeal of new zealand, which declared of the judicial committee that "by its imputations in the present case, by the ignorance it has shown in this and in other cases of our history, of our legislation, and of our practice, and by its long delayed judgments, it has displayed every characteristic of an alien tribunal." the spokesmen for the other states present were equally emphatic. "i think," said sir robert borden for canada, "we have had just about enough appeal courts, and i think the tendency in our country will be to restrict appeals to the privy council rather than to increase them." "there is," said mr. rowell for the same state, "a growing opinion that our own courts should be the final authority." "you know what our opinion is in s. africa," said mr. burton. "in our constitution we have abolished the right of appeal to the privy council as a right. there is no such right with us at all, but the constitution merely says that any right residing in the king in council to grant special leave to appeal shall not be interfered with." these utterances, and the entire course of history on this matter, reveal an irritation which has grown with experience. the mechanism is merely a mechanism, and it has not worked well. it has injured harmony, and it manifestly has not brought justice. even assuming that the irish courts should agree that the decision in any individual case appealed from should stand, it could equally well argue that that decision could not be held to govern other cases; and the effect of such a decision would be to make the appeal nugatory in law. besides all of which, the right to allow such appeals to the judicial committee is based, ultimately, on the acknowledgment of the supremacy of british legislation; and the plain intention of our constitution is that this supremacy is not acknowledged, each party to the treaty being a co-equal member of a larger community. not only, therefore, are the practical reasons against such a right of appeal, but there is no substance in the constitution to make such a right allowable. there is, indeed, nothing that can be said in favour of such a provision, from the point of view either of justice, of law, of equity or of harmony. if it be destined to remain, it is to be hoped that it will remain a dead letter. otherwise it will lead to boundless friction and ill-will, internal and external. yet there is an excellent principle embedded in this provision. it is very deeply, and perhaps almost inextricably, embedded; but it is there. for if a number of nations are to join together as co-equal members of a community, plainly there should be some common court to which all can appeal with equal confidence. ireland and england, for instance, have made a treaty. either side may violate that treaty. who is to judge between them? is the appeal to be to the arbitrament of strength? if so, what of the co-equality of the community? it becomes an idle phrase, however separate one may claim to be from the other. the case may be carried even further. a case exists for such a court, not only in respect of their interdependent relations, but not less in respect of their internal relations. it may even happen that the citizen of a state, or a combination of citizens, may have a plain case to be carried to such a court as against their state, if a court of sufficient impartiality could be established. states are not always immaculate of justice, particularly to minorities. can such a court be found? i believe it can. an exposition of the present draft of our constitution is not the place to give the details of such an alternative. it is sufficient to say that there is such an alternative, for which provision could therefore be made in substitution of the present provision, against which the requirements of justice and the entire experience of the commonwealth rises in evidence. viii. functional councils. it is the duty of a constitution, not merely to provide for the present, but to leave itself lissom and flexible for the development of the future. if those developments can in any way be foreseen, it is its duty further, to indicate them by allowing specifically for them, without of necessity pledging the future to them. how far these indications may profitably be carried is a question not so easy to answer. times differ. constitutions made at a time of fixed social and political ideas, are necessarily fixed in their provisions. constitutions made at a time, such as the present, when social and political ideas are rapidly shifting and changing must needs indicate the likelihood of change in certain directions; and make allowance for such changes. it is therefore striking to notice that in nearly every constitution made during and since the great war such indications are scattered freely. and from that fact alone the historian of the future could tell with assurance that these were years of rapidly changing conceptions. we in ireland cannot but have a share in these changes. fortunately for us, heirs of an ancient tradition, in looking forward we look backward, and in looking backward we look forward. we may, and often do, use phrases identical with those used by other nations; but in many cases it will be found by the thoughtful student that what to them is often social theory, to us is a slumbering historic memory. very frequently this will be found to be the case. an indication of this kind, that looks both forward and backward, is to be found in article of our constitution. this article has aroused considerable interest. it reads:-- "the oireachtas may provide for the establishment of functional or vocational councils representing branches of the social and economic life of the nation. a law establishing any such council shall determine its powers, rights and duties, and its relation to the government of the irish free state." as a matter of curious interest it happens that the german constitution contains an article very similar to this; but the conception had been in development in ireland for some years. it had, indeed (as i endeavoured to shew in a little book on _the gaelic state_, published in ), been a slumbering memory of the irish nation during the centuries when the characteristic political conceptions of the people were frustrate and idle, as they may now be put into practical development. it had been worked out in practical detail for one of our largest and most important industries in the report on sea fisheries of the _commission of inquiry_, published in . and it had actually, though imperfectly, been in operation for another great industry since in the council of agriculture. what, then, are these functional (or vocational or occupational) councils for which provision is made, and on what political or social conception do they rest? one need not travel outside the present draft constitution to discover the need for them. for in this constitution, as in most constitutions, the people are, outside this one article, considered in only two of the three relations that go to make up their lives, and which therefore constitute the complete life of the nation. all the persons of the state are considered either as individuals or as citizens. but these two descriptions do not exhaust their lives. in addition to being individuals and citizens they are also workers in some craft, industry, trade or profession. indeed, it is seldom they have time to be individuals, and it is seldom they are reminded that they are citizens. for good or for ill, these are only occasional parts of their lives. but they are never permitted to forget the parts they are required to play in the social and economic life of the nation. the constitution establishes their rights as individuals putting these rights beyond the reach of interference either of those who make or those who execute the law. it also establishes their rights as citizens, certifies the manner of their action as citizens, and derives all authority in the state from those rights and actions. but these are only the lesser, however supremely important, parts of our lives. the greater part of our days is, for each of us, packed with the thoughts are cares of our functional lives. we are more frequently, in the intake and output of our lives, blacksmiths or architects, or whatever else, than we are individuals or citizens. have we not rights and duties there too, both for ourselves and to the nation; and should not the constitution make provision for this, the larger part of our lives, as well as for the lesser parts? can provision be said to have been completely made either for our own lives or for the interplay that constitutes the life of the nation if this aspect be neglected? we are faced at once with a difficulty. seeing that we have the experience of it, it is easy to perceive how we can be represented in the state as citizens. how can we be represented in the state in respect of our functions? to answer this question one may turn to an instance that lives before us, an example from elder days when such an order of society was familiar. for in old ireland (as in other nations) guilds were a recognised form of the industrial life of the nation. they were also, though not known by that name, a recognised form of the professional life of the nation. and as a relic of those times we have to-day what is in effect a guild of lawyers. the lawyers of ireland, for example, are organised as a whole, with a council representative of the profession as a whole. that council, representative of all who practice as lawyers, is a responsible body, not only to the lawyers who are represented in it, but to and in the state on behalf of the legal profession. it is responsible for the honour and good conduct of lawyers. it is responsible for the economic maintenance of its constituents. no lawyer is allowed to practice except by consent of the legal council--that is to say, except by the consent of all other lawyers. the legal profession as a whole--in the legal sense, as a person--protects its own honour, protects the individual lawyer, protects the public interest (in theory, at least), and requires a guarantee of efficiency and rectitude from every lawyer before he is allowed to practice his profession. so it was in ancient ireland. at that time, when the assembly of the nation met, the lawyers, or 'brehons,' met in a council of their own. the administrative heads of each unit of local government met in a council of their own. the recorders, or _seanchaidhe_, of the local petty states, met in a council of their own. and each council was responsible for the administration of its own concerns. each council drew up its own regulations, for the conduct of it own duties in the state, and for the protection of its own 'functional' rights. each council, in the modern legal phrase, was a responsible 'person,' and was by the state, as it existed at that time, entrusted with the conduct and administration of its own affairs, subject to the general execution of the public interest. it lay with the assembly of the nation to co-ordinate the whole in the public interest. whether this was or was not done effectively in olden times is indifferent to the present problem of functional councils in the modern state, with its better organisation and more perfect national sense. the problem of organisation is very real, but it does not affect the necessity of functional representation and functional responsibility in the state. it is, for example, absurd that persons unfamiliar with architectural problems, however highly placed in the nation they may be, should be entrusted with architectural decisions that require special training and knowledge. it is equally absurd that a person unfamiliar with the needs of the fishing industry should, because for political reasons he should happen to be chosen as minister of fisheries, make proposals and be responsible for decisions that affect the present livelihood of fishermen and the successful future of the fishing industry. these matters must be reposed in the care of representative functional (occupational or vocational) councils, that should be required to render account, on the one hand, to the function which they represent, and, on the other hand, to the state on behalf of that function. when such an organisation of the social and economic life of the nation has been achieved, then, and only then, will it be possible to say that all parts of the life of the nation have been brought within the reach and authority of the constitution. it may be objected that these matters lie in the future. that is true. the constitution allows for them, and by allowing for them indicates that they should be, and probably will be, the natural development of the future of the irish nation. draft constitution of the irish free state preliminary. these presents shall be construed with reference to the articles of agreement for a treaty between great britain and ireland set forth in the schedule hereto annexed (hereinafter referred to as "the scheduled treaty") which are hereby given the force of law, and if any provision of this constitution or of any amendment thereof or of any law made thereunder is in any respect repugnant to any of the provisions of the scheduled treaty, it shall, to the extent only of such repugnancy be absolutely void and inoperative and the parliament and the executive council of the irish free state shall respectively pass such further legislation and do all such other things as may be necessary to implement the scheduled treaty. section i.--fundamental rights. article . the irish free state/saorstat eireann is a co-equal member of the community of nations forming the british commonwealth of nations. article . all powers of government and all authority legislative, executive, and judicial, are derived from the people and the same shall be exercised in the irish free state/saorstat eireann through the organisations established by or under, and in accord with, this constitution. article . every person domiciled in the irish free state/saorstat eireann at the time of the coming into operation of this constitution who was born in ireland or either of whose parents was born in ireland or who has been so domiciled in the area of the jurisdiction of the irish free state/saorstat eireann for not less than seven years is a citizen of the irish free state/saorstat eireann and shall within the limits of the irish free state/saorstat eireann enjoy the privileges and be subject to the obligations of such citizenship, provided that any such person being a citizen of another state may elect not to accept the citizenship hereby conferred; and the conditions governing the future acquisition and termination of citizenship in the irish free state/saorstat eireann shall be determined by law. men and women have equal rights as citizens. article . the national language of the irish free state/saorstat eireann is the irish language, but the english language shall be equally recognised as an official language. nothing in this article shall prevent special provisions being made by the parliament/oireachtas for districts or areas in which only one language is in use. article . no title of honour in respect of any services rendered in or in relation to the irish free state/saorstat eireann may be conferred on any citizen of the irish free state/saorstat eireann except with the approval or upon the advice of the executive council of the state. article . the liberty of the person is inviolable, and no person shall be deprived of his liberty except in accordance with law. upon complaint made by or on behalf of any person that he is being unlawfully detained, the high court/ard chuirt and any and every judge thereof shall forthwith enquire into the same and may make an order requiring the person in whose custody such person shall be detained to produce the body of the person so detained before such court or judge without delay and to certify in writing as to the cause of the detention and such court or judge shall thereupon order the release of such person unless satisfied that he is being detained in accordance with the law. article . the dwelling of each citizen is inviolable and shall not be forcibly entered except in accordance with law. article . freedom of conscience and the free profession and practice of religion are inviolable rights of every citizen, and no law may be made either directly or indirectly to endow any religion, or prohibit or restrict the free exercise thereof or give any preference, or impose any disability on account of religious belief or religious status, or affect prejudicially the right of any child to attend a school receiving public money without attending the religious instruction at the school, or make any discrimination as respects state aid between schools under the management of different religious denominations, or divert from any religious denomination or any educational institution any of its property except for the purpose of roads, railways, lighting, water or drainage works or other works of public utility, and on payment of compensation. article . the right of free expression of opinion as well as the right to assemble peaceably and without arms, and to form associations or unions is guaranteed for purposes not opposed to public morality. laws regulating the manner in which the right of forming associations and the right of free assembly may be exercised shall contain no political, religious or class distinction. article . all citizens of the irish free state/saorstat eireann have the right to free elementary education. article . the rights of the state in and to natural resources, the use of which is of national importance, shall not be alienated. their exploitation by private individuals or associations shall be permitted only under state supervision and in accordance with conditions and regulations approved by legislation. section ii.--legislative provisions. a.--the legislature. article . a legislature is hereby created to be known as parliament/oireachtas of the irish free state/saorstat eireann. it shall consist of the king and two houses: the chamber of deputies/dail eireann and the senate/seanad eireann. the power of making laws for the peace, order and good government of the irish free state/saorstat eireann is vested in the parliament/oireachtas. article . the parliament/oireachtas shall sit in or near the city of dublin or in such other place as from time to time it may determine. article . all citizens of the irish free state/saorstat eireann without distinction of sex who have reached the age of twenty-one years and who comply with the provisions of the prevailing electoral laws, shall have the right to vote for members of the chamber of deputies/dail eireann, and to take part in the referendum or initiative. all citizens of the irish free state/saorstat eireann without distinction of sex who have reached the age of thirty years and who comply with the provisions of the prevailing electoral laws, shall have the right to vote for members of the senate/seanad eireann. no voter may exercise more than one vote and the voting shall be by secret ballot. the mode and place of exercising this right shall be determined by law. article . every citizen who has reached the age of twenty-one years and who is not placed under disability or incapacity by the constitution or by law shall be eligible to become a member of the chamber of deputies/dail eireann. article . no person may be at the same time a member both of the chamber/dail eireann and of the senate/seanad eireann. article . the oath to be taken by members of parliament/oireachtas shall be in the following form:-- i ........................ do solemnly swear true faith and allegiance to the constitution of the irish free state as by law established, and that i will be faithful to h.m. king george v., his heirs and successors by law in virtue of the common citizenship of ireland with great britain and her adherence to and membership of the group of nations forming the british commonwealth of nations. such oath shall be taken and subscribed by every member of the parliament/oireachtas before taking his seat therein before the representative of the crown or some person authorised by him. article . every member of the parliament/oireachtas shall, except in case of treason, felony, or breach of the peace, be privileged from arrest in going to and returning from, and while within the precincts of either house, and shall not be amenable to any action or proceeding at law in respect of any utterance in either house. article . all reports and publications of the parliament/oireachtas or of either house thereof shall be privileged and utterances made in either house wherever published shall be privileged. article . each house shall make its own rules and standing orders, with power to attach penalties for their infringement and shall have power to ensure freedom of debate, to protect its official documents and the private papers of its members, and to protect itself and its members against any person or persons interfering with, molesting or attempting to corrupt its members in the exercise of their duties. article . each house shall elect its own chairman and deputy chairman and shall prescribe their powers, duties, and terms of office. article . all matters in each house shall, save as otherwise provided by this constitution, be determined by a majority of the votes of the members present other than the chairman or presiding member, who shall have and exercise a casting vote in the case of an equality of votes. the number of members necessary to constitute a meeting of either house for the exercise of its powers shall be determined by its standing orders. article . the parliament/oireachtas shall make provision for the payment of its members and may in addition provide them with free travelling facilities in any part of ireland. article . the parliament/oireachtas shall hold at least one session each year. the parliament/oireachtas shall be summoned and dissolved by the representative of the crown in the name of the king and subject as aforesaid the chamber/dail eireann shall fix the date of re-assembly of the parliament/oireachtas and the date of the conclusion of the session of each house provided that the sessions of the senate/seanad eireann shall not be concluded without its own consent. article . sittings of each house of the parliament/oireachtas shall be public. in cases of special emergency either house may hold a private sitting with the assent of two-thirds of the members present. section ii.--legislative provisions. b.--the chamber of deputies/dail eireann. article . the chamber/dail eireann shall be composed of members who represent constituencies determined by law. the number of members shall be fixed from time to time by the parliament/oireachtas, but the total number of members of the chamber/dail eireann shall not be fixed at less than one member for each thirty thousand of the population, or at more than one member for each twenty thousand of the population: provided that the proportion between the number of members to be elected at any time for each constituency and the population of each constituency, as ascertained at the last preceding census, shall, so far as possible, be identical throughout the country. the members shall be elected upon principles of proportional representation. the parliament/oireachtas shall revise the constituencies at least once in every ten years, with due regard to changes in distribution of the population, but any alterations in the constituencies shall not take effect during the life of the chamber/dail eireann sitting when such revision is made. article . at a general election for the chamber/dail eireann the polls shall be held on the same day throughout the country, and that day shall be a day not later than thirty days after the date of the dissolution and shall be proclaimed a public holiday. the chamber/dail eireann shall meet within one month of such day, and shall unless earlier dissolved continue for four years from the date of its first meeting, and not longer. the chamber/dail eireann may not at any time be dissolved except on the advice of the executive council. article . in case of death, resignation or disqualification of a member of the chamber/dail eireann, the vacancy shall be filled by election in manner to be determined by law. section ii.--legislative provisions. c.--the senate/seanad eireann. article . the senate/seanad eireann shall be composed of citizens who have done honour to the nation by reason of useful public service or who, because of special qualifications or attainments, represent important aspects of the nation's life. article . every university in the irish free state/saorstat eireann shall be entitled to elect two representatives to the senate/seanad eireann. the number of senators, exclusive of the university members, shall be fifty-six. a citizen to be eligible for membership of the senate/seanad must be a person eligible to become a member of the chamber/dail eireann, and must have reached the age of thirty-five years. subject to any provision for the constitution of the first senate/seanad the term of office of a member of the senate/seanad shall be twelve years. article . one-fourth of the members of the senate/seanad eireann exclusive of the university members shall be elected every three years from a panel constituted as hereinafter mentioned at an election at which the irish free state/saorstat eireann shall form one electoral area and the elections shall be held on principles of proportional representation. one member shall be elected by each university entitled to representation in the senate/seanad every six years. article . before each election of members of the senate/seanad eireann (other than university members) a panel shall be formed consisting of:-- (a) three times as many qualified persons as there are members to be elected of whom two-thirds shall be nominated by the chamber/dail eireann voting according to principles of proportional representation and one-third shall be nominated by the senate/seanad eireann voting according to principles of proportional representation; and (b) such persons who have at any time been members of the senate/seanad (including members about to retire) as signify by notice in writing addressed to the president of the executive council their desire to be included in the panel. the method of proposal and selection for nomination shall be decided by the chamber/dail and senate/seanad respectively, with special reference to the necessity for arranging for the representation of important interests and institutions in the country; provided that each proposal shall be in writing and shall state the qualifications of the person proposed. as soon as the panel has been formed a list of the names of the members of the panel arranged in alphabetical order with their qualifications shall be published. article . in the case of the death, resignation or disqualification of a member of the senate/seanad eireann (other than a university member) his place shall be filled by a vote of the senate/seanad. any senator so chosen shall retire from office at the conclusion of the three years period then running and the vacancy or vacancies thus created shall be additional to the places to be filled under article . the term of office of the members chosen at the election after the first fourteen elected shall conclude at the end of the period or periods at which the senator or senators by whose death or withdrawal the vacancy or vacancies was or were originally created would be due to retire; provided that the fifteenth member shall be deemed to have filled the vacancy first created in order of time and so on. in case of the death, resignation or disqualification of a university member of the senate/seanad, the university by which he was elected shall elect a person to fill his place, and the member so elected shall hold office so long as the member in whose place he was elected would have held office. section ii.--legislative provisions. d.--legislation. article . the chamber/dail eireann shall in relation to the subject matter of money bills as hereinafter defined have legislative authority exclusive of the senate/seanad eireann. a money bill means a bill which contains only provisions dealing with all or any of the following subjects, namely, the imposition, repeal, remission, alteration or regulation of taxation; the imposition for the payment of debt or other financial purposes of charges on public moneys or the variation or repeal of any such charges; supply; the appropriation, receipt, custody, issue or audit of accounts of public money; the raising or guarantee of any loan or the repayment thereof; subordinate matters incidental to those subjects or any of them. in this definition the expressions "taxation," "public money" and "loan" respectively do not include any taxation, money or loan raised by local authorities or bodies for local purposes. the chairman of the chamber/dail shall certify any bill which in his opinion is a money bill to be a money bill, but, if within three days after a bill has been passed by the chamber/dail, two-fifths of the members of either house by notice in writing addressed to the chairman of the house of which they are members so require, the question whether the bill is or is not a money bill shall be referred to a committee of privileges consisting of three members elected by each house with a chairman who shall be the senior judge of the supreme court able and willing to act and who, in the case of an equality of votes, but not otherwise, shall be entitled to vote. the decision of the committee on the question shall be final and conclusive. article . the chamber/dail eireann shall as soon as possible after the commencement of each financial year consider the budget of receipts and expenditure of the irish free state/saorstat eireann for that year, and, save in so far as may be provided by specific enactment in each case, the legislation required to give effect to the budget of each year shall be enacted within that year. article . money shall not be appropriated by vote, resolution or law, unless the purpose of the appropriation has in the same session been recommended by a message from the representative of the crown acting on the advice of the executive council. article . every bill initiated in and passed by the chamber/dail eireann shall be sent to the senate/seanad eireann and may, unless it be a money bill, be amended in the senate/seanad eireann and the chamber/dail eireann shall consider any such amendment; but a bill passed by the chamber/dail eireann and considered by the senate/seanad eireann shall, not later than two hundred and seventy days after it shall have been first sent to the senate/seanad, or such longer period as may be agreed upon by the two houses, be deemed to be passed by both houses in its form as last passed by the chamber/dail; provided that any money bill shall be sent to the senate/seanad for its recommendations and at a period not longer than fourteen days after it shall have been sent to the senate/seanad, it shall be returned to the chamber/dail which may pass it, accepting or rejecting all or any of the recommendations of the senate/seanad, and as so passed shall be deemed to have been passed by both houses. when a bill other than a money bill has been sent to the senate/seanad a joint sitting of the members of both houses may on a resolution passed by the senate/seanad be convened for the purpose of debating, but not of voting upon, the proposals of the bill or any amendment of the same. article . a bill may be initiated in the senate/seanad eireann and if passed by the senate/seanad shall be introduced into the chamber/dail eireann. if amended by the chamber/dail the bill shall be considered as a bill initiated in the chamber/dail. if rejected by the chamber/dail it shall not be introduced again in the same session, but the chamber/dail may reconsider it on its own motion. article . a bill passed by either house and accepted by the other house shall be deemed to be passed by both houses. article . so soon as any bill shall have been passed or deemed to have been passed by both houses, the executive council shall present the same to the representative of the crown for the signification by him, in the king's name, of the king's assent, and such representative may withhold the king's assent or reserve the bill for the signification of the king's pleasure; provided that the representative of the crown shall in the withholding of such assent to or reservation of any bill, act in accordance with the law, practice, and constitutional usage governing the like withholding of assent or reservation in the dominion of canada. a bill reserved for the signification of the king's pleasure shall not have any force unless and until within one year from the day on which it was presented to the representative of the crown for the king's assent, the representative of the crown signifies by speech or message to each of the houses of the parliament/oireachtas, or by proclamation, that it has received the assent of the king in council. an entry of every such speech, message or proclamation shall be made in the journal of each house and a duplicate thereof duly attested shall be delivered to the proper officer to be kept among the records of the irish free state/saorstat eireann. article . as soon as may be after any law has received the king's assent, the clerk, or such officer as the chamber may appoint for the purpose, shall cause two fair copies of such law to be made, one being in the irish language and the other in the english language (one of which copies shall be signed by the representative of the crown to be enrolled for record in the office of such officer of the supreme court as the chamber/dail eireann may determine) and such copies shall be conclusive evidence as to the provisions of every such law, and in case of conflict between the two copies so deposited, that signed by the representative of the crown shall prevail. article . the parliament/oireachtas shall have no power to declare acts to be infringements of the law which were not so at the date of their commission. article . the parliament/oireachtas may create subordinate legislatures, but it shall not confer thereon any powers in respect of the navy, army or air force, alienage or naturalisation, coinage, legal tender, trade marks, designs, merchandise marks, copyright, patent rights, weights and measures, submarine cables, wireless telegraphy, post office, railways, aerial navigation, customs and excise. article . the parliament/oireachtas may provide for the establishment of functional or vocational councils representing branches of the social and economic life of the nation. a law establishing any such council shall determine its powers, rights and duties, and its relation to the government of the irish free state/saorstat eireann. article . the parliament/oireachtas has the exclusive right to regulate the raising and maintaining of such armed forces as are mentioned in the scheduled treaty in the territory of the irish free state/saorstat and every such force shall be subject to the control of the parliament/oireachtas. section ii.--legislative provisions. e.--referendum and initiative. article . any bill passed or deemed to have been passed by both houses may be suspended for a period of ninety days on the written demand of two-fifths of the members of the chamber/dail eireann or of a majority of the members of the senate/seanad eireann presented to the president of the executive council not later than seven days from the day on which such bill shall have been so passed or deemed to have been so passed. such a bill shall be submitted by referendum to the decision of the people if demanded before the expiration of the ninety days either by a resolution of the senate/seanad eireann assented to by three-fifths of the members of the senate/seanad eireann, or by a petition signed by not less than one-twentieth of the voters then on the register of voters, and the decision of the people on such referendum shall be conclusive. these provisions shall not apply to money bills or to such bills as shall be declared by both houses to be necessary for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health or safety. article . the parliament/oireachtas may provide for the initiation by the people of proposals for laws or constitutional amendments. should the parliament/oireachtas fail to make such provision within two years, it shall on the petition of not less than one hundred thousand voters on the register, of whom not more than twenty thousand shall be voters in any one constituency, either make such provisions or submit the question to the people for decision in accordance with the ordinary regulations governing the referendum. any legislation passed by the parliament/oireachtas providing for such initiation by the people shall provide ( ) that such proposals may be initiated on a petition of fifty thousand voters on the register, ( ) that if the parliament/oireachtas rejects a proposal so initiated it shall be submitted to the people for decision in accordance with the ordinary regulations governing the referendum; and ( ) that if the parliament/oireachtas enacts a proposal so initiated, such enactment shall be subject to the provisions respecting ordinary legislation or amendments of the constitution as the case may be. article . save in the case of actual invasion, the irish free state/saorstat eireann shall not be committed to active participation in any war without the assent of the parliament/oireachtas. article . amendments of this constitution within the terms of the scheduled treaty may be made by the parliament/oireachtas but every such amendment must be submitted to a referendum of the people and shall not be passed unless a majority of the voters on the register record their votes and either a majority of the voters on the register or two-thirds of the votes recorded are in favour of the amendment. section iii.--the executive. a.--executive council/aireacht. article . the executive authority of the irish free state/saorstat eireann is hereby declared to be vested in the king, and shall be exercisable, in accordance with the law, practice and constitutional usage governing the exercise of the executive authority in the case of the dominion of canada, by the representative of the crown. there shall be a council to aid and advise in the government of the irish free state/saorstat eireann to be styled the executive council/aireacht. the executive council shall be responsible to the chamber/dail eireann, and shall consist of not more than twelve ministers/airi appointed by the representative of the crown, of whom four ministers shall be members of the chamber/dail eireann and a number not exceeding eight, chosen from all citizens eligible for election to the chamber/dail eireann, who shall not be members of parliament/oireachtas during their term of office, and who, if at the time of their appointment they are members of parliament/oireachtas, shall by virtue of such appointment vacate their seats; provided that the chamber/dail eireann may from time to time on the motion of the president of the executive council determine that a particular minister or ministers not exceeding three, may be members of parliament/oireachtas in addition to the four members of the chamber/dail eireann above mentioned. article . the ministers who are required to be members of the chamber/dail eireann shall include the president of the executive council/uachtaran and the vice-president of the executive council/tanaist. the president of the executive council shall be the chief of the executive council and shall be appointed on the nomination of the chamber/dail, and the vice-president of the executive council and the other ministers who are members of parliament/oireachtas shall be appointed on the nomination of the president of the executive council; and he and the ministers nominated by him shall retire from office should he fail to be supported by a majority in the chamber/dail, but the president of the executive council and such ministers shall continue to carry on their duties until their successors are appointed. article . ministers who are not members of the parliament/oireachtas shall be nominated by a committee of members of the chamber/dail eireann chosen by a method to be determined by the chamber/dail so as to be impartially representative of the chamber/dail. such ministers shall be chosen with due regard to their suitability for office and should as far as possible be generally representative of the irish free state/saorstat eireann as a whole rather than of groups or of parties. should a nomination not be acceptable to the chamber/dail, the committee shall continue to propose names until one is found acceptable. article . each minister not a member of the parliament/oireachtas shall be the responsible head of the executive department or departments as head of which he has been appointed as aforesaid; provided that should arrangements for functional or vocational councils be made by the parliament/oireachtas these ministers or any of them may, should the parliament/oireachtas so decide, be members of and be nominated on the advice of such councils. the term of office of any such minister shall be the term of the chamber/dail eireann existing at the time of his appointment or such other period as may be fixed by law, but he shall continue in office until his successor shall have been appointed: and no such minister shall be removed from office during his term unless the proposal to remove him has been previously submitted to a committee chosen by a method to be determined by the chamber/dail so as to be impartially representative of the chamber/dail and then only if the committee shall have reported that such minister has been guilty of malfeasance in office or has not been performing his duties in a competent and satisfactory manner, or has failed to carry out the lawfully-expressed will of parliament/oireachtas. article . the ministers who are members of the parliament/oireachtas shall alone be responsible for all matters relating to external affairs whether policy, negotiations, or executive acts. subject to the foregoing provisions, the executive council shall meet and act as a collective authority: provided, however, that each minister shall be individually responsible to the chamber/dail eireann for the administration of the department or departments of which he is head. article . ministers who are not members of the chamber/dail eireann shall by virtue of their office possess all the rights and privileges of a member of the chamber/dail except the right to vote, and shall, if not members of the parliament/oireachtas, comply with the provisions of article as if they were members of the chamber/dail, and may be required by the chamber/dail to attend and answer questions. article . should the president of the executive council die, resign or be permanently incapacitated, the vice-president of the executive council shall act in his place until a president of the executive council shall be elected. the vice-president of the executive council shall also act in the place of the president of the executive council during his temporary absence. article . the members of the executive council shall receive such remuneration as may from time to time be prescribed by law, but the remuneration of any minister shall not be diminished during his term of office. article . the representative of the crown, who shall be styled the governor-general of the irish free state, shall be appointed in like manner as the governor-general of canada and in accordance with the practice observed in the making of such appointments. the salary of the governor-general of the irish free state shall be of the like amount as that now payable to the governor-general of the commonwealth of australia and shall be charged on the public funds of the irish free state/saorstat eireann and suitable provision shall be made out of those funds for the maintenance of his official residence and establishment. article . the executive council shall prepare the budget of receipts and expenditure of the irish free state/saorstat eireann for each financial year and shall present it to the chamber/dail eireann before the close of the previous financial year. section iii.--the executive. b.--financial control. article . all revenues of the irish free state/saorstat eireann from whatever source arising, shall, subject to such exception as may be provided by law, form one fund, and shall be appropriated for the purposes of the irish free state/saorstat eireann in the manner and subject to the charges and liabilities imposed by law. article . the chamber/dail eireann shall appoint a comptroller and auditor-general to act on behalf of the irish free state/saorstat eireann. he shall control all disbursements and shall audit all accounts of moneys administered by or under the authority of the parliament/oireachtas and shall report to the chamber/dail at stated periods to be determined by law. article . the comptroller and auditor-general shall not be removed except for stated misbehaviour or incapacity on resolutions passed by the chamber/dail eireann and the senate/seanad eireann. subject to this provision the terms and conditions of his tenure of office shall be fixed by law. he shall not be a member of the parliament/oireachtas nor shall he hold any other office or position of emolument. section iv.--the judiciary. article . the judicial power of the irish free state/saorstat eireann shall be exercised and justice administered in the public courts established by parliament/oireachtas by judges appointed in manner hereinafter provided. these courts shall comprise courts of first instance and a court of final appeal to be called the supreme court (cuirt uachtarach). the courts of first instance shall include a high court (ard chuirt), invested with full original jurisdiction in and power to determine all matters and questions whether of law or fact, civil or criminal, and also courts of local and limited jurisdiction with a right of appeal as determined by law. article . the judicial power of the high court shall extend to the question of the validity of any law having regard to the provisions of the constitution. in all cases in which such matters shall come into question, the high court alone shall exercise original jurisdiction. article . the supreme court of the irish free state/saorstat eireann shall, with such exceptions (not including cases which involve questions as to the validity of any law) and subject to such regulations as may be prescribed by law, have appellate jurisdiction from all decisions of the high court. the decision of the supreme court shall in all cases be final and conclusive, and shall not be reviewed or capable of being reviewed by any other court, tribunal or authority whatsoever. provided that nothing in this constitution shall impair the right of any person to petition his majesty for special leave to appeal from the supreme court to his majesty in council or the right of his majesty to grant such leave. article . the number of judges, the constitution and organisation of, and distribution of business and jurisdiction among, the said courts and judges, and all matters of procedure shall be as prescribed by the laws for the time being in force and the regulations made thereunder. article . the judges of the supreme court and of the high court and of all other courts established in pursuance of this constitution shall be appointed by the representative of the crown on the advice of the executive council. the judges of the supreme court and of the high court shall not be removed except for stated misbehaviour or incapacity, and then only by resolutions passed by both the chamber/dail eireann and the senate/seanad eireann. the age of retirement, the remuneration and the pension of such judges on retirement and the declarations to be taken by them on appointment shall be prescribed by law. such remuneration may not be diminished during their continuance in office. the terms of appointment of the judges of such other courts as may be created shall be prescribed by law. article . all judges shall be independent in the exercise of their functions, and subject only to the constitution and the law. a judge shall not be eligible to sit in parliament/oireachtas, and shall not hold any other office or position of emolument. article . no one shall be tried save in due course of law and extraordinary courts shall not be established. the jurisdiction of courts martial shall not be extended to or exercised over the civil population save in time of war, and for acts committed in time of war, and in accordance with the regulations to be prescribed by law. such jurisdiction shall not be exercised in any area in which the civil courts are open or capable of being held, and no person shall be removed from one area to another for the purpose of creating such jurisdiction. article . a member of the armed forces of the irish free state/saorstat eireann not on active service shall not be tried by any court martial for an offence cognisable by the civil courts. article . no person shall, save in case of summary jurisdiction prescribed by law for minor offences, be tried without a jury on any criminal charge. section v.--transitory provisions. article . subject to this constitution and to the extent to which they are not inconsistent therewith, the laws in force in the irish free state/saorstat eireann at the date of the coming into operation of this constitution shall continue to be of full force and effect until the same or any of them shall have been repealed or amended by enactment of the parliament/oireachtas. article . until courts have been established for the irish free state/saorstat eireann in accordance with this constitution, the supreme court of judicature, county courts, courts of quarter sessions and courts of summary jurisdiction, as at present existing, shall for the time being continue to exercise the same jurisdiction as heretofore, and any judge or justice, being a member of any such court, holding office at the time when this constitution comes into operation, shall for the time being continue to be a member thereof and hold office by the like tenure and upon the like terms as heretofore, unless, in the case of a judge of the said supreme court or of a county court, he signifies to the representative of the crown his desire to resign. any vacancies in any of the said courts so continued may be filled by appointment made in like manner as appointments to judgeships in the courts established under this constitution. provided that the provisions of article as to the decisions of the supreme court established under this constitution shall apply to decisions of the court of appeal continued by this article. article . if any judge of the said supreme court of judicature or of any of the said county courts resigns as aforesaid, or if any such judge, on the establishment of courts under this constitution, is not with his consent appointed to be a judge of any such court, he shall, for the purpose of article of the scheduled treaty, be treated as if he had retired in consequence of the change of government effected in pursuance of the said treaty, but the rights so conferred shall be without prejudice to any rights or claims that he may have against the british government. article . every existing officer of the provisional government who has been transferred to that government from the british government and every existing officer of the british government, who, at the date of the coming into operation of this constitution, is engaged or employed in the administration of public services which on that date become public services of the irish free state/saorstat eireann (except those whose services have been lent by the british government to the provisional government) shall on that date be transferred to and become an officer of the irish free state/saorstat eireann and shall hold office by a tenure corresponding to his previous tenure, and shall be entitled to the benefit of article of the scheduled treaty. article . as respects departmental property, assets, rights, and liabilities, the government of the irish free state/saorstat eireann shall be regarded as the successors of the provisional government, and, to the extent to which functions of any department of the british government become functions of the government of the irish free state/saorstat eireann, as the successors of such department of the british government. article . after the date on which this constitution comes into operation the house of the parliament elected in pursuance of the irish free state (agreement) act, (being the constituent assembly for the settlement of this constitution), may, for a period not exceeding one year from that date, but subject to compliance by the members thereof with the provisions of article of this constitution, exercise all the powers and authorities conferred on the chamber/dail eireann by this constitution, and the first election for the chamber/dail eireann under articles and hereof shall take place as soon as possible after the expiration of such period. article . the first senate/seanad eireann shall be constituted immediately after the coming into operation of this constitution in the manner following, that is to say:-- (a) the first senate/seanad shall consist of two members elected by each of the universities in the irish free state/saorstat eireann and fifty-six other members, of whom twenty-eight shall be elected and twenty-eight shall be nominated. (b) the twenty-eight nominated members of the senate/seanad shall be nominated by the president of the executive council who shall, in making such nominations, have special regard to the providing of representation for groups or parties not then adequately represented in the chamber/dail. (c) the twenty-eight elected members of the senate/seanad shall be elected by the chamber/dail eireann voting on principles of proportional representation. (d) of the university members one member elected by each university, to be elected by lot, shall hold office for six years, the remaining university members shall hold office for the full period of twelve years. (e) of the twenty-eight nominated members, fourteen, to be selected by lot, shall hold office for the full period of twelve years, the remaining fourteen shall hold office for the period of six years. (f) of the twenty-eight elected members the first fourteen elected shall hold office for the period of nine years, the remaining fourteen shall hold office for the period of three years. (g) at the termination of the period of office of any such members, members shall be elected in their place in manner provided by article . (h) casual vacancies shall be filled in manner provided by article . (i) for the purpose of the election of members for any university under this article, all persons whose names appear on the register for the university in force at the date of the coming into operation of this constitution shall, notwithstanding anything in article , be entitled to vote. article . the passing and adoption of this constitution by the constituent assembly and the british parliament shall be announced as soon as may be, and not later than the sixth day of december, nineteen hundred and twenty-two, by proclamation of his majesty and this constitution shall come into operation on the issue of such proclamation. schedule articles of agreement for a treaty between great britain and ireland, dated the sixth day of december, nineteen hundred and twenty-one. . ireland shall have the same constitutional status in the community of nations known as the british empire as the dominion of canada, the commonwealth of australia, the dominion of new zealand, and the union of south africa, with a parliament having powers to make laws for the peace order and good government of ireland and an executive responsible to that parliament, and shall be styled and known as the irish free state. . subject to the provisions hereinafter set out the position of the irish free state in relation to the imperial parliament and government and otherwise shall be that of the dominion of canada, and the law, practice and constitutional usage governing the relationship of the crown or the representative of the crown and of the imperial parliament to the dominion of canada shall govern their relationship to the irish free state. . the representative of the crown in ireland shall be appointed in like manner as the governor-general of canada, and in accordance with the practice observed in the making of such appointments. . the oath to be taken by members of the parliament of the irish free state shall be in the following form:-- i ...... do solemnly swear true faith and allegiance to the constitution of the irish free state as by law established and that i will be faithful to h.m. king george v., his heirs and successors by law in virtue of the common citizenship of ireland with great britain and her adherence to and membership of the group of nations forming the british commonwealth of nations. . the irish free state shall assume liability for the service of the public debt of the united kingdom as existing at the date hereof and towards the payment of war pensions as existing at that date in such proportion as may be fair and equitable, having regard to any just claims on the part of ireland by way of set off or counterclaim, the amount of such sums being determined in default of agreement by the arbitration of one or more independent persons being citizens of the british empire. . until an arrangement has been made between the british and irish governments whereby the irish free state undertakes her own coastal defence, the defence by sea of great britain and ireland shall be undertaken by his majesty's imperial forces, but this shall not prevent the construction or maintenance by the government of the irish free state of such vessels as are necessary for the protection of the revenue or the fisheries. the foregoing provisions of this article shall be reviewed at a conference of representatives of the british and irish governments to be held at the expiration of five years from the date hereof with a view to the undertaking by ireland of a share in her own coastal defence. . the government of the irish free state shall afford to his majesty's imperial forces:-- (_a_) in time of peace such harbour and other facilities as are indicated in the annex hereto, or such other facilities as may from time to time be agreed between the british government and the government of the irish free state; and (_b_) in time of war or of strained relations with a foreign power such harbour and other facilities as the british government may require for the purposes of such defence as aforesaid. . with a view to securing the observance of the principle of international limitation of armaments, if the government of the irish free state establishes and maintains a military defence force, the establishments thereof shall not exceed in size such proportion of the military establishments maintained in great britain as that which the population of ireland bears to the population of great britain. . the ports of great britain and the irish free state shall be freely open to the ships of the other country on payment of the customary port and other dues. . the government of the irish free state agrees to pay fair compensation on terms not less favourable than those accorded by the act of to judges, officials, members of police forces, and other public servants who are discharged by it or who retire in consequence of the change of government effected in pursuance hereof. provided that this agreement shall not apply to members of the auxiliary police force or to persons recruited in great britain for the royal irish constabulary during the two years next preceding the date hereof. the british government will assume responsibility for such compensation or pensions as may be payable to any of these excepted persons. . until the expiration of one month from the passing of the act of parliament for the ratification of this instrument, the powers of the parliament and the government of the irish free state shall not be exercisable as respects northern ireland, and the provisions of the government of ireland act, , shall, so far as they relate to northern ireland, remain of full force and effect, and no election shall be held for the return of members to serve in the parliament of the irish free state for constituencies in northern ireland, unless a resolution is passed by both houses of the parliament of northern ireland in favour of the holding of such elections before the end of the said month. . if before the expiration of the said month, an address is presented to his majesty by both houses of the parliament of northern ireland to that effect, the powers of the parliament and government of the irish free state shall no longer extend to northern ireland, and the provisions of the government of ireland act, (including those relating to the council of ireland), shall so far as they relate to northern ireland, continue to be of full force and effect, and this instrument shall have effect subject to the necessary modifications. provided that if such an address is so presented a commission consisting of three persons, one to be appointed by the government of the irish free state, one to be appointed by the government of northern ireland and one who shall be chairman to be appointed by the british government shall determine in accordance with the wishes of the inhabitants, so far as may be compatible with economic and geographic conditions the boundaries between northern ireland and the rest of ireland, and for the purposes of the government of ireland act, , and of this instrument, the boundary of northern ireland shall be such as may be determined by such commission. . for the purpose of the last foregoing article, the powers of the parliament of southern ireland under the government of ireland act, , to elect members of the council of ireland shall after the parliament of the irish free state is constituted be exercised by that parliament. . after the expiration of the said month, if no such address as is mentioned in article hereof is presented, the parliament and government of northern ireland shall continue to exercise as respects northern ireland the powers conferred on them by the government of ireland act, , but the parliament and government of the irish free state shall in northern ireland have in relation to matters in respect of which the parliament of northern ireland has not power to make laws under that act (including matters which under the said act are within the jurisdiction of the council of ireland) the same powers as in the rest of ireland subject to such other provisions as may be agreed in manner hereinafter appearing. . at any time after the date hereof the government of northern ireland and the provisional government of southern ireland hereinafter constituted may meet for the purpose of discussing the provisions subject to which the last foregoing article is to operate in the event of no such address as is therein mentioned being presented and those provisions may include:-- (_a_) safeguards with regard to patronage in northern ireland. (_b_) safeguards with regard to the collection of revenue in northern ireland. (_c_) safeguards with regard to import and export duties affecting the trade or industry of northern ireland. (_d_) safeguards for minorities in northern ireland. (_e_) the settlement of the financial relations between northern ireland and the irish free state. (_f_) the establishment and powers of a local militia in northern ireland and the relation of the defence forces of the irish free state and of northern ireland respectively. and if at any such meeting provisions are agreed to, the same shall have effect as if they were included amongst the provisions subject to which the powers of the parliament and government of the irish free state are to be exercisable in northern ireland under article hereof. . neither the parliament of the irish free state nor the parliament of northern ireland shall make any law so as either directly or indirectly to endow any religion or prohibit or restrict the free exercise thereof or give any preference or impose any disability on account of religious belief or religious status or affect prejudicially the right of any child to attend a school receiving public money without attending the religious instruction at the school or make any discrimination as respects state aid between schools under the management of different religious denominations or divert from any religious denomination or any educational institution any of its property except for public utility purposes and on payment of compensation. . by way of provisional arrangement for the administration of southern ireland during the interval which must elapse between the date hereof and the constitution of a parliament and government of the irish free state in accordance therewith, steps shall be taken forthwith for summoning a meeting of members of parliament elected for constituencies in southern ireland since the passing of the government of ireland act, , and for constituting a provisional government, and the british government shall take the steps necessary to transfer to such provisional government the powers and machinery requisite for the discharge of its duties, provided that every member of such provisional government shall have signified in writing his or her acceptance of this instrument. but this arrangement shall not continue in force beyond the expiration of twelve months from the date hereof. . this instrument shall be submitted forthwith by his majesty's government for the approval of parliament and by the irish signatories to a meeting summoned for the purpose of the members elected to sit in the house of commons of southern ireland, and if approved shall be ratified by the necessary legislation. (signed) on behalf of the british delegation, d. lloyd george. austen chamberlain. birkenhead. winston s. churchill. l. worthington-evans. hamar greenwood. gordon hewart. on behalf of the irish delegation, art o griobhtha. (arthur griffith). michal o coileain. riobard bartun. e. s. o dugain. seorsa ghabhain ui dhubhthaigh. th december, . annex. . the following are the specific facilities required. dockyard port at berehaven. (_a_) admiralty property and rights to be retained as at the date hereof. harbour defences to remain in charge of british care and maintenance parties. queenstown. (_b_) harbour defences to remain in charge of british care and maintenance parties. certain mooring buoys to be retained for use of his majesty's ships. belfast lough. (_c_) harbour defences to remain in charge of british care and maintenance parties. lough swilly. (_d_) harbour defences to remain in charge of british care and maintenance parties. aviation. (_e_) facilities in the neighbourhood of the above ports for coastal defence by air. oil fuel storage. (_f_) haulbowline - {to be offered for sale to commercial {companies under guarantee that rathmullen - {purchasers shall maintain a certain {minimum stock for admiralty purposes. . a convention shall be made between the british government and the government of the irish free state to give effect to the following conditions:-- (_a_) that submarine cables shall not be landed or wireless stations for communication with places outside ireland be established except by agreement with the british government; that the existing cable landing rights and wireless concessions shall not be withdrawn except by agreement with the british government; and that the british government shall be entitled to land additional submarine cables or establish additional wireless stations for communication with places outside ireland: (_b_) that lighthouses, buoys, beacons, and any navigational marks or navigational aids shall be maintained by the government of the irish free state as at the date hereof and shall not be removed or added to except by agreement with the british government: (_c_) the war signal stations shall be closed down and left in charge of care and maintenance parties, the government of the irish free state being offered the option of taking them over and working them for commercial purposes subject to admiralty inspection and guaranteeing the upkeep of existing telegraphic communication therewith. . a convention shall be made between the same governments for the regulation of civil communication by air. d. l. g. a. c. b. w. s. c. m. o. c. transcriber's notes: passages in italics are indicated by _underscore_. the following misprints have been corrected: "moveover" corrected to "moreover" (page ) "confederateion" corrected to "confederation" (page ) "minorites" corrected to "minorities" (page ) "majorites" corrected to "majorities" (page ) "commitee's" corrected to "committee's" (page ) "sarorstat" corrected to "saorstat" (page ) transcriber's note: text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). text enclosed by equal signs is in bold face (=bold=). the book uses both richelieu and richlieu. on page , the phrase "any their progenitors" possibly should be "any of their progenitors". inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document have been preserved. obvious typographical errors have been corrected. everyman's library edited by ernest rhys history hallam's constitutional history with an introduction by professor j. h. morgan * * * * * * the publishers of _everyman's library_ will be pleased to send freely to all applicants a list of the published and projected volumes to be comprised under the following thirteen headings: travel · science · fiction theology & philosophy history · classical for young people essays · oratory poetry & drama biography reference romance in four styles of binding: cloth, flat back, coloured top; leather, round corners, gilt top; library binding in cloth, & quarter pigskin london: j. m. dent & sons, ltd. new york: e. p. dutton & co. * * * * * * "consider history with the beginnings of it stretching dimly into the remote time; emerging darkly out of the mysterious eternity: the true epic poem and universal divine scripture.···" carlyle * * * * * * constitutional history of england henry vii to george ii. by henry hallam vol london: published by j. m. dent & sons ltd and in new york by e. p. dutton & co contents chapter viii from the dissolution of charles's third parliament to the meeting of the long parliament declaration of the king after the dissolution -- prosecutions of eliot and others for conduct in parliament -- of chambers for refusing to pay customs -- commendable behaviour of judges in some instances -- means adopted to raise the revenue -- compositions for knighthood -- forest laws -- monopolies -- ship-money -- extension of it to inland places -- hampden's refusal to pay -- arguments on the case -- proclamations -- various arbitrary proceedings -- star-chamber jurisdiction -- punishments inflicted by it -- cases of bishop williams, prynne, etc. -- laud, his character -- lord strafford -- correspondence between these two -- conduct of laud in the church -- prosecution of puritans -- favour shown to catholics -- tendency to their religion -- expectations entertained by them -- mission of panzani -- intrigue of bishop montagu with him -- chillingworth -- hales -- character of clarendon's writings -- animadversions on his account of this period -- scots troubles, and distress of the government -- parliament of april -- council of york -- convocation of long parliament page chapter ix from the meeting of the long parliament to the beginning of the civil war character of long parliament -- its salutary measures -- triennial bill -- other beneficial laws -- observations -- impeachment of strafford -- discussion of its justice -- act against dissolution of parliament without its consent -- innovations meditated in the church -- schism in the constitutional party -- remonstrance of november -- suspicions of the king's sincerity -- question of the militia -- historical sketch of military force in england -- incroachments of the parliament -- nineteen propositions -- discussion of the respective claims of the two parties to support -- faults of both page chapter x from the breaking of the civil war to the restoration part i success of the king in the first part of the war -- efforts by the moderate party for peace -- affair at brentford -- treaty of oxford -- impeachment of the queen -- waller's plot -- secession of some peers to the king's quarters -- their treatment there impolitic -- the anti-pacific party gain the ascendant at westminster -- the parliament makes a new great seal -- and takes the covenant -- persecution of the clergy who refuse it -- impeachment and execution of laud -- decline of the king's affairs in -- factions at oxford -- royalist lords and commoners summoned to that city -- treaty of uxbridge -- impossibility of agreement -- the parliament insist on unreasonable terms -- miseries of the war -- essex and manchester suspected of lukewarmness -- self-denying ordinance -- battle of naseby -- desperate condition of the king's affairs -- he throws himself into the hands of the scots -- his struggles to preserve episcopacy, against the advice of the queen and others -- bad conduct of the queen -- publication of letters taken at naseby -- discovery of glamorgan's treaty -- king delivered up by the scots -- growth of the independents and republicans -- opposition to the presbyterian government -- toleration -- intrigues of the army with the king -- his person seized -- the parliament yield to the army -- mysterious conduct of cromwell -- imprudent hopes of the king -- he rejects the proposals of the army -- his flight from hampton court -- alarming votes against him -- scots' invasion -- the presbyterians regain the ascendant -- treaty of newport -- gradual progress of a republican party -- scheme among the officers of bringing charles to trial -- this is finally determined -- seclusion of presbyterian members -- motives of some of the king's judges -- question of his execution discussed -- his character -- icon basilike page part ii abolition of the monarchy -- and of the house of lords -- commonwealth -- schemes of cromwell -- his conversations with whitelock -- unpopularity of the parliament -- their fall -- little parliament -- instrument of government -- parliament called by cromwell -- dissolved by him -- intrigues of the king and his party -- insurrectionary movements in -- rigorous measures of cromwell -- his arbitrary government -- he summons another parliament -- designs to take the crown -- the project fails -- but his authority as protector is augmented -- he aims at forming a new house of lords -- his death -- and character -- richard his son succeeds him -- is supported by some prudent men -- but opposed by a coalition -- calls a parliament -- the army overthrow both -- long parliament restored -- expelled again -- and again restored -- impossibility of establishing a republic -- intrigues of the royalists -- they unite with the presbyterians -- conspiracy of -- interference of monk -- his dissimulation -- secluded members return to their seats -- difficulties about the restoration -- new parliament -- king restored -- whether previous conditions required -- plan of reviving the treaty of newport inexpedient -- difficulty of framing conditions -- conduct of the convention about this not blameable -- except in respect of the militia -- conduct of monk page chapter xi from the restoration of charles ii. to the fall of the cabal administration popular joy at the restoration -- proceedings of the convention parliament -- act of indemnity -- exclusion of the regicides and others -- discussions between the houses on it -- execution of regicides -- restitution of crown and church lands -- discontent of the royalists -- settlement of the revenue -- abolition of military tenures -- excise granted instead -- army disbanded -- clergy restored to their benefices -- hopes of the presbyterians from the king -- projects for a compromise -- king's declaration in favour of it -- convention parliament dissolved -- different complexion of the next -- condemnation of vane -- its injustice -- acts replacing the crown in its prerogatives -- corporation act -- repeal of triennial act -- star-chamber not restored -- presbyterians deceived by the king -- savoy conference -- act of uniformity -- ejection of nonconformist clergy -- hopes of the catholics -- bias of the king towards them -- resisted by clarendon and the parliament -- declaration for indulgence -- objected to by the commons -- act against conventicles -- another of the same kind -- remarks on them -- dissatisfaction increases -- private life of the king -- opposition in parliament -- appropriation of supplies -- commission of public accounts -- decline of clarendon's power -- loss of the king's favour -- coalition against him -- his impeachment -- some articles of it not unfounded -- illegal imprisonments -- sale of dunkirk -- solicitation of french money -- his faults as a minister -- his pusillanimous flight -- and consequent banishment -- cabal ministry -- scheme of comprehension and indulgence -- triple alliance -- intrigue with france -- king's desire to be absolute -- secret treaty of -- its objects -- differences between charles and louis as to the mode of its execution -- fresh severities against dissenters -- dutch war -- declaration of indulgence -- opposed by parliament -- and withdrawn -- test act -- fall of shaftesbury and his colleagues page chapter xii earl of danby's administration -- death of charles ii. earl of danby's administration -- opposition in the commons -- frequently corrupt -- character of lord danby -- connection of the popular party with france -- its motives on both sides -- doubt as to their acceptance of money -- secret treaties of the king with france -- fall of danby -- his impeachment -- questions arising on it -- his commitment to the tower -- pardon pleaded in bar -- votes of bishops -- abatement of impeachments by dissolution -- popish plot -- coleman's letters -- godfrey's death -- injustice of judges on the trials -- parliament dissolved -- exclusion of duke of york proposed -- schemes of shaftesbury and monmouth -- unsteadiness of the king -- expedients to avoid the exclusion -- names of whig and tory -- new council formed by sir william temple -- long prorogation of parliament -- petitions and addresses -- violence of the commons -- oxford parliament -- impeachment of commoners for treason constitutional -- fitzharris impeached -- proceedings against shaftesbury and his colleagues -- triumph of the court -- forfeiture of charter of london -- and of other places -- projects of lord russell and sidney -- their trials -- high tory principles of the clergy -- passive obedience -- some contend for absolute power -- filmer -- sir george mackenzie -- decree of university of oxford -- connection with louis broken off -- king's death page constitutional history of england from henry vii. to george ii. chapter viii from the dissolution of charles's third parliament to the meeting of the long parliament the dissolution of a parliament was always to the prerogative what the dispersion of clouds is to the sun. as if in mockery of the transient obstruction, it shone forth as splendid and scorching as before. even after the exertions of the most popular and intrepid house of commons that had ever met, and after the most important statute that had been passed for some hundred years, charles found himself in an instant unshackled by his law or his word; once more that absolute king, for whom his sycophants had preached and pleaded, as if awakened from a fearful dream of sounds and sights that such monarchs hate to endure, to the full enjoyment of an unrestrained prerogative. he announced his intentions of government for the future in a long declaration of the causes of the late dissolution of parliament, which, though not without the usual promises to maintain the laws and liberties of the people, gave evident hints that his own interpretation of them must be humbly acquiesced in.[ ] this was followed up by a proclamation that he "should account it presumption for any to prescribe a time to him for parliament, the calling, continuing, or dissolving of which was always in his own power; and he should be more inclinable to meet parliament again, when his people should see more clearly into his intents and actions, when such as have bred this interruption shall have received their condign punishment." he afterwards declares that he should "not overcharge his subjects by any more burthens, but satisfy himself with those duties that were received by his father, which he neither could nor would dispense with; but should esteem them unworthy of his protection who should deny them."[ ] _prosecutions of eliot and others for conduct in parliament._--the king next turned his mind, according to his own and his father's practice, to take vengeance on those who had been most active in their opposition to him. a few days after the dissolution, sir john eliot, holles, selden, long, strode, and other eminent members of the commons, were committed, some to the tower, some to the king's bench, and their papers seized. upon suing for their habeas corpus, a return was made that they were detained for notable contempts, and for stirring up sedition, alleged in a warrant under the king's sign manual. their counsel argued against the sufficiency of this return, as well on the principles and precedents employed in the former case of sir thomas darnel and his colleagues, as on the late explicit confirmation of them in the petition of right. the king's counsel endeavoured, by evading the authority of that enactment, to set up anew that alarming pretence to a power of arbitrary imprisonment, which the late parliament had meant to silence for ever. "a petition in parliament," said the attorney-general heath, "is no law, yet it is for the honour and dignity of the king to observe it faithfully; but it is the duty of the people not to stretch it beyond the words and intention of the king. and no other construction can be made of the petition, than that it is a confirmation of the ancient liberties and rights of the subjects. so that now the case remains in the same quality and degree as it was before the petition." thus, by dint of a sophism which turned into ridicule the whole proceedings of the late parliament, he pretended to recite afresh the authorities on which he had formerly relied, in order to prove that one committed by the command of the king or privy council is not bailable. the judges, timid and servile, yet desirous to keep some measures with their own consciences, or looking forward to the wrath of future parliaments, wrote what whitelock calls "a humble and stout letter" to the king, that they were bound to bail the prisoners; but requested that he would send his direction to do so.[ ] the gentlemen in custody were, on this intimation, removed to the tower; and the king, in a letter to the court, refused permission for them to appear on the day when judgment was to be given. their restraint was thus protracted through the long vacation; towards the close of which, charles, sending for two of the judges told them he was content the prisoners should be bailed, notwithstanding their obstinacy in refusing to present a petition, declaring their sorrow for having offended him. in the ensuing michaelmas term accordingly they were brought before the court, and ordered not only to find bail for the present charge, but sureties for their good behaviour. on refusing to comply with this requisition, they were remanded to custody. the attorney-general, dropping the charge against the rest, exhibited an information against sir john eliot for words uttered in the house; namely, that the council and judges had conspired to trample under foot the liberties of the subject; and against mr. denzil holles and mr. valentine for a tumult on the last day of the session; when the speaker having attempted to adjourn the house by the king's command, had been forcibly held down in the chair by some of the members, while a remonstrance was voted. they pleaded to the court's jurisdiction, because their offences were supposed to be committed in parliament, and consequently not punishable in any other place. this brought forward the great question of privilege, on the determination of which the power of the house of commons, and consequently the character of the english constitution, seemed evidently to depend. freedom of speech, being implied in the nature of a representative assembly called to present grievances and suggest remedies, could not stand in need of any special law or privilege to support it. but it was also sanctioned by positive authority. the speaker demands it at the beginning of every parliament among the standing privileges of the house; and it had received a sort of confirmation from the legislature by an act passed in the fourth year of henry viii., on occasion of one strode, who had been prosecuted and imprisoned in the stannary court, for proposing in parliament some regulations for the tinners in cornwall; which annuls all that had been done, or might hereafter be done, towards strode, for any matter relating to the parliament, in words so strong as to form, in the opinion of many lawyers, a general enactment. the judges however held, on the question being privately sent to them by the king, that the statute concerning strode was a particular act of parliament extending only to him and those who had joined with him to prefer a bill to the commons concerning tinners; but that, although the act were private and extended to them alone, yet it was no more than all other parliament men, by privilege of the house, ought to have; namely, freedom of speech concerning matters there debated.[ ] it appeared by a constant series of precedents, the counsel for eliot and his friends argued, that the liberties and privileges of parliament could only be determined therein, and not by any inferior court; that the judges had often declined to give their opinions on such subjects, alleging that they were beyond their jurisdiction; that the words imputed to eliot were in the nature of an accusation of persons in power which the commons had an undoubted right to prefer; that no one would venture to complain of grievances in parliament, if he should be subjected to punishment at the discretion of an inferior tribunal; that whatever instances had occurred of punishing the alleged offences of members after a dissolution, were but acts of power, which no attempt had hitherto been made to sanction; finally, that the offences imputed might be punished in a future parliament. the attorney-general replied to the last point, that the king was not bound to wait for another parliament; and moreover, that the house of commons was not a court of justice, nor had any power to proceed criminally, except by imprisoning its own members. he admitted that the judges had sometimes declined to give their judgment upon matters of privilege; but contended that such cases had happened during the session of parliament, and that it did not follow, but that an offence committed in the house might be questioned after a dissolution. he set aside the application of strode's case, as a special act of parliament; and dwelt on the precedent of an information preferred in the reign of mary against certain members for absenting themselves from their duty in parliament, which, though it never came to a conclusion, was not disputed on the ground of right. the court were unanimous in holding that they had jurisdiction, though the alleged offences were committed in parliament, and that the defendants were bound to answer. the privileges of parliament did not extend, one of them said, to breaches of the peace, which was the present case; and all offences against the crown, said another, were punishable in the court of king's bench. on the parties refusing to put in any other plea, judgment was given that they should be imprisoned during the king's pleasure, and not released without giving surety for good behaviour, and making submission; that eliot, as the greatest offender and ringleader, should be fined in £ , holles and valentine to a smaller amount.[ ] eliot, the most distinguished leader of the popular party, died in the tower without yielding to the submission required. in the long parliament, the commons came to several votes on the illegality of all these proceedings, both as to the delay in granting their habeas corpus, and the overruling their plea to the jurisdiction of the king's bench. but the subject was revived again in a more distant and more tranquil period. in the year , the commons resolved that the act of h. viii. concerning strode was a general law, "extending to indemnify all and every the members of both houses of parliament, in all parliaments, for and touching any bills, speaking, reasoning or declaring of any matter or matters, in and concerning the parliament to be communed and treated of, and is a declaratory law of the ancient and necessary rights and privileges of parliament." they resolved also that the judgment given car. i. against sir john eliot, denzil holles, and benjamin valentine, is an illegal judgment, and against the freedom and privilege of parliament. to these resolutions the lords gave their concurrence. and holles, then become a peer, having brought the record of the king's bench by writ of error before them, they solemnly reversed the judgment.[ ] an important decision with respect to our constitutional law, which has established beyond controversy the great privilege of unlimited freedom of speech in parliament; unlimited, i mean, by any authority except that by which the house itself ought always to restrain indecent and disorderly language in its members. it does not, however, appear to be a necessary consequence from the reversal of this judgment, that no actions committed in the house by any of its members are punishable in a court of law. the argument in behalf of holles and valentine goes indeed to this length; but it was admitted in the debate on the subject in , that their plea to the jurisdiction of the king's bench could not have been supported as to the imputed riot in detaining the speaker in the chair, though the judgment was erroneous in extending to words spoken in parliament. and it is obvious that the house could inflict no adequate punishment in the possible case of treason or felony committed within its walls; nor, if its power of imprisonment be limited to the session, in that of many smaller offences. _prosecution of chambers for refusing to pay customs._--the customs on imported merchandises were now rigorously enforced.[ ] but the late discussions in parliament, and the growing disposition to probe the legality of all acts of the crown, rendered the merchants more discontented than ever. richard chambers, having refused to pay any further duty for a bale of silks than might be required by law, was summoned before the privy-council. in the presence of that board he was provoked to exclaim that in no part of the world, not even in turkey, were the merchants so screwed and wrung as in england. for these hasty words an information was preferred against him in the star-chamber; and the court, being of opinion that the words were intended to make the people believe that his majesty's happy government might be termed turkish tyranny, manifested their laudable abhorrence of such tyranny by sentencing him to pay a fine of £ , and to make a humble submission. chambers, a sturdy puritan, absolutely refused to subscribe the form of submission tendered to him, and was of course committed to prison. but the court of king's bench admitted him to bail on a habeas corpus; for which, as whitelock tells us, they were reprimanded by the council.[ ] _commendable behaviour of judges in some instances._--there were several instances, besides this just mentioned, wherein the judges manifested a more courageous spirit than they were able constantly to preserve; and the odium under which their memory labours for a servile compliance with the court, especially in the case of ship-money, renders it but an act of justice to record those testimonies they occasionally gave of a nobler sense of duty. they unanimously declared, when charles expressed a desire that felton, the assassin of the duke of buckingham, might be put to the rack in order to make him discover his accomplices, that the law of england did not allow the use of torture. this is a remarkable proof that, amidst all the arbitrary principles and arbitrary measures of the time, a truer sense of the inviolability of law had begun to prevail, and that the free constitution of england was working off the impurities with which violence had stained it. for, though it be most certain that the law never recognised the use of torture, there had been many instances of its employment, and even within a few years.[ ] in this public assertion of its illegality, the judges conferred an eminent service on their country, and doubtless saved the king and his council much additional guilt and infamy which they would have incurred in the course of their career. they declared, about the same time, on a reference to them concerning certain disrespectful words alleged to have been spoken by one pine against the king, that no words can of themselves amount to treason within the statute of edward iii.[ ] they resolved, some years after, that prynne's, burton's, and bastwick's libels against the bishops were no treason.[ ] in their old controversy with the ecclesiastical jurisdiction, they were inflexibly tenacious. an action having been brought against some members of the high-commission court for false imprisonment, the king, on laud's remonstrance, sent a message to desire that the suit might not proceed till he should have conversed with the judges. the chief-justice made answer that they were bound by their oaths not to delay the course of justice; and after a contention before the privy-council, the commissioners were compelled to plead.[ ] such instances of firmness serve to extenuate those unhappy deficiencies which are more notorious in history. had the judges been as numerous and independent as those of the parliament of paris, they would not probably have been wanting in equal vigour. but holding their offices at the king's will, and exposed to the displeasure of his council whenever they opposed any check to the prerogative, they held a vacillating course, which made them obnoxious to those who sought for despotic power, while it forfeited the esteem of the nation. _means adopted to raise the revenue. compositions for knighthood._--in pursuance of the system adopted by charles's ministers, they had recourse to exactions, some odious and obsolete, some of very questionable legality, and others clearly against law. of the former class may be reckoned the compositions for not taking the order of knighthood. the early kings of england, henry iii. and edward i., very little in the spirit of chivalry, had introduced the practice of summoning their military tenants, holding £ per annum, to receive knighthood at their hands. those who declined this honour were permitted to redeem their absence by a moderate fine.[ ] elizabeth, once in her reign, and james, had availed themselves of this ancient right. but the change in the value of money rendered it far more oppressive than formerly, though limited to the holders of £ per annum in military tenure. commissioners were now appointed to compound with those who had neglected some years before to obey the proclamation, summoning them to receive knighthood at the king's coronation.[ ] in particular instances, very severe fines are recorded to have been imposed upon defaulters, probably from some political resentment.[ ] _forest laws._--still greater dissatisfaction attended the king's attempt to revive the ancient laws of the forests,--those laws, of which, in elder times, so many complaints had been heard, exacting money by means of pretensions which long disuse had rendered dubious, and showing himself to those who lived on the borders of those domains in the hateful light of a litigious and encroaching neighbour. the earl of holland held a court almost every year, as chief-justice in eyre, for the recovery of the king's forestal rights, which made great havoc with private property. no prescription could be pleaded against the king's title, which was to be found, indeed, by the inquest of a jury, but under the direction of a very partial tribunal. the royal forests in essex were so enlarged, that they were hyperbolically said to include the whole county.[ ] the earl of southampton was nearly ruined by a decision that stripped him of his estate near the new forest.[ ] the boundaries of rockingham forest were increased from six miles to sixty, and enormous fines imposed on the trespassers; lord salisbury being amerced in £ , , lord westmoreland in £ , , sir christopher hatton in £ , .[ ] it is probable that much of these was remitted. _monopolies._--a greater profit was derived from a still more pernicious and indefensible measure, the establishment of a chartered company, with exclusive privileges of making soap. the recent statute against monopolies seemed to secure the public against this species of grievance. noy, however, the attorney-general, a lawyer of uncommon eminence, and lately a strenuous asserter of popular rights in the house of commons, devised this project, by which he probably meant to evade the letter of the law, since every manufacturer was permitted to become a member of the company. they agreed to pay eight pounds for every ton of soap made, as well as £ , for their charter. for this they were empowered to appoint searchers, and exercise a sort of inquisition over the trade. those dealers who resisted their interference were severely fined, on informations in the star-chamber. some years afterwards, however, the king received money from a new corporation of soap-makers, and revoked the patent of the former.[ ] this precedent was followed in the erection of a similar company of starch-makers, and in a great variety of other grants, which may be found in rymer's _foedera_, and in the proceedings of the long parliament; till monopolies, in transgression or evasion of the late statute, became as common as they had been under james or elizabeth. the king, by a proclamation at york in , beginning to feel the necessity of diminishing the public odium, revoked all those grants.[ ] he annulled at the same time a number of commissions that had been issued in order to obtain money by compounding with offenders against penal statutes. the catalogue of these, as well as of the monopolies, is very curious. the former were, in truth, rather vexatious than illegal, and sustained by precedents in what were called the golden ages of elizabeth and james, though at all times the source of great and just discontent. the name of noy has acquired an unhappy celebrity by a far more famous invention, which promised to realise the most sanguine hopes that could have been formed of carrying on the government for an indefinite length of time without the assistance of parliament. shaking off the dust of ages from parchments in the tower, this man of venal diligence and prostituted learning discovered that the sea-ports and even maritime counties had in early times been sometimes called upon to furnish ships for the public service; nay, there were instances of a similar demand upon some inland places. noy himself died almost immediately afterwards. notwithstanding his apostasy from the public cause, it is just to remark that we have no right to impute to him the more extensive and more unprecedented scheme of ship-money as a general tax, which was afterwards carried into execution. but it sprang by natural consequence from the former measure, according to the invariable course of encroachment, which those who have once bent the laws to their will ever continue to pursue. the first writ issued from the council in october . it was directed to the magistrates of london and other sea-port towns. reciting the depredations lately committed by pirates, and slightly adverting to the dangers imminent in a season of general war on the continent, it enjoins them to provide a certain number of ships of war of a prescribed tonnage and equipage; empowering them also to assess all the inhabitants for a contribution towards this armament according to their substance. the citizens of london humbly remonstrated that they conceived themselves exempt, by sundry charters and acts of parliament, from bearing such a charge. but the council peremptorily compelled their submission; and the murmurs of inferior towns were still more easily suppressed. this is said to have cost the city of london £ , .[ ] there wanted not reasons in the cabinet of charles for placing the navy at this time on a respectable footing. algerine pirates had become bold enough to infest the channel; and what was of more serious importance, the dutch were rapidly acquiring a maritime preponderance, which excited a natural jealousy, both for our commerce, and the honour of our flag. this commercial rivalry conspired with a far more powerful motive at court, an abhorrence of everything republican or calvinistic, to make our course of policy towards holland not only unfriendly, but insidious and inimical in the highest degree. a secret treaty is extant, signed in , by which charles engaged to assist the king of spain in the conquest of that great protestant commonwealth, retaining the isles of zealand as the price of his co-operation.[ ] yet, with preposterous inconsistency as well as ill-faith, the two characteristics of all this unhappy prince's foreign policy, we find him in the next year carrying on a negotiation with a disaffected party in the netherlands, in some strange expectation of obtaining the sovereignty on their separation from spain. lord cottington betrayed this intrigue (of which one whom we should little expect to find in these paths of conspiracy, peter paul rubens, was the negotiator) to the court of madrid.[ ] it was in fact an unpardonable and unprovoked breach of faith, and accounts for the indifference, to say no more, which that government always showed to his misfortunes. charles, whose domestic position rendered a pacific system absolutely necessary, busied himself, far more than common history has recorded, with the affairs of europe. he was engaged in a tedious and unavailing negotiation with both branches of the house of austria, especially with the court of madrid, for the restitution of the palatinate. he took a much greater interest than his father had done in the fortunes of his sister and her family; but, like his father, he fell into the delusion that the cabinet of madrid, for whom he could effect but little, or that of vienna, to whom he could offer nothing, would so far realise the cheap professions of friendship they were always making, as to sacrifice a conquest wherein the preponderance of the house of austria and the catholic religion in germany was so deeply concerned. they drew him on accordingly through the labyrinths of diplomacy; assisted, no doubt, by that party in his councils, composed at this time of lord cottington, secretary windebank, and some others, who had always favoured spanish connections.[ ] it appears that the fleet raised in was intended, according to an agreement entered into with spain, to restrain the dutch from fishing in the english seas, nay even, as opportunities should arise, to co-operate hostilely with that of spain.[ ] after above two years spent in these negotiations, charles discovered that the house of austria were deceiving him; and, still keeping in view the restoration of his nephew to the electoral dignity and territories, entered into stricter relations with france; a policy which might be deemed congenial to the queen's inclinations, and recommended by her party in his council, the earl of holland, sir henry vane, and perhaps by the earls of northumberland and arundel. in the first impulse of indignation at the duplicity of spain, the king yielded so far to their counsels as to meditate a declaration of war against that power.[ ] but his own cooler judgment, or the strong dissuasions of strafford, who saw that external peace was an indispensable condition for the security of despotism,[ ] put an end to so imprudent a project; though he preserved, to the very meeting of the long parliament, an intimate connection with france, and even continued to carry on negotiations, tedious and insincere, for an offensive alliance.[ ] yet he still made, from time to time, similar overtures to spain;[ ] and this unsteadiness, or rather duplicity, which could not easily be concealed from two cabinets eminent for their secret intelligence, rendered both of them his enemies, and the instruments, as there is much reason to believe, of some of his greatest calamities. it is well known that the scots covenanters were in close connection with richlieu; and many circumstances render it probable, that the irish rebellion was countenanced and instigated both by him and by spain. _extension of writs for ship-money to inland places._--this desire of being at least prepared for war, as well as the general system of stretching the prerogative beyond all limits, suggested an extension of the former writs from the sea-ports to the whole kingdom. finch, chief justice of the common pleas, has the honour of this improvement on noy's scheme. he was a man of little learning or respectability, a servile tool of the despotic cabal; who, as speaker of the last parliament, had, in obedience to a command from the king to adjourn, refused to put the question upon a remonstrance moved in the house. by the new writs for ship-money, properly so denominated, since the former had only demanded the actual equipment of vessels, for which inland counties were of course obliged to compound, the sheriffs were directed to assess every landholder and other inhabitant according to their judgment of his means, and to enforce the payment by distress.[ ] this extraordinary demand startled even those who had hitherto sided with the court. some symptoms of opposition were shown in different places, and actions brought against those who had collected the money. but the greater part yielding to an overbearing power, exercised with such rigour that no one in this king's reign who had ventured on the humblest remonstrance against any illegal act had escaped without punishment. indolent and improvident men satisfied themselves that the imposition was not very heavy, and might not be repeated. some were content to hope that their contribution, however unduly exacted, would be faithfully applied to public ends. others were overborne by the authority of pretended precedents, and could not yet believe that the sworn judges of the law would pervert it to its own destruction. the ministers prudently resolved to secure, not the law, but its interpreters, on their side. the judges of assize were directed to inculcate on their circuits the necessary obligation of forwarding the king's service by complying with his writ. but, as the measure grew more obnoxious, and strong doubts of its legality came more to prevail, it was thought expedient to publish an extra-judicial opinion of the twelve judges, taken at the king's special command, according to the pernicious custom of that age. they gave it as their unanimous opinion that, when the good and safety of the kingdom in general is concerned and the whole kingdom in danger, his majesty might, by writ under the great seal, command all his subjects, at their charge, to provide and furnish such number of ships, with men, munition, and victuals, and for such time as he should think fit, for the defence and safeguard of the kingdom; and that by law he might compel the doing thereof, in case of refusal or refractoriness; and that he was the sole judge both of the danger, and when and how the same was to be prevented and avoided. this premature declaration of the judges, which was publicly read by the lord-keeper coventry in the star-chamber, did not prevent a few intrepid persons from bringing the question solemnly before them, that the liberties of their country might at least not perish silently, nor those who had betrayed them avoid the responsibility of a public avowal of their shame. the first that resisted was the gallant richard chambers, who brought an action against the lord-mayor for imprisoning him on account of his refusal to pay his assessment on the former writ. the magistrate pleaded the writ as a special justification; when berkley, one of the judges of the king's bench, declared that there was a rule of law and a rule of government, that many things which could not be done by the first rule might be done by the other, and would not suffer counsel to argue against the lawfulness of ship-money.[ ] the next were lord say and mr. hampden, both of whom appealed to the justice of their country; but the famous decision which has made the latter so illustrious, put an end to all attempts at obtaining redress by course of law. _hampden's refusal to pay._--hampden, it seems hardly necessary to mention, was a gentleman of good estate in buckinghamshire, whose assessment to the contribution for ship-money demanded from his county amounted only to twenty shillings.[ ] the cause, though properly belonging to the court of exchequer, was heard, on account of its magnitude, before all the judges in the exchequer-chamber.[ ] the precise question, so far as related to mr. hampden, was, whether the king had a right, on his own allegation of public danger, to require an inland county to furnish ships, or a prescribed sum of money by way of commutation, for the defence of the kingdom? it was argued by st. john and holborne in behalf of hampden; by the solicitor-general littleton and the attorney-general banks, for the crown.[ ] _arguments on the case._--the law and constitution of england, the former maintained, had provided in various ways for the public safety and protection against enemies. first, there were the military tenures, which bound great part of the kingdom to a stipulated service at the charge of the possessors. the cinque ports also, and several other towns, some of them not maritime, held by a tenure analogous to this; and were bound to furnish a quota of ships or men, as the condition of their possessions and privileges. these for the most part are recorded in domesday-book, though now in general grown obsolete. next to this specific service, our constitution had bestowed on the sovereign his certain revenues, the fruits of tenure, the profits of his various minor prerogatives; whatever, in short, he held in right of his crown, was applicable, so far as it could be extended, to the public use. it bestowed on him, moreover, and perhaps with more special application to maritime purposes, the customs on importation of merchandise. these indeed had been recently augmented far beyond ancient usage. "for these modern impositions," says st. john, "of the legality thereof i intend not to speak: for in case his majesty may impose upon merchandise what himself pleaseth, there will be less cause to tax the inland counties; and in case he cannot do it, it will be strongly presumed that he can much less tax them." but as the ordinary revenues might prove quite unequal to great exigencies, the constitution has provided another means, as ample and sufficient as it is lawful and regular, parliamentary supply. to this the kings of england have in all times had recourse; yet princes are not apt to ask as a concession what they might demand of right. the frequent loans and benevolences which they have required, though not always defensible by law, are additional proofs that they possessed no general right of taxation. to borrow on promise of repayment, to solicit, as it were, alms from their subjects, is not the practice of sovereigns whose prerogatives entitle them to exact money. those loans had sometimes been repaid, expressly to discharge the king's conscience. and a very arbitrary prince, henry viii., had obtained acts of parliament to release him from the obligation of repayment. these merely probable reasonings prepare the way for that conclusive and irresistible argument that was founded on statute law. passing slightly over the charter of the conqueror, that his subjects shall hold their lands free from all unjust tallage, and the clause in john's magna charta, that no aid or scutage should be assessed but by consent of the great council (a provision not repeated in that of henry iii.), the advocates of hampden relied on the e. i., commonly called the confirmatio chartarum, which for ever abrogated all taxation without consent of parliament; and this statute itself, they endeavoured to prove, was grounded on requisitions very like the present, for the custody of the sea, which edward had issued the year before. hence it was evident that the saving contained in that act for the accustomed aids and prises could not possibly be intended, as the opposite counsel would suggest, to preserve such exactions as ship-money; but related to the established feudal aids, and to the ancient customs on merchandise. they dwelt less however (probably through fear of having this exception turned against them) on this important statute than on one of more celebrity, but of very equivocal genuineness, denominated, de tallagio non concedendo; which is nearly in the same words as the confirmatio chartarum, with the omission of the above-mentioned saving. more than one law, enacted under edward iii., re-asserts the necessity of parliamentary consent to taxation. it was indeed the subject of frequent remonstrance in that reign, and the king often infringed this right. but the perseverance of the commons was successful, and ultimately rendered the practice conformable to the law. in the second year of richard ii., the realm being in imminent danger of invasion, the privy council convoked an assembly of peers and other great men, probably with a view to avoid the summoning of a parliament. this assembly lent their own money, but declared that they could not provide a remedy without charging the commons, which could not be done out of parliament, advising that one should be speedily summoned. this precedent was the more important, as it tended to obviate that argument from peril and necessity, on which the defenders of ship-money were wont to rely. but they met that specious plea more directly. they admitted that a paramount overruling necessity silences the voice of law; that in actual invasion, or its immediate prospect, the rights of private men must yield to the safety of the whole; that not only the sovereign, but each man in respect of his neighbour might do many things, absolutely illegal at other seasons; and this served to distinguish the present case from some strong acts of prerogative exerted by elizabeth in , when the liberties and religion of the people were in the most apparent jeopardy. but here there was no overwhelming danger; the nation was at peace with all the world: could the piracies of turkish corsairs, or even the insolence of rival neighbours, be reckoned among those instant perils, for which a parliament would provide too late? to the precedents alleged on the other side, it was replied, that no one of them met the case of an inland county; that such as were before the e. i. were sufficiently repelled by that statute, such as occurred under edward iii. by the later statutes, and by the remonstrances of parliament during his reign; and there were but very few afterwards. but that, in a matter of statute law, they ought not to be governed by precedents, even if such could be adduced. before the latter end of edward i.'s reign, st. john observes, "all things concerning the king's prerogative and the subject's liberties were upon uncertainties." "the government," says holborne truly, "was more of force than law." and this is unquestionably applicable, in a lesser degree, to many later ages. lastly, the petition of right, that noble legacy of a slandered parliament, reciting and confirming the ancient statutes, had established that no man thereafter be compelled to make or yield any gift, loan, benevolence, tax, or such-like charge, without common consent by act of parliament. this latest and most complete recognition must sweep away all contrary precedent, and could not, without a glaring violation of its obvious meaning, be stretched into an admission of ship-money. the king's counsel, in answer to these arguments, appealed to that series of records which the diligence of noy had collected. by far the greater part of these were commissions of array. but several, even of those addressed to inland towns (and, if there were no service by tenure in the case, it does not seem easy to distinguish these in principle from counties), bore a very strong analogy to the present. they were, however, in early times. no sufficient answer could be offered to the statutes that had prohibited unparliamentary taxation. the attempts made to elude their force were utterly ineffectual, as those who are acquainted with their emphatic language may well conceive. but the council of charles the first, and the hirelings who ate their bread, disdained to rest their claim of ship-money (big as it was with other and still more novel schemes) on obscure records, or on cavils about the meaning of statutes. they resorted rather to the favourite topic of the times, the intrinsic, absolute authority of the king. this the attorney-general banks placed in the very front of his argument. "this power," says he, "is innate in the person of an absolute king, and in the persons of the kings of england. all magistracy it is of nature, and obedience and subjection it is of nature. this power is not any ways derived from the people, but reserved unto the king when positive laws first began. for the king of england, he is an absolute monarch; nothing can be given to an absolute prince but what is inherent in his person. he can do no wrong. he is the sole judge, and we ought not to question him. where the law trusts, we ought not to distrust. the acts of parliament," he observed, "contained no express words to take away so high a prerogative; and the king's prerogative, even in lesser matters, is always saved, wherever express words do not restrain it." but this last argument appearing too modest for some of the judges who pronounced sentence in this cause, they denied the power of parliament to limit the high prerogatives of the crown. "this imposition without parliament," says justice crawley, "appertains to the king originally, and to the successor _ipso facto_, if he be a sovereign in right of his sovereignty from the crown. you cannot have a king without these royal rights, no, not by act of parliament." "where mr. holborne," says justice berkley, "supposed a fundamental policy in the creation of the frame of this kingdom, that in case the monarch of england should be inclined to exact from his subjects at his pleasure, he should be restrained, for that he could have nothing from them, but upon a common consent in parliament; he is utterly mistaken herein. the law knows no such king-yoking policy. the law is itself an old and trusty servant of the king's; it is his instrument or means which he useth to govern his people by: i never read nor heard that _lex_ was _rex_; but it is common and most true, that _rex_ is _lex_." vernon, another judge, gave his opinion in few words: "that the king, _pro bono publico_, may charge his subjects for the safety and defence of the kingdom, notwithstanding any act of parliament, and that a statute derogatory from the prerogative doth not bind the king; and the king may dispense with any law in cases of necessity." finch, the adviser of the ship-money, was not backward to employ the same argument in its behalf. "no act of parliament," he told them, "could bar a king of his regality, as that no land should hold of him, or bar him of the allegiance of his subjects or the relative on his part, as trust and power to defend his people; therefore acts of parliament to take away his royal power in the defence of his kingdom are void; they are void acts of parliament to bind the king not to command the subjects, their persons, and goods, and i say, their money too; for no acts of parliament make any difference." seven of the twelve judges, namely, finch, chief justice of the common pleas, jones, berkley, vernon, crawley, trevor, and weston, gave judgment for the crown. brampston, chief justice of the king's bench, and davenport, chief baron of the exchequer, pronounced for hampden, but on technical reasons, and adhering to the majority on the principal question. denham, another judge of the same court, being extremely ill, gave a short written judgment in favour of hampden. but justices croke and hutton, men of considerable reputation and experience, displayed a most praiseworthy intrepidity in denying, without the smallest qualification, the alleged prerogative of the crown and the lawfulness of the writ for ship-money. they had unfortunately signed, along with the other judges, the above-mentioned opinion in favour of the right. for this they made the best apology they could, that their voice was concluded by the majority. but in truth it was the ultimate success that sometimes attends a struggle between conscience and self-interest or timidity.[ ] the length to which this important cause was protracted, six months having elapsed from the opening speech of mr. hampden's counsel to the final judgment, was of infinite disservice to the crown. during this long period, every man's attention was directed to the exchequer-chamber. the convincing arguments of st. john and holborne, but still more the division on the bench, increased their natural repugnance to so unusual and dangerous a prerogative.[ ] those who had trusted to the faith of the judges were undeceived by the honest repentance of some, and looked with indignation on so prostituted a crew. that respect for courts of justice, which the happy structure of our judicial administration has in general kept inviolate, was exchanged for distrust, contempt, and desire of vengeance. they heard the speeches of some of the judges with more displeasure than even their final decision. ship-money was held lawful by finch and several other judges, not on the authority of precedents, which must in their nature have some bounds, but on principles subversive of any property or privilege in the subject. those paramount rights of monarchy, to which they appealed to-day in justification of ship-money, might to-morrow serve to supersede other laws, and maintain new exertions of despotic power. it was manifest, by the whole strain of the court lawyers, that no limitations on the king's authority could exist but by the king's sufferance. this alarming tenet, long bruited among the churchmen and courtiers, now resounded in the halls of justice. but ship-money, in consequence, was paid with far less regularity and more reluctance than before.[ ] the discontent that had been tolerably smothered was now displayed in every county; and though the council did not flinch in the least from exacting payment, nor willingly remit any part of its rigour towards the uncomplying, it was impossible either to punish the great body of the country gentlemen and citizens, or to restrain their murmurs by a few examples. whether in consequence of this unwillingness or for other reasons, the revenue levied in different years under the head of ship-money is more fluctuating than we should expect from a fixed assessment; but may be reckoned at an average sum of £ , .[ ] _proclamations._--it would doubtless be unfair to pass a severe censure on the government of charles the first for transgressions of law, which a long course of precedents might render dubious, or at least extenuate. but this common apology for his administration, on which the artful defence of hume is almost entirely grounded, must be admitted cautiously, and not until we have well considered how far such precedents could be brought to support it. this is particularly applicable to his proclamations. i have already pointed out the comparative novelty of these unconstitutional ordinances, and their great increase under james. they had not been fully acquiesced in; the commons had remonstrated against their abuse; and coke, with other judges, had endeavoured to fix limits to their authority, very far within that which they arrogated. it can hardly, therefore, be said that charles's council were ignorant of their illegality; nor is the case at all parallel to that of general warrants, or any similar irregularity into which an honest government may inadvertently be led. they serve at least to display the practical state of the constitution, and the necessity of an entire reform in its spirit. _various arbitrary proceedings._--the proclamations of charles's reign are far more numerous than those of his father. they imply a prerogative of intermeddling with all matters of trade, prohibiting or putting under restraint the importation of various articles, and the home growth of others, or establishing regulations for manufactures.[ ] prices of several minor articles were fixed by proclamation, and in one instance this was extended to poultry, butter, and coals.[ ] the king declares by a proclamation that he had incorporated all tradesmen and artificers within london and three miles round; so that no person might set up any trade without having served a seven years' apprenticeship, and without admission into such corporation.[ ] he prohibits in like manner any one from using the trade of a maltster or that of a brewer, without admission into the corporations of maltsters or brewers erected for every county.[ ] i know not whether these projects were in any degree founded on the alleged pretext of correcting abuses, or were solely designed to raise money by means of these corporations. we find, however, a revocation of the restraint on malting and brewing soon after. the illegality of these proclamations is most unquestionable. the rapid increase of london continued to disquiet the court. it was the stronghold of political and religious disaffection. hence the prohibitions of erecting new houses, which had begun under elizabeth, were continually repeated.[ ] they had indeed some laudable objects in view; to render the city more healthy, cleanly, and magnificent, and by prescribing the general use of brick instead of wood, as well as by improving the width and regularity of the streets, to afford the best security against fires, and against those epidemical diseases which visited the metropolis with unusual severity in the early years of this reign. the most jealous censor of royal encroachments will hardly object to the proclamations enforcing certain regulations of police in some of those alarming seasons. it is probable, from the increase which we know to have taken place in london during this reign, that licences for building were easily obtained. the same supposition is applicable to another class of proclamation, enjoining all persons who had residences in the country to quit the capital and repair to them.[ ] yet, that these were not always a dead letter, appears from an information exhibited in the star-chamber against seven lords, sixty knights, and one hundred esquires, besides many ladies, for disobeying the king's proclamation, either by continuing in london, or returning to it after a short absence.[ ] the result of this prosecution, which was probably only intended to keep them in check, does not appear. no proclamation could stand in need of support from law, while this arbitrary tribunal assumed a right of punishing misdemeanours. it would have been a dangerous aggravation of any delinquent's offence to have questioned the authority of a proclamation, or the jurisdiction of the council. the security of freehold rights had been the peculiar boast of the english law. the very statute of henry viii., which has been held up to so much infamy, while it gave the force of law to his proclamations, interposed its barrier in defence of the subject's property. the name of freeholder, handed down with religious honour from an age when it conveyed distinct privileges, and as it were a sort of popular nobility, protected the poorest man against the crown's and the lord's rapacity. he at least was recognised as the _liber homo_ of magna charta, who could not be disseised of his tenements and franchises. his house was his castle, which the law respected, and which the king dared not enter. even the public good must give way to his obstinacy; nor had the legislature itself as yet compelled any man to part with his lands for a compensation which he was loath to accept. the council and star-chamber had very rarely presumed to meddle with his right; never perhaps where it was acknowledged and ancient. but now this reverence of the common law for the sacredness of real property was derided by those who revered nothing as sacred but the interests of the church and crown. the privy council, on a suggestion that the demolition of some houses and shops in the vicinity of st. paul's would show the cathedral to more advantage, directed that the owners should receive such satisfaction as should seem reasonable; or on their refusal the sheriff was required to see the buildings pulled down, "it not being thought fit the obstinacy of those persons should hinder so considerable a work."[ ] by another order of council, scarcely less oppressive and illegal, all shops in cheapside and lombard street, except those of goldsmiths, were directed to be shut up, that the avenue to st. paul's might appear more splendid; and the mayor and aldermen were repeatedly threatened for remissness in executing this mandate of tyranny.[ ] in the great plantation of ulster by james, the city of london had received a grant of extensive lands in the county of derry, on certain conditions prescribed in their charter. the settlement became flourishing, and enriched the city. but the wealth of london was always invidious to the crown, as well as to the needy courtiers. on an information filed in the star-chamber for certain alleged breaches of their charter, it was not only adjudged to be forfeited to the king, but a fine of £ , was imposed on the city. they paid this enormous mulct; but were kept out of their lands till restored by the long parliament.[ ] in this proceeding charles forgot his duty enough to take a very active share, personally exciting the court to give sentence for himself.[ ] is it then to be a matter of surprise or reproach, that the citizens of london refused him assistance in the scottish war, and through the ensuing times of confusion, harboured an implacable resentment against a sovereign who had so deeply injured them? we may advert in this place to some other stretches of power, which no one can pretend to justify, though in general they seem to have escaped notice amidst the enormous mass of national grievances. a commission was issued in , to the recorder of london and others, to examine all persons going beyond seas, and tender to them an oath of the most inquisitorial nature.[ ] certain privy-councillors were empowered to enter the house of sir robert cotton, and search his books, records, and papers, setting down such as ought to belong to the crown.[ ] this renders probable what we find in a writer who had the best means of information, that secretary windebank, by virtue of an order of council, entered sir edward coke's house while he lay on his death-bed, took away his manuscripts, together with his last will, which was never returned to his family.[ ] the high commission court were enabled, by the king's "supreme power ecclesiastical," to examine such as were charged with offences cognisable by them on oath, which many had declined to take, according to the known maxims of english law.[ ] it would be improper to notice as illegal or irregular the practice of granting dispensations in particular instances, either from general acts of parliament or the local statutes of colleges. such a prerogative, at least in the former case, was founded on long usage and judicial recognition. charles, however, transgressed its admitted boundaries, when he empowered others to dispense with them as there might be occasion. thus, in a commission to the president and council of the north, directing them to compound with recusants, he in effect suspends the statute which provides that no recusant shall have a lease of that portion of his lands which the law sequestered to the king's use during his recusancy; a clause in this patent enabling the commissioners to grant such leases notwithstanding any law or statute to the contrary. this seems to go beyond the admitted limits of the dispensing prerogative.[ ] the levies of tonnage and poundage without authority of parliament, the exaction of monopolies, the extension of the forests, the arbitrary restraints of proclamations, above all, the general exaction of ship-money, form the principal articles of charge against the government of charles, so far as relates to its inroads on the subject's property. these were maintained by a vigilant and unsparing exercise of jurisdiction in the court of star-chamber. i have, in another chapter, traced the revival of this great tribunal, probably under henry viii., in at least as formidable a shape as before the now-neglected statutes of edward iii. and richard ii., which had placed barriers in its way. it was the great weapon of executive power under elizabeth and james; nor can we reproach the present reign with innovation in this respect, though in no former period had the proceedings of this court been accompanied with so much violence and tyranny. but this will require some fuller explication. _star-chamber jurisdiction._--i hardly need remind the reader that the jurisdiction of the ancient concilium regis ordinarium, or court of star-chamber, continued to be exercised, more or less frequently, notwithstanding the various statutes enacted to repress it; and that it neither was supported by the act erecting a new court in the third of henry vii., nor originated at that time. the records show the star-chamber to have taken cognisance both of civil suits and of offences throughout the time of the tudors. but precedents of usurped power cannot establish a legal authority in defiance of the acknowledged law. it appears that the lawyers did not admit any jurisdiction in the council, except so far as the statute of henry vii. was supposed to have given it. "the famous plowden put his hand to a demurrer to a bill," says hudson, "because the matter was not within the statute; and, although it was then over-ruled, yet mr. serjeant richardson, thirty years after, fell again upon the same rock, and was sharply rebuked for it."[ ] the chancellor, who was the standing president of the court of star-chamber, would always find pretences to elude the existing statutes, and justify the usurpation of this tribunal. the civil jurisdiction claimed and exerted by the star-chamber was only in particular cases, as disputes between alien merchants and englishmen, questions of prize or unlawful detention of ships, and in general such as now belong to the court of admiralty; some testamentary matters, in order to prevent appeals to rome, which might have been brought from the ecclesiastical courts; suits between corporations, "of which," says hudson, "i dare undertake to show above a hundred in the reigns of henry vii. and henry viii., or sometimes between men of great power and interest, which could not be tried with fairness by the common law."[ ] for the corruption of sheriffs and juries furnished an apology for the irregular, but necessary, interference of a controlling authority. the ancient remedy, by means of attaint, which renders a jury responsible for an unjust verdict, was almost gone into disuse, and, depending on the integrity of a second jury, not always easy to be obtained; so that in many parts of the kingdom, and especially in wales, it was impossible to find a jury who would return a verdict against a man of good family, either in a civil or criminal proceeding. the statutes, however, restraining the council's jurisdiction, and the strong prepossession of the people as to the sacredness of freehold rights, made the star-chamber cautious of determining questions of inheritance, which they commonly remitted to the judges; and from the early part of elizabeth's reign, they took a direct cognisance of any civil suits less frequently than before; partly, i suppose, from the increased business of the court of chancery, and the admiralty court, which took away much wherein they had been wont to meddle; partly from their own occupation as a court of criminal judicature, which became more conspicuous as the other went into disuse.[ ] this criminal jurisdiction is that which rendered the star-chamber so potent and so odious an auxiliary of a despotic administration. the offences principally cognisable in this court were forgery, perjury, riot, maintenance, fraud, libel, and conspiracy.[ ] but besides these, every misdemeanour came within the proper scope of its enquiry; those especially of public importance, and for which the law, as then understood, had provided no sufficient punishment. for the judges interpreted the law in early times with too great narrowness and timidity; defects which, on the one hand, raised up the over-ruling authority of the court of chancery, as the necessary means of redress to the civil suitor who found the gates of justice barred against him by technical pedantry; and on the other, brought this usurpation and tyranny of the star-chamber upon the kingdom by an absurd scrupulosity about punishing manifest offences against the public good. thus corruption, breach of trust, and malfeasance in public affairs, or attempts to commit felony, seem to have been reckoned not indictable at common law, and came in consequence under the cognisance of the star-chamber.[ ] in other cases its jurisdiction was merely concurrent; but the greater certainty of conviction, and the greater severity of punishment, rendered it incomparably more formidable than the ordinary benches of justice. the law of libel grew up in this unwholesome atmosphere, and was moulded by the plastic hands of successive judges and attorneys-general. prosecutions of this kind, according to hudson, began to be more frequent from the last years of elizabeth, when coke was attorney-general; and it is easy to conjecture what kind of interpretation they received. to hear a libel sung or read, says that writer, and to laugh at it, and make merriment with it, has ever been held a publication in law. the gross error that it is not a libel if it be true, has long since, he adds, been exploded out of this court.[ ] among the exertions of authority practised in the star-chamber which no positive law could be brought to warrant, he enumerates "punishments of breach of proclamations before they have the strength of an act of parliament; which this court hath stretched as far as ever any act of parliament did. as in the st of elizabeth, builders of houses in london were sentenced, and their houses ordered to be pulled down, and the materials to be distributed to the benefit of the parish where the building was; which disposition of the goods soundeth as a great extremity, and beyond the warrant of our laws; and yet, surely, very necessary, if anything would deter men from that horrible mischief of increasing that head which is swoln to a great hugeness already."[ ] the mode of process was sometimes of a summary nature; the accused person being privately examined, and his examination read in the court, if he was thought to have confessed sufficient to deserve sentence, it was immediately awarded without any formal trial or written process. but the more regular course was by information filed at the suit of the attorney-general, or in certain cases, of a private relator. the party was brought before the court by writ of subpoena; and having given bond with sureties not to depart without leave, was to put in his answer upon oath, as well to the matters contained in the information, as to special interrogatories. witnesses were examined upon interrogatories, and their dispositions read in court. the course of proceeding on the whole seems to have nearly resembled that of the chancery.[ ] _punishments inflicted by the star-chamber._--it was held competent for the court to adjudge any punishment short of death. fine and imprisonment were of course the most usual. the pillory, whipping, branding, and cutting off the ears, grew into use by degrees. in the reign of henry vii. and henry viii., we are told by hudson, the fines were not so ruinous as they have been since, which he ascribes to the number of bishops who sat in the court, and inclined to mercy; "and i can well remember," he says, "that the most reverend archbishop whitgift did ever constantly maintain the liberty of the free charter, that men ought to be fined, _salvo contenemento_. but they have been of late imposed according to the nature of the offence, and not the estate of the person. the slavish punishment of whipping," he proceeds to observe, "was not introduced till a great man of the common law, and otherwise a worthy justice, forgot his place of session, and brought it in this place too much in use."[ ] it would be difficult to find precedents for the aggravated cruelties inflicted on leighton, lilburne, and others; but instances of cutting off the ears may be found under elizabeth.[ ] the reproach, therefore, of arbitrary and illegal jurisdiction does not wholly fall on the government of charles. they found themselves in possession of this almost unlimited authority. but doubtless, as far as the history of proceedings in the star-chamber are recorded, they seem much more numerous and violent in the present reign than in the two preceding. rushworth has preserved a copious selection of cases determined before this tribunal. they consist principally of misdemeanours, rather of an aggravated nature; such as disturbances of the public peace, assaults accompanied with a good deal of violence, conspiracies, and libels. the necessity, however, for such a paramount court to restrain the excesses of powerful men no longer existed, since it can hardly be doubted that the common administration of the law was sufficient to give redress in the time of charles the first; though we certainly do find several instances of violence and outrage by men of a superior station in life, which speak unfavourably for the state of manners in the kingdom. but the object of drawing so large a number of criminal cases into the star-chamber seems to have been twofold: first, to inure men's minds to an authority more immediately connected with the crown than the ordinary courts of law, and less tied down to any rules of pleading or evidence; secondly, to eke out a scanty revenue by penalties and forfeitures. absolutely regardless of the provision of the great charter, that no man shall be amerced even to the full extent of his means, the councillors of the star-chamber inflicted such fines as no court of justice, in the present reduced value of money, would think of imposing. little objection indeed seems to lie, in a free country, and with a well-regulated administration of justice, against the imposition of weighty pecuniary penalties, due consideration being had of the offence and the criminal. but, adjudged by such a tribunal as the star-chamber, where those who inflicted the punishment reaped the gain, and sat, like famished birds of prey, with keen eyes and bended talons, eager to supply for a moment, by some wretch's ruin, the craving emptiness of the exchequer, this scheme of enormous penalties became more dangerous and subversive of justice, though not more odious, than corporal punishment. a gentleman of the name of allington was fined £ , for marrying his niece. one who had sent a challenge to the earl of northumberland was fined £ ; another for saying the earl of suffolk was a base lord, £ to him, and a like sum to the king. sir david forbes, for opprobrious words against lord wentworth, incurred £ to the king, and £ to the party. on some soap-boilers, who had not complied with the requisitions of the newly incorporated company, mulcts were imposed of £ and £ . one man was fined and set in the pillory for engrossing corn, though he only kept what grew on his own land, asking more in a season of dearth than the overseers of the poor thought proper to give.[ ] some arbitrary regulations with respect to prices may be excused by a well-intentioned, though mistaken, policy. the charges of inns and taverns were fixed by the judges. but, even in those, a corrupt motive was sometimes blended. the company of vintners, or victuallers, having refused to pay a demand of the lord treasurer, one penny a quart for all wine drank in their houses, the star-chamber, without information filed or defence made, interdicted them from selling or dressing victuals till they submitted to pay forty shillings for each tun of wine to the king.[ ] it is evident that the strong interest of the court in these fines must not only have had a tendency to aggravate the punishment, but to induce sentences of condemnation on inadequate proof. from all that remains of proceedings in the star-chamber, they seem to have been very frequently as iniquitous as they were severe. in many celebrated instances, the accused party suffered less on the score of any imputed offence than for having provoked the malice of a powerful adversary, or for notorious dissatisfaction with the existing government. thus williams, bishop of lincoln, once lord-keeper, the favourite of king james, the possessor for a season of the power that was turned against him, experienced the rancorous and ungrateful malignity of laud; who, having been brought forward by williams into the favour of the court, not only supplanted by his intrigues, and incensed the king's mind against his benefactor, but harassed his retirement by repeated persecutions.[ ] it will sufficiently illustrate the spirit of these times to mention that the sole offence imputed to the bishop of lincoln in the last information against him in the star-chamber was, that he had received certain letters from one osbaldiston, master of westminster school, wherein some contemptuous nickname was used to denote laud.[ ] it did not appear that williams had ever divulged these letters. but it was held that the concealment of a libellous letter was a high misdemeanour. williams was therefore adjudged to pay £ to the king, and £ to the archbishop, to be imprisoned during pleasure, and to make a submission; osbaldiston to pay a still heavier fine, to be deprived of all his benefices, to be imprisoned and make submission; and moreover to stand in the pillory before his school in dean's-yard, with his ears nailed to it. this man had the good fortune to conceal himself, but the bishop of lincoln, refusing to make the required apology, lay above three years in the tower, till released at the beginning of the long parliament. it might detain me too long to dwell particularly on the punishments inflicted by the court of star-chamber in this reign. such historians as have not written in order to palliate the tyranny of charles, and especially rushworth, will furnish abundant details, with all those circumstances that portray the barbarous and tyrannical spirit of those who composed that tribunal. two or three instances are so celebrated that i cannot pass them over. leighton, a scots divine, having published an angry libel against the hierarchy, was sentenced to be publicly whipped at westminster and set in the pillory, to have one side of his nose slit, one ear cut off, and one side of his cheek branded with a hot iron, to have the whole of this repeated the next week at cheapside, and to suffer perpetual imprisonment in the fleet.[ ] lilburne, for dispersing pamphlets against the bishops, was whipped from the fleet prison to westminster, there set in the pillory, and treated afterwards with great cruelty.[ ] prynne, a lawyer of uncommon erudition and a zealous puritan, had printed a bulky volume, called _histriomastix_, full of invectives against the theatre, which he sustained by a profusion of learning. in the course of this, he adverted to the appearance of courtesans on the roman stage, and by a satirical reference in his index seemed to range all female actors in the class.[ ] the queen, unfortunately, six weeks after the publication of prynne's book, had performed a part in a mask at court. this passage was accordingly dragged to light by the malice of peter heylin, a chaplain of laud, on whom the archbishop devolved the burthen of reading this heavy volume in order to detect its offences. heylin, a bigoted enemy of everything puritanical, and not scrupulous as to veracity, may be suspected of having aggravated, if not misrepresented, the tendency of a book much more tiresome than seditious. prynne, however, was already obnoxious, and the star-chamber adjudged him to stand twice in the pillory, to be branded in the forehead, to lose both his ears, to pay a fine of £ , and to suffer perpetual imprisonment. the dogged puritan employed the leisure of a gaol in writing a fresh libel against the hierarchy. for this, with two other delinquents of the same class, burton a divine, and bastwick a physician, he stood again at the bar of that terrible tribunal. their demeanour was what the court deemed intolerably contumacious, arising in fact from the despair of men who knew that no humiliation would procure them mercy.[ ] prynne lost the remainder of his ears in the pillory; and the punishment was inflicted on them all with extreme and designed cruelty, which they endured, as martyrs always endure suffering, so heroically as to excite a deep impression of sympathy and resentment in the assembled multitude.[ ] they were sentenced to perpetual confinement in distant prisons. but their departure from london, and their reception on the road, were marked by signal expressions of popular regard; and their friends resorting to them even in launceston, chester, and carnarvon castles, whither they were sent, an order of council was made to transport them to the isles of the channel. it was the very first act of the long parliament to restore these victims of tyranny to their families. punishments by mutilation, though not quite unknown to the english law, had been of rare occurrence; and thus inflicted on men whose station appeared to render the ignominy of whipping and branding more intolerable, they produced much the same effect as the still greater cruelties of mary's reign, in exciting a detestation for that ecclesiastical dominion which protected itself by means so atrocious. _character of laud._--the person on whom public hatred chiefly fell, and who proved in a far more eminent degree than any other individual the evil genius of this unhappy sovereign, was laud. his talents, though enabling him to acquire a large portion of theological learning, seem to have been by no means considerable. there cannot be a more contemptible work than his diary; and his letters to strafford display some smartness, but no great capacity. he managed indeed his own defence, when impeached, with some ability; but on such occasions, ordinary men are apt to put forth a remarkable readiness and energy. laud's inherent ambition had impelled him to court the favour of buckingham, of williams, and of both the kings under whom he lived, till he rose to the see of canterbury on abbot's death, in . no one can deny that he was a generous patron of letters, and as warm in friendship as in enmity. but he had placed before his eyes the aggrandisement, first of the church, and next of the royal prerogative, as his end and aim in every action. though not literally destitute of religion, it was so subordinate to worldly interest, and so blended in his mind with the impure alloy of temporal pride, that he became an intolerant persecutor of the puritan clergy, not from bigotry, which in its usual sense he never displayed, but systematic policy. and being subject, as his friends call it, to some infirmities of temper, that is, choleric, vindictive, harsh, and even cruel to a great degree, he not only took a prominent share in the severities of the star-chamber, but, as his correspondence shows, perpetually lamented that he was restrained from going further lengths.[ ] laud's extraordinary favour with the king, through which he became a prime adviser in matters of state, rendered him secretly obnoxious to most of the council, jealous, as ministers must always be, of a churchman's overweening ascendancy. his faults, and even his virtues, contributed to this odium. for being exempt from the thirst of lucre, and, though in the less mature state of his fortunes a subtle intriguer, having become frank through heat of temper and self-confidence, he discountenanced all schemes to serve the private interest of courtiers at the expense of his master's exhausted treasury, and went right onward to his object, the exaltation of the church and crown. he aggravated the invidiousness of his own situation, and gave an astonishing proof of his influence, by placing juxon, bishop of london, a creature of his own, in the greatest of all posts, that of lord high-treasurer. though williams had lately been lord-keeper of the seal, it seemed more preposterous to place the treasurer's staff in the hands of a churchman, and of one so little distinguished even in his own profession, that the archbishop displayed his contempt of the rest of the council, especially cottington, who aspired to it, by such a recommendation.[ ] he had previously procured the office of secretary of state for windebank. but, though overawed by the king's infatuated partiality, the faction adverse to laud were sometimes able to gratify their dislike, or to manifest their greater discretion, by opposing obstacles to his impetuous spirit. _lord strafford._--of these impediments, which a rash and ardent man calls lukewarmness, indolence, and timidity, he frequently complains in his correspondence with the lord-deputy of ireland--that lord wentworth, so much better known by the title of earl of strafford, which he only obtained the year before his death, that we may give it him by anticipation, whose doubtful fame and memorable end have made him nearly the most conspicuous character of a reign so fertile in recollections. strafford had in his early years sought those local dignities to which his ambition probably was at that time limited, the representation of the county of york and the post of _custos rotulorum_, through the usual channel of court favour. slighted by the duke of buckingham, and mortified at the preference shown to the head of a rival family, sir john saville, he began to quit the cautious and middle course he had pursued in parliament, and was reckoned among the opposers of the administration after the accession of charles.[ ] he was one of those who were made sheriffs of their counties, in order to exclude them from the parliament of . this inspired so much resentment, that he signalised himself as a refuser of the arbitrary loan exacted the next year, and was committed in consequence to prison. he came to the third parliament with a determination to make the court sensible of his power, and possibly with some real zeal for the liberties of his country. but patriotism unhappily, in his self-interested and ambitious mind, was the seed sown among thorns. he had never lost sight of his hopes from the court; even a temporary reconciliation with buckingham had been effected in , which the favourite's levity soon broke; and he kept up a close connection with the treasurer weston. always jealous of a rival, he contracted a dislike for sir john eliot, and might suspect that he was likely to be anticipated by that more distinguished patriot in royal favours.[ ] the hour of wentworth's glory was when charles assented to the petition of right, in obtaining which, and in overcoming the king's chicane and the hesitation of the lords, he had been pre-eminently conspicuous. from this moment he started aside from the path of true honour; and being suddenly elevated to the peerage and a great post, the presidency of the council of the north, commenced a splendid but baleful career, that terminated at the scaffold.[ ] after this fatal apostasy he not only lost all solicitude about those liberties which the petition of right had been designed to secure, but became their deadliest and most shameless enemy. the council of the north was erected by henry viii. after the suppression of the great insurrection of . it had a criminal jurisdiction in yorkshire and the four more northern counties, as to riots, conspiracies, and acts of violence. it had also, by its original commission, a jurisdiction in civil suits, where either of the parties were too poor to bear the expenses of a process at common law; in which case the council might determine, as it seems, in a summary manner, and according to equity. but this latter authority had been held illegal by the judges under elizabeth.[ ] in fact, the lawfulness of this tribunal in any respect was, to say the least, highly problematical. it was regulated by instructions issued from time to time under the great seal. wentworth spared no pains to enlarge the jurisdiction of his court. a commission issued in , empowering the council of the north to hear and determine all offences, misdemeanours, suits, debates, controversies, demands, causes, things, and matters whatsoever therein contained, within certain precincts, namely, from the humber to the scots frontier. they were specially appointed to hear and determine divers offences, according to the course of the star-chamber, whether provided for by act of parliament or not; to hear complaints according to the rules of the court of chancery, and stay proceedings at common law by injunction; to attach persons by their serjeant in any part of the realm.[ ] these inordinate powers, the soliciting and procuring of which, especially by a person so well versed in the laws and constitution, appears to be of itself a sufficient ground for impeachment, were abused by strafford to gratify his own pride, as well as to intimidate the opposers of arbitrary measures. proofs of this occur in the prosecution of sir david foulis, in that of mr. bellasis, in that of mr. maleverer, for the circumstances of which i refer the reader to more detailed history.[ ] without resigning his presidency of the northern council, wentworth was transplanted in to a still more extensive sphere, as lord-deputy of ireland. this was the great scene on which he played his part; it was here that he found abundant scope for his commanding energy and imperious passions. the richelieu of that island, he made it wealthier in the midst of exactions, and, one might almost say, happier in the midst of oppressions. he curbed subordinate tyranny; but his own left a sting behind it that soon spread a deadly poison over ireland. but of his merits and his injustice towards that nation i shall find a better occasion to speak. two well-known instances of his despotic conduct in respect to single persons may just be mentioned; the deprivation and imprisonment of the lord chancellor loftus for not obeying an order of the privy council to make such a settlement as they prescribed on his son's marriage--a stretch of interference with private concerns which was aggravated by the suspected familiarity of the lord-deputy with the lady who was to reap advantage from it;[ ] and, secondly, the sentence of death passed by a council of war on lord mountnorris, in strafford's presence, and evidently at his instigation, on account of some very slight expressions which he had used in private society. though it was never the deputy's intention to execute this judgment of his slaves, but to humiliate and trample upon mountnorris, the violence and indecency of his conduct in it, his long persecution of the unfortunate prisoner after the sentence, and his glorying in the act at all times, and even on his own trial, are irrefragable proofs of such vindictive bitterness as ought, if there were nothing else, to prevent any good man from honouring his memory.[ ] _correspondence between laud and strafford._--the haughty and impetuous primate found a congenial spirit in the lord-deputy. they unbosom to each other, in their private letters, their ardent thirst to promote the king's service by measures of more energy than they were permitted to exercise. do we think the administration of charles during the interval of parliaments rash and violent? they tell us it was over-cautious and slow. do we revolt from the severities of the star-chamber? to laud and strafford they seemed the feebleness of excessive lenity. do we cast on the crown lawyers the reproach of having betrayed their country's liberties? we may find that, with their utmost servility, they fell far behind the expectations of the court, and their scruples were reckoned the chief shackles on the half-emancipated prerogative. the system which laud was longing to pursue in england, and which strafford approved, is frequently hinted at by the word thorough. "for the state," says he, "indeed, my lord, i am for thorough; but i see that both thick and thin stays somebody, where i conceive it should not, and it is impossible to go thorough alone."[ ] "i am very glad" (in another letter) "to read your lordship so resolute, and more to hear you affirm that the footing of them that go thorough for our master's service is not upon fee, as it hath been. but you are withal upon so many ifs, that by their help you may preserve any man upon ice, be it never so slippery. as first, if the common lawyers may be contained within their ancient and sober bounds; if the word thorough be not left out, as i am certain it is; if we grow not faint; if we ourselves be not in fault; if we come not to a _peccatum ex te_ israel; if others will do their parts as thoroughly as you promise for yourself, and justly conceive of me. now i pray, with so many and such ifs as these, what may not be done, and in a brave and noble way? but can you tell when these ifs will meet, or be brought together? howsoever, i am resolved to go on steadily in the way which you have formerly seen me go; so that (to put in one _if_ too) if anything fail of my hearty desires for the king and the church's service, the fault shall not be mine."[ ] "as for my marginal note" (he writes in another place), "i see you deciphered it well" (they frequently corresponded in cipher), "and i see you make use of it too; do so still, thorough and thorough. oh that i were where i might go so too! but i am shackled between delays and uncertainties! you have a great deal of honour for your proceedings; go on a god's name." "i have done," he says some years afterwards, "with expecting of thorough on this side."[ ] it is evident that the remissness of those with whom he was joined in the administration, in not adopting or enforcing sufficiently energetic measures, is the subject of the archbishop's complaint. neither he nor strafford loved the treasurer weston, nor lord cottington, both of whom had a considerable weight in the council. but it is more difficult to perceive in what respects the thorough system was disregarded. he cannot allude to the church, which he absolutely governed through the high-commission court. the inadequate punishments, as he thought them, imposed on the refractory, formed a part, but not the whole, of his grievance. it appears to me that the great aim of these two persons was to effect the subjugation of the common lawyers. some sort of tenderness for those constitutional privileges, so indissolubly interwoven with the laws they administered, adhered to the judges, even while they made great sacrifices of their integrity at the instigation of the crown. in the case of habeas corpus, in that of ship-money, we find many of them display a kind of half-compliance, a reservation, a distinction, an anxiety to rest on precedents, which, though it did not save their credit with the public, impaired it at court. on some more fortunate occasions, as we have seen, they even manifested a good deal of firmness in resisting what was urged on them. chiefly, however, in matter of prohibitions issuing from the ecclesiastical courts, they were uniformly tenacious of their jurisdiction. nothing could expose them more to laud's ill-will. i should not deem it improbable that he had formed, or rather adopted from the canonists, a plan, not only of rendering the spiritual jurisdiction independent, but of extending it to all civil causes, unless perhaps in questions of freehold.[ ] the presumption of common lawyers, and the difficulties they threw in the way of the church and crown, are frequent themes with the two correspondents. "the church," says laud, "is so bound up in the forms of the common law, that it is not possible for me or for any man to do that good which he would, or is bound to do. for your lordship sees, no man clearer, that they which have gotten so much power in and over the church will not let go their hold; they have indeed fangs with a witness, whatsoever i was once said in passion to have."[ ] strafford replies: "i know no reason but you may as well rule the common lawyers in england as i, poor beagle, do here; and yet that i do, and will do, in all that concerns my master, at the peril of my head. i am confident that the king, being pleased to set himself in the business, is able, by his wisdom and ministers, to carry any just and honourable action through all imaginary opposition, for real there can be none; that to start aside for such panic fears, fantastic apparitions as a prynne or an eliot shall set up, were the meanest folly in the whole world; that the debts of the crown being taken off, you may govern as you please; and most resolute i am that work may be done without borrowing any help forth of the king's lodgings, and that it is as downright a _peccatum ex te_ israel as ever was, if all this be not affected with speed and ease."[ ]--strafford's indignation at the lawyers breaks out on other occasions. in writing to lord cottington, he complains of a judge of assize who had refused to receive the king's instructions to the council of the north in evidence, and beseeches that he may be charged with this great misdemeanour before the council-board. "i confess," he says, "i disdain to see the gownmen in this sort hang their noses over the flowers of the crown."[ ] it was his endeavour in ireland, as well as in yorkshire, to obtain the right of determining civil suits. "i find," he says, "that my lord falkland was restrained by proclamation not to meddle in any cause between party and party, which did certainly lessen his power extremely: i know very well the common lawyers will be passionately against it, who are wont to put such a prejudice upon all other professions, as if none were to be trusted or capable to administer justice but themselves; yet how well this suits with monarchy, when they monopolise all to be governed by their year-books, you in england have a costly experience; and i am sure his majesty's absolute power is not weaker in this kingdom, where hitherto the deputy and council-board have had a stroke with them."[ ] the king indulged him in this, with a restriction as to matters of inheritance. the cruelties exercised on prynne and his associates have generally been reckoned among the great reproaches of the primate. it has sometimes been insinuated that they were rather the act of other counsellors than his own. but his letters, as too often occurs, belie this charitable excuse. he expresses in them no sort of humane sentiment towards these unfortunate men, but the utmost indignation at the oscitancy of those in power, which connived at the public demonstrations of sympathy. "a little more quickness," he says, "in the government would cure this itch of libelling. but what can you think of thorough when there shall be such slips in business of consequence? what say you to it, that prynne and his fellows should be suffered to talk what they pleased while they stood in the pillory, and win acclamations from the people? etc. by that which i have above written, your lordship will see that the triumviri will be far enough from being kept dark. it is true that, when this business is spoken of, some men speak as your lordship writes, that it concerns the king and government more than me. but when anything comes to be acted against them, be it but the execution of a sentence, in which lies the honour and safety of all justice, yet there is little or nothing done, nor shall i ever live to see it otherwise."[ ] the lord deputy fully concurred in this theory of vigorous government. they reasoned on such subjects as cardinal granville and the duke of alva had reasoned before them. "a prince," he says in answer, "that loseth the force and example of his punishments, loseth withal the greatest part of his dominion. if the eyes of the triumviri be not sealed so close as they ought, they may perchance spy us out a shrewd turn, when we least expect it. i fear we are hugely mistaken, and misapply our charity thus pitying of them, where we should indeed much rather pity ourselves. it is strange indeed," he observes in another place, "to see the frenzy which possesseth the vulgar now-a-days, and that the just displeasure and chastisement of a state should produce greater estimation, nay reverence, to persons of no consideration either for life or learning, than the greatest and highest trust and employments shall be able to procure for others of unspotted conversation, of most eminent virtues and deepest knowledge: a grievous and overspreading leprosy! but where you mention a remedy, sure it is not fitted for the hand of every physician; the cure under god must be wrought by one Æsculapius alone, and that in my weak judgment to be effected rather by corrosives than lenitives: less than thorough will not overcome it; there is a cancerous malignity in it, which must be cut forth, which long since rejected all other means, and therefore to god and him i leave it."[ ] the honourable reputation that strafford had earned before his apostasy stood principally on two grounds; his refusal to comply with a requisition of money without consent of parliament, and his exertions in the petition of right which declared every such exaction to be contrary to law. if any therefore be inclined to palliate his arbitrary proceedings and principles in the executive administration, his virtue will be brought to a test in the business of ship-money. if he shall be found to have given countenance and support to that measure, there must be an end of all pretence to integrity or patriotism. but of this there are decisive proofs. he not only made every exertion to enforce its payment in yorkshire during the years and , for which the peculiar dangers of that time might furnish some apology, but long before, in his correspondence with laud, speaks thus of mr. hampden, deploring, it seems, the supineness that had permitted him to dispute the crown's claim with impunity. "mr. hampden is a great brother [i.e. a puritan], and the very genius of that people leads them always to oppose, as well civilly as ecclesiastically, all that ever authority ordains for them; but in good faith, were they right served, they should be whipt home into their right wits, and much beholden they should be to any one that would thoroughly take pains with them in that kind."[ ] "in truth i still wish, and take it also to be a very charitable one, mr. h. and others to his likeness were well whipt into their right senses; if that the rod be so used as that it smarts not, i am the more sorry."[ ] hutton, one of the judges who had been against the crown in this case, having some small favour to ask of strafford, takes occasion in his letter to enter on the subject of ship-money, mentioning his own opinion in such a manner as to give the least possible offence, and with all qualifications in favour of the crown; commending even lord finch's argument on the other side.[ ] the lord deputy, answering his letter after much delay, says, "i must confess, in a business of so mighty importance, i shall the less regard the forms of pleading, and do conceive, as it seems my lord finch pressed that the power of levies of forces at sea and land for the very, not feigned, relief and safety of the public, is a property of sovereignty, as, were the crown willing, it could not divest it thereof: salus populi suprema lex; nay, in cases of extremity even above acts of parliament," etc. it cannot be forgotten that the loan of , for refusing which wentworth had suffered imprisonment, had been demanded in a season of incomparably greater difficulty than that when ship-money was levied: at the one time war had been declared against both france and spain, at the other the public tranquillity was hardly interrupted by some bickerings with holland. in avowing therefore the king's right to levy money in cases of exigency, and to be the sole judge of that exigency, he uttered a shameless condemnation of his former virtues. but lest any doubt should remain of his perfect alienation from all principles of limited monarchy, i shall produce still more conclusive proofs. he was strongly and wisely against the war with spain, into which charles's resentment at finding himself the dupe of that power in the business of the palatinate nearly hurried him in . at this time strafford laid before the king a paper of considerations dissuading him from this course, and pointing out particularly his want of regular troops.[ ] "it is plain indeed," he says, "that the opinion delivered by the judges, declaring the lawfulness of the assessment for the shipping, is the greatest service that profession hath done the crown in my time. but unless his majesty hath the like power declared to raise a land army upon the same exigent of state, the crown seems to me to stand but upon one leg at home, to be considerable but by halves to foreign powers. yet this sure methinks convinces a power for the sovereign to raise payments for land forces, and consequently submits to his wisdom and ordinance the transporting of the money or men into foreign states. seeing then that this piece well fortified for ever vindicates the royalty at home from under the conditions and restraints of subjects, renders us also abroad even to the greatest kings the most considerable monarchy in christendom; seeing again, this is a business to be attempted and won from the subject in time of peace only, and the people first accustomed to these levies, when they may be called upon, as by way of prevention for our future safety, and keep his majesty thereby also moderator of the peace of christendom, rather than upon the bleeding evil of an instant and active war; i beseech you, what piety to alliances is there, that should divert a great and wise king forth of a path, which leads so manifestly, so directly, to the establishing his own throne, and the secure and independent seating of himself and posterity in wealth, strength, and glory, far above any their progenitors, verily in such a condition as there were no more hereafter to be wished them in this world but that they would be very exact in their care for the just and moderate government of their people, which might minister back to them again the plenties and comforts of life, that they would be most searching and severe in punishing the oppressions and wrongs of their subjects, as well in the case of the public magistrate as of private persons, and lastly to be utterly resolved to exercise this power only for public and necessary uses; to spare them as much and often as were possible; and that they never be wantonly vitiated or misapplied to any private pleasure or person whatsoever? this being indeed the very only means to preserve, as may be said, the chastity of these levies, and to recommend their beauty so far forth to the subject, as being thus disposed, it is to be justly hoped, they will never grudge the parting with their monies.... "perhaps it may be asked, where shall so great a sum be had? my answer is, procure it from the subjects of england, and profitably for them too. by this means preventing the raising upon them a land army for defence of the kingdom, which would be by many degrees more chargeable; and hereby also insensibly gain a precedent, and settle an authority and right in the crown to levies of that nature, which thread draws after it many huge and great advantages, more proper to be thought on at some other seasons than now." it is however remarkable that, with all strafford's endeavours to render the king absolute, he did not intend to abolish the use of parliaments. this was apparently the aim of charles; but, whether from remains of attachment to the ancient forms of liberty surviving amidst his hatred of the real essence, or from the knowledge that a well-governed parliament is the best engine for extracting money from the people, this able minister entertained very different views. he urged accordingly the convocation of one in ireland, pledging himself for the experiment's success. and in a letter to a friend, after praising all that had been done in it, "happy it were," he proceeds, "if we might live to see the like in england, everything in its season; but in some cases it is as necessary there be a time to forget, as in others to learn; and howbeit the peccant (if i may without offence so term it) humour be not yet wholly purged forth, yet do i conceive it in the way, and that once rightly corrected and prepared, we may hope for a parliament of a sound constitution indeed; but this must be the work of time, and of his majesty's excellent wisdom; and this time it becomes us all to pray for and wait for, and when god sends it, to make the right use of it."[ ] these sentiments appear honourable and constitutional. but let it not be hastily conceived that strafford was a friend to the necessary and ancient privileges of those assemblies to which he owed his rise. a parliament was looked upon by him as a mere instrument of the prerogative. hence he was strongly against permitting any mutual understanding among its members, by which they might form themselves into parties, and acquire strength and confidence by previous concert. "as for restraining any private meetings either before or during parliament, saving only publicly in the house, i fully rest in the same opinion, and shall be very watchful and attentive therein, as a means which may rid us of a great trouble, and prevent many stones of offence, which otherwise might by malignant spirits be cast in among us."[ ] and acting on this principle, he kept a watch on the irish parliament, to prevent those intrigues which his experience in england had taught him to be the indispensable means of obtaining a control over the crown. thus fettered and kept in awe, no one presuming to take a lead in debate from uncertainty of support, parliaments would have become such mockeries of their venerable name as the joint contempt of the court and nation must soon have annihilated. yet so difficult is it to preserve this dominion over any representative body, that the king judged far more discreetly than strafford in desiring to dispense entirely with their attendance. the passages which i have thus largely quoted will, i trust, leave no doubt in any reader's mind that the earl of strafford was party in a conspiracy to subvert the fundamental laws and liberties of his country. for here are not, as on his trial, accusations of words spoken in heat, uncertain as to proof, and of ambiguous interpretation; nor of actions variously reported, and capable of some explanation; but the sincere unbosoming of the heart in letters never designed to come to light. and if we reflect upon this man's cool-blooded apostasy on the first lure to his ambition, and on his splendid abilities, which enhanced the guilt of that desertion, we must feel some indignation at those who have palliated all his iniquities, and even ennobled his memory with the attributes of patriot heroism. great he surely was, since that epithet can never be denied without paradox to so much comprehension of mind, such ardour and energy, such courage and eloquence; those commanding qualities of soul, which, impressed upon his dark and stern countenance, struck his contemporaries with mingled awe and hate, and still live in the unfading colours of vandyke.[ ] but it may be reckoned as a sufficient ground for distrusting any one's attachment to the english constitution, that he reveres the name of the earl of strafford. _conduct of laud in the church prosecution of puritans._--it was perfectly consonant to laud's temper and principles of government to extirpate, as far as in him lay, the lurking seeds of disaffection to the anglican church. but the course he followed could in nature have no other tendency than to give them nourishment. his predecessor abbot had perhaps connived to a limited extent at some irregularities of discipline in the puritanical clergy, judging not absurdly that their scruples at a few ceremonies, which had been aggravated by a vexatious rigour, would die away by degrees, and yield to that centripetal force, that moral attraction towards uniformity and obedience to custom, which providence has rendered one of the great preservatives of political society. his hatred to popery and zeal for calvinism, which undoubtedly were narrow and intolerant, as well as his avowed disapprobation of those churchmen who preached up arbitrary power, gained for this prelate the favour of the party denominated puritan. in all these respects, no man could be more opposed to abbot than his successor. besides reviving the prosecutions for nonconformity in their utmost strictness, wherein many of the other bishops vied with their primate, he most injudiciously, not to say wickedly endeavoured, by innovations of his own, and by exciting alarms in the susceptible consciences of pious men, to raise up new victims whom he might oppress. those who made any difficulty about his novel ceremonies, or even who preached on the calvinistic side, were harassed by the high commission court as if they had been actual schismatics.[ ] the most obnoxious, if not the most indefensible, of these prosecutions were for refusing to read what was called the book of sports; namely, a proclamation, or rather a renewal of that issued in the late reign, that certain feasts or wakes might be kept, and a great variety of pastimes used on sundays after evening service.[ ] this was reckoned, as i have already observed, one of the tests of puritanism. but whatever superstition there might be in that party's judaical observance of the day they called the sabbath, it was in itself preposterous, and tyrannical in its intention, to enforce the reading in churches of this licence or rather recommendation of festivity. the precise clergy refused in general to comply with the requisition, and were suspended or deprived in consequence. thirty of them were excommunicated in the single diocese of norwich; but as that part of england was rather conspicuously puritanical, and the bishop, one wren, was the worst on the bench, it is highly probable that the general average fell short of this.[ ] besides the advantage of detecting a latent bias in the clergy, it is probable that the high church prelates had a politic end in the book of sports. the morose gloomy spirit of puritanism was naturally odious to the young and to men of joyous tempers. the comedies of that age are full of sneers at their formality. it was natural to think that, by enlisting the common propensities of mankind to amusement on the side of the established church, they might raise a diversion against that fanatical spirit which can hardly long continue to be the prevailing temperament of a nation. the church of rome, from which no ecclesiastical statesman would disdain to take a lesson, had for many ages perceived, and acted upon the principle, that it is the policy of governments to encourage a love of pastime and recreation in the people; both because it keeps them from speculating on religious and political matters, and because it renders them more cheerful, and less sensible to the evils of their condition; and it may be remarked by the way, that the opposite system, so long pursued in this country, whether from a puritanical spirit, or from the wantonness of petty authority, has no such grounds of policy to recommend it. thus much at least is certain, that when the puritan party employed their authority in proscribing all diversions, in enforcing all the jewish rigour about the sabbath, and gave that repulsive air of austerity to the face of england of which so many singular illustrations are recorded, they rendered their own yoke intolerable to the youthful and gay; nor did any other cause perhaps so materially contribute to bring about the restoration. but mankind love sport as little as prayer by compulsion; and the immediate effect of the king's declaration was to produce a far more scrupulous abstinence from diversions on sundays than had been practised before. the resolution so evidently taken by the court, to admit of no half conformity in religion, especially after laud had obtained an unlimited sway over the king's mind, convinced the puritans that england could no longer afford them an asylum. the state of europe was not such as to encourage their emigration, though many were well received in holland. but, turning their eyes to the newly-discovered regions beyond the atlantic ocean, they saw a secure place of refuge from present tyranny, and a boundless prospect for future hope. they obtained from the crown the charter of massachusetts bay in . about three hundred and fifty persons, chiefly or wholly of the independent sect, sailed with the first fleet. so many followed in the subsequent years, that these new england settlements have been supposed to have drawn near half a million of money from the mother country before the civil wars.[ ] men of a higher rank than the first colonists, and now become hopeless alike of the civil and religious liberties of england, men of capacious and commanding minds, formed to be the legislators and generals of an infant republic, the wise and cautious lord say, the acknowledged chief of the independent sect, the brave, open, and enthusiastic lord brook, sir arthur haslerig, hampden, ashamed of a country for whose rights he had fought alone, cromwell, panting with energies that he could neither control nor explain, and whose unconquerable fire was still wrapt in smoke to every eye but that of his kinsman hampden, were preparing to embark for america, when laud, for his own and his master's curse, produced an order of council to stop their departure.[ ] besides the reflections which such an instance of destructive infatuation must suggest, there are two things not unworthy to be remarked: first, that these chiefs of the puritan sect, far from entertaining those schemes of overturning the government at home that have been imputed to them, looked only in to escape from imminent tyranny; and, secondly, that the views of the archbishop were not so much to render the church and crown secure from the attempts of disaffected men, as to gratify a malignant humour by persecuting them. _favour shown to catholics--tendency to their religion._--these severe proceedings of the court and hierarchy became more odious on account of their suspected leaning, or at least notorious indulgence, towards popery. with some fluctuations, according to circumstances or changes of influence in the council, the policy of charles was to wink at the domestic exercise of the catholic religion, and to admit its professors to pay compositions for recusancy which were not regularly enforced.[ ] the catholics willingly submitted to this mitigated rigour, in the sanguine expectation of far more prosperous days. i shall, of course, not censure this part of his administration. nor can we say that the connivance at the resort of catholics to the queen's chapel in somerset house, though they used it with much ostentation, and so as to give excessive scandal, was any more than a just sense of toleration would have dictated.[ ] unfortunately, the prosecution of other sectaries renders it difficult to ascribe such a liberal principle to the council of charles the first. it was evidently true, what the nation saw with alarm, that a proneness to favour the professors of this religion, and to a considerable degree the religion itself, was at the bottom of a conduct so inconsistent with their system of government. the king had been persuaded, in , through the influence of the queen, and probably of laud,[ ] to receive privately, as an accredited agent from the court of rome, a secular priest, named panzani, whose ostensible instructions were to effect a reconciliation of some violent differences that had long subsisted between the secular and regular clergy of his communion. the chief motive however of charles was, as i believe, so far to conciliate the pope as to induce him to withdraw his opposition to the oath of allegiance, which had long placed the catholic laity in a very invidious condition, and widened a breach which his majesty had some hopes of closing. for this purpose he offered any reasonable explanation which might leave the oath free from the slightest appearance of infringing the papal supremacy. but it was not the policy of rome to make any concession, or even enter into any treaty, that might tend to impair her temporal authority. it was better for her pride and ambition that the english catholics should continue to hew wood and draw water, their bodies the law's slaves, and their souls her own, than, by becoming the willing subjects of a protestant sovereign, that they should lose that sense of dependency and habitual deference to her commands in all worldly matters, which states wherein their faith stood established had ceased to display. she gave therefore no encouragement to the proposed explanations of the oath of allegiance, and even instructed her nuncio con, who succeeded panzani, to check the precipitance of the english catholics in contributing men and money towards the army raised against scotland, in .[ ] there might indeed be some reasonable suspicion that the court did not play quite fairly with this body, and was more eager to extort what it could from their hopes than to make any substantial return. the favour of the administration, as well as the antipathy that every parliament had displayed towards them, not unnaturally rendered the catholics, for the most part, asserters of the king's arbitrary power.[ ] this again increased the popular prejudice. but nothing excited so much alarm as the perpetual conversions to their faith. these had not been quite unusual in any age since the reformation, though the balance had been very much inclined to the opposite side. they became however under charles the news of every day; protestant clergymen in several instances, but especially women of rank, becoming proselytes to a religion so seductive to the timid reason and sensible imagination of that sex. they whose minds have never strayed into the wilderness of doubt, vainly deride such as sought out the beaten path their fathers had trodden in old times; they whose temperament gives little play to the fancy and sentiment, want power to comprehend the charm of superstitious illusions, the satisfaction of the conscience in the performance of positive rites, especially with privation or suffering, the victorious self-gratulation of faith in its triumph over reason, the romantic tenderness that loves to rely on female protection, the graceful associations of devotion with all that the sense or the imagination can require--the splendid vestment, the fragrant censer, the sweet sounds of choral harmony, and the sculptured form that an intense piety half endows with life. these springs were touched, as the variety of human character might require, by the skilful hands of romish priests, chiefly jesuits, whose numbers in england were about ,[ ] concealed under a lay garb, and combining the courteous manners of gentlemen with a refined experience of mankind, and a logic in whose labyrinths the most practical reasoner was perplexed. against these fascinating wiles the puritans opposed other weapons from the same armoury of human nature; they awakened the pride of reason, the stern obstinacy of dispute, the names, so soothing to the ear, of free enquiry and private judgment. they inspired an abhorrence of the adverse party that served as a barrier against insidious approaches. but far different principles actuated the prevailing party in the church of england. a change had for some years been wrought in its tenets, and still more in its sentiments, which, while it brought the whole body into a sort of approximation to rome, made many individuals shoot as it were from their own sphere, on coming within the stronger attraction of another. the charge of inclining towards popery, brought by one of our religious parties against laud and his colleagues with invidious exaggeration, has been too indignantly denied by another. much indeed will depend on the definition of that obnoxious word; which one may restrain to an acknowledgment of the supremacy in faith and discipline of the roman see; while another comprehends in it all those tenets which were rejected as corruptions of christianity at the reformation; and a third may extend it to the ceremonies and ecclesiastical observances which were set aside at the same time. in this last and most enlarged sense, which the vulgar naturally adopted, it is notorious that all the innovations of the school of laud were so many approaches, in the exterior worship of the church, to the roman model. pictures were set up or repaired; the communion-table took the name of an altar; it was sometimes made of stone; obeisances were made to it; the crucifix was sometimes placed upon it; the dress of the officiating priests became more gaudy; churches were consecrated with strange and mystical pageantry.[ ] these petty superstitions, which would of themselves have disgusted a nation accustomed to despise as well as abhor the pompous rites of the catholics, became more alarming from the evident bias of some leading churchmen to parts of the romish theology. the doctrine of a real presence, distinguishable only by vagueness of definition from that of the church of rome, was generally held.[ ] montagu, bishop of chichester, already so conspicuous, and justly reckoned the chief of the romanising faction, went a considerable length towards admitting the invocation of saints; prayers for the dead, which lead at once to the tenet of purgatory, were vindicated by many; in fact, there was hardly any distinctive opinion of the church of rome, which had not its abettors among the bishops, or those who wrote under their patronage. the practice of auricular confession, which an aspiring clergy must so deeply regret, was frequently inculcated as a duty. and laud gave just offence by a public declaration, that in the disposal of benefices he should, in equal degrees of merit, prefer single before married priests.[ ] they incurred scarcely less odium by their dislike of the calvinistic system, and by what ardent men construed into a dereliction of the protestant cause, a more reasonable and less dangerous theory on the nature and reward of human virtue, than that which the fanatical and presumptuous spirit of luther had held forth as the most fundamental principle of his reformation. it must be confessed that these english theologians were less favourable to the papal supremacy than to most other distinguishing tenets of the catholic church. yet even this they were inclined to admit in a considerable degree, as a matter of positive, though not divine institution; content to make the doctrine and discipline of the fifth century the rule of their bastard reform. an extreme reverence for what they called the primitive church had been the source of their errors. the first reformers had paid little regard to that authority. but as learning, by which was then meant an acquaintance with ecclesiastical antiquity, grew more general in the church, it gradually inspired more respect for itself; and men's judgment in matters of religion came to be measured by the quantity of their erudition.[ ] the sentence of the early writers, including the fifth and perhaps sixth centuries, if it did not pass for infallible, was of prodigious weight in controversy. no one in the english church seems to have contributed so much towards this relapse into superstition as andrews, bishop of winchester, a man of eminent learning in this kind, who may be reckoned the founder of the school wherein laud was the most prominent disciple.[ ] a characteristic tenet of this party was, as i have already observed, that episcopal government was indispensably requisite to a christian church.[ ] hence they treated the presbyterians with insolence abroad, and severity at home. a brief to be read in churches for the sufferers in the palatinate having been prepared, wherein they were said to profess the same religion as ourselves, laud insisted on this being struck out.[ ] the dutch and walloon churches in england, which had subsisted since the reformation, and which various motives of policy had led elizabeth to protect, were harassed by the primate and other bishops for their want of conformity to the anglican ritual.[ ] the english ambassador, instead of frequenting the hugonot church at charenton, as had been the former practice, was instructed to disclaim all fraternity with their sect, and set up in his own chapel the obnoxious altar and the other innovations of the hierarchy.[ ] these impolitic and insolent proceedings gave the foreign protestants a hatred of charles, which they retained through all his misfortunes. this alienation from the foreign churches of the reformed persuasion had scarcely so important an effect in begetting a predilection for that of rome, as the language frequently held about the anglican separation. it became usual for our churchmen to lament the precipitancy with which the reformation had been conducted, and to inveigh against its principal instruments. the catholic writers had long descanted on the lust and violence of henry, the pretended licentiousness of anne boleyn, the rapacity of cromwell, the pliancy of cranmer; sometimes with great truth, but with much of invidious misrepresentation. these topics, which have no kind of operation on men accustomed to sound reasoning, produce an unfailing effect on ordinary minds. nothing incurred more censure than the dissolution of the monastic orders, or at least the alienation of their endowments; acts accompanied, as we must all admit, with great rapacity and injustice, but which the new school branded with the name of sacrilege. spelman, an antiquary of eminent learning, was led by bigotry or subserviency to compose a wretched tract called the "history of sacrilege," with a view to confirm the vulgar superstition that the possession of estates alienated from the church entailed a sure curse on the usurper's posterity. there is some reason to suspect that the king entertained a project of restoring all impropriated hereditaments to the church. it is alleged by one who had much access to laud, that his object in these accommodations was to draw over the more moderate catholics to the english church, by extenuating the differences of her faith, and rendering her worship more palatable to their prejudices.[ ] there was, however, good reason to suspect, from the same writer's account, that some leading ecclesiastics entertained schemes of a complete re-union;[ ] and later discoveries have abundantly confirmed this suspicion. such schemes have doubtless been in the minds of men not inclined to offer every sacrifice; and during this very period grotius was exerting his talents (whether judiciously or otherwise we need not enquire) to make some sort of reconciliation and compromise appear practicable. but we now know that the views of a party in the english church were much more extensive, and went almost to an entire dereliction of the protestant doctrine. the catholics did not fail to anticipate the most favourable consequences from this turn in the church. the _clarendon state papers_, and many other documents, contain remarkable proofs of their sanguine and not unreasonable hopes. weston, the lord treasurer, and cottington, were already in secret of their persuasion; though the former did not take much pains to promote their interests. no one, however, showed them such decided favour as secretary windebank, through whose hands a correspondence was carried on with the court of rome by some of its agents.[ ] they exult in the peaceful and flourishing state of their religion in england as compared with former times. the recusants, they write, were not molested; and if their compositions were enforced, it was rather from the king's want of money than any desire to injure their religion. their rites were freely exercised in the queen's chapel and those of ambassadors, and, more privately, in the houses of the rich. the church of england was no longer exasperated against them; if there was ever any prosecution, it was to screen the king from the reproach of the puritans. they drew a flattering picture of the resipiscence of the anglican party; who are come to acknowledge the truth in some articles, and differ in others rather verbally than in substance, or in points not fundamental; who hold all other protestants to be schismatical, and confess the primacy of the holy see, regretting the separation already made, and wishing for re-union; who profess to pay implicit respect to the fathers, and can best be assailed on that side.[ ] these letters contain, no doubt, a partial representation; that is, they impute to the anglican clergy in general, what was only true of a certain number. their aim was to inspire the court of rome with more favourable views of that of england, and thus to pave the way for a permission of the oath of allegiance, at least with some modification of its terms. such flattering tales naturally excited the hopes of the vatican, and contributed to the mission of panzani, who was instructed to feel the pulse of the nation, and communicate more unbiassed information to his court than could be expected from the english priests. he confirmed, by his letters, the general truth of the former statements, as to the tendency of the anglican church, and the favourable dispositions of the court. the king received him secretly, but with much courtesy; the queen and the catholic ministers, cottington and windebank, with unreserved confidence. it required all the adroitness of an italian emissary from the subtlest of courts to meet their demonstrations of friendship without too much committing his employers. nor did panzani altogether satisfy the pope, or at least his minister, cardinal barberini, in this respect.[ ] during the residence of panzani in england, an extraordinary negotiation was commenced for the reconciliation of the church of england with that of rome; and, as this fact, though unquestionable, is very little known, i may not be thought to digress in taking particular notice of it. windebank and lord cottington were the first movers in that business; both calling themselves to panzani catholics, as in fact they were, but claiming all those concessions from the see of rome which had been sometimes held out in the preceding century. bishop montagu soon made himself a party, and had several interviews with panzani. he professed the strongest desire for a union, and added that he was satisfied both the archbishops, the bishop of london, and several others of that order, besides many of the inferior clergy, were prepared to acknowledge the spiritual supremacy of the holy see; there being no method of ending controversies but by recurring to some centre of ecclesiastical unity. for himself, he knew no tenet of the roman church to which he would not subscribe, unless it were that of transubstantiation, though he had some scruples as to communion in one kind. but a congress of moderate and learned men, chosen on each side, might reduce the disputed points into small compass, and confer upon them. this overture being communicated to rome by its agent, was of course, too tempting to be disregarded, though too ambiguous to be snatched at. the re-union of england to the catholic church, in itself a most important advantage, might, at that particular juncture, during the dubious struggle of the protestant religion in germany, and its still more precarious condition in france, very probably reduce its adherents throughout europe to a proscribed and persecuted sect. panzani was therefore instructed to flatter montagu's vanity, to manifest a great desire for reconciliation, but not to favour any discussion of controverted points, which had always proved fruitless, and which could not be admitted till the supreme authority of the holy see was recognised. as to all usages founded on positive law, which might be disagreeable to the english nation, they should receive as much mitigation as the case would bear. this, of course, alluded to the three great points of discipline, or ecclesiastical institution--the celibacy of the clergy, the exclusion of the laity from the eucharistical cup, and the latin liturgy. in the course of the bishop's subsequent interviews, he again mentioned his willingness to acknowledge the pope's supremacy; and assured panzani that the archbishop was entirely of his mind, but with a great mixture of fear and caution.[ ] three bishops only, morton, hall, and davenant, were obstinately bent against the church of rome; the rest might be counted moderate.[ ] the agent, however, took care to obtain from another quarter a more particular account of each bishop's disposition, and transmitted to rome a report, which does not appear. montagu displayed a most unguarded warmth in all this treaty; notwithstanding which, panzani suspected him of still entertaining some notions incompatible with the catholic doctrine. he behaved with much greater discretion than the bishop; justly, i suppose, distrusting the influence of a man who showed so little capacity for a business of the utmost delicacy. it appears almost certain that montagu made too free with the name of the archbishop, and probably of many others; and it is well worthy of remark, that the popish party did not entertain any sanguine hopes of the king's conversion. they expected doubtless that, by gaining over the hierarchy, they should induce him to follow; but he had evidently given no reason to imagine that he would precede. a few casual words, not perhaps exactly reported, might sometimes elate their hopes, but cannot excite in us, who are better able to judge than his contemporaries, any reasonable suspicion of his constancy. yet it is not impossible that he might at one time conceive a union to be more practicable than it really was.[ ] the court of rome omitted no token of civility or good will to conciliate our king's favour. besides expressions of paternal kindness which urban lavished on him, cardinal barberini gratified his well-known taste by a present of pictures. charles showed a due sense of these courtesies. the prosecutions of recusants were absolutely stopped, by cashiering the pursuivants who had been employed in the odious office of detecting them. it was arranged that reciprocal diplomatic relations should be established, and consequently that an english agent should constantly reside at the court of rome, by the nominal appointment of the queen, but empowered to conduct the various negotiations in hand. through the first person who held this station, a gentleman of the name of hamilton, the king made an overture on a matter very near to his heart, the restitution of the palatinate. i have no doubt that the whole of his imprudent tampering with rome had been considerably influenced by this chimerical hope. but it was apparent to every man of less unsound judgment than charles, that except the young elector would renounce the protestant faith, he could expect nothing from the intercession of the pope. after the first preliminaries, which she could not refuse to enter upon, the court of rome displayed no eagerness for a treaty which it found, on more exact information, to be embarrassed with greater difficulties than its new allies had confessed.[ ] whether this subject continued to be discussed during the mission of con, who succeeded panzani, is hard to determine; because the latter's memoirs, our unquestionable authority for what has been above related, cease to afford us light. but as con was a very active intriguer for his court, it is by no means unlikely that he proceeded in the same kind of parley with montagu and windebank. yet whatever might pass between them was intended rather with a view to the general interests of the roman church, than to promote a reconciliation with that of england, as a separate contracting party. the former has displayed so systematic a policy to make no concession to the reformers, either in matters of belief, wherein, since the council of trent, she could in fact do nothing, or even, as far as possible, in points of discipline, as to which she judged, perhaps rightly, that her authority would be impaired by the precedent of concession without any proportionate advantage: so unvarying in all cases has been her determination to yield nothing except through absolute force, and to elude force itself by every subtlety that it is astonishing how honest men on the opposite side (men, that is, who seriously intended to preserve any portion of their avowed tenets, not such as montagu or heylin,) could ever contemplate the possibility of reconciliation. upon the present occasion, she manifested some alarm at the boasted approximation of the anglicans. the attraction of bodies is reciprocal; and the english catholics might, with so much temporal interest in the scale, be impelled more rapidly towards the established church than that church towards them. "advise the clergy," say the instructions to the nuncio in , "to desist from that foolish, nay rather illiterate and childish, custom of distinction in the protestant and puritan doctrine; and especially this error is so much the greater, when they undertake to prove that protestantism is a degree nearer to the catholic faith than the other. for since both of them be without the verge of the church, it is needless hypocrisy to speak of it, yea, it begets more malice than it is worth."[ ] this exceeding boldness of the catholic party, and their success in conversions, which were, in fact, less remarkable for their number than for the condition of the persons, roused the primate himself to some apprehension. he preferred a formal complaint to the king in council against the resort of papists to the queen's chapel, and the insolence of some active zealots about the court.[ ] henrietta, who had courted his friendship, and probably relied on his connivance, if not support, seems never to have forgiven this unexpected attack. laud gave another testimony of his unabated hostility to popery by republishing with additions his celebrated conference with the jesuit fisher, a work reckoned the great monument of his learning and controversial acumen. this conference had taken place many years before, at the desire and in the presence of the countess of buckingham, the duke's mother. those who are conversant with literary and ecclesiastical anecdote must be aware that nothing was more usual in the seventeenth century than such single combats under the eye of some fair lady whose religious faith was to depend upon the victory. the wily and polished jesuits had great advantages in these duels, which almost always, i believe, ended in their favour. after fatiguing their gentle arbitress for a time with the tedious fencing of text and citation, till she felt her own inability to award the palm, they came with their prejudices already engaged, to the necessity of an infallible judge; and as their adversaries of the english church had generally left themselves vulnerable on this side, there was little difficulty in obtaining success. like hector in the spoils of patroclus, our clergy had assumed to themselves the celestial armour of authority; but found that, however it might intimidate the multitude, it fitted them too ill to repel the spear that had been wrought in the same furnace. a writer of this school in the age of charles the first, and incomparably superior to any of the churchmen belonging to it, in the brightness and originality of his genius, sir thomas brown, whose varied talents wanted nothing but the controlling supremacy of good sense to place him in the highest rank of our literature, will furnish a better instance of the prevailing bias than merely theological writings. he united a most acute and sceptical understanding with strong devotional sensibility, the temperament so conspicuous in pascal and johnson, and which has a peculiar tendency to seek the repose of implicit faith. "where the scripture is silent," says brown in his _religio medici_, "the church is my text; where it speaks, 'tis but my comment." that jesuit must have been a disgrace to his order, who would have asked more than such a concession to secure a proselyte--the right of interpreting whatever was written, and of supplying whatever was not. _chillingworth._--at this time, however, appeared one man in the field of religious debate, who struck out from that insidious tract, of which his own experience had shown him the perils. chillingworth, on whom nature had bestowed something like the same constitutional temperament as that to which i have just adverted, except that the reasoning power having a greater mastery, his religious sensibility rather gave earnestness to his love of truth than tenacity to his prejudices, had been induced, like so many others, to pass over to the roman church. the act of transition, it may be observed, from a system of tenets wherein men had been educated, was in itself a vigorous exercise of free speculation, and might be termed the suicide of private judgment. but in chillingworth's restless mind there was an inextinguishable scepticism that no opiates could subdue; yet a scepticism of that species which belongs to a vigorous, not that which denotes a feeble understanding. dissatisfied with his new opinions, of which he had never been really convinced, he panted to breathe the freer air of protestantism, and after a long and anxious investigation returned to the english church. he well redeemed any censure that might have been thrown on him, by his great work in answer to the jesuit knott, entitled _the religion of protestants a safe way to salvation_. in the course of his reflections he had perceived the insecurity of resting the reformation on any but its original basis, the independency of private opinion. this, too, he asserted with a fearlessness and consistency hitherto little known, even within the protestant pale; combining it with another principle, which the zeal of the early reformers had rendered them unable to perceive, and for want of which the adversary had perpetually discomfited them, namely, that the errors of conscientious men do not forfeit the favour of god. this endeavour to mitigate the dread of forming mistaken judgments in religion runs through the whole work of chillingworth, and marks him as the founder, in this country, of what has been called the latitudinarian school of theology. in this view, which has practically been the most important one of the controversy, it may pass for an anticipated reply to the most brilliant performance on the opposite side, _the history of the variations of protestant churches_; and those who, from a delight in the display of human intellect, or from more serious motives of inquiry, are led to these two master-pieces, will have seen, perhaps, the utmost strength that either party, in the great schism of christendom, has been able to put forth. this celebrated work, which gained its author the epithet of immortal, is now, i suspect little studied even by the clergy. it is, no doubt, somewhat tedious, when read continuously, from the frequent recurrence of the same strain of reasoning, and from his method of following, sentence by sentence, the steps of his opponent; a method which, while it presents an immediate advantage to controversial writers, as it heightens their reputation at the expense of their adversary, is apt to render them very tiresome to posterity. but the closeness and precision of his logic, which this mode of incessant grappling with his antagonist served to display, are so admirable, perhaps, indeed, hardly rivalled in any book beyond the limits of strict science, that the study of chillingworth might tend to chastise the verbose and indefinite declamation so characteristic of the present day. his style, though by no means elegant or imaginative, has much of a nervous energy that rises into eloquence. he is chiefly, however, valuable for a true liberality and tolerance; far removed from indifference, as may well be thought of one whose life was consumed in searching for truth, but diametrically adverse to those pretensions which seem of late years to have been regaining ground among the anglican divines. _hales._--the latitudinarian principles of chillingworth appear to have been confirmed by his intercourse with a man, of whose capacity his contemporaries entertained so high an admiration, that he acquired the distinctive appellation of the ever-memorable john hales. this testimony of so many enlightened men is not to be disregarded, even if we should be of opinion that the writings of hales, though abounding with marks of an unshackled mind, do not quite come up to the promise of his name. he had, as well as chillingworth, borrowed from leyden, perhaps a little from racow, a tone of thinking upon some doctrinal points as yet nearly unknown, and therefore highly obnoxious in england. more hardy than his friend, he wrote a short treatise on schism, which tended, in pretty blunt and unlimited language, to overthrow the scheme of authoritative decisions in any church, pointing at the imposition of unnecessary ceremonies and articles of faith, as at once the cause and the apology of separation. this having been circulated in manuscript, came to the knowledge of laud, who sent for hales to lambeth, and questioned him as to his opinions on that matter. hales, though willing to promise that he would not publish the tract, receded not a jot from his free notions of ecclesiastical power; which he again advisedly maintained in a letter to the archbishop, now printed among his works. the result was equally honourable to both parties; laud bestowing a canonry of windsor on hales, which, after so bold an avowal of his opinion, he might accept without the slightest reproach. a behaviour so liberal forms a singular contrast to the rest of this prelate's history. it is a proof, no doubt, that he knew how to set such a value on great abilities and learning, as to forgive much that wounded his pride. but besides that hales had not made public this treatise on schism, for which i think he could not have escaped the high commission court, he was known by laud to stand far aloof from the calvinistic sectaries, having long since embraced in their full extent the principles of episcopius, and to mix no alloy of political faction with the philosophical hardiness of his speculations.[ ] these two remarkable ornaments of the english church, who dwelt apart like stars, to use the fine expression of a living poet, from the vulgar bigots of both her factions, were accustomed to meet, in the society of some other eminent persons, at the house of lord falkland near burford. one of those, who, then in a ripe and learned youth, became afterwards so conspicuous a name in our annals and our literature, mr. hyde, the chosen bosom-friend of his host, has dwelt with affectionate remembrance on the conversations of that mansion. his marvellous talent of delineating character, a talent, i think, unrivalled by any writer (since, combining the bold outline of the ancient historians with the analytical minuteness of de retz and st. simon, it produces a higher effect than either), is never more beautifully displayed than in that part of the memoirs of his life, where falkland, hales, chillingworth, and the rest of his early friends, pass over the scene. for almost thirty ensuing years, hyde himself becomes the companion of our historical reading. seven folio volumes contain his _history of the rebellion_, his _life_, and the _letters_, of which a large portion are his own. we contract an intimacy with an author who has poured out to us so much of his heart. though lord clarendon's chief work seems to me not quite accurately styled a history, belonging rather to the class of memoirs,[ ] yet the very reasons of this distinction, the long circumstantial narrative of events wherein he was engaged, and the slight notice of those which he only learned from others, render it more interesting, if not more authentic. conformably to human feelings, though against the rules of historical composition, it bears the continual impress of an intense concern about what he relates. this depth of personal interest, united frequently with an eloquence of the heart and imagination that struggles through an involved, incorrect, and artificial diction, makes it, one would imagine, hardly possible for those most alien from his sentiments to read his writings without some portion of sympathy. but they are on this account not a little dangerous to the soundness of our historical conclusions; the prejudices of clarendon, and his negligence as to truth, being full as striking as his excellencies, and leading him not only into many erroneous judgments, but into frequent inconsistencies. _animadversions on clarendon's account of this period._--these inconsistencies are nowhere so apparent as in the first or introductory book of his history, which professes to give a general view of the state of affairs before the meeting of the long parliament. it is certainly the most defective part of his work. a strange mixture of honesty and disingenuousness pervades all he has written of the early years of the king's reign; retracting, at least in spirit, in almost every page what has been said in the last, from a constant fear that he may have admitted so much against the government as to make his readers impute too little blame to those who opposed it. thus, after freely censuring the exactions of the crown, whether on the score of obsolete prerogative or without any just pretext at all, especially that of ship-money, and confessing that "those foundations of right, by which men valued their security, were never, to the apprehension and understanding of wise men, in more danger of being destroyed," he turns to dwell on the prosperous state of the kingdom during this period, "enjoying the greatest calm and the fullest measure of felicity that any people in any age for so long time together have been blessed with," till he works himself up to a strange paradox, that "many wise men thought it a time wherein those two adjuncts, which nerva was edified for uniting, imperium et libertas, were as well reconciled as is possible." such wisdom was not, it seems, the attribute of the nation. "these blessings," he says, "could but enable, not compel, us to be happy; we wanted that sense, acknowledgement, and value of our own happiness which all but we had, and took pains to make, when we could not find, ourselves miserable. there was, in truth, a strange absence of understanding in most, and a strange perverseness of understanding in the rest; the court full of excess, idleness, and luxury; the country full of pride, mutiny, and discontent; every man more troubled and perplexed at that they called the violation of the law, than delighted or pleased with the observation of all the rest of the charter; never imputing the increase of their receipts, revenue, and plenty, to the wisdom, virtue, and merit of the crown, but objecting every small imposition to the exorbitancy and tyranny of the government."[ ] this strange passage is as inconsistent with other parts of the same chapter, and with hyde's own conduct at the beginning of the parliament, as it is with all reasonable notions of government.[ ] for if kings and ministers may plead in excuse for violating one law, that they have not transgressed the rest (though it would be difficult to name any violation of law that charles had not committed); if this were enough to reconcile their subjects, and to make dissatisfaction pass for a want or perversion of understanding, they must be in a very different predicament from all others who live within the pale of civil society, whose obligation to obey its discipline is held to be entire and universal. by this great writer's own admissions, the decision in the case of ship-money had shaken every man's security for the enjoyment of his private inheritance. though as yet not weighty enough to be actually very oppressive, it might, and, according to the experience of europe, undoubtedly would, become such by length of time and peaceable submission. we may acknowledge without hesitation, that the kingdom had grown during this period into remarkable prosperity and affluence. the rents of land were very considerably increased, and large tracts reduced into cultivation. the manufacturing towns, the sea-ports, became more populous and flourishing. the metropolis increased in size with a rapidity that repeated proclamations against new buildings could not restrain. the country houses of the superior gentry throughout england were built on a scale which their descendants, even in days of more redundant affluence, have seldom ventured to emulate. the kingdom was indebted for this prosperity to the spirit and industry of the people, to the laws which secure the commons from oppression, and which, as between man and man, were still fairly administered, to the opening of fresh channels of trade in the eastern and western worlds (rivulets, indeed, as they seem to us, who float in the full tide of modern commerce, yet at that time no slight contributions to the stream of public wealth); but above all, to the long tranquillity of the kingdom, ignorant of the sufferings of domestic, and seldom much affected by the privations of foreign, war. it was the natural course of things, that wealth should be progressive in such a land. extreme tyranny, such as that of spain in the netherlands, might, no doubt, have turned back the current. a less violent, but long-continued despotism, such as has existed in several european monarchies, would, by the corruption and incapacity which absolute governments engender, have retarded its advance. the administration of charles was certainly not of the former description. yet it would have been an excess of loyal stupidity in the nation to have attributed their riches to the wisdom or virtue of the court, which had injured the freedom of trade by monopolies and arbitrary proclamations, and driven away industrious manufacturers by persecution. if we were to draw our knowledge from no other book than lord clarendon's _history_, it would still be impossible to avoid the inference, that misconduct on the part of the crown, and more especially of the church, was the chief, if not the sole, cause of these prevailing discontents. at the time when laud unhappily became archbishop of canterbury, "the general temper and humour of the kingdom," he tells us, "was little inclined to the papist, and less to the puritan. there were some late taxes and impositions introduced, which rather angered than grieved the people, who were more than repaired by the quiet peace and prosperity they enjoyed; and the murmurs and discontent that was, appeared to be against the excess of power exercised by the crown, and supported by the judges in westminster hall. the church was not repined at, nor the least inclination to alter the government and discipline thereof, or to change the doctrine. nor was there at that time any considerable number of persons of any valuable condition throughout the kingdom, who did wish either; and the cause of so prodigious a change in so few years after was too visible from the effects." this cause, he is compelled to admit, in a passage too diffuse to be extracted, was the passionate and imprudent behaviour of the primate. can there be a stronger proof of the personal prepossessions, which for ever distort the judgment of this author, than that he should blame the remissness of abbot, who left things in so happy a condition; and assert that laud executed the trust of solely managing ecclesiastical affairs, "infinitely to the service and benefit" of that church which he brought to destruction? were it altogether true, what is doubtless much exaggerated, that in very little discontent at the measures of the court had begun to prevail, it would be utterly inconsistent with experience and observation of mankind to ascribe the almost universal murmurs of to any other cause than bad government. but hyde, attached to laud and devoted to the king, shrunk from the conclusion that his own language would afford; and his piety made him seek in some mysterious influences of heaven, and in a judicial infatuation of the people, for the causes of those troubles which the fixed and uniform dispensations of providence were sufficient to explain.[ ] _scots troubles, and distress of the government._--it is difficult to pronounce how much longer the nation's signal forbearance would have held out, if the scots had not precipitated themselves into rebellion. there was still a confident hope that parliament must soon or late be assembled; and it seemed equally impolitic and unconstitutional to seek redress by any violent means. the patriots, too, had just cause to lament the ambition of some whom the court's favour subdued, and the levity of many more whom its vanities allured. but the unexpected success of the tumultuous rising at edinburgh against the service-book revealed the impotence of the english government. destitute of money, and neither daring to ask it from a parliament nor to extort it by any fresh demand from the people, they hesitated whether to employ force or to submit to the insurgents. in the exchequer, as lord northumberland wrote to strafford, there was but the sum of £ ; with all the means that could be devised, not above £ , could be raised; the magazines were all unfurnished, and the people were so discontented by reason of the multitude of projects daily imposed upon them, that he saw reason to fear a great part of them would be readier to join with the scots than to draw their swords in the king's service.[ ] "the discontents at home," he observes some months afterwards, "do rather increase than lessen, there being no course taken to give any kind of satisfaction. the king's coffers were never emptier than at this time; and to us that have the honour to be near about him, no way is yet known how he will find means either to maintain or begin a war without the help of his people."[ ] strafford himself dissuaded a war in such circumstances, though hardly knowing what other course to advise.[ ] he had now awaked from the dreams of infatuated arrogance, to stand appalled at the perils of his sovereign, and his own. in the letters that passed between him and laud after the scots troubles had broken out, we read their hardly concealed dismay, and glimpses of "the two-handed engine at the door." yet pride forbade them to perceive or confess the real causes of this portentous state of affairs. they fondly laid the miscarriage of the business of scotland on failure in the execution, and an "over-great desire to do all quietly."[ ] in this imminent necessity, the king had recourse to those who had least cause to repine at his administration. the catholic gentry, at the powerful interference of their queen, made large contributions towards the campaign of . many of them volunteered their personal service. there was, indeed, a further project, so secret that it is not mentioned, i believe, till very lately, by any historical writer. this was to procure , regular troops from flanders, in exchange for so many recruits to be levied for spain in england and ireland. these troops were to be for six months in the king's pay. colonel gage, a catholic, and the negotiator of this treaty, hints that the pope would probably contribute money, if he had hopes of seeing the penal laws repealed; and observes, that with such an army the king might both subdue the scots, and at the same time keep his parliament in check, so as to make them come to his conditions.[ ] the treaty, however, was never concluded. spain was far more inclined to revenge herself for the bad faith she imputed to charles, than to lend him any assistance. hence, when, in the next year, he offered to declare war against holland, as soon as he should have subdued the scots, for a loan of , , crowns, the spanish ambassador haughtily rejected the proposition.[ ] the pacification, as it was termed, of berwick in the summer of has been represented by several historians as a measure equally ruinous and unaccountable. that it was so far ruinous, as it formed one link in the chain that dragged the king to destruction, is most evident; but it was both inevitable and easy of explanation. the treasury, whatever clarendon and hume may have said, was perfectly bankrupt.[ ] the citizens of london, on being urged by the council for a loan, had used as much evasion as they dared.[ ] the writs for ship-money were executed with greater difficulty, several sheriffs willingly acquiescing in the excuses made by their counties.[ ] sir francis seymour, brother to the earl of hertford, and a man, like his brother, of very moderate principles, absolutely refused to pay it, though warned by the council to beware how he disputed its legality.[ ] many of the yorkshire gentry, headed by sir marmaduke langdale, combined to refuse its payment.[ ] it was impossible to rely again on catholic subscriptions, which the court of rome, as i have mentioned above, instigated perhaps by that of madrid, had already tried to restrain. the scots were enthusiastic, nearly unanimous, and entire masters of their country. the english nobility, in general, detested the archbishop, to whose passion they ascribed the whole mischief, and feared to see the king become despotic in scotland. if the terms of charles's treaty with his revolted subjects were unsatisfactory and indefinite, enormous in concession, and yet affording a pretext for new encroachments, this is no more than the common lot of the weaker side. there was one possible, though not under all the circumstances very likely, method of obtaining the sinews of war; the convocation of parliament. this many, at least, of the king's advisers appear to have long desired, could they but have vanquished his obstinate reluctance. this is an important observation: charles, and he perhaps alone, unless we reckon the queen, seems to have taken a resolution of superseding absolutely and for ever the legal constitution of england. the judges, the peers, lord strafford, nay, if we believe his dying speech, the primate himself, retained enough of respect for the ancient laws, to desire that parliaments should be summoned, whenever they might be expected to second the views of the monarch. they felt that the new scheme of governing by proclamations and writs of ship-money could not, and ought not to be permanent in england. the king reasoned more royally, and indeed much better. he well perceived that it was vain to hope for another parliament so constituted as those under the tudors. he was ashamed (and that pernicious woman at his side would not fail to encourage the sentiment) that his brothers of france and spain should have achieved a work, which the sovereign of england, though called an absolute king by his courtiers, had scarcely begun. all mention therefore of calling parliament grated on his ear. the declaration published at the dissolution of the last, that he should account it presumption for any to prescribe a time to him for calling parliaments, was meant to extend even to his own counsellors. he rated severely lord-keeper coventry for a suggestion of this kind.[ ] he came with much reluctance into wentworth's proposal of summoning one in ireland, though the superior control of the crown over parliaments in that kingdom was pointed out to him. "the king," says cottington, "at the end of , will not hear of a parliament; and he is told by a committee of learned men, that there is no other way."[ ] this repugnance to meet his people, and his inability to carry on the war by any other methods, produced the ignominious pacification at berwick. but, as the scots, grown bolder by success, had after this treaty almost thrown off all subjection, and the renewal of the war, or loss of the sovereignty over that kingdom, appeared necessary alternatives, overpowered by the concurrent advice of his council, and especially of strafford, he issued writs for that which met in april .[ ] they told him that, making trial once more of the ancient and ordinary way, he would leave his people without excuse, if that should fail; and have wherewithal to justify himself to god and the world, if he should be forced contrary to his inclinations to use extraordinary means, rather than through the peevishness of some factious spirits to suffer his state and government to be lost.[ ] _parliament of april ._--it has been universally admitted that the parliament which met on the th of april was as favourably disposed towards the king's service, and as little influenced by their many wrongs, as any man of ordinary judgment could expect.[ ] but though cautiously abstaining from any intemperance, so much as to reprove a member for calling ship-money an abomination (no very outrageous expression), they sufficiently manifested a determination not to leave their grievances unredressed. petitions against the manifold abuses in church and state covered their table; pym, rudyard, waller, lord digby, and others more conspicuous afterwards, excited them by vigorous speeches; they appointed a committee to confer with the lords, according to some precedents of the last reign, on a long list of grievances, divided into ecclesiastical innovations, infringements of the propriety of goods, and breaches of the privilege of parliament. they voted a request of the peers, who, clarendon says, were more entirely at the king's disposal, that they would begin with the business of supply, and not proceed to debate on grievances till afterwards, to be a high breach of privilege.[ ] there is not the smallest reason to doubt that they would have insisted on redress in all those particulars, with at least as much zeal as any former parliament, and that the king, after obtaining his subsidies, would have put an end to their remonstrances, as he had done before.[ ] in order to obtain the supply he demanded, namely, twelve subsidies to be paid in three years, which, though unusual, was certainly not beyond his exigencies, he offered to release his claim to ship-money, in any manner they should point out. but this the commons indignantly repelled. they deemed ship-money the great crime of his administration, and the judgment against mr. hampden, the infamy of those who pronounced it. till that judgment should be annulled, and those judges punished, the national liberties must be as precarious as ever. even if they could hear of a compromise with so flagrant a breach of the constitution, and of purchasing their undoubted rights, the doctrine asserted in mr. hampden's case by the crown lawyers, and adopted by some of the judges, rendered all stipulations nugatory. the right of taxation had been claimed as an absolute prerogative so inherent in the crown, that no act of parliament could take it away. all former statutes, down to the petition of right, had been prostrated at the foot of the throne; by what new compact were the present parliament to give a sanctity more inviolable to their own?[ ] it will be in the recollection of my readers, that while the commons were deliberating whether to promise any supply before the redress of grievances, and in what measure, sir henry vane, the secretary, told them that the king would accept nothing less than the twelve subsidies he had required; in consequence of which the parliament was dissolved next day. clarendon, followed by several others, has imputed treachery in this to vane, and told us that the king regretted so much what he had done, that he wished, had it been practicable, to recall the parliament after its dissolution. this is confirmed, as to vane, by the queen herself, in that interesting narrative which she communicated to madame de motteville.[ ] were it not for such authorities, seemingly independent of each other, yet entirely tallying, i should have deemed it more probable that vane, with whom the solicitor-general herbert had concurred, acted solely by the king's command. charles, who feared and hated all parliaments, had not acquiesced in the scheme of calling the present, till there was no other alternative; an insufficient supply would have left him in a more difficult situation than before, as to the use of those extraordinary means, as they were called, which his disposition led him to prefer: the intention to assail parts of his administration more dear to him than ship-money, and especially the ecclesiastical novelties, was apparent. nor can we easily give him credit for this alleged regret at the step he had taken, when we read the declaration he put forth, charging the commons with entering on examination of his government in an insolent and audacious manner, traducing his administration of justice, rendering odious his officers and ministers of state, and introducing a way of bargaining and contracting with the king, as if nothing ought to be given him by them, but what he should purchase either by quitting somewhat of his royal prerogative, or by diminishing and lessening his revenue.[ ] the unconstitutional practice of committing to prison some of the most prominent members, and searching their houses for papers, was renewed. and having broken loose again from the restraints of law, the king's sanguine temper looked to such a triumph over the scots in the coming campaign, as no prudent man could think probable. this dissolution of parliament in may appears to have been a very fatal crisis for the king's popularity. those who, with the loyalty natural to englishmen, had willingly ascribed his previous misgovernment to evil counsels, could not any longer avoid perceiving his mortal antipathy to any parliament that should not be as subservient as the cortes of castile. the necessity of some great change became the common theme. "it is impossible," says lord northumberland, at that time a courtier, "that things can long continue in the condition they are now in; so general a defection in this kingdom hath not been known in the memory of any!"[ ] several of those who thought most deeply on public affairs now entered into a private communication with the scots insurgents. it seems probable from the well-known story of lord saville's forged letter, that there had been very little connection of this kind until the present summer.[ ] and we may conjecture that during this ominous interval, those great projects, which were displayed in the next session, acquired consistence and ripeness by secret discussions in the houses of the earl of bedford and lord say. the king meanwhile experienced aggravated misfortune and ignominy in his military operations. ship-money indeed was enforced with greater rigour than before, several sheriffs and the lord mayor of london being prosecuted in the star-chamber for neglecting to levy it. some citizens were imprisoned for refusing a loan. a new imposition was laid on the counties, under the name of coat-and-conduct-money, for clothing and defraying the travelling charges of the new levies.[ ] a state of actual invasion, the scots having passed the tweed, might excuse some of these irregularities, if it could have been forgotten that the war itself was produced by the king's impolicy, and if the nation had not been prone to see friends and deliverers rather than enemies in the scottish army. they were, at the best indeed, troublesome and expensive guests to the northern counties which they occupied; but the cost of their visit was justly laid at the king's door. various arbitrary resources having been suggested in the council, and abandoned as inefficient and impracticable, such as the seizing the merchants' bullion in the mint, or issuing a debased coin; the unhappy king adopted the hopeless scheme of convening a great council of all the peers at york, as the only alternative of a parliament.[ ] it was foreseen that this assembly would only advise the king to meet his people in a legal way. the public voice could no longer be suppressed. the citizens of london presented a petition to the king, complaining of grievances, and asking for a parliament. this was speedily followed by one signed by twelve peers of popular character.[ ] the lords assembled at york almost unanimously concurred in the same advice, to which the king, after some hesitation, gave his assent. they had more difficulty in bringing about a settlement with the scots; the english army, disaffected and undisciplined, had already made an inglorious retreat; and even strafford, though passionately against a treaty, did not venture to advise an engagement.[ ] the majority of the peers however over-ruled all opposition; and in the alarming posture of his affairs, charles had no resource but the dishonourable pacification of rippon. anticipating the desertion of some who had partaken in his counsels, and conscious that others would more stand in need of his support than be capable of affording any, he awaited in fearful suspense the meeting of parliament. footnotes: [ ] "it hath so happened," he says, "by the disobedient and seditious carriage of those said ill-affected persons of the house of commons, that we and our regal authority and commandment have been so highly contemned as our kingly office cannot bear, nor any former age can parallel." rymer, xix. . [ ] rymer, xix. . [ ] whitelock's _memorials_, p. . whitelock's father was one of the judges of the king's bench; his son takes pains to exculpate him from the charge of too much compliance, and succeeded so well with the long parliament that when they voted chief-justice hyde and justice jones guilty of delay in not bailing these gentlemen, they voted also that croke and whitelock were not guilty of it. the proceedings, as we now read them, hardly warrant this favourable distinction. _parl. hist._ ii. , . [ ] strode's act is printed in hatsell's _precedents_, vol. i. p. , and in several other books, as well as in the great edition of _statutes of the realm_. it is worded, like many of our ancient laws, so confusedly, as to make its application uncertain; but it rather appears to me not to have been intended as a public act. [ ] _state trials_, vol. iii. from rushworth. [ ] hatsell, pp. , . [ ] rushworth. [ ] rushworth; _state trials_, iii. ; whitelock, p. . chambers applied several times for redress to the long parliament on account of this and subsequent injuries, but seems to have been cruelly neglected, while they were voting large sums to those who had suffered much less, and died in poverty. [ ] i have remarked in former passages that the rack was much employed, especially against roman catholics, under elizabeth. those accused of the gunpowder conspiracy were also severely tortured; and others in the reign of james. coke, in the countess of shrewsbury's case, (_state trials_, ii. ), mentions it as a privilege of the nobility, that "their bodies are not subject to torture in causâ criminis læsæ majestatis." yet, in his third institute, p. , he says, the rack in the tower was brought in by the duke of exeter, under henry vi., and is, therefore, familiarly called the duke of exeter's daughter; and after quoting fortescue to prove the practice illegal, concludes--"there is no law to warrant tortures in this land, nor can they be justified by any prescription, being so lately brought in." bacon observes, in a tract written in : "in the highest cases of treason, torture is used for discovery, and not for evidence."--i. . see also miss aikin's _memoirs of james i._ ii. . [ ] _state trials_, iii. . this was a very important determination, and put an end to such tyrannical persecution of roman catholics for bare expressions of opinion as had been used under elizabeth and james. [ ] rushworth (abridged), ii. ; strafford's _letters_, ii. . [ ] whitelock, ; kennet, . we find in rymer, xix. , a commission, dated may , , enabling the privy-council at all times to come, "to hear and examine all differences which shall arise betwixt any of our courts of justice, especially between the civil and ecclesiastical jurisdictions," etc. this was in all probability contrived by laud, or some of those who did not favour the common law. but i do not find that anything was done under this commission, which, i need hardly say, was as illegal as most of the king's other proceedings. [ ] inst. . the regulations contained in the statute de militibus, ed. ii., though apparently a temporary law, seem to have been considered by coke as permanently binding. yet in this statute the estate requiring knighthood, or a composition for it, is fixed at £ per annum. [ ] according to a speech of mr. hyde in the long parliament, not only military tenants, but all others, and even lessees and merchants, were summoned before the council on this account. _parl. hist._ ii. . this was evidently illegal; especially if the statutum de militibus was in force, which by express words exempts them. see mr. brodie's _hist. of british empire_, ii. . there is still some difficulty about this, which i cannot clear up, nor comprehend why the title, if it could be had for asking, was so continually declined; unless it were, as mr. b. hints, that the fees of knighthood greatly exceeded the composition. perhaps none who could not prove their gentility were admitted to the honour, though the fine was extorted from them. it is said that the king got £ , by this resource. macauley, ii. . [ ] rushworth abr. ii. . [ ] strafford's _letters_, i. . [ ] _id._ pp. , . [ ] _id._ ii. . it is well known that charles made richmond park by means of depriving many proprietors not only of common rights, but of their freehold lands. clarendon, i. . it is not clear that they were ever compensated; but i think this probable, as the matter excited no great clamour in the long parliament. and there is in rymer, xx. , a commission to cottington and others, directing them to compound with the owners of lands within the intended enclosures. dec. , . [ ] kennet, ; rushworth's abridg. ii. ; strafford's _letters_, i. ; rymer, xix. ; laud's _diary_, . [ ] rymer, xx. . [ ] kennet, , . _strafford letters_, i. . some petty sea-ports in sussex refused to pay ship-money; but finding that the sheriff had authority to distrain on them, submitted. the deputy-lieutenants of devonshire wrote to the council in behalf of some towns a few miles distant from the sea, that they might be spared from this tax, saying it was a novelty. but they were summoned to london for this, and received a reprimand for their interference. _id._ . [ ] _clarendon state papers_, i. , and ii. append. p. xxvi. [ ] this curious intrigue, before unknown, i believe, to history, was brought to light by lord hardwicke. _state papers_, ii. . [ ] see _clarendon state papers_, i. , for a proof of the manner in which, through the hispano-popish party in the cabinet, the house of austria hoped to dupe and dishonour charles. [ ] _clarendon state papers_, i. , _et post_. five english ships out of twenty were to be at the charge of the king of spain. besides this agreement, according to which the english were only bound to protect the ships of spain within their own seas, or the limits claimed as such, there were certain secret articles, signed dec. , ; by one of which charles bound himself, in case the dutch should not make restitution of some spanish vessels taken by them within the english seas, to satisfy the court of spain himself out of ships and goods belonging to the dutch; and by the second, to give secret instructions to the commanders of his ships, that when those of spain and flanders should encounter their enemies at open sea, far from his coasts and limits, they should assist them if over-matched, and should give the like help to the prizes which they should meet, taken by the dutch, that they might be freed and set at liberty; taking some convenient pretext to justify it, that the hollanders might not hold it an act of hostility. but no part of this treaty was to take effect till the imperial ban upon the elector palatine should be removed. _id._ . [ ] _clarendon state papers_, i. , . [ ] _strafford papers_, ii. , , , . richlieu sent d'estrades to london, in , according to père orleans, to secure the neutrality of england in case of his attacking the maritime towns of flanders conjointly with the dutch. but the ambassador was received haughtily, and the neutrality refused; which put an end to the scheme, and so irritated richlieu, that he sent a priest named chamberlain to edinburgh the same year, in order to foment troubles in scotland. _revol. d'anglet._ iii. . this is confirmed by d'estrades himself. see note in _sidney papers_, ii. , and harris's _life of charles_, ; also lingard, x. . the connection of the scotch leaders with richlieu in is matter of notorious history. it has lately been confirmed and illustrated by an important note in mazure, _hist. de la revolution en _, ii. . it appears by the above-mentioned note of m. mazure, that the celebrated letter of the scots lords, addressed "au roy," was really sent, and is extant. there seems reason to think that henrietta joined the austrian faction about ; her mother being then in england, and very hostile to richlieu. this is in some degree corroborated by a passage in a letter of lady carlisle. _sidney papers_, ii. . [ ] _sidney papers_, ii. . [ ] _clarendon state papers_, ii. . [ ] see the instructions in rushworth, ii. . [ ] rushworth, . the same judge declared afterwards, in a charge to the grand jury of york, that ship-money was an inseparable flower of the crown, glancing at hutton and croke for their opposition to it. _id._ . [ ] as it is impossible to reconcile the trifling amount of this demand with hampden's known estate, the tax being probably not much less than sixpence in the pound, it has been conjectured that his property was purposely rated low. but it is hard to perceive any motive for this indulgence; and it seems more likely that a nominal sum was fixed upon in order to try the question; or that it was only assessed on a part of his estate. [ ] there seems to have been something unusual, if not irregular, in this part of the proceeding. the barons of the exchequer called in the other judges, not only by way of advice but direction, as the chief baron declares. _state trials_, . and a proof of this is, that the court of exchequer being equally divided, no judgment could have been given by the barons alone. [ ] _state trials_, iii. - . [ ] croke, whose conduct on the bench in other political questions was not without blemish, had resolved to give judgment for the king, but was withheld by his wife, who implored him not to sacrifice his conscience for fear of any danger or prejudice to his family, being content to suffer any misery with him, rather than to be an occasion for him to violate his integrity. whitelock, p. . of such high-minded and inflexible women our british history produces many examples. [ ] laud writes to lord wentworth, that croke and hutton had both gone against the king very sourly. "the accidents which have followed upon it already are these: first, the faction are grown very bold. secondly, the king's monies come in a great deal more slowly than they did in former years, and that to a very considerable sum. thirdly, it puts thoughts into wise and moderate men's heads, which were better out; for they think if the judges, which are behind, do not their parts both exceeding well and thoroughly, it may much distemper this extraordinary and great service." _strafford letters_, ii. . [ ] it is notoriously known that pressure was borne with much more cheerfulness before the judgment for the king, than ever it was before. clarendon, p. . [ ] rushworth abr. ii. ; _clarendon state papers_, i. . it is said by heylin that the clergy were much spared in the assessment of ship-money. _life of laud_, . [ ] rymer, _passim_. [ ] _id._ xix. . it may be curious to mention some of these. the best turkey was to be sold at _s._ _d._; the best goose at _s._ _d._; the best pullet, _s._ _d._; three eggs for a penny; fresh butter at _d._ in summer, at _d._ in winter. this was in . [ ] _id._ xx. . [ ] _id._ . [ ] rymer, xviii. , _et alibi_. a commission was granted to the earl of arundel and others, may , , to enquire what houses, shops, etc., had been built for ten years past, especially since the last proclamation, and to commit the offenders. it recites the care of elizabeth and james to have the city built in an uniform manner with brick, and also to clear it from under-tenants and base people who live by begging and stealing. _id._ xviii. . [ ] rymer, xix. . [ ] rushworth abr. ii. . [ ] rushworth, ii. . [ ] _id._ p. . [ ] rushworth abr. iii. ; whitelock, p. ; _strafford letters_, i. , _et alibi_. see what clarendon says, p. (ii. , edit. ). the second of these tells us, that the city offered to build for the king a palace in st. james's park by way of composition, which was refused. if this be true, it must allude to the palace already projected by him, the magnificent designs for which by inigo jones are well known. had they been executed, the metropolis would have possessed a splendid monument of palladian architecture; and the reproach sometimes thrown on england, of wanting a fit mansion for its monarchs, would have been prevented. but the exchequer of charles the first had never been in such a state as to render it at all probable that he could undertake so costly a work. [ ] _strafford letters_, i. . [ ] rymer, xix. . [ ] _id._ . [ ] roger coke's _detection of the court of england_, i. . he was sir edward's grandson. [ ] rymer, xx. . [ ] _id._ xix. . see also . [ ] hudson's "treatise of the court of star-chamber," p. . this valuable work, written about the end of james's reign, is published in _collectanea juridica_, vol. ii. there is more than one manuscript of it in the british museum. in another treatise, written by a clerk of the council about (hargrave mss. ccxvi. ), the author says: "there was a time when there grew a controversy between the star-chamber and the king's bench for their jurisdiction in a cause of perjury concerning tithes, sir nicholas bacon, that most grave and worthy counsellor, then being lord-keeper of the great seal, and sir robert catlyn, knight, then lord chief justice of the bench. to the deciding thereof were called by the plaintiff and defendant a great number of the learned counsellors of the law: they were called into the inner star-chamber after dinner, where before the lords of the council they argued the cause on both sides, but could not find the court of greater antiquity by all their books than henry vii. and richard iii. on this i fell in cogitation how to find some further knowledge thereof." he proceeds to inform us, that by search into records he traced its jurisdiction much higher. this shows, however, the doubts entertained of its jurisdiction in the queen's time. this writer, extolling the court highly, admits that "some of late have deemed it to be new, and put the same in print, to the blemish of its beautiful antiquity." he then discusses the question (for such it seems it was), whether any peer, though not of the council, might sit in the star-chamber; and decides in the negative. "ao. to. of her majesty," he says, in the case of the earl of hertford, "there were assembled a great number of the noble barons of this realm, not being of the council, who offered there to sit; but at that time it was declared unto them by the lord-keeper that they were to give place; and so they did, and divers of them tarried the hearing of the cause at the bar." this note ought to have been inserted in chapter i., where the antiquity of the star-chamber is mentioned, but was accidentally overlooked. [ ] p. . [ ] p. . lord bacon observes, that the council in his time did not meddle with _meum_ and _tuum_ as formerly; and that such causes ought not to be entertained. vol. i. ; vol. ii. . "the king," he says, "should be sometimes present, yet not too often." james was too often present, and took one well-known criminal proceeding, that against sir thomas lake and his family, entirely into his own hands. [ ] p. . [ ] p. . [ ] pp. , . [ ] p. . the following case in the queen's reign goes a great way: an information was preferred in the star-chamber against griffin and another for erecting a tenement in hog-lane, which he divided into several rooms, wherein were inhabiting two poor tenants, that only lived and were maintained by the relief of their neighbours, etc. the attorney-general, and also the lord mayor and aldermen, prayed some condign punishment on griffin and the other, and that the court would be pleased to set down and decree some general order in this and other like cases of new building and division of tenements. whereupon the court, generally considering the great growing evils and inconveniences that continually breed and happen by this new erected building and divisions made and divided contrary to her majesty's said proclamation, commit the offenders to the fleet, and fine them £ each; but considering that if the houses be pulled down, other habitations must be found, did not, as requested, order this to be done for the present, but that the tenants should continue for their lives without payment of rent, and the landlord is directed not to molest them, and after the death or departure of the tenants the houses to be pulled down. harl. mss. n. , fol. . [ ] harl. mss. p. , etc. it appears that the court of star-chamber could not sentence to punishment on the deposition of an eye-witness (rushw. abr. ii. ): a rule which did not prevent their receiving the most imperfect and inconclusive testimony. [ ] p. , . instead of "the slavish punishment of whipping," the printed book has "the slavish speech of whispering," which of course entirely alters the sense, or rather makes nonsense. i have followed a ms. in the museum (hargrave, n. ), which agrees with the abstract of this treatise by rushworth, ii. . [ ] vallenger, author of seditious libels, was sentenced in the queen's reign to stand twice in the pillory, and lose both his ears. harl. mss. , fol. . so also the conspirators who accused archbishop sandys of adultery. _id._ . and mr. pound, a roman catholic gentleman, who had suffered much before for his religion, was sentenced by that court, in , to lose both his ears, to be fined £ , and imprisoned for life, unless he declared who instigated him to charge serjeant philips with injustice in condemning a neighbour of his to death. winwood, ii. . [ ] the scarcity must have been very great this season ( ), for he refused £ _s._ for the quarter of rye. rushworth, ii. . [ ] rushworth, . garrard, the correspondent of wentworth, who sent him all london news, writes about this: "the attorney-general hath sent to all taverns to prohibit them to dress meat; somewhat was required of them, a halfpenny a quart for french wine, and a penny for sack and other richer wines, for the king: the gentlemen vintners grew sullen, and would not give it, so they are all well enough served." _strafford letters_, i. . [ ] hacket's _life of williams_; rushworth abr. ii. , _et post_; brodie ii. . [ ] osbaldiston swore that he did not mean laud; an undoubted perjury. [ ] mr. brodie (_hist. of brit. emp._ vol. ii. p. ) observes, that he cannot find in leighton's book (which i have never seen) the passage constantly brought forward by laud's apologists, wherein he is supposed to have recommended the assassination of the bishops. he admits, indeed, as does harris, that the book was violent; but what can be said of the punishment? [ ] rushworth; _state trials_. [ ] _id._ whitelock, p. ; harris's _life of charles_, p. . the unfortunate words in the index, "women actors notorious whores," cost prynne half his ears; the remainder he saved by the hangman's mercy for a second harvest. when he was brought again before the star-chamber, some of the lords turned up his hair, and expressed great indignation that his ears had not been better cropped. _state trials_, . the most brutal and servile of these courtiers seems to have been the earl of dorset, though clarendon speaks well of him. he was also impudently corrupt, declaring that he thought it no crime for a courtier that lives at great expense in his attendance, to receive a reward to get a business done by a great man in favour. rush. abr. ii. . it is to be observed that the star-chamber tribunal was almost as infamous for its partiality and corruption as its cruelty. see proofs of this in the same work. p. . [ ] the intimidation was so great, that no counsel dared to sign prynne's plea; yet the court refused to receive it without such signature. rushworth, ii. ; _strafford letters_, ii. . [ ] _id._ ; rushw. ; _state trials_. clarendon, who speaks in a very unbecoming manner of this sentence, admits that it excited general disapprobation. p. . [ ] laud's character is justly and fairly drawn by may, neither in the coarse caricature style of prynne, nor with the absurdly flattering pencil of clarendon. "the archbishop of canterbury was a main agent in this fatal work; a man vigilant enough, of an active or rather of a restless mind; more ambitious to undertake than politic to carry on; of a disposition too fierce and cruel for his coat; which notwithstanding he was so far from concealing in a subtle way, that he increased the envy of it by insolence. he had few vulgar and private vices, as being neither taxed of covetousness, intemperance, or incontinence; and in a word a man not altogether so bad in his personal character, as unfit for the state of england." _hist. of parliament_, . [ ] the following entry appears in laud's diary (march , ): "sunday, william juxon, lord bishop of london, made lord high-treasurer of england: no churchman had it since hen. vii.'s time. i pray god bless him to carry it so that the church may have honour, and the king and the state service and contentment by it. and now, if the church will not hold themselves up under god, i can do no more." those who were far from puritanism could not digest this strange elevation. james howell writes to wentworth: "the news that keeps greatest noise here at this present, is that there is a new lord-treasurer; and it is news indeed, it being now twice time out of mind since the white robe and the white staff marched together; we begin to live here in the church triumphant; and there wants but one more to keep the king's conscience, which is more proper for a churchman than his coin, to make it triumvirate." _straff. letters_, i. . garrard, another correspondent expresses his surprise, and thinks strafford himself, or cottington, would have done better. p. . and afterwards (vol. ii. p. ), "the clergy are so high here since the joining of the white sleeves with the white staff, that there is much talk of having as secretary a bishop, dr. wren, bishop of norwich, and as chancellor of the exchequer, dr. bancroft, bishop of oxford; but this comes only from the young fry of the clergy; little credit is given to it, but it is observed, they swarm mightily about the court." the tone of these letters shows that the writer suspected that wentworth would not be well pleased at seeing a churchman set over his head. but in several of his own letters he positively declares his aversion to the office, and perhaps with sincerity. ambition was less predominant in his mind than pride, and impatience of opposition. he knew, that as lord-treasurer he would be perpetually thwarted and undermined by cottington and others of the council. they, on the other hand, must have dreaded that such a colleague might become their master. laud himself, in his correspondence with strafford, never throws out the least hint of a wish that he should succeed weston, which would have interfered with his own views. it must be added that juxon redeemed the scandal of his appointment by an unblemished probity, and gave so little offence in this invidious greatness, that the long parliament never attacked him, and he remained in his palace at fulham without molestation till . [ ] _strafford's letters_, i. , etc. the letters of wentworth in this period of his life show a good deal of ambition and resentment, but no great portion of public spirit. this collection of the strafford letters forms a very important portion of our historical documents. hume had looked at them very superficially, and quotes them but twice. they furnished materials to harris and macaulay; but the first is little read at present, and the second not at all. in a recent and deservedly popular publication, macdiarmid's _lives of british statesmen_, the work of a young man of letters, who did not live to struggle through the distresses of that profession, the character of strafford is drawn from the best authorities, and with abundant, perhaps excessive candour. mr. brodie has well pointed out that he has obtained more credit for the early period of his parliamentary life than he deserves, by being confounded with mr. wentworth, member for oxford. vol. ii. p. . rushworth has even ascribed to sir thomas wentworth the speeches of this mr. wentworth in the second parliament of charles, from which it is notorious that the former had been excluded. [ ] hacket tells us, in his elegant style, that "sir john eliot of the west, and sir thomas wentworth of the north, both in the prime of their age and wits, both conspicuous for able speakers, clashed so often in the house, and cudgelled one another with such strong contradictions, that it grew from an emulation between them to an enmity. the lord-treasurer weston picked out the northern cock, sir thomas, to make him the king's creature, and set him upon the first step of his rising; which was wormwood in the taste of eliot, who revenged himself upon the king in the bill of tonnage, and then fell upon the treasurer, and declaimed against him, that he was the author of all the evils under which the kingdom was oppressed." he proceeds to inform us, that bishop williams offered to bring eliot over, for which wentworth never forgave him. _life of williams_, p. . the magnanimous fortitude of eliot forbids us to give credit to any surmise unfavourable to his glory, upon such indifferent authority; but several passages in wentworth's letters to laud show his malice towards one who had perished in the great cause which he had so basely forsaken. [ ] wentworth was brought over before the assassination of buckingham. his patent in rymer bears date nd july , a month previous to that event. [ ] fourth inst. c. . see also reports, . [ ] rymer, xix. ; rushworth, ii. . [ ] rushworth; strafford's trial, etc.; brodie, ii. ; _straff. letters_, i. . in a letter to lord doncaster, pressing for a severe sentence on foulis, who had been guilty of some disrespect to himself as president of the north, wentworth shows his abhorrence of liberty with all the bitterness of a renegado; and urges the "seasonable correcting an humour and liberty i find reign in these parts, of observing a superior command no farther than they like themselves, and of questioning any profit of the crown, called upon by his majesty's ministers, which might enable it to subsist of itself, without being necessitated to accept of such conditions, as others might easily think to impose upon it." sept. . _somers tracts_, iv. . [ ] rushworth abr. iii. ; clarendon, i. ( ). the original editors left out some words which brought this home to strafford. and if the case was as there seems every reason to believe, i would ask those who talk of this man's innocence, whether in any civilised country, a more outrageous piece of tyranny has been committed by a governor than to compel a nobleman of the highest station to change the disposition of his private estate, because that governor carried on an adulterous intercourse with the daughter-in-law of the person whom he treated thus imperiously? [ ] _clarendon papers_, i. , , ; rushworth abridg. iii. ; _clar. hist._ i. ( ); _strafford letters_, i. , _et post_. this proceeding against lord mountnorris excited much dissatisfaction in england; those of the council who disliked strafford making it a pretext to inveigh against his arrogance. but the king, invariably on the severe and arbitrary side, justified the measure, which silenced the courtiers. p. . be it added, that the virtuous charles took a bribe of £ for bestowing mountnorris's office on sir adam loftus, not out of distress through the parsimony of parliament, but to purchase an estate in scotland. _id._ . hume, in extenuating the conduct of strafford as to mountnorris's trial, says, that, "_sensible of the iniquity of the sentence_, he procured his majesty's free pardon to mountnorris." there is not the slightest evidence to warrant the words in italics; on the contrary, he always justified the sentence, and had most manifestly procured it. the king, in return to a moving petition of lady mountnorris, permitted his release from confinement, "on making such a submission as my lord-deputy shall approve." [ ] _strafford letters_, i. . [ ] p. . [ ] _strafford letters_, p. . in other letters they complain of what they call the lady mora, which seems to be a cant word for the inefficient system of the rest of the council, unless it is a personal nickname for weston. [ ] the bishops, before the reformation, issued process from their courts in their own names. by the statute of edw. vi. c. , all ecclesiastical jurisdiction is declared to be immediately from the crown; and it is directed that persons exercising it shall use the king's arms in their seal, and no other. this was repealed under mary; but her act is itself repealed by jac. i. c. , § . this seems to revive the act of edward. the spiritual courts, however, continued to issue process in the bishop's name, and with his seal. on some difficulty being made concerning this, it was referred by the star-chamber to the twelve judges, who gave it under their hands that the statute of edward was repealed, and that the practice of the ecclesiastical courts in this respect was agreeable to law. neal, ; kennet, ; rushw. abr. iii. . whitelock says (p. ), that the bishops all denied that they held their jurisdiction from the king, for which they were liable to heavy penalties. this question is of little consequence; for it is still true that ecclesiastical jurisdiction, according to the law, emanates from the crown; nor does anything turn on the issuing of process in the bishop's name, any more than on the holding courts-baron in the name of the lord. in ireland, unless i am mistaken, the king's name is used in ecclesiastical proceedings. laud, in his famous speech in the star-chamber, , and again on his trial, asserts episcopal jurisdiction (except what is called in foro contentioso) to be of divine right; a doctrine not easily reconcilable with the crown's supremacy over _all_ causes under the statute of elizabeth; since any spiritual censure may be annulled by a lay tribunal, the commission of delegates; and how this can be compatible with a divine authority in the bishop to pronounce it, seems not easy to prove. laud, i have no doubt, would have put an end to this badge of subordination to the crown. the judges in cawdrey's case ( reports) held a very different language; nor would elizabeth have borne this assumption of the prelates as tamely as charles, in his poor-spirited bigotry, seems to have done. stillingfleet, though he disputes at great length the doctrine of lord coke, in his fifth report, as to the extent of the royal supremacy before the first of elizabeth, fully admits that since the statute of that year, the authority for keeping courts, in whose name soever they may be held, is derived from the king. vol. iii. , . this arrogant contempt of the lawyers manifested by laud and his faction of priests led to the ruin of the great churchmen and of the church itself--by the hands, chiefly, of that powerful body they had insulted, as clarendon has justly remarked. [ ] p. . [ ] p. . [ ] p. . [ ] p. . see also p. . [ ] vol. ii. p. . [ ] _id._ ii. . [ ] p. . [ ] p. . [ ] p. . [ ] p. . [ ] vol. i. p. . [ ] p. ; see also p. . [ ] the unfavourable physiognomy of strafford is noticed by writers of that time. _somers tracts_, iv. . it did not prevent him from being admired by the fair sex, especially at his trial, where, may says, they were all on his side. the portraits by vandyke at wentworth and petworth are well known; the latter appears eminently characteristic. [ ] see the cases of workman, peter smart, etc., in the common histories: rushworth, rapin, neal, macauley, brodie, and even hume, on one side; and for what can be said on the other, collier, and laud's own defence on his trial. a number of persons, doubtless inclining to the puritan side, had raised a sum of money to buy up impropriations, which they vested in trustees for the purpose of supporting lecturers; a class of ministers to whom laud was very averse. he caused the parties to be summoned before the star-chamber, where their association was dissolved, and the impropriations already purchased were confiscated to the crown. rushworth abr. ii. ; neal, i. . [ ] this originated in an order made at the somerset assizes by chief justice richardson, at the request of the justices of peace, for suppressing these feasts, which had led to much disorder and profaneness. laud made the privy council reprove the judge, and direct him to revoke the order. kennet, p. ; rushw. abr. ii. . heylin says, the gentlemen of the county were against richardson's order, which is one of his habitual falsehoods. see rushw. abr. ii. . i must add, however, that the proclamation was perfectly legal, and according to the spirit of the late act ( car. i. c. ) for the observance of the lord's day. it has been rather misrepresented by those who have not attended to its limitations, as neal and mr. brodie. dr. lingard, ix. , has stated the matter rightly. [ ] neal, ; rushworth abr. ii. ; collier, ; heylin's _life of laud_, , . the last writer extenuates the persecution by wren; but it is evident by his own account that no suspension or censure was taken off till the party conformed and read the declaration. [ ] neal, p. . i do not know how he makes his computation. [ ] a proclamation, dated may , , reciting that the king was informed that many persons went yearly to new england in order to be out of the reach of ecclesiastical authority, commands that no one shall pass without a licence, and a testimonial of conformity from the minister of his parish. rymer, xx. . laud, in a letter to strafford (ii. ), complains of men running to new england, when there was a want of them in ireland. and why did they so, but that any trackless wilderness seemed better than his own or his friend's tyranny? in this letter he laments that he is left alone in the envious and thorny part of the work, and has no encouragement. [ ] in thirteen years, ending with , but £ was levied on recusants by process from the exchequer, according to commons' journals, dec. . but it cannot be denied that they paid considerable sums by way of composition, though less probably than in former times. lingard, ix. , etc., note g. weston is said by clarendon to have offended the catholics by enforcing penalties to raise the revenue. one priest only was executed for religion, before the meeting of the long parliament. butler, iv. . and though, for the sake of appearance, proclamations for arresting priests and recusants sometimes came forth, they were always discharged in a short time. the number pardoned in the first sixteen years of the king is said to have amounted, in twenty-nine counties only, to , . neal, . clarendon, i. , confirms the systematic indulgence shown to catholics, which dr. lingard seems, reluctantly and by silence, to admit. [ ] strafford letters, i. , ; ii. , . [ ] heylin, . the very day of abbot's death, an offer of a cardinal's hat was made to laud, as he tell us in his diary, "by one that avowed ability to perform it." this was repeated some days afterwards (aug. th and th, ). it seems very questionable whether this came from authority. the new primate made a strange answer to the first application, which might well encourage a second; certainly not what might have been expected from a steady protestant. if we did not read this in his own diary, we should not believe it. the offer at least proves that he was supposed capable of acceding to it. [ ] _clarendon state papers_, ii. . it is always important to distinguish dates. by the year , the court of rome had seen the fallacy of those hopes she had previously been led to entertain, that the king and church of england would return to her fold. this might exasperate her against him, as it certainly did against laud; besides which, i should suspect the influence of spain in the conclave. [ ] proofs of this abound in the first volume of the collection just quoted, as well as in other books. the catholics were not indeed unanimous in the view they took of the king's prerogative, which became of importance in the controversy as to the oath of allegiance; one party maintaining that the king had a right to put his own explanation on that oath, which was more to be regarded than the sense of parliament; while another denied that they could conscientiously admit the king's interpretation against what they knew to have been the intention of the legislature who imposed it. a mr. courtney, who had written on the latter side, was imprisoned in the tower, on pretext of recusancy, but really for having promulgated so obnoxious an opinion. p. , _et alibi_; _memoirs of panzani_, p. . the jesuits were much against the oath, and, from whatever cause, threw all the obstacles they could in the way of a good understanding between the king and the pope. one reason was their apprehension that an article of the treaty would be the appointment of a catholic bishop in england; a matter about which the members of that church have been quarrelling ever since the reign of elizabeth, but too trifling for our notice in this place. more than half panzani's _memoirs_ relate to it. [ ] _id._ p. . this is a statement by father leander; in another place (p. ), they are reckoned at . there were about other regulars, and five or six hundred secular priests. [ ] kennet, ; harris's _life of charles_, ; collier, ; brodie, ii. note; neal, p. , etc. laud, in his defence at his trial, denies or extenuates some of the charges. there is, however, full proof of all that i have said in my text. the famous consecration of st. catharine's creed church in is mentioned by rushworth, welwood, and others. laud said in his defence, that he borrowed the ceremonies from andrews, who had found them in some old liturgy. [ ] in bishop andrews's answer to bellarmine, he says: præsentiam credimus non minus quam vos veram; de modo præsentiæ nil temere definimus. and soon afterwards: nobis vobiscum de objecto convenit, de modo lis omnis est. de hoc est, fide firmâ tenemus quod sit, de hoc modo est, ut sit per, sive in, sive cum, sive sub, sive trans, nullum inibi verbum est. i quote from casaubon's _epistles_, p. . this is, reduced to plain terms: we fully agree with you that christ's body is actually present in the sacramental elements, in the same sense as you use the word; but we see no cause for determining the precise mode, whether by transubstantiation or otherwise. the doctrine of the church of england, as evidenced by its leading ecclesiastics, underwent a change in the reign of james through andrews, casaubon, and others, who deferred wholly to antiquity. in fact, as i have elsewhere observed, there can be but two opinions, neglecting subordinate differences, on this famous controversy. it is clear to those who have attended to the subject, that the anglican reformers did not hold a local presence of christ's human body in the consecrated bread itself, independent of the communicant, or, as the technical phrase was, extra usum: and it is also clear, that the divines of the latter school did so. this question is rendered intricate at first sight, partly by the strong figurative language which the early reformers employed in order to avoid shocking the prejudices of the people; and partly by the incautious and even absurd use of the word _real presence_ to mean _real absence_; which is common with modern theologians. [ ] heylin's _life of laud_, p. . he probably imbibed this, like many other of his prejudices, from bishop andrews, whose epitaph in the church of st. saviour's in southwark speaks of him as having received a superior reward in heaven on account of his celibacy; coelebs migravit ad aureolam coelestem. _biog. britannica._ aureola, a word of no classical authority, means, in the style of popish divinity, which the author of this epitaph thought fit to employ, the crown of virginity. see du cange _in voc._ [ ] see "life of hammond," in wordsworth's _eccles. biography_, vol. v. . it had been usual to study divinity in compendiums, chiefly drawn up in the sixteenth century. king james was a great favourer of antiquity, and prescribed the study of the fathers in his instructions to the universities in . [ ] andrews gave scandal in the queen's reign by preaching at court, "that contrition, without confession and absolution and deeds worthy of repentance, was not sufficient; that the ministers had the two keys of power and knowledge delivered unto them; that whose sins soever they remitted upon earth, should be remitted in heaven.--the court is full of it, for such doctrine was not usually taught there." _sidney letters_, ii. . harrington also censures him for an attempt to bring in auricular confession. _nugæ antiquæ_, ii. . in his own writings against perron, he throws away a great part of what have always been considered the protestant doctrines. [ ] hall, bishop of exeter, a very considerable person, wrote a treatise on the _divine institution of episcopacy_, which, according to an analysis given by heylin and others of its leading positions, is so much in the teeth of hooker's _ecclesiastical polity_, that it might pass for an answer to it. yet it did not quite come up to the primate's standard, who made him alter some passages which looked too like concessions. heylin's _life of laud_, ; collier, . one of his offences was the asserting the pope to be antichrist, which displeased the king as well as primate, though it had been orthodox under james. [ ] collier, ; neal, ; heylin, . [ ] collier, ; heylin, . [ ] clarendon, iii. ; _state papers_, i. . "lord scudamore, the english ambassador, set up an altar, etc., in the laudean style. his successor, lord leicester, spoke to the archbishop about going to charenton; and telling him lord scudamore did never go thither, laud answered, 'he is the wiser.' leicester requested his advice what he should do, in order to sift his disposition, being himself resolved how to behave in that matter. but the other would only say that he left it to his discretion. leicester says, he had many reasons to think that for his going to charenton the archbishop did him all the ill offices he could to the king, representing him as a puritan, and consequently in his method an enemy to monarchical government, though he had not been very kind before. the said archbishop, he adds, would not countenance blondel's book against the usurped power of the pope." blencowe's _sydney papers_, . "to think well of the reformed religion," says northumberland, in , "is enough to make the archbishop an enemy; and though he cannot for shame do it in public, yet in private he will do leicester all the mischief he can." collins's _sydney papers_, ii. . such was the opinion entertained of laud, by those who could not reasonably be called puritans, except by such as made that word a synonym for protestant. it would be easy to add other proofs. the prosecution in the star-chamber against sherfield, recorder of salisbury, for destroying some superstitious pictures in a church, led to a display of the aversion many of the council entertained for popery, and their jealousy of the archbishop's bias. they were with difficulty brought to condemn sherfield, and passed a sentence at last very unlike those to which they were accustomed. rushworth; _state trials_. hume misrepresents the case. [ ] heylin's _life of laud_, . [ ] heylin's _life of laud_, . the passage is very remarkable, but too long to be extracted in a work not directly ecclesiastical. it is rather ambiguous; but the _memoirs_ of panzani afford the key. [ ] the spanish ambassador applies to windebank, , to have a case of books restored, that had been carried from the custom-house to archbishop abbot.--"now he is dead, i make this demand upon his effects and library, that they may be restored to me; as his majesty's order at that time was ineffectual, as well as its appearing that there was nothing contraband or prohibited." a list of these books follows, and is curious. they consisted of english popish tracts by wholesale, intended, of course, for circulation. _clar. state papers_, . [ ] _id._ , etc. [ ] _clarendon state papers_, . the _memoirs of panzani_, after furnishing some materials to dodd's _church history_, were published by mr. berington, in . they are, however, become scarce, and have not been much quoted. it is plain that they were not his own work, but written by some dependant, or person in his confidence. their truth, as well as authenticity, appears to me quite beyond controversy; they coincide, in a remarkable manner, with all our other information; the names and local details are particularly accurate for the work of a foreigner; in short, they contain no one fact of any consequence which there is reason to distrust. some account of them may be found in butler's _engl. cath._ vol. iv. a small tract, entitled "the pope's nuncio," printed in , and said to be founded on the information of the venetian ambassador, is, as i conceive, derived in some direct or indirect manner from these _memoirs_. it is republished in the _somers tracts_, vol. iv. mr. butler has published, for the first time, a long and important extract from panzani's own reports to the pope concerning the state of the catholic religion in england. _mem. of catholics_, iv. . he reckons them at , ; many of them, however, continuing so outwardly to live as not to be known for such, among whom are many of the first nobility. from them the neighbouring catholics have no means of hearing mass or going to the sacraments. others, more bold, give opportunity, more or less, to their poorer neighbours to practise their duty. besides these, there are others, who, apprehensive of losing their property or places, live in appearance as protestants, take the oaths of supremacy and allegiance, frequent the churches, and speak occasionally against catholics; yet in their hearts are such, and sometimes keep priests in their houses, that they may not be without help, if necessary. among them he includes some of the first nobility, secular and ecclesiastical, and many of every rank. while he was in london, almost all the nobility who died, though reputed protestants, died catholics. the bishops are protestants, except four, durham, salisbury, rochester, and oxford, who are puritans. the latter are most numerous among the people, and are more hated by moderate protestants than are the catholics. a great change is apparent in books and sermons, compared with former times; auricular confession praised, images well spoken of, and altars. the pope is owned as patriarch of the west; and wishes are expressed for re-union. the queen has a public chapel besides her private one, where service is celebrated with much pomp; also the ambassadors; and there are others in london. the laws against recusants are much relaxed; though sometimes the king, being in want of money, takes one-third of their incomes by way of composition. the catholics are yet molested by the pursuivants, who enter their houses in search of priests, or sacred vessels; and though this evil was not much felt while he was in london, they might be set at work at any time. he determined, therefore, to obtain, if possible, a general order from the king to restrain the pursuivants; and the business was put into the hands of some counsellors, but not settled at his departure. the oath of allegiance divided the ecclesiastics, the major part refusing to take it. after a good deal about the appointment of a catholic bishop in england, he mentions father davenport or sancta clara's book, entitled _deus, natura, gratia_, with which the king, he says, had been pleased, and was therefore disappointed at finding it put in the index expurgatorius at rome.--this book, which made much noise at the time, was an attempt to show the compatibility of the anglican doctrines with those of the catholic church; the usual trick of popish intriguers. see an abstract of it in stillingfleet's works, vol. v. p. . [ ] if we may believe heylin, the queen prevailed on laud to use his influence with the king that panzani might come to london, promising to be his friend. _life of laud_, . [ ] p. . it may seem extraordinary that he did not mention williams; but i presume he took that political bishop's zeal to be insincere. williams had been, while in power, a great favourer of the toleration of papists. if, indeed, a story told of him, on endymion porter's authority, in a late work, be true, he was at that time sufficiently inclined to have accepted a cardinal's hat, and made interest for it. blencowe's _sydney papers_, p. . one bishop, goodman of gloucester, was undoubtedly a roman catholic, and died in that communion. he refused, for a long time, to subscribe the canons of , on account of one that contained a renunciation of popery; but yielded at length for fear of suspension, and charged montagu with having instigated his refusal, though he subscribed himself. nalson, i. ; rushw. abr. iii. ; collier, ; laud's defence on his trial. [ ] henrietta maria, in her communication to madame de motteville, has the following passage, which is not undeserving of notice, though she may have been deceived: "le roi jacques ... composa deux livres pour la défense de la fausse religion d'angleterre, et fit réponse à ceux que le cardinal du perron écrivit contre lui. en défendant le mensonge, il conçut de l'amour pour la vérité, et souhaita de se retirer de l'erreur. ce fut en voulant accorder les deux religions, la nôtre et la sienne; mais il mourut avant que d'exécuter ce louable dessein. le roi charles stuard, son fils, quand il vint à la couronne, se trouva presque dans les mêmes sentimens. il avoit auprès de lui l'archevêque de cantorberi, qui, dans son coeur étant très-bon catholique, inspira au roi son maître un grand désir de rétablir la liturgie, croyant que s'il pouvoit arriver à ce point, il y auroit si peu de différence de la foi orthodoxe à la leur, qu'il seroit aisé peu à peu d'y conduire le roi. pour travailler à ce grand ouvrage, que ne paroissoit au roi d'angleterre que le rétablissement parfait de la liturgie, et qui est le seul dessein qui ait été dans le coeur de ce prince, l'archevêque de cantorberi lui conseilla de commencer par l'ecosse, comme plus éloignée du coeur du royaume; lui disant, que leur remuement seroit moins à craindre. le roi, avant que de partir, voulant envoyer cette liturgie en ecosse, l'apporta un soir dans la chambre de la reine, et la pria de lire ce livre, lui disant, qu'il seroit bien aise qu'elle le vît, afin qu'elle sût combien ils approchoient de créance." _mém. de motteville_, i. . a well-informed writer, however, says charles was a protestant, and never liked the catholic religion. p. orleans, _révolut. d'anglet._ iii. . he says the same of laud, but refers to vittorio siri for an opposite story. [ ] cardinal barberini wrote word to panzani, that the proposal of windebank, that the church of rome should sacrifice communion in one kind, the celibacy of the clergy, etc., would never please; that the english ought to look back on the breach they had made, and their motives for it, and that the whole world was against them on the first-mentioned points. p. . this is exactly what any one might predict, who knew the long discussions on the subject with austria and france at the time of the council of trent. [ ] "begets more malice" is obscure--perhaps it means "irritates the puritans more." _clar. papers_, ii. . [ ] heylin, p. ; laud's diary, oct. ; _strafford letters_, i. . garrard, a dependent friend whom strafford retained, as was usual with great men, to communicate the news of the court, frequently descants on the excessive boldness of the papists. "laud," he says (vol. ii. p. ), "does all he can to beat down the general fear conceived of bringing on popery." so in p. and many other places. it is manifest, by a letter of laud to strafford in , that he was not satisfied with the systematic connivance at recusancy. _id._ . the explanation of the archbishop's conduct with respect to the roman catholics seems to be, that, with a view of gaining them over to his own half-way protestantism, and also ingratiating himself with the queen, he had for a time gone along with the tide, till he found there was a real danger of being carried farther than he intended. this accounts for the well-known story told by evelyn, that the jesuits at rome spoke of him as their bitterest enemy. he is reported to have said, that they and the puritans were the chief obstacles to a re-union of the churches. there is an obscure story of a plot carried on by the pope's legate con and the english jesuits against laud, and detected in by one andrew habernfield, which some have treated as a mere fiction. rushworth, iii. . [ ] heylin, in his _life of laud_, p. , tells this story, as if hales had recanted his opinions, and owned laud's superiority over him in argument. this is ludicrous, considering the relative abilities of the two men. and hales's letter to the archbishop, which is full as bold as his treatise on schism, proves that heylin's narrative is one of his many wilful falsehoods; for, by making himself a witness to the pretended circumstances, he has precluded the excuse of error. [ ] it appears by the late edition at oxford ( ) that lord clarendon twice altered his intention as to the nature of his work, having originally designed to write the history of his time, which he changed to memorials of his own life, and again returned to his first plan. the consequence has been, that there are two manuscripts of the _history_ and of the _life_, which in a great degree are transcripts one from the other, or contain the same general fact with variations. that part of the _life_, previous to , which is not inserted in the _history of the rebellion_, is by no means extensive. the genuine text of the _history_ has only been published in . a story, as is well known, obtained circulation within thirty years after its first appearance, that the manuscript had been materially altered or interpolated. this was positively denied, and supposed to be wholly disproved. it turns out, however, that, like many other anecdotes, it had a considerable basis of truth, though with various erroneous additions, and probably wilful misrepresentations. it is nevertheless surprising that the worthy editor of the original manuscript should say, "that the genuineness of the work has rashly, and for party purposes, been called in question;" when no one, i believe, has ever disputed its genuineness; and the anecdote to which i have alluded, and to which, no doubt, he alludes, has been by his own industry (and many thanks we owe him for it) perfectly confirmed in substance. for though he endeavours, not quite necessarily, to excuse or justify the original editors (who seem to have been sprat and aldrich, with the sanction probably of lords clarendon and rochester, the historian's sons), for what they did, and even singularly asserts, that "the present collation satisfactorily proves that they have in no one instance added, suppressed, or altered any historical fact" (advert. to edit. , p.v.); yet it is certain that, besides the perpetual impertinence of mending the style, there are several hundred variations which affect the sense, introduced from one motive or another, and directly contrary to the laws of literary integrity. the long passages inserted in the appendixes to several volumes of this edition contain surely historical facts that had been suppressed. and, even with respect to subordinate alterations, made for the purpose of softening traits of the author's angry temper, or correcting his mistakes, the general effect of taking such liberties with a work is to give it an undue credit in the eyes of the public, and to induce men to believe matters upon the writer's testimony, which they would not have done so readily, if his errors had been fairly laid before them. clarendon indeed is so strangely loose in expression as well as incorrect in statement, that it would have been impossible to remove his faults of this kind without writing again half the history; but it is certain that great trouble was very unduly taken to lighten their impression upon the world. [ ] _id. ibid._ [ ] may thus answers, by a sort of prophetic anticipation, this passage of clarendon: "another sort of men," he says, "and especially lords and gentlemen, by whom the pressures of the government were not much felt, who enjoyed their own plentiful fortunes, with little or insensible detriment, looking no farther than their present safety and prosperity, and the yet undisturbed peace of the nation, whilst other kingdoms were embroiled in calamities, and germany sadly wasted by a sharp war, did nothing but applaud the happiness of england, and called those ungrateful factious spirits, who complained of the breach of laws and liberties; that the kingdom abounded with wealth, plenty, and all kinds of elegancies more than ever; that it was for the honour of a people, that the monarch should live splendidly, and not be curbed at all in his prerogative, which would bring him into greater esteems with other princes, and more enable him to prevail in treaties; that what they suffered by monopolies was insensible and not grievous, if compared with other states; that the duke of tuscany sat heavier upon his people in that very kind; that the french king had made himself an absolute lord, and quite depressed the power of parliaments, which had been there as great as in any kingdom, and yet that france flourished, and the gentry lived well; that the austrian princes, especially in spain, laid heavy burdens upon their subjects. thus did many of the english gentry, by way of comparison, in ordinary discourse, plead for their own servitude. "the courtiers would begin to dispute against parliaments, in their ordinary discourse, that they were cruel to those whom the king favoured, and too injurious to his prerogative; that the late parliament stood upon too high terms with the king, and that they hoped the king should never need any more parliaments. some of the greatest statesmen and privy-counsellors would ordinarily laugh at the ancient language of england, when the word liberty of the subject was named. but these gentlemen, who seemed so forward in taking up their own yoke, were but a small part of the nation (though a number considerable enough to make a reformation hard) compared with those gentlemen who were sensible of their birth-rights and the true interest of the kingdom; on which side the common people in the generality, and the country freeholders stood, who would rationally argue of their own rights, and those oppressions that were laid upon them." _hist. of parliament_, p. (edit. ). [ ] it is curious to contrast the inconsistent and feeble apologies for the prerogative we read in clarendon's _history_, with his speech before the lords, on impeaching the judges for their decision in the case of ship-money. in this he speaks very strongly as to the illegality of the proceedings of the judges in rolls and vassal's cases, though in his _history_ he endeavours to insinuate that the king had a right to tonnage and poundage; he inveighs also against the decision in bates's case, which he vindicates in his _history_. _somers tracts_, iv. . indeed the whole speech is irreconcilable with the picture he afterwards drew of the prosperity of england, and of the unreasonableness of discontent. the fact is, that when he sat down in jersey to begin his _history_, irritated, disappointed, afflicted at all that had passed in the last five years, he could not bring his mind back to the state in which it had been at the meeting of the long parliament; and believed himself to have partaken far less in the sense of abuses and desire to redress than he had really done. there may, however, be reason to suspect that he had, in some respects, gone farther in the first draught of his _history_ than appears at present; that is, i conceive, that he erased himself some passages or phrases unfavourable to the court. let the reader judge from the following sentence in a letter to nicholas relating to his work, dated feb. , : "i will offer no excuse for the entertaining of con, who came after panzani, and was succeeded by rosetti; which was a business of so much folly, or worse, that i have mentioned it in my prolegomena (of those distempers and exorbitances in government which prepared the people to submit to the fury of this parliament), as an offence and scandal to religion, in the same degree that ship-money was to liberty and property." _state papers_, ii. . but when we turn to the passage in the _history of the rebellion_, p. , where this is mentioned, we do not find a single expression reflecting on the court, though the catholics themselves are censured for imprudence. this may serve to account for several of clarendon's inconsistencies; for nothing renders an author so inconsistent with himself, as corrections made in a different temper of mind from that which actuated him in the first composition. [ ] _strafford letters_, ii. . [ ] _id._ . [ ] _id._ . [ ] _id._ ii. . "it was ever clear in my judgment," says strafford, "that the business of scotland, so well laid, so pleasing to god and man, had it been effected, was miserably lost in the execution; yet it could never have so fatally miscarried, if there had not been a failure likewise in this direction, occasioned either by over-great desires to do all quietly without noise, by the state of the business misrepresented, by opportunities and seasons slipped, or by some such like." laud answers in the same strain: "indeed, my lord, the business of scotland, i can be bold to say without vanity, was well laid, and was a great service to the crown as well as to god himself. and that it should so fatally fail in the execution is a great blow as well to the power as honour of the king," etc. he lays the blame in a great degree on lord traquair. p. . [ ] _clarendon state papers_, ii. . [ ] _id._ ii. , and appendix xxvi. [ ] hume says that charles had an accumulated treasure of £ , at this time. i know not his authority for the particular sum: but clarendon pretends that "the revenue had been so well improved, and so wisely managed, that there was money in the exchequer proportionable for the undertaking any noble enterprise." this is, at the best, strangely hyperbolical; but, in fact, there was an absolute want of everything. ship-money would have been a still more crying sin than it was, if the produce had gone beyond the demands of the state; nor was this ever imputed to the court. this is one of lord clarendon's capital mistakes; for it leads him to speak of the treaty of berwick as a measure that might have been avoided, and even, in one place, to ascribe it to the king's excessive lenity and aversion to shedding blood; wherein a herd of superficial writers have followed him. [ ] _clarendon state papers_, ii. , . lest it should seem extraordinary that i sometimes contradict lord clarendon on the authority of his own collection of papers, it may be necessary to apprise the reader, that none of these, anterior to the civil war, had come in his possession till he had written this part of his _history_. [ ] the grand jury of northampton presented ship-money as a grievance. but the privy-council wrote to the sheriff, that they would not admit his affected excuses; and if he neglected to execute the writ, a quick and exemplary reparation would be required of him. rushw. abr. iii. . [ ] _id._ . the king writes in the margin of windebank's letter, informing him of seymour's refusal: "you must needs make him an example, not only by distress, but, if it be possible, an information in some court, as mr. attorney shall advise." [ ] _strafford letters_, ii. . [ ] "the king hath so rattled my lord-keeper, that he is now the most pliable man in england, and all thoughts of parliaments are quite out of his pate." cottington to strafford, th oct. , vol. i. p. . [ ] vol. ii. p. . "so by this time," says a powerful writer, "all thoughts of ever having a parliament again was quite banished; so many oppressions had been set on foot, so many illegal actions done, that the only way to justify the mischiefs already done was to do that one greater; to take away the means which were ordained to redress them, the lawful government of england by parliaments." may, _history of parliaments_, p. . [ ] _sidney papers_, ii. ; _clarendon papers_, ii. . [ ] _id. ibid._ the attentive reader will not fail to observe, that this is the identical language of the famous advice imputed to strafford, though used on another occasion. [ ] may; clarendon. the latter says, upon the dissolution of this parliament: "it could never be hoped that so many sober and dispassionate men would ever meet again in that place, or fewer who brought ill purposes with them." this, like so many other passages in the noble historian, is calculated rather to mislead the reader. all the principal men who headed the popular party in the long parliament were members of this; and the whole body, so far as their subsequent conduct shows, was not at all constituted of different elements from the rest: for i find, by comparison of the list of this parliament, in nalson's collections, with that of the long parliament, in the _parliamentary history_, that eighty, at most, who had not sat in the former, took the covenant; and that seventy-three, in the same circumstances, sat in the king's convention at oxford. the difference, therefore, was not so much in the men, as in the times; the bad administration and bad success of , as well as the dissolution of the short parliament, having greatly aggravated the public discontents. the court had never augured well of this parliament. "the elections," as lord northumberland writes to lord leicester at paris (_sidney papers_, ii. ), "that are generally made of knights and burgesses in this kingdom, give us cause to fear that the parliament will not sit long; for such as have dependence upon the court are in divers places refused, and the most refractory persons chosen." there are some strange things said by clarendon of the ignorance of the commons as to the value of twelve subsidies, which hume, who loves to depreciate the knowledge of former times, implicitly copies. but they cannot be true of that enlightened body, whatever blunders one or two individuals might commit. the rate at which every man's estate was assessed to a subsidy was perfectly notorious; and the burden of twelve subsidies to be paid in three years, was more than the charge of ship-money they had been enduring. [ ] journals; _parl. hist._; nalson; clarendon. [ ] the king had long before said that "parliaments are like cats; they grow curst with age." [ ] see mr. waller's speech on crawley's impeachment. nalson, ii. . [ ] _mem. de motteville_, i. - ; p. orleans, _rev. de l'angleterre_, tome iii., says the same of vane; but his testimony may resolve itself into the former. it is to be observed, that ship-money which the king offered to relinquish, brought in £ , a year, and that the proposed twelve subsidies would have amounted, at most, to £ , , to be paid in three years. is it surprising that, when the house displayed an intention not to grant the whole of this, as appears by clarendon's own story, the king and his advisers should have thought it better to break off altogether? i see no reason for imputing treachery to vane, even if he did not act merely by the king's direction. clarendon says he and herbert persuaded the king that the house "would pass such a vote against ship-money as would blast that revenue and other branches of the receipt; which others believed they would not have the confidence to have attempted, and very few that they would have had the credit to have compassed." p. . the word _they_ is as inaccurate, as is commonly the case with this writer's language. but does he mean that the house would not have passed a vote against ship-money? they had already entered on the subject, and sent for records; and he admits himself, that they were resolute against granting subsidies as a consideration for the abandonment of that grievance. besides, hyde himself not only inveighs most severely in his _history_ against ship-money, but was himself one of the managers of the impeachment against six judges for their conduct in regard to it; and his speech before the house of lords on that occasion is extant. rushw. abr. ii. . but this is merely one instance of his eternal inconsistency. [ ] _parl. hist._; rushworth; nalson. [ ] june , . _sidney papers_, ii. . [ ] a late writer has spoken of this celebrated letter, as resting on very questionable authority. lingard, x. . it is, however, mentioned as a known fact by several contemporary writers, and particularly by the earl of manchester, in his unpublished memorials, from which nalson has made extracts; and who could neither be mistaken, nor have any apparent motive, in this private narrative, to deceive. nalson, ii. . [ ] rymer, xx. ; rushworth abr. iii. , etc.; nalson, i. , etc. [ ] lord clarendon seems not to have well understood the secret of this great council, and supposes it to have been suggested by those who wished for a parliament; whereas the _hardwicke papers_ show the contrary. p. and . his notions about the facility of composing the public discontent are strangely mistaken: "without doubt," he says, "that fire at that time, which did shortly after burn the whole kingdom, might have been covered under a bushel." but the whole of this introductory book of his _history_ abounds with proofs that he had partly forgotten, partly never known, the state of england before the opening of the long parliament. in fact, the disaffection, or at least discontent, had proceeded so far in , that no human skill could have averted a great part of the consequences. but clarendon's partiality to the king, and to some of his advisers, leads him to see in every event particular causes, or an overruling destiny, rather than the sure operation of impolicy and misgovernment. [ ] these were hertford, bedford, essex, warwick, paget, wharton, say, brook, kimbolton, saville, mulgrave, bolingbroke. nalson, , . [ ] this appears from the minutes of the council (_hardwicke papers_), and contradicts the common opinion. lord conway's disaster at newburn was by no means surprising; the english troops, who had been lately pressed into service, were perfectly mutinous; some regiments had risen and even murdered their officers on the road. rymer, , . chapter ix from the meeting of the long parliament to the beginning of the civil war _character of the long parliament._--we are now arrived at that momentous period in our history, which no englishman ever regards without interest, and few without prejudice; the period from which the factions of modern times trace their divergence; which, after the lapse of almost two centuries, still calls forth the warm emotions of party-spirit, and affords a test of political principles; at that famous parliament, the theme of so much eulogy and of so much reproach; that synod of inflexible patriots with some, that conclave of traitorous rebels with others; that assembly, we may more truly say, of unequal virtue and chequered fame, which, after having acquired a higher claim to our gratitude, and effected more for our liberties, than any that had gone before or that has followed, ended by subverting the constitution it had strengthened, and by sinking in its decrepitude, and amidst public contempt, beneath a usurper it had blindly elevated to power. it seems agreeable to our plan, first to bring together those admirable provisions by which this parliament restored and consolidated the shattered fabric of our constitution, before we advert to its measures of more equivocal benefit, or its fatal errors; an arrangement not very remote from that of mere chronology, since the former were chiefly completed within the first nine months of its session, before the king's journey to scotland in the summer of . it must, i think, be admitted by every one who concurs in the representation given in this work, and especially in the last chapter, of the practical state of our government, that some new securities of a more powerful efficacy than any which the existing laws held forth were absolutely indispensable for the preservation of english liberties and privileges. these, however sacred in name, however venerable by prescription, had been so repeatedly transgressed, that to obtain their confirmation, as had been done in the petition of right, and that as the price of large subsidies, would but expose the commons to the secret derision of the court. the king, by levying ship-money in contravention of his assent to that petition, and by other marks of insincerity, had given too just cause for suspicion that, though very conscientious in his way, he had a fund of casuistry at command that would always release him from any obligation to respect the laws. again, to punish delinquent ministers was a necessary piece of justice; but who could expect that any such retribution would deter ambitious and intrepid men from the splendid lures of power? whoever, therefore, came to the parliament of november with serious and steady purposes for the public weal, and most, i believe, except mere courtiers, entertained such purposes according to the measure of their capacities and energies, must have looked to some essential change in the balance of government, some important limitations of royal authority, as the primary object of his attendance. nothing could be more obvious than that the excesses of the late unhappy times had chiefly originated in the long intermission of parliaments. no lawyer would have dared to suggest ship-money with the terrors of a house of commons before his eyes. but the king's known resolution to govern without parliaments gave bad men more confidence of impunity. this resolution was not likely to be shaken by the unpalatable chastisement of his servants and redress of abuses, on which the present parliament was about to enter. a statute as old as the reign of edward iii. had already provided that parliaments should be held "every year, or oftener, if need be."[ ] but this enactment had in no age been respected. it was certain that in the present temper of the administration, a law simply enacting that the interval between parliaments should never exceed three years, would prove wholly ineffectual. in the famous act therefore for triennial parliaments, the first fruits of the commons' laudable zeal for reformation, such provisions were introduced as grated harshly on the ears of those who valued the royal prerogative above the liberties of the subject, but without which the act itself might have been dispensed with. every parliament was to be _ipso facto_ dissolved at the expiration of three years from the first day of its session, unless actually sitting at the time, and, in that case, at its first adjournment or prorogation. the chancellor or keeper of the great seal to be sworn to issue writs for a new parliament within three years from the dissolution of the last, under pain of disability to hold his office, and further punishment; in case of his failure to comply with this provision, the peers were enabled and enjoined to meet at westminster, and to issue writs to the sheriffs; the sheriffs themselves, should the peers not fulfil this duty, were to cause elections to be duly made; and, in their default, at a prescribed time the electors themselves were to proceed to choose their representatives. no future parliament was to be dissolved or adjourned without its own consent, in less than fifty days from the opening of its session. it is more reasonable to doubt whether even these provisions would have afforded an adequate security for the periodical assembling of parliament, whether the supine and courtier-like character of the peers, the want of concert and energy in the electors themselves, would not have enabled the government to set the statute at nought, than to censure them as derogatory to the reasonable prerogative and dignity of the crown. to this important bill the king, with some apparent unwillingness, gave his assent.[ ] it effected, indeed, a strange revolution in the system of his government. the nation set a due value on this admirable statute, the passing of which they welcomed with bonfires and every mark of joy. after laying this solid foundation for the maintenance of such laws as they might deem necessary, the house of commons proceeded to cut away the more flagrant and recent usurpations of the crown. they passed a bill declaring ship-money illegal, and annulling the judgment of the exchequer chamber against mr. hampden.[ ] they put an end to another contested prerogative, which, though incapable of vindication on any legal authority, had more support from a usage of fourscore years, the levying of customs on merchandise. in an act granting the king tonnage and poundage, it is declared and enacted that it is, and hath been, the ancient right of the subjects of this realm, that no subsidy, custom, impost, or other charge whatsoever, ought or may be laid or imposed upon any merchandise exported or imported by subjects, denizens or aliens, without common consent in parliament.[ ] this is the last statute that has been found necessary to restrain the crown from arbitrary taxation, and may be deemed the complement of those numerous provisions which the virtue of ancient times had extorted from the first and third edwards. yet these acts were hardly so indispensable, nor wrought so essential a change in the character of our monarchy, as that which abolished the star-chamber. though it was evident how little the statute of henry vii. could bear out that overweening power it had since arrogated, though the statute-book and parliamentary records of the best ages were irrefragable testimonies against its usurpations; yet the course of precedents under the tudor and stuart families were so invariable that nothing more was at first intended than a bill to regulate that tribunal. a suggestion, thrown out, as clarendon informs us, by one not at all connected with the more ardent reformers, led to the substitution of a bill for taking it altogether away.[ ] this abrogates all exercise of jurisdiction, properly so called, whether of a civil or criminal nature, by the privy-council, as well as the star-chamber. the power of examining and committing persons charged with offences is by no means taken away; but, with a retrospect to the language held by the judges and crown lawyers in some cases that have been mentioned, it is enacted that every person committed by the council or any of them, or by the king's special command, may have his writ of habeas corpus; in the return to which, the officer in whose custody he is shall certify the true cause of his commitment, which the court, from whence the writ has issued, shall within three days examine, in order to see whether the cause thus certified appear to be just and legal or not, and do justice accordingly by delivering, bailing, or remanding the party. thus fell the great court of star-chamber; and with it the whole irregular and arbitrary practice of government, that had for several centuries so thwarted the operation and obscured the light of our free constitution, that many have been prone to deny the existence of those liberties which they found so often infringed, and to mistake the violations of law for its standard. with the court of star-chamber perished that of the high-commission, a younger birth of tyranny, but perhaps even more hateful, from the peculiar irritation of the times. it had stretched its authority beyond the tenor of the act of elizabeth, whereby it had been created, and which limits its competence to the correction of ecclesiastical offences according to the known boundaries of ecclesiastical jurisdiction, assuming a right, not only to imprison, but to fine the laity, which was generally reckoned illegal.[ ] the statute repealing that of elizabeth, under which the high-commission existed, proceeds to take away from the ecclesiastical courts all power of inflicting temporal penalties, in terms so large, and doubtless not inadvertently employed, as to render their jurisdiction nugatory. this part of the act was repealed after the restoration; and like the other measures of that time, with little care to prevent the recurrence of those abuses which had provoked its enactments.[ ] a single clause in the act that abolished the star-chamber was sufficient to annihilate the arbitrary jurisdiction of several other irregular tribunals, grown out of the despotic temper of the tudor dynasty:--the court of the president and council of the north, long obnoxious to the common lawyers, and lately the sphere of strafford's tyrannical arrogance;[ ] the court of the president and council of wales and the welsh marches, which had pretended, as before mentioned, to a jurisdiction over the adjacent counties of salop, worcester, hereford, and gloucester; with those of the duchy of lancaster and county palatine of chester. these, under various pretexts, had usurped so extensive a cognisance as to deprive one-third of england of the privileges of the common law. the jurisdiction, however, of the two latter courts in matters touching the king's private estate has not been taken away by the statute. another act afforded remedy for some abuses in the stannary-courts of cornwall and devon.[ ] others retrenched the vexatious prerogative of purveyance, and took away that of compulsory knighthood.[ ] and one of greater importance put an end to a fruitful source of oppression and complaint, by determining for ever the extent of royal forests, according to their boundaries in the twentieth year of james, annulling all the preambulations and inquests by which they had subsequently been enlarged.[ ] i must here reckon, among the beneficial acts of this parliament, one that passed some months afterwards, after the king's return from scotland, and perhaps the only measure of that second period on which we can bestow unmixed commendation. the delays and uncertainties of raising troops by voluntary enlistment, to which the temper of the english nation, pacific though intrepid, and impatient of the strict control of martial law, gave small encouragement, had led to the usage of pressing soldiers for service, whether in ireland, or on foreign expeditions. this prerogative seeming dangerous and oppressive, as well as of dubious legality, it is recited in the preamble of an act empowering the king to levy troops by this compulsory method for the special exigency of the irish rebellion, that "by the laws of this realm, none of his majesty's subjects ought to be impressed or compelled to go out of his country to serve as a soldier in the wars, except in case of necessity of the sudden coming in of strange enemies into the kingdom, or except they be otherwise bound by the tenure of their lands or possessions."[ ] the king, in a speech from the throne, adverted to this bill while passing through the houses, as an invasion of his prerogative. this notice of a parliamentary proceeding the commons resented as a breach of their privilege; and having obtained the consent of the lords to a joint remonstrance, the king, who was in no state to maintain his objection, gave his assent to the bill. in the reigns of elizabeth and james, we have seen frequent instances of the crown's interference as to matters debated in parliament. but from the time of the long parliament, the law of privilege, in this respect, has stood on an unshaken basis.[ ] these are the principal statutes which we owe to this parliament. they give occasion to two remarks of no slight importance. in the first place, it will appear, on comparing them with our ancient laws and history, that they made scarce any material change in our constitution such as it had been established and recognised under the house of plantagenet: the law for triennial parliaments even receded from those unrepealed provisions of the reign of edward iii., that they should be assembled annually. the court of star-chamber, if it could be said to have a legal jurisdiction, traced it only to the tudor period; its recent excesses were diametrically opposed to the existing laws, and the protestations of ancient parliaments. the court of ecclesiastical commission was an offset of the royal supremacy, established at the reformation. the impositions on merchandise were both plainly illegal, and of no long usage. that of ship-money was flagrantly, and by universal confession, a strain of arbitrary power without pretext of right. thus, in by far the greater part of the enactments of , the monarchy lost nothing that it had anciently possessed; and the balance of our constitution might seem rather to have been restored to its former equipoise, than to have undergone any fresh change. but those common liberties of england which our forefathers had, with such commendable perseverance, extorted from the grasp of power, though by no means so merely theoretical and nugatory in effect as some would insinuate, were yet very precarious in the best periods, neither well defined, nor exempt from anomalous exceptions, or from occasional infringement. some of them, such as the statute for annual sessions of parliament, had gone into disuse. those that were most evident, could not be enforced; and the new tribunals that, whether by law or usurpation, had reared their heads over the people, had made almost all public and personal rights dependent on their arbitrary will. it was necessary, therefore, to infuse new blood into the languid frame, and so to renovate our ancient constitution that the present æra should seem almost a new birth of liberty. such was the aim, especially, of those provisions which placed the return of parliaments at fixed intervals beyond the power of the crown to elude. it was hoped that by their means, so long as a sense of public spirit should exist in the nation (and beyond that time it is vain to think of liberty), no prince, however able and ambitious, could be free from restraint for more than three years; an interval too short for the completion of arbitrary projects, and which few ministers would venture to employ in such a manner as might expose them to the wrath of parliament. it is to be observed, in the second place, that by these salutary restrictions, and some new retrenchments of pernicious or abused prerogative, the long parliament formed our constitution such nearly as it now exists. laws of great importance were doubtless enacted in subsequent times, particularly at the revolution; but none of them, perhaps, were strictly necessary for the preservation of our civil and political privileges; and it is rather from than any other epoch, that we may date their full legal establishment. that single statute which abolished the star-chamber, gave every man a security which no other enactments could have afforded, and which no government could essentially impair. though the reigns of the two latter stuarts, accordingly, are justly obnoxious, and were marked by several illegal measures, yet, whether we consider the number and magnitude of their transgressions of law, or the practical oppression of their government, these princes fell very short of the despotism that had been exercised, either under the tudors, or the two first of their own family. from this survey of the good works of the long parliament, we must turn our eyes with equal indifference to the opposite picture of its errors and offences; faults which, though the mischiefs they produced were chiefly temporary, have yet served to obliterate from the recollection of too many the permanent blessings we have inherited through its exertions. in reflecting on the events which so soon clouded a scene of glory, we ought to learn the dangers that attend all revolutionary crises, however justifiable or necessary; and that, even when posterity may have cause to rejoice in the ultimate result, the existing generation are seldom compensated for their present loss of tranquillity. the very enemies of this parliament confess that they met in november with almost unmingled zeal for the public good, and with loyal attachment to the crown. they were the chosen representatives of the commons of england, in an age more eminent for steady and scrupulous conscientiousness in private life, than any, perhaps, that had gone before or has followed; not the demagogues or adventurers of transient popularity, but men well-born and wealthy, than whom there could perhaps never be assembled five hundred more adequate to redress the grievances, or to fix the laws of a great nation. but they were misled by the excess of two passions, both just and natural in the circumstances wherein they found themselves, resentment and distrust; passions eminently contagious, and irresistible when they seize on the zeal and credulity of a popular assembly. the one betrayed them into a measure certainly severe and sanguinary, and in the eyes of posterity exposed to greater reproach than it deserved, the attainder of lord strafford, and some other proceedings of too much violence; the other gave a colour to all their resolutions, and aggravated their differences with the king till there remained no other arbitrator but the sword. _impeachment of strafford._--those who know the conduct and character of the earl of strafford, his abuse of power in the north, his far more outrageous transgressions in ireland, his dangerous influence over the king's counsels, cannot hesitate to admit, if indeed they profess any regard to the constitution of this kingdom, that to bring so great a delinquent to justice according to the known process of law was among the primary duties of the new parliament. it was that which all, with scarce an exception but among his own creatures (for most of the court were openly or in secret his enemies),[ ] ardently desired; yet which the king's favour and his own commanding genius must have rendered a doubtful enterprise. he came to london, not unconscious of the danger, by his master's direct injunctions. the first days of the session were critical; and any vacillation or delay in the commons might probably have given time for some strong exertion of power to frustrate their designs. we must therefore consider the bold suggestion of pym, to carry up to the lords an impeachment for high treason against strafford, not only as a master-stroke of that policy which is fittest for revolutions, but as justifiable by the circumstances wherein they stood. nothing short of a commitment to the tower would have broken the spell that so many years of arbitrary dominion had been working. it was dissipated in the instant that the people saw him in the hands of the usher of the black rod; and with his power fell also that of his master; so that charles, from the very hour of strafford's impeachment, never once ventured to resume the high tone of command congenial to his disposition, or to speak to the commons but as one complaining of a superior force.[ ] _discussion of its justice._--the articles of strafford's impeachment relate principally to his conduct in ireland. for though he had begun to act with violence in the court of york, as lord-president of the north, and was charged with having procured a commission investing him with exorbitant power, yet he had too soon left that sphere of dominion for the lieutenancy of ireland, to give any wide scope for prosecution, but in ireland it was sufficiently proved that he had arrogated an authority beyond what the crown had ever lawfully enjoyed, and even beyond the example of former viceroys of that island, where the disordered state of society, the frequency of rebellions, and the distance from all control, had given rise to such a series of arbitrary precedents, as would have almost excused any ordinary stretch of power.[ ] notwithstanding this, however, when the managers came to state and substantiate their articles of accusation, though some were satisfied that there was enough to warrant the severest judgment, yet it appeared to many dispassionate men that, even supposing the evidence as to all of them to be legally convincing, they could not, except through a dangerous latitude of construction, be aggravated into treason. the law of england is silent as to conspiracies against itself. st. john and maynard struggled in vain to prove that a scheme to overturn the fundamental laws and to govern by a standing army, though as infamous as any treason, could be brought within the words of the statute of edward iii., as a compassing of the king's death. nor, in fact, was there any conclusive evidence against strafford of such a design. the famous words imputed to him by sir henry vane, though there can be little reason to question that some such were spoken, seem too imperfectly reported,[ ] as well as uttered too much in the heat of passion, to furnish a substantive accusation; and i should rather found my conviction of strafford's systematic hostility to our fundamental laws on his correspondence since brought to light, as well as on his general conduct in administration, than on any overt acts proved on his impeachment. the presumption of history, to whose mirror the scattered rays of moral evidence converge, may be irresistible, when the legal inference from insulated actions is not only technically, but substantially, inconclusive. yet we are not to suppose that the charges against this minister appeared so evidently to fall short of high treason, according to the apprehension of that age, as in later times has usually been taken for granted. accustomed to the unjust verdicts obtained in cases of treason by the court, the statute of edward having been perpetually stretched by constructive interpretations, neither the people nor the lawyers annexed a definite sense to that crime. the judges themselves, on a solemn reference by the house of lords for their opinion, whether some of the articles charged against strafford amounted to treason, answered unanimously, that upon all which their lordships had voted to be proved, it was their opinion the earl of strafford did deserve to undergo the pains and penalties of high treason by law.[ ] and, as an apology, at least, for this judicial opinion, it may be remarked that the fifteenth article of the impeachment, charging him with raising money by his own authority, and quartering troops on the people of ireland, in order to compel their obedience to his unlawful requisitions (upon which, and one other article, not on the whole matter, the peers voted him guilty), does in fact approach very nearly, if we may not say more, to a substantive treason within the statute of edward iii., as a levying war against the king, even without reference to some irish acts of parliament upon which the managers of the impeachment relied. it cannot be extravagant to assert that if the colonel of a regiment were to issue an order commanding the inhabitants of the district where it is quartered to contribute certain sums of money, and were to compel the payment by quartering troops on the houses of those who refused, in a general and systematic manner, he would, according to a warrantable construction of the statutes, be guilty of the treason called levying war on the king; and that, if we could imagine him to do this by an order from the privy council or the war office, the case would not be at all altered. on the other hand, a single act of which violence might be (in technical language) trespass, misdemeanour, or felony, according to circumstances; but would want the generality, which, as the statute has been construed, determines its character to be treason. it is however manifest that strafford's actual enforcement of his order, by quartering soldiers, was not by any means proved to be so frequently done as to bring it within the line of treason; and the evidence is also open to every sort of legal objection. but in that age, the rules of evidence, so scrupulously defined since, were either very imperfectly recognised, or continually transgressed. if then strafford could be brought within the letter of the law, and was also deserving of death for his misdeeds towards the commonwealth, it might be thought enough to justify his condemnation, although he had not offended against what seemed to be the spirit and intention of the statute. this should, at least, restrain us from passing an unqualified censure on those who voted against him, comprehending undoubtedly the far more respectable portion of the commons, though only twenty-six peers against nineteen formed the feeble majority on the bill of attainder.[ ] it may be observed that the house of commons acted in one respect with a generosity which the crown had never shown in any case of treason, by immediately passing a bill to relieve his children from the penalties of forfeiture and corruption of blood. it is undoubtedly a very important problem in political ethics, whether great offences against the commonwealth may not justly incur the penalty of death by a retrospective act of the legislature, which a tribunal restrained by known laws is not competent to inflict. bills of attainder had been by no means uncommon in england, especially under henry viii.; but generally when the crime charged might have been equally punished by law. they are less dangerous than to stretch the boundaries of a statute by arbitrary construction. nor do they seem to differ at all in principle from those bills of pains and penalties, which, in times of comparative moderation and tranquillity, have sometimes been thought necessary to visit some unforeseen and anomalous transgression beyond the reach of our penal code. there are many, indeed, whose system absolutely rejects all such retrospective punishment, either from the danger of giving too much scope to vindictive passion, or on some more abstract principle of justice. those who may incline to admit that the moral competence of the sovereign power to secure itself by the punishment of a heinous offender, even without the previous warning of law, is not to be denied, except by reasoning, which would shake the foundation of his right to inflict punishment in ordinary cases, will still be sensible of the mischief which any departure from stable rules, under the influence of the most public-spirited zeal, is likely to produce. the attainder of strafford could not be justifiable, unless it were necessary; nor necessary, if a lighter penalty would have been sufficient for the public security. this therefore becomes a preliminary question, upon which the whole mainly turns. it is one which does not seem to admit of a demonstrative answer; but with which we can perhaps deal better than those who lived at that time. their distrust of the king, their apprehension that nothing less than the delinquent minister's death could ensure them from his return to power, rendered the leaders of parliament obstinate against any proposition of a mitigated penalty. nor can it be denied that there are several instances in history, where the favourites of monarchs, after a transient exile or imprisonment, have returned, on some fresh wave of fortune, to mock or avenge themselves upon their adversaries. yet the prosperous condition of the popular party, which nothing but intemperate passion was likely to impair, rendered this contingency by no means probable; and it is against probable dangers that nations should take precautions, without aiming at more complete security than the baffling uncertainties of events will permit. such was strafford's unpopularity, that he could never have gained any sympathy, but by the harshness of his condemnation and the magnanimity it enabled him to display. these have half redeemed his forfeit fame, and misled a generous posterity. it was agreed on all hands that any punishment which the law could award to the highest misdemeanours, duly proved on impeachment, must be justly inflicted. "i am still the same," said lord digby, in his famous speech against the bill of attainder, "in my opinions and affections, as unto the earl of strafford; i confidently believe him to be the most dangerous minister, the most insupportable of free subjects, that can be charactered. i believe him to be still that grand apostate to the commonwealth, who must not expect to be pardoned in this world till he be despatched to the other. and yet, let me tell you, mr. speaker, my hand must not be to that despatch."[ ] these sentiments, whatever we may think of the sincerity of him who uttered them, were common to many of those who desired most ardently to see that uniform course of known law, which neither the court's lust of power nor the clamorous indignation of a popular assembly might turn aside. the king, whose conscience was so deeply wounded by his acquiescence in this minister's death, would gladly have assented to a bill inflicting the penalty of perpetual banishment; and this, accompanied, as it ought to have been, by degradation from the rank for which he had sold his integrity, would surely have exhibited to europe an example sufficiently conspicuous of just retribution. though nothing perhaps could have restored a tolerable degree of confidence between charles and the parliament, it is certain that his resentment and aversion were much aggravated by the painful compulsion they had put on him, and that the schism among the constitutional party began from this, among other causes, to grow more sensible, till it terminated in civil war.[ ] but, if we pay such regard to the principles of clemency and moderation, and of adherence to the fixed rules of law, as to pass some censure on this deviation from them in the attainder of lord strafford, we must not yield to the clamorous invectives of his admirers, or treat the prosecution as a scandalous and flagitious excess of party vengeance. look round the nations of the globe, and say in what age or country would such a man have fallen into the hands of his enemies, without paying the forfeit of his offences against the commonwealth with his life. they who grasp at arbitrary power, they who make their fellow-citizens tremble before them, they who gratify a selfish pride by the humiliation and servitude of mankind, have always played a deep stake; and the more invidious and intolerable has been their pre-eminence, their fall has been more destructive, and their punishment more exemplary. something beyond the retirement or the dismissal of such ministers has seemed necessary to "absolve the gods," and furnish history with an awful lesson of retribution. the spontaneous instinct of nature has called for the axe and the gibbet against such capital delinquents. if then we blame, in some measure, the sentence against strafford, it is not for his sake, but for that of the laws on which he trampled, and of the liberty which he betrayed. he died justly before god and man, though we may deem the precedent dangerous, and the better course of a magnanimous lenity unwisely rejected; and in condemning the bill of attainder, we cannot look upon it as a crime. _act against dissolution of parliament without its consent._--the same distrustful temper, blamable in nothing but its excess, drew the house of commons into a measure more unconstitutional than the attainder of strafford, the bill enacting that they should not be dissolved without their own consent. whether or not this had been previously meditated by the leaders is uncertain; but the circumstances under which it was adopted display all the blind precipitancy of fear. a scheme for bringing up the army from the north of england to overawe parliament had been discoursed of, or rather in a great measure concerted, by some young courtiers and military men. the imperfection and indefiniteness of the evidence obtained respecting this plot increased, as often happens, the apprehensions of the commons. yet, difficult as it might be to fix its proper character between a loose project and a deliberate conspiracy, this at least was hardly to be denied, that the king had listened to and approved a proposal of appealing from the representatives of his people to a military force.[ ] their greatest danger was a sudden dissolution. the triennial bill afforded indeed a valuable security for the future. yet if the present parliament had been broken with any circumstances of violence, it might justly seem very hazardous to confide in the right of spontaneous election reserved to the people by that statute, which the crown would have three years to defeat. a rapid impulse, rather than any concerted resolution, appears to have dictated this hardy encroachment on the prerogative. the bill against the dissolution of the present parliament without its own consent was resolved in a committee on the fifth of may, brought in the next day, and sent to the lords on the seventh. the upper house, in a conference the same day, urged a very wise and constitutional amendment, limiting its duration to the term of two years. but the commons adhering to their original provisions, the bill was passed by both houses on the eighth.[ ] thus, in the space of three days from the first suggestion, an alteration was made in the frame of our polity, which rendered the house of commons equally independent of their sovereign and their constituents; and, if it could be supposed capable of being maintained in more tranquil times, would, in the theory at least of speculative politics, have gradually converted the government into something like a dutch aristocracy. the ostensible pretext was, that money could not be borrowed on the authority of resolutions of parliament, until some security was furnished to the creditors, that those whom they were to trust should have a permanent existence. this argument would have gone a great way, and was capable of an answer; since the money might have been borrowed on the authority of the whole legislature. but the chief motive, unquestionably, was a just apprehension of the king's intention to overthrow the parliament, and of personal danger to those who had stood most forward from his resentment after a dissolution. his ready acquiescence in this bill, far more dangerous than any of those at which he demurred, can only be ascribed to his own shame and the queen's consternation at the discovery of the late plot; and thus we trace again the calamities of charles to their two great sources; his want of judgment in affairs, and of good faith towards his people. _innovations meditated in the church._--the parliament had met with as ardent and just an indignation against ecclesiastical as temporal grievances. the tyranny, the folly, and rashness of charles's bishops were still greater than his own. it was evidently an indispensable duty to reduce the overbearing ascendancy of that order, which had rendered the nation, in regard to spiritual dominion, a great loser by the reformation. they had been so blindly infatuated, as even in the year , amidst all the perils of the times, to fill up the measure of public wrath by enacting a series of canons in convocation. these enjoined, or at least recommended, some of the modern innovations, which, though many excellent men had been persecuted for want of compliance with them, had not got the sanction of authority. they imposed an oath on the clergy, commonly called the _et cætera_ oath, binding them to attempt no alteration in the government of the church by bishops, deans, archdeacons, etc. this oath was by the same authority enjoined to such of the laity as held ecclesiastical offices.[ ] the king, however, on the petition of the council of peers at york, directed it not to be taken. the house of commons rescinded these canons with some degree of excess on the other side; not only denying the right of convocation to bind the clergy, which had certainly been exercised in all periods, but actually impeaching the bishops for a high misdemeanour on that account.[ ] the lords, in the month of march, appointed a committee of ten earls, ten bishops, and ten barons, to report upon the innovations lately brought into the church. of this committee williams was chairman. but the spirit which now possessed the commons was not to be exorcised by the sacrifice of laud and wren, or even by such inconsiderable alterations as the moderate bishops were ready to suggest.[ ] there had always existed a party, though by no means co-extensive with that bearing the general name of puritan, who retained an insuperable aversion to the whole scheme of episcopal discipline, as inconsistent with the ecclesiastical parity they believed to be enjoined by the apostles. it is not easy to determine what proportion these bore to the community. they were certainly at the opening of the parliament by far the less numerous, though an active and increasing party. few of the house of commons, according to clarendon and the best contemporary writers, looked to a destruction of the existing hierarchy.[ ] the more plausible scheme was one which had the sanction of usher's learned judgment, and which williams was said to favour, for what was called a moderate episcopacy; wherein the bishop, reduced to a sort of president of his college of presbyters, and differing from them only in rank, not in species (_gradu, non ordine_), should act, whether in ordination or jurisdiction, by their concurrence.[ ] this intermediate form of church-government would probably have contented the popular leaders of the commons, except two or three, and have proved acceptable to the nation. but it was hardly less offensive to the scottish presbyterians, intolerant of the smallest deviation from their own model, than to the high-church episcopalians; and the necessity of humouring that proud and prejudiced race of people, who began already to show that an alteration in the church of england would be their stipulated condition for any assistance they might afford to the popular party, led the majority of the house of commons to give more countenance than they sincerely intended to a bill, preferred by what was then called the root and branch party, for the entire abolition of episcopacy. this party, composed chiefly of presbyterians, but with no small admixture of other sectaries, predominated in the city of london. at the instigation of the scots commissioners, a petition against episcopal government with , signatures was presented early in the session (dec. , ), and received so favourably as to startle those who bore a good affection to the church.[ ] this gave rise to the first difference that was expressed in parliament: digby speaking warmly against the reference of this petition to a committee, and falkland, though strenuous for reducing the prelates' authority, showing much reluctance to abolish their order.[ ] a bill was however brought in by sir edward dering, an honest but not very enlightened or consistent man, for the utter extirpation of episcopacy, and its second reading carried on a division by to .[ ] this, no doubt, seems to show the anti-episcopal party to have been stronger than clarendon admits. yet i suspect that the greater part of those who voted for it did not intend more than to intimidate the bishops. petitions very numerously signed, for the maintenance of episcopal government, were presented from several counties;[ ] nor is it, i think, possible to doubt that the nation sought only the abridgment of that coercive jurisdiction and temporal power, by which the bishops had forfeited the reverence due to their function, as well as that absolute authority over presbyters, which could not be reconciled to the customs of the primitive church.[ ] this was the object both of the act abolishing the high commission, which, by the largeness of its expressions, seemed to take away all coercive jurisdiction from the ecclesiastical courts, and of that for depriving the bishops of their suffrages among the peers; which, after being once rejected by a large majority of the lords in june , passed into a law in the month of february following, and was the latest concession that the king made before his final appeal to arms.[ ] this was hardly perhaps a greater alteration of the established constitution than had resulted from the suppression of the monasteries under henry; when, by the fall of the mitred abbots, the secular peers acquired a preponderance in number over the spiritual which they had not previously enjoyed. it was supported by several persons, especially lord falkland, by no means inclined to subvert the episcopal discipline; whether from a hope to compromise better with the opposite party by this concession, or from a sincere belief that the bishops might be kept better to the duties of their function by excluding them from civil power. considered generally, it may be reckoned a doubtful question in the theory of our government, whether the mixture of this ecclesiastical aristocracy with the house of lords is advantageous or otherwise to the public interests, or to those of religion. their great revenues, and the precedence allotted them, seem naturally to place them on this level; and the general property of the clergy, less protected than that of other classes against the cupidity of an administration or a faction, may perhaps require this peculiar security. in fact, the disposition of the english to honour the ministers of the church, as well as to respect the ancient institutions of their country, has usually been so powerful, that the question would hardly have been esteemed dubious, if the bishops themselves (i speak of course with such limitations as the nature of the case requires) had been at all times sufficiently studious to maintain a character of political independence, or even to conceal a spirit of servility, which the pernicious usage of continual translations from one see to another, borrowed, like many other parts of our ecclesiastical law, from the most corrupt period of the church of rome, has had so manifest a tendency to engender. the spirit of ecclesiastical, rather than civil, democracy, was the first sign of the approaching storm that alarmed the hertfords and southamptons, the hydes and falklands. attached to the venerable church of the english reformation, they were loth to see the rashness of some prelates avenged by her subversion, or a few recent innovations repressed by incomparably more essential changes. full of regard for established law, and disliking the puritan bitterness, aggravated as it was by long persecution, they revolted from the indecent devastation committed in churches by the populace, and from the insults which now fell on the conforming ministers. the lords early distinguished their temper as to those points by an order on the th of january for the performance of divine service according to law, in consequence of the tumults that had been caused by the heated puritans under pretence of abolishing innovations. little regard was shown to this order;[ ] but it does not appear that the commons went farther on the opposite side than to direct some ceremonial novelties to be discontinued, and to empower one of their members, sir robert harley, to take away all pictures, crosses, and superstitious figures within churches or without.[ ] but this order, like many of their other acts, was a manifest encroachment on the executive power of the crown.[ ] _schism in the constitutional party._--it seems to have been about the time of the summer recess, during the king's absence in scotland, that the apprehension of changes in church and state far beyond what had been dreamed of at the opening of parliament, led to a final schism in the constitutional party.[ ] charles, by abandoning his former advisers, and yielding, with just as much reluctance as displayed the value of the concession, to a series of laws that abridged his prerogative, had recovered a good deal of the affection and confidence of some, and gained from others that sympathy which is seldom withheld from undeserving princes in their humiliation. though the ill-timed death of the earl of bedford in may had partly disappointed an intended arrangement for bringing the popular leaders into office, yet the appointments of essex, holland, say, and st. john from that party were apparently pledges of the king's willingness to select his advisers from their ranks; whatever cause there might be to suspect that their real influence over him would be too inconsiderable.[ ] those who were still excluded, and who distrusted the king's intentions as well towards themselves as the public cause, of whom pym and hampden, with the assistance of st. john, though actually solicitor-general, were the chief, found no better means of keeping alive the animosity that was beginning to subside, than by framing the remonstrance on the state of the kingdom, presented to the king in november . this being a recapitulation of all the grievances and misgovernment that had existed since his accession, which his acquiescence in so many measures of redress ought, according to the common courtesy due to sovereigns, to have cancelled, was hardly capable of answering any other purpose than that of re-animating discontents almost appeased, and guarding the people against the confidence they were beginning to place in the king's sincerity. the promoters of it might also hope from charles's proud and hasty temper that he would reply in such a tone as would more exasperate the commons. but he had begun to use the advice of judicious men, falkland, hyde, and colepepper, and reined in his natural violence so as to give his enemies no advantage over him. the jealousy, which nations ought never to lay aside, was especially required towards charles, whose love of arbitrary dominion was much better proved than his sincerity in relinquishing it. but if he were intended to reign at all, and to reign with any portion either of the prerogatives of an english king, or the respect claimed by every sovereign, the remonstrance of the commons could but prolong an irritation incompatible with public tranquillity. it admits indeed of no question, that the schemes of pym, hampden, and st. john, already tended to restrain the king's personal exercise of any effective power, from a sincere persuasion that no confidence could ever be placed in him, though not to abolish the monarchy, or probably to abridge in the same degree the rights of his successor. their remonstrance was put forward to stem the returning tide of loyalty, which not only threatened to obstruct the further progress of their endeavours, but, as they would allege, might, by gaining strength, wash away some at least of the bulwarks that had been so recently constructed for the preservation of liberty. it was carried in a full house by the small majority of to .[ ] so much was it deemed a trial of strength, that cromwell declared after the division that, had the question been lost, he would have sold his estate, and retired to america. _suspicions of the king's sincerity._--it may be thought rather surprising that, with a house of commons so nearly balanced as they appeared on this vote, the king should have new demands that annihilated his authority made upon him, and have found a greater majority than had voted the remonstrance ready to oppose him by arms; especially as that paper contained little but what was true, and might rather be censured as an ill-timed provocation than an encroachment on the constitutional prerogative. but there were circumstances, both of infelicity and misconduct, which aggravated that distrust whereon every measure hostile to him was grounded. his imprudent connivance at popery, and the far more reprehensible encouragement given to it by his court, had sunk deep in the hearts of his people. his ill-wishers knew how to irritate the characteristic sensibility of the english on this topic. the queen, unpopular on the score of her imputed arbitrary counsels, was odious as a maintainer of idolatry.[ ] the lenity shown to convicted popish priests, who, though liable to capital punishment, had been suffered to escape with sometimes a very short imprisonment, was naturally (according to the maxims of those times) treated as a grievance by the commons, who petitioned for the execution of one goodman and others in similar circumstances, perhaps in the hope that the king would attempt to shelter them. but he dexterously left it to the house whether they should die or not; and none of them actually suffered.[ ] rumours of pretended conspiracies by the catholics were perpetually in circulation, and rather unworthily encouraged by the chiefs of the commons. more substantial motives for alarm appeared to arise from the obscure transaction in scotland, commonly called the incident, which looked so like a concerted design against the two great leaders of the constitutional party, hamilton and argyle, that it was not unnatural to anticipate something similar in england.[ ] in the midst of these apprehensions, as if to justify every suspicion and every severity, burst out the irish rebellion with its attendant massacre. though nothing could be more unlikely in itself, or less supported by proof, than the king's connivance at this calamity, from which every man of common understanding could only expect, what actually resulted from it, a terrible aggravation of his difficulties, yet, with that distrustful temper of the english, and their jealous dread of popery, he was never able to conquer their suspicions that he had either instigated the rebellion, or was very little solicitous to suppress it; suspicions indeed, to which, however ungrounded at this particular period, some circumstances that took place afterwards gave an apparent confirmation.[ ] it was, perhaps, hardly practicable for the king, had he given less real excuse for it than he did, to lull that disquietude which so many causes operated to excite. the most circumspect discretion of a prince in such a difficult posture cannot restrain the rashness of eager adherents, or silence the murmurs of a discontented court. those nearest charles's person, and who always possessed too much of his confidence, were notoriously and naturally averse to the recent changes. their threatening but idle speeches, and impotent denunciations of resentment, conveyed with malignant exaggeration among the populace, provoked those tumultuous assemblages, which afforded the king no bad pretext for withdrawing himself from a capital where his personal dignity was so little respected.[ ] it is impossible, however, to deny that he gave by his own conduct no trifling reasons for suspicion, and last of all by the appointment of lunsford to the government of the tower; a choice for which, as it would never have been made from good motives, it was natural to seek the worst.[ ] but the single false step which rendered his affairs irretrievable by anything short of civil war, and placed all reconciliation at an insuperable distance, was his attempt to seize the five members within the walls of the house; an evident violation, not of common privilege, but of all security for the independent existence of parliament in the mode of its execution, and leading to a very natural though perhaps mistaken surmise, that the charge itself of high treason made against these distinguished leaders, without communicating any of its grounds, had no other foundation than their parliamentary conduct. and we are in fact warranted by the authority of the queen herself to assert that their aim in this most secret enterprise was to strike terror into the parliament, and regain the power that had been wrested from their grasp.[ ] it is unnecessary to dwell on a measure so well known, and which scarce any of the king's advocates have defended. the only material subject it affords for reflection is, how far the manifest hostility of charles to the popular chiefs might justify them in rendering it harmless by wresting the sword out of his hands. no man doubtless has a right, for the sake only of his own security, to subvert his country's laws, or to plunge her into civil war. but hampden, hollis, and pym might not absurdly consider the defence of english freedom bound up in their own, assailed as they were for its sake and by its enemies. it is observed by clarendon that "mr. hampden was much altered after this accusation; his nature and courage seeming much fiercer than before." and it is certain that both he and mr. pym were not only most forward in all the proceedings which brought on the war, but among the most implacable opponents of all overtures towards reconciliation; so that although both dying in , we cannot pronounce with absolute certainty as to their views, there can be little room to doubt that they would have adhered to the side of cromwell and st. john, in the great separation of the parliamentary party. the noble historian confesses that not hampden alone, but the generality of those who were beginning to judge more favourably of the king, had their inclinations alienated by this fatal act of violence.[ ] it is worthy of remark that each of the two most striking encroachments on the king's prerogative sprung directly from the suspicions roused of an intention to destroy their privileges: the bill perpetuating the parliament having been hastily passed on the discovery of percy's and jermyn's conspiracy, and the present attempt on the five members inducing the commons to insist peremptorily on vesting the command of the militia in persons of their own nomination; a security, indeed, at which they had been less openly aiming from the time of that conspiracy, and particularly of late.[ ] every one knows that this was the grand question upon which the quarrel finally rested; but it may be satisfactory to show more precisely than our historians have generally done, what was meant by the power of the militia, and what was the exact ground of dispute in this respect between charles i. and his parliament. _historical sketch of the military force in england._--the military force which our ancient constitution had placed in the hands of its chief magistrate and those deriving authority from him, may be classed under two descriptions; one principally designed to maintain the king's and the nation's rights abroad, the other to protect them at home from attack or disturbance. the first comprehends the tenures by knight's service, which, according to the constant principles of a feudal monarchy, bound the owners of lands thus held from the crown, to attend the king in war, within or without the realm, mounted and armed, during the regular term of service. their own vassals were obliged by the same law to accompany them. but the feudal service was limited to forty days, beyond which time they could be retained only by their own consent, and at the king's expense. the military tenants were frequently called upon in expeditions against scotland, and last of all in that of ; but the short duration of their legal service rendered it of course nearly useless in continental warfare. even when they formed the battle, or line of heavy armed cavalry, it was necessary to complete the army by recruits of foot-soldiers, whom feudal tenure did not regularly supply, and whose importance was soon made sensible by their skill in our national weapon, the bow. what was the extent of the king's lawful prerogative for two centuries or more after the conquest as to compelling any of his subjects to serve him in foreign war, independently of the obligations of tenure, is a question scarcely to be answered; since, knowing so imperfectly the boundaries of constitutional law in that period, we have little to guide us but precedents; and precedents, in such times, are apt to be much more records of power than of right. we find certainly several instances under edward i. and edward ii., sometimes of proclamations to the sheriffs, directing them to notify to all persons of sufficient estate that they must hold themselves ready to attend the king whenever he should call on them, sometimes of commissions to particular persons in different counties, who are enjoined to choose and array a competent number of horse and foot for the king's service.[ ] but these levies being of course vexatious to the people, and contrary at least to the spirit of those immunities which, under the shadow of the great charter, they were entitled to enjoy, edward iii., on the petition of his first parliament, who judged that such compulsory service either was, or ought to be rendered illegal, passed a remarkable act, with the simple brevity of those times: "that no man from henceforth shall be charged to arm himself, otherwise than he was wont in the time of his progenitors the kings of england; and that no man be compelled to go out of his shire, but where necessity requireth, and sudden coming of strange enemies into the realm; and then it shall be done as hath been used in times past for the defence of the realm."[ ] this statute, by no means of inconsiderable importance in our constitutional history, put a stop for some ages to these arbitrary conscriptions. but edward had recourse to another means of levying men without his own cost, by calling on the counties and principal towns to furnish a certain number of troops. against this the parliament provided a remedy by an act in the th year of his reign: "that no man shall be constrained to find men at arms, hoblers, nor archers, other than those who hold by such service, if it be not by common consent and grant in parliament." both these statutes were recited and confirmed in the fourth year of henry iv.[ ] the successful resistance thus made by parliament appears to have produced the discontinuance of compulsory levies for foreign warfare. edward iii. and his successors, in their long contention with france, resorted to the mode of recruiting by contracts with men of high rank or military estimation, whose influence was greater probably than that of the crown towards procuring voluntary enlistments. their pay, as stipulated in such of those contracts as are extant, was extremely high; but it secured the service of a brave and vigorous yeomanry. under the house of tudor, in conformity to their more despotic scheme of government, the salutary enactments of former times came to be disregarded; henry viii. and elizabeth sometimes compelling the counties to furnish soldiers: and the prerogative of pressing men for military service, even out of the kingdom, having not only become as much established as undisputed usage could make it, but acquiring no slight degree of sanction by an act passed under philip and mary, which, without repealing or adverting to the statutes of edward iii. and henry iv., recognises, as it seems, the right of the crown to levy men for service in war, and imposes penalties on persons absenting themselves from musters commanded by the king's authority to be held for that purpose.[ ] clarendon, whose political heresies sprang in a great measure from his possessing but a very imperfect knowledge of our ancient constitution, speaks of the act that declared the pressing of soldiers illegal, though exactly following, even in its language, that of edward iii., as contrary to the usage and custom of all times. it is scarcely perhaps necessary to observe that there had never been any regular army kept up in england. henry vii. established the yeomen of the guard in , solely for the defence of his person, and rather perhaps, even at that time, to be considered as the king's domestic servants, than as soldiers. their number was at first fifty, and seems never to have exceeded two hundred. a kind of regular troops, however, chiefly accustomed to the use of artillery, was maintained in the very few fortified places where it was thought necessary or practicable to keep up the show of defence; the tower of london, portsmouth, the castle of dover, the fort of tilbury, and, before the union of the crowns, berwick and some other places on the scottish border. i have met with very little as to the nature of these garrisons. but their whole number must have been insignificant, and probably at no time equal to resist any serious attack. we must take care not to confound this strictly military force, serving, whether by virtue of tenure or engagement, wheresoever it should be called, with that of a more domestic and defensive character to which alone the name of militia was usually applied. by the anglo-saxon laws, or rather by one of the primary and indispensable conditions of political society, every freeholder, if not every freeman, was bound to defend his country against hostile invasion. it appears that the alderman or earl, while those titles continued to imply the government of a county, was the proper commander of this militia. henry ii., in order to render it more effective in cases of emergency, and perhaps with a view to extend its service, enacted, by consent of parliament, that every freeman, according to the value of his estate or movables, should hold himself constantly furnished with suitable arms and equipments.[ ] by the statute of winchester, in the th year of edward i., these provisions were enforced and extended. every man, between the ages of fifteen and sixty, was to be assessed, and sworn to keep armour according to the value of his lands and goods; for fifteen pounds and upwards in rent, or forty marks in goods, a hauberk, an iron breastplate, a sword, a knife, and a horse; for smaller property, less expensive arms. a view of this armour was to be taken twice in the year, by constables chosen in every hundred.[ ] these regulations appear by the context of the whole statute to have more immediate regard to the preservation of internal peace, by suppressing tumults and arresting robbers, than to the actual defence of the realm against hostile invasion; a danger not at that time very imminent. the sheriff, as chief conservator of public peace and minister of the law, had always possessed the right of summoning the _posse comitatûs_; that is, of calling on all the king's liege subjects within his jurisdiction for assistance, in case of any rebellion or tumultuous rising, or when bands of robbers infested the public ways, or when, as occurred very frequently, the execution of legal process was forcibly obstructed. it seems to have been in the policy of that wise prince, to whom we are indebted for so many signal improvements in our law, to give a more effective and permanent energy to this power of the sheriff. the provisions, however, of the statute of winton, so far as they obliged every proprietor to possess suitable arms, were of course applicable to national defence. in seasons of public danger, threatening invasion from the side of scotland or france, it became customary to issue commissions of array, empowering those to whom they were addressed to muster and train all men capable of bearing arms in the counties to which their commission extended, and hold them in readiness to defend the kingdom. the earliest of these commissions that i find in rymer is of , and the latest of . the obligation of keeping sufficient arms according to each man's estate was preserved by a statute of philip and mary, which made some changes in the rate and proportion as well as the kind of arms.[ ] but these ancient provisions were abrogated by james in his first parliament.[ ] the nation, become for ever secure from invasion on the quarter where the militia service had been most required, and freed from the other dangers which had menaced the throne of elizabeth, gladly saw itself released from an expensive obligation. the government again may be presumed to have thought that weapons of offence were safer in its hands than in those of its subjects. magazines of arms were formed in different places, and generally in each county:[ ] but, if we may reason from the absence of documents, there was little regard to military array and preparation; save that the citizens of london mustered their trained bands on holidays, an institution that is said to have sprung out of a voluntary association, called the artillery company, formed in the reign of henry viii. for the encouragement of archery, and acquiring a more respectable and martial character at the time of the spanish armada.[ ] the power of calling into arms, and mustering the population of each county, given in earlier times to the sheriff or justices of the peace or to special commissioners of array, began to be entrusted, in the reign of mary, to a new officer, entitled the lord lieutenant. this was usually a peer, or at least a gentleman of large estate within the county, whose office gave him the command of the militia, and rendered him the chief vicegerent of his sovereign, responsible for the maintenance of public order. this institution may be considered as a revival of the ancient local earldom; and it certainly took away from the sheriff a great part of the dignity and importance which he had acquired since the discontinuance of that office. yet the lord lieutenant has so peculiarly military an authority, that it does not in any degree control the civil power of the sheriff as the executive minister of the law. in certain cases, such as a tumultuous obstruction of legal authority, each might be said to possess an equal power; the sheriff being still undoubtedly competent to call out the _posse comitatûs_ in order to enforce obedience. practically, however, in all serious circumstances, the lord lieutenant has always been reckoned the efficient and responsible guardian of public tranquillity. from an attentive consideration of this sketch of our military law, it will strike the reader that the principal question to be determined was, whether, in time of peace, without pretext of danger of invasion, there were any legal authority that could direct the mustering and training to arms of the able-bodied men in each county, usually denominated the militia. if the power existed at all, it manifestly resided in the king. the notion that either or both houses of parliament, who possess no portion of executive authority, could take on themselves one of its most peculiar and important functions, was so preposterous that we can scarcely give credit to the sincerity of any reasonable person who advanced it. in the imminent peril of hostile invasion, in the case of intestine rebellion, there seems to be no room for doubt that the king who could call on his subjects to bear arms for their country and laws, could oblige them to that necessary discipline and previous training, without which their service would be unavailing. it might also be urged that he was the proper judge of the danger. but that, in a season of undeniable tranquillity, he could withdraw his subjects from their necessary labours against their consent, even for the important end of keeping up the use of military discipline, is what, with our present sense of the limitations of royal power it might be difficult to affirm. the precedents under henry viii. and elizabeth were numerous; but not to mention that many, perhaps most of these, might come under the class of preparations against invasion, where the royal authority was not to be doubted, they could be no stronger than those other precedents for pressing and mustering soldiers, which had been declared illegal. there were at least so many points uncertain, and some wherein the prerogative was plainly deficient, such as the right of marching the militia out of their own counties, taken away, if it had before existed, by the act just passed against pressing soldiers, that the concurrence of the whole legislature seemed requisite to place so essential a matter as the public defence on a secure and permanent footing.[ ] _encroachments of the parliament._--the aim of the houses, however, in the bill for regulating the militia, presented to charles in february , and his refusal to pass which led by rapid steps to the civil war, was not so much to remove those uncertainties by a general provision (for in effect they left them much as before), as to place the command of the sword in the hands of those they could control;--nominating in the bill the lords lieutenant of every county, who were to obey the orders of the two houses, and to be irremovable by the king for two years. no one can pretend that this was not an encroachment on his prerogative.[ ] it can only find a justification in the precarious condition, as the commons asserted it to be, of those liberties they had so recently obtained, in their just persuasion of the king's insincerity, and in the demonstrations he had already made of an intention to win back his authority at the sword's point.[ ] but it is equitable, on the other hand, to observe that the commons had by no means greater reason to distrust the faith of charles, than he had to anticipate fresh assaults from them on the power he had inherited, on the form of religion which alone he thought lawful, on the counsellors who had served him most faithfully, and on the nearest of his domestic ties. if the right of self-defence could be urged by parliament for this demand of the militia, must we not admit that a similar plea was equally valid for the king's refusal? however arbitrary and violent the previous government of charles may have been, however disputable his sincerity at present, it is vain to deny, that he had made the most valuable concessions, and such as had cost him very dear. he had torn away from his diadem what all monarchs would deem its choicest jewel, that high attribute of uncontrollable power, by which their flatterers have in all ages told them they resemble and represent the divinity. he had seen those whose counsels he had best approved, rewarded with exile or imprisonment, and had incurred the deep reproach of his own heart by the sacrifice of strafford. he had just now given a reluctant assent to the extinction of one estate of parliament, by the bill excluding bishops from the house of peers. even in this business of the militia, he would have consented to nominate the persons recommended to him as lieutenants, by commissions revocable at his pleasure; or would have passed the bill rendering them irremovable for one year, provided they might receive their orders from himself and the two houses jointly.[ ] it was not unreasonable for the king to pause at the critical moment which was to make all future denial nugatory, and enquire whether the prevailing majority designed to leave him what they had not taken away. but he was not long kept in uncertainty upon this score. the nineteen propositions tendered to him at york in the beginning of june, and founded upon addresses and declarations of a considerably earlier date,[ ] went to abrogate in spirit the whole existing constitution, and were in truth so far beyond what the king could be expected to grant, that terms, more intolerable were scarcely proposed to him in his greatest difficulties, not at uxbridge, nor at newcastle, nor even at newport. these famous propositions import that the privy council and officers of state should be approved by parliament, and take such an oath as the two houses should prescribe; that during the intervals of parliament, no vacancy in the council should be supplied without the assent of the major part, subject to the future sanction of the two houses; that the education and marriages of the king's children should be under parliamentary control; the votes of popish peers to be taken away; the church government and liturgy be reformed as both houses should advise; the militia and all fortified places put in such hands as parliament should approve; finally, that the king should pass a bill for restraining all peers to be made in future from sitting in parliament, unless they be admitted with the consent of both houses. a few more laudable provisions, such as that the judges should hold their offices during good behaviour, which the king had long since promised,[ ] were mixed up with these strange demands. even had the king complied with such unconstitutional requisitions, there was one behind, which, though they had not advanced it on this occasion, was not likely to be forgotten. it had been asserted by the house of commons in their last remonstrance, that, on a right construction of the old coronation oath, the king was bound to assent to all bills which the two houses of parliament should offer.[ ] it has been said by some that this was actually the constitution of scotland, where the crown possessed a counterbalancing influence; but such a doctrine was in this country as repugnant to the whole history of our laws, as it was incompatible with the subsistence of the monarchy in anything more than a nominal pre-eminence. _discussion of the respective claims of the two parties to support._--in weighing the merits of this great contest, in judging whether a thoroughly upright and enlightened man would rather have listed under the royal or parliamentary standard, there are two political postulates, the concession of which we may require: one, that civil war is such a calamity as nothing but the most indispensable necessity can authorise any party to bring on; the other, that the mixed government of england by king, lords, and commons, was to be maintained in preference to any other form of polity. the first of these can hardly be disputed; and though the denial of the second would certainly involve no absurdity, yet it may justly be assumed where both parties avowed their adherence to it as a common principle. such as prefer a despotic or a republican form of government will generally, without much further enquiry, have made their election between charles the first and the parliament. we do not argue from the creed of the english constitution to those who have abandoned its communion. _faults of both._--there was so much in the conduct and circumstances of both parties in the year , to excite disapprobation and distrust, that a wise and good man could hardly unite cordially with either of them. on the one hand, he would entertain little doubt of the king's desire to overthrow by force or stratagem whatever had been effected in parliament, and to establish a plenary despotism; his arbitrary temper, his known principles of government, the natural sense of wounded pride and honour, the instigations of a haughty woman, the solicitations of favourites, the promises of ambitious men, were all at work to render his new position as a constitutional sovereign, even if unaccompanied by fresh indignities and encroachments, too grievous and mortifying to be endured. he had already tampered in a conspiracy to overawe, if not to disperse, the parliament; he had probably obtained large promises, though very little to be trusted, from several of the presbyterian leaders in scotland during his residence there in the summer of ; he had attempted to recover his ascendancy by a sudden blow in the affair of the five members; he had sent the queen out of england, furnished with the crown-jewels, for no other probable end than to raise men and procure arms in foreign countries;[ ] he was now about to take the field with an army, composed in part of young gentlemen disdainful of a puritan faction that censured their licence, and of those soldiers of fortune, reckless of public principle, and averse to civil control, whom the war in germany had trained, and partly of the catholics, a wealthy and active body devoted to the crown, from which alone they had experienced justice or humanity, and from whose favour and gratitude they now expected the most splendid returns. upon neither of these parties could a lover of his country and her liberties look without alarm; and though he might derive more hope from those better spirits who had withstood the prerogative in its exorbitance, as they now sustained it in its decline, yet it could not be easy to foretell that they would preserve sufficient influence to keep steady the balance of power, in the contingency of any decisive success of the royal arms. but, on the other hand, the house of commons presented still less favourable prospects. we should not indeed judge over severely some acts of a virtuous indignation in the first moments of victory,[ ] or those heats of debate, without some excesses of which a popular assembly is in danger of falling into the opposite extreme of phlegmatic security. but, after every allowance has been made, he must bring very heated passions to the records of those times, who does not perceive in the conduct of that body a series of glaring violations, not only of positive and constitutional, but of those higher principles which are paramount to all immediate policy. witness the ordinance for disarming recusants passed by both houses in august , and that in november, authorising the earl of leicester to raise men for the defence of ireland without warrant under the great seal; both manifest encroachments on the executive power;[ ] and the enormous extension of privilege, under which every person accused on the slightest testimony of disparaging their proceedings, or even of introducing new-fangled ceremonies in the church, a matter wholly out of their cognisance, was dragged before them as a delinquent, and lodged in their prison.[ ] witness the outrageous attempts to intimidate the minority of their own body in the commitment of mr. palmer, and afterwards of sir ralph hopton, to the tower, for such language used in debate as would not have excited any observation in ordinary times;--their continual encroachments on the rights and privileges of the lords, as in their intimation that, if bills thought by them necessary for the public good should fall in the upper house, they must join with the minority of the lords in representing the same to the king;[ ] or in the impeachment of the duke of richmond for words, and those of the most trifling nature, spoken in the upper house;[ ]--their despotic violation of the rights of the people, in imprisoning those who presented or prepared respectful petitions in behalf of the established constitution,[ ] while they encouraged those of a tumultuous multitude at their bar in favour of innovation;[ ]--their usurpation at once of the judicial and legislative powers in all that related to the church, particularly by their committee for scandalous ministers, under which denomination, adding reproach to injury, they subjected all who did not reach the standard of puritan perfection to contumely and vexation, and ultimately to expulsion from their lawful property.[ ] witness the impeachment of the twelve bishops for treason, on account of their protestation against all that should be done in the house of lords during their compelled absence through fear of the populace; a protest not perhaps entirely well expressed, but abundantly justifiable in its argument by the plainest principles of law.[ ] these great abuses of power, becoming daily more frequent, as they became less excusable, would make a sober man hesitate to support them in a civil war, wherein their success must not only consummate the destruction of the crown, the church, and the peerage, but expose all who had dissented from their proceedings, as it ultimately happened, to an oppression less severe perhaps, but far more sweeping, than that which had rendered the star-chamber odious. but it may reasonably also be doubted whether, in staking their own cause on the perilous contingencies of war, the house of commons did not expose the liberties for which they professedly were contending, to a far greater risk than they could have incurred even from peace with an insidious court. for let any one ask himself what would have been the condition of the parliament, if by the extension of that panic which in fact seized upon several regiments, or by any of those countless accidents which determine the fate of battles, the king had wholly defeated their army at edgehill? is it not probable, nay, in such a supposition, almost demonstrable, that in those first days of the civil war, before the parliament had time to discover the extent of its own resources, he would have found no obstacle to his triumphal entry into london? and, in such circumstances, amidst the defection of the timid and lukewarm, the consternation of the brawling multitude, and the exultation of his victorious troops, would the triennial act itself, or those other statutes which he had very reluctantly conceded, have stood secure? or, if we believe that the constitutional supporters of his throne, the hertfords, the falklands, the southamptons, the spencers, would still have had sufficient influence to shield from violent hands that palladium which they had assisted to place in the building, can there be a stronger argument against the necessity of taking up arms for the defence of liberties, which, even in the contingency of defeat, could not have been subverted? there were many indeed at that time, as there have been ever since, who, admitting all the calamities incident to civil war, of which this country reaped the bitter fruits for twenty years, denied entirely that the parliament went beyond the necessary precautions for self-defence, and laid the whole guilt of the aggression at the king's door. he had given, it was said, so many proofs of a determination to have recourse to arms, he had displayed so insidious an hostility to the privileges of parliament, that, if he should be quietly allowed to choose and train soldiers, under the name of a militia, through hired servants of his own nomination, the people might find themselves either robbed of their liberties by surprise, or compelled to struggle for them in very unfavourable circumstances. the commons, with more loyal respect perhaps than policy, had opposed no obstacle to his deliberate journey towards the north, which they could have easily prevented,[ ] though well aware that he had no other aim but to collect an army; was it more than ordinary prudence to secure the fortified town of hull with its magazine of arms from his grasp, and to muster the militia in each county under the command of lieutenants in whom they could confide, and to whom, from their rank and personal character, he could frame no just objection? these considerations are doubtless not without weight, and should restrain such as may not think them sufficient from too strongly censuring those, who, deeming that either civil liberty or the ancient constitution must be sacrificed, persisted in depriving charles the first of every power, which, though pertaining to a king of england, he could not be trusted to exercise. we are, in truth, after a lapse of ages, often able to form a better judgment of the course that ought to have been pursued in political emergencies than those who stood nearest to the scene. not only we have our knowledge of the event to guide and correct our imaginary determinations; but we are free from those fallacious rumours, those pretended secrets, those imperfect and illusive views, those personal prepossessions, which in every age warp the political conduct of the most well-meaning. the characters of individuals, so frequently misrepresented by flattery or party rage, stand out to us revealed by the tenor of their entire lives, or by the comparison of historical anecdotes, and that more authentic information which is reserved for posterity. looking as it were from an eminence, we can take a more comprehensive range, and class better the objects before us in their due proportions and in their bearings on one another. it is not easy for us even now to decide, keeping in view the maintenance of the entire constitution, from which party in the civil war greater mischief was to be apprehended; but the election was, i am persuaded, still more difficult to be made by contemporaries. no one, at least, who has given any time to the study of that history, will deny that among those who fought in opposite battalions at edgehill and newbury, or voted in the opposite parliaments of westminster and oxford, there were many who thought much alike on general theories of prerogative and privilege, divided only perhaps by some casual prejudices, which had led these to look with greater distrust on courtly insidiousness, and those with greater indignation at popular violence. we cannot believe that falkland and colepepper differed greatly in their constitutional principles from whitelock and pierpoint, or that hertford and southamption were less friends to a limited monarchy than essex and northumberland. there is, however, another argument sometimes alleged of late, in justification of the continued attacks on the king's authority; which is the most specious, as it seems to appeal to what are now denominated the whig principles of the constitution. it has been said that, sensible of the maladministration the nation had endured for so many years (which, if the king himself were to be deemed by constitutional fiction ignorant of it, must at least be imputed to evil advisers), the house of commons sought only that security which, as long as a sound spirit continues to actuate its members, it must ever require--the appointment of ministers in whose fidelity to the public liberties it could better confide; that by carrying frankly into effect those counsels which he had unwisely abandoned upon the earl of bedford's death, and bestowing the responsible offices of the state on men approved for patriotism, he would both have disarmed the jealousy of his subjects and ensured his own prerogative, which no ministers are prone to impair. those who are struck by these considerations may not, perhaps, have sufficiently reflected on the changes which the king had actually made in his administration since the beginning of the parliament. besides those already mentioned, essex, holland, say, and st. john, he had, in the autumn of , conferred the post of secretary of state on lord falkland, and that of master of the rolls on sir john colepepper; both very prominent in the redress of grievances and punishment of delinquent ministers during the first part of the session, and whose attachment to the cause of constitutional liberty there was no sort of reason to distrust. they were indeed in some points of a different way of thinking from pym and hampden, and had doubtless been chosen by the king on that account. but it seems rather beyond the legitimate bounds of parliamentary opposition to involve the kingdom in civil war, simply because the choice of the crown has not fallen on its leaders. the real misfortune was, that charles did not rest in the advice of his own responsible ministers, against none of whom the house of commons had any just cause of exception. the theory of our constitution in this respect was very ill-established; and, had it been more so, there are perhaps few sovereigns, especially in circumstances of so much novelty, who would altogether conform to it. but no appointment that he could have made from the patriotic bands of parliament would have furnished a security against the intrigues of his bed-chamber or the influence of the queen. the real problem that we have to resolve, as to the political justice of the civil war, is not the character, the past actions, or even the existing designs, of charles; not even whether he had as justly forfeited his crown as his son was deemed to have done for less violence and less insincerity; not even, i will add, whether the liberties of his subjects could have been absolutely secure under his government; but whether the risk attending his continuance upon the throne with the limited prerogatives of an english sovereign were great enough to counterbalance the miseries of protracted civil war, the perils of defeat, and the no less perils, as experience showed, of victory. those who adopt the words spoken by one of our greatest orators, and quoted by another, "there was ambition, there was sedition, there was violence; but no man shall persuade me that it was not the cause of liberty on one side, and of tyranny on the other," have for themselves decided this question.[ ] but, as i know (and the history of eighteen years is my witness) how little there was on one side of such liberty as a wise man would hold dear, so i am not yet convinced that the great body of the royalists, the peers and gentry of england, were combating for the sake of tyranny. i cannot believe them to have so soon forgotten their almost unanimous discontent at the king's arbitrary government in , or their general concurrence in the first salutary measures of the parliament. i cannot think that the temperate and constitutional language of the royal declarations and answers to the house of commons in , known to have proceeded from the pen of hyde, and as superior to those on the opposite side in argument as they were in eloquence, was intended for the willing slaves of tyranny. i cannot discover in the extreme reluctance of the royalists to take up arms, and their constant eagerness for an accommodation (i speak not of mere soldiers, but of the greater and more important portion of that party), that zeal for the king's re-establishment in all his abused prerogatives which some connect with the very names of a royalist or a cavalier.[ ] it is well observed by burnet, in answer to the vulgar notion that charles i. was undone by his concessions, that, but for his concessions, he would have had no party at all. this is, in fact, the secret of what seems to astonish the parliamentary historian, may, of the powerful force that the king was enabled to raise, and the protracted resistance he opposed. he had succeeded, according to the judgment of many real friends of the constitution, in putting the house of commons in the wrong. law, justice, moderation, once ranged against him, had gone over to his banner. his arms might reasonably be called defensive, if he had no other means of preserving himself from the condition, far worse than captivity, of a sovereign compelled to a sort of suicide upon his own honour and authority. for, however it may be alleged that a king is bound in conscience to sacrifice his power to the public will, yet it could hardly be inexcusable not to have practised this disinterested morality; especially while the voice of his people was by no means unequivocal, and while the major part of one house of parliament adhered openly to his cause.[ ] it is indeed a question perfectly distinguishable from that of the abstract justice of the king's cause, whether he did not too readily abandon his post as a constitutional head of the parliament; whether, with the greater part of the peers, and a very considerable minority in the commons, resisting in their places at westminster all violent encroachments on his rights, he ought not rather to have sometimes persisted in a temperate though firm assertion of them, sometimes had recourse to compromise and gracious concession, instead of calling away so many of his adherents to join his arms as left neither numbers nor credit with those who remained. there is a remarkable passage in lord clarendon's life, not to quote whitelock and other writers less favourable to charles, where he intimates his own opinion that the king would have had a fair hope of withstanding the more violent faction, if, after the queen's embarkation for holland in february , he had returned to whitehall; admitting, at the same time, the hazards and inconveniences to which this course was liable.[ ] that he resolved on trying the fortune of arms, his noble historian insinuates to have been the effect of the queen's influence, with whom, before her departure, he had concerted his future proceedings. yet, notwithstanding the deference owing to contemporary opinions, i cannot but suspect that clarendon has, in this instance as in some other passages, attached too great an importance to particular individuals, measuring them rather by their rank in the state, than by that capacity and energy of mind, which, in the levelling hour of revolution, are the only real pledges of political influence. he thought it of the utmost consequence to the king that he should gain over the earls of essex and northumberland, both, or at least the former, wavering between the two parties, though voting entirely with the commons. certainly the king's situation required every aid, and his repulsive hardness towards all who had ever given him offence displayed an obstinate unconciliating character, which deprived him of some support he might have received. but the subsequent history of these two celebrated earls, and indeed of all the moderate adherents to the parliament, will hardly lead us to believe that they could have afforded the king any protection. let us suppose that he had returned to whitehall, instead of proceeding towards the north. it is evident that he must either have passed the bill for the militia, or seen the ordinances of both houses carried into effect without his consent. he must have consented to the abolition of episcopacy, or at least have come into some compromise which would have left the bishops hardly a shadow of their jurisdiction and pre-eminence. he must have driven from his person those whom he best loved and trusted. he would have found it impossible to see again the queen, without awakening distrust and bringing insult on them both. the royalist minority of parliament, however considerable in numbers, was lukewarm and faint-hearted. that they should have gained strength so as to keep a permanent superiority over their adversaries, led as they were by statesmen so bold and profound as hampden, pym, st. john, cromwell, and vane, is what, from the experience of the last twelve months, it was unreasonable to anticipate. but, even if the commons had been more favourably inclined, it would not have been in their power to calm the mighty waters that had been moved from their depths. they had permitted the populace to mingle in their discussions, testifying pleasure at its paltry applause, and encouraging its tumultuous aggressions on the minority of the legislature. what else could they expect than that, so soon as they ceased to satisfy the city apprentices, or the trained bands raised under their militia bill, they must submit to that physical strength which is the ultimate arbiter of political contentions? thus, with evil auspices, with much peril of despotism on the one hand, with more of anarchy on the other, amidst the apprehensions and sorrows of good men, the civil war commenced in the summer of . i might now perhaps pass over the period that intervened, until the restoration of charles ii., as not strictly belonging to a work which undertakes to relate the progress of the english constitution. but this would have left a sort of chasm that might disappoint the reader; and as i have already not wholly excluded our more general political history, without a knowledge of which the laws and government of any people must be unintelligible, it will probably not be deemed an unnecessary digression, if i devote one chapter to the most interesting and remarkable portion of british history. footnotes: [ ] e. , c. . it appears by the journals, th dec. , that the triennial bill was originally for the yearly holding of parliaments. it seems to have been altered in the committee; at least we find the title changed, jan. . [ ] _parl. hist._ , ; stat. car. i, c. . [ ] c. . [ ] c. . the king had professed, in lord-keeper finch's speech on opening the parliament of april , that he had only taken tonnage and poundage _de facto_, without claiming it as a right, and had caused a bill to be prepared, granting it to him from the commencement of his reign. _parl. hist._ . see preface to hargrave's _collection of law tracts_, p. , and rymer, xx. , for what charles did with respect to impositions on merchandise. the long parliament called the farmers to account. [ ] car. i, c. . the abolition of the star-chamber was first moved (march th, ) by lord andover, in the house of lords, to which he had been called by writ. both he and his father, the earl of berkshire, were zealous royalists during the subsequent war. _parl. hist._ . but he is not, i presume, the person to whom clarendon alludes. this author insinuates that the act for taking away the star-chamber passed both houses without sufficient deliberation, and that the peers did not venture to make any opposition; whereas there were two conferences between the houses on the subject, and several amendments and provisos made by the lords, and agreed by the commons. scarce any bill, during this session, received so much attention. the king made some difficulty about assenting to the bills taking away the star-chamber and high-commission courts, but soon gave way. _parl. hist._ . [ ] coke has strongly argued the illegality of fining and imprisoning by the high commission. th inst. . and he omitted this power in a commission he drew, "leaving us," says bishop williams, "nothing but the old rusty sword of the church, excommunication." cabala, p. . care was taken to restore this authority in the reign of charles. [ ] car. i, c. . [ ] hyde distinguished himself as chairman of the committee which brought in the bill for abolishing the court of york. in his speech on presenting this to the lords, he alludes to the tyranny of strafford, not rudely, but in a style hardly consistent with that of his _history_. _parl. hist._ . the editors of this, however, softened a little what he did say in one or two places; as where he uses the word _tyranny_, in speaking of lord mountnorris's case. [ ] c. . [ ] c. , . [ ] c. . [ ] c. . [ ] journals, th dec.; _parl. hist._ ; nalson, . it is remarkable that clarendon, who is sufficiently jealous of all that he thought encroachment in the commons, does not censure their explicit assertion of this privilege. he lays the blame of the king's interference on st. john's advice; which is very improbable. [ ] "a greater and more universal hatred," says northumberland in a letter to leicester, nov. , (_sidney papers_, ii. ), "was never contracted by any person than he has drawn upon himself. he is not at all dejected, but believes confidently to clear himself in the opinion of all equal and indifferent-minded hearers, when he shall come to make his defence. the king is in such a straight that i do not know how he will possibly avoid, without endangering the loss of the whole kingdom, the giving way to the remove of divers persons, as well as other things that will be demanded by the parliament. after they have done questioning some of the great ones, they intend to endeavour the displacing of jermyn, newcastle, and walter montague." [ ] clarendon, i. . no one opposed the resolution to impeach the lord lieutenant, save that falkland suggested the appointment of a committee, as more suitable to the gravity of their proceedings. but pym frankly answered that this would ruin all; since strafford would doubtless obtain a dissolution of the parliament, unless they could shut him out from access to the king. _the letters of robert baillie_, principal of the university of glasgow (two vols. edinburgh, ), abound with curious information as to this period, and for several subsequent years. baillie was one of the scots commissioners deputed to london at the end of , and took an active share in promoting the destruction of episcopacy. his correspondence breathes all the narrow and exclusive bigotry of the presbyterian school. the following passage is so interesting that, notwithstanding its length, it may find a place here:-- "the lieutenant of ireland came but on monday to town late, on tuesday rested, on wednesday came to parliament, but ere night he was caged. intolerable pride and oppression cries to heaven for a vengeance. the lower house closed their doors; the speaker kept the keys till his accusation was concluded. thereafter mr. pym went up, with a number at his back, to the higher house; and, in a pretty short speech, did, in the name of the lower house, and in the name of the commons of all england, accuse thomas earl of strafford, lord lieutenant of ireland, of high treason; and required his person to be arrested till probation might be heard; so mr. pym and his back were removed. the lords began to consult on that strange and unexpected motion. the word goes in haste to the lord lieutenant, where he was with the king; with speed he comes to the house; he calls rudely at the door; james maxwell, keeper of the black rod, opens: his lordship, with a proud glooming countenance, makes towards his place at the board head: but at once many bid him void the house; so he is forced, in confusion, to go to the door till he was called. after consultation, being called in, he stands, but is commanded to kneel, and on his knees to hear the sentence. being on his knees, he is delivered to the keeper of the black rod, to be prisoner till he was cleared of these crimes the house of commons had charged him with. he offered to speak, but was commanded to be gone without a word. in the outer room, james maxwell required him, as prisoner, to deliver his sword. when he had got it, he cries with a loud voice, for his man to carry my lord lieutenant's sword. this done, he makes through a number of people towards his coach; all gazing, no man capping to him, before whom, that morning, the greatest of england would have stood discovered, all crying, 'what is the matter?' he said, 'a small matter, i warrant you.' they replied, 'yes, indeed, high treason is a small matter.' coming to the place where he expected his coach, it was not there; so he behoved to return that same way, through a world of gazing people. when at last he had found his coach, and was entering, james maxwell told him, 'your lordship is my prisoner, and must go in my coach;' so he behoved to do."--p. . [ ] the trial of strafford is best to be read in rushworth or nalson. the account in the new edition of the _state trials_, i know not whence taken, is curious, as coming from an eye-witness, though very partial to the prisoner; but it can hardly be so accurate as the others. his famous peroration was printed at the time in a loose sheet. it is in the _somers tracts_. many of the charges seem to have been sufficiently proved, and would undoubtedly justify a severe sentence on an impeachment for misdemeanours. it was not pretended by the managers, that more than two or three of them amounted to treason; but it is the unquestionable right of the commons to blend offences of a different degree in an impeachment. it has been usually said that the commons had recourse to the bill of attainder, because they found it impossible to support the impeachment for treason. but st. john positively denies that it was intended to avoid the judicial mode of proceeding. nalson, ii. . and, what is stronger, the lords themselves voted upon the articles judicially, and not as if they were enacting a legislative measure. as to the famous proviso in the bill of attainder, that the judges should determine nothing to be treason, by virtue of this bill, which they would not have determined to be treason otherwise (on which hume and many others have relied, to show the consciousness of parliament that the measure was not warranted by the existing law), it seems to have been introduced in order to quiet the apprehensions of some among the peers, who had gone great lengths with the late government, and were astonished to find that their obedience to the king could be turned into treason against him. [ ] they were confirmed, in a considerable degree, by the evidence of northumberland and bristol, and even of usher and juxon. rushw. abr. iv. , , ; baillie, . but are they not also exactly according to the principles always avowed and acted upon by that minister, and by the whole phalanx of courtiers, that a king of england does very well to ask his people's consent in the first instance, but, if that is frowardly refused, he has a paramount right to maintain his government by any means? it may be remarked, that clarendon says: "the law was clear that less than two witnesses ought not to be received in a case of treason." yet i doubt whether any one had been allowed the benefit of that law; and the contrary had been asserted repeatedly by the judges. [ ] lords' journals, may ; _parl. hist._ . this opinion of the judges which is not mentioned by clarendon, hume, and other common historians, seems to have cost strafford his life. it was relied on by some bishops, especially usher, whom charles consulted whether he should pass the bill of attainder, though clarendon puts much worse casuistry into the mouth of williams. parr's _life of usher_, p. ; hacket's _life of williams_, p. . juxon is said to have stood alone among five bishops, in advising the king to follow his conscience. clarendon, indeed, does not mention this; though he glances at usher with some reproach (p. ); but the story is as old as the _icon basilike_, in which it is alluded to. [ ] the names of the fifty-nine members of the commons, who voted against the bill of attainder, and which were placarded as straffordians, may be found in the _parliamentary history_, and several other books. it is remarkable that few of them are distinguished persons; none so much so as selden, whose whole parliamentary career, notwithstanding the timidity not very fairly imputed to him, was eminently honourable and independent. but we look in vain for hyde, falkland, colepepper, or palmer. the first, probably, did not vote; the others may have been in the majority of , by whom the bill was passed. indeed, i have seen a ms. account of the debate, where falkland and colepepper appear to have both spoken for it. as to the lords, we have, so far as i know, no list of the nineteen who acquitted strafford. it did not comprehend hertford, bristol, or holland, who were absent (nalson, ), nor any of the popish lords, whether through fear or any private influence. lord clare, his brother-in-law, and lord saville, a man of the most changeable character, were his prominent advocates during the trial; though bristol, hertford, and even say, desired to have had his life spared (baillie, , , , ); and the earl of bedford, according to clarendon, would have come into this. but the sudden and ill-timed death of that eminent peer put an end to the negotiation for bringing the parliamentary leaders into office, wherein it was a main object with the king to save the life of strafford; entirely, as i am inclined to believe, from motives of conscience and honour, without any views of ever again restoring him to power. charles had no personal attachment to strafford; and the queen's dislike of him (according to clarendon and burnet, though it must be owned, that madame de motteville does not confirm this), or at least his general unpopularity at court, would have determined the king to lay him aside. it is said by burnet that the queen prevailed on charles to put that strange postscript to his letter to the lords, in behalf of strafford, "if he must die, it were charity to reprieve him till saturday;" by which he manifestly surrendered him up, and gave cause to suspect his own sincerity. doubts have been thrown out by carte as to the genuineness of strafford's celebrated letter, requesting the king to pass the bill of attainder. they do not appear to be founded on much evidence; but it is certain, by the manner in which he received the news, that he did not expect to be sacrificed by his master. [ ] _parliamentary history_, ii. . [ ] see some judicious remarks on this by may (p. ), who generally shows a good deal of impartiality at this period of history. the violence of individuals, especially when of considerable note, deserves to be remarked, as characteristic of the temper that influenced the house, and as accounting for the disgust of moderate men. "why should he have law himself?" said st. john, in arguing the bill of attainder before the peers, "who would not that others should have any? we indeed give laws to hares and deer, because they are beasts of chase; but we give none to wolves and foxes, but knock them on the head wherever they are found, because they are beasts of prey." nor was this a mere burst of passionate declamation, but urged as a serious argument for taking away strafford's life without sufficient grounds of law or testimony. rushworth abr. iv. ; clarendon, i. . strode told the house that, as they had charged strafford with high treason, it concerned them to charge as conspirators in the same treason all who had before, or should hereafter, plead in that cause. baillie, . this monstrous proposal seems to please the presbyterian bigot. "if this hold," he observes, "strafford's council will be rare." [ ] clarendon and hume, of course, treat this as a very trifling affair, exaggerated for factious purposes. but those who judge from the evidence of persons unwilling to accuse themselves or the king, and from the natural probabilities of the case, will suspect, or, rather, be wholly convinced, that it had gone much farther than these writers admit. see the accounts of this plot in rushworth and nalson, or in the _parliamentary history_. the strongest evidence, however, is furnished by henrietta, whose relation of the circumstances to madame de motteville proves that the king and herself had the strongest hopes from the influence of goring and wilmot over the army, by means of which they aimed at saving strafford's life; though the jealousy of those ambitious intriguers, who could not both enjoy the place to which each aspired, broke the whole plot. _mem. de motteville_, i. . compare with this passage, percy's letter, and goring's deposition (nalson, ii. , ), for what is said of the king's privity by men who did not lose his favour by their evidence. mr. brodie has commented in a long note (iii. ) on clarendon's apparent misrepresentations of this business. but what has escaped the acuteness of this writer is, that the petition to the king and parliament drawn up for the army's subscription, and asserted by clarendon to have been the only step taken by those engaged in the supposed conspiracy (though not, as mr. brodie too rashly conjectures, a fabrication of his own), is most carelessly referred by him to that period or to the agency of wilmot and his coadjutors; having been, in fact, prepared about the july following, at the instigation of daniel o'neale, and some others of the royalist party. this is manifest, not only from the allusions it contains to events that had not occurred in the months of march and april, when the plot of wilmot and goring was on foot, especially the bill for triennial parliaments, but from evidence given before the house of commons in october , and which mr. brodie has published in the appendix to his third volume, though, with an inadvertence of which he is seldom guilty, overlooking its date and purport. this, however, is of itself sufficient to display the inaccurate character of clarendon's history; for i can scarcely ascribe the present incorrectness to design. there are, indeed, so many mistakes as to dates and other matters in clarendon's account of this plot, that, setting aside his manifest disposition to suppress the truth, we can place not the least reliance on his memory as to those points which we may not be well able to bring to a test. [ ] journals; _parliamentary hist._ ; may, ; clarendon. according to mrs. hutchinson (p. ) this bill originated with mr. pierpoint. if we should draw any inference from the journals, sir john colepepper seems to have been the most prominent of its supporters. mr. hyde and lord falkland were also managers of the conference with the lords. but in sir ralph verney's manuscript notes, i find mr. whitelock mentioned as being ordered by the house to prepare the bill; which seems to imply that he had moved it, or at least been very forward in it. yet all these were moderate men. [ ] neal (p. ) has printed these canons imperfectly. they may be found at length in nalson, i. . it is remarkable that the seventh canon expressly denies a corporal presence in the eucharist, which is quite contrary to what laud had asserted in his speech in the star-chamber. his influence does not seem to have wholly predominated in this particular canon, which is expressed with a moderation of which he was incapable. [ ] clarendon; _parl. hist._ , ; neal, , . these votes as to the canons, however, were carried _nem. con._ journals, th dec. . [ ] neal, . laud and wren were both impeached dec. : the latter entirely for introducing superstitions. _parl. hist._ . he lay in the tower till . [ ] neal says that the major part of the parliamentarians at the beginning of the war were for moderated episcopacy (ii. ), and asserts the same in another place (i. ) of the puritans, in contradiction of rapin. "how this will go," says baillie, in april , "the lord knows; all are for the creating of a kind of presbytery, and for bringing down the bishops in all things spiritual and temporal, so low as can be with any subsistence; but their utter abolition, which is the only aim of the most godly, is the knot of the question."--i. . [ ] neal, , , ; collier, ; baxter's _life_, p. . the ministers' petition, as it was called, presented jan. , , with the signatures of beneficed clergymen, went to this extent of reformation. neal, . [ ] _parl. hist._ ; clarendon, i. ; baillie's _letters_, , etc. though sanguine as to the progress of his sect, he admits that it was very difficult to pluck up episcopacy by the roots; for this reason they did not wish the house to give a speedy answer to the city petition. p. . it was carried by or voices, he says, to refer it to the committee of religion. p. . no division appears on the journals. the whole influence of the scots commissioners was directed to this object; as not only baillie's _letters_, but those of johnstone of wariston (dalrymple's _memorials of james and charles i._, ii. , etc.) show. besides their extreme bigotry, which was the predominant motive, they had a better apology for interfering with church-government in england, with which the archbishop had furnished them: it was the only sure means of preserving their own. [ ] rushworth; nalson. [ ] _parl. hist._ , , . clarendon tells us, that being chairman of the committee to whom this bill was referred, he gave it so much interruption, that no progress could be made before the adjournment. the house came, however, to a resolution, that the taking away the offices of archbishops, bishops, chancellors, and commissaries out of this church and kingdom, should be one clause of the bill. june . commons' journals. [ ] lord hertford presented one to the lords, from somersetshire, signed by , freeholders and inhabitants. nalson, ii. . the cheshire petition, for preserving the common prayer, was signed by near , hands. _id._ . i have a collection of those petitions now before me, printed in , from thirteen english and five welsh counties, and all very numerously signed. in almost every instance, i observe, they thank the parliament for putting a check to innovations and abuses, while they deprecate the abolition of episcopacy and the liturgy. thus it seems that the presbyterians were very far from having the nation on their side. the following extract from the somersetshire petition is a good sample of the general tone: "for the present government of the church we are most thankful to god, believing it in our hearts to be the most pious and the wisest that any people or kingdom upon earth hath been withal since the apostles' days; though we may not deny but, through the frailty of men, and corruption of times, some things of ill consequence, and other needless, are stolen or thrust into it; which we heartily wish may be reformed, and the church restored to its former purity. and, to the end it may be the better preserved from present and future innovation, we wish the wittingly and maliciously guilty, of what condition soever they be, whether bishops or inferior clergy, may receive condign punishment. but, for the miscarriage of governors, to destroy the government, we trust it shall never enter into the hearts of this wise and honourable assembly." [ ] the house came to a vote on july , according to whitelock (p. ) in favour of usher's scheme, that each county should be a diocese, and that there should be a governing college or presbytery, consisting of twelve, under the presidency of a bishop: sir e. dering spoke in favour of this, though his own bill went much farther. nalson, ii. ; neal, . i cannot find the vote in the journals; it passed, therefore, i suppose, in the committee, and was not reported to the house. [ ] _parl. hist._ , , , , . the lords had previously come to resolutions, that bishops should sit in the house of lords, but not in the privy council, nor be in any commission of the peace. _id._ . the king was very unwilling to give his consent to the bill excluding the bishops from parliament, and was, of course, dissuaded by hyde from doing so. he was then at newmarket on his way to the north, and had nothing but war in his head. the queen, however, and sir john colepepper, prevailed on him to consent. clarendon, _history_, ii. ( ); _life_, . the queen could not be expected to have much tenderness for a protestant episcopacy; and it is to be said in favour of colepepper's advice, who was pretty indifferent in ecclesiastical matters, that the bishops had rendered themselves odious to many of those who wished well to the royal cause. see the very remarkable conversation of hyde with sir edward verney, who was killed at the battle of edgehill, where the latter declares his reluctance to fight for the bishops, whose quarrel he took it to be, though bound by gratitude not to desert the king. clarendon's _life_, p. . this author represents lord falkland as having been misled by hampden to take an unexpected part in favour of the first bill for excluding the bishops from parliament. "the house was so marvellously delighted to see the two inseparable friends divided in so important a point, that they could not contain from a kind of rejoicing; and the more because they saw mr. hyde was much surprised with the contradiction, as in truth he was, having never discovered the least inclination in the other towards such a compliance."--i. . there is, however, an earlier speech of falkland in print, against the london petition; wherein, while objecting to the abolition of the order, he intimates his willingness to take away their votes in parliament, with all other temporal authority. _speeches of the happy parliament_, p. (published in ). johnstone of wariston says there were but four or five votes against taking away civil places and seats in parliament from the bishops. dalrymple's _memorials_, ii. . but in the journals of the commons ( th march - ) it is said to be resolved, after a long and mature debate, that the legislative power of bishops is a hindrance to their function. [ ] "the higher house," says baillie, "have made an order, which was read in the churches, that none presume of their own head to alter any customs established by law: this procured ordinance does not discourage any one."--p. . some rioters, however, who had pulled down rails about the altar, etc., were committed by order of the lords in june. nalson, ii. . [ ] _parl. hist._ . by the hands of this zealous knight fell the beautiful crosses at charing and cheap, to the lasting regret of all faithful lovers of antiquities and architecture. [ ] _parl. hist._ ; commons' journals, sept. , . it was carried at the time on a division by to , that the committee "should propound an addition to this order for preventing all contempt and abuse of the book of common prayer, and all tumultuous disorders that might arise in the church thereupon." this is a proof that the church party were sometimes victorious in the house. but they did not long retain this casual advantage. for, the lords having sent down a copy of their order of th january above mentioned, requesting the commons' concurrence, they resolved (sept. ) "that the house do not consent to this order; it being thought unreasonable at this time to urge the severe execution of the said laws." they contented themselves with "expecting that the commons of this realm do, in the meantime, quietly attend the reformation intended, without any tumultuous disturbance of the worship of god and peace of the realm." _see_ nalson, ii. . [ ] may, p. . see this passage, which is very judicious. the disunion, however, had in some measure began not long after the meeting of parliament; the court wanted, in december , to have given the treasurer's staff to hertford, whose brother was created a peer by the title of lord seymour. bedford was the favourite with the commons for the same office, and would doubtless have been a fitter man at the time, notwithstanding the other's eminent virtues. _sidney letters_, ii. , . see also what baillie says of the introduction of seven lords, "all commonwealth's men," into the council, though, as generally happens, he is soon discontented with some of them. p. , . there was even some jealousy of say, as favouring strafford. [ ] whitelock, p. . bedford was to have been lord treasurer, with pym, whom he had brought into parliament for tavistock, as his chancellor of the exchequer; hollis secretary of state. hampden is said, but not perhaps on good authority, to have sought the office of governor to the prince of wales; which hume, not very candidly, brings as a proof of his ambition. it seems probable that, if charles had at that time (may ) carried these plans into execution, and ceased to listen to the queen, or to those persons about his bed-chamber, who were perpetually leading him astray, he would have escaped the exorbitant demands which were afterwards made upon him, and even saved his favourite episcopacy. but, after the death of the earl of bedford, who had not been hostile to the church, there was no man of rank in that party whom he liked to trust; northumberland having acted, as he thought, very ungratefully, say being a known enemy to episcopacy, and essex, though of the highest honour, not being of a capacity to retain much influence over the leaders of the other house. clarendon insinuates that, even as late as march , the principal patriots, with a few exceptions, would have been content with coming themselves into power under the king, and on this condition would have left his remaining prerogative untouched (ii. ). but it seems more probable that, after the accusation of the five members, no measure of this kind would have been of any service to charles. [ ] commons' journals, nd november. on a second division the same night, whether the remonstrance should be printed, the popular side lost it by to . but on th december the printing was carried by to . several divisions on important subjects about this time show that the royalist minority was very formidable. but the attendance, especially on that side, seems to have been irregular; and in general, when we consider the immense importance of these debates, we are surprised to find the house so deficient in numbers as many divisions show it to have been. clarendon frequently complains of the supineness of his party; a fault invariably imputed to their friends by the zealous supporters of established authority, who forget that sluggish, lukewarm, and thoughtless tempers must always exist, and that such will naturally belong to their side. i find in the short pencil notes taken by sir ralph verney, with a copy of which i have been favoured by mr. serjeant d'oyly, the following entry on the th of august, before the king's journey to scotland: "a remonstrance to be made how we found the kingdom and the church, and how the state of it now stands." this is not adverted to in nalson, nor in the journals at this time. but clarendon says, in a suppressed passage (vol. ii. append. ) that "at the beginning of the parliament, or shortly after, when all men were inflamed with the pressures and illegalities which had been exercised upon them, a committee was appointed to prepare a remonstrance of the state of the kingdom, to be presented to his majesty, in which the several grievances might be recited; which committee had never brought any report to the house; most men conceiving, and very reasonably, that the quick and effectual progress his majesty made for the reparation of those grievances, and prevention of the like for the future, had rendered that work needless. but as soon as the intelligence came of his majesty being on his way from scotland towards london, that committee was, with great earnestness and importunity, called upon to bring in the draft of such remonstrance," etc. i find a slight notice of this origin of the remonstrance in the journals, nov. , . in another place, also suppressed in the common editions, clarendon says: "this debate held many hours, in which the framers and contrivers of the declaration said very little, or answered any reasons that were alleged to the contrary; the only end of passing it, which was to incline the people to sedition, being a reason not to be given; but called still for the question, presuming their number, if not their reason, would serve to carry it; and after two in the morning (for so long the debate continued, if that can be called a debate, when those only of one opinion argued), etc., it was put to the question." what a strange memory this author had! i have now before me sir ralph verney's ms. note of the debate, whence it appears that pym, hampden, hollis, glyn, and maynard, spoke in favour of the remonstrance; nay, as far as these brief memoranda go, hyde himself seems not to have warmly opposed it. [ ] the letters of sir edward nicholas, published as a supplement to evelyn's _diary_, show how generally the apprehensions of popish influence were entertained. it is well for superficial pretenders to lay these on calumny and misrepresentation; but such as have read our historical documents, know that the royalists were almost as jealous of the king in this respect as the puritans. see what nicholas says to the king himself, pp. , , . indeed he gives several hints to a discerning reader, that he was not satisfied with the soundness of the king's intentions, especially as to o'neale's tampering with the army, p. . nicholas, however, became afterwards a very decided supporter of the royal cause; and in the council at oxford, just before the treaty of uxbridge, was the only one who voted according to the king's wish, not to give the members at westminster the appellation of a parliament. p. . [ ] the king's speech about goodman, baillie tells us, gave great satisfaction to all; "with _much humming_ was it received."--p. . goodman petitioned the house that he might be executed, rather than become the occasion of differences between the king and parliament. this was earlier in time, and at least equal in generosity, to lord strafford's famous letter; or perhaps rather more so, since, though it turned out otherwise, he had greater reason to expect that he should be taken at his word. it is remarkable, that the king says in his answer to the commons, that no priest had been executed merely for religion, either by his father or elizabeth, which, though well meant, was quite untrue. _parl. hist._ ; butler, ii. . [ ] see what clarendon says of the effect produced at westminster by the incident, in one of the suppressed passages. vol. ii. append, p. , edit. . [ ] nalson, ii. , , ; clarendon, ii. . the queen's behaviour had been extraordinarily imprudent from the very beginning. so early as feb. , , the french ambassador writes word: "la reine d'angleterre dit publiquement qu'il y a une trève arrestée pour trois ans entre la france et l'espagne, et que ces deux couronnes vont unir leurs forces pour la défendre et pour venger les catholiques." mazure, _hist. de la révol. en _, ii. . she was very desirous to go to france, doubtless to interest her brother and the queen in the cause of royalty. lord holland, who seems to have been the medium between the parliamentary chiefs and the french court, signified how much this would be dreaded by the former; and richelieu took care to keep her away; of which she bitterly complained. this was in february. her majesty's letter, which m. mazure has been malicious enough to print verbatim, is a curious specimen of orthography. _id._ p. . her own party were equally averse to this step, which was chiefly the effect of cowardice; for henrietta was by no means the high-spirited woman that some have fancied. it is well known that a few months afterwards she pretended to require the waters of spa for her health; but was induced to give up her journey. [ ] clarendon, ii. . this writer intimates that the tower was looked upon by the court as a bridle upon the city. [ ] nalson, ii. , and other writers, ascribe this accusation of lord kimbolton in the peers, and of the five members, as they are commonly called, pym, hollis, hampden, haslerig, and strode, to secret information obtained by the king in scotland of their former intrigues with that nation. this is rendered in some measure probable by a part of the written charge preferred by the attorney-general before the house of lords, and by expressions that fell from the king; such as, "it was a treason which they should all thank him for discovering." clarendon, however, hardly hints at this; and gives, at least, a hasty reader to understand that the accusation was solely grounded on their parliamentary conduct. probably he was aware that the act of oblivion passed last year afforded a sufficient legal defence to the charge of corresponding with the scots in . in my judgment, they had an abundant justification in the eyes of their country for intrigues which, though legally treasonable, had been the means of overthrowing despotic power. the king and courtiers had been elated by the applause he received when he went into the city to dine with the lord mayor on his return from scotland; and madame de motteville says plainly, that he determined to avail himself of it in order to seize the leaders in parliament (i. ). nothing could be more irregular than the mode of charles's proceedings in this case. he sends a message by the serjeant-at-arms to require of the speaker that five members should be given up to him on a charge of high treason; no magistrate's or counsellor's warrant appeared; it was the king acting singly, without the intervention of the law. it is idle to allege, like clarendon, that privilege of parliament does not extend to treason; the breach of privilege, and of all constitutional law, was in the mode of proceeding. in fact, the king was guided by bad private advice, and cared not to let any of his privy council know his intention, lest he should encounter opposition. the following account of the king's coming to the house on this occasion is copied from the pencil notes of sir r. verney. it has been already printed by mr. hatsell (_precedents_, iv. ), but with no great correctness. what sir r. v. says of the transactions of jan. is much the same as we read in the journals. he thus proceeds: "tuesday, january , . the five gentlemen which were to be accused came into the house, and there was information that they should be taken away by force. upon this, the house sent to the lord mayor, aldermen, and common council to let them know how their privileges were like to be broken, and the city put into danger, and advised them to look to their security. "likewise some members were sent to the inns of court to let them know how they heard they were tampered withal to assist the king against them, and therefore they desired them not to come to westminster. "then the house adjourned till one of the clock. "as soon as the house met again, it was moved, considering there was an intention to take these five members away by force, to avoid all tumult, let them be commanded to absent themselves; upon this the house gave them leave to absent themselves, but entered no order for it. and then the five gentlemen went out of the house. "a little after the king came with all his guard, and all his pensioners, and two or three hundred soldiers and gentlemen. the king commanded the soldiers to stay in the hall, and sent us word he was at the door. the speaker was commanded to sit still with the mace lying before him, and then the king came to the door, and took the palsgrave in with him, and commanded all that came with him upon their lives not to come in. so the doors were kept open, and the earl of roxburgh stood within the door, leaning upon it. then the king came upwards towards the chair with his hat off, and the speaker stepped out to meet him; then the king stepped up to his place, and stood upon the step, but sat not down in the chair. "and after he had looked a great while, he told us he would not break our privileges, but treason had no privilege; he came for those five gentlemen, for he expected obedience yesterday, and not an answer. then he called mr. pym and mr. hollis by name, but no answer was made. then he asked the speaker if they were here, or where they were? upon this the speaker fell on his knees, and desired his excuse, for he was a servant to the house, and had neither eyes nor tongue to see or say anything, but what they commanded him: then the king told him he thought his own eyes were as good as his, and then said his birds were flown, but he did expect the house should send them to him; and if they did not, he would seek them himself, for their treason was foul, and such a one as they would all thank him to discover: then he assured us they should have a fair trial; and so went out, pulling off his hat till he came to the door. "upon this the house did instantly resolve to adjourn till to-morrow at one of the clock, and in the interim they might consider what to do. "wednesday, th jan. .--the house ordered a committee to sit at guildhall in london, and all that would come had voices. this was to consider and advise how to right the house in point of privilege broken by the king's coming yesterday with a force to take members out of our house. they allowed the irish committee to sit, but would meddle with no other business till this were ended; they acquainted the lords in a message with what they had done, and then they adjourned the house till tuesday next." the author of these memoranda in pencil, which extend, at intervals of time, from the meeting of the parliament to april , though mistaken by mr. hatsell for sir edmund verney, member for the county of bucks, and killed at the battle of edgehill, has been ascertained by my learned friend, mr. serjeant d'oyly, to be his brother sir ralph, member for aylesbury. he continued at westminster, and took the covenant; but afterwards retired to france, and was disabled to sit by a vote of the house, sept. , . [ ] _mém. de motteville_, i. . clarendon has hardly been ingenuous in throwing so much of the blame of this affair on lord digby. indeed, he insinuates in one place, that the queen's apprehension of being impeached, with which some one in the confidence of the parliamentary leaders (either lord holland or lady carlisle) had inspired her, led to the scheme of anticipating them (ii. ). it has been generally supposed that lady carlisle gave the five members a hint to absent themselves. the french ambassador, however, montereuil, takes the credit to himself. "j'avois prévenu mes amis, et ils s'étoient mis en sûreté." mazure, p. . it is probable that he was in communication with that intriguing lady. [ ] pp. , . [ ] the earliest proof that the commons gave of their intention to take the militia into their hands was immediately upon the discovery of percy's plot, th may , when an order was made that the members of each county, etc., should meet to consider in what state the places for which they serve are in respect of arms and ammunition, and whether the deputy lieutenants and lord lieutenants are persons well affected to the religion and the public peace, and to present their names to the house, and who are the governors of forts and castles in their counties. commons' journals. not long afterwards, or at least before the king's journey to scotland, sir arthur haslerig, as clarendon informs us, proposed a bill for settling the militia in such hands as they should nominate, which was seconded by st. john, and read once, "but with so universal a dislike, that it was never called upon a second time." clarendon, i. . i can find nothing of this in the journals, and believe it to be one of the anachronisms into which this author has fallen, in consequence of writing at a distance from authentic materials. the bill to which he alludes must, i conceive, be that brought in by haslerig long after ( th dec. ), not, as he terms it, for settling the militia, but for making certain persons, leaving their names in blank, "lords general of all the forces within england and wales, and lord admiral of england." the persons intended seem to have been essex, holland, and northumberland. the commons had for some time planned to give the two former earls a supreme command over the trained bands north and south of trent (journals, nov. and ); which was afterwards changed into the scheme of lord lieutenants of their own nomination for each county. the bill above mentioned having been once read, it was moved that it be rejected, which was negatived by to . commons' journals, th dec. nalson, ii. , has made a mistake about these numbers. the bill, however, was laid aside, a new plan having been devised. it was ordered ( st dec. ) "that the house be resolved into a committee on monday next (jan. ), to take into consideration the militia of the kingdom." that monday (jan. ) was the famous day of the king's message about the five members; and on jan. a declaration for putting the kingdom in a state of defence passed the commons, by which "all officers, magistrates, etc., were enjoined to take care that no soldiers be raised, nor any castles or arms given up, _without his majesty's pleasure, signified by both houses of parliament_." commons' journals; _parl. hist._ . the lords at the time refused to concur in this declaration, which was afterwards changed into the ordinance for the militia; but peers signed a protest (_id._ ), and the house not many days afterwards came to an opposite vote, joining with the commons in their demand of the militia. _id._ , . [ ] rymer, sub edw. i. et ii. _passim_. thus, in , a writ to the sheriff of yorkshire directs him to make known to all, qui habent libratas terræ et reditus per annum, tam illis qui non tenent de nobis in capite quam illis qui tenent, ut de equis et armis sibi provideant et se probarent indilatè; ita quod sint prompti et parati ad veniendum ad nos et eundum cum propriâ personâ nostrâ, pro defensione ipsorum et totius regni nostri prædicti quandocunque pro ipsis duxerimus demandandum. ii. . [ ] stat. edw. iii. c. . [ ] edw. iii. c. . h. iv. c. . [ ] and philip and mary, c. . the harleian manuscripts are the best authority for the practice of pressing soldiers to serve in ireland or elsewhere, and are full of instances. the mouldys and bullcalfs were in frequent requisition. see vols. , , , and others. thanks to humphrey wanley's diligence, the analysis of these papers in the catalogue will save the enquirer the trouble of reading, or the mortification of finding he cannot read, the terrible scrawl in which they are generally written. [ ] wilkins's _leges anglo-saxonicæ_, p. ; lyttleton's _henry ii._, iii. . [ ] stat. e. i. [ ] philip and mary, c. . [ ] jac. c. , § . an order of council, in dec. , that every man having lands of inheritance to the clear yearly value of £ should be chargeable to furnish a light-horse man, every one of £ estate to furnish a lance, at the discretion of the lord lieutenant, was unwarranted by any existing law, and must be reckoned among the violent stretches of the prerogative at that time. rushw. abr. ii. . [ ] rymer, xix. . [ ] grose's _military antiquities_, i. . the word artillery was used in that age for the long-bow. [ ] whitelock maintained, both on this occasion, and at the treaty of uxbridge, that the power of the militia resided in the king and two houses jointly. pp. , . this, though not very well expressed, can only mean that it required an act of parliament to determine and regulate it. [ ] see the list of those recommended, _parl. hist._ . some of these were royalists; but on the whole, three-fourths of the military force of england would have been in the hands of persons, who, though men of rank, and attached to the monarchy, had given charles no reason to hope that they would decline to obey any order which the parliament might issue, however derogatory or displeasing to himself. [ ] "when this bill had been with much ado accepted, and first read, there were few men who imagined it would ever receive further countenance; but now there were very few who did not believe it to be a very necessary provision for the peace and safety of the kingdom. so great an impression had the late proceedings made upon them, that with little opposition it passed the commons, and was sent up to the lords." clarend. ii. . [ ] clarendon, ii. ; _parl. hist._ , , etc. it may be added, that the militia bill, as originally tendered to the king by the two houses, was ushered in by a preamble asserting that there had been a most dangerous and desperate design on the house of commons, the effect of the bloody counsels of the papists, and other ill-affected persons, who had already raised a rebellion in ireland. clar. p. . surely he could not have passed this, especially the last allusion, without recording his own absolute dishonour: but it must be admitted, that on the king's objection they omitted this preamble, and also materially limited the powers of the lords lieutenant to be appointed under the bill. [ ] a declaration of the grievances of the kingdom, and the remedies proposed, dated april , may be found in the _parliamentary history_, p. . but that work does not notice that it had passed the commons on feb. , before the king had begun to move towards the north. commons' journals. it seems not to have pleased the house of lords, who postponed its consideration, and was much more grievous to the king than the nineteen propositions themselves. one proposal was to remove all papists from about the queen; that is, to deprive her of the exercise of her religion, guaranteed by her marriage contract. to this objection pym replied that the house of commons had only to consider the law of god and the law of the land; that they must resist idolatry, lest they incur the divine wrath, and must see the laws of this kingdom executed; that the public faith is less than that they owe to god, against which no contract can oblige, neither can any bind us against the law of the kingdom. _id._ . [ ] _parl. hist._ . [ ] clarendon, p. . upon this passage in the remonstrance a division took place, when it was carried by to . _parl. hist._ . the words in the old form of coronation oath, as preserved in a bill of parliament under henry iv., concerning which this grammatico-political contention arose, are the following: "concedis justas leges et consuetudines esse tenendas, et promittis per te eas esse protegendas, et ad honorem dei corroborandas, _quas vulgus elegerit_, secundum vires tuas?" it was maintained by one side that _elegerit_ should be construed in the future tense, while the other contended for the præterperfect. but even if the former were right, as to the point of latin construction, though consuetudines seems naturally to imply a past tense, i should by no means admit the strange inference that the king was bound to sanction all laws proposed to him. his own assent is involved in the expression, "quas vulgus elegerit," which was introduced, on the hypothesis of the word being in the future tense, as a security against his legislation without consent of the people in parliament. the english coronation oath, which charles had taken, excludes the future: sir, will you grant to hold and keep the laws and rightful customs, _which the commonalty of this your kingdom have_? [ ] see what is said as to this by p. orleans, iii. , and by madame de motteville, i. . her intended journey to spa, in july , which was given up on the remonstrance of parliament, is highly suspicious. the house, it appears, had received even then information that the crown jewels were to be carried away. nalson, ii. . [ ] the impeachments of lord finch and of judge berkeley for high treason are at least as little justifiable in point of law as that of strafford. yet, because the former of these was moved by lord falkland, clarendon is so far from objecting to it, that he imputes as a fault to the parliamentary leaders their lukewarmness in the prosecution, and insinuates that they were desirous to save finch. see especially the new edition of clarendon, vol. i. appendix. but they might reasonably think that finch was not of sufficient importance to divert their attention from the grand apostate, whom they were determined to punish. finch fled to holland; so that then it would have been absurd to take much trouble about his impeachment: falkland, however, opened it to the lords, jan. , in a speech containing full as many extravagant propositions as any of st. john's. berkeley, besides his forwardness about ship-money, had been notorious for subserviency to the prerogative. the house sent the usher of the black rod to the court of king's bench, while the judges were sitting, who took him away to prison; "which struck a great terror," says whitelock, "in the rest of his brethren then sitting in westminster hall, and in all his profession." the impeachment against berkeley for high treason ended in his paying a fine of £ , . but what appears strange and unjustifiable is, that the houses suffered him to sit for some terms as a judge, with this impeachment over his head. the only excuse for this is, that there were a great many vacancies on that bench. [ ] journals, aug. and nov. . it may be urged in behalf of these ordinances, that the king had gone into scotland against the wish of the two houses, and after refusing to appoint a _custos regni_ at their request. but if the exigency of the case might justify, under those circumstances, the assumption of an irregular power, it ought to have been limited to the period of the sovereign's absence. [ ] _parl. hist._ , _et alibi_; journals, _passim_. clarendon, i. , says this began to pass all bounds after the act rendering them indissoluble. "it had never," he says, "been attempted before this parliament to commit any one to prison, except for some apparent breach of privilege, such as the arrest of one of their members, or the like." instances of this, however, had occurred before, of which i have mentioned in another place the grossest, that of floyd, in . the lords, in march , condemned one sandford, a tailor, for cursing the parliament, to be kept at work in bridewell during his life, besides some minor inflictions. rushworth. a strange order was made by the commons, dec. , , that, sir william earl having given information of some dangerous words spoken by certain persons, the speaker shall issue a warrant to apprehend _such persons as sir william earl should point out_. [ ] the entry of this in the journals is too characteristic of the tone assumed in the commons to be omitted. "this committee (after naming some of the warmest men) is appointed to prepare heads for a conference with the lords, and to acquaint them what bills this house hath passed and sent up to their lordships, which much concern the safety of the kingdom, but have had no consent of their lordships unto them; and that, this house being the representative body of the whole kingdom, and their lordships being but as particular persons, and coming to parliament in a particular capacity, that if they shall not be pleased to consent to the passing of those acts and others necessary to the preservation and safety of the kingdom, that then this house, together with such of the lords that are more sensible of the safety of the kingdom, may join together and represent the same unto his majesty." this was on december , , before the argument from necessity could be pretended, and evidently contains the germ of the resolution of february , that the house of lords was useless. the resolution was moved by mr. pym; and on mr. godolphin's objecting, very sensibly, that if they went to the king with the lesser part of the lords, the greater part of the lords might go to the king with the lesser part of them, he was commanded to withdraw (verney ms.); and an order appears on the journals, that on tuesday next the house would take into consideration the offence now given by words spoken by mr. godolphin. nothing further, however, seems to have taken place. [ ] this was carried jan. , , by a majority of to , the largest number, i think, that voted for any question during the parliament. richmond was an eager courtier, and perhaps an enemy to the constitution, which may account for the unusual majority in favour of his impeachment, but cannot justify it. he had merely said, on a proposition to adjourn, "why should we not adjourn for six months?" [ ] _parl. hist._ , , ; clarendon, ii. , . [ ] clarendon, . among other petitions presented at this time, the noble author inserts one from the porters of london. mr. brodie asserts of this, that "it is nowhere to be found or alluded to, so far as i recollect, except in clarendon's _history_; and i have no hesitation in pronouncing it a forgery by that author, to disgrace the petitions which so galled him and his party. the journals of the commons give an account of every petition; and i have gone over them _with the utmost care_, in order to ascertain whether such a petition ever was presented, and yet cannot discover a trace of it."--iii. . this writer is much too precipitate and passionate. no sensible man will believe clarendon to have committed so foolish and useless a forgery; and as to mr. b.'s diligent perusal of the journals, this petition is fully noticed, though not inserted at length, on the rd of february. [ ] nalson, ii. , . [ ] the bishops had so few friends in the house of commons, that in the debate arising out of this protest, all agreed that they should be charged with treason, except one gentleman, who said he thought them only mad, and proposed that they should be sent to bedlam instead of the tower. even clarendon bears rather hard on the protest; chiefly, as is evident, because it originated with williams. in fact, several of these prelates had not courage to stand by what they had done, and made trivial apologies. _parl. hist._ . whether the violence was such as to form a complete justification for their absenting themselves, is a question of fact which we cannot well determine. three bishops continued at their posts, and voted against the bill for removing them from the house of lords. see a passage from hall's "hard measure," in wordsworth's _eccles. biogr._ v. . the king always entertained a notion that this act was null in itself; and in one of his proclamations from york, not very judiciously declares his intention to preserve the privileges of the _three_ estates of parliament. the lords admitted the twelve bishops to bail; but, with their usual pusillanimity, recommitted them on the commons' expostulation. _parl. hist._ . [ ] may, p. , insinuates that the civil war should have been prevented by more vigorous measures on the part of the parliament. and it might probably have been in their power to have secured the king's person before he reached york. but the majority were not ripe for such violent proceedings. [ ] these words are ascribed to lord chatham, in a speech of mr. grattan, according to lord john russell, in his _essay on the history of the english government_, p. . [ ] clarendon has several remarkable passages, chiefly towards the end of the fifth book of his _history_, on the slowness and timidity of the royalist party before the commencement of the civil war. the peers at york, forming, in fact, a majority of the upper house, for there were nearly forty of them, displayed much of this. want of political courage was a characteristic of our aristocracy at this period, bravely as many behaved in the field. but i have no doubt that a real jealousy of the king's intentions had a considerable effect. they put forth a declaration, signed by all their hands, on the th of june , professing before god their full persuasion that the king had no design to make war on the parliament, and that they saw no colour of preparations or counsels that might reasonably beget a belief of any such designs; but that all his endeavours tended to the settlement of the protestant religion, the just privileges of parliament, the liberty of the subject, etc. this was an ill-judged, and even absurd piece of hypocrisy, calculated to degrade the subscribers; since the design of raising troops was hardly concealed, and every part of the king's conduct since his arrival at york manifested it. the commission of array, authorising certain persons in each county to raise troops, was in fact issued immediately after this declaration. it is rather mortifying to find lord falkland's name, not to mention others, in this list; but he probably felt it impossible to refuse his signature, without throwing discredit on the king; and no man engaged in a party ever did, or ever can, act with absolute sincerity; or at least he can be of no use to his friends, if he does adhere to this uncompromising principle. the commission of array was ill-received by many of the king's friends, as not being conformable to law. clarendon, iii. . certainly it was not so; but it was justifiable as the means of opposing the parliament's ordinance for the militia, at least equally illegal. this, however, shows very strongly the cautious and constitutional temper of many of the royalists, who could demur about the legality of a measure of necessity, since no other method of raising an army would have been free from similar exception. the same reluctance to enter on the war was displayed in the propositions for peace, which the king, in consequence of his council's importunity, sent to the two houses through the earl of southampton, just before he raised his standard at nottingham. [ ] according to a list made by the house of lords, may , , the peers with the king at york were thirty-two; those who remained at westminster, forty-two. but of the latter, more than ten joined the others before the commencement of the war, and five or six afterwards; two or three of those at york returned. during the war there were at the outside thirty peers who sat in the parliament. [ ] _life of clarendon_, p. . chapter x from the breaking out of the civil war to the restoration part i factions that, while still under some restraint from the forms at least of constitutional law, excite our disgust by their selfishness or intemperance, are little likely to redeem their honour when their animosities have kindled civil warfare. if it were difficult for an upright man to enlist with an entire willingness under either the royalist or the parliamentarian banner, at the commencement of hostilities in , it became far less easy for him to desire the complete success of one or the other cause, as advancing time displayed the faults of both in darker colours than they had previously worn. of the parliament--to begin with the more powerful and victorious party--it may be said, i think, with not greater severity than truth, that scarce two or three public acts of justice, humanity, or generosity, and very few of political wisdom or courage, are recorded of them from their quarrel with the king to their expulsion by cromwell. notwithstanding the secession from parliament before the commencement of the war, of nearly all the peers who could be reckoned on the king's side, and of a pretty considerable part of the commons, there still continued to sit at westminster many sensible and moderate persons, who thought that they could not serve their country better than by remaining at their posts, and laboured continually to bring about a pacification by mutual concessions. such were the earls of northumberland, holland, lincoln, and bedford, among the peers; selden, whitelock, hollis, waller, pierrepont, and rudyard, in the commons. these however would have formed but a very ineffectual minority, if the war itself, for at least twelve months, had not taken a turn little expected by the parliament. the hard usage charles seemed to endure in so many encroachments on his ancient prerogative awakened the sympathies of a generous aristocracy, accustomed to respect the established laws, and to love monarchy, as they did their own liberties, on the score of its prescriptive title; averse also to the rude and morose genius of puritanism, and not a little jealous of those upstart demagogues who already threatened to subvert the graduated pyramid of english society. their zeal placed the king at the head of a far more considerable army than either party had anticipated.[ ] in the first battle, that of edgehill, though he did not remain master of the field, yet all the military consequences were evidently in his favour.[ ] in the ensuing campaign of , the advantage was for several months entirely his own; nor could he be said to be a loser on the whole result, notwithstanding some reverses that accompanied the autumn. a line drawn from hull to southampton would suggest no very incorrect idea of the two parties, considered as to their military occupation of the kingdom, at the beginning of september ; for if the parliament, by the possession of glocester and plymouth, and by some force they had on foot in cheshire, and other midland parts, kept their ground on the west of this line, this was nearly compensated by the earl of newcastle's possession at that time of most of lincolnshire, which lay within it. such was the temporary effect, partly indeed of what may be called the fortune of war, but rather of the zeal and spirit of the royalists, and of their advantage in a more numerous and intrepid cavalry.[ ] it has been frequently supposed, and doubtless seems to have been a prevailing opinion at the time, that if the king, instead of sitting down before glocester at the end of august, had marched upon london, combining his operations with newcastle's powerful army, he would have brought the war to a triumphant conclusion.[ ] in these matters men judge principally by the event. whether it would have been prudent in newcastle to have left behind him the strong garrison of hull under fairfax, and an unbroken though inferior force, commanded by lord willoughby and cromwell in lincolnshire, i must leave to military critics; suspecting however that he would have found it difficult to draw away the yorkshire gentry and yeomanry, forming the strength of his army, from their unprotected homes. yet the parliamentary forces were certainly, at no period of the war, so deficient in numbers, discipline, and confidence; and it may well be thought that the king's want of permanent resources, with his knowledge of the timidity and disunion which prevailed in the capital, rendered the boldest and most forward game his true policy. _efforts by the moderate party for peace._--it was natural that the moderate party in parliament should acquire strength by the untoward fortune of its arms. their aim, as well as that of the constitutional royalists, was a speedy pacification; neither party so much considering what terms might be most advantageous to their own side, as which way the nation might be freed from an incalculably protracted calamity. on the king's advance to colnbrook in november , the two houses made an overture for negotiation, on which he expressed his readiness to enter. but, during the parley, some of his troops advanced to brentford, and a sharp action took place in that town. the parliament affected to consider this such a mark of perfidy and blood-thirstiness as justified them in breaking off the treaty; a step to which they were doubtless more inclined by the king's retreat, and their discovery that his army was less formidable than they had apprehended. it is very probable, or rather certain, even from clarendon's account, that many about the king, if not himself, were sufficiently indisposed to negotiate; yet, as no cessation of arms had been agreed upon, or even proposed, he cannot be said to have waived the unquestionable right of every belligerent, to obtain all possible advantage by arms, in order to treat for peace in a more favourable position. but, as mankind are seldom reasonable in admitting such maxims against themselves, he seems to have injured his reputation by this affair of brentford. _treaty at oxford._--a treaty, from which many ventured to hope much, was begun early in the next spring at oxford, after a struggle which had lasted through the winter within the walls of parliament.[ ] but though the party of pym and hampden at westminster were not able to prevent negotiation against the strong bent of the house of lords, and even of the city, which had been taught to lower its tone by the interruption of trade, and especially of the supply of coals from newcastle; yet they were powerful enough to make the houses insist on terms not less unreasonable than those contained in their nineteen propositions the year before.[ ] the king could not be justly expected to comply with these; but, had they been more moderate, or if the parliament would have in some measure receded from them, we have every reason to conclude, both by the nature of the terms he proposed in return, and by the positive testimony of clarendon, that he would not have come sincerely into any scheme of immediate accommodation. the reason assigned by that author for the unwillingness of charles to agree on a cessation of arms during the negotiation, though it had been originally suggested by himself (and which reason would have been still more applicable to a treaty of peace), is one so strange that it requires all the authority of one very unwilling to confess any weakness or duplicity of the king to be believed. he had made a solemn promise to the queen on her departure for holland the year before, "that he would receive no person who had disserved him into any favour or trust, without her privity and consent; and that, as she had undergone many reproaches and calumnies at the entrance into the war, so he would never make any peace but by her interposition and mediation, that the kingdom might receive that blessing only from her."[ ] let this be called, as the reader may please, the extravagance of romantic affection, or rather the height of pusillanimous and criminal subserviency, we cannot surely help acknowledging that this one marked weakness in charles's character, had there been nothing else to object, rendered the return of cordial harmony between himself and his people scarce within the bounds of natural possibility. in the equally balanced condition of both forces at this particular juncture, it may seem that some compromise on the great question of the militia was not impracticable, had the king been truly desirous of accommodation; for it is only just to remember that the parliament had good reason to demand some security for themselves, when he had so peremptorily excluded several persons from amnesty. both parties, in truth, were standing out for more than, either according to their situation as belligerents, or even perhaps according to the principles of our constitution, they could reasonably claim; the two houses having evidently no direct right to order the military force, nor the king, on the other hand, having a clear prerogative to keep on foot an army which is not easily distinguishable from a militia without consent of parliament. the most reasonable course apparently would have been for the one to have waived a dangerous and disputed authority, and the other to have desisted from a still more unconstitutional pretension; which was done by the bill of rights in . the kingdom might have well dispensed, in that age, with any military organisation; and this seems to have been the desire of whitelock, and probably of other reasonable men. but unhappily when swords are once drawn in civil war, they are seldom sheathed till experience has shown which blade is the sharper. _impeachment of the queen._--though this particular instance of the queen's prodigious ascendancy over her husband remained secret till the publication of lord clarendon's life, it was in general well known, and put the leaders of the commons on a remarkable stroke of policy, in order to prevent the renewal of negotiations. on her landing in the north, with a supply of money and arms, as well as with a few troops she had collected in holland, they carried up to the lords an impeachment for high treason against her. this measure (so obnoxious was henrietta) met with a less vigorous opposition than might be expected, though the moderate party was still in considerable force.[ ] it was not only an insolence, which a king, less uxorious than charles, could never pardon; but a violation of the primary laws and moral sentiments that preserve human society, to which the queen was acting in obedience. scarce any proceeding of the long parliament seems more odious than this; whether designed by way of intimidation, or to exasperate the king, and render the composure of existing differences more impracticable. _waller's plot._--the enemies of peace were strengthened by the discovery of what is usually called waller's plot, a scheme for making a strong demonstration of the royalist party in london, wherein several members of both houses appear to have been more or less concerned. upon the detection of this conspiracy, the two houses of parliament took an oath not to lay down arms, so long as the papists now in arms should be protected from the justice of parliament; and never to adhere to, or willingly assist, the forces raised by the king, without the consent of both houses. every individual member of the peers and commons took this oath; some of them being then in secret concert with the king, and others entertaining intentions, as their conduct very soon evinced, of deserting to his side.[ ] such was the commencement of a system of perjury, which lasted for many years, and belies the pretended religion of that hypocritical age. but we may always look for this effect from oppressive power, and the imposition of political tests. the king was now in a course of success, which made him rather hearken to the sanguine courtiers of oxford, where, according to the invariable character of an exiled faction, every advantage or reverse brought on a disproportionate exultation or despondency, than to those better counsellors who knew the precariousness of his good fortune. he published a declaration, wherein he denied the two houses at westminster the name of a parliament; which he could no more take from them, after the bill he had passed, than they could deprive him of his royal title, and by refusing which he shut up all avenues to an equal peace.[ ] this was soon followed by so extraordinary a political error as manifests the king's want of judgment, and the utter improbability that any event of the war could have restored to england the blessings of liberty and repose. _secession of some peers to the king's quarters._--three peers of the moderate party, the earls of holland, bedford, and clare, dissatisfied with the preponderance of a violent faction in the commons, left their places at westminster, and came into the king's quarters. it might be presumed from general policy as well as from his constant declarations of a desire to restore peace, that they would have been received with such studied courtesy as might serve to reconcile to their own mind a step which, when taken with the best intentions, is always equivocal and humiliating. there was great reason to believe that the earl of northumberland, not only the first peer then in england as to family and fortune, but a man highly esteemed for prudence, was only waiting to observe the reception of those who went first to oxford, before he followed their steps. there were even well-founded hopes of the earl of essex, who, though incapable of betraying his trust as commander of the parliament's army, was both from personal and public motives disinclined to the war-party in the commons. there was much to expect from all those who had secretly wished well to the king's cause, and from those whom it is madness to reject or insult, the followers of fortune, the worshippers of power, without whom neither fortune nor power can long subsist. yet such was the state of charles's council-board at oxford that some were for arresting these proselyte earls; and it was carried with difficulty, after they had been detained some time at wallingford, that they might come to the court. but they met there with so many and such general slights that, though they fought in the king's army at newbury, they found their position intolerably ignominious; and after about three months, returned to the parliament with many expressions of repentance, and strong testimonies to the evil counsels of oxford.[ ] the king seems to have been rather passive in this strange piece of impolicy, but by no means to have taken the line that became him, of repressing the selfish jealousy or petty revengefulness of his court. if the earl of holland was a man, whom both he and the queen, on the score of his great obligations to them, might justly reproach with some ingratitude, there was nothing to be objected against the other two, save their continuance at westminster, and compliance in votes that he disliked. and if this were to be visited by neglect and discountenance, there could, it was plain, be no reconciliation between him and the parliament. for who could imagine that men of courage and honour, while possessed of any sort of strength and any hopes of preserving it, would put up with a mere indemnity for their lives and fortunes, subject to be reckoned as pardoned traitors who might thank the king for his clemency, without presuming to his favour? charles must have seen his superiority consolidated by repeated victories, before he could prudently assume this tone of conquest. inferior in substantial force, notwithstanding his transient advantages, to the parliament, he had no probability of regaining his station, but by defections from their banner; and these, with incredible folly, he seemed to decline; far unlike his illustrious father-in-law, who had cordially embraced the leaders of a rebellion much more implacable than the present. for the oxford counsellors and courtiers who set themselves against the reception of the three earls, besides their particular animosity towards the earl of holland,[ ] and that general feeling of disdain and distrust which, as clarendon finely observes, seems by nature attached to all desertion and inconstancy, whether in politics or religion (even among those who reap the advantage of it, and when founded upon what they ought to reckon the soundest reasons), there seems grounds to suspect that they had deeper and more selfish designs than they cared to manifest. they had long beset the king with solicitations for titles, offices, pensions; but these were necessarily too limited for their cravings. they had sustained, many of them, great losses; they had performed real or pretended services for the king; and it is probable that they looked to a confiscation of enemies' property for their indemnification or reward. this would account for an averseness to all overtures for peace, as decided, at this period, among a great body of the cavaliers as it was with the factions of pym or vane. _the anti-pacific party gain the ascendant at westminster._--these factions were now become finally predominant at westminster. on the news that prince rupert had taken bristol, the last and most serious loss that the parliament sustained, the lords agreed on propositions for peace to be sent to the king, of an unusually moderate tone.[ ] the commons, on a division of to , determined to take them into consideration; but the lord mayor pennington having procured an address of the city against peace, backed by a tumultuous mob, a small majority was obtained against concurring with the other house.[ ] it was after this that the lords above-mentioned, as well as many of the commons, quitted westminster. the prevailing party had no thoughts of peace, till they could dictate its conditions. through essex's great success in raising the siege of glocester, the most distinguished exploit in his military life, and the battle of newbury wherein the advantage was certainly theirs, they became secure against any important attack on the king's side, the war turning again to endless sieges and skirmishes of partisans. and they now adopted two important measures, one of which gave a new complexion to the quarrel. littleton, the lord keeper of the great seal, had carried it away with him to the king. this of itself put a stop to the regular course of the executive government, and to the administration of justice within the parliament's quarters. no employments could be filled up, no writs for election of members issued, no commissions for holding the assizes completed without the indispensable formality of affixing the great seal. it must surely excite a smile, that men who had raised armies, and fought battles against the king, should be perplexed how to get over so technical a difficulty. but the great seal in the eyes of english lawyers, has a sort of mysterious efficacy, and passes for the depository of royal authority in a higher degree than the person of the king. _the parliament makes a new great seal._--the commons prepared an ordinance in july for making a new great seal, in which the lords could not be induced to concur till october. the royalists, and the king himself, exclaimed against this as the most audacious treason, though it may be reckoned a very natural consequence of the state in which the parliament was placed; and in the subsequent negotiations, it was one of the minor points in dispute whether he should authorise the proceedings under the great seal of the two houses, or they consent to sanction what had been done by virtue of his own. the second measure of parliament was of greater moment and more fatal consequences. i have already mentioned the stress laid by the bigoted scots presbyterians on the establishment of their own church government in england. chiefly perhaps to conciliate this people, the house of commons had entertained the bill for abolishing episcopacy; and this had formed a part of the nineteen propositions that both houses tendered to the king.[ ] after the action at brentford they concurred in a declaration to be delivered to the scots commissioners, resident in london, wherein, after setting forth the malice of the prelatical clergy in hindering the reformation of ecclesiastical government, and professing their own desire willingly and affectionately to pursue a closer union in such matters between the two nations, they request their brethren of scotland to raise such forces as they should judge sufficient for the securing the peace of their own borders against ill-affected persons there; as likewise, to assist them in suppressing the army of papists and foreigners, which, it was expected, would shortly be on foot in england.[ ] this overture produced for many months no sensible effect. the scots, with all their national wariness, suspected that, in spite of these general declarations in favour of their church polity, it was not much at heart with most of the parliament, and might be given up in a treaty, if the king would concede some other matters in dispute. accordingly, when the progress of his arms, especially in the north, during the ensuing summer, compelled the parliament to call in a more pressing manner, and by a special embassy, for their aid, they resolved to bind them down by such a compact as no wavering policy should ever rescind. they insisted therefore on the adoption of the solemn league and covenant, founded on a similar association of their own, five years before, through which they had successfully resisted the king, and overthrown the prelatic government. the covenant consisted in an oath to be subscribed by all sorts of persons in both kingdoms, whereby they bound themselves to preserve the reformed religion in the church of scotland, in doctrine, worship, discipline, and government, according to the word of god and practice of the best reformed churches; and to endeavour to bring the churches of god in the three kingdoms to the nearest conjunction and uniformity in religion, confession of faith, form of church-government, directory for worship, and catechising: to endeavour, without respect of persons, the extirpation of popery, prelacy (that is, church government by archbishops, bishops, their chancellors and commissaries, deans and chapters, archdeacons, and all other ecclesiastical officers depending on that hierarchy), and whatsoever should be found contrary to sound doctrine and the power of godliness to preserve the rights and privileges of the parliaments, and the liberties of the kingdoms, and the king's person and authority, in the preservation and defence of the true religion and liberties of the kingdoms: to endeavour the discovery of incendiaries and malignants, who hinder the reformation of religion, and divide the king from his people, that they may be brought to punishment: finally, to assist and defend all such as should enter into this covenant, and not suffer themselves to be withdrawn from it, whether to revolt to the opposite party, or to give in to a detestable indifference or neutrality. in conformity to the strict alliance thus established between the two kingdoms, the scots commissioners at westminster were intrusted, jointly with a committee of both houses, with very extensive powers to administer the public affairs.[ ] _the parliament subscribes to the covenant._--every member of the commons who remained at westminster, to the number of , or perhaps more, and from to peers that formed their upper house,[ ] subscribed this deliberate pledge to overturn the established church; many of them with extreme reluctance, both from a dislike of the innovation, and from a consciousness that it raised a most formidable obstacle to the restoration of peace; but with a secret reserve, for which some want of precision in the language of this covenant (purposely introduced by vane, as is said, to shelter his own schemes) afforded them a sort of apology.[ ] it was next imposed on all civil and military officers, and upon all the beneficed clergy.[ ] a severe persecution fell on the faithful children of the anglican church. many had already been sequestered from their livings, or even subjected to imprisonment, by the parliamentary committee for scandalous ministers, or by subordinate committees of the same kind set up in each county within their quarters; sometimes on the score of immoralities or false doctrine, more frequently for what they termed malignity, or attachment to the king and his party.[ ] yet wary men who meddled not with politics, might hope to elude this inquisition. but the covenant, imposed as a general test, drove out all who were too conscientious to pledge themselves by a solemn appeal to the deity to resist the polity which they generally believed to be of his institution. what number of the clergy were ejected (most of them but for refusing the covenant, and for no moral offence or imputed superstition) it is impossible to ascertain. walker, in his _sufferings of the clergy_, a folio volume published in the latter end of anne's reign, with all the virulence and partiality of the high-church faction in that age, endeavoured to support those who had reckoned it at ; a palpable over-statement upon his own showing, for he cannot produce near names, after a most diligent investigation. neal, however, admits , probably more than one-fifth of the beneficed ministers in the kingdom.[ ] the biographical collections furnish a pretty copious martyrology of men the most distinguished by their learning and virtues in that age. the remorseless and indiscriminate bigotry of presbyterianism might boast that it had heaped disgrace on walton, and driven lydiat to beggary; that it trampled on the old age of hales, and embittered with insult the dying moments of chillingworth. _impeachment and execution of laud._--but the most unjustifiable act of these zealots, and one of the greatest reproaches of the long parliament, was the death of archbishop laud. in the first days of the session, while the fall of strafford struck every one with astonishment, the commons had carried up an impeachment against him for high treason, in fourteen articles of charge; and he had lain ever since in the tower, his revenues, and even private estate sequestered, and in great indigence. after nearly three years' neglect, specific articles were exhibited against him in october , but not proceeded on with vigour till december ; when, for whatever reason, a determination was taken to pursue this unfortunate prelate to death. the charges against him, which wild, maynard, and other managers of the impeachment, were to aggravate into treason, related partly to those papistical innovations which had nothing of a political character about them, partly of the violent proceedings in the star-chamber and high-commission courts, wherein laud was very prominent as a counsellor, but certainly without any greater legal responsibility than fell on many others. he defended himself, not always prudently or satisfactorily, but with courage and ability; never receding from his magnificent notions of spiritual power, but endeavouring to shift the blame of the sentences pronounced by the council on those who concurred with him. the imputation of popery he repelled by a list of the converts he had made; but the word was equivocal, and he could not deny the difference between his protestantism and that of our reformation. nothing could be more monstrous than the allegation of treason in this case. the judges, on a reference by the lords, gave it to be understood, in their timid way, that the charges contained no legal treason.[ ] but, the commons having changed their impeachment into an ordinance for his execution, the peers were pusillanimous enough to comply. it is said by clarendon that only seven lords were in the house on this occasion: but the journals unfortunately bear witness to the presence of twenty.[ ] laud had amply merited punishment for his tyrannical abuse of power; but his execution at the age of seventy, without the slightest pretence of political necessity, was a far more unjustifiable instance of it than any that was alleged against him. _decline of the king's affairs in ._--pursuant to the before-mentioned treaty, the scots army of , men marched into england in january . this was a very serious accession to charles's difficulties, already sufficient to dissipate all hopes of final triumph, except in the most sanguine minds. his successes, in fact, had been rather such as to surprise well-judging men than to make them expect any more favourable termination of the war than by a fair treaty. from the beginning it may be said that the yeomanry and trading classes of towns were generally hostile to the king's side, even in those counties which were in his military occupation; except in a few, such as cornwall, worcester, salop, and most of wales, where the prevailing sentiment was chiefly royalist;[ ] and this disaffection was prodigiously increased through the licence of his ill-paid and ill-disciplined army. on the other hand, the gentry were, in a great majority, attached to his cause, even in the parts of england which lay subject to the parliament. but he was never able to make any durable impression on what were called the associated counties, extending from norfolk to sussex inclusively, within which no rising could be attempted with any effect:[ ] while, on the other hand, the parliament possessed several garrisons, and kept up considerable forces in that larger portion of the kingdom where he might be reckoned superior. their resources were far greater; and the taxes imposed by them, though exceedingly heavy, more regularly paid, and less ruinous to the people, than the sudden exactions, half plunder, half contribution, of the ravenous cavaliers. the king lost ground during the winter. he had built hopes on bringing over troops from ireland; for the sake of which he made a truce, then called the cessation, with the rebel catholics. but this reinforcement having been beaten and dispersed by fairfax at namptwich, he had the mortification of finding that this scheme had much increased his own unpopularity, and the distrust entertained of him even by his adherents, without the smallest advantage. the next campaign was marked by the great defeat of rupert and newcastle at marston moor, and the loss of the north of england; a blow so terrible as must have brought on his speedy ruin, if it had not been in some degree mitigated by his strange and unexpected success over essex in the west, and by the tardiness of the scots in making use of their victory. upon the result of the campaign of , the king's affairs were in such bad condition that nothing less than a series of victories could have reinstated them; yet not so totally ruined as to hold out much prospect of an approaching termination to the people's calamities. _factions at oxford._--there had been, from the very commencement of the war, all that distraction in the king's councils at oxford, and all those bickerings and heart-burnings among his adherents, which naturally belong to men embarked in a dangerous cause with different motives and different views. the military men, some of whom had served with the swedes in germany, acknowledged no laws but those of war; and could not understand that, either in annoying the enemy or providing for themselves, they were to acknowledge any restraints of the civil power. the lawyers, on the other hand, and the whole constitutional party laboured to keep up, in the midst of arms, the appearances at least of legal justice, and that favourite maxim of englishmen, the supremacy of civil over military authority, rather more strictly perhaps than the nature of their actual circumstances would admit. at the head of the former party stood the king's two nephews, rupert and maurice, the younger sons of the late unfortunate elector palatine, soldiers of fortune (as we may truly call them), of rude and imperious characters, avowedly despising the council and the common law, and supported by charles, with all his injudiciousness and incapacity for affairs, against the greatest men of the kingdom. another very powerful and obnoxious faction was that of the catholics, proud of their services and sacrifices, confident in the queen's protection, and looking at least to a full toleration as their just reward. they were the natural enemies of peace, and little less hated at oxford than at westminster.[ ] _royalist lords and commoners summoned to oxford._--at the beginning of the winter of the king took the remarkable step of summoning the peers and commoners of his party to meet in parliament at oxford. this was evidently suggested by the constitutionalists with the intention of obtaining a supply by more regular methods than forced contribution, and of opposing a barrier to the military and popish interests.[ ] whether it were equally calculated to further the king's cause may admit of some doubt. the royalist convention indeed, which name it ought rather to have taken than that of parliament, met in considerable strength at oxford. forty-three peers, and one hundred and eighteen commoners, subscribed a letter to the earl of essex, expressing their anxiety for a treaty of peace; twenty-nine of the former, and fifty-seven of the latter, it is said, being then absent on the king's service, or other occasions.[ ] such a display of numbers, nearly double in one house, and nearly half in the other, of those who remained at westminster, might have an effect on the nation's prejudices, and at least redeem the king from the charge of standing singly against his parliament. but they came in no spirit of fervid loyalty, rather distrustful of the king, especially on the score of religion, averse to some whom he had injudiciously raised to power, such as digby and cottington, and so eager for pacification as not perhaps to have been unwilling to purchase it by greater concessions than he could prudently make.[ ] peace however was by no means brought nearer by their meeting; the parliament, jealous and alarmed at it, would never recognise their existence; and were so provoked at their voting the lords and commons at westminster guilty of treason, that, if we believe a writer of high authority, the two houses unanimously passed a vote on essex's motion, summoning the king to appear by a certain day.[ ] but the scots commissioners had force enough to turn aside such violent suggestions, and ultimately obtained the concurrence of both houses in propositions for a treaty.[ ] they had begun to find themselves less likely to sway the councils of westminster than they had expected, and dreaded the rising ascendancy of cromwell. the treaty was opened at uxbridge in january . but neither the king nor his adversaries entered on it with minds sincerely bent on peace: they, on the one hand, resolute not to swerve from the utmost rigour of a conqueror's terms, without having conquered; and he, though more secretly, cherishing illusive hopes of a more triumphant restoration to power than any treaty could be expected to effect.[ ] the three leading topics of discussion among the negotiators at uxbridge were, the church, the militia, and the state of ireland. bound by their unhappy covenant, and watched by their scots colleagues, the english commissioners on the parliament side demanded the complete establishment of a presbyterian polity, and the substitution of what was called the directory for the anglican liturgy. upon this head there was little prospect of a union. the king had deeply imbibed the tenets of andrews and laud, believing an episcopal government indispensably necessary to the valid administration of the sacraments, and the very existence of a christian church. the scots, and a portion of the english clergy, were equally confident that their presbyterian form was established by the apostles as a divine model, from which it was unlawful to depart.[ ] though most of the laity in this kingdom entertained less narrow opinions, the parliamentary commissioners thought the king ought rather to concede such a point than themselves, especially as his former consent to the abolition of episcopacy in scotland weakened a good deal the force of his plea of conscience; while the royalists, even could they have persuaded their master, thought episcopacy, though not absolutely of divine right (a notion which they left to the churchmen), yet so highly beneficial to religion, and so important to the monarchy, that nothing less than extreme necessity, or at least the prospect of a signal advantage, could justify its abandonment. they offered however what in an earlier stage of their dissensions would have satisfied almost every man, that limited scheme of episcopal hierarchy, above-mentioned as approved by usher, rendering the bishop among his presbyters much like the king in parliament, not free to exercise his jurisdiction, nor to confer orders without their consent, and offered to leave all ceremonies to the minister's discretion. such a compromise would probably have pleased the english nation, averse to nothing in their established church except its abuses; but the parliamentary negotiators would not so much as enter into discussion upon it.[ ] they were hardly less unyielding on the subject of the militia. they began with a demand of naming all the commanders by sea and land, including the lord lieutenant of ireland and all governors of garrisons, for an unlimited time. the king, though not very willingly, proposed that the command should be vested in twenty persons, half to be named by himself, half by the parliament, for the term of three years, which he afterwards extended to seven; at the expiration of which time it should revert to the crown. but the utmost concession that could be obtained from the other side was to limit their exclusive possession of this power to seven years, leaving the matter open for an ulterior arrangement by act of parliament at their termination.[ ] even if this treaty had been conducted between two belligerent states, whom rivalry or ambition often excite to press every demand which superior power can extort from weakness, there yet was nothing in the condition of the king's affairs which should compel him thus to pass under the yoke, and enter his capital as a prisoner. but we may also remark that, according to the great principle, that the english constitution, in all its component parts, was to be maintained by both sides in this contest, the question for parliament was not what their military advantages or resources for war entitled them to ask, but what was required for the due balance of power under a limited monarchy. they could rightly demand no further concession from the king than was indispensable for their own and the people's security; and i leave any one who is tolerably acquainted with the state of england at the beginning of , to decide whether their privileges and the public liberties incurred a greater risk, by such an equal partition of power over the sword, as the king proposed, than his prerogative and personal freedom would have encountered by abandoning it altogether to their discretion. i am far from thinking that the acceptance of the king's propositions at uxbridge would have restored tranquillity to england. he would still have repined at the limitations of monarchy, and others would have conspired against its existence. but of the various consequences which we may picture to ourselves as capable of resulting from a pacification, that which appears to me the least likely is, that charles should have re-established that arbitrary power which he had exercised in the earlier period of his reign. whence, in fact, was he to look for assistance? was it with such creatures of a court as jermyn or ashburnham, or with a worn-out veteran of office, like cottington, or a rash adventurer, like digby, that he could outwit vane, or overawe cromwell, or silence the press and the pulpit, or strike with panic the stern puritan and the confident fanatic? some there were, beyond question, both soldiers and courtiers, who hated the very name of a limited monarchy, and murmured at the constitutional language which the king, from the time he made use of the pens of hyde and falkland, had systematically employed in his public declarations.[ ] but it is as certain that the great majority of his oxford parliament, and of those upon whom he must have depended, either in the field or in council, were apprehensive of any victory that might render him absolute, as that essex and manchester were unwilling to conquer at the expense of the constitution.[ ] the catholics indeed, generally speaking, would have gone great lengths in asserting his authority. nor is this any reproach to that body, by no means naturally less attached to their country and its liberties than other englishmen, but driven by an unjust persecution to see their only hope of emancipation in the nation's servitude. they could not be expected to sympathise in that patriotism of the seventeenth century, which, if it poured warmth and radiance on the protestant, was to them as a devouring fire. but the king could have made no use of the catholics as a distinct body for any political purpose, without uniting all other parties against him. he had already given so much offence, at the commencement of the war, by accepting the services which the catholic gentry were forward to offer, that instead of a more manly justification, which the temper of the times, he thought, did not permit, he had recourse to the useless subterfuges of denying or extenuating the facts, and even to a strangely improbable recrimination; asserting, on several occasions, that the number of papists in the parliament's army was much greater than in his own.[ ] it may still indeed be questioned whether, admitting the propositions tendered to the king to have been unreasonable and insecure, it might not yet have been expedient, in the perilous condition of his affairs, rather to have tried the chances of peace than those of war. if he could have determined frankly and without reserve to have relinquished the church, and called the leaders of the presbyterian party in both houses to his councils, it is impossible to prove that he might not both have regained his power over the militia in no long course of time, and prevailed on the parliament to consent to its own dissolution. the dread that party felt of the republican spirit rising amongst the independents, would have induced them to place in the hands of any sovereign they could trust, full as much authority as our constitution permits. but no one who has paid attention to the history of that period, will conclude that they could have secured the king against their common enemy, had he even gone wholly into their own measures.[ ] and this were to suppose such an entire change in his character, and ways of thinking, as no external circumstances could produce. yet his prospects from a continuance of hostilities were so unpromising that most of the royalists would probably have hailed his almost unconditional submission at uxbridge. even the steady richmond and southampton, it is said, implored him to yield, and deprecated his misjudging confidence in promises of foreign aid, or in the successes of montrose.[ ] the more lukewarm or discontented of his adherents took this opportunity of abandoning an almost hopeless cause; between the breach of the treaty of uxbridge and the battle of naseby, several of the oxford peers came over to the parliament, and took an engagement never to bear arms against it. a few instances of such defection had occurred before.[ ] _miseries of the war._--it remained only, after the rupture of the treaty at uxbridge, to try once more the fortune of war. the people, both in the king's and parliament's quarters, but especially the former, heard with dismay that peace could not be attained. many of the perpetual skirmishes and captures of towns which made every man's life and fortune precarious, have found no place in general history; but may be traced in the journal of whitelock, or in the mercuries and other fugitive sheets, great numbers of which are still extant. and it will appear, i believe, from these that scarcely one county in england was exempt, at one time or other of the war, from becoming the scene of this unnatural contest. compared indeed with the civil wars in france in the preceding century, there had been fewer acts of enormous cruelty, and less atrocious breaches of public faith. but much blood had been wantonly shed, and articles of capitulation had been very indifferently kept. "either side," says clarendon, "having somewhat to object to the other, the requisite honesty and justice of observing conditions was mutually, as it were by agreement, for a long time violated."[ ] the royalist army, especially the cavalry, commanded by men either wholly unprincipled, or at least regardless of the people, and deeming them ill affected, the princes rupert and maurice, goring and wilmot, lived without restraint of law or military discipline, and committed every excess even in friendly quarters.[ ] an ostentatious dissoluteness became characteristic of the cavalier, as a formal austerity was of the puritan; one spoiling his neighbour in the name of god, the other of the king. the parliament's troops were not quite free from these military vices, but displayed them in a much less scandalous degree, owing to their more religious habits and the influence of their presbyterian chaplains, to the better example of their commanders, and to the comparative, though not absolute, punctuality of their pay.[ ] but this pay was raised through unheard-of assessments, especially an excise on liquors, a new name in england, and through the sequestration of the estates of all the king's adherents; resources of which he also had availed himself, partly by the rights of war, partly by the grant of his oxford parliament.[ ] a war so calamitous seemed likely to endure till it had exhausted the nation. with all the parliament's superiority, they had yet to subdue nearly half the kingdom. the scots had not advanced southward, content with reducing newcastle and the rest of the northern counties. these they treated almost as hostile, without distinction of parties, not only exacting contributions, but committing, unless they are much belied, great excesses of indiscipline; their presbyterian gravity not having yet overcome the ancient national propensities.[ ] in the midland and western parts the king had just the worse, without having sustained material loss; and another summer might pass away in marches and counter-marches, in skirmishes of cavalry, in tedious sieges of paltry fortifications, some of them mere country houses, which nothing but an amazing deficiency in that branch of military science could have rendered tenable. _essex and manchester suspected of lukewarmness._--this protraction of the war had long given rise to no unnatural discontent with its management, and to suspicions, first of essex, then of manchester and others in command, as if they were secretly reluctant to complete the triumph of their employers. it is indeed not impossible that both these peers, especially the former, out of their desire to see peace restored on terms compatible with some degree of authority in the crown, and with the dignity of their own order, did not always press their advantages against the king, as if he had been a public enemy.[ ] they might have thought that, having drawn the sword avowedly for the preservation of his person and dignity as much as for the rights and liberties of the people, they were no farther bound by their trust than to render him and his adherents sensible of the impracticability of refusing their terms of accommodation. _self-denying ordinance._--there could however be no doubt that fairfax and cromwell were far superior, both by their own talents for war and the discipline they had introduced into their army, to the earlier parliamentary commanders, and that, as a military arrangement, the self-denying ordinance was judiciously conceived. this, which took from all members of both houses their commands in the army, or civil employments, was, as is well known, the first great victory of the independent party which had grown up lately in parliament under vane and cromwell.[ ] they carried another measure of no less importance, collateral to the former; the new-modelling, as it was called, of the army; reducing it to twenty-one or twenty-two thousand men; discharging such officers and soldiers as were reckoned unfit, and completing their regiments by more select levies. the ordinance, after being once rejected by the lords, passed their house with some modifications in april.[ ] but many joined them on this occasion for those military reasons which i have mentioned, deeming almost any termination of the war better than its continuance. the king's rejection of their terms at uxbridge had disgusted some of the more moderate men, such as the earl of northumberland and pierrepont; who, deeming reconciliation impracticable, took from this time a different line of politics from that they had previously followed, and were either not alive to the danger of new-modelling the army, or willing to hope that it might be disbanded before that danger could become imminent. from fairfax too, the new general, they saw little to fear and much to expect; while cromwell, as a member of the house of commons, was positively excluded by the ordinance itself. but, through a successful intrigue of his friends, this great man, already not less formidable to the presbyterian faction than to the royalists, was permitted to continue lieutenant-general.[ ] the most popular justification for the self-denying ordinance, and yet perhaps its real condemnation, was soon found at naseby; for there fairfax and cromwell triumphed not only over the king and the monarchy, but over the parliament and the nation. it does not appear to me that a brave and prudent man, in the condition of charles the first, had, up to that unfortunate day, any other alternative than a vigorous prosecution of the war, in hope of such decisive success as, though hardly within probable calculation, is not unprecedented in the changeful tide of fortune. i cannot therefore blame him either for refusing unreasonable terms of accommodation, or for not relinquishing altogether the contest. but, after his defeat at naseby, his affairs were, in a military sense, so irretrievable that in prolonging the war with as much obstinacy as the broken state of his party would allow, he displayed a good deal of that indifference to the sufferings of the kingdom and of his own adherents, which has been sometimes imputed to him. there was, from the hour of that battle, one only safe and honourable course remaining. he justly abhorred to reign, if so it could be named, the slave of parliament, with the sacrifice of his conscience and his friends. but it was by no means necessary to reign at all. the sea was for many months open to him; in france, or still better in holland, he would have found his misfortunes respected, and an asylum in that decent privacy which becomes an exiled sovereign. those very hopes which he too fondly cherished, and which lured him to destruction, hopes of regaining power through the disunion of his enemies, might have been entertained with better reason, as with greater safety, in a foreign land. it is not perhaps very probable that he would have been restored; but his restoration in such circumstances seems less desperate than through any treaty that he could conclude in captivity at home. whether any such thoughts of abandoning a hopeless contest were ever entertained by the king during this particular period, it is impossible to pronounce; we should infer the contrary from all his actions. it must be said that many of his counsellors seem to have been as pertinacious as himself, having strongly imbibed the same sanguine spirit, and looking for deliverance, according to their several fancies, from the ambition of cromwell or the discontent of the scots. but, whatever might have been the king's disposition, he would not have dared to retire from england. that sinister domestic rule, to which he had so long been subject, controlled every action. careless of her husband's happiness, and already attached probably to one whom she afterwards married, henrietta longed only for his recovery of a power which would become her own.[ ] hence, while she constantly laid her injunctions on charles never to concede anything as to the militia or the irish catholics, she became desirous, when no other means presented itself, that he should sacrifice what was still nearer to his heart, the episcopal church-government. the queen-regent of france, whose sincerity in desiring the king's restoration there can be no ground to deny,[ ] was equally persuaded that he could hope for it on no less painful conditions. they reasoned of course very plausibly from the great precedent of flexible consciences, the reconciliation of henrietta's illustrious father to the catholic church. as he could neither have regained his royal power, nor restored peace to france without this compliance with his subjects' prejudices, so charles could still less expect, in circumstances by no means so favourable, that he should avoid a concession, in the eyes of almost all men but himself, of incomparably less importance. _the king throws himself into the hands of the scots._--it was in expectation of this sacrifice, that the french envoy, montreuil, entered on his ill-starred negotiation for the king's taking shelter with the scots army. and it must be confessed that several of his best friends were hardly less anxious that he should desert a church he could not protect.[ ] they doubted not, reasoning from their own characters, that he would ultimately give way. but that charles, unchangeably resolved on this head,[ ] should have put himself in the power of men fully as bigoted as himself (if he really conceived that the scots presbyterians would shed their blood to re-establish the prelacy they abhorred), was an additional proof of that delusion which made him fancy that no government could be established without his concurrence; unless indeed we should rather consider it as one of those desperate courses, into which he who can foresee nothing but evil from every calculable line of action will sometimes plunge at a venture, borrowing some ray of hope from the uncertainty of its consequences.[ ] it was an inevitable effect of this step, that the king surrendered his personal liberty, which he never afterwards recovered. considering his situation, we may at first think the parliament tolerably moderate, in offering nearly the same terms of peace at newcastle which he had rejected at uxbridge; the chief difference being, that the power of the militia which had been demanded for commissioners nominated and removable by the two houses during an indefinite period, was now proposed to reside in the two houses for the space of twenty years; which rather more unequivocally indicated their design of making the parliament perpetual.[ ] but in fact they had so abridged the royal prerogative by their former propositions, that, preserving the decent semblance of monarchy, scarce anything further could be exacted. the king's circumstances were however so altered that, by persisting in his refusal of those propositions, he excited a natural indignation at his obstinacy in men who felt their own right (the conqueror's right), to dictate terms at pleasure. yet this might have had a nobler character of firmness, if during all the tedious parleys of the last three years of his life, he had not, by tardy and partial concessions, given up so much of that for which he contended, as rather to appear like a pedlar haggling for the best bargain, than a sovereign unalterably determined by conscience and public spirit. we must, however, forgive much to one placed in such unparalleled difficulties. charles had to contend, during his unhappy residence at newcastle, not merely with revolted subjects in the pride of conquest, and with bigoted priests, as blindly confident in one set of doubtful propositions as he was in the opposite, but with those he had trusted the most, and loved the dearest. we have in the _clarendon state papers_ a series of letters from paris, written, some by the queen, others jointly by colepepper, jermyn, and ashburnham, or the two former, urging him to sacrifice episcopacy, as the necessary means of his restoration. we have the king's answers, that display, in an interesting manner, the struggles of his mind under this severe trial.[ ] no candid reader, i think, can doubt that a serious sense of obligation was predominant in charles's persevering fidelity to the english church. for, though he often alleges the incompatibility of presbyterianism with monarchy, and says very justly, "i am most confident that religion will much sooner regain the militia than the militia will religion,"[ ] yet these arguments seem rather intended to weigh with those who slighted his scruples, than the paramount motives of his heart. he could hardly avoid perceiving that, as colepepper told him in his rough style, the question was, whether he would choose to be a king of presbytery or no king. but the utmost length which he could prevail on himself to go was to offer the continuance of the presbyterian discipline, as established by the parliament, for three years, during which a conference of divines might be had, in order to bring about a settlement. even this he would not propose without consulting two bishops, juxon and duppa, whether he could lawfully do so. they returned a very cautious answer, assenting to the proposition as a temporary measure, but plainly endeavouring to keep the king fixed in his adherence to the episcopal church.[ ] pressed thus on a topic, so important above all others in his eyes, the king gave a proof of his sincerity by greater concessions of power than he had ever intended. he had some time before openly offered to let the parliament name all the commissioners of the militia for seven years, and all the officers of state and judges to hold their places for life.[ ] he now empowered a secret agent in london, mr. william murray, privately to sound the parliamentary leaders, if they would consent to the establishment of a moderated episcopacy after three or five years, on condition of his departing from the right of the militia during his whole life.[ ] this dereliction of the main ground of contest brought down the queen's indignation on his head. she wrote several letters, in an imperious and unfeeling tone, declaring that she would never set her foot in england as long as the parliament should exist.[ ] jermyn and colepepper assumed a style hardly less dictatorial in their letters,[ ] till charles withdrew the proposal, which murray seems never to have communicated.[ ] it was indeed the evident effect of despair and a natural weariness of his thorny crown. he now began to express serious thoughts of making his escape,[ ] and seems even to hint more than once at a resignation of his government to the prince of wales. but henrietta forbade him to think of an escape, and alludes to the other with contempt and indignation.[ ] with this selfish and tyrannical woman, that life of exile and privacy which religion and letters would have rendered tolerable to the king, must have been spent in hardly less bitterness than on a dishonoured throne. she had displayed in france as little virtue as at home; the small resources which should have been frugally dispensed to those who had lost all for the royal cause were squandered upon her favourite and her french servants.[ ] so totally had she abandoned all regard to english interest, that hyde and capel, when retired to jersey, the governor of which, sir edward carteret, still held out for the king, discovered a plan formed by the queen and jermyn to put that island into the hands of france.[ ] they were exceedingly perplexed at this discovery, conscious of the impossibility of defending jersey, and yet determined not to let it be torn away from the sovereignty of the british crown. no better expedient occurred than, as soon as the project should be ripe for execution, to despatch a message "to the earl of northumberland or some other person of honour," asking for aid to preserve the island. this was of course, in other words, to surrender it into the power of the parliament, which they would not name even to themselves. but it was evidently more consistent with their loyalty to the king and his family, than to trust the good faith of mazarin. the scheme, however, was abandoned; for we hear no more of it. it must, however, be admitted at the present day, that there was no better expedient for saving the king's life, and some portion of royal authority for his descendants (a fresh renunciation of episcopacy perhaps only excepted), than such an abdication; the time for which had come before he put himself into the hands of the scots. his own party had been weakened, and the number of his well-wishers diminished, by something more than the events of war. the last unfortunate year had, in two memorable instances, revealed fresh proofs of that culpable imprudence, speaking mildly, which made wise and honest men hopeless of any permanent accommodation. at the battle of naseby, copies of some letters to the queen, chiefly written about the time of the treaty of uxbridge, and strangely preserved, fell into the hands of the enemy, and were instantly published.[ ] no other losses of that fatal day were more injurious to his cause. besides many proofs of a contemptible subserviency to one justly deemed irreconcilable to the civil and religious interests of the kingdom, and many expressions indicating schemes and hopes inconsistent with any practicable peace, and especially a design to put an end to the parliament,[ ] he gave her power to treat with the english catholics, promising to take away all penal laws against them as soon as god should enable him to do so, in consideration of such powerful assistance, as might deserve so great a favour, and enable him to effect it.[ ] yet it was certain that no parliament, except in absolute duress, would consent to repeal these laws. to what sort of victory therefore did he look? it was remembered that, on taking the sacrament at oxford some time before, he had solemnly protested that he would maintain the protestant religion of the church of england, without any connivance at popery. what trust could be reposed in a prince capable of forfeiting so solemn a pledge? were it even supposed that he intended to break his word with the catholics, after obtaining such aid as they could render him, would his insincerity be less flagrant?[ ] _discovery of glamorgan's treaty._--these suspicions were much aggravated by a second discovery that took place soon afterwards, of a secret treaty between the earl of glamorgan and the confederate irish catholics, not merely promising the repeal of the penal laws, but the establishment of their religion in far the greater part of ireland.[ ] the marquis of ormond, as well as lord digby who happened to be at dublin, loudly exclaimed against glamorgan's presumption in concluding such a treaty, and committed him to prison on a charge of treason. he produced two commissions from the king, secretly granted without any seal or the knowledge of any minister, containing the fullest powers to treat with the irish, and promising to fulfil any conditions into which he should enter. the king, informed of this, disavowed glamorgan; and asserted in a letter to the parliament that he had merely a commission to raise men for his service, but no power to treat of anything else, without the privity of the lord lieutenant, much less to capitulate anything concerning religion or any property belonging either to church or laity.[ ] glamorgan however was soon released, and lost no portion of the king's or his family's favour. this transaction has been the subject of much historical controversy. the enemies of charles, both in his own and later ages, have considered it as a proof of his indifference at least to the protestant religion, and of his readiness to accept the assistance of irish rebels on any conditions. his advocates for a long time denied the authenticity of glamorgan's commissions. but dr. birch demonstrated that they were genuine; and, if his dissertation could have left any doubt, later evidence might be adduced in confirmation.[ ] hume, in a very artful and very unfair statement, admitting the authenticity of these instruments, endeavours to show that they were never intended to give glamorgan any power to treat without ormond's approbation. but they are worded in the most unconditional manner, without any reference to ormond. no common reader can think them consistent with the king's story. i do not, however, impute to him any intention of ratifying the terms of glamorgan's treaty. his want of faith was not to the protestant, but to the catholic. upon weighing the whole of the evidence, it appears to me that he purposely gave glamorgan, a sanguine and injudicious man, whom he could easily disown, so ample a commission as might remove the distrust that the irish were likely to entertain of a negotiation wherein ormond should be concerned; while by a certain latitude in the style of the instrument, and by his own letters to the lord lieutenant about glamorgan's errand, he left it open to assert, in case of necessity, that it was never intended to exclude the former's privity and sanction. charles had unhappily long been in the habit of perverting his natural acuteness to the mean subterfuges of equivocal language. by these discoveries of the king's insincerity, and by what seemed his infatuated obstinacy in refusing terms of accommodation, both nations became more and more alienated from him; the one hardly restrained from casting him off, the other ready to leave him to his fate.[ ] _the king delivered up by the scots._--this ill opinion of the king forms one apology for that action which has exposed the scots nation to so much reproach--their delivery of his person to the english parliament. perhaps if we place ourselves in their situation, it will not appear deserving of quite such indignant censure. it would have shown more generosity to have offered the king an alternative of retiring to holland; and from what we now know, he probably would not have neglected the opportunity. but the consequence might have been his solemn deposition from the english throne; and, however we may think such banishment more honourable than the acceptance of degrading conditions, the scots, we should remember, saw nothing in the king's taking the covenant, and sweeping away prelatic superstitions, but the bounden duty of a christian sovereign, which only the most perverse self-will induced him to set at nought.[ ] they had a right also to consider the interests of his family, which the threatened establishment of a republic in england would defeat. to carry him back with their army into scotland, besides being equally ruinous to the english monarchy, would have exposed their nation to the most serious dangers. to undertake his defence by arms against england, as the ardent royalists desired, and doubtless the determined republicans no less, would have been, as was proved afterwards, a mad and culpable renewal of the miseries of both kingdoms.[ ] he had voluntarily come to their camp; no faith was pledged to him; their very right to retain his person, though they had argued for it with the english parliament, seemed open to much doubt. the circumstance, unquestionably, which has always given a character of apparent baseness to this transaction, is the payment of £ , made to them so nearly at the same time that it has passed for the price of the king's person. this sum was part of a larger demand on the score of arrears of pay, and had been agreed upon long before we have any proof or reasonable suspicion of a stipulation to deliver up the king.[ ] that the parliament would never have actually paid it on any other consideration, there can be, i presume, no kind of doubt; and of this the scots must have been fully aware. but whether there were any such secret bargain as has been supposed, or whether they would have delivered him up, if there had been no pecuniary expectation in the case, is what i cannot perceive sufficient grounds to pronounce with confidence; though i am much inclined to believe the affirmative of the latter question. and it is deserving of particular observation, that the party in the house of commons which sought most earnestly to obtain possession of the king's person, and carried all the votes for payment of money to the scots, was that which had no further aim than an accommodation with him, and a settlement of the government on the basis of its fundamental laws, though doubtless on terms very derogatory to his prerogative; while those who opposed each part of the negotiation were the zealous enemies of the king, and, in some instances, at least, of the monarchy. the journals bear witness to this.[ ] _growth of the independents and republicans._--whatever might have been the consequence of the king's accepting the propositions of newcastle, his chance of restoration upon any terms was now in all appearance very slender. he had to encounter enemies more dangerous and implacable than the presbyterians. that faction, which from small and insensible beginnings had acquired continued strength, through ambition in a few, through fanaticism in many, through a despair in some of reconciling the pretensions of royalty with those of the people, was now rapidly ascending to superiority. though still weak in the house of commons, it had spread prodigiously in the army, especially since its new-modelling at the time of the self-denying ordinance.[ ] the presbyterians saw with dismay the growth of their own and the constitution's enemies. but the royalists, who had less to fear from confusion than from any settlement that the commons would be brought to make, rejoiced in the increasing disunion; and fondly believed, like their master, that one or other party must seek assistance at their hands.[ ] _opposition to the presbyterian government._--the independent party comprehended, besides the members of that religious denomination,[ ] a countless brood of fanatical sectaries, nursed in the lap of presbyterianism, and fed with the stimulating aliment she furnished, till their intoxicated fancies could neither be restrained within the limits of her creed nor those of her discipline.[ ] the presbyterian zealots were systematically intolerant. a common cause made toleration the doctrine of the sectaries. about the beginning of the war, it had been deemed expedient to call together an assembly of divines, nominated by the parliament, and consisting not only of clergymen, but, according to the presbyterian usage, of lay members, peers as well as commoners, by whose advice a general reformation of the church was to be planned.[ ] these were chiefly presbyterian; though a small minority of independents, and a few moderate episcopalians, headed by selden,[ ] gave them much trouble. the general imposition of the covenant, and the substitution of the directory for the common prayer (which was forbidden to be used even in any private family, by an ordinance of august ), seemed to assure the triumph of presbyterianism; which became complete, in point of law, by an ordinance of february , establishing for three years the scots model of classes, synods, and general assemblies throughout england.[ ] but in this very ordinance there was a reservation which wounded the spiritual arrogance of that party. their favourite tenet had always been the independency of the church. they had rejected, with as much abhorrence as the catholics themselves, the royal supremacy, so far as it controlled the exercise of spiritual discipline. but the house of commons were inclined to part with no portion of that prerogative which they had wrested from the crown. besides the independents, who were still weak, a party called erastians,[ ] and chiefly composed of the common lawyers, under the guidance of selden, the sworn foe of every ecclesiastical usurpation, withstood the assembly's pretensions with success. they negatived a declaration of the divine right of presbyterian government. they voted a petition from the assembly, complaining of a recent ordinance as an encroachment on spiritual jurisdiction, to be a breach of privilege. the presbyterian tribunals were made subject to the appellant control of parliament; as those of the anglican church had been to that of the crown. the cases wherein spiritual censures could be pronounced, or the sacrament denied, instead of being left to the clergy, were defined by law.[ ] whether from dissatisfaction on this account, or some other reason, the presbyterian discipline was never carried into effect, except to a certain extent in london and in lancashire. but the beneficed clergy throughout england, till the return of charles ii., were chiefly, though not entirely, of that denomination.[ ] this party was still so far predominant, having the strong support of the city of london and its corporation,[ ] with almost all the peers who remained in their house, that the independents and other sectaries neither opposed this ordinance for its temporary establishment, nor sought anything farther than a toleration for their own worship. the question, as neal well observes, was not between presbytery and independency, but between presbytery with a toleration, and without one.[ ] not merely from their own exclusive bigotry, but from a political alarm by no means ungrounded, the presbyterians stood firmly against all liberty of conscience. but in this again they could not influence the house of commons to suppress the sectaries, though no open declaration in favour of indulgence was as yet made. it is still the boast of the independents that they first brought forward the great principles of religious toleration (i mean as distinguished from maxims of political expediency) which had been confined to a few philosophical minds; to sir thomas more, in those days of his better judgment when he planned his republic of utopia, to thuanus, or l'hospital. such principles are indeed naturally congenial to the persecuted; and it is by the alternate oppression of so many different sects, that they have now obtained their universal reception. but the independents also assert that they first maintained them while in power; a far higher praise, which however can only be allowed them by comparison. without invidiously glancing at their early conduct in new england,[ ] it must be admitted that the continuance of the penal laws against catholics, the prohibition of the episcopalian worship, and the punishment of one or two anti-trinitarians under cromwell, are proofs that the tolerant principle had not yet acquired perfect vigour. if the independent sectaries were its earliest advocates, it was the anglican writers, the latitudinarian school of chillingworth, hales, taylor, locke, and hoadley, that rendered it victorious.[ ] the king, as i have said, and his party cherished too sanguine hopes from the disunion of their opponents.[ ] though warned of it by the parliamentary commissioners at uxbridge, though in fact it was quite notorious and undisguised, they seem never to have comprehended that many active spirits looked to the entire subversion of the monarchy. the king in particular was haunted by a prejudice, natural to his obstinate and undiscerning mind, that he was necessary to the settlement of the nation; so that, if he remained firm, the whole parliament and army must be at his feet. yet during the negotiations at newcastle there was daily an imminent danger that the majority of parliament, irritated by his delays, would come to some vote excluding him from the throne. the scots presbyterians, whatever we may think of their behaviour, were sincerely attached, if not by loyal affection, yet by national pride, to the blood of their ancient kings. they thought and spoke of charles as of a headstrong child, to be restrained and chastised, but never cast off.[ ] but in england he had absolutely no friends among the prevailing party; many there were who thought monarchy best for the nation, but none who cared for the king. this schism nevertheless between the parliament and the army was at least in appearance very desirable for charles, and seemed to afford him an opportunity which a discreet prince might improve to great advantage, though it unfortunately deluded him with chimerical expectations.[ ] at the conclusion of the war, which the useless obstinacy of the royalists had protracted till the beginning of ,[ ] the commons began to take measures for breaking the force of their remaining enemy. they resolved to disband a part of the army, and to send the rest into ireland.[ ] they formed schemes for getting rid of cromwell, and even made some demur about continuing fairfax in command.[ ] but in all measures that exact promptitude and energy, treachery and timidity are apt to enfeeble the resolutions of a popular assembly. their demonstrations of enmity were however so alarming to the army, who knew themselves disliked by the people, and dependent for their pay on the parliament, that as early as april, , an overture was secretly made to the king, that they would replace him in his power and dignity. he cautiously answered, that he would not involve the kingdom in a fresh war, but should ever feel the strongest sense of this offer from the army.[ ] whether they were discontented at the coldness of this reply, or, as is more probable, the offer had only proceeded from a minority of the officers, no further overture was made, till not long afterwards the bold manoeuvre of joyce had placed the king's person in their power. _the parliament yield to the army._--the first effect of this military violence was to display the parliament's deficiency in political courage. it contained, we well know, a store of energetic spirits, not apt to swerve from their attachments. but, where two parties are almost equally balanced, the defection, which external circumstances must produce among those timid and feeble men from whom no assembly can be free, even though they should form but a small minority, will of course give a character of cowardice and vacillation to counsels, which is imputed to the whole. they immediately expunged, by a majority of to , a vote of reprehension passed some weeks before, upon a remonstrance from the army which the presbyterians had highly resented, and gave other proofs of retracing their steps. but the army was not inclined to accept their submission in full discharge of the provocation. it had schemes of its own for the reformation and settlement of the kingdom, more extensive than those of the presbyterian faction. it had its own wrongs also to revenge. advancing towards london, the general and council of war sent up charges of treason against eleven principal members of that party, who obtained leave to retire beyond sea. here may be said to have fallen the legislative power and civil government of england; which from this hour till that of the restoration had never more than a momentary and precarious gleam of existence, perpetually interrupted by the sword. those who have once bowed their knee to force, must expect that force will be for ever their master. in a few weeks after this submission of the commons to the army, they were insulted by an unruly, tumultuous mob of apprentices, engaged in the presbyterian politics of the city, who compelled them by actual violence to rescind several of their late votes.[ ] trampled upon by either side, the two speakers, several peers, and a great number of the lower house, deemed it somewhat less ignominious, and certainly more politic, to throw themselves on the protection of the army. they were accordingly soon restored to their places, at the price of a more complete and irretrievable subjection to the military power than they had already undergone. though the presbyterians maintained a pertinacious resistance within the walls of the house, it was evident that the real power of command was gone from them, and that cromwell with the army must either become arbiters between the king and parliament, or crush the remaining authority of both.[ ] _mysterious conduct of cromwell._--there are few circumstances in our history which have caused more perplexity to inquirers than the conduct of cromwell and his friends towards the king in the year . those who look only at the ambitious and dissembling character of that leader, or at the fierce republicanism imputed to ireton, will hardly believe that either of them could harbour anything like sincere designs of restoring him even to that remnant of sovereignty which the parliament would have spared. yet, when we consider attentively the public documents and private memoirs of that period, it does appear probable that their first intentions towards the king were not unfavourable, and so far sincere that it was their project to make use of his name rather than totally to set him aside. but whether by gratifying cromwell and his associates with honours, and throwing the whole administration into their hands, charles would have long contrived to keep a tarnished crown on his head, must be very problematical. _imprudent hopes of the king._--the new gaolers of this unfortunate prince began by treating him with unusual indulgence, especially in permitting his episcopal chaplains to attend him. this was deemed a pledge of what he thought an invaluable advantage in dealing with the army, that they would not insist upon the covenant, which in fact was nearly as odious to them as to the royalists, though for very different reasons. charles, naturally sanguine, and utterly incapable in every part of his life of taking a just view of affairs, was extravagantly elated by these equivocal testimonies of good-will. he blindly listened to private insinuations from rash or treacherous friends, that the soldiers were with him, just after his seizure by joyce. "i would have you to know, sir," he said to fairfax, "that i have as good an interest in the army as yourself;" an opinion as injudiciously uttered as it was absurdly conceived.[ ] these strange expectations account for the ill reception which in the hasty irritation of disappointment he gave to the proposals of the army, when they were actually tendered to him at hampton court, and which seems to have eventually cost him his life. these proposals appear to have been drawn up by ireton, a lawyer by education, and a man of much courage and capacity. he had been supposed, like a large proportion of the officers, to aim at a settlement of the nation under a democratical polity. but the army, even if their wishes in general went so far, which is hardly evident, were not yet so decidedly masters as to dictate a form of government uncongenial to the ancient laws and fixed prejudices of the people. something of this tendency is discoverable in the propositions made to the king, which had never appeared in those of the parliament. it was proposed that parliaments should be biennial; that they should never sit less than a hundred and twenty days, nor more than two hundred and forty; that the representation of the commons should be reformed, by abolishing small boroughs and increasing the number of members for counties, so as to render the house of commons, as near as might be, an equal representation of the whole. in respect of the militia and some other points, they either followed the parliamentary propositions of newcastle, or modified them favourably for the king. they excepted a very small number of the king's adherents from the privilege of paying a composition for their estates, and set that of the rest considerably lower than had been fixed by the parliament. they stipulated that the royalists should not sit in the next parliament. as to religion, they provided for liberty of conscience, declared against the imposition of the covenant, and by insisting on the retrenchment of the coercive jurisdiction of bishops and the abrogation of penalties for not reading the common prayer, left it to be implied that both might continue established.[ ] the whole tenor of these propositions was in a style far more respectful to the king, and lenient towards his adherents, than had ever been adopted since the beginning of the war. the sincerity indeed of these overtures might be very questionable, if cromwell had been concerned in them; but they proceeded from those elective tribunes called agitators, who had been established in every regiment to superintend the interests of the army.[ ] and the terms were surely as good as charles had any reason to hope. the severities against his party were mitigated. the grand obstacles to all accommodation, the covenant and presbyterian establishment, were at once removed; or, if some difficulty might occur as to the latter, in consequence of the actual possession of benefices by the presbyterian clergy, it seemed not absolutely insuperable. for the changes projected in the constitution of parliament, they were not necessarily injurious to the monarchy. that parliament should not be dissolved until it had sat a certain time, was so salutary a provision, that the triennial act was hardly complete without it. it is, however, probable, from the king's extreme tenaciousness of his prerogative, that these were the conditions that he found it most difficult to endure. having obtained, through sir john berkley, a sight of the propositions before they were openly made, he expressed much displeasure; and said that, if the army were inclined to close with him, they would never have demanded such hard terms. he seems to have principally objected, at least in words, to the exception of seven unnamed persons from pardon, to the exclusion of his party from the next parliament, and to the want of any articles in favour of the church. berkley endeavoured to show him that it was not likely that the army, if meaning sincerely, should ask less than this. but the king, still tampering with the scots, and keeping his eyes fixed on the city and parliament, at that moment came to an open breach with the army, disdainfully refused the propositions when publicly tendered to him, with such expressions of misplaced resentment and preposterous confidence as convinced the officers that they could neither conciliate nor trust him.[ ] this unexpected haughtiness lost him all chance with those proud and republican spirits; and, as they succeeded about the same time in bridling the presbyterian party in parliament, there seemed no necessity for an agreement with the king, and their former determinations of altering the frame of government returned with more revengeful fury against his person.[ ] _charles's flight from hampton court._--charles's continuance at hampton court, there can be little doubt, would have exposed him to such imminent risk that, in escaping from thence, he acted on a reasonable principle of self-preservation. he might probably, with due precautions, have reached france or jersey. but the hastiness of his retreat from hampton court giving no time, he fell again into the toils, through the helplessness of his situation, and the unfortunate counsels of one whom he trusted.[ ] the fortitude of his own mind sustained him in this state of captivity and entire seclusion from his friends. no one, however sensible to the infirmities of charles's disposition, and the defects of his understanding, can refuse admiration to that patient firmness and unaided acuteness which he displayed throughout the last and most melancholy year of his life. he had now abandoned all expectation of obtaining any present terms for the church or crown. he proposed, therefore, what he had privately empowered murray to offer the year before, to confirm the presbyterian government for three years, and to give up the militia during his whole life, with other concessions of importance.[ ] to preserve the church lands from sale, to shield his friends from proscription, to obtain a legal security for the restoration of the monarchy in his son, were from henceforth the main objects of all his efforts. it was, however, far too late, even for these moderate conditions of peace. upon his declining to pass four bills, tendered to him as preliminaries of a treaty, which on that very account, besides his objections to part of their contents, he justly considered as unfair, the parliament voted that no more addresses should be made to him, and that they would receive no more messages.[ ] he was placed in close and solitary confinement; and at a meeting of the principal officers at windsor it was concluded to bring him to trial, and avenge the blood shed in the war by an awful example of punishment; cromwell and ireton, if either of them had been ever favourable to the king, acceding at this time to the severity of the rest. yet in the midst of this peril and seeming abandonment, his affairs were really less desperate than they had been; and a few rays of light broke for a time through the clouds that enveloped him. from the hour that the scots delivered him up at newcastle, they seem to have felt the discredit of such an action, and longed for the opportunity of redeeming their public name. they perceived more and more that a well-disciplined army, under a subtle chief inveterately hostile to them, were rapidly becoming masters of england. instead of that covenanted alliance, that unity in church and state they had expected, they were to look for all the jealousy and dissension that a complete discordance in civil and spiritual polity could inspire. their commissioners, therefore, in england, lanerk, always a moderate royalist, and lauderdale, a warm presbyterian, had kept up a secret intercourse with the king at hampton court. after his detention at carisbrook, they openly declared themselves against the four bills proposed by the english parliament; and at length concluded a private treaty with him, by which, on certain terms quite as favourable as he could justly expect, they bound themselves to enter england with an army, in order to restore him to his freedom and dignity.[ ] this invasion was to be combined with risings in various parts of the country; the presbyterian and royalist, though still retaining much of animosity towards each other, concurring at least in abhorrence of military usurpation; and the common people having very generally returned to that affectionate respect for the king's person, which sympathy for his sufferings, and a sense how little they had been gainers by the change of government, must naturally have excited.[ ] _the presbyterians regain the ascendant._--the unfortunate issue of the scots expedition under the duke of hamilton, and of the various insurrections throughout england, quelled by the vigilance and good conduct of fairfax and cromwell, is well known. but these formidable manifestations of the public sentiment in favour of peace with the king on honourable conditions, wherein the city of london, ruled by the presbyterian ministers, took a share, compelled the house of commons to retract its measures. they came to a vote, by to , that they would not alter the fundamental government by king, lords, and commons;[ ] they abandoned their impeachment against seven peers, the most moderate of the upper house, and the most obnoxious to the army,[ ] they restored the eleven members to their seats:[ ] they revoked their resolution against a personal treaty with the king, and even that which required his assent by certain preliminary articles.[ ] in a word, the party for distinction's sake called presbyterian, but now rather to be denominated constitutional, regained its ascendancy. this change in the counsels of parliament brought on the treaty of newport. _treaty of newport._--the treaty of newport was set on foot and managed by those politicians of the house of lords, who, having long suspected no danger to themselves but from the power of the king, had discovered, somewhat of the latest, that the crown itself was at stake, and that their own privileges were set on the same cast. nothing was more remote from the intentions of the earl of northumberland or lord say, than to see themselves pushed from their seats by such upstarts as ireton and harrison; and their present mortification afforded a proof how men reckoned wise in their generation become the dupes of their own selfish, crafty, and pusillanimous policy. they now grew anxious to see a treaty concluded with the king. sensible that it was necessary to anticipate, if possible, the return of cromwell from the north, they implored him to comply at once with all the propositions of parliament, or at least to yield in the first instance as far as he meant to go.[ ] they had not, however, mitigated in any degree the rigorous conditions so often proposed; nor did the king during this treaty obtain any reciprocal concession worth mentioning in return for his surrender of almost all that could be demanded. did the positive adherence of the parliament to all these propositions, in circumstances so perilous to themselves, display less unreasonable pertinacity than that so often imputed to charles? or if, as was the fact, the majority which the presbyterians had obtained was so precarious that they dared not hazard it by suggesting any more moderate counsels, what rational security would the treaty have afforded him, had he even come at once into all their requisitions? his real error was to have entered upon any treaty, and still more to have drawn it out by tardy and ineffectual capitulations. there had long been only one course either for safety or for honour, the abdication of his royal office; now probably too late to preserve his life, but still more honourable than the treaty of newport. yet though he was desirous to make his escape to france, i have not observed any hint that he had thoughts of resigning the crown; whether from any mistaken sense of obligation, or from an apprehension that it might affect the succession of his son. there can be no more erroneous opinion than that of such as believe that the desire of overturning the monarchy produced the civil war, rather than that the civil war brought on the former. in a peaceful and ancient kingdom like england, the thought of change could not spontaneously arise. a very few speculative men, by the study of antiquity, or by observation of the prosperity of venice and holland, might be led to an abstract preference of republican politics; some fanatics might aspire to a jewish theocracy; but at the meeting of the long parliament, we have not the slightest cause to suppose that any party, or any number of persons among its members, had formed what must then have appeared so extravagant a conception.[ ] the insuperable distrust of the king's designs, the irritation excited by the sufferings of the war, the impracticability, which every attempt at negotiation displayed, of obtaining his acquiescence to terms deemed indispensable, gradually created a powerful faction, whose chief bond of union was a determination to set him aside.[ ] what further scheme they had planned is uncertain; none probably in which any number were agreed: some looked to the prince of wales, others perhaps, at one time, to the elector palatine;[ ] but necessity itself must have suggested to many the idea of a republican settlement. in the new-modelled army of , composed of independents and enthusiasts of every denomination, a fervid eagerness for changes in the civil polity, as well as in religion, was soon found to predominate. not checked, like the two houses, by attachment to forms, and by the influence of lawyers, they launched forth into varied projects of reform, sometimes judicious, or at least plausible, sometimes wildly fanatical. they reckoned the king a tyrant whom, as they might fight against, they might also put to death, and whom it were folly to provoke, if he were again to become their master. elated with their victories, they began already in imagination to carve out the kingdom for themselves; and remembered that saying so congenial to a revolutionary army, that the first of monarchs was a successful leader, the first of nobles were his followers.[ ] _gradual progress of a republican party._--the knowledge of this innovating spirit in the army gave confidence to the violent party in parliament, and increased its numbers by the accession of some of those to whom nature has given a fine sense for discerning their own advantage. it was doubtless swollen through the king's letters, and his pertinacity in clinging to his prerogative. and the complexion of the house of commons was materially altered by the introduction at once of a large body of fresh members. they had at the beginning abstained from issuing writs to replace those whose death or expulsion had left their seats vacant. these vacancies, by the disabling votes against all the king's party,[ ] became so numerous that it seemed a glaring violation of the popular principles to which they appealed, to carry on the public business with so maimed a representation of the people. it was however plainly impossible to have elections in many parts of the kingdom, while the royal army was in strength; and the change, by filling up nearly two hundred vacancies at once, was likely to become so important that some feared that the cavaliers, others that the independents and republicans, might find their advantage in it.[ ] the latter party were generally earnest for new elections; and carried their point against the presbyterians in september , when new writs were ordered for all the places which were left deficient of one or both representatives.[ ] the result of these elections, though a few persons rather friendly to the king came into the house, was on the whole very favourable to the army. the self-denying ordinance no longer being in operation, the principal officers were elected on every side; and, with not many exceptions, recruited the ranks of that small body, which had already been marked by implacable dislike of the king, and by zeal for a total new-modelling of the government.[ ] in the summer of , this party had so far obtained the upper hand that, according to one of our best authorities, the scots commissioners had all imaginable difficulty to prevent his deposition. in the course of the year , more overt proofs of a design to change the established constitution were given by a party out of doors. a petition was addressed "to the supreme authority of this nation, the commons assembled in parliament." it was voted upon a division, that the house dislikes this petition, and cannot approve of its being delivered; and afterwards, by a majority of only to , that it was seditious and insolent, and should be burned by the hangman.[ ] yet the first decisive proof, perhaps, which the journals of parliament afford of the existence of a republican party, was the vote of nd sept. , that they would once again make application to the king for those things which they judged necessary for the welfare and safety of the kingdom. this was carried by to .[ ] their subsequent resolution of jan. , , against any further addresses to the king, which passed by a majority of to , was a virtual renunciation of allegiance. the lords, after a warm debate, concurred in this vote. and the army had in november , before the king's escape from hampton court published a declaration of their design for the settlement of the nation under a sovereign representative assembly, which should possess authority to make or repeal laws, and to call magistrates to account. we are not certainly to conclude that all who, in , had made up their minds against the king's restoration, were equally averse to all regal government. the prince of wales had taken so active, and, for a moment, so successful a share in the war of that year, that his father's enemies were become his own. meetings however were held, where the military and parliamentary chiefs discussed the schemes of raising the duke of york, or his younger brother the duke of glocester, to the throne. cromwell especially wavered, or pretended to waver, as to the settlement of the nation; nor is there any evidence, so far as i know, that he had ever professed himself adverse to monarchy, till, dexterously mounting on the wave which he could not stem, he led on those zealots who had resolved to celebrate the inauguration of their new commonwealth with the blood of a victim king.[ ] _scheme among the officers of bringing charles to trial._--it was about the end of , as i have said, that the principal officers took the determination, which had been already menaced by some of the agitators, of bringing the king, as the first and greatest delinquent, to public justice.[ ] too stern and haughty, too confident of the rightfulness of their actions, to think of private assassination, they sought to gratify their pride by the solemnity and notoriousness, by the very infamy and eventual danger, of an act unprecedented in the history of nations. throughout the year , this design, though suspended, became familiar to the people's expectation.[ ] the commonwealth's men and the levellers, the various sectaries (admitting a few exceptions) grew clamorous for the king's death. petitions were presented to the commons, praying for justice on all delinquents, from the highest to the lowest.[ ] and not long afterwards, the general officers of the army came forward with a long remonstrance against any treaty, and insisting that the capital and grand author of their troubles be speedily brought to justice, for the treason, blood, and mischief, whereof he had been guilty.[ ] this was soon followed by the vote of the presbyterian party, that the answers of the king to the propositions of both houses are a ground for the house to proceed upon for the settlement of the peace of the kingdom,[ ] by the violent expulsion, or as it was called, seclusion of all the presbyterian members from the house, and the ordinance of a wretched minority, commonly called the rump, constituting the high court of justice for the trial of the king.[ ] a very small number among those who sat in this strange tribunal upon charles the first were undoubtedly capable of taking statesman-like views of the interests of their party, and might consider his death a politic expedient for consolidating the new settlement. it seemed to involve the army, which had openly abetted the act, and even the nation by its passive consent, in such inexpiable guilt towards the royal family, that neither common prudence nor a sense of shame would permit them to suffer its restoration. but by far the greater part of the regicides such considerations were either overlooked or kept in the background. their more powerful motive was that fierce fanatical hatred of the king, the natural fruit of long civil dissension, inflamed by preachers more dark and sanguinary than those they addressed, and by a perverted study of the jewish scriptures. they had been wrought to believe, not that his execution would be justified by state-necessity or any such feeble grounds of human reasoning, but that it was a bounden duty, which with a safe conscience they could not neglect. such was the persuasion of ludlow and hutchinson, the most respectable names among the regicides; both of them free from all suspicion of interestedness or hypocrisy, and less intoxicated than the rest by fanaticism. "i was fully persuaded," says the former, "that an accommodation with the king was unsafe to the people of england, and unjust and wicked in the nature of it. the former, besides that it was obvious to all men, the king himself had proved, by the duplicity of his dealing with the parliament, which manifestly appeared in his own papers, taken at the battle of naseby and elsewhere. of the latter i was convinced by the express words of god's law; 'that blood defileth the land, and the land cannot be cleansed of the blood that is shed therein, but by the blood of him that shed it.' (numbers, c. xxxv. v. .) and therefore i could not consent to leave the guilt of so much blood on the nation, and thereby to draw down the just vengeance of god upon us all, when it was most evident that the war had been occasioned by the invasion of our rights and open breach of our laws and constitution on the king's part."[ ] "as for mr. hutchinson," says his high-souled consort, "although he was very much confirmed in his judgment concerning the cause, yet being here called to an extraordinary action, whereof many were of several minds, he addressed himself to god by prayer, desiring the lord, that, if through any human frailty, he were led into any error or false opinion in those great transactions, he would open his eyes, and not suffer him to proceed, but that he would confirm his spirit in the truth, and lead him by a right-enlightened conscience; and finding no check, but a confirmation in his conscience, that it was his duty to act as he did, he, upon serious debate, both privately and in his addresses to god, and in conferences with conscientious, upright, unbiassed persons, proceeded to sign the sentence against the king. although he did not then believe but it might one day come to be again disputed among men, yet both he and others thought they could not refuse it without giving up the people of god, whom they had led forth and engaged themselves unto by the oath of god, into the hands of god's and their enemies; and therefore he cast himself upon god's protection, acting according to the dictates of a conscience which he had sought the lord to guide; and accordingly the lord did signalise his favour afterward to him."[ ] _question of charles's execution discussed._--the execution of charles the first has been mentioned in later ages by a few with unlimited praise, by some with faint and ambiguous censure, by most with vehement reprobation. my own judgment will possibly be anticipated by the reader of the preceding pages. i shall certainly not rest it on the imaginary sacredness and divine origin of royalty, nor even on the irresponsibility with which the law of almost every country invests the person of its sovereign. far be it from me to contend that no cases may be conceived, that no instances may be found in history, wherein the sympathy of mankind and the sound principles of political justice would approve a public judicial sentence as the due reward of tyranny and perfidiousness. but we may confidently deny that charles the first was thus to be singled out as a warning to tyrants. his offences were not, in the worst interpretation, of that atrocious character which calls down the vengeance of insulted humanity, regardless of positive law. his government had been very arbitrary; but it may well be doubted whether any, even of his ministers, could have suffered death for their share in it, without introducing a principle of barbarous vindictiveness. far from the sanguinary misanthropy of some monarchs, or the revengeful fury of others, he had in no instance displayed, nor does the minute scrutiny since made into his character entitle us to suppose, any malevolent dispositions beyond some proneness to anger, and a considerable degree of harshness in his demeanour.[ ] as for the charge of having caused the bloodshed of the war, upon which, and not on any former misgovernment, his condemnation was grounded, it was as ill established as it would have been insufficient. well might the earl of northumberland say, when the ordinance for the king's trial was before the lords, that the greatest part of the people of england were not yet satisfied whether the king levied war first against the houses, or the houses against him.[ ] the fact, in my opinion, was entirely otherwise. it is quite another question whether the parliament were justified in their resistance to the king's legal authority. but we may contend that, when hotham, by their command, shut the gates of hull against his sovereign, when the militia was called out in different counties by an ordinance of the two houses, both of which preceded by several weeks any levying of forces for the king, the bonds of our constitutional law were by them and their servants snapped asunder; and it would be the mere pedantry and chicane of political casuistry to enquire, even if the fact could be better ascertained, whether at edgehill, or in the minor skirmishes that preceded, the first carbine was discharged by a cavalier or a roundhead. the aggressor in a war is not the first who uses force, but the first who renders force necessary. but, whether we may think this war to have originated in the king's or the parliament's aggression, it is still evident that the former had a fair case with the nation, a cause which it was no plain violation of justice to defend. he was supported by the greater part of the peers, by full one-third of the commons, by the principal body of the gentry, and a large proportion of other classes. if his adherents did not form, as i think they did not, the majority of the people, they were at least more numerous, beyond comparison, than those who demanded or approved of his death. the steady deliberate perseverance of so considerable a body in any cause takes away the right of punishment from the conquerors, beyond what their own safety or reasonable indemnification may require. the vanquished are to be judged by the rules of national, not of municipal, law. hence, if charles, after having by a course of victories or the defection of the people prostrated all opposition, had abused his triumph by the execution of essex or hampden, fairfax or cromwell, i think that later ages would have disapproved of their deaths as positively, though not quite as vehemently, as they have of his own. the line is not easily drawn, in abstract reasoning, between the treason which is justly punished, and the social schism which is beyond the proper boundaries of law; but the civil war of england seems plainly to fall within the latter description. these objections strike me as unanswerable, even if the trial of charles had been sanctioned by the voice of the nation through its legitimate representatives, or at least such a fair and full convention as might, in great necessity, supply the place of lawful authority. but it was, as we all know, the act of a bold but very small minority, who having forcibly expelled their colleagues from parliament, had usurped, under the protection of a military force, that power which all england reckoned illegal. i cannot perceive what there was in the imagined solemnity of this proceeding, in that insolent mockery of the forms of justice, accompanied by all unfairness and inhumanity in its circumstances, which can alleviate the guilt of the transaction; and if it be alleged that many of the regicides were firmly persuaded in their consciences of the right and duty of condemning the king, we may surely remember that private murderers have often had the same apology. _the character of charles._--in discussing each particular transaction in the life of charles, as of any other sovereign, it is required by the truth of history to spare no just animadversion upon his faults; especially where much art has been employed by the writers most in repute to carry the stream of public prejudice in an opposite direction. but when we come to a general estimate of his character, we should act unfairly not to give their full weight to those peculiar circumstances of his condition in this worldly scene, which tend to account for and extenuate his failings. the station of kings is, in a moral sense, so unfavourable, that those who are least prone to servile admiration should be on their guard against the opposite error of an uncandid severity. there seems no fairer method of estimating the intrinsic worth of a sovereign, than to treat him as a subject, and to judge, so far as the history of his life enables us, what he would have been in that more private and happier condition, from which the chance of birth has excluded him. tried by this test, we cannot doubt that charles the first would have been not altogether an amiable man, but one deserving of general esteem; his firm and conscientious virtues the same, his deviations from right far less frequent, than upon the throne. it is to be pleaded for this prince that his youth had breathed but the contaminated air of a profligate and servile court, that he had imbibed the lessons of arbitrary power from all who surrounded him, that he had been betrayed by a father's culpable blindness into the dangerous society of an ambitious, unprincipled favourite. to have maintained so much correctness of morality as his enemies confess, was a proof of charles's virtuous dispositions; but his advocates are compelled also to own that he did not escape as little injured by the poisonous adulation to which he had listened. of a temper by nature, and by want of restraint, too passionate, though not vindictive; and, though not cruel, certainly deficient in gentleness and humanity, he was entirely unfit for the very difficult station of royalty, and especially for that of a constitutional king. it is impossible to excuse his violations of liberty on the score of ignorance, especially after the petition of right; because his impatience of opposition from his council made it unsafe to give him any advice that thwarted his determination. his other great fault was want of sincerity--a fault that appeared in all parts of his life, and from which no one who has paid the subject any attention will pretend to exculpate him. those indeed who know nothing but what they find in hume may believe, on hume's authority, that the king's contemporaries never dreamed of imputing to him any deviation from good faith; as if the whole conduct of the parliament had not been evidently founded upon a distrust, which on many occasions they very explicitly declared. but, so far as this insincerity was shown in the course of his troubles, it was a failing which untoward circumstances are apt to produce, and which the extreme hypocrisy of many among his adversaries might sometimes palliate. few personages in history, we should recollect, have had so much of their actions revealed, and commented upon, as charles; it is perhaps a mortifying truth that those who have stood highest with posterity, have seldom been those who have been most accurately known. the turn of his mind was rather peculiar, and laid him open with some justice to very opposite censures--for an extreme obstinacy in retaining his opinion, and for an excessive facility in adopting that of others. but the apparent incongruity ceases, when we observe that he was tenacious of ends, and irresolute as to means; better fitted to reason than to act; never swerving from a few main principles, but diffident of his own judgment in its application to the course of affairs. his chief talent was an acuteness in dispute; a talent not usually much exercised by kings, but which the strange events of his life called into action. he had, unfortunately for himself, gone into the study most fashionable in that age, of polemical theology; and, though not at all learned, had read enough of the english divines to maintain their side of the current controversies with much dexterity. but this unkingly talent was a poor compensation for the continual mistakes of his judgment in the art of government and the conduct of his affairs.[ ] _icon basiliké._--it seems natural not to leave untouched in this place, the famous problem of the _icon basiliké_, which has been deemed an irrefragable evidence both of the virtues and the talents of charles. but the authenticity of this work can hardly be any longer a question among judicious men. we have letters from gauden and his family, asserting it as his own in the most express terms, and making it the ground of a claim for reward. we know that the king's sons were both convinced that it was not their father's composition, and that clarendon was satisfied of the same. if gauden not only set up a false claim to so famous a work, but persuaded those nearest to the king to surrender that precious record, as it had been reckoned, of his dying sentiments, it was an instance of successful impudence which has hardly a parallel. but i should be content to rest the case on that internal evidence, which has been so often alleged for its authenticity. the _icon_ has to my judgment all the air of a fictitious composition. cold, stiff, elaborate, without a single allusion that bespeaks the superior knowledge of facts which the king must have possessed, it contains little but those rhetorical common-places which would suggest themselves to any forger. the prejudices of party, which exercise a strange influence in matters of taste, have caused this book to be extravagantly praised. it has doubtless a certain air of grave dignity, and the periods are more artificially constructed than was usual in that age (a circumstance not in favour of its authenticity); but the style is encumbered with frigid metaphors, as is said to be the case in gauden's acknowledged writings; and the thoughts are neither beautiful, nor always exempt from affectation. the king's letters during his imprisonment, preserved in the _clarendon state papers_, and especially one to his son, from which an extract is given in the _history of the rebellion_, are more satisfactory proofs of his integrity than the laboured self-panegyrics of the _icon basiliké_.[ ] part ii _commonwealth_--_abolition of the monarchy, and of the house of lords._--the death of charles the first was pressed forward rather through personal hatred and superstition, than out of any notion of its necessity to secure a republican administration. that party was still so weak, that the commons came more slowly, and with more difference of judgment than might be expected, to an absolute renunciation of monarchy. they voted indeed that the people are, under god, the original of all just power; and that whatever is enacted by the commons in parliament hath the force of law, although the consent and concurrence of the king or house of peers be not had thereto; terms manifestly not exclusive of the nominal continuance of the two latter. they altered the public style from the king's name to that of the parliament, and gave other indications of their intentions; but the vote for the abolition of monarchy did not pass till the seventh of february, after a debate, according to whitelock, but without a division. none of that clamorous fanaticism showed itself, which, within recent memory, produced, from a far more numerous assembly, an instantaneous decision against monarchy. wise men might easily perceive that the regal power was only suspended through the force of circumstances, not abrogated by any real change in public opinion. the house of lords, still less able than the crown to withstand the inroads of democracy, fell by a vote of the commons at the same time. it had continued during the whole progress of the war to keep up as much dignity as the state of affairs would permit; tenacious of small privileges, and offering much temporary opposition in higher matters, though always receding in the end from a contention wherein it could not be successful. the commons, in return, gave them respectful language, and discountenanced the rude innovators who talked against the rights of the peerage. they voted, on occasion of some rumours, that they held themselves obliged, by the fundamental laws of the kingdom and their covenant, to preserve the peerage with the rights and privileges belonging to the house of peers, equally with their own.[ ] yet this was with a secret reserve that the lords should be of the same mind as themselves. for, the upper house having resented some words dropped from sir john evelyn at a conference concerning the removal of the king to warwick castle, importing that the commons might be compelled to act without them, the commons vindicating their member as if his words did not bear that interpretation, yet added, in the same breath, a plain hint that it was not beyond their own views of what might be done; "hoping that their lordships did not intend by their inference upon the words, even in the sense they took the same, so to bind up this house to one way of proceeding as that in no case whatsoever, though never so extraordinary, though never so much importing the honour and interest of the kingdom, the commons of england might not do their duty, for the good and safety of the kingdom, in such a way as they may, if they cannot do it in such a way as they would and most desire."[ ] after the violent seclusion of the constitutional party from the house of commons, on the th of december , very few, not generally more than five, peers continued to meet. their number was suddenly increased to twelve on the nd of january; when the vote of the commons that it is high treason in the king of england for the time being to levy war against parliament, and the ordinance constituting the high court of justice, were sent up for their concurrence. these were unanimously rejected with more spirit than some, at least, of their number might be expected to display. yet, as if apprehensive of giving too much umbrage, they voted at their next meeting to prepare an ordinance, making it treasonable for any future king of england to levy war against the parliament--a measure quite as unconstitutional as that they had rejected. they continued to linger on the verge of annihilation during the month, making petty orders about writs of error, from four to six being present: they even met on the th of january. on the st of february, six peers forming the house, it was moved, "that they would take into consideration the settlement of the government of england and ireland, in this present conjuncture of things upon the death of the king;" and ordered that these lords following (naming those present and three more) be appointed to join with a proportionable number of the house of commons for that purpose. soon after, the speaker acquainted the house that he had that morning received a letter from the earl of northumberland, with a paper enclosed, of very great concernment; and for the present the house ordered that it should be sealed up with the speaker's seal. this probably related to the impending dissolution of their house; for they found next day that their messengers sent to the commons had not been admitted. they persisted, however, in meeting till the th, when they made a trifling order, and adjourned "till ten o'clock to-morrow."[ ] that morrow was the th of april . for the commons, having the same day rejected, by a majority of forty-four to twenty-nine, a motion that they would take the advice of the house of lords in the exercise of the legislative power, resolved that the house of peers was useless and dangerous, and ought to be abolished.[ ] it should be noticed that there was no intention of taking away the dignity of peerage; the lords, throughout the whole duration of the commonwealth, retained their titles, not only in common usage, but in all legal and parliamentary documents. the earl of pembroke, basest among the base, condescended to sit in the house of commons as knight for the county of berks; and was received, notwithstanding his proverbial meanness and stupidity, with such excessive honour as displayed the character of those low-minded upstarts, who formed a sufficiently numerous portion of the house to give their tone to its proceedings.[ ] thus by military force, with the approbation of an inconceivably small proportion of the people, the king was put to death; the ancient fundamental laws were overthrown; and a mutilated house of commons, wherein very seldom more than seventy or eighty sat, was invested with the supreme authority. so little countenance had these late proceedings even from those who seemed of the ruling faction, that, when the executive council of state, consisting of forty-one, had been nominated, and a test was proposed to them, declaring their approbation of all that had been done about the king and the kingly office, and about the house of lords, only nineteen would subscribe it, though there were fourteen regicides on the list.[ ] it was agreed at length, that they should subscribe it only as to the future proceedings of the commons. with such dissatisfaction at head-quarters, there was little to hope from the body of the nation.[ ] hence, when an engagement was tendered to all civil officers and beneficed clergy, containing only a promise to live faithful to the commonwealth, as it was established without a king or house of lords (though the slightest test of allegiance that any government could require), it was taken with infinite reluctance, and, in fact, refused by very many; the presbyterian ministers especially showing a determined averseness to the new republican organisation.[ ] this, however, was established (such is the dominion of the sword) far beyond the control of any national sentiment. thirty thousand veteran soldiers guaranteed the mock parliament they had permitted to reign. the sectaries, a numerous body, and still more active than numerous, possessed, under the name of committees for various purposes appointed by the house of commons, the principal local authorities, and restrained by a vigilant scrutiny the murmurs of a disaffected majority. love, an eminent presbyterian minister, lost his head for a conspiracy, by the sentence of a high court of justice, a tribunal that superseded trial by jury.[ ] his death struck horror and consternation into that arrogant priesthood, who had begun to fancy themselves almost beyond the scope of criminal law. the cavaliers were prostrate in the dust; and, anxious to retrieve something from the wreck of their long sequestered estates, had generally little appetite to embark afresh in a hopeless cause; besides that the mutual animosities between their party and the presbyterians were still too irreconcilable to admit of any sincere co-operation. hence, neither made any considerable effort in behalf of charles on his march, or rather flight, into england; a measure, indeed, too palpably desperate for prudent men who had learned the strength of their adversaries; and the great victory of worcester consummated the triumph of the infant commonwealth, or rather of its future master. _schemes of cromwell._--a train of favouring events, more than any deep-laid policy, had now brought sovereignty within the reach of cromwell. his first schemes of ambition may probably have extended no farther than a title and estate, with a great civil and military command in the king's name. power had fallen into his hands because they alone were fit to wield it; he was taught by every succeeding event his own undeniable superiority over his contemporaries in martial renown, in civil prudence, in decision of character, and in the public esteem, which naturally attached to these qualities. perhaps it was not till after the battle of worcester that he began to fix his thoughts, if not on the dignity of royalty, yet on an equivalent right of command. two remarkable conversations, in which whitelock bore a part, seem to place beyond controversy the nature of his designs. about the end of , whitelock himself, st. john, widdrington, lenthall, harrison, desborough, fleetwood, and whalley, met cromwell, at his own request, to consider the settlement of the nation. the four former were in favour of monarchy, whitelock inclining to charles, widdrington and others to the duke of glocester; desborough and whalley were against a single person's government, and fleetwood uncertain. cromwell, who had evidently procured this conference in order to sift the inclinations of so many leading men, and to give some intimation of his own, broke it up with remarking, that, if it might be done with safety and preservation of their rights as englishmen and christians, a settlement of somewhat with monarchical power in it would be very effectual.[ ] the observation he here made of a disposition among the lawyers to elect the duke of glocester, as being exempt by his youth from the prepossessions of the two elder brothers, may, perhaps, have put cromwell on releasing him from confinement, and sending him to join his family beyond sea.[ ] twelve months after this time, in a more confidential discourse with whitelock alone, the general took occasion to complain both of the chief officers of the army and of the parliament; the first, as inclined to factious murmurings, and the second, as ingrossing all offices to themselves, divided into parties, delaying business, guilty of gross injustice and partiality, and designing to perpetuate their own authority. whitelock, confessing part of this, urged that having taken commissions from them as the supreme power, it would be difficult to find means to restrain them. "what," said cromwell, "if a man should take upon him to be king?" "i think," answered whitelock, "that remedy would be worse than the disease." "why," rejoined the other, "do you think so?" he then pointed out that the statute of henry vii. gave a security to those who acted under a king, which no other government could furnish; and that the reverence paid by the people to that title would serve to curb the extravagances of those now in power. whitelock replied that their friends having engaged in a persuasion, though erroneous, that their rights and liberties would be better preserved under a commonwealth than a monarchy, this state of the question would be wholly changed by cromwell's assumption of the title, and it would become a private controversy between his family and that of the stuarts. finally, on the other's encouragement to speak fully his thoughts, he told him "that no expedient seemed so desirable as a private treaty with the king, in which he might not only provide for the security of his friends, and the greatness of his family, but set limits to monarchical power, keeping the command of the militia in his own hands." cromwell merely said, "that such a step would require great consideration;" but broke off with marks of displeasure, and consulted whitelock much less for some years afterwards.[ ] these projects of usurpation could not deceive the watchfulness of those whom cromwell pretended to serve. he had on several occasions thrown off enough of his habitual dissimulation to show the commonwealth's men that he was theirs only by accident, with none of their fondness for republican polity. _unpopularity of the parliament._--the parliament in its present wreck contained few leaders of superior ability; but a natural instinct would dictate to such an assembly the distrust of a popular general, even if there had been less to alarm them in his behaviour.[ ] they had no means, however, to withstand him. the creatures themselves of military force, their pretensions to direct or control the army could only move scorn or resentment. their claim to a legal authority, and to the name of representatives of a people who rejected and abhorred them, was perfectly impudent. when the house was fullest, their numbers did not much exceed one hundred; but the ordinary divisions, even on subjects of the highest moment, show an attendance of but fifty or sixty members. they had retained in their hands, notwithstanding the appointment of a council of state, most of whom were from their own body, a great part of the executive government, especially the disposal of offices.[ ] these they largely shared among themselves or their dependents; and in many of their votes gave occasion to such charges of injustice and partiality as, whether true or false, will attach to a body of men so obviously self-interested.[ ] it seems to be a pretty general opinion that a popular assembly is still more frequently influenced by corrupt and dishonest motives in the distribution of favours, or the decision of private affairs, than a ministry of state; whether it be that it is more probable that a man of disinterestedness and integrity may in the course of events rise to the conduct of government than that such virtues should belong to a majority; or that the clandestine management of court corruption renders it less scandalous and more easily varnished, than the shamelessness of parliamentary iniquity. the republican interest in the nation was almost wholly composed of two parties, both off-shoots deriving strength from the great stock of the army; the levellers, of whom lilburne and wildman are the most known, and the anabaptists, fifth monarchy-men, and other fanatical sectaries, headed by harrison, hewson, overton, and a great number of officers. though the sectaries seemed to build their revolutionary schemes more on their own religious views than the levellers, they coincided in most of their objects and demands.[ ] an equal representation of the people in short parliaments, an extensive alteration of the common law, the abolition of tithes, and indeed of all regular stipends to the ministry, a full toleration of religious worship, were reformations which they concurred in requiring, as the only substantial fruits of their arduous struggle.[ ] some among the wilder sects dreamed of overthrowing all civil institutions. these factions were not without friends in the commons. but the greater part were neither inclined to gratify them, by taking away the provision of the church, nor much less to divest themselves of their own authority. they voted indeed that tithes should cease as soon as a competent maintenance should be otherwise provided for the clergy.[ ] they appointed a commission to consider the reformation of the law, in consequence of repeated petitions against many of its inconveniences and abuses; who, though taxed of course with dilatoriness by the ardent innovators, suggested many useful improvements, several of which have been adopted in more regular times, though with too cautious delay.[ ] they proceeded rather slowly and reluctantly to frame a scheme for future parliaments; and resolved that they should consist of , to be chosen in due proportion by the several counties, nearly upon the model suggested by lilburne, and afterwards carried into effect by cromwell.[ ] it was with much delay and difficulty, amidst the loud murmurs of their adherents, that they could be brought to any vote in regard to their own dissolution. it passed on november , , after some very close divisions, that they should cease to exist as a parliament on november , .[ ] the republicans out of doors, who deemed annual, or at least biennial, parliaments essential to their definition of liberty, were indignant at so unreasonable a prolongation. thus they forfeited the good-will of the only party on whom they could have relied. cromwell dexterously aggravated their faults; he complained of their delaying the settlement of the nation; he persuaded the fanatics of his concurrence in their own schemes; the parliament, in turn, conspired against his power, and, as the conspiracies of so many can never be secret, let it be seen that one or other must be destroyed; thus giving his forcible expulsion of them the pretext of self-defence. they fell with no regret, or rather with much joy of the nation, except a few who dreaded more from the alternative of military usurpation or anarchy than from an assembly which still retained the names and forms so precious in the eyes of those who adhere to the ancient institutions of their country.[ ] _little parliament._--it was now the deep policy of cromwell to render himself the sole refuge of those who valued the laws, or the regular ecclesiastical ministry, or their own estates, all in peril from the mad enthusiasts who were in hopes to prevail.[ ] these he had admitted into that motley convention of one hundred and twenty persons, sometimes called barebone's parliament, but more commonly the little parliament, on whom his council of officers pretended to devolve the government, mingling them with a sufficient proportion of a superior class whom he could direct.[ ] this assembly took care to avoid the censure which their predecessors had incurred, by passing a good many bills, and applying themselves with a vigorous hand to the reformation of what their party deemed the most essential grievances, those of the law and of the church. they voted the abolition of the court of chancery, a measure provoked by its insufferable delay, its engrossing of almost all suits, and the uncertainty of its decisions. they appointed a committee to consider of a new body of the law, without naming any lawyer upon it.[ ] they nominated a set of commissioners to preside in courts of justice, among whom they with difficulty admitted two of that profession;[ ] they irritated the clergy by enacting that marriages should be solemnised before justices of the peace;[ ] they alarmed them still more, by manifesting a determination to take away their tithes, without security for an equivalent maintenance.[ ] thus having united against itself these two powerful bodies, whom neither kings nor parliaments in england have in general offended with impunity, this little synod of legislators was ripe for destruction. their last vote was to negative a report of their own committee, recommending that such as should be approved as preachers of the gospel, should enjoy the maintenance already settled by law; and that the payment of tithes, as a just property, should be enforced by the magistrates. the house having, by the majority of two, disagreed with this report,[ ] the speaker, two days after, having secured a majority of those present, proposed the surrender of their power into the hands of cromwell, who put an end to the opposition of the rest, by turning them out of doors. it can admit of no doubt that the despotism of a wise man is more tolerable than that of political or religious fanatics; and it rarely happens that there is any better remedy in revolutions which have given the latter an ascendant. cromwell's assumption, therefore, of the title of protector was a necessary and wholesome usurpation, however he may have caused the necessity; it secured the nation from the mischievous lunacy of the anabaptists, and from the more cool-blooded tyranny of that little oligarchy which arrogated to itself the name of commonwealth's men. though a gross and glaring evidence of the omnipotence of the army, the instrument under which he took his title, accorded to him no unnecessary executive authority. the sovereignty still resided in the parliament; he had no negative voice on their laws. until the meeting of the next parliament, a power was given him of making temporary ordinances; but this was not, as hume, on the authority of clarendon and warwick, has supposed, and as his conduct, if that were any proof of the law, might lead us to infer, designed to exist in future intervals of the legislature.[ ] it would be scarcely worth while, however, to pay much attention to a form of government which was so little regarded, except as it marks the jealousy of royal power, which those most attached to cromwell, and least capable of any proper notions of liberty, continued to entertain. in the ascent of this bold usurper to greatness, he had successively employed and thrown away several of the powerful factions who distracted the nation. he had encouraged the levellers and persecuted them; he had flattered the long parliament and betrayed it; he had made use of the sectaries to crush the commonwealth; he had spurned the sectaries in his last advance to power. these, with the royalists and the presbyterians, forming, in effect, the whole people, though too disunited for such a coalition as must have overthrown him, were the perpetual, irreconcilable enemies of his administration. master of his army, which he well knew how to manage, surrounded by a few deep and experienced counsellors, furnished by his spies with the completest intelligence of all designs against him, he had no great cause of alarm from open resistance. _parliament called by cromwell._--but he was bound by the instrument of government to call a parliament; and in any parliament his adversaries must be formidable. he adopted in both those which he summoned, the reformed model already determined; limiting the number of representatives to , to be chosen partly in the counties, according to their wealth or supposed population, by electors possessing either freeholds, or any real or movable property to the value of £ ; partly by the more considerable boroughs, in whose various rights of election no change appears to have been made.[ ] this alteration, conformable to the equalising principles of the age, did not produce so considerable a difference in the persons returned as it perhaps might at present.[ ] the court-party, as those subservient to him were called, were powerful through the subjection of the electors to the army. but they were not able to exclude the presbyterian and republican interests; the latter headed by bradshaw, haslerig, and scott, eager to thwart the power which they were compelled to obey.[ ] hence they began by taking into consideration the whole instrument of government; and even resolved themselves into a committee to debate its leading article, the protector's authority. cromwell, his supporters having lost this question on a division of to , thought it time to interfere. he gave them to understand that the government by a single person and a parliament, was a fundamental principle, not subject to their discussion; and obliged every member to a recognition of it, solemnly promising neither to attempt nor to concur in any alteration of that article.[ ] the commons voted, however, that this recognition should not extend to the entire instrument, consisting of forty-two articles; and went on to discuss them with such heat and prolixity, that after five months, the limited term of their session, the protector, having obtained the ratification of his new scheme neither so fully nor so willingly as he desired, particularly having been disappointed by the great majority of to , which voted the protectorate to be elective, not hereditary, dissolved the parliament with no small marks of dissatisfaction.[ ] _intrigues of the king and his party._--the banished king, meanwhile, began to recover a little of that political importance which the battle of worcester had seemed almost to extinguish. so ill supported by his english adherents on that occasion, so incapable with a better army than he had any prospect of ever raising again, to make a stand against the genius and fortune of the usurper, it was vain to expect that he could be restored by any domestic insurrection, until the disunion of the prevailing factions should offer some more favourable opportunity. but this was too distant a prospect for his court of starving followers. he had from the beginning looked around for foreign assistance. but france was distracted by her own troubles; spain deemed it better policy to cultivate the new commonwealth; and even holland, though engaged in a dangerous war with england, did not think it worth while to accept his offer of joining her fleet, in order to try his influence with the english seamen.[ ] totally unscrupulous as to the means by which he might reign, even at the moment that he was treating to become the covenanted king of scotland, with every solemn renunciation of popery, charles had recourse to a very delicate negotiation, which deserves remark, as having led, after a long course of time, but by gradual steps, to the final downfall of his family. with the advice of ormond, and with the concurrence of hyde, he attempted to interest the pope (innocent x.) on his side, as the most powerful intercessor with the catholic princes of europe.[ ] for this purpose it was necessary to promise toleration at least to the catholics. the king's ambassadors to spain in , cottington and hyde, and other agents despatched to rome at the same time, were empowered to offer an entire repeal of the penal laws.[ ] the king himself, some time afterwards, wrote a letter to the pope, wherein he repeated this assurance. that court, however, well aware of the hereditary duplicity of the stuarts, received his overtures with haughty contempt. the pope returned no answer to the king's letter; but one was received after many months from the general of the jesuits, requiring that charles should declare himself a catholic, since the goods of the church could not be lavished for the support of an heretical prince.[ ] even after this insolent refusal, the wretched exiles still clung, at times, to the vain hope of succour, which as protestants and englishmen they could not honourably demand.[ ] but many of them remarked too clearly the conditions on which assistance might be obtained; the court of charles, openly or in secret, began to pass over to the catholic church; and the contagion soon spread to the highest places. in the year , the royalist intrigues in england began to grow more active and formidable through the accession of many discontented republicans.[ ] though there could be no coalition, properly speaking, between such irreconcilable factions, they came into a sort of tacit agreement, as is not unusual, to act in concert for the only purpose they entertained alike, the destruction of their common enemy. major wildman, a name not very familiar to the general reader, but which occurs perpetually, for almost half a century, when we look into more secret history, one of those dark and restless spirits who delight in the deep game of conspiracy against every government, seems to have been the first mover of this unnatural combination. he had been early engaged in the schemes of the levellers, and was exposed to the jealous observation of the ruling powers. it appears most probable that his views were to establish a commonwealth, and to make the royalists his dupes. in his correspondence however with brussels, he engaged to restore the king. both parties were to rise in arms against the new tyranny; and the nation's temper was tried by clandestine intrigues in almost every county.[ ] greater reliance however was placed on the project of assassinating cromwell. neither party were by any means scrupulous on this score: if we have not positive evidence of charles's concurrence in this scheme, it would be preposterous to suppose that he would have been withheld by any moral hesitation. it is frequently mentioned without any disapprobation by clarendon in his private letters;[ ] and, as the royalists certainly justified the murders of ascham and dorislaus, they could not in common sense or consistency have scrupled one so incomparably more capable of defence.[ ] a mr. gerard suffered death for one of these plots to kill cromwell; justly sentenced, though by an illegal tribunal.[ ] _insurrectionary movements in ._--in the year , penruddock, a wiltshire gentleman, with a very trifling force, entered salisbury at the time of the assizes; and, declaring for the king, seized the judge and the sheriff.[ ] this little rebellion, meeting with no resistance from the people, but a supineness equally fatal, was soon quelled. it roused cromwell to secure himself by an unprecedented exercise of power. in possession of all the secrets of his enemies, he knew that want of concert or courage had alone prevented a general rising, towards which indeed there had been some movements in the midland counties.[ ] he was aware of his own unpopularity, and the national bias towards the exiled king. juries did not willingly convict the sharers in penruddock's rebellion.[ ] to govern according to law may sometimes be an usurper's wish, but can seldom be in his power. the protector abandoned all thought of it. dividing the kingdom into districts, he placed at the head of each a major-general as a sort of military magistrate, responsible for the subjection of his prefecture. these were eleven in number, men bitterly hostile to the royalist party, and insolent towards all civil authority.[ ] they were employed to secure the payment of a tax of per cent., imposed by cromwell's arbitrary will on those who had ever sided with the king during the late war, where their estates exceeded £ per annum. the major-generals, in their correspondence printed among thurloe's papers, display a rapacity and oppression beyond their master's. they complain that the number of those exempted is too great; they press for harsher measures; they incline to the unfavourable construction in every doubtful case; they dwell on the growth of malignancy and the general disaffection.[ ] it was not indeed likely to be mitigated by this unparalleled tyranny. all illusion was now gone as to the pretended benefits of the civil war. it had ended in a despotism, compared to which all the illegal practices of former kings, all that had cost charles his life and crown, appeared as dust in the balance. for what was ship-money, a general burthen, by the side of the present decimation of a single class, whose offence had long been expiated by a composition and defaced by an act of indemnity? or were the excessive punishments of the star-chamber so odious as the capital executions inflicted without trial by peers, whenever it suited the usurper to erect his high court of justice? a sense of present evils not only excited a burning desire to live again under the ancient monarchy, but obliterated, especially in the new generation, that had no distinct remembrance of them, the apprehension of its former abuses.[ ] _cromwell's arbitrary government._--if this decimation of the royalists could pass for an act of severity towards a proscribed faction, in which the rest of the nation might fancy themselves not interested, cromwell did not fail to show that he designed to exert an equally despotic command over every man's property. with the advice of his council, he had imposed, or, as i conceive (for it is not clearly explained), continued, a duty on merchandise beyond the time limited by law. a mr. george cony having refused to pay this tax, it was enforced from him, on which he sued the collector. cromwell sent his counsel, maynard, twisden, and wyndham, to the tower, who soon petitioned for liberty, and abandoned their client. rolle, the chief justice, when the cause came on, dared not give judgment against the protector; yet, not caring to decide in his favour, postponed the case till the next term, and meanwhile retired from the bench. glyn, who succeeded him upon it, took care to have this business accommodated with cony, who, at some loss of public reputation, withdrew his suit. sir peter wentworth, having brought a similar action, was summoned before the council, and asked if he would give it up. "if you command me," he replied to cromwell, "i must submit;" which the protector did, and the action was withdrawn.[ ] though it cannot be said that such an interference with the privileges of advocates or the integrity of judges was without precedents in the times of the stuarts, yet it had never been done in so public or shameless a manner. several other instances wherein the usurper diverted justice from its course, or violated the known securities of englishmen, will be found in most general histories; not to dwell on that most flagrant of all, the erection of his high court of justice, by which gerard and vowel in , slingsby and hewit in , were brought to the scaffold.[ ] i cannot therefore agree in the praises which have been showered upon cromwell for the just administration of the laws under his dominion. that, between party and party, the ordinary civil rights of men were fairly dealt with, is no extraordinary praise; and it may be admitted that he filled the benches of justice with able lawyers, though not so considerable as those of the reign of charles the second; but it is manifest that, so far as his own authority was concerned, no hereditary despot, proud in the crimes of a hundred ancestors, could more have spurned at every limitation than this soldier of a commonwealth.[ ] _cromwell summons another parliament._--amidst so general a hatred, trusting to the effect of an equally general terror, the protector ventured to summon a parliament in . besides the common necessities for money, he had doubtless in his head that remarkable scheme which was developed during its session.[ ] even the despotic influence of his major-generals, and the political annihilation of the most considerable body of the gentry, then labouring under the imputation of delinquency for their attachment to the late king, did not enable him to obtain a secure majority in the assembly; and he was driven to the audacious measure of excluding above ninety members, duly returned by their constituents, from taking their seats. their colleagues wanted courage to resist this violation of all privilege; and, after referring them to the council for approbation, resolved to proceed with public business. the excluded members, consisting partly of the republican, partly of the presbyterian factions, published a remonstrance in a very high strain, but obtained no redress.[ ] _cromwell designs to take the crown._--cromwell, like so many other usurpers, felt his position too precarious, or his vanity ungratified, without the name which mankind have agreed to worship. he had, as evidently appears from the conversations recorded by whitelock, long since aspired to this titular, as well as to the real, pre-eminence; and the banished king's friends had contemplated the probability of his obtaining it with dismay.[ ] affectionate towards his family, he wished to assure the stability of his son's succession, and perhaps to please the vanity of his daughters. it was indeed a very reasonable object with one who had already advanced so far. his assumption of the crown was desirable to many different classes; to the lawyers, who, besides their regard for the established constitution, knew that an ancient statute would protect those who served a _de facto_ king in case of a restoration of the exiled family; to the nobility, who perceived that their legislative right must immediately revive; to the clergy, who judged the regular ministry more likely to be secure under a monarchy; to the people, who hoped for any settlement that would put an end to perpetual changes; to all of every rank and profession who dreaded the continuance of military despotism, and demanded only the just rights and privileges of their country. a king of england could succeed only to a bounded prerogative, and must govern by the known laws; a protector, as the nation had well felt, with less nominal authority, had all the sword could confer. and, though there might be little chance that oliver would abate one jot of a despotism for which not the times of the tudors could furnish a precedent, yet his life was far worn, and under a successor it was to be expected that future parliaments might assert again all those liberties for which they had contended against charles.[ ] a few of the royalists might perhaps fancy that the restoration of the royal title would lead to that of the lawful heir; but a greater number were content to abandon a nearly desperate cause, if they could but see the more valuable object of their concern, the form itself of polity, re-established.[ ] there can be, as it appears to me, little room for doubt that if cromwell had overcome the resistance of his generals, he would have transmitted the sceptre to his descendants with the acquiescence and tacit approbation of the kingdom. had we been living ever since under the rule of his dynasty, what tone would our historians have taken as to his character and that of the house of stuart? the scheme however of founding a new royal line failed of accomplishment, as is well known, through his own caution, which deterred him from encountering the decided opposition of his army. some of his contemporaries seem to have deemed this abandonment, or more properly suspension, of so splendid a design rather derogatory to his firmness.[ ] but few men were better judges than cromwell of what might be achieved by daring. it is certainly not impossible that, by arresting lambert, whalley, and some other generals, he might have crushed for the moment any tendency to open resistance. but the experiment would have been infinitely hazardous. he had gone too far in the path of violence to recover the high road of law by any short cut. king or protector, he must have intimidated every parliament, or sunk under its encroachments. a new-modelled army might have served his turn; but there would have been great difficulties in its formation. it had from the beginning been the misfortune of his government that it rested on a basis too narrow for its safety. for two years he had reigned with no support but the independent sectaries and the army. the army or its commanders becoming odious to the people, he had sacrificed them to the hope of popularity, by abolishing the civil prefectures of the major-generals,[ ] and permitting a bill for again decimating the royalists to be thrown out of the house.[ ] their disgust and resentment, excited by an artful intriguer, who aspired at least to the succession of the protectorship, found scope in the new project of monarchy, naturally obnoxious to the prejudices of true fanatics, and who still fancied themselves to have contended for a republican liberty. we find that even fleetwood, allied by marriage to cromwell, and not involved in the discontent of the major-generals, in all the sincerity of his clouded understanding, revolted from the invidious title, and would have retired from service had it been assumed. there seems therefore reason to think that cromwell's refusal of the crown was an inevitable mortification. but he undoubtedly did not lose sight of the object for the short remainder of his life.[ ] the fundamental charter of the english commonwealth under the protectorship of cromwell, had been the instrument of government, drawn up by the council of officers in december , and approved with modifications by the parliament of the next year. it was now changed to the petition and advice, tendered to him by the present parliament in may , which made very essential innovations in the frame of polity. though he bore, as formerly, the name of lord protector, we may say, speaking according to theoretical classification, and without reference to his actual exercise of power, which was nearly the same, that the english government in the first period should be ranged in the order of republics, though with a chief magistrate at its head; but that from it became substantially a monarchy, and ought to be placed in that class, notwithstanding the unimportant difference in the style of its sovereign. the petition and advice had been compiled with a constant respect to that article, which conferred the royal dignity on the protector;[ ] and when this was withdrawn at his request, the rest of the instrument was preserved with all its implied attributions of sovereignty. the style is that of subjects addressing a monarch; the powers it bestows, the privileges it claims, are supposed, according to the expressions employed, the one to be already his own, the other to emanate from his will. the necessity of his consent to laws, though nowhere mentioned, seems to have been taken for granted. an unlimited power of appointing a successor, unknown even to constitutional kingdoms, was vested in the protector. he was inaugurated with solemnities applicable to monarchs; and what of itself is a sufficient test of the monarchical and republican species of government, an oath of allegiance was taken by every member of parliament to the protector singly, without any mention of the commonwealth.[ ] it is surely, therefore, no paradox to assert that oliver cromwell was _de facto_ sovereign of england, during the interval from june , to his death in september . the zealous opponents of royalty could not be insensible that they had seen it revive in everything except a title, which was not likely to remain long behind.[ ] it was too late however to oppose the first magistrate's personal authority. but there remained one important point of contention, which the new constitution had not fully settled. it was therein provided that the parliament should consist of two houses; namely, the commons, and what they always termed, with an awkward generality, the other house. this was to consist of not more than seventy, nor less than forty persons, to be nominated by the protector, and, as it stood at first, to be approved by the commons. but before the close of the session, the court party prevailed so far as to procure the repeal of this last condition;[ ] and cromwell accordingly issued writs of summons to persons of various parties, a few of the ancient peers, a few of his adversaries, whom he hoped to gain over, or at least to exclude from the commons, and of course a majority of his steady adherents. to all these he gave the title of lords; and in the next session their assembly denominated itself the lords' house.[ ] this measure encountered considerable difficulty. the republican party, almost as much attached to that vote which had declared the house of lords useless, as to that which had abolished the monarchy, and well aware of the intimate connection between the two, resisted the assumption of this aristocratic title, instead of that of the other house, which the petition and advice had sanctioned. the real peers feared to compromise their hereditary right by sitting in an assembly where the tenure was only during life; and disdained some of their colleagues, such as pride and hewson, low-born and insolent men, whom cromwell had rather injudiciously bribed with this new nobility; though, with these few exceptions, his house of lords was respectably composed. hence, in the short session of january , wherein the late excluded members were permitted to take their seats, so many difficulties were made about acknowledging the lords' house by that denomination, that the protector hastily and angrily dissolved the parliament.[ ] it is a singular part of cromwell's system of policy, that he would neither reign with parliaments nor without them; impatient of an opposition which he was sure to experience, he still never seems to have meditated the attainment of a naked and avowed despotism. this was probably due to his observation of the ruinous consequences that charles had brought on himself by that course, and his knowledge of the temper of the english, never content without the exterior forms of liberty, as well as to the suggestions of counsellors who were not destitute of concern for the laws. he had also his great design yet to accomplish, which could only be safely done under the sanction of a parliament. a very short time, accordingly, before his death, we find that he had not only resolved to meet once more the representatives of the nation, but was tampering with several of the leading officers to obtain their consent to an hereditary succession. the majority however of a council of nine, to whom he referred this suggestion, would only consent that the protector for the time being should have the power of nominating his successor; a vain attempt to escape from that regal form of government which they had been taught to abhor.[ ] but a sudden illness, of a nature seldom fatal except to a constitution already shattered by fatigue and anxiety, rendered abortive all these projects of cromwell's ambition. _cromwell's death, and character._--he left a fame behind him proportioned to his extraordinary fortunes and to the great qualities which sustained them; still more perhaps the admiration of strangers than of his country, because that sentiment was less alloyed by hatred, which seeks to extenuate the glory that irritates it. the nation itself forgave much to one who had brought back the renown of her ancient story, the traditions of elizabeth's age, after the ignominious reigns of her successors. this contrast with james and charles in their foreign policy gave additional lustre to the era of the protectorate. there could not but be a sense of national pride to see an englishman, but yesterday raised above the many, without one drop of blood in his veins which the princes of the earth could challenge as their own, receive the homage of those who acknowledged no right to power, and hardly any title to respect, except that of prescription. the sluggish pride of the court of spain, the mean-spirited cunning of mazarin, the irregular imagination of christina, sought with emulous ardour the friendship of our usurper.[ ] he had the advantage of reaping the harvest which he had not sown, by an honourable treaty with holland, the fruit of victories achieved under the parliament. but he still employed the great energies of blake in the service for which he was so eminently fitted; and it is just to say that the maritime glory of england may first be traced from the era of the commonwealth in a track of continuous light. the oppressed protestants in catholic kingdoms, disgusted at the lukewarmness and half-apostasy of the stuarts, looked up to him as their patron and mediator.[ ] courted by the two rival monarchies of europe, he seemed to threaten both with his hostility; and when he declared against spain, and attacked her west india possessions with little pretence certainly of justice, but not by any means, as i conceive, with the impolicy sometimes charged against him, so auspicious was his star that the very failure and disappointment of that expedition obtained a more advantageous possession for england than all the triumphs of her former kings. notwithstanding this external splendour, which has deceived some of our own, and most foreign writers, it is evident that the submission of the people to cromwell was far from peaceable or voluntary. his strong and skilful grasp kept down a nation of enemies that must naturally, to judge from their numbers and inveteracy, have overwhelmed him. it required a dexterous management to play with the army, and without the army he could not have existed as sovereign for a day. yet it seems improbable that, had cromwell lived, any insurrection or conspiracy, setting aside assassination, could have overthrown a possession so fenced by systematic vigilance, by experienced caution, by the respect and terror that belonged to his name. the royalist and republican intrigues had gone on for several years without intermission; but every part of their designs was open to him; and it appears that there was not courage or rather temerity sufficient to make any open demonstration of so prevalent a disaffection.[ ] the most superficial observers cannot have overlooked the general resemblances in the fortunes and character of cromwell, and of him who, more recently and upon an ampler theatre, has struck nations with wonder and awe. but the parallel may be traced more closely than perhaps has hitherto been remarked. both raised to power by the only merit which a revolution leaves uncontroverted and untarnished, that of military achievements, in that reflux of public sentiment, when the fervid enthusiasm of democracy gives place to disgust at its excesses and a desire of firm government. the means of greatness the same to both, the extinction of a representative assembly, once national, but already mutilated by violence, and sunk by its submission to that illegal force into general contempt. in military science or the renown of their exploits, we cannot certainly rank cromwell by the side of him, for whose genius and ambition all europe seemed the appointed quarry; but it may be said that the former's exploits were as much above the level of his contemporaries, and more the fruits of an original uneducated capacity. in civil government, there can be no adequate parallel between one who had sucked only the dregs of a besotted fanaticism, and one to whom the stores of reason and philosophy were open. but it must here be added that cromwell, far unlike his antitype, never showed any signs of a legislative mind, or any desire to fix his renown on that noblest basis, the amelioration of social institutions. both were eminent masters of human nature, and played with inferior capacities in all the security of powerful minds. though both, coming at the conclusion of a struggle for liberty, trampled upon her claims, and sometimes spoke disdainfully of her name, each knew how to associate the interests of those who had contended for her with his own ascendancy, and made himself the representative of a victorious revolution. those who had too much philosophy or zeal for freedom to give way to popular admiration for these illustrious usurpers, were yet amused with the adulation that lawful princes showered on them, more gratuitously in one instance, with servile terror in the other. both too repaid in some measure this homage of the pretended great by turning their ambition towards those honours and titles which they knew to be so little connected with high desert. a fallen race of monarchs, which had made way for the greatness of each, cherished hopes of restoration by their power till each, by an inexpiable act of blood, manifested his determination to make no compromise with that line. both possessed a certain coarse good nature and affability that covered the want of conscience, honour, and humanity; quick in passion, but not vindictive, and averse to unnecessary crimes. their fortunes in the conclusion of life were indeed very different; one forfeited the affections of his people, which the other, in the character at least of their master, had never possessed; one furnished a moral to europe by the continuance of his success, the other by the prodigiousness of his fall. a fresh resemblance arose afterwards, when the restoration of those royal families, whom their ascendant had kept under, revived ancient animosities, and excited new ones; those who from love of democratical liberty had borne the most deadly hatred to the apostates who had betrayed it, recovering some affection to their memory, out of aversion to a common enemy. our english republicans have, with some exceptions, displayed a sympathy for the name of cromwell; and i need not observe how remarkably this holds good in the case of his mighty parallel.[ ] _cromwell's son succeeds him_--the death of a great man, even in the most regular course of affairs, seems always to create a sort of pause in the movement of society; it is always a problem to be solved only by experiment, whether the mechanism of government may not be disordered by the shock, or have been deprived of some of its moving powers. but what change could be so great as that from oliver cromwell to his son! from one beneath the terror of whose name a nation had cowered and foreign princes grown pale, one trained in twenty eventful years of revolution, the first of his age in the field or in council, to a young man fresh from a country life, uneducated, unused to business, as little a statesman as a soldier, and endowed by nature with capacities by no means above the common. it seems to have been a mistake in oliver that with the projects he had long formed in his eldest son's favour, he should have taken so little pains to fashion his mind and manners for the exercise of sovereign power, while he had placed the second in a very eminent and arduous station; or that, if he despaired of richard's capacity, he should have trusted him to encounter those perils of disaffection and conspiracy which it had required all his own vigilance to avert. but, whatever might be his plans, the sudden illness which carried him from the world left no time for completing them. the petition and advice had simply empowered him to appoint a successor, without prescribing the mode. it appeared consonant to law and reason that so important a trust should be executed in a notorious manner, and by a written instrument; or, if a verbal nomination might seem sufficient, it was at least to be expected that this should be authenticated by solemn and indisputable testimony. no proof however was ever given of richard's appointment by his father, except a recital in the proclamation of the privy council, which, whether well founded or otherwise, did not carry conviction to the minds of the people; and this, even if we call it but an informality, aggravated the numerous legal and natural deficiencies of his title to the government.[ ] this very difference however in the personal qualifications of the father and the son, procured the latter some friends whom the former had never been able to gain. many of the presbyterian party began to see the finger of god, as they called it, in his peaceable accession, and to think they owed subjection to one who came in neither by regicide, nor hypocrisy, nor violence.[ ] some cool-headed and sincere friends of liberty entertained similar opinions. pierrepont, one of the wisest men in england, who had stood aloof from the protector's government till the scheme of restoring monarchy came into discussion, had great hopes, as a writer of high authority informs us, of settling the nation in the enjoyment of its liberties under the young man; who was "so flexible," says that writer, "to good counsels, that there was nothing desirable in a prince which might not have been hoped in him, but a great spirit and a just title; the first of which sometimes doth more hurt than good in a sovereign; the latter would have been supplied by the people's deserved approbation." pierrepont believed that the restoration of the ancient family could not be effected without the ruin of the people's liberty, and of all who had been its champions; so that no royalist, he thought, who had any regard to his country, would attempt it: while this establishment of monarchy in richard's person might reconcile that party, and compose all differences among men of weight and of zeal for the public good.[ ] he acted accordingly on those principles; and became, as well as his friend st. john, who had been discountenanced by oliver, a steady supporter of the young protector's administration. these two, with thurloe, whitelock, lord broghill, and a very few more, formed a small phalanx of experienced counsellors around his unstable throne. and i must confess that their course of policy in sustaining richard's government appears to me the most judicious that, in the actual circumstances, could have been adopted. pregnant as the restoration of the exiled family was with incalculable dangers, the english monarchy would have revived with less lustre in the eyes of the vulgar, but with more security for peace and freedom, in the line of cromwell. time would have worn away the stains of ignoble birth and criminal usurpation; and the young man, whose misfortune has subjected him to rather an exaggerated charge of gross incapacity, would probably have reigned as well as most of those who are born in the purple.[ ] but this termination was defeated by the combination of some who knew not what they wished, and of some who wished what they could never attain. the general officers who had been well content to make cromwell the first of themselves, or greater than themselves by their own creation, had never forgiven his manifest design to reign over them as one of a superior order, and owing nothing to their pleasure. they had begun to cabal during his last illness. though they did not oppose richard's succession, they continued to hold meetings, not quite public, but exciting intense alarm in his council. as if disdaining the command of a clownish boy, they proposed that the station of lord general should be separated from that of protector, with the power over all commissions in the army, and conferred on fleetwood; who, though his brother-in-law, was a certain instrument in their hands. the vain ambitious lambert, aspiring, on the credit of some military reputation, to wield the sceptre of cromwell, influenced this junto; while the commonwealth's party, some of whom were, or had been, in the army, drew over several of these ignorant and fanatical soldiers. thurloe describes the posture of affairs in september and october, while all europe was admiring the peaceable transmission of oliver's power, as most alarming; and it may almost be said that richard had already fallen when he was proclaimed the lord protector of england.[ ] _a parliament called._--it was necessary to summon a parliament on the usual score of obtaining money. lord broghill had advised this measure immediately on oliver's death,[ ] and perhaps the delay might be rather prejudicial to the new establishment. but some of the council feared a parliament almost as much as they did the army. they called one, however, to meet jan. , , issuing writs in the ordinary manner to all boroughs which had been accustomed to send members, and consequently abandoning the reformed model of cromwell. this ludlow attributes to their expectation of greater influence among the small boroughs; but it may possibly be ascribed still more to a desire of returning by little and little to the ancient constitution, by eradicating the revolutionary innovations. the new parliament consisted of courtiers, as the cromwell party were always denominated, of presbyterians, among whom some of cavalier principles crept in, and of republicans; the two latter nearly balancing, with their united weight, the ministerial majority.[ ] they began with an oath of allegiance to the protector, as presented by the late parliament, which, as usual in such cases, his enemies generally took without scruple.[ ] but upon a bill being offered for the recognition of richard as the undoubted lord protector and chief magistrate of the commonwealth, they made a stand against the word recognise, which was carried with difficulty, and caused him the mortification of throwing out the epithet undoubted.[ ] they subsequently discussed his negative voice in passing bills, which had been purposely slurred over in the petition and advice; but now everything was disputed. the thorny question as to the powers and privileges of the other house came next into debate. it was carried by to , to transact business with them. to this resolution an explanation was added, that it was not thereby intended to exclude such peers as had been faithful to the parliament, from their privilege of being duly summoned to be members of that house. the court supporting this absurd proviso, which confounded the ancient and modern systems of government, carried it by the small majority of to .[ ] they were stronger in rejecting an important motion, to make the approbation of the commons a preliminary to their transacting business with the persons now sitting in the other house as a house of parliament, by voices to . but the opposition succeeded in inserting the words "during the present parliament," which left the matter still unsettled.[ ] the sitting of the scots and irish members was also unsuccessfully opposed. upon the whole, the court party, notwithstanding this coalition of very heterogeneous interests against them, were sufficiently powerful to disappoint the hopes which the royalist intriguers had entertained. a strong body of lawyers, led by maynard, adhered to the government, which was supported also on some occasions by a part of the presbyterian interest, or, as then called, the moderate party; and richard would probably have concluded the session with no loss of power, if either he or his parliament could have withstood the more formidable cabal of wallingford house. this knot of officers, fleetwood, desborough, berry, sydenham, being the names most known among them, formed a coalition with the republican faction, who despaired of any success in parliament. the dissolution of that assembly was the main article of this league. alarmed at the notorious caballing of the officers, the commons voted that, during the sitting of the parliament, there should be no general council, or meeting of the officers of the army without leave of the protector and of both houses.[ ] such a vote could only accelerate their own downfall. three days afterwards, the junto of wallingford house insisted with richard that he should dissolve parliament; to which, according to the advice of most of his council, and perhaps by an overruling necessity, he gave his consent.[ ] this was immediately followed by a declaration of the council of officers, calling back the long parliament, such as it had been expelled in , to those seats which had been filled meanwhile by so many transient successors.[ ] it is not in general difficult for an armed force to destroy a government; but something else than the sword is required to create one. the military conspirators were destitute of any leader whom they would acknowledge, or who had capacity to go through the civil labours of sovereignty; lambert alone excepted, who was lying in wait for another occasion. they might have gone on with richard, as a pageant of nominal authority. but their new allies, the commonwealth's men, insisted upon restoring the long parliament.[ ] it seemed now the policy, as much as duty, of the officers to obey that civil power they had set up. for to rule ostensibly was, as i have just observed, an impracticable scheme. but the contempt they felt for their pretended masters, and even a sort of necessity arising out of the blindness and passion of that little oligarchy, drove them to a step still more ruinous to their cause than that of deposing richard, the expulsion once more of that assembly, now worn out and ridiculous in all men's eyes, yet seeming a sort of frail protection against mere anarchy, and the terror of the sword. lambert, the chief actor in this last act of violence, and indeed many of the rest, might plead the right of self-defence. the prevailing faction in the parliament, led by haslerig, a bold and headstrong man, perceived that, with very inferior pretensions, lambert was aiming to tread in the steps of cromwell; and, remembering their negligence of opportunities, as they thought, in permitting the one to overthrow them, fancied that they would anticipate the other. their intemperate votes cashiering lambert, desborough, and other officers, brought on, as every man of more prudence than haslerig must have foreseen, an immediate revolution that crushed once more their boasted commonwealth.[ ] they revived again a few months after, not by any exertion of the people, who hated alike both parties, in their behalf, but through the disunion of their real masters, the army, and vented the impotent and injudicious rage of a desperate faction on all who had not gone every length on their side, till scarce any man of eminence was left to muster under the standard of haslerig and his little knot of associates.[ ] _impossibility of establishing a republic._--i can by no means agree with those who find in the character of the english nation some absolute incompatibility with a republican constitution of government. under favouring circumstances, it seems to me not at all incredible that such a polity might have existed for many ages in great prosperity, and without violent convulsion. for the english are, as a people, little subject to those bursts of passion which inflame the more imaginative multitude of southern climates, and render them both apt for revolutions, and incapable of conducting them. nor are they again of that sluggish and stationary temper, which chokes all desire of improvement, and even all zeal for freedom and justice, through which some free governments have degenerated into corrupt oligarchies. the most conspicuously successful experiment of republican institutions (and those far more democratical than, according to the general theory of politics, could be reconciled with perfect tranquillity) has taken place in a people of english original; and though much must here be ascribed to the peculiarly fortunate situation of the nation to which i allude, we can hardly avoid giving some weight to the good sense and well-balanced temperament, which have come in their inheritance with our laws and our language. but the establishment of free commonwealths depends much rather on temporary causes, the influence of persons and particular events, and all those intricacies in the course of providence which we term accident, than on any general maxims that can become the basis of prior calculation. in the year , it is manifest that no idea could be more chimerical than that of a republican settlement in england. the name, never familiar or venerable in english ears, was grown infinitely odious; it was associated with the tyranny of ten years, the selfish rapacity of the rump, the hypocritical despotism of cromwell, the arbitrary sequestrations of committee-men, the iniquitous decimations of military prefects, the sale of british citizens for slavery in the west indies, the blood of some shed on the scaffold without legal trial, the tedious imprisonment of many with denial of the habeas corpus, the exclusion of the ancient gentry, the persecution of the anglican church, the bacchanalian rant of sectaries, the morose preciseness of puritans, the extinction of the frank and cordial joyousness of the national character. were the people again to endure the mockery of the good old cause, as the commonwealth's men affected to style the interests of their little faction, and be subject to lambert's notorious want of principle, or to vane's contempt of ordinances (a godly mode of expressing the same thing), or to haslerig's fury, or to harrison's fanaticism, or to the fancies of those lesser schemers, who in this utter confusion and abject state of their party, were amusing themselves with plans of perfect commonwealths, and debating whether there should be a senate as well as a representation; whether a given number should go out by rotation; and all those details of political mechanism so important in the eyes of theorists?[ ] every project of this description must have wanted what alone could give it either the pretext of legitimate existence, or the chance of permanency, popular consent; the republican party, if we exclude those who would have had a protector, and those fanatics who expected the appearance of jesus christ, was incalculably small; not, perhaps, amounting in the whole nation to more than a few hundred persons. _intrigues of the royalists._--the little court of charles at brussels watched with trembling hope these convulsive struggles of their enemies. during the protectorship of oliver, their best chance appeared to be, that some of the numerous schemes for his assassination might take effect. their correspondence indeed, especially among the presbyterian or neutral party, became more extensive;[ ] but these men were habitually cautious: and the marquis of ormond, who went over to england in the beginning of , though he reported the disaffection to be still more universal than he had expected, was forced to add that there was little prospect of a rising until foreign troops should be landed in some part of the country; an aid which spain had frequently promised, but, with an english fleet at sea, could not very easily furnish.[ ] the death of their puissant enemy brightened the visions of the royalists. though the apparent peaceableness of richard's government gave them some mortification, they continued to spread their toils through zealous emissaries, and found a very general willingness to restore the ancient constitution under its hereditary sovereign. besides the cavaliers, who, though numerous and ardent, were impoverished and suspected, the chief presbyterians, lords fairfax and willoughby, the earls of manchester and denbigh, sir william waller, sir george booth, sir ashley cooper, mr. popham of somerset, mr. howe of glocester, sir horatio townshend of norfolk, with more or less of zeal and activity, pledged themselves to the royal cause.[ ] lord fauconberg, a royalist by family, who had married a daughter of cromwell, undertook the important office of working on his brothers-in-law, richard and henry, whose position, in respect to the army and republican party, was so hazardous. it seems, in fact, that richard, even during his continuance in power, had not refused to hear the king's agents,[ ] and hopes were entertained of him: yet at that time even he could not reasonably be expected to abandon his apparent interests. but soon after his fall from power, while his influence, or rather that of his father's memory, was still supposed considerable with montagu, monk, and lockhart, they negotiated with him to procure the accession of those persons, and of his brother henry, for a pension of £ , a year, and a title.[ ] it soon appeared however that those prudent veterans of revolution would not embark under such a pilot, and that richard was not worth purchasing on the lowest terms. even henry cromwell, with whom a separate treaty had been carried on, and who is said to have determined at one time to proclaim the king at dublin, from want of courage, or, as is more probable, of seriousness in what must have seemed so unnatural an undertaking, submitted quietly to the vote of parliament that deprived him of the command of ireland.[ ] _conspiracy of ._--the conspiracy, if indeed so general a concert for the restoration of ancient laws and liberties ought to have so equivocal an appellation, became ripe in the summer of . the royalists were to appear in arms in different quarters; several principal towns to be seized: but as the moment grew nigh, the courage of most began to fail. twenty years of depression and continual failure mated the spirits of the cavaliers. the shade of cromwell seemed to hover over and protect the wreck of his greatness. sir george booth, almost alone, rose in cheshire; every other scheme, intended to be executed simultaneously, failing through the increased prudence of those concerned, or the precautions taken by the government on secret intelligence of the plots; and booth, thus deserted, made less resistance to lambert than perhaps was in his power.[ ] this discomfiture, of course, damped the expectations of the king's party. the presbyterians thought themselves ill-used by their new allies, though their own friends had been almost equally cautious.[ ] sir richard willis, an old cavalier, and in all the secrets of their conspiracy, was detected in being a spy both of cromwell and of the new government; a discovery which struck consternation into the party, who could hardly trust any one else with greater security.[ ] in a less favourable posture of affairs, these untoward circumstances might have ruined charles's hopes; they served, as it was, to make it evident that he must look to some more efficacious aid than a people's good wishes for his restoration. the royalists in england, who played so deep a stake on the king's account, were not unnaturally desirous that he should risk something in the game, and continually pressed that either he or one of his brothers would land on the coast. his standard would become a rallying-point for the well-affected, and create such a demonstration of public sentiment as would overthrow the present unstable government. but charles, not by nature of a chivalrous temper, shrunk from an enterprise which was certainly very hazardous, unless he could have obtained a greater assistance of troops from the low countries than was to be hoped.[ ] he was as little inclined to permit the duke of york's engaging in it, on account of the differences that had existed between them, and his knowledge of an intrigue that was going forward in england, principally among the catholics, but with the mischievous talents of the duke of buckingham at its head, to set up the duke instead of himself.[ ] he gave, however, fair words to his party, and continued for some time on the french coast, as if waiting for his opportunity. it was in great measure, as i suspect, to rid himself of this importunity, that he set out on his long and very needless journey to the foot of the pyrenees. thither the two monarchs of france and spain, wearied with twenty years of hostility without a cause and without a purpose, had sent their minister to conclude the celebrated treaty which bears the name of those mountains. charles had long cherished hopes that the first fruits of their reconciliation would be a joint armament to place him on the english throne: many of his adherents almost despaired of any other means of restoration. but lewis de haro was a timid statesman, and mazarin a cunning one: there was little to expect from their generosity; and the price of assistance might probably be such as none but desperate and unscrupulous exiles would offer, and the english nation would with unanimous indignation reject. it was well for charles that he contracted no public engagement with these foreign powers, whose co-operation must either have failed of success, or have placed on his head a degraded and unstable crown. the full toleration of popery in england, its establishment in ireland, its profession by the sovereign and his family, the surrender of jamaica, dunkirk, and probably the norman islands, were conditions on which the people might have thought the restoration of the stuart line too dearly obtained. it was a more desirable object for the king to bring over, if possible, some of the leaders of the commonwealth. except vane, accordingly, and the decided republicans, there was hardly any man of consequence whom his agents did not attempt, or, at least, from whom they did not entertain hopes. there stood at this time conspicuous above the rest, not all of them in ability, but in apparent power of serving the royal cause by their defection, fleetwood, lambert, and monk. the first had discovered, as far as his understanding was capable of perceiving anything, that he had been the dupe of more crafty men in the cabals against richard cromwell, whose complete fall from power he had neither designed nor foreseen. in pique and vexation, he listened to the overtures of the royalist agents, and sometimes, if we believe their assertions, even promised to declare for the king.[ ] but his resolutions were not to be relied upon, nor was his influence likely to prove considerable; though from his post of lieutenant-general of the army, and long accustomed precedence, he obtained a sort of outward credit far beyond his capacity. lambert was of a very different stamp; eager, enterprising, ambitious, but destitute of the qualities that inspire respect or confidence. far from the weak enthusiasm of fleetwood, he gave offence by displaying less show of religion than the temper of his party required, and still more by a current suspicion that his secret faith was that of the church of rome, to which the partiality of the catholics towards him gave support.[ ] the crafty unfettered ambition of lambert rendered it not unlikely that--finding his own schemes of sovereignty impracticable, he would make terms with the king; and there were not wanting those who recommended the latter to secure his services by the offer of marrying his daughter;[ ] but it does not appear that any actual overtures were made on either side. _interference of monk._--there remained one man of eminent military reputation, in the command of a considerable insulated army, to whom the royalists anxiously looked with alternate hope and despondency. monk's early connections were with the king's party, among whom he had been defeated and taken prisoner by fairfax at namptwich. yet even in this period of his life he had not escaped suspicions of disaffection, which he effaced by continuing in prison till the termination of the war in england. he then accepted a commission from the parliament to serve against the irish; and now falling entirely into his new line of politics, became strongly attached to cromwell, by whom he was left in the military government, or rather viceroyalty of scotland, which he had reduced to subjection, and kept under with a vigorous hand. charles had once, it is said, attempted to seduce him by a letter from cologne, which he instantly transmitted to the protector.[ ] upon oliver's death, he wrote a very sensible letter to richard cromwell, containing his advice for the government. he recommends him to obtain the affections of the moderate presbyterian ministers, who have much influence over the people, to summon to his house of lords the wisest and most faithful of the old nobility and some of the leading gentry, to diminish the number of superior officers in the army, by throwing every two regiments into one, and to take into his council as his chief advisers whitelock, st. john, lord broghill, sir richard onslow, pierrepont, and thurloe.[ ] the judiciousness of this advice is the surest evidence of its sincerity, and must leave no doubt on our minds that monk was at that time very far from harbouring any thoughts of the king's restoration. but when, through the force of circumstances and the deficiencies in the young protector's capacity, he saw the house of cromwell for ever fallen, it was for monk to consider what course he should follow, and by what means the nation was to be rescued from the state of anarchy that seemed to menace it. that very different plans must have passed through his mind before he commenced his march from scotland, it is easy to conjecture; but at what time his determination was finally taken, we cannot certainly pronounce.[ ] it would be the most honourable supposition to believe that he was sincere in those solemn protestations of adherence to the commonwealth which he poured forth, as well during his march as after his arrival in london; till discovering, at length, the popular zeal for the king's restoration, he concurred in a change which it would have been absurd, and perhaps impracticable, to resist. this however seems not easily reconcilable to monk's proceedings in new-modelling his army, and confiding power, both in scotland and england, to men of known intentions towards royalty; nor did his assurances of support to the republican party become less frequent or explicit at a time when every one must believe that he had taken his resolution, and even after he had communicated with the king. i incline therefore, upon the whole, to believe that monk, not accustomed to respect the rump parliament, and incapable, both by his temperament and by the course of his life, of any enthusiasm for the name of liberty, had satisfied himself as to the expediency of the king's restoration from the time that the cromwells had sunk below his power to assist them; though his projects were still subservient to his own security, which he was resolved not to forfeit by any premature declaration or unsuccessful enterprise. if the coalition of cavaliers and presbyterians, and the strong bent of the entire nation, had not convinced this wary dissembler that he could not fail of success, he would have continued true to his professions as the general of a commonwealth, content with crushing his rival lambert, and breaking that fanatical interest which he most disliked. that he aimed at such a sovereignty as cromwell had usurped has been the natural conjecture of many, but does not appear to me either warranted by any presumptive evidence, or consonant to the good sense and phlegmatic temper of monk. at the moment when, with a small but veteran army of men, he took up his quarters in london, it seemed to be within his arbitrament which way the scale should preponderate. on one side were the wishes of the nation, but restrained by fear; on the other, established possession, maintained by the sword, but rendered precarious by disunion and treachery. it is certainly very possible that, by keeping close to the parliament, monk might have retarded, at least for a considerable time, the great event which has immortalised him. but it can hardly be said that the king's restoration was rather owing to him than to the general sentiments of the nation and almost the necessity of circumstances, which had already made every judicious person anticipate the sole termination of our civil discord which they had prepared. whitelock, who, incapable of refusing compliance with the ruling power, had sat in the committee of safety established in october by the officers who had expelled the parliament, has recorded a curious anecdote, whence we may collect how little was wanting to prevent monk from being the great mover in the restoration. he had for some time, as appears by his journal, entertained a persuasion that the general meditated nothing but the king's return, to which he was doubtless himself well inclined, except from some apprehension for the public interest, and some also for his own. this induced him to have a private conference with fleetwood, which he enters as of the nd december , wherein, after pointing out the probable designs of monk, he urged him either to take possession of the tower, and declare for a free parliament, in which he would have the assistance of the city, or to send some trusty person to breda, who might offer to bring in the king upon such terms as should be settled. both these propositions were intended as different methods of bringing about a revolution, which he judged to be inevitable. "by this means," he contended, "fleetwood might make terms with the king for preservation of himself and his friends, and of that cause, in a good measure, in which they had been engaged; but, if it were left to monk, they and all that had been done would be left to the danger of destruction. fleetwood then asked me, 'if i would be willing to go myself upon this employment?' i answered, 'that i would go, if fleetwood thought fit to send me.' and after much other discourse to this effect, fleetwood seemed fully satisfied to send me to the king, and desired me to go and prepare myself forthwith for the journey; and that in the meantime fleetwood and his friends would prepare the instructions for me, so that i might begin my journey this evening or to-morrow morning early. "i going away from fleetwood, met vane, desborough, and berry in the next room, coming to speak with fleetwood, who thereupon desired me to stay a little; and i suspected what would be the issue of their consultation, and within a quarter of an hour fleetwood came to me and in much passion said to me, 'i cannot do it, i cannot do it.' i desired his reason why he could not do it. he answered, 'those gentlemen have remembered me; and it is true, that i am engaged not to do any such thing without my lord lambert's consent.' i replied, 'that lambert was at too great a distance to have his consent to this business, which must be instantly acted.' fleetwood again said, 'i cannot do it without him.' then i said, 'you will ruin yourself and your friends.' he said, 'i cannot help it.' then i told him i must take my leave, and so we parted."[ ] whatever might have been in the power of monk, by adhering to his declarations of obedience to the parliament, it would have been too late for him, after consenting to the restoration of the secluded members to their seats on february , , to withstand the settlement which it seems incredible that he should not at that time have desired. that he continued, for at least six weeks afterwards, in a course of astonishing dissimulation, so as to deceive, in a great measure, almost all the royalists, who were distrusting his intentions at the very moment when he made his first and most private tender of service to the king through sir john grenville about the beginning of april, might at first seem rather to have proceeded from a sort of inability to shake off his inveterate reservedness, than from consummate prudence and discretion. for any sudden risings in the king's favour, or an intrigue in the council of state, might easily have brought about the restoration without his concurrence; and, even as it was, the language held in the house of commons before their dissolution, the votes expunging all that appeared on their journals against the regal government and the house of lords,[ ] and, above all, the course of the elections for the new parliament, made it sufficiently evident that the general had delayed his assurances of loyalty till they had lost a part of their value. it is however a full explanation of monk's public conduct, that he was not secure of the army, chiefly imbued with fanatical principles, and bearing an inveterate hatred towards the name of charles stuart. a correspondent of the king writes to him on the th of march: "the army is not yet in a state to hear your name publicly."[ ] in the beginning of that month, many of the officers, instigated by haslerig and his friends, had protested to monk against the proceedings of the house, insisting that they should abjure the king and house of lords. he repressed their mutinous spirit, and bade them obey the parliament, as he should do.[ ] hence he redoubled his protestations of abhorrence of monarchy, and seemed for several weeks, in exterior demonstrations, rather the grand impediment to the king's restoration, than the one person who was to have the credit of it.[ ] meanwhile he silently proceeded in displacing the officers whom he could least trust, and disposing the regiments near to the metropolis, or at a distance, according to his knowledge of their tempers; the parliament having given him a commission as lord general of all the forces in the three kingdoms.[ ] the commissioners appointed by parliament for raising the militia in each county were chiefly gentlemen of the presbyterian party; and there seemed likely to be such a considerable force under their orders as might rescue the nation from its ignominious servitude to the army. in fact, some of the royalists expected that the great question would not be carried without an appeal to the sword.[ ] the delay of monk in privately assuring the king of his fidelity is still not easy to be explained, but may have proceeded from a want of confidence in charles's secrecy, or that of his counsellors. it must be admitted that lord clarendon, who has written with some minuteness and accuracy this important part of his history, has more than insinuated (especially as we now read his genuine language, which the ill faith of his original editors had shamefully garbled) that monk entertained no purposes in the king's favour till the last moment; but a manifest prejudice that shows itself in all his writings against the general, derived partly from offence at his extreme reserve and caution during this period, partly from personal resentment of monk's behaviour at the time of his own impeachment, greatly takes off from the weight of the noble historian's judgment.[ ] _difficulties about the restoration._--the months of march and april were a period of extreme inquietude, during which every one spoke of the king's restoration as imminent, yet none could distinctly perceive by what means it would be effected, and much less how the difficulties of such a settlement could be overcome.[ ] as the moment approached, men turned their attention more to the obstacles and dangers that lay in their way. the restoration of a banished family, concerning whom they knew little, and what they knew not entirely to their satisfaction, with ruined, perhaps revengeful, followers; the returning ascendancy of a distressed party, who had sustained losses that could not be repaired without fresh changes of property, injuries that could not be atoned without fresh severities; the conflicting pretensions of two churches, one loth to release its claim, the other to yield its possession; the unsettled dissensions between the crown and parliament, suspended only by civil war and usurpation; all seemed pregnant with such difficulties that prudent men could hardly look forward to the impending revolution without some hesitation and anxiety.[ ] hence pierrepont, one of the wisest statesmen in england, though not so far implicated in past transactions as to have much to fear, seems never to have overcome his repugnance to the recall of the king; and i am by no means convinced that the slowness of monk himself was not in some measure owing to his sense of the embarrassments that might attend that event. the presbyterians, generally speaking, had always been on their guard against an unconditional restoration. they felt much more of hatred to the prevailing power than of attachment to the house of stuart; and had no disposition to relinquish, either as to church or state government, those principles for which they had fought against charles the first. hence they began, from the very time that they entered into the coalition, that is, the spring and summer of , to talk of the treaty of newport, as if all that had passed since their vote of th december , that the king's concessions were a sufficient ground whereon to proceed to the settlement of the kingdom, had been like an hideous dream, from which they had awakened to proceed exactly in their former course.[ ] the council of state, appointed on the rd of february, two days after the return of the secluded members, consisted principally of this party. and there can, i conceive, be no question that, if monk had continued his neutrality to the last, they would, in conjunction with the new parliament, have sent over propositions for the king's acceptance. meetings were held of the chief presbyterian lords, manchester, northumberland, bedford, say, with pierrepont (who finding it too late to prevent the king's return, endeavoured to render it as little dangerous as possible), hollis, annesley, sir william waller, lewis, and other leaders of that party. monk sometimes attended on these occasions, and always urged the most rigid limitations.[ ] his sincerity in this was the less suspected, that his wife, to whom he was notoriously submissive, was entirely presbyterian, though a friend to the king; and his own preference of that sect had always been declared in a more consistent and unequivocal manner than was usual to his dark temper. these projected limitations, which but a few weeks before charles would have thankfully accepted, seemed now intolerable; so rapidly do men learn, in the course of prosperous fortune, to scorn what they just before hardly presumed to expect. those seemed his friends, not who desired to restore him, but who would do so at the least sacrifice of his power and pride. several of the council, and others in high posts, sent word that they would resist the imposition of unreasonable terms.[ ] monk himself redeemed his ambiguous and dilatory behaviour by taking the restoration, as it were, out of the hands of the council, and suggesting the judicious scheme of anticipating their proposals by the king's letter to the two houses of parliament. for this purpose he had managed, with all his dissembling pretences of commonwealth principles, or, when he was (as it were) compelled to lay them aside, of insisting on rigorous limitations, to prevent any overtures from the council, who were almost entirely presbyterian, before the meeting of parliament, which would have considerably embarrassed the king's affairs.[ ] the elections meantime had taken a course which the faction now in power by no means regarded with satisfaction. though the late house of commons had passed a resolution that no person who had assisted in any war against the parliament since , unless he should since have manifested his good affection towards it, should be capable of being elected; yet this, even if it had been regarded, as it was not, by the people, would have been a feeble barrier against the royalist party, composed in a great measure of young men who had grown up under the commonwealth, and of those who, living in the parliamentary counties during the civil war, had paid a reluctant obedience to its power.[ ] the tide ran so strongly for the king's friends, that it was as much as the presbyterians could effect, with the weight of government in their hands, to obtain about an equality of strength with the cavaliers in the convention parliament.[ ] it has been a frequent reproach to the conductors of this great revolution, that the king was restored without those terms and limitations which might secure the nation against his abuse of their confidence; and this, not only by contemporaries who had suffered by the political and religious changes consequent on the restoration, or those who, in after times, have written with some prepossession against the english church and constitutional monarchy, but by the most temperate and reasonable men; so that it has become almost regular to cast on the convention parliament, and more especially on monk, the imputation of having abandoned public liberty, and brought on, by their inconsiderate loyalty or self-interested treachery, the misgovernment of the two last stuarts, and the necessity of their ultimate expulsion. but, as this is a very material part of our history, and those who pronounce upon it have not always a very distinct notion either of what was or what could have been done, it may be worth while to consider the matter somewhat more analytically; confining myself, it is to be observed, in the present chapter, to what took place before the king's personal assumption of the government on the th of may . the subsequent proceedings of the convention parliament fall within another period. we may remark, in the first place, that the unconditional restoration of charles the second is sometimes spoken of in too hyperbolical language, as if he had come in as a sort of conqueror, with the laws and liberties of the people at his discretion. yet he was restored to nothing but the bounded prerogatives of a king of england; bounded by every ancient and modern statute, including those of the long parliament, which had been enacted for the subjects' security. if it be true, as i have elsewhere observed, that the long parliament, in the year , had established, in its most essential parts, our existing constitution, it can hardly be maintained that fresh limitations and additional securities were absolutely indispensable, before the most fundamental of all its principles, the government by king, lords, and commons, could be permitted to take its regular course. those who so vehemently reprobate the want of conditions at the restoration would do well to point out what conditions should have been imposed, and what mischiefs they can probably trace from their omission.[ ] they should be able also to prove that, in the circumstances of the time, it was quite as feasible and convenient to make certain secure and obligatory provisions the terms of the king's restoration, as seems to be taken for granted. _plan of reviving the treaty of newport inexpedient._--the chief presbyterians appear to have considered the treaty of newport, if not as fit to be renewed in every article, yet at least as the basis of the compact into which they were to enter with charles the second.[ ] but were the concessions wrested in this treaty from his father, in the hour of peril and necessity, fit to become the permanent rules of the english constitution? turn to the articles prescribed by the long parliament in that negotiation. not to mention the establishment of a rigorous presbytery in the church, they had insisted on the exclusive command of all forces by land and sea for twenty years, with the sole power of levying and expending the monies necessary for their support; on the nomination of the principal officers of state and of the judges during the same period; and on the exclusion of the king's adherents from all trust or political power. admit even that the insincerity and arbitrary principles of charles the first had rendered necessary such extraordinary precautions, was it to be supposed that the executive power should not revert to his successor? better it were, beyond comparison, to maintain the perpetual exclusion of his family than to mock them with such a titular crown, the certain cause of discontent and intrigue, and to mingle premature distrust with their professions of affection. there was undoubtedly much to apprehend from the king's restoration; but it might be expected that a steady regard for public liberty in the parliament and the nation would obviate that danger without any momentous change of the constitution; or that, if such a sentiment should prove unhappily too weak, no guarantees of treaties or statutes would afford a genuine security. _difficulty of framing conditions._--if, however, we were to be convinced that the restoration was effected without a sufficient safeguard against the future abuses of royal power, we must still allow, on looking attentively at the circumstances, that there were very great difficulties in the way of any stipulations for that purpose. it must be evident that any formal treaty between charles and the english government, as it stood in april , was inconsistent with their common principle. that government was, by its own declarations, only _de facto_, only temporary; the return of the secluded members to their seats, and the votes they subsequently passed, held forth to the people that everything done since the force put on the house in december was by an usurpation; the restoration of the ancient monarchy was implied in all recent measures, and was considered as out of all doubt by the whole kingdom. but between a king of england and his subjects no treaty, as such, could be binding; there was no possibility of entering into stipulations with charles, though in exile, to which a court of justice would pay the slightest attention, except by means of acts of parliament. it was doubtless possible that the council of state might have entered into a secret agreement with him on certain terms, to be incorporated afterwards into bills, as at the treaty of newport. but at that treaty his father, though in prison, was the acknowledged sovereign of england; and it is manifest that the king's recognition must precede the enactment of any law. it is equally obvious that the contracting parties would no longer be the same, and that the conditions that seemed indispensable to the council of state, might not meet with the approbation of parliament. it might occur to an impatient people, that the former were not invested with such legal or permanent authority as could give them any pretext for bargaining with the king, even in behalf of public liberty. but, if the council of state, or even the parliament on its first meeting, had resolved to tender any hard propositions to the king, as the terms, if not of his recognition, yet of his being permitted to exercise the royal functions, was there not a possibility that he might demur about their acceptance, that a negotiation might ensue to procure some abatement, that, in the interchange of couriers between london and brussels, some weeks at least might be whiled away? clarendon, we are sure, inflexible and uncompromising of his master's honour, would have dissuaded such enormous sacrifices as had been exacted from the late king. and during this delay, while no legal authority would have subsisted, so that no officer could have collected the taxes or executed process without liability to punishment, in what a precarious state would the parliament have stood! on the one hand, the nation almost maddened with the intoxication of reviving loyalty, and rather prone to cast at the king's feet the privileges and liberties it possessed than to demand fresh security for them, might insist upon his immediate return, and impair the authority of parliament. on the other hand, the army, desperately irreconcilable to the name of stuart, and sullenly resenting the hypocrisy that had deluded them, though they knew no longer where to seek a leader, were accessible to the furious commonwealth's men, who, rushing as it were with lighted torches along their ranks, endeavoured to rekindle a fanaticism that had not quite consumed its fuel.[ ] the escape of lambert from the tower had struck a panic into all the kingdom; some such accident might again furnish a rallying point for the disaffected, and plunge the country into an unfathomable abyss of confusion. hence, the motion of sir matthew hale, in the convention parliament, to appoint a committee who should draw up propositions to be sent over for the king's acceptance, does not appear to me well timed and expedient; nor can i censure monk for having objected to it.[ ] the business in hand required greater despatch. if the king's restoration was an essential blessing, it was not to be thrown away in the debates of a committee. a wary, scrupulous, conscientious english lawyer, like hale, is always wanting in the rapidity and decision necessary for revolutions, though he may be highly useful in preventing them from going too far. it is, i confess, more probable that the king would have accepted almost any conditions tendered to him; such at least would have been the advice of most of his counsellors; and his own conduct in scotland was sufficient to show how little any sense of honour or dignity would have stood in his way. but on what grounds did his english friends, nay some of the presbyterians themselves, advise his submission to the dictates of that party? it was in the expectation that the next free parliament, summoned by his own writ, would undo all this work of stipulation, and restore him to an unfettered prerogative. and this expectation there was every ground, from the temper of the nation, to entertain. unless the convention parliament had bargained for its own perpetuity, or the privy council had been made immovable, or a military force, independent of the crown, had been kept up to overawe the people (all of them most unconstitutional and abominable usurpations), there was no possibility of maintaining the conditions, whatever they might have been, from the want of which so much mischief is fancied to have sprung. evils did take place, dangers did arise, the liberties of england were once more impaired; but these are far less to be ascribed to the actors in the restoration than to the next parliament, and to the nation who chose it. i must once more request the reader to take notice that i am not here concerned with the proceedings of the convention parliament after the king's return to england, which, in some respects, appear to me censurable; but discussing the question, whether they were guilty of any fault in not tendering bills of limitation on the prerogative, as preliminary conditions of his restoration to the exercise of his lawful authority. and it will be found, upon a review of what took place in that interregnum from their meeting together on the th of april , to charles's arrival in london on the th of may, that they were less unmindful than has been sometimes supposed, of provisions to secure the kingdom against the perils which had seemed to threaten it in the restoration. on the th of april, the commons met and elected grimston, a moderate presbyterian, as their speaker, somewhat against the secret wish of the cavaliers, who, elated by their success in the elections, were beginning to aim at superiority, and to show a jealousy of their late allies.[ ] on the same day, the doors of the house of lords were found open; and ten peers, all of whom had sat in , took their places as if nothing more than a common adjournment had passed in the interval.[ ] there was, however, a very delicate and embarrassing question, that had been much discussed in their private meetings. the object of these, as i have mentioned, was to impose terms on the king, and maintain the presbyterian ascendancy. but the peers of this party were far from numerous, and must be outvoted, if all the other lawful members of the house should be admitted to their privileges. of these there were three classes. the first was of the peers who had come to their titles since the commencement of the civil war, and whom there was no colour of justice, nor any vote of the house to exclude. to some of these accordingly they caused letters to be directed; and the others took their seats without objection on the th and th of april, on the latter of which days thirty-eight peers were present.[ ] the second class was of those who had joined charles the first, and had been excluded from sitting in the house by votes of the long parliament. these it had been in contemplation among the presbyterian junto to keep out; but the glaring inconsistency of such a measure with the popular sentiment, and the strength that the first class had given to the royalist interest among the aristocracy, prevented them from insisting on it. a third class consisted of those who had been created since the great seal was taken to york in ; some by the late king, others by the present in exile; and these, according to the fundamental principle of the parliamentary side, were incapable of sitting in the house. it was probably one of the conditions on which some meant to insist, conformably to the articles of the treaty of newport, that the new peers should be perpetually incapable; or even that none should in future have the right of voting, without the concurrence of both houses of parliament. an order was made therefore on may that no lords created since should sit. this was vacated by a subsequent resolution of may . a message was sent down to the commons on april , desiring a conference on the great affairs of the kingdom. this was the first time that word had been used for more than eleven years. but the commons, in returning an answer to this message, still employed the word nation. it was determined that the conference should take place on the ensuing tuesday, the first of may.[ ] in this conference, there can be no doubt that the question of further securities against the power of the crown would have been discussed. but monk, whether from conviction of their inexpedience or to atone for his ambiguous delay, had determined to prevent any encroachment on the prerogative. he caused the king's letter to the council of state, and to the two houses of parliament, to be delivered on that very day. a burst of enthusiastic joy testified their long repressed wishes; and, when the conference took place, the earl of manchester was instructed to let the commons know that the lords do own and declare that, according to the ancient and fundamental laws of this kingdom, the government is and ought to be by king, lords, and commons. on the same day, the commons resolved to agree in this vote; and appointed a committee to report what pretended acts and ordinances were inconsistent with it.[ ] it is however so far from being true that this convention gave itself up to a blind confidence in the king, that their journals during the month of may bear witness to a considerable activity in furthering provisions which the circumstances appeared to require. they appointed a committee, on may rd, to consider of the king's letter and declaration, both holding forth, it will be remembered, all promises of indemnity, and everything that could tranquillise apprehension, and to propose bills accordingly, especially for taking away military tenures. one bill was brought into the house, to secure lands purchased from the trustees of the late parliament; another, to establish ministers already settled in benefices; a third, for a general indemnity; a fourth, to take away tenures in chivalry and wardship; a fifth, to make void all grants of honour or estate, made by the late or present king since may . finally, on the very th of may, we find a bill read twice and committed, for the confirmation of privilege of parliament, magna charta, the petition of right, and other great constitutional statutes.[ ] these measures, though some of them were never completed, proved that the restoration was not carried forward with so thoughtless a precipitancy and neglect of liberty as has been asserted. there was undoubtedly one very important matter of past controversy, which they may seem to have avoided, the power over the militia. they silently gave up that momentous question. yet it was become, in a practical sense, incomparably more important that the representatives of the commons should retain a control over the land forces of the nation than it had been at the commencement of the controversy. war and usurpation had sown the dragon's teeth in our fields; and, instead of the peaceable trained bands of former ages, the citizen soldiers who could not be marched beyond their counties, we had a veteran army accustomed to tread upon the civil authority at the bidding of their superiors, and used alike to govern and obey. it seemed prodigiously dangerous to give up this weapon into the hands of our new sovereign. the experience of other countries as well as our own demonstrated that public liberty could never be secure, if a large standing army should be kept on foot, or any standing army without consent of parliament. but this salutary restriction the convention parliament did not think fit to propose; and in this respect i certainly consider them as having stopped short of adequate security. it is probable that the necessity of humouring monk, whom it was their first vote to constitute general of all the forces in the three kingdoms,[ ] with the hope, which proved not vain, that the king himself would disband the present army whereon he could so little rely, prevented any endeavour to establish the control of parliament over the military power, till it was too late to withstand the violence of the cavaliers, who considered the absolute prerogative of the crown in that point the most fundamental article of their creed. _conduct of monk._--of monk himself it may, i think, be said that, if his conduct in this revolution was not that of a high-minded patriot, it did not deserve all the reproach that has been so frequently thrown on it. no one can, without forfeiting all pretensions to have his own word believed, excuse his incomparable deceit and perjury; a masterpiece, no doubt, as it ought to be reckoned by those who set at nought the obligations of veracity in public transactions, of that wisdom which is not from above. but, in seconding the public wish for the king's restoration, a step which few perhaps can be so much in love with fanatical and tyrannous usurpation as to condemn, he seems to have used what influence he possessed, an influence by no means commanding, to render the new settlement as little injurious as possible to public and private interests. if he frustrated the scheme of throwing the executive authority into the hands of a presbyterian oligarchy, i, for one, can see no great cause for censure; nor is it quite reasonable to expect that a soldier of fortune, inured to the exercise of arbitrary power, and exempt from the prevailing religious fanaticism which must be felt or despised, should have partaken a fervent zeal for liberty, as little congenial to his temperament as it was to his profession. he certainly did not satisfy the king even in his first promises of support, when he advised an absolute indemnity, and the preservation of actual interests in the lands of the crown and church. in the first debates on the bill of indemnity, when the case of the regicides came into discussion, he pressed for the smallest number of exceptions from pardon. and, though his conduct after the king's return displayed his accustomed prudence, it is evident that, if he had retained great influence in the council, which he assuredly did not, he would have maintained as much as possible of the existing settlement in the church. the deepest stain on his memory is the production of argyle's private letters on his trial in scotland; nor indeed can monk be regarded, upon the whole, as an estimable man, though his prudence and success may entitle him, in the common acceptation of the word, to be reckoned a great one. footnotes: [ ] may, p. . [ ] both sides claimed the victory. may, who thinks that essex, by his injudicious conduct after the battle, lost the advantage he had gained in it, admits that the effect was to strengthen the king's side. "those who thought his success impossible began to look upon him as one who might be a conqueror, and many neuters joined him."--p. . ludlow is of the same opinion as to essex's behaviour and its consequences: "our army, after some refreshment at warwick, returned to london, not like men that had obtained a victory, but as if they had been beaten."--p. . this shows that they had not in fact obtained much of a victory; and lord wharton's report to parliament almost leads us to think the advantage, upon the whole, to have been with the king. _parl. hist._ ii. . [ ] may, ; baillie, , . [ ] may, baillie, mrs. hutchinson, are as much of this opinion as sir philip warwick and other royalist writers. it is certain that there was a prodigious alarm, and almost despondency, among the parliamentarians. they immediately began to make entrenchments about london, which were finished in a month. may, p. . in the _somers tracts_, iv. , is an interesting letter from a scotsman then in london, giving an account of these fortifications, which, considering the short time employed about them, seem to have been very respectable, and such as the king's army, with its weak cavalry and bad artillery, could not easily have carried. lord sunderland, four days before the battle of newbury wherein he was killed, wrote to his wife, that the king's affairs had never been in a more prosperous condition; that sitting down before gloscester had prevented _their finishing the war that year_, "which nothing could keep us from doing, if we had a month's more time." _sidney letters_, ii. . he alludes in the same letters to the divisions in the royal party. [ ] _parl. hist._ iii. , . it seems natural to think that, if the moderate party were able to contend so well against their opponents, after the desertion of a great many royalist members who had joined the king, they would have maintained a decisive majority, had these continued in their places. but it is to be considered, on the other hand, that the king could never have raised an army, if he had not been able to rally the peers and gentry round his banner, and that in his army lay the real secret of the temporary strength of the pacific party. [ ] _parl. hist._ iii. , ; clarendon; may; whitelock. if we believe the last (p. ), the king, who took as usual a very active part in the discussions upon this treaty, would frequently have been inclined to come into an adjustment of terms; if some of the more war-like spirits about him (glancing apparently at rupert) had not over persuaded his better judgment. this, however, does not accord with what clarendon tells us of the queen's secret influence, nor indeed with all we have reason to believe of the king's disposition during the war. [ ] _life of clarendon_, p. . this induced the king to find pretexts for avoiding the cessation, and was the real cause of his refusal to restore the earl of northumberland to his post of lord admiral during this treaty of oxford, which was urged by hyde. that peer was, at this time, and for several months afterwards, inclining to come over to the king; but, on the bad success of holland and bedford in their change of sides, he gave into the opposite course of politics, and joined the party of lords say and wharton, in determined hostility to the king. dr. lingard has lately thrown doubts upon this passage in clarendon, but upon grounds which i do not clearly understand. _hist. of engl._ x. , note. that no vestige of its truth should appear, as he observes, in the private correspondence between charles and his consort (if he means the letters taken at naseby, and i know no other), is not very singular; as the whole of that correspondence is of a much later date. [ ] i cannot discover in the journals any division on this impeachment. but hollis inveighs against it in his memoirs as one of the flagrant acts of st. john's party; and there is an account of the debate on this subject in the _somers tracts_, v. ; whence it appears that it was opposed by maynard, waller, whitelock, and others; but supported by pym, strode, long, glynn, and by martin with his usual fury and rudeness. the first of these carried up the impeachment to the house of lords. this impeachment was not absolutely lost sight of for some time. in january , the lords appointed a committee to consider what mode of proceeding for bringing the queen to trial was most agreeable to a parliamentary way, and to peruse precedents. _parl. hist._ . [ ] _parl. hist._ . [ ] _parl. hist._ , june ; clarendon, iv. . he published, however, a declaration soon after the taking of bristol, containing full assurances of his determination to govern by the known laws. _parl. hist._ . [ ] clarend. iv. , ; whitelock, . they met with a worse reception at westminster than at oxford, as indeed they had reason to expect. a motion that the earl of holland should be sent to the tower was lost in the commons by only one voice. _parl. hist._ . they were provoked at his taking his seat without permission. after long refusing to consent, the lords agreed to an ordinance (june , ) that no peer or commoner who had been in the king's quarters, should be admitted again to sit in either house. _parl. hist._ . this severity was one cause of essex's discontent, which was increased when the commons refused him leave to take holland with him on his expedition into the west that summer. baillie, i. ; whitelock, . if it be asked why this roman rigour was less impolitic in the parliament than in the king, i can only answer, that the stronger and the weaker have different measures to pursue. but relatively to the pacification of the kingdom, upon such terms as fellow-citizens ought to require from each other, it was equally blamable in both parties, or rather more so in that possessed of the greater power. [ ] it is intimated by clarendon that some at oxford, probably jermyn and digby, were jealous of holland's recovering the influence he had possessed with the queen, who seems to have retained no resentment against him. as to bedford and clare, they would probably have been better received, if not accompanied by so obnoxious an intriguer of the old court. this seems to account for the unanimity which the historian describes to have been shown in the council against their favourable reception. light and passionate tempers, like that of henrietta, are prone to forget injuries; serious and melancholic ones, like that of charles, never lose sight of them. [ ] baillie deplores at this time "the horrible fears and confusions in the city, the king everywhere being victorious. in the city, a strong and insolent party for him."--p. . "the malignants stirred a multitude of women of the meaner and more infamous rank to come to the door of both houses, and cry tumultuously for peace on any terms. this tumult could not be suppressed but by violence, and killing some three or four women, and hurting some of them, and imprisoning many."--p. . [ ] lords and commons' journals; _parl. hist._ , etc.; clarendon, iv. ; hollis's _memoirs_. hollis was a teller for the majority on this occasion; he had left the war-like party some months (baillie, i. ); and his name is in the journals repeatedly, from november , as teller against them, though he is charged with having said the year before, that he abhorred the name of accommodation. hutchinson, p. . though a very honest, and to a certain extent, an able man, he was too much carried away by personal animosities; and as these shifted, his principles shifted also. [ ] the resolution, that government by archbishops, bishops, etc., was inconvenient, and ought to be taken away, passed both houses unanimously september , ; _parl. hist._ ii. . but the ordinance to carry this fully into effect was not made till october . scobell's _ordinances_. [ ] _parl. hist._ iii. . [ ] this committee, appointed in february , consisted of the following persons, the most conspicuous, at that time, of the parliament: the earls of northumberland, essex, warwick, and manchester; lords say, wharton, and roberts; mr. pierrepont, the two sir henry vanes, sir philip stapylton, sir william waller, sir gilbert gerrard, sir william armyn, sir arthur haslerig; messrs. crew, wallop, st. john, cromwell, brown, and glynn. _parl. hist._ iii. . [ ] _somers tracts_, iv. . the names marked in the _parliamentary history_ as having taken the covenant, are . the earl of lincoln alone, a man of great integrity and moderation, though only conspicuous in the journals, refused to take the covenant, and was excluded in consequence from his seat in the house: but on his petition next year, though, as far as appears, without compliance, was restored, and the vote rescinded. _parl. hist._ . he regularly protested against all violent measures; and we still find his name in the minority on such occasions after the restoration. baillie says, the desertion of about six peers at this time to the king, was of great use to the passing of the covenant in _a legal way_. vol. i. p. . [ ] burnet's _mem. of duke of hamilton_, p. . i am not quite satisfied as to this, which later writers seem to have taken from burnet. it may well be supposed that the ambiguity of the covenant was not very palpable; since the scots presbyterians, a people not easily cozened, were content with its expression. according to fair and honest rules of interpretation, it certainly bound the subscribers to the establishment of a church-government conformed to that of scotland; namely, the presbyterian, exclusive of all mixture with any other. but selden, and the other friends of moderate episcopacy who took the covenant, justified it, i suppose, to their consciences, by the pretext that, in renouncing the jurisdiction of bishops, they meant the unlimited jurisdiction without concurrence of any presbyters. it was not, however, an action on which they could reflect with pleasure. baxter says that gataker, and some others of the assembly, would not subscribe the covenant, but on the understanding that they did not renounce primitive episcopacy by it. _life of baxter_, p. . these controversial subtleties elude the ordinary reader of history. [ ] after the war was ended, none of the king's party were admitted to compound for their estates, without taking the covenant. this clarendon, in one of his letters, calls "making haste to buy damnation at two years' purchase." vol. ii. p. . [ ] neal, ii. , etc., is fair enough in censuring the committees, especially those in the country. "the greatest part [of the clergy] were cast out for malignity [attachment to the royal cause]; superstition and false doctrine were hardly ever objected; yet the proceedings of the sequestrators were not always justifiable; for, whereas a court of judicature should rather be counsel for the prisoner than the prosecutor, the commissioners considered the king's clergy as their most dangerous enemies, and were ready to lay hold of all opportunities to discharge them their pulpits."--p. . but if we can rely at all on white's _century of malignant ministers_ (and i do not perceive that walker has been able to controvert it), there were a good many cases of irregular life in the clergy, so far at least as haunting alehouses; which, however, was much more common, and consequently less indecent, in that age than at present. see also baxter's _life_, p. ; whose authority, though open to some exceptions on the score of prejudice, is at least better than walker's. the king's party were not less oppressive towards ministers whom they reckoned puritan; which unluckily comprehended most of those who were of strict lives, especially if they preached calvinistically, unless they redeemed that suspicion by strong demonstrations of loyalty. neal, p. ; baxter's _life_, p. . and, if they put themselves forward on this side, they were sure to suffer most severely for it on the parliament's success; an ordinance of april , , having sequestered the private estates of all the clergy who had aided the king. thus the condition of the english clergy was every way most deplorable; and in fact they were utterly ruined. [ ] neal, p. . he says it was not tendered, by favour, to some of the clergy who had not been active against the parliament, and were reputed calvinists. p. . sanderson is said to be one instance. this historian, an honest and well-natured man at bottom, justly censures its imposition. [ ] "all the judges answered that they could deliver no opinion in this case, in point of treason by the law; because they could not deliver any opinion in point of treason, but what was particularly expressed to be treason in the statute of e. iii., and so referred it wholly to the judgment of this house." lords' journals, th december . [ ] lords' journals, th january. it is not said to be done _nem. con._ [ ] "the difference in the temper of the common people of both sides was so great that they who inclined to the parliament left nothing unperformed that might advance the cause; whereas they who wished well to the king thought they had performed their duty in doing so, and that they had done enough for him, in that they had done nothing against him." clarendon, pp. , . "most of the gentry of the county (nottinghamshire)," says mrs. hutchinson, "were disaffected to the parliament; most of the middle sort, the able substantial freeholders and the other commons, who had not their dependence upon the malignant nobility and gentry, adhered to the parliament."--p. . this i conceive to have been the case in much the greater part of england. baxter, in his _life_, p. , says just the same thing in a passage worthy of notice. but the worcestershire populace, he says, were violent royalists, p. . clarendon observes in another place (iii. ), "there was in this county (cornwall), as throughout the kingdom, a wonderful and superstitious reverence towards the name of a parliament, and a prejudice to the power of the court." he afterwards (p. ) calls "an implicit reverence to the name of a parliament, the fatal disease of the whole kingdom." so prevalent was the sense of the king's arbitrary government, especially in the case of ship-money. warburton remarks, that he never expressed any repentance, or made any confession in his public declarations, that his former administration had been illegal. notes on clarendon, p. . but this was not, perhaps, to be expected; and his repeated promises to govern according to law might be construed into tacit acknowledgments of past errors. [ ] the associated counties, properly speaking, were at first norfolk, suffolk, essex, hertford, cambridge; to which some others were added. sussex, i believe, was not a part of the association; but it was equally within the parliamentary pale, though the gentry were remarkably loyal in their inclinations. the same was true of kent. [ ] clarendon, _passim_; may, ; baillie, i. . see, in the _somers tracts_, v. , a dialogue between a gentleman and a citizen, printed at oxford, . though of course a royalist pamphlet, it shows the disunion that prevailed in that unfortunate party, and inveighs against the influence of the papists, in consequence of which the marquis of hertford is said to have declined the king's service. rupert is praised, and newcastle struck at. it is written, on the whole, in rather a lukewarm style of loyalty. the earl of holland and sir edward dering gave out as their reason for quitting the king's side, that there was great danger of popery. this was much exaggerated; yet lord sunderland talks the same language. _sidney papers_, ii. . lord falkland's dejection of spirits, and constant desire of peace, must chiefly be ascribed to his disgust with the councils of oxford, and the greater part of those with whom he was associated. e quel che più ti graverà le spalle sarà la compagnia malvagia e ria, nella quel tu cadrai in questa valle. we know too little of this excellent man, whose talents, however, and early pursuits do not seem to have particularly qualified him for public life. it is evident that he did not plunge into the loyal cause with all the zeal of his friend hyde; and the king doubtless had no great regard for the counsels of one who took so very different a view of some important matters from himself. _life of clarendon_, . he had been active against strafford, and probably had a bad opinion of laud. the prosecution of finch for high treason he had himself moved. in the ormond _letters_, i. , he seems to be struck at by one writing from oxford, june , : "god forbid that the best of men and kings be so used by some bad hollow-hearted counsellors, who affect too much the parliamentary way. many spare not to name them; and i doubt not but you have heard their names." [ ] it appears by the late edition of clarendon, iv. , that he was the adviser of calling the oxford parliament. the former editors omitted his name. [ ] _parl. hist._ . the number who took the covenant in september , appears by a list of the long parliament in the same work (vol. ii.) to be ; but twelve of these are included in both lists, having gone afterwards into the king's quarters. the remainder, about , were either dead since the beginning of the troubles, or for some reason absented themselves from both assemblies. possibly the list of those who took the covenant is not quite complete; nor do i think the king had much more than about sixty peers on his side. the parliament, however, could not have produced thirty. lords' journals, jan. , . whitelock, p. , says that two hundred and eighty appeared in the house of commons, jan. , besides one hundred absent in the parliament's service; but this cannot be quite exact. [ ] rushworth abr. v. , and ; where is an address to the king, intimating, if attentively considered, a little apprehension of popery and arbitrary power. baillie says, in one of his letters, "the first day the oxford parliament met, the king made a long speech; but many being ready to give in papers for the removing of digby, cottington, and others from court, the meeting was adjourned for some days."--i. . indeed, the restoration of cottington, and still more of windebank, to the king's councils, was no pledge of protestant or constitutional measures. this opposition, so natural to parliaments in any circumstances, disgusted charles. in one of his letters to the queen, he congratulates himself on being "freed from the place of all mutinous motions, his mongrel parliament." it may be presumed that some of those who obeyed the king's summons to oxford were influenced less by loyalty than a consideration that their estates lay in parts occupied by his troops; of course the same is applicable to the westminster parliament. [ ] baillie, . i can find no mention of this in the journals; but, as baillie was then in london, and in constant intercourse with the leaders of parliament, there must have been some foundation for his statement, though he seems to have been inaccurate as to the fact of the vote. [ ] _parl. hist._ , _et post_; clarendon, v. ; whitelock, , etc.; rushw. abr. v. , etc. [ ] it was impossible for the king to avoid this treaty. not only his oxford parliament, as might naturally be expected, were openly desirous of peace, but a great part of the army had, in august , while opposed to that of essex in the west, taken the extraordinary step of sending a letter to that general, declaring their intentions for the rights and liberties of the people, privileges of parliament, and protestant religion against popish innovations; and that on the faith of subjects, the honour and reputation of gentlemen and soldiers, they would with their lives maintain that which his majesty should publicly promise in order to a bloodless peace; they went on to request that essex, with six more, would meet the general (earl of brentford) with six more, to consider of all means possible to reconcile the unhappy differences and misunderstandings that have so long afflicted the kingdom. sir edward walker's _historical discourses_, . the king was acquainted with this letter before it was sent, but after some hands had been subscribed to it. he consented, but evidently with great reluctance, and even indignation; as his own expressions testify in this passage of walker, whose manuscript here, as in many other places, contains interlineations by charles himself. it was doubtless rather in a mutinous spirit, which had spread widely through the army, and contributed to its utter ruin in the next campaign. i presume it was at the king's desire that the letter was signed by the general, as well as by prince maurice, and all the colonels, i believe, in his army, to take off the appearance of a faction; but it certainly originated with wilmot, percy, and some of those whom he thought ill affected. see clarendon, iv. , _et post_; rushw. abr. v. , . [ ] the king's doctors, steward and sheldon, argued at uxbridge that episcopacy was _jure divino_; henderson and others that presbytery was so. whitelock, . these churchmen should have been locked up like a jury, without food or fire, till they agreed. if we may believe clarendon, the earl of loudon offered in the name of the scots, that if the king would give up episcopacy, they would not press any of the other demands. it is certain, however, that they would never have suffered him to become the master of the english parliament; and, if this offer was sincerely made, it must have been from a conviction that he could not become such. [ ] rushworth, whitelock, clarendon. the latter tells in his life, which reveals several things not found in his history, that the king was very angry with some of his uxbridge commissioners, especially mr. bridgman, for making too great concessions with respect to episcopacy. he lived, however, to make himself much greater. [ ] whitelock, . [ ] the creed of this party is set forth in the _behemoth_ of hobbes; which is, in other words, the application of those principles of government which are laid down in the _leviathan_, to the constitution and state of england in the civil war. it is republished in baron maseres's _tracts_, ii. , . sir philip warwick, in his _memoirs_, , hints something of the same kind. [ ] warburton, in the notes subjoined to the late edition of clarendon, vii. , mentions a conversation he had with the duke of argyle and lord cobham (both soldiers, and the first a distinguished one) as to the conduct of the king and the earl of essex after the battle of edgehill. they agreed it was inexplicable on both sides by any military principle. warburton explained it by the unwillingness to be _too victorious_, felt by essex himself, and by those whom the king was forced to consult. father orleans, in a passage with which the bishop probably was acquainted, confirms this; and his authority is very good as to the secret of the court. rupert, he says, proposed to march to london. "mais l'esprit anglois, qui ne se dement point même dans les plus attachés a la royauté, l'esprit anglois, dis-je, toujours entêté de ces libertéz si funestes au repos de la nation, porta la plus grande partie du conseil à s'opposer à ce dessein. le prétexte fut qu'il étoit dangereux pour le roy de l'entreprendre, et pour la ville que le prince robert l'exécutâst, jeune comme il étoit, emporté, et capable d'y mettre le feu. la vraie raison étoit qu'ils craignoient que, si le roy entroit dans londres les armes à la main, il ne prétendist sur la nation une espèce de droit de conquête, qui le rendist trop absolu." _révolut. d'angleterre_, iii. . [ ] rushworth abr. iv. . at the very time that he was publicly denying his employment of papists, he wrote to newcastle, commanding him to make use of all his subjects' services, without examining their consciences, except as to loyalty. ellis's _letters_, iii. , from an original in the museum. no one can rationally blame charles for anything in this, but his inveterate and useless habit of falsehood. see clarendon, iii. . it is probable that some foreign catholics were in the parliament's service. but dodd says, with great appearance of truth, that no one english gentleman of that persuasion was in arms on their side. _church history of engl._ iii. . he reports as a matter of hearsay, that, out of about five hundred gentlemen who lost their lives for charles in the civil war, one hundred and ninety-four were catholics. they were, doubtless, a very powerful faction in the court and army. lord spencer (afterwards earl of sunderland), in some remarkable letters to his wife from the king's quarters at shrewsbury, in september , speaks of the insolency of the papists with great dissatisfaction. _sidney papers_, ii. . [ ] it cannot be doubted, and is admitted in a remarkable conversation of hollis and whitelock with the king at oxford in november , that the exorbitant terms demanded at uxbridge were carried by the violent party, who disliked all pacification. whitelock, . [ ] baillie, ii. . he adds, "that which has been the great snare to the king is the unhappy success of montrose in scotland." there seems indeed great reason to think that charles, always sanguine, and incapable of calculating probabilities, was unreasonably elated by victories from which no permanent advantage ought to have been expected. burnet confirms this on good authority. introduction to _hist. of his times_, . [ ] whitelock, , , ; rushw. abr. v. . the first _rat_ (except indeed the earls of holland and bedford, who were rats with two tails) was sir edward dering, who came into the parliament's quarters, feb. . he was a weak man of some learning, who had already played a very changeable part before the war. [ ] a flagrant instance of this was the plunder of bristol by rupert, in breach of the capitulation. i suspect that it was the policy of one party to exaggerate the cruelties of the other; but the short narratives dispersed at the time give a wretched picture of slaughter and devastation. [ ] clarendon and whitelock _passim_; baxter's _life_, pp. , . this license of maurice's and goring's armies in the west first led to the defensive insurrection, if so it should be called, of the club-men; that is, of yeomen and country people, armed only with clubs, who hoped, by numbers and concert, to resist effectually the military marauders of both parties, declaring themselves neither for king nor parliament, but for their own liberty and property. they were of course regarded with dislike on both sides; by the king's party when they first appeared in , because they crippled the royal army's operations, and still more openly by the parliament next year, when they opposed fairfax's endeavour to carry on the war in the counties bordering on the severn. they appeared at times in great strength; but the want of arms and discipline made it not very difficult to suppress them. clarendon, v. ; whitelock, ; _parl. hist._ , . the king himself, whose disposition was very harsh and severe, except towards the few he took into his bosom, can hardly be exonerated from a responsibility for some acts of inhumanity (see whitelock, , and _somers tracts_, iv. , v. ; maseres's _tracts_, i. , for the ill-treatment of prisoners); and he might probably have checked the outrages which took place at the storming of leicester, where he was himself present. certainly no imputation of this nature can be laid at the door of the parliamentary commanders; though some of them were guilty of the atrocity of putting their irish prisoners to death, in obedience, however, to an ordinance of parliament. _parl. hist._ iii. ; rushworth's abridgement, v. . it passed october , , and all remissness in executing it was to be reckoned a favouring of the irish rebellion. when we read, as we do perpetually, these violent and barbarous proceedings of the parliament, is it consistent with honesty or humanity to hold up that assembly to admiration, while the faults on the king's side are studiously aggravated? the partiality of oldmixon, harris, macauley, and now of mr. brodie and mr. godwin, is full as glaring, to say the very least, as that of hume. [ ] clarendon and baxter. [ ] the excise was first imposed by an ordinance of both houses in july (husband's _collection of ordinances_, p. ), and afterwards by the king's convention at oxford. see a view of the financial expedients adopted by both parties in lingard, x. . the plate brought in to the parliament's commissioners at guildhall, in , for which they allowed the value of the silver, and one shilling per ounce more, is stated by neal at £ , , , an extraordinary proof of the wealth of london; yet i do not know his authority, though it is probably good. the university of oxford gave all they had to the king; but could not of course vie with the citizens. the sums raised within the parliament's quarters from the beginning of the war to are reckoned in a pamphlet of that year, quoted in sinclair's _hist. of the revenue_, i. , at £ , , . but, on reference to the tract itself, i find this written at random. the contributions, however, were really very great; and, if we add those to the king, and the loss by waste and plunder, we may form some judgment of the effects of the civil war. [ ] the independents raised loud clamours against the scots army; and the northern counties naturally complained of the burthen of supporting them as well as of their excesses. many passages in whitelock's journal during and relate to this. hollis endeavours to deny or extenuate the charges; but he is too prejudiced a writer, and baillie himself acknowledges a great deal. vol. ii. pp. , , . [ ] the chief imputation against manchester was for not following up his victory in the second battle of newbury, with which cromwell openly taxed him; see ludlow, i. . there certainly appears to have been a want of military energy on this occasion; but it is said by baillie (ii. ) that all the general officers, cromwell not excepted, concurred in manchester's determination. essex had been suspected from the time of the affair at brentford, or rather from the battle of edgehill (baillie and ludlow); and his whole conduct, except in the celebrated march to relieve gloucester, confirmed a reasonable distrust either of his military talents, or of his zeal in the cause. "he loved monarchy and nobility," says whitelock, p. , "and dreaded those who had a design to destroy both." yet essex was too much a man of honour to enter on any private intrigues with the king. the other peers employed under the parliament, stamford, denbigh, willoughby, were not successful enough to redeem the suspicions that fell upon their zeal. all our republican writers, such as ludlow and mrs. hutchinson in that age, mrs. macauley and mr. brodie more of late, speak acrimoniously of essex. "most will be of opinion," says mr. b. (_history of british empire_, iii. ), "that as ten thousand pounds a year out of the sequestered lands were settled upon him for his services, he was rewarded infinitely beyond his merits." the reward was doubtless magnificent; but the merit of essex was this, that he made himself the most prominent object of vengeance in case of failure, by taking the command of an army to oppose the king in person at edgehill: a command of which no other man in his rank was capable, and which could not, at that time, have been intrusted to any man of inferior rank without dissolving the whole confederacy of the parliament. it is to be observed, moreover, that the two battles of newbury, like that of edgehill, were by no means decisive victories on the side of the parliament; and that it is not clear whether either essex or manchester could have pushed the king much more than they did. even after naseby, his party made a pretty long resistance, and he was as much blamed as they for not pressing his advantages with vigour. [ ] it had been voted by the lords a year before, dec. , , "that the opinion and resolution of this house is from henceforth not to admit the members of either house of parliament into any place or office, excepting such places of great trust as are to be executed by persons of eminency and known integrity, and are necessary for the government and safety of the kingdom." but a motion to make this resolution into an ordinance was carried in the negative. lords' journals; _parl. hist._ . the first motion had been for a resolution without this exception, that no place of profit should be executed by the members of either house. [ ] whitelock, pp. , . it was opposed by him, but supported by pierrepont, who carried it up to the lords. the lords were chiefly of the presbyterian party; though say, wharton, and a few more, were connected with the independents. they added a proviso to the ordinance raising forces to be commanded by fairfax, that no officer refusing the covenant should be capable of serving, which was thrown out in the lower house. but another proviso was carried in the commons by to , that the officers, though appointed by the general, should be approved by both houses of parliament. cromwell was one of the tellers for the minority. commons' journals, feb. and , . in the original ordinance the members of both houses were excluded during the war; but in the second, which was carried, the measure was not made prospective. this, which most historians have overlooked, is well pointed out by mr. godwin. by virtue of this alteration, many officers were elected in the course of and ; and the effect, whatever might be designed, was very advantageous to the republican and independent factions. [ ] whitelock, p. . [ ] whether there are sufficient grounds for concluding that henrietta's connection with jermyn was criminal, i will not pretend to decide; though warburton has settled the matter in a very summary style. see one of his notes on clarendon, vol. vii. p. . but i doubt whether the bishop had authority for what he there says, though it is likely enough to be true. see also a note of lord dartmouth on burnet, i. . [ ] clarendon speaks often in his _history_, and still more frequently in his private letters, with great resentment of the conduct of france, and sometimes of holland, during our civil wars. i must confess that i see nothing to warrant this. the states-general, against whom charles had so shamefully been plotting, interfered as much for the purpose of mediation as they could with the slightest prospect of success, and so as to give offence to the parliament (rushworth abridged, v. ; baillie, ii. ; whitelock, , ; harris's _life of cromwell_, ); and as to france, though richelieu had instigated the scots malcontents, and possibly those of england, yet after his death, in , no sort of suspicion ought to lie on the french government; the whole conduct of anne of austria having been friendly, and both the mission of harcourt in , and the present negotiations of montreuil and bellievre, perfectly well intended. that mazarin made promises of assistance which he had no design, nor perhaps any power, to fulfil, is true; but this is the common trick of such statesmen, and argues no malevolent purpose. but hyde, out of his just dislike of the queen, hated all french connections; and his passionate loyalty made him think it a crime, or at least a piece of base pusillanimity, in foreign states, to keep on any terms with the rebellious parliament. the case was altered, after the retirement of the regent anne from power: mazarin's latter conduct was, as is well known, exceedingly adverse to the royal cause. the account given by mr. d'israeli of tabran's negotiations in the fifth volume of his _commentaries on the reign of charles i._, though it does not contain anything very important, tends to show mazarin's inclination towards the royal cause in and . [ ] colepepper writes to ashburnham, in february , to advance the scots' treaty with all his power. "it is the only way left to save the crown and the kingdom; all other tricks will deceive you.... it is no time to dally on distinctions and criticisms. all the world will laugh at them when a crown is in question." _clar. papers_, ii. . the king had positively declared his resolution not to consent to the establishment of presbytery. this had so much disgusted both the scots and english presbyterians (for the latter had been concerned in the negotiation), that montreuil wrote to say he thought they would rather make it up with the independents than treat again. "de sorte qu'il ne faut plus marchander, et que v. m. se doit hâter d'envoyer aux deux parlemens son consentiment aux trois propositions d'uxbridge; ce qu'étant fait, elle sera en sureté dans l'armée d'ecosse" ( th jan. ) p. . [ ] "i assure you," he writes to capel, hopton, etc., feb. , , "whatever paraphrases or prophecies may be made upon my last message (pressing the two houses to consent to a personal treaty), i shall never part with the church, the essentials of my crown, or my friends."--p. . baillie could not believe the report that the king intended to take refuge in the scots army, as "there would be no shelter there for him, unless he would take the covenant, and follow the advice of his parliament. hard pills to be swallowed by a wilful and an unadvised prince." vol. ii. p. . [ ] not long after the king had taken shelter with the scots, he wrote a letter to ormond, which was intercepted, wherein he assured him of his expectation that their army would join with his, and act in conjunction with montrose, to procure a happy peace and the restoration of his rights. whitelock, page . charles had bad luck with his letters, which fell, too frequently for his fame and interests, into the hands of his enemies. but who, save this most ill-judging of princes, would have entertained an idea that the scots presbyterian army would co-operate with montrose, whom they abhorred, and very justly, for his treachery and cruelty, above all men living? [ ] _parl. hist._ ; whitelock, , . it was voted, th june, that after these twenty years, the king was to exercise no power over the militia without the previous consent of parliament, who were to pass a bill at any time respecting it, if they should judge the kingdom's safety to be concerned, which should be valid without the king's assent. commons' journals. [ ] p. . "show me any precedent," he says in another place, "wherever presbyterian government and regal was together without perpetual rebellions, which was the cause that necessitated the king my father to change that government in scotland. and even in france, where they are but on tolerance, which in likelihood shall cause moderation, did they ever sit still so long as they had power to rebel? and it cannot be otherwise; for the ground of their doctrine is anti-monarchical."--p. . see also p. . [ ] "the design is to unite you with the scots nation and the presbyterians of england against the anti-monarchical party, the independents.... if by conscience it is intended to assert that episcopacy is _jure divino_ exclusive, whereby no protestant, or rather christian church, can be acknowledged for such without a bishop, we must therein crave leave wholly to differ. and if we be in an error, we are in good company, there not being, as we have cause to believe, six persons of the protestant religion of the other opinion.... come, the question in short is, whether you will choose to be a king of presbytery, or no king, and yet presbytery or perfect independency to be?"--p. . they were, however, as much against his giving up the militia, or his party, as in favour of his abolishing episcopacy. charles was much to be pitied throughout all this period; none of his correspondents understood the state of affairs so well as himself; he was with the scots, and saw what they were made of, while the others fancied absurdities through their own private self-interested views. it is very certain that by sacrificing episcopacy he would not have gained a step with the parliament; and as to reigning in scotland alone, suspected, insulted, degraded, this would perhaps just have been possible for himself; but neither henrietta nor her friends would have found an asylum there. [ ] juxon had been well treated by the parliament, in consequence of his prudent abstinence from politics, and residence in their quarters. he dates his answer to the king from his palace at fulham. he was, however, dispossessed of it not long after by virtue of the ordinance directing the sale of bishops' lands. nov. , . _parl. hist._ . a committee was appointed (nov. , ) to consider of a fitting maintenance to be allowed the bishops, both those who had remained under the parliament, and those who had deserted it. journals. i was led to this passage by mr. godwin, _hist. of commonwealth_, ii. . whether anything farther was done, i have not observed. but there is an order in the journals, st may , that whereas divers of the late tenants of dr. juxon, late bishop of london, have refused to pay the rents or other sums of money due to him as bishop of london at or before the st of november last, the trustees of bishops' lands are directed to receive the same, and pay them over to dr. juxon. though this was only justice, it shows that justice was done at least in this instance, to a bishop. juxon must have been a very prudent and judicious man, though not learned; which probably was all the better. [ ] jan. , . _parl. hist._ . whitelock says, "many sober men and lovers of peace were earnest to have complied with what the king proposed; but the major part of the house was contrary, and the new-elected members joined those who were averse to compliance."--p. . [ ] _clar. papers_, p. . [ ] _id._ , , . she had said as much before (_king's cabinet opened_, p. ); so that this was not a burst of passion. "conservez vous la militia," she says in one place (p. ), "et n'abandonnez jamais; et _par cela tout reviendra_." charles, however, disclaimed all idea of violating his faith in case of a treaty (p. ); but observes as to the militia, with some truth, that "the retaining of it is not of so much consequence--i am far from saying, none--as is thought, without the concurrence of other things; because the militia here is not, as in france and other countries, a formed powerful strength; but it serves more to hold off ill than to do much good. and certainly, if the pulpits teach not obedience (which will never be, if presbyterian government be absolutely settled), the crown will have little comfort of the militia."--p. . [ ] p. . [ ] p. . [ ] pp. , , , . in one place he says, that he will go to france _to clear his reputation to the queen_. p. . he wrote in great distress of mind to jermyn and colepepper, on her threatening to retire from all business into a monastery, in consequence of his refusal to comply with her wishes. p. . see also montreuil's memoir in thurloe's _state papers_, i. , whence it appears that the king had thoughts of making his escape in jan. . [ ] "for the proposition to bellievre (a french agent at newcastle after montreuil's recall), i hate it. if any such thing should be made public, you are undone; your enemies will make a malicious use of it. be sure you never own it again in any discourse, otherwise than as intended as a foil, or an hyperbole, or any other ways except in sober earnest," etc. p. . the queen and her counsellors, however, seem afterwards to have retracted in some measure what they had said about his escape; and advised that if he could not be suffered to go into scotland, he would try ireland or jersey. p. . her dislike to the king's escape showed itself, according to clarendon, vi. , even at a time when it appeared the only means to secure his life, during his confinement in the isle of wight. some may suspect that henrietta had consoled herself too well with lord jermyn to wish for her husband's return. [ ] p. . [ ] p. . [ ] clarendon and hume inveigh against the parliament for this publication; in which they are of course followed by the whole rabble of charles's admirers. but it could not reasonably be expected that such material papers should be kept back; nor were the parliament under any obligation to do so. the former writer insinuates that they were garbled; but charles himself never pretended this (see supplement to evelyn's _diary_, p. ); nor does there seem any foundation for the surmise. his own friends garbled them, however, after the restoration; some passages are omitted in the edition of king charles's works; so that they can only be read accurately in the original publication, called _the king's cabinet opened_, a small tract in quarto; or in the modern compilations, such as the _parliamentary history_, which have copied it. ludlow says he has been informed that some of the letters taken at naseby were suppressed by those intrusted with them, who since the king's restoration have been rewarded for it. _memoirs_, i. . but i should not be inclined to believe this. there is, however, an anecdote which may be mentioned in this place: a dr. hickman, afterwards bishop of derry, wrote in , the following letter to sprat, bishop of rochester, a copy of which, in dr. birch's handwriting, may be found in the british museum. it was printed by him in the appendix to the _inquiry into the share k. charles i. had in glamorgan's transactions_, and from thence by harris, in his _life of charles i._, p. . "my lord,--last week mr. bennet [a bookseller] left with me a manuscript of letters from king charles i. to his queen; and said it was your lordship's desire and dr. pelling's, that my lord rochester should read them over, and see what was fit to be left out in the intended edition of them. accordingly, my lord has read them over, and upon the whole matter says he is very much amazed at the design of printing them, and thinks that the king's enemies could not have done him a greater discourtesy. he showed me many passages which detract very much from the reputation of the king's prudence, and something from his integrity; and in short he can find nothing throughout the whole collection, but what will lessen the character of the king and offend all those who wish well to his memory. he thinks it very unfit to expose any man's conversation and familiarity with his wife, but especially that king's; for it was apparently his blind side, and his enemies gained great advantage by showing it. but my lord hopes his friends will spare him; and therefore he has ordered me not to deliver the book to the bookseller, but put it into your lordship's hands; and when you have read it, he knows you will be of his opinion. if your lordship has not time to read it all, my lord has turned down some leaves where he makes his chief objections. if your lordship sends any servant to town, i beg you would order him to call here for the book, and that you would take care about it." though the description of these letters answers perfectly to those in the _king's cabinet opened_, which certainly "detract much from the reputation of charles's prudence, and something from his integrity," it is impossible that rochester and the others could be ignorant of so well-known a publication; and we must consequently infer that some letters injurious to the king's character have been suppressed by the caution of his friends. [ ] the king had long entertained a notion, in which he was encouraged by the attorney-general herbert, that the act against the dissolution of the parliament without its own consent was void in itself. _life of clarendon_, p. . this high monarchical theory of the nullity of statutes in restraint of the prerogative was never thoroughly eradicated till the revolution, and in all contentions between the crown and parliament destroyed the confidence, without which no accommodation could be durable. [ ] "there is little or no appearance but that this summer will be the hottest for war of any that hath been yet; and be confident that, in making peace, i shall ever show my constancy in adhering to bishops and all our friends, not forgetting to put a short period to this perpetual parliament." _king's cabinet opened_, p. . "it being presumption, and no piety, so to trust to a good cause as not to use all lawful means to maintain it, i have thought of one means more to furnish thee with for my assistance, than hitherto thou hast had: it is, that i give thee power to promise in my name, to whom thou thinkest most fit, that i will take away all the penal laws against the roman catholics in england as soon as god shall enable me to do it; so as by their means, or in their favours, i may have so powerful assistance as may deserve so great a favour, and enable me to do it. but if thou ask what i call that assistance, i answer that when thou knowest what may be done for it, it will be easily seen, if it deserve to be so esteemed. i need not tell thee what secrecy this business requires; yet this i will say, that this is the greatest point of confidence i can express to thee; for it is no thanks to me to trust thee in anything else but in this, which is the only point of difference in opinion betwixt us: and yet i know thou wilt make as good a bargain for me, even in this, as if thou wert a protestant." _id. ibid._ "as to my calling those at london a parliament, i shall refer thee to digby for particular satisfaction; this in general--if there had been but two, besides myself, of my opinion, i had not done it; and the argument that prevailed with me was, that the calling did no ways acknowledge them to be a parliament, upon which condition and construction i did it, and no otherwise, and accordingly it is registered in the council books, with the council's unanimous approbation." _id._ p. . the one counsellor who concurred with the king was secretary nicholas, supplement to evelyn's _memoirs_, p. . [ ] the queen evidently suspected that he might be brought to abandon the catholics. _king's cabinet opened_, pp. , . and, if fear of her did not prevent him, i make no question that he would have done so, could he but have carried his other points. [ ] _parl. hist._ ; _somers tracts_, v. . it appears by several letters of the king, published among those taken at naseby, that ormond had power to promise the irish a repeal of the penal laws and the use of private chapels as well as a suspension of poyning's law. _king's cabinet opened_, pp. , ; rushw. abr. v. . glamorgan's treaty granted them all the churches with the revenues thereof, of which they had at any time since october been in possession; that is, the re-establishment of their religion: they, on the other hand, were to furnish a very large army to the king in england. [ ] rushw. abr. v. , . this, as well as some letters taken on lord digby's rout at sherborn about the same time, made a prodigious impression. "many good men were sorry that the king's actions agreed no better with his words; that he openly protested before god with horrid imprecations that he endeavoured nothing so much as the preservation of the protestant religion and rooting out of popery; yet in the meantime, underhand, he promised to the irish rebels an abrogation of the laws against them, which was contrary to his late expressed promises in these words, 'i will never abrogate the laws against the papists.' and again he said, 'i abhor to think of bringing foreign soldiers into the kingdom,' and yet he solicited the duke of lorrain, the french, the danes, and the very irish, for assistance." may's "breviate of hist. of parliament" in maseres's _tracts_, i. . charles had certainly never scrupled (i do not say that he ought to have done so) to make application in every quarter for assistance; and began in with sending a col. cochran on a secret mission to denmark, in the hope of obtaining a subsidiary force from that kingdom. there was at least no danger to the national independence from such allies. "we fear this shall undo the king for ever, that no repentance shall ever obtain a pardon of this act, if it be true, from his parliaments." baillie, ii. . jan. , . the king's disavowal had some effect; it seems as if even those who were prejudiced against him could hardly believe him guilty of such an apostasy, as it appeared in their eyes. p. . and, in fact, though the catholics had demanded nothing unreasonable either in its own nature or according to the circumstances wherein they stood, it threw a great suspicion on the king's attachment to his own faith, when he was seen to abandon altogether, as it seemed, the protestant cause in ireland, while he was struggling so tenaciously for a particular form of it in britain. nor was his negotiation less impolitic than dishonourable. without depreciating a very brave and injured people, it may be said with certainty that an irish army could not have had the remotest chance of success against fairfax and cromwell; the courage being equal on our side, the skill and discipline incomparably superior. and it was evident that charles could never reign in england but on a protestant interest. [ ] birch's _inquiry into the share which king charles i. had in the transactions of the earl of glamorgan_, . four letters of charles to glamorgan, now in the british museum (sloane mss. ), in birch's handwriting, but of which he was not aware at the time of that publication, decisively show the king's duplicity. in the first, which was meant to be seen by digby, dated feb. , , he blames him for having been drawn to consent to conditions much beyond his instructions. "if you had advised with my lord lieutenant, as you promised me, all this had been helped;" and tells him he had commanded as much favour to be shown him as might possibly stand with his service and safety. on feb. he writes by a private hand, sir john winter, that he is every day more and more confirmed in the trust that he had of him. in a third letter, dated april , he says, in a cipher, to which the key is given, "you cannot be but confident of my making good all instructions and promises to you and nuncio." the fourth letter is dated april , and is in these words: "herbert, as i doubt not but you have too much courage to be dismayed or discouraged at the usage like you have had, so i assure you that my estimation of you is nothing diminished by it, but rather begets in me a desire of revenge and reparation to us both (for in this i hold myself equally interested with you), whereupon not doubting of your accustomed care and industry in my service, i assure you of the continuance of my favour and protection to you, and that in deeds more than in words i shall show myself to be your most assured constant friend. c. r." these letters have lately been republished by dr. lingard, _hist. of eng._ x. note b, from warner's _hist. of the civil war in ireland_. the cipher may be found in the _biographia britannica_, under the article bales. dr. l. endeavours to prove that glamorgan acted all along with ormond's privity; and it must be owned that the expression in the king's last letter about revenge and reparation, which dr. l. does not advert to, has a very odd appearance. the controversy is, i suppose, completely at an end; so that it is hardly necessary to mention a letter from glamorgan, then marquis of worcester, to clarendon after the restoration, which has every internal mark of credibility, and displays the king's unfairness. _clar. state pap._ ii. , and lingard, _ubi supra_. it is remarkable that the transaction is never mentioned in the _history of the rebellion_. the noble author was, however, convinced of the genuineness of glamorgan's commission, as appears by a letter to secretary nicholas. "i must tell you, i care not how little i say in that business of ireland, since those strange powers and instructions given to your favourite glamorgan, which appear to be so inexcusable to justice, piety, and prudence. and i fear there is very much in that transaction of ireland, both before and since that you and i were never thought wise enough to be advised with in. oh! mr. secretary, those stratagems have given me more sad hours than all the misfortunes in war which have befallen the king, and look like the effect of god's anger towards us." _id._ p. . see also a note of mr. laing, _hist. of scotland_, iii. , for another letter of the king to glamorgan, from newcastle, in july , not less explicit than the foregoing. [ ] burnet's _mem. of dukes of hamilton_, . baillie's letters, throughout , indicate his apprehension of the prevalent spirit, which he dreaded as implacable, not only to monarchy, but to presbytery and the scots nation. "the leaders of the people seem inclined to have no shadow of a king, to have liberty for all religions, a lame erastian presbytery, to be so injurious to us as to chase us hence with the sword."-- . march , . "the common word is, that they will have the king prisoner. possibly they may grant to the prince to be a duke of venice. the militia must be absolutely, for all time to come, in the power of the parliament, alone," etc.-- . on the king's refusal of the propositions sent to newcastle, the scots took great pains to prevent a vote against him. . there was still, however, danger of this. , oct. , and p. . his intrigues with both parties, the presbyterians and independents, were now known; and all sides seem to have been ripe for deposing them. . these letters are a curious contrast to the idle fancies of a speedy and triumphant restoration, which clarendon himself as well as others of less judgment seem to have entertained. [ ] "though he should swear it," says baillie, "no man will believe that he sticks upon episcopacy for any conscience."--ii. . and again: "it is pity that base hypocrisy, when it is pellucid, shall still be entertained. no oaths did ever persuade me, that episcopacy was ever adhered to on any conscience."-- . this looks at first like mere bigotry. but, when we remember that charles had abolished episcopacy in scotland, and was ready to abolish protestantism in ireland, baillie's prejudices will appear less unreasonable. the king's private letters in the _clarendon papers_ have convinced me of his mistaken conscientiousness about church government; but of this his contemporaries could not be aware. [ ] hollis maintains that the violent party were very desirous that the scots should carry the king with them, and that nothing could have been more injurious to his interests. if we may believe berkley, who is much confirmed by baillie, the presbyterians had secretly engaged to the scots that the army should be disbanded, and the king brought up to london with honour and safety. "memoirs of sir j. berkley," in maseres's _tracts_, i. ; baillie, ii. . this affords no bad justification of the scots for delivering him up. "it is very like," says baillie, "if he had done any duty, though he had never taken the covenant, but permitted it to have been put in an act of parliament in both kingdoms, and given so satisfactory an answer to the rest of the propositions, as easily he might, and sometimes i know he was willing, certainly scotland had been for him as one man: and the body of england, upon many grounds, was upon a disposition to have so cordially embraced him, that no man, for his life, durst have muttered against his present restitution. but remaining what he was in all his maxims, a full canterburian, both in matters of religion and state, he still inclined to a new war; and for that end resolved to go to scotland. some great men there pressed the equity of scotland's protecting of him on any terms. this untimeous excess of friendship has ruined that unhappy prince; for the better party finding the conclusion of the king's coming to scotland, and thereby their own present ruin, and the ruin of the whole cause, the making the malignants masters of church and state, the drawing the whole force of england upon scotland for their perjurious violation of their covenant, they resolved by all means to cross that design."--p. . [ ] the votes for payment of the sum of £ , to the scots are on aug. , , and sept. ; though it was not fully agreed between the two nations till dec. . whitelock, , . but whitelock dates the commencement of the understanding as to the delivery of the king about dec. . p. . see commons' journals. baillie, ii. , ; burnet's _memoirs of hamiltons_, , etc.; laing, iii. ; and mr. godwin's _history of the commonwealth_, ii. ; a work in which great attention has been paid to the order of time. [ ] journals, aug. and sept.; godwin, _ubi supra_; baillie, ii. _passim_. [ ] baillie, who, in jan. , speaks of the independents as rather troublesome than formidable, and even says: "no man, i know, in either of the houses of any note is for them" ( ); and that "lord say's power and reputation is none at all;" admits, in a few months, the alarming increase of independency and sectarianism in the earl of manchester's army; more than two parts in three of the officers and soldiers being with them, and those the most resolute and confident; though they had no considerable force either in essex's or waller's army, nor in the assembly of divines or the parliament, ii. , , . this was owing in a great degree to the influence, at that period, of cromwell over manchester. "the man," he says, "is a very wise and active head, universally well beloved, as religious and stout; being a known independent, and most of the soldiers who love new ways put themselves under his command."-- . [ ] the independent party, or at least some of its most eminent members, as lord say and mr. st. john, were in a secret correspondence with oxford, through the medium of lord saville, in the spring of , if we believe hollis, who asserts that he had seen their letters, asking offices for themselves. _mem. of hollis_, sect. . baillie refers this to an earlier period, the beginning of (i. ); and i conceive that hollis has been incorrect as to the date. the king, however, was certainly playing a game with them in the beginning of , as well as with the presbyterians, so as to give both parties an opinion of his insincerity. _clarendon state papers_, ; and see two remarkable letters written by his order to sir henry vane, , urging an union, in order to overthrow the presbyterian government. [ ] the principles of the independents are set forth candidly, and even favourably, by collier, ; as well as by neal, ii. . for those who are not much acquainted with ecclesiastical distinction, it may be useful to mention the two essential characteristics of this sect, by which they differed from the presbyterians. the first was, that all churches or separate congregations were absolutely independent of each other as to jurisdiction or discipline; whence they rejected all synods and representative assemblies as possessing authority; though they generally admitted, to a very limited degree, the alliance of churches for mutual counsel and support. their second characteristic was the denial of spiritual powers communicated in ordination by apostolical succession; deeming the call of a congregation a sufficient warrant for the exercise of the ministry. see orme's _life of owen_, for a clear view and able defence of the principles maintained by this party. i must add, that neal seems to have proved that the independents, as a body, were not systematically adverse to monarchy. [ ] edwards's _gangræna_, a noted book in that age, enumerates one hundred and seventy-six heresies, which, however, are reduced by him to sixteen heads; and these seem capable of further consideration. neal, . the house ordered a general fast, feb. , to beseech god to stop the growth of heresy and blasphemy. whitelock, ; a presbyterian artifice to alarm the nation. [ ] _parl. hist._ ii. . they did not meet till july , . rushw. abr. v. ; neal, ; collier, . though this assembly showed abundance of bigotry and narrowness, they were by no means so contemptible as clarendon represents them (ii. ); and perhaps equal in learning, good sense, and other merits, to any lower house of convocation that ever made a figure in england. [ ] whitelock, ; neal, . selden, who owed no gratitude to the episcopal church, was from the beginning of its dangers a steady and active friend, displaying, whatever may have been said of his timidity, full as much courage as could reasonably be expected from a studious man advanced in years. baillie, in , calls him "the avowed proctor of the bishops" (i. ); and when provoked by his erastian opposition in , presumes to talk of his "insolent absurdity" (ii. ). selden sat in the assembly of divines; and by his great knowledge of the ancient languages and of ecclesiastical antiquities, as well as by his sound logic and calm clear judgment, obtained an undeniable superiority, which he took no pains to conceal. [ ] scobell; rushw. abr. v. ; _parl. hist._ iii. ; neal, . the latter says, this did not pass the lords till june . but this is not so. whitelock very rightly opposed the prohibition of the use of the common prayer, and of the silencing episcopal ministers, as contrary to the principle of liberty of conscience avowed by the parliament, and like what had been complained of in the bishops. , , . but, in sept. , it was voted that the indulgence in favour of tender consciences should not extend to tolerate the common prayer. _id._ . [ ] the erastians were named from erastus, a german physician in the sixteenth century. the denomination is often used in the present age ignorantly, and therefore indefinitely; but i apprehend that the fundamental principle of his followers was this: that in a commonwealth where the magistrate professes christianity, it is not convenient that offences against religion and morality should be punished by the censures of the church, especially by excommunication. probably he may have gone farther, as selden seems to have done (neal, ), and denied the right of exclusion from church communion, even without reference to the temporal power; but the limited proposition was of course sufficient to raise the practical controversy. the helvetic divines, gualter and bullinger, strongly concurred in this with erastus; "contendimus disciplinam esse debere in ecclesiâ, sed satis esse, si ea administretur a magistratu." erastus, _de excommunicatione_, p. ; and a still stronger passage in p. . and it is said, that archbishop whitgift caused erastus's book to be printed at his own expense. see one of warburton's notes on neal. calvin, and the whole of his school, held, as is well known, a very opposite tenet. see _erasti theses de excommunicatione_, to, . the ecclesiastical constitution of england is nearly erastian in theory, and almost wholly so in practice. every sentence of the spiritual judge is liable to be reversed by a civil tribunal, the court of delegates, by virtue of the king's supremacy over all causes. and, practically, what is called church discipline, or the censures of ecclesiastical governors for offences, has gone so much into disuse, and what remains is so contemptible, that i believe no one, except those who derive a little profit from it, would regret its abolition. "the most part of the house of commons," says baillie, ii. , "especially the lawyers, whereof there are many, and divers of them very able men, are either half or whole erastians, believing no church government to be of divine right, but all to be a human constitution depending on the will of the magistrate." "the pope and king," he says in another place ( ), "were never more earnest for the headship of the church than the plurality of this parliament." see also p. ; and whitelock, . [ ] _parl. hist._ _et alibi_; rushw. abr. v. _et alibi_; whitelock, , , , _et post_; baillie's _letters_, _passim_; neal, , etc., _et post_; collier, . the assembly attempted to sustain their own cause by counter votes; and, the minority of independents and erastians having withdrawn, it was carried with a single dissent of lightfoot, that christ had established a government in his church independent of the civil magistrate. neal, . [ ] neal, . warburton says, in his note on this passage, that "the presbyterian was _to all intents and purposes_ the established religion during the time of the commonwealth." but, as coercive discipline and synodical government are no small intents and purposes of that religion, this assertion requires to be modified, as it has been in my text. besides which, there were many ministers of the independent sect in benefices, some of whom probably had never received ordination. "both baptists and independents," says a very well informed writer of the latter denomination, "were in the practice of accepting the livings, that is, the temporalities of the church. they did not, however, view themselves as parish ministers, and bound to administer all the ordinances of religion to the parish population. they occupied the parochial edifices, and received a portion of the tithes for their maintenance; but in all other respects acted according to their own principles." orme's _life of owen_, . this he thinks would have produced very serious evils, if not happily checked by the restoration. "during the commonwealth," he observes afterwards ( ), "no system of church government can be considered as having been properly or fully established. the presbyterians, if any, enjoyed this distinction." [ ] the city began to petition for the establishment of presbytery, and against toleration of sectaries, early in ; and not long after came to assume what seemed to the commons too dictatorial a tone. this gave much offence, and contributed to drive some members into the opposite faction. neal, , , ; whitelock, , . [ ] vol. ii. . see also , and other places. this is a remark that requires attention; many are apt to misunderstand the question. "for this point (toleration) both they and we contend," says baillie, "tanquam pro aris et focis."--ii. . "not only they praise your magistrate" (writing to a mr. spang in holland), "who for policy gives some secret tolerance to divers religions, wherein, as i conceive, your divines preach against them as great sinners, but avow that by god's command the magistrate is discharged to put the least discourtesy on any man, jew, turk, papist, socinian, or whatever, for his religion."-- . see also , and many other passages. "the army" (says hugh peters in a tract, entitled "a word for the army, and two words to the people," ) "never hindered the state from a state religion, having only wished to enjoy now what the puritans begged under the prelates; when we desire more, blame us, and shame us." in another, entitled "vox militaris," the author says: "we did never engage against this platform, nor for that platform, nor ever will, except better informed; and therefore, if the state establisheth presbytery, we shall never oppose it." the question of toleration, in its most important shape, was brought at this time before parliament, on occasion of one paul best who had written against the doctrine of the trinity. according to the common law, heretics, on being adjudged by the spiritual court, were delivered over to be burned under the writ de hæretico comburendo. this punishment had been inflicted five times under elizabeth; on wielmacker and ter wort, two dutch anabaptists, who, like many of that sect, entertained arian tenets, and were burned in smithfield in ; on matthew hammond in , thomas lewis in , and francis ket in ; all burned by scambler, bishop of norwich. it was also inflicted on bartholomew legat and edward wightman, under james, in ; the first burned by king, bishop of london, the second by neile of litchfield. a third, by birth a spaniard, incurred the same penalty; but the compassion of the people showed itself so strongly at legat's execution that james thought it expedient not to carry the sentence into effect. such is the venomous and demoralising spirit of bigotry, that fuller, a writer remarkable for good nature and gentleness, expresses his indignation at the pity which was manifested by the spectators of legat's sufferings. _church hist._ part ii. p. . in the present case of paul best, the old sentence of fire was not suggested by any one; but an ordinance was brought in, jan. , to punish him with death. whitelock, . best made, at length, such an explanation as was accepted (neal, ); but an ordinance to suppress blasphemies and heresies as capital offences was brought in. commons' journals, april . the independents gaining strength, this was long delayed; but the ordinance passed both houses, may , . _id._ . neal ( ) justly observes, that it shows the governing presbyterians would have made a terrible use of their power, had they been supported by the sword of the civil magistrate. the denial of the trinity, incarnation, atonement, or inspiration of any book of the old or new testament, was made felony. lesser offences, such as anabaptism, or denying the lawfulness of presbyterian government, were punishable by imprisonment till the party should recant. it was much opposed, especially by whitelock. the writ de hæretico comburendo, as is well known, was taken away by act of parliament in . [ ] "in all new england, no liberty of living for a presbyterian. whoever there, were they angels for life and doctrine, will essay to set up a different way from them [the independents], shall be sure of present banishment." baillie, ii. , also . i am surprised to find a late writer of that country (dwight's _travels in new england_) attempt to extenuate at least the intolerance of the independents towards the quakers, who came to settle there; and which, we see, extended also to the presbyterians. but mr. orme, with more judgment, observes that the new england congregations did not sufficiently adhere to the principle of independency, and acted too much as a body; to which he ascribes their persecution of the quakers and others. _life of owen_, . it is certain that the congregational scheme leads to toleration, as the national church scheme is adverse to it, for manifold reasons which the reader will discover. [ ] though the writings of chillingworth and hales are not directly in behalf of toleration, no one could relish them without imbibing its spirit in the fullest measure. the great work of jeremy taylor, on the _liberty of prophesying_, was published in ; and, if we except a few concessions to the temper of the times, which are not reconcilable to its general principles, has left little for those who followed him. mr. orme admits that the remonstrants of holland maintained the principles of toleration very early (p. ); but refers to a tract by leonard busher, an independent, in , as "containing the most enlightened and scriptural views of religious liberty."--p. . he quotes other writings of the same sect under charles i. [ ] several proofs of this occur in the _clarendon state papers_. a letter, in particular, from colepepper to digby, in sept. , is so extravagantly sanguine, considering the posture of the king's affairs at that time, that, if it was perfectly sincere, colepepper must have been a man of less ability than has generally been supposed. vol. ii. p. . neal has some sensible remarks on the king's mistake in supposing that any party which he did not join must in the end be ruined. p. . he had not lost this strange confidence after his very life had become desperate; and told sir john bowring, when he advised him not to spin out the time at the treaty of newport, that "any interests would be glad to come in with him." see bowring's _memoirs_ in halifax's _miscellanies_, . [ ] baillie's letters are full of this feeling, and must be reckoned fair evidence, since no man could be more bigoted to presbytery, or more bitter against the royalist party. i have somewhere seen baillie praised for his mildness. his letters give no proof of it. take the following specimens: "mr. maxwell of ross has printed at oxford so desperately malicious an invective against our assemblies and presbyteries, that, however i could hardly consent to the hanging of canterbury or of any jesuit, yet i could give my sentence freely against that unhappy man's life."--ii. . "god has struck coleman with death; he fell in an ague, and after three or four days expired. it is not good to stand in christ's way."--p. . baillie's judgment of men was not more conspicuous than his moderation. "vane and cromwell are of horrible hot fancies to put all in confusion, but not of any deep reach. st. john and pierrepont are more stayed, but not great heads."--p. . the drift of all his letters is, that every man who resisted the _jus divinum_ of presbytery was knave or fool, if not both. they are, however, eminently serviceable as historical documents. [ ] "now for my own particular resolution," he says in a letter to digby, march , , "it is this. i am endeavouring to get to london, so that the conditions may be such as a gentleman may own, and that the rebels may acknowledge me king; being not without hope that i shall be able so to draw either the presbyterians or independents to side with me for extirpating the one or the other, that i shall be really king again." carte's _ormond_, iii. ; quoted by mr. brodie, to whom i am indebted for the passage. i have mentioned already his overture about this time to sir henry vane through ashburnham. [ ] clarendon, followed by hume and several others, appears to say that ragland castle in monmouthshire, defended by the marquis of worcester, was the last that surrendered; namely, in august . i use the expression _appears to say_, because the last edition, which exhibits his real text, shows that he paid this compliment to pendennis castle in cornwall, and that his original editors (i suppose to do honour to a noble family), foisted in the name of ragland. it is true, however, of neither. the north welsh castles held out considerably longer; that of harlech was not taken till april , which put an end to the war. whitelock. clarendon, still more unyielding than his master, extols the long resistance of his party, and says that those who surrendered at the first summons obtained no better terms than they who made the stoutest defence; as if that were a sufficient justification for prolonging a civil war. in fact, however, they did the king some harm; inasmuch as they impeded the efforts made in parliament to disband the army. several votes of the commons show this; see the journals of th may and st july . [ ] the resolution to disband fairfax's regiment next tuesday at chelmsford passed th may , by to ; algernon sidney being a teller of the noes. commons' journals. in these votes the house, that is, the presbyterian majority, acted with extreme imprudence; not having provided for the payment of the army's arrears at the time they were thus disbanding them. whitelock advised hollis and his party not to press the disbanding; and on finding them obstinate, drew off, as he tells us, from that connection, and came nearer to cromwell. p. . this, however, he had begun to do rather earlier. independently of the danger of disgusting the army, it is probable that, as soon as it was disbanded, the royalists would have been up in arms. for the growth of this discontent, day by day, peruse whitelock's journal for march and the three following months, as well as the _parliamentary history_. [ ] it was only carried by to , march , , that the forces should be commanded by fairfax. but on the th, the house voted without a division, that no officer under him should be above the rank of a colonel, and that no member of the house should have any command in the army. it is easy to see at whom this was levelled. commons' journals. they voted at the same time that the officers should all take the covenant, which had been rejected two years before; and, by a majority of to , that they should all conform to the government of the church established by both houses of parliament. [ ] _clar. state papers_, ii. . the army, in a declaration not long after the king fell into their power, june , use these expressions: "we clearly profess that we do not see how there can be any peace to this kingdom firm or lasting, without a due provision for the rights, quiet, and immunity of his majesty, his royal family, and his late partakers."--_parl. hist._ . [ ] hollis censures the speakers of the two houses and others who fled to the army from this mob; the riot being "a sudden tumultuous thing of young idle people without design." possibly this might be the case; but the tumult at the door of the house, th july, was such that it could not be divided. their votes were plainly null, as being made under duress. yet the presbyterians were so strong in the commons that a resolution to annul all proceedings during the speaker's absence was lost by to , after his return; and it was only voted to repeal them. a motion to declare that the houses, from th july to th august, had been under a force, was also lost by to . journals, th and th august. the lords, however, passed an ordinance to this effect; and after once more rejecting it, the commons agreed on august , with a proviso that no one should be called in question for what had been done. [ ] these transactions are best read in the commons' journals, and _parliamentary history_, and next to those, in whitelock. hollis relates them with great passion; and clarendon, as he does everything else that passed in london, very imperfectly. he accounts for the earl of manchester and the speaker lenthal's retiring to the army by their persuasion that the chief officers had nearly concluded a treaty with the king, and resolved to have their shares in it. this is a very unnecessary surmise. lenthal was a poor-spirited man, always influenced by those whom he thought the strongest, and in this instance, according to ludlow (p. ) persuaded with difficulty by haslerig to go to the army. manchester indeed had more courage and honour; but he was not of much capacity, and his parliamentary conduct was not systematic. but upon the whole it is obvious, on reading the list of names (_parl. hist._ ), that the king's friends were rather among those who staid behind, especially in the lords, than among those who went to the army. seven of eight peers who continued to sit from th july to th of august , were impeached for it afterwards (_parl. hist._ ), and they were all of the most moderate party. if the king had any previous connection with the city, he acted very disingenuously in his letter to fairfax, aug. , while the contest was still pending; wherein he condemns the tumults, and declares his unwillingness that his friends should join with the city against the army, whose proposals he had rejected the day before with an imprudence of which he was now sensible. this letter, as actually sent to fairfax, is in the _parliamentary history_, , and may be compared with a rough draught of the same, preserved in _clarendon papers_, , from which it materially differs, being much sharper against the city. [ ] fairfax's "memoirs" in maseres's _collection of tracts_, vol. i. p. . "by this," says fairfax, who had for once found a man less discerning of the times than himself, "i plainly saw the broken reed he leaned on. the agitators had brought the king into an opinion that the army was for him." ireton said plainly to the king, "sir, you have an intention to be the arbitrator between the parliament and us; and we mean to be so between your majesty and the parliament."--berkley's "memoirs," _ibid._ p. . this folly of the king, if mrs. hutchinson is well informed, alienated ireton, who had been more inclined to trust him than is commonly believed. "cromwell," she says, "was at that time so incorruptibly faithful to his trust and the people's interest, that he could not be drawn in to practise even his own usual and natural dissimulation on this occasion. his son-in-law ireton, that was as faithful as he, was not so fully of the opinion, till he had tried it, and found to the contrary, but that the king might have been managed to comply with the public good of his people, after he could no longer uphold his own violent will; but upon some discourses with him, the king uttering these words to him, 'i shall play my game as well as i can,' ireton replied, 'if your majesty have a game, you must give us also the liberty to play ours.' colonel hutchinson privately discoursing with his cousin about the communications he had had with the king, ireton's expressions were these: 'he gave us words, and we paid him in his own coin, when we found he had no real intention to the people's good, but to prevail, by our factions, to regain by art what he had lost in fight.'"--p. . it must be said for the king that he was by no means more sanguine or more blind than his distinguished historian and minister. clarendon's private letters are full of strange and absurd expectations. even so late as october , he writes to berkley in high hopes from the army, and presses him to make no concessions except as to persons. "if they see you will not yield, they must; for sure they have as much or more need of the king than he of them."--p. . the whole tenor, indeed, of clarendon's correspondence demonstrates that, notwithstanding the fine remarks occasionally scattered through his history, he was no practical statesman, nor had any just conception, at the time, of the course of affairs. he never flinched from one principle, not very practicable or rational in the circumstances of the king; that nothing was to be receded from which had ever been desired. this may be called magnanimity; but no foreign or domestic dissension could be settled, if all men were to act upon it, or if all men, like charles and clarendon, were to expect that providence would interfere to support what seems to them the best, that is, their own cause. the following passage is a specimen: "truly i am so unfit to bear a part in carrying on this new contention [by negotiation and concession], that i would not, to preserve myself, wife, and children from the lingering death of want by famine (for a sudden death would require no courage), consent to the lessening any part, which i take to be in the function of a bishop, or the taking away the smallest prebendary in the church, or to be bound not to endeavour to alter any such alteration."--_id._ vol. iii. p. , feb. , . [ ] _parl. hist._ . clarendon talks of these proposals as worse than any the king had ever received from the parliament; and hollis says they "dissolved the whole frame of the monarchy." it is hard to see, however, that they did so in a greater degree than those which he had himself endeavoured to obtain as a commissioner at uxbridge. as to the church, they were manifestly the best that charles had ever seen. as to his prerogative and the power of the monarchy, he was so thoroughly beaten, that no treaty could do him any substantial service; and he had, in truth, only to make his election, whether to be the nominal chief of an aristocratical or a democratical republic. in a well-written tract, called "vox militaris," containing a defence of the army's proceedings and intentions, and published apparently in july , their desire to preserve the king's rights, according to their notion of them, and the general laws of the realm, is strongly asserted. [ ] the precise meaning of this word seems obscure. some have supposed it to be a corruption of adjutators, as if the modern term adjutant meant the same thing. but i find agitator always so spelled in the pamphlets of the time. [ ] berkley's _memoirs_, . he told lord capel about this time that he expected a war between scotland and england; that the scots hoped for the assistance of the presbyterians; and that he wished his own party to rise in arms on a proper conjuncture, without which he could not hope for much benefit from the others. clarendon, v. . [ ] berkley, , etc. compare the letter of ashburnham, published in , and reprinted in , but probably not so full as the ms. in the earl of ashburnham's possession; also the memoirs of hollis, huntingdon, and fairfax, which are all in maseres's collection; also ludlow, hutchinson, clarendon, burnet's _memoirs of hamilton_, and some despatches in and , from a royalist in london, printed in the appendix to the second volume of the _clarendon papers_. this correspondent of secretary nicholas believes cromwell and ireton to have all along planned the king's destruction, and set the levellers on, till they proceeded so violently, that they were forced to restrain them. this also is the conclusion of major huntingdon, in his reasons for laying down his commission. but the contrary appears to me more probable. two anecdotes, well known to those conversant in english history, are too remarkable to be omitted. it is said by the editor of lord orrery's _memoirs_, as a relation which he had heard from that noble person, that in a conversation with cromwell concerning the king's death, the latter told him, he and his friends had once a mind to have closed with the king, fearing that the scots and presbyterians might do so; when one of their spies, who was of the king's bedchamber, gave them information of a letter from his majesty to the queen, sewed up in the skirt of a saddle, and directing them to an inn where it might be found. they obtained the letter accordingly, in which the king said, that he was courted by both factions, the scots presbyterians and the army; that those which bade fairest for him should have him; but he thought he should rather close with the scots than the other. upon this, finding themselves unlikely to get good terms from the king, they from that time vowed his destruction. carte's _ormond_, ii. . a second anecdote is alluded to by some earlier writers, but is particularly told in the following words, by richardson, the painter, author of some anecdotes of pope, edited by spence. "lord bolingbroke told us, june , (mr. pope, lord marchmont, and myself), that the second earl of oxford had often told him that he had seen, and had in his hands, an original letter that charles the first wrote to his queen, in answer to one of hers that had been intercepted, and then forwarded to him; wherein she had reproached him for having made those villains too great concession, viz. that cromwell should be lord lieutenant of ireland for life without account; that that kingdom should be in the hands of the party, with an army there kept which should know no head but the lieutenant; that cromwell should have a garter, etc.: that in this letter of the king's it was said, that she should leave him to manage, who was better informed of all circumstances than she could be; but she might be entirely easy as to whatever concessions he should make them; for that he should know in due time how to deal with the rogues, who, instead of a silken garter, should be fitted with a hempen cord. so the letter ended; which answer as they waited for, so they intercepted accordingly; and it determined his fate. this letter lord oxford said he had offered £ for." the authenticity of this latter story has been constantly rejected by hume and the advocates of charles in general; and, for one reason among others, that it looks like a misrepresentation of that told by lord orrery, which both stands on good authority, and is perfectly conformable to all the memoirs of the time. i have, however, been informed, that a memorandum nearly conformable to richardson's anecdote is extant, in the handwriting of lord oxford. it is possible that this letter is the same with that mentioned by lord orrery; and in that case was written in the month of october. cromwell seems to have been in treaty with the king as late as september; and advised him, according to berkley, to reject the proposals of the parliament in that month. herbert mentions an intercepted letter of the queen (_memoirs_, ); and even his story proves that cromwell and his party broke off with charles from a conviction of his dissimulation. see laing's note, iii. ; and the note by strype, therein referred to, on kennet's _complete hist. of england_, iii. ; which speaks of a "constant tradition" about this story, and is more worthy of notice, because it was written before the publication of lord orrery's _memoirs_, or of the _richardsoniana_. [ ] ashburnham gives us to understand that the king had made choice of the isle of wight, previously to his leaving hampton court, but probably at his own suggestion. this seems confirmed by the king's letter in burnet's _mem. of dukes of hamilton_, . clarendon's account is a romance, with little mixture probably of truth. ashburnham's _narrative_, published in , proves that he suggested the isle of wight, in consequence of the king's being forced to abandon a design he had formed of going to london, the scots commissioners retracting their engagement to support him. [ ] _parl. hist._ . [ ] jan. . this vote was carried by to . _id._ . and see append. to nd vol. of _clar. state papers_. cromwell was now vehement against the king, though he had voted in his favour on sept. . journals, and berkley, . a proof that the king was meant to be wholly rejected is, that at this time, in the list of the navy, the expression "his majesty's ship," was changed to "the parliament's ship." whitelock, . the four bills were founded on four propositions (for which i refer to hume or the _parliamentary history_, not to clarendon, who has mis-stated them) sent down from the lords. the lower house voted to agree with them by to ; sidney and evelyn tellers for the ayes, martin and morley for the noes. the increase of the minority is remarkable, and shows how much the king's refusal of the terms offered him in september, and his escape from hampton court, had swollen the commonwealth party; to which, by the way, colonel sidney at this time seems not to have belonged. ludlow says, that party hoped the king would not grant the four bills (i. ). the commons published a declaration of their reasons for making no further addresses to the king, wherein they more than insinuate his participation in the murder of his father by buckingham. _parl. hist._ . [ ] clarendon, whose aversion to the scots warps his judgment, says that this treaty contained many things dishonourable to the english nation. _hist._ v. . the king lost a good deal in the eyes of this uncompromising statesman, by the concessions he made in the isle of wight. _state papers_, . i cannot, for my own part, see anything derogatory to england in the treaty; for the temporary occupation of a few fortified towns in the north can hardly be called so. charles, there is some reason to think, had on a former occasion made offers to the scots far more inconsistent with his duty to this kingdom. [ ] clarendon; may, "breviate of the hist. of the parliament," in maseres's _tracts_, i. ; whitelock, , , etc. in a conference between the two houses, july , , the commons gave as a reason for insisting on the king's surrender of the militia as a preliminary to a treaty, that such was the disaffection to the parliament on all sides, that without the militia they could never be secure. rush. abr. vi. . "the chief citizens of london," says may, , "and others called presbyterians, though the presbyterian scots abominated this army, wished good success to these scots no less than the malignants did. whence let the reader judge of the times." the fugitive sheets of this year, such as the "mercurius aulicus," bear witness to the exulting and insolent tone of the royalists. the chuckle over fairfax and cromwell, as if they had caught a couple of rats in a trap. [ ] april , ; _parl. hist._ . [ ] june . these peers were the earls of suffolk, middlesex, and lincoln, lords willoughby of parham, berkley, hunsdon, and maynard. they were impeached for sitting in the house during the tumults from th of july to th of august . the earl of pembroke, who had also continued to sit, merely because he was too stupid to discover which party was likely to prevail, escaped by truckling to the new powers. [ ] june . [ ] see _parl. hist._ , , , , , , , for the different votes on this subject, wherein the presbyterians gradually beat the independent or republican party, but with very small and precarious majorities. [ ] clarendon, vi. . he is very absurd in imagining that any of the parliamentary commissioners would have been satisfied with "an act of indemnity and oblivion." that the parliament had some reason to expect the king's firmness of purpose to give way, in spite of all his haggling, will appear from the following short review of what had been done. . at newmarket, in june , he absolutely refused the nineteen propositions tendered to him by the lords and commons. . in the treaty of oxford, march , he seems to have made no concession, not even promising an amnesty to those he had already excluded from pardon. . in the treaty of uxbridge, no mention was made on his side of exclusion from pardon; he offered to vest the militia for seven years in commissioners jointly appointed by himself and parliament, so that it should afterwards return to him, and to limit the jurisdiction of the bishops. . in the winter of , he not only offered to disband his forces, but to let the militia be vested for seven years in commissioners to be appointed by the two houses, and afterwards to be settled by bill; also to give the nomination of officers of state and judges _pro hâc vice_ to the houses. . he went no farther in substance till may ; when he offered the militia for ten years, as well as great limitations of episcopacy, and the continuance of presbyterian government for three years; the whole matter to be afterwards settled by bill on the advice of the assembly of divines, and twenty more of his own nomination. . in his letter from carisbrook, nov. , he gave up the militia for his life. this was in effect to sacrifice almost everything as to immediate power; but he struggled to save the church lands from confiscation, which would have rendered it hardly practicable to restore episcopacy in future. his further concessions in the treaty of newport, though very slowly extorted, were comparatively trifling. what clarendon thought of the treaty of newport may be imagined. "you may easily conclude," he writes to digby, "how fit a counsellor i am like to be, when the best that is proposed is that which i _would not consent unto to preserve the kingdom from ashes_. i can tell you worse of myself than this; which is, that there may be some reasonable expedients which possibly might in truth restore and preserve all, in which i could bear no part."--p. . see also p. and . i do not divine what he means by this. but what he could not have approved was, that the king had no thoughts of dealing sincerely with the parliament in this treaty, and gave ormond directions to obey all his wife's commands, but not to obey any further orders he might send, nor to be startled at his great concessions respecting ireland, for they would come to nothing. carte's _papers_, i. . see mr. brodie's remarks on this, iv. - . he had agreed to give up the government of ireland for twenty years to the parliament. in his answer to the propositions at newcastle, sent in may , he had declared that he would give full satisfaction with respect to ireland. but he thus explains himself to the queen: "i have so couched that article that, if the irish give me cause, i may interpret it enough to their advantage. for i only say that i will give them (the two houses) full satisfaction as to the management of the war, nor do i promise to continue the war; so that, if i find reason to make a good peace there, my engagement is at an end. wherefore make this my interpretation known to the irish." _clar. state papers._ "what reliance," says mr. laing, from whom i transcribe this passage (which i cannot find in the book quoted), "could parliament place at the beginning of the dispute, or at any subsequent period, on the word or moderation of a prince, whose solemn and written declarations were so full of equivocation?" _hist. of scotland_, iii. . it may here be added that, though charles had given his parole to colonel hammond, and had the sentinels removed in consequence, he was engaged during most part of his stay at carisbrook in schemes for an escape. see col. cooke's "narrative," printed with herbert's _memoirs_; and in rushw. abr. vi. . but his enemies were apprised of this intention, and even of an attempt to escape by removing a bar of his window, as appears by the letters from the committee of derby house, cromwell, and others, to col. hammond, published in . [ ] clarendon mentions an expression that dropped from henry martin in conversation, not long after the meeting of the parliament: "i do not think one man wise enough to govern us all." this may doubtless be taken in a sense perfectly compatible with our limited monarchy. but martin's republicanism was soon apparent; he was sent to the tower in august , for language reflecting on the king. _parl. hist._ . a mr. chillingworth had before incurred the same punishment for a like offence, december , . nalson, ii. . sir henry ludlow, father of the regicide, was also censured on the same account. as the opposite faction grew stronger, martin was not only restored to his seat, but the vote against him was expunged. vane, i presume, took up republican principles pretty early; perhaps also haslerig. with these exceptions, i know not that we can fix on any individual member of parliament the charge of an intention to subvert the constitution till or . [ ] pamphlets may be found as early as which breathe this spirit; but they are certainly rare till and . such are "plain english," ; "the character of an anti-malignant," ; "last warning to all the inhabitants of london," . [ ] charles louis, elector palatine, elder brother of the princes rupert and maurice, gave cause to suspect that he was looking towards the throne. he left the king's quarters where he had been at the commencement of the war, and retired to holland; whence he wrote, as well as his mother, the queen of bohemia, to the parliament, disclaiming and renouncing prince rupert, and begging their own pensions might be paid. he came over to london in august , took the covenant, and courted the parliament. they showed, however, at first, a good deal of jealousy of him; and intimated that his affairs would prosper better by his leaving the kingdom. whitelock, ; rush. abr. xv. . he did not take this hint, and obtained next year an allowance of £ per annum. _id._ . lady ranelagh, in a letter to hyde, march , conjuring him by his regard for lord falkland's memory to use all his influence to procure a message from the king for a treaty, adds: "methinks what i have informed my sister, and what she will inform you, of the posture of the prince elector's affairs are in here, should be a motive to hasten away this message." _clar. state papers_, ii. . clarendon himself, in a letter to nicholas, dec. , (where he gives his opinion that the independents look more to a change of the king and his line than of the monarchy itself, and would restore the full prerogative of the crown to one of their own choice), proceeds in these remarkable words: "and i pray god they have not such a nose of wax ready for their impression. this it is makes me tremble more than all their discourses of destroying monarchy; and that towards this end, they find assistance from those who from their hearts abhor their confusions." p. . these expressions seem more applicable by far to the elector than to cromwell. but the former was not dangerous to the parliament, though it was deemed fit to treat him with respect. in march , we find a committee of both houses appointed to receive some intelligence which the prince elector desired to communicate to the parliament of great importance to the protestant religion. whitelock, . nothing farther appears about this intelligence; which looks as if he was merely afraid of being forgotten. he left england in , and died in . [ ] baxter's _life_, . he ascribes the increase of enthusiasm in the army to the loss of its presbyterian chaplains, who left it for their benefices, on the reduction of the king's party and the new-modelling of the troops. the officers then took on them to act as preachers. _id._ ; and neal, . i conceive that the year is that to which we must refer the appearance of a republican party in considerable numbers, though not yet among the house of commons. [ ] these passed against the royalist members separately, and for the most part in the first months of the war. [ ] "the best friends of the parliament were not without fears what the issue of the new elections might be; for though the people durst not choose such as were open enemies to them, yet probably they would such as were most likely to be for a peace on any terms, corruptly preferring the fruition of their estates and sensual enjoyments before the public interest," etc. ludlow, i. . this is a fair confession how little the commonwealth party had the support of the nation. [ ] c. journals; whitelock, . the borough of southwark had just before petitioned for a new writ, its member being dead or disabled. [ ] that the house of commons, in december , entertained no views of altering the fundamental constitution, appears from some of their resolutions as to conditions of peace: "that fairfax should have an earldom, with £ a year; cromwell and waller baronies, with half that estate; essex, northumberland, and two more be made dukes; manchester and salisbury marquises, and other peers of their party be elevated to higher ranks; haslerig, stapylton, and skippon to have pensions." _parl. hist._ ; whitelock, . these votes do not speak much for the magnanimity and disinterestedness of that assembly, though it may suit political romancers to declaim about it. [ ] commons' journals, may and , . this minority were not, in general, republican; but were unwilling to increase the irritation of the army by so strong a vote. [ ] commons' journals; whitelock, ; _parl. hist._ . they had just been exasperated by his evasion of their propositions. _id._ . by the smallness of the numbers, and the names of the tellers, it seems as if the presbyterian party had been almost entirely absent; which may be also inferred from other parts of the journals. see october , for a long list of absentees. haslerig and evelyn, both of the army faction, told the ayes, martin and sir peter wentworth the noes. the house had divided the day before on the question for going into a committee to take this matter into consideration, to ; cromwell and evelyn telling the majority, wentworth and rainsborough the minority. i suppose it is from some of these divisions that baron maseres has reckoned the republican party in the house not to exceed thirty. it was resolved on nov. , , that the king of england, for the time being, was bound in justice and by the duty of his office, to give his assent to all such laws as by the lords and commons in parliament shall be adjudged to be for the good of the kingdom, and by them tendered unto him for his assent. but the previous question was carried on the following addition: "and in case the laws, so offered unto him, shall not thereupon be assented unto by him, that nevertheless they are as valid to all intents and purposes as if his assent had been thereunto had and obtained, which they do insist upon as an undoubted right."--com. jour. [ ] ludlow says that cromwell, "finding the king's friends grow strong in , began to court the commonwealth's party. the latter told him he knew how to cajole and give them good words, when he had occasion to make use of them; whereat, breaking out into a rage, he said they were a proud sort of people, and only considerable in their own conceits."--p. . does this look as if he had been reckoned one of them? [ ] clarendon says that there were many consultations among the officers about the best mode of disposing of the king; some were for deposing him, others for poison or assassination, which, he fancies, would have been put in practice, if they could have prevailed on hammond. but this is not warranted by our better authorities. it is hard to say at what time the first bold man dared to talk of bringing the king to justice. but in a letter of baillie to alexander henderson, may , , he says, "if god have hardened him, so far as i can perceive, this people will strive to have him in their power, and make an example of him; _i abhor to think what they speak of execution_!"--ii. . published also in dalrymple's _memorials of charles i._, p. . proofs may also be brought from pamphlets by lilburne and others in , especially towards the end of that year; and the remonstrance of the scots parliament, dated aug. , alludes to such language. rushw. abr. vi. . berkley indeed positively assures us, that the resolution was taken at windsor in a council of officers, soon after the king's confinement at carisbrook; and this with so much particularity of circumstance that, if we reject his account, we must set aside the whole of his memoirs at the same time. maseres's _tracts_, i. . but it is fully confirmed by an independent testimony, william allen, himself one of the council of officers and adjutant-general of the army, who, in a letter addressed to fleetwood, and published in , declares that after much consultation and prayer at windsor castle, in the beginning of , they had "come to a very clear and joint resolution that it was their duty to call charles stuart, that man of blood, to an account for the blood he had shed, and mischief he had done to his utmost, against the lord's cause and people in these poor nations." this is to be found in _somers tracts_, vi. . the only discrepancy, if it is one, between him and berkley, is as to the precise time, which the other seems to place in the end of . but this might be lapse of memory in either party; nor is it clear, on looking attentively at berkley's narration, that he determines the time. ashburnham says, "for some days before the king's remove from hampton court, there was scarcely a day in which several alarms were not brought him by and from several considerable persons, both well affected to him and likely to know much of what was then in agitation, of the resolution which a violent party in the army had to take away his life. and that such a design there was, there were strong insinuations to persuade." see also his _narrative_, published in . [ ] _somers tracts_, v. , . [ ] sept. . _parl. hist._ ; may's "breviate" in maseres's _tracts_, vol. i. p. ; whitelock, . [ ] nov. . _parl. hist._ ; whitelock, p. . a motion, nov. , that the house do now proceed on the remonstrance of the army, was lost by to (printed, in _parl. hist._). commons' journals. so weak was still the republican party. it is indeed remarkable that this remonstrance itself is rather against the king, than absolutely against all monarchy; for one of the proposals contained in it is that kings should be chosen by the people, and have no negative voice. [ ] the division was on the previous question, which was lost by to . [ ] no division took place on any of the votes respecting the king's trial. [ ] ludlow, i. . [ ] hutchinson, p. . [ ] the king's manners were not good. he spoke and behaved to ladies with indelicacy in public. see warburton's _notes on clarendon_, vii. , and a passage in milton's _defensio pro populo anglicano_, quoted by harris and brodie. he once forgot himself so far as to cane sir henry vane for coming into a room of the palace reserved for persons of higher rank. carte's _ormond_, i. , where other instances are mentioned by that friendly writer. he had in truth none who loved him, till his misfortunes softened his temper, and excited sympathy. an anecdote, strongly intimating the violence of charles's temper, has been rejected by his advocates. it is said that burnet, in searching the hamilton papers, found that the king, on discovering the celebrated letter of the scots covenanting lords to the king of france, was so incensed that he sent an order to sir william balfour, lieutenant-governor of the tower, to cut off the head of his prisoner, lord loudon; but that the marquis of hamilton, to whom balfour immediately communicated this, urged so strongly on the king that the city would be up in arms on this violence, that with reluctance he withdrew the warrant. this story is told by oldmixon, _hist. of the stuarts_, p. . it was brought forward on burnet's authority, and also on that of the duke of hamilton, killed in , by dr. birch, no incompetent judge of historical evidence; it seems confirmed by an intimation given by burnet himself in his _memoirs of the duke of hamilton_, p. . it is also mentioned by scott of scotstarvet, a contemporary writer. harris, p. , quotes other authorities, earlier than the anecdote told by burnet; and upon the whole, i think the story deserving credit, and by no means so much to be slighted as the oxford editor of burnet has thought fit to do. [ ] clement walker, _hist. of independency_, part ii. p. . [ ] clarendon, collier, and the high church writers in general, are very proud of the superiority they fancy the king to have obtained in a long argumentation held at newcastle with henderson, a scots minister, on church authority and government. this was conducted in writing, and the papers afterwards published. they may be read in the king's works, and in collier, p. . it is more than insinuated that henderson died of mortification at his defeat. he certainly had not the excuse of the philosopher who said he had no shame in yielding to the master of fifty legions. but those who take the trouble to read these papers, will probably not think one party so much the stronger as to shorten the other's days. they show that charles held those extravagant tenets about the authority of the church and of the fathers, which are irreconcilable with protestantism in any country where it is not established, and are likely to drive it out where it is so. [ ] the note on this passage, which, on account of its length, was placed at the end of the volume in the two first editions, is withdrawn in this, as relating to a matter of literary controversy, little connected with the general objects of this work. it is needless to add, that the author entertains not the smallest doubt about the justness of the arguments he had employed.--_note to the third edition._ [ ] _parl. hist._ . the council of war more than once, in the year , declared their intention of preserving the rights of the peerage. whitelock, , and sir william waller's _vindication_, . [ ] commons' journal, th and th may . [ ] lords' journals. [ ] commons' journals. it had been proposed to continue the house of lords as a court of judicature, or as a court of consultation, or in some way or other to keep it up. the majority, it will be observed, was not very great; so far was the democratic scheme from being universal even within the house. whitelock, . two divisions had already taken place; one on jan. , when it was carried by thirty-one to eighteen, that "a message from the lords should be received;" cromwell strongly supporting the motion, and being a teller for it; and again on jan. , when, the opposite party prevailing, it was negatived by twenty-five to eighteen, to ask their assent to the vote of the th instant, that the sovereignty resides in the commons; which doubtless, if true, could not require the lords' concurrence. [ ] whitelock, . they voted that pembroke, as well as salisbury and howard of escrick, who followed the ignominious example, should be added to all committees. [ ] commons' journals; whitelock. it had been referred to a committee of five members, lisle, holland, robinson, scott, and ludlow, to recommend thirty-five for a council of state; to whose nominations the house agreed, and added their own. ludlow, i. . they were appointed for a year; but in the house only left out two of the former list, besides those who were dead. whitelock, . in the change was more considerable. _id._ . [ ] six judges agreed to hold on their commissions, six refused. whitelock, who makes a poor figure at this time on his own showing, consented to act still as commissioner of the great seal. those who remained in office affected to stipulate that the fundamental laws should not be abolished; and the house passed a vote to this effect. whitelock, . [ ] whitelock, _et alibi_. baxter's _life_, . a committee was appointed, april , to enquire about ministers who asperse the proceedings of parliament in their pulpits. whitelock, . [ ] _state trials_, v. . baxter says that love's death hurt the new commonwealth more than would be easily believed, and made it odious to all the religious party in the land, except the sectaries. _life of b._, . but "oderint dum metuant" is the device of those who rule in revolutions. clarendon speaks, on the contrary, of love's execution triumphantly. he had been distinguished by a violent sermon during the treaty of uxbridge, for which the parliament, on the complaint of the king's commissioners, put him in confinement. thurloe, i. ; _state trials_, ; though the noble historian, as usual, represents this otherwise. he also misstates love's dying speech. [ ] whitelock, . [ ] the parliament had resolved, th july , that henry stuart, son of the late king, and the lady elizabeth, daughter of the late king, be removed forthwith beyond the seas, out of the limits of this commonwealth. yet this intention seems to have been soon changed; for it is resolved, sept. , to give the duke of glocester £ per annum for his maintenance, so long as he should behave himself inoffensively. whether this proceeded from liberality, or from a vague idea that they might one day make use of him, is hard to say. clarendon mentions the scheme of making the duke of glocester king, in one of his letters (iii. , th nov. ); but says, "truly i do believe that cromwell might as easily procure himself to be chosen king as the duke of glocester; for, as none of the king's party would assist the last, so i am persuaded both presbyterians and independents would have much sooner the former than any of the race of him whom they have murthered." [ ] _id._ p. . lord orrery told burnet that he had once mentioned to cromwell a report that he was to bring in the king, who should marry his daughter, and observed, that he saw no better expedient. cromwell, without expressing any displeasure, said, "the king cannot forgive his father's blood;" which the other attempted to answer. burnet, i. . it is certain, however, that such a compromise would have been dishonourable for one party, and infamous for the other. [ ] cromwell, in his letter to the parliament, after the battle of worcester, called it a _crowning mercy_. this, though a very intelligible expression, was taken in an invidious sense by the republicans. [ ] journals, _passim_. [ ] one of their most scandalous acts was the sale of the earl of craven's estate. he had been out of england during the war, and could not therefore be reckoned a delinquent. but evidence was offered that he had seen the king in holland; and upon this charge, though he petitioned to be heard, and, as is said, indicted the informer for perjury, whereof he was convicted, they voted by to that his lands should be sold; haslerig, the most savage zealot of the whole faction, being a teller for the ayes, vane for the noes. journals, th march , and nd june . _state trials_, v. . on the th of july in the same year, it was referred to a committee to select thirty delinquents, whose estates should be sold for the use of the navy. thus, long after the cessation of hostility, the royalists continued to stand in jeopardy, not only collectively but personally, from this arbitrary and vindictive faction. nor were these qualities displayed against the royalists alone: one josiah primatt, who seems to have been connected with lilburne, wildman, and the levellers, having presented a petition complaining that sir arthur haslerig had violently dispossessed him of some collieries, the house, after voting every part of the petition to be false, adjudged him to pay a fine of £ to the commonwealth, £ to haslerig, and £ more to the commissioners for compositions. journals, th jan. - . there had been a project of erecting an university at durham, in favour of which a committee reported ( th june ), and for which the chapter lands would have made a competent endowment. haslerig, however, got most of them into his own hands; and thus frustrated, perhaps, a design of great importance to education and literature in this country. for had an university once been established, it is just possible, though not very likely, that the estates would not have reverted, on the king's restoration, to their former, but much less useful possessors. [ ] mrs. hutchinson speaks very favourably of the levellers, as they appeared about , declaring against the factions of the presbyterians and independents, and the ambitious views of their leaders, and especially against the unreasonable privileges claimed by the houses of parliament collectively and personally. "indeed, as all virtues are mediums and have their extremes, there rose up after in that house a people who endeavoured the levelling of all estates and qualities, which those sober levellers were never guilty of desiring; but were men of just and sober principles, of honest and religious ends, and were therefore hated by all the designing self-interested men of both factions. colonel hutchinson had a great intimacy with many of these; and so far as they acted according to the just, pious, and public spirit which they professed, owned them and protected them as far as he had power. these were they who first began to discover the ambition of lieut.-gen. cromwell and his idolaters, and to suspect and dislike it."--p. . [ ] whitelock, , . the levellers rose in arms at banbury and other places; but were soon put down, chiefly through the energy of cromwell, and their ringleaders shot. [ ] it was referred to a committee, th april , to consider how a convenient and competent maintenance for a godly and able ministry may be settled, in lieu of tithes. a proposed addition, that tithes be paid as before till such maintenance be settled, was carried by to . [ ] journals, th jan. . hale was the first named on this commission, and took an active part; but he was associated with some furious levellers, desborough, tomlinson, and hugh peters, so that it is hard to know how far he concurred in the alterations suggested. many of them, however, seem to bear marks of his hand. whitelock, , , , , _et alibi_. there had been previously a committee for the same purpose in . see a list of the acts prepared by them in _somers tracts_, vi. ; several of them are worthy of attention. ludlow indeed blames the commission for slowness; but their delay seems to have been very justifiable, and their suggestions highly valuable. it even appears that they drew up a book containing a regular digest or code, which was ordered to be printed. journals, th jan. . [ ] a committee was named, th may , to take into consideration the settling of the succession of future parliaments and regulating their elections. nothing more appears to have been done till oct. th, when the committee was ordered to meet next day, and so _de die in diem_, and to give an account thereof to the house on tuesday come fortnight; all that came to have voices, but the special care thereof commended to sir henry vane, colonel ludlow, and mr. robinson. we find nothing farther till jan. rd, , when the committee is ordered to make its report the next wednesday. this is done accordingly, jan. , when sir h. vane reports the resolutions of the committee, one of which was, that the number in future parliaments should be . this was carried, after negativing the previous question in a committee of the whole house. they proceeded several days afterwards on the same business. see also ludlow, pp. , . [ ] two divisions had taken place, nov. (the first on the previous question), on a motion, that it is convenient to declare a certain time for the continuance of this parliament, to , and to . on the last division, cromwell and st. john were tellers for the ayes. [ ] whitelock was one of these; and being at that time out of cromwell's favour, inveighs much against this destruction of the power from which he had taken his commission. pp. , . st. john appears to have concurred in the measure. in fact, there had so long been an end of law that one usurpation might seem as rightful as another. but, while any house of commons remained, there was a stock left from which the ancient constitution might possibly germinate. mrs. macauley, whose lamentations over the rump did not certainly proceed from this cause, thus vents her wrath on the english nation: "an acquiescence thus universal in the insult committed on the guardians of the infant republic, and the first step towards the usurpation of cromwell, fixes an indelible stain on the character of the english, as a people basely and incorrigibly attached to the sovereignty of individuals, and of natures too ignoble to endure an empire of equal laws."--vol. v. p. . [ ] harrison, when ludlow asked him why he had joined cromwell to turn out the parliament, said, he thought cromwell would own and favour a set of men who acted on higher principles than those of civil liberty; and quoted from daniel "that the saints shall take the kingdom and possess it." ludlow argued against him; but what was argument to such a head? _mem. of ludlow_, p. . not many months after, cromwell sent his coadjutor to carisbrook castle. [ ] hume speaks of this assembly as chiefly composed of the lowest mechanics. but this was not the case. some persons of inferior rank there were, but a large proportion of the members were men of good family, or, at least, military distinction, as the list of the names in the _parliamentary history_ is sufficient to prove; and whitelock remarks, "it was much wondered at by some that these gentlemen, many of them being persons of fortune and knowledge, would at this summons, and from those hands, take upon them the supreme authority of this nation."--p. . with respect to this, it may be observed, that those who have lived in revolutions find it almost necessary, whether their own interest or those of their country are their aim, to comply with all changes, and take a greater part in supporting them, than men of inflexible consciences can approve. no one felt this more than whitelock; and his remark in this place is a satire upon all his conduct. he was at the moment dissatisfied, and out of cromwell's favour, but lost no time in regaining it. [ ] journals, august . this was carried by to against cromwell's party. yet cromwell, two years afterwards, published an ordinance for regulating and limiting the jurisdiction of chancery; which offended whitelock so much that he resigned the great seal, not having been consulted in framing the regulations. this is a rare instance in his life; and he vaunts much of his conscience accordingly, but thankfully accepted the office of commissioner of the treasury instead. pp. , . he does not seem, by his own account, to have given much satisfaction to suitors in equity (p. ); yet the fault may have been theirs, or the system's. [ ] th october. [ ] this had been proposed by the commission for amendment of the law appointed in the long parliament. the great number of dissenters from the established religion rendered it a very reasonable measure. [ ] thurloe, i. ; iii. . [ ] journals, nd and th dec. ; whitelock. see the sixth volume of the _somers tracts_, p. , for a long and rather able vindication of this parliament by one of its members. ludlow also speaks pretty well of it (p. ); and says, truly enough, that cromwell frightened the lawyers and clergy, by showing what the parliament meant to do with them, which made them in a hurry to have it destroyed. see also _parl. hist._ , . [ ] see the instrument of government in whitelock, p. ; or _somers tracts_, vi. . ludlow says, that some of the officers opposed this; but lambert forced it down their throats. p. . cromwell made good use of this temporary power. the union of scotland with england was by one of these ordinances, april (whitelock, ); and he imposed an assessment of £ , monthly, for three months, and £ , for the next three, instead of £ , , which had been paid before (_id._ ), besides many other ordinances of a legislative nature. "i am very glad," says fleetwood (feb. , thurloe, iii. ), "to hear his highness has declined the legislative power, which by the instrument of government, in my opinion, he could not exercise after this last parliament's meeting." and the parliament of , at the protector's desire, confirmed all ordinances made since the dissolution of the long parliament. thurloe, vi. . [ ] i infer this from the report of a committee of privileges on the election for lynn, oct. , . see also journals, nov. , . [ ] it is remarkable that clarendon seems to approve this model of a parliament, saying, "it was then generally looked upon as an alteration fit to be more warrantably made, and in a better time." [ ] bordeaux, the french ambassador, says, "some were for bradshaw as speaker, but the protector's party carried it for lenthall. by this beginning one may judge what the authority of the lord protector will be in this parliament. however it was observed that as often as he spoke in his speech of liberty or religion, the members did seem to rejoice with acclamations of joy." thurloe, v. . but the election of lenthall appears by guibbon goddard's journal, lately published in the introduction to burton's _diary_, to have been unanimous. [ ] journals, th and th sept.; _parl. hist._ , ; whitelock, , etc.; ludlow, ; goddard's journal, . [ ] this division is not recorded in the journals, in consequence, i suppose, of its having been resolved in a committee of the whole house. but it is impossible to doubt the fact, which is referred to oct. by a letter of bourdeaux, the french ambassador (thurloe, ii. ), who observes, "hereby it is easily discerned that the nation is nowise affected to his family, nor much to himself. without doubt he will strengthen his army, and keep that in a good posture." it is also alluded to by whitelock, . they resolved to keep the militia in the power of the parliament, and that the protector's negative should extend only to such bills as might alter the instrument; and in other cases, if he did not pass bills within twenty days, they were to become laws without his consent. journals, nov. , ; whitelock, . this was carried against the court by to . ludlow insinuates that this parliament did not sit out its legal term of five months; cromwell having interpreted the months to be lunar instead of calendar. hume has adopted this notion; but it is groundless, the month in law being always of twenty-eight days, unless the contrary be expressed. this seems, however, not to have been generally understood at the time; for whitelock says that cromwell's dissolution of the parliament, because he found them not so pliable to his purposes as he expected, caused much discontent in them and others; but that he valued it not, esteeming himself above those things. p. . he gave out that the parliament were concerned in the conspiracy to bring in the king. [ ] exiles are seldom scrupulous: we find that charles was willing to propose to the states, in return for their acknowledging his title, "such present and lasting advantages to them by this alliance as may appear most considerable to that nation and to their posterity, and a valuable compensation for whatever present advantages the king can receive by it." _clarendon state papers_, iii. . these intrigues would have justly made him odious in england. [ ] ormond wrote strongly to this effect, after the battle of worcester, convinced that nothing but foreign assistance could restore the king. "amongst protestants there is none that hath the power, and amongst the catholics it is visible." carte's _letters_, i. . [ ] _clarendon state papers_, ii. _et sæpe alibi_. the protestant zeal of hyde had surely deserted him; and his veracity in one letter gave way also. see vol. iii. p. . but the great criminality of all these negotiations lay in this, that charles was by them soliciting such a measure of foreign aid as would make him at once the tyrant of england and the vassal of spain; since no free parliament, however royalist, was likely to repeal all the laws against popery. "that which the king will be ready and willing to do, is to give his consent for the repeal of all the penal laws and statutes which have been made in the prejudice of catholics, and to put them into the same condition as his other subjects." cottington to father bapthorpe. _id._ . these negotiations with rome were soon known; and a tract was published by the parliament's authority, containing the documents. notwithstanding the delirium of the restoration, this had made an impression which was not afterwards effaced. [ ] _clarendon state papers_, iii. . [ ] "the pope very well knows," says hyde to clement, an agent at the court of rome, nd april , "how far the king is from thoughts of severity against his catholic subjects; nay, that he doth desire to put them into the same condition with his other subjects, and that no man shall suffer in any consideration for being a roman catholic." _id._ . [ ] clarendon's _history of the rebellion_, b. ; _state papers_, iii. , , etc. whitelock observes at this time, "many sober and faithful patriots did begin to incline to the king's restoration;" and hints, that this was his opinion, which excited cromwell's jealousy of him. p. . [ ] clarendon's _history_, vii. ; _state papers_, iii. , etc. these levellers were very hostile to the interference of hyde and ormond, judging them too inflexibly attached to the ancient constitution; but this hostility recommended them to others of the banished king's court who showed the same sentiments. [ ] pp. , , ; thurloe, i. , . in the same volume (p. ) we find even a declaration from the king, dated at paris, rd may , offering £ per annum to any one who should kill cromwell, and pardon to any one who should leave that party, except bradshaw, lenthall, and haslerig. but this seems unlikely to be authentic: charles would not have avowed a design of assassination so openly; and it is strange that lenthall and haslerig, especially the former, should be thus exempted from pardon, rather than so many regicides. [ ] see what clarendon says of ascham's death. _state papers_, ii. . in another place he observes: "it is a worse and a baser thing that any man should appear in any part beyond sea under the character of an agent from the rebels, and not have his throat cut." _id._ iii. . [ ] _state trials_, ; thurloe, ii. . some of the malecontent commonwealth men were also eager to get rid of cromwell by assassination; wildman, saxby, titus. syndercome's story is well known; he was connected in the conspiracy with those already mentioned. the famous pamphlet by titus, "killing no murder," was printed in . _clarendon state papers_, , , . [ ] a very reprehensible passage occurs in clarendon's account of this transaction (vol. vii. p. ), where he blames and derides the insurgents for not putting chief justice rolle and others to death, which would have been a detestable and useless murder. [ ] whitelock, , ; ludlow, ; thurloe, iii. , and through more than half the volume, _passim_. in the preceding volume we have abundant proofs how completely master cromwell was of the royalist schemes. the "sealed knot" of the king's friends in london is mentioned as frequently as we find it in the _clarendon papers_ at the same time. [ ] thurloe, iii. , etc. "penruddock and grove," ludlow says, "could not have been justly condemned, if they had as sure a foundation in what they declared for, as what they declared against. but certainly it can never be esteemed by a wise man to be worth the scratch of a finger to remove a single person acting by an arbitrary power, in order to set up another with the same unlimited authority."--p. . this is a just and manly sentiment. woe to those who do not recognise it! but is it fair to say that the royalists were contending to set up an unlimited authority? [ ] they were originally ten, lambert, desborough, whalley, goffe, fleetwood, skippon, kelsey, butler, worseley, and berry. thurloe, iii. . barkstead was afterwards added. "the major-generals," says ludlow, "carried things with unheard-of insolence in their several precincts, decimating to extremity whom they pleased, and interrupting the proceedings at law upon petitions of those who pretended themselves aggrieved; threatening such as would not yield a ready submission to their orders with transportation to jamaica, or some other plantations in the west indies," etc.--p. . [ ] thurloe, vol. iv. _passim_. the unpopularity of cromwell's government appears strongly in the letters of this collection. duckinfield, a cheshire gentleman, writes: "charles stuart hath friends in these adjacent counties for every one friend to you amongst them." vol. iii. . [ ] it may be fair towards cromwell to give his own apology for the decimation of the royalists, in a declaration, published . "it is a trouble to us to be still rubbing upon the old sore, disobliging those whom we hoped time and patience might make friends; but we can with comfort appeal to god, and dare also to their own consciences, whether this way of proceeding with them hath been the matter of our choice, or that which we have sought an occasion for; or whether, contrary to our own inclinations and the constant course of our carriage towards them, which hath been to oblige them by kindness to forsake their former principles, which god hath so often and so eminently bore witness against, we have not been constrained and necessitated hereunto, and without the doing whereof we should have been wanting to our duty to god and these nations. "that character of difference between them and the rest of the people which is now put upon them is occasioned by themselves, not by us. there is nothing they have more industriously laboured in than this; to keep themselves distinguished from the well-affected of this nation: to which end they have kept their conversation apart; as if they would avoid the very beginnings of union, have bred and educated their children by the sequestered and ejected clergy, and very much confined their marriages and alliances within their own party, as if they meant to entail their quarrel, and prevent the means to reconcile posterity; which with the great pains they take upon all occasions to lessen and suppress the esteem and honour of the english nation in all their actions and undertakings abroad, striving withal to make other nations distinguish their interest from it, gives us ground to judge that they have separated themselves from the body of the nation; and therefore we leave it to all mankind to judge whether we ought not to be timely jealous of that separation, and to proceed so against them as they may be at the charge of those remedies which are required against the dangers they have bred." [ ] ludlow, ; clarendon, etc. clarendon relates the same story, with additional circumstances of cromwell's audacious contempt for the courts of justice, and for the very name of magna charta. [ ] _state trials_, vi.; whitelock advised the protector to proceed according to law against hewit and slingsby; "but his highness was too much in love with the new way."--p. . [ ] the late editor of the _state trials_, v. , has introduced a sort of episodical dissertation on the administration of justice during the commonwealth, with the view, as far as appears, of setting cromwell in a favourable light. for this purpose he quotes several passages of vague commendation from different authors, and among others one from burke, written in haste, to serve an immediate purpose, and evidently from a very superficial recollection of our history. it has been said that cromwell sought out men of character from the party most opposite to his designs. the proof given is the appointment of hale to be a puisné judge. but hale had not been a royalist, that is, an adherent of charles, and had taken the engagement as well as the covenant. it was no great effort of virtue to place an eminent lawyer and worthy man on the bench. and it is to be remembered that hale fell under the usurper's displeasure for administering justice with an impartiality that did not suit his government; and ceased to go the circuit, because the criminal law was not allowed to have its course. [ ] thurloe writes to montague (carte's _letters_, ii. ) that he cannot give him the reasons for calling this parliament, except in cipher. he says in the same place of the committal of ludlow, vane, and others, "there was a necessity not only for peace sake to do this, but to let the nation see those that govern are in good earnest, and intend not to quit the government wholly into the hands of the parliament, as some would needs make the world believe."--p. . his first direct allusion to the projected change is in writing to henry cromwell, th dec. . _thurl. papers_, v. . the influence exerted by his legates, the major-generals, appears in thurloe, v. _et post_. but they complained of the elections. _id._ , , . [ ] whitelock, ; _parl. hist._ . on a letter to the speaker from the members who had been refused admittance at the door of the lobby, sept. , the house ordered the clerk of the commonwealth to attend next day with all the indentures. the deputy clerk came accordingly, with an excuse for his principal, and brought the indentures; but on being asked why the names of certain members were not returned to the house, answered that he had no certificate of approbation for them. the house on this sent to inquire of the council why these members had not been approved. they returned for answer, that whereas it is ordained by a clause in the instrument of government that the persons who shall be elected to serve in parliament shall be such and no other than such as are persons of known integrity, fearing god, and of good conversation; that the council, in pursuance of their duty, and according to the trust reposed in them, have examined the said returns, and have not refused to approve any who have appeared to them to be persons of integrity, fearing god, and of good conversation; and those who are not approved, his highness hath given order to some persons to take care that they do not come into the house. upon this answer, an adjournment was proposed, but lost by to : and it being moved that the persons, who have been returned from the several counties, cities, and boroughs to serve in this parliament, and have not been approved, be referred to the council for approbation, and that the house do proceed with the great affairs of the nation; the question was carried by to . journals, sept. . [ ] _clar. state papers_, iii. , etc. [ ] the whole conference that took place at whitehall, between cromwell and the committee of parliament on this subject, was published by authority, and may be read in the _somers tracts_, vi. . it is very interesting. the lawyers did not hesitate to support the proposition, on the ground of the more definite and legal character of a king's authority. "the king's prerogative," says glyn, "is known by law; he (king charles) did expatiate beyond the duty; that's the evil of the man: but in westminster hall the king's prerogative was under the courts of justice, and is bounded as well as any acre of land, or anything a man hath, as much as any controversy between party and party: and therefore the office being lawful in its nature, known to the nation, certain in itself, and confined and regulated by the law, and the other office not being so, that was a great ground of the reason why the parliament did so much insist upon this office and title, not as circumstantial, but as essential."--p. . see also what lenthall says (p. ) against the indefiniteness of the protector's authority. those passages were evidently implied censures of the late course of government. cromwell's indistinct and evasive style in his share of this debate betrays the secret inclinations of his heart. he kept his ultimate intentions, however, very secret; for thurloe's professes his ignorance of them, even in writing to henry cromwell. vol. vi. p. _et post_. this correspondence shows that the prudent secretary was uneasy at the posture of affairs, and the manifest dissatisfaction of fleetwood and desborough, which had a dangerous influence on others less bound to the present family; yet he had set his heart on this mode of settlement, and was much disappointed at his master's ultimate refusal. [ ] clarendon's _hist._ vii. . it appears by clarendon's private letters that he had expected to see cromwell assume the title of king from the year . vol. iii. pp. , , . if we may trust what is here called an intercepted letter (p. ), mazarin had told cromwell that france would enter into a strict league with him, if he could settle himself in the throne, and make it hereditary; to which he answered, that he designed shortly to take the crown, restore the two houses, and govern by the ancient laws. but this may be apocryphal. [ ] clar. vii. . [ ] ludlow, p. . the major-generals, or at least many of them, joined the opposition to cromwell's royalty. _id._ p. ; _clar. state papers_, . [ ] this appears from the following passage in a curious letter of mr. vincent gookin to henry cromwell, th jan. . "to-morrow the bill for decimating the cavaliers comes again into debate. it is debated with much heat by the major-generals, and as hotly almost by the anti-decimators. i believe the bill will be thrown out of the house. in my opinion those that speak against the bill have much to say in point of moral justice and prudence; but that which makes me fear the passing of the bill is, that thereby his highness's government will be more founded in force, and more removed from that natural foundation which the people in parliament are desirous to give him; supposing that he will become more theirs than now he is, and will in time find the safety and peace of the nation to be as well maintained by the laws of the land as by the sword. and truly, sir, if any others have pretensions to succeed him by their interest in the army, the more of force upholds his highness living, the greater when he is dead will be the hopes and advantages for such a one to effect his aim, who desires to succeed him. lambert is much for decimations." thurloe, vi. . he writes again, "i am confident it is judged by some that the interest of the godly cannot be preserved but by the dissolution of this, if not all, parliaments; and their endeavours in it have been plainly discovered to the party most concerned to know them; which will, i believe, suddenly occasion a reducing of the government to kingship, to which his highness is not averse. pierpoint and st. john have been often, but secretly, at whitehall, i know, to advise thereof."--p. . thurloe again to the same henry cromwell, on february , that the decimation bill was thrown out by a majority of forty: "some gentlemen do think themselves much trampled upon by this vote, and are extremely sensible thereof; and the truth is, it hath wrought such a heat in the house, that i fear little will be done for the future." _id._ p. . no such bill appears, _eo nomine_, in the journals. but a bill for regulating the militia forces was thrown out, jan. , by to , col. cromwell (oliver's cousin) being a teller for the majority. probably there was some clause in this renewing the decimation of the royalists. [ ] whitelock, who was consulted by cromwell on this business, and took an active part as one of the committee of conference appointed by the house of commons, intimates that the project was not really laid aside. "he was satisfied in his private judgment that it was fit for him to take upon him the title of king, and matters were prepared in order thereunto; but afterwards, by solicitation of the commonwealth's men, and fearing a mutiny and defection of a great part of the army, in case he should assume that title and office, his mind changed, and many of the officers of the army gave out great threatenings against him in case he should do it; he therefore thought it best to attend some better season and opportunity in this business, and refused it at this time with great seeming earnestness."--p. . the chief advisers with cromwell on this occasion, besides whitelock, were lord broghill, pierrepont, thurloe, and sir charles wolseley. many passages in thurloe (vol. vii.) show that cromwell preserved to the last his views on royalty. [ ] whitelock, . it had been agreed, in discussing the petition and advice in parliament, to postpone the first article requesting the protector to assume the title of king, till the rest of the _charter_ (to use a modern but not inapplicable word) had been gone through. one of the subsequent articles, fixing the revenue at £ , , per annum, provides that no part thereof should be raised by a land-tax, "and this not to be altered without the consent of the _three estates in parliament_." a division took place, in consequence, no doubt, of this insidious expression, which was preserved by to . journals, th march. the first article was carried, after much debate on march , by to . it stood thus: "resolved, that your highness will be pleased to assume the name, style, dignity, and office of king of england, scotland, and ireland, and the respective dominions and territories thereunto belonging; and to exercise the same according to the laws of these nations." on cromwell's first demurring to the proposal, it was resolved to adhere to the petition and advice by the small majority of to . this was perhaps a sufficient warning that he should not proceed. [ ] journals, st june. this oath, which effectually declared the parliament to be the protector's subjects, was only carried by to . lambert refused it, and was dismissed the army in consequence, with a pension of £ per annum, instead of his pay, £ a day. so well did they cater for themselves. ludlow, . broderick wrote to hyde, june , , that there was a general tranquillity in england, all parties seeming satisfied with the compromise; fleetwood and desborough more absolutely cromwell's friends than before, and lambert very silent. _clar. state papers_, . [ ] thurloe, vi. . [ ] compare journals, th march with th june. [ ] whitelock, . they were to have a judicial power, much like that of the real house of lords. journals, march. [ ] whitelock; _parl. hist._ the former says this was done against his advice. these debates about the other house are to be traced in the journals, and are mentioned by thurloe, vi. , etc.; and ludlow, . not one of the true peers, except lord eure, took his seat in this house; and haslerig, who had been nominated merely to weaken his influence, chose to retain his place in the commons. the list of these pretended lords in thurloe, vi. , is not quite the same as that in whitelock. [ ] this junto of nine debated how they might be secure against the cavaliers. one scheme was an oath of abjuration; but this it was thought they would all take: another was to lay a heavy tax on them: "a moiety of their estates was spoken of; but this, i suppose, will not down with all the nine, and least of all will it be swallowed by the parliament, who will not be persuaded to punish both nocent and innocent without distinction." nd june, thurloe, vol. vii. p. . and again, p. : "i believe we are out of danger of our junto, and i think also of ever having such another. as i take it, the report was made to his highness upon thursday. after much consideration, the major part voted that succession in the government was indifferent whether it were by election or hereditary; but afterwards some would needs add that it was desirable to have it continued elective; that is, that the chief magistrate should always name his successor; and that of hereditary avoided; and i fear the word 'desirable' will be made 'necessary,' if ever it come upon the trial. his highness finding he can have no advice from those he most expected it from, saith he will take his own resolutions, and that he can no longer satisfy himself to sit still, and make himself guilty of the loss of all the honest party and of the nation itself." [ ] harris, p. , has collected some curious instances of the servility of crowned heads to cromwell. [ ] see clarendon, vii. . he saved nismes from military execution on account of a riot, wherein the huguenots seem to have been much to blame. in the treaty between england and france, , the french, in agreeing to the secret article about the exclusion of the royalists, endeavoured to make it reciprocal, that the commissioners of rebels in france should not be admitted in england. this did not seem very outrageous--but cromwell objected that the french protestants would be thus excluded from imploring the assistance of england, if they were persecuted; protesting, however, that he was very far from having any thought to draw them from their obedience, as had been imputed to him, and that he would arm against them, if they should offer frivolously and without a cause to disturb the peace of france. thurloe, iii. . in fact, the french protestants were in the habit of writing to thurloe, as this collection testifies, whenever they thought themselves injured, which happened frequently enough. cromwell's noble zeal in behalf of the vaudois is well known. see this volume of thurloe, p. , etc. mazarin and the catholic powers in general endeavoured to lye down that massacre; but the usurper had too much protestant spirit to believe them. _id._ . [ ] ludlow, ; thurloe, i. and ii. _passim_. [ ] mrs. macauley, who had nothing of compromise or conciliation in her temper, and breathed the entire spirit of vane and ludlow, makes some vigorous and just animadversions on the favour shown to cromwell by some professors of a regard for liberty. the dissenting writers, such as neal, and in some measure harris, were particularly open to this reproach. he long continued (perhaps the present tense is more appropriate) to be revered by the independents. one who well knew the manners he paints, has described the secret idolatry of that sect to their hero-saint. see crabbe's _tale of the frank courtship_. slingsly bethell, an exception perhaps to the general politics of this sect, published in a tract, entitled "the world's mistake in oliver cromwell," with the purpose of decrying his policy and depreciating his genius. harleian miscellany, i. . but he who goes about to prove the world mistaken in its estimate of a public character has always a difficult cause to maintain. bethell, like mrs. macauley and others, labours to set up the rump parliament against the soldier who kicked them; and asserts that cromwell, having found £ , in ready money, with the value of £ , in stores, and the army in advance of their pay (subject, however, to a debt of near £ , ); the customs and excise bringing in nearly a million annually, left a debt which, in richard's parliament, was given in at £ , , , though he believes this to have been purposely exaggerated in order to procure supplies. i cannot say how far these sums are correct; but it is to be kept in mind, that one great resource of the parliament, confiscation, sequestration, composition, could not be repeated for ever. neither of these governments, it will be found on inquiry, were economical, especially in respect to the emoluments of those concerned in them. [ ] whitelock, ; ludlow, , . lord fauconberg writes in cipher to henry cromwell, on aug. , that "thurloe has seemed resolved to press him in his intervals to such a nomination (of a successor); but whether out of apprehensions to displease him if recovering, or others hereafter, if it should not succeed, he has not yet done it, nor do i believe will." thurloe, however, announces on sept. , that "his highness was pleased before his death to declare my lord richard successor. he did it on monday; and the lord hath so ordered it, that the council and army hath received him with all manner of affection. he is this day proclaimed, and hitherto there seems great face of peace; the lord continue it." _thurloe state papers_, vii. , . lord fauconberg afterwards confirms the fact of richard's nomination. p. ; and see . [ ] "many sober men that called his father no better than a traitorous hypocrite, did begin to think that they owed him [r. c.] subjection," etc. baxter, . [ ] hutchinson, . she does not name pierrepont, but i have little doubt that he is meant. [ ] richard's conduct is more than once commended in the correspondence of thurloe, pp. , ; and in fact he did nothing amiss during his short administration. [ ] thurloe, vii. _et post_, _passim_, in letters both from himself and lord fauconberg. thus, immediately on richard's accession, the former writes to henry cromwell, "it hath pleased god hitherto to give his highness your brother a very easy and peaceable entrance upon his government. there is not a dog that wags his tongue, so great a calm we are in.... but i must needs acquaint your excellency that there are some secret murmurings in the army, as if his highness were not general of the army as his father was," etc. p. . here was the secret: the officers did not like to fall back under the civil power, by obeying one who was not a soldier. this soon displayed itself openly; and lord fauconberg thought the game was over as early as sept. . p. . it is to be observed that fauconberg was secretly a royalist, and might hope to bring over his brother-in-law. [ ] _id._ . [ ] lord fauconberg says, "the commonwealth men in the parliament were very numerous, and beyond measure bold, but more than doubly overbalanced by the sober party; so that, though this make their results slow, we see no great cause as yet to fear."--p. . and dr. barwick, a correspondent of lord clarendon, tells him the republicans were the minority, but all speakers, zealous and diligent--it was likely to end in a titular protector without militia or negative voice. p. . according to a letter from allen broderick to hyde (_clar. st. pap._ iii. ) there were republicans, from to neuters or moderates (including many royalists), and court lawyers, or officers. [ ] ludlow tells us, that he contrived to sit in the house without taking the oath, and that some others did the same. p. . [ ] whitelock, _parl. hist._ , . [ ] the numbers are differently, but, i suppose, erroneously stated in thurloe, vii. . it is said, in a pamphlet of the time, that this clause was introduced to please the cavaliers, who acted with the court; _somers tracts_, vi. . ludlow seems also to think that these parties were united in this parliament (p. ); but this seems not very probable, and is contrary to some things we know. clarendon had advised that the royalists should try to get into parliament, and there to oppose all raising of money, and everything else that might tend to settle the government. _clar. state papers_, . this of course was their true game. it is said that, richard pressing the earl of northumberland to sit in the other house, he declined, urging that when the government was such as his predecessors had served under, he would serve him with his life and fortune. _id._ . [ ] _parl. hist._; journals, jan., , feb., , , , , march. the names of the tellers in these divisions show the connections of leading individuals: we find indifferently presbyterian and republican names for the minority, as fairfax, lambert, nevil, haslerig, townshend, booth. [ ] there seems reason to believe that richard would have met with more support both in the house and among the nation, if he had not been oppressed by the odium of some of his father's counsellors. a general indignation was felt at those who had condemned men to death in illegal tribunals, whom the republicans and cavaliers were impatient to bring to justice. he was forced also to employ and to screen from vengeance his wise and experienced secretary thurloe, master of all the secret springs that had moved his father's government, but obnoxious from the share he had taken in illegal and arbitrary measures. petitions were presented to the house from several who had been committed to the tower upon short written orders, without any formal warrant, or expressed cause of commitment. in the case of one of these, mr. portman, the house resolved that his apprehension, imprisonment, and detention in the tower was illegal and unjust. journals, feb. a still more flagrant tyranny was that frequently practised by cromwell of sending persons disaffected to him as slaves to the west indies. one mr. thomas petitioned the house of commons, complaining that he had been thus sold as a slave. a member of the court side justified it on the score of his being a malignant. major-general browne, a secret royalist, replied that he was nevertheless an englishman and free-born. thurloe had the presumption to say that he had not thought to live to see the day, when such a thing as this, so justly and legally done by lawful authority, should be brought before parliament. vane replied that he did not think to have seen the day, when free-born englishmen should be sold for slaves by such an arbitrary government. there were, it seems, not less than fifty gentlemen, sold for slaves at barbadoes. _clarendon state papers_, p. . the royalists had planned to attack thurloe for some of these unjustifiable proceedings, which would have greatly embarrassed the government. _ibid_, , . they hoped that richard would be better disposed towards the king, if his three advisers, st. john, thurloe, and pierrepont, all implacable to their cause, could be removed. but they were not strong enough in the house. if richard, however, had continued in power, he must probably have sacrificed thurloe to public opinion; and the consciousness of this may have led this minister to advise the dissolution of the parliament, and perhaps to betray his master, from the suspicion of which he is not free. it ought to be remarked what an outrageous proof of cromwell's tyranny is exhibited in this note. many writers glide favourably over his administration, or content themselves with treating it as an usurpation, which can furnish no precedent, and consequently does not merit particular notice; but the effect of this generality is, that the world forms an imperfect notion of the degree of arbitrary power which he exerted; and i believe there are many who take charles the first, and even charles the second, for greater violators of the laws than the protector. neal and harris are full of this dishonest bigotry. since this note was first printed, the publication of burton's _diary_ has confirmed its truth, which had rashly been called in question by a passionate and prejudiced reviewer. see vol. iv. p. , etc. [ ] richard advised with broghill, fiennes, thurloe, and others of his council, all of whom, except whitelock, who informs us of this, were in favour of the dissolution. this caused, he says, much trouble to honest men; the cavaliers and republicans rejoiced at it; many of richard's council were his enemies. p. . the army at first intended to raise money by their own authority; but this was deemed impossible, and it was resolved to recall the long parliament. lambert and haslerig accordingly met lenthall, who was persuaded to act again as speaker; though, if ludlow is right, against his will, being now connected with the court, and in the pretended house of lords. the parliament now consisted of members. _parl. hist._ . harris quotes a manuscript journal of montagu, afterwards earl of sandwich, wherein it is said that richard's great error was to dissolve the parliament, and that he might have over-ruled the army, if he would have employed himself, ingoldsby, lord fauconberg, and others, who were suspected to be for the king. _life of charles ii._ . he afterwards (p. ) quotes calamy's _life of howe_ for the assertion that richard stood out against his council, with thurloe alone, that the parliament should not be dissolved. this is very unlikely. [ ] this was carried against the previous question by to . journals abr. iii. some of the protector's friends were alarmed at so high a vote against the army, which did in fact bring the matter to a crisis. thurloe, vii. _et post_. [ ] the army according to ludlow, had not made up their minds how to act after the dissolution of the parliament, and some were inclined to go on with richard; but the republican party, who had coalesced with that faction of officers who took their denomination from wallingford house, their place of meeting, insisted on the restoration of the old parliament; though they agreed to make some provision for richard. _memoirs_, pp. - . accordingly it was voted to give him an income of £ , per annum. journals, july . [ ] journals, sept. _et post_; whitelock, ; _parl. hist._ ; thurloe, vii. _et post_. ludlow's account of this period is the most interesting part of his _memoirs_. the chief officers, it appears from his narrative, were soon disgusted with their republican allies, and "behaved with all imaginable perverseness and insolence" in the council of state, whenever they came there, which was but seldom, scrupling the oath to be true to the commonwealth against charles stuart or any other person. p. . he censures, however, the violence of haslerig, "a man of a disobliging temper, sour and morose of temper, liable to be transported with passion, and in whom liberality seemed to be a vice. yet to do him justice, i must acknowledge that i am under no manner of doubt concerning the rectitude and sincerity of his intentions."--p. . ludlow gave some offence to the hot-headed republicans by his half compliance with the army; and much disapproved the proceedings they adopted after their second restoration in december , against vane and others. p. . yet, though nominated on the committee of safety, on the expulsion of the parliament in october, he never sat on it, as vane and whitelock did. [ ] journals, and other authorities above cited. [ ] the rota club, as it was called, was composed, chiefly at least, of these dealers in new constitutions, which were debated in due form. harrington was one of the most conspicuous. [ ] thurloe, vi. ; _clarendon state papers_, , . [ ] carte's _letters_, ii. . in a letter of ormond to hyde about this time, he seems to have seen into the king's character, and speaks of him severely: "i fear his immoderate delight in empty, effeminate, and vulgar conversations, is become an irresistible part of his nature," etc. _clarendon state papers_, iii. . [ ] _clarendon papers_, , , _et post_. townshend, a young man who seems to have been much looked up to, was not, in fact, a presbyterian, but is reckoned among them as not being a cavalier, having come of age since the wars, and his family neutral. [ ] this curious fact appears for the first time, i believe, in the _clarendon state papers_, unless it is anywhere intimated in carte's collection of the ormond letters. in the former collection we find several allusions to it; the first is in a letter from rumbold, a royalist emissary, to hyde, dated dec. , , p. ; from which i collect lord fauconberg's share in this intrigue; which is also confirmed by a letter of mordaunt to the king, in p. . "the lord falconbridge protests that cromwell is so remiss a person that he cannot play his own game, much less another man's, and is thereby discouraged from acting in business, having also many enemies who oppose his gaining either power or interest in the army or civil government, because they conceive his principles contrary to theirs. he says, thurloe governs cromwell, and st. john and pierrepont govern thurloe; and therefore is not likely he will think himself in danger till these tell him so, nor seek a diversion of it but by their councils." feb. , . these ill-grounded hopes of richard's accession to their cause appear in several other letters, and even hyde seems to have given in to them. , , etc. broderick, another active emissary of the royalists, fancied that the three above-mentioned would restore the king if they dared ( ); but this is quite unlikely. [ ] p. . this was carried on through colonel henry cromwell, his cousin. it is said that richard had not courage to sign the letters to monk and his other friends, which he afterwards repented. . the intrigues still went on with him for a little longer. this was in may . [ ] _clarendon state papers_, , _et post_; thurloe, vi. . see also an enigmatical letter to henry cromwell, , which certainly hints at his union with the king; and carte's _letters_, ii. . [ ] _clarendon state papers_, , , etc. [ ] clarendon confesses (_life_, p. ) that the cavaliers disliked this whole intrigue with the presbyterians, which was planned by mordaunt, the most active and intelligent agent that the king possessed in england. the former, doubtless, perceived that by extending the basis of the coalition, they should lose all chance of indemnity for their own sufferings: besides which, their timidity and irresolution are manifest in all the clarendon correspondence at this period. see particularly , . [ ] willis had done all in his power to obstruct the rising. clarendon was very slow in believing this treachery, of which he had at length conclusive proofs. , . [ ] _id._ , , , . [ ] _clarendon papers_, , , , , , , . it is evident that the catholics had greater hopes from the duke than from the king, and considered the former as already their own. a remarkable letter of morley to hyde, april , , p. , shows the suspicions already entertained of him by the writer in point of religion; and hyde is plainly not free from apprehension that he might favour the scheme of supplanting his brother. the intrigue might have gone a great way, though we may now think it probable that their alarm magnified the danger. "let me tell you," says sir antony ashley cooper in a letter to hyde, "that wildman is as much an enemy now to the king as he was before a seeming friend; yet not upon the account of a commonwealth, for his ambition meets with every day repulses and affronts from that party; but upon a finer spun design of setting up the interest of the duke of york against the king; in which design i fear you will find confederated the duke of bucks, who perhaps may draw away with him lord fairfax, the presbyterians, levellers, and many catholics. i am apt to think these things are not transacted without the privity of the queen; and i pray god that they have not an ill influence upon your affairs in france."-- . buckingham was surmised to have been formally reconciled to the church of rome. . some supposed that he, with his friend wildman, were for a republic. but such men are for nothing but the intrigue of the moment. these projects of buckingham to set up the duke of york are hinted at in a pamphlet by shaftesbury or one of his party, written about . _somers tracts_, viii. . [ ] hyde writes to the duke of ormond: "i pray inform the king that fleetwood makes great professions of being converted, and of a resolution to serve the king upon the first opportunity." oct. , . carte's _letters_, ii. . see _clarendon state papers_, (sept. ) and . but it is said afterwards, that he had "not courage enough to follow the honest thoughts which some time possess him" ( , oct. ), and that manchester, popham, and others, tried what they could do with fleetwood; but "though they left him with good resolutions, they were so weak as not to continue longer than the next temptation."-- (dec. ). [ ] _id._ ; carte's _letters_, ii. . [ ] lord hatton, an old royalist, suggested this humiliating proposition in terms scarcely less so to the heir of cerdic and fergus. "the race is a _very good gentleman's family_, and kings have condescended to marry subjects. the lady is pretty, of an extraordinary sweetness of disposition, and very virtuously and ingenuously disposed; the father is a person, set aside of his unhappy engagement, of very great parts and noble inclinations."--_clarendon state papers_, . yet, after all, miss lambert was hardly more a mis-alliance than hortense mancini, whom charles had asked for in vain. [ ] _biogr. brit._ art. monk. the royalists continued to entertain hopes of him, especially after oliver's death. _clarendon papers_, iii. , , . in a sensible letter of colepepper to hyde, sept. , , he points out monk as able alone to restore the king, and not absolutely averse to it, either in his principles or affections; kept hitherto by the vanity of adhering to his professions, and by his affection to cromwell, the latter whereof is dissolved both by the jealousies he entertained of him, and by his death, etc. _id._ . [ ] thurloe, vii. . monk wrote about the same time against the earl of argyle, as not a friend to the government. . two years afterwards he took away his life as being too much so. [ ] if the account of his chaplain, dr. price, republished in maseres' _tracts_, vol. ii., be worthy of trust, monk gave so much encouragement to his brother, a clergyman, secretly despatched to scotland by sir john grenvil, his relation, in june , as to have approved sir george booth's insurrection, and to have been on the point of publishing a declaration in favour of it. p. . but this is flatly in contradiction of what clarendon asserts, that the general not only sent away his brother with no hopes, but threatened to hang him if he came again on such an errand. and, in fact, if anything so favourable as what price tells us had occurred, the king could not fail to have known it. see _clarendon state papers_, iii. . this throws some suspicion on price's subsequent narrative (so far as it professes to relate the general's intentions); so that i rely far less on it than on monk's own behaviour, which seems irreconcilable with his professions of republican principles. it is, however, an obscure point of history, which will easily admit of different opinions. the story told by locke, on lord shaftesbury's authority, that monk had agreed with the french ambassador to take on himself the government, wherein he was to have the support of mazarin, and that his wife, having overheard what was going forward, sent notice to shaftesbury, who was thus enabled to frustrate the intrigue (locke's works, iii. ), seems to have been confirmed lately by mr. d'israeli, in an extract from the manuscript memoirs of sir thomas browne (_curiosities of literature_, n. s. vol. ii.), but in terms so nearly resembling those of locke, that it seems to be an echo. it is certain, as we find by phillips's continuation of baker's _chronicle_ (said to be assisted, in this part, by sir thomas clarges, monk's brother-in-law), that bourdeaux, the french ambassador, did make such overtures to the general, who absolutely refused to enter upon them; but, as the writer admits, received a visit from the ambassador on condition that he should propose nothing in relation to public matters. i quote from kennet's _register_, . but, according to my present impression, this is more likely to have been the foundation of shaftesbury's story, who might have heard from mrs. monk the circumstance of the visit, and conceived suspicions upon it, which he afterwards turned into proofs. it was evidently not in monk's power to have usurped the government, after he had let the royalist inclinations of the people show themselves; and he was by no means of a rash character. he must have taken his resolution when the secluded members were restored to the house (feb. ); and this alleged intrigue with mazarin could hardly have been so early. it may be added that in one of the pamphlets about the time of the exclusion bill, written by shaftesbury himself or one of his party (_somers tracts_, viii. ), he is hinted to have principally brought about the restoration; "without whose courage and dexterity some men, the most highly rewarded, had done otherwise than they did." but this still depends on his veracity. [ ] whitelock, . [ ] the engagement was repeated march . this was of itself tantamount to a declaration in favour of the king; though perhaps the previous order of march , that the solemn league and covenant should be read in churches, was still more so. prynne was the first who had the boldness to speak for the king, declaring his opinion that the parliament was dissolved by the death of charles the first; he was supported by one or two more. _clar. papers_, ; thurloe, vii. ; carte's _letters_, ii. . prynne wrote a pamphlet advising the peers to meet and issue writs for a new parliament, according to the provisions of the triennial act; which in fact was no bad expedient. _somers tracts_, vi. . a speech of sir harbottle grimston before the close of the parliament, march , is more explicit for the king's restoration than anything which i have seen elsewhere; and as i do not know that it has been printed, i will give an extract from the harleian ms. . he urges it as necessary to be done by them, and not left for the next parliament, who all men believed would restore him. "this is so true and so well understood, that we all believe that whatsoever our thoughts are, this will be the opinion of the succeeding parliament, whose concerns as well as affections will make them active for his introduction. and i appeal then to your own judgments whether it is likely that those persons, as to their particular interest more unconcerned, and probably less knowing in the affairs of the nation, can or would obtain for any those terms or articles as we are yet in a capacity to procure both for them and us. i must confess sincerely that it would be as strange to me as a miracle, did i not know that god infatuates whom he designs to destroy, that we can see the king's return so unavoidable, and yet be no more studious of serving him, or at least ourselves, in the managing of his recall. "the general, that noble personage to whom under god we do and must owe all the advantages of our past and future changes, will be as far from opposing us in the design, as the design is removed from the disadvantage of the nation. he himself is, i am confident, of the same opinion; and if he has not yet given notice of it to the house, it is not that he does not look upon it as the best expedient; but he only forbears to oppose it, that he might not seem to necessitate us, and by an over early discovery of his own judgment be thought to take from us the freedom of ours." in another place he says, "that the recalling of our king is this only way (for composure of affairs), is already grown almost as visible as true; and, were it but confessed of all of whom it is believed, i should quickly hear from the greatest part of this house what now it hears alone from me. had we as little reason to fear as we have too much, that, if we bring not in the king, he either already is, or shortly may be, in a capacity of coming in unsent for; methinks the very knowledge of this right were enough to keep just persons, such as we would be conceived to be, from being accessary to his longer absence. we are already, and but justly, reported to have been the occasion of our prince's banishment; we may then, with reason and equal truth, for ought i know, be thought to have been the contrivers of it; unless we endeavour the contrary, by not suffering the mischief to continue longer which is in our power to remove." such passages as these, and the general tenor of public speeches, sermons, and pamphlets in the spring of , show how little monk can be justly said to have restored charles ii.; except so far that he did not persist in preventing it so long as he might have done. [ ] _clarendon state papers_, . [ ] _id._ . [ ] _id._ _et post_. he wrote a letter (jan. ) to the gentry of devon, who had petitioned the speaker for the re-admission of the secluded members, objecting to that measure as likely to bring in monarchy, very judicious, and with an air of sincerity that might deceive any one; and after the restoration of these secluded members, he made a speech to them (feb. ), strongly against monarchy; and that so ingenuously, upon such good reasons, so much without invective or fanaticism, that the professional hypocrites, who were used to their own tone of imposture, were deceived by his. cromwell was a mere bungler to him. see these in harris's _charles ii._ , or _somers tracts_, vi. . it cannot be wondered at that the royalists were exasperated at monk's behaviour. they published abusive pamphlets against him in february, from which kennet, in his _register_, p. , gives quotations. "whereas he was the common hopes of all men, he is now the common hatred of all men, as a traitor more detestable than oliver himself, who, though he manacled the citizens' hands, yet never took away the doors of the city," and so forth. it appears by the letters of mordaunt and broderick to hyde, and by those of hyde himself in the _clarendon papers_, that they had no sort of confidence in monk till near the end of march; though barwick, another of his correspondents, seems to have had more insight into the general's designs (thurloe, , , ), who had expressed himself to a friend of the writer, probably clobery, fully in favour of the king, before march . [ ] clar. , ; thurloe, vii. , . [ ] a correspondent of ormond writes, march : "this night the fatal long parliament hath dissolved itself. all this appears well; but i believe we shall not be settled upon our ancient foundations without a war, for which all prepare vigorously and openly."--carte's _letters_, ii. . it appears also from a letter of massey to hyde, that a rising in different counties was intended. thurloe, . [ ] after giving the substance of monk's speech to the house, recommending a new parliament, but insisting on commonwealth principles, clarendon goes on; "there was no dissimulation in this, in order to cover and conceal his good intentions to the king; for without doubt he had not to this hour entertained any purpose or thought to serve him, but was really of the opinion he expressed in his paper, that it was a work impossible; and desired nothing but that he might see a commonwealth established on such a model as holland was, where he had been bred, and that himself might enjoy the authority and place which the prince of orange possessed in that government." [ ] the _clarendon_ and _thurloe papers_ are full of more proofs of this than can be quoted, and are very amusing to read, as a perpetually shifting picture of hopes and fears, and conjectures right or wrong. pepys's _diary_ also, in these two months, strikingly shows the prevailing uncertainty as to monk's intentions, as well as the general desire of having the king brought in. it seems plain that, if he had delayed a very little longer, he would have lost the whole credit of the restoration. all parties began to crowd in with addresses to the king in the first part of april, before monk was known to have declared himself. thurloe, among others, was full of his offers, though evidently anxious to find out whether the king had an interest with monk. p. . the royalists had long entertained hopes, from time to time, of this deep politician; but it is certain he never wished well to their cause, and with st. john and pierrepont, had been most zealous, to the last moment that it seemed practicable, against the restoration. there had been, so late as february , or even afterwards, a strange plan of setting up again richard cromwell, wherein not only these three, but montagu, jones, and others were thought to be concerned, erroneously no doubt as to montagu. _clarendon state papers_, ; carte's _letters_, ii. , . "one of the greatest reasons they alledged was, that the king's party, consisting altogether of indigent men, will become powerful by little and little to force the king, whatever be his own disposition, to break any engagement he can now make; and, since the nation is bent on a single person, none will combine all interests so well as richard." this made monk, it is said, jealous of st. john, and he was chosen at cambridge to exclude him. in a letter of thurloe to downing at the hague, april , he says, "that many of the presbyterians are alarmed at the prospect, and thinking how to keep the king out without joining the sectaries."--vii. . this could hardly be achieved but by setting up richard. yet that, as is truly said in one of the letters quoted, was ridiculous. none were so conspicuous and intrepid on the king's side as the presbyterian ministers. reynolds preached before the lord mayor, feb. , with manifest allusion to the restoration; gauden (who may be reckoned on that side, as conforming to it), on the same day much more explicitly. kennet's _register_, . sharp says, in a letter to a correspondent in scotland, that he, ash, and calamy had a long conversation with monk, march , "and convinced him a commonwealth was impracticable, and to our sense sent him off that sense he hath hitherto maintained, and came from him as being satisfied of the necessity of dissolving this house, and calling a new parliament."--_id._ p. . baxter thinks the presbyterian ministers, together with clarges and morrice, turned monk's resolution, and induced him to declare for the king. _life_, p. . this is a very plausible conjecture, though i incline to think monk more disposed that way by his own judgment or his wife's. but she was influenced by the presbyterian clergy. they evidently deserved of charles what they did not meet with. [ ] the royalists began too soon with threatening speeches, which well nigh frustrated their object. _id._ , , ; carte's _letters_, ; thurloe, . one dr. griffith published a little book vindicating the late king in his war against the parliament, for which the ruling party were by no means ripe; and, having justified it before the council, was committed to the gate-house early in april. _id. ibid._ these imprudences occasioned the king's declaration from breda. _somers tracts_, vi. . another also was published, april , , signed by several peers, knights, divines, etc., of the royalist party, disclaiming all private passions and resentments. kennet's _register_, ; clar. vii. . but these public professions were weak disguises, when belied by their current language. see baxter, . marchmont needham, in a tract entitled, "interest will not lye" (written in answer to an artful pamphlet ascribed to fell, afterwards bishop of oxford, and reprinted in maseres's _tracts_, "the interest of england stated"), endeavoured to alarm all other parties, especially the presbyterians, with representations of the violence they had to expect from that of the king. see harris's _charles ii._ . [ ] proofs of the disposition among this party to revive the treaty of the isle of wight occur perpetually in the thurloe and clarendon papers, and in those published by carte. the king's agents in england evidently expected nothing better; and were, generally speaking, much for his accepting the propositions. "the presbyterian lords," says sir allen broderic to hyde, "with many of whom i have spoken, pretend that, should the king come in upon any such insurrection, abetted by those of his own party, he would be more absolute than his father was in the height of his prerogative. stay therefore, say they, till we are ready; our numbers so added will abundantly recompense the delay, rendering what is now extremely doubtful morally certain, and establishing his throne upon the true basis, liberty and property." july , . _clar. state papers_, . [ ] clarendon, _hist. of rebellion_, vii. ; _state papers_, , . "there is so insolent a spirit among some of the nobility," says clarendon, about the middle of february, "that i really fear it will turn to an aristocracy; monk inclining that way too. my opinion is clear, that the king ought not to part with the church, crown, or friends' lands, lest he make my lord of northumberland his equal, nay, perhaps his superior."--p. . [ ] downing, the minister at the hague, was one of these. his overtures to the king were as early as monk's, at the beginning of april; he declared his wish to see his majesty restored on good terms, though many were desirous to make him a doge of venice. carte's _letters_, ii. . see also a remarkable letter of the king to monk (dated may ; but i suspect he used the new style, therefore read may ), intimating what a service it would be to prevent the imposition of any terms. clar. . and another from him to morrice of the same tenor, may (n. s.), , and hinting that his majesty's friends in the house had complied with the general in all things, according to the king's directions, departing from their own sense, and restraining themselves from pursuing what they thought most for his service. thurloe, vii. . this perhaps referred to the indemnity and other provisions then pending in the commons, or rather to the delay of a few days before the delivery of sir john grenvil's message. [ ] "monk came this day (about the first week of april) to the council, and assured them that, notwithstanding all the appearance of a general desire of kingly government, yet it was in nowise his sense, and that he would spend the last drop of his blood to maintain the contrary."--extract of a letter from thurloe to downing. carte's _letters_, ii. . "the council of state are utterly ignorant of monk's treating with the king; and surely, as the present temper of the council of state is now, and may possibly be also of the parliament, by reason of the presbyterian influence upon both, i should think the first chapman will not be the worst, who perhaps will not offer so good a rate in conjunction with the company, as may give to engross the commodity." clar. , april . this sentence is a clue to all the intrigue. it is said soon afterwards (p. , april ) that the presbyterians were much troubled at the course of the elections, which made some of the council of state again address themselves to monk for his consent to propositions they would send to the king; but he absolutely refused, and said he would leave all to a free parliament, as he had promised the nation. yet, though the elections went as well as the royalists could reasonably expect, hyde was dissatisfied that the king was not restored without the intervention of the new parliament; and this may have been one reason of his spleen against monk. pp. , . [ ] a proposed resolution, that those who had been on the king's side, _or their sons_, should be disabled from voting at elections, was lost by to , the last effort of the expiring rump. journals, march. the electors did not think themselves bound by this arbitrary exclusion of the cavaliers from parliament; several of whom (though not perhaps a great number within the terms of the resolution) were returned. massey, however, having gone down to stand for glocester, was put under arrest by order of the council of state. thurloe, . clarendon, who was himself not insensible to that kind of superstition, had fancied that anything done at glocester by massey for the king's service would make a powerful impression on the people. [ ] it is a curious proof of the state of public sentiment that, though monk himself wrote a letter to the electors of bridgenorth, recommending thurloe, the cavalier party was so powerful, that his friends did not even produce the letter, lest it should be treated with neglect. thurloe, vii. . [ ] "to the king's coming in without conditions may be well imputed all the errors of his reign." thus says burnet. the great political error, if so it should be termed, of his reign, was a conspiracy with the king of france, and some wicked advisers at home, to subvert the religion and liberty of his subjects; and it is difficult to perceive by what conditions this secret intrigue could have been prevented. [ ] _clarendon papers_, p. . they resolved to send the articles of that treaty to the king, leaving out the preface. this was about the middle of april. [ ] _life of clarendon_, p. . [ ] "this," says burnet somewhat invidiously, "was the great service that monk did; for as to the restoration itself, the tide ran so strong, that he only went into it dexterously enough to get much praise and great rewards."--p. . [ ] grimston was proposed by pierrepont, and conducted to the chair by him, monk, and hollis. journals; _parl. hist._ the cavaliers complained that this was done before they came into the house, and that he was partial. mordaunt to hyde, april . _clarendon state papers_, . [ ] these were the earls of manchester, northumberland, lincoln, denbigh, and suffolk; lords say, wharton, hunsdon, grey, maynard. lords' journals, april . [ ] _id._ lords' journals. [ ] "it was this day (april ) moved in the house of commons to call in the king; but it was deferred till tuesday next by the king's friends' consent, and then it is generally believed something will be done in it. the calling in of the king is now not doubted; but there is a party among the old secluded members, that would have the treaty grounded upon the isle of wight propositions; and the old lords are thought generally of that design. but it is believed the house of commons will use the king more gently. the general hath been highly complimented by both houses, and, without doubt, the giving the king easy or hard conditions dependeth totally upon him; for, if he appear for the king, the affections of the people are so high for him, that no other authority can oppose him." h. coventry to marquis of ormond. carte's _letters_, ii. . mordaunt confirms this. those who moved for the king were colonel king and mr. finch, both decided cavaliers. it must have been postponed by the policy of monk. what could clarendon mean by saying (_history of rebellion_, vii. ) that "none had the courage, how loyal soever their wishes were, to mention his majesty?" this strange way of speaking has misled hume, who copies it. the king was as generally talked of as if he were on the throne. [ ] lords' and commons' journals. _parl. hist._ iv. . [ ] commons' journals. [ ] lords' journals, may . upon the same day, the house went into consideration how to settle the militia of this kingdom. a committee of twelve lords was appointed for this purpose, and the commons were requested to appoint a proportionate number to join therein. but no bill was brought in till after the king's return. chapter xi from the restoration of charles the second to the fall of the cabal administration _popular joy at the restoration._--it is universally acknowledged that no measure was ever more national, or has ever produced more testimonies of public approbation, than the restoration of charles ii. nor can this be attributed to the usual fickleness of the multitude. for the late government, whether under the parliament or the protector, had never obtained the sanction of popular consent, nor could have subsisted for a day without the support of the army. the king's return seemed to the people the harbinger of a real liberty, instead of that bastard commonwealth which had insulted them with its name; a liberty secure from enormous assessments, which, even when lawfully imposed, the english had always paid with reluctance, and from the insolent despotism of the soldiery. the young and lively looked forward to a release from the rigours of fanaticism, and were too ready to exchange that hypocritical austerity of the late times for a licentiousness and impiety that became characteristic of the present. in this tumult of exulting hope and joy, there was much to excite anxious forebodings in calmer men; and it was by no means safe to pronounce that a change so generally demanded, and in most respects so expedient, could be effected without very serious sacrifices of public and particular interests. _proceedings of the convention parliament._--four subjects of great importance, and some of them very difficult, occupied the convention parliament from the time of the king's return till their dissolution in the following december; a general indemnity and legal oblivion of all that had been done amiss in the late interruption of government; an adjustment of the claims for reparation which the crown, the church, and private royalists had to prefer; a provision for the king's revenue, consistent with the abolition of military tenures; and the settlement of the church. these were, in effect, the articles of a sort of treaty between the king and the nation, without some legislative provisions as to which, no stable or tranquil course of law could be expected. _act of indemnity._--the king, in his well-known declaration from breda, dated the th of april, had laid down, as it were, certain bases of his restoration, as to some points which he knew to excite much apprehension in england. one of these was a free and general pardon to all his subjects, saving only such as should be excepted by parliament. it had always been the king's expectation, or at least that of his chancellor, that all who had been immediately concerned in his father's death should be delivered up to punishment;[ ] and, in the most unpropitious state of his fortunes, while making all professions of pardon and favour to different parties, he had constantly excepted the regicides.[ ] monk, however, had advised in his first messages to the king, that none, or at most not above four, should be excepted on this account;[ ] and the commons voted that not more than seven persons should lose the benefit of the indemnity, both as to life and estate.[ ] yet, after having named seven of the late king's judges, they proceeded in a few days to add several more, who had been concerned in managing his trial, or otherwise forward in promoting his death.[ ] they went on to pitch upon twenty persons, whom, on account of their deep concern in the transactions of the last twelve years, they determined to affect with penalties, not extending to death, and to be determined by some future act of parliament.[ ] as their passions grew warmer, and the wishes of the court became better known, they came to except from all benefit of the indemnity such of the king's judges as had not rendered themselves to justice according to the late proclamation.[ ] in this state the bill of indemnity and oblivion was sent up to the lords.[ ] but in that house, the old royalists had a more decisive preponderance than among the commons. they voted to except all who had signed the death-warrant against charles the first, or sat when sentence was pronounced, and five others by name, hacker, vane, lambert, haslerig, and axtell. they struck out, on the other hand, the clause reserving lenthall and the rest of the same class for future penalties. they made other alterations in the bill to render it more severe;[ ] and with these, after a pretty long delay, and a positive message from the king, requesting them to hasten their proceedings (an irregularity to which they took no exception, and which in the eyes of the nation was justified by the circumstances), they returned the bill to the commons. the vindictive spirit displayed by the upper house was not agreeable to the better temper of the commons, where the presbyterian or moderate party retained great influence. though the king's judges (such at least as had signed the death-warrant) were equally guilty, it was consonant to the practice of all humane governments to make a selection for capital penalties; and to put forty or fifty persons to death for that offence, seemed a very sanguinary course of proceeding, and not likely to promote the conciliation and oblivion so much cried up. but there was a yet stronger objection to this severity. the king had published a proclamation, in a few days after his landing, commanding his father's judges to render themselves up within fourteen days, on pain of being excepted from any pardon or indemnity, either as to their lives or estates. many had voluntarily come in, having put an obvious construction on this proclamation. it seems to admit of little question, that the king's faith was pledged to those persons, and that no advantage could be taken of any ambiguity in the proclamation, without as real perfidiousness as if the words had been more express. they were at least entitled to be set at liberty, and to have a reasonable time allowed for making their escape, if it were determined to exclude them from the indemnity.[ ] the commons were more mindful of the king's honour and their own than his nearest advisers.[ ] but the violent royalists were gaining ground among them, and it ended in a compromise. they left hacker and axtell, who had been prominently concerned in the king's death, to their fate. they even admitted the exceptions of vane and lambert; contenting themselves with a joint address of both houses to the king, that, if they should be attainted, execution as to their lives might be remitted. haslerig was saved on a division of to , partly through the intercession of monk, who had pledged his word to him. most of the king's judges were entirely excepted; but with a proviso in favour of such as had surrendered according to the proclamation, that the sentence should not be executed without a special act of parliament.[ ] others were reserved for penalties not extending to life, to be inflicted by a future act. about twenty enumerated persons, as well as those who had pronounced sentence of death in any of the late illegal high courts of justice, were rendered incapable of any civil or military office. thus after three months' delay, which had given room to distrust the boasted clemency and forgiveness of the victorious royalists, the act of indemnity was finally passed. _execution of regicides._--ten persons suffered death soon afterwards for the murder of charles the first; and three more who had been seized in holland, after a considerable lapse of time.[ ] there can be no reasonable ground for censuring either the king or the parliament for their punishment; except that hugh peters, though a very odious fanatic, was not so directly implicated in the king's death as many who escaped; and the execution of scrope, who had surrendered under the proclamation, was an inexcusable breach of faith.[ ] but nothing can be more sophistical than to pretend that such men as hollis and annesley, who had been expelled from parliament by the violence of the same faction who put the king to death, were not to vote for their punishment, or to sit in judgment on them, because they had sided with the commons in the civil war.[ ] it is mentioned by many writers, and in the journals, that when mr. lenthall, son of the late speaker, in the very first days of the convention parliament, was led to say that those who had levied war against the king were as blamable as those who had cut off his head, he received a reprimand from the chair, which the folly and dangerous consequence of his position well deserved; for such language, though it seems to have been used by him in extenuation of the regicides, was quite in the tone of the violent royalists.[ ] _restitution of crown and church lands._--a question, apparently far more difficult, was that of restitution and redress. the crown lands, those of the church, the estates in certain instances of eminent royalists, had been sold by the authority of the late usurpers; and that not at very low rates, considering the precariousness of the title. this naturally seemed a material obstacle to the restoration of ancient rights, especially in the case of ecclesiastical corporations, whom men are commonly less disposed to favour than private persons. the clergy themselves had never expected that their estates would revert to them in full propriety; and would probably have been contented, at the moment of the king's return, to have granted easy leases to the purchasers. nor were the house of commons, many of whom were interested in these sales, inclined to let in the former owners without conditions. a bill was accordingly brought into the house at the beginning of the session to confirm sales, or to give indemnity to the purchasers. i do not find its provisions more particularly stated. the zeal of the royalists soon caused the crown lands to be excepted.[ ] but the house adhered to the principle of composition as to ecclesiastical property, and kept the bill a long time in debate. at the adjournment in september, the chancellor told them, his majesty had thought much upon the business, and done much for the accommodation of many particular persons, and doubted not but that, before they met again, a good progress would be made, so that the persons concerned would be much to blame if they received not full satisfaction; promising also to advise with some of the commons as to that settlement.[ ] these expressions indicate a design to take the matter out of the hands of parliament. for it was hyde's firm resolution to replace the church in the whole of its property, without any other regard to the actual possessors than the right owners should severally think it equitable to display. and this, as may be supposed, proved very small. no further steps were taken on the meeting of parliament after the adjournment; and by the dissolution the parties were left to the common course of law. the church, the crown, the dispossessed royalists, re-entered triumphantly on their lands; there were no means of repelling the owners' claim, nor any satisfaction to be looked for by the purchasers under so defective a title. it must be owned that the facility with which this was accomplished, is a striking testimony to the strength of the new government, and the concurrence of the nation. this is the more remarkable, if it be true, as ludlow informs us, that the chapter lands had been sold by the trustees appointed by parliament at the clear income of fifteen or seventeen years' purchase.[ ] _discontent of the royalists._--the great body however of the suffering cavaliers, who had compounded for their delinquency under the ordinances of the long parliament, or whose estates had been for a time in sequestration, found no remedy for these losses by any process of law. the act of indemnity put a stop to any suits they might have instituted against persons concerned in carrying these illegal ordinances into execution. they were compelled to put up with their poverty, having the additional mortification of seeing one class, namely, the clergy, who had been engaged in the same cause, not alike in their fortune, and many even of the vanquished republicans undisturbed in wealth which, directly or indirectly, they deemed acquired at their own expense.[ ] they called the statute an act of indemnity for the king's enemies, and of oblivion for his friends. they murmured at the ingratitude of charles, as if he were bound to forfeit his honour and risk his throne for their sakes. they conceived a deep hatred of clarendon, whose steady adherence to the great principles of the act of indemnity is the most honourable act of his public life. and the discontent engendered by their disappointed hopes led to some part of the opposition afterwards experienced by the king, and still more certainly to the coalition against the minister. _settlement of the revenue._--no one cause had so eminently contributed to the dissensions between the crown and parliament in the two last reigns, as the disproportion between the public revenues under a rapidly increasing depreciation in the value of money, and the exigencies, at least on some occasions, of the administration. there could be no apology for the parsimonious reluctance of the commons to grant supplies, except the constitutional necessity of rendering them the condition of redress of grievances; and in the present circumstances, satisfied, as they seemed at least to be, with the securities they had obtained, and enamoured of their new sovereign, it was reasonable to make some further provision for the current expenditure. yet this was to be meted out with such prudence as not to place him beyond the necessity of frequent recurrence to their aid. a committee was accordingly appointed "to consider of settling such a revenue on his majesty as may maintain the splendour and grandeur of his kingly office, and preserve the crown from want, and from being undervalued by his neighbours." by their report it appeared that the revenue of charles i. from to had amounted on an average to about £ , , of which full £ , arose from sources either not warranted by law or no longer available. the house resolved to raise the present king's income to £ , , per annum; a sum perhaps sufficient in those times for the ordinary charges of government. but the funds assigned to produce this revenue soon fell short of the parliament's calculation.[ ] _abolition of military tenures. excise granted instead._--one ancient fountain that had poured its stream into the royal treasury, it was now determined to close up for ever. the feudal tenures had brought with them at the conquest, or not long after, those incidents, as they were usually called, or emoluments of signiory, which remained after the military character of fiefs had been nearly effaced; especially the right of detaining the estates of minors holding in chivalry, without accounting for the profits. this galling burthen, incomparably more ruinous to the tenant than beneficial to the lord, it had long been determined to remove. charles, at the treaty of newport, had consented to give it up for a fixed revenue of £ , ; and this was almost the only part of that ineffectual compact which the present parliament were anxious to complete. the king, though likely to lose much patronage and influence, and what passed with lawyers for a high attribute of his prerogative, could not decently refuse a commutation so evidently advantageous to the aristocracy. no great difference of opinion subsisting as to the expediency of taking away military tenures, it remained only to decide from what resources the commutation revenue should spring. two schemes were suggested; the one, a permanent tax on lands held in chivalry (which, as distinguished from those in socage, were alone liable to the feudal burthens); the other, an excise on beer and some other liquors. it is evident that the former was founded on a just principle; while the latter transferred a particular burthen to the community. but the self-interest which so unhappily predominates even in representative assemblies, with the aid of the courtiers who knew that an excise increasing with the riches of the country was far more desirable for the crown than a fixed land-tax, caused the former to be carried, though by the very small majority of two voices.[ ] yet even thus, if the impoverishment of the gentry, and dilapidation of their estates through the detestable abuses of wardship, was, as cannot be doubted, very mischievous to the inferior classes, the whole community must be reckoned gainers by the arrangement, though it might have been conducted in a more equitable manner. the statute car. ii. c. . takes away the court of wards, with all wardships and forfeitures for marriage by reason of tenure, all primer seisins, and fines for alienation, aids, escuages, homages, and tenures by chivalry without exception, save the honorary services of grand sergeanty; converting all such tenures into common socage. the same statute abolishes those famous rights of purveyance and pre-emption, the fruitful theme of so many complaining parliaments; and this relief of the people from a general burthen may serve in some measure as an apology for the imposition of the excise. this act may be said to have wrought an important change in the spirit of our constitution, by reducing what is emphatically called the prerogative of the crown, and which, by its practical exhibition in these two vexatious exercises of power, wardship, and purveyance, kept up in the minds of the people a more distinct perception, as well as more awe, of the monarchy, than could be felt in later periods, when it has become, as it were, merged in the common course of law, and blended with the very complex mechanism of our institutions. this great innovation however is properly to be referred to the revolution of , which put an end to the court of star-chamber, and suspended the feudal superiorities. hence, with all the misconduct of the two last stuarts, and all the tendency towards arbitrary power that their government often displayed, we must perceive that the constitution had put on, in a very great degree, its modern character during that period; the boundaries of prerogative were better understood; its pretensions, at least in public, were less enormous; and not so many violent and oppressive, certainly not so many illegal, acts were committed towards individuals as under the two first of their family. _army disbanded._--in fixing upon £ , , as a competent revenue for the crown, the commons tacitly gave it to be understood that a regular military force was not among the necessities for which they meant to provide. they looked upon the army, notwithstanding its recent services, with that apprehension and jealousy which becomes an english house of commons. they were still supporting it by monthly assessments of £ , , and could gain no relief by the king's restoration till that charge came to an end. a bill therefore was sent up to the lords before their adjournment in september, providing money for disbanding the land forces. this was done during the recess; the soldiers received their arrears with many fair words of praise, and the nation saw itself, with delight and thankfulness to the king, released from its heavy burthens and the dread of servitude.[ ] yet charles had too much knowledge of foreign countries, where monarchy flourished in all its plenitude of sovereign power under the guardian sword of a standing army, to part readily with so favourite an instrument of kings. some of his counsellors, and especially the duke of york, dissuaded him from disbanding the army, or at least advised his supplying its place by another. the unsettled state of the kingdom after so momentous a revolution, the dangerous audacity of the fanatical party, whose enterprises were the more to be guarded against, that they were founded on no such calculation as reasonable men would form, and of which the insurrection of venner in november furnished an example, did undoubtedly appear a very plausible excuse for something more of a military protection to the government than yeomen of the guard and gentlemen pensioners. general monk's regiment, called the coldstream, and one other of horse, were accordingly retained by the king in his service; another was formed out of troops brought from dunkirk; and thus began, under the name of guards, the present regular army of great britain.[ ] in these amounted to about men; a petty force according to our present notions, or to the practice of other european monarchies in that age, yet sufficient to establish an alarming precedent, and to open a new source of contention between the supporters of power and those of freedom. so little essential innovation had been effected by twenty years' interruption of the regular government in the common law or course of judicial proceedings, that, when the king and house of lords were restored to their places, little more seemed to be requisite than a change of names. but what was true of the state could not be applied to the church. the revolution there had gone much farther, and the questions of restoration and compromise were far more difficult. _clergy restored to their benefices._--it will be remembered that such of the clergy as steadily adhered to the episcopal constitution had been expelled from their benefices by the long parliament under various pretexts, and chiefly for refusing to take the covenant. the new establishment was nominally presbyterian. but the presbyterian discipline and synodical government were very partially introduced; and, upon the whole, the church, during the suspension of the ancient laws, was rather an assemblage of congregations than a compact body, having little more unity than resulted from their common dependency on the temporal magistrate. in the time of cromwell, who favoured the independent sectaries, some of that denomination obtained livings; but very few, i believe, comparatively, who had not received either episcopal or presbyterian ordination. the right of private patronage to benefices, and that of tithes, though continually menaced by the more violent party, subsisted without alteration. meanwhile the episcopal ministers, though excluded from legal toleration along with papists, by the instrument of government under which cromwell professed to hold his power, obtained, in general, a sufficient indulgence for the exercise of their function.[ ] once, indeed, on discovery of the royalist conspiracy in , he published a severe ordinance, forbidding every ejected minister or fellow of a college to act as domestic chaplain or schoolmaster. but this was coupled with a promise to show as much tenderness as might consist with the safety of the nation towards such of the said persons as should give testimony of their good affection to the government; and, in point of fact, this ordinance was so far from being rigorously observed, that episcopalian conventicles were openly kept in london.[ ] cromwell was of a really tolerant disposition, and there had perhaps, on the whole, been no period of equal duration wherein the catholics themselves suffered so little molestation as under the protectorate.[ ] it is well known that he permitted the settlement of jews in england, after an exclusion of nearly three centuries, in spite of the denunciations of some bigoted churchmen and lawyers. _hopes of the presbyterians from the king._--the presbyterian clergy, though co-operating in the king's restoration, experienced very just apprehensions of the church they had supplanted; and this was in fact one great motive of the restrictions that party was so anxious to impose on him. his character and sentiments were yet very imperfectly known in england; and much pains were taken on both sides, by short pamphlets, panegyrical or defamatory, to represent him as the best englishman and best protestant of the age, or as one given up to profligacy and popery.[ ] the caricature likeness was, we must now acknowledge, more true than the other; but at that time it was fair and natural to dwell on the more pleasing picture. the presbyterians remembered that he was what they called a covenanted king; that is, that, for the sake of the assistance of the scots, he had submitted to all the obligations, and taken all the oaths, they thought fit to impose.[ ] but it was well known that, on the failure of those prospects, he had returned to the church of england, and that he was surrounded by its zealous adherents. charles, in his declaration from breda, promised to grant liberty of conscience, so that no man should be disquieted or called in question for differences of opinion in matters of religion which do not disturb the peace of the kingdom, and to consent to such acts of parliament as should be offered for him for confirming that indulgence. but he was silent as to the church establishment; and the presbyterian ministers, who went over to present the congratulations of their body, met with civil language, but no sort of encouragement to expect any personal compliance on the king's part with their mode of worship. _projects for a compromise._--the moderate party in the convention parliament, though not absolutely of the presbyterian interest, saw the danger of permitting an oppressed body of churchmen to regain their superiority without some restraint. the actual incumbents of benefices were, on the whole, a respectable and even exemplary class, most of whom could not be reckoned answerable for the legal defects of their title. but the ejected ministers of the anglican church, who had endured for their attachment to its discipline and to the crown so many years of poverty and privation, stood in a still more favourable light, and had an evident claim to restoration. the commons accordingly, before the king's return, prepared a bill for confirming and restoring ministers; with the twofold object of replacing in their benefices, but without their legal right to the intermediate profits, the episcopal clergy who by ejection or forced surrender had made way for intruders, and at the same time of establishing the possession, though originally usurped, of those against whom there was no claimant living to dispute it, as well as of those who had been presented on legal vacancies.[ ] this act did not pass without opposition of the cavaliers, who panted to retaliate the persecution that had afflicted their church.[ ] this legal security however for the enjoyment of their livings gave no satisfaction to the scruples of conscientious men. the episcopal discipline, the anglican liturgy and ceremonies having never been abrogated by law, revived of course with the constitutional monarchy; and brought with them all the penalties that the act of uniformity and other statutes had inflicted. the nonconforming clergy threw themselves on the king's compassion, or gratitude, or policy, for relief. the independents, too irreconcilable to the established church for any scheme of comprehension, looked only to that liberty of conscience which the king's declaration from breda had held forth.[ ] but the presbyterians soothed themselves with hopes of retaining their benefices by some compromise with their adversaries. they had never, generally speaking, embraced the rigid principles of the scottish clergy, and were willing to admit what they called a moderate episcopacy. they offered, accordingly, on the king's request to know their terms, a middle scheme, usually denominated bishop usher's model; not as altogether approving it, but because they could not hope for anything nearer to their own views. this consisted, first, in the appointment of a suffragan bishop for each rural deanery, holding a monthly synod of the presbyters within his district; and, secondly, in an annual diocesan synod of suffragans and representatives of the presbyters, under the presidency of the bishop, and deciding upon all matters before them by plurality of suffrages.[ ] this is, i believe, considered by most competent judges as approaching more nearly than our own system to the usage of the primitive church, which gave considerable influence and superiority of rank to the bishop, without destroying the aristocratical character and co-ordinate jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical senate.[ ] it lessened also the inconveniences supposed to result from the great extent of some english dioceses. but, though such a system was inconsistent with that parity which the rigid presbyterians maintained to be indispensable, and those who espoused it are reckoned, in a theological division, among episcopalians, it was, in the eyes of equally rigid churchmen, little better than a disguised presbytery, and a real subversion of the anglican hierarchy.[ ] the presbyterian ministers, or rather a few eminent persons of that class, proceeded to solicit a revision of the liturgy, and a consideration of the numerous objections which they made to certain passages, while they admitted the lawfulness of a prescribed form. they implored the king also to abolish, or at least not to enjoin as necessary, some of those ceremonies which they scrupled to use, and which in fact had been the original cause of their schism; the surplice, the cross in baptism, the practice of kneeling at the communion, and one or two more. a tone of humble supplication pervades all their language, which some might invidiously contrast with their unbending haughtiness in prosperity. the bishops and other anglican divines, to whom their propositions were referred, met the offer of capitulation with a scornful and vindictive smile. they held out not the least overture towards a compromise. the king however deemed it expedient, during the continuance of a parliament, the majority of whom were desirous of union in the church, and had given some indications of their disposition,[ ] to keep up the delusion a little longer, and prevent the possible consequences of despair. he had already appointed several presbyterian ministers his chaplains, and given them frequent audiences. but during the recess of parliament he published a declaration, wherein, after some compliments to the ministers of the presbyterian opinion, and an artful expression of satisfaction that he had found them no enemies to episcopacy or a liturgy, as they had been reported to be, he announces his intention to appoint a sufficient number of suffragan bishops in the larger dioceses; he promises that no bishop should ordain or exercise any part of his spiritual jurisdiction without advice and assistance of his presbyters; that no chancellors or officials of the bishops should use any jurisdiction over the ministry, nor any archdeacon without the advice of a council of his clergy; that the dean and chapter of the diocese, together with an equal number of presbyters, annually chosen by the clergy, should be always advising and assisting at all ordinations, church censures, and other important acts of spiritual jurisdiction. he declared also that he would appoint an equal number of divines of both persuasions to revise the liturgy; desiring that in the meantime none would wholly lay it aside, yet promising that no one should be molested for not using it till it should be reviewed and reformed. with regard to ceremonies, he declared that none should be compelled to receive the sacrament kneeling, nor to use the cross in baptism, nor to bow at the name of jesus, nor to wear the surplice, except in the royal chapel and in cathedrals, nor should subscription to articles not doctrinal be required. he renewed also his declaration from breda, that no man should be called in question for differences of religious opinion, not disturbing the peace of the kingdom.[ ] though many of the presbyterian party deemed this modification of anglican episcopacy a departure from their notions of an apostolic church, and inconsistent with their covenant, the majority would doubtless have acquiesced in so extensive a concession from the ruling power. if faithfully executed, according to its apparent meaning, it does not seem that the declaration falls very short of their own proposal, the scheme of usher.[ ] the high churchmen indeed would have murmured, had it been made effectual. but such as were nearest the king's councils well knew that nothing else was intended by it than to scatter dust in men's eyes, and prevent the interference of parliament. this was soon rendered manifest, when a bill to render the king's declaration effectual was vigorously opposed by the courtiers, and rejected on a second reading by to .[ ] nothing could more forcibly demonstrate an intention of breaking faith with the presbyterians than this vote. for the king's declaration was repugnant to the act of uniformity and many other statutes, so that it could not be carried into effect without the authority of parliament, unless by means of such a general dispensing power as no parliament would endure.[ ] and it is impossible to question that a bill for confirming it would have easily passed through this house of commons, had it not been for the resistance of the government. _convention parliament dissolved._--charles now dissolved the convention parliament, having obtained from it what was immediately necessary, but well aware that he could better accomplish his objects with another. it was studiously inculcated by the royalist lawyers that as this assembly had not been summoned by the king's writ, none of its acts could have any real validity, except by the confirmation of a true parliament.[ ] this doctrine being applicable to the act of indemnity left the kingdom in a precarious condition till an undeniable security could be obtained, and rendered the dissolution almost necessary. another parliament was called of very different composition from the last. possession and the standing ordinances against royalists had enabled the secluded members of , that is, the adherents of the long parliament, to stem with some degree of success the impetuous tide of loyalty in the last elections, and put them almost upon an equality with the court. but, in the new assembly, cavaliers, and the sons of cavaliers, entirely predominated; the great families, the ancient gentry, the episcopal clergy, resumed their influence; the presbyterians and sectarians feared to have their offences remembered; so that we may rather be surprised that about fifty or sixty who had belonged to the opposite side found places in such a parliament, than that its general complexion should be decidedly royalist. the presbyterian faction seemed to lie prostrate at the feet of those on whom they had so long triumphed, without any force of arms or civil convulsion, as if the king had been brought in against their will. nor did the cavaliers fail to treat them as enemies to monarchy, though it was notorious that the restoration was chiefly owing to their endeavours.[ ] _different complexion of the new parliament._--the new parliament gave the first proofs of their disposition by voting that all their members should receive the sacrament on a certain day according to the rites of the church of england, and that the solemn league and covenant should be burned by the common hangman.[ ] they excited still more serious alarm by an evident reluctance to confirm the late act of indemnity, which the king at the opening of the session had pressed upon their attention. those who had suffered the sequestrations and other losses of a vanquished party, could not endure to abandon what they reckoned a just reparation. but clarendon adhered with equal integrity and prudence to this fundamental principle of the restoration; and, after a strong message from the king on the subject, the commons were content to let the bill pass with no new exceptions.[ ] they gave indeed some relief to the ruined cavaliers, by voting £ , to be distributed among that class; but so inadequate a compensation did not assuage their discontents. _condemnation of vane._--it has been mentioned above, that the late house of commons had consented to the exception of vane and lambert from indemnity on the king's promise that they should not suffer death. they had lain in the tower accordingly, without being brought to trial. the regicides who had come in under the proclamation were saved from capital punishment by the former act of indemnity. but the present parliament abhorred this lukewarm lenity. a bill was brought in for the execution of the king's judges in the tower; and the attorney-general was requested to proceed against vane and lambert.[ ] the former was dropped in the house of lords; but those formidable chiefs of the commonwealth were brought to trial. their indictments alleged as overt acts of high treason against charles ii. their exercise of civil and military functions under the usurping government; though not, as far as appears, expressly directed against the king's authority, and certainly not against his person. under such an accusation, many who had been the most earnest in the king's restoration might have stood at the bar. thousands might apply to themselves, in the case of vane, the beautiful expressions of mrs. hutchinson, as to her husband's feelings at the death of the regicides, that he looked on himself as judged in their judgment and executed in their execution. the stroke fell upon one, the reproach upon many. the condemnation of sir henry vane was very questionable even according to the letter of the law. it was plainly repugnant to its spirit. an excellent statute enacted under henry vii., and deemed by some great writers to be only declaratory of the common law, but occasioned, no doubt, by some harsh judgments of treason which had been pronounced during the late competition of the house of york and lancaster, assured a perfect indemnity to all persons obeying a king for the time being, however defective his title might come to be considered, when another claimant should gain possession of the throne. it established the duty of allegiance to the existing government upon a general principle; but in its terms it certainly presumed that government to be a monarchy. this furnished the judges upon the trial of vane with a distinction, of which they willingly availed themselves. they proceeded however beyond all bounds of constitutional precedents and of common sense, when they determined that charles the second had been king _de facto_ as well as _de jure_ from the moment of his father's death, though, in the words of their senseless sophistry, "kept out of the exercise of his royal authority by traitors and rebels." he had indeed assumed the title during his exile, and had granted letters patent for different purposes, which it was thought proper to hold good after his restoration; thus presenting the strange anomaly, and as it were contradiction in terms, of a king who began to govern in the twelfth year of his reign. but this had not been the usage of former times. edward iv., richard iii., henry vii., had dated their instruments either from their proclamation, or at least from some act of possession. the question was not whether a right to the crown descended according to the laws of inheritance; but whether such a right, divested of possession, could challenge allegiance as a bounden duty by the law of england. this is expressly determined in the negative by lord coke in his third institute, who maintains a king "that hath right, and is out of possession," not to be within the statute of treasons. he asserts also that a pardon granted by him would be void; which by parity of reasoning must extend to all his patents.[ ] we may consider therefore the execution of vane as one of the most reprehensible actions of this bad reign. it not only violated the assurance of indemnity, but introduced a principle of sanguinary proscription, which would render the return of what is called legitimate government, under any circumstances, an intolerable curse to a nation.[ ] the king violated his promise by the execution of vane, as much as the judges strained the law by his conviction. he had assured the last parliament, in answer to their address, that, if vane and lambert should be attainted by law he would not suffer the sentence to be executed. though the present parliament had urged the attorney-general to bring these delinquents to trial, they had never, by an address to the king, given him a colour for retracting his promise of mercy. it is worthy of notice that clarendon does not say a syllable about vane's trial; which affords a strong presumption that he thought it a breach of the act of indemnity. but we have on record a remarkable letter of the king to his minister, wherein he expresses his resentment at vane's bold demeanour during his trial, and intimates a wish for his death, though with some doubts whether it could be honourably done.[ ] doubts of such a nature never lasted long with this prince; and vane suffered the week after. lambert, whose submissive behaviour had furnished a contrast with that of vane, was sent to guernsey; and remained a prisoner for thirty years. the royalists have spoken of vane with extreme dislike; yet it should be remembered that he was not only incorrupt, but disinterested, inflexible in conforming his public conduct to his principles, and averse to every sanguinary or oppressive measure: qualities not very common in revolutionary chiefs, and which honourably distinguished him from the lamberts and haslerigs of his party.[ ] _acts replacing the crown in its prerogatives._--no time was lost, as might be expected from the temper of the commons, in replacing the throne on its constitutional basis after the rude encroachments of the long parliament. they declared that there was no legislative power in either or both houses without the king; that the league and covenant was unlawfully imposed; that the sole supreme command of the militia, and of all forces by sea and land, had ever been by the laws of england the undoubted right of the crown; that neither house of parliament could pretend to it, nor could lawfully levy any war offensive or defensive against his majesty.[ ] these last words appeared to go to a dangerous length, and to sanction the suicidal doctrine of absolute non-resistance. they made the law of high treason more strict during the king's life in pursuance of a precedent in the reign of elizabeth.[ ] they restored the bishops to their seats in the house of lords; a step which the last parliament would never have been induced to take, but which met with little opposition from the present.[ ] the violence that had attended their exclusion seemed a sufficient motive for rescinding a statute so improperly obtained, even if the policy of maintaining the spiritual peers were somewhat doubtful. the remembrance of those tumultuous assemblages which had overawed their predecessors in the winter of , and at other times, produced a law against disorderly petitions. this statute provides that no petition or address shall be presented to the king or either house of parliament by more than ten persons; nor shall any one procure above twenty persons to consent or set their hands to any petition for alteration of matters established by law in church or state, unless with the previous order of three justices of the county, or the major part of the grand jury.[ ] _corporation act._--thus far the new parliament might be said to have acted chiefly on a principle of repairing the breaches recently made in our constitution, and of re-establishing the just boundaries of the executive power; nor would much objection have been offered to their measures, had they gone no farther in the same course. the act for regulating corporations is much more questionable, and displayed a determination to exclude a considerable portion of the community from their civil rights. it enjoined all magistrates and persons bearing offices of trust in corporations to swear that they believed it unlawful, on any pretence whatever, to take arms against the king, and that they abhorred the traitorous position of bearing arms by his authority against his person, or against those that are commissioned by him. they were also to renounce all obligation arising out of the oath called the solemn league and covenant; in case of refusal, to be immediately removed from office. those elected in future were, in addition to the same oaths, to have received the sacrament within one year before their election according to the rites of the english church.[ ] these provisions struck at the heart of the presbyterian party, whose strength lay in the little oligarchies of corporate towns, which directly or indirectly returned to parliament a very large proportion of its members. yet it rarely happens that a political faction is crushed by the terrors of an oath. many of the more rigid presbyterians refused the conditions imposed by this act; but the majority found pretexts for qualifying themselves. _repeal of the triennial act._--it could not yet be said that this loyal assembly had meddled with those safeguards of public liberty which had been erected by their great predecessors in . the laws that falkland and hampden had combined to provide, those bulwarks against the ancient exorbitance of prerogative, stood unscathed; threatened from afar, but not yet betrayed by the garrison. but one of these, the bill for triennial parliaments, wounded the pride of royalty, and gave scandal to his worshippers; not so much on account of its object, as of the securities provided against its violation. if the king did not summon a fresh parliament within three years after a dissolution, the peers were to meet and issue writs of their own accord; if they did not within a certain time perform this duty, the sheriffs of every county were to take it on themselves; and, in default of all constituted authorities the electors might assemble without any regular summons to choose representatives. it was manifest that the king must have taken a fixed resolution to trample on a fundamental law, before these irregular tumultuous modes of redress could be called into action; and that the existence of such provisions could not in any degree weaken or endanger the legal and limited monarchy. but the doctrine of passive obedience had now crept from the homilies into the statute-book; the parliament had not scrupled to declare the unlawfulness of defensive war against the king's person; and it was but one step more to take away all direct means of counteracting his pleasure. bills were accordingly more than once ordered to be brought in for repealing the triennial act; but no further steps were taken till the king thought it at length necessary in the year to give them an intimation of his desires.[ ] a vague notion had partially gained ground that no parliament, by virtue of that bill, could sit for more than three years. in allusion to this, he told them, on opening the session of , that he "had often read over that bill; and, though there was no colour for the fancy of the determination of the parliament, yet he would not deny that he had always expected them to consider the wonderful clauses in that bill, which passed in a time very uncareful for the dignity of the crown or the security of the people. he requested them to look again at it. for himself, he loved parliaments; he was much beholden to them; he did not think the crown could ever be happy without frequent parliaments. but assure yourselves," he concluded, "if i should think otherwise i would never suffer a parliament to come together by the means prescribed by that bill."[ ] so audacious a declaration, equivalent to an avowed design, in certain circumstances, of preventing the execution of the laws by force of arms, was never before heard from the lips of an english king; and would in any other times have awakened a storm of indignation from the commons. they were however sufficiently compliant to pass a bill for the repeal of that which had been enacted with unanimous consent in , and had been hailed as the great palladium of constitutional monarchy. the preamble recites the said act to have been "in derogation of his majesty's just rights and prerogative inherent in the imperial crown of this realm for the calling and assembling of parliaments." the bill then repeals and annuls every clause and article in the fullest manner; yet, with an inconsistency not unusual in our statutes, adds a provision that parliaments shall not in future be intermitted for above three years at the most. this clause is evidently framed in a different spirit from the original bill, and may be attributed to the influence of that party in the house, which had begun to oppose the court, and already showed itself in considerable strength.[ ] thus the effect of this compromise was, that the law of the long parliament subsisted as to its principle, without those unusual clauses which had been enacted to render its observance secure. the king assured them, in giving his assent to the repeal, that he would not be a day more without a parliament on that account. but the necessity of those securities, and the mischiefs of that false and servile loyalty which abrogated them, became manifest at the close of the present reign; nearly four years having elapsed between the dissolution of charles's last parliament and his death. clarendon, the principal adviser, as yet, of the king since his restoration (for southampton rather gave reputation to the administration than took that superior influence which belonged to his place of treasurer), has thought fit to stigmatise the triennial bill with the epithet of infamous. so wholly had he divested himself of the sentiments he entertained at the beginning of the long parliament that he sought nothing more ardently than to place the crown again in a condition to run into those abuses and excesses against which he had once so much inveighed. "he did never dissemble," he says, "from the time of his return with the king, that the late rebellion could never be extirpated and pulled up by the roots till the king's regal and inherent power and prerogative should be fully avowed and vindicated, and till the usurpations in both houses of parliament, since the year , were disclaimed and made odious; and many other excesses, which had been affected by both before that time under the name of privileges, should be restrained or explained. for all which reformation the kingdom in general was very well disposed, when it pleased god to restore the king to it. the present parliament had done much, and would willingly have prosecuted the same method, if they had had the same advice and encouragement."[ ] i can only understand these words to mean that they might have been led to repeal other statutes of the long parliament, besides the triennial act, and that excluding the bishops from the house of peers; but more especially, to have restored the two great levers of prerogative, the courts of star-chamber and high-commission. this would indeed have pulled up by the roots the work of the long parliament, which, in spite of such general reproach, still continued to shackle the revived monarchy. there had been some serious attempts at this in the house of lords during the session of - . we read in the journals[ ] that a committee was appointed to prepare a bill for repealing all acts made in the parliament begun the rd day of november , and for re-enacting such of them as should be thought fit. this committee some time after[ ] reported their opinion, "that it was fit for the good of the nation, that there be a court of like nature to the late court called the star-chamber; but desired the advice and directions of the house in these particulars following: who should be judges? what matters should they be judges of? by what manner of proceedings should they act?" the house, it is added, thought it not fit to give any particular directions therein, but left it to the committee to proceed as they would. it does not appear that anything further was done in this session; but we find the bill of repeal revived next year.[ ] it is however only once mentioned. perhaps it may be questionable whether, even amidst the fervid loyalty of , the house of commons would have concurred in re-establishing the star-chamber. they had taken marked precautions in passing an act for the restoration of ecclesiastical jurisdiction, that it should not be construed to restore the high-commission court, or to give validity to the canons of , or to enlarge in any manner the ancient authority of the church.[ ] a tribunal still more formidable and obnoxious would hardly have found favour with a body of men, who, as their behaviour shortly demonstrated, might rather be taxed with passion and vindictiveness towards a hostile faction, than a deliberate willingness to abandon their english rights and privileges. the striking characteristic of this parliament was a zealous and intolerant attachment to the established church, not losing an atom of their aversion to popery in their abhorrence of protestant dissent. in every former parliament since the reformation, the country party (if i may use such a word, by anticipation, for those gentlemen of landed estates who owed their seats to their provincial importance, as distinguished from courtiers, lawyers, and dependents on the nobility), had incurred with rigid churchmen the reproach of puritanical affections. they were implacable against popery, but disposed to far more indulgence with respect to nonconformity than the very different maxims of elizabeth and her successors would permit. yet it is obvious that the puritan commons of james i. and the high church commons of charles ii. were composed, in a great measure, of the same families, and entirely of the same classes. but, as the arrogance of the prelates had excited indignation, and the sufferings of the scrupulous clergy begotten sympathy in one age, so the reversed scenes of the last twenty years had given to the former, or their adherents, the advantage of enduring oppression with humility and fortitude, and displayed in the latter, or at least many of their number, those odious and malevolent qualities which adversity had either concealed or rendered less dangerous. the gentry, connected for the most part by birth or education with the episcopal clergy, could not for an instant hesitate between the ancient establishment, and one composed of men whose eloquence in preaching was chiefly directed towards the common people, and presupposed a degree of enthusiasm in the hearer which the higher classes rarely possessed. they dreaded the wilder sectaries, foes to property, or at least to its political influence, as much as to the regal constitution; and not unnaturally, though without perfect fairness, confounded the presbyterian or moderate nonconformist in the motley crowd of fanatics, to many of whose tenets he at least more approximated than the church of england minister. _presbyterians deceived by the king._--there is every reason to presume, as i have already remarked, that the king had no intention but to deceive the presbyterians and their friends in the convention parliament by his declaration of october .[ ] he proceeded, after the dissolution of that assembly, to fill up the number of bishops, who had been reduced to nine, but with no further mention of suffragans, or of the council of presbyters, which had been announced in that declaration.[ ] it does indeed appear highly probable that this scheme of usher would have been found inconvenient and even impracticable; and reflecting men would perhaps be apt to say that the usage of primitive antiquity, upon which all parties laid so much stress, was rather a presumptive argument against the adoption of any system of church-government, in circumstances so widely different, than in favour of it. but inconvenient and impracticable provisions carry with them their own remedy; and the king might have respected his own word, and the wishes of a large part of the church, without any formidable danger to episcopal authority. it would have been, however, too flagrant a breach of promise (and yet hardly greater than that just mentioned) if some show had not been made of desiring a reconciliation on the subordinate details of religious ceremonies and the liturgy. this produced a conference held at the savoy, in may , between twenty-one anglican and as many presbyterian divines: the latter were called upon to propose their objections; it being the part of the others to defend. they brought forward so long a list as seemed to raise little hope of agreement. some of these objections to the service, as may be imagined, were rather captious and hypercritical; yet in many cases they pointed out real defects. as to ceremonies, they dwelt on the same scruples as had from the beginning of elizabeth's reign produced so unhappy a discordance, and had become inveterate by so much persecution. the conference was managed with great mutual bitterness and recrimination; the one party stimulated by vindictive hatred and the natural arrogance of power; the other irritated by the manifest design of breaking the king's faith, and probably by a sense of their own improvidence in ruining themselves by his restoration. the chief blame, it cannot be dissembled, ought to fall on the churchmen. an opportunity was afforded of healing, in a very great measure, that schism and separation which, if they are to be believed, is one of the worst evils that can befall a christian community. they had it in their power to retain, or to expel, a vast number of worthy and laborious ministers of the gospel, with whom they had, in their own estimation, no essential ground of difference. they knew the king, and consequently themselves, to have been restored with (i might almost say by) the strenuous co-operation of those very men who were now at their mercy. to judge by the rules of moral wisdom, or of the spirit of christianity (to which, notwithstanding what might be satirically said of experience, it is difficult not to think we have a right to expect that a body of ecclesiastics should pay some attention), there can be no justification for the anglican party on this occasion. they have certainly one apology, the best very frequently that can be offered for human infirmity; they had sustained a long and unjust exclusion from the emoluments of their profession, which begot a natural dislike towards the members of the sect that had profited at their expense, though not, in general, personally responsible for their misfortunes.[ ] the savoy conference broke up in anger, each party more exasperated and more irreconcilable than before. this indeed has been the usual consequence of attempts to bring men to an understanding on religious differences by explanation or compromise. the public is apt to expect too much from these discussions; unwilling to believe either that those who have a reputation for piety can be wanting in desire to find the truth, or that those who are esteemed for ability can miss it. and this expectation is heightened by the language rather too strongly held by moderate and peaceable divines, that little more is required than an understanding of each other's meaning, to unite conflicting sects in a common faith. but as it generally happens that the disputes of theologians, though far from being so important as they appear to the narrow prejudices and heated passions of the combatants, are not wholly nominal, or capable of being reduced to a common form of words, the hopes of union and settlement vanish upon that closer enquiry which conferences and schemes of agreement produce. and though this may seem rather applicable to speculative controversies than to such matters as were debated between the church and the presbyterians at the savoy conference, and which are in their nature more capable of compromise than articles of doctrine; yet the consequence of exhibiting the incompatibility and reciprocal alienation of the two parties in a clearer light was nearly the same. a determination having been taken to admit of no extensive comprehension, it was debated by the government whether to make a few alterations in the liturgy, or to restore the ancient service in every particular. the former advice prevailed, though with no desire or expectation of conciliating any scrupulous persons by the amendments introduced.[ ] these were by no means numerous, and in some instances rather chosen in order to irritate and mock the opposite party than from any compliance with their prejudices. it is indeed very probable, from the temper of the new parliament, that they would not have come into more tolerant and healing measures. _act of uniformity._--when the act of uniformity was brought into the house of lords, it was found not only to restore all the ceremonies and other matters to which objection had been taken, but to contain fresh clauses more intolerable than the rest to the presbyterian clergy. one of these enacted that not only every beneficed minister, but fellow of a college, or even schoolmaster, should declare his unfeigned assent and consent to all and everything contained in the book of common prayer.[ ] these words, however capable of being eluded and explained away, as such subscriptions always are, seemed to amount, in common use of language, to a complete approbation of an entire volume, such as a man of sense hardly gives to any book, and which, at a time when scrupulous persons were with great difficulty endeavouring to reconcile themselves to submission, placed a new stumbling-block in their way, which, without abandoning their integrity, they found it impossible to surmount. the malignity of those who chiefly managed church affairs at this period displayed itself in another innovation tending to the same end. it had been not unusual, from the very beginnings of our reformation, to admit ministers ordained in foreign protestant churches to benefices in england. no re-ordination had ever been practised with respect to those who had received the imposition of hands in a regular church; and hence it appears that the church of england, whatever tenets might latterly have been broached in controversy, did not consider the ordination of presbyters invalid. though such ordinations as had taken place during the late troubles, and by virtue of which a great part of the actual clergy were in possession, were evidently irregular, on the supposition that the english episcopal church was then in existence; yet, if the argument from such great convenience as men call necessity was to prevail, it was surely worth while to suffer them to pass without question for the present, enacting provisions, if such were required, for the future. but this did not fall in with the passion and policy of the bishops, who found a pretext for their worldly motives of action in the supposed divine right and necessity of episcopal succession; a theory naturally more agreeable to arrogant and dogmatical ecclesiastics than that of cranmer, who saw no intrinsic difference between bishops and priests; or of hooker, who thought ecclesiastical superiorities, like civil, subject to variation; or of stillingfleet, who had lately pointed out the impossibility of ascertaining beyond doubtful conjecture the real constitution of the apostolical church, from the scanty, inconclusive testimonies that either scripture or antiquity furnish. it was therefore enacted in the statute for uniformity, that no person should hold any preferment in england, without having received episcopal ordination. there seems to be little or no objection to this provision, if ordination be considered as a ceremony of admission into a particular society; but, according to the theories which both parties had embraced in that age, it conferred a sort of mysterious indelible character, which rendered its repetition improper.[ ] _ejection of nonconformist clergy._--the new act of uniformity succeeded to the utmost wishes of its promoters. it provided that every minister should, before the feast of st. bartholomew, , publicly declare his assent and consent to everything contained in the book of common prayer, on pain of being _ipso facto_ deprived of his benefice.[ ] though even the long parliament had reserved a fifth of the profits to those who were ejected for refusing the covenant, no mercy could be obtained from the still greater bigotry of the present; and a motion to make that allowance to nonconforming ministers was lost by to .[ ] the lords had shown a more temperate spirit, and made several alterations of a conciliating nature. they objected to extending the subscription required by the act to schoolmasters. but the commons urged in a conference the force of education, which made it necessary to take care for the youth. the upper house even inserted a proviso, allowing the king to dispense with the surplice and the sign of the cross; but the commons resolutely withstanding this and every other alteration, they were all given up.[ ] yet next year, when it was found necessary to pass an act for the relief of those who had been prevented involuntarily from subscribing the declaration in due time, a clause was introduced, declaring that the assent and consent to the book of common prayer required by the said act should be understood only as to practice and obedience, and not otherwise. the duke of york and twelve lay peers protested against this clause, as destructive to the church of england as now established; and the commons vehemently objecting to it, the partisans of moderate councils gave way as before.[ ] when the day of st. bartholomew came, about persons resigned their preferments rather than stain their consciences by compliance--an act to which the more liberal anglicans, after the bitterness of immediate passions had passed away, have accorded that praise which is due to heroic virtue in an enemy. it may justly be said that the episcopal clergy had set an example of similar magnanimity in refusing to take the covenant. yet, as that was partly of a political nature, and those who were ejected for not taking it might hope to be restored through the success of the king's arms, i do not know that it was altogether so eminent an act of self-devotion as the presbyterian clergy displayed on st. bartholomew's day. both of them afford striking contrasts to the pliancy of the english church in the greater question of the preceding century, and bear witness to a remarkable integrity and consistency of principle.[ ] no one who has any sense of honesty and plain dealing can pretend that charles did not violate the spirit of his declarations, both that from breda, and that which he published in october . it is idle to say that those declarations were subject to the decision of parliament, as if the crown had no sort of influence in that assembly, nor even any means of making its inclinations known. he had urged them to confirm the act of indemnity, wherein he thought his honour and security concerned: was it less easy to obtain, or at least to ask for, their concurrence in a comprehension or toleration of the presbyterian clergy? yet, after mocking those persons with pretended favour, and even offering bishoprics to some of their number, by way of purchasing their defection, the king made no effort to mitigate the provisions of the act of uniformity; and clarendon strenuously supported them through both houses of parliament.[ ] this behaviour in the minister sprung from real bigotry and dislike of the presbyterians; but charles was influenced by a very different motive, which had become the secret spring of all his policy. this requires to be fully explained. _hopes of the catholics._--charles, during his misfortunes, had made repeated promises to the pope and the great catholic princes of relaxing the penal laws against his subjects of that religion--promises which he well knew to be the necessary condition of their assistance. and, though he never received any succour which could demand the performance of these assurances, his desire to stand well with france and spain, as well as a sense of what was really due to the english catholics, would have disposed him to grant every indulgence which the temper of his people should permit. the laws were highly severe, in some cases sanguinary; they were enacted in very different times, from plausible motives of distrust, which it would be now both absurd and ungrateful to retain. the catholics had been the most strenuous of the late king's adherents, the greatest sufferers for their loyalty. out of about gentlemen who lost their lives in the royal cause, one-third, it has been said, were of that religion.[ ] their estates had been selected for confiscation, when others had been admitted to compound. it is however certain that after the conclusion of the war, and especially during the usurpation of cromwell, they declined in general to provoke a government which showed a good deal of connivance towards their religion by keeping up any connection with the exiled family.[ ] they had, as was surely very natural, one paramount object in their political conduct, the enjoyment of religious liberty; whatever debt of gratitude they might have owed to charles i. had been amply paid; and perhaps they might reflect that he had never scrupled, in his various negotiations with the parliament, to acquiesce in any prescriptive measures suggested against popery. this apparent abandonment however of the royal interests excited the displeasure of clarendon, which was increased by a tendency some of the catholics showed to unite with lambert, who was understood to be privately of their religion, and by an intrigue carried on in , by the machinations of buckingham with some priests, to set up the duke of york for the crown. but the king retained no resentment of the general conduct of this party; and was desirous to give them a testimony of his confidence, by mitigating the penal laws against their religion. some steps were taken towards this by the house of lords in the session of ; and there seems little doubt that the statutes at least inflicting capital punishment would have been repealed without difficulty, if the catholics had not lost the favourable moment by some disunion among themselves, which the never-ceasing intrigues of the jesuits contrived to produce.[ ] there can be no sort of doubt that the king's natural facility, and exemption from all prejudice in favour of established laws, would have led him to afford every indulgence that could be demanded to his catholic subjects, many of whom were his companions or his counsellors, without any propensity towards their religion. but it is morally certain that, during the period of his banishment, he had imbibed, as deeply and seriously as the character of his mind would permit, a persuasion that, if any scheme of christianity were true, it could only be found in the bosom of an infallible church; though he was never reconciled, according to the formal profession which she exacts, till the last hours of his life. the secret however of his inclinations, though disguised to the world by the appearance, and probably sometimes more than the appearance, of carelessness and infidelity, could not be wholly concealed from his court. it appears the most natural mode of accounting for the sudden conversion of the earl of bristol to popery, which is generally agreed to have been insincere. an ambitious intriguer, holding the post of secretary of state, would not have ventured such a step without some grounds of confidence in his master's wishes; though his characteristic precipitancy hurried him forward to destroy his own hopes. nor are there wanting proofs that the protestantism of both the brothers was greatly suspected in england before the restoration.[ ] these suspicions acquired strength after the king's return, through his manifest intention not to marry a protestant; and still more through the presumptuous demeanour of the opposite party, which seemed to indicate some surer grounds of confidence than were yet manifest. the new parliament in its first session had made it penal to say that the king was a papist or popishly affected; whence the prevalence of that scandal may be inferred.[ ] _resisted by clarendon and the parliament._--charles had no assistance to expect, in his scheme of granting a full toleration to the roman faith, from his chief adviser clarendon. a repeal of the sanguinary laws, a reasonable connivance, perhaps in some cases a dispensation--to these favours he would have acceded. but, in his creed of policy, the legal allowance of any but the established religion was inconsistent with public order, and with the king's ecclesiastical prerogative. this was also a fixed principle with the parliament, whose implacable resentment towards the sectaries had not inclined them to abate in the least of their abhorrence and apprehension of popery. the church of england, distinctly and exclusively, was their rallying-point; the crown itself stood only second in their affections. the king therefore had recourse to a more subtle and indirect policy. if the terms of conformity had been so far relaxed as to suffer the continuance of the presbyterian clergy in their benefices, there was every reason to expect from their known disposition a determined hostility to all approaches towards popery, and even to its toleration. it was therefore the policy of those who had the interests of that cause at heart, to permit no deviation from the act of uniformity, to resist all endeavours at a comprehension of dissenters within the pale of the church, and to make them look up to the king for indulgence in their separate way of worship. they were to be taught that, amenable to the same laws as the romanists, exposed to the oppression of the same enemies, they must act in concert for a common benefit.[ ] the presbyterian ministers, disheartened at the violence of the parliament, had recourse to charles, whose affability and fair promises they were loth to distrust; and implored his dispensation for their nonconformity. the king, naturally irresolute, and doubtless sensible that he had made a bad return to those who had contributed so much towards his restoration, was induced, at the strong solicitation of lord manchester, to promise that he would issue a declaration suspending the execution of the statute for three months. clarendon, though he had been averse to some of the rigorous clauses inserted in the act of uniformity, was of opinion that, once passed, it ought to be enforced without any connivance; and told the king likewise that it was not in his power to preserve those who did not comply with it from deprivation. yet, as the king's word had been given, he advised him rather to issue such a declaration than to break his promise. but, the bishops vehemently remonstrating against it, and intimating that they would not be parties to a violation of the law, by refusing to institute a clerk presented by the patron on an avoidance for want of conformity in the incumbent, the king gave way, and resolved to make no kind of concession. it is remarkable that the noble historian does not seem struck at the enormous and unconstitutional prerogative which a proclamation suspending the statute would have assumed.[ ] _declaration for indulgence._--instead of this very objectionable measure, the king adopted one less arbitrary, and more consonant to his own secret policy. he published a declaration in favour of liberty of conscience, for which no provision had been made, so as to redeem the promises he had held forth at his accession. adverting to these, he declared that, "as in the first place he had been zealous to settle the uniformity of the church of england in discipline, ceremony, and government, and should ever constantly maintain it; so as for what concerns the penalties upon those who, living peaceably, do not conform themselves thereto, he should make it his special care, so far as in him lay, without invading the freedom of parliament, to incline their wisdom next approaching sessions to concur with him in making some such act for that purpose as may enable him to exercise with a more universal satisfaction that power of dispensing, which he conceived to be inherent in him."[ ] the aim of this declaration was to obtain from parliament a mitigation at least of all penal statutes in matters of religion, but more to serve the interests of catholic than of protestant nonconformity.[ ] except however the allusion to the dispensing power, which yet is very moderately alleged, there was nothing in it, according to our present opinions, that should have created offence. but the commons, on their meeting in february , presented an address, denying that any obligation lay on the king by virtue of his declaration from breda, which must be understood to depend on the advice of parliament, and slightly intimating that he possessed no such dispensing prerogative as was suggested. they strongly objected to the whole scheme of indulgence, as the means of increasing sectaries, and rather likely to occasion disturbance than to promote peace.[ ] they remonstrated, in another address, against the release of calamy, an eminent dissenter, who, having been imprisoned for transgressing the act of uniformity, was irregularly set at liberty by the king's personal order.[ ] the king, undeceived as to the disposition of this loyal assembly to concur in his projects of religious liberty, was driven to more tedious and indirect courses in order to compass his end. he had the mortification of finding that the house of commons had imbibed, partly perhaps in consequence of this declaration, that jealous apprehension of popery, which had caused so much of his father's ill fortune. on this topic the watchfulness of an english parliament could never be long at rest. the notorious insolence of the romish priests, who, proud of the court's favour, disdained to respect the laws enough to disguise themselves, provoked an address to the king, that they might be sent out of the kingdom; and bills were brought in to prevent the further growth of popery.[ ] meanwhile, the same remedy, so infallible in the eyes of legislators, was not forgotten to be applied to the opposite disease of protestant dissent. some had believed, of whom clarendon seems to have been, that all scruples of tender conscience in the presbyterian clergy being faction and hypocrisy, they would submit very quietly to the law, when they found all their clamour unavailing to obtain a dispensation from it. the resignation of beneficed ministers at once, instead of extorting praise, rather inflamed the resentment of their bigoted enemies; especially when they perceived that a public and perpetual toleration of separate worship was favoured by part of the court. _act against conventicles._--rumours of conspiracy and insurrection, sometimes false, but gaining credit from the notorious discontent both of the old commonwealth's party, and of many who had never been on that side, were sedulously propagated, in order to keep up the animosity of parliament against the ejected clergy;[ ] and these are recited as the pretext of an act passed in for suppressing seditious conventicles (the epithet being in this place wantonly and unjustly insulting), which inflicted on all persons above the age of sixteen, present at any religious meeting in other manner than is allowed by the practice of the church of england, where five or more persons besides the household should be present, a penalty of three months' imprisonment for the first offence, of six for the second, and of seven years' transportation for the third, on conviction before a single justice of peace.[ ] this act, says clarendon, if it had been vigorously executed, would no doubt have produced a thorough reformation.[ ] such is ever the language of the supporters of tyranny; when oppression does not succeed, it is because there has been too little of it. but those who suffered under this statute report very differently as to its vigorous execution. the gaols were filled, not only with ministers who had borne the brunt of former persecutions, but with the laity who attended them; and the hardship was the more grievous, that the act being ambiguously worded, its construction was left to a single magistrate, generally very adverse to the accused. it is the natural consequence of restrictive laws to aggravate the disaffection which has served as their pretext; and thus to create a necessity for a legislature that will not retrace its steps, to pass still onward in the course of severity. in the next session accordingly held at oxford in , on account of the plague that ravaged the capital, we find a new and more inevitable blow aimed at the fallen church of calvin. it was enacted that all persons in holy orders who had not subscribed the act of uniformity, should swear that it is not lawful, upon any pretence whatsoever, to take arms against the king; and that they did abhor that traitorous position of taking arms by his authority against his person, or against those that are commissioned by him, and would not at any time endeavour any alteration of government in church or state. those who refused this oath were not only made incapable of teaching in schools, but prohibited from coming within five miles of any city, corporate town, or borough sending members to parliament.[ ] this infamous statute did not pass without the opposition of the earl of southampton, lord treasurer, and other peers. but archbishop sheldon, and several bishops, strongly supported the bill, which had undoubtedly the sanction also of clarendon's authority.[ ] in the commons, i do not find that any division took place; but an unsuccessful attempt was made to insert the word "legally" before commissioned; the lawyers, however, declared that this word must be understood.[ ] some of the nonconforming clergy took the oath upon this construction. but the far greater number refused. even if they could have borne the solemn assertion of the principles of passive obedience in all possible cases, their scrupulous consciences revolted from a pledge to endeavour no kind of alteration in church and state; an engagement, in its extended sense, irreconcilable with their own principles in religion, and with the civil duties of englishmen. yet to quit the towns where they had long been connected, and where alone they had friends and disciples, for a residence in country villages, was an exclusion from the ordinary means of subsistence. the church of england had doubtless her provocations; but she made the retaliation much more than commensurate to the injury. no severity, comparable to this cold-blooded persecution, had been inflicted by the late powers, even in the ferment and fury of a civil war. encouraged by this easy triumph, the violent party in the house of commons thought it a good opportunity to give the same test a more sweeping application. a bill was brought in imposing this oath upon the whole nation; that is, i presume (for i do not know that its precise nature is anywhere explained), on all persons in any public or municipal trust. this however was lost on a division by a small majority.[ ] it has been remarked that there is no other instance in history, where men have suffered persecution on account of differences, which were admitted by those who inflicted it to be of such small moment. but, supposing this to be true, it only proves, what may perhaps be alleged as a sort of extenuation of these severe laws against nonconformists, that they were merely political, and did not spring from any theological bigotry. sheldon indeed, their great promoter, was so free from an intolerant zeal that he is represented as a man who considered religion chiefly as an engine of policy. the principles of religious toleration had already gained considerable ground over mere bigotry; but were still obnoxious to the arbitrary temper of some politicians, and wanted perhaps experimental proof of their safety to recommend them to the caution of others. there can be no doubt that all laws against dissent and separation from an established church, those even of the inquisition, have proceeded in a greater or less degree from political motives; and these appear to me far less odious than the disinterested rancour of superstition. the latter is very common among the populace, and sometimes among the clergy. thus the presbyterians exclaimed against the toleration of popery, not as dangerous to the protestant establishment, but as a sinful compromise with idolatry; language which, after the first heat of the reformation had abated, was never so current in the anglican church.[ ] in the case of these statutes against nonconformists under charles ii., revenge and fear seem to have been the unmixed passions that excited the church party against those, whose former superiority they remembered, and whose disaffection and hostility it was impossible to doubt.[ ] _dissatisfaction increases._--a joy so excessive and indiscriminating had accompanied the king's restoration, that no prudence or virtue in his government could have averted that reaction of popular sentiment, which inevitably follows the disappointment of unreasonable hope. those who lay their account upon blessings, which no course of political administration can bestow, live, according to the poet's comparison, like the sick man, perpetually changing posture in search of the rest which nature denies; the dupes of successive revolutions, sanguine as children with the novelties of politics, a new constitution, a new sovereign, a new minister, and as angry with the playthings when they fall short of their desires. what then was the discontent that must have ensued upon the restoration of charles ii.? the neglected cavalier, the persecuted presbyterian, the disbanded officer, had each his grievance; and felt that he was either in a worse situation than he had formerly been, or at least than he had expected to be. though there were not the violent acts of military power which had struck every man's eyes under cromwell, it cannot be said that personal liberty was secure, or that the magistrates had not considerable power of oppression, and that pretty unsparingly exercised towards those suspected of disaffection. the religious persecution was not only far more severe than it was ever during the commonwealth, but perhaps more extensively felt than under charles i. though the monthly assessments for the support of the army ceased soon after the restoration, several large grants were made by parliament, especially during the dutch war; and it appears, that in the first seven years of charles ii. the nation paid a greater sum in taxes than in any preceding period of the same duration. if then the people compared the national fruits of their expenditure, what a contrast they found, how deplorable a falling off in public honour and dignity since the days of the magnanimous usurper![ ] they saw with indignation, that dunkirk, acquired by cromwell, had been chaffered away by charles (a transaction justifiable perhaps on the mere balance of profit and loss, but certainly derogatory to the pride of a great nation); that a war, needlessly commenced, had been carried on with much display of bravery in our seamen and their commanders, but no sort of good conduct in the government; and that a petty northern potentate, who would have trembled at the name of the commonwealth, had broken his faith towards us out of mere contempt of our inefficiency. _private life of the king._--these discontents were heightened by the private conduct of charles, if the life of a king can in any sense be private, by a dissoluteness and contempt of moral opinion, which a nation, still in the main grave and religious, could not endure. the austere character of the last king had repressed to a considerable degree the common vices of a court which had gone to a scandalous excess under james. but the cavaliers in general affected a profligacy of manners, as their distinction from the fanatical party, which gained ground among those who followed the king's fortunes in exile, and became more flagrant after the restoration. anecdotes of court excesses, which required not the aid of exaggeration, were in daily circulation through the coffee-houses; those who cared least about the vice, not failing to inveigh against the scandal. it is in the nature of a limited monarchy that men should censure very freely the private likes of their princes, as being more exempt from that immoral servility which blinds itself to the distinctions of right and wrong in elevated rank. and as a voluptuous court will always appear prodigal, because all expense in vice is needless, they had the mortification of believing that the public revenues were wasted on the vilest associates of the king's debauchery. we are however much indebted to the memory of barbara, duchess of cleveland, louisa, duchess of portsmouth, and mrs. eleanor gwyn. we owe a tribute of gratitude to the mays, the killigrews, the chiffinches, and the grammonts. they played a serviceable part in ridding the kingdom of its besotted loyalty. they saved our forefathers from the star-chamber, and the high-commission court; they laboured in their vocation against standing armies and corruption; they pressed forward the great ultimate security of english freedom, the expulsion of the house of stuart.[ ] _opposition in parliament._--among the ardent loyalists who formed the bulk of the present parliament, a certain number of a different class had been returned, not sufficient of themselves to constitute a very effective minority, but of considerable importance as a nucleus, round which the lesser factions that circumstances should produce, might be gathered. long sessions, and a long continuance of the same parliament, have an inevitable tendency to generate a systematic opposition to the measures of the crown, which it requires all vigilance and management to hinder from becoming too powerful. the sense of personal importance, the desire of occupation in business (a very characteristic propensity of the english gentry), the various inducements of private passion and interest, bring forward so many active spirits, that it was, even in that age, as reasonable to expect that the ocean should always be tranquil, as that a house of commons should continue long to do the king's bidding, with any kind of unanimity or submission. nothing can more demonstrate the incompatibility of the tory scheme, which would place the virtual and effective, as well as nominal, administration of the executive government in the sole hands of the crown, with the existence of a representative assembly, than the history of this long parliament of charles ii. none has ever been elected in circumstances so favourable for the crown, none ever brought with it such high notions of prerogative; yet in this assembly a party soon grew up, and gained strength in every successive year, which the king could neither direct nor subdue. the methods of bribery, to which the court had largely recourse, though they certainly diverted some of the measures, and destroyed the character, of this opposition, proved in the end like those dangerous medicines which palliate the instant symptoms of a disease that they aggravate. the leaders of this parliament were, in general, very corrupt men; but they knew better than to quit the power which made them worth purchase. thus the house of commons matured and extended those rights of enquiring into and controlling the management of public affairs, which had caused so much dispute in former times; and, as the exercise of these functions became more habitual, and passed with little or no open resistance from the crown, the people learned to reckon them unquestionable or even fundamental; and were prepared for that more perfect settlement of the constitution on a more republican basis, which took place after the revolution. the reign of charles ii., though displaying some stretches of arbitrary power, and threatening a great deal more, was, in fact, the transitional state between the ancient and modern schemes of the english constitution; between that course of government where the executive power, so far as executive, was very little bounded except by the laws, and that where it can only be carried on, even within its own province, by the consent and co-operation, in a great measure, of the parliament. _appropriation of supplies._--the commons took advantage of the pressure which the war with holland brought on the administration, to establish two very important principles on the basis of their sole right of taxation. the first of these was the appropriation of supplies to limited purposes. this indeed was so far from an absolute novelty, that it found precedents in the reigns of richard ii. and henry iv.; a period when the authority of the house of commons was at a very high pitch. no subsequent instance, i believe, was on record till the year , when the last parliament of james i., at the king's own suggestion, directed their supply for the relief of the palatinate to be paid into the hands of commissioners named by themselves. there were cases of a similar nature in the year , which, though of course they could no longer be upheld as precedents, had accustomed the house to the idea that they had something more to do than simply to grant money, without any security or provision for its application. in the session of , accordingly, an enormous supply, as it then appeared, of £ , , , after one of double that amount in the preceding year, having been voted for the dutch war, sir george downing, one of the tellers of the exchequer, introduced into the subsidy bill a proviso, that the money raised by virtue of that act should be applicable only to the purposes of the war.[ ] clarendon inveighed with fury against this, as an innovation derogatory to the honour of the crown; but the king himself, having listened to some who persuaded him that the money would be advanced more easily upon this better security for speedy repayment, insisted that it should not be thrown out.[ ] that supplies, granted by parliament, are only to be expended for particular objects specified by itself, became, from this time, an undisputed principle, recognised by frequent and at length constant practice. it drew with it the necessity of estimates regularly laid before the house of commons; and, by exposing the management of the public revenues, has given to parliament, not only a real and effective control over an essential branch of the executive administration, but, in some measure, rendered them partakers in it.[ ] _commission of public accounts._--it was a consequence of this right of appropriation, that the house of commons should be able to satisfy itself as to the expenditure of their monies in the services for which they were voted. but they might claim a more extensive function, as naturally derived from their power of opening and closing the public purse, that of investigating the wisdom, faithfulness, and economy with which their grants had been expended. for this too there was some show of precedents in the ancient days of henry iv.; but what undoubtedly had most influence was the recollection, that during the late civil war, and in the times of the commonwealth, the house had superintended, through its committees, the whole receipts and issues of the national treasury. this had not been much practised since the restoration. but in the year , the large cost and indifferent success of the dutch war begetting vehement suspicions, not only of profuseness but of diversion of the public money from its proper purposes, the house appointed a committee to inspect the accounts of the officers of the navy, ordnance, and stores, which were laid before them, as it appears, by the king's direction. this committee after some time, having been probably found deficient in powers, and particularly being incompetent to administer an oath, the house determined to proceed in a more novel and vigorous manner; and sent up a bill, nominating commissioners to inspect the public accounts, who were to possess full powers of enquiry, and to report with respect to such persons as they should find to have broken their trust. the immediate object of this enquiry, so far as appears from lord clarendon's mention of it, was rather to discover whether the treasurers had not issued money without legal warrant than to enter upon the details of its expenditure. but that minister, bigoted to his tory creed of prerogative, thought it the highest presumption for a parliament to intermeddle with the course of government. he spoke of this bill as an encroachment and usurpation that had no limits, and pressed the king to be firm in his resolution never to consent to it.[ ] nor was the king less averse to a parliamentary commission of this nature, as well from a jealousy of its interference with his prerogative, as from a consciousness which clarendon himself suggests, that great sums had been issued by his orders, which could not be put in any public account; that is (for we can give no other interpretation), that the monies granted for the war, and appropriated by statute to that service, had been diverted to supply his wasteful and debauched course of pleasures.[ ] it was the suspicion, or rather private knowledge of this criminal breach of trust, which had led to the bill in question. but such a slave was clarendon to his narrow prepossessions, that he would rather see the dissolute excesses which he abhorred suck nourishment from that revenue which had been allotted to maintain the national honour and interests, and which, by its deficiencies thus aggravated, had caused even in this very year the navy to be laid up, and the coasts to be left defenceless, than suffer them to be restrained by the only power to which thoughtless luxury would submit. he opposed the bill therefore in the house of lords, as he confesses, with much of that intemperate warmth which distinguished him, and with a contempt of the lower house and its authority, as imprudent in respect to his own interests as it was unbecoming and unconstitutional. the king prorogued parliament while the measure was depending; but in hopes to pacify the house of commons, promised to issue a commission under the great seal for the examination of public accountants;[ ] an expedient which was not likely to bring more to light than suited his purpose. but it does not appear that this royal commission, though actually prepared and sealed, was ever carried into effect; for in the ensuing session, the great minister's downfall having occurred in the meantime, the house of commons brought forward again their bill, which passed into a law. it invested the commissioners therein nominated with very extensive and extraordinary powers, both as to auditing public accounts, and investigating the frauds that had taken place in the expenditure of money, and employment of stores. they were to examine upon oath, to summon inquests if they thought fit, to commit persons disobeying their orders to prison without bail, to determine finally on the charge and discharge of all accountants; the barons of the exchequer, upon a certificate of their judgment, were to issue process for recovering money to the king's use, as if there had been an immediate judgment of their own court. reports were to be made of the commissioners' proceedings from time to time to the king and to both houses of parliament. none of the commissioners were members of either house. the king, as may be supposed, gave way very reluctantly to this interference with his expenses. it brought to light a great deal of abuse and misapplication of the public revenues, and contributed doubtless in no small degree to destroy the house's confidence in the integrity of government, and to promote a more jealous watchfulness of the king's designs.[ ] at the next meeting of parliament, in october , sir george carteret, treasurer of the navy, was expelled the house for issuing money without legal warrant. _decline of clarendon's power._--sir edward hyde, whose influence had been almost annihilated in the last years of charles i. through the inveterate hatred of the queen and those who surrounded her, acquired by degrees the entire confidence of the young king, and baffled all the intrigues of his enemies. guided by him, in all serious matters, during the latter years of his exile, charles followed his counsels almost implicitly in the difficult crisis of the restoration. the office of chancellor and the title of earl of clarendon were the proofs of the king's favour; but in effect, through the indolence and ill-health of southampton, as well as their mutual friendship, he was the real minister of the crown.[ ] by the clandestine marriage of his daughter with the duke of york, he changed one brother from an enemy to a sincere and zealous friend, without forfeiting the esteem and favour of the other. and, though he was wise enough to dread the invidiousness of such an elevation, yet for several years it by no means seemed to render his influence less secure.[ ] both in their characters, however, and turn of thinking, there was so little conformity between clarendon and his master, that the continuance of his ascendancy can only be attributed to the power of early habit over the most thoughtless tempers. but it rarely happens that kings do not ultimately shake off these fetters, and release themselves from the sort of subjection which they feel in acting always by the same advisers. charles, acute himself and cool-headed, could not fail to discover the passions and prejudices of his minister, even if he had wanted the suggestion of others who, without reasoning on such broad principles as clarendon, were perhaps his superiors in judging of temporary business. he wished too, as is common, to depreciate a wisdom, and to suspect a virtue, which seemed to reproach his own vice and folly. nor had clarendon spared those remonstrances against the king's course of life, which are seldom borne without impatience or resentment. he was strongly suspected by the king as well as his courtiers (though, according to his own account, without any reason) of having promoted the marriage of miss stewart with the duke of richmond.[ ] but above all he stood in the way of projects, which, though still probably unsettled, were floating in the king's mind. no one was more zealous to uphold the prerogative at a height where it must overtop and chill with its shadow the privileges of the people. no one was more vigilant to limit the functions of parliament, or more desirous to see them confiding and submissive. but there were landmarks which he could never be brought to transgress. he would prepare the road for absolute monarchy, but not introduce it; he would assist to batter down the walls, but not to march into the town. his notions of what the english constitution ought to be, appear evidently to have been derived from the times of elizabeth and james i., to which he frequently refers with approbation. in the history of that age, he found much that could not be reconciled to any liberal principles of government. but there were two things which he certainly did not find; a revenue capable of meeting an extraordinary demand without parliamentary supply, and a standing army. hence he took no pains, if he did not even, as is asserted by burnet, discourage the proposal of others, to obtain such a fixed annual revenue for the king on the restoration, as would have rendered it very rarely necessary to have recourse to parliament,[ ] and did not advise the keeping up any part of the army. that a few troops were retained, was owing to the duke of york. nor did he go the length that was expected in procuring the repeal of all the laws that had been enacted in the long parliament.[ ] these omissions sank deep in charles's heart, especially when he found that he had to deal with an unmanageable house of commons, and must fight the battle for arbitrary power; which might have been achieved, he thought, without a struggle by his minister. there was still less hope of obtaining any concurrence from clarendon in the king's designs as to religion. though he does not once hint at it in his writings, there can be little doubt that he must have suspected his master's inclinations towards the church of rome. the duke of york considered this as the most likely cause of his remissness in not sufficiently advancing the prerogative.[ ] he was always opposed to the various schemes of a general indulgence towards popery, not only from his strongly protestant principles and his dislike of all toleration, but from a prejudice against the body of the english catholics, whom he thought to arrogate more on the ground of merit than they could claim. that interest, so powerful at court, was decidedly hostile to the chancellor; for the duke of york, who strictly adhered to him, if he had not kept his change of religion wholly secret, does not at least seem to have hitherto formed any avowed connection with the popish party.[ ] _loss of the king's favour_--_coalition against clarendon_.--this estrangement of the king's favour is sufficient to account for clarendon's loss of power; but his entire ruin was rather accomplished by a strange coalition of enemies, which his virtues, or his errors and infirmities, had brought into union. the cavaliers hated him on account of the act of indemnity, and the presbyterians for that of uniformity. yet the latter were not in general so eager in his prosecution as the others.[ ] but he owed great part of the severity with which he was treated to his own pride and ungovernable passionateness, by which he had rendered very eminent men in the house of commons implacable, and to the language he had used as to the dignity and privileges of the house itself.[ ] a sense of this eminent person's great talents as well as general integrity and conscientiousness on the one hand, an indignation at the king's ingratitude, and the profligate counsels of those who supplanted him, on the other, have led most writers to overlook his faults in administration, and to treat all the articles of accusation against him as frivolous or unsupported. it is doubtless impossible to justify the charge of high treason, on which he was impeached; but there are matters that never were or could be disproved; and our own knowledge enables us to add such grave accusations as must show clarendon's unfitness for the government of a free country.[ ] . _illegal imprisonments._--it is the fourth article of his impeachment, that he "had advised and procured divers of his majesty's subjects to be imprisoned against law, in remote islands, garrisons, and other places, thereby to prevent them from the benefit of the law, and to produce precedents for the imprisoning any other of his majesty's subjects in like manner." this was undoubtedly true. there was some ground for apprehension on the part of the government from those bold spirits who had been accustomed to revolutions, and drew encouragement from the vices of the court and the embarrassments of the nation. ludlow and algernon sidney, about the year , had projected an insurrection, the latter soliciting louis xiv. and the pensionary of holland for aid.[ ] many officers of the old army, wildman, creed, and others, suspected, perhaps justly, of such conspiracies, had been illegally detained in prison for several years, and only recovered their liberty on clarendon's dismissal.[ ] he had too much encouraged the hateful race of informers, though he admits that it had grown a trade by which men got money, and that many were committed on slight grounds.[ ] thus colonel hutchinson died in the close confinement of a remote prison, far more probably on account of his share in the death of charles i., from which the act of indemnity had discharged him, than any just pretext of treason.[ ] it was difficult to obtain a habeas corpus from some of the judges in this reign. but to elude that provision by removing men out of the kingdom, was such an offence against the constitution as may be thought enough to justify the impeachment of any minister. . the first article, and certainly the most momentous, asserts, "that the earl of clarendon hath designed a standing army to be raised, and to govern the kingdom thereby, and advised the king to dissolve this present parliament, to lay aside all thoughts of parliaments for the future, to govern by a military power, and to maintain the same by free quarter and contribution." this was prodigiously exaggerated; yet there was some foundation for a part of it. in the disastrous summer of , when the dutch fleet had insulted our coasts, and burned our ships in the medway, the exchequer being empty, it was proposed in council to call together immediately the parliament, which then stood prorogued to a day at the distance of some months. clarendon, who feared the hostility of the house of commons towards himself, and had pressed the king to dissolve it, maintained that they could not legally be summoned before the day fixed; and, with a strange inconsistency, attaching more importance to the formalities of law than to its essence, advised that the counties where the troops were quartered should be called upon to send in provisions, and those where there were no troops to contribute money, which should be abated out of the next taxes. and he admits that he might have used the expression of raising contributions, as in the late civil war. this unguarded and unwarrantable language, thrown out at the council-table where some of his enemies were sitting, soon reached the ears of the commons, and, mingled up with the usual misrepresentations of faction, was magnified into a charge of high treason.[ ] . _sale of dunkirk._--the eleventh article charged lord clarendon with having advised and effected the sale of dunkirk to the french king, being part of his majesty's dominions, for no greater value than the ammunition, artillery, and stores were worth. the latter part is generally asserted to be false. the sum received is deemed the utmost that louis would have given, who thought he had made a hard bargain. but it is very difficult to reconcile what clarendon asserts in his defence, and much more at length in his life (that the business of dunkirk was entirely decided before he had anything to do in it, by the advice of albemarle and sandwich), with the letters of d'estrades, the negotiator in this transaction on the part of france. in these letters, written at the time to louis xiv., clarendon certainly appears not only as the person chiefly concerned, but as representing himself almost the only one of the council favourable to the measure, and having to overcome the decided repugnance of southampton, sandwich, and albemarle.[ ] i cannot indeed see any other explanation than that he magnified the obstacles in the way of this treaty, in order to obtain better terms; a management, not very unusual in diplomatical dealing, but, in the degree at least to which he carried it, scarcely reconcilable with the good faith we should expect from this minister. for the transaction itself, we can hardly deem it honourable or politic. the expense of keeping up dunkirk, though not trifling, would have been willingly defrayed by parliament; and could not well be pleaded by a government which had just encumbered itself with the useless burthen of tangier. that its possession was of no great direct value to england must be confessed; but it was another question whether it ought to have been surrendered into the hands of france. . this close connection with france is indeed a great reproach to clarendon's policy, and was the spring of mischiefs to which he contributed, and which he ought to have foreseen. what were the motives of these strong professions of attachment to the interests of louis xiv. which he makes in some of his letters, it is difficult to say, since he had undoubtedly an ancient prejudice against that nation and its government. i should incline to conjecture that his knowledge of the king's unsoundness in religion led him to keep at a distance from the court of spain, as being far more zealous in its popery, and more connected with the jesuit faction, than that of france; and this possibly influenced him also with respect to the portuguese match, wherein, though not the first adviser, he certainly took much interest; an alliance as little judicious in the outset, as it proved eventually fortunate.[ ] but the capital misdemeanour that he committed in this relation with france was the clandestine solicitation of pecuniary aid for the king. he first taught a lavish prince to seek the wages of dependence in a foreign power, to elude the control of parliament by the help of french money.[ ] the purpose for which this aid was asked, the succour of portugal, might be fair and laudable; but the precedent was most base, dangerous, and abominable. a king who had once tasted the sweets of dishonest and clandestine lucre would, in the words of the poet, be no more capable afterwards of abstaining from it, than a dog from his greasy offal. _clarendon's faults as a minister._--these are the errors of clarendon's political life; which, besides his notorious concurrence in all measures of severity and restraint towards the nonconformists, tend to diminish our respect from his memory, and to exclude his name from that list of great and wise ministers, where some are willing to place him near the head. if i may seem to my readers less favourable to so eminent a person than common history might warrant, it is at least to be said that i have formed my decision from his own recorded sentiments, or from equally undisputable sources of authority. the publication of his life, that is, of the history of his administration, has not contributed to his honour. we find in it little or nothing of that attachment to the constitution for which he had acquired credit, and some things which we must struggle hard to reconcile with his veracity, even if the suppression of truth is not to be reckoned an impeachment of it in an historian.[ ] but the manifest profligacy of those who contributed most to his ruin, and the measures which the court took soon afterwards, have rendered his administration comparatively honourable, and attached veneration to his memory. we are unwilling to believe that there was anything to censure in a minister, whom buckingham persecuted, and against whom arlington intrigued.[ ] a distinguished characteristic of clarendon had been his firmness, called indeed by most pride and obstinacy, which no circumstances, no perils, seemed likely to bend. but his spirit sunk all at once with his fortune. clinging too long to office, and cheating himself against all probability with a hope of his master's kindness when he had lost his confidence, he abandoned that dignified philosophy which ennobles a voluntary retirement, that stern courage which innocence ought to inspire; and hearkening to the king's treacherous counsels, fled before his enemies into a foreign country. though the impeachment, at least in the point of high treason, cannot be defended, it is impossible to deny that the act of banishment, under the circumstances of his flight, was capable, in the main, of full justification. in an ordinary criminal suit, a process of outlawry goes against the accused who flies from justice; and his neglect to appear within a given time is equivalent, in cases of treason or felony, to a conviction of the offence; can it be complained of, that a minister of state, who dares not confront a parliamentary impeachment, should be visited with an analogous penalty? but, whatever injustice and violence may be found in this prosecution, it established for ever the right of impeachment, which the discredit into which the long parliament had fallen exposed to some hazard; the strong abettors of prerogative, such as clarendon himself, being inclined to dispute this responsibility of the king's advisers to parliament. the commons had, in the preceding session, sent up an impeachment against lord mordaunt, upon charges of so little public moment, that they may be suspected of having chiefly had in view the assertion of this important privilege.[ ] it was never called in question from this time; and indeed they took care during the remainder of this reign, that it should not again be endangered by a paucity of precedents.[ ] _cabal ministry._--the period between the fall of clarendon in , and the commencement of lord danby's administration in , is generally reckoned one of the most disgraceful in the annals of our monarchy. this was the age of what is usually denominated the cabal administration, from the five initial letters of sir thomas clifford, first commissioner of the treasury, afterwards lord clifford and high treasurer, the earl of arlington, secretary of state, the duke of buckingham, lord ashley, chancellor of the exchequer, afterwards earl of shaftesbury and lord chancellor, and lastly, the duke of lauderdale. yet, though the counsels of these persons soon became extremely pernicious and dishonourable, it must be admitted that the first measures after the banishment of clarendon, both in domestic and foreign policy, were highly praiseworthy. bridgeman, who succeeded the late chancellor in the custody of the great seal, with the assistance of chief baron hale and bishop wilkins, and at the instigation of buckingham, who, careless about every religion, was from humanity or politic motives friendly to the indulgence of all, laid the foundations of a treaty with the nonconformists, on the basis of a comprehension for the presbyterians, and a toleration for the rest.[ ] they had nearly come, it is said, to terms of agreement, so that it was thought time to intimate their design in a speech from the throne. but the spirit of was still too powerful in the commons; and the friends of clarendon, whose administration this change of counsels seemed to reproach, taking a warm part against all indulgence, a motion that the king be desired to send for such persons as he should think fit to make proposals to him in order to the uniting of his protestant subjects, was negatived by to .[ ] they proceeded, by almost an equal majority, to continue the bill of , for suppressing seditious conventicles; which failed however for the present, in consequence of the sudden prorogation.[ ] _triple alliance._--but whatever difference of opinion might at that time prevail with respect to this tolerant disposition of the new government, there was none as to their great measure in external policy, the triple alliance with holland and sweden. a considerable and pretty sudden change had taken place in the temper of the english people towards france. though the discordance of national character, and the dislike that seems natural to neighbours, as well as in some measure the recollections of their ancient hostility, had at all times kept up a certain ill-will between the two, it is manifest that before the reign of charles ii. there was not that antipathy and inveterate enmity towards the french in general, which it has since been deemed an act of patriotism to profess. the national prejudices, from the accession of elizabeth to the restoration, ran far more against spain; and it is not surprising that the apprehensions of that ambitious monarchy, which had been very just in the age of philip ii., should have lasted longer than its ability or inclination to molest us. but the rapid declension of spain, after the peace of the pyrenees, and the towering ambition of louis xiv., master of a kingdom intrinsically so much more formidable than its rival, manifested that the balance of power in europe, and our own immediate security, demanded a steady opposition to the aggrandisement of one monarchy, and a regard to the preservation of the other. these indeed were rather considerations for statesmen than for the people; but louis was become unpopular both by his acquisition of dunkirk at the expense, as it was thought, of our honour, and much more deservedly by his shuffling conduct in the dutch war, and union in it with our adversaries. nothing therefore gave greater satisfaction in england than the triple alliance, and consequent peace of aix la chapelle, which saved the spanish netherlands from absolute conquest, though not without important sacrifices.[ ] _intrigue with france._--charles himself meanwhile by no means partook in this common jealousy of france. he had, from the time of his restoration, entered into close relations with that power, which a short period of hostility had interrupted without leaving any resentment in his mind. it is now known that, while his minister was negotiating at the hague for the triple alliance, he had made overtures for a clandestine treaty with louis, through his sister the duchess of orleans, the duke of buckingham, and the french ambassador rouvigny.[ ] as the king of france was at first backward in meeting these advances, and the letters published in regard to them are very few, we do not find any precise object expressed beyond a close and intimate friendship. but a few words in a memorial of rouvigny to louis xiv. seem to let us into the secret of the real purpose. "the duke of york," he says, "wishes much for this union; the duke of buckingham the same: they use no art, but say that nothing else can re-establish the affairs of this court."[ ] _king's desire to be absolute._--charles ii. was not of a temperament to desire arbitrary power, either through haughtiness and conceit of his station, which he did not greatly display, or through the love of taking into his own hands the direction of public affairs, about which he was in general pretty indifferent. he did not wish, as he told lord essex, to sit like a turkish sultan, and sentence men to the bowstring, but could not bear that a set of fellows should enquire into his conduct.[ ] his aim, in fact, was liberty rather than power; it was that immunity from control and censure, in which men of his character place a great part of their happiness. for some years he had cared probably very little about enhancing his prerogative, content with the loyalty, though not quite with the liberality, of his parliament. and had he not been drawn, against his better judgment, into the war with holland, this harmony might perhaps have been protracted a good deal longer. but the vast expenditure of that war, producing little or no decisive success, and coming unfortunately at a time when trade was not very thriving, and when rents had considerably fallen, exasperated all men against the prodigality of the court, to which they might justly ascribe part of their burthens, and, with the usual miscalculations, believed that much more of them was due. hence the bill appointing commissioners of public account, so ungrateful to the king, whose personal reputation it was likely to affect, and whose favourite excesses it might tend to restrain. he was almost equally provoked by the licence of his people's tongues. a court like that of charles is the natural topic of the idle, as well as the censorious. an administration so ill-conducted could not escape the remarks of a well-educated and intelligent city. there was one method of putting an end to these impertinent comments, or of rendering them innoxious; but it was the last which he would have adopted. clarendon informs us that the king one day complaining of the freedom, as to political conversation, taken in coffee-houses, he recommended either that all persons should be forbidden by proclamation to resort to them, or that spies should be placed in them to give information against seditious speakers.[ ] the king, he says, liked both expedients; but thought it unfair to have recourse to the latter till the former had given fair warning, and directed him to propose it to the council; but here, sir william coventry objecting, the king was induced to abandon the measure, much to clarendon's disappointment, though it probably saved him an additional article in his impeachment. the unconstitutional and arbitrary tenor of this great minister's notions of government is strongly displayed in this little anecdote. coventry was an enlightened, and, for that age, an upright man, whose enmity clarendon brought on himself by a marked jealousy of his abilities in council. those who stood nearest to the king were not backward to imitate his discontent at the privileges of his people and their representatives. the language of courtiers and court-ladies is always intolerable to honest men, especially that of such courtiers as surrounded the throne of charles ii. it is worst of all amidst public calamities, such as pressed very closely on one another in a part of his reign; the awful pestilence of , the still more ruinous fire of , the fleet burned by the dutch in the medway next summer. no one could reproach the king for outward inactivity or indifference during the great fire. but there were some, as clarendon tells us, who presumed to assure him, "that this was the greatest blessing that god had ever conferred on him, his restoration only excepted; for the walls and gates being now burned and thrown down of that rebellious city, which was always an enemy to the crown, his majesty would never suffer them to repair and build them up again, to be a bit in his mouth and a bridle upon his neck; but would keep all open, that his troops might enter upon them whenever he thought it necessary for his service; there being no other way to govern that rude multitude but by force."[ ] this kind of discourse, he goes on to say, did not please the king. but here we may venture to doubt his testimony; or, if the natural good temper of charles prevented him from taking pleasure in such atrocious congratulations, we may be sure that he was not sorry to think the city more in his power. it seems probable that this loose and profligate way of speaking gave rise, in a great degree, to the suspicion that the city had been purposely burned by those who were more enemies to religion and liberty than to the court. the papists stood ready to bear the infamy of every unproved crime; and a committee of the house of commons collected evidence enough for those who were already convinced, that london had been burned by that obnoxious sect. though the house did not proceed farther, there can be no doubt that the enquiry contributed to produce that inveterate distrust of the court, whose connections with the popish faction were half known, half conjectured, which gave from this time an entirely new complexion to the parliament. prejudiced as the commons were, they could hardly have imagined the catholics to have burned the city out of mere malevolence; but must have attributed the crime to some far-spreading plan of subverting the established constitution.[ ] the retention of the king's guards had excited some jealousy, though no complaints seem to have been made of it in parliament; but the sudden levy of a considerable force in , however founded upon a very plausible pretext from the circumstances of the war, lending credit to these dark surmises of the court's sinister designs, gave much greater alarm. the commons, summoned together in july, instantly addressed the king to disband his army as soon as peace should be made. we learn from the duke of york's private memoirs that some of those who were most respected for their ancient attachment to liberty, deemed it in jeopardy at this crisis. the earls of northumberland and leicester, lord hollis, mr. pierrepont, and others of the old parliamentary party, met to take measures together. the first of these told the duke of york that the nation would not be satisfied with the removal of the chancellor, unless the guards were disbanded, and several other grievances redressed. the duke bade him be cautious what he said, lest he should be obliged to inform the king; but northumberland replied that it was his intention to repeat the same to the king, which he did accordingly the next day.[ ] this change in public sentiment gave warning to charles that he could not expect to reign with as little trouble as he had hitherto experienced; and doubtless the recollection of his father's history did not contribute to cherish the love he sometimes pretended for parliaments. his brother, more reflecting and more impatient of restraint on royal authority, saw with still greater clearness than the king, that they could only keep the prerogative at its desired height by means of intimidation. a regular army was indispensable; but to keep up an army in spite of parliament, or to raise money for its support without parliament, were very difficult undertakings. it seemed necessary to call in a more powerful arm than their own; and, by establishing the closest union with the king of france, to obtain either military or pecuniary succours from him, as circumstances might demand. but there was another and not less imperious motive for a secret treaty. the king, as has been said, though little likely, from the tenor of his life, to feel very strong and lasting impressions of religion, had at times a desire to testify publicly his adherence to the romish communion. the duke of york had come more gradually to change the faith in which he was educated. he describes it as the result of patient and anxious enquiry; nor would it be possible therefore to fix a precise date for his conversion, which seems to have been not fully accomplished till after the restoration.[ ] he however continued in conformity to the church of england; till, on discovering that the catholic religion exacted an outward communion, which he had fancied not indispensable, he became more uneasy at the restraint that policy imposed on him. this led to a conversation with the king, of whose private opinions and disposition to declare them he was probably informed, and to a close union with clifford and arlington, from whom he had stood aloof on account of their animosity against clarendon. the king and duke held a consultation with those two ministers, and with lord arundel of wardour, on the th of january , to discuss the ways and methods fit to be taken for the advancement of the catholic religion in these kingdoms. the king spoke earnestly, and with tears in his eyes. after a long deliberation, it was agreed that there was no better way to accomplish this purpose than through france; the house of austria being in no condition to give any assistance.[ ] _secret treaty of ._--the famous secret treaty, which, though believed on pretty good evidence not long after the time, was first actually brought to light by dalrymple about half a century since, began to be negotiated very soon after this consultation.[ ] we find allusions to the king's projects in one of his letters to the duchess of orleans, dated nd march .[ ] in another of june , the methods he was adopting to secure himself in this perilous juncture appear. he was to fortify plymouth, hull, and portsmouth, and to place them in trusty hands. the fleet was under the duke, as lord admiral; the guards and their officers were thought in general well affected;[ ] but his great reliance was on the most christian king. he stipulated for £ , annually, and for the aid of french troops.[ ] in return for such important succour, charles undertook to serve his ally's ambition and wounded pride against the united provinces. these, when conquered by the french arms, with the co-operation of an english navy, were already shared by the royal conspirators. a part of zealand fell to the lot of england, the remainder of the seven provinces to france, with an understanding that some compensation should be made to the prince of orange. in the event of any new rights to the spanish monarchy accruing to the most christian king, as it is worded (that is, on the death of the king of spain, a sickly child), it was agreed that england should assist him with all her force by sea and land, but at his own expense; and should obtain, not only ostend and minorca, but, as far as the king of france could contribute to it, such parts of spanish america as she should choose to conquer.[ ] so strange a scheme of partitioning that vast inheritance was never, i believe, suspected till the publication of the treaty; though bolingbroke had alluded to a previous treaty of partition between louis and the emperor leopold, the complete discovery of which has been but lately made.[ ] _differences between charles and louis as to the mode of the execution of the treaty._--each conspirator, in his coalition against the protestant faith and liberties of europe, had splendid objects in view; but those of louis seemed by far the more probable of the two, and less liable to be defeated. the full completion of their scheme would have re-united a great kingdom to the catholic religion, and turned a powerful neighbour into a dependent pensioner. but should this fail (and louis was too sagacious not to discern the chances of failure), he had pledged to him the assistance of an ally in subjugating the republic of holland, which, according to all human calculation, could not withstand their united efforts; nay, even in those ulterior projects which his restless and sanguine ambition had ever in view, and the success of which would have realised, not indeed the chimera of an universal monarchy, but a supremacy and dictatorship over europe. charles, on the other hand, besides that he had no other return to make for the necessary protection of france, was impelled by a personal hatred of the dutch, and by the consciousness that their commonwealth was the standing reproach of arbitrary power, to join readily in the plan for its subversion. but, looking first to his own objects, and perhaps a little distrustful of his ally, he pressed that his profession of the roman catholic religion should be the first measure in prosecution of the treaty; and that he should immediately receive the stipulated £ , , or at least a part of the money. louis insisted that the declaration of war against holland should precede. this difference occasioned a considerable delay; and it was chiefly with a view of bringing round her brother on this point, that the duchess of orleans took her famous journey to dover in the spring of . yet, notwithstanding her influence, which passed for irresistible, he persisted in adhering to the right reserved to him in the draft of the treaty, of choosing his own time for the declaration of his religion, and it was concluded on this footing at dover, by clifford, arundel, and arlington, on the nd of may , during the visit of the duchess of orleans.[ ] a mutual distrust, however, retarded the further progress of this scheme; one party unwilling to commit himself till he should receive money, the other too cautious to run the risk of throwing it away. there can be no question but that the king of france was right in urging the conquest of holland as a preliminary of the more delicate business they were to manage in england; and, from charles's subsequent behaviour, as well as his general fickleness and love of ease, there seems reason to believe that he would gladly have receded from an undertaking of which he must every day have more strongly perceived the difficulties. he confessed, in fact, to louis's ambassador, that he was almost the only man in his kingdom who liked a french alliance.[ ] the change of religion, on a nearer view, appeared dangerous for himself, and impracticable as a national measure. he had not dared to intrust any of his protestant ministers, even buckingham, whose indifference in such points was notorious, with this great secret; and, to keep them the better in the dark, a mock negotiation was set on foot with france, and a pretended treaty actually signed, the exact counterpart of the other, except as to religion. buckingham, shaftesbury, and lauderdale were concerned in this simulated treaty, the negotiation for which did not commence till after the original convention had been signed at dover.[ ] the court of france having yielded to charles the point about which he had seemed so anxious, had soon the mortification to discover that he would take no steps to effect it. they now urged that immediate declaration of his religion, which they had for very wise reasons not long before dissuaded. the king of england hung back, and tried so many excuses, that they had reason to suspect his sincerity; not that in fact he had played a feigned part from the beginning, but his zeal for popery having given way to the seductions of a voluptuous and indolent life, he had been led, with the good sense he naturally possessed, to form a better estimate of his resources and of the opposition he must encounter. meanwhile the eagerness of his ministers had plunged the nation into war with holland; and louis, having attained his principal end, ceased to trouble the king on the subject of religion. he received large sums from france during the dutch war.[ ] this memorable transaction explains and justifies the strenuous opposition made in parliament to the king and duke of york, and may be reckoned the first act of a drama which ended in the revolution. it is true that the precise terms of this treaty were not authentically known; but there can be no doubt that those who from this time displayed an insuperable jealousy of one brother, and a determined enmity to the other, had proofs, enough for moral conviction, of their deep conspiracy with france against religion and liberty. this suspicion is implied in all the conduct of that parliamentary opposition, and is the apology of much that seems violence and faction, especially in the business of the popish plot and the bill of exclusion. it is of importance also to observe that james ii. was not misled and betrayed by false or foolish counsellors, as some would suggest, in his endeavours to subvert the laws, but acted on a plan, long since concerted, and in which he had taken a principal share. it must be admitted that neither in the treaty itself nor in the few letters which have been published by dalrymple, do we find any explicit declaration, either that the catholic religion was to be established as the national church, or arbitrary power introduced in england. but there are not wanting strong presumptions of this design. the king speaks, in a letter to his sister, of finding means to put the proprietors of church lands out of apprehension.[ ] he uses the expression, "rétablir la religion catholique;" which, though not quite unequivocal, seems to convey more than a bare toleration, or a personal profession by the sovereign.[ ] he talks of a negotiation with the court of rome to obtain the permission of having mass in the vulgar tongue and communion in both kinds, as terms that would render his conversion agreeable to his subjects.[ ] he tells the french ambassador, that not only his conscience, but the confusion he saw every day increasing in his kingdom, to the diminution of his authority, impelled him to declare himself a catholic; which, besides the spiritual advantage, he believed to be the only means of restoring the monarchy. these passages, as well as the precautions taken in expectation of a vigorous resistance from a part of the nation, appear to intimate a formal re-establishment of the catholic church; a measure connected, in the king's apprehension, if not strictly with arbitrary power, yet with a very material enhancement of his prerogative. for the profession of an obnoxious faith by the king, as an insulated person, would, instead of strengthening his authority, prove the greatest obstacle to it; as, in the next reign, turned out to be the case. charles, however, and the duke of york deceived themselves into a confidence that the transition could be effected with no extraordinary difficulty. the king knew the prevailing laxity of religious principles in many about his court, and thought he had reason to rely on others as secretly catholic. sunderland is mentioned as a young man of talent, inclined to adopt that religion.[ ] even the earl of orrery is spoken of as a catholic in his heart.[ ] the duke, who conversed more among divines, was led to hope, from the strange language of the high-church party, that they might readily be persuaded to make what seemed no long step, and come into easy terms of union.[ ] it was the constant policy of the romish priests to extenuate the differences between the two churches, and to throw the main odium of the schism on the calvinistic sects. and many of the anglicans, in their abhorrence of protestant nonconformists, played into the hands of the common enemy. _fresh severities against dissenters._--the court, however, entertained great hopes from the depressed condition of the dissenters, whom it was intended to bribe with that toleration under a catholic regimen, which they could so little expect from the church of england. hence the duke of york was always strenuous against schemes of comprehension, which would invigorate the protestant interest and promote conciliation. with the opposite view of rendering a union among protestants impracticable, the rigorous episcopalians were encouraged underhand to prosecute the nonconformists.[ ] the duke of york took pains to assure owen, an eminent divine of the independent persuasion, that he looked on all persecution as an unchristian thing, and altogether against his conscience.[ ] yet the court promoted a renewal of the temporary act, passed in against conventicles, which was reinforced by the addition of an extraordinary proviso, that all clauses in the act should be construed most largely and beneficially for suppressing conventicles, and for the justification and encouragement of all persons to be employed in the execution thereof.[ ] wilkins, the most honest of the bishops, opposed this act in the house of lords, notwithstanding the king's personal request that he would be silent.[ ] sheldon and others, who, like him, disgraced the church of england by their unprincipled policy or their passions, not only gave it their earnest support at the time, but did all in their power to enforce its execution.[ ] as the king's temper was naturally tolerant, his co-operation in this severe measure would not easily be understood, without the explanation that a knowledge of his secret policy enables us to give. in no long course of time the persecution was relaxed, the imprisoned ministers set at liberty, some of the leading dissenters received pensions, and the king's declaration of a general indulgence held forth an asylum from the law under the banner of prerogative.[ ] though this is said to have proceeded from the advice of shaftesbury, who had no concern in the original secret treaty with france, it was completely in the spirit of that compact, and must have been acceptable to the king. but the factious, fanatical, republican party (such were the usual epithets of the court at the time, such have ever since been applied by the advocates or apologists of the stuarts), had gradually led away by their delusions that parliament of cavaliers; or, in other words, the glaring vices of the king, and the manifestation of designs against religion and liberty, had dispossessed them of a confiding loyalty, which, though highly dangerous from its excess, had always been rather ardent than servile. the sessions had been short, and the intervals of repeated prorogations much longer than usual; a policy not well calculated for that age, where the growing discontents and suspicions of the people acquired strength by the stoppage of the regular channel of complaint. yet the house of commons, during this period, though unmanageable on the one point of toleration, had displayed no want of confidence in the king nor any animosity towards his administration; notwithstanding the flagrant abuses in the expenditure, which the parliamentary commission of public accounts had brought to light, and the outrageous assault on sir john coventry; a crime notoriously perpetrated by persons employed by the court, and probably by the king's direct order.[ ] _dutch war._--the war with holland at the beginning of , so repugnant to english interests, so unwarranted by any provocation, so infamously piratical in its commencement, so ominous of further schemes still more dark and dangerous, finally opened the eyes of all men of integrity. it was accompanied by the shutting up of the exchequer, an avowed bankruptcy at the moment of beginning an expensive war,[ ] and by the declaration of indulgence, or suspension of all penal laws in religion; an assertion of prerogative which seemed without limit. these exorbitances were the more scandalous, that they happened during a very long prorogation. hence the court so lost the confidence of the house of commons, that, with all the lavish corruption of the following period, it could never regain a secure majority on any important question. the superiority of what was called the country party is referred to the session of february , in which they compelled the king to recall his proclamation suspending the penal laws, and raised a barrier against the encroachments of popery in the test act. _declaration of indulgence._--the king's declaration of indulgence had been projected by shaftesbury, in order to conciliate or lull to sleep the protestant dissenters. it redounded, in its immediate effect, chiefly to their benefit; the catholics already enjoying a connivance at the private exercise of their religion, and the declaration expressly refusing them public places of worship. the plan was most laudable in itself, could we separate the motives which prompted it, and the means by which it was pretended to be made effectual. but in the declaration the king says, "we think ourselves obliged to make use of that supreme power in ecclesiastical matters, which is not only inherent in us, but hath been declared and recognised to be so by several statutes and acts of parliament." "we do," he says, not long afterwards, "declare our will and pleasure to be, that the execution of all and all manner of penal laws in matters ecclesiastical, against whatsoever sort of nonconformists or recusants, be immediately suspended, and they are hereby suspended." he mentions also his intention to license a certain number of places for the religious worship of nonconforming protestants.[ ] it was generally understood to be an ancient prerogative of the crown to dispense with penal statutes in favour of particular persons, and under certain restrictions. it was undeniable, that the king might, by what is called a "noli prosequi," stop any criminal prosecution commenced in his courts, though not an action for the recovery of a pecuniary penalty, which, by many statutes, was given to the common informer. he might of course set at liberty, by means of a pardon, any person imprisoned, whether upon conviction or by a magistrate's warrant. thus the operation of penal statutes in religion might in a great measure be rendered ineffectual, by an exercise of undisputed prerogatives; and thus, in fact, the catholics had been enabled, since the accession of the house of stuart, to withstand the crushing severity of the laws. but a pretension, in explicit terms, to suspend a body of statutes, a command to magistrates not to put them in execution, arrogated a sort of absolute power, which no benefits of the indulgence itself (had they even been less insidiously offered) could induce a lover of constitutional privileges to endure.[ ] notwithstanding the affected distinction of temporal and ecclesiastical matters, it was evident that the king's supremacy was as much capable of being bounded by the legislature in one as in the other, and that every law in the statute-book might be repealed by a similar proclamation. the house of commons voted that the king's prerogative, in matters ecclesiastical, does not extend to repeal acts of parliament; and addressed the king to recall his declaration. whether from a desire to protect the nonconformists in a toleration even illegally obtained, or from the influence of buckingham among some of the leaders of opposition, it appears from the debates that many of those, who had been in general most active against the court, resisted this vote, which was carried by to . the king, in his answer to this address, lamented that the house should question his ecclesiastical power, which had never been done before. this brought on a fresh rebuke; and, in a second address they positively deny the king's right to suspend any law. "the legislative power," they say, "has always been acknowledged to reside in the king and two houses of parliament." the king, in a speech to the house of lords, complained much of the opposition made by the commons; and found a majority of the former disposed to support him, though both houses concurred in an address against the growth of popery. at length, against the advice of the bolder part of his council, but certainly with a just sense of what he most valued, his ease of mind, charles gave way to the public voice, and withdrew his declaration.[ ] there was indeed a line of policy indicated at this time, which, though intolerable to the bigotry and passion of the house, would best have foiled the schemes of the ministry; a legislative repeal of all the penal statutes both against the catholic and the protestant dissenter, as far as regarded the exercise of their religion. it must be evident to any impartial man that the unrelenting harshness of parliament, from whom no abatement, even in the sanguinary laws against the priests of the romish church, had been obtained, had naturally, and almost irresistibly, driven the members of that persuasion into the camp of prerogative, and even furnished a pretext for that continual intrigue and conspiracy, which was carried on in the court of charles ii., as it had been in that of his father. a genuine toleration would have put an end to much of this; but, in the circumstances of that age, it could not have been safely granted without an exclusion from those public trusts, which were to be conferred by a sovereign in whom no trust could be reposed. the act of supremacy, in the first year of elizabeth, had imposed on all, accepting temporal as well as ecclesiastical offices, an oath denying the spiritual jurisdiction of the pope. but, though the refusal of this oath, when tendered, incurred various penalties, yet it does not appear that any were attached to its neglect, or that the oath was a previous qualification for the enjoyment of office, as it was made by a subsequent act of the same reign for sitting in the house of commons. it was found also by experience that persons attached to the roman doctrine sometimes made use of strained constructions to reconcile the oath of supremacy to their faith. nor could that test be offered to peers, who were accepted by a special provision. _test act._--for these several reasons a more effectual security against popish counsellors, at least in notorious power, was created by the famous test act of , which renders the reception of the sacrament according to the rites of the church of england, and a declaration renouncing the doctrine of transubstantiation, preliminary conditions without which no temporal office of trust can be enjoyed.[ ] in this fundamental article of faith, no compromise or equivocation would be admitted by any member of the church of rome. and, as the obligation extended to the highest ranks, this reached the end for which it was immediately designed; compelling, not only the lord-treasurer clifford, the boldest and most dangerous of that party, to retire from public business, but the duke of york himself, whose desertion of the protestant church was hitherto not absolutely undisguised, to quit the post of lord admiral.[ ] it is evident that a test might have been framed to exclude the roman catholic as effectually as the present, without bearing like this on the protestant nonconformist. but, though the preamble of the bill, and the whole history of the transaction, show that the main object was a safeguard against popery, it is probable that a majority of both houses liked it the better for this secondary effect of shutting out the presbyterians still more than had been done by previous statutes of this reign. there took place however a remarkable coalition between the two parties; and many who had always acted as high-church men and cavaliers, sensible at last of the policy of their common adversaries, renounced a good deal of the intolerance and bigotry that had characterised the present parliament. the dissenters, with much prudence or laudable disinterestedness, gave their support to the test act. in return, a bill was brought in, and, after some debate, passed to the lords, repealing in a considerable degree the persecuting laws against their worship.[ ] the upper house, perhaps insidiously, returned it with amendments more favourable to the dissenters, and insisted upon them, after a conference.[ ] a sudden prorogation very soon put an end to this bill, which was as unacceptable to the court as it was to the zealots of the church of england. it had been intended to follow it up by another, excluding all who should not conform to the established church from serving in the house of commons.[ ] it may appear remarkable that, as if content with these provisions, the victorious country party did not remonstrate against the shutting up of the exchequer, nor even wage any direct war against the king's advisers. they voted, on the contrary, a large supply, which, as they did not choose explicitly to recognise the dutch war, was expressed to be granted for the king's extraordinary occasions.[ ] this moderation, which ought at least to rescue them from the charges of faction and violence, has been censured by some as servile and corrupt; and would really incur censure, if they had not attained the great object of breaking the court measures by other means. but the test act, and their steady protestation against the suspending prerogative, crushed the projects and dispersed the members of the cabal. the king had no longer any minister on whom he could rely, and, with his indolent temper, seems from this time, if not to have abandoned all hope of declaring his change of religion, yet to have seen both that and his other favourite projects postponed without much reluctance. from a real predilection, from the prospect of gain, and partly, no doubt, from some distant views of arbitrary power and a catholic establishment, he persevered a long time in clinging secretly to the interests of france; but his active co-operation in the schemes of was at an end. in the next session of october , the commons drove buckingham from the king's councils; they intimidated arlington into a change of policy; and, though they did not succeed in removing the duke of lauderdale, compelled him to confine himself chiefly to the affairs of scotland.[ ] footnotes: [ ] _life of clarendon_, p. . [ ] _clar. state papers_, iii. , . in fact, very few of them were likely to be of use; and the exception made his general offers appear more sincere. [ ] _clar. hist. of rebellion_, vii. . ludlow says that fairfax and northumberland were positively against the punishment of the regicides (vol. iii. p. ); and that monk vehemently declared at first against any exceptions, and afterwards prevailed on the house to limit them to seven. p. . though ludlow was not in england, this seems very probable, and is confirmed by other authority as to monk. fairfax, who had sat one day himself on the king's trial, could hardly with decency concur in the punishment of those who went on. [ ] journals, may . [ ] june , , . the first seven were scott, holland, lisle, barkstead, harrison, say, jones. they went on to add coke, broughton, dendy. [ ] these were lenthall, vane, burton, keble, st. john, ireton, haslerig, sydenham, desborough, axtell, lambert, pack, blackwell, fleetwood, pyne, dean, creed, nye, goodwin, and cobbet; some of them rather insignificant names. upon the words that "twenty and no more" be so excepted, two divisions took place, to , and to ; the presbyterians being the majority. june . two other divisions took place on the names of lenthall, carried by to , and of whitelock, lost by to . another motion was made afterwards against whitelock by prynne. milton was ordered to be prosecuted separately from the twenty; so that they already broke their resolution. he was put in custody of the serjeant-at-arms, and released, december . andrew marvell, his friend, soon afterwards complained that fees to the amount of pounds had been extorted from him; but finch answered that milton had been cromwell's secretary, and deserved hanging. _parl. hist._ p. . lenthall had taken some share in the restoration, and entered into correspondence with the king's advisers a little before. _clar. state papers_, iii. , . kennet's _register_, . but the royalists never could forgive his having put the question to the vote on the ordinance for trying the late king. [ ] june . this was carried without a division. eleven were afterwards excepted by name, as not having rendered themselves. july . [ ] july . [ ] the worst and most odious of their proceedings, quite unworthy of a christian and civilised assembly, was to give the next relations of the four peers who had been executed under the commonwealth, hamilton, holland, capel, and derby, the privilege of naming each one person (among the regicides) to be executed. this was done in the three last instances; but lord denbigh, as hamilton's kinsman, nominated one who was dead; and, on this being pointed out to him, refused to fix on another. journal, aug. ; ludlow, iii. . [ ] lord southampton, according to ludlow, actually moved this in the house of lords, but was opposed by finch, iii. . [ ] clarendon uses some shameful chicanery about this (_life_, p. ); and with that inaccuracy, to say the least, so habitual to him, says, "the parliament had published a proclamation, that all who did not render themselves by a day named should be judged as guilty, and attainted of treason." the proclamation was published by the king, on the suggestion indeed of the lords and commons, and the expressions were what i have stated in the text. _state trials_, v. ; _somers tracts_, vii. . it is obvious that by this mis-representation he not only throws the blame of ill faith off the king's shoulders, but puts the case of those who obeyed the proclamation on a very different footing. the king, it seems, had always expected that none of the regicides should be spared. but why did he publish such a proclamation? clarendon, however, seems to have been against the other exceptions from the bill of indemnity, as contrary to some expressions in the declaration from breda, which had been inserted by monk's advice; and thus wisely and honourably got rid of the twenty exceptions, which had been sent up from the commons. p. . the lower house resolved to agree with the lords as to those twenty persons, or rather sixteen of them, by to , hollis and morrice telling the ayes. [ ] stat. car. ii. c. . [ ] these were, in the first instance, harrison, scott, scrope, jones, clement, carew, all of whom had signed the warrant, cook, the solicitor at the high court of justice, hacker and axtell, who commanded the guard on that occasion, and peters. two years afterwards, downing, ambassador in holland, prevailed on the states to give up barkstead, corbet, and okey. they all died with great constancy, and an enthusiastic persuasion of the righteousness of their cause. _state trials._ pepys says in his _diary_, th october , of harrison, whose execution he witnessed, that "he looked as cheerful as any man could do in that condition." [ ] it is remarkable, that scrope had been so particularly favoured by the convention parliament, as to be exempted, together with hutchinson and lascelles, from any penalty or forfeiture by a special resolution. june . but the lords put in his name again, though they pointedly excepted hutchinson; and the commons, after first resolving that he should only pay a fine of one year's value of his estate, came at last to agree in excepting him from the indemnity as to life. it appears that some private conversation of scrope had been betrayed, wherein he spoke of the king's death as he thought. as to hutchinson, he had certainly concurred in the restoration, having an extreme dislike to the party who had turned out the parliament in oct. , especially lambert. this may be inferred from his conduct, as well as by what ludlow says, and kennet in his _register_, p. . his wife puts a speech into his mouth as to his share in the king's death, not absolutely justifying it, but, i suspect, stronger than he ventured to use. at least, the commons voted that he should not be excepted from the indemnity, "on account of his signal repentance," which could hardly be predicated of the language she ascribes to him. compare mrs. hutchinson's _memoirs_, p. , with commons' journals, june . [ ] horace walpole, in his _catalogue of noble authors_, has thought fit to censure both these persons for their pretended inconsistency. the case is, however, different as to monk and cooper; and perhaps it may be thought, that men of more delicate sentiments than either of these possessed, would not have sat upon the trial of those with whom they had long professed to act in concert, though innocent of their crime. [ ] commons' journals, may , . [ ] _parl. hist._ iv. . [ ] _id._ iv. . [ ] _memoirs_, p. . it appears by some passages in the _clarendon papers_, that the church had not expected to come off so brilliantly; and, while the restoration was yet unsettled, would have been content to give leases of their lands. pp. , . hyde, however, was convinced that the church would be either totally ruined, or restored to a great lustre; and herein he was right, as it turned out. p. . [ ] _life of clarendon_, . l'estrange, in a pamphlet printed before the end of , complains that the cavaliers were neglected, the king betrayed, the creatures of cromwell, bradshaw, and st. john laden with offices and honours. of the indemnity he says, "that act made the enemies to the constitution masters in effect of the booty of three nations, bating the crown and church lands, all which they might now call their own; while those who stood up for the laws were abandoned to the comfort of an irreparable but honourable ruin." he reviles the presbyterian ministers still in possession; and tells the king that misplaced lenity was his father's ruin. kennet's _register_, p. . see too, in _somers tracts_, vii. , "the humble representation of the sad condition of the king's party." also p. . [ ] commons' journals, september . sir philip warwick, chancellor of the exchequer, assured pepys that the revenue fell short by a fourth of the £ , , voted by parliament. see his _diary_, march , . ralph, however, says, the income in was £ , , , though the expenditure was £ , , . p. . it appears probable that the hereditary excise did not yet produce much beyond its estimate. _id._ p. . [ ] nov. , to . _parl. hist._ [ ] the troops disbanded were fourteen regiments of horse and eighteen of foot in england: one of horse and four of foot in scotland, besides garrisons. journals, nov. . [ ] ralph, ; _life of james_, ; grose's _military antiquities_, i. . [ ] neal, , . [ ] _id._ ; pepy's _diary_, ad init. even in oxford, about episcopalians used to meet every sunday with the connivance of dr. owen, dean of christ church. orme's _life of owen_, . it is somewhat bold in anglican writers to complain, as they now and then do, of the persecution they suffered at this period, when we consider what had been the conduct of the bishops before, and what it was afterwards. i do not know that any member of the church of england was imprisoned under the commonwealth, except for some political reason; certain it is that the gaols were not filled with them. [ ] the penal laws were comparatively dormant, though two priests suffered death, one of them before the protectorate. butler's _mem. of catholics_, ii. . but in cromwell issued a proclamation for the execution of these statutes; which seems to have been provoked by the persecution of the vaudois. whitelocke tells us he opposed it. . it was not acted upon. [ ] several of these appear in _somers tracts_, vol. vii. the king's nearest friends were of course not backward in praising him, though a little at the expense of their consciences. "in a word," says hyde to a correspondent in , "if being the best protestant and the best englishman of the nation can do the king good at home, he must prosper with and by his own subjects." _clar. state papers_, . morley says he had been to see judge hale, who asked him questions about the king's character and firmness in the protestant religion. _id._ . morley's exertions to dispossess men of the notion that the king and his brother were inclined to popery, are also mentioned by kennet in his _register_, : a book containing very copious information as to this particular period. yet morley could hardly have been without strong suspicions as to both of them. [ ] he had written in cipher to secretary nicholas, from st. johnston's, sept. , , the day of the battle of dunbar, "nothing could have confirmed me more to the church of england than being here, seeing their hypocrisy." supplement to evelyn's _diary_, . the whole letter shows that he was on the point of giving his new friends the slip; as indeed he attempted soon after, in what was called the start. laing, iii. . [ ] car. ii. c. . it is quite clear that an usurped possession was confirmed by this act, where the lawful incumbent was dead; though burnet intimates the contrary. [ ] _parl. hist._ . the chancellor, in his speech to the houses at their adjournment in september, gave them to understand that this bill was not quite satisfactory to the court, who preferred the confirmation of ministers by particular letters patent under the great seal; that the king's prerogative of dispensing with acts of parliament might not grow into disuse. many got the additional security of such patents; which proved of service to them, when the next parliament did not think fit to confirm this important statute. baxter says (p. ), some got letters patent to turn out the possessors, where the former incumbents were dead. these must have been to benefices in the gift of the crown; in other cases, letters patent could have been of no effect. i have found this confirmed by the journals, aug. , . [ ] upon venner's insurrection, though the sectaries, and especially the independents, published a declaration of their abhorrence of it, a pretext was found for issuing a proclamation to shut up the conventicles of the anabaptists and quakers, and so worded as to reach all others. kennet's _register_, . [ ] collier, , ; baxter, , . the bishops said, in their answer to the presbyterians' proposals, that the objections against a single person's administration in the church were equally applicable to the state. collier, . but this was false, as they well knew, and designed only to produce an effect at court; for the objections were not grounded on reasoning, but on a presumed positive institution. besides which, the argument cut against themselves: for, if the english constitution, or something analogous to it, had been established in the church, their adversaries would have had all they _now_ asked. [ ] stillingfleet's _irenicum_; king's _inquiry into the constitution of the primitive church_. the former work was published at this time, with a view to moderate the pretensions of the anglican party, to which the author belonged, by showing: . that there are no sufficient data for determining with certainty the form of church-government in the apostolical age, or that which immediately followed it. . that, as far as we may probably conjecture, the primitive church was framed on the model of the synagogue; that is, a synod of priests in every congregation having one of their own number for a chief or president. . that there is no reason to consider any part of the apostolical discipline as an invariable model for future ages, and that much of our own ecclesiastical polity cannot any way pretend to primitive authority. . that this has been the opinion of all the most eminent theologians at home and abroad. . that it would be expedient to introduce various modifications, not on the whole much different from the scheme of usher. stillingfleet, whose work is a remarkable instance of extensive learning and mature judgment at the age of about twenty-three, thought fit afterwards to retract it in a certain degree; and towards the latter part of his life, gave into more high-church politics. it is true that the _irenicum_ must have been composed with almost unparalleled rapidity for such a work; but it shows, as far as i can judge, no marks of precipitancy. the biographical writers put its publication in ; but this must be a mistake; no one can avoid perceiving that it could not have passed the press on the th of march , the latest day which could, according to the old style, have admitted the date of , as it contains allusions to the king's restoration. [ ] baxter's _life_; neal. [ ] they addressed the king to call such divines as he should think fit, to advise with concerning matters of religion. july , . journals and _parl. hist._ [ ] _parl. hist._; neal, baxter, collier, etc. burnet says that clarendon had made the king publish this declaration; "but the bishops did not approve of this; and, after the service they did that lord in the duke of york's marriage, he would not put any hardship on those who had so signally obliged him." this is very invidious. i know no evidence that the declaration was published at clarendon's suggestion, except indeed that he was the great adviser of the crown; yet in some things, especially of this nature, the king seems to have acted without his concurrence. he certainly speaks of the declaration as if he did not wholly relish it (_life_, ), and does not state it fairly. in _state trials_, vi. , it is said to have been drawn up by morley and henchman for the church, reynolds and calamy for the dissenters; if they disagreed, lords anglesea and hollis to decide. [ ] the chief objection made by the presbyterians, as far as we learn from baxter, was, that the consent of presbyters to the bishops' acts was not promised by the declaration, but only their advice; a distinction apparently not very material in practice, but bearing perhaps on the great point of controversy, whether the difference between the two were in order or in degree. the king would not come into the scheme of consent; though they pressed him with a passage out of the _icon basilike_, where his father allowed of it. _life of baxter_, . some alterations, however, were made in consequence of their suggestions. [ ] _parl. hist._ , . clarendon, , most strangely observes on this: "some of the leaders brought a bill into the house for the making that declaration a law, which was suitable to their other acts of ingenuity to keep the church for ever under the same indulgence and without any settlement; which being quickly perceived, there was no further progress in it." the bill was brought in by sir matthew hale. [ ] collier, who of course thinks this declaration an encroachment on the church, as well as on the legislative power, says, "for this reason it was overlooked at the assizes and sessions in several places in the country, where the dissenting ministers were indicted for not conforming pursuant to the laws in force." p. . neal confirms this, , and kennet's _register_, . [ ] _life of clarendon_, . a plausible and somewhat dangerous attack had been made on the authority of this parliament from an opposite quarter, in a pamphlet written by one drake, under the name of thomas philips, entitled "the long parliament revived," and intended to prove that by the act of the late king, providing that they should not be dissolved but by the concurrence of the whole legislature, they were still in existence; and that the king's demise, which legally puts an end to a parliament, could not affect one that was declared permanent by so direct an enactment. this argument seems by no means inconsiderable; but the times were not such as to admit of technical reasoning. the convention parliament, after questioning drake, finally sent up articles of impeachment against him; but the lords, after hearing him in his defence, when he confessed his fault, left him to be prosecuted by the attorney-general. nothing more, probably, took place. _parl. hist._ , . this was in november and december : but drake's book seems still to have been in considerable circulation; at least i have two editions of it, both bearing the date of . the argument it contains is purely legal; but the aim must have been to serve the presbyterian or parliamentarian cause. [ ] complaints of insults on the presbyterian clergy were made to the late parliament. _parl. hist._ . the anglicans inveighed grossly against them on the score of their past conduct, notwithstanding the act of indemnity. kennet's _register_, . see, as a specimen, south's sermons, _passim_. [ ] journals, th of may . the previous question was moved on this vote, but lost by to ; morice, the secretary of state, being one of the tellers for the minority. monk, i believe, to whom morice owed his elevation, did what he could to prevent violent measures against the presbyterians. alderman love was suspended from sitting in the house july , for not having taken the sacrament. i suppose that he afterwards conformed; for he became an active member of the opposition. [ ] journals, june , etc.; _parl. hist._ ; _life of clarendon_, ; burnet, . a bill discharging the loyalists from all interest exceeding three per cent. on debts contracted before the wars passed the commons; but was dropped in the other house. the great discontent of this party at the indemnity continued to show itself in subsequent sessions. clarendon mentions, with much censure, that many private bills passed about , annulling conveyances of lands made during the troubles. pp. , . one remarkable instance ought to be noticed, as having been greatly misrepresented. at the earl of derby's seat of knowsley in lancashire a tablet is placed to commemorate the ingratitude of charles ii. in having refused the royal assent to a bill which had passed both houses for restoring the son of the earl of derby, who had lost his life in the royal cause, to his family estate. this has been so often reprinted by tourists and novelists, that it passes currently for a just reproach on the king's memory. it was, however, in fact one of his most honourable actions. the truth is, that the cavalier faction carried through parliament a bill to make void the conveyances of some manors which lord derby had voluntarily sold before the restoration, in the very face of the act of indemnity, and against all law and justice. clarendon, who, together with some very respectable peers, had protested against this measure in the upper house, thought it his duty to recommend the king to refuse his assent. lords' journals, feb. and may , . there is so much to blame in both the minister and his master, that it is but fair to give them credit for that which the pardonable prejudices of the family interested have led it to mis-state. [ ] commons' journals, st july . a division took place, november , on a motion to lay this bill aside, in consideration of the king's proclamation, which was lost by to : lord cornbury (clarendon's son) being a teller for the noes. the bill was sent up to the lords jan. , . see also _parl. hist._ , . some of their proceedings trespassed upon the executive power, and infringed the prerogative they laboured to exalt. but long interruption of the due course of the constitution had made its boundaries indistinct. thus, in the convention parliament, the bodies of cromwell, bradshaw, ireton, and others, were ordered, dec , on the motion of colonel titus, to be disinterred, and hanged on a gibbet. the lords concurred in this order; but the mode of address to the king would have been more regular. _parl. hist._ . [ ] inst. . this appears to have been held in bagot's case, edw. . see also higden's _view of the english constitution_, . [ ] foster, in his _discourse on high treason_, evidently intimates that he thought the conviction of vane unjustifiable. [ ] "the relation that has been made to me of sir h. vane's carriage yesterday in the hall is the occasion of this letter, which, if i am rightly informed, was so insolent, as to justify all he had done; acknowledging no supreme power in england but a parliament, and many things to that purpose. you have had a true account of all; and if he has given new occasion to be hanged, certainly he is too dangerous a man to let live, if we can honestly put him out of the way. think of this, and give me some account of it to-morrow, till when i have no more to say to you. c." indorsed in lord clarendon's hand, "the king, june , ." vane was beheaded june . burnet (note in oxford edition), p. ; harris's _lives_, v. . [ ] vane gave up the profits of his place as treasurer of the navy, which, according to his patent, would have amounted to £ , per ann. if we may rely on harris's _life of cromwell_, p. . [ ] car. , c. and . a bill for settling the militia had been much opposed in the convention parliament, as tending to bring in martial law. _parl. hist._ iv. . it seems to have dropped. [ ] c. . [ ] c. . the only opposition made to this was in the house of lords by the earl of bristol and some of the roman catholic party, who thought the bishops would not be brought into a toleration of their religion. _life of clarendon_, p. . [ ] c. . [ ] car. , sess. , c. i. this bill did not pass without a strong opposition in the commons. it was carried at last by to (journals, july ); but, on a previous division for its commitment the numbers were to . june . prynne was afterwards reprimanded by the speaker for publishing a pamphlet against this act (july ); but his courage had now forsaken him; and he made a submissive apology, though the censure was pronounced in a very harsh manner. [ ] journals, rd april ; th march . [ ] _parl. hist._ . clarendon speaks very unjustly of the triennial act, forgetting that he had himself concurred in it. p. . [ ] car. , c. . we find by the journals that some divisions took place during the passage of this bill, and though, as far as appears, on subordinate points, yet probably springing from an opposition to its principle. march , . there was by this time a regular party formed against the court. [ ] p. . [ ] lords' journals, rd and th jan. . [ ] th feb. [ ] th march . [ ] car. , c. . [ ] clarendon, in his _life_, p. , says, that the king "had received the presbyterian ministers with grace; and did believe that he should work upon them by persuasions, having been well acquainted with their common arguments by the conversation he had had in scotland, and _was very able to confute them_." this is one of the strange absurdities into which clarendon's prejudices hurry him in almost every page of his writings, and more especially in this continuation of his _life_. charles, as his minister well knew, could not read a common latin book (_clarendon state papers_, iii. ), and had no manner of acquaintance with theological learning, unless the popular argument in favour of popery is so to be called; yet he was very able to confute men who had passed their lives in study, on a subject involving a considerable knowledge of scripture and the early writers in their original languages. [ ] clarendon admits that this could not have been done till the former parliament was dissolved. . this means, of course, on the supposition that the king's word was to be broken. "the malignity towards the church," he says, "seemed increasing, and to be greater than at the coming in of the king." pepys, in his _diary_, has several sharp remarks on the misconduct and unpopularity of the bishops, though himself an episcopalian even before the restoration. "the clergy are so high that all people i meet with do protest against their practice." august , . "i am convinced in my judgment, that the present clergy will never heartily go down with the generality of the commons of england; they have been so used to liberty and freedom, and they are so acquainted with the pride and debauchery of the present clergy. he [mr. blackburn, a nonconformist] did give me many stories of the affronts which the clergy receive in all parts of england from the gentry and ordinary persons of the parish." november , . the opposite party had recourse to the old weapons of pious fraud. i have a tract containing twenty-seven instances of remarkable judgments, all between june , and april , which befell divers persons for reading the common prayer or reviling godly ministers. this is entitled _annus mirabilis_; and, besides the above twenty-seven, attests so many prodigies, that the name is by no means misapplied. the bishops made large fortunes by filling up leases. burnet, . and clarendon admits them to have been too rapacious, though he tries to extenuate. p. . [ ] the fullest account of this conference, and of all that passed as to the comprehension of the presbyterians, is to be read in baxter, whom neal has abridged. some allowance must, of course, be made for the resentment of baxter; but his known integrity makes it impossible to discredit the main part of his narration. nor is it necessary to rest on the evidence of those who may be supposed to have the prejudices of dissenters. for bishop burnet admits that all the concern which seemed to employ the prelates' minds, was not only to make an alteration on the presbyterians' account, but to straiten the terms of conformity far more than before the war. those, however, who would see what can be said by writers of high-church principles, may consult kennet's _history of charles ii._ p. , or collier, p. . one little anecdote may serve to display the spirit with which the anglicans came to the conference. upon baxter's saying that their proceedings would alienate a great part of the _nation_, stearne, bishop of carlisle, observed to his associates: "he will not say _kingdom_, lest he should acknowledge a king." baxter, p. . this was a very malignant reflection on a man who was well known never to have been of the republican party. it is true that baxter seems to have thought, in , that richard cromwell would have served the turn better than charles stuart; and, as a presbyterian, he thought very rightly. see p. , and part iii. p. . but, preaching before the parliament, april , , he said it was none of our differences whether we should be loyal to our king; on that all were agreed. p. . [ ] _life of clarendon_, . he observes that the alterations made did not reduce one of the opposite party to the obedience of the church. now, in the first place, he could not know this; and, in the next, he conceals from the reader that, on the whole matter, the changes made in the liturgy were more likely to disgust than to conciliate. thus the puritans having always objected to the number of saints' days, the bishops added a few more; and the former having given very plausible reasons against the apocryphal lessons in the daily service, the others inserted the legend of bel and the dragon, for no other purpose than to show contempt of their scruples. the alterations may be seen in rennet's _register_, . the most important was the restoration of a rubric inserted in the communion service under edward vi., but left out by elizabeth, declaring against any corporal presence in the lord's supper. this gave offence to some of those who had adopted that opinion, especially the duke of york, and perhaps tended to complete his alienation from the anglican church. burnet, i. . [ ] and car. , c. iv. § . [ ] _life of clarendon_, ; burnet, . morley, afterwards bishop of winchester, was engaged just before the restoration in negotiating with the presbyterians. they stuck out for the negative voice of the council of presbyters, and for the validity of their ordinations. _clar. state papers_, . he had two schemes to get over the difficulty; one to pass them over _sub silentio_; the other, a hypothetical re-ordination, on the supposition that something might have been wanting before, as the church of rome practises about re-baptization. the former is a curious expedient for those who pretended to think presbyterian ordinations really null. _id._ . [ ] the day fixed upon suggested a comparison which, though severe, was obvious. a modern writer has observed on this, "they were careful not to remember that the same day, and for the same reason, because the tithes were commonly due at michaelmas, had been appointed for the former ejectment, when four times as many of the loyal clergy were deprived for fidelity to their sovereign." southey's _hist. of the church_, ii. . that the day was chosen in order to deprive the incumbent of a whole year's tithes, mr. southey has learned from burnet; and it aggravates the cruelty of the proceeding--but where has he found his precedent? the anglican clergy were ejected for refusing the covenant at no one definite period, as, on recollection, mr. s. would be aware; nor can i find any one parliamentary ordinance in husband's collection that mentions st. bartholomew's day. there was a precedent indeed in that case, which the government of charles did not choose to follow. one-fifth of the income had been reserved for the dispossessed incumbents. [ ] journals, april . this may perhaps have given rise to a mistake we find in neal, , that the act of uniformity only passed by to . there was no division at all upon the bill except that i have mentioned. [ ] the report of the conference (lords' journals, th may) is altogether rather curious. [ ] lords' journals, th and th july ; ralph, . [ ] neal, - . baxter told burnet, as the latter says (p. ), that not above would have resigned, had the terms of the king's declaration been adhered to. the blame, he goes on, fell chiefly on sheldon. but clarendon was charged with entertaining the presbyterians with good words, while he was giving way to the bishops. see also p. . baxter puts the number of the deprived at . _life_, . and it has generally been reckoned about ; though burnet says it has been much controverted. if indeed we can rely on calamy's account of the ejected ministers, abridged by palmer under the title of _the nonconformist's memorial_, the number must have been full . kennet, however (_register_, ), notices great mistakes of calamy in respect only to one diocese, that of peterborough. probably both in this collection, and in that of walker on the other side, as in all martyrologies, there are abundant errors; but enough will remain to afford memorable examples of conscientious suffering; and we cannot read without indignation rennet's endeavours, in the conclusion of this volume, to extenuate the praise of the deprived presbyterians by captious and unfair arguments. [ ] see clarendon's feeble attempt to vindicate the king from the charge of breach of faith. . [ ] a list of these, published in , contains more than names. neal, . [ ] sir kenelm digby was supposed to be deep in a scheme that the catholics, in , should support the commonwealth with all their power, in return for liberty of religion. carte's _letters_, i. _et post_. we find a letter from him to cromwell in (thurloe, iv. ) with great protestations of duty. [ ] see lords' journals, june and july , or extracts from them in kennet's _register_, , etc., , etc., and , where are several other particulars worthy of notice. clarendon, , explains the failure of this attempt at a partial toleration (for it was only meant as to the exercise of religious rites in private houses) by the persevering opposition of the jesuits to the oath of allegiance, to which the lay catholics, and generally the secular priests, had long ceased to make objection. the house had voted that the indulgence should not extend to jesuits, and that they would not alter the oaths of allegiance or supremacy. the jesuits complained of the distinction taken against them; and asserted, in a printed tract (kennet, _ubi supra_), that since they had been inhibited by their superiors from maintaining the pope's right to depose sovereigns. see also butler's _mem. of catholics_, ii. ; iv. ; and burnet, i. . [ ] the suspicions against charles were very strong in england before the restoration, so as to alarm his emissaries: "your master," mordaunt writes to ormond, nov. , , "is utterly ruined as to his interest here in whatever party, if this be true." carte's _letters_, ii. , and _clar. state papers_, iii. . but an anecdote related in carte's _life of ormond_, ii. , and harris's _lives_, v. , which has obtained some credit, proves, if true, that he had embraced the roman catholic religion as early as , so as even to attend mass. this cannot be reckoned out of question; but the tendency of the king's mind before his return to england is to be inferred from all his behaviour. kennet (_complete hist. of eng._ iii. ) plainly insinuates that the project for restoring popery began at the treaty of the pyrenees; and see his _register_, p. . [ ] car. , c. . [ ] burnet, i. . [ ] _life of clarendon_, . he intimates that this begot a coldness in the bishops towards himself, which was never fully removed. yet he had no reason to complain of them on his trial. see, too, pepys's _diary_, sept. , . [ ] _parl. hist._ . [ ] baxter intimates ( ) that some disagreement arose between the presbyterians and independents as to the toleration of popery, or rather, as he puts it, as to the active concurrence of the protestant dissenters in accepting such a toleration as should include popery. the latter, conformably to their general principles, were favourable to it; but the former would not make themselves parties to any relaxation of the penal laws against the church of rome, leaving the king to act as he thought fit. by this stiffness it is very probable that they provoked a good deal of persecution from the court, which they might have avoided by falling into its views of a general indulgence. [ ] _parl. hist._ . an adjournment had been moved, and lost by to . journals, feb. [ ] feb. baxter, p. . [ ] journals, and march ; _parl. hist._ . burnet, , says the declaration of indulgence was usually ascribed to bristol, but in fact proceeded from the king, and that the opposition to it in the house was chiefly made by the friends of clarendon. the latter tells us in his _life_, , that the king was displeased at the insolence of the romish party, and gave the judges general orders to convict recusants. the minister and historian either was, or pretended to be, his master's dupe; and, if he had any suspicions of what was meant as to religion (as he must surely have had), is far too loyal to hint them. yet the one circumstance he mentions soon after, that the countess of castlemaine suddenly declared herself a catholic, was enough to open his eyes and those of the world. the romish partisans assumed the tone of high loyalty, as exclusively characteristic of their religion; but affected, at this time, to use great civility towards the church of england. a book, entitled _philanax anglicus_, published under the name of bellamy, the second edition of which is in , after a most flattering dedication to sheldon, launches into virulent abuse of the presbyterians and of the reformation in general, as founded on principles adverse to monarchy. this indeed was common with the ultra or high-church party; but the work in question, though it purports to be written by a clergyman, is manifestly a shaft from the concealed bow of the roman apollo. [ ] see proofs of this in ralph, ; rapin, p. . there was in a trifling insurrection in yorkshire, which the government wished to have been more serious, so as to afford a better pretext for strong measures; as may be collected from a passage in a letter of bennet to the duke of ormond, where he says, "the country was in a greater readiness to prevent the disorders than perhaps were to be wished; but it being the effect of their own care, rather than his majesty's commands, it is the less to be censured." clarendon, , speaks of this as an important and extensive conspiracy; and the king dwelt on it in his next speech to the parliament. _parl. hist._ . [ ] car. , c. . a similar bill had passed the commons in july , but hung some time in the upper house, and was much debated; the commons sent up a message (an irregular practice of those times) to request their lordships would expedite this and some other bills. the king seems to have been displeased at this delay; for he told them at their prorogation, that he had expected some bills against conventicles and distempers in religion, as well as the growth of popery, and should himself present some at their next meeting. _parl. hist._ . burnet observes, that to empower a justice of peace to convict without a jury, was thought a great breach on the principles of the english constitution. . [ ] p. . [ ] car. , c. . [ ] burnet; baxter, part iii. p. ; neal, p. . [ ] burnet: baxter. [ ] mr. locke, in the "letter from a person of quality to his friend in the country," printed in (see it in his works, or in _parliamentary history_, vol. iv. appendix, no. ), says it was lost by three votes, and mentions the persons. but the numbers in the journals, october , , appear to be to . probably he meant that those persons might have been expected to vote the other way. [ ] a pamphlet, with baxter's name subscribed, called "fair warning, or xxv reasons against toleration and indulgence of popery," , is a pleasant specimen of this _argumentum ab inferno_. "being there is but one safe way to salvation, do you think that the protestant way is that way, or is it not? if it be not, why do you live in it? if it be, how can you find in your heart to give your subjects liberty to go another way? can you, in your conscience, give them leave to go on in that course in which, in your conscience, you think you could not be saved?" baxter, however, does not mention this little book in his life; nor does he there speak violently about the toleration of romanists. [ ] the clergy had petitioned the house of commons in , _inter alia_, "that for the better observation of the lord's day, and for the promoting of conformity, you would be pleased to advance the pecuniary mulct of twelve pence for each absence from divine service, in proportion to the degree, quality, and ability of the delinquent; that so the penalty may be of force sufficient to conquer the obstinacy of the nonconformists." wilkin's _concilia_, iv. . letters from sheldon to the commissary of the diocese of canterbury, in and , occur in the same collection (pp. , ) directing him to inquire about conventicles; and if they cannot be restrained by ecclesiastical authority, to apply to the next justice of peace in order to put them down. a proclamation appears also from the king, enjoining magistrates to do this. in , the archbishop writes a circular to his suffragans, directing them to proceed against such as keep schools without licence. p. . see in the _somers tracts_, vii. , a "true and faithful narrative" of the severities practised against nonconformists about this time. baxter's _life_ is also full of proofs of persecution; but the most complete register is in calamy's account of the ejected clergy. [ ] pepys observes, july , "how everybody nowadays reflect upon oliver and commend him, what brave things he did, and made all the neighbour princes fear him." [ ] the _mémoires de grammont_ are known to everybody; and are almost unique in their kind, not only for the grace of their style and the vivacity of their pictures, but for the happy ignorance in which the author seems to have lived, that any one of his readers could imagine that there are such things as virtue and principle in the world. in the delirium of thoughtless voluptuousness they resemble some of the memoirs about the end of louis xv.'s reign, and somewhat later; though i think, even in these, there is generally some effort, here and there, at moral censure, or some affectation of sensibility. _they_, indeed, have always an awful moral; and in the light portraits of the court of versailles (such, sometimes, as we might otherwise almost blush to peruse) we have before us the handwriting on the wall, the winter whirlwind hushed in its grim repose, and expecting its prey, the vengeance of an oppressed people and long-forbearing deity. no such retribution fell on the courtiers of charles ii.; but they earned in their own age, what has descended to posterity, though possibly very indifferent to themselves, the disgust and aversion of all that was respectable among mankind. [ ] this was carried on a division by to . journals, november . it was to be raised "in a regulated subsidiary way, reducing the same to a certainty in all counties, so as no person, for his real or personal estate, be exempted." they seem to have had some difficulty in raising this enormous subsidy. _parliamentary history_, . [ ] car. ii. c. . the same clause is repeated next year, and has become regular. [ ] _life of clarendon_, p. ; hatsell's _precedents_, iii. . [ ] _life of clarendon_, p. . burnet observes it was looked upon at the time as a great innovation. p. . [ ] pepys's _diary_ has lately furnished some things worthy to be extracted. "mr. w. and i by water to whitehall, and there at sir george carteret's lodgings sir william coventry met; and we did debate the whole business of our accounts to the parliament; where it appears to us that the charge of the war from sept. , , to this michaelmas will have been but £ , , , and we have paid in that time somewhat about £ , , , so that we owe about £ , ; but our method of accounting, though it cannot, i believe, be far wide from the mark, yet will not abide a strict examination, if the parliament should be troublesome. here happened a pretty question of sir william coventry, whether this account of ours will not put my lord treasurer to a difficulty to tell what is become of all the money the parliament have given in this time for the war, which hath amounted to about £ , , , which nobody there could answer; but i perceive they did doubt what his answer could be." sept. , .--the money granted the king for the war he afterwards (oct. ) reckons at £ , , , and the debt £ , . the charge stated only at £ , , . "so what is become of all this sum, £ , , !" he mentions afterwards (oct. ) the proviso in the poll-tax bill, that there shall be a committee of nine persons to have the inspection on oath of all the accounts of the money given and spent for the war, "which makes the king and court mad; the king having given order to my lord chamberlain to send to the play-houses and brothels, to bid all the parliament men that were there to go to the parliament presently; but it was carried against the court by thirty or forty voices." it was thought, he says (dec. ) that above £ , had gone into the privy purse since the war. [ ] _life of clarendon_, p. . [ ] and car. ii. c. . burnet, p. . they reported unaccounted balances of £ , , , besides much that was questionable in the payments. but, according to ralph, p. , the commissioners had acted with more technical rigour than equity, surcharging the accountants for all sums not expended since the war began, though actually expended for the purposes of preparation. [ ] burnet, p. . southampton left all the business of the treasury, according to burnet, p. , in the hands of sir philip warwick, "a weak but incorrupt man." the king, he says, chose to put up with his contradiction rather than make him popular by dismissing him. but in fact, as we see by clarendon's instance, the king retained his ministers long after he was displeased with them. southampton's remissness and slowness, notwithstanding his integrity, pepys says, was the cause of undoing the nation as much as anything; "yet, if i knew all the difficulties he has lain under, and his instrument sir philip warwick, i might be of another mind." may , .--he was willing to have done something, clarendon tells us (p. ) to gratify the presbyterians; on which account, the bishops thought him not enough affected to the church. his friend endeavours to extenuate this heinous sin of tolerant principles. [ ] the behaviour of lord clarendon on this occasion was so extraordinary, that no credit could have been given to any other account than his own. the duke of york, he says, informed the king of the affection and friendship that had long been between him and the young lady; that they had been long contracted, and that she was with child; and therefore requested his majesty's leave that he might publicly marry her. the marquis of ormond by the king's order communicated this to the chancellor, who "broke out into an immoderate passion against the wickedness of his daughter; and said, with all imaginable earnestness, that as soon as he came home, he would turn her out of his house as a strumpet to shift for herself, and would never see her again. they told him that his passion was too violent to administer good counsel to him; that they thought that the duke was married to his daughter, and that there were other measures to be taken than those which the disorder he was in had suggested to him. whereupon he fell into new commotions; and said, if that were true, he was well prepared to advise what was to be done; that he had much rather his daughter should be the duke's whore than his wife: in the former case, nobody could blame him for the resolution he had taken, for he was not obliged to keep a whore for the greatest prince alive; and the indignity to himself he would submit to the good pleasure of god. but, if there were any reason to suspect the other, he was ready to give a positive judgment, in which he hoped their lordships would concur with him, that the king should immediately cause the woman _to be sent to the tower and cast into a dungeon_, under so strict a guard that no person living should be admitted to come to her; and then that _an act of parliament should be immediately passed for cutting off her head, to which he would not only give his consent, but would very willingly be the first man that should propose it_. and whoever knew the man, will believe that he said all this very heartily." lord southampton, he proceeds to inform us, on the king's entering the room at the time, said very naturally, that the chancellor was mad, and had proposed such extravagant things that he was no more to be consulted with. this, however, did not bring him to his senses; for he repeated his strange proposal of "sending her presently to the tower, and the rest;" imploring the king to take this course, as the only expedient that could free him from the evils that this business would otherwise bring upon him. that any man of sane intellects should fall into such an extravagance of passion, is sufficiently wonderful; that he should sit down in cool blood several years afterwards to relate it, is still more so; and perhaps we shall carry our candour to an excess, if we do not set down the whole scene to overacted hypocrisy. charles ii., we may be very sure, could see it in no other light. and here i must take notice, by the way, of the singular observation the worthy editor of burnet has made: "king charles's conduct in this business was excellent throughout; that of clarendon _worthy an ancient roman_." we have indeed a roman precedent for subduing the sentiments of nature rather than permitting a daughter to incur disgrace through the passions of the great; but i think virginius would not quite have understood the feelings of clarendon. such virtue was more like what montesquieu calls "l'héroïsme de l'esclavage," and was just fit for the court of gondar. but with all this violence that he records of himself, he deviates greatly from the truth: "the king (he says) afterwards spoke every day about it, and told the chancellor that he must behave himself wisely, for that the thing was remediless, and that his majesty knew that they were married; which would quickly appear to all men who knew that nothing could be done upon it. in this time the chancellor had conferred with his daughter, without anything of indulgence, and not only discovered that they were unquestionably married, but _by whom, and who were present at it, who would be ready to avow it_; which pleased him not, though it diverted him from using some of that rigour which he intended. and he saw no other remedy could be applied but that which he had proposed to the king, who thought of nothing like it." _life of clarendon_, _et post_. every one would conclude from this, that a marriage had been solemnised if not before their arrival in england, yet before the chancellor had this conference with his daughter. it appears, however, from the duke of york's declaration in the books of the privy council, quoted by ralph, p. , that he was contracted to ann hyde on the th of november , at breda; and after that time lived with her as his wife, though very secretly; he married her rd sept. , according to the english ritual, lord ossory giving her away. the first child was born oct. , . now whether the contract were sufficient to constitute a valid marriage, will depend on two things; first, upon the law existing at breda; secondly, upon the applicability of what is commonly called the rule of the _lex loci_, to a marriage between such persons according to the received notions of english lawyers in that age. but, even admitting all this, it is still manifest that clarendon's expressions point to an actual celebration, and are consequently intended to mislead the reader. certain it is, that at the time the contract seems to have been reckoned only an honorary obligation. james tells us himself (macpherson's _extracts_, p. ) that he promised to marry her; and "though when he asked the king for his leave, he refused and dissuaded him from it, yet at last he opposed it no more, and the duke married her privately, and owned it some time after." his biographer, writing from his own manuscript, adds, "it may well be supposed that my lord chancellor did his part, but with great caution and circumspection, to soften the king in that matter which in every respect seemed so much for his own advantage." _life of james_, . and pepys inserts in his diary, feb. , , "mr. h. told me how my lord chancellor had lately got the duke of york and duchess, and her woman, my lord ossory and a doctor, to make oath before most of the judges of the kingdom, concerning all the circumstances of their marriage. and, in fine, it is confessed that they were not fully married till about a month or two before she was brought to bed; but that they were contracted long before, and [were married] time enough for the child to be legitimate. but i do not hear that it was put to the judges to determine so or not." he had said before that lord sandwich told him ( th oct. ) "the king wanted him [the duke] to marry her, but he would not." this seems at first sight inconsistent with what james says himself. but at this time, though the private marriage had really taken place, he had been persuaded by a most infamous conspiracy of some profligate courtiers that the lady was of a licentious character, and that berkeley, afterwards lord falmouth, had enjoyed her favours. _life of clarendon_, . it must be presumed that those men knew only of a contract which they thought he could break. hamilton, in the _memoirs of grammont_, speaks of this transaction with his usual levity, though the parties showed themselves as destitute of spirit as of honour and humanity. clarendon, we must believe (and the most favourable hypothesis for him is to give up his veracity), would not permit his daughter to be made the victim of a few perjured debauchees, and of her husband's fickleness or credulity. [ ] hamilton mentions this as the current rumour of the court, and burnet has done the same. but clarendon himself denies that he had any concern in it, or any acquaintance with the parties. he wrote in too humble a strain to the king on the subject. _life of clar._ p. . [ ] burnet says that southampton had come into a scheme of obtaining £ , , as the annual revenue; which was prevented by clarendon, lest it should put the king out of need of parliaments. this the king found out, and hated him mortally for it. p. . it is the fashion to discredit all burnet says. but observe what we may read in pepys: "sir w. coventry did tell me it as the wisest thing that was ever said to the king by any statesman of his time; and it was by my lord treasurer that is dead, whom, i find, he takes for a very great statesman, that when the king did show himself forward for passing the act of indemnity, he did advise the king that he would hold his hand in doing it, till he had got his power restored that had been diminished by the late times, and his revenue settled in such a manner as he might depend upon himself without resting upon parliaments, and then pass it. but my lord chancellor, who thought he could have the command of parliaments for ever, because for the king's sake they were awhile willing to grant all the king desired, did press for its being done; and so it was, and the king from that time able to do nothing with the parliament almost." march , . rari quippe boni! neither southampton nor coventry make the figure in this extract we should wish to find; yet who were their superiors for integrity and patriotism under charles ii.? perhaps pepys, like most gossiping men, was not always correct. [ ] macpherson's _extracts from life of james_, , . compare innes's _life of james_, published by clarke, i. , . in the former work it is said that clarendon, upon venner's insurrection, advised that the guards should not be disbanded. but this seems to be a mistake in copying: for clarendon read the duke of york. pepys, however, who heard all the gossip of the town, mentions the year after, that the chancellor thought of raising an army, with the duke as general. dec. , . [ ] _ibid._ [ ] the earl of bristol, with all his constitutional precipitancy, made a violent attack on clarendon, by exhibiting articles of treason against him in the house of lords in ; believing, no doubt, that the schemes of the intriguers were more mature, and the king more alienated, than was really the case; and thus disgraced himself at court instead of his enemy. _parl. hist._ ; _life of clar._ . before this time pepys had heard that the chancellor had lost the king's favour, and that bristol, with buckingham and two or three more, ruled him. may , . [ ] a motion to refer the heads of charge against clarendon to a committee was lost by to ; seymour and osborne telling the noes, birch and clarges the ayes. commons' journals, nov. , . these names show how parties ran, seymour and osborne being high-flying cavaliers, and birch a presbyterian. a motion that he be impeached for treason on the first article was lost by to , the two former tellers for the ayes: nov. . in the harleian ms. , we have a copious account of the debates on this occasion, and a transcript in no. . sir heneage finch spoke much against the charge of treason; maynard seems to have done the same. a charge of secret correspondence with cromwell was introduced merely _ad invidiam_, the prosecutors admitting that it was pardoned by the act of indemnity, but wishing to make the chancellor plead that: maynard and hampden opposed it, and it was given up out of shame without a vote. vaughan, afterwards chief justice, argued that counselling the king to govern by a standing army was treason at common law, and seems to dispute what finch laid down most broadly, that there can be no such thing as a common law treason; relying on a passage in glanvill, where "seductio domini regis" is said to be treason. maynard stood up for the opposite doctrine. waller and vaughan argued that the sale of dunkirk was treason, but the article passed without declaring it to be so; nor would the word have appeared probably in the impeachment, if a young lord vaughan had not asserted that he could prove clarendon to have betrayed the king's councils, on which an article to that effect was carried by to . garraway and littleton were forward against the chancellor; but coventry seems to have taken no great part. see pepys's _diary_, dec. rd and th, . baxter also says that the presbyterians were by no means strenuous against clarendon, but rather the contrary, fearing that worse might come for the country, as giving him credit for having kept off military government. baxter's _life_, part iii. . this is very highly to the honour of that party whom he had so much oppressed, if not betrayed. "it was a notable providence of god, he says, that this man, who had been the great instrument of state, and done almost all, and had dealt so cruelly with the nonconformists should thus by his own friends be cast out and banished; while those that he had persecuted were the most moderate in his cause, and many for him. and it was a great ease that befel the good people throughout the land by his dejection. for his way was to decoy men into conspiracies or to pretend plots, and upon the rumour of a plot the innocent people of many countries were laid in prison, so that no man knew when he was safe. whereas since then, though laws have been made more and more severe, yet a man knoweth a little better what he is to expect, when it is by a law that he is to be tried." sham plots there seem to have been; but it is not reasonable to charge clarendon with inventing them. ralph, . [ ] in his wrath against the proviso inserted by sir george downing, as above mentioned, in the bill of supply, clarendon told him, as he confesses, that the king could never be well served, while fellows of his condition were admitted to speak as much as they had a mind; and that in the best times such presumptions had been punished with imprisonment by the lords of the council, without the king's taking notice of it. . the king was naturally displeased at this insolent language towards one of his servants, a man who has filled an eminent station, and done services, for a suggestion intended to benefit the revenue. and it was a still more flagrant affront to the house of commons, of which downing was a member, and where he had proposed this clause, and induced the house to adopt it. coventry told pepys "many things about the chancellor's dismissal, not fit to be spoken; and yet not any unfaithfulness to the king, but _instar omnium_, that he was so great at the council-board and in the administration of matters there was no room for anybody to propose any remedy for what was amiss, or to compass anything, though never so good for the kingdom, unless approved of by the chancellor; he managing all things with that greatness which now will be removed, that the king may have the benefit of others' advice." sept. , . his own memoirs are full of proofs of this haughtiness and intemperance. he set himself against sir william coventry, and speaks of a man as able and virtuous as himself with marked aversion. see too _life of james_, . coventry, according to this writer ( ), was the chief actor in clarendon's impeachment, but this seems to be a mistake; though he was certainly desirous of getting him out of place. the king, clarendon tells us ( ), pretended that the anger of parliament was such, and their power too, as it was not in his power to save him. the fallen minister desired him not to fear the power of parliament, "which was more or less, or nothing, as he pleased to make it." so preposterous as well as unconstitutional a way of talking could not but aggravate his unpopularity with that great body he pretended to contemn. [ ] _state trials_, vi. ; _parl. hist._ [ ] ludlow, iii. , _et post_; clarendon's _life_, ; burnet, ; _oeuvres de louis xiv._ ii. . [ ] harris's _lives_, v. ; _biogr. brit._ art. harrington; _life of james_, ; _somers tracts_, vii. , . [ ] see kennet's _register_, ; ralph, _et post_; harris's _lives_, v. , for proofs of this. [ ] _mem. of hutchinson_, . it seems, however, that he was suspected of some concern with an intended rising in , though nothing was proved against him. _miscellanea aulica_, . [ ] _life of clarendon_, . pepys says, the parliament was called together "against the duke of york's mind flatly, who did rather advise the king to raise money as he pleased; and against the chancellor, who told the king that queen elizabeth did do all her business in without calling a parliament, and so might he do for anything he saw." june , . he probably got this from his friend sir w. coventry. [ ] ralph, , etc. the overture came from clarendon, the french having no expectation of it. the worst was that, just before, he had dwelt in a speech to parliament on the importance of dunkirk. this was on may , . it appears by louis xiv.'s own account, which certainly does not tally with some other authorities, that dunkirk had been so great an object with cromwell, that it was the stipulated price of the english alliance. louis, however, was vexed at this, and determined to recover it at any price: il est certain que je ne pouvois trop donner pour racheter dunkerque. he sent d'estrades accordingly to england in , directing him to make this his great object. charles told the ambassador that spain had made him great offers, but he would rather treat with france. louis was delighted at this; and though the sum asked was considerable, , , livres, he would not break off, but finally concluded the treaty for , , , payable in three years; nay, saved , without its being found out by the english, for a banker having offered them prompt payment at this discount, they gladly accepted it; but this banker was a person employed by louis himself, who had the money ready. he had the greatest anxiety about this affair; for the city of london deputed the lord mayor to offer any sum so that dunkirk might not be alienated. _oeuvres de louis xiv._ i. . if this be altogether correct, the king of france did not fancy he had made so bad a bargain; and indeed, with his projects, if he had the money to spare, he could not think so. compare the _mémoires d'estrades_, and the supplement to the third volume of _clarendon state papers_. the historians are of no value, except as they copy from some of these original testimonies. [ ] _life of clar._ ; _life of james_, . [ ] see supplement to third volume of _clarendon state papers_, for abundant evidence of the close connection between the courts of france and england. the former offered bribes to lord clarendon so frequently and unceremoniously, that one is disposed to think he did not show so much indignation at the first overture as he ought to have done. see pp. , , . the aim of louis was to effect the match with catharine. spain would have given a great portion with any protestant princess, in order to break it. clarendon asked, on his master's account, for £ , , to avoid application to parliament. p. . the french offered a secret loan, or subsidy perhaps, of , , livres for the succour of portugal. this was accepted by clarendon (p. ); but i do not find anything more about it. [ ] as no one, who regards with attachment the present system of the english constitution, can look upon lord clarendon as an excellent minister, or a friend to the soundest principles of civil and religious liberty; so no man whatever can avoid considering his incessant deviations from the great duties of an historian as a moral blemish in his character. he dares very frequently to say what is not true, and what he must have known to be otherwise; he does not dare to say what is true. and it is almost an aggravation of this reproach, that he aimed to deceive posterity, and poisoned at the fountain a stream from which another generation was to drink. no defence has ever been set up for the fidelity of clarendon's history; nor can men, who have sifted the authentic materials, entertain much difference of judgment in this respect; though, as a monument of powerful ability and impressive eloquence, it will always be read with that delight which we receive from many great historians, especially the ancient, independent of any confidence in their veracity. one more instance, before we quit lord clarendon for ever, may here be mentioned of his disregard for truth. the strange tale of a fruitless search after the restoration for the body of charles i. is well known. lord southampton and lindsey, he tells us, who had assisted at their master's obsequies in st. george's chapel at windsor, were so overcome with grief, that they could not recognise the place of interment; and, after several vain attempts, the search was abandoned in despair. _hist. of rebellion_, vi. . whatever motive the noble historian may have had for this story, it is absolutely incredible that any such ineffectual search was ever made. nothing could have been more easy than to have taken up the pavement of the choir. but this was unnecessary. some at least of the workmen employed must have remembered the place of the vault. nor did it depend on them; for sir thomas herbert, who was present, had made at the time a note of the spot, "just opposite the eleventh stall on the king's side." herbert's _memoirs_, . and we find from pepys's _diary_, feb. , , that "he was shown, at windsor, where the late king was buried, and king henry viii. and my lady seymour." in which spot, as is well known, the royal body has twice been found, once in the reign of anne, and again in . [ ] the tenor of clarendon's life and writings almost forbids any surmise of pecuniary corruption. yet this is insinuated by pepys, on the authority of evelyn, april and may , . but the one was gossiping, though shrewd; and the other feeble, though accomplished. lord dartmouth, who lived in the next age, and whose splenetic humour makes him no good witness against anybody, charges him with receiving bribes from the main instruments and promoters of the late troubles, and those who had plundered the royalists, which enabled him to build his great mansion in piccadilly; asserting that it was full of pictures belonging to families who had been despoiled of them. "and whoever had a mind to see what great families had been plundered during the civil war, might find some remains either at clarendon house or at cornbury." note on burnet, . the character of clarendon, as a minister, is fairly and judiciously drawn by macpherson, _hist. of england_, ; a work by no means so full of a tory spirit as has been supposed. [ ] _parl. hist._ . [ ] the lords refused to commit the earl of clarendon on a general impeachment of high treason; and in a conference with the lower house, denied the authority of the precedent in strafford's case, which was pressed upon them. it is remarkable that the managers of this conference for the commons vindicated the first proceedings of the long parliament, which shows a considerable change in their tone since . they do not, however, seem to have urged, what is an apparent distinction between the two precedents, that the commitment of strafford was on a verbal request of pym in the name of the commons, without alleging any special matter of treason, and consequently irregular and illegal; while the th article of clarendon's impeachment charges him with betraying the king's counsels to his enemies; which, however untrue, evidently amounted to treason within the statute of edward iii.; so that the objection of the lords extended to committing any one for treason upon impeachment, without all the particularity required in an indictment. this showed a very commendable regard to the liberty of the subject; and from this time we do not find the vague and unintelligible accusations, whether of treason or misdemeanour, so usual in former proceedings of parliament. _parl. hist._ . a protest was signed by buckingham, albemarle, bristol, arlington, and others of their party, including three bishops (cosins, croft, and another), against the refusal of their house to commit clarendon upon the general charge. a few, on the other hand, of whom hollis is the only remarkable name, protested against the bill of banishment. "the most fatal blow (says james) the king gave himself to his power and prerogative, was when he sought aid from the house of commons to destroy the earl of clarendon: by that he put that house again in mind of their impeaching privilege, which had been wrested out of their hands by the restoration; and when ministers found they were like to be left to the censure of the parliament, it made them have a greater attention to court an interest there than to pursue that of their princes, from whom they hoped not for so sure a support." _life of james_, . the king, it is said, came rather slowly into the measure of impeachment; but became afterwards so eager, as to give the attorney-general, finch, positive orders to be active in it, observing him to be silent. carte's _ormond_, ii. . buckingham had made the king great promises of what the commons would do, in case he would sacrifice clarendon. [ ] kennet, , . burnet; baxter, . the design was to act on the principle of the declaration of , so that presbyterian ordinations should pass _sub modo_. tillotson and stillingfleet were concerned in it. the king was at this time exasperated against the bishops for their support of clarendon. burnet, _ibid._; pepys's _diary_, st dec. . and he had also deeper motives. [ ] _parl. hist._ ; ralph, ; carte's _life of ormond_, ii. . sir thomas littleton spoke in favour of the comprehension, as did seymour and waller; all of them enemies of clarendon, and probably connected with the buckingham faction: but the church party was much too strong for them. pepys says the commons were furious against the project; it was said that whoever proposed new laws about religion must do it with a rope about his neck. jan. , . this is the first instance of a triumph obtained by the church over the crown in the house of commons. ralph observes upon it, "it is not for nought that the words church and state are so often coupled together, and that the first has so insolently usurped the precedency of the last." [ ] _parl. hist._ . [ ] france retained lille, tournay, douay, charleroi, and other places by the treaty. the allies were surprised, and not pleased at the choice spain made of yielding these towns in order to save franche comté. temple's _letters_, . in fact, they were not on good terms with that power; she had even a project, out of spite to holland, of giving up the netherlands entirely to france, in exchange for rousillon, but thought better of it on cooler reflection. [ ] dalrymple, ii. _et post_. temple was not treated very favourably by most of the ministers on his return from concluding the triple alliance: clifford said to a friend, "well, for all this noise, we must yet have another war with the dutch before it be long." temple's _letters_, . [ ] dalrymple, ii. . [ ] burnet. [ ] _life of clarendon_, . [ ] _life of clarendon_, . [ ] _state trials_, vi. . one of the oddest things connected with this fire was, that some persons of the fanatic party had been hanged, in april, for a conspiracy to surprise the tower, murder the duke of albemarle and others, and then declare for an equal division of lands, etc. in order to effect this, the city was to be fired, and the guards secured in their quarters and for this the rd of september following was fixed upon as a lucky day. this is undoubtedly to be read in the _london gazette_ for april , ; and it is equally certain that the city was in flames on the rd of september. but, though the coincidence is curious, it would be very weak to think it more than a coincidence, for the same reason as applies to the suspicion which the catholics incurred; that the mere destruction of the city could not have been the object of any party, and that nothing was attempted to manifest any further design. [ ] macpherson's _extracts_, , ; _life of james_, . [ ] he tells us himself that it began by his reading a book written by a learned bishop of the church of england to clear her from schism in leaving the roman communion, which had a contrary effect on him; especially when, at the said bishop's desire, he read an answer to it. this made him inquisitive about the grounds and manner of the reformation. _after his return_, heylin's _history of the reformation_, and the preface to hooker's _ecclesiastical polity_, thoroughly convinced him that neither the church of england, nor calvin, nor any of the reformers, had power to do what they did; and he was confident, he said, that whosoever reads those two books with attention and without prejudice, would be of the same opinion. _life of james_, i. . the duchess of york embraced the same creed as her husband, and, as he tells us, without knowledge of his sentiments, but one year before her death in . she left a paper at her death containing the reasons for her change. see it in kennet, . it is plain that she, as well as the duke, had been influenced by the romanising tendency of some anglican divines. [ ] macpherson, ; _life of james_, . [ ] de witt was apprised of the intrigue between france and england as early as april , through a swedish agent at paris. temple, . temple himself, in the course of that year, became convinced that the king's views were not those of his people, and reflects severely on his conduct in a letter, december , . p. . in september , on his sudden recall from the hague, de witt told him his suspicions of a clandestine treaty. . he was received on his return coldly by arlington, and almost with rudeness by clifford. . they knew he would never concur in the new projects. but in , during one of the intervals when charles was playing false with his brother louis, the latter, in revenge, let an abbé primi, in a history of the dutch war, publish an account of the whole secret treaty, under the name of the count de st. majolo. this book was immediately suppressed at the instance of the english ambassador; and primi was sent for a short time to the bastile. but a pamphlet, published in london just after the revolution, contains extracts from it. dalrymple, ii. ; _somers tracts_, viii. ; _harl. misc._ ii. ; _oeuvres de louis xiv._ vi. . it is singular that hume should have slighted so well authenticated a fact, even before dalrymple's publication of the treaty; but i suppose he had never heard of primi's book. the original treaty has lately been published by dr. lingard, from lord clifford's cabinet. [ ] dalrymple, ii. . [ ] _id._ ; _life of james_, . [ ] the tenor of the article leads me to conclude, that these troops were to be landed in england at all events, in order to secure the public tranquillity without waiting for any disturbance. [ ] p. . [ ] bolingbroke has a remarkable passage as to this in his _letters on history_ (letter vii.): it may be also alluded to by others. the full details, however, as well as more authentic proofs, were reserved, as i believe, for the publication of _oeuvres de louis xiv._, where they will be found in vol. ii. . the proposal of louis to the emperor, in , was, that france should have the pays bas, franche comté, milan, naples, the ports of tuscany, navarre, and the philippine islands; leopold taking all the rest. the obvious drift of this was, that france should put herself in possession of an enormous increase of power and territory, leaving leopold to fight as he could for spain and america, which were not likely to submit peaceably. the austrian cabinet understood this; and proposed that they should exchange their shares. finally, however, it was concluded on the king's terms, except that he was to take sicily instead of milan. one article of this treaty was, that louis should keep what he had conquered in flanders; in other words, the terms of the treaty of aix la chapelle. the ratifications were exchanged th feb. . louis represents himself as more induced by this prospect than by any fear of the triple alliance, of which he speaks slightingly, to conclude the peace of aix la chapelle. he thought that he should acquire a character for moderation which might be serviceable to him, "dans les grands accroissemens que ma fortune pourroit recevoir." vol. ii. p. . [ ] dalrymple, - . james gives a different account of this; and intimates that henrietta, whose visit to dover he had for this reason been much against, prevailed on the king to change his resolution, and to begin with the war. he gained over arlington and clifford. the duke told them it would quite defeat the catholic design, because the king must run in debt, and be at the mercy of his parliament. they answered that, if the war succeeded, it was not much matter what people suspected. p. . this shows that they looked on force as necessary to compass the design, and that the noble resistance of the dutch, under the prince of orange, was that which frustrated the whole conspiracy. "the duke," it is again said (p. ), "was in his own judgment against entering into this war before his majesty's power and authority in england had been better fixed and less precarious, as it would have been, if the private treaty first agreed on had not been altered." the french court, however, was evidently right in thinking that, till the conquest of holland should be achieved, the declaration of the king's religion would only weaken him at home. it is gratifying to find the heroic character of our glorious deliverer displaying itself among these foul conspiracies. the prince of orange came over to england in . he was then very young; and his uncle, who was really attached to him, would have gladly associated him in the design; indeed it had been agreed that he was to possess part of the united provinces in sovereignty. but colbert writes that the king had found him so zealous a dutchman and protestant, that he could not trust him with any part of the secret. he let him know, however, as we learn from burnet, , that he had himself embraced the romish faith. [ ] dalrymple, . [ ] p. ; _life of james_, . in this work it is said that even the duchess of orleans had no knowledge of the real treaty; and that the other originated with buckingham. but dalrymple's authority seems far better in this instance. [ ] p. , etc. [ ] p. . [ ] p. . the reluctance to let the duke of buckingham into the secret seems to prove that more was meant than a toleration of the roman catholic religion, towards which he had always been disposed, and which was hardly a secret at court. [ ] pp. , . [ ] p. . [ ] p. . [ ] "the generality of the church of england men was not at that time very averse to the catholic religion; many that went under that name had their religion to choose, and went to church for company's sake." _life of james_, p. . [ ] _life of james_, ibid. [ ] macpherson's _extracts_, p. . [ ] car. , c. ; kennet, p. . the zeal in the commons against popery tended to aggravate this persecution of the dissenters. they had been led by some rascally clergymen to believe the absurdity that there was a good understanding between the two parties. [ ] burnet, p. . [ ] baxter, pp. , ; kennet, p. . see a letter of sheldon, written at this time, to the bishops of his province, urging them to persecute the nonconformists. harris's _life of charles ii._, p. . proofs also are given by this author of the manner in which some, such as lamplugh and ward, responded to their primate's wishes. sheldon found a panegyrist quite worthy of him in his chaplain parker, afterwards bishop of oxford. this notable person has left a latin history of his own time, wherein he largely commemorates the archbishop's zeal in molesting the dissenters, and praises him for defeating the scheme of comprehension. p. . i observe, that the late excellent editor of burnet has endeavoured to slide in a word for the primate (note on vol. i. p. ), on the authority of that history by bishop parker, and of sheldon's life in the _biographia britannica_. it is lamentable to rest on such proofs. i should certainly not have expected that, in magdalen college, of all places, the name of parker would have been held in honour; and as to the _biographia_, laudatory as it is of primates in general (save tillotson, whom it depreciates), i find, on reference, that its praise of sheldon's virtues is grounded on the authority of his epitaph in croydon church. [ ] baxter, . [ ] this is asserted by burnet, and seems to be acknowledged by the duke of york. the court endeavoured to mitigate the effect of the bill brought into the commons, in consequence of coventry's injury; and so far succeeded, that instead of a partial measure of protection for the members of the house of commons, as originally designed (which seemed, i suppose, to carry too marked a reference to the particular transaction), it was turned into a general act, making it a capital felony to wound with intention to maim or disfigure. but the name of the coventry act has always clung to this statute. _parl. hist._ . [ ] the king promised the bankers interest at six per cent., instead of the money due to them from the exchequer; but this was never paid till the latter part of william's reign. it may be considered as the beginning of our national debt. it seems to have been intended to follow the shutting up of the exchequer with a still more unwarrantable stretch of power, by granting an injunction to the creditors who were suing the bankers at law. according to north (_examen_, pp. , ), lord-keeper bridgman resigned the great seal rather than comply with this; and shaftesbury himself, who succeeded him, did not venture, if i understand the passage rightly, to grant an absolute injunction. the promise of interest for their money seems to have been given instead of this more illegal and violent remedy. [ ] _parl. hist._ ; kennet, . [ ] bridgman, the lord-keeper, resigned the great seal, according to burnet, because he would not put it to the declaration of indulgence, and was succeeded by shaftesbury. [ ] _parl. hist._ . the presbyterian party do not appear to have supported the declaration, at least birch spoke against it: waller, seymour, sir robert howard in its favour. baxter says, the nonconformists were divided in opinion as to the propriety of availing themselves of the declaration. p. . birch told pepys, some years before, that he feared some would try for extending the toleration to papists; but the sober party would rather be without it than have it on those terms. pepys's _diary_, jan. , ; _parl. hist._ , . father orleans says, that ormond, arlington, and some more advised the king to comply; the duke and the rest of the council urging him to adhere, and shaftesbury, who had been the first mover of the project, pledging himself for its success; there being a party for the king among the commons, and a force on foot enough to daunt the other side. it was suspected that the women interposed, and prevailed on the king to withdraw his declaration. upon this, shaftesbury turned short round, provoked at the king's want of steadiness, and especially at his giving up the point about issuing writs in the recess of parliament. [ ] car. ii. c. ; burnet, p. . [ ] the test act began in a resolution (february , ) that all who refuse to take the oaths and receive the sacrament, according to the rites of the church of england, shall be incapable of all public employments. _parl. hist._ . the court party endeavoured to oppose the declaration against transubstantiation, but of course in vain. _id._ , . the king had pressed his brother to receive the sacrament, in order to avoid suspicion, which he absolutely refused; and this led, he says, to the test. _life of james_, p. . but his religion was long pretty well known, though he did not cease to conform till . [ ] _parl. hist._ - . these debates are copied from those published by anchitel grey, a member of the commons for thirty years; but his notes, though collectively most valuable, are sometimes so brief and ill expressed, that it is hardly possible to make out their meaning. the court and church party, or rather some of them, seem to have much opposed this bill for the relief of protestant dissenters. [ ] commons' journals, and march ; lords' journals, and march. the lords were so slow about this bill that the lower house, knowing an adjournment to be in contemplation, sent a message to quicken them, according to a practice not unusual in this reign. perhaps, on an attentive consideration of the report on the conference (march ) it may appear that the lords' amendments had a tendency to let in popish, rather than to favour protestant, dissenters. parker says that this act of indulgence was defeated by his great hero, archbishop sheldon, who proposed that the nonconformists should acknowledge the war against charles i. to be unlawful. _hist. sui temporis_, p. of the translation. [ ] it was proposed, as an instruction to the committee on the test act, that a clause should be introduced, rendering nonconformists incapable of sitting in the house of commons. this was lost by to ; but it was resolved that a distinct bill should be brought in for that purpose. march . [ ] kennet, p. . [ ] commons' journals, jan. ; _parl. hist._ , , ; burnet. chapter xii earl of danby's administration--death of charles ii. the period of lord danby's administration, from to , was full of chicanery and dissimulation on the king's side, of increasing suspiciousness on that of the commons. forced by the voice of parliament, and the bad success of his arms, into peace with holland, charles struggled hard against a co-operation with her in the great confederacy of spain and the empire to resist the encroachments of france on the netherlands. such was in that age the strength of the barrier fortresses, and so heroic the resistance of the prince of orange, that, notwithstanding the extreme weakness of spain, there was no moment in that war, when the sincere and strenuous intervention of england would not have compelled louis xiv. to accept the terms of the treaty of aix la chapelle. it was the treacherous attachment of charles ii. to french interests that brought the long congress of nimeguen to an unfortunate termination; and, by surrendering so many towns of flanders as laid the rest open to future aggression, gave rise to the tedious struggles of two more wars.[ ] _opposition in the commons._--in the behaviour of the house of commons during this period, previously at least to the session of , there seems nothing which can incur much reprehension from those who reflect on the king's character and intentions; unless it be that they granted supplies rather too largely, and did not sufficiently provide against the perils of the time. but the house of lords contained unfortunately an invincible majority for the court, ready to frustrate any legislative security for public liberty. thus the habeas corpus act, first sent up to that house in , was lost there in several successive sessions. the commons therefore testified their sense of public grievances, and kept alive an alarm in the nation by resolutions and addresses, which a phlegmatic reader is sometimes too apt to consider as factious or unnecessary. if they seem to have dwelt more, in some of these, on the dangers of religion, and less on those of liberty, than we may now think reasonable, it is to be remembered that the fear of popery has always been the surest string to touch for effect on the people; and that the general clamour against that religion was all covertly directed against the duke of york, the most dangerous enemy of every part of our constitution. _corruption of the parliament._--the real vice of this parliament was not intemperance, but corruption. clifford, and still more danby, were masters in an art practised by ministers from the time of james i. (and which indeed can never be unknown where there exists a court and a popular assembly), that of turning to their use the weapons of mercenary eloquence by office, or blunting their edge by bribery.[ ] some who had been once prominent in opposition, as sir robert howard and sir richard temple, became placemen; some, like garraway and sir thomas lee, while they continued to lead the country party, took money from the court for softening particular votes;[ ] many, as seems to have been the case with reresby, were won by promises, and the pretended friendship of men in power.[ ] on two great classes of questions, france and popery, the commons broke away from all management; nor was danby unwilling to let his master see their indocility on these subjects. but, in general, till the year , by dint of the means before mentioned, and partly no doubt through the honest conviction of many that the king was not likely to employ any minister more favourable to the protestant religion and liberties of europe, he kept his ground without any insuperable opposition from parliament.[ ] _character of the earl of danby._--the earl of danby had virtues as an english minister, which serve to extenuate some great errors and an entire want of scrupulousness in his conduct. zealous against the church of rome and the aggrandisement of france, he counteracted, while he seemed to yield to, the prepossessions of his master. if the policy of england before the peace of nimeguen was mischievous and disgraceful, it would evidently have been far more so, had the king and duke of york been abetted by this minister in their fatal predilection for france. we owe to danby's influence, it must ever be remembered, the marriage of princess mary to the prince of orange, the seed of the revolution and the act of settlement--a courageous and disinterested counsel, which ought not to have proved the source of his greatest misfortunes.[ ] but we cannot pretend to say that he was altogether as sound a friend to the constitution of his country, as to her national dignity and interests. i do not mean that he wished to render the king absolute. but a minister, harassed and attacked in parliament, is tempted to desire the means of crushing his opponents, or at least of augmenting his own sway. the mischievous bill that passed the house of lords in , imposing as a test to be taken by both houses of parliament, as well as all holding beneficed offices, a declaration that resistance to persons commissioned by the king was in all cases unlawful, and that they would never attempt any alteration in the government in church or state, was promoted by danby, though it might possibly originate with others.[ ] it was apparently meant as a bone of contention among the country party, in which presbyterians and old parliamentarians were associated with discontented cavaliers. besides the mischief of weakening this party, which indeed the minister could not fairly be expected to feel, nothing could have been devised more unconstitutional, or more advantageous to the court's projects of arbitrary power. it is certainly possible that a minister who, aware of the dangerous intentions of his sovereign or his colleagues, remains in the cabinet to thwart and countermine them, may serve the public more effectually than by retiring from office; but he will scarcely succeed in avoiding some material sacrifices of integrity, and still less of reputation. danby, the ostensible adviser of charles ii., took on himself the just odium of that hollow and suspicious policy which appeared to the world. we know indeed that he was concerned, against his own judgment, in the king's secret receipt of money from france, the price of neutrality, both in and in , the latter to his own ruin.[ ] could the opposition, though not so well apprised of these transactions as we are, be censured for giving little credit to his assurances of zeal against that power; which, though sincere in him, were so little in unison with the disposition of the court? had they no cause to dread that the great army suddenly raised in , on pretence of being employed against france, might be turned to some worse purposes more congenial to the king's temper?[ ] _connection of the popular party with france--its motives on both sides._--this invincible distrust of the court is the best apology for that which has given rise to so much censure, the secret connections formed by the leaders of opposition with louis xiv., through his ambassadors barillon and rouvigny, about the spring of .[ ] they well knew that the king's designs against their liberties had been planned in concert with france, and could hardly be rendered effectual without her aid in money, if not in arms.[ ] if they could draw over this dangerous ally from his side, and convince the king of france that it was not his interest to crush their power, they would at least frustrate the suspected conspiracy, and secure the disbanding of the army; though at a great sacrifice of the continental policy which they had long maintained, and which was truly important to our honour and safety. yet there must be degrees in the scale of public utility; and, if the liberties of the people were really endangered by domestic treachery, it was ridiculous to think of saving tournay and valenciennes at the expense of all that was dearest at home. this is plainly the secret of that unaccountable, as it then seemed, and factious opposition, in the year ; which cannot be denied to have served the ends of france, and thwarted the endeavours of lord danby and sir william temple to urge on the uncertain and half-reluctant temper of the king into a decided course of policy.[ ] louis, in fact, had no desire to see the king of england absolute over his people, unless it could be done so much by his own help as to render himself the real master of both. in the estimate of kings, or of such kings as louis xiv., all limitations of sovereignty, all co-ordinate authority of estates and parliaments, are not only derogatory to the royal dignity, but injurious to the state itself, of which they distract the councils and enervate the force. great armies, prompt obedience, unlimited power over the national resources, secrecy in council, rapidity in execution, belong to an energetic and enlightened despotism: we should greatly err in supposing that louis xiv. was led to concur in projects of subverting our constitution from any jealousy of its contributing to our prosperity. he saw, on the contrary, in the perpetual jarring of kings and parliaments, a source of feebleness and vacillation in foreign affairs, and a field for intrigue and corruption. it was certainly far from his design to see a republic, either in name or effect, established in england; but an unanimous loyalty, a spontaneous submission to the court, was as little consonant to his interests; and, especially if accompanied with a willing return of the majority to the catholic religion, would have put an end to his influence over the king, and still more certainly over the duke of york.[ ] he had long been sensible of the advantage to be reaped from a malcontent party in england. in the first years after the restoration, he kept up a connection with the disappointed commonwealth's men, while their courage was yet fresh and unsubdued; and in the war of was very nearly exciting insurrections both in england and ireland.[ ] these schemes of course were suspended, as he grew into closer friendship with charles, and saw a surer method of preserving an ascendancy over the kingdom. but, as soon as the princess mary's marriage, contrary to the king of england's promise, and to the plain intent of all their clandestine negotiations, displayed his faithless and uncertain character to the french cabinet, they determined to make the patriotism, the passion, and the corruption of the house of commons minister to their resentment and ambition. the views of lord hollis and lord russell in this clandestine intercourse with the french ambassador were sincerely patriotic and honourable: to detach france from the king; to crush the duke of york and popish faction; to procure the disbanding of the army, the dissolution of a corrupted parliament, the dismissal of a bad minister.[ ] they would indeed have displayed more prudence in leaving these dark and dangerous paths of intrigue to the court which was practised in them. they were concerting measures with the natural enemy of their country, religion, honour, and liberty; whose obvious policy was to keep the kingdom disunited that it might be powerless; who had been long abetting the worst designs of our own court, and who could never be expected to act against popery and despotism, but for the temporary ends of his ambition. yet, in the very critical circumstances of that period, it was impossible to pursue any course with security; and the dangers of excessive circumspection and adherence to general rules may often be as formidable as those of temerity. the connection of the popular party with france may very probably have frustrated the sinister intentions of the king and duke, by compelling the reduction of the army, though at the price of a great sacrifice of european policy.[ ] such may be, with unprejudiced men, a sufficient apology for the conduct of lord russell and lord hollis, the most public-spirited and high-minded characters of their age, in this extraordinary and unnatural alliance. it would have been unworthy of their virtue to have gone into so desperate an intrigue with no better aim than that of ruining lord danby; and of this i think we may fully acquit them. the nobleness of russell's disposition beams forth in all that barillon has written of their conferences. yet, notwithstanding the plausible grounds of his conduct, we can hardly avoid wishing that he had abstained from so dangerous an intercourse, which led him to impair, in the eyes of posterity, by something more like faction than can be ascribed to any other part of his parliamentary life, the consistency and ingenuousness of his character.[ ] _doubt as to the acceptance of money by the popular party._--i have purposely mentioned lord russell and lord hollis apart from others who were mingled in the same intrigues of the french ambassador, both because they were among the first with whom he tampered, and because they are honourably distinguished by their abstinence from all pecuniary remuneration, which hollis refused, and which barillon did not presume to offer to russell. it appears however from this minister's accounts of the money he had expended in this secret service of the french crown, that, at a later time, namely about the end of , many of the leading members of opposition, sir thomas littleton, mr. garraway, mr. hampden, mr. powle, mr. sacheverell, mr. foley, received sums of or guineas, as testimonies of the king of france's munificence and favour. among others, algernon sidney, who, though not in parliament, was very active out of it, is more than once mentioned. chiefly because the name of algernon sidney had been associated with the most stern and elevated virtue, this statement was received with great reluctance; and many have ventured to call the truth of these pecuniary gratifications in question. this is certainly a bold surmise; though barillon is known to have been a man of luxurious and expensive habits, and his demands for more money on account of the english court, which continually occur in his correspondence with louis, may lead to a suspicion that he would be in some measure a gainer by it. this however might possibly be the case without actual peculation. but it must be observed that there are two classes of those who are alleged to have received presents through his hands; one, of such as were in actual communication with himself; another, of such as sir john baber, a secret agent, had prevailed upon to accept it. sidney was in the first class; but, as to the second, comprehending littleton, hampden, sacheverell, in whom it is as difficult to suspect pecuniary corruption as in him, the proof is manifestly weaker, depending only on the assertion of an intriguer that he had paid them the money. the falsehood either of baber or barillon would acquit these considerable men. nor is it to be reckoned improbable that persons employed in this clandestine service should be guilty of a fraud, for which they could evidently never be made responsible. we have indeed a remarkable confession of coleman, the famous intriguer executed for the popish plot, to this effect. he deposed in his examination before the house of commons, in november , that he had received last session of barillon £ to be distributed among members of parliament, which he had converted to his own use.[ ] it is doubtless possible that coleman having actually expended this money in the manner intended, bespoke the favour of those whose secret he kept by taking the discredit of such a fraud on himself. but it is also possible that he spoke the truth. a similar uncertainty hangs over the transactions of sir john baber. nothing in the parliamentary conduct of the above-mentioned gentlemen in corroborates the suspicion of an intrigue with france, whatever may have been the case in . i must fairly confess however that the decided bias of my own mind is on the affirmative side of this question; and that principally because i am not so much struck, as some have been, by any violent improbability in what barillon wrote to his court on the subject. if indeed we were to read that algernon sidney had been bought over by louis xiv. or charles ii. to assist in setting up absolute monarchy in england, we might fairly oppose our knowledge of his inflexible and haughty character, of his zeal, in life and death, for republican liberty. but there is, i presume, some moral distinction between the acceptance of a bribe to desert or betray our principles and that of a trifling present for acting in conformity to them. the one is, of course, to be styled corruption; the other is repugnant to a generous and delicate mind, but too much sanctioned by the practice of an age far less scrupulous than our own, to have carried with it any great self-reproach or sense of degradation. it is truly inconceivable that men of such property as sir thomas littleton or mr. foley should have accepted or guineas, the sums mentioned by barillon, as the price of apostasy from those political principles to which they owed the esteem of their country, or of an implicit compliance with the dictates of france. it is sufficiently discreditable to the times in which they lived, that they should have accepted so pitiful a gratuity; unless indeed we should in candour resort to an hypothesis which seems not absurd, that they agreed among themselves not to offend louis, or excite his distrust, by a refusal of this money. sidney indeed was, as there is reason to think, a distressed man; he had formerly been in connection with the court of france,[ ] and had persuaded himself that the countenance of that power might one day or other be afforded to his darling scheme of a commonwealth; he had contracted a dislike to the prince of orange, and consequently to the dutch alliance, from the same governing motive: is it strange that one so circumstanced should have accepted a small gratification from the king of france which implied no dereliction of his duty as an englishman, or any sacrifice of political integrity? and i should be glad to be informed by the idolaters of algernon sidney's name, what we know of him from authentic and contemporary sources which renders this incredible. _secret treaties of the king with france._--france, in the whole course of these intrigues, held the game in her hands. mistress of both parties, she might either embarrass the king through parliament, if he pretended to an independent course of policy, or cast away the latter, when he should return to his former engagements. hence, as early as may , a private treaty was set on foot between charles and louis, by which the former obliged himself to keep a neutrality, if the allies should not accept the terms offered by france, to recall all his troops from flanders within two months, to disband most of his army and not to assemble his parliament for six months; in return he was to receive , , livres. this was signed by the king himself on may ; none of his ministers venturing to affix their names.[ ] yet at this time he was making outward professions of an intention to carry on the war. even in this secret treaty, so thorough was his insincerity, he meant to evade one of its articles, that of disbanding his troops. in this alone he was really opposed to the wishes of france; and her pertinacity in disarming him seems to have been the chief source of those capricious changes of his disposition, which we find for three or four years at this period.[ ] louis again appears not only to have mistrusted the king's own inclinations after the prince of orange's marriage, and his ability to withstand the eagerness of the nation for war, but to have apprehended he might become absolute by means of his army, without standing indebted for it to his ancient ally. in this point therefore he faithfully served the popular party. charles used every endeavour to evade this condition; whether it were that he still entertained hopes of attaining arbitrary power through intimidation, or that, dreading the violence of the house of commons, and ascribing it rather to a republican conspiracy than to his own misconduct, he looked to a military force as his security. from this motive we may account for his strange proposal to the french king of a league in support of sweden, by which he was to furnish fifteen ships and , men, at the expense of france, during three years, receiving six millions for the first year, and four for each of the two next. louis, as is highly probable, betrayed this project to the dutch government; and thus frightened them into that hasty signature of the treaty of nimeguen, which broke up the confederacy and accomplished the immediate objects of his ambition. no longer in need of the court of england, he determined to punish it for that duplicity, which none resent more in others than those who are accustomed to practise it. he refused charles the pension stipulated by the private treaty, alleging that its conditions had not been performed; and urged on montagu, with promises of indemnification, to betray as much as he knew of that secret, in order to ruin lord danby.[ ] _fall of danby_--_his impeachment._--the ultimate cause of this minister's fall may thus be deduced from the best action of his life; though it ensued immediately from his very culpable weakness in aiding the king's base inclinations towards a sordid bargaining with france. it is well known that the famous letter to montagu, empowering him to make an offer of neutrality for the price of , , livres, was not only written by the king's express order, but that charles attested this with his own signature in a postscript. this bears date five days after an act had absolutely passed to raise money for carrying on the war; a circumstance worthy of particular attention, as it both puts an end to every pretext or apology which the least scrupulous could venture to urge in behalf of this negotiation, but justifies the whig party of england in an invincible distrust, an inexpiable hatred, of so perfidious a cozener as filled the throne. but as he was beyond their reach, they exercised a constitutional right in the impeachment of his responsible minister. for responsible he surely was; though, strangely mistaking the obligations of an english statesman, danby seems to fancy in his printed defence that the king's order would be a sufficient warrant to justify obedience in any case not literally unlawful. "i believe," he says, "there are very few subjects but would take it ill not to be obeyed by their servants; and their servants might as justly expect their master's protection for their obedience." the letter to montagu, he asserts, "was written by the king's command, upon the subject of peace and war, wherein his majesty alone is at all times sole judge, and ought to be obeyed not only by any of his ministers of state, but by all his subjects."[ ] such were, in that age, the monarchical or tory maxims of government, which the impeachment of this minister contributed in some measure to overthrow. as the king's authority for the letter to montagu was an undeniable fact, evidenced by his own handwriting, the commons in impeaching lord danby went a great way towards establishing the principle that no minister can shelter himself behind the throne by pleading obedience to the orders of his sovereign. he is answerable for the justice, the honesty, the utility of all measures emanating from the crown, as well as for their legality; and thus the executive administration is, or ought to be, subordinate, in all great matters of policy, to the superintendence and virtual control of the two houses of parliament. it must at the same time be admitted that, through the heat of honest indignation and some less worthy passions on the one hand, through uncertain and crude principles of constitutional law on the other, this just and necessary impeachment of the earl of danby was not so conducted as to be exempt from all reproach. the charge of high treason for an offence manifestly amounting only to misdemeanour, with the purpose, not perhaps of taking the life of the accused, but at least of procuring some punishment beyond the law,[ ] the strange mixture of articles, as to which there was no presumptive proof, or which were evidently false, such as concealment of the popish plot, gave such a character of intemperance and faction to these proceedings, as may lead superficial readers to condemn them altogether.[ ] the compliance of danby with the king's corrupt policy had been highly culpable, but it was not unprecedented; it was even conformable to the court standard of duty; and as it sprung from too inordinate a desire to retain power, it would have found an appropriate and adequate chastisement in exclusion from office. we judge perhaps somewhat more favourably of lord danby than his contemporaries at that juncture were warranted to do; but even then he was rather a minister to be pulled down than a man to be severely punished. his one great and undeniable service to the protestant and english interests should have palliated a multitude of errors. yet this was the mainspring and first source of the intrigue that ruined him. _questions arising on the impeachment_--_danby's commitment to the tower._--the impeachment of lord danby brought forward several material discussions on that part of our constitutional law, which should not be passed over in this place. . as soon as the charges presented by the commons at the bar of the upper house had been read, a motion was made that the earl should withdraw; and another afterwards, that he should be committed to the tower: both of which were negatived by considerable majorities.[ ] this refusal to commit on a charge of treason had created a dispute between the two houses in the instance of lord clarendon.[ ] in that case, however, one of the articles of impeachment did actually contain an unquestionable treason. but it was contended with much force on the present occasion that, if the commons, by merely using the word traitorously, could alter the character of offences which, on their own showing, amounted only to misdemeanours, the boasted certainty of the law in matters of treason would be at an end; and unless it were meant that the lords should pass sentence in such a case against the received rules of law, there could be no pretext for their refusing to admit the accused to bail. even in strafford's case, which was a condemned precedent, they had a general charge of high treason upon which he was committed; while the offences alleged against danby were stated with particularity, and upon the face of the articles could not be brought within any reasonable interpretation of the statutes relating to treason. the house of commons faintly urged a remarkable clause in the act of edward iii., which provides that, in case of any doubt arising as to the nature of an offence charged to amount to treason, the judges should refer it to the sentence of parliament; and maintained that this invested the two houses with a declaratory power to extend the penalties of the law to new offences which had not been clearly provided for in its enactments. but, though something like this might possibly have been in contemplation with the framers of that statute, and precedents were not absolutely wanting to support the construction, it was so repugnant to the more equitable principles of criminal law which had begun to gain ground, that even the heat of faction did not induce the commons to insist upon it. they may be considered however as having carried their point; for, though the prorogation and subsequent dissolution of the present parliament ensued so quickly that nothing more was done in the matter, yet when the next house of commons revived the impeachment, the lords voted to take danby into custody without any further objection.[ ] it ought not to be inferred from hence, that they were wrong in refusing to commit; nor do i conceive, notwithstanding the latter precedent of lord oxford, that any rule to the contrary is established. in any future case it ought to be open to debate, whether articles of impeachment pretending to contain a charge of high treason do substantially set forth overt acts of such a crime; and, if the house of lords shall be of opinion, either by consulting the judges or otherwise, that no treason is specially alleged, they should, notwithstanding any technical words, treat the offence as a misdemeanour, and admit the accused to bail.[ ] . _pardon pleaded in bar._--a still more important question sprung up as to the king's right of pardon upon a parliamentary impeachment. danby, who had absconded on the unexpected revival of these proceedings in the new parliament, finding that an act of attainder was likely to pass against him in consequence of his flight from justice, surrendered himself to the usher of the black rod; and, on being required to give in his written answer to the charges of the commons, pleaded a pardon, secretly obtained from the king, in bar of the prosecution.[ ] the commons resolved that the pardon was illegal and void, and ought not to be pleaded in bar of the impeachment of the commons of england. they demanded judgment at the lords' bar against danby, as having put in a void plea. they resolved, with that culpable violence which distinguished this and the succeeding house of commons, in order to deprive the accused of the assistance of counsel, that no commoner whatsoever should presume to maintain the validity of the pardon pleaded by the earl of danby without their consent, on pain of being accounted a betrayer of the liberties of the commons of england.[ ] they denied the right of the bishops to vote on the validity of this pardon. they demanded the appointment of a committee from both houses to regulate the form and manner of proceeding on this impeachment, as well as on that of the five lords accused of participation in the popish plot. the upper house gave some signs of a vacillating and temporising spirit, not by any means unaccountable. they acceded, after a first refusal, to the proposition of a committee, though manifestly designed to encroach on their own exclusive claim of judicature.[ ] but they came to a resolution that the spiritual lords had a right to sit and vote in parliament in capital cases, until judgment of death shall be pronounced.[ ] the commons of course protested against this vote;[ ] but a prorogation soon dropped the curtain over their differences; and danby's impeachment was not acted upon in the next parliament. _votes of bishops._--there seems to be no kind of pretence for objecting to the votes of the bishops on such preliminary questions as may arise in an impeachment of treason. it is true that ancient custom has so far ingrafted the provisions of the ecclesiastical law on our constitution, that they are bound to withdraw when judgment of life or death is pronounced; though even in this they always do it with a protestation of their right to remain. this, once claimed as a privilege of the church, and reluctantly admitted by the state, became, in the lapse of ages, an exclusion and badge of inferiority. in the constitutions of clarendon, under henry ii., it is enacted, that the bishops and others holding spiritual benefices "in capite" should give their attendance at trials in parliament, till it come to sentence of life or member. this, although perhaps too ancient to have authority as statute law, was a sufficient evidence of the constitutional usage, where nothing so material could be alleged on the other side. and, as the original privilege was built upon nothing better than the narrow superstitions of the canon law, there was no reasonable pretext for carrying the exclusion of the spiritual lords farther than certain and constant precedents required. though it was true, as the enemies of lord danby urged, that by voting for the validity of his pardon, they would in effect determine the whole question in his favour, yet there seemed no serious reasons, considering it abstractedly from party views, why they should not thus indirectly be restored for once to a privilege, from which the prejudices of former ages alone had shut them out. the main point in controversy, whether a general or special pardon from the king could be pleaded in answer to an impeachment of the commons so as to prevent any further proceedings in it, never came to a regular decision. it was evident that a minister who had influence enough to obtain such an indemnity, might set both houses of parliament at defiance; the pretended responsibility of the crown's advisers, accounted the palladium of our constitution, would be an idle mockery, if not only punishment could be averted, but enquiry frustrated. even if the king could remit the penalties of a guilty minister's sentence upon impeachment, it would be much, that public indignation should have been excited against him, that suspicion should have been turned into proof, that shame and reproach, irremissible by the great seal, should avenge the wrongs of his country. it was always to be presumed that a sovereign, undeceived by such a judicial inquiry, or sensible to the general voice it roused, would voluntarily, or at least prudently, abandon an unworthy favourite. though it might be admitted that long usage had established the royal prerogative of granting pardons under the great seal, even before trial, and that such pardons might be pleaded in bar (a prerogative indeed which ancient statutes, not repealed, though gone into disuse, or rather in no time acted upon, had attempted to restrain), yet we could not infer that it extended to cases of impeachment. in ordinary criminal proceedings by indictment the king was before the court as prosecutor, the suit was in his name; he might stay the process at his pleasure, by entering a "noli prosequi;" to pardon, before or after judgment, was a branch of the same prerogative; it was a great constitutional trust, to be exercised at his discretion. but in an appeal or accusation of felony, brought by the injured party, or his next of blood, a proceeding wherein the king's name did not appear, it was undoubted that he could not remit the capital sentence. the same principle seemed applicable to an impeachment at the suit of the commons of england, demanding justice from the supreme tribunal of the other house of parliament. it could not be denied that james had remitted the whole sentence upon lord bacon. but impeachments were so unusual at that time, and the privileges of parliament so little out of dispute, that no great stress could be laid on this precedent. such must have been the course of arguing, strong on political, and specious on legal grounds, which induced the commons to resist the plea put in by lord danby. though this question remained in suspense on the present occasion, it was finally decided by the legislature in the act of settlement; which provides that no pardon under the great seal of england be pleadable to an impeachment of the commons in parliament.[ ] these expressions seem tacitly to concede the crown's right of granting a pardon after sentence; which, though perhaps it could not well be distinguished in point of law from a pardon pleadable in bar, stands on a very different footing, as has been observed above, with respect to constitutional policy. accordingly, upon the impeachment of the six peers who had been concerned in the rebellion of , the house of lords after sentence passed, having come to a resolution on debate that the king had a right to reprieve in cases of impeachment, addressed him to exercise that prerogative as to such of them as should deserve his mercy; and three of the number were in consequence pardoned.[ ] . _abatement of impeachments by dissolution._--the impeachment of danby first brought forward another question of hardly less magnitude, and remarkable as one of the few great points in constitutional law, which have been discussed and finally settled within the memory of the present generation: i mean the continuance of an impeachment by the commons from one parliament to another. though this has been put at rest by a determination altogether consonant to maxims of expediency, it seems proper in this place to show briefly the grounds upon which the argument on both sides rested. in the earlier period of our parliamentary records, the business of both houses, whether of a legislative or judicial nature, though often very multifarious, was despatched, with the rapidity natural to comparatively rude times, by men impatient of delay, unused to doubt, and not cautious in the proof of facts or attentive to the subtleties of reasoning. the session, generally speaking, was not to terminate till the petitions in parliament for redress had been disposed of, whether decisively or by reference to some more permanent tribunal. petitions for alteration of the law, presented by the commons, and assented to by the lords, were drawn up into statutes by the king's council just before the prorogation or dissolution. they fell naturally to the ground, if the session closed before they could be submitted to the king's pleasure. the great change that took place in the reign of henry vi., by passing bills complete in their form through the two houses instead of petitions, while it rendered manifest to every eye that distinction between legislative and judicial proceedings which the simplicity of older times had half concealed, did not affect this constitutional principle. at the close of a session, every bill then in progress through parliament became a nullity, and must pass again through all its stages before it could be tendered for the royal assent. no sort of difference existed in the effect of a prorogation and a dissolution; it was even maintained that a session made a parliament. during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, writs of error from inferior courts to the house of lords became far less usual than in the preceding age; and when they occurred, as error could only be assigned on a point of law appearing on the record, they were quickly decided with the assistance of the judges. but, when they grew more frequent, and especially when appeals from the chancellor, requiring often a tedious examination of depositions, were brought before the lords, it was found that a sudden prorogation might often interrupt a decision; and the question arose, whether writs of error, and other proceedings of a similar nature, did not, according to precedent or analogy, cease, or in technical language abate, at the close of a session. an order was accordingly made by the house on march , , that "the lords committees for privileges should inquire whether an appeal to this house either by writ of error or petition, from the proceedings of any other court being depending, and not determined in one session of parliament, continue in statu quo unto the next session of parliament, without renewing the writ of error or petition, or beginning all anew." the committee reported on the th of march, after mis-reciting the order of reference to them in a very remarkable manner, by omitting some words and interpolating others, so as to make it far more extensive than it really was,[ ] that upon the consideration of precedents, which they specify, they came to a resolution that "businesses depending in one parliament or session of parliament have been continued to the next session of the same parliament, and the proceedings thereupon have remained in the same state in which they were left when last in agitation." the house approved of this resolution, and ordered it accordingly.[ ] this resolution was decisive as to the continuance of ordinary judicial business beyond the termination of a session. it was still open to dispute whether it might not abate by a dissolution. and the peculiar case of impeachment, to which, after the dissolution of the long parliament in , every one's attention was turned, seemed to stand on different grounds. it was referred therefore to the committee of privileges, on the th of march , to consider whether petitions of appeal which were presented to this house in the last parliament be still in force to be proceeded on. next day it is referred to the same committee, on a report of the matter of fact as to the impeachments of the earl of danby and the five popish lords in the late parliament, to consider of the state of the said impeachments and all the incidents relating thereto, and to report to the house. on the th of march lord essex reported from the committee, that, "upon perusal of the judgment of this house of the th of march , they are of opinion, that in all cases of appeals and writs of error they continue, and are to be proceeded on, in statu quo, as they stood at the dissolution of the last parliament, without beginning de novo.... and, upon consideration had of the matter referred to their lordships concerning the state of the impeachments brought up from the house of commons the last parliament, etc.... they are of opinion that the dissolution of the last parliament doth not alter the state of the impeachments brought up by the commons in that parliament." this report was taken into consideration next day by the house; and after a debate, which appears from the journals to have lasted some time, and the previous question moved and lost, it was resolved to agree with the committee.[ ] this resolution became for some years the acknowledged law of parliament. lord stafford, at his trial in , having requested that his counsel might be heard as to the point, whether impeachments could go from one parliament to another, the house took no notice of this question; though they consulted the judges about another which he had put, as to the necessity of two witnesses to every overt act of treason.[ ] lord danby and chief-justice scroggs petitioned the lords in the oxford parliament, one to have the charges against him dismissed, the other to be bailed; but neither take the objection of an intervening dissolution.[ ] and lord danby, after the dissolution of three successive parliaments since that in which he was impeached, having lain for three years in the tower, when he applied to be enlarged on bail by the court of king's bench in , was refused by the judges, on the ground of their incompetency to meddle in a parliamentary impeachment; though, if the prosecution were already at an end, he would have been entitled to an absolute discharge. on jefferies becoming chief justice of the king's bench, danby was admitted to bail.[ ] but in the parliament of , the impeached lords having petitioned the house, it was resolved, that the order of the th of march be reversed and annulled as to impeachments; and they were consequently released from their recognisances.[ ] the first of these two contradictory determinations is not certainly free from that reproach which so often contaminates our precedents of parliamentary law, and renders an honest man reluctant to show them any greater deference than is strictly necessary. it passed during the violent times of the popish plot; and a contrary resolution would have set at liberty the five catholic peers committed to the tower, and enabled them probably to quit the kingdom before a new impeachment could be preferred. it must be acknowledged, at the same time, that it was borne out, in a considerable degree, by the terms of the order of , which seems liable to no suspicion of answering a temporary purpose; and that the court party in the house of lords were powerful enough to have withstood any flagrant innovation in the law of parliament. as for the second resolution, that of , which reversed the former, it was passed in the very worst of times; and, if we may believe the protest, signed by the earl of anglesea and three other peers, with great precipitation and neglect of usual forms. it was not however annulled after the revolution; but, on the contrary, received what may seem at first sight a certain degree of confirmation, from an order of the house of lords in , on the petitions of lords salisbury and peterborough, who had been impeached in the preceding parliament, to be discharged; which was done after reading the resolutions of and , and a long debate thereon. but as a general pardon had come out in the meantime, by which the judges held that the offences imputed to these two lords had been discharged, and as the commons showed no disposition to follow up their impeachment against them, no parliamentary reasoning can perhaps be founded on this precedent.[ ] in the case of the duke of leeds, impeached by the commons in , no further proceedings were had; but the lords did not make an order for his discharge from the accusation till five years after three dissolutions had intervened; and grounded it upon the commons not proceeding with the impeachment. they did not however send a message to enquire if the commons were ready to proceed, which, according to parliamentary usage, would be required in case of a pending impeachment. the cases of lords somers, orford, and halifax, were similar to that of the duke of leeds, except that so long a period did not intervene. these instances therefore rather tend to confirm the position, that impeachments did not ipso facto abate by a dissolution, notwithstanding the reversal of the order of . in the case of the earl of oxford, it was formally resolved in , that an impeachment does not determine by a prorogation of parliament; an authority conclusive to those who maintain that no difference exists in the law of parliament between the effects of a prorogation and a dissolution. but it is difficult to make all men consider this satisfactory. the question came finally before both houses of parliament in , a dissolution having intervened during the impeachment of mr. hastings; an impeachment which, far unlike the rapid proceedings of former ages, had already been for three years before the house of lords, and seemed likely to run on to an almost interminable length. it must have been abandoned in despair, if the prosecution had been held to determine by the late dissolution. the general reasonings, and the force of precedents on both sides, were urged with great ability, and by the principal speakers in both houses; the lawyers generally inclining to maintain the resolution of , that impeachments abate by a dissolution, but against still greater names which were united on the opposite side. in the end, after an ample discussion, the continuance of impeachments, in spite of a dissolution, was carried by very large majorities; and this decision, so deliberately taken, and so free from all suspicion of partiality (the majority in neither house, especially the upper, bearing any prejudice against the accused person), as well as so consonant to principles of utility and constitutional policy, must for ever have set at rest all dispute upon the question. _popish plot._--the year , and the last session of the parliament that had continued since , were memorable for the great national delusion of the popish plot. for national it was undoubtedly to be called, and by no means confined to the whig or opposition party, either in or out of parliament, though it gave them much temporary strength. and though it were a most unhappy instance of the credulity begotten by heated passions and mistaken reasoning, yet there were circumstances, and some of them very singular in their nature, which explain and furnish an apology for the public error, and which it is more important to point out and keep in mind, than to inveigh, as is the custom in modern times, against the factitiousness and bigotry of our ancestors. for i am persuaded that we are far from being secure from similar public delusions, whenever such a concurrence of coincidences and seeming probabilities shall again arise, as misled nearly the whole people of england in the popish plot.[ ] _coleman's letters._--it is first to be remembered that there was really and truly a popish plot in being, though not that which titus oates and his associates pretended to reveal--not merely in the sense of hume, who, arguing from the general spirit of proselytism in that religion, says there is a perpetual conspiracy against all governments, protestant, mahometan, and pagan, but one alert, enterprising, effective, in direct operation against the established protestant religion in england. in this plot the king, the duke of york, and the king of france were chief conspirators; the romish priests, and especially the jesuits, were eager co-operators. their machinations and their hopes, long suspected, and in a general sense known, were divulged by the seizure and publication of coleman's letters. "we have here," he says, in one of these, "a mighty work upon our hands, no less than the conversion of three kingdoms, and by that perhaps the utter subduing of a pestilent heresy, which has a long time domineered over this northern world. there were never such hopes since the death of our queen mary as now in our days. god has given us a prince, who is become (i may say by miracle) zealous of being the author and instrument of so glorious a work; but the opposition we are sure to meet with is also like to be great; so that it imports us to get all the aid and assistance we can." these letters were addressed to father la chaise, confessor of louis xiv., and displayed an intimate connection with france for the great purpose of restoring popery. they came to light at the very period of oates's discovery; and though not giving it much real confirmation, could hardly fail to make a powerful impression on men unaccustomed to estimate the value and bearings of evidence.[ ] the conspiracy supposed to have been concerted by the jesuits at st. omers, and in which so many english catholics were implicated, chiefly consisted, as is well known, in a scheme of assassinating the king. though the obvious falsehood and absurdity of much that the witnesses deposed in relation to this plot render it absolutely incredible, and fully acquit those unfortunate victims of iniquity and prejudice, it could not appear at the time an extravagant supposition, that an eager intriguing faction should have considered the king's life a serious obstacle to their hopes. though as much attached in heart as his nature would permit to the catholic religion, he was evidently not inclined to take any effectual measures in its favour; he was but one year older than his brother, on the contingency of whose succession all their hopes rested, since his heiress was not only brought up in the protestant faith, but united to its most strenuous defender. nothing could have been more anxiously wished at st. omers than the death of charles; and it does not seem improbable that the atrocious fictions of oates may have been originally suggested by some actual, though vague, projects of assassination, which he had heard in discourse among the ardent spirits of that college. _murder of sir edmondbury godfrey._--the popular ferment which this tale, however undeserving of credit, excited in a predisposed multitude, was naturally wrought to a higher pitch by the very extraordinary circumstances of sir edmondbury godfrey's death. even at this time, although we reject the imputation thrown on the catholics, and especially on those who suffered death for that murder, it seems impossible to frame any hypothesis which can better account for the facts that seem to be authenticated. that he was murdered by those who designed to lay the charge on the papists, and aggravate the public fury, may pass with those who rely on such writers as roger north,[ ] but has not the slightest corroboration from any evidence; nor does it seem to have been suggested by the contemporary libellers of the court party. that he might have had, as an active magistrate, private enemies, whose revenge took away his life, which seems to be hume's conjecture, is hardly more satisfactory; the enemies of a magistrate are not likely to have left his person unplundered, nor is it usual for justices of the peace, merely on account of the discharge of their ordinary duties, to incur such desperate resentment. that he fell by his own hands was doubtless the suggestion of those who aimed at discrediting the plot; but it is impossible to reconcile this with the marks of violence which are so positively sworn to have appeared on his neck; and, on a later investigation of the subject in the year , when the court had become very powerful, and a belief in the plot had grown almost a mark of disloyalty, an attempt made to prove the self-murder of godfrey, in a trial before pemberton, failed altogether; and the result of the whole evidence, on that occasion, was strongly to confirm the supposition that he had perished by the hands of assassins.[ ] his death remains at this moment a problem for which no tolerably satisfactory solution can be offered. but at the time, it was a very natural presumption to connect it with the plot, wherein he had not only taken the deposition of oates, a circumstance not in itself highly important, but was supposed to have received the confidential communications of coleman.[ ] another circumstance, much calculated to persuade ordinary minds of the truth of the plot, was the trial of reading, a romish attorney, for tampering with the witnesses against the accused catholic peers, in order to make them keep out of the way.[ ] as such clandestine dealing with witnesses creates a strong, and perhaps with some too strong a presumption of guilt, where justice is sure to be uprightly administered, men did not make a fair distinction as to times when the violence of the court and jury gave no reasonable hope of escape; and when the most innocent party would much rather procure the absence of a perjured witness than trust to the chance of disproving his testimony. _injustice of judges on the trials._--there was indeed good reason to distrust the course of justice. never were our tribunals so disgraced by the brutal manners and iniquitous partiality of the bench as in the latter years of this reign. the _state trials_, none of which appear to have been published by the prisoners' friends, bear abundant testimony to the turpitude of the judges. they explained away and softened the palpable contradictions of the witnesses for the crown, insulted and threatened those of the accused, checked all cross-examination, assumed the truth of the charge throughout the whole of every trial.[ ] one whitbread, a jesuit, having been indicted with several others, and the evidence not being sufficient, scroggs discharged the jury of him, but ordered him to be kept in custody till more proof might come in. he was accordingly indicted again for the same offence. on his pleading that he had been already tried, scroggs and north had the effrontery to deny that he had been ever put in jeopardy, though the witnesses for the crown had been fully heard before the jury were most irregularly and illegally discharged of him on the former trial. north said he had often known it done, and it was the common course of law. in the course of this proceeding, bedloe, who had deposed nothing explicit against the prisoner on the former trial, accounted for this by saying, it was not then convenient; an answer with which the court and jury were content.[ ] it is remarkable that, although the king might be justly surmised to give little credence to the pretended plot, and the duke of york was manifestly affected in his interests by the heats it excited, yet the judges most subservient to the court, scroggs, north, jones, went with all violence into the popular cry, till, the witnesses beginning to attack the queen, and to menace the duke, they found it was time to rein in, as far as they could, the passions they had instigated.[ ] pemberton, a more honest man in political matters, showed a remarkable intemperance and unfairness in all trials relating to popery. even in that of lord stafford in , the last, and perhaps the worst, proceeding under this delusion, though the court had a standing majority in the house of lords, he was convicted by fifty-five peers against thirty-one; the earl of nottingham, lord chancellor, the duke of lauderdale, and several others of the administration voting him guilty, while he was acquitted by the honest hollis and the acute halifax.[ ] so far was the belief in the popish plot, or the eagerness in hunting its victims to death, from being confined to the whig faction, as some writers have been willing to insinuate. none had more contributed to rouse the national outcry against the accused, and create a firm persuasion of the reality of the plot, than the clergy in their sermons, even the most respectable of their order, sancroft, sharp, barlow, burnet, tillotson, stillingfleet; inferring its truth from godfrey's murder or coleman's letters, calling for the severest laws against catholics, and imputing to them the fire of london, nay, even the death of charles i.[ ] _exclusion of duke of york proposed._--though the duke of york was not charged with participation in the darkest schemes of the popish conspirators, it was evident that his succession was the great aim of their endeavours, and evident also that he had been engaged in the more real and undeniable intrigues of coleman. his accession to the throne, long viewed with just apprehension, now seemed to threaten such perils to every part of the constitution, as ought not supinely to be waited for, if any means could be devised to obviate them. this gave rise to the bold measure of the exclusion bill, too bold indeed for the spirit of the country, and the rock on which english liberty was nearly shipwrecked. in the long parliament, full as it was of pensioners and creatures of court influence, nothing so vigorous would have been successful. even in the bill which excluded catholic peers from sitting in the house of lords, a proviso, exempting the duke of york from its operation, having been sent down from the other house, passed by a majority of two voices.[ ] but the zeal they showed against danby induced the king to put an end to this parliament of seventeen years' duration; an event long ardently desired by the popular party, who foresaw their ascendancy in the new elections.[ ] the next house of commons accordingly came together with an ardour not yet quenched by corruption; and after reviving the impeachments commenced by their predecessors, and carrying a measure long in agitation, a test[ ] which shut the catholic peers out of parliament, went upon the exclusion bill. their dissolution put a stop to this; and in the next parliament the lords rejected it.[ ] the right of excluding an unworthy heir from the succession was supported not only by the plain and fundamental principles of civil society, which establish the interest of the people to be the paramount object of political institutions, but by those of the english constitution. it had always been the better opinion among lawyers, that the reigning king with consent of parliament was competent to make any changes in the inheritance of the crown; and this, besides the acts passed under henry viii. empowering him to name his successor, was expressly enacted, with heavy penalties against such as should contradict it, in the thirteenth year of elizabeth. the contrary doctrine indeed, if pressed to its legitimate consequences, would have shaken all the statutes that limit the prerogative; since, if the analogy of entails in private inheritances were to be resorted to, and the existing legislature should be supposed incompetent to alter the line of succession, they could as little impair as they could alienate the indefeasible rights of the heir; nor could he be bound by restrictions to which he had never given his assent. it seemed strange to maintain that the parliament could reduce a king of england to the condition of a doge of venice, by shackling and taking away his authority, and yet could not divest him of a title which they could render little better than a mockery. those accordingly who disputed the legislative omnipotence of parliament did not hesitate to assert that statutes infringing on the prerogative were null of themselves. with the court lawyers conspired the clergy, who pretended these matters of high policy and constitutional law to be within their province; and, with hardly an exception, took a zealous part against the exclusion. it was indeed a measure repugnant to the common prejudices of mankind; who, without entering on the abstract competency of parliament, are naturally accustomed in an hereditary monarchy to consider the next heir as possessed of a right, which, except through necessity, or notorious criminality, cannot be justly divested. the mere profession of a religion different from the established, does not seem, abstractedly considered, an adequate ground for unsettling the regular order of inheritance. yet such was the narrow bigotry of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, which died away almost entirely among protestants in the next, that even the trifling differences between lutherans and calvinists had frequently led to alternate persecutions in the german states, as a prince of one or the other denomination happened to assume the government. and the romish religion, in particular, was in that age of so restless and malignant a character, that unless the power of the crown should be far more strictly limited than had hitherto been the case, there must be a very serious danger from any sovereign of that faith; and the letters of coleman, as well as other evidences, made it manifest that the duke of york was engaged in a scheme of general conversion, which, from his arbitrary temper and the impossibility of succeeding by fair means, it was just to apprehend, must involve the subversion of all civil liberty. still this was not distinctly perceived by persons at a distance from the scene, imbued, as most of the gentry were, with the principles of the old cavaliers, and those which the church had inculcated. the king, though hated by the dissenters, retained the affections of that party, who forgave the vices they deplored, to his father's memory and his personal affability. it appeared harsh and disloyal to force his consent to the exclusion of a brother in whom he saw no crime, and to avoid which he offered every possible expedient.[ ] there will always be found in the people of england a strong unwillingness to force the reluctance of their sovereign--a latent feeling, of which parties in the heat of their triumphs are seldom aware, because it does not display itself until the moment of reaction. and although, in the less settled times before the revolution, this personal loyalty was highly dangerous, and may still, no doubt, sometimes break out so as to frustrate objects of high import to the public weal, it is on the whole a salutary temper for the conservation of the monarchy, which may require such a barrier against the encroachments of factions and the fervid passions of the multitude. _schemes of shaftesbury and monmouth._--the bill of exclusion was drawn with as much regard to the inheritance of the duke of york's daughters as they could reasonably demand, or as any lawyer engaged for them could have shown; though something different seems to be insinuated by burnet. it provided that the imperial crown of england should descend to and be enjoyed by such person or persons successively during the life of the duke of york, as should have inherited or enjoyed the same in case he were naturally dead. if the princess of orange was not expressly named (which, the bishop tells us, gave a jealousy, as though it were intended to keep that matter still undetermined), this silence was evidently justified by the possible contingency of the birth of a son to the duke, whose right there was no intention in the framers of the bill to defeat. but a large part of the opposition had unfortunately other objects in view. it had been the great error of those who withstood the arbitrary counsels of charles ii. to have admitted into their closest confidence, and in a considerable degree to the management of their party, a man so destitute of all honest principle as the earl of shaftesbury. under his contaminating influence their passions became more untractable, their connections more seditious and democratical, their schemes more revolutionary, and they broke away more and more from the line of national opinion, till a fatal reaction involved themselves in ruin, and exposed the cause of public liberty to its most imminent peril. the countenance and support of shaftesbury brought forward that unconstitutional and most impolitic scheme of the duke of monmouth's succession. there could hardly be a greater insult to a nation used to respect its hereditary line of kings, than to set up the bastard of a prostitute, without the least pretence of personal excellence or public services, against a princess of known virtue and attachment to the protestant religion. and the effrontery of this attempt was aggravated by the libels eagerly circulated to dupe the credulous populace into a belief of monmouth's legitimacy. the weak young man, lured on to destruction by the arts of intriguers and the applause of the multitude, gave just offence to sober-minded patriots, who knew where the true hopes of public liberty were anchored, by a kind of triumphal procession through parts of the country, and by other indications of a presumptuous ambition.[ ] _unsteadiness of the king._--if any apology can be made for the encouragement given by some of the whig party (for it was by no means general) to the pretensions of monmouth, it must be found in their knowledge of the king's affection for him, which furnished a hope that he might more easily be brought in to the exclusion of his brother for the sake of so beloved a child than for the prince of orange. and doubtless there was a period when charles's acquiescence in the exclusion did not appear so unattainable as, from his subsequent line of behaviour, we are apt to consider it. it appears from the recently published life of james, that in the autumn of the embarrassment of the king's situation, and the influence of the duchess of portsmouth, who had gone over to the exclusionists, made him seriously deliberate on abandoning his brother.[ ] whether from natural instability of judgment, from the steady adherence of france to the duke of york, or from observing the great strength of the tory party in the house of lords, where the bill was rejected by a majority of to , he soon returned to his former disposition. it was long however before he treated james with perfect cordiality. conscious of his own insincerity in religion, which the duke's bold avowal of an obnoxious creed seemed to reproach, he was provoked at bearing so much of the odium, and incurring so many of the difficulties, which attended a profession that he had not ventured to make. he told hyde, before the dissolution of the parliament in , that it would not be in his power to protect his brother any longer, if he did not conform and go to church.[ ] hyde himself, and the duke's other friends, had never ceased to urge him on this subject. their importunity was renewed by the king's order, even after the dissolution of the oxford parliament; and it seems to have been the firm persuasion of most about the court that he could only be preserved by conformity to the protestant religion. he justly apprehended the consequences of a refusal; but, inflexibly conscientious on this point, he braved whatever might arise from the timidity or disaffection of the ministers and the selfish fickleness of the king. in the apprehensions excited by the king's unsteadiness and the defection of the duchess of portsmouth, he deemed his fortunes so much in jeopardy, as to have resolved on exciting a civil war, rather than yield to the exclusion. he had already told barillon that the royal authority could be re-established by no other means.[ ] the episcopal party in scotland had gone such lengths that they could hardly be safe under any other king. the catholics of england were of course devoted to him. with the help of these he hoped to show himself so formidable that charles would find it his interest to quit that cowardly line of politics, to which he was sacrificing his honour and affections. louis, never insensible to any occasion of rendering england weak and miserable, directed his ambassador to encourage the duke in this guilty project with the promise of assistance.[ ] it seems to have been prevented by the wisdom or public spirit of churchill, who pointed out to barillon the absurdity of supposing that the duke could stand by himself in scotland. this scheme of lighting up the flames of civil war in three kingdoms, for james's private advantage, deserves to be more remarked than it has hitherto been at a time when the apologists seem to have become numerous. if the designs of russell and sidney for the preservation of their country's liberty are blamed as rash and unjustifiable, what name shall we give to the project of maintaining the pretensions of an individual by means of rebellion and general bloodshed? it is well known that those who took a concern in the maintenance of religion and liberty, were much divided as to the best expedients for securing them; some, who thought the exclusion too violent, dangerous, or impracticable, preferring the enactment of limitations on the prerogatives of a catholic king. this had begun in fact from the court, who passed a bill through the house of lords in , for the security, as it was styled, of the protestant religion. this provided that a declaration and oath against transubstantiation should be tendered to every king within fourteen days after his accession; that, on his refusal to take it, the ecclesiastical benefices in the gift of the crown should vest in the bishops, except that the king should name to every vacant see one out of three persons proposed to him by the bishops of the province. it enacted also, that the children of a king refusing such a test should be educated by the archbishop and two or three more prelates. this bill dropped in the commons; and marvell speaks of it as an insidious stratagem of the ministry.[ ] it is more easy, however, to give hard names to a measure originating with an obnoxious government, than to prove that it did not afford a considerable security to the established church, and impose a very remarkable limitation on the prerogative. but the opposition in the house of commons had probably conceived their scheme of exclusion, and would not hearken to any compromise. as soon as the exclusion became the topic of open discussion, the king repeatedly offered to grant every security that could be demanded consistently with the lineal succession. hollis, halifax, and for a time essex, as well as several eminent men in the lower house, were in favour of limitations.[ ] but those which they intended to insist upon were such encroachments on the constitutional authority of the crown, that, except a title and revenue, which charles thought more valuable than all the rest, a popish king would enjoy no one attribute of royalty. the king himself, on the th of april , before the heats on the subject had become so violent as they were the next year, offered not only to secure all ecclesiastical preferments from the control of a popish successor, but to provide that the parliament in being at a demise of the crown or the last that had been dissolved, should immediately sit and be indissoluble for a certain time; that none of the privy council, nor judges, lord lieutenant, deputy lieutenant, nor officer of the navy, should be appointed during the reign of a catholic king, without consent of parliament. he offered at the same time most readily to consent to any further provision that could occur to the wisdom of parliament for the security of religion and liberty consistently with the right of succession. halifax, the eloquent and successful opponent of the exclusion, was the avowed champion of limitations. it was proposed, in addition to these offers of the king, that the duke, in case of his accession, should have no negative voice on bills; that he should dispose of no civil or military posts without consent of parliament; that a council of forty-one, nominated by the two houses, should sit permanently during the recess or interval of parliament, with power of appointing to all vacant offices, subject to the future approbation of the lords and commons.[ ] these extraordinary innovations would, at least for the time, have changed our constitution into a republic; and justly appeared to many persons more revolutionary than an alteration in the course of succession. the duke of york looked on them with dismay; charles indeed privately declared that he would never consent to such infringements of the prerogative.[ ] it is not however easy to perceive how he could have escaped from the necessity of adhering to his own propositions, if the house of commons would have relinquished the bill of exclusion. the prince of orange, who was doubtless in secret not averse to the latter measure, declared strongly against the plan of restrictions, which a protestant successor might not find it practicable to shake off. another expedient, still more ruinous to james than that of limitations, was what the court itself suggested in the oxford parliament, that the duke retaining the title of king, a regent should be appointed, in the person of the princess of orange, with all the royal prerogatives; nay, that the duke, with his pageant crown on his head, should be banished from england during his life.[ ] this proposition, which is a great favourite with burnet, appears liable to the same objections as were justly urged against a similar scheme at the revolution. it was certain that in either case james would attempt to obtain possession of power by force of arms; and the law of england would not treat very favourably those who should resist an acknowledged king in his natural capacity, while the statute of henry vii. would, legally speaking, afford a security to the adherents of a _de facto_ sovereign. upon the whole, it is very unlikely, when we look at the general spirit and temper of the nation, its predilection for the ancient laws, its dread of commonwealth and fanatical principles, the tendency of the upper ranks to intrigue and corruption, the influence and activity of the church, the bold counsels and haughty disposition of james himself, that either the exclusion, or such extensive limitations as were suggested in lieu of it, could have been carried into effect with much hope of a durable settlement. it would, i should conceive, have been practicable to secure the independence of the judges, to exclude unnecessary placemen and notorious pensioners from the house of commons, to render the distribution of money among its members penal, to remove from the protestant dissenters, by a full toleration, all temptation to favour the court, and, above all, to put down the standing army. though none perhaps of these provisions would have prevented the attempts of this and the next reign to introduce arbitrary power, they would have rendered them still more grossly illegal; and, above all, they would have saved that unhappy revolution of popular sentiment which gave the court encouragement and temporary success. _names of whig and tory._--it was in the year , that the words whig and tory first were heard in their application to english factions; and, though as senseless as any cant terms that could be devised, they became instantly as familiar in use as they have since continued. there were then indeed questions in agitation, which rendered the distinction more broad and intelligible than it has generally been in later times. one of these, and the most important, was the bill of exclusion; in which, as it was usually debated, the republican principle, that all positive institutions of society are in order to the general good, came into collision with that of monarchy, which rests on the maintenance of a royal line, as either the end, or at least the necessary means, of lawful government. but, as the exclusion was confessedly among those extraordinary measures, to which men of tory principles are sometimes compelled to resort in great emergencies, and which no rational whig espouses at any other time, we shall better perhaps discern the formation of these grand political sects in the petitions for the sitting of parliament, and in the counter addresses of the opposite party. _new council formed by sir william temple._--in the spring of , charles established a new privy council, by the advice of sir william temple, consisting in great part of those eminent men in both houses of parliament, who had been most prominent in their opposition to the late ministry.[ ] he publicly declared his resolution to govern entirely by the advice of this council and that of parliament. the duke of york was kept in what seemed a sort of exile at brussels.[ ] but the just suspicion attached to the king's character prevented the commons from placing much confidence in this new ministry; and, as frequently happens, abated their esteem for those who, with the purest intentions, had gone into the council.[ ] they had soon cause to perceive that their distrust had not been excessive. the ministers were constantly beaten in the house of lords; an almost certain test, in our government, of the court's insincerity.[ ] _long prorogation of parliament._--the parliament was first prorogued, then dissolved; against the advice, in the latter instance, of the majority of that council by whom the king had pledged himself to be directed. a new parliament, after being summoned to meet in october , was prorogued for a twelve-month without the avowed concurrence of any member of the council. lord russell, and others of the honester party, withdrew from a board where their presence was only asked in mockery or deceit; and the whole specious scheme of temple came to nothing before the conclusion of the year which had seen it displayed.[ ] its author, chagrined at the disappointment of his patriotism and his vanity, has sought the causes of failure in the folly of monmouth and perverseness of shaftesbury. he was not aware, at least in their full extent, of the king's intrigues at this period. charles, who had been induced to take those whom he most disliked into his council, with the hope of obtaining money from parliament, or of parrying the exclusion bill, and had consented to the duke of york's quitting england, found himself enthralled by ministers whom he could neither corrupt nor deceive; essex, the firm and temperate friend of constitutional liberty in power as he had been out of it, and halifax, not yet led away by ambition or resentment from the cause he never ceased to approve. he had recourse therefore to his accustomed refuge, and humbly implored the aid of louis against his own council and parliament. he conjured his patron not to lose this opportunity of making england for ever dependent upon france. these are his own words, such at least as barillon attributes to him.[ ] in pursuance of this overture, a secret treaty was negotiated between the two kings; whereby, after long haggling, charles, for a pension of , , livres annually during three years, obliged himself not to assemble parliament during that time. this negotiation was broken off, through the apprehensions of hyde and sunderland who had been concerned in it, about the end of november , before the long prorogation which is announced in the _gazette_ by a proclamation of december th. but, the resolution having been already taken not to permit the meeting of parliament, charles persisted in it as the only means of escaping the bill of exclusion, even when deprived of the pecuniary assistance to which he had trusted. though the king's behaviour on this occasion exposed the fallacy of all projects for reconciliation with the house of commons, it was very well calculated for his own ends; nor was there any part of his reign wherein he acted with so much prudence, as from this time to the dissolution of the oxford parliament. the scheme concerted by his adversaries, and already put in operation, of pouring in petitions from every part of the kingdom for the meeting of parliament, he checked in the outset by a proclamation, artfully drawn up by chief-justice north; which, while it kept clear of anything so palpably unconstitutional as a prohibition of petitions, served the purpose of manifesting the king's dislike to them, and encouraged the magistrates to treat all attempts that way as seditious and illegal, while it drew over the neutral and lukewarm to the safer and stronger side.[ ] then were first ranged against each other the hosts of whig and tory, under their banners of liberty or loyalty; each zealous, at least in profession, to maintain the established constitution, but the one seeking its security by new maxims of government, the other by an adherence to the old. _petitions and addresses._--it must be admitted that petitions to the king from bodies of his subjects, intended to advise or influence him in the exercise of his undoubted prerogatives, such as the time of calling parliament together, familiar as they may now have become, had no precedent, except one in the dark year , and were repugnant to the ancient principles of our monarchy. the cardinal maxim of toryism is, that the king ought to exercise all his lawful prerogatives without the interference, or unsolicited advice, even of parliament, much less of the people. these novel efforts therefore were met by addresses from most of the grand juries, from the magistrates at quarter sessions, and from many corporations, expressing not merely their entire confidence in the king, but their abhorrence of the petitions for the assembling of parliament; a term which, having been casually used in one address, became the watchword of the whole party.[ ] some allowance must be made for the exertions made by the court, especially through the judges of assize, whose charges to grand juries were always of a political nature. yet there can be no doubt that the strength of the tories manifested itself beyond expectation. sluggish and silent in its fields, like the animal which it has taken for its type, the deep-rooted loyalty of the english gentry to the crown may escape a superficial observer, till some circumstance calls forth an indignant and furious energy. the temper shown in was not according to what the late elections would have led men to expect, not even to that of the next elections for the parliament at oxford. a large majority returned on both these occasions, and that in the principal counties as much as in corporate towns, were of the whig principle. it appears that the ardent zeal against popery in the smaller freeholders must have overpowered the natural influence of the superior classes. the middling and lower orders, particularly in towns, were clamorous against the duke of york and the evil counsellors of the crown. but with the country gentlemen, popery was scarce a more odious word than fanaticism; the memory of the late reign and of the usurpation was still recent, and in the violence of the commons, in the insolence of monmouth and shaftesbury, in the bold assaults upon hereditary right, they saw a faint image of that confusion which had once impoverished and humbled them. meanwhile the king's dissimulation was quite sufficient for these simple loyalists; the very delusion of the popish plot raised his name for religion in their eyes, since his death was the declared aim of the conspirators; nor did he fail to keep alive this favourable prejudice by letting that imposture take its course, and by enforcing the execution of the penal laws against some unfortunate priests.[ ] _violence of the commons._--it is among the great advantages of a court in its contention with the asserters of popular privileges, that it can employ a circumspect and dissembling policy, which is never found on the opposite side. the demagogues of faction, or the aristocratic leaders of a numerous assembly, even if they do not feel the influence of the passions they excite, which is rarely the case, are urged onwards by their headstrong followers, and would both lay themselves open to the suspicion of unfaithfulness and damp the spirit of their party, by a wary and temperate course of proceeding. yet that incautious violence, to which ill-judging men are tempted by the possession of power, must in every case, and especially where the power itself is deemed an usurpation, cast them headlong. this was the fatal error of that house of commons which met in october ; and to this the king's triumph may chiefly be ascribed. the addresses declaratory of abhorrence of petitions for the meeting of parliament were doubtless intemperate with respect to the petitioners; but it was preposterous to treat them as violations of privilege. a few precedents, and those in times of much heat and irregularity, could not justify so flagrant an encroachment on the rights of the private subject, as the commitments of men for a declaration so little affecting the constitutional rights and functions of parliament.[ ] the expulsion of withens, their own member, for promoting one of these addresses, though a violent measure, came in point of law within their acknowledged authority.[ ] but it was by no means a generally received opinion in that age that the house of commons had an unbounded jurisdiction, directly or indirectly, over their constituents. the lawyers, being chiefly on the side of prerogative, inclined at least to limit very greatly this alleged power of commitment for breach of privilege or contempt of the house. it had very rarely, in fact, been exerted, except in cases of serving legal process on members or other molestation, before the long parliament of charles i.; a time absolutely discredited by one party, and confessed by every reasonable man to be full of innovation and violence. that the commons had no right of judicature was admitted; was it compatible to principles of reason and justice, that they could, merely by using the words contempt or breach of privilege in a warrant, deprive the subject of that liberty which the recent statute of habeas corpus had secured against the highest ministers of the crown? yet one thompson, a clergyman at bristol, having preached some virulent sermons, wherein he had traduced the memory of hampden for refusing the payment of ship-money, and spoken disrespectfully of queen elizabeth, as well as insulted those who petitioned for the sitting of parliament, was sent for in custody of the serjeant to answer at the bar for his high misdemeanour against the privileges of that house; and was afterwards compelled to find security for his forthcoming to answer to an impeachment voted against him on these strange charges.[ ] many others were brought to the bar, not only for the crime of abhorrence, but for alleged misdemeanours still less affecting the privileges of parliament, such as remissness in searching for papists. sir robert cann, of bristol, was sent for in custody of the serjeant-at-arms, for publicly declaring that there was no popish, but only a presbyterian plot. a general panic, mingled with indignation, was diffused through the country, till one stawell, a gentleman of devonshire, had the courage to refuse compliance with the speaker's warrant; and the commons, who hesitated at such a time to risk an appeal to the ordinary magistrates, were compelled to let this contumacy go unpunished. if indeed we might believe the journals of the house, stawell was actually in custody of the serjeant, though allowed a month's time on account of sickness. this was most probably a subterfuge to conceal the truth of the case.[ ] these encroachments under the name of privilege were exactly in the spirit of the long parliament, and revived too forcibly the recollection of that awful period. it was commonly in men's mouths, that was come about again. there appeared indeed for several months a very imminent danger of civil war. i have already mentioned the projects of the duke of york, in case his brother had given way to the exclusion bill. there could be little reason to doubt that many of the opposite leaders were ready to try the question by arms. reresby has related a conversation he had with lord halifax immediately after the rejection of the bill,[ ] which shows the expectation of that able statesman, that the differences about the succession would end in civil war. the just abhorrence good men entertain for such a calamity excites their indignation against those who conspicuously bring it on. and, however desirous some of the court might be to strengthen the prerogative by quelling a premature rebellion, the commons were, in the eyes of the nation, far more prominent in accelerating so terrible a crisis. their votes in the session of november were marked by the most extravagant factiousness.[ ] _oxford parliament._--their conduct in the short parliament held at oxford in march , served still more to alienate the peaceable part of the community. that session of eight days was marked by the rejection of a proposal to vest all effective power during the duke of york's life in a regent, and by an attempt to screen the author of a treasonable libel from punishment under the pretext of impeaching him at the bar of the upper house. it seems difficult not to suspect that the secret instigations of barillon, and even his gold, had considerable influence on some of those who swayed the votes of this parliament. _impeachment of commoners for treason constitutional._--though the impeachment of fitzharris, to which i have just alluded, was in itself a mere work of temporary faction, it brought into discussion a considerable question in our constitutional law, which deserves notice, both on account of its importance, and because a popular writer has advanced an untenable proposition on the subject. the commons impeached this man of high treason. the lords voted, that he should be proceeded against at common law. it was resolved, in consequence, by the lower house, "that it is the undoubted right of the commons in parliament assembled, to impeach before the lords in parliament any peer or commoner for treason, or any other crime or misdemeanour: and that the refusal of the lords to proceed in parliament upon such impeachment is a denial of justice, and a violation of the constitution of parliament."[ ] it seems indeed difficult to justify the determination of the lords. certainly the declaration in the case of sir simon de bereford, who having been accused by the king, in the fourth year of edward iii. before the lords, of participating in the treason of roger mortimer, that noble assembly protested, with the assent of the king in full parliament, that, albeit they had taken upon them, as judges of the parliament in the presence of the king, to render judgment, yet the peers, who then were or should be in time to come, were not bound to render judgment upon others than peers, nor had power to do so; and that the said judgment thus rendered should never be drawn to example or consequence in time to come, whereby the said peers of the land might be charged to judge others than their peers, contrary to the laws of the land; certainly, i say, this declaration, even if it amounted to a statute, concerning which there has been some question,[ ] was not necessarily to be interpreted as applicable to impeachments at the suit of the commons, wherein the king is no ways a party. there were several precedents in the reign of richard ii. of such impeachments for treason. there had been more than one in that of charles i. the objection indeed was so novel, that chief-justice scroggs, having been impeached for treason in the last parliament, though he applied to be admitted to bail, had never insisted on so decisive a plea to the jurisdiction. and if the doctrine, adopted by the lords, were to be carried to its just consequences, all impeachment of commoners must be at an end; for no distinction is taken in the above declaration as to bereford between treason and misdemeanour. the peers had indeed lost, except during the session of parliament, their ancient privilege in cases of misdemeanour, and were subject to the verdict of a jury; but the principle was exactly the same, and the right of judging commoners upon impeachment for corruption or embezzlement, which no one called in question, was as much an exception from the ordinary rules of law as in the more rare case of high treason. it is hardly necessary to observe, that the th section of magna charta, which establishes the right of trial by jury, is by its express language solely applicable to the suits of the crown. this very dangerous and apparently unfounded theory, broached upon the occasion of fitzharris's impeachment by the earl of nottingham, never obtained reception; and was rather intimated than avowed in the vote of the lords, that he should be proceeded against at common law. but after the revolution, the commons having impeached sir adam blair and some others of high treason, a committee was appointed to search for precedents on this subject; and after full deliberation, the house of lords came to a resolution, that they would proceed on the impeachments.[ ] the inadvertent position therefore of blackstone,[ ] that a commoner cannot be impeached for high treason, is not only difficult to be supported upon ancient authorities, but contrary to the latest determination of the supreme tribunal. _proceedings against shaftesbury and college._--no satisfactory elucidation of the strange libel for which fitzharris suffered death has yet been afforded. there is much probability in the supposition that it was written at the desire of some in the court, in order to cast odium on their adversaries; a very common stratagem of unscrupulous partisans.[ ] it caused an impression unfavourable to the whigs in the nation. the court made a dexterous use of that extreme credulity, which has been supposed characteristic of the english, though it belongs at least equally to every other people. they seized into their hands the very engines of delusion that had been turned against them. those perjured witnesses, whom shaftesbury had hallooed on through all the infamy of the popish plot, were now arrayed in the same court to swear treason and conspiracy against him.[ ] though he escaped by the resoluteness of his grand jury, who refused to find a bill of indictment on testimony, which they professed themselves to disbelieve, and which was probably false; yet this extraordinary deviation from the usual practice did harm rather than otherwise to the general cause of his faction. the judges had taken care that the witnesses should be examined in open court, so that the jury's partiality, should they reject such positive testimony, might become glaring. doubtless it is, in ordinary cases, the duty of a grand juror to find a bill upon the direct testimony of witnesses, where they do not contradict themselves or each other, and where their evidence is not palpably incredible or contrary to his own knowledge.[ ] the oath of that inquest is forgotten, either where they render themselves, as seems too often the case, the mere conduit-pipes of accusation, putting a prisoner in jeopardy upon such slender evidence as does not call upon him for a defence; or where, as we have sometimes known in political causes, they frustrate the ends of justice by rejecting indictments which are fully substantiated by testimony. whether the grand jury of london, in their celebrated ignoramus on the indictment preferred against shaftesbury, had sufficient grounds for their incredulity, i will not pretend to determine.[ ] there was probably no one man among them, who had not implicitly swallowed the tales of the same witnesses in the trials for the plot. the nation however in general, less bigoted, or at least more honest in their bigotry, than those london citizens, was staggered by so many depositions to a traitorous conspiracy, in those who had pretended an excessive loyalty to the king's person.[ ] men unaccustomed to courts of justice are naturally prone to give credit to the positive oaths of witnesses. they were still more persuaded, when, as in the trial of college at oxford, they saw this testimony sustained by the approbation of a judge (and that judge a decent person who gave no scandal), and confirmed by the verdict of a jury. the gross iniquity practised towards the prisoner in that trial was not so generally bruited as his conviction.[ ] there is in england a remarkable confidence in our judicial proceedings, in part derived from their publicity, and partly from the indiscriminate manner in which jurors are usually summoned. it must be owned that the administration of the two last stuarts was calculated to show how easily this confiding temper might be the dupe of an insidious ambition. _triumph of the court._--the king's declaration of the reasons that induced him to dissolve the last parliament, being a manifesto against the late majority of the house of commons, was read in all churches. the clergy scarcely waited for this pretext to take a zealous part for the crown. every one knows their influence over the nation in any cause which they make their own. they seemed to change the war against liberty into a crusade. they re-echoed from every pulpit the strain of passive obedience, of indefeasible hereditary right, of the divine origin and patriarchal descent of monarchy. now began again the loyal addresses, more numerous and ardent than in the last year, which overspread the pages of the _london gazette_ for many months. these effusions stigmatise the measures of the three last parliaments, dwelling especially on their arbitrary illegal votes against the personal liberty of the subject. their language is of course not alike; yet amidst all the ebullitions of triumphant loyalty, it is easy in many of them to perceive a lurking distrust of the majesty to which they did homage, insinuated to the reader in the marked satisfaction with which they allude to the king's promise of calling frequent parliaments and of governing by the laws.[ ] the whigs, meantime, so late in the heyday of their pride, lay, like the fallen angels, prostrate upon the fiery lake. the scoffs and gibes of libellers, who had trembled before the resolutions of the commons, were showered upon their heads. they had to fear, what was much worse than the insults of these vermin, the perjuries of mercenary informers suborned by their enemies to charge false conspiracies against them, and sure of countenance from the contaminated benches of justice. the court, with an artful policy, though with detestable wickedness, secured itself against its only great danger, the suspicion of popery, by the sacrifice of plunket, the titular archbishop of dublin.[ ] the execution of this worthy and innocent person cannot be said to have been extorted from the king in a time of great difficulty, like that of lord stafford. he was coolly and deliberately permitted to suffer death, lest the current of loyalty, still sensitive and suspicious upon the account of religion, might be somewhat checked in its course. yet those who heap the epithets of merciless, inhuman, sanguinary, on the whig party for the impeachment of lord stafford, in whose guilt they fully believed, seldom mention, without the characteristic distinction of "good-natured," that sovereign, who signed the warrant against plunket, of whose innocence he was assured.[ ] _forfeiture of the charter of london, and of other places._--the hostility of the city of london, and of several other towns, towards the court, degenerating no doubt into a factious and indecent violence, gave a pretext for the most dangerous aggression on public liberty that occurred in the present reign. the power of the democracy in that age resided chiefly in the corporations. these returned, exclusively or principally, a majority of the representatives of the commons. so long as they should be actuated by that ardent spirit of protestantism and liberty which prevailed in the middling classes, there was little prospect of obtaining a parliament that would co-operate with the stuart scheme of government. the administration of justice was very much in the hands of their magistrates; especially in middlesex, where all juries are returned by the city sheriffs. it was suggested therefore by some crafty lawyers that a judgment of forfeiture obtained against the corporation of london would not only demolish that citadel of insolent rebels, but intimidate the rest of england by so striking an example. true it was, that no precedent could be found for the forfeiture of corporate privileges. but general reasoning was to serve instead of precedents; and there was a considerable analogy in the surrenders of the abbeys under henry viii., if much authority could be allowed to that transaction. an information, as it is called, _quo warranto_, was accordingly brought into the court of king's bench against the corporation. two acts of the common council were alleged as sufficient misdemeanours to warrant a judgment of forfeiture; one, the imposition of certain tolls on goods brought into the city markets, by an ordinance or by-law of their own; the other, their petition to the king in december for the sitting of parliament, and its publication throughout the country.[ ] it would be foreign to the purpose of this work to enquire whether a corporation be in any case subject to forfeiture, the affirmative of which seems to have been held by courts of justice since the revolution; or whether the exaction of tolls in their markets, in consideration of erecting stalls and standings, were within the competence of the city of london; or, if not so, whether it were such an offence as could legally incur the penalty of a total forfeiture and disfranchisement; since it was manifest that the crown made use only of this additional pretext, in order to punish the corporation for its address to the king. the language indeed of their petition had been uncourtly, and what the adherents of prerogative would call insolent; but it was at the worst rather a misdemeanour for which the persons concerned might be responsible than a breach of the trust reposed in the corporation. we are not however so much concerned to argue the matter of law in this question, as to remark the spirit in which the attack on this stronghold of popular liberty was conceived. the court of king's bench pronounced judgment of forfeiture against the corporation; but this judgment, at the request of the attorney-general, was only recorded: the city continued in appearance to possess its corporate franchises, but upon submission to certain regulations; namely, that no mayor, sheriff, recorder, or other chief officer, should be admitted until approved by the king; that in the event of his twice disapproving their choice of a mayor, he should himself nominate a fit person, and the same in case of sheriffs, without waiting for a second election; that the court of aldermen, with the king's permission, should remove any one of their body; that they should have a negative on the elections of common councilmen, and in case of disapproving a second choice, to have themselves the nomination. the corporation submitted thus to purchase the continued enjoyment of its estates, at the expense of its municipal independence; yet, even in the prostrate condition of the whig party, the question to admit these regulations was carried by no great majority in the common councils.[ ] the city was of course absolutely subservient to the court from this time to the revolution. after the fall of the capital, it was not to be expected that towns less capable of defence should stand out. informations _quo warranto_ were brought against several corporations; and a far greater number hastened to anticipate the assault by voluntary surrenders. it seemed to be recognised as law by the judgment against london, that any irregularity or misuse of power in a corporation might incur a sentence of forfeiture; and few could boast that they were invulnerable at every point. the judges of assize in their circuits prostituted their influence and authority to forward this and every other encroachment of the crown. jefferies, on the northern circuit in , to use the language of charles ii.'s most unblushing advocate, "made all the charters, like the walls of jericho, fall down before him, and returned laden with surrenders, the spoils of towns."[ ] they received instead, new charters, framing the constitution of these municipalities on a more oligarchical model, and reserving to the crown the first appointment of those who were to form the governing part of the corporation. these changes were gradually brought about in the last three years of charles's reign, and in the beginning of the next. _projects of lord russell and sidney._--there can be nothing so destructive to the english constitution, not even the introduction of a military force, as the exclusion of the electoral body from their franchises. the people of this country are, by our laws and constitution, bound only to obey a parliament duly chosen; and this violation of charters, in the reigns of charles and james, appears to be the great and leading justification of that event which drove the latter from the throne. it can therefore be no matter of censure, in a moral sense, that some men of pure and patriotic virtue, mingled, it must be owned, with others of a far inferior temper, began to hold consultations as to the best means of resisting a government, which, whether to judge from these proceedings, or from the language of its partisans, was aiming without disguise at an arbitrary power. but as resistance to established authority can never be warrantable until it is expedient, we could by no means approve any schemes of insurrection that might be projected in , unless we could perceive that there was a fair chance of their success. and this we are not led, by what we read of the spirit of those times, to believe. the tide ran violently in another direction; the courage of the whigs was broken; their adversaries were strong in numbers and in zeal. but from hence it is reasonable to infer that men, like lord essex and lord russell, with so much to lose by failure, with such good sense, and such abhorrence of civil calamity, would not ultimately have resolved on the desperate issue of arms, though they might deem it prudent to form estimates of their strength, and to knit together a confederacy which absolute necessity might call into action. it is beyond doubt that the supposed conspirators had debated among themselves the subject of an insurrection, and poised the chances of civil war. thus much the most jealous lawyer, i presume, will allow might be done, without risking the penalties of treason. they had however gone farther; and by concerting measures in different places as well as in scotland, for a rising, though contingently, and without any fixed determination to carry it into effect, most probably (if the whole business had been disclosed in testimony) laid themselves open to the law, according to the construction it has frequently received. there is a considerable difficulty, after all that has been written, in stating the extent of their designs; but i think we may assume, that a wide-spreading and formidable insurrection was for several months in agitation.[ ] but the difficulties and hazards of the enterprise had already caused lord russell and lord essex to recede from the desperate counsels of shaftesbury; and but for the unhappy detection of the conspiracy and the perfidy of lord howard, these two noble persons, whose lives were untimely lost to their country, might have survived to join the banner and support the throne of william. it is needless to observe that the minor plot, if we may use that epithet in reference to the relative dignity of the conspirators, for assassinating the king and the duke of york, had no immediate connection with the schemes of russell, essex, and sidney.[ ] but it is by no means a consequence from the admission we have made, that the evidence adduced on lord russell's trial was sufficient to justify his conviction.[ ] it appears to me that lord howard, and perhaps rumsey, were unwilling witnesses; and that the former, as is frequently the case with those who betray their friends in order to save their own lives, divulged no more than was extracted by his own danger. the testimony of neither witness, especially howard, was given with any degree of that precision which is exacted in modern times; and, as we now read the trial, it is not probable that a jury in later ages would have found a verdict of guilty, or would have been advised to it by the court. but, on the other hand, if lord howard were really able to prove more than he did, which i much suspect, a better conducted examination would probably have elicited facts unfavourable to the prisoner, which at present do not appear. it may be doubtful whether any overt act of treason is distinctly proved against lord russell, except his concurrence in the project of a rising at taunton, to which rumsey deposes. but this depending on the oath of a single witness, could not be sufficient for a conviction. pemberton, chief justice of the common pleas, tried this illustrious prisoner with more humanity than was usually displayed on the bench; but, aware of his precarious tenure in office, he did not venture to check the counsel for the crown, sawyer and jefferies, permitting them to give a great body of hearsay evidence, with only the feeble and useless remark that it did not affect the prisoner.[ ] yet he checked lord anglesea, when he offered similar evidence for the defence. in his direction to the jury, it deserves to be remarked that he by no means advanced the general proposition, which better men have held, that a conspiracy to levy war is in itself an overt act of compassing the king's death; limiting it to cases where the king's person might be put in danger, in the immediate instance, by the alleged scheme of seizing his guards.[ ] his language indeed, as recorded in the printed trial, was such as might have produced a verdict of acquittal from a jury tolerably disposed towards the prisoner; but the sheriffs, north and rich, who had been illegally thrust into office, being men wholly devoted to the prerogative, had taken care to return a panel in whom they could confide.[ ] the trial of algernon sidney, at which jefferies, now raised to the post of chief justice of the king's bench, presided, is as familiar to all my readers as that of lord russell.[ ] their names have been always united in grateful veneration and sympathy. it is notorious that sidney's conviction was obtained by a most illegal distortion of the evidence. besides lord howard, no living witness could be produced to the conspiracy for an insurrection; and though jefferies permitted two others to prepossess the jury by a second-hand story, he was compelled to admit that their testimony could not directly affect the prisoner.[ ] the attorney-general therefore had recourse to a paper found in his house, which was given in evidence, either as an overt act of treason by its own nature, or as connected with the alleged conspiracy; for though it was only in the latter sense that it could be admissible at all, yet jefferies took care to insinuate, in his charge to the jury, that the doctrines it contained were treasonable in themselves, and without reference to other evidence. in regard to truth, and to that justice which cannot be denied to the worst men in their worst actions, i must observe that the common accusation against the court in this trial, of having admitted insufficient proof by the mere comparison of handwriting, though alleged, not only in most of our historians, but in the act of parliament reversing sidney's attainder, does not appear to be well founded; the testimony to that fact, unless the printed trial is falsified in an extraordinary degree, being such as would be received at present.[ ] we may allow also that the passages from this paper, as laid in the indictment, containing very strong assertions of the right of the people to depose an unworthy king, might by possibility, if connected by other evidence with the conspiracy itself, have been admissible as presumptions for the jury to consider whether they had been written in furtherance of that design. but when they came to be read on the trial with their context, though only with such parts of that as the attorney-general chose to produce out of a voluminous manuscript, it was clear that they belonged to a theoretical work on government, long since perhaps written, and incapable of any bearing upon the other evidence.[ ] the manifest iniquity of this sentence upon algernon sidney, as well as the high courage he displayed throughout these last scenes of his life, have inspired a sort of enthusiasm for his name, which neither what we know of his story, nor the opinion of his contemporaries seem altogether to warrant. the crown of martyrdom should be suffered perhaps to exalt every virtue, and efface every defect in patriots, as it has often done in saints. in the faithful mirror of history, sidney may lose something of this lustre. he possessed no doubt a powerful, active, and undaunted mind, stored with extensive reading on the topics in which he delighted. but having proposed one only object for his political conduct, the establishment of a republic in england, his pride and inflexibility, though they gave a dignity to his character, rendered his views narrow and his temper unaccommodating. it was evident to every reasonable man that a republican government, being adverse to the prepossessions of a great majority of the people, could only be brought about and maintained by the force of usurpation. yet for this idol of his speculative hours, he was content to sacrifice the liberties of europe, to plunge the country in civil war, and even to stand indebted to france for protection. he may justly be suspected of having been the chief promoter of the dangerous cabals with barillon; nor could any tool of charles's court be more sedulous in representing the aggressions of louis xiv. in the netherlands as indifferent to our honour and safety. sir thomas armstrong, who had fled to holland on the detection of the plot, was given up by the states. a sentence of outlawry, which had passed against him in his absence, is equivalent, in cases of treason, to a conviction of the crime. but the law allows the space of one year, during which the party may surrender himself to take his trial. armstrong, when brought before the court, insisted on this right, and demanded a trial. nothing could be more evident, in point of law, than that he was entitled to it. but jefferies, with inhuman rudeness, treated his claim as wholly unfounded, and would not even suffer counsel to be heard in his behalf. he was executed accordingly without trial.[ ] but it would be too prolix to recapitulate all the instances of brutal injustice, or of cowardly subserviency, which degraded the english lawyers of the stuart period, and never so infamously as in these last years of charles ii. from this prostitution of the tribunals, from the intermission of parliaments, and the steps taken to render them in future mere puppets of the crown, it was plain that all constitutional securities were at least in abeyance; and those who felt themselves most obnoxious, or whose spirit was too high to live in an enslaved country, retired to holland as an asylum in which they might wait the occasion of better prospects, or, at the worst, breathe an air of liberty. meanwhile the prejudice against the whig party, which had reached so great a height in , was still farther enhanced by the detection of the late conspiracy. the atrocious scheme of assassination, alleged against walcot and some others who had suffered, was blended by the arts of the court and clergy, and by the blundering credulity of the gentry, with those less heinous projects ascribed to lord russell and his associates.[ ] these projects, if true in their full extent, were indeed such as men honestly attached to the government of their country could not fail to disapprove. for this purpose, a declaration full of malicious insinuations was ordered to be read in all churches.[ ] it was generally commented upon, we may make no question, in one of those loyal discourses, which, trampling on all truth, charity, and moderation, had no other scope than to inflame the hearers against nonconforming protestants, and to throw obloquy on the constitutional privileges of the subject. _high tory principles of the clergy._--it is not my intention to censure, in any strong sense of the word, the anglican clergy at this time for their assertion of absolute non-resistance, so far as it was done without calumny and insolence towards those of another way of thinking, and without self-interested adulation of the ruling power. their error was very dangerous, and had nearly proved destructive of the whole constitution; but it was one which had come down with high recommendation, and of which they could only perhaps be undeceived, as men are best undeceived of most errors, by experience that it might hurt themselves. it was the tenet of their homilies, their canons, their most distinguished divines and casuists; it had the apparent sanction of the legislature in a statute of the present reign. many excellent men, as was shown after the revolution, who had never made use of this doctrine as an engine of faction or private interest, could not disentangle their minds from the arguments or the authority on which it rested. but by too great a number it was eagerly brought forward to serve the purposes of arbitrary power, or at best to fix the wavering protestantism of the court by professions of unimpeachable loyalty. to this motive, in fact, we may trace a good deal of the vehemence with which the non-resisting principle had been originally advanced by the church of england under the tudors, and was continually urged under the stuarts. if we look at the tracts and sermons published by both parties after the restoration, it will appear manifest that the romish and anglican churches bade, as it were, against each other for the favour of the two royal brothers. the one appealed to its acknowledged principles, while it denounced the pretensions of the holy see to release subjects from their allegiance, and the bold theories of popular government which mariana and some other jesuits had promulgated. the others retaliated on the first movers of the reformation, and expatiated on the usurpation of lady jane grey, not to say elizabeth, and the republicanism of knox or calvin. _passive obedience._--from the æra of the exclusion bill especially, to the death of charles ii., a number of books were published in favour of an indefeasible hereditary right of the crown, and of absolute non-resistance. these were however of two very different classes. the authors of the first, who were perhaps the more numerous, did not deny the legal limitations of monarchy. they admitted that no one was bound to concur in the execution of unlawful commands. hence the obedience they deemed indispensable was denominated passive; an epithet which, in modern usage, is little more than redundant, but at that time made a sensible distinction. if all men should confine themselves to this line of duty, and merely refuse to become the instruments of such unlawful commands, it was evident that no tyranny could be carried into effect. if some should be wicked enough to co-operate against the liberties of their country, it would still be the bounden obligation of christians to submit. of this, which may be reckoned the moderate party, the most eminent were hickes in a treatise called "jovian," and sherlock in his case of resistance to the supreme powers.[ ] to this also must have belonged archbishop sancroft, and the great body of non-juring clergy who had refused to read the declaration of indulgence under james ii., and whose conduct in that respect would be utterly absurd, except on the supposition that there existed some lawful boundaries of the royal authority. _some contend for absolute-power._--but besides these men, who kept some measures with the constitution, even while, by their slavish tenets, they laid it open to the assaults of more intrepid enemies, another and a pretty considerable class of writers did not hesitate to avow their abhorrence of all limitations upon arbitrary power. brady went back to the primary sources of our history, and endeavoured to show that magna charta, as well as every other constitutional law, were but rebellious encroachments on the ancient uncontrollable imprescriptible prerogatives of the monarchy. his writings, replete with learning and acuteness, and in some respects with just remarks, though often unfair and always partial, naturally produced an effect on those who had been accustomed to value the constitution rather for its presumed antiquity, than its real excellence. but the author most in vogue with the partisans of despotism was sir robert filmer. he had lived before the civil war, but his posthumous writings came to light about this period. they contain an elaborate vindication of what was called the patriarchal scheme of government, which, rejecting with scorn that original contract whence human society had been supposed to spring, derives all legitimate authority from that of primogeniture, the next heir being king by divine right, and as incapable of being restrained in his sovereignty, as of being excluded from it. "as kingly power," he says, "is by the law of god, so hath it no inferior power to limit it. the father of a family governs by no other law than his own will, not by the laws and wills of his sons and servants."[ ] "the direction of the law is but like the advice and direction which the king's council gives the king, which no man says is a law to the king."[ ] "general laws," he observes, "made in parliament, may, upon known respects to the king, by his authority be mitigated or suspended upon causes only known to him; and by the coronation oath, he is only bound to observe good laws, of which he is the judge."[ ] "a man is bound to obey the king's command against law, nay, in some cases, against divine laws."[ ] in another treatise, entitled "the anarchy of a mixed or limited monarchy," he inveighs, with no kind of reserve or exception, against the regular constitution; setting off with an assumption that the parliament of england was originally but an imitation of the states general of france, which had no further power than to present requests to the king.[ ] these treatises of filmer obtained a very favourable reception. we find the patriarchal origin of government frequently mentioned in the publications of this time as an undoubted truth. considered with respect to his celebrity rather than his talents, he was not, as some might imagine, too ignoble an adversary for locke to have combated. another person, far superior to filmer in political eminence, undertook at the same time an unequivocal defence of absolute monarchy. this was sir george mackenzie, the famous lord advocate of scotland. in his "jus regium," published in , and dedicated to the university of oxford, he maintains, that "monarchy in its nature is absolute, and consequently these pretended limitations are against the nature of monarchy."[ ] "whatever proves monarchy to be an excellent government, does by the same reason prove absolute monarchy to be the best government; for if monarchy be to be commended, because it prevents divisions, then a limited monarchy, which allows the people a share, is not to be commended, because it occasions them; if monarchy be commended, because there is more expedition, secrecy, and other excellent qualities to be found in it, then absolute monarchy is to be commended above a limited one, because a limited monarch must impart his secrets to the people, and must delay the noblest designs, until malicious and factious spirits be either gained or overcome; and the same analogy of reason will hold in reflecting upon all other advantages of monarchy, the examination whereof i dare trust to every man's own bosom."[ ] we can hardly, after this, avoid being astonished at the effrontery even of a scots crown lawyer, when we read in the preface to this very treatise of mackenzie, "under whom can we expect to be free from arbitrary government, when we were and are afraid of it under king charles i. and king charles ii.?" _decree of the university of oxford._--it was at this time that the university of oxford published their celebrated decree against pernicious books and damnable doctrines, enumerating as such above twenty propositions which they anathematised as false, seditious, and impious. the first of these is, that all civil authority is derived originally from the people; the second, that there is a compact, tacit or express, between the king and his subjects: and others follow of the same description. they do not explicitly condemn a limited monarchy, like filmer, but evidently adopt his scheme of primogenitary right, which is incompatible with it. nor is there the slightest intimation that the university extended their censure to such praises of despotic power as have been quoted in the last pages.[ ] this decree was publicly burned by an order of the house of lords in : nor does there seem to have been a single dissent in that body to a step that cast such a stigma on the university. but the disgrace of the offence was greater than that of the punishment. we can frame no adequate conception of the jeopardy in which our liberties stood under the stuarts, especially in this particular period, without attending to this spirit of servility which had been so sedulously excited. it seemed as if england was about to play the scene which denmark had not long since exhibited, by a spontaneous surrender of its constitution. and although this loyalty were much more on the tongue than in the heart, as the next reign very amply disclosed, it served at least to deceive the court into a belief that its future steps would be almost without difficulty. it is uncertain whether charles would have summoned another parliament. he either had the intention, or professed it in order to obtain money from france, of convoking one at cambridge in the autumn of .[ ] but after the scheme of new-modelling corporations began to be tried, it was his policy to wait the effects of this regeneration. it was better still, in his judgment, to dispense with the commons altogether. the period fixed by law had elapsed nearly twelve months before his death; and we have no evidence that a new parliament was in contemplation. but louis, on the other hand, having discontinued his annual subsidy to the king in , after gaining strasburg and luxemburg by his connivance, or rather co-operation,[ ] it would not have been easy to avoid a recurrence to the only lawful source of revenue. the king of france, it should be observed, behaved towards charles as men usually treat the low tools by whose corruption they have obtained any end. during the whole course of their long negotiations, louis, though never the dupe of our wretched monarch, was compelled to endure his shuffling evasions, and pay dearly for his base compliances. but when he saw himself no longer in need of them, it seems to have been in revenge that he permitted the publication of the secret treaty of , and withdrew his pecuniary aid. charles deeply resented both these marks of desertion in his ally. in addition to them he discovered the intrigues of the french ambassadors with his malcontent commons. he perceived also that by bringing home the duke of york from scotland, and restoring him in defiance of the test act to the privy council, he had made the presumptive heir of the throne, possessed as he was of superior steadiness and attention, too near a rival to himself. these reflections appear to have depressed his mind in the latter months of his life, and to have produced that remarkable private reconciliation with the duke of monmouth, through the influence of lord halifax; which, had he lived, would very probably have displayed one more revolution in the uncertain policy of this reign.[ ] but a death, so sudden and inopportune as to excite suspicions of poison in some most nearly connected with him, gave a more decisive character to the system of government.[ ] the temple press, printers, letchworth footnotes: [ ] temple's _memoirs_. [ ] burnet says that danby bribed the less important members, instead of the leaders; which did not answer so well. but he seems to have been liberal to all. the parliament has gained the name of the pensioned. in that of , sir stephen fox was called upon to produce an account of the monies paid to many of their predecessors. those who belonged to the new parliament, endeavoured to defend themselves; and gave reasons for their pensions; but i observe no one says he did not always vote with the court. _parl. hist._ . north admits that great clamour was excited by this discovery; and well it might. see also dalrymple, ii. . [ ] burnet charges these two leaders of opposition with being bribed by the court to draw the house into granting an enormous supply, as the consideration of passing the test act; and see pepys, oct. , . sir robert howard and sir richard temple were said to have gone over to the court in through similar inducements. ralph. roger north (_examen_, p. ) gives an account of the manner in which men were brought off from the opposition, though it was sometimes advisable to let them nominally continue in it; and mentions lee, garraway, and meres, all very active patriots, if we trust to the parliamentary debates. but, after all, neither burnet nor roger north are wholly to be relied on as to particular instances; though the general fact of an extensive corruption be indisputable. [ ] this cunning, self-interested man, who had been introduced to the house by lord russell and lord cavendish, and was connected with the country party, tells us that danby sent for him in feb. , and assured him that the jealousies of that party were wholly without foundation; that, to his certain knowledge, the king meant no other than to preserve the religion and government by law established; that, if the government was in any danger, it was from those who pretended such a mighty zeal for it. on finding him well disposed, danby took his proselyte to the king, who assured him of his regard for the constitution, and was right loyally believed. reresby's _memoirs_, p. . [ ] "there were two things," says bishop parker, "which, like circe's cup, bewitched men and turned them into brutes; viz. popery and french interest. if men otherwise sober heard them once, it was sufficient to make them run mad. but, when those things were laid aside, their behaviour to his majesty was with a becoming modesty." p. . whenever the court seemed to fall in with the national interests on the two points of france and popery, many of the country party voted with them, though more numerous than their own. temple, p. . see too reresby, p. _et alibi_. [ ] the king, according to james himself, readily consented to the marriage of the princess, when it was first suggested in ; the difficulty was with her father. he gave at last a reluctant consent; and the offer was made by lords arlington and ossory to the prince of orange, who received it coolly. _life of james_, . when he came over to england in oct. , with the intention of effecting the match, the king and duke wished to defer it till the conclusion of the treaty then in negotiation at nimeguen; but "the obstinacy of the prince, with the assistance of the treasurer, who from that time entered into the measures and interests of the prince, prevailed upon the flexibility of the king to let the marriage be first agreed and concluded."--p. . [ ] kennet, p. ; north's _examen_, p. ; burnet. this test was covertly meant against the romish party as well as more openly against the dissenters. _life of james_, p. . danby set himself up as the patron of the church party and old cavaliers against the two opposing religions; trusting that they were the stronger in the house of commons. but the times were so changed that the same men had no longer the same principles, and the house would listen to no measures against nonconformists. he propitiated, however, the prelates, by renewing the persecution under the existing laws, which had been relaxed by the cabal ministry. baxter, , ; kennet, ; neal, ; _somers tracts_, vii. . meanwhile, schemes of comprehension were sometimes on foot; and the prelates affected to be desirous of bringing about an union; but morley and sheldon frustrated them all. baxter, ; kennet, ; parker, . the bishops, however, were not uniformly intolerant. croft, bishop of hereford, published, about , a tract that made some noise, entitled "the naked truth," for the purpose of moderating differences. it is not written with extraordinary ability; but is very candid and well designed, though conceding so much as to scandalise his brethren. _somers tracts_, vii. ; _biogr. brit._ art. croft; where the book is extravagantly over praised. croft was one of the few bishops who, being then very old, advised his clergy to read james ii.'s declaration in ; thinking, i suppose, though in those circumstances erroneously, that toleration was so good a thing, it was better to have it irregularly than not at all. [ ] charles received , crowns for the long prorogation of parliament, from nov. to feb. . in the beginning of the year , the two kings bound themselves by a formal treaty (to which danby and lauderdale, but not coventry or williamson, were privy), not to enter on any treaties but by mutual consent; and charles promised, in consideration of a pension, to prorogue or dissolve parliament, if they should attempt to force such treaties upon him. dalrymple, p. . danby tried to break this off, but did not hesitate to press the french cabinet for the money; and £ , was paid. the prince of orange came afterwards through rouvigny to a knowledge of this secret treaty. p. . [ ] this army consisted of between twenty and thirty thousand men, as fine troops as could be seen (_life of james_, p. ): an alarming sight to those who denied the lawfulness of any standing army. it is impossible to doubt, from barillon's correspondence in dalrymple, that the king and duke looked to this force as the means of consolidating the royal authority. this was suspected at home, and very justly: "many well-meaning men," says reresby, "began to fear the army now raised was rather intended to awe our own kingdom than to war against france, as had at first been suggested."--p. . and in a former passage (p. ) he positively attributes the opposition to the french war in , to "a jealousy that the king indeed intended to raise an army, but never designed to go on with the war; and to say the truth, some of the king's own party were not very sure of the contrary." [ ] dalrymple, p. . the immediate cause of those intrigues was the indignation of louis at the princess mary's marriage. that event which, as we know from james himself, was very suddenly brought about, took the king of france by surprise. charles apologised for it to barillon, by saying, "i am the only one of my party, except my brother."--p. . this, in fact, was the secret of his apparent relinquishment of french interests at different times in the latter years of his reign; he found it hard to kick constantly against the pricks, and could employ no minister who went cordially along with his predilections. he seems too at times, as well as the duke of york, to have been seriously provoked at the unceasing encroachments of france, which exposed him to so much vexation at home. the connection with lords russell and hollis began in march , though some of the opposition had been making advances to barillon in the preceding november. pp. , . see also _copies and extracts of some letters written to and from the earl of danby_, published in ; whence it appears that montagu suspected the intrigues of barillon, and the mission of rouvigny, lady russell's first cousin, for the same purpose, as early as jan. ; and informed danby of it. pp. , , . [ ] courtin, the french ambassador who preceded barillon, had been engaged through great part of the year in a treaty with charles for the prorogation or dissolution of parliament. after a long chaffering, the sum was fixed at , , livres; in consideration of which the king of england pledged himself to prorogue parliament from december to april . it was in consequence of the subsidy being stopped by louis, in resentment of the princess mary's marriage, that parliament, which had been already prorogued till april, was suddenly assembled in february. dalrymple, p. . it appears that courtin had employed french money to bribe members of the commons in with the knowledge of charles; assigning as a reason, that spain and the emperor were distributing money on the other side. in the course of this negotiation, he assured charles that the king of france was always ready to employ all his forces for the confirmation and augmentation of the royal authority in england, so that he should always be master of his subjects, and not depend upon them. [ ] see what temple says of this (p. ): the king raised , men in the spring of , and seemed ready to go into the war; but all was spoiled by a vote, on clarges's motion, that no money should be granted till satisfaction should be made as to religion. this irritated the king so much that he determined to take the money which france offered him; and he afterwards almost compelled the dutch to sign the treaty; so much against the prince of orange's inclinations, that he has often been charged, though unjustly, with having fought the battle of st. denis after he knew that the peace was concluded. danby also, in his vindication (published in , and again in ; see _state trials_, ii. ), lays the blame of discouraging the king from embarking in the war on this vote of the commons. and the author of the _life of james ii._ says very truly, that the commons "were in reality more jealous of the king's power than of the power of france; for, notwithstanding all their former warm addresses for hindering the growth of the power of france, when the king had no army, now that he had one, they passed a vote to have it immediately disbanded; and the factious party, which was then prevalent among them, made it their only business to be rid of the duke, to pull down the ministers, and to weaken the crown."--p. . in defence of the commons it is to be urged that, if they had any strong suspicion of the king's private intrigues with france for some years past, as in all likelihood they had, common prudence would teach them to distrust his pretended desire for war with her; and it is, in fact, most probable, that his real object was to be master of a considerable army. [ ] the memorial of blancard to the prince of orange, quoted by dalrymple (p. ) contains these words: "le roi auroit été bien faché qu'il eut été absolu dans ses états; l'un de ses plus constants maximes depuis son rétablissement ayant été, de le diviser d'avec son parlement, et de se servir tantôt de l'un, tantôt de l'autre, toujours par argent pour parvenir à ses fins." [ ] ralph, p. ; _oeuvres de louis xiv._ ii. , and v. , where we have a curious and characteristic letter of the king to d'estrades in jan. , when he had been provoked by some high language clarendon had held about the right of the flag. [ ] the letters of barillon in dalrymple (pp. , , ) are sufficient proofs of this. he imputes to danby in one place (p. ) the design of making the king absolute, and says: "m. le duc d'york se croit perdu pour sa religion, si l'occasion présente ne lui sert à soumettre l'angleterre; c'est une entreprise fort hardie, et dont le succès est fort doutex." of charles himself he says: "le roi d'angleterre balance encore à se porter à l'extremité; son humeur répugne fort au dessein de changer le gouvernement. il est néanmoins entrainé par m. le duc d'york et par le grand trésorier; mais dans le fond il aimeroit mieux que la paix le mît en état de demeurer en repos, et rétablir ses affaires, c'est à dire, un bon revenu; et je crois qu'il ne se soucie pas beaucoup d'être plus absolu qu'il est. le duc et le trésorier connoissent bien à qui ils ont affaire, et craignent d'être abandonnés par le roi d'angleterre aux premiers obstacles considérables qu'ils trouveront au dessein de relever l'autorité royale en angleterre." on this passage it may be observed, that there is reason to believe there was no co-operation, but rather a great distrust at this time between the duke of york and lord danby. but barillon had no doubt taken care to infuse into the minds of the opposition those suspicions of that minister's designs. [ ] barillon appears to have favoured the opposition rather than the duke of york, who urged the keeping up of the army. this was also the great object of the king, who very reluctantly disbanded it in jan. . dalrymple, , etc. [ ] this delicate subject is treated with great candour as well as judgment by lord john russell, in his _life of william lord russell_. [ ] _parl. hist._ ; dalrymple, . [ ] louis xiv. tells us, that sidney had made proposals to france in for an insurrection, and asked , crowns to effect it; which was thought too much for an experiment. he tried to persuade the ministers, that it was against the interest of france that england should continue a monarchy. _oeuvres de louis xiv._ ii. . [ ] dalrymple, . [ ] his exclamation at barillon's pressing the reduction of the army to men is well known: "god's fish! are all the king of france's promises to make me master of my subjects come to this! or does he think that a matter to be done with men!" temple says, "he seemed at this time (may ) more resolved to enter into the war than i had ever before seen or thought him." [ ] dalrymple, _et post_. [ ] _memoirs relating to the impeachment of the earl of danby_, , pp. , ; _state trials_, vol. xi. [ ] the violence of the next house of commons, who refused to acquiesce in danby's banishment, to which the lords had changed their bill of attainder, may seem to render this very doubtful. but it is to be remembered that they were exasperated by the pardon he had clandestinely obtained, and pleaded in bar of their impeachment. [ ] the impeachment was carried by to , dec. . a motion (dec. ) to leave out the word traitorously was lost by to . [ ] lords' journals, dec. , . eighteen peers entered their protests; halifax, essex, shaftesbury, etc. [ ] _state trials_, vi. _et post_; hatsell's _precedents_, iv. . [ ] lords' journals, april . [ ] "the lord privy seal, anglesea, in a conference between the two houses," said, "that, in the transaction of this affair, were two great points gained by this house of commons: the first was, that impeachments made by the commons in one parliament continued from session to session, and parliament to parliament, notwithstanding prorogations or dissolutions: the other point was, that in cases of impeachments, upon special matter shown, if the modesty of the party directs him not to withdraw, the lords admit that of right they ought to order him to withdraw, and that afterwards he ought to be committed. but he understood that the lords did not intend to extend the points of withdrawing and committing to general impeachments without special matter alleged; else they did not know how many might be picked out of their house on a sudden." shaftesbury said, indecently enough, that they were as willing to be rid of the earl of danby as the commons; and cavilled at the distinction between general and special impeachments. commons' journals, april , . on the impeachment of scroggs for treason, in the next parliament, it was moved to commit him; but the previous question was carried, and he was admitted to bail; doubtless because no sufficient matter was alleged. twenty peers protested. lords' journals, jan. , . [ ] lords' journals, april ; _parl. hist._ , etc. [ ] lords' journals, may , . [ ] lords' journals, may and . after the former vote peers, out of who appear to have been present, entered their dissent; and another, the earl of leicester, is known to have voted with the minority. the unusual strength of opposition, no doubt, produced the change next day. [ ] may . twenty-one peers were entered as dissentient. the commons inquired whether it were intended by this that the bishops should vote on the pardon of danby, which the upper house declined to answer, but said they could not vote on the trial of the five popish lords, may , , . [ ] see the report of a committee in journals, may ; or hatsell's _precedents_, iv. . [ ] w. iii. c. . [ ] _parl. hist._ vii. . mr. lechmere, a very ardent whig, then solicitor-general, and one of the managers on the impeachment, had most confidently denied this prerogative. _id._ . [ ] instead of the words in the order, "from the proceedings of any other court," the following are inserted, "or any other business wherein their lordships act as in a court of judicature, and not in their legislative capacity." the importance of this alteration as to the question of impeachment is obvious. [ ] lords' journals. [ ] lords' journals. seventy-eight peers were present. [ ] _id._ th dec. . [ ] lords' journ. march , . the very next day the commons sent a message to demand judgment on the impeachment against him. com. journ. march . [ ] shower's _reports_, ii. . "he was bailed to appear at the lords' bar the first day of the then next parliament." the catholic lords were bailed the next day. this proves that the impeachment was not held to be at an end. [ ] lords' journals, may , . [ ] upon considering the proceedings in the house of lords on this subject, oct. and , , and especially the protest signed by eight peers on the latter day, there can be little doubt that their release had been chiefly grounded on the act of grace, and not on the abandonment of the impeachment. [ ] bishop parker is not wrong in saying that the house of commons had so long accustomed themselves to strange fictions about popery, that, upon the first discovery of oates's plot, they readily believed everything he said; for they had long expected whatever he declared. _hist. sui temp._ p. (of the translation). [ ] _parl. hist._ , ; _state trials_, vii. ; kennet, , , ; north's _examen_, , ; ralph, ; burnet, i. . scroggs tried coleman with much rudeness and partiality; but his summing up in reference to the famous passage in the letters is not deficient in acuteness. in fact, this not only convicted coleman, but raised a general conviction of the truth of a plot--and a plot there was, though not oates's. [ ] _examen_, p. . [ ] r. v. farwell and others; _state trials_, viii. . they were indicted for publishing some letters to prove that godfrey had killed himself. they defended themselves by calling witnesses to prove the truth of the fact, which, though in a case of libel, pemberton allowed. but their own witnesses proved that godfrey's body had all the appearance of being strangled. the roman catholics gave out, at the time of godfrey's death, that he had killed himself; and hurt their own cause by foolish lies. north's _examen_, p. . [ ] it was deposed by a respectable witness, that godfrey entertained apprehensions on account of what he had done as to the plot, and had said, "on my conscience, i believe i shall be the first martyr." _state trials_, vii. . these little additional circumstances, which are suppressed by later historians, who speak of the plot as unfit to impose on any but the most bigoted fanatics, contributed to make up a body of presumptive and positive evidence, from which human relief is rarely withheld. it is remarkable that the most acute and diligent historian we possess for those times, ralph, does not in the slightest degree pretend to account for godfrey's death; though, in his general reflections on the plot (p. ) he relies too much on the assertions of north and l'estrange. [ ] _state trials_, vii. ; north's _examen_, . [ ] _state trials_, vol. vii. _passim_. on the trial of green, berry, and hill, for godfrey's murder, part of the story for the prosecution was, that the body was brought to hill's lodgings on the saturday, and remained there till monday. the prisoner called witnesses who lodged in the same house, to prove that it could not have been there without their knowledge. wild, one of the judges, assuming, as usual, the truth of the story as beyond controversy, said it was very suspicious that they should see or hear nothing of it; and another, dolben, told them it was well they were not indicted. _id._ . jones, summing up the evidence on sir thomas gascoigne's trial at york (an aged catholic gentleman, most improbably accused of accession to the plot), says to the jury: "gentlemen, you have the king's witness on his oath; he that testifies against him is barely on his word, and he is a papist" (_id._ ): thus deriving an argument from an iniquitous rule, which, at that time, prevailed in our law, of refusing to hear the prisoner's witnesses upon oath. gascoigne, however, was acquitted. it would swell this note to an unwarrantable length, were i to extract so much of the trials as might fully exhibit all the instances of gross partiality in the conduct of the judges. i must, therefore, refer my readers to the volume itself, a standing monument of the necessity of the revolution; not only as it rendered the judges independent of the crown, but as it brought forward those principles of equal and indifferent justice, which can never be expected to flourish but under the shadow of liberty. [ ] _state trials_, , , . [ ] roger north, whose long account of the popish plot is, as usual with him, a medley of truth and lies, acuteness and absurdity, represents his brother, the chief justice, as perfectly immaculate in the midst of this degradation of the bench. the _state trials_, however, show that he was as partial and unjust towards the prisoners as any of the rest, till the government thought it necessary to interfere. the moment when the judges veered round, was on the trial of sir george wakeman, physician to the queen. scroggs, who had been infamously partial against the prisoners upon every former occasion, now treated oates and bedloe as they deserved, though to the aggravation of his own disgrace. _state trials_, vii. - . [ ] _state trials_, ; _parl. hist._ . stafford, though not a man of much ability, had rendered himself obnoxious as a prominent opposer of all measures intended to check the growth of popery. his name appears constantly in protests upon such occasions; as, for instance, march , , against the bill for raising money for a french war. reresby praises his defence very highly. p. . the duke of york, on the contrary, or his biographer, observes: "those who wished lord stafford well were of opinion that, had he managed the advantages which were given him with dexterity, he would have made the greatest part of his judges ashamed to condemn him; but it was his misfortune to play his game worst, when he had the best cards."--p. . [ ] i take this from extracts out of those sermons, contained in a roman catholic pamphlet printed in , and entitled "good advice to the pulpits." the protestant divines did their cause no good by misrepresentation of their adversaries, and by their propensity to rudeness and scurrility. the former fault indeed existed in a much greater degree on the opposite side, but by no means the latter. see also a treatise by barlow, published in , entitled, "popish principles pernicious to protestant princes." [ ] _parl. hist._ . [ ] see marvell's "seasonable argument to persuade all the grand juries in england to petition for a new parliament." he gives very bad characters of the principal members on the court side; but we cannot take for granted all that comes from so unscrupulous a libeller. sir harbottle grimstone had first thrown out, in the session of , that a standing parliament was as great a grievance as a standing army, and that an application ought to be made to the king for a dissolution. this was not seconded; and met with much disapprobation from both sides of the house. _parl. hist._ vii. . but the country party, in two years' time, had changed their views, and were become eager for a dissolution. an address to that effect was moved in the house of lords, and lost by only two voices, the duke of york voting for it. _id._ . this is explained by a passage in coleman's _letters_; where that intriguer expresses his desire to see parliament dissolved, in the hope that another would be more favourable to the toleration of catholics. this must mean that the dissenters might gain an advantage over the rigorous church of england men, and be induced to come into a general indulgence. [ ] this test, car. , stat. , is the declaration subscribed by members of both houses of parliament on taking their seats, that there is no transubstantiation of the elements in the lord's supper; and that the invocation of saints, as practised in the church of rome, is idolatrous. the oath of supremacy was already taken by the commons, though not by the lords; and it is a great mistake to imagine that catholics were legally capable of sitting in the lower house before the act of . but it had been the aim of the long parliament in to exclude them from the house of lords; and this was of course revived with greater eagerness, as the danger from their influence grew more apparent. a bill for this purpose passed the commons in , but was thrown out by the peers. journals, may , nov. . it was brought in again in the spring of . _parl. hist._ . in the autumn of the same year it was renewed, when the lords agreed to the oath of supremacy, but omitted the declaration against transubstantiation, so far as their own house was affected by it. lords' journals, nov. , . they also excepted the duke of york from the operation of the bill; which exception was carried in the commons by two voices. _parl. hist._ . the duke of york and seven more lords protested. the violence of those times on all sides will account for this theological declaration; but it is more difficult to justify its retention at present. whatever influence a belief in the pope's supremacy may exercise upon men's politics, it is hard to see how the doctrine of transubstantiation can directly affect them; and surely he who renounces the former, cannot be very dangerous on account of his adherence to the latter. nor is it less extraordinary to demand, from many of those who usually compose a house of commons, the assertion that the practice of the church of rome in the invocation of saints is idolatrous; since, even on the hypothesis that a country gentleman has a clear notion of what is meant by idolatry, he is, in many cases, wholly out of the way of knowing what the church of rome or any of its members believe or practise. the invocation of saints, as held and explained by that church in the council of trent, is surely not idolatrous, with whatever error it may be charged; but the practice at least of uneducated roman catholics seems fully to justify the declaration; understanding it to refer to certain superstitions, countenanced or not eradicated by their clergy. i have sometimes thought that the legislator of a great nation sets off oddly by solemnly professing theological positions about which he knows nothing, and swearing to the possession of property which he does not enjoy. [ .] [ ] the second reading of the exclusion bill was carried, may , , by to . the debates are in _parliamentary history_, _et post_. in the next parliament it was carried without a division. sir leoline jenkins alone seems to have taken the high ground, that "parliament cannot disinherit the heir of the crown; and that, if such an act should pass, it would be invalid in itself."--_id._ . [ ] while the exclusion bill was passing the commons, the king took the pains to speak himself to almost every lord, to dissuade him from assenting to it when it should come up; telling them, at the same time, let what would happen, he would never suffer such a villainous bill to pass. _life of james_, . [ ] ralph, p. . the atrocious libel, entitled, "an appeal from the country to the city," published in , and usually ascribed to ferguson (though said in _biogr. brit._ art. l'estrange, to be written by charles blount), was almost sufficient of itself to excuse the return of public opinion towards the throne. _state tracts_, temp. car. ii.; ralph, i. ; _parl. hist._ iv. appendix. the king is personally struck at in this tract with the utmost fury: the queen is called agrippina, in allusion to the infamous charges of oates; monmouth is held up as the hope of the country. "he will stand by you, therefore you ought to stand by him. he who hath the worst title, always makes the best king." one harris was tried for publishing this pamphlet. the jury at first found him guilty of selling; an equivocal verdict, by which they probably meant to deny, or at least to disclaim, any assertion of the libellous character of the publication. but scroggs telling them it was their province to say guilty or not guilty, they returned a verdict of guilty. _state trials_, vii. . another arrow dipped in the same poison was a "letter to a person of honour concerning the black box." _somers tracts_, viii. . the story of a contract of marriage between the king and mrs. waters, monmouth's mother, concealed in a black box, had lately been current; and the former had taken pains to expose its falsehood by a public examination of the gentleman whose name had been made use of. this artful tract is intended to keep up the belief of monmouth's legitimacy, and even to graft it on the undeniable falsehood of that tale; as if it had been purposely fabricated to delude the people by setting them on a wrong scent. see also another libel of the same class, p. . though monmouth's illegitimacy is past all question, it has been observed by harris that the princess of orange, in writing to her brother about mrs. waters, in , twice names her as his wife. thurloe, i. , quoted in harris's _lives_, iv. . but though this was a scandalous indecency on her part, it proves no more than that charles, like other young men in the heat of passion, was foolish enough to give that appellation to his mistress; and that his sister humoured him in it. sidney mentions a strange piece of monmouth's presumption. when he went to dine with the city in october , it was remarked that the bar, by which the heralds denote illegitimacy, had been taken off the royal arms on his coach. _letters to saville_, p. . [ ] _life of james_, _et post_. compare dalrymple, p. _et post_. barillon was evidently of opinion that the king would finally abandon his brother. sunderland joined the duchess of portsmouth, and was one of the thirty peers who voted for the bill in november . james charges godolphin also with deserting him. p. . but his name does not appear in the protest signed by twenty-five peers; though that of the privy seal, lord anglesea, does. the duchess of portsmouth sat near the commons at stafford's trial, "dispensing her sweetmeats and gracious looks among them."--p. . [ ] _life of james_, p. . [ ] il est persuadé que l'autorité royale ne se peut rétablir en angleterre que par une guerre civile. aug. , . dalrymple, . [ ] dalrymple, . nov. . [ ] marvell's "growth of popery," in _state tracts_, temp. car. ii. p. ; _parl. hist._ . the second reading was carried by to . serjeant maynard, who was probably not in the secrets of his party, seems to have been surprised at their opposition. an objection with marvell, and not by any means a bad one, would have been, that the children of the royal family were to be consigned for education to the sole government of bishops. the duke of york, and thirteen other peers, protested against this bill, not all of them from the same motives, as may be collected from their names. lords' journals, th and th march . [ ] lords russell and cavendish, sir w. coventry and sir thomas littleton, seem to have been in favour of limitations. lord j. russell, p. ; ralph, ; sidney's _letters_, p. . temple and shaftesbury, for opposite reasons, stood alone in the council against the scheme of limitations. temple's _memoirs_. [ ] commons' journals, rd nov. , th jan. . [ ] _life of james_, , ; dalrymple, p. . [ ] dalrymple, p. ; _life of james_, , . the duke gave himself up for lost when he heard of the clause in the king's speech declaring his readiness to hearken to any expedient but the exclusion. birch and hampden, he says, were in favour of this; but fitzharris's business set the house in a flame, and determined them to persist in their former scheme. reresby says (p. , confirmed by _parl. hist._ ) it was supported by sir thomas littleton, who is said to have been originally against the bill of exclusion, as well as sir william coventry. sidney's _letters_, p. . it was opposed by jones, winnington, booth, and, if the _parliamentary history_ be right, by hampden and birch. [ ] temple's _memoirs_. he says their revenues in land or offices amounted to £ , per annum; whereas those of the house of commons seldom exceeded £ , . the king objected much to admitting halifax; but himself proposed shaftesbury, much against temple's wishes. the funds in holland rose on the news. barillon was displeased, and said it was making "des états, et non des conseils;" which was not without weight, for the king had declared he would take no measure, nor even choose any new counsellor, without their consent. but the extreme disadvantage of the position in which this placed the crown, rendered it absolutely certain that it was not submitted to with sincerity. lady portsmouth told barillon the new ministry was formed in order to get money from parliament. another motive, no doubt, was to prevent the exclusion bill. [ ] _life of james_, . on the king's sudden illness, aug. , , the ruling ministers, halifax, sunderland, and essex, alarmed at the anarchy which might come on his death, of which shaftesbury and monmouth would profit, sent over for the duke; but soon endeavoured to make him go into scotland, and, after a struggle against the king's tricks to outwit them, succeeded in this object. _id._ p. _et post_. [ ] temple; reresby, p. . "so true it is," he says, "that there is no wearing the court and country livery together." thus also algernon sidney, in his letters to saville, p. . "the king certainly inclines not to be so stiff as formerly in advancing only those that exalt prerogative; but the earl of essex, and some others that are coming into play thereupon, cannot avoid being suspected of having intentions different from what they have hitherto professed." he ascribed the change of ministry at this time to sunderland: "if he and two more [essex and halifax] can well agree among themselves, i believe they will have the management of almost all businesses, and may bring much honour to themselves and good to our nation." april , . but he writes afterwards (sept. ) that halifax and essex were become very unpopular. p. . "the bare being preferred," says secretary coventry, "maketh some of them suspected, though not criminal." lord j. russell's _life of lord russell_, p. . [ ] see the protests in , _passim_. [ ] temple's _memoirs_; _life of james_, . [ ] dalrymple, pp. , . [ ] see roger north's account of this court stratagem. _examen of kennet_, . the proclamation itself, however, in the _gazette_, th dec. , is more strongly worded than we should expect from north's account of it, and is by no means limited to _tumultuous_ petitions. [ ] _london gazettes_ of , _passim_. [ ] david lewis was executed at usk for saying mass, aug. , . _state trials_, vii. . other instances occur in the same volume; see especially pp. , , , . pemberton was more severe and unjust towards these unfortunate men than scroggs. the king, as his brother tells us, came unwillingly into these severities to prevent worse. _life of james_, . [ ] journals, _passim_; north's _examen_, , . [ ] they went a little too far, however, when they actually seated sir william waller in withens's place for westminster. ralph, . [ ] journals, dec. , . [ ] _parl. hist._ i. . [ ] reresby's _memoirs_, . lord halifax and he agreed, he says, on consideration, that the court party were not only the most numerous, but the most active and wealthy part of the nation. [ ] it was carried by to ( th nov.), to address the king to remove lord halifax from his councils and presence for ever. they resolved, _nem. con._, that no member of that house should accept of any office or place of profit from the crown, or any promise of one, during such time as he should continue a member; and that all offenders herein should be expelled. th dec. they passed resolutions against a number of persons by name, whom they suspected to have advised the king not to pass the bill of exclusion. th jan. . they resolved unanimously ( th jan.), that it is the opinion of this house, that the city of london was burnt in the year by the papists, designing thereby to introduce popery and arbitrary power into this kingdom. they were going on with more resolutions in the same spirit, when the usher of the black rod appeared to prorogue them. _parl. hist._ [ ] commons' journals, march , . [ ] _parl. hist._ ii. . lord hale doubted whether this were a statute. but the judges, in , on being consulted by the lords, inclined to think that it was one; arguing, i suppose, from the words "in full parliament," which have been held to imply the presence and assent of the commons. [ ] hatsell's _precedents_, iv. , and appendix, ; _state trials_, viii. , and xii. . [ ] _commentaries_, vol. iv. c. . [ ] ralph, _et post_; _state trials_, , ; north's _examen_, . fitzharris was an irish papist, who had evidently had interviews with the king through lady portsmouth. one hawkins, afterwards made dean of chichester for his pains, published a narrative of this case full of falsehoods. [ ] _state trials_, viii. . roger north's remark on this is worthy of him; "having sworn false, as it is manifest some did before to one purpose, it is more likely they swore true to the contrary." _examen_, p. . and sir robert sawyer's observation to the same effect is also worthy of him. on college's trial, oates, in his examination for the prisoner, said, that turberville had changed sides; sawyer, as counsel for the crown, answered, "dr. oates, mr. turberville has not changed sides, you have; he is still a witness for the king, you are against him." _state trials_, viii. . the opposite party were a little perplexed by the necessity of refuting testimony they had relied upon. in a dialogue, entitled "ignoramus vindicated," it is asked, why were dr. oates and others believed against the papists? and the best answer the case admits is given: "because his and their testimony was backed by that undeniable evidence of coleman's papers, godfrey's murder, and a thousand other pregnant circumstances, which makes the case much different from that when people, of very suspected credit, swear the grossest improbabilities." but the same witnesses, it is urged, had lately been believed against the papists. "what! then," replies the advocate of shaftesbury, "may not a man be very honest and credible at one time, and six months after, by necessity, subornation, malice, or twenty ways, become a notorious villain?" [ ] the true question for a grand juror to ask himself seems to be this: is the evidence such as that, if the prisoner can prove nothing to the contrary, he ought to be convicted? however, where any considerable doubt exists as to this, as a petty juror ought to acquit, so a grand juror ought to find the indictment. [ ] roger north, and the prerogative writers in general, speak of this inquest as a scandalous piece of perjury, enough to justify the measures soon afterwards taken against the city. but ralph, who, at this period of history, is very impartial, seems to think the jury warranted by the absurdity of the depositions. it is to be remembered that the petty juries had shown themselves liable to intimidation, and that the bench was sold to the court. in modern times, such an ignoramus could hardly ever be justified. there is strong reason to believe, that the court had recourse to subornation of evidence against shaftesbury. ralph, _et post_. and the witnesses were chiefly low irishmen, in whom he was not likely to have placed confidence. as to the association found among shaftesbury's papers, it was not signed by himself, nor, as i conceive, treasonable, only binding the associators to oppose the duke of york, in case of his coming to the crown. _state trials_, viii. . see also and . [ ] if we may believe james ii., the populace hooted shaftesbury when he was sent to the tower. macpherson, ; _life of james_, . this was an improvement on the _odit damnatos_. they rejoiced, however, much more, as he owns, at the ignoramus. p. . [ ] see college's case in _state trials_, viii. , and hawles's remarks on it, ; ralph, . it is one of the worst pieces of judicial iniquity that we find in the whole collection. the written instructions he had given to his counsel before the trial were taken away from him, in order to learn the grounds of his defence. north and jones, the judges before whom he was tried, afforded him no protection. but besides this, even if the witnesses had been credible, it does not appear to me that the facts amounted to treason. roger north outdoes himself in his justification of the proceedings on this trial. _examen_, p. . what would this man have been in power, when he writes thus in a sort of proscription twenty years after the revolution! but in justice it should be observed that his portraits of north and jones (_id._ and ) are excellent specimens of his inimitable talent for dutch painting. [ ] _london gazettes_, , _passim_. ralph, , has spoken too strongly of their servility, as if they showed a disposition to give up altogether every right and privilege to the crown. this may be true in a very few instances, but is by no means their general tenor. they are exactly high tory addresses, and nothing more. [ ] _state trials_, viii. . chief-justice pemberton, by whom he was tried, had strong prejudices against the papists, though well enough disposed to serve the court in some respects. [ ] the king, james says in , was convinced of the falsehood of the plot, "while the seeming necessity of his affairs made this unfortunate prince, for so he may well be termed in this conjuncture, think he could not be safe but by consenting every day to the execution of those he knew in his heart to be most innocent; and as for that notion of letting the law take its course, it was such a piece of casuistry as had been fatal to the king his father," etc. . if this was blamable in , how much more in ? temple relates, that having objected to leaving some priests to the law, as the house of commons had desired in , halifax said he would tell every one he was a papist, if he did not concur; and that the plot must be treated as if it were true, whether it was so or not. p. (folio edit.). a vile maxim indeed! but as halifax never showed any want of candour or humanity, and voted lord stafford not guilty next year, we may doubt whether temple has represented this quite exactly. in reference to lord stafford, i will here notice that lord john russell, in a passage deserving very high praise, has shown rather too much candour in censuring his ancestor (p. ) on account of the support he gave (if in fact he did so, for the evidence seems weak) to the objection raised by the sheriffs, bethell and cornish, with respect to the mode of stafford's execution. the king having remitted all the sentence except the beheading, these magistrates thought fit to consult the house of commons. hume talks of russell's seconding this "barbarous scruple," as he calls it, and imputes it to faction. but, notwithstanding the epithet, it is certain that the only question was between death by the cord and the axe; and if stafford had been guilty, as lord russell was convinced, of a most atrocious treason, he could not deserve to be spared the more ignominious punishment. the truth is, which seems to have escaped both these writers, that if the king could remit a part of the sentence upon a parliamentary impeachment, it might considerably affect the question whether he could not grant a pardon, which the commons had denied. [ ] see this petition, _somers tracts_, viii. . [ ] _state trials_, viii. - ; ralph, . the majority was but to ; a division honourable to the spirit of citizens. [ ] north's _examen_, . [ ] lady russell's opinion was, that "it was no more than what her lord confessed--talk; and it is possible that talk going so far as to consider, if a remedy for supposed evils might be sought, how it could be formed." _life of lord russell_, p. . it is not easy, however, to talk long in this manner about the _how_ of treason, without incurring the penalties of it. [ ] see this business well discussed by the acute and indefatigable ralph, p. , and by lord john russell, p. . see also _state trials_, ix. _et post_. there appears no cause for doubting the reality of what is called the ryehouse plot. the case against walcot (_id._ ) was pretty well proved; but his own confession completely hanged him and his friends too. his attainder was reversed after the revolution, but only on account of some technical errors, not essential to the merits of the case. [ ] _state trials_, ix. . lord essex cut his throat in the tower. he was a man of the most excellent qualities, but subject to constitutional melancholy which overcame his fortitude; an event the more to be deplored, as there seems to have been no possibility of his being convicted. a suspicion, as is well known, obtained credit with the enemies of the court, that lord essex was murdered; and some evidence was brought forward by the zeal of one braddon. the late editor of the _state trials_ seems a little inclined to revive this report, which even harris (_life of charles_, p. ) does not venture to accredit; and i am surprised to find lord john russell observe, "it would be idle, at the present time, to pretend to give any opinion on the subject."--p. . this i can by no means admit. we have, on the one side, some testimonies by children, who frequently invent and persist in falsehoods with no conceivable motive. but, on the other hand, we are to suppose, that charles ii. and the duke of york caused a detestable murder to be perpetrated on one towards whom they had never shown any hostility, and in whose death they had no interest. each of these princes had faults enough; but i may venture to say that they were totally incapable of such a crime. one of the presumptive arguments of braddon, in a pamphlet published long afterwards, is, that the king and his brother were in the tower on the morning of lord essex's death. if this leads to anything, we are to believe that charles the second, like the tyrant in a grub street tragedy, came to kill his prisoner with his own hands. any man of ordinary understanding (which seems not to have been the case with mr. braddon) must perceive that the circumstance tends to repel suspicion rather than the contrary. see the whole of this, including braddon's pamphlet, in _state trials_, ix. . [ ] _state trials_, . sawyer told lord russell, when he applied to have his trial put off, that he would not have given the king an hour's notice to save his life. _id._ . yet he could not pretend that the prisoner had any concern in the assassination plot. [ ] the act annulling lord russell's attainder recites him to have been "wrongfully convicted by partial and unjust constructions of law." _state trials_, ix. . several pamphlets were published after the revolution by sir robert atkins and sir john hawles against the conduct of the court in this trial, and by sir bartholomew shower in behalf of it. these are in the _state trials_. but holt, by laying down the principle of constructive treason in ashton's case, established for ever the legality of pemberton's doctrine, and indeed carried it a good deal further. [ ] there seems little doubt, that the juries were packed through a conspiracy of the sheriffs with burton and graham, solicitors for the crown. _state trials_, ix. . these two men ran away at the revolution; but roger north vindicates their characters, and those who trust in him may think them honest. [ ] _state trials_, ix. . [ ] _id._ . yet in summing up the evidence, he repeated all west and keeling had thus said at second-hand, without reminding the jury that it was not legal testimony. _id._ . it would be said by his advocates, if any are left, that these witnesses must have been left out of the question, since there could otherwise have been no dispute about the written paper. but they were undoubtedly intended to prop up howard's evidence, which had been so much shaken by his previous declaration, that he knew of no conspiracy. [ ] this is pointed out, perhaps for the first time, in an excellent modern law-book, phillipps's _law of evidence_. yet the act for the reversal of sidney's attainder declares in the preamble, that "the paper, supposed to be in his handwriting, was not proved by the testimony of any one witness to be written by him, but the jury was directed to believe it by comparing it with other writings of the said algernon." _state trials_, . this does not appear to have been the case; and though jefferies is said to have garbled the manuscript trial before it was printed (for all the trials, at this time, were published by authority, which makes them much better evidence against the judges than for them), yet he can hardly have substituted so much testimony without its attracting the notice of atkins and hawles, who wrote after the revolution. however, in hayes's case, _state trials_, x. , though the prisoner's handwriting to a letter was proved in the usual way by persons who had seen him write, yet this letter was also shown to the jury, along with some of his acknowledged writing, for the purpose of their comparison. it is possible, therefore, that the same may have been done on sidney's trial, though the circumstance does not appear. jefferies indeed says, "comparison of hands was allowed for good proof in sidney's case." _id._ . but i do not believe that the expression was used in that age so precisely as it is at present; and it is well known to lawyers that the rules of evidence on this subject have only been distinctly laid down within the memory of the present generation. [ ] see harris's _lives_, v. . [ ] _state trials_, x. . [ ] the grand jury of northamptonshire, in , "present it as very expedient and necessary for securing the peace of this country, that all ill affected persons may give security for the peace;" specifying a number of gentlemen of the first families, as the names of montagu, langham, etc., show. _somers tracts_, viii. . [ ] ralph, p. ; harris's _lives_, v. . [ ] this book of sherlock, printed in , is the most able treatise on that side. his proposition is that "sovereign princes, or the supreme power in any nation, in whomsoever placed, is in all cases irresistible." he infers from the statute car. ii. declaring it unlawful, under any pretence, to wage war, even defensive against the king, that the supreme power is in him; for he who is unaccountable and irresistible, is supreme. there are some, he owns, who contend that the higher powers mentioned by st. paul meant the law, and that when princes violate the laws, we may defend their legal authority against their personal usurpations. he answers this very feebly. "no law can come into the notion and definition of supreme and sovereign powers; such a prince is under the direction, but cannot possibly be said to be under the government of the law, because there is no superior power to take cognisance of his breach of it, and a law has no authority to govern where there is no power to punish."--p. . "these men think," he says (p. ), "that all civil authority is founded in consent, as if there were no natural lord of the world, or all mankind came free and independent into the world. this is a contradiction to what at other times they will grant, that the institution of civil power and authority is from god; and indeed if it be not, i know not how any prince can justify the taking away the life of any man, whatever crime he has been guilty of. for no man has power of his own life, and therefore cannot give this power to another; which proves that the power of capital punishments cannot result from mere consent, but from a superior authority, which is lord of life and death." this is plausibly urged, and is not refuted in a moment. he next comes to an objection, which eventually he was compelled to admit, with some discredit to his consistency and disinterestedness. "'is the power of victorious rebels and usurpers from god? did oliver cromwell receive his power from god? then it seems it was unlawful to resist him too, or to conspire against him; then all those loyal subjects who refused to submit to him when he had got the power in his hands were rebels and traitors.' to this i answer, that the most prosperous rebel is not the higher powers, while our natural prince, to whom we owe obedience and subjection, is in being. and therefore, though such men may get the power into their hands by god's permission, yet not by god's ordinance; and he who resists them does not resist the ordinance of god, but the usurpations of men. in hereditary kingdoms, the king never dies, but the same minute that the natural person of one king dies, the crown descends upon the next of blood; and therefore, he who rebelleth against the father, and murders him, continues a rebel in the reign of the son, which commences with his father's death. it is otherwise, indeed, where none can pretend a greater title to the crown than the usurper, for there possession of power seems to give a right."--p. . sherlock began to preach in a very different manner as soon as james showed a disposition to set up his own church. "it is no act of loyalty," he told the house of commons, may , , "to accommodate or compliment away our religion and its legal securities." _good advice to the pulpits._ [ ] p. . [ ] p. . [ ] pp. , . [ ] p. . [ ] this treatise, subjoined to one of greater length, entitled the "freeholder's grand inquest," was published in ; but the "patriarcha" not till . [ ] p. . [ ] p. . [ ] collier, ; _somers tracts_, viii. . [ ] dalrymple, appendix ; _life of james_, . he pretended to come into a proposal of the dutch for an alliance with spain and the empire against the fresh encroachments of france, and to call a parliament for that purpose, but with no sincere intention, as he assured barillon. "je n'ai aucune intention d'assembler le parlement; ces sont des diables qui veulent ma ruine." dalrymple, . [ ] he took , livres for allowing the french to seize luxemberg; after this he offered his arbitration, and on spain's refusal, laid the fault on her, though already bribed to decide in favour of france. lord rochester was a party in all these base transactions. the acquisition of luxemberg and strasburg was of the utmost importance to louis, as they gave him a predominating influence over the four rhenish electors, through whom he hoped to procure the election of the dauphin as king of the romans. _id._ . [ ] dalrymple, appendix ; burnet; mazure, _hist. de la révolution de _, i. , . this is confirmed by, or rather confirms, the very curious notes found in the duke of monmouth's pocket-book when he was taken after the battle of sedgemoor, and published in the appendix to welwood's _memoirs_. though we should rather see more external evidence of their authority than, so far as i know, has been produced, they have great marks of it in themselves; and it is not impossible that, after the revolution, welwood may have obtained them from the secretary of state's office. [ ] it is mentioned by mr. fox, as a tradition in the duke of richmond's family, that the duchess of portsmouth believed charles ii. to have been poisoned. this i find confirmed in a letter read on the trial of francis francia, indicted for treason in . "the duchess of portsmouth, who is at present here, gives a great deal of offence, as i am informed, by pretending to prove that the late king james had poisoned his brother charles; it was not expected, that after so many years' retirement in france, she should come hither to revive that vulgar report, which at so critical a time cannot be for any good purpose." _state trials_, xv. . it is almost needless to say that the suspicion was wholly unwarrantable. i have since been informed, on the best authority, that mr. fox did not derive his authority from a tradition in the duke of richmond's family, that of his own mother, as his editor had very naturally conjectured, but from his father, the first lord holland, who, while a young man travelling in france, had become acquainted with the duchess of portsmouth. the english constitution by walter bagehot contents i. introduction to the second edition. ii. the cabinet. iii. the monarchy. iv. the house of lords. v. the house of commons. vi. on changes of ministry. vii. its supposed checks and balances. viii. the prerequisites of cabinet government, and the peculiar form which they have assumed in england. ix. its history, and the effects of that history.--conclusion. no. i. introduction to the second edition. there is a great difficulty in the way of a writer who attempts to sketch a living constitution--a constitution that is in actual work and power. the difficulty is that the object is in constant change. an historical writer does not feel this difficulty: he deals only with the past; he can say definitely, the constitution worked in such and such a manner in the year at which he begins, and in a manner in such and such respects different in the year at which he ends; he begins with a definite point of time and ends with one also. but a contemporary writer who tries to paint what is before him is puzzled and a perplexed: what he sees is changing daily. he must paint it as it stood at some one time, or else he will be putting side by side in his representations things which never were contemporaneous in reality. the difficulty is the greater because a writer who deals with a living government naturally compares it with the most important other living governments, and these are changing too; what he illustrates are altered in one way, and his sources of illustration are altered probably in a different way. this difficulty has been constantly in my way in preparing a second edition of this book. it describes the english constitution as it stood in the years and . roughly speaking, it describes its working as it was in the time of lord palmerston; and since that time there have been many changes, some of spirit and some of detail. in so short a period there have rarely been more changes. if i had given a sketch of the palmerston time as a sketch of the present time, it would have been in many points untrue; and if i had tried to change the sketch of seven years since into a sketch of the present time, i should probably have blurred the picture and have given something equally unlike both. the best plan in such a case is, i think, to keep the original sketch in all essentials as it was at first written, and to describe shortly such changes either in the constitution itself, or in the constitutions compared with it, as seem material. there are in this book various expressions which allude to persons who were living and to events which were happening when it first appeared; and i have carefully preserved these. they will serve to warn the reader what time he is reading about, and to prevent his mistaking the date at which the likeness was attempted to be taken. i proceed to speak of the changes which have taken place either in the constitution itself or in the competing institutions which illustrate it. it is too soon as yet to attempt to estimate the effect of the reform act of . the people enfranchised under it do not yet know their own power; a single election, so far from teaching us how they will use that power, has not been even enough to explain to them that they have such power. the reform act of did not for many years disclose its real consequences; a writer in , whether he approved or disapproved of them, whether he thought too little of or whether he exaggerated them, would have been sure to be mistaken in them. a new constitution does not produce its full effect as long as all its subjects were reared under an old constitution, as long as its statesmen were trained by that old constitution. it is not really tested till it comes to be worked by statesmen and among a people neither of whom are guided by a different experience. in one respect we are indeed particularly likely to be mistaken as to the effect of the last reform bill. undeniably there has lately been a great change in our politics. it is commonly said that "there is not a brick of the palmerston house standing". the change since is a change not in one point but in a thousand points; it is a change not of particular details but of pervading spirit. we are now quarrelling as to the minor details of an education act; in lord palmerston's time no such act could have passed. in lord palmerston's time sir george grey said that the disestablishment of the irish church would be an "act of revolution"; it has now been disestablished by great majorities, with sir george grey himself assenting. a new world has arisen which is not as the old world; and we naturally ascribe the change to the reform act. but this is a complete mistake. if there had been no reform act at all there would, nevertheless, have been a great change in english politics. there has been a change of the sort which, above all, generates other changes--a change of generation. generally one generation in politics succeeds another almost silently; at every moment men of all ages between thirty and seventy have considerable influence; each year removes many old men, makes all others older, brings in many new. the transition is so gradual that we hardly perceive it. the board of directors of the political company has a few slight changes every year, and therefore the shareholders are conscious of no abrupt change. but sometimes there is an abrupt change. it occasionally happens that several ruling directors who are about the same age live on for many years, manage the company all through those years, and then go off the scene almost together. in that case the affairs of the company are apt to alter much, for good or for evil; sometimes it becomes more successful, sometimes it is ruined, but it hardly ever stays as it was. something like this happened before . all through the period between and , the pre-' statesmen--if i may so call them--lord derby, lord russell, lord palmerston, retained great power. lord palmerston to the last retained great prohibitive power. though in some ways always young, he had not a particle of sympathy with the younger generation; he brought forward no young men; he obstructed all that young men wished. in consequence, at his death a new generation all at once started into life; the pre-' all at once died out. most of the new politicians were men who might well have been lord palmerston's grandchildren. he came into parliament in , they entered it after . such an enormous change in the age of the workers necessarily caused a great change in the kind of work attempted and the way in which it was done. what we call the "spirit" of politics is more surely changed by a change of generation in the men than by any other change whatever. even if there had been no reform act, this single cause would have effected grave alterations. the mere settlement of the reform question made a great change too. if it could have been settled by any other change, or even without any change, the instant effect of the settlement would still have been immense. new questions would have appeared at once. a political country is like an american forest; you have only to cut down the old trees, and immediately new trees come up to replace them; the seeds were waiting in the ground, and they began to grow as soon as the withdrawal of the old ones brought in light and air. these new questions of themselves would have made a new atmosphere, new parties, new debates. of course i am not arguing that so important an innovation as the reform act of will not have very great effects. it must, in all likelihood, have many great ones. i am only saying that as yet we do not know what those effects are; that the great evident change since is certainly not strictly due to it; probably is not even in a principal measure due to it; that we have still to conjecture what it will cause and what it will not cause. the principal question arises most naturally from a main doctrine of these essays. i have said that cabinet government is possible in england because england was a deferential country. i meant that the nominal constituency was not the real constituency; that the mass of the "ten-pound" house-holders did not really form their own opinions, and did not exact of their representatives an obedience to those opinions; that they were in fact guided in their judgment by the better educated classes; that they preferred representatives from those classes, and gave those representatives much licence. if a hundred small shopkeepers had by miracle been added to any of the ' parliaments, they would have felt outcasts there. nothing could be more unlike those parliaments than the average mass of the constituency from which they were chosen. i do not of course mean that the ten-pound householders were great admirers of intellect or good judges of refinement. we all know that, for the most part, they were not so at all; very few englishmen are. they were not influenced by ideas, but by facts; not by things impalpable, but by things palpable. not to put too fine a point upon it, they were influenced by rank and wealth. no doubt the better sort of them believed that those who were superior to them in these indisputable respects were superior also in the more intangible qualities of sense and knowledge. but the mass of the old electors did not analyse very much: they liked to have one of their "betters" to represent them; if he was rich they respected him much; and if he was a lord, they liked him the better. the issue put before these electors was, which of two rich people will you choose? and each of those rich people was put forward by great parties whose notions were the notions of the rich--whose plans were their plans. the electors only selected one or two wealthy men to carry out the schemes of one or two wealthy associations. so fully was this so, that the class to whom the great body of the ten-pound householders belonged--the lower middle class--was above all classes the one most hardly treated in the imposition of the taxes. a small shopkeeper, or a clerk who just, and only just, was rich enough to pay income tax, was perhaps the only severely taxed man in the country. he paid the rates, the tea, sugar, tobacco, malt, and spirit taxes, as well as the income tax, but his means were exceedingly small. curiously enough the class which in theory was omnipotent, was the only class financially ill-treated. throughout the history of our former parliaments the constituency could no more have originated the policy which those parliaments selected than they could have made the solar system. as i have endeavoured to show in this volume, the deference of the old electors to their betters was the only way in which our old system could be maintained. no doubt countries can be imagined in which the mass of the electors would be thoroughly competent to form good opinions; approximations to that state happily exist. but such was not the state of the minor english shopkeepers. they were just competent to make a selection between two sets of superior ideas; or rather--for the conceptions of such people are more personal than abstract--between two opposing parties, each professing a creed of such ideas. but they could do no more. their own notions, if they had been cross-examined upon them, would have been found always most confused and often most foolish. they were competent to decide an issue selected by the higher classes, but they were incompetent to do more. the grave question now is, how far will this peculiar old system continue and how far will it be altered? i am afraid i must put aside at once the idea that it will be altered entirely and altered for the better. i cannot expect that the new class of voters will be at all more able to form sound opinions on complex questions than the old voters. there was indeed an idea--a very prevalent idea when the first edition of this book was published--that there then was an unrepresented class of skilled artisans who could form superior opinions on national matters, and ought to have the means of expressing them. we used to frame elaborate schemes to give them such means. but the reform act of did not stop at skilled labour; it enfranchised unskilled labour too. and no one will contend that the ordinary working man who has no special skill, and who is only rated because he has a house, can judge much of intellectual matters. the messenger in an office is not more intelligent than the clerks, not better educated, but worse; and yet the messenger is probably a very superior specimen of the newly enfranchised classes. the average can only earn very scanty wages by coarse labour. they have no time to improve themselves, for they are labouring the whole day through; and their early education was so small that in most cases it is dubious whether even if they had much time, they could use it to good purpose. we have not enfranchised a class less needing to be guided by their betters than the old class; on the contrary, the new class need it more than the old. the real question is, will they submit to it, will they defer in the same way to wealth and rank, and to the higher qualities of which these are the rough symbols and the common accompaniments? there is a peculiar difficulty in answering this question. generally, the debates upon the passing of an act contain much valuable instruction as to what may be expected of it. but the debates on the reform act of hardly tell anything. they are taken up with technicalities as to the ratepayers and the compound householder. nobody in the country knew what was being done. i happened at the time to visit a purely agricultural and conservative county, and i asked the local tories, "do you understand this reform bill? do you know that your conservative government has brought in a bill far more radical than any former bill, and that it is very likely to be passed?" the answer i got was, "what stuff you talk! how can it be a radical reform bill? why, bright opposes it!" there was no answering that in a way which a "common jury" could understand. the bill was supported by the times and opposed by mr. bright; and therefore the mass of the conservatives and of common moderate people, without distinction of party, had no conception of the effect. they said it was "london nonsense" if you tried to explain it to them. the nation indeed generally looks to the discussions in parliament to enlighten it as to the effect of bills. but in this case neither party, as a party, could speak out. many, perhaps most of the intelligent conservatives, were fearful of the consequences of the proposal; but as it was made by the heads of their own party, they did not like to oppose it, and the discipline of party carried them with it. on the other side, many, probably most of the intelligent liberals, were in consternation at the bill; they had been in the habit for years of proposing reform bills; they knew the points of difference between each bill, and perceived that this was by far the most sweeping which had ever been proposed by any ministry. but they were almost all unwilling to say so. they would have offended a large section in their constituencies if they had resisted a tory bill because it was too democratic; the extreme partisans of democracy would have said, "the enemies of the people have confidence enough in the people to entrust them with this power, but you, a 'liberal,' and a professed friend of the people, have not that confidence; if that is so, we will never vote for you again". many radical members who had been asking for years for household suffrage were much more surprised than pleased at the near chance of obtaining it; they had asked for it as bargainers ask for the highest possible price, but they never expected to get it. altogether the liberals, or at least the extreme liberals, were much like a man who has been pushing hard against an opposing door, till, on a sudden, the door opens, the resistance ceases, and he is thrown violently forward. persons in such an unpleasant predicament can scarcely criticise effectually, and certainly the liberals did not so criticise. we have had no such previous discussions as should guide our expectations from the reform bill, nor such as under ordinary circumstances we should have had. nor does the experience of the last election much help us. the circumstances were too exceptional. in the first place, mr. gladstone's personal popularity was such as has not been seen since the time of mr. pitt, and such as may never be seen again. certainly it will very rarely be seen. a bad speaker is said to have been asked how he got on as a candidate. "oh," he answered, "when i do not know what to say, i say 'gladstone,' and then they are sure to cheer, and i have time to think." in fact, that popularity acted as a guide both to constituencies and to members. the candidates only said they would vote with mr. gladstone, and the constituencies only chose those who said so. even the minority could only be described as anti-gladstone, just as the majority could only be described as pro-gladstone. the remains, too, of the old electoral organisation were exceedingly powerful; the old voters voted as they had been told, and the new voters mostly voted with them. in extremely few cases was there any new and contrary organisation. at the last election, the trial of the new system hardly began, and, as far as it did begin, it was favoured by a peculiar guidance. in the meantime our statesmen have the greatest opportunities they have had for many years, and likewise the greatest duty. they have to guide the new voters in the exercise of the franchise; to guide them quietly, and without saying what they are doing, but still to guide them. the leading statesmen in a free country have great momentary power. they settle the conversation of mankind. it is they who, by a great speech or two, determine what shall be said and what shall be written for long after. they, in conjunction with their counsellors, settle the programme of their party--the "platform," as the americans call it, on which they and those associated with them are to take their stand for the political campaign. it is by that programme, by a comparison of the programmes of different statesmen, that the world forms its judgment. the common ordinary mind is quite unfit to fix for itself what political question it shall attend to; it is as much as it can do to judge decently of the questions which drift down to it, and are brought before it; it almost never settles its topics; it can only decide upon the issues of those topics. and in settling what these questions shall be, statesmen have now especially a great responsibility if they raise questions which will excite the lower orders of mankind; if they raise questions on which those orders are likely to be wrong; if they raise questions on which the interest of those orders is not identical with, or is antagonistic to, the whole interest of the state, they will have done the greatest harm they can do. the future of this country depends on the happy working of a delicate experiment, and they will have done all they could to vitiate that experiment. just when it is desirable that ignorant men, new to politics, should have good issues, and only good issues, put before them, these statesmen will have suggested bad issues. they will have suggested topics which will bind the poor as a class together; topics which will excite them against the rich; topics the discussion of which in the only form in which that discussion reaches their ear will be to make them think that some new law can make them comfortable--that it is the present law which makes them uncomfortable--that government has at its disposal an inexhaustible fund out of which it can give to those who now want without also creating elsewhere other and greater wants. if the first work of the poor voters is to try to create a "poor man's paradise," as poor men are apt to fancy that paradise, and as they are apt to think they can create it, the great political trial now beginning will simply fail. the wide gift of the elective franchise will be a great calamity to the whole nation, and to those who gain it as great a calamity as to any. i do not of course mean that statesmen can choose with absolute freedom what topics they will deal with and what they will not. i am of course aware that they choose under stringent conditions. in excited states of the public mind they have scarcely a discretion at all; the tendency of the public perturbation determines what shall and what shall not be dealt with. but, upon the other hand, in quiet times statesmen have great power; when there is no fire lighted, they can settle what fire shall be lit. and as the new suffrage is happily to be tried in a quiet time, the responsibility of our statesmen is great because their power is great too. and the mode in which the questions dealt with are discussed is almost as important as the selection of these questions. it is for our principal statesmen to lead the public, and not to let the public lead them. no doubt when statesmen live by public favour, as ours do, this is a hard saying, and it requires to be carefully limited. i do not mean that our statesmen should assume a pedantic and doctrinaire tone with the english people; if there is anything which english people thoroughly detest, it is that tone exactly. and they are right in detesting it; if a man cannot give guidance and communicate instruction formally without telling his audience "i am better than you; i have studied this as you have not," then he is not fit for a guide or an instructor. a statesman who should show that gaucherie would exhibit a defect of imagination, and expose an incapacity for dealing with men which would be a great hindrance to him in his calling. but much argument is not required to guide the public, still less a formal exposition of that argument. what is mostly needed is the manly utterance of clear conclusions; if a statesman gives these in a felicitous way (and if with a few light and humorous illustrations, so much the better), he has done his part. he will have given the text, the scribes in the newspapers will write the sermon. a statesman ought to show his own nature, and talk in a palpable way what is to him important truth. and so he will both guide and benefit the nation. but if, especially at a time when great ignorance has an unusual power in public affairs, he chooses to accept and reiterate the decisions of that ignorance, he is only the hireling of the nation, and does little save hurt it. i shall be told that this is very obvious, and that everybody knows that and make , and that there is no use in inculcating it. but i answer that the lesson is not observed in fact; people do not so do their political sums. of all our political dangers, the greatest i conceive is that they will neglect the lesson. in plain english, what i fear is that both our political parties will bid for the support of the working man; that both of them will promise to do as he likes if he will only tell them what it is; that, as he now holds the casting vote in our affairs, both parties will beg and pray him to give that vote to them. i can conceive of nothing more corrupting or worse for a set of poor ignorant people than that two combinations of well-taught and rich men should constantly offer to defer to their decision, and compete for the office of executing it. vox populi will be vox diaboli if it is worked in that manner. and, on the other hand, my imagination conjures up a contrary danger. i can conceive that questions being raised which, if continually agitated, would combine the working men as a class together, the higher orders might have to consider whether they would concede the measure that would settle such questions, or whether they would risk the effect of the working men's combination. no doubt the question cannot be easily discussed in the abstract; much must depend on the nature of the measures in each particular case; on the evil they would cause if conceded; on the attractiveness of their idea to the working classes if refused. but in all cases it must be remembered that a political combination of the lower classes, as such and for their own objects, is an evil of the first magnitude; that a permanent combination of them would make them (now that so many of them have the suffrage) supreme in the country; and that their supremacy, in the state they now are, means the supremacy of ignorance over instruction and of numbers over knowledge. so long as they are not taught to act together, there is a chance of this being averted, and it can only be averted by the greatest wisdom and the greatest foresight in the higher classes. they must avoid, not only every evil, but every appearance of evil; while they have still the power they must remove, not only every actual grievance, but, where it is possible, every seeming grievance too; they must willingly concede every claim which they can safely concede, in order that they may not have to concede unwillingly some claim which would impair the safety of the country. this advice, too, will be said to be obvious; but i have the greatest fear that, when the time comes, it will be cast aside as timid and cowardly. so strong are the combative propensities of man that he would rather fight a losing battle than not fight at all. it is most difficult to persuade people that by fighting they may strengthen the enemy, yet that would be so here; since a losing battle--especially a long and well-fought one--would have thoroughly taught the lower orders to combine, and would have left the higher orders face to face with an irritated, organised, and superior voting power. the courage which strengthens an enemy and which so loses, not only the present battle, but many after battles, is a heavy curse to men and nations. in one minor respect, indeed, i think we may see with distinctness the effect of the reform bill of . i think it has completed one change which the act of began; it has completed the change which that act made in the relation of the house of lords to the house of commons. as i have endeavoured in this book to explain, the literary theory of the english constitution is on this point quite wrong as usual. according to that theory, the two houses are two branches of the legislature, perfectly equal and perfectly distinct. but before the act of they were not so distinct; there was a very large and a very strong common element. by their commanding influence in many boroughs and counties the lords nominated a considerable part of the commons; the majority of the other part were the richer gentry--men in most respects like the lords, and sympathising with the lords. under the constitution as it then was the two houses were not in their essence distinct; they were in their essence similar; they were, in the main, not houses of contrasted origin, but houses of like origin. the predominant part of both was taken from the same class--from the english gentry, titled and untitled. by the act of this was much altered. the aristocracy and the gentry lost their predominance in the house of commons; that predominance passed to the middle class. the two houses then became distinct, but then they ceased to be co-equal. the duke of wellington, in a most remarkable paper, has explained what pains he took to induce the lords to submit to their new position, and to submit, time after time, their will to the will of the commons. the reform act of has, i think, unmistakably completed the effect which the act of began, but left unfinished. the middle class element has gained greatly by the second change, and the aristocratic element has lost greatly. if you examine carefully the lists of members, especially of the most prominent members, of either side of the house, you will not find that they are in general aristocratic names. considering the power and position of the titled aristocracy, you will perhaps be astonished at the small degree in which it contributes to the active part of our governing assembly. the spirit of our present house of commons is plutocratic, not aristocratic; its most prominent statesmen are not men of ancient descent or of great hereditary estate; they are men mostly of substantial means, but they are mostly, too, connected more or less closely with the new trading wealth. the spirit of the two assemblies has become far more contrasted than it ever was. the full effect of the reform act of was indeed postponed by the cause which i mentioned just now. the statesmen who worked the system which was put up had themselves been educated under the system which was pulled down. strangely enough, their predominant guidance lasted as long as the system which they created. lord palmerston, lord russell, lord derby, died or else lost their influence within a year or two of . the complete consequences of the act of upon the house of lords could not be seen while the commons were subject to such aristocratic guidance. much of the change which might have been expected from the act of was held in suspense, and did not begin till that measure had been followed by another of similar and greater power. the work which the duke of wellington in part performed has now, therefore, to be completed also. he met the half difficulty; we have to surmount the whole one. we have to frame such tacit rules, to establish such ruling but unenacted customs, as will make the house of lords yield to the commons when and as often as our new constitution requires that it should yield. i shall be asked, how often is that, and what is the test by which you know it? i answer that the house of lords must yield whenever the opinion of the commons is also the opinion of the nation, and when it is clear that the nation has made up its mind. whether or not the nation has made up its mind is a question to be decided by all the circumstances of the case, and in the common way in which all practical questions are decided. there are some people who lay down a sort of mechanical test; they say the house of lords should be at liberty to reject a measure passed by the commons once or more, and then if the commons send it up again and again, infer that the nation is determined. but no important practical question in real life can be uniformly settled by a fixed and formal rule in this way. this rule would prove that the lords might have rejected the reform act of . whenever the nation was both excited and determined, such a rule would be an acute and dangerous political poison. it would teach the house of lords that it might shut its eyes to all the facts of real life and decide simply by an abstract formula. if in the lords had so acted, there would have been a revolution. undoubtedly there is a general truth in the rule. whether a bill has come up once only, or whether it has come up several times, is one important fact in judging whether the nation is determined to have that measure enacted; it is an indication, but it is only one of the indications. there are others equally decisive. the unanimous voice of the people may be so strong, and may be conveyed through so many organs, that it may be assumed to be lasting. englishmen are so very miscellaneous, that that which has really convinced a great and varied majority of them for the present may fairly be assumed to be likely to continue permanently to convince them. one sort might easily fall into a temporary and erroneous fanaticism, but all sorts simultaneously are very unlikely to do so. i should venture so far as to lay down for an approximate rule, that the house of lords ought, on a first-class subject, to be slow--very slow--in rejecting a bill passed even once by a large majority of the house of commons. i would not of course lay this down as an unvarying rule; as i have said, i have for practical purposes no belief in unvarying rules. majorities may be either genuine or fictitious, and if they are not genuine, if they do not embody the opinion of the representative as well as the opinion of the constituency, no one would wish to have any attention paid to them. but if the opinion of the nation be strong and be universal, if it be really believed by members of parliament, as well as by those who send them to parliament, in my judgment the lords should yield at once, and should not resist it. my main reason is one which has not been much urged. as a theoretical writer i can venture to say, what no elected member of parliament, conservative or liberal, can venture to say, that i am exceedingly afraid of the ignorant multitude of the new constituencies. i wish to have as great and as compact a power as possible to resist it. but a dissension between the lords and commons divides that resisting power; as i have explained, the house of commons still mainly represents the plutocracy, the lords represent the aristocracy. the main interest of both these classes is now identical, which is to prevent or to mitigate the rule of uneducated numbers. but to prevent it effectually, they must not quarrel among themselves; they must not bid one against the other for the aid of their common opponent. and this is precisely the effect of a division between lords and commons. the two great bodies of the educated rich go to the constituencies to decide between them, and the majority of the constituencies now consist of the uneducated poor. this cannot be for the advantage of any one. in doing so besides the aristocracy forfeit their natural position--that by which they would gain most power, and in which they would do most good. they ought to be the heads of the plutocracy. in all countries new wealth is ready to worship old wealth, if old wealth will only let it, and i need not say that in england new wealth is eager in its worship. satirist after satirist has told us how quick, how willing, how anxious are the newly-made rich to associate with the ancient rich. rank probably in no country whatever has so much "market" value as it has in england just now. of course there have been many countries in which certain old families, whether rich or poor, were worshipped by whole populations with a more intense and poetic homage; but i doubt if there has ever been any in which all old families and all titled families received more ready observance from those who were their equals, perhaps their superiors, in wealth, their equals in culture, and their inferiors only in descent and rank. the possessors of the "material" distinctions of life, as a political economist would class them, rush to worship those who possess the immaterial distinctions. nothing can be more politically useful than such homage, if it be skilfully used; no folly can be idler than to repel and reject it. the worship is the more politically important because it is the worship of the political superior for the political inferior. at an election the non-titled are much more powerful than the titled. certain individual peers have, from their great possessions, great electioneering influence, but, as a whole, the house of peers is not a principal electioneering force. it has so many poor men inside it, and so many rich men outside it, that its electioneering value is impaired. besides, it is in the nature of the curious influence of rank to work much more on men singly than on men collectively; it is an influence which most men--at least most englishmen--feel very much, but of which most englishmen are somewhat ashamed. accordingly, when any number of men are collected together, each of whom worships rank in his heart, the whole body will patiently hear--in many cases will cheer and approve--some rather strong speeches against rank. each man is a little afraid that his "sneaking kindness for a lord," as mr. gladstone put it, be found out; he is not sure how far that weakness is shared by those around him. and thus englishmen easily find themselves committed to anti-aristocratic sentiments which are the direct opposite of their real feeling, and their collective action may be bitterly hostile to rank while the secret sentiment of each separately is especially favourable to rank. in the close boroughs, which were largely held by peers, and were still more largely supposed to be held by them, were swept away with a tumult of delight; and in another similar time of great excitement, the lords themselves, if they deserve it, might pass away. the democratic passions gain by fomenting a diffused excitement, and by massing men in concourses; the aristocratic sentiments gain by calm and quiet, and act most on men by themselves, in their families, and when female influence is not absent. the overt electioneering power of the lords does not at all equal its real social power. the english plutocracy, as is often said of something yet coarser, must be "humoured, not drove"; they may easily be impelled against the aristocracy, though they respect it very much; and as they are much stronger than the aristocracy, they might, if angered, even destroy it; though in order to destroy it, they must help to arouse a wild excitement among the ignorant poor, which, if once roused, may not be easily calmed, and which may be fatal to far more than its beginners intend. this is the explanation of the anomaly which puzzles many clever lords. they think, if they do not say, "why are we pinned up here? why are we not in the commons where we could have so much more power? why is this nominal rank given us, at the price of substantial influence? if we prefer real weight to unreal prestige, why may we not have it?" the reply is, that the whole body of the lords have an incalculably greater influence over society while there is still a house of lords, than they would have if the house of lords were abolished; and that though one or two clever young peers might do better in the commons, the old order of peers, young and old, clever and not clever, is much better where it is. the selfish instinct of the mass of peers on this point is a keener and more exact judge of the real world than the fine intelligence of one or two of them. if the house of peers ever goes, it will go in a storm, and the storm will not leave all else as it is. it will not destroy the house of peers and leave the rich young peers, with their wealth and their titles, to sit in the commons. it would probably sweep all titles before it--at least all legal titles--and somehow or other it would break up the curious system by which the estates of great families all go to the eldest son. that system is a very artificial one; you may make a fine argument for it, but you cannot make a loud argument, an argument which would reach and rule the multitude. the thing looks like injustice, and in a time of popular passion it would not stand. much short of the compulsory equal division of the code napoleon, stringent clauses might be provided to obstruct and prevent these great aggregations of property. few things certainly are less likely than a violent tempest like this to destroy large and hereditary estates. but then, too, few things are less likely than an outbreak to destroy the house of lords--my point is, that a catastrophe which levels one will not spare the other. i conceive, therefore, that the great power of the house of lords should be exercised very timidly and very cautiously. for the sake of keeping the headship of the plutocracy, and through that of the nation, they should not offend the plutocracy; the points upon which they have to yield are mostly very minor ones, and they should yield many great points rather than risk the bottom of their power. they should give large donations out of income, if by so doing they keep, as they would keep, their capital intact. the duke of wellington guided the house of lords in this manner for years, and nothing could prosper better for them or for the country, and the lords have only to go back to the good path in which he directed them. the events of caused much discussion upon life peerages, and we have gained this great step, that whereas the former leader of the tory party in the lords--lord lyndhurst--defeated the last proposal to make life peers, lord derby, when leader of that party, desired to create them. as i have given in this book what seemed to me good reasons for making them, i need not repeat those reasons here; i need only say how the notion stands in my judgment now. i cannot look on life peerages in the way in which some of their strongest advocates regard them; i cannot think of them as a mode in which a permanent opposition or a contrast between the houses of lords and commons is to be remedied. to be effectual in that way, life peerages must be very numerous. now the house of lords will never consent to a very numerous life peerage without a storm; they must be in terror to do it, or they will not do it. and if the storm blows strongly enough to do so much, in all likelihood it will blow strongly enough to do much more. if the revolution is powerful enough and eager enough to make an immense number of life peers, probably it will sweep away the hereditary principle in the upper chamber entirely. of course one may fancy it to be otherwise; we may conceive of a political storm just going to a life-peerage limit, and then stopping suddenly. but in politics we must not trouble ourselves with exceedingly exceptional accidents; it is quite difficult enough to count on and provide for the regular and plain probabilities. to speak mathematically, we may easily miss the permanent course of the political curve if we engross our minds with its cusps and conjugate points. nor, on the other hand, can i sympathise with the objection to life peerages which some of the radical party take and feel. they think it will strengthen the lords, and so make them better able to oppose the commons; they think, if they do not say: "the house of lords is our enemy and that of all liberals; happily the mass of it is not intellectual; a few clever men are born there which we cannot help, but we will not 'vaccinate' it with genius; we will not put in a set of clever men for their lives who may as likely as not turn against us". this objection assumes that clever peers are just as likely to oppose the commons as stupid peers. but this i deny. most clever men who are in such a good place as the house of lords plainly is, will be very unwilling to lose it if they can help it; at the clear call of a great duty they might lose it, but only at such a call. and it does not take a clever man to see that systematic opposition of the commons is the only thing which can endanger the lords, or which will make an individual peer cease to be a peer. the greater you make the sense of the lords, the more they will see that their plain interest is to make friends of the plutocracy, and to be the chiefs of it, and not to wish to oppose the commons where that plutocracy rules. it is true that a completely new house of lords, mainly composed of men of ability, selected because they were able, might very likely attempt to make ability the predominant power in the state, and to rival, if not conquer, the house of commons, where the standard of intelligence is not much above the common english average. but in the present english world such a house of lords would soon lose all influence. people would say, "it was too clever by half," and in an englishman's mouth that means a very severe censure. the english people would think it grossly anomalous if their elected assembly of rich men were thwarted by a nominated assembly of talkers and writers. sensible men of substantial means are what we wish to be ruled by, and a peerage of genius would not compare with it in power. it is true, too, that at present some of the cleverest peers are not so ready as some others to agree with the commons. but it is not unnatural that persons of high rank and of great ability should be unwilling to bend to persons of lower rank, and of certainly not greater ability. a few of such peers (for they are very few) might say, "we had rather not have our peerage if we are to buy it at the price of yielding". but a life peer who had fought his way up to the peers, would never think so. young men who are born to rank may risk it, not middle-aged or old men who have earned their rank. a moderate number of life peers would almost always counsel moderation to the lords, and would almost always be right in counselling it. recent discussions have also brought into curious prominence another part of the constitution. i said in this book that it would very much surprise people if they were only told how many things the queen could do without consulting parliament, and it certainly has so proved, for when the queen abolished purchase in the army by an act of prerogative (after the lords had rejected the bill for doing so), there was a great and general astonishment. but this is nothing to what the queen can by law do without consulting parliament. not to mention other things, she could disband the army (by law she cannot engage more than a certain number of men, but she is not obliged to engage any men); she could dismiss all the officers, from the general commanding-in-chief downwards; she could dismiss all the sailors too; she could sell off all our ships of war and all our naval stores; she could make a peace by the sacrifice of cornwall, and begin a war for the conquest of brittany. she could make every citizen in the united kingdom, male or female, a peer; she could make every parish in the united kingdom a "university"; she could dismiss most of the civil servants; she could pardon all offenders. in a word, the queen could by prerogative upset all the action of civil government within the government, could disgrace the nation by a bad war or peace, and could, by disbanding our forces, whether land or sea, leave us defenceless against foreign nations. why do we not fear that she would do this, or any approach to it? because there are two checks--one ancient and coarse, the other modern and delicate. the first is the check of impeachment. any minister who advised the queen so to use her prerogative as to endanger the safety of the realm, might be impeached for high treason, and would be so. such a minister would, in our technical law, be said to have levied, or aided to levy, "war against the queen". this counsel to her so to use her prerogative would by the judge be declared to be an act of violence against herself, and in that peculiar but effectual way the offender could be condemned and executed. against all gross excesses of the prerogative this is a sufficient protection. but it would be no protection against minor mistakes; any error of judgment committed bona fide, and only entailing consequences which one person might say were good, and another say were bad, could not be so punished. it would be possible to impeach any minister who disbanded the queen's army, and it would be done for certain. but suppose a minister were to reduce the army or the navy much below the contemplated strength--suppose he were only to spend upon them one-third of the amount which parliament had permitted him to spend--suppose a minister of lord palmerston's principles were suddenly and while in office converted to the principles of mr. bright and mr. cobden, and were to act on those principles, he could not be impeached. the law of treason neither could nor ought to be enforced against an act which was an error of judgment, not of intention--which was in good faith intended not to impair the well-being of the state, but to promote and augment it. against such misuses of the prerogative our remedy is a change of ministry. and in general this works very well. every minister looks long before he incurs that penalty, and no one incurs it wantonly. but, nevertheless, there are two defects in it. the first is that it may not be a remedy at all; it may be only a punishment. a minister may risk his dismissal; he may do some act difficult to undo, and then all which may be left will be to remove and censure him. and the second is that it is only one house of parliament which has much to say to this remedy, such as it is; the house of commons only can remove a minister by a vote of censure. most of the ministries for thirty years have never possessed the confidence of the lords, and in such cases a vote of censure by the lords could therefore have but little weight; it would be simply the particular expression of a general political disapproval. it would be like a vote of censure on a liberal government by the carlton, or on a tory government by the reform club. and in no case has an adverse vote by the lords the same decisive effect as a vote of the commons; the lower house is the ruling and the choosing house, and if a government really possesses that, it thoroughly possesses nine-tenths of what it requires. the support of the lords is an aid and a luxury; that of the commons is a strict and indispensable necessary. these difficulties are particularly raised by questions of foreign policy. on most domestic subjects, either custom or legislation has limited the use of the prerogative. the mode of governing the country, according to the existing laws, is mostly worn into a rut, and most administrations move in it because it is easier to move there than anywhere else. most political crises--the decisive votes, which determine the fate of government--are generally either on questions of foreign policy or of new laws; and the questions of foreign policy come out generally in this way, that the government has already done something, and that it is for the one part of the legislature alone--for the house of commons, and not for the house of lords--to say whether they have or have not forfeited their place by the treaty they have made. i think every one must admit that this is not an arrangement which seems right on the face of it. treaties are quite as important as most laws, and to require the elaborate assent of representative assemblies to every word of the law, and not to consult them even as to the essence of the treaty, is prima facie ludicrous. in the older forms of the english constitution, this may have been quite right; the power was then really lodged in the crown, and because parliament met very seldom, and for other reasons, it was then necessary that, on a multitude of points, the crown should have much more power than is amply sufficient for it at present. but now the real power is not in the sovereign, it is in the prime minister and in the cabinet--that is, in the hands of a committee appointed by parliament, and of the chairman of that committee. now, beforehand, no one would have ventured to suggest that a committee of parliament on foreign relations should be able to commit the country to the greatest international obligations without consulting either parliament or the country. no other select committee has any comparable power; and considering how carefully we have fettered and limited the powers of all other subordinate authorities, our allowing so much discretionary power on matters peculiarly dangerous and peculiarly delicate to rest in the sole charge of one secret committee is exceedingly strange. no doubt it may be beneficial; many seeming anomalies are so, but at first sight it does not look right. i confess that i should see no advantage in it if our two chambers were sufficiently homogeneous and sufficiently harmonious. on the contrary, if those two chambers were as they ought to be, i should believe it to be a great defect. if the administration had in both houses a majority--not a mechanical majority ready to accept anything, but a fair and reasonable one, predisposed to think the government right, but not ready to find it to be so in the face of facts and in opposition to whatever might occur; if a good government were thus placed, i should think it decidedly better that the agreements of the administration with foreign powers should be submitted to parliament. they would then receive that which is best for all arrangements of business, an understanding and sympathising criticism, but still a criticism. the majority of the legislature, being well disposed to the government, would not "find" against it except it had really committed some big and plain mistake. but if the government had made such a mistake, certainly the majority of the legislature would find against it. in a country fit for parliamentary institutions, the partisanship of members of the legislature never comes in manifest opposition to the plain interest of the nation; if it did, the nation being (as are all nations capable of parliamentary institutions) constantly attentive to public affairs, would inflict on them the maximum parliamentary penalty at the next election and at many future elections. it would break their career. no english majority dare vote for an exceedingly bad treaty; it would rather desert its own leader than ensure its own ruin. and an english minority, inheriting a long experience of parliamentary affairs, would not be exceedingly ready to reject a treaty made with a foreign government. the leaders of an english opposition are very conversant with the school-boy maxim, "two can play at that fun". they know that the next time they are in office the same sort of sharp practice may be used against them, and therefore they will not use it. so strong is this predisposition, that not long since a subordinate member of the opposition declared that the "front benches" of the two sides of the house--that is, the leaders of the government and the leaders of the opposition--were in constant tacit league to suppress the objections of independent members. and what he said is often quite true. there are often seeming objections which are not real objections; at least, which are, in the particular cases, outweighed by counter-considerations; and these "independent members," having no real responsibility, not being likely to be hurt themselves if they make a mistake, are sure to blurt out, and to want to act upon. but the responsible heads of the party who may have to decide similar things, or even the same things themselves, will not permit it. they refuse, out of interest as well as out of patriotism, to engage the country in a permanent foreign scrape, to secure for themselves and their party a momentary home advantage. accordingly, a government which negotiated a treaty would feel that its treaty would be subject certainly to a scrutiny, but still to a candid and lenient scrutiny; that it would go before judges, of whom the majority were favourable, and among whom the most influential part of the minority were in this case much opposed to excessive antagonism. and this seems to be the best position in which negotiators can be placed, namely, that they should be sure to have to account to considerate and fair persons, but not to have to account to inconsiderate and unfair ones. at present the government which negotiates a treaty can hardly be said to be accountable to any one. it is sure to be subjected to vague censure. benjamin franklin said, "i have never known a peace made, even the most advantageous, that was not censured as inadequate, and the makers condemned as injudicious or corrupt. 'blessed are the peace-makers' is, i suppose, to be understood in the other world, for in this they are frequently cursed." and this is very often the view taken now in england of treaties. there being nothing practical in the opposition--nothing likely to hamper them hereafter--the leaders of opposition are nearly sure to suggest every objection. the thing is done and cannot be undone, and the most natural wish of the opposition leaders is to prove that if they had been in office, and it therefore had been theirs to do it, they could have done it much better. on the other hand, it is quite possible that there may be no real criticism on a treaty at all; or the treaty has been made by the government, and as it cannot be unmade by any one, the opposition may not think it worth while to say much about it. the government, therefore, is never certain of any criticism; on the contrary, it has a good chance of escaping criticism; but if there be any criticism the government must expect it to be bitter, sharp, and captious--made as an irresponsible objector would make it, and not as a responsible statesman, who may have to deal with a difficulty if he make it, and therefore will be cautious how he says anything which may make it. this is what happens in common cases; and in the uncommon--the ninety-ninth case in a hundred--in which the opposition hoped to turn out the government because of the alleged badness of the treaty they have made, the criticism is sure to be of the most undesirable character, and to say what is most offensive to foreign nations. all the practised acumen of anti-government writers and speakers is sure to be engaged in proving that england has been imposed upon--that, as was said in one case, "the moral and the intellectual qualities have been divided; that our negotiation had the moral, and the negotiation on the other side the intellectual," and so on. the whole pitch of party malice is then expended, because there is nothing to check the party in opposition. the treaty has been made, and though it may be censured, and the party which made it ousted, yet the difficulty it was meant to cure is cured, and the opposing party, if it takes office, will not have that difficulty to deal with. in abstract theory these defects in our present practice would seem exceedingly great, but in practice they are not so. english statesmen and english parties have really a great patriotism; they can rarely be persuaded even by their passions or their interest to do anything contrary to the real interest of england, or anything which would lower england in the eyes of foreign nations. and they would seriously hurt themselves if they did. but still these are the real tendencies of our present practice, and these are only prevented by qualities in the nation and qualities in our statesmen, which will just as much exist if we change our practice. it certainly would be in many ways advantageous to change it. if we require that in some form the assent of parliament shall be given to such treaties, we should have a real discussion prior to the making of such treaties. we should have the reasons for the treaty plainly stated, and also the reasons against it. at present, as we have seen, the discussion is unreal. the thing is done and cannot be altered; and what is said often ought not to be said because it is captious, and what is not said ought as often to be said because it is material. we should have a manlier and plainer way of dealing with foreign policy, if ministers were obliged to explain clearly their foreign contracts before they were valid, just as they have to explain their domestic proposals before they can become laws. the objections to this are, as far as i know, three, and three only. first, that it would not be always desirable for ministers to state clearly the motives which induced them to agree to foreign compacts. "treaties," it is said, "are in one great respect different from laws, they concern not only the government which binds, the nation so bound, but a third party too--a foreign country--and the feelings of that country are to be considered as well as our own. and that foreign country will, probably, in the present state of the world be a despotic one, where discussion is not practised, where it is not understood, where the expressions of different speakers are not accurately weighed, where undue offence may easily be given." this objection might be easily avoided by requiring that the discussion upon treaties in parliament like that discussion in the american senate should be "in secret session," and that no report should be published of it. but i should, for my own part, be rather disposed to risk a public debate. despotic nations now cannot understand england; it is to them an anomaly "chartered by providence"; they have been time out of mind puzzled by its institutions, vexed at its statesmen, and angry at its newspapers. a little more of such perplexity and such vexation does not seem to me a great evil. and if it be meant, as it often is meant, that the whole truth as to treaties cannot be spoken out, i answer, that neither can the whole truth as to laws. all important laws affect large "vested interests"; they touch great sources of political strength; and these great interests require to be treated as delicately, and with as nice a manipulation of language, as the feelings of any foreign country. a parliamentary minister is a man trained by elaborate practice not to blurt out crude things, and an english parliament is an assembly which particularly dislikes anything gauche or anything imprudent. they would still more dislike it if it hurt themselves and the country as well as the speaker. i am, too, disposed to deny entirely that there can be any treaty for which adequate reasons cannot be given to the english people, which the english people ought to make. a great deal of the reticence of diplomacy had, i think history shows, much better be spoken out. the worst families are those in which the members never really speak their minds to one another; they maintain an atmosphere of unreality, and every one always lives in an atmosphere of suppressed ill-feeling. it is the same with nations. the parties concerned would almost always be better for hearing the substantial reasons which induced the negotiators to make the treaty, and the negotiators would do their work much better, for half the ambiguities in treaties are caused by the negotiators not liking the fact or not taking the pains to put their own meaning distinctly before their own minds. and they would be obliged to make it plain if they had to defend it and argue on it before a great assembly. secondly, it may be objected to the change suggested that parliament is not always sitting, and that if treaties required its assent, it might have to be sometimes summoned out of season, or the treaties would have to be delayed. and this is as far as it goes a just objection, but i do not imagine that it goes far. the great bulk of treaties could wait a little without harm, and in the very few cases when urgent haste is necessary, an autumn session of parliament could well be justified, for the occasion must be of grave and critical importance. thirdly, it may be said that if we required the consent of both houses of parliament to foreign treaties before they were valid we should much augment the power of the house of lords. and this is also, i think, a just objection as far as it goes. the house of lords, as it cannot turn out the ministry for making treaties, has in no case a decisive weight in foreign policy, though its debates on them are often excellent; and there is a real danger at present in giving it such weight. they are not under the same guidance as the house of commons. in the house of commons, of necessity, the ministry has a majority, and the majority will agree to the treaties the leaders have made if they fairly can. they will not be anxious to disagree with them. but the majority of the house of lords may always be, and has lately been generally an opposition majority, and therefore the treaty may be submitted to critics exactly pledged to opposite views. it might be like submitting the design of an architect known to hold "mediaeval principles" to a committee wedded to "classical principles". still, upon the whole, i think the augmentation of the power of the peers might be risked without real fear of serious harm. our present practice, as has been explained, only works because of the good sense of those by whom it is worked, and the new practice would have to rely on a similar good sense and practicality too. the house of lords must deal with the assent to treaties as they do with the assent to laws; they must defer to the voice of the country and the authority of the commons even in cases where their own judgment might guide them otherwise. in very vital treaties probably, being englishmen, they would be of the same mind as the rest of englishmen. if in such cases they showed a reluctance to act as the people wished, they would have the same lesson taught them as on vital and exciting questions of domestic legislation, and the case is not so likely to happen, for on these internal and organic questions the interest and the feeling of the peers is often presumably opposed to that of other classes--they may be anxious not to relinquish the very power which other classes are anxious to acquire; but in foreign policy there is no similar antagonism of interest--a peer and a non-peer have presumably in that matter the same interest and the same wishes. probably, if it were considered to be desirable to give to parliament a more direct control over questions of foreign policy than it possesses now, the better way would be not to require a formal vote to the treaty clause by clause. this would entail too much time, and would lead to unnecessary changes in minor details. it would be enough to let the treaty be laid upon the table of both houses, say for fourteen days, and to acquire validity unless objected to by one house or other before that interval had expired. ii. this is all which i think i need say on the domestic events which have changed, or suggested changes, in the english constitution since this book was written. but there are also some foreign events which have illustrated it, and of these i should like to say a few words. naturally, the most striking of these illustrative changes comes from france. since france has always been trying political experiments, from which others may profit much, though as yet she herself has profited little. she is now trying one singularly illustrative of the english constitution. when the first edition of this book was published i had great difficulty in persuading many people that it was possible in a non-monarchical state, for the real chief of the practical executive--the premier as we should call him--to be nominated and to be removable by the vote of the national assembly. the united states and its copies were the only present and familiar republics, and in these the system was exactly opposite. the executive was there appointed by the people as the legislature was too. no conspicuous example of any other sort of republic then existed. but now france has given an example--m. thiers is (with one exception) just the chef du pouvoir executif that i endeavoured more than once in this book to describe. he is appointed by and is removable by the assembly. he comes down and speaks in it just as our premier does; he is responsible for managing it just as our premier is. no one can any longer doubt the possibility of a republic in which the executive and the legislative authorities were united and fixed; no one can assert such union to be the incommunicable attribute of a constitutional monarchy. but, unfortunately, we can as yet only infer from this experiment that such a constitution is possible; we cannot as yet say whether it will be bad or good. the circumstances are very peculiar, and that in three ways. first, the trial of a specially parliamentary republic, of a republic where parliament appoints the minister, is made in a nation which has, to say the least of it, no peculiar aptitude for parliamentary government; which has possibly a peculiar inaptitude for it. in the last but one of these essays i have tried to describe one of the mental conditions of parliamentary government, which i call "rationality," by which i do not mean reasoning power, but rather the power of hearing the reasons of others, of comparing them quietly with one's own reasons, and then being guided by the result. but a french assembly is not easy to reason with. every assembly is divided into parties and into sections of parties, and in france each party, almost every section of a party, begins not to clamour but to scream, and to scream as only frenchmen can, as soon as it hears anything which it particularly dislikes. with an assembly in this temper, real discussion is impossible, and parliamentary government is impossible too, because the parliament can neither choose men nor measures. the french assemblies under the restored monarchy seem to have been quieter, probably because being elected from a limited constituency they did not contain so many sections of opinion; they had fewer irritants and fewer species of irritability. but the assemblies of the ' republic were disorderly in the extreme. i saw the last myself, and can certify that steady discussion upon a critical point was not possible in it. there was not an audience willing to hear. the assembly now sitting at versailles is undoubtedly also, at times, most tumultuous, and a parliamentary government in which it governs must be under a peculiar difficulty, because as a sovereign it is unstable, capricious, and unruly. the difficulty is the greater because there is no check, or little, from the french nation upon the assembly. the french, as a nation, do not care for or appreciate parliamentary government. i have endeavoured to explain how difficult it is for inexperienced mankind to take to such a government; how much more natural, that is, how much more easy to uneducated men is loyalty to a monarch. a nation which does not expect good from a parliament, cannot check or punish a parliament. france expects, i fear, too little from her parliaments ever to get what she ought. now that the suffrage is universal, the average intellect and the average culture of the constituent bodies are excessively low; and even such mind and culture as there is has long been enslaved to authority; the french peasant cares more for standing well with his present prefet than for anything else whatever; he is far too ignorant to check and watch his parliament, and far too timid to think of doing either if the executive authority nearest to him does not like it. the experiment of a strictly parliamentary republic--of a republic where the parliament appoints the executive--is being tried in france at an extreme disadvantage, because in france a parliament is unusually likely to be bad, and unusually likely also to be free enough to show its badness. secondly, the present polity of france is not a copy of the whole effective part of the british constitution, but only a part of it. by our constitution nominally the queen, but really the prime minister, has the power of dissolving the assembly. but m. thiers has no such power; and therefore, under ordinary circumstances, i believe, the policy would soon become unmanageable. the result would be, as i have tried to explain, that the assembly would be always changing its ministry, that having no reason to fear the penalty which that change so often brings in england, they would be ready to make it once a month. caprice is the characteristic vice of miscellaneous assemblies, and without some check their selection would be unceasingly mutable. this peculiar danger of the present constitution of france has however been prevented by its peculiar circumstances. the assembly have not been inclined to remove m. thiers, because in their lamentable present position they could not replace m. thiers. he has a monopoly of the necessary reputation. it is the empire--the empire which he always opposed--that has done him this kindness. for twenty years no great political reputation could arise in france. the emperor governed and no one member could show a capacity for government. m. rouher, though of vast real ability, was in the popular idea only the emperor's agent; and even had it been otherwise, m. rouher, the one great man of imperialism, could not have been selected as a head of the government, at a moment of the greatest reaction against the empire. of the chiefs before the twenty years' silence, of the eminent men known to be able to handle parliaments and to govern parliaments, m. thiers was the only one still physically able to begin again to do so. the miracle is, that at seventy-four even he should still be able. as no other great chief of the parliament regime existed, m. thiers is not only the best choice, but the only choice. if he were taken away, it would be most difficult to make any other choice, and that difficulty keeps him where he is. at every crisis the assembly feels that after m. thiers "the deluge," and he lives upon that feeling. a change of the president, though legally simple, is in practice all but impossible; because all know that such a change might be a change, not only of the president, but of much more too: that very probably it might be a change of the polity--that it might bring in a monarchy or an empire. lastly, by a natural consequence of the position, m. thiers does not govern as a parliamentary premier governs. he is not, he boasts that he is not, the head of a party. on the contrary, being the one person essential to all parties, he selects ministers from all parties, he constructs a cabinet in which no one minister agrees with any other in anything, and with all the members of which he himself frequently disagrees. the selection is quite in his hand. ordinarily a parliamentary premier cannot choose; he is brought in by a party; he is maintained in office by a party; and that party requires that as they aid him, he shall aid them; that as they give him the very best thing in the state, he shall give them the next best things. but m. thiers is under no such restriction. he can choose as he likes, and does choose. neither in the selection of his cabinet nor in the management of the chamber, is m. thiers guided as a similar person in common circumstances would have to be guided. he is the exception of a moment; he is not the example of a lasting condition. for these reasons, though we may use the present constitution of france as a useful aid to our imaginations, in conceiving of a purely parliamentary republic, of a monarchy minus the monarch, we must not think of it as much more. it is too singular in its nature and too peculiar in its accidents to be a guide to anything except itself. in this essay i made many remarks on the american constitution, in comparison with the english; and as to the american constitution we have had a whole world of experience since i first wrote. my great object was to contrast the office of president as an executive officer and to compare it with that of a prime minister; and i devoted much space to showing that in one principal respect the english system is by far the best. the english premier being appointed by the selection, and being removable at the pleasure, of the preponderant legislative assembly, is sure to be able to rely on that assembly. if he wants legislation to aid his policy he can obtain that legislation; he can carry out that policy. but the american president has no similar security. he is elected in one way, at one time, and congress (no matter which house) is elected in another way, at another time. the two have nothing to bind them together, and in matter of fact, they continually disagree. this was written in the time of mr. lincoln, when congress, the president, and all the north were united as one man in the war against the south. there was then no patent instance of mere disunion. but between the time when the essays were first written in the fortnightly, and their subsequent junction into a book, mr. lincoln was assassinated, and mr. johnson, the vice-president, became president, and so continued for nearly four years. at such a time the characteristic evils of the presidential system were shown most conspicuously. the president and the assembly, so far from being (as it is essential to good government that they should be) on terms of close union, were not on terms of common courtesy. so far from being capable of a continuous and concerted co-operation they were all the while trying to thwart one another. he had one plan for the pacification of the south and they another; they would have nothing to say to his plans, and he vetoed their plans as long as the constitution permitted, and when they were, in spite of him, carried, he, as far as he could (and this was very much), embarrassed them in action. the quarrel in most countries would have gone beyond the law, and come to blows; even in america, the most law-loving of countries, it went as far as possible within the law. mr. johnson described the most popular branch of the legislature--the house of representatives--as a body "hanging on the verge of government"; and that house impeached him criminally, in the hope that in that way they might get rid of him civilly. nothing could be so conclusive against the american constitution, as a constitution, as that incident. a hostile legislature and a hostile executive were so tied together, that the legislature tried, and tried in vain, to rid itself of the executive by accusing it of illegal practices. the legislature was so afraid of the president's legal power that it unfairly accused him of acting beyond the law. and the blame thus cast on the american constitution is so much praise to be given to the american political character. few nations, perhaps scarcely any nation, could have borne such a trial so easily and so perfectly. this was the most striking instance of disunion between the president and the congress that has ever yet occurred, and which probably will ever occur. probably for very many years the united states will have great and painful reason to remember that at the moment of all their history, when it was most important to them to collect and concentrate all the strength and wisdom of their policy on the pacification of the south, that policy was divided by a strife in the last degree unseemly and degrading. but it will be for a competent historian hereafter to trace out this accurately and in detail; the time is yet too recent, and i cannot pretend that i know enough to do so. i cannot venture myself to draw the full lessons from these events; i can only predict that when they are drawn, those lessons will be most important, and most interesting. there is, however, one series of events which have happened in america since the beginning of the civil war, and since the first publication of these essays, on which i should wish to say something in detail--i mean the financial events. these lie within the scope of my peculiar studies, and it is comparatively easy to judge of them, since whatever may be the case with refined statistical reasoning, the great results of money matters speak to and interest all mankind. and every incident in this part of american financial history exemplifies the contrast between a parliamentary and presidential government. the distinguishing quality of parliamentary government is, that in each stage of a public transaction there is a discussion; that the public assist at this discussion; that it can, through parliament, turn out an administration which is not doing as it likes, and can put in an administration which will do as it likes. but the characteristic of a presidential government is, in a multitude of cases, that there is no such discussion; that when there is a discussion the fate of government does not turn upon it, and, therefore, the people do not attend to it; that upon the whole the administration itself is pretty much doing as it likes, and neglecting as it likes, subject always to the check that it must not too much offend the mass of the nation. the nation commonly does not attend, but if by gigantic blunders you make it attend, it will remember it and turn you out when its time comes; it will show you that your power is short, and so on the instant weaken that power; it will make your present life in office unbearable and uncomfortable by the hundred modes in which a free people can, without ceasing, act upon the rulers which it elected yesterday, and will have to reject or re-elect to-morrow. in finance the most striking effect in america has, on the first view of it, certainly been good. it has enabled the government to obtain and to keep a vast surplus of revenue over expenditure. even before the civil war it did this--from to . mr. wells tells us that, strange as it may seem, "there was not a single year in which the unexpended balance in the national treasury--derived from various sources--at the end of the year, was not in excess of the total expenditure of the preceding year; while in not a few years the unexpended balance was absolutely greater than the sum of the entire expenditure of the twelve months preceding". but this history before the war is nothing to what has happened since. the following are the surpluses of revenue over expenditure since the end of the civil war:-- year ending june . surplus. (pounds) . . . . . . . . , , . . . . . . . . , , . . . . . . . . , , . . . . . . . . , , . . . . . . . . , , . . . . . . . . , , no one who knows anything of the working of parliamentary government, will for a moment imagine that any parliament would have allowed any executive to keep a surplus of this magnitude. in england, after the french war, the government of that day, which had brought it to a happy end, which had the glory of waterloo, which was in consequence exceedingly strong, which had besides elements of strength from close boroughs and treasury influence such as certainly no government has ever had since, and such perhaps as no government ever had before--that government proposed to keep a moderate surplus and to apply it to the reduction of the debt, but even this the english parliament would not endure. the administration with all its power derived both from good and evil had to yield; the income tax was abolished, with it went the surplus, and with the surplus all chance of any considerable reduction of the debt for that time. in truth taxation is so painful that in a sensitive community which has strong organs of expression and action, the maintenance of a great surplus is excessively difficult. the opposition will always say that it is unnecessary, is uncalled for, is injudicious; the cry will be echoed in every constituency; there will be a series of large meetings in the great cities; even in the smaller constituencies there will mostly be smaller meetings; every member of parliament will be pressed upon by those who elect him; upon this point there will be no distinction between town and country, the country gentleman and the farmer disliking high taxes as much as any in the towns. to maintain a great surplus by heavy taxes to pay off debt has never yet in this country been possible, and to maintain a surplus of the american magnitude would be plainly impossible. some part of the difference between england and america arises undoubtedly not from political causes but from economical. america is not a country sensitive to taxes; no great country has perhaps ever been so unsensitive in this respect; certainly she is far less sensitive than england. in reality america is too rich; daily industry there is too common, too skilful, and too productive, for her to care much for fiscal burdens. she is applying all the resources of science and skill and trained labour, which have been in long ages painfully acquired in old countries, to develop with great speed the richest soil and the richest mines of new countries; and the result is untold wealth. even under a parliamentary government such a community could and would bear taxation much more easily than englishmen ever would. but difference of physical character in this respect is of little moment in comparison with difference of political constitution. if america was under a parliamentary government, she would soon be convinced that in maintaining this great surplus and in paying this high taxation she would be doing herself great harm. she is not performing a great duty, but perpetrating a great injustice. she is injuring posterity by crippling and displacing industry, far more than she is aiding it by reducing the taxes it will have to pay. in the first place, the maintenance of the present high taxation compels the retention of many taxes which are contrary to the maxims of free-trade. enormous customs duties are necessary, and it would be all but impossible to impose equal excise duties even if the americans desired it. in consequence, besides what the americans pay to the government, they are paying a great deal to some of their own citizens, and so are rearing a set of industries which never ought to have existed, which are bad speculations at present because other industries would have paid better, and which may cause a great loss out of pocket hereafter when the debt is paid off and the fostering tax withdrawn. then probably industry will return to its natural channel, the artificial trade will be first depressed, then discontinued, and the fixed capital employed in the trade will all be depreciated and much of it be worthless. secondly, all taxes on trade and manufacture are injurious in various ways to them. you cannot put on a great series of such duties without cramping trade in a hundred ways and without diminishing their productiveness exceedingly. america is now working in heavy fetters, and it would probably be better for her to lighten those fetters even though a generation or two should have to pay rather higher taxes. those generations would really benefit, because they would be so much richer that the slightly increased cost of government would never be perceived. at any rate, under a parliamentary government this doctrine would have been incessantly inculcated; a whole party would have made it their business to preach it, would have made incessant small motions in parliament about it, which is the way to popularise their view. and in the end i do not doubt that they would have prevailed. they would have had to teach a lesson both pleasant and true, and such lessons are soon learned. on the whole, therefore, the result of the comparison is that a presidential government makes it much easier than the parliamentary to maintain a great surplus of income over expenditure, but that it does not give the same facility for examining whether it be good or not good to maintain a surplus, and, therefore, that it works blindly, maintaining surpluses when they do extreme harm just as much as when they are very beneficial. in this point the contrast of presidential with parliamentary government is mixed; one of the defects of parliamentary government probably is the difficulty under it of maintaining a surplus revenue to discharge debt, and this defect presidential government escapes, though at the cost of being likely to maintain that surplus upon inexpedient occasions as well as upon expedient. but in all other respects a parliamentary government has in finance an unmixed advantage over the presidential in the incessant discussion. though in one single case it produces evil as well as good, in most cases it produces good only. and three of these cases are illustrated by recent american experience. first, as mr. goldwin smith--no unfavourable judge of anything american--justly said some years since, the capital error made by the united states government was the "legal tender act," as it is called, by which it made inconvertible paper notes issued by the treasury the sole circulating medium of the country. the temptation to do this was very great, because it gave at once a great war fund when it was needed, and with no pain to any one. if the notes of a government supersede the metallic currency medium of a country to the extent of $ , , , this is equivalent to a recent loan of $ , , to the government for all purposes within the country. whenever the precious metals are not required, and for domestic purposes in such a case they are not required, notes will buy what the government want, and it can buy to the extent of its issue. but, like all easy expedients out of a great difficulty, it is accompanied by the greatest evils; if it had not been so, it would have been the regular device in such cases, and the difficulty would have been no difficulty at all; there would have been a known easy way out of it. as is well known, inconvertible paper issued by government is sure to be issued in great quantities, as the american currency soon was; it is sure to be depreciated as against coin; it is sure to disturb values and to derange markets; it is certain to defraud the lender; it is certain to give the borrower more than he ought to have. in the case of america there was a further evil. being a new country, she ought in her times of financial want to borrow of old countries; but the old countries were frightened by the probable issue of unlimited inconvertible paper, and they would not lend a shilling. much more than the mercantile credit of america was thus lost. the great commercial houses in england are the most natural and most effectual conveyers of intelligence from other countries to europe. if they had been financially interested in giving in a sound report as to the progress of the war, a sound report we should have had. but as the northern states raised no loans in lombard street (and could raise none because of their vicious paper money), lombard street did not care about them, and england was very imperfectly informed of the progress of the civil struggle, and on the whole matter, which was then new and very complex, england had to judge without having her usual materials for judgment, and (since the guidance of the "city" on political matter is very quietly and imperceptibly given) without knowing she had not those materials. of course, this error might have been committed, and perhaps would have been committed under a parliamentary government. but if it had, its effects would ere long have been thoroughly searched into and effectually frustrated. the whole force of the greatest inquiring machine and the greatest discussing machine which the world has ever known would have been directed to this subject. in a year or two the american public would have had it forced upon them in every form till they must have comprehended it. but under the presidential form of government, and owing to the inferior power of generating discussion, the information given to the american people has been imperfect in the extreme. and in consequence, after nearly ten years of painful experience, they do not now understand how much they have suffered from their inconvertible currency. but the mode in which the presidential government of america managed its taxation during the civil war, is even a more striking example of its defects. mr. wells tells us:-- "in the outset all direct or internal taxation was avoided, there having been apparently an apprehension on the part of congress, that inasmuch as the people had never been accustomed to it, and as all machinery for assessment and collection was wholly wanting, its adoption would create discontent, and thereby interfere with a vigorous prosecution of hostilities. congress, therefore, confined itself at first to the enactment of measures looking to an increase of revenue from the increase of indirect taxes upon imports; and it was not until four months after the actual outbreak of hostilities that a direct tax of $ , , per annum was apportioned among the states, and an income tax of per cent. on the excess of all incomes over $ was provided for; the first being made to take effect practically eight, and the second ten months after date of enactment. such laws of course took effect, and became immediately operative in the loyal states only, and produced but comparatively little revenue; and although the range of taxation was soon extended, the whole receipts from all sources by the government for the second year of the war, from excise, income, stamp, and all other internal taxes, were less than $ , , ; and that, too, at a time when the expenditures were in excess $ , , per month, or at the rate of over $ , , per annum. and as showing how novel was this whole subject of direct and internal taxation to the people, and how completely the government officials were lacking in all experience in respect to it, the following incident may be noted. the secretary of the treasury, in his report for , stated that, with a view of determining his resources, he employed a very competent person, with the aid of practical men, to estimate the probable amount of revenue to be derived from each department of internal taxation for the previous year. the estimate arrived at was $ , , , but the actual receipts were only $ , , ." now, no doubt, this might have happened under a parliamentary government. but, then, many members of parliament, the entire opposition in parliament, would have been active to unravel the matter. all the principles of finance would have been worked and propounded. the light would have come from above, not from below--it would have come from parliament to the nation instead of from the nation to parliament but exactly the reverse happened in america. mr. wells goes on to say:-- "the people of the loyal states were, however, more determined and in earnest in respect to this matter of taxation than were their rulers; and before long the popular discontent at the existing state of things was openly manifest. every where the opinion was expressed that taxation in all possible forms should immediately, and to the largest extent, be made effective and imperative; and congress spurred up, and right fully relying on public sentiment to sustain their action, at last took up the matter resolutely and in earnest, and devised and inaugurated a system of internal and direct taxation, which for its universality and peculiarities has probably no parallel in anything which has heretofore been recorded in civil history, or is likely to be experienced hereafter. the one necessity of the situation was revenue, and to obtain it speedily and in large amounts through taxation the only principle recognised--if it can be called a principle--was akin to that recommended to the traditionary irishman on his visit to donnybrook fair, 'wherever you see a head hit it'. wherever you find an article, a product, a trade, a profession, or a source of income, tax it! and so an edict went forth to this effect, and the people cheerfully submitted. incomes under $ , were taxed per cent., with an exemption of $ and house rent actually paid; these exemptions being allowed on this ground, that they represented an amount sufficient at the time to enable a small family to procure the bare necessaries of life, and thus take out from the operation of the law all those who were dependent upon each day's earnings to supply each day's needs. incomes in excess of $ , and not in excess of $ , were taxed / per cent. in addition; and incomes over $ , per cent. additional, without any abeyance or exemptions whatever." now this is all contrary to and worse than what would have happened under a parliamentary government. the delay to tax would not have occurred under it: the movement by the country to get taxation would never have been necessary under it. the excessive taxation accordingly imposed would not have been permitted under it. the last point i think i need not labour at length. the evils of a bad tax are quite sure to be pressed upon the ears of parliament in season and out of season; the few persons who have to pay it are thoroughly certain to make themselves heard. the sort of taxation tried in america, that of taxing everything, and seeing what every thing would yield, could not have been tried under a government delicately and quickly sensitive to public opinion. i do not apologise for dwelling at length upon these points, for the subject is one of transcendent importance. the practical choice of first-rate nations is between the presidential government and the parliamentary; no state can be first-rate which has not a government by discussion, and those are the only two existing species of that government. it is between them that a nation which has to choose its government must choose. and nothing therefore can be more important than to compare the two, and to decide upon the testimony of experience, and by facts, which of them is the better. the poplars, wimbledon: june , . no. ii. the cabinet. "on all great subjects," says mr. mill, "much remains to be said," and of none is this more true than of the english constitution. the literature which has accumulated upon it is huge. but an observer who looks at the living reality will wonder at the contrast to the paper description. he will see in the life much which is not in the books; and he will not find in the rough practice many refinements of the literary theory. it was natural--perhaps inevitable--that such an under growth of irrelevant ideas should gather round the british constitution. language is the tradition of nations; each generation describes what it sees, but it uses words transmitted from the past. when a great entity like the british constitution has continued in connected outward sameness, but hidden inner change, for many ages, every generation inherits a series of inapt words--of maxims once true, but of which the truth is ceasing or has ceased. as a man's family go on muttering in his maturity incorrect phrases derived from a just observation of his early youth, so, in the full activity of an historical constitution, its subjects repeat phrases true in the time of their fathers, and inculcated by those fathers, but now true no longer. or, if i may say so, an ancient and ever-altering constitution is like an old man who still wears with attached fondness clothes in the fashion of his youth: what you see of him is the same; what you do not see is wholly altered. there are two descriptions of the english constitution which have exercised immense influence, but which are erroneous. first, it is laid down as a principle of the english polity, that in it the legislative, the executive, and the judicial powers are quite divided--that each is entrusted to a separate person or set of persons--that no one of these can at all interfere with the work of the other. there has been much eloquence expended in explaining how the rough genius of the english people, even in the middle ages, when it was especially rude, carried into life and practice that elaborate division of functions which philosophers had suggested on paper, but which they had hardly hoped to see except on paper. secondly, it is insisted that the peculiar excellence of the british constitution lies in a balanced union of three powers. it is said that the monarchical element, the aristocratic element, and the democratic element, have each a share in the supreme sovereignty, and that the assent of all three is necessary to the action of that sovereignty. kings, lords, and commons, by this theory, are alleged to be not only the outward form, but the inner moving essence, the vitality of the constitution. a great theory, called the theory of "checks and balances," pervades an immense part of political literature, and much of it is collected from or supported by english experience. monarchy, it is said, has some faults, some bad tendencies, aristocracy others, democracy, again, others; but england has shown that a government can be constructed in which these evil tendencies exactly check, balance, and destroy one another--in which a good whole is constructed not simply in spite of, but by means of, the counteracting defects of the constituent parts. accordingly, it is believed that the principal characteristics of the english constitution are inapplicable in countries where the materials for a monarchy or an aristocracy do not exist. that constitution is conceived to be the best imaginable use of the political elements which the great majority of states in modern europe inherited from the mediaeval period. it is believed that out of these materials nothing better can be made than the english constitution; but it is also believed that the essential parts of the english constitution cannot be made except from these materials. now these elements are the accidents of a period and a region; they belong only to one or two centuries in human history, and to a few countries. the united states could not have become monarchical, even if the constitutional convention had decreed it, even if the component states had ratified it. the mystic reverence, the religious allegiance, which are essential to a true monarchy, are imaginative sentiments that no legislature can manufacture in any people. these semi-filial feelings in government are inherited just as the true filial feelings in common life. you might as well adopt a father as make a monarchy: the special sentiment belonging to the one is as incapable of voluntary creation as the peculiar affection belonging to the other. if the practical part of the english constitution could only be made out of a curious accumulation of mediaeval materials, its interest would be half historical, and its imitability very confined. no one can approach to an understanding of the english institutions, or of others, which, being the growth of many centuries, exercise a wide sway over mixed populations, unless he divide them into two classes. in such constitutions there are two parts (not indeed separable with microscopic accuracy, for the genius of great affairs abhors nicety of division): first, those which excite and preserve the reverence of the population--the dignified parts, if i may so call them; and next, the efficient parts--those by which it, in fact, works and rules. there are two great objects which every constitution must attain to be successful, which every old and celebrated one must have wonderfully achieved: every constitution must first gain authority, and then use authority; it must first win the loyalty and confidence of mankind, and then employ that homage in the work of government. there are indeed practical men who reject the dignified parts of government. they say, we want only to attain results, to do business: a constitution is a collection of political means for political ends, and if you admit that any part of a constitution does no business, or that a simpler machine would do equally well what it does, you admit that this part of the constitution, however dignified or awful it may be, is nevertheless in truth useless. and other reasoners, who distrust this bare philosophy, have propounded subtle arguments to prove that these dignified parts of old governments are cardinal components of the essential apparatus, great pivots of substantial utility; and so they manufactured fallacies which the plainer school have well exposed. but both schools are in error. the dignified parts of government are those which bring it force--which attract its motive power. the efficient parts only employ that power. the comely parts of a government have need, for they are those upon which its vital strength depends. they may not do anything definite that a simpler polity would not do better; but they are the preliminaries, the needful prerequisites of all work. they raise the army, though they do not win the battle. doubtless, if all subjects of the same government only thought of what was useful to them, and if they all thought the same thing useful, and all thought that same thing could be attained in the same way, the efficient members of a constitution would suffice, and no impressive adjuncts would be needed. but the world in which we live is organised far otherwise. the most strange fact, though the most certain in nature, is the unequal development of the human race. if we look back to the early ages of mankind, such as we seem in the faint distance to see them--if we call up the image of those dismal tribes in lake villages, or on wretched beaches--scarcely equal to the commonest material needs, cutting down trees slowly and painfully with stone tools, hardly resisting the attacks of huge, fierce animals--without culture, without leisure, without poetry, almost without thought--destitute of morality, with only a sort of magic for religion; and if we compare that imagined life with the actual life of europe now, we are overwhelmed at the wide contrast--we can scarcely conceive ourselves to be of the same race as those in the far distance. there used to be a notion--not so much widely asserted as deeply implanted, rather pervadingly latent than commonly apparent in political philosophy--that in a little while, perhaps ten years or so, all human beings might, without extraordinary appliances, be brought to the same level. but now, when we see by the painful history of mankind at what point we began, by what slow toil, what favourable circumstances, what accumulated achievements, civilised man has become at all worthy in any degree so to call himself--when we realise the tedium of history and the painfulness of results--our perceptions are sharpened as to the relative steps of our long and gradual progress. we have in a great community like england crowds of people scarcely more civilised than the majority of two thousand years ago; we have others, even more numerous, such as the best people were a thousand years since. the lower orders, the middle orders, are still, when tried by what is the standard of the educated "ten thousand," narrow-minded, unintelligent, incurious. it is useless to pile up abstract words. those who doubt should go out into their kitchens. let an accomplished man try what seems to him most obvious, most certain, most palpable in intellectual matters, upon the housemaid and the footman, and he will find that what he says seems unintelligible, confused, and erroneous--that his audience think him mad and wild when he is speaking what is in his own sphere of thought the dullest platitude of cautious soberness. great communities are like great mountains--they have in them the primary, secondary, and tertiary strata of human progress; the characteristics of the lower regions resemble the life of old times rather than the present life of the higher regions. and a philosophy which does not ceaselessly remember, which does not continually obtrude, the palpable differences of the various parts, will be a theory radically false, because it has omitted a capital reality--will be a theory essentially misleading, because it will lead men to expect what does not exist, and not to anticipate that which they will find. every one knows these plain facts, but by no means every one has traced their political importance. when a state is constituted thus, it is not true that the lower classes will be wholly absorbed in the useful; on the contrary, they do not like anything so poor. no orator ever made an impression by appealing to men as to their plainest physical wants, except when he could allege that those wants were caused by some one's tyranny. but thousands have made the greatest impression by appealing to some vague dream of glory, or empire, or nationality. the ruder sort of men--that is, men at one stage of rudeness--will sacrifice all they hope for, all they have, themselves, for what is called an idea--for some attraction which seems to transcend reality, which aspires to elevate men by an interest higher, deeper, wider than that of ordinary life. but this order of men are uninterested in the plain, palpable ends of government; they do not prize them; they do not in the least comprehend how they should be attained. it is very natural, therefore, that the most useful parts of the structure of government should by no means be those which excite the most reverence. the elements which excite the most easy reverence will be the theatrical elements--those which appeal to the senses, which claim to be embodiments of the greatest human ideas, which boast in some cases of far more than human origin. that which is mystic in its claims; that which is occult in its mode of action; that which is brilliant to the eye; that which is seen vividly for a moment, and then is seen no more; that which is hidden and unhidden; that which is specious, and yet interesting, palpable in its seeming, and yet professing to be more than palpable in its results; this, howsoever its form may change, or however we may define it or describe it, is the sort of thing--the only sort--which yet comes home to the mass of men. so far from the dignified parts of a constitution being necessarily the most useful, they are likely, according to outside presumption, to be the least so; for they are likely to be adjusted to the lowest orders--those likely to care least and judge worst about what is useful. there is another reason which, in an old constitution like that of england, is hardly less important. the most intellectual of men are moved quite as much by the circumstances which they are used to as by their own will. the active voluntary part of a man is very small, and if it were not economised by a sleepy kind of habit, its results would be null. we could not do every day out of our own heads all we have to do. we should accomplish nothing, for all our energies would be frittered away in minor attempts at petty improvement. one man, too, would go off from the known track in one direction, and one in another; so that when a crisis came requiring massed combination, no two men would be near enough to act together. it is the dull traditional habit of mankind that guides most men's actions, and is the steady frame in which each new artist must set the picture that he paints. and all this traditional part of human nature is, ex vi termini, most easily impressed and acted on by that which is handed down. other things being equal, yesterday's institutions are by far the best for to-day; they are the most ready, the most influential, the most easy to get obeyed, the most likely to retain the reverence which they alone inherit, and which every other must win. the most imposing institutions of mankind are the oldest; and yet so changing is the world, so fluctuating are its needs, so apt to lose inward force, though retaining out ward strength, are its best instruments, that we must not expect the oldest institutions to be now the most efficient. we must expect what is venerable to acquire influence because of its inherent dignity; but we must not expect it to use that influence so well as new creations apt for the modern world, instinct with its spirit, and fitting closely to its life. the brief description of the characteristic merit of the english constitution is, that its dignified parts are very complicated and somewhat imposing, very old and rather venerable; while its efficient part, at least when in great and critical action, is decidedly simple and rather modern. we have made, or rather stumbled on, a constitution which--though full of every species of incidental defect, though of the worst workmanship in all out-of-the-way matters of any constitution in the world--yet has two capital merits: it contains a simple efficient part which, on occasion, and when wanted, can work more simply and easily, and better, than any instrument of government that has yet been tried; and it contains likewise historical, complex, august, theatrical parts, which it has inherited from a long past--which take the multitude--which guide by an insensible but an omnipotent influence the associations of its subjects. its essence is strong with the strength of modern simplicity; its exterior is august with the gothic grandeur of a more imposing age. its simple essence may, mutatis mutandis, be transplanted to many very various countries, but its august outside--what most men think it is--is narrowly confined to nations with an analogous history and similar political materials. the efficient secret of the english constitution may be described as the close union, the nearly complete fusion, of the executive and legislative powers. no doubt by the traditional theory, as it exists in all the books, the goodness of our constitution consists in the entire separation of the legislative and executive authorities, but in truth its merit consists in their singular approximation. the connecting link is the cabinet. by that new word we mean a committee of the legislative body selected to be the executive body. the legislature has many committees, but this is its greatest. it chooses for this, its main committee, the men in whom it has most confidence. it does not, it is true, choose them directly; but it is nearly omnipotent in choosing them indirectly. a century ago the crown had a real choice of ministers, though it had no longer a choice in policy. during the long reign of sir r. walpole he was obliged not only to manage parliament but to manage the palace. he was obliged to take care that some court intrigue did not expel him from his place. the nation then selected the english policy, but the crown chose the english ministers. they were not only in name, as now, but in fact, the queen's servants. remnants, important remnants, of this great prerogative still remain. the discriminating favour of william iv. made lord melbourne head of the whig party when he was only one of several rivals. at the death of lord palmerston it is very likely that the queen may have the opportunity of fairly choosing between two, if not three statesmen. but, as a rule, the nominal prime minister is chosen by the legislature, and the real prime minister for most purposes--the leader of the house of commons--almost without exception is so. there is nearly always some one man plainly selected by the voice of the predominant party in the predominant house of the legislature to head that party, and consequently to rule the nation. we have in england an elective first magistrate as truly as the americans have an elective first magistrate. the queen is only at the head of the dignified part of the constitution. the prime minister is at the head of the efficient part. the crown is, according to the saying, the "fountain of honour"; but the treasury is the spring of business. nevertheless, our first magistrate differs from the american. he is not elected directly by the people; he is elected by the representatives of the people. he is an example of "double election". the legislature chosen, in name, to make laws, in fact finds its principal business in making and in keeping an executive. the leading minister so selected has to choose his associates, but he only chooses among a charmed circle. the position of most men in parliament forbids their being invited to the cabinet; the position of a few men ensures their being invited. between the compulsory list whom he must take, and the impossible list whom he cannot take, a prime minister's independent choice in the formation of a cabinet is not very large; it extends rather to the division of the cabinet offices than to the choice of cabinet ministers. parliament and the nation have pretty well settled who shall have the first places; but they have not discriminated with the same accuracy which man shall have which place. the highest patronage of a prime minister is, of course, a considerable power, though it is exercised under close and imperative restrictions--though it is far less than it seems to be when stated in theory, or looked at from a distance. the cabinet, in a word, is a board of control chosen by the legislature, out of persons whom it trusts and knows, to rule the nation. the particular mode in which the english ministers are selected; the fiction that they are, in any political sense, the queen's servants; the rule which limits the choice of the cabinet to the members of the legislature--are accidents unessential to its definition--historical incidents separable from its nature. its characteristic is that it should be chosen by the legislature out of persons agreeable to and trusted by the legislature. naturally these are principally its own members--but they need not be exclusively so. a cabinet which included persons not members of the legislative assembly might still perform all useful duties. indeed the peers, who constitute a large element in modern cabinets, are members, now-a-days, only of a subordinate assembly. the house of lords still exercises several useful functions; but the ruling influence--the deciding faculty--has passed to what, using the language of old times, we still call the lower house--to an assembly which, though inferior as a dignified institution, is superior as an efficient institution. a principal advantage of the house of lords in the present age indeed consists in its thus acting as a reservoir of cabinet ministers. unless the composition of the house of commons were improved, or unless the rules requiring cabinet ministers to be members of the legislature were relaxed, it would undoubtedly be difficult to find, without the lords, a sufficient supply of chief ministers. but the detail of the composition of a cabinet, and the precise method of its choice, are not to the purpose now. the first and cardinal consideration is the definition of a cabinet. we must not bewilder ourselves with the inseparable accidents until we know the necessary essence. a cabinet is a combining committee--a hyphen which joins, a buckle which fastens, the legislative part of the state to the executive part of the state. in its origin it belongs to the one, in its functions it belongs to the other. the most curious point about the cabinet is that so very little is known about it. the meetings are not only secret in theory, but secret in reality. by the present practice, no official minute in all ordinary cases is kept of them. even a private note is discouraged and disliked. the house of commons, even in its most inquisitive and turbulent moments, would scarcely permit a note of a cabinet meeting to be read. no minister who respected the fundamental usages of political practice would attempt to read such a note. the committee which unites the law-making power to the law-executing power--which, by virtue of that combination, is, while it lasts and holds together, the most powerful body in the state--is a committee wholly secret. no description of it, at once graphic and authentic, has ever been given. it is said to be sometimes like a rather disorderly board of directors, where many speak and few listen--though no one knows.[ ] but a cabinet, though it is a committee of the legislative assembly, is a committee with a power which no assembly would--unless for historical accidents, and after happy experience--have been persuaded to entrust to any committee. it is a committee which can dissolve the assembly which appointed it; it is a committee with a suspensive veto--a committee with a power of appeal. though appointed by one parliament, it can appeal if it chooses to the next. theoretically, indeed, the power to dissolve parliament is entrusted to the sovereign only; and there are vestiges of doubt whether in all cases a sovereign is bound to dissolve parliament when the cabinet asks him to do so. but neglecting such small and dubious exceptions, the cabinet which was chosen by one house of commons has an appeal to the next house of commons. the chief committee of the legislature has the power of dissolving the predominant part of that legislature--that which at a crisis is the supreme legislature. the english system, therefore, is not an absorption of the executive power by the legislative power; it is a fusion of the two. either the cabinet legislates and acts, or else it can dissolve. it is a creature, but it has the power of destroying its creators. it is an executive which can annihilate the legislature, as well as an executive which is the nominee of the legislature. it was made, but it can unmake; it was derivative in its origin, but it is destructive in its action. this fusion of the legislative and executive functions may, to those who have not much considered it, seem but a dry and small matter to be the latent essence and effectual secret of the english constitution; but we can only judge of its real importance by looking at a few of its principal effects, and contrasting it very shortly with its great competitor, which seems likely, unless care be taken, to outstrip it in the progress of the world. that competitor is the presidential system. the characteristic of it is that the president is elected from the people by one process, and the house of representatives by another. the independence of the legislative and executive powers is the specific quality of presidential government, just as their fusion and combination is the precise principle of cabinet government. [ ] it is said that at the end of the cabinet which agreed to propose a fixed duty on corn, lord melbourne put his back to the door and said, "now is it to lower the price of corn or isn't it? it is not much matter which we say, but mind, we must all say the same." this is the most graphic story of a cabinet i ever heard, but i cannot vouch for its truth. lord melbourne's is a character about which men make stories. first, compare the two in quiet times. the essence of a civilised age is, that administration requires the continued aid of legislation. one principal and necessary kind of legislation is taxation. the expense of civilised government is continually varying. it must vary if the government does its duty. the miscellaneous estimates of the english government contain an inevitable medley of changing items. education, prison discipline, art, science, civil contingencies of a hundred kinds, require more money one year and less another. the expense of defence--the naval and military estimates--vary still more as the danger of attack seems more or less imminent, as the means of retarding such danger become more or less costly. if the persons who have to do the work are not the same as those who have to make the laws, there will be a controversy between the two sets of persons. the tax-imposers are sure to quarrel with the tax-requirers. the executive is crippled by not getting the laws it needs, and the legislature is spoiled by having to act without responsibility: the executive becomes unfit for its name, since it cannot execute what it decides on; the legislature is demoralised by liberty, by taking decisions of which others (and not itself) will suffer the effects. in america so much has this difficulty been felt that a semi-connection has grown up between the legislature and the executive. when the secretary of the treasury of the federal government wants a tax he consults upon it with the chairman of the financial committee of congress. he cannot go down to congress himself and propose what he wants; he can only write a letter and send it. but he tries to get a chairman of the finance committee who likes his tax;--through that chairman he tries to persuade the committee to recommend such tax; by that committee he tries to induce the house to adopt that tax. but such a chain of communications is liable to continual interruptions; it may suffice for a single tax on a fortunate occasion, but will scarcely pass a complicated budget--we do not say in a war or a rebellion--we are now comparing the cabinet system and the presidential system in quiet times--but in times of financial difficulty. two clever men never exactly agreed about a budget. we have by present practice an indian chancellor of the exchequer talking english finance at calcutta, and an english one talking indian finance in england. but the figures are never the same, and the views of policy are rarely the same. one most angry controversy has amused the world, and probably others scarcely less interesting are hidden in the copious stores of our anglo-indian correspondence. but relations something like these must subsist between the head of a finance committee in the legislature, and a finance minister in the executive.[ ] they are sure to quarrel, and the result is sure to satisfy neither. and when the taxes do not yield as they were expected to yield, who is responsible? very likely the secretary of the treasury could not persuade the chairman--very likely the chairman could not persuade his committee--very likely the committee could not persuade the assembly. whom, then, can you punish--whom can you abolish--when your taxes run short? there is nobody save the legislature, a vast miscellaneous body difficult to punish, and the very persons to inflict the punishment. nor is the financial part of administration the only one which requires in a civilised age the constant support and accompaniment of facilitating legislation. all administration does so. in england, on a vital occasion, the cabinet can compel legislation by the threat of resignation, and the threat of dissolution; but neither of these can be used in a presidential state. there the legislature cannot be dissolved by the executive government; and it does not heed a resignation, for it has not to find the successor. accordingly, when a difference of opinion arises, the legislature is forced to fight the executive, and the executive is forced to fight the legislative; and so very likely they contend to the conclusion of their respective terms.[ ] there is, indeed, one condition of things in which this description, though still approximately true, is, nevertheless, not exactly true; and that is, when there is nothing to fight about. before the rebellion in america, owing to the vast distance of other states, and the favourable economic condition of the country, there were very few considerable objects of contention; but if that government had been tried by english legislation of the last thirty years, the discordant action of the two powers, whose constant cooperation is essential to the best government, would have shown itself much more distinctly. nor is this the worst. cabinet government educates the nation; the presidential does not educate it, and may corrupt it. it has been said that england invented the phrase, "her majesty's opposition"; that it was the first government which made a criticism of administration as much a part of the polity as administration itself. this critical opposition is the consequence of cabinet government. the great scene of debate, the great engine of popular instruction and political controversy, is the legislative assembly. a speech there by an eminent statesman, a party movement by a great political combination, are the best means yet known for arousing, enlivening, and teaching a people. the cabinet system ensures such debates, for it makes them the means by which statesmen advertise themselves for future and confirm themselves in present governments. it brings forward men eager to speak, and gives them occasions to speak. the deciding catastrophes of cabinet governments are critical divisions preceded by fine discussions. everything which is worth saying, everything which ought to be said, most certainly will be said. conscientious men think they ought to persuade others; selfish men think they would like to obtrude themselves. the nation is forced to hear two sides--all the sides, perhaps, of that which most concerns it. and it likes to hear--it is eager to know. human nature despises long arguments which come to nothing--heavy speeches which precede no motion--abstract disquisitions which leave visible things where they were. but all men heed great results, and a change of government is a great result. it has a hundred ramifications; it runs through society; it gives hope to many, and it takes away hope from many. it is one of those marked events which, by its magnitude and its melodrama, impress men even too much. and debates which have this catastrophe at the end of them--or may so have it--are sure to be listened to, and sure to sink deep into the national mind. travellers even in the northern states of america, the greatest and best of presidential countries, have noticed that the nation was "not specially addicted to politics"; that they have not a public opinion finished and chastened as that of the english has been finished and chastened. a great many hasty writers have charged this defect on the "yankee race," on the anglo-american character; but english people, if they had no motive to attend to politics, certainly would not attend to politics. at present there is business in their attention. they assist at the determining crisis; they arrest or help it. whether the government will go out or remain is determined by the debate, and by the division in parliament. and the opinion out of doors, the secret pervading disposition of society, has a great influence on that division. the nation feels that its judgment is important, and it strives to judge. it succeeds in deciding because the debates and the discussions give it the facts and the arguments. but under a presidential government, a nation has, except at the electing moment, no influence; it has not the ballot-box before it; its virtue is gone, and it must wait till its instant of despotism again returns. it is not incited to form an opinion like a nation under a cabinet government; nor is it instructed like such a nation. there are doubtless debates in the legislature, but they are prologues without a play. there is nothing of a catastrophe about them; you can not turn out the government. the prize of power is not in the gift of the legislature, and no one cares for the legislature. the executive, the great centre of power and place, sticks irremovable; you cannot change it in any event. the teaching apparatus which has educated our public mind, which prepares our resolutions, which shapes our opinions, does not exist. no presidential country needs to form daily delicate opinions, or is helped in forming them. it might be thought that the discussions in the press would supply the deficiencies in the constitution; that by a reading people especially, the conduct of their government would be as carefully watched, that their opinions about it would be as consistent, as accurate, as well considered, under a presidential as under a cabinet polity. but the same difficulty oppresses the press which oppresses the legislature. it can do nothing. it cannot change the administration; the executive was elected for such and such years, and for such and such years it must last. people wonder that so literary a people as the americans--a people who read more than any people who ever lived, who read so many newspapers--should have such bad newspapers. the papers are not so good as the english, because they have not the same motive to be good as the english papers. at a political "crisis," as we say--that is, when the fate of an administration is unfixed, when it depends on a few votes yet unsettled, upon a wavering and veering opinion--effective articles in great journals become of essential moment. the times has made many ministries. when, as of late, there has been a long continuance of divided parliaments, of governments which were without "brute voting power," and which depended on intellectual strength, the support of the most influential organ of english opinion has been of critical moment. if a washington newspaper could have turned out mr. lincoln, there would have been good writing and fine argument in the washington newspapers. but the washington newspapers can no more remove a president during his term of place than the times can remove a lord mayor during his year of office. nobody cares for a debate in congress which "comes to nothing," and no one reads long articles which have no influence on events. the americans glance at the heads of news, and through the paper. they do not enter upon a discussion. they do not think of entering upon a discussion which would be useless. [ ] it is worth observing that even during the short existence of the confederate government these evils distinctly showed themselves. almost the last incident at the richmond congress was an angry financial correspondence with jefferson davis. [ ] i leave this passage to stand as it was written, just after the assassination of mr. lincoln, and when every one said mr. johnson would be very hostile to the south. after saying that the division of the legislature and the executive in presidential governments weakens the legislative power, it may seem a contradiction to say that it also weakens the executive power. but it is not a contradiction. the division weakens the whole aggregate force of government--the entire imperial power; and therefore it weakens both its halves. the executive is weakened in a very plain way. in england a strong cabinet can obtain the concurrence of the legislature in all acts which facilitate its administration; it is itself, so to say, the legislature. but a president may be hampered by the parliament, and is likely to be hampered. the natural tendency of the members of every legislature is to make themselves conspicuous. they wish to gratify an ambition laudable or blamable; they wish to promote the measures they think best for the public welfare; they wish to make their will felt in great affairs. all these mixed motives urge them to oppose the executive. they are embodying the purposes of others if they aid; they are advancing their own opinions if they defeat: they are first if they vanquish; they are auxiliaries if they support. the weakness of the american executive used to be the great theme of all critics before the confederate rebellion. congress and committees of congress of course impeded the executive when there was no coercive public sentiment to check and rule them. but the presidential system not only gives the executive power an antagonist in the legislative power, and so makes it weaker; it also enfeebles it by impairing its intrinsic quality. a cabinet is elected by a legislature; and when that legislature is composed of fit persons, that mode of electing the executive is the very best. it is a case of secondary election, under the only conditions in which secondary election is preferable to primary. generally speaking, in an electioneering country (i mean in a country full of political life, and used to the manipulation of popular institutions), the election of candidates to elect candidates is a farce. the electoral college of america is so. it was intended that the deputies when assembled should exercise a real discretion, and by independent choice select the president. but the primary electors take too much interest. they only elect a deputy to vote for mr. lincoln or mr. breckenridge, and the deputy only takes a ticket, and drops that ticket in an urn. he never chooses or thinks of choosing. he is but a messenger--a transmitter; the real decision is in those who choose him--who chose him because they knew what he would do. it is true that the british house of commons is subject to the same influences. members are mostly, perhaps, elected because they will vote for a particular ministry, rather than for purely legislative reasons. but--and here is the capital distinction--the functions of the house of commons are important and continuous. it does not, like the electoral college in the united states, separate when it has elected its ruler; it watches, legislates, seats and unseats ministries, from day to day. accordingly it is a real electoral body. the parliament of , which, more than any other parliament of late years, was a parliament elected to support a particular premier--which was chosen, as americans might say, upon the "palmerston ticket"--before it had been in existence two years, dethroned lord palmerston. though selected in the interest of a particular ministry, it in fact destroyed that ministry. a good parliament, too, is a capital choosing body. if it is fit to make laws for a country, its majority ought to represent the general average intelligence of that country; its various members ought to represent the various special interests, special opinions, special prejudices, to be found in that community. there ought to be an advocate for every particular sect, and a vast neutral body of no sect--homogeneous and judicial, like the nation itself. such a body, when possible, is the best selector of executives that can be imagined. it is full of political activity; it is close to political life; it feels the responsibility of affairs which are brought as it were to its threshold; it has as much intelligence as the society in question chances to contain. it is, what washington and hamilton strove to create, an electoral college of the picked men of the nation. the best mode of appreciating its advantages is to look at the alternative. the competing constituency is the nation itself, and this is, according to theory and experience, in all but the rarest cases, a bad constituency. mr. lincoln, at his second election, being elected when all the federal states had set their united hearts on one single object, was voluntarily reelected by an actually choosing nation. he embodied the object in which every one was absorbed. but this is almost the only presidential election of which so much can be said. in almost all cases the president is chosen by a machinery of caucuses and combinations too complicated to be perfectly known, and too familiar to require description. he is not the choice of the nation, he is the choice of the wire-pullers. a very large constituency in quiet times is the necessary, almost the legitimate, subject of electioneering management: a man cannot know that he does not throw his vote away except he votes as part of some great organisation; and if he votes as a part, he abdicates his electoral function in favour of the managers of that association. the nation, even if it chose for itself, would, in some degree, be an unskilled body; but when it does not choose for itself, but only as latent agitators wish, it is like a large, lazy man, with a small vicious mind,--it moves slowly and heavily, but it moves at the bidding of a bad intention; it "means little, but it means that little ill." and, as the nation is less able to choose than a parliament, so it has worse people to choose out of. the american legislators of the last century have been much blamed for not permitting the ministers of the president to be members of the assembly; but, with reference to the specific end which they had in view, they saw clearly and decided wisely. they wished to keep "the legislative branch absolutely distinct from the executive branch"; they believed such a separation to be essential to a good constitution; they believed such a separation to exist in the english, which the wisest of them thought the best constitution. and, to the effectual maintenance of such a separation, the exclusion of the president's ministers from the legislature is essential. if they are not excluded they become the executive, they eclipse the president himself. a legislative chamber is greedy and covetous; it acquires as much, it concedes as little as possible. the passions of its members are its rulers; the law-making faculty, the most comprehensive of the imperial faculties, is its instrument; it will take the administration if it can take it. tried by their own aims, the founders of the united states were wise in excluding the ministers from congress. but though this exclusion is essential to the presidential system of government, it is not for that reason a small evil. it causes the degradation of public life. unless a member of the legislature be sure of something more than speech, unless he is incited by the hope of action, and chastened by the chance of responsibility, a first-rate man will not care to take the place, and will not do much if he does take it. to belong to a debating society adhering to an executive (and this is no inapt description of a congress under a presidential constitution) is not an object to stir a noble ambition, and is a position to encourage idleness. the members of a parliament excluded from office can never be comparable, much less equal, to those of a parliament not excluded from office. the presidential government, by its nature, divides political life into two halves, an executive half and a legislative half; and, by so dividing it, makes neither half worth a man's having--worth his making it a continuous career--worthy to absorb, as cabinet government absorbs, his whole soul. the statesmen from whom a nation chooses under a presidential system are much inferior to those from whom it chooses under a cabinet system, while the selecting apparatus is also far less discerning. all these differences are more important at critical periods, because government itself is more important. a formed public opinion, a respectable, able, and disciplined legislature, a well-chosen executive, a parliament and an administration not thwarting each other, but co-operating with each other, are of greater consequence when great affairs are in progress than when small affairs are in progress-when there is much to do than when there is little to do. but in addition to this, a parliamentary or cabinet constitution possesses an additional and special advantage in very dangerous times. it has what we may call a reserve of power fit for and needed by extreme exigencies. the principle of popular government is that the supreme power, the determining efficacy in matters political, resides in the people--not necessarily or commonly in the whole people, in the numerical majority, but in a chosen people, a picked and selected people. it is so in england; it is so in all free countries. under a cabinet constitution at a sudden emergency this people can choose a ruler for the occasion. it is quite possible and even likely that he would not be ruler before the occasion. the great qualities, the imperious will, the rapid energy, the eager nature fit for a great crisis are not required--are impediments--in common times; a lord liverpool is better in everyday politics than a chatham--a louis philippe far better than a napoleon. by the structure of the world we often want, at the sudden occurrence of a grave tempest, to change the helmsman--to replace the pilot of the calm by the pilot of the storm. in england we have had so few catastrophes since our constitution attained maturity, that we hardly appreciate this latent excellence. we have not needed a cavour to rule a revolution--a representative man above all men fit for a great occasion, and by a natural legal mode brought in to rule. but even in england, at what was the nearest to a great sudden crisis which we have had of late years--at the crimean difficulty--we used this inherent power. we abolished the aberdeen cabinet, the ablest we have had, perhaps, since the reform act--a cabinet not only adapted, but eminently adapted, for every sort of difficulty save the one it had to meet--which abounded in pacific discretion, and was wanting only in the "daemonic element"; we chose a statesman, who had the sort of merit then wanted, who, when he feels the steady power of england behind him, will advance without reluctance, and will strike without restraint. as was said at the time, "we turned out the quaker, and put in the pugilist". but under a presidential government you can do nothing of the kind. the american government calls itself a government of the supreme people; but at a quick crisis, the time when a sovereign power is most needed, you cannot find the supreme people. you have got a congress elected for one fixed period, going out perhaps by fixed instalments, which cannot be accelerated or retarded--you have a president chosen for a fixed period, and immovable during that period: all the arrangements are for stated times. there is no elastic element, everything is rigid, specified, dated. come what may, you can quicken nothing, and can retard nothing. you have bespoken your government in advance, and whether it suits you or not, whether it works well or works ill, whether it is what you want or not, by law you must keep it. in a country of complex foreign relations it would mostly happen that the first and most critical year of every war would be managed by a peace premier, and the first and most critical years of peace by a war premier. in each case the period of transition would be irrevocably governed by a man selected not for what he was to introduce, but what he was to change--for the policy he was to abandon, not for the policy he was to administer. the whole history of the american civil war--a history which has thrown an intense light on the working of a presidential government at the time when government is most important--is but a vast continuous commentary on these reflections. it would, indeed, be absurd to press against presidential government as such the singular defect by which vice-president johnson has become president--by which a man elected to a sinecure is fixed in what is for the moment the most important administrative part in the political world. this defect, though most characteristic of the expectations[ ] of the framers of the constitution and of its working, is but an accident of this particular case of presidential government, and no necessary ingredient in that government itself. but the first election of mr. lincoln is liable to no such objection. it was a characteristic instance of the natural working of such a government upon a great occasion. and what was that working? it may be summed up--it was government by an unknown quantity. hardly any one in america had any living idea what mr. lincoln was like, or any definite notion what he would do. the leading statesmen under the system of cabinet government are not only household words, but household ideas. a conception, not, perhaps, in all respects a true but a most vivid conception of what mr. gladstone is like, or what lord palmerston is like, runs through society. we have simply no notion what it would be to be left with the visible sovereignty in the hands of an unknown man. the notion of employing a man of unknown smallness at a crisis of unknown greatness is to our minds simply ludicrous. mr. lincoln, it is true, happened to be a man, if not of eminent ability, yet of eminent justness. there was an inner depth of puritan nature which came out under suffering, and was very attractive. but success in a lottery is no argument for lotteries. what were the chances against a person of lincoln's antecedents, elected as he was, proving to be what he was? such an incident is, however, natural to a presidential government. the president is elected by processes which forbid the election of known men, except at peculiar conjunctures, and in moments when public opinion is excited and despotic; and consequently if a crisis comes upon us soon after he is elected, inevitably we have government by an unknown quantity--the superintendence of that crisis by what our great satirist would have called "statesman x". even in quiet times, government by a president, is, for the several various reasons which have been stated, inferior to government by a cabinet; but the difficulty of quiet times is nothing as compared with the difficulty of unquiet times. the comparative deficiencies of the regular, common operation of a presidential government are far less than the comparative deficiencies in time of sudden trouble--the want of elasticity, the impossibility of a dictatorship, the total absence of a revolutionary reserve. this contrast explains why the characteristic quality of cabinet governments--the fusion of the executive power with the legislative power--is of such cardinal importance. i shall proceed to show under what form and with what adjuncts it exists in england. [ ] the framers of the constitution expected that the vice-president would be elected by the electoral college as the second wisest man in the country. the vice-presidentship being a sinecure, a second-rate man agreeable to the wire-pullers is always smuggled in. the chance of succession to the presidentship is too distant to be thought of. no. iii. the monarchy. i. the use of the queen, in a dignified capacity, is incalculable. without her in england, the present english government would fail and pass away. most people when they read that the queen walked on the slopes at windsor--that the prince of wales went to the derby--have imagined that too much thought and prominence were given to little things. but they have been in error; and it is nice to trace how the actions of a retired widow and an unemployed youth become of such importance. the best reason why monarchy is a strong government is, that it is an intelligible government. the mass of mankind understand it, and they hardly anywhere in the world understand any other. it is often said that men are ruled by their imaginations; but it would be truer to say they are governed by the weakness of their imaginations. the nature of a constitution, the action of an assembly, the play of parties, the unseen formation of a guiding opinion, are complex facts, difficult to know and easy to mistake. but the action of a single will, the fiat of a single mind, are easy ideas: anybody can make them out, and no one can ever forget them. when you put before the mass of mankind the question, "will you be governed by a king, or will you be governed by a constitution?" the inquiry comes out thus--"will you be governed in a way you understand, or will you be governed in a way you do not understand?" the issue was put to the french people; they were asked, "will you be governed by louis napoleon, or will you be governed by an assembly?" the french people said, "we will be governed by the one man we can imagine, and not by the many people we cannot imagine". the best mode of comprehending the nature of the two governments, is to look at a country in which the two have within a comparatively short space of years succeeded each other. "the political condition," says mr. grote, "which grecian legend everywhere presents to us, is in its principal features strikingly different from that which had become universally prevalent among the greeks in the time of the peloponnesian war. historical oligarchy, as well as democracy, agreed in requiring a certain established system of government, comprising the three elements of specialised functions, temporary functionaries, and ultimate responsibility (under some forms or other) to the mass of qualified citizens--either a senate or an ecclesia, or both. there were, of course, many and capital distinctions between one government and another, in respect to the qualification of the citizen, the attributes and efficiency of the general assembly, the admissibility to power, etc.; and men might often be dissatisfied with the way in which these questions were determined in their own city. but in the mind of every man, some determining rule or system--something like what in modern times is called a constitution--was indispensable to any government entitled to be called legitimate, or capable of creating in the mind of a greek a feeling of moral obligation to obey it. the functionaries who exercise authority under it might be more or less competent or popular; but his personal feelings towards them were commonly lost in his attachment or aversion to the general system. if any energetic man could by audacity or craft break down the constitution, and render himself permanent ruler according to his own will and pleasure, even though he might govern well, he could never inspire the people with any sentiment of duty towards him: his sceptre was illegitimate from the beginning, and even the taking of his life, far from being interdicted by that moral feeling which condemned the shedding of blood in other cases, was considered meritorious: he could not even be mentioned in the language except by a name (_tyrannos_, despot) which branded him as an object of mingled fear and dislike. "if we carry our eyes back from historical to legendary greece, we find a picture the reverse of what has been here sketched. we discern a government in which there is little or no scheme or system, still less any idea of responsibility to the governed, but in which the mainspring of obedience on the part of the people consists in their personal feeling and reverence towards the chief. we remark, first and foremost, the king; next, a limited number of subordinate kings or chiefs; afterwards, the mass of armed freemen, husbandmen, artisans, freebooters, &c.; lowest of all, the free labourers for hire and the bought slaves. the king is not distinguished by any broad, or impassable boundary from the other chiefs, to each of whom the title basileus is applicable as well as to himself: his supremacy has been inherited from his ancestors, and passes by inheritance, as a general rule, to his eldest son, having been conferred upon the family as a privilege by the favour of zeus. in war, he is the leader, foremost in personal prowess, and directing all military movements; in peace, he is the general protector of the injured and oppressed; he offers up moreover those public prayers and sacrifices which are intended to obtain for the whole people the favour of the gods. an ample domain is assigned to him as an appurtenance of his lofty position, and the produce of his fields and his cattle is consecrated in part to an abundant, though rude hospitality. moreover he receives frequent presents, to avert his enmity, to conciliate his favour, or to buy off his exactions; and when plunder is taken from the enemy, a large previous share, comprising probably the most alluring female captive, is reserved for him apart from the general distribution. "such is the position of the king in the heroic times of greece--the only person (if we except the herald, and priests, each both special and subordinate) who is then presented to us as clothed with any individual authority--the person by whom all the executive functions, then few in number, which the society requires, are either performed or directed. his personal ascendancy--derived from divine countenance bestowed both upon himself individually and upon his race, and probably from accredited divine descent--is the salient feature in the picture: the people hearken to his voice, embrace his propositions, and obey his orders: not merely resistance, but even criticism upon his acts, is generally exhibited in an odious point of view, and is indeed never heard of except from some one or more of the subordinate princes." the characteristic of the english monarchy is that it retains the feelings by which the heroic kings governed their rude age, and has added the feelings by which the constitutions of later greece ruled in more refined ages. we are a more mixed people than the athenians, or probably than any political greeks. we have progressed more unequally. the slaves in ancient times were a separate order; not ruled by the same laws, or thoughts, as other men. it was not necessary to think of them in making a constitution: it was not necessary to improve them in order to make a constitution possible. the greek legislator had not to combine in his polity men like the labourers of somersetshire, and men like mr. grote. he had not to deal with a community in which primitive barbarism lay as a recognised basis to acquired civilisation. we have. we have no slaves to keep down by special terrors and independent legislation. but we have whole classes unable to comprehend the idea of a constitution--unable to feel the least attachment to impersonal laws. most do indeed vaguely know that there are some other institutions besides the queen, and some rules by which she governs. but a vast number like their minds to dwell more upon her than upon anything else, and therefore she is inestimable. a republic has only difficult ideas in government; a constitutional monarchy has an easy idea too; it has a comprehensible element for the vacant many, as well as complex laws and notions for the inquiring few. a family on the throne is an interesting idea also. it brings down the pride of sovereignty to the level of petty life. no feeling could seem more childish than the enthusiasm of the english at the marriage of the prince of wales. they treated as a great political event, what, looked at as a matter of pure business, was very small indeed. but no feeling could be more like common human nature as it is, and as it is likely to be. the women--one half the human race at least--care fifty times more for a marriage than a ministry. all but a few cynics like to see a pretty novel touching for a moment the dry scenes of the grave world. a princely marriage is the brilliant edition of a universal fact, and, as such, it rivets mankind. we smile at the court circular; but remember how many people read the court circular! its use is not in what it says, but in those to whom it speaks. they say that the americans were more pleased at the queen's letter to mrs. lincoln, than at any act of the english government. it was a spontaneous act of intelligible feeling in the midst of confused and tiresome business. just so a royal family sweetens politics by the seasonable addition of nice and pretty events. it introduces irrelevant facts into the business of government, but they are facts which speak to "men's bosoms" and employ their thoughts. to state the matter shortly, royalty is a government in which the attention of the nation is concentrated on one person doing interesting actions. a republic is a government in which that attention is divided between many, who are all doing uninteresting actions. accordingly, so long as the human heart is strong and the human reason weak, royalty will be strong because it appeals to diffused feeling, and republics weak because they appeal to the understanding. secondly. the english monarchy strengthens our government with the strength of religion. it is not easy to say why it should be so. every instructed theologian would say that it was the duty of a person born under a republic as much to obey that republic as it is the duty of one born under a monarchy to obey the monarch. but the mass of the english people do not think so; they agree with the oath of allegiance; they say it is their duty to obey the "queen," and they have but hazy notions as to obeying laws without a queen. in former times, when our constitution was incomplete, this notion of local holiness in one part was mischievous. all parts were struggling, and it was necessary each should have its full growth. but superstition said one should grow where it would, and no other part should grow without its leave. the whole cavalier party said it was their duty to obey the king, whatever the king did. there was to be "passive obedience" to him, and there was no religious obedience due to any one else. he was the "lord's anointed," and no one else had been anointed at all. the parliament, the laws, the press were human institutions; but the monarchy was a divine institution. an undue advantage was given to a part of the constitution, and therefore the progress of the whole was stayed. after the revolution this mischievous sentiment was much weaker. the change of the line of sovereigns was at first conclusive, if there was a mystic right in any one, that right was plainly in james ii.; if it was an english duty to obey any one whatever he did, he was the person to be so obeyed; if there was an inherent inherited claim in any king, it was in the stuart king to whom the crown had come by descent, and not in the revolution king to whom it had come by vote of parliament. all through the reign of william iii. there was (in common speech) one king whom man had made, and another king whom god had made. the king who ruled had no consecrated loyalty to build upon; although he ruled in fact, according to sacred theory there was a king in france who ought to rule. but it was very hard for the english people, with their plain sense and slow imagination, to keep up a strong sentiment of veneration for a foreign adventurer. he lived under the protection of a french king; what he did was commonly stupid, and what he left undone was very often wise. as soon as queen anne began to reign there was a change of feeling; the old sacred sentiment began to cohere about her. there were indeed difficulties which would have baffled most people; but an englishman whose heart is in a matter is not easily baffled. queen anne had a brother living and a father living, and by every rule of descent, their right was better than hers. but many people evaded both claims. they said james ii. had "run away," and so abdicated, though he only ran away because he was in duresse and was frightened, and though he claimed the allegiance of his subjects day by day. the pretender, it was said, was not legitimate, though the birth was proved by evidence which any court of justice would have accepted. the english people were "out of" a sacred monarch, and so they tried very hard to make a new one. events, however, were too strong for them. they were ready and eager to take queen anne as the stock of a new dynasty; they were ready to ignore the claims of her father and the claims of her brother, but they could not ignore the fact that at the critical period she had no children. she had once had thirteen, but they all died in her lifetime, and it was necessary either to revert to the stuarts or to make a new king by act of parliament. according to the act of settlement passed by the whigs, the crown was settled on the descendants of the "princess sophia" of hanover, a younger daughter of a daughter of james i. there were before her james ii., his son, the descendants of a daughter of charles i., and elder children of her own mother. but the whigs passed these over because they were catholics, and selected the princess sophia, who, if she was anything, was a protestant. certainly this selection was statesmanlike, but it could not be very popular. it was quite impossible to say that it was the duty of the english people to obey the house of hanover upon any principles which do not concede the right of the people to choose their rulers, and which do not degrade monarchy from its solitary pinnacle of majestic reverence, and make it one only among many expedient institutions. if a king is a useful public functionary who may be changed, and in whose place you may make another, you cannot regard him with mystic awe and wonder; and if you are bound to worship him, of course you cannot change him. accordingly, during the whole reigns of george i. and george ii. the sentiment of religious loyalty altogether ceased to support the crown. the prerogative of the king had no strong party to support it; the tories, who naturally would support it, disliked the actual king; and the whigs, according to their creed, disliked the king's office. until the accession of george iii. the most vigorous opponents of the crown were the country gentlemen, its natural friends, and the representatives of quiet rural districts, where loyalty is mostly to be found, if anywhere. but after the accession of george iii. the common feeling came back to the same point as in queen anne's time. the english were ready to take the new young prince as the beginning of a sacred line of sovereigns, just as they had been willing to take an old lady, who was the second cousin of his great-great-grandmother. so it is now. if you ask the immense majority of the queen's subjects by what right she rules, they would never tell you that she rules by parliamentary right, by virtue of anne, c. . they will say she rules by "god's grace"; they believe that they have a mystic obligation to obey her. when her family came to the crown it was a sort of treason to maintain the inalienable right of lineal sovereignty, for it was equivalent to saying that the claim of another family was better than hers: but now, in the strange course of human events, that very sentiment has become her surest and best support. but it would be a great mistake to believe that at the accession of george iii. the instinctive sentiment of hereditary loyalty at once became as useful as now. it began to be powerful, but it hardly began to be useful. there was so much harm done by it as well as so much good, that it is quite capable of being argued whether on the whole it was beneficial or hurtful. throughout the greater part of his life george iii. was a kind of "consecrated obstruction". whatever he did had a sanctity different from what any one else did, and it perversely happened that he was commonly wrong. he had as good intentions as any one need have, and he attended to the business of his country, as a clerk with his bread to get attends to the business of his office. but his mind was small, his education limited, and he lived in a changing time. accordingly, he was always resisting what ought to be, and prolonging what ought not to be. he was the sinister but sacred assailant of half his ministries; and when the french revolution excited the horror of the world, and proved democracy to be "impious," the piety of england concentrated upon him, and gave him tenfold strength. the monarchy by its religious sanction now confirms all our political order; in george iii.'s time it confirmed little except itself. it gives now a vast strength to the entire constitution, by enlisting on its behalf the credulous obedience of enormous masses; then it lived aloof, absorbed all the holiness into itself, and turned over all the rest of the polity to the coarse justification of bare expediency. a principal reason why the monarchy so well consecrates our whole state is to be sought in the peculiarity many americans and many utilitarians smile at. they laugh at this "extra," as the yankee called it, at the solitary transcendent element. they quote napoleon's saying, "that he did not wish to be fatted in idleness," when he refused to be grand elector in sieyes' constitution, which was an office copied, and m. thiers says, well copied, from constitutional monarchy. but such objections are wholly wrong. no doubt it was absurd enough in the abbe sieyes to propose that a new institution, inheriting no reverence, and made holy by no religion, should be created to fill the sort of post occupied by a constitutional king in nations of monarchical history. such an institution, far from being so august as to spread reverence around it, is too novel and artificial to get reverence for itself; if, too, the absurdity could anyhow be augmented, it was so by offering an office of inactive uselessness and pretended sanctity to napoleon, the most active man in france, with the greatest genius for business, only not sacred, and exclusively fit for action. but the blunder of sieyes brings the excellence of real monarchy to the best light. when a monarch can bless, it is best that he should not be touched. it should be evident that he does no wrong. he should not be brought too closely to real measurement. he should be aloof and solitary. as the functions of english royalty are for the most part latent, it fulfils this condition. it seems to order, but it never seems to struggle. it is commonly hidden like a mystery, and sometimes paraded like a pageant, but in neither case is it contentious. the nation is divided into parties, but the crown is of no party. its apparent separation from business is that which removes it both from enmities and from desecration, which preserves its mystery, which enables it to combine the affection of conflicting parties--to be a visible symbol of unity to those still so imperfectly educated as to need a symbol. thirdly. the queen is the head of our society. if she did not exist the prime minister would be the first person in the country. he and his wife would have to receive foreign ministers, and occasionally foreign princes, to give the first parties in the country; he and she would be at the head of the pageant of life; they would represent england in the eyes of foreign nations; they would represent the government of england in the eyes of the english. it is very easy to imagine a world in which this change would not be a great evil. in a country where people did not care for the outward show of life, where the genius of the people was untheatrical, and they exclusively regarded the substance of things, this matter would be trifling. whether lord and lady derby received the foreign ministers, or lord and lady palmerston, would be a matter of indifference; whether they gave the nicest parties would be important only to the persons at those parties. a nation of unimpressible philosophers would not care at all how the externals of life were managed. who is the showman is not material unless you care about the show. but of all nations in the world the english are perhaps the least a nation of pure philosophers. it would be a very serious matter to us to change every four or five years the visible head of our world. we are not now remarkable for the highest sort of ambition; but we are remarkable for having a great deal of the lower sort of ambition and envy. the house of commons is thronged with people who get there merely for "social purposes," as the phrase goes; that is, that they and their families may go to parties else impossible. members of parliament are envied by thousands merely for this frivolous glory, as a thinker calls it. if the highest post in conspicuous life were thrown open to public competition, this low sort of ambition and envy would be fearfully increased. politics would offer a prize too dazzling for mankind; clever base people would strive for it, and stupid base people would envy it. even now a dangerous distinction is given by what is exclusively called public life. the newspapers describe daily and incessantly a certain conspicuous existence; they comment on its characters, recount its details, investigate its motives, anticipate its course. they give a precedent and a dignity to that world which they do not give to any other. the literary world, the scientific world, the philosophic world, not only are not comparable in dignity to the political world, but in comparison are hardly worlds at all. the newspaper makes no mention of them, and could not mention them. as are the papers, so are the readers; they, by irresistible sequence and association, believe that those people who constantly figure in the papers are cleverer, abler, or at any rate, somehow higher, than other people. "i wrote books," we heard of a man saying, "for twenty years, and i was nobody; i got into parliament, and before i had taken my seat i had become somebody." english politicians are the men who fill the thoughts of the english public: they are the actors on the scene, and it is hard for the admiring spectators not to believe that the admired actor is greater than themselves. in this present age and country it would be very dangerous to give the slightest addition to a force already perilously great. if the highest social rank was to be scrambled for in the house of commons, the number of social adventurers there would be incalculably more numerous, and indefinitely more eager. a very peculiar combination of causes has made this characteristic one of the most prominent in english society. the middle ages left all europe with a social system headed by courts. the government was made the head of all society, all intercourse, and all life; everything paid allegiance to the sovereign, and everything ranged itself round the sovereign--what was next to be greatest, and what was farthest least. the idea that the head of the government is the head of society is so fixed in the ideas of mankind that only a few philosophers regard it as historical and accidental, though when the matter is examined, that conclusion is certain and even obvious. in the first place, society as society does not naturally need a head at all. its constitution, if left to itself, is not monarchical, but aristocratical. society, in the sense we are now talking of, is the union of people for amusement and conversation. the making of marriages goes on in it, as it were, incidentally, but its common and main concern is talking and pleasure. there is nothing in this which needs a single supreme head; it is a pursuit in which a single person does not of necessity dominate. by nature it creates an "upper ten thousand"; a certain number of persons and families possessed of equal culture, and equal faculties, and equal spirit, get to be on a level--and that level a high level. by boldness, by cultivation, by "social science" they raise themselves above others; they become the "first families," and all the rest come to be below them. but they tend to be much about a level among one another; no one is recognised by all or by many others as superior to them all. this is society as it grew up in greece or italy, as it grows up now in any american or colonial town. so far from the notion of a "head of society" being a necessary notion, in many ages it would scarcely have been an intelligible notion. you could not have made socrates understand it. he would have said, "if you tell me that one of my fellows is chief magistrate, and that i am bound to obey him, i understand you, and you speak well; or that another is a priest, and that he ought to offer sacrifices to the gods which i or any one not a priest ought not to offer, again i understand and agree with you. but if you tell me that there is in some citizen a hidden charm by which his words become better than my words, and his house better than my house, i do not follow you, and should be pleased if you will explain yourself." and even if a head of society were a natural idea, it certainly would not follow that the head of the civil government should be that head. society as such has no more to do with civil polity than with ecclesiastical. the organisation of men and women for the purpose of amusement is not necessarily identical with their organisation for political purposes, any more than with their organisation for religious purposes; it has of itself no more to do with the state than it has with the church. the faculties which fit a man to be a great ruler are not those of society; some great rulers have been unintelligible like cromwell, or brusque like napoleon, or coarse and barbarous like sir robert walpole. the light nothings of the drawing-room and the grave things of office are as different from one another as two human occupations can be. there is no naturalness in uniting the two; the end of it always is, that you put a man at the head of society who very likely is remarkable for social defects, and is not eminent for social merits. the best possible commentary on these remarks is the history of english history. it has not been sufficiently remarked that a change has taken place in the structure of our society exactly analogous to the change in our polity. a republic has insinuated itself beneath the folds of a monarchy. charles ii. was really the head of society; whitehall, in his time, was the centre of the best talk, the best fashion, and the most curious love affairs of the age. he did not contribute good morality to society, but he set an example of infinite agreeableness. he concentrated around him all the light part of the high world of london, and london concentrated around it all the light part of the high world of england. the court was the focus where everything fascinating gathered, and where everything exciting centred. whitehall was an unequalled club, with female society of a very clever and sharp sort superadded. all this, as we know, is now altered. buckingham palace is as unlike a club as any place is likely to be. the court is a separate part, which stands aloof from the rest of the london world, and which has but slender relations with the more amusing part of it. the first two georges were men ignorant of english, and wholly unfit to guide and lead english society. they both preferred one or two german ladies of bad character to all else in london. george iii. had no social vices, but he had no social pleasures. he was a family man, and a man of business, and sincerely preferred a leg of mutton and turnips after a good day's work, to the best fashion and the most exciting talk. in consequence, society in london, though still in form under the domination of a court, assumed in fact its natural and oligarchical structure. it, too, has become an "upper ten thousand"; it is no more monarchical in fact than the society of new york. great ladies give the tone to it with little reference to the particular court world. the peculiarly masculine world of the clubs and their neighbourhood has no more to do in daily life with buckingham palace than with the tuileries. formal ceremonies of presentation and attendance are retained. the names of levee and drawing-room still sustain the memory of the time when the king's bed-chamber and the queen's "withdrawing room" were the centres of london life, but they no longer make a part of social enjoyment: they are a sort of ritual in which nowadays almost every decent person can if he likes take part. even court balls, where pleasure is at least supposed to be possible, are lost in a london july. careful observers have long perceived this, but it was made palpable to every one by the death of the prince consort. since then the court has been always in a state of suspended animation, and for a time it was quite annihilated. but everything went on as usual. a few people who had no daughters and little money made it an excuse to give fewer parties, and if very poor, stayed in the country, but upon the whole the difference was not perceptible. the queen bee was taken away, but the hive went on. refined and original observers have of late objected to english royalty that it is not splendid enough. they have compared it with the french court, which is better in show, which comes to the surface everywhere so that you cannot help seeing it, which is infinitely and beyond question the most splendid thing in france. they have said, "that in old times the english court took too much of the nation's money, and spent it ill; but now, when it could be trusted to spend well, it does not take enough of the nation's money. there are arguments for not having a court, and there are arguments for having a splendid court; but there are no arguments for having a mean court. it is better to spend a million in dazzling when you wish to dazzle, than three-quarters of a million in trying to dazzle and yet not dazzling." there may be something in this theory; it may be that the court of england is not quite as gorgeous as we might wish to see it. but no comparison must ever be made between it and the french court. the emperor represents a different idea from the queen. he is not the head of the state; he is the state. the theory of his government is that every one in france is equal, and that the emperor embodies the principle of equality. the greater you make him, the less, and therefore the more equal, you make all others. he is magnified that others may be dwarfed. the very contrary is the principle of english royalty. as in politics it would lose its principal use if it came forward into the public arena, so in society if it advertised itself it would be pernicious. we have voluntary show enough already in london; we do not wish to have it encouraged and intensified, but quieted and mitigated. our court is but the head of an unequal, competing, aristocratic society; its splendour would not keep others down, but incite others to come on. it is of use so long as it keeps others out of the first place, and is guarded and retired in that place. but it would do evil if it added a new example to our many examples of showy wealth--if it gave the sanction of its dignity to the race of expenditure. fourthly. we have come to regard the crown as the head of our morality. the virtues of queen victoria and the virtues of george iii. have sunk deep into the popular heart. we have come to believe that it is natural to have a virtuous sovereign, and that the domestic virtues are as likely to be found on thrones as they are eminent when there. but a little experience and less thought show that royalty cannot take credit for domestic excellence. neither george i., nor george ii., nor william iv. were patterns of family merit; george iv. was a model of family demerit. the plain fact is, that to the disposition of all others most likely to go wrong, to an excitable disposition, the place of a constitutional king has greater temptations than almost any other, and fewer suitable occupations than almost any other. all the world and all the glory of it, whatever is most attractive, whatever is most seductive, has always been offered to the prince of wales of the day, and always will be. it is not rational to expect the best virtue where temptation is applied in the most trying form at the frailest time of human life. the occupations of a constitutional monarch are grave, formal, important, but never exciting; they have nothing to stir eager blood, awaken high imagination, work off wild thoughts. on men like george iii., with a predominant taste for business occupations, the routine duties of constitutional royalty have doubtless a calm and chastening effect. the insanity with which he struggled, and in many cases struggled very successfully, during many years, would probably have burst out much oftener but for the sedative effect of sedulous employment. but how few princes have ever felt the anomalous impulse for real work; how uncommon is that impulse anywhere; how little are the circumstances of princes calculated to foster it; how little can it be relied on as an ordinary breakwater to their habitual temptations! grave and careful men may have domestic virtues on a constitutional throne, but even these fail sometimes, and to imagine that men of more eager temperaments will commonly produce them, is to expect grapes from thorns and figs from thistles. lastly, constitutional royalty has the function which i insisted on at length in my last essay, and which, though it is by far the greatest, i need not now enlarge upon again. it acts as a disguise. it enables our real rulers to change without heedless people knowing it. the masses of englishmen are not fit for an elective government; if they knew how near they were to it, they would be surprised, and almost tremble. of a like nature is the value of constitutional royalty in times of transition. the greatest of all helps to the substitution of a cabinet government for a preceding absolute monarchy is the accession of a king favourable to such a government, and pledged to it. cabinet government, when new, is weak in time of trouble. the prime minister--the chief on whom everything depends, who must take responsibility if any one is to take it, who must use force if any one is to use it--is not fixed in power. he holds his place, by the essence of the government, with some uncertainty. among a people well-accustomed to such a government, such a functionary may be bold: he may rely, if not on the parliament, on the nation which understands and values him. but when that government has only recently been introduced, it is difficult for such a minister to be as bold as he ought to be. his power rests too much on human reason, and too little on human instinct. the traditional strength of the hereditary monarch is at these times of incalculable use. it would have been impossible for england to get through the first years after but for the singular ability of william iii. it would have been impossible for italy to have attained and kept her freedom without the help of victor emmanuel: neither the work of cavour nor the work of garibaldi were more necessary than his. but the failure of louis philippe to use his reserve power as constitutional monarch is the most instructive proof how great that reserve power is. in february, , guizot was weak because his tenure of office was insecure. louis philippe should have made that tenure certain. parliamentary reform might afterwards have been conceded to instructed opinion, but nothing ought to have been conceded to the mob. the parisian populace ought to have been put down, as guizot wished. if louis philippe had been a fit king to introduce free government, he would have strengthened his ministers when they were the instruments of order, even if he afterwards discarded them when order was safe, and policy could be discussed. but he was one of the cautious men who are "noted" to fail in old age: though of the largest experience and of great ability, he failed and lost his crown for want of petty and momentary energy, which at such a crisis a plain man would have at once put forth. such are the principal modes in which the institution of royalty by its august aspect influences mankind, and in the english state of civilisation they are invaluable. of the actual business of the sovereign--the real work the queen does--i shall speak in my next paper. ii. the house of commons has inquired into most things, but has never had a committee on "the queen". there is no authentic blue-book to say what she does. such an investigation cannot take place; but if it could, it would probably save her much vexatious routine, and many toilsome and unnecessary hours. the popular theory of the english constitution involves two errors as to the sovereign. first, in its oldest form at least, it considers him as an "estate of the realm," a separate co-ordinate authority with the house of lords and the house of commons. this and much else the sovereign once was, but this he is no longer. that authority could only be exercised by a monarch with a legislative veto. he should be able to reject bills, if not as the house of commons rejects them, at least as the house of peers rejects them. but the queen has no such veto. she must sign her own death-warrant if the two houses unanimously send it up to her. it is a fiction of the past to ascribe to her legislative power. she has long ceased to have any. secondly, the ancient theory holds that the queen is the executive. the american constitution was made upon a most careful argument, and most of that argument assumes the king to be the administrator of the english constitution, and an unhereditary substitute for him--viz., a president--to be peremptorily necessary. living across the atlantic, and misled by accepted doctrines, the acute framers of the federal constitution, even after the keenest attention, did not perceive the prime minister to be the principal executive of the british constitution, and the sovereign a cog in the mechanism. there is, indeed, much excuse for the american legislators in the history of that time. they took their idea of our constitution from the time when they encountered it. but in the so-called government of lord north, george iii. was the government. lord north was not only his appointee, but his agent. the minister carried on a war which he disapproved and hated, because it was a war which his sovereign approved and liked. inevitably, therefore, the american convention believed the king, from whom they had suffered, to be the real executive, and not the minister, from whom they had not suffered. if we leave literary theory, and look to our actual old law, it is wonderful how much the sovereign can do. a few years ago the queen very wisely attempted to make life peers, and the house of lords very unwisely, and contrary to its own best interests, refused to admit her claim. they said her power had decayed into non-existence; she once had it, they allowed, but it had ceased by long disuse. if any one will run over the pages of comyn's digest or any other such book, title "prerogative," he will find the queen has a hundred such powers which waver between reality and desuetude, and which would cause a protracted and very interesting legal argument if she tried to exercise them. some good lawyer ought to write a careful book to say which of these powers are really usable, and which are obsolete. there is no authentic explicit information as to what the queen can do, any more than of what she does. in the bare superficial theory of free institutions this is undoubtedly a defect. every power in a popular government ought to be known. the whole notion of such a government is that the political people--the governing people--rules as it thinks fit. all the acts of every administration are to be canvassed by it; it is to watch if such acts seem good, and in some manner or other to interpose if they seem not good. but it cannot judge if it is to be kept in ignorance; it cannot interpose if it does not know. a secret prerogative is an anomaly--perhaps the greatest of anomalies. that secrecy is, however, essential to the utility of english royalty as it now is. above all things our royalty is to be reverenced, and if you begin to poke about it you cannot reverence it. when there is a select committee on the queen, the charm of royalty will be gone. its mystery is its life. we must not let in daylight upon magic. we must not bring the queen into the combat of politics, or she will cease to be reverenced by all combatants; she will become one combatant among many. the existence of this secret power is, according to abstract theory, a defect in our constitutional polity, but it is a defect incident to a civilisation such as ours, where august and therefore unknown powers are needed, as well as known and serviceable powers. if we attempt to estimate the working of this inner power by the evidence of those, whether dead or living, who have been brought in contact with it, we shall find a singular difference. both the courtiers of george iii. and the courtiers of queen victoria are agreed as to the magnitude of the royal influence. it is with both an accepted secret doctrine that the crown does more than it seems. but there is a wide discrepancy in opinion as to the quality of that action. mr. fox did not scruple to describe the hidden influence of george iii. as the undetected agency of "an infernal spirit". the action of the crown at that period was the dread and terror of liberal politicians. but now the best liberal politicians say, "we shall never know, but when history is written our children may know, what we owe to the queen and prince albert". the mystery of the constitution, which used to be hated by our calmest, most thoughtful, and instructed statesmen, is now loved and reverenced by them. before we try to account for this change, there is one part of the duties of the queen which should be struck out of the discussion. i mean the formal part. the queen has to assent to and sign countless formal documents, which contain no matter of policy, of which the purport is insignificant, which any clerk could sign as well. one great class of documents george iii. used to read before he signed them, till lord thurlow told him, "it was nonsense his looking at them, for he could not understand them". but the worst case is that of commissions in the army. till an act passed only three years since the queen used to sign all military commissions, and she still signs all fresh commissions. the inevitable and natural consequence is that such commissions were, and to some extent still are, in arrears by thousands. men have often been known to receive their commissions for the first time years after they have left the service. if the queen had been an ordinary officer she would long since have complained, and long since have been relieved of this slavish labour. a cynical statesman is said to have defended it on the ground "that you may have a fool for a sovereign, and then it would be desirable he should have plenty of occupation in which he can do no harm". but it is in truth childish to heap formal duties of business upon a person who has of necessity so many formal duties of society. it is a remnant of the old days when george iii. would know everything, however trivial, and assent to everything, however insignificant. these labours of routine may be dismissed from the discussions. it is not by them that the sovereign acquires his authority either for evil or for good. the best mode of testing what we owe to the queen is to make a vigorous effort of the imagination, and see how we should get on without her. let us strip cabinet government of all its accessories, let us reduce it to its two necessary constituents--a representative assembly (a house of commons) and a cabinet appointed by that assembly--and examine how we should manage with them only. we are so little accustomed to analyse the constitution; we are so used to ascribe the whole effect of the constitution to the whole constitution, that a great many people will imagine it to be impossible that a nation should thrive or even live with only these two simple elements. but it is upon that possibility that the general imitability of the english government depends. a monarch that can be truly reverenced, a house of peers that can be really respected, are historical accidents nearly peculiar to this one island, and entirely peculiar to europe. a new country, if it is to be capable of a cabinet government, if it is not to degrade itself to presidential government, must create that cabinet out of its native resources--must not rely on these old world debris. many modes might be suggested by which a parliament might do in appearance what our parliament does in reality, viz., appoint a premier. but i prefer to select the simplest of all modes. we shall then see the bare skeleton of this polity, perceive in what it differs from the royal form, and be quite free from the imputation of having selected an unduly charming and attractive substitute. let us suppose the house of commons--existing alone and by itself--to appoint the premier quite simply, just as the shareholders of a railway choose a director. at each vacancy, whether caused by death or resignation, let any member or members have the right of nominating a successor; after a proper interval, such as the time now commonly occupied by a ministerial crisis, ten days or a fortnight, let the members present vote for the candidate they prefer; then let the speaker count the votes, and the candidate with the greatest number be premier. this mode of election would throw the whole choice into the hands of party organisation, just as our present mode does, except in so far as the crown interferes with it; no outsider would ever be appointed, because the immense number of votes which every great party brings into the field would far outnumber every casual and petty minority. the premier should not be appointed for a fixed time, but during good behaviour or the pleasure of parliament. mutatis mutandis, subject to the differences now to be investigated, what goes on now would go on then. the premier then, as now, must resign upon a vote of want of confidence, but the volition of parliament would then be the overt and single force in the selection of a successor, whereas it is now the predominant though latent force. it will help the discussion very much if we divide it into three parts. the whole course of a representative government has three stages--first, when a ministry is appointed; next, during its continuance; last, when it ends. let us consider what is the exact use of the queen at each of these stages, and how our present form of government differs in each, whether for good or for evil from that simpler form of cabinet government which might exist without her. at the beginning of an administration there would not be much difference between the royal and unroyal species of cabinet governments when there were only two great parties in the state, and when the greater of those parties was thoroughly agreed within itself who should be its parliamentary leader, and who therefore should be its premier. the sovereign must now accept that recognised leader; and if the choice were directly made by the house of commons, the house must also choose him; its supreme section, acting compactly and harmoniously, would sway its decisions without substantial resistance, and perhaps without even apparent competition. a predominant party, rent by no intestine demarcation, would be despotic. in such a case cabinet government would go on without friction whether there was a queen or whether there was no queen. the best sovereign could then achieve no good, and the worst effect no harm. but the difficulties are far greater when the predominant party is not agreed who should be its leader. in the royal form of cabinet government the sovereign then has sometimes a substantial selection; in the unroyal, who would choose? there must be a meeting at "willis's rooms"; there must be that sort of interior despotism of the majority over the minority within the party, by which lord john russell in was made to resign his pretensions to the supreme government, and to be content to serve as a subordinate to lord palmerston. the tacit compression which a party anxious for office would exercise over leaders who divided its strength, would be used and must be used. whether such a party would always choose precisely the best man may well be doubted. in a party once divided it is very difficult to secure unanimity in favour of the very person whom a disinterested bystander would recommend. all manner of jealousies and enmities are immediately awakened, and it is always difficult, often impossible, to get them to sleep again. but though such a party might not select the very best leader, they have the strongest motives to select a very good leader. the maintenance of their rule depends on it under a presidential constitution the preliminary caucuses which choose the president need not care as to the ultimate fitness of the man they choose. they are solely concerned with his attractiveness as a candidate; they need not regard his efficiency as a ruler. if they elect a man of weak judgment, he will reign his stated term; even though he show the best judgment, at the end of that term there will be by constitutional destiny another election. but under a ministerial government there is no such fixed destiny. the government is a removable government, its tenure depends upon its conduct. if a party in power were so foolish as to choose a weak man for its head, it would cease to be in power. its judgment is its life. suppose in that the whig party had determined to set aside both earl russell and lord palmerston and to choose for its head an incapable nonentity, the whig party would probably have been exiled from office at the schleswig-holstein difficulty. the nation would have deserted them, and parliament would have deserted them, too; neither would have endured to see a secret negotiation, on which depended the portentous alternative of war or peace, in the hands of a person who was thought to be weak--who had been promoted because of his mediocrity--whom his own friends did not respect. a ministerial government, too, is carried on in the face of day. its life is in debate. a president may be a weak man; yet if he keep good ministers to the end of his administration, he may not be found out--it may still be a dubious controversy whether he is wise or foolish. but a prime minister must show what he is. he must meet the house of commons in debate; he must be able to guide that assembly in the management of its business, to gain its ear in every emergency, to rule it in its hours of excitement. he is conspicuously submitted to a searching test, and if he fails he must resign. nor would any party like to trust to a weak man the great power which a cabinet government commits to its premier. the premier, though elected by parliament can dissolve parliament. members would be naturally anxious that the power which might destroy their coveted dignity should be lodged in fit hands. they dare not place in unfit hands a power which, besides hurting the nation, might altogether ruin them. we may be sure, therefore, that whenever the predominant party is divided, the un-royal form of cabinet government would secure for us a fair and able parliamentary leader--that it would give us a good premier, if not the very best. can it be said that the royal form does more? in one case i think it may. if the constitutional monarch be a man of singular discernment, of unprejudiced disposition, and great political knowledge, he may pick out from the ranks of the divided party its very best leader, even at a time when the party, if left to itself, would not nominate him. if the sovereign be able to play the part of that thoroughly intelligent but perfectly disinterested spectator who is so prominent in the works of certain moralists, he may be able to choose better for his subjects than they would choose for themselves. but if the monarch be not so exempt from prejudice, and have not this nearly miraculous discernment, it is not likely that he will be able to make a wiser choice than the choice of the party itself. he certainly is not under the same motive to choose wisely. his place is fixed whatever happens, but the failure of an appointing party depends on the capacity of their appointee. there is great danger, too, that the judgment of the sovereign may be prejudiced. for more than forty years the personal antipathies of george iii. materially impaired successive administrations. almost at the beginning of his career he discarded lord chatham: almost at the end he would not permit mr. pitt to coalesce with mr. fox. he always preferred mediocrity; he generally disliked high ability; he always disliked great ideas. if constitutional monarchs be ordinary men of restricted experience and common capacity (and we have no right to suppose that by miracle they will be more), the judgment of the sovereign will often be worse than the judgment of the party, and he will be very subject to the chronic danger of preferring a respectful common-place man, such as addington, to an independent first-rate man, such as pitt. we shall arrive at the same sort of mixed conclusion if we examine the choice of a premier under both systems in the critical case of cabinet government--the case of three parties. this is the case in which that species of government is most sure to exhibit its defects, and least likely to exhibit its merits. the defining characteristic of that government is the choice of the executive ruler by the legislative assembly; but when there are three parties a satisfactory choice is impossible. a really good selection is a selection by a large majority which trusts those it chooses, but when there are three parties there is no such trust. the numerically weakest has the casting vote--it can determine which candidate shall be chosen. but it does so under a penalty. it forfeits the right of voting for its own candidate. it settles which of other people's favourites shall be chosen, on condition of abandoning its own favourite. a choice based on such self-denial can never be a firm choice--it is a choice at any moment liable to be revoked. the events of , though not a perfect illustration of what i mean, are a sufficient illustration. the radical party, acting apart from the moderate liberal party, kept lord derby in power. the ultra-movement party thought it expedient to combine with the non-movement party. as one of them coarsely but clearly put it, "we get more of our way under these men than under the other men"; he meant that, in his judgment, the tories would be more obedient to the radicals than the whigs. but it is obvious that a union of opposites so marked could not be durable. the radicals bought it by choosing the men whose principles were most adverse to them; the conservatives bought it by agreeing to measures whose scope was most adverse to them. after a short interval the radicals returned to their natural alliance and their natural discontent with the moderate whigs. they used their determining vote first for a government of one opinion and then for a government of the contrary opinion. i am not blaming this policy. i am using it merely as an illustration. i say that if we imagine this sort of action greatly exaggerated and greatly prolonged parliamentary government becomes impossible. if there are three parties, no two of which will steadily combine for mutual action, but of which the weakest gives a rapidly oscillating preference to the two others, the primary condition of a cabinet polity is not satisfied. we have not a parliament fit to choose; we cannot rely on the selection of a sufficiently permanent executive, because there is no fixity in the thoughts and feelings of the choosers. under every species of cabinet government, whether the royal or the unroyal, this defect can be cured in one way only. the moderate people of every party must combine to support the government which, on the whole, suits every party best. this is the mode in which lord palmerston's administration has been lately maintained; a ministry in many ways defective, but more beneficially vigorous abroad, and more beneficially active at home, than the vast majority of english ministries. the moderate conservatives and the moderate radicals have maintained a steady government by a sufficiently coherent union with the moderate whigs. whether there is a king or no king, this perservative self-denial is the main force on which we must rely for the satisfactory continuance of a parliamentary government at this its period of greatest trial. will that moderation be aided or impaired by the addition of a sovereign? will it be more effectual under the royal sort of ministerial government, or will it be less effectual? if the sovereign has a genius for discernment, the aid which he can give at such a crisis will be great. he will select for his minister, and if possible maintain as his minister, the statesman upon whom the moderate party will ultimately fix their choice, but for whom at the outset it is blindly searching; being a man of sense, experience, and tact, he will discern which is the combination of equilibrium, which is the section with whom the milder members of the other sections will at last ally themselves. amid the shifting transitions of confused parties, it is probable that he will have many opportunities of exercising a selection. it will rest with him to call either on a b to form an administration, or upon x y, and either may have a chance of trial. a disturbed state of parties is inconsistent with fixity, but it abounds in momentary tolerance. wanting something, but not knowing with precision what, parties will accept for a brief period anything, to see whether it may be that unknown something--to see what it will do. during the long succession of weak governments which begins with the resignation of the duke of newcastle in and ends with the accession of mr. pitt in , the vigorous will of george iii. was an agency of the first magnitude. if at a period of complex and protracted division of parties, such as are sure to occur often and last long in every enduring parliamentary government, the extrinsic force of royal selection were always exercised discreetly, it would be a political benefit of incalculable value. but will it be so exercised? a constitutional sovereign must in the common course of government be a man of but common ability. i am afraid, looking to the early acquired feebleness of hereditary dynasties, that we must expect him to be a man of inferior ability. theory and experience both teach that the education of a prince can be but a poor education, and that a royal family will generally have less ability than other families. what right have we then to expect the perpetual entail on any family of an exquisite discretion, which if it be not a sort of genius, is at least as rare as genius? probably in most cases the greatest wisdom of a constitutional king would show itself in well-considered inaction. in the confused interval between and the queen and prince albert were far too wise to obtrude any selection of their own. if they had chosen, perhaps they would not have chosen lord palmerston. but they saw, or may be believed to have seen, that the world was settling down without them, and that by interposing an extrinsic agency, they would but delay the beneficial crystallisation of intrinsic forces. there is, indeed, a permanent reason which would make the wisest king, and the king who feels most sure of his wisdom, very slow to use that wisdom. the responsibility of parliament should be felt by parliament. so long as parliament thinks it is the sovereign's business to find a government it will be sure not to find a government itself. the royal form of ministerial government is the worst of all forms if it erect the subsidiary apparatus into the principal force, if it induce the assembly which ought to perform paramount duties to expect some one else to perform them. it should be observed, too, in fairness to the unroyal species of cabinet government, that it is exempt from one of the greatest and most characteristic defects of the royal species. where there is no court there can be no evil influence from a court. what these influences are every one knows; though no one, hardly the best and closest observer, can say with confidence and precision how great their effect is. sir robert walpole, in language too coarse for our modern manners, declared after the death of queen caroline, that he would pay no attention to the king's daughters ("those girls," as he called them), but would rely exclusively on madame de walmoden, the king's mistress. "the king," says a writer in george iv.'s time, "is in our favour, and what is more to the purpose, the marchioness of conyngham is so too." everybody knows to what sort of influences several italian changes of government since the unity of italy have been attributed. these sinister agencies are likely to be most effective just when everything else is troubled, and when, therefore, they are particularly dangerous. the wildest and wickedest king's mistress would not plot against an invulnerable administration. but very many will intrigue when parliament is perplexed, when parties are divided, when alternatives are many, when many evil things are possible, when cabinet government must be difficult. it is very important to see that a good administration can be started without a sovereign, because some colonial statesmen have doubted it. "i can conceive," it has been said, "that a ministry would go on well enough without a governor when it was launched, but i do not see how to launch it." it has even been suggested that a colony which broke away from england, and had to form its own government, might not unwisely choose a governor for life, and solely trusted with selecting ministers, something like the abbe sieyes's grand elector. but the introduction of such an officer into such a colony would in fact be the voluntary erection of an artificial encumbrance to it. he would inevitably be a party man. the most dignified post in the state must be an object of contest to the great sections into which every active political community is divided. these parties mix in everything and meddle in everything; and they neither would nor could permit the most honoured and conspicuous of all stations to be filled, except at their pleasure. they know, too, that the grand elector, the great chooser of ministries, might be, at a sharp crisis, either a good friend or a bad enemy. the strongest party would select some one who would be on their side when he had to take a side, who would incline to them when he did incline, who should be a constant auxiliary to them and a constant impediment to their adversaries. it is absurd to choose by contested party election an impartial chooser of ministers. but it is during the continuance of a ministry, rather than at its creation, that the functions of the sovereign will mainly interest most persons, and that most people will think them to be of the gravest importance. i own i am myself of that opinion. i think it may be shown that the post of sovereign over an intelligent and political people under a constitutional monarchy is the post which a wise man would choose above any other--where he would find the intellectual impulses best stimulated and the worst intellectual impulses best controlled. on the duties of the queen during an administration we have an invaluable fragment from her own hand. in louis napoleon had his coup d'etat: in lord john russell had his--he expelled lord palmerston. by a most instructive breach of etiquette he read in the house a royal memorandum on the duties of his rival. it is as follows: "the queen requires, first, that lord palmerston will distinctly state what he proposes in a given case, in order that the queen may know as distinctly to what she is giving her royal sanction. secondly, having once given her sanction to such a measure that it be not arbitrarily altered or modified by the minister. such an act she must consider as failing in sincerity towards the crown, and justly to be visited by the exercise of her constitutional right of dismissing that minister. she expects to be kept informed of what passes between him and foreign ministers before important decisions are taken based upon that intercourse; to receive the foreign despatches in good time; and to have the drafts for her approval sent to her in sufficient time to make herself acquainted with their contents before they must be sent off." in addition to the control over particular ministers, and especially over the foreign minister, the queen has a certain control over the cabinet. the first minister, it is understood, transmits to her authentic information of all the most important decisions, together with, what the newspapers would do equally well, the more important votes in parliament. he is bound to take care that she knows everything which there is to know as to the passing politics of the nation. she has by rigid usage a right to complain if she does not know of every great act of her ministry, not only before it is done, but while there is yet time to consider it--while it is still possible that it may not be done. to state the matter shortly, the sovereign has, under a constitutional monarchy such as ours, three rights--the right to be consulted, the right to encourage, the right to warn. and a king of great sense and sagacity would want no others. he would find that his having no others would enable him to use these with singular effect. he would say to his minister: "the responsibility of these measures is upon you. whatever you think best must be done. whatever you think best shall have my full and effectual support. but you will observe that for this reason and that reason what you propose to do is bad; for this reason and that reason what you do not propose is better. i do not oppose, it is my duty not to oppose; but observe that i warn." supposing the king to be right, and to have what kings often have, the gift of effectual expression, he could not help moving his minister. he might not always turn his course, but he would always trouble his mind. in the course of a long reign a sagacious king would acquire an experience with which few ministers could contend. the king could say: "have you referred to the transactions which happened during such and such an administration, i think about fourteen years ago? they afford an instructive example of the bad results which are sure to attend the policy which you propose. you did not at that time take so prominent a part in public life as you now do, and it is possible you do not fully remember all the events. i should recommend you to recur to them, and to discuss them with your older colleagues who took part in them. it is unwise to recommence a policy which so lately worked so ill." the king would indeed have the advantage which a permanent under-secretary has over his superior the parliamentary secretary--that of having shared in the proceedings of the previous parliamentary secretaries. these proceedings were part of his own life; occupied the best of his thoughts, gave him perhaps anxiety, perhaps pleasure, were commenced in spite of his dissuasion, or were sanctioned by his approval. the parliamentary secretary vaguely remembers that something was done in the time of some of his predecessors, when he very likely did not know the least or care the least about that sort of public business. he has to begin by learning painfully and imperfectly what the permanent secretary knows by clear and instant memory. no doubt a parliamentary secretary always can, and sometimes does, silence his subordinate by the tacit might of his superior dignity. he says: "i do not think there is much in all that. many errors were committed at the time you refer to which we need not now discuss." a pompous man easily sweeps away the suggestions of those beneath him. but though a minister may so deal with his subordinate, he cannot so deal with his king. the social force of admitted superiority by which he overturned his under-secretary is now not with him but against him. he has no longer to regard the deferential hints of an acknowledged inferior, but to answer the arguments of a superior to whom he has himself to be respectful. george iii. in fact knew the forms of public business as well or better than any statesman of his time. if, in addition to his capacity as a man of business and to his industry, he had possessed the higher faculties of a discerning states man, his influence would have been despotic. the old constitution of england undoubtedly gave a sort of power to the crown which our present constitution does not give. while a majority in parliament was principally purchased by royal patronage, the king was a party to the bargain either with his minister or without his minister. but even under our present constitution a monarch like george iii., with high abilities, would possess the greatest influence. it is known to all europe that in belgium king leopold has exercised immense power by the use of such means as i have described. it is known, too, to every one conversant with the real course of the recent history of england, that prince albert really did gain great power in precisely the same way. he had the rare gifts of a constitutional monarch. if his life had been prolonged twenty years, his name would have been known to europe as that of king leopold is known. while he lived he was at a disadvantage. the statesmen who had most power in england were men of far greater experience than himself. he might, and no doubt did, exercise a great, if not a commanding influence over lord malmesbury, but he could not rule lord palmerston. the old statesman who governed england, at an age when most men are unfit to govern their own families, remembered a whole generation of states men who were dead before prince albert was born. the two were of different ages and different natures. the elaborateness of the german prince--an elaborateness which has been justly and happily compared with that of goethe--was wholly alien to the half-irish, half-english, statesman. the somewhat boisterous courage in minor dangers, and the obtrusive use of an always effectual but not always refined, commonplace, which are lord palmerston's defects, doubtless grated on prince albert, who had a scholar's caution and a scholar's courage. the facts will be known to our children's children, though not to us. prince albert did much, but he died ere he could have made his influence felt on a generation of statesmen less experienced than he was, and anxious to learn from him. it would be childish to suppose that a conference between a minister and his sovereign can ever be a conference of pure argument. "the divinity which doth hedge a king" may have less sanctity than it had, but it still has much sanctity. no one, or scarcely any one, can argue with a cabinet minister in his own room as well as he would argue with another man in another room. he cannot make his own points as well; he cannot unmake as well the points presented to him. a monarch's room is worse. the best instance is lord chatham, the most dictatorial and imperious of english statesmen, and almost the first english statesman who was borne into power against the wishes of the king and against the wishes of the nobility--the first popular minister. we might have expected a proud tribune of the people to be dictatorial to his sovereign--to be to the king what he was to all others. on the contrary, he was the slave of his own imagination; there was a kind of mystic enchantment in vicinity to the monarch which divested him of his ordinary nature. "the least peep into the king's closet," said mr. burke, "intoxicates him, and will to the end of his life." a wit said that, even at the levee, he bowed so low that you could see the tip of his hooked nose between his legs. he was in the habit of kneeling at the bedside of george iii. while transacting business. now no man can argue on his knees. the same superstitious feeling which keeps him in that physical attitude will keep him in a corresponding mental attitude. he will not refute the bad arguments of the king as he will refute another man's bad arguments. he will not state his own best arguments effectively and incisively when he knows that the king would not like to hear them. in a nearly balanced argument the king must always have the better, and in politics many most important arguments are nearly balanced. whenever there was much to be said for the king's opinion it would have its full weight; whatever was said for the minister's opinion would only have a lessened and enfeebled weight. the king, too, possesses a power, according to theory, for extreme use on a critical occasion, but which he can in law use on any occasion. he can dissolve; he can say to his minister, in fact, if not in words, "this parliament sent you here, but i will see if i cannot get another parliament to send some one else here." george iii. well understood that it was best to take his stand at times and on points when it was perhaps likely, or at any rate not unlikely, the nation would support him. he always made a minister that he did not like tremble at the shadow of a possible successor. he had a cunning in such matters like the cunning of insanity. he had conflicts with the ablest men of his time, and he was hardly ever baffled. he understood how to help a feeble argument by a tacit threat, and how best to address it to an habitual deference. perhaps such powers as these are what a wise man would most seek to exercise and least fear to possess. to wish to be a despot, "to hunger after tyranny," as the greek phrase had it, marks in our day an uncultivated mind. a person who so wishes cannot have weighed what butler calls the "doubtfulness things are involved in". to be sure you are right to impose your will, or to wish to impose it, with violence upon others; to see your own ideas vividly and fixedly, and to be tormented till you can apply them in life and practice, not to like to hear the opinions of others, to be unable to sit down and weigh the truth they have, are but crude states of intellect in our present civilisation. we know, at least, that facts are many; that progress is complicated; that burning ideas (such as young men have) are mostly false and always incomplete. the notion of a far-seeing and despotic statesman, who can lay down plans for ages yet unborn, is a fancy generated by the pride of the human intellect to which facts give no support. the plans of charlemagne died with him; those of richelieu were mistaken; those of napoleon gigantesque and frantic. but a wise and great constitutional monarch attempts no such vanities. his career is not in the air; he labours in the world of sober fact; he deals with schemes which can be effected--schemes which are desirable--schemes which are worth the cost. he says to the ministry his people send to him, to ministry after ministry, "i think so and so; do you see if there is anything in it. i have put down my reasons in a certain memorandum, which i will give you. probably it does not exhaust the subject, but it will suggest materials for your consideration." by years of discussion with ministry after ministry, the best plans of the wisest king would certainly be adopted, and the inferior plans, the impracticable plans, rooted out and rejected. he could not be uselessly beyond his time, for he would have been obliged to convince the representatives, the characteristic men of his time. he would have the best means of proving that he was right on all new and strange matters, for he would have won to his side probably, after years of discussion, the chosen agents of the commonplace world--men who were where they were, because they had pleased the men of the existing age, who will never be much disposed to new conceptions or profound thoughts. a sagacious and original constitutional monarch might go to his grave in peace if any man could. he would know that his best laws were in harmony with his age; that they suited the people who were to work them, the people who were to be benefited by them. and he would have passed a happy life. he would have passed a life in which he could always get his arguments heard, in which he could always make those who have the responsibility of action think of them before they acted--in which he could know that the schemes which he had set at work in the world were not the casual accidents of an individual idiosyncrasy, which are mostly much wrong, but the likeliest of all things to be right--the ideas of one very intelligent man at last accepted and acted on by the ordinary intelligent many. but can we expect such a king, or, for that is the material point, can we expect a lineal series of such kings? every one has heard the reply of the emperor alexander to madame de stael, who favoured him with a declamation in praise of beneficent despotism. "yes, madame, but it is only a happy accident." he well knew that the great abilities and the good intentions necessary to make an efficient and good despot never were continuously combined in any line of rulers. he knew that they were far out of reach of hereditary human nature. can it be said that the characteristic qualities of a constitutional monarch are more within its reach? i am afraid it cannot. we found just now that the characteristic use of an hereditary constitutional monarch, at the outset of an administration, greatly surpassed the ordinary competence of hereditary faculties. i fear that an impartial investigation will establish the same conclusion as to his uses during the continuance of an administration. if we look at history, we shall find that it is only during the period of the present reign that in england the duties of a constitutional sovereign have ever been well performed. the first two georges were ignorant of english affairs, and wholly unable to guide them, whether well or ill; for many years in their time the prime minister had, over and above the labour of managing parliament, to manage the woman--sometimes the queen, sometimes the mistress--who managed the sovereign; george iii. interfered unceasingly, but he did harm unceasingly; george iv. and william iv. gave no steady continuing guidance, and were unfit to give it. on the continent, in first-class countries, constitutional royalty has never lasted out of one generation. louis philippe, victor emmanuel, and leopold are the founders of their dynasties; we must not reckon in constitutional monarchy any more than in despotic monarchy on the permanence in the descendants of the peculiar genius which founded the race. as far as experience goes, there is no reason to expect an hereditary series of useful limited monarchs. if we look to theory, there is even less reason to expect it. a monarch is useful when he gives an effectual and beneficial guidance to his ministers. but these ministers are sure to be among the ablest men of their time. they will have had to conduct the business of parliament so as to satisfy it; they will have to speak so as to satisfy it. the two together cannot be done save by a man of very great and varied ability. the exercise of the two gifts is sure to teach a man much of the world; and if it did not, a parliamentary leader has to pass through a magnificent training before he becomes a leader. he has to gain a seat in parliament; to gain the ear of parliament; to gain the confidence of parliament; to gain the confidence of his colleagues. no one can achieve these--no one, still more, can both achieve them and retain them--without a singular ability, nicely trained in the varied detail of life. what chance has an hereditary monarch such as nature forces him to be, such as history shows he is, against men so educated and so born? he can but be an average man to begin with; sometimes he will be clever, but sometimes he will be stupid; in the long run he will be neither clever nor stupid; he will be the simple, common man who plods the plain routine of life from the cradle to the grave. his education will be that of one who has never had to struggle; who has always felt that he has nothing to gain; who has had the first dignity given him; who has never seen common life as in truth it is. it is idle to expect an ordinary man born in the purple to have greater genius than an extraordinary man born out of the purple; to expect a man whose place has always been fixed to have a better judgment than one who has lived by his judgment; to expect a man whose career will be the same whether he is discreet or whether he is indiscreet to have the nice discretion of one who has risen by his wisdom, who will fall if he ceases to be wise. the characteristic advantage of a constitutional king is the permanence of his place. this gives him the opportunity of acquiring a consecutive knowledge of complex transactions, but it gives only an opportunity. the king must use it. there is no royal road to political affairs: their detail is vast, disagreeable, complicated, and miscellaneous. a king, to be the equal of his ministers in discussion, must work as they work; he must be a man of business as they are men of business. yet a constitutional prince is the man who is most tempted to pleasure, and the least forced to business. a despot must feel that he is the pivot of the state. the stress of his kingdom is upon him. as he is, so are his affairs. he may be seduced into pleasure; he may neglect all else; but the risk is evident. he will hurt himself; he may cause a revolution. if he becomes unfit to govern, some one else who is fit may conspire against him. but a constitutional king need fear nothing. he may neglect his duties, but he will not be injured. his place will be as fixed, his income as permanent, his opportunities of selfish enjoyment as full as ever. why should he work? it is true he will lose the quiet and secret influence which in the course of years industry would gain for him; but an eager young man, on whom the world is squandering its luxuries and its temptations, will not be much attracted by the distant prospect of a moderate influence over dull matters. he may form good intentions; he may say, "next year i will read these papers; i will try and ask more questions; i will not let these women talk to me so". but they will talk to him. the most hopeless idleness is that most smoothed with excellent plans. "the lord treasurer," says swift, "promised he will settle it to-night, and so he will say a hundred nights." we may depend upon it the ministry whose power will be lessened by the prince's attention will not be too eager to get him to attend. so it is if the prince come young to the throne; but the case is worse when he comes to it old or middle-aged. he is then unfit to work. he will then have spent the whole of youth and the first part of manhood in idleness, and it is unnatural to expect him to labour. a pleasure-loving lounger in middle life will not begin to work as george iii. worked, or as prince albert worked. the only fit material for a constitutional king is a prince who begins early to reign--who in his youth is superior to pleasure--who in his youth is willing to labour--who has by nature a genius for discretion. such kings are among god's greatest gifts, but they are also among his rarest. an ordinary idle king on a constitutional throne will leave no mark on his time: he will do little good and as little harm; the royal form of cabinet government will work in his time pretty much as the unroyal. the addition of a cypher will not matter though it take precedence of the significant figures. but corruptio optimi pessima. the most evil case of the royal form is far worse than the most evil case of the unroyal. it is easy to imagine, upon a constitutional throne, an active and meddling fool who always acts when he should not, who never acts when he should, who warns his ministers against their judicious measures, who encourages them in their injudicious measures. it is easy to imagine that such a king should be the tool of others; that favourites should guide him; that mistresses should corrupt him; that the atmosphere of a bad court should be used to degrade free government. we have had an awful instance of the dangers of constitutional royalty. we have had the case of a meddling maniac. during great part of his life george iii.'s reason was half upset by every crisis. throughout his life he had an obstinacy akin to that of insanity. he was an obstinate and an evil influence; he could not be turned from what was inexpedient; by the aid of his station he turned truer but weaker men from what was expedient. he gave an excellent moral example to his contemporaries, but he is an instance of those whose good dies with them, while their evil lives after them. he prolonged the american war, perhaps he caused the american war, so we inherit the vestiges of an american hatred; he forbade mr. pitt's wise plans, so we inherit an irish difficulty. he would not let us do right in time, so now our attempts at right are out of time and fruitless. constitutional royalty under an active and half-insane king is one of the worst of governments. there is in it a secret power which is always eager, which is generally obstinate, which is often wrong, which rules ministers more than they know themselves, which overpowers them much more than the public believe, which is irresponsible because it is inscrutable, which cannot be prevented because it cannot be seen. the benefits of a good monarch are almost invaluable, but the evils of a bad monarch are almost irreparable. we shall find these conclusions confirmed if we examine the powers and duties of an english monarch at the break-up of an administration. but the power of dissolution and the prerogative of creating peers, the cardinal powers of that moment are too important and involve too many complex matters to be sufficiently treated at the very end of a paper as long as this. no. iv. the house of lords. in my last essay i showed that it was possible for a constitutional monarch to be, when occasion served, of first-rate use both at the outset and during the continuance of an administration; but that in matter of fact it was not likely that he would be useful. the requisite ideas, habits, and faculties, far surpass the usual competence of an average man, educated in the common manner of sovereigns. the same arguments are entirely applicable at the close of an administration. but at that conjuncture the two most singular prerogatives of an english king--the power of creating new peers and the power of dissolving the commons--come into play; and we cannot duly criticise the use or misuse of these powers till we know what the peers are and what the house of commons is. the use of the house of lords or, rather, of the lords, in its dignified capacity--is very great. it does not attract so much reverence as the queen, but it attracts very much. the office of an order of nobility is to impose on the common people--not necessarily to impose on them what is untrue, yet less what is hurtful; but still to impose on their quiescent imaginations what would not otherwise be there. the fancy of the mass of men is incredibly weak; it can see nothing without a visible symbol, and there is much that it can scarcely make out with a symbol. nobility is the symbol of mind. it has the marks from which the mass of men always used to infer mind, and often still infer it. a common clever man who goes into a country place will get no reverence; but the "old squire" will get reverence. even after he is insolvent, when every one knows that his ruin is but a question of time, he will get five times as much respect from the common peasantry as the newly-made rich man who sits beside him. the common peasantry will listen to his nonsense more submissively than to the new man's sense. an old lord will get infinite respect. his very existence is so far useful that it awakens the sensation of obedience to a sort of mind in the coarse, dull, contracted multitude, who could neither appreciate nor perceive any other. the order of nobility is of great use, too, not only in what it creates, but in what it prevents. it prevents the rule of wealth--the religion of gold. this is the obvious and natural idol of the anglo-saxon. he is always trying to make money; he reckons everything in coin; he bows down before a great heap and sneers as he passes a little heap. he has a "natural instinctive admiration of wealth for its own sake". and within good limits the feeling is quite right. so long as we play the game of industry vigorously and eagerly (and i hope we shall long play it, for we must be very different from what we are if we do anything better), we shall of necessity respect and admire those who play successfully, and a little despise those who play unsuccessfully. whether this feeling be right or wrong, it is useless to discuss; to a certain degree, it is involuntary; it is not for mortals to settle whether we will have it or not; nature settles for us that, within moderate limits, we must have it. but the admiration of wealth in many countries goes far beyond this; it ceases to regard in any degree the skill of acquisition; it respects wealth in the hands of the inheritor just as much as in the hands of the maker; it is a simple envy and love of a heap of gold as a heap of gold. from this our aristocracy preserves us. there is no country where a "poor devil of a millionaire is so ill off as in england". the experiment is tried every day, and every day it is proved that money alone--money pur et simple--will not buy "london society". money is kept down, and, so to say, cowed by the predominant authority of a different power. but it may be said that this is no gain; that worship for worship, the worship of money is as good as the worship of rank. even granting that it were so, it is a great gain to society to have two idols: in the competition of idolatries the true worship gets a chance. but it is not true that the reverence for rank--at least, for hereditary rank--is as base as the reverence for money. as the world has gone, manner has been half-hereditary in certain castes, and manner is one of the fine arts. it is the style of society; it is in the daily-spoken intercourse of human beings what the art of literary expression is in their occasional written intercourse. in reverencing wealth we reverence not a man, but an appendix to a man; in reverencing inherited nobility, we reverence the probable possession of a great faculty--the faculty of bringing out what is in one. the unconscious grace of life may be in the middle classes: finely-mannered persons are born everywhere; but it ought to be in the aristocracy: and a man must be born with a hitch in his nerves if he has not some of it. it is a physiological possession of the race, though it is sometimes wanting in the individual. there is a third idolatry from which that of rank preserves us, and perhaps it is the worst of any--that of office. the basest deity is a subordinate employee, and yet just now in civilised governments it is the commonest. in france and all the best of the continent it rules like a superstition. it is to no purpose that you prove that the pay of petty officials is smaller than mercantile pay; that their work is more monotonous than mercantile work; that their mind is less useful and their life more tame. they are still thought to be greater and better. they are decords; they have a little red on the left breast of their coat, and no argument will answer that. in england, by the odd course of our society, what a theorist would desire has in fact turned up. the great offices, whether permanent or parliamentary, which require mind now give social prestige, and almost only those. an under-secretary of state with pounds a year is a much stronger man than the director of a finance company with pounds, and the country saves the difference. but except in a few offices like the treasury, which were once filled with aristocratic people, and have an odour of nobility at second-hand, minor place is of no social use. a big grocer despises the exciseman; and what in many countries would be thought impossible, the exciseman envies the grocer. solid wealth tells where there is no artificial dignity given to petty public functions. a clerk in the public service is "nobody"; and you could not make a common englishman see why he should be anybody. but it must be owned that this turning of society into a political expedient has half spoiled it. a great part of the "best" english people keep their mind in a state of decorous dulness. they maintain their dignity; they get obeyed; they are good and charitable to their dependants. but they have no notion of play of mind: no conception that the charm of society depends upon it. they think cleverness an antic, and have a constant though needless horror of being thought to have any of it. so much does this stiff dignity give the tone, that the few englishmen capable of social brilliancy mostly secrete it. they reserve it for persons whom they can trust, and whom they know to be capable of appreciating its nuances. but a good government is well worth a great deal of social dulness. the dignified torpor of english society is inevitable if we give precedence, not to the cleverest classes, but to the oldest classes, and we have seen how useful that is. the social prestige of the aristocracy is, as every one knows, immensely less than it was a hundred years or even fifty years since. two great movements--the two greatest of modern society--have been unfavourable to it. the rise of industrial wealth in countless forms has brought in a competitor which has generally more mind, and which would be supreme were it not for awkwardness and intellectual gene. every day our companies, our railways, our debentures, and our shares, tend more and more to multiply these surroundings of the aristocracy, and in time they will hide it. and while this undergrowth has come up, the aristocracy have come down. they have less means of standing out than they used to have. their power is in their theatrical exhibition, in their state. but society is every day becoming less stately. as our great satirist has observed, "the last duke of st. david's used to cover the north road with his carriages; landladies and waiters bowed before him. the present duke sneaks away from a railway station, smoking a cigar, in a brougham." the aristocracy cannot lead the old life if they would; they are ruled by a stronger power. they suffer from the tendency of all modern society to raise the average, and to lower--comparatively, and perhaps absolutely, to lower--the summit. as the picturesqueness, the featureliness, of society diminishes, aristocracy loses the single instrument of its peculiar power. if we remember the great reverence which used to be paid to nobility as such, we shall be surprised that the house of lords as an assembly, has always been inferior; that it was always just as now, not the first, but the second of our assemblies. i am not, of course, now speaking of the middle ages: i am not dealing with the embryo or the infant form of our constitution; i am only speaking of its adult form. take the times of sir r. walpole. he was prime minister because he managed the house of commons; he was turned out because he was beaten on an election petition in that house; he ruled england because he ruled that house. yet the nobility were then the governing power in england. in many districts the word of some lord was law. the "wicked lord lowther," as he was called, left a name of terror in westmoreland during the memory of men now living. a great part of the borough members and a great part of the county members were their nominees; an obedient, unquestioning deference was paid them. as individuals the peers were the greatest people; as a house the collected peers were but the second house. several causes contributed to create this anomaly, but the main cause was a natural one. the house of peers has never been a house where the most important peers were most important. it could not be so. the qualities which fit a man for marked eminence, in a deliberative assembly, are not hereditary, and are not coupled with great estates. in the nation, in the provinces, in his own province, a duke of devonshire, or a duke of bedford, was a much greater man than lord thurlow. they had great estates, many boroughs, innumerable retainers, followings like a court. lord thurlow had no boroughs, no retainers; he lived on his salary. till the house of lords met, the dukes were not only the greatest, but immeasurably the greatest. but as soon as the house met, lord thurlow became the greatest. he could speak, and the others could not speak. he could transact business in half an hour which they could not have transacted in a day, or could not have transacted at all. when some foolish peer, who disliked his domination, sneered at his birth, he had words to meet the case: he said it was better for any one to owe his place to his own exertions than to owe it to descent, to being the "accident of an accident". but such a house as this could not be pleasant to great noblemen. they could not like to be second in their own assembly (and yet that was their position from age to age) to a lawyer who was of yesterday,--whom everybody could remember without briefs, who had talked for "hire," who had "hungered after six-and-eightpence". great peers did not gain glory from the house; on the contrary, they lost glory when they were in the house. they devised two expedients to get out of this difficulty: they invented proxies which enabled them to vote without being present, without being offended by vigour and invective, without being vexed by ridicule, without leaving the rural mansion or the town palace where they were demigods. and what was more effectual still, they used their influence in the house of commons instead of the house of lords. in that indirect manner a rural potentate, who half returned two county members, and wholly returned two borough members, who perhaps gave seats to members of the government, who possibly seated the leader of the opposition, became a much greater man than by sitting on his own bench, in his own house, hearing a chancellor talk. the house of lords was a second-rate force, even when the peers were a first-rate force, because the greatest peers, those who had the greatest social importance, did not care for their own house, or like it, but gained great part of their political power by a hidden but potent influence in the competing house. when we cease to look at the house of lords under its dignified aspect, and come to regard it under its strictly useful aspect, we find the literary theory of the english constitution wholly wrong, as usual. this theory says that the house of lords is a co-ordinate estate of the realm, of equal rank with the house of commons; that it is the aristocratic branch, just as the commons is the popular branch; and that by the principle of our constitution the aristocratic branch has equal authority with the popular branch. so utterly false is this doctrine that it is a remarkable peculiarity, a capital excellence of the british constitution, that it contains a sort of upper house, which is not of equal authority to the lower house, yet still has some authority. the evil of two co-equal houses of distinct natures is obvious. each house can stop all legislation, and yet some legislation may be necessary. at this moment we have the best instance of this which could be conceived. the upper house of our victorian constitution, representing the rich wool-growers, has disagreed with the lower assembly, and most business is suspended. but for a most curious stratagem, the machine of government would stand still. most constitutions have committed this blunder. the two most remarkable republican institutions in the world commit it. in both the american and the swiss constitutions the upper house has as much authority as the second: it could produce the maximum of impediment--the dead-lock, if it liked; if it does not do so, it is owing not to the goodness of the legal constitution, but to the discreetness of the members of the chamber. in both these constitutions, this dangerous division is defended by a peculiar doctrine with which i have nothing to do now. it is said that there must be in a federal government some institution, some authority, some body possessing a veto in which the separate states composing the confederation are all equal. i confess this doctrine has to me no self-evidence, and it is assumed, but not proved. the state of delaware is not equal in power or influence to the state of new york, and you cannot make it so by giving it an equal veto in an upper chamber. the history of such an institution is indeed most natural. a little state will like, and must like, to see some token, some memorial mark of its old independence preserved in the constitution by which that independence is extinguished. but it is one thing for an institution to be natural, and another for it to be expedient. if indeed it be that a federal government compels the erection of an upper chamber of conclusive and co-ordinate authority, it is one more in addition to the many other inherent defects of that kind of government. it may be necessary to have the blemish, but it is a blemish just as much. there ought to be in every constitution an available authority somewhere. the sovereign power must be come-at-able. and the english have made it so. the house of lords, at the passing of the reform act of , was as unwilling to concur with the house of commons as the upper chamber at victoria to concur with the lower chamber. but it did concur. the crown has the authority to create new peers; and the king of the day had promised the ministry of the day to create them. the house of lords did not like the precedent, and they passed the bill. the power was not used, but its existence was as useful as its energy. just as the knowledge that his men can strike makes a master yield in order that they may not strike, so the knowledge that their house could be swamped at the will of the king--at the will of the people--made the lords yield to the people. from the reform act the function of the house of lords has been altered in english history. before that act it was, if not a directing chamber, at least a chamber of directors. the leading nobles, who had most influence in the commons, and swayed the commons, sat there. aristocratic influence was so powerful in the house of commons, that there never was any serious breach of unity. when the houses quarrelled, it was as in the great aylesbury case, about their respective privileges, and not about the national policy. the influence of the nobility was then so potent, that it was not necessary to exert it. the english constitution, though then on this point very different from what it now is, did not even then contain the blunder of the victorian or of the swiss constitution. it had not two houses of distinct origin; it had two houses of common origin--two houses in which the predominant element was the same. the danger of discordance was obviated by a latent unity. since the reform act the house of lords has become a revising and suspending house. it can alter bills; it can reject bills on which the house of commons is not yet thoroughly in earnest--upon which the nation is not yet determined. their veto is a sort of hypothetical veto. they say, we reject your bill for this once or these twice, or even these thrice: but if you keep on sending it up, at last we won't reject it. the house has ceased to be one of latent directors, and has become one of temporary rejectors and palpable alterers. it is the sole claim of the duke of wellington to the name of a statesman, that he presided over this change. he wished to guide the lords to their true position, and he did guide them. in , in the crisis of the corn-law struggle, and when it was a question whether the house of lords should resist or yield, he wrote a very curious letter to the late lord derby:-- "for many years, indeed from the year , when i retired from office, i have endeavoured to manage the house of lords upon the principle on which i conceive that the institution exists in the constitution of the country, that of conservatism. i have invariably objected to all violent and extreme measures, which is not exactly the mode of acquiring influence in a political party in england, particularly one in opposition to government. i have invariably supported government in parliament upon important occasions, and have always exercised my personal influence to prevent the mischief of anything like a difference or division between the two houses,--of which there are some remarkable instances, to which i will advert here, as they will tend to show you the nature of my management, and possibly, in some degree, account for the extraordinary power which i have for so many years exercised, without any apparent claim to it." upon finding the difficulties in which the late king william was involved by a promise made to create peers, the number, i believe, indefinite, i determined myself, and i prevailed upon others, the number very large, to be absent from the house in the discussion of the last stages of the reform bill, after the negotiations had failed for the formation of a new administration. this course gave at the time great dissatisfaction to the party; notwithstanding that i believe it saved the existence of the house of lords at the time, and the constitution of the country. "subsequently, throughout the period from to , i prevailed upon the house of lords to depart from many principles and systems which they as well as i had adopted and voted on irish tithes, irish corporations, and other measures, much to the vexation and annoyance of many. but i recollect one particular measure, the union of the provinces of upper and lower canada, in the early stages of which i had spoken in opposition to the measure, and had protested against it; and in the last stages of it i prevailed upon the house to agree to, and pass it, in order to avoid the injury to the public interests of a dispute between the houses upon a question of such importance. then i supported the measures of the government, and protected the servant of the government, captain elliot, in china. all of which tended to weaken my influence with some of the party; others, possibly a majority, might have approved of the course which i took. it was at the same time well known that from the commencement at least of lord melbourne's government, i was in constant communication with it, upon all military matters, whether occurring at home or abroad, at all events. but likewise upon many others." "all this tended of course to diminish my influence in the conservative party, while it tended essentially to the ease and satisfaction of the sovereign, and to the maintenance of good order. at length came the resignation of the government by sir robert peel, in the month of december last, and the queen desiring lord john russell to form an administration. on the th of december the queen wrote to me the letter of which i enclose the copy, and the copy of my answer of the same date; of which it appears that you have never seen copies, although i communicated them immediately to sir robert peel. it was impossible for me to act otherwise than is indicated in my letter to the queen. i am the servant of the crown and people. i have been paid and rewarded, and i consider myself retained; and that i can't do otherwise than serve as required, when i can do so without dishonour, that is to say, as long as i have health and strength to enable me to serve. but it is obvious that there is, and there must be, an end of all connection and counsel between party and me. i might with consistency, and some may think that i ought to have declined to belong to sir robert peel's cabinet on the night of the th of december. but my opinion is, that if i had, sir robert peel's government would not have been framed; that we should have had ---- and ---- in office next morning. "but, at all events, it is quite obvious that when that arrangement comes, which sooner or later must come, there will be an end to all influence on my part over the conservative party, if i should be so indiscreet as to attempt to exercise any. you will see, therefore, that the stage is quite clear for you, and that you need not apprehend the consequences of differing in opinion from me when you will enter upon it; as in truth i have, by my letter to the queen of the th of december, put an end to the connection between the party and me, when the party will be in opposition to her majesty's government." "my opinion is, that the great object of all is that you should assume the station, and exercise the influence, which i have so long exercised in the house of lords. the question is, how is that object to be attained? by guiding their opinion and decision, or by following it? you will see that i have endeavoured to guide their opinion, and have succeeded upon some most remarkable occasions. but it has been by a good deal of management. "upon the important occasion and question now before the house, i propose to endeavour to induce them to avoid to involve the country in the additional difficulties of a difference of opinion, possibly a dispute between the houses, on a question in the decision of which it has been frequently asserted that their lordships had a personal interest; which assertion, however false as affecting each of them personally, could not be denied as affecting the proprietors of land in general. i am aware of the difficulty, but i don't despair of carrying the bill through. you must be the best judge of the course which you ought to take, and of the course most likely to conciliate the confidence of the house of lords. my opinion is, that you should advise the house to vote that which would tend most to public order, and would be most beneficial to the immediate interests of the country." this is the mode in which the house of lords came to be what it now is, a chamber with (in most cases) a veto of delay with (in most cases) a power of revision, but with no other rights or powers. the question we have to answer is, "the house of lords being such, what is the use of the lords?" the common notion evidently fails, that it is a bulwark against imminent revolution. as the duke's letter in every line evinces, the wisest members, the guiding members of the house, know that the house must yield to the people if the people is determined. the two cases--that of the reform act and the corn laws--were decisive cases. the great majority of the lords thought reform revolution, free-trade confiscation, and the two together ruin. if they could ever have been trusted to resist the people, they would then have resisted it. but in truth it is idle to expect a second chamber--a chamber of notables--ever to resist a popular chamber, a nation's chamber, when that chamber is vehement and the nation vehement too. there is no strength in it for that purpose. every class chamber, every minority chamber, so to speak, feels weak and helpless when the nation is excited. in a time of revolution there are but two powers, the sword and the people. the executive commands the sword; the great lesson which the first napoleon taught the parisian populace--the contribution he made to the theory of revolutions at the th brumaire--is now well known. any strong soldier at the head of the army can use the army. but a second chamber cannot use it. it is a pacific assembly composed of timid peers, aged lawyers, or, as abroad, clever litterateurs. such a body has no force to put down the nation, and if the nation will have it do something it must do it. the very nature, too, as has been seen, of the lords in the english constitution, shows that it cannot stop revolution. the constitution contains an exceptional provision to prevent it stopping it. the executive, the appointee of the popular chamber and the nation, can make new peers, and so create a majority in the peers; it can say to the lords, "use the powers of your house as we like, or you shall not use them at all. we will find others to use them; your virtue shall go out of you if it is not used as we like, and stopped when we please." an assembly under such a threat cannot arrest, and could not be intended to arrest, a determined and insisting executive. in fact the house of lords, as a house, is not a bulwark that will keep out revolution, but an index that revolution is unlikely. resting as it does upon old deference, and inveterate homage, it shows that the spasm of new forces, the outbreak of new agencies, which we call revolution, is for the time simply impossible. so long as many old leaves linger on the november trees, you know that there has been little frost and no wind; just so while the house of lords retains much power, you may know that there is no desperate discontent in the country, no wild agency likely to cause a great demolition. there used to be a singular idea that two chambers--a revising chamber and a suggesting chamber--were essential to a free government. the first person who threw a hard stone--an effectually hitting stone--against the theory was one very little likely to be favourable to democratic influence, or to be blind to the use of aristocracy; it was the present lord grey. he had to look at the matter practically. he was the first great colonial minister of england who ever set himself to introduce representative institutions into all her capable colonies, and the difficulty stared him in the face that in those colonies there were hardly enough good people for one assembly, and not near enough good people for two assemblies. it happened--and most naturally happened--that a second assembly was mischievous. the second assembly was either the nominee of the crown, which in such places naturally allied itself with better instructed minds, or was elected by people with a higher property qualification--some peculiarly well-judging people. both these choosers choose the best men in the colony, and put them into the second assembly. but thus the popular assembly was left without those best men. the popular assembly was denuded of those guides and those leaders who would have led and guided it best. those superior men were put aside to talk to one another, and perhaps dispute with one another; they were a concentrated instance of high but neutralised forces. they wished to do good, but they could do nothing. the lower house, with all the best people in the colony extracted, did what it liked. the democracy was strengthened rather than weakened by the isolation of its best opponents in a weak position. as soon as experience had shown this, or seemed to show it, the theory that two chambers were essential to a good and free government vanished away. with a perfect lower house it is certain that an upper house would be scarcely of any value. if we had an ideal house of commons perfectly representing the nation, always moderate, never passionate, abounding in men of leisure, never omitting the slow and steady forms necessary for good consideration, it is certain that we should not need a higher chamber. the work would be done so well that we should not want any one to look over or revise it. and whatever is unnecessary in government is pernicious. human life makes so much complexity necessary that an artificial addition is sure to do harm: you cannot tell where the needless bit of machinery will catch and clog the hundred needful wheels; but the chances are conclusive that it will impede them some where, so nice are they and so delicate. but though beside an ideal house of commons the lords would be unnecessary, and therefore pernicious, beside the actual house a revising and leisured legislature is extremely useful, if not quite necessary. at present the chance majorities on minor questions in the house of commons are subject to no effectual control. the nation never attends to any but the principal matters of policy and state. upon these it forms that rude, rough, ruling judgment which we call public opinion; but upon other things it does not think at all, and it would be useless for it to think. it has not the materials for forming a judgment: the detail of bills, the instrumental part of policy, the latent part of legislation, are wholly out of its way. it knows nothing about them, and could not find time or labour for the careful investigation by which alone they can be apprehended. a casual majority of the house of commons has therefore dominant power: it can legislate as it wishes. and though the whole house of commons upon great subjects very fairly represents public opinion, and though its judgment upon minor questions is, from some secret excellencies in its composition, remarkably sound and good; yet, like all similar assemblies, it is subject to the sudden action of selfish combinations. there are said to be "members for the railways" in the present parliament. if these choose to combine on a point which the public does not care for, and which they care for because it affects their purse, they are absolute. a formidable sinister interest may always obtain the complete command of a dominant assembly by some chance and for a moment, and it is therefore of great use to have a second chamber of an opposite sort, differently composed, in which that interest in all likelihood will not rule. the most dangerous of all sinister interests is that of the executive government, because it is the most powerful. it is perfectly possible--it has happened and will happen again--that the cabinet, being very powerful in the commons, may inflict minor measures on the nation which the nation did not like, but which it did not understand enough to forbid. if, therefore, a tribunal of revision can be found in which the executive, though powerful, is less powerful, the government will be the better; the retarding chamber will impede minor instances of parliamentary tyranny, though it will not prevent or much impede revolution. every large assembly is, moreover, a fluctuating body; it is not one house, so to say, but a set of houses; it is one set of men to-night and another to-morrow night. a certain unity is doubtless preserved by the duty which the executive is supposed to undertake, and does undertake, of keeping a house; a constant element is so provided about which all sorts of variables accumulate and pass away. but even after due allowance for the full weight of this protective machinery, our house of commons is, as all such chambers must be, subject to sudden turns and bursts of feeling, because the members who compose it change from time to time. the pernicious result is perpetual in our legislation; many acts of parliament are medleys of different motives, because the majority which passed one set of its clauses is different from that which passed another set. but the greatest defect of the house of commons is that it has no leisure. the life of the house is the worst of all lives--a life of distracting routine. it has an amount of business brought before it such as no similar assembly ever has had. the british empire is a miscellaneous aggregate, and each bit of the aggregate brings its bit of business to the house of commons. it is india one day and jamaica the next; then again china, and then schleswig-holstein. our legislation touches on all subjects, because our country contains all ingredients. the mere questions which are asked of the ministers run over half human affairs; the private bill acts, the mere privilegia of our government--subordinate as they ought to be--probably give the house of commons more absolute work than the whole business, both national and private, of any other assembly which has ever sat. the whole scene is so encumbered with changing business, that it is hard to keep your head in it. whatever, too, may be the case hereafter, when a better system has been struck out, at present the house does all the work of legislation, all the detail, and all the clauses itself. one of the most helpless exhibitions of helpless ingenuity and wasted mind is a committee of the whole house on a bill of many clauses which eager enemies are trying to spoil, and various friends are trying to mend. an act of parliament is at least as complex as a marriage settlement; and it is made much as a settlement would be if it were left to the vote and settled by the major part of persons concerned, including the unborn children. there is an advocate for every interest, and every interest clamours for every advantage. the executive government by means of its disciplined forces, and the few invaluable members who sit and think, preserves some sort of unity. but the result is very imperfect. the best test of a machine is the work it turns out. let any one who knows what legal documents ought to be, read first a will he has just been making and then an act of parliament; he will certainly say, "i would have dismissed my attorney if he had done my business as the legislature has done the nation's business". while the house of commons is what it is, a good revising, regulating and retarding house would be a benefit of great magnitude. but is the house of lords such a chamber? does it do this work? this is almost an undiscussed question. the house of lords, for thirty years at least, has been in popular discussion an accepted matter. popular passion has not crossed the path, and no vivid imagination has been excited to clear the matter up. the house of lords has the greatest merit which such a chamber can have; it is possible. it is incredibly difficult to get a revising assembly, because it is difficult to find a class of respected revisers. a federal senate, a second house, which represents state unity, has this advantage; it embodies a feeling at the root of society--a feeling which is older than complicated politics, which is stronger a thousand times over than common political feelings--the local feeling. "my shirt," said the swiss state-right patriot, "is dearer to me than my coat." every state in the american union would feel that disrespect to the senate was disrespect to itself. accordingly, the senate is respected; whatever may be the merits or demerits of its action, it can act; it is real, independent, and efficient. but in common governments it is fatally difficult to make an unpopular entity powerful in a popular government. it is almost the same thing to say that the house of lords is independent. it would not be powerful, it would not be possible, unless it were known to be independent. the lords are in several respects more independent than the commons; their judgment may not be so good a judgment, but it is emphatically their own judgment. the house of lords, as a body, is accessible to no social bribe. and this, in our day, is no light matter. many members of the house of commons, who are to be influenced by no other manner of corruption, are much influenced by this its most insidious sort. the conductors of the press and the writers for it are worse--at least the more influential who come near the temptation; for "position," as they call it, for a certain intimacy with the aristocracy, some of them would do almost anything and say almost anything. but the lords are those who give social bribes, and not those who take them. they are above corruption because they are the corruptors. they have no constituency to fear or wheedle; they have the best means of forming a disinterested and cool judgment of any class in the country. they have, too, leisure to form it. they have no occupations to distract them which are worth the name. field sports are but playthings, though some lords put an englishman's seriousness into them. few englishmen can bury themselves in science or literature; and the aristocracy have less, perhaps, of that impetus than the middle classes. society is too correct and dull to be an occupation, as in other times and ages it has been. the aristocracy live in the fear of the middle classes--of the grocer and the merchant. they dare not frame a society of enjoyment as the french aristocracy once formed it. politics are the only occupation a peer has worth the name. he may pursue them undistractedly. the house of lords, besides independence to revise judicially and position to revise effectually, has leisure to revise intellectually. these are great merits: and, considering how difficult it is to get a good second chamber, and how much with our present first chamber we need a second, we may well be thankful for them. but we must not permit them to blind our eyes. those merits of the lords have faults close beside them which go far to make them useless. with its wealth, its place, and its leisure, the house of lords would, on the very surface of the matter, rule us far more than it does if it had not secret defects which hamper and weaken it. the first of these defects is hardly to be called secret, though, on the other hand, it is not well known. a severe though not unfriendly critic of our institutions said that "the cure for admiring the house of lords was to go and look at it"--to look at it not on a great party field-day, or at a time of parade, but in the ordinary transaction of business. there are perhaps ten peers in the house, possibly only six; three is the quorum for transacting business. a few more may dawdle in or not dawdle in: those are the principal speakers, the lawyers (a few years ago when lyndhurst, brougham, and campbell were in vigour, they were by far the predominant talkers) and a few statesmen whom every one knows. but the mass of the house is nothing. this is why orators trained in the commons detest to speak in the lords. lord chatham used to call it the "tapestry". the house of commons is a scene of life if ever there was a scene of life. every member in the throng, every atom in the medley, has his own objects (good or bad), his own purposes (great or petty); his own notions, such as they are, of what is; his own notions, such as they are, of what ought to be. there is a motley confluence of vigorous elements, but the result is one and good. there is a "feeling of the house," a "sense" of the house, and no one who knows anything of it can despise it. a very shrewd man of the world went so far as to say that "the house of commons has more sense than any one in it". but there is no such "sense" in the house of lords, because there is no life. the lower chamber is a chamber of eager politicians; the upper (to say the least) of not eager ones. this apathy is not, indeed, as great as the outside show would indicate. the committees of the lords (as is well known) do a great deal of work and do it very well. and such as it is, the apathy is very natural. a house composed of rich men who can vote by proxy without coming will not come very much.[ ] but after every abatement the real indifference to their duties of most peers is a great defect, and the apparent indifference is a dangerous defect. as far as politics go there is profound truth in lord chesterfield's axiom, that "the world must judge of you by what you seem, not by what you are". the world knows what you seem; it does not know what you are. an assembly--a revising assembly especially--which does not assemble, which looks as if it does not care how it revises, is defective in a main political ingredient. it may be of use, but it will hardly convince mankind that it is so. [ ] in accordance with a recent resolution of the house of lords proxies are now disused.--note to second edition. the next defect is even more serious: it affects not simply the apparent work of the house of lords but the real work. for a revising legislature, it is too uniformly made up. errors are of various kinds; but the constitution of the house of lords only guards against a single error--that of too quick change. the lords--leaving out a few lawyers and a few outcasts--are all landowners of more or less wealth. they all have more or less the opinions, the merits, the faults of that one class. they revise legislation, as far as they do revise it, exclusively according to the supposed interests, the predominant feelings, the inherited opinions, of that class. since the reform act, this uniformity of tendency has been very evident. the lords have felt--it would be harsh to say hostile, but still dubious, as to the new legislation. there was a spirit in it alien to their spirit, and which when they could they have tried to cast out. that spirit is what has been termed the "modern spirit". it is not easy to concentrate its essence in a phrase; it lives in our life, animates our actions, suggests our thoughts. we all know what it means, though it would take an essay to limit it and define it. to this the lords object; wherever it is concerned, they are not impartial revisers, but biassed revisers. this singleness of composition would be no fault; it would be, or might be, even a merit, if the criticism of the house of lords, though a suspicious criticism, were yet a criticism of great understanding. the characteristic legislation of every age must have characteristic defects; it is the outcome of a character, of necessity faulty and limited. it must mistake some kind of things; it must overlook some other. if we could get hold of a complemental critic, a critic who saw what the age did not see, and who saw rightly what the age mistook, we should have a critic of inestimable value. but is the house of lords that critic? can it be said that its unfriendliness to the legislation of the age is founded on a perception of what the age does not see, and a rectified perception of what the age does see? the most extreme partisan, the most warm admirer of the lords, if of fair and tempered mind, cannot say so. the evidence is too strong. on free trade, for example, no one can doubt that the lords--in opinion, in what they wished to do, and would have done, if they had acted on their own minds--were utterly wrong. this is the clearest test of the "modern spirit". it is easier here to be sure it is right than elsewhere. commerce is like war; its result is patent. do you make money or do you not make it? there is as little appeal from figures as from battle. now no one can doubt that england is a great deal better off because of free trade; that it has more money, and that its money is diffused more as we should wish it diffused. in the one case in which we can unanswerably test the modern spirit, it was right, and the dubious upper house--the house which would have rejected it, if possible--was wrong. there is another reason. the house of lords, being an hereditary chamber, cannot be of more than common ability. it may contain--it almost always has contained, it almost always will contain--extraordinary men. but its average born law-makers cannot be extraordinary. being a set of eldest sons picked out by chance and history, it cannot be very wise. it would be a standing miracle if such a chamber possessed a knowledge of its age superior to the other men of the age; if it possessed a superior and supplemental knowledge; if it descried what they did not discern, and saw truly that which they saw, indeed, but saw untruly. the difficulty goes deeper. the task of revising, of adequately revising the legislation of this age, is not only that which an aristocracy has no facility in doing, but one which it has a difficulty in doing. look at the statute book for --the statutes at large for the year. you will find, not pieces of literature, not nice and subtle matters, but coarse matters, crude heaps of heavy business. they deal with trade, with finance, with statute-law reform, with common-law reform; they deal with various sorts of business, but with business always. and there is no educated human being less likely to know business, worse placed for knowing business than a young lord. business is really more agreeable than pleasure; it interests the whole mind, the aggregate nature of man more continuously, and more deeply. but it does not look as if it did. it is difficult to convince a young man, who can have the best of pleasure, that it will. a young lord just come into , pounds a year will not, as a rule, care much for the law of patents, for the law of "passing tolls," or the law of prisons. like hercules, he may choose virtue, but hardly hercules could choose business. he has everything to allure him from it, and nothing to allure him to it. and even if he wish to give himself to business, he has indifferent means. pleasure is near him, but business is far from him. few things are more amusing than the ideas of a well-intentioned young man, who is born out of the business world, but who wishes to take to business, about business. he has hardly a notion in what it consists. it really is the adjustment of certain particular means to equally certain particular ends. but hardly any young man destitute of experience is able to separate end and means. it seems to him a kind of mystery; and it is lucky if he do not think that the forms are the main part, and that the end is but secondary. there are plenty of business men falsely so called, who will advise him so. the subject seems a kind of maze. "what would you recommend me to read?" the nice youth asks; and it is impossible to explain to him that reading has nothing to do with it, that he has not yet the original ideas in his mind to read about; that administration is an art as painting is an art; and that no book can teach the practice of either. formerly this defect in the aristocracy was hidden by their own advantages. being the only class at ease for money and cultivated in mind they were without competition; and though they might not be, as a rule, and extraordinary ability excepted, excellent in state business, they were the best that could be had. even in old times, however, they sheltered themselves from the greater pressure of coarse work. they appointed a manager--a peel or a walpole, anything but an aristocrat in manner or in nature--to act for them or manage for them. but now a class is coming up trained to thought, full of money, and yet trained to business. as i write, two members of this class have been appointed to stations considerable in themselves, and sure to lead (if anything is sure in politics) to the cabinet and power. this is the class of highly-cultivated men of business who, after a few years, are able to leave business and begin ambition. as yet these men are few in public life, because they do not know their own strength. it is like columbus and the egg once again; a few original men will show it can be done, and then a crowd of common men will follow. these men know business partly from tradition, and this is much. there are university families--families who talk of fellowships, and who invest their children's ability in latin verses, as soon as they discover it; there used to be indian families of the same sort, and probably will be again when the competitive system has had time to foster a new breed. just so there are business families to whom all that concerns money, all that concerns administration, is as familiar as the air they breathe. all americans, it has been said, know business; it is in the air of their country. just so certain classes know business here; and a lord can hardly know it. it is as great a difficulty to learn business in a palace as it is to learn agriculture in a park. to one kind of business, indeed, this doctrine does not apply. there is one kind of business in which our aristocracy have still, and are likely to retain long, a certain advantage. this is the business of diplomacy. napoleon, who knew men well, would never, if he could help it, employ men of the revolution in missions to the old courts; he said, "they spoke to no one and no one spoke to them"; and so they sent home no information. the reason is obvious. the old-world diplomacy of europe was largely carried on in drawing-rooms, and, to a great extent, of necessity still is so. nations touch at their summits. it is always the highest class which travels most, knows most of foreign nations, has the least of the territorial sectarianism which calls itself patriotism, and is often thought to be so. even here, indeed, in england the new trade-class is in real merit equal to the aristocracy. their knowledge of foreign things is as great, and their contact with them often more. but, notwithstanding, the new race is not as serviceable for diplomacy as the old race. an ambassador is not simply an agent; he is also a spectacle. he is sent abroad for show as well as for substance; he is to represent the queen among foreign courts and foreign sovereigns. an aristocracy is in its nature better suited to such work; it is trained to the theatrical part of life; it is fit for that if it is fit for anything. but, with this exception, an aristocracy is necessarily inferior in business to the classes nearer business; and it is not, therefore, a suitable class, if we had our choice of classes, out of which to frame a chamber for revising matters of business. it is indeed a singular example how natural business is to the english race, that the house of lords works as well as it does. the common appearance of the "whole house" is a jest--a dangerous anomaly, which mr. bright will sometimes use; but a great deal of substantial work is done in "committees," and often very well done. the great majority of the peers do none of their appointed work, and could do none of it; but a minority--a minority never so large and never so earnest as in this age--do it, and do it well. still no one, who examines the matter without prejudice, can say that the work is done perfectly. in a country so rich in mind as england, far more intellectual power can be, and ought to be, applied to the revision of our laws. and not only does the house of lords do its work imperfectly, but often, at least, it does it timidly. being only a section of the nation, it is afraid of the nation. having been used for years and years, on the greatest matters to act contrary to its own judgment, it hardly knows when to act on that judgment. the depressing languor with which it damps an earnest young peer is at times ridiculous. "when the corn laws are gone, and the rotten boroughs, why tease about clause ix. in the bill to regulate cotton factories?" is the latent thought of many peers. a word from the leaders, from "the duke," or lord derby, or lord lyndhurst, will rouse on any matters the sleeping energies; but most lords are feeble and forlorn. these grave defects would have been at once lessened, and in the course of years nearly effaced, if the house of lords had not resisted the proposal of lord palmerston's first government to create peers for life. the expedient was almost perfect. the difficulty of reforming an old institution like the house of lords is necessarily great; its possibility rests on continuous caste and ancient deference. and if you begin to agitate about it, to bawl at meetings about it, that deference is gone, its particular charm lost, its reserved sanctity gone. but, by an odd fatality, there was in the recesses of the constitution an old prerogative which would have rendered agitation needless--which would have effected, without agitation, all that agitation could have effected. lord palmerston was--now that he is dead, and his memory can be calmly viewed--as firm a friend to an aristocracy, as thorough an aristocrat, as any in england; yet he proposed to use that power. if the house of lords had still been under the rule of the duke of wellington, perhaps they would have acquiesced. the duke would not indeed have reflected on all the considerations which a philosophic statesman would have set out before him; but he would have been brought right by one of his peculiarities. he disliked, above all things, to oppose the crown. at a great crisis, at the crisis of the corn laws, what he considered was not what other people were thinking of, the economical issue under discussion, the welfare of the country hanging in the balance, but the queen's ease. he thought the crown so superior a part in the constitution, that, even on vital occasions, he looked solely--or said he looked solely--to the momentary comfort of the present sovereign. he never was comfortable in opposing a conspicuous act of the crown. it is very likely that, if the duke had still been the president of the house of lords, they would have permitted the crown to prevail in its well-chosen scheme. but the duke was dead, and his authority--or some of it--had fallen to a very different person. lord lyndhurst had many great qualities: he had a splendid intellect--as great a faculty of finding truth as any one in his generation; but he had no love of truth. with this great faculty of finding truth, he was a believer in error--in what his own party now admit to be error--all his life through. he could have found the truth as a statesman just as he found it when a judge; but he never did find it. he never looked for it. he was a great partisan, and he applied a capacity of argument, and a faculty of intellectual argument rarely equalled, to support the tenets of his party. the proposal to create life peers was proposed by the antagonistic party--was at the moment likely to injure his own party. to him this was a great opportunity. the speech he delivered on that occasion lives in the memory of those who heard it. his eyes did not at that time let him read, so he repeated by memory, and quite accurately, all the black-letter authorities, bearing on the question. so great an intellectual effort has rarely been seen in an english assembly. but the result was deplorable. not by means of his black-letter authorities, but by means of his recognised authority and his vivid impression, he induced the house of lords to reject the proposition of the government. lord lyndhurst said the crown could not now create life peers, and so there are no life peers. the house of lords rejected the inestimable, the unprecedented opportunity of being tacitly reformed. such a chance does not come twice. the life peers who would have been then introduced would have been among the first men in the country. lord macaulay was to have been among the first; lord wensleydale--the most learned and not the least logical of our lawyers--to be the very first. thirty or forty such men, added judiciously and sparingly as years went on, would have given to the house of lords the very element which, as a criticising chamber, it needs so much. it would have given it critics. the most accomplished men in each department might then, without irrelevant considerations of family and of fortune, have been added to the chamber of review. the very element which was wanted to the house of lords was, as it were, by a constitutional providence, offered to the house of lords, and they refused it. by what species of effort that error can be repaired i cannot tell; but, unless it is repaired, the intellectual capacity can never be what it would have been, will never be what it ought to be, will never be sufficient for its work. another reform ought to have accompanied the creation of life peers. proxies ought to have been abolished. some time or other the slack attendance of the house of lords will destroy the house of lords. there are occasions in which appearances are realities, and this is one of them. the house of lords on most days looks so unlike what it ought to be, that most people will not believe it is what it ought to be. the attendance of considerate peers will, for obvious reasons, be larger when it can no longer be overpowered by the non-attendance, by the commissioned votes of inconsiderate peers. the abolition of proxies would have made the house of lords a real house; the addition of life peers would have made it a good house. the greater of these changes would have most materially aided the house of lords in the performance of its subsidiary functions. it always perhaps happens in a great nation, that certain bodies of sensible men posted prominently in its constitution, acquire functions, and usefully exercise functions, which at the outset, no one expected from them, and which do not identify themselves with their original design. this has happened to the house of lords especially. the most obvious instance is the judicial function. this is a function which no theorist would assign to a second chamber in a new constitution, and which is matter of accident in ours. gradually, indeed, the unfitness of the second chamber for judicial functions has made itself felt. under our present arrangements this function is not entrusted to the house of lords, but to a committee of the house of lords. on one occasion only, the trial of o'connell, the whole house, or some few in the whole house, wished to vote, and they were told they could not, or they would destroy the judicial prerogative. no one, indeed, would venture really to place the judicial function in the chance majorities of a fluctuating assembly: it is so by a sleepy theory; it is not so in living fact. as a legal question, too, it is a matter of grave doubt whether there ought to be two supreme courts in this country--the judicial committee of the privy council, and (what is in fact though not in name) the judicial committee of the house of lords. up to a very recent time, one committee might decide that a man was sane as to money, and the other committee might decide that he was insane as to land. this absurdity has been cured; but the error from which it arose has not been cured--the error of having two supreme courts, to both of which as time goes on, the same question is sure often enough to be submitted, and each of which is sure every now and then to decide it differently. i do not reckon the judicial function of the house of lords as one of its true subsidiary functions, first because it does not in fact exercise it, next because i wish to see it in appearance deprived of it. the supreme court of the english people ought to be a great conspicuous tribunal, ought to rule all other courts, ought to have no competitor, ought to bring our law into unity, ought not to be hidden beneath the robes of a legislative assembly. the real subsidiary functions of the house of lords are, unlike its judicial functions, very analogous to its substantial nature. the first is the faculty of criticising the executive. an assembly in which the mass of the members have nothing to lose, where most have nothing to gain, where every one has a social position firmly fixed, where no one has a constituency, where hardly any one cares for the minister of the day, is the very assembly in which to look for, from which to expect, independent criticism. and in matter of fact we find it. the criticism of the acts of late administrations by lord grey has been admirable. but such criticism, to have its full value, should be many-sided. every man of great ability puts his own mark on his own criticism; it will be full of thought and feeling, but then it is of idiosyncratic thought and feeling. we want many critics of ability and knowledge in the upper house--not equal to lord grey, for they would be hard to find--but like lord grey. they should resemble him in impartiality; they should resemble him in clearness; they should most of all resemble him in taking a supplemental view of a subject. there is an actor's view of a subject, which (i speak of mature and discussed action--of cabinet action) is nearly sure to include everything old and new--everything ascertained and determinate. but there is also a bystander's view which is likely to omit some one or more of these old and certain elements, but also to contain some new or distant matter, which the absorbed and occupied actor could not see. there ought to be many life peers in our secondary chamber capable of giving us this higher criticism. i am afraid we shall not soon see them, but as a first step we should learn to wish for them. the second subsidiary action of the house of lords is even more important. taking the house of commons, not after possible but most unlikely improvements, but in matter of fact and as it stands, it is overwhelmed with work. the task of managing it falls upon the cabinet, and that task is very hard. every member of the cabinet in the commons has to "attend the house"; to contribute by his votes, if not by his voice, to the management of the house. even in so small a matter as the education department, mr. lowe, a consummate observer, spoke of the desirability of finding a chief "not exposed to the prodigious labour of attending the house of commons". it is all but necessary that certain members of the cabinet should be exempt from its toil, and untouched by its excitement. but it is also necessary that they should have the power of explaining their views to the nation; of being heard as other people are heard. there are various plans for so doing, which i may discuss a little in speaking of the house of commons. but so much is evident: the house of lords, for its own members, attains this object; it gives them a voice, it gives them what no competing plan does give them--position. the leisured members of the cabinet speak in the lords with authority and power. they are not administrators with a right to speech--clerks (as is sometimes suggested) brought down to lecture a house, but not to vote in it; but they are the equals of those they speak to; they speak as they like, and reply as they choose; they address the house, not with the "bated breath" of subordinates, but with the force and dignity of sure rank. life peers would enable us to use this faculty of our constitution more freely and more variously. it would give us a larger command of able leisure; it would improve the lords as a political pulpit, for it would enlarge the list of its select preachers. the danger of the house of commons is, perhaps, that it will be reformed too rashly; the danger of the house of lords certainly is, that it may never be reformed. nobody asks that it should be so; it is quite safe against rough destruction, but it is not safe against inward decay. it may lose its veto as the crown has lost its veto. if most of its members neglect their duties, if all its members continue to be of one class, and that not quite the best; if its doors are shut against genius that cannot found a family, and ability which has not pounds a year, its power will be less year by year, and at last be gone, as so much kingly power is gone--no one knows how. its danger is not in assassination, but atrophy; not abolition, but decline. no. v. the house of commons. [footnote: i reprint this chapter substantially as it was first written. it is too soon, as i have explained in the introduction, to say what changes the late reform act will make in the house of commons.] the dignified aspect of the house of commons is altogether secondary to its efficient use. it is dignified: in a government in which the most prominent parts are good because they are very stately, any prominent part, to be good at all, must be somewhat stately. the human imagination exacts keeping in government as much as in art; it will not be at all influenced by institutions which do not match with those by which it is principally influenced. the house of commons needs to be impressive, and impressive it is: but its use resides not in its appearance, but in its reality. its office is not to win power by awing mankind, but to use power in governing mankind. the main function of the house of commons is one which we know quite well, though our common constitutional speech does not recognise it. the house of commons is an electoral chamber; it is the assembly which chooses our president. washington and his fellow-politicians contrived an electoral college, to be composed (as was hoped) of the wisest people in the nation, which, after due deliberation, was to choose for president the wisest man in the nation. but that college is a sham; it has no independence and no life. no one knows, or cares to know, who its members are. they never discuss, and never deliberate. they were chosen to vote that mr. lincoln be president, or that mr. breckenridge be president; they do so vote, and they go home. but our house of commons is a real choosing body; it elects the people it likes. and it dismisses whom it likes too. no matter that a few months since it was chosen to support lord aberdeen or lord palmerston; upon a sudden occasion it ousts the statesman to whom it at first adhered, and selects an opposite statesman whom it at first rejected. doubtless in such cases there is a tacit reference to probable public opinion; but certainly also there is much free will in the judgment of the commons. the house only goes where it thinks in the end the nation will follow; but it takes its chance of the nation following or not following; it assumes the initiative, and acts upon its discretion or its caprice. when the american nation has chosen its president, its virtue goes out of it, and out of the transmissive college through which it chooses. but because the house of commons has the power of dismissal in addition to the power of election, its relations to the premier are incessant. they guide him and he leads them. he is to them what they are to the nation. he only goes where he believes they will go after him. but he has to take the lead; he must choose his direction, and begin the journey. nor must he flinch. a good horse likes to feel the rider's bit; and a great deliberative assembly likes to feel that it is under worthy guidance. a minister who succumbs to the house,--who ostentatiously seeks its pleasure,--who does not try to regulate it,--who will not boldly point out plain errors to it, seldom thrives. the great leaders of parliament have varied much, but they have all had a certain firmness. a great assembly is as soon spoiled by over-indulgence as a little child. the whole life of english politics is the action and reaction between the ministry and the parliament. the appointees strive to guide, and the appointers surge under the guidance. the elective is now the most important function of the house of commons. it is most desirable to insist, and be tedious, on this, because our tradition ignores it. at the end of half the sessions of parliament, you will read in the newspapers, and you will hear even from those who have looked close at the matter and should know better, "parliament has done nothing this session. some things were promised in the queen's speech, but they were only little things; and most of them have not passed." lord lyndhurst used for years to recount the small outcomings of legislative achievement; and yet those were the days of the first whig governments, who had more to do in legislation, and did more, than any government. the true answer to such harangues as lord lyndhurst's by a minister should have been in the first person. he should have said firmly, "parliament has maintained me, and that was its greatest duty; parliament has carried on what, in the language of traditional respect, we call the queen's government; it has maintained what wisely or unwisely it deemed the best executive of the english nation". the second function of the house of commons is what i may call an expressive function. it is its office to express the mind of the english people on all matters which come before it. whether it does so well or ill i shall discuss presently. the third function of parliament is what i may call--preserving a sort of technicality even in familiar matters for the sake of distinctness--the teaching function. a great and open council of considerable men cannot be placed in the middle of a society without altering that society. it ought to alter it for the better. it ought to teach the nation what it does not know. how far the house of commons can so teach, and how far it does so teach, are matters for subsequent discussion. fourthly, the house of commons has what may be called an informing function--a function which though in its present form quite modern is singularly analogous to a mediaeval function. in old times one office of the house of commons was to inform the sovereign what was wrong. it laid before the crown the grievances and complaints of particular interests. since the publication of the parliamentary debates a corresponding office of parliament is to lay these same grievances, these same complaints, before the nation, which is the present sovereign. the nation needs it quite as much as the king ever needed it. a free people is indeed mostly fair, liberty practises men in a give-and-take, which is the rough essence of justice. the english people, possibly even above other free nations, is fair. but a free nation rarely can be--and the english nation is not--quick of apprehension. it only comprehends what is familiar to it--what comes into its own experience, what squares with its own thoughts. "i never heard of such a thing in my life," the middle-class englishman says, and he thinks he so refutes an argument. the common disputant cannot say in reply that his experience is but limited, and that the assertion may be true, though he had never met with anything at all like it. but a great debate in parliament does bring home something of this feeling. any notion, any creed, any feeling, any grievance which can get a decent number of english members to stand up for it, is felt by almost all englishmen to be perhaps a false and pernicious opinion, but at any rate possible--an opinion within the intellectual sphere, an opinion to be reckoned with. and it is an immense achievement. practical diplomatists say that a free government is harder to deal with than a despotic government; you may be able to get the despot to hear the other side; his ministers, men of trained intelligence, will be sure to know what makes against them; and they may tell him. but a free nation never hears any side save its own. the newspapers only repeat the side their purchasers like: the favourable arguments are set out, elaborated, illustrated; the adverse arguments maimed, misstated, confused. the worst judge, they say, is a deaf judge; the most dull government is a free government on matters its ruling classes will not hear. i am disposed to reckon it as the second function of parliament in point of importance, that to some extent it makes us hear what otherwise we should not. lastly, there is the function of legislation, of which of course it would be preposterous to deny the great importance, and which i only deny to be as important as the executive management of the whole state, or the political education given by parliament to the whole nation. there are, i allow, seasons when legislation is more important than either of these. the nation may be misfitted with its laws, and need to change them: some particular corn law may hurt all industry, and it may be worth a thousand administrative blunders to get rid of it. but generally the laws of a nation suit its life; special adaptations of them are but subordinate; the administration and conduct of that life is the matter which presses most. nevertheless, the statute-book of every great nation yearly contains many important new laws, and the english statute-book does so above any. an immense mass, indeed, of the legislation is not, in the proper language of jurisprudence, legislation at all. a law is a general command applicable to many cases. the "special acts" which crowd the statute-book and weary parliamentary committees are applicable to one case only. they do not lay down rules according to which railways shall be made, they enact that such a railway shall be made from this place to that place, and they have no bearing upon any other transaction. but after every deduction and abatement, the annual legislation of parliament is a result of singular importance; were it not so, it could not be, as it often is considered, the sole result of its annual assembling. some persons will perhaps think that i ought to enumerate a sixth function of the house of commons--a financial function. but i do not consider that, upon broad principle, and omitting legal technicalities, the house of commons has any special function with regard to financial different from its functions with respect to other legislation. it is to rule in both, and to rule in both through the cabinet. financial legislation is of necessity a yearly recurring legislation; but frequency of occurrence does not indicate a diversity of nature or compel an antagonism of treatment. in truth, the principal peculiarity of the house of commons in financial affairs is nowadays not a special privilege, but an exceptional disability. on common subjects any member can propose anything, but not on money--the minister only can propose to tax the people. this principle is commonly involved in mediaeval metaphysics as to the prerogative of the crown, but it is as useful in the nineteenth century as in the fourteenth, and rests on as sure a principle. the house of commons--now that it is the true sovereign, and appoints the real executive--has long ceased to be the checking, sparing, economical body it once was. it now is more apt to spend money than the minister of the day. i have heard a very experienced financier say, "if you want to raise a certain cheer in the house of commons make a general panegyric on economy; if you want to invite a sure defeat, propose a particular saving". the process is simple. every expenditure of public money has some apparent public object; those who wish to spend the money expatiate on that object; they say, "what is , pounds to this great country? is this a time for cheese-paring objection? our industry was never so productive; our resources never so immense. what is , pounds in comparison with this great national interest?" the members who are for the expenditure always come down; perhaps a constituent or a friend who will profit by the outlay, or is keen on the object, has asked them to attend; at any rate, there is a popular vote to be given, on which the newspapers--always philanthropic, and sometimes talked over--will be sure to make enconiums. the members against the expenditure rarely come down of themselves; why should they become unpopular without reason? the object seems decent; many of its advocates are certainly sincere: a hostile vote will make enemies, and be censured by the journals. if there were not some check, the "people's house" would soon outrun the people's money. that check is the responsibility of the cabinet for the national finance. if any one could propose a tax, they might let the house spend it as it would, and wash their hands of the matter; but now, for whatever expenditure is sanctioned--even when it is sanctioned against the ministry's wish--the ministry must find the money. accordingly, they have the strongest motive to oppose extra outlay. they will have to pay the bill for it; they will have to impose taxation, which is always disagreeable, or suggest loans, which, under ordinary circumstances, are shameful. the ministry is (so to speak) the bread-winner of the political family, and has to meet the cost of philanthropy and glory, just as the head of a family has to pay for the charities of his wife and the toilette of his daughters. in truth, when a cabinet is made the sole executive, it follows it must have the sole financial charge, for all action costs money, all policy depends on money, and it is in adjusting the relative goodness of action and policies that the executive is employed. from a consideration of these functions, it follows that we are ruled by the house of commons; we are, indeed, so used to be so ruled, that it does not seem to be at all strange. but of all odd forms of government, the oddest really is government by a public meeting. here are persons, collected from all parts of england, different in nature, different in interests, different in look, and language. if we think what an empire the english is, how various are its components, how incessant its concerns, how immersed in history its policy; if we think what a vast information, what a nice discretion, what a consistent will ought to mark the rulers of that empire, we shall be surprised when we see them. we see a changing body of miscellaneous persons, sometimes few, sometimes many, never the same for an hour; sometimes excited, but mostly dull and half weary--impatient of eloquence, catching at any joke as an alleviation. these are the persons who rule the british empire--who rule england, who rule scotland, who rule ireland, who rule a great deal of asia, who rule a great deal of polynesia, who rule a great deal of america, and scattered fragments everywhere. paley said many shrewd things, but he never said a better thing than that it was much harder to make men see a difficulty than comprehend the explanation of it. the key to the difficulties of most discussed and unsettled questions is commonly in their undiscussed parts: they are like the background of a picture, which looks obvious, easy, just what any one might have painted, but which, in fact, sets the figures in their right position, chastens them, and makes them what they are. nobody will understand parliament government who fancies it an easy thing, a natural thing, a thing not needing explanation. you have not a perception of the first elements in this matter till you know that government by a club is a standing wonder. there has been a capital illustration lately how helpless many english gentlemen are when called together on a sudden. the government, rightly or wrongly, thought fit to entrust the quarter-sessions of each county with the duty of combating its cattle-plague; but the scene in most "shire halls" was unsatisfactory. there was the greatest difficulty in getting, not only a right decision, but any decision, i saw one myself which went thus. the chairman proposed a very complex resolution, in which there was much which every one liked, and much which every one disliked, though, of course, the favourite parts of some were the objectionable parts to others. this resolution got, so to say, wedged in the meeting; everybody suggested amendments; one amendment was carried which none were satisfied with, and so the matter stood over. it is a saying in england, "a big meeting never does anything"; and yet we are governed by the house of commons--by "a big meeting". it may be said that the house of commons does not rule, it only elects the rulers. but there must be something special about it to enable it to do that. suppose the cabinet were elected by a london club, what confusion there would be, what writing and answering! "will you speak to so-and-so, and ask him to vote for my man?" would be heard on every side. how the wife of a. and the wife of b. would plot to confound the wife of c. whether the club elected under the dignified shadow of a queen, or without the shadow, would hardly matter at all; if the substantial choice was in them, the confusion and intrigue would be there too. i propose to begin this paper by asking, not why the house of commons governs well? but the fundamental--almost unasked question--how the house of commons comes to be able to govern at all? the house of commons can do work which the quarter-sessions or clubs cannot do, because it is an organised body, while quarter-sessions and clubs are unorganised. two of the greatest orators in england--lord brougham and lord bolingbroke--spent much eloquence in attacking party government. bolingbroke probably knew what he was doing; he was a consistent opponent of the power of the commons; he wished to attack them in a vital part. but lord brougham does not know; he proposes to amend parliamentary government by striking out the very elements which make parliamentary government possible. at present the majority of parliament obey certain leaders; what those leaders propose they support, what those leaders reject they reject. an old secretary of the treasury used to say, "this is a bad case, an indefensible case. we must apply our majority to this question." that secretary lived fifty years ago, before the reform bill, when majorities were very blind, and very "applicable". nowadays, the power of leaders over their followers is strictly and wisely limited: they can take their followers but a little way, and that only in certain directions. yet still there are leaders and followers. on the conservative side of the house there are vestiges of the despotic leadership even now. a cynical politician is said to have watched the long row of county members, so fresh and respectable-looking, and muttered, "by jove, they are the finest brute votes in europe!" but all satire apart, the principle of parliament is obedience to leaders. change your leader if you will, take another if you will, but obey no. while you serve no. , and obey no. when you have gone over to no. . the penalty of not doing so, is the penalty of impotence. it is not that you will not be able to do any good, but you will not be able to do anything at all. if everybody does what he thinks right, there will be amendments to every motion, and none of them will be carried or the motion either. the moment, indeed, that we distinctly conceive that the house of commons is mainly and above all things an elective assembly, we at once perceive that party is of its essence. there never was an election without a party. you cannot get a child into an asylum without a combination. at such places you may see "vote for orphan a." upon a placard, and "vote for orphan b. (also an idiot!!!)" upon a banner, and the party of each is busy about its placard and banner. what is true at such minor and momentary elections must be much more true in a great and constant election of rulers. the house of commons lives in a state of perpetual potential choice; at any moment it can choose a ruler and dismiss a ruler. and therefore party is inherent in it, is bone of its bone, and breath of its breath. secondly, though the leaders of party no longer have the vast patronage of the last century with which to bribe, they can coerce by a threat far more potent than any allurement--they can dissolve. this is the secret which keeps parties together. mr. cobden most justly said: "he had never been able to discover what was the proper moment, according to members of parliament, for a dissolution. he had heard them say they were ready to vote for everything else, but he had never heard them say they were ready to vote for that." efficiency in an assembly requires a solid mass of steady votes; and these are collected by a deferential attachment to particular men, or by a belief in the principles those men represent, and they are maintained by fear of those men--by the fear that if you vote against them, you may yourself soon not have a vote at all. thirdly, it may seem odd to say so, just after inculcating that party organisation is the vital principle of representative government, but that organisation is permanently efficient, because it is not composed of warm partisans. the body is eager, but the atoms are cool. if it were otherwise, parliamentary government would become the worst of governments--a sectarian government. the party in power would go all the lengths their orators proposed--all that their formulae enjoined, as far as they had ever said they would go. but the partisans of the english parliament are not of such a temper. they are whigs, or radicals, or tories, but they are much else too. they are common englishmen, and, as father newman complains, "hard to be worked up to the dogmatic level". they are not eager to press the tenets of their party to impossible conclusions. on the contrary, the way to lead them--the best and acknowledged way--is to affect a studied and illogical moderation. you may hear men say, "without committing myself to the tenet that + make , though i am free to admit that the honourable member for bradford has advanced very grave arguments in behalf of it, i think i may, with the permission of the committee, assume that + do not make , which will be a sufficient basis for the important propositions which i shall venture to submit on the present occasion." this language is very suitable to the greater part of the house of commons. most men of business love a sort of twilight. they have lived all their lives in an atmosphere of probabilities and of doubt, where nothing is very clear, where there are some chances for many events, where there is much to be said for several courses, where nevertheless one course must be determinedly chosen and fixedly adhered to. they like to hear arguments suited to this intellectual haze. so far from caution or hesitation in the statement of the argument striking them as an indication of imbecility, it seems to them a sign of practicality. they got rich themselves by transactions of which they could not have stated the argumentative ground--and all they ask for is a distinct though moderate conclusion, that they can repeat when asked; something which they feel not to be abstract argument, but abstract argument diluted and dissolved in real life. "there seem to me," an impatient young man once said, "to be no stay in peel's arguments." and that was why sir robert peel was the best leader of the commons in our time; we like to have the rigidity taken out of an argument, and the substance left. nor indeed, under our system of government, are the leaders themselves of the house of commons, for the most part, eager to carry party conclusions too far. they are in contact with reality. an opposition, on coming into power, is often like a speculative merchant whose bills become due. ministers have to make good their promises, and they find a difficulty in so doing. they have said the state of things is so and so, and if you give us the power we will do thus and thus. but when they come to handle the official documents, to converse with the permanent under-secretary--familiar with disagreeable facts, and though in manner most respectful, yet most imperturbable in opinion--very soon doubts intervene. of course, something must be done; the speculative merchant cannot forget his bills; the late opposition cannot, in office, forget those sentences which terrible admirers in the country still quote. but just as the merchant asks his debtor, "could you not take a bill at four months?" so the new minister says to the permanent under-secretary, "could you not suggest a middle course? i am of course not bound by mere sentences used in debate; i have never been accused of letting a false ambition of consistency warp my conduct; but," etc., etc. and the end always is that a middle course is devised which looks as much as possible like what was suggested in opposition, but which is as much as possible what patent facts--facts which seem to live in the office, so teasing and unceasing are they--prove ought to be done. of all modes of enforcing moderation on a party, the best is to contrive that the members of that party shall be intrinsically moderate, careful, and almost shrinking men; and the next best to contrive that the leaders of the party, who have protested most in its behalf, shall be placed in the closest contact with the actual world. our english system contains both contrivances; it makes party government permanent and possible in the sole way in which it can be so, by making it mild. but these expedients, though they sufficiently remove the defects which make a common club or quarter-sessions impotent, would not enable the house of commons to govern england. a representative public meeting is subject to a defect over and above those of other public meetings. it may not be independent. the constituencies may not let it alone. but if they do not, all the checks which have been enumerated upon the evils of a party organisation would be futile. the feeling of a constituency is the feeling of a dominant party, and that feeling is elicited, stimulated, sometimes even manufactured by the local political agent. such an opinion could not be moderate; could not be subject to effectual discussion; could not be in close contact with pressing facts; could not be framed under a chastening sense of near responsibility; could not be formed as those form their opinions who have to act upon them. constituency government is the precise opposite of parliamentary government. it is the government of immoderate persons far from the scene of action, instead of the government of moderate persons close to the scene of action; it is the judgment of persons judging in the last resort and without a penalty, in lieu of persons judging in fear of a dissolution, and ever conscious that they are subject to an appeal. most persons would admit these conditions of parliamentary government when they read them, but two at least of the most prominent ideas in the public mind are inconsistent with them. the scheme to which the arguments of our demagogues distinctly tend, and the scheme to which the predilections of some most eminent philosophers cleave, are both so. they would not only make parliamentary government work ill, but they would prevent its working at all; they would not render it bad, for they would make it impossible. the first of these is the ultra-democratic theory. this theory demands that every man of twenty-one years of age (if not every woman too) should have an equal vote in electing parliament. suppose that last year there were twelve million adult males in england. upon this theory each man is to have one twelve-millionth share in electing a parliament; the rich and wise are not to have, by explicit law, more votes than the poor and stupid; nor are any latent contrivances to give them an influence equivalent to more votes. the machinery for carrying out such a plan is very easy. at each census the country ought to be divided into electoral districts, in each of which the number of adult males should be the same; and these districts ought to be the only constituencies, and elect the whole parliament. but if the above prerequisites are needful for parliamentary government, that parliament would not work. such a parliament could not be composed of moderate men. the electoral districts would be, some of them, in purely agricultural places, and in these the parson and the squire would have almost unlimited power. they would be able to drive or send to the poll an entire labouring population. these districts would return an unmixed squirearchy. the scattered small towns which now send so many members to parliament, would be lost in the clownish mass; their votes would send to parliament no distinct members. the agricultural part of england would choose its representatives from quarter-sessions exclusively. on the other hand a large part of the constituencies would be town districts, and these would send up persons representing the beliefs or unbeliefs of the lowest classes in their towns. they would, perhaps, be divided between the genuine representatives of the artisans--not possibly of the best of the artisans, who are a select and intellectual class, but of the common order of workpeople--and the merely pretended members for that class whom i may call the members for the public-houses. in all big towns in which there is electioneering these houses are the centres of illicit corruption and illicit management. there are pretty good records of what that corruption and management are, but there is no need to describe them here. everybody will understand what sort of things i mean, and the kind of unprincipled members that are returned by them. our new parliament, therefore, would be made up of two sorts of representatives from the town lowest class, and one sort of representatives from the agricultural lowest class. the genuine representatives of the country would be men of one marked sort, and the genuine representatives for the county men of another marked sort, but very opposite: one would have the prejudices of town artisans, and the other the prejudices of county magistrates. each class would speak a language of its own; each would be unintelligible to the other; and the only thriving class would be the immoral representatives, who were chosen by corrupt machination, and who would probably get a good profit on the capital they laid out in that corruption. if it be true that a parliamentary government is possible only when the overwhelming majority of the representatives are men essentially moderate, of no marked varieties, free from class prejudices, this ultra-democratic parliament could not maintain that government, for its members would be remarkable for two sorts of moral violence and one sort of immoral. i do not for a moment rank the scheme of mr. hare with the scheme of the ultra-democrats. one can hardly help having a feeling of romance about it. the world seems growing young when grave old lawyers and mature philosophers propose a scheme promising so much. it is from these classes that young men suffer commonly the chilling demonstration that their fine plans are opposed to rooted obstacles, that they are repetitions of other plans which failed long ago, and that we must be content with the very moderate results of tried machinery. but mr. hare and mr. mill offer as the effect of their new scheme results as large and improvements as interesting as a young enthusiast ever promised to himself in his happiest mood. i do not give any weight to the supposed impracticability of mr. hare's scheme because it is new. of course it cannot be put in practice till it is old. a great change of this sort happily cannot be sudden; a free people cannot be confused by new institutions which they do not understand, for they will not adopt them till they understand them. but if mr. hare's plan would accomplish what its friends say, or half what they say, it would be worth working for, if it were not adopted till the year . we ought incessantly to popularise the principle by writing; and, what is better than writing, small preliminary bits of experiment. there is so much that is wearisome and detestable in all other election machineries, that i well understand, and wish i could share, the sense of relief with which the believers in this scheme throw aside all their trammels, and look to an almost ideal future when this captivating plan is carried. mr. hare's scheme cannot be satisfactorily discussed in the elaborate form in which he presents it. no common person readily apprehends all the details in which, with loving care, he has embodied it. he was so anxious to prove what could be done, that he has confused most people as to what it is. i have heard a man say, "he never could remember it two days running". but the difficulty which i feel is fundamental, and wholly independent of detail. there are two modes in which constituencies may be made. first, the law may make them, as in england and almost everywhere: the law may say such and such qualifications shall give a vote for constituency x; those who have that qualification shall be constituency x. these are what we may call compulsory constituencies, and we know all about them. or, secondly, the law may leave the electors themselves to make them. the law may say all the adult males of a country shall vote, or those males who can read and write, or those who have pounds a year, or any persons any way defined, and then leave those voters to group themselves as they like. suppose there were , voters to elect the house of commons; it is possible for the legislature to say, "we do not care how you combine. on a given day let each set of persons give notice in what group they mean to vote; if every voter gives notice, and every one looks to make the most of his vote, each group will have just . but the law shall not make this necessary--it shall take the most numerous groups, no matter whether they have , or , or , or votes--the most numerous groups, whatever their number may be; and these shall be the constituencies of the nation." these are voluntary constituencies, if i may so call them; the simplest kind of voluntary constituencies. mr. hare proposes a far more complex kind; but to show the merits and demerits of the voluntary principle the simplest form is much the best. the temptation to that principle is very plain. under the compulsory form of constituency the votes of the minorities are thrown away. in the city of london, now, there are many tories, but all the members are whigs; every london tory, therefore, is by law and principle misrepresented: his city sends to parliament not the member whom he wished to have, but the member he wished not to have. but upon the voluntary system the london tories, who are far more than in number, may combine; they may make a constituency, and return a member. in many existing constituencies the disfranchisement of minorities is hopeless and chronic. i have myself had a vote for an agricultural county for twenty years, and i am a liberal; but two tories have always been returned, and all my life will be returned. as matters now stand, my vote is of no use. but if i could combine with other liberals in that and other conservative counties, we might choose a liberal member. again, this plan gets rid of all our difficulties as to the size of constituencies. it is said to be unreasonable that liverpool should return only the same number of members as king's lynn or lyme regis; but upon the voluntary plan, liverpool could come down to king's lynn. the liberal minority in king's lynn could communicate with the liberal minority in liverpool, and make up ; and so everywhere. the numbers of popular places would gain what is called their legitimate advantage; they would, when constituencies are voluntarily made, be able to make, and be willing to make the greatest number of constituencies. again, the admirers of a great man could make a worthy constituency for him. as it is, mr. mill was returned by the electors of westminster; and they have never, since they had members, done themselves so great an honour. but what did the electors of westminster know of mr. mill? what fraction of his mind could be imagined by any percentage of their minds? a great deal of his genius most of them would not like. they meant to do homage to mental ability, but it was the worship of an unknown god--if ever there was such a thing in this world. but upon the voluntary plan, one thousand out of the many thousand students of mr. mill's book could have made an appreciating constituency for him. i could reckon other advantages, but i have to object to the scheme, not to recommend it. what are the counterweights which overpower these merits? i reply that the voluntary composition of constituencies appears to me inconsistent with the necessary prerequisites of parliamentary government as they have been just laid down. under the voluntary system, the crisis of politics is not the election of the member, but the making the constituency. president-making is already a trade in america, and constituency-making would, under the voluntary plan, be a trade here. every party would have a numerical problem to solve. the leaders would say, "we have , votes, we must take care to have members"; and the only way to obtain them is to organise. a man who wanted to compose part of a liberal constituency must not himself hunt for other liberals; if he did, after writing letters, he would probably find he was making part of a constituency of , all whose votes would be thrown away, the constituency being too small to be reckoned. such a liberal must write to the great registration association in parliament street; he must communicate with its able managers, and they would soon use his vote for him. they would say, "sir, you are late; mr. gladstone, sir, is full. he got his last year. most of the gentlemen you read of in the papers are full. as soon as a gentleman makes a nice speech, we get a heap of letters to say, 'make us into that gentleman's constituency'. but we cannot do that. here is our list. if you do not want to throw your vote away, you must be guided by us: here are three very satisfactory gentlemen (and one is an honourable): you may vote for either of these, and we will write your name down; but if you go voting wildly, you'll be thrown out altogether." the evident result of this organisation would be the return of party men mainly. the member-makers would look, not for independence, but for subservience--and they could hardly be blamed for so doing. they are agents for the liberal party; and, as such, they should be guided by what they take to be the wishes of their principal. the mass of the liberal party wishes measure a, measure b, measure c. the managers of the registration--the skilled manipulators--are busy men. they would say, "sir, here is our card; if you want to get into parliament on our side, you must go for that card; it was drawn up by mr. lloyd; he used to be engaged on railways, but since they passed this new voting plan, we get him to attend to us; it is a sound card; stick to that and you will be right". upon this (in theory) voluntary plan, you would get together a set of members bound hard and fast with party bands and fetters, infinitely tighter than any members now. whoever hopes anything from desultory popular action if matched against systematised popular action, should consider the way in which the american president is chosen. the plan was that the citizens at large should vote for the statesman they liked best. but no one does anything of the sort. they vote for the ticket made by "the caucus," and the caucus is a sort of representative meeting which sits voting and voting till they have cut out all the known men against whom much is to be said, and agreed on some unknown man against whom there is nothing known, and therefore nothing to be alleged. caucuses, or their equivalent, would be far worse here in constituency-making than there in president-making, because on great occasions the american nation can fix on some one great man whom it knows, but the english nation could not fix on great men and choose them. it does not know so many, and if it did, would go wrong in the difficulties of the manipulation. but though a common voter could only be ranged in an effectual constituency, and a common candidate only reach a constituency by obeying the orders of the political election-contrivers upon his side, certain voters and certain members would be quite independent of both. there are organisations in this country which would soon make a set of constituencies for themselves. every chapel would be an office for vote-transferring before the plan had been known three months. the church would be much slower in learning it and much less handy in using it; but would learn. at present the dissenters are a most energetic and valuable component of the liberal party; but under the voluntary plan they would not be a component--they would be a separate, independent element. we now propose to group boroughs; but then they would combine chapels. there would be a member for the baptist congregation of tavistock, cum totnes, cum, etc., etc. the full force of this cannot be appreciated except by referring to the former proof that the mass of a parliament ought to be men of moderate sentiments, or they will elect an immoderate ministry, and enact violent laws. but upon the plan suggested, the house would be made up of party politicians selected by a party committee, chained to that committee and pledged to party violence, and of characteristic, and therefore immoderate representatives, for every "ism" in all england. instead of a deliberate assembly of moderate and judicious men, we should have a various compound of all sorts of violence. i may seem to be drawing a caricature, but i have not reached the worst. bad as these members would be, if they were left to themselves--if, in a free parliament, they were confronted with the perils of government, close responsibility might improve them and make them tolerable. but they would not be left to themselves. a voluntary constituency will nearly always be a despotic constituency. even in the best case, where a set of earnest men choose a member to expound their earnestness, they will look after him to see that he does expound it. the members will be like the minister of a dissenting congregation. that congregation is collected by a unity of sentiment in doctrine a, and the preacher is to preach doctrine a; if he does not, he is dismissed. at present the member is free because the constituency is not in earnest; no constituency has an acute, accurate doctrinal creed in politics. the law made the constituencies by geographical divisions; and they are not bound together by close unity of belief. they have vague preferences for particular doctrines; and that is all. but a voluntary constituency would be a church with tenets; it would make its representative the messenger of its mandates, and the delegate of its determinations. as in the case of a dissenting congregation, one great minister sometimes rules it, while ninety-nine ministers in the hundred are ruled by it, so here one noted man would rule his electors, but the electors would rule all the others. thus, the members for a good voluntary constituency would be hopelessly enslaved, because of its goodness; but the members for a bad voluntary constituency would be yet more enslaved because of its badness. the makers of these constituencies would keep the despotism in their own hands. in america there is a division of politicians into wire-pullers and blowers; under the voluntary system the member of parliament would be the only momentary mouth-piece--the impotent blower; while the constituency-maker would be the latent wire-puller--the constant autocrat. he would write to gentlemen in parliament, and say, "you were elected upon 'the liberal ticket'; and if you deviate from that ticket you cannot be chosen again". and there would be no appeal for a common-minded man. he is no more likely to make a constituency for himself than a mole is likely to make a planet. it may indeed be said that against a septennial parliament such machinations would be powerless; that a member elected for seven years might defy the remonstrances of an earnest constituency, or the imprecations of the latent manipulators. but after the voluntary composition of constituencies, there would soon be but short-lived parliaments. earnest constituencies would exact frequent elections; they would not like to part with their virtue for a long period; it would anger them to see it used contrary to their wishes, amid circumstances which at the election no one thought of. a seven years' parliament is often chosen in one political period, lasts through a second, and is dissolved in a third. a constituency collected by law and on compulsion endures this change because it has no collective earnestness; it does not mind seeing the power it gave used in a manner that it could not have foreseen. but a self-formed constituency of eager opinions, a missionary constituency, so to speak, would object; it would think it its bounden duty to object; and the crafty manipulators, though they said nothing, in silence would object still more. the two together would enjoin annual elections, and would rule their members unflinchingly. the voluntary plan, therefore, when tried in this easy form is inconsistent with the extrinsic independence as well as with the inherent moderation of a parliament--two of the conditions which, as we have seen, are essential to the bare possibility of parliamentary government. the same objections, as is inevitable, adhere to that principle under its more complicated forms. it is in vain to pile detail on detail when the objection is one of first principle. if the above reasoning be sound, compulsory constituencies are necessary, voluntary constituencies destructive; the optional transferability of votes is not a salutary aid, but a ruinous innovation. i have dwelt upon the proposal of mr. hare and upon the ultra-democratic proposal, not only because of the high intellectual interest of the former and the possible practical interest of the latter, but because they tend to bring into relief two at least of the necessary conditions of parliamentary government. but besides these necessary qualities which are needful before a parliamentary government can work at all, there are some additional prerequisites before it can work well. that a house of commons may work well it must perform, as we saw, five functions well: it must elect a ministry well, legislate well, teach the nation well, express the nation's will well, bring matters to the nation's attention well. the discussion has a difficulty of its own. what is meant by "well"? who is to judge? is it to be some panel of philosophers, some fancied posterity, or some other outside authority? i answer, no philosophy, no posterity, no external authority, but the english nation here and now. free government is self-government--a government of the people by the people. the best government of this sort is that which the people think best. an imposed government, a government like that of the english in india, may very possibly be better; it may represent the views of a higher race than the governed race; but it is not therefore a free government. a free government is that which the people subject to it voluntarily choose. in a casual collection of loose people the only possible free government is a democratic government. where no one knows, or cares for, or respects any one else all must rank equal; no one's opinion can be more potent than that of another. but, as has been explained, a deferential nation has a structure of its own. certain persons are by common consent agreed to be wiser than others, and their opinion is, by consent, to rank for much more than its numerical value. we may in these happy nations weigh votes as well as count them, though in less favoured countries we can count only. but in free nations, the votes so weighed or so counted must decide. a perfect free government is one which decides perfectly according to those votes; an imperfect, one which so decides imperfectly; a bad, one which does not so decide at all. public opinion is the test of this polity; the best opinion which with its existing habits of deference, the nation will accept: if the free government goes by that opinion, it is a good government of its species; if it contravenes that opinion, it is a bad one. tried by this rule the house of commons does its appointing business well. it chooses rulers as we wish rulers to be chosen. if it did not, in a speaking and writing age we should soon know. i have heard a great liberal statesman say, "the time was coming when we must advertise for a grievance".[ ] what a good grievance it would be were the ministry appointed and retained by the parliament a ministry detested by the nation. an anti-present-government league would be instantly created, and it would be more instantly powerful and more instantly successful than the anti-corn-law league. [ ] this was said in . it has, indeed, been objected that the choosing business of parliament is done ill, because it does not choose strong governments. and it is certain that when public opinion does not definitely decide upon a marked policy, and when in consequence parties in the parliament are nearly even, individual cupidity and changeability may make parliament change its appointees too often; may induce them never enough to trust any of them; may make it keep all of them under a suspended sentence of coming dismissal. but the experience of lord palmerston's second government proves, i think, that these fears are exaggerated. when the choice of a nation is really fixed on a statesman, parliament will fix upon him too. the parties in the parliament of were as nearly divided as in any probable parliament; a great many liberals did not much like lord palmerston, and they would have gladly co-operated in an attempt to dethrone him. but the same influence acted on parliament within which acted on the nation without. the moderate men of both parties were satisfied that lord palmerston's was the best government, and they therefore preserved it though it was hated by the immoderate on both sides. we have then found by a critical instance that a government supported by what i may call "the common element"--by the like-minded men of unlike parties--will be retained in power, though parties are even, and though, as treasury counting reckons, the majority is imperceptible. if happily, by its intelligence and attractiveness, a cabinet can gain a hold upon the great middle part of parliament, it will continue to exist notwithstanding the hatching of small plots and the machinations of mean factions. on the whole, i think it indisputable that the selecting task of parliament is performed as well as public opinion wishes it to be performed; and if we want to improve that standard, we must first improve the english nation, which imposes that standard. of the substantial part of its legislative task, the same, too, may, i think, be said. the manner of our legislation is indeed detestable, and the machinery for settling that manner odious. a committee of the whole house, dealing, or attempting to deal with the elaborate clauses of a long bill, is a wretched specimen of severe but misplaced labour. it is sure to wedge some clause into the act, such as that which the judge said "seemed to have fallen by itself, perhaps, from heaven, into the mind of the legislature," so little had it to do with anything on either side or around it. at such times government by a public meeting displays its inherent defects, and is little restrained by its necessary checks. but the essence of our legislature may be separated from its accidents. subject to two considerable defects i think parliament passes laws as the nation wishes to have them passed. thirty years ago this was not so. the nation had outgrown its institutions, and was cramped by them. it was a man in the clothes of a boy; every limb wanted more room, and every garment to be fresh made. "d-mn me," said lord eldon in the dialect of his age, "if i had to begin life again i would begin as an agitator." the shrewd old man saw that the best life was that of a miscellaneous objector to the old world, though he loved that world, believed in it, could imagine no other. but he would not say so now. there is no worse trade than agitation at this time. a man can hardly get an audience if he wishes to complain of anything. nowadays, not only does the mind and policy of parliament (subject to the exceptions before named) possess the common sort of moderation essential to the possibility of parliamentary government, but also that exact gradation, that precise species of moderation, most agreeable to the nation at large. not only does the nation endure a parliamentary government, which it would not do if parliament were immoderate, but it likes parliamentary government. a sense of satisfaction permeates the country because most or the country feels it has got the precise thing that suits it. the exceptions are two. first. that parliament leans too much to the opinions of the landed interest. the cattle plague act is a conspicuous instance of this defect. the details of that bill may be good or bad, and its policy wise or foolish. but the manner in which it was hurried through the house savoured of despotism. the cotton trade or the wine trade could not, in their maximum of peril, have obtained such aid in such a manner. the house of commons would hear of no pause and would heed no arguments. the greatest number of them feared for their incomes. the land of england returns many members annually for the counties; these members the constitution gave them. but what is curious is that the landed interest gives no seats to other classes, but takes plenty of seats from other classes. half the boroughs in england are represented by considerable landowners, and when rent is in question, as in the cattle case, they think more of themselves than of those who sent them. in number the landed gentry in the house far surpass any other class. they have, too, a more intimate connection with one another; they were educated at the same schools; know one another's family name from boyhood; form a society; are the same kind of men; marry the same kind of women. the merchants and manufacturers in parliament are a motley race--one educated here, another there, a third not educated at all; some are of the second generation of traders, who consider self-made men intruders upon an hereditary place; others are self-made, and regard the men of inherited wealth, which they did not make and do not augment, as beings of neither mind nor place, inferior to themselves because they have no brains, and inferior to lords because they have no rank. traders have no bond of union, no habits of intercourse; their wives, if they care for society, want to see not the wives of other such men, but "better people," as they say--the wives of men certainly with land, and, if heaven help, with the titles. men who study the structure of parliament, not in abstract books, but in the concrete london world, wonder not that the landed interest is very powerful, but that it is not despotic. i believe it would be despotic if it were clever, or rather if its representatives were so, but it has a fixed device to make them stupid. the counties not only elect landowners, which is natural, and perhaps wise, but also elect only landowners of their own county, which is absurd. there is no free trade in the agricultural mind; each county prohibits the import of able men from other counties. this is why eloquent sceptics--bolingbroke and disraeli--have been so apt to lead the unsceptical tories. they will have people with a great piece of land in a particular spot, and of course these people generally cannot speak, and often cannot think. and so eloquent men who laugh at the party come to lead the party. the landed interest has much more influence than it should have; but it wastes that influence so much that the excess is, except on singular occurrences (like the cattle plague), of secondary moment. it is almost another side of the same matter to say that the structure of parliament gives too little weight to the growing districts of the country and too much to the stationary, in old times the south of england was not only the pleasantest but the greatest part of england. devonshire was a great maritime county when the foundations of our representation were fixed; somersetshire and wiltshire great manufacturing counties. the harsher climate of the northern counties was associated with a ruder, a stern, and a sparser people. the immense preponderance which our parliament gave before , and though pruned and mitigated, still gives to england south of the trent, then corresponded to a real preponderance in wealth and mind. how opposite the present contrast is we all know. and the case gets worse every day. the nature of modern trade is to give to those who have much and take from those who have little. manufacture goes where manufacture is, because there and there alone it finds attendant and auxiliary manufacture. every railway takes trade from the little town to the big town because it enables the customer to buy in the big town. year by year the north (as we may roughly call the new industrial world) gets more important, and the south (as we may call the pleasant remnant of old time) gets less important. it is a grave objection to our existing parliamentary constitution that it gives much power to regions of past greatness, and refuses equal power to regions of present greatness. i think (though it is not a popular notion) that by far the greater part of the cry for parliamentary reform is due to this inequality. the great capitalists, mr. bright and his friends, believe they are sincere in asking for more power for the working man, but, in fact, they very naturally and very properly want more power for themselves. they cannot endure--they ought not to endure--that a rich, able manufacturer should be a less man than a small stupid squire. the notions of political equality which mr. bright puts forward are as old as political speculation, and have been refuted by the first efforts of that speculation. but for all that they are likely to last as long as political society, because they are based upon indelible principles in human nature. edmund burke called the first east indians, "jacobins to a man," because they did not feel their "present importance equal to their real wealth". so long as there is an uneasy class, a class which has not its just power, it will rashly clutch and blindly believe the notion that all men should have the same power. i do not consider the exclusion of the working classes from effectual representation a defect in this aspect of our parliamentary representation. the working classes contribute almost nothing to our corporate public opinion, and therefore, the fact of their want of influence in parliament does not impair the coincidence of parliament with public opinion. they are left out in the representation, and also in the thing represented. nor do i think the number of persons of aristocratic descent in parliament impairs the accordance of parliament with public opinion. no doubt the direct descendants and collateral relatives of noble families supply members to parliament in far greater proportion than is warranted by the number of such families in comparison with the whole nation. but i do not believe that these families have the least corporate character, or any common opinions, different from others of the landed gentry. they have the opinions of the propertied rank in which they were born. the english aristocracy have never been a caste apart, and are not a caste apart now. they would keep up nothing that other landed gentlemen would not. and if any landed gentlemen are to be sent to the house of commons, it is desirable that many should be men of some rank. as long as we keep up a double set of institutions--one dignified and intended to impress the many, the other efficient and intended to govern the many--we should take care that the two match nicely, and hide where the one begins and where the other ends. this is in part effected by conceding some subordinate power to the august part of our polity, but it is equally aided by keeping an aristocratic element in the useful part of our polity. in truth, the deferential instinct secures both. aristocracy is a power in the "constituencies". a man who is an honourable or a baronet, or better yet, perhaps, a real earl, though irish, is coveted by half the electing bodies; and caeteris paribus, a manufacturer's son has no chance with him. the reality of the deferential feeling in the community is tested by the actual election of the class deferred to, where there is a large free choice betwixt it and others. subject therefore to the two minor, but still not inconsiderable, defects i have named, parliament conforms itself accurately enough, both as a chooser of executives and as a legislature, to the formed opinion of the country. similarly, and subject to the same exceptions, it expresses the nation's opinion in words well, when it happens that words, not laws, are wanted. on foreign matters, where we cannot legislate, whatever the english nation thinks, or thinks it thinks, as to the critical events of the world, whether in denmark, in italy, or america, and no matter whether it thinks wisely or unwisely, that same something, wise or unwise, will be thoroughly well said in parliament. the lyrical function of parliament, if i may use such a phrase, is well done; it pours out in characteristic words the characteristic heart of the nation. and it can do little more useful. now that free government is in europe so rare and in america so distant, the opinion, even the incomplete, erroneous, rapid opinion of the free english people is invaluable. it may be very wrong, but it is sure to be unique; and if it is right it is sure to contain matter of great magnitude, for it is only a first-class matter in distant things which a free people ever sees or learns. the english people must miss a thousand minutiae that continental bureaucracies know even too well; but if they see a cardinal truth which those bureaucracies miss, that cardinal truth may greatly help the world. but if in these ways, and subject to these exceptions, parliament by its policy and its speech well embodies and expresses public opinion, i own i think it must be conceded that it is not equally successful in elevating public opinion. the teaching task of parliament is the task it does worst. probably at this moment, it is natural to exaggerate this defect. the greatest teacher of all in parliament, the head-master of the nation, the great elevator of the country--so far as parliament elevates it--must be the prime minister: he has an influence, an authority, a facility in giving a great tone to discussion, or a mean tone, which no other man has. now lord palmerston for many years steadily applied his mind to giving, not indeed a mean tone, but a light tone, to the proceedings of parliament. one of his greatest admirers has since his death told a story of which he scarcely sees, or seems to see, the full effect. when lord palmerston was first made leader of the house, his jaunty manner was not at all popular, and some predicted failure. "no," said an old member, "he will soon educate us down to his level; the house will soon prefer this ha! ha! style to the wit of canning and the gravity of peel." i am afraid that we must own that the prophecy was accomplished. no prime minister, so popular and so influential, has ever left in the public memory so little noble teaching. twenty years hence, when men inquire as to the then fading memory of palmerston, we shall be able to point to no great truth which he taught, no great distinct policy which he embodied, no noble words which once fascinated his age, and which, in after years, men would not willingly let die. but we shall be able to say "he had a genial manner, a firm, sound sense; he had a kind of cant of insincerity, but we always knew what he meant; he had the brain of a ruler in the clothes of a man of fashion". posterity will hardly understand the words of the aged reminiscent, but we now feel their effect. the house of commons, since it caught its tone from such a statesman, has taught the nation worse, and elevated it less, than usual. i think, however, that a correct observer would decide that in general, and on principle, the house of commons does not teach the public as much as it might teach it, or as the public would wish to learn. i do not wish very abstract, very philosophical, very hard matters to be stated in parliament. the teaching there given must be popular, and to be popular it must be concrete, embodied, short. the problem is to know the highest truth which the people will bear, and to inculcate and preach that. certainly lord palmerston did not preach it. he a little degraded us by preaching a doctrine just below our own standard--a doctrine not enough below us to repel us much, but yet enough below to harm us by augmenting a worldliness which needed no addition, and by diminishing a love of principle and philosophy which did not want deduction. in comparison with the debates of any other assembly, it is true the debates by the english parliament are most instructive. the debates in the american congress have little teaching efficacy; it is the characteristic vice of presidential government to deprive them of that efficacy; in that government a debate in the legislature has little effect, for it cannot turn out the executive, and the executive can veto all it decides. the french chambers[ ] are suitable appendages to an empire which desires the power of despotism without its shame; they prevent the enemies of the empire being quite correct when they say there is no free speech; a few permitted objectors fill the air with eloquence, which every one knows to be often true, and always vain. the debates in an english parliament fill a space in the world which, in these auxiliary chambers, is not possible. but i think any one who compares the discussions on great questions in the higher part of the press, with the discussions in parliament, will feel that there is (of course amid much exaggeration and vagueness) a greater vigour and a higher meaning in the writing than in the speech: a vigour which the public appreciate--a meaning that they like to hear. [ ] this of course relates to the assemblies of the empire. the saturday review said, some years since, that the ability of parliament was a "protected ability": that there was at the door a differential duty of at least pounds a year. accordingly the house of commons, representing only mind coupled with property, is not equal in mind to a legislature chosen for mind only, and whether accompanied by wealth or not. but i do not for a moment wish to see a representation of pure mind; it would be contrary to the main thesis of this essay. i maintain that parliament ought to embody the public opinion of the english nation; and, certainly, that opinion is much more fixed by its property than by its mind. the "too clever by half" people who live in "bohemia," ought to have no more influence in parliament than they have in england, and they can scarcely have less. only, after every great abatement and deduction, i think the country would bear a little more mind; and that there is a profusion of opulent dulness in parliament which might a little--though only a little--be pruned away. the only function of parliament which remains to be considered is the informing function, as i just now called it; the function which belongs to it, or to members of it, to bring before the nation the ideas, grievances, and wishes of special classes. this must not be confounded with what i have called its teaching function. in life, no doubt, the two run one into another. but so do many things which it is very important in definition to separate. the facts of two things being often found together is rather a reason for, than an objection to, separating them, in idea. sometimes they are not found together, and then we may be puzzled if we have not trained ourselves to separate them. the teaching function brings true ideas before the nation, and is the function of its highest minds. the expressive function brings only special ideas, and is the function of but special minds. each class has its ideas, wants, and notions; and certain brains are ingrained with them. such sectarian conceptions are not those by which a determining nation should regulate its action, nor are orators, mainly animated by such conceptions, safe guides in policy. but those orators should be heard; those conceptions should be kept in sight. the great maxim of modern thought is not only the toleration of everything, but the examination of everything. it is by examining very bare, very dull, very unpromising things, that modern science has come to be what it is. there is a story of a great chemist who said he owed half his fame to his habit of examining after his experiments, what was going to be thrown away: everybody knew the result of the experiment itself, but in the refuse matter there were many little facts and unknown changes, which suggested the discoveries of a famous life to a person capable of looking for them. so with the special notions of neglected classes. they may contain elements of truth which, though small, are the very elements which we now require, because we already know all the rest. this doctrine was well known to our ancestors. they laboured to give a character to the various constituencies, or to many of them. they wished that the shipping trade, the wool trade, the linen trade, should each have their spokesman; that the unsectional parliament should know what each section in the nation thought before it gave the national decision. this is the true reason for admitting the working classes to a share in the representation, at least as far as the composition of parliament is to be improved by that admission. a great many ideas, a great many feelings have gathered among the town artisans--a peculiar intellectual life has sprung up among them. they believe that they have interests which are misconceived or neglected; that they know something which others do not know; that the thoughts of parliament are not as their thoughts. they ought to be allowed to try to convince parliament; their notions ought to be stated as those of other classes are stated; their advocates should be heard as other people's advocates are heard. before the reform bill, there was a recognised machinery for that purpose. the member for westminster, and other members, were elected by universal suffrage (or what was in substance such); those members did, in their day, state what were the grievances and ideas--or were thought to be the grievances and ideas--of the working classes. it was the single, unbending franchise introduced in that has caused this difficulty, as it has others. until such a change is made the house of commons will be defective, just as the house of lords was defective. it will not look right. as long as the lords do not come to their own house, we may prove on paper that it is a good revising chamber, but it will be difficult to make the literary argument felt. just so, as long as a great class, congregated in political localities, and known to have political thoughts and wishes, is without notorious and palpable advocates in parliament, we may prove on paper that our representation is adequate, but the world will not believe it. there is a saying in the eighteenth century, that in politics, "gross appearances are great realities". it is in vain to demonstrate that the working classes have no grievances; that the middle classes have done all that is possible for them, and so on with a crowd of arguments which i need not repeat, for the newspapers keep them in type, and we can say them by heart. but so long as the "gross appearance" is that there are no evident, incessant representatives to speak the wants of artisans, the "great reality" will be a diffused dissatisfaction. thirty years ago it was vain to prove that gatton and old sarum were valuable seats, and sent good members. everybody said, "why, there are no people there". just so everybody must say now, "our representative system must be imperfect, for an immense class has no members to speak for it". the only answer to the cry against constituencies without inhabitants was to transfer their power to constituencies with inhabitants. just so, the way to stop the complaint that artisans have no members is to give them members--to create a body of representatives, chosen by artisans, believing, as mr. carlyle would say, "that artisanism is the one thing needful". no. vi. on changes of ministry. there is one error as to the english constitution which crops up periodically. circumstances which often, though irregularly, occur naturally suggests that error, and as surely as they happen it revives. the relation of parliament, and especially of the house of commons, to the executive government is the specific peculiarity of our constitution, and an event which frequently happens much puzzles some people as to it. that event is a change of ministry. all our administrators go out together. the whole executive government changes--at least, all the heads of it change in a body, and at every such change some speculators are sure to exclaim that such a habit is foolish. they say: "no doubt mr. gladstone and lord russell may have been wrong about reform; no doubt mr. gladstone may have been cross in the house of commons; but why should either or both of these events change all the heads of all our practical departments? what could be more absurd than what happened in ? lord palmerston was for once in his life over-buoyant; he gave rude answers to stupid inquiries; he brought into the cabinet a nobleman concerned in an ugly trial about a woman; he, or his foreign secretary, did not answer a french despatch by a despatch, but told our ambassador to reply orally. and because of these trifles, or at any rate these isolated unadministrative mistakes, all our administration had fresh heads. the poor law board had a new chief, the home department a new chief, the public works a new chief. surely this was absurd." now, is this objection good or bad? speaking generally, is it wise so to change all our rulers? the practice produces three great evils. first, it brings in on a sudden new persons and untried persons to preside over our policy. a little while ago lord cranborne[ ] had no more idea that he would now be indian secretary than that he would be a bill broker. he had never given any attention to indian affairs; he can get them up, because he is an able educated man who can get up anything. but they are not "part and parcel" of his mind; not his subjects of familiar reflection, nor things of which he thinks by predilection, of which he cannot help thinking. but because lord russell and mr. gladstone did not please the house of commons about reform, there he is. a perfectly inexperienced man, so far as indian affairs go, rules all our indian empire. and if all our heads of offices change together, so very frequently it must be. if twenty offices are vacant at once, there are almost never twenty tried, competent, clever men ready to take them. the difficulty of making up a government is very much like the difficulty of putting together a chinese puzzle: the spaces do not suit what you have to put into them. and the difficulty of matching a ministry is more than that of fitting a puzzle, because the ministers to be put in can object, though the bits of a puzzle cannot. one objector can throw out the combination. in lord grey would not join lord john russell's projected government if lord palmerston was to be foreign secretary; lord palmerston would be foreign secretary, and so the government was not formed. the cases in which a single refusal prevents a government are rare, and there must be many concurrent circumstances to make it effectual. but the cases in which refusals impair or spoil a government are very common. it almost never happens that the ministry-maker can put into his offices exactly whom he would like; a number of placemen are always too proud, too eager, or too obstinate to go just where they should. [ ] now lord salisbury, who, when this was written, was indian secretary.--note to second edition. again, this system not only makes new ministers ignorant, but keeps present ministers indifferent. a man cannot feel the same interest that he might in his work if he knows that by events over which he has no control, by errors in which he had no share, by metamorphoses of opinion which belong to a different sequence of phenomena, he may have to leave that work in the middle, and may very likely never return to it. the new man put into a fresh office ought to have the best motive to learn his task thoroughly, but, in fact, in england, he has not at all the best motive. the last wave of party and politics brought him there, the next may take him away. young and eager men take, even at this disadvantage, a keen interest in office work, but most men, especially old men, hardly do so. many a battered minister may be seen to think much more of the vicissitudes which make him and unmake him, than of any office matter. lastly, a sudden change of ministers may easily cause a mischievous change of policy. in many matters of business, perhaps in most, a continuity of mediocrity is better than a hotch-potch of excellences. for example, now that progress in the scientific arts is revolutionising the instruments of war, rapid changes in our head-preparers for land and sea war are most costly and most hurtful. a single competent selector of new inventions would probably in the course of years, after some experience, arrive at something tolerable; it is in the nature of steady, regular, experimenting ability to diminish, if not vanquish, such difficulties. but a quick succession of chiefs has no similar facility. they do not learn from each other's experience;--you might as well expect the new head boy at a public school to learn from the experience of the last head boy. the most valuable result of many years is a nicely balanced mind instinctively heedful of various errors; but such a mind is the incommunicable gift of individual experience, and an outgoing minister can no more leave it to his successor, than an elder brother can pass it on to a younger. thus a desultory and incalculable policy may follow from a rapid change of ministers. these are formidable arguments, but four things may, i think, be said in reply to, or mitigation of them. a little examination will show that this change of ministers is essential to a parliamentary government; that something like it will happen in all elective governments, and that worse happens under presidential government; that it is not necessarily prejudicial to a good administration, but that, on the contrary, something like it is a prerequisite of good administration; that the evident evils of english administration are not the results of parliamentary government, but of grave deficiencies in other parts of our political and social state; that, in a word, they result not from what we have, but from what we have not. as to the first point, those who wish to remove the choice of ministers from parliament have not adequately considered what a parliament is. a parliament is nothing less than a big meeting of more or less idle people. in proportion as you give it power it will inquire into everything, settle everything, meddle in everything. in an ordinary despotism, the powers of a despot are limited by his bodily capacity, and by the calls of pleasure; he is but one man; there are but twelve hours in his day, and he is not disposed to employ more than a small part in dull business; he keeps the rest for the court, or the harem, or for society. he is at the top of the world, and all the pleasures of the world are set before him. mostly there is only a very small part of political business which he cares to understand, and much of it (with the shrewd sensual sense belonging to the race) he knows that he will never understand. but a parliament is composed of a great number of men by no means at the top of the world. when you establish a predominant parliament, you give over the rule of the country to a despot who has unlimited time--who has unlimited vanity--who has, or believes he has, unlimited comprehension, whose pleasure is in action, whose life is work. there is no limit to the curiosity of parliament. sir robert peel once suggested that a list should be taken down of the questions asked of him in a single evening; they touched more or less on fifty subjects, and there were a thousand other subjects which by parity of reason might have been added too. as soon as bore a ends, bore b begins. some inquire from genuine love of knowledge, or from a real wish to improve what they ask about; others to see their name in the papers; others to show a watchful constituency that they are alert; others to get on and to get a place in the government; others from an accumulation of little motives they could not themselves analyse, or because it is their habit to ask things. and a proper reply must be given. it was said that "darby griffith destroyed lord palmerston's first government," and undoubtedly the cheerful impertinence with which in the conceit of victory that minister answered grave men much hurt his parliamentary power. there is one thing which no one will permit to be treated lightly--himself. and so there is one too which a sovereign assembly will never permit to be lessened or ridiculed--its own power. the minister of the day will have to give an account in parliament of all branches of administration, to say why they act when they do, and why they do not when they don't. nor is chance inquiry all a public department has most to fear. fifty members of parliament may be zealous for a particular policy affecting the department, and fifty others for another policy, and between them they may divide its action, spoil its favourite aims, and prevent its consistently working out either of their own aims. the process is very simple. every department at times looks as if it was in a scrape; some apparent blunder, perhaps some real blunder, catches the public eye. at once the antagonist parliamentary sections, which want to act on the department, seize the opportunity. they make speeches, they move for documents, they amass statistics. they declare "that in no other country is such a policy possible as that which the department is pursuing; that it is mediaeval; that it costs money; that it wastes life; that america does the contrary; that prussia does the contrary". the newspapers follow according to their nature. these bits of administrative scandal amuse the public. articles on them are very easy to write, easy to read, easy to talk about. they please the vanity of mankind. we think as we read, "thank god, _i_ am not as that man; _i_ did not send green coffee to the crimea; _i_ did not send patent cartridge to the common guns, and common cartridge to the breech loaders. _i_ make money; that miserable public functionary only wastes money". as for the defence of the department, no one cares for it or reads it. naturally at first hearing it does not sound true. the opposition have the unrestricted selection of the point of attack, and they seldom choose a case in which the department, upon the surface of the matter, seems to be right. the case of first impression will always be that something shameful has happened; that such and such men did die; that this and that gun would not go off; that this or that ship will not sail. all the pretty reading is unfavourable, and all the praise is very dull. nothing is more helpless than such a department in parliament if it has no authorised official defender. the wasps of the house fasten on it; here they perceive is something easy to sting, and safe, for it cannot sting in return. the small grain of foundation for complaint germinates, till it becomes a whole crop. at once the minister of the day is appealed to; he is at the head of the administration, and he must put the errors right, if such they are. the opposition leader says: "i put it to the right honourable gentleman, the first lord of the treasury. he is a man of business. i do not agree with him in his choice of ends, but he is an almost perfect master of methods and means. what he wishes to do he does do. now i appeal to him whether such gratuitous errors, such fatuous incapacity, are to be permitted in the public service. perhaps the right honourable gentleman will grant me his attention while i show from the very documents of the departments," etc., etc. what is the minister to do? he never heard of this matter; he does not care about the matter. several of the supporters of the government are interested in the opposition to the department; a grave man, supposed to be wise, mutters, "this is too bad". the secretary of the treasury tells him, "the house is uneasy. a good many men are shaky. a. b. said yesterday he had been dragged through the dirt four nights following. indeed i am disposed to think myself that the department has been somewhat lax. perhaps an inquiry," etc., etc. and upon that the prime minister rises and says: "that her majesty's government having given very serious and grave consideration to this most important subject, are not prepared to say that in so complicated a matter the department has been perfectly exempt from error. he does not indeed concur in all the statements which have been made; it is obvious that several of the charges advanced are inconsistent with one another. if a. had really died from eating green coffee on the tuesday, it is plain he could not have suffered from insufficient medical attendance on the following thursday. however, on so complex a subject, and one so foreign to common experience, he will not give a judgment. and if the honourable member would be satisfied with having the matter inquired into by a committee of that house, he will be prepared to accede to the suggestion." possibly the outlying department, distrusting the ministry, crams a friend. but it is happy indeed if it chances on a judicious friend. the persons most ready to take up that sort of business are benevolent amateurs, very well intentioned, very grave, very respectable, but also rather dull. their words are good, but about the joints their arguments are weak. they speak very well, but while they are speaking, the decorum is so great that everybody goes away. such a man is no match for a couple of house of commons gladiators. they pull what he says to shreds. they show or say that he is wrong about his facts. then he rises in a fuss and must explain: but in his hurry he mistakes, and cannot find the right paper, and becomes first hot, then confused, next inaudible, and so sits down. probably he leaves the house with the notion that the defence of the department has broken down, and so the times announces to all the world as soon as it awakes. some thinkers have naturally suggested that the heads of departments should as such have the right of speech in the house. but the system when it has been tried has not answered. m. guizot tells us from his own experience that such a system is not effectual. a great popular assembly has a corporate character; it has its own privileges, prejudices, and notions. and one of these notions is that its own members--the persons it sees every day--whose qualities it knows, whose minds it can test, are those whom it can most trust. a clerk speaking from without would be an unfamiliar object. he would be an outsider. he would speak under suspicion; he would speak without dignity. very often he would speak as a victim. all the bores of the house would be upon him. he would be put upon examination. he would have to answer interrogatories. he would be put through the figures and cross-questioned in detail. the whole effect of what he said would be lost in quaestiunculae and hidden in a controversial detritus. again, such a person would rarely speak with great ability. he would speak as a scribe. his habits must have been formed in the quiet of an office: he is used to red tape, placidity, and the respect of subordinates. such a person will hardly ever be able to stand the hurly-burly of a public assembly. he will lose his head--he will say what he should not. he will get hot and red; he will feel he is a sort of culprit. after being used to the flattering deference of deferential subordinates, he will be pestered by fuss and confounded by invective. he will hate the house as naturally as the house does not like him. he will be an incompetent speaker addressing a hostile audience. and what is more, an outside administrator addressing parliament can move parliament only by the goodness of his arguments. he has no votes to back them up with. he is sure to be at chronic war with some active minority of assailants or others. the natural mode in which a department is improved on great points and new points is by external suggestion; the worse foes of a department are the plausible errors which the most visible facts suggest, and which only half visible facts confute. both the good ideas and the bad ideas are sure to find advocates first in the press and then in parliament. against these a permanent clerk would have to contend by argument alone. the minister, the head of the parliamentary government, will not care for him. the minister will say in some undress soliloquy, "these permanent 'fellows' must look after themselves. i cannot be bothered. i have only a majority of nine, and a very shaky majority, too. i cannot afford to make enemies for those whom i did not appoint. they did nothing for me, and i can do nothing for them." and if the permanent clerk come to ask his help, he will say in decorous language, "i am sure that if the department can evince to the satisfaction of parliament that its past management has been such as the public interests require, no one will be more gratified than myself. i am not aware if it will be in my power to attend in my place on monday; but if i can be so fortunate, i shall listen to your official statement with my very best attention." and so the permanent public servant will be teased by the wits, oppressed by the bores, and massacred by the innovators of parliament. the incessant tyranny of parliament over the public offices is prevented and can only be prevented by the appointment of a parliamentary head, connected by close ties with the present ministry and the ruling party in parliament the parliamentary head is a protecting machine. he and the friends he brings stand between the department and the busybodies and crotchet-makers of the house and the country. so long as at any moment the policy of an office could be altered by chance votes in either house of parliament, there is no security for any consistency. our guns and our ships are not, perhaps, very good now. but they would be much worse if any thirty or forty advocates for this gun or that gun could make a motion in parliament, beat the department, and get their ships or their guns adopted. the "black breech ordnance company" and the "adamantine ship company" would soon find representatives in parliament, if forty or fifty members would get the national custom for their rubbish. but this result is now prevented by the parliamentary head of the department. as soon as the opposition begins the attack, he looks up his means of defence. he studies the subject, compiles his arguments, and builds little piles of statistics, which he hopes will have some effect. he has his reputation at stake, and he wishes to show that he is worth his present place, and fit for future promotion. he is well known, perhaps liked, by the house--at any rate the house attends to him; he is one of the regular speakers whom they hear and heed. he is sure to be able to get himself heard, and he is sure to make the best defence he can. and after he has settled his speech he loiters up to the secretary of the treasury, and says quietly, "they have got a motion against me on tuesday, you know. i hope you will have your men here. a lot of fellows have crotchets, and though they do not agree a bit with one another, they are all against the department; they will all vote for the inquiry." and the secretary answers, "tuesday, you say; no (looking at a paper), i do not think it will come on tuesday. there is higgins on education. he is good for a long time. but anyhow it shall be all right." and then he glides about and speaks a word here and a word there, in consequence of which, when the anti-official motion is made, a considerable array of steady, grave faces sits behind the treasury bench--nay, possibly a rising man who sits in outlying independence below the gangway rises to defend the transaction; the department wins by thirty-three, and the management of that business pursues its steady way. this contrast is no fancy picture. the experiment of conducting the administration of a public department by an independent unsheltered authority has often been tried, and always failed. parliament always poked at it, till it made it impossible. the most remarkable is that of the poor law. the administration of that law is not now very good, but it is not too much to say that almost the whole of its goodness has been preserved by its having an official and party protector in the house of commons. without that contrivance we should have drifted back into the errors of the old poor law, and superadded to them the present meanness and incompetence in our large towns. all would have been given up to local management. parliament would have interfered with the central board till it made it impotent, and the local authorities would have been despotic. the first administration of the new poor law was by "commissioners"--the three kings of somerset house, as they were called. the system was certainly not tried in untrustworthy hands. at the crisis mr. chadwick, one of the most active and best administrators in england, was the secretary and the motive power: the principal commissioner was sir george lewis, perhaps the best selective administrator of our time. but the house of commons would not let the commission alone. for a long time it was defended because the whigs had made the commission, and felt bound as a party to protect it. the new law started upon a certain intellectual impetus, and till that was spent its administration was supported in a rickety existence by an abnormal strength. but afterwards the commissioners were left to their intrinsic weakness. there were members for all the localities, but there were none for them. there were members for every crotchet and corrupt interest, but there were none for them. the rural guardians would have liked to eke out wages by rates; the city guardians hated control, and hated to spend money. the commission had to be dissolved, and a parliamentary head was added; the result is not perfect, but it is an amazing improvement on what would have happened in the old system. the new system has not worked well because the central authority has too little power; but under the previous system the central authority was getting to have, and by this time would have had, no power at all. and if sir george lewis and mr. chadwick could not maintain an outlying department in the face of parliament, how unlikely that an inferior compound of discretion and activity will ever maintain it! these reasonings show why a changing parliamentary head, a head changing as the ministry changes, is a necessity of good parliamentary government, and there is happily a natural provision that there will be such heads. party organisation ensures it. in america, where on account of the fixedly recurring presidential election, and the perpetual minor elections, party organisation is much more effectually organised than anywhere else, the effect on the offices is tremendous. every office is filled anew at every presidential change, at least every change which brings in a new party. not only the greatest posts, as in england, but the minor posts change their occupants. the scale of the financial operations of the federal government is now so increased that most likely in that department, at least, there must in future remain a permanent element of great efficiency; a revenue of , , pounds sterling cannot be collected and expended with a trifling and changing staff. but till now the americans have tried to get on not only with changing heads to a bureaucracy, as the english, but without any stable bureaucracy at all. they have facilities for trying it which no one else has. all americans can administer, and the number of them really fit to be in succession lawyers, financiers, or military managers is wonderful; they need not be as afraid of a change of all their officials as european countries must, for the incoming substitutes are sure to be much better there than here; and they do not fear, as we english fear, that the outgoing officials will be left destitute in middle life, with no hope for the future and no recompense for the past, for in america (whatever may be the cause of it) opportunities are numberless, and a man who is ruined by being "off the rails" in england soon there gets on another line. the americans will probably to some extent modify their past system of total administrative cataclysms, but their very existence in the only competing form of free government should prepare us for and make us patient with the mild transitions of parliamentary government. these arguments will, i think, seem conclusive to almost every one; but, at this moment, many people will meet them thus: they will say, "you prove what we do not deny, that this system of periodical change is a necessary ingredient in parliamentary government, but you have not proved what we do deny, that this change is a good thing. parliamentary government may have that effect, among others, for anything we care: we maintain merely that it is a defect." in answer, i think it may be shown not, indeed, that this precise change is necessary to a permanently perfect administration, but that some analogous change, some change of the same species, is so. at this moment, in england, there is a sort of leaning towards bureaucracy--at least, among writers and talkers. there is a seizure of partiality to it. the english people do not easily change their rooted notions, but they have many unrooted notions. any great european event is sure for a moment to excite a sort of twinge of conversion to something or other. just now, the triumph of the prussians--the bureaucratic people, as is believed, par excellence--has excited a kind of admiration for bureaucracy, which a few years since we should have thought impossible. i do not presume to criticise the prussian bureaucracy of my own knowledge; it certainly is not a pleasant institution for foreigners to come across, though agreeableness to travellers is but of very second-rate importance. but it is quite certain that the prussian bureaucracy, though we, for a moment, half admire it at a distance, does not permanently please the most intelligent and liberal prussians at home. what are two among the principal aims of the fortschritt partei--the party of progress--as mr. grant duff, the most accurate and philosophical of our describers, delineates them? first, "a liberal system, conscientiously carried out in all the details of the administration, with a view to avoiding the scandals now of frequent occurrence, when an obstinate or bigoted official sets at defiance the liberal initiations of the government, trusting to backstairs influence". second, "an easy method of bringing to justice guilty officials, who are at present, as in france, in all conflicts with simple citizens, like men armed cap-a-pie fighting with defenceless". a system against which the most intelligent native liberals bring even with colour of reason such grave objections, is a dangerous model for foreign imitation. the defects of bureaucracy are, indeed, well known. it is a form of government which has been tried often enough in the world, and it is easy to show what, human nature being what it in the long run is, the defects of a bureaucracy must in the long run be. it is an inevitable defect, that bureaucrats will care more for routine than for results; or, as burke put it, "that they will think the substance of business not to be much more important than the forms of it". their whole education and all the habit of their lives make them do so. they are brought young into the particular part of the public service to which they are attached; they are occupied for years in learning its forms--afterwards, for years too, in applying these forms to trifling matters. they are, to use the phrase of an old writer, "but the tailors of business; they cut the clothes, but they do not find the body". men so trained must come to think the routine of business not a means, but an end--to imagine the elaborate machinery of which they form a part, and from which they derive their dignity, to be a grand and achieved result, not a working and changeable instrument. but in a miscellaneous world, there is now one evil and now another. the very means which best helped you yesterday, may very likely be those which most impede you to-morrow--you may want to do a different thing to-morrow, and all your accumulation of means for yesterday's work is but an obstacle to the new work. the prussian military system is the theme of popular wonder now, yet it sixty years pointed the moral against form. we have all heard the saying that "frederic the great lost the battle of jena". it was the system which he had established--a good system for his wants and his times--which, blindly adhered to, and continued into a different age, put to strive with new competitors, brought his country to ruin. the "dead and formal" prussian system was then contrasted with the "living" french system--the sudden outcome of the new explosive democracy. the system which now exists is the product of the reaction; and the history of its predecessor is a warning what its future history may be too. it is not more celebrated for its day than frederic's for his, and principle teaches that a bureaucracy, elated by sudden success, and marvelling at its own merit, is the most unimproving and shallow of governments. not only does a bureaucracy thus tend to under-government, in point of quality; it tends to over-government, in point of quantity. the trained official hates the rude, untrained public. he thinks that they are stupid, ignorant, reckless--that they cannot tell their own interest--that they should have the leave of the office before they do anything. protection is the natural inborn creed of every official body; free trade is an extrinsic idea alien to its notions, and hardly to be assimilated with life; and it is easy to see how an accomplished critic, used to a free and active life, could thus describe the official. "every imaginable and real social interest," says mr. laing, "religion, education, law, police, every branch of public or private business, personal liberty to move from place to place, even from parish to parish within the same jurisdiction; liberty to engage in any branch of trade or industry, on a small or large scale, all the objects, in short, in which body, mind, and capital can be employed in civilised society, were gradually laid hold of for the employment and support of functionaries, were centralised in bureaux, were superintended, licensed, inspected, reported upon, and interfered with by a host of officials scattered over the land, and maintained at the public expense, yet with no conceivable utility in their duties. they are not, however, gentlemen at large, enjoying salary without service. they are under a semi-military discipline. in bavaria, for instance, the superior civil functionary can place his inferior functionary under house-arrest, for neglect of duty, or other offence against civil functionary discipline. in wurtemberg, the functionary cannot marry without leave from his superior. voltaire says, somewhere, that, 'the art of government is to make two-thirds of a nation pay all it possibly can pay for the benefit of the other third'. this is realised in germany by the functionary system. the functionaries are not there for the benefit of the people, but the people for the benefit of the functionaries. all this machinery of functionarism, with its numerous ranks and gradations in every district, filled with a staff of clerks and expectants in every department looking for employment, appointments, or promotions, was intended to be a new support of the throne in the new social state of the continent; a third class, in connection with the people by their various official duties of interference in all public or private affairs, yet attached by their interests to the kingly power. the beamptenstand, or functionary class, was to be the equivalent to the class of nobility, gentry, capitalists, and men of larger landed property than the peasant-proprietors, and was to make up in numbers for the want of individual weight and influence. in france, at the expulsion of louis philippe, the civil functionaries were stated to amount to , individuals. this civil army was more than double of the military. in germany, this class is necessarily more numerous in proportion to the population, the landwehr system imposing many more restrictions than the conscription on the free action of the people, and requiring more officials to manage it, and the semi-feudal jurisdictions and forms of law requiring much more writing and intricate forms of procedure before the courts than the code napoleon." a bureaucracy is sure to think that its duty is to augment official power, official business, or official members, rather than to leave free the energies of mankind; it overdoes the quantity of government, as well as impairs its quality. the truth is, that a skilled bureaucracy--a bureaucracy trained from early life to its special avocation--is, though it boasts of an appearance of science, quite inconsistent with the true principles of the art of business. that art has not yet been condensed into precepts, but a great many experiments have been made, and a vast floating vapour of knowledge floats through society. one of the most sure principles is, that success depends on a due mixture of special and non-special minds--of minds which attend to the means, and of minds which attend to the end. the success of the great joint-stock banks of london--the most remarkable achievement of recent business--has been an example of the use of this mixture. these banks are managed by a board of persons mostly not trained to the business, supplemented by, and annexed to, a body of specially trained officers, who have been bred to banking all their lives. these mixed banks have quite beaten the old banks, composed exclusively of pure bankers; it is found that the board of directors has greater and more flexible knowledge--more insight into the wants of a commercial community--knows when to lend and when not to lend, better than the old bankers, who had never looked at life, except out of the bank windows. just so the most successful railways in europe have been conducted--not by engineers or traffic managers--but by capitalists; by men of a certain business culture, if of no other. these capitalists buy and use the services of skilled managers, as the unlearned attorney buys and uses the services of the skilled barrister, and manage far better than any of the different sorts of special men under them. they combine these different specialities--make it clear where the realm of one ends and that of the other begins, and add to it a wide knowledge of large affairs, which no special man can have, and which is only gained by diversified action. but this utility of leading minds used to generalise, and acting upon various materials, is entirely dependent upon their position. they must not be at the bottom--they must not even be half way up--they must be at the top. a merchant's clerk would be a child at a bank counter; but the merchant himself could, very likely, give good, clear, and useful advice in a bank court. the merchant's clerk would be equally at sea in a railway office, but the merchant himself could give good advice, very likely, at a board of directors. the summits (if i may so say) of the various kinds of business are, like the tops of mountains, much more alike than the parts below--the bare principles are much the same; it is only the rich variegated details of the lower strata that so contrast with one another. but it needs travelling to know that the summits are the same. those who live on one mountain believe that their mountain is wholly unlike all others. the application of this principle to parliamentary government is very plain; it shows at once that the intrusion from without upon an office of an exterior head of the office, is not an evil, but that, on the contrary, it is essential to the perfection of that office. if it is left to itself, the office will become technical, self-absorbed, self-multiplying. it will be likely to overlook the end in the means; it will fail from narrowness of mind; it will be eager in seeming to do; it will be idle in real doing. an extrinsic chief is the fit corrector of such errors. he can say to the permanent chief, skilled in the forms and pompous with the memories of his office, "will you, sir, explain to me how this regulation conduces to the end in view? according to the natural view of things, the applicant should state the whole of his wishes to one clerk on one paper; you make him say it to five clerks on five papers." or, again, "does it not appear to you, sir, that the reason of this formality is extinct? when we were building wood ships, it was quite right to have such precautions against fire; but now that we are building iron ships," etc., etc. if a junior clerk asked these questions, he would be "pooh-poohed!" it is only the head of an office that can get them answered. it is he, and he only, that brings the rubbish of office to the burning-glass of sense. the immense importance of such a fresh mind is greatest in a country where business changes most. a dead, inactive, agricultural country may be governed by an unalterable bureau for years and years, and no harm come of it. if a wise man arranged the bureau rightly in the beginning, it may run rightly a long time. but if the country be a progressive, eager, changing one, soon the bureau will either cramp improvement, or be destroyed itself. this conception of the use of a parliamentary head shows how wrong is the obvious notion which regards him as the principal administrator of his office. the late sir george lewis used to be fond of explaining this subject. he had every means of knowing. he was bred in the permanent civil service. he was a very successful chancellor of the exchequer, a very successful home secretary, and he died minister for war. he used to say, "it is not the business of a cabinet minister to work his department. his business is to see that it is properly worked. if he does much, he is probably doing harm. the permanent staff of the office can do what he chooses to do much better, or if they cannot, they ought to be removed. he is only a bird of passage, and cannot compete with those who are in the office all their lives round." sir george lewis was a perfect parliamentary head of an office, so far as that head is to be a keen critic and rational corrector of it. but sir george lewis was not perfect; he was not even an average good head in another respect. the use of a fresh mind applied to the official mind is not only a corrective use, it is also an animating use. a public department is very apt to be dead to what is wanting for a great occasion till the occasion is past. the vague public mind will appreciate some signal duty before the precise, occupied administration perceives it. the duke of newcastle was of this use at least in the crimean war. he roused up his department, though when roused it could not act. a perfect parliamentary minister would be one who should add the animating capacity of the duke of newcastle to the accumulated sense, the detective instinct, and the laissez faire habit of sir george lewis. as soon as we take the true view of parliamentary office we shall perceive that, fairly, frequent change in the official is an advantage, not a mistake. if his function is to bring a representative of outside sense and outside animation in contact with the inside world, he ought often to be changed. no man is a perfect representative of outside sense. "there is some one," says the true french saying, "who is more able than talleyrand, more able than napoleon. cest tout le monde." that many-sided sense finds no microcosm in any single individual. still less are the critical function and the animating function of a parliamentary minister likely to be perfectly exercised by one and the same man. impelling power and restraining wisdom are as opposite as any two things, and are rarely found together. and even if the natural mind of the parliamentary minister was perfect, long contact with the office would destroy his use. inevitably he would accept the ways of office, think its thoughts, live its life. the "dyer's hand would be subdued to what it works in". if the function of a parliamentary minister is to be an outsider to his office, we must not choose one who, by habit, thought, and life, is acclimatised to its ways. there is every reason to expect that a parliamentary statesman will be a man of quite sufficient intelligence, quite enough various knowledge, quite enough miscellaneous experience, to represent effectually general sense in opposition to bureaucratic sense. most cabinet ministers in charge of considerable departments are men of superior ability; i have heard an eminent living statesman of long experience say that in his time he only knew one instance to the contrary. and there is the best protection that it shall be so. a considerable cabinet minister has to defend his department in the face of mankind; and though distant observers and sharp writers may depreciate it, this is a very difficult thing. a fool, who has publicly to explain great affairs, who has publicly to answer detective questions, who has publicly to argue against able and quick opponents, must soon be shown to be a fool. the very nature of parliamentary government answers for the discovery of substantial incompetence. at any rate, none of the competing forms of government have nearly so effectual a procedure for putting a good untechnical minister to correct and impel the routine ones. there are but four important forms of government in the present state of the world--the parliamentary, the presidential, the hereditary, and the dictatorial, or revolutionary. of these i have shown that, as now worked in america, the presidential form of government is incompatible with a skilled bureaucracy. if the whole official class change when a new party goes out or comes in, a good official system is impossible. even if more officials should be permanent in america than now, still, vast numbers will always be changed. the whole issue is based on a single election--on the choice of president; by that internecine conflict all else is won or lost. the managers of the contest have that greatest possible facility in using what i may call patronage--bribery. everybody knows that, as a fact, the president can give what places he likes to what persons, and when his friends tell a. b., "if we win, c. d. shall be turned out of utica post-office, and you, a. b., shall have it," a. b. believes it, and is justified in doing so. but no individual member of parliament can promise place effectually. he may not be able to give the places. his party may come in, but he will be powerless. in the united states party intensity is aggravated by concentrating an overwhelming importance on a single contest, and the efficiency of promised offices as a means of corruption is augmented, because the victor can give what he likes to whom he likes. nor is this the only defect of a presidential government in reference to the choice of officers. the president has the principal anomaly of a parliamentary government without having its corrective. at each change of party the president distributes (as here) the principal offices to his principal supporters. but he has an opportunity for singular favouritism; the minister lurks in the office; he need do nothing in public; he need not show for years whether he is a fool or wise. the nation can tell what a parliamentary member is by the open test of parliament; but no one, save from actual contact, or by rare position, can tell anything certain of a presidential minister. the case of a minister under an hereditary form of government is yet worse. the hereditary king may be weak; may be under the government of women; may appoint a minister from childish motives; may remove one from absurd whims. there is no security that an hereditary king will be competent to choose a good chief minister, and thousands of such kings have chosen millions of bad ministers. by the dictatorial, or revolutionary, sort of government, i mean that very important sort in which the sovereign--the absolute sovereign--is selected by insurrection. in theory, one would certainly have hoped that by this time such a crude elective machinery would have been reduced to a secondary part. but, in fact, the greatest nation (or, perhaps, after the exploits of bismarck, i should say one of the two greatest nations of the continent) vacillates between the revolutionary and the parliamentary, and now is governed under the revolutionary form. france elects its ruler in the streets of paris. flatterers may suggest that the democratic empire will become hereditary, but close observers know that it cannot. the idea of the government is that the emperor represents the people in capacity, in judgment, in instinct. but no family through generations can have sufficient, or half sufficient, mind to do so. the representative despot must be chosen by fighting, as napoleon i. and napoleon iii. were chosen. and such a government is likely, whatever be its other defects, to have a far better and abler administration than any other government. the head of the government must be a man of the most consummate ability. he cannot keep his place, he can hardly keep his life, unless he is. he is sure to be active, because he knows that his power, and perhaps his head, may be lost if he be negligent. the whole frame of his state is strained to keep down revolution. the most difficult of all political problems is to be solved--the people are to be at once thoroughly restrained and thoroughly pleased. the executive must be like a steel shirt of the middle ages--extremely hard and extremely flexible. it must give way to attractive novelties which do not hurt; it must resist such as are dangerous; it must maintain old things which are good and fitting; it must alter such as cramp and give pain. the dictator dare not appoint a bad minister if he would. i admit that such a despot is a better selector of administrators than a parliament; that he will know how to mix fresh minds and used minds better; that he is under a stronger motive to combine them well; that here is to be seen the best of all choosers with the keenest motives to choose. but i need not prove in england that the revolutionary selection of rulers obtains administrative efficiency at a price altogether transcending its value; that it shocks credit by its catastrophes; that for intervals it does not protect property or life; that it maintains an undergrowth of fear through all prosperity; that it may take years to find the true capable despot; that the interregna of the incapable are full of all evil; that the fit despot may die as soon as found; that the good administration and all else hang by the thread of his life. but if, with the exception of this terrible revolutionary government, a parliamentary government upon principle surpasses all its competitors in administrative efficiency, why is it that our english government, which is beyond comparison the best of parliamentary governments, is not celebrated through the world for administrative efficiency? it is noted for many things, why is it not noted for that? why, according to popular belief is it rather characterised by the very contrary? one great reason of the diffused impression is, that the english government attempts so much. our military system is that which is most attacked. objectors say we spend much more on our army than the great military monarchies, and yet with an inferior result. but, then, what we attempt is incalculably more difficult. the continental monarchies have only to defend compact european territories by the many soldiers whom they force to fight; the english try to defend without any compulsion--only by such soldiers as they persuade to serve--territories far surpassing all europe in magnitude, and situated all over the habitable globe. our horse guards and war office may not be at all perfect--i believe they are not: but if they had sufficient recruits selected by force of law--if they had, as in prussia, the absolute command of each man's time for a few years, and the right to call him out afterwards when they liked, we should be much surprised at the sudden ease and quickness with which they did things. i have no doubt too that any accomplished soldier of the continent would reject as impossible what we after a fashion effect. he would not attempt to defend a vast scattered empire, with many islands, a long frontier line in every continent, and a very tempting bit of plunder at the centre, by mere volunteer recruits, who mostly come from the worst class of the people--whom the great duke called the "scum of the earth"--who come in uncertain numbers year by year--who by some political accident may not come in adequate numbers, or at all, in the year we need them most. our war office attempts what foreign war offices (perhaps rightly) would not try at; their officers have means of incalculable force denied to ours, though ours is set to harder tasks. again, the english navy undertakes to defend a line of coast and a set of dependencies far surpassing those of any continental power. and the extent of our operations is a singular difficulty just now. it requires us to keep a large stock of ships and arms. but on the other hand, there are most important reasons why we should not keep much. the naval art and the military art are both in a state of transition; the last discovery of to-day is out of date, and superseded by an antagonistic discovery to-morrow. any large accumulation of vessels or guns is sure to contain much that will be useless, unfitting, antediluvian, when it comes to be tried. there are two cries against the admiralty which go on side by side: one says, "we have not ships enough, no 'relief' ships, no navy, to tell the truth"; the other cry says, "we have all the wrong ships, all the wrong guns, and nothing but the wrong; in their foolish constructive mania the admiralty have been building when they ought to have been waiting; they have heaped a curious museum of exploded inventions, but they have given us nothing serviceable". the two cries for opposite policies go on together, and blacken our executive together, though each is a defence of the executive against the other. again, the home department in england struggles with difficulties of which abroad they have long got rid. we love independent "local authorities," little centres of outlying authority. when the metropolitan executive most wishes to act, it cannot act effectually because these lesser bodies hesitate, deliberate, or even disobey. but local independence has no necessary connection with parliamentary government. the degree of local freedom desirable in a country varies according to many circumstances, and a parliamentary government may consist with any degree of it. we certainly ought not to debit parliamentary government as a general and applicable polity with the particular vices of the guardians of the poor in england, though it is so debited every day. again, as our administration has in england this peculiar difficulty, so on the other hand foreign competing administrations have a peculiar advantage. abroad a man under government is a superior being: he is higher than the rest of the world; he is envied by almost all of it. this gives the government the easy pick of the elite of the nation. all clever people are eager to be under government, and are hardly to be satisfied elsewhere. but in england there is no such superiority, and the english have no such feeling. we do not respect a stamp-office clerk, or an exciseman's assistant. a pursy grocer considers he is much above either. our government cannot buy for minor clerks the best ability of the nation in the cheap currency of pure honour, and no government is rich enough to buy very much of it in money. our mercantile opportunities allure away the most ambitious minds. the foreign bureaux are filled with a selection from the ablest men of the nation, but only a very few of the best men approach the english offices. but these are neither the only nor even the principal reasons why our public administration is not so good as, according to principle and to the unimpeded effects of parliamentary government, it should be. there are two great causes at work, which in their consequences run out into many details, but which in their fundamental nature may be briefly described. the first of these causes is our ignorance. no polity can get out of a nation more than there is in the nation. a free government is essentially a government by persuasion; and as are the people to be persuaded, and as are the persuaders, so will that government be. on many parts of our administration the effect of our extreme ignorance is at once plain. the foreign policy of england has for many years been, according to the judgment now in vogue, inconsequent, fruitless, casual; aiming at no distinct pre-imagined end, based on no steadily pre-conceived principle. i have not room to discuss with how much or how little abatement this decisive censure should be accepted. however, i entirely concede that our recent foreign policy has been open to very grave and serious blame. but would it not have been a miracle if the english people, directing their own policy, and being what they are, had directed a good policy? are they not above all nations divided from the rest of the world, insular both in situation and in mind, both for good and for evil? are they not out of the current of common european causes and affairs? are they not a race contemptuous of others? are they not a race with no special education or culture as to the modern world, and too often despising such culture? who could expect such a people to comprehend the new and strange events of foreign places? so far from wondering that the english parliament has been inefficient in foreign policy, i think it is wonderful, and another sign of the rude, vague imagination that is at the bottom of our people, that we have done so well as we have. again, the very conception of the english constitution, as distinguished from a purely parliamentary constitution is, that it contains "dignified" parts--parts, that is, retained, not for intrinsic use, but from their imaginative attraction upon an uncultured and rude population. all such elements tend to diminish simple efficiency. they are like the additional and solely-ornamental wheels introduced into the clocks of the middle ages, which tell the then age of the moon or the supreme constellation; which make little men or birds come out and in theatrically. all such ornamental work is a source of friction and error; it prevents the time being marked accurately; each new wheel is a new source of imperfection. so if authority is given to a person, not on account of his working fitness, but on account of his imaginative efficiency, he will commonly impair good administration. he may do something better than good work of detail, but will spoil good work of detail. the english aristocracy is often of this sort. it has an influence over the people of vast value still, and of infinite value formerly. but no man would select the cadets of an aristocratic house as desirable administrators. they have peculiar disadvantages in the acquisition of business knowledge, business training, and business habits, and they have no peculiar advantages. our middle class, too, is very unfit to give us the administrators we ought to have. i cannot now discuss whether all that is said against our education is well grounded; it is called by an excellent judge "pretentious, insufficient, and unsound". but i will say that it does not fit men to be men of business as it ought to fit them. till lately the very simple attainments and habits necessary for a banker's clerk had a scarcity-value. the sort of education which fits a man for the higher posts of practical life is still very rare; there is not even a good agreement as to what it is. our public officers cannot be as good as the corresponding officers of some foreign nations till our business education is as good as theirs.[ ] [ ] i am happy to state that this evil is much diminishing. the improvement of school education of the middle class in the last twenty-five years is marvellous. but strong as is our ignorance in deteriorating our administration, another cause is stronger still. there are but two foreign administrations probably better than ours, and both these have had something which we have not had. theirs in both cases were arranged by a man of genius, after careful forethought, and upon a special design. napoleon built upon a clear stage which the french revolution bequeathed him. the originality once ascribed to his edifice was indeed untrue; tocqueville and lavergne have shown that he did but run up a conspicuous structure in imitation of a latent one before concealed by the mediaeval complexities of the old regime. but what we are concerned with now is, not napoleon's originality, but his work. he undoubtedly settled the administration of france upon an effective, consistent, and enduring system; the succeeding governments have but worked the mechanism they inherited from him. frederick the great did the same in the new monarchy of prussia. both the french system and the prussian are new machines, made in civilised times to do their appropriate work. the english offices have never, since they were made, been arranged with any reference to one another; or rather they were never made, but grew as each could. the sort of free trade which prevailed in public institutions in the english middle ages is very curious. our three courts of law--the queen's bench, the common pleas, and the exchequer--for the sake of the fees extended an originally contracted sphere into the entire sphere of litigation. boni judicis est ampliare jursdictionem, went the old saying; or, in english, "it is the mark of a good judge to augment the fees of his court," his own income, and the income of his subordinates. the central administration, the treasury, never asked any account of the moneys the courts thus received; so long as it was not asked to pay anything, it was satisfied. only last year one of the many remnants of this system cropped up, to the wonder of the public. a clerk in the patent office stole some fees, and naturally the men of the nineteenth century thought our principal finance minister, the chancellor of the exchequer, would be, as in france, responsible for it. but the english law was different somehow. the patent office was under the lord chancellor, and the court of chancery is one of the multitude of our institutions which owe their existence to free competition, and so it was the lord chancellor's business to look after the fees, which of course, as an occupied judge, he could not. a certain act of parliament did indeed require that the fees of the patent office should be paid into the "exchequer"; and, again, the "chancellor of the exchequer" was thought to be responsible in the matter, but only by those who did not know. according to our system the chancellor of the exchequer is the enemy of the exchequer; a whole series of enactments try to protect it from him. until a few months ago there was a very lucrative sinecure called the "comptrollership of the exchequer," designed to guard the exchequer against its chancellor; and the last holder, lord monteagle, used to say he was the pivot of the english constitution. i have not room to explain what he meant, and it is not needful; what is to the purpose is that, by an inherited series of historical complexities, a defaulting clerk in an office of no litigation was not under natural authority, the finance minister, but under a far-away judge who had never heard of him. the whole office of the lord chancellor is a heap of anomalies. he is a judge, and it is contrary to obvious principle that any part of administration should be entrusted to a judge; it is of very grave moment that the administration of justice should be kept clear of any sinister temptations. yet the lord chancellor, our chief judge, sits in the cabinet, and makes party speeches in the lords. lord lyndhurst was a principal tory politician, and yet he presided in the o'connell case. lord westbury was in chronic wrangle with the bishops, but he gave judgment upon "essays and reviews". in truth, the lord chancellor became a cabinet minister, because, being near the person of the sovereign, he was high in court precedence, and not upon a political theory wrong or right. a friend once told me that an intelligent italian asked him about the principal english officers, and that he was very puzzled to explain their duties, and especially to explain the relation of their duties to their titles. i do not remember all the cases, but i can recollect that the italian could not comprehend why the first "lord of the treasury" had as a rule nothing to do with the treasury, or why the "woods and forests" looked after the sewerage of towns. this conversation was years before the cattle plague, but i should like to have heard the reasons why the privy council office had charge of that malady. of course one could give an historical reason, but i mean an administrative reason a reason which would show, not how it came to have the duty, but why in future it should keep it. but the unsystematic and casual arrangement of our public offices is not more striking than their difference of arrangement for the one purpose they have in common. they all, being under the ultimate direction of a parliamentary official, ought to have the best means of bringing the whole of the higher concerns of the office before that official. when the fresh mind rules, the fresh mind requires to be informed. and most business being rather alike, the machinery for bringing it before the extrinsic chief ought, for the most part, to be similar: at any rate, where it is different, it ought to be different upon reason; and where it is similar, similar upon reason. yet there are almost no two offices which are exactly alike in the defined relations of the permanent official to the parliamentary chief. let us see. the army and navy are the most similar in nature, yet there is in the army a permanent outside office, called the horse guards, to which there is nothing else like. in the navy, there is a curious anomaly--a board of admiralty, also changing with every government, which is to instruct the first lord in what he does not know. the relations between the first lord and the board have not always been easily intelligible, and those between the war office and the horse guards are in extreme confusion. even now a parliamentary paper relating to them has just been presented to the house of commons, which says the fundamental and ruling document cannot be traced beyond the possession of sir george lewis, who was secretary for war three years since; and the confused details are endless, as they must be in a chronic contention of offices. at the board of trade there is only the hypothesis of a board; it has long ceased to exist. even the president and vice-president do not regularly meet for the transaction of affairs. the patent of the latter is only to transact business in the absence of the president, and if the two are not intimate, and the president chooses to act himself, the vice-president sees no papers, and does nothing. at the treasury the shadow of a board exists, but its members have no power, and are the very officials whom canning said existed to make a house, to keep a house, and to cheer the ministers. the india office has a fixed "council"; but the colonial office which rules over our other dependencies and colonies, has not, and never had, the vestige of a council. any of these varied constitutions may be right, but all of them can scarcely be right. in truth the real constitution of a permanent office to be ruled by a permanent chief has been discussed only once in england: that case was a peculiar and anomalous one, and the decision then taken was dubious. a new india office, when the east india company was abolished, had to be made. the late mr. james wilson, a consummate judge of administrative affairs, then maintained that no council ought to be appointed eo nomine, but that the true council of a cabinet minister was a certain number of highly paid, much occupied, responsible secretaries, whom the minister could consult either separately or together, as, and when, he chose. such secretaries, mr. wilson maintained, must be able, for no minister will sacrifice his own convenience, and endanger his own reputation by appointing a fool to a post so near himself, and where he can do much harm. a member of a board may easily be incompetent; if some other members and the chairmen are able, the addition of one or two stupid men will not be felt; they will receive their salaries and do nothing. but a permanent under-secretary, charged with a real control over much important business, must be able, or his superior will be blamed, and there will be "a scrape in parliament". i cannot here discuss, nor am i competent to discuss, the best mode of composing public offices, and of adjusting them to a parliamentary head. there ought to be on record skilled evidence on the subject before a person without any specific experience can to any purpose think about it. but i may observe that the plan which mr. wilson suggested is that followed in the most successful part of our administration, the "ways and means" part. when the chancellor of the exchequer prepares a budget, he requires from the responsible heads of the revenue department their estimates of the public revenue upon the preliminary hypothesis that no change is made, but that last year's taxes will continue; if, afterwards, he thinks of making an alteration, he requires a report on that too. if he has to renew exchequer bills, or operate anyhow in the city, he takes the opinion, oral or written, of the ablest and most responsible person at the national debt office, and the ablest and most responsible at the treasury. mr. gladstone, by far the greatest chancellor of the exchequer of this generation, one of the very greatest of any generation, has often gone out of his way to express his obligation to these responsible skilled advisers. the more a man knows himself, the more habituated he is to action in general, the more sure he is to take and to value responsible counsel emanating from ability and suggested by experience. that this principle brings good fruit is certain. we have, by unequivocal admission, the best budget in the world. why should not the rest of our administration be as good if we did but apply the same method to it? i leave this to stand as it was originally written since it does not profess to rest on my own knowledge, and only offers a suggestion on good authority. recent experience seems, however, to show that in all great administrative departments there ought to be some one permanent responsible head through whom the changing parliamentary chief always acts, from whom he learns everything, and to whom he communicates everything. the daily work of the exchequer is a trifle compared with that of the admiralty or the home office, and therefore a single principal head is not there so necessary. but the preponderance of evidence at present is that in all offices of very great work some one such head is essential. no. vii. its supposed checks and balances. in a former essay i devoted an elaborate discussion to the comparison of the royal and unroyal form of parliamentary government. i showed that at the formation of a ministry, and during the continuance of a ministry, a really sagacious monarch might be of rare use. i ascertained that it was a mistake to fancy that at such times a constitutional monarch had no rule and no duties. but i proved likewise that the temper, the disposition, and the faculties then needful to fit a constitutional monarch for usefulness were very rare, at least as rare as the faculties of a great absolute monarch, and that a common man in that place is apt to do at least as much harm as good--perhaps more harm. but in that essay i could not discuss fully the functions of a king at the conclusion of an administration, for then the most peculiar parts of the english government--the power to dissolve the house of commons, and the power to create new peers--come into play, and until the nature of the house of lords and the nature of the house of commons had been explained, i had no premises for an argument as to the characteristic action of the king upon them. we have since considered the functions of the two houses, and also the effects of changes of ministry on our administrative system; we are now, therefore, in a position to discuss the functions of a king at the end of an administration. i may seem over formal in this matter, but i am very formal on purpose. it appears to me that the functions of our executive in dissolving the commons and augmenting the peers are among the most important, and the least appreciated, parts of our whole government, and that hundreds of errors have been made in copying the english constitution from not comprehending them. hobbes told us long ago, and everybody now understands, that there must be a supreme authority, a conclusive power, in every state on every point somewhere. the idea of government involves it--when that idea is properly understood. but there are two classes of governments. in one the supreme determining power is upon all points the same: in the other, that ultimate power is different upon different points--now resides in one part of the constitution and now in another. the americans thought that they were imitating the english in making their constitution upon the last principle--in having one ultimate authority for one sort of matter, and another for another sort. but in truth the english constitution is the type of the opposite species; it has only one authority for all sorts of matters. to gain a living conception of the difference let us see what the americans did. first, they altogether retained what, in part, they could not help, the sovereignty of the separate states. a fundamental article of the federal constitution says that the powers not "delegated" to the central government are "reserved to the states respectively". and the whole recent history of the union--perhaps all its history--has been more determined by that enactment than by any other single cause. the sovereignty of the principal matters of state has rested not with the highest government, but with the subordinate government. the federal government could not touch slavery--the "domestic institution" which divided the union into two halves, unlike one another in morals, politics, and social condition, and at last set them to fight. this determining political fact was not in the jurisdiction of the highest government in the country, where you might expect its highest wisdom, nor in the central government, where you might look for impartiality, but in local governments, where petty interests were sure to be considered, and where only inferior abilities were likely to be employed. the capital fact was reserved for the minor jurisdictions. again, there has been only one matter comparable to slavery in the united states, and that has been vitally affected by the state governments also. their ultra-democracy is not a result of federal legislation, but of state legislation. the federal constitution deputed one of the main items of its structure to the subordinate governments. one of its clauses provides that the suffrages for the federal house of representatives shall be, in each state, the same as for the most numerous branch of the legislature of that state; and as each state fixes the suffrage for its own legislatures, the states altogether fix the suffrage for the federal lower chamber. by another clause of the federal constitution the states fix the electoral qualification for voting at a presidential election. the primary element in a free government--the determination how many people shall have a share in it--in america depends not on the government but on certain subordinate local, and sometimes, as in the south now, hostile bodies. doubtless the framers of the constitution had not much choice in the matter. the wisest of them were anxious to get as much power for the central government, and to leave as little to the local governments as they could. but a cry was got up that this wisdom would create a tyranny and impair freedom, and with that help, local jealousy triumphed easily. all federal government is, in truth, a case in which what i have called the dignified elements of government do not coincide with the serviceable elements. at the beginning of every league the separate states are the old governments which attract and keep the love and loyalty of the people; the federal government is a useful thing, but new and unattractive. it must concede much to the state governments, for it is indebted to them for motive power: they are the governments which the people voluntarily obey. when the state governments are not thus loved, they vanish as the little italian and the little german potentates vanished; no federation is needed; a single central government rules all. but the division of the sovereign authority in the american constitution is far more complex than this. the part of that authority left to the federal government is itself divided and subdivided. the greatest instance is the most obvious. the congress rules the law, but the president rules the administration. one means of unity the constitution does give: the president can veto laws he does not like. but when two-thirds of both houses are unanimous (as has lately happened), they can overrule the president and make the laws without him; so here there are three separate repositories of the legislative power in different cases: first, congress and the president when they agree; next, the president when he effectually exerts his power; then the requisite two-thirds of congress when they overrule the president. and the president need not be over-active in carrying out a law he does not approve of. he may indeed be impeached for gross neglect; but between criminal non-feasance and zealous activity there are infinite degrees. mr. johnson does not carry out the freedman's bureau bill as mr. lincoln, who approved of it, would have carried it out. the american constitution has a special contrivance for varying the supreme legislative authority in different cases, and dividing the administrative authority from it in all cases. but the administrative power itself is not left thus simple and undivided. one most important part of administration is international policy, and the supreme authority here is not in the president, still less in the house of representatives, but in the senate. the president can only make treaties, "provided two-thirds of senators present" concur. the sovereignty therefore for the greatest international questions is in a different part of the state altogether from any common administrative or legislative question. it is put in a place by itself. again, the congress declares war, but they would find it very difficult, according to the recent construction of their laws, to compel the president to make a peace. the authors of the constitution doubtless intended that congress should be able to control the american executive as our parliament controls ours. they placed the granting of supplies in the house of representatives exclusively. but they forgot to look after "paper money"; and now it has been held that the president has power to emit such money without consulting congress at all. the first part of the late war was so carried on by mr. lincoln; he relied not on the grants of congress, but on the prerogative of emission. it sounds a joke, but it is true nevertheless, that this power to issue greenbacks is decided to belong to the president as commander-in-chief of the army; it is part of what was called the "war power". in truth money was wanted in the late war, and the administration got it in the readiest way; and the nation, glad not to be more taxed, wholly approved of it. but the fact remains that the president has now, by precedent and decision, a mighty power to continue a war without the consent of congress, and perhaps against its wish. against the united will of the american people a president would of course be impotent; such is the genius of the place and nation that he would never think of it. but when the nation was (as of late) divided into two parties, one cleaving to the president, the other to the congress, the now unquestionable power of the president to issue paper-money may give him the power to continue the war though parliament (as we should speak) may enjoin the war to cease. and lastly, the whole region of the very highest questions is withdrawn from the ordinary authorities of the state, and reserved for special authorities. the "constitution" cannot be altered by any authorities within the constitution, but only by authorities without it. every alteration of it, however urgent or however trifling, must be sanctioned by a complicated proportion of states or legislatures. the consequence is that the most obvious evils cannot be quickly remedied; that the most absurd fictions must be framed to evade the plain sense of mischievous clauses; that a clumsy working and curious technicality mark the politics of a rough-and-ready people. the practical arguments and the legal disquisitions in america are often like those of trustees carrying out a misdrawn will--the sense of what they mean is good, but it can never be worked out fully or defended simply, so hampered is it by the old words of an old testament. these instances (and others might be added) prove, as history proves too, what was the principal thought of the american constitution-makers. they shrank from placing sovereign power anywhere. they feared that it would generate tyranny; george iii. had been a tyrant to them, and come what might, they would not make a george iii. accredited theories said that the english constitution divided the sovereign authority, and in imitation the americans split up theirs. the result is seen now. at the critical moment of their history there is no ready, deciding power. the south, after a great rebellion, lies at the feet of its conquerors: its conquerors have to settle what to do with it.[ ] they must decide the conditions upon which the secessionists shall again become fellow citizens, shall again vote, again be represented, again perhaps govern. the most difficult of problems is how to change late foes into free friends. the safety of their great public debt, and with that debt their future credit and their whole power in future wars, may depend on their not giving too much power to those who must see in the debt the cost of their own subjugation, and who must have an inclination towards the repudiation of it, now that their own debt--the cost of their defence--has been repudiated. a race, too, formerly enslaved, is now at the mercy of men who hate and despise it, and those who set it free are bound to give it a fair chance for new life. the slave was formerly protected by his chains; he was an article of value; but now he belongs to himself, no one but himself has an interest in his life; and he is at the mercy of the "mean whites," whose labour he depreciates, and who regard him with a loathing hatred. the greatest moral duty ever set before a government, and the most fearful political problem ever set before a government, are now set before the american. but there is no decision, and no possibility of a decision. the president wants one course, and has power to prevent any other; the congress wants another course, and has power to prevent any other. the splitting of sovereignty into many parts amounts to there being no sovereign. [ ] this was written just after the close of the civil war, but i do not know that the great problem stated in it has as yet been adequately solved. the americans of thought they were copying the english constitution, but they were contriving a contrast to it. just as the american is the type of composite governments, in which the supreme power is divided between many bodies and functionaries, so the english is the type of simple constitutions, in which the ultimate power upon all questions is in the hands of the same persons. the ultimate authority in the english constitution is a newly-elected house of commons. no matter whether the question upon which it decides be administrative or legislative; no matter whether it concerns high matters of the essential constitution or small matters of daily detail; no matter whether it be a question of making a war or continuing a war; no matter whether it be the imposing a tax or the issuing a paper currency; no matter whether it be a question relating to india, or ireland, or london--a new house of commons can despotically and finally resolve. the house of commons may, as was explained, assent in minor matters to the revision of the house of lords, and submit in matters about which it cares little to the suspensive veto of the house of lords; but when sure of the popular assent, and when freshly elected, it is absolute, it can rule as it likes and decide as it likes. and it can take the best security that it does not decide in vain. it can ensure that its decrees shall be executed, for it, and it alone, appoints the executive; it can inflict the most severe of all penalties on neglect, for it can remove the executive. it can choose, to effect its wishes, those who wish the same; and so its will is sure to be done. a stipulated majority of both houses of the american congress can overrule by stated enactment their executive; but the popular branch of our legislature can make and unmake ours. the english constitution, in a word, is framed on the principle of choosing a single sovereign authority, and making it good; the american, upon the principle of having many sovereign authorities, and hoping that their multitude may atone for their inferiority. the americans now extol their institutions, and so defraud themselves of their due praise. but if they had not a genius for politics; if they had not a moderation in action singularly curious where superficial speech is so violent; if they had not a regard for law, such as no great people have yet evinced, and infinitely surpassing ours,--the multiplicity of authorities in the american constitution would long ago have brought it to a bad end. sensible shareholders, i have heard a shrewd attorney say, can work any deed of settlement; and so the men of massachusetts could, i believe, work any constitution.[ ] but political philosophy must analyse political history; it must distinguish what is due to the excellence of the people, and what to the excellence of the laws; it must carefully calculate the exact effect of each part of the constitution, though thus it may destroy many an idol of the multitude, and detect the secret of utility where but few imagined it to lie. [ ] of course i am not speaking here of the south and south-east, as they now are. how any free government is to exist in societies where so many bad elements are so much perturbed, i cannot imagine. how important singleness and unity are in political action no one, i imagine, can doubt. we may distinguish and define its parts; but policy is a unit and a whole. it acts by laws--by administrators; it requires now one, now the other; unless it can easily move both it will be impeded soon; unless it has an absolute command of both its work will be imperfect. the interlaced character of human affairs requires a single determining energy; a distinct force for each artificial compartment will make but a motley patchwork, if it live long enough to make anything. the excellence of the british constitution is that it has achieved this unity; that in it the sovereign power is single, possible, and good. the success is primarily due to the peculiar provision of the english constitution, which places the choice of the executive in the "people's house"; but it could not have been thoroughly achieved except for two parts, which i venture to call the "safety-valve" of the constitution, and the "regulator". the safety-valve is the peculiar provision of the constitution, of which i spoke at great length in my essay on the house of lords. the head of the executive can overcome the resistance of the second chamber by choosing new members of that chamber; if he do not find a majority, he can make a majority. this is a safety-valve of the truest kind. it enables the popular will--the will of which the executive is the exponent, the will of which it is the appointee--to carry out within the constitution desires and conceptions which one branch of the constitution dislikes and resists. it lets forth a dangerous accumulation of inhibited power, which might sweep this constitution before it, as like accumulations have often swept away like constitutions. the regulator, as i venture to call it, of our single sovereignty is the power of dissolving the otherwise sovereign chamber confided to the chief executive. the defects of the popular branch of a legislature as a sovereign have been expounded at length in a previous essay. briefly, they may be summed up in three accusations. first. caprice is the commonest and most formidable vice of a choosing chamber. wherever in our colonies parliamentary government is unsuccessful, or is alleged to be unsuccessful, this is the vice which first impairs it. the assembly cannot be induced to maintain any administration; it shifts its selection now from one minister to another minister, and in consequence there is no government at all. secondly. the very remedy for such caprice entails another evil. the only mode by which a cohesive majority and a lasting administration can be upheld in a parliamentary government, is party organisation; but that organisation itself tends to aggravate party violence and party animosity. it is, in substance, subjecting the whole nation to the rule of a section of the nation, selected because of its speciality. parliamentary government is, in its essence, a sectarian government, and is possible only when sects are cohesive. thirdly. a parliament, like every other sort of sovereign, has peculiar feelings, peculiar prejudices, peculiar interests; and it may pursue these in opposition to the desires, and even in opposition to the well-being of the nation. it has its selfishness as well as its caprice and its parties. the mode in which the regulating wheel of our constitution produces its effect is plain. it does not impair the authority of parliament as a species, but it impairs the power of the individual parliament. it enables a particular person outside parliament to say, "you members of parliament are not doing your duty. you are gratifying caprice at the cost of the nation. you are indulging party spirit at the cost of the nation. you are helping yourself at the cost of the nation. i will see whether the nation approves what you are doing or not; i will appeal from parliament no. to parliament no. ." by far the best way to appreciate this peculiar provision of our constitution is to trace it in action--to see, as we saw before of the other powers of english royalty, how far it is dependent on the existence of an hereditary king, and how far it can be exercised by a premier whom parliament elects. when we examine the nature of the particular person required to exercise the power, a vivid idea of that power is itself brought home to us. first. as to the caprice of parliament in the choice of a premier, who is the best person to check it? clearly the premier himself. he is the person most interested in maintaining his administration, and therefore the most likely person to use efficiently and dexterously the power by which it is to be maintained. the intervention of an extrinsic king occasions a difficulty. a capricious parliament may always hope that his caprice may coincide with theirs. in the days when george iii. assailed his governments, the premier was habitually deprived of his due authority. intrigues were encouraged because it was always dubious whether the king-hated minister would be permitted to appeal from the intriguers, and always a chance that the conspiring monarch might appoint one of the conspirators to be premier in his room. the caprice of parliament is better checked when the faculty of dissolution is entrusted to its appointee, than when it is set apart in an outlying and an alien authority. but, on the contrary, the party zeal and the self-seeking of parliament are best checked by an authority which has no connection with parliament or dependence upon it--supposing that such authority is morally and intellectually equal to the performance of the entrusted function. the prime minister obviously being the nominee of a party majority is likely to share its feeling, and is sure to be obliged to say that he shares it. the actual contact with affairs is indeed likely to purify him from many prejudices, to tame him of many fanaticisms, to beat out of him many errors. the present conservative government contains more than one member who regards his party as intellectually benighted; who either never speaks their peculiar dialect, or who speaks it condescendingly, and with an "aside"; who respects their accumulated prejudices as the "potential energies" on which he subsists, but who despises them while he lives by them. years ago mr. disraeli called sir robert peel's ministry--the last conservative ministry that had real power--"an organised hypocrisy," so much did the ideas of its "head" differ from the sensations of its "tail". probably he now comprehends--if he did not always--that the air of downing street brings certain ideas to those who live there, and that the hard, compact prejudices of opposition are soon melted and mitigated in the great gulf stream of affairs. lord palmerston, too, was a typical example of a leader lulling, rather than arousing, assuaging rather than acerbating the minds of his followers. but though the composing effect of close difficulties will commonly make a premier cease to be an immoderate partisan, yet a partisan to some extent he must be, and a violent one he may be; and in that case he is not a good person to check the party. when the leading sect (so to speak) in parliament is doing what the nation do not like, an instant appeal ought to be registered and parliament ought to be dissolved. but a zealot of a premier will not appeal; he will follow his formulae; he will believe he is doing good service when, perhaps, he is but pushing to unpopular consequences, the narrow maxims of an inchoate theory. at such a minute a constitutional king--such as leopold the first was, and as prince albert might have been--is invaluable; he can and will prevent parliament from hurting the nation. again, too, on the selfishness of parliament an extrinsic check is clearly more efficient than an intrinsic. a premier who is made by parliament may share the bad impulses of those who chose him; or, at any rate, he may have made "capital" out of them--he may have seemed to share them. the self-interests, the jobbing propensities of the assembly are sure indeed to be of very secondary interest to him. what he will care most for is the permanence, is the interest--whether corrupt or uncorrupt--of his own ministry. he will be disinclined to anything coarsely unpopular. in the order of nature, a new assembly must come before long, and he will be indisposed to shock the feelings of the electors from whom that assembly must emanate. but though the interest of the minister is inconsistent with appalling jobbery, he will be inclined to mitigated jobbery. he will temporise; he will try to give a seemly dress to unseemly matters: to do as much harm as will content the assembly, and yet not so much harm as will offend the nation. he will not shrink from becoming a particeps criminis; he will but endeavour to dilute the crime. the intervention of an extrinsic, impartial, and capable authority--if such can be found--will undoubtedly restrain the covetousness as well as the factiousness of a choosing assembly. but can such a head be found? in one case i think it has been found. our colonial governors are precisely dei ex machina. they are always intelligent, for they have to live by a different trade; they are nearly sure to be impartial, for they come from the ends of the earth; they are sure not to participate in the selfish desires of any colonial class or body, for long before those desires can have attained fruition they will have passed to the other side of the world, be busy with other faces and other minds, be almost out of hearing what happens in a region they have half forgotten. a colonial governor is a super-parliamentary authority, animated by a wisdom which is probably in quantity considerable, and is different from that of the local parliament, even if not above it. but even in this case the advantage of this extrinsic authority is purchased at a heavy price--a price which must not be made light of, because it is often worth paying. a colonial governor is a ruler who has no permanent interest in the colony he governs; who perhaps had to look for it in the map when he was sent thither; who takes years before he really understands its parties and its controversies; who, though without prejudice himself, is apt to be a slave to the prejudices of local people near him; who inevitably, and almost laudably, governs not in the interest of the colony, which he may mistake, but in his own interest, which he sees and is sure of. the first desire of a colonial governor is not to get into a "scrape," not to do anything which may give trouble to his superiors--the colonial office--at home, which may cause an untimely and dubious recall, which may hurt his after career. he is sure to leave upon the colony the feeling that they have a ruler who only half knows them, and does not so much as half care for them. we hardly appreciate this common feeling in our colonies, because we appoint their sovereign; but we should understand it in an instant if, by a political metamorphosis, the choice were turned the other way--if they appointed our sovereign. we should then say at once, "how is it possible a man from new zealand can understand england? how is it possible, that a man longing to get back to the antipodes can care for england? how can we trust one who lives by the fluctuating favour of a distant authority? how can we heartily obey one who is but a foreigner with the accident of an identical language?" i dwell on the evils which impair the advantage of colonial governorship because that is the most favoured case of super-parliamentary royalty, and because from looking at it we can bring freshly home to our minds what the real difficulties of that institution are. we are so familiar with it that we do not understand it. we are like people who have known a man all their lives, and yet are quite surprised when he displays some obvious characteristic which casual observers have detected at a glance. i have known a man who did not know what colour his sister's eyes were, though he had seen her every day for twenty years; or rather, he did not know because he had so seen her: so true is the philosophical maxim that we neglect the constant element in our thoughts, though it is probably the most important, and attend almost only to the varying elements--the differentiating elements (as men now speak)--though they are apt to be less potent. but when we perceive by the roundabout example of a colonial governor how difficult the task of a constitutional king is in the exercise of the function of dissolving parliament, we at once see how unlikely it is that an hereditary monarch will be possessed of the requisite faculties. an hereditary king is but an ordinary person, upon an average, at best; he is nearly sure to be badly educated for business; he is very little likely to have a taste for business; he is solicited from youth by every temptation to pleasure; he probably passed the whole of his youth in the vicious situation of the heir-apparent, who can do nothing because he has no appointed work, and who will be considered almost to outstep his function if he undertake optional work. for the most part, a constitutional king is a damaged common man; not forced to business by necessity as a despot often is, but yet spoiled for business by most of the temptations which spoil a despot. history, too, seems to show that hereditary royal families gather from the repeated influence of their corrupting situation some dark taint in the blood, some transmitted and growing poison which hurts their judgments, darkens all their sorrow, and is a cloud on half their pleasure. it has been said, not truly, but with a possible approximation to truth, "that in every hereditary monarch was insane". is it likely that this sort of monarchs will be able to catch the exact moment when, in opposition to the wishes of a triumphant ministry, they ought to dissolve parliament? to do so with efficiency they must be able to perceive that the parliament is wrong, and that the nation knows it is wrong. now to know that parliament is wrong, a man must be, if not a great statesman, yet a considerable statesman--a statesman of some sort. he must have great natural vigour, for no less will comprehend the hard principles of national policy. he must have incessant industry, for no less will keep him abreast with the involved detail to which those principles relate, and the miscellaneous occasions to which they must be applied. a man made common by nature, and made worse by life, is not likely to have either; he is nearly sure not to be both clever and industrious. and a monarch in the recesses of a palace, listening to a charmed flattery unbiassed by the miscellaneous world, who has always been hedged in by rank, is likely to be but a poor judge of public opinion. he may have an inborn tact for finding it out; but his life will never teach it him, and will probably enfeeble it in him. but there is a still worse case, a case which the life of george iii.--which is a sort of museum of the defects of a constitutional king--suggests at once. the parliament may be wiser than the people, and yet the king may be of the same mind with the people. during the last years of the american war, the premier, lord north, upon whom the first responsibility rested, was averse to continuing it, and knew it could not succeed. parliament was much of the same mind; if lord north had been able to come down to parliament with a peace in his hand, parliament would probably have rejoiced, and the nation under the guidance of parliament, though saddened by its losses, probably would have been satisfied. the opinion of that day was more like the american opinion of the present day than like our present opinion. it was much slower in its formation than our opinion now, and obeyed much more easily sudden impulses from the central administration. if lord north had been able to throw the undivided energy and the undistracted authority of the executive government into the excellent work of making a peace and carrying a peace, years of bloodshed might have been spared, and an entail of enmity cut off that has not yet run out. but there was a power behind the prime minister; george iii. was madly eager to continue the war, and the nation--not seeing how hopeless the strife was, not comprehending the lasting antipathy which their obstinacy was creating--ignorant, dull and helpless--was ready to go on too. even if lord north had wished to make peace, and had persuaded parliament accordingly, all his work would have been useless; a superior power could and would have appealed from a wise and pacific parliament to a sullen and warlike nation. the check which our constitution finds for the special vices of our parliament was misused to curb its wisdom. the more we study the nature of cabinet government, the more we shall shrink from exposing at a vital instant its delicate machinery to a blow from a casual, incompetent, and perhaps semi-insane outsider. the preponderant probability is that on a great occasion the premier and parliament will really be wiser than the king. the premier is sure to be able, and is sure to be most anxious to decide well; if he fail to decide, he loses his place, though through all blunders the king keeps his; the judgment of the man naturally very discerning is sharpened by a heavy penalty, from which the judgment of the man by nature much less intelligent is exempt. parliament, too, is for the most part a sound, careful and practical body of men. principle shows that the power of dismissing a government with which parliament is satisfied, and of dissolving that parliament upon an appeal to the people, is not a power which a common hereditary monarch will in the long run be able beneficially to exercise. accordingly this power has almost, if not quite, dropped out of the reality of our constitution. nothing, perhaps, would more surprise the english people than if the queen by a coup d'etat and on a sudden destroyed a ministry firm in the allegiance and secure of a majority in parliament. that power, indisputably, in theory, belongs to her; but it has passed so far away from the minds of men that it would terrify them, if she used it, like a volcanic eruption from primrose hill. the last analogy to it is not one to be coveted as a precedent. in william iv. dismissed an administration which, though disorganised by the loss of its leader in the commons, was an existing government, had a premier in the lords ready to go on, and a leader in the commons willing to begin. the king fancied that public opinion was leaving the whigs and going over to the tories, and he thought he should accelerate the transition by ejecting the former. but the event showed that he misjudged. his perception indeed was right; the english people were wavering in their allegiance to the whigs, who had no leader that touched the popular heart, none in whom liberalism could personify itself and become a passion--who besides were a body long used to opposition, and therefore making blunders in office--who were borne to power by a popular impulse which they only half comprehended, and perhaps less than half shared. but the king's policy was wrong; he impeded the reaction instead of aiding it. he forced on a premature tory government, which was as unsuccessful as all wise people perceived that it must be. the popular distaste to the whigs was as yet but incipient, inefficient; and the intervention of the crown was advantageous to them, because it looked inconsistent with the liberties of the people. and in so far as william iv. was right in detecting an incipient change of opinion, he did but detect an erroneous change. what was desirable was the prolongation of liberal rule. the commencing dissatisfaction did but relate to the personal demerits of the whig leaders, and other temporary adjuncts of free principles, and not to those principles intrinsically. so that the last precedent for a royal onslaught on a ministry ended thus:--in opposing the right principles, in aiding the wrong principles, in hurting the party it was meant to help. after such a warning, it is likely that our monarchs will pursue the policy which a long course of quiet precedent at present directs--they will leave a ministry trusted by parliament to the judgment of parliament. indeed, the dangers arising from a party spirit in parliament exceeding that of the nation, and of a selfishness in parliament contradicting the true interest of the nation, are not great dangers in a country where the mind of the nation is steadily political, and where its control over its representatives is constant. a steady opposition to a formed public opinion is hardly possible in our house of commons, so incessant is the national attention to politics, and so keen the fear in the mind of each member that he may lose his valued seat. these dangers belong to early and scattered communities, where there are no interesting political questions, where the distances are great, where no vigilant opinion passes judgment on parliamentary excesses, where few care to have seats in the chamber, and where many of those few are from their characters and their antecedents better not there than there. the one great vice of parliamentary government in an adult political nation, is the caprice of parliament in the choice of a ministry. a nation can hardly control it here; and it is not good that, except within wide limits, it should control it. the parliamentary judgment of the merits or demerits of an administration very generally depends on matters which the parliament, being close at hand, distinctly sees, and which the distant nation does not see. but where personality enters, capriciousness begins. it is easy to imagine a house of commons which is discontented with all statesmen, which is contented with none, which is made up of little parties, which votes in small knots, which will adhere steadily to no leader, which gives every leader a chance and a hope. such parliaments require the imminent check of possible dissolution; but that check is (as has been shown) better in the premier than in the sovereign; and by the late practice of our constitution, its use is yearly ebbing from the sovereign, and yearly centring in the premier. the queen can hardly now refuse a defeated minister the chance of a dissolution, any more than she can dissolve in the time of an undefeated one, and without his consent. we shall find the case much the same with the safety-valve, as i have called it, of our constitution. a good, capable, hereditary monarch would exercise it better than a premier, but a premier could manage it well enough; and a monarch capable of doing better will be born only once in a century, whereas monarchs likely to do worse will be born every day. there are two modes in which the power of our executive to create peers--to nominate, that is, additional members of our upper and revising chamber--now acts: one constant, habitual, though not adequately noticed by the popular mind as it goes on; and the other possible and terrific, scarcely ever really exercised, but always by its reserved magic maintaining a great and a restraining influence. the crown creates peers, a few year by year, and thus modifies continually the characteristic feeling of the house of lords. i have heard people say, who ought to know, that the english peerage (the only one upon which unhappily the power of new creation now acts) is now more whig than tory. thirty years ago the majority was indisputably the other way. owing to very curious circumstances english parties have not alternated in power, as a good deal of speculation predicts they would, and a good deal of current language assumes they have. the whig party were in office some seventy years (with very small breaks) from the death of queen anne to the coalition between lord north and mr. fox; then the tories (with only such breaks), were in power for nearly fifty years, till ; and since, the whig party has always, with very trifling intervals, been predominant. consequently, each continuously-governing party has had the means of modifying the upper house to suit its views. the profuse tory creations of half a century had made the house of lords bigotedly tory before the first reform act, but it is wonderfully mitigated now. the irish peers and scotch peers--being nominated by an almost unaltered constituency, and representing the feelings of the majority of that constituency only (no minority having any voice)--present an unchangeable tory element. but the element in which change is permitted has been changed. whether the english peerage be or be not predominantly now tory, it is certainly not tory after the fashion of the toryism of . the whig additions have indeed sprung from a class commonly rather adjoining upon toryism, than much inclining to radicalism. it is not from men of large wealth that a very great impetus to organic change should be expected. the additions to the peers have matched nicely enough with the old peers, and therefore they have effected more easily a greater and more permeating modification. the addition of a contrasting mass would have excited the old leaven, but the delicate infusion of ingredients similar in genus, though different in species, has modified the new compound without irritating the old original. this ordinary and common use of the peer-creating power is always in the hands of the premier, and depends for its characteristic use on being there. he, as the head of the predominant party, is the proper person to modify gradually the permanent chamber which, perhaps, was at starting hostile to him; and, at any rate, can be best harmonised with the public opinion he represents by the additions he makes. hardly any contrived constitution possesses a machinery for modifying its secondary house so delicate, so flexible, and so constant. if the power of creating life peers had been added, the mitigating influence of the responsible executive upon the house of lords would have been as good as such a thing can be. the catastrophic creation of peers for the purpose of swamping the upper house is utterly different. if an able and impartial exterior king is at hand, this power is best in that king. it is a power only to be used on great occasions, when the object is immense, and the party strife unmitigated. this is the conclusive, the swaying power of the moment, and of course, therefore, it had better be in the hands of a power both capable and impartial, than of a premier who must in some degree be a partisan. the value of a discreet, calm, wise monarch, if such should happen to be reigning at the acute crisis of a nation's destiny, is priceless. he may prevent years of tumult, save bloodshed and civil war, lay up a store of grateful fame to himself, prevent the accumulated intestine hatred of each party to its opposite. but the question comes back, will there be such a monarch just then? what is the chance of having him just then? what will be the use of the monarch whom the accidents of inheritance, such as we know them to be, must upon an average bring us just then? the answer to these questions is not satisfactory, if we take it from the little experience we have had in this rare matter. there have been but two cases at all approaching to a catastrophic creation of peers--to a creation which would suddenly change the majority of the lords--in english history. one was in queen anne's time. the majority of peers in queen anne's time were whig, and by profuse and quick creations harley's ministry changed it to a tory majority. so great was the popular effect, that in the next reign one of the most contested ministerial proposals was a proposal to take the power of indefinite peer creation from the crown, and to make the number of lords fixed, as that of the commons is fixed. but the sovereign had little to do with the matter. queen anne was one of the smallest people ever set in a great place. swift bitterly and justly said "she had not a store of amity by her for more than one friend at a time," and just then her affection was concentrated on a waiting-maid. her waiting-maid told her to make peers, and she made them. but of large thought and comprehensive statesmanship she was as destitute as mrs. masham. she supported a bad ministry by the most extreme of measures, and she did it on caprice. the case of william iv. is still more instructive. he was a very conscientious king, but at the same time an exceedingly weak king. his correspondence with lord grey on this subject fills more than half a large volume, or rather his secretary's correspondence, for he kept a very clever man to write what he thought, or at least what those about him thought. it is a strange instance of high-placed weakness and conscientious vacillation. after endless letters the king consents to make a reasonable number of peers if required to pass the second reading of the reform bill, but owing to desertion of the "waverers" from the tories, the second reading is carried without it by nine, and then the king refuses to make peers, or at least enough peers when a vital amendment is carried by lord lyndhurst, which would have destroyed, and was meant to destroy the bill. in consequence, there was a tremendous crisis and nearly a revolution. a more striking example of well-meaning imbecility is scarcely to be found in history. no one who reads it carefully will doubt that the discretionary power of making peers would have been far better in lord grey's hands than in the king's. it was the uncertainty whether the king would exercise it, and how far he would exercise it, that mainly animated the opposition. in fact, you may place power in weak hands at a revolution, but you cannot keep it in weak hands. it runs out of them into strong ones. an ordinary hereditary sovereign--a william iv., or a george iv.--is unfit to exercise the peer-creating power when most wanted. a half-insane king, like george iii., would be worse. he might use it by unaccountable impulse when not required, and refuse to use it out of sullen madness when required. the existence of a fancied check on the premier is in truth an evil, because it prevents the enforcement of a real check. it would be easy to provide by law that an extraordinary number of peers--say more than ten annually--should not be created except on a vote of some large majority, suppose three-fourths of the lower house. this would ensure that the premier should not use the reserve force of the constitution as if it were an ordinary force; that he should not use it except when the whole nation fixedly wished it; that it should be kept for a revolution, not expended on administration; and it would ensure that he should then have it to use. queen anne's case and william iv.'s case prove that neither object is certainly attained by entrusting this critical and extreme force to the chance idiosyncrasies and habitual mediocrity of an hereditary sovereign. it may be asked why i argue at such length a question in appearance so removed from practice, and in one point of view so irrelevant to my subject. no one proposes to remove queen victoria; if any one is in a safe place on earth, she is in a safe place. in these very essays it has been shown that the mass of our people would obey no one else, that the reverence she excites is the potential energy--as science now speaks--out of which all minor forces are made, and from which lesser functions take their efficiency. but looking not to the present hour, and this single country, but to the world at large and coming times, no question can be more practical. what grows upon the world is a certain matter-of-factness. the test of each century, more than of the century before, is the test of results. new countries are arising all over the world where there are no fixed sources of reverence; which have to make them; which have to create institutions which must generate loyalty by conspicuous utility. this matter-of-factness is the growth even in europe of the two greatest and newest intellectual agencies of our time. one of these is business. we see so much of the material fruits of commerce that we forget its mental fruits. it begets a mind desirous of things, careless of ideas, not acquainted with the niceties of words. in all labour there should be profit, is its motto. it is not only true that we have "left swords for ledgers," but war itself is made as much by the ledger as by the sword. the soldier--that is, the great soldier--of to-day is not a romantic animal, dashing at forlorn hopes, animated by frantic sentiment, full of fancies as to a lady-love or a sovereign; but a quiet, grave man, busied in charts, exact in sums, master of the art of tactics, occupied in trivial detail; thinking, as the duke of wellington was said to do, most of the shoes of his soldiers; despising all manner of eclat and eloquence; perhaps, like count moltke, "silent in seven languages". we have reached a "climate" of opinion where figures rule, where our very supporter of divine right, as we deemed him, our count bismarck, amputates kings right and left, applies the test of results to each, and lets none live who are not to do something. there has in truth been a great change during the last five hundred years in the predominant occupations of the ruling part of mankind; formerly they passed their time either in exciting action or inanimate repose. a feudal baron had nothing between war and the chase--keenly animating things both--and what was called "inglorious ease". modern life is scanty in excitements, but incessant in quiet action. its perpetual commerce is creating a "stock-taking" habit--the habit of asking each man, thing, and institution, "well, what have you done since i saw you last?" our physical science, which is becoming the dominant culture of thousands, and which is beginning to permeate our common literature to an extent which few watch enough, quite tends the same way. the two peculiarities are its homeliness and its inquisitiveness; its value for the most "stupid" facts, as one used to call them, and its incessant wish for verification--to be sure, by tiresome seeing and hearing, that they are facts. the old excitement of thought has half died out, or rather it is diffused in quiet pleasure over a life instead of being concentrated in intense and eager spasms. an old philosopher--a descartes, suppose--fancied that out of primitive truths, which he could by ardent excogitation know, he might by pure deduction evolve the entire universe. intense self-examination, and intense reason would, he thought, make out everything. the soul "itself by itself," could tell all it wanted if it would be true to its sublimer isolation. the greatest enjoyment possible to man was that which this philosophy promises its votaries--the pleasure of being always right, and always reasoning--without ever being bound to look at anything. but our most ambitious schemes of philosophy now start quite differently. mr. darwin begins:-- "when on board h.m.s. beagle, as naturalist, i was much struck with certain facts in the distribution of the organic beings inhabiting south america, and in the geological relations of the present to the past inhabitants of that continent. these facts, as will be seen in the latter chapters of this volume, seemed to throw some light on the origin of species--that mystery of mysteries, as it has been called by one of our greatest philosophers. on my return home, it occurred to me, in , that something might perhaps be made out on this question by patiently accumulating and reflecting on all sorts of facts which could possibly have any bearing on it. after five years' work i allowed myself to speculate on the subject, and drew up some short notes; these i enlarged in into a sketch of the conclusions which then seemed to me probable: from that period to the present day i have steadily pursued the same object. i hope that i may be excused for entering on these personal details, as i give them to show that i have not been hasty in coming to a decision." if he hopes finally to solve his great problem, it is by careful experiments in pigeon-fancying, and other sorts of artificial variety-making. his hero is not a self-enclosed, excited philosopher, but "that most skilful breeder, sir john sebright, who used to say, with respect to pigeons, that he would produce any given feathers in three years, but it would take him six years to obtain a head and a beak". i am not saying that the new thought is better than the old; it is no business of mine to say anything about that; i only wish to bring home to the mind, as nothing but instances can bring it home, how matter-of-fact, how petty, as it would at first sight look, even our most ambitious science has become. in the new communities which our emigrating habit now constantly creates, this prosaic turn of mind is intensified. in the american mind and in the colonial mind there is, as contrasted with the old english mind, a literalness, a tendency to say, "the facts are so-and-so, whatever may be thought or fancied about them". we used before the civil war to say that the americans worshipped the almighty dollar; we now know that they can scatter money almost recklessly when they will. but what we meant was half right--they worship visible value: obvious, undeniable, intrusive result. and in australia and new zealand the same turn comes uppermost. it grows from the struggle with the wilderness. physical difficulty is the enemy of early communities, and an incessant conflict with it for generations leaves a mark of reality on the mind--a painful mark almost to us, used to impalpable fears and the half-fanciful dangers of an old and complicated society. the "new englands" of all latitudes are bare-minded (if i may so say) as compared with the "old". when, therefore, the new communities of the colonised world have to choose a government, they must choose one in which all the institutions are of an obvious evident utility. we catch the americans smiling at our queen with her secret mystery, and our prince of wales with his happy inaction. it is impossible, in fact, to convince their prosaic minds that constitutional royalty is a rational government, that it is suited to a new age and an unbroken country, that those who start afresh can start with it. the princelings who run about the world with excellent intentions, but an entire ignorance of business, are to them a locomotive advertisement that this sort of government is european in its limitations and mediaeval in its origin; that though it has yet a great part to play in the old states, it has no place or part in new states. the realisme impitoyable which good critics find in a most characteristic part of the literature of the nineteenth century, is to be found also in its politics. an ostentatious utility must characterise its creations. the deepest interest, therefore, attaches to the problem of this essay. if hereditary royalty had been essential to parliamentary government, we might well have despaired of that government. but accurate investigation shows that this royalty is not essential; that, upon an average, it is not even in a high degree useful; that though a king with high courage and fine discretion--a king with a genius for the place--is always useful, and at rare moments priceless, yet that a common king, a king such as birth brings, is of no use at difficult crises, while in the common course of things his aid is neither likely nor required--he will do nothing, and he need do nothing. but we happily find that a new country need not fall back into the fatal division of powers incidental to a presidential government; it may, if other conditions serve, obtain the ready, well-placed, identical sort of sovereignty which belongs to the english constitution, under the unroyal form of parliamentary government. no. viii. the prerequisites of cabinet government, and the peculiar form which they have assumed in england. cabinet government is rare because its prerequisites are many. it requires the co-existence of several national characteristics which are not often found together in the world, and which should be perceived more distinctly than they often are. it is fancied that the possession of a certain intelligence, and a few simple virtues, are the sole requisites. the mental and moral qualities are necessary, but much else is necessary also. a cabinet government is the government of a committee selected by the legislature, and there are therefore a double set of conditions to it: first, those which are essential to all elective governments as such; and second, those which are requisite to this particular elective government. there are prerequisites for the genus, and additional ones for the species. the first prerequisite of elective government is the mutual confidence of the electors. we are so accustomed to submit to be ruled by elected ministers, that we are apt to fancy all mankind would readily be so too. knowledge and civilisation have at least made this progress, that we instinctively, without argument, almost without consciousness, allow a certain number of specified persons to choose our rulers for us. it seems to us the simplest thing in the world. but it is one of the gravest things. the peculiar marks of semi-barbarous people are diffused distrust and indiscriminate suspicion. people, in all but the most favoured times and places, are rooted to the places where they were born, think the thoughts of those places, can endure no other thoughts. the next parish even is suspected. its inhabitants have different usages, almost imperceptibly different, but yet different; they speak a varying accent; they use a few peculiar words; tradition says that their faith is dubious. and if the next parish is a little suspected, the next county is much more suspected. here is a definite beginning of new maxims, new thoughts, new ways: the immemorial boundary mark begins in feeling a strange world. and if the next county is dubious, a remote county is untrustworthy. "vagrants come from thence," men know, and they know nothing else. the inhabitants of the north speak a dialect different from the dialect of the south: they have other laws, another aristocracy, another life. in ages when distant territories are blanks in the mind, when neighbourhood is a sentiment, when locality is a passion, concerted co-operation between remote regions is impossible even on trivial matters. neither would rely enough upon the good faith, good sense, and good judgment of the other. neither could enough calculate on the other. and if such co-operation is not to be expected in trivial matters, it is not to be thought of in the most vital matter of government--the choice of the executive ruler. to fancy that northumberland in the thirteenth century would have consented to ally itself with somersetshire for the choice of a chief magistrate is absurd; it would scarcely have allied itself to choose a hangman. even now, if it were palpably explained, neither district would like it. but no one says at a county election, "the object of this present meeting is to choose our delegate to what the americans call the 'electoral college,' to the assembly which names our first magistrate--our substitute for their president. representatives from this county will meet representatives from other counties, from cities and boroughs, and proceed to choose our rulers." such bald exposition would have been impossible in old times; it would be considered queer, eccentric, if it were used now. happily, the process of election is so indirect and hidden, and the introduction of that process was so gradual and latent, that we scarcely perceive the immense political trust we repose in each other. the best mercantile credit seems to those who give it, natural, simple, obvious; they do not argue about it, or think about it. the best political credit is analogous; we trust our countrymen without remembering that we trust them. a second and very rare condition of an elective government is a calm national mind--a tone of mind sufficiently staple to bear the necessary excitement of conspicuous revolutions. no barbarous, no semi-civilised nation has ever possessed this. the mass of uneducated men could not now in england be told "go to, choose your rulers;" they would go wild; their imaginations would fancy unreal dangers, and the attempt at election would issue in some forcible usurpation. the incalculable advantage of august institutions in a free state is, that they prevent this collapse. the excitement of choosing our rulers is prevented by the apparent existence of an unchosen ruler. the poorer and more ignorant classes--those who would most feel excitement, who would most be misled by excitement--really believe that the queen governs. you could not explain to them the recondite difference between "reigning" and "governing"; the words necessary to express it do not exist in their dialect; the ideas necessary to comprehend it do not exist in their minds. the separation of principal power from principal station is a refinement which they could not even conceive. they fancy they are governed by an hereditary queen, a queen by the grace of god, when they are really governed by a cabinet and a parliament--men like themselves, chosen by themselves. the conspicuous dignity awakens the sentiment of reverence, and men, often very undignified, seize the occasion to govern by means of it. lastly. the third condition of all elective government is what i may call rationality, by which i mean a power involving intelligence, but yet distinct from it. a whole people electing its rulers must be able to form a distinct conception of distant objects. mostly, the "divinity" that surrounds a king altogether prevents anything like a steady conception of him. you fancy that the object of your loyalty is as much elevated above you by intrinsic nature as he is by extrinsic position; you deify him in sentiment, as once men deified him in doctrine. this illusion has been and still is of incalculable benefit to the human race. it prevents, indeed, men from choosing their rulers; you cannot invest with that loyal illusion a man who was yesterday what you are, who to-morrow may be so again, whom you chose to be what he is. but though this superstition prevents the election of rulers, it renders possible the existence of unelected rulers. untaught people fancy that their king, crowned with the holy crown, anointed with the oil of rheims, descended of the house of plantagenet, is a different sort of being from any one not descended of the royal house--not crowned--not anointed. they believe that there is one man whom by mystic right they should obey; and therefore they do obey him. it is only in later times, when the world is wider, its experience larger, and its thought colder, that the plain rule of a palpably chosen ruler is even possible. these conditions narrowly restrict elective government. but the prerequisites of a cabinet government are rarer still; it demands not only the conditions i have mentioned, but the possibility likewise of a good legislature--a legislature competent to elect a sufficient administration. now a competent legislature is very rare. any permanent legislature at all, any constantly acting mechanism for enacting and repealing laws, is, though it seems to us so natural, quite contrary to the inveterate conceptions of mankind. the great majority of nations conceive of their law, either as something divinely given, and therefore unalterable, or as a fundamental habit, inherited from the past to be transmitted to the future. the english parliament, of which the prominent functions are now legislative, was not all so once. it was rather a preservative body. the custom of the realm--the aboriginal transmitted law--the law which was in the breast of the judges, could not be altered without the consent of parliament, and therefore everybody felt sure it would not be altered except in grave, peculiar, and anomalous cases. the valued use of parliament was not half so much to alter the law, as to prevent the laws being altered. and such too was its real use. in early societies it matters much more that the law should be fixed than that it should be good. any law which the people of ignorant times enact is sure to involve many misconceptions, and to cause many evils. perfection in legislation is not to be looked for, and is not, indeed, much wanted in a rude, painful, confined life. but such an age covets fixity. that men should enjoy the fruits of their labour, that the law of property should be known, that the law of marriage should be known, that the whole course of life should be kept in a calculable track is the summum bonum of early ages, the first desire of semi-civilised mankind. in that age men do not want to have their laws adapted, but to have their laws steady. the passions are so powerful, force so eager, the social bond so weak, that the august spectacle of an all but unalterable law is necessary to preserve society. in the early stages of human society all change is thought an evil. and most change is an evil. the conditions of life are so simple and so unvarying that any decent sort of rules suffice so long as men know what they are. custom is the first check on tyranny; that fixed routine of social life at which modern innovations chafe, and by which modern improvement is impeded, is the primitive check on base power. the perception of political expediency has then hardly begun; the sense of abstract justice is weak and vague; and a rigid adherence to the fixed mould of transmitted usage is essential to an unmarred, unspoiled, unbroken life. in such an age a legislature continuously sitting, always making laws, always repealing laws, would have been both an anomaly and a nuisance. but in the present state of the civilised part of the world such difficulties are obsolete. there is a diffused desire in civilised communities for an adjusting legislation; for a legislation which should adapt the inherited laws to the new wants of a world which now changes every day. it has ceased to be necessary to maintain bad laws because it is necessary to have some laws. civilisation is robust enough to bear the incision of legal improvements. but taking history at large, the rarity of cabinets is mostly due to the greater rarity of continuous legislatures. other conditions, however, limit even at the present day the area of a cabinet government. it must be possible to have not only a legislature, but to have a competent legislature--a legislature willing to elect and willing to maintain an efficient executive. and this is no easy matter. it is indeed true that we need not trouble ourselves to look for that elaborate and complicated organisation which partially exists in the house of commons, and which is more fully and freely expanded in plans for improving the house of commons. we are not now concerned with perfection or excellence; we seek only for simple fitness and bare competency. the conditions of fitness are two. first, you must get a good legislature; and next, you must keep it good. and these are by no means so nearly connected as might be thought at first sight. to keep a legislature efficient, it must have a sufficient supply of substantial business. if you employ the best set of men to do nearly nothing, they will quarrel with each other about that nothing. where great questions end, little parties begin. and a very happy community, with few new laws to make, few old bad laws to repeal, and but simple foreign relations to adjust, has great difficulty in employing a legislature. there is nothing for it to enact, and nothing for it to settle. accordingly, there is great danger that the legislature, being debarred from all other kind of business, may take to quarrelling about its elective business; that controversies as to ministries may occupy all its time, and yet that time be perniciously employed; that a constant succession of feeble administrations, unable to govern and unfit to govern, may be substituted for the proper result of cabinet government--a sufficient body of men long enough in power to evince their sufficiency. the exact amount of non-elective business necessary for a parliament which is to elect the executive cannot, of course, be formally stated. there are no numbers and no statistics in the theory of constitutions. all we can say is, that a parliament with little business, which is to be as efficient as a parliament with much business, must be in all other respects much better. an indifferent parliament may be much improved by the steadying effect of grave affairs; but a parliament which has no such affairs must be intrinsically excellent, or it will fail utterly. but the difficulty of keeping a good legislature, is evidently secondary to the difficulty of first getting it. there are two kinds of nations which can elect a good parliament. the first is a nation in which the mass of the people are intelligent, and in which they are comfortable. where there is no honest poverty, where education is diffused, and political intelligence is common, it is easy for the mass of the people to elect a fair legislature. the idea is roughly realised in the north american colonies of england, and in the whole free states of the union. in these countries there is no such thing as honest poverty; physical comfort, such as the poor cannot imagine here, is there easily attainable by healthy industry. education is diffused much, and is fast spreading, ignorant emigrants from the old world often prize the intellectual advantages of which they are themselves destitute, and are annoyed at their inferiority in a place where rudimentary culture is so common. the greatest difficulty of such new communities is commonly geographical. the population is mostly scattered; and where population is sparse, discussion is difficult. but in a country very large, as we reckon in europe, a people really intelligent, really educated, really comfortable, would soon form a good opinion. no one can doubt that the new england states, if they were a separate community, would have an education, a political capacity, and an intelligence such as the numerical majority of no people, equally numerous, has ever possessed. in a state of this sort, where all the community is fit to choose a sufficient legislature, it is possible, it is almost easy, to create that legislature. if the new england states possessed a cabinet government as a separate nation, they would be as renowned in the world for political sagacity as they now are for diffused happiness. the structure of these communities is indeed based on the principle of equality, and it is impossible that any such community can wholly satisfy the severe requirements of a political theorist. in every old community its primitive and guiding assumption is at war with truth. by its theory all people are entitled to the same political power, and they can only be so entitled on the ground that in politics they are equally wise. but at the outset of an agricultural colony this postulate is as near the truth as politics want. there are in such communities no large properties, no great capitals, no refined classes--every one is comfortable and homely, and no one is at all more. equality is not artificially established in a new colony; it establishes itself. there is a story that among the first settlers in western australia, some, who were rich, took out labourers at their own expense, and also carriages to ride in. but soon they had to try if they could live in the carriages. before the masters' houses were built, the labourers had gone off--they were building houses and cultivating land for themselves, and the masters were left to sit in their carriages. whether this exact thing happened i do not know, but this sort of thing has happened a thousand times. there has been a whole series of attempts to transplant to the colonies a graduated english society. but they have always failed at the first step. the rude classes at the bottom felt that they were equal to or better than the delicate classes at the top; they shifted for themselves, and left the "gentle-folks" to shift for themselves; the base of the elaborate pyramid spread abroad, and the apex tumbled in and perished. in the early ages of an agricultural colony, whether you have political democracy or not, social democracy you must have, for nature makes it, and not you. but in time, wealth grows and inequality begins. a and his children are industrious, and prosper; b and his children are idle, and fail. if manufactures on a considerable scale are established--and most young communities strive even by protection to establish them--the tendency to inequality is intensified. the capitalist becomes a unit with much, and his labourers a crowd with little. after generations of education, too, there arise varieties of culture--there will be an upper thousand, or ten thousand, of highly cultivated people in the midst of a great nation of moderately educated people. in theory it is desirable that this highest class of wealth and leisure should have an influence far out of proportion to its mere number: a perfect constitution would find for it a delicate expedient to make its fine thought tell upon the surrounding cruder thought. but as the world goes, when the whole of the population is as instructed and as intelligent as in the case i am supposing, we need not care much about this. great communities have scarcely ever--never save for transient moments--been ruled by their highest thought. and if we can get them ruled by a decent capable thought, we may be well enough contented with our work. we have done more than could be expected, though not all which could be desired. at any rate, an isocratic polity--a polity where every one votes, and where every one votes alike--is, in a community of sound education and diffused intelligence, a conceivable case of cabinet government. it satisfies the essential condition; there is a people able to elect, a parliament able to choose. but suppose the mass of the people are not able to elect--and this is the case with the numerical majority of all but the rarest nations--how is a cabinet government to be then possible? it is only possible in what i may venture to call deferential nations. it has been thought strange, but there are nations in which the numerous unwiser part wishes to be ruled by the less numerous wiser part. the numerical majority--whether by custom or by choice, is immaterial--is ready, is eager to delegate its power of choosing its ruler to a certain select minority. it abdicates in favour of its elite, and consents to obey whoever that elite may confide in. it acknowledges as its secondary electors--as the choosers of its government--an educated minority, at once competent and unresisted; it has a kind of loyalty to some superior persons who are fit to choose a good government, and whom no other class opposes. a nation in such a happy state as this has obvious advantages for constructing a cabinet government. it has the best people to elect a legislature, and therefore it may fairly be expected to choose a good legislature--a legislature competent to select a good administration. england is the type of deferential countries, and the manner in which it is so, and has become so, is extremely curious. the middle classes--the ordinary majority of educated men--are in the present day the despotic power in england. "public opinion," nowadays, "is the opinion of the bald-headed man at the back of the omnibus." it is not the opinion of the aristocratical classes as such; or of the most educated or refined classes as such; it is simply the opinion of the ordinary mass of educated, but still commonplace mankind. if you look at the mass of the constituencies, you will see that they are not very interesting people; and perhaps if you look behind the scenes and see the people who manipulate and work the constituencies, you will find that these are yet more uninteresting. the english constitution in its palpable form is this--the mass of the people yield obedience to a select few; and when you see this select few, you perceive that though not of the lowest class, nor of an unrespectable class, they are yet of a heavy sensible class--the last people in the world to whom, if they were drawn up in a row, an immense nation would ever give an exclusive preference. in fact, the mass of the english people yield a deference rather to something else that to their rulers. they defer to what we may call the theatrical show of society. a certain state passes before them; a certain pomp of great men; a certain spectacle of beautiful women; a wonderful scene of wealth and enjoyment is displayed, and they are coerced by it. their imagination is bowed down; they feel they are not equal to the life which is revealed to them. courts and aristocracies have the great quality which rules the multitude, though philosophers can see nothing in it--visibility. courtiers can do what others cannot. a common man may as well try to rival the actors on the stage in their acting, as the aristocracy in their acting. the higher world, as it looks from without, is a stage on which the actors walk their parts much better than the spectators can. this play is played in every district. every rustic feels that his house is not like my lord's house; his life like my lord's life; his wife like my lady. the climax of the play is the queen: nobody supposes that their house is like the court; their life like her life; her orders like their orders. there is in england a certain charmed spectacle which imposes on the many, and guides their fancies as it will. as a rustic on coming to london finds himself in presence of a great show and vast exhibition of inconceivable mechanical things, so by the structure of our society, he finds himself face to face with a great exhibition of political things which he could not have imagined, which he could not make--to which he feels in himself scarcely anything analogous. philosophers may deride this superstition, but its results are inestimable. by the spectacle of this august society, countless ignorant men and women are induced to obey the few nominal electors--the ll borough renters, and the l county renters--who have nothing imposing about them, nothing which would attract the eye or fascinate the fancy. what impresses men is not mind, but the result of mind. and the greatest of these results is this wonderful spectacle of society, which is ever new, and yet ever the same; in which accidents pass and essence remains; in which one generation dies and another succeeds, as if they were birds in a cage, or animals in a menagerie; of which it seems almost more than a metaphor to treat the parts as limbs of a perpetual living thing, so silently do they seem to change, so wonderfully and so perfectly does the conspicuous life of the new year take the place of the conspicuous life of last year. the apparent rulers of the english nation are like the most imposing personages of a splendid procession: it is by them the mob are influenced; it is they whom the spectators cheer. the real rulers are secreted in second-rate carriages; no one cares for them or asks about them, but they are obeyed implicitly and unconsciously by reason of the splendour of those who eclipsed and preceded them. it is quite true that this imaginative sentiment is supported by a sensation of political satisfaction. it cannot be said that the mass of the english people are well off. there are whole classes who have not a conception of what the higher orders call comfort; who have not the prerequisites of moral existence; who cannot lead the life that becomes a man. but the most miserable of these classes do not impute their misery to politics. if a political agitator were to lecture to the peasants of dorsetshire, and try to excite political dissatisfaction, it is much more likely that he would be pelted than that he would succeed. of parliament these miserable creatures know scarcely anything; of the cabinet they never heard. but they would say that, "for all they have heard, the queen is very good"; and rebelling against the structure of society is to their minds rebelling against the queen, who rules that society, in whom all its most impressive part--the part that they know--culminates. the mass of the english people are politically contented as well as politically deferential. a deferential community, even though its lowest classes are not intelligent, is far more suited to a cabinet government than any kind of democratic country, because it is more suited to political excellence. the highest classes can rule in it; and the highest classes must, as such, have more political ability than the lower classes. a life of labour, an incomplete education, a monotonous occupation, a career in which the hands are used much and the judgment is used little, cannot create as much flexible thought, as much applicable intelligence, as a life of leisure, a long culture, a varied experience, an existence by which the judgment is incessantly exercised, and by which it may be incessantly improved. a country of respectful poor, though far less happy than where there are no poor to be respectful, is nevertheless far more fitted for the best government. you can use the best classes of the respectful country; you can only use the worst where every man thinks he is as good as every other. it is evident that no difficulty can be greater than that of founding a deferential nation. respect is traditional; it is given not to what is proved to be good, but to what is known to be old. certain classes in certain nations retain by common acceptance a marked political preference, because they have always possessed it, and because they inherit a sort of pomp which seems to make them worthy of it. but in a new colony, in a community where merit may be equal, and where there cannot be traditional marks of merit and fitness, it is obvious that a political deference can be yielded to higher culture only upon proof, first of its existence, and next of its political value. but it is nearly impossible to give such a proof so as to satisfy persons of less culture. in a future and better age of the world it may be effected; but in this age the requisite premises scarcely exist; if the discussion be effectually open, if the debate be fairly begun, it is hardly possible to obtain a rational, an argumentative acquiescence in the rule of the cultivated few. as yet the few rule by their hold, not over the reason of the multitude, but over their imaginations, and their habits; over their fancies as to distant things they do not know at all, over their customs as to near things which they know very well. a deferential community in which the bulk of the people are ignorant, is therefore in a state of what is called in mechanics unstable equilibrium. if the equilibrium is once disturbed there is no tendency to return to it, but rather to depart from it. a cone balanced on its point is in unstable equilibrium, for if you push it ever so little it will depart farther and farther from its position and fall to the earth. so in communities where the masses are ignorant but respectful, if you once permit the ignorant class to begin to rule you may bid farewell to deference for ever. their demagogues will inculcate, their newspapers will recount, that the rule of the existing dynasty (the people) is better than the rule of the fallen dynasty (the aristocracy). a people very rarely hears two sides of a subject in which it is much interested; the popular organs take up the side which is acceptable, and none but the popular organs in fact reach the people. a people never hears censure of itself. no one will tell it that the educated minority whom it dethroned governed better or more wisely than it governs. a democracy will never, save after an awful catastrophe, return what has once been conceded to it, for to do so would be to admit an inferiority in itself, of which, except by some almost unbearable misfortune, it could never be convinced. no. ix. its history, and the effects of that history.--conclusion. a volume might seem wanted to say anything worth saying[ ] on the history of the english constitution, and a great and new volume might still be written on it, if a competent writer took it in hand. the subject has never been treated by any one combining the lights of the newest research and the lights of the most matured philosophy. since the masterly book of hallam was written, both political thought and historical knowledge have gained much, and we might have a treatise applying our strengthened calculus to our augmented facts. i do not pretend that i could write such a book, but there are a few salient particulars which may be fitly brought together, both because of their past interest and of their present importance. [ ] since the first edition of this book was published several valuable works have appeared, which, on many points, throw much light on our early constitutional history, especially mr. stubbs' select charters and other illustrations of english constitutional history, from the earliest times to the reign of edward the first, mr. freeman's lecture on "the growth of the english constitution," and the chapter on the anglo-saxon constitution in his history of the norman conquest: but we have not yet a great and authoritative work on the whole subject such as i wished for when i wrote the passage in the text, and as it is most desirable that we should have. there is a certain common polity, or germ of polity, which we find in all the rude nations that have attained civilisation. these nations seem to begin in what i may call a consultative and tentative absolutism. the king of early days, in vigorous nations, was not absolute as despots now are; there was then no standing army to repress rebellion, no organised espionage to spy out discontent, no skilled bureaucracy to smooth the ruts of obedient life. the early king was indeed consecrated by a religious sanction; he was essentially a man apart, a man above others, divinely anointed or even god-begotten. but in nations capable of freedom this religious domination was never despotic. there was indeed no legal limit; the very words could not be translated into the dialect of those times. the notion of law as we have it--of a rule imposed by human authority, capable of being altered by that authority, when it likes, and in fact, so altered habitually--could not be conveyed to early nations, who regarded law half as an invincible prescription, and half as a divine revelation. law "came out of the king's mouth"; he gave it as solomon gave judgment--embedded in the particular case, and upon the authority of heaven as well as his own. a divine limit to the divine revealer was impossible, and there was no other source of law. but though there was no legal limit, there was a practical limit to subjection in (what may be called) the pagan part of human nature--the inseparable obstinacy of freemen. they never would do exactly what they were told. to early royalty, as homer describes it in greece and as we may well imagine it elsewhere, there were always two adjuncts: one the "old men," the men of weight, the council, the _boulé_, of which the king asked advice, from the debates in which the king tried to learn what he could do and what he ought to do. besides this there was the _agorá_, the purely listening assembly, as some have called it, but the tentative assembly, as i think it might best be called. the king came down to his assembled people in form to announce his will, but in reality, speaking in very modern words, to "feel his way". he was sacred, no doubt; and popular, very likely; still he was half like a popular premier speaking to a high-spirited chamber; there were limits to his authority and power--limits which he would discover by trying whether eager cheers received his mandate, or only hollow murmurs and a thinking silence. this polity is a good one for its era and its place, but there is a fatal defect in it. the reverential associations upon which the government is built are transmitted according to one law, and the capacity needful to work the government is transmitted according to another law. the popular homage clings to the line of god-descended kings; it is transmitted by inheritance. but very soon that line comes to a child or an idiot, or one by some defect or other incapable. then we find everywhere the truth of the old saying, that liberty thrives under weak princes; then the listening assembly begins not only to murmur, but to speak; then the grave council begins not so much to suggest as to inculcate, not so much to advise as to enjoin. mr. grote has told at length how out of these appendages of the original kingdom the free states of greece derived their origin, and how they gradually grew--the oligarchical states expanding the council, and the democratical expanding the assembly. the history has as many varieties in detail as there were greek cities, but the essence is the same everywhere. the political characteristic of the early greeks, and of the early romans, too, is that out of the tentacula of a monarchy they developed the organs of a republic. english history has been in substance the same, though its form is different, and its growth far slower and longer. the scale was larger, and the elements more various. a greek city soon got rid of its kings, for the political sacredness of the monarch would not bear the daily inspection and constant criticism of an eager and talking multitude. everywhere in greece the slave population--the most ignorant, and therefore the most unsusceptible of intellectual influences--was struck out of the account. but england began as a kingdom of considerable size, inhabited by distinct races, none of them fit for prosaic criticism, and all subject to the superstition of royalty. in early england, too, royalty was much more than a superstition. a very strong executive was needed to keep down a divided, an armed, and an impatient country; and therefore the problem of political development was delicate. a formed free government in a homogeneous nation may have a strong executive; but during the transition state, while the republic is in course of development and the monarchy in course of decay, the executive is of necessity weak. the polity is divided, and its action feeble and failing. the different orders of english people have progressed, too, at different rates. the change in the state of the higher classes since the middle ages is enormous, and it is all improvement; but the lower have varied little, and many argue that in some important respects they have got worse, even if in others they have got better. the development of the english constitution was of necessity slow, because a quick one would have destroyed the executive and killed the state, and because the most numerous classes, who changed very little, were not prepared for any catastrophic change in our institutions. i cannot presume to speak of the time before the conquest, and the exact nature even of all anglo-norman institutions is perhaps dubious: at least, in nearly all cases there have been many controversies. political zeal, whether whig or tory, has wanted to find a model in the past; and the whole state of society being confused, the precedents altering with the caprice of men and the chance of events, ingenious advocacy has had a happy field. but all that i need speak of is quite plain. there was a great "council" of the realm, to which the king summoned the most considerable persons in england, the persons he most wanted to advise him, and the persons whose tempers he was most anxious to ascertain. exactly who came to it at first is obscure and unimportant. i need not distinguish between the "magnum concilium in parliament" and the "magnum concilium out of parliament". gradually the principal assemblies summoned by the english sovereign took the precise and definite form of lords and commons, as in their outside we now see them. but their real nature was very different. the parliament of to-day is a ruling body; the mediaeval parliament was, if i may so say, an expressive body. its function was to tell the executive--the king--what the nation wished he should do; to some extent, to guide him by new wisdom, and, to a very great extent, to guide him by new facts. these facts were their own feelings, which were the feelings of the people, because they were part and parcel of the people. from thence the king learned, or had the means to learn, what the nation would endure, and what it would not endure;--what he might do, and what he might not do. if he much mistook this, there was a rebellion. there are, as is well known, three great periods in the english constitution. the first of these is the ante-tudor period. the english parliament then seemed to be gaining extraordinary strength and power. the title to the crown was uncertain; some monarchs were imbecile. many ambitious men wanted to "take the people into partnership". certain precedents of that time were cited with grave authority centuries after, when the time of freedom had really arrived. but the causes of this rapid growth soon produced an even more sudden decline. confusion fostered it, and confusion destroyed it. the structure of society then was feudal; the towns were only an adjunct and a make-weight. the principal popular force was an aristocratic force, acting with the co-operation of the gentry and yeomanry, and resting on the loyal fealty of sworn retainers. the head of this force, on whom its efficiency depended, was the high nobility. but the high nobility killed itself out. the great barons who adhered to the "red rose" or the "white rose," or who fluctuated from one to the other, became poorer, fewer, and less potent every year. when the great struggle ended at bosworth, a large part of the greatest combatants were gone. the restless, aspiring, rich barons, who made the civil war, were broken by it. henry vii. attained a kingdom in which there was a parliament to advise, but scarcely a parliament to control. the consultative government of the ante-tudor period had little resemblance to some of the modern governments which french philosophers call by that name. the french empire, i believe, calls itself so. but its assemblies are symmetrical "shams". they are elected by a universal suffrage, by the ballot, and in districts once marked out with an eye to equality, and still retaining a look of equality. but our english parliaments were unsymmetrical realities. they were elected anyhow; the sheriff had a considerable licence in sending writs to boroughs, that is, he could in part pick its constituencies; and in each borough there was a rush and scramble for the franchise, so that the strongest local party got it, whether few or many. but in england at that time there was a great and distinct desire to know the opinion of the nation, because there was a real and close necessity. the nation was wanted to do something--to assist the sovereign in some war, to pay some old debt, to contribute its force and aid in the critical conjuncture of the time. it would not have suited the ante-tudor kings to have had a fictitious assembly; they would have lost their sole feeler, their only instrument for discovering national opinion. nor could they have manufactured such an assembly if they wished. the instrument in that behalf is the centralised executive, and there was then no 'prefet' by whom the opinion of a rural locality could be made to order, and adjusted to suit the wishes of the capital. looking at the mode of election a theorist would say that these parliaments were but "chance" collections of influential englishmen. there would be many corrections and limitations to add to that statement if it were wanted to make it accurate, but the statement itself hits exactly the principal excellence of those parliaments. if not "chance" collections of englishmen, they were "undesigned" collections; no administrations made them or could make them. they were bona-fide counsellors, whose opinion might be wise or unwise, but was anyhow of paramount importance, because their co-operation was wanted for what was in hand. legislation as a positive power was very secondary in those old parliaments. i believe no statute at all, as far as we know, was passed in the reign of richard i., and all the ante-tudor acts together would look meagre enough to a modern parliamentary agent who had to live by them. but the negative action of parliament upon the law was essential to its whole idea, and ran through every part of its use. that the king could not change what was then the almost sacred datum of the common law, without seeing whether his nation liked it or not, was an essential part of the "tentative" system. the king had to feel his way in this exceptional, singular act, as those ages deemed original legislation, as well as in lesser acts. the legislation was his at last; he enacted after consulting his lords and commons; his was the sacred mouth which gave holy firmness to the enactment; but he only dared alter the rule regulating the common life of his people after consulting those people; he would not have been obeyed if he had not, by a rude age which did not fear civil war as we fear it now. many most important enactments of that period (and the fact is most characteristic) are declaratory acts. they do not profess to enjoin by inherent authority what the law shall in future be, but to state and mark what the law is; they are declarations of immemorial custom, not precepts of new duties. even in the "great charter" the notion of new enactments was secondary, it was a great mixture of old and new; it was a sort of compact defining what was doubtful in floating custom, and was re-enacted over and over again, as boundaries are perambulated once a year, and rights and claims tending to desuetude thereby made patent and cleared of new obstructions. in truth, such great "charters" were rather treaties between different orders and factions, confirming ancient rights, or what claimed to be such, than laws in our ordinary sense. they were the "deeds of arrangement" of mediaeval society affirmed and re-affirmed from time to time, and the principal controversy was, of course, between the king and nation--the king trying to see how far the nation would let him go, and the nation murmuring and recalcitrating, and seeing how many acts of administration they could prevent, and how many of its claims they could resist. sir james mackintosh says that magna charta "converted the right of taxation into the shield of liberty," but it did nothing of the sort. the liberty existed before, and the right to be taxed was an efflorescence and instance of it, not a sub-stratum or a cause. the necessity of consulting the great council of the realm before taxation, the principle that the declaration of grievances by the parliament was to precede the grant of supplies to the sovereign, are but conspicuous instances of the primitive doctrine of the ante-tudor period, that the king must consult the great council of the realm, before he did anything, since he always wanted help. the right of self-taxation was justly inserted in the "great treaty"; but it would have been a dead letter, save for the armed force and aristocratic organisation which compelled the king to make a treaty; it was a result, not a basis--an example, not a cause. the civil wars of many years killed out the old councils (if i might so say): that is, destroyed three parts of the greater nobility, who were its most potent members, tired the small nobility and the gentry, and overthrew the aristocratic organisation on which all previous effectual resistance to the sovereign had been based. the second period of the british constitution begins with the accession of the house of tudor, and goes down to ; it is in substance the history of the growth, development, and gradually acquired supremacy of the new great council. i have no room and no occasion to narrate again the familiar history of the many steps by which the slavish parliament of henry viii. grew into the murmuring parliament of queen elizabeth, the mutinous parliament of james i., and the rebellious parliament of charles i. the steps were many, but the energy was one--the growth of the english middle-class, using that word in its most inclusive sense, and its animation under the influence of protestantism. no one, i think, can doubt that lord macaulay is right in saying that political causes would not alone have then provoked such a resistance to the sovereign unless propelled by religious theory. of course the english people went to and fro from catholicism to protestantism, and from protestantism to catholicism (not to mention that the protestantism was of several shades and sects), just as the first tudor kings and queens wished. but that was in the pre-puritan era. the mass of englishmen were in an undecided state, just as hooper tells us his father was--"not believing in protestantism, yet not disinclined to it". gradually, however, a strong evangelic spirit (as we should now speak) and a still stronger anti-papal spirit entered into the middle sort of englishmen, and added to that force, fibre, and substance which they have never wanted, an ideal warmth and fervour which they have almost always wanted. hence the saying that cromwell founded the english constitution. of course, in seeming, cromwell's work died with him; his dynasty was rejected, his republic cast aside; but the spirit which culminated in him never sank again, never ceased to be a potent, though often a latent and volcanic force in the country. charles ii. said that he would never go again on his travels for anything or anybody; and he well knew that though the men whom he met at worcester might be dead, still the spirit which warmed them was alive and young in others. but the cromwellian republic and the strict puritan creed were utterly hateful to most englishmen. they were, if i may venture on saying so, like the "rouge" element in france and elsewhere--the sole revolutionary force in the entire state, and were hated as such. that force could do little of itself; indeed, its bare appearance tended to frighten and alienate the moderate and dull as well as the refined and reasoning classes. alone it was impotent against the solid clay of the english apathetic nature. but give this fiery element a body of decent-looking earth; give it an excuse for breaking out on an occasion, when the decent, the cultivated, and aristocratic classes could join with it, and they would conquer by means of it, and it could be disguised in their covering. such an excuse was found in . james ii., by incredible and pertinacious folly, irritated not only the classes which had fought against his father, but also those who had fought for his father. he offended the anglican classes as well as the puritan classes; all the whig nobles, and half the tory nobles, as well as the dissenting bourgeois. the rule of parliament was established by the concurrence of the usual supporters of royalty with the usual opponents of it. but the result was long weak. our revolution has been called the minimum of a revolution, because in law, at least, it only changed the dynasty, but exactly on that account it was the greatest shock to the common multitude, who see the dynasty but see nothing else. the support of the main aristocracy held together the bulk of the deferential classes, but it held them together imperfectly, uneasily, and unwillingly. huge masses of crude prejudice swayed hither and thither for many years. if an able stuart had with credible sincerity professed protestantism probably he might have overturned the house of hanover. so strong was inbred reverence for hereditary right, that until the accession of george iii. the english government was always subject to the unceasing attrition of a competitive sovereign. this was the result of what i insist on tediously, but what is most necessary to insist on, for it is a cardinal particular in the whole topic. many of the english people--the higher and more educated portion--had come to comprehend the nature of constitutional government, but the mass did not comprehend it. they looked to the sovereign as the government, and to the sovereign only. these were carried forward by the magic of the aristocracy and principally by the influence of the great whig families with their adjuncts. without that aid reason or liberty would never have held them. though the rule of parliament was definitely established in , yet the mode of exercising that rule has since changed. at first parliament did not know how to exercise it; the organisation of parties and the appointment of cabinets by parties grew up in the manner macaulay has described so well. up to the latest period the sovereign was supposed, to a most mischievous extent, to interfere in the choice of the persons to be ministers. when george iii. finally became insane, in , every one believed that george iv., on assuming power as prince regent, would turn out mr. perceval's government and empower lord grey or lord grenville, the whig leaders, to form another. the tory ministry was carrying on a successful war--a war of existence--against napoleon; but in the people's minds, the necessity at such an occasion for an unchanged government did not outweigh the fancy that george iv. was a whig. and a whig it is true he had been before the french revolution, when he lived an indescribable life in st. james's street with mr. fox. but lord grey and lord grenville were rigid men, and had no immoral sort of influence. what liberalism of opinion the regent ever had was frightened out of him (as of other people) by the reign of terror. he felt, according to the saying of another monarch, that "he lived by being a royalist". it soon appeared that he was most anxious to retain mr. perceval, and that he was most eager to quarrel with the whig lords. as we all know, he kept the ministry whom he found in office; but that it should have been thought he could then change them, is a significant example how exceedingly modern our notions of the despotic action of parliament in fact are. by the steps of the struggle thus rudely mentioned (and by others which i have no room to speak of, nor need i), the change which in the greek cities was effected both in appearance and in fact, has been effected in england, though in reality only, and not in outside. here, too, the appendages of a monarchy have been converted into the essence of a republic; only here, because of a more numerous heterogeneous political population, it is needful to keep the ancient show while we secretly interpolate the new reality. this long and curious history has left its trace on almost every part of our present political condition; its effects lie at the root of many of our most important controversies; and because these effects are not rightly perceived, many of these controversies are misconceived. one of the most curious peculiarities of the english people is its dislike of the executive government. we are not in this respect "un vrai peuple moderne," like the americans. the americans conceive of the executive as one of their appointed agents; when it intervenes in common life, it does so, they consider, in virtue of the mandate of the sovereign people, and there is no invasion or dereliction of freedom in that people interfering with itself. the french, the swiss, and all nations who breathe the full atmosphere of the nineteenth century, think so too. the material necessities of this age require a strong executive; a nation destitute of it cannot be clean, or healthy, or vigorous, like a nation possessing it. by definition, a nation calling itself free should have no jealousy of the executive, for freedom means that the nation, the political part of the nation, wields the executive. but our history has reversed the english feeling: our freedom is the result of centuries of resistance, more or less legal, or more or less illegal, more or less audacious, or more or less timid, to the executive government. we have, accordingly, inherited the traditions of conflict, and preserve them in the fulness of victory. we look on state action, not as our own action, but as alien action; as an imposed tyranny from without, not as the consummated result of our own organised wishes. i remember at the census of hearing a very sensible old lady say that the "liberties of england were at an end"; if government might be thus inquisitorial, if they might ask who slept in your house, or what your age was, what, she argued, might they not ask and what might they not do? the natural impulse of the english people is to resist authority. the introduction of effectual policemen was not liked; i know people, old people, i admit, who to this day consider them an infringement of freedom, and an imitation of the gendarmes of france. if the original policemen had been started with the present helmets, the result might have been dubious; there might have been a cry of military tyranny, and the inbred insubordination of the english people might have prevailed over the very modern love of perfect peace and order. the old notion that the government is an extrinsic agency still rules our imaginations, though it is no longer true, and though in calm and intellectual moments we well know it is not. nor is it merely our history which produces this effect; we might get over that; but the results of that history co-operate. our double government so acts: when we want to point the antipathy to the executive, we refer to the jealousy of the crown, so deeply embedded in the very substance of constitutional authority; so many people are loth to admit the queen, in spite of law and fact, to be the people's appointee and agent, that it is a good rhetorical emphasis to speak of her prerogative as something non-popular, and therefore to be distrusted. by the very nature of our government our executive cannot be liked and trusted as the swiss or the american is liked and trusted. out of the same history and the same results proceed our tolerance of those "local authorities" which so puzzle many foreigners. in the struggle with the crown these local centres served as props and fulcrums. in the early parliaments it was the local bodies who sent members to parliament, the counties, and the boroughs; and in that way, and because of their free life, the parliament was free too. if active real bodies had not sent the representatives, they would have been powerless. this is very much the reason why our old rights of suffrage were so various; the government let whatever people happened to be the strongest in each town choose the members. they applied to the electing bodies the test of "natural selection"; whatever set of people were locally strong enough to elect, did so. afterwards in the civil war, many of the corporations, like that of london, were important bases of resistance. the case of london is typical and remarkable. probably, if there is any body more than another which an educated englishman nowadays regards with little favour, it is the corporation of london. he connects it with hereditary abuses perfectly preserved, with large revenues imperfectly accounted for, with a system which stops the principal city government at an old archway, with the perpetuation of a hundred detestable parishes, with the maintenance of a horde of luxurious and useless bodies. for the want of all which makes paris nice and splendid we justly reproach the corporation of london; for the existence of much of what makes london mean and squalid we justly reproach it too. yet the corporation of london was for centuries a bulwark of english liberty. the conscious support of the near and organised capital gave the long parliament a vigour and vitality which they could have found nowhere else. their leading patriots took refuge in the city, and the nearest approach to an english "sitting in permanence" is the committee at guildhall, where all members "that came were to have voices". down to george iii.'s time the city was a useful centre of popular judgment. here, as elsewhere, we have built into our polity pieces of the scaffolding by which it was erected. de tocqueville indeed used to maintain that in this matter the english were not merely historically excusable but likewise politically judicious. he founded what may be called the culte of corporations. and it was natural, that in france, where there is scarcely any power of self-organisation in the people, where the prefet must be asked upon every subject, and take the initiative in every movement, a solitary thinker should be repelled from the exaggerations of which he knew the evil, to the contrary exaggeration of which he did not. but in a country like england where business is in the air, where we can organise a vigilance committee on every abuse and an executive committee for every remedy--as a matter of political instruction, which was de tocqueville's point--we need not care how much power is delegated to outlying bodies, and how much is kept for the central body. we have had the instruction municipalities could give us: we have been through all that. now we are quite grown up, and can put away childish things. the same causes account for the innumerable anomalies of our polity. i own that i do not entirely sympathise with the horror of these anomalies which haunts some of our best critics. it is natural that those who by special and admirable culture have come to look at all things upon the artistic side, should start back from these queer peculiarities. but it is natural also that persons used to analyse political institutions should look at these anomalies with a little tenderness and a little interest. they may have something to teach us. political philosophy is still more imperfect; it has been framed from observations taken upon regular specimens of politics and states; as to these its teaching is most valuable. but we must ever remember that its data are imperfect. the lessons are good where its primitive assumptions hold, but may be false where those assumptions fail. a philosophical politician regards a political anomaly as a scientific physician regards a rare disease--it is to him an "interesting case". there may still be instruction here, though we have worked out the lessons of common cases. i cannot, therefore, join in the full cry against anomalies; in my judgment it may quickly overrun the scent, and so miss what we should be glad to find. subject to this saving remark, however, i not only admit, but maintain, that our constitution is full of curious oddities, which are impeding and mischievous, and ought to be struck out. our law very often reminds one of those outskirts of cities where you cannot for a long time tell how the streets come to wind about in so capricious and serpent-like a manner. at last it strikes you that they grew up, house by house, on the devious tracks of the old green lanes; and if you follow on to the existing fields, you may often find the change half complete. just so the lines of our constitution were framed in old eras of sparse population, few wants, and simple habits; and we adhere in seeming to their shape, though civilisation has come with its dangers, complications, and enjoyments. these anomalies, in a hundred instances, mark the old boundaries of a constitutional struggle. the casual line was traced according to the strength of deceased combatants; succeeding generations fought elsewhere; and the hesitating line of a half-drawn battle was left to stand for a perpetual limit. i do not count as an anomaly the existence of our double government, with all its infinite accidents, though half the superficial peculiarities that are often complained of arise out of it. the co-existence of a queen's seeming prerogative and a downing street's real government is just suited to such a country as this, in such an age as ours.[ ] [ ] so well is our real government concealed, that if you tell a cabman to drive to "downing street," he most likely will never have heard of it, and will not in the least know where to take you. it is only a "disguised republic". [the end] the character of the british empire by ramsay muir professor of modern history in the university of manchester new york george h. doran company mcmxvii the character of the british empire note.--_the following essay is based mainly upon a book by the same author entitled "the expansion of europe," in which an attempt is made to estimate the part played by various nations in extending the civilisation of europe over the whole world. a few references are therefore given to the fuller treatment of various aspects of the subject contained in the book._ i nearly all the great self-governing nations of the world are now combined in a desperate struggle against the scarcely-veiled military despotism of the central european powers, and the object of the struggle has been well denned by president wilson as the securing of freedom for democracy, so that it shall be safe from the threats of militarist and conquering empires. in the forefront of the group of states engaged in the defence of democracy stands the british empire, the greatest dominion that has ever existed in history, which covers a quarter of the earth's surface, and in which a quarter of the earth's population is subject (at any rate, in form) to the rule of two small european islands. the very existence of this huge empire seems to many people to stultify in some degree the cause for which the world's democracies are fighting. it seems, at first sight, to be simply the greatest example of that spirit of conquest and of military dominion against which we are striving. this is the view taken by some neutrals. "imperialism is the enemy," says one swiss writer; "whatever form it takes, german or russian, british or french, it is equally the foe of free government." the germans themselves make great play with this notion. they describe the british empire as a vast, greedy tyranny, built up by fraud. they invite us to free the oppressed millions of india before we talk hypocritically about liberty. they assert that the naval supremacy of britain is far more dangerous to the freedom of the world than the military power of germany could ever be. some people even in the allied countries are affected by doubts of this kind. the russian socialists, for whom imperialism has in the past meant nothing but a hideous repression of freedom, are ready to assume that the british empire, because it is called an empire, must mean the same ugly things. and criticism of the same kind can sometimes be heard in france, in italy, in the united states, and in britain herself. our purpose, in this short paper, is to examine the truth of these superficial impressions. but before we do so there are two preliminary observations worth making. the first is that men's minds are extraordinarily easily influenced by mere _words_. the word "empire" suggests, to many, conquest and dominion over unwilling subjects. in so far as it does so, it begs the question. as we shall try to show, this word is really misapplied to the british realms. the character of their government and of the bond which holds them together would be much better expressed by a phrase which is now being widely used in britain--the british _commonwealth of nations_. of course, that title also begs the question in a way. but the reader is asked, at the outset, to keep in his mind, while he reads, the question, "is the title 'empire,' or the title 'commonwealth of nations,' the truer description of this extraordinary aggregate of lands and peoples?" the second preliminary observation which we shall make is, that there are certain outstanding features of the war which must have thrown a striking light upon the character of the british empire. over a million volunteer soldiers have come from the great self-governing colonies of the british empire without any compulsion being imposed upon them. the princes and peoples of india have vied with one another in their generous and spontaneous gifts to the cause, while indian forces have fought gallantly in all parts of the world, and at the same time india has been almost denuded of british troops. that is not the sort of thing which happens when the masters of a tyrannical dominion find themselves fighting for their very life. apart from the unhappy troubles in ireland (which were the work of a small minority) and the rebellion in south africa (which was promptly put down by the south african dutch themselves), there has been no serious disturbance in all the vast realms of this empire during the three years' strain of war. even the most recently subdued of african tribes have shown no desire to seize this opportunity for throwing off "the foreign yoke." on the contrary, they have sent touching gifts, and offers of aid, and expressions of good-will. it appears, then, that the subjects of this "empire" have, for the most part, no quarrel with its government, but are well content that it should survive. ii the creation of the british empire has been simply a part (though, perhaps, the greatest part) of that outpouring of the european peoples which has, during the last four centuries, brought the whole world under the influence of western civilisation. that is a great achievement, and it has brought in sight the establishment of a real world-order. it is merely foolish to condemn the "lust of conquest" which has driven the european peoples to subdue the rest of the world, though, of course, we ought to condemn the cruelties and injustices by which it has sometimes been accompanied. but without it north and south america, australia, and south africa would have remained deserts, inhabited by scattered bands of savages. without it india would have been sentenced to the eternal continuance of the sterile and fruitless wars between despotic conquerors which made up her history until the british power was established. without it the backward peoples of the earth would have stagnated for ever in the barbarism in which they have remained since the beginning. the "imperialism" of the european nations has brought great results to the world. it has made possible that unification of the political and economic interests of the whole globe which we see beginning to-day. it is one of the fine aspects of this grim and horrible war that it affects the interests of the whole world, and that the whole world knows this. the giant's part which has been played by britain in the conquest of the world by western civilisation, and the peculiar character of her work, have been due to two things--british institutions and the british navy. it ought never to be forgotten that down to the nineteenth century (that is, during all the earlier part of the process of european expansion) britain was the only one of the greater european states which possessed self-governing institutions. she has been, in truth (this is not a boast, but a mere statement of indisputable historical fact), the inventor of political liberty on the scale of the great nation-state, as greece was the inventor of political liberty on the scale of the little city-state. and wherever free institutions exist to-day, they have been derived from britain, either by inheritance, as in america and the self-governing british colonies, or by imitation, as in all other cases. when the outpouring of europe into the rest of the world began, the british peoples alone had the habit and instinct of self-government in their very blood and bones. and the result was that, wherever they went, they carried self-government with them. _every_ colony of british settlers, from the very first, was endowed with self-governing institutions. _no_ colony ever planted by any other nation ever obtained corresponding rights.[ ] that is one of the outstanding features of british expansion. in the eighteenth century, and even in the middle of the nineteenth century, britain herself and the young nations that had sprung from her loins were _almost the only free states existing in the world_. it was because they were free that they throve so greatly. they expanded on their own account, they threw out fresh settlements into the empty lands wherein they were planted, often against the wish of the mother country. and this spontaneous growth of vigorous free communities has been one of the principal causes of the immense extension of the british empire. now one of the results of the universal existence of self-governing rights in british colonies was that the colonists were far more prompt to resent and resist any improper exercise of authority by the mother country than were the settlers in the colonies of other countries, which had no self-governing rights at all. it was this independent spirit, nurtured by self-government, which led to the revolt of the american colonies in , and to the foundation of the united states as an independent nation. in that great controversy an immensely important question was raised, which was new to human history. it was the question whether unity could be combined with the highest degree of freedom; whether it was possible to create a sort of fellowship or brotherhood of free communities, in which each should be master of its own destinies, and yet all combine for common interests. but the question (being so new) was not understood on either side of the atlantic. naturally, britain thought most of the need of maintaining unity; she thought it unfair that the whole burden of the common defence should fall upon her, and she committed many foolish blunders in trying to enforce her view. equally naturally the colonists thought primarily of their own self-governing rights, which they very justly demanded should be increased rather than restricted. the result was the unhappy war, which broke up the only family of free peoples that had yet existed in the world, and caused a most unfortunate alienation between them, whereby the cause of liberty in the world was greatly weakened.[ ] britain learned many valuable lessons from the american revolution. in the new empire which she began to build up as soon as the old one was lost, it might have been expected that she would have fought shy of those principles of self-government which no other state had ever tried to apply in its over-sea dominions, and which seemed to have led (from the imperialistic point of view) to such disastrous results in america. but she did not do so; the habits of self-government were too deeply rooted in her sons to make it possible for her to deny them self-governing rights in their new homes. on the contrary, she learnt, during the nineteenth century, to welcome and facilitate every expansion of their freedom,[ ] and she gradually felt her way towards a means of realising a partnership of free peoples whereby freedom should be combined with unity. its success (although it must still undergo much development) has been strikingly shown in the great war. thus british institutions--the institutions of national self-government, which are peculiarly british in origin--have played a main part both in determining the character of the british empire and in bringing about its wonderful expansion. the more the british empire has grown the more freedom has been established on the face of the earth. the second great factor in the growth of the british empire has been the power of the british navy, which has been the greatest sea power of the world practically since the overthrow of the spanish armada in . it is a striking fact that in all her history britain has never possessed a large army, until the necessities of this war suddenly forced her (as they are now forcing america) to perform the miracle of calling her whole manhood from the pursuits of peace to arms, of training them, and of equipping them, all within two years. in it was the fact that she possessed only a tiny armed force (some , men for the defence of all her dominions), which made it necessary for her, for example, to hire hessian troops in a hurry for the purposes of the american war of independence. is not this an astounding paradox, that the power which has acquired dominion over one-quarter of the earth has done it without ever possessing a large army? and does it not suggest that the process by which this empire was acquired must have been very different from the ordinary processes of military conquest? this is a paradox which those who speak of the british empire as if it were a mere military dominion must somehow explain. but there has been the supreme british fleet. it has made the creation and preservation of the empire possible by securing the free transit not merely of soldiers, but, far more important, of settlers, merchants, administrators, organisers, and missionaries. scattered as it is over all the seas of the world, the british empire would undoubtedly be broken into fragments if the security of the ocean high-roads by which it is united were ever to be lost. but although the british navy has made the growth of the empire possible, and has held it together, it has not conquered it. a fleet _cannot_ conquer great areas of land; it _cannot_ hold masses of discontented subjects in an unwilling obedience; it _cannot_ threaten the freedom or independence of any land-power. it is strong only for defence, not for offence. there are two aspects of the work of the british navy during the last three centuries which deserve to be noted, because they also help to indicate the character of the work done by the british empire during this period. in the first place, the british naval power has never been used to threaten the freedom of any independent state. on the contrary, it has been employed time and again as the last bulwark of freedom against great military powers which have threatened to overwhelm the freedom of their neighbours by mere brute strength. that was so in the sixteenth century, when spain seemed to be within an ace of making herself the mistress of the world. it was so a hundred years later, when the highly-organised power of louis xiv. threatened the liberties of europe. it was so again, a century later, when napoleon's might overshadowed the world. it is so once more to-day, when the german peril menaces the liberty of nations. during each of these desperate crises the british navy has seemed to neutrals to be interfering unduly with their trade, in so far as their trade helped the enemy. in this connection it is worth noting that it has been for two centuries the invariable rule of the british navy that in no circumstances must a neutral vessel ever be sunk, and in no circumstances must the lives of non-combatants be sacrificed. but is it not reasonable to say that in each of these great wars the theoretic rights of neutral trade were justly subordinated to the struggle for the preservation of liberty? in all the great crises of modern european history, then, british naval power has been the ultimate bulwark of liberty. but how has this power been used in times of peace? the spanish naval power, which preceded the british, enforced for its people a monopoly of the use of all the oceans of the world except the north atlantic. the dutch naval power, which carried on an equal rivalry with the british during the seventeenth century, established a practical monopoly for dutch trade in all the waters east of the straits of malacca. but the british naval power has never for a moment been used to restrict the free movement of the ships of all nations in times of peace in any of the seas of the world. this, again, is not a boast, but a plain statement of undeniable historical fact. the freedom of the seas in times of peace (which is much more important than the freedom of the seas in times of war) has only existed during the period of british naval supremacy, but it has existed so fully that we have got into the habit of taking it for granted, and of assuming, rather rashly, that it can never be impaired. what is more, it has been entirely during the period of british naval supremacy, and mainly by the work of the british fleet, that the remoter seas have been charted and that piracy has been brought to an end, and the perils of the sailor reduced to the natural perils of wind and wave. this also is a contribution to the freedom of the seas. british institutions, the institutions of self-government, and the british navy, which has at all times been a bulwark of liberty, and has never interfered in times of peace with the use of the seas by any nation--these have been the main explanations of the fabulous growth of the british empire. we cannot here attempt to trace the story of this growth, but must be content to survey the completed structure and consider on what principles it is governed. [ ] see "the expansion of europe," chapters ii. and iii. [ ] see "the expansion of europe," chapter iv., where this view of the american revolution is developed. [ ] see "the expansion of europe," chapter vi., where the "transformation of the british empire" during the nineteenth century is analysed. iii the vast realms of the british empire fall naturally into three groups: the great self-governing dominions, canada, australia, south africa, new zealand, and newfoundland; the lands of ancient civilisation, india and egypt; and the wide protectorates (mainly in africa, but also in asia and the pacific) which are inhabited by backward and primitive peoples. there are other regions also, such as the west indian islands, or the military posts and calling stations like gibraltar, malta, and aden, which do not fall into any of these three categories. but they are of relatively minor importance, and it will be convenient to concentrate our attention upon each of the three main groups in turn. regarding the self-governing dominions, the intelligent reader scarcely needs to be told that they are to all intents and purposes entirely free states, which remain in association with the mother country only by their own free will. if they were to claim complete independence, there would certainly be no attempt made by britain to force them to remain in partnership, though the breach would be a great sorrow to the mother country. they make their own laws; they appoint all their own officials (except the governors, who perform almost purely formal functions, corresponding to those performed by the king in the "crowned republic" of britain); they levy their own taxes, and both may and do impose any duties they think fit upon imports from britain equally with those coming from other states. they pay not a farthing of tribute to the mother country. they are not even required to contribute to the cost of the navy, which protects them all, though some of them make voluntary contributions. the only restriction upon their political independence is that they do not pursue an independent foreign policy or maintain ambassadors or consuls of their own in foreign countries. the responsibility (and the total cost) of this function falls upon britain. if britain should be drawn into war, the great dominions are also technically at war, and if britain were to pursue a warlike or aggressive policy, this would soon alienate some or all of these young democracies. but it is only by their own free will that they take any part in a war in which britain is involved, and the mother country has neither the right nor the power to demand military aid from them. yet we have seen what whole-hearted and generous aid they have all given. would it have been as great, or as valuable, if it had been compulsory? gradually they are beginning, through their prime ministers or other representatives, to take a more and more effective part in the direction of the common policy of the empire. the meetings of what was called the "imperial war cabinet" in the spring of marked a definite stage in this development, and incidentally afforded a very striking proof of the elasticity and adaptability of the british system of government. it is certain that this method of co-operation will be carried still further in the future. clearly, so far as concerns the great dominions, the british empire is far from being a military domination imposed by force. it is a voluntary partnership or brotherhood of free peoples, a commonwealth of nations. it is a wonderful achievement in the combination of unity and freedom, an experiment in the unforced co-operation of free states such as has never before been seen in human history. if _that_ is the meaning of imperialism, who will cavil at it? only one series of events has prevented a large part of the world from realising that this was the spirit in which the british empire was governed. the south african war made britain appear, in the eyes of most of the world, a vast, greedy, tyrannical power, which, not content with an already immense dominion, must fall upon and devour two tiny, free republics, merely because they contained gold! but the world did not appreciate the real meaning of the south african war.[ ] in the british south african colonies (the cape and natal) the fullest equality of political rights was enjoyed by dutch and british residents alike, and their institutions were the same as those of other british dominions. but in the semi-independent dutch republics of the transvaal and the orange free state (especially the former) no such equality of rights existed. the ideal they aimed at was that of dutch predominance, and some of their leaders hoped in time to drive the british out of africa, and to establish there an exclusively dutch supremacy. this did not matter so long as the inhabitants of these lands were only a few dutch farmers. but when the discovery of gold and diamonds brought an immense inrush of british and other settlers, who henceforth produced nearly all the wealth of the country, this denial of equality of rights became serious, and the programme of dutch conquest, prepared for mainly at the cost of the new settlers, began to seem dangerous. this was the real cause of the south african war. it might, perhaps, have been avoided, and, if so, those who precipitated it unnecessarily were much to blame, whether they were boers or britons. there were faults on both sides. but essentially the war was, on britain's side, a war for equality of rights. what were its results? so far as britain was concerned, the bones of thousands of her sons lay on the african veldt, and her public debt was vastly increased. she made no direct material gains of any sort: the gold-mines remained in exactly the same hands as before. but so far as south africa was concerned, the result was that in a very few years the conquered republics were given full self-governing powers, on the basis of equal rights for both races, and a few years later they and the older british colonies combined in the union of south africa, a great, free, federal state, in whose affairs dutch and british have equal rights, and in which a new nation, formed by the blending of the two races, can grow up. _that_ was what british imperialism led to in south africa. and now observe the sequel. when the great war began (scarcely more than a dozen years from the time when dutch and britons were fighting bitterly) the germans tried to bring about a revolt among the more ignorant dutch. it was put down by the forces of the union, mainly dutch, led by louis botha, who had once been the commander-in-chief of the transvaal army, and was now the prime minister of a self-governing dominion within the british empire. and then, still led by botha, a combined force of dutch and britons proceeded to the conquest of german south-west africa, suffering casualties which, by a happy chance, were exactly equally divided between the two races. and then a south african contingent was sent to east africa, and the supreme command over them, and over british regulars and indian regiments and native levies, was assumed by the dutch general smuts, once a formidable leader against the british. and, lastly, general smuts came to england to join in the deliberations of the imperial war cabinet, and to make speeches of profound foresight and political wisdom to the british people, in which he sang the praises of the british commonwealth of free nations as something that deserved every sacrifice from the peoples enrolled under its sheltering ægis. is there any parallel to these events in the history of the world? and is the empire whose spirit leads to such results to be spoken of as if it were a mere, ruthless military dominion? [ ] see "the expansion of europe," chapters vi. and viii., for an analysis of british policy in south africa. iv the second great group of british dominions consists of those ancient and populous lands, notably india and egypt, which, though they have been able to develop remarkable civilisations, have never in all their history succeeded in establishing the rule of a just and equal law, or known any form of government save arbitrary despotism. it is impossible to trace here, even in the baldest out-line, the steps by which britain acquired the sovereignty over india and egypt.[ ] they form two of the most curious and romantic episodes in history, for the strange thing is that in both cases british intervention was begun with no thought of conquest, and in both cases the responsibility of political control was assumed by britain with very great reluctance. this may sound incredible, but it is an indisputable historical fact. we must content ourselves with a very brief analysis of the character and results of the british dominion. what, then, has the establishment of british power meant in india? until the british power was established, india had in all her long history never known political unity. she had seen nothing but an almost uninterrupted succession of wars, an endless series of conquests and evanescent dominions. always might had been right; law had represented only the will of the master, and the law courts only the instruments of his arbitrary authority, so that the lover of righteousness could only pursue it by cutting himself off from all the ties of society and living the life of the ascetic. india was the most deeply divided land in the world--divided not only by differences of race and tongue (there are distinct languages in india to-day, and some of them differ more widely than russian and spanish), but divided still more deeply by bitter conflicts of creed and, most sharply of all, by the unchanging, impermeable barriers of caste, which had arisen in the first instance from the determination of conquering peoples to keep themselves free from any intermixture with their subjects. nowhere in the world are there to be seen, cheek by jowl, such profound contrasts between distinct grades of civilisation as are represented by the difference between (say) the almost savage bhils or the out-caste sweepers, and the high-bred brahmin, rajput or mahomedan chiefs. one result of these time-worn distinctions is that through all the ages the ruling castes and races have been accustomed to expect, and the mass of humble men to offer, the most abject submission; so that british administrators have often had to complain that the chief difficulty was, not to make laws for the protection of the humble, but rather to persuade those for whose benefit they were made to take advantage of them. to this divided land the british rule has brought three inestimable boons: a firmly organised political unity; the impartial administration of a just and equal system of law, based on a codification of indian usages; and the maintenance of a long, unbroken peace. to this may be added the introduction not only of the material boons of western civilisation--railways, roads, irrigation, postal facilities, and so forth--but of western learning. this has had to be conveyed through the vehicle of english, because it was impossible to create, in all the vernaculars, a whole literature of modern knowledge. and the consequence is, that all the members of the large and growing class of university-trained students, whose existence for the first time creates an instructed public opinion in india, are able freely to communicate with one another, and to share a common body of ideas, to an extent that has never before been possible in all the earlier history of india. out of all these causes, due to the british rule, there has begun to arise in this deeply divided land a sentiment of national unity, and an aspiration after self-government. this sentiment and this aspiration are in themselves excellent things; their danger is that they may lead to a demand for a too rapid advance. for national unity _cannot_ be created by merely asserting that it exists. it will not be fully established until the deeply-rooted differences which are only beginning to be obliterated have largely ceased to determine men's thoughts and actions, as they still do in india. and self-government, on the amplest scale of modern democracy, cannot be achieved until the traditionally ascendant classes, and the traditionally subject classes, have alike learned to recognise the equality of their rights before the law. but the foundations have been made of advance towards both of these aims; they are the result of british rule. there are discontents in india; there is much sharp criticism of the methods of the supreme government, especially--almost exclusively--among the new class of western-educated men. but the criticism has not gone so far, except with a very few fanatics, as to assert that british rule is itself unjust or evil; on the contrary, all the best opinion in india desires to see that great land steadily progressing towards greater national unity and greater political liberty under the guidance and protection of british rule; all the best opinion in india recognises that the progress already made has been due to british rule, and that its continuance depends upon the continuance of british rule; all the best opinion in india desires that india, even when she becomes, as she will steadily become, more fully self-governing, should remain a partner in the british commonwealth of nations. it was a real satisfaction of one of the aspirations of india when three representatives of the indian government, an indian prince, an indian lawyer, and an anglo-indian administrator, came to london in the spring of to take part in the councils of the empire during the crisis of its destiny. criticism and discontent exist. but their existence is a sign of life; and the freedom with which they are expressed is a proof that the government of india does not follow a merely repressive policy, and that the peoples of india have at last been helped to escape, in a large degree, from that complete docility and submissiveness which are the unhappy signs that a people is enslaved body and soul. india does not pay one penny of tribute to britain. she pays the cost of the small, efficient army which guards her frontiers, but if any part of it is borrowed for service elsewhere, the cost falls upon the british treasury. this rule was, indeed, broken in regard to the first indian contingents in the present war, but only at the request of the indian members of the viceroy's legislative council. india contributes not a penny towards the upkeep of the british fleet, which guards her shores; nor does she defray any part of the cost of the consuls and ambassadors in all parts of the world who protect the interests of her travelling citizens. she is a self-dependent state, all of whose resources are expended on the development of her own prosperity, and expended with the most scrupulous honesty and economy. her ports are open, of course, to british traders, but they are open on precisely the same terms to the traders of all other countries; there is no special privilege for the british merchant. recently she has entered upon a policy of fiscal protection, with a view to the development of cotton manufactures. this policy was directed primarily against lancashire. but because indian opinion demanded it, it has not been resisted, in spite of the fact that the bulk of british opinion holds such a policy to be economically unsound. nor have british citizens any special privileges in other respects. it was laid down as long ago as , as an "indisputable principle," that "the interests of the native subjects are to be consulted in preference to those of europeans, wherever the two come in competition." where will you find a parallel to that statement of policy by the supreme government of a ruling race? india, in short, is governed, under the terms of a code of law based upon indian custom, by a small number of picked british officials, only about , in all, among whom highly-trained indians are increasingly taking their place, and who work in detail through an army of minor officials, nearly all indians, and selected without respect to race, caste, or creed. she is a self-contained country, whose resources are devoted to her own needs. she is prospering to a degree unexampled in history. she has achieved a political unity never before known to her. she has been given the supreme gift of a just and impartial law, administered without fear or favour. she has enjoyed a long period of peace, unbroken by any attack from external foes. here, as fully as in the self-governing colonies, membership of the british empire does not mean subjection to the selfish dominion of a master, or the subordination to that master's interests of the vital interests of the community. it means the establishment among a vast population of the essential gifts of western civilisation--rational law, and the liberty which exists under its shelter. what has been said of india might equally be said of egypt, _mutatis mutandis_, but space does not permit of any detail on this theme. enough to say that the achievements of the short period since , when the british occupation began, in the rescuing of the country from bankruptcy, in the abolition of the hideous tyranny under which the mass of the peasantry had long groaned, in the development of the natural resources of the country, in the introduction of western methods of government and education, in the removal of the peril of returning barbarism which threatened from the soudan, and in the establishment of a just and equal system of law, is something which it would be hard to match in the records of history.[ ] both in india and in egypt lands of ancient civilisation have been rescued from a state of chaos and set upon the path which leads to unity and freedom. and in both countries, if the kind of political liberty which consists in the universal diffusion of a share in the control of government has not yet been established, it is because the peoples of these countries are not yet ready for that, and because the premature establishment of it, by enthroning afresh the old ruling castes, would endanger the far more real gifts of liberty which _have_ been secured--liberty of thought and speech, liberty to enjoy the fruits of a man's own labour, freedom from subjection to merely arbitrary superiors, and the establishment of the elementary rights of the poor as securely as those of the powerful. empires, like men, are to be judged by their fruits. [ ] india is dealt with in chapters iii., iv., vi., and egypt in chapter viii. of "the expansion of europe." [ ] the causes of the british occupation of egypt, and the development of egypt under british control, are discussed in "the expansion of europe," chapter viii. v lastly, we come to the vast regions inhabited wholly or mainly by backward or primitive peoples. most of these are territories of comparatively recent acquisition. and it is here, and practically here alone, that the british empire comes into comparison with the recently created empires of other european states, france, germany, italy and belgium; none of which possess any self-governing colonies, or any extensive lands of ancient civilisation like india, unless the french colonies of algeria and annam are to be regarded as falling within the latter category. the establishment of european control over most of the backward regions of the world has been, for the most part, a very recent and a very rapid development.[ ] the rush for extra-european territory which has taken place since is frequently regarded as a merely sordid exhibition of greed and of the lust for power; and indeed, some features of it deserve condemnation. but it ought to be recognised that this huge movement was, in the main, both necessary and beneficial. it was necessary because modern scientific industry needed the raw materials produced in these lands, and the primitive savagery of their occupants could not permanently stand in the way of the triumphant march of material progress. and it was (or was capable of being made) highly advantageous, not only to the industrial world, but to the backward peoples themselves, who, apart from it, might never have emerged from the unchanging barbarism in which they have mostly rested since the beginning of time. whether that was to be so or not, depended, of course, upon the spirit in which the task was undertaken. we have seen some hideous examples of depraved cruelty in the treatment of backward peoples, as in leopold of saxe-coburg's administration of the congo (which improved beyond recognition as soon as it was taken over by the belgian parliament), or as in the ruthless german slaughter of the hereros in south-west africa. but on the whole, and with exceptions, the establishment of european control has been as beneficial to its primitive subjects as it has been advantageous to the development of modern industry. in spite of the vast extent of her empire in other regions, britain has taken a far larger share of this work than any other single power; perhaps, all things considered, she has taken as great a share as all the rest put together. what are the reasons for this? the first reason is that britain had begun long before any of the other powers. both in africa and in the islands of the pacific, the work of exploration was mainly done by british travellers; british traders had almost alone been known to the native populations; and british missionaries, who were extraordinarily active during the nineteenth century, had planted themselves everywhere, and played an immensely important part in civilising their simple flocks. wherever the missionary went, he undertook the defence of the primitive peoples to whom he preached, against the sometimes unscrupulous exploitation of the trader. it was the constant cry of the missionaries that the british government ought to assume control, in order to keep the traders in order. they, and the powerful religious bodies at home which supported them, did much to establish the principle that it was the duty of government to protect the rights of native races, while at the same time putting an end to such barbarous usages as cannibalism, slavery, and human sacrifice, where they survived. often, too, native chieftains begged to be taken under british protection; while the better type of traders were anxious to see civilised administration set up, because it is only under civilised administration that trade can permanently thrive. thus the british government was under continual pressure from all sides, while the governments of other european countries as yet took no interest in colonial questions. the british government was extremely loth to assume additional responsibilities, and did its best to avoid them. but some annexations it could not avoid. thus before the great european rush for colonies began, britain, and britain alone, had acquired a very wide experience in the government of backward peoples, and had worked out fairly clearly defined principles for the government of such peoples. what is more, in all the regions of this type which she controlled--indeed, throughout her whole empire, everywhere save in the self-governing colonies--it had become the practice of britain to throw open all her ports and markets to the trade of all nations on exactly the same terms as to her own merchants. she is, in fact, the only great colonising power which has adopted this principle. if a british merchant goes to the philippines, or to madagascar, or to togoland, he finds that he has to compete with his american, french, or german rival on unequal terms, because a tariff discriminates between the citizen of the ruling people and the foreign trader. but if an american, french, or german merchant goes to india, or to any british crown colony or protectorate, he is admitted on exactly the same terms as the briton. that distinction had already been established before , though it has been accentuated since that date. the british method of administering backward regions as worked out before was therefore based upon two principles, first the protection of native rights, and secondly the open door to all trading nations; and britain may fairly be said to have learnt to regard herself as being, in these regions, a trustee--a trustee on behalf of her subjects, and on behalf of the civilised world. is it not true that if these principles had been universally adopted, half the bitterness which has been due to the rivalry of the european powers for colonial possessions would have been obviated? to-day these principles are being advocated by many earnest men as representing the only mode by which the supremacy of western civilisation throughout the world can be reconciled with the avoidance of bitter rivalry and war between the civilised states; and they are preached as if they were a new doctrine of salvation. yet they have been consistently practised by britain during the greater part of the nineteenth century, and they are still practised by her to-day. when the great rush began, the main object of the european states which took part in it was to obtain a monopoly-control of the regions which they annexed. but in all the available regions of the world, british trade had hitherto been preponderant. british traders saw before them the prospect of being absolutely excluded from lines of traffic which had hitherto been mainly in their hands, and they were naturally urgent that the only means of protection available should be taken, and that the areas in which they had been most active should be brought under british administration. if the new colonising powers had been prepared to follow the policy of the open door, to which britain had so long adhered, there would have been no reason to fear their annexations; rather there would have been every reason to rejoice that other nations were taking their share in the work of giving civilised government to these regions. but since their object was monopoly and exclusion, it was inevitable that britain should undertake great new responsibilities. her doing so was, indeed, the only practicable way of preserving the trading rights, not merely of her own subjects, but also of all the other trading powers which had not themselves joined in the rush, or had only a small part in it. yet even now the british government was extremely unwilling to take action, or to expand still further the already vast domains for whose good governance it was responsible. it had to be forced into action, mainly through the activity of trading companies. in the vast new acquisitions of the period since (which were mainly in africa), as in the earlier acquisitions, the old principles long pursued by britain in the government of these backward regions were still maintained--protection of native rights and the open door. and thus it has come about that to-day these british realms present almost the only undeveloped fields to which all nations may resort on equal terms and in whose development all may take a share. the germans have made a very large use of these opportunities. another point ought to be made. immense as these regions are, and recently as they have been turned from barbarism, order and peace are maintained within them by extraordinarily small military forces: only the absolute necessary minimum. yet they have been on the whole extraordinarily free from unrest or rebellion, such as has repeatedly disturbed the german colonies in africa. there has been in their history no episode like the ruthless slaughter of the whole herero race in german south-west africa, after long, desperate, dragging campaigns. and while it would be absurd to claim that no abuses of the power of the white man over his coloured subjects have been known in them, at least there have been no outstanding or notorious atrocities. their subjects are loyal, and are reconciled to peace, because they recognise that they are justly treated. that, it may fairly be claimed, is what the british empire has meant in the backward regions of the earth. and if it be true that the institution of civilised government in these regions was necessary in the interests at once of modern industry and of the backward peoples themselves, it is equally true that there are no other backward regions in which the interests of the native subjects have been more solicitously considered, and none in which the interests of all the industrial nations, and not merely of a single dominant race, have been so steadily held in view, as in these regions of the british empire. [ ] on these events see "the expansion of europe," chapter vii. vi if we now turn to consider as a whole the character of this vast empire,[ ] whose principal regions we have been examining, the first thing that must strike us is that, while it is by far the biggest of all the world-dominions which have come into existence in modern times, it is also the most loosely organised of them all. it is rather a partnership of a multitude of states in every grade of civilisation and every stage of development than an organised and consolidated dominion. five of its chief members are completely self-governing, and share in the common burdens only by their own free will. all the remaining members are organised as distinct units, though subject to the general control of the home government. the resources of each unit are employed exclusively for the development of its own welfare. they pay no tribute; they are not required to provide any soldiers beyond the minimum necessary for their own defence and the maintenance of internal order. this empire, in short, is not in any degree organised for military purposes. it is strong for defence so long as it is sure of the command of the sea, since it is open to attack at singularly few points by land. but it is incapable, by its very nature and system of organisation, of threatening the existence of any of its rivals or of making a bid for world-supremacy. for, vast though its population and resources are, they _cannot_ be made available for war except under the impulse of a great enthusiasm simultaneously dominating all its members, like that which has led them all to share in this war; and if its directors were to undertake an aggressive and conquering policy, not only could they not count upon general support, but they would probably bring about the disruption of the empire. the life-blood of this empire is trade; its supreme interest is manifestly peace. the conception of the meaning of empire which is indicated by its history is not a conception of dominion for dominion's sake, imposed by brute force. on the contrary, it has come to be regarded as a trust, a trust to be administered in the interests of the subjects primarily, and secondarily in the interests of the whole civilised world. that this is not the assertion of a boast or of an unrealised ideal, but of a fact and a practice, is sufficiently demonstrated by two unquestionable facts, to which we have already referred, but which cannot be too often repeated. the first is the fact that the units of this empire are not only free from all tribute in money or men, but are not even required to make any contribution to the upkeep of the fleet, upon which the safety of all depends. the second is the fact that every port and every market in this vast empire, so far as they are under the control of the central government, are thrown open as freely to the citizens of all other states as to its own. finally, in this empire there has never been any attempt to impose a uniformity of method or even of laws upon the infinitely various societies which it embraces; it not only permits, it cultivates and admires, varieties of type, and to the maximum practical degree it believes in self-government. it includes among its population representatives of almost every human race and religion, from the australian bushman to the subtle and philosophic brahmin, from the african dwarf to the master of modern industry or the scholar of universities. almost every form of social organisation known to man is represented in its complex and many-hued fabric. it embodies some of the most democratic communities which the world has known. it finds place for the highly organised caste system by which the teeming millions of india are held together. it preserves the simple tribal organisation of the african clans. to different elements among its subjects this empire appears in different aspects. to the self-governing dominions it is a brotherhood of free nations, co-operating for the defence and diffusion of the ideas and institutions of freedom. to the ancient civilisations of india or egypt it is a power which, in spite of all its mistakes and limitations, has brought peace instead of turmoil, law instead of arbitrary might, unity instead of chaos, justice instead of oppression, freedom for the development of the capacities and characteristic ideas of their peoples, and the prospect of a steady growth of national unity and political responsibility. to the backward races it has meant the suppression of unending slaughter, the disappearance of slavery, the protection of the rights and usages of primitive and simple folk against reckless exploitation, and the chance of gradual improvement and emancipation from barbarism. but to all alike, to one-quarter of the inhabitants of the globe, it has meant the establishment of the reign of law and of the liberty which can only exist under its shelter. in some degree, though imperfectly as yet, it has realised within its own body all the three great political ideals of the modern world. it has fostered the rise of a sense of _nationality_ in the young communities of the new lands, and in the old and once decaying civilisations of the most ancient historic countries. it has given a freedom of development to _self-government_ in a variety of forms, to which there is no sort of parallel in any other empire that has ever existed. and by linking together so many diverse and contrasted peoples in a common peace it has already realised, for a quarter of the globe, the ideal of _internationalism_ on a scale undreamt of by the most sanguine prophets of europe. long ago, in the crisis of the american revolution, when the faithfulness of britain to her tradition of liberty was for an unhappy moment wavering in the balance, the great orator burke spoke some glowing sentences on the character of the british empire as he conceived it. they read like a prophetic vision of the empire of to-day, linked by ties which, in his words, "though light as air, are strong as links of iron," yet joining in an heroic comradeship to defend the threatened shrine of freedom. "as long as you have the wisdom to keep the sovereign authority of this country as the sanctuary of liberty, the sacred temple consecrated to our common faith, wherever the sons of england worship freedom, they will turn their faces towards you. the more they multiply, the more friends you will have; the more ardently they love liberty, the more perfect will be their obedience. slavery they can have anywhere. it is a weed that grows in every soil. they may have it from spain, they may have it from prussia. but freedom they can have only from you. this is the commodity of price, of which you have the monopoly. deny them this participation of freedom, and you break that sole bond, which originally made, and must still preserve, the unity of the empire. do not dream that your letters of office, and your instructions, and your suspending clauses, are the things that hold together the great contexture of the mysterious whole. these things do not make your government. dead instruments, passive tools as they are, it is the spirit of the english constitution that gives all their life and efficacy to them. it is the spirit of the english constitution which, infused through the mighty mass, pervades, feeds, unites, invigorates, vivifies every part of the empire, even down to the minutest member." the spirit of burke was wounded in ; it is rejoicing to-day. [ ] the passages in this section are mainly quoted directly from "the expansion of europe." a proclamation declaring his maiesties pleasure concerning the dissoluing of the present conuention of parliament. [illustration] _imprinted at london by_ bonham norton and iohn bill, printers to the kings most excellent maiestie. . [illustration] ¶ a proclamation declaring his maiesties pleasure concerning the dissoluing of the present conuention of parliament. albeit the assembling, continuing, and dissoluing of parliaments, be a prerogatiue so peculiarly belonging to our imperiall crowne, and the times and seasons thereof so absolutelie in our owne power, that wee neede not giue account thereof vnto any: yet, according to our continuall custome, to make our good subiects acquainted with the reasons of all our publike resolutions and actions, we haue thought it expedient at this time to declare, not onely our pleasure and resolution therein, grounded vpon mature deliberation, with the aduice and vniforme consent of our whole priuie councell; but therewith also to note some especiall proceedings moouing vs to this resolution: and that chieflie to this end, that as god, so the world may witnesse with vs, that it was our intent to haue made this the happiest parliament that euer was in our time: and that the lettes and impediments thereof being discerned, all misunderstandings and iealousies might be remooued, and all our people may know and beleeue, that wee are as farre from imputing any of those ill accidents, that haue happened in parliament, to any want or neglect of duty, or good affection towards vs, by them in generall, or by the greater and better number of parliament men, as we are confident (the true causes discouered) they wilbe farre from imputing it to any default in vs; there hauing in the beginning of this late assemblie passed greater and more infallible tokens of loue and duty from our subiects to vs their soueraigne, and more remarkeable testimonies from vs of our princely care and zeale of their welfare, then haue beene in any parliament met in any former age. this parliament was by vs called, as for making good and profitable lawes, so more especially, in this time of miserable distraction throughout christendome, for the better setling of peace and religion, and restoring our children to their ancient and lawfull patrimony, which we attempted to procure by peaceable treaty, at our owne excessiue charge, thereby to saue and preuent the effusion of christian blood, the miserable effect of warre, and dissension; yet with full purpose, if that succeeded not, to recouer it by the sword; and therfore, as a necessary meanes conducing to those ends, the supply of our treasures was to bee prouided for. this parliament beginning in ianuary last, proceeded some moneths with such harmonie betweene vs and our people, as cannot bee paralleld by any former time: for as the house of commons at the first, both in the manner of their supplie, and otherwise, shewed greater loue, and more respect then euer any house of commons did to vs, or (as wee thinke) to any king before vs: so wee, vpon all their complaints, haue afforded them such memorable and rare examples of iustice, as many ages past cannot shew the like; wherein, that wee preferred the weale of our people before all particular respects, the things themselues doe sufficiently prooue, our iustice being extended, not onely to persons of ordinary ranke and qualitie, but euen to the prime officer of our kingdome. and although, after their first recesse at easter, wee found that they misspent a great deale of time, rather vpon the inlarging of the limites of their liberties, and diuers other curious, and vnprofitable things, then vpon the framing and proponing of good and profitable lawes: yet wee gaue them time and scope for their parliamentary proceedings, and prolonged the session to an vnusuall length, continuing it vntill the eight and twentieth day of may, before wee signified our purpose for their recesse; and then wee declared, that wee would make a recesse on the fourth day of iune next following, but only for a time, and in such maner, as might bee without disturbance to any their businesses in hand, expressing out of our grace (though we needed not) the causes of that our purpose, which were the season of the yeere, vsually hot, and vnfit for great assemblies, our progresse approaching, the necessitie wee had to make vse of our councell attending in both houses, both to settle our waightie affaires of state before wee went, and to attend vs when wee went our progresse, the disfurnishing of our ordinary courts of iustice so many termes together, the long absence of iustices of peace, and deputy lieuetenants, whose presence was needfull for making and returning of musters, and for subordinate gouernement of the countrey; and therefore we appointed to adiourne the parliament on the fourth day of iune, giuing that warning longer then vsuall, that they might set in order their businesses, and prepare their greeuances, which wee promised both to heare and answer before that recesse, for presenting whereof wee appointed them a time. this message graciously intended by vs, was not so well entertained by some, who in a short time dispersed and spred their iealousies vnto others, and thereby occasioned discontentment in the house, for being adiourned without passing of billes; yet made not their addresse to vs, as had beene meet, but desired a conference with the lords; and at that conference, the nine and twentieth day of may, vnder colour of desiring to petition vs for some further time, to perfect and passe some speciall bils, were imboldened, not onely to dispute, but to retell all the reasons that we had giuen for the adiournement, which being made knowen vnto vs, wee againe signified our pleasure to both houses, that on the fourth day of iune the parliament should rise, but we would then giue our royall assent to such billes, as were or should be ready and fit to be then passed, continuing all other businesses in state they were by a speciall act to bee framed for that purpose. the lords with all duetie and respect, submitted to our resolution, passed the act, and sent it with speciall recommendation to the house of commons; but they neither read it, nor proceeded with businesses, but forgetting that the time was ours and not theirs, continued their discontentment, as they pretended, for being so soone dismissed. we (though it were strange to obserue such auersnesse for our resoluing vpon such waighty reasons, that wherin wee needed not to bee measured by any other rule, but our owne princely will) yet were contented to descend from our owne right, to alter our resolution, and to continue the session for a fortnight more, wherein they might perfite such publique billes, as were esteemed of most importance: for which purpose, we our selfe came in person vnto the higher house of parliament, and made offer thereof vnto them, which being in effect as much as the commons had formerly desired, was no sooner offered, but yeelding thankes to vs, the said commons resolued the same day directly, contrary to their former desire, to refuse it, and to accept our first resolution of an adiournement; but attending vs at greenwich, presented no grieuances: this inconstancie, as wee passed by with a gentle admonition; so for the matter of grieuances, aswell of england, as ireland, we promised to take them into our owne care, though not presented to vs, and really performed the same so farre forth, as time, and the aduice of our councell of each kingdome could enable vs, as is witnessed by our seuerall proclamations, published in both realms, as likewise in granting at the same time those three suites which were proponed vnto vs by the arch-bishop of canterbury, at the request, and in the name of both the houses: but in conclusion of the house of commons making it their choise, wee made a recesse by adiournement of the parliament, the fourth day of iune; though indeed we must doe them this right, that at the said recesse, taking into their serious consideration the present estate of our children abroad, and the generall afflicted estate of the true professors of religion in forraine parts, they did with one vnanimous consent, in the name of themselues, and the whole body of the kingdome, make a most dutifull and solemne protestation, that if our pious endeauours, by treatie to procure their peace and safetie, should not take that good effect which was desired, (in the treatie whereof, they humbly besought vs, not to suffer any long delay) then, vpon signification of our pleasure in parliament, they would be ready, to the vttermost of their powers, both with liues and fortunes to assist vs; so as that by the diuine helpe of almightie god, we might be able to doe that by our sword, which by peaceable courses should not be effected. but during the time of this long recesse, hauing to our great charges mediated with the emperour, by the meanes of our embassadour, the lord =digbie=, and hauing found those hopes to fayle, which we had to preuaile by treaty, wee in confidence of the assistance of our people, thus freely promised and protested in parliament, did instantly shorten the time of the recesse, (which we had before appointed to continue vntill the eighth day of february,) and did reassemble our parliament, the twentieth day of nouember last, and made knowen vnto them the true state and necessity of our childrens affayres, declaring our resolution vnto them, of taking vpon vs the defence of our childrens patrimony, by way of armes, since we could not compasse it by an amicable treaty; and therefore expected the fruit of that their declaration, whereby we were inuited vnto this course: wherein, howbeit we are well satisfied of the good inclination of the most part of our house of commons, testified by their ready assent to the speedy payment of a subsidie, newly to bee granted, yet vpon this occasion some particular members of that house tooke such inordinate liberty, not only to treat of our high prerogatiues, and of sundry things, that without our speciall direction were no fit subiects to be treated of in parliament; but also to speake with lesse respect of forraigne princes, our allies, then were fit for any subiect to doe of anoynted kings, though in enmity and hostility with vs. and when, vpon this occasion, wee vsed some reprehension towardes those miscarriages, requiring them not to proceede but in such things as were within the capacity of that house, according to the continuall custome of our predecessors, then by the meanes of some euil affected and discontented persons, such heat and distemper was raysed in the house, that albeit themselues had sued vnto vs for a session, and for a generall pardon, vnto both which at their earnest suit we assented, yet after this fire kindled, they reiected both, and setting apart all businesses of consequence & waight (notwithstanding our admonition and earnest pressing them to goe on) they either sate as silent, or spent the time in disputing of priuiledges, descanting vpon the words and syllables of our letters & messages, which for better cleering of trueth, and satisfaction of all men, we are about to publish in print, so soone as possibly we can. and although in our answere to their petition, wee gaue them full assurance that wee would be as carefull of the preseruation of their priuiledges, as of our owne royall prerogatiue; and in our explanation after sent vnto them by our letters, written to our secretary, we told them that wee neuer meant to denie them any lawful priuiledges that euer that house enioyed in our predecessours times; and that whatsoeuer priuiledges or liberties they enioyed by any law or statute, should euer bee inuiolably preserued by vs; and we hoped our posterity would imitate our footsteps therein; and whatsoeuer priuiledges they enioyed by long custome, and vncontrolled and lawful presidents, we would likewise be as carefull to preserue them, and transmit the care therof to our posterity, confessing our selues in iustice to be bound to maintaine them in their rights, and in grace, that we were rather minded to increase, then infringe any of them, if they should so deserue at our hands, which might satisfie any reasonable man, that we were farre from violating their priuiledges. and although by our letters written to their speaker, wee aduised them to proceede, and make this a session, to the end, that our good & louing subiects might haue some taste, aswell of our grace and goodnes towards them, by our free pardon and good lawes to bee passed, as they had both by the great and vnusuall examples of iustice since this meeting, and the so many eases and comforts giuen vnto them by proclamation. and although we had giuen order for the pardon to goe on, and that in a more gracious and liberall manner then hath passed in may yeeres before, and signified our willingnesse, that rather then time should bee misspent, they might lay aside the thought of the subsidie, and goe on with an act for continuance of statutes, and the generall pardon; yet all this preuailed not to satisfie them, either for their pretended priuiledges, or to perswade them to proceed with bils for the good of themselues, and those that sent them. but as the session and pardon were by them well desired at first; so were they as ill reiected at the last; and notwithstanding the sinceritie of our protestations, not to inuade their priuiledges; yet by the perswasion of such as had beene the cause of all these distempers, they fall to carue for themselues, and pretending causelesly to bee occasioned thereunto, in an vnseasonable houre of the day, and a very thinne house, contrary to their owne custome in all matters of waight, conclude, and enter a protestation for their liberties, in such ambiguous and generall words, as might serue for future times to inuade most of our inseparable rights and prerogatiues, annexed to our imperiall crowne: whereof not onely in the times of other our progenitors, but in the blessed raigne of our late predecessor, that renowned queene =elizabeth=, wee found our crowne actually possessed; an vsurpation that the maiesty of a king can by no meanes endure. by all which may appeare, that howsoeuer in the generall proceedings of that house, there are many footsteps of louing and well affected duetie to vs: yet some ill tempered spirits haue sowed tares among the corne, and thereby frustrated the hope of that plentifull and good haruest, which might haue multiplyed the wealth and welfare of this whole land; and by their cunning diuersions haue imposed vpon vs a necessitie of discontinuing this present parliament, without putting vnto it the name or period of a session. and therefore, whereas the said assembly of parliament was by our commission adiourned vntill the eight day of february now next ensuring, wee, minding not to continue the same any longer, and therfore not holding it fit to cause the prelates, noblemen, and states of this our realm, or the knights, citizens and burgesses of the same parliament to trauaile thereabout, haue thought fit to signifie this our resolution, with the reasons thereof vnto all our subiects, inhabiting in all parts of this realme, willing and requiring the said prelates, noblemen and states, and also the said knights, citizens, and burgesses, and all others, to whom in this case it shall appertaine, that they forbeare to attend at the day and place prefixed by the said adiournement; and in so doing, they are and shall bee hereby discharged thereof against vs. and wee doe hereby further declare, that the said conuention of parliament, neither is, nor after the ceasing and breaking thereof shall bee, nor ought to bee esteemed, adiudged, or taken to be, or make any session or parliament. and albeit wee are at this time enforced to breake off this conuention of parliament: yet our will and desire is, that all our subiects should take notice, for auoyding of all sinister suspicions and iealousies, that our intent and full resolution is, to gouerne our people in the same manner, as our progenitors and predecessours, kings and queenes of this realme, of best gouernment, haue heretofore done; and that wee shall be carefull, both in our owne person, and by charging our priuie counsell, our iudges, and other our ministers in their seuerall places respectiuely, to distribute true iustice and right vnto all our people; and that wee shall bee as glad to lay hold of the first occasion in due and conuenient time, which wee hope shall not bee long, to call and assemble our parliament, with confidence of the true and hearty loue and affection of our subiects, as either wee, or any of our progenitors haue beene at any time heretofore. giuen at our pallace at westminster, the sixth day of ianuary, in the nineteenth yeere of our reigne of great britaine, france, and ireland. god saue the king. [illustration] london, printed by bonham norton, and iohn bill, printers to the kings most excellent maiestie. . [illustration] * * * * * transcriber's notes original spelling and punctuation retained. italics have been replaced with _underscores_ small capitals have been replaced with all caps. font changes have been replaced with =all caps=. images generously made available by the internet archive/canadian libraries) women's suffrage a short history of a great movement by millicent garrett fawcett, ll.d. president of the national union of women's suffrage societies london: t. c. & e. c. jack long acre, w.c., and edinburgh new york: the dodge publishing co. it is not to be thought of that the flood of british freedom, which to the open sea of the world's praise, from dark antiquity hath flowed "with pomp of waters unwithstood"-- road by which all might come and go that would, and bear out freights of worth to foreign lands; that this most famous stream in bogs and sands should perish, and to evil and to good be lost for ever. in our halls is hung armoury of the invincible knights of old: we must be free or die, who speak the tongue that shakespeare spake--the faith and morals hold which milton held. in everything we're sprung of earth's first blood, have titles manifold. --w. wordsworth. women's suffrage chapter i the beginnings we suffragists have no cause to be ashamed of the founders of our movement-- "in everything we're sprung of earth's first blood, have titles manifold." mary wollstonecraft[ ] started the demand of women for political liberty in england, condorcet in france,[ ] and the heroic group of anti-slavery agitators in the united states. it is true that horace walpole called mary wollstonecraft "a hyena in petticoats." but this proves nothing except his profound ignorance of her character and aims. have we not in our own time heard the ladies who first joined the primrose league described by an excited politician as "filthy witches"? the epithet of course was as totally removed from any relation to the facts as that which horace walpole applied to mary wollstonecraft. william godwin's touching memoir of his wife, mr. kegan paul's _william godwin: his friends and contemporaries_, and mrs. pennell's biography show mary wollstonecraft as a woman of exceptionally pure and exalted character. her sharp wits had been sharpened by every sort of personal misfortune; they enabled her to pierce through all shams and pretences, but they never caused her to lower her high sense of duty; they never embittered her or caused her to waver in her allegiance to the pieties of domestic life. her husband wrote of her soon after her death, "she was a worshipper of domestic life." if there is anything in appearance, her face in the picture in the national portrait gallery speaks for her. southey wrote of her, that of all the lions of the day whom he had seen "her face was the best, infinitely the best." the torch which was lighted by mary wollstonecraft was never afterwards extinguished; there are glimpses of its light in the poems of her son-in-law shelley. the frequent references to the principle of equality between men and women in the "revolt of islam" will occur to every reader. in sydney smith, in the _edinburgh review_, wrote one of the most brilliant and witty articles which even he ever penned in defence of an extension of the means of a sound education to women. in mrs. elizabeth fry began to visit prisoners in newgate, and shocked those who, citing the parrot cry "woman's place is home," thought a good woman had no duties outside its walls. she had children of her own, but this did not shut her heart to the wretched waifs for whom she founded a school in prison. a little after this england began to be stirred by the agitation which resulted in the passing of the reform bill of . it is one of life's little ironies that james mill, the founder of the philosophical radicals, and the father of john stuart mill, who laid the foundation of the modern suffrage movement, was among those who, in the early nineteenth century, justified the exclusion of women from all political rights. in an essay on "government" published in as an appendix to the fifth edition of the _encyclopædia britannica_, he dismissed in a sentence all claim of women to share in the benefits and protection of representative government, stating that their interests were sufficiently protected by the enfranchisement of their husbands and fathers. it is true that this did not pass unchallenged; a book in reply was published ( ) by william thomson. this book had a preface by mrs. wheeler, at whose instigation it was written.[ ] the reform movement was agitating the whole country at this period, and political excitement led to political riots, burning of buildings, and general orgies of massacre and destruction. the government of the day had their share in the blunders and stupidities which led to these crimes, and in none were these qualities more conspicuous than in the riot at manchester, which came to be known as the peterloo massacre in august , in which six people were killed and about thirty seriously injured. what connects it with the subject of these pages has already been hinted at. women as well as men had been ridden down by the cavalry; they were present at the meeting not merely as spectators, but as taking an active part in the reform movement. a picture of the peterloo massacre, now in the manchester reform club, is dedicated to "henry hunt, esq., the chairman of the meeting and _to the female reformers of manchester_ and the adjacent towns who were exposed to and suffered from the wanton and furious attack made on them by that brutal armed force, the manchester and cheshire yeomanry cavalry." the picture represents women in every part of the fray, and certainly taking their share in its horrors. in the many descriptions of the event, no word of reprobation has come to my notice of the women who were taking part in the meeting; they were neither "hyenas" nor "witches," but patriotic women helping their husbands and brothers to obtain political liberty; in a word, they were working for men and not for themselves, and this made an immense difference in the judgment meted out to them. however, it is quite clear that even as long ago as the notion that women have nothing to do with politics was in practice rejected by the political common-sense of englishmen. no one doubted that women were, and ought to be, deeply interested in what concerned the political well-being of their country. some political antiquarians in this country have expressed their conviction that in early times when the institution of feudalism was the strongest political force in england, women exercised electoral rights in those cases where they were entitled as landowners or as freewomen of certain towns to do so.[ ] this view has been combated by other authorities, and has not been accepted in the law courts, where special emphasis has been laid on the fact that no authentic case of a woman having actually cast a vote, as of right, in a parliamentary election can be produced. the claim that in ancient times women did exercise the franchise, whether capable of being established or not, certainly does not deserve to be dismissed as in itself absurd and incredible. i believe it has been called by some anti-suffragists "an impudent imposture," in the most approved style of the "what-i-know-not-is-not-knowledge" pedant. whatever it may be, it is not this. in a book published in ,[ ] there is a passage which goes far to prove that even as late as the right of women possessing the necessary legal qualification to vote in parliamentary elections was recognised as being in existence. one of the spencer stanhopes was a candidate during the general election of , and mrs. spencer stanhope writes to her son, john, that her husband's party was so certain of success that they had announced that their women folk need not vote. "your father was at wakefield canvassing yesterday.... they determined not to admit the ladies to vote, which is extraordinary and very hard, considering how few privileges we poor females have. should it come to a very close struggle, i daresay they will then call upon the ladies, and in that case every self-respecting woman should most certainly refuse her assistance." the contention is that the reform act of , by substituting the words "male person" in lieu of the word "man" in the earlier acts, first placed upon the women of this country the burden of a statutory disability. this process, it is argued, was repeated in the municipal corporation act of , and is the reason why the admission of women to the municipal franchise in is spoken of in many of our suffrage publications as the "_restoration_" of the municipal suffrage to women. the point appears more of antiquarian than of practical interest. if substantiated, it only illustrates anew the fact that under feudalism, and as long as feudalism survived, property rather than human beings had a special claim to representation, but it assumed a larger degree of importance from what followed in and . in lord brougham's act was passed, which enacted that in all acts of parliament "words importing the masculine gender shall be deemed to include females unless the contrary is expressly provided." in the reform bill of the words "male person" were abandoned, and the word "man" was substituted, and many lawyers and others believed that under lord brougham's act of women were thereby enfranchised. under this belief, the reasons for which were set forth by mr. chisholm anstey, barrister and ex-m.p., in two legal pamphlets published, one just before and one just after the passing of the reform bill of , a large number of women rate-payers claimed before the revising barristers in to be placed upon the parliamentary register. under the able leadership of miss lydia becker women householders of manchester made this claim, in salford, in broughton and pendleton, lady in s.e. lancashire, a county constituency, in edinburgh, and a few in other parts of scotland. the revising barristers in most of these cases declined to place the women's names on the register; and in order to get a legal decision, four cases were selected and argued before the court of common pleas on november , . the judges were the lord chief justice bovill, with the justices willes, keating, and byles. sir john (afterwards lord) coleridge, and dr. pankhurst were counsel for the appellants. the case (technically known as chorlton _v._ lings) was given against the women, on the express ground that although the word "man" in an act of parliament must be held to include women, "_this did not apply to the privileges granted by the state_." this judgment, therefore, established as law that "the same words in the same act of parliament shall for the purpose of voting apply to men only, but for the purpose of taxation shall include women."[ ] some women's names had been accepted by revising barristers, and were already upon the register. a question was raised whether they could remain there. the barrister in charge of this case, mr. a. russell, q.c., argued that when once the names were upon the register, if they had not been objected to they must remain; one of the judges thereupon remarked that if this were so there would be no power to remove the name of _a dog or a horse_ from the register if once it had been inscribed upon it. this was eloquent of the political status of women, identifying it by implication with that of the domestic animals. _the times_, in anticipation of the chorlton _v._ lings case coming on for hearing, had an article on november , , in which it said: "if one supposes it ever was the intention of the legislature to give women a vote, and if they do get it, it will be by a sort of accident, in itself objectionable, though, in its practical consequences, perhaps harmless enough. on the other hand, if they are refused, _the nation will, no doubt, be formally and in the light of day committing itself through its judicial tribunal, to the dangerous doctrine that representation need not go along with taxation_." with the decision in chorlton _v._ lings, the last chance of women getting the suffrage by "a sort of accident" vanishes, and very few of us can now regret it, for the long struggle to obtain suffrage has been a great education for women, not only politically, but also in courage, perseverance, endurance, and comradeship with each other. if the nineteenth century was a time of education for women, it was no less a time of education for men. we have not yet arrived at an equal moral standard for men and women, but we have travelled a long way on the road leading to it. a george i. openly surrounding himself with mistresses, and shutting up his wife for life in a fortress for levity of behaviour; a george iv. who measured with similar inequality his own and his wife's connubial transgressions, would not be tolerated in the england of the twentieth century. the awakening of women to a sense of their wrongs before the law was a leading feature of the women's movement in the early nineteenth century. the hon. mrs. norton, the beautiful and gifted daughter of tom sheridan, a reigning toast, a society beauty, and with literary accomplishments sufficient to secure her an independent income from her pen, was subjected to every sort of humiliation and anguish as a wife and mother which the mean and cruel nature of her husband could devise. mr. norton brought an action against lord melbourne for the seduction of his wife, and the jury decided without leaving the box that lord melbourne was wholly innocent. this did not prevent the petty malice of her husband from depriving mrs. norton entirely of her three infant children, one of whom died from an accident which ought never to have happened if the child had been duly cared for. to read her life[ ] is comparable to being present at a vivisection. mrs. norton had one weapon. she could make herself heard; she wrote a pamphlet in called "_the natural claim of a mother to the custody of her children as affected by the common law right of the father_." one result which followed from mrs. norton's sufferings, coupled with her power of giving public expression to them, was the passing of serjeant talfourd's act in , called the infants' custody act, giving a mother the right of access to her children until they are seven years old. this is the first inroad on the monopoly on the part of the father of absolute control over his children created by the english law. the division of legal rights over their children between fathers and mothers has been described by a lawyer as extremely simple--the fathers have all and the mothers none. serjeant talfourd's act did not do much to redress this gross injustice; but it did something, and marks the beginning of a new epoch. little by little things began to change. mrs. somerville and miss caroline herschell were elected members of the royal astronomical society in . mrs. browning wrote "aurora leigh," and thereby touched the whole woman's question with an artist's hand. thackeray, in _esmond_, pointed the finger of scorn at the "politicians and coffee-house wiseacres," who are full of oratorical indignation against the tyrannies of the emperor or the french king, and wonders how they, who are tyrants too in their way, govern their own little dominions at home, where each man reigns absolute. "when the annals of each little reign are shown to the supreme master, under whom we hold sovereignty, histories will be laid bare of household tyrants as cruel as amurath, and as savage as nero, and as reckless and dissolute as charles." this was a new note in literature. mrs. jameson and the brontë sisters contributed much in the same key. anne knight, a quaker lady of quiet house, chelmsford, issued about a small leaflet boldly claiming a share for women in political freedom. there can be little doubt that the presence of a pure and virtuous young woman upon the throne had its influence in leading people to question seriously whether there was any real advantage to the nation at large in shutting out from direct political power all women who were not queens. in [ ] mr. disraeli, in the house of commons, had said, "in a country governed by a woman--where you allow women to form part of the other estate of the realm--peeresses in their own right, for example--where you allow women not only to hold land but to be ladies of the manor and hold legal courts--where a woman by law may be a churchwarden and overseer of the poor--i do not see, where she has so much to do with the state and church, on what reasons, if you come to right, she has not a right to vote." other influences were operating to open political activity to women. their help and co-operation were warmly welcomed by the anti-corn law league. cobden, at one of the great meetings of the league held in covent garden theatre in , said that he wished women could vote. a few years later than this the sheffield female political association passed a resolution in favour of women's suffrage, and presented a petition in this sense to the house of lords. the refusal to allow women who had been duly appointed as delegates in the united states to take their places in the anti-slavery congress held in london in roused a great deal of controversy, especially as william lloyd garrison, the leader of the anti-slavery movement in america,[ ] declared that if the ladies were excluded he would share their exclusion with them; he did this, and sat with them in a side gallery, taking no part in the discussion. the opponents of the women took refuge, as they have so often done before and since, in an affirmation that they were the special repositories of the divine will on the subject, and declared that it was contrary to the ordinances of the almighty that women should take part in the congress. the treatment they had received in london naturally caused great indignation on the part of the american ladies, among whom were elizabeth cady stanton and lucretia mott. when they returned to their own country they immediately began to work for the political enfranchisement of women, and the first women's rights convention was held in the united states at seneca falls in . this was the beginning of definite work for women's suffrage in the united states. in england in the 'fifties came the crimean war, with the deep stirring of national feeling which accompanied it, and the passion of gratitude and admiration which was poured forth on miss florence nightingale for her work on behalf of our wounded soldiers. it was universally felt that there was work for women, even in war--the work of cleansing, setting in order, breaking down red tape, and soothing the vast sum of human suffering which every war is bound to cause. miss nightingale's work in war was work that never had been done until women came forward to do it, and her message to her countrywomen was educate yourselves, prepare, make ready; never imagine that your task can be done by instinct, without training and preparation. painstaking study, she insisted, was just as necessary as a preparation for women's work as for men's work; and she bestowed the whole of the monetary gift offered her by the gratitude of the nation to form training-schools for nurses at st. thomas's and king's college hospitals. when a fire is once kindled many things will serve as fuel which to a superficial glance would seem to have no connection with it. the sufferings and torture of women during the indian mutiny heroically borne helped people to see that empire is built on the lives of women as well as on the lives of men. "_on the bones of the english the english flag is stayed_," means that women as well as men have laid down their lives for their country. in the movement among women for political recognition was stimulated in quite a different way. in that year the divorce act was passed, and, as is well known, set up by law a different moral standard for men and women. under this act, which is still in force ( ), a man can obtain the dissolution of his marriage if he can prove one act of infidelity on the part of his wife; but a woman cannot get her marriage dissolved unless she can prove that her husband has been guilty both of infidelity and cruelty. mr. gladstone vehemently opposed this bill. it is said that "in a ten hours' debate on a single clause he made no less than twenty-nine speeches, some of them of considerable length."[ ] all these things prepared the way for the movement which took definite shape in the next decade. chapter ii women's suffrage question in parliament--first stage "all who live in a country should take an interest in that country, love that country, and the vote gives that sense of interest, fosters that love."--rt. hon. w. e. gladstone. the women's suffrage question in was on the point of entering a new phase--the phase of practical politics. parliamentary reform was again before the country; the principles of representation were constantly discussed in newspapers, and in every social circle where intelligent men and women met. james mill's article on "government," referred to in chapter i., has been described as being "out of sight the most important in the series of events which culminated in the passing of the reform act of ."[ ] the works of his son, john stuart mill, had a similar influence on the series of events which led up to the passing of the reform act of . but whereas james mill had specifically excluded women from his argument, john mill as specifically and with great force and vigour included them. in his _political economy_, and in his collected essays, and, of course, in his _liberty_, it was easy to perceive that he strongly condemned the condition of subordination to which the mass of women had been from time immemorial condemned. but in his _representative government_, published in , he put forward in a few eloquent pages of powerful argument the case for the extension of the suffrage to women, showing that all the arguments by which the principles of representative government were supported were equally applicable to woman.[ ] the volumes of his correspondence, published in , show how constantly his mind dwelt on the grave injustice to women involved by their exclusion from political rights, and also how deeply he was convinced that the whole of society loses by treating them as if they had no responsibility for the right conduct of national affairs. it was an enormous advantage to the whole women's movement, not only in england, but all over the world, that it had for its leader and champion a man in the front rank of political philosophers and thinkers. he formed a school at the universities, and in all centres of intellectual activity, and from that school a large number of the chief leaders and supporters of the women's movement have been derived. as early as an essay on the "enfranchisement of women" had appeared in the _westminster review_. it had been written by mrs. j. s. mill, and took the form of a review of the proceedings of a convention of women held in worcester, massachusetts, in the previous year to promote the cause of the political enfranchisement of women. the essay is a complete and masterly statement of the case for the emancipation of women. the terminology is a little out of date, but the state of mind which she exposes is perennial. we can all, for instance, recognise the applicability of the following sentences to the present time:-- "for with what truth or rationality could the suffrage be termed universal while half the human species remain excluded from it? to declare that a voice in the government is the right of all, and demand it only for a part--the part, namely, to which the claimant belongs--is to renounce even the appearance of principle. the chartist, who denies the suffrage to women, is a chartist only because he is not a lord; he is one of those levellers who would level only down to themselves."[ ] this essay, with its clear, pointed, and epigrammatic style, produced a great effect on the more cultivated section of public opinion. if mrs. mill had lived longer she would probably have inaugurated the practical organisation of a women's enfranchisement movement, but she died in the autumn of . what her death meant to her husband he has left on record in glowing and touching words, and in his loneliness he endeavoured "because she would have wished it," to make the best of what life was left to him, "to work on for her purposes with such diminished strength as could be derived from thoughts of her and communion with her memory."[ ] shortly before the general election of mr. mill was invited by a considerable body of electors of the borough of westminster to offer himself as a candidate. in reply he made the plainest possible statement of his political views, including his conviction that women were entitled to representation in parliament. it was the first time that women's suffrage had ever been brought before english electors, and the fact that after having announced himself as strongly in favour of it mr. mill was elected, gave a place to women's suffrage in practical politics. the situation in parliament, as regards parliamentary reform, at the time of mr. mill's election was very like what it is now in respect of women's suffrage. parliament had been playing with the subject for a great many years. reform bills had been introduced, voted for, and abandoned again and again. the real reformers were growing impatient. i, myself, heard john bright say about this time or a little later that he began to think the best way of carrying a reform bill was to tell working men that "a good rifle could be bought for £ ." candidates who stood for election pledged themselves to parliamentary reform, but year after year went by and nothing was done. each party brought forward reform bills, but neither party really wished to enfranchise the working classes. before the total electorate only numbered a little over one million voters. the reform bill of more than doubled this number. it is not in human nature for members of parliament really to like a very large increase in the number of their constituents. besides the extra trouble and expense involved, there was in another deterrent--terror. those who held power feared the working classes. working men were supposed to be the enemies of property, and working men were in an enormous numerical majority over all other classes combined. "you must not have the vote because there are so many of you" was a much more effective argument when used against working men than it is when used against women; because the working classes are fifteen or sixteen times more numerous than all other classes combined, whereas women are only slightly in excess of men.[ ] on one excuse or another the reform bills constantly brought before parliament were dropped or burked in one of the thousand ways open to the experienced parliamentarian for getting rid of measures which he has to appear to support, but to which he is in reality opposed. the time had come, however, after , when it became apparent that the game was up, and that a reform bill would have to be passed. it was to this parliament that mill was elected, and in which in , as an amendment to the reform bill, he raised the question of the enfranchisement of women. his motion was to omit the word "man" and insert the word "person" in the enfranchising clause. of this he says himself that it was by far the most important public service that he was able to perform as a member of parliament. seventy-three members voted with him and against him; with the addition of pairs and tellers the total number supporting women's suffrage was over . this amount of support surpassed all expectations. before the debate and division it was uncertain whether women's suffrage would command more than a few stray votes in the house. mr. mill's masterly speech, grave and high-toned, made a deep impression. perhaps the thing that pleased him most was the fact that john bright voted with him. he was known to be an opponent of women's suffrage, but he was fairly won over by the force of mill's speech. those who watched him sitting in the corner seat of the front row on the left-hand side of the speaker, just below mr. mill, saw his whole expression and demeanour change as the speech proceeded. his defiant, mocking expression changed to one that was serious and thoughtful; no one but mill ever had the moral and mental strength to wrestle with him again successfully. it was the first and last time he ever gave a vote for women's suffrage. it is an oft-told tale how in the previous year a little committee of workers had been formed to promote a parliamentary petition from women in favour of women's suffrage. it met in the house of miss garrett, (now mrs. garrett anderson, m.d.), and included mrs. bodichon, miss emily davies, mrs. peter taylor, miss rosamond davenport hill, and other well-known women. they consulted mr. mill about the petition, and he promised to present it if they could collect as many as a hundred names. after a fortnight's work they secured , including many of the most distinguished women of the day, such as mrs. somerville, frances power cobbe, florence nightingale, harriet martineau, miss swanwick, mrs. josephine butler, lady anna gore langton, mrs. william grey. in june miss garrett and miss emily davies took the petition down to the house, entering by way of westminster hall. they were a little embarrassed by the size of the roll in their charge, and deposited it with the old apple-woman, who hid it under her stall. the ladies did not know how to find mr. mill, when at that moment mr. fawcett passed through westminster hall and at once offered to go in search of him. mr. mill was much amused on his arrival when he found the petition was hidden away under the apple-woman's stall; but he was greatly delighted by the large number of names which had been obtained, and exclaimed, "ah, this i can brandish with great effect."[ ] it was in that the reform bill was carried, and mr. mill's women's suffrage amendment defeated on may th. the testing of the actual legal effect of the passing of the bill upon the political status of women (already described in chapter i.) took place in . these events caused a great deal of thought and discussion with regard to women's position in relation to the state and public duties in general; and it is as certain as anything which is insusceptible of absolute proof can be, that to the interest excited by the claim of women to the parliamentary vote was due the granting to them of the municipal franchise in ; and also that in , when the first great education act was passed, they were not only given the right to vote for members of school boards, but also the right to be elected upon them. at the first school board election, which took place in london in november , miss elizabeth garrett, m.d., and miss emily davies were returned as members. miss garrett was at the head of the poll in her constituency--marylebone. she polled more than , votes, the largest number, it was said at the time, which had ever been bestowed upon any candidate in any election in england. in manchester miss becker was elected a member of the first school board, and was continuously re-elected for twenty years, until her death in . in edinburgh miss flora stevenson was elected to the first school board, and was continuously re-elected for thirty-three years until her death in . from the date of her election she was appointed by her colleagues to act as convener of some of their most important committees, and in was unanimously elected the chairman of the board; she retained this most honourable and responsible post until the end of her life. the connection between the election of the ladies just mentioned--and other instances might be added--with the suffrage movement is strongly indicated by the fact that they were, without exception, the leading personal representatives of the suffrage movement in the various places in which they respectively lived. miss garrett and miss davies, as just described, helped to organise the suffrage petition, which they handed to mr. mill in ; miss becker was the head and front of the suffrage movement in manchester, and miss flora stevenson in edinburgh. these ladies had taken an active part in starting the women's suffrage societies in their own towns. five important societies came into existence almost simultaneously in london, manchester, edinburgh, bristol, and birmingham, and as they almost immediately devised a plan for combining individual responsibility with united action, they formed the nucleus of the national union of women's suffrage societies, which has become the largest organisation of the kind in the united kingdom, and in october numbered societies, a number which is constantly and rapidly increasing. with the suffrage work carried on by the societies, other work for improving the legal status of women, resisting encroachments upon their constitutional liberties, and improving their means of education went on with vigour, sobriety, and enthusiasm; these qualities were combined in a remarkable degree, and were beyond all praise. it has been remarked that the successful conduct of every great change needs the combination of the spirit of order with the spirit of audacity. it was the good fortune of the women's movement in england to secure both these. the suffrage societies from the first saw the necessity of keeping to suffrage work only; but the same individuals in a different capacity were labouring with heroic persistence and untiring zeal to lift up the conditions of women's lives in other ways; thus to mrs. jacob bright, mrs. wolstenholme elmy, mrs. duncan m'laren, and mrs. pochin, we owe the first married women's property act, and also the guardianship of children act; to mrs. bodichon and miss davies, henry sidgwick and russell gurney, the opening of university education to women; to miss garrett (now mrs. anderson), dr. elizabeth blackwell, and miss jex blake, the opening of the medical profession; to mrs. josephine butler, and mr. and mrs. sheldon amos, sir james stanfeld, and mr. james stuart, the repeal of the contagious diseases acts (passed in and ); to mrs. william grey, miss sherriff and miss gurney, the creation of good secondary schools for girls. i am well aware that in this bald recital i have omitted the names of many noble, conscientious, and self-sacrificing workers for the great causes to which they had devoted themselves; i cannot even attempt to make my list exhaustive; i have but selected from a very large number, all ardent suffragists, a few names that stand out preeminently in my memory among the glorious company whose efforts laid the foundations on which we at the present day are still building the superstructure of equal opportunity and equal justice for women and men. as an illustration of how the tone has changed in regard to the personal and proprietary rights of women i can give a little story which fell within my own experience. in the 'seventies i was staying with my father at a time when he had convened in his house a meeting of liberal electors of east suffolk. we were working then for a married women's property bill. the first act passed in gave a married woman the right to possess her _earnings_, but not any other property. i had petition forms with me, and thought the "liberal" meeting would afford me a good opportunity of getting signatures to it. so i took it round and explained its aim to the quite average specimens of the liberal british farmer. "am i to understand you, ma'am, that if this bill passes, and my wife have a matter of a hundred pound left to her, i should have to _ask_ her for it?" said one of them. the idea appeared monstrous that a man could not take his wife's £ without even going through the form of asking her for it. but we were making way steadily. it is true that mr. mill was not re-elected in , but mr. jacob bright succeeded him as the leader in the house of commons of the women's suffrage movement. the second reading of his, the first women's suffrage bill, was carried on may , , by to . further progress was, however, prevented, mainly in consequence of the opposition of the government, and on the motion to go into committee on may , the bill was defeated by to . from the beginning women's suffrage had never been a party question. in the first division, that on mr. mill's amendment to the reform bill, the members who voted for women's suffrage included about conservatives, and one of them, the rt. hon. russell gurney, q.c., recorder of london, was one of the tellers in the division. the great bulk of the supporters of the principle of women's suffrage were then and still are liberals and radicals, but from the outset we have always had an influential group of conservative supporters. and it is indicative of the general growth of the movement that among the large majority secured for the second reading of sir george kemp's bill in may , , were conservatives, a number in excess of the total of those who supported mr. mill's amendment in . sir stafford northcote (afterwards lord iddesleigh) was among the friends of women's suffrage, and so was sir algernon borthwick (afterwards lord glenesk), the proprietor and editor of _the morning post_. support from the conservative side of the house was greatly encouraged in by a letter written by mr. disraeli in reply to a memorial signed by over , women. the memorial had been forwarded by mr. william gore langton, m.p., and was thus acknowledged:-- "dear gore langton,--i was much honoured by receiving from your hands the memorial signed by , women of england--among them some illustrious names--thanking me for my services in attempting to abolish the anomaly that the parliamentary franchise attached to a household or property qualification, when possessed by a woman, should not be exercised, though in all matters of local government when similarly qualified she exercises this right. as i believe this anomaly to be injurious to the best interests of the country, i trust to see it removed by the wisdom of parliament.--yours sincerely, "b. disraeli." this was written in in immediate prospect of the dissolution of parliament, which took place in february , and placed mr. disraeli in power for the first time. these were days of active propaganda for all the suffrage societies. a hundred meetings were held on the first six months of , a large number for that time, though it would be considered nothing now. all the experienced political men who supported women's suffrage told us that when the parliament came to an end a change of government was highly probable, a new liberal government would be in power, and would certainly deal with the question of representation--that then would be the great opportunity, the psychological moment, for the enfranchisement of women. the agricultural labourers were about to be enfranchised and the claim of women to share in the benefits of representative government was at least as good, and would certainly be listened to. with these hopes we approached the election of . chapter iii throwing the women overboard in "we have filled the well-fed with good things, and the hungry we have sent empty away."--from the _politician's magnificat_. the year opened cheerfully for suffragists. there was a series of great demonstrations of women only, beginning with one in the free trade hall, manchester, in february. the first little bit of practical success too within the united kingdom came this year, for suffrage was extended to women in the isle of man. at first it was given only to women freeholders, but after a few years' experience of its entirely successful operation all feeling of opposition to it died away, and it was extended to women householders. the representative system of the isle of man is one of the oldest in the world, and the house of keys is of even greater antiquity than the house of commons. the general election took place in march and april , and the liberals were returned to power with a large majority. mr. gladstone became prime minister, and it was well known that the extension of household suffrage in the counties would be an important feature in the programme of the new government. mr. goschen declined to join mr. gladstone's government, because he was opposed to the extension of the parliamentary franchise to the agricultural labourers. it is strange how the whirligig of time brings about its revenges. mr. goschen held out to the last against the enfranchisement of the agricultural labourers, but after the election of he publicly congratulated a meeting of unionist free traders on "the magnificent stand the agricultural labourers had made for free trade!" if his counsels had prevailed in , not one of these men would have had a vote and could have made a stand for free trade or anything else. but in politics memories are short, and no one reminded lord goschen, as he had then became, of his stand against the labourers' vote a few years earlier. as the time approached when the government of would introduce their bill to extend household suffrage to counties, the exertions of the women's suffragists were redoubled. one of the methods of propaganda adopted was the bringing forward of resolutions favourable to women's suffrage at the meetings and representative gatherings of political associations of both the great parties. resolutions favourable to an extension of the parliamentary suffrage to women were carried at the parliamentary reform congress at leeds in october , at the national liberal federation at bristol in , at the national reform union, manchester, january , at the national union of conservative associations (scotland) at glasgow in , at the national union of conservative and constitutional associations' annual conference (oxford) , and so on yearly, or at very frequent intervals, down to the present time.[ ] at the reform conference at leeds in , presided over by mr. john morley, and attended by delegates from all parts of the country, it was moved by dr. crosskey of birmingham, and seconded by mr. walter m'laren, to add to the resolution supporting household suffrage in the counties the following rider:--"_that in the opinion of this meeting, any measure for the extension of the suffrage should confer the franchise on women who, possessing the qualifications which entitle men to vote, have now the right of voting in all matters of local government._" it was pointed out by mr. m'laren (now a member of the house of commons and one of our most valued supporters) that in the previous session a memorial signed by members of parliament, of whom the chairman, mr. john morley, was one, had been handed to mr. gladstone, to the effect that no measure for the extension of the franchise would be satisfactory unless it included women. mrs. cobden unwin and mrs. helen clark, the daughters respectively of richard cobden and john bright, spoke in support of the rider, which was carried by a very large majority. but when the reform bill of came before the house of commons it was found that the inclusion of women within the bill had an inexorable opponent in the prime minister, mr. gladstone. he did not oppose women's suffrage in principle. in he had taken part in a woman's suffrage debate in the house of commons and had said:-- "so far as i am able to form an opinion of the general tone and opinion of our law in these matters, where the peculiar relations of men and women are concerned, that law does less than justice to women, and great mischief, misery, and scandal result from that state of things in many of the occurrences and events of life.... if it should be found possible to arrange a safe and well-adjusted alteration of the law as to political power, the man who shall attain that object, and who shall see his purpose carried onward to its consequences in a more just arrangement of the provisions of other laws bearing upon the condition and welfare of women, will, in my opinion, be a real benefactor to his country." it is somewhat difficult to deduce from this statement the condition of the mind from which it proceeded; but it was generally thought to mean that mr. gladstone believed that women had suffered practical grievances owing to their exclusion from representation, and that it would be for their benefit and for the welfare of the country if a moderate measure of women's suffrage could be passed into law. when, however, it came to moving a definite amendment to include women in the reform bill of , the most vehement opposition was offered by mr. gladstone; not indeed even then to the principle of women's suffrage, but to its being added to the bill before the house. the idea that household suffrage was not democratic had not then been invented. the prime minister's line was that the government had introduced into the bill "as much as it could safely carry." the unfortunate nautical metaphor was repeated again and again: "women's suffrage would overweight the ship." "the cargo which the vessel carries is, in our opinion, a cargo as large as she can safely carry." he accordingly threw the women overboard. so different are the traditions of the politician from the heroic traditions of the seaman who, by duty and instinct alike, is always prompted in moments of danger to save the women first. comment has been made on the curious ambiguity of the language in which mr. gladstone had supported the principle of women's suffrage in . there was no ambiguity in what he said about it in . in language perfectly plain and easily understood he said, "i offer it [mr. woodall's women's suffrage amendment] the strongest opposition in my power, and i must disclaim and renounce responsibility for the measure [_i.e._ the government reform bill] should my honourable friend succeed in inducing the committee to adopt the amendment." this was on june , . the decision resulted in a crushing defeat for women's suffrage. the numbers were against mr. woodall's amendment to for it. among the were liberals who were pledged supporters of suffrage. three members of the government, who were known friends of women's suffrage, did not vote at all, but walked out of the house before the division. to one of them mr. gladstone wrote the next day pointing out that to abstain from supporting the government in a critical division was equivalent to a resignation of office. but he added that a crisis in foreign affairs was approaching which might be of the deepest importance to "the character and honour of the country and to the law, the concord and possibly even the peace of europe. it would be most unfortunate were the minds of men at such a juncture to be disturbed by the resignation of a cabinet minister and of two other gentlemen holding offices of great importance." he, therefore, was proposing to his colleagues that he should be authorised to request the three gentlemen referred to, to do the government the favour of retaining their respective offices. as they had never resigned them, this petition that they should withdraw their resignation seemed a little superfluous. the blow to women's suffrage dealt by the defeat of mr. woodall's amendment to the reform bill was a heavy one, and was deeply felt by the whole movement. but though fatal to immediate parliamentary success, the events of strengthened our cause in the country. everything which draws public attention to the subject of representation and to the political helplessness of the unrepresented makes people ask themselves more and more "why are women excluded?" "if representative government is good for men, why should it be bad for women?" "why do members of parliament lightly break their promises to non-voters?" it will be remembered that the reform bill of was not finally passed until late in the autumn. while the final stages of the measure were still pending, the trades union congress meeting at aberdeen passed a resolution, with only three dissentients, "_that this congress is strongly of opinion that the franchise should be extended to women rate-payers._" thus at that critical juncture the working men's most powerful organisation stood by the women whom the liberal party had betrayed. new political forces made their appearance very soon after the passing of the reform act of , which have had an almost immeasurable effect in promoting the women's suffrage cause. the reform act had contained a provision to render paid canvassing illegal, and in sir henry james (afterwards lord james of hereford) had introduced, on behalf of the government, and carried a very stringent corrupt practices act. its main feature was to place a definite limit, proportioned to the number of electors in each constituency, upon the authorised expenditure of the candidates. political agents and party managers had been accustomed to employ a large number of men as paid canvassers, and to perform the great amount of clerical and other drudgery connected with electoral organisation. the law now precluded paid canvassing altogether, and, by limiting the authorised expenditure, severely restrained the number of people who could be employed on ordinary business principles, of so much cash for so much work. but the work had got to be done, or elections would be lost. it was necessary, therefore, to look round and see how and by whom the work could be performed now that the fertilising shower of gold was withdrawn. the brilliant idea occurred to lord randolph churchill, sir algernon borthwick, and others to obtain for their own party the services of ladies. this was the germ of the organisation which soon became known by the name of the primrose league. ladies were encouraged to take an active part in the electoral organisation; they canvassed, they spoke, they looked up "removals," and "out voters," and did all kinds of important political work without fee or reward of any kind, and, therefore, without adding to candidates' expenses. the ladies were highly successful from the very first. they showed powers of work and of political organisation which heretofore had been unsuspected. their political friends were delighted. the anger of their political opponents was unmeasured. it was then that the expression "filthy witches" was used in relation to the dames of the primrose league by an excited member of the liberal party, who attributed his defeat in a contested election to their machinations. but anger quickly gave way to a more practical frame of mind. if the conservatives could make good use of women for electoral work, liberals could do so also and would not be left behind. the women's liberal federation[ ] was formed in under the presidency of mrs. gladstone, supported on the executive committee by other ladies, mainly the wives of the liberal leaders. the idea of the officers of this association from the outset was that the object of its existence was to promote the interests of the liberal party, or, as mrs. gladstone once put it, "to help our husbands." events, however, soon followed which created great dissatisfaction among the rank and file with this limited range of political activity. there were many women in the association who desired not merely to help their party but to educate it, by promoting liberal principles, and of these the extension of representative government to women was one of the most important. the federation was formed in ; the very next year a women's suffrage resolution was moved at the annual council meeting, but was defeated. the same thing happened in and , the influence of the official liberal ladies being used against it. in , however, a women's suffrage resolution was carried by a large majority. the earnest suffragists in the federation continued their work, and in they became so powerful that fifteen of the members of the executive committee, who had opposed suffrage being taken up as part of the work of the federation, did not offer themselves for re-election. mrs. gladstone, however, did not withdraw, and continued to hold the office of president. the retiring members of the executive took a considerable number of the local associations with them, and in these formed a new organisation called the national women's liberal association. some of those who formed this seceding women's liberal association were definitely opposed to women's suffrage; others thought that while in principle the enfranchisement of women was right, the time had not come for its practical adoption. in practice, however, the women's liberal federation has stood for suffrage with ever-increasing firmness since , while the women's liberal association has continued to oppose it. the formation of women's political associations was encouraged by party leaders of all shades of politics. there is probably not a single party leader, however strongly he may oppose the extension of the suffrage to women, who has not encouraged the active participation of women in electoral work. the liberal party issues a paper of printed directions to those who are asking to do electoral work in its support. the first of these directions is:--_make all possible use of every available woman in your locality._ suffragists contend that a party which can do this cannot long maintain that women are by the mere fact of their sex unfit to be entrusted with a parliamentary vote. even as long ago as his first midlothian campaign, and before any definite political organisations for women existed, mr. gladstone had urged the women of his future constituency to come out and bear their part in the coming electoral struggle. speaking to a meeting of women in dalkeith in he said:-- "therefore, i think in appealing to you ungrudgingly to open your own feelings and bear your own part in a political crisis like this, we are making no inappropriate demand, but are beseeching you to fulfil the duties which belong to you, which so far from involving any departure from your character as women, are associated with the fulfilment of that character and the performance of those duties, the neglect of which would in future years be a source of pain and mortification, and the accomplishment of which would serve to gild your future years with sweet remembrances and to warrant you in hoping that each in your own place and sphere has raised your voice for justice, and has striven to mitigate the sorrows and misfortunes of mankind." in less ornate language mr. asquith, in january , thanked the women of fife for the aid they had given him and his cause during the election, and said that "their healthy influence on the masculine members of the community had had not a little to do with keeping things in a satisfactory condition." the organised political work of women has grown since , and has become so valuable that none of the parties can afford to do without it or to alienate it. short of the vote itself this is one of the most important political weapons which can possibly have been put into our hands. at the outset, while the women's political societies were still young, and were hardly conscious of their power, the women's suffrage movement benefited greatly by their existence. if the women's liberal federation had existed in , the liberals who voted against mr. woodall's amendment would have probably decided that honesty was the best policy. in sir albert rollit introduced a women's suffrage bill, as nearly as possible on the lines of the conciliation bill of - . before the second reading great efforts were made by the liberal party machine to secure a crushing defeat for this bill on its second reading: a confidential circular was sent out to all liberal candidates in the home counties advising them not to allow liberal women to speak on their platforms lest they should advocate "female suffrage." in addition to this, mr. gladstone was induced to write a letter addressed to mr. samuel smith, m.p., against the bill, in which he departed from his previous view that the political work done by women would be quite consistent with womanly character and duties, and would "gild their future years with sweet remembrances." he now said that voting would, he feared, "trespass upon their delicacy, their purity, their refinement, the elevation of their whole nature." in addition to all this a whip was sent out signed by twenty members of parliament, ten from each side of the house, earnestly beseeching members to be in their places when sir albert rollit's bill came on and to vote against the second reading. but when the division came, notwithstanding all the unusual efforts that had been made, it was only defeated by . a general election was known to be not very far off, and members who were expecting zealous and efficient support from women in their constituencies did not care to alienate it by denying to women the smallest and most elementary of political privileges. in surprising numbers (as compared with ) they stood to their guns, and though they did not save the bill, the balance against it was so small that it was an earnest of future victory. this division in was the last time a women's suffrage bill was defeated on a straight issue in the house of commons. mr. faithfull begg's bill in was carried on second reading by votes to . after this date direct frontal attacks on the principle of women's suffrage were avoided in the house of commons. the anti-suffragists in parliament used every possible trick and stratagem to prevent the subject being discussed and divided on in the house. in this they were greatly helped by mr. labouchere, to whom it was a congenial task to shelve the women's suffrage question. on one occasion he and his little group of supporters talked for hours about a bill dealing with "verminous persons," because it stood before a suffrage bill, and he thus succeeded in preventing our bill from coming before the house. chapter iv women's suffrage in greater britain "wake up, mother country."--speech by king george v. when prince of wales. the debate on sir albert rollit's bill in brought out a full display of oratorical power from all quarters of the house, both for and against women's suffrage. mr. james bryce, mr. asquith, and sir henry james (afterwards lord james) spoke against the bill. mr. balfour, mr. (now lord) courtney, and mr. wyndham supported it. when mr. bryce spoke he used the timid argument that women's suffrage was an untried experiment. "it is a very bold experiment," he said; "our colonies are democratic in the highest degree; why do they not try it?" and again, "this is an experiment so large and bold that it ought to be tried by some other country first." mr. asquith, in the course of his speech, said much the same thing: "we have no experience to guide us one way or the other." mr. goldwin smith, an extra-parliamentary opponent of women's suffrage, pointed, in an article, to its solitary example in the state of wyoming, where it had been adopted in , and asked why, if suffrage had been a success in wyoming, its example had not been followed by other states immediately abutting on its borders. now it has frequently been noticed that when this line of argument is adopted it seems to be a sort of "mascot" for women's suffrage. when mr. bryce inquired in "why our great democratic colonies had not tried women's suffrage," his speech was followed in by the adoption of women's suffrage in new zealand and in south australia. when mr. goldwin smith asked why the states which were in nearest neighbourhood to wyoming had not followed her example, three states in this position, namely colorado in , utah in , and idaho in , very rapidly did so. when sir f. s. powell, in , said in the house of commons that no country in europe had ever ventured on the dangerous experiment of enfranchising its women, women's suffrage was granted in finland the same year, and in norway the year following. when mrs. humphry ward wrote in that our cause in the united states was "in process of defeat and extinction," this was followed by the most important suffrage victories ever won in america--the states of washington in , and california in . the question arises why so well informed and careful a political controversialist as mr. james bryce spoke as he did in of the fact that none of our great democratic colonies had adopted women's suffrage, in evident ignorance of the fact that two at any rate were on the point of doing so. the answer is probably to be found in the attitude of the anti-suffrage press. no body of political controversialists are so badly served by their own press as the anti-suffragists. the anti-suffrage press appears to act on the assumption that if they say nothing about a political event it is the same as if it had not happened. therefore, while they give prominence to any circumstances which they imagine likely to be injurious to suffrage, they either say nothing about those facts which indicate its growing force and volume, or record them in such a manner that they escape the observation of the general reader. the result is that only the suffragists, who are in constant communication with their comrades in various parts of the world and also have their own papers, are kept duly informed, not only of what has happened, but of what is likely to happen. mr. bryce cannot have known of the imminence of the success of women's suffrage in new zealand and south australia in . mrs. humphry ward did not know in february that women's suffrage had actually been carried in victoria, and had received the royal assent in . she could have known very little of the real strength of the suffrage movement in the united states, when she said it was virtually dead, just at the moment when it was about to give the most unmistakable proofs of energy and vigour. for all this ignorance the anti-suffrage press of london is mainly responsible. "things are what they are and their consequences will be what they will be," whether the newspapers print them or not, and to leave the controversialists on your own side in ignorance of facts of capital importance is a strange way of showing political allegiance.[ ] it is a mistake to represent that women's suffrage was brought about in new zealand suddenly or, as it were, by accident. the women of new zealand did not, as has sometimes been said, wake up one fine morning in and find themselves enfranchised. sustained, self-sacrificing, painstaking, and well-organised work for women's suffrage had been going on in the colony for many years.[ ] the germ of it may be traced even as early as , and many of the most distinguished men whose names are connected with new zealand history as true empire-builders have been identified with the movement, including mr. john ballance, sir julius vogel, sir r. stout, sir john hall, and sir george grey. it is curious that mr. richard seddon, under whose premiership women's suffrage was finally carried, was not at that time ( ) a believer in it. he was a thomas who had to see before he could believe, but when he had once had experience of women's suffrage, he was unwearied in proclaiming his confidence in it. when he was in england in for king edward's coronation he hardly ever spoke in public without bearing his testimony to the success of women's suffrage. much good seed had been sown in new zealand by mrs. müller, an english lady, who landed in nelson in . one of her articles, signed "femina" (she was obliged to preserve her anonymity for reasons of domestic tranquillity), won the attention of john stuart mill, and drew from him a most encouraging letter, and the gift of his book _the subjection of women_. mrs. müller died in , and thus had the opportunity of seeing in operation for nearly ten years the successful operation of the reform for which she had been one of the earliest workers. an american lady, mrs. mary clement leavitt, visited new zealand in on behalf of the women's christian temperance union. mrs. leavitt was a great organiser and arranged the whole of the work of the temperance union in definite "departments," and a general superintendent was appointed to each. there was a franchise department, the general superintendent of which was mrs. sheppard, who, from , became an indefatigable and, at the same time, a cautious and sensible worker for the extension of the parliamentary franchise to women. she was in communication with sir john hall and other parliamentary leaders, and kept in close touch with the whole movement until it was successful. just as it is now in england with us, differences arose among new zealand suffragists as to how much suffrage women ought to have, or at any rate for how much would it be wise to ask, and the parties were called the "half loafers" and the "whole loafers." the "no bread" party watched these differences just as they do in england, and tried unsuccessfully to profit by them. in the debate on sir john hall's women's suffrage resolution in , mr. w. p. reeves, so long known in england as the agent-general for new zealand, and later as the director of the london school of economics, and also as an excellent friend of women's suffrage, announced himself to be a "half loafer"; indeed he advocated the restriction of the franchise to such women, over twenty-one years of age, who had passed the matriculation examination of the university. there is an arabic proverb to the effect that the world is divided into three classes--"the immovable, the movable, and those who actually move." it is unwise to despair of the conversion of any anti-suffragist unless he has proved himself to belong to the "immovables." in mr. reeves, now so good a suffragist, had only advanced to the point of advocating the enfranchisement of university women. his proposal for a high educational suffrage test for women did not meet with support. it was rejected by more robust suffragists as "not even half a loaf, only a ginger nut." the anti-suffragists used the same arguments which they use with us. they professed themselves to be intimately acquainted with the views of the almighty on the question of women voting. "it was contrary to the ordinance of god"; women politicians were represented as driving a man from his home because it would be infested "with noisy and declamatory women." after the bill had passed both houses a solemn petition was presented by anti-suffragists, who were members of the legislative council, asking the governor to withhold his assent on the ground that "it would seriously affect the rights of property and embarrass the finances of the colony, thereby injuriously affecting the public creditor." others protested that it was self-evident, that women's suffrage must lead to domestic discord and the neglect of home life. of course all the anti-suffragists were certain that women did not want the vote, and would not use it even if it were granted to them. the french gentleman who called himself max o'rell was touring new zealand at the time, and deplored that one of the fairest spots on god's earth was going to be turned into a howling wilderness by women's suffrage. mr. goldwin smith wrote that he gave women's suffrage ten years in new zealand, and by that time it would have wrought such havoc with the home and domestic life that the best minds in the country would be devising means of getting rid of it. a new zealand gentleman, named bakewell, wrote an article in _the nineteenth century_ for february , containing a terrible jeremiad about the melancholy results to be expected in the dominion from women's suffrage. the last words of his article were, "we shall probably for some years to come be a dreadful object lesson to the rest of the british empire." this was the prophecy. what have the facts been? new zealand has become an object-lesson--an object-lesson of faithful membership of the imperial group, a daughter state of which the mother country is intensely proud. does not everybody know that new zealand is prosperous and happy and loyal to the throne and race to which she owes her origin.[ ] new zealand was the first british colony to enfranchise her women, and was also the first british colony to send her sons to stand side by side with the sons of great britain in the battlefields of south africa; she was also the first british colony to cable the offer of a battleship to the mother country in the spring of . she, with australia, was the first part of the british empire to devise and carry out a truly national system of defence, seeking the advice of the first military expert of the mother country, lord kitchener, to help them to do it on efficient lines. the women are demanding that they should do their share in the great national work of defence by undergoing universal ambulance training.[ ] new zealand and australia have, since they adopted women's suffrage, inaugurated many important social and economic reforms, among which may be mentioned wages boards--the principle of the minimum wage applied to women as well as to men--and the establishment of children's courts for juvenile offenders. they have also purged their laws of some of the worst of the enactments injurious to women. if it were needed to rebut the preposterous nonsense urged by anti-suffragists against women's suffrage in new zealand eighteen years ago, it is sufficient to quote the unemotional terms of the cable which appeared from new zealand in _the times_ of july , :-- "parliament was opened to-day. lord islington, the governor, in his speech, congratulated the dominion on its continued prosperity. the increase in the material well-being of the people, was, he said, encouraging, and there was every reason to expect a continuance and even an augmentation of the prosperity of the trade and industry of the dominion.... the results of registration under the universal defence training scheme were satisfactory. the spirit in which this call for patriotism had been met was highly commendable." the testimony concerning the practical working of women's suffrage in australia and new zealand is all of one kind. it may be summarised in a single sentence, "not one of the evils so confidently predicted of it has actually happened." the effect on home life is universally said to have been good. the birth-rate in new zealand has steadily increased since , and it has now, next to australia, the lowest infantile mortality in the world. in south australia, where women have been enfranchised since , the infantile death-rate has also been reduced from in the to half that number. our own anti-suffragists are quite capable of representing that this argument means that we are so foolish as to suppose that if a mother drops a paper into a ballot-box every few years she thereby prolongs the life of her infant. of course we do nothing of the kind; but we do say that to give full citizenship to women deepens in them the sense of responsibility, and they will be more likely to apply to their duties a quickened intelligence and a higher sense of the importance of the work entrusted to them as women. the free woman makes the best wife and the most careful mother. the confident prediction that women when enfranchised would not take the trouble to record their votes has been falsified. the figures given in the official publication, _the new zealand year book_, are as follows:-- +-------+---------------------------------------------+ | | men. women. | + +-----------+----------+-----------+----------+ | date. | electoral | actually | electoral | actually | | | roll. | voted. | roll. | voted. | +-------+-----------+----------+-----------+----------+ | | , | , | , | , | | | , | , | , | , | | | , | , | , | , | | | , | , | , | , | | | , | , | , | , | | | , | , | , | , | +-------+-----------+----------+-----------+----------+ this table shows that men and women who are on the electoral roll vote in almost the same proportion. the number of votes actually polled compared with the number on the register is, of course, to some extent affected by the number of constituencies in which there is no contest, or in which the result is regarded as a foregone conclusion; but this consideration affects both sexes alike. it is impossible for reasons of space to enter in detail in this little book upon the history in each of the australian states of the adoption of women's suffrage. but it is well known that every one of the states forming the commonwealth of australia has now enfranchised its women, and that one of the first acts of the commonwealth parliament in was to grant the suffrage to women. the complete list of dates of women's enfranchisement in new zealand and australia will be found in _the brief review of the women's suffrage movement_, which concludes this little book. when the premiers and other political leaders from the overseas dominions of great britain were in london for the coronation and imperial conference of , the representatives of australia and new zealand frequently expressed both in public and in private their entire satisfaction with the results of women's suffrage. mr. fisher, the premier of the commonwealth, constantly spoke in this sense: "there is no australian politician who would nowadays dare to get up at a meeting and declare himself an enemy.... it has had most beneficial results.... he had not the slightest doubt that women's votes had had a good effect on social legislation.... the federal parliament took a strong stand upon the remuneration of women, and the minimum wage which was laid down applied equally to women and men for the same work" (_manchester guardian_, june , ). on another occasion mr. fisher said that so far from women's suffrage causing any disunion between men and women, "the interest which men took in women's affairs when women had got the vote was wonderful" (_manchester guardian_, june , ). sir william lyne, premier of new south wales, said: "when the women were enfranchised in australia they proceeded at each election to purify their parliament, and they had gone on doing so, and now he was proud to say their parliament was one of the model parliaments of the world" (_manchester guardian_, august , ). the hon. john murray of victoria and the hon. a. a. kirkpatrick spoke in the same sense. indeed the evidence favourable to the working of women's suffrage is overwhelming, and is given not only by men who have always supported it, but by those who formerly opposed it, and have had the courage to acknowledge that as the result of experience they have changed their views. among these may be mentioned sir edmund barton, the first premier of the commonwealth, and the late sir thomas bent, the premier of victoria, under whose administration women were enfranchised in that state. why appeal to other witnesses when both houses of the commonwealth parliament in november unanimously adopted the following resolution:-- "(i.) that this {house / senate} is of opinion that the extension of the suffrage to the women of australia for states and commonwealth parliaments, on the same terms as men, has had the most beneficial results. it has led to the more orderly conduct of elections, and at the last federal elections the women's vote in the majority of the states showed a greater proportionate increase than that cast by men. it has given a greater prominence to legislation particularly affecting women and children, although the women have not taken up such questions to the exclusion of others of wider significance. in matters of defence and imperial concern, they have proved themselves as far-seeing and discriminating as men. because the reform has brought nothing but good, though disaster was freely prophesied, we respectfully urge that all nations enjoying representative government would be well advised in granting votes to women." with all this wealth of testimony rebutting from practical experience almost every objection urged against women's suffrage, it is impossible to exaggerate the value to the movement here of the example of australia and new zealand. there are few families in the united kingdom that have not ties of kindred or of friendship with australasia. the men and women there are of our own race and traditions, starting from the same stock, owning the same allegiance, acknowledging the same laws, speaking the same language, nourished mentally, morally, and spiritually from the same sources. we visit them and they visit us; and when their women return to what they fondly term "home," although they may have been born and brought up under the southern cross, they naturally ask why they should be put into a lower political status in great britain than in the land of their birth? what have they done to lose one of the most elementary guarantees of liberty and citizenship? as the ties of a sane and healthy imperialism draw us closer together the difference in the political status of women in great britain and her daughter states will become increasingly indefensible and cannot be long maintained. chapter v the anti-suffragists "we enjoy every species of indulgence we can wish for; and as we are content, we pray that others who are not content may meet with no relief."--burke in house of commons in on the dissenters who petitioned against dissenters. the first organised opposition by women to women's suffrage in england dates from , when a number of ladies, led by mrs. humphry ward, miss beatrice potter (now mrs. sidney webb), and mrs. creighton appealed in _the nineteenth century_ against the proposed extension of the parliamentary suffrage to women. looking back now over the years that have passed since this protest was published, the first thing that strikes the reader is that some of the most distinguished ladies who then co-operated with mrs. humphry ward have ceased to be anti-suffragists, and have become suffragists. mrs. creighton and mrs. webb have joined us; they are not only "movable," but they have moved, and have given their reasons for changing their views. turning from the list of names to the line of argument adopted against women's suffrage, we find, on the contrary, no change, no development. the ladies who signed _the nineteenth century_ protest in were then as now--and this is the essential characteristic of the anti-suffrage movement--completely in favour of every improvement in the personal, proprietary, and political status of women that had already been gained, _but against any further extension of it_. _the nineteenth century_ ladies were in quite in favour of women taking part in all local government elections, for women's right to do this had been won in . the protesting ladies said in so many words "_we believe the emancipating process has now reached the limits fixed by the physical constitution of women_." less wise than canute, they appeared to think they could order the tide of human progress to stop and that their command would be obeyed. then, as now, they protested that the normal experience of women "does not, and never can, provide them with such material to form a sound judgment on great political affairs as men possess," or, as mrs. humphry ward has more recently expressed it, "the political ignorance of women is irreparable and is imposed by nature"; then having proclaimed the inherent incapacity of women to form a sound judgment on important political affairs, they proceed to formulate a judgment on one of the most important issues of practical politics. several of the ladies who signed _the nineteenth century_ protest in were at that moment taking an active part in organising the political work and influence of women for or against the main political issue of the day, the granting of home rule to ireland; and yet they were saying at the same time that women had not the material to form a sound judgment in politics. this is, of course, the inherent absurdity of the whole position of anti-suffrage women. if women are incapable of forming a sound judgment in grave political issues, why invite them and urge them to express an opinion at all? besides this fundamental absurdity there is another, secondary to it, but none the less real. anti-suffragists, especially anti-suffrage men, maintain that to take part in the strife and turmoil of practical politics is in its essence degrading to women, and calculated to sully their refinement and purity. if this, indeed, is so, why invite women into the turmoil? why advertise, as the anti-suffragists do, the holding of classes to train young women to become anti-suffrage speakers, and thus be able to proclaim on public platforms that "woman's place is home?" this second absurdity appears to have occurred to the late editor of _the nineteenth century_, sir james knowles, for a note is added to the protest apologising, as it were, for the inconsistency of asking women to degrade themselves by taking part in a public political controversy:-- "it is submitted," says this note, "that for once and in order to save the quiet of home life from total disappearance they should do violence to their natural reticence and signify publicly and unmistakably their condemnation of the scheme now threatened." if this note was, as it appears, by the editor, how much he, too, needed the lesson which canute gave to his courtiers. the waves were not to be turned back by a hundred and odd great ladies doing violence to their natural reticence and signifying publicly that they were very well satisfied with things as they were. "just for once, in order to save the quiet of home life from total disappearance," these milk white lambs, bleating for man's protection, were to cast aside their timidity and come before the public with a protest against a further extension of human liberty. the anti-suffrage protest of had the effect which similar protests have ever since had of adding to the numbers and the activity of the suffragists. women anti-suffragists formed themselves into a society in july under the leadership of mrs. humphry ward, and a men's society was shortly afterwards formed under the chairmanship of the earl of cromer. these two societies were amalgamated in december . lord cromer is the president, and exerts himself actively in opposition to women's suffrage, and in obtaining funds for the league of which he is the leader. in the previous spring of the anti-suffrage league had adopted as part of its programme, besides the negative object of opposing women's suffrage, the positive object of encouraging "the principle of the representation of women on municipal and other bodies concerned with the domestic and social affairs of the community." but male anti-suffragists dwell chiefly on the negative part of their programme. as a fairly regular reader of the _anti-suffrage review_ i may say that the advocacy of municipal suffrage and eligibility for women bears about the same proportion to the anti-suffrage part of it as falstaff's bread did to his sack; it is always one halfpennyworth of bread, and even that is sometimes absent, to an intolerable deal of sack. the english anti-suffragists' combination of opposing parliamentary suffrage and supporting municipal suffrage for women has no counterpart in the united states. american anti-suffragists are as bitterly opposed to municipal and school suffrage for women (where it does not exist) as they are to political suffrage. in the state of new york, not many years ago, the albany association for opposing woman's suffrage vehemently resisted the appointment of women on school boards and said, "it threatens the home, threatens the sacredness of the marriage tie, threatens the church, and undermines the constitution of our great republic." an american senator, not to be outdone, improved even upon this, and spoke of school suffrage for women in massachusetts in the following terms: "if we make this experiment we shall destroy the race which will be blasted by the vengeance of almighty god." these extravagances do not belong entirely to the dark ages of the nineteenth century; only in the summer of the _new york association opposed to the extension of the suffrage to women_ successfully opposed a bill to confer the municipal suffrage on women in connecticut. this bill had passed the senate and was before the house of representatives, which was immediately besieged by petitions against the bill urging all the old arguments with which we are so familiar in this country against the parliamentary suffrage, such as that it was not fair to women that they should have the municipal vote "thrust upon them"; that governments rest on force, and force is male; that women cannot fight, and therefore should not vote; that to give the municipal vote to women would destroy the home, and undermine the foundations of society.[ ] this opposition was successful, and the bill was defeated in face of overwhelming evidence derived from the numerous cases which were quoted of women exercising the municipal vote, and sitting as members of local governing bodies without producing any of the disastrous consequences so confidently predicted. where women have the municipal vote there is no opposition to it in any quarter, because it is overwhelmingly evident, as mr. gladstone once said, that "it has been productive of much good and no harm whatever." english suffragists can only heartily rejoice that english anti-suffragists are so much more intelligent than those of the united states. it shows that they are capable of learning from experience. women have had the municipal vote in great britain since , and they have voted for poor law guardians and school boards (where such still exist) from the same date. they were rendered eligible for town and county councils in by an act passed by sir henry campbell bannerman's government. suffragists are far from complaining that anti-suffragists rejoice with them at these extensions of civic liberty to women. though the battle is over and the victory won, it is very satisfactory to see the good results of women's suffrage, where it exists, recognised and emphasised even by anti-suffragists. mrs. humphry ward has advocated the systematic organisation of the women's vote in london local elections in order to have increased motive power behind some of her excellent schemes for making more use of playgrounds for the benefit of the london children. she has also spoken several times in public in favour of the increased representation of women on local government bodies; and has even gone very near to making a joke on the subject, saying, in justification of her attitude, "that it was not good to allow the devil to have all the best tunes," and not wise for the anti-suffragists to allow the suffragists to claim a monopoly of ideas and enthusiasm.[ ] still it is rather significant that she comes to the suffrage camp for the ideas and enthusiasms. her male colleagues have not shown themselves very ardent in the cause of equal rights for women in local government. in , when the london borough councils were established in the place of the vestries, an amendment was moved and carried in the house of commons rendering women eligible for the newly created bodies as they had been on the old ones. when the bill came to the house of lords, this portion of it was vehemently opposed by the late lord james of hereford (afterwards one of the vice-presidents of the anti-suffrage league), and his opposition was successful, notwithstanding a powerful and eloquent speech by the late lord salisbury, then prime minister, in support of the eligibility of women on the new borough councils. again, when in the bill rendering women eligible for town and county councils reached the house of lords, it had no more sincere and ardent opponent than lord james. he saw its bearing upon the question of women's suffrage, and the absurdity involved in a state of the law which allows a woman to be a town or county councillor, or even a mayor, and in that capacity the returning officer at a parliamentary election, but does not permit her to give a simple vote in the election of a member of parliament. "if," said lord james, "their lordships accepted this measure making women eligible for the great positions that had been specified in great communities like liverpool and manchester, _where was the man who would be able to argue against the parliamentary franchise for women?_" the bill became an act, notwithstanding lord james's opposition, and within twelve months he had become a vice-president of the league for opposing women's suffrage and for "maintaining the representation of women on municipal and other bodies concerned with the domestic and social affairs of the community." it has been said by mrs. humphry ward, miss violet markham, and other anti-suffragists that it is not very creditable to women's public spirit that four years after the passing of the local government qualification of women act of , so few women[ ] are serving on town and county councils. the chief reason for their insignificant numbers is that at present only those women may be elected who are themselves qualified to elect. outside london this disqualifies married women, and in london it only qualifies those married women who are on the register as municipal voters. it also disqualifies daughters living, under normal conditions, in the houses of their parents. the range of choice of women candidates is, therefore, very severely restricted. similar disqualifications in former years applied to the post of poor law guardian. when a simple residential qualification was substituted for the electoral qualification the number of women acting as poor law guardians increased in a few years from about to over , of whom eight out of nine have the residential qualification only, nearly half of them being married women. it helps people to realise how the present law limits the range of choice of women to serve on locally elected bodies to ask them to consider what would be the effect on the number of men who could offer themselves for election if marriage were a disqualification for them also. a bill for allowing women to be elected to town and county councils on a residential qualification has been before parliament for the four sessions - . it is "non-contentious," but it has never even got a second reading. bills concerning women lack the motive power behind them which is almost invariably necessary for the successful passage of a bill through all its stages. mrs. humphry ward and miss markham have some justification for their contention that the suffrage movement has largely absorbed the energies of the more active-minded women, and prevented them from offering themselves as candidates in municipal elections. this is inevitable. not every one possesses the boundless energy of such women as miss margaret ashton, miss eleanor rathbone, or mrs. lees, who combine active suffrage propaganda with work of first-class importance as members of councils in large and important towns. but when once the battle for suffrage is won, and the qualification is made reasonable for women, it is almost certain that the number of women elected on municipal bodies will largely increase. in norway, where women's suffrage has been in operation since , although the population is only a little over , , , the number of women elected on town and county councils in was , and as many as have been elected in addition as "alternates." it appears, therefore, that the secondary object of the anti-suffrage league, "the representation of women on municipal bodies," would be best served by extending the parliamentary franchise to women. the anti-suffrage league in england has made a great point of the number of petitions and protests which they have obtained from women municipal voters declaring their antagonism to women's suffrage in parliamentary elections. the suffragists, however, attach little or no importance to the figures which have been published. when suffragists conduct a canvass of the same people on the same subject the result is entirely different.[ ] much criticism has been made upon the manner in which the anti-suffragists have obtained the signatures to their petitions and protests against women's suffrage, and we know that in some cases signatures have been asked for "as a protest against being governed by these lawless women." now there are almost as many fallacies in this sentence as there are words. many ardent suffragists, probably the majority of them, are opposed to the use of physical violence as a means of obtaining political justice. moreover, women are not lawless. women in this country, as all criminal statistics prove, are about nine times more law-abiding than men.[ ] if people object to being governed by the more lawless sex, it is not women who should be disfranchised. and besides these considerations there is another--the voter, whether male or female, does not govern. he, when he gives his vote, has to decide between two or more men representing different sets of principles, to which he wishes to confide the various tasks of government. the _anti-suffrage review_ of january contained an article called "arguments for use in poor districts," which throws a flood of light on the methods by which these signatures of women against women's suffrage have been obtained. the article represents an anti-suffrage lady going round with a petition against women's suffrage. she approaches the house of a working woman and appeals to her whether, after she has looked after her children and her home, she has not done all that a woman has time for, and "had better leave such things as the government of india and the army and navy, and all those outside things to the men who understand them." a more extraordinarily dishonest argument, if argument it can be called, can hardly be imagined. if it were sound, it would exclude from all share in political power not only working women, but also working men--all who live by the sweat of their brow, and all hard working professional and business men. if the argument were a sound one, the best government would be a bureaucracy like that of russia, where the great tasks of government and the management of the army and navy "are left to the men who understand them," and where the peasant, the artisan, the professional man, and the merchant have nothing to do with laws but to obey them, and nothing to do with taxes but to pay them. but this system has never commended itself to the political instincts of the british nation. some of the anti-suffragists at any rate could see this plainly enough when this "argument" was applied to the continued exclusion of working men from the franchise. mr. frederic harrison has written words on this very subject which are as applicable to women to-day as they were to men at the time when they were first published:-- "electors have not got to govern a country; they have only to find a set of men who will see that the government is fresh and active.... government is one thing, but electors of any class cannot and ought not to govern. electing, or giving an indirect approval of government, is another thing, and demands wholly different qualities. these are moral, not intellectual, practical, not special gifts--gifts of a very plain and almost universal order. such are, firstly, social sympathies and sense of justice, then openness and plainness of character; lastly, habits of action and a practical knowledge of social misery."[ ] these are the lessons of their own leaders; but the anti-suffragists pay no heed to them; it is little wonder then that they pay no heed to the great suffrage leader who has taught us that women, like men, do not need the franchise in order that they may govern, but in order that they may not be misgoverned. one other consideration may be deduced from this extraordinary article--"arguments for use in poor districts." if the anti-suffragists will put into cold print such "arguments" that women ought not to vote because they are occupied with the daily tasks of ordinary life and are not prepared to govern india or manage the army and navy, what may not the anti-suffragists say in private in the cottages which they visit in order to overcome the reluctance of working women to put their names to the anti-suffrage petitions? the women who petition against women's enfranchisement are a type that we have always with us. burke held them up to disdain and contempt in inimitable words in , when dissenters petitioned against dissenters. the five mile act and the test and corporation act were then in force. the test act made the taking of the sacrament according to the rites of the church of england a necessary qualification for holding public office of any kind. the five mile act forbade the proscribed nonconformists from preaching or holding meetings within five miles of any corporate town. in these acts were not often put into operation, but as long as they were in the statute book the nonconformist leaders felt that they were doomed to live on sufferance; their friends in parliament prepared a bill for their relief from these outrageous disabilities. opposition was, of course, at once awakened; it proceeded mainly from the king and the "king's friends." their hands were strengthened by receiving a petition signed by dissenting ministers, who entreated parliament not to surrender a test "imposed expressly for the maintenance of those essential doctrines upon which the reformation was founded." they were for the time successful, but burke's oratory has pointed the finger of scorn at them for all time. "two bodies of men," he said, "approach our house and prostrate themselves at our bar. 'we ask not honours,' say the one. 'we have no aspiring wishes, no views upon the purple....' 'we, on the contrary,' say the dissenters who petition against dissenters, 'enjoy every species of indulgence we can wish for; and as we are content, we pray that others who are not content may meet with no relief.'"[ ] we do not envy the dissenters who petitioned against dissenters in the eighteenth century, and future generations will probably mete out no very kindly judgment to the women who petitioned against women in and : "as we are content, we pray that others who are not content may meet with no relief." one most effective reply has been made by the suffragists to the allegation of their opponents that women do not desire their own enfranchisement. between the autumns of and more than local councils petitioned parliament in favour of passing without delay the women's suffrage bill, known as the conciliation bill. these councils comprise those of the most important towns in the kingdom, including edinburgh, glasgow, dundee, inverness, dublin, cork, limerick, liverpool, manchester, birmingham, sheffield, bradford, oldham, leeds, wolverhampton, newcastle, and brighton. no such series of petitions from locally elected bodies has probably ever been presented to parliament in favour of a franchise bill. the anti-suffragists have endeavoured to belittle the significance of these petitions. in an important official letter to mr. asquith, signed by lord cromer, lady jersey, mrs. humphry ward, lord curzon, and others, it is stated:-- "the councils which have allowed these resolutions to go through are, in no small degree, dependent for votes upon the very women whom the bill proposes to enfranchise, _and it is most natural that the councillors should shrink from the risk of offending them_."[ ] this is a good specimen of anti-suffrage logic. women householders are strongly opposed to their own enfranchisement; but town councillors who depend upon the votes of these women are forced to petition in favour of their enfranchisement because these councillors "shrink from the risk of offending them." it is true that lord cromer, lord curzon, and the other signatories of the letter go on to say that they are much better acquainted with the feeling of the women municipal voters in the various towns than the men are who have lived in them all their lives, and have repeatedly stood in them as candidates in municipal elections. this illustrates the degree of knowledge possessed by the most distinguished of the anti-suffragists of the work-a-day world in which humbler mortals have to live. mr. gladstone said of the house of lords when they opposed the reform bill of that they "lived in a balloon," unconscious of what was happening among the dim common populations living on the earth. the same criticism is applicable to the anti-suffragists. they opened the year in their _review_ by saying that they looked "forward with complete confidence to the work of saving women from the immeasurable injury of having their sex brought into the conflict of political life." this was immediately after the election of december , during which mrs. humphry ward had taken an active personal share in her son's electoral contest in west hertfordshire; and during which a large number of unionist candidates and others had had the offer from her publishers of her _letters to my friends and neighbours_, written anew for the second election of , price d. each or copies for £ . no suffragist blames mrs. humphry ward for her active interest in politics. whether people like it or not, women are taking part in active political work; but to talk of "the immeasurable injury of bringing their sex into the conflict of political life," and at the same time to profit by the political knowledge and enthusiasm of women is a practical absurdity. all parties are alike in getting as much work as possible during an election out of the women who sympathise with them. to encourage the political activity of women and at the same time talk about "protecting women from the immeasurable injury of having their sex brought into the conflict of political life," helps one to understand why frenchmen say that the english are a nation of hypocrites. some eminent anti-suffragists attacked the insurance bill ( ) on the ground that it is "cruelly unfair" to women; others, including some of their most distinguished women, but no men, sent to the prime minister in july a carefully worded and powerfully reasoned letter explaining in detail the points in which they felt that the bill did less than justice to women. space does not permit a detailed examination of the points raised in this excellent letter, but one sentence in it must be given, for it contains within itself the gist of the case for women's suffrage:-- "we would strongly urge that instead of meeting these and similar cases by amending the bill in the way which was promised by the chancellor of the exchequer on july th, _it would be preferable to substitute the insurance which is needed for that which is not needed_." the unrepresented are always liable to be given what they do not need rather than what they do need. this, in one sentence, forms the strength of the case for women's suffrage. however benevolent men may be in their intentions, they cannot know what women want and what suits the necessities of women's lives as well as women know these things themselves. chapter vi the militant societies "it is a calumny on men to say that they are roused to heroic action by ease, hope of pleasure--sugar plums of any kind. in the meanest mortal there lies something nobler. difficulty, abnegation, martyrdom, death, are the allurements which act upon the heart of man."--thomas carlyle. in chapters ii. and iii. an outline was given of the parliamentary history of women's suffrage between and . in those thirty years the movement had progressed until it had reached a point when it could count upon a majority of suffragists being returned in each successively elected house of commons. in came the south african war, and the main interest of the nation was concentrated on that struggle till it was over. a war almost invariably suspends all progress in domestic and social legislation. two fires cannot burn together, and the most ardent of the suffragists felt that, while the war lasted, it was not a fitting time to press their own claims and objects. the war temporarily suspended the progress of the suffrage movement, but it is probable that it ultimately strengthened the demand of women for citizenship, for it has been observed again and again that a war, or any other event which stimulates national vitality, and the consciousness of the value of citizenship is almost certain to be followed by increased vigour in the suffrage movement, and not infrequently by its success. for instance, suffrage in finland in followed immediately upon the great struggle with russia to regain constitutional liberty; women as well as men had thrown themselves into that struggle and borne the great sacrifices it entailed, and when finland wrung from the czar the granting of the constitution, women's suffrage formed an essential part of it, and was demanded by the almost unanimous voice of the finnish people. again, when suffrage was granted to women in norway in , it was immediately after the great outburst of national feeling which led to the separation from sweden, and established norway as an independent kingdom. upon the rights and wrongs of the controversy between the two countries it is not for us to enter, but the intensity of the feeling in norway in favour of separation is undoubted. the women had shared in the national fervour and in all the work and sacrifices it entailed. the parliamentary suffrage was granted to women as one of the first acts of the norwegian parliament. in the commonwealth of australia almost the first act of the first parliament was the enfranchisement of women. the national feeling of australia had been stimulated and the sense of national responsibility deepened by the events which led to the federation of the independent states of the australian continent. it is true that south australia and western australia had led the way about women's suffrage before this in and , but up to the time of the formation of the commonwealth there had been no such rapid extension of the suffrage to women as that which accompanied or immediately followed it.[ ] the fight for suffrage in the united kingdom is not won yet, but it has made enormous progress towards victory, and this, in my opinion, is in part due to the quickened sense of national responsibility, the deeper sense of the value of citizenship which was created by the south african war. the war in the first instance originated from the refusal of the vote to englishmen and other "uitlanders" long settled in the transvaal. the newspapers, therefore, both in this country and in south africa constantly dwelt on the value and significance of the vote. _the spectator_ once put the point with great brevity and force when it wrote, "we dwell so strongly on the franchise because it includes all other rights, and is the one essential thing." now this is either true or untrue; if true it applies to women as well as to "uitlanders." after thinking of the war and its causes the first thing in the morning and the last thing at night for nearly three years, there were many thousands of englishwomen who asked themselves why, if the vote to englishmen in the transvaal was worth £ , , of money and some , lives, it was not also of great value and significance to women at home. why, they said to themselves and to others, are we to be treated as perpetual "uitlanders" in the country of our birth, which we love as well as any other of its citizens? therefore in the long run the war, though it temporarily caused a suspension of the suffrage agitation, nourished it at its source, and very shortly after the declaration of peace it became more active than it had ever been before. ever since , when mr. faithfull begg's women's suffrage bill had been read a second time by to , the enemies of suffrage in the house of commons had managed to evade a vote on a direct issue. the days obtained for suffrage bills were absorbed by the government or merged into the holidays. one or other of the hundred ways of burking discussion open to the experienced parliamentarian was used. nevertheless women's suffrage resolutions were brought forward in and ; that of was "talked out." at the end of the general public first became aware of a new element in the suffrage movement. the women's social and political union had been formed by mrs. and miss pankhurst in , but the "militant movement," with which its name will always be associated, had not attracted any public notice till the end of . its manifestations and multifarious activities have been set forth in detail by miss sylvia pankhurst in a book, and are also so well known from other sources that it is unnecessary to dwell upon them here.[ ] it is enough to say that by adopting novel and startling methods not at the outset associated with physical violence or attempts at violence, they succeeded in drawing a far larger amount of public attention to the claims of women to representation than ever had been given to the subject before. these methods were regarded by many suffragists with strong aversion, while others watched them with sympathy and admiration for the courage and self-sacrifice which these new methods involved. it is notorious that differences of method separate people from one another even more acutely than differences of aim. this has been seen in the history of religion as well as in politics:-- "christians have burnt each other, quite persuaded that the apostles would have done as they did." it was a most anxious time for many months when there seemed a danger that the suffrage cause might degenerate into futile quarrelling among suffragists about the respective merits of their different methods, rather than develop into a larger, broader, and more widespread movement. this danger has been happily averted, partly by the good sense of the suffragists of all parties, who held firmly to the sheet anchor of the fact that they were all working for precisely the same thing, the removal of the sex disability in parliamentary elections, and, therefore, that what united them was more important than that which separated them. the formation of the anti-suffrage societies was also from this point of view most opportune, giving us all an immediate objective. it was obvious to all suffragists that they should turn their artillery on their opponents rather than on each other. therefore, while recognising fully all the acute differences which must exist between the advocates of revolutionary and constitutional methods, each group went on its own way; and the total result has undoubtedly been an extraordinary growth in the vigour and force of the suffrage movement all over the country. the most satisfactory feature of the situation was that however acute were the differences between the heads of the different societies, the general mass of suffragists throughout the country were loyal to the cause by whomsoever it was represented, just as italian patriots in the great days of the _risorgimento_ supported the unity of italy, whether promoted by cavour, garibaldi, or mazzini.[ ] the national union of women's suffrage societies endeavoured to steer an even keel. they never weakened in their conviction that constitutional agitation was not only right in itself, but would prove far more effective in the long run than any display of physical violence, as a means of converting the electorate, the general public, and, consequently, parliament and the government, to a belief in women's suffrage. but the difficulties for a long time were very great. a few of our own members attacked us because we were not militant; others resigned because they disapproved of the militantism which we had repudiated. on one such occasion a high dignitary of the church of england, who is also a distinguished historian, wrote to resign his position as vice-president of one of our societies because he highly disapproved of the recent action of the members of militant societies. the honorary secretary replied, asking him if he was also relinquishing his connection with christianity, as she gathered from his writings that he strongly disapproved of what some christians had done in the supposed interests of christianity. it is to the credit of both that the threatened resignation was withdrawn. we tried to comfort and help the weak-hearted by reminding them, in the words of viscount morley, that "no reformer is fit for his task if he suffers himself to be frightened by the excesses of an extreme wing."[ ] personally it was to myself the most difficult time of my forty years of suffrage work. i was helped a good deal by recalling a saying of my husband's about the irish situation in the 'eighties, when he was heard saying to himself, "just keep on and do what is right." i am far from claiming that we actually accomplished the difficult feat of doing what was right, but i believe we tried to. but the brutal severity with which some of the militant suffragists were treated gave suffragists of all parties another subject on which they were in agreement. minor breaches of the law, such as waving flags and making speeches in the lobbies of the houses of parliament, were treated more severely than serious crime on the part of men has often been. a sentence of three months' imprisonment as an ordinary offender was passed in one case against a young girl who had done nothing except to decline to be bound over to keep the peace which she was prepared to swear she had not broken. the turning of the hose upon a suffrage prisoner in her cell in a midwinter night, and all the anguish of the hunger strike and forcible feeding are other examples. all through and a dead set was made upon law-breakers, real or supposed, who were obscure and unknown; while people with well-known names and of good social position were treated with leniency, and in some cases were allowed to do almost anything without arrest or punishment.[ ] the militant societies split into two in , when the freedom league was formed under the presidency of mrs. despard. shortly after this both the militant groups abandoned the plan upon which for the first few years they had worked--that of suffering violence, but using none. stone-throwing of a not very formidable kind was indulged in, and personal attacks upon ministers of the crown were attempted.[ ] these new developments necessitated, in the opinion of the national union of women's suffrage societies, the publication of protests expressing their grave and strong objection to the use of personal violence as a means of political propaganda. these protests were published in november and october .[ ] the second, and shortest, was as follows:-- "that the council of the national union of women's suffrage societies strongly condemns the use of violence in political propaganda, and being convinced that the true way of advocating the cause of women's suffrage is by energetic, law-abiding propaganda, reaffirms its adherence to constitutional principles, and instructs the executive committee and the societies to communicate this resolution to the press." to this was added:-- "that while condemning methods of violence the council of the n.u.w.s.s. also protests most earnestly against the manner in which the whole suffrage agitation has been handled by the responsible government." the national union has not thought it necessary publicly to protest against every individual act of violence. having definitely and in a full council, where all the societies in the union are represented in proportion to their membership, put upon record that they "strongly condemn the use of violence in political propaganda," it appears unnecessary to asseverate that they condemn individual acts of violence. there is a remarkable passage in one of cromwell's letters explaining why that which is gained by force is of little value in comparison with that which is conceded to the claims of justice and reason. "things obtained by force," he wrote, "though never so good in themselves, would be both less to their honour and less likely to last than concessions made to argument and reason." "what we gain in a free way is better than twice as much in a forced, and will be more truly ours and our posterity's."[ ] the practical example of male revolutionists is often cited to the contrary; but with all due respect to the other sex, is not their example too often an example of how not to do it? the russian revolution, for instance, seems to have thrown the political development of russia into a vicious circle: "we murder you because you and your like have murdered us," and thus it goes on in an endless vista like one mirror reflecting another. i admit fully that the kind and degree of violence carried out by the so-called "suffragettes" is of the mildest description; a few panes of glass have been broken, and meetings have been disturbed, but no one has suffered in life or limb; our great movement towards freedom has not been stained by serious crime. compared with the irish nationalist movement in the 'eighties, or the recent unrest in india, the so-called "violence" of the suffragettes is absolutely negligible in degree, except as an indication of their frame of mind. far more violence has been suffered by the suffragettes than they have caused their opponents to suffer. the violence of the stewards at liberal meetings in throwing out either men or women who dared to ask questions about women's suffrage has been most discreditable. it may be hoped it has been checked by an action claiming damages brought on at the leeds assizes in march on behalf of a man who had had his leg broken by the violence with which he had been thrown out of a meeting at bradford by liberal stewards, in the previous november. the judge ruled that his ejection from the meeting was in itself unlawful, and the only question he left to the jury was to assess damages. the jury awarded the plaintiff £ ; this decision was appealed against, but the appeal was withdrawn in october .[ ] mark twain once wrote of the women suffragists in his own country, "for forty years they have swept an imposingly large number of unfair laws from the statute books of america. in this brief time these serfs have set themselves free--essentially. _men could not have done as much for themselves in that time without bloodshed_, at least they never have, and that is an argument that they didn't know how."[ ] perhaps the mild degree of violence perpetrated by the suffragettes was intended to lower our sex pride; we were going to show the world how to gain reforms without violence, without killing people and blowing up buildings, and doing the other silly things that men have done when they wanted the laws altered. lord acton once wrote: "it seems to be a law of political evolution that no great advance in human freedom can be gained except after the display of some kind of violence." we wanted to show that we could make the grand advance in human freedom, at which we aimed without the display of any kind of violence. we have been disappointed in that ambition, but we may still lay the flattering unction to our souls that the violence offered has not been formidable, and that the fiercest of the suffragettes have been far more ready to suffer pain than to inflict it. what those endured who underwent the hunger strike and the anguish of forcible feeding can hardly be overestimated. their courage made a very deep impression on the public and touched the imagination of the whole country. of course a very different measure is applied to men and women in these matters. women are expected to be able to bear every kind of injustice without even "a choleric word"; if men riot when they do not get what they want they are leniently judged, and excesses of which they may be guilty are excused in the house of commons, in the press, and on the bench on the plea of political excitement. compare the line of the press on the strike riots in wales and elsewhere with the tone of the same papers on the comparatively infinitesimal degree of violence shown by the militant suffragists. no one has been more severe in his condemnation of militantism than mr. churchill, but speaking in the house of commons in august , , about the violent riots in connection with parliamentary reform in , he is reported to have said: "it is true there was rioting in , _but the people had no votes then, and had very little choice as to the alternatives they should adopt_." if this is a good argument, why not extend its application to the militant suffragists? the use of physical violence by the militant societies was not the only difference between them and the national union. the two groups between and adopted different election policies. the militants believed, and they had much ground for their belief, that the only chance of a women's suffrage bill being carried into law lay in its adoption by one or other of the great political parties as a party question. the private member, they urged, had no longer a chance of passing an important measure; it must be backed by a government. hence they concluded that the individual member of parliament was of no particular consequence, and they concentrated their efforts at each electoral contest in endeavouring to coerce the government of the day to take up the suffrage cause. their cry in every election was "keep the liberal out," not, as they asserted, from party motives, but because the government of the day, and the government alone, had the power to pass a suffrage bill; and as long as any government declined to take up suffrage they would have to encounter all the opposition which the militants could command. in carrying out this policy they opposed the strongest supporters of women's suffrage if they were also supporters of the government. the national union adopted a different election policy--that of obtaining declarations of opinion from all candidates at each election and supporting the man, independent of party, who gave the most satisfactory assurances of support. in the view of the national union this policy was infinitely more adapted to the facts of the situation than that adopted by the militants. what was desired was that the electorate should be educated in the principles of women's suffrage, and made to understand what women wanted, and why they wanted it; and electors were much more likely to approach the subject in a reasonable frame of mind if they had not been thrown into a violent rage by what they considered an unfair attack upon their own party. to this it was replied that only the liberals were enraged and that the conservatives would be correspondingly conciliated. it did not appear, however, that this was actually the case. the conservatives were not slow to see that their immunity from attack was only temporary; when their turn came to have a government in power the cry would be changed to "keep the conservative out." and then having profoundly irritated one half of the electorate, the militants would go on to irritate the other half. what the national union aimed at was the creation in each constituency of a women's suffrage society on non-party lines, which should by meetings, articles, and educational propaganda of all kinds create so strong a feeling in favour of women's suffrage as to make party managers on both sides realise, in choosing candidates, that they would have a better chance of success with a man who was a suffragist than with a man who was an anti-suffragist. the whole parliamentary situation was altered when in november , and again more explicitly in june and august , mr. asquith promised on behalf of the government that on certain conditions they would grant time for all the stages of a women's suffrage bill during this parliament. this removed the basis on which the militant societies had founded their election policy; it no longer was an impossibility for a private member to carry a reform bill, and it became obvious that the road to success lay in endeavouring, as far as possible, to promote the return of men of all parties to the house of commons who were genuine suffragists. the women's social and political union and the freedom league appreciated the importance of this change, and early in they definitely suspended militant action, and abandoned their original election policy. there was thus harmony in methods as well as unity of aims between the suffrage societies until this harmony was disturbed by the events to be described in the next chapter. chapter vii recent developments "if a great change is to be made in human affairs, the minds of men will be fitted to it; the general opinions and feelings will draw that way. every fear, every hope will forward it, and then they who persist in opposing this mighty current in human affairs, will appear rather to resist the decrees of providence itself, than the mere designs of men. they will not be resolute and firm, but perverse and obstinate."--burke (_thoughts on french affairs_). the parliament elected in january contained an overwhelming liberal majority; it also contained more than members, belonging to all parties, who were pledged to the principle of women's suffrage. a considerable number of these had expressed their adherence to the movement in their election addresses. mr. (now viscount) haldane had said at reading, just before the election, that he considered women's suffrage not only desirable, but necessary, if parliament would grapple successfully with the difficult problems of social reform. mr. lloyd george stigmatised the exclusion of women from the right of voting as "an act of intolerable injustice." sir henry campbell bannerman, the prime minister, who received a deputation containing representatives of all the suffrage societies in may , said that they "had made out a conclusive and irrefutable case." still no promise of government help for the passing of a suffrage bill was forthcoming; the difference of opinion in both parties on the subject of women's suffrage cut across all party ties, and thus hindered government action. it was obvious that no private member, in the changed conditions of modern politics, could pass so important a bill without government help; and no promise of this help could be obtained. the first debate on a women's suffrage bill in the new parliament took place in , when the speaker refused to grant the closure and the bill was talked out. mr. stanger, k.c., m.p., drew a good place in the ballot in , and his bill for the simple removal of the sex disability from existing franchises came on for second reading in february. the closure having been granted, the division resulted in the great majority for the bill of to . but no further progress was made. in may of the same year a deputation of liberal m.p.'s waited on mr. asquith, who had then become prime minister, to press him for aid for passing into law a women's suffrage bill. he admitted that about two-thirds of his cabinet and a majority of his party were favourable to women's suffrage, and while maintaining his own continued opposition to it, made a statement that his government intended to introduce a measure of electoral reform, and that if an amendment for the admission of women were proposed on democratic lines, his government as a government would not oppose it. this was a great advance on the position occupied by mr. gladstone in , when he vehemently opposed a women's suffrage amendment to the reform bill of that year. all the organs of public opinion without exception recognised that this promise advanced the movement for women's suffrage to a higher place in practical politics than it had ever before occupied. the next year, , mr. geoffrey howard, m.p., and other liberal members abandoned the non-party women's suffrage bill which had hitherto always been introduced, and brought forward a bill for what was practically universal adult suffrage; this course alienated all conservative and much moderate liberal support, and was taken in the face of the strongly expressed protests of all the suffrage societies. the division on the second reading showed a majority of only or less than one-fifth of the majority for the more moderate bill. the supporters fell in numbers from to , and the opposition increased from to , and this in a house of commons with the immense combined liberal, labour, and nationalist majority of to . in the house of commons elected successively in january and december the same combination of parties had a majority of about , as compared with a majority of in the parliament of . these figures are most eloquent of the real political situation, and explain why genuine suffragists who want women's names on the register before the next election, supported, in the absence of government aid, a measure on moderate lines calculated to unite the greatest amount of support from all parts of the house, rather than a bill drafted on extreme party lines, which would certainly alienate conservative and moderate liberal support. if an adult suffrage bill could only obtain a majority of when the government majority was , it is easy to predict where it would be when the government majority was reduced to . in december the government announced an immediate dissolution of parliament. for the first time in the history of the women's suffrage movement the political campaign preceding a general election was opened with important declarations from the prime minister and other members of his government on the subject of the enfranchisement of women. at the great meeting of his party at the albert hall, december , , after indicating his own continued opposition to women's suffrage, mr. asquith said: "nearly two years ago i declared on behalf of the present government that in the event, which we then contemplated, of our bringing in a reform bill, we should make the insertion of a suffrage amendment an open question for the house of commons to decide (cheers). our friends and fellow-workers of the women's liberal federation (cheers) have asked me to say that my declaration survives the expiring parliament, and will hold good in its successor, and that their cause, so far as the government is concerned, shall be no worse off in the new parliament than it would have been in the old. i have no hesitation in acceding to that request (cheers). the government ... has no disposition or desire to burke this question; it is clearly an issue on which the new house of commons ought to be given an opportunity to express its views." on the same day sir edward grey, at alnwick, reiterated his continued support of women's suffrage. in reply to a question, he said: "if that means, am i in favour of a reasonable bill for giving votes to women, i have always supported that bill, and i don't think it right to change my opinions because what i believe to be a small minority among women has been very violent and unreasonable." mr. winston churchill, a few days earlier, expressed a similar opinion to that of sir edward grey. the anti-suffragists are never weary of asserting that women's suffrage has never been before the country as a practical political issue. it is difficult to imagine what being "before the country" consists in, if the foregoing declarations on the part of the leaders of the party in power do not indicate that a question has reached this stage. at the general election of january , candidates mentioned in their election addresses that they supported the extension of the parliamentary franchise to women.[ ] in this election the national union organised a voters' petition in support of women's suffrage. the signatures, amounting to over , , were nearly all collected on polling day from electors who had just recorded their own vote. in some constituencies, especially in the north of england, hardly a man refused his signature; the polling number was in each case attached to the signature as a means of identification, and as a guarantee of good faith. no objection has ever been made to our petitions, or signatures disallowed, as in the case of some of the anti-suffrage petitions, on the ground that there were pages of signatures all in the same handwriting. an extremely important event in the development of the suffrage movement in the field of practical politics took place almost simultaneously with the january election. this was the formation of the conciliation committee. it was recognised on all hands that women's suffrage was in an unprecedented parliamentary position; a large majority of members of parliament were pledged to it, but it was not backed by either of the great parties, and consequently lacked the driving power to get through the stages necessary to convert a bill into an act of parliament. this was in part due to differences as to the sort of women's suffrage which members of parliament were prepared to accept. the liberals objected to a bill in the old lines based on the removal of the sex disability, dreading that such a measure would be used as a means of multiplying plural voting, and would thus probably tell heavily against the liberal party. conservatives and moderate liberals objected to the immense addition to the electorate which would be caused by adult suffrage. the conciliation committee was formed with the view of reconciling these differences, by finding a bill which all suffragists could support. with the exception of the chairman, the earl of lytton, and the hon. secretary, mr. h. n. brailsford, it consisted entirely of members of the house of commons favourable to women's suffrage, and representing the parties--liberal, conservative, labour, and nationalist--into which the house is divided. as the result of the work of this committee a bill was arrived at, to which all the parties represented on the committee could agree. the bill was drafted on the lines of simple household suffrage with a clause expressly laying down that marriage was not to be a disqualification. it has never been contended that this is a perfect bill; it was the result of a compromise between the different parties in the house of commons. the conservatives and moderate liberals objected to adult suffrage; the liberals and their allies objected to the old suffrages being simply opened to women for the reasons just indicated; therefore, in deference to liberal objections, the freeholders, occupiers, service, university, lodger, and other franchises were abandoned in the case of women, and in deference to conservative objections adult suffrage was not proposed. the bill which was agreed upon was based upon the democratic principle of household suffrage, of which the country had had more than forty years' experience as far as women were concerned in municipal elections. the principle of the conciliation bill is to make household suffrage a reality. mrs. humphry ward condemns this measure as "absurd."[ ] wherein its absurdity consists she does not explain. household suffrage was the main sheet anchor of all the great reform bills of the last century; it is the basis of most of the local franchises. it is by far the most important, numerically, of all the various existing franchises. an interesting return is published every year of the total number of parliamentary voters, indicating the qualifications under which they vote. that dated february , , shows that in the whole united kingdom there were , , registered electors; of these , , voted as occupiers and householders, while less than , , represented the total of all the other franchises put together. the bill, therefore, which gives women household suffrage admits them to by far the most important suffrage which men enjoy. personally many suffragists would prefer a less restricted measure, but the immense importance and gain to our movement in getting the most effective of all the existing franchises thrown open to women cannot be exaggerated. this was immediately appreciated by all the suffrage societies and also by the women's liberal federation, all of which gave hearty and enthusiastic support to the bill, known as the conciliation bill, to extend household suffrage to women.[ ] the conciliation committee and the suffrage societies successfully refuted the charge made against the conciliation bill that it was undemocratic. it would, if passed, enfranchise approximately , , women, and it was proved conclusively, by careful analysis of the social status of women householders in a large and representative group of constituencies, that the overwhelming majority of these would be working-class women. in london ( ) the proportion of working-class women was shown to be per cent., in dundee ( ), per cent., bangor and carnarvon ( ), per cent. the average in about fifty representative constituencies, where the investigation was conducted under the auspices of the independent labour party, was shown to be per cent. the bill gave no representation to property whatever. the only qualification which it recognised was that of the resident householder. this bill, drawn in such a way as not to admit of amendment, was introduced by mr. shackleton, labour member for clitheroe in the new parliament, elected in january . two days of government time were given for its second reading in july of that year. it was the first time a women's suffrage bill had been the subject of a full-dress debate. parliamentary leaders on both sides took part in it, and the voting was left to the free judgment of the house of commons. among the supporters of the bill were mr. (now viscount) haldane, mr. arthur balfour, mr. philip snowden, and mr. w. redmond, while among its opponents were mr. asquith, mr. austen chamberlain, mr. f. e. smith, and mr. haviland burke. mr. lloyd george and mr. winston churchill also vehemently opposed the bill, not on the ground of opposition to women's enfranchisement, but because of the alleged undemocratic character of this particular measure, and because it was introduced in a form that did not admit of amendment. the division resulted in the large majority of for the second reading, a figure in excess of anything which the government could command for their chief party measures. an analysis of the division list gave the following results, omitting pairs of whom there were :-- for the bill against the bill liberals unionists labour nationalists ---- ---- notwithstanding this large majority the bill was destined to make no further progress that session; but the interval between the second reading and the assembling of parliament for the autumn session was utilised for the organisation of the most remarkable series of public demonstrations of an entirely peaceful character which have probably ever been held in this country in support of any extension of the suffrage. it was estimated that no fewer than public meetings were held in the four months between july and november; the largest halls all over the country were filled again and again; the albert hall was filled twice in one week; the largest meeting ever held in hyde park, when more than half a million of people were assembled, was organised by the women's social and political union. it was at this moment that the remarkable movement, already referred to in chapter v., was begun--the series of petitions from town and other locally elected councils for the speedy passing into law of the measure known as the conciliation bill. the city of glasgow led the way with a unanimous vote of its council. during this autumn sir edward grey, mr. birrell, and mr. runciman made public declarations in support of women's suffrage, and said that in their opinion facilities for the further progress of the bill and its passage into law ought to be provided in . a few months later lord haldane said he hoped "the bill would pass quickly." the most important practical gain for the suffrage movement was, however, achieved in november . early in the month mr. asquith had announced the intention of his government again immediately to dissolve parliament; and on the nd, in reply to a question in the house, he said that the government would, "if they were still in power, give facilities in the next parliament for effectively proceeding with a [women's suffrage] bill, if so framed as to admit of free amendment." these words gave to suffragists the key which enabled them to unlock the doors which barred their progress. the more astute political minds among the anti-suffragists immediately saw the importance of this promise. _the times_, november , announced that it made women's suffrage an issue before the country at the coming election, and added, "if the election confirms the government in power the new parliament _will be considered to have received a mandate on the subject of women's suffrage_."[ ] the feather-heads could see nothing of any importance in this promise, and the _anti-suffrage review_ allowed itself the treat of entitling an article "nod and wink promises." all suffragists of any experience, however, felt that their cause had received an immensely important impetus, and that they were gaining ground not by painful inches but by furlongs. when the session of opened, the conciliation committee was again formed, and good luck smiled upon its members, for three of them drew the first, second, and third places in the ballot, and thus secured an excellent place for the second reading of the bill. the member in charge was sir george kemp, who sits for n.w. manchester. the bill was, of course, drawn so as to admit of free amendment. the second reading was on may , , and there voted for it , and against it . the majority of in had thus grown in to . there were pairs; but the number of members wishing to pair in favour of the bill was so great that the demand could not be satisfied. six of these wrote to the papers explaining their position. adding the pairs, and those who desired to pair, but were unable to do so, the analysis works out as follows:-- for the bill against the bill liberals conservatives labour nationalists ---- ---- almost immediately after this an announcement was made from the front bench that mr. asquith's promise of the previous november that an opportunity should be given for proceeding with the bill in all its stages would be fulfilled during the session of . there was for a time some fencing and difficulty over the point whether this promise applied exclusively to the conciliation bill or to any women's suffrage bill which might obtain a place in the ballot for second reading. all doubt on this subject was finally set at rest on august , by a letter from mr. asquith to lord lytton, in which the prime minister stated that the promises were given in regard to the conciliation bill, and that they would be strictly adhered to both in letter and in spirit. this, then, was the position of the suffrage question between the close of the summer session and the beginning of november . all the suffrage societies were working in complete harmony on the same lines and for the same bill. the militant societies had suspended militant tactics, and also their anti-government election policy. the women's liberal federation, whose co-operation was of great and obvious importance, were uniting their efforts with those of the suffrage societies, when on november , a bombshell was dropped among them in the speech of the prime minister, replying to a deputation from the people's suffrage federation, who presented a memorial asking for adult suffrage. mr. asquith then announced that it was the intention of his government to introduce during the coming session ( ) the electoral reform bill, which he had foreshadowed in , that all existing franchises would be swept away, plural voting abolished, and the period of residence reduced. the new franchise was to be based on citizenship, and votes were to be given "to citizens of full age and competent understanding." but no place was found within the four comers of the bill for the enfranchisement of women. mr. asquith reiterated his promise of facilities for the conciliation bill, and then merely dismissed the subject of women's suffrage with the remark that his opinions upon it were well known. if it had been his object to enrage every women's suffragist to the point of frenzy, he could not have acted with greater perspicacity. years of unexampled effort and self-sacrifice had been expended by women to force upon the government the enfranchisement of women, and when the prime minister spoke the only promise he made was to give more votes to men. mrs. bernard shaw exactly expressed the sentiments of women's suffragists, whether militant or non-militant, when she wrote that mr. asquith's speech filled her with "an impulse of blind rage"; she felt she had been personally insulted, and that he had said to her in effect "that the vilest male wretch who can contrive to keep a house of ill-fame shall have a vote, and that the noblest woman in england shall not have one because she is a female" (_the times_, november , ). it is never safe to act under an impulse of blind rage, and very soon a closer knowledge of the actual facts surrounding and explaining the situation brought the conviction home to many of us, indeed it may be stated to the whole body of suffragists with one important exception,[ ] that the new situation created by mr. asquith's speech, so far from decreasing the chances of success for women's suffrage in had very greatly strengthened them. first of all we were cheered by the courageous and outspoken remonstrances on behalf of women made by _the manchester guardian_ and _the nation_. _the manchester guardian_, (november , ), said that the exclusion of women would be "an outrage and, we hope, an impossibility.... no government calling itself liberal could so far betray liberal principles without incurring deep and lasting discredit and ultimate disaster." the labour party, through its chairman, mr. ramsay macdonald, m.p., also spoke out very plainly. "we shall take care," he said, "that the manhood suffrage bill is not used to destroy the success of the women's agitation, _because we have to admit that it has been the women's agitation that has brought the question of the franchise both for men and women to the front at the present time_." like other experienced parliamentarians, he advised us to hold the government to their pledges about the conciliation bill until we had actually secured something better (_the manchester guardian_, november , ). then we began to hear from those we knew we could trust of meetings that were being held of suffrage members of the government to decide upon a plan of action, so as to secure for women a better chance of enfranchisement through the operation of an amendment to the government bill than we could have if we relied upon the conciliation bill alone. an invitation was received from the prime minister to all the suffrage societies to attend a deputation on the subject. the full report of that deputation was in all the papers of november , . it is sufficient here to say that when mr. asquith spoke he acknowledged the strength and intensity of the demand for women's suffrage, and admitted that in opposing it he was in a minority both in his cabinet and in his party; finally, and most important of all, he added that although he could not initiate and propose the change which women were seeking, he was prepared to bow to, and acquiesce in, the deliberate judgment of the house of commons, and that it was quite in accordance with the best traditions of english public life that he should act thus. a great majority of those who were present thought that the prime minister had recognised that women's suffrage was inevitable, and that it would not be for the benefit of his party that he should withstand to the last this great advance in human freedom. mr. asquith gave positive and definite answers in the affirmative to the four questions which were asked by the national union of women's suffrage societies:-- . is it the intention of the government that the reform bill shall go through all its stages in ? . will the bill be drafted in such a way as to admit of any amendments introducing women on other terms than men? . will the government undertake not to oppose such amendments? . will the government regard any amendment enfranchising woman which is carried as an integral part of the bill in all its stages? almost immediately after this mr. lloyd george authorised the public announcement that he was himself prepared to move the women's suffrage amendment to the reform bill, or, if it was thought best in the interests of women's suffrage, he would be pleased to stand aside in favour of sir edward grey or of some leading conservative. it has been indicated very plainly that the amendment mr. lloyd george himself favours will be one for the enfranchisement of householders and wives of householders. a bill to this effect has been some time before parliament, and is familiarly known as dickinson, no. ; it enacts that when a husband and wife reside together in premises for which, under the existing law, the husband is entitled to vote, the wife shall also be entitled to vote as a joint-occupier. there is a parallel for a provision of this kind in the existing franchise law of norway. sir edward grey, mr. lloyd george, mr. ramsay macdonald, and other suffragists in and out of the house of commons concur in the opinion that the present situation gives our movement almost a certainty of success in the session of . mr. lloyd george opened his campaign for women's suffrage in an important speech at bath on november , . it was a men's meeting, the occasion being the annual congress of the liberal federation. he was received with enthusiasm and made a powerful and well-reasoned speech in favour of the enfranchisement of women. this was followed in december by a meeting in london of the women's liberal federation addressed by sir edward grey and mr. lloyd george.[ ] the former dwelt upon the reasons which weighed with him in favour of the representation of women, and indicated that the amendment to the reform bill which he favoured would be on the lines of women's suffrage in norway, _i.e._ not adult suffrage, but suffrage for women householders, including wives (as indicated on p. ). mr. lloyd george dwelt on the essential partnership of men and women in all the greatest things in human life, and urged that this partnership should be extended to politics. thus the year ended with every prospect of a hard won parliamentary victory for women's suffrage in . women's suffrage always has been, and will remain, a non-party question. the conservative and unionist women's franchise association is working as keenly as any of the other suffrage societies. we shall not succeed in unless we are successful in attracting the support of conservatives as well as liberals and radicals. to aid us in the final struggle it is of no little value that we have the promise of a week's government time for the conciliation bill, if our hopes of carrying a satisfactory amendment to the reform bill should be frustrated. we are on the eve of the fulfilment of our hopes. the goal towards which many of us have been striving for nearly half a century is in sight. i appeal to each and all of my fellow-suffragists not to be over confident, but so to act as if the success of the suffrage cause depended on herself alone. and even if our anticipated victory should be once more delayed, i appeal to them again not to despond but to stand firm and fast, and be prepared to work on as zealously and as steadfastly as of old. a splendid lesson reaches us from america. the great victory for women's suffrage in california in october was at first reported to be a defeat. a group of the leaders, including dr. anna shaw, had been sitting up to the small hours of the morning in the new york women's suffrage office, receiving news from california, miles away. the first returns were so bad that it looked as if nothing could save the situation; and the grief was all the greater because victory had been confidently counted on. dr. anna shaw went away in deep despondency. presently she came back saying she could not sleep, and walking backwards and forwards in the office, she explained a new plan of campaign which her fertile brain had already originated. this is the spirit which is unconquerable and it is our spirit too. he who runs may read the signs of the times. everything points to the growing volume and force of the women's movement. even if victory should be delayed it cannot be delayed long. the suffragists ought to be the happiest of mankind, if happiness has been correctly defined as the perpetual striving for an object of supreme excellence and constantly making a nearer approach to it. a brief review of the women's suffrage movement since its beginning in _reprinted with abbreviations, by kind permission of the national union of women's suffrage societies great smith street, westminster_ history of the women's suffrage movement in parliament in , the word "male" introduced into the reform act (before "person") restricted the parliamentary franchise to men, and debarred women from its use. , lord brougham's act came into operation, which ruled that, in the law of the united kingdom, "words importing the masculine gender shall be deemed to include females, unless the contrary is expressly provided." in , john stuart mill moved an amendment to the representation of the people bill (clause ), to leave out the word "man" and substitute "person." this amendment was lost by a majority of . in , the judges in the chorlton _v._ lings case ruled that in the case of the parliamentary franchise, the word "man" does not include "woman" when referring to privileges granted by the state. since , bills and resolutions have been constantly before the house of commons. debates took place in (twice), , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , (twice), , . altogether, besides resolutions, thirteen bills have been introduced into the house of commons, and seven passed their second reading, _i.e._ in the years , , , , , , . there has been a majority in the house of commons in favour of women's suffrage since . formation of the conciliation committee in the conciliation committee was formed in the house of commons. with the exception of the chairman, the earl of lytton, and the hon. secretary, mr. brailsford, it consisted of members of the house of commons representative of all the political parties. this committee drafted a bill which extended the parliamentary franchise to women householders (about one million in all). this bill, popularly known as the "conciliation bill," was introduced into the house of commons by mr. shackleton. two days of government time were allotted to it, and on july , , it passed its second reading by a majority of , a larger majority than the government got for any of its measures, including the budget. time was refused for the further stages necessary for its passage into law, and parliament dissolved in november . in the new parliament sir george kemp re-introduced the bill; it was nearly the same bill as that introduced by mr. shackleton; but it was given a more general title, leaving it open to amendment. the second reading of this bill took place on may , , and secured a _majority of_ . history of the agitation in the country the first women's suffrage societies were founded in manchester, in london, and in edinburgh in , and in bristol and in birmingham in . these united to form the national union of women's suffrage societies. this union has grown into a large and powerful body, its progress during the last two years being especially remarkable. in january there were affiliated societies; in october there were affiliated societies, and new societies are formed every week. societies of the national union are now, therefore, in existence in all parts of great britain, and take an active part in electoral work. the national union regards this part of its work as the most important it has to do, both as propaganda and as a means of bringing pressure to bear upon the government. its election policy is to oppose its enemies and support its friends, and in carrying out this policy it disregards all parties. for the purposes of its peaceful propaganda, whether by public meetings, petitions, or other constitutional forms of agitation, the n.u.w.s.s. has, during the past year ( ), alone, raised considerably over £ , . more than £ , has also been raised for suffrage work by the women's social and political union. public meetings and demonstrations these have been organised in great numbers. for example:-- in february , women marched in procession in london, from hyde park to exeter hall. in october , women marched in procession through edinburgh. in october , women marched in procession through manchester. in june , , women marched in procession in london to the albert hall. in june more than , women, representing all the suffrage societies, walked in a procession four miles long to the albert hall. public meetings have been held all over the country by all the suffrage societies. it is obviously impossible to enumerate them. we content ourselves with a rough estimate of meetings held in support of the "conciliation bill." these amount to, at least, meetings, including a demonstration in hyde park, attended by half a million people, a demonstration in trafalgar square, attended by , people. also six albert hall meetings (two in one week), and demonstrations held in other cities than london, _e.g._, manchester ( ), edinburgh, bristol, newcastle, guildford, &c., &c. these figures include meetings held by the n.u.w.s.s. and other societies; but leave out of account out-door meetings held in such numbers as to make even a rough estimate impossible. during the summer and autumn of there were at least two or three hundred every week. growth of the movement outside the n.u.w.s.s. many other societies have been formed, having women's suffrage as their sole object. such are the national women's social and political union, the men's league for women's suffrage, the women's freedom league, the national industrial and professional women's suffrage society, the new union, the new constitutional society, the men's political union, the church league, the free church league, the league of catholic women, the league of the society of friends, the tax-resistance league. besides such groups as the artists' league, the suffrage atelier, the actresses' franchise league, the society of women graduates, the women writers' suffrage league, the younger suffragists, the cambridge university men's league, the london graduates' union for women's suffrage, the gymnastic teachers' suffrage society, &c., &c. there is also the irish women's suffrage and local government association, and an irish women's franchise league. within the political parties there have been formed the forward suffrage union (within the women's liberal federation), the conservative and unionist women's franchise association, the people's suffrage federation (which demands the suffrage for all adult men and women). the following organisations have officially identified themselves with the demand for some measure of women's suffrage:--the london liberal federation, the women's liberal federation, the welsh women's liberal federation, the independent labour party, the fabian society. other societies have repeatedly petitioned parliament, or passed resolutions asking for a measure of women's suffrage. among them the national british women's temperance association ( , members), the scottish union of the above ( , members), the national union of women workers (the largest women's union, numbers not exactly known), the international council of women, the association of headmistresses, the association of university women teachers, the incorporated assistant mistresses in secondary schools, the society of registered nurses, the nurses' international congress, the women's co-operative guild (the only organised body representing the married working-women of this country). resolutions in favour of the "conciliation bill" have been passed by trades and labour councils, and trades unions and federations. moreover, during the year between october and october more than town and other local councils petitioned parliament in favour of women's suffrage; among the town councils who have done this are those of liverpool, manchester, sheffield, birmingham, leeds, bradford, huddersfield, brighton, dover, edinburgh, glasgow, dundee, inverness, dublin,[ ] limerick, cork, cardiff, and bangor. it is to be remembered that these bodies represent women as well as men, as women already possess the municipal franchise. women's suffrage in other countries the suffrage movement has now become world-wide. the international women's suffrage alliance, which meets quadrennially, includes societies in austria, australia, belgium, bohemia, bulgaria, canada, denmark, finland, france, germany, great britain, hungary, italy, netherlands, norway, portugal, russia, cape colony, natal, sweden, switzerland, the united states. women's suffrage was granted in-- wyoming, u.s.a. in colorado, u.s.a. " new zealand " south australia " utah, u.s.a. " idaho, u.s.a. " w. australia " the commonwealth of australia " new south wales " tasmania " queensland " finland " norway " victoria " washington, u.s.a. " california, u.s.a. " it will be noticed that all the australian states have now granted women's suffrage. that they have done so proves that they realised its beneficial effects, where they could actually see it in working as state after state came into line. list of books _the subjection of women._ by j. s. mill. _on liberty._ by j. s. mill _on representative government._ by j. s. mill. _essays and dissertations_ (vol. ii.). by j. s. mill. article by mrs. mill on the enfranchisement of women. _letters._ by j. s. mill. edited by hugh elliot. _record of women's suffrage._ by helen blackburn. _a handbook for women._ by helen blackburn. articles on women's rights in _encyclopædia britannica_ and in _chambers's encyclopædia_. _the emancipation of english women._ by w. lyon blease. _questions relating to women._ by emily davies, ll.d. _women and labour._ by olive schreiner. _the suffragette._ by e. sylvia pankhurst. _the status of women, - ._ by the misses wallis chapman. _women's work in local government._ by jane e. brownlow. _the life of josephine butler._ _pioneer work in opening the medical profession to women._ by dr. elizabeth blackwell. _women's suffrage in many lands._ by alice zimmern. _the englishwoman._ by david staars. _the women's franchise movement in new zealand._ by w. sidney smith. _le vote des femmes._ par ferdinand buisson, député de la seine et président de la commission du suffrage universel. _women and economies._ by charlotte perkins gilman. _common-sense applied to women's suffrage._ by mary putnam jacobi, m.d. _equal suffrage._ by helen sumner, ph.d. _a short history of women's rights._ by eugene hecker. _reports of the international women's suffrage alliance._ footnotes [ ] _vindication of the rights of women_, published in . [ ] see _le vote des femmes_, pp. - , par ferdinand buisson, député de la seine et président de la commission du suffrage universelle. condorcet had a predecessor in mademoiselle jars de gournay, the friend of montaigne. see miss e. sichel's _michel de montaigne_, p. . [ ] helen blackburn's _record of women's suffrage_, also _women in english life_, by miss georgina hill. mrs. wheeler's daughter rosina, married mr. lytton bulwer, afterwards the first lord lytton. the present earl of lytton is thus the great-grandson of the lady who prompted the reply to james mill's article referred to in the text. [ ] this view has also been supported in france, see _le vote des femmes_, by ferdinand buisson, for evidence of women having in ancient times voted and sat in the parlements of france. taine also mentions the countess of perigord sitting in the États of her province prior to the revolution (_les origines de la france contemporaire_, par h. taine, vol. i. p. ). [ ] _annals of a yorkshire house_, vol. ii. p. . [ ] report of the manchester national society for women's suffrage, . [ ] _the life of mrs. norton_, by miss jane gray perkins (john murray). [ ] the date of this speech is given in miss blackburn's _record of woman's suffrage_ as , the only mistake i have found in her careful and faithful history. [ ] see the interesting picture in the staircase of the national portrait gallery, london. [ ] morley's _life of gladstone_, vol. i. p. . [ ] _james mill: a biography_, by alexander bain, ll.d., p. . [ ] _representative government_, by j. s. mill, pp. - . [ ] _dissertations and discussions_, by j. s. mill, vol. ii. p. . [ ] _autobiography_, p. . [ ] the census of shows that the excess of women over men is in the proportion of women to men, and that this proportion has changed but little during the last hundred and ten years. [ ] _record of women's suffrage_, by helen blackburn, pp. , , . [ ] _record of women's suffrage_, p. , by helen blackburn. [ ] a few isolated associations of liberal women had existed before this. there was one at bristol started in ; but nothing was done on an extended scale till . [ ] an important new departure in journalism was taken by _the standard_ in october . this paper now devotes more than a page daily to a full statement both of events and arguments bearing on all sides of the suffrage and other women's questions. [ ] see _outlines of the women's franchise movement in new zealand_, by w. sydney smith. whitecombe & tombs, ltd., christchurch, n.z. . [ ] see report by sir charles lucas, who visited new zealand on behalf of the colonial office in . [ ] see _colonial statesmen and votes for women_, published by the freedom league, p. . [ ] see letter from miss alice stone blackwell in _manchester guardian_, july , . [ ] see _anti-suffrage review_, no. , p. . [ ] the exact numbers in england and wales (autumn ) are fifteen on town councils (two being mayors) and four on county councils. [ ] as an example i quote the canvass of women municipal electors in reading made respectively by the suffragists in and anti-suffragists in . when the suffragists canvassed, the results were:-- did not answer in favour against and neutral when the anti-suffragists canvassed in the results were:-- did not answer in favour against and neutral with such disparity as this between the two returns no conclusion can possibly be drawn from either without further investigation of the methods pursued. [ ] see statistical abstract from the united kingdom. [ ] quoted in lord morley's _studies in literature_, pp. , . the reference there given for the extract is _order and progress_, by frederic harrison, pp. - . [ ] _early history of charles james fox_, by the rt. hon. sir g. o. trevelyan, p. . [ ] _anti-suffrage review_, december . [ ] see p. . [ ] see _the suffragette_, by miss e. sylvia pankhurst (gay and hancock, ). [ ] see _garibaldi and the making of italy_, by g. m. trevelyan, p. . [ ] morley's _life of gladstone_, vol. iii. p. . [ ] i have in my possession positive proof that orders were given to the police not to arrest a particular lady whose name is well known and highly respected in every part of the country. [ ] i am requested by the women's freedom league to state that they have never resorted to stone-throwing or to personal assaults. [ ] a third protest was published in december . [ ] morley's _life of oliver cromwell_, pp. - . [ ] see summing up of mr. justice avory in hawkins _v._ muff case. _a warning to liberal stewards_, published by the men's political union, . [ ] _more tramps abroad_, by mark twain, p. . [ ] see the annual report of the national union of women's suffrage societies presented in march . [ ] _standard_, oct. , . [ ] see resolution adopted by the executive committee of the women's liberal federation, quoted in _standard_, october , :-- "that ... the executive resolves that until definite promises are made of a government reform bill including women they will support by all means in their power the bill promoted by the conciliation committee and will pursue with regard to amendments to that bill such a policy as circumstances show to be most likely to secure for it a substantial third reading majority." [ ] see "political notes," _times_, november , . [ ] the woman's social and political union dissented from this view. they resumed militant tactics, and scenes of considerable disorder occurred on november and november , . [ ] these speeches can be obtained from the women's liberal federation, victoria street, london, s.w. [ ] the corporation of dublin authorised the lord mayor and other officers to attend in their robes and present the dublin petition in person at the bar of the house of commons. index acton, lord, on political violence, adult suffrage bill, , ---- , - america, women's suffrage in, amos, mr. and mrs. sheldon, anderson, mrs. garrett, m.d. _see_ garrett anti-corn law league, anti-slavery movement in america, ---- congress, anti-suffrage league, the, _anti-suffrage review_, quoted, , , anti-suffragists, arguments of, ---- and the insurance bill, ---- and municipal franchise, , , ---- letter against conciliation bill, , ---- movement in united states, ---- protest in _nineteenth century_ ( ), ---- tactics of, , , , - ashton, miss margaret, asquith, mr., on facilities for suffrage bill, , , ---- on position of women under manhood suffrage bill, , , ---- on women's political activity, ---- on women's suffrage, , , , australia, women's suffrage in, , , , , , bannerman, sir h. campbell, on women's suffrage, becker, miss lydia, , begg, mr. faithfull, women's suffrage bill of, , birrell, mr., on women's suffrage, blackwell, dr. elizabeth, blake, miss jex, bodichon, mrs., , borthwick, sir algernon, , brailsford, mr. h. n., , bright, mr. jacob, bright, john, on parliamentary reform, ---- on women's suffrage, brougham's act, lord, , browning, e. b., _aurora leigh_, bryce, rt. hon. james, burke on dissenters' petition, butler, mrs. josephine, , california, women's suffrage in, , canvassing, , chorlton _v._ lings, case of, , churchill, lord randolph, churchill, mr. winston, on militant tactics, , ---- on women's suffrage, , clark, mrs. helen, cobbe, frances power, cobden on women's suffrage, conciliation committee, the, , , conciliation bill (mr. shackleton's), , , , ---- (sir george kemp's), , - , , ---- anti-suffragists' protest against, , ---- petitions and resolutions in favour of, condorcet, contagious diseases acts, corrupt practices act, , creighton, mrs., crimean war, the, cromer, lord, on women's suffrage, cromwell, on gains by force, davies, miss emily, , , demonstrations, public, , despard, mrs., disraeli, on women's suffrage, , dissenters' petition, burke on, , divorce act, , dublin, lord mayor of, _n._ electoral reform bill, , - elmy, mrs. wolstenholme, fawcett, the rt. hon. h., , finland, women's suffrage in, , , fisher, mr., on women's suffrage, five mile act, fry, mrs. elizabeth, garrett, miss elizabeth, , , garrison, william lloyd, general election, , gladstone, mr., on divorce bill, , ---- on household suffrage, ---- opposition to reform bill, , ---- on women's political activity, ---- on women's suffrage, , , godwin, william, goschen, lord, on agricultural labourers' franchise, grey, mrs. william, grey, sir edward, on women's suffrage, , , , guardianship of children act, gurney, miss, ---- rt. hon. russell, , haldane, lord, on women's suffrage, , , hall, sir john, , harrison, frederic, on powers of the elector, herschell, miss caroline, hill, miss davenport, household suffrage, , , , howard, mr. g., adult suffrage bill, , iddesleigh, lord. _see_ northcote indian mutiny, infants' custody act, insurance bill, the, isle of man, women's suffrage in, james, lord, on corrupt practices act, , ---- on women's suffrage, , jameson, mrs., kemp, sir george, conciliation bill ( ) introduced by, , , knight, anne, labouchere, mr., attitude to suffrage bills, langton, lady anna gore, leavitt, mrs., lees, mrs., lloyd george, mr., on women's suffrage, , , local government qualification of women's act, , , lyne, sir william, on women's suffrage, lytton, earl of, _n._, , , macdonald, mr. ramsay, , m'laren, mrs. duncan, m'laren, mr. walter, _manchester guardian, the_, on women's suffrage, manhood suffrage bill, , - markham, miss violet, , married women's property act, , martineau, harriet, medical profession opened to women, militant societies, the, ---- election policy of, mill, james, on women's suffrage, , , mill, john stuart, on enfranchisement of women, , , ---- and women's parliamentary petition, ---- women's suffrage amendment bill, , , mill, mrs. john stuart, on enfranchisement of women, , morley, viscount, , , mott, lucretia, müller, mrs., municipal corporation act, , municipal suffrage, , , ---- anti-suffragist support of, national union of women's suffrage societies, , , , , ---- election policy, of ---- protests against militant tactics, national women's liberal association, new zealand, women's suffrage in, , , , ---- electoral roll of, nightingale, miss florence, , northcote, sir stafford, norton, hon. mrs., , norway, women's suffrage in, , , pankhurst, dr., pankhurst, mrs. and miss, people's suffrage federation, , peterloo massacre, the, petitions from town councils, , pochin, mrs., poor law guardians, qualifications of, primrose league, the, , public meetings and demonstrations, , rathbone, miss eleanor, reeves, w. p., on women's suffrage, reform acts, exclusion of females, reform bill, and , , , ---- , - ---- , - rollit, sir a., women's suffrage bill ( ) introduced by, , royal astronomical society, women members of, runciman, mr., on women's suffrage, school boards, women members of, , seddon, mr. richard, serjeant talfourd's act, , shackleton, mr., conciliation bill, , , , shaw, dr. anna, shaw, mrs. bernard, on reform suffrage bill, , sheffield female political association, sherriff, miss, sidgwick, henry, smith, mr. goldwin, , smith, sydney, on education for women, societies, suffrage, south african war, the, , , somerville, mrs., , stanfield, sir james, stanger, mr., women's suffrage bill ( ) introduced by, stanhope, mrs. spencer, quoted, stanton, elizabeth cady, stevenson, miss flora, stuart, mr. james, suffrage societies, , swanwick, miss, taylor, mrs. peter, test act, the, thackeray, in _esmond_, on domestic tyranny, _times, the_, on women's suffrage, town councils, petitions from, , town and county councils qualification bill, , trades union congress (aberdeen) and women's suffrage, twain, mark, on women's suffrage, united states, anti-suffrage movement in, ---- women's suffrage in, , , university education opened to women, unwin, mrs. cobden, voters' petition, the, , walpole, horace, on mary wollstonecraft, ward, mrs. humphry, on women's suffrage, , , , ---- on conciliation bill, , ---- on representation in local government, , ---- political activity of, webb, mrs. sidney, wheeler, mrs., on women's suffrage, wollstonecraft, mary, , women, in local government, ---- as members of school boards, ---- as municipal voters, , ---- as poor law guardians, ---- political activity of, , , , , , women's freedom league, women's liberal federation, , , ---- and conciliation bill, women's rights convention at seneca falls, u.s.a., women's social and political union, ---- election policy of, women's suffrage, arguments against, ---- beginnings of, women's suffrage, conservative objections to, ---- not a party question, , , ---- ---- support of, ---- historical aspect of, ---- in greater britain, ---- in isle of man, ---- in other countries, ---- in united states, , , ---- liberal objections to, ---- ---- support of, ---- pioneers of, , , , , , , , ---- political aspect of, ---- position in - , - ---- position under reform bill, , - ---- recent developments, ---- resolutions and petitions in favour of, , , , ---- societies, , , , ---- summary of movement, women's suffrage amendment (j. s. mill's), , women's suffrage amendment bill (mr. woodall's), , , , women's suffrage bill, (mr. jacob bright's), ---- (sir a. rollit's), ---- (mr. f. begg's), , ---- (mr. stanger's), ---- (mr. shackleton's), , , ---- (sir g. kemp's), , . _see also_ summary, p. woodall, mr., suffrage amendment bill ( ) introduced by, , wyoming, women's suffrage in, , printed by ballantyne, hanson & co. edinburgh & london the people's books the first sixty volumes the volumes now (february ) issued are marked with an asterisk. a further twelve volumes will be issued in may science . introduction to science by c. d. whetham, m.a., f.r.s. . embryology--the beginnings of life by prof. gerald leighton, m.d. . biology--the science of life by prof. w. d. henderson, m.a., b.sc., ph.d. . animal life by prof. e. w. macbride d.sc., f.r.s. * . botany; the modern study of plants by m. c. stopes, d.sc., ph.d., f.l.s. . bacteriology by w. e. carnegie dickson, m.d., b.sc. . geology by the rev. t. g. bonney, f.r.s. . evolution by e. s. goodrich, m.a., f.r.s. . darwin by prof. w. garstang, m.a., d.sc., f.z.s. * . heredity by j. a. s. watson, b.sc. . chemistry of non-living things by prof. e. c. c. baly, f.r.s. * . organic chemistry by prof. j. b. cohen, b.sc., f.r.s. * . the principles of electricity by norman r. campbell, m.a. . radiation by p. phillips, d.sc. * . the science of the stars by e. w. maunder, f.r.a.s., of the royal observatory, greenwich. . light, according to modern science by p. phillips, d.sc. . weather-science by r. g. f. k. lempfert, m.a., of the meteorological office. . hypnotism by alice hutchison, m.d. . the baby: a mother's book by a mother by a university woman. . youth and sex--dangers and safeguards for boys and girls by mary scharlieb, m.d., m.s., and g. e. c. pritchard, m.a., m.d. . marriage and motherhood--a wife's handbook by h. s. davidson, m.b., f.r.c.s.e. . lord kelvin by a. e. russell, m.a., d.sc., m.i.e.e. . huxley by professor g. leighton, m.d. . sir w. huggins and spectroscopic astronomy by e.w. maunder, f.r.a.s., of the royal observatory, greenwich. philosophy and religion . the meaning of philosophy by prof. a. e. taylor, m. a., f.b a. * . henri bergson: the philosophy of change by h. wildon carr. . psychology by h. j. watt, m.a., ph.d. . ethics by the rev. canon hastings rashdall, d.litt., f.b.a. . kant's philosophy by a. d. lindsay, m.a. . the teaching of plato by a. d. lindsay, m.a. . buddhism by prof. t. w. rhys davids, m.a., f.b.a. * . roman catholicism by h. b. coxon. preface, mgr. r. h. benson. . the oxford movement by wilfrid p. ward. . the bible in the light of the higher criticism by the rev. principal w. f. adeney, m.a., d.d., and the rev. prof. w. h. bennett, litt.d., d.d. . cardinal newman by wilfrid meynell. history . the growth of freedom by h. w. nevinson. . bismarck and the foundation of the german empire by prof. f. m. powicke, m.a. . oliver cromwell by hilda johnstone, m.a. * . mary queen of scots by e. o'neill, m.a. . cecil rhodes by ian colvin. . julius cæsar: soldier, statesman, emperor by hilary hardinge. history of england-- . england in the making by prof. f. j. c. hearnshaw, m.a., ll.d. . medieval england by e. o'neill, m.a. . the monarchy and the people by w. t. waugh, m.a. . the industrial revolution by a. jones, m.a. . empire and democracy by g. s. veitch, m.a. social and economic * . women's suffrage--a short history of a great movement by m. g. fawcett, ll.d. . the working of the british system of government to-day by prof. ramsay muir, m.a. . an introduction to economic science by prof. h. o. meredith, m.a. . socialism by f. b. kirkman, b.a. letters * . shakespeare by prof. c. h. herford, litt.d. . wordsworth by miss rosaline masson. * . pure gold--a choice of lyrics and sonnets by h. c. o'neill. . francis bacon by prof. a. r. skemp, m.a. . the brontës by miss flora masson. . carlyle by the rev. l. maclean watt. * . dante by a. g. ferrers howell. . ruskin by a. blyth webster, m.a. . common faults in writing english by prof. a. r. skemp, m.a. . a dictionary of synonyms by austin k. gray, b.a. london: t. c. & e. c. jack, long acre, w.c., & edinburgh new york: the dodge publishing co. * * * * * transcriber's notes minor punctuation and printer errors repaired. footnote anchors for footnotes and were missing in the original and have been inserted. produced from scanned images of public domain material from the google print project.) the mother of parliaments [illustration: the houses of parliament] the mother of parliaments by harry graham author of "a group of scottish women" with twenty illustrations boston little, brown, & company to my wife preface the history of england's parliament is the history of the english people. to the latter it must consequently prove a source of never-failing interest. that it does so is clearly shown by the long list of writers who have sought and found inspiration in the subject. to add to their number may perhaps seem an unnecessary, even a superfluous, task. this volume may indeed be likened to that "old piece in a new dress" to which petyt compared his _lex parliamentaria_. "these things, men will say, have been done before; the same matter, and much the same form, are to be found in other writers, and this is but to obtrude upon the world a vain repetition of other men's observations." but although the frank use of secondhand matter cannot in this case be denied, it is to be hoped that even the oldest and most threadbare material may be woven into a fresh pattern, suitable to modern taste. in these democratic days a seat in either house of parliament is no longer the monopoly of a single privileged class: it lies within the reach of all who can afford the luxury of representing either themselves or their fellows at westminster. it is therefore only natural that the interest in parliamentary affairs should be more widely disseminated to-day than ever. it does not confine itself to actual or potential members of both houses, but is to be found in the bosom of the humblest constituent, and even of that shadowy individual vaguely referred to as the man in the street. though, however, the interest in parliament is widespread, a knowledge of parliamentary forms, of the actual conduct of business in either house, of the working of the parliamentary machine, is less universal. at the present time the sources of information open to the student of parliamentary history may roughly be regarded as twofold. for the earnest scholar, desirous of examining the basis and groundwork of the constitution, the birth and growth of parliament, the gradual extension and development of its power, its privileges and procedure, the writings of all the great english historians, and of such parliamentary experts as hatsell, may, palgrave, sir william anson, sir courtenay ilbert and professor redlich, provide a rich mine of information. that more considerable section of the reading public which seeks to be entertained rather than instructed, can have its needs supplied by less technical but no less able parliamentary writers--sir henry w. lucy, mr. t. p. o'connor, mr. macdonagh--none of whom, as a rule, attempts to do more than touch lightly upon fundamental constitutional questions. the idea of combining instruction with amusement is one from which every normal-minded being naturally shrinks: the attempt generally results in the failure either to inform or entertain. there does, however, seem to be room for a volume on the subject of parliament which shall be sufficiently instructive to appeal to the student, and yet not so technical as to alarm or repel the general reader. it is with the object of supplying the need for such a book that the following pages have been written. an endeavour to satisfy the tastes of every class of reader and at the same time to cover the whole field of parliamentary history within the limits of a single volume, must necessarily lead to many errors of admission as well as of omission. the material at the disposal of the author is so vast, and the difficulties of rejection and selection are equally formidable. much of the information given must perforce be so familiar as to appear almost hackneyed. many of the stories with which these pages are sprinkled bear upon them the imprint of extreme old age; they are grey with the cobwebs of antiquity. but while the epigram of the past is too often the commonplace of the present, the witty anecdote of one generation, which seems to another to plumb the uttermost abysses of fatuity, may yet survive to be considered a brilliant example of humour by a third. the reader, therefore, who recognises old favourites scattered here and there about the letterpress, will deride or tolerate them in accordance with the respect or contempt that he entertains for the antique. i cannot lay claim to the possession of expert parliamentary knowledge, though perhaps, after close upon fifteen years' residence within the precincts of the palace of westminster, i may have acquired a certain intimacy with the life and habits of the mother of parliaments. for my facts i have to a great extent relied upon the researches of numerous parliamentary writers, past and present, to whom i have endeavoured to express my indebtedness, not only in copious footnotes, but also in the complete list of all sources of information given at the end of this volume. i wish to express my thanks to the many friends and acquaintances who have so kindly assisted me with their counsel and encouragement; to mr. kenyon, mr. sidney colvin and the officials of the print room and reading room at the british museum; to sir alfred scott-gatty, garter king-at-arms; to mr. edmund gosse, librarian of the house of lords, and other officers of both houses. my thanks are particularly due to sir henry graham, clerk of the parliaments, who placed his unique parliamentary experience at my disposal, and whose invaluable advice and assistance have so greatly tended to lighten and facilitate my literary labours. h. g. contents chap. page preface v i. parliament and party ii. the house of lords iii. the house of commons iv. the palace of westminster v. his majesty's servants vi. the lord chancellor vii. the speaker viii. the opening of parliament ix. rules of debate x. parliamentary privilege and punishment xi. parliamentary dress and deportment xii. parliamentary eloquence xiii. parliament at work (i.) xiv. parliament at work (ii.) xv. strangers in parliament xvi. parliamentary reporting sources and references index list of illustrations the houses of parliament _frontispiece_ from a photograph by j. valentine & sons facing page the house of lords in from an engraving by john pine the house of commons in from an engraving by john pine westminster hall in from an engraving by c. mosley the remains of st. stephen's chapel after the fire of from a lithograph after the drawing by john taylor, jr. sir robert walpole from the painting by francis hayman, r.a., in the national portrait gallery chatham from the painting by william hoare, r.a., in the national portrait gallery a cabinet meeting (the coalition ministry of ) from the drawing by sir john gilbert lord eldon from the painting by sir thomas lawrence, p.r.a., in the national portrait gallery charles abbot (lord colchester) from the painting by john hoppner, r.a., in the national portrait gallery the treasury bench in from an engraving after the painting by j. philip the house of commons in from a photograph by london electrotype agency the house of commons in from an engraving by samuel cousins from the painting by h. w. burgess henry brougham (queen caroline's attorney-general, afterwards lord high chancellor of great britain) from the painting by james lonsdale in the national portrait gallery the house of commons in walpole's day from the engraving by a. fogg the figures from left to right are:--sir robert walpole, the rt. hon. arthur onslow, sydney godolphin (father of the house), sir joseph jekyl, col. onslow, edward stables, esq. (clerk of house of commons), sir james thornhill, mr. aiskew (clerk assistant). edmund burke from an engraving by j. watson after the painting by sir j. reynolds richard brinsley sheridan from an engraving by j. hall after the painting by sir j. reynolds the passing of the reform bill in the house of lords from an engraving after the painting by sir j. reynolds the house of lords in from a photograph by london electrotype agency william woodfall from the painting by thomas beach in the national portrait gallery the mother of parliaments chapter i parliament and party it has been asserted that the different social conditions of various peoples have their origin, not so much in climate or parentage, as in the character of their governments. if that be true, there is little doubt that the social conditions of england should compare most favourably with those of sister nations. but the admirable form of government to which englishmen have now long been accustomed, did not come into existence in the course of a single night. "the resemblance between the present constitution and that from which it originally sprang," says an eighteenth-century writer, "is not much nearer than that between the most beautiful fly and the abject worm from which it arose."[ ] and the conversion of the chrysalis into the butterfly has been a slow and troublesome process. [ ] king's "essay on the english constitution," p. . montesquieu, who was an earnest student of the english constitution, after reading the treatise of tacitus on the manners of the early germans, declared that it was from them that england had borrowed her idea of political government. whether or no this "beautiful system was first invented in the woods,"[ ] as he says, it is certain that we owe the primary principles of our existing constitution to german sources. they date back to the earliest days of the first settlements of teutons on the kentish shores. [ ] "the spirit of laws." "works," vol. i. p. . to the word "parliament" many derivations have been assigned. petyt explains the name as suggesting that every member of the assembly which it designates should _parler le ment_ or speak his mind.[ ] another authority derives it from two celtic words, signifying to "speak abundantly"--a meaning which is more applicable in these garrulous times than it was in days when debate was often punctuated by lengthy intervals of complete silence. [ ] "lex parliamentaria" ( ), p. . whatever its derivation, the word no doubt referred originally to the "deep speech" which the kings of old held with their councillors. the first mention of it, in connexion with a national assembly, occurs in , when it was used by matthew prior of a general convocation of english barons. about thirty years later it appears again in the preamble to the first statute of westminster. it has now come to be employed entirely to describe that combination of the three estates, the lords spiritual, the lords temporal and the commons, which with the crown form the supreme legislative government of the country. the ancient britons possessed a parliament of a kind, called the _commune concilium_. under the heptarchy each king in england enjoyed the services of an assembly of wise men--or witenagemot, as it was called--which advised him upon matters of national importance. the witan sat as a court of justice, formed the council of the chiefs, and could impose taxes and even depose the king, though the latter too often took the whole of their powers into his own hands. when the separate kingdoms became united, their different councils were absorbed into the one great gemot of wessex. this, in anglo-saxon times, was a small body, consisting of less than a score of bishops, a number of ealdormen (or heads of the different shires), and certain vassal members. this senate was undoubtedly the germ of all future systems of parliamentary government; and though for the first two hundred years after the conquest there is no historical record of the meeting of any body corresponding to our present parliament, from the days of the witenagemot to our own times the continuity of our national assemblies has never been broken. the parliamentary historian suffers much from the lack of early records. none were kept in anglo-saxon times, the judgments of the witan being only recorded in the memory of the judges themselves. the rolls of parliament begin with the year --though the first mention of the commons does not occur until --and somewhere about edward iii.'s reign was written a volume called the "vetus codex" or "black book" which contains transcripts of various parliamentary proceedings. at the time of the restoration of charles ii., prynne, the antiquarian, set himself the task of exhuming old records, and catalogued nearly a hundred parcels of ancient writs, private petitions, and returns. the mss. which he worked upon were so dirty that he could not induce any one else to clean them, and was forced to labour alone. wearing a nightcap over his eyes, to keep out the dust, and fortified by continual draughts of ale, he proceeded cheerfully with this laborious undertaking upon which he finally based the book which has made him famous.[ ] [ ] "a brief register of parliamentary writs" ( ). the house of commons journals begin with edward vi. those of the lords at the accession of henry viii. and though during the early part of the seventeenth century speeches were reported at some length in the commons journals, in the lords only the bills read and such matters are recorded.[ ] the material to work upon is consequently of an exiguous nature, until we reach the later days of freedom of the press and publicity of debates. [ ] elsynge, clerk of the parliaments in the seventeenth century, took notes of the lords' speeches, which have been published by the camden society ( - ). the history of parliament proper divides itself naturally into four distinct periods. the first may be said to stretch from the middle of the thirteenth to nearly the end of the fifteenth century; the second dates from the accession of henry vii., and extends to the revolution of . the remaining century and a half, up to the reform bill of , forms the third period; and with the passing of that momentous act commences the last and most important epoch of all. during the first two periods of parliamentary history, the whole authority of government was vested in the crown; during the third it gradually passed into the possession of the aristocracy: and it is only within the last century that the people, through their representatives in the house of commons, have gained a complete political ascendency. from the days of the absolute monarchy of norman sovereigns until the reign of king john, the crown, the church, the barons, and the people, were always struggling with each other; in that reign the three last forces combined against the king. the struggle was never subsequently relaxed, but it took over six centuries to transfer the governing power of the country from the hands of one individual to that of the whole people. prior to the reign of henry iii., no regular legislative assembly existed, though the king would occasionally summon councils of the great men of the land for consultative purposes. in william the conqueror's time the ownership of land became the qualification for the witenagemot, and the national council which succeeded that assembly thus became a council of the king's feudal vassals, and not necessarily an assembly of wise men. when, however, simon de montford overthrew henry iii. at lewes, he summoned a convocation which included representative knights and burgesses, and the parliamentary system, thus instituted, was subsequently adopted by edward i. "many things have changed," says dr. gardiner in his "history of england," "but in all main points the parliament of england, as it exists at this day, is the same as that which gathered around the great plantagenet." the first full parliament in english history may, therefore, be said to have been summoned by edward i. on november , , and represented every class of the people. parliament thereafter gradually resolved itself into two separate groups; on the one hand the barons and prelates, representing the aristocracy and the church, on the other the knights and burgesses, representing the county freeholders, citizens and boroughfolk. the former constituted a high court of justice and final court of appeal; the chief duty of the latter lay in levying taxes, and they were not usually summoned unless the crown were in need of money. these two component groups originally sat together, forming a collective assembly from which the modern parliament has gradually developed. in the early days of parliament the lords came to be regarded as the king's council, over which he presided in person; the commons occupied a secondary and insignificant position. the power of legislating was entirely in the hands of the king, who framed whatever laws he deemed expedient, acting on the humble petition of his people. the crown thus exercised absolute control over parliament, and the royal yoke was not destined to be thrown off for many hundreds of years. in the reign of edward iii., the meetings of parliament were uncertain and infrequent; its duration was brief. three or four parliaments would be held every year, and only sat for a few weeks at a time. the king's prerogative to dissolve parliament whenever he so desired--"of all trusts vested in his majesty," as burke says, "the most critical and delicate"[ ] was one of which mediæval monarchs freely availed themselves in the days when parliament had not yet found, nor indeed realised, its potential strength. [ ] "works and correspondence," vol. iii. p. . (the power to dissolve parliament is still theoretically in the hands of the sovereign; practically it is in those of the cabinet. parliament has only been dissolved once by the sovereign since the beginning of the eighteenth century.) during the reigns of the tudors and stuarts, the power of the crown was still supreme, though many attempts were made to weaken it. this second period of history, between and , was a time of peculiar political stress, in which parliament and the crown were engaged in a perpetual conflict. kings maintained their influence by a mixture of threats and cajolery which long proved effective. in , for instance, we find henry viii. warning the house of commons that, unless some measure in which he was interested were passed, certain members of that assembly would undoubtedly lose their heads.[ ] [ ] oldfield's "history of great britain and ireland," vol. i. p. . the stuart kings were in the habit of suborning members of both houses, by the gift of various lucrative posts or the lavish distribution of bribes. it was ever the royal desire to weaken parliament, and this end was attained in a variety of ways. in the early part of the seventeenth century, we hear of charles i. summoning to hampton court certain members whose loyalty he distrusted or whose absence from parliament he desired. on one such occasion the earls of essex and holland refused to obey his command, saying that their parliamentary writ had precedence of any royal summons--an expression of independence for which they were dismissed from the court.[ ] [ ] may's "a breviary of the history of parliament" ( ), p. . in the time of charles ii. a definite system of influencing members of parliament by gifts of money was first framed, lord clifford, the lord treasurer, being allowed a sum of £ , for the purpose. the fact of holding an appointment in the pay of the crown was in itself considered sufficient to bind a member to vote in accordance with the royal will. in , when many members who were in the government service threatened to vote against the court, middleton, the secretary of state, bitterly reproached them with breach of faith. "have you not a troop of horse in his majesty's service?" he asked of a certain captain kendall. "yes, my lord," was the reply, "but my brother died last night and left me £ a year!"[ ] [ ] burnet's "history of his own times," vol. iii. p. n. andrew marvell has drawn a vivid but disagreeable picture of the parliament which was summoned immediately after the restoration. half the members of the house of commons he described as "court cullies"--the word "to cully" meaning apparently to befool or cheat--and in "a list of the principal labourers in the great design of popery and arbitrary law," gives a catalogue of the names of over two hundred members of parliament who received presents from the court at this time.[ ] [ ] _e.g._, "sir edward turner, who for a secret service had lately a bribe of £ , as in the exchequer may be seen, and about £ before; and made lord chief baron. "sir stephen fox--once a link boy; then a singing boy at salisbury; then a serving man; and permitting his wife to be common beyond sea, at the restoration was made paymaster of the guards, where he has cheated £ , , and is one of the green cloth." "flagellum parliamentarium," pp. and . the independence of parliament was first asserted by that staunch old patriot sir john eliot, who, during the reign of charles i., declared to the commons that they "came not thither either to do what the king should command them, nor to abstain when he forbade them; they came to continue constant, and to maintain their privileges."[ ] but in spite of such brave words, the power of the crown was not finally subdued until the revolution. [ ] forster's "life of sir john eliot," vol. i. p. . the downfall of the monarchy at the time of the commonwealth was followed by the temporary abolition of both lords and commons, the latter disappearing in company with cromwell's famous "bauble." the protector then proceeded to call together a body of "nominees," one hundred and forty in number, who represented the various counties in proportion to the amount of taxes each of these contributed. of the seven nominees supplied by london, praise god barebones, a fleet street leather merchant, gave his name to the parliament thus assembled. cromwell also created a new house of lords, numbering about sixty.[ ] [ ] see "journal of the protectorate house of lords, from the original ms. in the possession of lady tangye, january , , to april , ." house of lords mss. vol. iv. new series, p. . with the restoration the crown resumed much of its former power. in the publisher of a reprint of nathaniel bacon's "historical discourse," which declared that kings could "do nothing as kings but that of right they ought to do," and that though they might be "chief commanders, yet they are not chief rulers," was outlawed for these treasonable statements. it was not, indeed, until the revolution of that the royal influence was curtailed, so small a revenue being allowed to william iii. that the ordinary expenses of government could not be defrayed without assembling parliament. the attendance of the king in parliament had been usual in early days, but the commons always deprecated the presence of the sovereign in their midst. charles i. affords the only example of a monarch attending a debate in the lower house, when on that famous th of january, , he marched from whitehall to westminster, with the intention of arresting the five leading members, hampden, pym, holles, haselrig and strode, authors of the grand remonstrance, whom he had caused to be impeached on the preceding afternoon. the house had been put upon its guard by lady carlisle, and on the eventful day, a french officer, hercule langres, made his way to westminster and warned pym and his colleagues of the approach of the royal troops. when therefore the king arrived he found that his birds had already flown, and was compelled to retire empty-handed, amid cries of "privilege!" from members of the outraged assembly. in those times the desire of the commons was to keep the crown as ignorant as possible on the subject of their doings. the habit of providing the king with a daily account of parliamentary proceedings did not come into fashion until the end of the eighteenth century, when the house was no longer afraid of the royal power. the lords have never objected as strongly as the commons to the royal presence. charles ii. often found the time hang heavy on his hands, and would stroll down to the upper house, "as a pleasant diversion." he began by sitting quietly on the throne, listening to the debates. later on he took to standing by the fireplace of the lords, where he was soon surrounded by many persons anxious to gain the royal ear, and thus "broke all the decency of that house."[ ] since the accession of queen anne, however, no sovereign has been present in parliament, save at the opening or closing ceremonies. but long after kings had ceased to attend parliament in person they continued to attempt the control of its proceedings. george iii. finally brought matters to a head by his perpetual interference with the affairs of the commons, and caused the passing of that momentous resolution, moved by dunning on april , , "that the influence of the crown has increased, is increasing, and ought to be diminished," which disturbed if it could not vex dr. johnson.[ ] [ ] burnet's "history of his own time," vol. i. p. . [ ] "public affairs vex no man," said dr. johnson, when asked whether he were not annoyed by this vote. "i have never slept an hour less, nor eat an ounce less meat. i would have knocked the factious dogs on the head, to be sure; but i was not _vexed_." between and political life in england was excessively corrupt. parliament had grown to a certain extent independent of the crown, but had not yet learnt to depend upon public opinion. it was consequently a difficult body to deal with, and had to be managed by a system of open bribery which first showed itself most conspicuously in the shape of retaining fees paid to scottish members.[ ] in the practice of regularly bribing members of the house of commons was undertaken by the speaker, sir john trevor, on behalf of the tory party. in queen anne's reign a statesman paid thousands of pounds for the privilege of being made secretary of state, and a few years later we find sir robert walpole assuring a brother of lord gower that he knew the price of every man but three in the house of lords.[ ] [ ] boswell's "life of johnson," p. . (cromwell had already stigmatized scotland as corrupt. he had been told, he said, that it was a poor country inhabited by honest people, but found that the country was not poor and the people anything but honest.) [ ] dr. king's "anecdotes of his own time," p. . bribery no longer emanated direct from the crown, but was practised vicariously by the king through his ministers. they might object to the system, but, as king william once said to bishop burnet, they had to do with "a set of men who must be managed in this vile way or not at all."[ ] macaulay likens the parliament of that time to a pump which, though it may appear dry, will, if a little water is poured into it, produce a great flow. so, he says, £ , given in bribes to parliament would often produce a million in supplies.[ ] even pelham, a man of unblemished reputation in private life, saw the absolute necessity of distributing bribes right and left. and in we find lord north writing to george iii. to remind him that "the last general election cost near £ , to the crown, beyond which expense there was a pension of £ a year to lord montacute and £ a year to mr. selwyn for their interest at midhurst and luggershall."[ ] [ ] "history of his own time," vol. ii. p. . [ ] "history," vol. iii. p. . [ ] "correspondence of george iii. and lord north," vol. ii. p. . seats in parliament were regularly bought and sold, the price varying from £ to as much as £ . flood, the irish politician, purchased a seat in the english house of commons for £ . the notoriously corrupt borough of gatton was publicly advertised for sale in , with the power of nominating two representatives for ever, described by the auctioneer as "an elegant contingency."[ ] this same seat was sold in by sir mark wood for the huge sum of £ , , and the purchaser's feelings may well be imagined when, under the reform act of the following year, the borough was disfranchised and rendered worthless.[ ] [ ] bell's "life of canning," p. . [ ] mark boyd's "social gleanings," p. . parliament was for long in the hands of a few rich persons. wealthy individuals would buy property in small boroughs in order to increase their political influence, and cared little for the fitness of the representatives whom they nominated. the story is told of a peer being asked who should be returned for one of his boroughs, and casually mentioning a waiter at white's club whom he did not even know by name. the waiter was duly elected, and, for aught we know, may have made a most worthy and excellent member of parliament.[ ] [ ] russell's "recollections," p. . in the house of commons contained members who were the creatures of peers and commoners. sixteen representatives were government nominees; and only members were actually elected by the popular vote.[ ] five years later nearly half the house were returned by peers.[ ] [ ] oldfield's "representative history," vol. vi., app. [ ] "the black book," vol. i. p. . the passing of the septennial act in , in place of the triennial act of , though meeting with much hostile criticism,[ ] had helped to further that growing independence of both lords and crown which was the chief aim of the commons. before the triennial act parliament could only be dissolved by the crown. under the triennial act it suffered a natural death three years after the day on which it was summoned. the septennial act lengthened that existence by a further period of four years. members were no longer kept in a state of perpetual anticipation of an imminent general election; they were no more harassed by the fear of losing their seats at any moment. with security came strength, but purity was a long time in following. the septennial act, says lecky, gave "a new stability to english policy, a new strength to the dynasty, and a new authority to the house of commons." but it certainly did not tend to decrease the corruption which was then rampant both in parliament and in the country. [ ] "by the same violence that one parliament, chosen but for _three years_, could prolong their own sitting for _seven_, any other may presume to render themselves perpetual." ralph's "uses and abuses of parliament," vol. ii. p. . the whole body politic was, indeed, utterly rotten, and it was only considered possible to maintain the ministerial influence by a system of disciplined treasury corruption. the secret service money with which votes were bought was in the control of the prime minister, and walpole is said to have stated that he did not care a rap who made members of parliament so long as he was allowed to deal with them after they were made. the produce of the taxes descended in fertilizing showers upon the proprietors, the agents and the members for boroughs. for them, as lord john russell said, the general election was a state lottery in which there was nothing but prizes. "the elector of a borough, or a person he recommends, obtains a situation in the customs; the member of parliament obtains a place in the mediterranean for a near relation; the proprietor of the borough obtains a peerage in perspective; and the larger proprietor, followed by his attendant members, shines in the summer of royal favour, with a garter, a regiment, an earldom, or a marquisate."[ ] so ingrained had this idea become in the public mind that the duke of wellington is supposed to have asked ingenuously, on the abolition of the rotten boroughs, "how will the king's government be carried on?" [ ] "essays and sketches of life and character," p. . several ineffectual efforts had from time to time been made to slay the monster of corruption. from the days of cromwell the question of parliamentary reform had been anxiously urged by many statesmen, notably lord shaftesbury and pitt, of whom the latter introduced reformative measures in , and . but though pitt, the first prime minister who did not retain any of the public money for distribution among his friends and supporters, managed to reduce "places" worth over £ , , after the american war, there still remained any number of inflated pensions and sinecures in the gift of the government,[ ] and it was not until parliament came to be controlled entirely by public opinion that the change from corruption to purity took place. but notwithstanding many flaws in theory and blots in practice, the english parliamentary constitution prior to the reform bill was, as mr. gladstone called it, one of the wonders of the world. "time was its parent, silence was its nurse.... it did much evil and it left much good undone; but it either led or did not lag behind the national feeling and opinion."[ ] with the reform act of , parliament advanced another stage in its career. the house of commons definitely shook itself free from the active corruption which had so long impeded its movements. [ ] for example, one of £ for a retired auditor of the imprest, and another of £ granted to lord bute as some slight compensation for his loss of office. see rose's "influence of the crown." [ ] "gleanings of past years," vol. i. pp. - . the principle of party government, which now lies at the very root of our parliamentary system, had its origin during the second period of parliamentary history, and formed no part of the constitutional scheme of earlier days. in queen elizabeth's time two definite and distinct parties arose, the one maintaining the privileges of the crown, the other upholding the interests of the people. in stuart days cavaliers and roundheads were followed by court and country parties, and in the year , when the exclusion bill was being bitterly debated, the distinctive names of "whigs" and "tories" first came into existence. "whig" was originally a word applied to the lowland peasantry of the west of scotland; thence it came to mean covenanters, and so politicians who looked kindly upon nonconformity. "tory" was an expression popularly used with reference to the rebel irish outlaws who harassed the protestants; and thus implied leanings towards catholicism.[ ] [ ] o'connell showed pryme an irish act of parliament for the suppression of "rapparees, tories, and other robbers." pryme's "recollections," p. . the growth of a respect for the people's rights forced politicians to separate into two sections, and the schism between the rival camps was still further emphasized by the revolution of . regular opposing parties do not, however, seem to have existed in the commons until the eighteenth century, and the party system was not finally established as a necessary element of constitutional government until the reign of william iii. kings had hitherto chosen their advisers irrespective of their political views. william iii. was, however, induced by the earl of sunderland to form a ministry from the party that held a majority in parliament, and thus became to a certain extent controlled by that party. there have always been, as macaulay says, under some name or other, two sets of men, those who are before their age, and those who are behind it, those who are the wisest among their contemporaries, and those who glory in being no wiser than their great-grandfathers. but this definition of the two great political parties of england can no longer with justice be applied. the tory of to-day is not at all the tory of two hundred years ago: indeed, he rather resembles the whig of queen anne's time. and though disraeli continued to use the word "tory," and was never ashamed of it, it has now gradually fallen into disuse, save as a term of reproach on the lips of political opponents. a change of nomenclature was adopted in . the tories became conservatives, and for the benefit of wavering whigs it was proposed that the latter should be known as liberal-conservatives, a name which, as lord john russell remarked, expressed in seven syllables what whig expressed in one.[ ] the term "radical" did not come into use until the days of the famous reformer, francis place ( - ); his political predecessors contenting themselves with the more modest name of patriots. called by whatever name is popular for the moment, either party may now claim to come within the scope of burke's well-known definition as "a body of men united for promoting, by their endeavours, the national interest upon some particular principle in which they are all agreed." [ ] a german writer, herr bucher, wrote as follows, in :--"it would be difficult to give any other definition of the two parties than that a whig is a man who is descended from lord john russell's grandmother, a tory, one who sits behind disraeli." "der parliamentarismus wie er ist," p. . our modern parliamentary system comprises the party spirit as its most vital element, and owes its success to the fact of being government by party and not by faction.[ ] the existence of an admittedly constitutional body perpetually opposed to the government of the day--"his majesty's opposition," as it has been called since --is now recognised as a very necessary portion of the parliamentary machine. the principle of fairness to the minority is never lost sight of, and expresses itself in many different ways. when, for instance, the leader of the opposition gives notice of a motion of censure on the government, the latter consider it their duty to accord their critics an early opportunity for its discussion; and, generally speaking, the due consideration of the rights of minorities is among the primary instincts of party government. the excellent effects of this system are obvious. of the two ways of obtaining political adherents the attachment of party is infinitely preferable to the attachment of personal interest, formerly so prolific a source of corruption. party feeling may also be said to have created general rules of politics, similar to a general code of morals by which a man may "walk with integrity along the path chosen by his chiefs, surrounded and supported by his political colleagues." [ ] "i have a maxim," wrote horace walpole to his friend montague in , "that the extinction of party is the origin of faction." "letters," vol. iii. . opposition is invaluable as providing a stern criticism of the government's policy; it can also very often be of service to the cause it is intended to injure. it excites a keener public curiosity, by directing attention to the motives of those whom it suspects. and "the reproaches of enemies when refuted are a surer proof of virtue than the panegyrics of friends."[ ] that the system must possess certain disadvantages is inevitable. it no doubt engenders animosity and provokes violent contentions: it stimulates politicians to impute to their opponents corrupt motives which they could not for a moment imagine themselves capable of entertaining. it may also on occasion tempt them to continue obstinately in the support of wrong, because the admission of a mistake would be hailed as a triumph for their enemies. "the best cause in the world may be conducted into faction," as speaker onslow said; "and the best men _may_ become party men, to whom all things appear lawful, which make for their cause or their associates."[ ] but as a rule the game of politics is played with commendable fairness and an absence of undue acrimony. the opposition, whose well-known duty it is "to oppose everything, to propose nothing, and to turn out the government,"[ ] rarely makes its attacks the vehicle for personal spite. politicians of adverse views do not carry their antagonism into private life, and off the stage of parliament the bitterest opponents are able to exist upon amicable terms. occasionally, however, political differences have been the cause of ruptured friendship. when burke made a violent attack upon fox, in , on the canada bill, he declared that if necessary he would risk the latter's lifelong friendship by his firm and steady adherence to the british constitution. fox leaned across and whispered that there was no loss of friends. "yes," replied burke, "there _is_ a loss of friends. i know the price of my conduct. i have done my duty at the price of my friend. our friendship is at an end!" so terminated an intimacy of twenty-five years' standing. such an incident may, nevertheless, be considered exceptional, the relations of antagonists being usually of a most harmonious kind. sir robert peel and lord john russell would often be seen together engaged in friendly conversation. o'connell once walked arm in arm down whitehall with hughes hughes, the member for oxford, whose head he had but recently likened to that of a calf.[ ] and the present prime minister and leader of the opposition are doubtless able to play bridge or golf together without actually coming to blows. in spite, therefore, of much criticism, what emerson calls "that capital invention of freedom, a constitutional opposition,"[ ] has been found to be the most practical and satisfactory means of carrying on government. [ ] see parr's "discourse on education," p. . [ ] "anecdotes and other miscellaneous pieces" left by the rt. hon. arthur onslow. (from the ms. at clandon.) [ ] this saying has often been wrongly attributed to lord randolph churchill. that statesman's most famous maxim on the subject of opposition is given in his son's "life" (p. - ): "whenever by an unfortunate occurrence of circumstances an opposition is compelled to support the government," said lord randolph, "the support should be given with a kick and not with a caress, and should be withdrawn on the first available moment." [ ] this was evidently a favourite simile of o'connell's. he used it again with reference to mr. shaw, member for dublin university, in the debate on the resolution for giving a grant to maynooth college for the education of roman catholics. [ ] "english traits," p. . chapter ii the house of lords no constitutional principle has been so strongly criticised and so freely abused as the one embodied in the hereditary chamber which forms so important a branch of our legislature. pulteney labelled the house of lords a "hospital for invalids"; burke contemptuously referred to it as "the weakest part of the constitution"; lord rosebery has compared it to "a mediæval barque stranded in the tideway of the nineteenth century." a more democratic modern statesman, who doubtless hopes-- "to build, not boast, a generous race; no tenth transmitter of a foolish face," has declared the only legislative qualifications of peers to consist in their being the first-born of persons possessing as little qualifications as themselves. while another politician cynically observes that they represent nobody but themselves, and enjoy the full confidence of their constituents. the house of lords has long been the butt of the political satirist, and parliamentary reformers have attacked it for years patiently and persistently, hitherto without much success. "we owe the english peerage to three sources," said a character in "coningsby"; "the spoliation of the church; the open and flagrant sale of its honours by the elder stuarts; and the borough-mongering of our own times." and this bitter criticism is often quoted to prove the weakness of any form of hereditary government. the suggestion that heredity can confer any peculiar qualifications, rendering a person more fit than his fellows for parliamentary power, is no doubt illogical, but not more so perhaps than a thousand other ideas which govern the affairs of men. the form of government by majority, for instance,--which pope called "the madness of the many for the gain of a few"--is obviously open to criticism. hereditary legislation has, at any rate in the eyes of its supporters, the merit of having answered well enough in practice, and, however theoretically indefensible, is not more so than hereditary kingship. the sovereign does not inherit sagacity any more than the duke of norfolk, as lord john russell justly observed, and it would be unwise as well as unsafe to hang the crown on the peg of an exception. it is as well, however, to remember that the sovereign is a constitutional monarch whose powers nowadays are much restricted, whereas the lords have the right to exercise a legislative veto the use of which kings have long since resigned. talent is not hereditary. no man chooses a coachman, as the first lord halifax once remarked, because his father was a coachman before him. but the descendant of a long line of coachmen is likely to know more about the care of horses than the grandson of a pork butcher, however eminent; and the scion of a race of legislators is at least as fully qualified for the duties of a legislator as many a politician whose chief reason for entering parliament is the desire to add the letters m.p. to his name. nevertheless, as has been recently pointed out by tactless statisticians, the great men of the past have but seldom bequeathed their admirable qualities to their _eldest_ sons, and in a list of modern statesmen will be found but few of the names once famous in english history. the necessity for a second chamber of some sort has always been admitted, if only to prevent the other house from being exposed to what john stuart mill calls "the corrupting influence of undivided power," and cromwell "the horridest arbitrariness that was ever known in the world." few, however, of the most ardent admirers of the hereditary system will pretend that the problem of a perfect bicameral system is solved by the present house of lords, though they may doubtless claim that the cause of its failure does not rest entirely upon its basis of heredity. "you might as well urge as an objection to the breakwater that stems the unruly waves of the sea, that it has its foundations deep laid in another element, and that it does not float on the surface of that which it is to control," said palmerston, "as say that the house of lords, being hereditary, ought on that account to be reformed."[ ] [ ] in a speech delivered at a banquet in glasgow on january , . if age can confer dignity and distinction upon any assembly, then must the house of lords be peculiarly distinguished, for it is certainly the most venerable as well as the most antiquated of our parliamentary institutions. when christianity became firmly established in england, each king of the heptarchy was attended by a bishop, whose business it was to advise his royal master upon religious questions, and who thus acquired the power of influencing him in other matters as well. the minor kings were gradually replaced by earls, who were summoned, together with their attendant bishops, to the witenagemot of the one ruling sovereign of the country. an assembly of this nature was held as far back as , but it was more in the nature of a judicial court than a parliament. it consisted of the archbishop of canterbury and all other bishops, earls, and barons, and was summoned to decide important judicial cases. this court, or _curia regis_ as it was called, met at different times and in divers places. it transacted other business besides the judicial, and also corresponded to some extent with the more modern _levée_. it was originally composed of the lords, the great officers of state, and some others whom the king wished to consult. the exact position which such nobles held in the great council of the land is not very definite. immediately after the conquest an earldom appears to have been regarded as an office; but it was not necessarily hereditary. later on the possession of lands, either granted direct by the crown or inherited, became a necessary qualification for the holder of an earldom. the transfer of titles and property in early days was a rough and ready affair, in which might played as great a part as right. (when edward i. required the old earl de warrenne to produce his title deeds, the latter brought out a rusty sword that had belonged to his ancestors. "by this instrument do i hold my lands," he said, "and by the same do i intend to defend them!") but with the natural idea of the transference of land from father to son there developed the principle of the natural hereditary descent of the title dependent upon the possession of those lands. the baronage did not come into existence until after the conquest. in the reign of henry i. it was entirely composed of foreigners from france. barons held no regular office, but their lands were transferred on the hereditary principle. they owed military allegiance to the crown, but did not necessarily sit in parliament unless summoned to attend by the king. such a summons was long regarded as a burden rather than a privilege, and even in the days of king john the barons only desired it as a protection from the imposition of some exceptional tax. the bishops and barons were then the natural leaders of the people; they alone were educated and armed, and they alone could attempt any successful resistance to the exorbitant demands of the crown. they paid nearly all the taxes, and provided money for the prosecution of every war. upon them the commonalty was dependent, looking to them for assistance when the sovereign became too grasping or tyrannical. it was the barons who forced king john to sign magna charta, and to them, therefore, we are indebted for the laws and constitution which we now possess. "they did not confine it to themselves alone," as chatham declared in the house of lords, on january , , "but delivered it as a common blessing to the whole people." but though the present house of lords has been described as composed of descendants of the men who wrung the charter from king john on the plains of runnymede, not more than four of the existing peerages are, as a matter of fact, as old as magna charta. the feudal barons by tenure, whose right to a parliamentary summons gradually became hereditary as going with their lands, were gradually joined by other prominent men who, though not landowners, were summoned to give the council the benefit of their experience and advice. thus gradually evolved the modern system of hereditary legislators, and the house of lords developed into an assembly such as we now know it, though numerically far smaller. in richard ii.'s reign the _curia regis_ separated from parliament and became a privy council. the lords were then as unwilling as the commons to attend diligently to their parliamentary duties, and it was only the subsequent creation of dukes, marquesses, and viscounts that stimulated the desire to sit and claim a writ of summons as a right. the number of earls and barons summoned to parliament in the reigns of the first three edwards varied from fifty to seventy-five. at times, owing to the absence of the fighting men of the country who were engaged in foreign warfare, it fell as low as sixteen. in the first parliament of henry viii. there were less than thirty temporal peers, but in elizabeth's time this number had doubled. since stuart days the lords have become more and more numerous. james i. granted peerages right and left to his favourites, and, by selling baronies, viscountcies, and earldoms for sums ranging from £ , to £ , , enriched his coffers and added some fifty members to the upper house. the eighty-two temporal peers who sat in his first parliament were gradually reinforced by his successors, until, in the time of george iii., they numbered two hundred and twenty-four, exclusive of their ecclesiastical brethren. the lords spiritual have not always sat in the house of lords. in early days the abbots and priors largely predominated in that assembly, but with the abolition of the monasteries they were banished from it, though a certain number retained their seats in right of the baronies which they possessed.[ ] bishops were excluded from the house of lords by act of parliament in --cromwell omitted to summon them to his upper house in --and were not finally readmitted until . within living memory several unsuccessful attempts have been made to keep them out of parliament. in a member of the commons moved that spiritual peers be released from attendance, but his motion was defeated. another member in the following year suggested their exclusion on the ground that they had plenty to occupy them elsewhere, that their contributions to debate upon most legislative subjects were not particularly edifying, and that they always voted with the minister to whom they were indebted for preferment. this motion met a fate similar to that of its predecessor, as did another of the same kind in . [ ] in the sixteenth century the prior of the hospital of st. john of jerusalem (near clerkenwell), whom selden calls "a kind of an otter, a knight half-spiritual and half-temporal," had precedence of all the lay barons in parliament. his priory was suppressed in , but his name continued to appear spasmodically in the journals of the house of lords until some time in queen elizabeth's reign. to-day some twenty-six spiritual peers, including the two archbishops of canterbury and york, are given seats in the house of lords, where they help to swell the number of that ever-increasing assembly. bishops usually confine themselves exclusively in the house of lords to the discussion of matters which concern the spiritual welfare of the nation. their contributions to debates are generally "edifying," and when they happen to cross swords with their lay brethren they are well able to hold their own. bishop atterbury, of rochester, once said of a bill before the house that he had often prophesied that such a measure would be brought up, and was sorry to find himself a true prophet. lord coningsby retorted that the right reverend prelate had put himself forward as a prophet, but he would only liken him to a balaam, who was reproved by his own ass. the bishop at once replied that he was well content to be compared to balaam. "but, my lords," he added, "i am at a loss to make out the other part of the parallel. i am sure that i have been reproved by nobody but his lordship!"[ ] [ ] dr. king's "anecdotes," p. . (it was a more modern politician who, on being reproved by an opponent, said, "consider the case of balaam's ass; before it spoke all men regarded it as quite an ordinary quadruped, but after it had spoken they discovered what an extraordinary ass it was!") with the creation of new peerages by successive monarchs the list of temporal peers lengthened year by year. the union of the three kingdoms still further added to their number. by the acts of union with scotland and ireland it was laid down that sixteen scottish and twenty-eight irish representative peers should sit in the house of lords. these were to be elected by their fellow-peers, the former for each parliament, the latter for life.[ ] they may be distinguished in other particulars as well, for though a scottish peer can at any time resign his seat, an irish peer can never do so. even though he be a lunatic, or otherwise incapable of attending, he still retains his place in the legislature. he is also privileged in other ways. in the commons resolved that no peer could give his vote at the election of a member of parliament, and, three years later, that he could not interfere in elections. to-day a standing order of the house of commons imposes the same restraint upon all but irish peers, who are exempt from these restrictions. [ ] in november, , the election of an irish peer resulted in a tie between lords ashtown and farnham. such a thing had not happened since the union. the difficulty was settled in a manner only perhaps possible in an institution as venerable as the house of lords. in accordance with the provisions of the act of union, the clerk of the parliaments wrote the names of the candidates on two pieces of paper which he then put into a glass. one of these he drew out at random, and the peer whose name was inscribed thereon was declared to be duly elected. in the house of lords was strengthened judicially by the introduction of four lords of appeal. the house, as is well known, has judicial as well as legislative functions to perform. it has always been the supreme court of the realm, and, ever since the reign of queen elizabeth, the ultimate appeal has lain to it in all cases except those arising in ecclesiastical courts. moreover, as the high court of parliament, in conjunction with the commons, it is empowered to try offenders against the state whom the commons have impeached. it also enjoys the privilege of trying any of its own members who may be charged with treason or felony, and of determining any disputed claims of peerage which may arise. there have always been a sufficient number of lords learned in the law to provide a court for the trial of legal cases. in the past, however, occasions have arisen when the presence of lay peers has threatened to replace the judicial aspect of the house by a political one which would be fatal to its reputation as a court of appeal. it was not, indeed, until that lords unlearned in the law began to consider their presence during the hearing of judicial causes to be not only unnecessary but undesirable, and discontinued their attendance. thirty years later the institution of four life peerages, conferred upon eminent lawyers, added still further weight to the legal decisions of the house. the hearing of appeals is now left entirely to what are called the law lords, who consist of the lord chancellor, a number of peers who have held certain high judicial offices, and the four lords of appeal in ordinary--three of whom must, by the appellate jurisdiction act of , be present on all appeal cases. the granting of life peerages, conferring rights of summons to the house of lords, save as above stated, has been adjudged to be beyond the powers of the crown. it may truly be said that in the first days of parliament the house of lords consisted almost entirely of life members. but when the government of queen victoria attempted to revive a practice that had lain in abeyance for some centuries they were not allowed to do so. the supreme court of appeal had been violently attacked in the commons, where certain members declared it to be inferior to any tribunal in the land. palmerston in determined to remedy its defects by the addition of two law lords who should be life peers. this scheme was upheld by the lord chancellor, lord cranworth, but met with determined opposition in the upper house. the law lords were especially opposed to it, fearing that, if such a precedent were allowed, no lawyer in the future would ever be given an hereditary peerage. on the premier's recommendation the queen proposed to confer life peerages upon two distinguished lawyers, parke and pemberton leigh, and proceeded to issue a patent to the former, creating him baron wensleydale for life. when, however, the matter was referred to the committee for privileges, they decided that no life peer could either sit or vote in the house of lords, and the wensleydale and kingsdown peerages had consequently to be made hereditary. persons who are raised to the peerage to-day are made peers of the united kingdom. no scotch peer has been created since the union in , and the right of conferring an irish peerage which existed under certain restrictions in the act of union has ceased to be exercised except upon one notable recent occasion.[ ] [ ] lord curzon of kedleston was so created in . during the last fifty years some one hundred and fifty additions have been made to the membership of the house of lords. the only limit to the numerical increase of peers would seem to lie in the good sense of the prime minister or the patience of the sovereign. it is of course the latter who confers peerages, though as the former usually brings suitable candidates for ennoblement to the royal notice, he is generally held responsible for the result of his recommendations.[ ] [ ] when the last liberal government of queen victoria came into office the court officials were discussing the new administration one day at windsor. "i wonder what peers they'll make," remarked one of the ladies-in-waiting. the queen turned upon her with uplifted eyebrows. "_they!_" she exclaimed. an uncomfortable silence ensued. again, in , a cabinet minister's allusion in a speech to certain newspaper proprietors whom a conservative prime minister had "taken the precaution to make into barons" inspired the king's private secretary to write a letter to a correspondent in which he stated that, notwithstanding the minister's statement, "the creation of peers remains a royal prerogative." [illustration: the house of lords in from an engraving by john fine] the house of lords now includes some members, divided, as we have seen, into four classes; the lords spiritual, the lords temporal--princes of the blood, dukes, marquesses, earls, viscounts, barons--the representative peers of scotland and ireland, and the lords of appeal in ordinary. the writ of summons, which did not cease to be regarded as a burden until the reign of edward ii., is now looked upon as a privilege and right which few peers would willingly forego. and the question of mutual precedence which was never mooted until the creation of viscounts in henry vi.'s time, is now a matter of the utmost importance to the occupants of the gilded chamber. the first parliament that is recognized as conferring the right of peerage was that of the eleventh year of edward i. the lords decided, in the recent case of lord stourton claiming the barony of mowbray, that a writ summoning a peer to this parliament, followed by a sitting, gave his descendants a seat in the house. all peers of the realm--a phrase which came into use in --are entitled to seats in the house of lords once they have attained their majority. infancy disqualifies a peer from receiving a writ of summons; failure to take the oath or to affirm deprives him of the right of sitting. no alien may sit in the lords, nor may a bankrupt or a felon, and the house as a court of justice may at any time pass sentence disqualifying a peer from sitting. the functions of the upper house which have been the subject of so much recent controversy and are still engrossing the attention of parliament and the public, have been in former times variously defined by friendly or adverse critics. the lords have been described as the brake on the parliamentary wheel or as the clog in the parliamentary machine. horace walpole wrote some bitter verses on the subject of that house whose members "sleep in monumental state, to show the spot where their great fathers sate;" "thou senseless hall, whose injudicious space, like death, confounds a various mismatched race, where kings and clowns, th' ambitious and the mean, compose th' inactive soporific scene."[ ] [ ] "letters to sir h. mann," vol. i. p. . peers themselves no doubt regard the upper chamber as a haven where merit may receive its ultimate reward; where the achievements and the recompense of the deserving are suitably immortalized. as a "compact bulwark against the temporary violence of popular passion," to use disraeli's phrase, and as a council for weighing the resolutions of the commons who may at times be led away by public clamour or a sudden impulse, the second chamber is regarded by its defenders as of the greatest constitutional value. lord salisbury once declared that the chief duty of the house of lords was to represent the permanent as opposed to the passing feelings of the english nation; "to interpose a salutary obstacle to rash or inconsiderate legislation; and to protect the people from the consequences of their own imprudence." moreover, the upper house thus has an opportunity of improving the details of measures, many of which leave the house of commons in an unworkable shape, owing to the conditions under which they are amended and passed through it, and, but for the alterations effected by the lords, would remain unworkable when they came to be embodied in the statute-book. it has never been the course of the upper house to resist a continued and deliberately expressed public opinion. the lords, as lord derby affirmed in , "always have bowed and always will bow, to the expression of such opinion."[ ] but although history to a certain extent bears out this statement, on more than one occasion the hand of popular clamour has battered at their doors for a long time before wringing from them a reluctant acquiescence. there can be no doubt that if the country were to express itself definitely upon any question at a general election, no house of lords would be strong enough (or weak enough) to attempt to thwart the public will. but there have been numerous instances in which the peers have endeavoured without success to do so. in vain did they delay parliamentary reform in , when sidney smith likened the house of lords to mrs. partington, the old lady of sidmouth who, during the great storm of , tried to push away the atlantic with her mop.[ ] in vain did they inveigh against the passing of the jewish oaths bill or the bill for the abolition of the corn laws. they were eventually compelled to pass the latter, not because they thought it a good bill, but because, as the duke of wellington said, it had passed the house of commons by a huge majority, and "the queen's government must be supported." [ ] on the second reading of the corn importation bill, may , . [ ] "works," p. . on the other side it may be said that they have occasionally interpreted more successfully than the lower house the views of the electorate, and of this perhaps the rejection of the home rule bill of is the most prominent example. even without actually rejecting bills the lords have frequently opposed the will of the commons by returning the bills sent up to them in so amended and altered a shape as to prove wholly unacceptable; and an appeal to the country upon every point of difference, or even upon every bill wholly rejected, is of course impracticable. in some such cases the commons have had recourse to a method of coercing the lords, known by the name of "tacking," which depends for its efficacy upon the acceptation of certain doctrines relating to money bills laid down by the commons at intervals during the last three centuries, and in the main acquiesced in by the lords. the history of the matter, though of acute interest at the present time, is too long to go into here. it will be sufficient to mention that in , as the result of a violent struggle between the two houses, the commons passed resolutions asserting (not for the first time) that all money bills must have their origin in the lower house, and that the hereditary chamber is powerless to amend them. and though the lords at the time protested against both these conclusions, by their action through a long course of years they must be taken to have acquiesced in them. if, then, the lords were unable to amend a money bill, they might be compelled to accept an obnoxious measure of a different nature if it were included in such a bill, the whole of which they would be loth to throw out. this was the process adopted in several instances by the commons, against which the lords passed, in , a standing order declaring the "annexing any foreign matter" to be "unparliamentary and tending to the destruction of the constitution." in the commons brought in a bill to annul the royal grants of forfeited property, and, knowing that it would be objectionable to the upper house, cunningly tacked it on to a money bill. the lords returned it, with the foreign matter excised; but it was sent back to them once more, and, acting on the advice of the duke of marlborough who counselled concession, they eventually swallowed the whole mixture as gracefully as they could find it in their hearts to do. in , the two houses came into collision again on the same subject, when the lords threw out the bill abolishing the duty on paper, which was a financial question. gladstone retorted in the following year by tacking this bill on to the budget, and in this shape the lords passed it. but their right of rejection--which indeed is involved in the necessity for their assent to every bill--was never questioned, either in or since, until the budget bill was thrown out in december, , when the whole question of the relations between the two houses was brought into vital prominence and made the subject of an agitation not easily to be assuaged. there has always existed a spirit of antagonism between the two houses. gladstone declared that the commons were eyed by the lords "as lancelot was eyed by modred," and this mutual antipathy has occasionally expressed itself in overt acts of rudeness. during a debate in the lords in , on the defenceless state of the nation, a peer moved that the house be cleared of strangers. a number of the commons happened to be standing at the bar, but, notwithstanding their protests, they were unceremoniously hustled out, being followed by a volley of hisses and jeers as they left the chamber. the duke of richmond and many other peers were so disgusted at this exhibition of ill-feeling that they walked out of the house. colonel barré has left a graphic description of the scene. the lords, he says, developed all the passions and violence of a mob. "one of the heads of this mob--for there were two--was a scotchman. i heard him call out several times, 'clear the hoose! clear the hoose!' the face of the other was scarcely human; for he had contrived to put on a nose of enormous size, that disfigured him completely, and his eyes started out of his head in so frightful a way that he seemed to be undergoing the operation of being strangled."[ ] [ ] the peer in question had not donned a false nose for the occasion, as might be imagined, but was merely wearing the ordinary working nose of aristocratic proportions with which providence had supplied him. two years after this scene, in , burke was kept waiting for three hours with a bill which he was carrying from the commons to the lords. when he subsequently reported his ill-treatment to the lower house, their indignation knew no bounds, and they proceeded to revenge themselves in a somewhat puerile manner. the very next bill that the house of lords sent down to them was rejected unanimously, and the speaker threw the offensive measure on to the floor of the house, whence it was kicked to the door by a number of indignant members. it is not difficult to understand the cause of jealousy and anger between the houses, in spite of the fact that so many of the lords have at one time or another been members of the commons, and so many of the commons hope to end their days in the lords. (croker, in a letter to lord hatherton, recalls a visit he paid as a stranger to the upper house in , where, of the thirty peers present, there was not one but had sat with him in the commons, including the duke of wellington and the lord chancellor. "it shows," he says, "how completely the house of commons has been the nursery of the house of lords."[ ]) the resentment against the lords that undoubtedly exists in the bosoms of the commons, which is not confined to one side of the house, but seems to be universal, results from the power of rejection which the peers can at any time exercise with regard to a measure, or of making amendments by which they can alter it out of all recognition, thus nullifying in a single day the labours of months in the lower house. and when it is considered that this ruinous result is due not only to men who owe their seats to their successful exertions in various professions, but also in larger proportion to those who owe them to being, as lord thurlow said of the duke of grafton, "the accident of an accident,"[ ] the situation must to many minds appear wholly intolerable. [ ] croker's "letters," vol. i. p. . [ ] one is reminded of the reply addressed by the emperor alexander to madame de stael who was complimenting russia on possessing so able a ruler. "alas, madame," he said, "i am nothing but a happy accident!" one very clear cause of failure in the house of lords to give satisfaction lies in the fact that, although government by party is the very groundwork of the parliamentary constitution, as far as the upper house is concerned such an idea might just as well not exist at all. whatever the political complexion of the party in power in the house of commons, the lords maintain an invariable conservative majority, indifferent to the swing of any popular pendulum, and as fixed and unalterable as the sun. but at no time for the last century has the inequality been so marked as at present, when it may be truthfully said that the liberal peers would scarcely fill a dozen "hackney coaches."[ ] and though the liberal party has created a considerable number of peers during the last few years, it has never recovered from the secession of liberal unionists, and it would take many years of liberal supremacy and large drafts upon the prerogative of the crown to restore even the comparative balance of early victorian days. [ ] at the time of the french revolution, the country supported the government so strongly that the opposition dwindled away to nothing. it was even jestingly asserted that the whigs could all have been held in one hackney coach. "this is a calumny," said george byng; "we should have filled two!" campbell's "lives of the chancellors," vol. v. p. . this may or may not be an advantage, for though the staunch tory is tempted to exclaim in the words of disraeli: "thank god there is a house of lords!" the equally staunch radical is scarcely likely to consider the existence of this perpetually antagonistic majority a sufficient cause for gratitude towards the almighty. the difficulty of equalising the parties seems insurmountable, so long as ennoblement is an expensive luxury and peers continue to be drawn from the wealthy classes.[ ] there is, too, something essentially conservative about the atmosphere of the house of lords, which sooner or later impregnates the blood of its inmates; under its influence the liberal of one generation rapidly exhibits a tendency to develop into the conservative of the next. but this charge is no doubt one which may be brought with more or less truth against any second chamber, however constituted, which is composed of men of a certain age and position, not immediately responsible to the fluctuating voices of the people. whether one considers such stability to be a merit or the reverse depends upon whether one adopts lord palmerston's and lord salisbury's views of the functions of a senate, or regards it merely as a useful and select body of legislators enjoying certain limited powers of criticism and delay. [ ] it is suggested that the balance of party could be adjusted by the government persuading the crown to create a number of peerages sufficient to flood the house with peers of their particular political persuasion. in , queen anne was prevailed upon to create twelve peers in a single day, in order to pass a government measure. "if these twelve had not been enough," said bolingbroke, "we could have given them another dozen!" william iv. was prepared to create a hundred new peers to ensure the passing of the reform bill of . it remains to be seen whether such an idea is nowadays practicable. so much has been written about this great modern controversy, that it is unnecessary to increase the literature which exists upon both sides. the issue seems to lie between reducing the second chamber to comparative impotence or attempting by judicious reforms in its composition to bring it into greater sympathy with the first chamber. the resolutions recently passed by the commons,[ ] have for their object the complete annihilation of the latter in all matters of finance, and the retention for them of such modified powers of influencing other legislation as would enable them to delay bills during the early years of a shortened parliament, and refer them to the country during its last two years. the question of "tacking," in money bills, is to be referred to the sole arbitrament of the speaker; but this becomes of trifling importance when it is argued that almost any revolutionary change could be effected within the corners of a legitimate financial measure. the objection taken to the overriding of the veto in the case of a bill thrice presented, is that it amounts to one-chamber legislation and would result in two classes of acts--one passed by the commons alone, and the other by both houses. [ ] " . that it is expedient that the house of lords be disabled by law from rejecting or amending a money bill, but that any such limitation by law shall not be taken to diminish or qualify the existing rights and privileges of the house of commons. "for the purpose of this resolution a bill shall be considered a money bill if, in the opinion of the speaker, it contains only provisions dealing with all or any of the following subjects, namely, the imposition, repeal, remission, alteration, or regulation of taxation; charges on the consolidated funds or the provision of money by parliament; supply; the appropriation, control, or regulation of public money; the raising or guarantee of any loan or the repayment thereof; or matters incidental to those subjects or any of them." " . that it is expedient that the powers of the house of lords, as respects bills other than money bills, be restricted by law, so that any such bill which has passed the house of commons in three successive sessions, and, having been sent up to the house of lords at least one month before the end of the session, has been rejected by that house in each of those sessions, shall become law without the consent of the house of lords on the royal assent being declared; provided that at least two years shall have elapsed between the date of the first introduction of the bill in the house of commons and the date on which it passes the house of commons for the third time. "for the purposes of this resolution a bill shall be treated as rejected by the house of lords if it has not been passed by the house of lords either without amendment or with such amendments only as may be agreed upon by both houses." " . that it is expedient to limit the duration of parliament to five years." the policy of reform, on the other hand, is unacceptable to those who desire the predominance of the first chamber, as any successful scheme for removing present defects in the constitution of the lords--_e.g._ the excessive size of the house, the preponderance therein of one party, and the presence of undesirable members--must result in its increased strength and importance. consequently the commons have neither made nor encouraged any attempts in that direction. such suggestions as have taken any shape have been proposed by the lords themselves, and the history of the last thirty years exhibits many internal efforts to reform on the part of those dissatisfied with the ancient constitution of the house. in , lord rosebery's motion for a select committee to consider the best means of promoting the efficiency of the house of lords, was negatived. four years later he moved for another select committee to inquire into the constitution of the house. in the same year an elaborate bill of lord dunraven's for reforming the lords was rejected, and another, promoted by lord salisbury, was withdrawn after having passed the second reading. in a committee met, under the chairmanship of lord rosebery, to look into the whole question, and issued a most interesting and practical report, full of admirable recommendations. this committee began by pointing out the expediency of reducing the numbers of an assembly which, within recent years has increased to such an extent as to render itself too unwieldy for legislative purposes. it strongly urged that the recommendations to the crown for the creation of hereditary peerages should be restricted within somewhat narrower limits. many peers, as the report explained, are obviously ill-suited to their parliamentary duties; others find the work irksome and distasteful; of a few it may euphemistically be observed that their release from the burden of legislative responsibilities would be eminently desirable. lord rosebery's committee therefore came to the conclusion that the dignity of a peer and the dignity of a lord of parliament should be separate and distinct, and that, except in the case of peers of the blood royal, the possession of a peerage should not necessarily be attended with the right to sit and vote in the house of lords. a further suggestion was made that the hereditary peers should be represented by two hundred of their number, elected by them to sit as lords of parliament, not for life, but for each parliament, and that the number of spiritual peers should be proportionately reduced to ten. the inclusion of representatives from the colonies, and the granting of a writ of summons to a number of qualified persons who had held high office in the state, figured prominently in this scheme of reform. following up these recommendations, the house on the motion of lord rosebery has recently adopted the following resolutions for its own reconstitution:-- "( ) that a strong and efficient second chamber is not merely an integral part of the british constitution, but is necessary to the well-being of the state and to the balance of parliament. "( ) that such a chamber can best be obtained by the reform and reconstitution of the house of lords. "( ) that a necessary preliminary of such reform and reconstitution is the acceptance of the principle that the possession of a peerage should no longer of itself give the right to sit and vote in the house of lords."[ ] [ ] the following further resolutions stand upon the notice paper and still await consideration:-- "( ) that in future the house of lords shall consist of lords of parliament: a. chosen by the whole body of hereditary peers from among themselves and by nomination by the crown. b. sitting by virtue of offices and of qualifications held by them. c. chosen from outside. "( ) that the term of tenure for all lords of parliament shall be the same, except in the case of those who sit ex-officio, who would sit so long as they held the office for which they sit." we are sometimes tempted nowadays to laugh, like "the gardener adam and his wife," at the claims of long descent. but the pride of birth and blood is common to all nations, perhaps less so in england than elsewhere. the french ducal family of levis boasted a descent from the princes of judah, and would produce an old painting in which one of their ancestors was represented as bowing, hat in hand, to the virgin, who was saying, "couvrez-vous, mon cousin!" similarly the family of cory possessed a picture of noah with one foot in the ark, exclaiming, "sauvez les papiers de la maison de cory!"[ ] byron is said to have been prouder of his pedigree than of his poems, and it is to be hoped that our aristocracy will never entirely forget that their ancestors have handed down to them traditions which are more precious than the titles and lands by which they are represented. [ ] hayward's "essays," p. . one cannot altogether relish the sight of several peers, who had been considered incompetent to manage their own affairs, hastening to westminster at the call of a party "whip" to record their votes upon imperial concerns of the greatest importance. and though it must be admitted that it is rare indeed for the incompetent or degenerate members of the upper house to take any part in its deliberations, the fact that they have the undoubted right to do so scarcely tends to enhance the respect in which that assembly is popularly held. in spite, however, of the occasional presence of "undesirables," it is generally acknowledged that if any question arises requiring a display of more than ordinary knowledge of history, or more practical wisdom or learning, these can nowhere be found so well as in the upper house. there, too, the level of oratory and of common sense is perceptibly higher than in the popular assembly. but the reform bill of enabled the commons to speak in the name of the people, which they had never hitherto done, and which the lords cannot do, and thus created that wide gulf which now separates them from the house of lords. here, however, as well as there, are many men who realise that, in the words of lord rosebery, they have a great heritage, "their own honour, and the honour of their ancestors, and of their posterity, to guard."[ ] [ ] hansard, vol. , p. ( ). chapter iii the house of commons the witenagemot, as we have already seen, was essentially an aristocratic assembly. the populace sometimes attended its meetings, but, beyond expressing their feelings by shouts of approval, took no part in its deliberations. for many years after the conquest the people continued to be unrepresented in the great council of the nation, though they were still present as spectators. from until about , says blackstone, the lords were the only legislators. after the latter date the commons were occasionally summoned, and in they formed a regular part of the legislature. then for the first time did the counties of england return two knights, and the boroughs and cities two deputies each, to represent them in parliament. seventy-four knights from all the english counties except chester, durham, and monmouth,[ ] and about two hundred burgesses and citizens, sat in the parliament of edward i.; but it was not until the reign of his successor that any attempt was made to form a constitutional government. the three estates in those days sat in the same chamber, but did not join in debate. the lords made the laws, and the commons looked on or perhaps assented respectfully. the separation of the two houses took place in the reign of edward iii., when the knights threw in their allegiance with the burgesses, and in the lower house[ ] first met apart. [ ] durham, both county and city, was not enfranchised until , and monmouth was regarded as a welsh county. [ ] "the house of commons is called the lower house in twenty acts of parliament," says selden. "but what are twenty acts of parliament amongst friends?"--"table talk," p. . the power of the commons increased gradually as time advanced. by the end of the thirteenth century they had secured sufficient authority to ensure that no tax could be imposed without their consent. by the middle of the fourteenth no law could be passed unless they approved. but many centuries were yet to elapse before the chief government of the country passed into their hands. the expense of sending representatives to parliament was long considered a burden, many counties and boroughs applying to be discharged from the exercise of so costly a privilege. the electors of those days were apparently less anxious to furnish a member for the popular assembly than to save the payment of his salary. indeed, the city of rochester, in , practised the frugal custom of compelling any stranger who settled within its gates to serve a term in parliament at his own expense. he was thus permitted to earn his freedom, and the parsimonious citizens saved an annual expenditure of about £ .[ ] [ ] "quarterly review," vol. xxix. p. . with the gradual growth of parliamentary power the importance of electing members to the house of commons began to be recognized, and, during the wars of the roses, fewer and fewer applications were made by boroughs and cities anxious to be relieved of this duty. until henry vi.'s time, when the modern system of bills and statutes began to come into being, legislation was by petition. the control of parliament was still very largely in the hands of the crown, and successive sovereigns took care that their influence over the commons should be maintained. with this object in view edward vi. enfranchised some two-and-twenty rotten boroughs, mary added fourteen more, and in elizabeth's time sixty-two further members, all under the royal control, were sent to leaven the commons. the attendance in the lower house was still poor, not more than two hundred members ever taking part in the largest divisions, and it was only at the culmination of the conflicts between parliament and the stuart kings that the commons began to display a real desire for independent power. if the revolution of firmly and finally established the supremacy of parliament, it was only a supremacy over the crown. the democratic element to which we are accustomed in a modern house of commons was still conspicuously lacking. both houses remained purely aristocratic in character until long after this. whigs and tories might wrangle over political differences; they were at one in their determination to uphold the interests of a single privileged class. "this house is not the representative of the people of great britain," said pitt in the commons in ; "it is the representative of nominal boroughs, of ruined and exterminated towns, of noble families, of wealthy individuals, of foreign potentates." eight members of parliament were then nominated by the nabob of arcot, and in the duke of norfolk's nominees in the house numbered eleven. the crown, the church, and the aristocracy governed the country. the commons were an insignificant body, open to bribery, dependent upon rich patrons or upon electors whose corruption was notorious. prior to , only out of some members of parliament were independent; the remainder were nominated by wealthy individuals. the reform bill of , however, brought about a mighty change for the better. the electorate of the country was raised from , to , , . fifty-six corrupt boroughs were disfranchised, thirty-one were deprived of one member each, and two others were reduced; and the hitherto inadequate representation of other towns and boroughs was rectified. the reformed parliament that met in the following year differed in many respects from its predecessors. sir robert peel was much struck by the alteration in tone, character, and appearance of the new house of commons. "there was an asperity, a rudeness, a vulgar assumption of independence, combined with a fawning reference to the people out of doors, expressed by many of the new members, which" (as he told his friend raikes) "was highly disgusting."[ ] the duke of wellington, who had gone to the peers' gallery of the house of commons to inspect the new parliament, expressed his opinion more tersely. "i never saw so many shocking bad hats in my life!" he said. the spirit of democracy had crept in, but it was still an unwelcome visitor. for many years the aristocracy maintained a great preponderance in the house of commons--in that assembly comprised heirs of peerages, younger sons of peers, and baronets[ ]--but its power decreased year by year, though even now it cannot be said to be wholly extinct. [ ] raikes's "journal," vol. i. p. . [ ] "pall mall gazette," december , . by the reform acts of and the franchise qualifications were once more extended, and three and a half million names added to the register. with the election, in , of the first labour candidates--of whom one, at least, was a genuine working-man--the commons gradually began to assume that representative appearance which it now presents. during the last three centuries the lower house has increased very considerably in size as well as in importance. it numbered in the reign of henry vi., and at the time of the long parliament. in , by which time the acts of union had added scottish and irish members,[ ] the numbers had risen to , and to-day some members sit in parliament. [ ] the irish members were increased to in , but subsequently reduced to , fifty years later. the house of commons has long ago shaken off the shackles of the crown, and will perhaps some day be almost as wholly emancipated from the influence of the aristocracy. its power is increasing yearly, owing mainly to the fact that it has gained the confidence of the country, and it is now generally felt that when any great question arises, the house will solve it, as disraeli said some fifty years ago, "not merely by the present thought and intelligence of its members, but by the accumulated wisdom of the eminent men who have preceded them."[ ] [ ] hansard, "debates," april, . to appreciate the exact nature of those inducements which tempt a man to enter parliament must often prove perplexing to the lay mind. to charles james fox the pleasures of patronage seemed the circumstances which chiefly rendered desirable the possession of political power. but the patronage in the hands of a private member to-day is of too insignificant a nature to prove an irresistible temptation, and political power of an appreciable kind is reserved for the very few. the life of the modern legislator is a strenuous and an expensive one; it cannot be successfully undertaken by a poor or an idle man. before a candidate may stand for parliament at all he must deposit a substantial sum with the returning officer, and the mere expenses of election vary from £ to £ in boroughs, and from £ to as much as £ in counties.[ ] add to this the annual sum--variously computed at from £ to £ --which a member spends in subscriptions within his constituency, and it can readily be imagined that the parliamentary life is not open to all. there would, indeed, seem to be some justification for the criticism of that cynical member who said that he had often heard the house of commons called "the best club in london," and supposed that it was so termed because it demanded the largest entrance fee.[ ] a few fortunate candidates have their election expenses paid by a party or by trades unions, but these are in the minority, and the comparatively large cost of entering parliament is the chief reason why, in spite of the democratic tendency of modern political thought, the house of commons still remains in large measure a delegation of the richest if not perhaps of the most aristocratic class in england. this state of things is likely to continue unless some system is adopted of remunerating the services of legislators in the fashion which long prevailed in england and is still in vogue upon the continent. but it is certainly open to argument whether its adoption would improve the quality of the house or the respect entertained for it in the country. [ ] the general election of cost £ , , . this expenditure was reduced to about a million pounds after the passing of the corrupt and illegal practices prevention act and the redistribution bill of and . by the former the expenses in boroughs are limited to £ , if the number of electors does not exceed ; and to £ if it does exceed , with an extra £ for every further electors. in counties, where the electors do not exceed , the expenses are limited to £ , and to £ if they exceed , with an extra £ for every further electors. these sums do not include personal expenses up to £ and the charges of the returning officer. [ ] hansard, "debates," vol. , p. . ( june, .) (the phrase was first used in a novel entitled, "friends of bohemia, or phases of london life," published in , by a parliamentary writer named e. m. whitty.) in the parliaments of edward iii. members received regular payment, the wages varying from year to year. at the beginning of the fourteenth century, for example, the knights of dorsetshire were paid _s._ a day; later on this was reduced to _s._ _d._ in the daily wage of county members was _s._, and they were also allowed a small sum to cover travelling expenses. in henry viii.'s reign boroughs were expected to pay their own members' expenses. frugal constituencies occasionally bargained with their would-be representatives, and candidates, stimulated to generous impulses by the idea of imminent election, would agree to defray their own expenses or even to go without wages altogether. sometimes, too, members appear to have been willing to pay for the privilege of election. in a certain thomas long was returned for the wiltshire borough of westbury by the simple process of paying the mayor a sum of £ . long's unfitness for a seat in parliament--he was a simple yeoman--became apparent as soon as he entered the house. on being questioned, he admitted having bribed the constituency to elect him, and was at once informed that the house had no further need of his services. the inhabitants of westbury were fined £ , and the mayor was compelled to refund his money.[ ] [ ] "parliamentary history," vol. i. p. . the practice of paying members long continued. in the year we find the member for grantham suing the borough for his salary. the house of commons does not, however, appear to have been anxious to uphold this claim, and requested that it should be withdrawn. by this time, indeed, it had become usual for members to forego the financial advantages of election--though there still remained some notable exceptions who were not satisfied with the honorary rewards attaching to the possession of a seat in parliament--and in the commons repealed the statute by which wages were paid to members.[ ] [ ] andrew marvell continued to receive a salary from hull until his death in (see his "works," vol. ii., xxxv.), and the member for harwich obtained a writ against that borough for his salary in . samuel pepys deplored the gradual neglect of the old practice requiring constituencies to allow wages to their representatives, whereby, he said, "they chose men that understood their business and would attend it, and they could expect an account from, which now they cannot."[ ] but this view was not the popular one, and electors gladly availed themselves of the change in public opinion to discontinue the earlier system. motions have been brought forward on more than one occasion, "to restore the ancient constitutional custom of payment of members,"--notably in and --but have always been rejected by a large majority.[ ] nowadays, however, there seems some inclination to revert to the old-fashioned and more expensive method, and within recent years a liberal prime minister has promised to provide payment for members whenever funds for the purpose are available. in other respects the desire of the member of parliament today would appear to be rather in the direction of relinquishing than of adding to his personal privileges. in the eighteenth century, for example, he would never have dreamt of paying postal fees. members transmitted their correspondence without charge by the simple process of inscribing their names in one corner of the envelope. the privilege of "franking," as this was called, was afterwards limited by its being required that the date and place of posting should be added in the member's handwriting, and the daily number of free letters was restricted to ten sent and fifteen received. in those free and easy days kind-hearted members would provide their friends with large bundles of franked half-sheets of paper, and the number of persons who paid any postage on their correspondence two hundred years ago must have been very small indeed. in a letter written by mrs. delany to a friend in we find the subject mentioned in a way that shows how universally available had become such opportunities for defrauding the revenue. "i have been so silly as to forget franks," she writes. "i must beg the favour of you to get _a dozen or two_ for me from sir charles mordaunt.... i don't know," she adds, "but you will find a few of the duke of portland's in the drawer with the paper."[ ] [ ] "diary," march, . [ ] irving's "annals of our time," p. . (the majority in was .) [ ] "autobiography of mrs. delany," vol. ii. p. . [illustration: the house of of commons in from an engraving by john pine] by the end of the eighteenth century the improper franking of letters threatened to become a public scandal. covers were transmitted by the hundred, packed in boxes, the only limit to their distribution being the good nature of members. a london banker once received thirty-three covers containing garden seeds from a scottish member, and it became apparent to the postal authorities that some effort must be made to put a stop to the practice.[ ] this was eventually done in , not without a struggle, and the modern member of parliament who writes letters to his friends must do so at his own expense. he is still, however, allowed to send a certain number of printed copies of bills to his constituents, free of charge, by writing his name in a corner of the packet. [ ] wraxall's "posthumous memoirs." to-day the privileges of membership are certainly not of a material kind. a few men enter the house of commons for social purposes, and must be sadly disappointed in the result. the simple letters, "m.p." on a card are indeed no longer, as the author of that entertaining work, "men and manners in parliament," declared them to be thirty years ago, "the surest passport to distinction for mediocrity travelling on the continent."[ ] bitter experience has shattered the simple faith in human nature which was once the chief charm of the swiss innkeeper. the sight of a british member of parliament signing a cheque no longer inspires him with confidence. he is only too well aware that among those-- "types of the elements whose glorious strife form'd this free england, and still guard her life," there exist a few who are not above leaving their hotel bills permanently unpaid; and this knowledge has endowed him with a caution which is both galling to the sensitive soul of the average m.p. and extremely inconvenient to the tourist who has momentarily mislaid his letter of credit. [ ] p. . if the member cannot now enjoy the unmixed respect of the foreigner, it is equally certain that at home he is no longer looked upon with the veneration with which his predecessors were commonly regarded. his constituents treat him as their servant no less than as their representative. and though he may find some comfort in that definition of a member's duties for which edmund burke is responsible--which perhaps cost that statesman his seat at the general election of --this will prove but a slight consolation when he is suddenly called upon by his local committee to explain some change of views or to account for constant neglect of his parliamentary duties. parliament is not, indeed, as burke told the electors of bristol, a congress of ambassadors from different and hostile interests, which interests each must maintain, as an agent and advocate, against other agents and advocates. it is a deliberate assembly of one nation, with one interest, that of the whole; where not local purposes, not local prejudices, ought to guide, but the general good, resulting from the general reason of the whole. "you choose a member indeed," he said; "but when you have chosen him, he is not a member of bristol, but he is a member of _parliament_."[ ] at the same time a member cannot afford to forget that he owes much to his constituents; his existence in parliament depends very greatly upon their good pleasure. he must be to a certain extent at their beck and call, willing to subscribe to their local charities, to open their bazaars, visit their hospitals, kick off at their football matches, take the chair at their farmers' dinners or smoking-concerts. he must have a welcome hand ever extended in the direction of the squire, a smile for the licensed victualler, a kindly nod of the head for the meanest elector, and (at election times) a kiss for the humblest voter's stickiest child. when constituents call upon him at the house he must greet them with a display of effusiveness which gives no hint of his annoyance at being interrupted in the middle of important business. they may want to be shown round the house, and such a natural desire on their part must be acquiesced in, though it is not every one who has the courage to escort a band of six hundred constituents round the chamber, as did a member in . every morning the postman will bring him--besides that voluminous bundle of parliamentary papers and bluebooks, with the contents of which he is mythically supposed to make himself acquainted--a score of applications of various kinds from his constituents, all of which must be attended to. the day is long past when he can emulate the cavalier methods of fox who, as secretary of state for foreign affairs, affixed a notice to the door of his office: "no letters received here on mondays, tuesdays, wednesdays, thursdays, fridays or saturdays! and none answered on any day!"[ ] [ ] speech at bristol in . ("works and correspondence of e. burke," vol. iii. p. ). algernon sidney anticipated this remark. "it is not therefore for kent or sussex, lewes or maidstone, but for the whole nation, that the members chosen in those places are sent to serve in parliament."--"discourse concerning government," vol. ii. p. . [ ] bell's "biographical sketches," p. . the modern member's duties are by no means confined to the house of commons, nor are they limited to the duration of the session. formerly it would never have occurred to a member to make a speech in his constituency, once he was elected; though as a candidate he would of course address the voters, and might even be compelled to attend a banquet or a provincial dance.[ ] the idea of paying a visit to the electors of any constituency other than his own would, a century ago, have been considered in the worst possible taste. nowadays, however, the point of view is changed. no sooner has he completed his share in the arduous work of the session--the long tedious hours of debate, the wearisome attendance on committees, the continual tramping through the division lobbies--and shaken the dust of westminster from his feet, than he must hasten to the country to give some account of his stewardship, to dazzle his constituents with the oratorical platitudes which have failed to move the more fastidious audience of the house of commons. he must even be ready to rush off to the assistance of a fellow-member in some distant shire, and purge his bosom of the same perilous stuff upon various platforms all over the country. [ ] croker, in , complains of having to attend a three o'clock dinner and dance at bodmin, when he stood as candidate; the whole affair being, he says, "at once tiresome and foolish." "croker papers," vol. i. p. . sir edward coke declared three hundred years ago that every member of parliament should in three respects at least resemble the elephant; "first, that he hath no gall; secondly, that he is inflexible, and cannot bow; thirdly, that he is of a most ripe and perfect memory."[ ] he might well have added some of the other qualities of that admirable beast--patience, docility, the capacity for hard work, and, above all, a thick skin. though outwardly inflexible, a modern member must be prepared to bow to the wishes of his party; and in his ripe and perfect memory there should be room for the names and faces of his constituents and their wives. he must be patient when he has failed for the hundredth time to "catch the speaker's eye"; he must be docile when the whip urges him to vote in favour of a motion with which he disagrees fundamentally; and if he be of a thin-skinned disposition or of a delicate constitution, the labours of the house of commons may soon prove too much for him. if he is unambitious and anxious to lead a peaceful life, he will do well to remember the advice given by ferguson of pitfour, who summed up his parliamentary experiences, in , as follows: "i was never present at any debate i could avoid, or absent from any division i could get at. i have heard many arguments which convinced my judgment, but never one that influenced my vote. i never voted but once according to my own opinion, and that was the worst vote i ever gave. i found that the only way to be quiet in parliament was always to vote with the ministry, and never to take a place."[ ] [ ] "institute of the laws of england," th part, p. . [ ] sir h. c. robinson's "diary and reminiscences," vol. ii. pp. - . no doubt the member of parliament enjoys many privileges which are denied to the mere layman. he is stimulated by the excitement of participating in a perpetual political conflict; he delights in the intellectual pleasure of hearing the most interesting questions of the day debated by the shrewdest men of the age; he is conscious of being in a sense a public benefactor, with a direct (if somewhat slight) influence upon the policy of his country. he is given a front seat in what mr. biggar once called the "best theatre in london," and there is always the chance that some day he may himself be cast for a leading part in that great political drama which is performed night after night on the boards of the theatre royal, westminster. politics--"l'art de mentir à propos," as voltaire defined them--may have their origin in the perversity rather than in the grandeur of the human soul, but the attraction they exercise over the average englishman is very great.[ ] but for the privileges of a parliamentary career--one of the worthiest to which a patriot can devote himself, in mr. balfour's opinion--a heavy price has to be paid, and to the toll of toil and treasure levied by parliament must be added the sacrifice of independence as well as of time. [ ] moore wrote to lady donegal in : "i begin at last to find out that _politics_ is the only thing minded in this country, and that it is better even to _rebel_ against government than have nothing to do with it." "memoirs," vol. i. p. . in this twentieth century the initiative of the private member has almost disappeared. the government is alone responsible for legislation; all the most important measures brought in are government measures. the time of the house is placed, very early in each session, at the disposal of the government, its business is arranged to suit their convenience, and the private member must be content to make the most of such fragmentary opportunities as are flung to him. he is controlled by his party and by his whip; he may not leave the house without permission; he must vote at the word of command. at one moment he may be called upon to speak at length upon a subject of which he is sublimely ignorant, in order to allow his party a chance of gathering their forces to meet an unexpected division; at another he is compelled to refrain from good words, though it may be pain and grief to him, in order to save the precious time of the government. and perhaps he will occasionally be inclined to agree once more with burke that the same qualifications, nowadays, make a good member of parliament that formerly made a good monk: "bene loqui de superiore, legere breviarum taliter qualiter, et sinere res vadere ut vadunt"--to speak well of the minister, read the lesson he sets you, and let the state take care of itself![ ] [ ] prior's "life of burke," vol. ii. p. . even so, the advantages of membership are not to be despised; and once a man has tasted the sweets of political life, all other professions fade into insignificance. he may have been moved to enter parliament by some ambitious yearning after fame; he may have been prompted by patriotic motives, or merely the desire to prove himself a useful member of society, his serious opinion being (like that of buxton, the great opponent of slavery) that "good woodcock-shooting is a preferable thing to glory."[ ] his contributions to debate may be of poor quality, but they will not be altogether valueless, and, after an arduous day in the house, he will listen with a glow of conscious rectitude to the ancient and welcome cry of "who goes home?" which rings through the lobbies and announces the close of the sitting.[ ] though he may never, perhaps, wake to find himself famous, he will often sink comfortably to sleep on his return home from the house in the early hours of the morning, soothed by the consciousness of duty done. that in itself is a thing not to be despised, and there may possibly be other benefits in store for him. if he is sufficiently painstaking and intelligent he may perchance have greatness thrust upon him in the form of an under-secretaryship, and, when he has scaled the outer breastworks of that cabinet zareba to which access is so difficult, the suspicion that he has long cherished of being a heaven-born politician is at length confirmed. [ ] buxton's "memoirs," p. . [ ] in olden days members used to return from westminster to london through lanes infested with robbers. this cry enabled them to assemble and leave the house in one another's company. socrates was right when he said that whereas no man undertook a trade that he had not thoroughly learnt, everybody considered himself sufficiently qualified by nature to undertake the trade of government, probably the most difficult in the world. there are, however, certain disqualifications which prevent the most ambitious man from serving in parliament.[ ] [ ] it is curious to reflect that a man may be a member of parliament even though he is not entitled to a vote as an elector. the rt. hon. austen chamberlain was not only a member, but even a cabinet minister, at a time when he had no vote. infants and minors may not be elected to the house of commons. but though they have always been excluded by custom or statute, their presence was winked at until the end of the eighteenth century. the members of those bygone times seem generally to have been more youthful than the members of to-day. even the chair was occupied by men comparatively young, seymour, harley, and sir thomas more each being elected speaker before he had reached the age of forty. the last-named speaks of himself as a "beardless boy resisting greybeards and kings themselves," referring no doubt to the time when cardinal wolsey came to the house of commons in , to ask for money for his royal master, and he actively opposed the grant. in queen elizabeth's time the lower chamber was not weakened by the admission of too many infants; but during the reign of james i. the ancient custom for old men to make laws for young ones seems to have been inverted, there being as many as forty members of parliament who were minors, and several who were not more than sixteen years old.[ ] the poet waller sat in the commons before he was seventeen, while lord torrington (afterwards duke of albemarle) took part in debate when he was only fourteen, and at that age addressed the house in , on the subject of clarendon's impeachment.[ ] the infant members of that day were singularly precocious and well able to look after themselves. when, for instance, some one urged that lord falkland was too young to sit in parliament, as he had not yet sown his wild oats, that young nobleman rudely replied that he could imagine no more suitable place for sowing them than the house of commons, where there were so many geese to pick them up.[ ] [ ] naunton's "fragmenta regalia," p. . [ ] shaftesbury's "life," vol. i. p. n. [ ] townsend's "history," vol. ii. p. . the crown saw no disadvantage in having youthful legislators, who could all the more easily be influenced. when parliament assembled in and the tender age of many of the members was pointed out to king charles, he answered that he found no great fault in that, "for he could keep them till they got beards."[ ] by the act of , however, infants were formally excluded from parliament, but for a long time they continued to sit in the house, though they most probably abstained from voting. [ ] reresby's "memoirs," p. . extreme youth was not considered a bar to parliamentary success in days when it was possible for a politician to become prime minister, as pitt did, at the age of twenty-five, though that statesman's father found it necessary on one occasion to defend himself against the charge of immaturity.[ ] both fox and philip stanhope (afterwards lord chesterfield) delivered their maiden speeches a month or so before they came of age,[ ] and lord john russell was returned to parliament when he was still a minor. [ ] "sir," he said in debate, "the atrocious crime of being a young man, which the hon. gentleman (horace walpole) has with such decency and spirit charged against me, i shall neither attempt to palliate or deny; but content myself with wishing that i may be one of those whose follies may cease with their youth, and not of that number who are ignorant in spite of experience." [ ] chesterfield's "letters," vol. ii. p. . in order to escape the fine of £ chesterfield retired from political life for a short time. as the years advanced the house of commons became more and more particular in this respect, and at the beginning of the nineteenth century an eye-witness was struck by the large proportion of bald-headed men--nearly a third of the whole number--in the lower chamber.[ ] to-day no one who has not reached the mature age of twenty-one can stand for parliament, much less sit upon the sacred green benches. [ ] grant's "recollections," p. . lunatics and idiots are also disentitled to parliamentary election. a member who goes mad after having taken his seat can only be removed, however, if his case is proved to be a hopeless one, the house being then petitioned to declare the seat vacant, and the speaker issuing a new writ. in one well-known instance a committee of the house found that a member's lunacy was not so incurable as to justify his removal, and he retained his seat. in the case of a lunatic recording his vote in a division was the occasion of a painful and futile debate. the member in question suffered from periodical bouts of insanity, and had recently been certified "dangerous" at his own request, in order that he might retire temporarily to an asylum. it was therefore obviously improper for him to vote. the house, however, declined to take any serious notice of the incident, the motion for an inquiry by a select committee into the circumstances of the case being negatived, and the matter tactfully allowed to drop.[ ] [ ] see hansard, vol. clxii. p. . aliens cannot sit in parliament until they have taken the precaution of becoming naturalised british subjects. in william iii.'s time all persons born outside the dominions were disqualified, and when the test and corporation acts were repealed in george iv.'s reign, an amendment was inserted by the bishop of llandaff in the house of lords by which jews were excluded from parliament. they were finally admitted to the house of commons in , and during the reign of queen victoria naturalisation was held to carry with it full political rights. english and scottish peers are incapacitated from serving in the commons. irish peers, however, may do so, provided that they are not already sitting as representative peers in the house of lords.[ ] the eldest sons of peers were excluded from the lower house down to the middle of the sixteenth century, when they were gratefully admitted and given seats of honour on the front bench with the privy councillors. [ ] when the lords were temporarily abolished in , peers were elected to the commons, but only a few seem to have availed themselves of this privilege. porritt's "unreformed house of commons," vol. i. p. . irishmen enjoy parliamentary privileges not only as peers but also as bankrupts. the occasional combination of the two therefore carries with it some slight compensation. a bankrupt englishman or scotsman is disabled from even standing as a candidate for parliament, whereas his more fortunate irish brother may be elected. members of parliament who become bankrupt after election may continue to sit and vote in the commons until the speaker has received official notification of their bankruptcy, or the house has ordered their withdrawal. the election of clergymen and other ministers was prohibited by an act of , passed in order to deal with the case of the rev. j. horne tooke, the "father of radicalism," who had been elected for old sarum. it did not succeed in its object, however, for he continued to sit for the remainder of the parliament.[ ] and by another act, passed about , any one who has relinquished the office of priest or deacon is eligible for election. otherwise no minister of the established church may sit in parliament. [ ] horne tooke was a man of strength and determination. upon all great public questions, as he once declared, "neither friends nor foes, nor life nor death, nor thunder nor lightning, would ever make him give way the breadth of one hair." when lord temple claimed a superior right to sit in parliament because he had "a stake in the country," "so have i," said tooke, "but it was not stolen from a public hedge!" many other persons are similarly debarred, among whom may be mentioned the holders of offices under the crown created since , crown pensioners (exclusive of civil servants and diplomats), and government contractors. persons guilty of treason or felony (who have neither served their sentence nor been pardoned), or of corrupt practices at elections are likewise disqualified,[ ] as are also those who are unable to take the oath of allegiance or to affirm. there are, besides, a number of officials connected with the administration of justice, or concerned with the collection of the revenue, or representatives of the crown--judges, colonial governors, etc.--who are incapacitated by their positions from sitting in the house of commons. [ ] in it was voted by a small majority that one outlawed or guilty of various frauds might sit in the house if duly elected, his crimes being apparently purged by virtue of his election. see raikes's "english constitution," vol. i. p. . at one period of parliamentary history lawyers were excluded from the house of commons, enactments in favour of keeping out "gentlemen of the long robe" being passed in edward iii.'s time. they were always unpopular members, it being supposed that they only entered parliament as a stepping-stone to wider practice at the bar or to some sort of government employment. the legal profession was looked upon as one into which no one entered without views of self-aggrandisement, and the use of a seat in parliament as a means of advertising oneself did not appeal to the country at large.[ ] lawyers are allowed to sit in the house to-day, but they may not practise as counsel before parliamentary committees, nor even advise professionally upon any private bill. [ ] see the "black book," p. . having successfully eluded all these disqualifications, paid a large sum for the privilege of serving his country, talked himself hoarse on the platforms of his constituency, and finally been returned in triumph to the house of commons, the private member may consider himself safely launched upon the parliamentary sea. it now remains to be seen whether or not political life comes up to his expectations. if he is energetic, ambitious, and eloquent he will find free scope for his talents on the green benches at westminster. he will be given a chance of proving his worth upon select committees. here he can serve his apprenticeship in preparation for that glorious day when he may be inspired to thrill and enrapture a delighted assembly with such an outburst of oratory as shall at once establish his claim to the consideration of his party. then indeed does fortune seem ready to smile upon the embryo statesman. in imagination he sees himself lounging upon the treasury bench, his feet cocked up against the historic table, while he writes a report of the debate for the edification of his sovereign. to the political enthusiast the prospect is a rosy one. but alas! it is not every man who can aspire to the giddy heights of the front bench. after many a session of laborious days and sleepless nights, after many a recess devoted to the tiresome art known as "nursing" his constituency, after many disappointments and trials, our member may still find himself at the bottom of the parliamentary ladder. even if he ascends to what mr. gladstone would have called "measurable distance" of the top, his tenure is precarious; in the defeat of a government at a general election he too may fall. and though his constituents remain loyal and his seat secure, there arrives a day when he begins to weary of the slavery of parliamentary life, of the drudgery of a political career. like macaulay, he may at length come to define politics as a pursuit from which the most that those who are engaged in it can expect is that by relinquishing liberal studies and social pleasures, by passing nights without sleep and summers without one glimpse of the beauty of nature, they may attain "that laborious, that invidious, that closely watched slavery which is mocked with the name of power."[ ] when this tragic moment arrives, or when through physical infirmity, advancing years, or penury, he wishes to bid a long farewell to the scene of his parliamentary labours, he has still a minor obstacle to contend with. [ ] "edinburgh review" (october, ), vol. lxviii. p. . the two happiest days of a statesman's life are said to be the day when he accepts high office and the day when he resigns it (campbell's "lives of the chancellors," vol. i. p. ). lord rosebery defined the acceptance and resignation of office as "the two supreme pleasures--one ideal, the other real." a member cannot resign his seat, nor is it permissible for him to exchange it for any other. only his own death or the dissolution of parliament can enable him to cease from being a member, unless the house itself declares his seat to be vacant. even expulsion from the house does not prevent his immediate re-election by a constituency determined to retain his services, as was shown in the case of walpole--twice expelled from the house, and re-elected by the voters of lynn--and of wilkes and bradlaugh. the only thing that can prevent a man from sitting in the house, or allow a member to escape from its service, is the fact of his coming within the range of that long list of disqualifications already enumerated. how then can a member vacate his seat in the simplest fashion? many members would think twice before becoming bankrupt or committing a felony in order to avoid parliamentary duty. it is not given to every one to be a colonial governor, an auditor general, or even a charity commissioner. but, by the merciful connivance of the powers that be, it is always possible for a member to incapacitate himself by holding a crown appointment. for this beneficent purpose two ancient stewardships of a purely nominal value are upheld, that by accepting either of these offices a member may be enabled to retire gracefully from parliament. the steward or bailiff of the three chiltern hundreds of stoke, desborough and boneham, and the steward of northstead, were officers appointed by the crown in past ages to look after certain buckinghamshire forests in which brigands abounded. the brigands are long since dead, and the forests themselves have been converted into parks and pasture lands, but the stewardships remain, a convenient city of refuge for members who desire to escape from the active strife of parliament, to whom they are sometimes presented as often as nine times in one session. "the parliamentary constitution of england," said disraeli, "was born in the bosom of the chiltern hills; as to this day our parliamentary career is terminated among its hundreds."[ ] and since no county is fraught with greater historical and political interest than buckinghamshire, it is perhaps fitting that it should be the means of providing a merciful release for the jaded parliamentarian whose course is run. [ ] speech made to the farmers at amersham market, . chapter iv the palace of westminster parliament may be summoned to assemble wherever the king pleases. westminster, the site of that royal palace which has sheltered so many english sovereigns, from king canute to henry viii., was for centuries the most natural meeting-place for the great council of the nation. but many another town, such as winchester, bury st. edmunds, leicester, coventry, reading, salisbury, and half a dozen more, has at different times been selected as the temporary seat of parliament, either to suit the royal convenience, or for other reasons. of the twenty parliaments of edward ii. one met at ripon, one at northampton, and three at york and lincoln. in stuart days oxford was the place chosen on two occasions, in and in , when london was being ravaged by the plague. since the revolution of , however, parliament has ceased to be nomadic in its habits; in its old age it has definitely settled down at westminster, and there it is likely to remain. the palace in which canute first resided, within a stone's throw of the thames, was burnt to the ground somewhere about the year . edward the confessor rebuilt it ten years later, and in the days of william rufus the addition of the great hall further enhanced the dignity of the palace. here william held his first court, on his return from normandy, and since his day a succession of kings have made it the centre of innumerable scenes of royal pomp and pageantry. william rufus was a man of large ideas. even the magnificence of the great hall did not entirely satisfy his taste for grandeur. in his imagination he had conceived a still more splendid scheme of architecture, and was disappointed with the size of the new building. on first entering to inspect it, accompanied by a large military retinue, he overheard some tactless persons remark that, in their opinion, the hall was far too large. with a scornful look the king reduced these critics to silence, explaining that, so far from this being the case, the hall was not half large enough, being, in fact, but a bed-chamber in comparison with the building of which he intended it to form part.[ ] [ ] knight's "london," vol. vi. p. . by the end of the fourteenth century westminster hall had fallen into disrepair, and during the reign of richard ii., when the poet chaucer was clerk of the works, it was rebuilt, the expense being met by a tax levied upon all foreigners in the kingdom. richard celebrated the event by keeping christmas there in a suitably seasonable fashion, "with daily justings and runnings at tilt; whereunto resorted such a number of people that there was every day spent twenty-eight or twenty-six oxen, and three hundred sheep, besides fowl without number."[ ] [ ] stow's "a survey of london," p. . prior to the days when such feats of engineering as the building of the modern thames embankment were possible, the proximity of the palace to the river necessitated a system of constant repair. until confined within reasonable limits, the thames showed a disposition to overflow its banks upon the slightest provocation, much to the inconvenience of the royal residents in the neighbourhood. in the palace was completely flooded, so that "men did row with wherries in the midst of it," and six years later a similar fate befell westminster hall. in the river once more trespassed upon the royal domain, fish being afterwards found in a moribund condition on the floor of the great hall. the latter, indeed, continued to be visited by periodical floods as late as the year . fire, too, seems to have proved a constant menace to the safety of the palace, though at the time of the fire of london the great hall was one of the few places in which citizens could store their goods out of harm's way. in part of the palace was burnt to the ground, and at the beginning of the sixteenth century so great a proportion of it fell a prey to a "vehement conflagration" that henry viii. decided to forsake it altogether, and removed his court to whitehall. since that day royal personages have ceased to lodge at the palace of westminster, which is still, however, nominally a royal residence, and as such remains in the custody of an officer of the king's household.[ ] [ ] the lord great chamberlain, who holds an hereditary freehold office of state, is the custodian of the palace of westminster. he was originally an executive officer of the king's household, appointed to look after the royal residence. in the office was granted by henry i. to aubrey de vere, father of the first earl of oxford, and to his heirs. henry viii. gave the post on several occasions for life to different favourites, not necessarily of the de vere family, but since the time of elizabeth the lord great chamberlainship has been held without exception by descendants of the earl of oxford. to-day the families of cholmondeley on the one side, and ancaster and carrington on the other, share the privileges of the office, a representative of each branch holding the chamberlainship in turn during the lifetime of alternate sovereigns. the lord great chamberlain retains authority over the buildings of both houses, even during the session, whenever parliament is not sitting. here his official responsibilities end. in former times a considerable part of his duties consisted in attending his sovereign at the coronation, when he was not only expected to dress the king, to "carry the coif, swords, and gloves, etc."; but also to undress him, and to wait on him at dinner, "having for his fee the king's bed and all the furniture of his chamber, the night apparel and the silver basin wherein the king washes, with the towels." it is traditional that if the king sleeps at westminster he must occupy the lord great chamberlain's house. george iv. did so on the eve of his coronation, the speaker of the house of commons handing over his residence for the purpose to the lord great chamberlain for a nominal fee. on this occasion the officials in waiting on his majesty spent a restless night. lord gwydyr, the deputy lord great chamberlain, and his secretary, took their stand on one side of the king's chamber, and the gentleman usher of the black rod on the other, and there they remained until morning. (see "the gentleman's magazine." july, .) [illustration: westminster hall in from an engraving by c. mosley] the great hall still continued to be used as the most appropriate stage for state ceremonies, for coronations and the banquets with which such events were celebrated. it was also the scene of most of the great state trials famous in english history. such men as william wallace, the earls of arundel, of essex, and of strafford, were here arraigned upon a charge of high treason; here charles i. was condemned to death. in westminster hall titus oates was stripped of his ecclesiastical habit and exposed to public obloquy, with a placard upon his breast declaring his offence. beneath this wide oak roof the duchess of kingston was tried for bigamy, much to her delight. here, too, warren hastings faced his accusers, and triumphed over them. this is the hall, as macaulay says in a well-known passage, which witnessed the just sentence of bacon and the just absolution of somers; the hall where the eloquence of the latter for a moment awed and melted a victorious party inflamed with just resentment. this, we may now add, is the hall where the body of gladstone lay in state, and the mortal remains of king edward vii. received the homage of his sorrowing subjects. no state trial has been held in westminster hall since lord melville was acquitted there in , and on the only recent occasion on which a member of the house of lords was tried by his peers, on july , , the royal gallery of the lords was fitted up as a court. for centuries the coronation feasts, which were held in westminster hall, provided the public with a stately and imposing spectacle. not the least interesting part of the ceremony consisted in the entrance of the king's champion, clad in armour and mounted upon a fiery charger, who flung down his gauntlet and challenged to mortal combat all who dared to question the monarch's right to the throne. the feat required some personal courage, as well as the possession of a docile steed, for if it were not accomplished successfully the effect might well be ludicrous. before the coronation of george iii., horace walpole relates, lord talbot had spent much care in training his charger to walk backwards, so that it might make a graceful exit from the hall without ever exposing its tail to the royal gaze. unfortunately, the lesson had been too well learnt, and the horse insisted upon entering the hall backwards, much to the amusement of the spectators. sovereigns are no longer crowned in westminster hall, but in the abbey close by, and no coronation feast has been held there since the accession of george iv., when the guests repaid their sovereign's hospitality by carrying away most of his spoons as souvenirs of the event. the hall has, however, been the scene of other less-important banquets, as, for instance, in , when the officers of the visiting french fleet were entertained there as the guests of the british nation. to westminster hall, henry ii. summoned his barons in council, and in the reign of henry iii. parliaments were often held there. gradually, however, the building became devoted exclusively to the judicial side of the king's great council, and, when edward i. occupied the throne of england, the courts of king's bench and chancery held their meetings regularly at the south end of the hall. peter the great, during a brief stay in england, paid a visit to westminster hall, and was much struck by the presence of a number of busy people in long black gowns and bobtailed wigs. on being informed that these were lawyers, "i have but two in my dominions," he observed thoughtfully, "and i believe i shall hang one of those directly i get home!" new buildings were erected in , on the west side of the hall, to accommodate the judges, and when, about a hundred and fifty years later, the palace of justice was built in the strand, the representatives of the law emigrated thither in a body. the general public for a long time shared with the lawyers the privilege of trading within the precincts of westminster hall. in edward iii.'s reign merchants' stalls abounded there, being temporarily boarded over on the occasion of state pageants, and, at a much later date, laud tells us in his diary, a conflagration in one of these shops threatened to destroy the entire building. during the seventeenth century, book-sellers, law-stationers, and other tradesmen still plied their callings in the hall, undisturbed by the pleadings of their legal rivals.[ ] on the one side, as we read in a contemporary chronicle, were to be seen "men with baubles and toys, and on the other taken up with the fear of judgment, on which depends their inevitable destiny. on your left hand you hear a nimble tongu'd _sempstress_, with her charming treble, invite you to buy some of her knick-knacks: and on your right, a deep-mouth'd cryar commanding impossibilities, viz. silence to be kept among women and lawyers."[ ] in the days of pepys, the great hall had become a regular meeting-place for the public, and was still the most popular market for the sale of books.[ ] [ ] forster's "grand remonstrance," p. , note. [ ] brown's "amusements," pp. - . [ ] "at westminster hall, where mrs. lane and the rest of the maids had their white scarfs, all having been at the burial of a young bookseller in the hall," "pepys' diary," january, . trade has long been banished from the portals of westminster hall, its stately precincts are now desecrated by no foot less worthy than that of the member of parliament or the saturday sight-seer. in other respects the hall remains unchanged. save for the retimbering of the roof in with oak taken from old men-of-war, it stands to-day much as it has stood for centuries. structural alterations have occasionally been suggested, but without effect. one projected by lord grenville, necessitating the removal and raising of the entire roof, evoked many indignant protests.[ ] [ ] "with cedar roof, and stony wall, old william rufus built this hall; without a roof, with scarce a wall, william unroof-us spoils it all." hawkins's "biographical sketches," vol. i. p. . in new palace yard, opposite the entrance of westminster hall, a huge clock-tower once stood. it had been erected in the reign of edward i., the cost being defrayed by a fine levied on sir ralph de hengham, chief justice of the king's bench, as a penalty for altering a judicial record in favour of a pauper litigant. in this tower hung a bell, known as "great tom of westminster," whose voice on a clear day could be beard as far away as windsor.[ ] in both tower and bell were pulled down, the latter being recast and presented to st paul's cathedral where it still hangs. [ ] there is a well-known story of a sentry at the castle who was accused of sleeping at his post, and secured his acquittal by proving that he had heard "great tom" strike thirteen times at midnight--a fact which was corroborated by the evidence of independent witnesses. near the tower was a fountain from which on great occasions wine was made to flow for the delectation of the populace, while close by stood the pillory in which titus oates, john williams, the publisher of john wilkes's _north briton_, and many other offenders against parliamentary privilege, suffered the penalty of their crimes. westminster hall lies nearly due north and south. at its south-east angle, stretching towards the river, stands st. stephen's hall, on the site of that famous chapel, founded by king stephen and called after his sainted namesake, which was for so long the home of the commons. the chapel was partly destroyed by fire in , but was subsequently restored at great cost by edward iii., who also built an adjacent belfry of stone and timber containing three huge bells which were rung at "coronations, triumphs, funerals of princes, and their obits."[ ] after the reformation the thirteenth century decorations which originally adorned the walls of st. stephen's chapel were whitewashed and covered with boards, and the building was given over to parliament. [ ] these bells must have been extremely unpopular, since it was fabled that their ringing "soured all the drink in the town." stow's "survey of london," p. . though the three estates originally sat together, they seem to have deliberated separately. parliament used to meet occasionally in the priory church of blackfriars monastery, but when the houses parted company a chamber in the palace of westminster was reserved for the lords, while the commons retired to the chapter house of the abbey. later on they assembled in or near westminster hall--richard ii. held a parliament in a building erected for the purpose outside the great hall--and finally, about the year , st. stephen's chapel was fixed upon as the regular meeting-place of the commons. the chapel was an oblong building, but half as long and half as broad as westminster hall, and most of the floor space was occupied by the lobby. it was a gloomy and narrow chamber, and what the german traveller moritz calls "mean-looking." at the western end was a gallery to which members ascended by means of a ladder near the southern window.[ ] at the eastern end stood the speaker's chair, and opposite it the famous bar where so many persons have stood, either as prisoners, witnesses, or patriots. here pepys, buoyed up with brandy, appeared to answer the charges that had been brought against the navy office in - . here, a century and a half later, mrs. clarke, the duke of york's discarded mistress, was examined for two hours on the subject of his alleged corrupt sale of commissions--an ordeal from which she emerged triumphantly. at this bar victorious soldiers, from the days of schomberg to those of wellington, have received the thanks of parliament for the services they rendered to their country. and many a trembling prisoner has stood here to receive sentence or reprimand at the mouth of the speaker. [ ] speaker lenthall once rebuked a youthful member who was sitting perched upon the topmost rung, listening to a debate, and bade him come down and not "sit upon the ladder as though he were going to be hanged." forster's "historical sketches," vol. i. p. . on either side of the old house were ranged rows of wooden benches, hard and comfortless, with neither backs nor covering. not even were ministers provided with padded seats. "no satin covering decks th' unsightly boards; no velvet cushion holds the youthful lords; and claim illustrious tails such small regard? ah! tails too tender for a seat so hard!"[ ] [ ] "the rolliad." st stephen's chapel was in size quite inadequate to the needs of legislators--the only point, perhaps, in which it resembled the present house of commons. david hume complained perpetually of the lack of room; while cobbett cynically referred to it as "the little hole into which we are all crammed to make the laws by which this great kingdom is governed."[ ] lined with dark wainscot and lit by three chandeliers, the gloomy chamber did not impress the stranger with the dignity or splendour of parliaments, and a visitor to st stephen's might well have been excused for mistaking the house of commons for a den of thieves or a crew of midnight conspirators.[ ] [ ] dalling's "historical characters," vol. ii. p. . [ ] knight's "london," vol. ii. p. . as was only natural, the dingy surroundings exercised a detrimental influence upon the manners of members. moritz was surprised to see many of them lying stretched out at full length on the uncomfortable benches fast asleep, while others cracked nuts or ate oranges. "the many rude things the members said to one another," he observes sadly, "struck me much."[ ] not only was the house squalid and dirty, it was also infested with rats. speaker manners sutton told thomas moore that the only time he had ever laughed while occupying the chair was during a debate in which members of the opposition had been squabbling fiercely together, when he saw a large rat issue from beneath the front opposition bench and walk deliberately across to the treasury side of the house.[ ] [ ] pinkerton's "voyages," vol. ii. p. . [ ] moore's "memoirs," vol. iv. p. . the lobby of st stephen's was, if possible, the scene of even greater discomfort and squalor than was the house itself. it was perpetually crowded, not only with members and their servants, but also with the general public, and was "as noisy as a jews' synagogue." pearson, for many years head doorkeeper of the commons, tells us that orange women traded there regularly, selling their wares to thirsty politicians during the sitting of the house. one old woman named drybutter was a great favourite among a certain class of members, and knew more of their private affairs (we are told) than "all the old bawds in christendom put together."[ ] another, mullins by name, "a young, plump, crummy, rosy looking wench, with clean white silk stockings, turkey leather shoes, pink silk _short_ petticoat, to show her ancle to the young bulls and old goats of the house," appealed especially to the more amorous members. "mark how her winning smiles and 'witching eyes on yonder unfledg'd orator she tries! mark with what grace she offers to his hand the tempting orange, pride of china's land!"[ ] [ ] pearson's "political dictionary," p. . [ ] "the rolliad." she was said to have killed more men with her eyes and sighs than did many a general with his canister and grape-shot in the american war. oranges and biscuits were not, as may be imagined, this fascinating creature's sole stock in trade. in stuart days the walls of st stephen's chapel were temporarily brightened by the presence of the tapestry which charles ii. hung there. this, however, was taken down in . about a hundred years later, when alterations were being made to provide accommodation for the recently added irish members, the old thirteenth-century mural paintings were discovered beneath the wainscot. no one, however, seems to have realised their value, and they were carelessly allowed to perish, sharing the fate that befell the curious old tapestries which once adorned the walls of the famous painted chamber. this painted chamber, which lay between the two houses of parliament, was the original council chamber of the norman kings. here parliaments were opened, and conferences of both houses held. its walls were hung with tapestry on which were depicted various scenes from the siege of troy. this was removed at the commencement of the nineteenth century and thrown into a cellar, being subsequently sold in for the paltry sum of £ , and beneath it was found the series of paintings--representing the wars of the maccabees and scenes from the life of edward the confessor--from which the chamber derived its name. it was in this apartment that the death warrant of charles i. was signed, when oliver cromwell and henry martin distinguished themselves by childishly blacking one another's faces with ink. here charles ii. lay in state after his death, as did also chatham and william pitt. adjoining the painted chamber was the room in which the peers formerly met and sat, and which may therefore be styled the old house of lords. the prince's chamber, afterwards the robing room of the lords, was decorated with elaborate tapestries, of dutch workmanship, representing the destruction of the spanish armada, which had been presented to queen elizabeth by the states of holland, and subsequently sold by lord howard to james i. these tapestries were afterwards transferred to the court of requests, and, when the greater part of the palace of westminster was destroyed by fire in october, , perished in the flames. it was proposed, in , to find temporary quarters for the court of bankruptcy in the old tally-room of the exchequer. for this purpose it became necessary to remove several cartloads of old "tallies" which had accumulated during past years and were likely to interfere with the arrangements. these tallies were nothing but pieces of wood on which were recorded by a primitive method of notches the sums paid into the exchequer. the system dated from the conquest and, though it had been officially abolished in , was still in use as late as . old tallies were usually burnt on bonfires in tothill fields or in palace yard, but in some official of an economical turn of mind decided to make use of them as fuel for the stoves of the house of lords. the workmen engaged upon the work shared with all honest british labourers the desire to finish their job as quickly as possible and get home to their tea. they consequently piled the tallies into the stoves with more energy than discretion, little dreaming of the possible effect upon the overheated furnaces. at four o'clock in the afternoon of the th of october, some visitors who were being shown round the house of lords observed that the floor was very hot under their feet, and that the chamber seemed to be half filled with smoke. they were reassured by the officials, and no further notice was taken of their remarks. two hours later the tallies had done their work, the flues were red-hot, one of the walls was well alight, and flames were seen to be issuing from the windows of the house. the alarm was immediately given. fire-engines were hastily summoned to the scene, and police and troops assembled in force in palace yard. the appliances for coping with any but the mildest of conflagrations were then altogether inadequate, and it soon became evident that most of the palace was doomed. vast crowds had meanwhile gathered to witness the destruction of the parliament building, while peers and members hastened to westminster to assist in the work of salvage. hume, who had so often tried to obtain for the commons a chamber more suitable to their needs, was one of the first to arrive, and did yeoman service in saving the contents of the house of commons library.[ ] he was chaffingly accused of being the author of the fire, and, as the ancient home of the commons rose in smoke to the sky, his friends declared that his motion for a new house was being "carried without a division." lord althorp, another interested spectator, cared even less for the preservation of st. stephen's chapel than did hume. "d---- the house of commons!" he cried, "save, oh, save the hall!"[ ] his wish was gratified, and westminster hall, together with the old house of lords and the painted chamber, was among the few buildings snatched from the flames. st. stephen's crypt, situated underneath the old house of commons, survived not only the fire, but also the subsequent rebuilding. [ ] a comparatively modern institution which did not exist until the year . [ ] miss martineau's "history of the peace," vol. iii. p. . when the flames had at last been extinguished, or had died down from sheer lack of fuel, and the extent of the damage had been ascertained, parliament assembled once more--the lords in what remained of their library, the commons in one of the surviving committee rooms. it was then decided temporarily to fit up the old house of lords for the use of the commons, and to relegate the peers to the painted chamber, until steps could be taken to provide the great council of the nation with a more suitable home. in the following year, british architects were invited to submit designs for the new houses of parliament, which it was proposed to erect on the site of the old palace of westminster, and, in , the design of charles barry was selected from some ninety-seven others. with as little delay as possible the work was put into the hands of the successful competitor, and on april, , , the first stone was laid without ceremony by the architect's wife. from that moment until the completion of the building, poor barry's life was made a burden to him by the continual petty interference of the authorities. perpetual squabbles arose between the architect and the superintending officials over every point of the construction--even the contract for the manufacture of the clock gave rise to an acrimonious controversy--while the question of expense was a never ending source of worry and difficulty. [illustration: the remains of st. stephen's chapel after the fire of from a lithograph after the drawing by john taylor, jr.] barry's original design had included the enclosing of new palace yard, and the building of a huge gate-tower at the angles. he had also proposed to make victoria tower the chief feature of a big quadrangle, whence a splendid processional approach should extend to buckingham palace. the cost of such a scheme, however, precluded its execution, and the architect had to content himself with the present magnificent group of buildings, too well known to require detailed description, which form the best possible memorial to sir charles barry's genius.[ ] [ ] barry was assisted in his work by another well-known artist, augustus welby pugin. the latter's son afterwards claimed for his father the honour of being the real designer of the houses of parliament, but his efforts to wrest the laurels from barry's brow met with little success. in queen victoria entered the new houses of parliament for the first time, and some eight years later the whole building was completed. the fire of proved a blessing in disguise. the ancient congeries of huddled buildings, to which additions had been made in various styles by so many kings, and which went by the name of the palace of westminster, had long ceased to provide a suitable home for the mother of parliaments. from the ashes of the royal residence arose at length a structure worthy to rank with any legislative building in the world, and adequate to the requirements of that national council which controls the destiny of the british empire. towering above both houses stands the lofty clock-tower which is one of the landmarks of the metropolis. from its summit "big ben"--the successor to "great tom of westminster"--booms forth the hours, while still higher burns that nightly light which shows to a sleeping city that the faithful commons remain vigilant and at work.[ ] [ ] big ben was so named after sir benjamin hall, first commissioner of works. the light is extinguished by an official in the house of commons by means of an electric switch, the moment the speaker's question "that the house do now adjourn" has been agreed to. the new upper chamber, with its harmonious decorations of gilt and stained glass, its crimson benches, and its atmosphere of dignity and repose, supplies a perfect stage for the leisurely deliberations of our hereditary legislators, and forms a becoming background for such picturesque pageants as the opening of parliament. the present house of commons, though too small to accommodate a full assemblage of its members, makes up in comfort for what it may lack in space. the chamber is illuminated by a strong light from the glass roof above; the green benches are cushioned and comfortable. at one end is the speaker's chair, and in front of it the table--that "substantial piece of furniture," as disraeli called it, when he thanked providence that its bulk was interposed between mr. gladstone and himself--upon which sir robert peel used to strike resonant blows at regular two-minute intervals during his speeches. on this table lies the heavy despatch-box which countless premiers have thumped, and which still bears the impress of gladstone's signet ring. here, too, reposes the mace, that ancient symbol of the royal authority. the mace is, perhaps, the most important article of furniture--if it can be so described--in the house. its absence or loss is an even more appalling catastrophe than would be the absence of the speaker. it is possible to provide a substitute for the latter, but there is no deputy-mace, and without it the house cannot be held to be properly constituted. the present mace is engraved with the initials "c. r." and the royal arms, and is the one that was made at the restoration, to replace cromwell's "bauble," which disappeared with the crown plate in . it is kept at the tower of london when the house is not sitting, and the fact that its absence prevents the conduct of any business has been, on one occasion at least, the cause of grave inconvenience. in the middle of the last century parliament adjourned for the day in order to attend a great naval review at spithead, and was timed to meet again at p.m. the special return-train containing members of the house of commons was run in two portions, and the official who held the key of the mace-cupboard happened to be travelling in the second. as this was an hour late in arriving, the house had to postpone its meeting until eleven at night.[ ] [ ] mowbray's "seventy years at westminster," p. . upon the position of the mace a great deal depends. when the mace lies _upon_ the table, says hatsell, the house is a house; "when _under_, it is a committee. when _out_ of the house, no business can be done; when _from_ the table and upon the sergeant's shoulder, the speaker alone manages." on the famous occasion in , when sir john eliot offered a remonstrance against "tonnage and poundage," when speaker finch refused to put the question, and the house almost came to blows, sergeant-at-arms edward grimston tried to close the sitting by removing the mace. at once a fiery member, sir miles hobart, seized it from him, replaced it on the table, locked the door of the house, and put the key in his pocket, thus excluding black rod, who was on his way to the commons with a message from the king. the sergeant-at-arms is custodian of the mace. attired in his tight-fitting black coat, knee-breeches, and buckled shoes, with his sword at his side, he carries it ceremoniously upon his shoulder whenever he accompanies the speaker in or out of the chamber. he is also, as we shall see, responsible for the maintenance of order within the precincts of the house, and is provided with a chair near the bar, whence he can obtain a good view of the whole chamber. the arrangements made for the convenience and personal comfort of a modern legislator are of the most elaborate and thoughtful kind. members of the government, whips, and the leader of the opposition are provided with private rooms in which to do their work. the needs of humbler politicians are no less carefully considered. by means of an intricate system of ventilation the atmosphere of both houses is maintained at an equable temperature, summer and winter. the very air inhaled by our politicians is so cleansed and rarefied by a system of water-sprays, of cotton-wool screens and ice-chambers, that it reaches their lungs in a filtered condition, free from all those impurities of dust and fog which are part of the less-favoured londoner's daily pabulum. the statesman who seeks a momentary relaxation from the arduous duties of the chamber can find repose in comfortable smoking-rooms where easy-chairs abound. he may stroll upon the terrace in the cool of the evening, enjoying the society of such lady friends as he may have invited to tea, and watching the stately procession of barges and steamers that flows by him. (occasionally the barges are loaded with unsavoury refuse, of which his scandalized nostrils are made unpleasantly aware. sometimes, too, some wag in a passing excursion-boat facetiously bids him return to his work in the house.) heated by an unusually warm debate, or tired out by a lengthy sitting, he may retire to spend a pleasant half-hour in luxurious bathrooms, whence division bells summon him in vain. his intellectual wants are ministered to in well-furnished libraries, whose courteous custodians are ever ready to impart information, to look up parliamentary precedents, and otherwise to add to his store of knowledge. his inner man is generously catered for by a kitchen committee, composed of the gourmets of the house, who choose his wine and cigars, and watch over the cooking of his food with a vigilant and fastidious eye. his meals are appetising and at the same time inexpensive, and, as he sits in the spacious dining-rooms set apart for his use, his mind may travel back with kindly scorn to the days when his political ancestors drank their cups of soup at alice's coffee-house, munched the homely fare supplied in bellamy's kitchen, or satisfied their hunger in even simpler fashion on the benches of the house itself. lord morpeth, who was a minister of the crown in , used always to suck oranges on the treasury bench during the course of his own speeches. fox ate innumerable dry biscuits on the hottest nights. david hume, whose devotion to duty prevented him from leaving his seat in the chamber, was in the habit of providing himself with a generous supply of pears, which he consumed while his less conscientious colleagues were slaking their thirst in bellamy's finest port.[ ] during a twenty-one hours' sitting in august, , a member (mr. a. m. sullivan) brought a large bag of buns into the house, and enjoyed what mr. labouchère called "a palpable supper."[ ] the sight of a member of parliament enjoying an _al fresco_ meal under the eye of the speaker would to-day arouse indignant shouts of "order!" even the simple sandwich is taboo in the chamber of either house, and nothing more solid or more potent than a glass of pure well-water, or perhaps an egg-flip, can be partaken of during debate. [ ] francis' "orators of the age," p. , and grant's "random collections," p. . [ ] t. p. o'connor's "gladstone's house of commons," p. . could pitt return to the scene of his former triumphs, he would indeed marvel at the splendours of the modern parliamentary restaurant--pitt, whose thoughts even upon his deathbed are said to have reverted lovingly to the delights of the old house of commons kitchen. "i think i could eat one of bellamy's pork pies" were the great statesman's last words as he expired at putney in january, , and it was no doubt at bellamy's humble board that he drank many a bottle of that wine for which he entertained so strong a predilection. pearson, the famous doorkeeper of the house of commons, has described bellamy's as "a damn'd good house, upstairs, where i have drank many a pipe of red port. here the members, who cannot say more than 'yes' or 'no' below, can speechify for hours to mother bellamy about beef-steaks and pork-chops. sir watkin lewes always dresses them there himself; and i'll be curst if he ben't a choice hand at a beef-steak and a bottle, as well as a pot and a pipe."[ ] [ ] pearson's "political dictionary," p. . dickens, in his "sketches by boz," has left a picture of that old-fashioned eating-room, with the large open fire, the roasting-jack, the gridiron, the deal tables and wax candles, the damask linen cloths, and the bare floor, where peers and members of parliament assembled with their friends[ ] to sit over their modest meals until it was time for a division, or, as sheil says, "the whipper-in aroused them to the only purpose for which their existence was recognized." [ ] " april, . eat cold meat at bellamy's (introduced by lambton); and did not leave the house till near two."--thomas moore's "memoirs," vol. iii. p. . old bellamy, a wine-merchant by profession, was in appointed deputy-housekeeper to the house of commons, and provided with a kitchen, a dining-room, and a small subsidy to cover his expenses as parliamentary caterer. after nearly forty years' service in this capacity he was succeeded by his son john, who continued to control the culinary department until well into the last century. refreshments of a serious kind were not really required by politicians until the days when parliament took to sitting late at night. in , however, bellamy's system of supplying members with food was not considered sufficiently adequate, and a select committee was appointed to inquire into it. as soon as parliament reassembled in the new palace of westminster, after the fire, the catering of the house of commons was taken over by a kitchen committee, while that of the lords was placed in the hands of a contractor. in the days of the bellamys the charges for solid refreshments were not really high--the caterer relied very largely for his profits upon the sale of wine--but in comparison with the tariff of to-day they must appear exorbitant. for half-a-crown bellamy provided his patrons with a meal consisting of cold meat, bread and cheese; double that sum secured a liberal dinner, which included tart and a salad. claret cost s. a bottle, while a similar quantity of port and madeira was to be had for _s._ or _s._ to-day a member of parliament can be supplied with a dinner of several courses for the modest sum of _s._, and every item on the daily bill of fare is proportionately inexpensive. bellamy's was not only the eating-place of parliament; it also partook of some of the qualities of the modern smoking-room as a refuge from debate. the sudden concourse of members who came hurrying into the kitchen as soon as a bore rose to his feet in the house has been amusingly described by sheil in his essay on john leslie foster. poor mr. foster seems to have exercised an extraordinarily clearing effect upon the house. the first words of his speech were the signal for a unanimous excursion of his fellows, and he was left in full possession of that solitude which he ever had the unrivalled power of creating. members hastened to the kitchen where the tiresome voice of the parliamentary bore could not penetrate, and there indulged themselves in conversation, eked out with tea or stronger beverages. "the scene which bellamy's presents to a stranger is striking enough," says sheil. "two smart girls, whose briskness and neat attire made up for their want of beauty, and for the invasions of time, of which their cheeks showed the traces, helped out tea in a room in the corridor. it was pleasant to observe the sons of dukes and marquises, and the possessors of twenties and thirties of thousands a year, gathered round these damsels, and soliciting a cup of that beverage which it was their office to administer. these bellamy barmaids seemed so familiarized with their occupation that they went through it with perfect nonchalance, and would occasionally turn with petulance, in which they asserted the superiority of their sex to rank and opulence, from the noble or wealthy suitors for a draught of tea, by whom they were surrounded." the unfortunate irish members, we are told, were regarded with a peculiar disdain, being continually reminded of their provinciality by the scornful looks of these parliamentary hebes, who treated them "as mere colonial deputies should be received in the purlieus of the state." dickens, too, describes how one of the waitresses, jane by name, who was something of a character, would playfully dig the handle of a fork into the arm of some too amorous member who sought to detain her.[ ] "i passed from these ante-chambers to the tavern," continues sheil, "where i found a number of members assembled at dinner. half an hour had passed away, tooth-picks and claret were now beginning to appear, and the business of mastication being concluded, that of digestion had commenced, and many an honourable gentleman, i observed, seemed to prove that he was born only to digest. at the end of a long corridor which opened from the room where the diners were assembled, there stood a waiter, whose office it was to inform any interrogator what gentleman was speaking below stairs. nearly opposite the door sat two english county members. they had disposed of a bottle each, and just as the last glass was emptied, one of them called out to the annunciator at the end of the passage for intelligence. 'mr. foster on his legs,' was the formidable answer. 'waiter, bring another bottle!' was the immediate effect of this information, which was followed by a similar injunction from every table in the room. i perceived that mr. bellamy owed great obligations to mr. foster. but the latter did not limit himself to a second bottle; again and again the same question was asked, and again the same announcement was returned--'mr. foster upon his legs!' the answer seemed to fasten men in inseparable adhesiveness to their seats. thus hours went by, when, at length, 'mr. plunket on his legs!' was heard from the end of the passage, and the whole convocation of compotators rose together and returned to the house."[ ] [ ] "sketches by boz," p. ( ). [ ] sheil's "sketches of the irish bar," vol. ii. p. . alas! bellamy's roaring fire is long extinguished, his candles have burnt down to their sockets, and been replaced by electric light. the comfortable days of lengthy dinners are past and gone, and the modern member has barely time to snatch a hasty meal in the commons' dining-room ere he returns to the bustle and confusion of the house. things have indeed changed since the leisurely days when bellamy could adequately cater for the needs of parliament. his small staff and humble kitchen would have but little chance of satisfying modern requirements in an age when over a hundred thousand meals are served to members and their friends in the course of a single session. chapter v his majesty's servants parliament is not an administrative body. summoned by the crown, with its assent it passes laws, gives and takes away rights, authorises and directs taxation and expenditure; but in executive business the crown acts through ministers who are not appointed by parliament, though undoubtedly responsible to it for their conduct. alfred the great called together councils, which in some ways resembled our present cabinets or the privy council, to consider such measures as were afterwards submitted to the witenagemot. in william the conqueror's time the _curia regis_ was the great council which he consulted on questions of state policy. later on, in henry i.'s reign, the king formed a smaller consultative body from the royal household, whose duty it was to deal with administrative details, legislation being left in the hands of the national council. in tudor days the sovereign had almost dispensed with parliament altogether--in the course of queen elizabeth's lengthy reign it was only summoned thirteen times--and the country was governed autocratically by the monarch, with the aid of his privy council. this advisory body varied in size from year to year. in henry viii.'s reign it consisted of about a dozen members; later on, the number was much increased. in time the privy council became too large and cumbersome an assembly to act together without friction, and was gradually subdivided into various committees, to each of which was given some specific legislative function. in the reign of edward vi. one of these smaller bodies was known as the committee of state, and from this has slowly developed the cabinet to which we are accustomed to-day. when the great council of peers was convened at york in , the committee of state was reproachfully referred to as the "cabinet council,"--from the fact that its meetings were held in a small room in the royal palace,--and afterwards as the "juncto." it consisted of the archbishop of canterbury, the earl of strafford, and a few other leading men, and met at odd times to discuss important intelligence, the privy council only meeting when specially summoned. james i. acquired the habit of entrusting his confidence to a few advisers, and his successors followed suit. the inner council, or cabal, thus originated, was the cause of much parliamentary jealousy and popular suspicion. after the fall of clarendon in , and of danby twelve years later, charles ii. promised, in accordance with the general desire, to be governed by the privy council, and to have no secrets from that body. it soon became evident, however, that the king had no intention of keeping his promise, and the remonstrance of complained that great affairs of state were still managed "in cabinet councils, by men unknown, and not publicly trusted." in stuart days the commons had grown in strength from year to year, and the privy council had weakened proportionately, though it had increased in size. besides being so unwieldy as to be impracticable for administrative purposes, it was largely composed of men who were not in any way fitted for the post of responsible advisers. naunton, writing of elizabeth's day, observed that "there were of the queen's councell that were not in the catalogue of saints."[ ] and much the same criticism would apply to the privy councillors of stuart times. the inner cabinet, therefore, gradually assumed all the more important functions of the legislature, and eventually became the ruling power in the state. [ ] "fragmenta regalia," p. . in the time of charles ii. the ministry was not a united body, but was composed of men of different political opinions, each of whom held his office at the king's pleasure. the cabinet long remained, therefore, in a disorganised and subordinate condition, largely dependent upon the royal will. under the tudors and stuarts, ministers were the masters or servants of the crown, according as the sovereign was a weak or a strong one. they did not necessarily sit in parliament, nor did they act together in response to the views of a parliamentary majority. the cabinet itself consisted of an inner group of responsible advisers and an outer circle of members with whom they often differed fundamentally. there was no need for unanimity of political thought in the cabinet of those days, so long as its members were unanimous in their subservience to the king. after the revolution of , however, the powers of the crown were limited and those of parliament extended. ministers now customarily sat in parliament, and gradually acquired unanimity of thought and purpose, working together with common responsibility and for common interests.[ ] the cabinet thus became what walter bagehot calls a "combining committee--a hyphen which joins, a buckle which fastens, the legislative to the executive part of the state"--and remained an essentially deliberative assembly, as opposed to the privy council, or administrative body. william iii. had begun by convening mixed cabinets of whigs and tories, but in he determined to appoint ministers all of one party, and in two years his cabinet was entirely composed of whigs. this example was followed by his successor, though unwillingly, and the cabinet system, as we understand it to-day, may be said to date from the moment when godolphin forced queen anne to accept sunderland, and, later, to remove harley, in accordance with the views expressed by the country at elections. [ ] it is not absolutely necessary for a cabinet minister to sit in either house. gladstone was a secretary of state from december , to july, , without a seat in parliament. by this time parliament had learnt to tolerate the idea of a cabinet, and the word itself appears for the first time officially in the lords' address to the queen in . in that year a lengthy debate took place on the meaning of the words "cabinet council," several peers preferring the term "ministers." among the latter was the earl of peterborough, who declared that sometimes there was no minister at all in the cabinet council. he seems to have regarded the members of the privy council and of the cabinet with equal contempt. the privy councillors, he said, "were such as were thought to know everything and knew nothing, and the cabinet councillors those who thought that nobody knew anything but themselves." when walpole was prime minister, the country was governed by three bodies--the great council, somewhat similar to the modern privy council; the committee of council, a smaller assembly which met at the cockpit in whitehall, and seems to have concerned itself chiefly with foreign affairs; and the cabinet. [illustration: sir robert walpole from the painting by francis hayman, r.a., in the national portrait gallery] the members of the cabinet varied in number from eight to fourteen, and included the great officers of the royal household. in april, , for instance, it consisted of the archbishop of canterbury, the lord chancellor, the lord president of the council, the lord privy seal, the lord steward, the lord chamberlain, the master of the horse, the lord lieutenant of ireland, two secretaries of state, the groom of the stole, the first minister for scotland, the chancellor of the exchequer, the first commissioner of the admiralty, and the master of the ordnance. besides these, the duke of bolton was also included, for the somewhat inadequate reason that "he had been of it seven years ago."[ ] as such an immense body must have been quite unmanageable from a business point of view, there also existed an interior council, consisting of walpole, the lord chancellor, and the two secretaries of state, who consulted together, in the first instance, on the more confidential points, and reported the result of their deliberations to the rest of the cabinet. [ ] hervey's "memoirs of george ii.," vol. ii. p. . the size and composition of a cabinet is a question which has always been left entirely to the discretion of the prime minister. in and , when lord north and pitt were premiers, the number was reduced to seven. later on, this was increased; but lord wellesley, in , expressed his conviction that thirteen was an inconveniently large number, and sir robert peel, some twenty years later, declared that the executive government would be infinitely better conducted by a cabinet composed of only nine members. among his majesty's advisers in georgian days, and earlier, peers usually preponderated. the younger pitt was the only commoner in his first cabinet. nowadays both houses are suitably represented. there is no definite rule laid down as to which posts in the administration carry with them a seat in the cabinet; but the first lord of the treasury, the chancellor of the exchequer, the first lord of the admiralty, the lord president of the council, the lord privy seal, and the lord chancellor are invariably included. statesmen who hold no office at all, as we have seen in the case of the duke of bolton, have occasionally been given a seat. hyde, afterwards lord clarendon, sat in charles i.'s cabinet without office; and, later on, lord fitzwilliam, the duke of wellington, and lord john russell were each accorded a similar privilege. lord mansfield, on his elevation to the seat of the lord chief justice, in , became a member of the cabinet, and did not cease to take part in the discussions until . the precedent he thus created was afterwards cited in the case of lord ellenborough, another lord chief justice, who was admitted to the cabinet of "all the talents" in . by this time, however, the inclusion of any but the actual holders of parliamentary offices was considered unusual, and it has never been repeated. cabinet meetings in charles ii.'s time were first of all held twice a week, and then on sunday evenings. it was long customary for the sovereign to be present, and queen anne presided regularly over these sunday gatherings. indeed, the absence of the king from cabinet meetings did not occur until the time of george i., and only arose from that monarch's inability to speak english. since his day, however, no sovereign has thought it necessary, or even politic, to attend. besides the regular official meetings of the cabinet, informal gatherings of ministers were occasionally convened. walpole used often to invite a few colleagues to dinner to discuss the affairs of the nation, and in the aberdeen government a cabinet dinner was held weekly.[ ] after the tablecloth had been removed, and the port began to circulate, measures of state were agitated and discussed, and questions of policy decided upon. whether ministers were always in a condition fit for the consideration of such grave topics is a matter of doubt. lord chancellor thurlow sometimes refused to take part in these post-prandial discussions. "he has even more than once left his colleagues to deliberate," says wraxall, "whilst he sullenly stretched himself along the chair, and fell, or appeared to fall, fast asleep."[ ] [ ] "our immemorial cabinet dinner was at lord lonsdale's," writes lord malmesbury, on march , . "each of us gives one on a wednesday."--"memoirs of an ex-minister," vol. i. p. . [ ] wraxall's "memoirs," vol. i. p. . the cabinet no longer meets on sundays, and the practice of holding weekly dinners has been given up. it has no regular times of assembling, but can be summoned at any moment when the prime minister wishes to consult his colleagues. it is not necessary for all the members of the cabinet to be present, as no quorum is needed to validate the proceedings, nor is there any rule laid down as to the length of a cabinet meeting, which may last from a brief half-hour to as much as half a day.[ ] [ ] "granville dined at the lord chancellor's yesterday," wrote lady granville to the duke of devonshire, on november , , when the question of the postponement of the king's visit to the city was filling the minds of ministers. "the chancellor came in after they were all seated from a cabinet that had lasted five hours, returned to be at it again till two, and the result you see in the papers."--lady granville's "letters," vol. ii. p. . the chief point with regard to cabinet meetings is their absolute secrecy. no minutes are kept, no secretary or clerk is present, and only in exceptional circumstances is some private record made of any matter that may have been discussed. the meetings are usually held at no. , downing street, the official residence of the prime minister, or occasionally at the foreign office, a practice instituted by lord salisbury when he was foreign secretary, his cabinet being so large that the room in downing street could barely contain it. in george ii.'s time, no. , downing street--called after sir george downing, a statesman of charles ii.'s day, whom pepys styles "a niggardly fellow"--belonged to the crown, and was the town residence of bothmar, the hanoverian minister. on the latter's death, king george offered the house to walpole as a gift. the prime minister declined it, however, and suggested that it should henceforward accompany the offices of the first lord of the treasury and the chancellor of the exchequer. externally the prime minister's house is not a very imposing structure, but the traditions attached to it as the official residence of so many eminent englishmen enchance its value in the eyes of its occupants and of the public. here, then, the cabinet assembles to discuss the problems of empire, whose solution at times of stress the country awaits with such breathless interest. here the prime minister presides over that assembly which, however internally discordant, must ever present an harmonious and united front to the public. the decisions arrived at by "his majesty's servants"--no longer known as the "lords of the cabinet council," as in olden times--must always be presumably unanimous. each minister is held responsible for the opinions of the cabinet as a whole. his only escape from such responsibility lies in resignation, in either sense of that word. the defending and supporting in public of what they are really opposed to in private, is the common practice of ministers. it is thought that one man's scruples should yield to the judgment of the many, and "minorities must suffer" that governments may be carried on and ministries remain undivided.[ ] there is a well-known story of lord melbourne's ministry which illustrates this point. the government had proposed to put an eight-shilling duty on corn. melbourne, who was strongly opposed to the tax, found himself out-voted and overruled by the other members of the cabinet. at the end of the meeting he put his back against the door. "now, is it to lower the price of corn, or isn't it?" he asked. "it doesn't much matter what we say, but mind, we must all say the same!" in , again, lord palmerston as prime minister was in favour of the house of lords throwing out the paper duties bill, which was the measure of his own chancellor of the exchequer. [ ] see speaker onslow's "essay on opposition," "hist. mss. commission" ( ), app. ix. p. . it is not perhaps easy to imagine a modern premier being placed in a situation similar to that of either lord melbourne or lord palmerston. he must necessarily, to a certain extent, have the whip hand of the cabinet. for if several of his colleagues disagree with him on a question of principle, and resign, he can generally appoint others; whereas, if he resigns, the whole ministry crumbles and falls to pieces. the prime minister nowadays has indeed acquired a position which is almost that of a dictator. in many ways his power is absolute and his will autocratic. more especially is this true as regards his dealings with the crown. in olden days he was the servant and creature of the sovereign. he had no voice in the selection of his colleagues; he acted merely as his majesty's chief adviser, and, as such, was liable to instant dismissal. when pelham resigned in , because he could no longer agree with the king, he was acting in a fashion that was then unprecedented. before that time, a prime minister whose views did not coincide with those of his sovereign, was summarily dismissed. many kings had, indeed, been in the habit of themselves undertaking the duties of prime minister--charles ii. delighted in referring to himself as his own _premier ministre_, though he was far too indolent to perform the work of that official--and merely looked upon their chief adviser as a convenient channel of communication between themselves and parliament. it was not until the eighteenth century that a premier of the modern type came into existence. with the development of the party system, the gradual growth of the cabinet's prestige, and the consequent weakening of the sovereign's prerogatives, the prime minister ceased to be the choice of the crown, and became the nominee of the nation. as the leader of the party in office, he acquired the unquestioned right of selecting his own ministers. to-day, though the king still nominally chooses his prime minister, little individual freedom is left to the sovereign, who is guided in his choice by the advice of the outgoing premier and his interpretation of the wishes of the country. for a very long time the very name of prime minister stank in the nostrils of the public and of parliament. the word "premier" was used in ,[ ] but as late as we find george grenville in a debate in the commons declaring "prime minister" to be an odious title. the holder of it long occupied an anomalous position. legally and constitutionally he had no superiority over any other privy councillor. eight members of the cabinet took precedence of him, by virtue of office--a fact which naturally resulted in situations puzzling to the lay mind--the exact rank of the prime minister being apparently impossible to define. when lord palmerston visited scotland in , the commander of the naval guardship was very anxious to receive that distinguished statesman with all the ceremony befitting his exalted position. on the subject of salutes due to a prime minister the naval code-book unfortunately maintained an impenetrable silence, and gave the officer no information as to how he should act. he eventually solved the difficulty in a thoroughly tactful manner by giving palmerston the salute of nineteen guns which were due to him as lord warden of the cinq ports.[ ] mr. gladstone, who was ever most punctilious in matters of etiquette, always resolutely declined to leave a room in front of any person of higher social rank, and many a youthful peer vainly endeavoured to induce the aged prime minister to precede him. [ ] coxe's "pelham administration," vol. i. p. . [ ] ashley's "life of palmerston," vol. ii. p. . the prime minister continued to occupy an ambiguous position until quite recently. it was not, indeed, until the close of mr. balfour's premiership that his proper precedence was recognised. matters were simplified, however, when he held some ministerial office, as first lord of the treasury, lord president of the council, or foreign secretary, whereby he became entitled to an adequate salary and an assured, if inadequate, precedence. sir robert walpole, who held the premiership for twenty-one years--though not consecutively[ ]--was the first prime minister in the modern sense of the word, the first to sit in the commons, and the first to resign because of an adverse vote of parliament. [ ] walpole was first lord of the treasury for more than twenty-one years, but macaulay says that he cannot be called prime minister until some time after he had been first lord.--"miscellaneous writings," p. . walpole was in many ways a model premier. though not, indeed, as incorruptible as harley, he yet possessed many of the qualities which contributed to that statesman's success.[ ] it was not genius, it was not eloquence, it was not statesmanship that gave harley his astounding power in parliament, as forster has remarked; it was "house of commons tact." sir robert peel, lord john russell, and disraeli each understood that art of "managing parliament," which is probably of far greater value to a prime minister than either virtue or eloquence. lord rockingham, george grenville, and lord bute--the last uttering his words with hesitation and at long intervals, causing charles townshend to liken them to "minute-guns"--each lacked that power of oratory for which another premier, lord derby, the "rupert of debate," was more famous than for any intellectual ability.[ ] lord castlereagh had a great influence with his party, and was a most successful leader of the house of commons. yet he was a shocking speaker, tiresome, involved, and obscure.[ ] on one occasion he harangued the house for an hour, during no single moment of which could any of his hearers make out what on earth he was driving at "so much, mr. speaker, for the law of nations!" he finally exclaimed, as he prepared to turn to other matters. [ ] walpole distributed government patronage freely among the members of his own family. his relations held offices worth nearly £ , a year, and, two years after he relinquished office, his own places brought him in an annual income of £ . he made his eldest son auditor of the exchequer, and his second son clerk of the pells. he gave his son horace two posts, as clerk of the estreats and comptroller of the pipe, when the boy was still an infant. later on he gave him a position in the customs, and lastly made him usher of the exchequer, an office worth about £ a year. see "memoirs of sir robert walpole," vol. i. p. ; cunningham's "letters of horace walpole," vol. i. pp. lxxxiv. and . [ ] "my father would be a very able man--if he knew anything," lord stanley is supposed to have said of him. hutton's "studies," p. . [ ] "he evidently attempts to imitate mr. pitt in his manner and rhetorick; but the clumsy attempts of a heavy domestic fowl to take wing are very different from the vivid and lofty soaring of the lark." courtney's "characteristics," p. . parliament will, indeed, put up with a great deal from a minister whose honesty is unquestioned, and who has sufficient common-sense not to blunder at a moment of crisis. nowadays, however, no man who was utterly lacking in ordinary power of speaking would be given a place on the front bench. a talent for debate may not necessarily be a gauge of a man's capacity as a minister, but only in debate can he show his powers. his success in parliament is a test of intellect, for there, at any rate, he cannot conceal departmental ignorance. but it requires judgment, ability, and tact to become a leader. charm and personal magnetism are the qualities that endear a man to his followers. a kindly word, a smile, or a glance of recognition will often win the affection of a supporter more surely than the most eloquent speech, and it was in this respect that lord john russell, gladstone, and lord salisbury, either from shortness of sight or absence of mind, failed. the same qualities which young grattan considered necessary for a successful leader of opposition may also prove invaluable to a prime minister. "he must be affable in manner, generous in disposition, have a ready hand, an open house, and a full purse. he must have a good cook for the english members, fine words and fair promises for the irish, and sober calculations for the scotch."[ ] he must, indeed, be a man who breeds confidence and inspires affection among his subordinates. [ ] grattan's "life and times," vol. v. p. . [illustration: chatham from the painting by william hoare, r.a., in the national portrait gallery] men in the house of commons, as bolingbroke said, "grow, like hounds, fond of the man who shows them sport, and by whose halloos they are used to be encouraged." if, in addition, the prime minister possesses singleness of purpose and supreme self-confidence, his power in parliament is supreme. the "great commoner" owed his political success as much to his courage and assurance as to his splendid gifts as an orator. "i know that i can save the country," he once observed to the duke of devonshire, "and i know that no other man can!"[ ] the duke of cumberland, a political adversary, described him very justly when he said that he was "that rare thing--a man!" his position in the house of commons was in many ways unique. his very presence seemed to instil fear into the hearts of his opponents, and promote confidence in those of his supporters. a member named moreton, chief justice of chester, in a speech in the lower house, once made some allusion to "king, lords, and commons, or, as that right honourable member"--looking across at pitt--"would call them, commons, lords, and king!" the prime minister rose at once in that slow dignified manner which always commanded silence, and, fixing the speaker with a cold and terrifying gaze, asked the clerk of the house to make a note of moreton's words. "i have heard frequently in this house doctrines that have surprised me," he said; "but now my blood runs cold!" moreton, in some alarm, hastened to apologise for his ill-chosen words, saying that he had intended nothing offensive. "king, lords, and commons; lords, king, and commons; commons, lords, and king--_tria juncta in uno_! indeed, i meant nothing!" he explained. pitt gravely accepted this apology, but took the opportunity of giving the trembling moreton some very sound advice. "whenever that honourable gentleman means nothing," he said, in his sternest and most frigid tones, "i strongly recommend him to say nothing!" [ ] hayward's "biographical essays," vol. ii. p. . the terror he inspired among his opponents was shown on another occasion when he replied to an attack of murray, the solicitor-general, afterwards lord mansfield. "i must now address a few words to mr. solicitor," said pitt; "they shall be few, but they shall be daggers!" murray at once became much agitated. "judge festus trembles," continued pitt relentlessly, pointing his finger on him. "he shall hear me some other day." he sat down, murray made no reply, and a languid debate showed the paralysis of the house.[ ] [ ] butler's "reminiscences," pp. - . it was not only in parliament that pitt's power made itself felt, or that his words were received with a kind of reverential awe bordering on terror. government officials knew well that he was not a man to be trifled with, or, if they did not know it, he soon found occasion to bring the fact to their notice. once, when he had sent a message to the admiralty saying that the channel fleet was to be got ready to sail on the following tuesday, the board of admiralty respectfully replied that such a thing was an impossibility; the time was too short. the prime minister drily rejoined that in that case he would recommend the king to name a new board of admiralty. needless to say, the channel fleet sailed on tuesday.[ ] [ ] russell's "recollections," p. . pitt, indeed, possessed all the attributes of a successful prime minister. he was himself infused with a fervid enthusiasm which he could transmit into the hearts of all who shared his confidences. his courage was infectious. no man, said colonel barré, could come out of the minister's private room without feeling himself braver than when he entered. he was gifted with a serene composure, a perfect self-possession, and understood the house of commons as well as did disraeli after him, and as well as lord salisbury understood the lords. both these two last statesmen possessed that polished style, dry humour and sarcasm which are beloved of parliamentary audiences. disraeli was the more ornamental speaker of the two, but seldom wasted time in rhetoric, and, like lord north, never weakened his argument by superfluous declamation. one of the secrets of his success was that he knew when to keep silent--knowledge that is of infinite importance to a prime minister. gladstone--great as a premier, and still greater as chancellor of the exchequer--could not always stay his speech. his earnestness and enthusiasm carried him away, and he thereby often dissipated in debate those powers which his rival was reserving for great occasions. lord salisbury adopted a studiously common-place tone in the house; he did not orate, he talked confidentially. and parliament has always preferred this quiet fashion of speaking, to what dizzy once called the "somewhat sanctimonious eloquence" of gladstone. lord palmerston's jaunty manner was far more popular than the exuberant eloquence of greater orators. people said that they preferred his "ha! ha!" style to the wit of canning or the gravity of peel. the premiership is not a bed of roses, and it requires the phlegm of a lord north to sleep there at all. it is, no doubt, the pinnacle of political ambition, but from that giddy height many a statesman has looked down with envy, like st. simon on his column, at the groundlings who walk securely beneath his feet. elevation brings with it many disadvantages. the searchlight of public opinion beats relentlessly upon a prime minister; even his private life is open to criticism. enemies lay snares for him on every side; friends and political allies have to be treated with tact and tenderness; his labours never cease, day or night.[ ] it is his duty, as gladstone said, "to stand like a wall of adamant between the people and the sovereign," and the burden of an empire hangs heavy upon his shoulders. from the very moment of a prime minister's appointment his responsibilities commence. entrusted by the sovereign with the delicate duty of forming a ministry, he is at once faced with a task of exceptional difficulty. whom shall he choose? this problem awaits his instant solution. luckily, as bagehot says, the position of most men in parliament forbids their being invited to the cabinet, while that of a few men ensures their being invited.[ ] between the compulsory list, whom he must take, and the impossible list, whom he cannot take, a prime minister's independent choice is not very large; it extends rather to the division of the cabinet offices than to the choice of cabinet ministers. [ ] among the unpublished manuscripts at welbeck abbey are some private notes made by the duke of portland, who was prime minister in , suggesting methods of treatment suitable for various political allies at the time of the coalition ministry. the following extracts are of interest:-- "lord salisbury. irish jobs. lord thanet. personal attention. lord cornwallis. should be spoken to: has two members in the house of commons. lord clarendon. anything for himself or lord hyde. lord wentworth. wants something. he voted against. duke of argyle. great attention. scotch jobs. gen. luttral. to be sent for next session. lord temple should not be allowed all the merit of the job that we done for him lately. gen. vaughan. quebec, or a command anywhere. lord westcote. distant hopes of a peerage. mr. gibbon. will vacate his seat for an employment out of parliament: very much wished by lord loughborough." (n.b.--this gibbon is the historian.) [ ] "fortnightly review," no. i, p. . this distribution of places is, however, an invidious duty; there are so many reasons governing a premier's choice of his colleagues. valuable services to the party have to be rewarded; the claims of men who have held cabinet rank in former governments cannot be disregarded; the wishes of the sovereign must be considered.[ ] to satisfy all who expect office is impossible; to satisfy the few who deserve it is a laborious and not altogether grateful business. the statesman whom it is proposed to appoint as minister for war may yearn for the lord chancellorship; the prospective president of the board of trade desires to become irish secretary. it is for the prime minister, by coaxing or entreaties, to content them both. but there are less pleasant duties than this to perform. certain ex-cabinet ministers who have not proved a success in their various departments must be shelved with as little damage to their feelings as possible; salves in the form of peerages must be administered to other aggrieved politicians who have been left out. at times ex-ministers who are no longer members of the cabinet have shown signs of disinclination to retire. in , for instance, when addington became prime minister, lord loughborough, who had been chancellor in pitt's administration, resigned the great seal, but continued to attend cabinet meetings, and addington was eventually compelled to write and ask him to deprive the cabinet of the pleasure of his distinguished presence.[ ] [ ] the necessity of pleasing george iii. compelled many prime ministers to include his friend addington in their administrations, and inspired canning to remark that this minister was like the small-pox, which everybody was obliged to have once in their lives. [ ] campbell's "lives of the chancellors," vol. v. p. . the manner of appointing a minister, as also the manner of acquainting a colleague that his services are no longer required, varies with different premiers. one may be as curt in his methods of appointment as another is in his mode of dismissal. walpole and north provide excellent examples of this. on the death of lord chancellor talbot in - , walpole offered the great seal to lord hardwicke who was then lord chief justice. the latter hesitated about accepting the office, until one day the prime minister impatiently informed him that unless he made up his mind without any further delay, the seal would be given to fazakerley, another famous lawyer. hardwicke remonstrated that fazakerley was quite unfit for the post of lord chancellor, being both a tory and a jacobite. "never mind," replied walpole, pulling out his watch. "it is now exactly noon. if you do not let me know that you have closed with my offer before eight o'clock this evening, i can only tell you that, by twelve, fazakerley will be as good a whig as any man in his majesty's dominions!" hardwicke hesitated no longer.[ ] [ ] "life of eldon," vol. iii. p. . lord north's method of dismissing fox from his cabinet in was no less peremptory. "sir," wrote the prime minister, "his majesty has thought proper to order a new commission of the treasury to be made out, in which i do not perceive your name."[ ] [ ] "history of the political life of c. j. fox," pp. - . it is seldom that a prime minister can give complete satisfaction in the formation of a ministry, though the task is perhaps lightened by the fact that the possession of rare ability is not an absolute necessity for a cabinet minister. in the prince consort sent lord derby the examination papers which prince alfred had been set when he passed as a naval cadet "as i looked over them," wrote the prime minister in his reply, "i couldn't but feel very grateful that no such examination was necessary to qualify her majesty's ministers for their offices, as it would very seriously increase the difficulty of framing an administration!" a curious list, as macaulay suggested, could be made out of successful lord chancellors ignorant of the principles of equity, and of first lords of the admiralty ignorant of the principles of navigation. sheridan even went so far as to say that a competent knowledge of the rule of three was a sufficient qualification for the chancellorship of the exchequer. fox never understood what was meant by consols. he only knew them to be things which rose and fell, and he was delighted when they fell, because, as he said, it annoyed pitt so much. lowe, who took a gloomy view of his office,[ ] always admitted that he was "a bad hand at figures," and his financial statements as chancellor were both obscure and unintelligible. lord randolph churchill, too, when he was at the treasury, is always supposed to have remarked to a clerk who brought him a list of decimal figures, that he "never could understand what those d----d dots meant!" [ ] "the chancellor of the exchequer exists to distribute a certain amount of human misery," he once remarked, "and he who distributes it most equally is the best chancellor." government departments are to a great extent run by the permanent officials. as sir george lewis, himself successively chancellor of the exchequer, home secretary, and minister for war, justly observed, it is not the business of a cabinet minister to work his department. his business is to see that it is properly worked. if he does too much, he is probably doing harm. the permanent staff of the office can do what he chooses to do much better than he, or, if they cannot, they ought to be removed. strength of purpose, quickness of decision, and a good supply of sterling common-sense are worth more to a minister than mere technical knowledge.[ ] [ ] see bagehot's "english constitution," p. . besides the appointment of his colleagues, the prime minister also has in his patronage a number of posts in the royal household, which become vacant when an administration changes. these are not so difficult to fill, and are usually distributed among members of the house of lords, who are thus bound to their party by ties even stronger than those of sentiment.[ ] [ ] among the offices in the royal household which are filled by the prime minister, the most important are those of the master of the horse, the lord steward, the lord chamberlain, the seven lords in waiting, and the mistress of the robes. the actual ministry consists of over forty persons, of whom perhaps a quarter form the cabinet.[ ] the annual cost to the country in ministerial salaries is well under £ , , and cannot therefore be considered excessive, considering the delicacy of the administrative machine, the efficiency with which it is run, and the amount of work that has to be accomplished. [ ] a complete list of the salaries and offices of ministers does not lie within the scope of this volume. it will be sufficient to enumerate briefly the most important members of the administration. first in order of precedence stand the prime minister, the lord high chancellor, the lord president of the council, the lord privy seal (an office to which, like that of the prime minister, no salary is attached), and the first lords of the treasury and admiralty. after these come the five secretaries of state: for home affairs, foreign affairs, the colonies, war, and india. these are followed by the chancellor of the exchequer, the secretaries for scotland and ireland, the postmaster-general, the presidents of the board of trade, local government board, board of agriculture, and board of education, the chancellor of the duchy of lancaster, and the first commissioner of works. there are, besides, eight parliamentary under-secretaries, four junior lords of the treasury (one of whom is unpaid), a patronage secretary, a financial secretary, a paymaster-general, attorney-general, and solicitor-general. scotland is represented by a lord-advocate and a scottish solicitor-general; ireland by a lord-lieutenant, a lord chancellor, an attorney-general, and a solicitor-general. the labours of cabinet ministers have increased enormously in modern times. this is perhaps one of the reasons why they no longer deem it necessary to attend debates as regularly as their predecessors. in disraeli's time all the members of the cabinet sat on the treasury bench throughout a debate, and listened attentively to every speech. it was considered obligatory upon the leader of the house to be present perpetually in his place in parliament. neither gladstone nor disraeli would have thought of leaving the chamber, except for a hurried dinner, until the house rose. the sittings have become so lengthy of late that it would be impossible for any minister thus to give up his whole time to debate. ministers are consequently provided with private rooms within the precincts of the house, whither they betake themselves as soon as question time is over, leaving one or two of their number to act as sentinels. the cup of a young politician's happiness is filled to the brim on that glad day when he is offered a post in the ministry. it does not actually overflow until he has been given a seat in the cabinet itself. should such success attend him, the summit of his ambition is within sight. in imagination he sees the mantle of walpole descending upon his shoulders. before his eyes stretches a vista of political splendour which only reaches a glorious conclusion when the vaults of westminster abbey open to receive his ashes. there is but one fly in the ointment. a member of the house of commons who is appointed to ministerial office has perforce to submit himself once more to the judgment of the electors, and beg his constituents to return him again to parliament. this rule is some two centuries old, and was designed to prevent the corruption of unworthy members who might otherwise be bought by the offer of lucrative crown appointments.[ ] it is no longer of any practical value for this purpose, and so tiresome a practice, entailing as it does much hardship and expense upon a newly created minister, could well be abolished. old customs die hard, however, and nowhere do they take so "unconscionably long a time a-dying" as in parliament. [ ] exceptions are made by statute in favour of the secretary of the treasury and some other officers, or of a minister who is transferred from one office to another in the same administration. the ratification by the sovereign of the prime minister's choice in the matter of colleagues is a brief but not unimposing ceremony. to each of the three secretariats of state there belongs a seal which is the outward and visible sign of the authority attaching to the post. when a government goes out of office and a fresh ministry is appointed, the seals are delivered up in person to the sovereign by the outgoing ministers. his majesty then hands them to the members of the new administration, who receive their badges of office in a suitably humble attitude, on their knees, and kiss the royal hand that confers these favours. [illustration: a cabinet meeting (the coalition ministry of ) from the drawing by sir john gilbert] the seals of office have been the unconscious cause of more indifferent puns than any other parliamentary institution. statesmen who have never previously been guilty of a sense of humour, and have otherwise led blameless lives, seem unable to refrain from making little jokes on the subject of seal fisheries--jokes which their biographers affectionately enshrine as epigrams in their published lives.[ ] we have fortunately outgrown such humour as this, and puns are nowadays only to be found elsewhere among the _obiter dicta_ of our judges and magistrates upon their respective benches. [ ] lord chancellors and keepers of the great seal are very prone to puns. when lord campbell replaced lord plunket as chancellor of ireland he had to cross the channel in a storm. plunket's secretary remarked that if the new chancellor were not drowned, he would be very sick. "perhaps," said plunket, "he'll throw up the seals!" lord chancellor westbury once told an eminent counsel that he was getting as fat as a porpoise. "in that case," replied the other, "i am evidently a fit companion of the great seal." lord lyndhurst is another chancellor who made a joke of this sort. there must be something, too, in the atmosphere of a change of ministry which evokes bad puns. when disraeli was appointed to lord derby's cabinet in , more than one eminent politician facetiously remarked that now benjamin's mess would be five times as great as that of the others. and, fourteen years later, when the same statesman was bidden to form a ministry of his own, lord chelmsford, whom he had relieved of the chancellorship of the exchequer, shamelessly observed that if the old government was "the derby," this new one was certainly "the hoax" (see martin's "life of lyndhurst," p. n., and the "life of lord granville," vol. i. p. , etc.). the ministry is now formed. the prime minister moves into downing street; his colleagues hasten to make themselves acquainted with the work of their various departments. the parliamentary concert is about to commence, and it is for the premier as leader of the government orchestra to keep his band together as best he may. this is no easy task. a single false note may mar the harmony of the whole performance; the failure of one solitary instrumentalist may cause the dismissal of the entire band. it is the conductor's duty to see that his orchestra plays in unison, or, if not in unison, at least in harmony. he must keep a watchful eye upon each individual, and quash the efforts of any one member to perform a solo upon his own peculiar trumpet. all round the platform sit the members of a former band, stern critics anxious to seize the instruments from the hands of their rivals and show the public how the tune should be played. their chance will soon arrive. for when the concert has gone on sufficiently long, the popular audience grows weary of the performance and demands something fresh. another conductor is chosen, and another orchestra engaged to play. the old band is dismissed, and its members are free to return to their former avocations, wiser no doubt, but perhaps poorer men.[ ] but though from parliament to parliament the performers may vary and the leaders change, the music remains very much the same; and, while the country enjoys the privilege of paying the piper, it is generally the piper who calls the tune. [ ] if pitt had been dismissed from office "after more than five years of boundless power," says macaulay, "he would hardly have carried out with him a sum sufficient to furnish a set of chambers in which, as he cheerfully declared, he meant to resume the practice of the law."--"miscellaneous writings," p. . chapter vi the lord chancellor from the days of sir thomas more to the present time the woolsack has continuously enriched the annals of english history with famous and distinguished names. the well-known biographies of lord campbell, whose habit of writing the lives of the deceased as soon as the breath was out of their bodies added, as brougham declared, a new terror to death, supply abundant evidence of the statesmanlike qualities that attach to the holders of the office. the most eminent men of their day have held the chancellorship, proving the truth of burke's well-known assertion that of all human studies the law is the most efficacious in forming great men, and that to be well versed in the laws of england is to be imbued in the sublimest principles of human wisdom. the office of chancellor is of very ancient origin.[ ] it existed in england in the days of the anglo-saxon kings, when the official who acted as judicial secretary or clerk to the sovereign is supposed to have derived his title from the _cancelli_ or screens behind which he carried on his clerical duties. [ ] lord ellesmere observes that in the th chapter of samuel, jehoshaphat the son of abilud, the chancellor among the hebrews, was called "mazur," which, translated into english, becomes "sopher," or recorder. "whether the lord chancellor of _england_ as now he is, may be properly termed _sopher_ or mazur, it may receive some needlesse question, howbeit it cannot be doubted but his office doth participate of both their functions."--"observations concerning the office of lord chancellor," p. . after their conversion to christianity, the kings employed the services of a priest as chaplain or confessor, and in the person of the chancellor the posts of "keeper of the king's conscience" and secretary were thus naturally combined. in king ethelred's time the chancellorship was divided between the abbots of ely, canterbury and glastonbury, who exercised it in turn, each for four months. the appointment continued for several centuries to be held by a cleric. in the early days of parliament, indeed, the chancellor received his writ of summons as a bishop and not as chancellor, and, though he attended in the latter capacity in any case, no summons was sent to him if he did not happen to be a bishop. ecclesiastics were appointed to the chancellorship, without exception, until the time of sir robert bourchier in , and it was not for a long time after this that spiritual statesmen wholly gave place to lawyers. thomas à beckett, william of wykeham and cardinal wolsey, figure prominently among the clerical chancellors of early times, and it was not until the beginning of the seventeenth century that laymen succeeded in establishing themselves firmly upon the woolsack. since that time no cleric, with the single exception of bishop williams, in , has been entrusted with the chancellorship or the custody of the great seal. one of the chief duties of the chancellor in early times consisted in affixing the royal seal with which from time immemorial the will of the sovereign has been expressed. at the present day royal grants and warrants, letters-patent of peerage or for inventions, commissions of the peace, etc., are issued under what coke calls the _clavis regni_. when the sovereign is absent it acts as his representative, and parliament itself is opened by a commission under the great seal. this emblem of sovereignty may therefore be considered one of the most important instruments of the constitution, and, as its loss would entail endless inconvenience, it is given into the custody of the lord keeper or lord chancellor.[ ] as secretary to the king the chancellor would seem to have been its natural custodian, but when he fell sick or died, or went abroad, it was occasionally placed in other hands. later on it became the custom to make the keepership of the great seal a regular appointment, separate and distinct from the lord chancellorship. [ ] the seal was stolen from lord thurlow by burglars in , and the offer of a reward of £ failed to retrieve it. when lord chancellor eldon's house at encombe caught fire in , he buried the seal for safety's sake in the garden, and then forgot where he had buried it. his family spent most of the next day digging for it before it was finally recovered. eldon seems to have taken the fire very easily. "it really was a very pretty sight," he wrote, "for all the maids turned out of their beds, and formed a line from the water to the fire-engine, handing the buckets; they looked very pretty, _all in their shifts_." campbell's "lives of the chancellors," vol. vii. p. . the post of lord keeper has been held by statesmen, courtiers, and divines, and the duties of the office have even been undertaken on two occasions by women. queen eleanor, the first lady keeper, was also the most unpopular. while her husband was abroad in , and the great seal was in her custody, she made use of her delegated power to lay a heavy tax on all vessels bearing cargo to london, and showered gifts of english land and places upon her foreign relatives. she thus succeeded in arousing the hatred of the london mob, who expressed their dislike in a material fashion by pelting her with mud. to avoid the fury of the populace queen eleanor fled abroad, and only returned to england to take refuge in a convent.[ ] the other lady keeper, queen isabella, who held the great seal in , had no actual commission, and was not entrusted with any judicial power. but she kept the seal in a casket, and delivered it each day as it was required to the master of the rolls, and may therefore claim to be included in the list of keepers. [ ] queen eleanor was a remarkable woman. at the age of thirteen she was the author of a heroic poem, and in the following year became a wife. piers of langtoft describes her as "the fayrest maye in lyfe, her name elinore of gentle nurture, beyond the sea there was no such creature." the post of lord keeper and lord chancellor first became identical in queen elizabeth's time, when the great seal was entrusted to sir nicholas bacon, who, with his son sir francis and the great lord burghley, may be considered the most eminent of elizabethan chancellors. sir nicholas has been called an "archpiece of wit and wisdom",[ ] and was also well suited physically to combine the two important offices. by nature a man of gigantic size, he grew more bulky with advancing years, and though his dignity was thus increased, the progress of chancery business suffered in proportion. when he took his seat on the bench, after walking from the court of chancery to the star chamber, sir nicholas always spent some considerable time in recovering his breath. the proceedings were accordingly delayed until he had struck the ground three times with his stick as a signal that he was in a condition to resume work. as was fitting in a man of his position, lord keeper bacon inspired intense awe amongst his subordinates. indeed, the reverence with which he was universally regarded eventually proved the indirect cause of his death. one day, while he was having his hair cut, he fell into a profound slumber, from which no one had the courage to rouse him. "i durst not disturb you," said the barber, when sir nicholas at last awoke, chilled to the bone. "by your civility i lose my life," was the lord keeper's reply; and in a few days his prophecy was fulfilled. though, with sir nicholas bacon, the two posts of keeper and chancellor became united, it was not until the time of george iii. that the modern system originated of conferring the great seal and the title of lord chancellor simultaneously. [ ] naunton's "fragmenta regalia," p. . in mediæval days the chancellorship and the lord keepership were often held in conjunction with other offices. stratford was archbishop of canterbury as well as lord chancellor in , and, though his ecclesiastical duties were too onerous to permit of his discharging the functions of the lord keepership, they did not prevent him from retaining to himself the fees of that office. in , thomas audley, the speaker of the house of commons, was appointed lord keeper in succession to sir thomas more, and held both appointments simultaneously until he was made lord chancellor. and as recently as the reign of charles ii., a prime minister, the earl of clarendon, combined the posts of premier and chancellor. the office of lord chancellor developed into one of primary importance in the time of edward i., when, from being but a member of the _aula regis_, he became the president of a separate court, a court of equity. law and equity have, to a certain extent, been antagonistic ever since the days when kings were advised by clerics and opposed by lawyers. in the eyes of the latter equity was often, as selden says, "a roguish thing," untrustworthy, and largely dependent upon the conscience of individual chancellors, "and as that is larger or narrower, so is equity." but however exaggerated the claim of equity to be the "law of god," "the law of nature," or "law of reason,"[ ] it has at least vindicated its position in the statutory enactment that, where there is a conflict, its rules are to prevail over those of the common law.[ ] [ ] "the fyrste dyaloge in englys, between a doctoure of dyvynyte and a student in the lawes of england" ( ). [ ] judicature act of , section . the conscience of some, at least, of england's early lord chancellors possessed peculiarly plastic qualities. they themselves were not infrequently ignorant of the principles of law. occasionally, too, their conduct and character were such that it is hard to imagine them as the fount of equity or justice. lord wriothesley, chancellor in , combined legal incompetence with the most intense religious bigotry.[ ] chancellor sir francis bacon, philosopher, writer, and lawyer, whose name is one of the most famous in english history, was forced to plead guilty to a charge of "corruption and neglect," for which offence he was deprived of the great seal, fined a sum of £ , , and imprisoned in the tower. a hundred years later lord chancellor macclesfield was impeached and fined for corrupt practices with regard to the sale of masterships in chancery; while the brutal jeffreys, stained with the blood of hundreds of innocent and defenceless persons, was another lord chancellor whose presence added nothing to the prestige of the woolsack.[ ] [ ] his barbarous treatment of the wretched anne askew is notorious. for denying that the sacramental blood and wine lost their material elements after consecration, anne was condemned to be tortured, and the lord chancellor with his own hands stretched the rack on which the unfortunate woman was bound, in the hope of extracting a confession. it must, however, be admitted that wriothesley's heart was not entirely impervious to emotion, for when, as lord chancellor, he announced the death of henry viii. in the house of lords, he could not refrain from bursting into tears. [ ] he was, however, an able lawyer, and reserved his orgies for private life. "if my lord jefferies exceeded the bounds of temperance now and then in an evening, it does not follow that he was drunk on the bench or in council." (campbell's "lives," vol. iii. p. _note_.) many centuries elapsed before the standard of judicial morality in england attained its present high level, but even in the earliest days of the chancellorship we find occupants of the woolsack combining legal wisdom with particularly blameless lives. the great sir thomas more, statesman and author, was as famous for the extreme simplicity of his habits as for the ability with which he despatched chancery business. the former virtue he almost carried to excess, and his practice of singing in the choir of the parish church at chelsea, dressed in a surplice, surprised and even shocked his contemporaries. "god's body!" once exclaimed the duke of norfolk, seeing more thus attired and singing lustily; "my lord chancellor a parish clerk! you dishonour the king and his office." "nay," replied more, "your grace may not think that the king, your master and mine, will be offended with me for serving _his_ master, or thereby account his office dishonoured," and he resumed his interrupted hymn. jeffreys' predecessor, lord guilford, who, as campbell tells us, "had as much law as he could contain," was another chancellor of blameless morals. in an age when the possession of a few redeeming vices was considered the mark of a gentleman, the purity of his conduct caused him some natural unpopularity. indeed, his friends strongly advised him to take a mistress, if he did not wish to lose all interest at court, saying that people naturally looked suspiciously at a man who declined to follow the general practice and seemed to be continually reprehending them by his superior moral tone. lord guilford's enemies even sought to revenge themselves upon him by spreading reports calculated to make him look ridiculous, and once, when the lord keeper had gone to the city to see a rhinoceros which was on view there, circulated a story to the effect that he had insisted upon riding this animal down the street. poor lord guilford was much annoyed; he was blessed with a most exiguous sense of humour, and could see nothing amusing in so preposterous a suggestion. "that his friends, intelligent persons, who must know him to be far from guilty of any childish levity, should believe it, was what _roiled_ him extremely,"[ ] he declared. [ ] roger north's "life of lord guilford," vol. ii. p. . (the word _roiled_, so we are informed, was an import from the american plantations.) the duties of the lord chancellor are manifold and of supreme importance. lord lyndhurst, who himself held the seal three times, and is famous not only as an orator but also as the originator of the policy of what is known as the two power standard,[ ] once said that the chancellor's work might be divided into three classes: "first, the business that is worth the labour done; second, that which does itself; and third, that which is not done at all."[ ] [ ] "if we wish to be in a state of security," he said, in , "if we wish to maintain our great interests, if we wish to maintain our honour, it is necessary that we should have a power measured by that of any two possible adversaries." [ ] h. crabb robinson's "diary," vol. iii. p. . in his court of chancery the lord chancellor formerly exercised a vast jurisdiction. at one time all writs were issued from this court, and he was not only considered the guardian of all "children, idiots, and lunatics," but, as blackstone says, "had the general superintendance of all charitable uses in the kingdom," and was the visitor of all hospitals of royal foundation.[ ] his former duties in these respects have to some extent been delegated to other judges and officers, acting in his name; the issuing of writs, though also in his name, has been transferred to the central office, and the jurisdiction of the court of chancery removed to the chancery division of the high court of justice. [ ] "commentaries," vol. iii. p. . his judicial position, however, is probably greater than ever. he is head of the law and of the judges--a vast though still, perhaps, inadequate number--president of the high court of justice and of the court of appeal, and, above all, of the highest and final court of the realm, the house of lords. here he sits continuously, with occasional excursions to preside over the judicial committee of the privy council to which come all appeals from india and the colonies. as the only legal member of the cabinet, he is virtually chief law officer of the crown, and questions of domestic or international law are submitted for his advice by his colleagues, the heads of the other departments of the government. in his capacity of keeper of the great seal he may never leave the kingdom, and is _ex officio_ speaker of the house of lords, and must attend all its sittings. the chancellor does not, however, enjoy rights similar to those of the commons' speaker; he is not addressed in debate; he does not call upon peers to speak, and has no authority to settle questions of order. as the woolsack is not considered to be within the limits of the house of lords, the fact of a chancellor being a commoner does not prevent him from sitting there and discharging the duties of speaker; but he may not take any other part in the proceedings unless he be himself a peer. only in recent times has the chancellor been necessarily made a peer, and there exists no statutory restriction incapacitating any man, unless he be a roman catholic, from holding the office of lord chancellor.[ ] [ ] sir robert harley, chancellor in , was not made a peer until . in , brougham took his seat on the woolsack as a commoner, and at least one other chancellor has since followed his example. the limitation of his powers as speaker of the lords owes its origin to the fact that, unlike the chairman of the commons, the chancellor is always a partisan appointed by a particular government, and retires when that government goes out of office. as such, he takes an active part in debate, and, though much respect would be paid to his advice on points of order, it need never be followed, and he has no power to decide questions of procedure or to control the conduct of his fellow peers. the first chancellor of an actively partisan character was lord thurlow-- "the rugged thurlow who with sullen scowl, in surly mood, at friend or foe will growl"-- whose well-known asperity had earned for him the title of "the tiger." it was said of him that in the cabinet he "opposed everything, proposed nothing, and was ready to support anything." he was supposed to have derived his descent from thurloe, cromwell's secretary. "there are two thurlows in my county," he remarked, when questioned upon the subject, "thurloe the secretary and thurlow the carrier. i am descended from the carrier."[ ] his bad manners on the bench were proverbial, but not apparently incorrigible. once at the commencement of the long vacation, when he was quitting the court without taking the usual leave of the bar, a young barrister whispered to a companion, "he might at least have said 'd---- you!'" thurlow overheard the remark, returned to his place, and politely made his bow.[ ] eldon said of thurlow that he was a sturdy oak at westminster, but a willow at st james's, where he long figured as the intimate and grateful confidant of george iii.[ ] "oft may the statesman in st stephen's wave, sink in st. james's to an abject slave," but thurlow's attitude towards his royal master does not appear to have been marked by extreme servility. once, indeed, when the chancellor had taken some acts to receive the royal assent, he read one or two of them through to the king and then stopped. "it's all d----d nonsense trying to make you understand this," said thurlow, with brutal frankness, "so you had better consent to them at once!" and if he adopted this tone to his king, it may be certain that his attitude towards his equals or inferiors was no less overbearing. [ ] roscoe's "eminent british lawyers," p. . other chancellors were sprung from equally humble origin. edward sugden, afterwards lord st. leonards, was the son of a barber. to him is attributed a repartee similar to that made many years earlier by colonel birch, m.p., who was taunted with having in his youth been a carrier. "it is true, as the gentleman says, i once was a carrier," replied birch. "but let me tell the gentleman that it is very fortunate for him that he never was a carrier; for, if he had been, he would be a carrier still." see burnet's "history of his own time," p. . [ ] hawkins's "memoirs," vol. ii. p. . [ ] he declared, on a famous occasion, that his debt of gratitude to his majesty was ample, for the many favours he had graciously conferred upon him, which, when he forgot, might his god forget him! wilkes, who was present, muttered, "god forget you! he will see you d----d first!" while burke remarked that to escape the memory of the almighty would be the very best thing thurlow could hope for. thurlow's character has been cruelly portrayed in the _rolliad_ under the heading: "how to make a chancellor." "take a man of great abilities, with a heart as black as his countenance. let him possess a rough inflexibility, without the least tincture of generosity or affection, and be as manly as oaths and ill-manners can make him. he should be a man who should act politically with all parties--hating and deriding every one of the individuals who compose them."[ ] [ ] page . if the speaker of the lords had been expected to conduct himself in a fashion similar to that of the speaker of the commons, thurlow's behaviour on the woolsack would certainly have given rise to adverse criticism. he was a frank and bitter partisan, and when some opponent had spoken, would step forward on to the floor of the house and, as he himself described it, give his adversary "such a thump in the bread-basket" that he did not easily recover from this verbal onslaught.[ ] thurlow's pet aversion was lord loughborough, his successor on the woolsack. when loughborough spoke effectively upon some subject opposed by thurlow, who had not however taken the trouble to study it, the latter could be heard muttering fiercely to himself. "if i was not as lazy as a toad at the bottom of a well," he would say, "i could kick that fellow loughborough heels over head, any day of the week." and he was probably right, for lord loughborough was a notoriously bad lawyer,[ ] whereas his rival's sagacity almost refuted fox's celebrated saying that "nobody could be as wise as thurlow _looked_." [ ] twiss's "life of eldon," vol. i. p. . [ ] lord ellenborough was once asked by his hostess after dinner to cease conversing with his host--a judge--and to give the ladies some conversation, as he had been talking law long enough. "madam," he replied, "i beg your pardon; we have not been talking law, or anything like law. we have been talking of one of the decisions of lord loughborough."--campbell's "lives," vol. vi. p. . the amount of work accomplished by a lord chancellor depends very largely upon the man himself, as we may see by comparing the two most distinguished chancellors of their day--lord eldon and lord brougham. eldon had worked his way laboriously from the very foot to the topmost rung of the legal ladder. it was his own early experiences that inspired him to say that nothing did a young lawyer so much good as to be half-starved. and in action as well as in word he always maintained that the only road to success at the bar was "to live like a hermit, and work like a horse." he was in many ways an original character. he always wore his chancellor's wig in society, and was otherwise unconventional. one day, after reading much of "paradise lost," he was asked what he thought of milton's "satan." "a d----d fine fellow," he replied; "i hope he may win." in spite of this view, however, he was an extremely religious man, though he did not attend divine service regularly. indeed, when some one referred to him as a "pillar of the church," he demurred, saying that he might justly be called a _buttress_ but not a pillar of the church, since he was never to be found inside it. he is probably the most typical tory of the old school that can be found in political history. his conservatism was of an almost incredibly standstill and reactionary character. as walter bagehot said of him in a famous passage, he believed in everything which it is impossible to believe in--"in the danger of parliamentary reform, the danger of catholic emancipation, the danger of altering the court of chancery, the danger of altering the courts of law, the danger of abolishing capital punishment for trivial thefts, the danger of making landowners pay their debts, the danger of making anything more, the danger of making anything less."[ ] [ ] bagehot's "literary studies," vol. i. p. . though on political questions eldon could make up his mind quickly enough, on the bench the extreme deliberation with which he gave judicial decisions was the subject of endless complaints. he agreed with lord bacon that "whosoever is not wiser upon advice than upon the sudden, the same man is not wiser at fifty than he was at thirty."[ ] his perpetual hesitation in court, the outcome of an intense desire to be scrupulously just, gave rise to attacks both in parliament and the press.[ ] [ ] like lord bacon, too, he compiled an indifferent "anecdote book." bacon's "collection of apothegms," was supposed to have been taken down from his dictation all on "one rainy day," but neither the brevity of the time nor the inclemency of the weather is a sufficient excuse for so poor a production. [ ] these occasionally took the form of lampoons in verse, such as the following:-- the derivation of chancellor "the chancellor, so says lord coke, his _title_ from cancello took; and ev'ry cause before him tried it was his duty to _decide_. lord eldon, hesitating ever, takes it from chanceler, to _waver_, and thinks, as this may bear him out, his bounden duty is to _doubt_." pryme's "recollections," p. . [illustration: lord eldon from the painting by sir thomas lawrence, p.r.a., in the national portrait gallery] a commission was eventually appointed, ostensibly to inquire into the means by which time and expense might be saved to suitors in chancery--where, as sydney smith said, lord eldon "sat heavy on mankind"--but really to expose the dilatory methods of the chancellor. eldon came well out of the inquiry, however, and it was proved that in the twenty-four years during which he had held the great seal, but few of his decisions had been appealed against, and still fewer reversed. if some fault could be found with lord eldon for being a slow if steady worker, no such complaint could be levelled at the head of lord brougham. the latter, indeed, erred on the side of extreme haste, and was as restless on the bench as eldon was composed, and as ignorant and careless of his duties as his predecessor was learned and scrupulous. brougham's cleverness, was, however, amazing. if he had known a little law, as lord st. leonards dryly observed, he would have known a little of everything. he has been called "the most misinformed man in europe," and in early life, when he was one of the original founders of the _edinburgh review_, is said to have written a whole number himself, including articles upon lithotomy and chinese music. his ability and brilliance were unsurpassed, and his oratory was superb. his famous speech (as her attorney-general) in defence of queen caroline was one of the finest forensic efforts ever heard in the house of lords.[ ] his many talents have been epitomised in a famous saying of rogers: "this morning solon, lycurgus, demosthenes, archimedes, sir isaac newton, lord chesterfield, and a great many more, went away in one post-chaise." yet he was eminently unsuccessful as chancellor, and his domineering fashion of treating his colleagues made him extremely unpopular. brougham's loquacity was intolerable, and his conceit immense. "the whigs are all cyphers," he once declared, "and i am the only unit in the cabinet that gives a value to them." it must, however, be admitted that he was a great statesman if not a great chancellor, and that to his unique intellectual talents we owe in great measure the emancipation of the negro slave and the passing of the reform bill. [ ] "there never was anything like the admiration excited by brougham's speech. lord harrowby, g. somerset, mr. montagu, and granville told me it was in eloquence, ability, and judicious management beyond almost anything they ever heard."--lady granville's "letters" (to lady g. morpeth, october, ), vol. i. p. . in his lifetime, brougham was almost universally disliked and feared. "a 'b' outside and a wasp within," said some wag, pointing to the simple initial on the panel of that carriage which brougham invented, and which still bears his name.[ ] and this was the popular view of that chancellor whom sheil called "a bully and a buffoon." even his friends distrusted him, and in , when lord melbourne returned to power, the great seal, which brougham had held but a year before, was not returned to him, but was put into commission. no reasons were assigned for this step, but they were sufficiently obvious. "my lords," said melbourne in the upper house, when brougham subsequently attacked him with intense bitterness, "you have heard the eloquent speech of the noble and learned lord--one of the most eloquent he ever delivered in this house--and i leave your lordships to consider what _must be_ the nature and strength of the objections which prevent my government from availing themselves of the services of such a man!"[ ] perhaps one of the strongest objections was the intense dislike with which the ex-chancellor was regarded by the king. this was not lessened by the cavalier fashion in which brougham treated his sovereign. when he was forced to return the great seal into the royal hands in , he did not deliver it in person, as was proper, but sent it in a bag by a messenger, "as a fishmonger," says lord campbell, "might have sent a salmon for the king's dinner!" [ ] the duke of wellington once chaffed brougham, saying that he would only be known hereafter as the inventor of a carriage. the chancellor retorted by remarking that the duke would only be remembered as the inventor of a pair of boots. "d---- the boots!" said wellington. "i had quite forgotten them; you have the best of it!" [ ] russell's "recollections," p. . a privy councillor, by virtue of his office, and "prolocutor of the house of lords by prescription,"[ ] the lord high chancellor of great britain occupies to-day the "oldest and most dignified of the lay offices of the crown." by ancient statute, to kill him is a treasonable offence, and his post as lord keeper is not determined by the demise of the crown. he enjoys precedence after the royal family and the archbishop of canterbury, holds one of the most prominent places in the cabinet, and is the highest paid servant of the crown. [ ] blackstone's "commentaries," vol. iii. p. . in henry i.'s time the lord keeper of the great seal was paid _s._ a day, and received a "livery" of provisions, a pint and a half of claret, one "gross wax-light" and forty candle-ends. the chancellor's perquisites used always to include a liberal supply of wine from the king's vineyards in gascony. at the beginning of the nineteenth century, he received a salary of £ , ; but lord eldon, in , gave up £ of this to the vice-chancellor, and for a long time the woolsack was worth £ , a year. a modern chancellor's salary is £ , --£ as lord chancellor, and £ as speaker of the house of lords--and he is further entitled to a pension of half that amount on retirement. the extensive patronage that attaches to the office adds much to its importance. the chancellor recommends the appointment of all judges of the high court and court of appeal, and is empowered to appoint or remove county court judges and justices of the peace. he also has the gift of all crown livings of £ or under, according to the valuation made in henry viii.'s reign, and of many other places.[ ] one of his perquisites is the great seal, which, when "broken up," becomes the property of the reigning chancellor. the breaking up of the great seal is a simple ceremony which inflicts no actual damage upon the article itself. whenever a new great seal is adopted, at the beginning of a new reign, on a change of the royal arms, or when the old seal is worn out, the sovereign gives the latter a playful tap with a hammer, and it is then considered to be useless, and becomes the property of the lord chancellor. on the accession of william iv. a dispute arose between lord lyndhurst and lord brougham as to who should possess the old seal. the former had been chancellor when the order was made for the engraving of the new seal; the latter had occupied the woolsack when the new seal was finished and ordered to be put into use. the king, to whom the question was referred, decided, with truly solomonian sagacity, that the seal should be divided between the two chancellors.[ ] [ ] lord eldon, who dearly loved a joke, wrote as follows to his friend, dr. fisher, of the charter house, who had applied to him for a piece of preferment then vacant-- "dear fisher, "i cannot, to-day, give you the preferment for which you ask. "i remain, your sincere friend, "eldon. "_turn over._" (on the other side of the page he added) "i gave it to you yesterday." "life of eldon," vol. ii. p. . [ ] the same difficulty arose in , when queen victoria solved it by following the precedent set in , and divided the seal between lord cairns and his predecessor. the people of england, as disraeli said some seventy years ago, have been accustomed to recognize in the lord chancellor a man of singular acuteness, of profound learning, and vast experience, who has won his way to a great position by the exercise of great qualities, by patient study, and unwearied industry. they expect to find in him a man who has obtained the confidence of his profession before he challenges the confidence of his country, who has secured eminence in the house of commons before he has aspired to superiority in the house of lords; a man who has expanded from a great lawyer into a great statesman, and who "brings to the woolsack the commanding reputation which has been gained in the long and laborious years of an admired career."[ ] seldom, indeed, are the people of england disappointed. [ ] "the runnymede letters," p. . chapter vii the speaker the position of "first commoner of the realm" is, after that of prime minister, the most distinguished as well as the most difficult to which it is possible for any man to attain while still a member of parliament. a comparison of the two offices proves, in one respect at any rate, favourable to the former; for whereas it has been said that the premier "can do nothing right," the speaker can do no wrong. he may indeed be considered to enjoy in the house the prerogative which the sovereign is supposed to possess in the country. but it is not upon his presumable infallibility that the occupant of the chair relies to-day for the unquestioned honour and dignity of his position. it is rather to the reputation for absolute integrity with which, for close upon a hundred years, each speaker in turn has been justly credited, that he owes the tribute of esteem and respect, almost amounting to awe, which is nowadays rightly regarded as his due. the reverence he now inspires is the product of many parliaments; his present state is the gradual growth of ages. from very early days, when the two houses began to sit apart, the commons must probably have always possessed an official who, in some measure, corresponded to the modern idea of a speaker. and though sir thomas hungerford, elected to the chair in , was the first upon whom that actual designation was bestowed, the lower house undoubtedly employed the services of a spokesman--or "pourparlour," as he was then called--at an even earlier date.[ ] [ ] hakewell gives a list of hungerford's predecessors in the chair, which includes sir peter de la mare, commissioned by parliament to rebuke edward iii. for his misconduct with alice perrers, and imprisoned for so doing. the name "speaker" is perhaps a misleading one, since speaking must be numbered among the least important of the many duties that centre round the chair, though in bygone days it was customary for a speaker to "sum up" at the close of the proceedings. grattan's landlady used to complain feelingly that it was a sad thing to see her misguided young lodger rehearsing his speeches in his bedroom, and talking half the night to some one whom he called "mr. speaker," when there was no speaker present but himself.[ ] it is, however, as the mouthpiece of the commons, as one who speaks for, and not to, his fellow-members, and was long the only channel through which the commons could express their views to the crown, that the speaker earns his title. [ ] phillips's "curran and his contemporaries," p. . the speaker may well be called the autocrat of the house; his word there is law, his judgment is unquestioned, his very presence is evocative of a peculiar deference. he is at the same time the servant of the house, and, in the memorable words which speaker lenthall addressed to charles i., has "neither eyes to see nor tongue to speak but as the house is pleased to direct." it is upon the good pleasure of the commons that his power is based; by their authority alone he rules supreme. the prestige which nowadays attaches to the office has been slowly evolved on parallel lines with the gradual public recognition of the necessary impartiality of the chair. in proportion as the speaker became fair minded, the strength of his position was enhanced, until to-day the occupant of the chair is as powerful as he is impartial. that there was a time when he could not justly be accused of being either the one or the other is a matter of history. speakers in the past displayed little of the dignity and none of the fairness to which their successors have now for so many generations accustomed us. they were frequently subjected to intentional disrespect on the part of the unruly members of that assembly over which it was their duty to preside. in the early journals of the house, for instance, we find a speaker complaining that a member had "put out his tongue, and popped his mouth with his finger, in scorn," at him.[ ] and the worthy lenthall himself was much upset on one occasion when a member came softly up behind him, as he was engaged in putting a question to the vote, and shouted "baugh!" in his ear, "to his great terror and affrightment."[ ] even as recently as in the reign of george iii. the parliamentary debates were marked by perpetual altercations of an undignified and acrimonious description between the members and the chair. [ ] july , . [ ] palgrave's "house of commons," p. . that such things would be impossible nowadays is the result not so much of an improvement in the manners of the house--though that may have something to do with it--as in the complete change which has taken place in the character of its chairman. up to the end of the seventeenth century the chair was to all intents and purposes in the gift of the crown: its occupant was a mere creature of the reigning sovereign. "it is true," wrote sir edward coke, in , "that the commons are to chuse their speaker, but seeing that after their choice the king may refuse him, for avoiding of expense of time and contestation, the use is that the king doth name a discreet and learned man whom the commons elect."[ ] the speaker was, indeed, nothing more nor less than the parliamentary representative of the king, from whom he received salaried office and other material marks of the royal favour. [ ] "the institutes of the laws of england," fourth part ( ), p. . in stuart days the commons had grown so jealous of the influence of the crown, and found the speaker's spying presence so distasteful, that they often referred important measures to giant committees of which they could themselves elect less partial chairmen. that they were justified in their fears is beyond doubt. in , for example, speaker finch, who was a paid servant of king charles, declined to put to the house a certain question of which he had reason to believe that his majesty disapproved. again and again he was urged to do his duty, but tremblingly refused, saying that he dared not disobey the king. on being still further pressed, the timorous finch burst into tears, and would have left the chair had not some of the younger and more hotheaded members seized and held him forcibly in his seat, declaring that he should remain there until it pleased the house to rise.[ ] [ ] carlyle's "letters and speeches of oliver cromwell," vol. i. p. . until comparatively recently it was not permissible for a speaker to leave the chair until, at the instigation of some member, the motion "that this house do now adjourn" had been put. in this connexion a pathetic story is told of speaker denison. on one occasion the house broke up rather hurriedly, and the necessary formula for releasing the speaker was forgotten. he was consequently compelled to remain a lonely prisoner in the chair until some good-natured member could be brought back to set him free. even in the days of the commonwealth, the choice of a chairman was not left entirely to the independent will of the commons, and lenthall, himself the first speaker to treat the crown with open defiance, owed his election to the urgent recommendation of cromwell. the chair did not altogether succeed in clearing itself of court influence until the close of the seventeenth century, when the memorable and decisive conflict between the crown and the commons took place over the speakership. the refusal of charles ii., in - , to approve of sir edward seymour, the commons' choice, aroused the most intense resentment in the breast of every member of the house, and was the subject of many heated debates. though the popular assembly had eventually to bow to the royal will, the election of the king's original candidate was not pressed, and the commons may be said to have gained a moral victory. from that day to this no sovereign has interfered in the election of a speaker, nor since then has the chair ever been filled by a royal nominee. as a result of this great constitutional struggle between king and parliament, the speaker gained complete independence of the royal will, but he had still to acquire that independence of party to which he did not practically attain until after the reform act of . from being the creature of the crown, the speaker developed into the slave of the ministry, thus merely exchanging one form of servitude for another. he was an active partisan, and, in some instances, openly amenable to corruption. sir john trevor, the first speaker to whom was given (by a statute of william iii.) the title of "first commoner of the realm," an able but unscrupulous man who began life in humble circumstances as a lawyer's clerk, was actually found guilty of receiving bribes, and forced to pronounce his own sentence. "resolved," he read from the chair on march , , "that sir john trevor, speaker of this house, for receiving a gratuity of guineas from the city of london, after the passing of the orphans bill, is guilty of a high crime and misdemeanour." this resolution was carried unanimously, and on the following day, when sir john should have been in his place to put to the vote the question of his own expulsion, he wisely feigned sickness, and was never more seen within the precincts of the house.[ ] [ ] after his dismissal from the house of commons, sir john trevor lived quietly at home and amassed money. his miserly habits became notorious. once when he was dining alone and drinking a bottle of wine, a cousin was introduced by a side door. "you rascal," said trevor to his servant; "how dare you bring this gentleman up the back stairs? take him instantly down the back stairs and bring him up the _front_ stairs!" in vain did the cousin remonstrate. while he was being ceremoniously conveyed down one staircase and up the other his host cleared the dinner table, and he returned to find the bottles and glasses replaced by books and papers. campbell's "lives of the chancellors," vol. v. pp. - . arthur onslow, who was elected to the chair in , and filled it with distinction for three and thirty years, has been called "the greatest speaker of the century," and was the first to realise the absolute necessity for impartiality. so determined was he to ensure himself against any possible suspicion of bias that he insisted upon sacrificing that portion of his official salary which was customarily paid by the government. excellent though such an example must have been, it was many years after onslow's retirement before his successors ceased to display a partisan spirit wholly incompatible with the dignity of their office. speaker grenville threatened to leave the chair because the ministry of the day refused to accelerate the promotion of a military relative of his; addington frequently overlooked trifling breaches of the rules of procedure committed by his political chief and crony, pitt; abbot contrived that the scheme for the threatened impeachment of lord wellesley should prove abortive. it was the last-named speaker, however, who unwittingly brought to a head the question of the impartiality of the chair, and thereby settled it once and for all. on july , , at the prorogation of parliament, speaker abbot took it upon himself to deliver at the bar of the house of lords a lengthy party harangue on the subject of catholic emancipation. this frank exposition of his private political views roused the indignation of the commons, who took an early opportunity of expressing their disapproval of his conduct. not even his friends could condone abbot's action, and in april of the following year a resolution was moved in the commons gravely censuring him for his behaviour on this occasion. for several hours he was forced to listen to criticisms and abuse from both sides of the house, and though, as a matter of policy, the resolution was not carried, the commons in the course of this debate proved beyond doubt their determination to secure the impartiality of their chairman. [illustration: charles abbot (lord colchester) from the painting by john hoppner, r.a., in the national portrait gallery] that they succeeded in accomplishing their purpose may be gauged from the conduct and character of abbot's successors. so divorced from all political prejudice is the modern speaker, that he does not deem it consistent with his position to enter the portals of any political club of which he may happen to be a member. even at a general election he steers as widely clear of politics as possible. it is not, indeed, usual for his candidature to be opposed at such a time--though an exception was made as recently as , when speaker gully was forced to contest carlisle--and though he may appeal in writing to his constituents, he is not supposed to touch, in his election address, upon any political questions. the duties of a speaker may be summarized in a few words. as the representative of the house he alone of the commons is privileged to communicate direct with the crown, either as the personal bearer of an address, or at the bar of the house of lords when the sovereign is present.[ ] as the mouthpiece of the house he delivers on its behalf addresses of thanks to whomever parliament delights to honour; he censures those who have incurred its displeasure. in his hands lies the issuing of writs to fill parliamentary vacancies; he alone can summon witnesses or prisoners to the bar of the house, or commit to prison those persons who have offended against its privileges. his powers have been greatly increased of late years by the discretion committed to him under various standing orders of accepting or refusing motions for the closure of debate. it is, besides, a part of the daily routine of the chair to put questions to the vote, to declare the decision of the house, and, finally, to maintain order in debate. [ ] sir arnold savage, speaker in henry vi.'s time, was so voluble, and addressed the king so often, and at such length, that the latter's patience became exhausted, and he asked that all requests from the commons might hereafter be addressed to him in writing. successfully to accomplish the last-named duty is a matter that requires all that a man has of tact, strength of character, and promptness of judgment. it is, above all things, necessary that by his personal integrity he should gain the confidence of the house, so that a willing acquiescence, and not a reluctant submission, may be given to the force of his decisions. he must, as sir robert peel declared, have a mind capable of taking the widest view of political events, but at the same time able "to descend to the discussion of some insulated principle, to the investigation of some trifling point of order, some almost obsolete form, or some nearly forgotten privilege."[ ] [ ] in , on the election of manners sutton. ever ready to quell turbulence with a firm hand, he must yet display an habitual urbanity of manner calculated to soothe the nerves of an irritable or excited assembly. he must make up his mind calmly and dispassionately, but on the spur of the moment, and, once his judgment is formed, adhere to it inflexibly. difficult questions arise for his decision with startling rapidity; intricate points of order loom suddenly forth from a clear sky; and any show of vacillation would tend very materially to weaken the speaker's authority. when a member uses unparliamentary language, or makes a personal attack upon an opponent, the speaker must summon his most persuasive powers to induce the culprit to withdraw the offensive words. at a moment's notice he has to decide a matter between two eminent debaters, who would be little likely to consult him on any private occasion, and give satisfaction to both. to a perpetual serenity, as a member once said in describing the speaker's office, he must add "a firmness of mind as may enable him to repress petulance and subdue contumacy, and support the orders of the house, in whatever contrariety of counsels, or commotion of debate, against all attempts at infraction or deviation."[ ] [ ] dr. johnson's "debates in parliament," vol. ii. p. . to sum up, then, it may be urged that a speaker should combine intellectual ability with those qualities of character which are the mark of what is called a "gentleman"--a term that has, perhaps, seldom been more aptly defined than in a speech in which lord john cavendish recommended the claims of a candidate to fill the chair vacated by the death of sir john cust in .[ ] [ ] of his nominee for the speakership lord john declared that he had "parts, temper, and constitution." "and he has," he added, "besides the principle of common honesty, which would prevent him from doing wrong, a principle of nice honour, which will always urge him to do right. by honour i do not mean a fashionable mistaken principle, which would only lead a man to court popular reputation, and avoid popular disgrace, whether the opinion on which they are founded is false or true; whether the conduct which they require is in itself just or unjust, or its consequences hurtful or beneficial to mankind. i mean a quality which is not satisfied with doing right, when it is merely the alternative of doing wrong, which prompts a man to do what he might lawfully and honestly leave undone; which distinguishes a thousand different shades in what is generally denominated the same colour, and is as much superior to a mere conformity to prescribed rules as forgiving a debt is to paying what we owe." "parliamentary history," vol. xvi. p. . the physical qualifications necessary for the speakership include a clear, resonant voice and a commanding presence. a little man with a flute-like falsetto might be endowed with the wisdom of solomon and the virtue of cæsar's wife, and yet fail to claim the respect of the house, even though he contrived to render audible his shrill cries of "order!" when sergeant yelverton was elected to the chair in , he declared that a speaker ought to be "a man big and comely, stately and well spoken, his voice great, his carriage majestical, his nature haughty, and his purse plentiful,"[ ] and, with the omission of the last qualification, now no longer necessary, the same may truly be said to-day. [ ] d'ewes' "journal," p. . the enjoyment of perfect health might also be added to this list, since only the most robust constitution can support the strain of labours which were always arduous, and, with the rapid increase of business and the prolongation of each succeeding session, grow annually more onerous. hour after hour does the speaker sit in the splendid isolation of the chair, listening to interminable speeches, of which no small proportion are insupportably wearisome. "like sad prometheus, fastened to his rock, in vain he looks for pity to the clock; while, vulture-like, the dire [m.p.] appears, and, far more savage, rends his suff'ring ears."[ ] [ ] "the rolliad." he may not rest, though the cooing of ministers on the immemorial front bench, and the murmur of innumerable m.p.'s, must often threaten to reduce the hapless listener to a condition bordering upon coma. he must pay the strictest attention to every pearl that falls from the lips of "honourable gentlemen," many of whom delight to air their vocabulary at an unconscionable length, and, like dryden's shadwell, "never deviate into sense." he must be ever ready to check irrelevancy, to avert personalities, to guide some discursive speaker back to the point at issue; nor is he upheld by the stimulus of interest which might possibly be his could he look forward to replying to the member who is addressing the house. for the last hundred years it has been considered undignified for the speaker to take any personal part in debate, even when the house is in committee, though speaker denison once broke this rule, and made a long speech upon some agricultural question. speaker abbot often spoke in committee, and once actually moved an amendment to a bill which had been read a second time, and succeeded in getting it thrown out. at a still earlier date, in , we read of sir fletcher norton inveighing vehemently against the influence of the crown, and making a violent attack upon lord north which resulted in what walpole calls "a strange scene of billingsgate between the speaker and the minister."[ ] but though speaker norton, who was reputed to be the worst-tempered man in the house, could thus relieve his pent-up feelings in occasional bursts of eloquence, he took no pains to conceal his boredom, and during the course of a particularly tedious debate would often cry aloud, "i am tired! i am weary! i am heartily sick of all this!"[ ] speaker denison, even, on one occasion, at the end of a protracted session, grew so anxious for release that when a tiresome orator rose to continue the debate he could not refrain from joining in the members' general chorus of "oh! oh!" [ ] horace walpole's "letters," vol. vii. p. . (this speaker's criticism of the royal expenditure on a later occasion roused the animosity of george iii., and cost him the loss of the chair.) [ ] may's "constitutional history," vol. i. p. n. as a rule, however, modern speakers seem able to exercise complete self-control, and, bored though they must often be, are polite enough to hide the fact. they cannot now have recourse to that flowing bowl of porter which speaker cornwall kept by the side of the chair, from which he drank whenever he felt the need of a mental fillip, subsequently falling into a pleasing torpor which the babble of debate did nothing to dispel. to-day, indeed, the speaker neither slumbers nor sleeps, and the advice given by the poet praed to the occupant of the chair during one of the debates of the first reformed parliament would fall on deaf ears. "sleep, mr. speaker; it's surely fair, if you don't in your bed, that you should in your chair; longer and longer still they grow, tory and radical, aye and no; talking by night, and talking by day; sleep, mr. speaker, sleep, sleep while you may! "sleep, mr. speaker; sweet to men is the sleep that comes but now and then; sweet to the sorrowful, sweet to the ill, sweet to the children who work in a mill. you have more need of sleep than they; sleep, mr. speaker; sleep, sleep while you may!" it is very necessary for the proper performance of his duties that a speaker should possess good eyesight, and a memory exceptionally retentive of names and faces. in , when a heated dispute rose between members of the house, several of whom claimed precedence of speech, a rule was made that whoever first "caught the speaker's eye" should have the right to address the house.[ ] this rule still holds good. much confusion may therefore arise if the speaker happens to suffer from obliquity of vision. sir john trevor squinted abominably; consequently two members would often catch his eye simultaneously, and decline to give way to one another.[ ] to obviate this, a further rule was framed to the effect that the speaker should call by name upon the member privileged to address the house--a rule which must often prove a severe tax upon a speaker's memory. [ ] "people say, when you get on the blind side of a man, you get into his favour; but it is quite the reverse with the members when they get on the blind side of the speaker." pearson's "political dictionary," p. . [ ] when trevor was master of the rolls, a post he combined with that of speaker, it was said that if justice were blind, equity was now seen to squint! in former days, when there was any doubt as to who should speak, the matter was referred to the house, as is still the practice of the house of lords. nowadays it is settled by the speaker. it is the usual practice of the chair to fix an alternate eye upon either side of the house, and thus provide both parties with equal opportunities of speech. the tension of this perpetual strain upon a speaker's nerves is not altogether relieved when he quits the chair. as long as the house is sitting it is obligatory upon him to remain within the precincts of the building, close at hand, lest the proceedings in committee of the whole house come to an end, and the house be resumed, or in case a sudden emergency should arise to demand his immediate presence. and well it is that this should be so. who that was present on that painful occasion in the summer of , when for once the decencies of debate were violated, and the house degenerated into a bear-garden, can have forgotten the effect of mr. speaker peel's sudden advent upon the scene? mr. chamberlain had drawn a comparison between herod and mr. gladstone. a nationalist member retaliated by shouting "judas!" at the member for west birmingham. in vain did a weak chairman seek to restore order, and when a radical member crossed the floor and sat down in the accustomed seat of the leader of the opposition, he was at once pushed on to the floor by an indignant unionist. this was the signal for an impulsive group of nationalists to detach itself from the main body of the irish party, and rush towards the front opposition bench. in a moment the house was in an uproar. it is not known who struck the first blow, but before many moments had elapsed the floor of the commons was the arena of a hand-to-hand struggle between hysterical politicians of all parties, while from the government bench mr. gladstone watched this tumultuous scene with all the bitter emotions of one to whom the honour of the house was especially dear. meanwhile the speaker had been sent for, and in an incredibly short space of time appeared upon the scene. with his advent hostilities ceased as suddenly as they had begun. the storm died away; passion quailed before "the silent splendid anger of his eyes." in the breasts in which but a moment ago fury had been seething there was now room for no feelings save those of shame. the authority of the chair is no doubt enhanced by the distinctive dress which a modern speaker wears. the flowing wig and full robes have an important use. mankind pays an involuntary homage to the pomp and circumstance of such attire. perhaps it was because lenthall possessed no peculiar costume to distinguish him from his fellows, but wore the short grey cloak and peaked hat of the puritan, that he was subjected to the humiliation of having "baugh!" shouted in his astonished ear. indeed, were a modern speaker dressed "in smart buckskin breeches, with well-topped boots, a buff waistcoat and blue frock-coat, with a rosebud stuck in the buttonhole," as a parliamentary writer of the last century suggested, "he might roar to the crack of his voice before he would be able to command order in a tempestuous debate."[ ] [ ] barnes's "political portraits," p. . during the first four centuries of parliament the speaker received no regular salary adequate to his needs. in , sir edward seymour was paid £ a day, and relied for the remainder of his income upon the fees on private bills which accompanied the office. other speakers in the past were remunerated by the gift of government appointments or sinecures conferred upon them by the crown. this casual system was put a stop to in , when a fixed salary was first paid by the house to its chief officer. for the next fifty years the speaker could also claim valuable perquisites in the shape of equipment money, amounting to £ , at the commencement of each new parliament, a service of plate (valued at about the same sum), and a sessional allowance of £ for stationery. he was also permitted to carry the chair away with him at the end of every parliament, and speaker onslow is said to have thus acquired five of these bulky pieces of furniture, the disposal of which in his private residence must have afforded him a perplexing problem.[ ] [ ] none of these chairs is to be found at clandon, nor has the onslow family any record of their existence, so perhaps the story of this particular perquisite is nothing but a legend and a myth. the speaker also received a gift of wine and a christmas present of broadcloth from the clothworkers' company; and, as a buck and doe were sent to him annually from the royal park at windsor, had probably more opportunities of burying venison than any of his contemporaries. the £ equipment money is still provided, and a service of plate, while an adequate supply of stationery is substituted for the allowance. as "first commoner" the speaker takes precedence of all others, and among his many honorary dignities is the trusteeship of the british museum, to which all speakers, since and including arthur onslow, have been appointed. his present salary amounts to £ a year, and he is also provided with an official residence in the palace of westminster, exempt from the payment of all rates and taxes. out of this income he is expected to entertain, and invitations to the "speaker's dinners" have come to be looked upon as one of the minor delights of membership. during the eighteenth century the speaker was in the habit of giving evening parties and official dinners on the saturdays and sundays of the session.[ ] speaker abbot, in his diary, describes one of these dinners at which twenty guests were entertained. "the style of the dinner was soup at the top and bottom, changed for fish, and afterwards changed for roast saddle of mutton and roast loin of veal." the wine was champagne, hock, hermitage, and (which sounds unpleasant) iced burgundy.[ ] his successors have always continued the practice of holding regular weekly entertainments of a social character, at which the members attend in _levée_ dress, and it is doubtful whether any guest to-day would follow the example of cobbett, who declined an invitation to dine with speaker manners sutton on the grounds that he was "not accustomed to the society of gentlemen."[ ] [ ] pellew's "life of sidmouth," vol. i. p. . [ ] "diary of lord colchester," february , . [ ] dalling's "historical characters," vol. ii. p. . in old days, as we have seen, the speakership was often a stepping-stone to some higher appointment. sir thomas more, "the first english gentleman who signalized himself as an orator; the first writer of prose (as townsend calls him) which is still intelligible"[ ]-- whatever that may mean--was also the first lay chancellor of england. it was not considered strange for the speaker to hold some ministerial appointment both while he sat in the chair and after his retirement. sir edward coke was solicitor-general as well as speaker; harley occupied the office of secretary of state and the chair simultaneously. spencer compton was paymaster-general as well as speaker, and, as lord wilmington, became prime minister in . nor was he the only speaker to exchange the chair for the premiership. addington succeeded pitt in that office in ; grenville became prime minister in the government of "all the talents," five years later; and manners sutton is said to have been urged by the duke of wellington to form a ministry in - .[ ] [ ] townsend's "history of the house of commons." [ ] "croker papers," vol. ii. p. . nowadays, when a speaker finally relinquishes the chair, it would be considered derogatory to his dignity for him to reappear in the house as a simple member of parliament. addington did so, but soon realized the difficulty of his position, and requested that he might be elevated to the house of lords. it has long been the custom for the commons to ask the crown to recognize in a material fashion the services of a retiring speaker. he is allowed a pension of £ a year, and, ever since the retirement of abbot in , a peerage of the rank of a viscountcy has been conferred upon him. placed in a position of extraordinary trust, hedged about with the lofty traditions of his office, weighed down by heavy responsibilities, engaged in a sedentary occupation during the greater part of the day or night, a speaker may well agree with that candid correspondent who, in congratulating addington on his elevation to the chair in , referred to the speakership as "one of the most awful posts i know."[ ] in the long list of those who have so ably guided and controlled the proceedings of the house of commons during the last hundred years, many names stand forth conspicuously--manners sutton, shaw lefevre, denison, brand, peel. no speaker has ever fallen short of the trust reposed in him, or failed in his duty to the house, and it may confidently be asserted that so long as the standard of english political life maintains its present high level, no difficulty will ever be experienced in providing the chair with an occupant who shall fill it, not only worthily, but with distinction. [ ] pellew's "life of sidmouth," vol. i. p. . chapter viii the opening of parliament parliament, like everything else, must have a beginning. the opening of a session which is also the commencement of a new parliament is an event which tradition invests with all the accompaniments of what cobden contemptuously referred to as "barbaric pomp." the inaugural rites are performed with a stately ceremonial of which selden himself would have approved[ ]; everything is done to make the pageant as impressive as possible. [ ] "ceremony," says selden, "keeps up all things; 'tis like a penny glass to a rich spirit, or some excellent water; without it the water will be spilt, the spirit lost." the actual business of the opening may be described as extending over several days, the climax being reached when the sovereign arrives in person to deliver his speech. the opening itself is nowadays performed by a commission issued for that purpose under the great seal. on the day appointed by royal proclamation for the meeting of a new parliament, the houses assemble in their respective chambers. before doing so, however, special precautions have been taken to ensure the safety of our legislators. a picturesque procession, composed of yeomen of the guard in their striking uniforms, makes its way through the numerous subterranean vaults of the palace of westminster, seeking diligently for the handiwork of some modern guy fawkes. this now familiar search is an ancient custom kept up more in accordance with popular sentiment than for any practical reason. the duties of the beefeaters have no doubt already been anticipated by the police, but though the fruitlessness of their quest is now a matter of regular recurrence, they persistently refuse to be discouraged, and the search is prosecuted with renewed hopefulness at the commencement of every session.[ ] [ ] they even carry lighted lanterns, though the whole place is ablaze with electric light! at two o'clock in the afternoon, the lord chancellor, preceded by the mace and purse, and attended by his train bearer, enters the house of lords by the bar. he is dressed in his robes, and when he has taken his seat, places his cocked hat upon his head. four other lords commissioners, similarly attired, are seated beside him on a bench situated between the woolsack and the throne. from this point of vantage the chancellor summons the gentleman usher of the black rod, and commands him to inform the commons that their immediate attendance is desired in the house of lords to hear the commission read. the post of gentleman usher of the black rod dates from the reign of henry viii. by the constitution creating the order of the garter, he was to be an officer "whom the sovereign and companions will shall be a gentleman famous in arms and blood, and live within the dominions of the sovereign, and, for the dignity and honour of the order, shall be chief of all ushers of this kingdom, and have the care and custody of the doors of the high court called parliament." black rod, either personally or through his deputy, the yeoman usher, fulfils in the house of lords the functions which are performed in the lower house by the sergeant-at-arms of the commons. as custodian of the doors of parliament, he once had the right to appoint all the doorkeepers and messengers of the house of lords, as well as his assistant, the yeoman usher. he used in old days to sell these appointments for large sums, and as his fees brought him in a substantial income--in they amounted to £ --and he was also provided with an official residence, his post was one to be coveted. the system of paying officials by fees was, however, abolished in , and black rod's annual salary was fixed at £ , which to-day has been reduced by half, while his residence has been taken from him and given to the clerk of the parliaments. on receipt of the lord chancellor's command, black rod at once obeys--he is usually a retired naval or military officer and the spirit of discipline is still strong within him--and repairs to the lower house to deliver his message. meanwhile a busy scene is being enacted in the house of commons. from the earliest hours before the dawn members have been gradually assembling at westminster. at the gates of palace yard a respectful crowd collects to watch the arrival of the nation's lawmakers. motor-cars, carriages, and the more humble public conveyances flow in a ceaseless stream through the commons' gates. the traffic at the corner of whitehall is perpetually held up to allow some member to cross the street in safety, much to the annoyance of travellers who desire to catch a train at waterloo station. smiling police constables salute the old familiar faces, carefully scrutinizing the new ones for future reference. the house within presents something of the appearance of a school on the first day of a new term. the old boys welcome each other effusively, exchanging holiday reminiscences; the new boys wander timidly about the precincts, seeking to increase their topographical knowledge. friend greets friend with all the warmth engendered by separation; colleagues describe their own, and inquire tenderly after one another's ailments. even the bitterest opponents may be seen congratulating each other on re-election, or exchanging accounts of their individual experiences during the recess. an atmosphere of peace and goodwill pervades the whole house. all is bustle and confusion in the chamber itself, where members hasten to secure places on the green benches upon either side of the speaker's chair. by the rules of the house no member has a right to reserve a seat unless he has been present within the precincts during prayers, and has staked out his claim either with a hat or a card provided for the purpose. the hat used on this occasion must be a member's own "real working hat." he may not arrive with two hats, one to wear and the other to employ as a seat-preserver; nor is he permitted to borrow the headgear of a friend who has already secured a seat. a story is told of some wily member appearing at westminster, on the morning of an important debate, in a four-wheeler brimming over with hats which he proposed to distribute upon the benches in order to retain places for his party. such conduct, however, though ingenious, is strictly contrary to regulations, and could scarcely hope to escape the vigilant eye of the sergeant-at-arms. [illustration: the treasury bench in from an engraving after the painting by j. philip] certain privileges are accorded to members who by reason of their distinguished position, or long service in the house, have acquired a claim to particular seats. the two front benches on either side have long been reserved for the more prominent politicians. on the right of the chair is the treasury bench, where ministers sit; while the front seat facing them is occupied by the leading members of the opposition. it has been customary for privy councillors to sit on these two benches, and at the opening of parliament the members for the city of london may claim a similar privilege. the right of cabinet ministers to occupy front seats, now undisputed, was sometimes questioned in olden days. in , as the outcome of complaints on this subject, robert cecil, then secretary of state, offered to give up his place most willingly to any member who wished to sit near the chair. "we that sit here," he said, "take your favours out of courtesy, not out of right."[ ] courtesy, has, indeed, generally been displayed by members on this particular question, though there have been occasional exceptions. that rough diamond, cobbett, who was frequently complaining of the lack of space in the house, occupied sir robert peel's accustomed seat one day, as a protest against the insufficient accommodation of the chamber. no notice, however, was taken of his conduct, and his rude but legitimate methods have never since been emulated. [ ] d'ewes' "journal," p. . a member who has been honoured by a parliamentary vote of thanks, or has grown grey in the service of the house, is usually allowed to retain his seat.[ ] hume, who attended every single debate during the period of his membership, for years occupied the same bench close to one of the pillars supporting the gallery above the speaker's chair. "there is joseph," remarked a wag who was not above making a pun, "always at his _post_!"[ ] [ ] sir george de lacy evans ( - ) was the last member honoured by being allowed to retain the seat in which he had received his vote of thanks. [ ] grant's "random recollections," p. . otherwise members may sit wherever they please, provided they have qualified by presence at prayers. certain positions in the house have, however, come to be regarded as symbolical of the political views of their occupants. supporters of the government sit on the right and those of the opposition on the left of the chair. the aisle or passage that divides the house transversely has always acted as a sort of political boundary, and members who are independent of either party proclaim their freedom by sitting "below the gangway." here on the opposition side the irish party has sat for many years; here, too, the labour members mostly congregate. on the opening day the speaker's chair is, of course, vacant, and the mace reposes peacefully underneath the table. the duties of chairman are undertaken by the clerk of the house, who sits in his usual place, and presides in dumb show over the proceedings. the clerkship of the house of commons is an important post, and has been in the hands of many capable and distinguished men. among the famous lawyers who have held this office may be instanced elsynge--ridiculed in hudibras as "cler: parl: don: com:"[ ]--hatsell, erskine may, and palgrave, all of whom have made valuable literary contributions to the annals of parliamentary history. [ ] "hudibras," vol. i. p. . during the first years of the long parliament elsynge brought so much distinction to the position that his authority was said to be greater than that of the speaker (lenthall). his abilities, "especially in taking and expressing the sense of the house," became so conspicuous that "more reverence was paid to his stool than to the speaker's chair."--wood's "athenæ oxonienses," vol. iii. p. . the post has also been temporarily filled by persons of considerably less eminence. in , for example, fulk onslow, who was then clerk, was permitted to appoint his servant, one cadwallader tydder, to act as his deputy. again, in , the clerk being incapacitated by illness, his son was allowed to take his place, and it was advised that a lawyer should sit beside him "with a hat upon his head" to assist the youth in his unaccustomed _rôle_.[ ] it is the clerk's duty to record the proceedings, edit the journals, and sign any orders issued by the house. up to the year , when he was given an annual salary of £ , his income consisted of £ a year (paid half-yearly!) and certain fees on private bills. a collection, amounting to about £ ,[ ] to which all members were expected to contribute sums varying from _s._ to £ , was also made for him at the close of the session. this sounds a paltry sum, but hatsell is said to have made £ , a year while clerk of the house, among his other perquisites being a _douceur_ of £ , which the clerk assistant paid to his chief for the privilege of appointment. in those days the clerk could also earn small sums by copying bills or making extracts from the journals of the house for members, who paid him at the rate of ten lines a penny, though if they declared upon oath that they were unable to pay this sum, no charge was made for the work.[ ] [ ] hatsell's "precedents," vol. ii. p. n. [ ] d'ewes' "journal," p. . [ ] "modus tenendi parliamentum," p. . the arrival of the messenger from the house of lords is heralded in the lobbies by loud cries of "black rod!" the door of the house of commons is flung open, and the gentleman usher, in full uniform and decorations, and bearing the wand of his office in his hand, advances in a stately fashion up the floor of the house and delivers his message. he then retires backwards as gracefully as possible until he reaches the bar, where he awaits the arrival of the clerk. the two now walk together, attended by as many members as care to accompany them, to the bar of the house of lords, where the lords commissioners are awaiting their advent. as soon as the commons' contingent appears, the lord chancellor orders the reading of the letters patent constituting the commission for the opening of parliament, and when this task has been performed by the reading clerk of the house of lords, desires the faithful commons to retire and choose a speaker. with this purpose in view the members return forthwith to the lower house. the election of a speaker is the most important part of the day's business, for without it the house of commons cannot be constituted, nor can members be permitted to take the oath. theoretically a speaker leaves the chair with the parliament that elected him. practically, nowadays, he is retained in office. he is reappointed with the usual ceremonies at the beginning of every parliament, and it is rare for an incoming ministry to supplant the occupant of the chair, even though he may have been the nominee of political opponents. manners sutton was six times speaker, arthur onslow five times, while shaw lefevre, denison, and peel each occupied the chair in four successive parliaments. since their day an unwise and abortive attempt was made to replace speaker gully by a conservative nominee in , but it is unlikely that such an incident will recur. the motion for a speaker's election is made by a member on the government side of the house, and usually seconded by a member of the opposition, both being called upon to speak by the clerk who silently points his finger at each in turn. if it is intended to contest the election, the two candidates put forward are proposed and seconded separately by members of their own party. the question that the government candidate "do take the chair of this house as speaker" is first put by the clerk, and divided upon in the ordinary way. if a majority of the house is in favour of the election of this candidate, no further division is necessary. if not, the same proceeding is carried out with regard to the second candidate. in such cases it has been the custom for each nominee to vote for his opponent. the division is naturally one of intense interest. perhaps the most exciting elections of a speaker that have ever occurred were those that took place in and . on the first occasion abercrombie was elected to replace manners sutton, by the narrow margin of ten,[ ] and in speaker gully's majority only exceeded this by a single vote. [ ] torrens' "life of graham," vol. ii. p. . "when it appeareth who is chosen," says elsynge, "after a good pause he standeth up, and showeth what abilities are required in the speaker, and that there are divers amongst them well furnished with such qualities, etc., disableth himself and prayeth a new choice to be made. after which two go unto him in the place where he sits and take him by the arms, and lead him to the chair."[ ] in old days it was customary for the speaker-elect to "disable" himself at great length and in the humblest possible terms. christopher wray, in , spoke for two hours in this self-deprecatory style. sergeant yelverton, twenty-six years later, explained his unfitness for the post in a lengthy harangue in which he remarked that if "demosthenes, being so learned and eloquent as he was, one whom none surpassed, trembled to speak before phocion at athens, how much more shall i, being unlearned and unskilful, supply this place of dignity, charge, and trouble to speak before so many phocions as here be?"[ ] other speakers put forward "a sudden disease," "extreme youth," or some similar disability as their excuse for escaping from the service of the chair. even as late as the beginning of the eighteenth century sir spencer compton thought it necessary to declare to the commons that he had "neither the memory to retain, the judgment to collect, nor the skill to guide their debates."[ ] [ ] elsynge's "parliaments of england," pp. and . [ ] d'ewes' "journal," p. . [ ] townsend's "history of the house of commons", vol. i. p. . this excessive humility on the part of a speaker-elect has now disappeared, together with the ridiculous old custom whereby it was considered correct for him to evince actual physical reluctance to take the chair. it was once deemed proper for the newly elected speaker to refuse to occupy the exalted throne that awaited him until his two supporters had seized him by the arms and dragged him like some unwilling victim to the scaffold. to-day, he "goes quietly," as the police say; the proposer and seconder lead him gently by the hand, and he gives his attendants no trouble at all. after the speaker has taken the chair, the mace is laid upon the table before him, the leaders of either party offer their congratulations, and the business of the day is over. when parliament meets once more, on the following afternoon, the chancellor and his four fellow lords commissioners, attired as before, in their robes, resume their seats upon the bench in the house of lords, and black rod is again commanded to summon the commons. this time his task is not so simple. when the messenger from the lords arrives at the door of the house of commons, he finds it barred against him, nor is it opened until he has knocked thrice upon it and craved permission to enter. this custom of refusing instant admittance to the lords' official dates from those early times when messages from the crown were regarded by the jealous commons with feelings bordering on abhorrence. the speaker-elect, clad in his official dress, but without his robe, and wearing upon his head a small bob-wig in place of that luxuriant full-bottomed affair which he is so soon to don, has already taken his seat in the chair, making three profound obeisances to that article of furniture as he advances towards it. when black rod has delivered his message, the speaker-elect, surrounded by his official retinue, proceeds at once to the house of lords. here he is politely received by the lords commissioners, who raise their hats three times in acknowledgment of his three obeisances. after acquainting the lords commissioners of his recent election, he humbly submits himself to the royal approbation. the lord chancellor thereupon expresses his majesty's approval of the commons' choice, and the election of the speaker is confirmed. in former days the sovereign was in the habit of undertaking this duty in person. on january , , queen elizabeth came to westminster in her state barge, "apparelled in her mantles open furred with ermine and in her kyrtle of crimson velvet closed before, and close sleeves, but the hands turned up with ermine. a hood hanging loose round about her neck of ermine. over all a rich collar set with stones and other jewels, and on her head a rich call."[ ] thus attired, she proceeded to give the royal assent to the election of the speaker. this nowadays is a mere formality--it has indeed only once been refused, in , when charles ii. declined to sanction the election of sir edward seymour--and is given by the lords commissioners on the sovereign's behalf. [ ] "the order for proceeding to the parliament" (from the ms. at the college of arms). in the days when the sovereign was in the habit of being present in the house of lords to ratify the choice of speaker, the latter would often excuse himself to his monarch in terms even more abject than he had used in the lower house. before the election of sir richard waldegrave, in , speakers did not excuse themselves at all, and until henry viii.'s time they do not seem to have done so as a matter of etiquette, but merely from personal motives, wishing to ingratiate themselves with the sovereign in whose pay they were and to whom they looked for advancement. but towards the middle of the sixteenth century they began regularly to address the king in a fulsome fashion.[ ] in , for instance, we find speaker rich grovelling in abject prostration at the royal feet, and comparing the king to solomon, samson, absalom, and most of the other heroes of old testament history. even among the speakers of that day, however, there were men who refused to demean themselves to this form of flattery, and queen elizabeth was once forced to listen patiently while richard onslow, who declared himself to be "a plain speaker, fit for the plain matter, and to use plain words," delivered to her majesty an "excellent oration," which lasted for two solid hours.[ ] [ ] for a particularly servile speech of this kind see "the sovereign's prerogative," p. . [ ] "observations, rules and orders collected out of divers journals of the house of commons," p. . this practice is fortunately extinct, but one other custom of henry viii.'s time still obtains. to-day the speaker, on receipt of the royal approbation, takes the opportunity of at once demanding the "ancient and undoubted rights and privileges of the commons"--freedom from arrest, liberty of speech, access to the royal person, and that a favourable construction be put upon their proceedings--and on his own behalf begs that whatever error may occur in the discharge of his duties shall be imputed to him alone, and not to his majesty's faithful commons. these ancient rights and privileges having been confirmed by the king, through his lords commissioners and by the mouth of his lord chancellor, the speaker withdraws to the lower house. there he acquaints the commons of the result of his recent pilgrimage, and gratefully assures them once more of his complete devotion to their service. after retiring for a few moments to make the necessary alterations in his costume, he returns, clad in his robe and wearing his full-bottomed wig, and is now a complete and perfect speaker. while this is going on, the upper house has temporarily adjourned to unrobe, and afterwards resumes to enable the lords to continue taking the oath, which is meanwhile being administered to the commons. prior to the sixteenth century, members of parliament were not required to swear; the lords did not do so until . but the act of supremacy of made it necessary for all members of the commons to take the oath, and in were introduced further oaths of allegiance and abjuration which were maintained until . the old oaths aimed at excluding roman catholics from parliament, and the regulation which in ordered every member to take the sacrament in st. margaret's church on the opening day was but another means of ensuring the religious loyalty of the commons. members of the lower house cannot take the oath until their speaker has been approved and sworn; the lords may do so as soon as parliament opens. in the upper house the oath may be taken at any convenient time when the house is sitting; in the house of commons likewise it may be taken whenever a full house is sitting at any hour before business has begun. the lord chancellor leads the way in the house of lords. when he has presented his writ of summons, repeated the formal words of the oath of allegiance after the clerk, kissed the new testament, and subscribed to the test roll, he resumes his seat on the woolsack. the peers then succeed one another in rapid rotation at the table, handing their writs of summons to the clerk, and following the chancellor's example. in the commons the speaker first takes the oath in a very similar fashion, and writes his name in the roll of members. after this ceremony is accomplished, members come up to the table in batches of five, and are sworn simultaneously. they then shake hands with the speaker, and can now consider themselves full-fledged members of parliament. up to the middle of the last century three oaths had to be taken by every member of either house: the oaths of allegiance, of supremacy, and abjuration. there was further a declaration against transubstantiation which effectually excluded roman catholics. but in these last received relief, though the final words of the oath of abjuration still kept out the jews.[ ] in baron lionel de rothschild was excluded from the commons because of his failure to swear on "the true faith of a christian." he accepted the chiltern hundreds, but was again returned to parliament by the city of london. and though he once more failed to obtain permission to vote in the house, he was allowed to sit there until .[ ] six years before this latter date another jew, alderman salomons, insisted upon taking his seat and voting in a division. he was forcibly ejected by the sergeant-at-arms, and subsequently fined £ in the exchequer court as a penalty for voting without having previously taken the oath. in an act was passed substituting a single oath for the former three, and giving both houses power to deal with the jewish difficulty by resolution, but it was not until that the words referring to christianity were finally omitted from the oath. [ ] a peer in support contended that otherwise a jew might become lord chancellor. "why not?" asked lord lyndhurst, in an undertone. "daniel would have made a very good one!" (atlay's "victorian chancellors," vol. i. p. .) [ ] failure to take the oath only prevents a member from sitting within the bar, voting in divisions, and taking part in debate. it does not disqualify him from the other privileges of membership, nor does it render his seat vacant. the refusal of quakers and atheists to take the oath disturbed for many years the peace of mind of parliament, and was the subject of frequent legislation. in the quaker pease was elected for a durham division, and claimed the right of affirming instead of taking the oath. a committee was appointed to consider the validity of such an affirmation, and came to the conclusion that this form might be substituted harmlessly for the more usual oath. the case of the atheist bradlaugh, which lasted for nearly ten years, was a much more complicated affair, and presented endless difficulties to the parliamentary mind. we have grown more broad-minded during the last fifty years, and the story of bradlaugh's persecution sounds incredible to modern ears. this unfortunate man was hounded and harassed with a degree of intolerance which was almost mediæval in its ferocity. politicians of every grade combined to insult and bait him; he became the butt of parliament, and evoked from men who had hitherto shown but little zeal in their faith a religious ardour of the most fanatical and bigoted description. bradlaugh was returned to parliament as member for northampton in . as an atheist it was against his principles to swear upon the bible. when, therefore, he presented himself in the house of commons with the intention of taking his seat, he asked to be allowed to affirm instead of taking the oath. the fact of his being entirely devoid of any religious beliefs or scruples rendered an affirmation in the form usual in parliament practically valueless. his request was accordingly refused, and when he declined to withdraw from the house, he was committed to the custody of the sergeant-at-arms. many members of the house of commons were determined to prevent such a man from taking his seat, and for a long time its doors remained closed against him. lord randolph churchill made a violent attack upon him on the th of may, in the course of which he read an extract from bradlaugh's book, "the impeachment of the house of brunswick," hurling the offensive volume on the floor and trampling it underfoot. the house of commons has always disliked anything that borders upon melodrama, and this action, more suited to the boards of the adelphi than to the stage of parliament, fell as flat as burke's famous dagger.[ ] but the spirit that prompted it was the popular one, and it long seemed impossible for an atheist to sit in the house. [ ] in a sample dagger was sent from france to a birmingham firm, who were asked to make more of similar pattern. they thought the order suspicious, and consulted the secretary of state. burke happened to call at the latter's office, saw the dagger there, and borrowed it. during the second reading of the aliens bill he hurled this weapon on to the floor of the house, exclaiming, "let us keep french principles from our heads, and french daggers from our hearts!" the commons were not impressed, and only laughed, while sheridan whispered to a neighbour, "the gentleman has brought us the knife, but where is the fork?" another attempt at dramatic effect, equally unsuccessful, occurred on the second reading of the reform bill in . lord brougham spoke for four hours, fortified by frequent draughts of mulled port. at the end he exclaimed, "by all the ties that bind every one of us to our common order and our common country, i solemnly adjure you--yea, on my bended knees, i supplicate you--reject not this bill!" with these words he fell upon his knees, and remained in this attitude so long that his friends, fearing that he was suffering as much from mulled port as emotion, picked him up and replaced him on the woolsack. on july , gladstone moved a resolution allowing members who could not conscientiously take the oath to affirm, subject to any legal liabilities they might incur, and on the following day bradlaugh made the necessary affirmation. the affair did not end here, however. the legal authorities had been stirred up to investigate the judicial aspect of the case, and decided that a man of bradlaugh's opinions was by law disqualified from affirming. he thus lost his seat, but was promptly re-elected. whereupon the house of commons carried a resolution that he be not permitted to go through the form of repeating the words of the oath, which, as far as bradlaugh was concerned, was an absolutely meaningless formality, and, in the opinion of many, an act of sheer blasphemy.[ ] [ ] bradlaugh is not the only politician who has failed to interpret the words of the oath in too literal a sense. walpole became possessed of some treasonable letters written by william shippen, a jacobite and violent opponent of his. walpole sent for shippen, and burnt the incriminating papers in his presence. later on, when shippen was taking the oath of allegiance in the commons, walpole, who stood near and knew the other's principles to be as treasonable as ever, smiled. "egad! robin," said shippen, "that's hardly fair!" when bradlaugh next attempted to take his seat, a further resolution was carried excluding him altogether from the house. he refused, however, to acquiesce in this view of the situation, and, after giving due notice of his intention to the speaker, forced his way into the house, whence he was removed with some difficulty by the sergeant-at-arms and police. for a short time he remained quiet, and then suddenly, in , he reappeared in the house of commons, walked alone to the table, administered the oath to himself, and claimed the right to sit. upon a motion of sir stafford northcote he was once more expelled, and once more the electors of northampton returned him as their representative. during the two following years bradlaugh brought actions against the sergeant-at-arms and his deputy, and tried to induce a court of law to restrain these officials from carrying out the orders of the house. his efforts, however, were vain, the courts deciding that the commons had a perfect right to control their own internal affairs. in he again entered the house and took the oath. he was again excluded from the precincts, applied for the chiltern hundreds, and was again returned for northampton. meanwhile he had voted in several divisions, and the attorney-general, on behalf of the crown, brought an action against him to recover three separate sums of £ , as penalties for having voted without previously taking the oath. for two more years the conflict continued to rage round the burly figure of this remarkable man. by , however, the commons had grown weary of this ceaseless and senseless persecution, and bradlaugh was at last permitted to take his seat; and in an act was passed extending the right to affirm to those who state that they have no religious belief. parliament thus gradually came to take a broader view of the situation, and during bradlaugh's absence, in , the house of commons passed a resolution expunging from the journals the original motion whereby he was prevented from affirming. thus ended a long controversy, in the course of which the much-harassed victim had behaved with exemplary self-control, only once showing signs of annoyance, when the rough handling to which he was subjected by the police resulted in the breakage of a favourite stylographic pen. this taking of the oath or making an affirmation at the commencement of a new parliament is the only introduction necessary for a member who has been elected during the recess, or of a peer who has succeeded to a title. the introduction of a newly created peer, or of one who has been elevated to higher rank, is a ceremony that strikes the spectator as quaint or impressive, according as he has or has not a sense of humour. attired in his robes, and supported by two other peers of his own degree, who act as his sponsors, the new peer walks slowly up the floor of the house of lords, preceded by a procession of state officers--black rod, garter king-at-arms, the hereditary earl marshal of england, and the lord great chamberlain, in full dress. on reaching the woolsack the neophyte falls upon one knee and presents to the lord chancellor, and receives back from him, his patent of peerage and his writ of summons, both of which are read aloud by the reading clerk. the new peer then takes the oath and signs the roll, and is led by his supporters and the officers of state on a ceremonial pilgrimage round the chamber to the bench on which he is by rank entitled to sit. here the three peers in their scarlet robes seat themselves. they are, however, only allowed a few moments' rest, and at a pre-concerted signal the trio rise together and lift their hats in unison to the chancellor, who responds in similar fashion. three times this gesture is repeated, after which the original procession is reformed, and the new peer retires, shaking hands with the chancellor on his way. much the same procedure is followed in the case of bishops, though spiritual peers are not preceded by the great officers, nor have they any patent to present. representative peers of scotland or ireland are not introduced in this formal manner, but merely take the oath and sign the roll. the introduction of a member of the house of commons, elected in the course of the session, is a somewhat similar but less formal affair. accompanied by two other members of parliament he advances up the floor of the house, "making his obeisances as he goes up, that he may be better known to the house," and frequently evoking cheers from the party to which he belongs.[ ] he may take the oath at any time, if the clerk of the house has received the certificate of his return. in dr. kenealy, whose methods of conducting the defence of the notorious tichborne claimant had alienated the respect of most right-thinking men, was unable to persuade any member to introduce him in the house of commons. at last, out of sheer kindness of heart, john bright declared that he would accompany the unpopular member. he was not called upon to do so, however, the rule being in this instance dispensed with, at disraeli's suggestion, and kenealy walked alone to the table. [ ] hatsell adds that it was contrary to custom for members so introduced to appear in top-boots. hatsell's "precedents," vol. ii. p. . the swearing in of peers and members occupies several days, and by the time this task is accomplished parliament is ready to listen to the king's speech, with which every new session is opened. this final ceremony is a state function of the most picturesque and spectacular description. the road leading from buckingham palace to westminster is lined with troops; flags fly from all the public buildings; the pavements and windows along the route are packed with sightseers. in the famous glass coach, drawn by the fat cream ponies so dear to the heart of every loyal subject, the king and queen drive in state to the house of lords. here they are met by the lord chancellor, purse in hand, while the great officers of state form a long procession through the royal gallery, and precede their majesties into the gilded chamber. the house presents a magnificent spectacle. every bench is crowded with peers in their scarlet and ermine robes. at their sides sit the peeresses in evening dress, adorned, according to custom, with feathers and veils, while the woolsacks in the centre of the house are occupied by the judges arrayed in their judicial finery, and in a box at one side are the ambassadors and ministers of foreign powers.[ ] the galleries are filled with specially privileged visitors of both sexes, and, as the royal procession enters, the whole assembly rises to its feet and remains standing until their majesties have reached the two thrones at one end of the chamber. [ ] peeresses cannot claim the right to be present, but are allowed to attend in accordance with a privilege of long standing, which adds much to the beauty of the ceremony. judges have always enjoyed the right of attendance. in old days they took a prominent part in the public business of the house, but were not regular members, and, though they gave their legal opinions upon constitutional questions before parliament, could neither vote nor join in debate. on taking his place upon the throne, the king bids the peers to be seated, and, through the lord great chamberlain, commands black rod to inform the commons that it is his majesty's pleasure that they attend him immediately in the house of lords.[ ] [ ] if parliament is opened by commission, black rod is sent to _desire_ (not to _command_) the attendance of the commons, and the king's speech is read by the lord chancellor. the delivery of this royal message to the commons is the signal for a stampede of members towards the upper house; grave politicians vieing with one another in the endeavour to be first at the bar of the lords. o'connell compared the rush of members on such occasions to that of a pack of boys released from school, scrimmaging together to get out of the class-room. in their haste to arrive at the goal, the commons are apt to hurry the unhappy speaker before them like the sacrificial ox, urged along reluctant to the horns of the altar.[ ] the rude incursion of the commons once provoked the yeoman of the guard, who kept the doors of the lords, to shut it in their faces. "goodmen burgesses," said the sergeant of the guard, in , "ye come not here!" much to the commons' indignation.[ ] members have often had their clothes torn in the confusion and tumult of this rush, and one at least has suffered a dislocated shoulder. sir augustus clifford, who was black rod in , lost his hat and was physically injured in a _melée_ on the opening day. in , the first opening of parliament by the sovereign in a new reign, after a long discontinuance of the ceremony, and the number of new members after a general election, combined to make the occasion exceptional. in spite of the employment of eighty extra police, engaged to keep the way clear for the speaker's procession, several persons were badly hurt, owing to the overpowering rush of members struggling to secure the limited number of places available below the bar of the lords, and many policemen lost their helmets in the struggle.[ ] [ ] o'connell's "experiences," vol. i. p. . [ ] hatsell says that such expressions were "very opprobrious," and might not unfitly have been applied "to the peasants of france or the boores of germany." "precedents," vol. i. p. . [ ] in such occurrences were prevented by the seats being balloted for by the commons. "the faithful commons being elected by ballot," as we read in "the times" of january , "not now as formerly rushing in like the gods in the gallery on boxing night; on the contrary, they came steadily up to the bar, the speaker leading, and on his right lord palmerston." today the system of balloting is again employed, and a much larger space both on the ground and in the galleries is allotted to the commons. headed by their speaker, then, the commons surge into the upper chamber, and stand at the bar, awaiting the reading of the king's speech. the anxiety of the commons to gain good places from which to listen to the speech is all the greater nowadays, since it has ceased to be customary to publish it beforehand. in walpole's time the government used to meet at the cockpit in whitehall on the eve of the opening to consider the royal speech.[ ] this practice came to an end with the eighteenth century, but the speech was still made public property by being sent to the papers on the evening of the ministerial and opposition dinners which precede the opening of parliament. it is still read aloud by the official hosts at these banquets, but does not appear in the press on the following morning, and the contents of the speech are not made public until it is read by the king (or the lords commissioners) at the opening of parliament.[ ] in a spurious speech was published and circulated, just before the opening, much to the annoyance of the authorities. king george, however, took a lenient view of this outrage. he even expressed a hope that the printers might not be too severely punished. he had read both speeches carefully, he said, and, as far as he could understand either, infinitely preferred the spurious one to his own.[ ] [ ] the cockpit was pulled down in , but the name continued to be given to the treasury meeting-room. see dodington's "diary": "went to the cockpit to a prize cause," p. ( ). [ ] "november , . called on sir francis burdett, who had just been reading in the newspaper the king's intended speech to-day (which for some sessions past has been published the morning before it is spoken)." holcroft's "memoirs," p. . [ ] it was burnt by the hangman in palace yard. waldegrave's "memoirs," p. . the king's speech is not usually a very remarkable production, either from a literary or any other point of view, though many of those for which gladstone, disraeli, or lord salisbury were responsible were exceptionally lucid and well written. macaulay has described it as "that most unmeaningly evasive of human compositions." as a rule, it exudes platitudes at every paragraph; its phraseology is florid without being particularly informing. "did i deliver the speech well?" george iii. inquired of the lord chancellor, after the opening of parliament. "very well, sire," was lord eldon's reply. "i am glad of it," answered the king, "for there was nothing in it!"[ ] if speech was given us to conceal thought, the king's speech may often be said to fulfil its mission as a cloak to drape the mind of the ministry. lord randolph churchill once declared that the cabinet had spent some fifteen hours eliminating from it anything that might possibly have any meaning. from the ambiguous suggestions it contains, the public is left to infer the exact form of legislation foreshadowed. the king's speech is popularly supposed to be written by his majesty himself. but though approved by him, it is composed by the prime minister and the cabinet, of which probably each member contributes the paragraphs referring to his own department. it expresses, therefore, the government's rather than the sovereign's views. [ ] twiss's "life of eldon," vol. ii. p. . queen victoria discontinued the reading of her speech after the death of the prince consort, delegating this duty to the lord chancellor. other monarchs, however, have usually been their own spokesmen on this occasion--sometimes at great personal inconvenience. william iv., in his old age, found much difficulty in reading his speech, one gloomy winter's afternoon. the light in the upper house was so poor that he could scarcely decipher a word, and he was forced to refer perpetually for assistance to lord melbourne. at last two wax tapers were brought, and the king, quietly remarking that the speech had not received the treatment that it deserved, proceeded to read it right through again from beginning to end. another royal personage treated the speech with far less respect. george iv., when prince regent, is said to have bet sheridan a hundred guineas that he would introduce the words "baa, baa, black sheep!" into the king's speech without arousing comment or surprise. he won his bet, and afterwards, when sheridan asked canning whether he did not think it extraordinary that no one should have noticed so strange an interpolation: "did you not hear his royal highness say, 'baa, baa, black sheep'?" he asked. "yes," replied canning; "but as he was looking straight in your direction at the moment, i deemed it merely a personal allusion, and thought no more about it!" after the delivery of the king's speech, his majesty and the other members of the royal family retire from the chamber, and the commons return to their own house. here the speaker "reports" or reads the speech once more. in the house of lords the chancellor is undertaking a similar duty, standing in his place at the woolsack. lords and commons remain uncovered while the speech is being read. before this happens, however, a bill _pro formâ_ is read a first time in both houses, on the motion of the two leaders, as a sign that parliament has a right to deal with any matter in priority to those referred to in the king's speech. when this formality has been carried out and the speech read, an address of thanks to the king is moved by two members of each house. the motion for the address is proposed and seconded by some rising young politicians selected by the government, who are thus given an opportunity of displaying their oratorical prowess, and a debate ensues. the debate on the address originated in edward iii.'s reign, and sometimes lasted two or three days. it was the regular preliminary of parliamentary deliberations. to-day in the commons it occasionally extends over a whole fortnight, or even longer. after the address has been agreed to, and ordered to be presented to his majesty, both houses proceed to make various arrangements for the conduct of their internal affairs, committees of different kinds are appointed, and other preparations made for facilitating the labours of the legislature. parliament is now open, and the serious business of the session begins. chapter ix rules of debate "it is true," says bacon, "that what is settled by custom, though it be not good, at least is fit. it were good, therefore, that men in their innovations would follow the example of time itself, which, indeed, innovateth greatly, but quietly." parliament has certainly acted upon this advice, and nowhere is the steady and silent legislation by precedent more conspicuous than in the forms which govern the procedure of both houses. occasional practices have become usages, growing with the growth of parliament, adapting themselves imperceptibly to the circumstances which at once created and required them, "slowly broadening down from precedent to precedent," like that national freedom of which the poet sings. parliament has kept as close as possible to the wings of time, and, as plunket said, has watched its progress and accommodated its motions to their flight, varying the forms and aspects of its institutions to reflect their varying aspects and forms. for if this were not the spirit that animated parliament, "history would be no better than an old almanack."[ ] in spite of this, however, the maxim which sir edward coke declared to be written on the walls of the house of commons, that old ways are the safest and surest ways, still prevails, and it is not often that any parliamentarian has the courage to say, as phillips said to coke on a memorable occasion, "if there be no precedent for this, _it is time to make one_."[ ] [ ] o'flanagan's "lives of the irish chancellors," vol. ii. p. . (the same simile was used by boswell. see croker's "dr. johnson," vol. iii. p. .) [ ] forster's "sir john eliot," vol. i. p. . the machine of a free constitution, as burke declared, is no simple thing, but as intricate and delicate as it is valuable; and to keep that machine in good working order, to make the wheels run smoothly, it has been found necessary to frame a code of procedure which has its roots in the traditions and precedents of the parliamentary history of the past. for hundreds of years any attempt to alter the ancient procedure was looked upon as a kind of sacrilege. it was not until the speakership of shaw lefevre that any serious changes were made in the business methods of parliament, and rules and standing orders devised to expedite business and reduce waste of time to a minimum. the maintenance of order and the acceleration of business have always been the main objects sought for, for which provision is now made in the standing orders of both houses. these have been revised and their number increased from time to time, no fewer than twenty-one committees having been appointed between the years and , for the sole purpose of improving the procedure of the house of commons.[ ] [ ] select committees met in , , , and , and a joint committee of both houses considered the question in . the most important, perhaps, are those which refer to speaking in debates--the chief duty of those who take any part in the deliberations of parliament. speeches in either house must be delivered in english and _extempore_, the speaker standing uncovered above the bar. formerly, when the house of commons was in committee, members could speak sitting, and nowadays invalid members are usually allowed this privilege. even these, however must obey the rule as to being bareheaded. the only occasion on which a member may--and indeed must--speak sitting and covered is during a division when a question of order arises upon which he wishes to address the house. gladstone, who never wore his hat in the house, once provoked loud cries of "order!" by forgetting this last rule. realising his mistake, he hastily borrowed the headgear of a friend. being, however, blessed with an unusually large head, his appearance in a hat several sizes too small for him caused much amusement. peers and members occasionally wear their hats while sitting in their respective houses, as a protection from the glaring light or from the extraordinary draughts caused by the modern system of ventilation; but they invariably uncover to move about from one place to another. they also momentarily remove their hats when the chancellor or speaker enters, or when a message from the crown is read. it is customary, too, to uncover as a sign of respect when a vote of thanks is proposed or an obituary speech made in memory of a deceased statesman. there is an instance in stuart days of a member expressing his disapproval of a vote of thanks by clasping his hands upon the crown of his hat and cramming it down over his eyes, but this has never been repeated. the quaker pease was always disinclined to comply with the rule that members should walk about the house uncovered. a doorkeeper was therefore instructed to remove this member's hat quietly as he entered, and keep it safely hidden until he wished to leave. after a time, pease became accustomed to doing this for himself, and the doorkeeper was relieved of his duty.[ ] [ ] pryme's "recollections," p. . disraeli, like gladstone, sat bareheaded in the house of commons, but kept his hat under his seat ready for an emergency. it was then the general custom of members to wear their hats in the house, but fashions have changed, and cabinet ministers to-day generally leave their head-gear in the private rooms with which they are now accommodated, while humbler legislators make use of the hat-pegs provided for the purpose in the entrance hall of both houses. in the commons, as we have already noted, the member who first catches the speaker's eye has the prior claim to speak. in the lords a different rule obtains. should two peers rise simultaneously, one usually gives way to the other. otherwise the house decides, if necessary by a division, which of the two is to address it. in the house of lords peers address their fellows; in the commons members are bidden to direct their remarks to the speaker, or in committee to the chairman. this practice dates from the old days when the speaker was the mouthpiece of the house and it was very necessary for members to make clear to him the exact nature of their grievances or petitions, so that he might transfer them correctly to the crown. in the commons the rules prescribe that no reference to previous debates of the same session shall be made, unless these were upon the subject now under discussion. it is likewise "out of order" to read from a newspaper or book any printed speech made within the same session. no allusion is allowed to speeches made in the other chamber, the idea being that debates are secret and unknown. this rule, however, is neatly evaded by the simple process of referring to "another place," a euphemism under which members of either house can disguise their allusions to the proceedings of the other. seditious or treasonable words are sternly forbidden in parliament, as is also the use of the sovereign's name to influence debates. no member may commit contempt of court by referring to matters that are _sub judice_, nor may he insult the character or proceedings of either house, or use his right of speech for the purpose of obstructing public business in his own. in may, , "a member speaking, and his speech seeming impertinent, and there being much hissing and spitting. it was conceived for a rule, that _mr. speaker may stay impertinent speeches_."[ ] thirty years later an order of the house was framed, whereby, "if any touch another by nipping or irreverent speech, the speaker may admonish him. if he range in evil words, then to interrupt him, saying: 'i pray you to spare those words.'"[ ] nowadays debate must be relevant to the matter before the house, and the speaker may not only call upon an impertinent or irrelevant member to cease speaking, but may even use his discretion as to refusing to propose to the house a motion which he considers to be of a purely obstructive character. [ ] scobell's "rules and customs of parliament," p. . [ ] "orders, proceedings, punishments, and privileges," etc. ("harleian miscellany," vol. v. p. .) disorderly conduct in parliament was punishable by fine in , when strode, ever a stickler for parliamentary decorum, moved that "every one coming into the house who did not take his place, or did, after taking his place, talk so loud as to interrupt the business of the house from being heard, should pay a shilling fine, to be divided between the sergeant and the poor."[ ] [ ] forster's "grand remonstrance," p. n. since strode's day a number of further regulations have been added to the code of parliamentary procedure, but the speaker's task of keeping order is facilitated by the desire on the part of every member to uphold the authority of the chair. this expresses itself in the courtesy with which that piece of furniture, or rather, its occupant, is treated. whenever a member of the house of commons passes the chair he accords it a slight bow, and this rule is never willingly infringed. he bows to it when he enters the chamber, and again when he leaves, and is always particularly careful not to intercept his person between it and the speaker who happens to be addressing the house. in the upper house, the woolsack is treated with similar deference, no lord knowingly passing between it and any other lord who is speaking, or between it and the table. there being no speaker authorized to keep order in the lords, when "heat is engendered in debate," it is open to any peer to move that an ancient standing order referring to asperity of speech be read by the clerk. [illustration: the house of commons in ] whether or not language be "parliamentary" is always a matter difficult to determine. in the house of commons it is left entirely to the discretion of the chair. lord melbourne remembered a speaker ruling it out of order to refer to any one as "a member of the opposition."[ ] even the familiar "hear! hear!"--the modern version of "hear him!" which was the sign of approbation in the days of pitt--has been ruled to be disorderly, if uttered in an offensive manner. major o'gorman was "named" by speaker brand for insisting that he had the right to shout "hear! hear!" after every word, every semi-colon, and every comma of a member's speech. in , speaker peel called the attention of the house to the fact that "shame!" was an unparliamentary expression, and rebuked an irish member for continuously shouting "order! order!" in a disorderly manner. [ ] torrens' "life of melbourne," vol. ii. p. . any epithet which reflects upon the character of a member of either house, or upon the conduct of the king or of others in high places, is considered to be disorderly, though notice is not always taken of it. in , on the first day that lord shaftesbury took his seat as lord chancellor, the duke of york called him a rascal and a villain. "i am much obliged to your royal highness for not calling me likewise a coward and a papist," was the chancellor's urbane reply. when feargus o'connor, in , denying the charge of republicanism that had been brought against him, said that he didn't care whether the queen or the devil sat on the throne, what threatened to develop into a disagreeable incident was averted by the pleasantries of the prime minister. "when the honourable gentleman sees the sovereign of his choice on the throne of these realms," said peel, "i hope he will enjoy, and i feel sure he will deserve, the confidence of the crown!" matters were not always so easily smoothed over. in , during the debate on the address, coke was committed to the tower for remarking, "i hope we are all englishmen, and are not to be frightened out of our duty by a few high words"--an observation which was considered to cast a reflection upon james ii. in canning stigmatized as "false" a statement of brougham's, and for a long time refused to withdraw the offensive expression. the worthy plimsoll was carried away by feelings of righteous indignation in , and referred to certain shipowners, who were also members of the house, as "villains." it was not until a week later that he could be induced to apologise. o'connell called lord alvanley a "bloated buffoon," and declared disraeli to be the lineal descendant of the impenitent thief on the cross.[ ] disraeli himself, in , likened lord john russell to a vulture, and mr. biggar was termed an "impudent scoundrel" by a fellow-member in . nine years later dr. tanner referred to mr. matthews, the home secretary, as "one of the basest and meanest skunks that ever sat upon that bench"; and among the titles which have been freely conferred upon mr. chamberlain by his enemies, "judas" and "d----d liar" are by no means the most opprobrious. such language, however, is mercifully rare, and no modern prime minister could say, as lord north did to the alderman who presented a petition from the electors of billingsgate, that the honourable gentleman spoke not only the sentiments, but even the very language of his constituents. [ ] grant's "recollections of the house of lords," p. . lord alvanley was the sporting peer who out hunting met a well-known west end artist in pastry who was having some trouble with his horse. "i can't hold him," said the confectioner, "he's so devilish hot!" "why don't you ice him, mr. gunter?" said lord alvanley.--(maddyn's "chiefs of states," vol. ii. p. .) a member may not speak at all unless a question is before the house, or he intends to conclude with a motion or amendment; but an exception is made in favour of a personal explanation, or of a question of privilege suddenly arising, which commands precedence over all other business. questions also may be addressed to ministers before public business commences, and the latter may make statements of public interest. save when the house is in committee, a member or peer is not allowed to speak twice upon the same question, unless on a point of order, or to explain some unintelligible portion of a first speech. if, however, he has moved a substantive motion, he has a right of reply at the end of the debate. once when lord north was speaking, a dog ran barking into the house. "mr. speaker," said the prime minister, "i am interrupted by a new member!" the dog was eventually driven out with some difficulty, but shortly afterwards re-entered by another door, when it began barking as loudly as ever. lord north remarked dryly that the new member had spoken once already, and was consequently violating the rules of the house.[ ] [ ] harford's "recollections of wilberforce," p. . an exception to this rule was made on november , , when, in accordance with the general wish of the house, the speaker permitted the prime minister and the leader of the opposition to speak, although both had already joined in the debate on the previous night. in the house of lords peers speak of one another by name, but in the commons it is the custom to refer to colleagues by their constituencies, as "the honourable (or right hon.) gentleman, the member for hull (or west birmingham, etc.)." the title "honourable" is always used in conjunction with a member's name, but should be reinforced by the epithet "gallant" or "learned" in the case of a naval (or military) member, or of a lawyer.[ ] [ ] sir wilfred lawson was once sarcastically referred to as "the honourable and amusing baronet" (see "men and manners," p. .) it was not until after the reform act of that the practice of referring to members by their constituencies came into fashion. in stuart days it was not customary to mention either the names or the constituencies of members. they were simply referred to as "the gentleman on the other side of the way," "the member that last spake," etc. nowadays it is usual to talk of a member, if on the same side of the house, as "my honourable friend"; and if on the opposite side, as "the honourable gentleman (or member)." but opponents sometimes publicly include one another within the sacred circle of honourable friendship, though politically they may be the bitterest enemies. there is no rule of procedure regulating the length of speeches in either house. a man may speak for as long as he likes, the only limit being set by his own powers of endurance or the patience of his audience; but his remarks must be relevant. "if any speak too long, and speak _within the matter_, he may not be cut off; but if he be long, and _out of the matter_, then may the speaker gently admonish him of the shortness of the time, or the business of the house, and pray him to make as short he may."[ ] as a matter of practice his fellow-members will probably have admonished him of the shortness of the time long before by shouting "'vide! 'vide!" until he brings his speech to a welcome close. [ ] "orders, proceedings, punishments, and privileges of the commons" ("harleian miscellany," vol. v. p. ). the determination to proceed in spite of this hint that his efforts are unappreciated only increases the uproar, for, as burke once said, the house of commons has an intense dislike for anything resembling obstinacy.[ ] a khedive of egypt, who visited the house of commons at the beginning of the nineteenth century, and listened with surprise to the deafening noise made by a political audience, came to the conclusion that the shouting of "'vide!" was the ordinary english mode of expressing intense boredom. on his return to egypt he suffered much from the protracted interviews which he was compelled to grant to sir john bowring, a prosy talker, who had been sent to cairo in on a commercial mission. the khedive's patience finally became exhausted, and one day, while sir john was as usual addressing him at unconscionable length, his highness began exclaiming "'vide! 'vide! 'vide!" and continued doing so until his visitor was reduced to silence. [ ] "the house has a character of its own. like all great public collections of men, it possesses a marked love of virtue and an abhorrence of vice. but among vices there is none which the house abhors in the same degree with _obstinacy_" ("works and correspondence," vol. iii. p. ). the words of speaker spencer compton have often been quoted to show that members are acting within their rights in preventing the delivery of a speech; that, as bright said, the house can employ noise "as a remedy" against a dull or prolix speaker. a member appealed to compton to restore order, urging that he had a right to be heard. "no, sir," replied the speaker, "you have a right to speak, but the house has a right to judge whether they will hear you!" this, according to so great an authority as hatsell, was an altogether wrong decision, the speaker's chief duty being to keep the house attentive and quiet. in the house of lords, where there is no speaker to curtail a lengthy or irrelevant speech, any peer may propose that the noble lord who is on his legs "be no longer heard"--a disagreeable but effective way of informing a bore of his prolixity.[ ] this method was unsuccessfully tried in the commons in . o'donnell had put down a question asking whether m. challemel lacour, the prospective french ambassador at the court of st. james's, had, "as one of the prefects of the provisional government of september , , ordered the massacre of colonel latour's battalion, and had been fined £ by a court of justice for plundering a convent." gladstone moved that the honourable member "be no longer heard;" but the speaker, on being appealed to, stated that this was an unusual course, which had certainly not been adopted for at least two hundred years. a "scene" ensued, and finally o'donnell was induced to put down the question again for a later date. before this day arrived, however, the speaker tactfully managed to suppress the question altogether, as being "beyond the cognisance of the house or the queen's government." [ ] the last instance of this occurred on may , , when lord waveney was addressing the house. occasional efforts have been made to stem the flow of parliamentary eloquence in the commons, but without much success. the late sir carne rasch tried for years to shorten speeches, but in vain. mr. hogan sought to introduce the new zealand scheme, whereby the speaker rings a bell when any member has spoken for twenty minutes; but though mr. balfour declared that twenty minutes erred on the side of generosity, nothing came of this suggestion. in spite of a good deal of unnecessary talking, the house of commons gets through a lot of work, though there is no doubt that, as bright said, more business could be done if so much time were not wasted in unprofitable eloquence.[ ] dr. johnson, visiting a musical family of his acquaintance, suggested that they should all perform together. "there will then," he explained, "be more noise, but it will be sooner over." similar suggestions have been made with regard to the house of commons, but the question of stifling parliamentary loquacity remains unsolved. [ ] "i must say that it (the house of commons) would be a better machine if men were a little less vain, and would adopt a policy of silence. if they would be anxious to get through the business of the house without so much anxiety for self-exhibition as i have sometimes observed, i think the house of commons might do a good deal more work, and very much better work than it does at present."--speech at the fishmongers' hall, april , . when such loquacity was deliberately employed to delay business, obstruction took various forms, of which the favourite one a few years ago consisted of motions to adjourn the debate or adjourn the house. sheridan once made this motion nineteen successive times, until members were so tired of tramping through the lobbies that they gave in and went home.[ ] in , on july th, the opponents of the reform bill saw that their only hope lay in retarding the business of the house. they set about to force a division on repeated motions for adjournment, and it was not until . a.m. of the following day that the commons at length adjourned. sir charles wetherell, who led the opposition on this occasion, came out of the house to find that it was raining hard. "by god!" said he, "if i'd known this, they should have had a few more divisions!"[ ] [ ] grant's "recollections," p. . nowadays no member can make this motion more than once. [ ] molesworth's "history of the reform bill," p. . in , and again ten years later, the irish party resisted two bills by this means, on the latter occasion calling for no less than forty-four divisions. and when the copyright bill of was being debated, a minority of nine members compelled one hundred and twenty-seven of their colleagues to divide sixteen times. there is, as gladstone said, no art or science which has made such advance in modern times as has that of parliamentary obstruction. gladstone himself resolutely and systematically obstructed the passage of the divorce bill, as sir robert peel before him had obstructed lord grey's reform bill. these statesmen, however, employed a recognised form of opposition to some particular measure. it was left for the irish party to devise a system of regular opposition to the conduct of any parliamentary business whatsoever. parnell's knowledge of the rules of debate was extensive and peculiar. he himself acted upon the advice which he once gave to a new member when he told him that the best way to learn the regulations of the house was by breaking them. it was he who originated the idea of employing what he called "the sacred right of obstruction" as a protest against the alleged government neglect of irish grievances. he sought by this means to show that, though his party was not powerful enough to carry through its own work properly, it was sufficiently strong to prevent the english government from doing any work at all. in this way he no doubt thought to carry out the last wishes of grattan, and to "keep knocking at the union." the forms of the house of commons, as sir george cornwall lewis has said, were avowedly contrived for the protection of minorities; and they are so effectual for their purpose as frequently to defeat the will of the great body of the house, and enable a few members to resist, at least for a time, a measure desired by the majority.[ ] the irish have, of course, always been dissatisfied. if they had happened to be in the wilderness with moses, as bright once observed, they would probably have complained of the ten commandments as a harassing piece of legislation--and not altogether without justification. but in , when they adopted the attitude of antagonism to the transaction of all business, obstruction in such a form as this was a novelty, and their more constitutionally-minded leader, butt, repudiated parnell and his methods. the latter was not to be moved from his purpose, however, and with half a dozen intrepid and obstinate followers continued the practice of an organized plan of obstruction, of which the only flattering thing that can be said is that it was for a long time completely successful. [ ] see "influence of authority in matters of opinion," p. . parnell himself deliberately expressed his satisfaction in thwarting the government and preventing the progress of parliamentary business. he gloried in his offence, thinking very probably that england's difficulty was ireland's opportunity. on sixty-nine occasions in , when the house of commons was forced to divide, the minorities never consisted of more than eleven members, and in one hundred divisions they did not exceed twenty-one. parnell addressed the house five hundred times in the session of , constantly repeating the same arguments, raising points which had already been ruled out of order, making a variety of frivolous objections, and showing in a hundred ways that his evident desire was merely to waste the time of parliament. owing to obstructive irish tactics, the land act of required no less than fifty-eight sittings before it could be passed. in the same year the climax of obstruction was reached, and it became obvious that some measures must be taken to prevent the continuation of such a state of affairs. on january , which was a monday, the house of commons met at . p.m. and sat without interval until . a.m. on the following wednesday. but for the intervention of the chair, the sitting might have been prolonged indefinitely. fortunately, speaker brand was a strong man, and had privately determined to put a stop to a condition of things which was bringing the house into contempt and threatening the complete breakdown of all legislative business. on resuming the chair on the wednesday morning, the speaker rose and addressed the house in a carefully prepared speech. he began by expressing his unqualified disapproval of the continual obstruction of a stubborn and inconsiderable minority, whereby the ordinary rules of procedure had been rendered ineffective, and the dignity of the house endangered. acting on his own responsibility, he declared that a new course was imperatively demanded. he declined therefore to call upon any more members to speak, and proceeded to "put the question," relying upon the house to support him in this unusual act. the speaker had accurately gauged the "sense of the house";[ ] his solution of the difficulty was loudly applauded, save of course upon the irish benches, and, after a sitting that had lasted for over forty-one consecutive hours, weary members were at last enabled to enjoy a well-earned repose. [ ] with regard to those well-worn expressions, the "sense" of the house and the "feeling" of the house, it has been stated that the house of commons has more sense and feeling than any one who sits upon its benches: "the collective wisdom of parliament exceeds the wisdom of any single head therein." shortly after this memorable scene, a new set of rules was framed, restricting debate on all dilatory motions, and preventing any member from making them more than once. the authority of the speaker also was increased, and it was made optional for him to put the question forthwith, if he thought the rules were being abused. he was also endowed with the power of at any time silencing an unruly or obstructive member. in , gladstone proposed an alteration of the procedure regulations, which allowed the speaker or chairman, when a subject had been adequately discussed, and it was evidently the sense of the house that the question be put, so to inform the house; and, if a motion to this effect was put and carried, supported by more than two hundred members, or supported by one hundred and opposed by less than forty, the question was to be put forthwith. this "closure" rule was amended six years later, when it was resolved that, after a question had been proposed, any member could move that "the question be now put," and, with the speaker's approval, this motion might be put without debate, provided that in the division not less than one hundred members voted in its support. still more stringent regulations have since been made to thwart the obstructive tendencies of a certain section of every opposition. by a recent standing order, the end of a debate may be fixed by resolution of the house for a certain hour and date, and, if the subject is not disposed of by that time, the undiscussed remainder must be decided by a vote upon which there can be no debate. this is known as the "guillotine" or "closure by compartments," and has been commented on adversely by all minorities and sedulously practised by every government since its inception. in spite, however, of the many efforts which have been made to accelerate business, the parliamentary machine moves but slowly, and the time spent in discussing any measure to which there is active, sincere, and persistent opposition shows no signs of diminishing in length. thus, while the home rule bill of required divisions, the education bill of required ; and over the finance bill of parliament spent something like days (or hours) and divided no less than times. chapter x parliamentary privilege and punishment parliament has ever been most tenacious of its historic and traditionary rights and privileges. of these, freedom of speech and freedom from arrest may be considered the most important. the right of personal access to the crown is claimed by peers, any one of whom may demand a private audience with the sovereign, and, though the commons are not granted a similar privilege, it is permissible for them to accompany their speaker when he presents an address to the king, and to wear ordinary dress on such an occasion. in olden days peers enjoyed other indulgences denied to their humbler brethren. they were, for instance, permitted to kill deer in the king's forests whenever, in obedience to a royal summons, they journeyed to or from the sovereign. at such times the bag was limited to two deer, and these might only be slain in the presence of the king's forester. if that official were not at hand, the sporting peer was enjoined to blow several loud blasts upon his hunting-horn before pursuing his quarry to the death.[ ] peers were further allowed "benefit of clergy," in the good old days, for such crimes as highway robbery, horse-stealing and house-breaking, but only for a first offence. if they took up burglary as a hobby, or if the robbery of churches became with them a daily habit, they could no longer escape from the consequences of their misdeeds, and were haled to prison just as though they had been mere ordinary mortals. "benefit of clergy" was a privilege which was repealed by act of parliament in , and a peer to-day cannot steal a single gold watch with impunity. [ ] pike's "constitutional history," p. . exemption from arrest on a civil process during the session, or for forty days before and after, is a privilege which members of the house of commons as well as the lords have always enjoyed.[ ] it extended to their estates until , and to their servants until . this immunity does not, however, extend to breaches of the criminal law, nor can it be claimed in the case of an indictable offence or of contempt of court, its original object being merely to secure freedom of arrival and attendance. the speaker of the commons, thomas thorpe, who was summoned in henry vi.'s time for carrying away certain goods and chattels from the bishop of durham's palace, was fined £ , and committed to the fleet until this sum should be paid. the question of privilege was raised, but the house of lords decided that the culprit must remain in prison, and the commons were directed to elect another speaker. [ ] peeresses may also claim this as a right. in the early days of parliament, privilege from arrest was generally enforced by a resolution of the house or by a chancery writ, though there is at least one instance of a member being released without any such formality. this occurred in the case of a member named ferrars, who had been arrested for debt by the sheriff of london in . the sergeant-at-arms who went to demand his release was illtreated, and sent back empty-handed. the house thereupon summoned the sheriff to the bar, and with him the creditor who had sued ferrars, and committed both to prison. in the privilege was extended, the servants of members of the house of commons being included within the pale of its protection. this naturally led to many abuses, culminating in the case of the notorious colonel wanklyn. this member gave a signed "protection" to a wealthy friend whom he falsely named as his servant in order to enable him to escape the payment of a debt which he owed to his own wife. the fraud being made public, the culprit was expelled from the house, and went away weeping bitterly, "to the scandal of his brother officers."[ ] in the same year a man named smalley, the servant of arthur hall, member for grantham, was arrested for debt and released by the speaker's order. it was afterwards discovered that he had arranged his arrest so as to elude his financial liabilities, and the indignant house ordered him to be imprisoned and fined £ .[ ] further discredit was cast upon one of the ancient privileges of parliament by another member named benson, who was found guilty of selling "protections" at sixteen shillings apiece, and was turned out of the house. [ ] townsend's "history," vol. i. p. . [ ] raikes's "journal," vol. i. p. . if the commons were justly severe in their treatment of members who abused this particular privilege, they punished with even greater severity any unfortunate persons who attempted to violate it. in an official of the mighty star chamber was committed to the tower for daring to serve a _subpoena_ on a member of parliament. at the beginning of the next century, two officers who had arrested a member's servant were condemned to ride together upon a single horse, back to back, through the streets of london. in this insecure and undignified position they were taken from westminster to the exchange, wearing upon their breasts a placard inscribed with their offence, an awful example to all who would dream of laying hands on the sacred persons of parliamentarians or their dependents. the immunity which members had hitherto enjoyed was slightly modified in , when an act was passed permitting civil suits to be commenced against them after a dissolution or prorogation, or during any adjournment of more than fourteen days. later on, in george iii.'s reign, their privileges were still further curtailed, their persons alone being held sacred, and that for a period of only forty days before or after the meeting of parliament. use was still made of this privilege as a shield from the power of the law, and as late as there are instances of the unscrupulous purchase of seats in the commons for the sole purpose of obtaining release from prison or escaping the payment of debt. to this day members of parliament are safe from arrest within the precincts of the palace of westminster. irish members who had been convicted under the coercion act, in the palmy days of the land league, found in the house of commons a useful if only temporary sanctuary. dr. tanner took his seat there at a time when a warrant for his arrest had been issued, and it was not until the adjournment of the house and the return to his hotel of this member, so badly "wanted by the police," that he could be lawfully apprehended. the jealous care with which parliament guarded its rights in olden days often threatened to bring the very name of privilege into contempt. the commons especially acquired the pernicious habit of voting that whatsoever displeased them was an insult to parliament, requiring instant and drastic punishment. books or sermons which criticized or reflected upon the doings of either house were condemned wholesale, confiscated, and publicly burnt by the common hangman; authors or preachers were imprisoned and otherwise penalized. "the parliament-men are as great princes as any in the world," says selden, "when whatsoever they please is privilege of parliament; no man must know the number of their privileges, and whatsoever they dislike is breach of privilege."[ ] [ ] "table talk," p. . impeachment, imprisonment, fines, confiscation of property, or committal to the tower, were among the penalties meted out with a lavish hand to all who gave offence to the commons. in , dr. harrys, vicar of blechingly, was brought to the bar of the commons for interfering at elections, and compelled to confess his guilt, and afterwards to apologise to his parishioners. a welsh judge named jenkins was summoned before the long parliament for having called the house of commons a den of thieves, and, on refusing to "bow himself in this house of rimmon," was sentenced to death. the most trivial faults, the most innocent acts, were from time to time voted contempts of parliament, and the offenders chastised with a barbarity which was out of all proportion to the nature of their misdeeds. so harmless an offence as crowding or jostling against a member of parliament was at one time considered a crime. in the days when the great arthur onslow occupied the chair of the house of commons, it was his custom to traverse westminster hall on his way to the house, saluting the judges as he passed. an unfortunate man who accidentally blocked the speaker's path on one occasion was instantly ordered into custody.[ ] [ ] hatsell's "precedents," vol. ii. p. n. poaching the game of a member of parliament was also adjudged a misdemeanour worthy of severe retribution. a poacher who trespassed on the fishing rights of admiral griffiths, m.p., in , was reprimanded on his knees at the bar of the commons.[ ] [ ] lord russell's "essays and sketches," p. . the presentation of fraudulent petitions has always been regarded as a breach of parliamentary privilege; and, in , a man named bidmead, who presented a petition which was found to be full of false signatures, was brought to the bar and severely reprimanded. this process of haling an offender to the bar to receive the censure of the house was an impressive one, calculated to strike fear into the boldest heart. the culprit was brought in, in the custody of the sergeant-at-arms, and compelled to kneel at the bar, where the speaker sentenced him in his severest tones to such penalties as the house deemed sufficient to expiate his crime. one wretched prisoner was so alarmed that he had a fit, and was carried out in an unconscious condition. the rule requiring an offender to kneel was not finally repealed until the middle of the eighteenth century. in an attorney named crowle was reprimanded on his knees for misconduct of some kind or other at an election. on rising to his feet mr. crowle carefully wiped the knees of his trousers, remarking contemptuously that he had never before been in so dirty a house.[ ] in this same year alexander murray, brother of the jacobite lord elibank, was summoned for obstructing the high bailiff of westminster at election time. he resolutely declined to kneel when brought to the commons bar, nor could the threats or entreaties of the sergeant-at-arms prevail upon him to conform to the rules of the house in this respect. "i never kneel but to god," he said. "when i have committed a crime i kneel to god for pardon, but, knowing my own innocence, i can kneel to no one else." as a punishment for his obstinacy, murray was committed to newgate, and remained there until the prorogation of parliament. the close of the session operated as his release, and he was acclaimed in triumph by the city populace. when parliament met again he was once more committed, but fled abroad, and so escaped further imprisonment. [ ] oldfield's "history of the house of commons," vol. i. p. . this ceremony of enforced kneeling was a humiliation repulsive to many. windham told fanny burney that the sight of warren hastings on his knees at the bar was so repugnant to his feelings that he looked the other way to avoid seeing the degradation of the impeached statesman. "it hurt me," he says, "and i wished it dispensed with."[ ] this wish soon became universal, and the practice was discontinued in , baldwin, the printer of the "st. james's chronicle," who was reprimanded for publishing a report of the parliamentary proceedings, being the last man to kneel at the bar of the house. [ ] "diary and letters of mme. d'arblay," vol. iv. when a member of parliament incurs the displeasure of the house its censure may be visited upon him in various ways, either by a reprimand, or by fine, or by committal to prison. the first instance of the commons punishing one of their own number occurs in , when a member named storie was arrested by the sergeant-at-arms for speaking disrespectfully of the duke of somerset, and was confined to the tower. the house of commons has never allowed its members to reflect upon the conduct of those in high places. it also forbids any criticism of a resolution of the house, unless the critical member intends to conclude with a motion for rescinding it. eight years after the committal of storie, another member, dr. parry by name, was brought to the bar for speaking in the house against a bill that had already passed its third reading, saying that it was "full of confiscations, blood, danger, despair, and terror to the english subjects of this realm, their brothers, uncles, and kinsfolk."[ ] dr. parry absolutely declined to give his reasons for holding this view, nor would he deign to explain why the bill should cause his uncles to become desperate and terrorstricken. he was therefore committed to the tower, and expelled from the house. later on an accusation of treason was brought against him, and a motion made (but, let us hope, not carried) that he be executed. in , another member, arthur hall, was fined and imprisoned in the tower for publishing a book of a slanderous character. [ ] d'ewes' "journal," p. . when the house of commons punished in those days it certainly never erred on the side of leniency. a roman catholic member named floyd, who had made use of insulting expressions with reference to the daughter of james i., was found guilty of gross breach of privilege. he was sentenced to be degraded, branded, whipped, fined £ , and to stand twice in the pillory. after this, whatever was left of him was to be imprisoned for life. the pillory was evidently a favourite punishment for recalcitrant members, and as late as we find a legislator named ward suffering this unpleasant penalty in addition to expulsion from the house.[ ] [ ] ward was expelled for forgery. he is referred to in pope's "dunciad"-- "as thick as eggs at ward in pillory."-- book iii. line . in james i.'s reign a certain sir giles mompesson, member of parliament, was accused of "being a monopolist." for this crime he was turned out of the house, perpetually outlawed, excepted from all general pardons, bereft of his goods, imprisoned for life, and, last of all, sentenced to be "for ever held an infamous person."[ ] another member was sent to the tower for "speaking out of season," an offence which is fortunately no longer considered particularly heinous, or perhaps few members would be at liberty to-day. [ ] "lex parliamentaria," pp. , . in parliament appears to have been especially pitiless, dispensing fines and imprisonments right and left upon any one who displeased it. sir edward dering was impeached for promoting a petition from the county of kent, and the petition itself was ordered to be burnt at the hands of the common hangman. sir ralph hopton was imprisoned in the tower for saying in the house that his fellow-members seemed to ground their views of the king's apostacy upon evidence insufficient to convict a horse-thief; and a wretched tradesman named sandeford, who cursed parliament and all its works, was fined a hundred marks, pilloried, whipped, and sentenced to life-long confinement in a house of correction. so assertive of their power and so jealous of their privileges were the commons at this time that they even made an order to issue a warrant for the apprehension of all such persons as one of their members, sir walter erie, should name.[ ] [ ] sir walter had lodged information of scandalous words spoken by certain individuals. see lister's "life of clarendon," vol. iii. p. . peers and prelates were no safer than the humbler members from the vindictive spirit of parliament, and any breach of its privileges on their part brought instant punishment. in the bishop of bristol published a book which was considered by parliament to be most offensive. at a conference of both houses he was sternly rebuked "for presuming to see more than a parliament could," when he at once recanted, withdrew his obnoxious presumptions, and declared, "first, that he had erred; secondly, that he was sorry for it; and, thirdly, that if it were to do again, he would not do it."[ ] only on these abject terms could he expiate his offence. a hundred years later, in , a volume of sermons written by the bishop of st. asaph, deploring the terms of the peace with france and spain, was condemned to be burnt in palace yard. [ ] petyt's "miscellanea parliamentaria," p. . the sergeant-at-arms is the official entrusted with the duty of enforcing the penal decisions of the house of commons. all warrants issued by the house are executed by him. he brings witnesses and culprits to the bar, sees that members and strangers do not infringe its resolutions, and has the custody of such persons as may be committed to his charge. the doorkeepers, messengers, and police employed in the commons are under his control, as are the buildings themselves while parliament is sitting. as an officer of the crown, he may be summoned to attend upon the sovereign on such occasions as the opening of parliament, when the deputy sergeant-at-arms takes his place as the personal escort of the speaker. like his colleagues, the sergeant used formerly to eke out a precarious living upon fees, and received all or a part of the fines inflicted upon members for absence or unpunctuality. to-day, however, he enjoys a regular salary, and an official residence.[ ] [ ] in bygone days his duties evidently entailed much pedestrian exercise, as may be gathered from an order of the house issued in queen elizabeth's time. "upon motion of the house" (say the records), "in regard to the infirmity and pains in the sergeant's feet, he is licensed by the house to ride a footcloth nag." "observations, rules, and orders collected out of divers journals of the house of commons" ( ), p. . only once since the attempt of colonel pride to purge the house have representatives of the law traversed the bar of the commons. the palace of westminster, within and without, is guarded by members of the metropolitan police, but they studiously refrain from trespassing upon the sacred ground that lies within the bar of either house. during the speakership of mr. gully, however, in , several irish members declined to leave the house when ordered to do so for a division, and resisted the sergeant-at-arms and his myrmidons. stout police-constables were therefore summoned, and bore the unwilling members struggling to the door in that kindly but determined grasp which, as suffragettes have since learnt by experience, is one of the chief charms of the a division. the right of the houses of parliament to regulate their own internal concerns has always been admitted. in henry vi.'s reign the lord chief justice informed the house of lords that the high court of parliament "is so high and mighty in its nature that it may make law, and that that is law it may make no law, and the determination and knowledge of that privilege belongs to the lords of the parliament, and not to the justices."[ ] courts of law have never interfered with anything that took place in parliament unless it were of an essentially criminal character. parliament, however, has not always shown the same consideration for courts of law. in , a man named ashby brought an action against the constables of aylesbury for refusing to record his vote at an election. the commons thereupon declared it a gross breach of privilege that any court other than themselves should presume to try a case that had any reference to an election, and proceeded to take into custody everybody concerned in the affair. the speaker went in person to the court of queen's bench to summon the lord chief justice to attend upon the commons and explain the law's unjustifiable interposition. for once, however, the representative of parliament was forced to beat an undignified retreat. old lord chief justice holt was a quick-tempered man, and not at all awed by the presence of speaker smith. "if you do not depart from this court," he said to him in his sternest voice, "i will commit you, though you have the whole house of commons in your belly!" [ ] "rot. parl;" vol. v. - . this was but one example of the numerous collisions between parliament and the law, resulting from the former's rigid insistence upon bygone privileges, and the difficulty of settling which questions should be left to the arbitrament of either authority. if matters were left to the decision of the commons, it is clear that everything would probably be brought within the scope of privilege; if to courts of law, all privilege would possibly be abolished. some thought the former alternative was the least to be feared. "while men are but men," said lord jeffrey, "we must be at the mercy of a fallible and irresponsible despotism at best; and if we have to choose, as in an open question, few would hesitate to say that they would rather have the house of commons for a despot than the courts of law."[ ] but the matter became ridiculous when parliament insisted on interfering in questions which it had clearly no right to decide. in , for instance, the house of commons committed the proprietors of a paper called "mist's journal" to newgate for publishing an article favouring the restoration of the pretender. this could scarcely be considered a breach of privilege, but the house thought itself empowered to deal with all political offenders. since that time no one has been committed, except for a distinct breach of privilege, or for contempt of parliament. the latter term, however, embraces the most trivial offences. in , a stranger who was visiting the house of lords left his umbrella in the cloak-room, by order of the attendant. on returning to claim his property at the end of the sitting, he found that his umbrella--following the universal fashion of that elusive article--had disappeared. he proceeded to bring an action against the doorkeeper, and was awarded damages amounting to £ _s._ _d._ lord chancellor eldon thereupon summoned him to the bar of the lords, and forced him, on pain of imprisonment, to refund the value of his umbrella and apologise. four years later, the printer of "the times" was fined £ and sent to newgate for having dared to call the earl of limerick "a thing with human pretensions." [ ] cockburn's "life of jeffrey," vol. ii. p. . the house of lords has always considered itself empowered to inflict fines as well as imprisonment for a fixed period. when the commons confine an offender they may put no term to his sentence, and he is released automatically on a prorogation. for the last two hundred years they have ceased to exercise the right of fining delinquents, but in early days, as we have seen, they often inflicted financial penalties, and stimulated the attendance of their own members by an inroad upon their pockets. at the very commencement of parliamentary history the shires or boroughs whose representatives did not appear in their places in parliament were fined £ . in , any knight who stayed away for a whole session was fined £ , while citizens and burgesses were fined £ . besides this, members lost their pay during absence, and, by an act of henry viii., boroughs and shires were exonerated from the payment of wages to members who left parliament before the end of the session without the speaker's permission. in similar fashion peers and bishops were punished for non-attendance, the size of their fines varying in proportion to the rank of the offender. an ordinance framed in henry vi.'s time, about , imposed fines of from £ to £ upon absentee peers, the sum thus raised to be appropriated to the defence of calais.[ ] in a fine of _s._ per day was imposed upon peers who disregarded their summons to parliament, and we read of the cinque ports being mulcted in the sum of a hundred marks because their baron absented himself.[ ] when the bill for degrading queen caroline was before the lords a fine of £ was imposed during the first three days, and £ for any subsequent day, on which any peer did not attend, unless he could prove illness or unavoidable absence. by a former standing order, every lord who entered the house after prayers was fined, if a baron or a bishop, _s._; if of higher rank, _s._ what a contrast to these degenerate days in which the lord chancellor, the bishop, and one peer, hunted up for the purpose, form a reluctant congregation! [ ] nicholas's "proceedings of the privy council," vol. vi. p. lxv. [ ] "modus tenendi parliamentum," p. . in the days of charles i. penalties were extremely necessary if the business of parliament was to be carried on at all. members took their duties lightly, and at times not more than a dozen would appear in their places at westminster. prynne describes them as wasting their time in taverns, playhouses, dicing-houses, cockpits, and bowling alleys, "rambling abroad to such places at unreasonable hours of the night in antique parliamentary robes, vestments fitter for a mask or stage than the gravity of a parliament house." they would only come to peep into the house once or twice a week, he says, to show themselves in such disguises, and ask, "what news?"[ ] [ ] "brief register of parliamentary writs," p. . in the parliament which passed the grand remonstrance there were sometimes as many as two hundred absentees. to remedy this evil it was proposed by strode that any member who stayed away without leave should be fined £ , or expelled. this proposal, says d'ewes, "was much debated, but laid aside."[ ] even those members who attended did so in a casual and perfunctory fashion, which proved a source of great inconvenience to colleagues who took their responsibilities more seriously. in order, therefore, to enforce punctuality, minor fines were inflicted, and in an order was made that any member who came in late for prayers must contribute _s._ to the poor box. the house met at seven or eight o'clock in the morning in those days; members therefore had some excuse for arriving late, and the system had to be temporarily abandoned in , owing to the interruption of business resulting from the cries of "pay! pay!" with which unpunctual persons were greeted. "scenes" would often take place when members arrived just as the clock was striking, and either refused to pay their shillings, or flung them angrily upon the floor for the sergeant to pick up. later on, when the house rose at midday, instead of in the afternoon, the regulation was revived. speaker lenthall himself was late on one occasion, much to the delight of the house, and, his attention being drawn to the fact, threw his shilling down on to the table with every sign of annoyance. [ ] forster's "grand remonstrance," p. n. [illustration: the house of commons in from an engraving by samuel cousins from the painting by h. w. burgess] as late as the middle of the eighteenth century members did not allow their parliamentary duties to interfere with their social pleasures. burke once complained because the commons rose early in order to attend a _fête-champêtre_ given by lady stanley.[ ] and in horace walpole told a friend that on the day appointed for the debate on the naturalization bill the house "adjourned to attend drury lane."[ ] [ ] townsend's "history," vol. iii. p. . [ ] "letters," march , . from time to time attempts were made to secure the attendance of members by means of a "call of the house," of which due notice was given, members who failed to answer their names being punished. a "call" which was taken in october, , resulted in the discovery that one hundred and fifty members were absent, and after a prolonged debate it was decided that they should be ordered to pay a fine of £ each. this system has fallen into disuse, the last "call" taking place in .[ ] five years before this date, however, on march , , three members, including lord f. l. gower, who were not in their places when their names were called, were given into the custody of the sergeant-at-arms, and compelled to pay fines ranging from £ to £ .[ ] [ ] the last "call" of the lords took place in on the trial of earl russell. [ ] grant's "recollections," p. . a member who offends against any of the rules or orders of the house of commons may be dealt with in several ways, either by being silenced, suspended, expelled, or committed to prison. if any member indulges in irrelevance or tedious repetition the speaker can call upon him to discontinue his speech. should the offence against order be more serious the speaker may either order the offender to withdraw from the house or may "name" him, whereupon, on the motion of the leader of the house, he is suspended from its service. the practice of "naming" originated in , when speaker lenthall, after trying in vain to silence certain noisy members who were chatting together under the gallery, called upon sir w. carnabie by name. in former days little unpleasantness seems to have attached to the process of "naming," and when speaker onslow was asked what the result would be of "naming" a refractory member he could but answer, "heaven only knows!"[ ] [ ] fox asked sir fletcher norton the same question. "what will happen?" replied the speaker: "hang me if i either know or care!" "life of sidmouth," vol. i. p. n. to-day a speaker may order any member whose conduct is unruly to withdraw from the house for the remainder of the sitting. by a standing order any member wilfully abusing the regulations of the house can be "named" by the chairman or speaker, and suspended until the end of the session, unless the house decides to re-admit him sooner. when a member is "named," the sergeant-at-arms escorts him from the precincts of the chamber, and he is seen off the premises by the police. should he decline to obey the sergeant's invitation to accompany him beyond the bar, a couple of elderly attendants step forward and prepare to expedite his progress towards the door. if force has to be used in order to make a member withdraw, his suspension lasts unquestionably until the end of the session. the punishment of suspension had not been used for two hundred years when it was revived in . immediately following the extraordinary scenes of obstruction which gave rise to speaker brand's resolute action, a wholesale suspension of irish members took place. on february , , parnell and more than a score of his colleagues were named and suspended for refusing either to take part in a division or to withdraw from the house. when the "closure" was applied for the first time in february, , a scene of uproar ensued, as a result of which mr. o'brien was suspended, and in march, , as already mentioned, twelve irish members who declined to leave their places for a division were forcibly removed by the sergeant-at-arms and police, and subsequently suspended. committal to the custody of the sergeant-at-arms is nowadays an uncommon parliamentary punishment, bradlaugh being one of the last members to be confined in the clock tower.[ ] both houses, however, have the legal right of imprisoning (at holloway or elsewhere) any british subjects who offend against their privileges. [ ] in lord althorp and sheil were locked up by the sergeant-at-arms, by order of the speaker, until they had apologised to the house and one another for the use of unparliamentary language. cf. o'connell's "recollections and experiences," vol. i. p. . expulsion from the house of commons is, perhaps, the direst penalty that can be inflicted upon a member. in , lord cochrane and steele the essayist were both expelled--the one for spreading false reports on the stock exchange, the other for publishing "the crisis," a pamphlet antagonistic in tone to the government. some fifty years later wilkes, who had been prosecuted for his articles in the "north briton," was also expelled from the house. the voters of middlesex at once re-elected him, but parliament declared his opponent, the defeated candidate, to be duly elected. in , however, the resolution against wilkes was erased from the journals of the house. at the time of the south sea bubble a number of members were turned out for fraud. since then, however, the list of expulsions has dwindled, until to-day such a thing would be considered a rare and unique occurrence. though expulsion does not preclude re-election, a grave moral stigma attaches to the penalty, and a modern member who incurred it would find but little consolation in the reflection that he shared this invidious distinction with men of no less eminence than steele and walpole. chapter xi parliamentary dress and deportment parliament to-day differs in very many respects from the parliaments of the past; nowhere does that difference express itself more forcibly than in the remarkable improvement in parliamentary manners of which the last century has been the witness. sir john eliot's well-known words are far more applicable to the modern house of commons than they can ever have been three hundred years ago. "noe wher more gravitie can be found than is represented in that senate," he said, speaking of the chamber of which he was so distinguished a member. "noe court has more civilitie in itself, nor a face of more dignitie towards strangers. noe wher more equall justice can be found: nor yet, perhaps, more wisdom."[ ] it was no doubt a pardonable sense of pride that caused sir john to take so optimistic a view of the assembly of his day, for there is ample evidence to show that the house of commons of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was not always the grave or civil chamber which he describes. its passions were not invariably under control; they flared up into a blaze on more than one occasion. the appearance of cardinal wolsey to demand a subsidy for his royal master was the signal for an outburst of feeling which almost ended in bloodshed; the long parliament was in a perpetual state of storm and disorder. [ ] forster's "sir john eliot," vol. i. p. . during the stuart period, and even more so towards the close of the commonwealth, the conduct of the commons was anything but decorous. the speaker of those days frequently found it impossible to maintain order; the chair was held in little respect. the behaviour of the house was but little better than that of the irish parliament in the time of elizabeth, which spent most of its time in futile argument and disagreement: "the more words, the more choler; and the more speeches, the greater broils."[ ] it was at the commencement of the seventeenth century that the first violent manifestations of party feeling took place which were afterwards destined to cause so many "scenes" in the commons. owing to the constant discord prevalent there, that house was, by one member, likened to a cockpit; another wrote to sir dudley carleton that "many sat there who were more fit to be among roaring boys"; and a third declared his desire to escape, not only to the upper house, but to the upper world altogether. [ ] mountmorris's "history of the irish parliament," vol. i. p. . during the lengthy debates on the publication of the grand remonstrance in , feeling ran so high that members would have sheathed their swords in one another's vitals but for the timely intervention of hampden. even those who did not actively assault each other seem to have expressed so much malice in their looks as to cause serious alarm to their opponents. in , for instance, sir h. mildmay complained to the house that the member for coventry "looked very fiercely upon him when he spoke, and that it was done in an unparliamentary way."[ ] [ ] palgrave's "house of commons," p. . (the speaker, however, does not appear to have thought it necessary to call upon the member for coventry to withdraw his fierce and unparliamentary expression.) in the reign of charles ii. riotous debates were of frequent if not daily occurrence. when titus oates appeared at the bar of the commons to accuse queen katherine of high treason, partisan excitement reached a dangerous pitch. in , a free fight between lord cavendish and sir john hanmer was only prevented by the tact of speaker seymour, who resumed the chair on his own responsibility--the house was in committee at the time--and managed to quell the disturbance before blows had been exchanged. scenes of a less serious nature took place on many occasions. andrew marvell, the much respected member for hull, was entering the house of commons one morning when he accidentally stumbled against the outstretched leg of sir philip harcourt. in recovering himself, marvell playfully dealt sir philip a resounding box on the ear. the speaker at once drew the attention of the house to this affront, and members became greatly excited. when marvell was at length allowed an opportunity of speaking, he explained that "what passed was through great acquaintance and familiarity" between sir philip and himself, and that his blow was merely a token of deep affection. after a heated debate the matter was allowed to drop, though other members of the house must subsequently have fought shy of making friends with a man who expressed his liking in so boisterous and painful a fashion.[ ] [ ] andrew marvell's "works," vol. ii. p. . (sir philip harcourt might well have anticipated the remark made by the georgian monarch who, while leaning out of a window, received a severe blow from a footman who had mistaken the royal back for that of his fellow-domestic, james. "even if i had been james," the king plaintively exclaimed, "you needn't have hit me so hard!") the fact that many members of both houses frequently attended the debates in an advanced stage of intoxication was, perhaps, the cause of most of the parliamentary unpleasantness of past days. at westminster, indeed, the sobriety of legislators was scarcely more noticeable than at edinburgh, where the scottish parliament that met on the restoration of charles ii. was forced to adjourn, owing to the fact that the commissioner middleton and most of the members were too drunk to deliberate. instances of parliamentary intemperance and its natural results were common enough in those days. in , a quarrel arose in the house of lords between the earl of berkshire and lord scrope. the former quickly lost his temper and laid violent hands on his colleague. for this he was called to the bar, censured by the lord chancellor, and committed to the tower. again, at a conference between the two english houses, in , the lords behaved to one another with extreme discourtesy. the duke of buckingham opened the proceedings by leaning across lord dorchester in a rude and offensive manner. the latter gently but firmly removed the intruding elbow, and on being asked if he were uncomfortable, replied that he certainly was, and that nowhere but in the house of lords would the duke dare to behave in so boorish a fashion. buckingham irrelevantly retorted that he was the better man of the two, whereupon dorchester told his noble colleague that he was a liar. the duke then struck off the other's hat, seized hold of his periwig, and began to pull him about the chamber. at this moment, luckily, the lord chamberlain and several peers interposed, and the two quarrelsome noblemen were sent to the tower to regain control of their tempers. the commons meanwhile were behaving in no less reprehensible a manner. "sir allen brodricke and sir allen apsly did come drunk the other day into the house," says pepys, "and did both speak for half an hour together, and could not be either laughed, or pulled, or bid to sit down."[ ] such a state of things was so usual in either house at the time as to provoke neither comment nor criticism. the tone of society may be gauged from the fact that at the end of the seventeenth century it was not thought peculiar for a party of cabinet ministers, including the earl of rochester, then lord high treasurer of england, stripped to their shirts and riotously intoxicated, to climb the nearest signpost in order to drink the king's health from a suitable point of vantage.[ ] [ ] "diary," december , . [ ] reresby's "memoirs," p. . the usual condition of the commons during the hearing of election petitions a hundred years later has been forcibly described by thomas townshend. "a house of twenty or thirty members," he says, "half asleep during the examination of witnesses at the bar, the other half absent at arthur's or almack's, ... returning to vote so intoxicated that they could scarcely speak or stand." it must, however, be admitted that members' frequent potations did not always affect their utterance. indeed, they sometimes appear to have had an entirely opposite result. in , lord carnarvon, under the influence of wine, made a remarkably humorous and able speech in the house of lords, causing the duke of buckingham to exclaim, "the man is inspired, and claret has done the business!" charles townshend, too, whom burke called the delight and ornament of the house, and who was offered the chancellorship of the exchequer by pitt, seems to have been far more eloquent in his cups than at any other time. he is chiefly famous for making what is known as the "champagne speech" of may th, --a speech which, as walpole declared to a friend, nobody but townshend could have made, and nobody but he would have made if he could. it was at once a proof that his abilities were superior to those of all men, and his judgment below that of any man. it showed him capable of being, and unfit to be, prime minister. "he beat chatham in language, burke in metaphors, grenville in presumption, rigby in impudence, himself in folly, and everybody in good humour."[ ] half a bottle of champagne, as walpole said, poured on genuine genius, had kindled this wonderful blaze. [ ] "extracts of the journals and correspondence of miss berry," vol. ii. p. . pitt, as is well known, possessed a marvellously strong head. he and dundas one evening finished seven bottles without the slightest difficulty, and he would often fortify himself with whole tumblers of his favourite wine before going down to westminster.[ ] [ ] samuel rogers' "recollections," p. . it was during the famous debate of february , , when fox was defending the peace of paris, that pitt retired behind the speaker's chair to be actively unwell, at the same time keeping his hand up to his ear that he might miss none of his rival's points. his conduct on this occasion affected one of the sensitive clerks at the table with a violent attack of neuralgia--a providential division of labour, as pitt pointed out, whereby he himself had enjoyed the wine while the clerk had the headache! it has often been considered surprising that pitt should have been able to exercise such influence on the house after drinking three bottles of strong port, but, as a distinguished statesman has observed, it must be remembered that he was addressing an assembly few of whose members had drunk less than two. [illustration: henry brougham queen caroline's attorney-general, afterwards lord high chancellor of great britain _from the painting by james lonsdale in the national portrait gallery_] at the commencement of the nineteenth century, when abbot was in the chair, the member for southampton, fuller by name, entered the house in a hazy but happy frame of mind, which induced him to mistake the speaker in his wig for an owl in an ivy bush. he was promptly removed by the sergeant-at-arms, and kept in custody until his eyesight had resumed its normal condition.[ ] another member, sir george rose, arrived at westminster in a condition which inspired him to call upon the speaker for a comic song, and led to his being taken in charge by the sergeant-at-arms. [ ] townsend's "history," vol. ii. p. . lord chancellor brougham used to refresh himself copiously while upon the woolsack, and, during his four-hour speech on the reform bill, drank no less than five tumblers of mulled port and brandy.[ ] there was, therefore, perhaps some reason for his extreme indignation when the duke of buckingham referred to the possibility of disturbing him in the midst of his "potations pottle deep"--a quotation which brougham did not recognize, and which evoked from him a violent outburst.[ ] [ ] campbell's "lives of the chancellors." [ ] grant's "recollections of the house of lords" ( ). (this is not the only instance of a well-known quotation passing unrecognized in parliament. in , when bishop wilberforce made a good-humoured attack on lord derby, the latter remarked that a man might "smile and smile and be a villain," and thereby caused much excitement among the lords, who had not recently studied their "hamlet.") peers and members of parliament to-day have no such weaknesses, or, at any rate, refrain from exhibiting them in parliament. there have been, of course, exceptional instances, even in modern times, of persons speaking under the influence of drink, but these are so rare as scarcely to deserve mention. an irishman in a conspicuously genial frame of mind referred to a conservative member in the lobby as a "d---- fool." the latter overheard this remark and contemptuously retorted that his honourable friend was drunk. "i may be drunk," admitted the irishman, "but to-morrow i shall be sober. whereas you'll be a d---- fool to-morrow, and the next day, and all the rest of your life!" during one of those interminable sittings of , when obstruction was at its height, another irishman, "weary with watching, and warm with whisky," applied the same opprobrious term to a fellow member. on being ordered to withdraw the expression he explained that it "was only a quotation." "whether the remark of the hon. gentleman can be explained by a quotation or a potation," said the chairman, "it is equally inadmissible, and i must beg him in future to mind his p's and q's."[ ] [ ] "quarterly review," vol. cxlv. p. . irish members have probably been the cause of more parliamentary disturbance than all the rest of their colleagues put together. daniel o'connell, whom disraeli once called "the vagabond delegate of a foreign priesthood,"[ ] was a perpetual source of trouble to the house. in , he was the centre of one of the most noisy scenes that has ever outraged its dignity. macaulay declared that he had never before or since seen such unseemly behaviour, or heard such scurrilous language used in parliament. members on both sides of the house stood up and shouted at the tops of their voices, shaking their fists in one another's faces.[ ] lord norreys and lord maidstone particularly distinguished themselves by the pandemonium they created, while others of their colleagues gave farmyard imitations, and for a long time the whole house continued in a state of ferment. o'connell's reference to the sounds emitted by honourable gentlemen as "beastly bellowings" only made matters worse. as a french visitor who was present during this scene has described: "pendant plusieures heures plus de cinq cents membres crient de toutes leurs forces 'à l'ordre! à la porte o'connell!' le tout accompagné des imitations zoologiques les plus étranges et les plus affreuses. c'étaient les cris de deux armées de sauvages en presence."[ ] [ ] "letters of runnymede," p. . [ ] trevelyan's "life of macaulay," vol. ii. p. . [ ] "la france et l'angleterre," par f. de tassies. (quoted in o'connell's "recollections," vol. i. p. .) "imitations zoologiques" have always been a popular but by no means the only method employed by members desirous of drowning the words of a tiresome speaker. john rolle, the hero of the "rolliad," promoted a "smoking and spitting party "to interrupt and annoy burke.[ ] in , the latter told a number of youthful opponents who interrupted him with their howls that he could teach a pack of hounds to yelp with more melody and equal comprehension. ten years before the o'connell scene brougham excited the house to uproar of a similarly puerile character. he remained calm and unmoved, however, and, when the bestial cries of his audience subsided for a moment, pleasantly observed that by a wonderful disposition of nature every animal had its peculiar mode of expressing itself, and that he was too much of a philosopher to quarrel with any of those modes--a remark which does not appear to have subdued the clamour to any appreciable extent.[ ] a similar uproar which the speaker was powerless to quell arose in , when sir charles dilke brought forward a motion to inquire into the manner in which the income and allowances of the crown were spent. [ ] thomas moore's "memoirs," vol. ii. p. . [ ] miss martineau's "history of the peace," vol. ii. p. . members who are anxious to bring a debate to a close still have recourse to sound, crying, "'vide! 'vide!" in an earsplitting fashion, which occasionally evokes a rebuke from the speaker. but there is seldom, nowadays, such a scene of violence as occurred in both houses upon the dissolution of parliament in april, . the commons indulged in a painful scene "of bellowing, and roaring, and gnashing of teeth, which it was almost frightful to look at," says cockburn.[ ] in the upper house peers behaved no less childishly. lord mansfield doubled up his fist, elbowed lord shaftesbury into the chair, and hooted lord brougham as he left the house.[ ] lord lyndhurst, meanwhile, was threatening the duke of richmond with physical violence, and the uproar was only quelled by the arrival of the king.[ ] one must not, of course, forget the notorious modern instance of ill manners, already described,[ ] when, in , members exchanged blows upon the floor of the commons. this, however, is a painful exception, little likely to recur. [ ] cockburn's "life of jeffrey," vol. i. p. . [ ] duncombe's "life of his father," vol. i. p. . [ ] brougham's "life," vol. iii. p. . [ ] supra, p. . politicians have learnt to control their feelings, and the present publicity of parliamentary proceedings acts as a salutary deterrent to outbursts of the elemental passions. neither house to-day would dream of expressing its emotion in the open fashion common to parliaments of long ago. the sight of a lower chamber dissolved in tears is no longer possible. yet, in , when, by the king's command, no discussion was permitted on the question of buckingham's impeachment, a lachrymose speaker led the whole house of commons in a chorus of weeping. two years later sir edward coke welcomed the introduction of the petition of right in a voice choked with sobs. wingfield wept for joy when monopolies were abolished in queen elizabeth's reign,[ ] and we have already noted the tears shed by colonel wanklyn when he was expelled, and by speaker finch when he was forcibly detained in the chair. fox shed frequent tears in the house of commons; pitt wept bitterly when his friend, lord melville, was impeached. lord chancellors, too, were not ashamed to express their feelings in loud sobs, eldon's eyes becoming sympathetically moist, while even the "rugged thurlow" sprinkled the woolsack with his tears. [ ] townshend's "proceedings of both houses," p. . members no longer weep, except perchance in the privacy of their own homes; nor do they follow their predecessors' fashion of converting the house of commons into a smoking-room or a lounge, in which to sleep off the effects of their potations. the free and easy habits of seventeenth-century politicians made it necessary for a regulation to be framed that "no tobacco should be taken by any member in the gallery, nor at the table sitting in committees."[ ] and it was no uncommon sight, a hundred years ago, to see members stretched at full length on the benches of the chamber, with their feet resting on the backs of the seats in front of them, punctuating the proceedings with their stertorous snores.[ ] [ ] regulations in the journals, march , . [ ] "l'lllustre enceinte présente souvent l'aspect d'une assemblée de _yankees_ beaucoup plus que celui d'une réunion de _gentlemen_." franqueville's "le gouvernement et le parlement britaniques," vol. iii. p. . lord north was notorious for his gift of somnolence in the house of commons. "behold," said edmund burke, with that indifferent taste for which he was noted, as he pointed to the recumbent figure of the prime minister, "the government, if not defunct, at least nods; brother lazarus is not dead, but sleepeth." north was dozing on another occasion when a member attacked him fiercely, saying that he ought certainly to be impeached for his misdeeds. "at least," exclaimed the minister, waking for a moment, "allow me the criminal's usual privilege--a night of rest before the execution!"[ ] he felt no shame at giving way to slumber in debate, and when an opponent remarked that "even in the midst of these perils, the noble lord is asleep!" "i wish to god i was!" he replied with heartfelt fervour.[ ] he would always take the opportunity afforded by a lengthy speech to snatch forty winks. once, when the long-winded colonel barré was addressing the house on the naval history of england, tracing it back to the earliest ages, north asked a friend to wake him up as soon as the speaker approached modern times. when at length he was aroused, "where are we?" asked the premier, anxiously. "at the battle of la hogue, my lord." "oh, my dear friend," said north, "you've woken me a century too soon!"[ ] [ ] timbs' "anecdotal biography," vol. i. p. . [ ] pryme's "recollections," p. . [ ] harford's "recollections of wilberforce," p. . a marked improvement in the conduct of modern debate is to be noticed in the comparatively inoffensive character of the epithets used by members with reference to their opponents. the decencies of debate are, as a rule, religiously observed. recriminations are rare. measures are attacked, not men. the secession of a statesman is considered a political but not a personal offence, and what palmerston once called the "puerile vanity of consistency" is no longer worshipped fanatically. gladstone rightly called the house of commons a "school of temper," as well as a school of honour and of justice. offensive allusions have always been deprecated there, but it is only within the last few score years that members have controlled their tongues to any appreciable extent in this direction. hasty remarks are nowadays withdrawn at the first suggestion of the speaker, though on occasion an apology may be as offensive as the original insult. lord robert cecil (afterwards lord salisbury) said of a speech of gladstone's in , that it was "worthy of a pettifogging attorney." soon afterwards he rose in the house, and said that he wished to apologise for a remark he had lately made. "i observed that the speech of the right hon. gentleman was worthy of a pettifogging attorney," he said, "and i now hasten to offer my apologies--to the attornies!" it is usual nowadays to wrap up offensive criticisms in a more or less palatable covering, to attack by inference rather than by direct assault. "i am no party man," said colonel sibthorpe, member for lincoln, after the dissolution of sir robert peel's government. "i have never acted from party feelings; but i must say i do not like the countenances of honourable gentlemen opposite, for i believe them to be the index of their minds. i can only say, in conclusion, that i earnestly hope that god will grant the country a speedy deliverance from such a band."[ ] this is a good example of an unpleasant thing framed in a manner which does not lay it open to the stigma of disorderly language, and is just as effective as that oft-quoted attack made by a member of the irish house of commons on george ponsonby (afterwards irish chancellor), whose sister was sitting in the gallery at the time. "these ponsonbys are the curse of my country," said the member; "they are prostitutes, personally and politically--from the toothless old hag who is now grinning in the gallery to the white-livered scoundrel who is now shivering on the floor!"[ ] [ ] grant's "recollections," p. . [ ] hayward's "essays," pp. - . [illustration: the house of commons in walpole's day from the engraving by a. fogg the figures from left to right are:--sir robert walpole, the rt. hon. arthur onslow, sydney godolphin (father of the house), sir joseph jekyl, col. onslow, edward stables, esq. (clerk of house of commoms), sir james thornhill, mr. aiskew (clerk assistant)] members who consider themselves aggrieved or insulted have now no redress save by an appeal to the speaker. in old days they often took the matter into their own hands, and many a duel was the outcome of hasty words spoken in parliament. so prevalent, indeed, did the habit of duelling become, that in a resolution was passed in the commons empowering the speaker to arrest any member who either sent or received a challenge. the practice of parliamentary duelling long continued, in spite of every effort to stifle it. wilkes was wounded in in hyde park by a member named martin, who had called him "a cowardly scoundrel." lord castlereagh and canning met in , and had, in consequence, to resign their seats in the cabinet.[ ] lord alvanley fought morgan o'connell, son of the liberator, on his father's account. charles james fox was challenged by mr. adam, of the ordnance department, for a personal attack made in the house of commons, and faced him in the old kensington gravel pits. at the first shot adam's bullet lodged harmlessly in his opponent's belt. "if you hadn't used ordnance powder," said fox, with a laugh, as he shook hands with adam after the fight, "i should have been a dead man."[ ] [ ] bell's "life of canning," p. . [ ] pryme's "recollections," p. . if duels were fought in those days on very slight provocation, challenges were also occasionally declined on equally poor grounds. colonel luttrell, member for middlesex, and afterwards lord carhampton, refused to fight his own father, not because he was his father, but because he was not a gentleman! the last duel between politicians was that fought by the duke of wellington and lord winchelsea, as the result of some remarks made by the latter during a debate on the roman catholic emancipation bill in . since that time no parliamentary dispute has been referred to the arbitrament of the pistol. although there has been a perceptible improvement in parliamentary deportment as the centuries have advanced, the same can scarcely be said of parliamentary dress. in the time of charles ii., knee-breeches, silk stockings, and silver-buckled shoes were absolutely _de rigueur_ for members of the commons. a hundred years later members of parliament always wore court dress, with bag-wig and sword, in the house. the formal costume prescribed by etiquette was rigidly adhered to, and none but county members were permitted the privilege of wearing spurs.[ ] at this time, too, cabinet ministers were never seen in parliament without the ribbons and decorations of the various orders to which they belonged. the regulation which bids the mover and seconder of the address to appear in court dress on the first day of the new parliament is the only relic of this custom. [ ] lord colchester's "diary," vol. i. p. . fifty years ago no member of either house would have appeared within the precincts of the palace of westminster wearing anything upon his head but a high silk hat. gradually, however, a certain laxity in the matter of head-gear has crept into parliament, and to-day, not only "bowlers," but even "cricketing caps" may be seen reposing upon the unabashed heads of members. peers, as a rule, conform to the older fashion, and cabinet ministers usually dress in a respectably sombre garb. but among the rank and file of the house of commons may occasionally be found members wearing check suits of the lightest and loudest patterns, and hats of every conceivable variety, ranging from the æsthetic "homburg" to the humble cloth cap. the passing of the top hat must necessarily appear somewhat in the light of a tragedy to older parliamentarians. in both houses the hat has long come to be regarded as a sacred symbol. it is with this article of clothing that the member daily secures his claim to a seat on the benches of the house of commons; with a hat he occasionally expresses his enthusiasm or sympathy; on a hat does he sit at the close of a speech, with the certainty of raising a laugh; and without a hat he cannot speak upon a point of order when the house has been cleared for a division. when the labour party began to take an important place in the popular assembly, it was thought that this democratic invasion would have an actively detrimental effect upon the dress of the house. old-fashioned members shook their heads and prophesied an influx of hobnailed artisans, clad in corduroys, their trousers confined at the knee with string, and in their mouths a short clay pipe. these gloomy forebodings have not been realised. with very few exceptions the dress of labour members is little calculated to offend the most sensitive eye, though it was certainly one of their number who first entered a startled house of commons in a tweed stalking-cap--a form of head-dress which it is certainly difficult to forgive. chapter xii parliamentary eloquence when pitt was asked what he considered most to be lamented, the lost books of livy, or those of tacitus, he replied that to the recovery of either of these he would prefer that of a speech by bolingbroke. not a fragment of what dean swift called the "invincible eloquence" of that statesman is left to us. but though we are compelled to take his reputation as an orator on trust, we should do wrong to complain, for it is more than probable that a perusal of bolingbroke's speeches to-day would prove disappointing. "words that breathed fire are ashes on the page," and the utterances that have stirred a thousand hearts in the senates of old days too often leave the modern reader cold and unmoved. we miss the inflections of a magical voice, the stimulating plaudits of friends or followers, the magnetism that can only be communicated by a personal intercourse between a speaker and his audience. the reading of old speeches is, as lord rosebery has observed, a dreary and reluctant pilgrimage which few willingly undertake. it supplies, as a rule, but a poor explanation of the effect which the eloquence of past orators produced upon their contemporaries. it is like attending an undress rehearsal of a play in an empty theatre on a cold winter's afternoon. the glamour of costume, of limelight, is lacking; the atmosphere of appreciation, excitement, enthusiasm, is absent. the difference between the spoken and the published oration has been aptly defined as the difference between some magnificent temple laid open to the studious contemplation of a solitary visitant, and the same edifice beheld amidst the fullest accompaniments of sacrificial movement and splendour, thronged with adoring crowds, and resounding with solemn harmonies.[ ] [ ] "quarterly review," vol. xxii. p. . it has often been affirmed that no speech in parliament has ever resulted in the winning of a division. byron declared that "not cicero himself, nor probably the messiah, could have altered the vote of a single lord of the bedchamber or bishop."[ ] there are, however, one or two instances of orations which have been so moving in their appeal that they may claim to be exceptions to this rule. plunket's famous speech in the debate on grattan's motion for catholic emancipation in is said to have gained many votes. macaulay won the support of several opponents by an eloquent speech on the second reading of lord mahon's copyright bill in , and, on a bill introduced by lord hotham to exclude certain persons holding offices from the house of commons, actually caused the anticipated majority to be reversed. [ ] moore's "life of byron," . on one memorable occasion when sheridan, with that impassioned oratory for which he had already become famous, was advocating the prosecution of warren hastings, the house of commons was so stirred that a motion for adjournment was made in order to give members time to recover from the overpowering effect of his eloquence.[ ] again, during the debate on commercial distress in december, , peel roused the fury of the protectionists by a violent and able speech, and, when he resumed his seat, an adjournment was moved on the ground that the house was not in a condition to vote dispassionately. burke, too, seems at times to have stimulated his hearers to an active expression of their emotion; and when he was lamenting the employment of indians in the american war, a fellow-member was so moved that he offered to nail a copy of his speech upon the door of every church in the kingdom.[ ] [ ] barnes' "reminiscences," p. . [ ] prior's "life of burke," vol. i. p. . yet the speeches of burke and sheridan do not affect us to-day with anything but a mild enthusiasm, chiefly founded upon our admiration of their literary excellence. we remain comparatively indifferent to their appeal; our hearts beat no faster as we read. sheridan's two orations on the subject of warren hastings' impeachment--the one delivered in the house of commons on february , , and the other in westminster hall during the trial--have been considered among the very finest ever made in parliament. it was after the first of these, which lasted for five hours, that the house adjourned to enable members to survey the question calmly, freed from the spell of the enchanter. sheridan's style, according to burke, was "something between poetry and prose, and better than either."[ ] even the fastidious byron declared him to be the only speaker he ever wished to hear at greater length. he was offered £ by a publisher for his great "begum speech," if he would but consent to correct the proofs; but for long he refused. eventually he agreed to its publication, but by that time popular interest had subsided.[ ] as much as fifty guineas was paid for a seat to hear his speech at the trial of hastings, when, as ben jonson wrote of bacon, "the fear of every man that heard him was lest he should make an end."[ ] [ ] moore's "life of sheridan," vol. i. p. . [ ] he never received the promised £ . (see harrington's "personal sketches of his own times," vol. i. p. .) [ ] "cornwallis papers," vol. i. p. n. the speeches of burke, whom macaulay has described as the greatest man since milton, are perhaps the most suitable for perusal of any ever delivered in parliament. they read better than they sounded as delivered; they are rather pamphlets than orations. burke himself was deficient in many of the qualities of an orator. his voice was harsh and his gestures ungainly. he never consulted the prejudices of his audience. his lapses from good taste were frequent, and among his most splendid passages may be found occasional coarse and vulgar epithets and expressions. yet so great was his eloquence, so marvellous his oratorical powers, that byron has included him with pitt and fox among the "wondrous three whose words were sparks of immortality." and the florid dr. parr can scarcely find words sufficiently eulogistic to sing his praises.[ ] [ ] "burke ... by whose sweetness athens herself would have been soothed, with whose amplitude and exuberance she would have been enraptured, and on whose lips that prolific mother of genius and science would have adored, confessed, the goddess of persuasion." prior's "burke," p. . [illustration: edmund burke from an engraving by j. watson after the painting by sir j. reynolds] in the seventeenth century parliamentary attendance and eloquence were equally poor. not only did many members speak indifferently; at times there would be long intervals of silence when members did not speak at all. "a pause for two or three minutes," ... "the house sat looking at each other,"[ ] are some of the entries in the reports which must strike the modern mind, accustomed to the present house of commons, as peculiar. steele described the house of his day as being composed of silent people oppressed by the choice of a great deal to say, and of eloquent people ignorant that what they said was nothing to the purpose.[ ] [ ] townsend's "history of the house of commons," vol. ii. p. . [ ] forster's "biographical essays," vol. ii. p. . it was not until the georgian age that parliamentary oratory reached its heyday. then, too, speeches began to lengthen, and by the time lord north became prime minister it was not unusual for a member to address the house for two or three hours on end. lord brougham once spoke for six hours on the amendment of the law. even in walpole's day occasional prolixity was not unknown. one hutcheson, member for hastings, when the septennial bill of was under discussion, made a speech of which the summary fills more than twenty-five pages of the parliamentary history.[ ] again, when david hartley, a notorious bore, rose to speak one day, walpole went home, changed his clothes, rode to hampstead, returned, changed once more, and came back to the house to find this tiresome member still upon his legs.[ ] [ ] vol. vii. pp. - . [ ] pryme's "recollections," p. n. chatham was the first statesman to make a habit of delivering long speeches. the practice was never popular, and has now fallen into desuetude. the rising to his feet of a tedious member has ever been the signal for the house to clear as though by magic. sergeant hewitt, member for coventry in , was a well-known parliamentary emetic. "is the house up?" asked a friend of charles townshend, seeing the latter leaving st. stephen's chapel. "no," replied townshend, "but hewitt is!"[ ] the departure of his audience is, however, a hint to which the habitual bore is generally impervious. a dull and lengthy speaker, addressing empty benches in the house of commons, whispered to a friend that the absence of members did not affect him, as he was speaking to posterity. "if you go on at this rate," was the unkind reply, "you'll see your audience before you!"[ ] [ ] o'flanaghan's "lives of the irish chancellors," vol. ii. p. . [ ] townsend's "house of commons," vol. ii. p. . when gladstone brought in his first budget in he spoke for five hours. he had been advised by sir robert peel to be long and diffuse, rather than short and concise, seeing that the house of commons was composed of men of such various ways of thinking, and it was important to put his case from many different points of view so as to appeal to the idiosyncrasies of each.[ ] in the days of his premiership, however, gladstone's speeches were considerably shortened, and even the introduction of so momentous and intricate a measure as the home rule bill of was accomplished in three and a half hours. lengthy speeches are no longer fashionable, though mr. biggar spoke for four hours on a famous occasion in , and mr. lloyd george occupied the same time in unfolding the much-discussed finance bill of . [ ] morley's "life of gladstone," vol. i. p. . though the oratorical masterpieces of the past may, for the most part, be dull reading, to the student or historian they must always prove interesting and instructive, as revealing those peculiar qualities which appeal to a parliamentary audience. they explain to a certain extent what it is that a speech must possess in order to meet with the approval of either house. parliament--and more especially the house of commons--is no very lenient critic; but it is a sound one. it pardons the faults of style or manner due to inexperience; it tolerates homeliness that is the outcome of sincerity. it has a keen eye for motives, and anything pretentious or dishonest is an abomination to it. matter is of far greater importance than manner, and parliament agrees with sir thomas more that whereas "much folly is uttered with pointed polished speech, so many, boisterous and rude in language, see deep indeed, and give right substantial counsel."[ ] sincerity, in fact, has far more influence in the house of commons than either brilliancy or wit, and any attempt at platform heroics is certain to fail. there is nothing the house is so fond of, sheil used to say, as facts.[ ] there is nothing it so much resents, we might now add, as violations of good taste. this fastidiousness is no doubt of modern growth, for we find burke's coarseness readily condoned, and sheil himself lapsing into occasional vulgarity.[ ] [ ] roper's "life of more," p. . [ ] maccullagh's "memoirs of sheil," vol. ii. p. . [ ] speaking on church reform, sheil once said that when this was effected, "the bloated paunch of the unwieldy rector would no longer heave in holy magnitude beside the shrinking abdomen of the starving and miserably prolific curate." francis's "orators," p. . like all assemblies of human beings, parliament has always welcomed an opportunity for laughter. in the house of commons the poorest joke creates amusement; the man who sits upon his hat at once becomes a popular favourite; a "bull" is ever acceptable. when sheridan, in , attacked another member, saying, "there he stands, mr. speaker, like a crocodile, with his hands in his pockets, shedding false tears!" the house rocked with laughter.[ ] yet the phrase did not originate with sheridan, but was one of the many "bulls" that had been coined by that prince of bull-makers, sir boyle roche. it was roche who declared that he could not be in two places at once "like a bird"; who attempted to "shunt a question by a side-wind"; and announced that he was prepared to sacrifice not merely a part but the whole of the constitution to preserve the remainder! "what, mr. speaker!" he inquired on a famous occasion in the irish house of commons, "are we to beggar ourselves for fear of vexing posterity? now, i would ask the honourable gentleman, and this _still more_ honourable house, why we should put ourselves out of our way to do anything for _posterity_; for what has posterity done for us?"[ ] [ ] raikes's "journal," vol. ii. p. . [ ] barrington's "personal sketches," vol. i. p. . (curran once made a happy retort to roche. "do not speak of my honour," said the latter, "i am the guardian of my own honour." "faith!" answered curran, "i knew that at some time or other you would accept a sinecure." philips's "life of curran," p. .) "the house loves good sense and joking, and nothing else," said sir t. f. buxton, in ; "and the object of its utter aversion is that species of eloquence which may be called philippian."[ ] sentimentality of any kind is rarely tolerated in parliament, as may be seen by the indifference with which burke's dagger and lord brougham's melodramatic prayer were greeted. when bright, during the crimean war, delivered himself of that famous phrase, "the angel of death has been abroad throughout the land; you may almost hear the beating of its wings!" it was a question as to how members would take so sentimental a simile. had the speaker substituted the word "flapping" for "beating," as cobden afterwards observed to him, they would have roared with laughter. [ ] "memoirs," p. . the house of commons, as a writer has remarked, is a body without any principles or prejudices, except against bores. "he who comes to it with a good reputation has no better chance than he who besieges it with a bad one. it rejects all pretensions it has not of itself justified, and all fame it has not itself conferred."[ ] it has, indeed, always been remarkable for a great reluctance in confirming reputations for oratory gained elsewhere. wilkes could sway the populace with his grandiloquent declamations, but failed ignominiously in parliament; kenealy was refused a hearing. the chastening effect of the lower house is notorious, and many a conceited, self-opiniated individual has found his level after a brief course of subjection to what sir james mackintosh called the "curry-comb of the house of commons."[ ] [ ] whitty's "history of the session" ( - ), p. . [ ] "journal," vol. i. p. . besides bores and demagogues, of which it is justly intolerant, the house of commons may at one time be said to have numbered lawyers among its pet aversions. the latter are apt to lecture their fellow-members as though they were addressing a jury, explaining the most patent facts, and generally assuming a didactic air which the house finds it difficult to brook.[ ] this perhaps explains the failure of such distinguished men as lord jeffrey and sir james mackintosh, both eloquent lawyers who made little or no mark in parliament, and of many other "gentlemen of the long robe," as disraeli contemptuously called them. [ ] "accustomed in their courts to consider every matter of equal importance," says barnes, "they adopt the same earnest and stiff solemnity of manner, whether they are disputing about violated morality or insulted liberty, or about a petty affray where a hat, value one shilling, has been torn in a scuffle." "parliamentary sketches," p. . speaking in parliament is indeed a matter very different to addressing an audience in the country, on the hustings, or in some local town hall. the platitudes that evoke such enthusiasm when delivered from a village platform fall very flat in either house. the chilling atmosphere and sparse attendance of the lords is not conducive to feelings of self-confidence: the critical gaze of fellow-members in the commons is little calculated to alleviate a sudden paroxysm of shyness. the unknown parliamentary speaker is greeted with a respectful but ominous silence when he rises to his feet. he misses the applause of electors or tenantry to which he is accustomed in his constituency or on his estate. he has no table on which to place his sheaf of notes; there is no water-bottle at hand to moisten his parched lips or give him a moment's pause when the stream of his eloquence runs temporarily dry. he cannot choose the best moment for delivering his speech, but must be content to take such opportunities as are afforded by circumstances. in the house of commons a member may have waited half the night to catch the elusive eye of the speaker--though a man who wishes to make his maiden speech is usually accorded this privilege--and, by the time his turn comes, most of his choicest and brightest thoughts have already been anticipated by former speakers. it is not, therefore, to be wondered at that many men find themselves unequal to the task of passing successfully through this ordeal, and that the maiden speech of a future statesman has often proved a complete fiasco. in , we read of a mr. zachary lock, a member who "began to speak, who for very fear shook, so that he could not proceed, but stood still awhile, and at length sat down."[ ] this same experience has since befallen many another politician. the bravest men become inarticulate in similar circumstances. after the naval victory of june , , vice-admiral sir alan gardiner received a vote of thanks from the house of commons, and, though he had taken the precaution of fortifying himself with several bottles of madeira, could scarcely summon up courage to mumble a reply.[ ] and in our own time we have seen another gallant officer overcome with "house-fright" to such an extent as to be unable to deliver the message which, in his official capacity as black rod, he had brought to the commons. john bright never rose in the house without what he called "a trembling of the knees." gladstone was always intensely nervous before a big speech. disraeli declared that he would rather lead a forlorn hope than face the house of commons. [ ] d'ewes' "journal," p. . [ ] "life of sidmouth," vol. i. p. . [illustration: richard brinsley sheridan from an engraving by j. hall after the painting by sir j. reynolds] a good description of the sensations felt by a panic-stricken member making his debut is given by lord guilford, son of lord north, whose appearance in the house was brief, if not exactly meteoric. "i brought out two or three sentences," he says, "when a mist seemed to rise before my eyes. i then lost my recollection, and could see nothing but the speaker's wig, which swelled and swelled and swelled till it covered the whole house."[ ] [ ] harford's "recollections of wilberforce," p. . (guilford hastily resumed his seat, shortly afterwards applied for the chiltern hundreds, and retired into comfortable obscurity.) the failure of a first speech has not always been the presage of a politician's future non-success. addison broke down on the only occasion on which he attempted to address the house, yet he reached high office as irish secretary before he had been nine years in parliament.[ ] walpole's first speech was a complete failure, as was, in a lesser degree, canning's, though both were listened to in silence. even the silver-tongued sheridan himself made a poor impression upon the house with his earliest effort. after delivering his maiden speech, he sought out his friend woodfall, who had been sitting in the gallery, and asked for a candid opinion. "i don't think this is your line," said woodfall. "you had much better have stuck to your former pursuits." sheridan pondered for a moment. "it is _in_ me," he said at length with conviction, "and, by god, it shall come out!"[ ] it certainly did. [ ] his first effort in the irish house, in , was singularly abortive. "mr. speaker, i conceive----" he began. "mr. speaker, i conceive----" he stammered out again. shouts of "hear! hear!" encouraged him. "i conceive, mr. speaker----" he repeated, and then collapsed. a cruel colleague at once rose and remarked that the hon. gentleman had conceived three times and brought forth nothing! o'flanagan's "irish chancellors," vol. ii. p. . [ ] moore's "life of sheridan," vol. i. p. . disraeli, as is well known, was not even listened to, and had to bring his maiden speech to an abrupt end. "the time will come when you _shall_ hear me!" he exclaimed prophetically as he resumed his seat. such treatment was, however, unusual, for though the house of commons is occasionally, as pepys called it, a beast not to be understood, so variable and uncertain are its moods, new members are commonly accorded a patient and attentive hearing. sometimes a momentary breakdown has been retrieved under the stimulus of encouraging cheers from the house, and an infelicitous beginning has led to an eloquent peroration. lord ashley, afterwards earl of shaftesbury, had prepared a speech on behalf of the treason bill of , which enacted that all persons indicted for high treason should have a copy of the indictment supplied to them and be allowed the assistance of counsel. he was, however, so overcome with nervousness on rising to his feet, that he could not proceed. wittily recovering himself, "if i, who rise only to give my opinion on the bill now depending, am so confounded that i am unable to express the least of what i proposed to say," he observed, "what must be the condition of that man who without any assistance is pleading for his life, and is under apprehensions of being deprived of it?" he thus contrived to turn his nervousness to good account. again, when steele was brought to the bar for publishing "the crisis," a young member, lord finch, whose sister steele had defended in the "guardian" against a libel, rose to make a maiden speech on behalf of his friend. after a few confused sentences the youthful speaker broke down and was unable to proceed. "strange," he exclaimed, as he sat down in despair, "that i cannot speak for this man, though i could readily fight for him!" this remark elicited so much cheering that the member took heart, rose once more, and made an able speech, which he subsequently followed up with many another.[ ] [ ] forster's "biographical essays," vol. ii. p. . although early failure is no sure gauge of a politician's reputation or worth, many a happy first speech has raised hopes that remained eternally unfulfilled. in the eighteenth century james erskine, lord grange, made a brilliant maiden effort in the commons and was much applauded. but the house soon grew weary of his broad scots accent, and after hearing him patiently three or four times, gradually ceased to listen to him altogether.[ ] william gerard hamilton, secretary to lord halifax (lord-lieutenant of ireland), and afterwards irish chancellor of the exchequer, though not fulfilling bolingbroke's definition of eloquence,[ ] earned the title of "single-speech hamilton" by one display of oratory which was never repeated. [ ] dr. king's "anecdotes of his own time," p. . [ ] "eloquence," said bolingbroke, "must flow like a stream that is fed by an abundant spring, and not spout forth a little frothy water on some gaudy day and remain dry the rest of the year." it is customary for the parliamentary novice to crave the indulgence of the house for such faults of manner or style as may be the result of youth or inexperience. this modest attitude on the part of a speaker inspires his audience favourably; they become infused with a glow of conscious superiority which is most agreeable and inclines them to listen with a kindly ear to the utterances of the budding politician. not always, however, is this humility expressed. william cobbett began his maiden speech on january , , by remarking that in the short period during which he had sat in the house he had heard a great deal of vain and unprofitable conversation.[ ] hunt, the preston demagogue, showed his contempt for the commons and his own self-assurance by speaking six times on six different subjects on the very first night of his introduction.[ ] william cowper, afterwards lord chancellor, addressed the house three times on the day he took his seat. [ ] dalling's "historical characters," vol. ii. p. . [ ] barrow's "mirror of parliament" ( ). in the house of lords, too, can be heard maiden speeches delivered in many varying styles. one perhaps may be made by an ex-cabinet minister, a distinguished member of parliament recently promoted to the upper house, apologising in abject tones for his lack of experience, and commending his humble efforts to the indulgence of his audience. another emanates from some youthful nobleman who has just succeeded to a peerage, whose political experience has yet to be won, and who addresses his peers in the didactic fashion of a headmaster lecturing a form of rather unintelligent schoolboys. it is not so very long ago that a young peer--who has since made the acquaintance of most divisions of the supreme court, from the bankruptcy to the divorce--astonished and entertained his colleagues by closing his peroration with a fervent prayer that god might long spare him to assist in their lordships' deliberations. there is a golden mean between the two styles, the humble and the haughty, which it is well for the embryo politician to cultivate before he attempts to impress parliament with his eloquence. oratory has been defined in many different ways by many different writers. lord chesterfield and dr. johnson, respectively, described it as the power of persuading people, or of beating down an adversary's arguments and putting better ones in their place. the business of the orator, according to sir james mackintosh, is to state plainly, to reason calmly, to seem transported into vehemence by his feelings, and roused into splendid imagery or description by his subject, but always to return to fact and argument, as that on which alone he is earnestly bent.[ ] gladstone, again, defined oratory as the speaker's power of receiving from his audience in a vapour that which he pours back upon them in a flood. [ ] sir j. mackintosh's "memoirs," vol. ii p. . oratory is perhaps the gift of the gods, but skill in speaking is undoubtedly an art that can be acquired by practice, if sought diligently and with patience. demosthenes gloried in the smell of the lamp; cicero learnt every speech by heart. the former would go down to the seashore on a stormy day, fill his mouth with pebbles, and speak loudly to the ocean, thus accustoming himself to the murmur of popular assemblies; the latter on one occasion rehearsed a speech so diligently that he had little strength left to deliver it on the following day. the sight of a modern politician sitting on the pier at brighton delivering a marine address as intelligibly as a mouthful of gravel would permit, is one that would only excite feelings of alarm in the bosoms of his friends; the thought of a cabinet minister fainting before his looking-glass, as the result of an excessive rehearsal of his peroration, is more pathetic than practical. there is, however, nothing to prevent a member of parliament from practising his elocution upon the trees of the forest, as grattan did,[ ] or upon the house of commons itself, and it is thus alone that he will acquire proficiency in that art in which it is so desirable for the statesman to excel. "it is absolutely necessary for you to speak in parliament," lord chesterfield wrote to his long-suffering son. "it requires only a little human attention and no supernatural gifts."[ ] [ ] grattan used to walk about the park at windsor haranguing the oaks in a loud voice. a passer-by once found him apostrophising an empty gibbet. "how did you get down?" asked the stranger politely. o'flanagan, "irish chancellors," vol. ii. p. . [ ] letters, vol. ii. pp. - . charles james fox resolved, when young, to speak at least once every night in the house. during five whole sessions he held manfully to this resolution, with the exception of one single evening--an exception which he afterwards regretted. he thus became the most brilliant debater that ever lived, "vehement in his elocution, ardent in his language, prompt in his invention of argument, adroit in its use."[ ] he was, however, too impetuous to be as great an orator as his rival pitt, whose majestic eloquence was almost divine,[ ] and offended continually by the tautology of his diction and the constant repetition of his arguments. the hesitation and lack of grace of his delivery detracted greatly from the force of his speeches; the keenness of his sabre, as walpole said, was blunted by the difficulty with which he drew it from the scabbard.[ ] in a comparison of the two statesmen, flood calls pitt's speeches "didactic declamations," and those of fox "argumentative conversations."[ ] [ ] "lord colchester's diary," vol. i. p. . [ ] "pitt spoke like ten thousand angels," wrote richard grenville to george grenville in november, ("grenville papers," vol. i. p. ). [ ] "memoirs," vol. i. p. . [ ] prior's "life of malone," p. . it was said that it required great mental exertion to follow fox while he was speaking, but none to remember what he had said; but that it was easy to follow pitt, but hard to remember what there was in his speech that had pleased one. the difference between the two men was the difference between the orator and the debater. it resulted largely from the fact that the one gave much time to the preparation of his speeches, while the other relied upon the inspiration of the moment. pitt, as porson says, carefully considered his sentences before he uttered them; fox threw himself into the middle of his, "and left it to god almighty to get him out again."[ ] if the former was the more dignified as a speaker, the latter scored by being always so terribly in earnest. grattan, who affirmed that pitt's eloquence marked an era in the senate, that it resembled "sometimes the thunder, and sometimes the music, of the spheres," and admitted that pitt was right nine times for once that fox was right, declared that that once of fox was worth all the other nine times of pitt.[ ] [ ] samuel roger's "recollections," p. . [ ] "memoirs of thomas moore," vol. iv. p. . (francis howard compared pitt's eloquence to handel's music, see "memoirs of francis howard," vol. i. p. .) no doubt the parliament of those days was not so critical a body as it has since become. lord chesterfield, at least, held it in the profoundest contempt. "when i first came into the house of commons," he says, "i respected that assembly as a venerable one; and felt a certain awe upon me; but, upon better acquaintance, that awe soon vanished; and i discovered that, of the five hundred and sixty, not above thirty could understand reason, and that all the rest were _peuple_; that those thirty only required plain common-sense, dressed up in good language; and that all the others only required flowing and harmonious periods, whether they conveyed any meaning or not; having ears to hear, but not sense enough to judge."[ ] this scathing indictment of the intelligence of the commons may possibly have been true at the time when it was written: it would certainly not be applicable to-day. meaningless periods, however harmonious, are no longer tolerated. in lord chesterfield's day, however, sound seems to have been more important than sense, as may be gathered from an account he gives elsewhere of a speech made in in the house of lords. he was speaking upon a bill for the reform of the calendar, a subject upon which he knew absolutely nothing. to conceal his ignorance he conceived the idea of giving the house an historical account of calendars generally, from ancient egyptian to modern times, being particularly attentive to the choice of his words, to the harmony of his periods, and to his elocution. the peers were enchanted. "they thought i informed," he explains, "because i pleased them; and many of them said that i had made the whole very clear to them, when, god knows, i had not even attempted it."[ ] [ ] "letters to his son," vol. ii. p. . [ ] "letters," ii. . the gift of oratory is most certainly heaven-born, but its development demands a vast amount of purely mundane labour. the best speeches have ever been those in the preparation of which the most time and trouble have been expended. burke's masterpieces were essays, laboriously constructed in the study; sheridan's elaborate impromptus were carefully devised beforehand, and, if successful, occasionally repeated.[ ] chatham, whose wonderful dominion over the house does not perhaps appear in his speeches, chose his words with the greatest care, and confided to a friend that in order to improve his vocabulary he had read "bailey's dictionary" twice through from beginning to end. [ ] "the hon. gentleman has applied to his imagination for his facts, and to his memory for his wit," is a remark he made in different forms on more than one occasion. see harford's "wilberforce," p. ; brougham's "sketches," vol. iii. p. , etc. the fervid eloquence of such men as plunket, macaulay, brougham, and canning--"the last of the rhetoricians"--was the fruit of many an hour of laborious thought and study. canning especially never spared himself. he would draw up for use in the house a paper, on which were written the heads of the subjects which he intended to touch upon. these heads were numbered, and the numbers sometimes extended to four or five hundred. lord north, when he lost the thread of his discourse, would look through his notes with the utmost nonchalance, seeking the cue which was to lead him to further flights of eloquence. "it is not on this side of the paper, mr. speaker," he would declaim, still speaking in his oratorical tone; "neither is it on the other side!" then, perhaps, he would suddenly come upon the desired note, and continue his unbroken oration without a sign of further hesitation.[ ] bright used to provide himself with small slips of paper, inscribed with his bon-mots, which he drew from his pocket as occasion required. he excelled, nevertheless, in scathing repartee. once, during his absence through illness, a noble lord stated publicly that bright had been afflicted by providence with a disease of the brain as a punishment for his misuse of his talents. "it may be so," said bright, on his return to the house, "but in any case it will be some consolation to the friends and family of the noble lord to know that the disease is one which even providence could not inflict upon him."[ ] he did not always get the best of it, however, and when he ridiculed lord john manners for the youthful couplet-- "let wealth and commerce, laws and learning die, but leave us still our old nobility!" the author justly retorted that he would far sooner be the foolish young man who wrote those lines than the malignant old man who quoted them. [ ] stapleton's "life of canning," p. . [ ] "men and manners in parliament," pp. - . that speeches should be as effective when read as when delivered is the highest quality of oratory. for this reason, perhaps, some speakers write out their speeches and commit them to memory. disraeli did so with his more important orations, a fact which greatly enhances the pleasure of their perusal. macaulay followed the same practice, and, indeed, it is said that the excessive elaboration of his oratory sometimes weakened its effect. lord randolph churchill's earlier speeches were all memorised in this fashion. but it is not every man whose memory is sufficiently retentive to enable him to accomplish this feat, and a breakdown in the very middle of a humorous anecdote thoughtfully interspersed in a speech is a catastrophe which casts ridicule upon the speaker.[ ] [ ] mr. r. tennant, member for belfast, in , on o'connell's motion for a repeal of the union, made a speech which he had learnt by heart and sent to the papers, which lasted three and a half hours. grant's "recollections," p. . though matter may be a most important element in parliamentary speaking, manner undoubtedly counts for a good deal. demosthenes practised declaiming with sharp weapons suspended above him so as to learn to keep still, and, as we have already seen, had some obscure reason for filling his mouth with pebbles. neither of these practices is to be commended to modern orators, many of whom already speak as though their mouths were filled with hot potatoes, while their habitual gesticulations, if made in the neighbourhood of dependent cutlery, would result in reducing their bodies to one huge wound. sir watkin wynne and his brother were long known in the house of commons as "bubble and squeak," the former's voice being a smothered mumble suggestive of suppressed thunder, the latter's a childish treble. mannerisms of gesture, as well as of speech, are easily contracted. lord mahon, "out-roaring torrents in their course," reinforced his stentorian lungs by violent gestures which were at times a source of bodily danger to his friends. once, when speaking on a bill he had brought in for the suppression of smuggling, he declared that this crime must be knocked on the head with one blow. to emphasize his meaning, he dealt the unfortunate pitt, who was sitting just in front of him, a violent buffet on the head, much to the amusement of the house.[ ] the gesticulations of sir charles wetherell, the well-known member, were less dangerous, if quainter. he used to unbutton his braces in a nervous fashion while addressing the house, leaving between his upper and lower garments an interregnum to which speaker manners sutton once alluded as the honourable gentleman's only lucid interval. the late lord goschen would grasp himself firmly by the lapel of his coat, as though (to quote a well-known parliamentary writer) "otherwise he might run away and leave matters to explain themselves."[ ] [ ] wraxall's "memoirs," vol. iii. p. . [ ] "men and manners in parliament," p. . (further on the writer describes the peculiarities of another member who used to fold his arms tightly across his chest when he spoke. thereafter a constant struggle went on, the arms restlessly battling to get free, and the speaker insisting that they should remain and hear the speech out, p. .) parliamentary eloquence to-day makes up in quantity for what it lacks in quality. the number of members who follow the advice of the psalmist and earn a reputation for wisdom by a continual policy of eloquent silence[ ] has dwindled to vanishing point, since to speak in parliament has come to be regarded as part of a member's duty to his constituents. in gladstone's first session, in , less than speeches were made in the house of commons; fifty years later the number had increased to , ; to-day the steadily growing bulk of each volume of the "parliamentary debates" testifies to the swelling flood of oratory which is annually let loose within the precincts of parliament. and if la rochefoucauld's maxim be true, that we readily pardon those who bore us, but never those whom we bore, the house of commons has need of a most forgiving spirit to listen patiently to so much of what can only be described as _vox et praeterea nihil_. [ ] "even a fool, when he holdeth his peace, is counted wise; and he that shutteth his lips is esteemed a man of understanding." the level of eloquence is, no doubt, higher in the house of lords than elsewhere. peers include a greater number of orators among their numbers; opportunities for a display of their talents are more rare; their powers are not dissipated in prolonged debates, as in the commons, but are reserved for full-dress occasions. in neither house nowadays is there any exhibition of that old-fashioned rhetoric, florid and flamboyant, which was once so popular. what mackintosh calls "an elevated kind of after-dinner conversation," such as lord salisbury affected so successfully, is the form taken by modern parliamentary eloquence. there are no appeals to sentiment, no quotations from the classics, no bombastic declamations.[ ] the house of commons is still "a mob of gentlemen, the greater part of whom are neither without talent nor information,"[ ] and with such an audience learned generalities are out of place. passion has to a large extent given way to business, and in parliament to-day are rarely heard those "splendid common-places of the first-rate rhetorician," which lord morley considers necessary to sway assemblies. [ ] "don't quote latin. say what you have to say and then sit down!" was the duke of wellington's excellent advice to a young member. walter bagehot, on the other hand, stated that he had heard an experienced financier say, "if you want to raise a certain cheer in the house of commons, make a general panegyric on economy; if you want to invite a sure defeat, propose a particular saving!" "the english constitution," p. . [ ] dalling's "historical characters," vol. ii. p. . we live in a material age. the flowers of rhetoric bloom no longer in the cold business-like atmosphere of the parliamentary garden; only the more practical but unromantic vegetables remain. the rich embroideries of trope and metaphor have been roughly torn from modern speech, leaving the bare skeleton of reason exposed to the public gaze. the grandiose orator of the past, with his ornate phraseology, his graceful periods, his quotations from the poets, has been ousted by the passionless debater, flinging, like the improvident o'connell, his brood of robust thoughts into the world, without a rag to cover them. no one to-day would dream of expending fifty shillings--let alone fifty guineas--for the privilege of hearing a modern sheridan address a twentieth-century parliament; no modern grattan (as sheil might say) shatters the pinnacles of this establishment with the lightning of his eloquence. the successful parliamentary speaker is no longer one who is able, in the words of macaulay, to produce with rapidity a series of stirring but transitory impressions, to excite the minds of five hundred gentlemen at midnight, without saying anything that any of them will remember in the morning.[ ] rather is he the cold judicious politician who chooses his words less for their beauty than for their immunity from subsequent perversion, who can crystallise in a few brief sentences, within the compass of a few minutes, the opinions that it would have taken his ancestors as many hours to express in the turgid rhetoric of a bygone age. the orator--as the name was once understood--is now a _rara avis_, but seldom raising his tuneful voice above the raucous cawing of his fellows. and whoever feels with gibbon that the great speakers fill him with despair, and the bad ones with terror, will leave the precincts of parliament to-day more often terrorstricken than desperate. that this should be so is no reason for giving way to gloom or sorrow. parliamentary eloquence is not necessarily the sign of a country's greatness. the english parliament, which began by acclaiming burke as the prince of orators, soon became indifferent to his powers, and ended by labelling him the "dinner bell." fox has left no memorial of any good wrought by his oratory. "neither the habeas corpus act, nor the bill of rights, nor magna charta originated in eloquence," and if it be true that "a senate of orators is a symptom of material decay,"[ ] we may look forward to the future of england with calm and perfect confidence. [ ] "essays," vol. ii. p. . [ ] sir h. crabb robinson's "diary, reminiscences and correspondence," vol. i. p. . chapter xiii parliament at work--( ) in their efforts to grapple successfully with the ever-increasing mass of business brought before them, modern parliaments show a tendency to prolong their labours to an ever-increasing extent. each succeeding session lengthens, as macaulay said, "like a human hair in the mouth." in tudor times the statutes to be passed were few in number, and the time occupied in legislation was consequently short. members returned by "rotten" boroughs had no temptation to be prolix; their seats did not depend upon their parliamentary exertions, and their speeches were therefore commendably brief. parliament to-day is often censured for the sterility of its legislative output, but during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries legislation in the modern sense of the word scarcely existed at all. its time was chiefly spent in the discussion of libellous books and in disputes over constitutional questions of privilege. october and november were the months fixed for the meeting of parliament in hanoverian times, and the prorogation usually took place in april. from to it met after christmas. since february has been the month generally chosen. nowadays, not only have the sessions grown much longer--even the feast of st. grouse on the th of august is no longer observed by politicians--but the hours of each sitting have been considerably extended. the session of was prolonged over days; the parliament of met on november and sat until august of the following year, and during the last two months of that session the house of commons continued sitting for fifteen out of every twenty-four hours. in , which contained two sessions, the house sat for days, and the session of lasted from february till december , during the latter weeks of which all-night sittings were of the commonest occurrence. in proportion as the daily labours of the legislature increased the hour for commencing work became later and later. in charles i.'s time parliament often met as early as a.m., and would sit until twelve, the afternoon being devoted to the work of the committees.[ ] later on the hour of meeting was fixed for or a.m., and the house usually rose at p.m., or earlier. the commons always showed the strongest disinclination to sit in the afternoon, either because the midday meal did not leave them in a fit condition to legislate, or because no regular provision was made for lighting the house when twilight fell. "this council is a grave council and sober," said a member in , and "ought not to do things in the dark," and the speaker would occasionally regard his inability to distinguish one member from another as a sufficient excuse for adjourning the house.[ ] the practice of sitting regularly after dark did not commence until the year , when, by an order of the house, the sergeant-at-arms was directed to bring in candles as soon as daylight failed. prior to that year the employment of artificial light had to be made the subject of a special motion, and sergeants were sometimes reprimanded for providing candles without the necessary order. [ ] on sunday, august , , both houses attended divine service at st. margaret's church at a.m., after which they sat in the house all the morning, and in the afternoon the king met them in the banqueting room at whitehall. "duirnall occurrences," p. . [ ] forster's "grand remonstrance," p. . during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the hours of sitting varied from time to time. up to the house of commons sat from a.m. until . p.m. in that year the time for meeting was fixed at p.m. and this was subsequently postponed for an hour. saturday and sunday have long been recognised as regular parliamentary holidays, and on one other day in the week--either a wednesday or friday--the house of commons has adjourned at an earlier hour than usual. this, however, was not always the case. in stuart times parliament sometimes sat on sunday and even on christmas day,[ ] and it was on a sunday--december , --that the reform bill was read a second time. this, however, was an exceptional instance, the adjournment over saturday having been initiated by sir robert walpole, who, as a keen sportsman, was always anxious to get away to the country, and believed that, as dryden says, it were: "better to hunt in fields for health unbought, than fee the doctor for his noxious draught." [ ] elsynge's "ancient method of holding parliaments," pp. - . in more recent times it became the fashion to adjourn the house on derby day, in order to allow legislators to take part in the sport of kings. in , this adjournment was made the subject of a heated debate, and though the division that ensued resulted in a large majority for the holiday-makers, the claims of sport gradually gave way to the more pressing demands of business, and ten years later, when the prevention of crimes (ireland) act was under discussion, the matter was considered too serious to allow of the usual derby day adjournment. the late sir wilfrid lawson once cynically argued that if the derby day became a recognised official holiday the speaker of the house of commons ought to go to epsom in his state-coach, "as he did at the thanksgiving for the prince of wales's recovery." the game of politics is nowadays treated more gravely than ever, and the most frivolous of modern politicians would scarcely dream of suggesting that the stern business of westminster should be deserted for the pleasures of epsom downs. the house of lords has always, until a year or two ago, adjourned over ash wednesday and ascension day, on the ground that if they met they would be taken to church at the abbey; but lately they have braved this terror and nothing so serious has happened. prior to the house of lords met at five o'clock in the afternoon; they now meet three-quarters of an hour earlier.[ ] except under circumstances of special pressure they take holidays on friday and saturday, and sunday is, of course, for them, as for everybody else, a day of complete rest. occasionally on other days the amount of work to be undertaken in the upper house is so small as to be accomplished in a few minutes. the lords, as has been irreverently observed, often sit scarcely long enough to boil an egg, and it is only towards the end of the session that they are compelled to extend their deliberations beyond the dinner-hour.[ ] [ ] the judicial sittings of the house begin at . a.m. [ ] the proceedings very often resemble those of the old irish house of lords, which we find recorded in the journals as "prayers. ordered, that the judges be covered. adjourned." see charlemont's "memoirs," vol. i. p. . the labours of the commons are more arduous, and entail longer hours of sitting. on monday, tuesday, wednesday, and thursday the house meets at . p.m. and continues sitting until p.m., unless the day's business has been disposed of before that hour. at eleven o'clock the speaker interrupts business, after which no opposed matter can be dealt with, but, by a standing order, it is permissible for a minister of the crown, at the commencement of the day's work, to move the suspension of the eleven o'clock rule. in this case no interruption takes place until the business under discussion is finished. all-night sittings are not uncommon nowadays, but in former times they occurred but rarely. in , the speaker once sat in the chair for seventeen hours at a stretch, and some fifty years later we find the commons keeping an occasional all-night vigil. sir samuel romilly left the house one evening to go to bed, and returned the next morning to find his colleagues still sitting. he began his speech by saying that he made no apology for rising to address the house at such a time, as seven o'clock was his usual hour for "getting up."[ ] in , the commons sat for a day and night, and again in , the sitting on the latter occasion lasting forty-one hours; and since that day many sittings have been prolonged over the twenty-four hours. in , the house sat after a.m. o'clock on no less than thirty-seven occasions, after a.m. on ten occasions, and once as late as nine o'clock in the morning. [ ] palgrave's "house of commons," p. . friday is, so to speak, a half-holiday for the commons. on that day the house meets at noon, the interruption of business occurs at five o'clock, and, no matter what subject is under discussion, the house adjourns at . p.m. before , wednesday was the day chosen for the short sitting, but the desire of many members to escape from london at the end of the week led to a change, and it is now possible for representatives from the most distant parts of england to pay flying weekly visits to their homes or constituencies. for a few years recently the house of commons always enjoyed an evening interval for dinner, but this agreeable adjournment was reluctantly sacrificed in , and the "speaker's chop" is now nothing but a fragrant memory. the dinner-hour is much too precious to be wasted at any table other than that of the house, for at . on many days any private business not disposed of at the beginning of the sitting is given precedence of all else, and what is known as "opposed" private business is also taken between that hour and . p.m.[ ] [ ] the fact of any single member taking objection to a motion is sufficient to include it among "opposed" business, and in an assembly of partisans it would be too much to expect that any private member's bill should avoid giving grounds of objection to at least one opponent. for the information of members a daily "notice paper" is published in two editions--a blue edition in the morning, and a white one in the early afternoon--containing the orders of the day and all notices of motions. to this is attached the "votes and proceedings," division lists, and an account of the business accomplished at the last sitting. in the "order book" of the house, also published daily, is a list of all future business definitely assigned to any particular sitting; while once a week a catalogue of all public bills that have been introduced, and some report of their progress, is also included. by no means the least arduous of the many labours of parliament are those which are undertaken by legislators serving upon the various committees, of which the public knows so little, but whose work is very necessary to the carrying on of public business. the appointment of select committees in both houses has been practised ever since the earliest days of parliament. the duties of these subsidiary bodies, which may be appointed for any purpose, are prescribed by the terms of the reference: they may collect facts for future legislation, investigate conduct, or examine the terms of a bill referred to them, thus saving the time of the house. to them go all opposed private bills, when counsel appear to argue the merits of clashing interests. the system of committees perhaps originated in the conferences held in former times by the two houses in the painted chamber. there are records of small deliberative bodies, somewhat similar in character to the modern committees, in the middle of the sixteenth century. by the time queen elizabeth came to the throne such committees were common, and were usually composed of members of one or other house. select committees did not exist until the eighteenth century, and were originally semi-judicial in character. all members of the house of commons are subject to be called upon to serve on select committees, being chosen for the purpose by a committee of selection, and the work thus done outside the actual chamber adds considerably to the daily labours of politicians. no member may refuse to serve, if called upon to do so, and when, in , mr. smith o'brien declined to sit on an english railway committee, he was confined in the clock tower in the custody of the sergeant-at-arms. the whole house can also resolve itself at any time into a committee, when its function becomes one of "deliberation rather than inquiry."[ ] every public bill not referred to a grand committee must be considered in a committee of the whole house, and, indeed, the greater part of each session is occupied by this stage of legislation. the committee of supply and the committee of ways and means are both "committees of the whole house," and are appointed to discuss the financial projects of the government, the one to supervise expenditure, the other to devise taxation. [ ] may, p. . a committee of the whole house differs in no respect from the house itself, save that it is presided over by a chairman in place of the speaker, and that the mace is removed from the table. there are also some changes in the procedure of debate, as, for example, the cancelling of the rule forbidding a member to speak twice on the same question. the idea of forming the house itself into a committee has developed, like so many parliamentary institutions, gradually and almost unconsciously. in days when the speaker was too often the spy of the king it was considered advisable to get rid of him, and this could best be done by turning the house into a committee and putting some other member in the chair. the chairman of committees in the lords, and the chairman of ways and means, or his deputy, in the commons, takes the chair when the house is in committee, but it is permissible for either house to nominate any one of their number as a temporary chairman.[ ] [ ] in , during the long parliament, hyde was appointed chairman of committees, so as to get him out of the way, that he might not obstruct business by too much speaking. parry's "parliaments of england," p. . as a substitute for committees of the whole house in the commons, two large standing committees, sometimes called grand committees, numbering from sixty to eighty members, are appointed to consider respectively all bills relating to law and trade committed to them by the house. besides the smaller committees already referred to there are sessional committees, appointed for each session, consisting of from eight to twelve members--as, for instance, the committee on public accounts, which meets once a week to look into the department of the auditor-general--which control the internal arrangements of the house; and joint committees of the two houses, which discuss matters in which both are interested. in the lords also standing committees were instituted in , but these were to supplement and not supersede the whole house committee stage, and after an experience of more than twenty years have proved their insufficient utility, they were abolished on june , . in the sixteenth century committees generally met outside the house, in the star chamber, in lincoln's inn, or elsewhere, but they have not done so for many years, numerous committee-rooms being nowadays provided within the precincts of the house. at the commencement of every session the house of lords elects a chairman of committees from among its own members. his duty it is to preside over committees of the whole house, or over select committees on whom the power of appointing their own chairman is not expressly conferred. he is a salaried official of parliament, and receives a sum of £ a year for his services. similar duties are undertaken in the house of commons by a chairman of committees and a deputy chairman, at salaries of £ and £ respectively. the crown usually appoints by commission one or more lords to supply the place of lord chancellor, should that official be unavoidably absent. on emergency it may be moved that any lord present may be appointed temporarily to sit speaker. in the house of commons the chairman of ways and means and the deputy chairman are similarly empowered to replace the speaker when absent. the problem of providing a substitute for the speaker was not settled until , prior to which date no steps seem to have been taken to fill the chair in the event of a speaker's sudden illness or absence. it appears to have been considered inadvisable to frame any scheme of relief which should facilitate his frequent absence. it was, further, the general sense of the house that no temporary president could command that implicit acquiescence in the rulings of the chair which is so necessary for the maintenance of order in debate. to the chairman of committees, whom one would regard as a natural substitute for the speaker, the house has never been willing to accord the complete consideration to which the chair is entitled; the fact that he is liable at any moment to sink again into the body of the house robs this official of much of his authority. in the reign of james i. we find a chairman complaining that some member had threatened to "pull him out of the chair, that he should put no more tricks upon the house." and in another member, fuller by name, who had lost the chairman's eye and his own temper, called that official a "d---- insignificant puppy," and said that he didn't care a snap of the fingers for him or for the house either.[ ] [ ] lytton's "life of palmerston," vol. i. p. . the question of replacing the speaker has, therefore, always been a delicate one, and for many years no attempt was made to solve it. in , owing to the illness of sir thomas widdrington, another member occupied the chair for a period of a few weeks, and, during the next few years, several speakers complained of ill-health and were temporarily relieved. from , when the journals commence, to , the speaker was only absent on twelve occasions, and during the next hundred years the records of the house show only six cases of absence. the inconvenience caused by the rule which necessitated an adjournment on such occasions--curiously few in number though they were--can readily be imagined. on the death of queen anne, in , the whole proceedings of parliament were delayed, and the sittings postponed from day to day owing to the speaker being away in the country and taking a long time to travel to london. the duty of being ever in his place at times involved great hardships. addington was obliged to take the chair three days after the death of his father, persevering by a painful effort in this stern adherence to the path of duty.[ ] [ ] pellew's "life of sidmouth," vol. i. p. . in the year , a prolonged session was the cause of many members absenting themselves from their places in the house of commons. in order to ensure a more general attendance it was then determined that the speaker should not take the chair unless there were at least forty members present in the house. this rule still holds good, and to-day, if a quorum of forty is not obtainable before four o'clock, the sitting is suspended until that hour. should the same difficulty arise after four o'clock, the house is adjourned until the next sitting day.[ ] an exception is made in favour of the hour between . and . , but if a division be taken during that hour in the absence of a quorum, the business in debate must be postponed and the next business brought on. when, too, a message from the crown is delivered, the house of commons is held to be "made" even though forty members are not present. on such an occasion the business of the day can be proceeded with so long as no notice is taken of the absence of a quorum. [ ] the right of "counting out" the house was not exercised until . on may , , the commons failed to "make the house" for the first time since april , . see irving's "annals of our time," vol. ii. p. . it is not the speaker's (or chairman's) duty to notice the absence of a quorum, but if his attention is drawn to it by a member he must at once rise in his place and proceed to count the house. there is a well-known story of a prolix member speaking to empty benches in the commons who referred sarcastically to the packed audience hanging upon his words, and was interrupted by the speaker, who at once proceeded to "count out" the house, and put an end to the sitting as well as to the member's oration. the speaker's inability to count the house out of his own accord has occasionally given rise to inconvenient situations. lord george gordon once rose and requested permission to read from a book, which was granted. he then proceeded to read the bible until the house dwindled from upwards of four hundred members to two, namely, the speaker and lord george himself, who had the indecency to keep the former in the chair till the candles were "fairly in the socket."[ ] [ ] pearson's "political dictionary," pp. - . in the house of lords three peers form a quorum. if, however, thirty lords are not present on a division upon any stage of a bill, the question is declared to be not decided, and the debate is adjourned until the next sitting. lord rosebery, in , recalled an occasion when a noble lord, lord leitrim, addressed a quorum of the house, consisting, besides himself, of the lord chancellor and the minister whose duty it was to answer him, for four mortal hours. another instance of the same kind is supposed to have occurred when lord lyndhurst was on the woolsack and a noble lord spoke at considerable length to an audience of even smaller proportions. after a time the chancellor became very weary and could scarcely conceal his impatience. "this is too bad," he said at length, "can't you stop?" still, the peer prosed on, showing no sign of reaching his peroration. finally, lyndhurst could stand it no longer. "by jove," he cried, suddenly inspired with a brilliant idea, "i will count you out!" as he and the speaker only were present in the house at the time, the chancellor was able to do this, and the long-winded nobleman was effectually silenced. in early times the daily sittings of parliament were preceded by mass held in st. stephen's chapel. later on it became the custom for the lords to repair to the abbey, and the commons to st. margaret's church, for a brief morning service. in the parliaments of queen elizabeth the litany was read daily, and a short prayer offered up by the speaker at the meeting of the house. prior to , no regular daily prayers were held, but on the first five days of any parliament "an archbishop, bishop or famous clerk, discrete and eloquent," preached to the house.[ ] this practice long continued, and we read of "dr. burgesse and master marshal," preaching to parliament on a fast day in the year for "at least seven hours betwixt them"[ ]--an occasion when their eloquence seems to have outrun their discretion. [ ] "the manner of holding parliaments prior to the reign of queen elizabeth." "somers tract," p. . [ ] "diurnall occurrences," p. . nineteen years later richard cromwell appointed the first regular chaplain to relieve the speaker and the discreet and eloquent prelates and clerks of their duties. this official enjoyed no fixed emoluments, but was upheld and nourished by the consciousness of duty nobly done and the hope of subsequent preferment. his counterpart to-day is appointed by the speaker and paid by the house, and his duties consist in reading the three brief prayers with which each daily session of the house commences.[ ] in the lords this task is undertaken by the bishops in rotation. [ ] in , during the temporary absence of the chaplain, the speaker read prayers himself. when prayers are over in the lower house any "private business" that has to be taken is called on, and private bills pass through the initiatory stages of their career. the procedure in this case is, as a rule, purely formal, and lasts but a short time. the dispatch of private business is immediately followed by the oral presentation of petitions by those members who have informed the speaker of their intention to do so. in these days of open courts of justice, a free press, and wholesale publicity the need for petitions is not so great as it was in times when the voice of the people could not always obtain a hearing. to-day the papers are only too ready to lend their columns to the airing of any grievance, real or imaginary, and politicians are not unwilling to make party capital out of any individual instances of apparent injustice or oppression that may be brought to their notice. a hundred years ago all petitions were read to the house by the members presenting them, and lengthy discussions often ensued. much waste of time resulted from this practice, and the frequent arrival at westminster of large bodies of petitioners caused great inconvenience, and sometimes led to rioting. in , a huge crowd of women completely blocked the entrance of the house. they were led by a certain mrs. anne stagg, "a gentlewoman and brewer's wife," and their object was to present a petition directed against the popish bishops.[ ] the sergeant of the parliamentary guard appealed to the house for advice as to how he should treat these women, and was told to speak them fair and send them away. this he accordingly proceeded to do, but not without much difficulty. [ ] "parl. hist." ii. . butler refers to them in "hudibras": "the oyster women lock'd their fish up, and trudg'd away to cry 'no bishop!'" two years later three thousand other "mean women," wearing white ribbons in their hats, arrived at westminster with another petition. "peace! peace!" they cried, in a manner which was little calculated to gain that which they were seeking. "give us those traitors that are against peace, that we may tear them to pieces! give us that dog pym!" the conduct of these viragoes at length became so unruly that the trained bands were sent for, and the order was eventually given to fire upon the mob. "when the gentle sex can so flagrantly renounce their character, and make such formidable attacks on the men," says a contemporary historian, "they certainly forfeit the polite treatment due to them as women"--and in this case their forgetfulness cost them the loss of several lives.[ ] [ ] noorthouck's "a new history of london," p. . scenes of a similar character occurred in the reign of george iii., when the gordon rioters stormed the houses of parliament, shouting "no popery!" in , a mob of matchmakers marched to westminster to protest against a tax on matches, and were dispersed by the police. in still more recent times female deputations in favour of woman's suffrage, accompanied by a mob of inquisitive sightseers and a section of the criminal classes, have besieged the palace of westminster in a vain attempt to gain admittance to the house of commons. to-day, under the provisions of the one mile act of george iii.--the result of an attack made upon the regent on his way from the opening of parliament in --no assembly of petitioners or public meeting is allowed within a mile of the palace of westminster. petitions themselves are treated in a summary manner which permits of little time being wasted. no debate is permitted upon the subjects raised by petitions, and the formal method of presentation has given place to a more satisfactory (if somewhat perfunctory) fashion of dealing with them. behind the speaker's chair hangs a large bag. in this a petition may be placed, at any time during a sitting, by the member in charge of it. thence it is sent to the committee on public petitions, and presumably never heard of again. petitions sometimes contain so many signatures, and are consequently so bulky, that no earthly bag could possibly contain them. in , for instance, a petition eight miles in length, in favour of the local taxation bill, was presented to parliament, and in another, almost as voluminous, provided a material protest against the licensing bill. petitions of such proportions are carried into the house on the shoulders of stout officials, and, after reposing for a brief space upon the floor, are presently borne away to be no more seen or remembered. when petitions have been disposed of, motions for unopposed returns are taken, and other formal business; and then follows question-time, perhaps one of the most important hours of the parliamentary day, when a hitherto languid house begins to take some interest in the proceedings. politicians would appear to be among the most inquisitive individuals on the face of the globe; their thirst for general information is as insatiable as it is amazing. the time spent by various government officials in pandering to this craving for knowledge on the part of legislators is very considerable: it has even been hinted that the clerks at the irish office are employed exclusively upon the task of answering conundrums set by members of the house of commons. nothing is too insignificant, no matter is too sacred, to be made the subject of a question in the house. but, although any member has a perfect right to apply for a return, or to ask any question he pleases, within certain bounds, a minister of the crown may always refuse to supply the return, or decline to answer the question; nor need he give any reason for so doing. this rule provides a loophole for a minister who is confronted with an awkward question to which it would need the powers of subtlety and casuistry of a gladstone to find a non-committal reply.[ ] [ ] when during garibaldi's visit to london, some one suggested that he should marry a wealthy widow with whom he spent much of his time it was objected that he already had a wife living. "never mind," said a wag, "we will get gladstone to explain her away!" a member of lord aberdeen's ministry in was attacked for not rendering a certain return that had been applied for. he made no comment at the time, but on a subsequent occasion produced and laid on the table of the house a huge folio volume weighing lbs. and containing seventy-two reams of foolscap. the compilation of this return, as he informed the house, had caused the dispatch of , circular letters and the cataloguing and tabulating of , replies. the result of the figures mentioned therein had not been arrived at, the minister went on to explain, as it would have taken two clerks a whole year to add them up. further, he added, the return, if completed, would afford no information beyond that which the house already possessed.[ ] [ ] palgrave's "house of commons," p. . ever since , a written instead of an oral reply can be rendered to all questions that are not marked with an asterisk by the member who asks them. no questions may be asked after a certain hour, and the answers to those that have not been reached at that hour, as well as to those that are not marked with an asterisk, are printed and circulated, thus saving a great deal of valuable time. questions must be brief and relevant. no member may ask an excessive or unreasonable number, nor may he couch them in lengthy terms. they may not be framed argumentatively nor contain personal charges against individuals. the speaker is empowered to disallow any question if he thinks fit, and often interposes to check supplementary questions which are not relevant, or which constitute an abuse of the right to interrogate ministers; and the latter are always at liberty to refuse an answer on the grounds that a reply would be contrary to the public interest. whenever our relations with foreign powers are in any way strained, certain members seem to take a delight in asking questions calculated to hamper the movements of the foreign office, or to provide other nations with all the secret information they desire. and it is not always expedient or easy for ministers to refuse to satisfy the thirst for knowledge of their friends or opponents, or to try and choke off the inquisitive or importunate with evasive answers. it was always said that "darby griffith destroyed lord palmerston's first government," by asking perpetual questions which the premier answered with a "cheerful impertinence which hurt his parliamentary power."[ ] and the amount of patience and tact displayed by modern ministers in replying to frivolous or petty queries is always a subject of admiration to the stranger. [ ] bagehot's "english constitution," p. . members no doubt feel it their duty to provide their constituencies with some material evidence of their parliamentary labours, and no easier method can be imagined than the asking of questions on subjects in which they possibly take not the slightest interest. some politicians openly confess that their secretaries have orders to make out a regular weekly list of conundrums which they can hurl at the heads of unoffending ministers, with no other purpose than that of showing their constituents that they are taking an active interest in the affairs of the nation. the criticism made by a parliamentary writer fifty years ago is equally applicable to-day. "it would seem to be the chief amusement of some members diligently to read the newspapers in the morning, and to ask ministers of state in the afternoon if they have read them too, and what they think of them."[ ] [ ] "edinburgh review," january, , p. . the growth of this yearning for information is very clearly shown by a glance at the parliamentary statistics for the last hundred years. in not a single question was put during the whole of one session. in the number of questions asked with due notice was sixty-nine. in the number had risen to , in to ; in over questions were put, and to-day the number is still steadily increasing. at four o'clock, or earlier if questions have been disposed of, the house proceeds to the consideration of its public business and the "orders of the day," and the real business of parliament begins. chapter xiv parliament at work (ii) the modern system of legislating by bill and statute dates from the reign of henry vi. in earlier days legislation was effected by means of humble petitions presented to the crown by the commons, and granted or refused according as the king thought fit. every act of parliament commences its existence in the shape of a bill. as such, it may be introduced in either house, though the commons have the undoubted monopoly of initiating financial measures, and bills for the restitution of honours and blood must originate with the lords. in the upper house, any peer may introduce a bill without notice, but in the commons a member must give notice of his intention either to present a measure or move for leave to do so. a bill whose main object is to impose a charge upon the public revenue must first be authorized by a resolution of a committee of the whole house. bills may be roughly classified under the two headings of public and private, according as they affect the general interest or are framed for the benefit of individuals or groups of individuals, though there also exist hybrid bills which cannot be rightly placed in either category. but whatever their nature, bills must pass through five successive stages. in the house of lords, however, the committee and report stages are occasionally negatived in the case of money bills, and the committee stage of private bills is conducted outside the house either before the chairman of committees or, in case of opposition, by a select committee of the house. in ancient days the proceedings were not so lengthy as they afterwards became, a bill being sometimes read three times and passed in a single day;[ ] but nowadays the passage through parliament of a controversial bill is a tedious affair. [ ] hakewell's "modus tenendi parliamentum," p. . it will be sufficient for the purposes of this chapter to take the example of a public bill introduced in the house of commons, and follow it from its embryonic state along the course of its career until, as an act of parliament, it finally takes its place in the statute-book of the land. by obtaining the permission of the house, a member of parliament may bring in a bill upon any conceivable subject, but it is not always possible for him to find the necessary opportunity for doing so, unless he happens to be exceptionally favoured by fortune.[ ] in these days, when the time at the disposal of parliament is altogether inadequate to the demands made upon it by legislation, the chances of passing a bill without the support of the government are for a private member extremely small. even with official assistance this is not always an easy matter. it is perhaps as well that the passion for legislation latent in the bosom of every politician should to some extent be curbed. george ii. said to lord waldegrave that parliament passed nearly a hundred laws every session, which seemed made for no other purpose than to afford people the pleasure of breaking them, and his opinion that the less legislation effected by parliament the better for the country is still popular in many quarters.[ ] [ ] bills of the most fantastic kind are from time to time introduced, though they seldom see the light of a second reading. in a member, walgrave by name, brought in a bill to prevent the exportation of herrings to leghorn, "which occasioneth both a very great scarcity of herrings within the realm and is a great means of spending much butter and cheese, to the great inhancing of the prices thereof by reason of the said scarcity of herrings."--d'ewes' "journal," p. . [ ] lord waldegrave's "memoirs," p. . on the third day of every session the question of the priority of members' claims to introduce bills and motions is decided by ballot. a member who is lucky, and has, if necessary, obtained the leave of the house, can introduce his bill briefly and without debate. taking his stand at the bar, he awaits the summons of the speaker, when, advancing to the table, he hands to the clerk a "dummy" on which the title of the bill is written. this the clerk proceeds to read to the house. the bill is then considered to have been read a first time, and ordered to be printed, and a day is fixed for the second reading. the first reading is looked upon as a mere matter of form, and rarely opposed.[ ] it is on the second reading, when the principle of the bill is by way of being discussed, that any real antagonism begins to make itself felt. opponents may negative the motion that the bill be _now_ read a second time--in which case the motion may be repeated another day--or may adopt the more usual and polite method of moving that the bill be read "this day six (or three) months"--the intention being to destroy the bill by postponing the second reading until after the prorogation of parliament. no bill or motion on which the house has given such a decision may be brought up again during the same session, so that a postponement of the reading is merely a courteous way of shelving it altogether.[ ] [ ] in june, , however, a mr. fox maule was refused permission to bring in a bill "for the better protection of tenants' crops in scotland from the ravages committed on them by several kinds of game."--grant's "recollections," p. . [ ] our ancestors were not always so well-mannered in their methods. once when a bill had been returned to them from the lords with an amendment to a money clause, they expressed their active disapproval by literally kicking it along the floor of the house, and so out at the door. "parl. hist.," vol. xvii. p. . a bill that has successfully weathered a second reading stands committed to a committee of the whole house, unless the house, on motion, resolves that it be referred to some other kind of committee, viz., a grand committee, a select committee, or a joint committee of both houses. when the house is to resolve itself into committee a motion to that effect is made in the lords, to which an amendment may be moved; in the commons the speaker leaves the chair, and the chairman of committees at once presides, sitting in the clerk's chair at the table. the bill is then discussed clause by clause, and any number of amendments may be proposed to each line, and any number of speeches made by any member on each amendment. no limit is set to the number of amendments that may be moved, provided they are relevant and consistent with the policy of the bill. this is therefore by far the most lengthy stage of the bill, and it was in order to accelerate the progress of business that, in , standing committees, consisting of from sixty to eighty members, were created to which bills relating to law and trade were to be referred instead of to the committee of the whole house. when the bill has passed through the committee stage, it is reported to the house with or without amendments. in the former case, a day is fixed for the discussion of its altered shape, and on this "report" stage further amendments may be made. at the third reading a bill may still be rejected, or postponed "for six months," or re-committed, but in the commons no material amendments may be made to it. this stage is usually taken at once after the report; but in the lords the two stages must be on different days, and amendments may be made after due notice on the third reading. when a bill has safely passed all its stages in the lower house, the clerk of the commons attaches to it a polite message in norman-french--"soit baillé aux seigneurs"--and hands it to his colleague in the lords. the latter lays it on the table of the upper house, where it lies until taken up by some peer--which must be done within twelve sitting days, if the bill is not to be lost (though it may be raised from the dead by notice of a motion to revive it of the same duration)--when its subsequent treatment, with the few differences noted above, is very similar to that which it has already undergone. [illustration: the passing of the reform bill in the house of lords from an engraving after the painting by sir j. reynolds] should the lords pass a bill as it stands, a message to that effect is sent to the commons. if, however, they have made alterations, the clerk of the parliaments writes, "a ceste bille avesque des amendemens les seignieurs sont assentus" across it, and returns it to the clerk of the other house.[ ] the commons then proceed to consider the lords' amendments on some future day. if the two houses cannot agree, they must either summon a conference--nowadays an unusual step to take[ ]--or a select committee of the dissenting house sends a specially prepared message to the other chamber, explaining the reasons for its disagreement. numerous messages may pass in this way, for the purpose of coming to an agreement; but if they fail, the bill is lost for the session. [ ] it may be observed that among the many traditionary differences of opinion entertained by the two houses is a divergence as to the proper spelling of the word "seigneurs." [ ] a conference of both houses has not been held since . when a bill has passed both houses, nothing remains but to give it the royal assent, which is done by the clerk of the parliaments.[ ] [ ] the clerkship of the parliaments is an ancient office, dating from the commencement of the fourteenth century. it was originally held by an ecclesiastic, to whom were assigned, in times when the two houses sat together, the clerical work of parliament. the clerk of the parliaments is appointed by the crown under letters patent, and can only be removed by the crown on an address from the house of lords. up to the year , the post was a lucrative sinecure, worth about £ a year, the actual duties of the office being performed by the clerk assistant. at the beginning of the nineteenth century, the clerk of the parliaments enjoyed the privilege of nominating and appointing all the clerks on the house of lords establishment, but in the appointment of the two other clerks at the table was transferred to the lord chancellor. he still, however, appoints all the other clerks, regulates and controls the duties and promotion of the staff, appoints the librarian and his assistant, and exercises superintendence over the library and the refreshment department of the house. it is his duty to attend all the sittings of the house, to call on the orders of the day, and to invite peers to bring forward their bills or motions. he also performs functions analogous to those of the speaker in the commons, when he signs addresses to the sovereign, other addresses of thanks or condolence, the minutes of the daily proceedings, and all the returns ordered by the house. as registrar of the court of final appeal, he takes the instructions of the judicial authorities upon all questions relating to appeals, and keeps a record of all judgments, etc. lastly, and this is perhaps not the least important of his duties, he gives the royal assent to bills. the royal assent is nowadays a mere formality--a final ceremonial which marks the last stage of a bill's progress ere it becomes law. it is usually given by the lords commissioners, who act as representatives of the crown, though there is nothing to prevent a sovereign from performing this duty himself. on august , , when the bill making separate financial provision for queen adelaide received the royal assent, both the king and queen attended in parliament, and the latter acknowledged her indebtedness by bowing thrice, presumably to king, lords and commons. as a rule, however, the sovereign is not present on these occasions, his place being taken by a commission. this consists of the lord chancellor and two other lords, who take their seats, prior to the ceremony, upon a form placed between the throne and the woolsack. the gentleman usher of the black rod is then commanded to summon the faithful commons, and, on the arrival of the latter at the bar of the lords, the titles of the various bills are read aloud by the clerk of the crown, and the royal assent is given by the clerk of the parliaments in old-fashioned norman-french. in the case of a money bill, brought up by the speaker of the commons, and received by the clerk of the parliaments, who bears it to the table bowing, the formula runs as follows:-- "le roi remerçie ses bons sujets, accepte leur benevolence, et ainsi le veult." in the case of a public or private bill, the respective phrases, "le roi le veult" or "soit fait comme il est désiré" are substituted, though, as a matter of practice, the latter phrase is only used for estate, naturalisation and divorce bills. in olden days, when the crown was often in the habit of refusing to consent to the passing of particular bills, the words used by the clerk of the parliaments to signify the royal veto were "le roi s'avisera." in this way queen elizabeth quashed no less than forty-eight bills that had passed through parliament, and william iii. similarly declined to assent to the parliamentary proceedings bill of , much to the annoyance of the commons. but never since queen anne vetoed the scotch militia bill, in , has any sovereign refused the royal assent. all questions before parliament are decided by the voice of the majority. and though, as gladstone once said, decision by majorities may be as much an expedient as lighting by gas, it is an expedient that answers very well in practice, and for which an effective substitute has yet to be found. majority may sometimes seem a clumsy argument, but it always remains "the best repartee." the procedure in either house for ascertaining the general opinion upon any measure or motion differs but slightly in form, and not at all in principle. at the end of every debate the question under discussion is laid before the house by its speaker or chairman. this he does by rising in his place and saying, "the question is that ..." (here follows the exact words of the motion). "as many as are of that opinion say 'aye!'; as many as are of the contrary opinion say 'no!'" (in the lords the words "content" and "not content" are substituted for "aye" and "no.") members or peers thereupon express their views in the required manner, and the speaker (or chairman), gathering what is called the "sense of the house" by the volume of sound proceeding from either party, says, "i think the ayes (or noes)"--or, in the lords "the contents" or "not contents"--"have it!" if the judgment of the chair be unchallenged, the question is deemed to be resolved in the affirmative or negative, as the case may be, and nothing further remains to be done. should, however, either party question the correctness of the chairman's opinion, recourse is had to a division, and certain necessary formalities have to be observed before the matter is definitely settled one way or the other. when a division is challenged in the house of commons, the speaker (or chairman) orders the sergeant-at-arms to "clear the lobby," and the tellers' doors leading from the lobbies, as well as the door leading from the central hall, are immediately locked. after the lapse of two minutes, during which the loud division-bells are set ringing all over the building to summon breathless members to the chamber, the question is again put from the chair. if once more challenged, the speaker names two members of either party to act as "tellers." should no one be found willing to undertake this duty, a division cannot take place, and the speaker declares that the "noes" have it. if, however, tellers are duly appointed, they take their place at the exit doors leading from the two lobbies, which are now unlocked. after another interval, this time of four minutes' duration, the doors leading from the house to the lobbies are locked. meanwhile, all members who wish to vote have left the chamber, and are streaming through their respective lobbies, where their names are recorded by clerks, while the tellers count them as they pass through the lobby doors. in the old days of st stephen's chapel, the "ayes" used to remain in the house, while the "noes" withdrew, and were counted on their return. this practice led to endless difficulties, many members refusing to go out for fear of losing their seats, while others were forcibly detained by their friends. in elizabeth's time, sir walter raleigh admitted that he often held a fellow-member by his sleeve, and others were accused of pulling each other back, as cecil said, "like a dog on a string."[ ] later on, it was decided that members who gave their votes for the introduction of "any new matter" should alone withdraw, while the votes of those who remained behind were recorded. this system also had its disadvantages. in , for instance, when a certain whig member, colonel evans, fell asleep in one of the side galleries during a division, he woke to find that he had been counted among the tories, much to his disgust. finally, two years later, the practice of clearing the house altogether for a division was first instituted, and continued in force until the establishment of the modern method in .[ ] [ ] d'ewes' "journal," p. , and townshend's "proceedings of parliament," p. . [ ] in , another system was temporarily introduced, the members ranging themselves on either side of the house and being counted by the tellers. croker, when ministerial teller, once accidentally missed out a whole bench full of government supporters, thereby reducing the ministerial majority by about forty. the opposition teller watched the error with a smile, but did not feel called upon to correct it. see "the observer," march , . when all members who desire to vote have filed through the lobbies, and are once more reassembled in the house, the four tellers advance together to the table. the senior teller of the party having a majority, walks on the right, bearing in his hand a slip of paper, on which are written the numbers of the division. by the position of the teller it is thus possible to gauge the result of a division before it has been officially announced, and his advance to the table in the place of honour is usually the signal for an outburst of cheering from his own victorious party. he proceeds to report the result of the division to the clerk at the table, who writes the numbers on a piece of paper, which he hands back to him. this the teller passes to the speaker, who, in turn, announces the numbers to the house. the doors are then unlocked, and the division is at an end. on one famous occasion the tellers failed to agree in their reports of the figures. this happened on may , , when the house in committee had divided on a motion with regard to the english regiments serving in the french army. the tellers' difference of opinion gave rise to a scene of great confusion, during which one member spat in another's face, and a free fight would probably have ensued but for the sudden arrival of the speaker. the amount of time spent in dividing has always been a source of annoyance to earnest politicians, more especially when divisions are made use of as a recognised form of obstruction, and the progress of parliamentary business thereby much impeded. in , to name a recent example, the opponents of the deceased wife's sister bill, which had already passed a second reading, deliberately walked so slowly through the lobbies during four divisions that there was no time left to move that it should be sent to a grand committee. members naturally grudge the precious hours wasted in trudging through the lobbies; but it seems impossible to invent any scheme that shall further expedite matters, the present system being apparently as perfect as the mind of man can devise.[ ] [ ] in the session of the number of divisions was about ; in , including the autumn session, the number was , and in the house of commons divided times. when a division is called in the house of lords, the procedure is very similar in character to that of the commons. the chancellor (or lord on the woolsack) orders strangers to withdraw by saying, "clear the bar!" and the clerk of the parliaments thereupon turns a two-minute sand-glass. when the sand has run out of the glass, the doors are locked, and the question is once more put to the house. if the lord chancellor's decision is challenged he at once says, "the 'contents' will go to the right by the throne, and the 'not contents' to the left by the bar." each party then passes through its own lobby, the "contents" re-entering the house on the right of the bar, the "not contents" through the door on the left of the throne, their votes being duly recorded by clerks in the lobbies. the subsequent procedure resembles that in vogue in the lower house. until , when the present system was adopted, the "contents" remained within the bar, while the "not contents" went below the bar. peers, who through infirmity, or other causes, are disabled from leaving the house, may by its permission be "told" in their seats, and those who do not wish to vote at all are allowed to go within the railings on the steps of the throne. in old days the practice of voting by proxy was habitual in the house of lords. during the reign of edward i., nobles who were unable to attend in person invariably sent messengers to act for them. peers were permitted to appoint any individuals to represent them, either permanently or on special occasions, and, up to the fifteenth century, these proxies did not even have to be peers themselves. in the time of henry viii. the custom of allowing peers to represent one another was first instituted, and in charles i.'s day we find the duke of buckingham holding no less than fourteen proxies. such a custom naturally led to many abuses, and an order was eventually passed forbidding any peer to hold more than two proxies. finally, in , the house of lords realised that the practice was reprehensible, and passed a standing order whereby the system of calling for proxies on a division was discontinued. to-day, peers are in some ways even more particular than their colleagues in the commons, and do not allow any one of their number to take part in a division unless he has himself been in the house when the question was put. in other respects they enjoy a wider latitude. if a lord occasionally strays into the wrong lobby, he may refuse to be counted by the tellers, and his vote may afterwards be recorded as he desires. a member of the house of commons who commits a like indiscretion is required to bear the consequences, and can neither alter nor rescind his vote. in the event of an equal number of votes being recorded on either side in a division the procedure differs in the two houses. in the lords the question is invariably resolved in the negative, in accordance with the ancient rule of the law: "semper præsumitur pro negante." in the commons the speaker has to decide it by a casting vote, which he generally gives in such a manner as to leave the question open for another division. this, however, is not always an easy task; indeed, it is often a most invidious and unpleasant one. in april, , speaker abbot was compelled to give a casting-vote on the resolution leading to the impeachment of lord melville. after ten minutes' distressing hesitation, while the house remained in a state of agonized suspense, abbot reluctantly gave his vote against lord melville, and thus secured the defeat of pitt.[ ] [ ] only fifteen ties are known in the history of parliament on april , , speaker gully gave a casting vote on the embankment tramways bill, as did speaker lowther, on july , , on the regency bill. this is by no means the only instance of a momentous question such as the life of a government being decided by a single vote. the second reading of the reform bill in was carried by a majority of one; the house on that occasion presenting a sight which, as macaulay said, was to be seen only once and never to be forgotten. "it was like seeing cæsar stabbed in the senate house, or seeing oliver taking the mace from the table." when the tellers announced the majority the victorious party shouted with joy, while some of them actually shed tears. "the jaw of peel fell; and the face of twiss was as the face of a damned soul; and herries looked like judas taking his necktie off for the last operation." in lord russell was defeated and sir robert peel returned to victory on the crest of an equally diminutive wave; and a century earlier walpole's administration was overthrown by a small majority of three. a minority of one is more unusual, but not altogether unknown. at the end of the eighteenth century, when the duke of somerset divided the house of lords on a question of war with france, he walked alone into the opposition division lobby. the same fate befell dr. kenealy in , when his motion on behalf of the tichborne claimant was defeated by votes to . on july , , when a division was taken on an amendment to reject a bill prohibiting foreign trawlers from landing their catches at british ports, the noes numbered while there was but a solitary aye. and on july , , on a motion for the adjournment of the house, there was but a single no. no secrecy is maintained as to the voting of peers or members in divisions. in the old journals of the lords the division lists used always to be entered, but in this practice was abandoned, and the minority could only record an adverse vote by a formal protest of dissent.[ ] division lists were not regularly printed in the commons until , and the lords followed suit about twenty years later. [ ] this right of protest recorded in the journals of the house is still occasionally exercised. divisions provide legislators with plenty of exercise, combined occasionally with acute mental anxiety. the latter they share with those hardworked and hardworking individuals, the "whips" or "whippers-in," whose duties are at all times heavy and become especially onerous with the approach of a division. these whips, who are four in number--two representing the government, two the opposition--have rooms provided for them in the lobby, and hold positions of the utmost responsibility and influence. in the house of commons the office of principal government whip is one of immense importance and requires, as disraeli said, "consummate knowledge of human nature, the most amiable flexibility, and complete self-control."[ ] as patronage secretary to the treasury, with a salary of £ a year, he is the descendant of that official, sometimes known as the "secretary for political jobs," who in former times bought members, their votes and constituencies, and disposed of the government secret service money to obtain (and retain) a majority for the party in power. [ ] "life of lord george bentinck," p. . the chief whip is generally assisted by two of the junior lords of the treasury, and, in conjunction with the opposition whips, arranges all the details of the sessional campaign. on the occasion of important debates the whips conspire to choke off any garrulous nonentities who may wish to make their voices heard, and practically arrange a list of the influential speakers on both sides in the order in which they are to address the house. at such a time the speaker's eye may almost be said to be a party to the conspiracy, though never yielding its discretion to be caught by members whose names are not upon the whips' list. tact, good temper and unceasing vigilance are virtues necessary to whips. they must combine the discretion of the diplomatist with the acumen of the sleuth-hound. it is their business to smooth the ruffled feathers of any members who consider themselves aggrieved, to listen patiently to the bores, to suffer the fools gladly. they are expected to ascertain the "sense" of the house upon all important questions, either by instinct, by worming their way into the confidence of members, or by secret detective work in the smoking room. they must keep their leader informed of their discoveries, and thus guard the party against any sudden unexpected attack. if necessary they act as emissaries or ambassadors between the party heads, arranging an occasional compromise or deciding what particular questions shall be discussed in an uncontroversial spirit. the whips have been called the autocrats of the house of commons, but though they rule individual members with an iron hand, it must ever be their desire to keep their party contented and happy and harmonious. when a private member is very anxious to escape from the house for a holiday it is to the whip he applies for permission. if possible he "pairs" with some member on the other side who is equally desirous of escaping. at the door of the house lies a book in which members "pairing" with one another inscribe their names, and it is one of the whips' duties to arrange these "pairs," and, above all, to see that no member gets away unpaired. at a time when a ticklish division is expected, when the majority on either side is uncertain, the whips are stimulated to herculean labours. threats, entreaties, cajoleries, all must be employed to bring members up to the scratch. the waverers must be secured, the doubtful reassured. nothing can be left undone to ensure that every available member shall be in his place when the decisive moment arrives. the byways and hedges are scoured for absentees, who are besought to return at once to westminster to record their votes and perhaps save their party from defeat. when pulteney, whom macaulay considered the greatest leader of the opposition that the house of commons had ever seen, gathered his forces in to overthrow walpole, the opposition left no stone unturned to ensure a majority. they collected every man of the party, no matter what excuses he put forward. one was brought into the house in a dying condition, but contrived to defer his impending dissolution until he had recorded his valuable vote. both sides produced a number of incurables, and the house looked (as ewald says) more like the pool of bethesda than a legislative assembly. the prince of wales was an interested spectator of the scene. "i see," he remarked to general churchill, "you bring in the lame, the halt and the blind!" "yes," replied the general, "the lame on our side, the blind on yours!"[ ] [ ] ewald's "biography of walpole," p. . a similar scene took place in when the russell-gladstone cabinet was defeated over the reform bill. the whips had achieved wonders in collecting their flocks together; they had haled to westminster the sick, the senile, the decrepit, the doting and the moribund. the grave alone seems to have been sacred from their ravages. some of the members, as we read in a contemporary account, "had been wooed from the prostration of their couches; one had been taken from the delights of his marriage-trip; and several from the bedsides of relatives in extremity."[ ] [ ] "chambers' journal," december , , p. . to be able to accomplish such feats the whips must be well acquainted with the habits and haunts of the individuals beneath their charge, so that at any moment of the day or night they may send a telegram or a message to an absentee whose presence is urgently required. pepys in his diary (december , ) describes how the king gave an order "to my lord chamberlain to send to the playhouses and brothels, to bid all the parliament-men that were there to go to the parliament presently," to vote against some bill of which he disapproved. the modern whip in like manner must be ready at any moment to despatch an urgent summons to the opera, to the clubs, to houses where parties are being given, recalling members to their parliamentary duties. and in doing so he must exercise the greatest possible tact. the wife of a much respected member of parliament was sleeping peacefully in her bed one night when a frantic message arrived from the party whip imploring her husband to come at once to westminster. she remembered that her spouse had informed her that he would probably be kept at the house until late and had begged her not to sit up. inspired with horrible suspicions of conjugal perfidy, the good lady rose in haste and hurried down to the house of commons to confirm them. as a matter of fact her husband had never left the precincts of parliament, and the whip's message had been despatched in error. the member was therefore much surprised at the sudden appearance of his wife upon the scene. his attachment to home and duty had been equally unimpaired, and he received her explanation somewhat coldly. a notice, more or less heavily underlined, is sent to each member of parliament every morning, apprising him of the business of the day's sitting and of the necessity for his presence in the house. these "whips," as they are called, were in vogue as long ago as the year , when, porritt tells us, notices underlined six times were sent to the king's friends.[ ] the urgency of the summons can be gauged by the number of underlines, and a "whip" that is underlined three times can only be ignored at the peril of the member who receives it.[ ] [ ] porritt's "unreformed house of commons," vol. i. p. . [ ] until a few years ago all "whips" were underlined twice and in urgent cases five times. though the whips seldom address the house themselves, they must on all occasions be ready to provide other speakers who shall feed the dying embers of debate with fresh fuel. at all hazards the ball must be kept rolling. sometimes a debate shows signs of languishing in an unexpected fashion, and the whip is horrified to find that his usual majority has dwindled away to nothing. when this occurs he must at once find members who are willing to talk against time while he and his colleagues hasten round and beat up a majority. on one famous occasion within recent memory, while most of the supporters of the conservative government were disporting themselves at ascot on the cup day, the opposition prepared to spring an unexpected division upon the house. the situation was only saved by mr. chaplin, who spoke for several hours, in spite of the howls of his opponents, while a special train was bringing absentees from the racecourse to the house of commons. it is, then, the whip's duty, not only to "make" a house and to "keep" a house, but also, like sidmouth's sycophantic relatives, to "cheer the minister." to quote the lines of canning-- "when the faltering periods lag, or the house receives them drily, cheer, oh, cheer him, brother bragge; cheer, oh, cheer him, brother riley! "brother bragge and brother riley, cheer him! when he speaks so vilely, cheer him! when his audience flag, brother riley, brother bragge!"[ ] [ ] "ode to the doctor." (bragge bathurst, lord sidmouth's brother-in-law, and riley, his brother, were place-hunters who felt bound to applaud their patron.) chapter xv strangers in parliament theoretically speaking, parliament is averse to the presence of strangers; in practice both houses are as hospitably inclined as is compatible with the limited space at their disposal. one of the chief duties of the sergeant-at-arms originally consisted in "taking into custody such strangers who presume to come into the house of commons."[ ] this duty has however, long been neglected, and a modern sergeant-at-arms who sought to accomplish such a task would find his hands full. [ ] house of commons "journals," vol. x. . in the early days of parliament, the most drastic measures were taken to maintain the secrecy of debate, and the intrusion of a stranger was looked upon as a cause for grave alarm. in , a man named robinson succeeded in obtaining admission to the commons, and sat in the house unnoticed for two hours. when at last his presence was discovered, mr. robinson was roughly handled by the sergeant-at-arms, and, before he had time to utter his own name, was "stript to the shirt" and searched.[ ] nothing of an incriminating nature being found beneath the intruder's clothing, he was brought to the bar, sworn to secrecy and compelled to take the oath of supremacy before being finally released with a severe reprimand. a hundred years later two inoffensive but ignorant strangers walked into the house and sat quietly down beside the sergeant-at-arms. here they remained for some time, much impressed by the hospitality of the commons, until a division happened to be called. their presence was not observed until the lobby doors had been finally locked, and they had to be hurried out of the way by a side staircase to the distinguished strangers' gallery. here they remained until the division was over, and were subsequently dismissed with a caution. in , a stranger who had accidentally mingled with the members in the lobbies was actually counted in a division. [ ] d'ewes' "journal," p. . as time went on parliament grew more and more tolerant of the presence of strangers, and, though the order forbidding their admission remained upon the order book of the house of commons, it soon came to be universally disregarded. in the old house members would sometimes be accompanied by their sons, quite little boys, whom they would carry to their seats beside them, and strangers could always obtain a seat in the gallery by means of a written order given them by a member, or by the simple method of slipping half-a-crown into the hand of the attendant at the door. when c. f. moritz, the german traveller, visited the house in , he sought admission to the gallery, but, being unprovided with a pass, was turned away. as he was sadly withdrawing he heard the attendant murmur something of an apparently irrelevant nature concerning a bottle of rum, but not until he reached home did it occur to him that the remark might possibly have some bearing upon the situation. the next day, having been enlightened as to the general custom in vogue among those who wished to be present during a debate, he returned to the gallery. he had taken the wise precaution of providing himself with a small sum of money. this he had no difficulty in pressing upon the door-keeper, who at once showed him into a front seat.[ ] no doubt edmund burke, who in his youth spent so much time listening to the debates and gaining that parliamentary experience which was afterwards destined to stand him in such good stead, unlocked the gallery door with the same golden key. [ ] pinkerton's "voyages," vol. ii. p. . up to the year the doorkeepers and messengers of the house of commons were paid principally in fees and gratuities. members were called upon to contribute about £ per session towards a fund raised on their behalf, and they received a small nominal salary of less than £ . the doorkeepers earned farther payment by delivering the orders and acts of the house to members, as well as various fees from parliamentary agents, and were likewise entitled to a quarter of the strangers' fees. in the two chief doorkeepers were making between £ and £ a year, and the chief messenger nearly £ . the man whose duty it was to look after the room above the ventilator to which ladies were admitted was not so successful as his colleagues, and complained that he only received about £ a year in tips from the more economical sex.[ ] [ ] "report of the select committee on the establishment of the house of commons" ( ), pp. - . (to-day the messengers and doorkeepers, of whom there are about a score, earn regular salaries ranging from £ to £ . except for a share in the fund for messengers and police to which members may or may not contribute, no gratuities of any description are allowed to them.) pearson, for over thirty years doorkeeper in the old house of commons, was one of the most familiar figures in and about st stephen's chapel during the latter part of the eighteenth century. in his box near the gallery he sat-- "like a pagod in his niche; the gom-gom pearson, whose sonorous lungs, with 'silence! room there!' drown an hundred tongues." long service had given him a position of authority of which he took every advantage. if a member were negligent in the matter of paying the door-keeper his fee, or treated that official in a manner which he considered derogatory to his dignity, pearson revenged himself by sending the offender to the house of lords or the court of requests in search of imaginary friends. by such means he generally reduced the irritated member to submission, and could extract a handsome present and a promise of future politeness. pearson had his own importance so much at heart, as we read in his biography, that he spurned a member's money unless he had previously humbled the man. long experience had enabled him to time the length of a debate or even of an individual speech with extraordinary accuracy. members wishing to be informed as to the probable hour of adjournment would ask him at what time the speaker had ordered his carriage. "the speaker has ordered his coach at eight," pearson would reply, "but i'll be d----d if you get away before twelve!"[ ] [ ] the familiar way in which pearson addressed members seems to have been generally condoned on account of his long service. once when general grant, who had boasted that he would march victoriously through america with three thousand men, asked the door-keeper how long a certain member would speak, pearson replied, "as long, general, if he was allowed, as you would be in marching through and conquering america!" pearson's "political dictionary," p. . pearson's treatment of strangers was no less autocratic. he could not always be corrupted into finding room for them in the galleries unless he happened to take a fancy to the appearance of the visitors. "if a face or a manner did not please him," says his biographer, "gold could not bribe him into civility, much less to the favour of admission. one stranger might be modest and ingratiating; pearson, like thurlow, would only give him a silent contemptuous stare; another would be rude; pearson would laugh at his rudeness, tell him the orator of the moment, and, perhaps, shove him in, although he had before refused dozens who were known to him."[ ] [ ] ibid., p. . in the first year of queen victoria's reign a suggestion was made that the public should be admitted without orders of any kind. this idea was successfully opposed by lord john russell, who expressed a fear that in such circumstances the galleries would be filled with pickpockets and other objectionable persons. prior to strangers sometimes hired substitutes to keep places for them in the crowd which thronged st. stephen's hall on the morning of a big debate. these representatives would arrive as early as . a.m., and, like the messenger boys in the _queue_ outside a modern theatre, wait patiently until the door was opened in the afternoon. in the system of balloting for seats in the strangers' gallery was first instituted. members had long been in the habit of giving orders "to bearer," written on the backs of envelopes or any scraps of paper, which were freely forged and transferred from one visitor to another. strangers who were armed with these gallery passes were now compelled to ballot for precedence, and though on important nights the number of disappointed applicants was great, visitors gained the advantage of not being kept waiting for hours on the chance of obtaining a seat. this system continued to obtain until the time of the fenian scares, in , when, owing to the fact that two strangers admitted to the gallery on august th proved to be well-known dynamiters, the police became alarmed for the safety of the house. to prevent the recurrence of such an unwelcome visit it was ordered that all applications for admission should be made in writing to the speaker's secretary. the signatures of the strangers applying for places could thus be verified by comparison with their signatures in the gallery book. the deliberations of parliament are supposed to be secret, and, though the practice of avoiding publicity has long fallen into disuse, it is still always possible for strangers to be excluded should the occasion demand it. they were not welcomed with effusion in either house, a century or two ago. in lord chancellor hardwicke declared to the lords that "another thing doth diminish the dignity of the house; admitting all kinds of auditors to your debates. this makes them be what they ought not to be, and gives occasion to saying things which else would not be said."[ ] thirty years later, as we have already seen, during a speech of the duke of manchester's on the state of the nation, lord gower rose and desired that the house of lords should be cleared of all who were not peers. the duke of richmond strongly objected, considering this an insult to the members of parliament and others who were present. chatham tried in vain to address the house, and finally, as a dignified protest, he and a score of other peers left the chamber. [ ] "life of lord hardwicke," vol. i. p. . somewhat similar scenes have occurred in the lower house. on one occasion, indeed, the members of the popular assembly so far forgot themselves as to hurl epithets of abuse at a distinguished stranger who was in their midst. on february , , sheil made a violent attack in the house of commons upon ex-lord chancellor lyndhurst, the irish municipal bill being under discussion at the time. lyndhurst had been accused of saying that three-quarters of the people of ireland were aliens in blood and only awaited a favourable opportunity to cast off the government of england as the yoke of a tyrannical oppressor, and this had roused the irish to fury. the ex-chancellor happened to stroll into the house of commons while sheil was speaking, and took his seat below the bar. immediately the irish members turned upon him, and for about ten minutes shouted insults at the venerable statesman, who remained apparently unmoved by the clamour.[ ] [ ] greville, "memoirs," vol. iii. p. . up to within the last forty years it was quite sufficient for a member of parliament to inform the speaker that he "espied strangers" for the galleries to be instantly cleared. on april , , however, the cantankerous and obstructive mr. biggar brought this rule into disrepute by calling the speaker's attention to the strangers' gallery at a time when its occupants included the prince of wales and the german ambassador. in accordance with the regulations of the house, these distinguished visitors were compelled to leave forthwith. this quite gratuitous act of discourtesy on the part of an extremely unpopular member was little to the taste of the house. the sentiments of the majority were aptly voiced by disraeli when he begged mr. biggar to bear in mind that the house was above all things "an assembly of gentlemen." on the prime minister's motion, carried by a unanimous vote, the standing order relative to the exclusion of strangers was temporarily suspended, and the galleries reopened. a resolution of disraeli's was eventually adopted whereby strangers could only be compelled to withdraw on a division in favour of their exclusion, no debate or amendment being permitted; though it was still left to the discretion of the speaker or chairman to order their withdrawal at any time and from any part of the house, if necessary. visitors to the house of commons enter by st stephen's porch, where, until recently, they were interrogated by the police constable on duty. if their answers proved satisfactory, they were admitted to the central hall, whence they dispatched printed cards inscribed with their names, addresses, and the object of their visit, to such members as they desired to see. the duty of ministering to the needs of friends who were anxious to listen to the debates was one of the minor discomforts of membership. there is a story of a member of parliament receiving a letter from a constituent asking for a pass to the speaker's gallery or, if that were impossible, six tickets to the zoological gardens. the natural inference to be gathered from this request must be that the house of commons, which lord brougham once likened to a menagerie, is capable of affording six times as much entertainment as the monkey-house in regent's park. until the last session of members could obtain two daily orders of admission for strangers from the speaker's secretary or the sergeant-at-arms, the speaker's and strangers' galleries (which were amalgamated in ) providing accommodation for about one hundred and sixty visitors. in the autumn of , however, a man who wished to advertise the cause of female suffrage--and incidentally himself--threw a number of pamphlets down from the gallery on to the floor of the house, and was summarily ejected. this resulted in an order issued by the speaker that for the remainder of the session no strangers should be admitted. the strangers' galleries were reopened in may of the following year, and new regulations were framed to prevent the recurrence of such a scene. visitors are now permitted to apply at a special bureau in st. stephen's hall, at any time after . p.m. and, if there is room, are at once admitted to the gallery without the formality of searching for a member. each stranger signs a declaration undertaking to abstain from making any interruption or disturbance, and to obey the rules for the maintenance of order in the galleries. applause, or the expression of any feeling, is strictly prohibited in the strangers' gallery, and the attendants on duty there have instructions to expel offenders without waiting for any explanation of their conduct. in the commencement of the last century a stranger once shouted, "you're a liar!" while o'connell was speaking, and was arrested by the sergeant-at-arms and compelled to apologise the next day.[ ] since that time, until recently, visitors have behaved with commendable decorum. [ ] boyd's "reminiscences," p. . the instances of strangers causing a commotion in parliament by extraordinary or improper behaviour are few in number. the assassination of spencer perceval, the prime minister, by a visitor in is undoubtedly the most tragic event that has ever taken place within the precincts of the house of commons, the murderer being a mad liverpool merchant, named bellingham, who had a grievance against the government. the recollection of this outrage almost gave rise to a panic some years later when a wild-eyed, haggard man rushed into the house while sir robert peel was speaking, and walked boldly up to the minister. stopping within a few feet of the speaker, this alarming stranger made a low bow. "i beg your pardon," he remarked suavely, "but i am an unfortunate man who has just been poisoned by earl grey!" he was at once removed to the nearest lunatic asylum.[ ] [ ] doyle's "recollections," p. . other strangers have from time to time created a mild consternation or amusement by some eccentricity of dress or deportment. in a young scotsman crossed the bar of the commons and sat deliberately down on a bench among the members, where he remained undiscovered for some time. in the same year a compatriot, garbed in full highland costume, unwittingly entered the side gallery reserved for members, and prepared to listen to the debate from this comfortable quarter. on being informed of his mistake, this hardy northman was so overcome with terror at the contemplation of his crime and the consequences that would probably ensue--nothing short of death could, he imagined, be the punishment appropriate to such an offence--that he took to his heels and ran like a hare, never pausing for breath until he reached somerset house, a mile and a half away.[ ] sir wilfrid lawson in was shown a man in the lobby who had been turned out of the gallery for being drunk. on asking what crime the stranger had committed, he was told that he had said "bosh!" to some of the speeches. this, as sir wilfrid remarked, was not conclusive evidence of drunkenness.[ ] [ ] grant's "recollections," p. . [ ] g. w. e. russell's "sir wilfrid lawson," p. . a strange irishman provided the peers with some amusement in by appearing in the house of lords attired in a saffron-coloured kilt and toga which he claimed to be his national costume, and which had doubtless been so ever since the days of darwin's missing link. he turned out to be harmless enough, and, though momentarily disturbing to black rod's peace of mind, did nothing more alarming than to provide another example of the well-known fact that it is possible to be a celt and at the same time to lack a sense of humour. strangers of the male sex who visit the upper house may be accommodated in the large strangers' gallery facing the throne, or, if members of parliament, in the special house of commons' gallery, or at the bar. privy councillors and the eldest sons of peers are allowed to sit or stand upon the steps of the throne, and there are special galleries set apart for the use of the _corps diplomatique_ and the press. [illustration: the house of lords in ] the question of allowing women to attend the debates has long presented difficulties to the parliamentary mind, though at one time it was not unusual to see lady visitors actually sitting in the chamber itself side by side with their husbands and friends. "ought females to be admitted?" asked jeremy bentham, many years ago, unhesitatingly answering his own question in the negative a moment later. to remove them from an assembly where tranquil reason ought alone to reign was, as he explained, to avow their influence, and should not therefore be wounding to their pride. "the seductions of eloquence and ridicule are most dangerous instruments in a political assembly," he says. "admit females--you add new force to these seductions." in the presence of the gentler sex, bentham suggests, everything must necessarily take an exalted tone, brilliant and tragical--"excitement and tropes would be scattered everywhere." all would be sacrificed to vanity and the display of wit, to please the ladies in the audience.[ ] if the serious business of debate were to be sacrificed to "tropes," no doubt the british constitution would be considerably endangered; but experience has taught us that the presence of ladies has not affected the debates detrimentally, and the excitement caused in the breasts of our legislators by the sight of a contingent of the fair sex is not of a kind to prove alarming. [ ] "works," vol. ii. . women have taken a strong interest in political matters in england from very early days.[ ] we even find them giving occasional expression to their views upon some government measure with a violence which did not at all commend itself to the authorities. in the journals of the house for march , , is the following entry: "a clamour of women against sir robert johnson, for speaking against a bill touching wherry-men; upon complaint of which the commons ordered, that notice should be given to the justices of the peace, to prevent and suppress such disorders."[ ] what steps the justices of the peace took to quell this feminine clamour history does not relate. in some confusion was caused by the speaker observing ladies in the gallery, and though a member suggested that they were not ladies at all, but merely men in fine clothes, the speaker insisted that he had caught sight of petticoats. [ ] ladies of rank often attended the saxon witenagemots, and in the reigns of henry iii., edward i., and edward iii. certain abbesses were summoned to send proxies to parliament. (see g. b. smith's "history," vol. i p. .) in the sixteenth century the right to elect a member for the rotten borough of gatton was in the hands of a woman. see porritt' s "unreformed house of commons," vol. i. p. . [ ] "observations, rules, etc.," p. . in the time of queen anne ladies were strongly infected with the spirit of party. addison declares that even the patches they wore on their faces were so situated that the political views of the wearer could be recognised at a glance. friends might be distinguished from foes in this delightful fashion, tory ladies wearing their patches on the left, whigs on the right side of the face. an old number of the "spectator"[ ] contains the sad story of one rosalinda, a famous whig partisan who suffered much annoyance on this account. the fact that rosalinda had a beautiful mole on the tory part of her forehead gave her enemies the chance of misrepresenting her face as having revolted against the whig interest--an accusation which naturally depressed the poor lady considerably. [ ] no. , june , . the house of lords has always been more hospitable than the commons in its treatment of women. the two side galleries are reserved for peeresses--though a certain portion is kept for members of the _corps diplomatique_, and for the commons--and there is a large box on the floor of the house where the wives of peers' eldest sons sit, and a number of seats below the bar to which black rod may introduce ladies. the peers have not, however, been exempt from the occasional inconveniences attaching to the presence of women. lord shaftesbury, during the term of his lord chancellorship, complained bitterly of the "droves of ladies that attended all causes," and said that things had reached such a pass that men "borrowed or hired of their friends, handsome sisters or daughters to deliver their petitions."[ ] and in , the fair kitty, duchess of queensberry, headed a storming party and successfully besieged a gallery in the house of lords from which ladies had been excluded in order to make room for members of the commons.[ ] grenville declares that the steps of the throne were inconveniently thronged with women in . "every fool in london thinks it necessary to be there," he says. "they fill the whole space, and put themselves in front, with their large bonnets, without either fear or shame."[ ] [ ] townsend's "memoirs," vol. ii. p. . [ ] "letters and works of lady m. w. montagu," vol. ii. p. . (i have described this incident at length in "a group of scottish women," pp. - .) [ ] "memoirs," april, . in , women were allowed to be present in parliament to listen to election petitions, and continued to be admitted to the body of the house of commons until .[ ] in this year a member named captain johnstone insisted that strangers should withdraw, and the female section of the audience absolutely declined to do so. threats, entreaties, all were useless. with the charming obstinacy of their sex, the fair visitors clung to their seats, and refused to budge an inch. among the ladies who led this revolt was the duchess of devonshire, and a celebrated beauty of the name of musters. they were assisted by a certain number of male admirers, and, so successful were their efforts, that two long hours elapsed before the galleries could be cleared. this incident caused the speaker to forbid the future admittance of women, and until after the fire of , ladies could only listen to debates clandestinely, and in a manner which entailed the maximum of personal discomfort. their absence does not seem to have had any effect upon the length of the debates. "i was in hopes that long speeches would have been knocked on the head when the ladies were excluded from the galleries," said the doorkeeper; "they often used to keep the members up."[ ] [ ] see a. young's "autobiography," p. . (election petitions were tried before the whole house, and thus resolved themselves into mere party struggles. in , grenville moved that they be referred to small committees.) [ ] pearson's "political dictionary," p. . when the commons sat in the old st stephen's chapel, that chamber was divided into two parts by a false roof. the upper half consisted of a big empty room like a barn, with unglazed windows. in the centre of the floor of this apartment was the ventilating shaft of the house, a rough casement with eight small openings, situated exactly above the chandelier in the ceiling of the chamber below. to this room were conducted the lady friends of members desirous of catching a glimpse of the commons at work. the door was locked upon them, and they were permitted to sit on a circular bench which surrounded the ventilator, and peer down through the openings, while every now and then their imprisonment would be lightened by a visit from some kindly attendant, who would tell them the name of the member addressing the house. the only light was provided by a farthing dip stuck in a tin candlestick, and the room was gloomy and depressing. it is an ill wind, however, that blows nobody any good, and once when o'connell went up there expecting to find his wife, he kissed the dowager duchess of richmond by mistake.[ ] [ ] grantley berkeley's "recollections," vol. i. p. . maria edgeworth has left a description of a visit she paid to this melancholy spot in . "in the middle of the garret," she says, "is what seemed like a sentry box of deal boards, and old chairs placed round it; on these we got, and stood and peeped over the top of the boards."[ ] from this vantage-point she could see the chandelier blazing just beneath her, and below it again the table, with the mace resting upon it, and the speaker's polished boots--nothing more. [ ] "life and letters," vol. ii. p. . the twenty-five tickets issued nightly by the sergeant-at-arms for admission to this dungeon were much sought after, a fact which testifies eloquently to the political enthusiasm of our great-grandmothers. in spite of the speaker's order, ladies still continued occasionally to find their way into more comfortable parts of the house. wraxall declares that he saw the famous duchess of gordon sitting in the strangers' gallery dressed as a man.[ ] and in , a sister of some member entered one of the side galleries, and sat there undisturbed for a long time, the gallantry of the officials forbidding them to turn her out.[ ] [ ] "posthumous memoirs." [ ] grant's "recollections," p. . when the new houses of parliament were built, slightly better accommodation was provided for the fair sex. it was at first proposed that they should be seated in the open galleries of the commons, but this suggestion met with little support. miss harriet martineau, writing somewhere about , prophesied pessimistically that if such a proposition were carried out, the galleries would be occupied by giddy and frivolous women, lovers of sensation, with plenty of time upon their hands; "a nuisance to the legislature and a serious disadvantage to the wiser of their own sex."[ ] this idea seems to have been the popular one, and it was resolved to keep the ladies who attended debates as much in the background as possible. [ ] "history of the peace," vol. iii. p. . the present gallery has many disadvantages. its occupants are enclosed in a cage which prevents them from obtaining a good view of the proceedings, and altogether conceals them from the gaze of the members. repeated attempts have been made to secure better accommodation, notably by mr. grantley berkeley, to whom a number of ladies in presented a piece of plate in recognition of his services on their behalf. the house is determined, however, that its deliberations shall not be affected by the presence of any disturbing element, agreeing apparently with that member who assured the speaker that if ladies were permitted to sit undisguised in the gallery, "the feelings of the gallant old soldiers and gentlemen would be so excited and turned from political affairs, that they would not be able to do their duty to their country."[ ] [ ] berkeley's "recollections," vol. i. p. . the suggestion has often been made that the grille should be taken away from the front of the ladies' gallery, but it is doubtful whether the removal of this screen would commend itself to the visitors. its retention bestows one undoubted benefit upon them; it allows ladies to steal away unnoticed during the speech of some bore, with whom they may be personally acquainted, or whose feelings they would not like to hurt. this is an advantage which cannot be esteemed too highly. the ladies' gallery, which, as has often been said, might be called, but for its occupants, a veritable "chamber of horrors," is not considered to be within the house. consequently, when strangers are forced to withdraw, ladies may still remain. they are even allowed to be present during prayers. the feminine privilege of not being excluded with other strangers is shared by the peers, who, since , have always (with the exception of a few years) had a gallery reserved for them. up to a short time ago members of the house of commons were allowed to introduce ladies to the inner lobby, whence they could obtain a fragmentary glimpse of the proceedings through a small window. this privilege was withdrawn in , when a lady who was the guest of a member sought to make some return for his hospitality by rushing on to the floor of the house and shouting, "votes for women!" shortly before this two other ladies in the gallery, also the guests of members, had attempted to prove the fitness of their sex for the franchise by chaining themselves to the grille and screaming. this was the first instance of unruly behaviour in the ladies' gallery since june of the year , when some women applauded a speech, much to the indignation of speaker peel. it resulted in the closing of the gallery, and the exclusion of all but the speaker's own personal guests, on whose sense of honour and decency he could rely. in , however, the ladies' gallery was once more thrown open to members of the fair sex, tickets of admission being confined to the relatives of members, who balloted for them a week in advance. the ladies were required to sign an undertaking to behave decorously while they occupied seats in the gallery, and their exact relationship to members was not inquired into too closely. chapter xvi parliamentary reporting of all the strangers who honour the palace of westminster with their presence none are treated with greater consideration than the reporters. this touching regard shown for the comfort of the press is a flower of modern growth. it has blossomed forth within the last fifty years, watered by that love of publicity which is nowadays as common in st. stephen's as elsewhere. journalists are in the habit of complaining that the public no longer requires those full reports of parliamentary utterances which a few years ago were considered a very necessary part of the day's news. short political sketches have taken the place of full verbatim reports, and very few papers give anything but a rough outline of the daily parliamentary proceedings. politicians themselves, however, do not appear to share the general aversion to reading their speeches in print, and it is strange to contrast the warm welcome accorded by parliament to modern journalism with the cold reception met with by reporters in the days of our ancestors. in the order book of the house of commons there still exists a standing order which, though long in disuse, has never been repealed, declaring it a gross breach of privilege to print or publish anything relating to the proceedings of either house. this is but a relic of those distant days when the perpetual conflicts between the commons and the crown made secrecy a necessity of debate. in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries parliament was anything but anxious that the result of its deliberations should be made public, except in such a form as it considered desirable. the commons especially feared that information as to their intentions should reach the king's ears, and took every possible precaution to avert such a calamity. in this they were not altogether successful. during the debates on the proposed impeachment of the duke of buckingham, in , members were very busy with their pencils. the king himself had as many as four or five amateur note-takers present to supply him with reports, and among the private members were many other unofficial reporters. of these, perhaps, the most famous was sir symonds d'ewes, the member for sudbury, a lawyer with only one eye, devout, ambitious, conceited, and something of a snob.[ ] records were, to his way of thinking, the most ravishing and satisfying part of human knowledge. his historical researches had given him an acquaintance with precedents which was long the envy of his colleagues in parliament. in he transcribed the journals of both houses from the original journal books, adding comments of his own, and inserting various interesting speeches which he obtained from private manuscripts and diaries. when objections were raised to his incorrigible _cacoethes scribendi_, "if you will not permit us to write," he observed pathetically, "we must go to sleep, as some among us do, or go to plays, as others have done."[ ] the contemplation of such tragic alternatives did not, however, shake the resolution of the commons, and the practice of note-taking was put a stop to by a peremptory order of the house. [ ] "next to religion," he says in his "autobiography" (i. ), "my chief aim is to enrich my posterity with good blood, knowing it to be the greatest honour that can betide a family, to be often linked with the female inheritrices of ancient stock." [ ] forster's "grand remonstrance," p. n. sir symonds' peculiar knowledge of parliamentary precedents resulted in his perpetual interference with the procedure of the house. his frequent attempts to set the speaker right upon various points of order at length irritated the commons to the verge of madness, and it was with a sigh of relief that his colleagues bade him farewell when he reluctantly retired into private life to continue uninterrupted his antiquarian pursuits. rushworth, who was assistant clerk of the commons at the time of the long parliament, proved almost as energetic a reporter as d'ewes, and thereby repeatedly got himself into trouble. in , he was forbidden to take any notes without the sanction of the house, and a committee was appointed to look through his manuscripts and settle how much of them was worthy of preservation. the result of rushworth's passion for reporting is the "historical collections," which carlyle has called a "rag-fair of a book; the mournfullest torpedo rubbish-heap of jewels buried under sordid wreck and dust and dead ashes, one jewel to the waggon-load."[ ] one of the undoubted gems from this dust-heap is a full account of the proceedings in parliament on the famous occasion of charles i.'s violent attempt to arrest the five members. this dramatic incident does not appear to have deprived rushworth of his presence of mind. while the commons sat openmouthed and aghast, the assistant clerk calmly continued to take notes of every word that fell from the royal lips. for this posterity owes him a debt of the deepest gratitude. [ ] cromwell's "letters and speeches," vol. i. p. . the right of parliament to deliberate in secret was long jealously guarded, any breach of that privilege being punished with extreme severity. in , an oration delivered by lord digby on the bill for strafford's attainder, and circulated on his own initiative, was ordered to be burnt by the common hangman. at the same time it was formally resolved that no member should publish any speech without the express permission of the house. in the reign of charles ii. such men as shaftesbury, halifax, hampden, and hyde were not reported, though the first would occasionally issue his speeches in pamphlet form. towards the middle of the seventeenth century, however, the house ordered utterances of exceptional importance to be printed. during the long parliament licensed reports appeared under the title of "diurnal occurrences of parliament," and later on a meagre outline of the daily proceedings of parliament began to be published. but when locke, in , printed a report of a house of lords' debate, calling it "a letter from a person of quality to his friend," it was ordered by the privy council to be burnt. the licensing act of confined printing to london, york, oxford, and cambridge, and did not permit the number of master printers to exceed twenty. the commons' refusal in to renew the censorship marks the commencement of the emancipation of the press. a system of newsletters had been started with the restoration, whereby the outside world could learn something of the doings of parliament. this no doubt whetted the public appetite, and increased the popular interest in political affairs. in , however, it was resolved in parliament that "no newsletter writers do in their letters or other papers that they disperse presume to intermeddle with the debates or any other proceedings of the house." newsletters were rapidly followed by regular newspapers, which supplied their readers with somewhat imaginative accounts of the debates. the periodicals of william iii.'s day sometimes reported the speeches of particular speakers, who contributed their manuscripts to the papers. during the factious years that followed, the debates were officially distributed in monthly parts, but at the beginning of the eighteenth century the publication of newspaper reports was again declared a breach of parliamentary privilege, and a stamp duty was imposed with a view to arresting the circulation of the opposition press. a regular party organ first appeared in queen anne's reign. this was "the examiner," subsidised by harley's ministry, and conducted by swift. it was answered by "the whig examiner," edited by addison, which was followed by "manwaring's medley," a paper which soon became the recognised journal of the opposition.[ ] towards the close of anne's reign boyer began to publish "the political state of great britain" in which he included accounts of all the important parliamentary debates.[ ] this was succeeded in by "the historical register," which purported to describe the proceedings in both houses. in the reports of the commons' debates the names of the speakers were published without concealment, but the lords were treated more cautiously. thus, in an account of the septennial bill, we find such sentences as, "a noble duke stood up and said," or "this was answered by a northern peer," no further clue being given as to the identity of the several speakers.[ ] [ ] cook's "history of party," vol. i. pp. , . [ ] may's "constitutional history," vol. i. p. . [ ] hawkins' "life of johnson," vol. xii. "the historical register" was superseded twenty years later by the "gentleman's magazine," a monthly periodical founded by the bookseller cave and edited by guthrie. cave used to obtain admission to the house of commons for himself and a few friends, and would there take surreptitious notes of the proceedings. these he subsequently elaborated in some adjoining coffee-house, evolving lengthy and vivid descriptions of the debates from his inner consciousness. his editor was the first journalist to obtain access to the official parliamentary journals. the government had apparently by this time begun to regard the press as a more or less necessary evil, and thought it worth while to pay guthrie a small sum for his services, even providing him with a pension when he retired. the parliamentary articles in the "gentleman's magazine" were published under the title of the "senate of lilliput," the real names of the various debaters being replaced by pseudonyms which deceived nobody.[ ] this periodical is famous as being the medium through which dr. johnson originally published his political views. when he was first employed by cave upon the staff of his paper johnson was still struggling, not for fame, but for existence, and had no objection to any form of literary labour so long as it provided him with a means of livelihood. his original duties consisted in revising the rough notes made by guthrie, but by he had become entirely responsible for the parliamentary articles, and five years later succeeded guthrie in the editorial chair. [ ] for example: sholming for cholmondeley, ptit for pitt, and gumdahm for wyndham. the reports of the proceedings were often written under great difficulties. dr. johnson would at times be compelled to invent the whole debate, depending solely upon his imagination, and being provided with nothing more inspiring than a list of the speakers and of the subjects under discussion. "i wrote that in a garret!" he is always supposed to have said of a much admired speech of pitt's, and perhaps the oratorical fame of many a statesman of that day is due to dr. johnson's literary skill. his style was as a rule far too perfect to pass for that of an ordinary member of parliament, and in his reports he is often accused of giving not so much what the speakers said as what they ought to have said. nor was his pen an entirely impartial one, for he always took care, as he explained to boswell, that the "whig dogs" should not have the best of it in debate. writing as he did, very hurriedly and from scanty materials, the compilation of parliamentary reports gave him little satisfaction. as soon as he found that his debates were thought to be genuine, he determined to cease their composition, and in the later years of his life often expressed regret at having been engaged in work of this kind. the "london magazine" was the next journal to publish debates, imitating the methods of the "gentleman's magazine," by pretending to report the proceedings of an imaginary roman senate, and alluding to the speakers by more or less appropriate latin names. in spite of these various efforts to establish the liberty of the press, the attitude of parliament long remained antagonistic. in a fresh resolution was passed in the house declaring it to be a breach of privilege for any one to print any account of the debates, and in the following year a printer of gloucester was summoned to the bar of the lords and severely reprimanded for publishing a report of their proceedings.[ ] in speaker onslow brought up the subject of parliamentary reporting in the commons, and a debate ensued. "if we do not put a speedy stop to this practice," said winnington, "you will have the speeches of this house every day printed, even during your session, and we shall be looked upon as the most contemptible assembly on the face of the earth." pelham, however, was inclined to deal lightly with the press. "let them alone," he said once, "they make better speeches for us than we can make for ourselves."[ ] but it was a long time before this sensible view became general. [ ] raikes's "journal," vol. ii. p. . [ ] coxe's pelham administration, vol. i. p. . the struggle between press and parliament reached a climax in , when wilkes's paper, the "north briton," was publishing the much discussed "junius letters." public opinion was by this time becoming gradually alive to the necessity for granting freedom to the press, and needed but the opportunity to express itself openly upon the subject. the occasion had at length arrived. the commons in this year were much incensed at the behaviour of some wretched city printers who had offended against the privileges of the house, and despatched the sergeant-at-arms to arrest them. after much difficulty two of the culprits were apprehended, but on being taken before the city aldermen the latter at once ordered their release. when a messenger from the house of commons attempted to arrest another printer, he was himself seized and carried before the civic authorities, charged with assault. the house was furious at this treatment of their officer, and committed the lord mayor and one of the offending aldermen--both members of parliament--to the tower. the press on this occasion found a worthy champion in edmund burke. on the nd of march, in a debate which lasted twenty-two hours, burke effectually held his own, and so bullied and ridiculed the house that he brought the whole business to a standstill. by continually forcing divisions and making use of other obstructive tactics, he managed to delay the parliamentary attempt to muzzle the press, and gained a great victory for the cause of freedom. from being actively disliked the reporters gradually grew to be tolerated, and finally courted and cultivated. members who had formerly objected to the publication of their speeches soon began to complain with equal bitterness that they were not reported at all. others, again, grumbled at being misreported, words being attributed to them for which they altogether declined to be responsible. wedderburn, afterwards lord loughborough, complained, in , that the reporting in the commons was shocking. of the report of one speech which he was supposed to have delivered he said that "to be sure, there are in that report a few things which i did say, but many things which i am glad i did not say, and some things which i wish i could have said."[ ] burke's famous sentiment that "virtue does not depend on climates or degrees" was first printed as "on _climaxes_ and _trees_." when sheridan made his great speech at the trial of warren hastings, the "morning chronicle" reported him as having said that "nothing equal in criminality was to be traced either in ancient or modern history, in the correct periods of tacitus, or the luminous page of gibbon."[ ] the historian was delighted at being mentioned in so flattering a fashion; "i could not hear without emotion the personal compliment," he says in his autobiography. but when sheridan was asked how he came to apply the epithet "luminous" to gibbon, "i said vo-luminous!" he replied shortly.[ ] [ ] campbell's "lives of the chancellors," vol. vi. p. . [ ] "morning chronicle," june , . [ ] samuel rogers' "recollections," p. . cobbett, too, suffered much from bad reporting, and when he ventured to find fault, the press retaliated by ceasing to report him at all. spring-rice (afterwards lord monteagle) was punished in a similar fashion for two years, because he had said something deprecatory of journalism. another member complained that his speeches had been published in the papers with certain of the sentences printed in italics. "i never spoke in italics in my life!" he exclaimed indignantly. o'connell in accused a reporter of wilfully perverting one of his speeches. by way of excuse the pressman stated that on his way home from the house he had been caught in a shower of rain, which had washed out many of his notes. this explanation did not satisfy the liberator, who justly remarked that it must surely have been an extraordinary shower which could not only wash out one speech, but actually wash in another![ ] he was never a favourite of the press, and they finally decided to discontinue the report of his speeches. as a means of revenge, he determined to prevent all newspaper reporting, and for some time succeeded in doing so. with this end in view, he made a practice of "espying strangers" on every opportunity, and each time he did so the galleries had to be cleared. the withdrawal of the reporters had a natural but most depressing effect upon the oratory of parliament. "for the first time within my recollection," says grant, "members kept their word when, on commencing their orations, they promised not to trespass at any length on the patience of the house."[ ] [ ] o'connell's "recollections and experiences," vol. i. p. . [ ] grant's "recollections," p. . the "diary," published in , and edited by william woodfall, was the first paper to give accounts of the parliamentary debates on the day after they had taken place. woodfall had a marvellous memory, and would sit in the gallery or stand at the bar of either house for hours, without taking a note of any kind, and afterwards reproduce the speeches verbatim. he seemed not to require rest or refreshment, but occasionally fortified himself with a hard-boiled egg. his efforts were, however, spasmodic and irregular, and it was not until , when william cobbett started the "weekly political register," which afterwards published the debates as supplements under the title of "cobbett's parliamentary debates," that the system of providing regular reports of the proceedings was inaugurated. in the publication of the "weekly political register" was transferred to t. c. hansard, whose name has been so long and honourably connected with parliamentary reporting that it is still used colloquially to describe the official volumes. [illustration: william woodfall from the painting by thomas beach in the national portrait gallery] for over fifty years hansard carried on the publication of debates as a private speculation, by which time the government had realised the useful nature of his labours, and assisted him by subscribing for a certain number of sets of the reports for public distribution. in a treasury grant was made to enable him to continue the good work with greater fullness and facility, and twelve years later he sold his rights to a syndicate. this new venture proved anything but a financial success, and the publication of the "parliamentary debates," as they are now called, was then undertaken by the official government printers, the reports being composed from notes furnished by the staff of the "times." it was not until that the present system was instituted, and both houses, while leaving the printing of debates in the hands of the king's printer, provided themselves with a regular staff of reporters, who were their own officials and unconnected with any company or newspaper. up to the time of the fire, reporters in the commons always sat in the back row of the strangers' gallery, to which they obtained admission by a sessional payment of three guineas. in , the house of lords provided separate accommodation for the press, and in the temporary house which was constructed in a special gallery was reserved for their use. the press gallery in the present house of commons holds about sixty persons, and is situated exactly behind and above the speaker's chair. reporters of the newspapers in the lords occupy a similar position, but as the acoustic properties of the upper chamber are notoriously bad, a special arrangement has existed for some years, whereby the official reporter of the "parliamentary debates" is given a seat on the floor of the house immediately behind the clerks at the table. a hundred years ago the path of the pressman was not so smooth as it is to-day. up to the publication of debates was undertaken at the risk of the printer. in that year hansard published the report of a select committee of the house of commons, in which a certain book was referred to as "disgusting and obscene." stockdale, the publisher of the book in question, took the matter into court and obtained £ damages for libel. the house retorted by summoning to the bar the sheriffs of middlesex who had tried the case, and reprimanded them for their contempt of its privileges. after this lord john russell took the first opportunity of introducing a bill rendering all publication of speeches and documents, if by the authority of parliament, matters of privilege not amenable to ordinary law. a member of parliament cannot, however, claim privilege for publishing or circulating the report of any libellous speech made in the house, though he is, of course, protected there for anything he may say. the suggestion that privilege of parliament should protect members from being proceeded against for writing and publishing libellous articles was discussed in november, , and finally relinquished by a large majority.[ ] [ ] walpole's "memoirs of the reign of george iii.," vol. i. p. . the subject of reporting cannot be left without some mention of that official amateur reporter who sits upon the treasury bench and prepares his nightly précis of the day's parliamentary proceedings. amateur reporters there have always been in the commons from the days of sir symonds d'ewes and sir henry cavendish[ ] to the present time; but there is only one upon the floor of the house whose duties have ever been officially recognised. [ ] in the heyday of parliamentary corruption, when a critical division was impending, sir hercules langrishe was asked whether sir henry cavendish had as usual been taking notes. "he has been taking either notes or money," he replied, "i don't know which." in accordance with a custom of many years standing the leader of the house of commons writes a nightly letter to the sovereign, whenever the house is sitting, giving a brief _résumé_ of the debates. this letter, often composed somewhat hastily during the course of an exciting debate, is at once sent off in an official dispatch box to his majesty, and is subsequently filed in the library at buckingham palace.[ ] the practice dates from the reign of george iii., who required george grenville, then leader of the house of commons, to provide him with daily reports of the debates relating to the contest between parliament and john wilkes. [ ] on one occasion, in the hurry of dispatching his nightly missive, lord randolph churchill accidentally enclosed a quantity of tobacco in the box which he forwarded to queen victoria, much to her majesty's amusement. the sovereign is not supposed to enter the lower house--charles i. was the only monarch who broke this rule--and thus, in days before debates were published at length in the papers, the crown had no means of ascertaining the doings of the commons save through the medium of this letter. the need for this one-sided nightly correspondence no longer exists, but the custom still prevails, and adds one more to the already multifarious duties of the leader of the house, though nowadays it is occasionally delegated to some other minister, or to one of the whips. to-day press and parliament are mutually dependent. a great newspaper proprietor who was recently asked which of the two he considered to be the most powerful, found some difficulty in replying. "the press is the voice without which parliament could not speak," he said. "on the other hand, parliament is the law-making machine without which the press could not act." the question of their relative power and importance must be left to the decision of individual judgment and taste. "give me but the liberty of the press," said sheridan in , in answer to the premier, spencer perceval, "and i will give the minister a venal house of peers, i will give him a corrupt and servile house of commons, i will give him the full swing of the patronage of office, i will give him the whole host of ministerial influences, i will give him all the power that place can confer upon him to purchase submission and overawe resistance; and yet, armed with the liberty of the press, i will go forth to meet him undismayed; i will attack the mighty fabric he has reared with that mightier engine; i will shake down from its height corruption, and lay it beneath the ruins of the abuses it was meant to shelter!"[ ] [ ] hansard's "debates," st series, vol. xv. sources and references adams, w. h. d., english party leaders and parties. . alison, sir a., life of lord castlereagh. . anson, sir w. r., law and custom of the constitution. . arcana parliamentaria, or precedents concerning parliament, by r. c. of the middle temple, esq. . ashley, hon. a. e., life of lord palmerston. . ashwell, a., life of bishop samuel wilberforce. . atlay, j. b., the victorian chancellors. . bacon, n., historical discourse of the laws and government of england. . bagehot, w., biographical studies. . bagehot, w., the english constitution. . bagehot, w., literary studies. . barnes, t., parliamentary portraits. . barrington, sir j., historic memoirs of ireland. . barrington, sir j., personal sketches of his own times. . barrington, sir j., the rise and fall of the irish nation. . barrow, j. h., the mirror of parliament. - 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. petyt, g., lex parliamentaria. . petyt, w., miscellanea parliamentaria. . petyt, w., jus parliamentarium. . phillips, c., curran and his contemporaries. . pike, l. o., constitutional history of the house of lords. . pope, a., works of. . porritt, e., the unreformed house of commons. . prior, sir j., life of burke. . prior, sir j., life of malone. . privilege and practice of parliaments in england, the. . pryme, g., autobiographic recollections. . prynne, w., a brief register of parliamentary writs. . prynne, w., opening of the great seale of england. . raikes, t., journal. . raikes, t., popular sketch of the origin and development of the english constitution. . ralph, t., the use and abuse of parliaments. . redlich, j., the procedure of the house of commons. . reports from the select committees on parliamentary debates, on parliamentary reporting, on the admission of strangers, on the houses of parliament, on the office of speaker, and on the establishment of the house of commons. , , , , , . reresby, sir j., memoirs. . ritchie, j. e., modern statesmen. . robinson, sir h. c., diary, reminiscences, and correspondence. . roebuck, j. a., history of the whig ministry of . . rogers, j. e. t., protests of the lords. . rogers, samuel, recollections of the table talk of. . rolliad, the. . romilly, sir s., memoirs and correspondence. . roper, w., life of sir thomas more. . roscoe, h., eminent british lawyers. . rose, right hon. g., diaries and correspondence. . rose, g., observations respecting the public expenditure and influence of the crown. . rosebery, lord, pitt. . rushworth, j., historical collections. - . russell, g. w. e., memoir of gladstone. . russell, g. w. e., sir wilfrid lawson. . russell, lord, recollections. . russell, lord, life of charles james fox. . russell, lord john, essays and sketches of life and character. . russell, lord john, essay on the history of the english government and constitution from the reign of henry vii. . sarcastic notices of the long parliament. . scobell, h., rules and customs of the house. . scobell, h., proceedings in the house of lords. . selden, j., discourse touching the office of the lord chancellors of england. . selden, j., table talk. . seward, w., anecdotes of some distinguished persons. . seward, w., biographiana. . sheil, r. l., sketches of the irish bar. - . sheil, r. l., sketches, legal and political. . sherbrooke, lord, speeches on reform. . sheridan, t., discourse on the rise and power of parliaments. . sheridan, t., some revelations in irish history. . sheridan, r. b. b., speeches. . sidney, a., discourses concerning government. . sidney, a., of the use and abuse of parliaments. . sinclair, sir j., correspondence. . sketches personal and political in the house of commons (by a silent member). . smith, j. c., and wallace, w., life of robert wallace. . smith, p., and wright, a., parliament past and present. smith, g. b., history of the english parliament. . smith, j. t., and hawkins, j. s., antiquities of the city of westminster. - . smith, rev. s., works. . somers, lord, the manner of holding parliaments prior to the reign of queen elizabeth. (the somers tracts.) southey, r., life of cromwell. . spalding, t. a., the house of lords. . stanhope, lord, life of pitt. . stapleton, e. g., canning and his times. . stow, j., a survey of london. . surtees, w. e., the lives of lords stowell and eldon. . taylor, h., origin and growth of the english constitution. . temple, sir r., life in parliament, - . . temple, sir r., the house of commons. . timbs, j., anecdote biography. . timbs, j., a century of anecdote. . timbs, j., london and westminster. . timbs, j., curiosities of london. . todd, a., parliamentary government in england. . torrens, w. mcc., life of sir james graham. . torrens, w. mcc., life of lord melbourne. . torrens, w. mcc., reform of procedure in parliament. . torrens, w. mcc., twenty years in parliament. . townsend, w. c., history of the house of commons, - . . townshend, h., historical collections of the last four parliaments of queen elizabeth. . trevelyan, g. o., life of macaulay. . voltaire, a. de, works. . walcott, rev. m., memorials of westminster. . waldegrave, lord, memoirs. . wallace, w., and smith, j. c., life of robert wallace. . walpole, h., letters (edited by p. cunningham). . walpole, h., letters of sir h. mann. . walpole, h., memoirs of the reign of george iii. . walpole, h., letters (edited by mrs. p. toynbee). . "walpoliana." . walpole, s., history of england. - . warburton, e., memoirs of horace walpole. . warwick, sir p., memoirs of the reign of charles i. . white, w., the inner life of the house of commons (edited by j. h. mccarthy). . whitelocke, b., memorials. . whitty, e. m., friends of bohemia or phases of london life. . whitty, e. m, history of the session of - . . whitty, e. m., political portraits. . wilberforce, w., life of. . wilkins, w. w., political ballads. . wilkinson, k., the personal story of the upper house. . wills, s. r., life of lord eldon. . willis, b., notitia parliamentaria. . wood, a., athenae oxonienses. . wraxall, sir n., memoirs. . wright, a., and smith, p., parliament past and present. young, a., autobiography (edited by m. betham-edwards). . index abbott, speaker, , , , , , - abercrombie, aberdeen, lord, , abjuration, oath of, , adam, duel, , addington, _note^ _, , , , , addison, his first speech, _and note^ _; _cited_, ; the "spectator," ; "the whig examiner," address, the, debate on, adelaide, queen, adelphi, the, admiralty, pitt and the, affirmation, ; the bradlaugh incident, - albemarle, duke of, _see_ torrington, lord alexander, emperor, saying of, _quoted_, _note^ _ alfred, prince, alfred the great, councils of, alice's coffee house, aliens bill, ... , _note^ _ aliens, disabilities, all-night sittings, "all the talents," , allegiance, oath of, almack's, althorp, lord, the fire at st. stephen's, , ; punishment, _note^ _ alvanley, lord, _and note^ _; duel, american war, the, ; employment of indians in, amersham market, _note^ _ ancaster, family of, _note^ _ anne, queen, parliaments, ; parties, ; creation of peers, _note^ _; cabinets, , ; death of, ; bills quashed, ; women partisans, ; reporting in parliament, , appeal, court of, appeal, lords of, , appellate jurisdiction, act of ... , apsley, sir allen, arcot, nabob of, argyle, duke of, _note^ _ arrest, exemption from, arthur's, arundel, earl of, trial, ascension day, ascot, ash wednesday, ashby, case of, ashley, lord, _see_ shaftesbury ashtown, lord, _note^ _ askew, anne, _note^ _ atheists and the oath, atterbury, bishop of rochester, his reply to lord coningsby, , auditor general, audley, thomas, lord keeper, _aula regis_, the, aylesbury, constables of, bacon, francis, trial, , , ; "collection of apothegms," _and note^ _; _quoted_ ; _mentioned_, , bacon, nathaniel, "historical discourses," bacon, nicholas, bagehot, walter, _quoted_, , , , _note^ _ balaam, reference to, , , _note^ _ baldwin, printer of "st. james's chronicle," balfour, rt. hon. a. j., ; opinion of a member of parliament's position, ; premiership, bankrupts, election of, , barnes, on lawyers, _quoted_, _note^ _ baronage, the, composition and antiquity of, , barons in council, ; summoned by henry ii., barré, colonel, , , barry, sir charles, design for houses of parliament, , , _note^ _ bathurst, bragge, _note^ _ beckett, st. thomas à, beefeaters, the, duties, , bellamy, john, bellamy's kitchen, - bellingham, merchant, "benefit of clergy," , benson, sale of "protections," bentham, jeremy, _quoted_, berkeley, grantley, , berkshire, earl of, bidmead, big ben, _and note^ _ biggar, ; saying of, _quoted_, ; speeches, ; "spying strangers," , billingsgate, bills, classification, ; introduction of the bill, , ; st and nd reading, ; committee stage, , ; report stage and rd reading, ; reception in the lords, ; royal assent, _and note^ _, birch, colonel, _note^ _ bishops, attendance on the kings, ; introduction to the house of lords, "black book" of edward iii., blackfriars, priory church, black rod, duties, , , , , , , , , , ; salary, , blackstone, _quoted_, , bodmin, _note^ _ bolingbroke, on the creation of peers, _note^ _; on leaders, ; style, ; on eloquence, _note^ _ bolton, duke of, , boneham, boswell, ; "dr. johnson," _note^ _ bothmar, bourchier, sir robert, bowring, sir john, and the khedive, , boyer, "the political state of great britain," bradlaugh, the affirmation incident, - ; "the impeachment of the house of brunswick," ; committed to the clock tower, ; _mentioned_, brand, speaker, , , , bribery, devices of the stuarts, - ; retaining fees to scottish members, ; prices of posts, , ; prices of seats, - ; corruption of the treasury, ; effort to destroy, , bright, john, dr. kenealy and, ; sayings of, , , , ; speeches, , bristol, bishop of, punishment, , bristol, burke's speech in, - , _note^ _ british museum, trusteeship, british parliament, the, brodricke, sir allen, brougham, lord, sayings of, _quoted_, , ; chancellor, _note^ _; character, , ; defence of queen caroline, _and note^ _; unpopularity, , ; returning the seal, ; and wellington, _note^ _; and the old seal, ; speeches, _note^ _, , , ; a scene in the house, ; _mentioned_, , , bucher, _quoted_, _note^ _ buckingham, st duke, , , ; nd duke, , ; buckingham and chandos, duke of, buckingham palace, , buckinghamshire, "bulls," , burdett, sir francis, _note^ _ burgesse, dr., burghley, lord, burke, edmund, "works and correspondence," _cited_, ; his definition of party, ; the quarrel with fox, , ; on the house of lords, ; an incident, ; speech at bristol, - , _note^ _; _cited_, , , , ; on the study of the law, ; sayings of, _note^ _, _and note^ _, ; incident of the dagger, _and note^ _, ; rolle and, ; on lord north, ; speeches of, - , , ; on sheridan, ; style, ; fondness for debate, , ; and the press, ; _mentioned_, burnet, bishop, burney, fanny, bury st. edmunds, bute, lord, _note^ _; premiership, butt, buxton, "memoirs," buxton, sir t. f., saying, byng, george, _quoted_, _note^ _ byron, pedigree of, ; _quoted_, ; on burke, , cabinet council, the, origin, - ; under the stuarts, ; the system of to-day, ; first official use of the term, ; members of, in , ; members not holding office, ; times of meeting, , ; the sovereign's presence, ; secrecy, ; , downing street, , ; the prime minister's position, ; qualities of successful prime ministers, - ; cabinet dinners, _and notes_; privileges of cabinet ministers, cairns, lord, _note^ _ calais, defence of, calendar reform, "call of the house," camden society, the, _note^ _ campbell, lord, chancellor of ireland, _note^ _; "lives," _quoted_, _and note^ _, , _note^ _ canada bill, the, of ... , canning, style, ; sayings, _quoted_, _note^ _; and the king's speech, ; attack on brougham, ; duel, ; first speech, ; eloquence of, canterbury, abbot of, canterbury, archbishop of, , , canute, carhampton, lord, _see_ luttrel, colonel carleton, sir dudley, carlisle, lady, carlyle, "letters and speeches of oliver cromwell," _quoted_, _note^ _; on "historical collections," _quoted_, carnabie, sir w., carnarvon, lord, speech of, caroline, queen, , carrington, family of, _note^ _ castlereagh, lord, premiership, ; duel, catholic emancipation, ; abbot on, catholicism, cavaliers, the, cave, bookseller, , cavendish, lord, cavendish, lord john, speech _quoted_, , _note^ _ cavendish, sir henry, reporting, _and note^ _ cecil, lord robert, _see_ salisbury cecil, robert, , censorship, commons refuse to renew, ... , ceremony, selden's saying regarding, _and note^ _ chair, the, deference to, chairman of committees, , chairman of ways and means, , chamberlain, austen, _note^ _ chamberlain, joseph, the attack on gladstone, summer, ... , , ; opprobrious names for, chamberlain, the lord great, his duties at the palace of westminster, _note^ _, chanceller, the lord, origin of the office, , ; the office held by clerics, ; duties, , , , ; the chancellorship and the lord keepership joined, , ; famous lord chancellors, - ; judicial position, ; salary, ; social position, ; perquisites, ; the opening of parliament, , , ; approval of the speaker-elect, , ; taking the oath, ; receiving a newly created peer, ; meeting the king, ; reading the king's speech, , ; deputies, , chancery, court of, , , chaplain, the parliamentary, , chaplin, h., charles i., reign of, , ; presence in the commons, ; trial, ; death sentence, ; cabinets, ; parliaments, , , ; speakers, ; parliamentary fines, ; attempt to arrest the five members, ; relations with the commons, charles ii., restoration, ; parliaments, , , , ; presence in the lords, ; decoration of st. stephen's, ; lying-in-state, ; the privy council, ; cabinets, , , , , ; chancellors, ; speakers, , , ; the restoration, ; parliamentary dress, chatham, _see_ william pitt; on the magna charta, _quoted_, ; his reply to walpole, _and note^ _; speeches, , ; a protest by, ; _mentioned_, , chaucer, chelmsford, lord, _note^ _ chelsea parish church, chester, representation, chesterfield, lord, ; "letters," and _note^ _; on oratory, ; on the intelligence of the commons, , chiltern hundreds, the, , , , _note^ _ cholmondeley, _note^ _; family of, _note^ _ churchill, lord randolph, saying of, _quoted_, _note^ _; at the treasury, ; attack on bradlaugh, ; on the king's speech, ; speeches of, ; his nightly letter to the queen, _note^ _ cicero, , cinque ports, the lord warden of, ; fine inflicted on the, clandon, _note^ _ clarendon, hyde, earl of, impeachment, , ; _mentioned_, ; offices held, ; speeches of, _note^ _, , clarendon, lord, _note^ _ clarke, mrs., _clavis regni_, clergymen, election of, clerk of the house, his duties, - clerk of the parliaments, _and note^ _ clifford, lord, clifford, sir augustus, clock tower, the, , "closure" rule, the, , ; first application, , clothworkers' company, cobbett, william, , , , , , - ; "cobbett's parliamentary debates," ; "weekly political register," the, cobden, sayings _quoted_, , cochrane, lord, expelled, cockburn, "life of jeffrey," _quoted_, cockpit, the, whitehall, , _and note^ _ coercion act, coke, sir edward, , , , , , , , , , commercial distress, debate on, commission, parliament opened by, , committees, ; the committee of state, ; the committee of council, ; select committees, _and note^ _, ; origin of system, ; committees of the whole house, ; committees of public petitions, commons, house of, journals, ; first mention, ; political ascendancy, ; under cromwell, , ; the royal presence in, , ; constitution in ... , ; the party system established, ; the method of "tacking," ; doctrines concerning money bills, , ; relations with the lords, - ; resolutions for the reform of the house of lords, _and notes_, ; separated from the lords, , ; the reformed parliament, , ; increase in size, ; the first labour candidates, ; life of a modern legislator, ; payment of members, - ; advantages of the position, - ; the members' duties, - ; advantages of membership, ; qualification for election, - ; disqualifications, - ; exclusion of infants, , ; peers elected to, _note^ _; vacating a seat, ; establishment in st stephen's chapel, - ; the present house, ; the mace, , ; members' comforts, - ; bellamy's old kitchen, - ; the kitchen committee, ; commoners in the cabinet, ; the scene in the house, summer, ... , - ; the opening of parliament by commission, - ; retention of seats, - ; the clerk of the house, , ; arrival of black rod, , ; election of the speaker, - ; called to the bar of the lords, , , - ; second arrival of black rod, ; taking the oath, - ; introduction of a new member, , ; balloting for places at the bar of the lords, _and note^ _; rules of debate, - ; hours of sitting, ; summoned to the lords to hear the royal assent, ; divisions, - ; the press gallery, , commonwealth, parliament under the, , _commune concilium_, the, compton, spencer, _see_ wilmington, lord conferences, "coningsby," coningsby, lord, , consort, prince, contempt of parliament, , , copyright bill, ( ), ; ( ), corn duties, corn importation bill, _and note^ _ corn laws abolition, bill for, cornwall, speaker, cornwallis, lord, _note^ _ corporation act, _note^ _, correction, house of, corrupt and illegal practices prevention act, _note^ _ cory, family of, descent, council of the chiefs, councils, early, ; great council of peers, ... , "counting out," , country party, the, court cullies, court party, the, courtney, of, "characteristics," _quoted_, _note^ _ covenanters, the, coventry, , cowper, william, afterwards lord chancellor, , cranworth, lord, crimean war, "crisis," the, croker, _note^ _; on the relations between the two houses, ; "papers," _quoted_, _note^ _ cromwell, oliver, the famous "bauble," , ; his opinion of scotland, _note^ _; and corruption, ; on the house of lords, ; and the lords spiritual, ; death warrant of charles i., ; and parliament, cromwell, richard, crowle, attorney, crown, power of the - ; curtailed, , "cullies," cumberland, duke of, _curia regis_, the, constitution, , ; separated from parliament, curran, a retort of, _note^ _ curzon, lord, of kedleston, _note^ _ cust, sir john, death ... , customs, corruption in the, danby, fall of, daniel, _note^ _ debate, rules of, deceased wife's sister bill, delany, mrs., "autobiography," demosthenes, , denison, speaker, _note^ _, , , , deportment, parliamentary, - derby day, derby, lord, , _note^ _, , _note_, _note^ _ dering, sir edward, punishment, desborough, devonshire, duchess of, devonshire, duke of, _note^ _, d'ewes, sir symonds , ; his note-taking, , _diary_, woodfall's, , dickens, _cited_, , digby, lord, speech, dilke, sir charles, dinners, ministerial, disraeli, use of the term "tory," ; and the lords, , ; sayings of, _quoted_, , , , ; premiership, , ; cabinet, ; a pun on, _note^ _; queen's speeches, ; unparliamentary language, ; and o'connell, , ; and lawyers, ; speeches, , , ; description of peel, ... , _note^ _; on "whips," ; and biggar, divisions, in the commons, - ; in the lords, _note^ _, divorce bill, the, donegal, lady, _note^ _ doorkeepers, remuneration of, dorchester, lord, downing, sir george, downing street, dress, parliamentary, - drury lane, drybutter, dryden, "shadwell," ; _quoted_, dublin university, _note^ _ duelling, parliamentary, , dundas, _see_ melville, lord dunning, dunraven, lord, bill for reforming the house of lords, durham, bishop of, durham, enfranchisement of, _and note^ _ earldormen, earl marshal, duties, edgeworth, maria, "life and letters," _quoted_, , edinburgh, "edinburgh review," education bill of ... , edward i., reign of, , , , ; and the earl de warrene, ; chancellors, ; parliaments, , _note^ _ edward ii., , edward iii., reign of, , , , , _note^ _, ; parliaments of, , _note^ _; restoration of st. stephen's, edward vi., ; enfranchisement of rotten boroughs, edward vii., (prince of wales) ; incident in the stranger's gallery, , ; lying-in-state, edward the confessor, eldon, lord, chancellor, _note^ _, , ; on thurlow, ; character of, - ; his "anecdote book," _note^ _; salary, ; letter to dr. fisher, _note^ _; decisions of, eleanor, queen, _and note^ _ elections, cost of, _and note^ _ elibank, lord, eliot, sir john, , , elizabeth, queen, parliaments, , , , , , , ; reign of, _note^ _, , _note^ _; creation of rotten boroughs, ; and holland, ; chancellors of, - ; visit to westminster, ; speakers, ; the sergeant-at-arms, _note^ _; monopolies, ; parliamentary committees, ; bills quashed, ellenborough, lord, ; sayings of, _quoted_, _note^ _ ellesmere, lord, on the office of the lord chancellor, _quoted_, _note^ _ elsyng, _note^ _, _and note^ _; "parliaments of england," _quoted_, ely, abbot, of, emerson, _quoted_, english railway committee, , epsom, equity, court of, erle, sir walter, _and note^ _ erskine, james, _see_ grange, lord "espying strangers," , , essex, earl of, ; trial, ethelred, chancellors of, evans, colonel, evans, sir george de lacy, _and note^ _ "examiner," the, exchange, the, exchequer court, exclusion bill, ... , executive, the, falkland, lord, saying of, _quoted_, farnham, lord, _note^ _ fawkes, guy, , fazakerley, female suffrage, fenian scares, ... , ferguson of pitfour, ferrars, arrest of, finance bill of ... , , finch, lord, speech of, , finch, speaker, , fines, parliamentary, - fire of london, "first commoner," first statute of westminster, fisher, dr., of the charter house, _note^ _ fitzwilliam, lord, fleet, the, flood, corruption by, ; on pitt, floyd, punishment of, foreign office, , forster, _quoted_, foster, john leslie, sheil's essay on, - fox, charles james, burke's quarrel with, , ; lord north's dismissal, ; saying of, _quoted_, ; the peace of paris, ; scene in the house, , ; duel, - ; eloquence, ; his speeches, , , , ; _mentioned_, , , , , _note^ _ fox, sir stephen, _note^ _ "franking," the privilege of, , french fleet, visit to london, french revolution, the, _note^ _ fuller, ; insults the chair, gardiner, dr., "history," _cited_, gardiner, sir alan, garibaldi, _note^ _ garter-king-at-arms, duties, garter, order of the, gascony, gatton, rotten borough of, , gemot of wessex, , "gentleman's magazine," the, , george i., cabinets, george ii., cabinets, ; the king's speech, ; sayings of, _quoted_, george iii., relations with the commons, ; correspondence with lord north, ; creation of peers, ; coronation, ; cabinets, _note^ _; chancellors, ; and thurlow, ; parliaments, , , ; speakers, _note^ _; the king's speech, ; parliamentary privileges under, , ; (prince of wales), george iv., at westminster palace, _note^ _; accession, ; the king's speech, ; (regent), george, lloyd, german sources of the english constitution, , germans, early, manners of, gibbon, _note^ _, ; sheridan and, gladstone, sayings of, _quoted_, , , , ; "tacking," - ; on the relations between the two houses, ; lying-in-state, ; and disraeli, ; offices held by, , _note^ _; on etiquette, ; premiership, , , , ; at debate, ; chamberlain's attack on, summer ... , - ; the bradlaugh incident, ; queen's speeches, ; the hat incident, , ; on obstruction, ; proposed alteration in procedure, , ; speeches, , ; on oratory, ; _mentioned_, _and note^ _ glasgow, glastonbury, abbot of, godolphin, gordon, duchess of, gordon, lord george, gordon riots, the, _note^ _ goschen, lord, speeches, gower, lord, , gower, lord f. l., grafton, duke of, grand committees, grand remonstrance, the, , , grange, lord, speeches, grant, general, grant, "recollections," _quoted_, _and note_, grantham, borough of, granville, lady, "letters," _quoted_, _note^ _, _note^ _ granville, lord, _note^ _, _note^ _ grattan, "life and times," _cited_, ; speeches, , _and note^ _, ; saying, _quoted_, ; motion for catholic emancipation, ; on pitt, _quoted_, gravel pits, kensington, great council, the, "great tom of westminster," _and note^ _, grenville, george, , , , , , grenville, lord, proposal regarding westminster, grenville, richard, _note^ _ grenville, on the presence of women in parliament, _and note^ _ grey, lord, ; his reform bill, griffith, darby, griffiths, admiral, grimston, edward, "guardian," the, guilford, lord, chancellor, , guilford, lord, son of lord north, _and note^ _ "guillotine," the, gully, speakership, , , , gunter, _note^ _ guthrie, editor, , gwydyr, lord, _note^ _ habeas corpus act, hakewell, _cited_, _note^ _ halifax, halifax, st lord, saying of, _quoted_, halifax, lord, lord lieutenant of ireland, hall, arthur, member of parliament for grantham, ; punishment, hall, sir benjamin, _note^ _ hamilton, william gerard, his speech, hampden, , , hampton court, handel, _note^ _ hanmer, sir john, hanoverian parliaments, times of session, hansard, t. c., publication of debates, , harcourt, sir philip, hardwicke, lord, chancellor, , ; on strangers, , harley, sir robert, speaker, , , ; premier, , , ; chancellor, _note^ _ harrowby, lord, ^ harrys, dr., hartley, david, speech of, , harwich, borough of, _note^ _ haselrig, hastings, warren, impeachment, , , , , hatherton, lord, hats, etiquette concerning, , hatsell, clerk of the house, , ; "precedents," _cited_, , _and note^ _, _note^ _, hengham, sir ralph de, henry i., reign, , _note^ _, ; chancellors, henry ii., henry iii., ; parliaments, , _note^ _ henry vi., reign, , , ; parliaments, _note^ _, , , henry vii., reign, henry viii., reign, , , _note^ _, , , ; parliaments of , , , , , , ; removal to whitehall, ; death, _note^ _ heptarchy, the, , heredity, the principle of, - "herod," herries, hewitt, speeches, "historical register," the, hobart, sir miles, hogan, holland, earl of, holles, holt, lord chief justice, home rule bill, ( ), ; ( ), , "honourable," the title, hopton, sir ralph, hotham, lord, "house-fright," - howard, lord, howard, francis, "memoirs," _note^ _ "hudibras" and _note^ _ hughes, hughes, hull, borough of, _note^ _ hume, david, , hume, joseph, in the house, , hungerford, sir thomas, speaker, , _note^ _ hunt, first speeches, hutcheson, speech, hyde, lord, _note^ _; _see also_ clarendon idiots, laws concerning, , ireland, act of union, irish members in bellamy's, ; suspension of, , irish municipal bill, irish office, the, irish parliament, irish party tactics, - irish peers, ; rights of, , ; introduction in the lords, isabella, queen, james i., creation of peers, ; parliaments, , , , , ; councils, james ii., "jane," jeffrey, lord, saying of, _quoted_, ; style, jeffreys, chancellor, _and note^ _ jenkins, judge, , jewish oaths bill, jews, disabilities, _and note^ _ , john, king, , , johnson, dr., and dunning's resolution, _and note^ _; saying of, _quoted_, ; on oratory, ; and cave, , johnson, sir robert, johnstone, captain, jonson, ben, saying of, _quoted_, journals, parliamentary, , , , "judas," judges at the opening of parliament, , _note^ _ judicature act, ... , , _note^ _ "juncto," the, "junius letters," the, justice, high court of, katherine, queen, keepership of the great seal, kendall, captain, his reply to middleton, kenealy, dr., introduction to the house, ; speeches, ; the tichborne case, khedive, the, visit to the house of commons, , king, dr., "anecdotes," _quoted_, _note^ _ king's champion, the, , king's speech, the, - kingsdown, baron, _see_ leigh, pemberton kingston, duchess of, trial, kneeling at the bar of the house, , la hogue, battle of, labouchère, sayings of, _quoted_, labour members, the first, ; dress of, lacour, m. challemel, ladies' gallery, the, unruly scenes, , lancelot, land act, ... , land league, the, lane, mrs., _note^ _ langres, hercule, langrishe, sir hercules, _note^ _ language, "parliamentary," latour, colonel, laud, "diary," _cited_, , law courts, london, law courts, the, collisions with parliament, law lords, the, , lawson, sir wilfrid, _note^ _, , lawyers and the house of commons, , lecky, _quoted_, , lefevre, shaw, speakership, , , leicester, leigh, pemberton, leitrim, lord, speech of, lenthall, speaker, _note,^ _ , , , , _note^ _, , levis, family of, lewes, lewes, sir watkin, lewis, sir george cornwall, sayings of, _quoted_, , liberal conservatives, the, liberal unionists, the, licensing bills, , life peerages, , limerick, earl of, lincoln, lincoln's inn, livy, llandaff, bishop of, his amendment, local taxation bill, lock, zachary, locke, report of lord's debate, "london magazine," long, parliament, the, , , , _note^ _, , long, thomas, , lonsdale, lord, _note^ _ lord mayor, the, collision with parliament, lords, house of, journals, ; under cromwell, , ; the royal presence, , ; the principle of heredity, - ; origin and antiquity, - , ; number of peers attending, ; the lords spiritual, , ; election of the irish and scottish peers, _and note^ _; judicial functions, , ; introduction of the four lords of appeal, , ; the supreme court of appeal, , ; numerical increase, - ; composition to-day, ; the writ of summons, ; functions, ; public opinion on, ; rejection of bills, , ; money bills and foreign matter, , ; relations with the commons, - ; the liberal peers, ; conservative character, , ; proposed reform, _and notes_- ; separation from the commons, , ; temporary abolition, _note^ _; the new upper chamber, ; the chancellor's position, ; the lords commissioners, , , , , , , ; opening by commission, - ; arrival of the commons, ; approval of the speaker-elect, , ; taking the oath, - ; introduction of a newly created peer, ; arrival of the king and queen, ; the gilded chamber, ; rules of debate, _et seq_; length of speeches, ; "call" of the lords, and _note^ _; maiden speeches, ; days of adjournment, , ; divisions, , ; voting by proxy, ; the presence of women, ; the press gallery, , lords, the old irish house of, _note^ _ loughborough, lord, _note^ _, , _and note^ _, lowe, chancellor, luggershall, lunatics, laws concerning, , luttrel, colonel, _note^ _, lyndhurst, lord, sayings of, _quoted_, _note^ _, _note^ _; the two power standard, _and note^ _; and the old seal, ; scenes in the house, , , lynn, voters of, macaulay, _cited_, , , , , , , , ; "miscellaneous writings," _quoted_, _note^ _, _note^ _; on the king's speech, ; on parliamentary scenes, ; speeches , ; on burke, ; eloquence of, ; sayings of, _quoted_, macclesfield, lord, mace, the, , , mackintosh, sir james, sayings of, _quoted_, , , magna charta, , , mahon, lord, ; speeches, maidstone, lord, malmesbury, lord, "memoirs," _note^ _ manchester, duke of, mann, sir h., manners, lord john, mansfield, lord, , , "manwaring's medley," mare, sir peter de la, _note^ _ marlborough, duke of, marshal, master, martin, henry, martineau, harriet, on the presence of women in parliament, marvell, andrew, , _note^ _, mary, queen, creation of rotten boroughs, mass, the, matchmaker's petition, _note^ _ matthews, home secretary, maule, fox, _note^ _ may, erskine, maynooth college, _note^ _ "mazur," _note^ _ mediterranean, the, melbourne, lord, prime minister, , ; and lord brougham, ; rules of order, melville, lord, ; impeachment, , , , middleton, commissioner, middleton, secretary of state, midhurst, mildmay, sir h., mill, john stuart, _quoted_, milton, ; "paradise lost," lord eldon's opinion on, "minister," the term, ministers, appointment of - ; number of, ; the members of the administration, _note^ _ "mist's journal," modred, mompesson, sir giles, money bills, doctrines of the commons concerning, , , ; returned from the lords, _note^ _; royal assent to, monmouth, representation of, _and note^ _ monopolies, abolition of, ; punishment of monopolists, montacute, lord, montagu, lady m. w., "letters," _cited_, _note^ _ montagu, mr., _note^ _ montague, walpole's letters to, _quoted_, _note^ _ monteagle, lord, _see_ spring-rice montesquieu, _cited_, moore, thomas, ; letters of, _quoted_, _note^ _; "memoirs," mordaunt, sir charles, more, sir thomas, , , - , , moreton, chief justice of chester, , moritz, c. p., , , morley, lord, "morning chronicle," reports, morpeth, lady g. _note^ _ morpeth, lord, moses, mowbray, barony of, mullins, murray, alexander, punishment of, murray, solicitor-general, _see_ mansfield, lord musters, famous beauty, "naming," practise of, national council, the, , naturalization bill, ... , naturalization, political rights and, naunton, _cited_, navy office, the, new palace yard, , newgate, , newsletters, newspapers, party organs, - newton, sir isaac, nonconformity, norfolk, rd duke of, ; th duke, norreys, lord, _north briton_, north, lord, correspondence with george iii., ; premiership, , , , , ; dismissal of fox, ; _mentioned_, , ; somnolence of, , ; speeches north, roger, "life of lord guildford," _quoted_, , northampton, northcote, sir stafford, northstead, norton, sir fletcher, speakership, _and note^ _, ; saying of, _quoted_, _note^ _ "notice-paper," , oates, titus, , , oath of allegiance, the, disabilities under, _and note^ _, ; administration, - ; the bradlaugh incident, - oath of supremacy, the, oaths act, ... , , o'brien, smith, , obstruction, irish tactics, - o'connell, daniel, saying of, _quoted_, and _note^ _; "experiences," ; unparliamentary language, ; noisy scenes caused by, , ; motion for repeal of the union, _note^ _, speeches, ; scene in the strangers' gallery, ; an incident, ; and the press, ; _mentioned_, _note^ _ o'connell, morgan, o'connor, feargus, saying of, _quoted_, o'connor, t. p., "gladstone's house of commons," _cited_, o'donnell, o'gorman, major, old sarum, one mile act, onslow, arthur, speakership, , , , , , , onslow, fulk, clerk of the house, onslow, richard, speaker, opposition, the recognition, , orange-women, oratory, the gift of, , "order book" of the house, orphans bill, ... , outlaws, irish, oxford, oxford, earl of, _see_ harley oxford, st earl, painted chamber, the, "pairing," palace yard, , , palgrave, sir f., clerk of the house, palmerston, lord, on the lords, , ; cabinets, ; visit to scotland, , ; style, ; saying of, _quoted_, ; _mentioned_, , paper duties bill, parke, lawyer, parliament, derivation of the word, ; history of, , ; the first, , ; the two houses, ; duration, _and note^ _- ; the commonwealth, , ; the royal presence in, , ; prices of seats, ; the party principle, - ; separation of the two houses, , ; summoning of, ; opening by commission, - ; the king's speech, - ; collisions with the law, , ; times of meeting, parliamentary proceedings bill, parnell, policy of obstruction, - ; "named," parr, dr., parry, dr., arrest, partington, mrs., party principle, the origin, - patriots, payment of members, - peace of paris, pearson, head doorkeeper, , , , , _note^ _, pease, quaker, , peel, sir robert, and lord john russell, ; and reform, , , ; _mentioned_, , , _and note^ _; premiership, , ; style, ; on the speakership, _quoted_, ; dissolution, , ; speech, ; a scene in the house, peel, speaker, , , , , peeresses, at the opening of parliament, , , _note^ _; privileges of, _note^ _, peers, liberal, ; creation of new, _note^ _; exclusion from the commons, ; rights of irish, , ; privileges of, , pelham, , , pepys' "diary," _quoted_, , _and note^ _, , , , ; accusations against, perceval, spencer, ; assassination of, perrers, alice, _note^ _ peter the great, saying of, quoted, peterborough, earl of, petition, legislation by, petition of right, petitions, - petyt, _cited_, phillips, piers of langtoft, _note^ _ pillory, use of the, - pitt, william, st earl of chatham, _see_ chatham; reason of his success, ; reply to moreton, , ; attack on murray, ; and the admiralty, ; personality, , ; style, ; dr. johnson and, pitt, william, reformative measures of, , ; saying of, _quoted_, ; premiership, , , ; death, ; and addington, ; hard drinking, , ; on bolingbroke, ; and lord mahon, ; _mentioned_, , , place, francis, plague, the, plimsoll, plunket, , , , plunket, lord, chancellor of ireland, _note^ _ poaching, punishment for, police, metropolitan, duties, , ponsonby, george, pope, on government, _quoted_, ; the "dunciad," _note^ _ porritt, _cited_, porson, portland, duke of, ; notes on forming a ministry, _note^ _ praed, poet, his advice to the chair, praise god barebones, , precedence, the question of, "premier," the word, prevention of crimes (ireland) act, press, the, freedom of, ; parliament and, - pride, colonel, prime minister, his position to-day, - ; the title, ; qualities of successful prime ministers, - ; choosing a ministry, - ; appointing ministers, - ; offices filled by the prime minster, _note^ _; the number of ministers, - ; delivery of the seals, printing, laws regulating, prior, matthew, priory church, blackfriars, "privilege," th january, ... , privileges, parliamentary, - privy council, the, , , , ; the judicial committee, ; members, procedure, standing orders, ; gladstone's proposed alteration, , property qualification, protectionists, "protections," sale of, protestants, proxies, pryme, "recollections," _note^ _ prynne, "brief register," _quoted_, _and note^ _, public bills, pugin, augustus welby, _note^ _ pulteney, , punishments, parliamentary, - puns, , , _note^ _ putney, pym, , quakers and the oath, queensberry, kitty, duchess of, questions, - quorum, , "radical," the term, raikes, raleigh, sir walter, "rapparees," _note^ _ rasch, sir carne, reading, records, lack of early, redistribution bill of and ... , _note^ _ reform act of ... , , , _note^ _, , , , , _note^ _, , , , ; brougham's speech, reform acts of , ... , , reform, parliamentary, ... , remonstrance of ... , reporting, parliamentary, - ; "diurnal occurrences of parliament," ; the nightly letter to the sovereign, requests, court of, restoration, parliament under the, revolution, ... , , , , , , rich, speaker, richard ii., , , richmond, duchess of, richmond, ( rd) duke of, , ; ( th, ), rigby, rights, bill of, riley, _note^ _ ripon, robinson, robinson, sir h. crabb, "diary," _quoted_, roche, sir boyle, "bulls" of, rochefoucauld, la, saying of, _quoted_, rochester, earl of, rochester, representation of, rockingham, lord, rogers, saying of, _quoted_, rolle, john, _rolliad_, the, thurlow's character portrayed in, rolls of parliament, , roman catholic emancipation bill, roman catholics, disabilities, _note^ _, , , romilly, sir samuel, speech, , rosalinda, story of, rose, sir george, rosebery, lord, on the reform of the lords, , - , _note^ _, ; saying of, _quoted_, _note^ _; on old speeches, , rothschild, baron lionel de, rotten boroughs, , , roundheads, the, royal assent, _and note^ _, runnymede, rushworth, russell, earl, trial, _note^ _ russell, lord john, and corruption, ; saying of, _quoted_, ; and peel, ; on heredity, _quoted_, ; minority ; in the cabinet, ; premiership, , ; disraeli and, ; defeat in ... , ; and the admission of strangers, ; and the press, russell-gladstone cabinet, the, st. asaph, bishop of, "st. james's chronicle," st. james's, court of, , st. john of jerusalem, hospital of, the prior, _note^ _ st. leonards, lord, _note^ _; saying of, _quoted_, st. margaret's church, westminster, , _note^ _, st. paul's cathedral, st. simon, st. stephens, the chapel, - , , , , ; the lobby, , ; the painted chamber, , , ; the prince's chamber, ; the crypt, ; hall, ; porch, salisbury, lord, on the functions of the lords, , ; bill for reforming the house of lords, ; premiership, , , ; queen's speeches, ; an apology, ; style, ; _mentioned_, _note^ _ salisbury, town of, salomons, alderman, sandeford, savage, sir arnold, speaker, , _note^ _ schomberg, scotch militia bill, scotland, bribery of members of parliament, _and note^ _; act of union, scottish parliament, the, scottish peers, ; introduction ceremony, scrope, lord, seal, the great, stolen from lord thurlow, _note^ _; keepership, ; women keepers, ; lord brougham's method of returning, ; breaking up of the, seals, the, delivery of, , ; puns on, _note^ _ seats, retention of, ; purchase of selden, on law and equity, ; sayings of, _quoted_, _and note^ _; on parliamentary privileges, _quoted_, select committees, appointment of, selwyn, "senate of lilliput," , septennial act, the, , , , sergeant-at-arms, the, , , , , , ; duties, _and note^ _- , servants and privileges, , session, the parliamentary, seymour, sir edward, speakership, , , , , shaftesbury, earl of, (baron ashley), , , , , ; lord shaftesbury, ( ), shaw, sheil, "sketches of the irish bar," - ; on brougham, _quoted_, ; punishment, _note^ _; facts, _quoted_, _and note^ _; attack on lord lyndhurst, sheridan, sayings of, _quoted_, , _note^ _, ; and george iv., ; motions to adjourn, ; speeches of, , , , , , ; the "begum" speech, _and note^ _; speech at the trial of hastings, ; on the liberty of the press, shippen, william, _note^ _ sibthorpe, colonel, saying of, _quoted_, , sidmouth, lord, _see_ addington sidney, algernon, saying of, _quoted_, _note^ _ simon de montford, slaves, emancipation of the, smalley, servant, smith, sidney, _cited_, , smith, speaker, socrates, saying of, _quoted_, somers' trial, somerset, duke of, ( ), ; ( , ), somerset, g., _note^ _ somerset house, "sopher," _note^ _ south sea bubble, sovereign, the, and the barons, ; presence in parliament, ; approval of the speaker elect, spanish armada, speakers of the house of commons, youthful speakers, ; origin of the office, ; character, - ; the crown's influence, , ; influence of the ministry, ; impartiality established, , ; duties and qualifications, , ; physical qualifications, - ; "catching the speaker's eye," , ; dress, ; remuneration, , ; speaker's dinners, , ; collateral appointments, , ; retirement, ; his election, - ; election confirmed in the house, ; servile speeches, , ; taking the oath, ; "reporting" the king's speech, ; deference to the chair, ; substitutes, , ; the casting vote, "speaker's chop," "speaker's dinners," speaker's gallery, spiritual lords, , spithead, naval review, spring-rice, stael, mme. de, _note^ _ stagg, mrs. anne, stamp duties, standing committees, standing orders, stanley, lady, stanley, lord, _note^ _ star chamber, , , statute, legislation by, steele, expelled, ; on the house of commons, ; "the crisis," stock exchange, the, stockdale, publisher, stoke, storie, arrest of, stourton, lord, strafford, earl of, , , strangers in parliament, - ; balloting for seats, ; disraeli's resolution, stratford, archbishop and chancellor, strode, , , stuarts, the, and the parliament, , , sudbury, suffragettes, the, sugden, edward, _see_ st. leonards, lord sullivan, a. m., , sunderland, earl of, , supremacy, act of, ( ), suspension of a member, sutton, speaker manners, , _and note^ _, , , , , swift, ; "the examiner," tacitus, , , "tacking," , , talbot, lord, king's champion, , ; lord chancellor, "tallies," , tangye, lady, _note^ _ tanner, dr., ; arrest of, tapestries at westminster, , temple, lord, _note^ _; and horne tooke, _note^ _ tennant, r., _note^ _ test act, _note^ _, test roll, the, thames embankment, the, thanet, lord, _note^ _ thorpe, thomas, speaker, thurloe, cromwell's secretary, thurlow, lord, saying of, _quoted_, ; chancellor, , - , ; loss of the great seal, _note^ _ tichborne case, , "times, the," article, _quoted_, _note^ _; printer fined, ; parliamentary reports, tooke, rev. j. horne, _and note^ _ tories, ; origin, , torrington, lord, tothill fields, tower of london, , , , , , , , townsend, "history of the house of commons," _quoted_, townshend, charles, sayings, _quoted_, , ; his "champagne speech," townshend, thomas, treason bill, ( ), treasury bench, treasury, corruption of the, trevor, sir john, bribery practised by, ; speakership, _and note^ _; _and note^ _ triennial act ( ), troy, siege of, tudors, the, and parliament, turner, sir edward, corruption of, _note^ _ twiss, two power standard, principle of the, _and note^ _ tydder, cadwallader, union, acts of, , usher of the black rod, vaughan, general, _note^ _ vere, aubrey de, , _note^ _ "vetus codex," the, victoria, queen, parliament under, , , _note^ _; and the creation of peers, _note^ _; dividing the seal, _note^ _; the queen's speech, viscounts, creation by henry vi, voltaire, _quoted_, , "votes for women," , , , , _note^ _ voting by proxy, waldegrave, lord, waldegrave, sir richard, wales, prince of, at the opening of parliament, walgrave, bill of, _note^ _ wallace, william, trial, waller, the poet, walpole, horace, on the functions of the house of lords, ; pitt's reply to, _note^ _; _cited_, , ; "letters," _quoted_, _note^ _, _and note^ _, walpole, sir robert, on corruption, , ; expulsion and re-election, , , ; ministry, , , _and note^ _, , , , , , ; refusal of downing street, ; and william shippen, _note^ _; on townshend, ; a story of, , ; first speech, ; on fox, ; pulteney and, wanklyn, colonel, case of, , , ward, punishment, _and note^ _ wars of the roses, waterloo station, waveney, lord, _note^ _ wedderburn, _see_ loughborough, lord "weekly political register," welbeck abbey, unpublished manuscripts, _note^ _ wellesley, lord, ; threatened impeachment, wellington, duke of, and the rotten boroughs, ; and the corn law, ; on the reformed house of commons, ; sayings of, _quoted_, _note^ _ _note^ _; and manners sutton, ; duel, ; _mentioned_, , , wensleydale, lord, _see_ parke wentworth, lord, _note^ _ wessex, gemot of, , westbury, borough of, , westbury, lord chancellor, puns, _note^ _ westcote, lord, _note^ _ westminster abbey, , , ; coronations in, westminster hall, inundation, ; the law courts removed from, ; trading within the precincts, , ; structural alterations, , ; the fire of ... , - ; hastings' trial, westminster, palace of, history, the seat of parliament, - ; the lord great chamberlain's duties, _note^ _; historic scenes, , ; court of requests, ; court of bankruptcy, ; fire of ... , - ; victoria tower, ; the new houses of parliament, , , _note^ _; speaker's residence, ; searching the vaults, , wetherell, sir charles, sayings of, _quoted_, , ; speeches, wherry-men, "whig examiner," the, whigs, the, origin, ; principles, , whips, parliamentary, - whitehall, , , , , ; the banqueting room, _note^ _ white's club, whitty, e. m., book of, _note^ _ "who goes home?" and _note^ _ widdrington, sir thomas, speakership, wilberforce, bishop, attack on lord derby, _note^ _ wilkes, john, , ; _north briton_, , , ; sayings of, _quoted_, _note^ _; duel ; speeches, william i., , william ii., and westminster hall, , , _note^ _ william iii., reign, , , ; the party principle, ; cabinets, ; statutes of, ; bills quashed, ; newspapers, william iv., , _note^ _, ; chancellors, ; the king's speech, williams, bishop, williams, john, pilloried, wilmington, lord, , , winchelsea, lord, duel, winchester, windham, windsor, windsor royal park, wingfield, winnington, on the freedom of the press, witan, the, witenagemot, , , ; property qualification, ; presence of women, _note^ _ wolsey, cardinal, , ; appearance in the commons, printed by william clowes and sons, limited, london and beccles. * * * * * transcriber's note: text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). small capital text has been replaced with all capitals. the carat character (^) indicates that the following number is superscripted (example: note^ ). variations in spelling, punctuation and hyphenation have been retained except in obvious cases of typographical error. the illustrations have been moved so that they do not break up paragraphs. page : "many eminent englishmen enchance its value" the transcriber has replaced "enchance" with "enhance". page : the transcriber has inserted an anchor which was missing for footnote . page : "a small bob-wig in place of that luxuriant full-buttomed affair" "full-buttomed" has been replaced with "full-bottomed". a note from michael hart, preparer of the . version. this file contains a number of versions of the magna carta, some of which were a little mangled in transit. i am sure our volunteers will find and correct errors i didn't catch, and that version . - . will have significant improvements, as well as at least one more version in latin. version . may contain a dozen different versions. the text of magna carta john, by the grace of god king of england, lord of ireland, duke of normandy and aquitaine, and count of anjou, to his archbishops, bishops, abbots, earls, barons, justices, foresters, sheriffs, stewards, servants, and to all his officials and loyal subjects, greeting. know that before god, for the health of our soul and those of our ancestors and heirs, to the honour of god, the exaltation of the holy church, and the better ordering of our kingdom, at the advice of our reverend fathers stephen, archbishop of canterbury, primate of all england, and cardinal of the holy roman church, henry archbishop of dublin, william bishop of london, peter bishop of winchester, jocelin bishop of bath and glastonbury, hugh bishop of lincoln, walter bishop of worcester, william bishop of coventry, benedict bishop of rochester, master pandulf subdeacon and member of the papal household, brother aymeric master of the knighthood of the temple in england, william marshal earl of pembroke, william earl of salisbury, william earl of warren, william earl of arundel, alan de galloway constable of scotland, warin fitz gerald, peter fitz herbert, hubert de burgh seneschal of poitou, hugh de neville, matthew fitz herbert, thomas basset, alan basset, philip daubeny, robert de roppeley, john marshal, john fitz hugh, and other loyal subjects: ( ) first, that we have granted to god, and by this present charter have confirmed for us and our heirs in perpetuity, that the english church shall be free, and shall have its rights undiminished, and its liberties unimpaired. that we wish this so to be observed, appears from the fact that of our own free will, before the outbreak of the present dispute between us and our barons, we granted and confirmed by charter the freedom of the church's elections - a right reckoned to be of the greatest necessity and importance to it - and caused this to be confirmed by pope innocent iii. this freedom we shall observe ourselves, and desire to be observed in good faith by our heirs in perpetuity. to all free men of our kingdom we have also granted, for us and our heirs for ever, all the liberties written out below, to have and to keep for them and their heirs, of us and our heirs: ( ) if any earl, baron, or other person that holds lands directly of the crown, for military service, shall die, and at his death his heir shall be of full age and owe a `relief', the heir shall have his inheritance on payment of the ancient scale of `relief'. that is to say, the heir or heirs of an earl shall pay for the entire earl's barony, the heir or heirs of a knight s. at most for the entire knight's `fee', and any man that owes less shall pay less, in accordance with the ancient usage of `fees' ( ) but if the heir of such a person is under age and a ward, when he comes of age he shall have his inheritance without `relief' or fine. ( ) the guardian of the land of an heir who is under age shall take from it only reasonable revenues, customary dues, and feudal services. he shall do this without destruction or damage to men or property. if we have given the guardianship of the land to a sheriff, or to any person answerable to us for the revenues, and he commits destruction or damage, we will exact compensation from him, and the land shall be entrusted to two worthy and prudent men of the same `fee', who shall be answerable to us for the revenues, or to the person to whom we have assigned them. if we have given or sold to anyone the guardianship of such land, and he causes destruction or damage, he shall lose the guardianship of it, and it shall be handed over to two worthy and prudent men of the same `fee', who shall be similarly answerable to us. ( ) for so long as a guardian has guardianship of such land, he shall maintain the houses, parks, fish preserves, ponds, mills, and everything else pertaining to it, from the revenues of the land itself. when the heir comes of age, he shall restore the whole land to him, stocked with plough teams and such implements of husbandry as the season demands and the revenues from the land can reasonably bear. ( ) heirs may be given in marriage, but not to someone of lower social standing. before a marriage takes place, it shall be' made known to the heir's next-of-kin. ( ) at her husband's death, a widow may have her marriage portion and inheritance at once and without trouble. she shall pay nothing for her dower, marriage portion, or any inheritance that she and her husband held jointly on the day of his death. she may remain in her husband's house for forty days after his death, and within this period her dower shall be assigned to her. ( ) no widow shall be compelled to marry, so long as she wishes to remain without a husband. but she must give security that she will not marry without royal consent, if she holds her lands of the crown, or without the consent of whatever other lord she may hold them of. ( ) neither we nor our officials will seize any land or rent in payment of a debt, so long as the debtor has movable goods sufficient to discharge the debt. a debtor's sureties shall not be distrained upon so long as the debtor himself can discharge his debt. if, for lack of means, the debtor is unable to discharge his debt, his sureties shall be answerable for it. if they so desire, they may have the debtor's lands and rents until they have received satisfaction for the debt that they paid for him, unless the debtor can show that he has settled his obligations to them. ( ) if anyone who has borrowed a sum of money from jews dies before the debt has been repaid, his heir shall pay no interest on the debt for so long as he remains under age, irrespective of whom he holds his lands. if such a debt falls into the hands of the crown, it will take nothing except the principal sum specified in the bond. ( ) if a man dies owing money to jews, his wife may have her dower and pay nothing towards the debt from it. if he leaves children that are under age, their needs may also be provided for on a scale appropriate to the size of his holding of lands. the debt is to be paid out of the residue, reserving the service due to his feudal lords. debts owed to persons other than jews are to be dealt with similarly. ( ) no `scutage' or `aid' may be levied in our kingdom without its general consent, unless it is for the ransom of our person, to make our eldest son a knight, and (once) to marry our eldest daughter. for these purposes only a reasonable `aid' may be levied. `aids' from the city of london are to be treated similarly. ( ) the city of london shall enjoy all its ancient liberties and free customs, both by land and by water. we also will and grant that all other cities, boroughs, towns, and ports shall enjoy all their liberties and free customs. ( ) to obtain the general consent of the realm for the assessment of an `aid' - except in the three cases specified above - or a `scutage', we will cause the archbishops, bishops, abbots, earls, and greater barons to be summoned individually by letter. to those who hold lands directly of us we will cause a general summons to be issued, through the sheriffs and other officials, to come together on a fixed day (of which at least forty days notice shall be given) and at a fixed place. in all letters of summons, the cause of the summons will be stated. when a summons has been issued, the business appointed for the day shall go forward in accordance with the resolution of those present, even if not all those who were summoned have appeared. ( ) in future we will allow no one to levy an `aid' from his free men, except to ransom his person, to make his eldest son a knight, and (once) to marry his eldest daughter. for these purposes only a reasonable `aid' may be levied. ( ) no man shall be forced to perform more service for a knight's `fee', or other free holding of land, than is due from it. ( ) ordinary lawsuits shall not follow the royal court around, but shall be held in a fixed place. ( ) inquests of novel disseisin, mort d'ancestor, and darrein presentment shall be taken only in their proper county court. we ourselves, or in our absence abroad our chief justice, will send two justices to each county four times a year, and these justices, with four knights of the county elected by the county itself, shall hold the assizes in the county court, on the day and in the place where the court meets. ( ) if any assizes cannot be taken on the day of the county court, as many knights and freeholders shall afterwards remain behind, of those who have attended the court, as will suffice for the administration of justice, having regard to the volume of business to be done. ( ) for a trivial offence, a free man shall be fined only in proportion to the degree of his offence, and for a serious offence correspondingly, but not so heavily as to deprive him of his livelihood. in the same way, a merchant shall be spared his merchandise, and a husbandman the implements of his husbandry, if they fall upon the mercy of a royal court. none of these fines shall be imposed except by the assessment on oath of reputable men of the neighbourhood. ( ) earls and barons shall be fined only by their equals, and in proportion to the gravity of their offence. ( ) a fine imposed upon the lay property of a clerk in holy orders shall be assessed upon the same principles, without reference to the value of his ecclesiastical benefice. ( ) no town or person shall be forced to build bridges over rivers except those with an ancient obligation to do so. ( ) no sheriff, constable, coroners, or other royal officials are to hold lawsuits that should be held by the royal justices. ( ) every county, hundred, wapentake, and tithing shall remain at its ancient rent, without increase, except the royal demesne manors. ( ) if at the death of a man who holds a lay `fee' of the crown, a sheriff or royal official produces royal letters patent of summons for a debt due to the crown, it shall be lawful for them to seize and list movable goods found in the lay `fee' of the dead man to the value of the debt, as assessed by worthy men. nothing shall be removed until the whole debt is paid, when the residue shall be given over to the executors to carry out the dead man's will. if no debt is due to the crown, all the movable goods shall be regarded as the property of the dead man, except the reasonable shares of his wife and children. ( ) if a free man dies intestate, his movable goods are to be distributed by his next-of-kin and friends, under the supervision of the church. the rights of his debtors are to be preserved. ( ) no constable or other royal official shall take corn or other movable goods from any man without immediate payment, unless the seller voluntarily offers postponement of this. ( ) no constable may compel a knight to pay money for castle-guard if the knight is willing to undertake the guard in person, or with reasonable excuse to supply some other fit man to do it. a knight taken or sent on military service shall be excused from castle-guard for the period of this service. ( ) no sheriff, royal official, or other person shall take horses or carts for transport from any free man, without his consent. ( ) neither we nor any royal official will take wood for our castle, or for any other purpose, without the consent of the owner. ( ) we will not keep the lands of people convicted of felony in our hand for longer than a year and a day, after which they shall be returned to the lords of the `fees' concerned. ( ) all fish-weirs shall be removed from the thames, the medway, and throughout the whole of england, except on the sea coast. ( ) the writ called precipe shall not in future be issued to anyone in respect of any holding of land, if a free man could thereby be deprived of the right of trial in his own lord's court. ( ) there shall be standard measures of wine, ale, and corn (the london quarter), throughout the kingdom. there shall also be a standard width of dyed cloth, russett, and haberject, namely two ells within the selvedges. weights are to be standardised similarly. ( ) in future nothing shall be paid or accepted for the issue of a writ of inquisition of life or limbs. it shall be given gratis, and not refused. ( ) if a man holds land of the crown by `fee-farm', `socage', or `burgage', and also holds land of someone else for knight's service, we will not have guardianship of his heir, nor of the land that belongs to the other person's `fee', by virtue of the `fee-farm', `socage', or `burgage', unless the `fee-farm' owes knight's service. we will not have the guardianship of a man's heir, or of land that he holds of someone else, by reason of any small property that he may hold of the crown for a service of knives, arrows, or the like. ( ) in future no official shall place a man on trial upon his own unsupported statement, without producing credible witnesses to the truth of it. ( ) no free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any other way, nor will we proceed with force against him, or send others to do so, except by the lawful judgement of his equals or by the law of the land. ( ) to no one will we sell, to no one deny or delay right or justice. ( ) all merchants may enter or leave england unharmed and without fear, and may stay or travel within it, by land or water, for purposes of trade, free from all illegal exactions, in accordance with ancient and lawful customs. this, however, does not apply in time of war to merchants from a country that is at war with us. any such merchants found in our country at the outbreak of war shall be detained without injury to their persons or property, until we or our chief justice have discovered how our own merchants are being treated in the country at war with us. if our own merchants are safe they shall be safe too. ( ) in future it shall be lawful for any man to leave and return to our kingdom unharmed and without fear, by land or water, preserving his allegiance to us, except in time of war, for some short period, for the common benefit of the realm. people that have been imprisoned or outlawed in accordance with the law of the land, people from a country that is at war with us, and merchants - who shall be dealt with as stated above - are excepted from this provision. ( ) if a man holds lands of any `escheat' such as the `honour' of wallingford, nottingham, boulogne, lancaster, or of other `escheats' in our hand that are baronies, at his death his heir shall give us only the `relief' and service that he would have made to the baron, had the barony been in the baron's hand. we will hold the `escheat' in the same manner as the baron held it. ( ) people who live outside the forest need not in future appear before the royal justices of the forest in answer to general summonses, unless they are actually involved in proceedings or are sureties for someone who has been seized for a forest offence. ( ) we will appoint as justices, constables, sheriffs, or other officials, only men that know the law of the realm and are minded to keep it well. ( ) all barons who have founded abbeys, and have charters of english kings or ancient tenure as evidence of this, may have guardianship of them when there is no abbot, as is their due. ( ) all forests that have been created in our reign shall at once be disafforested. river-banks that have been enclosed in our reign shall be treated similarly. ( ) all evil customs relating to forests and warrens, foresters, warreners, sheriffs and their servants, or river-banks and their wardens, are at once to be investigated in every county by twelve sworn knights of the county, and within forty days of their enquiry the evil customs are to be abolished completely and irrevocably. but we, or our chief justice if we are not in england, are first to be informed. ( ) we will at once return all hostages and charters delivered up to us by englishmen as security for peace or for loyal service. ***here were some strange characters, not completely removed ( ) we will remove completely from their offices the kinsmen of gerard de ath, peter, guy, and andrew de chanceaux, guy de cigogne, and in future they shall hold no offices in england. the people in question are engelard de cigogn, geoffrey de martigny and his brothers, philip marc and his brothers, with geoffrey his nephew, and all their followers. * as soon as peace is restored, we will remove from the kingdom all the foreign knights, bowmen, their attendants, and the mercenaries that have come to it, to its harm, with horses and arms. * to any man whom we have deprived or dispossessed of lands, castles, liberties, or rights, without the lawful judgement of his equals, we will at once restore these. in cases of dispute the matter shall be resolved by the judgement of the twenty-five barons referred to below in the clause for securing the peace. in cases, however, where a man was deprived or dispossessed of something without the lawful judgement of his equals by our father king henry or our brother king richard, and it remains in our hands or is held by others under our warranty, we shall have respite for the period commonly allowed to crusaders, unless a lawsuit had been begun, or an enquiry had been made at our order, before we took the cross as a crusader. on our return from the crusade, or if we abandon it, we will at once render justice in full. * we shall have similar respite in rendering justice in connexion with forests that are to be disafforested, or to remain forests, when these were first aforested by our father henry or our brother richard; with the guardianship of lands in another persons fee, when we have hitherto had this by virtue of a fee held of us for knights service by a third party; and with abbeys founded in another persons fee, in which the lord of the fee claims to own a right. on our return from the crusade, or if we abandon it, we will at once do full justice to complaints about these matters. * no one shall be arrested or imprisoned on the appeal of a woman for the death of any person except her husband. * all fines that have been given to us unjustly and against the law of the land, and all fines that we have exacted unjustly, shall be entirely remitted or the matter decided by a majority judgement of the twenty-five barons referred to below in the clause for securing the peace together with stephen, archbishop of canterbury, if he can be present, and such others as he wishes to bring with him. if the archbishop cannot be present, proceedings shall continue without him, provided that if any of the twenty-five barons has been involved in a similar suit himself, his judgement shall be set aside, and someone else chosen and sworn in his place, as a substitute for the single occasion, by the rest of the twenty-five. * if we have deprived or dispossessed any welshmen of lands, liberties, or anything else in england or in wales, without the lawful judgement of their equals, these are at once to be returned to them. a dispute on this point shall be determined in the marches by the judgement of equals. english law shall apply to holdings of land in england, welsh law to those in wales, and the law of the marches to those in the marches. the welsh shall treat us and ours in the same way. * in cases where a welshman was deprived or dispossessed of anything, without the lawful judgement of his equals, by our father king henry or our brother king richard, and it remains in our hands or is held by others under our warranty, we shall have respite for the period commonly allowed to crusaders, unless a lawsuit had been begun, or an enquiry had been made at our order, before we took the cross as a crusader. but on our return from the crusade, or if we abandon it, we will at once do full justice according to the laws of wales and the said regions. * we will at once return the son of llywelyn, all welsh hostages, and the charters delivered to us as security for the peace. * with regard to the return of the sisters and hostages of alexander, king of scotland, his liberties and his rights, we will treat him in the same way as our other barons of england, unless it appears from the charters that we hold from his father william, formerly king of scotland, that he should be treated otherwise. this matter shall be resolved by the judgement of his equals in our court. * all these customs and liberties that we have granted shall be observed in our kingdom in so far as concerns our own relations with our subjects. let all men of our kingdom, whether clergy or laymen, observe them similarly in their relations with their own men. ***strange characters may have ended here. since we have granted all these things for god, for the better ordering of our kingdom, and to allay the discord that has arisen between us and our barons, and since we desire that they shall be enjoyed in their entirety, with lasting strength, for ever, we give and grant to the barons the following security: * the barons shall elect twenty-five of their number to keep, and cause to be observed with all their might, the peace and liberties granted and confirmed to them by this charter. * if we, our chief justice, our officials, or any of our servants offend in any respect against any man, or transgress any of the articles of the peace or of this security, and the offence is made known to four of the said twenty-five barons, they shall come to us - or in our absence from the kingdom to the chief justice - to declare it and claim immediate redress. if we, or in our absence abroad the chief justice, make no redress within forty days, reckoning from the day on which the offence was declared to us or to him, the four barons shall refer the matter to the rest of the twenty-five barons, who may distrain upon and assail us in every way possible, with the support of the whole community of the land, by seizing our castles, lands, possessions, or anything else saving only our own person and those of the queen and our children, until they have secured such redress as they have determined upon. having secured the redress, they may then resume their normal obedience to us. * any man who so desires may take an oath to obey the commands of the twenty-five barons for the achievement of these ends, and to join with them in assailing us to the utmost of his power. we give public and free permission to take this oath to any man who so desires, and at no time will we prohibit any man from taking it. indeed, we will compel any of our subjects who are unwilling to take it to swear it at our command. * if one of the twenty-five barons dies or leaves the country, or is prevented in any other way from discharging his duties, the rest of them shall choose another baron in his place, at their discretion, who shall be duly sworn in as they were. * in the event of disagreement among the twenty-five barons on any matter referred to them for decision, the verdict of the majority present shall have the same validity as a unanimous verdict of the whole twenty-five, whether these were all present or some of those summoned were unwilling or unable to appear. * the twenty-five barons shall swear to obey all the above articles faithfully, and shall cause them to be obeyed by others to the best of their power. * we will not seek to procure from anyone, either by our own efforts or those of a third party, anything by which any part of these concessions or liberties might be revoked or diminished. should such a thing be procured, it shall be null and void and we will at no time make use of it, either ourselves or through a third party. we have remitted and pardoned fully to all men any ill-will, hurt, or grudges that have arisen between us and our subjects, whether clergy or laymen, since the beginning of the dispute. we have in addition remitted fully, and for our own part have also pardoned, to all clergy and laymen any offences committed as a result of the said dispute between easter ad and the restoration of peace. in addition we have caused letters patent to be made for the barons, bearing witness to this security and to the concessions set out above, over the seals of stephen archbishop of canterbury, henry archbishop of dublin, the other bishops named above, and master pandulf. it is accordingly our wish and command that the english church shall be free, and that men in our kingdom shall have and keep all these liberties, rights, and concessions, well and peaceably in their fulness and entirety for them and their heirs, of us and our heirs, in all things and all places for ever. both we and the barons have sworn that all this shall be observed in good faith and without deceit. witness the above mentioned people and many others. given by our hand in the meadow that is called runnymede, between windsor and staines, on the fifteenth day of june in the seventeenth year of our reign. *** [there were many missing spaces in this one, not sure i got them all] magna carta john, by the grace of god, king of england, lord of ireland, duke of normandy and aquitaine, and count of anjou, to the archbishops, bishops, abbots, earls, barons, justiciars, foresters, sheriffs, stewards, servants, and to all his bailiffs and liege subjects, greeting. know that, having regard to god and for the salvation of our soul, and those of all our ancestors and heirs, and unto the honor of god and the advancement of holy church, and for the reform of our realm, by advice of our venerable fathers, stephen archbishop of canterbury, primate of all england and cardinal of the holy roman church, henry archbishop of dublin, william of london, peter of winchester, jocelyn of bath and glastonbury, hugh of lincoln, walter of worcester, william of coventry, benedict of rochester, bishops; of master pandulf, subdeacon and member of the household of our lord the pope, of brother aymeric (master of the knights of the temple in england), and of the illustrious men william marshall earl of pembroke, william earl of salisbury, william earl of warenne, william earl of arundel, alan of galloway (constable of scotland), waren fitz gerald, peter fits herbert, hubert de burgh (seneschal of poitou), hugh de neville, matthew fitz herbert, thomas basset, alan basset, philip d'aubigny, robert of roppesley, john marshall, john fitz hugh, and others, our liegemen. . in the first place we have granted to god, and by this our present charter confirmed for us and our heirs for ever that the english church shall be free, and shall have her rights entire, and her liberties inviolate; and we will that it be thus observed; which is apparent from this that the freedom of elections, which is reckoned most important and very essential to the english church, we, of our pure and unconstrained will, did grant, and did by our charter confirm and did obtain the ratification of the same from our lord, pope innocent iii., before the quarrel arose between us and our barons: and this we will observe, and our will is that it be observed in good faith by our heirs for ever. we have also granted to all freemen of our kingdom, for us and our heirs for ever, all the underwritten liberties, to be had and held by them and their heirs, of us and our heirs for ever. . if any of our earls or barons, or others holding of us in chief by military service shall have died, and at the time of his death his heir shall be of full age and owe "relief" he shall have his inheritance on payment of the ancient relief, namely the heir or heirs of an earl, pounds for a whole earl's barony; the heir or heirs of a baron, pounds for a whole barony; the heir or heirs of a knight, shillings at most for a whole knight's fee; and whoever owes less let him give less, according to the ancient custom officers. . if, however, the heir of any of the aforesaid has been under age and in wardship, let him have his inheritance without relief and without fine when he comes of age. . the guardian of the land of an heir who is thus under age, shall take from the land of the heir nothing but reasonably produce, reasonable customs, and reasonable services, and that without destruction or waste of men or goods; and if we have committed the wardship of the lands of any such minor to the sheriff, or to any other who is responsible to us for its issues, and he has made destruction or waste of what he holds in wardship, we will take of him amends, and the land shall be committed to two lawful and discreet men of that fee, who shall be responsible for the issues to us or to him to whom we shall assign them; and if we have given or sold the wardship of any such land to anyone and he has there in made destruction or waste, he shall lose that wardship, and it shall be transferred to two lawful and discreet men of that fief, who shall be responsible to us in like manner as aforesaid. . the guardian, moreover, so long as he has the wardship of the land, shall keep up the houses, parks, fishponds, stanks, mills, and other things pertaining to the land, out of the issues of the same land; and he shall restore to the heir, when he has come to full age, all his land, stocked with ploughs and "waynage," according as the season of husbandry shall require, and the issues of the land can reasonably bear. . heirs shall be married without disparagement, yet so that before the marriage takes place the nearest in blood to that heir shall have notice. . a widow, after the death of her husband, shall forthwith and without difficulty have her marriage portion and inheritance; nor shall she give anything for her dower, or for her marriage portion, or for the inheritance which her husband and she held on the day of the death of that husband; and she may remain in the house of her husband for fourty days after his death, within which time her dower shall be assigned to her. . no widow shall be compelled to marry, so long as she prefers to live without a husband; provided always that she gives security not to marry without our consent, if she holds of us, or without the consent of the lord of whom she holds, if she holds of another. . neither we nor our bailiffs shall seize any land or rent for any debt, so long as the chattels of the debtor are sufficient to repay the debt; nor shall the sureties of the debtor be distrained so long as the principal debtor is able to satisfy the debt; and if the principal debtor shall fail to pay the debt, having nothing wherewith to pay it, then the sureties shall answer for the debt; and let them have the lands and rents of the debtor, if they desire them, until they are indemnified for the debt which they have paid for him, unless the principal debtor can show proof that he is discharged thereof as against the said sureties. . if one who has borrowed from the jews any sum, great or small, die before that loan can be repaid, the debt shall not bear interest while the heir is under age, of whomsoever he may hold; and if the debt fall into our hands, we will not take anything except the principal sum contained in the bond. . and if any one die indebted to the jews, his wife shall have her dower and pay nothing of that debt; and if any children of the deceased are left underage, necessaries shall be provided for them in keeping with the holding of the deceased; and out of the residue the debt shall be paid, reserving, however, service due to feudal lords; in like manner let it be done touching debts due to others than jews. . no scutage nor aid shall be imposed on our kingdom, unless by common counsel of our kingdom, except for ransoming our person, for making our eldest son a knight, and for once marrying our eldest daughter; and for these there shall not be levied more than a reasonable aid. in like manner it shall be done concerning aids from the city of london. . and the city of london shall have all its ancient liberties and free customs, as well by land as by water; furthermore, we decree and grant that all other cities, boroughs, towns, and ports shall have all their liberties and free customs. . and for obtaining the common counsel of the kingdom anent the assessing of an aid (except in the three cases aforesaid) or of a scutage, we will cause to be summoned the archbishops, bishops, abbots, earls, and greater barons, severally by our letters; and we will moreover cause to be summoned generally, through our sheriffs and bailiffs, all others who hold of us in chief, for a fixed date, namely, after the expiry of at least forty days, and at a fixed place; and in all letters of such summons we will specify the reason of the summons. and when the summons has thus been made, the business shall proceed on the day appointed, according to the counsel of such as are present, although not all who were summoned have come. . we will not for the future grant to any one license to take an aid from his own free tenants, except to ransom his body, to make his eldest son a knight, and once to marry his eldest daughter; and on each of these occasions there shall be levied only a reasonable aid. . no one shall be distrained for performance of greater service for a knight's fee, or for any other free tenement, than is due therefrom. . common pleas shall not follow our court, but shall be held in some fixed place. . inquests of novel disseisin, of mort d'ancester, and of darrein presentment, shall not be held elsewhere than in their own county courts and that in manner following,--we, or, if we should be out of the realm, our chief justiciar, will send two justiciars through every county four times a year, who shall, along with four knights of the county chosen by the county, hold the said assize in the county court, on the day and in the place of meeting of that court. . and if any of the said assizes cannot be taken on the day of the county court, let there remain of the knights and freeholders, who were present at the county court on that day, as many as may be required for the efficient making of judgments, according as the business be more or less. . a freeman shall not be amerced for a slight offense, except in accordance with the degree of the offense; and for a grave offense he shall be amerced in accordance with the gravity of the offense, yet saving always his "contentment;" and a merchant in the same way, saving his "merchandise;" and a villein shall be amerced in the same way, saving his "wainage"--if they have fallen into our mercy: and none of the aforesaid amercements shall be impsed except by the oath of honest men of the neighborhood. . earls and barons shall not be amerced except through their peers, and only in accordance with the degree of the offense. . a clerk shall not be amerced in respect of his lay holding except after the manner of the others aforesaid; further, he shall not be amerced in accordance with the extent of his ecclesiastical benefice. . no village or individual shall be compelled to make bridges at river-banks, except those who from of old were legally bound to do so. . no sheriff, constable, coroners, or others of our bailiffs, shall hold pleas of our crown. . all counties, hundreds, wapentakes, and trithings (except our demesne manors) shall remain at old rents, and without any additional payment.***here may be an error . if any one holding of us a lay fief shall die, and our sheriff or bailiff shall exhibit our letters patent of summons for a debt which the deceased owed to us, it shall be lawful for our sheriff or bailiff to attach and catalogue chattels of the deceased, found upon the lay fief, to the value of that debt, at the sight of law-worthy men, provided always that nothing whatever be then be removed until the debt which is evident shall be fully paid to us; and the residue shall be left to the executors to fulfil the will of the deceased; and if there be nothing due from him to us, all the chattels shall go to the deceased, saving to his wife and children their reasonable shares. . if any freeman shall die intestate, his chattels shall be distributed by the hands of his nearest kinsfolk and friends, under supervision of the church, saving to every one the debts which the deceased owed to him. . no constable or other bailiff of ours shall take corn or other provisions from any one without immediately tendering money therefor, unless he can have postponement thereof by permission of the seller. . no constable shall compel any knight to give money in lieu of castle-guard, when he is willing to perform it in his own person, or (if he cannot do it from any reasonable cause) then by another responsible man. further, if we have led or sent him upon military service, he shall be relieved from guard in proportion to the time during which he has been on service because of us. . no sheriff or bailiff of ours, or other person, shall take the horses or carts of any freeman for transport duty, against the will of the said freeman. . neither we nor our bailiffs shall take, for our castles or for any other work of ours, wood which is not ours, against the will of the owner of that wood. . we will not retain beyond one year and one day, the lands of those who have been convicted of felony, and the lands shall thereafter be handed over to the lords of the fiefs. . all kiddles for the future shall be removed altogether from thames and medway, and throughout all england, except upon the seashore. . the writ which is called praecipe shall not for the future be issued to any one, regarding any tenement whereby a freeman may lose his court. . let there be one measure of wine throughout our whole realm; and one measure of ale; and one measure of corn, to wit, "the london quarter;" and one width of cloth (whether dyed, or russet, or "halberget"), to wit, two ells within the selvages; of weights also let it be as of measures. . nothing in future shall be given or taken for a writ of inquisition of life or limbs, but freely it shall be granted, and never denied. . if any one holds of us by fee-farm, by socage, or by burgage, and holds also land of another lord by knight's service, we will not (by reason of that fee-farm, socage, or burgage) have the wardship of the heir, or of such land of his as is of the fief of that other; nor shall we have wardship of that fee-farm, socage, or burgage, unless such fee-farm owes knight's service. we will not by reason of any small serjeanty which any one may hold of us by the service of rendering to us knives, arrows, or the like, have wardship of his heir of the land which he holds of another lord by knight's service. . no bailiff for the future shall, upon his own unsupported complaint, put any one to his "law," without credible witnesses brought for this purpose. . no freeman shall be taken or imprisoned or disseised or exiled or in anyway destroyed, nor will we go upon him nor send upon him, except by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land. . to no one will we sell, to no one will we refuse or delay, right or justice. . all merchants shall have safe and secure exit from england, and entry to england, with the right to tarry there and to move about as well by land as by water, for buying and selling by the ancient and right customs, quit from all evil tolls, except (in time of war) such merchants as are of the land at war with us. and if such are found in our land at the beginning of the war, they shall be detained, without injury to their bodies or goods, until information be received by us, or by our chief justiciar, how the merchants of our land found in the land at war with us are treated; and if our men are safe there, the others shall be safe in our land. . it shall be lawful in future for any one (excepting always those imprisoned or outlawed in accordance with the law of the kingdom, and natives of any country at war with us, and merchants, who shall be treated as is above provided) to leave our kingdom and to return, safe and secure by land and water, except for a short period in time of war, on grounds of public policy--reserving always the allegiance due to us. . if any one holding of some escheat (such as the honor of wallingford, nottingham, boulogne, lancaster, or of other escheats which are in our hands and are baronies) shall die, his heir shall give no other relief, and perform no other service to us than he would have done to the baron, if that barony had been in the baron's hand; and we shall hold it in the same manner in which the baron held it. . men who dwell without the forest need not henceforth come before our justiciars of the forest upon a general summons, except those who are impleaded, or who have become sureties for any person or persons attached for forest offenses. . we will appoint as justices, constables, sheriffs, or bailiffs only such as know the law of the realm and mean to observe it well. . all barons who have founded abbeys, concerning which they hold charters from the kings of england, or of which they have long-continued possession, shall have the wardship of them, when vacant, as they ought to have. . all forests that have been made such in our time shall forthwith be disafforested; and a similar course shall be followed with regard to river-banks that have been placed "in defense" by us in our time. . all evil customs connected with forests and warrens, foresters and warreners, sheriffs and their officers, river-banks and their wardens, shall immediately be inquired into in each county by twelve sworn knights of the same county chosen by the honest men of the same county, and shall, within forty days of the said inquest, be utterly abolished, so as never to be restored, provided always that we previously have intimation thereof, or our justiciar, if we should not be in england. . we will immediately restore all hostages and charters delivered to us by englishmen, as sureties of the peace or of faithful service. . we will entirely remove from their bailiwicks, the relations of gerard athee (so that in future they shall have no bailiwick in england); namely, engelard of cigogne, peter, guy, and andrew of chanceaux, guy of cigogne, geofrrey of martigny with his brothers, philip mark with his brothers and his nephew geoffrey, and the whole brood of the same. . as soon as peace is restored, we will banish from the kingdom all foreign-born knights, cross-bowmen, serjeants, and mercenary soldiers, who have come with horses and arms to the kingdom's hurt. . if any one has been dispossessed or removed by us, without the legal judgment of his peers, from his lands, castles, franchises, or from his right, we will immediately restore them to him; and if a dispute arise over this, then let it be decided by the five-and-twenty barons of whom mention is made below in the clause for securing the peace. moreover, for all those possessions, from which any one has, without the lawful judgment of his peers, be endisseised or removed, by our father, king henry, or by our brother, king richard, and which we retain in our hand (or which are possessed by others, to whom we are bound to warrant them) we shall have respite until the usual term of crusaders; excepting those things about which a plea has been raised, or an inquest made by our order, before our taking of the cross; but as soon as were turn from our expedition (or if perchance we desist from the expedition) we will immediately grant full justice therein. . we shall have, moreover, the same respite and in the same manner in rendering justice concerning the disafforestation or retention of those forests which henry our father and richard our brother afforested, and concerning wardship of lands which are of the fief of another (namely, such wardships as we have hitherto had by reason of a fief which any one held of us by knight's service), and concerning abbeys founded on other fiefs than our own, in which the lord of the fief claims to have right; and when we have returned, or if we desist from our expedition, we will immediately grant full justice to all who complain of such things. . no one shall be arrested or imprisoned upon the appeal of a woman, for the death of any other than her husband. . all fines made with us unjustly and against the law of the land, and all amercements imposed unjustly and against the law of the land, shall be entirely remitted, or else it shall be done concerning them according to the decision of the five-and-twenty barons of whom mention is made below in the clause for securing the peace, or according to the judgment of the majority of the same, along with the aforesaid stephen, archbishop of canterbury, if he can be present, and such others as he may wish to bring with him for this purpose, and if he cannot be present the business shall nevertheless proceed without him, provided always that if any one or more of the aforesaid five-and-twenty barons are in a similar suit, they shall be removed as far as concerns this particular judgment, others being substituted in their places after having been selected by the rest of the same five-and-twenty for this purpose only, and after having been sworn. . if we have disseised or removed welshmen from lands or liberties, or other things, without the legal judgment of their peers in england or in wales, they shall be immediately restored to them; and if a dispute arise over this, then let it be decided in the marches by the judgment of their peers; for tenements in england according to the law of england, for tenements in wales according to the law of wales, and for tenements in the marches according to the law of the marches. welshmen shall do the same to us and ours. . further, for all those possessions from which any welshman has, without the lawful judgment of his peers, been disseised or removed by king henry our father or king richard our brother, and which we retain in our hand (or which are possessed by others, to whom we are bound to warrant them) we shall have respite until the usual term of crusaders; excepting those things about which a plea has been raised or an inquest made by our order before we took the cross; but as soon as we return (or if perchance we desist from our expedition), we will immediately grant full justice in accordance with the laws of the welsh and in relation to the foresaid regions. . we will immediately give up the son of llywelyn and all the hostages of wales, and the charters delivered to us as security for the peace. . we will do toward alexander, king of scots, concerning the return of his sisters and his hostages, and concerning his franchises, and his right, in the same manner as we shall do toward our other barons of england, unless it ought to be otherwise according to the charters which we hold from william his father, formerly king of scots; and this shall be according to the judgment of his peers in our court. . moreover, all these aforesaid customs and liberties, the observance of which we have granted in our kingdom as far as pertains to us toward our men, shall be observed by all of our kingdom, as well clergy as laymen, as far as pertains to them toward their men. . since, moreover, for god and the amendment of our kingdom and for the better allaying of the quarrel that has arisen between us and our barons, we have granted all these concessions, desirous that they should enjoy them in complete and firm endurance for ever, we give and grant to them the underwritten security, namely, that the barons choose five-and-twenty barons of the kingdom, whomsoever they will, who shall be bound with all their might, to observe and hold, and cause to be observed, the peace and liberties we have granted and confirmed to them by this our present charter, so that if we, or our justiciar, or our bailiffs or any one of our officers, shall in anything be at fault toward any one, or shall have broken any one of the articles of the peace or of this security, and the offense be notified to four barons of the foresaid five-and-twenty, the said four barons shall repair to us (or our justiciar, if we are out of the realm) and, laying the transgression before us, petition to have that transgression redressed without delay. and if we shall not have corrected the transgression (or, in the event of our being out of the realm, if our justiciar shall not have corrected it) within forty days, reckoning from the time it has been intimated to us (or to our justiciar, if we should be out of the realm), the four barons aforesaid shall refer that matter to the rest of the five-and-twenty barons, and those five-and-twenty barons shall, together with the community of the whole land, distrain and distress us in all possible ways, namely, by seizing our castles, lands, possessions, and in any other way they can, until redress has been obtained as they deem fit, saving harmless our own person, and the persons of our queen and children; and when redress has been obtained, they shall resume their old relations toward us. and let whoever in the country desires it, swear to obey the orders of the said five-and-twenty barons for the execution of all the aforesaid matters, and along with them, to molest us to the utmost of his power; and we publicly and freely grant leave to every one who wishes to swear, and we shall never forbid any one to swear. all those, moreover, in the land who of themselves and of their own accord are unwilling to swear to the twenty-five to help them in constraining and molesting us, we shall by our command compel the same to swear to the effect aforesaid. and if any one of the five-and-twenty barons shall have died or departed from the land, or be incapacitated in any other manner which would prevent the foresaid provisions being carried out, those of the said twenty-five barons who are left shall choose another in his place according to their own judgment, and he shall be sworn in the same way as the others. further, in all matters, the execution of which is intrusted to these twenty-five barons, if perchance these twenty-five are present, that which the majority of those present ordain or command shall be held as fixed and established, exactly as if the whole twenty-five had concurred in this; and the said twenty-five shall swear that they will faithfully observe all that is aforesaid, and cause it to be observed with all their might. and we shall procure nothing from any one, directly or indirectly, whereby any part of these concessions and liberties might be revoked or diminished; and if any such thing has been procured, let it be void and null, and we shall never use it personally or by another. . and all the ill-will, hatreds, and bitterness that have arisen between us and our men, clergy and lay, from the date of the quarrel, we have completely remitted and pardoned every one. moreover, all trespasses occasioned by the said quarrel, from easter in the sixteenth year of our reign till the restoration of peace, we have fully remitted to all, both clergy and laymen, and completely forgiven, as far as pertains to us. and, on this head, we have caused to be made for them letters testimonial patent of the lord stephen, archbishop of canterbury, of the lord henry, archbishop of dublin, of the bishops aforesaid, and of master pandulf as touching this security and the concessions aforesaid. . wherefore it is our will, and we firmly enjoin, that the english church be free, and that the men in our kingdom have and hold all the aforesaid liberties, rights, and concessions, well and peaceably, freely and quietly, fully and wholly, for themselves and their heirs, of us and our heirs, in all respects and in all places for ever, as is aforesaid. an oath, moreover, has been taken, as well on our part as on the part of the barons, that all these conditions aforesaid shall be kept in good faith and without evil intent. given under our hand--the above-named and many others being witnesses--in the meadow which is called runnymede, between windsor and staines, on the fifteenth day of june, in the seventeenth year of our reign. *** the text of the magna carta the magna carta (the great charter): preamble: john, by the grace of god, king of england, lord of ireland, duke of normandy and aquitaine, and count of anjou, to the archbishop, bishops, abbots, earls, barons, justiciaries, foresters, sheriffs, stewards, servants, and to all his bailiffs and liege subjects, greetings. know that, having regard to god and for the salvation of our soul, and those of all our ancestors and heirs, and unto the honor of god and the advancement of his holy church and for the rectifying of our realm, we have granted as underwritten by advice of our venerable fathers, stephen, archbishop of canterbury, primate of all england and cardinal of the holy roman church, henry, archbishop of dublin, william of london, peter of winchester, jocelyn of bath and glastonbury, hugh of lincoln, walter of worcester, william of coventry, benedict of rochester, bishops; of master pandulf, subdeacon and member of the household of our lord the pope, of brother aymeric (master of the knights of the temple in england), and of the illustrious men william marshal, earl of pembroke, william, earl of salisbury, william, earl of warenne, william, earl of arundel, alan of galloway (constable of scotland), waren fitz gerold, peter fitz herbert, hubert de burgh (seneschal of poitou), hugh de neville, matthew fitz herbert, thomas basset, alan basset, philip d'aubigny, robert of roppesley, john marshal, john fitz hugh, and others, our liegemen. . in the first place we have granted to god, and by this our present charter confirmed for us and our heirs forever that the english church shall be free, and shall have her rights entire, and her liberties inviolate; and we will that it be thus observed; which is apparent from this that the freedom of elections, which is reckoned most important and very essential to the english church, we, of our pure and unconstrained will, did grant, and did by our charter confirm and did obtain the ratification of the same from our lord, pope innocent iii, before the quarrel arose between us and our barons: and this we will observe, and our will is that it be observed in good faith by our heirs forever. we have also granted to all freemen of our kingdom, for us and our heirs forever, all the underwritten liberties, to be had and held by them and their heirs, of us and our heirs forever. . if any of our earls or barons, or others holding of us in chief by military service shall have died, and at the time of his death his heir shall be full of age and owe "relief", he shall have his inheritance by the old relief, to wit, the heir or heirs of an earl, for the whole baroncy of an earl by l ; the heir or heirs of a baron, l for a whole barony; the heir or heirs of a knight, s, at most, and whoever owes less let him give less, according to the ancient custom of fees. . if, however, the heir of any one of the aforesaid has been under age and in wardship, let him have his inheritance without relief and without fine when he comes of age. . the guardian of the land of an heir who is thus under age, shall take from the land of the heir nothing but reasonable produce, reasonable customs, and reasonable services, and that without destruction or waste of men or goods; and if we have committed the wardship of the lands of any such minor to the sheriff, or to any other who is responsible to us for its issues, and he has made destruction or waster of what he holds in wardship, we will take of him amends, and the land shall be committed to two lawful and discreet men of that fee, who shall be responsible for the issues to us or to him to whom we shall assign them; and if we have given or sold the wardship of any such land to anyone and he has therein made destruction or waste, he shall lose that wardship, and it shall be transferred to two lawful and discreet men of that fief, who shall be responsible to us in like manner as aforesaid. . the guardian, moreover, so long as he has the wardship of the land, shall keep up the houses, parks, fishponds, stanks, mills, and other things pertaining to the land, out of the issues of the same land; and he shall restore to the heir, when he has come to full age, all his land, stocked with ploughs and wainage, according as the season of husbandry shall require, and the issues of the land can reasonable bear. . heirs shall be married without disparagement, yet so that before the marriage takes place the nearest in blood to that heir shall have notice. . a widow, after the death of her husband, shall forthwith and without difficulty have her marriage portion and inheritance; nor shall she give anything for her dower, or for her marriage portion, or for the inheritance which her husband and she held on the day of the death of that husband; and she may remain in the house of her husband for forty days after his death, within which time her dower shall be assigned to her. . no widow shall be compelled to marry, so long as she prefers to live without a husband; provided always that she gives security not to marry without our consent, if she holds of us, or without the consent of the lord of whom she holds, if she holds of another. . neither we nor our bailiffs will seize any land or rent for any debt, as long as the chattels of the debtor are sufficient to repay the debt; nor shall the sureties of the debtor be distrained so long as the principal debtor is able to satisfy the debt; and if the principal debtor shall fail to pay the debt, having nothing wherewith to pay it, then the sureties shall answer for the debt; and let them have the lands and rents of the debtor, if they desire them, until they are indemnified for the debt which they have paid for him, unless the principal debtor can show proof that he is discharged thereof as against the said sureties. . if one who has borrowed from the jews any sum, great or small, die before that loan be repaid, the debt shall not bear interest while the heir is under age, of whomsoever he may hold; and if the debt fall into our hands, we will not take anything except the principal sum contained in the bond. . and if anyone die indebted to the jews, his wife shall have her dower and pay nothing of that debt; and if any children of the deceased are left under age, necessaries shall be provided for them in keeping with the holding of the deceased; and out of the residue the debt shall be paid, reserving, however, service due to feudal lords; in like manner let it be done touching debts due to others than jews. . no scutage not aid shall be imposed on our kingdom, unless by common counsel of our kingdom, except for ransoming our person, for making our eldest son a knight, and for once marrying our eldest daughter; and for these there shall not be levied more than a reasonable aid. in like manner it shall be done concerning aids from the city of london. . and the city of london shall have all it ancient liberties and free customs, as well by land as by water; furthermore, we decree and grant that all other cities, boroughs, towns, and ports shall have all their liberties and free customs. . and for obtaining the common counsel of the kingdom anent the assessing of an aid (except in the three cases aforesaid) or of a scutage, we will cause to be summoned the archbishops, bishops, abbots, earls, and greater barons, severally by our letters; and we will moveover cause to be summoned generally, through our sheriffs and bailiffs, and others who hold of us in chief, for a fixed date, namely, after the expiry of at least forty days, and at a fixed place; and in all letters of such summons we will specify the reason of the summons. and when the summons has thus been made, the business shall proceed on the day appointed, according to the counsel of such as are present, although not all who were summoned have come. . we will not for the future grant to anyone license to take an aid from his own free tenants, except to ransom his person, to make his eldest son a knight, and once to marry his eldest daughter; and on each of these occasions there shall be levied only a reasonable aid. . no one shall be distrained for performance of greater service for a knight's fee, or for any other free tenement, than is due therefrom. . common pleas shall not follow our court, but shall be held in some fixed place. . inquests of novel disseisin, of mort d'ancestor, and of darrein presentment shall not be held elsewhere than in their own county courts, and that in manner following; we, or, if we should be out of the realm, our chief justiciar, will send two justiciaries through every county four times a year, who shall alone with four knights of the county chosen by the county, hold the said assizes in the county court, on the day and in the place of meeting of that court. . and if any of the said assizes cannot be taken on the day of the county court, let there remain of the knights and freeholders, who were present at the county court on that day, as many as may be required for the efficient making of judgments, according as the business be more or less. . a freeman shall not be amerced for a slight offense, except in accordance with the degree of the offense; and for a grave offense he shall be amerced in accordance with the gravity of the offense, yet saving always his "contentment"; and a merchant in the same way, saving his "merchandise"; and a villein shall be amerced in the same way, saving his "wainage" if they have fallen into our mercy: and none of the aforesaid amercements shall be imposed except by the oath of honest men of the neighborhood. . earls and barons shall not be amerced except through their peers, and only in accordance with the degree of the offense. . a clerk shall not be amerced in respect of his lay holding except after the manner of the others aforesaid; further, he shall not be amerced in accordance with the extent of his ecclesiastical benefice. . no village or individual shall be compelled to make bridges at river banks, except those who from of old were legally bound to do so. . no sheriff, constable, coroners, or others of our bailiffs, shall hold pleas of our crown. . all counties, hundred, wapentakes, and trithings (except our demesne manors) shall remain at the old rents, and without any additional payment. . if anyone holding of us a lay fief shall die, and our sheriff or bailiff shall exhibit our letters patent of summons for a debt which the deceased owed us, it shall be lawful for our sheriff or bailiff to attach and enroll the chattels of the deceased, found upon the lay fief, to the value of that debt, at the sight of law worthy men, provided always that nothing whatever be thence removed until the debt which is evident shall be fully paid to us; and the residue shall be left to the executors to fulfill the will of the deceased; and if there be nothing due from him to us, all the chattels shall go to the deceased, saving to his wife and children their reasonable shares. . if any freeman shall die intestate, his chattels shall be distributed by the hands of his nearest kinsfolk and friends, under supervision of the church, saving to every one the debts which the deceased owed to him. . no constable or other bailiff of ours shall take corn or other provisions from anyone without immediately tendering money therefor, unless he can have postponement thereof by permission of the seller. . no constable shall compel any knight to give money in lieu of castle-guard, when he is willing to perform it in his own person, or (if he himself cannot do it from any reasonable cause) then by another responsible man. further, if we have led or sent him upon military service, he shall be relieved from guard in proportion to the time during which he has been on service because of us. . no sheriff or bailiff of ours, or other person, shall take the horses or carts of any freeman for transport duty, against the will of the said freeman. . neither we nor our bailiffs shall take, for our castles or for any other work of ours, wood which is not ours, against the will of the owner of that wood. . we will not retain beyond one year and one day, the lands those who have been convicted of felony, and the lands shall thereafter be handed over to the lords of the fiefs. . all kydells for the future shall be removed altogether from thames and medway, and throughout all england, except upon the seashore. . the writ which is called praecipe shall not for the future be issued to anyone, regarding any tenement whereby a freeman may lose his court. . let there be one measure of wine throughout our whole realm; and one measure of ale; and one measure of corn, to wit, "the london quarter"; and one width of cloth (whether dyed, or russet, or "halberget"), to wit, two ells within the selvedges; of weights also let it be as of measures. . nothing in future shall be given or taken for a writ of inquisition of life or limbs, but freely it shall be granted, and never denied. . if anyone holds of us by fee-farm, either by socage or by burage, or of any other land by knight's service, we will not (by reason of that fee-farm, socage, or burgage), have the wardship of the heir, or of such land of his as if of the fief of that other; nor shall we have wardship of that fee-farm, socage, or burgage, unless such fee-farm owes knight's service. we will not by reason of any small serjeancy which anyone may hold of us by the service of rendering to us knives, arrows, or the like, have wardship of his heir or of the land which he holds of another lord by knight's service. . no bailiff for the future shall, upon his own unsupported complaint, put anyone to his "law", without credible witnesses brought for this purposes. . no freemen shall be taken or imprisoned or disseised or exiled or in any way destroyed, nor will we go upon him nor send upon him, except by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land. . to no one will we sell, to no one will we refuse or delay, right or justice. . all merchants shall have safe and secure exit from england, and entry to england, with the right to tarry there and to move about as well by land as by water, for buying and selling by the ancient and right customs, quit from all evil tolls, except (in time of war) such merchants as are of the land at war with us. and if such are found in our land at the beginning of the war, they shall be detained, without injury to their bodies or goods, until information be received by us, or by our chief justiciar, how the merchants of our land found in the land at war with us are treated; and if our men are safe there, the others shall be safe in our land. . it shall be lawful in future for anyone (excepting always those imprisoned or outlawed in accordance with the law of the kingdom, and natives of any country at war with us, and merchants, who shall be treated as if above provided) to leave our kingdom and to return, safe and secure by land and water, except for a short period in time of war, on grounds of public policy- reserving always the allegiance due to us. . if anyone holding of some escheat (such as the honor of wallingford, nottingham, boulogne, lancaster, or of other escheats which are in our hands and are baronies) shall die, his heir shall give no other relief, and perform no other service to us than he would have done to the baron if that barony had been in the baron's hand; and we shall hold it in the same manner in which the baron held it. . men who dwell without the forest need not henceforth come before our justiciaries of the forest upon a general summons, unless they are in plea, or sureties of one or more, who are attached for the forest. . we will appoint as justices, constables, sheriffs, or bailiffs only such as know the law of the realm and mean to observe it well. . all barons who have founded abbeys, concerning which they hold charters from the kings of england, or of which they have long continued possession, shall have the wardship of them, when vacant, as they ought to have. . all forests that have been made such in our time shall forthwith be disafforsted; and a similar course shall be followed with regard to river banks that have been placed "in defense" by us in our time. . all evil customs connected with forests and warrens, foresters and warreners, sheriffs and their officers, river banks and their wardens, shall immediately by inquired into in each county by twelve sworn knights of the same county chosen by the honest men of the same county, and shall, within forty days of the said inquest, be utterly abolished, so as never to be restored, provided always that we previously have intimation thereof, or our justiciar, if we should not be in england. . we will immediately restore all hostages and charters delivered to us by englishmen, as sureties of the peace of faithful service. . we will entirely remove from their bailiwicks, the relations of gerard of athee (so that in future they shall have no bailiwick in england); namely, engelard of cigogne, peter, guy, and andrew of chanceaux, guy of cigogne, geoffrey of martigny with his brothers, philip mark with his brothers and his nephew geoffrey, and the whole brood of the same. . as soon as peace is restored, we will banish from the kingdom all foreign born knights, crossbowmen, serjeants, and mercenary soldiers who have come with horses and arms to the kingdom's hurt. . if anyone has been dispossessed or removed by us, without the legal judgment of his peers, from his lands, castles, franchises, or from his right, we will immediately restore them to him; and if a dispute arise over this, then let it be decided by the five and twenty barons of whom mention is made below in the clause for securing the peace. moreover, for all those possessions, from which anyone has, without the lawful judgment of his peers, been disseised or removed, by our father, king henry, or by our brother, king richard, and which we retain in our hand (or which as possessed by others, to whom we are bound to warrant them) we shall have respite until the usual term of crusaders; excepting those things about which a plea has been raised, or an inquest made by our order, before our taking of the cross; but as soon as we return from the expedition, we will immediately grant full justice therein. . we shall have, moreover, the same respite and in the same manner in rendering justice concerning the disafforestation or retention of those forests which henry our father and richard our brother afforested, and concerning the wardship of lands which are of the fief of another (namely, such wardships as we have hitherto had by reason of a fief which anyone held of us by knight's service), and concerning abbeys founded on other fiefs than our own, in which the lord of the fee claims to have right; and when we have returned, or if we desist from our expedition, we will immediately grant full justice to all who complain of such things. . no one shall be arrested or imprisoned upon the appeal of a woman, for the death of any other than her husband. . all fines made with us unjustly and against the law of the land, and all amercements, imposed unjustly and against the law of the land, shall be entirely remitted, or else it shall be done concerning them according to the decision of the five and twenty barons whom mention is made below in the clause for securing the pease, or according to the judgment of the majority of the same, along with the aforesaid stephen, archbishop of canterbury, if he can be present, and such others as he may wish to bring with him for this purpose, and if he cannot be present the business shall nevertheless proceed without him, provided always that if any one or more of the aforesaid five and twenty barons are in a similar suit, they shall be removed as far as concerns this particular judgment, others being substituted in their places after having been selected by the rest of the same five and twenty for this purpose only, and after having been sworn. . if we have disseised or removed welshmen from lands or liberties, or other things, without the legal judgment of their peers in england or in wales, they shall be immediately restored to them; and if a dispute arise over this, then let it be decided in the marches by the judgment of their peers; for the tenements in england according to the law of england, for tenements in wales according to the law of wales, and for tenements in the marches according to the law of the marches. welshmen shall do the same to us and ours. . further, for all those possessions from which any welshman has, without the lawful judgment of his peers, been disseised or removed by king henry our father, or king richard our brother, and which we retain in our hand (or which are possessed by others, and which we ought to warrant), we will have respite until the usual term of crusaders; excepting those things about which a plea has been raised or an inquest made by our order before we took the cross; but as soon as we return (or if perchance we desist from our expedition), we will immediately grant full justice in accordance with the laws of the welsh and in relation to the foresaid regions. . we will immediately give up the son of llywelyn and all the hostages of wales, and the charters delivered to us as security for the peace. . we will do towards alexander, king of scots, concerning the return of his sisters and his hostages, and concerning his franchises, and his right, in the same manner as we shall do towards our other barons of england, unless it ought to be otherwise according to the charters which we hold from william his father, formerly king of scots; and this shall be according to the judgment of his peers in our court. . moreover, all these aforesaid customs and liberties, the observances of which we have granted in our kingdom as far as pertains to us towards our men, shall be observed b all of our kingdom, as well clergy as laymen, as far as pertains to them towards their men. . since, moveover, for god and the amendment of our kingdom and for the better allaying of the quarrel that has arisen between us and our barons, we have granted all these concessions, desirous that they should enjoy them in complete and firm endurance forever, we give and grant to them the underwritten security, namely, that the barons choose five and twenty barons of the kingdom, whomsoever they will, who shall be bound with all their might, to observe and hold, and cause to be observed, the peace and liberties we have granted and confirmed to them by this our present charter, so that if we, or our justiciar, or our bailiffs or any one of our officers, shall in anything be at fault towards anyone, or shall have broken any one of the articles of this peace or of this security, and the offense be notified to four barons of the foresaid five and twenty, the said four barons shall repair to us (or our justiciar, if we are out of the realm) and, laying the transgression before us, petition to have that transgression redressed without delay. and if we shall not have corrected the transgression (or, in the event of our being out of the realm, if our justiciar shall not have corrected it) within forty days, reckoning from the time it has been intimated to us (or to our justiciar, if we should be out of the realm), the four barons aforesaid shall refer that matter to the rest of the five and twenty barons, and those five and twenty barons shall, together with the community of the whole realm, distrain and distress us in all possible ways, namely, by seizing our castles, lands, possessions, and in any other way they can, until redress has been obtained as they deem fit, saving harmless our own person, and the persons of our queen and children; and when redress has been obtained, they shall resume their old relations towards us. and let whoever in the country desires it, swear to obey the orders of the said five and twenty barons for the execution of all the aforesaid matters, and along with them, to molest us to the utmost of his power; and we publicly and freely grant leave to everyone who wishes to swear, and we shall never forbid anyone to swear. all those, moveover, in the land who of themselves and of their own accord are unwilling to swear to the twenty five to help them in constraining and molesting us, we shall by our command compel the same to swear to the effect foresaid. and if any one of the five and twenty barons shall have died or departed from the land, or be incapacitated in any other manner which would prevent the foresaid provisions being carried out, those of the said twenty five barons who are left shall choose another in his place according to their own judgment, and he shall be sworn in the same way as the others. further, in all matters, the execution of which is entrusted to these twenty five barons, if perchance these twenty five are present and disagree about anything, or if some of them, after being summoned, are unwilling or unable to be present, that which the majority of those present ordain or command shall be held as fixed and established, exactly as if the whole twenty five had concurred in this; and the said twenty five shall swear that they will faithfully observe all that is aforesaid, and cause it to be observed with all their might. and we shall procure nothing from anyone, directly or indirectly, whereby any part of these concessions and liberties might be revoked or diminished; and if any such things has been procured, let it be void and null, and we shall never use it personally or by another. . and all the will, hatreds, and bitterness that have arisen between us and our men, clergy and lay, from the date of the quarrel, we have completely remitted and pardoned to everyone. moreover, all trespasses occasioned by the said quarrel, from easter in the sixteenth year of our reign till the restoration of peace, we have fully remitted to all, both clergy and laymen, and completely forgiven, as far as pertains to us. and on this head, we have caused to be made for them letters testimonial patent of the lord stephen, archbishop of canterbury, of the lord henry, archbishop of dublin, of the bishops aforesaid, and of master pandulf as touching this security and the concessions aforesaid. . wherefore we will and firmly order that the english church be free, and that the men in our kingdom have and hold all the aforesaid liberties, rights, and concessions, well and peaceably, freely and quietly, fully and wholly, for themselves and their heirs, of us and our heirs, in all respects and in all places forever, as is aforesaid. an oath, moreover, has been taken, as well on our part as on the part of the barons, that all these conditions aforesaid shall be kept in good faith and without evil intent. given under our hand - the above named and many others being witnesses - in the meadow which is called runnymede, between windsor and staines, on the fifteenth day of june, in the seventeenth year of our reign. *** note: project gutenberg also has an html version of this file which includes the original illustrations. see -h.htm or -h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/ / / / / / -h/ -h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/ / / / / / -h.zip) the rise of the democracy by joseph clayton author of "leaders of the people" "bishops as legislators," etc. etc. with eight full-page plates cassell and company, ltd. london, new york, toronto and melbourne all rights reserved [illustration: king john granting magna charta from the fresco in the royal exchange, by ernest normand. _by permission of messrs. s. hildesheimer & co., ltd._] preface this short account of the rise of political democracy is necessarily but an outline of the matter, and while it is not easy to define the exact limits, there is no difficulty in noting omissions. for instance, there is scarcely any reference to the work of poets or pamphleteers. john ball's rhyming letters are quoted, but not the poems of langland, and the political songs of the middle ages are hardly mentioned. the host of political pamphleteers in the seventeenth century are excluded, with the exception of lilburne and winstanley, whose work deserves better treatment from posterity than it received from contemporaries. defoe's vigorous services for the whigs are unnoticed, and the democratic note in much of the poetry of burns, blake, byron and shelley is left unconsidered, and the influence of these poets undiscussed. the anti-corn law rhymes of ebenezer eliot, and the chartist songs of ernest jones were notable inspirations in their day, and in our own times walt whitman and mr. edward carpenter have been the chief singers of democracy. but a whole volume at least might be written on the part the pen has played in the struggle towards democracy. again, there is no mention of ireland in this short sketch. a nationalist movement is not necessarily a democratic movement, and the irish nationalist party includes men of very various political opinions, whose single point of agreement is the demand for home rule. in india and egypt the agitation is for representative institutions. ireland might, or might not, become a democracy under home rule--who can say? the aim of the present writer has been to trace the travelled road of the english people towards democracy, and to point out certain landmarks on that road, in the hope that readers may be turned to examine more closely for themselves the journey taken. for the long march teems with adventure and spirited enterprise; and, noting mistakes and failures in the past, we may surely and wisely, and yet with greater daring and finer courage, pursue the road, not unmindful of the charge committed to us in the centuries left behind. j.c. hampstead, _september, ._ contents introduction the british influence--"government of the people, by the people, for the people"--the foundations of democracy--british democracy experimental not doctrinaire--education to democracy chapter i the early struggles against the absolutism of the crown the great churchmen--archbishop anselm and norman autocracy--thomas à becket and henry ii.--stephen langton and john--the great charter chapter ii the beginning of parliamentary representation democracy and representative government--representative theory first found in ecclesiastical assemblies--the misrule of henry iii.--simon of montfort, leader of the national party--edward i.'s model parliament, --the nobility predominant in parliament--the medieval national assemblies--the electors of the middle ages--payment of parliamentary representatives--the political position of women in the middle ages--no theory of democracy in the middle ages chapter iii popular insurrection in england general results of popular risings--william fitzosbert, --the peasant revolt and its leaders, --jack cade, captain of kent, --the norfolk rising under ket, chapter iv the struggle renewed against the crown parliament under the tudors--victory of parliament over the stuarts--the democratic protest: lilburne--winstanley and "the diggers"--the restoration chapter v constitutional government--aristocracy triumphant government by aristocrats--civil and religious liberty--growth of cabinet rule--walpole's rule--the change in the house of lords--"wilkes and liberty" chapter vi the rise of the democratic idea the witness of the middle ages--the "social contract" theory--thomas hobbes--john locke--rousseau and french revolution--american independence--thomas paine--major cartwright and the "radical reformers"--thomas spence--practical politics and democratic ideals chapter vii parliamentary reform and the enfranchisement of the people the industrial revolution--the need for parliamentary reform--manufacturing centres unrepresented in parliament--the passage of the great reform bill--the working class still unrepresented--chartism--the hyde park railings, --household suffrage--working-class representation in parliament--removal of religious disabilities: catholics, jews and freethinkers--the enfranchisement of women chapter viii democracy at work local government--the workman in the house of commons--working-class leaders in parliament--the present position of the house of lords--the popularity of the crown--the democratic ideals: socialism and social reform--land reform and the single tax chapter ix the world-wide movement: its strength and weakness east and west--tyranny under democratic forms--the obvious dangers--party government--bureaucracy--working-class ascendancy--on behalf of democracy list of plates king john granting magna charta magna charta--a facsimile of the original in the british museum sir john eliot john hampden the gordon riots the right hon. john burns, m.p. the right hon. d. lloyd george, m.p. the passing of the parliament bill in the house of lords the rise of the democracy introduction the british influence our business here is to give some plain account of the movement towards democracy in england, only touching incidentally on the progress of that movement in other parts of the world. mainly through british influences the movement has become world wide; and the desire for national self-government, and the adoption of the political instruments of democracy--popular enfranchisement and the rule of elected representatives--are still the aspirations of civilised man in east and west. the knowledge that these forms of democratic government have by no means at all times and in all places proved successful does not check the movement. as the british parliament and the british constitution have in the past been accepted as a model in countries seeking free political institutions, so to-day our parliament and our constitutional government are still quoted with approval and admiration in those lands where these institutions are yet to be tried. the rise of democracy, then, is a matter in which britain is largely concerned; and this in spite of the fact that in england little respect and less attention has been paid to the expounders of democracy and their constructive theories of popular government. the notion that philosophers are the right persons to manage affairs of state and hold the reins of government has always been repugnant to the english people, and, with us, to call a man "a political theorist" is to contemn him. the english have not moved towards democracy with any conscious desire for that particular form of government, and no vision of a perfect state or an ideal commonwealth has sustained them on the march. our boast has been that we are a "practical" people, and so our politics are, as they ever have been, experimental. reforms have been accomplished not out of deference to some moral or political principle, but because the abuse to be remedied had become intolerable. dissatisfaction with the government and the conviction that only by enfranchisement and the free election of representatives can parliament remove the grounds of dissatisfaction, have carried us towards democracy. government of the people, by the people, for the people we have been brought to accept abraham lincoln's famous phrase, "government of the people, by the people, for the people," as a definition of democracy; but in that acceptance there is no harking back to the early democracies of greece or rome, so beloved by the french democrats of the eighteenth century, who, however, knew very little about those ancient states--or any vain notion of restoring primitive teutonic democracy. the sovereign assemblies of greece--the ecclesia of athens, and the apella of sparta--the comitia centuriata of rome, have no more resemblance to democracy in the twentieth century than the witenagemot has to the british parliament; and the democracy which has arisen in modern times is neither to be traced for its origin to greece or rome, nor found to be evolved from anglo-saxon times. the early democracies of athens and sparta were confined to small states, and were based on a slave population without civic rights. there was not even a conception that slaves might or should take part in politics, and the slaves vastly outnumbered the citizens. modern democracy does not tolerate slavery, it will not admit the permanent exclusion of any body of people from enfranchisement; though it finds it hard to ignore differences of race and colour, it is always enlarging the borders of citizenship. so that already in the australian commonwealth, in new zealand, in certain of the american states, in norway, and in finland, we have the complete enfranchisement of all men and women who are of age to vote. apart from this vital difference between a slave-holding democracy and a democracy of free citizens--a difference that rent the united states in civil war, and was only settled in america by democracy ending slavery--ancient democracy was government by popular assembly, and modern democracy is government through elected representatives. the former is only possible in small communities with very limited responsibilities--a parish meeting can decide questions of no more than strictly local interest; for our huge empires of to-day nothing better than representative government has been devised for carrying out the general will of the majority. as for the early english witenagemot, it was simply an assembly of the chiefs, and, though crowds sometimes attended, all but the great men were the merest spectators. doubtless the folk-moot of the tribe was democratic, for all free men attended it, and the english were a nation of freeholders, and the slaves were few--except in the west--and might become free men.[ ] the shire-moot, too, with its delegates from the hundred-moots, was equally democratic. but with feudalism and the welding of the nation, tribal democracies passed away, leaving, however, in many places a valuable tradition of local self-government. the foundations of democracy a steady and invincible belief that those who maintain the defence of the country and pay for the cost of government should have a voice in the great council of the nation, and the conviction that effective utterance can be found for that voice in duly chosen representatives, are the foundations on which democracy has built. democracy itself comes in ( ) when it is seen that all are being taxed for national purposes; and ( ) the opinion finds acceptance that responsibilities of citizenship should be borne by all who have reached the age of manhood and are of sound mind. to sketch the rise of democracy in england is to trace the steady resistance to kings who would govern without the advice of counsellors, and to note the growing determination that these counsellors must be elected representatives. only when the absolutism of the crown is ended and a parliament of elected members has become the real centre of government, is it possible, without a revolution, for democracy to be established. much of this book is given up, then, to the old stories of kingly rule checked and slowly superseded by aristocracy. and all the old attempts at revolution by popular insurrection are again retold, not only because of the witness they bear to the impossibility in england of achieving democracy by the violent overthrow of government, but because they also bear witness to the heroic resolution of the english people to take up arms and plunge into a sea of troubles rather than bear patiently ills that were unseemly for men to endure in silence. popular insurrection failed, but over and over again violence has been resorted to in the resistance to tyranny, and has been justified by its victory. if wat tyler, jack cade, and robert ket are known as beaten revolutionaries, stephen langton, simon of montfort, and john hampden are acclaimed as patriots for not disdaining the use of armed resistance. the conclusion is that a democratic revolution was not to be accomplished in england by a rising of the people, but that forcible resistance even to the point of civil war was necessary to guard liberties already won, or to save the land from gross misgovernment. but always the forcible resistance, when successful, has been made not by revolutionaries but by the strong champions of constitutional government. the fruit of the resistance to john was the great charter; of simon of montfort's war against henry iii., the beginning of a representative parliament; of the war against charles, the establishment of parliamentary government. lilburne and his friends hoped that the civil war and the abolition of monarchy would bring in democracy, though democracy was never in the mind of men like hampden, who made the war, and was utterly uncongenial to cromwell and the commonwealth men. but the sanctity of monarchy received its death-blow from cromwell, and perished with the deposing of james ii.; and there has been no resurrection. to the whig rule we owe the transference of political power from the crown to parliament. once it is manifest that parliament is the instrument of authority, that the prime minister and his colleagues rule only by the permission and with the approval of the house of commons, and that the house of commons itself is chosen by a certain number of electors to represent the nation, then it is plain that the real sovereignty is in the electors who choose the house of commons. as long as the electors are few and consist of the great landowners and their satellites, then the constitutional government is aristocracy, and democracy is still to come. and just as discontent with monarchy, and its obvious failure as a satisfactory form of government, brought in aristocracy, so at the beginning of the nineteenth century discontent with aristocracy was rife, and a new industrial middle-class looked for "parliamentary reform," to improve the condition of england. british democracy experimental, not doctrinaire resistance to royal absolutism, culminating in the acknowledged ascendancy of parliament and the triumphant aristocracy of , was never based on abstract principles of the rights of barons and landowners, but sprang from the positive, definite conviction that those who furnished arms and men for the king, or who paid certain moneys in taxation, were entitled to be heard in the councils of the king; and the charters given in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries--from henry i. to henry iii.--confirmed this conviction. the resistance to the stuarts was still based on the conviction that direct taxation conferred political privileges, but now the claim to speak in the great council of the realm had become a request to be listened to by the king, and passed rapidly from that to a resolution that the king should have no money from parliament if he refused to listen. the practical inconvenience of a king altogether at variance with parliament was held to be sufficient justification for getting rid of james ii., and for hobbling all future kings with the bill of rights. the dethronement of aristocracy in favour of democracy has proceeded on very similar lines. the mass of english people were far too wretched and far too ignorant at the end of the eighteenth century to care anything about abstract "rights of man," and only political philosophers and a few artisans hoped for improvement in their condition by parliamentary reform. agricultural england accepted the rule of landowners as an arrangement by providence. it was the industrial revolution that shattered the feudal notions of society, and created a manufacturing population which knew nothing of lowly submission to pastors and masters. a middle-class emerged from the very ranks of the working people. the factory system brought fortunes to men who a few years earlier had been artisans, and to these new capitalists in the nineteenth century the aristocracy in power was as irksome as the stuarts had been to the whigs. if, as the whigs taught, those who paid the taxes were entitled to a voice in the government, then the manufacturing districts ought to send representatives to parliament. it seemed monstrous that places like manchester, leeds, and birmingham had no one in the house of commons to plead for the needs of their inhabitants. the manufacturer wanted parliamentary representation because he hoped through parliament to secure the abolition of the political disabilities of nonconformists, and to get financial changes made that would make the conditions of trade more profitable. and he felt that it would be better for the country if he and the class he represented could speak freely in parliament. the workman wanted the vote because he had been brought to believe that, possessing the vote, he could make parliament enact laws that would lighten the hardships of his life. the whole of the manufacturing class--capitalist and workman alike--could see by that the house of commons was the instrument of the electorate, and that to get power they must become electors. (yet probably not one per cent. of them could express clearly any theory of popular sovereignty.) the old whig families, kept out of office by the tories whom george iii. had placed in power, and who now controlled the house of commons, supported reform and the enfranchisement of the middle class because they saw no way of getting back into power except by a new electorate and a redistribution of parliamentary seats. at the beginning of the twentieth century the landowner, still whig, though now, as a general rule enrolled with the unionist party, has not been excluded from political power, but the representatives of the middle-class and of the working people are predominant in the house of commons. the claim of the house of lords to reject the bills of the commons has been, in our time, subjected to the criticism formerly extended to the royal prerogative, and an act--the parliament act--has now been passed which formally requires the lords to accept, without serious amendment, every bill sent up from the commons in three successive sessions. the transition from monarchy to aristocracy in england was brought about at the price of civil war. in many countries democracy has been born in revolution, and the birth pains have been hard and bitter. but in england in the nineteenth century democracy was allowed to come into being by permission of the aristocracy, and has not yet reached its full stature. it is true that violence, bloodshed, loss of life, and destruction of property marked the passage of the great reform bill; that more than once riots and defiance of law and order have been the expression of industrial discontent; but on the whole the average englishman is content to wait for the redress of wrongs by parliamentary action. women have quite recently defied the law, refused to pay taxes, and made use of "militant methods" in their agitation for enfranchisement. but the women's plea has been that, as they are voteless, these methods have been necessary to call attention to their demands. democratic advance has often been hindered and delayed by government, and by a national disinclination from rapid political change; but as the character of government has changed with the changed character of the electorate and the house of commons, so resistance to democracy has always been abandoned when the advance was widely supported, and further delay seemed dangerous to the public order. the house of lords is thus seen to yield to the popular representatives in the house of commons, and the government, dependent on the house of commons, to listen to the demand of women for enfranchisement. while the house of commons completes its assertion of political supremacy, and insists on the absolute responsibility of the chosen representatives of the electorate, the agitation for the enfranchisement of women is the reminder that democracy has yet to widen its borders. progress to democracy in the last one hundred years is visible not only in the enlarged number of enfranchised citizens, but in the general admission that every extension of the franchise has been to the public good; not only in the fact that men of all classes and trades now have their representatives in parliament, but in the very wide acknowledgment that women without votes cannot get that attention by members of the house of commons that is given to male electors. that the majority of electors have expressed a decided opinion that the power of the house of lords should be curtailed, as the power of the monarchy has been curtailed, and that the decisions of the house of commons are only to be corrected by the house of commons, is evidence that under our obviously imperfect parliamentary system the will of the electors does get registered on the statute book. education to democracy apart from the direct political education to democracy, it is well to note the other agencies that have been at work, preparing men and women for the responsible task of national self-government. in the middle ages the religious guilds and the trade guilds, managed by their own members, gave men and women a training in democratic government. the parish, too, was a commune, and its affairs and finances were administered by duly elected officers.[ ] but the guilds, with their numerous almshouses and hospitals, were all suppressed early in edward vi.'s reign, and their funds confiscated. as for the parish, it was shorn of all its property, save the parish church, in the same reign, and its old self-governing life dwindled away to the election of churchwardens. it was not till the beginning of the nineteenth century that the working classes, by the formation of trade unions, once more took up the task of education in self-government. from that time onward, through trade unions, co-operative societies, and friendly societies, with their annual conferences and congresses, a steady training in democracy has been achieved; and our labour party of to-day, with its members of parliament, its members of county and district councils, and its justices of the peace, would hardly have been possible but for this training. other agencies may be mentioned. the temperance movement, the organisation of working-men's clubs, and the local preaching of the nonconformist churches--particularly the primitive methodist denomination--have all helped to educate workmen in the conduct of affairs, and to create that sense of personal responsibility which is the only guarantee of an honest democracy. * * * * * chapter i the early struggles against the absolutism of the crown the great churchmen we are far from any thoughts of democracy in the early struggles against the absolutism of the crown. the old love of personal liberty that is said to have characterised the anglo-saxon had no political outlet under norman feudalism. what we note is that three archbishops of canterbury were strong enough and brave enough to stand up against the unchecked rule of kings, and the names of these great archbishops--anselm, thomas à becket, and stephen langton--are to be honoured for all time for the services they rendered in the making of english liberties. not one of the three was in any sense a democrat. it is not till the latter part of the fourteenth century that we find john ball, a wandering, revolutionary priest, uttering for the first time in england a democratic doctrine. anselm, becket, and langton did their work, as simon of montfort, and as eliot and hampden worked later, not for the sake of a democracy, but for the restriction of an intolerable autocracy. all along in english history liberties have been gained and enlarged by this process of restriction, and it was only when the powers of the crown had been made subject to parliament that it was possible, at the close of the nineteenth century, for parliament itself to become converted from an assembly of aristocrats to a governing body that really represented the nation. but in considering the rise of democracy we can no more omit the early struggles against the absolutism of the crown than we can pass over simon of montfort's parliament, or the unsuccessful popular revolts, or the war with charles i., or the whig revolution of . they are all incidents of pre-democratic days, but they are all events of significance. democracy is no new order of society, conceived in the fertile mind of man; it has been slowly evolved and brought to birth after centuries of struggle, to be tried as a form of government only when other forms are outgrown, and cease to be acceptable. all the great men--heroic and faulty--who withstood the tyranny of their day, not only wrested charters from kings, they left a tradition of resistance; and this tradition has been of incalculable service to a nation seeking self-government. it is easy to dismiss the work of anselm and becket as mere disputes between monarch and churchman, to treat lightly the battle for the great charter as a strife between king and barons. just as easy is it to regard the peasant revolt of the fourteenth century and jack cade's rebellion in the fifteenth century as the tumults of a riotous mob. the great point is to see clearly in all these contests, successful and unsuccessful, the movement for liberty, for greater security and expansion of life in england, and to note that only by a stern endurance and a willingness not to bear an irksome oppression have our liberties been won. in the winning of these liberties we have proved our fitness for democracy, for a government that will allow the fullest measure of self-development. now, what was it that anselm contended for, first with william ii. and then with henry i.? archbishop anselm and norman autocracy anselm was sixty when, in , william ii. named him for the archbishopric of canterbury. in vain anselm, who was abbot of the famous monastery of bec, in normandy, protested that he was too old, and that his business was not with high place and power in this world. the king seemed to be dying, and the bishops gathered round the sick bed would not hear of any refusal on anselm's part. they pushed the pastoral staff into his hands, and carried him off to a neighbouring church, while the people shouted "long live the bishop!" what everybody felt was that with anselm as archbishop things might be better in england, for anselm's reputation stood very high. he had been the friend of lanfranc, the late archbishop; he had been an honoured guest at the court of william the conqueror; and he was known for his deep learning, his sanctity of life, and simple, disinterested devotion to duty. it was hoped that with a man of such holiness at canterbury some restraint might be placed on the lawless tyranny of the red king. lanfranc had been the trusted counsellor and right hand of the red king's father: why should not anselm bring back the son to the paths of decency--at least? the archbishop of canterbury was the chief man in the realm next to the king, and for three years since lanfranc's death the see had been kept vacant that william rufus might enjoy its revenues for his own pleasure. it was not unreasonable that men should look to the appointment of anselm as the beginning of an amendment in church and state. the trouble was that william stuck to his evil courses. the rule of william the conqueror had been stern and harsh, and his hand had been heavy on the english people. but there had been law and justice in the rule; religion and morality had been respected, and peace and security obtained. the rule of the red king was not only grievous, it was arbitrary, capricious, cruel, and without semblance of law. the austerity of the conqueror had been conspicuous; equally conspicuous was the debauchery of his son. the conqueror had been faithful and conscientious in seeing that vacancies in the church were filled up quickly and wisely. the red king preferred to leave bishoprics and churches empty so that he might annex the profits. lanfranc, a wise and just man, had been the minister of the conqueror; the red king made ranulf (nicknamed the torch or firebrand)--a clever, unprincipled clerk--bishop of durham and justiciar. it was ranulf who did the king's business in keeping churches and bishoprics vacant, in violation of law and custom; it was ranulf who plundered the king's vassals and the people at large by every kind of extortion, thwarted the protests of anselm, and encouraged william in his savage profligacies. meek and gentle as anselm was, he had all the courage that comes of a lofty sense of responsibility to god, and he stood before kings as the hebrew prophets of old had stood, calm and fearless. at christmas, , three months before his nomination to the see of canterbury, anselm was in england over the affairs of his monastery, and william invited him to court and treated him with great display of honour. then some private talk took place between the two, and anselm said plainly that "things were spoken daily of the king, openly or secretly, by nearly all the men of his realm, which were not seemly for the king's dignity." from that time anselm stayed in england, for william refused to give him leave to return to normandy. then in march, came the king's sickness, which most men expected to be mortal. anselm was summoned, and on his arrival bade the king "make a clean confession of all that he knows that he has done against god, and promise that, should he recover, he will without pretence amend in all things. the king at once agreed to this, and with sorrow of heart engaged to do all that anselm required and to keep justice and mercy all his life long. to this he pledged his faith, and made his bishops witness between himself and god, sending persons in his stead to promise his word to god on the altar. an edict was written and sealed with the king's seal that all prisoners should be set free in all his dominions, all debts forgiven, all offences heretofore committed pardoned and forgotten for ever. further, good and holy laws were promised to the whole people, and the sacred upholding of right and such solemn inquest into wrongdoing as may deter others."[ ] william did not die, and his repentance was short-lived; but the one act of grace he did before leaving his sick bed was to fill up the empty throne at canterbury by the appointment of anselm--anselm's protests of unfitness notwithstanding. then, on the king's recovery, as though to make up for the penitence displayed, all the royal promises of amendment were broken without shame, and "all the evil which the king had wrought before he was sick seemed good by the side of the wrong which he did when he was returned to health." the prisoners who had been pardoned were sent back to prison, the debts which had been cancelled were re-claimed, and all legal actions which had been dropped were resumed. anselm was now enthroned at canterbury, and his appointment could not be revoked; but the king was quick to show his displeasure at the new archbishop. the first point raised by william was that those lands belonging to the see of canterbury, which had been made over to military vassals of the crown while the archbishopric was vacant, should remain with their holders. anselm said at once that this was impossible. he was responsible for the administration of all the estates of canterbury, and to allow these lands to be alienated to the crown was to rob the poor and needy who, it was held, had a just claim on the property of the church. besides, anselm saw that the lands would never be restored once an archbishop confirmed their appropriation by the king's military tenants. there was no one in all england save anselm who dared withstand the crown, and had he yielded on this matter resistance to the tyranny of the red king would only have been harder on the next occasion. then came the question of a present of money to the king, the customary offering. anselm brought five hundred marks (£ ), a very considerable sum in those days, and william, persuaded by some of his courtiers that twice the amount ought to have been given, curtly declined the present. anselm, who disliked the whole business of these gifts to the crown, for he knew that many a churchman bought his office by promising a "free" gift after institution, solemnly warned william that money given freely as his was given was better than a forced tribute, and to this william answered that he wanted neither the archbishop's money nor his preaching or company. thereupon anselm retired and gave the money to the poor, determined that he, for his part, would make no attempt to purchase william's goodwill. henceforth william was equally determined that anselm should have no peace in england. it was hateful to the king that there should be anyone in the realm who acknowledged a higher authority than the crown, and anselm made it too plain that the archbishop rested his authority not on the favour of the crown, but on the discipline of the christian religion. william was king of england indisputably, but there was a higher power than the king, and that was the pope. william himself never dreamed of denying the divine authority of the pope in spiritual matters; no one in all christendom in the eleventh and twelfth centuries questioned that at rome was a court of appeal higher than the courts of kings. strong rulers like william the conqueror might decline to submit to rome on a personal question of marriage, but rome was the recognised centre of religion, the headquarters of the christian church, and the supreme court of appeal. apart from rome there was no power that could curb the fierce unbridled tyranny of the kings of the earth, and the power of rome was a spiritual weapon, for the pope had no army to enforce his decisions. so anselm, conscious of this spiritual authority, refused to bow to the lawless rule of the red king; and his very attitude, while it encouraged men to lift up their hearts who erstwhile had felt that it was hopeless and useless to strive against william,[ ] enraged the red king to fury. the things he wanted to forget were that the chief representative of the christian religion was a greater person than the king of england, and that the archbishop of canterbury could be a christian minister rather than a king's man.[ ] and anselm was the constant witness to the christian religion, and, by his very presence, a rebuke to the crimes and cruelties of the court of the red king. william actually wrote to the pope, naturally without any success, praying him to depose anselm, and promising a large annual tribute to rome if the request was granted. for years the uneven contest was waged. the bishops generally avoided anselm, and were only anxious to be accepted by the king as good servants of the crown, with the result that william despised them for their servility. but the barons began to declare their respect for the brave old man at canterbury. at last, when anselm was summoned to appear before the king's court, to "do the king right," on a trumped-up charge of having failed to send an adequate supply of troops for the king's service, he felt the position was hopeless. anselm's longing had been to labour with the king, as lanfranc had laboured, to promote religion in the country, and he had been frustrated at every turn. the summons to the king's court was the last straw, for the defendant in this court was entirely at the mercy of the crown. "when, in anglo-norman times you speak of the king's court, it is only a phrase for the king's despotism."[ ] anselm took no notice of the king's summons, and decided to appeal to rome. for a time william refused permission for any departure from england, but he yielded in , and anselm set out for rome. he stayed at rome and at lyons till william was dead, for the pope would not let him resign canterbury, and could do nothing to bring the king to a better mind. then, on the urgent request of henry i., he returned to england, and for a time all went well. henry was in earnest for the restoration of law and religion in england, and his declaration, at the very beginning of his reign--the oft-quoted "charter" of henry i.--to stop the old scandals of selling and farming out church lands, and to put down all unrighteousness that had been in his brother's time, was hailed with rejoicing. anselm stood loyally by henry over the question of his marriage with edith (who claimed release from vows taken under compulsion in a convent at romsey), and his fidelity at the critical time when robert of normandy and the discontented nobles threatened the safety of the crown was invaluable. but henry was an absolutist, anxious for all the threads of power to be in his own hands; and just when a great church council at the lateran had decided that bishops must not be invested by kings with the ring and staff of their office, because by such investiture they were the king's vassals, henry decided to invite anselm to receive the archbishopric afresh from the king's hands by a new act of investiture. to anselm the abject submission of the bishops to the red king had been a painful spectacle; and now henry was making a demand that would emphasise the royal supremacy, and the demand was intolerable and impossible. again anselm stood practically alone in his resistance to the royal will, and again the question in dispute was whether there was any power in england higher than the crown. the papal supremacy was no more under discussion than it had been under william. all that henry wanted was that the archbishops and bishops should acknowledge that their authority came from the crown; and at henry's request anselm, then years old, again journeyed to rome to lay the matter before the pope. pope paschal was fully alive to the mischief of making the bishops and clergy mere officers of kings, and it was soon seen there could be no dispensations from rome even for henry. all that the pope would allow was that bishops might do homage to the crown for their temporal rights, and with this henry had to be content. it was three years later before anselm returned, and his course was now nearly run. he died at peace on april st, , having wrought to no small purpose for religious liberty and the independence of the clergy. (the demand for political and social independence always follows the struggle for independence in religion.) anselm spent the greater part of his life after his enthronement at canterbury in battling for independence of the crown; a century later archbishop stephen was to carry the battle still further, and win wider liberties for england from the crown. of anselm's general love of liberty and hatred of all tyranny many stories are told. one fact may be recalled. the church synod, which met at westminster in , at anselm's request, attacked the slave trade as a "wicked trade used hitherto in england, by which men are sold like brute animals," and framed a church rule against its continuance. in spite of this decree, serfdom lingered in england for centuries, but hiring superseded open buying and selling of men. (the african slave trade was the work of the elizabethan seamen, and was excused, as slavery in the united states was excused, by the protestant churches on the ground of the racial inferiority of the negro.) thomas À becket and henry ii. resistance to autocracy is often more needed against a strong and just king than it is against an unprincipled profligate. henry ii.'s love of order and peace, the strength and energy he spent in curtailing the power of the barons, and in making firm the foundations of our national system of petty sessions and assize courts have made for him an enduring fame. henry ii. was a great lawyer; he was "the flower of the princes of his world," in contemporary eyes; but it was as an autocrat he would rule. against this autocracy thomas à becket, archbishop of canterbury, protested, and the protest cost him five years of exile, and finally his life. the manner of his death earned for the archbishop the title of martyr, and popular acclamation required him to be canonised as a saint,[ ] and his name to be long cherished with deep devotion by the english people. both henry and thomas stand out honourably, but the former would have brought all england under one great centralised authority, with the crown not only predominant but absolute in its supremacy, and the archbishop contended for the great mass of poor and needy people to mitigate the harshness of the law, and to maintain the liberties of the church against the encroachments of sovereignty. "nothing is more certain," as the old writer put it, "than that both strove earnestly to do the will of god, one for the sake of his realm, the other on behalf of his church. but whether of the two was zealous in wisdom is not plain to man, who is so easily mistaken, but to the lord, who will judge between them at the last day." becket was the first english-born archbishop of canterbury since the norman conquest. henry, on his accession, clove to him in friendship, made him lord chancellor in , and on archbishop theobald's death, the monks of canterbury at once accepted henry's advice and elected him to the vacant see. becket himself knew the king too well to desire the appointment, and warned henry not to press the matter, and prophesied that their friendship would be turned to bitter enmity. but henry's mind was made up. as chancellor, becket had shown no ecclesiastical bias. he had taxed clergy and laity with due impartiality, and his legal decisions had been given without fear or favour. henry counted on becket to act with the same indifference as archbishop, to be the king's vicegerent during the royal absence in france. and here henry, wise as he was in many things, mistook his man. as chancellor of england becket conceived his business to be the administration of the laws: as archbishop he was first and foremost the champion of the christian religion, the protector of the poor, and the defender of the liberties of the church. all unwilling, like his great predecessor, st. anselm, to become archbishop, from the hour of his consecration to the see of canterbury, in , becket was as firm as anselm had been in resisting the absolutism of the king. to the king's extreme annoyance the chancellorship was at once given up--the only instance known of the voluntary resignation of the chancellorship by layman or ecclesiastic,[ ] and all the amusements of the court and the business of the world were laid aside by the new archbishop. the care of his diocese, the relief of the poor and the sick, and attendance at the sacred offices of the church were henceforth the work of the man who had been henry's best-loved companion, and within a year of his enthronement friendship with the king was broken. the first point at issue was whether there should be one common jurisdiction in all the land, or whether the church courts should still exist. these church courts had been set up by william the conqueror and lanfranc, in order that the clergy should not be mixed up in ordinary law matters, and should be excluded strictly from the common courts. no penalty involving bloodshed could be inflicted in the church courts, and all the savage barbarities of mutilation, common enough as punishments in the king's court, were forbidden. henry ii., apart from his strong desire for centralisation in government, wanted these church courts abolished, because every clerk who offended against the law escaped ordinary punishment, no matter what the charge might be. archbishop thomas saw that in the church courts there was some protection, not only for the clergy, but for all minor ecclesiastics, and for widows and orphans, against the horrible legal cruelties of the age. "it must be held in mind that the archbishop had on his side the church or _canon law_, which he had sworn to obey, and certainly the law courts erred as much on the side of harshness and cruelty as those of the church on that of foolish pity towards evil doers."[ ] before this dispute had reached its climax thomas had boldly taken measures against some of the king's courtiers who were defrauding the see of canterbury; and he had successfully withstood henry's plan for turning the old dane-geld shire tax, which was paid to the sheriff for the defence of the country and the up-keep of roads, into a tax to be collected by the crown as part of the royal revenue. thomas told the king plainly that this tax was a voluntary offering to be paid to the sheriffs only "so long as they shall serve as fitly and maintain and defend our defendants," and said point blank that he would not suffer a penny to be taken off his lands for the king's purposes. henry was obliged to yield, and this is the first case known of resistance to the royal will in the matter of taxation. the case of clerical offenders, and the jurisdiction of the courts came before a great council at westminster in . henry declared that criminous clerks should be deprived of their office in the church courts, and then handed over to the king's courts for punishment. thomas replied that the proposal was contrary to the religious liberties of the land, but he met with little support from the rest of the bishops. "better the liberties of the church perish than that we perish ourselves," they cried in fear of the king. henry followed up his proposal by calling on the bishops to abide by the old customs of the realm, as settled by his grandfather, henry i., and to this they all agreed, adding "saving the rights of our order." a list of the old customs was drawn up, and sixteen _constitutions_, or articles, were presented to the bishops at the great council of clarendon, in january, . to many of these constitutions thomas objected; notably ( ) that clerks were to be tried in the king's courts for offences of common law. ( ) that neither archbishops, bishops, nor beneficed clerks were to leave the kingdom without royal permission. (this would not only stop appeals to rome, it would make pilgrimages or attendance at general councils impossible without the king's consent.) ( ) that no member of the king's household was to be excommunicated without the king's permission. ( ) that no appeals should be taken beyond the archbishop's court, except to be brought before the king. (this definite prohibition of appeals to rome left the king absolute master in england.) the last article declared that neither serfs nor the sons of villeins were to be ordained without the consent of the lord on whose land they were born. against his own judgment thomas yielded to the entreaties of the bishops, and agreed to accept the constitutions of clarendon, but no sooner had he done so than he bitterly repented, and wrote off to the pope acknowledging his mistake. pope alexander iii. was mainly anxious to prevent open hostilities between henry and the archbishop, and wrote calmly that he was absolved, without suggesting any blame to the king. henry now saw that the archbishop, and only the archbishop, stood in the way of the royal will, and when another council met at northampton, in october, , the king was ready to drive thomas out of office. before this council thomas was charged with having refused justice to john, the treasury-marshall, and with contempt of the king's court, and was heavily fined. it was difficult to get sentence pronounced, for the barons declined to sit as judges on an archbishop; but at length, henry, bishop of winchester, on the king's order, declared the sentence. henry followed up the attack next day by calling upon thomas to account for , marks spent by him while chancellor. in vain he proved that the justiciar had declared him free of all claims when he laid down the chancellorship, that the charge was totally unexpected; the king refused to stay the proceedings unless thomas would sign the constitutions of clarendon. consultation with the bishops brought no help. "the king has declared, so it is said, that he and you cannot both remain in england as king and archbishop. it would be much safer to resign everything and submit to his mercy"; thus spake hilary, of chichester, and his fellow-bishops all urged resignation or submission. two days later the archbishop came into the council in full robes with the cross in his hand. earl robert, of leicester, rose to pass sentence upon him and at once the archbishop refused to hear him. "neither law nor reason permit children to pass sentence on their father," he declared. "i will not hear this sentence of the king, or any judgment of yours. for, under god, i will be judged by the pope alone, to whom before you all here i appeal, placing the church of canterbury under god's protection and the protection of the pope." there were shouts of anger at these words, and some tore rushes from the floor and flung at him, but no one dared to stop the archbishop's passage as he passed from the hall. it was useless to look for help or justice in england, and that very night thomas left england for flanders to appeal to rome. but pope alexander could do no more for thomas than his predecessor had done for anselm; only he would not allow any resignation from canterbury. henry himself appealed to the pope in , fearing excommunication by the archbishop; "thus by a strange fate it happened that the king, while striving for those 'ancient customs' by which he endeavoured to prevent any right of appeal (to the pope), was doomed to confirm the right of appeal for his own safety." the pope did what he could to arrange a reconciliation, but it was not till that the king, seriously alarmed that thomas would place england under an interdict, agreed to a reconciliation. on december st the exile was over, and thomas landed at sandwich, and went at once to canterbury. there were many who doubted whether there could be lasting peace between the king and the archbishop, and while the bishops generally hated the primate's return, the nobles spoke openly of him as a traitor to the king. the end was near. thomas, asked to withdraw the sentence of excommunication he had passed against the archbishop of york and the bishop of london and salisbury for violating the privileges of canterbury, answered that the matter must go before the pope. the bishops, instead of going to rome, hastened to henry, who was keeping his court at bur, in france. henry, at the complaint of the bishops, broke out into one of those terrible fits of anger which overcame him from time to time, and four knights left the court saying, "all this trouble will be at an end when thomas is dead, and not before." on december th these knights were at canterbury, and at nightfall, just when vespers had begun, they slew archbishop thomas by the great pillar in the cathedral. so died this great archbishop for the liberties of the church, and, as it seemed to him, for the welfare of the people. henry was horrified at the news of the archbishop's death, and hastened to beg absolution from rome for the rash words that had provoked the murder. in the presence of the papal legate he promised to give up the constitutions of clarendon, nor in the remaining eighteen years of his reign did henry make any fresh attempt to bring the church under the subjection of the crown. to the great bulk of english people thomas was a saint and martyr, and numerous churches were dedicated in his name. more than three hundred years later henry viii. decided that st. thomas was an enemy of princes, that his shrine at canterbury must be destroyed, and his festival unhallowed. but the fame of thomas à becket has survived the censure of henry viii., and his name shines clearly across the centuries. democracy has been made possible by the willingness of brave men in earlier centuries to resist, to the death, an absolutism that would have left england bound and chained to the king's throne. stephen langton and john stephen langton was consecrated archbishop of canterbury in june, , on the nomination of pope innocent iii.; the monks of canterbury, who had proposed their own superior, consenting to the appointment, for langton had a high reputation for learning and was known to be of exalted character. but king john, who had wanted a man of his own heart for the archbishopric--john of gray, bishop of norwich, commonly spoken of as "a servant of mammon, and an evil shepherd that devoured his own sheep"--was enraged, and refusing to acknowledge langton, defied the pope, drove the monks out of the country, and declared that anyone who acknowledged stephen langton as archbishop should be accounted a public enemy. so it came about that the great english statesman who broke down the foulest and worst tyranny the land had known, and won for england the great charter of its liberties, was a nominee of the pope, and was to find himself under the displeasure of the papal legate when the charter had been signed! for six years john kept stephen out of canterbury, while england lay under an interdict, with its king excommunicate and outside the pale of the church. most of the bishops fled abroad, "fearing the king, but afraid to obey him for dread of the pope," and john laid hands on church property and filled the royal treasury with the spoils of churchmen and jews. but in john's position had become precarious, for the northern barons were plotting his overthrow, and the pope had absolved all his subjects from allegiance, and given sentence that "john should be thrust from his throne and another worthier than he should reign in his stead," naming philip of france as his successor. john was aware that he could not count on the support of the barons in a war with france, and a prophecy of peter, the wakefield hermit, that the crown would be lost before ascension day, made him afraid of dying excommunicate. accordingly john decided to get the pope on his side. he agreed to receive pandulf, the papal legate; to acknowledge stephen; make good the damage done to the church, and, in addition, voluntarily ("of our own good free will and by the common counsel of our barons") surrendered "to god and to the holy mother church of rome, and to pope innocent and his catholic successors," the whole realm of england and ireland, "with all rights thereunto appertaining, to receive them back and hold them thenceforth as a feudatory of god and the roman church." he swore fealty to the pope for both realms, and promised a yearly tribute of , marks. this abject submission to the pope was a matter of policy. john cared nothing for any appearance of personal or national humiliation, and as he had broken faith with all in england, so, if it should suit his purpose, would he as readily break faith with rome. but the immediate advantage of having the pope for his protector seemed considerable. "for when once he had put himself under apostolical protection and made his realms a part of the patrimony of st. peter, there was not in the roman world a sovereign who durst attack him or would invade his lands, in such awe was pope innocent held above all his predecessors for many years past."[ ] stephen landed in june, , and at winchester john was formally absolved and the coronation oaths were renewed. it was very soon seen what manner of man the archbishop was. in august a great gathering of the barons took place in st. paul's, and there langton recited the coronation charter of henry i., and told all those assembled that these rights and liberties were to be recovered; and "the barons swore they would fight for these liberties, even unto death if it were needful, and the archbishop promised that he would help with all his might." the weakness of the barons hitherto had been their want of cohesion, their endless personal feuds, and the lack of any feeling of national responsibility. langton laboured to create a national party and to win recognition of law and justice for all in england; and the great charter was the issue of his work. the state of things was intolerable. the whole administration of justice was corrupt. the decisions of the king's courts were as arbitrary as the methods employed to enforce sentence. free men were arrested, evicted, exiled, and outlawed without even legal warrant or the semblance of a fair trial. all the machinery of government set up by the norman kings, and developed under henry ii., had, in john's hands, become a mere instrument of despotic extortion, to be used against anybody and everybody, from earl to villein, who could be fleeced by the king's servants. john saw the tide rising against him, and endeavoured to divide barons from churchmen by proclaiming that the latter should have free and undisturbed right of election when bishoprics and other ecclesiastical offices were vacant. but the attempt failed. langton was too resolute a statesman, and his conception of the primacy of canterbury was too high for any turning back from the work he had set himself to accomplish. the rights of election in the church were important, but the restoration of justice and order and the ending of tyranny were, in his eyes, hardly less important. john, who had been at war in france, returned defeated from his last attempt to recover for the crown the lost angevin provinces, to face a discontent that was both wide and general. the people, and in especial the barons and knights whom for fourteen years john had robbed, insulted, and spurned, and whose liberties he had trampled upon, were ready at last under wise leadership to end the oppression. in november, , the archbishop saw that the time was come for action, and again the barons met in council. before the high altar in the abbey church of st. edmundsbury they swore that if the king sought to evade their demand for the laws and liberties of henry i.'s charter, they would make war upon him until he pledged himself to confirm their rights in a charter under royal seal. "they also agreed that after christmas they would go all together to the king and ask him for a confirmation of these liberties, and that meanwhile they would so provide themselves with horses and arms that if the king should seek to break his oath, they might, by seizing his castles, compel him to make satisfaction. and when these things were done every man returned to his own home."[ ] john now asked for time to consider these requests, and for the next six months worked hard to break up the barons' confederacy, to gain friends and supporters, and to get mercenaries from poitou. it was all to no purpose. as a last resource he took the cross, expecting to be saved as a crusader from attack, and at the same time he wrote to the pope to help his faithful vassal. the pope's letters rebuking the barons for conspiracy against the king were unheeded, and the mercenaries were inadequate when john was confronted by the whole baronage in arms. the great charter in may a list of articles to be signed was sent to john; and on his refusal the barons formally renounced their homage and fealty and flew to arms. john was forced to surrender before this host. on june th he met the barons at runnymede, between staines and windsor, and there, in the presence of archbishop stephen and "a multitude of most illustrious knights," sealed the great charter of the liberties of england. this great charter was in the main a renewal of the old rights and liberties promised by henry i. it set up no new rights, conferred no new privileges, and sanctioned no changes in the constitution. its real and lasting importance is due to its being a written document--for the first time in england it was down in black and white, for all to read, what the several rights and duties of king and people were, and in what the chief points of the constitution consisted. [illustration: magna charta a facsimile of the original in the british museum.] the great charter is a great table of laws. it marks the beginning of written legislation, and anticipates acts of parliament. unwritten laws and traditions were not abolished: they remain with us to this day; but the written law had become a necessity when "the bonds of unwritten custom" failed to restrain kings and barons. the great charter also took into account the rights of free men, and of the tenants of the king's vassals. if the barons and knights had their grievances to be redressed, the commons and the freeholding peasants needed protection against the lawless exactions of their overlords.[ ] sixty-three clauses make up magna charta, and we may summarise them as follows:-- ( ) the full rights and liberties of the church are acknowledged; bishops shall be freely elected, so that the church of england shall be free.[ ] ( - ) the king's tenants are to have their feudal rights secured against abuse. widows--in the wardship of the crown--are to be protected against robbery and against compulsion to a second marriage. ( - ) the harsh rules for securing the payment of debts to the crown and to the jews (in whose debts the crown had an interest) are to be relaxed. ( - ) no scutage or aid (save for the three regular feudal aids--the ransom of the king, the knighting of his eldest son, and the marriage of his eldest daughter) is to be imposed except by the common council of the nation; and to this council archbishops, bishops, abbots, earls, and greater barons are to be called by special writ, while all who held their land directly from the king, and were of lesser rank, were to be summoned by a general writ addressed to the sheriff of the county. forty days' notice of the meeting was to be given, and also the cause of the assembly. the action of those who obeyed the summons was to be taken to represent the action of all.[ ] (this last clause is never repeated in later confirmations of the great charter.) ( - ) the powers of lords over their tenants are limited and defined. ( - ) a court of common pleas is to be held in some fixed place so that suitors are not obliged to follow the king's curia. cases touching the ownership of land are to be tried in the counties by visiting justices, and by four knights chosen by the county. ( - ) no freeman is to be fined beyond his offence, and the penalty is to be fixed by a local jury. earls and barons to be fined by their peers; and clerks only according to the amount of their lay property. ( - ) the powers of sheriffs, constables, coroners, and bailiffs of the king are strictly defined. no sheriff is to be a justice in his own county. royal officers are to pay for all the goods taken by requisition; money is not to be taken in lieu of service from those who are willing to perform the service. the horses and carts of freemen are not to be seized for royal work without consent. the weirs in the thames, medway, and other rivers in england are to be removed. ( - ) uniformity of weights and measures is directed. inquests are to be granted freely. the sole wardship of minors who have other lords will not be claimed by the king, except in special cases. no bailiff may force a man to ordeal without witnesses. ( - ) no free man is to be taken, imprisoned, ousted of his land, outlawed, banished, or hurt in any way save by the judgment of his peers, or the law of the land. the king is not to sell, delay, or deny right or justice to anyone. ( - ) merchants may go out or come in without paying exorbitant customs. all "lawful" men are to have a free right to pass in and out of england in time of peace. ( - ) an inquiry into the forest laws and a reform of the forest abuses are promised. all forests made in present reign to be disforested, and all fences in rivers thrown down. ( - ) the foreign mercenaries of the king, all the detested gang that came with horses and arms to the hurt of the realm, are to be sent out of the country. the welsh princes and the king of scots (who had sided with the barons) are to have justice done. a general amnesty for all political offences arising from the struggle is made. the last three articles appointed twenty-five barons, chosen out of the whole baronage, to watch over the keeping of the charter. they were empowered to demand that any breach of the articles should at once be put right, and, in default to make war on the king till the matter was settled to their satisfaction. finally there was the oath to be taken on the part of the king, and on the part of the barons that the articles of the charter should be observed in good faith according to their plain meaning. the great charter was signed, and then in a wild burst of rage john shouted to his foreign supporters, "they have given me five-and-twenty over-kings!" within a week of runnymede the great charter was published throughout england, but neither king nor barons looked for peace. john was ready to break all oaths, and while he set about increasing his army of mercenaries, he also appealed to the pope, as his overlord, protesting that the charter had been wrested from him by force. langton and the bishops left for rome to attend a general council. pope innocent declared the charter annulled on the ground that both king and barons had made the pope overlord of england, and that consequently nothing in the government could be changed without his consent. but with langton, the bishops, and the papal legate all away at rome, there was no one to publish the papal repudiation of the charter, and the king and barons were already at civil war. pope innocent iii. was dead in the spring of , and john's wretched reign was over when the king lay dying at newark in october. stephen langton was back again at canterbury in , and for eleven more years worked with william the marshall and hubert of burgh to maintain public peace and order during henry iii.'s boyhood. at oxford, in , the charter was confirmed afresh, and two years later it was solemnly proclaimed again when the king wanted a new subsidy. as long as the great statesmen were in office henry iii. was saved from the weakness that cursed his rule in england for nearly forty years. but william the marshall died in , archbishop stephen in , and hubert was dismissed from the justiciarship in . a horde of greedy aliens from poitou fed at the court of henry and devoured the substance of england, until men arose, as langton had arisen, to demand the enforcement of charters and a just administration of the laws. again a national party arises under the leadership of simon of montfort, and in their victory over the king we get the beginnings of parliamentary government and popular representation. every step forward is followed by reaction, but the ground lost is recovered, and the next step taken marks always a steady advance. over and over again it has seemed that all the liberties won in the past were lost, but looking back we can see that there has been no lasting defeat of liberty. only for a time have the forces of oppression triumphed; it is soon found impossible in england to rest under tyranny, or to govern without the consent of the governed. and every fresh campaign for the restriction of kingly power brings us nearer the day of democratic government. * * * * * chapter ii the beginning of parliamentary representation democracy and representative government to-day democracy takes the form of representative government in civilised countries; and for representative government contend the nations and peoples seeking democracy. the weak spots in all popular electoral systems are obvious, and the election of representatives is always a subject for jokes and satire. it could hardly be otherwise. for the best machinery in the world needs some sort of sympathetic intelligence in the person who manipulates it, and the machinery of popular elections can only be worked successfully with a large measure of sincerity and good will. in the hands of the ambitious, the self-seeking, and the unscrupulous, democratic politics are a machine for frustrating popular representation, and as this state of things is always prevalent somewhere, the humorist and the satirist naturally treat politics without respect. but in spite of all its faults and failings--glaring as these are--mankind can at present devise nothing better than representative government, and the abuse of power, the cunning, roguery, and corruption that too often accompany popular elections and democratic administration, rather stir honest men to action than make them incline to dictatorship and absolutism. the present notion about representative government is that it makes possible the expression of popular will, and can ensure the fulfilment of that will. in the thirteenth century, when we get the beginnings of representative government, there is no question of the people making positive proposals in legislation, but there is a distinct belief that the consent of the governed ought to be obtained by the ruling power. the mere legal maxim from the code of justinian, that "that which touches all shall be approved by all,"[ ] "becomes transmuted by edward i. into a great political and constitutional principle."[ ] representative theory first found in ecclesiastical assemblies more than a century earlier the first recorded appearances of town representatives are found in the spanish cortes of aragon and castile.[ ] st. dominic makes a representative form of government the rule in his order of preaching friars, each priory sending two representatives to its provincial chapter, and each province sending two representatives to the general chapter of the order. in england, simon of montfort, the son of simon, the great warrior of the albigensian wars and the warm friend of dominic, was in close association with the friars. hence there was nothing so very remarkable in earl simon issuing writs for the full parliament of for the return of two burgesses from each city and borough. he had seen representative government at work among the friars in their chapters. why should the plan be not equally useful in the government of the country?[ ] there is no evidence that the summons to the burgesses was regarded as a revolutionary proposal--so lightly comes political change in england. the name of simon of montfort, earl of leicester, must always be associated with the beginning of representative government in england. let us recall how it was the great earl came to be in power in . the misrule of henry iii. henry iii. was always in want of money, and his crew of royal parasites from poitou drained the exchequer. over and over again the barons called on the king to get rid of his favourites, and to end the misrule that afflicted the country; and the king from time to time gave promises of amendment. but the promises were always broken. as long as henry could get money he was averse from all constitutional reform. in the barons were determined that a change must be made. "if the king can't do without us in war, he must listen to us in peace," they declared. "and what sort of peace is this when the king is led astray by bad counsellors, and the land is filled with foreign tyrants who grind down native-born englishmen?" william of rishanger, a contemporary writer, expressed the popular feeling in well-known verses: "the king that tries without advice to seek his country's weal must often fail; he cannot know the wants and woes they feel. the parliament must tell the king how he may serve them best, and he must see their wants fulfilled and injuries redressed. a king should seek his people's good and not his own sweet will. nor think himself a slave because men hold him back from ill." "the king's mistakes call for special treatment," said richard, earl of gloucester. simon of montfort, leader of the national party so that year a parliament met in oxford, in the dominican priory. it was called the "mad parliament," because the barons all came to it fully armed, and civil war seemed imminent. but earl simon and richard of gloucester carried the barons with them in demanding reform. henry was left without supporters, and civil war was put off for five years. the work done at this parliament of oxford was an attempt to make the king abide loyally by the great charter; and the provisions of oxford, as they were called, set up a standing council of fifteen, by whom the king was to be guided, and ordered that parliament was to meet three times a year: at candlemas (february nd), on june st, and at michaelmas. four knights were to be chosen by the king's lesser freeholders in each county to attend this parliament, and the baronage was to be represented by twelve commissioners. it was an oligarchy that the provisions of oxford established, "intended rather to fetter the king than to extend or develop the action of the community at large. the baronial council clearly regards itself as competent to act on behalf of all the estates of the realm, and the expedient of reducing the national deliberations to three sessions of select committees betrays a desire to abridge the frequent and somewhat irksome duty of attendance in parliament rather than to share the central legislative and deliberative power with the whole body of the people. it must, however, be remembered that the scheme makes a very indistinct claim to the character of a final arrangement."[ ] for a time things went better in england. the aliens at henry's court fled over-seas, and their posts were filled by englishmen. parliament also promised that the vassals of the nobles should have better treatment, and that the sheriffs should be chosen by the shire-moots, the county freeholders. but henry's promises were quickly broken, and war broke out on the welsh borders between simon of montfort's friend llewellyn and mortimer and the marchers. edward, prince of wales, stood by the provisions of oxford for a few years, but supported his father when the latter refused to re-confirm the provisions in . as a last resource to prevent civil war, simon and henry agreed to appeal to king louis of france to arbitrate on the fulfilment of the provisions. the pope had already absolved henry from obedience to the provisions, and the award of louis, given at amiens and called the _mise of amiens_, was entirely in henry's favour. it annulled the provisions of oxford, left the king free to appoint his own ministers, council, and sheriffs, to employ aliens, and to enjoy power uncontrolled. but the former charters of the realm were declared inviolate, and no reprisals were to take place. to simon and most of the barons the award was intolerable, and when henry returned from france with a large force ready to take the vengeance which the award had forbidden, civil war could not be prevented. london rallied to simon, and oxford, the cinque ports, and the friars were all on the side of the barons against the king. on may th, , a pitched battle at lewes ended in complete victory for simon, and found the king, prince edward, and the kinsmen and chief supporters of the crown prisoners in his hands. peace was made, and a treaty--the _mise of lewes_--drawn up and signed. once more the king promised to keep the provisions and charters, and to dismiss the aliens. he also agreed to live thriftily till his debts were paid, and to leave his sons as hostages with earl simon. simon at once set about the work of reform. the king's standing, or privy, council was reconstituted, and the parliamentary commissioners were abolished, "for simon held it as much a man's duty to think and work for his country as to fight for it." a marked difference is seen between simon's policy at oxford and the policy after lewes. the provisions of were restrictive. the constitution of deliberately extended the limits of parliament. "either simon's views of a constitution had rapidly developed, or the influences which had checked them in were removed. anyhow, he had genius to interpret the mind of the nation, and to anticipate the line which was taken by later progress."[ ] what simon wanted was the approval of all classes of the community for his plans, and to that end he issued writs for the parliament--the _full parliament_--of . the great feature of this parliament was that for the first time the burgesses of each city and borough were summoned to send two representatives. in addition, two knights were to come from each shire, and clergy and barons as usual--though in the case of the earls and barons only twenty-three were invited, for simon had no desire for the presence of those who were his enemies. the full parliament sat till march, and then two months later war had once more blazed out. earl gilbert of gloucester broke away from simon, prince edward escaped from custody, and these two joined lord mortimer and the welsh marchers. on august th edward surprised and routed the army of the younger simon near kenilworth, and then advanced to crush the great earl, who was encamped at evesham, waiting to join forces with his son. all hope of escape for earl simon was lost, and he was outnumbered by seven to two. but fly he would not. one by one the barons who stood by simon were cut down, but though wounded and dismounted, the great earl "fought on to the last like a giant for the freedom of england, till a foot soldier stabbed him in the back under the mail, and he was borne down and slain." for three hours the unequal fight lasted in the midst of storm and darkness, and when it was over the grey friars carried the mangled body of the dead earl into the priory at evesham, and laid it before the high altar, for the poorer clergy and the common people all counted simon of montfort for a saint. "those who knew simon praise his piety, admire his learning, and extol his prowess as a knight and skill as a general. they tell of his simple fare and plain russet dress, bear witness to his kindly speech and firm friendship to all good men, describe his angry scorn for liars and unjust men, and marvel at his zeal for truth and right, which was such that neither pleasure nor threats nor promises could turn him aside from keeping the oath he swore at oxford; for he held up the good cause 'like a pillar that cannot be moved, and, like a second josiah, esteemed righteousness the very healing of his soul.' as a statesman he wished to bind the king to rule according to law, and to make the king's ministers responsible to a full parliament; and though he did not live to see the success of his policy, he had pointed out the way by which future statesmen might bring it about."[ ] in the hour of simon's death it might seem that the cause of good government was utterly lost, and for a time henry triumphed with a fierce reaction. but the very barons who had turned against simon were quite determined that the charters should be observed, and edward was to show, on his coming to the throne, that he had grasped even more fully than simon the notion of a national representative assembly, and that he accepted the principle, "that which touches all shall be approved by all." henry iii. died in , and it was not till two years later that edward i. was back in england from the crusades to take up the crown. it was an age of great lawgivers; an age that saw st. louis ruling in france, alfonso the wise in castile, the emperor frederick ii.--the wonder of the world--in sicily. in england edward shaped the constitution and settled for future times the lines of parliamentary representative government. edward i.'s model parliament, for the first twenty years edward's parliaments were great assemblies of barons and knights, and it was not till that the famous model parliament was summoned. "it is very evident that common dangers must be met by measures concerted in common," ran the writ to the bishops. every sheriff was to cause two knights to be elected from each shire, two citizens from each city, two burgesses from each borough. the clergy were to be fully represented from each cathedral and each diocese. hitherto parliament, save in , had been little else than a feudal court, a council of the king's tenants; it became, after , a national assembly. edward's plan was that the three estates--clergy, barons, and commons: those who pray, those who fight, and those who work--should be represented. but the clergy always stood aloof, preferring to meet in their own houses of convocation; and the archbishops, bishops, and greater abbots only attended because they were great holders of land and important feudal lords. although the knights of the shire were of much the same class as the barons, the latter received personal summons to attend, and the knights joined with the representatives of the cities and boroughs. so the two houses of parliament consisted of barons and bishops--lords spiritual and lords temporal--and knights and commons; and we have to-day the house of lords and the house of commons; the former, as in the thirteenth century, lords spiritual and temporal, the latter, representatives from counties and boroughs. the admission of elected representatives was to move, in course of time, the centre of government from the crown to the house of commons; but in edward i.'s reign parliament was just a larger growth of the king's council--the council that norman and plantagenet kings relied on for assistance in the administration of justice and the collection of revenue. the judges of the supreme court were always summoned to parliament, as the law lords sit in the upper house to-day. money, or rather the raising of money, was the main cause for calling a parliament. the clergy at first voted their own grants to the crown in convocation, but came to agree to pay the taxes voted by lords and commons, and lords and commons, instead of making separate grants, joined in a common grant. "and, as the bulk of the burden fell upon the commons, they adopted a formula which placed the commons in the foreground. the grant was made by the commons, with the assent of the lords spiritual and temporal. this formula appeared in , and became the rule. in , eight years after henry iv. came to the throne, he assented to the important principle that money grants were to be initiated by the house of commons, were not to be reported to the king until both houses were agreed, and were to be reported by the speaker of the commons' house. this rule is strictly observed at the present day. when a money bill, such as the finance bill for the year or the appropriation bill, has been passed by the house of commons and agreed to by the house of lords, it is, unlike all other bills, returned to the house of commons."[ ] the speaker, with his own hand, delivers all money bills to the clerk of parliaments, the officer whose business it is to signify the royal assent. in addition to voting money, the commons, on the assembly of parliament, would petition for the redress of grievances. in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, they were not legislators, but petitioners for legislation; and as it often happened that their petitions were not granted in the form they asked, it became a matter of bitter complaint that the laws did not correspond with the petitions. henry v. in granted the request that "nothing should be enacted to the petition of the commons contrary to their asking, whereby they should be bound without their assent"; and from that time it became customary for bills to be sent up to the crown instead of petitions, leaving the king the alternative of assent or reaction. the nobility predominant in parliament in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the power of parliament was strong enough to force the abdication of two kings--edward ii. and richard ii.--but not strong enough to free the land of the turbulent authority of the nobles. this authority went down in the struggles of the lancastrians and yorkists. "the bloody faction fights known as the wars of the roses brought the plantagenet dynasty to a close, weeded out the older nobility, and cleared the way for a new form of monarchy."[ ] "the high nobility killed itself out. the great barons who adhered to the 'red rose' or the 'white rose,' or who fluctuated from one to the other, became poorer, fewer, and less potent every year. when the great struggle ended at bosworth, a large part of the greatest combatants were gone. the restless, aspiring, rich barons, who made the civil war, were broken by it. henry vii. attained a kingdom in which there was a parliament to advise, but scarcely a parliament to control."[ ] it is important to note the ascendancy of the barons in the medieval parliaments, and their self-destruction in the wars of the roses. unless we realise how very largely the barons were the parliament, it is difficult to understand how it came about that parliament was so utterly impotent under the tudors. the wars of the roses killed off the mighty parliamentarians, and it took a hundred years to raise the country landowners into a party which, under eliot, hampden, and pym, was to make the house of commons supreme. "the civil wars of many years killed out the old councils (if i might so say): that is, destroyed three parts of the greater nobility, who were its most potent members, tired the small nobility and gentry, and overthrew the aristocratic organisation on which all previous effectual resistance to the sovereign had been based."[ ] to get an idea of the weakness of parliament when the tudors ruled, we have but to suppose at the present day a parliament deprived of all front-bench men on both sides of the house, and of the leaders of the irish and labour parties, and a house of lords deprived of all ministers and ex-ministers. the medieval national assemblies before passing to the parliamentary revival of the seventeenth century, there still remain one or two points to be considered relating to the early national assemblies of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. ( ) _who were the electors in the middle ages?_--in the counties, all who were entitled to attend and take part in the proceedings of the county court had the right of electing the knight of the shire; and "it is most probable, on the evidence of records, on the analogies of representative usage, and on the testimony of later facts, that the knights of the shire were elected by the full county court."[ ] the county court or shire-moot not only elected knights for parliament; it often enough elected them for local purposes as well. the county coroner was elected in similar fashion by the county. all the chief tenants and small freeholders were therefore the county electors; but the tenants-in-chief (who held their lands from the crown) and the knights of the county had naturally considerably more influence than the smaller men. "the chief lord of a great manor would have authority with his tenants, freeholders as they might be, which would make their theoretical equality a mere shadow, and would, moreover, be exercised all the more easily because the right which it usurped was one which the tenant neither understood nor cared for."[ ] it is difficult to decide to what extent the smaller freeholders could take an active interest in the affairs of the county. as for the office of knight of the shire, there was no competition in the thirteenth or fourteenth century for the honour of going to parliament, and it is likely enough that the sheriff, upon whom rested the responsibility for the elections, would in some counties be obliged to nominate and compel the attendance of an unwilling candidate. ( ) _payment of parliamentary representatives._--the fact that members of parliament were paid by their constituents in the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries[ ] made certain small freeholders as anxious not to be included in the electorate as others were anxious not to be elected to parliament. it was recognised as "fair that those persons who were excluded from the election should be exempt from contribution to the wages. and to many of the smaller freeholders the exemption from payment would be far more valuable than the privilege of voting."[ ] but the commons generally petitioned for payment to be made by all classes of freeholders, and when all allowance has been made for varying customs and for local diversities and territorial influence, it is safe to take it that the freeholders were the body of electors. in , the eighth year of henry vi., an act was passed ordering that electors must be resident in the country, and must have free land or tenement to the value of s. a year at least; and this act was in operation till . the county franchise was a simple and straightforward matter compared with the methods of electing representatives from the boroughs. all that the sheriff was ordered to do by writ was to provide for the return of two members for each city or borough in his county; the places that were to be considered as boroughs were not named. in the middle ages a town might have no wish to be taxed for the wages of its parliamentary representative, and in that case would do its best to come to an arrangement with the sheriff. (it was not till the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that a considerable increase of boroughs took place. the tudors created "pocket" and "rotten" boroughs in order to have the nominees of the crown in parliament.) the size of the borough bore no relation to its membership till the reform act of the nineteenth century, and as the selection of towns to be represented was arbitrary, so the franchise in the towns was equally unsettled. one or two places had a wide franchise, others confined the vote to freemen and corporation members. but in spite of the extraordinary vagaries of the borough franchise, and the arbitrary selection of towns to be represented, these early medieval parliaments really did in an imperfect way represent the nation--all but the peasants and artisans. "our english parliaments were _un_symmetrical realities. they were elected anyhow. the sheriff had a considerable licence in sending writs to boroughs, that is, he could in part pick its constituencies; and in each borough there was a rush and scramble for the franchise, so that the strongest local party got it whether few or many. but in england at that time there was a great and distinct desire to know the opinion of the nation, because there was a real and close necessity. the nation was wanted to do something--to assist the sovereign in some war, to pay some old debt, to contribute its force and aid in the critical juncture of the time. it would not have suited the ante-tudor kings to have had a fictitious assembly; they would have lost their sole _feeler_, their only instrument for discovering national opinion. nor could they have manufactured such an assembly if they wished. looking at the mode of election, a theorist would say that these parliaments were but 'chance' collections of influential englishmen. there would be many corrections and limitations to add to that statement if it were wanted to make it accurate, but the statement itself hits exactly the principal excellence of these parliaments. if not 'chance' collections of englishmen, they were 'undesigned' collections; no administrations made them, or could make them. they were bona fide counsellors, whose opinion might be wise or unwise, but was anyhow of paramount importance, because their co-operation was wanted for what was in hand."[ ] ( ) _the political position of women in the middle ages._--abbesses were summoned to the convocations of clergy in edward i.'s reign. peeresses were permitted to be represented by proxy in parliament. the offices of sheriff, high constable, governor of a royal castle, and justice of the peace have all been held by women. in fact, the lady of the manor had the same rights as the lord of the manor, and joined with men who were freeholders in electing knights of the shire without question of sex disability.[ ] (a survival of the medieval rights of women may be seen in the power of women to present clergy to benefices in the church of england.) in the towns women were members of various guilds and companies equally with men, and were burgesses and freewomen. not till was the word "male" inserted before "persons" in the charters of boroughs. "never before has the phrase 'male persons' appeared in any statute of the realm. by this act (the reform bill), therefore, women were technically disfranchised for the first time in the history of the english constitution. the privilege of abstention was converted into the penalty of exclusion." no theory of democracy in the middle ages the years of simon of montfort and edward i., which saw the beginnings of a representative national assembly, were not a time of theoretical discussion on political rights. the english nation, indeed, has ever been averse from political theories. the notion of a carefully balanced constitution was outside the calculations of medieval statesmen, and the idea of political democracy was not included among their visions. "even the scholastic writers, amid their calculations of all possible combinations of principles in theology and morals, well aware of the difference between the 'rex politicus' who rules according to law, and the tyrant who rules without it, and of the characteristics of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy, with their respective corruptions, contented themselves for the most part with balancing the spiritual and secular powers, and never broached the idea of a growth into political enfranchisement. yet, in the long run, this has been the ideal towards which the healthy development of national life in europe has constantly tended, only the steps towards it have not been taken to suit a preconceived theory."[ ] each step towards democracy has been taken "to suit the convenience of party or the necessities of kings, to induce the newly admitted classes to give their money, to produce political contentment." the only two principles that are apparent in the age-long struggles for political freedom in england, that are recognised and acknowledged, are: ( ) that that which touches all shall be approved by all; ( ) that government rests on the consent of the governed. over and over again these two principles may be seen at work. * * * * * chapter iii popular insurrection in england general results of popular risings popular insurrection has never been successful in england; a violent death and a traitor's doom have been the lot of every leader of the common people who took up arms against the government. the civil war that brought charles i. to the scaffold, and the revolution that deposed james ii. and set william of orange on the throne, were the work of country gentlemen and whig statesmen, not of the labouring people. but if england has never seen popular revolution triumphant and democracy set up by force of arms, the earlier centuries witnessed more than one effort to gain by open insurrection some measure of freedom for the working people of the land. no other way than violent resistance seemed possible to peasants and artisans in the twelfth, fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries, if their wrongs were to be mitigated and their rulers to be called to account. langton and simon of montfort had placed some check on the power of the crown, had laid the foundations of political liberty, and marked the road to be travelled; but the lot of the labouring people remained unheeded and voiceless in the councils of the nation. what could they do but take up arms to end an intolerable oppression? william fitzosbert, called longbeard, the first serious protest came from the london workmen in the reign of richard i.; and fitzosbert, known as longbeard, was the spokesman of the popular discontent. the king wanted money, chiefly for his crusades in palestine. he had no inclination to personal government, and the business of ruling england was in the hands of hubert walter, archbishop of canterbury, the justiciar or king's lieutenant. richard left england for normandy in , and returned no more. england to him was a country where money could be raised, a subject-province to be bled by taxation. archbishop hubert did his best to satisfy the royal demands; and though by his inquisitions "england was reduced to poverty from one sea to the other"--it is estimated that more than £ , , was sent to richard in two years--the king was left unsatisfied. the nation generally came to hate the archbishop's taxation, the church suffered by his neglect, and he was finally compelled to resign the justiciarship. it was the london rising, under fitzosbert's leadership, that directly caused archbishop hubert's retirement, and fitzosbert is notable as the first of the long line of agitators. the political importance of the capital was seen in the reigns of cnut and william the conqueror. it was conspicuous on the arrival of stephen in , and its influence on national politics lasted till the middle of the nineteenth century.[ ] by its charter london had the right of raising taxes for the crown in its own way, and in the method proposed by the corporation provoked the outbreak. "when the aldermen assembled according to usage in full hustings for the purpose of assessing the taxes, the rulers endeavoured to spare their own purses and to levy the whole from the poor" (hoveden). the poorer citizens were voteless, and the plan of the aldermen was to levy the tallages per head, and not in proportion to the property of the inhabitants. this meant, practically, that the whole, except a very small fraction of the sum to be raised, must be paid by the working people. thereupon fitzosbert protested, and the people rose in arms against the demand. fitzosbert was an old crusader, and he was something of a lawyer and a powerful speaker. not a rich man by any means, fitzosbert was yet a member of the city council when, "burning with zeal for justice and fair play, he made himself the champion of the poor." to his enemies he was a demagogue and disreputable--so ralph de diceto, dean of st. paul's at that time, described him. to others of more popular sympathies he was heroic and died a martyr's death. across the centuries he is seen as "an agitator"--the first english agitator, the first man to stand up boldly against the oppression of the common people. this palpably unjust taxation of the poor was intolerable to fitzosbert. fifteen thousand men banded themselves together in london under an oath that they would stand by each other and by their leader; and fitzosbert, after a vain journey to normandy to arouse richard's attention to the wrongs of his subjects, bade open defiance to the justiciar and his tax-gatherers. for a time the archbishop's men were powerless, but weakness crept in amongst the citizens, and the aldermen were naturally on the side of constituted authority. fitzosbert's success meant a readjustment of taxation quite unpalatable to the city fathers. in the end fitzosbert was deserted by all but a handful of his followers and fled with them for sanctuary to the church of st. mary-le-bow in cheapside. pursued by the officers of the law, fitzosbert climbed up into the tower of the church, and to fetch him down orders were given to set the church on fire. this was done, and the only chance of life that now remained for the rebels was to get out of the church and cut their way through the ranks of their enemies. at the church door fitzosbert was struck down, and his little company quickly overpowered. heavily chained, and badly wounded, fitzosbert was carried off to the tower, to be tried and sentenced to a traitor's death without delay. a few days later--it was just before easter--fitzosbert was stripped naked, and dragged at the tail of a horse over the rough streets of london to tyburn. he was dead before the place of execution was reached, but the body, broken and mangled, was hung up in chains under the gallows elm all the same; and nine of his companions were hanged with him. the very people who had fallen away from their leader in the day of his need now counted fitzosbert for a saint, and pieces of his gibbet and of the bloodstained earth underneath the tree were carried away and treasured as sacred relics. it was alleged that miracles were performed when these relics were touched--so wide was now the popular reverence for the dead champion of the poor. archbishop hubert put a stop to this devotion by ordering sermons to be preached on fitzosbert's iniquities; and an alleged death-bed confession, containing an account of many evil deeds, was published. it is likely enough that an old crusader had plenty of sins to answer for, but fitzosbert's one crime before the law was that he had taught the people of london to stand up and resist by force of arms the payment of taxes--taxes levied with gross unfairness in popular judgment. the monks of canterbury, to whom the church of st. mary-le-bow in cheapside belonged, had long had their own quarrels with archbishop hubert, and on this firing of their church, and the violation of sanctuary, they appealed to the king and the pope--innocent iii.--that hubert should give up his political work and attend exclusively to his duties as archbishop. both the pope and the great barons were against him, and in archbishop hubert was compelled to resign the judiciarship. the peasant revolt and its leaders, the great uprising of the peasants in was a very different matter from the local insurrection made by fitzosbert. two centuries had passed, and in those centuries the beginnings of representative government had been set up and some recognition of the rights of the peasantry had been admitted in the great charter. the peasant revolt was national. it was carefully prepared and skilfully organised, and its leaders were men of power and ability--men of character. it was not only a definite protest against positive evils, but a vigorous attempt to create a new social order--to substitute a social democracy for feudal government.[ ] the old feudal order had been widely upset by the black death in , and the further ravages of pestilence in and . the heavy mortality left many country districts bereft of labour, and landowners were compelled to offer higher wages if agriculture was to go on. in vain parliament passed statutes of labourers to prevent the peasant from securing an advance. these acts of parliament expressly forbade a rise in wages; the landless man or woman was "to serve the employer who shall require him to do so, and take only the wages which were accustomed to be taken in the neighbourhood two years before the pestilence." the scarcity of labour drove landowners to compete for the services of the labourer, in spite of parliament. discontent was rife in those years of social change. the statutes of labourers were ineffectual; but they galled the labourers and kept serfdom alive. the tenants had their grievance because they were obliged to give labour-service to their lords. freehold yeomen, town workmen, and shopkeepers were irritated by heavy taxation, and vexed by excessive market tolls. all the materials were at hand for open rebellion, and leaders were found as the days went by to kindle and direct the revolt. john ball, an itinerant priest, who came from st. mary's, at york, and then made colchester the centre of his wanderings, spent twenty years organising the revolt, and three times was excommunicated and imprisoned by the archbishop of canterbury for teaching social "errors, schisms, and scandals," but was in no wise contrite or cast down. chief of ball's fellow-agitators were john wraw, in suffolk, jack straw, in essex--both priests these--william grindcobbe, in hertford, and geoffrey litster, in norfolk. in kent lived wat tyler, of whom nothing is told till the revolt was actually afire, but who at once was acknowledged leader and captain by the rebel hosts. from village to village went john ball in the years that preceded the rising, organising the peasants into clubs, and stirring the people with revolutionary talk. it was the way of this vagrant priest to preach to the people on village greens, and his discourses were all on the same text--"in the beginning of the world there were no bondmen, all men were created equal."[ ] inequalities of wealth and social position were to be ended: "good people, things will never go well in england, so long as goods be not kept in common, and so long as there be villeins and gentlemen. by what right are they whom men call lords greater folk than we? if all come from the same father and mother, adam and eve, how can they say or prove that they are better than we, if it be not that they make us gain for them by our toil what they spend in their pride? "they are clothed in velvet, and are warm in their furs and ermines, while we are covered in rags. they have wine and spices and fair bread, and we oatcake and straw, and water to drink. they have leisure and fine houses; we have pain and labour, the wind and rain in the fields. and yet it is of us and of our toil that these men hold their state. "we are called slaves; and if we do not perform our services, we are beaten, and we have not any sovereign to whom we can complain, or who wishes to hear us and do us justice." the poet, william langland, in "piers plowman," dwelt on the social wrongs of the time; ball was fond of quoting from langland, and of harping on a familiar couplet: "when adam delved and eve span, who was then the gentleman?" besides the sermons, some of the rhymed letters that john ball sent about the country have been preserved: "john ball, priest of st. mary's, greets well all manner of men, and bids them in the name of the trinity, father, son and holy ghost, to stand together manfully in truth. help truth and truth shall help you. "john ball greeteth you all, and doth to understand he hath rung your bell. now with right and might, will and skill, god speed every dell. john the miller asketh help to turn his mill right: he hath ground small, small: the king's son of heaven will pay for it all. look thy mill go right, with its four sails dight. with right and with might, with skill and with will, and let the post stand in steadfastness. let right help might, and skill go before will, then shall our mill go aright; but if might go before right, and will go before skill, then is our mill mis-a-dight." sometimes it is under the signature of john trueman that john ball writes: "beware ere ye be woe; know your friend from your foe; take enough and cry "ho!" and do well and better and flee from sin, and seek out peace and dwell therein-- so biddeth john trueman and all his fellows." a more definite note was struck when it seemed to ball and his colleagues that the time was ripe for revolution, and the word was given that appeal must be made to the boy-king--richard was only eleven years old when he came to the throne in . "let us go to the king, and remonstrate with him, telling him we must have it otherwise, or we ourselves shall find the remedy. he is young. if we wait on him in a body, all those who come under the name of serf, or are held in bondage, will follow us in the hope of being free. when the king shall see us we shall obtain a favourable answer, or we must then ourselves seek to amend our condition." in another letter john ball greets john nameless, john the miller, and john carter, and bids them stand together in god's name, and beware of guile: he bids piers plowman "go to his work and chastise well hob the robber (sir robert hales, the king's treasurer); and take with you john trueman and all his fellows, and look that you choose one head and no more." these letters and the preaching were accepted by willing minds. john ball was in prison--in the jail of archbishop sudbury at maidstone--in the spring of , but the peasants were organised and ready to revolt. if wat tyler is the recognised leader of the rebel forces--"the one head"--john ball's was the work of preparing the uprising. the vagrant priest had rung his bell to some purpose. in every county, from somerset to york, the peasants flocked together, "some armed with clubs, rusty swords, axes, with old bows reddened by the smoke of the chimney corner, and odd arrows with only one feather." at whitsuntide, early in june, , the great uprising began--the hurling time of the peasants--long to be remembered with horror by the governing classes. a badly ordered poll-tax was the match that kindled the fire. the poll-tax was first levied, in , on all over fourteen years of age. two years later it was graduated, every man and woman of the working class being rated at d., and dukes and archbishops at £ s. d. more money was still wanted by the government, and early in , john of gaunt, the chief man in the realm, called parliament together at northampton, and demanded £ , . parliament agreed that £ , should be raised, and the clergy--owning a third of the land--promised £ , . but the only way of raising the £ , that the government could think of was by another poll-tax, and this time everybody over fifteen was required to pay s. of course, the thing was impossible. in many parishes the mere returns of population were not filled in; numbers evaded payment--which spelt ruin--by leaving their homes. £ , was all that came to hand. then a man named john legge came to the assistance of the government, and was appointed chief commissioner, and empowered to collect the tax. the methods of legge and his assistants provoked hostility, and when the villagers of fobbing, corringham, and stanford-le-hope, in essex, were summoned to meet the commissioner at brentwood, their reply was to kill the collectors. the government answered this by sending down chief justice belknap to punish the offenders, but the people drove the chief justice out of the place, and belknap was glad to escape with his life. this was on whit-sunday, june nd, and two days later the revolt had spread to kent; gravesend and dartford were in tumult. in one place sir simon burley, a friend of richard ii., seized a workman, claiming him as a bondservant, and refusing to let him go under a fine of £ ; while at dartford a tax-collector had made trouble by gross indecency to the wife and daughter of one john tyler.[ ] thereupon this john tyler, "being at work in the same town tyling of an house, when he heard thereof, caught his lathing staff in his hand, and ran reaking home; where, reasoning with the collector, who made him so bold, the collector answered with stout words, and strake at the tyler; whereupon the tyler, avoiding the blow, smote the collector with his lathing staff, so that the brains flew out of his head. wherethrough great noise arose in the streets, and the poor people being glad, everyone prepared to support the said john tyler." now, with the fire of revolt in swift blaze, it was for the men of kent to see that it burned under some direction. authority and discipline were essential if the rising was not to become mob rule or mere anarchy, and if positive and intolerable wrongs were to find remedies. at maidstone, on june th--after rochester castle had been stormed, its prisoners set free and sir john newton its governor placed in safe custody--wat tyler was chosen captain of the rebel hosts. history tells us nothing of the antecedents of this remarkable man. for eight days, and eight days only, he plays his part on the stage of national events: commands with authority a vast concourse of men; meets the king face to face, and wrests from sovereignty great promises of reform; orders the execution of the chief ministers of the crown, and then, in what seems to be the hour of triumph, is struck to the ground, and goes to his death. under the accredited leadership of wat tyler the revolt at once took form. five days were spent in kent before the peasant army marched on london. the manor houses were attacked, and all rent rolls, legal documents, lists of tenants and serfs destroyed. the rising was not a ferocious massacre like the rising of the jacquerie in france; there was no general massacre of landlords, or reign of terror. the lawyers who managed the landowners' estates were the enemy, and against them--against the instruments of landlord tyranny--was the anger of the peasants directed. in the same way john of gaunt, and not the youthful king, was recognised as the evil influence in government; and while a vow was taken by the men of kent that no man named "john" should be king of england, the popular cry was "king richard and the commons," and all who joined in this were accounted friends of the insurgent populace. blackheath was reached on the evening of june th, and early the following morning, which was corpus christi day, john ball--released by a thousand hands from his prison at maidstone--preached to the multitude on the work before them: "now is the opportunity given to englishmen, if they do but choose to take it, of casting off the yoke they have borne so long, of winning the freedom they have always desired. wherefore, let us take good courage and behave like the wise husbandman of scripture, who gathered the wheat into his barn, but uprooted and burned the tares that had half-choked the good grain. the tares of england are her oppressive rulers, and the time of harvest has come. ours it is to pluck up these tares and make away with them all--the wicked lords, the unjust judges, the lawyers--every man, indeed, who is dangerous to the common good. then shall we all have peace in our time and security for the future. for when the great ones have been rooted up and cast away, all will enjoy equal freedom and nobility, rank and power shall we have in common." thirty-thousand men--yeomen, craftsmen, villeins, and peasants, were at blackheath, and these were soon joined by thousands more from surrey. john wraw and grindcobbe came to consult with wat tyler, and then returned to suffolk and hertford to announce that the hour had come to strike. the marshalsea and king's bench prisons, and the houses of ill-fame that clustered round london bridge, were destroyed before wat tyler led his army into the city. an attempt to meet the king in conference was frustrated by the royal counsellors. richard came down in the royal barge as far as rotherhithe, but was dissuaded by sir robert hales, and the earls of suffolk, salisbury, and warwick, from "holding speech with the shoeless ruffians." richard rowed back swiftly to the tower, and tyler and his army swept into london. the city was in the hands of the rebel captain, but the citizens welcomed the invaders, and offered bread and ale when tyler proclaimed that death would be the instant punishment for theft. john of gaunt's palace at the savoy, on the river strand, was the first place to be burnt; but henry, earl of derby, john of gaunt's son (eighteen years later to reign as henry iv., in place of richard), was allowed to pass out uninjured, and a wretched man caught in the act of stealing off with a silver cup was promptly executed. the savoy destroyed, the temple--a hive of lawyers--was the next to be burnt, and before nightfall the fleet prison and newgate had been demolished. again tyler demanded conference with the king, and richard, lying in the tower with his counsellors, unable to prevent the work of conference, boldly decided to come out and meet the rebels. mile end was appointed for the conference, and to mile end richard came with a very modest retinue. the king was only fifteen, but he was the son of the black prince, and he had both courage and cunning. he was fully aware that the people did not lay on him responsibility for the sins of the government. "if we measure intellectual power by the greatest exertion it ever displays, rather than by its average results, richard ii. was a man of considerable talents. he possessed along with much dissimulation a decisive promptitude in seizing the critical moment for action."[ ] at mile end tyler stated the grievances of the people. but first he asked that all traitors should be put to death, and to this the king agreed. four positive articles of reform were put forward, and were at once assented to by the king:-- . a free and general pardon to all concerned in the rising. . the total abolition of all villeinage (forced labour) and serfdom. . an end to all tolls and market dues--"freedom to buy and sell in all cities, burghs, mercantile towns, and other places within our kingdom of england." . all customary tenants to become leaseholders at a fixed rental of fourpence an acre for ever. that all doubts might be removed, thirty clerks were set to work on the spot to draw up charters of manumission, and banners were presented to each county. at nightfall thousands returned home convinced that the old order was ended, and that the royal charters were genuine assurances of freedom. but tyler and the bulk of the men of kent and surrey remained in the city. it seemed to wat tyler that better terms still were to be wrung from the king. it looked that night as though the insurrection had triumphed completely. not only were the charters signed and the royal promises given, but several in high office, whom tyler held to be "traitors," had gone to their doom. sir robert hales, the treasurer, archbishop sudbury, the chancellor--a gentle and kindly old man, "lenient to heretics"--john legge, the hated poll-tax commissioner, with appleton, john of gaunt's chaplain, and richard lyons, a thoroughly corrupt contractor of edward iii.'s reign, were all dragged out of the tower and beheaded on tower hill on friday, june th. on tyler's request for another conference with richard on the following day, the king saw he had no choice but to yield. for the second time wat tyler and richard met face to face. the conference was held at smithfield, in the square outside st. bartholomew's priory. the king and two hundred retainers, with walworth the mayor, were on the east side of the square. tyler and his army were on the west side, opposite the priory. in the open space tyler, mounted on a little horse, presented his demands; more sweeping were the reforms now asked for than those of the previous day. "let no law but the law of winchester[ ] prevail throughout the land, and let no man be made an outlaw by the decree of judges and lawyers. grant also that no lord shall henceforth exercise lordship over the commons; and since we are oppressed by so vast a horde of bishops and clerks, let there be but one bishop in england; and let the property and goods of holy church be divided fairly according to the needs of the people in each parish, after in justice making suitable provision for the present clergy and monks. finally, let there be no more villeins in england, but grant us all to be free and of one condition." richard answered that he promised readily all that was asked, "if only it be consistent with the regality of my crown." he then bade the commons return home, since their requests had been granted. nobles and counsellors stood in sullen and silent anger at the king's words, but were powerless to act. tyler, conscious of victory, called for a draught, and when his attendant brought him a mighty tankard of ale, the rebel leader drank good-humouredly to "king richard and the commons." a knight in the royal service, a "valet of kent," was heard to mutter that wat tyler was the greatest thief and robber in all the county, and tyler caught the abusive words, drew his dagger, and made for the man. mayor walworth, as angry as the nobles at the king's surrender, shouted that he would arrest all who drew weapons in the king's presence; and on tyler striking at him impatiently, the mayor drew a cutlass and slashed back, wounding tyler in the neck so that he fell from his horse. before he could recover a footing, two knights plunged their swords into him, and tyler, mortally wounded, could only scramble on to his little horse, ride a yard or two, call on the commons to avenge him, and then drop--a dead man.[ ] and with wat tyler's death the whole rebellion collapsed. confusion fell upon the people at smithfield. some were for immediate attack, but when richard, riding out into the middle of the square, claimed that he and not tyler was their king, and bade them follow him into the fields towards islington, the great mass, convinced that richard was honestly their friend, obeyed. at nightfall they were scattered. wat tyler's body was taken into the priory, and his head placed on london bridge. walworth hastily gathered troops together, and the leader of the rebels being dead, the nobles recovered their courage. the rising was over; the people without leaders were as sheep for the slaughter. jack straw was taken in london and hanged without the formality of a trial; and on june nd tresilian, the new chief justice, went on a special assize to try the rebels, and "showed mercy to none and made great havock." the king's charters and promises were declared null and void when parliament met, and some hundreds of peasants were hanged in various parts of the country. john ball and grindcobbe were hanged at st. albans on july th, john wraw and geoffrey litster suffered the same fate. all that wat tyler and the peasants had striven for was lost; but the rising was not quite in vain. for one thing, the poll-tax was stopped, and the end of villeinage was hastened. the great uprising was the first serious demonstration of the english people for personal liberty. "it taught the king's officers and gentle folks that they must treat the peasants like men if they wished them to behave quietly, and it led most landlords to set free their bondsmen, and to take fixed money payments instead of uncertain services from their customary tenants, so that in a hundred years' time there were very few bondsmen left in england."[ ] jack cade, captain of kent, to understand the character and importance of the rising of the men of kent under jack cade in , the first thing to be done is to clear the mind of shakespeare's travesty in _king henry vi._, part . in the play the name of cade has been handed down in obloquy, and all that he and his followers aimed at caricatured out of recognition. the part that jack cade really played in national affairs has no likeness to the low comedy performance imagined by shakespeare. it was a popular rising in , but it was not a peasant revolt. men of substance in the county rallied to cade's banner, and in many parishes in kent the village constable was employed to enrol willing recruits in the army of disaffection.[ ] the peasant revolt was at bottom a social movement, fostered and fashioned by preachers of a social democracy. cade's rising was provoked by misgovernment and directed at political reform. it was far less revolutionary in purpose than the revolt that preceded it, or the rising under ket a hundred years later. the discontent was general when cade encamped on blackheath with the commons of kent at the end of may, . suffolk, the best hated of henry vi.'s ministers, had already been put to death by the sailors of dover, and lord say-and-sele, the treasurer, was in the tower under impeachment. ayscough, bishop of salisbury, another minister, was hanged by his infuriated flock in wiltshire, and bishop moleyns, of chichester, keeper of the privy seal, was executed in portsmouth by a mob of sailors. piracy prevailed unchecked in the english channel, and the highways inland were haunted by robbers--soldiers back from france and broken in the wars. the ablest statesman of the day, the duke of york, was banished from the royal council, and there was a wide feeling that an improvement in government was impossible until york was recalled. whether cade, who was known popularly as "mortimer," was related to the duke of york, or was merely a country landowner, can never be decided. the charges made against him after his death were not supported by a shred of evidence, but it was necessary then for the government to blacken the character of the captain of kent for the utter discouragement of his followers. all we _know_ of cade is that by the act of attainder he must have been a man of some property in surrey--probably a squire or yeoman. the army that encamped on blackheath numbered over , , and included squires, yeomen, county gentlemen, and at least two notable ecclesiastics from sussex, the abbot of battle and the prior of lewes. the testimony to cade's character is that he was the unquestioned and warmly respected leader of the host. the cade depicted by his enemies--a dissolute, disreputable ruffian--was not the kind of man to have had authority as a chosen captain over country gentlemen and clerical landowners in the fifteenth century. the "complaints" of the commons of kent, drawn up at blackheath and forwarded to the king and his parliament, then sitting at westminster, called attention in fifteen articles to the evils that afflicted the land. these articles dealt with a royal threat to lay waste kent in revenge for the death of the duke of suffolk; the wasting of the royal revenue raised by heavy taxation; the banishment of the duke of york--"to make room for unworthy ministers who would not do justice by law, but demanded bribes and gifts"; purveyance of goods for the royal household without payment; arrest and imprisonment on false charges of treason by persons whose goods and lands were subsequently seized by the king's servants, who then "either compassed their deaths or kept them in prison while they got possession of their property by royal grant"; interference by "the great rulers of the land" with the old right of free election of knights of the shire; the mismanagement of the war in france. a certain number of purely local grievances, chiefly concerned with the maladministration of justice, were also included in the "complaints," and five "requests"--including the abolition of the statutes of labourers--were added. henry and his counsellors dismissed these "complaints" with contempt. "such proud rebels," it was said, "should rather be suppressed and tamed with violence and force than with fair words or amicable answer." but when the royal troops moved into kent to disperse the rising, cade's army cut them to pieces at sevenoaks. henry returned to london; his nobles rode away to their country houses; and after a fruitless attempt at negotiations by the duke of buckingham and the archbishop of canterbury,[ ] the king himself fled to kenilworth--leaving london at the mercy of the captain of kent. on july nd cade crossed london bridge on horseback, followed by all his army. the corporation had already decided to offer no opposition to his entry, and one of its members, thomas cocke, of the drapers' company--later sheriff and m.p.--had gone freely between the camp at blackheath and the city, acting as mutual friend to the rebels and the citizens. all that cade required was that the foreign merchants in london should furnish him with a certain number of arms and horses, "and , marks of ready money"; and this was done. "so that it was found that the captain and kentishmen at their being in the city did no hurt to any stranger."[ ] on the old london stone, in cannon street, cade laid his sword, in the presence of the mayor and a great multitude of people, and declared proudly: "now is mortimer lord of this city." then at nightfall he went back to his headquarters at the white hart inn in southwark. the following day lord say-and-sele, and his son-in-law, crowmer, sheriff of kent, were removed by cade's orders from the tower to the guildhall, tried for "divers treasons" and "certain extortions," and quickly beheaded. popular hatred, not content with this, placed the heads of the fallen minister and his son-in-law on poles, made them kiss in horrible embrace, and then bore them off in triumph to london bridge. a third man, one john bailey, was also hanged for being a necromancer; and as cade had promised death to all in his army convicted of theft, it fell out that certain "lawless men" paid the penalty for disobedience, and were hanged in southwark--where the main body of the army lay. cade's difficulties began directly after lord say-and-sele's execution. london assented willingly to the death of an unpopular statesman, but had no mind to provision an army of , men, and, indeed, had no liking for the proximity of such a host. plunder being forbidden, and strict discipline the rule, the urgent question for the captain of kent was how the army was to be maintained. getting no voluntary help from the city. cade decided that he must help himself. he supped with a worthy citizen named curtis in tower street on july th, and insisted before he left that curtis must contribute money for the support of the kentish men. curtis complied--how much he gave we know not--but he resented bitterly the demand, and he told the tale of his wrongs to his fellow-merchants.[ ] the result was that while cade slept in peace as usual at the white hart, the mayor and corporation took counsel with lord scales, the governor of the tower, and resolved that at all costs the captain of kent and his forces must be kept out of the city. after the treatment of curtis the fear was that disorder and pillage might become common. on the evening of sunday, july th, and all through the night battle waged hotly on london bridge, which had been seized and fortified before cade was awake, and by the morning the rebels, unsuccessful in their attack, were glad to agree to a hasty truce. the truce gave opportunity to cardinal kemp, archbishop of york, the king's chancellor, to suggest a lasting peace to cade. messengers were sent speedily from the tower, where kemp, with archbishop stafford, of canterbury, had stayed in safety, to the white hart, urging a conference "to the end that the civil commotions and disturbances might cease and tranquillity be restored." cade consented, and when the two archbishops, with william waynfleet, bishop of winchester, met the captain of kent in the church of st. margaret, southwark, and promised that parliament should give consideration to the "complaints" and "requests" of the commons, and that a full pardon should be given to all who would straightway return home, the rising was at an end. cade hesitated, and asked for the endorsement of the pardons by parliament; but this was plainly impossible because parliament was not sitting. the bulk of the commons were satisfied with their pardons, and with the promise that parliament would attend to their grievances. there was nothing to be gained, it seemed, by remaining in arms. on july th, the rebel army had broken up, taking the road back to the towns and villages, farms and cottages in kent, sussex, and surrey. cade, with a small band of followers, retreated to rochester, and attempted without success, the capture of queenborough castle. on the news that the commons had dispersed from southwark, the government at once took the offensive. alexander iden was appointed sheriff of kent, and, marrying crowmer's widow, subsequently gained considerable profit. within a week john cade was proclaimed by the king's writ a false traitor throughout the countryside, and sheriff iden was in eager pursuit--for a reward of , marks awaited the person who should take cade, alive or dead. near heathfield, in sussex, cade, broken and famished, was found by iden, and fought his last fight on july th, preferring to die sword in hand than to perish by the hangman. he fell before the overwhelming odds of the sheriff and his troops, and the body was immediately sent off to london for identification. the landlady of the white hart proved the identity of the dead captain, and all that remained was to stick the head on london bridge, and dispatch the quartered body to blackheath, norwich, salisbury and gloucester for public exhibition. iden got the , marks reward and, in addition, the governorship of rochester castle at a salary of £ a year. by special act of attainder all cade's goods, lands and tenements were made forfeit to the crown, and statements were published for the discrediting of cade's life. no allusion was made in parliament to the "complaints" and "requests," and, in spite of cardinal kemp's pardons, a number of men were hanged at canterbury and rochester for their share in the rising, when henry vi. and his justices visited kent in january, . the revolt failed to amend the wretched misrule. it remained for civil war to drive henry vi. from the throne, and make edward iv. of york his successor. the norfolk rising under robert ket, a century after the rising of the commons of kent came the last great popular rebellion--the norfolk rising, led by ket. this insurrection was agrarian and social, concerned neither with the fierce theological differences of the time, nor with the political rivalries of protector somerset and his enemies in edward vi.'s council. at the beginning of the sixteenth century england was in the main a nation of small farmers, but radical changes were taking place, and these changes meant ruin to thousands of yeomen and peasants. the enclosure, by many large landowners, of the fields which for ages past had been cultivated by the country people, the turning of arable land into pasture, were the main causes of the distress.[ ] whole parishes were evicted in some places and dwelling houses destroyed, and contemporary writers are full of the miseries caused by these clearances. acts of parliament were passed in and , prohibiting the "pulling down of towns," and ordering the reversion of pasture lands to tillage, but the legislation was ignored. sir thomas more, in his "utopia" ( ), described very vividly what the enclosures were doing to rural england; and a royal commission, appointed by cardinal wolsey, reported in the following year that more than , acres had been enclosed in seven midland counties. in some cases, waste lands only were enclosed, but landowners were ordered to make restitution within forty days where small occupiers had been dispossessed. royal commissions and royal proclamations were no more effective than acts of parliament. bad harvests drove the norfolk peasantry to riot for food in and . the dissolution of the monasteries in and abolished a great source of charity for the needy, and increased the social disorder. finally, in , came the confiscation by the crown of the property of the guilds and brotherhoods, and the result of this enactment can only be realised by supposing the funds of friendly societies, trade unions, and co-operative societies taken by government to-day without compensation. all that parliament would do in the face of the starvation and unemployment that brooded over many parts of england, was to pass penal legislation for the homeless and workless--so that it seemed to many that government had got rid of papal authority only to bring back slavery. the agrarian misery, the violent changes in the order of church services and social customs, the confiscation of the funds of the guilds, and the wanton spoiling of the parish churches[ ]--all these things drove the people to revolt. early in the men of devon and cornwall took up arms for "the old religion," and were hanged by scores. in norfolk that same year the rising under ket was social, and unconcerned with religion. lesser agrarian disturbances took place in somerset, lincoln, essex, kent, oxford, wilts, and buckingham. but there was no cohesion amongst the insurgents, and no organisation of the peasants such as england had seen under john ball and his companion in . in somerset, the lord protector, made an honest attempt to check the rapacity of the landowners, but his proclamation and royal commission were no more successful than wolsey's had been, and only earned for the protector the hatred of the landowners. the norfolk rising was the one strong movement to turn the current that was sweeping the peasants into destitution. it failed, as all popular insurrection in england has failed, and it brought its leaders to the gallows; but for six weeks hope lifted its head in the rebel camp outside norwich, and many believed that oppression and misery were to end. the rising began at attleborough, on june th, when the people pulled down the fences and hedges set up round the common fields. on july th, at the annual feast in honour of st. thomas of canterbury, at wymondham, a mighty concourse of people broke down the fences at hetherset, and then appealed to robert ket and his brother to help them. both the kets were well-known locally. they were men of old family, craftsmen, and landowners. robert was a tanner by trade, william a butcher. three manors--valued at , marks, with a yearly income of £ --belonged to robert ket: church lands mostly, leased from the earl of warwick. ket saw that only under leadership and guidance could the revolt become a revolution, and he threw himself into the cause of his poorer neighbours with whole-hearted fervour. "i am ready," he said, "and will be ready at all times to do whatever, not only to repress, but to subdue the power of great men. whatsoever lands i have enclosed shall again be made common unto ye and all men, and my own hands shall first perform it. you shall have me, if you will, not only as a companion, but as a captain; and in the doing of the so great a work before us, not only as a fellow, but for a leader, author, and principal." ket's leadership was at once acclaimed with enthusiasm by the thousand men who formed the rebel band at the beginning of the rising. the news spread quickly that ket was leading an army to norwich, and on july th, when a camp was made at eaton wood, every hour brought fresh recruits. it is clear from ket's speeches, and from "the rebels' complaint," issued by him at this time, that the aim of the leaders of the norfolk rising was not merely to stop the enclosures, but to end the ascendancy of the landlord class for all time, and to set up a social democracy. ket's address at eaton wood was revolutionary: "now are ye overtopped and trodden down by gentlemen, and put out of possibility ever to recover foot. rivers of riches run into the coffers of your landlords, while you are par'd to the quick, and fed upon pease and oats like beasts. you are fleeced by these landlords for their private benefit, and as well kept under by the public burdens of state, wherein while the richer sort favour themselves, ye are gnawn to the very bones. your tyrannous masters often implead, arrest, and cast you into prison, so that they may the more terrify and torture you in your minds, and wind your necks more surely under their arms.... harmless counsels are fit for tame fools; for you who have already stirred, there is no hope but in adventuring boldly." "the rebels' complaint" is equally definite and outspoken. it rehearsed the wrongs of a landless peasantry, and called on the people to end these wrongs by open rebellion. the note of social equality is struck by ket throughout the rising. "the present condition of possessing land seemeth miserable and slavish--holding it all at the pleasure of great men; not freely, but by prescription, and, as it were, at the will and pleasure of the lord. for as soon as any man offend any of these gorgeous gentlemen, he is put out, deprived, and thrust from all his goods. "the common pastures left by our predecessors for our relief and our children are taken away. "the lands which in the memory of our fathers were common, those are ditched and hedged in and made several; the pastures are enclosed, and we shut out. "we can no longer bear so much, so great, and so cruel injury; neither can we with quiet minds behold so great covetousness, excess, and pride of the nobility. we will rather take arms, and mix heaven and earth together, than endure so great cruelty. "nature hath provided for us, as well as for them; hath given us a body and a soul, and hath not envied us other things. while we have the same form, and the same condition of birth together with them, why should they have a life so unlike unto ours, and differ so far from us in calling? "we see that things have now come to extremities, and we will prove the extremity. we will rend down hedges, fill up ditches, and make a way for every man into the common pasture. finally, we will lay all even with the ground, which they, no less wickedly than cruelly and covetously, have enclosed. "we desire liberty and an indifferent (or equal) use of all things. this will we have. otherwise these tumults and our lives shall only be ended together." but though the method was revolution and the goal social democracy, ket was no anarchist. he proved himself a strong, capable leader, able to enforce discipline and maintain law and order in the rebel camp. and with all his passionate hatred against the rule of the landlord, ket would allow neither massacre nor murder. there is no evidence that the life of a single landowner was taken while the rising lasted, though many were brought captive to ket's judgment seat. ket was equally averse from civil war between the citizens of norwich and the peasants. when the mayor of norwich, thomas cod, refused to allow ket's army to cross the city on its way to mousehold heath, where the permanent camp was to be made, ket simply led his forces round by hailsdon and drayton, and so reached mousehold on july th without bloodshed. a week later, and , was the number enrolled under the banner of revolt--for the publication of "the rebels' complaint" and the ringing of bells and firing of beacons roused all the countryside to action. on mousehold heath, robert ket, with his brother william, gave directions and administered justice under a great tree, called the oak of reformation. mayor cod, and two other respected norwich citizens, aldrich, an alderman, and watson, a preacher, joined ket's council, thinking their influence might restrain the rebels from worse doings. twenty-nine "requests and demands," signed by ket, cod, and aldrich, were dispatched to the king from mousehold, and this document gave in full the grievances of the rebels. the chief demands were the cessation of enclosures, the enactment of fair rents, the restoration of common fishing rights, the appointment of resident clergymen to preach and instruct the children, and the free election or appointment of local "commissioners" for the enforcement of the laws. there was also a request "that all bond men may be made free, for god made all free with his precious bloodshedding." the only answer to the "requests and demands" was the arrival of a herald with a promise that parliament would meet in october to consider the grievances, if the people would in the meantime quietly return to their homes. but this ket would by no means agree to, and for the next few weeks his authority was supreme in that part of the country. he established a rough constitution for the prevention of mere disorder, two men being chosen by their fellows from the various hundreds of the eastern half of the county. a royal messenger, bearing commissions of the peace to certain country gentlemen, falling into the hands of ket, was relieved of his documents and dismissed. ket then put in these commissions the names of men who had joined the rising, and declared them magistrates with authority to check all disobedience to orders. to feed the army at mousehold, men were sent out with a warrant from ket for obtaining cattle and corn from the country houses, and "to beware of robbing, spoiling, and other evil demeanours." no violence or injury was to be done to "any honest or poor man." contributions came in from the smaller yeomen "with much private good-will," but the landowners generally were stricken with panic, and let the rebels do what they liked. those who could not escape by flight were, for the most part, brought captive to the oak of reformation, and thence sent to the prisons in norwich and st. leonard's hill. relations between ket and the norwich authorities soon became strained to breaking point. mayor cod was shocked at the imprisonment of county gentlemen, and refused permission for ket's troops to pass through the city on their foraging expeditions. citizens and rebels were in conflict on july st, but "for lack of powder and want of skill in the gunners" few lives were lost, and norwich was in the hands of ket the following day. no reprisals followed; but a week later came william parr, marquis of northampton--henry viii.'s brother-in-law--with , italian mercenaries and a body of country squires, to destroy the rebels. northampton's forces were routed utterly, and lord sheffield was slain, and many houses and gates were burnt in the city. then for three weeks longer robert ket remained in power, still hoping against hope that some attention would be given by the government to his "requests and demands." protector somerset, beset by his own difficulties, could do nothing for rebellious peasants, could not countenance in any way an armed revolt, however great the miseries that provoked insurrection. the earl of warwick was dispatched with , troops to end the rebellion, and arrived on august th. for two days the issue seemed uncertain--half the city only was in warwick's hands. the arrival of , mercenaries--"lanzknechts," germans mostly--and a fatal decision of the rebels to leave their vantage ground at mousehold heath and do battle in the open valley that stretched towards the city, gave complete victory to warwick. the peasants poured into the meadows beyond magdalen and pockthorpe gates, and were cut to pieces by the professional soldiers. when all seemed over ket galloped away to the north, but was taken, worn out, at the village of swannington, eight miles from norwich. more than peasants were hanged by warwick's orders, and their bodies left to swing on mousehold and in the city. robert ket and william ket were sent to london, and after being tried and condemned for high treason, were returned to norwich in december for execution. robert ket was hanged in chains from norwich castle, and william suffered in similar fashion from the parish church at wymondham--to remind all people of the fate that befall those who venture, unsuccessfully, to take up arms against the government in power. so the norfolk rising ended, and with it ended all serious popular insurrection in england. riots and mob violence have been seen even to our own time, but no great, well-organised movement to overthrow authority and establish a social democracy by force of arms has been attempted since . the characters of robert ket and his brother have been vindicated by time, and the rebel leader is now recognised as a disinterested, capable, high-minded man. ket took what seemed to him the only possible course to avert the doom of a ruined peasantry, and failed. but his courage and humaneness are beyond question.[ ] the enclosures did not end with the sixteenth century, and for another one hundred years complaints are heard of the steady depopulation of rural england. in the eighteenth century came the second great series of enclosures--the enclosing of the commons and waste spaces, by acts of parliament. between and no less than , , acres were thus enclosed. to-day the questions of land tenure and land ownership are conspicuous items in the discussion of the whole social question, for the relations of a people to its land are of very first importance in a democratic state. * * * * * chapter iv the struggle renewed against the crown parliament under the tudors the english parliament throughout the sixteenth century was but a servile instrument of the crown. the great barons were dead. henry viii. put to death sir thomas more and all who questioned the royal absolutism. elizabeth, equally despotic, had by good fortune the services of the first generation of professional statesmen that england produced. these statesmen--burleigh, sir nicholas bacon, sir walter mildmay, sir thomas smith, and sir francis walsingham--all died in office. burleigh was minister for forty years, bacon and mildmay for more than twenty, and smith and walsingham for eighteen years.[ ] [illustration: sir john eliot] parliament was not only intimidated by henry viii. and elizabeth, its membership was recruited by nominees of the crown.[ ] and then it is also to be borne in mind that both henry and elizabeth made a point of getting parliament to do their will. they governed through parliament, and ruled triumphantly, for it is only in the later years of elizabeth that any discontent is heard. the stuarts, far less tyrannical, came to grief just because they never understood the importance of parliament in the eyes of englishmen in the middle ranks, and attempted to rule while ignoring the house of commons. elizabeth scolded her parliaments, and more than once called the speaker of the house of commons to account. the business of tudor parliaments was to decree the proposals of the crown. "liberty of speech was granted in respect of the aye or no, but not that everybody should speak what he listed." bacon declared, "the queen hath both enlarging and restraining power; she may set at liberty things restrained by statute and may restrain things which be at liberty." yet elizabeth raised no objection to the theory that parliament was the sovereign power, for her authority controlled parliament; and so we have sir thomas smith writing in that "the most high and absolute power of the realm of england consisteth in the parliament." in his "ecclesiastical polity," book i. ( - ), hooker argues that "laws human, of what kind soever are available by consent," and that "laws they are not which public approbation hath not made so"; deciding explicitly that sovereignty rests ultimately in the people. victory of parliament over the stuarts when he came to the throne in , james i. was prepared to govern with all the tudor absolutism, but he had neither elizabeth's ministers--cecil excepted--nor her knowledge of the english mind. the english parliament and the english people had put up with elizabeth's headstrong, capricious rule, because it had been a strong rule, and the nation had obviously thriven under it.[ ] but it was another matter altogether when james i. was king. "by many steps the slavish parliament of henry viii. grew into the murmuring parliament of queen elizabeth, the mutinous parliament of james i., and the rebellious parliament of charles i." the twenty years of james i.'s reign saw the preaching up of the doctrine of the divine right of kings by the bishops of the established church, and the growing resolution of the commons to revive their earlier rights and privileges. if the stuarts were as unfortunate in their choice of ministers as elizabeth had been successful, the house of commons was equally happy in the remarkable men who became its spokesmen and leaders. in the years that preceded the civil war-- - --three men are conspicuous on the parliamentary side: eliot, hampden, and pym. all three were country gentlemen, of good estate, high principle, and religious convictions[ ]--men of courage and resolution, and of blameless personal character. eliot died in prison, in the cause of good government, in ; hampden fell on chalgrove field in . as in earlier centuries the struggle in the seventeenth century between the king and the commons turned mainly on the questions of taxation. (at the same time an additional cause of dispute can be found in the religious differences between charles i. and the parliamentarians. the latter were mainly puritan, accepting the protestantism of the church of england, but hating catholicism and the high-church views of laud. the king was in full sympathy with high anglicanism, and, like his father, willing to relax the penal laws against catholics.) "by the ancient laws and liberties of england it is the known birthright and inheritance of the subject that no tax, tallage, or other charge shall be levied or imposed but by common consent in england, and that the subsidies of tonnage and poundage are no way due or payable but by a free gift and special act of parliament." in these memorable words began the declaration moved by sir john eliot in the house of commons on march nd, . a royal message ordering the adjournment of the house was disregarded, the speaker was held down in his chair, and the key of the house of commons was turned against intrusion, while eliot's resolutions, declaring that the privileges of the commons must be preserved, were carried with enthusiasm. charles answered these resolutions by dissolving parliament and sending eliot to the tower. for eleven years no parliament was summoned. eliot refused altogether to make any defence for his parliamentary conduct. "i hold that it is against the privilege of parliament to speak of anything which is done in the house," was his reply to the crown lawyers. so sir john eliot was left in prison, for nothing would induce this devoted believer in representative government to yield to the royal pressure, and three years later, at the age of forty-two, he died in the tower. it was for the liberties of the house of commons that eliot gave his life. wasted with sickness, health and freedom were his if he would but acknowledge the right of the crown to restrain the freedom of parliamentary debate; but such an acknowledgment was impossible from sir john eliot. for him the privilege of the house of commons in the matter of free speech was a sacred cause, to be upheld by members of parliament, even to the death--a cause every whit as sacred to eliot as the divine right of kings was to the stuart bishops. charles hoped to govern england through his ministers without interference from the commons, and only the need of money compelled him to summon parliament. john hampden saw that if the king could raise money by forced loans and other exactions, the days of constitutional government were over. hence his memorable resistance to ship-money. london and the seaports were induced to provide supplies for ships in , on the pretext that piracy must be prevented. in the following year the demand was extended to the inland counties, and hampden refused point blank to pay--though the amount was only a matter of s.--falling back, in justification of his refusal, on the petition of right--acknowledged by charles in --which declared that taxes were not to be levied without the consent of parliament. the case was decided in , and five of the twelve judges held that hampden's objection was valid. the arguments in favour of non-payment were circulated far and wide, so that, in spite of the adverse verdict, "the judgment proved of more advantage and credit to the gentleman condemned than to the king's service."[ ] the personal rule of charles and his ministers, laud and strafford, came to an end in the autumn of , when there was no choice left to the king but to summon parliament, if money was to be obtained. earlier in the year the "short parliament" had met, only to be dissolved by the folly of the king after a sitting of three weeks, because of its unwillingness to vote supplies without the redress of grievances. the disasters of the king's campaign against the scots, an empty treasury, and a mutinous army, compelled the calling of parliament. but the temper of the men who came to the house of commons in november was vastly different from the temper of the "short parliament."[ ] for this was the famous "long parliament" that assembled in the dark autumn days of , and it was to sit for thirteen years; to see the impeachment and execution of laud and strafford, the trial and execution of the king, the abolition of monarchy and the house of lords, the establishment of the commonwealth; and was itself to pass away finally only before cromwell's military dictatorship. hampden was the great figure at the beginning of this parliament. "the eyes of all men were fixed upon him, as their _patriæ pater_, and the pilot that must steer the vessel through the tempests and rocks which threatened it. i am persuaded (wrote clarendon) his power and interest at that time were greater to do good or hurt than any man's in the kingdom, or than any man of his rank hath had at any time; for his reputation of honesty was universal, and his affections seemed so publicly guided, that no corrupt or private ends could bias them." politically, neither hampden nor pym was republican. both believed in government by king, lords, and commons; but both were determined that the king's ministers should be answerable to parliament for the policy of the crown, and that the commons, who found the money for government, should have a definite say in the spending of that money. as for the royal claim of "divine right," and the royal view that held passive obedience to be the duty of the king's subjects, and saw in parliament merely a useful instrument for the raising of funds to be spent by the royal pleasure without question or criticism--these things were intolerable to hampden, pym, and the men of the house of commons. the king would not govern through parliament; the house of commons could govern without a king. it was left to the civil war to decide the issue between the crown and parliament, and make the house of commons supreme. things moved quickly in the first year of the long parliament. the star chamber and high commission courts were abolished. strafford was impeached for high treason, and executed on tower hill. archbishop laud lay in prison, to be executed four years later. the grand remonstrance of the house of commons was presented to charles in december, . the demands of the commons in the remonstrance were not revolutionary, but they stated, quite frankly, the case for the parliament. the main points were the need for securities for the administration of justice, and an insistence on the responsibility of the king's ministers to the houses of parliament. the grand remonstrance was only carried by eleven votes in the house of commons, to , after wild scenes. "some waved their hats over their heads, and others took their swords in their scabbards out of their belts, and held them by the pummels in their hands, setting the lower part on the ground." actual violence was only prevented "by the sagacity and great calmness of mr. hampden, by a short speech." charles promised an answer to the deputation of members who waited upon him with the grand remonstrance, and early in the new year came the reply. the king simply demanded the surrender of five members--pym, hampden, holles, strode, and hazlerig--and their impeachment on the charge of high treason. all constitutional law was set aside by a charge which proceeded personally from the king, which deprived the accused of their legal right to a trial by their peers, and summoned them before a tribunal which had no pretence to a justification over them. on the refusal of the commons to surrender their members, charles came in person to westminster with cavaliers to demand their arrest. but the five members, warned of the king's venture, were well out of the way, and rested safely within the city of london--for the citizens were strongly for the parliament. "it was believed that if the king had found them there (in the house of commons), and called in his guards to have seized them, the members of the house would have endeavoured the defence of them, which might have proved a very unhappy and sad business." as it was, charles could only retire "in a more discontented and angry passion than he came in." the step was utterly ill-advised. parliament was in no mood to favour royal encroachments, and the citizens of london were at hand, with their trained bands, to protect forcibly members of the house of commons. war was now imminent. "the attempt to seize the five members was undoubtedly the real cause of the war. from that moment, the loyal confidence with which most of the popular party were beginning to regard the king was turned into hatred and suspicion. from that moment, the parliament was compelled to surround itself with defensive arms. from that moment, the city assumed the appearance of a garrison. "the transaction was illegal from beginning to end. the impeachment was illegal. the process was illegal. the service was illegal. if charles wished to prosecute the five members for treason, a bill against them should have been sent to a grand jury. that a commoner cannot be tried for high treason by the lords at the suit of the crown, is part of the very alphabet of our law. that no man can be arrested by the king in person is equally clear. this was an established maxim of our jurisprudence even in the time of edward the fourth. 'a subject,' said chief justice markham to that prince, 'may arrest for treason; the king cannot; for, if the arrest be illegal, the party has no remedy against the king.'"[ ] both king and parliament broke rudely through all constitutional precedents in their preparations for hostilities. the king levied troops by a royal commission, without any advice from parliament, and pym got an ordinance passed, in both houses, appointing the lords-lieutenant of the counties to command the militia without warrant from the crown. a last attempt at negotiations was made at york, in april, when the proposals of parliament--nineteen propositions for curtailing the power of the monarchy in favour of the commons--were rejected by charles with the words: "if i granted your demands, i should be no more than the mere phantom of a king." by august, charles had raised the royal standard at nottingham, and war was begun. five years later and charles was a prisoner, to die in on the scaffold. that same year monarchy and the house of lords were abolished by law; the established church had already fallen before the triumphant arms of the puritans. then, in , the house of commons itself fell--expelled by cromwell; and the task of the lord protector was to fashion a constitution that would work.[ ] what happened was the supremacy of the army. parliament, attenuated and despised, contended in vain against the protector. on cromwell's death, and the failure of his son, richard, the army declared for charles ii., and there was an end to the commonwealth. the democratic protest--lilburne in all these changes the great mass of the people had neither part nor lot; and the famous leaders of the parliamentary party, resolute to curtail the absolutism of the crown, were no more concerned with the welfare of the labouring people than the barons were in the time of john. the labouring people--generally--were equally indifferent to the fortunes of roundheads and cavaliers, though the townsmen in many places held strong enough opinions on the matters of religion that were in dispute.[ ] that the common misery of the people was not in any way lightened by cromwell's rule we have abundant evidence, and it cannot be supposed that the substitution of the presbyterian discipline for episcopacy in the church, and the displacement of presbyterians by independents, was likely to alleviate this misery. taxation was heavier than it had ever been before, and in lancashire, westmorland, and cumberland the distress was appalling. whitelocke, writing in ,[ ] notes "that many families in lancashire were starved." "that many in cumberland and westmorland died in the highways for want of bread, and divers left their habitations, travelling with their wives and children to other parts to get relief, but could find none. that the committees and justices of the peace of cumberland signed a certificate, that there were , families that had neither seed nor bread-corn, nor money to buy either, and they desired a collection for them, which was made, but much too little to relieve so great a multitude." cromwell, occupied with high affairs of state, had neither time nor inclination to attend to social reform. democracy had its witnesses; lilburne and the levellers made their protest against military rule, and were overpowered; winstanley and his diggers endeavoured to persuade the country that the common land should be occupied by dispossessed peasants, and were quickly suppressed. lilburne was concerned with the establishment of a political democracy, winstanley with a social democracy, and in both cases the propaganda was offensive to the protector. had cromwell listened to lilburne, and made concessions towards democracy, the reaction against puritanism and the commonwealth might have been averted.[ ] john lilburne had been a brave soldier in the army of the parliament in the early years of the civil war, and he left the army in with the rank of lieutenant-colonel (and with £ arrears of pay due to him) rather than take the covenant and subscribe to the requirements of the "new model." the monarchy having fallen, lilburne saw the possibilities of tyranny in the parliamentary government, and at once spoke out. with considerable legal knowledge, a passion for liberty, clear views on democracy, an enormous capacity for work, and great skill as a pamphleteer, lilburne was not to be ignored. the government might have had him for a supporter; it unwisely decided to treat him as an enemy, and for ten years he was an unsparing critic, his popularity increasing with every fresh pamphlet he issued--and at every fresh imprisonment. lilburne urged a radical reform of parliament and a general manhood suffrage in , and the "case for the army," published by the levellers in the same year, on the proposal of the presbyterian majority in parliament that the army should be disbanded, demanded the abolition of monopolies, freedom of trade and religion, restoration of enclosed common lands, and abolition of sinecures. both cromwell and ireton were strongly opposed to manhood suffrage, and cromwell--to whom the immediate danger was a royalist reaction--had no patience for men who would embark on democratic experiments at such a season. lilburne and the levellers were equally distrustful of cromwell's new council of state. "we were ruled before by king, lords, and commons, now by a general, court-martial, and commons; and, we pray you, what is the difference?" so they put the question in . to cromwell the one safety for the commonwealth was in the loyalty of the army to the government. to lilburne the one guarantee for good government was in the supremacy of a parliament elected by manhood suffrage. he saw plainly that unless steps were taken to establish democratic institutions there was no future for the commonwealth; and he took no part in the trial of charles i., saying openly that he doubted the wisdom of abolishing monarchy before a new constitution had been drawn up. but lilburne overestimated the strength of the leveller movement in the army, and the corporals who revolted were shot by sentence of courts-martial.[ ] in vain the democratic troopers argued, "the old king's person and the old lords are but removed, and a new king and new lords with the commons are in one house, and so we are under a more absolute arbitrary monarchy than before." the government answered by clapping lilburne in the tower, where, in spite of a petition signed by , for his release, he remained for three months without being brought to trial. released on bail, lilburne, who from prison had issued an "agreement of the free people," calling for annual parliaments elected by manhood suffrage and the free election of unendowed church ministers in every parish, now published an "impeachment for high treason against oliver cromwell and his son-in-law, james ireton," and declared that monarchy was preferable to a military despotism. at last, brought to trial on the charge of "treason," lilburne was acquitted with "a loud and unanimous shout" of popular approval.[ ] "in a revolution where others argued about the respective rights of king and parliament, he spoke always of the rights of the people. his dauntless courage and his power of speech made him the idol of the mob."[ ] lilburne was again brought to trial, in , and again acquitted, with undiminished enthusiasm. but "for the peace of the nation," cromwell refused to allow the irrepressible agitator to be at large, and for two years lilburne, "free-born john," was kept in prison. during those years all power in the house of commons was broken by the rule of the army of the commonwealth, and parliament stood in abject submission before the lord protector. only when his health was shattered, and he had embraced quaker principles, was lilburne released, and granted a pension of s. a week. the following year, at the age of , lilburne died of consumption--brought on by the close confinement he had suffered. a year later, , and cromwell, by whose side lilburne had fought at marston moor, and against whose rule he had contended for so many a year, was dead, and the commonwealth government was doomed. winstanley and "the diggers" the "digger" movement was a shorter and much more obscure protest on behalf of the people than lilburne's agitation for democracy; but it is notable for its social significance. while lilburne strove vigorously for political reforms that are still unaccomplished, gerrard winstanley preached a revolutionary gospel of social reform--as john ball and robert ket had before him. but winstanley's social doctrine allowed no room for violence, and included the non-resistance principles that found exposition in the society of friends. hence the "diggers," preaching agrarian revolution; but denying all right to force of arms, never endangered the commonwealth government as lilburne and the levellers did. free communism was the creed of more than one protestant sect in the sixteenth century, and the anabaptists on the continent had been conspicuous for their experiments in community of goods and anarchist society. winstanley confined his teaching and practice to common ownership of land, pleading for the cultivation of the enclosed common lands, "that all may feed upon the crops of the earth, and the burden of poverty be removed." there was to be no forcible expropriation of landlords. "if the rich still hold fast to this propriety of mine and thine, let them labour their own lands with their own hands. and let the common people, that say the earth is _ours_, not _mine_, let them labour together, and eat bread together upon the commons, mountains, and hills. "for as the enclosures are called such a man's land, and such a man's land, so the commons and heath are called the common people's. and let the world see who labour the earth in righteousness, and those to whom the lord gives the blessing, let them be the people that shall inherit the earth. "none can say that their right is taken from them. for let the rich work alone by themselves; and let the poor work together by themselves."[ ] with the common ownership and cultivation of land, an end was to be made of all tyranny of man over his fellows. [illustration: john hampden _after the engraving by g. houbraken._] "leave off dominion and lordship one over another; for the whole bulk of mankind are but one living earth. leave off imprisoning, whipping, and killing, which are but the actings of the curse. let those that have hitherto had no land, and have been forced to rob and steal through poverty; henceforth let them quietly enjoy land to work upon, that everyone may enjoy the benefit of his creation, and eat his own bread with the sweat of his own brow." winstanley's argument was quite simple: "if any man can say that he makes corn or cattle, he may say, _that is mine_. but if the lord made these for the use of his creation, surely then the earth was made by the lord to be a common treasury for all, not a particular treasury for some." two objections were urged against private property in land: "first, it hath occasioned people to steal from one another. secondly, it hath made laws to hang those that did steal. it tempts people to do an evil action, and then kills them for doing it." it was a prolific age for pamphlets, the seventeenth century; the land teemed with preachers and visionaries, and winstanley's writings never attracted the sympathy that was given to the fierce controversialists on theological and political questions. only when winstanley and his diggers set to work with spade and shovel on the barren soil of st. george's hill, in surrey, in the spring of , was the attention of the council of state called to the strange proceedings. the matter was left to the local magistrates and landowners, and the diggers were suppressed. a similar attempt to reclaim land near wellingboro' was stopped at once as "seditious and tumultuous." it was quite useless for winstanley to maintain that the english people were dispossessed of their lands by the crown at the norman conquest, and that with the execution of the king the ownership of the crown lands ought to revert to the people; cromwell and the council of state had no more patience with prophets of land nationalisation than with agitators of manhood suffrage. indeed, the commonwealth government never took the trouble to distinguish between the different groups of disaffected people, but set them all down as "levellers," to be punished as disturbers of the peace if they refused to obey authority. winstanley's last pamphlet was "true magistracy restored," an open letter to oliver cromwell, , and after its publication gerrard winstanley and his diggers are heard of no more. to-day both lilburne and winstanley are to be recalled because the agitation for political democracy is always with us, and the question of land tenure is seen to be of profound importance in the discussion of social reform. no democratic statesman in our time can propose an improvement in the social condition of the people without reference to the land question, and no social reformer of the nineteenth century has had more influence or been more widely read and discussed than henry george--the exponent of the single tax on land values. winstanley was very little heeded in his own day, but two hundred and fifty years later the civilised countries of the earth are found in deep debate over the respective rights of landowners and landless, and the relation of poverty to land ownership. state ownership, taxation of land values, peasant proprietorship, co-operative agriculture--all have their advocates to-day, but to winstanley's question whether the earth was made "for to give ease to a few or health to all," only one answer is returned. the restoration under the commonwealth the landowners were as powerful as they had been under the monarchy. enclosures continued. social reform was not contemplated by cromwell nor by councils of state; democracy was equally outside the political vision of government. church of england ministers were dispossessed in favour of nonconformists, puritanism became the established faith, catholicism remained proscribed. the interest in ecclesiastical and theological disputes was considerable, and puritanism was popular with large numbers of the middle-class. but to the mass of the people puritanism was merely the suppression of further liberties, the prohibition of old customs, the stern abolition of christmas revels and may-day games. lilburne did his best to get cromwell to allow the people some responsibility in the choice of its rulers. winstanley proposed a remedy for the social distress. to neither of these men was any concession made, and no consideration was given to their appeals. hence the bulk of the nation, ignored by the commonwealth government, and alienated by puritanism, accepted quite amiably--indeed, with enthusiasm--the restoration of the monarchy on the return of charles ii., and was unmoved by the royalist reaction against parliamentary government that followed on the restoration. the house of commons itself, when monk and his army had gone over to the side of charles, voted, in the convention parliament of , "that according to the ancient and fundamental laws of this kingdom, the government is, and ought to be, by king, lords, and commons," and charles ii. was received in london with uproarious enthusiasm. the army was disbanded; a royalist house of commons restored the church of england and ordered general acceptance of its prayer book. puritanism, driven from rule, could only remain in power in the heart and conscience of its adherents. to the old commonwealth man it might seem, in the reaction against puritanism, and in the popularity of the king, that all that had been striven for in the civil war had been lost, in the same way as after the death of simon of montfort it might have appeared that "the good cause" had perished with its great leader. in reality the house of commons stood on stronger ground than ever, and was to show its strength when james ii. attempted to override its decisions. in the main the very forms of parliamentary procedure were settled in the seventeenth century, to remain undisturbed till the nineteenth century. "the parliamentary procedure of was essentially the procedure on which the house of commons conducted its business during the long parliament."[ ] with charles ii. on the throne the absolutism of the crown over parliament passed for ever from england. cromwell had set up the supremacy of the army over the commons: this, too, was gone, never to be restored. henceforth government was to be by king, lords, and commons; but sovereignty was to reside in parliament. not till a century later would democracy again be heard of, and its merits urged, as lilburne had urged them under the commonwealth. * * * * * chapter v constitutional government--aristocracy triumphant government by aristocracy for nearly two centuries--from to --england was governed by an aristocracy of landowners. charles ii. kept the throne for twenty-five years, because he had wit enough to avoid an open collision with parliament. james ii. fled the country after three years--understanding no more than his father had understood that tyranny was not possible save by consent of parliament or by military prowess. at the restoration the royal prerogative was dead, and nothing in charles ii.'s reign tended to diminish the power of parliament in favour of the throne. charles was an astute monarch who did not wish to be sent on his travels again, and consequently took care not to outrage the nation by any attempt upon the liberties of parliament. only by the tudor method of using parliament as the instrument of the royal will could james ii. have accomplished the constitutional changes he had set his heart upon. in attempting to set up toleration for the roman catholic religion, and in openly appointing roman catholics to positions of importance, james ii. set parliament at defiance and ranged the forces of the established church against himself. the method was doomed to failure. "none have gone about to break parliaments but in the end parliaments have broken them."[ ] in any case the notion of restoring political liberty to catholics was a bold endeavour in . against the will of parliament the project was folly. to overthrow the rights of corporations and of the universities, and to attempt to bully the church of england, after elizabeth's fashion, at the very beginning of a pro-catholic movement, was to provoke defeat. parliament decided that james ii. had "abdicated," when, deserted by churchill, he fled to france, and william and mary came to the throne at the express invitation of parliament. the revolution completed the work of the long parliament by defining the limits of monarchy, and establishing constitutional government. it was not--this revolution, of --the first time parliament had sanctioned the deposing of the king of england and the appointment of his successor,[ ] but it was the last. never again since the accession of william and mary have the relations of the crown and parliament been strained to breaking point; never has the supremacy of parliament been seriously threatened by the power of the throne. the full effects of the revolution of were seen in the course of the next fifty years. aristocracy, then mainly whig, was triumphant, and under its rule, while large measures of civil and religious liberty were passed, the condition of the mass of labouring people was generally wretched in the extreme. the rule of the aristocracy saw england become a great power among the nations of the world, and the british navy supreme over the navies of europe; but it saw also an industrial population, untaught and uncared for, sink deeper and deeper into savagery and misery. for a time in the eighteenth century the farmer and the peasant were prosperous, but by the close of that century the small farmer was a ruined man, and with the labourer was carried by the industrial revolution into the town. the worst times for the english labourer in town and country since the norman conquest were the reign of edward vi. and the first quarter of the nineteenth century. the development of our political institutions into their present form; the establishment of our party system of government by cabinet, and of the authority of the prime minister; the growth of the supreme power of the commons, not only over the throne but over the lords also: these were the work of the aristocracy of the eighteenth century, and were attained by steps so gradual as to be almost imperceptible. no idea of democracy guided the process; yet our modern democratic system is firm-rooted upon the principles and privileges of the constitution as thus established. social misery deepened, without check from the politicians; and the most enlightened statesmen of the whig regime were very far from our present conceptions of the duties and possibilities of parliament. civil and religious liberty james ii. was tumbled from the throne for his vain attempt to establish toleration for catholics and nonconformists without consent of parliament. yet the whig aristocracy which followed, while it did nothing for catholics, laid broad principles of civil and religious liberty for democracy to build upon.[ ] the declaration of right, presented by parliament to william and mary on their arrival in london, was turned into the bill of rights, and passed into law in . it stands as the last of the great charters of political liberty, and states clearly both what is not permitted to the crown, and what privileges are allowed to the people. under the bill of rights the king was denied the power of suspending or dispensing, of levying money, or maintaining a standing army without consent of parliament. the people were assured of the right of the subject to petition the crown, and of the free election of representatives in parliament, and of full and free debate in parliament. any profession of the catholic religion, or marriage with a catholic, disqualified from inheritance to or possession of the throne. so there was an end to the doctrine of the divine right of kings, and four hundred non-juring clergymen--including half-a-dozen bishops--of the church of england were deprived of their ecclesiastical appointments for refusing to accept the accomplished fact, and acknowledge william iii. as the lawful king of england. by making william king, to the exclusion of the children of james ii., parliament destroyed for all future time in england the belief in the sacred character of kingship. the king was henceforth a part of the constitution, and came to the throne by authority of parliament, on conditions laid down by parliament. william resented the decision of parliament not to allow the crown a revenue for life, but to vote an annual supply; but the decision was adhered to, and has remained in force ever since. the mutiny act, passed the same year, placed the army under the control of parliament, and the annual vote for military expenses has, in like manner, remained. the toleration act ( ) gave nonconformists a legal right to worship in their own chapels, but expressly excluded unitarians and roman catholics from this liberty. life was made still harder for roman catholics in england by the act of , which forbade a catholic priest, under penalty of imprisonment for life, to say mass, hear confessions, or exercise any clerical function, and denied the right of the catholic laity to hold, buy or inherit property, or to have their children educated abroad. the objection to roman catholics was that their loyalty to the pope was an allegiance to a "foreign" ruler which prevented their being good citizens at home. against this prejudice it was useless to point to what had been done by englishmen for their country, when all the land was catholic, and all accepted the supremacy of the pope. it was not till that the first catholic relief bill was carried, a bill that "shook the general prejudice against catholics to the centre, and restored to them a thousand indescribable charities in the ordinary intercourse of social life which they had seldom experienced." the last roman catholic to die for conscience' sake was oliver plunket, archbishop of armagh, who was executed at tyburn, when charles ii. was king, in . after the revolution, nonconformists and catholics were no longer hanged or tortured for declining the ministrations of the established church, but still were penalised in many lesser ways. but the spirit of the eighteenth century made for toleration, and the whigs were as unostentatious in their own piety as they were indifferent to the piety of others. the killing of "witches," however, went on in scotland and in england long after toleration had been secured for nonconformists. as late as a woman was executed for witchcraft in england.[ ] growth of cabinet rule william iii. began with a mixed ministry of whigs and tories, which included men like danby and godolphin, who had served under james ii. but the fierce wrangling that went on over the war then being waged on the continent was decidedly inconvenient, and by the whigs had succeeded in driving all the tories--who were against the war--out of office. then for the first time a united ministry was in power, and from a cabinet of men with common political opinions the next step was to secure that the cabinet should represent the party with a majority in the house of commons. our present system of cabinet rule, dependent on the will of the majority of the commons, is found in full operation by the middle of the eighteenth century. the fact that william iii., george i., and george ii. were all foreigners necessitated the king's ministers using considerable powers. but george iii. was english, and effected a revival in the personal power of the king by his determination that the choice of ministers should rest with the crown, and not with the house of commons. he succeeded in breaking up the long whig ascendancy, and so accustomed became the people to the king making and unmaking ministries, that on george iv.'s accession in it was fully expected the new king would turn out the tories and put in whigs. william iv. in did what no sovereign has done since--dissolved parliament against the wish of the government. from to the whigs were in office. then on the death of william and the accession of anne, tory ministers were included in the government, and for seven years the cabinet was composite again. but marlborough and godolphin found that if they were to remain in power it must be by the support of the whigs, who had made the support of the war against france a party question; and from to the ministry was definitely whig. by the war had ceased to be popular, and the general election of that year sent back a strong tory majority to the house of commons, with the result that the tory leaders, harley (earl of oxford) and henry st. john (bolingbroke) took office. the tories fell on the death of anne, because their plot to place james (generally called the chevalier or the old pretender), the queen's half-brother, on the throne was defeated by the readiness of the whig dukes of somerset and argyll to proclaim george, elector of hanover, king of england. by the act of settlement, , parliament had decided that the crown should pass from anne to the heirs of sophia, electress of hanover and daughter of james i.; and the fact that the chevalier was a catholic made his accession impossible according to law, and the policy of bolingbroke highly treasonable. george i. could not speak english, and relied entirely on his whig ministers. bolingbroke fled to the continent, but was permitted to return from exile nine years later. oxford was impeached and sent to the tower. the whigs were left in triumph to rule the country for nearly fifty years--until the restiveness of george iii. broke up their dominion--and for more than twenty years of that period walpole was prime minister. cabinet government--that is, government by a small body of men, agreed upon main questions of policy, and commanding the confidence of the majority of the house of commons--was now in full swing, and in spite of the monarchist revival under george iii., no king henceforth ever refused consent to a bill passed by parliament. the whigs did nothing in those first sixty years of the eighteenth century to make the house of commons more representative of the people. they were content to repeat the old cries of the revolution, and to oppose all proposals of change. but they governed england without oppression, and walpole's commercial and financial measures satisfied the trading classes and kept national credit sound. walpole's rule walpole remained in power from to by sheer corruption--there was no other way open to him. he laughed openly at all talk of honesty and purity, and his influence lowered the whole tone of public life.[ ] but he kept in touch with the middle classes, was honest personally, and had a large amount of tact and good sense. his power in the house of commons endured because he understood the management of parliamentary affairs, and had a genius for discerning the men whose support he could buy, and whose support was valuable. george iii. went to work in much the same way as walpole had done, and only succeeded in breaking down the power of the whig houses by using the same corrupt methods that walpole had employed. the "king's friends," as they were called, acted independently of the party leaders, and in the pay of the king were the chief instrument of george iii.'s will. the change in the house of lords but george iii. not only turned the whigs out of office, he altered permanently the political complexion of the house of lords. from the time of the revolution of to the death of george ii. in , the lords were whiggish, and the majority of english nobles held whig principles. they were, on the whole, men of better education than the average member of the house of commons, who was in most cases a fox-hunting squire, of the squire western type. the house of lords stood in the way of the commons when, in the tory reaction of , the commons proposed to impeach somers, the whig chancellor, a high-minded and skilful lawyer, "courteous and complaisant, humane and benevolent," for his share in the second partition treaty of , and this was the beginning of a bitter contest between the tory commons and the whig lords. an attempt was made by the commons to impeach walpole on his fall in , but the lords threw out a bill proposing to remit the penalties to which his prosecutor might be liable, and the king made walpole a peer. george iii., by an unsparing use of his prerogative, changed the character and politics of the upper house. his creations were country gentlemen of sufficient wealth to own "pocket" boroughs in the house of commons, and lawyers who supported the royal prerogative.[ ] from george iii.'s time onward there has always been a standing and ever-increasing majority of tory peers in the house of lords. and while the actual number of members of the upper house has been enlarged enormously, this majority has became enlarged out of all proportion. liberal and tory prime ministers were busy throughout the nineteenth century adding to the peerage--no less than new peers were created between and ; but comparatively few liberals retained their principles when they became peers, and two of the present chiefs of the unionist party in the house of lords--lords lansdowne and selborne--are the sons of eminent liberals. so it has come about that while the house of commons has been steadily opening its doors to men of all ranks and classes, and in our time has become increasingly democratic in character, the house of lords, confined in the main to men of wealth and social importance, has become an enormous assembly of undistinguished persons, where only a small minority are active politicians, and of this minority at least three-fourths are conservatives. this change in the house of lords began, as we have seen, in the reign of george iii., when the whig ascendancy in parliament had passed. but the whigs did nothing during their long lease of power to bring democracy nearer, and were entirely contemptuous of popular aspirations. at the very time when the democratic idea was the theme of philosophers, and was to be seen expressed in the constitution of the revolted american colonies, and in the french revolution, england remained under an aristocracy, governed first by whigs, and then by tories. it is true democracy was not without its spokesmen in england in the eighteenth century, but there was no popular movement in politics to stir the masses of the people, as the preaching of the methodists stirred their hearts for religion. democratic ideas were as remote from popular discussion in the eighteenth century as they had been made familiar by lilburne for a brief season in the seventeenth century. "wilkes and liberty" a word must be said about john wilkes, a man of disreputable character and considerable ability, who for some ten years-- - --contended for the rights of electors against the whig government. the battle began when george grenville, the whig prime minister, had wilkes arrested on a general warrant for an article attacking the king's speech in no. of the _north briton_, a scurrilous newspaper which belonged to wilkes. chief justice pratt declared the arrest illegal on the ground that the warrant was bad, and that wilkes, being at the time m.p. for aylesbury, enjoyed the privilege of parliament. a jury awarded wilkes heavy damages against the government for false imprisonment, and the result of the trial made wilkes a popular hero. then, in , the government brought a new charge of blasphemy and libel, and wilkes, expelled from the house of commons, and condemned by the king's bench, fled to france, and was promptly declared an outlaw. he returned, however, a year or two later, and while in prison was elected m.p. for middlesex. the house of commons, led by the government, set the election aside, and riots for "wilkes and liberty" broke out in london. the question was: had the house of commons a right to exclude a member duly elected for a constituency?--the same question that was raised over charles bradlaugh, a man of very different character, in the parliament of . again and again in and wilkes was re-elected for middlesex, only to be expelled, and finally the house decided that wilkes' opponent, colonel luttrell, was to sit, although luttrell was manifestly not chosen by the majority of electors. the citizens of london replied to this by choosing wilkes for sheriff and alderman in , and by making him lord mayor four years later. the government gave up the contest at last, and wilkes was allowed to take his seat. besides vindicating the right of constituencies against the claim of parliament to exclude undesirable persons, wilkes did a good deal towards securing that right of parliamentary debating which was practically admitted after . but the "wilkes and liberty" movement was no more than a popular enthusiasm of the london mob for an enemy of the government, and a determination of london citizens and middlesex electors not to be brow-beaten by the government. wilkes himself always denied that he was a "wilkesite," and he had no following in the country or in parliament. * * * * * chapter vi the rise of the democratic idea the witness of the middle ages the idea of constitutional government has its witnesses in the middle ages, democratic theories are common in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but it is not till the eighteenth century that france, aflame to realise a political ideal, proves that democracy has passed from the books of schoolmen and philosophers, and is to be put in practice by a nation in arms. in the thirteenth century the friars rallied to simon of montfort and preached, not democracy, but constitutional liberty.[ ] thomas aquinas, the great dominican doctor, became the chief exponent of political theory, and maintained that sovereignty expressed in legislative power should be exercised for the common good, and that a mixed government of monarch, nobles, and people, with the pope as a final court of appeal, would best attain that end.[ ] a hundred years later, john ball and his fellow agitators preached a gospel of social equality that inspired the peasant revolt. but communism was the goal of the peasant leaders in , and freedom from actual oppression the desire of their followers. no conception of political democracy can be found in the speeches and demands of wat tyler. in the sixteenth century robert ket in norfolk renewed the old cries of social revolution, and roused the countryside to stop the enclosures by armed revolt. and again the popular rising is an agrarian war to end intolerable conditions, not a movement for popular government. the "social contract" theory the theory of a pact or contract between the government and the people became the favourite assumption of political writers from the sixteenth century onward, and it was this theory that rousseau popularised in his "social contract," the theory, too, which triumphed for a season in the french revolution. the theory is, of course, pure assumption, without any basis in history, and resting on no foundation of fact. it assumes that primitive man was born with enlightened views on civil government, and that for the greater well-being of his tribe or nation he deposited the sovereign authority which belonged to himself, in a prince or king--or in some other form of executive government--retaining the right to withdraw his allegiance from the government if the authority is abused, and the contract which conferred sovereignty violated. it was not maintained that the contract was an actually written document; it was supposed to be a tacit agreement. the whole theory seems to have sprung from the study of roman law and the constitutions of athens and sparta. nothing was known of primitive man or of the beginnings of civilisation till the nineteenth century. the bible and the classical literature of greece and rome are all concerned with civilised, not primitive, man, and with slaves and "heathens" who are accounted less than men. the "sovereign people" of athens and sparta became the model of later republican writers, while the choosing of a king by the israelites recorded in the old testament sanctioned the idea, for early protestant writers, that sovereignty was originally in the people. the huguenot languet, in his _vindiciae contra tyrannos_ ( ), maintained on scriptural grounds that kingly power was derived from the will of the people, and that the violation by the king of the mutual compact of king and people to observe the laws absolved the people from all allegiance.[ ] the jesuit writers, bellarmine and mariana, argued for the sovereignty of the people as the basis of kingly rule; and when the english divines of the established church were upholding the doctrine of the divine right of kings, the spanish jesuit, suarez, was amongst those who attacked that doctrine, quoting a great body of legal opinion in support of the contention that "the prince has that power of law giving which the people have given him." suarez, too, insists that all men are born equal, and that "no one has a political jurisdiction over another." milton, in his "tenure of kings and magistrates" ( ), had taken a similar line: the people had vested in kings and magistrates the authority and power of self-defence and preservation. "the power of kings and magistrates is nothing else but what is only derivative, transferred, and committed to them in trust from the people to the common good of all, in whom the power yet remains fundamentally, and cannot be taken from them without a violation of their natural birthright." hooker, fifty years earlier ( - ), in his "ecclesiastical polity," book i., had affirmed the sovereignty or legislative power of the people as the ultimate authority, and had also declared for an original social contract, "all public regiment of what kind soever seemeth evidently to have risen from deliberate advice, consultation, and composition between men, judging it convenient and behoveful." hobbes made the social contract a justification for royal absolutism, and locke, with a whig ideal of constitutional government, enlarged on the right of a people to change its form of government, and justified the revolution of . the writings of hobbes and locke have had a lasting influence, and locke is really the source of the democratic stream of the eighteenth century. it rises in locke to become the torrent of the french revolution. but huguenots and jesuits, hooker and milton--what influence had their writings on the mass of english people? none whatever, as far as we can see. milton could write of "the power" of "the people" as a "natural birthright," but the power was plainly in cromwell's army, and "the people" had no means of expression concerning its will, and no opportunity for the assertion of sovereignty. lilburne and the levellers held that democracy could be set up on the ruins of charles i.'s government, and the sovereignty of the people become a fact; and with a ready political instinct lilburne proposed the election of popular representatives on a democratic franchise. cromwell rejected all lilburne's proposals; for him affairs of state were too serious for experiments in democracy; and lilburne himself was cast into prison by the commonwealth government. lilburne's pamphlets were exceedingly numerous, and his popularity, in london particularly, enormous. he was the voice of the unrepresented, powerless citizens in whom the republican theorists saw the centre of authority. the one effort to persuade the commonwealth republic to give power to the people was made by john lilburne, and it was defeated. the whig theory that an aristocratic house of commons, elected by a handful of people, and mainly at the dictation of the landowners, was "the people," triumphed. the bulk of the english people were left out of all account in the political struggles of whigs and tories, and democracy was not dreamed of till america was free and france a republic. the industrial revolution compelled the reform of the british house of commons, and democracy has slowly superseded aristocracy, not from any enthusiasm for the "sovereign people," but from the traditional belief that representative government means the rule of the people. precedent, not theory, has been the argument for democracy in england. thomas hobbes ( - ) the writings of hobbes are important, because they state the case for absolute rule, or "a strong government," as we call it to-day. hobbes was frankly rationalist and secular. holding the great end of government to be happiness, he made out that natural man lived in savage ill-will with his fellows. to secure some sort of decency and safety men combined together and surrendered all natural rights to a sovereign--either one man, or an assembly of men--and in return civil rights were guaranteed. but the sovereignty once established was supreme, and to injure it was to injure oneself, since it was composed of "every particular man." the sovereign power was unlimited, and was not to be questioned. whether monarchy, aristocracy, or democracy was the form of government was unimportant, though hobbes preferred monarchy, because popular assemblies were unstable and apt to need dictators. civil laws were the standard of right and wrong, and obedience to autocracy was better than the resistance which led to civil war or anarchy--the very things that induced men to establish sovereignty. only when the safety of the state was threatened was rebellion justifiable. at bottom, the objection to the theories of hobbes is the same objection that must be taken to the theories of locke and rousseau. all these writers assume not only the fiction of a social contract, but a _static_ view of society. society is the result of growth: it is not a fixed and settled community. mankind proceeds experimentally in forms of government. to hobbes and his followers, security of life and property was the one essential thing for mankind--disorder and social insecurity the things to be prevented at all cost. now, this might be all very well but for evolution. mankind cannot rest quietly under the strongest and most stable government in the world. it will insist on learning new tricks, on thinking new thoughts, and if it is not allowed to teach itself fresh habits, it will break out in revolt, and either the government will be broken or the subjects will wither away under the rule of repression. hobbes may be quoted as a supporter of the rule of the stuarts, and equally of the rule of cromwell. every kind of strong tyranny may be defended by his principles. in the nineteenth century carlyle was the finest exponent of "strong" government, and generally the leaders of the tory party have been its advocates, particularly in the attitude to be taken towards subject races. john locke ( - ) locke, setting out to vindicate the whig revolution of , rejects hobbes' view of the savagery of primitive man, and invents "a state of peace, goodwill, mutual assistance and preservation"--equally, as we know to-day, far from the truth. locke's primitive men have a natural right to personal property--"as much land as a man tills, plants, improves, cultivates, and can use the product of, so much is his property"--but they are as worried and as fearful as hobbes' savages. so they, too, renounce their natural rights in favour of civil liberty, and are happy when they have got "a standing rule to live by, common to every one of that society, and made by the legislative power erected on it." according to hobbes, once having set up a government, there was no possible justification for changing it--save national peril; and a bad government was to be obeyed rather than the danger of civil war incurred. but locke never allows the government to be more than the trustee of the people who placed it in power. it rules by consent of the community, and may be removed or altered when it violates its trust. hobbes saw in the break-up of a particular government the dissolution of society. locke made a great advance on this, for he saw that a change of government could be accomplished without any very serious disturbance in the order of society or the peace of a nation. hobbes did not believe that the people could be trusted to effect a change of government, while locke had to justify the change which had just taken place in . only when we have dropped all locke's theories of primitive man's happiness, and the social-contract fiction, does the real value of his democratic teaching become clear, and the lasting influence of his work become visible. mankind is compelled to adopt some form of government if it is to sleep at nights without fear of being murdered in its bed, or if it wishes to have its letters delivered by the postman in the morning. as the only purpose of government is to secure mutual protection, mankind must obey this government, or the purpose for which government exists will be defeated. but the powers of government must be strictly limited if this necessary consent of the governed is to continue, and if the government has ceased to retain the confidence that gives consent, then its form may be changed to some more appropriate shape. now all this theory of locke's has proved to be true in the progress of modern democracy. it was pointed out that the danger of his doctrine--that a nation had the right to choose its form of government, and to change or adapt its constitution--lay in the sanction it gave to revolution; but locke answered that the natural inertia of man was a safeguard against frequent and violent political changes, and as far as england was concerned locke was right. the average englishman grumbles, but only under great provocation is he moved to violent political activity. as a nation, we have acknowledged the right of the majority to make the political changes that have brought in democracy, and we have accepted the changes loyally. occasionally, since locke, the delay of the government in carrying out the wishes of the majority has induced impatience, but, generally, the principle has been acted upon that government is carried on with the consent of the governed, and that the parliamentary party which has received the largest number of votes has the authority from the people to choose its ministry, and to make laws that all must obey. the power of the people is demonstrated by the free election of members of parliament, and, therefore, democracy requires that its authority be obeyed by all who are represented in parliament. there is no social contract between the voter and the government; but there is a general feeling that it is not so much participation in politics as the quiet enjoyment of the privileges of citizenship that obliges submission to the laws. the extension of the franchise was necessary whenever a body of people excluded from the electorate was conscious of being unrepresented and desired representation. otherwise the consent of the voteless governed was obviously non-existent, and government was carried on in defiance of the absence of that consent. it is not locke's theories that have guided politically the great masses of the people, for locke's writings have had no very considerable popularity in england. but it has happened that these theories have influenced the conduct of statesmen, and with reason, since they offer an explanation of political progress, and constrain politicians to act, experimentally indeed, but with some reasonable anticipation of safety to the nation. british statesmen and politicians have made no parade of locke's opinions; they have done nothing to incur the charge of "theorist," but the influence of locke can be seen all the same--chiefly in the loyal acceptance of political change, in the refusal to be shocked or alarmed at a "leap in the dark," and by a willingness to adjust the machinery of government to the needs of the time. in england locke's influence has been less dynamic than static; it has helped us to preserve a moderation in politics; to be content with piecemeal legislation, because to attempt too much might be to alienate the sympathies of the majority; to keep our political eye, so to speak, on the ebb and flow of public opinion--since it is public opinion that is the final court of appeal; to tolerate abuses until it is quite plain a great number of people are anxious to have the abuse removed; and above all to settle down in easy contentment under political defeat, and make the best of accomplished reforms, not because we like them, but because a parliamentary majority has decreed them. for england, in fact, the essence of locke's teaching has helped to produce a deference almost servile to political majorities and to public opinion, a reluctance to make any reform until public opinion has pronounced loudly and often in favour of reform, and an emphatic assurance that every reform enacted by parliament is the unmistakable expression of the will of the people. locke has discouraged us from hasty legislation and from political panics. rousseau and the french revolution locke's influence in france and in america has been altogether different. voltaire, rousseau, and diderot were all students and admirers of locke, and his political theories were at the base of rousseau's "social contract." a return to nature, a harking back to an imaginary primitive happiness of mankind, the glorification of an ideal of simplicity and innocence,--supposed to have been the ideal of early politics--the restoration of a popular sovereignty built up on natural rights alleged to have been lost: these were the articles of faith rousseau preached with passionate conviction in his "discourses" and in the "social contract." individual man was born naturally "free," and had become debased and enslaved by laws and civilisation. "man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains," is the opening sentence of the "social contract." this liberty and equality of primitive man was acclaimed as a law of nature by eighteenth century writers in france, and to some extent in england too. pope could write, "the state of nature was the reign of god." instead of a forward movement the business of man was to recover the lost happiness of the childhood of the world, to bring back a golden age of liberty and equality. locke's "state of peace, goodwill, mutual assistance, and preservation" is to be the desire of nations, and with wistful yearning rousseau's disciples gazed on the picture painted by their master. it was all false, all a fiction, all mischievous and misleading, this doctrine of a return to an ideal happiness of the past, and it was the most worthless portion of locke's work. to-day it is easy for us to say this, when we have learnt something of the struggle for existence in nature, something of the habits and customs of primitive man, and something of man's upward growth. but locke and rousseau were born before our limited knowledge of the history of man and his institutions had been learnt; before science, with patient research, had revealed a few incidents in the long story of man's ascent. even the history of greece and rome, as rousseau read it, was hopelessly inaccurate and incomplete. therefore, while we can see the fallacy in all the eighteenth century teaching concerning the natural happiness of uncivilised man, we must at the same time remember it as a doctrine belonging to a pre-scientific era. the excuse in france, too, for its popularity was great. civilisation weighed heavily on the nation. the whole country groaned under a misrule, and commerce and agriculture were crippled by the system of taxation. it seemed that france was impoverished to maintain a civilisation that only a few, and they not the most useful members of the community, could enjoy. how mankind had passed from primitive freedom to civilised slavery neither locke nor rousseau inquired. "man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains," cries rousseau, in sublime disregard of facts. for man was not born free in the ancient republics of greece and rome that rousseau revered; children were not born free in his day any more than they are in ours; and any assembly or community of people necessarily involves mutual consideration and forbearance which are at once restrictive. the truth is, of course, that man is not born free, but is born with free will to work out political freedom or to consent to servitude. he is not born with "natural" political rights, but born to acquire by law political rights. the fiction of primitive man's happiness and of the natural goodness and freedom of man did little harm in england, for locke was not a popular author, and wesley's religious revival in the eighteenth century laid awful stress on man's imperfections. the sovereign people ruled in an unreformed house of commons, and the "contract" theory was exhibited by ministers holding office on the strength of a majority in the commons. rousseau's writings depicted, with a clearness that fascinated the reader, the contrast between the ideal state that man had lost and the present condition of society with its miseries and corruption; and by its explanation of the doctrines of a contract and the sovereignty of the people, suggested the way to end these miseries and corruptions. the "social contract" became the text-book of the men who made the french revolution, and if the success of the revolution is due to the teaching of rousseau more than to that of any other french philosopher, the crimes and mistakes of the revolution are directly to be traced to his influence, and this in spite of rousseau's deprecation of violence.[ ] as there is a certain tendency in england to-day to attempt the resuscitation of rousseau's theories of popular sovereignty and the natural rights of man, and as so distinguished a writer as mr. hilaire belloc is at pains to invite the english working class to seek illumination from rousseau and to proceed to democracy guided by the speculative political doctrines of the eighteenth century rather than on the tried experimental lines of representative government and an extended franchise, it is necessary to devote to rousseau and his "social contract" more space than the subject deserves. the "social contract" is full of inaccuracies in its references to history; it is often self-contradictory, and it has not even the merit of originality. from hobbes rousseau borrowed the notion of authority in the state; from locke the seat of this authority; the nature of the original pact and of citizenship from spinoza; from the huguenot languet the doctrine of fraternity; and from althusius the doctrine of the inalienability of citizenship. where locke was content to maintain that the people collectively had the right to change the form of government, rousseau would give the community continual exercise in sovereignty, while voting and representation are signs of democratic decadence in rousseau's eyes. the sovereign people governing, not through elected representatives but by public meeting, has only been found possible in small slave-ridden states. at the revolution france had to elect its deputies. but the theory of the sovereignty of the people has over and over again, in france, upset the government, and destroyed the authority of the deputies. in england we accept the rule of parliament, and are satisfied that the election of representatives by an enfranchised people is the most satisfactory form of democracy, though we retain a healthy instinct of criticism of the government in power. in france has happened what locke's critics foretold: the sovereign people never wholeheartedly delegates its powers to its deputies, and indulges in revolution when impatient of government. during the revolution the passionate clamour of the sovereign people overpowered the votes and voices of elected representatives, and revolution and reaction were the rule in france from to . we may be frankly against the government all the time in england; we may resist it actively and passively, for the purpose of calling attention to some political grievance, some disability that needs removal. but we never forget that it is the government, or believe that it can be overturned save by the votes of the electorate. at the time of the european revolutions of , when crowns were falling, and ministers flying before the rage of the sovereign people, chartism never seriously threatened the stability of the british government, and its great demonstrations were no real menace to the existing order. nothing seems able to shake the british confidence in its elected representatives, and in the government that is supported by a majority of those representatives. we have never accepted the gospel of jean jacques rousseau; priestley and price are almost the only names that can be mentioned as disciples of rousseau before the advent of mr. h. belloc. france, still following rousseau, does not associate political sovereignty with representation as england does. it never invests the doings of its cabinet with a sacred importance, and it readily transfers the reins of government from ministry to ministry. france has submitted to the sovereignty of an emperor and to the rule of kings since the great revolution, and though its republic is now forty years old, and at present there are no signs of dictatorship on the horizon, the government of the republic is never safe from a revolutionary rising of the sovereign people, and only by the strength of its army has revolution been kept at bay. if louis xvi. had possessed the army of modern france he too might have kept the revolution at bay. all this revolution and reaction, disbelief in the authority of representative government, and lively conviction that sovereignty is with the citizens, and must be asserted from time to time--to the confusion of deputies and delegates--is rousseau's work, the reaping of the harvest sown by the "social contract." let us sum up the character of rousseau's work, and then leave him and his doctrines for ever behind us. "rousseau's scheme is that of a doctrinaire who is unconscious of the infinite variety and complexity of life, and its apparent simplicity is mainly due to his inability to realise and appreciate the difficulties of his task. he evinced no insight into the political complications of his time; and his total ignorance of affairs, together with his contempt for civilised life, prevented him from framing a theory of any practical utility. indeed, the disastrous attempt of the jacobins to apply his principles proved how valueless and impracticable most of his doctrines were. he never attempted to trace social and political evils to their causes, in order to suggest suitable modifications of existing conditions. he could not see how impossible it was to sweep away all institutions and impose a wholly new social order irrespective of the natures, faculties, and desires of those whom he wished to benefit; on the contrary, he exaggerates the passivity and plasticity of men and circumstances, and dreams that his model legislator, who apparently is to initiate the new society, will be able to repress all anti-social feelings. he aims at order and symmetry, oblivious that human nature does not easily and rapidly bend to such treatment. it is his inability to discover the true mode of investigation that accounts for much of rousseau's sophistry. his truisms and verbal propositions, his dogmatic assertions and unreal demonstrations, savour more of theology than of political science, while his quasi-mathematical method of reasoning from abstract formulæ, assumed to be axiomatic, gives a deceptive air of exactness and cogency which is apt to be mistaken for sound logic. he supports glaring paradoxes with an array of ingenious arguments, and with fatal facility and apparent precision he deduces from his unfounded premises a series of inconsequent conclusions, which he regards as authoritative and universally applicable. at times he becomes less rigid, as when (under the influence of montesquieu) he studies the relations between the physical constitution of a nation, its territory, its customs, its form of government, and its deep-rooted opinions, or avows that there has been too much dispute about the forms of government. but such considerations are not prominent. in certain cases his inconsistencies may be due to re-handling, but he is said to have observed that those who boasted of understanding the whole contract were more clever than he."[ ] this may sound very severe, but it is entirely just. the "social contract" consists of four books: ( ) the founding of the civilized state by a social pact. ( ) the theory of the sovereignty of the people. ( ) and ( ). the different forms of government; the indestructible character of the general will of the community; and civil religion. the whole work teems with generalisations, mostly ill-founded, and the details are not in agreement. the one thing of permanent value is the conception that the state represents the "general will" of the community. how that "general will" finds expression and gets its way is of great importance to democracy. even more important is the nature of that "general will." individualist as rousseau was in his views about personal property (following locke in an apparent ideal of peasant proprietorship), he insisted on the subjection of personal rights to the safety of the commonwealth. american independence the resistance of the american colonies to the british government did not commence with any spirit of independence. the tea incident at boston took place in , and it was not till three years later that the declaration of independence was drawn up. the whig principles of are at the foundation of american liberties, and locke's influence is to be seen both in the declaration of independence and in the american constitution. the colonists from the first had in many states a puritanism that was hostile to the prerogatives of governors, and appeals to the british government against the misuse of the prerogative were generally successful. the colonists wanted no more, and no less, than the constitutional rights enjoyed by englishmen in great britain, and while the whigs were in power these rights were fairly secure. george iii., attempting a reversion to monarchist rule, drove the colonists to war and to seek independence; with the aid of france this independence was won. if the french officers who assisted the americans brought the doctrines of rousseau to the revolted colonists, which is possible, it is quite certain that the establishment of the american republic, and the principles of la fayette and paine, who had fought in the american war, were not without effect in france. the american constitution was the work of men who believed in democratic government as locke had defined it, and america has been the biggest experiment in democracy the world has seen. the fact that the president and his cabinet are not members of congress makes the great distinction between the british and american constitution. the college of electors is elected only to elect the president; that done, its work is over. congress, consisting of members elected from each state, and the senate, consisting of representatives from each state, need not contain a majority of the president's party, and the president is in no way responsible to congress as the british prime minister is to the house of commons. the relation of the state governments to the federal government has presented the chief difficulty to democracy in america. the whigs, or republicans, as they came to be called, stood for a strong federal government; the democrats were jealous for the rights of state governments. the issue was not decided till the civil war of - , when the southern slave-holding states, seeing slavery threatened, announced their secession from the united states. abraham lincoln, the newly-elected president, declared that the government could not allow secession, and insisted that the war was to save the union. slavery was abolished and the union saved by the defeat of the secessionists; but for a time the fortunes of the union were more desperate than they had been at any time since the declaration of independence. hamilton was the real founder of the republican party, as jefferson was of the democrats. both these men were prominent in the making of the american constitution in , and jefferson was the responsible author of the declaration of independence. but franklin and paine made large contributions to the democratic independence of america. thomas paine ( - ) edmund randolph, the first attorney-general of the united states, was on washington's staff at the beginning of the war, and he ascribed independence in the first place to george iii., but next to "thomas paine, an englishman by birth."[ ] paine's later controversies with theological opponents have obscured his very considerable services to american independence, to political democracy in england, and to constitutional government in the french revolution; and as mankind is generally, and naturally, more interested in religion than in politics, paine is remembered rather as an "infidel"--though he was a strong theist--than as a gifted writer on behalf of democracy and a political reformer of original powers. paine--who came of a suffolk quaker family--reached america in , on the very threshold of the war. his quaker principles made him attack negro slavery on his arrival, and he endeavoured, without success, to get an anti-slavery clause inserted in the "declaration of independence." he served in the american ranks during the war, and was the friend of washington, who recognised the value of his writings. for paine's "common sense" pamphlet and his publication, "the crisis," had enormous circulation, and were of the greatest value in keeping the spirit of independence alive in the dark years of the war. they were fiercely republican; and though they were not entirely free from contemporary notions of government established on the ruins of a lost innocence, they struck a valiant note of self-reliance, and emphasised the importance of the average honest man. "time makes more converts than reason," wrote paine. of monarchy he could say, "the fate of charles i. hath only made kings more subtle--not more just"; and, "of more worth is one honest man to society, and in the sight of god, than all the crowned ruffians that ever lived." paine was in england in , busy with scientific inventions, popular in whig circles and respected. the fall of the bastille won his applause, as it did the applause of fox and the whigs, but it was not till the publication of burke's "reflections on the revolution in france," in , that paine again took up his pen on behalf of democracy. burke had been the hero of paine and the americans in the war of independence, and his speeches and writings had justified the republic. and now it was the political philosophy of hobbes that burke seemed to be contending for when he insisted that the english people were bound for ever to royalty by the act of allegiance to william iii. paine replied to burke the following year with the "rights of man" which he wrote in a country inn, the "angel," at islington. it was not so much to demolish burke as to give the english nation a constitution that paine desired; for it seemed to the author of "common sense" that, america having renounced monarchy and set up a republican form of government, safely guarded by a written constitution, england must be anxious to do the same thing, and was only in need of a constitution. the flamboyant rhetoric of the american declaration of independence--"we hold these truths to be self-evident--that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by the creator with inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness"--was not the sort of language that appealed to english whigs (america itself cheerfully admitted the falseness of the statement by keeping the negro in slavery), and the glittering generalities of the "rights of man" made no impression on the whig leaders in parliament. paine was back in the old regions of a social contract, and of a popular sovereignty antecedent to government. it was all beside the mark, this talk of a popular right inherent in the nation, a right that gave the power to make constitutional changes not _through_ elected representatives in parliament, but by a general convention. parliament in the sight of the whigs was the sovereign assembly holding its authority from the people, and only by a majority in the house of commons could the people express its will. what made the "rights of man" popular with the english democrats of the "constitutional society" and the sympathisers with the french revolution was not so much the old pre-historic popular "sovereignty" fiction--though it is true that there were many englishmen, of whom godwin was one, who could see no hope of parliament reforming itself or of granting any measure of enfranchisement to the people, and therefore were willing to fall back on any theory for compelling parliament to move towards a more liberal constitution--as the programme of practical reforms that was unfolded in its pages and the honest defence of the proceedings in paris. that parliament had no right to bind posterity, as burke maintained, and that if the revolution of was authoritative, why should a revolution in be less authoritative? were matters of less interest than the clear statement of events in france, and the proposals for a democratic constitution in england and for social reform. fifty thousand copies of the "rights of man" were quickly sold, and it obtained a large number of readers in america, and was translated into french. the total sales were estimated at , in . paine followed it up with part ii. while he was an elected member of the national convention in paris, and in , when a cheap edition of the "rights of man" was issued, its author was tried for high treason, and in his absence convicted and outlawed. part i. of the "rights of man," while relying on the popular "sovereignty" fiction for getting a national convention, contained a careful definition of representative government. it showed that government by democracy--i.e. by popular meeting, suitable enough for small and primitive societies--must degenerate into hopeless confusion in a large population; that monarchy and aristocracy which sprang from the political confusion of the people must degenerate into incapacity. a representative government was the control of a nation by persons elected by the whole nation, and the rights of man were the rights of all to this representation. as a nation we have never admitted any "natural" political rights to man, but we have steadily insisted on the constitutional right of representation in parliament to those who possess a fixed abode and contribute by taxation to the national revenue. paine attacked all hereditary authority and all titles, but approved a double chamber for parliament. he claimed that the whole nation ought to decide on the question of war with a foreign country, and urged that no member of parliament should be a government pensioner. in part ii. there is a confident announcement that "monarchy and aristocracy will not continue seven years longer in any of the enlightened countries of europe," so sure was paine that civilised mankind would hasten to follow the examples of france and america, and summon national conventions for the making of republican constitutions. as the old form of government had been hereditary, the new form was to be elective and representative. the money hitherto spent on the crown was to be devoted to a national system of elementary education--all children remaining at school till the age of --and to old-age pensions for all over . it is in these financial proposals and the suggested social reforms that paine is seen as a pioneer of democracy. a progressive income tax is included in this part ii., the tax to be graduated from d. in the £ on incomes between £ to £ ; d. on incomes between £ and £ , ; an additional d. up to £ , ; and then s. on every additional £ , until we get to an income tax of s. in the £ on an income of £ , a year. the popularity of paine's proposals in england and the reign of terror in france frightened the british government into a policy of fierce persecution against all who bought, sold, lent or borrowed the "rights of man." "constitutional societies" were suppressed, and all who dared openly express sympathy with revolutions or republics were promptly arrested. paine, outlawed by the british government, contended in the national convention for a republican constitution for france, did his best to prevent the execution of louis xvi., fell with the girondins, was thrown into prison, and only escaped with his life by an accident. then, under the very shadow of the guillotine paine wrote his "age of reason," to recall france from atheism to a mild humanitarian theism. this book was fatal to paine's reputation. henceforth the violent denunciation of theological opponents pursued him to the grave, and left his name a byword to the orthodox. as paine's contribution to the body of democratic belief in the "rights of man" was submerged in the discussion on his religious opinions, so was his early plea for what he called "agrarian justice." on his release from a prison cell in the luxembourg, in , paine published his "plan for a national fund." this plan was an anticipation of our modern proposals for land reform. paine urged the taxation of land values--the payment to the community of a ground-rent--and argued for death duties as "the least troublesome method" of raising revenue. it was in the preface to this pamphlet on "agrarian justice" that paine replied to bishop watson's sermon on "the wisdom and goodness of god in having made both rich and poor." "it is wrong," wrote paine, "to say god made rich and poor; he made only male and female, and gave them the earth for their inheritance." napoleon organised the plebiscite, which conferred on him the consulate for life, in , and the french revolution and constitution making having yielded to a military dictatorship, paine returned to america, and died in new york in . major cartwright and the "radical reformers" john cartwright, the "father of reform," is notable as the first of the english "radical reformers." his direct influence on politics was small--none of his writings had the success of the "rights of man"--but, like paine, he laboured to turn england by public opinion from aristocracy to democracy, and for more than forty years cartwright was to the fore with his programme of radical reform. the problem for cartwright and the radical reformers was how to get the changes made which would give political power to the people--with whom was the sovereignty, as they had learnt from locke--and make parliament the instrument of democracy. a hundred years and more have not sufficed to get this problem answered to everybody's satisfaction, but in the latter part of the eighteenth century, to the minds of simple, honest men, it seemed enough that the argument should be stated plainly and reasonably; it would follow that all mankind would be speedily convinced; so great was the faith in the power of reason. what neither cartwright nor paine understood was, that it was not the reasonableness of a proposed reform but the strength of the demand that carried the day. the revolt and independence of the american colonies were not due to a political preference for a republic, but were the work of public opinion driven by misgovernment to protest. the difficulty in england was that the mass of people might be in great wretchedness, badly housed, ill-fed, and generally neglected, but they were not conscious of any desire for democracy. they were against the government, doubtless, and willing enough, in london, to shout for "wilkes and liberty," but the time had not yet come for the working class to believe that enfranchisement was a remedy for the ills they endured. major cartwright was an exceedingly fine type of man; conscientious, public spirited, humane, and utterly without personal ambition. he resigned his commission in the navy because he believed it wrong to fight against the american colonies, and he organised a county militia for the sake of national defence. on the pedestal beneath his statue in cartwright gardens, just south of euston road, in london, the virtues of the "father of reform" are described at length, and he is mentioned as "the firm, consistent and persevering advocate of _universal suffrage_, equal representation, vote by ballot, and annual parliaments." it was in that cartwright published his first pamphlet entitled "legislative rights vindicated," and pleaded for "a return to the ancient and constitutional practice of edward iii." and the election of annual parliaments. long parliaments were the root of all social political evil, cartwright argued. war, national debt, distress, depopulation, land out of cultivation, parliamentary debate itself become a mockery--these calamities were all due to long parliaments; and would be cured if once a year--on june st--a fresh parliament was elected by the votes of every man over eighteen--by ballot and without any plural voting--and a payment of two guineas a day was made to members on their attendance. of course, cartwright could not help writing "all are by nature free, all are by nature equal"--no political reformer in the eighteenth century could do otherwise--but, unlike his contemporaries, the major was a stout christian, and insisted that as the whole plan of christianity was founded on the equality of all mankind, political rights must have the same foundation. by the political axiom that "no man shall be taxed but with his own consent, given either by himself or his own representative in parliament," cartwright may be quoted as one who had some perception of what democracy meant in england; but he is off the track again in arguing that personality, and not the possession of property, was the sole foundation of the right of being represented in parliament. it was the possession of property that brought taxation, and with taxation the right to representation. we cannot repeat too often that in england the progress to democracy has never been made on assumptions of an abstract right to vote. we have come to democracy by experience, and this experience has taught us that people who are taxed insist, sooner or later, on having a voice in the administration of the national exchequer. but we have never admitted "personality" as a title to enfranchisement. [illustration: the gordon riots _from the painting by seymour lucas, r.a._] cartwright followed with the multitude of political writers of his time to deduce a right to vote, and his deduction is as worthless as the rest of the _a priori_ reasoning. but the brave old man--he was tried for "sedition" at the age of eighty in the government panic of --was an entirely disinterested champion of the poor and a real lover of liberty. he believed the affairs of government ought to be a matter of common concern, and that they were quite within the capacities of ordinary men. cartwright's life--much more than his writings--kept the democratic ideal unshaken in the handful of "radical reformers" who survived the tory reaction on the war with the french republic in , and his glowing enthusiasm helped to kindle the fire for political enfranchisement that was burning in the hearts of the manufacturing population by . but in the electorate was not anxious for reform, and the unenfranchised gave no thought to their political disabilities. on the very day in that the duke of richmond proposed, in the house of lords, a resolution in favour of manhood suffrage and annual parliaments, the london mob, stirred up by the anti-catholic fanaticism of lord george gordon, marched to westminster with a petition to repeal savile's act of , which allowed catholics to bequeath land and to educate their own children. there was a riot, and in the course of the next six days the mob burnt newgate, sacked catholic chapels, and generally plundered and ravaged the city. in the house of commons pitt made three attempts to get reform considered--in , and --and on each occasion his resolution was defeated by an overwhelming majority. after that pitt made no further effort for reform, and from to the government he led passed the acts of repressive legislation which made all democratic propaganda illegal, and crushed all political agitation. but "the cause" was not dead. sir francis burdett, m.p. for westminster, henry hunt, better known as "orator hunt," and cobbett with his "political register," in various ways renewed the campaign for manhood suffrage, and the growth of the manufacturing districts made a change in the constitution of parliament imperative. burdett was sent to the tower in for contempt of parliament, but lived to see the reform bill of passed into law, and died a tory. cobbett spent two years in prison, and became m.p. for oldham in . what cobbett did with pen--and no man at that day wrote with greater ability for the common people, or with greater acceptance--hunt did on the platform. both strove to arouse the working class to demand enfranchisement. hunt presided at the mass meeting at peterloo, by manchester, in --an entirely peaceful meeting which was broken up by the military with some loss of life--and was sent to prison for two years for doing so. he also was elected m.p. (for preston) in the first reformed parliament. again the government tried coercion, and after peterloo, for the next few years, intimidation and numerous arrests kept down all outward manifestation of the reform movement. in spite of this, the movement could not be stayed. each year saw political indifference changed to positive desire for enfranchisement, and the british public, which, in the main, had been left untouched by the vision of a democracy and the call for a national convention and a new constitution, became impatient for the reform of parliament and the representation of the manufacturing interest. thomas spence ( - ) the name of spence must be mentioned amongst those who preached the democratic idea at the close of the eighteenth century. a newcastle schoolmaster, spence, in , expounded his "plan" for land nationalisation on the following lines:-- "the land, with all that appertains to it, is in every parish made the property of the corporation or parish, with as ample power to let, repair, or alter all or any part thereof, as a lord of the manor enjoys over his lands, houses, etc.; but the power of alienating the least morsel, in any manner, from the parish, either at this or any time thereafter, is denied. for it is solemnly agreed to, by the whole nation, that a parish that shall either sell or give away any part of its landed property shall be looked upon with as much horror and detestation as if they had sold all their children to be slaves, or massacred them with their own hands. thus are there no more or other landlords in the whole country than the parishes, and each of them is sovereign lord of its territories. "then you may behold the rent which the people have paid into the parish treasuries employed by each parish in paying the parliament or national congress at any time grants; in maintaining and relieving its own poor people out of work; in paying the necessary officers their salaries; in building, repairing, and adorning its houses, bridges, and other structures; in making and maintaining convenient and delightful streets, highways, and passages both for foot and carriages; in making and maintaining canals and other conveniences for trade and navigation; in planting and taking in waste grounds; in providing and keeping up a magazine of ammunition and all sorts of arms sufficient for all the inhabitants in case of danger from enemies; in premiums for the encouragement of agriculture, or anything else thought worthy of encouragement; and, in a word, doing whatever the people think proper, and not as formerly, to support and spread luxury, pride, and all manner of vice." no taxes of any kind were to be paid by native or foreigner "but the aforesaid rent, which every person pays to the parish according to the quantity, quality, and conveniences of the land, housing, etc., which he occupies in it. the government, poor, roads, etc., are all maintained by the parishes with the rent, on which account all wares, manufactures, allowable trade employments, or actions are entirely duty free." the "plan" ends with the usual confidence of the idealist reformer of the time in the speedy triumph of right, and in the world-wide acceptance of what seemed to its author so eminently reasonable a proposal. "what makes this prospect yet more glowing is that after this empire of right and reason is thus established it will stand for ever. force and corruption attempting its downfall shall equally be baffled, and all other nations, struck with wonder and admiration at its happiness and stability, shall follow the example; and thus the whole earth shall at last be happy, and live like brethren." the american war and the french revolution hindered the consideration of spence's "empire of right and reason," but, in the course of nearly forty years' advocacy of land nationalisation, spence gathered round him a band of disciples in london, and the spenceans were a recognised body of reformers in the early part of the nineteenth century. the attacks on private property in land, and the revolutionary proposals for giving the landlords notice to quit, brought down the wrath of the government on spence, and he was constantly being arrested, fined and imprisoned for "seditious libel," while his bookshop in holborn was as frequently ransacked by the authorities. spence died in , and the movement for abolishing the landlords in favour of common ownership languished and stopped. the interesting thing about spence's "plan" is its anticipation of henry george's propaganda for a single tax on land values, and the extinction of all other methods of raising national revenue, a propaganda that, in a modified form for the taxation of land values, has already earned the approval of the house of commons. practical politics and democratic ideals because we insist on the experimental character of our british political progress, and the steady refusal to accept speculative ideas and _a priori_ deductions in politics, it does not follow that the services of the idealist are to be unrecognised. the work of the idealist, whether he is a writer or a man of action--and sometimes, as in the case of mazzini, he is both--is to stir the souls of men and shake them out of sluggish torpor, or rouse them from gross absorption in personal gain, and from dull, self-satisfied complacency. he is the prophet, the agitator, the pioneer, and after him follow the responsible statesmen, who rarely see far ahead or venture on new paths. once or twice in the world's history the practical statesman is an idealist, as abraham lincoln was, but the combination of qualities is unusual. the political idealist gets his vision in solitary places, the democratic statesman gets his experience of men by rubbing shoulders with the crowd. a democratic nation must have its seers and prophets, lest it forget its high calling to press forward, and so sink in the slough of contented ease. the preacher of ideals is the architect of a nation's hopes and desires, and the fulfilment of these hopes and desires will depend on the wisdom of its political builders--the practical politicians. often enough the structural alterations are so extensive that the architect does not recognise his plan; and that is probably as it should be; for it is quite likely that the architect left out of account so simple a matter as the staircase in his house beautiful, and the builder is bound to adapt the plan to ordinary human needs. the idealist has a faith in the future of his cause that exceeds the average faith, and in his sure confidence fails to understand why his neighbours will not follow at his call, or move more rapidly; and so he fails as a practical leader. here the work of the statesman and politician comes in. they are nearer to the mass of people, they hold their authority by election of the people, and they understand that the rate of speed must be slow. under the guidance of their political leaders, the people are willing to move. sometimes the idealist is frankly revolutionary, is for beginning anew in politics, and starting society all over again. if the state of things is bad enough, he may get into power, as he did in france at the revolution, and for a time the world will stagger at his doings. but there is no beginning _de novo_ in politics, and the revolutions wrought by men who would give the world an entirely fresh start (to be distinguished from mere changes of dynasty, such as our english revolution was) have their sandy foundations washed away by the floods of reaction. there is no such absolute escape from the past for men or nations, and we can only build our new social and political order on the foundations of experience. but we may not be moved to build at all but for the prophet and the agitator, and therefore the instinct that makes governments slay or imprison the political agitator and suppress the writings of political prophets can be understood. for the existence of every government is threatened by prophets and agitators, and in self-defence it resists innovation. a healthy democracy will allow too many opportunities for popular expression to fear innovation; yet even under a democracy the prophets have been stoned--their sepulchres to be subsequently erected by public subscription and handsomely decorated. democracy owes too much to its prophets in the past not to rejoice at their presence in its midst. but it will prudently leave the direction of its public affairs to men who, less gifted it may be in finding new paths, are more experienced in making the roads that others have discovered fit for the heavy tread of multitudes. * * * * * chapter vii parliamentary reform and the enfranchisement of the people the industrial revolution the industrial revolution of the eighteenth century changed the face of england and brought to the manufacturing class wealth and prominence. the population of lancashire was not more than , in , the west riding of yorkshire about , , and the total population of england , , . the inventions of arkwright, hargreaves, crompton, watt, and cartwright revolutionised the cotton trade in the last twenty years of the eighteenth century, and increased enormously the production of woollen goods. england ceased to be mainly a nation of farmers and merchants; domestic manufacture gave way to the factory system; the labouring people, unable to make a living in the country, gathered into the towns. the long series of enclosure acts-- - --turned seven million acres of common land into private property, and with this change in agrarian conditions and the growth of population england ceased to be a corn-exporting country, and became dependent on foreign nations for its food supply. while these industrial and agrarian changes meant a striking increase in wealth and population, they were accompanied by untold misery to the common people. "instead of the small master working in his own home with his one or two apprentices and journeymen, the rich capitalist-employer with his army of factory hands grew up. many of these masters were rough, illiterate and hard, though shrewd and far-seeing in business. the workmen were forced to work for long hours in dark, dirty and unwholesome workshops. the state did nothing to protect them; the masters only thought of their profits; the national conscience was dead, and unjust laws prevented them combining together in trade unions to help themselves. women and children were made to work as long and as hard as the men. a regular system grew up of transporting pauper and destitute children to weary factory work. there was no care for their health. there were few churches and chapels, though the methodists often did something to prevent the people from falling back into heathendom. the workmen were ignorant, brutal, poor and oppressed. there were no schools and plenty of public houses. in hard times distress was widespread, and the workmen naturally listened to agitators and fanatics, or took to violent means of avenging their wrongs, for they had no constitutional means of redress. even the masters had no votes, as the new towns sent no members to parliament. the transfer of the balance of population and wealth from the south and east to the north and midlands made parliamentary reform necessary."[ ] with this transfer of the balance of economic power came a good deal of rivalry between the manufacturers and the landed gentry, the latter becoming more and more tory, the former more and more radical. as all political power, in the main, was in the landowner's hands, men anxious to take part in politics eagerly bought up the small estates, and the old yeoman class disappeared, except in out-of-the-way places. these yeomen and small landowners had been the backbone of the parliamentary party in the days of the stuarts, but they were left hopelessly behind in an age of mechanical inventions and agrarian changes, and were in most cases glad to sell out and invest their property in other ways. the story of the misery of rural depopulation in the first half of the sixteenth century repeats itself at the close of the eighteenth. "a single farmer held as one farm the lands that once formed fourteen farms, bringing up respectably fourteen families. the capitalist farmer came in like the capitalist employer. his gangs of poor and ignorant labourers were the counterpart of the swarm of factory hands. the business of farming was worked more scientifically, with better tools and greater success; but after the middle of the eighteenth century the condition of the agricultural labourer got no better, and now the great mass of the rural population were mere labourers.... pauperism became more and more a pressing evil, especially after , when _gilbert's act_ abolished the workhouse test (which compelled all who received relief from the rates to go into the half-imprisonment of a poor-house), and the system of poor law doles in aid of wages was encouraged by the high prices at the end of the century. in one-seventh of the people was in receipt of poor law relief."[ ] but with all the considerable distress, in town and country alike amongst the working people, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, swift progress was taking place in agriculture and in manufactures. only, the accumulated wealth fell into fewer hands, and the fluctuations in the demand for goods, caused partly by the opening up of new markets, brought successions of good times and bad times. "the workmen shared but partially in the prosperity, and were the first to bear the brunt of hard times."[ ] the need for parliamentary reform the point for us to note here is that the changed economic conditions made parliamentary reform a necessity, and brought the question of popular enfranchisement within sight. it was useless for burke to maintain the incomparable beauty of the british constitution; english politicians might be indifferent to political theories of democracy, and heartily dislike any notion of radical change, but the abuses were too obvious to prevent reform. whatever the size of the county it returned two members elected by freeholders, and the cost of a county election was enormous. some of the boroughs, especially in cornwall, were tiny villages. eighteen members were returned from such boroughs in that part of cornwall which now returns one member for the liskeard division. the fields of old sarum belonged to seven electors and returned two members. as there was no habitation whatever in this "borough" of old sarum, a tent was put up for the convenience of the returning officer at election times. no general law decided the borough franchise. local custom and various political and personal considerations settled who should vote for members of parliament. places like westminster and preston had practically manhood suffrage. in most of the "corporation boroughs" the franchise was restricted exclusively to freemen of the borough, and to the self-elected non-resident persons who composed the governing body before the municipal corporation act of . a small number of rich and powerful men really worked nearly all the elections. seats were openly bought and sold, and a candidate had either to find a patron who would provide him with a seat, or, failing a patron, to purchase a seat himself. fox first entered parliament for the pocket borough of midhurst, and sir george trevelyan has described how it took place. midhurst was selected by the father of charles james fox as "the most comfortable of constituencies from the point of view of a representative; for the right of election rested in a few small holdings, on which no human being resided, distinguished among the pastures and the stubble that surrounded them by a large stone set up on end in the middle of each portion. these burbage tenures, as they were called, had all been bought up by a single proprietor, viscount montagu, who when an election was in prospect, assigned a few of them to his servants, with instructions to nominate the members and then make back the property to their employer. this ceremony was performed in march, , and the steward of the estate, who acted as the returning officer, declared that charles james fox had been duly chosen as one of the burgesses for midhurst, at a time when that young gentleman was still amusing himself in italy." three years earlier burke had entered parliament as a nominee of lord rockingham's. gibbon sat in the house for some years under patronage. gladstone first became a member by presentation to a pocket borough, and later spoke in praise of this method of bringing young men of promise into parliament. john wilson croker estimated that of six hundred and fifty-eight members of the house of commons at the end of the eighteenth century, two hundred and seventy-six were returned by patrons. men of more independence of mind who could afford to buy seats did so, and many of the reformers--including burdett, romilly and hume--thus sat in the house. manufacturing centres unrepresented in parliament it was not so much that the landowning aristocracy were over-represented in parliament by their control of so many pocket boroughs, as that great manufacturing centres were entirely unrepresented. the middle-class manufacturers had no means of making their influence felt in the unreformed house of commons, for towns of such importance as leeds, manchester and birmingham sent no representatives to parliament. this meant that parliament was out of touch with all the industrial life of the nation, and that nothing was done till after the reform act in the way of serious industrial legislation. constituencies with hardly any voters at all returned members constituencies with less than voters in each returned " constituencies with less than voters in each returned " constituencies with less than voters in each returned " male electors in other constituencies returned " the reform act of changed all this. it disfranchised all boroughs with less than , inhabitants--fifty-six in all; allowed one member only to boroughs with between , and , ; gave representatives to manchester, birmingham, leeds, and to several other large manufacturing towns and london boroughs; extended the county franchise to leaseholders and £ tenants at will; and settled the borough franchise on a uniform qualification of occupation in a house of £ rateable value. it also fixed two days, instead of fifteen, as the limit for county elections, and one day for boroughs. the passage of the great reform bill the reform bill was not carried without much rioting in the country, and some loss of life. the duke of wellington was at the head of the tory ministry in ; and though he declared in face of an opposition that was headed by the whig aristocrats, and included the middle-class manufacturers and the great bulk of the working class in the industrial districts of lancashire, yorkshire and the midlands, that "no better system (of parliamentary representation) could be devised by the wit of man" than the unreformed house of commons, and that he would never bring forward a reform measure himself, and should always feel it his duty to resist such measure when proposed by others, yet, in less than two years after this speech wellington's resistance had ended, and the reform bill was carried into law. what happened in those two years was this: at the general election in the summer of , the popular cry was "the bill, the whole bill, and nothing but the bill." "the whole countless multitude of reformers had laid hold of the principle that the most secure and the shortest way of obtaining what they wanted was to obtain representation. the non-electors felt themselves called upon to put forth such power as they had as a means to obtaining the power which they claimed." and the non-electors were enormously successful. for they "combined their will, their knowledge, and their manifest force in political unions, whence they sent forth will, knowledge, and influence over wide districts of the land. and the electors, seeing the importance of the crisis--the unspeakable importance that it should be well conducted--joined these unions." the reformers carried the day at the elections, and the new house of commons passed the second reading of the bill on july th, by : - . on september st the third reading passed by to . then on the th of october the house of lords threw out the bill by to , and at once fierce riots broke out all over the country, in especial at derby, nottingham, and bristol. at derby the jail was stormed. at nottingham the castle was burned, and of nine men subsequently convicted of riot, three were hanged. at bristol, the jail, the mansion house, the customs house, the excise office, and the bishop's palace were burned, and twelve lives were lost in three days. the new session opened in december, and again the bill was introduced, and this time the second reading had a majority of : - . the house of lords hesitated when the bill came up to them at the end of march, ; allowed the second reading to pass by to , and then in committee struck out those clauses which disfranchised the "rotten" boroughs--uninhabited constituencies like old sarum. grey, the whig prime minister, at once resigned, and the duke of wellington endeavoured to form a tory anti-reform ministry. but the task was beyond him, the temper of the country was impatient of any further postponement of the bill. petitions poured in urging parliament to vote no supplies, and resolutions were passed refusing to pay taxes till the bill became law. on wellington's failure to make a government, william iv. had to recall grey, and the whigs resumed office with an assurance that, if necessary, the king would create sufficient peers favourable to reform, so that the bill should pass. the battle was over, the anti-reformers retired, and on june th, , the reform bill passed the lords by to , receiving the royal assent three days later. the whigs protested that the reform bill was _a final measure_, and sir francis burdett, the veteran reformer, was content to vote with the tories when the act had become law. but there is no finality in politics, and the reform bill was only the removal of a barrier on the road to democracy. the tories described the bill as revolutionary, but as a matter of fact the act of neither fulfilled the hopes of its friends nor the fears of its foes. what the act did was to transfer the balance of power from the landed aristocracy, which had been in the main predominant since , to the richer members of the middle class--the big farmers in the country, the prosperous shopkeepers in the towns. the working class was still voteless, and the old democratic franchise of preston and westminster was gone from those boroughs. the first reformed parliament met early in , and the change in the character of the house of commons was seen at once. government accepted responsibility for legislation in a way that had never been known before. the new poor law, , and the new municipal corporations act, , were the beginning of our present system of local government. slavery was abolished in all british colonies in . greville, in his memoirs, gives us an impression of the new regime in parliament as it appeared to one who belonged to the old dethroned aristocracy. "the first thing that strikes one is its inferiority to preceding houses of commons, and the presumption, impertinence, and self-sufficiency of the new members.... there exists no _party_ but that of the government; the irish act in a body under o'connell to the number of about forty; the radicals are scattered up and down without a leader, numerous, restless, turbulent, bold, and active; the tories, without a head, frightened, angry, and sulky." the working class still unrepresented but the working classes were the really disappointed people in the country. they had worked for the reformers, and their energies--and their violence--had been the driving force that had carried the bill into law. if their expectations were extravagant and their hopes over-heated, the more bitter was their distress at the failure of the reform act to accomplish the social improvements that had been predicted. chartism so the working class in despair of help from the government, decided to get the franchise for themselves, and for twelve years, - , chartism was the great popular movement. the _five points of the people's charter_ were proclaimed in : ( ) universal suffrage; ( ) vote by ballot; ( ) annual parliaments; ( ) abolition of property qualification for members of parliament; ( ) payment of members. a sixth point--equal electoral districts--was left out in the national petition. although the chartist demands were political, it was the social misery of the time that drove men and women into the chartist movement. the wretchedness of their lot--its hopeless outlook, and the horrible housing conditions in the big towns--these things seemed intolerable to the more intelligent of the working people, and thousands flocked to the monster chartist demonstrations, and found comfort in the orations of feargus o'connor, bronterre o'brien, and ernest jones. the charter promised political enfranchisement to the labouring people, and once enfranchised they could work out by legislation their own social salvation. so it seemed in the 'forties--when one in every eleven of the industrial population was a pauper. stephens, a "hot-headed" chartist preacher, put the case as he, a typical agitator of the day, saw it in : "the principle of the people's charter is the right of every man to have his home, his hearth, and his happiness. the question of universal suffrage is, after all, a knife-and-fork question. it means that every workman has a right to have a good hat and coat, a good roof, a good dinner, no more work than will keep him in health, and as much wages as will keep him in plenty."[ ] the lot of the labourer and the artisan was found to be worse than it was in the earlier years of the nineteenth century, before the great reform act had been passed.[ ] and while the anti-corn law league, the socialist propaganda of robert owen, and the agitation for factory legislation, all promised help and attracted large numbers of workmen, the chartist movement was by far the strongest and most revolutionary of all the post-reform popular agitations. chartism went to pieces because the leaders could not work together, and were, in fact, greatly divided as to the methods and objects of the movement. by bronterre o'brien had retired from the chartist ranks, feargus o'connor was m.p. for nottingham--to be led away from the house of commons hopelessly insane, to die in --and ernest jones could only say when the chartist convention broke up in hopeless disagreement, "amid the desertion of friends, and the invasion of enemies, the fusee has been trampled out, and elements of our energy are scattered to the winds of heaven." in spite of its failure, chartism kept alive for many years the desire for political enfranchisement in the labouring classes. that desire never died out. although palmerston, the "tory chief of a radical cabinet"--so disraeli accurately enough described him--was prime minister from to (with one short interval), and during that period gave no encouragement to political reform, the opinion in the country grew steadily in favour of working-class enfranchisement. palmerston's very inactivity drove liberals and the younger conservatives to look to the working classes for support for the measures that were planned. the middle class was satisfied that the artisans could be admitted to the franchise without danger to the constitution. palmerston's death in left the liberal party to earl russell's premiership, with gladstone as its leader in the commons. reform was now inevitable. the bill as first introduced in was a moderate measure, making a £ rental the qualification for a vote in the boroughs. it was too moderate to provoke any enthusiasm, and it was hateful to the old palmerstonian whigs and most of the conservatives, who objected to any enfranchisement of the working class. by a combination of these opponents the bill was defeated, the liberals retired from office, and a conservative ministry under lord derby, with disraeli leading the house of commons, was formed. the hyde park railings ( ) it was seen quickly that there was a very real demand for the enfranchisement of the town workman--the agricultural districts remained unawakened--and reform leagues and reform unions sprang up as they had done in . then in london came the incident of the hyde park railings, which gave a distinct impetus to the reform movement. what happened at hyde park was this: the london reform union decided to hold a monster demonstration in hyde park on july rd, but the chief commissioner of police had declared the meeting must not take place, and ordered the gates to be closed at five o'clock. mr. edmund beales, and other leaders of the london reform union, on being refused admittance, drove away calmly to hold a meeting in trafalgar square, but the great mass of people remained outside the park, "pressed and pressing round the railings." some were clinging to the railings; others deliberately weakened the supports of the railings. park lane was thronged, and all along the bayswater road there was a dense crowd. the line was too long for the police to defend, and presently, when the railings yielded to the pressure, the people poured in to the park. "there was a simultaneous, impulsive rush, and some yards of railing were down, and men in scores were tumbling and floundering and rushing over them. the example was followed along park lane, and in a moment half a mile of iron railings was lying on the grass, and a tumultuous and delighted mob was swarming over the park. the news ran wildly through the town. some thought it a revolt; others were of opinion it was a revolution. the first day of liberty was proclaimed here--the breaking loose of anarchy was shrieked at there. the mob capered and jumped over the sward for half the night through. flower beds and shrubs suffered a good deal, not so much from wanton destruction, as from the pure boisterousness which came of an unexpected opportunity for horseplay. there were a good many little encounters with the police; stones were thrown on the one side, and truncheons used on the other pretty freely. a few heads were broken on both sides, and a few prisoners were made by the police; but there was no revolution, no revolt, no serious riot even."[ ] the guards were called out, and a detachment arrived at the park, but the people only cheered the soldiers good-humouredly. not even a blank cartridge was fired that day. the government, however, took the hyde park disturbance with extreme seriousness. "nothing can well be more certain than the fact that the hyde park riot, as it was called, convinced her majesty's ministers of the necessity of an immediate adoption of the reform principle."[ ] disraeli, who in had proposed reform without getting any support, now saw that a great opportunity had come for a constructive conservative policy, and boldly insisted to his party that parliamentary reform was a necessity. "you cannot establish a party of mere resistance to change, for change is inevitable in a progressive country," he told his followers. all through the autumn and winter great demonstrations took place in the large towns and cities of the country in support of the demand for the enfranchisement of the workman, and when parliament met in february, , a reform bill was promised in the queen's speech. to lord derby the measure was frankly a "leap in the dark," and one or two conservative ministers (including cranborne, afterwards lord salisbury) left the government in disgust. but the conservatives generally chuckled at "dishing the whigs," and the bill, with considerable revision, was passed through both houses of parliament by august. household suffrage by the reform bill of all male householders in boroughs were enfranchised, and all male lodgers who paid £ a year for unfurnished rooms. the town workman was enfranchised by this act as the middle-class man had been enfranchised by the act of , and the electorate was increased from about , to , , . an amendment that women should not be excluded from the franchise was moved by john stuart mill, and defeated. some redistribution of seats took place under the act of , eleven boroughs were disfranchised, thirty-five with less than , inhabitants were made single-member constituencies, and additional representation was given to chelsea, hackney, leeds, liverpool, manchester, salford, glasgow, birmingham, dundee, and merthyr. "thus was _household suffrage_ brought in in the boroughs, and a great step was made towards democracy, for it was plain that the middle-class county constituencies could not last very much longer now that all workmen who happened to live in boroughs had their votes."[ ] the third reform act, giving household suffrage to the country districts, was passed by gladstone in , and it was followed by a redistribution of seats act in . by these two acts the agricultural labourer was enfranchised, a service franchise was created for those who were qualified neither as householders nor lodgers, and the principle of single-member equal electoral districts--on a basis of , inhabitants--was adopted. only twenty-three boroughs, the city of london and the universities of oxford, cambridge, and dublin, retained double-member representation. the membership of the house of commons was increased from six hundred and fifty-eight to six hundred and seventy, the present total; and the franchise remains as it was fixed in --occupation and ownership giving the right to vote. from time to time, for more than a hundred years, a plea has been put forward for universal or adult suffrage for men on the ground of an abstract right to vote, but it has met with little encouragement.[ ] there is, however, a wide feeling in favour of simplifying the registration laws, so that a three-months' residence, instead of, as at present, a year's residence from one july to the next, should be sufficient to qualify for the franchise. there is also a strong demand for "one man, one vote." at present, while no elector may give more than one vote in any constituency, he may, if he has property in various places, give a vote in each of these districts, and some men thus give as many as a dozen votes at a general election. this plural voting by property and residential qualifications in different constituencies is not customary in other constitutional countries, and a bill for its abolition passed the house of commons in , but was rejected by the lords. while liberals urge "one man, one vote" as the more democratic arrangement, conservatives reply by asking for "one vote, one value"--that is, a new redistribution of seats, for in the last twenty-five years there have been deep and extensive changes in the distribution of populations, and ireland in particular is over-represented, it is maintained. but then the representation of ireland in the house of commons was really guaranteed by the act of union, .[ ] working-class representation in parliament with the extension of the franchise the change in the _personnel_ of the house of commons has become marked. the more wealthy of the middle class entered in considerable numbers after ; the acts of and made the entry of the workman inevitable. the miners were the first to send labour representatives to parliament, and to-day their members outnumber those of any other trade. since industrial constituencies, chiefly in yorkshire, lancashire, south wales, and the mining districts, have gone on steadily electing and re-electing working-class representatives--trade union secretaries and officers for the most part--and with the formation of a national labour representation committee in , these representatives became a separate and distinct party--the labour party after --in the house of commons. enfranchisement to secure representation for the redress of grievances has been the principle that has guided the english people towards democracy. both the middle class and the working class were convinced that enfranchisement was necessary if the house of commons was to be in any real sense a representative assembly, and both have used enfranchisement for obtaining representation in parliament. the return of forty labour members at recent general elections is evidence that a large electorate supports the labour party in its desire to carry in parliament legislation that will make life a better thing for the labourer and his family; and in the house of commons the labour members have won a general respect. as a matter of fact, the house of commons to-day is in every way a more orderly, a more intelligent, more business-like, and better-mannered assembly than it was in the days before . no stronger evidence of the value of parliamentary representation to the working-class can be offered than the large output of what may be called labour legislation in recent years. it is true that lord shaftesbury's benevolent and entirely disinterested activities promoted factory acts in the first half of the nineteenth century, but in the last twenty years measures for the amelioration of the lot of the workman have been constantly before parliament. removal of religious disabilities--catholics, jews, and freethinkers the nineteenth century was not only the century of popular enfranchisement; it was the century that saw the removal of religious disabilities, and the free admission to parliament and to the government of roman catholics, nonconformists, jews, and freethinkers. in the year roman catholics in england were excluded from parliament, from the franchise, from the magistracy, the bar, the civil service, from municipal corporations, and from commissions in the army and navy. pitt was willing to abolish these disabilities on the passing of the act of union, and the irish people were bitterly disappointed that the disabilities remained. but george iii. refused all assent to the proposals, and pitt resigned. several times the house of commons passed catholic relief bills, which were thrown out by the lords, and it was not till , when "the english ministry had to choose between concession and civil war," that peel and the duke of wellington yielded and persuaded their party to admit catholics to parliament and to the civil and military services. the repeal of the penal laws against roman catholics--acts of elizabeth that inflicted penalties on priests who said mass in england, and on roman catholics who attended mass--took place in , and in the parliamentary oath was amended and made unobjectionable to roman catholics. a roman catholic is still excluded by law from the crown, the lord chancellorship, and the lord lieutenancy of ireland, but many roman catholics are members of parliament--members of all parties--and the late lord ripon, a catholic, sat in a liberal cabinet. in rothschild was elected as a liberal m.p. for the city of london, but the law did not permit him to take his seat. then for some years jewish m.p.'s were allowed to take part in debates and sit on committees, but were not allowed to vote. finally, in , the lords, after rejecting the measure for ten years, passed the jews' disabilities bill, which removed all restriction. the right hon. herbert samuel, m.p., is the first jew to sit in the cabinet, for though disraeli was of the jewish race, he was a christian in belief. although in various acts on the statute book required nonconformists to subscribe to the religion of the church of england before taking part in municipal affairs, these acts had long been a dead letter. all that was done in the nineteenth century was to repeal these acts, and to throw open the universities and public offices to nonconformists. it is only, however, in recent years that nonconformists have filled posts of high importance in the cabinet. the last attempt at restriction on the religious beliefs of members of parliament was made in the house of commons itself, when charles bradlaugh, after being duly elected m.p. for northampton, was by the action of the house excluded from his seat. bradlaugh was a frank disbeliever in christianity, and the house of commons refused to allow him either to take the oath or make an affirmation. for five years ( - ) the struggle lasted--a liberal government being in power all the time--and three times during that period the electors of northampton triumphantly returned charles bradlaugh as their member, only to be answered by resolutions of refusal and expulsion passed by the house of commons against their representative. it was a repetition of the battle wilkes had fought one hundred and twenty years earlier, and it ended in the same way. a new parliament assembled in january, (after a general election in november), the new speaker (mr. peel) permitted bradlaugh to take the oath in the usual way, declined to allow any interference, and the battle was over. two years later a general affirmation bill was carried on the motion of bradlaugh, and became law. when charles bradlaugh lay dying in january, , the house of commons passed, without dissent, a resolution expunging from the journals of the house the old resolutions of exclusion. the enfranchisement of women the nineteenth century then will always be noted as the era of steady advance towards democracy, especially in england. enfranchisement of the workman, and his representation in parliament, have transferred the government of the country from an aristocracy to the middle class and the working class, for to-day, alike in parliament and in the permanent civil service, men of the middle class predominate, assisted by those who served apprenticeship in mine or workshop. the removal of religious disabilities has ended the old rule that confined the business of the legislature and the administration of justice to members of the established church of england, and roman catholics, jews, nonconformists, and freethinkers now take their share in all public work. one disability only remains--the sex disability that denies the parliamentary franchise to women. in the middle ages women were excused from parliamentary attendance, but there was no notion that their powers and privileges as landowners were shortened because, on account of their sex, they were granted exemption from parliament and from juries. in a test case--chorlton _v._ lings--was brought, and the judges decided that women householders were not to be registered as electors, and it was left to parliament to pass a women's enfranchisement bill. from the time of john stuart mill's advocacy in there have always been supporters of women's suffrage in the house of commons, and in the last five years these supporters have been growing in numbers. only the refusal of the government to give time for the discussion of the bill in committee has prevented a woman's enfranchisement measure, which on several occasions has received a second reading, from passing the house of commons; and the announcement by the present ( ) government that full facilities for such discussion are to be granted next year ( ) would indicate that the removal of political sex disabilities is close at hand. women are not asking for adult suffrage, but are willing to receive enfranchisement on the terms that qualify men as electors, and the conciliation bill, as it is called--because members of every political party have agreed to make it their bill--would place on the roll of electors rather more than a million of women voters. meantime, while waiting for the removal of the anti-democratic barrier that excludes them from full political citizenship, women are admitted in the united kingdom to an equal share with men in all local government. since women who are householders have enjoyed the municipal franchise, and as poor law guardians and members of school boards, they have been freely elected to sit side by side with men. in women were declared eligible by parliament for membership on county and borough councils, and for the chairmanship of county councils and the mayoralty of boroughs. since this act was passed we have seen women elected to the councils of great cities--manchester and liverpool, for instance--and chosen as mayors in several towns. no political movement in recent years has been of greater public interest or importance than the agitation for "votes for women." the demand for enfranchisement is based on the old constitutional ground of the parliamentarians of the seventeenth century--that those who are directly taxed by government must have some political control of the public expenditure--and it is supported by the present leader of the conservative party[ ] on the ground that government can only be carried on in england by consent of the governed. the demand for the parliamentary franchise is with us the expression of that deep dissatisfaction at the unequal relations of the sexes that is felt by many men, and by far more women, all over the civilised world. as the middle-class man and the workmen of great britain were sure that they could not get from parliament an understanding of popular grievances, still less fair treatment, until they possessed the right to choose their own parliamentary representatives, so women are convinced that there can be no adequate adjustment of these unequal relations until they too enjoy the same privilege of citizenship; for enfranchisement and representation are the two chosen instruments of democratic government in our day. * * * * * chapter viii democracy at work local government to-day in great britain, in america, in the self-governing colonies, and in many european countries, we can sec the principles of democracy in working order. the whole system of local government in great britain and ireland is essentially democratic. the municipal councils of all the large cities are elected on household suffrage, and have enormous powers. there is now no sex disability to prevent the election of women to these bodies, and, except in the case of the clergy of the established church, who are disqualified from sitting on town councils (but not on county or district councils), all ratepayers are eligible for nomination. the result is that on nearly every city council, and on a great number of county councils, london borough councils, urban and rural district councils, boards of guardians, and parish councils, there are working-class representatives, while women members have been elected to the great councils of liverpool and manchester, and sit on many boards of guardians and parish councils. all these councils are of recent creation. the municipal corporations act of placed the election of town councils for the first time in the hands of the ratepayers, but the real reform of local government dates from . in that year the conservative government established county and district councils and lord rosebery became the first chairman of the london county council. six years later the liberals set up parish councils in the rural districts, with parish meetings where the population did not exceed three hundred. in the conservatives displaced the old london vestries by borough councils, and in - abolished in england the school boards created in , and made the county council the local authority for public elementary education. scotland was allowed to retain its school boards, and strong but unsuccessful opposition was made in london and the chief cities to the suppression of the specially elected education authority. [illustration: the right hon. john burns, m.p. _photo: moyse, putney._] as far as rural england is concerned, county councils, district councils, and parish councils are, generally speaking, very reluctant to put into operation the wide powers they possess. the average county council, though popularly elected, is composed in agricultural england of landowners and the bigger farmers, who, as a common rule, do not favour a land programme for labourers, and are anxious to keep down the rates. the rural district council and board of guardians are equally averse from any display of public enterprise, and the parish council, which often consists mainly of labourers, rarely accomplishes anything except at the prompting, or with the sanction, of the parochial landowner. the result is that allotments, rural housing, village baths and washhouses, an adequate water supply, public halls and libraries, are not regarded as the concern of rural elected authorities, but are left to the private enterprise of landowners. civic pride, which glories in the public proprietorship of lands and libraries, tramways and lodging-houses, waterworks and workmen's dwellings, art galleries and swimming baths, and is a living influence in the municipalities of, let us say, london, glasgow, liverpool, leeds, bradford, manchester, birmingham, west ham, and many a smaller borough, does not exist in rural councils. to the farmer and the peasant public ownership is a new and alien thing. the common lands and all the old village communal life have gone out of the memory of rural england; but the feudal tradition that the landowner is the real centre of authority has survived, and it is the benevolent landowner who is expected to build cottages, grant allotments, and see to the water supply, as fifty years ago he built and managed the village school. political organisation could break through this tradition, but farmers and agricultural labourers are without this organisation; and so the authority of the landowner remains, in spite of the democratic constitution of local government. the people can allow their power to remain in the hands of others, just as a king can be content to reign without ruling, and the local government of rural england is an oligarchy elected by a popular franchise. in the factory towns and the mining districts it is a very different matter. here the people are organised, and take their share in local government. in the county of durham, for instance, the working class predominates on local councils, and the influence of trade unions prevails in these assemblies wherever a strong labour party exists. mr. joseph chamberlain began his public career on the birmingham town council, and his municipal services earned for him the enthusiastic support of birmingham for all his later political ventures. it would be difficult to mention the name of a great statesman who laid the foundations of his fame in rural local government. as in local government, so in the imperial parliament. rural england sends no labour member to the house of commons. only in very exceptional cases has a tenant farmer been elected. it is the social labour of the mine and the mill that has produced the labour member of parliament. mr. joseph arch made a valiant attempt to organise the agricultural labourers of england, and from to a rural labourers' union, with some thousands of members, was in existence. for a time this secured a rise in wages, and when mr. arch was in parliament, as a liberal m.p. ( - ), the rural labourer hoped for lasting improvement in the conditions of life. but the union fell to pieces, and mr. arch was not strong enough single-handed to force the claims of his constituents on the house of commons. the workman in the house of commons to-day there are more than forty workmen in the house of commons, and the great majority of these have served an apprenticeship in municipal and trade union offices. northumberland, durham, yorkshire, lancashire, stafford, south wales, glasgow, dundee, leicester, norwich and london, all have their elected labour members in parliament, and a marked preference is shown for the man who has proved his honesty and capacity in the municipality, or as the leader of his trade union. all the miners' representatives are tried and experienced men. mr. g.n. barnes, m.p., was for ten years the general secretary of the amalgamated society of engineers. mr. clynes, m.p., was elected to the office of district secretary of the gas workers' and general labourers' union twenty years ago; mr. will thorne, m.p., has been general secretary of the same union since , and has sat on the west ham corporation for more than sixteen years. mr. george lansbury, m.p., and mr. will crooks, m.p., are well known for their work on the london county council and on their local borough council and board of guardians. similarly with other labour members of parliament. their lives are marked by a sense of public responsibility, with the result that in the house of commons they are grave, business-like, and undemonstrative. the labour members do not make "scenes"; they respect the rules of the house and the dignity of the national assembly, partly because they are all in sober middle age, but more because they have learnt that public business can only be carried on by due observance of order; and they are in parliament to get business done for their constituents, to promote legislation that will make life easier for the working class. when mr. victor grayson, in the exuberance of youth, and with a passion that blazed out against the misery of the poor, made a "scene" in the house of commons, and was expelled, the labour members were quite sincere in their disapproval. they understood, with a wider knowledge than mr. grayson possessed, that "scenes" alienated sympathy in the house, were not helpful in debate, and were not popular with the electors. the member who would succeed in the house of commons must respect the usages of the house, and show himself loyal to its laws of debate. as long as this respect and loyalty are shown the labour member is accepted by his fellow-members as one who has been elected to the greatest club in the world, and is justly entitled to all the privileges of membership. for the british house of commons is a democratic assembly, and in its collective pride it cares nothing for the opinions or social rank of its members. all it asks is that the newly-elected member should be alive to the honour of membership, should be modest in his bearing, and should as soon as possible "catch the tone of the house." he may be a labourer, or the son of a belted earl; the house is indifferent so long as his parliamentary manners are good. the house of commons is a far more orderly assembly than it was a hundred years ago; it is more sober and less noisy, and the arrival of labour members has increased rather than diminished its good behaviour. it is also a far more industrious assembly, and the influence of the labour party compels an amount of legislation that honourable members would have thought impossible fifty years ago. working-class leaders in parliament three representative working-class leaders in the house of commons stand out pre-eminently in contemporary politics--the right hon. john burns, mr. j. keir hardie, and mr. j. ramsay macdonald. the right hon. d. lloyd george is conspicuous rather as the representative of the industrious nonconformist middle class, but the success of his career is no less significant of the advance of democracy. the very cabinet is now no longer an aristocratic committee, and the highest offices of executive government are held by men who are neither wealthy nor of distinguished family. two working-class leaders of an earlier generation--the right hon. t. burt, m.p., and mr. h. broadhurst--held office as under-secretaries in the liberal government of - ; but mr. john burns is the first trade unionist to sit in the cabinet. he, too, might have been an under-secretary in the days of that short-lived ministry, but decided, with characteristic vigour, that if he was fit to be an under-secretary he was fit for the cabinet. at the close of the opportunity came, and the offer of sir h. campbell-bannerman to preside over the local government board was promptly accepted. the workman first took his place in the cabinet when mr. john burns, at the age of forty-seven, went to the local government board--to the complete satisfaction of mr. burns. for the robust egoism of mr. burns is largely a class pride. his invincible belief in himself is part of an equally invincible belief in the working class. his ambitions thrive on the conviction that whatever mr. john burns does, that the working class does in the person of their representative. always does he identify himself with the mechanics and labourers with whom his earlier years were spent, and by whose support he has risen to office. the more honours for mr. john burns, the more does it seem to this stalwart optimist that the working class is honoured. he arrays himself in court dress at the palaces of kings, receives honorary degrees at universities, and is kept before the public by the newspaper paragraphist, without wincing or pretending to dislike it. why should the workman not be esteemed by kings and universities? mr. burns asks. so great is his self-respect that the respect of others is taken as a matter of course. much of the criticism that has been directed against mr. john burns misses the mark, because it does not recognise that the motive power at work all the time in his career is the triumph of his class. it is the triumph of a member of the amalgamated society of engineers, of a london workman, that mr. john burns beholds with unconcealed pleasure in his own success. there are drawbacks, of course, to this complete self-satisfaction. since the workman has triumphed in the person of mr. john burns, the working class would do well to follow his example, and heed his advice on all matters affecting its welfare, mr. burns argues. the failures of working-class life and the misery of the poor are due to the lack of those virtues that he possesses, he is apt to maintain. hence mr. burns is hated as a pharisee in certain quarters when he extols self-reliance and total abstinence as essential to working-class prosperity, and points to gambling and strong drink as the root of all evil in the state. it is sometimes urged that mr. burns over-praises his own merits; but the fault is really in the opposite direction; he does not appreciate sufficiently that the gifts he possesses--the gifts he has used so fully and so freely--are exceptional. these gifts are a powerful physique, a great voice, a tremendous energy, and a love of literature; and they are not the common equipment of the skilled mechanic and the labourer. true, they are often wasted and destroyed when they do exist; and in the case of mr. burns a strongly disciplined will has made them abundantly fruitful. but from the first the physique, the voice, and the untiring energy were far above those that fall to the lot of the average workman; and the love of books stored the mind with rich supplies of language to be drawn upon when speeches were to be made. not as an administrator at the local government board has mr. burns become famous. his fame as a champion of the working class was established by popular ovations in hyde park and at dock gates. battersea has been won and held by the speeches of its member. it is not the mighty voice alone, silencing interruption often enough by sheer volume of sound, but the plainly pointed epigram, the ready jest and the quick repartee that endear mr. john burns' speeches to the multitude. his sayings and phrases are quoted. his wit is the wit of the londoner--the wit that dickens knew and studied, the wit of the older cabmen and 'bus drivers, the wit of the street boy. it is racy, it is understood, and the illustrations are always concrete and massive, never vague or unsubstantial. apt shakespearian quotations, familiar and unfamiliar, embellish the speeches. personality, vital personality, counts for so much in the orator of the market place. the speaker must be alive to his audience, he must convince by his presence no less than by his arguments. and mr. burns is so obviously alive. he warms the shrunken, anæmic vitality of followers, and overpowers the protests of enemies by sheer force of character. mr. john burns is at his real vocation when addressing a great multitude. his energy finds an outlet in speech on those occasions, an outlet it can never find in the necessary routine of office administration. he was made for a life of action, and when once, in youth, he had thrown himself into the active study of political and industrial questions, every opportunity was seized for stating the results of that study. as a social democratic candidate for parliament, mr. burns polled votes at west nottingham in . in he was charged (with messrs. hyndman, champion, and williams) with seditious conspiracy--after an unemployed riot in the west end--and acquitted. in he suffered six weeks imprisonment (with mr. r.b. cunninghame graham) for contesting the right of free speech in trafalgar square. in came the great london dock strike, and, with messrs. mann and tillett, mr. burns was a chief leader of the dockers. battersea returned him to the london county council in and to the house of commons in . the liberal party promised a wider sphere of work than the socialists could offer; political isolation was a barren business; and mr. burns gradually passed from the councils of the trade union movement to the treasury bench of a liberal ministry. but the socialist convictions of early manhood had a lasting influence on their owner. these convictions have been mellowed by work; responsibility has checked and placed under subjection the old revolutionary ardour; experience finds the road to a co-operative commonwealth by no means a quick or easy route, and admits the necessity of compromise. but there is still a consciousness of the working class as a class in the speeches of mr. burns; and there is still the belief expressed that the working class must work out their own salvation, and that it is better the people should have the power to manage their own national and municipal affairs, and the wisdom to use that power aright, rather than that a benevolent bureaucracy should manage things for them. mr. john burns is an older man by twenty-five years than he was in the stormy days of the trafalgar square riots, and he is now a privy councillor and cabinet minister, but his character is little changed. his speeches on the settlement of the great dock strike of august, , are the speeches of the man of . parliamentary life made sharper changes in the minds of gladstone and mr. joseph chamberlain than it has made in the mind of the right hon. john burns. but mr. burns never admits that he possesses health and vigour beyond the average. a working class leader of vastly different qualities is mr. j. keir hardie, m.p. he, too, no less significant of democracy, stands as the representative of his class, claims always to be identified with it, to be accepted as its spokesman. a lanarkshire miner and active trade unionist, mr. hardie has striven to create a working-class party in politics independent of liberals and conservatives; to him, more than to any other man, the existence of the independent labour party and the parliamentary labour party--the latter consisting of the independent labour party and the trade unions--may justly be said to be due. the political independence of an organised working class has been the one great idea of mr. hardie's public life. not by any means his only idea, for mr. hardie has been the ever-ready supporter of all democratic causes and the faithful advocate of social reforms; but the _great_ idea, the political pearl of great price, for which, if necessary, all else must be sacrificed. only by this independence can democracy be achieved, and a more equal state of society be accomplished--so mr. hardie has preached to the working people for the last twenty-five years at public meetings and trade union congresses, travelling the length and breadth of great britain in his mission. there is something of the poet in mr. keir hardie but much more of the prophet, and withal a good deal of shrewd political common sense. where mr. john burns wants, humanly, the approval and goodwill of his friends and neighbours for his work, mr. keir hardie is content with the assurance of his own conscience; and in times of difficulty he chooses rather to walk alone, communing with his own heart, than to seek the consolations of social intercourse. mr. burns is a citizen of london, a lover of its streets, at home in all its noise, a reveller in its festivities. mr. hardie belongs to his native land; he is happier on the hills of lanarkshire than in the parliament of westminster; solitude has no terrors for him. both men entered the house in . personal integrity, blameless private life, and a doggedness that will not acknowledge defeat, have had much to do with the success that both have won. for if mr. hardie remains a private member of the house of commons while mr. burns is a cabinet minister, mr. hardie has lived to see an independent labour party of forty members in parliament, and has himself been its accredited leader. again, exceptional gifts may be noted. an eloquence of speech, a rugged sincerity that carries conviction, a love of nature and of literature--all these things, controlled and tempered by will and refined by use, have won for mr. hardie a high regard and an affection for the cause he champions. for years mr. hardie was misrepresented in the press, abused by political opponents and misunderstood by many of the working class. from to he was out of parliament, rejected by the working-class electorate of south west ham. but nothing turned mr. hardie from his policy of independence, or shook his faith in the belief that only by forming a political party of their own could the working people establish a social democracy. merthyr tydvil re-elected him to the house of commons in at the very time when he was braving a strong public opinion by denouncing the south african war; and for merthyr mr. hardie will sit as long as he is in parliament. it may safely be said that mr. hardie will never take office in a liberal ministry. the sturdy republicanism that keeps him from court functions and from the dinner parties of the rich and the great, and the strong conviction that labour members do well to retain simple habits of life, are not qualities that impel men to join governments. visionary as he is--and no less a visionary because he has seen some fulfilment of his hopes--so indifferent to public opinion that many have exclaimed at his indiscretions, with a religious temperament that makes him treat his political work as a solemn calling of god and gives prophetic fire to his public utterances, mr. keir hardie may remain a private member of parliament; but he also remains an outstanding figure in democratic politics, conspicuous in an age that has seen the working class rising cautiously to power. mr. hardie's influence with the politically minded of the working class has contributed in no small degree to the changes that are now at work. the ideal of a working class, educated and organised, taking up the reins of government and using its power in sober righteousness, has been preached by mr. hardie with a fervour that commands respect. he has made an appeal that has moved the hearts of men and women by its religious note, and hence it is very considerably from the ranks of nonconformists with puritan traditions that the independent labour party has been recruited. mr. hardie is now fifty-five years of age. he has never been afraid of making mistakes, and he has never sought the applause of men. he has succeeded in arousing large numbers of people from a passive allegiance to the party governments of liberals and conservatives, and constrained them to march under a labour banner at political contests. whether the labour party in parliament will remain a separate organisation or will steadily become merged in the liberal party, forming perhaps a definite left wing of that party: whether a sufficiently large number of voters will ever be found to make the labour party anything more than a group in parliament: and whether the independent labour movement is not passing as robert owen's socialist movement and as the chartist movement passed away in the middle of the nineteenth century, are questions that are yet to be answered. democracy will go its own way in spite of the prophets. in any case, the work of mr. keir hardie has been fruitful and valuable. for it has made for a quickened intelligence, and a more exalted view of human life amongst the working people; and it has increased the sense of personal and civic responsibility. it has made for civilisation, in fact, and it has insisted on the importance of things that democracy can only forget to its own destruction. the third distinguished working-class leader in parliament is mr. j. ramsay macdonald, the elected leader of the labour party, and its secretary since its formation. mr. ramsay macdonald is for the working class, but, though born of labouring people, and educated in a scotch board school, has long ceased to be of them. never a workman, and never associated with the workman's trade union, mr. macdonald went from school teaching to journalism and to a political private secretaryship, and so settled down quickly into the habits and customs of the ruling middle class. marriage united him still more closely with the middle class, and strengthened his position by removing all fear of poverty, and providing opportunities for travel. from the first mr. macdonald's political life has been directed clearly to one end--the assumption of power to be used for the social improvement of the people. and this ambition has carried him far, and may carry him farther. with the industry and persistence that are common to his race, mr. macdonald has taken every means available to educate himself on all political questions; with the result that he is accepted to-day as one of the best informed members of the house of commons. he taught himself to speak, and his speeches are appreciated. he taught himself to write, and his articles on political questions have long been welcome in the monthly reviews, and his books on socialism are widely read. twenty years ago the liberal party promised no political career to earnest men like mr. macdonald, men anxious for social reform. the future seemed to be with the socialists, and with the independent labour party. when the liberal downfall came in , it was thought that the fortunes of liberalism were ended. native prudence has restrained mr. ramsay macdonald from pioneering, but once the independent labour party, of mr. keir hardie's desire, was set going, and promised an effectual means for political work, mr. macdonald joined it, and did well to do so. as an ordinary liberal or radical member of parliament, mr. ramsay macdonald would never have had the opportunities the labour party has given him. he only entered the house of commons in --at the age of forty--and already as leader of the labour party he is a distinguished parliamentary figure, of whose future great things are foretold. mr. macdonald has studied politics as other people study art or science. he has trained himself to become a statesman as men and women train themselves to become painters and musicians. he has learnt the rules of the game, marked the way of failure and the road to success, and his career may be pondered as an example to the young. no generous outburst of wrath disfigures mr. macdonald's speeches, no rash utterance is ever to be apologised for, no hasty impulse to be regretted. in the labour movement mr. macdonald won success over older men by an indefatigable industry, a marked aptitude for politics, and by an obvious prosperity. other things being equal, it is inevitable that in politics, as in commerce, the needy, impecunious man will be rejected in favour of the man with an assured balance at the bank, and the man of regular habits preferred before a gifted but uncertain genius. the socialist and labour movements of our time have claimed the services of many gifted men and women, and the annals of these movements are full of heroic self-sacrifice. but an aptitude for politics was not a distinguishing mark of socialists, and therefore mr. macdonald's experience and abilities gave him at once a prominent place in the council of the independent labour party, and soon made him the controlling power in that organisation. with the formation of the national labour party a very much wider realm was to be conquered, and mr. macdonald has been as successful here as in the earlier independent labour party. but now the labour party having made mr. macdonald its chairman, it can do no more for him. he is but forty-five years old, his health is good, his talents are recognised; by his aversion from everything eccentric or explosive, the public have understood that he is trustworthy. we may expect to see mr. ramsay macdonald a cabinet minister in a liberal-labour government. it may even happen that he will become prime minister in such a government. he is a "safe" man, without taint of fanaticism. his sincerity for the improvement of the lot of the poor does not compel him to extravagant speech on the subject, and his imagination is sufficient to exclude dullness of view. he has proved that the application of socialist principles does not require any violent disturbance of the existing order, and is compatible with social respectability and political authority. a public opinion that would revolt against the notion of an ex-workman becoming prime minister would not be outraged in any way by mr. macdonald holding that office. mr. burns and mr. hardie have remained in their own and in the public eye representatives of the working class, all education notwithstanding. mr. macdonald has long cut himself off from the labouring class of his boyhood. he has adapted himself easily and naturally to the life and manners of the wealthier professional classes, and he moves without constraint in the social world of high politics, as one born to the business. no recognition of the workman is possible in mr. ramsay macdonald's case, and this fact is greatly in his favour with the multitudes who still hold that england should be ruled by "gentlemen." the right hon. d. lloyd george is a striking figure in our new democracy, and his character and position are to be noted. it was not as a labour representative but as the chosen mouthpiece of the working middle class, enthusiastic for welsh nationalism, that mr. lloyd george entered parliament in , at the age of twenty-seven. with his entry into the cabinet, in company with mr. john burns, at the liberal revival in , government by aristocracy was ended; and when mr. lloyd george went from the board of trade to the chancellorship of the exchequer, startling changes were predicted in national finance. these predictions were held to have been fulfilled in the budget of . the house of lords considered the financial proposals of the budget so revolutionary that it took the unprecedented course of rejecting the bill, and thus precipitated the dispute between the two houses of parliament, which was brought to a satisfactory end by the parliament act of . romantic and idealist from the first, and with unconcealed ambition and considerable courage, mr. lloyd george, with the strong backing of his welsh compatriots, fought his way into the front rank of the liberal party during the ten years ( - ) of opposition. more than once mr. george pitted himself against mr. joseph chamberlain in the days of the conservative ascendancy and the south african war, and his powers as a parliamentary debater won general acknowledgment. in youth mr. lloyd george, full of the fervour of mazzini's democratic teaching, dreamed of wales as a nation, a republic, with himself, perhaps, as its first president. welsh nationalism could not breed a home rule party as irish nationalism has done, and mr. lloyd george has found greater scope for his talents in the liberal party. the welsh "question" has dwindled into a campaign for the disestablishment of the church in wales, a warfare of dissenters and churchmen, and to mr. lloyd george there were bigger issues at stake than the position of the welsh church. [illustration: the right hon. d. lloyd george, m.p. _photo: reginald haines, southampton row, w.c._] already mr. lloyd george's budget and his speeches in support of the budget have made the name of the chancellor of the exchequer familiar to the people of great britain; and now, in the eager discussion on his bill for national insurance, that name is still more loudly spoken. hated by opponents and praised by admirers, denounced and extolled, mr. lloyd george enjoys the tumult he arouses. his passionate speeches for the poor provoke the sympathy of the working class; his denunciations of the rich stir the anger of all who fear social revolution. hostile critics deny any constructive statesmanship in mr. lloyd george's plans and orations, and prophesy a short-lived tenure of office. radical supporters hail him as a saviour of society, and are confident that under his leadership democracy will enter the promised land of peace and prosperity for all. neutral minds doubt whether mr. lloyd george is sufficiently well-balanced for the responsibilities of high office, and express misgivings lest the era of social reform be inaugurated too rapidly. the obvious danger of a fall always confronts ambition in politics, but the danger is only obvious to the onlooker. pressing forward the legislative measures he has set his heart upon, and impatient to carry out the policy that seems to him of first importance to the state, mr. lloyd george pays little heed to the criticism of friends or foes. a supreme self-confidence carries him along, and the spur of ambition is constantly pricking. political co-operation is difficult for such a man, and an indifference to reforms that are not of his initiation, and a willingness to wreck legislation that cannot bear his name, are a weakness in mr. lloyd george that may easily produce a fall. only a very strong man can afford to say that a reform shall be carried in his way, or not at all, in cheerful disregard of the wishes of colleagues and followers. mr. lloyd george's attitude on the question of women's suffrage is characteristic. professing a strong belief in the justice of women's enfranchisement, he assumes that he can safely oppose all women's suffrage bills that are not of his framing, even when these bills are the work of ardent liberals. he would have the measure postponed until he himself can bring in a reform bill, to the end that the enfranchisement of women may be associated with his name for all time. it is dangerous to the statesman, the ambition that finds satisfaction less in the success of a party or the triumph of a cause, than in the personal victory. dangerous, because it brings with it an isolation from friends and colleagues. these come to stand coldly aloof, and then, if a slip occurs or a mistake is made, and there comes a fall, no hands are stretched out to repair the damage or restore the fallen. the statesman who is suspected of "playing for his own hand" may laugh at the murmurs of discontent amongst his followers while all goes well for him, but when he falls he falls beyond recovery. no one can foretell the end of mr. lloyd george's career, but his popularity with the multitude will not make up to him for the want of support in parliament should an error of judgment undo him. the pages of political history are strewn with the stories of high careers wrecked in a feverish haste for fame, that overlooked dangers close at hand; of eminent politicians broken in the full course of active life by the mere forgetfulness of the existence of other persons. a simple miscalculation of forces, and from lofty station a minister tumbles into the void. the stability of the working-class leaders makes their future a matter of fairly safe conjecture. mr. lloyd george, romantic in temperament, covetous of honour, confident of popularity, but heedless of good-will alienated and of positive ill-will created, has reached the chancellorship of the exchequer. will he climb still higher in office, or will he pass to the limbo peopled by those who were and are not? time alone can tell. but in this year of grace mr. lloyd george, incarnation of the hard-working middle class, is a very distinct personality in the government of the country, and his presence in the cabinet a fact in the history of democracy. the present position of the house of lords more than once since the house of lords has come into conflict with the house of commons when a liberal government has been in power. a compromise was effected between the two houses over the disestablishment of the irish church in , the lords, on the whole, giving way. when the lords proposed to "amend" the army reform bill (for abolishing the purchase of commissions) in , gladstone overpowered their opposition by advising the crown to cancel the royal warrant which made purchase legal, and to issue a new warrant ending the sale of commissions. this device completely worsted the house of lords, for a refusal to pass the bill under the circumstances merely deprived the holders of commissions of the compensation awarded in the bill. the army reform bill became law, but strong objection was taken by many liberals to the sudden exercise of the royal prerogative. in the lords refused to pass the bill for the enfranchisement of the rural labourer unless a bill was brought in at the same time for a redistribution of seats. after some discussion gladstone yielded, the redistribution bill was drawn up, and passed the commons simultaneously with the franchise bill in the lords. several bills have been rejected or "amended" by the lords since the liberals came into power in , and the crisis came when the budget was rejected in . in june, , the following resolution was passed by the house of commons by to votes: "that in order to give effect to the will of the people, as expressed by their elected representatives, it is necessary that the power of the other house to alter or reject bills passed by this house should be so restricted by law as to secure that within the limits of a single parliament the final decision of the commons shall prevail." this resolution was embodied in the parliament bill of . between and came ( ) the rejection of the budget, november, ; ( ) the general election of january, , and the return of a majority of (liberal, labour, and irish nationalist) in support of the government; ( ) the passing of resolutions (majority, ) for limiting the veto of the lords; ( ) the failure of a joint conference between leading liberals and conservatives on the veto question, followed by ( ) the general election of december, , and the return of the liberals with a united majority of . the parliament bill declared that every money bill sent up by the commons, if not passed unamended by the lords within a month, should receive the royal assent and become an act of parliament notwithstanding, and that every bill sent up for three successive sessions shall in the third session become an act of parliament without the assent of the lords. the lords passed this bill with amendments which the commons refused to accept, and the parliament bill was returned to the lords in august. but, as in , the prime minister announced that he had received guarantees from the crown that peers should be created to secure the passage of the bill if it was again rejected; and to avoid the making of some three or four hundred liberal peers, lord lansdowne--following the example of the duke of wellington--advised the conservatives in the house of lords to refrain from opposition. the result of this abstention was that the lords' amendments were not persisted in, and the bill passed the lords on august th, , by to votes. by this parliament act the lords' veto is now strictly limited. the lords may reject a bill for two sessions, but if the commons persist, then the bill passes into law, whether the lords approve or disapprove. the real grievance against the house of lords, from the democratic standpoint, has been that its veto was only used when a liberal government was in power. there is not even a pretence by the upper house of revising the measures sent from the commons by a conservative ministry; yet over and over again, and especially in the last five years, liberal measures have been rejected, or "amended" against the will of the commons, by the lords after the electors have returned the liberals to power. the permanent and overwhelming conservative majority in the lords acts on the assumption that a liberal ministry does not represent the will of the people, an assumption at variance with the present theory of democratic government, and in contradiction to the constitutional practice of the crown. the great size of the house of lords makes the difficulty of dealing with this majority so acute. in the creation of forty peerages would have been sufficient to meet the tory opposition to the reform bill; to-day it is said that about four hundred are required to give the liberals a working majority in the lords. the rapid making of peers began under george iii., but from to the present day prime minister after prime minister has added to the membership of the house of lords with generous hand. satire, savage and contemptuous, has been directed against the new peers by critics of various opinions, but still the work of adding to the house of hereditary legislators goes gaily on, and liberal prime ministers have been as active as their tory opponents in adding to the permanent conservative majority in the lords; for only a small minority of liberal peers retain their allegiance to the liberal party. thackeray gave us his view of the making of peers in the years when lord melbourne and his whig successors were steadily adding to the upper house. (between and melbourne made forty-four new peers, and twenty-eight more were added by .) "a man becomes enormously rich, or he jobs successfully in the aid of a minister, or he wins a great battle, or executes a treaty, or is a clever lawyer who makes a multitude of fees and ascends the bench; and the country rewards him for ever with a gold coronet (with more or less balls or leaves) and a title, and a rank as legislator. 'your merits are so great,' says the nation, 'that your children shall be allowed to reign over us, in a manner. it does not in the least matter that your eldest son is a fool; we think your services so remarkable that he shall have the reversion of your honours when death vacates your noble shoes.'" j.h. bernard, in his "theory of the constitution" ( ), was no less emphatic:-- "as the affair is managed now, the peerage, though sometimes bestowed as the reward of merit, on men who have adorned particular professions, is yet much more frequently--nine times out of ten--employed by the minister of the day as his instrument to serve particular views of public policy; and is often given to actual demerit--to men who hire themselves out to do his commands through thick and thin. the peerage is now full of persons who have obtained possession of it by disreputable means." but in spite of satire and hostile criticism members of the house of lords have always enjoyed a considerable social popularity. they are widely esteemed for their titles, even by those who denounce hereditary legislators and desire to abolish the second chamber. disraeli created six new peers in - , and seventeen more from to , in addition to conferring the earldom of beaconsfield on himself. yet disraeli had written in "coningsby" ( ):-- "we owe the english peerage to three sources: the spoliation of the church, the open and flagrant sale of its honours by the elder stuarts, and the borough-mongering of our own times. those are the three main sources of the existing peerage of england, and, in my opinion, disgraceful ones." gladstone made fifty peers in his four premierships, and mr. herbert paul, the liberal historian of "modern england," makes the following comments:-- "no minister since pitt had done so much as mr. gladstone to enlarge and thereby to strengthen the house of lords. "mr. gladstone was lavish in his distribution of peerages, and rich men who were politically active, either in the house of commons or behind the scenes, might hope to be rewarded with safe seats elsewhere." [illustration: the passing of the parliament bill in the house of lords _from the drawing by s. begg._] sir henry campbell-bannerman exceeded all previous records of the last century by making twenty new peers in less than two years-- to --and mr. asquith maintained this vigorous policy by thirteen new creations in the first year of his premiership. already many of these peers, whose titles are not more than six years old, vote with the conservatives. great britain is now the only country in the world that combines a democratic form of government with a second chamber of hereditary legislators, and many proposals are on foot for the reform of the house of lords. while the conservatives are more anxious to change the constitution of the upper house, and to make it a stronger and more representative assembly, the liberals prefer that its power of veto should be abolished. no act of parliament was required to abolish the veto of the crown on acts of parliament, but the growth of a democratic public opinion did not prove strong enough to end the veto of the lords on the bills passed by a liberal majority in the commons, and therefore the parliament act was passed. the popularity of the crown the popularity of the crown has become increasingly wider and more general in the years that have seen the british people steadily taking up the work of self-government. the fear of a hostile demonstration by the inhabitants of london kept william iv. from visiting the mansion house in , and the death of that monarch in evoked no national mourning. queen victoria, unknown to the people on her accession, had the very great advantage of lord melbourne's political advice in the early years of her reign. her marriage, in , with the prince consort--who himself learnt much from melbourne--brought a wise counsellor to the assistance of the throne. "i study the politics of the day with great industry," wrote the prince consort. "i speak quite openly to the ministers on all subjects, and endeavour quietly to be of as much use to victoria as i can." the prince consort saw quickly that "if monarchy was to rise in popularity, it could only be by the sovereign leading a good life, and keeping quite aloof from party." the days of a profligate court and of "the king's friends" in politics were past and gone; the royal _influence_ was to succeed the royal _prerogative_.[ ] the aloofness from political partisanship has been faithfully maintained by the successors of queen victoria, and great as the royal influence may be in the social life of the wealthier classes, it is certain that no such influence operates in the casting of votes by the people at parliamentary elections. no one suspects the king of desiring the return of liberals over tories, or of favouring the tory programme rather than the liberal; and this neutrality is the surest guarantee of the continued popularity of the crown. for some years in the late 'seventies and early 'eighties of the nineteenth century republicanism was the creed of many ardent working-class radicals in england. charles bradlaugh was its chief exponent, and both mr. joseph chamberlain and the late sir charles dilke were regarded as republicans before they entered gladstone's ministry in . the republican movement waned before bradlaugh's death. he himself was "led to feel that agitation for an ideal form of government was less directly fruitful than agitation against the abuses of class privilege; and in the last dozen years of his life, his political work went mainly to reforms within the lines of the constitution."[ ] with the rise of the socialist movement in england in - , and the celebration of the queen's jubilee in , republicanism became utterly moribund, and nothing save an attempt on the part of the sovereign to take a definite side in party politics, or a notorious lapse from the morals required of persons in office of state, could revive it. the interest in socialism was fatal to the republican movement, because it turned the enthusiasm of the active spirits in democratic politics from the desire for radical changes in the _form_ of government, to the crusade for economic changes, and the belief in a coming social revolution. the existence of monarchy seemed a small and comparatively unimportant affair to men and women who were hoping to get poverty abolished, and the landlords and capitalists expropriated either by direct revolution, or by the act of a house of commons, dominated by working men with socialist convictions. the national celebrations at the queen's jubilee in marked the beginning of the popular revival in pageantry and official ceremonial. in the church of england this revival began some forty years earlier, and it has, in our day, changed the whole conduct of public worship. the revival of roman catholicism in england with its processions and solemn ritual has been equally significant. by gratifying the common human instinct for spectacle and drama the monarchy has gained the popular affections. the whigs scoffed at pageants and symbols; the earlier puritans had proscribed ceremonial as savouring of idolatry, and feared any manifestation of beauty as a snare of the devil. in the latter half of the nineteenth century, england began to throw off the shackles of puritanism, and to lose all interest in whiggery. the new democracy was neither coldly deist, nor austerely republican. it has shown no inclination to inaugurate a reign of "pure reason" in religion or politics, but has boldly and cheerfully adopted symbolism and pageantry. friendly societies and trade unions have their badges, banners, and buttons. the roman catholic church grows in popularity with the working class, and in many towns and cities the church of england and the salvation army are distinctly popular. on the other hand, the nonconformist churches confess annually to a decreasing membership, and secularist and ethical societies have but the smallest following. the royal processions and the pageantry of monarchy have provided a spectacular display that average human nature enjoys. the symbols and trappings of monarchy must be shown if the sovereign is to be popular; they add to the gaiety of life, and people are grateful for the warmth of colour they impart to our grey streets. the sovereign in encouraging the renewed and growing love for pageants and ceremonial has discerned the signs of the times. modern democracy does not desire that kings or priests shall rule; but it does require that they shall on state occasions and in the performance of their office, be clad in kingly and priestly robes, and by their proceedings enrich the dignity of public life, and the beauty of public worship. the democratic ideals: socialism and social reform the rise of socialism in the 'eighties not only diverted the attention of working-class leaders from political reform, but it substituted for the destruction of monarchy and the house of lords a reconstruction of society as the goal of democracy; and the socialist teaching has been of enduring and penetrating influence. fifty years earlier in the nineteenth century, robert owen had preached a socialist crusade with strenuous persuasion--but, ignoring politics, he outlived the temporary success of his cause. the utopian socialism of owen flourished and died, as chartism, under different treatment, flourished and died. the "scientific" socialism of karl marx was planned on stronger foundations. it brought a message of hope; it revealed how the change was to be wrought that would "emancipate the workers of the world from the slavery of wage service"; and it insisted that this change was inevitable. on the continent, and more particularly in germany, the social democratic party has gained an enormous working-class support, and every election adds to its strength. in england the social democratic federation--now the social democratic party--was founded in by mr. h.m. hyndman; but in spite of its untiring efforts, it has never won the sympathy of the trade unions, nor the confidence of the working-class electorate. its parliamentary candidatures rarely attract attention, and it is not a force in labour politics. nevertheless, indirectly, the influence of the social democratic party has been very considerable. mr. john burns, and many another labour leader, have passed through its ranks, and a social conscience has been made sensitive to the miseries of the poor, largely by the voices--that will not be silenced--of this comparatively small company. the fabian society also began its work of educating public opinion to socialism in , but, unlike the social democratic federation, it made no proposals for the creation of a socialist party or the organisation of the working class into a separate political party. mainly, its influence can be seen in the increase of statistical knowledge and of state interference in the conditions of life and labour in the working class. the independent labour party was not formed till , and while professing socialism, it has aimed rather at securing the return of labour members to parliament, and to local governing councils than at the conversion of the working class to a dogmatic social democracy. often frankly opportunist and experimental, the independent labour party and its offspring, the labour party in the house of commons, have followed the national custom in politics of attacking and redressing evident evils, and have done this with considerable success. but while the socialists have compelled the attention of all classes to existing social ills, and have made social reform the chief concern of all politicians, the idea of a social democracy steadily recedes from the political vision, and the conscious movement to socialism falters. socialist workmen in parliament or on city councils soon find themselves absorbed in the practical work of legislation or administration, and learn that there is neither leisure nor outlet for revolutionary propaganda. the engrossing character of public work destroys the old inclination to break up the existing order, for the socialist member of parliament, or city councillor interested in his work, has become part of the machinery responsible for the existing order, and without losing his sympathy for the labouring people is content that the amelioration of society shall come, as it now seems to him it must come, by slow and orderly stages and without violence. the very return of so many labour members to parliament and to local councils has damped down the fires of socialism, by placing in positions of authority and responsibility, and thereby withdrawing them from the army of disaffection, the ablest leaders of the working-class movement. the labour member who cannot settle down to legislative or administrative work, but attempts to play the agitator's part in the house of commons or the council chamber, is generally doomed to banishment from official public life, and is allowed to remain an agitator. mr. john burns may be denounced as a renegade by socialist critics, but a working-class electorate returns him to parliament. mr. cunninghame graham and mr. victor grayson may be applauded for their consistency by socialist audiences, but working-class constituencies are loth to return such representatives to the house of commons. as socialism quietly passes out of the vision of the political world, and from a definite inspiration to democracy becomes a dim and remote possibility of the future, social reform takes its place. not only in great britain, but throughout europe, the social reformers or "revisionists" are gaining the mastery over the scientific marxian socialists in democratic politics. in great britain where "practical," or experimental, politics have always prevailed over political theory, the passing of positive socialist dogma is naturally more obvious. social reform is now the cry of liberals and conservatives alike. the old liberal doctrines of _laissez faire_, unrestricted competition, and the personal liberty of the subject are as dead as the stuart doctrine of the divine right of kings. the old liberal hostility to state interference in trade or commerce, and to compulsory social legislation has melted away at the awakened social conscience. it still has its adherents--lord cromer and mr. harold cox repeat the ancient watch-words of victorian liberalism, and they are regarded with a respect mingled with curiosity, as strange survivals of a far-off age--but no popular echo follows their utterances. pensions for the aged, better provision for the sick and the infirm, a more careful attention to the well-being of children, national health, some cure for destitution, and some remedy for unemployment--these are the matters that a liberal government is concerned about to-day. and the conservatives are no less sincere in their willingness to help in these matters. legislative proposals for social reform are treated as non-party questions, and the chief item in the conservative programme, tariff reform, was adopted and is advocated mainly as a social reform, a cure for industrial evils, and the misery of unemployment. socialism proposed the abolition of poverty, and the common ownership and control of the land and the means of production, distribution, and exchange as the solution of economic questions. social reform proposes to mitigate the hardships of life for the multitude, and, while leaving land and capital in private hands, to compel by taxation provision for the wants of the people. its aim is the abolition of destitution by state assistance to voluntary effort, and the gradual raising of the standard of life. it does not propose to remove the cause of poverty. socialism would place the democracy in possession of the means of wealth. social reform requires the state to tax wealth and provide for the people. it promises a living wage, decent housing accommodation, an insurance against unemployment, and security in old age, and leaves the question of national ownership or private ownership to be settled by posterity. land reform and the single tax apart from the ideals of socialism, the democratic ideal of a community owning the full value of its land was presented by henry george, an american economist, in , and his book "progress and poverty," was at once received with enthusiasm by certain reformers in england and america. george visited england in , , and , and his visits resulted in a strong movement for the taxation of land values. this movement has been inspired by an ideal of a democratic community as definite as the socialist ideal, and it has grown steadily in popular favour as the justice of a tax on land values has been recognised. "progress and poverty" is the bible of the land reformers, as marx's "capital" is (or was) the bible of socialists. it is claimed that a tax on land values is the true remedy of social and economic ills, and that democracy can eradicate the root-cause of poverty by such a tax. in this belief the followers of henry george have preached the single tax, as it is called, with unquenchable fervour, and the liberal party has been gradually won over--if not to the single tax, at least to a tax on land values. many conservatives, too, favour the taxation of land values in cities, and all the principal municipalities have petitioned parliament in favour of this method of taxation. but it is the democratic ideals of henry george that have been the life of the movement for the single tax, and but for these ideals the movement would never have become a living influence towards democracy, or inspired a social enthusiasm. the charm about the single tax propaganda is that its ideals of democracy do not discourage the practical politician and the average citizen from supporting what seems a necessary and reasonable proposal. without committing themselves at all to henry george's full scheme for the total abolition of land monopoly by a tax of twenty shillings in the pound on all land values, and without abandoning the common british suspicion of the doctrinaire and the political idealist, the ordinary shopkeeper and householder are quite of opinion that urban values in land can be taxed legitimately for the benefit of the community, and that democracy would do well to decree some moderate tax on land values for the relief of the overtaxed non-landowner. so the taxation of land values is presented by its advocates as a social reform more radical and democratic than all other social reforms, as a reform that in fact would make democracy master of its own land, and the people free from the curse of poverty; and it is accepted by the great mass of working people as a just and useful method of raising revenue for local and imperial needs. socialism, social reform, the single tax--various are the ideals of a democratic people at work at the business of government, and various are the means proposed to establish the democracy in economic freedom. * * * * * chapter ix the world-wide movement: its strength and weakness east and west the movement towards democracy is world-wide to-day, and the political constitutions of the west are desired with fervour in the east. for generations there has been agitation in russia for representative government, and men and women--in countless numbers--have sacrificed wealth, reputation, liberty, and life itself in the cause of political freedom. on the establishment in of the duma, a national chamber of elected members, there was general rejoicing, because it seemed that, at length, autocracy was to give place to representative government. but the hopes of the political reformers were short lived. the duma still exists, but its powers were closely restricted in , and the franchise has been narrowed, to secure an overwhelming preponderance of the wealthy, so that it is altogether misleading to regard it as a popular assembly. in egypt and in india the nationalist movements are directed to self-government, and are led by men who have, in most cases, spent some years at an english university, or have been trained at the english bar. residence in england, and a close study of british politics make the educated indian anxious for political rights in his own country, similar to those that are given to him in great britain. in england the indian has all the political rights of a british subject. he can vote for a member of parliament, he can even be a member of the house of commons. on two occasions in recent years, an indian has been elected to parliament: mr. dadabhai naoroji sat as liberal m.p. for finsbury, - ; sir m.m. bhownagree as a conservative for bethnal green, - . back in his native land, the indian finds that he belongs to a subject race, and that the british garrison will neither admit him to social equality, nor permit him the right of legislation. hence with eyes directed to western forms of government, the indian is discontented with the bureaucracy that rules his land, and disaffected from the imperial power. but so many are the nations in india, and so poverty-stricken is the great multitude of its peasantry that the nationalist movement can touch but the fringe of the population, and the millions of india live patiently and contentedly under the british crown. nevertheless, the national movement grows steadily in numbers and in influence, for it is difficult for those who, politically minded, have once known political freedom, to resign themselves to political subjection. in egypt the nationalist movement is naturally smaller and more concentrated than in india and the racial divisions hinder its unity. egypt is nominally under the suzerainty of turkey, though occupied by great britain, and now that turkey has set up a constitution and a parliament, patriotic egyptian politicians are impatient at the blocking out by the british authorities of every proposal for self-government. as in india, so in egypt: it is the men of education who are responsible for the nationalist movement. and in both countries it is the desire to experiment in representative government, to test the constitutional forms in common use in the west, and to practise the responsibilities of citizenship, that stimulates the movement. the unwillingness of the british government to gratify this desire explains the hostility to british rule in india and egypt. japan received a constitution from the emperor in , and in its diet was formally opened with great national enthusiasm. it is a two-chamber parliament--a council of nobles, and a popularly elected assembly--and only in the last few years have the business men given their attention to it. although the cabinet is influenced by japanese public opinion, it is not directly responsible to the diet, but is the ministry of the mikado. the resolution of the japanese statesmen of forty years ago to make japan a world-power made constitutional government, in their eyes, a necessity for the nation. in europe, norway, sweden, and denmark all possess democratic constitutions, and only the removal of sex disabilities in the latter two is needed to achieve complete adult suffrage. finland established complete democracy nine years ago, and, with equal electoral districts, complete adult suffrage, and the free election of women equally with men to its diet, is a model democratic state. but the liberties of finland are gravely threatened by the russian government, and there is no security for the finns that their excellent self-government will be preserved. in germany, with universal manhood suffrage, the struggle is to make the government responsible to the elected reichstag. the british self-governing colonies show a tendency of democracy to federate. the australian colonies are federated into a commonwealth, and their example has been followed by the south african colonies. new zealand and australia are at one in their franchise, which allows no barrier of sex; but south africa still restricts the vote to males. in australia the working class are in power, and the commonwealth prime minister is a labour representative. there is no willingness to grant political rights to those who are not of european race, either in south africa or in australia; and the universal republic dreamed of by eighteenth century democrats, a republic which should know no racial or "colour" bar, is not in the vision of the modern colonial statesmen of democracy, who are frankly exclusive. only in new zealand does a native race elect its own members to parliament--and four maori m.p.'s are returned. tyranny under democratic forms experience has proved that democratic and republican forms of government are no guarantee that the nation possesses political liberty. mexico, nominally a republic under president diaz, was in reality a military autocracy of the severest kind. the south american republics are merely unstable monarchies, at the mercy of men who can manipulate the political machinery and get control of the army. it is too early yet to decide whether the constitutional form of government set up in turkey in , or the republic created on the abolition of monarchy in portugal in , mark national movements to democracy. in neither country is there evidence that general political freedom has been the goal of the successful revolutionist, or that the people have obtained any considerable measure of political power or civil liberty. ambitious and unscrupulous men can make full use of republican and democratic forms to gain political mastery over their less cunning fellows, and no machinery of government has ever yet been devised that will safeguard the weak and the foolish from the authority of the strong and the capable. those who put their trust in theories of popular sovereignty, and urge the referendum and initiative as the surer instruments of democracy than parliamentary representation, may recall that a popular plebiscite organised by napoleon in conferred on him the consulate for life; that louis napoleon was made president of the french republic in by a popular vote, obtained a new constitution by a plebiscite in , and a year later arranged another plebiscite which declared him hereditary emperor, napoleon iii. france, where naturally rousseau's theories have made the deepest impression, has since the revolution gloried in the right of the "sovereign people" to overthrow the government, and its elected representatives have been alternately at the mercy of dictators and social revolutionists. on the whole, the stability of the british government, rooted in the main on the traditional belief in the representation of the electorate, would seem to make more surely for national progress and wider political liberty than the alternation of revolution and reaction which france has known in the last hundred and twenty years. england has not been without its popular outbursts against what the american poet called "the never-ending audacity of elected persons," but these outbursts are commonly accepted as manifestations of intolerable conditions; and while the outbursts are repressed means are taken by government to amend the conditions. when the government fails to amend things, the house of commons takes the matter up; and if the commons neglect to do so, then the electors make it plain that amendment and reform are necessary by returning men to parliament pledged to change matters, and by rejecting those who have failed to meet the situation. the obvious dangers the dangers that threaten democracy are obvious. universal adult suffrage, short parliaments, proportional representation, equal electoral districts, second ballots--none of these things can insure democracy against corruption. for a government which rests on the will of a people--a will expressed by the election of representatives--is inevitably exposed to all the evils attendant on the unruly wills and affections of the average man. the orator can play upon the feelings of the crowd, and sway multitudes against a better judgment; and he has greater chance of working mischief when a referendum or other direct instrument of democracy is in vogue than he has when government is by elected representatives. for the party system, itself open to plenty of criticism, constantly defeats the orator by the superior power of organisation. hence it frequently happens at parliamentary elections that a candidate whose meetings are enthusiastic and well attended fails lamentably at the poll. his followers are a crowd; they are not a party. they do not know each other, and they have not the confidence that comes of membership in a large society. party government if the orator is a menace to the wise decisions of the people by a referendum, the party organiser and political "boss" can easily be a curse to representative government on party lines. by all manner of unholy devices he can secure votes for his candidate and his party, and he has raised (or lowered) the simple business of getting the people to choose their representative into the art of electioneering. the triumph of political principles by the election of persons to carry out those principles becomes of less importance than the successful working of the party machine, when the boss and the organiser are conspicuous. patronage becomes the method for keeping the party in power, and the promise of rewards and spoils enables an opposition to defeat the government and obtain office. to be outside the party is to lose all chance of sharing in the spoils, and to take an interest in politics means, under these circumstances, to expect some consideration in the distribution of honours. the "spoils system" is notorious in america, but in england it has become practically impossible for a man to take any serious part in politics except by becoming part of the machine. an independent attitude means isolation. to belong to a party--liberal, unionist, or labour--and to criticise its policy, or differ from its leaders, is resented as impertinence. the machine is master of the man. a troublesome and dangerous critic is commonly bought or silenced. he is given office in the government, or rewarded with a legal appointment; perhaps made a peer if his tastes are in that direction. a critic who cannot command a considerable backing among the electorate will probably be driven out of public life. the disinterested activity in politics that puts the commonwealth before party gain is naturally discouraged by the party organisers. yet when public interest in national affairs sinks to the merely sporting instinct of "backing your candidate" at elections as a horse is backed at race meetings, and of "shouting for your party" as men shout for their favourite football team, or sinks still lower to the mercenary speculation of personal gain or loss on election results, then another danger comes in--the indifference of the average honest citizen to all politics, and the cynical disbelief in political honesty. the warnings of john stuart mill against leaving politics to the politicians and against the professional position may be quoted: "representative institutions are of little value, and may be a mere instrument of tyranny or intrigue when the generality of electors are not sufficiently interested in their own government to give their vote; or, if they vote at all, do not bestow their suffrages on public grounds, but sell them for money, or vote at the beck of some one who has control over them, or whom for private reasons they desire to propitiate. popular elections as thus practised, instead of a security against misgovernment, are but an additional wheel in its machinery." mill himself was a striking example of the entirely disinterested politician, who, caring a great deal more for principles than for party, finds little favour with the electors, and less with the party managers, and retires from politics to the relief of his fellows. a general lack of interest in politics can prove fatal to democracy. the party managers, without the fear of the electorate before their eyes, will increase the number of salaried officials and strengthen their position by judicious appointments. nominally, these inspectors and officers will be required for the public service, and the appointments will be justified on patriotic grounds. there will be little criticism in parliament, because the party not in power will be anxious to create similar "jobs" when its own turn comes. besides, as the public pays for these officials, there is no drain on the party funds; and this is a matter of congratulation to party managers, who are always anxious not to spend more than they can help on the political machinery. bureaucracy but the horde of officials and inspectors will change democracy into bureaucracy, and the discovery is sometimes made too late that a land is ruled by permanent officials, and not by elected representatives. the elected representatives may sit and pass laws, but the bureaucracy which administers them will be the real authority. it may be an entirely honest and efficient bureaucracy, as free from political partisanship as our british civil service and police-court magistracy are, but if it is admitted to be outside the jurisdiction of the house of commons, and to be under no obedience to local councils, and if its powers involve a close inquisition into the lives of the people, and include the right to interfere daily with these lives, then bureaucracy and not democracy is the actual government. a host of salaried political workers--agents, organisers, secretaries, etc.--will make popular representative government a mere matter of political rivalry, an affair of "ins and outs," and by this development of the party system will exclude from active politics all who are not loyal to the "machine," and are not strong enough to break it. but a host of public officers--inspectors, clerks, etc.--paid out of the public funds will do more than pervert representative government: they will make it subordinate to the permanent official class; and bureaucracy, once firmly in the saddle, is harder to get rid of than the absolutism of kings, or the rule of an aristocracy. yet a permanent civil service is better in every way in a democracy than a civil service which lives and dies with a political party, and is changed with the cabinet. on the whole, the best thing for democracy is that the paid workers in politics should be as few as possible, and the number of salaried state officials strictly limited. the fewer the paid political workers, the fewer people will be concerned to maintain the efficiency of the political machine, and the more freely will the electorate act in the choice of its representatives. the fewer the salaried officials of state, the less inspection and restriction, and the less encouragement to habits of submission in the people. democracy must depend on a healthy, robust sense of personal responsibility in its citizens, and every increase in the inspectorate tends to diminish this personal responsibility, and to breed a "servile state" that will fall a willing prey to tyranny and bureaucracy. nevertheless, whilst in self-defence democracy will avoid increasing its officials, it will distinguish between officials and employees. it is bound to add to the number of its employees every year, as its municipal and imperial responsibilities grow steadily larger, and these employees, rightly regarded as public servants, cannot threaten to become our masters. working-class ascendancy still one more danger to democracy may be mentioned, and that is the notion that from the working class must necessarily come our best rulers. "rulers are not wise by reason of their number or their poverty, or their reception of a weekly wage instead of a monthly salary or yearly income. it is worse and more unpleasant and more dangerous to be ruled by many fools than by one fool, or a few fools. the tyranny of an ignorant and cowardly mob is a worse tyranny than the tyranny of an ignorant and cowardly clique or individual. "workers are not respectable or to be considered because they work more with their hands or feet than with their brains, but because the work they do is good. if it is not good work they do, they are as unprofitable as any other wasters. a plumber is not a useful or admirable creature because he plumbs (if he plumbs ignorantly or dishonestly, he is often either a manslayer or a murderer), but because he plumbs well, and saves the community from danger and damp, disease, and fire and water. makers of useless machine-made ornaments are, however 'horny-handed,' really 'anti-social persons,' baneful to the community as far as their bad work goes; more baneful, possibly, than the consumers of these bad articles, quite as baneful as the _entrepreneurs_ who employ them. "the only good institutions are those that do good work; the only good work done is that which produces good results, whether they be direct, as the plough-man's, or navvy's, or sailor's; or indirect, as the policeman, or the schoolmaster, or the teacher of good art, or the writer of books that are worth reading. a man is no better or wiser than others by reason of his position or lack of position, but by reason of his stronger body, wiser head, better skill, greater endurance, keener courage."[ ] there it is. democracy needs for its counsellors, legislators and ministers, strength, wisdom, skill, endurance and courage, and must get these qualities in whomsoever they are to be found. democracy can afford the widest range of choice in the election of popular representatives, or it will never reach its full stature. in the choice of its representatives, a democracy will do well to elect those who know the life of the working people, and who share its toils; just as it will do well to shun the mere talker, and to seek out for itself candidates for election rather than have candidates thrust upon its attention by some caucus in london. but the main thing is that it should first discern men and women of ability and of character and then elect them for its representatives, rejecting those, it may be of more dazzling qualities, who are unstable in mind and consumed with vanity. it would be well if the elected representative were always an inhabitant of the county or the borough, known to his neighbours, and of tested worth. true, the prophet is often without honour in his own country, and a constituency acts wisely in electing a representative of national repute. but to search for a man of wealth who will subsidise every club and charitable institution in the constituency, and to rejoice when such a candidate is procured from some political headquarters, is a wretched proceeding in a democratic state. the member who buys a constituency by his gifts will always feel entitled to sell his constituents should occasion arise. again, the delegate theory of representation can be a danger to democracy. a parliamentary representative is something better than a mechanical contrivance for registering the opinions of electors on certain subjects. otherwise all parliamentary debate is a mockery. a representative he is of the majority of electors, but he must act freely and with initiative. often enough he may be constrained to vote, not as many of his constituents would prefer, but using his own judgment. of course when the choice is between obedience to the party whip and the wishes of his constituents, and personal conviction is with the latter, then at all costs the decision should be to stand by his constituents, or popular representation is a delusion. to-day the pressure is far greater from the party whips than from the constituents, especially when in so many cases election expenses are paid, in part at least, from the party funds. and to overcome this constant danger to popular representation a sure plan would be the payment of all necessary election expenses out of the local rates, and the prohibition by law of all payments by the candidate or by political associations. when members are paid for their attendance in parliament, far better would it be, too, if such payment were made by the constituents in each case, and not from the national exchequer.[ ] worse than the delegate theory is the opinion that a representative of the people is in parliament chiefly to keep his party in power. political parties are inevitable, and they are effective and convenient when principles divide people. but popular representation is older than a party system of government, and when it becomes utterly subordinate to the welfare of parties it is time for a democratic people to realise the possible loss of their instrument of liberty. great britain is not partial to groups, it has always broadly been divided politically into two camps, but a few men of strong independent judgment are invaluable in a popular assembly. there need be no fear lest governments totter and fall at the presence of men who dare to take a line of their own, and to speak out boldly on occasion. the bulk of members of parliament will always cleave to their party, as the bulk of electors do, and the dread of being thought singular is a potent influence on the average man, in or out of parliament. democracy is in danger of losing the counsel of its best men when it insists that its representatives must be merely delegates of the electors, without minds or wills of their own; but it is in greater danger if it allows its representatives to be nothing but the tools of the party in power or in opposition. for when parliamentary representation is confined to those who are willing to be the mechanical implements of party leaders and managers, the house of commons becomes an assembly of place-hunters and self-seekers, for whom the profession of politics affords the gratification of vanity or enrichment at the public expense. in such an assembly the self-respecting man with a laudable willingness to serve the state is conspicuous by his absence. with a press in the hands of party politicians, and with editors and journalists engaged to write up their party through thick and thin, and to write down every honest effort at political independence of mind, the danger of losing from all political service the few rare minds that can ill be spared is a very real and present danger. on behalf of democracy "the price of liberty is eternal vigilance," and often enough we sleep at our vigils. but when all the dangers and difficulties that beset democracy are enumerated, and all its weak spots are laid bare, we can still hold democracy to be the only suitable form of government for persons possessing free will, and the representation of the people the most satisfactory expression of democracy. government by autocrat, by despotism, benevolent or otherwise, by expert officials, or by an oligarchy of superior intelligences is irksome to the average man or woman of reasonable education, and in each case has been intolerable to the british people. they have all been tried and found wanting--royal absolutism, aristocracy, military dictatorship, and only of late have we been threatened by an expert bureaucracy. parliamentary representation adapted, by the removal of disabilities of creed and rank and income, to meet the demands of the nation, has been proved by experience a clumsy but useful weapon for checking oppression. nowadays, we are using it less for defence against oppression, or as an instrument for removing political grievances, and are testing its worth for the provision of positive social reform. more and more it is required of parliament that means be found for getting rid of the ills around us, for preventing disease and destitution, for promoting health and decency. and just because legislation is, at the prompting of a social conscience, invading our homes and workshops, penetrating into prisons, workhouses, and hospitals, touching the lives of all of us from the cradle to the grave, the more imperative is it that our legislators should be chosen freely by the widest electorate of men and women. we fall back on the old maxim: "that which touches all shall be approved by all," and can perceive no other way of obtaining that general approbation for the laws than by the popular election of our representatives. demagogues may exploit the popular will, the cunning and unscrupulous in power may have us at their mercy, in our folly and indifference the nation may be brought to grave losses; but still there is always the means of recovery for the well-disposed while the vote remains in their hands. so it is that, in spite of obvious failings and shortcomings, democracy by representative government remains for nations throughout the world that have not yet tried it the goal of their political striving. we are alive to the imperfections of democracy. it is no automatic machine for conferring benefits in return for taxes. it is the creation of mankind, not a revelation from heaven; and it needs, like all good human things, constant attention and can bear many improvements. it has to be adjusted from time to time to suit the growing capacities of mankind--as the popular assembly gave way to the representative assembly--and only on the failure to make the adjustment does it get rusty and out of order. it has to meet the requirements of vast empires and mighty confederations of states, and to fulfil the wants of small republics and parish councils. what but democracy can answer to the call for political liberty that sounds from so many lands and in so many varying tongues? did any other form of government devised by the wit of man make such universal appeal? and when all is said and done--what does this democracy, this government by popular representatives, mean, but government by the consent of the governed--the only form of government tolerable to civilised mankind in the twentieth century? given a fairly good standard of common honesty in the ordinary dealings of life, and the honesty of our public life, whether in parliament or in the civil service, in executive or administration, will serve. if the private and commercial life is corroded with dishonesty, then democracy will be bitten by knaves and rascals. for our chosen rulers have a way of faithfully reflecting the morality of their electors, and are not free to indulge their fancies, as kings of old were. politics are not, and never will be, or ought to be, the chief interest and concern of the mass of people in a healthy community where slavery is extinct. and democracy makes no demand that would involve such interest and concern. the choice of honest representatives, persons of goodwill, and reasonable intelligence, is no tremendous task in a community where honesty, goodwill, and intelligence prevail. and if these things do not prevail, if honesty is contemned in business, and goodwill between man and man despised, and intelligence frowned upon, then it is of small importance what the government of such a nation is, for that nation is doomed, and it is well for the world that it should be doomed. but, on the whole, it seems indisputable that the common people of the great nations do cleave to honesty and goodwill, and that the desire for intelligence is being widely fostered. as long, then, as we can count on honesty, goodwill, and intelligence in our streets and market-places, as we can to-day, mankind does well to elect its representatives to council and parliament and proclaim democracy--"government of the people, by the people, for the people"--as the proper government for mankind. * * * * * notes. [ ] we cannot be sure about the constitution of the witenagemot. the evidence is conflicting, and, at best, we can only offer a statement of opinion. [ ] "the parish was the community of the township organised for church purposes and subject to church discipline, with a constitution which recognised the rights of the whole body as an aggregate, and the right of every adult member, _whether man or woman_, to a voice in self-government, but at the same time kept the self-governing community under a system of inspection and restraint by a central authority outside the parish boundaries."--bishop hobhouse, _somerset record society_, vol. iv. "the community had its own assembly--the parish meeting--which was a deliberative assembly. it had its own officers, who might be either men or women, duly elected, sometimes for a year, sometimes for life, but in all cases subject to being dismissed for flagrant offences. the larger number of these officials had well-defined duties to discharge, and were paid for their services out of funds provided by the parishioners."--dr. jessopp, _before the great pillage_. [ ] radmer, _life of anselm_. (rolls series.) [ ] "the boldness of anselm's attitude not only broke the tradition of ecclesiastical servitude, but infused through the nation at large a new spirit of independence."--j.r. green, _history of the english people_. [ ] "for as long as any one in all the land was said to hold any power except through him, even in the things of god, it seemed to him that the royal dignity was diminished."--eadmer, _life of anselm_. [ ] see palgrave's _history of normandy and england_. [ ] "a martyr he clearly was, not merely to the privileges of the church or to the rights of the see of canterbury, but to the general cause of law and order as opposed to violence."--freeman, _historical essays_. [ ] _see_ campbell's _lives of the chancellors_. [ ] f. york powell, _england to _. "ecclesiastical privileges were not so exclusively priestly privileges as we sometimes fancy. they sheltered not only ordained ministers, but all ecclesiastical officers of every kind; the church courts also claimed jurisdiction in the causes of widows and orphans. in short, the privileges for which thomas contended transferred a large part of the people, and that the most helpless part, from the bloody grasp of the king's courts to the milder jurisdiction of the bishop."--freeman, _historical essays_. [ ] walter of coventry. (rolls series.) [ ] roger of wendover. (rolls series.) [ ] "clause by clause the rights of the commons are provided for as well as the rights of the nobles; the interest of the freeholder is everywhere coupled with that of the barons and knights; the stock of the merchant and the wainage of the villein are preserved from undue severity of amercement as well as the settled estate of the earldom or barony. the knight is protected against the compulsory exaction of his services, and the horse and cart of the freeman against the irregular requisition even of the sheriff."--stubbs, _constitutional history_. [ ] "quod anglicana ecclesia libera sit."--_magna charta_, i. [ ] "this most important provision may be regarded as a summing-up of the history of parliament so far as it can be said yet to exist. it probably contains nothing which had not been for a long time in theory a part of the constitution: the kings had long consulted their council on taxation; that council consisted of the elements that are here specified. but the right had never yet been stated in so clear a form, and the statement thus made seems to have startled even the barons.... it was for the attainment of this right that the struggles of the reign of henry iii. were carried on; and the realisation of the claim was deferred until the reign of his successor. in these clauses the nation had now obtained a comparatively clear definition of the right on which their future political power was to be based."--stubbs, _constitutional history_. [ ] "ut quod omnes similiter tangit ab omnibus approbetur." [ ] stubbs, _constitutional history_. [ ] stubbs, _ibid_. [ ] "analogous examples may be taken from the practice of the ecclesiastical assemblies, in which the representative theory is introduced shortly before it finds its way into parliament."--stubbs, _constitutional history_. [ ] stubbs, _constitutional history_. [ ] stubbs, _constitutional history_. [ ] f. york powell, _england to _. [ ] sir courtenay ilbert, _parliament_. [ ] ilbert, _parliament_. [ ] bagehot, _the english constitution_. [ ] bagehot, _ibid_. [ ] stubbs, _constitutional history_. [ ] stubbs, _constitutional history_. [ ] andrew marvell, the poet, who sat for hull in the reign of charles ii., was paid by the mayor and aldermen of the borough. in return marvell wrote letters describing passing events in london. there are stray cases of the payment of members in the early years of the eighteenth century. four shillings a day, including the journey to and from london, for the knight of the shire, and two shillings a day for the borough member were the wages fixed by law in . [ ] stubbs, _constitutional history_. [ ] bagehot, _the english constitution_. [ ] _see_ stopes' _british freewomen_ for a full examination of this matter. [ ] stubbs, _constitutional history_. [ ] for the last fifty years the political influence of london has been less than that of the manufacturing districts. [ ] "the project was clearly to set up a new order of things founded on social equality--a theory which in the whole history of the middle ages appears for the first time in connection with this movement."--dr. gairdner, _introduction to paston letters_. [ ] four centuries later and this doctrine of all men having been born free at the beginning was to be preached again in popular fashion by rousseau and find expression in american independence and the french revolution. [ ] froissart seems to be chiefly responsible for the notion, found in the writings of later historians, that this john tyler was the leader of the revolt, and for the confusion that mistakenly identifies him with wat tyler, of maidstone, the real leader. three other tylers are mentioned in the records of the peasant revolt--walter, of essex, and two of the city of london. [ ] hallam, _middle ages_. [ ] this law of winchester was the statute of edward i., , which authorised local authorities to appoint constables and preserve the peace. according to a statement made by jack straw, tyler and his lieutenants intended, amongst other things, to get rid of the king's council, and make each county a self-governing commune. [ ] there are some grounds for believing that a plot had been made to slay wat tyler at smithfield. _see_ dr. g. kriehn _american review_, . [ ] f. york powell, _england to _. [ ] durrant cooper, _john cade's followers in kent_. [ ] "these lords found him sober in talk, wise in reasoning, arrogant in heart, and stiff in opinions; one who by no means would dissolve his army, except the king in person would come to him, and assent to the things he would require."--holinshed. [ ] stow. [ ] "whereof he (cade) lost the people's favour and hearts. for it was to be thought if he had not executed that robbery he might have gone far and brought his purpose to good effect."--fabyan's _chronicle_. "and for this the hearts of the citizens fell from him, and every thrifty man was afraid to be served in likewise, for there was many a man in london that awaited and would fain have seen a common robbery."--stow. [ ] "during the period, which may be roughly defined as from to , enclosure meant to a large extent the actual dispossession of the tenants by their manorial lords. this took place either in the form of the violent ousting of the sitting tenant, or of a refusal on the death of one tenant to admit the son, who in earlier centuries would have been treated as his natural successor. proofs abound."--w.j. ashley, _economic history_. [ ] _see_ dr. jessop, _the great pillage_. [ ] "that a populous and wealthy city like norwich should have been for three weeks in the hands of , rebels, and should have escaped utter pillage and ruin, speaks highly for the rebel leaders."--w. rye, _victoria county history of norfolk_. "robert ket was not a mere craftsman: he was a man of substance, the owner of several manors; his conduct throughout was marked by considerable generosity; nor can the name of patriot be denied to him who deserted the class to which he might have belonged or aspired, and cast in his lot with the suffering people."--canon dixon, _history of the church of england_. [ ] "there was something in the temper of these celebrated men which secured them against the proverbial inconstancy both of the court and of individuals.... no parliament attacked their influence. no mob coupled their names with any odious grievance.... they were, one and all, protestants. but ... none of them chose to run the smallest personal risk during the reign of mary. no men observed more accurately the signs of the times.... their fidelity to the state was incorruptible. no intrigue, no combination of rivals could deprive them of the confidence of their sovereign."--macaulay, _burleigh, his times._ [ ] "the tudor monarchs exercised freely their power of creating boroughs by charter. they used their parliaments, and had to find means of controlling them. in the creation of 'pocket' or 'rotten' boroughs, queen elizabeth was probably the worst offender. she had much influence in her duchy of cornwall, and many of the cornish boroughs which obtained such a scandalous reputation in later times were created by her for the return of those whom the lords of her council would consider 'safe' men."--ilbert, _parliament._ [ ] elizabeth's popularity steadily diminished in her last years. the death of essex, ecclesiastical persecutions, increased taxation, and the irritations caused by royal expenditure were all responsible for the discontent. james i. failed from the first to secure the goodwill of the people. [ ] oxford men all three. sir john eliot was at exeter college, ; john hampden at magdalen, ; and john pym at broadgate hall (later called pembroke), . [ ] clarendon, _history of the great rebellion_. [ ] "the same men who, six months before, were observed to be of very moderate tempers, and to wish that gentle remedies might be applied, talked now in another dialect both of kings and persons; and said that they must now be of another temper than they were the last parliament."--clarendon, _ibid._ [ ] macaulay, _hallam's constitutional history_. [ ] "the great rule of cromwell was a series of failures to reconcile the authority of the 'single person' with the authority of parliament."--ilbert, _parliament_. [ ] "a very large number of persons regarded the struggle with indifference.... in one case, the inhabitants of an entire county pledged themselves to remain neutral. many quietly changed with the times (as people changed with the varying fortunes of york and lancaster). that this sentiment of neutrality was common to the greater mass of the working classes is obvious from the simultaneous appearance of the club men in different parts of the country with their motto: 'if you take our cattle, we will give you battle.'"--g.p. gooch, _history of democratic ideas in the seventeenth century_. [ ] see _memorial of english affairs_. [ ] "by its injudicious treatment of the most popular man in england, parliament was arraying against itself a force which only awaited an opportunity to sweep it away."--g.p. gooch, _history of democratic ideas in the seventeenth century_. [ ] "so die the leveller corporals. strong they, after their sort, for the liberties of england; resolute to the very death."--carlyle. [ ] "then ensued a scene, the like of which had in all probability never been witnessed in an english court of justice, and was never again to be witnessed till the seven bishops were freed by the verdict of a jury from the rage of james ii."--s.r. gardiner, _history of the commonwealth_. [ ] professor c.h. firth, lilburne in _dict. nat. biography_. [ ] winstanley's _new law of righteousness_, . [ ] palgrave. introduction to erskine may, _parliamentary practice_. [ ] sir john eliot, . [ ] edward ii., in , and richard ii., in , had not been deposed without the consent of parliament. [ ] "the monarchical regime which was revived under charles ii. broke down under james ii. it was left for the 'glorious revolution' of , and for the hanoverian dynasty, to develop the ingenious system of adjustments and compromises which is now known, sometimes as cabinet government, sometimes as parliamentary government."--ilbert, _parliament_. [ ] g.p. gooch, _annals of politics and culture_. [ ] palmerston's influence in the house of commons was about as bad in the nineteenth century.--_see_ bagehot, _the english constitution_. [ ] "here and there we find an eminent man, whose public services were so notorious that it was impossible to avoid rewarding them; but putting aside those who were in a manner forced upon the sovereign, it would be idle to deny that the remainder and, of course, the overwhelming majority, were marked by a narrowness and illiberality of sentiment, which, more than anything else, brought the whole order into contempt. no great thinkers, no great writers, no great orators, no great statesman, none of the true nobility of the land, were to be found among those spurious nobles created by george iii. nor were the material interests of the country better represented. among the most important men in england those engaged in banking and commerce held a high place; since the end of the seventeenth century their influence had rapidly increased.... but in the reign of george iii. claims of this sort were little heeded."--buckle, _history of civilisation_. [ ] "they, the friars, and especially the franciscans, largely influenced politics. the conception of individual freedom, upon which the life of st. francis was built, went far to instil the idea of civic freedom into men's minds.... it was the ideas of the friars that found expression in the baron's war." the song of the battle of lewes "set forth unmistakably the conception of the official position of the king, and affirmed the right of his subjects to remove evil counsellors from his neighbourhood, and to remind him of his duty--ideas due to the political influence of the franciscans."--creighton, _historical lectures and addresses_. [ ] the late lord acton pointed out that st. thomas aquinas was really the first whig. [ ] see introduction to rousseau's _social contract_, by h. j. tozer. [ ] "that which distinguishes the french revolution from other political movements is that it was directed by men who had adopted certain speculative a priori conceptions with the fanaticism and proselytising fervour of a religious belief, and the bible of their creed was the _contrat social_ of rousseau."--lecky, _england in eighteenth century_, vol. v. "the original contract seized on as a watchword by rousseau's enthusiasm grew from an arid fiction into a great and dangerous deceit of nations."--sir f. pollock, _history of the science of politics_. [ ] mr. h.j. tozer. introduction to rousseau's _social contract_. [ ] see conway's _life of paine_, vol. i. [ ] professor t.f. tout, _england from _. [ ] tout, _ibid._ [ ] tout, _ibid._ [ ] r.g. gammage, _history of the chartist movement_. [ ] "the condition of the labouring classes was the least satisfactory feature of english life in . politically they were dumb, for they had no parliamentary votes. socially they were depressed, though their lot had been considerably improved by an increased demand for labour and by the removal of taxes in peel's great budget of . that was the year in which the misery of the english proletariat reached its lowest depth."--herbert paul, _history of modern england_. [ ] justin mccarthy, _short history of our own times_. [ ] mccarthy, _ibid_. [ ] tout, _england since _. [ ] "for a general extension of the franchise, an extension from the occupation franchise to the adult franchise, there does not appear to be any demand, except in connection with the burning question of the franchise for women."--ilbert, _parliament_. [ ] "on the mere numerical basis ireland is much over-represented, but ireland claims to be treated as a separate entity, and her claims cannot be disregarded."--ilbert, _parliament_. [ ] rt. hon. a.j. balfour, m.p., house of commons, . [ ] "with great tact, and without very much friction, he brought the monarchy into touch with the state of things brought about by the reform bill. he did for the crown what wellington did for the house of lords. just as the duke saw that the lords must give up setting themselves against the national will strongly expressed, so did the prince see that the crown could no longer exercise those _legal_ rights for which george iii. had fought so manfully. like the lords, the crown now became a checking and regulating, rather than a moving, force. it remained as the pledge and symbol of the unity and continuity of the national life, and could do good work in tempering the evils of absolute party government. such of the royal _prerogatives_ as were not dead must be carried out by ministers. the royal _influence_ continued to run through every branch of the state."--professor t.f. tout, _england from ._ [ ] mr. j.m. robertson, m.p., _charles bradlaugh--a record of his life and work_. [ ] f. york powell, _thoughts on democracy_. [ ] unfortunately the present house of commons has just decided, august, , to pay its members a salary of £ a year from the national revenue. it is to be regretted that the cost has not been laid directly on the electors, and that the time is not more appropriate. with the country torn with strikes of workmen seeking a few extra shillings a week, it was hardly the opportune moment for a house of commons to vote itself some £ , a year. the proposal would have been more palatable to the nation if the commons had decided that payment should begin with the _next_ parliament. first edition _june_ _reprinted_ _june_ second edition _july_ third edition _january_ a leap in the dark a criticism of the principles of home rule as illustrated by the bill of by a.v. dicey k.c., hon. d.c.l. fellow of all souls college; formerly vinerian professor of english law in the university of oxford; author of 'england's case against home rule,' 'the verdict,' 'an introduction to the study of the law of the constitution' london john murray, albemarle street, w. to irish unionists whose noble and strenuous defence of their own rights and liberties as citizens of great britain and ireland will i trust preserve the political unity of the united kingdom preface to first edition this book is not a disquisition on the details of the home rule bill. it is an examination into the leading principles of the bill with a view to establishing two conclusions. the first is, that the home rule bill, though nominally a measure for the government of ireland, contains in reality a new constitution for the whole united kingdom. the second is, that this new constitution must work injury both to england and to ireland, and instead of 'closing a controversy of seven hundred years, opens a constitutional revolution. the whole aim, in short, of the book is by the collection together of arguments which separately have been constantly used by unionist statesmen, to warn the people of england against a leap in the dark. a.v. dicey. oxford: _may_ . contents chapter i old and new constitution home rule bill a new constitution for united kingdom, p. .--the present constitution, p. : . effective authority of parliament throughout united kingdom, p. : distinction between supremacy of parliament in united kingdom and supremacy of parliament in colonies, p. : . absence of federalism, p. : the new constitution, p. : . abolition in ireland of effective authority of imperial parliament, ib.: . introduction of federalism, p. .--features of federalism, p. : restrictions on irish (state) parliament, ib.: imperial (federal) parliament, ib.: means for enforcement of federal compact, ib.: recognition of federal spirit, p. .--importance of change in constitution, p. .--the new constitution an unknown constitution, p. . chapter ii the new constitution the four essential characteristics of the new constitution, p. .--supremacy of parliament maintained, p. .--what is meaning of supremacy of imperial parliament? p. : what it does not mean, ib.: what it does mean, p. .--real effect of reserved supremacy, p. .--peril arising from ambiguity of supremacy of parliament, p. .--retention of irish members at westminster, p. .--change of gladstonian opinion, p. .--presence of the irish members involves ruin to ireland, pp. , .--mr. john morley's opinion, p. .--weakness of england, p, . mr. morley's opinion, p. .--manner in which england weakened, p. : . irish vote determines composition of british cabinet, ib.: . system of cabinet government destroyed, p. : . irish members changed into an irish delegation, p. : . british parliament not freed from irish questions, p. .--inducements to accept plan, p. .--maintenance of imperial supremacy, p. .--english management of english affairs, ib.--england does not really obtain management of english affairs, ib.--minority tempted to unfairness, p. .--minority, without intentional unfairness, may be oppressive, p. .--plan of retaining irish members for all purposes, p. .--comparison with power hitherto held by or offered to great britain, p. .--authority of england before , p. .--authority of england under grattan's constitution, p. .--authority of england since the union, p. .--authority offered to england under bill of , p. .--why should england accept in a worse bargain than was offered her in ? p. : two alleged reasons, p. : first reason, retention of irish members concession to unionists, p. : futility of plea, ib.: second reason, england will not suffer any greater evil than she does at present, p. : answer. fallacy of statement, ib.--explanation of gladstonian policy, p. .--powers of irish government, p. : i. irish executive, ib.: importance of executive, p. : powers of irish executive, p. : position of military forces, p. : ii. the irish parliament, p. : its power to appoint the irish government, ib.: its legislative power, p. .--legislation in opposition to english policy, p .--power to pass resolutions, p. .--the restrictions, etc, p. : i. their nature, ib.: . no restriction on power of executive, p. : . no prohibition of acts of indemnity, ib.: . no prohibition of _ex post facto_ law, p. : . no safeguard against violation of contract, p. : ii. enforcement of restrictions, p. .--the veto, p. .--the privy council, p. .--power to nullify irish acts, ib.--power as final court of appeal to treat irish acts as void, p. .--how arrangement will work, p. .--presumptions on which working of constitutions depends false, p. : . presumption that restrictions do not irritate, p. : its falsehood, ib.--financial arrangements certain to cause discontent, p. .--the customs, ib.--charges in favour of england on ireland, p. .--irish objection to financial proposals, p. .--presumption that ireland cannot nullify restrictions. its falsehood, p. .--summary of criticism, p. . chapter iii why the new constitution will not be a settlement of the irish question new constitution is intended to be final settlement of irish question, p. : but will not settle irish question for three reasons, p. : i. new constitution does not satisfy ireland or england, ib.: ireland not satisfied, ib.: new constitution detested by influential minority, p. : irish home rulers not wholly satisfied, p. : new constitution will cause discontent of whole irish people, p. : england not satisfied, p. : . new constitution rests on unsound foundation, p. : belfast subjected to dublin, p. : england subjected to ireland, p. : . new constitution based on ambiguity, p. .--the nature of the ambiguity, ib.--the result of the ambiguity, ib. the new constitution cannot last, p. .--irish discontent leading either to federation or separation, p. .--english discontent threatens reaction, p. . chapter iv pleas for the new constitution gladstonian apology, p. .--as to general considerations, ib.--general gladstonian objections, ib.: i. strictures are prophecy, p. : . anomalies already exist in english constitution, p. .--as to specific arguments for home rule, p. .--necessity, p. .--argument for necessity, ib.--answer: argument invalid, .--premises unsound, p. .--premises do not support conclusion, p. .--no necessity for home rule, ib.--true meaning of necessity forgotten, p. .--no danger, p. : i. safeguards, p. : their unreality, ib.: . grattan's constitution, ib.: no precedent, p. : . success of home rule in other countries, p. .--instances of 'home rule' which need not be considered, ib.--cases of 'home rule' which require consideration, p. .--federal government, p. .--colonial independence, p. .--neither federal government nor colonial independence compatible with the authority required in ireland by imperial government, p. .--weakness of law in case of federation, p. .--weakness of law in case of colonies, pp. , .--policy of trust, p. .--trust in irish leaders impossible, p. .--history of the irish agitators, p. .--gladstonian guarantee of trustworthiness worthless, p. .--trust in teaching of power, .--answer. fallacy exposed by mr. bryce, ib.--trust in the people and effect of home rule, p. .--answer. political changes do not ensure content, pp. , .--gladstonian pleas are pleas for policy of home rule, but not pleas for new constitution, p. . chapter v the path of safety the impending danger, p. .--peril concealed by trust in mr. gladstone, ib.--peril concealed by peculiar condition of opinion, p. .--the path of safety and true policy, p. .--policy of seriousness, ib.--seriousness of question at issue, ib.--danger of civil war, p. .--policy of simplicity, p. .--strenuous opposition to bill, ib.--cry of obstruction futile, p. .--details not to be made too prominent, p. .--no appearance of concession allowable, p. .--policy of appeal to the nation, p. .--house of lords must ensure dissolution, ib.--house of lords may be called upon to enforce referendum, p. .--conclusion, p. . appendix pages government of ireland bill - arrangement of clauses , . establishment of irish legislature, p. -- . powers of irish legislature, ib.-- . exceptions from powers of irish legislature, ib.-- . restrictions on powers of irish legislature, p. .-- . executive power in ireland, ib.-- . composition of irish legislative council, p. .-- . composition of irish legislative assembly, ib.-- . disagreement between two houses, how settled, p. .-- . representation in parliament of irish counties and boroughs, ib.-- . as to separate consolidated fund and taxes, p. .-- . hereditary revenues and income tax, p. .-- . financial arrangements as between united kingdom and ireland, p. .-- . treasury account (ireland), ib.-- . charges on irish consolidated fund, p. .-- . irish church fund, p. .-- . local loans, ib.-- . adaptation of acts as to local taxation accounts and probate, etc., duties, ib.-- . money bills and votes, p. .-- . exchequer judges for revenue actions, election petitions, etc., ib.-- . transfer of post office and postal telegraphs, p. .-- . transfer of savings banks, p. .-- . irish appeals, p. .-- . special provision for decision of constitutional questions, ib.-- . office of lord lieutenant, p. .-- . use of crown lands by irish government, ib.-- . tenure of future judges, ib.-- . as to existing judges and other persons having salaries charged on the consolidated fund, ib.-- . as to persons holding civil service appointments, p. .-- . as to existing pensions and superannuation allowances, p. .-- . as to police, ib.-- . irish exchequer consolidated fund and audit, p. .-- . law applicable to both houses of irish legislature, ib.-- . supplemental provisions as to powers of irish legislature, ib.-- . limitation of borrowing by local authorities, p. .-- . temporary restriction on powers of irish legislature and executive, ib.-- . transitory provisions, ib.-- . continuance of existing laws, courts, officers, etc., p. .-- . appointed day, ib.-- . definitions, ib.-- . short title, p. . schedules - . legislative council . irish members in the house of commons . finance introduction irish unionists have pressed for a republication of _a leap in the dark_. they hold that it will be of some service in their resistance to the coalition of home rulers, socialists, and separatists formed to force upon the people of england and of scotland a virtual dissolution of the union between great britain and ireland. it would in any case have been a pleasure to afford aid, however small, to the irish unionists, whether protestants or catholics, engaged in the defence at once of their own birthright and of the political unity of the united kingdom. yet for a moment i doubted whether the republication of a forgotten criticism of a forgotten bill would be of essential service to my friends. on reflection, however, i have come to see that, though the unionists of ireland probably overrate the practical value of my book, yet their hope of its serving the cause whereof they are the most valiant defenders is based on sound reasons. _a leap in the dark_ is a stringent criticism of the home rule bill, .[ ] but the book has little to do with the details and intricacies of that bill. _a leap in the dark_ was published before the home rule bill of had reached the house of lords, or had assumed that final form, which made patent to the vast majority of british electors that a measure which purported to give a limited amount of independence to ireland, in reality threatened england with political ruin. my criticism is therefore in truth an attack upon the fundamental principles of home rule, as advocated by gladstone and his followers eighteen years ago. these principles, moreover, have never been repudiated by the home rulers of to-day. some members of the present cabinet, notably the prime minister and lord morley, were the apologists of the bill of . in that year _a leap in the dark, or our new constitution_, was, i venture to say, accepted by leading unionists, such as lord salisbury, the duke of devonshire, mr. balfour, mr. chamberlain, sir henry james (now lord james of hereford), as, in the main, an adequate representation of the objections which, in the judgment of such men and thousands of unionists, were fatal to the acceptance of any scheme whatever of home rule for ireland. the battle over home rule lasting, as it did for years, and ending with the complete victory of the unionists, has been forgotten by or has never become known to the mass of the present electors. it is well that they should be reminded of the solid grounds for the rejection by the lords of the home rule bill of . it is well that they should be reminded that this rejection was in ratified by the approval of the electorate of the united kingdom _a leap in the dark_ will assuredly remind my readers that in the hereditary house of lords, and not the newly elected house of commons, truly represented the will of the nation. this is a fact never to be forgotten. it is of special import at the present moment. another equally undoubted fact deserves attention. home rulers themselves despair of carrying a home rule bill until they shall have turned the parliament bill into the parliament act, , and my readers ought never to forget that the passing of the parliament bill into law destroys, and is meant to destroy, every security against the passing of any home rule bill whatever which the present majority of the house of commons choose to support. this gives an ominous significance to the obstinate refusal of the government to alter or amend any of the material enactments contained in this ill-starred measure. _a leap in the dark_, combined with a knowledge of the parliament bill and the legislative dictatorship with which it invests the existing coalition, suggests at least four conclusions which must at all costs be forced at this moment upon the attention of the nation. they may be thus summed up: _first_.--if the parliament bill passes into law the existing majority of the house of commons will be able to force, and will assuredly in fact force, through parliament any home rule bill whatever (even were it the home rule bill of ), which meets with the approval of mr. redmond, and obtains the acquiescence of the rest of the coalition. the coalition need not fear any veto of the house of lords. there will be no necessity for an appeal to the electors, or in other words to the nation. the truth of this statement is indisputable. the legal right of the majority of the house of commons to pass any bill whatever into law, even though the house of lords refuse its assent, is absolutely secured by the very terms of the parliament bill. that the leaders of the coalition, such as mr. asquith, the chancellor of the exchequer, and mr. john redmond, will press their legal right to its extreme limits is proved to any man who knows how to read the teaching of history, by the experience of . mr. gladstone used every power he possessed, and used it unscrupulously, to drive a home rule bill through the house of commons. he was a man trained in the historical traditions of parliament. he assuredly did not relish the use of the closure and the guillotine. he was supported in the commons by a very narrow majority, never i think exceeding forty-eight, and often falling below that number. the power of the party system, or as americans say, the "machine," was admittedly much less in than it has become in . yet mr. gladstone used such power as he possessed to the utmost. he hurried through the house of commons a bill which had not in fact received the assent of the nation. he made the freest use of every device for curtailing freedom of debate. a large and most important portion of the home rule bill was not discussed at all in the commons. and this bill contained provisions, not appearing in its original form, for the retention of eighty irish members at westminster with full authority to take part in every kind of legislation which might be laid before parliament; though mr. gladstone himself held the fairness to england of this provision dubious[ ] and mr. (now lord) morley had in demonstrated by reasoning which to my mind is absolutely conclusive that under a system of home rule the presence of irish representatives in the imperial parliament at westminster would work fatal injury to ireland and gross injustice to england.[ ] can any man able to draw from political precedents their true meaning believe that mr. asquith, and the allies who are his masters, will be more scrupulous in forcing the next home rule bill through the house of lords than was mr. gladstone in forcing the home rule bill of through the house of commons? mr. asquith is supported by a large though incongruous majority. his almost avowed aim in pushing the parliament bill, unchanged and unchangeable, through the houses of parliament is to force the home rule bill on the people of great britain against their will. hesitation to make use of this dictatorial authority, should he ever obtain it, will to himself mean political ruin; to his english supporters it will seem political pusillanimity; by his irish confederates it will be denounced as breach of faith and treachery. as certainly as night follows day the passing of the parliament act will be succeeded by the attempted passing of a home rule act. _secondly_.--mr. redmond and the home rulers, or separatists, of whom he is the leader, will exact under any home rule bill of say or , at lowest, every advantage which was demanded by irish nationalists in . why, in the name of common sense, when irish nationalists are absolute masters of the situation, should they demand lower payment for their support than was offered to them twenty years ago when the home rule majority was every day losing strength, when every one knew that nothing but the show of moderation gave the slightest chance of a home rule bill escaping the veto of the house of lords, when every one, except perhaps mr. gladstone, foresaw that the next general election would give to unionists a crushing majority? every advantage conceded in to irish separatists at the expense of england will assuredly reappear in one form or another in the next home rule bill. thus ireland will, we may anticipate, under the next home rule bill send to the parliament at westminster at least eighty members armed with the fullest legislative authority, so that, to revive the language current eighteen years ago, ireland will govern and tax england whilst england will retain no right either to govern or to tax ireland. _thirdly_.--every question to which in gladstonians could discover no answer satisfactory to unionists or to the electorate of great britain requires an answer in as much as in . the answer favourable to home rule has not as yet been discovered. is it possible to combine the effective supremacy of the imperial parliament with home rule or the substantial legislative independence of ireland? can ireland, close to the shore of great britain, occupy the position of a self-governing colony, such as new zealand, divided from great britain by thousands of miles of sea? is it possible to create, or even to imagine, a court which shall decide whether a law passed by the irish parliament violates the provisions of the proposed home rule act? above all, can the wit of man devise any scheme of constitution which shall at once satisfy the aspirations of irish nationalism and the patently just demand of ulster that protestants shall retain the freedom and the rights secured to them as citizens of the united kingdom? is there any form of home rule which will satisfy the desire of irish nationalists for something approaching national independence without the urgent peril of rousing civil war between ulster and the parliament at dublin? all these inquiries, and others like them, harassed the parliament of ; they were all answered by unionists, that is by the majority of the british electors, with a decided negative; they will all be raised and will all need an answer when the leaders of the coalition condescend to produce their next home rule bill or even to reveal its fundamental principles. _fourthly_.--england in the circumstances of to-day is threatened with two perils which did not exist in , and yet are of stupendous gravity. the first is, that in the case of a measure of home rule the opportunities for discussing its provisions which are contained in the parliament bill may turn out nominal rather than real. it is not at all certain that for such a bill, even though it be abhorred by the electorate of the united kingdom, the house of lords will be practically able to secure the delay and elaborate discussion to which mr. asquith professedly attaches immense importance. unionists will believe that the measure passed by a large majority of the house of commons is detested by the majority of the british electors. but how will it be possible to carry on the government of ireland, to maintain order, or to save a loyal minority from gross oppression after a home rule bill applauded by separatists has been passed through the house of commons, and for the first time has been rejected by the house of lords? every official in ireland, down from the lord lieutenant to the last newly appointed member of the irish constabulary, every irishman loyal or disloyal, will know that the bill will within a year or two become law and that irish nationalists will control the parliament and the government of ireland. will not the house of lords be urged by every alleged consideration of good sense and humanity to close without delay a period of uncertainty which is threatening to turn into a reign of anarchy or of terror? the question supplies its own answer. the second peril is one whereof nobody speaks, but which must occur to any man who has studied the history of the past eighteen years or reflects upon the condition of public opinion. the peril, to put the matter plainly, is that home rulers will not stop at attaining home rule for ireland, and that they may, and probably will, attempt to undermine the political predominance of england. everything points in this direction. the agitation for home rule has fostered in ireland, and to a very limited extent in certain other parts of the united kingdom, a feeling approaching to jealousy of english power. england or great britain is the predominant partner. england is wealthy, england is prosperous. england, as the language of common life imports, is the leading member of the united kingdom. lord rosebery announced with wise foresight that home rule in ireland could hardly be established with benefit to the united kingdom until the assent thereto of the predominant partner had been obtained by force of argument. the idea was grounded on common sense. will it not suggest to irish nationalists that their moment of authority must be used for obtaining far greater privileges for ireland than the extravagant political power offered by gladstonians in ? is it not natural for home rulers to think that the predominant partner ought to be deprived of his predominance? the conduct of the coalition and some of its leaders points in this direction. they will have obtained through the parliament act temporary, but strictly unlimited and dictatorial, power. they will have obtained it by intrigue; they have rejected and treated with scorn the idea of an appeal to the people. they have claimed, not for parliament but for the existing house of commons, an absolute legislative power superior to that of the nation, a power which i assert with confidence is not possessed by the elected assemblies of the united states, or of the french republic, or of the swiss confederation: and by a strange combination of circumstances one method for depriving the predominant partner of legitimate authority may seem to a home ruler to lie near at hand. raise the cry of 'home rule all round,' or of 'federalise the british empire.' turn england into one state of a great federation, let wales be another, scotland a third, the channel islands a fourth, and for aught i know the isle of man a fifth. let the self-governing colonies, and british india, send deputies to the imperial or federal parliament. you may thus for a moment, under the pretence of uniting the empire, not only divide the united kingdom, but deprive england or great britain, in form at least, of that political supremacy and predominance which is the real bond of union and peace not only throughout the united kingdom, but also throughout the length and breadth of the british empire. i do not tremble for the power--the lawful and legitimate power--of england. political devices, however crafty, break down whenever they are opposed to the nature of things. i know that unity is increasing throughout the empire not through the cunning or the statecraft of politicians, but through the whole course of events. one part of our imperial system becomes daily under the effect of railways, steamers, telegraphs, and the like, nearer and nearer to every other part. the sentiment of unity which is more valuable than any law aiming at formal federation each year gains strength. what i do fear and insist upon is the danger that a legislative dictatorship conferred on a party, and therefore necessarily taken away from the nation, should be employed in the attempt, vain though it ultimately must be, to deprive the predominant partner of a predominance requisite for the maintenance both of the united kingdom and of the british empire. the four reflections at any rate which may be suggested by _a leap in the dark_ are well worth the consideration of the loyal citizens of the united kingdom. a.v. dicey. footnotes: [ ] its technical title as given in the bill is the irish government act, . [ ] see _annual register_, (new series), p. . [ ] see especially pp. , , - _post._ a leap in the dark[ ] footnotes: [ ] my readers are earnestly recommended to study mr. cambray's _irish affairs and the home rule question_. it brings the history of the home rule movement well up to date, and strengthens almost every argument against home rule to be found in _a leap in the dark._ the notes in square brackets are new. chapter i old and new constitution the home rule bill[ ] contains a new constitution for the whole united kingdom.[ ] the bill bears on its face that its object is 'to amend the provision for the government of ireland'; it is entitled 'the irish government act, '; it is in popular language known as the home rule bill. but all these descriptions are misleading. it is in truth a measure which affects the government alike of england, of scotland, and of ireland. it changes, to some extent the form, but to a far greater extent the working, and the spirit of all our institutions. it is a bold attempt to form a new constitution for the whole united kingdom; it subverts the very bases of the existing constitution of england. the present constitution of the united kingdom is marked and has long been marked by two essential characteristics, the one positive and the other negative. the positive characteristic is the absolute and effective authority of the imperial parliament throughout the length and breadth of the united kingdom. to this characteristic englishmen are so accustomed that they hardly recognise its full importance. a government may make its power felt in three different ways--by the action of the executive, including under that head all the agents of the executive, such as the judiciary and the armed forces--by legislation--and by the levying of taxes. take any of these tests of authority, and it will be found that the british parliament is not only theoretically, but actually and effectively, supreme throughout the whole of great britain and ireland. the cabinet is virtually appointed by the houses of parliament; the army, the judges, the magistracy, all officials who throughout the country exercise executive power in any form whatever are directly or indirectly appointed by parliament, and hold office subject to the will of parliament of the legislative authority of parliament as regards the united kingdom it is scarcely necessary to speak. any law affecting the united kingdom not only lawfully may, but can in fact, be changed by the imperial parliament. of the unlimited legislative authority ascribed to, and exercised by, parliament in the united kingdom the home rule bill itself is sufficient evidence; and the gladstonian ministry, at any rate, see no reason why parliament should not within the course of a few weeks remodel the fundamental laws of the realm. the right to impose taxes is historically the source of parliamentary power, and in all matters of taxation parliament has absolute freedom of action from one end of the united kingdom to the other; whether the income tax is to be lowered, raised, or abolished, whether some new duty, such as the cart and wheel tax, shall be imposed, whether the united kingdom shall maintain free trade, or return to protection, how taxes shall be raised and how they shall be spent--all matters in short connected with revenue are throughout the united kingdom determined and determinable in the last resort by parliament alone. hence, as things now stand, no kind of governmental action in any part of great britain and ireland escapes parliamentary supervision. the condition of the army, the management of the police, the misconduct of a judge, the release of a criminal, the omission to arrest a defaulting bankrupt, the pardon of a convicted dynamiter, the execution of a murderer, the interference of the police with a public meeting, or the neglect of the police to check a riot in london, in skye, or in tipperary, any matter, great or small, with which the executive is directly or indirectly concerned, is, if it takes place in any part of the united kingdom, subject to stringent and incessant parliamentary supervision, and may, at any moment, give rise to debates on which depend the fate of ministries and parties. if there be such a thing as supreme actual and effective authority, such authority is throughout the whole of the united kingdom exercised by the imperial parliament, not occasionally and in theory, but every day and in the ordinary course of affairs. this exertion of actual and effective power by the imperial parliament throughout the united kingdom is a totally different thing from the supremacy or sovereignty exercised by parliament throughout the whole british empire. as a matter of legal theory parliament has the right to legislate for any part of the crown's dominions. parliament may lawfully impose an income tax upon the inhabitants of new south wales; it may lawfully abolish the constitution of the canadian dominion, just as some years ago it did actually abolish the ancient constitution of jamaica. but though parliament does in fact exert a certain, or rather a very uncertain, amount of power throughout the whole empire, we all know that the imperial parliament neither exercises, nor claims to exercise, in a self-governing colony such as new zealand,[ ] that kind of effective authority which parliament exercises in the united kingdom. the cabinet of new zealand is not appointed at westminster; the action of a new zealand ministry as regards the affairs of new zealand is not controlled by the english government. not a pennyworth of taxation is imposed on the inhabitants of new zealand, or of any colony whatever, by the imperial parliament. even the imposition of customs, though it has an important bearing on the interest of the empire, is in a self-governing colony determined by the colonial, and not by the british, parliament. it is the parliament of new zealand, and not the parliament of england, which governs new zealand. the imperial parliament, though for imperial purposes it may retain an indefinite supremacy throughout the british empire, has, as regards self-governing colonies, renounced, for all other than imperial purposes, executive and legislative functions. to labour this point may savour of pedantry. but the distinction insisted upon, whilst often overlooked, is of extreme importance. we risk being deceived by words. the imperial parliament is supreme in the united kingdom, it is also supreme in new zealand. but the supremacy of the imperial parliament is a misleading expression; it means one thing in the united kingdom, and another thing in new zealand or in canada. in the united kingdom it means the exercise of real, actual, effective and absolute authority. in new zealand it means little more than the claim to regulate matters of a distinctly and exclusively imperial character. the distinction is vital. the essential feature of the english constitution is the actual and direct government of the whole united kingdom by the parliament at westminster. no change could be more fundamental than a change which, in england, scotland, or ireland, reduced this actual authority to the ultimate or reserved sovereignty exercised, or rather claimed, by parliament in canada or in new zealand. the negative characteristic of the english constitution is the absence of federalism or of the federal spirit. the spirit of institutions is as important as their form, and the spirit of english parliamentary government has always been a spirit of unity. the fundamental conditions of federal government are well known. they are first the existence of states such as the cantons of switzerland or the states of germany, which are capable of bearing in the eyes of their inhabitants an impress of common nationality, and next the existence among the inhabitants of the federalised country of a very peculiar sentiment, which may be described as the desire for political union without the desire for political unity.[ ] this condition of opinion leads to a division of powers between the federal or national government and the states. whatever concerns the nation as a whole is placed under the control of the federal power. all matters which are not primarily of common interest remain in the hands of the states. now each of these conditions upon which federalism rests has, as a matter of history, been absolutely unknown to the people of england. in uniting other countries to england they have instinctively aimed at an incorporative not at a federal union. this absence of the federal spirit is seen in two matters which may appear of subordinate, but are in reality of primary, consequence. every member of parliament has always stood on a perfect equality with his fellows; the representatives of a county or of a borough, english members, scottish members, irish members, have hitherto possessed precisely equal rights, and have been subject to precisely the same duties. they have been sent to parliament by different places, but, when in parliament, they have not been the delegates of special localities; they have not been english members, or scottish members, or irish members, they have been simply members of parliament; their acknowledged duty has been to consult for the interest of the whole nation; it has not been their duty to safeguard the interests of particular localities or countries. hence until quite recent years english parties have not been formed according to sectional divisions. there has never been such a thing as an english party or a scottish party. up to the scottish members were almost without exception tories; since they have been for the most part liberals or radicals; they have kept a sharp eye upon scottish affairs, but they have never formed a scottish party. the same thing has, to a great extent, held good of the irish members. the notion of an irish party is a novelty, and in so far as it has existed is foreign to the spirit of our institutions. hence further, the cabinet has been neither in form nor in spirit a federal executive. no premier has attempted to constitute a ministry in which a given proportion of irishmen or scotchmen should balance a certain proportion of englishmen. english politicians have as yet hardly formed the conception of an english party. not a single prime minister has claimed the confidence of the country on the ground that his colleagues were, or were not, english, scottish, or irish. that a premier should glory in his pure scottish descent is an innovation; it is an innovation ominous of revolution; it betrays a spirit of disintegration. if at the moment it flatters scottish pride, scotchmen and irishmen would do well to recollect that it is a certain presage of a time when some englishman will rise to power and obtain popular support on the ground of his staunch english sympathies and of his unadulterated english blood. now place the new constitution side by side with the old. assume, as i do assume throughout this chapter, that our new gladstonian policy works in accordance with the intentions of its authors. the new constitution abolishes in ireland the actual and effective control and authority of the imperial parliament. the government of ireland is under the home rule bill[ ] placed in the hands of an executive authority, or, in plain terms, a cabinet, undoubtedly to be appointed by the irish legislature, in the same sense in which an english cabinet is appointed by the british parliament, or a new zealand cabinet is appointed by the parliament of new zealand.[ ] for the first time in the whole course of history the administration of irish affairs is placed in the hands of an irish ministry, in the selection of which the imperial parliament has no hand or concern whatever. mr. mccarthy, mr. healy, mr. redmond, mr. davitt, any leader, known or unknown, loyal or disloyal, who commands the confidence of the irish legislature, or, as i will venture to term it, the irish parliament,[ ] will naturally become the premier of ireland, and, together with his colleagues, will possess all the authority which belongs to a parliamentary executive. on the action of this irish cabinet the bill places, with rare exceptions, either no restrictions at all or restrictions which are only transitory.[ ] speaking generally, we may lay down that, except as to the control of the army, if that be an exception, the irish cabinet will, when the constitution gets into full working order, occupy in ireland the position now occupied by the british cabinet in regard to the whole united kingdom. the appointment of officials, the conduct of irish affairs, all the ordinary functions of government will, with certain exceptions meant for the most part to protect the rights of the imperial parliament, be exercised by irish ministers responsible to the irish parliament; and the british or imperial parliament will, in the ordinary course of things, have no more to do with the administration of affairs in ireland than it has to do with the administration of affairs in new zealand. the irish, not the british, cabinet will decide what are the steps to be taken for the protection throughout ireland of the rights of property or of personal liberty; the irish and not the english cabinet will determine by what means the payment of rent is to be enforced; the irish and not the english cabinet will decide what persons are to be prosecuted for crime; the irish and not the english cabinet will determine whether the means for enforcing the punishment of crime are adequate, and whether ireland, or some part of ireland, say belfast, requires to be governed by means of a coercion act; the irish and not the english cabinet will decide with what severity wrong-doers are to be punished, and whether, and under what circumstances, convicted criminals deserve either pardon or mitigation of punishment. it is patent that under the new constitution the irish parliament and, under ordinary circumstances, the irish parliament alone will legislate for ireland. for the irish parliament can, subject to certain restrictions,[ ] pass any law whatever 'for the peace, order and good government of ireland, in respect of matters exclusively relating to ireland or some part thereof'[ ]; and, subject to the same restrictions, may repeal any law which, before the home rule bill becomes law, is in force in ireland. under the new constitution the irish parliament and not the imperial parliament will, it is clear, as a rule legislate for ireland. under the new constitution the irish parliament may enact a coercion act, applying say to ulster, or may repeal the existing crimes act. it may abolish trial by jury[ ] altogether, put any restraints it sees fit on the liberty of the press, or introduce a system of administrative law like that which exists in france, but is totally foreign to english notions of jurisprudence. under the new constitution, again, the financial relations of great britain and ireland are made the subject of an elaborate arrangement which may fairly be called a contract[ ]. ireland takes over certain charges[ ], and speaking very generally, whilst all the duties of customs levied in ireland are collected by and paid over to the exchequer of the united kingdom, as ireland's contribution to imperial expenditure, all the other taxes are, as a general rule, paid over to the irish exchequer. the justice or the policy of these financial arrangements is for my present purpose immaterial. all that need be observed is that the ordinary taxation of ireland passes from the hands of the imperial parliament into the hands of the irish parliament, and that under the new constitution this arrangement is a settlement which the imperial parliament is morally bound to respect for a period of at least fifteen years[ ]. in ireland therefore the new constitution abolishes the effective exercise of authority by the imperial parliament in matters of administration, in matters of legislation, in matters of finance; every concern which affects the daily life of irishmen will be under the control of the irish cabinet and the irish parliament. the relation of the imperial parliament towards ireland will not be the relation which it now occupies towards the whole united kingdom, and which under the new constitution it will still occupy towards great britain. the imperial parliament, it is true, retains considerable reserved powers; what are the effect and nature of these powers shall be considered in its due place. the matter upon which i now insist is simply this: the new constitution does in any case transfer the effective government of ireland from the imperial parliament to the irish parliament. the authority reserved to the imperial parliament may be termed supremacy, or sovereignty, or may be described by any other fine-sounding name which we are pleased to use, but the fact remains unaltered that, as long as the new constitution stands and works, the imperial parliament will not govern ireland in the sense in which it governs england and scotland, and that such authority as it exerts in ireland will be analogous not to the power which it now exercises there, but to the influence which it possesses in canada or in new zealand.[ ] the new constitution is at bottom a federalist or semi-federalist constitution; it introduces into english institutions many of the forms of federalism and still more of its spirit. the parliament sitting at westminster becomes for the first time a federal congress. of its members, will represent great britain; will represent ireland. the exact numbers are for the present purpose insignificant. the serious matter is that the imperial parliament undergoes an essential change of character. the british members will have, or are intended to have, no concern with the government of ireland. the irish members ought to have nothing to do with the government of great britain. on imperial subjects the imperial parliament, or, to call it by its proper name, the federal congress, votes as a whole; on irish subjects it does not vote at all; on british topics its british members only vote. the british and the irish members, in short, alike represent, though in a very clumsy fashion, the states of a confederacy. though the fact be artfully concealed, we have under the new constitution already, in germ at least, a british state and an irish state, a british parliament and an irish parliament, and a third body consisting of these two parliaments, which is the imperial or federal parliament.[ ] the different features of federalism make their appearance though under strange forms. the constitution imposes restrictions on the powers of the state governments and of the federal government. this appears unmistakably in the limitations placed upon the authority of the irish parliament. these restrictions, be they wise or unwise, politic or impolitic, are perfectly in keeping with the constitutional arrangements of a federal government, but are absolutely unknown to the theory and practice of english parliamentary government. the powers of the imperial parliament, it may be said, are under the new constitution subject to no limitations. in words this assertion is true, in substance it is false. if the constitution works properly the imperial parliament will clearly be subject to the terms of the government of ireland act, , or, in other words, of the federal constitution. this subjection is not absolute; it is moral, not legal, still it exists. a breach of the federal compact will be no light matter. the constitution again, as one would expect under a federal scheme, provides for the enforcement of the compact. in the case of ireland this is manifest. the royal veto,[ ] the power of the courts, and ultimately of the privy council, to pronounce on the constitutionality of any irish act, and treat it as void if it is in excess of the authority bestowed upon the irish legislature, the provisions for the legal determination of constitutional questions,[ ] the arrangements as to the payment of the irish customs into the imperial exchequer, the special and very anomalous position of the exchequer judges, are all attempts, whatever be their worth, to restrain the irish legislature and government, or in effect the irish people, from the undue assertion of state rights. restraints again are placed on the unconstitutional action of the imperial or federal parliament. they are less obvious, but at least as real and effectual as the safeguards against the breach of the constitution by the irish government or legislature. they are all summed up in the presence of the irish representatives at westminster. the only legitimate reason, if legitimate reason there be, for their presence is the guardianship of irish rights under the constitution. it is for them to see that these rights are held sacred. no diminution thereof can take place without either the assent of the irish members or else the existence of such a majority in the parliament at westminster as may override the protests of ireland.[ ] no doubt this is not an absolute security. but whoever considers the habits of english political life will conclude that, except in the event of the imperial parliament being resolved to suspend or destroy the constitution, there exists the highest improbability that any inroad should be made upon the privileges conferred under the new constitution upon ireland. the security, though not absolute, is a good deal better than any safeguard given by the bill that the state rights of great britain shall be duly respected by the representatives from ireland. assume, however, that the constitution works properly, and that all parties respect the spirit of its provisions. the result is that the new constitution forms a fundamental law, fixing the respective rights of ireland, of great britain, of the irish parliament, and of the imperial parliament.[ ] the federal arrangements which, utterly unknown as they are to our institutions, form the foundation of the new constitution, are as nothing compared with the recognition and fostering of the federal spirit. great britain and ireland constitute for the first time in history a confederation. the difference or opposition of their interests receives legislative acknowledgment: each country is to possess in reality, though not in name, state rights; each must rely upon the constitution for the protection of these rights; each may suffer from the encroachments of the imperial or central power. ireland may complain that the imperial parliament by legislation, or the privy council by judicial interpretation, encroaches on her guaranteed rights. great britain may complain either that irish members intermeddle in british affairs, and thus british rights are violated, or that the privy council so interprets the constitution that the prerogatives of the central government (which be it remembered must in practice be identified with the power of england) are unduly diminished. to imagine such complaints is not to assume that the constitution works badly. they are of necessity inherent in the federal system. there exists no federal government throughout the world where such complaints do not arise, and where they do not at times give rise to heart-burnings. it is well indeed, judging from the lessons of history, if they do not produce bitter conflicts, or even civil war. let us take, however, the most sanguine view possible. let us grant that both in england and in ireland every minister, every legislator, every judge, is inspired with a spirit of perfect disinterestedness and absolute fairness. this concession, immense though it be, does not exclude vital differences of opinion. in our new confederacy, as in every other, there will arise the contest between state rights and federal rights, between the authority of the central government and of the state government. in any case, a whole class of new difficulties and questions of a totally new description will make their appearance in the field of english politics, and call for the exercise on the part both of english and of irish statesmen of extraordinary wisdom and extraordinary self-control. the new constitution in short, in virtue of its federal tendencies, will revolutionise the public life of the united kingdom. from whatever side the matter be considered we arrive at the same result. the home rule bill is a new constitution; it subverts the bases of the english constitution as we now know it, for it destroys throughout ireland the effective authority of the imperial parliament, and turns the united kingdom into a federal government of a new and untried form. the change may be necessary or needless, wise or unwise. the first and most pressing necessity of the moment is that every elector throughout the united kingdom should, realise the immense import of the innovation. it is a revolution far more searching than would be the abolition of the house of lords or the transformation of our constitutional monarchy into a presidential republic. the next point to which the attention of every man throughout the land should be directed is, that the new constitution offered to us for acceptance is unknown to any other civilised country. parts of it are borrowed from the united states; some of its provisions are imported from the british colonies, whilst others are apparently the inventions of the unknown and irresponsible abbé siéyès, who is the ingenious constitution-maker of the cabinet. but the new polity as a whole resembles in its essence neither the american commonwealth nor the canadian dominion, nor the government either of new zealand or of any other self-governing colony. it is an attempt--its admirers may think an original and ingenious attempt--to combine the sovereignty of an imperial parliament with the elaborate limitation and distribution of powers which distinguish federal government. the whole thing is an experiment and an experiment without precedent. its novelty is not its necessary condemnation, but neither on the other hand is innovation of necessity the same thing as reform. the institutions of an ancient realm are not exactly the _corpus vile_ on which theorists hard pressed by the practical difficulties of the political situation can be allowed to try unlimited experiments. we are bound to scrutinise with care every provision of this brand-new polity. we are bound to consider what will be their effect according to the known laws of human nature and under the actual circumstances of the time. it is vain to tell us that many of our institutions remain untouched. the introduction of new elements into an old political system may revolutionise the whole; the addition of new cloth to an old garment may, we all know, rend the whole asunder. there is no need for panic; there is the utmost need for prudence. footnotes: [ ] references made in this treatise to the home rule bill are, unless otherwise stated, made to the bill as ordered to be printed by the house of commons, february , . _a leap in the dark_ was published months before the bill was sent up as amended to the house of lords. [ ] this is true of both of mr. gladstone's home rule bills, and must necessarily be true of any bill which satisfies even for a time the wishes of home rulers. [ ] i have substituted new zealand for victoria as the example of a typical self-governing colony; the position of victoria has since been complicated by the country having become a state of the australian commonwealth or confederation. [ ] see dicey, _law of constitution_ ( th ed.), ch. iii. pp. - . compare mill, _rep. government_, ch. xvii. [ ] for the sake of convenience i throughout this treatise refer to the 'bill to amend the provision for the government of ireland' under its popular name of the home rule bill, , or simply the bill. see the bill in appendix. [ ] bill, clause . [ ] (the constitutional history of victoria affords a curious illustration of what will certainly happen in ireland.) in victoria the legislature, though not termed a parliament in the constitution act, & vict, c. , has assumed, under a victorian act, the title of the parliament of victoria. see jenks, _government of victoria_, p. . who can doubt that the irish legislature will, by an irish act, give itself the title of the parliament of ireland? i have therefore throughout these pages called the irish legislature the irish parliament. few things are more absurd and more noteworthy than the deliberate refusal of english gladstonians to call the irish parliament by its right name. they are willing to create an irish parliament; they are not willing to admit that they have created it. see debates of may , in _the times_, may , . [ ] see bill, clauses , , , . [ ] bill, clauses , . [ ] bill, clause . [ ] this will perhaps be disputed. trial by jury, it will be said, is saved by the expression 'due process of law,' in clause , sub-clause ( ). but this contention is, in my judgment, unfounded, and its validity must in any case be held open to extreme doubt. [ ] see bill, clauses - , and note especially clause , sub-clause (i). [ ] _ibid_, clauses - . [ ] _ibid_, clause , sub-clause ( ). [ ] i am aware that to this statement moderate gladstonians may take exception. what may be the effect of the preamble which reserves the supreme authority of parliament or of bill, clause , which recognises the right of the imperial parliament to legislate for ireland will be most conveniently considered in the next chapter. in this chapter, be it noted, i am concerned only with the constitution as it is intended to work, and most gladstonians will admit that as long as the government of ireland, including in that expression both the cabinet and the parliament, keeps within the terms of the act, it is not intended that the british cabinet or parliament shall, except in certain excepted cases, intervene in irish affairs. [ ] all the provisions which under clause of the home rule bill, , in its earliest form, were intended to restrain irish peers, or members representing irish constituencies, from deliberating or voting on any bill or motion the operation of which should be confined to great britain, were swept away by the gladstonian majority before the home rule bill was sent up to the house of lords. the unfairness of giving to ireland a parliament intended to legislate on all, or nearly all, irish affairs, and at the same time retaining eighty irish members at westminster with full power to legislate on all english and scottish affairs, secured in the enthusiastic approval by the british electorate of the rejection of the home rule bill of by the house of lords. [ ] see bill, clause ( ). [ ] bill, clauses , . [ ] 'the imperial parliament was supreme, but he held the passing of the home rule bill, reserving certain subjects to the imperial parliament and committing others to the parliament of ireland, as amounting to a compact which would be observed by men of common sense that there would be no capricious or vexatious interference by this parliament with an action within the appointed sphere of the parliament of ireland. if such interference were attempted, the presence in this parliament of eighty irish members--a number which had been found to be sufficient to initiate an irish constitution--would be found sufficient to protect an irish constitution when it was given.'--mr. sexton, feb. , , _times parliamentary debates,_ p. . [ ] for evidence that the power of the imperial parliament is intended under the new constitution to be subjected to at any rate a moral limit, the reader should note particularly the terms of the home rule bill, clause , sub-clause ( ). chapter ii the new constitution a critic of the new constitution, intent on ascertaining how it affects the relation of great britain and ireland, will do well to divert his attention from the numerous details of the home rule bill, important as many of them are,[ ] and fix his mind almost exclusively upon the four leading features of the measure. these are:-- _first_. the supremacy of the imperial parliament. _secondly_. the retention of the irish members in the parliament at westminster. _thirdly_. the powers of the irish government, in which term is here included both the irish executive and the irish parliament. _fourthly_. the restrictions (popularly known as the safeguards) and the obligations imposed upon the irish government. these features are primary and essential; everything else, however important in itself, is subsidiary and accidental. a. _the supremacy of the imperial parliament_[ ] the home rule bill asserts in its preamble the inexpediency of 'impairing or restricting the supreme authority of parliament'; and in clause , apparently[ ] assumes the right of the imperial parliament after the passing of the home rule bill to enact for ireland laws which cannot be repealed by the irish parliament. the new constitution therefore maintains the supremacy of the imperial parliament. what, however, is the true meaning of this 'supreme authority,' 'supremacy,' or 'sovereignty,' if you like, of the imperial parliament? the term, as already pointed out,[ ] is distinctly ambiguous, and unless this ambiguity is cleared up, the effect of the home rule bill, and the nature of our new constitution, will never be understood. the supremacy of the imperial parliament may mean the right and power of parliament to govern ireland in the same sense in which it now governs england, that is, to exercise effective control over the whole administration of affairs in ireland, and for this purpose, through the action of the english government, or, when necessary, by legislation, to direct, supervise and control the acts of every authority in ireland, including the irish executive and the irish legislature. if this were the meaning of the expression, the imperial parliament would, after the passing of the home rule bill, as before, be as truly supreme in ireland as in england, in scotland, in the isle of man, or in jersey. the irish executive and the irish parliament would, of course, be bodies possessing large--and it might be very dangerous--delegated powers, but they would stand in the same relation to the imperial parliament as does the london county council, which also possesses large delegated powers, which administers the affairs of a population as large as that of scotland and which, very possibly, may receive from parliament as time goes on larger and more extended authority than the council now possesses. this is the sense which many gladstonians, and some unionists, attribute to the term 'supremacy of parliament.' it is not the sense in which the expression 'supreme authority of parliament' is used in the home rule bill. the supremacy of parliament may bear quite another sense; it may mean that parliament, whilst completely giving up the management of irish affairs (subject of course to the restrictions contained in the home rule bill) to the irish executive and the irish legislature, retains in ireland, as elsewhere throughout the empire, reserved sovereignty, or the theoretical right (which exceptionally though rarely may be put into practice) of passing laws for ireland and of course, among other laws, an act modifying or repealing the terms of the home rule bill itself. if this is the meaning of the expression 'supreme authority of parliament,' the imperial parliament will, after the passing of the home rule bill, stand in substance in the relation to ireland which parliament occupies towards any important self-governing colony, such as is the canadian dominion or new zealand. the irish executive and the irish parliament will on this view constitute the real substantial government of ireland, just as the ministry and the parliament of new zealand constitute the real and substantial government of new zealand. no doubt the imperial parliament will retain the theoretical right to legislate for ireland, _e.g._ to pass an irish coercion act, just as parliament retains the theoretical right to legislate for new zealand or canada. so the imperial parliament has the legal right to repeal or override any law passed by the new zealand parliament, to tax the inhabitants of new zealand, or finally, by the repeal of the new zealand constitution act, , & vict. c. , to abolish the constitution of new zealand altogether. but these things parliament will not, and to speak truly cannot, do in new zealand. the inhabitants of new zealand possess as regards their internal affairs for practical purposes complete independence. they are governed from wellington, they are not governed from westminster. if in short the supremacy of parliament means under the home rule bill in ireland what it means under & vict. c. in new zealand, the inhabitants of ireland will, when the home rule bill passes into law, be governed from dublin, they will not be governed from westminster. every irish home ruler, be he parnellite or anti-parnellite,[ ] believes that the supremacy of parliament is intended to mean in ireland what it means in new zealand, and the irish home rulers are right. any one will see that this is so who reflects on the meaning of the policy of home rule, who studies the authoritative utterances of gladstonian leaders, such as mr. gladstone[ ] himself, mr. asquith,[ ] or mr. bryce.[ ] gladstonian statesmen wrap up their meaning in vague generalities; they insist, and in one sense with truth, that the sovereignty of parliament is reserved. they do not wish to alarm their english followers. it is possible that they conceal even from themselves how completely the imperial ministry and parliament surrender the practical government of ireland into the hands of the irish parliament and its leaders. but for all this, their own language and the bill itself prove that the supreme authority of parliament is under the new constitution to be taken in its limited, and what for the sake of distinction we may call its 'colonial' sense. this is proved, if evidence were wanting, by the provision[ ] that after fifteen years from the time when the bill passes into law the financial relations between england and ireland may be revised in pursuance of an address to the crown from the house of commons or from the irish legislative assembly. if the imperial parliament retains an effective or practically unlimited supremacy, the provision is futile and needless. what necessity is there for enacting that a sovereign parliament, which institutes, may alter a scheme of taxation? but the provision is intelligible enough on one supposition, and on one supposition only. it is both intelligible and in place if parliament gives up the real right of governing ireland and occupies towards what is now a part of the united kingdom the position, or something very like the position, which parliament occupies towards a self-governing colony. it then embodies a compact between england and ireland, and institutes a regular method for revising their financial relations. but this very compact proves that as regards ireland the imperial parliament, if it reserves to itself ultimate sovereignty, has for practical purposes surrendered the reality of control. there is no need to assert that this supremacy of the imperial parliament means nothing. the assertion would not be true. the reservation of sovereign authority means something, but it does not mean much. it does not mean the power or the right to govern ireland; it means at most the legal and moral right to modify, or put an end to, the new constitution if ever it works badly. the power, indeed, to abolish the constitution can neither be given nor taken away by acts of parliament, by the declarations of english statesmen, or the concessions of irish leaders, whether authorised or not to pledge the irish people. it is given to great britain, not by enactments, but by nature; it arises from the inherent capacity of a strong, a flourishing, a populous, and a wealthy country to control or coerce a neighbouring island which is poor, divided, and weak.[ ] this natural supremacy will, if the interests of great britain require it, be enforced by armies, by ironclads, by blockades, by hostile tariffs, by all the means through which national predominance can make itself felt. all reference to superior power is, in controversies between citizens, hateful to every man endowed with a sense of humanity or of justice. but in serious discussions facts must be faced, and if, for the sake of argument, i contrast, much against my will, the power of great britain with the weakness of ireland, let it be remembered that the conception of a rivalry or conflict is forced upon unionists by the mere proposal of home rule. as long as we remain a united kingdom, there is no more need to think even of hypothetical or argumentative opposition between the resources or interest of england and of ireland than there is to consider what in case of a contest may be the relative force of london and of the orkneys. what, then, the new constitution secures is not the power, but the legal right to abolish the new constitution. it is a right to carry through a fundamental change by lawful means. the bill legalises revolution. this is well, for it is desirable that in a civilised state every change of institutions should be effected by constitutional methods. but should the circumstances ever arise under which great britain is resolved, in spite of the wishes of the irish people or a large portion thereof, to abolish home rule and exercise the right of reserved sovereignty, there is no reason to expect that irishmen who oppose british policy will admit that her use of sovereign power is morally justifiable. by force, or the threat of force, the controversy will, we must expect, in the last instance, be decided. however this may be, we must now realise what the supremacy of parliament, at any rate to the irish leaders who accept it, really means. it means nothing but the right of the imperial parliament of its own authority to repeal the home rule bill and destroy the new constitution. the right may be worth having. but it is not the right to govern ireland or to control the irish government; it is not a means of government at all: it is a method of constitutional revolution, or reaction. some critic will object that this supremacy of parliament means to him a good deal more than the mere right to abolish the constitution. so be it. let the objector then tell us in precise language what it does mean. if his reply is that the term is ambiguous, that its meaning must be construed in accordance with events, and may, according to circumstances, be restricted or extended, then he suggests that parliamentary supremacy is not only an empty right, but an urgent peril. nothing can be more dangerous than a compact between england and ireland which the contracting parties construe from the very beginning in different senses. if by asserting the supreme authority of parliament english statesmen mean that parliament reserves the right to supervise and control the government of ireland, whilst irishmen understand that parliament retains nothing more than such a kind of supremacy or sovereignty as it asserts, rather than exercises, in new zealand, then we are entering into a doubtful contract which lays the sure basis of a quarrel. we are deliberately preparing the ground for disappointment, for imputations of bad faith, for recriminations, for bitter animosity, it may be for civil war. if there be, as is certainly the case, a fair doubt as to what is meant by the supremacy of parliament, let the doubt be cleared up. this is required by the dictates both of expediency and of honour. meanwhile we may assume that the supremacy of parliament, or the 'supreme authority of parliament,' means in substance the kind of sovereignty which parliament exercises, or claims to exercise, in every part of the british empire. for the maintenance of such supremacy, be it valuable or be it worthless, great britain pays a heavy price. for the sake of 'an outward and visible sign of imperial supremacy' we retain eighty irish members in the imperial parliament.[ ] b. _the retention of the irish members in the imperial parliament_ this is now[ ] an essential, or at least a most important part of the ministerial policy for ireland, yet it is a proposal which even its advocates must find difficult of defence. in every gladstonian leader told us that it was desirable, politic, and just to exclude irish members from the parliament at westminster; this exclusion was pressed upon england (plausibly enough) as a main advantage to be derived from the concession of home rule to ireland. in every gladstonian leader tells us that it is desirable, politic, and just to retain the irish members at westminster, and their presence is, for some reason not easy to explain, treated as removing every objection to the concession of home rule to ireland. this astounding variation of opinion in the doctors of the state savours of empiricism, not to say quackery. a surgeon who tells a patient that he will not live unless his leg is amputated may be right, and may be worthy of trust; another surgeon who asserts that amputation is unnecessary may be right, and worthy of trust. but the surgeon who one moment insists that amputation is necessary to the preservation of his patient's life, and the next moment that it is unnecessary and may be fatal, is not the kind of adviser who inspires confidence in his wisdom. let the ingenuity of gladstonians reconcile, as best it can, the doctrine of with the doctrine of . to a man of sense who weighs the matter without reference to considerations of party, one thing will soon become apparent: the retention at westminster of eighty, or indeed of any irish members at all, means under a scheme of home rule the ruin of ireland and the weakness of england. as to ireland.--the presence of irish members at westminster robs ireland of the one advantage which home rule might by any possibility confer upon that country. any man in order to see that this is so has only to consider, first, what may under favourable circumstances be the benefit of home rule to ireland, and next what is the natural result of summoning irish members to the parliament at westminster. the best conceivable result of home rule is that it may detach irishmen from interest in english politics, and induce the most respected and respectable men in ireland to take matters into their own hands and manage for themselves all strictly irish affairs. for the last twenty years, at least, ireland has been represented, or misrepresented, by eighty and more politicians, nominated in the main by mr. parnell. no one supposes for a moment that the nationalist leaders who appeared before and were condemned by the special commission are fair samples of the irish people. they are, take them at their best, reckless agitators. they were chosen by their patron, mr. parnell, not on account of their worth or talent, but because they were apt instruments for carrying out a policy of parliamentary intrigue, reinforced by a system of lawless oppression.[ ] these men are the product of a revolutionary era; they no more represent the virtues and the genius of the irish people than the demagogues or fanatics of the jacobin club represented the genius and the virtues of the french nation. we all know that ireland abounds in citizens of a very different stamp. she has never lacked among her sons, and does not lack now, men of virtue, of vigour, and of genius. throughout the length and breadth of the country you will find hundreds of men of merit--landlords whose lives have been honourable to themselves, and a blessing to their tenants; merchants as honest and successful as any in england or in scotland; small landowners and tenant farmers who have paid their rent and paid their way, who have cultivated their land, who have never insulted or boycotted their neighbours, and have never been driven by intimidation into meanness and fraud. add to these lawyers, thinkers, writers, and scholars, who rival or excel the best representatives of their class in other parts of the united kingdom. these good men and true are not peculiar to any one creed or party; they are not confined to any one province, or to any one class; they are scattered through every part of the land; they are the true backbone of ireland; they have saved her from utter ruin; they may still by their energy raise her to prosperity. but they have been thrust out of politics by the talkers, the adventurers, the conspirators. it is possible that if home rule compels irishmen to turn their whole minds to irish affairs, the so-called representatives who misrepresent their country may be dismissed from the world of politics, and the parliament at dublin be filled with members who, whether they come from the north or from the south, whether unionists or home rulers, whether roman catholics or protestants, whether landowners, tenant farmers, ministers of religion, merchants, or tradesmen, represent the real worth and strength of the country. if this should happen, home rule would still entail great evils on the whole united kingdom. but even zealous unionists might hope that for these evils ireland at least will obtain some compensation. this hope, if the irish members are retained at westminster, will never be fulfilled. for even the occasional presence[ ]--which will in practice be the frequent presence--of the irish members at westminster destroys every hope that ireland will be governed by her best citizens. the reasons why this is so are various; some of them may be shortly stated. the system, in the first place, of double representation, under which members of the irish parliament must flit to and fro between ireland and england, and debate one day about irish matters in dublin, and the next about imperial, or in truth british, matters in england, makes it impossible for quiet hard-working irishmen, who carry on the real business of ireland, to take part in politics. the political centre of interest, in the second place, will after, as before, the passing of the home rule bill, be placed in london and not in dublin. the humdrum local business which under a system of home rule ought to be discussed in the irish parliament, may vitally concern the prosperity of every inhabitant of ireland, but it will not in general lend itself to oratory, or arouse popular excitement. the questions, on the other hand, to be discussed in the imperial parliament at westminster, as, for example, whether mr. gladstone or lord salisbury shall be head of the british cabinet, whether the royal veto on irish legislation shall be exercised on the advice of the english or of the irish ministry, are matters which do not in reality greatly affect the happiness of ordinary irishmen. but they give room for management, for diplomacy, for rhetoric, and are certain on occasions to arouse both the interest and the passions of the irish people. we may take it for granted that the character of the irish representation at westminster will govern the character of the parliament at dublin.[ ] hence arises a third and fatal obstacle to the active participation in irish public life of irishmen who are not professional politicians. the home rule bill of professes to restrain on every side the action of the irish government and parliament. these restrictions are the comfort of english gladstonians; they are thought to be safeguards, though in reality there is nothing which they make safe. but restrictions which delight gladstonians are hateful to irish home rulers. their watchword is, 'ireland a nation.' to this cry every home ruler will rally, and so too will, if once the union is broken up, many an ardent loyalist, converted by anger at england's treachery into an extreme nationalist. irishmen will wish for an irish army; they will wish for a protective policy; they will desire that ireland shall play a part in foreign affairs, and will claim for her at least the independence of such a colony as new zealand. to all these wishes, and to many more, some of which under a system of home rule are quite reasonable, the terms of the home rule bill are opposed. home rulers, and probably enough the whole irish people, will insist that the bill, which will then have become an act, must be modified. how is the modification to be obtained? how is home rule to be made a reality? by one method only: that is, by the freest use of those arts of intrigue and obstruction by which home rule will have been gained. but for the carrying out of such a policy the agitators and intriguers who for the last twenty years have weakened and degraded the imperial parliament are the proper agents. for this work they, and they alone, are fit. the quiet, industrious, stay-at-home merchants or lawyers, who might be sent to dublin for a month or two in the year to manage irish business on business-like principles, will not be sent to westminster to hold the balance between english parties. they cannot leave their every-day work; were they willing to forsake their own business, they are not the men to conduct with success the parliamentary game of brag, obstruction, and finesse. keep, in short, the irish members at westminster, and you ensure the supremacy in ireland of professional politicians. by a curious fatality the gladstonian policy which weakens england ruins ireland. let no one fancy that this is the delusion of an english unionist. sir gavan duffy is an irish nationalist of a far higher type than the men who have drawn money from the clan-na-gael. in ' he was a rebel, but if he was disloyal to england, he was always careful of the honour and character of ireland. he, at least, perceives the danger to his country of retaining irish members in a parliament where they had ceased to have any proper place. 'for my own part,' he says, 'i should not care if they did not attend [the imperial parliament] for a generation, which will be needed for the manipulation of their own affairs.' all this, i shall be told, is prophecy; gladstonian hopes are as reasonable as unionist fears. so be it. but in this matter my predictions have a special claim on the attention of the ministry, they coincide with the forecast, or the foresight, of the present[ ] chief secretary for ireland. 'let us suppose that these irish representatives for imperial purposes are not chosen by the legislative body, but are chosen directly by irish constituencies. you have already, according to our plan, two sets of constituencies. you have the constituencies that return the popular branch of the legislative body, and you have those other constituencies up to seventy-five which return the elective members of the other branch of the legislative body. you have, therefore, got already on our plan two sets of constituencies. now, if you are going to send members to westminster for imperial purposes to the number of forty-five or to the number of ninety-five, you must mark out a third set of constituencies--you must have a third set of elections. a system of that kind does not strike me at least as being exactly the thing for a country of which we are assured that before everything else its prime want is a profound respite from political turmoil. there are plenty of other objections from the irish point of view, which i am not now going to dwell upon. depend upon it that an irish legislature will not be up to the magnitude of the enormous business that is going to be cast upon it unless you leave all the brains that irish public men have got to do irish work in ireland. depend upon this, too, that if you have one set of irish members in london it is a moral certainty that disturbing rivalries, disturbing intrigues would spring up, and that the natural and wholesome play of forces and parties and leaders in the irish assembly would be complicated and confused and thrown out of gear by the separate representatives of the country. all this is bad enough.'[ ] these are the words of my friend mr. morley.[ ] they were spoken at newcastle on april , . he was then, as now, responsible for the government of ireland. nothing can add to their gravity; nothing can add to their force; they were true in , they remain as true to-day as they were seven years ago.[ ] as to england.--the presence of the irish members at westminster is on the face of it a gross and patent injustice to great britain. it is absurd, it is monstrous, that while the irish parliament and the irish parliament alone settle whether mr. healy, mr. m'carthy, mr. redmond, or mr. davitt is to be head of the irish government, and england, though vitally interested in the character of the irish executive, is not to say a word in the matter, eighty irishmen are to help in determining, and are often actually to determine, whether lord salisbury or mr. gladstone, mr. balfour or mr. chamberlain, is to be prime minister and direct the policy of england. here again can rely on the invaluable aid of mr. morley. he has denounced the effect on england of retaining irish members at westminster with a strength of language and a weight of authority to which it is impossible for me to make any pretension. 'but there is a word to be said about the effect on our own parliament, and i think the effect of such an arrangement--and i cannot help thinking so till i hear of better arrangements--upon our own parliament would be worse still. it is very easy to talk about reducing the number of the irish members; perhaps it would not be so easy to do. it is very easy to talk about letting them take part in some questions and not in others, but it will be very difficult when you come to draw the line in theory between the questions in which they shall take a part and those in which they shall not take a part. but i do not care what precautions you take; i do not care where you draw the line in theory; but you may depend upon it--i predict--that there is no power on the earth that can prevent the irish members in such circumstances from being in the future parliament what they were in the past, and what to some extent they are in the present, the arbiters and the masters of english policy, of english legislative business, and of the rise and fall of british administrations. you will have weakened by the withdrawal of able men the legislature of dublin, and you will have demoralized the legislature at westminster. we know very well what that demoralisation means, for i beg you to mark attentively the use to which the irish members would inevitably put their votes--inevitably and naturally. those who make most of the retention of the irish members at westminster are also those who make most of there being what they call a real and effective and a freely and constantly exercised veto at westminster upon the doings at dublin. you see the position. a legislative body in dublin passes a bill. the idea is that that bill is to lie upon the table of the two houses of parliament in london for forty days--forty days in the wilderness. what does that mean? it means this, that every question that had been fought out in ireland would be fought out over again by the irish members in our parliament. it means that the house of lords here would throw out pretty nearly every bill that was passed at dublin. what would be the result of that? you would have the present block of our business. you would have all the present irritation and exasperation. english work would not be done; irish feeling would not be conciliated, but would be exasperated. the whole efforts of the irish members would be devoted to throwing their weight--i do not blame them for this--first to one party and then to another until they had compelled the removal of these provoking barriers, restrictions, and limitations which ought never to have been set up. i cannot think, for my part i cannot see, how an arrangement of that sort promises well either for the condition of ireland or for our parliament. if anybody, in my opinion, were to move an amendment to our bill in the house of commons in such a direction as this, with all these consequences foreseen, i do not believe such an amendment would find twenty supporters.'[ ] this was the opinion of mr. john morley in . a word in it here or there is inapplicable to the details of the present bill; but in principle every syllable cited by me from his newcastle address forms part of the unionist argument against summoning as much as a single irish member to westminster. his language is admirable, it cannot be improved. all that any one who agrees with mr. morley can do in order to force his argument home is to point out in a summary manner the ways in which the irish delegation at westminster will enfeeble the imperial government. _first_. the irish members, or rather the irish delegation, will have a voice and often a decisive voice in determining who are the men that shall constitute the english cabinet; on the irish vote will depend whether conservatives, liberals, radicals, or socialists shall administer the government of england. it is vain to tell us irish members will be restrained, whether by law or custom, from voting on british affairs when they will vote on the most important of all british affairs, the composition and the character of the body which is to govern england. that the irish members will thus vote on a matter of special and vital importance to england is admitted. but things stand far worse than this. the vote of the irish delegation will and must be swayed by an interest adverse to the welfare of great britain; for the interest of great britain, or, to use ordinary language of england, is that the english government should be strong, and should represent the majority of the english or british electors. the direct interest of the irish delegation is that the english government should be weak, and represent the minority of english electors. that this is so is obvious. the weaker the british government, the greater the weight of the irish representatives. but if the english cabinet represents a minority of the british people, and are kept in office only by the votes of their irish allies, then the influence of the irish representatives and the weakness of the english government will have reached its extreme point. the effect therefore of the arrangement which brings irish members to westminster is to place the administration of english affairs in the hands of the party, whichever it be, that does not represent the wishes of the english people. this master stroke of gladstonian astuteness ensures that radicals shall be in office when the opinion of england is conservative, and that conservatives shall be in power when english opinion tends towards radicalism. _secondly_. the retention of the irish members breaks up our whole system of cabinet government. this system has some inherent defects, but it cannot work at all with any benefit to the country unless the cabinet can depend on the support of a permanent majority. the result of what has happily been described as the 'in-and-out plan,' that is the scheme for allowing irish members to vote on some subjects and not on others, will be the constitution of two majorities, and it is more than possible that the one majority may belong to one party and the other majority to another. look at the effect on the transaction of public affairs. the irish members and the english liberals combined may put in office a liberal cabinet. on english matters, _e.g._ the question of disestablishment, or of home rule for wales, the british majority consisting of british members of parliament only may constantly defeat the gladstonian cabinet, and thus force into office a conservative cabinet which could command a majority on all subjects of purely british interest, but would always be in a minority on all matters of imperial policy, _e.g._ on the conduct of foreign affairs. which cabinet would have a right to retain power? the sole answer is--neither. the proposed plan, in short, undermines our whole scheme of government. _thirdly_. the irish members who are now simply irish members of the imperial parliament will be transformed into a very different thing--an irish delegation. the importance of this change cannot be over-rated. the essential merit of our present system of government is that the executive, no less than the parliament of the united kingdom, represents the country as a whole. our premier may be a scotsman, but we know of no such thing as a scottish premier. englishmen may form the majority of the cabinet, but we have never had an english cabinet as contrasted with a scottish or an irish cabinet. it has never been contended, hardly has it been hinted, that a ministry ought to be made up of members taken in certain proportions from each division of the kingdom. but from the moment that sectional representation, and with it open advocacy of sectional interests, is introduced into the house of commons, there will arise the necessity for the formation of sectional cabinets. the demand will be made, and the demand will be granted, that in the administration no less than in the house there shall be a system of representation; that england, that scotland, that ireland shall each have their due share in the ministry. but this state of things must be fatal both to the capacity and to the fairness of the government. the talent of the cabinet will be diminished, because the prime minister will no longer be able to choose as colleagues the ablest among his supporters without reference to the now irrelevant question whether they represent english, scottish, or irish constituencies. the character of the executive will be lowered because the cabinet itself will represent rival interests. it may seem that i am advocating the special claims of england. this is not so. i am arguing on behalf of the efficiency of the government of the united kingdom. my argument is one to which scotsmen and irishmen should give special heed. if once we have cabinets and parties based upon sectional divisions, if we have english ministries and english parties as opposed to scottish ministries or irish ministries, and scottish parties and irish parties, it is not in the long run the most powerful and wealthy portion of what is now the united kingdom which will suffer. it is hardly the interest of scotsmen or irishmen to pursue a policy which suggests the odious but inevitable cry 'england for englishmen.' _fourthly_, as long as irish members remain at westminster the english parliament will never be freed from debates about irish affairs. this is a point there is no need to labour. unless (what no honest man can openly propose) the or members from ireland are to be taken from one irish party only, they must represent different interests and different opinions. some few at least will represent the wishes, the complaints, or the wrongs of ulster. but if this be so, it is certain that the controversies which divide ireland will make themselves heard at westminster. can any sane man fancy that if the dublin parliament passes an act for the maintenance of order at belfast, if the people of belfast are suspected of intending to resist the irish government, if irish landlords, rightly or not, fear unfair treatment at the hands of the irish ministry or the irish parliament, none of these things will be heard of at westminster? the supposition is incredible. let irish members sit at westminster and irish affairs will be debated at westminster, and will often be debated when, under a system of home rule, it were much better they should be passed over in silence. admit, what is not certain, that home rule in ireland will occasionally withdraw a few irish questions from discussion in england, it must be remembered that a new crop of irish questions will arise. the federal character of the new constitution must produce in one form or another disputes and discussions as to the limits which bound the respective authority of the imperial and of the irish governments. the imperial parliament will, for the first time, be harassed by the question of state rights. add to this that at every great political crisis the house of commons will have before it an inquiry which must produce interminable debates, namely whether a given bill is or is not a measure which concerns only the interest of great britain. two inducements are offered to england for the adoption of a plan the evils whereof were so patent in that it then could not, if we are to believe mr. morley,[ ] have commanded twenty supporters in the house of commons. the first inducement is that the presence of eighty irish members at westminster is an outward and visible sign of the supremacy of the imperial parliament.[ ] on this point it is needless to say much; few englishmen will on consideration think it worth while to dislocate all our system of government in order that the british parliament may retain in ireland the kind of sovereignty which it retains in new zealand. we are rightly proud of our connection with our colonies, but no one would seriously propose to retain nominal sovereignty in canada at the price of a perilous and injurious change in the constitution of england. the second inducement is that great britain will be allowed the exclusive management of british affairs. this sort of spurious home rule for england turns out however to be as illusory a blessing as the maintenance of parliamentary supremacy. great britain is, under the new constitution, not allowed to appoint the british cabinet. great britain is forbidden to determine for herself any matter of legislation or administration which, however deeply it concerns british interests, trenches in the least degree on any irish or imperial interest. any matter of finance, which comes within the wide head of imperial liabilities, expenditure, and miscellaneous revenue,[ ] falls within the competence of the irish members. questions of peace or war, our foreign relations, every diplomatic transaction, is a matter on which the irish delegation may pronounce a decision. the conjecture is at least plausible[ ] that irish members will have a right to discuss and vote upon any subject debated in the parliament at westminster which involves the fate of a british cabinet. let it be granted that, if the provisions of the home rule bill be observed, no irish representative can vote 'on any bill, or motion in relation thereto, the operation of which bill or motion is confined to great britain.'[ ] but then when is the operation of a bill confined to great britain, or, to use popular language, what is a british bill? this is an inquiry in the decision whereof the irish members will take part. the irish members, therefore, at westminster will be judges of their own rights, and in the only cases in which it is of practical importance to great britain that the irish representatives should not vote, will be able with the aid of a british minority to fix the limits of their own jurisdiction.[ ] let the irish members and a british minority boldly vote that the operation of a bill, say for the disestablishment of the english church, is not confined to great britain, and they can boldly vote that the bill do pass, and no court in great britain or the british empire can question the validity of a law enacted in open defiance of the spirit or even the words of the constitution.[ ] the right of british members to the management of even exclusively british affairs will depend not upon the law of the land, but upon the moderation and sense of equity which may restrain the unfairness of partisanship. for a parliamentary minority will, if only it throw scruples to the winds, be constantly able to transform itself into a majority by the unconstitutional admission of the irish vote. this is not a power which any party, be it conservative or radical, english, scottish, or irish, ought to possess. partisanship knows nothing of moderation. and the reason of this blindness to the claims of justice is that the spirit of party combines within itself some of the best and some of the worst of human passions. it often unites the self-sacrificing zealotry of religious fanaticism with the recklessness of the gambling table. let an assailant of the contagious diseases act, a fanatic for temperance, a protectionist who believes that free trade is the ruin of the country, an anti-vivisectionist who holds that any painful experiment on live animals is the most heinous of sins; let any man who has come to believe that his own credit, no less than the salvation of the country, depends on the success of a particular party, know that the triumph of his cause depends upon his voting that a particular measure operates beyond great britain, and we know well enough in which way he will vote. he will vote what he knows to be untrue rather than sacrifice a cause which he believes to be sacred. he will think himself both a fool and a traitor if he sacrifices the victory which is within his grasp to the maintenance of technical legality, or rather to respect for a rule of constitutional procedure. suppose, however, that i have underrated the equity of human nature, and that no faction in the house of commons ever attempts to violate the spirit of the constitution. the supposition is bold, not to say absurd; but even if its reasonableness be granted, this does not suffice for the protection of england's rights. the question whether a given bill does or does not operate exclusively in great britain may often give rise to fair dispute, and (what should be noted) this dispute will always be decided against great britain in the only instances in which its decision is to great britain of any importance whatever. an example best shows my meaning. let a bill be brought forward for establishing home rule in wales. is the operation of the bill confined to great britain? an english member, unless he is a home ruler, will answer with an undoubted affirmative. an english, or irish, or welsh home ruler will with equal certainty, and equal honesty, give a negative answer. the question admits of fair debate, but we know already how the debate will be decided. if the unionists constitute a majority of the house, the irish vote will be excluded. but in this case its exclusion is of no practical importance. if the unionists constitute indeed a majority of british representatives, but do not constitute a majority of the house, the irish vote will be included. the irish representatives will decide whether wales shall constitute a separate state, and the right of great britain to manage british affairs will not prevent the dismemberment of england. home rule, such as it is for england, means at best a totally different thing from home rule for ireland. in the case of england it means a limited and precarious control of legislation for great britain by british members of parliament. in the case of ireland it means the real and substantial and exclusive government of ireland by an irish ministry and an irish parliament. but will the advantage of even this modified half-and-half home rule be really offered to england? gladstonians, it is rumoured (and before these pages are in print the rumour may turn out to be a fact), have their own remedy for some of the only too-patent absurdities of the 'in-and-out system' embodied in clause of the home rule bill. a suggestion is made which would be amusing for its irony, were it not revolting for its cynicism, that the difficulty of the double majority should be removed by the allowing members not only to remain at westminster in their full number, but also to vote there on all matters whatever, including those affairs which exclusively concern the interests of great britain. this is no doubt a remedy for some of the evils of an unworkable proposal. it is a cure which to any englishman of sense or spirit will seem tenfold worse than the disease. it is a cure in that sense only in which a traveller may be said to be relieved from the fear of robbery by a highwayman shooting him dead. the irregular interference of the irish delegation in the formation of the british cabinet, and other matters which indirectly concern england, is to be regularised (if i may use the term) by allowing to irish members permanent despotism over england in matters which, on a system of home rule, concern england alone. irish members may disestablish the church of england, though england is to have no voice in the pettiest of irish affairs. irish members are to be allowed to impose taxes on england, say to double the income tax, though of these taxes no inhabitant of ireland will pay a penny; the irish delegation--and this is the worst grievance of all--is to be enabled, in combination with a british minority, to detach wales from england, or to vote home rule for scotland, or to federalise still further the united kingdom by voting that man, jersey, and guernsey shall send members to the imperial parliament. note that all this may be done by the irish delegation, though, under the new constitution, england will not have a word to say on such questions as whether the right of electing members for the parliament at dublin shall or shall not be extended to every adult, or whether ulster shall, or shall not, be allowed home rule of its own. the absurdity of this policy ought to prevent its ever being adopted; but in these days absurdity seems to tell as little against wild schemes of legislation as their injustice. all this consideration of haggling and trafficking between great britain and ireland is loathsome to every true unionist who considers englishmen and irishmen as still citizens of one nation. but, when gladstonians propose to divide the united kingdom into two states, it is as essential as it is painful to weigh well what is the gain of great britain in the new scheme of political partnership. if the matter be looked at from this point of view, it is easy to see how miserable are the offers tendered to england. compare for a moment the authority to be given her under the new constitution with the authority she has hitherto possessed or the authority tendered to her under the home rule bill of . up to the british parliament held in its own hands the absolute control not only of every british affair, but every matter of policy affecting either ireland or the british empire. the british parliament, in which sat not a single representative of any irish county or borough, appointed the irish executive. the british parliament, whenever it thought fit, legislated for ireland; the british parliament controlled the whole course of irish legislation; every act which passed the parliament of ireland was inspected, amended, and, if the english ministry saw fit, vetoed in england. the system was a bad system and an unjust system. it is well that it ended. but as regarded the control of the british empire it corresponded roughly with facts. the empire was in the main the outcome of british energy and british strength, and the british empire was governed by great britain. the constitution of gave legislative independence to ireland, but did not degrade the british parliament to the position which will be occupied by the imperial parliament under the constitution of . the british parliament remained supreme in great britain; the british parliament controlled the imperial policy both of england and of ireland. the british parliament, or rather the british ministry, virtually appointed the irish executive. the british parliament renounced all rights to legislate for ireland[ ]; the british parliament technically possessed no representatives in the parliament at dublin. but any one who judges of institutions not by words but by facts will perceive that in one way or another the influence and the wishes of the british government were represented more than sufficiently in the irish houses of parliament. grattan's constitution, in short, left the british parliament absolutely supreme in all british and imperial affairs, and gave to the british ministry predominating weight in the government of ireland. this is a very different thing from the shadowy sovereignty which the english parliament retains, but abstains from exercising, in our self-governing colonies. it is a very different thing from the nominal power to legislate for ireland which the new constitution confers upon the imperial parliament. since the union england and ireland have been politically one nation. the imperial or british government has controlled, and the imperial parliament has passed laws for, the whole country. nor has the presence of the irish members till recent days substantially limited the authority of great britain. till the protestant landlords of ireland who were represented in the imperial parliament shared the principles or the prejudices of english landowners. since the granting of catholic emancipation roman catholic or irish ideas or interests have undoubtedly perplexed or encumbered the working of british politics. but the representatives of ireland have been for the most part divided between the two great english parties, and it was not till mr. parnell's influence united the majority of irish representatives into a party hostile to great britain that any essential evil or inconvenience resulted from their presence at westminster. this inconvenience, whatever its extent, has been the price of the union. the gain has been worth the payment: the action of parliament has been hampered, but its essential and effective authority throughout the realm has been maintained. in mr. gladstone framed a constitution which was meant to be a final and a just settlement of the questions at issue between england and ireland. under the constitution of great britain surrendered to ireland about the same amount of independence as is offered her under the proposed constitution of . but the difference in the position of great britain under the two constitutions is immense. under the constitution of great britain was offered a position of the highest authority. to the british parliament (in which was to sit not a single irish member) was to fall the appointment of the british or imperial ministry. the british parliament received absolute control of all british, colonial, imperial, and foreign affairs. perfect unity was restored to the spirit of her government, and predominance in the british, or, to use ordinary language, in the english, parliament was given to the conservative elements of english society. great britain became mistress in her own home; she became much more than this; she was enthroned as undisputed sovereign of the british empire.[ ] under the constitution, in short, of , if great britain was weakened on one side she was strengthened on another. her parliament obtained an immense accession of authority, and was all but entirely freed both from the necessity for considering irish questions and from the damage of irish obstruction. ireland surrendered to england all share in the government of the empire, and the further dismemberment of great britain without the assent of the british people became difficult, if not impossible. it does not lie in the mouth of gladstonians to say that the measure of was unjust. it was laid before the country as a compromise which was just to england and to ireland. the irish leaders, we were told, accepted the proposal, just as we are told that they accept the proposed constitution of . if the acceptance was honest, then in they agreed to a bargain far more favourable to england than the contract now pressed on our acceptance. if their acquiescence was a mere pretence, what trust can we place in the assertion that they accept the arrangement of ? however this may be, it is clear that england is now offered a position of weakness and of inferiority such as she has never occupied during the whole course of her history. what is the meaning or justification of the proposed surrender by england of every compensation for irish home rule which was offered her in ? for this surrender gladstonians assign but two reasons. the presence of the irish members at westminster is, it is said, a concession to the wishes of unionists. this plea, even were it supported by the facts of the case, would be futile. it might pass muster with disputants in search of a verbal triumph, but to any man seriously concerned for the welfare of the nation must appear childishly irrelevant. the welfare of the state cannot turn upon the neatness of a _tu quoque_; retorts are not reasons, and had every unionist, down from the duke of devonshire to the present writer, pressed in for the retention of the irish members at westminster, the controversial inexpertness of the unionists seven years ago would not diminish the dangers with which, under a system of home rule, the presence of the irish members at westminster actually threatens england. but the plea, futile as it is, is not supported by fact. it rests on a misrepresentation of the unionist position in . 'the case in truth stands thus:--mr. gladstone was [in ] placed in effect in this dilemma: "if you do not," said his opponents, "retain the irish representatives at westminster, the sovereignty of the british parliament will be, under the terms of your bill, no more than a name; if you do retain them, great britain will lose the only material advantage offered her in exchange for the local independence of ireland." gladstonians, in substance, replied that the devices embodied in the government of ireland bill at once freed the british parliament from the presence of the parnellites and safeguarded the sovereignty of the british, or (for in this matter there was some confusion) of the imperial parliament. on the latter point issue was joined. the other horn of the dilemma fell out of sight, and some unionists, rightly believing that the bill as it stood did not preserve the supremacy of the british parliament, pressed the ministry hard with all the difficulties involved in the removal of the irish members. in the heat of debate speeches were, i doubt not, delivered in which the argument that you could not, as the bill stood, remove the irish members from westminster and keep the british parliament supreme in ireland, was driven so far as to sound like an argument in favour of, at all costs, allowing members from ireland to sit in the english parliament. those who appeared to fall into this error were, it must be noted, but a fraction of the unionist party, and their mistake was little more than verbal. when the ministry maintained that the removal of the irish members from westminster was a main feature of their home rule policy, opponents naturally insisted upon the defects of the scheme laid before them, and did not insist on the equal or greater defects of a plan which the government did not advocate. mr. gladstone, we are now told, has changed his position, and assents to the principle that ireland must be represented in the british parliament. if this assent be represented as a concession to the demands of unionists, my reply is that it is no such thing. it is merely the acceptance of a different horn of an argumentative dilemma. grant for the sake of argument (what is by no means certain) that the supremacy of the imperial parliament is really saved. the advantage offered to england in exchange for home rule is assuredly gone. my friend, mr. john morley, used to argue in favour of home rule from the necessity of freeing the english parliament from parnellite obstruction. as a matter of curiosity, i should like to know what he thinks of a concession which strikes his strongest argumentative weapon out of his hands. my curiosity will be satisfied on the same day which tells us lord spencer's reflections on the surrender of the policy represented by the land purchase bill. meanwhile, i know well enough the thoughts of every unionist who is not tied by the exigencies of his political antecedents or utterances. to say that in the eyes of such a man the proposed concession is worthless, is to say far too little. it is not a concession which he rates at a low price; it is a proposal which he heart and soul condemns.'[ ] these words were not written to meet the present condition of the controversy; they were published in at a time when no gladstonian, except mr. gladstone (if indeed he were an exception), knew whether the retention in the parliament at westminster, or the exclusion from the parliament at westminster, of the irish members, was an essential principle of home rule. england again, it is alleged, suffers without murmuring all the inconvenience caused by the irish vote at westminster; and she may well, under a system of home rule, bear without complaint evils which she has tolerated for near a century. the answer to this reasoning is plain. it is a sorry plea indeed for a desperate innovation that it leaves the evils of the existing state of things no worse than they now are. for the sake of the maintenance of the union, which unionists hold of inestimable value, england has borne the inconvenience caused to her by the irish vote. it argues simplicity, or impudence, to urge that england should continue to bear the inconvenience when the national unity is sacrificed for the sake of which it was endured. but the reply does not stop here. the presence of irish members at westminster under the new constitution increases and stereotypes the evils, whatever their extent, now resulting from the existence of irish members in the house of commons. the evils are increased because the irish members are turned into a delegation from the irish state, and their action ceases to be influenced, as it now is, by the consideration--a very important one--that the imperial parliament not only in theory but in fact legislates for ireland, and that the english cabinet controls the irish administration and directs the course of political promotion in ireland. the sentiment and the interest of the irish members will be changed. whether they come from north or south they will be representatives of ireland, and will naturally and rightly consider themselves agents bound in every case to make the best bargain they can for ireland as against the united kingdom, or, in plain language, as against england. they will no longer feel it their interest to keep in power the english party which they think will best govern ireland, for with the government of ireland the imperial parliament will, as long as the new constitution stands, have no practical concern. no honest home ruler supposes that, if the home rule bill passes into law, the imperial parliament will, even should the tragedy of the phoenix park be repeated in some more terrible form, pass a crimes act for ireland; to the irish government will belong the punishment of irish crime. no interest will therefore restrain the irish delegation from swaying backwards and forwards between the two english parties, in order to obtain from the one or the other some momentary advantage, or some lucrative concession, to the irish people. intrigue will be pardonable, diplomatic finesse will become a duty. this evil no doubt in some degree exists, but under the present state of things it admits of diminution. a just redistribution of the franchise will undoubtedly lessen the number of ireland's representatives, whilst it will increase the relative importance, if not the actual numbers, of loyalists in the representation of ireland. the gradual settlement of the land question, as unionists believe, will further strike at the true root of irish discontent, and in removing the true grievance of the irish tenants will diminish the strength of the party which depends for its power on the revolutionary elements in irish society. but all chance of mitigating the inconvenience inflicted upon england by the presence of the irish members vanishes for ever when they are changed into an irish delegation, and are compelled by their position to be the mere mouthpiece of ireland's claims against england. the alleged reasons for the weakening of england are untenable, and, were they tenfold stronger than they are, could not remove the flagrant contradiction between the gladstonian policy of and the gladstonian policy of . but a contradiction which cannot be removed may be explained. the withdrawal of the irish members from westminster might give ireland the chance of obtaining some of the benefits, and compensate england for some of the evils, of home rule. but however this may be, one result it would produce with certainty; it would dash the gladstonian party to pieces. the friends of disestablishment, the welsh, or the scottish, home rulers, the london socialists, all the revolutionists throughout the country, know that with the departure of the irish representatives from westminster their own hopes of triumph must be indefinitely postponed. england is the stronghold of british conservatism, and an arrangement which leaves the fate of england in the hands of englishmen may be favourable to reform, but is fatal to revolution. has this fact arrested the attention of gladstonians? i know not. it is an unfortunate coincidence that the least defensible portion of an indefensible policy should, while it threatens ruin to england, offer temporary salvation to the party who rally round mr. gladstone.[ ] c. _the powers of the irish government_ i. _the irish executive_. at the head of the irish executive will nominally stand the lord lieutenant; he will however in reality occupy the position of a colonial governor, and be, for most purposes, little more than the ornamental figure-head of the irish administration. the real executive government of ireland[ ] must be a parliamentary ministry or cabinet[ ] chosen in effect, though not in name, by the irish parliament, or rather by the irish legislative assembly, or house of commons, just as the english cabinet is appointed in effect by the english house of commons. allowing then for the occasional intervention of the lord lieutenant as the representative of the imperial parliament to protect either the interests of the empire or the special rights of the united kingdom,[ ] the irish ministry is to occupy in ireland the position which the new zealand ministry occupies in new zealand, and will for most purposes as truly govern ireland as the new zealand ministry governs new zealand, or as mr. gladstone's ministry governs england. the irish ministry will be the true government of ireland. this is a fact to which the attention of the english public ought to be sedulously directed. the creation of an independent irish parliament strikes the imagination; it is seen to be an innovation of primary importance. the creation of an independent irish cabinet or ministry is taken as a matter of course, and neither unionists nor gladstonians see its full import. yet in ireland, as elsewhere, the character of the executive is of more practical consequence than the character of the legislature. a country may dispense, for a long time, with legislation; no country can dispense with good government. this principle holds good even in an orderly country such as england, where the sphere of the administration is far less extended than it is in most states. we might get on for a good while prosperously enough without a parliament, or without new laws, but if anything deprived us even for a week of an executive, or if, for any reason, the whole spirit of the public administration were changed, every englishman would feel this portentous revolution in every concern of his daily life. the protection of the government, of the army, of the police, of the law courts, are with us so much matters of course, that we never realise how much the comfort and prosperity of our existence hang upon it, nor do we reflect that the aid we derive from the courts is in the last instance dependent upon the decisions of the judges being actively supported by the forces at the command of the executive power. again, we are so used to the preservation on the part of the executive and the courts of an attitude of perfect impartiality and to the extension of their aid to all citizens alike, that we can hardly even in imagination conceive what would be the condition of things if the public administration favoured particular classes and looked askance on the rights of one class, whilst it enforced with rigour the rights of another. yet events which have been passing before our eyes may show any one how absolutely dependent we may be, at any moment, for our enjoyment of life, property, or freedom upon the authority and the equity of the executive. consider the strike at hull. practically the legal rights and personal freedom of every inhabitant of the city depend upon the action of the government. it is as plain as day that if the government had taken actively and unfairly the side of one party or the other to the contest, the party which the government favoured would at once have won. suppose, though the supposition is a very improbable one, that the home secretary had directed the police to put down every form of picketing and to arrest every one who counselled the free labourers to desert their employment, the strike would come at once to an end. suppose on the other hand--the supposition is also a wild one--that the home secretary had declined to protect the rights of the free labourers, that the troops had been withdrawn, and that the police had been inactive; suppose, in short, that the government had been careless to maintain order. the trade unionists would at once have become supreme, and freedom of contract, as well as liberty of person, would have been at once abolished. even in england then the power to exercise our rights as citizens has its source in the constant, though unobserved, intervention of the executive power. what is true of england is truer still of countries where the sphere of the administration is more widely extended than with us, and what is true of every civilised country is truest of all of ireland. ireland is a country where the sphere of the administration is large, and where it will probably be increased. ireland is divided by hostile factions not too much prone to respect the law. even as things stand, the irish executive finds it hard enough to hold a perfectly even and level course, and the whole state of the country depends upon the spirit in which the law is enforced. one of the very gravest defects of our present system is that in ireland a change of government means, to a certain extent, a change in the administration of the law. yet both mr. balfour and mr. morley have enforced the law, and have meant, according to their lights, to act towards all citizens with equitable impartiality. and mr. balfour, mr. morley, or any statesman appointed by the imperial parliament, is likely to act with more fairness than at the present moment would any executive chosen by any irish parliament. one thing, at any rate, is certain. an independent irish executive will possess immense power. it will be able by mere administrative action or inaction, without passing a single law which infringes any restriction to be imposed by the irish government act, , to effect a revolution. let us consider for a moment a few of the things which the irish cabinet might do if it chose. it might confine all political, administrative, or judicial appointments to nationalists, and thus exclude loyalists from all positions of public trust. it might place the bench,[ ] the magistracy, the police wholly in the hands of catholics; it might, by encouragement of athletic clubs where the catholic population were trained to the use of arms, combined with the rigorous suppression of every protestant association suspected, rightly or not, of preparing resistance to the parliament at dublin, bring about the arming of catholic and the disarming of protestant ireland, and, at the same time, raise a force as formidable to england as an openly enrolled irish army. but the mere inaction of the executive might in many spheres produce greater results than active unfairness. the refusal of the police for the enforcement of evictions would abolish rent throughout the country. and the same result might be attained by a more moderate course. irish ministers might in practice draw a distinction between 'good' landlords and 'bad' landlords, and might grant the aid of the police for the collection of reasonable, though refusing it for the collection of excessive rents, and might at last magnanimously recognise the virtues of mr. smith-barry, whilst passing a practical sentence of outlawry on lord clanricarde. is there anything absurd or unreasonable in the supposition that a ministry of land leaguers chosen by a parliament of nationalists should attempt to enforce the unwritten law of the land league? a gladstonian who answers this question in the affirmative entertains a far lower opinion than can any candid unionist of mr. gladstone's irish allies. it would be the grossest unfairness to suggest that every man convicted of conspiracy by the special commission added to criminality and recklessness a monstrous form of hypocrisy, and that, whilst urging irish peasants to boycott evictors and land-grabbers, he felt no genuine moral abhorrence of evictions and land-grabbing. but if, as is certainly the case, the founders of the land league really detested the existing system of land tenure, and considered a landlord who exacted rent a criminal, and a tenant who paid it a caitiff, it is as certain as anything can be that they will be under the greatest temptation, not to say, in their own eyes, under a stringent moral obligation, to strain the power of an irish executive for the purpose of abolishing the payment of rent. nothing, at any rate, will seem to an irish ministry more desirable than that within three years[ ] from the passing of the bill landlords and tenants should come to an arrangement, and nothing is more likely to produce this result than the withdrawal from the landlords of the aid, if not the protection, of the law. my argument, however, at the present point does not require the assertion or the belief that an irish ministry will be guilty of every act of oppression which it can legally commit. all that i insist upon is that an irish ministry will exercise immense power, and that without violating a letter of the constitution, and without passing a single act which any court whatever could treat as void, the ministry will be able to change the social condition of ireland. the irish cabinet, remember, will not be checked by any irish house of commons, for it will represent the majority of that house. it will not need to fear the interposition of the imperial ministry or the imperial parliament, for if the authorities in england are to supervise and correct the conduct of the irish cabinet, home rule is at an end. mr. asquith has repudiated all idea of creating two executives in ireland[ ] for the ordinary purposes of government, and from his own point of view he is right. the notion of a dual control is preposterous; the attempt to carry it out must involve anarchy or revolution. the irish ministry must in ordinary matters be at least as free as the ministry of a self-governing colony. the independence of the irish executive is indeed a totally new phenomenon in irish history, and is, as i have said, a far more important matter than the independence of the irish parliament, but it is an essential feature of home rule, and every elector throughout england should try to realise its import. one check, indeed, is placed upon the power of the irish cabinet. the military forces of the crown, and the royal irish constabulary and dublin metropolitan police (as long as they exist[ ]), are subject to the control of the imperial or english ministry.[ ] the result is that the english cabinet will have the means of using force in ireland for the maintenance of order, for the execution of the law, or for the maintenance of the authority of the imperial parliament. but this advantage is after all purchased at the price of placing the country under the rule of something very like two executives. if the policy of the irish cabinet, _e.g._ as to suppressing a riot at dublin or belfast, should differ from the policy of the english cabinet, the ordinary police may be called into action whilst the army or the royal constabulary stand by inactive, or the army may disperse a meeting which the irish ministry hold to be a lawful assembly. ii. _the irish parliament._ the authority of the irish parliament, whilst acting within the limits of the constitution, is extremely wide.[ ] the parliament appoints the irish government of the day; it will determine whether mr. m'carthy or mr. redmond, mr. healy or mr. davitt, directs the irish administration. in this matter the british government will have no voice. the english ministry are under the new constitution expected in many ways to co-operate with the irish ministry, yet it is quite conceivable that the ministers of the crown at dublin may be men whose whole ideas of expediency, of policy, of political morality, may be opposed to the ideas of the ministers of the crown at westminster. the irish parliament, again, even if every restriction on its powers inserted in the home rule bill should pass into law, will be found to have ample scope for legislative action.[ ] it can repeal[ ] any act affecting ireland which was enacted before the passing of the home rule bill. thus it can do away with the right to the writ of _habeas corpus_; it can abolish the whole system of trial by jury; it can by wide rules as to the change of venue expose any inhabitant of belfast, charged with any offence against the irish government, to the certainty of being tried in dublin or in cork. if an irish law cannot touch the law of treason or of treason-felony, the leaders of the irish parliament may easily invent new offences not called by these names, and the parliament may impose severe penalties on any one who attempts by act or by speech to bring the irish government into contempt. a new law of sacrilege may be passed which would make criticism of the irish priesthood, or attacks on the roman catholic religion, or the public advocacy of protestantism, practically impossible. the irish house of commons may take the decision of election petitions into its own hands, and members nominated by the priests may determine the proper limits of spiritual influence. thus the party dominant at dublin can, if they see fit, abolish all freedom of election; nor is this all that the irish parliament can accomplish in the way of ensuring the supremacy of an irish party. after six years from the passing of the home rule bill--let us say in the year --the irish parliament can alter the qualification of the electors and the distribution of the members among the constituencies. parliament can in fact introduce at once universal suffrage, and do everything which the ingenuity of partisanship can suggest for diminishing the representation of property and of protestantism. if, further, in any part of ireland there be reason to fear opposition to the laws of the irish parliament, a severer coercion act may be passed than any which has as yet found its way on to the pages of the english or the irish statute book. worse than all this, the irish parliament has the right to legislate with regard to transactions which have taken place before the passing of the home rule bill. an act inflicting penalties on magistrates who have been zealous in the enforcement of the crimes act, an act abolishing the right to recover debts incurred before , an act for compensation to tenants who had suffered from obedience to the behests of the land league, are all acts which, however monstrous, the irish parliament is, under the new constitution, competent to pass. my assertion is, be it noted, not that all or any of such laws would be passed, but that the passing of them would, under the new constitution, be legal. the irish parliament could further by its legislation pursue lines of policy opposed to the moral feeling and political judgment of great britain, and this too where irish legislation practically affects great britain. state lotteries might be re-established, gambling tables might be re-opened at dublin. if the imposition of protective duties on imported goods is forbidden, there is nothing apparently to prevent the reintroduction of protection into ireland by the payment of bounties; there is certainly nothing to prohibit the repeal or suspension of the factory acts, so that english manufacturers might be compelled to compete with irish rivals who are freed from the limits imposed upon excessive labour by the humanity or the wisdom of england. the power of the irish parliament to pass laws which in the eyes of englishmen are unwise or inequitable, is, it will be urged, an essential part of the policy of home rule. i admit that this is so. but this makes it the more necessary that english electors should realise what this essential characteristic of home rule means, or may mean. the nonconformist conscience exposed irish home rulers to painful humiliation and possible ruin by forbidding them to follow the political leader of their choice to whom they had deliberately renewed their allegiance. is it certain that englishmen who could not tolerate the official authority of mr. parnell will bear the official leadership, say of mr. healy, if employed to carry out the economical principles of mr. davitt? the legislative powers, ample as they are, of the irish parliament are in some respects restricted, but what the parliament cannot accomplish by law it could accomplish by resolution. the expressed opinion of a legislature entitled to speak in the name of the people of ireland must always command attention, and may exert decisive influence. suppose that the irish house of commons asserts in respectful, but firm, language, the right of the irish people to establish a protective tariff; suppose that when england is engaged in a diplomatic, or an armed, contest with france, the irish house of commons resolves that ireland sympathises with france, that ireland disapproves of all alliance with germany, that she has no interest in war, and wishes to stand neutral; or suppose that, taking another line, the irish parliament at the approach of hostilities resolves that the people of ireland assert their inherent right to arm volunteers, or raise an army in their own defence. no english minister can allege with truth that these resolutions or a score more of the same kind are a breach of the constitution; yet such resolutions will not be without their effect in england; they cannot be without their effect abroad; in many parts of ireland they will have more than the authority of an act of parliament. assume, for the purpose of my argument, that the irish parliament always acts absolutely within the limits or the letter of the constitution, though to make this assumption is to substitute unreasonable hopes for rational expectations. what englishmen should note, because they do not yet understand it, is that within the limits of the constitution the irish cabinet and the irish parliament possess and must possess the most extensive powers, and that these powers may be used in ways which would surprise and shock the british public, and impede and weaken the action of the imperial, or english, government. d. _the restrictions (or safeguards) and the obligations_ i. _their nature_. the limitations on the power of the irish legislature are of a twofold character. the restrictions contained in clause of the bill are intended to restrain the irish parliament from acting as the representative body of an independent nation. this clause invalidates for example acts with respect to the crown or the succession to the crown, with respect to peace or war, with respect to the naval or military forces of the realm, with respect to treaties or other relations with foreign states, and with respect to trade with any place out of ireland, which apparently includes the imposition of a protective tariff. the restrictions[ ] contained in clause may be roughly divided into three heads; first, prohibitions intended to ensure the maintenance of absolute religious equality[ ]; secondly, prohibitions intended to prevent injustice to individuals, such as deprivation of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, denial of equal protection of the law, the taxing of private property without due compensation, or the unfair treatment of any existing corporation; thirdly, a provision prohibiting any law which deprives any inhabitant of the united kingdom of equal rights to public sea fisheries.[ ] on these restrictions it were easy to write an elaborate treatise. should our new constitution ever come into force, they will give rise to a whole series of judgments, and to lengthy books explanatory thereof. the language in which the restrictions are expressed is in many cases exceptionable. no lawyer will venture to predict what for instance may be the interpretation placed by the courts on such expressions as 'due process of law,' 'just compensation,' and the like, and it is more than doubtful whether the so-called safeguards are so expressed as to carry out the intention of their authors, or, even in words, adequately to protect either the authority of the imperial parliament or the rights of individuals. but it is not my purpose to criticise the restrictions, or the bill itself, in detail. the drafting of the government of ireland bill needs much amendment, but at the present juncture it is waste of time to criticise defects removable by better draftmanship or by slight changes in the substance of the measure. my object is to dwell on such points relating to the restrictions as show their bearing on the character of the new constitution.[ ] _first._ the restrictions are one and all of them limits upon the powers of the irish parliament; they are none of them limits upon the powers of the irish executive. the new constitution does not contain--from its nature it hardly could contain--a single safeguard against abuse of power by the irish ministry or its servants. yet in all countries there is far more reason to dread executive than parliamentary oppression, and this is emphatically true of ireland. _secondly._ the restrictions contain no prohibition against the passing of an act of indemnity. yet of all the laws which a legislature can pass an act of indemnity is the most likely to produce injustice. it is on the face of it the legislation of illegality; the hope of it encourages acts of vigour, but it also encourages violations of law and of humanity. the tale of flogging fitzgerald in ireland, or the history of governor eyre in jamaica, is sufficient to remind us of the deeds of lawlessness and cruelty which in a period of civil conflict may be inspired by recklessness or panic, and may be pardoned by the retrospective sympathy or partisanship of a terror-stricken or vindictive legislature. circumstances no doubt may arise in ireland, as in other countries, under which the maintenance of order or the protection of life may excuse or require deviation from the strict rules of legality. but the question, whether these circumstances have arisen, will always be decided far more justly by the parliament at westminster than it can be decided by the parliament at dublin. can any one really maintain that a parliament in which mr. healy, or, for that matter, col. saunderson, might be leader, would be as fair a tribunal as a parliament under the guidance of mr. gladstone or lord salisbury for determining whether an officer who, acting under the direction of the irish government and with a view to maintain order at belfast or at dublin, should have put an agitator or conspirator to death without due trial, had or had not done his duty. _thirdly._ there is among the restrictions no prohibition against the passing of an _ex post facto_ law. yet an _ex post facto_ law is the instrument which a legislature is most apt to use for punishing the unpopular use of legal rights. there is not a landlord, there is not a magistrate, there is not a constable in ireland, who may not tremble in fear of _ex post facto_ legislation. there is no reason, as far as the home rule bill goes, why the gaoler who kept mr. william o'brien in prison or the warders who attempted to pull off his breeches, should not be rendered legally liable to punishment for their offences against the unwritten law of irish sedition. no such monstrosity of legal inequity will, it may be said, be produced. i admit this. but the very object of prohibitions is the prevention of outrageous injustice. the wise founders of the united states prohibited both to congress and to every state legislature the passing of _ex post facto_ legislation. if any man hint that it be an insult to ireland to anticipate the possible injustice of an irish parliament, my reply is simple. no irishman need resent as an insult prohibitions which were not felt to be insulting either by the citizens of america or the citizens of massachusetts. _fourthly._ the restrictions on the powers of the irish parliament do not contain any safeguard against legislation which sets aside contracts. this is remarkable, not to say ominous. the gladstonian constitution has been drawn up by legislators who profess to profit by the experience of america. under the constitution of the united states[ ] no state can pass any law 'impairing the obligation of a contract.' this provision has kept alive throughout the union the belief in the sacredness of legal promises. it embodies a principle which lies at the bottom of all progressive legislation. it gives the best guarantee which a constitution can give against the most insidious form of legislative unfairness; it embodies a doctrine which all legislatures are likely to neglect and which an irish parliament is more likely to neglect than any other legislature, for in ireland there exist contracts which do not command popular approval, and the imperial legislation of twenty years and more has taught the irish people that agreements which do not command popular approval may, without breach of good faith, be set aside by legislative enactment. we all know further that reforms, or innovations, are desired by thousands of irishmen which cannot be carried into effect unless the obligation of contracts be impaired. why, then, have statesmen who borrow freely from the constitution of the united states omitted the most salutary of its provisions from our new constitution? the official reply is at any rate singular; it is apparently[ ] that the section of the united states constitution which invalidates any law impairing the obligation of a contract has given much occupation to the courts of america. this answer is on the face of it futile; it urges the proved utility of a law as a reason for its not being enacted; as well suggest that because the criminal courts are mainly occupied with the trial of thieves there ought to be no law against petty larceny, or that because the labours of the divorce court increase year by year, the law ought not to permit divorce. the absurdity of the official reply suggests the existence of some reason which the defenders of this strange omission are unwilling clearly to allege. the true reason why the founders of the new constitution have omitted in this instance to copy a polity which they profess to admire is not hard to discover. an enactment which enjoined an irish parliament to respect the sanctity of a contract would be fatal to any remodelling of the irish land law which tended towards the spoliation of landowners. yet this very fact makes the matter all the more serious. that british statesmen should under these circumstances deliberately decline to insert an injunction to respect the sanctity of plighted good faith is much more than an omission. it amounts to the suggestion, almost to the approval, of legislative robbery; it is a proclamation that as against landlords, as against creditors, as against any unpopular class, the imperial parliament sanctions the violation of good faith. to the irish parliament the authors of the new constitution in effect say: 'you may raise no soldiers, you may not yourselves summon volunteers for the defence of your country, you shall not impose customs on foreign goods, and are therefore forbidden to follow a policy of protection approved of by every civilised state except england; you shall neither establish nor endow a church, you shall not by providing salaries for your priesthood at once lighten the burdens of the flock, and improve the position of the pastor; these things, not to speak of many others, you are forbidden to do, though there are many wise statesmen who deem that the courses of action from which you are debarred would conduce to the dignity and the prosperity of ireland; but there is one thing which you may do, you may sanction breach of faith, you may encourage dishonesty, you may enjoin fraud, you may continue to teach the worst lesson which the vacillation of english government has as yet taught the irish people, you may drive home the conviction that no man need keep a covenant when the keeping thereof is to his own damage.' this is the message of political morality which the last true parliament of the united kingdom hands over to the first new parliament of ireland. ii. _their enforcement._ the nature of the restrictions imposed upon the parliament, and indirectly upon the government of ireland, is of far less importance than are the means provided for their enforcement. a law which is not enforceable is a nullity; it has in strictness no existence. the methods provided by the home rule bill for keeping the irish parliament within its proper sphere of legislative activity are two in number--the veto of the lord lieutenant, and the action of the courts. _the veto._ this is little more than an empty sham, for it must in general be exercised on the advice of the irish cabinet; in other words it will never be exercised at all.[ ] were the matter not so serious there would be something highly amusing in the conduct of constitution-makers who, intending to provide against unconstitutional legislation on the part of the irish parliament, provide that the irish cabinet, who are practically appointed by the irish parliament, and who direct its legislation, shall have power to veto bills passed by the irish parliament presumably on the advice of the irish cabinet. the english ministry no doubt may, if they see fit, instruct the lord lieutenant to veto a given bill. so also the imperial parliament has authority to repeal or override any act, constitutional or unconstitutional, passed by the irish parliament. each power stands on the same footing, neither is meant for ordinary use; either is a means of legal revolution. the veto of the crown means little in new zealand; it will at best mean no more in ireland; but in truth it will mean a good deal less. new zealand sends no member to westminster to stay the hand of the imperial government whenever it attempts by way of veto or otherwise to put in force the reserved powers of the imperial parliament.[ ] _the privy council and the courts_. the english privy council[ ] may nullify the effect of irish legislation in two ways. it may as an administrative body give a decision that an act is void.[ ] this power can by exercised only upon the application of the lord lieutenant or a secretary of state, and it is a power which we may expect will be but rarely employed, for its use would at once give rise to a direct conflict between the irish parliament and the english privy council. let it be noted in passing that this provision for the decision of constitutional questions is foreign to the habits and traditions of english courts; no judge throughout the united kingdom ever pronounces a speculative opinion upon the extent, operation, or validity of an act of parliament. it is the inveterate habit of our judges to deal with particular cases as they come before them, and with particular cases alone. they will find themselves greatly perplexed when they come to pronounce judgment upon abstract questions of law. this is not all. the proposed arrangement is as foreign to the spirit of american federalism as it is to the spirit of english law. the supreme court of the united states never in strictness pronounces an act either of congress or of a state legislature void. what the court does is to treat it as void in the decision of a particular case. tocqueville and other critics have directed special attention to the care with which the federal tribunals, by dealing only with given cases as they arise, avoid as far as possible coming into conflict with any state. they determine the rights of individuals; they do not determine directly what may be the legislative competence of the state, or for that matter of the federal, legislature.[ ] the extraordinary power given to the privy council violates a fundamental principle of federalism, which by the way is violated in other parts of the home rule bill. it brings, or tends to bring, the central power, represented in this case by the privy council, into direct conflict with one of the states of the federation.[ ] the english privy council, or, in strictness, the judicial committee of the privy council, is under the new constitution constituted a final court of appeal from every court in ireland.[ ] the privy council also is the court of appeal from a new kind of imperial, or as one may say 'federal,' judiciary, specially formed for the determination of matters having relation to the competence of the irish parliament. this imperial or federal judiciary consists of the two exchequer judges of the supreme court in ireland; they are appointed under the great seal of the united kingdom, and therefore by the english ministry. their salaries are charged on the consolidated fund of the united kingdom, and they are removable only on an address to the houses of the imperial parliament. they constitute therefore an imperial not an irish court. before this court may be brought on the application of any party thereto any legal proceedings in ireland which _inter alia_ 'touch any matter not within the power of the irish legislature, or touch any matter affected by a law which the irish legislature has not power to repeal or alter.'[ ] with the details of these arrangements i need not trouble my readers; the point to notice is that, whenever in any proceeding in ireland the validity or constitutionality of an irish act can come into question, the matter may, at the wish of any party concerned, and in many cases apparently must be, brought before an imperial or in effect british court--the exchequer judges--and be determined by them subject to an appeal to another imperial or british court, viz. the privy council. note further that to the exchequer judges are given special powers for the enforcement of any judgment of their court. if the sheriff does not give effect to their judgment, they may appoint any other officer with the full rights of a sheriff to enforce it.[ ] here then we have the machinery of the imperial, or federal, judicature. to put the matter simply, the restrictions imposed on the irish parliament depend for their effectiveness on judgments of the privy council enforced by the exchequer judges. consider how the whole arrangement will work.[ ] the theoretical operation of the scheme is clear enough. _a_ sues _x_ in an irish court, say, to simplify matters, before the exchequer judges, for £ , due to _a_ for rent. _x_ bases his defence on an act of the irish parliament, drawn by irish statesmen, and approved presumably by irish electors. _a_ questions the constitutionality of the act. the exchequer judges are divided in opinion. the matter at last comes before the privy council. the privy council pronounce the act void, and give judgment in _a's_ favour. he has a right to recover the £ , from _x_. the whole question in theory is settled. the law is unconstitutional, the law is void; _a_ has obtained judgment. but can the judgment be enforced? this is the essential question; for the object of a plaintiff is to obtain not judgment but payment or execution. what then are the means for enforcing the judgment of the privy council when it is not supported by irish opinion, when it sets aside an act of the irish parliament, and when it may possibly be opposed to the decision, in a similar case, of an irish court? the means are the action of the sheriff. what if the sheriff is a strong nationalist, and makes default? the only thing to be done is to appoint an officer empowered to carry out the decree of the court. of course if the irish ministry are bent on enforcing the judgment, if the exchequer court, whose judgment, it may be, has been overruled, is zealous in supporting the authority of the privy council, if the irish people are filled with reverence for tribunals which are really english courts, all will go well. but mr. gladstone himself cannot anticipate that novel constitutional machinery will work with ease, or that on the passing of the home rule bill the disposition, the traditional feelings, and the sympathies of the irish populace will be changed. suppose that _a_ is lord clanricarde; suppose that _x_ is an evicted tenant. it is not common sense to believe that the judgment in his lordship's favour will as a matter of course take effect. at the present moment the irish courts, backed by the whole authority of the imperial government and the irish executive, often find a difficulty in enforcing their judgments. will english courts find it easy to give effect to a judgment in ireland if the irish executive and its servants stand neutral or hostile? what if the irish house of commons turn out as unwilling that force should be used for enforcing the decree of the privy council as are some english radicals that force shall be employed for the protection of free labourers against trades unionists? what if the officer of the court is in fact some bailiff trembling for his own life? he may, i am told, call in the military. of his authority to do this i am not quite sure. he must, i suppose, in the first instance apply to the irish home secretary. the irish minister pressed by the opposition turns a deaf ear to the appeal of the bailiff. application must then be made in some form or other to the english ministry. the imperial cabinet will think more than once before horse, foot, and artillery are, against the wish of the irish government, put in movement to enforce the judgment of a british court, and to obtain £ , for lord clanricarde. the matter will have become serious; the dignity of the irish nation will be at stake; the complaints of the plaintiff will be drowned by the indignant clamours of eighty members at westminster. the essential principle of the new constitution is that there shall be but one executive in ireland. the moment that the british government intervenes to support the judgment of british courts, we have in ireland two hostile executives. we tremble on the verge either of legal revolution or of civil war. an english cabinet, i suspect, will hardly enforce the unpopular rights of a hated plaintiff by use of arms. why, it will be said, assume that the irish government and the irish people will not enforce the law? the assumption, i answer, is justified not only by the history of ireland, but by general experience. in all federations, even the best ordered, difficulties constantly arise as to the sphere of the federal government and the state governments, and as to the enforcement of judgments delivered by federal courts. the authority of the federal tribunals has not always been easily enforced even in the united states. serious difficulties hamper the action of the swiss federal authorities. even in england enthusiasm or conviction occasionally triumphs over legality. english clergymen are at least as reasonable as excited politicians, yet ritualists have not invariably submitted to the authority of the privy council. why should irishmen be more reasonable than other men? in ireland we are trying an entirely novel and dangerous experiment; we are fostering the spirit of nationality under the forms of federation. the privy council, hide the matter as you will, represents british power. if ireland is a nation, the government of great britain is an alien government; the judgments of the privy council are the judgments of an alien court, and reason forbids us to expect more submission to the decisions of an alien tribunal than to the laws of an alien legislature. suppose, however, that british judgments are enforced by the british army. is this a result in which any englishman or irishman could rejoice? can we say that the new constitution works well when its real and visible sanction is the use of british soldiers? the plain truth is that arrangements for legally restraining the irish parliament within the due limits of its powers must be ineffective and unreal and, if the principle of home rule be once admitted, the widest must be the wisest form of it. colonial independence is better for ireland and safer for england than sham federalism.[ ] grant, however, that the judgments of the privy council can be enforced more easily than i suppose, still even gladstonians would admit that the proper working of the new constitution depends on two presumptions. the one is that the irish people are under no strong temptation to oppose the restrictions or to throw off the obligations imposed upon the irish parliament or government. the other that they possess no ready means for nullifying these restrictions or obligations. each of these assumptions is false. restraints ineffective for the protection either of british interests or of individual freedom may be intensely irritating to national sentiment. the limitations imposed on the powers of the irish parliament, or, in other words, of the irish people, are opposed to the spirit of nationality and independence which home rule, it is hoped, will appease or satisfy. they will be hateful therefore not only to that multitude whom gladstonians call the irish people, but to every irishman who is bidden by gladstonians to consider himself a member of the irish nation. the irish are a martial race; they excel in the practice, and delight in the pageantry, of warfare, but they are forbidden to raise a regiment or man a gunboat. they cannot legally raise a regiment of volunteers, they cannot save their country from invasion. will they permanently acquiesce in restraints not imposed on the channel islands? irishmen, unionists no less than home rulers, are mostly protectionists, and believe that tariffs may give to ireland, not indeed a 'plethora of wealth,' for of this no man out of bedlam except mr. gladstone dreams, but reasonable prosperity. vain to argue that protection is folly. englishmen think so, and englishmen are right. but english doctrine is not accepted in germany, in france, in the united states, or in the british colonies; why should irishmen be wiser than the inhabitants of every civilised country, except england? the fact, in any case, cannot be altered that most home rulers are protectionists, and that many of them desire home rule mainly because they desire protection for ireland. yet protection, at any rate in the form of a tariff, they cannot have.[ ] take again the restrictions imposed on the endowment of religion. all english nonconformists, and many english churchmen, hold these restrictions to be in themselves politic and just. but the one strong reason for the concession of home rule is that irishmen disagree with english notions of policy and of justice. no one can assign any reason why irish statesmen, catholics or protestants, might not feel it a matter of duty or of policy to endow the priesthood, to level up instead of levelling down, to enter into some sort of concordat with rome. it is a policy which is distasteful to english nonconformists and to most irish protestants. but under a system of home rule, at any rate, english nonconformists have no right to dictate the policy of ireland. there is not the remotest reason why restrictions on the endowments of religion and the like should not be hateful to irishmen. the limitations, in short, on the competence of the irish parliament are inconsistent with the fundamental principle of gladstonian statecraft. it is a policy we are told of trust in the people, the limitations are dictated by distrust of the irish people; home rule is to be granted in order that irishmen may give effect to irish ideas; the restrictions are enacted to check the development of irish ideas, and to impose english ideas upon the policy of ireland. as though, however, the restraints were not enough to cause first irritation and then agitation, the financial provisions contemplated by the bill are in themselves certain to generate, not future, but immediate discord. of the financial arrangements instituted under the new constitution, my purpose is to say very little. my object is not to show that mr. gladstone's financial calculations are wrong, or that they are ruinous to ireland or unfair to england. all this is for my present purpose immaterial. my aim is to insist that, in their very nature, they are a cause of conflict; and that they bring the interest, and, even more, the sentiment, of ireland into direct opposition with the power of england.[ ] all the customs payable at every irish port are to be regulated, collected, and managed by, and to be paid into, the exchequer of the united kingdom. not a penny of these customs benefits ireland; they are all--and this is certainly the light in which they will appear to most irishmen--a contribution to the revenue of the united kingdom, that is, of england. if every taxable article were smuggled into ireland, so that not one pound of irish customs were paid to the english treasury, the imperial power would lose, but the irish state would gain. ireland would be delivered from a tax which will soon be called a tribute. if, moreover, ireland continues to be treated as financially a part of the united kingdom, then free smuggling, which is free trade, would make ireland a free port, where might be landed untaxed the goods required by the whole united kingdom. it is easy to see how the english revenue would suffer, but it is equally easy to see that irish commerce might flourish. if i am told that the ruin of the british revenue may be averted by the examination of goods brought from ireland to great britain--this, of course, is so. but then freedom of trade within the united kingdom is at an end. we are compelled, in substance, to raise an internal line of custom houses; we abolish at one stroke one great benefit of the treaty of union. the mode, again, in which the customs are levied outrages every kind of national sentiment. coast-guards, custom-house officers, and gaugers are never popular among a population of smugglers; they will not be the more beloved when every custom-house officer or coastguard is the representative of an alien power, and is employed to levy tribute from ireland. another leading feature of the financial arrangements is the charging upon the irish consolidated fund of various sums rightly due and payable to the exchequer of the united kingdom.[ ] they are made a first charge upon the revenue of ireland. they are to be paid in the last resort upon the order of the lord lieutenant, acting as an imperial officer. the necessity for some arrangement of this kind is clear. millions have been lent to ireland, and these millions must be repaid. but if the need for some such arrangement be certain, its desperate impolicy is no less certain. england and ireland, the english government and the irish government, are brought into direct hostile collision. the rich english government appears in the light of an imperious creditor the irish government stands in the position of a poverty-stricken debtor. note, and this is the point which should be pressed home, that in all confederations the difficulty of exacting the money needed by the federal government from any state of the confederacy has been found all but insuperable. study the history of the thirteen american colonies between the time of the acknowledgment of their independence by england and the formation of the united states. this has been termed 'the critical period' of american history. the colonies were united by recollections of common suffering and of common triumph, they were not divided by race or religion; no state aspired to separate nationality, yet they drifted rapidly towards anarchy; they were discontented at home, they were powerless abroad, above all, they nearly made shipwreck on the financial arrangements. congress was never able, for the satisfaction either of national needs or of national honour, to obtain fair contributions from the different states.[ ] already, further, before the home rule bill has passed from the hands of the house of commons mr. gladstone's very moderate demands, as they seem to englishmen, are held by some irish nationalists to be outrageous.[ ] the difference, moreover, is not a matter of calculation, to be settled by accounts and balances, or disposed of by auditors. no one can read the statements of nationalists such as mr. redmond or mr. clancy without seeing that the real difference of view lies very deep. these typical nationalists do not regard the united kingdom as a nation. ireland is the nation. they doubt what is her interest in the british empire; they believe, and already hint, that the financial arrangements between the two countries cannot be treated as a mere pecuniary transaction. ireland has been overtaxed and overburdened. she has claims for compensation. all the feelings or convictions which inspired hatred of irish landlords are already being aroused with regard to the imperial power. a campaign against tribute may become as popular as a campaign against rent. the two campaigns indeed have a close affinity; a large portion of the tribute is in reality payment in respect of rent, and the instalments which an irish farmer pays to buy his land will, to him at any rate, appear rent or tribute payable to great britain. the rent or tribute will be collected under the new constitution by the irish government.[ ] no irish ministry will relish the position of collector. it would have been difficult for a landlord to collect rent after his agent had publicly announced that it was excessive and unjust. yet a landlord could dismiss his agent; the english cabinet cannot dismiss the irish government. it is certain too that the irish ministry will not find the collection of rent easy. should the irish government state that the rent is iniquitously high, and refuse to collect it, what will be the position of the british ministry? it must either set the constitution aside or undertake for itself the collection of rent in opposition to, or, at any rate, unaided by, the irish executive and the irish parliament. no more odious task was ever undertaken by a government. suppose, however, that things do not come to the worst, the financial arrangements of the bill ensure that ireland will soon demand modifications of its provisions. opposition is a probability, discontent is a certainty. ireland is provided under the new constitution with the readiest means of nullifying the restrictions. the irish cabinet and its servants can at any moment reduce an unpopular law to a nullity. even in england a resolution of the house of commons may be enough to turn a law into a dead letter. the imperial cabinet at this moment could go very near making the vaccination acts of no effect, and by declining to have troops sent to hull could, as i have already pointed out, give victory to the trades unionists. nor is it necessary that the cabinet should decline sending forces to hull for the support of the law. an intimation that persons accused of intimidation would either not be prosecuted at all, or if prosecuted and convicted, would be pardoned, would be sufficient of itself to make the strike successful. in no country could the executive do more to render laws ineffectual than in ireland. the irish cabinet might by mere inaction render the collection of rent impossible; they might, as i have already pointed out, give tacit encouragement to smuggling. if the people regarded a coastguard as an enemy, if he and his family were left severely alone, if he were often maltreated and occasionally shot, his position might be a difficult one, even if supported by the whole force of the state. but if smuggling were regarded as no crime, if the smuggler were looked upon as the patriot who deprived an alien power of a revenue to which england had no right, it is clear that nothing but the energetic support of all the central and local authorities in the country could give a revenue officer the remotest chance of victory in his contest with smugglers. but suppose the national government were apathetic, suppose that the irish ministry looked with favourable eye on the diminution of english revenue; suppose that no irish official gave any aid to a custom-house officer; suppose that, if a british coastguardsman were murdered, irish detectives made no effort to discover the wrong-doer; and that when the culprit was discovered the irish law officers hesitated to prosecute; suppose that when a prosecution took place the attorney-general showed that his heart was not in the matter, and that the jury acquitted a ruffian clearly guilty of murder, is it not as clear as day that smuggling would flourish and no customs be collected? in the same way the irish ministry might by mere apathy, by the very easy process of doing nothing, nullify the effect of judgments delivered by the exchequer judges, and the irish ministry would show very little ingenuity if they could not without any open breach of the law impede the carrying out of executions against the goods of persons whom popular feeling treated as patriots. the irish executive might, as already pointed out,[ ] easily raise an irish army. drilling countenanced or winked at by the irish ministry could never be stopped by the british government. prussia at the period of her extreme weakness, and under the jealous eye of napoleon, sent every prussian through the ranks. bulgaria raised an army while pretending to encourage athletic sports. the value of the precedent is not likely to escape an irish premier. the irish parliament cannot legally repeal a single provision of the constitution, but an irish parliament might render much of the constitution a nullity. the parliament might pass acts which trenched upon the restrictions limiting its authority. till treated as void such statutes would be the law of the land. such voidable acts, and even parliamentary resolutions,[ ] would go like a watchword through the country and encourage throughout ireland popular resistance to imperial law. a profound observer has remarked that people do not reckon highly enough the importance at a revolutionary crisis of any show or appearance of legality.[ ] revolution acquires new force when masked under the form of law. this is a point which englishmen constantly overlook. they know the moral influence of leagues and combinations; they do not reflect that a parliament or house of commons in sympathy with resistance to imperial demands would possess tenfold the moral authority of any national league. note too that the irish ministry and the irish parliament would play into one another's hands, and would further be strengthened by their irish allies at westminster, as also by the irish electoral vote in england. for the true stronghold of the irish government lies, under the new constitution, at westminster.[ ] there they would command at least eighty votes: the irish members could still, as now, and far more effectively than now, coerce under ordinary circumstances any ministry disposed to enforce the rights of the imperial government, or, in other words, of england. take a concrete case to which i have already referred.[ ] irish farmers who have purchased under the ashbourne act grow weary of paying instalments which are equivalent to rent. the irish cabinet refuses to collect the rent; it urges its absolute inability to pay the sums due to the imperial exchequer and asks for remission. meanwhile the irish house of commons passes a resolution supporting the conduct of the irish government. the british ministers are stern, and reject the request of the irish cabinet. the cabinet at dublin retire from office. no successors can be appointed who command the support of the irish parliament. the lord lieutenant advises the government at home that things have come to a deadlock and that a dissolution will change nothing. thereupon the irish members at westminster begin to move; they threaten general hostility to the british ministry. they proffer their support to the opposition. it may of course happen that the british ministry can, like the unionist government of , defy the opposition and the irish members combined. if so the english cabinet can risk a constitutional conflict in ireland, though it is a conflict likely to end in disturbance or civil war. but judging the future by the past the eighty members will hold the balance of power. if so their course is clear. they expel from office the ministers who have protected the rights of the imperial government. a weak ministry depending on irish votes rules, or rather is ruled, at downing street. every one knows how, under the supposed conditions, the affair will end. there will be a transaction of some sort, and we may be certain that such a transaction will be to the advantage of the irish government, and will weaken or discredit imperial or english authority. we come round here to the root of the whole matter. were the restrictions on the power of the irish parliament real and easily enforceable, were the obligations imposed upon or undertaken by the irish people obligations of which an english ministry could at once compel the fulfilment, restrictions and obligations alike would be rendered futile and unreal by the presence of the irish members at westminster. every home rule scheme which can be proposed is impolitic and is as dangerous as separation; but the most impolitic of all possible forms of home rule is the scheme embodied in the bill of . its special and irremediable flaw is the retention of the irish members at westminster. this governs and vitiates all the leading provisions of the new constitution. under its influence every conceivable safeguard, the supreme authority of parliament, the veto, the legal restrictions on the competence of the irish legislature melt away into nothing. they are some of them capable of doing harm, they are none of them capable of doing good. cast a glance back at the leading features of the new constitution. the imperial parliament remains in form unchanged, and retains the attribute of nominal sovereignty. but in ireland the imperial parliament surrenders all, or nearly all, the characteristics of true and effective power; it retains in fact in ireland nothing more than the right to effect under the semblance of a legal proceeding a revolution which after all must be carried out by force. for practical purposes it has no more power at dublin than it has at melbourne, _i.e._ it retains at dublin scarcely any real power whatever. for the sake of this nominal and shadowy authority the imperial parliament is itself transformed into a strange cross between a british parliament and the congress of an anglo-irish federation. the irish executive and the irish parliament become under the new constitution the true and real government of ireland. but the irish government and the irish people are fettered by restrictions which would not be borne by the government or the people of a self-governing colony. these restrictions are ineffective to bind, but they are certain to gall, and if taken together with onerous financial obligations to great britain, which whether just or not must have an air of hardness, and with the habitual presence in ireland of a british army under the direction of the british executive, lay an ample foundation for the most irritating of conflicts. the new constitution, lastly, places in the hands of the irish people ample means for constitutional or extra-constitutional resistance to imperial, or in fact to english, power, and almost ensures the success of ireland in any constitutional conflict. the presence of the irish members at westminster saves, or proclaims, the nominal sovereignty of the imperial parliament; but their presence in truth makes this sovereignty unexercisable, and therefore worthless, and while increasing the apparent power ensures the real weakness of england. footnotes: [ ] thus little, if anything, is said in these pages on the constitution of the irish legislature, though it is in several points, and especially in the character of the legislative council, open to grave criticism. little, again, is said of the financial arrangements in their fiscal character. the topic is of the highest importance, but it must be debated in the main by experts. my remarks upon these arrangements refer almost exclusively to the way in which they may affect the working of the constitution. the inclusion of ulster within the operation of the bill and the refusal to give weight to the demand of ulster that the act of union should not be touched, are of course matters of primary importance. they ought never to be distant from the thoughts of any one concerned with the policy or impolicy of home rule; they dominate, so to speak, the whole political situation; they are constantly referred to in these pages; but they do not form part of the new constitution so much as conditions which affect the prudence or justice of creating the new constitution. [ ] bill, , preamble, and clauses , . [ ] the language of clause is vague, but, according to the best interpretation i can put upon it, its effect as to laws made for ireland after the home rule bill becomes law will be this: the imperial parliament will be able to pass enactments of any description whatever with regard to ireland, and the irish legislature will not be able to repeal or alter any enactments so enacted by the imperial parliament which are expressly extended to ireland. thus the irish parliament might, it is submitted, on the home rule bill passing into law repeal the criminal law and procedure (ireland) act, , & vict. c. . but if, after the home rule bill passed into law, the criminal law and procedure (ireland) act, , were continued, or after its repeal by the irish parliament were re-enacted, by the imperial parliament, then the irish parliament could not repeal the act or any part of it. still clause of the home rule bill is much too vaguely expressed. what, for example, is the effect of an act of the imperial parliament which is 'impliedly' extended to ireland? if my interpretation of the clause is the right one, the meaning of the clause ought to be made perfectly clear; ambiguity in such a matter is unpardonable. [ ] see pp. - _ante_. this ambiguity underlies and vitiates almost every argument used by home rulers, whether english or irish, in favour of home rule. english home rulers emphasise and exaggerate the extent of the control, or the so-called supremacy, which, after the establishment of an irish parliament, can and will be exerted in ireland by the imperial parliament at westminster. irish home rulers, when addressing english electors, or the imperial parliament, often use language which resembles the phrases of their english allies. but assuredly irish home rulers, when addressing irishmen, or when collecting subscriptions from american citizens of irish descent, speak the language of irish nationalists and cut down the effective supremacy of the imperial parliament after the granting of home rule so as to make it consistent with the war cry of 'ireland a nation.' (compare cambray's _irish affairs and the home rule question_, pp. - .) [ ] mr. sexton, feb. , , _times parliamentary debates_, p. ; mr. redmond, feb. , , _ibid_. pp. - ; and april , , _ibid_. p. . compare especially language of mr. redmond, _irish independent,_ feb. , and note that all the arguments for home rule drawn from its success or alleged success in the british colonies imply that the relation of the imperial parliament to ireland shall resemble its relation to the colonies. see generally, debate of may in _the times,_ may , pp. - . [ ] feb. , , _times parliamentary debates_, p. . [ ] april , , _ibid_. pp. , . [ ] feb. , , _ibid_. pp. , , . [ ] bill, clause , sub-clause ( ). [ ] this is the only sense in which the sovereignty of the imperial parliament is inalienable. this should be noted, because a strange and absurd dogma is sometimes propounded that a sovereign power such as the parliament of the united kingdom, can never by its own act divest itself of sovereignty, and it is thence inferred or hinted that there is no need for the imperial parliament to take measures for the preservation of its supremacy. the dogma is both logically and historically untenable. a sovereign of any kind can abdicate. a czar can lay down his power, and so also can a parliament. to argue or imply that because sovereignty is not limitable (which is true) it cannot be surrendered (which is palpably untrue) involves the confusion of two distinct ideas. it is like arguing that because no man can while he lives give up, do what he will, his freedom of volition, so no man can commit suicide. a sovereign power can divest itself of authority in two ways. it may put an end to its own existence or abdicate. it may transfer sovereign authority to another person, or body of persons, of which body it may, or may not, form part. the parliaments both of england and of scotland did at the time of the union each transfer sovereign power to a new sovereign body, namely the parliament of great britain. the british parliament did in surrender its sovereignty in ireland to the irish parliament. in both the british parliament and the irish parliament alienated or surrendered their sovereign powers to the parliament of the united kingdom. compare dicey, _law of the constitution_ ( th ed.), note , p. . [ ] it may, i am quite aware, be argued that the presence of irish representatives is not requisite for the maintenance of parliamentary supremacy. in theory it is not. an arrangement might quite conceivably be made (which if home rule were to be conceded might be the least objectionable method of carrying out a radically vicious policy) under which it should be distinctly agreed that ireland should occupy the position of a self-governing colony with all the immunities and disadvantages thereof, and should cease to be represented at westminster, whilst the british parliament retained the right to abolish, or modify, the irish constitution. such an arrangement would, however, make it perfectly plain that the sovereignty of the british parliament meant in ireland what the sovereignty of the imperial parliament now means in new zealand. but 'the retention of the irish members is a matter of great public importance' (at any rate in the opinion of mr. gladstone) 'because it visibly exhibits that supremacy' (_i.e._ the supremacy of parliament) 'in a manner intelligible to the people.'--mr. gladstone, feb. , , _times parliamentary debates_, p. . see as to home rule in the character of colonial independence, _england's case against home rule_ ( rd ed.), pp. - . [ ] _i.e._ at the moment when these pages are written. what parts of the government of ireland bill may or may not be officially deemed essential by the time these pages appear in print, no sensible man will undertake to predict. mr. gladstone's own language is most extraordinary. on the retention of the irish members, which in the eyes of any ordinary man affects the whole character of the new constitution, and essentially distinguishes the home rule policy of from the home rule policy of , he uses (_inter alia_) these words: 'on the important subject of the retention of the irish members i do not regard it, and i never have regarded it, as touching what may be called the principles of the bill. it is not included in one of them. but whether it be a principle of the bill or not, there is no question that it is a very weighty and, if i may say so, an organic detail which cuts rather deep in some respects into the composition of the bill.'--mr. gladstone, feb. , , _times parliamentary debates_, pp. , . this statement, with the whole passage of which it forms part, is as astounding as would have been a statement by lord john russell on introducing the great reform bill, that he could not say whether the disfranchisement of rotten boroughs did or did not form a principle of the measure. [ ] compare report of special commission, pp. , . [ ] under the home rule bill of as sent up to the house of lords, it would have been the 'constant presence.' [ ] the division of parties in an american state is governed not by questions concerning the internal affairs of the state, but by the questions which divide parties at washington. state politics depend upon federal politics. 'the national parties have engulfed the state parties. the latter have disappeared absolutely as independent bodies, and survive merely as branches of the national parties, working each in its own state for the tenets and purposes which a national party professes and seeks to attain.' see bryce, _american commonwealth_, ii. p. . [ ] _i.e._ in . [ ] mr. morley at newcastle, _the times_, april , . [ ] now lord morley of blackburn. [ ] _i.e._ in , and as they continue to be in . [ ] mr. morley at newcastle, _the times_, april , . [morley's argument applied primarily, no doubt, to the home rule bill of ; its force, however, was infinitely strengthened as applied to the home rule bill of by the change which retained eighty irish members at westminster with unrestricted powers of legislation. the tenor of his argument applies, i contend with confidence, to any home rule bill which shall propose to give ireland a real irish parliament led by an irish cabinet, and at the same time to retain representatives of ireland as members of the british parliament.] [ ] see p. , _ante_. [ ] see motley's speech, _times_, april _ _, . [ ] see bill, third schedule. [ ] this is at any rate the opinion of mr. redmond expressed in the _nineteenth century_, oct. . [ ] bill, clause , sub-clause ( ). [ ] the authors of the home rule bill foresee the possibility of such an erroneous decision. they have carefully provided that such an error shall have no legal effect. clause , sub-clause ( ), 'compliance with the provisions of this section shall not be questioned otherwise than in each house in manner provided by the house,' is in reality a provision sanctioning the grossest unfairness. its effect is that a british bill passed solely by virtue of the irish vote is, on its becoming an act, good law, in spite of its having been passed in violation of the constitutional rule laid down in clause , sub-clause ( ), that an irish member shall not be entitled to deliberate or vote on any bill the operation of which is confined to great britain. [ ] compare bill, clause , sub-clause ( ), and sub-clause ( ), which provides that 'compliance with the provisions of this section shall not be questioned otherwise than in each house in manner provided by the house.' [ ] geo. iii. c. . [ ] the reader, in order to understand this account of the proposed constitution of , should remember that under that constitution there were in effect, though not in name, constituted three different parliaments, which must be carefully distinguished. . the british parliament at westminster, containing no irish members, which was to legislate for great britain and for the whole british empire except ireland. . the irish parliament at dublin, containing no british representatives, which was to legislate for ireland, but which was not to legislate for england, scotland, or for any other part of the british empire, and was not to have any voice whatever in the general policy of the empire. . the imperial parliament also sitting at westminster, and comprising both the british and the irish parliament. this body would have corresponded nearly, if not exactly, with the existing parliament of the united kingdom, and was intended to come together only on special occasions and for a special purpose, namely the revision or the alteration of the gladstonian constitution. for the fuller explanation of the whole of this subject see _england's case against home rule_ ( rd ed.), pp. , note that england gains little or nothing (as compared with what was offered to her under the home rule bill of ) by the imperial parliament retaining the power to legislate for ireland, for even under that bill the imperial parliament (_i.e._ the parliament at westminster when consisting both of british and of irish members) could legislate for ireland. [ ] _unionist delusions_, pp. - . [ ] the following passage from the writings of a man whose words, whilst he was yet amongst us, unionists and gladstonians alike always heard with the respect due to sense, to ability, to knowledge, and to fairness, deserves attention:-- 'in mr. gladstone's proposed measure of home rule' _[i.e._ the bill of ]' the parliament sitting at westminster was no longer to contain irish members. i hold this to be an essential feature of the scheme, an essential feature of any scheme of home rule. by mr. gladstone's scheme, ireland was formally to exchange a nominal voice, both in its own affairs and in common affairs, for the real management of its own affairs and no voice at all in common affairs. this is the true relation of home rule. as dependent canada has no representatives in the parliament of the united kingdom, so neither would dependent ireland have representatives in the parliament of great britain. i am unable to understand why this provision, which seemed so naturally to follow from the rest of the scheme, awakened so powerful an opposition among mr. gladstone's own supporters. i believe the irish have no wish to appear in the british parliament. they wish to manage their own affairs, and are ready to leave great britain to manage its own affairs and those of the "empire" to boot. it is very hard to see in what character the irish members are to show themselves at westminster. if they may vote on british affairs, while the british members do not vote on irish affairs, surely too great a privilege is given to ireland; it is great britain which will become the dependency. if they are to vote on "imperial" affairs only, to say nothing of the difficulty of defining such affairs, it will be something very strange, very novel, very hard to work, to have members of parliament who are only half-members, who must walk out of the house whenever certain classes of subjects are discussed.' (e.a. freeman, 'irish home rule and its analogies,' _the new princeton review_, vi. pp. , .) mr. freeman's language proves that i have not overrated the essential difference or opposition between the home rule policy of and the home rule policy of . [ ] it is styled in the home rule bill 'an executive committee of the privy council of ireland.' [ ] if there were reason to expect (which there is not) that the home rule bill would pass into law, it would be worth while to consider carefully a question which has not yet engaged the attention of english statesmen: is it desirable that under a system of home rule the irish executive should be a parliamentry ministry? the answer to this question is by no means clear. both in the united states, and in every state of the union, the executive power is lodged in the hands of an official who is neither appointed nor removable by the legislature. the same remark applies to the executive of the german empire. in switzerland the ministry, or council of state, is indeed appointed, but is not removable by the federal assembly or parliament. arguments certainly might be suggested in favour of creating for ireland an executive whose tenure of office might be independent of the will of the irish parliament. ireland, in short, like many other countries, might gain by the possession of a non-parliamentary executive. see as to the distinction between a parliamentary and a non-parliamentary executive, _law of the constitution_ ( th ed.), app. p. . [ ] see bill, clause . [ ] this would apparently approve itself to dr. nulty, roman catholic bishop of meath. of mr. justice andrews he seems to have written that 'this judge is a unitarian,' and that it appears to the bishop that 'the man who denies the divinity of our lord is as incompetent to form clear, correct, and reliable conceptions of the feelings, the instincts, the opinions, and the religious convictions of an intensely irish population as if they were inhabitants of another planet.' see _the times_, april , , p. , where a correspondent from ireland purports to give the effect of a pamphlet by dr. nulty. the bishop wrote, i suppose, with a view to mr. justice andrews' opinions as to priestly influence at elections, but the bishop's words suggest the inference that the government of a catholic country ought to appoint catholic judges. why should we be surprised at this? religious toleration is not a doctrine of the roman catholic church. [ ] see home rule bill, , clause , p. , _post_. [ ] 'i am not suggesting for a moment that we are going to set up in ireland two independent and separate executives. i think the granting of home rule in any intelligible sense would be entirely incomplete if it were not supplemented by the granting of executive power, and in my judgment the executive in ireland is intended to be and must be dependent upon and responsible to the irish legislature in irish affairs. but that does not in the least prevent the retention in the crown of the executive government of the united kingdom, as it provided in this bill such executive authority as is necessary for the execution of the imperial laws' (sic). mr. asquith, april , , _times parliamentary debates_, p. . compare _hansard_, vol. xi. same date, p. . [ ] bill, clause . [ ] this is technically expressed in the bill by the provision that 'the two forces [viz. the royal irish constabulary and the dublin metropolitan police] shall, while they continue, be subject to the control of the lord lieutenant as representing her majesty.' as to the military or naval forces of the crown, the bill contains no provision, but it cannot, it is submitted, be doubted that they will remain subject to the imperial government, and, except with the sanction of the imperial government, will not be subject to the control of the irish executive. [ ] see bill, clauses - , and as to the restrictions on its legislative power, see pp. - , _post_. [ ] see two excellent articles in the _spectator_ of february and march , . [ ] of course all these statements are to be taken subject to the restrictions placed on the powers of the irish legislature by bill, clauses , , pp. , _post_. [ ] these restrictions, or safeguards, deprive ireland of powers in fact possessed by the legislature of any self-governing colony, and i believe by the isle of man or jersey. [compare the home rule bill , clause , sub-clause ( ) (p. , _post_,) as it appears in the original bill, with the same clause as amended by the house of commons and sent up to the house of lords. the original clause forbids the irish parliament to make any law in respect (_inter alia_) of 'naval or military forces or the defence of the realm.' the clause as amended by the house of commons forbids the irish parliament to make any law in respect of '( .) navy, army, militia, volunteers, and any other military forces, or the defence of the realm, or forts, or permanent military camps, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings, or any places purchased for the erection thereof.' in , unionists and gladstonians alike were determined that on no pretence whatever should an irish parliament be allowed to raise an irish army, even of volunteers. the very name of 'volunteers,' and the history of - , explain and justify their prudence. [ ] clause , sub-clause ( ) to ( ). [ ] for the details of the restrictions contained in clauses and the reader should study carefully the terms of the bill itself. see bill, in appendix. [ ] in more than one case it is pretty clear that the restrictions are in themselves ineffective. take these instances:-- . the restrictions do not really prevent the drilling of an armed force. the act which makes drilling illegal is a statute of , geo. iii. geo. iv. c. . this act applies to ireland and cannot (it is submitted) be repealed by the irish parliament. but this statute of might easily be evaded, for by sec. meetings for training and drilling may be allowed by any two justices of the peace. the irish executive might, and probably would, appoint plenty of justices who were willing to allow training and drilling. the men thus trained and drilled could not, i conceive, technically be made a volunteer force, but they might, for all that, be a very dangerous armed body. . it is not certain what is the real effect of the provisions whereby no 'person may be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law.' does it, for example, preserve a right to trial by jury? i doubt whether it does. american judgments on the same words in united states constitution, amendments, art. , would of course have no legal authority in the united kingdom, and there is a special reason why they often could not be followed. no process would (it is submitted) be considered in an irish or british court as not a 'due' process, for which a parallel could be found in the legislation of the imperial parliament. but the prevention of crime (ireland) act, , sec. , to instance no other enactment, took away the right to trial by jury in cases of trial for treason, murder, etc. . private property might still in fact be taken without just compensation. the privy council would not apparently have to consider whether in any given case property was taken without just compensation, but whether a particular law was a law whereby it might be taken without just compensation. suppose, for example, sir james mathew and the commissioners who sat with him were constituted by an irish act a court for determining what compensation should be given for the taking of certain property for public use, and the act itself provided that just compensation must be given. it is very doubtful how far the privy council could treat the act as invalid, or could in any way enter upon the question whether just compensation had been given. yet it is plain that such a court might give very far from just compensation, say to lord clanricarde. [ ] constitution, art. i sect. . [ ] see mr. j. morley, april , , _times parl. deb._, p. . [ ] see bill, clause , sub-clause ( ). the language of this clause disposes of the contention put forward by at least one gladstonian candidate at the last general election [_i.e._ of ], that the veto must of necessity be exercised under the control of the british cabinet; an arrangement too futile for an ardent gladstonian to contemplate as possible is therefore actually enacted in the government of ireland bill. [ ] it is to be presumed that the crown, or in effect the british cabinet, does not in the case of ireland retain the power of 'disallowance' under which the crown occasionally annuls colonial acts which have received the assent of a colonial governor. the power to disallow an irish act which, though not unconstitutional, has worked injustice, might be of advantage. but in truth the parliamentary methods for enforcing the restrictions or safeguards are utterly unreal; they do not repay examination; whether there be two sham modes of enforcement, or one, must be to a sensible man a matter of indifference. as to the disallowance of acts see rules and regulations published for the use of the colonial office, chap. iii.; legislative councils and assemblies, rules - ; british north america act, , sections - ; _england's case against home rule_ ( rd ed.), p. . [compare dicey, _law of constitution_ ( th ed.), pp. - .] [ ] the appeal to the english privy council, both under clauses , _ _, and of the bill, appears to be in each case an appeal to the judicial committee of the privy council. [the particular provisions contained in the home rule bill, , as to an appeal to the privy council, etc., are now of little direct importance, but they are worth study as showing the extreme difficulty of providing any satisfactory body for acting as a court called upon to decide the numerous constitutional questions, as to the legislative power of an irish parliament, which must be raised under any home rule act whatever.] [ ] see bill, clause . [ ] see tocqueville, _démocratie en amérique_, i. chap. viii. pp. - ; bryce, _american commonwealth_, ii. ( st ed.) p. ; _ibid._ i. ch. . [ ] compare _england's case against home rule_ ( rd ed.), pp. , . [ ] compare bill, clauses , , pp. , , _post._ [ ] bill, clause , sub-clause( ). [ ] clause , sub-clause ( ). the whole of the provisions as to the exchequer judges are extremely obscure. the jurisdiction and the powers of the court, should it ever be formed, will need to be defined by a special act of parliament. there are special laws regulating the action of the federal judiciary both in the united states and in switzerland. as the matter at present stands the jurisdiction of the exchequer judges and of the privy council as a court of appeal from them may apparently be thus described. it extends to all legal proceedings in ireland which (i) are instituted at the instance of or against the treasury or commissioners of customs, or any of their officers, or (ii) relate to the election of members to serve in [the imperial] parliament, or (iii) touch any matter not within the powers of the irish legislature, or (iv) touch any matter affected by a law which the irish legislature have not power to repeal or alter. it is possible that sub-clause ( ) gives the exchequer judges a much wider jurisdiction than is intended by the authors of the home rule bill, and the strictures which have been made on this sub-clause deserve attention. my purpose, however, is not to criticise the details of the home rule bill or to suggest amendments thereto. its fundamental principle is, in the eyes of every unionist, unsound, and the bill itself therefore unamendable. my object is simply to describe and criticise the general constitutional provisions of the bill and to show their bearing and effect. [ ] compare _england's case_ ( rd ed.), pp. , . [ ] see _england's case_ ( rd ed.), pp. - . [ ] see home rule bill, clause , sub-clause ( ) (p. , _post_), and compare same clause slightly amended, in bill, as sent up to the house of lords, sub-clause ( ). [ ] these strictures on the financial arrangements which were to exist between england and ireland apply directly to the home rule bill as introduced into the house of commons, but they are less applicable to the bill as amended, more or less in favour of ireland, before the bill was sent up to the house of lords. compare clause of the original bill with clause of the bill as amended and brought up to the house of lords. [ ] bill, clauses , , and . [compare with these clauses of the original bill clauses , , , and of the bill as amended before being sent to the house of lords.] [ ] see fiske, _critical period of american history_, chs. iii. and iv. [ ] see, _e.g._, letter of mr. clancy, m.p., on the financial clauses of the home rule bill, _manchester guardian_, april , . [ ] bill, clause . [ ] see pp. and , _ante_. [ ] see pp. , , _ante_. [ ] _souvenirs de alexis de tocqueville_, p. . [ ] the reader should note the history of the insurrection in ticino during . it is quite clear that the liberals of ticino who had distinctly broken the law were more or less comforted or protected by the liberal party in the swiss federal assembly. compare hilty, _separatabdruck aus dem politischen jahrbuch der schweizerischen eidgenossenschaft_ (_jahrgang_ ). [ ] see p. , _ante_. [the force of this illustration has been increased by every land act passed since . 'the imperial exchequer [_i.e._ in effect great britain] has made a free grant of £ , , towards furthering land purchase; moreover to that end it has expressed its willingness to pledge its credit to the amount of £ , , of which over £ , , has already been raised. the imperial exchequer looks to the irish tenant purchaser for the interest and sinking fund on that loan.'--cambray, _irish affairs_, p. .] chapter iii why the new constitution will not be a settlement of the irish question '_we believe that this measure [the home rule bill] when improved in committee will be, at all events in our time, a final settlement of the irish question_.'[ ] 'five speeches were made from the irish benches ... there was not one of those speeches which fell short of what we have declared to be in our opinion necessary for the acceptance of this bill. that is where we look for a durable and solid statement as to finality. we find the word _finality_ not even eschewed by the generous unreserve of the honourable member for north longford[ ] who attached the character of finality to the bill.... what said the honourable member for kerry[ ] last night? he said, "_this is a bill that will end the feud of ages_" this is exactly what we want to do. that is what i call acceptance by the irish members of this bill.... _what we mean by this bill is to close and bury a controversy of seven hundred years.'_[ ] this hope of ending the feud of ages has been for years dangled by gladstonians before the english electorate. it has gained thousands of votes for home rule. but it is doomed to disappointment. the new constitution will never be a settlement of the irish question: and this for three reasons, which can be definitely stated and easily understood. _first._ the new constitution satisfies neither ireland nor england. it does not satisfy ireland. ulster, protestant ireland, and indeed, speaking generally, all men of property in ireland, whether protestant or catholic, detest home rule. they hate the new constitution, they protest against the new constitution, they assert that they will to the utmost of their ability resist the introduction and impede the working of the new constitution. their abhorrence of home rule may be groundless, their threats may be baseless; their power to give effect to their menaces may have no existence. all that i now contend is that the strongest, and the most energetic, part of irish society is in fact and in truth bitterly opposed, not only to the details, but to the fundamental principle, of the new polity. it avails nothing to urge that the protestants and the educated catholics are in a minority. this plea shows that in parliament they can be outvoted; it does not show that they will, or can, be pacified by a policy which runs counter to their traditions, their interests, and their sentiment. you cannot vote men into content, you cannot coerce them into satisfaction. let us look facts in the face. the measure which is supposed to gratify ireland satisfies at most a majority of irishmen. this may be enough for a parliamentary tactician, it is not enough for a far-seeing statesman or a man of plain common sense. when we are told a minority are filled with discontent, we must ask who constitute the minority. when we find that the minority consists of men of all descriptions and of all creeds, that they represent the education, the respectability, the worth, and the wealth of ireland, we must be filled with alarm. wealth, no doubt, is no certain sign of virtue, any more than poverty can be identified with vice; a rich man may be a scoundrel, and a poor man may be an honour to the human race, but the world would be much worse constituted than it is, if the possession of a competence were not connected with honesty, energy, adherence to duty, and every other civic virtue. when it is said or admitted by gladstonians that the propertied classes of ireland are against home rule we know what this means; it means that the energy of ireland is against home rule, that the honesty of ireland is against home rule, that the learning of ireland is against home rule, that all that makes a nation great is against home rule, and that the irishmen most entitled to our respect and honour implore us not to force upon them the curse of home rule. this is no trifle. let us at any rate have done with phrases; let us admit that the satisfaction of ireland means merely the satisfaction of a class, though it may be the most numerous class of irishmen, and that it also means the bitter discontent of the one class of irishmen who are specially loyal to great britain. if we are closing one feud we are assuredly opening another feud which it may at least be as hard to heal. but is it true that even the home rulers of ireland are satisfied? their representatives indeed accept the new constitution. their acceptance may well, as far as intention goes, be honest. mr. davitt, i dare say, when he sentimentalises in the house of commons about his affection for the english democracy, is nearly, though not quite, as sincere as when he used to express passionate hatred of england.[ ] but acquiescence is one thing, satisfaction is another. there is every reason why the irish members should acquiesce in the new constitution. they obtain much, and they gain the means of getting more. quite possibly they feel grateful. but their gratitude is not the gratitude of ireland, and gratitude is hardly a sentiment possible, or indeed becoming, to a nation. england saved portugal and spain from the domination of france. do we find that portuguese and spaniards gladly subordinate their interests to the welfare of england? france delivered italy from thraldom to austria; french blood paid the price of italian freedom. yet france is detested from one end of italy to the other, whilst italians rejoice in the alliance with austria. in all this there is nothing unreasonable and nothing to blame. policy is not sentimentality, and the relations of peoples cannot be regulated in the same manner as the relations of individuals. thirty, twenty, ten, five years hence all the sentiment of the year will have vanished. irish content and satisfaction must, if it is to exist at all, rest on a far more solid basis than the hopes, the words, the pledges, or the intentions of mr. m'carthy, mr. sexton, or mr. davitt. note that their satisfaction is even now of a limited kind. it absolutely depends on the new constitution being worked exactly in the way which they desire. the use of the veto, legislation for ireland by the imperial parliament, any conflict between the wish of england and the wish, i do not say of ireland, but of the irish nationalists, must from the nature of things put an end to all gratitude or content. but we may go further than this: the new constitution contains elements of discord. it denies to ireland the rights of a nation; it does not concede to her the full privileges of colonial independence. no genuine nationalist can really acquiesce in the prohibition of ireland's arming even in self-defence. where, again, is the nationalist who is prepared to say that he will not if the bill is passed demand that every conspirator and every dynamiter, who is suffering for the cause of ireland, shall be released from prison? is it credible that the land leaguers have forgotten what is due to the wounded soldiers of their cause? are they prepared to forget the imperative claims of evicted tenants or imprisoned zealots?[ ] i cannot believe it. but if they are so base as to forget what is due to their friends and victims, what trust could england place in the permanence of any sentiment expressed by such men with however much temporary fervour and however much apparent honesty? if, as i am convinced, the irish leaders are not prepared to betray the fanatics or ruffians who have trusted and served them, then with what content does england look on the prospect of a general amnesty for criminals or of lavish rewards for breach of contract and the defiance of law? but in truth the new constitution provides for the general discontent, not of one class of irishmen, but of the whole irish people. home rule is at bottom federalism, and the successful working of a federal government depends on the observation by its founders of two principles. the first is that no one state should be so much more powerful than the rest as to be capable of vying in strength with the whole, or even with many of them combined.[ ] the second is that the federal power should never if possible come into direct conflict with the authority of any state. each of these well-known principles has, partly from necessity and partly from want of skill, been violated by the constructors of the spurious federation which is to be miscalled the united kingdom. the confederacy will consist of two states; the one, england, to use popular but highly significant language, in wealth, in population, and in prestige immensely outweighs the other, ireland. and by an error less excusable because it might have been avoided, the power of the central government will be brought into direct conflict with the authority of the irish state. read the bill as it should be read by any one who wishes to understand the working of the new constitution, and throughout substitute 'england' for the term 'united kingdom.' note then what must be the operation of the constitution in the eyes of an irishman. the federal power is the power of england. an english viceroy instructed by an english ministry will veto bills passed by an irish parliament and approved by the irish people. an english court will annul irish acts; english revenue officers will collect irish customs, and every penny of the irish customs will pass into the english exchequer. an english army commanded by english officers, acting under the orders of english ministers, will be quartered up and down ireland, and, in the last resort, english soldiers will be employed to wring money from the irish exchequer for the rigorous payment of debts due from ireland to england. will any irishman of spirit bear this? will not irishmen of all creeds and parties come to hate the constitution which subjects ireland to english rule when england shall have in truth been turned into an alien power? the new constitution does not in any case satisfy england. that england is opposed to home rule is admitted on all hands; that england has good reason to oppose the new form of home rule with very special bitterness is apparent to every unionist, and must soon become apparent to any candid man, whether gladstonian or unionist, who carefully studies the provisions of the new constitution, and meditates on the effect of retaining irish representatives in the parliament at westminster. for my present purpose there is no need to establish that english discontent is reasonable; enough to note its existence. a consideration must be here noticed which as the controversy over home rule goes on will come into more and more prominence. we are engaged in rearranging new terms of union between england and ireland; this is the real effect of the home rule bill; but for such a rearrangement great britain and ireland must in fairness, no less than in logic, be treated as independent parties. whether you make a union or remodel a union between two countries the satisfaction of both parties to the treaty is essential. till england is satisfied the new constitution lacks moral sanction. that the act of union could not have been carried without, at any rate, the technical assent both of great britain and ireland is admitted, and yet the moral validity of the treaty of union is, whether rightly or not, after the lapse of ninety-three years assailed, on the ground that the assent of ireland was obtained by fraud and undue influence. but if the separate assent of both parties was required for the making of the treaty, so the free assent of both must be required for its revision, and the politicians who force on great britain the terms of a political partnership which great britain rejects, repeat in and in an aggravated form the error or crime of .[ ] _secondly_. the new constitution rests on an unsound foundation. it is a topsy-turvy constitution, it aims at giving weakness supremacy over strength. the main, though not the sole, object of a well-constituted polity is to place political power (whilst guarding against its abuse) in the hands of the men, or body of men, who from the nature of things, _i.e._ by wealth, education, position, numbers, or otherwise, form the most powerful portion of a given state. the varying forms of the english constitution have, on the whole, possessed the immense merit of giving at each period of our history political authority into the hands of the class, or classes, who made up the true strength of the nation. right has in a rough way been combined with might. wherever this is not the case, and genuine power is not endowed with political authority, there exists a sure cause of revolution; for sooner or later the natural forces of any society must assert their predominance. no institution will stand which does not correspond with the nature of things. vain were all the efforts of party interest or of philanthropic enthusiasm to give to the blacks political predominance in the southern states. votes, ballot boxes, laws, federal arms, all were in vain. by methods which no man will justify, but which no power could resist, the whites have re-acquired political authority. the nature of things could not be made obedient to the dogmas of democratic equality. now the gravest flaw of the new constitution, the disease from which it is certain to perish, is that, in opposition to the forces which ultimately must determine the destiny of the united kingdom, it renders the strong elements of the community subordinate to the weak. in ireland dublin is made supreme over belfast, the south is made not the equal, but in effect the master of the north; ignorance is given dominion over education, poverty is allowed to dispose of wealth. if ireland were an independent state, or even a self-governed british colony, things would right themselves. but the politicians who are to rule in dublin will not depend upon their own resources or be checked by a sense of their own feebleness. they will be constitutionally and legally entitled to the support of the british army; they will constitute the worst form of government of which the world has had experience, a government which relying for its existence on the aid of an external power finds in its very feebleness support for tyranny. murmurs are already heard of armed resistance. these mutterings, we are told, are nothing but bluster. it is at any rate that sort of "bluster" at which the justice and humanity of a loyal englishman must take alarm. i have not yet learnt to look without horror on the possibility of civil war, nor to picture to myself without emotion the situation of brave men compelled by the british army to obey rulers whose moral claim to allegiance they justly deny and whose power unaided by british arms they contemn. civil warfare created by english policy and despotism maintained by english arms must surely be to any englishman objects of equal abhorrence. but in england no less than in ireland our new constitution gives artificial power to weakness. at westminster the irish members, be they or , will have no legitimate place. mr. gladstone on this point is, for aught i know, at one with the unionists. in he without scruple, and therefore no doubt without any sense of injustice, expelled the representatives of ireland from the british parliament. in he brings them back to westminster. but his words betray his hesitation. he expects, may we not say he hopes, that they will remain in ireland and on their occasional visits to london have the good sense and good taste not to interfere in british affairs. few are the persons who share these anticipations. if they are to be realised they must be embodied in the constitution; the premier might at this moment without shame, and without regret, revert to the better policy of . on his present policy we all know that his expectations will not be fulfilled. the voluntary absence of the irish members from westminster is as vain a dream as the fancy that ireland under home rule may suffer from a plethora of money. to westminster the irish members will come. if they do not come of their own accord they will be fetched by allies who need their help. at westminster they will hold the balance of parties, and will while the constitution lasts rule the destiny of england with a sole regard at best to the immediate interest of ireland, at worst to the interests of an irish faction. to ireland will be given power without responsibility, to england will belong responsibility without power. nor will the unnatural subjection of a great, a flourishing, a wealthy, and a proud country to a weaker and poorer neighbour be rendered the more bearable by the knowledge that the ill-starred supremacy of ireland means, in england, the equally unnatural and equally ominous predominance of an english faction, which, since it needs irish aid, does not command england's confidence. radicals or revolutionists will in the long run have bitter cause to regret an arrangement which identifies their political triumph with england's humiliation. _thirdly_. the new constitution is based on a play of words which conceals two contradictory interpretations of its character.[ ] the supremacy of the imperial parliament means to irish home rulers and to most gladstonians that ireland shall possess colonial independence.[ ] it means to unionists and to many electors who can hardly be called either unionists or gladstonians, that the british parliament, or, in other words, england, shall retain the real, effective, and even habitual control of irish affairs. in the one sense it means only that ireland shall remain part of the british empire, in the other that ireland shall still be part of the united kingdom. and, what is of great importance, the mass of englishmen waver between these two interpretations of imperial supremacy. when they think of home rule as satisfying ireland, they hold that it gives irishmen everything which they can possibly ask. when they think of home rule as not dismembering the united kingdom, they fancy that it leaves to the british parliament all the real authority which parliament can possibly require. this difference of interpretation lays the foundation of misunderstanding, but it does far more harm than this. it must keep irish nationalists alarmed, and not without reason, for the permanence of the independence which they may have obtained. a change of feeling or a change of party may cause the imperial parliament to assert its reserved authority. england keeps her pledges.[ ] yes, but here it is not a mere question of good faith. when two contractors each from the beginning put _bona fide_ a different interpretation upon their contract, neither of them is chargeable with dishonesty for acting in accordance with his own view of the agreement. the spirit of unionism and the spirit of separation will survive the creation of the new constitution. under one form or another unionists will be opposed to federalists and it is more than possible, should the bill pass, that the division of english parties may turn upon their reading of the irish government act, . the possibility, again, that the parliament at westminster may assert its reserved authority, if it raises the fears of irishman, may excite the hopes of english politicians. if at any time the supremacy of ireland becomes unbearable to british national sentiment, or if the condition of ireland menaces or is thought to menace english interests, the new constitution places in the hands of a british majority a ready-made weapon for the restoration of british power. the result might be attained without the necessity for passing any act of parliament, or of repealing a single section of the irish government act, . a strong viceroy might be sent to ireland; he might be instructed not to convoke the irish parliament at all; or, having convoked, at once to prorogue it. he might thereupon form any ministry he chose out of the members of the irish privy council. the imperial parliament would at once resume its present position and could pass laws for ireland. this might be called revolution or reaction. for my argument it matters not two straws by what name this policy be designated. the scheme sketched out is not a policy which i recommend. my contention is not that it will be expedient--this is a matter depending upon circumstances which no man can foresee--but that it will be strictly and absolutely legal. the supremacy of the imperial parliament, combined with the presence of the irish members at westminster, will thus by a curious fatality turn out a source at once of permanent disquietude to ireland and of immediate, if not of permanent, weakness to england. our new constitution is not made to last home rule does not close a controversy; it opens a revolution. no one in truth expects that the new constitution will stand. its very builders hesitate when they speak of its permanence,[ ] and are grateful for the generous credulity of a friend who believes in its finality. nor is it hard to conjecture (and in such a matter nothing but conjecture is possible) what are the forces or tendencies which threaten its destruction. if ireland is discontented irishmen will demand either the extension of federalism or separation. in every federal government the tendency of the states is to diminish as far as possible the authority of the federal power. but this tendency will be specially strong in the grotesque anglo-irish federation, since the federal power will be nothing but the predominance of england. the mode of weakening the federal authority is only too obvious. 'the more there is of the more,' says a profound spanish proverb, 'the less there is of the less.' the more the number of separate states in the confederacy, the less will be the weight of england, and the greater the relative authority of ireland. let england, scotland, and wales become separate states, let the channel islands and man, and, if possible, some colonies, be added to the federation, and as the greatness of england dwindles so the independence of ireland will grow. some seven years ago sir gavan duffy predicted that before ten years had elapsed there would be a federation of the empire.[ ] like other prophets he may have antedated the fulfilment of his prediction, but his dictum is the forecast of an experienced politician--it points to a pressing danger. home rule for ireland menaces the dissolution of the united kingdom, and the unity of the united kingdom is the necessary condition for maintaining the existence of the british empire. home rule is the first stage to federalism. but irish discontent, should it not find satisfaction in a movement for federalism, will naturally take the form of the demand for colonial or for national independence. you cannot play with the spirit of political nationality. the semi-independence of ireland from england, combined with the undue influence of ireland in english politics, is certain to produce both unreasonable and reasonable grounds for still further loosening the tie which binds together the two islands. the cry 'ireland a nation' is one of which no irishman need be ashamed, and to which north and south alike, irritated by the vexations of a makeshift constitution, are, as i have already insisted, likely enough to rally. nor is it certain that irish federalists or irish nationalists will not obtain allies in england. the politicians who are content with a light heart to destroy the work of pitt may, for aught i know, with equal levity, annul the union with scotland and undo the work of somers, or by severing wales from the rest of england render futile the achievement of the greatest of the plantagenets. enthusiasts for 'home rule all round' would appear to regard their capacity for destroying the united kingdom as a proof of their ability to build up a new fabric of imperial power, and to fulfil their vain dreams of a federated empire. sensible men may doubt whether a turn for revolutionary destruction is any evidence that politicians possess the rare gift of constructive statesmanship. and should the working of the new constitution confirm these doubts, persons of prudence will begin to perceive that irish independence is for both england and ireland a less evil than the extension of federalism. the natural expression however of english discontent or disappointment is reactionary opposition. reaction, or the attempt of one party in a state to reverse a fundamental policy deliberately adopted by the nation, is one of the worst among the offspring of revolution, and is almost, though not entirely, unknown to the history of england. yet there is more than one reason why if the home rule bill be carried, reaction should make its ill-omened appearance in the field of english public life. the policy of home rule, even should it be for the moment successful, lacks the moral sanctions which have compelled english statesmen to accept accomplished facts. the methods of agitation in its favour have outraged the moral sense of the community. mr. gladstone's victory is the victory of mr. parnell, and the triumph of parnellism is the triumph of conspiracy, and of conspiracy rendered the more base because it was masked under the appearance of a constitutional movement. neither the numbers nor the composition of the ministerial majority are impressive. the tactics of silence, evasion, and ambiguity may aid in gaining a parliamentary victory, but deprive the victory of that respect for the victors on the part of the vanquished which, in civil contests at any rate, alone secures permanent peace. but the pleas and justifications for reaction are rarely its causes. if englishmen attempt to bring about the legal destruction of the new constitution, their action will be produced by a sense of the false position assigned to england. no device of statesmanship can stand which is condemned by the nature of things. the predominance of england in the affairs of the united kingdom is secured by sanctions which in the long run can neither be defied nor set aside; the constitution which does not recognise this predominance is doomed to ruin. that its overthrow would be just no one dare predict; the future is as uncertain as it is dark. a main reason why a wise man must deprecate the weak surrender by englishmen of rightful power is the dread that, if in a moment of irritation they reassert their strength, they may exhibit neither their good faith nor their justice. footnotes: [ ] j. m'carthy, april , , _times parliamentary debates_, p. . no part of these quotations is italicised in the report. [ ] j. m'carthy. [ ] mr. sexton. [ ] mr. gladstone, april , , _times parliamentary debates_, p. . [ ] at bodyke, june , , mr. m. davitt said:--'our people, however, who so leave ireland are not lost in the irish cause, for they will join the ranks of the ireland of retribution beyond the atlantic; and when the day shall again come that we have a right to manage our own affairs, the sun may some day shine down upon england when we here in ireland will have the opportunity of having vengeance upon the enemy for its crimes in ireland.'--_freeman's journal_, june , . see 'notes on the bill,' published by the irish unionist alliance, p. . these expressions were used after the union of hearts. [ ] 'but all these matters are, as it were, minor details. they all sink into comparative insignificance before the one great demand--and i almost apologise for mentioning them--because i want you to concentrate your attention on the one great demand which we make, and the one unalterable statement we intend to adhere to, that whether guilty or innocent, these men, according to their lights and their consciences, were trying to serve ireland; that any of them who were guilty were driven into this course by the misgovernment of ireland, and the oppression of ireland by an outside power, and that if we are asked to settle this irish question, if we are asked to let peace reign where discord and hatred reign at present, there must be no victims--that if there is to be peace there must also be amnesty. i don't discuss the question of guilt or innocence. for the sake of argument i will say that there are some men in jail who are guilty. they must come out as well as the innocent, because their guilt is due to misgovernment in the past.'--mr. pierce mahony, _irish independent_, april . see 'notes on the bill,' p. . 'there is no use in deceiving ourselves upon this matter; we would be fools if we thought that in the next few weeks, or within the next few months, we would succeed in getting our brethren out of prison. i don't believe we will; ... but i am convinced of this, that there is not a man amongst them who will ever be called upon to serve anything like the remainder of his sentence. i am convinced that in a short time--and the extent of its duration depends upon other circumstances--every one of these men will be restored to liberty if only we conduct this agitation with determination, with resolution, and i would say above all with moderation and with wisdom.'--mr. john redmond, m.p., _dublin irish independent_, april . see 'notes on the bill,' p. . [ ] see mill, _representative government_, st ed. p. . [ ] of course i do not for a moment dispute the legal right of parliament to repeal all or any of the articles of the treaty of union with ireland. i am writing now not upon the law, but upon the ethics of the constitution. my contention is, that, as things stand, the undoubted assent of great britain (or even perhaps of england, in the narrower sense) is morally requisite for the repeal or at any rate for the remodelling of the treaty of union. note that ireland would stand morally and logically in a stronger position if demanding separation than when demanding a revision of the act of union. an example shows my meaning. _a, b_, and _c_ form a partnership. _a_ is by far the richest, and _c_ by far the poorest of the firm. _c_ finds the terms of partnership onerous. he may have a moral right to retire, but certainly he cannot have a moral, and would hardly under any system of law have a legal, right to say, 'i do not want to leave the firm, but i insist that the terms of partnership be remodelled wholly in my favour.' nor again is it conceivable that _b_ and _c_ by uniting together could in fairness claim to impose upon _a_ disadvantages the burden of which he had never intended to accept. [ ] see pp. - , _ante_. [ ] 'but who proposed that ireland should be anything else than an integral part of the united kingdom (ministerial cheers), or rather of the empire?' (opposition cheers).--mr. sexton, april , , _times parliamentary debates_, p. . the confusion of ideas and the hesitation implied in mr. sexton's expressions are noteworthy. [ ] england adhered with absolute fidelity to her renunciation of the right to legislate for ireland. whatever were the other flaws in the treaty of union, it was no violation either of geo. iii. c. , or of geo. iii. c. . the worst features of the method by which the act of union was carried would have been avoided had the english parliament resumed the right to legislate for ireland. the treaty of union depends on acts both of the british and of the irish legislature. this is elementary but has escaped the attention of mr. sexton (see _times parliamentary debates_, feb. , , p. ), whose investigations into the history of his country are apparently recent. [ ] "the plan that was to be proposed was to be such as, at least in the judgment of its promoters, presented the necessary characteristics--i will not say of finality, because it is a discredited word--but of a real and continuing settlement."--mr. gladstone, feb. , , _times parliamentary debates_, p. . [ ] see mr. gladstone's irish constitution, _contemporary review_, may, , p. . chapter iv pleas for the new constitution gladstonians when pressed with the manifest objections to which the new constitution is open rely for its defence either upon general considerations intended to show that the criticisms on the new constitution are in themselves futile, or upon certain more or less specific arguments, of which the main object is to establish that the policy of home rule is either necessary or at least free from danger, and that, therefore, this policy and the new constitution in which it is to be embodied deserve a trial. my object in this chapter is to examine with fairness the value both of these general considerations and of these specific arguments. the general considerations are based upon the alleged prophetic character of the criticisms on the new constitution or upon the anomalies to be found in the existing english constitution. ministerialists try to invalidate strictures on the home rule bill, such as those set forth in the foregoing pages, by the assertion that the objections are mere prophecy and therefore not worth attention. this line of defence may, as against home rulers, be disposed of at once by an _argumentum ad hominem_. no politicians have made freer use of prediction. every gladstonian speech is in effect a statement that is a prophecy of the benefits which home rule will confer on the united kingdom. gladstonian anticipations no doubt are prophecies of future blessings; but whoever foretells the future is equally a prophet, whether he announces the end of the world or foretells the dawn of a millennium. and history affords no presumption in favour of the prophet who prophesies smooth things. the prognostics of a pessimist may be as much belied by the event as the hopes of an optimist. but for one prophet to decry the predictions of another simply as prophecies is a downright absurdity. even among rival soothsayers some regard must be had to fairness and common sense; when zedekiah, the son of chenaanah, smote micaiah on the cheek, he struck him not on the ground that he prophesied but that his gloomy predictions were false. zedekiah was an imposter, he was not a fool, and after all micaiah, who prophesied evil and not good, turned out the true prophet. but an _argumentum ad hominem_ is never a satisfactory form of reasoning, and it is worth while considering for a moment what is the value of prophecy or foresight in politics. candour compels the admission that anticipations of the future are at best most uncertain. cobden and bright foretold that free trade would benefit england; they also foretold that the civilised world would, influenced by england's example, reject protective tariffs. neither anticipation was unreasonable, but the one was justified whilst the other was confuted by events. all that can be said is that on such anticipations, untrustworthy though they may be, the conduct no less of public than of private life depends. criticism on anything that is new and untried, whether it be a new-built bridge or a new-made constitution, is of necessity predictive. but there is an essential difference between foresight and guessing. the prevision of a philosophic statesman is grounded on the knowledge of the past and on the analysis of existing tendencies. it deals with principles. such, for example, was the foresight of burke when he dogmatically foretold that the french constitution of could not stand.[ ] guessing is at best based on acute observation of the current events of the day, that is of things which are in their nature uncertain. on january , , tocqueville analysed the condition of french society, and in the chamber of deputies foretold the approach of revolution. on february , , girardin said that the monarchy of july would not last three days longer. february verified the insight and foresight of the statesman, and proved that the journalist was an acute observer. the difference is worth consideration. tocqueville's prophecy would in all probability have been substantially realised had louis philippe shown as much energy in as in , and had the orleanist dynasty reigned till after his death. girardin's guess would not have been even a happy hit if one of a thousand accidents had averted the catastrophe of february . the worth of the arguments against or for the new constitution depends upon the extent to which they are based upon a mastery of general principles and upon a sound analysis of the conditions of the time, and in these conditions are included the character of the english and of the irish people. but to object to criticisms simply as prophecies is to reject foresight and to forbid politicians who are creating a constitution for the future to consider what will be its future working. another gladstonian argument is that because the english constitution itself is full of paradoxes, peculiarities, and anomalies, therefore the contradictions or anomalies which are patent in the new constitution (such for example as the retention of the irish members at westminster) are of no importance. the fact asserted is past dispute. our institutions are based upon fictions. the prime minister, the real head of the english executive, is an official unknown to the law. the queen, who is the only constitutional head of the executive, is not the real head of the government. the crown possesses a veto on all legislation and never exercises it; the house of lords might, if the house pleased, reject year by year every bill sent up to it by the house of commons; yet such a course of action is never actually pursued and could not be dreamt of except by a madman. there is no advantage in exemplifying further a condition of things which must be known to every person who has the slightest acquaintance with either the law, or the custom, of the constitution. but the inference which gladstonian apologists draw from the existence of anomalies is, in the strict sense of the word, preposterous. on the face of the matter it is a strange way of reasoning to say that because the constitution is filled with odd arrangements which no man can justify in theory, you therefore, when designing a new constitution, should take no care to make your arrangements consistent and harmonious. but the gladstonian error goes a good deal deeper than is at first sight apparent. the anomalies or the fictions of the constitution are in reality adaptations, often awkward enough in themselves, of some old institution, and are preserved because, though they look strange, they are found to work well. thus the king of england was at one time the actual sovereign of the state, or at any rate the most important member of the sovereign power, and the ministers were in reality, what they are still in name, the king's servants. the powers of the crown have been greatly diminished, and have been transferred in effect to the houses of parliament, or rather to the house of commons, and the ministers taken from the houses are in fact, though not in name, servants of parliament. this arrangement leaves an undefined and undefinable amount of authority to the crown. it is not an arrangement which any man would have planned beforehand; but it is kept up, not because it is an anomaly, but because it has, as a matter of experience, turned out convenient. what even plausible argument can thence be drawn to show that a new constitutional arrangement, on the face of it awkward and inconvenient, will for some unknown reason turn out workable and beneficial? he who reasons thus, if reasoning it can be called, might as well argue that because an old shoe which has gradually been worn to the form of the foot is comfortable, therefore a shoemaker need not care to make a new shoe fit. these two general replies to strictures on the new constitution are in themselves of no worth whatever. they deserve examination for two reasons only. they are, in various shapes, put forward by politicians of eminence, they exhibit further in a clear form a defect which mars a good deal of gladstonian reasoning. ministerialists seem to think that arguments good for the purpose of conservatism are available for the purpose of innovation. this is an error. a conservative reasoner may urge the uncertainty of all prevision, or the fact that the actual constitution, though theoretically absurd or imperfect, works well, as reasons of some weight, though not of overwhelming weight, for leaving things as they are, but it must puzzle any sensible man to see how either the uncertainty of prevision or the fair working of existing institutions can be twisted into reasons for taking a political leap in the dark. let us dismiss then objections which as they are fatal to all criticism are in reality ineffective against any criticism of our new constitution. when this is done it will be found that the gladstonian pleas in favour of home rule, for such are in reality their apologies for the new constitution, may be brought under two heads. they are intended to show, first, that the concession of parliamentary independence to ireland is a necessity, and, secondly, that at worst it involves no danger.[ ] a. _necessity for home rule_. that the concession of home rule to ireland is a necessity, forms the implied, if not always the asserted, foundation of the case in favour of gladstonian policy. ireland, it is argued, has for generations been discontented and disloyal. every sort of remedy has been tried. the rule of the ordinary law, coercion, protestant supremacy, catholic relief, the disestablishment of the anglican church, the maintenance of the english land tenure and english landlordism, the introduction of a new system of land tenure unknown to any other country in the world and more favourable to tenants than the land law of any other state in europe, the removal of every grievance which could be made patent to the imperial parliament, every plan or experiment which could approve itself to the judgment of english politicians has been tried, and no scheme, however plausible, has ended in success. concession has proved as useless as severity, and the existence in the statute book of a permanent coercion act is a standing proof of failure. he who asserts that irish disloyalty or discontent has not declined understates the case. it has increased. grattan was a statesman of a more exalted type than o'connell, and grattan was more zealous for connection with england than was the roman catholic tribune. and though in grattan's time the grievances of ireland were in every man's judgment far more intolerable than, even on the showing of home rulers, are the wrongs which ireland now endures, the ireland of grattan was loyal to england. o'connell was a nobler leader than parnell, and it would be absurd to suppose that any parnellite or anti-parnellite exerted a tenth of o'connell's influence. yet parnell and parnell's followers have achieved a feat which the hero of catholic emancipation could never accomplish; o'connell never obtained for repeal more than half the votes of ireland's parliamentary representatives; parnell and his followers have rallied the vast majority of irish members in support of home rule. meanwhile year by year the government of england is weakened, and (though the argument comes awkwardly from the mouth of english constitutionalists who are allies and friends of conspirators and boycotters) the morality of english public life has been undermined, by the presence at westminster of irish members who, regarding the english parliament as an alien power, weaken its action, despise its traditions, and degrade its character. one remedy for irish miseries and for english dangers has not been tried. no english statesman before mr. gladstone (it is urged) has offered to ireland the one thing which ireland desires--the boon or right of parliamentary independence. be the desire for home rule reasonable or not, it is home rule for which ireland longs. ireland feels herself a nation. satisfy then ireland's wish, meet the feeling of nationality, and ireland will be at rest. this experiment must at least be tried; its perils must be risked. the present situation is intolerable, the concession of home rule to ireland is a necessity. this, to the best of my apprehension, is the gladstonian argument. my aim has certainly been to state it fairly and in its full force. is the argument valid? is the plea of necessity made out? the answer may be given without hesitation. it is not. the allegations on which the whole train of reasoning rests are tainted by exaggeration or misapprehension, and the allegations, even if taken as true, do not establish the required inference; the premises are unsound, and the premises do not support the conclusion. the premises are unsound. the gladstonians are far too much of parliamentary formalists. their imagination and their reason are impressed by the strength in the house of commons of the irish party. the eighty votes from ireland daunt them. but wise men must look behind votes at facts. the eighty irish home rulers are, it is true, no light matter, even when allowance is made for the way in which corruption and intimidation vitiate the vote of ireland. but their voice is not the voice of the irish people; it is at most the mutter or the clamour of a predominant irish faction. it is the voice of ireland in the same sense in which a century ago the shouts or yells of the jacobin club were the voice of france. to any one who looks behind the forms of the constitution to the realities of life, the voice of irish wealth, of irish intelligence, and of irish loyalty is at least as important as the voice of irish sedition or discontent. the eighty votes must in any case be reckoned morally at not more than sixty, for to this number they would be reduced by any fair and democratic scheme of representation. no one can be less tempted than myself to make light of irish turbulence and irish misery. but it must not be exaggerated. the discontent of is nothing to the rebellion, sedition, or disloyalty of , of , of , or of . if irishmen of one class are discontented, irishmen of another class are contented, prosperous, and loyal. the protest of irish protestants--the grandsons of the men who detested the union--against the dissolution of the union, is the reward and triumph of pitt's policy of union. the eighty irish members ask for home rule, but the tenant farmers of ireland ask not for home rule but for the ownership of the land; and the irish tenant farmers will and may under a unionist government become owners of their land, and, what is no slight matter, may become owners by honest means. vain for mr. m'carthy[ ] to assert that irish farmers would not have accepted even from mr. parnell the most favourable of land laws in exchange for home rule. mr. m'carthy believes what he says, but it is impossible for any student of irish history or of irish politics to believe mr. m'carthy. facts are too strong for him. mr. lalor showed a prevision denied to our amiable novelist. gustave de beaumont understood political philosophy better than the lively recorder of the superficial aspects of recent english history. mr. parnell and mr. davitt, and the whole line of witnesses before the special commission, tell a different tale. the very name of the _land_ league is significant. home rule was a mere theme for academic discussion in the mouth of mr. butt. repeal itself never touched the strongest passions of irish nature, though advocated by the most eloquent and popular of irish orators. not an independent parliament, but independent ownership of land, has always been the desire of irish cultivators. it was a cry for the land which gave force to the demand for home rule; and an irish agitator, if his strength fails, renews it by touching the earth. but why confine our observation to ireland? we here come upon the passions, not of irish nature, but of human nature. there is not a landowner in france who does not care tenfold more for the security of his land than for the form of the government. if peasants trembled for their property the republic would fall to-morrow. this is no mere conjecture; the peasantry were jacobins as long as the jacobins gave them the land, they were imperialists whilst napoleon was their security against a restoration which to them meant confiscation of land purchased or seized during the revolution. the country population of france heard with indifference of the fall of louis philippe, and possibly approved the proclamation of the second republic. but the communism of roused every landowner against paris. the peasant proprietors filled the benches of the national assembly with conservatives or reactionists who would save them from plunder; fear became for once the cause of courage, and dread of loss of property sent thousands of peasant proprietors to paris, that they might crush by force of arms the socialist insurrection of june. perjury, fraud, and cruelty disgraced the _coup d'état_ of . but, as liberals now see, the second empire, hateful though it was to every man who loved freedom or cared for integrity, did not owe the permanence of its power to cunning or to violence. it was the dread of the red spectre which drove the landowners of france into imperialism; they may have liked parliamentary liberty, it was a pleasant luxury, but they loved their land and property, it was their life-blood, and by socialism their land and property was they believed menaced. as to the coercion act, no sensible man, be he radical or tory, need trouble himself. the criminal law and procedure (ireland) act, , is neither a disgrace to england nor an injury to ireland. its permanence, which is the cause of its mildness, is its merit. well would it have been had the act been extended to the whole united kingdom. local laws are open to some of the same objections as temporary laws. the enactment contains some improvements in our criminal procedure. there is no more idle superstition than the belief that criminal procedure does not, like other human arrangements, require change. if incendiarism should become an element in the conduct of trade disputes, if dynamite is to be recognised as a legitimate arm in political conflicts, the criminal law of the united kingdom will, we may be sure, need and receive several alterations and improvements. by far the strongest portion of the gladstonian argument is the stress that can be laid on the demoralisation of parliament, produced partly, though not wholly, by the irish vote. this is a consideration which, as far as it goes, tells in favour of home rule. it is, however, a consideration of which the gladstonian apologist for the new constitution of [can] make no use. his reasoning of necessity stands thus: the presence of irish members at westminster has demoralised parliament, therefore we must above all things retain or possibly irish members at westminster. he is placed in a hopeless dilemma; he dare not draw the only conclusion to which his argument points, namely, that the irish members must be excluded from the parliament at westminster. by a strange fatality, the policy of retrospectively condemns the policy of , whilst the very strongest argument in favour of the policy of condemns the policy of . the premises, were they sound, do not support the conclusion. there exists undoubtedly such a thing in politics as necessity. when england acknowledged the independence of the thirteen colonies, or when france surrendered metz and strasburg, no one could talk of imprudence of impolicy. the will of englishmen and of frenchmen was coerced by the force of events. when all protestant ireland was in arms, when the whole irish nation demanded parliamentary independence, when england had been defeated in america, when france and spain were allied against her, then the acceptance of grattan's declaration of right was in truth a necessity. when wellington became the supporter of catholic emancipation because he would not face civil war, when famine was at our gates and peel repealed the corn laws--then again politicians could plead the excuse of necessity. in these and like crises the wisest men and the bravest men are forced to recognise the logic of facts; and necessity rather than prudence dictates the course of statesmanship. but no such crisis has now arisen. england and ireland were as safe under the government of lord salisbury as under the government of mr. gladstone--perhaps safer. no one except an extremely excited and very rhetorical politician will venture to assert that, if lord salisbury instead of mr. gladstone had last summer gained a majority of forty, any man or woman throughout the united kingdom would have trembled for the safety of the country. the sky is far less dark than on that fearful day eleven years back[ ] when england stood aghast at the assassinations of the phoenix park. irish discontent is an immense evil, of which every just man must deplore the existence; its removal would be the greatest benefit which statesmanship could by any possibility confer upon england. but the immediate dealing with it in a particular way is not a necessity. were the home rule bill, and every home rule bill, rejected by parliament, the united kingdom would be as safe as it has been at any time for the last ninety years and more. in plain truth we have all of us forgotten the meaning of necessity. gladstonians have come honestly to confuse the needs of a party with the necessities of the country. this is a delusion that at all times and in all lands affects great political connections which, having once rendered high services to the nation, have outlived the valid reasons for their existence. the republicans saved the united states from disruption. hence in , when secession was an historical memory, many of the most to be respected among americans believed that the rule of an honest democrat was a worse evil than the rule of a corrupt republican. thousands of frenchmen, amidst the moral bankruptcy of republican politicians, still hold that, because republicans years ago saved france from ruin, even reconciled conservatives cannot in the year be placed in office without danger to the commonwealth. so it is abroad; so it has been in england. in the best and wisest of english statesmen deemed it impossible that england should be rightly governed by any politicians but the representatives of the revolution families. in honest citizens trembled at the thought of power passing into the hands of the whigs; for the tories had ruled for nearly sixty years, and the tories had preserved england from revolution and invasion. so at this moment to many well-meaning liberals the long predominance of the liberal party makes the possibility of a cabinet containing politicians who may in any sense be called tories seem a monstrous calamity, which it is a necessity to avert. vain to point out that lord salisbury and mr. balfour are such tories as eldon would have called jacobins and lord melbourne radicals, and that, they are allied with the best and most trustworthy of living liberal leaders. their is no arguing with sentiment; it is necessary to keep the gladstonian liberals in office, and the constitution must be sacrificed in order that lord salisbury may not resume the premiership. but there is a deeper cause than all this for our strange ideas of necessity. habitual ease and unvarying prosperity have for a moment lowered the national spirit. englishmen confuse inconveniences with dangers; they have forgotten what real peril is; they cannot understand the calmness with which, not a century ago, their fathers resisted at once insurrection in ireland and the most powerful foreign enemy who has ever challenged the power of england, and this too at a time when the population of great britain was not above nine millions and the people of ireland numbered more than four millions, when france was the leading military power of the world, and ireland might at any moment receive the aid of a french army led by one of the best french generals. the men of or would mock at our ideas of necessity. ireland has not an eighth of the population of the united kingdom; our home rulers are not ireland; they are a very different thing--the irish populace. let us yield everything which ought to be yielded to justice; let us obey the dictates of expediency, which is only justice looked at from another side; let us concede much to generosity; but in the name of common sense, of honesty, and of manliness, let us hear no more of necessity. once in an age necessity may be the defence of statesmanship forced to confess its own blindness, but it is far more often the plea of tyranny, of ambition, of cowardice, or despair. b. _no danger in home rule_. the arguments which are employed to show that the policy of home rule and the new constitution which embodies it involve no danger for england are in the main drawn from the 'safeguards' or restrictions contained in the bill--from the alleged precedent of grattan's constitution--from the success of home rule in other parts of the world--and, generally, from the expediency of trustfulness. i. _the safeguards_. the restrictions on the power of the irish parliament are, it is asserted, sufficient and more than sufficient to reassure unionists, and an intimation is sometimes added that, if further security is wanted, further safeguards may be provided. this ground of confidence may be briefly dismissed; its answer is in effect supplied by the foregoing pages. on the action of the irish executive the restrictions place, and from the nature of things can place, no restraint whatever, and yet both england and the irish loyalists have far more reason to dread the abuse of executive than of legislative authority. on the legal action of the irish parliament the restrictions do place a certain restraint, but the restrictions are, as already shown, not in reality enforceable. they are for good purposes a nullity; they are effective, if at all, almost wholly for evil; they exhibit the radical and fatal inconsistency of gladstonian policy. the policy of home rule is a policy of absolute and unrestricted trust; the safeguards are based on distrust. there is something to be said for generous confidence, and something also for distrustful prudence; there is nothing to be said for ineffective suspicion. ii. _grattan's constitution_. from the asserted harmony between england and ireland from to under grattan's constitution, the inference is drawn that there is no reason to fear discord between england and ireland under the gladstonian constitution of . the fallacy underlying the appeal to this precedent has been, to use words of mr. lecky, 'so frequently exposed that i can only wonder at its repetition.'[ ] under grattan's constitution the irish executive was appointed, not by the irish parliament, but by the english ministry; the irish parliament consisted solely of protestants; it represented the miscalled 'english garrison,' and was in sympathy with the governing classes of england. with all this to promote harmony, the concord between the governing powers in england and in ireland was dubious. the rejection of england's proposals as to trade, and the exaction of the renunciation act, betray a condition of opinion which at any moment might have produced open discord. when at last the parliamentary independence of ireland had led up to a savage rebellion, suppressed i fear with savage severity, english statesmen knew that an independent irish parliament threatened the existence of england. i may be allowed, even by gladstonians, to place the genius and patriotism of pitt on at least a level with the genius and patriotism of the present premier. i may be allowed to doubt whether mr. gladstone's studies, however profound, in the history of ireland, can, in , render his acquaintance with the circumstances and the dangers of equal to the knowledge of the minister who, in , carried the act of union. and pitt then held that the union with ireland was necessary for the preservation of england. if moreover grattan's constitution be a precedent for our guidance, let us see to what the precedent points. the leading principles or features of grattan's constitution are well known. they are the absolute sovereignty of the irish parliament, and its independence of and equality with the parliament of great britain; the renunciation by the british parliament of any claim whatever to legislate for ireland, and of any jurisdiction on the part of any british court to entertain appeals from ireland; and, lastly, the absence of all representation of ireland in the parliament at westminster. each of these principles or features is denied or reversed by our new gladstonian constitution. the irish parliament is to be, not a sovereign legislature, but a subordinate legislature created by statute, and a legislature of such restricted and inferior authority as to be unworthy of the name of a parliament. the imperial parliament, with its vast majority of british members, asserts its absolute supremacy in ireland, and the right at its discretion to legislate for ireland on any matter whatever; in ireland there is to be founded an imperial or british court appointed by the imperial ministry, having jurisdiction on all matters affecting imperial rights, and the final court of appeal from every tribunal in ireland is to be the british privy council. add to this that irish members are to sit in the parliament of westminster as the 'outward and visible sign' of the imperial parliament's supremacy. but if every principle of grattan's constitution be contradicted by the gladstonian constitution, if every principle which grattan detested is a principle which mr. gladstone asserts, with what show of reason can the success, uncertain though it be, of the constitution of be pleaded as evidence of the probable success of the gladstonian constitution of ? that two arrangements are unlike is to ordinary minds no proof that they will have similar results; a parliamentary majority of forty-two may repeal the act of union, but it cannot repeal the laws of logic.[ ] iii. _success of home rule_. all over the world, we are told, home rule has succeeded; there are, under the government of the british crown, at least twenty countries enjoying home rule, and their local independence causes no inconvenience to the united kingdom or to the british empire. it follows therefore that home rule in ireland will be a success and will in no way disturb the peace or prosperity of the united kingdom. the sole difficulty in meeting this argument is the extreme vagueness of its principal term. the words 'home rule' are in their signification so vague, at any rate as employed by ministerialists, that they cover governments of totally different descriptions. hungary, norway, a state of the american union, a province of the canadian dominion, the dominion itself, man, jersey, and guernsey, every english colony with representative institutions, are each described, by one gladstonian reasoner or another, as happy and prosperous under home rule. but there is no one who will deny that the dissimilarities between the governments existing in each of the countries referred to are at least as striking as are their similarities; that the contrast, for example, between the relation of hungary to the austro-hungarian empire and the relation of new york to the united states is at least as obvious as its likeness. the analogy, moreover, between home rule in any of these countries and home rule in ireland is at best distant and shadowy.[ ] the crisis is too serious to permit us to waste words in examining the curiosities of the home rule controversy. of hungary, and its relation to the empire of which it forms part, nothing at all will here be said. there is nothing in that relation analogous to irish home rule. nor need we trouble ourselves with the 'home rule' of rhodes, of samos, or of the lebanon. of these and any other states, if such there be, which enjoy 'home rule' under the supremacy of the sultan, all that need be said is that it is satisfactory to learn on the authority of mr. gladstone that any part whatever of the turkish empire is well governed and happy. if any one can seriously suppose that the prosperity of man and the channel islands, which reap all the benefits and bear none of the burdens of connection with great britain, and moreover have at no time been discontented, affords any reason for supposing that the secular miseries and discontent of ireland will be cured by a system of government totally different from that which prevails either in man, or guernsey, or in jersey, let him refer to these interesting islands.[ ] for myself i shall leave them out of account. of the cordial relations between sweden and norway we hear nothing; the goodwill generated by a system of home rule is bringing these countries to the brink of civil war.[ ] there are two analogous cases or precedents on which serious reasoners rely in support of a policy of home rule for ireland. the success of federal government in other countries, and especially in the united states, and the success of colonial independence throughout the british empire, are adduced as presumptions that home rule would knit together great britain and ireland, or, as the cant of the day goes, transform a paper union into a union of hearts. if new york be loyal to the united states, if new zealand be loyal to the british crown, why should not ireland, when endowed with local independence resembling the independence of an american state or of a self-governing british colony, be a loyal member of the united kingdom?[ ] this is the suggested argument--let us consider its validity. as to federalism.--all the conditions which make a federal constitution work successfully in the united states, in switzerland, and possibly in germany, are wanting in england and ireland. no man till the last five or six years has even suggested that englishmen or scotsmen desire a federal government for its own sake. whether mr. gladstone himself has any wish to federalise the whole united kingdom is at least open to doubt. where federalism has succeeded, it has succeeded as a means of uniting separate communities into a nation; it has not been used as a means of disuniting one state into separate nationalities. the united states, it has been well said, is a nation under the form of a federal government. gladstonians apparently wish to bind together two, or shall we say three or four, nations, or nationalities, under the reality of a federation and the name of a united kingdom. while all the powerful countries of the world are increasing their strength by union, the advocates of the new constitution pretend to increase the moral strength of the united kingdom by loosening the ties of its political unity. if any one ask why federalism which has succeeded in america should not succeed in the united kingdom, the true answer is best suggested by another question: why would not the constitutional monarchy of england suit the united states? the answer in each case is the same. the circumstances and wants of the two countries are essentially different; and if this be not a sufficient reply, the reflection is worth making that in the three great confederacies of the world unity has been achieved, or enforced by armed conflict. as to colonial independence.--the plain and decisive reason why the loyalty of new zealand to the empire affords no presumption of the loyalty under our new constitution of ireland to the united kingdom is this: the whole condition of new zealand is different from the condition of ireland, and our new constitution is not intended to give ireland the position of new zealand. thousands of miles separate new zealand from great britain. ireland is separated from us by not much more than twelve miles. new zealand has never been hostile to england; her people are loyal to the british crown. ireland, or part of the irish people, has been divided from england by a feud of centuries; it would be difficult among irish nationalists to obtain even the show of loyalty to the crown. new zealand is wealthy, and new zealand pays not a single tax into the exchequer of the united kingdom. ireland is poor, and, if her taxation is lightened by home rule, the tribute which will be paid to england will be heavy, and far more galling than the taxes she now pays in common with the rest of the united kingdom. the new constitution, again, is utterly unlike a colonial constitution. its burdens would not be tolerated by any one of our independent colonies. the rights it gives, no less than the obligations it imposes, are foreign to our colonial system. the presence of the irish representation at westminster forbids all comparison between ireland under home rule and new zealand under a system of colonial independence. but the matter must be pressed further. even were it possible to place ireland in the position either of an american state or swiss canton, or of an independent colony, the arrangement would not meet the needs of the united kingdom. this is a point which has not as yet arrested attention. for the safety of the united kingdom it is absolutely necessary that the authority of the imperial government, or, in other words, the law of the land, should be enforced in ireland in a sense in which the law of the land is rarely enforced in federations, and in which it is certainly not enforced by the imperial government in self-governing colonies. in federations the law of the land is nearly powerless when opposed to the will of a particular state. president jackson's reported dictum, 'john marshall[ ] has delivered his judgment, let him now enforce it if he can,' and the fact that the judgment was never enforced,[ ] are things not to be forgotten. they are worth a thousand disquisitions on the admirable working of federalism. but there is no need to rely on a traditional story, which, however, is an embodiment of an undoubted transaction. the plainest facts of american history all tell the same tale. no abolitionist could in without peril to his life have preached abolition in south carolina; difficult indeed was the enforcement of the fugitive slave law and small the practical respect paid in massachusetts to the doctrine of the dred scott case. unless all reports are false, the negro vote throughout the southern states is at this moment practically falsified, and little do the constitutional amendments benefit a negro in any case where his conduct offends southern principle or prejudice. for my present argument it matters nothing whether the oppression of individuals or the defiance of law was or was not, in all these cases, as it certainly was in some instances, a violation to the supreme law of the land. if the law was violated then, why should we expect imperial law to be of more force in ireland than federal law in south carolina, or in massachusetts? if the rights of individuals were not adequately protected by federal law against the injustice of a particular state, then why expect that the provisions of our new constitution, far less stringent as they are than the protective provisions of the united states constitution, should avail to protect unpopular persons in ireland against the legal tyranny of the irish executive or the irish parliament? experience of federalism is not confined to the united states. the swiss confederation is in europe the most successful both of democratic and of federal polities. the swiss executive exercises powers common to all continental governments but of a description which no english cabinet could claim, and the swiss executive is made up of statesmen skilful beyond measure in what may be called the diplomacy of federalism. yet in switzerland, as in the united states, federal government means weak government. ticino is a small canton, but from the days of athenian greatness small states have been the instructors of the world, and englishmen, hesitating over a political leap in the dark, would do well to study the ticinese revolution of september , . the radicals of the canton rose in insurrection, and deposed the lawful government by violence; as englishmen may remember, the contest though short involved at least one murder. the swiss executive (called the federal council) forthwith took steps to restore order and to reinstate the lawful cantonal government. their own commissioner, a military officer, in effect declined to put the overthrown government back in power. order was restored, but the law was never vindicated. a strange set of negotiations, transactions, or intrigues took place. in the federal assembly at berne, the conservatives, a minority, urged the rights of the lawful government of ticino. the liberals defended or palliated the revolutionists. on the whole the advantage seems to have rested with the latter. a trial before a federal court took place, but the accused were acquitted. no one, if i am rightly informed, was punished for an act of manifest treason. it is even more noticeable that professor hilty, a distinguished and respected swiss publicist, vindicates or palliates the admitted breach of law, in deference to the principle or sentiment, which if true has wide application, that 'human nature is not revolutionary, and that no revolution ever arises without a heavy share of guilt (mitschuld) on the part of the government against which the revolution is directed.'[ ] the instructiveness of this passage in swiss history as regards the working of our new constitution is obvious; englishmen should specially note the interconnection between lawlessness in ticino and the balance of parties at berne; it is easy to foresee an analogous connection between revolution, say in dublin or belfast, and the balance of parties at westminster. but this is not my immediate point; my point is that the federal government at berne cannot enforce obedience to law in ticino in the way in which englishmen expect that the imperial government shall, under any circumstances, enforce or cause the law to be enforced in ireland. but ireland, it will be said, is to occupy a position like that of a self-governing colony. in british colonies the imperial power and the rule of law are respected; both therefore will be respected in ireland. the plain answer to this suggestion is that in a british self-governing colony, no law is enforceable which is opposed to colonial sentiment and which the colonial ministry refuse to put into execution. one well-ascertained fact is enough to dispose of a hundred platitudes about imperial supremacy and the loyal obedience of our colonies. victoria is as loyal to the crown as any colony which england possesses, yet the submission to law of the victorian government and people is not by any means unlimited. ten years ago three british subjects arrived at melbourne and were about to land. popular sentiment, or in other words the will of the mob, had decreed that they should not enter the colony. the victorian premier (mr. service) announced in parliament that their landing should be hindered. the police, acting under the orders of the ministry, boarded the ship which brought the strangers, went near to assaulting the captain, and forcibly prevented the hated travellers from setting foot on shore. by arrangement between the melbourne government, the captain, and the three men, who were by this time in terror of their lives, the victims of lawlessness were carried back to england. that the law had been grossly violated no one can really dispute. the violation was the more serious because it excited no notice. no appeal was apparently made to the courts. the governor--the representative of imperial power and imperial justice--knew presumably what was going on, yet he uttered not one word of remonstrance. the agent-general for victoria, when at last a private person in england called attention to the outrage at melbourne, pleaded in effect the plea of necessity, and described the act of tyranny, whereby british citizens were in a british colony turned into outlaws, as 'an act of executive authority.' the imperial government did i believe--what was perhaps the wisest thing it could do--nothing. imperial supremacy in the colonies was, as regards the protection of unpopular individuals, admitted to be a farce. what, however, rendered the three travellers unpopular? they were irish informers who had aided, unless i am mistaken, in the conviction of the phoenix park murderers. let us now in imagination conceive our new constitution to have come into being, and transfer the transactions at melbourne in to dublin in . will the imperial supremacy which is supposed to be so effective in the colonies be of any more worth in ireland than in victoria?[ ] were it true, then, which it certainly is not, that the conditions exist in ireland which conduce to the maintenance of federal power in the state of a well-arranged federation, and to the maintenance of imperial power in a self-governing british colony, this would not be enough to support the argument in favour of the new constitution. for the imperial government needs that the law should be maintained, and the rights of individuals be protected, in ireland with greater stringency than the law is enforced or the rights of individuals are protected either under a federal government or in a british colony. miserable indeed would be the position of england were she forced in ireland to wink at lawlessness such as but the other day disgraced new orleans, or at mob law countenanced by the 'executive,' such as in ruled supreme at melbourne. foreign powers at any rate would rightly decline to let the defects of our constitution excuse the neglect of international duties. if england cannot shuffle off her responsibilities, england is bound in prudence to maintain her power. iv. _the policy of trust_. 'i believe myself that suspicion is the besetting vice of politicians and that trust is often the truest wisdom.'[ ] this sentiment is followed by curious and ambiguous qualifications. it is not cited for the sake of fixing mr. gladstone with any doctrine whatever; it is quoted because it neatly expresses the sentiment which, in one form or another, underlies most of the arguments in favour of home rule or of our new constitution. the right attitude for a politician, it is urged, is trust; he should trust the irish leaders and their assurances or professions; he should trust in the training conferred upon men by the exercise of power; he should trust in the healing effects of a policy of conciliation, or, to put the matter shortly, he should trust in the goodness and reasonableness of human nature. exercise only a little trustfulness and the policy of home rule, it is suggested, may be seen to be a wise and prudent policy.[ ] how far, then, is trust in any of the three forms, which it may on this occasion take, a reasonable sentiment? we are told to trust the irish leaders. my answer to this advice is plain and decided. confidence is not a matter of choice. you cannot give your trust simply because you wish to give it. men are trusted because they are trustworthy. the irish home rule leaders as a body cannot inspire trust, for the simple reason that their whole policy and conduct prove them untrustworthy. politicians, strange as the fact may appear to them, cannot get quit of their past. look for a moment at the history--the patent, acknowledged history--of the agitators or the patriots (and i doubt not that many of them are, from their own point of view, patriotic) in whom we are asked to confide, and whose assurances are to form the basis on which to rest a dubious policy. they have been till recently the foes of england. this in itself is not much; many a rebel has been the enemy of england, and yet has been entitled to the respect of englishmen. but there are deeds which neither hatred to england nor love of ireland can justify. even sedition has its moral code, and like war itself is subject to obligations which no man can neglect without infamy. the conspirators condemned by the special commission--and among them are to be found the most prominent of the irish leaders[ ]--have been guilty of conduct which no wise man ought to forget and no good man ought to palliate. they have for years excited irish ignorance against england and against english officials by a system of gross incessant slander; witness the pages of _united ireland_ when lord spencer and sir george trevelyan were in power at dublin. the men whom we are told to trust are men who did enter into a criminal conspiracy by a system of coercion and intimidation to promote an agrarian agitation against the payment of agricultural rents, for the purpose of impoverishing and expelling from the country the english landlords[ ]; they are men found guilty of not denouncing intimidation which led to crime and outrage, but of persisting in it with a knowledge of its effect.[ ] they are proved to have made payments to compensate persons injured in the commission of crime[ ]; they are men who have solicited and taken the money of patrick ford, the advocate of dynamite; and have invited and obtained the co-operation of the clan-na-gael.[ ] their whole system of agitation has been utterly unlike that of honourable agitators, conspirators, or rebels; it would have excited the horror of o'connell; it would have been repudiated with disgust by davis, by gavan duffy, by smith o'brien, and the other irish leaders of . the men who now ask for our confidence have in their attack upon england forgotten what was due to ireland; they have deliberately taught irish peasants lessons of dishonesty, oppression, and cruelty, which the farmers of ireland may take years to unlearn. of the degradation which they have gradually inflicted upon the english parliament one is glad to say little. it is, however, well that the house of commons should recollect that parliamentary debates are open to all the world and that englishmen and englishwomen see no reason why brutalities of expression should be tolerated in the oldest representative assembly of europe which would be reproved in any respectable english meeting. but you can sometimes trust men's capacity where you cannot trust their moral feeling. unfortunately the irish parliamentary party have given us examples of their ability in matters of government which are not reassuring. the scenes of committee room no. [ ] are a rehearsal of parliamentary life under home rule at dublin. but the gladstonians, we shall be told, guarantee the good faith of their associates. unfortunately, as judges of character the gladstonians are out of court. the leader who first obtained their confidence was mr. parnell. if the home rule bill of had become law mr. parnell would have become premier of ireland, and we should have been bidden to put trust in his loyalty and his integrity. there are no gladstonians now who think mr. parnell trustworthy. why should they be better judges of the trustworthiness of mr. dillon, mr. m'carthy, or mr. davitt, than they were of the character of the statesman who was the leader, friend or patron of the whole irish parliamentary party? note, however--for in this matter it is essential to make one's meaning perfectly clear--i do not allege, or suppose, that the assurances of the irish leaders are mendacious. they believe, i doubt not, what they say at the moment; but their words mean very little. in a sense they believed, or did not disbelieve, the slanderous accusations which filled the pages of _united ireland_. in a sense they now believe that the home rule bill is a satisfactory compromise. but the belief in each case must be considered essentially superficial. men are the victims of their own career: it is absolutely impossible that leaders many of whom have indulged in virulence, in slanders, in cruelty, in oppression, should be suddenly credited with strict truthfulness, with sobriety, with respect for the rights of others. even as it is, landlords are, in mr. sexton's eyes, criminals,[ ] and he therefore cannot be trusted to act with fairness towards irish landowners. mr. redmond holds that imprisoned dynamiters and other criminals should be released, whether guilty or not, and it is therefore reasonable not to put mr. redmond in a position where he can insist upon an amnesty for dynamiters and conspirators. nor is it at all clear that as regards amnesty any anti-parnellite dare dissent from the doctrine of mr. redmond. it is odious, it will be said, to dwell on faults or crimes which, were it possible, every man would wish forgotten. but when we are asked to trust politicians who are untrustworthy, it is a duty to say why we must refuse to them every kind of confidence. of the penalty for such plain speaking i am well aware. it will be said that to attack the irish leaders is to slander the irish people. this is untrue. in times of revolution men perpetually come to the front unworthy of the nation whom they lead. to treat distrust of the leaders of the land league as dislike or distrust of the irish people is as unfair as to say that the censor of robespierre, of marat, or of barère denies that during the revolution frenchmen displayed high genius and rare virtues. there are thousands of irishmen who will endorse every word i have written about the irish leaders. add to this that i am not called upon to pronounce any further condemnation upon the party than was pronounced upon the chief among them by the special commission. all i assert is that from the nature of things the men found guilty by the commission cannot inspire trust. power, it is often intimated, teaches its own lessons. trust irishmen with the government of their own country, and you may feel confident that experience will teach them how to govern justly. to this argument i need not myself provide a reply: it has been admirably given by my friend mr. bryce. every word which in the following passage refers to the state legislatures of the united states applies in principle to the future parliament at dublin:-- 'the chief lesson which a study of the more vicious among the state legislatures teaches, is that power does not necessarily bring responsibility in its train. i should be ashamed to write down so bald a platitude were it not that it is one of those platitudes which are constantly forgotten or ignored. people who know well enough that, in private life, wealth or rank or any other kind of power is as likely to mar a man as to make him, to lower as to raise his sense of duty, have nevertheless contracted the habit of talking as if human nature changed when it entered public life, as if the mere possession of public functions, whether of voting or of legislating, tended of itself to secure their proper exercise. we know that power does not purify men in despotic governments, but we talk as if it did so in free governments. every one would of course admit, if the point were put flatly to him, that power alone is not enough, but that there must be added to power, in the case of the voter, a direct interest in the choice of good men, in the case of the legislator, responsibility to the voters, in the case of both, a measure of enlightenment and honour. what the legislatures of the worst states show is not merely the need for the existence of a sound public opinion, for such a public opinion exists, but the need for methods by which it can be brought into efficient action upon representatives who, if they are left to themselves, and are not individually persons with a sense of honour and a character to lose, will be at least as bad in public life as they could be in private. the greatness of the scale on which they act, and of the material interests they control, will do little to inspire them. new york and pennsylvania are by far the largest and wealthiest states in the union. their legislatures are confessedly the worst.'[ ] the passage is the more impressive just because it is not written with a view to ireland. no one doubts that the people of the united states, both in morality and in talent, equal if they do not excel the people of any other country in the world. but the warmest eulogist of america seeks throughout his work for the explanation of the fact which is really past dispute, that the political morality of the united states sinks below the general morality of the nation.[ ] there is not the least reason why under a vicious constitution the government at dublin should not reflect or exaggerate the vices, rather than represent the noble qualities and the gifts, of the irish people. but the doctrine of trust takes another and more general form. you may place confidence, it is alleged, in the goodness of human nature, and should believe that the concession of home rule, just because it meets the wishes of the irish people, will take away every source of discontent, and thereby remove any difficulty in making even an imperfect constitution work well. to this the answer may fairly be made, which i have made in the preceding pages, that home rule does not meet the wish of the most important part of the irish people, but in truth arouses their abhorrence, and that even home rulers care much less than gladstonians suppose about constitutional changes. to give a man a vote for a parliament at dublin when he is demanding an acre or two of land, comes very near giving him a stone when he asks for bread. but i assume for a moment that the irishmen, who express no great enthusiasm for the home rule bill, desire the new constitution as ardently as sixty years or so ago our fathers desired parliamentary reform. yet even on this assumption the belief in home rule as a panacea for irish ills is childish, and belongs to a bygone stage of opinion. we now know that changes in political machinery, however important, do not of themselves produce content. a poverty-stricken peasant in connaught will not be made happy because a parliament meets at dublin. we now further know that the difficulty of satisfying popular aspirations often arises from the fundamental faults of human nature. trust in the people may often be wiser than distrust, but to suppose that masses of men are wiser, more reasonable, or more virtuous than the individuals of which they consist, is as idle a political delusion as the corresponding ecclesiastical delusion that a church has virtues denied to the believers who make up the church. on this point an anecdote makes my meaning clearer than an argument. on may , , the french national assembly was invaded by an armed mob, who shouted and yelled for three hours and more, and threatened at any moment to slaughter the representatives of france. from june - , , there raged the most terrible of the insurrections which paris has seen. for the first time in modern history the workmen of the capital rose against the body of the more or less well-to-do citizens. there was not a man in paris who did not tremble for his property and his life. householders feared the very servants in their homes. between these days of ferocity intervened a day of sentiment. on may , , the assembly attended a feast of concord. there were carts filled with allegorical figures, there were processions, there were embraces; the whole town, soldiers, national guards, gardes mobiles, armed workmen, a million of men or more, passed in array before the deputies. the feast was a feast of concord, but every deputy had provided himself with pistols or some weapon of defence. this was the occasion when we are told by the reporter of the scene, 'carnot said to me with a touch of that silliness (_niaiserie_) which is always to be found mixed up with the virtues of honest democrats, "believe me, my dear colleague, you must always trust the people." i remember i answered him rather rudely, "ah! why didn't you remind me of that on the day before may ?"' the anecdote is told by the greatest political thinker whom france has produced since the days of montesquieu. 'trust in the people' did not appear the last word of political wisdom to alexis de tocqueville.[ ] the gladstonian pleas to which answer has been made are, it will be said, arguments not in favour of our new constitution, but in support of home rule. the remark is just; it points to a curious weakness in the reasoning of gladstonians. they adduce many reasons of more or less weight for conceding some kind of home rule to ireland. but few indeed are the reasons put forward, either in the house of commons or elsewhere, in favour of the actual home rule bill of . as to the merits of this definite measure ministerialists show a singular reticence. it may be that they wish to save time and hold that the measure commends itself without any recommendation by force of its own inherent merits. but to a critic of the new constitution another explanation suggests itself. can it be possible that ministerialists themselves are not certain what are the fixed principles of the new policy? everything about it is indefinite, vague, uncertain. who can say with assurance what gladstonians understand by imperial supremacy? is there or is there not any idea of excluding ulster from the operation of the bill? is it or is it not a principle that members from ireland shall be summoned to westminster? are the irish members, if summoned, to vote on all matters, or on some only? to each of these questions the only answer that can be given is--nobody knows. but in this state of ignorance it is natural and excusable that apologists should confine themselves to general lines of defence. no politician who respects himself would willingly risk a vigorous apology for the special provisions of a particular measure, when, for aught he knows, the provision which he thinks essential turns out to be an unimportant detail, and is liable to sudden variation. footnotes: [ ] 'i have told you candidly my sentiments. i think they are not likely to alter yours.... but hereafter they may be of some use to you, in some future form which your commonwealth may take. in the present it can hardly remain; but before its final settlement it may be obliged to pass, as one of our poets says, "through great varieties of untried being," and in all its transmigrations to be purified by fire and blood.'--_burke's works_, ii. (ed. ), p. , 'reflections on the revolution in france.' [ ] as to the general causes of the strength of the home rule movement in england, and the general considerations in its favour, see _england's case against home rule_ ( rd ed.), ch. iii. and iv. pp. - . from the opinions expressed in these chapters i see no reason for receding. [ ] mr. m'carthy, april , , _times parliamentary debate_, . [ ] [may , . now twenty-nine years back.] [ ] every one should read mr. lecky's letter of april , , addressed to the belfast chamber of commerce, and printed in the _chamber's reply_ to mr. gladstone's speech. it deals immediately not with the relations between england and ireland, but with the alleged prosperity of ireland under grattan's constitution. but in principle it applies to the point here discussed, and i venture to say that every page of mr. lecky's _history of england in the eighteenth century_ which refers to grattan's parliament bears out the contention, that no inference can be drawn from it as to the successful working, as regards either england or ireland, of the legislature to be constituted under the home rule bill. [ ] add also that steamboats and railways have practically, since the time of grattan, brought ireland nearer to england, and dublin nearer to london. at the end of the last or the beginning of this century a lord lieutenant was for weeks prevented by adverse winds from crossing from holyhead to dublin. mr. morley can attend a cabinet council at westminster one afternoon and breakfast next morning in dublin. [ ] with the conclusions as to home rule of my lamented friend mr. freeman it is impossible for me to agree. but for that very reason i can the more freely insist upon the merit of his paper on _irish home rule and its analogies_ as an attempt to clear up our ideas as to the meaning of home rule. he, for instance, points out that the relations between hungary and austria do not constitute the relation of home rule and afford no analogy to the relation which home rulers propose to establish between great britain and ireland. see _the new princeton review_ for , vol. vi. pp. , . [ ] a gladstonian who thinks the case of the channel islands in point, would do well to get up the facts of their history. they were no more 'given' a constitution by england than, as most frenchmen believe, they were conquered from france. see mr. haldane, april , , _times parliamentary debates_, p. . [ ] they have now ( ) led to political separation, happily without the need for civil war. [ ] see further on this point, home rule as federalism, _england's case against home rule_ ( rd ed.), pp. - , and for home rule as colonial independence, _ib_. pp. - . [ ] then the chief justice of the supreme court of the united states. [ ] see 'andrew jackson,' _american statesmen series_, p. . [ ] hilty, _separatabdruck aus dem politischen jahrbuch der schweizerischen eidgenossenschaft_ (_jahrgang_ ), p. . [ ] for the story of kavanagh, hanlon, and smith, and their attempted landing at melbourne, see _england's case_ ( rd ed.), p. . [ ] mr. gladstone, february , , _times parliamentary debates_, p. . [ ] an eminent and very able gladstonian m.p. once said in my presence, in effect, for i cannot cite his actual words, that the difference between gladstonians and unionists was a difference in their judgment of character or of human nature. he touched i believe far more nearly than do most politicians the root of the differences which divide the authors and the critics of our new constitution. [ ] report of special commission, pp. , . [ ] _ibid_. pp. , . [ ] _ibid_. pp. , . [ ] report of special commission, p. . [ ] _ibid_. [ ] this committee room was the scene of the desertion of parnell by the majority of his former followers. [ ] 'the crime of the land league was a trifle compared to the crime of the landlords.'--mr. sexton, april , , _times parliamentary debates_, p. . [ ] bryce, _american commonwealth_ ( st ed.), ii. pp. , . [ ] compare _ibid_. ii. p. . [ ] 'carnot me dit avec cette niaiserie que les démocrates honnêtes ne manquent guère de mêler à leur vertu: "croyez-moi, mon cher collègue, il faut toujours se fier au peuple." je me rappelle que je lui répondis assez brusquement: "eh! que ne me disiez-vous cela la veille du mai?"'--_souvenirs de alexis de tocqueville_, p. . chapter v the path of safety we stand on the brink of a precipice.[ ] to say that englishmen are asked to take a leap in the dark is far to understate the peril of the moment. we are asked to leave an arduous but well-known road, and to spring down an unfathomed ravine filled with rocks, on any one of which we may be dashed to pieces. the very excess of the peril hides its existence from ordinary citizens. mr. gladstone, they argue, is a wise man and a good man, his colleagues are partisans, they are not conspirators; it is incredible that they should recommend a measure fraught with ruin to england. but the matter is intelligible enough. mr. gladstone's weakness, no less than his strength, has always lain in his temporary but exclusive preoccupation with some one dominant idea. the one notion which possesses his mind--to judge from his public conduct and speeches--is that at any cost home rule, that is, an irish executive and an irish parliament, must be conceded to ireland. enthusiasm, pride, ambition, all the motives, good and bad, which can influence a statesman, urge him to achieve this one object. if he succeeds his political career is crowned with victory, if not with final triumph; if he fails his whole course during the last seven years turns out an error. but it has long been manifest that only with the greatest difficulty can english electors be persuaded to accept home rule. hence it has been found essential that the principles of the measure should not be known before the time for passing it into law. hence the ill-starred avoidance of discussion. hence the ultimate framing of a scheme which is made to pass, but is not made to work, and which probably enough does not represent the real wishes or convictions of any one statesman. where is the minister who will tell us that this particular government of ireland bill is according to his judgment--i will not say in its details, but in each and all of its leading principles--the best constitution which can be framed for determining the relations between england and ireland? this minister has not appeared--i doubt whether he exists. the bill may be a model of artful provision for conciliating the prejudices or soothing the fears of english electors, but it is not a well-digested constitution. it is inferior to the home rule bill of . another consequence of the circumstances under which the bill has been framed is that its authors themselves have never had the benefit to be derived from the mature discussion of its principles. mr. gladstone himself cannot say what are and what are not the fundamental ideas of his scheme. he obviously held, at any rate when the bill was introduced, that the presence of the irish members at westminster was a detail, whereas it is in reality the fact which governs the character of the new constitution. to imply that such a matter can be treated as subsidiary is, in the eyes of any student of constitutions, as ridiculous as it would seem to mr. gladstone for a chancellor of the exchequer, on introducing his budget, to assert that, whether he maintained or did not maintain the income tax, was an organic detail which did not fundamentally affect his financial proposals. the ministry are as much at sea as their chief; nor is this wonderful. there are two things of which english statesmen have had little experience. the one is a revolutionary movement, the other is the construction of a constitution. but the home rule bill is at once the effect and the sign of a revolutionary movement, and the task in which the gladstonians are engaged is the formation of a new constitution. blind leaders are leading a blind people, and our blind leaders, some of whom care more for radical supremacy in england than for imperial supremacy in ireland, are like many other men of our time, the slaves of phrases, such as 'trust in the people,' which pass muster for principles. if the blind lead the blind, what wonder if they stumble over a precipice? the peril in which the country stands is concealed from us by a curious reaction of opinion. good political institutions, it was at one time held, were the cause of a nation's happiness, and england, it was firmly believed, owed her prosperity wholly to her constitution. a century of revolutions has taught us all that a good form of government cannot of itself save a state from ruin, and many of us have come to think that forms of government are nothing, and that no constitutional changes can impair the strength of england. no delusion however is more patent or more noxious. never was a country richer in the elements of strength than were the thirteen colonies when their independence was acknowledged by england. yet the confederation by the vices of its constitution filled the colonies with discord, and made them both weak at home and contemptible abroad, whilst the creation of the united states restored them to peace and opened for them the road to greatness. the predominance for more than fifty years of the slave power in the politics of the american union, the struggle measured by centuries through which at last the protestant and progressive cantons of switzerland asserted their rightful supremacy over the catholic and unprogressive cantons of switzerland, the weakness of prussia when, not much more than forty[ ] years back, she could hardly maintain her rights and her dignity against austria, the classical instance of germany, which though possessed of every source of power lay for generations at the mercy of france, mainly on account of vicious political institutions, are proofs, if evidence were wanting, of the capacity of ill-designed constitutions to hamper the action and threaten the prosperity of great nations. a constitution in truth is a national garb. a good constitution will not make a weak country strong, but an unsuitable constitution may reduce a strong country to feebleness. a weakling does not become a strong man by putting on armour, but a giant can derive no advantage from his strength if once he be got by fraud or force into a strait waistcoat. strength, it is true, will in the long run assert itself. the artificial supremacy of ireland, or of a faction supported by irish votes, will not last for ever; probably it will not last long. if the new constitution prove unbearable by england it will not be borne; it will be overthrown or evaded. far am i from asserting that the breach or evasion will, when it shall occur, be justifiable. englishmen's ideas of good faith are strict, but they are narrow. one main reason for dreading the new constitution is that it may try beyond measure the patience and the honesty of england. if, for instance, ulster should resist the legal authority of the parliament at dublin, there may arise one of those terrible periods in which the observation of pledged faith seems inconsistent with the natural dictates of honour and humanity, and weak concession at the present moment will, at such a crisis, be found to have contained among its other perils the danger lest england, when at last she re-asserts her power in ireland, should not re-establish her justice. where then lies the path of safety? the road is difficult, but it is clearly marked; it is at any rate to be found, not by any exercise of subtlety or of extraordinary acuteness, but by obeying the plain dictates of common sense and sound public morality. the characteristics of unionist policy must be seriousness, simplicity, and reliance upon an appeal to the nation. seriousness is essential. the need of the time is to impress on the mass of the people the intense gravity of the crisis. far too much was said before the general election about the weaknesses and the inconsistencies of the gladstonians, and far too little about the causes of their strength and the absolute necessity for arduous efforts to defeat the separatists at the polling-booths. the error must not be repeated. the people must be told, as they may be told with absolute truth, that the fate of england is in question, and that nothing but the efforts of every unionist throughout the land can save the country from destruction. the contest has, without either party being aware of the change, shifted its character since . then the names of unionists and separatists expressed the whole difference between the opponents and supporters of the home rule bill. the gladstonians for the most part meant the bill to affect, as far as possible, the condition of ireland alone. they did not mean to change the constitution of the united kingdom. it is now plain, as has been shown throughout these pages, that the measure of so-called home rule is a new constitution for the whole united kingdom. in the gladstonians _bona fide_ intended to close the period of agitation. in many gladstonians see in home rule for ireland only the first step towards an extended scheme of federalism. in no gladstonian had palliated crime or oppression, no gladstonian statesman had discovered that boycotting was nothing but exclusive dealing, no gladstonian chancellor had made light of conspiracy. all this is changed. alliance with revolutionists or conspirators has imbued respectable english statesmen with revolutionary doctrines and revolutionary sentiment. the difference between unionist and separatist remains, but it is merged in the wider difference between constitutionalists and revolutionists. the question at issue is not merely, though this is serious enough, whether the act of union shall be repealed or relaxed, but whether the united kingdom is morally a nation, and whether as a nation it has a right to insist upon the supreme authority belonging to the majority of its citizens. a similar question was some thirty-two years ago put to the people of the united states; it was decided by the arbitrament of battle. the terrible calamity of an appeal to the test of force englishmen may avoid, but if it is to be avoided the national rights of the whole people of the united kingdom must be asserted as strenuously by their votes as the rights of the citizens of the united states were vindicated by their arms. the people of england again must be solemnly warned that errors in policy or acts of injustice may snatch from us the power of determining a political controversy at the ballot-box instead of on the battle-field. it is folly to raise cases on the constitution; it is always of the most doubtful prudence to handle the casuistry of politics. nothing will tempt me to discuss in these pages what are the ethical limits to the exercise of constitutionally unlimited sovereignty, or at what point legal oppression justifies armed resistance. two considerations must at this crisis be kept in mind. the one is that, until oppression is actually committed, the maintenance of order is the duty of every citizen, and, like most political duties, is also a matter of the most obvious expediency; the other is that the compulsion of loyal citizens to forgo the direct protection of the government whose sovereignty they admit, and to accept the rule of a government whose moral claim to their allegiance they deny, is a proceeding of the grossest injustice. let the people of england also be solemnly warned that the gladstonian policy of repeats the essential error of the condemned policy of protestant ascendency. gladstonians hold that the democracy of england may ally itself with the democracy of ireland, and may treat lightly the rights and the wishes of a protestant and conservative minority. in bygone times the aristocratic and protestant government of england allied itself with the protestant and aristocratic government of ireland, and held light the rights and the wishes of the catholic majority. each policy labours under the same defect. the enforced supremacy of a class, be it a minority or a majority, is opposed to the equitable principle of the supremacy of the whole nation. there is no reason to suppose that catholic ascendency will be found more tolerable than was protestant ascendency. the policy of unionism should be marked by simplicity. the unionist leaders have a clear though a difficult duty to perform. their one immediate function is resistance to a dangerous revolution. logically and politically, there was a good deal to be said for the deliberate refusal to discuss, or to vote upon, any of the details of the home rule bill. there is always a danger lest the attempt to amend a radically and essentially vicious measure should promote the delusion that it is amendable. and any success in debate would be dearly purchased if it led the electors to suppose that the government of ireland bill, which in fact embodies a policy, so fundamentally perverse that no alteration of details can render it tolerable, is a measure which, though faulty in its execution, is sound in principle. the unionists leaders, however, whom we can absolutely trust, have decided that abstention from debate would be an error. as far as the matter is to be looked at from a parliamentary point of view their judgment is decisive, and since the policy of combating the bill point by point has been adopted it should be carried out, as it is being carried out, with the utmost stringency. minute discussion of the clauses of the bill is elaborate instruction for the mass of the nation. to the cry of obstruction no heed whatever need be paid. as long as there is real discussion obstruction becomes, when the matter in debate is the formation of a new constitution for the united kingdom, an impossibility. the business needs the most careful consideration. ministers themselves are uncertain as to what are the essential principles of their own scheme. every detail involves a principle, and in a bill where clearness is of vital importance, every clause involves an ambiguity. each part moreover of the new constitution must be considered with regard to the rest, and the expression of different views as to the meaning of the bill is of itself of utility, when it is of the greatest importance that englishmen and irishmen, conservatives and radicals, should be agreed as to the meaning of the new fundamental law. when, in short, a constitution for the country is being drawn up, no discussion which is rational can be obstructive. if a week or a fortnight of parliamentary time is expended in defining the meaning of the supreme authority of parliament, or in deciding whether the irish delegacy is or is not to be retained at westminster, not a moment too much is devoted to points of such transcendent importance. 'but the debate,' it is urged, 'will at this rate last for months.' why not? 'no other bills,' it is added, 'can be passed.' what bills, i answer, ought to be passed whilst the constitution of england is undergoing fundamental alteration? 'but the principles of the measure,' it is objected, 'might have been discussed and settled during the last seven years.' so, i reply, they might, if it had pleased the gladstonians either to produce their bill or to announce its general principles. their silence was politic; it won them a majority at the general election, but you cannot from the nature of things combine the advantages both of reticence and of outspokenness. silence may have been justified as a piece of clever party tactics; it is a very different question whether the concealment of seven years has turned out high statesmanship. gladstonians, like other men, cannot, as the saying goes, have their cake and eat it. they have had the advantages, they are now paying the inevitable price of reserve. unionists in any case are bound to turn this invaluable time to account. discussion of the constitution is the education of the people. in order, however, that this political training may be effective, our parliamentary teachers must take care that the public are not confused by the prominence necessarily given to details. minute criticism of the bill is important, but at the present moment it is important only as enforcing the radical vice of its main principles. no effort must be spared to keep the mind of the nation well fixed upon these principles. the surrender by the british parliament and the british government of all effective part in the government of ireland, the ambiguities of such a term as 'imperial supremacy' and all that these ambiguities involve, the inadequacy and the futility of the restrictions, the errors and impolicy of the financial arrangements, above all the injustice to england and the injury to ireland of retaining, under a system of home rule, even a single irish representative at westminster, these broad considerations are the things which should be pressed, and pressed home, upon the electors. minor matters are good topics for parliamentary discussion, but should not receive a confusing and illusory prominence. the electors again must be made to feel that it is the essential principle of home rule, the setting up of an irish government and an irish parliament, to which unionists are opposed. the least appearance of concession to home rulers, or any action which gives increased currency to the delusion, certainly cherished by some moderate gladstonians, that home rule can be identified with or cut down to extended local self-government,[ ] will be fatal to the cause of unionism. the concession to ireland of a petty, paltry, peddling legislature, which dare hardly call itself a parliament, and is officially designated say as a national council, combined with some faint imitation of a cabinet, called say a committee, would disappoint and irritate home rulers; it would cheat their hopes, but it would afford them the means of gaining their end. it would not give assurance to unionists, it would not be a triumph of unionist policy, it would rather be the destruction of unionism. the one course of safety is to take care that at the next general election the country has laid before it for determination a clear and unmistakable issue. the question for every elector to answer must be reducible to the form aye or no; will you, or will you not, repeal the union and establish an irish executive and an irish parliament in dublin? if the question be so raised unionists have no reason to fear an answer. the policy of unionism has always relied on an appeal to the nation. the one desire of unionists has always been to fight their opponents on the clear unmistakable issue of home rule. the policy of separatists has been to keep home rule in the background whilst making its meaning indefinite, and to mix up all the multifarious issues raised by the newcastle programme, as well as many others, with the one essential question whether we should or should not repeal or modify the act of union. to their policy of appeal to the people the unionists will, of course, adhere. the house of lords will, it may be presumed, as a matter not so much of right as of obvious duty, reject the present home rule bill, so as to refer to the electors of the united kingdom the question whether we shall, or shall not, have a new constitution. even if such a reference to the electors should result in a gladstonian majority, it is still possible that a further dissolution might be necessary. the majority for home rule might be much reduced. i doubt whether mr. gladstone himself would maintain that with a majority say of ten or twenty, a minister would be morally justified in attempting a fundamental change in the constitution. as to such speculative matters there is no need to say anything. it is worth while, however, to repeat a statement which cannot be too often insisted upon, that the most important function of the house of lords at the present day is to take care that no fundamental change in the constitution takes place which has not received the undoubted assent of the nation. the peers are more and more clearly awakening to the knowledge that under the circumstances of modern public life this protection of the rights of the nation, which is in complete conformity with democratic principle, is the supreme duty of the upper house. the question, however, to be considered at the moment is whether for the performance of this duty something more may not be required than the compelling of a dissolution. this something more is a direct appeal to the electors in the nature of a referendum. the question is still a theoretical one; it cannot (unfortunately as it will appear to many persons) be raised during the debates on the bill in the house of commons. when the bill reaches the house of lords, it will, we may suppose, be rejected, and all that a unionist can wish for is, first, that before actual rejection its general principles should be subjected to complete discussion, and what is in this case the same thing, exposure, and next that the house of lords should, if necessary, take steps which can easily be imagined, for providing that the rejection of the bill shall entail a dissolution. if, however, the dissolution should result in a gladstonian majority, and should lead to another home rule bill being sent up to their lordships, the question then arises as to the referendum. my own conviction, which has been before laid before the public, is that the lords would do well if they appended to any home rule bill which they were prepared to accept a clause which might make its coming into force depend upon its, within a limited time, receiving the approval of the majority of the electors of the united kingdom. and in the particular case of the home rule bill it is fair, for reasons already stated,[ ] that the bill before becoming law should receive the assent of a majority of the electors both of great britain and of ireland. this course, it may be said, is unconstitutional. this word has no terrors for me; it means no more than unusual, and the institution of a referendum would simply mean the formal acknowledgment of the doctrine which lies at the basis of english democracy--that a law depends at bottom for its enactment on the assent of the nation as represented by the electors. at a time when the true danger is that sections or classes should arrogate to themselves authority which belongs to the state, it is an advantage to bring into prominence the sovereignty of the nation. the present is exactly a crisis at which we may override the practices to save the principles of the constitution. the most forcible objection which can be made is that you ought not for the sake of avoiding a particular evil to introduce an innovation of dubious expediency. the objection itself is valid, but it is in the present instance inapplicable. my conviction is that the introduction of the referendum, in one shape or another in respect of large constitutional changes, would be a distinct benefit to the country. it affords the one available check on the recklessness of party leaders; for the check is at once effective and in perfect conformity with democratic principle and sentiment. a second objection is that a referendum renders any law which obtains the approval of the electors more difficult of alteration than an ordinary act of parliament. the allegation is true, but it really tells greatly in favour of an ultimate reference to the people of any home rule bill passed in a parliament. if such a bill becomes law, it ought to be a law not admitting of easy repeal. no doubt reaction may be justifiable, but reaction is a great evil, and the referendum puts a check as well on reaction as on hasty innovation. in any case the time has arrived when unionist statesmen should consider the expediency of announcing that no home rule bill will finally be accepted until it has undergone a reference to and received the approval of the electors. on no better issue could battle be joined with revolutionists than on the question whether the people of the united kingdom should or should not be allowed to express their will. unionists have every reason to feel confidence in their cause; their only policy, their one path of safety is to make it, as they can do, absolutely plain that they rely upon justice, and that they appeal from parties to the nation. we have now before us the essential features of the new constitution framed by gladstonians for the whole united kingdom. we know its inherent defects and inconsistencies; we have considered what may be said on its behalf, or rather of the policy of which it is the outcome. the proposed change in our form of government touches the very foundations of the state, and deeply, though indirectly, threatens the unity of the whole empire. never surely since the day when the national assembly of france drew up that constitution of , which built to be eternal endured for not quite a year, has an ancient nation been so strangely invited to accept an untried and unknown polity. the position indeed of the french constitution-makers was in some respects stronger and more defensible than the position of our english innovators. the members of the national assembly knew precisely what they were doing. they meant to alter the fundamental institutions of france. a change moreover in the whole scheme of french government was an admitted necessity. france might be uncertain as to the working of the new constitution, but france was absolutely certain that the _ancien régime_ was detestable. individuals or nations may wisely risk much when they are escaping from a social condition which they detest, they may know that an innovation is in itself of doubtful expediency, yet may consider any alleged reform worth a trial when no change can be a change for the worse. in the france of confidence in the future meant abhorrence of the past. the authors of our new constitution can hardly be called the designers of their own handiwork; they have been the sport of accident. their intention, or rather the intention of their leader, was in merely to grant some sort of parliamentary independence to ireland. the resolution to concede home rule was sudden; it may have been taken up without due weighing of its consequences. it has assuredly led to unexpected results. the statesmen who meant merely to give home rule to ireland have stumbled into the making of a new constitution for the united kingdom. what wonder that their workmanship betrays its accidental origin. it has no coherence, no consistency; nothing is called by its right name, and words are throughout substituted for facts; the new parliament of ireland is denied its proper title; the supremacy of the imperial parliament is nominally saved, and is really destroyed; and the very statesmen who proclaim the supremacy of the imperial parliament refuse to assert the subordination of the irish parliament. the authors of the constitution are at sea as to its leading principles, and its most essential provision they deem an organic detail, which may at any moment be modified or removed. the whole thing is an incongruous patchwork affair, made up of shreds and tatters torn from the institutions of other lands. it is as inconsistent with the proposed and rejected constitution of as with the existing constitution of england. while however our constitution-makers tender for the acceptance of the nation a scheme of fundamental change, whereof the effect is uncertain, conjectural, and perilous, and the permanence is not guaranteed by its authors, englishmen are well satisfied with their old constitution; they may desire its partial modification or expansion, they have never even contemplated its overthrow. politicians, in short, who meant to initiate a moderate reform, are pressing a revolutionary change on a country which neither needs nor desires a revolution; they propose to get rid of grave, though temporary, inconveniences by a permanent alteration of which no man can calculate the results in our whole system of government. never before was a nation so strangely advised by such bewildered counsellors to take for so little apparent reason so desperate a leap in the dark. footnotes: [ ] the whole gist of this chapter applies to the state of england in with greater force than even to its condition in . home rule will be carried, if at all, only by a house of commons freed from the authority of the house of lords, and from the need of an appeal to the people. [ ] now sixty-one years. [ ] if any one wishes to see the difference between local self-government and home rule, let him compare the bill for the extension of self-government in ireland, brought in by the late ministry, with the home rule bill. the local government bill went very far, some persons may even maintain dangerously far, in creating and in extending the authority of local bodies in ireland. but it was not home rule, or anything like home rule. the most extended local government bill and the most restricted home rule bill differ fundamentally in principle. the one in effect denies, the other in effect concedes, a separate national government to ireland. [ ] see pp. - , _ante_. appendix government of ireland bill arrangement of clauses _legislative authority_ clause. . establishment of irish legislature. . powers of irish legislature. . exceptions from powers of irish legislature. . restrictions on powers of irish legislature. _executive authority_ . executive power in ireland. _constitution of legislature_ . composition of irish legislative council. . composition of irish legislative assembly. . disagreement between two houses, how settled. _irish representation in house of commons_ . representation in parliament of irish counties and boroughs. _finance_ . as to separate consolidated fund and taxes. . hereditary revenues and income tax. . financial arrangements as between united kingdom and ireland. . treasury account (ireland). . charges on irish consolidated fund. . irish church fund. . local loans. . adaptation of acts as to local taxation accounts and probate, etc., duties. . money bills and votes. . exchequer judges for revenue actions, election petitions, etc. _post office postal telegraphs and savings banks_ . transfer of post office and postal telegraphs. . transfer of savings banks. _irish appeals and decision of constitutional questions_ . irish appeals. . special provision for decision of constitutional questions. _lord lieutenant and crown lands_ . office of lord lieutenant. . use of crown lands by irish government. _judges and civil servants_ . tenure of future judges. . as to existing judges and other persons having salaries charged on the consolidated fund. . as to persons holding civil service appointments. . as to existing pensions and superannuation allowances. _police_ . as to police. _miscellaneous_ . irish exchequer consolidated fund and audit. . law applicable to both houses of irish legislature. . supplemental provisions as to powers of irish legislature. . limitation on borrowing by local authorities. _transitory provisions_ . temporary restriction on powers of irish legislature and executive. . transitory provisions. . continuance of existing laws, courts, officers, etc. . appointed day. . definitions. . short title. schedules a bill to amend the provision for the government of ireland[ ] whereas it is expedient that without impairing or restricting the supreme authority of parliament, an irish legislature should be created for such purposes in ireland as in this act mentioned: be it therefore enacted by the queen's most excellent majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the lords spiritual and temporal, and commons, in this present parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows: _legislative authority_ . _on and after the appointed day_ there shall be in ireland a legislature consisting of her majesty the queen and of two houses, the legislative council and the legislative assembly. . with the exceptions and subject to the restrictions in this act mentioned, there shall be granted to the irish legislature power to make laws for the peace, order, and good government of ireland in respect of matters exclusively relating to ireland or some part thereof. . the irish legislature shall not have power to make laws in respect of the following matters or any of them:-- ( ) the crown, or the succession to the crown, or a regency; or the lord lieutenant as representative of the crown; or ( ) the making of peace or war or matters arising from a state of war; or ( ) naval or military forces, or the defence of the realm; or ( ) treaties and other relations with foreign states or the relations between different parts of her majesty's dominions or offences connected with such treaties or relations; or ( ) dignities or titles of honour; or ( ) treason, treason-felony, alienage, or naturalisation; or ( ) trade with any place out of ireland; or quarantine, or navigation (except as respects inland waters and local health or harbour regulations); or ( ) beacons, lighthouses, or sea marks (except so far as they can consistently with any general act of parliament be constructed or maintained by a local harbour authority); or ( ) coinage; legal tender; or the standard of weights and measures; or ( ) trade marks, merchandise marks, copyright, or patent rights. any law made in contravention of this section shall be void. . the powers of the irish legislature shall not extend to the making of any law-- ( ) respecting the establishment or endowment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or ( ) imposing any disability, or conferring any privilege, on account of religious belief; or ( ) abrogating or prejudicially affecting the right to establish or maintain any place of denominational education or any denominational institution or charity; or ( ) prejudicially affecting the right of any child to attend a school receiving public money, without attending the religious instruction at that school; or ( ) whereby any person may be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, or may be denied the equal protection of the laws, or whereby private property may be taken without just compensation; or ( ) whereby any existing corporation incorporated by royal charter or by any local or general act of parliament (not being a corporation raising for public purposes taxes, rates, cess, dues, or tolls, or administering funds so raised) may, unless it consents, or the leave of her majesty is first obtained on address from the two houses of the irish legislature, be deprived of its rights, privileges, or property without due process of law; or ( ) whereby any inhabitant of the united kingdom may be deprived of equal rights as respects public sea fisheries. any law made in contravention of this section shall be void. _executive authority_ .--( ) the executive power in ireland shall continue vested in her majesty the queen, and the lord lieutenant, on behalf of her majesty, shall exercise any prerogatives or other executive power of the queen the exercise of which may be delegated to him by her majesty, and shall, in her majesty's name, summon, prorogue, and dissolve the irish legislature. ( ) there shall be an executive committee of the privy council of ireland to aid and advise in the government of ireland, being of such numbers, and comprising persons holding such offices, as her majesty may think fit, or as may be directed by irish act. ( ) the lord lieutenant shall, on the advice of the said executive committee, give or withhold the assent of her majesty to bills passed by the two houses of the irish legislature, subject nevertheless to any instructions given by her majesty in respect of any such bill. _constitution of legislature_ .--( ) the irish legislative council shall consist of _forty-eight_ councillors. ( ) each of the constituencies mentioned in the first schedule to this act shall return the number of councillors named opposite thereto in the schedule. ( ) every man shall be entitled to be registered as an elector, and when registered to vote at an election, of a councillor for a constituency, who owns or occupies any land or tenement in the constituency of a rateable value of more than _twenty_ pounds, subject to the like conditions as a man is entitled at the passing of this act to be registered and vote as a parliamentary elector in respect of an ownership qualification or of the qualification specified in section five of the representation of the people act, , as the case may be: provided that a man shall not be entitled to be registered, nor if registered to vote, at an election of a councillor in more than one constituency in the same year. ( ) the term of office of every councillor shall be _eight_ years, and shall not be affected by a dissolution; and one _half_ of the councillors shall retire in every _fourth_ year, and their seats shall be filled by a new election. .--( ) the irish legislative assembly shall consist of _one hundred and three_ members, returned by the existing parliamentary constituencies in ireland, or the existing divisions thereof, and elected by the parliamentary electors for the time being in those constituencies or divisions. ( ) the irish legislative assembly when summoned may, unless sooner dissolved, have continuance _for five_ years from the day on which the summons directs it to meet and no longer. ( ) after _six_ years from the passing of this act, the irish legislature may alter the qualification of the electors, and the constituencies, and the distribution of the members among the constituencies, provided that in such distribution due regard is had to the population of the constituencies. . if a bill or any provision of a bill adopted by the legislative assembly is lost by the disagreement of the legislative council, and after a dissolution, or the period of _two years_ from such disagreement, such bill, or a bill for enacting the said provision, is again adopted by the legislative assembly and fails within three months afterwards to be adopted by the legislative council, the same shall forthwith be submitted to the members of the two houses deliberating and voting together thereon, and shall be adopted or rejected according to the decision of the majority of those members present and voting on the question. _irish representation in house of commons_ . unless and until parliament otherwise determines, the following provisions shall have effect-- ( ) after _the appointed day_ each of the constituencies named in the second schedule to this act shall return to serve in parliament the number of members named opposite thereto in that schedule, and no more, and dublin university shall cease to return any member. ( ) the existing divisions of the constituencies shall, save as provided in that schedule, be abolished. ( ) an irish representative peer in the house of lords and a member of the house of commons for an irish constituency shall not be entitled to deliberate or vote on-- (_a_) any bill or motion in relation thereto, the operation of which bill or motion is confined to great britain or some part thereof; or (_b_) any motion or resolution relating solely to some tax not raised or to be raised in ireland; or (_c_) any vote or appropriation of money made exclusively for some service not mentioned in the third schedule to this act; or (_d_) any motion or resolution exclusively affecting great britain or some part thereof or some local authority or some person or thing therein; or (_e_) any motion or resolution, incidental to any such motion or resolution as either is last mentioned, or relates solely to some tax not raised or to be raised in ireland, or incidental to any such vote or appropriation of money as aforesaid. ( ) compliance with the provisions of this section shall not be questioned otherwise than in each house in manner provided by the house. ( ) the election laws and the laws relating to the qualification of parliamentary electors shall not, so far as they relate to parliamentary elections, be altered by the irish legislature, but this enactment shall not prevent the irish legislature from dealing with any officers concerned with the issue of writs of election, and if any officers are so dealt with, it shall be lawful for her majesty by order in council to arrange for the issue of such writs, and the writs issued in pursuance of such order shall be of the same effect as if issued in manner heretofore accustomed. _finance_ .--( ) _on and after the appointed day_ there shall be an irish exchequer and consolidated fund separate from those of the united kingdom. ( ) the duties of customs and excise and the duties on postage shall be imposed by act of parliament, but subject to the provisions of this act the irish legislature may, in order to provide for the public service of ireland, impose any other taxes. ( ) save as in this act mentioned, all matters relating to the taxes in ireland and the collection and management thereof shall be regulated by irish act, and the same shall be collected and managed by the irish government and form part of the public revenues of ireland: provided that-- (_a_) the duties of customs shall be regulated, collected, managed, and paid into the exchequer of the united kingdom as heretofore; and (_b_) all prohibitions in connection with the duties of excise, and so far as regards articles sent out of ireland, all matters relating to those duties, shall be regulated by act of parliament; and (_c_) the excise duties on articles consumed in great britain shall be paid in great britain or to an officer of the government of the united kingdom. ( ) save as in this act mentioned, all the public revenues of ireland shall be paid into the irish exchequer and form a consolidated fund, and be appropriated to the public service of ireland by irish act. ( ) if the duties of excise are increased above the rates in force on _the first day of march one thousand eight hundred and ninety-three_, the net proceeds in ireland of the duties in excess of the said rates shall be paid from the irish exchequer to the exchequer of the united kingdom. ( ) _if the duties of excise are reduced below the rates in force on the said day, and the net proceeds of such duties in ireland are in consequence less than the net proceeds of the duties before the reduction, a sum equal to the deficiency shall, unless it is otherwise agreed between the treasury and the irish government, be paid from the exchequer of the united kingdom to the irish exchequer_. .--( ) the hereditary revenues of the crown in ireland which are managed by the commissioners of woods shall continue during the life of her present majesty to be managed and collected by those commissioners, and the net amount payable by them to the exchequer on account of those revenues, after deducting all expenses (but including an allowance for interest on such proceeds of the sale of those revenues as have not been re-invested in ireland), shall be paid into the treasury account (ireland) hereinafter mentioned, for the benefit of the irish exchequer. ( ) a person shall not be required to pay income tax in great britain in respect of property situate or business carried on in ireland, and a person shall not be required to pay income tax in ireland in respect of property situate or business carried on in great britain. ( ) _for the purpose of giving to ireland the benefit of the difference between the income tax collected in great britain from british, colonial, and foreign securities held by residents in ireland, and the income tax collected in ireland from irish securities held by residents in great britain, there shall be made to ireland out of the income tax collected in great britain, an allowance of such amount as may be from time to time determined by the treasury, in accordance with a minute of the treasury laid before parliament before the appointed day, and such allowance shall be paid into the treasury account (ireland) for the benefit of the irish exchequer_. ( ) provided that the provisions of this section with respect to income tax shall not apply to any excess of the rate of income tax in great britain above the rate in ireland or of the rate of income tax in ireland above the rate in great britain. .--( ) the duties of customs contributed by ireland and, save as provided by this act, that portion of any public revenue of the united kingdom to which ireland may claim to be entitled, whether specified in the third schedule to this act or not, shall be carried to the consolidated fund of the united kingdom, as the contribution of ireland to imperial liabilities and expenditure as defined in that schedule. ( ) the civil charges of the government in ireland shall, subject as in this act mentioned, be borne after the appointed day by ireland. ( ) after _fifteen_ years from the passing of this act the arrangements made by this act for the contribution of ireland to imperial liabilities and expenditure, and otherwise for the financial relations between the united kingdom and ireland, may be revised in pursuance of an address to her majesty from the house of commons, or from the irish legislative assembly. .--( ) there shall be established under the direction of the treasury an account (in this act referred to as the treasury account (ireland)). ( ) there shall be paid into such account all sums payable from the irish exchequer to the exchequer of the united kingdom, or from the latter to the former exchequer, and all sums directed to be paid into the account for the benefit of either of the said exchequers. ( ) all sums which are payable from either of the said exchequers to the other of them, or being payable out of one of the said exchequers are repayable by the other exchequer, shall in the first instance be payable out of the said account so far as the money standing on the account is sufficient; and for the purpose of meeting such sums, the treasury out of the customs revenue collected in ireland, and the irish government out of any of the public revenues in ireland, may direct money to be paid to the treasury account (ireland) instead of into the exchequer. ( ) any surplus standing on the account to the credit of either exchequer, and not required for meeting payments, shall at convenient times be paid into that exchequer, and where any sum so payable into the exchequer of the united kingdom is required by law to be forthwith paid to the national debt commissioners, that sum may be paid to those commissioners without being paid into the exchequer. ( ) all sums payable by virtue of this act out of the consolidated fund of the united kingdom or of ireland shall be payable from the exchequer of the united kingdom or ireland, as the case may be, within the meaning of this act, and all sums by this act made payable from the exchequer of the united kingdom shall, if not otherwise paid, be charged on and paid out of the consolidated fund of the united kingdom. .--( ) there shall be charged on the irish consolidated fund in favour of the exchequer of the united kingdom as a first charge on that fund all sums which-- (_a_) are payable to that exchequer from the irish exchequer; or (_b_) are required to repay to the exchequer of the united kingdom sums issued to meet the dividends or sinking fund on guaranteed land stock under the purchase of land (ireland) act, , or (_c_) otherwise have been or are required to be paid out of the exchequer of the united kingdom in consequence of the non-payment thereof out of the exchequer of ireland or otherwise by the irish government. ( ) if at any time the controller and auditor-general of the united kingdom is satisfied that any such charge is due, he shall certify the amount of it, and the treasury shall send such certificate to the lord lieutenant, who shall thereupon by order, without any counter-signature, direct the payment of the amount from the irish exchequer to the exchequer of the united kingdom, and such order shall be duly obeyed by all persons, and until the amount is wholly paid no other payment shall be made out of the irish exchequer for any purpose whatever. ( ) there shall be charged on the irish consolidated fund next after the foregoing charge: (_a_) all sums, for dividends or sinking fund on guaranteed land stock under the purchase of land (ireland) act, , which the land purchase account and the guarantee fund under that act are insufficient to pay; (_b_) all sums due in respect of any debt incurred by the government of ireland, whether for interest, management, or sinking fund; (_c_) an annual sum of _five thousand_ pounds for the expenses of the household and establishment of the lord lieutenant; (_d_) all existing charges on the consolidated fund of the united kingdom in respect of irish services other than the salary of the lord lieutenant; and (_e_) the salaries and pensions of all judges of the supreme court or other superior court in ireland or of any county or other like court, who are appointed after the passing of this act, and are not the exchequer judges hereafter mentioned. ( ) until all charges created by this act upon the irish consolidated fund and for the time being due are paid, no money shall be issued from the irish exchequer for any other purpose whatever. .--( ) all existing charges on the church property in ireland--that is to say, all property accruing under the irish church act, , and transferred to the irish land commission by the irish church amendment act, --shall so far as not paid out of the said property be charged on the irish consolidated fund, and any of those charges guaranteed by the treasury, if and so far as not paid, shall be paid out of the exchequer of the united kingdom. ( ) subject to the existing charges thereon, the said church property shall belong to the irish government, and be managed, administered, and disposed of as directed by irish act. .--( ) all sums paid or applicable in or towards the discharge of the interest or principal of any local loan advanced before the appointed day on security in ireland, or otherwise in respect of such loan, which but for this act would be paid to the national debt commissioners, and carried to the local loans fund, shall, after the appointed day, be paid, until otherwise provided by irish act, to the irish exchequer. ( ) for the payment to the local loans fund of the principal and interest of such loans, the irish government shall after the appointed day pay by half-yearly payments an annuity for _forty-nine_ years, at the rate of _four_ per cent, on the principal of the said loans, exclusive of any sums written off before the appointed day from the account of assets of the local loans fund, and such annuity shall be paid from the irish exchequer to the exchequer of the united kingdom, and when so paid shall be forthwith paid to the national debt commissioners for the credit of the local loans fund. ( ) after the appointed day, money for loans in ireland shall cease to be advanced either by the public works loan commissioners or out of the local loans fund. .--( ) so much of any act as directs payment to the local taxation (ireland) account of any share of probate, excise, or customs duties payable to the exchequer of the united kingdom shall, together with any enactment amending the same, be repealed as from the appointed day without prejudice to the adjustment of balances after that day; but the like amounts shall continue to be paid to the local taxation accounts in england and scotland as would have been paid if this act had not passed, and any residue of the said share shall be paid into the exchequer of the united kingdom. ( ) the stamp duty chargeable in respect of the personalty of a deceased person shall not in the case of administration granted in great britain be chargeable in respect of any personalty situate in ireland, nor in the case of administration granted in ireland be chargeable in respect of any personalty situate in great britain; and any administration granted in great britain shall not, if re-sealed in ireland, be exempt from stamp duty on administration granted in ireland, and any administration granted in ireland shall not, when re-sealed in great britain, be exempt from stamp duty on administration granted in great britain. ( ) in this section the expression "administration" means probate or letters of administration, and as respects scotland, confirmation inclusive of the inventory required under the acts relating to the said stamp duty, and the expression "personalty" means personal or movable estate and effects. .--( ) bills for appropriating any part of the public revenue or for imposing any tax shall originate in the legislative assembly. ( ) it shall not be lawful for the legislative assembly to adopt or pass any vote, resolution, address, or bill for the appropriation for any purpose of any part of the public revenue of ireland, or of any tax, except in pursuance of a recommendation from the lord lieutenant in the session in which such vote, resolution, address, or bill is proposed. .--( ) two of the judges of the supreme court in ireland shall be exchequer judges, and shall be appointed under the great seal of the united kingdom; and their salaries and pensions shall be charged on and paid out of the consolidated fund of the united kingdom. ( ) the exchequer judges shall be removeable only by her majesty on address from the two houses of parliament, and each such judge shall, save as otherwise provided by parliament, receive the same salary and be entitled to the same pension as is at the time of his appointment fixed for the puisne judges of the supreme court, and during his continuance in office his salary shall not be diminished, nor his right to pension altered, without his consent. ( ) an alteration of any rules relating to such legal proceedings as are mentioned in this section shall not be made except with the approval of her majesty the queen in council; and the sittings of the exchequer judges shall be regulated with the like approval. ( ) all legal proceedings in ireland, which are instituted at the instance of or against the treasury or commissioners of customs, or any of their officers, or relate to the election of members to serve in parliament, or touch any matter within the powers of the irish legislature, or touch any matter affected by a law which the irish legislature have not power to repeal or alter, shall, if so required by any party to such proceedings, be heard and determined before the exchequer judges or (except where the case requires to be determined by two judges) before one of them, and in any such legal proceeding an appeal shall, if any party so requires, lie from any court of first instance in ireland to the exchequer judges, and the decision of the exchequer judges shall be subject to appeal to her majesty the queen in council and not to any other tribunal. ( ) if it is made to appear to an exchequer judge that any decree or judgment in any such proceeding as aforesaid has not been duly enforced by the sheriff or other officer whose duty it is to enforce the same, such judge shall appoint some officer whose duty it shall be to enforce the judgment or decree; and for that purpose such officer and all persons employed by him shall be entitled to the same privileges, immunities, and powers as are by law conferred on a sheriff and his officers. ( ) the exchequer judges, when not engaged in hearing and determining such legal proceedings as above in this section mentioned, shall perform such of the duties ordinarily performed by other judges of the supreme court in ireland as may be assigned by her majesty the queen in council. ( ) all sums recovered by the treasury or the commissioners of customs or any of their officers, or recovered under any act relating to duties of customs, shall, notwithstanding anything in any other act, be paid to such public account as the treasury or the commissioners direct. _post office postal telegraphs and savings banks_ .--( ) as from _the appointed day_ the postal and telegraph service in ireland shall be transferred to the irish government, and may be regulated by irish act, except as in this act mentioned and except as regards matters relating-- (_a_) to such conditions of the transmission or delivery of postal packets and telegrams as are incidental to the duties on postage; or (_b_) foreign mails or submarine telegraphs or through lines in connection therewith; or (_c_) to any other postal or telegraph business in connection with places out of the united kingdom. ( ) the administration of or incidental to the said excepted matters shall, save as may be otherwise arranged with the irish post office, remain with the postmaster-general. ( ) as regards the revenue and expenses of the postal and telegraph service, the postmaster-general shall retain the revenue collected and defray the expenses incurred in great britain, and the irish post office shall retain the revenue collected and defray the expenses incurred in ireland, subject to the provisions of the fourth schedule to this act; which schedule shall have full effect, but may be varied or added to by agreement between the postmaster-general and the irish post office. ( ) _the sums payable by the postmaster-general or irish post office to the other of them in pursuance of this act shall, if not paid out of the post office moneys, be paid from the exchequer of the united kingdom or of ireland, as the case requires, to the other exchequer_. ( ) sections forty-eight to fifty-two of the telegraph act , and any enactment amending the same, shall apply to all telegraphic lines of the irish government in like manner as to the telegraphs of a company within the meaning of that act. .--( ) as from _the appointed day_ there shall be transferred to the irish government the post office savings banks in ireland and all such powers and duties of any department or officer in great britain as are connected with post office savings banks, trustee savings banks or friendly societies in ireland, and the same may be regulated by irish act. ( ) the treasury shall publish not less than six months' previous notice of the transfer of savings banks. ( ) if before the date of the transfer any depositor in a post office savings bank so requests, his deposit shall, according to his request, either be paid to him or transferred to a post office savings bank in great britain, and after the said date the depositors in a post office savings bank in ireland shall cease to have any claim against the postmaster-general or the consolidated fund of the united kingdom, but shall have the like claim against the government and consolidated fund of ireland. ( ) if before the date of the transfer the trustees of any trustee savings bank so request, then, according to the request, either all sums due to them shall be repaid and the savings bank closed, or those sums shall be paid to the irish government, and after the said date the trustees shall cease to have any claim against the national debt commissioners or the consolidated fund of the united kingdom, but shall have the like claim against the government and consolidated fund of ireland. ( ) notwithstanding the foregoing provisions of this section, if a sum due on account of any annuity or policy of insurance which has before the above-mentioned notice been granted through a post office or trustee savings bank is not paid by the irish government, that sum shall be paid out of the exchequer of the united kingdom. _irish appeals and decision of constitutional questions_ .--( ) the appeal from courts in ireland to the house of lords shall cease; and where any person would, but for this act, have a right to appeal from any court in ireland to the house of lords, such person shall have the like right to appeal to her majesty the queen in council; and the right so to appeal shall not be affected by any irish act; and all enactments relating to appeals to her majesty the queen in council, and to the judicial committee of the privy council, shall apply accordingly. ( ) when the judicial committee sit for hearing appeals from a court in ireland, there shall be present not less than four lords of appeal, within the meaning of the appellate jurisdiction act, , and at least one member who is or has been a judge of the supreme court in ireland. ( ) a rota of privy councillors to sit for hearing appeals from courts in ireland shall be made annually by her majesty in council, and the privy councillors, or some of them, on that rota shall sit to hear the said appeals. a casual vacancy in such rota during the year may be filled by order in council. ( ) nothing in this act shall affect the jurisdiction of the house of lords to determine the claims to irish peerages. .--( ) if it appears to the lord lieutenant or a secretary of state expedient in the public interest that steps shall be taken for the speedy determination of the question whether any irish act or any provision thereof is beyond the powers of the irish legislature, he may represent the same to her majesty in council, and thereupon the said question shall be forthwith referred to and heard and determined by the judicial committee of the privy council, constituted as if hearing an appeal from a court in ireland. ( ) upon the hearing of the question such persons as seem to the judicial committee to be interested may be allowed to appear and be heard as parties to the case, and the decision of the judicial committee shall be given in like manner as if it were the decision of an appeal, the nature of the report or recommendation to her majesty being stated in open court. ( ) nothing in this act shall prejudice any other power of her majesty in council to refer any question to the judicial committee or the right of any person to petition her majesty for such reference. _lord lieutenant and crown lands_ .--( ) notwithstanding anything to the contrary in any act, every subject of the queen shall be qualified to hold the office of lord lieutenant of ireland, without reference to his religious belief. ( ) the term of office of the lord lieutenant shall be _six years_, without prejudice to the power of her majesty the queen at any time to revoke the appointment. . her majesty the queen in council may place under the control of the irish government, for the purposes of that government, such of the lands and buildings in ireland vested in or held in trust for her majesty, and subject to such conditions or restrictions (if any) as may seem expedient. _judges and civil servants_ . a judge of the supreme court or other superior court in ireland, or of any county court or other court with a like jurisdiction in ireland, appointed after the passing of this act, shall not be removed from his office except in pursuance of an address from the two houses of the legislature of ireland, nor during his continuance in office shall his salary be diminished or right to pension altered without his consent. .--( ) all existing judges of the supreme court, county court judges, and land commissioners in ireland and all existing officers serving in ireland in the permanent civil service of the crown and receiving salaries charged on the consolidated fund of the united kingdom, shall, if they are removeable at present on address from both houses of parliament, continue to be removeable only upon such address, and if removeable in any other manner shall continue to be removeable only in the same manner as heretofore; and shall continue to receive the same salaries, gratuities, and pensions, and to be liable to perform the same duties as heretofore, or such duties as her majesty may declare to be analogous, and their salaries and pensions, if and so far as not paid out of the irish consolidated fund, shall be paid out of the exchequer of the united kingdom: provided that this section shall be subject to the provisions of this act with respect to the exchequer judges. ( ) _if any of the said judges, commissioners, or officers retires from office with the queen's approbation before completion of the period of service entitling him to a pension, her majesty may, if she thinks fit, grant to him such pension, not exceeding the pension to which he would on that completion have been entitled, as to her majesty seems meet_. .--( ) all existing officers in the permanent civil service of the crown, who are not above provided for, and are at the appointed day serving in ireland, shall after that day continue to hold their offices by the same tenure and to receive the same salaries, gratuities, and pensions, and to be liable to perform the same duties as heretofore or such duties as the treasury may declare to be analogous; _and the said gratuities and pensions, and until three years after the passing of this act, the salaries due to any of the said officers if remaining in his existing office, shall be paid to the payees by the treasury out of the exchequer of the united kingdom_. ( ) any such officer may after _three years_ from the passing of this act retire from office, and shall, at any time during those three years, if required by the irish government, retire from office, and on any such retirement may be awarded by the treasury a gratuity or pension in accordance with the fifth schedule to this act; provided that-- (_a_) six months' written notice shall, unless it is otherwise agreed, be given either by the said officer or by the irish government as the case requires; and (_b_) such number of officers only shall retire at one time and at such intervals of time as the treasury, in communication with the irish government, sanction. ( ) if any such officer does not so retire, the treasury may award him after the said three years a pension in accordance with the fifth schedule to this act which shall become payable to him on his ultimate retirement from the service of the crown. ( ) _the gratuities and pensions awarded in accordance with the fifth schedule to this act shall be paid by the treasury to the payees out of the exchequer of the united kingdom._ ( ) all sums paid out of the exchequer of the united kingdom in pursuance of this section shall be repaid to that exchequer from the irish exchequer. ( ) this section shall not apply to officers retained in the service of the government of the united kingdom. . any existing pension granted on account of service in ireland as a judge of the supreme court or of any court consolidated into that court, or as a county court judge, or in any other judicial position, or as an officer in the permanent civil service of the crown other than in an office the holder of which is after the appointed day retained in the service of the government of the united kingdom, shall be charged on the irish consolidated fund, and if and so far as not paid out of that fund, shall be paid out of the exchequer of the united kingdom. _police_ .--( ) the forces of the royal irish constabulary and dublin metropolitan police shall, when and as local police forces are from time to time established in ireland in accordance with the sixth schedule to this act, be gradually reduced and ultimately cease to exist as mentioned in that schedule; and after the passing of this act, no officer or man shall be appointed to either of those forces; provided that until the expiration of _six_ years from the appointed day, nothing in this act shall require the lord lieutenant to cause either of the said forces to cease to exist, if as representing her majesty the queen he considers it inexpedient. ( ) the said two forces shall, while they continue, be subject to the control of the lord lieutenant as representing her majesty, and the members thereof shall continue to receive the same salaries, gratuities, and pensions, and hold their appointments on the same tenure as heretofore, _and those salaries, gratuities, and pensions, and all the expenditure incidental to either force, shall be paid out of the exchequer of the united kingdom_. ( ) when any existing member of either force retires under the provisions of the sixth schedule to this act, the treasury may award to him a gratuity or pension in accordance with that schedule. ( ) _those gratuities and pensions and all existing pensions payable in respect of service in either force, shall be paid by the treasury to the payees out of the exchequer of the united kingdom_. ( ) _two-thirds of the net amount payable in pursuance of this section out of the exchequer of the united kingdom shall be repaid to that exchequer from the irish exchequer_. _miscellaneous_ . save as may be otherwise provided by irish act-- (_a_) the existing law relating to the exchequer and consolidated fund of the united kingdom shall apply with the necessary modifications to the exchequer and consolidated fund of ireland, and an officer shall be appointed by the lord lieutenant to be the irish comptroller and auditor general; and (_b_) the accounts of the irish consolidated fund shall be audited as appropriation accounts in manner provided by the exchequer and audit departments act, , by or under the direction of such officer. .--( ) subject as in this act mentioned and particularly to the seventh schedule to this act (which schedule shall have full effect) all existing election laws relating to the house of commons and the members thereof shall, so far as applicable, extend to each of the two houses of the irish legislature and the members thereof, but such election laws so far as hereby extended may be altered by irish act. ( ) the privileges, rights, and immunities to be held and enjoyed by each house and the members thereof shall be such as may be defined by irish act, but so that the same shall never exceed those for the time being held and enjoyed by the house of commons, and the members thereof. .--(i) the irish legislature may repeal or alter any provision of this act which is by this act expressly made alterable by that legislature, and also any enactments in force in ireland, except such as either relate to matters beyond the powers of the irish legislature, or being enacted by parliament after the passing of this act may be expressly extended to ireland. an irish act, notwithstanding it is in any respect repugnant to any enactment excepted as aforesaid, shall, though read subject to that enactment, be, except to the extent of that repugnancy, valid. ( ) an order, rule, or regulation, made in pursuance of, or having the force of, an act of parliament, shall be deemed to be an enactment within the meaning of this section. ( ) nothing in this act shall affect bills relating to the divorce or marriage of individuals, and any such bill shall be introduced and proceed in parliament in like manner as if this act had not passed. . the local authority for any county or borough or other area shall not borrow money without either-- (_a_) special authority from the irish legislature, or (_b_) the sanction of the proper department of the irish government: and shall not, without such special authority, borrow; (i) in the case of a municipal borough or town or area less than a county, any loan which together with the then outstanding debt of the local authority, will exceed twice the annual rateable value of the property in the municipal borough, town, or area; or (ii) in the case of a country or larger area, any loan which together with the then outstanding debt of the local authority, will exceed one-tenth of the annual rateable value of the property in the county or area; or (iii) in any case a loan exceeding one-half of the above limits without a local inquiry held in the county, borough, or area by a person appointed for the purpose by the said department. _transitory provisions_ .--( ) during _three_ years from the passing of this act, and if parliament is then sitting until the end of that session of parliament, the irish legislature shall not pass an act respecting the relations of landlord and tenant, or the sale, purchase, or letting of land generally: provided that nothing in this section shall prevent the passing of any irish act with a view to the purchase of land for railways, harbours, waterworks, town improvements, or other local undertakings. ( ) during _six_ years from the passing of this act, the appointment of a judge of the supreme court or other superior courts in ireland (other than one of the exchequer judges) shall be made in pursuance of a warrant from her majesty countersigned as heretofore. .--( ) subject to the provisions of this act her majesty the queen in council may make or direct such arrangements as seem necessary or proper for setting in motion the irish legislature and government and for otherwise bringing this act into operation. ( ) the irish legislature shall be summoned to meet on the _first tuesday in september, one thousand eight hundred and ninety-four_, and the first election of members of the two houses of the irish legislature shall be held at such time before that day, as may be fixed by her majesty in council. ( ) upon the first meeting of the irish legislature the members of the house of commons then sitting for irish constituencies, including the members for dublin university, shall vacate their seats, and writs shall, as soon as conveniently may be, be issued by the lord chancellor of ireland for the purpose of holding an election of members to serve in parliament for the constituencies named in the second schedule of this act. ( ) the existing chief baron of the exchequer, and the senior of the existing puisne judges of the exchequer division of the supreme court, or if they or either of them are or is dead or unable or unwilling to act, such other of the judges of the supreme court as her majesty may appoint, shall be the first exchequer judges. ( ) where it appears to her majesty the queen in council, before the expiration of _one year_ after the appointed day, that any existing enactment respecting matters within the powers of the irish legislature requires adaptation to ireland, whether-- (_a_) by the substitution of the lord lieutenant in council, or of any department or officer of the executive government in ireland, for her majesty in council, a secretary of state, the treasury, the postmaster-general, the board of inland revenue, or other public department or officer in great britain; or (_b_) by the substitution of the irish consolidated fund or moneys provided by the irish legislature for the consolidated fund of the united kingdom, or moneys provided by parliament; or (_c_) by the substitution or confirmation by, or other act to be done by or to, the irish legislature for confirmation by or other act to be done by or to parliament; or (_d_) by any other adaptation; her majesty, by order in council, may make that adaptation. ( ) her majesty the queen in council may provide for the transfer of such property, rights, and liabilities, and the doing of such other things as may appear to her majesty necessary or proper for carrying into effect this act or any order in council under this act. ( ) an order in council under this section may make an adaptation or provide for a transfer either unconditionally or subject to such exceptions, conditions, and restrictions as may seem expedient. ( ) the draft of every order in council under this section shall be laid before both houses of parliament for not less than two months before it is made, and such order when made shall, subject as respects ireland to the provisions of an irish act, have full effect, but shall not interfere with the continued application to any place, authority, person, or thing, not in ireland, of the enactment to which the order relates. . except as otherwise provided by this act, all existing laws, institutions, authorities, and officers in ireland, whether judicial, administrative, or ministerial, and all existing taxes in ireland shall continue as if this act had not passed, but with the modifications necessary for adapting the same to this act, and subject to be repealed, abolished, altered, and adapted in the manner and to the extent authorised by this act. . subject as in this act mentioned the appointed day for the purposes of this act shall be the day of the first meeting of the irish legislature, or such other day not more than _seven_ months earlier or later as may be fixed by order of her majesty in council either generally or with reference to any particular provision of this act, and different days may be appointed for different purposes and different provisions of this act, whether contained in the same section or in different sections. . in this act unless the context otherwise requires--the expression 'existing' means existing at the passing of this act. the expression 'constituency' means a parliamentary constituency or a county or borough returning a member or members to serve in either house of the irish legislature, as the case requires, and the expression 'parliamentary constituency' means any county, borough, or university returning a member or members to serve in parliament. the expression 'parliamentary elector' means a person entitled to be registered as a voter at a parliamentary election. the expression 'parliamentary election' means the election of a member to serve in parliament. the expression 'tax' includes duties and fees, and the expression 'duties of excise' does not include licence duties. the expression 'foreign mails' means all postal packets, whether letters, parcels, or other packets, posted in the united kingdom and sent to a place out of the united kingdom, or posted in a place out of the united kingdom and sent to a place in the united kingdom, or in transit through the united kingdom to a place out of the united kingdom. the expression 'telegraphic line' has the same meaning as in the telegraph acts, to . the expression 'duties on postage' includes all rates and sums chargeable for or in respect of postal packets, money orders, or telegrams, or otherwise under the post office acts or the telegraph act, . the expression 'irish act' means a law made by the irish legislature. the expression 'election laws' means the laws relating to the election of members to serve in parliament, other than those relating to the qualification of electors, and includes all the laws respecting the registration of electors, the issue and execution of writs, the creation of polling districts, the taking of the poll, the questioning of elections, corrupt and illegal practices, the disqualification of members and the vacating of seats. the expression 'rateable value' means the annual rateable value under the irish valuation acts. the expression 'salary' includes remuneration, allowances, and emoluments. the expression 'pension' includes superannuation allowance. . this act may be cited as the irish government act, . schedules first schedule legislative council constituencies and number of councillors constituencies councillors. -------------- ----------- antrim county three armagh county one belfast borough two carlow county one cavan county one clare county one cork county-- east riding three west riding one cork borough one donegal county one down county three dublin county three dublin borough two fermanagh county one galway county two kerry county one kildare county one kilkenny county one king's county one leitrim and sligo counties one limerick county two londonderry county one longford county one louth county one mayo county one meath county one monaghan county one queen's county one roscommon county one tipperary county two tyrone county one waterford county one westmeath county one wexford county one wicklow county one ----------- forty-eight the expression 'borough' in this schedule means an existing parliamentary borough. counties of cities and towns not named in this schedule shall be combined with the county at large in which they are included for parliamentary elections, and, if not so included, then with the county at large bearing the same name. a borough named in this schedule shall not for the purposes of this schedule form part of any other constituency. second schedule irish members in the house of commons constituencies. number of members for house of commons antrim county three armagh county two belfast borough (in divisions as mentioned below) four carlow county one cavan county two clare county two cork county (in divisions as mentioned below) five cork borough two donegal county three down county three dublin county two dublin borough (in divisions as mentioned below) four fermanagh county one galway county three galway borough one kerry county three kildare county one kilkenny county one kilkenny borough one king's county one leitrim county two limerick county two limerick borough one londonderry county two londonderry borough one longford county one louth county one mayo county three meath county two monaghan county two newry borough one queen's county one roscommon county two sligo county two tipperary county three tyrone county three waterford county one waterford borough one westmeath county one wexford county two wicklow county one -------- eighty ( ) in this schedule the expression 'borough' means an existing parliamentary borough. ( ) in the parliamentary boroughs of belfast and dublin, one member shall be returned by each of the existing parliamentary divisions of those boroughs, and the law relating to the divisions of boroughs shall apply accordingly. ( ) the county of cork shall be divided into two divisions, consisting of the east riding and the west riding, and three members shall be elected by the east riding, and two members shall be elected by the west riding; and the law relating to divisions of counties shall apply to those divisions. third schedule finance imperial liabilities, expenditure, and miscellaneous revenue _liabilities_ for the purposes of this act 'imperial liabilities' consist of:-- ( ) the funded and unfunded debt of the united kingdom, inclusive of terminable annuities paid out of the permanent annual charge for the national debt, and inclusive of the cost of the management of the said funded and unfunded debt, but exclusive of the local loans stock and guaranteed land stock and the cost of the management thereof; and ( ) all other charges on the consolidated fund of the united kingdom for the repayment of borrowed money, or to fulfil a guarantee. _expenditure_ for the purpose of this act imperial expenditure consists of expenditure for the following services:-- i. naval and military expenditure (including greenwich hospital). ii. civil expenditure, that is to say-- (_a_) civil list and royal family. (_b_) salaries, pensions, allowances, and incidental expenses of-- (i) lord lieutenant of ireland; (ii) exchequer judges in ireland. (_c_) building, works, salaries, pensions, printing, stationery, allowances, and incidental expenses of-- (i) parliament; (ii) national debt commissioners; (iii) foreign office and diplomatic and consular service, including secret service, special services, and telegraph subsidies; (iv) colonial office, including special services and telegraph subsidies; (v) privy council; (vi) board of trade, including the mercantile marine fund, patent office, railway commission, and wreck commission, but excluding bankruptcy; (vii) mint; (viii) meteorological society; (ix) slave trade service. (_d_) foreign mails and telegraphic communication with places outside the united kingdom. _revenue_ for the purposes of this act the public revenue to a portion of which ireland may claim to be entitled consists of revenue from the following sources:-- . suez canal shares or payments on account thereof. . loans and advances to foreign countries. . annual payments by british possessions. . fees, stamps, and extra receipts received by departments, the expenses of which are part of the imperial expenditure. . small branches of the hereditary revenues of the crown. . foreshores. [the fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh schedules are for the saving of space omitted.] footnotes: [ ] the bill is printed as it was originally presented to the house of commons. index _american commonwealth_, by rt. hon. james bryce, _n_ _american history, critical period of_, by fiske, andrews, mr. justice, a unitarian, _n_ appeals under irish government act, asquith, rt. hon. h.h., on the policy of home rule, , _n_ balfour, rt. hon. arthur, on ireland, beaumont, gustave de, bright, john, on free trade, bryce, rt. hon. james, , _american commonwealth_, , burke, edmund, _reflections on the revolution in france_, cambray, mr., _irish affairs and the home rule question_, , canada as a self-governing colony, , civil servants under irish government act, clancy, mr., m.p., and the financial clauses of the home rule bill, cobden and free trade, coercion act, the, colonies, self-governing, _see_ new zealand, canada, victoria _constitution, law of_, by professor dicey, _n_, _n_, _n_ constitution of legislature under irish government act, constitution, old and new, - , ; the new, _et seq_., ; no settlement of the irish question, _et seq_.; rests on an unsound foundation and contradictory, ; pleas for, _et seq._ constitutional questions, decision of, under irish government act, contracts, laws as to, , crown lands under irish government act, davitt, michael, and the new constitution, , , dicey, professor a.v., _law of the constitution,_ _n_, _n_, _n_ duffy, sir gavan, irish nationalist, , ; his prediction, england, present constitution of, _et seq_.; retention of irish members at westminster, _et seq_., , , , , ; inducements to, ; meaning of home rule to, _et seq_.; result of helping portugal and spain, ; opposition to home rule, _et seq_.; grattan's constitution, ; the path of safety, _et seq._ _england's case against home rule_, _n_, _n_, _n_, _n_, _n_, _n_, _n_ executive authority under irish government act, feast of concord in france, federalism, ; and home rule, _et seq_., , ; application to england, ; how it works in other countries, _et seq._ finance, under irish government act, , , , - , , fiske, _critical period of american history_, ford, patrick, france, and italy, ; feast of concord, ; the constitution of , freeman, e.a., _irish home rule and its analogies_, _n_, _n_ germany, federalism in, girardin, m., on the french revolution, gladstone, w.e., and home rule, , , _n_, , , ; on the retention of irish members at westminster, _n_, , , government, _see_ parliament government of ireland bill, _see_ home rule bill grattan's constitution, , - hilty, professor, swiss publicist, home rule, a new constitution for the united kingdom, , ; compared with the old constitution, _et seq_.; four leading features of, ; the supremacy of the imperial parliament, - ; the retention of the irish members in the imperial parliament, _et seq_., _n_, , , - ; powers of the irish government, _et seq_., _et seq _.; the veto, ; finance, - , - , , ; as a settlement of the irish question, _et seq_.; is federalism, ; reasons for, _et seq_.; necessity for, ; the safeguards, ; grattan's constitution, ; success of, _et seq_.; the policy of trust, _et seq_.; a revolutionary movement, , imperial parliament, _see_ parliament ireland, the old constitution, - ; the new constitution, _et seq_.; the retention of irish members in the imperial parliament, _et seq_., _n_, , , - ; meaning of home rule to, ; powers of the irish government under home rule bill, _et seq_., _et seq_.; the irish parliament, ; restrictions and obligations, _et seq_.; the veto, ; the privy council and the courts, _et seq_.; home rule no settlement of the irish question, _et seq_.; arguments for the new constitution, _et seq_.; her desire for parliamentary independence, _irish affairs and the home rule question_, by cambray, , _n_ irish constabulary under home rule bill, _n_, irish executive, irish government act, _see_ home rule bill _irish home rule and its analysis_, by e.a. freeman, _n_, _n_ irish parliament, irish representation in the house of commons, _et seq_., , , , - italy and france, jackson, andrew, president of the united states, judges under home rule bill, lalor, mr., lecky, mr., _history of england in the eighteenth century_, legislative authority under home rule bill, _et seq_. local government bill compared with home rule bill, lord lieutenant, office of, , mccarthy, j., on the effect of the home rule bill, , , mahoney, pierce, _irish independent_ on the release of prisoners, marshall, john, chief justice of the supreme court of the united states, melbourne, irish informers' reception at, , mill, john stuart, _representative government_, _n_, _n_. morley, john, chief secretary for ireland, on retention of irish members at westminster, - , , ; changes in administration, ; safeguards against legislation setting aside contracts, new zealand as a self-governing colony, , , , , , ; compared with ireland, nulty, dr., roman catholic bishop of meath, _n_. o'connell, daniel, compared with parnell, ; parliament, british and imperial, authority of, in the united kingdom, _et seq_.; in the colonies, _et seq_.; supremacy of, _et seq_.; retention of irish members in, _et seq_.; power up to , ; since the union, _et seq._ parnell, ; and home rule, , , phoenix park murders, police under home rule bill, _n_, post office and postal telegraphs under home rule bill, , privy council and the courts, protection, , redmond, john, m.p., home rule, , , ; and the imprisoned dynamiters, _n_, referendum, dicey on, , religion, restrictions on, _representative government_, by john stuart mill, _n._ restrictions and obligations in home rule bill, _et seq_., , , retention of irish members in house of commons, _et seq_., , , , - russell, lord john, _n_ savings banks under home rule bill, , sexton, thomas, on home rule bill, _n_, , , siéyès, abbé, switzerland an example of successful federalism, , taxes, right to impose, , ticino, insurrection in, , , _times parliamentary debates, _n_, _n_; mr. asquith on executive authority, _n_; john morley on legislation to set aside contracts, _n_; j. mccarthy and w.e. gladstone on home rule as a final settlement, _n_, _n_, _n_; gladstone on the policy of trust, _n_. tocqueville, alexis de, and the french revolution, , trust, the policy of, unionism, the policy for, _et seq._ _unionist delusions, _ _n_. united states of america, division of parties in, _n_; no law allowed to impair the obligation of a contract, ; bryce on state legislatures in, , veto, the, , ; its uselessness, victoria as a self-governing colony, _n_. _victoria, government of_, by jenks, _n_. [transcriber's note: two advertisements from the beginning of the book have been moved to the end.] * * * * * constructive imperialism by viscount milner, g.c.b. five speeches delivered at tunbridge wells (october , ) guildford (october , ) edinburgh (november , ) rugby (november , ) and oxford (december , ) london the national review office ryder street, st. james's * * * * * contents page tariff reform (tunbridge wells) a constructive policy (guildford) unionists and the empire (edinburgh) unionists and social reform (rugby) sweated industries (oxford) * * * * * tariff reform tunbridge wells, october , as this is a tariff reform meeting pure and simple, i am anxious not to approach the subject in any party spirit or in any spirit of acrimonious controversy. the question is a difficult and complicated one, and though i am a strong tariff reformer myself i hope i am not incapable of seeing both sides of the case. i certainly should have reason to be ashamed if i could not be fair to those whom, for the sake of brevity and convenience, i will call free traders, though i do not altogether admit the correctness of that designation. my views were once the same as theirs, and though i long ago felt constrained to modify them, and had become a tariff reformer some years before the subject attained its present prominence in public discussion, it would ill become me to treat as foolish arguments which i once found so convincing or to vilify opinions which i once honestly shared. what has happened to me is what i expect has happened to a good many people. i still admire the great free trade writers, the force of their intellect, the lucidity of their arguments. there can be no clearer proof of the spell which they exercised over the minds of their countrymen than the fact that so many leading public men on both sides of politics remain their disciples to this very day. but for my own part i have been unable to resist the evidence of facts which shows me clearly that in the actual world of trade and industry things do not work out even approximately as they ought to work out if the free trade theory were the counsel of perfection which i once thought it. and that has led me to question the theory itself, and so questioned it now seems to me far from a correct statement of the truth, even from the point of view of abstract inquiry. but i am not here to engage in abstract arguments. what i want to do is to look at the question from a strictly practical point of view, but at the same time a very broad one. i am anxious to bring home to you the place of tariff reform in a sound national policy, for, indeed, it seems to me very difficult to construct such a policy without a complete revision of our fiscal arrangements. now a sound national policy has two aspects. there are two great objects of practical patriotism, two heads under which you may sum it up, much as the church catechism sums up practical religion, under the heads of "duty to god" and "duty to your neighbour." these objects are the strength of the empire, and the health, the well-being, the contentedness of the mass of the people, resting as they always must on steady, properly organised, and fairly remunerated labour. remember always, these two things are one; they are inseparable. there can be no adequate prosperity for the forty or fifty million people in these islands without the empire and all that it provides; there can be no enduring empire without a healthy, thriving, manly people at the centre. stunted, overcrowded town populations, irregular employment, sweated industries, these things are as detestable to true imperialism as they are to philanthropy, and they are detestable to the tariff reformer. his aim is to improve the condition of the people at home, and to improve it concurrently with strengthening the foundations of the empire. mind you, i do not say that tariff reform alone is going to do all this. i make no such preposterous claim for it. what i do say is that it fits in better alike with a policy of social reform at home and with a policy directed to the consolidation of the empire than our existing fiscal system does. now, what is the essential difference between tariff reformers and the advocates of the present system? i must dwell on this even at the risk of appearing tiresome, because there is so much misunderstanding on the subject. in the eyes of the advocates of the present system, the statesman, or at any rate the british statesman, when he approaches fiscal policy, is confronted with the choice of hercules. he is placed, like the rider in the old legend, between the black and the white horseman. on the one hand is an angel of light called free trade; on the other a limb of satan called protection. the one is entirely and always right; the other is entirely and always wrong. all fiscal wisdom is summed up in clinging desperately to the one and eschewing like sin anything that has the slightest flavour of the other. now, that view has certainly the merit of simplicity, and simplicity is a very great thing; but, if we look at history, it does not seem quite to bear out this simple view. this country became one of the greatest and wealthiest in the world under a system of rigid protection. it has enjoyed great, though by no means unbroken, prosperity under free trade. side by side with that system of ours other countries have prospered even more under quite different systems. these facts alone are sufficient to justify the critical spirit, which is the spirit of the tariff reformer. he does not believe in any absolute right or wrong in such a matter as the imposition of duties upon imports. such duties cannot, he thinks, be judged by one single test, namely, whether they do or do not favour the home producer, and be condemned out of hand if they do favour him. the tariff reformer rejects this single cast-iron principle. he refuses to bow down before it, regardless of changing circumstances, regardless of the policy of other countries and of that of the other dominions of the crown. he wants a free hand in dealing with imports, the power to adapt the fiscal policy of this country to the varying conditions of trade and to the situation created at any given time by the fiscal action of others. he has no superstitious objection to using duties either to increase employment at home or to secure markets abroad. but on the other hand he does not go blindly for duties upon foreign imports as so-called free traders go blindly against them, except in the case of articles not produced in this country, some of which the free traders are obliged to tax preposterously. tariff reform is not one-ideaed, rigid, inelastic, as our existing system is. many people are afraid of it, because they think tariff reformers want to put duties on foreign goods for the fun of the thing, merely for the sake of making them dearer. certainly tariff reformers do not think that cheapness is everything. certainly they hold that the blind worship of immediate cheapness may cost the nation dear in the long run. but, unless cheapness is due to some mischievous cause, they are just as anxious that we should buy cheaply as the most ardent cobdenite, and especially that we should buy cheaply what we cannot produce ourselves. talking of cheapness, however, i must make a confession which i hope will not be misunderstood by ladies present who are fond of shopping--i wish we could get out of the way of discussing national economics so much from the shopping point of view. surely what matters, from the point of view of the general well-being, is the productive capacity of the people, and the actual amount of their production of articles of necessity, use, or beauty. everything we consume might be cheaper, and yet if the total amount of things which were ours to consume was less we should be not richer but poorer. it is, i think, one of the first duties of tariff reformers to keep people's eyes fixed upon this vital point--the amount of our national production. it is that which constitutes the real income of the nation, on which wages and profits alike depend. and that brings me to another point. production in this country is dependent on importation, more dependent than in most countries. we are not self-supplying. we must import from outside these islands vast quantities of raw materials and of the necessaries of life. that, at least, is common ground between the free trader and the tariff reformer. but the lessons they draw from the fact are somewhat different. the free trader is only anxious that we should buy all these necessary imports as cheaply as possible. the tariff reformer is also anxious that we should buy them cheaply, but he is even more anxious to know how we are going to pay for all this vast quantity of things which we are bound to import. and that leads him to two conclusions. the first is that, seeing how much we are obliged to buy from abroad in any case, he looks rather askance at our increasing our indebtedness by buying things which we could quite easily produce at home, especially with so many unemployed and half-employed people. the other, and this is even a more pressing solicitude to him, is that it is of vital importance to us to look after our external markets, to make sure that we shall always have customers, and good customers, to buy our goods, and so to enable us to pay for our indispensable imports. the free trader does not share this solicitude. he has got a comfortable theory that if you only look after your imports your exports will look after themselves. will they? the tariff reformer does not agree with that at all. imports no doubt are paid for by exports, but it does not in the least follow that by increasing your dependence on others you will necessarily increase their dependence on you. it would be much truer to say: "look after the exports and the imports will look after themselves." the more you sell the more you will be able to buy, but it does not in the least follow that the more you buy the more you will be able to sell. what business man would go on the principle of buying as much as possible and say: "oh, that is all right. i am sure to be able to sell enough to pay for it." the first thought of a wise business man is for his markets, and you as a great trading nation are bound to think of your markets, not only your markets of to-day but of to-morrow and the day after to-morrow. the free trade theory was the birth of a time when our imports were practically all supplemental to our exports, all indispensable to us, and when, on the other hand, the whole of the world was in need of our goods, far beyond our power of supplying it. since then the situation has wholly altered. at this actual moment, it is true, there is temporarily a state of things which in one respect reproduces the situation of fifty years ago. there is for the moment an almost unlimited demand for some of our goods abroad. but that is not the normal situation. the normal situation is that there is an increasing invasion of our markets by goods from abroad which we used to produce ourselves, and an increasing tendency to exclude our goods from foreign markets. the tariff reform movement is the inevitable result of these altered circumstances. there is nothing artificial about it. it is not, as some people think, the work of a single man, however much it may owe to his genius and his courage, however much it may suffer, with other good causes, through his enforced retirement from the field. it is not an eccentric idea of mr. chamberlain's. sooner or later it was bound to come in any case. it is the common sense and experience of the people waking up to the altered state of affairs, beginning to shake itself free from a theory which no longer fits the facts. it is a movement of emancipation, a twofold struggle for freedom--in the sphere of economic theory, for freedom of thought, in the sphere of fiscal policy, for freedom of action. and that freedom of action is needed quickly. it is needed now. i am not doubtful of the ultimate triumph of tariff reform. sooner or later, i believe, it is sure to achieve general recognition. what does distress me is the thought of the opportunities we are losing in the meantime. this year has been marked, disastrously marked, in our annals by the emphatic and deliberate rejection on the part of our government of the great principle of preferential trade within the empire. all the other self-governing states are in favour of it. the united kingdom alone blocks the way. what does that mean? what is it that we risk losing as long as we refuse to accept the principle of preferential trade, and will certainly lose in the long run if we persist in that refusal? it is a position of permanent and assured advantage in some of the greatest and most growing markets in the world. preference to british goods in the british dominions beyond the sea would be a constant and potent influence tending to induce the people of those countries to buy what they require to buy outside their own borders from us rather than from our rivals. it means beyond all doubt and question so much more work for british hands. and the people of those countries are anxious that british hands should get it. they have, if i may so express myself, a family feeling, which makes them wish to keep the business within the family. but business is business. they are willing to give us the first chance. but if we will give nothing in return, if we tell them to mind their own business and not to bother us with offers of mutual concessions, it is only a question of time, and the same chance will be given to others, who will not refuse to avail themselves of it. you see the beginning of the process already in such an event as the newly-concluded commercial treaty between canada and france. if we choose, it is still possible for us not only to secure the preference we have in colonial markets, but to increase it. but if we do nothing, commercial arrangements with other nations who are more far-sighted will gradually whittle that preference away. to my mind the action of canada in the matter of that treaty, perfectly legitimate and natural though it be, is much more ominous and full of warning to us than the new australian tariff, about which such an unjustifiable outcry has been made. rates of duty can be lowered as easily as they can be raised, but the principle of preference once abandoned would be very difficult to revive. i am sorry that the australians have found it necessary in their own interests to raise their duties, but i would rather see any of the british dominions raise its duties and still give a preference to british goods than lower its duties and take away that preference. whatever duties may be imposed by canada, australia, or the other british dominions, they will still remain great importers, and with the vast expansion in front of them their imports are bound to increase. they will still be excellent customers, and the point is that they should be our customers. in the case of australia the actual extent of the preference accorded to british goods under the new tariff is not, as has been represented, of small value to us. it is of considerable value. but what is of far more importance is the fact that australia continues to adhere to the principle of preference. moreover, australia, following the example of canada, has established an extensive free list for the benefit of this country. let nobody say after this that australia shows no family feeling. i for one am grateful to australia, and i am grateful to that great australian statesman, mr. deakin, for the way in which, in the teeth of discouragement from us, he has still persisted in making the principle of preferential trade within the empire an essential feature of the australian tariff. preference is vital to the future growth of british trade, but it is not only trade which is affected by it. the idea which lies at the root of it is that the scattered communities, which all own allegiance to the british crown, should regard and treat one another not as strangers but as kinsmen, that, while each thinks first of its own interests, it should think next of the interests of the family, and of the rest of the world only after the family. that idea is the very corner-stone of imperial unity. to my mind any weakening of that idea, any practical departure from it, would be an incalculable loss to all of us. i should regard a readjustment of our own customs duties with the object of maintaining that idea, even if such readjustment were of some immediate expense to ourselves, as i hope to show you that it would not be, as a most trifling and inconsiderable price to pay for a prize of infinite value. i am the last man to contend that preferential trade alone is a sufficient bond of empire. but i do contend that the maintenance or creation of other bonds becomes very difficult, if in the vitally important sphere of commerce we are to make no distinction between our fellow-citizens across the seas and foreigners. closer trade relations involve closer relations in all other respects. an advantage, even a slight advantage, to colonial imports in the great british market would tend to the development of the colonies as compared with the foreign nations who compete with them. but the development of the british communities across the seas is of more value to us than an equivalent development of foreign countries. it is of more value to our trade, for, if there is one thing absolutely indisputable, it is that these communities buy ever so much more of us per head than foreign nations do. but it is not only a question of trade; it is a question of the future of our people. by encouraging the development of the british dominions beyond the seas we direct emigration to them in preference to foreign lands. we keep our people under the flag instead of scattering them all over the world. we multiply not merely our best customers but our fellow citizens, our only sure and constant friends. and now is there nothing we can do to help forward this great object? is it really the case, as the free traders contend, that in order to meet the advances of the other british states and to give, as the saying is, preference for preference, we should be obliged to make excessive sacrifices, and to place intolerable burdens on the people of this country? i believe that this is an absolute delusion. i believe that, if only we could shake off the fetters of a narrow and pedantic theory, and freely reshape our own system of import duties on principles of obvious common sense, we should be able at one and the same time to promote trade within the empire, to strengthen our hands in commercial negotiations with foreign countries, and to render tardy justice to our home industries. the free trader goes on the principle of placing duties on a very few articles only, articles, generally, of universal consumption, and of making those duties very high ones. moreover, with the exception of alcohol, these articles are all things which we cannot produce ourselves. i do not say that the system has not some merits. it is easy to work, and the cost of collection is moderate. but it has also great defects. the system is inelastic, for the duties being so few and so heavy it is difficult to raise them in case of emergency without checking consumption. moreover, the burden of the duties falls entirely on the people of this country, for the foreign importer, except in the case of alcoholic liquors, has no home producer to compete with, and so he simply adds the whole of the duty to the price of the article. last, but not least, the burden is inequitably distributed. it would be infinitely fairer, as between different classes of consumers, to put a moderate duty on a large number of articles than to put an enormous duty on two or three. but from that fairer and more reasonable system we are at present debarred by our pedantic adhesion to the rule that no duty may be put on imported articles unless an equivalent duty is put on articles of the same kind produced at home. why, you may well ask, should we be bound by any such rule? i will tell you. it is because, unless we imposed such an equivalent duty, we should be favouring the british producer, and because under our present system every other consideration has got to give way to this supreme law, the "categorical imperative" of the free trader, that we must not do anything which could by any possibility in the remotest degree benefit the british producer in his competition with the foreigner in our home market. it is from the obsession of this doctrine that the tariff reformer wishes to liberate our fiscal policy. he approaches this question free from any doctrinal prepossessions whatever. granted that a certain number of millions have to be raised by customs duties, he sees before him some five to six hundred millions of foreign imports on which to raise them, and so his first and very natural reflection is, that by distributing duties pretty equally over this vast mass of imported commodities he could raise a very large revenue without greatly enhancing the price of anything. our present system throws away, so to speak, the advantage of our vast and varied importation by electing to place the burden of duties entirely on very few articles. as against this system the tariff reformer favours the principle of a widespread tariff, of making all foreign imports pay, but pay moderately, and he holds that it is no more than justice to the british producer that all articles brought to the british market should contribute to the cost of keeping it up. it is no answer to say that it is the british consumer who would pay the duty, for even if this were invariably true, which it is not, it leaves unaffected the question of fair play between the british producer and the foreign producer. the price of the home-made article is enhanced by the taxes which fall upon the home makers, and which are largely devoted to keeping up our great open market, but the price of the foreign article is not so enhanced, though it has the full benefit of the open market all the same. moreover, the price of the home-made article is also enhanced by the many restrictions which we place, and rightly place, on home manufacture in the interests of the workers--restrictions as to hours, methods of working, sanitary conditions, and so forth--all excellent, all laudable, but expensive, and from which the foreign maker is often absolutely, and always comparatively, free. the tariff reformer is all for the open market, but he is for fair play as between those who compete in it, and he holds that even cheapness ought not to be sought at the expense of unfairness to the british producer. i say, then, that the tariff reformer starts with the idea of a moderate all-round tariff. but he is not going to ride his principle to death. he is essentially practical. there are some existing duties, like those on alcoholic liquors, the high rate of which is justified for other than fiscal reasons. he sees no reason to lower these duties. on the other hand, there are some articles, such as raw cotton, which compete with no british produce, and even a slight enhancement of the price of which might materially injure our export trade. the tariff reformer would place these on a free list, for he feels that, however strong may be the argument for moderate all-round duties as a guiding rule, it is necessary to admit exceptions even to the best of rules, and it is part of his creed that we are bound to study the actual effect of particular duties both upon ourselves and upon others. no doubt that means hard work, an intimate acquaintance with the details of our industry and trade, an eye upon the proceedings of foreign countries. a modern tariff, if it is to be really suitable to the requirements of the nation adopting it, must be the work of experts. but is that any argument against it? are we less competent to make a thorough study of these questions than other people, as for instance the germans, or are we too lazy? free traders make fun of a scientific tariff, but why should science be excluded from the domain of fiscal policy, especially when the necessity of it is so vigorously and so justly impressed upon us in every other field? it is not only the war office which has got to get rid of antiquated prejudices and to open its eyes to what is going on in the world. our financial departments might reasonably be asked to do the same, and they are quite equally capable, and i have no doubt equally willing, to respond to such an appeal, instead of leaving the most thorough, the most comprehensive, and the most valuable inquiry into the effects of import duties, which has ever been made in this country, to a private agency like the tariff commission. i do not think it is necessary for me to point out how a widespread tariff, besides those other advantages which i have indicated, would strengthen our hands in commercial policy. in the first place, it would at once enable us to meet the advances of the other states of the empire, and to make the british empire in its commercial aspect a permanent reality. to do this it would not be necessary, nor do i think it would be right, to exempt goods from the british dominions entirely from the duties to which similar goods coming from foreign lands are subject. our purpose would be equally well served by doing what the colonies do, and having two scales of duty, a lower one for the products of all british states and dependencies, a higher one for those of the outside world. the amount of this preference would be a matter of bargain to be settled by some future imperial conference, not foredoomed to failure, and preceded by careful preliminary investigation and negotiations. it might be twenty-five, or thirty-three, or even fifty per cent. and whatever it was, i think we should reserve the right also to give a preference, but never of the same amount, to any foreign country which was willing to give us some substantial equivalent. it need not be a general preference; it might be the removal or reduction of some particular duties. i may say i do not myself like the idea of engaging in tariff wars. i do not believe in prohibitive or penal tariffs. but i do believe in having something to give to those who treat us well, something to withhold from those who treat us badly. at present, as you are well aware, great britain is the one great nation which is treated with absolute disregard by foreign countries in framing their tariffs. they know that however badly they treat us they have nothing to lose by it, and so we go to the wall on every occasion. and now, though there is a great deal more to be said, i feel i must not trespass much further on your patience. but there is one objection to tariff reform which is constantly made, and which is at once so untrue and so damaging, that before sitting down i should like to say a few words about it. we are told that this is an attempt to transfer the burden of a part of our taxation from the shoulders of the rich to those of the poor. if that were true, it would be fatal to tariff reform, and i for one would have nothing to do with it. but it is not true. there is no proposal to reduce and i believe there is no possibility of reducing, the burden which at present falls on the shoulders of the upper and middle classes in the shape of direct taxation. on the other hand, i do not believe there is much room for increasing it--though i think it can be increased in one or two directions--without consequences which the poorer classes would be the first to feel. excise duties, which are mainly paid by those classes, are already about as high as they can be. it follows that for any increase of revenue, beyond the ordinary growth arising from increase of wealth and population, you must look, at least to a great extent, to customs duties. and the tendency of the time is towards increased expenditure, all of it, mind you--and i do not complain of the fact--due to the effort to improve the condition of the mass of the people. it is thus no question of shifting existing burdens, it is a question of distributing the burden of new expenditure of which the mass of the people will derive the benefit. and if that new expenditure must, as i think i have shown, be met, at least in large part, by customs duties, which method of raising these duties is more in the interest of the poorer classes--our present system, which enhances enormously the price of a few articles of universal consumption like tea and sugar and tobacco, or a tariff spread over a much greater number of articles at a much lower rate? beyond all doubt or question the mass of the people would be better off under the latter system. even assuming--as i will for the sake of argument, though i do not admit it--that the british consumer pays the whole of the duty on imported foreign goods competing with british goods, is it not evident that the poorer classes of the community would pay a smaller proportion of customs duties under a tariff which included a great number of foreign manufactured articles, at present entirely free, and largely the luxuries of the rich, than they do, when customs duties are restricted to a few articles of universal consumption? and that is at the same time the answer to the misleading, and often dishonest, outcry about "taxing the food of the people," about the big loaf and little loaf, and all the rest of it. the construction of a sensible all-round tariff presents many difficulties, but there is one difficulty which it does not present, and that is the difficulty of so adjusting your duties that the total proportion of them falling upon the wage-earning classes shall not be increased. i for one regard such an adjustment as a postulate in any scheme of tariff reform. and just one other argument--and i recommend it especially to those working-class leaders who are so vehement in their denunciation of tariff reform. is it of no importance to the people whom they especially claim to represent that our fiscal policy should lean so heavily in favour of the foreign and against the british producer? if they regard that as a matter of indifference, i think they will come to find in time that the mass of the working classes do not agree with them. but be that as it may, it is certain that i, for one, do not advocate tariff reform in the interests of the rich, but in the interests of the whole nation, and therefore necessarily of the working classes, who are the majority of the nation. a constructive policy guildford, october , i am very sensible of the honour of being called on to reply for the unionist cause, but i approach the task with some diffidence, not to say trepidation. i feel very conscious that i am not a very good specimen of a party man. it is not that i do not hold strong opinions on many public questions--in fact, that is the very trouble. my opinions are too strong to fit well into any recognised programme. i suffer from an inveterate habit, which is partly congenital, but which has been developed by years spent in the service of the crown, of looking at public questions from other than party points of view. and i am too old to unlearn it. for a man so constituted there is evidently only a limited _rôle_ in political life. but he may have his uses all the same, if you take him for what he is, and not for what he is not, and does not pretend to be. if he does not speak with the weight and authority of a party leader, he is at least free from the embarrassments by which a party leader is beset, and unhampered by the caution which a party leader is bound to exercise. he commits nobody but himself, and therefore he can afford to speak with a bluntness which is denied to those whose utterances commit many thousands of other people. and i am not sure whether the present moment is not one at which the unconventional treatment of public questions may not be specially useful, so, whether it be as an independent unionist or as a friendly outsider--in whichever light you like to regard me--i venture to contribute my mite to the discussion. having now made my position clear, i will at once plunge _in medias res_ with a few artless observations. you hear all this grumbling which is going on just now against the unionist leader. well, gentlemen, a party which is in low water always does grumble at its leader. i have known this sort of thing happen over and over again in my own lifetime. and the consequence is, it is all like water on a duck's back to me; it makes no impression on me whatsoever. i remember as long back as the late sixties and early seventies the conservative party were ceaselessly grumbling at lord beaconsfield, then mr. disraeli, right up to his greatest victory and the commencement of his longest tenure of power--almost up to the moment when he became the permanent idol of the conservative party. i remember how the liberals grumbled at mr. gladstone from and almost up to the opening of the midlothian campaign. again, i remember how the conservatives grumbled at lord salisbury from the first moment of his accession to the leadership right up to . i can recall as well as if it were yesterday a young tory friend of mine--he has become a distinguished man since, and i am not going to give him away--telling me, who was at that time a liberal, in the year of grace or , that it was absolutely hopeless for the tory party ever to expect to come back into power with such a leader as lord salisbury. he called him a "professor." he said, "no doubt he is a very able man and an excellent speaker, but he is a man of science. he has no popular gifts whatever. there is not a ghost of a chance of a conservative victory so long as he is in command." yet that was not more than two years before lord salisbury commenced a series of premierships which kept him, for some thirteen and a half years out of seventeen, at the helm of the state. with all these experiences to look back upon it is really impossible for me to be much affected by the passing wave of dissatisfaction with mr. balfour. men of first-rate ability and character are rare. still rarer are men who, having those qualities, also have the knack of compelling the attention and respect even of a hostile house of commons. when a party possesses a leader with all these gifts, it is not likely to change him in a hurry. but if i refuse to take a gloomy view of the unionist leadership, i must admit that i am not altogether an optimist about the immediate prospects of unionism. there is no doubt a bright side to the picture as well as a less encouraging one. the bright side, from the party point of view, is afforded by the hopeless chaos of opinion in the ranks of our opponents--by the total absence of any clear conviction or definite line whatever in the counsels of the government, which causes ministers to dash wildly from measure to measure in endeavouring to satisfy first one section and then another section of their motley following, and which prevents them from ever giving really adequate attention to any one of their proposals. i am not speaking of ministers individually. granted that some of them have done excellent work at the heads of their several departments--i think it would not be fair to deny that. i am thinking of their collective policy, and especially of their legislative efforts. for monuments of clumsy opportunism, commend me to the legislative failures, and, for the matter of that, to most of the legislative achievements, of the last two years. so far so good. unionists cannot complain of what the government is doing for them. and on the negative side of policy--in their duty as a mere opposition--their course is clear. it is a fundamental article of their faith to maintain the authority of the imperial parliament in ireland. but that authority can be set aside by the toleration of lawlessness just as much, and in a worse way, than by the repeal of the union. and such toleration is the rule to-day. there may be no violent crime, but there is open and widespread defiance of the law and interference with the elementary rights of law-abiding people. it is a demoralising state of affairs, and one to which no good citizen in any part of the united kingdom, however little he may be personally affected by it, can afford to be indifferent. once let it be granted that any popular movement, which is not strong enough to obtain an alteration of the law by regular means, can simply set the law aside in practice, and you are at the beginning of general anarchy. unionists have to fight for a restoration of the respect for law in ireland in the interest of the whole kingdom. and they may have to fight also, it appears, against the abrogation of our existing constitution in favour of a system of quinquennial dictatorships. for that and nothing else is involved in the proposal to reduce the house of lords to impotence and put nothing in its place. i am not concerned to represent the present constitution of the house of lords as perfect. i have always been of opinion that a more representative and therefore a stronger second chamber was desirable. but that we can afford to do without any check on the house of commons, especially since the removal of all checks upon the power of those who from time to time control the house of commons to rush through any measures they please without the possibility of an appeal to the people--that is a proposition which no man with any knowledge of history or any respect for constitutional government can possibly defend. to resist such a proposal as that is not fighting for a party; it is not fighting for a class. it is fighting for the stability of society, for the fundamental rights of the whole nation. i say, then, that on the negative side, in the things it is called upon to resist, the unionist party is strong and fortunate. but are we to be content with that? should we not all like to feel that we appealed for the confidence of the people on the merits of our own policy, and not merely on the demerits of our opponents? that, i take it, is the feeling at the bottom of what men are saying on all hands just now--that the unionist party ought to have a constructive policy. now, if by a constructive policy is meant a string of promises, a sort of newcastle programme, then i can well imagine any wise statesmen, especially if they happened to be in opposition, thinking twice before they committed themselves to it. but if by a constructive policy is meant a definite set of principles, a clear attitude to the questions which most agitate the public mind, a sympathetic grasp of popular needs, and a readiness to indicate the extent to which, and the lines on which, you think it possible and desirable to satisfy them--then i agree that the unionist party ought to have such a policy. and i venture to say that, if it has such a policy, the fact is not yet sufficiently apparent to the popular mind, or, perhaps, i should say, speaking as one of the populace, to my mind. many people think that it is sufficient for the purpose--that it is possible to conduct a victorious campaign with the single watchword "down with socialism." well, i am not fond of mere negatives. i do not like fighting an abstract noun. my objection to anti-socialism as a platform is that socialism means so many different things. on this point i agree with mr. asquith. i will wait to denounce socialism till i see what form it takes. sometimes it is synonymous with robbery, and to robbery, open or veiled, boldly stalking in the face of day or hiding itself under specious phrases, unionists are, as a matter of course, opposed. but mere fidelity to the eighth commandment is not a constructive policy, and socialism is not necessarily synonymous with robbery. correctly used, the word only signifies a particular view of the proper relation of the state to its citizens--a tendency to substitute public for private ownership, or to restrict the freedom of individual enterprise in the interests of the public. but there are some forms of property which we all admit should be public and not private, and the freedom of individual enterprise is already limited by a hundred laws. socialism and individualism are opposing principles, which enter in various proportions into the constitution of every civilised society; it is merely a question of degree. one community is more socialistic than another. the same community is more socialistic at one time than at another. this country is far more socialistic than it was fifty years ago, and for most of the changes in that direction the unionist and the tory party are responsible. the factory acts are one instance; free education is another. the danger, as it seems to me, of the unionist party going off on a crusade against socialism is that in the heat of that crusade it may neglect, or appear to neglect, those social evils of which honest socialism is striving, often, no doubt, by unwise means, to effect a cure. if the unionist party did that, it would be unfaithful to its own best traditions from the days of "sybil" and "coningsby" to the present time. the true antidote to revolutionary socialism is practical social reform. that is no claptrap phrase--although it may sound so; there is a great historical truth behind it. the revolutionary socialist--i call him revolutionary because he wants to alter the whole basis of society--would like to get rid of all private property, except, perhaps, our domestic pots and pans. he is averse from private enterprise. he is going absurdly too far; but what gave birth to his doctrine? the abuse of the rights of private property, the cruelty and the failure of the scramble for gain, which mark the reign of a one-sided individualism. if we had not gone much too far in one direction, we should not have had this extravagant reaction in the other. but do not let us lose our heads in face of that reaction. while resisting the revolutionary propaganda, let us be more, and not less, strenuous in removing the causes of it. you may think i am now talking pure radicalism. well, but it is not to the objects which many radicals have at heart that we, as unionists, need take exception. why should we make them a present of those good objects? old age pensions; the multiplication of small landholders--and, let me add, landowners; the resuscitation of agriculture; and, on the other hand, better housing in our crowded centres; town planning; sanitary conditions of labour; the extinction of sweating; the physical training of the people; continuation schools--these and all other measures necessary to preserve the stamina of the race and develop its intelligence and productive power--have we not as good a right to regard these as our objects, aye, and in many cases a better right, than the supporters of the government have? it is not these objects which we deprecate. on the contrary, they have our ardent sympathy. what we do deprecate is the spirit in which they are so often preached and pursued. no progress is going to be made--quite the contrary--by stirring up class hatred or trying to rob peter in order to pay paul. it is not true that you cannot benefit one class without taking from another class--still less true that by taking from one you necessarily benefit another. the national income, the sum total of all our productive activities, is capable of being enormously increased or diminished by wise or foolish policy. for it does not only depend on the amount of capital and labour. a number of far subtler factors enter into the account--science, organisation, energy, credit, confidence, the spirit in which men set about their business. the one thing which would be certain to diminish that income, and to recoil on all of us, would be that war of classes which many people seem anxious to stir up. nothing could be more fatal to prosperity, and to the fairest hopes of social progress, than if the great body of the upper and middle classes of the community had cause to regard that progress as indissolubly associated with an attack upon themselves. and that is why, if reforms such as i have indicated are costly--as they will be costly--you must find some better way of providing for them than by merely giving another turn to the income-tax screw, or just adding so much per cent. to the estate duty. from my point of view, social reform is a national affair. all classes benefit by it, not only those directly affected. and therefore all should contribute according to their means. i do not in any way object to the rich being made to contribute, even for purposes in which they are not directly interested. what i do object to is that the great body of the people should not contribute to them. it is thoroughly vicious in principle to divide the nation, as many of the radical and labour men want to divide it, into two sections--a majority which only calls the tune, and a minority which only pays the piper. i own i am aghast at the mean opinion which many politicians seem to have of the mass of their working fellow countrymen, when they approach them with this crude sort of bribery, offering them everything for nothing, always talking to them of their claims upon the state, and never of their duties towards it. this is a democratic country. it is their state and their empire--theirs to possess, theirs to control, but theirs also to support and to defend. and i for one have such faith in the common sense and fair-mindedness of the british people that i believe you have only to convince them that you have a really sound national policy, and they will rally to it, without having to be bought by promises of a penny off this and twopence off the other--a sort of appeal, i regret to say, which is not only confined to radical orators, but in which unionists also are sometimes too apt to indulge. and, now, gentlemen, only one word in conclusion--a brief and inadequate reference to a vast subject, but one to which i am at all times and seasons specially bound to refer. after all, my chief quarrel with the radical party--not with all of them--i do not say that for a moment--but with a far too large and influential section--is their anti-patriotism. i use the word advisedly. it is not that they are unpatriotic in the sense of having no affection for their country. it is that they are deliberately and on principle--i do not asperse their motives; i do not question their sincerity and conviction--anti-patriotic, opposed to national as distinct from cosmopolitan ideals. they are not zealous for national defence; they have no faith in the empire; they love to show their impartiality by taking sides against their own country; they object to their children being taught respect for the flag. but we unionists are not cosmopolitans, but britons. we have no envy or ill-will towards other nations; a man is not a worse neighbour because he loves his own family. but we do hold that it is not our business to look after others. it is our business to look after ourselves and our dependencies, and the great kindred communities who own allegiance to the british flag. we want to draw closer to them, to stand together; and we believe that the strength and the unity of the british empire are of vital and practical importance to every citizen. in all our propaganda, and in all our policy, let us continue to give that great principle a foremost place. unionists and the empire edinburgh, november , i am greatly reassured by the very kind reception which you have just given me. to tell the truth, i had been feeling a little alarmed at the fate which might await me in edinburgh. from a faithful perusal of the radical press i had been led to believe that scotland was seething with righteous indignation against that branch of the legislature of which i am, it is true, only a humble and very recent member, but yet a member, and therefore involved in the general condemnation of the ruthless hereditary tyrants and oppressors of the people, the privileged landowning class, which is alleged to be so out of sympathy with the mass of their fellow-countrymen, although, oddly enough, it supplies many of the most popular candidates, not only of one party, at any general election. personally, i feel it rather hard to be painted in such black colours. there is no taint of hereditary privilege about me. i am not--i wish i were--the owner of broad acres, and i am in no way conscious of belonging to a specially favoured class. there are a great many of my fellow members in the house of lords who are in the same position, and who sit there, not by virtue of any privilege, but by virtue of their services, or, let me say in my own case, supposed services, to the state. and while we sit there--and here i venture, with all humility, to speak for all the members of that body, whether hereditary or created--we feel that we ought to deal with the questions submitted to us to the best of our judgment and conscience, without fear of the consequences to ourselves and without allowing ourselves to be brow-beaten for not being different from what we are. we believe that we perform a useful and necessary function. we believe that a second chamber is essential to the good government of this country. we do not contend--certainly i am myself very far from contending--that the existing second chamber is the best imaginable. let there be a well-considered reform of the house of lords, or even, if need be, an entirely different second chamber. but until you have got this better instrument, do not throw away the instrument which you have--the only defence, not of the privileges of a class, but of the rights of the whole nation, against hasty, ill-considered measures and against the subordination of permanent national interests to the temporary exigencies of a party. it is said that there is a permanent conservative majority in the house of lords. but then every second chamber is, and ought to be, conservative in temper. it exists to exercise a restraining influence, to ensure that great changes shall not be made in fundamental institutions except by the deliberate will of the nation, and not as the outcome of a mere passing mood. and if the accusation is, that the house of lords is too conservative in a party sense, which is a different thing, i admit, from being conservative in the highest and best sense, that points not to doing away with the second chamber, but to making such a change in its composition as, while leaving it still powerful, still, above all, independent, will render it more representative of the permanent mind of the nation. but let me be permitted to observe that the instance relied on to prove that the house of lords is in the pocket of the conservative party is a very unfortunate instance. what is its offence? it is said that the lords rejected the scottish land bill. but they did not reject the scottish land bill. they were quite prepared to accept a portion of the bill, and it is for the government to answer to the people interested in that portion for their not having received the benefits which the bill was presumably intended to bestow on them. what the government did was to hold a pistol at the head of the house of lords, and to say that they must either accept the whole straggling and ill-constructed measure as it stood, or be held up to public odium for rejecting it. but when the bill was looked at as a whole, it was found to contain principles--novel principles as far as the great part of scotland was concerned, bad principles, as the experience of ireland showed--which the house of lords, and not only the conservatives in the house of lords, were not prepared to endorse. was it conservative criticism which killed the bill? it was riddled with arguments by a liberal peer and former liberal prime minister--arguments to which the government speakers were quite unable, and had the good sense not even to attempt, to reply. and that is the instance which is quoted to prove that the house of lords is a tory caucus! now, before leaving this question of the house of lords, let me just say one word about its general attitude. i have not long been a member of that assembly. i do not presume to take much part in its discussions. but i follow them, and i think i follow them with a fairly unprejudiced mind. on many questions i am perhaps not in accord with the views of the majority of the house. but what strikes me about the house of lords is that it is a singularly independent assembly. it is not at the beck and call of any man. it is a body which does not care at all about party claptrap, but which does care a great deal about a good argument, from whatever quarter it may proceed. moreover, i am confident that the great body of its members are quite alive to the fact that they cannot afford to cast their votes merely according to their individual opinions and personal prejudices--that they are trustees for the nation, and that while it is their duty to prevent the nation being hustled into revolution, as but for them it would have been hustled into home rule in , they have no right to resist changes upon which the nation has clearly and after full deliberation set its mind. and when the prime minister says that it is intolerable arrogance on the part of the house of lords to pretend to know better what the nation wishes than the house of commons, i can only reply that the proof of the pudding is in the eating. in the house of commons said that the nation wished home rule. the house of lords had the intolerable arrogance to take a different view. well, within less than two years the question was submitted to the nation; and who proved to be right? i regret to have had to dwell at such length upon this particular topic. but it seems to me that we have no choice in the matter. if the government succeed in their attempt to divert the attention of the nation from matters of the greatest interest at home and abroad in order to involve us all in a constitutional struggle on a false issue, we must be prepared to meet them. but i do not wish to waste the rare opportunity afforded to me to-night of addressing this great and representative scottish audience by talking exclusively about this regrettable manoeuvre. there is something i am anxious to say to you about the future of the unionist party. i do not claim to lay down a policy for that or for any party. i am not, by temperament or antecedents, a good party man. but i want to be allowed, as a private citizen, to point out what are the great services which i think the unionist party can render to the nation at the present very critical juncture in its history. the unionist party has a splendid record in the past. for twenty years it has saved the united kingdom from disruption. it has preserved south africa for the empire; and, greatly as i feel and know, that the results of the efforts and sacrifices of the nation have been marred and impaired by the disastrous policy of the last two years, south africa is still one country under the british flag. and all the time, in spite of foreign war and domestic sedition, the unionist party has pursued a steady policy of practical social reform, and the administrative and legislative record of the last twenty years will compare favourably with that of any period of our history. but no party can afford to rely upon its past achievements. how is the unionist party going to confront the great problems of the present day? the greatest of these problems, as i shall never cease to preach to my countrymen, is the maintenance of the great heritage which we owe to the courage, the enterprise, and the self-sacrifice of our forefathers, who built up one of the greatest empires in history by, on the whole, the most honourable means. the epoch of expansion is pretty nearly past, but there remains before us a great work of development and consolidation. and that is a work which should appeal especially to scotsmen. the scottish people have borne a great part, great out of proportion to their numbers, in building up our common british heritage. they are taking a foremost part in it to-day. all over the world, as settlers in canada, in australia, or in south africa, as administrators in india and elsewhere, they are among the sturdiest pillars on which the great imperial fabric rests. i am not talking in the air. i am speaking from my personal experience, and only saying in public here to-night what i have said in private a hundred times, that as an agent of my country in distant lands i have had endless occasion to appreciate the support given to the british cause by the ability, the courage, the shrewd sense and the broad imperial instinct of many scotsmen. and therefore i look with confidence to a scottish audience to support my appeal for continuous national effort in making the most of the british empire. i say this is not a matter with regard to which we can afford to rest on our laurels. we must either go forward or we shall go back. and especially ought we to go forward in developing co-operation, on a basis of equality and partnership, with the great self-governing communities of our race in the distant portions of the world, else they will drift away from us. do not let us think for a moment that we can afford such another fiasco as the late colonial conference. do not let us imagine for a moment that we can go to sleep over the questions then raised, and not one of them settled, for four years, only to find ourselves unprepared when the next conference meets. a cordial social welcome, many toasts, many dinners, are all very well in their way, but they are not enough. what is wanted is a real understanding of what our fellow countrymen across the seas are driving at, and a real attempt to meet them in their efforts to keep us a united family. all that our present rulers seem able to do is to misunderstand, and therefore unconsciously to misrepresent--i do not question their good intentions, but i think they are struck with mental blindness in this matter--to misrepresent the attitude of the colonists and greatly to exaggerate the difficulties of meeting them half-way. the speeches of ministers on a question like that of colonial preference leave upon me the most deplorable impression. one would have thought that, if they could not get over the objections which they feel to meeting the advances of our kinsmen, they would at least show some sort of regret at their failure. but not a bit of it. their one idea all along has been to magnify the difficulties in the way in order to make party capital out of the business. they saw their way to a good cry about "taxing the food of the people," the big and the little loaf, and so forth, and they went racing after it, regardless of everything but its electioneering value. from first to last there has been the same desire to make the worst of things, sometimes by very disingenuous means. first of all it was said that there was "no colonial offer." but when the representatives of the colonies came here, and all in the plainest terms offered us preference for preference, this device evidently had to be abandoned. so then it was asserted that, in order to give preference to the colonies, we must tax raw materials. but this move again was promptly checkmated by the clear and repeated declaration of the colonial representatives that they did not expect us to tax raw materials. and so nothing was left to ministers, determined as they were to wriggle out of any agreement with the colonies at all costs, except to fall back on the old, weary parrot-cry--"will you tax corn?" "will you tax butter?" and so on through the whole list of articles of common consumption, the taxation of any one of which was thought to be valuable as an electioneering bogey. for my own part, i am not the least bit frightened by any of these questions. if i am asked whether i would tax this or tax that, it may be proof of great depravity on my part, but i say without hesitation, that, for a sufficient object, i should not have the least objection to putting two shillings a quarter on wheat or twopence a pound on butter. but i must add that the whole argument nauseates me. what sort of opinion must these gentlemen have of their fellow countrymen, if they think that the question of a farthing on the quartern loaf or half a farthing on the pat of butter is going to outweigh in their minds every national consideration? and these are the men who accused mr. chamberlain of wishing to unite the empire by sordid bonds! it is indeed extraordinary and to my mind almost heartrending to see how this question of tariff reform continues to be discussed on the lowest grounds, and how its higher and wider aspects seem to be so constantly neglected. yet we have no excuse for ignoring them. the colonial advocates of preference, and especially mr. deakin, with whose point of view i thoroughly agree, have repeatedly explained the great political, national, and i might almost say moral aspects of that policy. there is a great deal more in it than a readjustment of duties--twopence off this and a penny on that. i do not say that such details are not important. when the time comes i am prepared to show--and i am an old hand at these things--that the objections which loom so large in many eyes can really be very easily circumvented. but i would not attempt to bother my fellow countrymen with complicated changes in their fiscal arrangements, or even with the discussion of them, if it were not for the bigness of the principle that is involved. i wish to look at it from two points of view. the principle which lies at the root of tariff reform, in its imperial aspect, is the national principle. the people of these great dominions beyond the seas are no strangers to us. they are our own kith and kin. we do not wish to deal with them, even in merely material matters, on the same basis as with strangers. that is the great difference between us tariff reformers and the cobdenites. the cobdenite only looks at the commercial side. he is a cosmopolitan. he does not care from whom he buys, or to whom he sells. he does not care about the ulterior effects of his trading, whether it promotes british industry or ruins it; whether it assists the growth of the kindred states, or only enriches foreign countries. to us tariff reformers these matters are of moment, and of the most tremendous moment. we do not undervalue our great foreign trade, and i for one am convinced that there is nothing in the principles of tariff reform which will injure that trade. quite the reverse. but we do hold that our first concern is with the industry and productive capacities of our own country, and our next with those of the great kindred countries across the seas. we hold that a wise fiscal policy would help to direct commerce into channels which would not only assist the british worker, but also assist colonial development, and make for the greater and more rapid growth of those countries, which not only contain our best customers, but our fellow citizens. that, i say, is one aspect of the matter. but then there is the other side--the question of social reform in this country. now here again we differ from the cobdenite. the cobdenite is an individualist. he believes that private enterprise, working under a system of unfettered competition, with cheapness as its supreme object, is the surest road to universal well-being. the tariff reformer also believes in private enterprise, but he does not believe that the mere blind struggle for individual gain is going to produce the most beneficent results. he does not believe in cheapness if it is the result of sweating or of underpaid labour. he keeps before him as the main object of all domestic policy the gradual, steady elevation of the standard of life throughout the community; and he believes that the action of the state deliberately directed to the encouragement of british industry, not merely by tariffs, is part and parcel of any sound national policy and of true imperialism. and please observe that in a number of cases the radical party itself has abandoned cobdenism. pure individualism went to the wall in the factory acts, and it is going to the wall every day in our domestic legislation. it is solely with regard to this matter of imports that the radical party still cling to the cobdenite doctrine, and the consequence is that their policy has become a mass of inconsistencies. it is devoid of any logical foundation whatever. i know that there are many people, sound unionists at heart, who still have a difficulty about accepting the doctrines of the tariff reformers. my belief is that, if they could only look at the matter from the broad national and imperial point of view, they would come to alter their convictions. i am not advocating tariff reform as in itself the greatest of human objects. but it seems to me the key of the position. it seems to me that, without it, we can neither take the first steps towards drawing closer the bonds between the mother country and the great self-governing states of the empire; nor maintain the prosperity of the british worker in face of unfair foreign competition; nor obtain that large and elastic revenue which is absolutely essential, if we are going to pursue a policy of social reform and mean real business. i cannot but hope that many of those who still shy at tariff reform, when they come to look at it from this point of view--to see it as i see it, not as an isolated thing, but as an essential and necessary part of a comprehensive national policy--will rally to our cause. i have travelled along that road myself. i have been a cobdenite myself--i am not ashamed of it. but i have come to see that the doctrine of free imports--the religion of free imports, i ought to say--as it is practised in this country to-day, is inconsistent with social reform, inconsistent with fair play to british industry, and inconsistent with the development and consolidation of the empire. and therefore i rejoice that, in the really great speech which he delivered last night, the leader of the unionist party has once more unhesitatingly affirmed his adhesion to the principles which i have been trying, in my feebler way, to advocate here this evening. my own conviction is that, when these principles are understood in all their bearings, they will command the approval of the mass of the people. and even in scotland, where i dare say it is a very uphill fight, i look forward with confidence to their ultimate victory. do not let us be discouraged if the fight is long and the progress slow. the great permanent influences are on our side. on the one hand there is the growth of the empire, with all the opportunities which it affords; on the other there is the increasing determination of foreign nations to keep their business to themselves. these potent facts, which have already converted so many leading minds, will in due time make themselves felt in ever-widening circles. and they will not fail to produce their effect upon the shrewd practical sense of the scottish people, especially when combined with an appeal to the patriotic instincts of a race which has done so much to make the empire what it is, and which has such a supreme interest in its maintenance and consolidation. unionists and social reform rugby, november , there has been such a deluge of talk during the last three weeks that i doubt whether it is possible for me, or any man, to make a further contribution to the discussion which will have any freshness or value. but inasmuch as you probably do not all read all the speeches, you may perhaps be willing to hear from me a condensed summary of what it all comes to--of course, from my point of view, which no doubt is not quite the same as that of the prime minister or mr. asquith. now, from my point of view, there has been a considerable clearing of the air, and we ought all to be in a position to take a more practical and less exaggerated view of the situation. speaking as a tariff reformer, i think that those people, with whom tariff reformers agree on almost all other political questions, but who are strongly and conscientiously opposed to anything like what they call tampering with our fiscal system, must by now understand a little better than they did before what tariff reformers really aim at, and must begin to see that there is nothing so very monstrous or revolutionary about our proposals. i hope they may also begin to see why it is that tariff reformers are so persistent and so insistent upon their own particular view. there is something very attractive in the argument which says that, since tariff reform is a stumbling-block to many good unionists, it should be dropped, and our ranks closed in defence of an effective second chamber, and in defence of all our institutions against revolutionary attacks directed upon the existing order of society. in so far as this is an argument for tolerance and against excommunicating people because they do not agree with me about tariff reform, i am entirely in accord with it. i am only a convert to tariff reform myself, although i am not a very recent convert, for at the beginning of , at bloemfontein, i was instrumental in inducing all the south african colonies to give a substantial preference to goods of british origin. i was instrumental in doing that some months before the great tariff reform campaign was inaugurated in this country by its leading champion, mr. chamberlain. but while i am all for personal tolerance, i am opposed to any compromise on the question of principle. i am not opposed to it from any perverseness or any obstinacy. i am opposed to it because i see clearly that dropping tariff reform will knock the bottom out of a policy which i believe is not only right in itself, but is the only effective defence of the union and of many other things which are very dear to us--i mean a policy of constructive imperialism, and of steady, consistent, unhasting, and unresting social reform. i have never advocated tariff reform as a nostrum or as a panacea. i have never pretended that it is by itself alone sufficient to cure all the evils inherent in our social system, or alone sufficient as a bond of empire. what i contend is that without it, without recovering our fiscal freedom, without recovering the power to deal with customs duties in accordance with the conditions of the present time and not the conditions of fifty years ago, we cannot carry out any of those measures which it is most necessary that we should carry out. without it we are unable to defend ourselves against illegitimate foreign competition; we are unable to enter into those trade arrangements with the great self-governing states of the british crown across the seas, which are calculated to bestow the most far-reaching benefits upon them and upon us; and we are unable to obtain the revenue which is required for a policy of progressive social reform. i hope that people otherwise in agreement with us, who have hitherto not seen their way to get over their objections to tariff reform, will, nevertheless, find themselves able to accept that principle, when they regard it, not as an isolated thing, but as an essential part of a great national and imperial policy. of course, they will have to see it as it is, and not as it is represented by its opponents. the opponents of tariff reform have a very easy method of arguing with its supporters. they say that any departure whatsoever from our present fiscal system necessarily involves taxing raw materials, and must necessarily result in high and prohibitive duties, which will upset our foreign trade, and will be ruinous and disorganising to the whole business of the country. but tariff reformers are not going to frame their duties in order to suit the argumentative convenience of mr. asquith. they are going to be guided by wholly different considerations from that. it is curious that everybody opposed to tariff reform says that tariff reformers intend to tax raw material, while tariff reformers themselves have steadily said they do not. i ask you in that respect to take the description of a policy of tariff reform from those who advocate it, and not from those who oppose it. and as for the argument about high prohibitive duties, i wish people would read the reports or summaries of the reports of the tariff commission. they contain not only the most valuable collection that exists anywhere of the present facts about almost every branch of british industry but they are also an authoritative source from which to draw inferences as to the intentions of tariff reformers. now the tariff reform commission have not attempted to frame a complete tariff, a scale of duties for all articles imported into this country, and wisely, because, if they had tried to do that, people would have said that they were arrogating to themselves the duties of parliament. what they have done is to show by a few instances that a policy of tariff reform is not a thing in the air, not a mere thing of phrases and catchwords, but is a practical, businesslike working policy. they have drawn up what may be called experimental scales of duties, which are merely suggestions for consideration, with respect to a number of articles under the principal heads of british imports, such as, for instance, agricultural imports and imports of iron and steel. these experimental duties vary on the average from something like per cent. to per cent. on the value of the articles. in no one case in my recollection do they exceed per cent. but then the opponents of tariff reform say: "yes. that is all very well. but though you may begin with moderate duties, you are bound to proceed to higher ones. it is in the nature of things that you should go on increasing and increasing, and in the end we shall all be ruined." i must say that seems to me great nonsense. it reminds me of nothing so much as the fearful warnings which i have read in the least judicious sort of temperance literature, and sometimes heard from temperance orators of the more extreme type--the sort of warning, i mean, that, if you once begin touching anything stronger than water, you are bound to go on till you end by beating your wife and die in a workhouse. but you and i know perfectly well that it is possible to have an occasional glass of beer or glass of wine, or even, low be it spoken, a little whisky, without beating or wanting to beat anybody, and without coming to such a terrible end. the argument against the use of anything from its abuse has always struck me as one of the feeblest of arguments. and just see how particularly absurd it is in the present case. the effect of duties on foreign imports, even such moderate and carefully devised duties as those to which i have referred, would, we are told, be ruinous to british trade. it would place intolerable burdens upon the people. yet for all that the people would, it appears, insist on increasing these burdens. surely it is as clear as a pike-staff that, if the duties which tariff reformers advocate were to produce the evils which free importers allege that they would produce, these duties, so far from being inevitably maintained and increased, would not survive one general election after their imposition. it is not only with regard to tariff reform that i think the air is clearer. the unionist party has to my mind escaped another danger which was quite as great as that of allowing the tariff question to be pushed on one side, and that was the danger of being frightened by the scare, which the noisy spreading of certain subversive doctrines has lately caused, into a purely negative and defensive attitude; of ceasing to be, as it has been, a popular and progressive party, and becoming merely the embodiment of upper and middle class prejudices and alarms. i do not say that there are not many projects in the air which are calculated to excite alarm, but they can only be successfully resisted on frankly democratic and popular lines. my own feeling is--i may be quite wrong, but i state my opinion for what it is worth--that there is far less danger of the democracy going wrong about domestic questions than there is of its going wrong about foreign and imperial questions, and for this simple reason, that with regard to domestic questions they have their own sense and experience to guide them. if a mistake is made in domestic policy its consequences are rapidly felt, and no amount of fine talking will induce people to persist in courses which are affecting them injuriously in their daily lives. you have thus a constant and effective check upon those who are disposed to try dangerous experiments, or to go too fast even on lines which may be in themselves laudable, as the experience of recent municipal elections, among other things, clearly shows. but with regard to imperial questions, to our great and vital interests in distant parts of the earth, there is necessarily neither the same amount of personal knowledge on the part of the electorate, nor do the consequences of a mistaken policy recoil so directly and so unmistakably upon them. these subjects, therefore, are the happy hunting-ground of the visionary and the phrase-maker. i have seen the people of this country talked into a policy with regard to south africa at once so injurious to their own interests, and so base towards those who had thrown in their lot with us and trusted us, that, if the british nation had only known what that policy really meant, they would have spat it out of their mouths. and i tremble every day lest, on the vital question of defence, the pressure of well-meaning but ignorant idealists, or the meaner influence of vote-catching demagogues, should lead this government or, indeed, any government, to curtail the provisions, already none too ample, for the safety of the empire, in order to pose as the friends of peace or as special adepts in economy. i know these savings of a million or two a year over say five or ten years, which cost you fifty or one hundred millions, wasted through unreadiness when the crisis comes, to say nothing of the waste of gallant lives even more precious. this is the kind of question about which the democracy is liable to be misled, being without the corrective of direct personal contact with the facts to keep it straight. and it is unpopular and up-hill work to go on reminding people of the vastness of the duty and the responsibility which the control of so great a portion of the earth's surface, with a dependent population of three or four hundred millions, necessarily involves; to go on reminding them, too, how their own prosperity and even existence in these islands are linked by a hundred subtle but not always obvious or superficially apparent threads with the maintenance of those great external possessions. i say these are difficulties which any party or any man, who is prepared to do his duty by the electorate of this country, not merely to ingratiate himself with them for the moment, but to win their confidence by deserving it, by telling them the truth, by serving their permanent interests and not their passing moods, is bound to face. for my own part, i have always been perfectly frank on these questions. i have maintained on many platforms, i am prepared to maintain here to-night and shall always maintain, although this is a subject on which it may be long before my views are included in any party programme--i say i shall always maintain that real security is not possible without citizen service, and that the training of every able-bodied man to be capable of taking part, if need be, in the defence of his country, is not only good for the country but good for the man--and would materially assist in the solution of many other problems, social and economic. but being, as i am, thus uncompromising, and quite prepared to find myself unpopular, on these vital questions of national security, and of our imperial duties and responsibilities, i can perhaps afford to say, without being suspected of fawning or of wishing to play the demagogue myself, that in the matter of domestic reform i am not easy to frighten, and that i have a very great trust in the essential fair-mindedness and good sense of the great body of my fellow countrymen with regard to questions which come within their own direct cognisance. and therefore it was most reassuring to me at any rate--and i hope it was to you--to observe, that that large section of the unionist party which met at birmingham last week, not so much by any resolutions or formal programme--for there was nothing very novel in these--as by the whole tone and temper of its proceedings, affirmed in the most emphatic manner the essentially progressive and democratic character of unionism. the greatest danger i hold to the unionist party and to the nation is that the ideals of national strength and imperial consolidation on the one hand, and of democratic progress and domestic reform on the other, should be dissevered, and that people should come to regard as antagonistic objects which are essentially related and complementary to one another. the upholders of the union, the upholders of the empire, the upholders of the fundamental institutions of the state, must not only be, but must be seen and known to be, the strenuous and constant assailants of those two great related curses of our social system--irregular employment and unhealthy conditions of life--and of all the various causes which lead to them. i cannot stay here to enumerate those causes, but i will mention a few of them. there is the defective training of children, defective physical training to begin with, and then the failure to equip them with any particular and definite form of skill. there is the irregular way in which new centres of population are allowed to spring up, so that we go on creating fresh slums as fast as we pull down the old rookeries. there is the depopulation of the countryside, and the influx of foreign paupers into our already overcrowded towns. there is the undermining of old-established and valuable british industries by unfair foreign competition. that is not an exhaustive list, but it is sufficient to illustrate my meaning. well, wherever these and similar evils are eating away the health and independence of our working people, there the foundations of the empire are being undermined, for it is the race that makes the empire. loud is the call to every true unionist, to every true imperialist, to come to the rescue. and now at the risk of wearying you there is one other subject to which i would like specially to refer, lest i should be accused of deliberately giving it the go-by, and that is the question of old age pensions. it is not a reform altogether of the same nature as those on which i have been dwelling, nor is it perhaps the kind of reform about which i feel the greatest enthusiasm, because i would rather attack the causes, which lead to that irregularity of employment and that under-payment which prevents people from providing for their own old age themselves, than merely remedy the evils arising from it. but i accept the fact that under present conditions, which it may be that a progressive policy in time will alter, a sufficient case for state aid in the matter of old age pensions has been made out, and i believe that no party is going to oppose the introduction of old age pensions. but, on the other hand, i foresee great difficulties and great disputes over the question of the manner in which the money is to be provided. i know how our radical friends will wish to provide the money. they will want to get it, in the first instance, by starving the army and the navy. to that way of providing it i hope the unionist party, however unpopular such a course may be, and however liable to misrepresentation it may be, will oppose an iron resistance, because this is an utterly rotten and bad way of financing old age pensions, or anything else. but that method alone, however far it is carried, will not provide money enough, and there will be an attempt to raise the rest by taxes levied exclusively on the rich. i am against that also, because it is thoroughly wrong in principle. i am not against making the rich pay, to the full extent of their capacity, for great national purposes, even for national purposes in which they have no direct interest. but i am not prepared to see them made to pay exclusively. let all pay according to their means. it is a thoroughly vicious idea that money should be taken out of the pocket of one man, however rich, in order to be put into the pocket of another, however poor. that is a bad, anti-national principle, and i hope the unionist party will take a firm stand against it. and this is an additional reason why we should raise whatever money may be necessary by duties upon foreign imports, because in that way all will contribute. no doubt the rich will contribute the bulk of the money through the duties on imported luxuries, but there will be some contribution, as there ought to be some contribution, from every class of the people. and now, in conclusion, one word about purely practical considerations. we unionists, if you will allow me to call myself a unionist--at any rate i have explained quite frankly what i mean by the term--are not a class party, but a national party. that being so, it is surely of the utmost importance that men of all classes should participate in every branch and every grade of the work of the unionist party. why should we not have unionist labour members as well as radical labour members? i think that the working classes of this country are misrepresented in the eyes of the public of this country and of the world, as long as they appear to have no leaders in parliament except the men who concoct and pass those machine-made resolutions with which we are so familiar in the reports of trade union congresses. i am not speaking now about their resolutions on trade questions, which they thoroughly understand, but about resolutions on such subjects as foreign politics, the army and navy, and colonial and imperial questions, resolutions which are always upon the same monotonous lines. i do not believe that the working classes are the unpatriotic, anti-national, down-with-the-army, up-with-the-foreigner, take-it-lying-down class of little englanders that they are constantly represented to be. i do not believe it for a moment. i have heard imperial questions discussed by working men in excellent speeches, not only eloquent speeches, but speeches showing a broad grasp and a truly imperial spirit, and i should like speeches of that kind to be heard in the house of commons as an antidote to the sort of preaching which we get from the present labour members. and what i say about the higher posts in the unionist army applies equally to all other ranks. no unionist member or unionist candidate is really well served unless he has a number of men of the working class on what i may call his political staff. and i say this not merely for electioneering reasons. this is just one of the cases in which considerations of party interest coincide--i wish they always or often did--with considerations of a higher character. there is nothing more calculated to remove class prejudice and antagonism than the co-operation of men of different classes on the same body for the same public end. and there is this about the aims of unionism, that they are best calculated to teach the value of such co-operation; to bring home to men of all classes their essential inter-dependence on one another, as well as to bring home to each individual the pettiness and meanness of personal vanity and ambition in the presence of anything so great, so stately, as the common heritage and traditions of the british race. sweated industries oxford, december , this exhibition is one of a series which are being held in different parts of the country with the object of directing attention, or rather of keeping it directed, to the conditions under which a number of articles, many of them articles of primary necessity, are at present being produced, and with the object also of improving the lot of the people engaged in the production of those articles. now this matter is one of great national importance, because the sweated workers are numbered by hundreds of thousands, and because their poverty and the resulting evils affect many beside themselves, and exercise a depressing influence on large classes of the community. what do we mean by sweating? i will give you a definition laid down by a parliamentary committee, which made a most exhaustive inquiry into the subject: "unduly low rates of wages, excessive hours of work, and insanitary condition of the workplaces." you may say that this is a state of things against which our instincts of humanity and charity revolt. and that is perfectly true, but i do not propose to approach the question from that point of view to-day. i want to approach it from the economic and political standpoint. but when i say political i do not mean it in any party sense. this is not a party question; may it never become one. the organisers of this exhibition have done what lay in their power to prevent the blighting and corrosive influence of party from being extended to it. the fact that the position which i occupy at this moment will be occupied to-morrow by the wife of a distinguished member of the present government (mrs. herbert gladstone), and on saturday by a leading member of the labour party (mr. g.n. barnes, m.p.), shows that this is a cause in which people of all parties can co-operate. the more we deal with sweating on these lines, the more we deal with it on its merits or demerits without ulterior motive, the more likely we shall be to make a beginning in the removal of those evils against which our crusade is directed. my view is, that the sweating system impoverishes and weakens the whole community, because it saps the stamina and diminishes the productive power of thousands of workers, and these in their turn drag others down with them. "unduly low rates of wages, excessive hours of labour, insanitary condition of workplaces"--what does all that mean? it means an industry essentially rotten and unsound. to say that the labourer is worthy of his hire is not only the expression of a natural instinct of justice, but it embodies an economic truth. one does not need to be a socialist, not, at least, a socialist in the sense in which the word is ordinarily used, as designating a man who desires that all instruments of production should become common property--one does not need to be a socialist in that sense in order to realise that an industry, which does not provide those engaged in it with sufficient to keep them in health is essentially unsound. used-up capital must be replaced, and of all forms of capital the most fundamental and indispensable is the human energy necessarily consumed in the work of production. a sweated industry does not provide for the replacing of that kind of capital. it squanders its human material. it consumes more energy in the work it exacts than the remuneration it gives is capable of replacing. the workers in sweated industries are not able to live on their wages. as it is, they live miserably, grow old too soon, and bring up sickly children. but they would not live at all, were it not for the fact that their inadequate wages are supplemented, directly, in many cases, by out-relief, and indirectly by numerous forms of charity. in one way or another the community has to make good the inefficiency that sweating produces. in one way or another the community ultimately pays, and it is my firm belief that it pays far more in the long run under the present system than if all workers were self-supporting. if a true account could be kept, it would be found that anything which the community gains by the cheapness of articles produced under the sweating system is more than outweighed by the indirect loss involved in the inevitable subsidising of a sweated industry. that would be found to be the result, even if no account were taken of the greatest loss of all, the loss arising from the inefficiency of the sweated workers and of their children, for sweating is calculated to perpetuate inefficiency and degeneration. the question is: can anything be done? of the three related evils--unduly low rates of wages, excessive hours of labour, and insanitary condition of work-places--it is evident that the first applies equally to sweated workers in factories and at home, but the two others are to some extent guarded against, in factories, by existing legislation. this is the reason why some people would like to see all work done for wages transferred to factories. broadly speaking, i sympathise with that view. but if it were universally carried out at the present moment, it would inflict an enormous amount of suffering and injustice on those who add to their incomes by home work. hence the problem is twofold. first, can we extend to workers in their own homes that degree or protection in respect of hours and sanitary conditions which the law already gives to workers in factories? and secondly, can we do anything to obtain for sweated workers, whether in homes or factories, rates of remuneration less palpably inadequate? now it certainly seems impossible to limit the hours of workers, especially adult workers, in their own homes. more can be done to ensure sanitary conditions of work. much has been done already, so far as the structural condition of dwellings is concerned. but i am afraid that the measures necessary to introduce what may be called the factory standard of sanitariness into every room, where work is being done for wages, would involve an amount of inspection and interference with the domestic lives of hundreds of thousands of people which might create such unpopularity as to defeat its own object. i do not say that nothing more should be attempted in that direction, quite the reverse; but i say that nothing which can be attempted in that direction really goes to the root of the evil, which is the insufficiency of the wage. how can you possibly make it healthy for a woman, living in a single room, perhaps with children, but even without, to work twelve or fourteen hours a day for seven or eight shillings a week, and at the same time to do her own cooking, washing, and so on. how much food is she likely to have? how much time will be hers to keep the place clean and tidy? an increase of wages would not make sanitary regulations unnecessary, but it would make their observance more possible. an increase of wages then is the primary condition of any real improvement in the lives of the sweated workers. so the point is this. can we do anything by law to screw up the remuneration of the worst-paid workers to the minimum necessary for tolerable human existence? i know that many people think it impossible, but my answer is that the fixing of a limit below which wages shall not fall is already not the exception but the rule in this country. that may seem a rather startling statement, but i believe i can prove it. take the case of the state, the greatest of all employers. the state does not allow the rates of pay even of its humblest employés to be decided by the scramble for employment. the state cannot afford, nor can any great municipality afford, to pay wages on which it is obviously impossible to live. there would be an immediate outcry. here then you have a case of vast extent in which a downward limit of wages is fixed by public opinion. take, again, any of the great staple industries of the country, the cotton industry, the iron and steel industry, and many others. in the case of these industries rates of remuneration are fixed in innumerable instances by agreement between the whole body of employers in a particular trade and district on the one hand and the whole body of employés on the other. the result is to exclude unregulated competition and to secure the same wages for the same work. no doubt there is an element--and this is a point of great importance--which enters into the determination of wages in these organised trades, but which does not enter in the same degree into the determination of the salaries paid by the state. that element is the consideration of what the employers can afford to pay. this question is constantly being threshed out between them and the workpeople, with resulting agreements. the number of such agreements is very large, and the provisions contained in them often regulate the rate of remuneration for various classes of workers with the greatest minuteness. but the great object, and the principal effect of all these agreements, is this: it is to ensure uniformity of remuneration, the same wage for the same work, and to protect the most necessitous and most helpless workers from being forced to take less than the employers can afford to pay. broadly speaking, the rate of pay, in these highly organised industries, is determined by the value of the work and not by the need of the worker. that makes an enormous difference. but in sweated industries this is not the case. sweated industries are the unorganised industries, those in which there is no possibility of organisation among the workers. here the individual worker, without resources and without backing, is left, in the struggle of unregulated competition, to take whatever he can get, regardless of what others may be getting for the same work and-of the value of the work itself. hence the extraordinary inequality of payment for the same kind of work and the generally low average of payment which are the distinguishing features of all sweated industries. now, if you have followed this rather dry argument, i shall probably have your concurrence when i say, that the proposal that the state should intervene to secure, not an all-round minimum wage, but the same wages for the same work, and nothing less than the standard rate of his particular work for every worker, is not a proposition that the state should do something new, or exceptional, or impracticable. it is a proposal that the state should do for the weakest and most helpless trades what the strongly-organised trades already do for themselves. i cannot see that there is anything unreasonable, much less revolutionary or subversive, in that suggestion. this proposal has taken practical form in a bill presented to the house of commons last session. whether the measure reached its second reading or not i do not know. it was a bill for the establishment of wages boards in certain industries employing great numbers of workpeople, such as tailoring, shirtmaking, and so on. the industries selected were those in which the employés, though numerous, are hopelessly disorganised and unable to make a bargain for themselves. and the bill provided that where any six persons, whether masters or employés, applied to the home secretary for the establishment of a wages board, such a board should be created in the particular industry and district concerned; that it should consist of representatives of employers and employed in equal proportions, with an impartial chairman; and that it should have the widest possible discretion to fix rates of remuneration. if wages boards were established, as the bill proposed, they would simply do for sweated trades what is already constantly being done in organised trades, with no doubt one important difference, that the decisions of these boards would be enforceable by law. now that no doubt may seem to many of you a drastic proposition. but i would strongly recommend any one interested in the subject to study a recently-published blue-book, one of the most interesting i have ever read, which contains the evidence given before the house of commons committee on home work. that blue-book throws floods of light on the conditions which have led to the proposal of wages boards, on the way in which these boards would be likely to work, and on the results of the operation of such boards in the colony of victoria, where they have existed for more than ten years, and now apply to more than forty industries. the perusal of that evidence would, i feel sure, remove some at least of the most obvious objections to this proposed remedy for sweating. many people look askance, and justly look askance, at the interference of the state in anything so complicated and technical as a schedule of wages for any particular industry. but the point to bear in mind is this, that the wages, which under this proposal would be enforceable by law, would be wages that had been fixed for a particular industry in a particular district by persons intimately cognisant with all the circumstances, and, more than that, by persons having the deepest common interest to avoid anything which could injure the industry. the rates of remuneration so arrived at would be based on the consideration of what the employers could afford to pay and yet retain such a reasonable rate of profit as would lead to their remaining in the industry. such a regulation of wages would be as great a protection to the best employers against the cut-throat competition of unscrupulous rivals as it would be to the workers against being compelled to sell their labour for less than its value. there is plenty of evidence that the regulation of wages would be welcomed by many employers. and as for the fear sometimes expressed, that it would injure the weakest and least efficient workers, because, with increased wages, it would no longer be profitable to employ them, it must be borne in mind that people of that class are mainly home workers, and as remuneration for home work must be based on the piece, there would be no reason why they should not continue to be employed. no doubt they would not benefit as much as more efficient workers from increased rates, but _pro tanto_ they would still benefit, and that is a consideration of great importance. but even if this were not the case, i would still contend, that it was unjustifiable to allow thousands of people to remain in a preventable state of misery and degradation all their lives, merely in order to keep a tenth of their number out of the workhouse a few years longer. i have only one more word to say. i come back to the supreme interest of the community in the efficiency and welfare of all its members, to say nothing of the removal of the stain upon its honour and conscience which continued tolerance of this evil involves. that to my mind is the greatest consideration of all. that is the true reason, as it would be the sufficient justification, for the intervention of the state. and, or my own part, i feel no doubt that, whether by the adoption of such a measure as we have been considering, or by some other enactment, steps will before long be taken for the removal of this national disgrace. printed by ballantyne & co. limited tavistock street, london * * * * * the fundamental fallacies of free trade by l.s. 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